Michael Brown. After he was booted from FEMA in the wake of Katrina, Michael Brown returned to Boulder, where he set up an emergency consulting business (and talked with me for this column on the one year anniversary of his “heckuva job.”) But yesterday he headed back to the East…
Denver was still drunk on the success of the Democratic National Convention yesterday morning when suddenly, the party was over. Speculation that Alaska governor Sarah Palin would be the surprise pick for the Republican vice-presidential nomination pushed the DNC out of the national spotlight on all the TV talk-shows –…
A last hurrah for Denver with former resident Harry Smith If you hurry, you can bask in the reflected glow of a final moment in the spotlight for Denver. CBS’s The Early Show — helmed by former Denverite Harry Smith, who wrote for Westword back in the ’70s — has…
At 3:30 a.m., southbound Speer Boulevard is empty — and open. To the left, two cabs are cruising for their last fares of the night. To the right, Invesco Field at Mile High is still glowing, lit up with memories — and the cleaning crews getting the place back in…
Smokin’ hot stars Jon Hamm and John Slattery in Mad Men and with Mayor John Hickenlooper at the Pepsi Center. I’d been getting kind of cranky about all the celebrity hype surrounding the Democratic National Convention. Where were the big parties? a radio producer wanted to know. The only party…
The whole world is in my back yard. From the bluffs right above the confluence of the Platte River and Cherry Creek, the layout of the Democratic National Convention spreads before me — from the Colorado Convention Center to the Pepsi Center to Invesco Field at Mile High, where Barack…
The world may be in my back yard — but it’s not easy to join the party. On Monday, I decided to go green and hike along Speer Boulevard to the Pepsi Center for the start of the Democratic National Convention. Although Speer had already been closed to motorized traffic…
Dear Mexican: Why do Mexicans paint stripes on their donkeys in Tijuana? Avenida Revolución Reveler Dear Gabacho: Same reason we put worms in tequila bottles, celebrate Cinco de Mayo and star in Beverly Hills Chihuahua: to cheat gabachos out of cash. To paraphrase the classic dictum: A gabacho and his…
All fenced in. On Monday morning, when Peter Boyles started broadcasting live from Civic Center Park, the park was wide open to all visitors. On Tuesday morning, same thing. But when he arrived at 3:30 a.m. this morning, the park was suddenly surrounded by temporary fencing. He had to open…
Restaurants across Denver have been booked for real political parties during the DNC. All the usual suspects — the Capital Grille, the Buckhorn Exchange, Dixons — have been contracted, and in some cases closed, for private events. And then there are the unusual suspects. Yesterday, I was stunned to see…
Cindy Adams. Sure, I heard rumors that Oprah was in the crowd at last night’s Celebration with Altitude welcoming party, and also Jon Stewart. But the only verified, bona fide celebrity sighting was of New York Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams — being turned away from the VIP party! The…
“The West is not a place,” Jack A. Weil would say. “It’s a state of mind.” Jack A. entered that state for good in 1928, when the then-27-year-old salesman for Paris Garters drove his brand-new Chrysler Roadster across the plains to Denver. Born in Evansville, Indiana, the son of a…
Back in 1908, when Jack A. Weil was just seven and Denver was less than fifty years old, this city hosted its first Democratic National Convention. Town boosters brought snow down from the mountains for a snowball fight, other enterprising businessmen printed a booklet outlining the city’s more risqué enterprises,…
Dear Mexican: I am the proud uncle of five Mexican-redneck kids who recently moved to Wisconsin with their mamá wisconsiana after living in la Capirucha all their lives. I’ve talked to them on the phone several times a week since they left for la tierra de los sueños materializados, and…
Marilee Utter. Although Denver would seem to be all DNC, all the time, it appears that the city will carry on after August 28. Evidence of this came in an August 19 Rocky Mountain News story, which reported that the Urban Land Institute has recommended the DPS facility in the…
John Hickenlooper finally reveals his secret identity at DIA. Finally! That mysterious, third voice on the DIA trains — the one that doesn’t belong to blustery Alan Roach (now the voice of the Broncos rather than the Rockies) or sultry Adele Arakawa — has been officially identified. Mayor John Hickenlooper…
Land here, Dems. I just made a fast trip out of DIA, which has been spruced up in anticipation of the hordes of politicos and pundits heading to town this weekend. Acres of carpet have been replaced (and recycled in the greenest way possible), the gift stores are stocked with…
Jack A. Weil One of Jack A. Weil’s favorite lines: “Where were you when I was your age?” This year, for the first time, when Jack A. asked me that question, I could honestly say this: “Well, at least I’d been born.” At the age of 107, Jack A. Weil,…
Dear Mexican: As a Mexican, I’m always ashamed of the fact that a lot of Mexican women just come to the United States to have babies and to utilize this country’s welfare. I know a lot of them who just keep having children, and they do not pay a dollar…
Still up in the air. Frontier Airlines, which is fighting to stay aloft, yesterday floated two telling communiques. The first announced that the Denver-based airline had received a $30 million installment of the $75 million loan from Republic Airways Holdings that was approved by a bankruptcy judge on August 5…
David Carr. I do not remember when I first met David Carr, who makes three local appearances on August 13. At some point, he just appears in my memories of the annual meetings of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, the trade association for papers like Westword, where editors and publishers…
In full bloom. Here’s how you insure that your Denver Daisy is in blooming good health: You get it from professionals, already fully grown (or close enough). Earlier this summer, I reported on how my attempts to grow a Denver Daisy — the special species designed to honor Denver’s 150th…
