A lot of people think the angriest man in America is Newt Gingrich. My money’s on Mike Tyson. Poor Mike. Invite a girl up to the room for a couple of smoked-salmon canapes and a nice discussion of the Lake poets, and look what they do to you. Three years…
The recent death of local millionaire Chuck Stevinson had an effect on many people. But perhaps no one outside his family will feel the loss more than a controversial South Carolina physician who also operates a cancer clinic in Denver. Indeed, the death of the Golden automobile and real estate…
We Are Not A-Mused Regarding Arthur Hodges’s “Down by Law,” in the February 22 issue: Thank you for the very informative story on Denver city attorney Dan Muse. Although I have seen his name for years, I had never before read such a complete article about his background and his…
Over the past few years, M&N Electrical Supply Corp. has been a big beneficiary of Denver’s program to promote the use of “minority business enterprises” on public-works projects. Records show the Hispanic-owned company has won contracts worth more than $12 million from the city since 1989, most of them as…
Here comes Mayor Wellington Webb. Look! He’s got four empty suitcases–three soft-sided vinyl, one American Tourister–and a very short pair of skis. No poles or boots. “Look’s like we’re all ready to take a trip,” he says. Then one of his aides rushes up with another, longer pair of skis…
With Denver’s city elections less than three months away, Mayor Wellington Webb may be unhappy to find Dan Muse, the man he named city attorney back in 1991, buffeted by accusations of wrongdoing and ineptitude. But he shouldn’t be surprised. Twelve years ago, during his first, unsuccessful bid for the…
I’m a hugger,” confesses voice-over artist and teacher Dick Terry. He draws nearer, his smile exuding a blinding white glow. “Did you know that your voice changes when you smile?” he asks. With each elongated, oddly cadenced syllable, he broadens his already enormous grin until his face is all but…
Up a creek with a paddling: It seems like just yesterday that loudmouth homophobe Bob Enyart was your average divorced, lonely talk-show host, packing a gun to work at his gig for KHNC, the “patriot” radio station way out there in tiny Johnstown. Now he’s married and a convicted spanker…
At the five-eighths pole, Cigar and the big gray colt, Holy Bull, were dueling for the lead when rider Mike Smith felt a thump, like a car tire going flat. Jerry Bailey, on Cigar, said he heard a loud pop. “Oh no!” Smitty cried out–and just like that, Holy Bull…
Three months ago, when the Aronson family of Evergreen filed a lawsuit against their neighbors the Quigleys, charging them with anti-Semitism, it set off a barrage of criticism against the Quigleys and inspired a slew of soul-searching editorials about how Jew-haters still roam Colorado. Following a round of outraged newspaper…
Hey, CSU! You’ve just hit the ranks of big-time football! You’ve got a conference championship, a national audience, TV contracts and a big bowl game! Whaddaya gonna do next? Forget Disneyland. It’s time to fire up the cash registers. The real test of whether you’ve found the college-football limelight is…
The state chapter of the Democratic Leadership Council is about to announce that it’s forming its own public-policy think tank. Not surprisingly, politics already is intruding. Gleeful members of the right-thinking Independence Institute, a Golden-based tank that has enjoyed a recent flurry of publicity, are touting the Democrats’ action as…
The City of Denver’s Winter Park ski area made a mostly smooth run through the state legislature last week, winning preliminary approval for a bill abolishing its rivals at the Moffat Tunnel Commission. But the Winter Park Recreational Association is headed for a few moguls–including a Denver city councilman who…
Fill in the Blanks After reading Patricia Calhoun’s “Blank You Very Much,” in the February 15 issue, I’m ready to apply to the city for a job. We paid $116 an hour for someone to copy documents and put a “confidential” stamp on them? Hell, I’d do the same thing…
part 1 of 2 It took less than 24 hours for Galen Travis to go from feeling like a very lucky man to someone whose luck had run out. Last fall, Travis, a beefy-faced man who grows alfalfa and wheat outside of Burlington, thirty miles from the Kansas border in…
part 2 of 2 Rol Hudler looks like an English professor and smells of pipe smoke. A thin, balding man with round glasses, he is the third-generation Hudler to be editor and publisher of the Burlington Record; his son, who has begun working for the paper, will be the fourth…
part 2 of 2 Chiffon began studying classical piano at age twelve, “kind of old to do a career in music,” she says. But she loved it–and she excelled. “I did seven years’ worth of lessons in two years,” she says. “I can go to any city any time and…
part 1 of 2 The Maine lobsters were delicious. No, they were better than delicious. Fresh, sweet and juicy, at $17.95 per person for all Rick Gottdenker and Marilyn Richter could sink their teeth into, they were wonderfully, absurdly priced. But that’s what the ad had promised, and that’s what…
Resign of the times: After an almost unbroken 35-year stretch at the Denver Post, columnist Tom Gavin’s recent “retirement” seemed a tad abrupt. And so it was. Having already been eased out of his desk (the prime spot was turned over to Pulitzer winner and special-projects czar Lou Kilzer), last…
Okay, let’s hear it for Fat Billy Maharg. Whaddya mean you never heard of him? Spring training opens today, doesn’t it? Just about the time many of you see this, the boys of summer will be cantering onto emerald outfields in camps from Kissimmee to Tucson, feeling their spikes grab…
An Open Book Read Calhoun’s latest, “Open Wide,” in the February 8 issue. All I can say is: Good work, Westword! Glad you have the guts to go after those city-attorney records. Too bad the dailies don’t. Harry Ellis Denver Bayou Leave I was very disheartened to read about Wellington…
Westword has been named a finalist in the Free Press Association’s prestigious Mencken Awards for investigative journalism. The newspaper was honored in the national contest for its 1994 series examining waste and mismanagement at Denver International Airport. Written by former staff writer David Chandler, the series exposed problems with the…
