For this year’s Thanksgiving travels, I will not need to carefully plan my wardrobe. I will not need to leave my sequined skirt in the closet, stash my underwire bra in my suitcase, wear a decent T-shirt under my jacket, slip into slip-on shoes, and remove every piece of metal…
Dear Mexican: I am a mutt. My father’s father was an illegal immigrant from Mexico. My mother’s father was an illegal immigrant from Ireland. My surname is Mexican and is usually mispronounced by gabachos and pendejos alike. I look more Irish than Mexican. And as my father never spoke it…
Tom Tancredo suddenly found himself with a lot of free time earlier this month. When the five-term Colorado congressman ran for president of the United States on a single platform — illegal immigration — he’d called it his last political act. But then on August 1, 2010, Tancredo became a…
Kristen Stillman, whose story Westword first told back in the September article “Kristen Stillman puts her family first: That’s why she’s letting her four kids go,” was sitting with her twin brother Will at a local Denny’s yesterday, making the kind of plans for their future that they could never…
As a mixologist, Kevin Burke knows how to pour it on. And yesterday, he was all contrition in his apology to Denver Magazine, the publication that had repeated a bunch of whoppers that Burke, a finalist for the pub’s Mixologist of the Year, had fed them for last month’s food…
Update: The immigration debate continues, two days after the November 16 face-off that pitted Tom Tancrtedo against “Ask a Mexican” columnist Gustavo Arellano. “Gustavo seems to speak out of both sides of his mouth,” one commenter suggests. “Of course Tancredo is a racist although he believes he is not,” charges…
You know you’re back in Denver when you hear that bossy voice admonish you for “delaying the departure of this train” at DIA. It belongs to 9News’ Adele Arakawa, who replaced original admonisher Reynelda Muse. Likewise, the cheery “hold on” now comes from Alan Roach rather than the late Pete…
Dear Mexican: I’m thinking of moving to Mexico. I’m a first-generation mexicano. My parents are absolutely against it, insisting that it’s violent and that I should be proud of being an American. I’m not looking to lose my American-ness; I just want to add some more mexicano to it. Is…
By inching over 10 percent of the vote last Tuesday, Dan Maes saved the Colorado Republican Party from the humiliation of falling to minor-party status. But while Tom Tancredo didn’t win the race, his 30 percent-plus of the vote elevated the American Constitution Party to a major Colorado party…
Even as John Hickenlooper was heading to the Capitol the day after the election to discuss his plans for the state, city employees were reading this e-mail from the governor-elect: “Many of you have already asked what happens now. As excited as I am for my new role, we want…
Tom Tancredo didn’t win Colorado’s wacky gubernatorial race, but at least he went out in style: Not only did he concede graciously — and far more quickly than Dan Maes — on election night, but he did so while rocking a great Western shirt. Only one problem: Like the Wrangler…
“I can’t keep saying I’m not a politician,” governor-elect and definite politician John Hickenlooper said yesterday as he stood the State Capitol, outlining his transition-team plans. From where he stood, he could see his mayoral office at the Denver City & County Building. But his political career really got his…
Tom Tancredo was about to concede the gubernatorial race, but many more Colorado contests were up in the air when I walked into the ballroom of the downtown Marriott, site of the Colorado Democratic Party’s election party. And what was on the TVs? Not CNN, not local newscasts shunted off…
Dear Mexican: I’m totally serious about my e-mail, so please forgive me if my question sounds ridiculous. I also mean no insult to anyone about my question or questions in this e-mail. There are a lot of antsy/jittery people along the United States’ southern border. Lots of those antsy people…
Tired of the endless Ken Buck/Michael Bennet attack ads that have made it unsafe to turn on your television for the past month? Blame Barack Obama, who pulled Ken Salazar from his spot in the U.S. Senate and put him in the cabinet as the Secretary of the Interior. How’s…
Think this campaign season has been messy? The all-mail August primary created an unprecedented amount of confusion with voters who assumed a November 2 ballot would arrive in their mailbox. Get a clue: If a ballot hasn’t been delivered, it’s not coming. But you can still vote. And in this…
The Aguirre family was not having a good month. They’d temporarily closed the 25-year-old Rosa Linda’s Mexican Cafe — once the only restaurant in what’s now a hot-hot area of Highland — on September 20, hoping to do a week or so of much needed mechanical updates. But at the…
Jeff Peckman, who spoke to Westword last week about a rash of recent UFO sightings, waited a long time to get his proposal for Denver to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission on the ballot — but the time might finally be right for Initiative 300. Because in this crazy Colorado…
Democratic gubernatorial nominee John Hickenlooper has kept to his vow to keep his campaign positive. Had he decided to go negative on Tom Tancredo, though, he would have found no shortage of material on the American Constitution Party candidate: Google “Tancredo” and “controversy” and your computer starts smoking…
The battle between My Brother’s Bar and Brothers Bar & Grill is over. Attorneys for the two restaurants — one the oldest continually operating saloon in the city, the other a link in a Wisconsin-based chain — met with a magistrate last Friday and arrived at a deal…
Dear Mexican: I was a history major at the University of Arizona in Tucson, which I believe was part of the Gadsden Purchase, the last piece of old Mexico the U.S. “acquired.” That got me thinking: What was the citizenship status of all Mexicans/gringos who lived in parts of Mexico…
The scene last Friday was off-the-planet crazy — appropriate enough for a city considering a proposal to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. But Initiative 300 is far from the wackiest item on next week’s ballot. After all, there’s also the election of the next governor of Colorado. The Denver Botanic…
