Errors aren’t exactly alien to Rocky Mountain News columnist Bill Johnson — yet he outdid himself with “Woman’s Flag Upside Down, As Are Neighbors’ Responses,” a piece that ran on July 11. The column revolves around Beth Hammer, a 64-year-old Wheat Ridge resident who’s in dutch with her home-owner’s association…
The Denver Post, whose newsroom reorganization plan is detailed in this More Messages blog, isn’t the only local media outlet giving longtime staffers new responsibilities. KUSA-TV/Channel 9, the Post’s print/synergy partner, has also done some shifting, owing to a new initiative from its parent company, Gannett. Below are two memos…
Most interviews done for the The Message column contain more information than can possibly be squeezed onto any given page, and plenty of what doesn’t make the cut is very interesting indeed. Seldom, though, is it presented in such an easily digestible form as was recently the case with comments…
The driver’s seat in Carmelo Anthony’s 1971 Chevelle is set so far back that Vett Capone can’t reach the gas pedal. The five-foot-six-inch Capone slides the seat forward about a foot and a half, then fires up the classic American engine, which rumbles like a boat’s motor as the smell…
This past Sunday was not a good day for New Life Church. Soulforce was out in force outside the Colorado Springs super-church, protesting its support of reparative therapy for the likes of Ted Haggard, New Life founder and (former?) male escort- and meth-using media sensation. Then Mike Jones, the escort…
I was seventeen years old when I first encountered bum wine. My friend Chris and I were in an alley behind a Capitol Hill liquor store, waiting for a local wino whom we would sometimes enlist to buy us a twelve-pack. I remember it was an unusually hot afternoon, so…
“The Beautiful Game,” Adam Cayton-Holland, July 5 Game On! What happened? Did Adam Cayton-Holland run out of hipsters to make fun of? Whatever — I’m glad he turned his attention to the African Community Center soccer team. Theirs is a really remarkable story, and very inspirational. Denver’s hipsters could learn…
The advertising slump that’s afflicting daily newspapers across the country, including the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, can be measured using any common household scale. Simply put, most issues weigh less than they once did because advertisements that fund extra pages are coming in more slowly. As a result,…
I’m not going to lie to you: I’m having a pretty lousy summer. I can’t pinpoint exactly why this summer is blowing, it just is. The days seem lackluster and stagnant, and outside of that knife fight I got into with the hobo who talked back to me after I…
In yet another twist in the bizarre story of Marine Lance Hering, — the 22-year-old Iraq War veteran who faked his death last August in order to avoid returning to duty — police searched his parent’s Boulder home on Tuesday after receiving a tip from the military that he was…
A new version of Hairspray is due out in theaters next week. What makes Hollywood think it can outdo the popular Broadway musical based on John Waters’ 1988 film? Well, they’ve got a gimmick: John Travolta in a fat suit. The 53-year-old actor plays Edna, the plump mother of hefty…
This guy traveled almost two hundred miles in a lawn chair supported by helium balloons. In doing so, he’s become my hero of the day. Not only has he fulfilled one of my childhood dreams (Mom, I told you it would work!), but he’s also figured out a way to…
Cross-section image of the proposed Colorado History Museum and underground space linking it to the Carnegie Library. And first, the news: The Colorado Historical Society would like to move into Civic Center, specifically on the pad of grass just south of the former Carnegie Library (now the McNichols Building), across…
Vett Capone in Marcus Camby’s ride. Read the whole story of Vett Capone here. “Ah shit, we’re going to get pulled over,” Vett Capone told me thirty seconds before the blue and reds of Denver’s finest started flashing in the rearview mirror of the Dodge Charger in which we were…
Jim Spencer was arguably the biggest name to be handed his head when the Denver Post cut a handful of staffers a few weeks back. As a columnist, his job wasn’t protected by the Denver Newspaper Guild-negotiated contract that governs most editorial employees at the broadsheet — and because the…
The reorganization of the Denver Post newsroom, teased in this July 6 More Messages blog, has finally been completed, according to an e-mail penned by editor Greg Moore that was sent to staffers late on the afternoon of July 10. The communique, which is reproduced below, indicates how massive this…
For those of you heading out to theaters today to catch opening day of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, below is a brief snapshot of what our critic, Scott Foundas, thought. Also, click here for showtimes. The magic has returned to the Harry Potter franchise — albeit…
The folks behind Mile High Sports magazine have announced that they’ll begin broadcasting a radio version of their print product at 1510 on the AM dial — the current home of KCKK, a classic country purveyor known as “15 Kicks” — beginning on July 30. But plenty has to go…
A sit down at Cora Faye’s Cafe. The tablecloths at Cora Faye’s Cafe — heavy, almost like oilcloth but patterned with flowers — are a little sticky. And so is the air. It is close and warm in the cluttered front dining room, the atmosphere rich with smells that are…
The Motoman Project has to be seen in person to be fully understood. No tape can capture the intensity of the thunderous crack of the air cannon or the unearthly roaring buzz of the pulse jet. No technology exists to record the smells of ozone and gasoline and burning, much…
As we wrote about in “Pot of Gold,” Joseph Brodsky, coffee buyer for the Denver-based boutique coffee roaster Novo Coffee, traveled to Ethiopia last October to search out the African origins of the Panamanian Geisha coffee bean, widely considered one of the best coffees in the world. When the trip…
Parody on Parade? Actually, it’s just another fucked up day in Colorado Springs, where the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo Parade meandered down the main drag to the horror/delight of Noel Black who snapped this pic from Newspeak headquarters. Since moving into his new downtown office earlier this year, Black’s…
