by Valley Gadfly | May 22, 2015 | Valley Gadfly
May was full of promises, but what with buckets of rain most days plus snow on Mother’s Day everyone we talked to “was predictin’ that the summer’d never come.” Thus like most of us I’m hoping Oscar Hammerstein’s “June is bustin’ out all over” tune comes true. Because the “feelin’ is gettin’ so intense jest because it’s June, June, June!”
Summer is a promissory note signed in June (summer begins June 21), its long days are spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.
Here are our choices for shopping, dining and entertainment so mellow that the gentle June day breeze will allow you to bask in the sun with exposed skin agleam:
3 Don’t let June flicker by without seeing the Monday Movie Madness shows at Glendale’s Infinity Park Stadium. Dates are June 1, 15 and 29. The free movies start at 8 p.m., gates open at 7 p.m.
3 Attend a stunning summer evening at Vineyard Wine Shop’s Rosé Soiree at the Inn at Cherry Creek June 6, 6-9 p.m. Information: 303-355-8324.
3 He’s a master on the grill and the life of every tailgating party. He also loves good clothes. So find dad a Father’s Day gift he’ll love and wear from the cozy and well stocked Sully & Co. Information: 720-398-8064.
3 Roar into June to see 5,000 classic cars at the Cruzin’ Havana Car Show and Poker Run June 13, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Information: 303-360-7505.
3 For fun and excitement catch the National Rugby Championships at Infinity Park, June 13-14. Information: www.glendaleraptors.com.
3 Enjoy a fun, healthy 2.5 mile Walk For Autism at Sloan’s Lake Park with entertainment and a kids zone June 14, 8 a.m. Information: 720-214-0794.
3 You can’t top the food, fun and live music at Beats On The Creek adjacent to Coohills on Tuesdays, June 16-Aug. 4. Information: 303-623-5700.
3 Drum up friends and beat it to the Auraria Campus for the free Pan People Music Festival June 20, 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Information: 720-222-9553.
3 Summer blossoms with an array of art markets but the best quality art destination is the Summer Art Market (SAM), June 13-14. Free, it showcases fine art produced by members, faculty and students of the Art Students League on the streets surrounding the League building at 200 Grant St. Hours are 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, until 5 p.m. Sunday. There’s food, live music and entertainment. Information: 303-778-6990.
Summer Solstice (June 21) marks the beginning of the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere. On this day, the North Pole is tilted toward the sun at the highest degree of angle. Places in the hemisphere experience the longest hours of sunlight throughout the year on that day. Solstice is rooted in both ancient mysticism and nature.
What is one to say about June, the time of a perfect young summer? It is the fulfillment of earlier month promises, and as yet no sign its beauty will ever fade.
In June your hair gets lighter, the skin darker and the music louder. You can hear Nat King Cole’s distinct, mellow voice singing, “Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. Those days of soda and pretzels and beer.” You quickly understand why Tin Pan Alley’s Charles Tobias added: “You’ll wish that summer could always be here.”
— Glen Richardson
The Valley Gadfly can be reached at newspaper@glendalecherrycreek.com.
by Mark Smiley | May 22, 2015 | Feature Story Bottom Left
Communication is easy right? You just open your mouth and let your thoughts turn into words and voila! Now we’re talking. I guess talking to each other is that easy if you’re just trying to get your point across, no matter how it’s received. All of us know by now (or should) that it isn’t what you have to say, but it’s how you say it. How you talk with people plays a key role in communicating your message, and ultimately whatever message you are trying to convey will result in an action, or a response from the other person. I’m guessing most people want positive responses from the words that they choose to use.
And yes, I am going to use my column this month to give guys a few tips on how to talk to women. That’s right, how. Not what to say to women, but how to talk to them. I would think the following tips I give you are common knowledge but I am shocked by some of the interactions I see with men and women when they first meet. Seriously, sometimes I’m shocked to the point that I cringe and think to myself what in the world is he doing? I feel creepy just witnessing this. Ladies I guess you can stop reading right here since none of the following pertains to you, but I know you won’t.
First, I have to state a few qualifiers before I start my list. Yes, I believe men and women need to be communicated to differently especially in a dating atmosphere. Yes, I am a guy and of course my point of view is going to be from a male perspective. Yes, I believe women more so than men need to be verbally stimulated. After all, first impressions are everything right? All the women just said yes to that question and most guys are thinking well she can be kinda rude and bitchy if she’s hot. Okay, let’s go!
- When you first meet and even shortly thereafter meeting a woman, don’t make creepy sexual innuendoes off of the words they say. You know what I’m saying, the whole “that’s what she said” kind of thing. Playing off a woman’s words and turning them into something perverted is a sure way to freak her out. The crazy thing about this advice is that it freaks her out at first but once you gain their trust women can be just as vulgar as guys. Weird how it works that way.
- Women like to be spoken to normally. Just like you would talk to a friend in a casual conversation. Sometimes I even need to catch myself when I am talking to a woman to whom I am attracted, to not start talking weird. Not like saying weird stuff to them, just being unsure of what to say or how to say it. When women sense you feel that they are superior to you they lose interest. She no longer associates you in her mind as an alpha male. To simplify, just treat them the same as the girl you know you could get.
- Don’t talk like a braggadocios jerk. Women hate a guy that brags or talks himself up. Just like I said earlier that a woman wants to be verbally stimulated she also wants to find out things about you organically. There is no better position to be in than when a lady wants to learn more about you. Let her decide where her curiosity takes her imagination.
- Do not, I repeat do not set an argumentative tone to your communicating. Playful verbal exchanges back and forth are great, and encouraged, but plain heated debates are a total turn off.
- Keep your communication fun, funny, upbeat and positive! If there is one lasting piece of advice that I hope would stick it would be this one. Guys, keep it light, keep it real and keep them wanting more.
I believe in the art of communicating and I embrace the differences between men and women. I have been in the business of communications for many years and I know the power of conversation. Remember, it’s not what you say but it’s how you say it and how your words are received. Choose your words wisely and be aware the next words that come out of your mouth can be taken many ways. Try to deliver them so someone might want to listen.
Lastly, the Modern Dater Date Club is about to be launched! If you want in just shoot me an email at themoderndater@ gmail.com and I’ll send you more info on upcoming gatherings. Thanks for reading!
— Sheik
by Peter Boyles | May 22, 2015 | Blasting with Boyles
It’s always best to open with a joke: What do your Colorado Rockies and evangelist Billy Graham have in common? Answer: Both can make a stadium full of people stand up and scream, “Jesus Christ!”
Baseball curses are legendary in American’s pastime. Most of the curses are the result of greed, disrespect or questionable decision making on the part of the owners. However, it generally lies squarely on the fans.
The most legendary baseball curse is the “Curse of the Bambino.” The story goes something like this. There once was a great baseball team named the Boston Red Sox (aka your Colorado Rockies before the greedy Monfort family kicked the hot dog vendors off of their land). The Red Sox won the first ever World Series in 1903. For the next 10 years, like the New England Patriots, they won it five more times. They owed most of later success to Babe Ruth, aka “The Bambino.”
And then in 1919, the Red Sox traded the Babe to the New York Yankees. It was 86 more years before the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. It has been talked about many times, as baseball historians laughed up their sleeves, that the Sox ownership used the Bambino money to finance the Broadway musical No No Nanette. Everything was attempted to defeat the curse, including the fans in Boston trying to “reverse the curse.”
Joke: Why can’t the Colorado Rockies use the Internet?
Answer: They can’t get three w’s in a row.
So last year the city of Denver suddenly began forcing a 20-plus-year-old ordinance keeping hot dog vendors (hard-working men and women, as opposed to the Monfort family themselves) away from the ball park. For some very interesting reasons those rules have been ignored since the beginning of the opening of Coors Field.
If you remember, as Gomer Pyle always said, “Shazaam” — that happened very suddenly. Afterwards, the Monforts spent 10 million dollars on the ballpark’s new rooftop deck and then unveiled their food and beverage area. I know that this sounds just like a coincidence, but mark my words — I searched on the Internet to find then Denver Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs who said, “for whatever reason, we lost part of that agreement and allowed vendors to come in. They stopped the vendors when the food deck opened.” So as you go and take the family unit to see your Colorado Rockies, you can no longer grab a cheap hot dog, or for that matter, any food items on the street. You must pay the Monforts.
Another legendary curse is the “Curse of the Colonel.” Thirty years ago, a team called the Hanshin Tigers won the Japanese world series in an upset over the Seibu Lions. Fans were celebrating and running over a bridge overlooking a local canal. As luck would have it, there was a life-size statue of Colonel Sanders standing in front of a nearby KFC. The crowd seized it and threw the Colonel into the river in honor of MVP Randy Bass. Their losing streak continues to this day.
In 2009, Japanese divers were sent into the canal and retrieved the corpse of the Colonel. Lions fans were hoping that recovering the Colonel would break the curse. Tough saké. Their losing streak continues. It is now known in Japan as the “Curse of the Colonel.” If you are paying attention at home, it’s a food curse.
I began this last year placing the hot dog curse not on the players, and not on the fans, but on Dick and Charlie. I guarantee that your Colorado Rockies will win again. All those fun-loving owners have to do is allow the hot dog vendors to return to Coors Field much like the swallows to Capistrano or the buzzards back to Ohio. Winning will begin again.
But if the Monforts don’t let the hot dog vendors return, our curse may last as long as the legendary Billy Goat Curse placed on the Chicago Cubs which continues to this very day. In 1945 the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, William Sianis, tried to bring his pet goat Murphy to Wrigley Field for game 4 of the World Series. Sianis and Murphy were both enjoying the game when the owner, PK Wrigley, who was a member of the lucky sperm club, threw them both out claiming the goat smelled. The billy goat left, and it’s been downhill for the Cubs ever since.
As you can see, curses are real — in baseball they are more real. The Monforts are acting like a Gambino Crime Family protection racket. This is a shakedown. Suddenly those regulations were enacted. What — the Monforts aren’t greedy enough? A lesson in life: always follow the money. It used to be cool getting water and peanuts for two bucks, sitting in the $5 Rockpile seats. Take me out to the ball game. The Monforts won’t play ball with the hot dog vendors. And luck won’t play centerfield for Dick and Charlie.
You gotta love it, and the curse will continue until that magic moment when the Monforts allow the hot dog vendors to return. Mark my words, all of you fans, the gentle giants of the beef industry (as the Monforts have been named) are never going to field a winning team for Rockies fans. Boston broke the curse in 2004. It’s going to be a long time before the Rockies break theirs.
So what do you call 40 millionaires sitting around a television watching the World Series? The Colorado Rockies. Love it. Live it. Learn it. And remember it as the fall classic heads your way in the years to come — play ball!
— Peter
by Mark Smiley | Apr 27, 2015 | General Featured
Ben West Takes New York By Storm
He’s Composed 12 Concertos For The NY Philharmonic, Was In Annie On Broadway, Sang And Danced In Macy’s Parade
by Glen Richardson
One of the Cherry Creek Valley’s most promising young composers and musicians is taking New York by storm. Audiences at the prestigious Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Center reveled in the latest imaginative composition by Ben West played during three New York Philharmonic concerts — two on March 4 and another on March 5 of this year. Instrumentation for the piece titled Rite of Passage includes two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons. Also two horns, two trumpets, a tuba and timpani (kettledrum) plus strings were incorporated.
West, a Colorado native who won’t turn 15 until this summer, is gaining a larger-than-life persona with his powerhouse pieces of music. As a multi-talented composer and musician he is proving to be a hit with multiple projects in New York and Denver, receiving rave reviews. Notably, in New York he has also appeared in the Camp Broadway production of Annie at the Palace Theatre plus singing and dancing with Kermit the Frog on a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Locally he has played classical guitar with the Mile High Classical Ensemble, saxophone with the Soundhouse Funk Band plus performing as Fritz in the Nutcracker at the Vail Valley Academy.
Ben West had his first chance to participate in the Very Young Composer program at Vail in 2009, wrote Playbill — the New York magazine for theatergoers — of the youngster’s rapid rise as a gifted composer in its March issue. “Six years and 12 compositions later he is passionate about composing for classical and jazz ensembles. Ben is a musician in his own right, with 10 years of classical guitar training and six years of saxophone (Alto, Tenor and Baritone) lessons.” Of the seven young people selected to participate in the 2015 Philharmonic’s Young Composers program, West was the only non-New Yorker to have a composition selected.
Home Playground
The Chronicle first interviewed West after learning he had been asked and written music for none other than world-renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma at the Bravo Music Festival in Vail (Chronicle, Feb. 2014). The youngster, the Chronicle has learned is continuing to make a serious impact as a composer and musician after being invited to an intimate house concert in the Observatory Park neighborhood last month.
The event supporting The Playground’s new music creation and youth composition program included a special performance of West’s composition titled A Light At the End of the Tunnel initially performed by a string quartet of New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera musicians at the New York Chamber Music Festival last September. The piece was performed in the neighborhood concert here by the Playground’s string quartet consisting of Sarah Whitnah and Anna Morris, violin; Don Schumacher, viola and Richard vonFoerster, cello. They are artists-in-residence at DU’s Lamont School of Music, featuring the works of Colorado-based composers. The quartet also played Bela Bartok’s 6th, the final quartet written by Bartok (1939) before fleeing to the U.S. on the eve of World War II.
Conrad Kehn — founder of the DU-based Playground Ensemble — gave a multimedia presentation titled Evolution (Looking for God) during the home concert. Ben West takes private lessons from Kehn focusing on music theory plus classical and jazz composition mechanics. Kehn also happens to be one of two teaching artists for the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers program.
Classical & Jazz Man
As a guitar man, West has performed with the Mile High Classical Ensemble plus in multiple Vail and Denver festivals. In Spain he has taken Master Classes with Roland Dyers at the Music Festival in Cardoba that each July becomes “guitar city.” Dyers is known for his extraordinary capacity for improvisation; this is unique among classical guitarists. West has also taken lessons at the Colorado Suzuki Institute and the Denver Suzuki Summit where he has studied with teachers such as Joe Pecoraro, Dave Madsen, Mir Ali, Kevin Hart, Seth Himmelhoch and Andrea Cannon.
West is the proud owner of a custom built Luthier guitar, one of perhaps 50 in Colorado. His grandparents gave the instrument to him as a bar mitzvah gift. A guitar built by a master Luthier can make the instrument feel like an extension of the musician’s hands. The late Jerry Garcia, Phish’s Trey Anastasio and Eric Clapton, play on Luthier instruments that were built for them.
As a jazz saxophonist he has performed with the Colorado Conservancy of the Jazz Arts and the Soundhouse Funk Band. West is a student at Kent Denver School known for its rich offerings in both performing and visual arts. He is a member of the Kent Denver Jazz Band. Downbeat Magazine ranks the R&B Ensemble at Kent the top high school pop, rock and blues band in the nation. Whether it is pieces of music he’s written or performances with or without a guitar or sax in hand, Valley music fans can expect to be treated to the talent of Ben West for years to come.
