On Monday, January 15, the Denver Election Commission will start collecting mail-in ballots for the special, one-item election that Denver City Council approved on December 26. But before Denver voters can start turning in those ballots that could make Denver the 63rd out of 64 Colorado counties with an elected…
The unofficial Darrent Williams shrine at 11th and Speer not only survived the most recent snowstorm, but it’s grown. Mourners who marched from the Shelter, the club at 1037 Broadway where Williams was partying on New Year’s Eve, to the site of the shooting left more flowers, more cards, more…
Bad day for Denver on the national news. On Fox & Friends this morning, the five-minute hourly update included a piece on the Darrent Williams slaying, a segment on Denver’s third big blizzard (including a live report from the National Western Stock Show on the status of all those frozen…
A few hours after news broke that Darrent Williams had been shot dead, people started leaving tributes to the Bronco at the scene of the shooting — hats, signs, cards, flowers. Keith Schrum, associate curator of manuscripts at the Colorado Historical Society, decided to take a look at the unofficial…
At seven last Friday morning, as I shoveled my walk — again — I watched a city trash truck coming down a nearby street, pause so that the driver could contemplate the right-hand turn that would have led to my rutted, iced-in block — and then continue on in the…
Dear Mexican: How did the patron saint of México get a name derived from Arabic? El Moro Judío Dear Jewish Moor: You’re referring to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the brown-skinned apparition of the Virgin Mary whom tradition says appeared before the Aztec peasant Juan Diego in December 1531, just outside…
December turned Denver into a giant snow globe, sealed off and insulated from the rest of the world — but with a whole lotta shaking going on. Especially at the corner of 11th and Speer Boulevard, where Bronco Darrent Williams was shot dead early New Year’s Day. He was in…
Dear Readers: The Mexican is inside a trunk, trying to sneak back into the United States after the holiday. In the meantime, here are some golden oldies: Dear Mexican: A friend of mine calls Mexicans “wabs,” but being a menso, he doesn’t even know what it means — except that…
Throw the bums out. The grumbling started even before Denver City Council convened its December 2 hearing on the election debacle. Snowflakes were falling; where were those snow plows? Thanks to the Parade of Lights, which had kicked off the night before, meters were bagged and streets blocked off all…
Dear Mexican: I’m a Spanish-language student struggling with tenses and the gender of nouns. The other day, some friends and I were discussing street slang, and the word verga (penis) came up (no pun intended). It occurred to me that the definitive symbol of masculinity ends in the feminine -a…
Republicans are courting Dick Wadhams to return to Colorado and run the state party. The political operative’s got the time. While in the past Wadhams has taken jobs with the candidates he’s helped propel into office (Governor Bill Owens, Senator Wayne Allard), no such opportunities will arise from his latest…
In a recent column mourning the deaths of some of Denver’s great dives — Duffy’s Shamrock, the Bamboo Hut (see second item here), I lamented the end of the Micky Manor, now turned into the 12th Man. It’s a Bronco bar, of course — of which Denver already had too…
Dear Mexican: It seems that whenever Chicano professors want to show off their mexicanidad, they wear a guayabera. In fact, I saw a picture of you in the Los Angeles Times donning the shirt, along with Dickies pants and Converse All Stars. How trite and bourgeois! You go to a…
Dear Mexican: I was flipping through television when I noticed the Spanish-language channel showing a man in a red suit with yellow pants, antennae on his head and a heart with the letters “CH” on his chest. It appeared to be a sitcom, and all the characters related to the…
“Who makes the laws in the United States?” Here’s a clue: If that’s one of the questions asked when you take the official United States Citizenship Test, don’t answer “lobbyists and special interests.” The Office of Citizenship and Immigration Services doesn’t give extra credit for creativity. Or honesty. But ICE…
Long before midnight, Duffy’s Shamrock had run out of Guinness, that most traditional of Irish brews. And of Jagermeister, that not-so-traditional drink. But while cocktail choices grew more and more limited as Duffy’s last last call approached, the memories flowed freely. So did the advice. “You should put plaques up…
Duffy’s Shamrock Bar served the first beer of its last day at 6:10 a.m today. Technically, that was fifty minutes before it was legal to do so — but what’s the state going to do, shut down this 56-year-old institution a few hours early? And technically, Duffy’s doesn’t — didn’t…
Dear Mexican: Man, did you make me laugh with “leprecanos.” I never had more fun on Cinco de Mayo than I did in 1974 in a Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mick bar called the Plough and Stars. After that night, I was hooked on redheads and Jameson. I barely had to buy…
Where Tom Tancredo goes, trouble follows. Restoration Weekend drew a cadre of famous conservatives to South Florida this past weekend — but the Colorado congressman was the one who grabbed the headlines, after he referred to Miami as a “third-world country.” And President Bush has only himself to blame, Tancredo…
The world doesn’t get more real than this: While last Wednesday’s premiere of The Real World: Denver featured, among other things, same-sex kissing in a LoDo hot tub, getting face time with Larry King a few channels away was Focus on the Family’s James Dobson, offering his first public take…
Dear Mexican: Can you tell me the meaning of the word aguacate? All I know about this delicious fruit is that it originated on this continent. Guacamole Man Dear Gabacho: Aguacate is the Spanish word for “avocado,” but its Nahuatl meaning is more rustic: balls. According to Ana María de…
Parking got John Hickenlooper a lot of play when he was first running for mayor of Denver, and it’s doing the job again. NPR and MSNBC have both reported on Hizzoner’s promise to pay for any parking tickets acquired when voters got stuck in endless lines at Denver’s election centers…
