Opinion & Commentary

Shortly after this edition of Westword went to press with my follow on the mauling of murals before the Democratic National Convention, Sean Rice, the proprietor of Orange Cat Studios, finally got a call from the city in response to his complaint that Denver Partners Against Graffiti had wiped out…

Coming to a milk carton near you. In Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown’s September newsletter, he reports that 38 of the SUVs and cars loaned by General Motors to the Democratic National Convention were missing a week after the event and cites Paul Lhevine, chief operating officer for the Denver…

Denver won’t be turning to Mark Twain. At 11 a.m. today, Mayor John Hickenlooper will unveil the fifth selection for the city’s One Book One Denver reading program. Here’s what we know it won’t be: Plainsong, Kent Haruf’s lovely novel about life on the Eastern Plains, rejected early on because…

Mo Rocca. I’m looking out over the Platte Valley, the scene of so much celebration last week. Invesco Field at Mile High, which filled with a record crowd for Barack Obama’s speech accepting the Democratic nomination for president. The Pepsi Center, where politicos and stars and Joe Citizens gathered to…

Sam Waterston and Fred Thompson in the L&O glory days. Was it just a year ago — it feels like decades — that Fred Thompson finally officially entered the Republican race for president on September 5, 2007? After all the slow, coy buildup to that announcement, Thompson’s campaign fell flat,…

The writing’s on the wall. The Democratic National Convention in Denver will go down as a huge success — as long as you’re not a local artist, that is. Early on Sunday, August 24, the day before the DNC officially kicked off a mile away at the Pepsi Center, a…

While other galleries found their exterior art suddenly wiped off the map, Boom: A Nomadic Gallery wasn’t about to wait around. This mobile arts ambassador kept on the move through the Democratic National Convention. “Boom went great — except when we got chased out of City Park for the yoga…

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…

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,…