Humanitarian, ex-CEO

Monday, March 19th: Unlike her Oscar night speech accepting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award, she was animated, informal, and funny. She spoke at length and excitedly about her personal life, her career, and the dress she was wearing on Oscar night when Tom Cruise whispered into her ear. Sherry Lansing, the first woman to head a major Hollywood studio, was in Denver at the Buell Theatre to entertain, inspire, and point the way up the ladder of success for all the ambitious women in the audience looking for a way through the glass ceiling. Read on …

Fighting Irish

Saturday, March 17th: The mayor appeared out of nowhere. Like a leprechaun, with mysterious, magical powers. His green suit apparently made out of teflon as snowplows, line lines at the ballot box, and RTD overspending seem to bounce off his political skin like bullets off Kevlar. And then there were a motley but boisterous gathering of Irish wolfhounds, Celtic dancers, Irish folk musicians, earnest RVers drinking kegs of Guiness, bagpipe marching bands, clowns, a beauty queen, Denver cops in dress blues, the Marines–I’m guessing only the color guard, the rest seemed to have boycotted the parade in a huff–and lots and lots of green, green, and more green. Read on …

Pam Grier

Friday, March 16th: Pam Grier, the 1970’s blaxploitation film star, was in Denver at the nightclub Rise doing a benefit for The Urban Farm, a non-profit organization which educates inner city ‘at risk’ kids at its 23 acre farm out near Stapleton. Hosted by Hip Chicks Out, the evening at Rise was packed with gay women, who were drinking, chatting, buying auction items, and watching Foxy Brown scatter some Hollywood pixie dust on her dusty hometown of Denver. Read on …

Monster Huck

Saturday, March 3rd: It was like hunting. Waiting on the side of a mountain at 11,000 feet, ankle deep in snow, peering up at the cliff face, listening for sounds, watching intently for the quarry to appear, gliding between the trees. And all the while freezing my derriere off in the liquid sunshine of a high altitude, Colorado blue sky day. The quarry? Kiffor Berg, Aaron Estrada, Lloyd Tucker, Jane Somerville and the rest of the 100+ professional, cliff jumping lunatics competing in the Colorado Freeride Championships at Snowmass. Read on …