A Bull in a China Shop

Posted on January 22, 2009 by admin
Spud and Titan, 2007 Champion Steers, at the Brown Palace

Spud and Titan, 2007 Champion Steers, at the Brown Palace

Animals are no stranger to the brown palace hotel. According to the hotel’s website:

In 1945, Dan Thornton, who later became governor of Colorado, arranged to have two Hereford bulls shown and sold here for $50,000. In January 1958, Monte Montana clattered into the lobby on his horse “Rex” and continued up the grand staircase to drop in on a meeting of the Rodeo Cowboys Association. In 1988, Gary Henry and “Bubba,” a Texas Longhorn steer, arrived at the front desk to signal the beginning of the National Western Stock Show.

One annual tradition involves the presentation of the winning steer from the National Western. As befits such a fancy place, he drinks out of a silver bowl. While the steer is there, you can go get your picture taken with him. It’s free. It’s fun. It’s a Denver tradition.

In 2007, Allen and I went down to get our picture taken. I’m not sure who the guy on the right is, but I think he’s trying to make sure nobody gets killed. As you can see, 2007 brought in two champion steers (Spud and the reserve champion Titan – I guess Spud was a bit too nervous to be there on his own). They’re good looking fellers, raised by kids from the Future Farmers of America. Spud was raised by Lance Unger of Carlisle, Indiana. Unfortunately for Spud, he became someone’s dinner. Okay, a lot of people’s dinner. Here’s what 9news had to say:

Weighing over 1,300 pounds, Spud sold for $80,000 during the auction. He was bought by the Emil-Lene’s Sirloin House.

For 2009, the steer’s appearance will be on Friday, January 23rd, between 11:00 am and 1:00 pm. Whether you prefer your beef freerange or ranging free, this is a rare chance to get up close and personal with a champion steer before he heads to the dinner table.

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Remember City Spirit? I do.

Posted on January 19, 2009 by admin

— by Tracy Weil, weilworks.com

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In 1988 I graduated from Fort Lewis College in Durango and headed to Denver to try and find a job in the “big city.” Not really ready to start working a regular day job, I happened across an artful place called City Spirit Cafe. I dropped in and fell in love with the vibrant pink walls and playful tile mosaics covering the entire restaurant. I asked if they were hiring wait staff and sure enough they were. This is where I met owners Mickey and Susan.

The cafe was the brain child of local developer Mickey Zeppelin and artist Susan Wick. They opened the award winning cafe & bookstore in 1985 in the up and coming area called LoDo. They also enlisted Michael Fagen to help put together the fabulous Art & Architecture bookstore in the basement of this new venture. City Spirit Cafe served health conscious fare as well as sinful desserts. After 9pm the cafe was the place to be, regularly hosting live musicians like Johnny Long, Lionel Young, Eagle Park Slim & Sympathy F as well as live local djs like DJ Knee.

As an artist I fit right in. This is where I got my start with my first exhibition in the Art Annex next door to the cafe. I waited tables for about 3 years, then started bartending and managing the restaurant. I also booked bands and moved into handling special events and PR for the thriving cafe.

As a community meeting place, City Spirit always hosted interesting things to bring people together; from talks, to seminars, to poetry readings to fashion shows there was always something going on.

Fashionhomemade

One of the most memorable fashion events was “Fashionhomemade,” the 5th annual show and one of the more wilder fashion extravaganzas. The fashion shows were always interesting and this small cafe drew over 1000 people this particular evening.

We took over Blake Street and the back alley, setting up tables for service and a runway right down the middle of the cafe. Le Menu consisted of fresh salads, Brie and roasted garlic, artichokes & the signature salsa and blue corn chips. Other tasty fare included; seafood lasagna & mussels, along with the deluxe tamale plate, Paella and Asian Lo Mein.

Another signature item was the famous and potent City Spirit La La. This “pre-cosmo” was a must have while sitting at the bar, limit of 4. I’ve included the recipe below for those nostalgics that would like to recreate it.

The fashion show started around 9:30pm and included lots of local designer talent including handmade knits and redo clothing by Susan Wick, vintage clothes from Soul Flower & designs made of astro-turf by Alicia Nowicki, Carol Mier sculptural fashions, uncommon & eclectic work by Mona Lucero, and S&M Housewife & tupperwear kink by now NYC designers Uzi (Jose Duran & David Ball). Other designers included Claire Inwood, Heidi Peterson, Shelly Schoeneshoefer, Cleo Ortize Couture, Colorado Institute of Art Students, Cydney Griggs, Chitahka Nsombie, Nur D’afrique, Gayla Coleman, Saohm Hattier & Jerry Whitehead. After the show patrons were invited downstairs to browse and buy all the creative wears in the show and the event ended with dancing at 11pm with music by dj Afro-dytee.

The café was also a great place to meet famous musicians all looking for a heathly place to eat on the road. Over my 10 years at the café I met or crossed paths with Beck, Allison Morissette, Boy George, Lauryn Hill, Digable Planets,The Fugees, Tool, Lenny Kravitz and The Brand New Heavys. The Smashing Pumpkins even made a special unplugged appearance one night after their concert in town.

What a place! City Spirit will always have a special place in my heart; here I learned what community was all about. We’d love to hear your memories of the café please post below.

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City Spirit Café La La: Sold for $4 (limit 4)
1 ½ oz. Absolut Vodka
3 oz. Knudsen’s Cranberry Juice
Splash of Cointreau
Splash of Rose’s Lime Juice or fresh lime juice
Serve chilled in a martini glass with a Twist of Lemon

City Spirit was located at 1434 Blake Street. All the tile-work was torn out but remnants of the space, including parts of the bar, can still be seen at Taxi in RiNo.

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My Brother’s Car

Posted on January 18, 2009 by admin

In 1983, Brother’s manager Dave Le Compte was downstairs counting the previous days receipts. It was early in the morning and he was alone in the building. He startled to a loud booming noise followed by the building shaking and then settling. He ran upstairs; the bar area was dark, except for the light coming in around the enormous grill of the car that had just been propelled through the front door.

The sole occupant of the car, a woman, was trapped inside, wedged between the door jam and the post. The intersection at that time did not have a light; she had been traveling down 15th and had been hit from the side by a car heading south, sending her into Brother’s. The fire department was called and used the Jaws of Life to get her out. Conscious but badly bruised she was taken to the hospital and the car was removed and towed away.

That morning Brother’s opened on time, with a makeshift door put in place and stories to tell. Word eventually came that the woman in the car was going to be okay; she had been treated and released. Owner Jim Karagas sent her a gift card so that she and her husband could return another time.

Weeks before the accident a new front door had been installed. Long-time regular and woodworker Bob Clesen had been commissioned to create a solid mahogany door and entrance. Only days old, in seconds the whole thing had been turned into splinters.

The 15th street façade of the 1983 Brother’s was brick with narrow high windows on the north. This is the template that many a dark bar has used over the years, allowing a little light in and still offering privacy for those inside. After the accident they took the opportunity to remodel the front by installing large windows that help define the bar as it is today.

My Brother’s Bar, located at 2376 15th Street in Denver, celebrates its 39th birthday in January of 2009.

– Story by Dave Le Compte, reported by buckfifty

More about Brother’s from Westword

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Riverside

Posted on January 16, 2009 by admin

by Hugh Graham, hughgrahamcreative.com

Riverside has been dying for a long time.

One of the first cemeteries in the american west designed as a park, with paths for carriages, and trees for shade, and roses, for a generation or so Riverside served as the resting place of the pillars of society, territorial governors and mayors and pioneers and publishers. It was filled with statuary and civil war heroes and abolitionists and shady characters and mothers who died in childbirth, and lots of children who died too young.

But it was downstream from the city, in an industrial area near the city of commerce, and it ended up on the wrong side of the tracks. Even before the Railway line came through, the wealthy had moved on to another part of town. Riverside was left to the working men and the working women, to immigrants and laborers and indigents.

And so there began a long, slow decline, the slow death of a place honoring the dead, exacerbated by the western thirst for water. It’s too far gone now, in many ways. Trees have died, and roses, and there will never again be kentucky blue grass between the graves. In the end, the old resting place will settle back into the dusty plains, as we’ll all settle into oblivion.

There is something profoundly human about the desire to immortalize ourselves with a mark in time. Perhaps it explains the creative impulse, the desire to say “I was here, now.” Or to commemorate a loved one with as generous a statement as you can afford.

In the early days of the american frontier, the cemetery was a primary form of expression, perhaps the only way for most people to say, I was here. I loved. I made my mark. And there is sadness in the realization that of all the monuments, each one for someone who lived and loved and died, so few stories survive.

There is an austere beauty to the prairie, and at Riverside it’s poignant given the location between the smelter and the refineries. It’s not a traditional beauty, not fecund and rich and fertile, but more elusive and fleeting and dry. Like the west, the prairie scene doesn’t give away it’s secrets. They are too valuable to waste on the unobservant.

Times change; the cemetery is no longer the tradition it once was. Burial is now the exception rather than the rule. Still, there’s something to looking to the past, something to gain from saving what’s left of this history.

For a while at least. Until oblivion.

B50 Note: Founded in 1876, Riverside Cemetery is Denver’s oldest, and is the final resting place of a fascinating cultural and social cross-section of the community (including three territorial governors and three civil war medal of honor recipients). It is also the home of amazing statuary that documents 130 years of colorado history. Unfortunately, all irrigation was suspended in 2002, so the landscape has suffered extensively. Members of the community have joined together to support the cemetery through the Friends of Historic Riverside Cemetery.

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Auraria, Rhythm of the Neighborhood

Posted on January 14, 2009 by admin

This is Carlos Fresquez’ digital story titled “Rhythm of the Neighborhood” from the Colorado History Museum’s Imagine a Great City: Denver at 150 exhibit. This story was made in a workshop facilitated by The Center for Digital Storytelling’s Denver office. Posted in conjunction with Mile High Stories.

Carlos is now Assistant Professor of Art at Metropolitan State College of Denver, where he works in the same Auraria neighborhood he visited as a child. You can find out more about Carlos from this article from the Metro newspaper.

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