by Charles Bonniwell | Nov 17, 2022 | Editorials
It took 20 years of hard work and persistence by a bi-partisan coalition of the Democrat Party and moderate establishment Republicans, headed by Colorado’s richest man, Phil Anschutz, to accomplish one goal. The election returns from the 2022 midterms are in and Colorado, at long last, has one-party Democrat rule. Incumbent Governor Jared Polis won by 20 plus points over Republican Heidi Ganahl. It’s not that Mr. Polis is so uniquely popular. Every Democrat candidate for statewide office in Colorado won close to double digits.
The State Senate went from 21 to 14 in Democrats favor to 24 to 11. In the State House it went from 41 to 24 in the Democrats favor to 48 to 17. In a terrible economy with high inflation and a Democrat President with low approval numbers how could this possibly be true? It’s easy. In over 20 years, as pointed out in last month’s editorial, we have gone from same day voting with 30-day registration requirements to same day registration, universal mail-in ballots with an almost month election period. Only the Democrats ballot harvest. They urge their members to cast their ballots immediately. That leaves Democrats three weeks to go house to house to harvest ballots and cure any faulty ballots.
Republicans are told by its leadership to all vote in person on election day and not to allow anyone to collect their ballots. Even without the enormous fraud that universal mail-in ballot and ballot harvesting encourages, there is no chance a Republican can win a statewide campaign under such circumstances.
Yet not a single prominent Republican has publicly protested this inherently unfair election process. In 20 years, they have not objected to any of more than a score of election process changes that have assured a one-party state from now to eternity. Former Republican state party chair and leading Republican Colorado Congressman Ken Buck has declared the process “the Gold Standard.” Former Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams cut an advertisement with present Secretary of State Jena Griswold to the same effect, paid for with taxpayer dollars, which was continuously in the run up to the election.
Why would Phil Anschutz and the Republican establishment want to hand the state over permanently to the Democrats? Because it assures them, they will be permanently controlling the Republican party even if it is a permanent minority party. They can make deals with Polis for their own benefit. The Republican establishment cannot let the grassroots out of the bag because if they did, they could take over the state Republican party, and maybe even the state, which is exactly what has happened in Wyoming and Nebraska. All Anschutz has to do talk is talk to fellow billionaire Pete Ricketts, the two-term governor of Nebraska and president of the National Republican Governors Association, about what happens if everyday citizens get hold of a state party. It’s July 14, 1789, all over again.
Anschutz can also appreciate why Mitch McConnell withdrew money from the Republican senate candidates in Arizona and Nevada, so the Republicans lost by close margins and lost any chance of becoming the majority in the Senate. McConnell may have assured that Republicans are a minority in the U.S. Senate, but helped guarantee he would be the leader of that minority party.
So welcome to the one-party state of Colorado. Like all one-party states from North Korea to Cuba, the citizens will suffer greatly but the leaders of the uni-party will prosper extraordinarily.
Governor Polis celebrates one party rule in Colorado.
by Mark Smiley | Nov 16, 2022 | Glendale City News
By Mark Smiley
The Company of The National Tour of MY FAIR LADY. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Madeline Powell as Eliza Doolittle in The National Tour of MY FAIR LADY. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
My Fair Lady, opened on November 15 at The Buell Theater. Boasting such classic songs as “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain,” “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” and “On the Street Where You Live,” MY FAIR LADY tells the story of Eliza Doolittle, a young Cockney flower seller, and Henry Higgins, a linguistics professor who is determined to transform her into his idea of a “proper lady.” But who is really being transformed?
Adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play and Gabriel Pascal’s motion picture Pygmalion, Lerner & Lowe’s My Fair Lady, with a book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe, premiered on Broadway on March 15, 1956. The legendary original production won 6 Tony Awards including Best Musical and ran for 2,717 performances making it, at the time, the longest-running musical in Broadway history.
The current touring production features Madeline Powell as Eliza Doolittle, Jonathan Grunert as Professor Henry Higgins, John Adkison as Colonel Pickering, Madeline Brennan as Mrs. Pearce, Michael Hegarty as Alfred P. Doolittle, Cameron Loyal as Freddy Eynesford-Hill and Becky Saunders as Mrs. Higgins.
Accompanying Powell and Grunert is a terrific cast that heightens the incredible rags to riches flip that is showcased in this iconic production. The pacing though is what stands out about the revival. The amount of movement in and out of the numbers really keeps the action lively.
The underlining class struggle is a powerful element behind the whimsical nature of the plot. You find yourself flowing nicely with the spectacle while still hoping for that ‘a ha’ moment.
My Fair Lady runs through November 27, 2022 at the Buell Theater. For tickets or more information, visit www.denvercenter.org.
by Mark Smiley | Oct 27, 2022 | Glendale City News
The Musical Captures It All — Popular Music, Heartache and Tenderness
By Mark Smiley
Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations opened at the Buell Theatre at the Denver Performing Arts Center on October 25, 2022. The show runs through November 6, 2022, and tickets can be purchased at www.denvercenter.org.
The Broadway musical follows The Temptations’ journey from the streets of Detroit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This show is a high-energy crowd-pleaser filled with songs everyone recognizes and can tap their feet to.
Left to Right, Harrell Holmes Jr., Elijah Ahmad Lewis, Jalen Harris, Marcus Paul James, James T. Lane from Ain’t Too Proud. Photo Credit: Emilio Madrid
The musical is two-and-one-half-hours of top-notch vocals, dancing and theatrics — including drop-splits and mic-stand tricks. With a book written by Dominique Morisseau, based on the memoir “The Temptations,” by Otis Williams (one of the original members), the story is well-constructed and personal, narrated by Marcus Paul James, who plays a likable and earnest Williams.
This musical has a brisk pace and moves through three phases of Williams’ memoir—the gathering of the legends and their rapid rise to stardom; the challenges of keeping them together against internal and external adversaries; and finally the deaths of each member of the originals other than Williams himself.
The show’s chief focus is the shifting dynamic within the group. There are a lot of highs and lows with members of this group. Jealousy, narcissism, drug use, and suicide provide somber moments in the show.
But the high energy ballads from the talented cast and Motown hits from other groups such as The Supremes keeps the audience on the edge of their seats from start to finish.
Tickets can be purchased at www.denvercenter.org.
by Mark Smiley | Oct 21, 2022 | Travel
by Mark Smiley and Jeff Stiglic
Chocolate Pairing: Lady Justice Brewing on East Colfax in Aurora hosted a chocolate and beer tasting on Thursday, October 6, 2022, at their taphouse.
Pints For Prostates: The 13th Rare Beer Tasting was held on October 7, 2022. Amazing and rare beers were spread out over three floors of the McNichols Civic Center Building. The event helped raise awareness for prostate cancer.
Away from the Colorado Convention Center, there were some notable events during the week, including a chocolate and beer pairing at Lady Justice Brewing in Aurora, a Sam Adams and Dogfish Head brunch, and the 13th Pints for Prostates Rare Beer Tasting.
First, David Nilsen, freelance beer journalist and Advanced Cicerone, led a chocolate and beer tasting at Lady Justice Brewing on East Colfax in Aurora on Thursday, October 6, 2022. Guests were treated to high end chocolates paired with specialty beers on tap at Lady Justice.
The Lady Justice Brewing Company was founded by Betsy Lay, Kate Power, and Jen Cuesta during their 2010 service in AmeriCorps‚ asking the question “why can’t we brew beer and give back to our community?” What began as a small operation on a custom-built homebrew system in a tiny storage space has grown into a flourishing taproom and movement.
Next, Sam Adams and Dogfish Head once again collaborated for a brunch held at Rhein Haus Denver on Market Street in Denver. Founders of each brewery, Jim Koch (Sam Adams), and Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), addressed the crowd and talked about their collaboration and shared beers including the latest release of Utopias and Gold Medal winner in the non-alcohol beer category, Just The Haze.
Last, the 13th Rare Beer Tasting was held on October 7 at the McNichols Civic Center Building. This event was organized by Pints for Prostates, a grassroots campaign designed to raise awareness among men about prostate cancer and the importance of early detection in fighting the disease. The group was founded in 2008 after beer journalist Rick Lyke was diagnosed at 47-years-old and successfully treated for prostate cancer.
Pints for Prostates works to engage men in a conversation about their health in a relaxed and non-threatening way. By having some fun with a topic they would rather avoid, they are able to reach a population of men who might otherwise ignore traditional health messages.
Brunch: Sam Adams and Dogfish Head held a brunch at Rhein Haus Denver on October 8, 2022, and featured some of their most popular beers.
On an annual basis Pints for Prostates appears at nearly 100 events across the United States. These include beer festivals and gatherings at bars and breweries.
Since its inception in 2009, the Denver Rare Beer Tasting has attracted some of America’s most respected craft breweries who generously serve their most exotic beers. A total of 201 breweries from 43 states have poured at the event during the first 12 years. Only seven breweries have participated in all 12 Denver Rare Beer Tastings and another 35 breweries have poured at least five times, while 80 have made a single appearance at the event.
For more information about Pints for Prostates, visit www.pintsforprostates.org. For more information on Lady Justice visit www.ladyjusticebrewing.com. They are located at 9735 E. Colfax Avenue.
by Luke Schmaltz | Oct 21, 2022 | General Featured
“No man is a failure who has Friends.” — Clarence the Angel, It’s a Wonderful Life
by Luke Schmaltz
It is a Monday afternoon in early October 2022. Jim Norris is working behind the coffee bar at Mutiny Information Cafe, holding down barista duties for the nth day in a row. He is owner and proprietor of “The World’s Most Dangerous Bookstore” along with his partner Matt Megyesi. The duo have been through the literal wringer of late, having dealt with Megyesi’s faltering health, employee theft, extreme vandalism, and the most dreaded of all — the Denver Department of Finance.
The emotional shellshock of the last 24 months is wearing on him, when out of the blue, the employee who is supposed to relieve him calls to say they are running “about 90 minutes late.” He sighs, puts down the phone, and makes himself another Americano.
Pillar Of Personality
Mutiny partners Jim Norris and Matt Megyesi are beloved stalwarts of the Denver indie arts scene.
Mutiny occupies what is unequivocally the most vibrant stretch of South Broadway, perched as the flagship business on the southeast corner of Ellsworth. As anyone with a pulse knows, “vibrant” means lots of pedestrian traffic and in today’s Denver — where there are people there is trouble.
Regardless, the personality and mojo spilling forth from Mutiny’s front door bears the unmistakable essence of everything good about the independent business culture of Denver. Humility, respect, openness, equality, diversity, unity, strength, and self-reliance practically ooze from every shelf, nook, and cranny of the place.
The place is a hub for writers, artists, musicians, comedians, magicians, and anyone with a creative streak. If you have seen an art opening, comedy show, or live music performance in Denver anytime in the last nine years, chances are that media had origins of some sort within the walls of Mutiny.
Mutiny Information Cafe is a hub for creatives of all types and a top retail destination for records, coffee, novels, comic books, and more.
Meanwhile, the two-way conveyor belt churning past the store’s front windows presents the usual menagerie of South Broadway human fare. It is a hodgepodge of characters, personalities, and temperaments indicative of a district buzzing with artists, writers, and yuppies, yet simultaneously gripped by addiction, crime, and fear. There are jugglers, skateboarders, survey takers, families with baby strollers, panhandlers, stumblers, mumblers, vapers, smokers, tweakers, buskers, and much more.
Such high-volume foot traffic usually bodes well for a retail business, but there’s trouble in paradise. While the eclectic personality of Mutiny attracts earnest spenders looking for caffeinated drinks, novels, vinyl records, and comic books — it also attracts folks who are looking to get even with their misfortunate lot in life by stealing anything they can get their hands on. “They’ll swipe anything that is not nailed down,” Norris explains. “Crime is terrible around here because of the extreme economic disparity at work. There are too many rich people who don’t give a shit,” he says.
Summer Of Bummers
Mutiny Information Cafe has been brutalized by circumstances over the last couple of years.
Emerging from the aftermath of Covid was tough for everyone, as any small business owner who was lucky enough to survive 2020/2021 will tell you. Mutiny is no exception, having suffered loss of revenue by having to briefly curtail the business alongside everyone else in the neighborhood.
In addition to the store’s acute challenges with loss prevention, Megyesi suffered a near-fatal heart attack several months ago, which shouldered Norris with 100% of the administrative burden. Around then — just this past summer — vandals began targeting the store. They broke the glass on the front door, terrorized the staff, and eventually became brazen enough to smash out a large section plate glass on the store’s west-facing facade.
Meanwhile, Megyesi’s absence caused the business’s quarterly taxes to be overlooked and to go unpaid, which drew the impatient, ruthless ire of the Denver Department of Finance. The agency dropped off a scant two (2) notices of unpaid taxes before locking Norris and Megyesi out of their own business without considering a more copacetic solution. “They came in twice, left a card, and then locked us out,” Norris said.
The irony here is that, if a business owes taxes, one would think they should be allowed to remain open and operational so that they could have a chance to make the money to pay said debts. Yet, this sort of logic does not resonate with tax collectors who have their emotions lobotomized before being sent out into the field.
Down But Not Out
Mutiny was saved from the tax man by a collective of nearly 1,000 Denver friends and supporters.
Upon being shut down by the city, Norris and Megyesi were beside themselves as their mutual boyhood dream and livelihood had been ripped from their grasp. The impending tragedy was not to be, however, as friend of the store Kyle Sutherland launched a GoFundMe campaign intended to meet and surpass the store’s $35,000 tax bill along with the attached GoFundMe fees. The total goal was just over 42,000 — 42,126 to be exact. The last three digits are Norris’s and Megyesi’s lucky numbers.
As Norris recently explained in an interview with the Denver Gazette, “Matt and I chose 126 as our random lucky number when we were teenagers. You’ll notice it all over the store. It’s sort of like when people say Jesus appears to them on toast. If he can appear on toast, he can appear anywhere. It’s a good-karma thing.”
Word of the shutdown and the crowdfunding campaign spread through the community like wildfire, thanks to good old-fashioned word of mouth and new-fashioned social media. Thanks to the networks of Sutherland, local artist standout R. Alan Brooks, and dozens of others, the goal was met and surpassed in a mere 24 hours by 925 donors. This uncanny overnight fundraising effort, especially in the midst of an economic downturn (read that as a recession) is a testament to Morris and Megyesi popularity and good karma. “We are overwhelmed with goodwill,” Norris says. “We went from tears of sorrow to tears of joy in 24 hours.”
On October 29, 2022, Mutiny will hold a “Thank You Party” for all the friends who donated to the crowdfunding campaign which facilitated their resurgence. The FREE event will be held at the Oriental Theater from 7 to 11 p.m. and will feature performances by Bolonium, Team Nonexistent, Kodama, Magic Mo, DJ Konz, and MC R. Alan Brooks.
All Images Courtesy of: Mutiny Info Cafe
by Glendale Sports Center | Oct 21, 2022 | Glendale City News
by Jennifer Lease, RD, Senior Manager of Nutrition at the YMCA of Metro Denver
The holiday season can feel hard when you’re focused on your health. November is Diabetes Awareness Month, and whether you’re someone working to prevent a chronic disease, like Diabetes, or manage one, the holidays can bring up stress and fear around food choices.
Here are some tips to help you stay on track with mindfulness, self-compassion, and flexibility that allow you to stay present and enjoy this time of year:
Be mindful and intentional
about your choices.
This is really all about approaching your choices and behaviors without judgment, and giving yourself permission to make the choices you do. When it comes to the holidays, there’s usually special dishes with meaning for you, as well as sweets and treats you look forward to. You deserve to enjoy those! It’s important to give yourself genuine permission to enjoy those foods so you’re not left feeling badly about those choices. Even when preventing or managing a chronic disease, there’s still room for including these foods. With intention, you can choose the dishes you don’t want to miss, include them on your plate in portion sizes that feel good for you, and feel guilt-free afterwards.
Practice gentle nutrition.
You can still keep nutrition principles in mind during holiday meals, with a bit of flexibility and grace for yourself at the same time. You can enjoy a bit of everything with some balance and portion control (and you’ll feel better after the meal, too!). The basics of a balanced plate to support blood sugar control include protein, veggies, and a starch or grain. Try filling half of your plate with veggie dishes and then take a smaller portion of the others you want to try. Holiday dishes tend to be heavy on starchy foods, so don’t forget some protein (like turkey or chicken) to create balance. Remember to check in with your hunger and fullness cues as you enjoy your meal, too, so you can stop eating when you feel comfortably full.
Don’t overcompensate for the holidays — you can get right back on track.
This may sound easier said than done. We tend to overcompensate after more indulgent meals, like those during the holidays — this can look like restricting your food intake for a day or more, exercising more than usual, or even punishing yourself with negative self-talk. The ways we overcompensate can actually worsen blood sugar control and backfire. It’s important to remember that every day is a new day to reset. When you’re mindful and intentional about your food choices and practice gentle nutrition, this feels easier — you’re better able to move onto the next day, getting back on track with your usual eating patterns to support your health.
The holiday season should be a time of joy and celebration, and that includes lots of yummy food! If you find yourself feeling stress, anxiety, or fear about food as you approach holiday meals, our Health & Well-being team at the Y can help. Learn about all of our nutrition programming and our Diabetes Prevention Program at den verymca.org.
