by Peter Boyles | Apr 17, 2026 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
In our state of Colorado there once was an event that became one of the earliest Western movies, The Great Train Robbery. Where manly men with bandanas over their faces, six-guns blazing, stuck up the train. Train robbing became the crime of the day for people like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Who didn’t love a train robbery, with legendary train robbers like Jesse and Frank James?
Now come Governor Polis and RTD and we end up with the train dubbed Coco. Just to give you an idea of what people are being paid to do in Colorado, one of the names they came up with was Front Range Express Destinations. FRED. Ranger. A train built for the Colorado landscape and lifestyle. Range Link connecting people to jobs, schools, and destinations without the hassle of driving.
I’ve knocked around RTD for almost as many years as I’ve been in radio. I found out the only people that really do like the RTD are borderline socialists and bond daddies. For those of you who don’t know what a bond daddy is, they came to Colorado under the Romer and Peña administrations and it works like this — they’ve never seen a public works project that they didn’t love.
They are called public private partnerships. What happens is the public pays and the private part makes enormous amounts of money. The public naming of the new train was open to all of us and I’m sure you got your ballot to choose the name of an inner-city train that would connect front range communities beginning in 2029. How many times have you noticed light rail going past you totally empty. Or an RTD bus doing about the same. So, do we need another one of these?
Of course not. But watch again how the money is made. And with Polis telling folks how excited people are about the RTD finally delivering a modern passenger train along the front range. CoCo.
Watch this. I have no idea but, given past performance being a predicter of future performance, I can make a guess. Look at what you see and what’s being paid for by you that nobody uses. Criticism of RTD is that it’s unreliable, it has frequent delays; some people have actually experienced multiple cancellations in the same day. There are safety and cleanliness issues. People complain about open drug use and public urination and lack of any transit police patrolling trains or the stations.
There are slow zones: RTD is using speed restrictions on light rail lines like the R line and the E line. Maintenance needs and extended times that people ride, and they find they can get back home in the evening quicker in their car than they can riding the existing products.
Because of the watch dog media on the Front Range, CoCO got RTD’s blessing.
We already have a couple of projects that have not been completed. Does the name FasTracks mean anything to you?
Remember the rail link between Boulder and Denver? It’s been collecting tax revenue since 2004. It ain’t there.
RTD is doing projects such as downtown rail reconstruction. More long-term reliability, and you can get up-to-date information, you can check RTD services alerts, and, of course, those are questions that nobody asks.
I’ve watched this stuff for a long time, and I want to thank Jon Caldara from the Independence Institute, a former board member and critic of RTD.
The state of Colorado subsidizes a bus service that ran the Front Range corridor. Carried 171,000 passengers in 2019. CoCo projects they will attract 200,000 passengers per year and the cost is between $1.7 billion and $2.8 billion. Can you believe that it would be worth that much money to attract 29,000 more people, you’re going to pay between $1.7 billion and $2.98 billion.
I’ve been told this is minor league spending and minor league development and if I were to look at the real costs, overruns, and expenditures of projects that have been pushed on us by RTD, we would welcome CoCo.
Stick ’em up!
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Apr 1, 2026 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
It happened four Sunday mornings ago, February 15th. After completing the award-winning radio show on Saturday, I went home and I was dead tired and went to bed early — on Saturday night, Peter??
Woke up the next morning with the worst headache and I generally don’t get headaches; it’s the one thing that gratefully has left me alone. I normally have a Sunday morning breakfast with my biker buddies, and I didn’t have the strength to meet them and the headache continued.
My daughter said OK, let’s go to urgent care, and I argued against it, and she said you have to go. And the urgent care people, who were wonderful, said go straight to Swedish Hospital.
I went to Swedish hospital and ended up in the ICU for that night and the next day. Did an MRI and was told I had had a brain bleed. So, I’m writing this column as a warning for all of us about strokes and brain bleeds.
I was told all kinds of fun things like 50 percent of those who have a brain bleed will die before they get to a hospital. Of the 50 percent who make it to the hospital 30 percent will die there. And of those who survive 40 percent are left with some kind of cognitive defect. And in common terms, a brain bleed is actually an intracranial hemorrhage. In terms that I can understand, it’s a blood clot in your brain.
I’ll take it now to another level. There are two kinds: the spontaneous ones are aneurism or a stroke caused by trauma, but the most common type of brain bleed, the most common cause of death, is it’s secondary to a head injury.
That was some relief. The most common symptom is a sudden onset headache. Most of us describe it as the worst headache in their lives. And even people who get migraine headaches say the brain bleed headache is worse than any migraine. Some stroke patients describe having a bad headache. The symptoms come and go very quickly.
I received at Swedish one of the greatest experiences of my life: the migraine cocktail. Why I never knew about this before is beyond me. What a gift that is.
With a brain bleed there are people who fall into comas, and it causes you to lose consciousness and some of the following symptoms. This is all very frightening, such things as blindness in one eye, numbness on one side of the face, arm numbness, weakness on one side of the body. The thing that was most interesting is something for all of us to remember, and that is if you feel, have, or gone through any of these things it’s time to call the ambulance. I actually was told to not have your daughter drive you here but to call 911.
There is a medication to dissolve the clot. Mine was two centimeters and they told me there’s evidence you’ve had a couple of these puppies in the past. Which if you’ve been reading me explains a lot.
Bottom line with a brain bleed, if you ever have a headache like you’ve never had before, dial 911. Ignoring that pain like I have could prove to be fatal.
I’m writing this, as I said above, for all of us to be aware of what I just went through.
I will be 83 years old — maybe — this coming October. And those of you who have been reading me long enough, remember the final columns of Gene Amole who had become a great friend and drinking buddy, along with the late John Coit, Denver Rocky Mountain News columnist who died of a heart attack. I think about so many of the old people in the media and friends that have been with all of us and we’ve lost them. But you’re not getting rid of me because, I’m a hard man to kill.
Who was a hard man to kill? Rasputin, and Jim Bowie, and me.
—Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Feb 13, 2026 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
I’m now 82 years old. Since I was a little boy, I’ve always loved motorcycles. I grew up in a little steel mill town, Verona, Pennsylvania, on the Allegheny River.
Across the river was another steel mill town called Harmarville and there was a motorcycle club there. This was the era of Marlon Brando and The Wild One. The name of their club was the Harmar Villains. I loved it and they would come across the river and go to a diner called the TV Diner, named in that era because they had a television set where you could watch TV. They brought their girlfriends, aka “Mamas,” and watched TV inside and made a lot of noise with their motorcycles outside in the parking lot. The owner of the diner put up a sign on the parking lot wall that said “No Motorcycles Allowed.” Immediately the Villains returned telling the cops they thought it meant they weren’t allowed to be on the wall. At that point in my little Irish rebel mind I thought this makes sense.
And then in our neighborhood one still unnamed guy I grew up with bought a Harley Hummer, it was a very small motorcycle, I think 125 cc, two cycle Harley Davidson.
Hard for anyone to believe but I suspect he had stolen it. And I was about 13 when I got to ride my first motorcycle. After that I was hooked.
The first time I saw outlaw motorcyclists I was on the Nimitz Freeway and passed by two members of a one percent motorcycle club. The term one percent came from an event in California in Hollister and that was the famous Life magazine staged picture of the drunk, rowdy biker, and Stanley Kubrick picked up the story and made the motion picture The Wild One with Marlon Brando. One of the actresses asked, “What are you rebelling against?” and Brando, in the character of Johnny retorts, “What do you got.” I saw that and something went off in my head.
Much later having gone through a number of motorcycles including Hondas and following bypass surgery I said, what am I missing? And the answer was motorcycles.
And I went to Vinnie Terranova’s shop, Rocky Mountain Harley Davidson. The first time I went into the original dealership it resembled the bar scene in Star Wars. I was hooked again.
My first Harley was a Deuce, and I immediately graduated up to big motorcycles and then I got a chopper.
Then I had two motorcycles and when somebody said how many are enough the answer always was — the next one.
I am now a member of the Ugly Brothers Motorcycle Club. I’ve had a very lengthy conversation with the late Peter Fonda, another milestone, Easy Rider. I found out the title came from New Orleans and a place called Storyville where Louis Armstrong was born. It was shut down by the American military in the First World War, and it was full of gambling, drugs, and prostitution. The easy rider was the man who lived with the prostitute. He didn’t pay her and he didn’t make money from her. He was not her pimp, he was the easy rider.
What was explained to me was we are easy riding freedoms. If there’s one thing that motorcycles are, it’s freedom. I’ve ridden up and back to Sturgis 25 times. I hang out with some individuals that I respect and love that would not be accepted by the general population. And they are some of the best.
Now, I’m an old man. Several years ago, I had a minor stroke. And was having a very difficult time riding two wheels. My response? Get a trike. I have become the ice cream man from hell. The trike is like a motorcycle except it has two back wheels. I can’t drop it.
This column appears in the March issue. The weather is changing. Leaves are going to be green pretty soon and you’ll see a lot more motorcycles out there.
Louis Armstrong — he hated being called “Louie” when asked about jazz — said if I have to explain it to you, you won’t get it.
I’ve learned to say the same thing about motorcycles and motorcycling. If I have to explain it, you won’t get it. There are certain kinds of girls that always want to go with you and others who won’t get on for all the tea in China.
I recently even started wearing a helmet and I hope I have a couple more years in me before we go to the big biker rally in the sky.
We know that these kinds of clubs and thought processes had their beginnings after the Second World War. The original Hells Angels were a bomber crew. People like the Top Hatters, and the Boozefighters, and the early outlaws, and now I see these young men back from Iraq and Afghanistan with tattoos on their bodies that say they’re Infidels doing the same thing the men in the ’40s did after the Second World War. It’s hard to think of another product that people will tattoo the corporate logo on their body.
If you have to explain it nobody’s going to get it.
I got the trike as tricked up as I could thanks to Devil’s Head Choppers in Castle Rock. It’s won three awards in motorcycle shows. I take great pride in that.
One day I won’t be able to do it anymore but until that time, get your chin in the wind, get your knees in the breeze. Live to ride. Ride to live.
Thank you.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jan 16, 2026 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Moolah: Republican State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer is known in political circles as the Fabulous Moolah after the 1950’s professional wrestling star. Shown here pounding on one of her Republican gubernatorial opponents.
It’s come to my mind that the Republican Party has a snowball’s chance in hell of putting one of their own in the governor’s throne for the great state of Colorado.
And hence, as Patsy Ramsey wrote, I decided what we really need is a combination of professional wrestling and the folks who fiddle in the middle of stations that are gone.
Let me introduce to you a few of the candidates in two out of three falls, loser leaves town, in a cage match. Hopefully.
Professional wrestling, as we all know, the only true sport left is what’s known as a “work.”
You know the beginning; you know the middle as a high spot; and then the already predetermined end of the match. Can you see this shaping up? This could be a tournament. Also known as the Republican Primary, that looks from the outside to be controlled by the evil eminence, the democrat party, due to open primaries.
So as I once said when I was working in the ring in a rented tuxedo, you would always introduce the bad guy first. Well in this case they’re all bad guys and the biggest bad guy is a gal, Barbara “Fabulous Moolah” and democrat-light State Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer.
She is competing against any number of the lunatic fringe of the republican party. And they are, trust me, lunatics.
Let me introduce to you Joe “the Hangman” Oltmann. His finishing move is hanging anyone that disagrees with him. A brilliant finisher.
After he proclaimed how he wanted to be deposed in the Dominion lawsuit and then found himself stepping/running out of the deposition. This is a guy that you really want in that ring.
The newest, and it’s called a “run” in the wrestling business, charging to the ring challenging Moolah and the Hangman comes the Childhood Assassin Victor Marx. Marx has made it a staple of his campaign that he assassinated a man when he was seven years old. Now it’s hard to top a story line like that.
That story appeals to the darkness of Republicans.
He also makes claims of multiple black belts and fast gun takeaways — you can’t beat having a candidate like this in the ring.
This three-way dance will be refereed by iHeart media talk show host and Gazette columnist Jimmy “the Weasel” Sengenberger. And his color announcer will be Congresswoman Lauren “White Trash” Boebert.
And of course, far more important than what goes on in the ring are the voices that describe the action. With Tina Peters, released from prison for one night only to be the ring girl. The crowd wants Tina to be permanently freed from prison.
Rino loving KOA’s Mandy Connell and Ross “the Boss” Kominsky will be the ring announcers. What a night it’s going to be.
Tickets are on sale at Shotgun Willies and other gentleman’s clubs throughout Colorado.
It’s going to be a barnburner, so I advise you all to get tickets now. They go on sale after income Tax Day, April 15th.
All great professional wrestlers have a finishing move. We don’t know what Kirchmeyer’s is because she has no position on anything.
The Hangman’s is self-evident. And Marx will jump off the top rope and karate chop you with his well-honed techniques.
The best part, as I mentioned before, is none of this realty matters because none of them has a chance against the well-oiled democrat machine that controls all statewide offices, a combination of corrupted voter rolls and mail-in ballot harvesting as well as turning the former red suburbs blue.
So, enjoy the WWE 2026 Republican primaries this year.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Dec 15, 2025 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Your Denver Broncos are owned by the Walton-Penner family ownership group. Led by Walmart heir Rob Walton, his daughter Carrie Walton Penner, and her husband Greg Penner. Rob Walton is the eldest son of Walmart founder Sam Walton, and he is the wealthiest owner in the NFL. Their family purchased your Denver Broncos in 2022 for 4.65-billion dollars. They lease Empower Field but are moving ahead with plans to build a new stadium across I-25 and next door to Ball Arena.
Ball Arena is owned by Stan Kroenke, head of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment. He also owns the Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rapids, and Mammoth, along with the LA Rams, British soccer powerhouse Arsenal, and Altitude Sports. Kroenke is married to Rob Walton’s cousin, Ann Walton Kroenke.
A modern Hapsburg empire.
You have to have a program to understand all the connections. Your Broncos plan on moving to historic Burnham Yard, aiming for a new stadium opening date in 2031, creating a 150-acre stadium empire.
This is the Colorado version of Jerry World. That’s the AT&T Stadium in Texas for their Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones is a real modern-day operator, perhaps a monarch, and has built what some of the sports writers describe as what stadiums of the future will look like.
In 2001 you built your Broncos a new football stadium. The city doesn’t own the stadium in spite of what some people want you to believe. The Stadium District does. Remember, when the promoters realized they could not get their tax swindle passed by Denver voters alone, they expanded it into the RTD District to get the yuppies in Douglas County to put the stadium over.
The current lease is up at the end of the 2030 NFL season.
You all fondly remember Mile High Stadium; it was 54 years old when the taxpayers tore that down. This one will be barely 30 years when the new stadium is designated to open.
The cost for the new Empower Field to the taxpayers was 270-million dollars. That was 75 percent of the 400-million-dollar total price tag. I read a study from the Brookings Institute on how tax-exempt bonds play out for NFL stadiums resulting in 3.2 billion dollars across all NFL stadiums.
For me to attempt to understand leasing agreements, tax deals, and sales clauses is a very baffling endeavor, but one thing I walked away with is everybody seemed to be taken care of with the exception of the taxpayers.
The Bowlen family walked away, the new owners walked away, and, of course, now the new development flag is flown.
The entire valley will be redeveloped at a staggering amount of money. Guess whose pockets that money will go into.
Some people believe when the empire made the purchase of your Denver Broncos they had all of these plans in place and were going to recoup plus any money they initially shelled out to buy the team.
They will have a new stadium, they’ll redevelop the valley, and they’ll have a Jerry World of their own.
We have had long conversations about places like Lambeau and Soldier Field and Arrowhead, the traditional stadiums of the NFL. And now the real stinkers, these guys claim that Nissan Stadium is the worst deal the taxpayers got, Raymond James.
The question is how much do you think the taxpayers will be on the hook for the new move? The infrastructure and how the development of the valley will be priced. The NFL walks America with unbelievable power. Dare there be one elected official say no, or will the threat of we will move shut them down?
2031 really isn’t that far away. What would happen in Colorado to any office holder who would put a palm forward of the juggernaut of building new stadiums and say no, not here, not now? The foisted idea that’s supported by much of the sports media is, oh they’re going to pay for this on their own. If you read how Jerry Jones and others built empires for themselves, you’ll see the taxpayer foots a lot of the bill. I know the Broncos are winning and it makes the town happy. But how many of these have we seen before. The bond daddies cheer on, the family will have its way, and the politicians, whoever is in office at the time, will be at the ribbon-cutting, and some guy on the barstool next to you will say, “We’re going to get the Super Bowl.” At this point I always go “we?” What do you got a rat in your pocket? Because I think a lot of these people have a rat in theirs.
Maybe I’ll quit writing this column and become a Walmart greeter. Happy New Year.
— Peter Boyles
