The American West is historically religiously unaffiliated. Whether that's the result of a deep-seated independent spirit...or a holdover from a bygone era when there simply weren't enough clergy west of the Mississippi... Nadia Bolz-Weber... In an hour long interview recently, she unloaded at least three F-bombs and explained that "the Jesus business pays for shit." (...she has Mary Magdalene on her right forearm and the Christian calendar on her left.) The uncharacteristically late services ("because no one likes to get up at 7 a.m. on Sundays," Bolz-Weber says.) Her flock is mostly composed of young, overeducated, and, as she puts it, often voluntarily poor parishioners, who might be homeless, gay, married with young kids...
We don't like the word megachurch - although we understand our numbers put us in that category - because the concept has the connotation that we're here to conquer a city, to swallow everyone in our path...
"My services are doled out over wings and pitchers of beer in local bars." Jerry Harships and his church serve lunch - as well as give communion to - Denver's homeless population in Civic Center Park. ...people to whom a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich is a godsend. - 5280 Magazine, 4/12
"If you get married, will you continue to be polyamorous?" Why wouldn't we? Honesty also seems more prevalent in the poly world. Almost every person I know has cheated or deceived a partner at least once in life, as had everyone asking me about my lifestyle that evening.
White Allies for Racial Justice Caucus. "...for white LGBT people...addressing white privilege ..."
"If you were to hire a really creative pollster, I think they'd be able to show most gay men are Republican," Michael said. "A lot of gays don't want large, intrusive government. They don't want to see their wages going to a bureaucracy they don't participate in..."
The liberation theme is the focus of Queer Seder... "We go through the traditional liturgy in light of wanting to be free from oppression and homophobia."
My date was a disaster. Not the kind of disaster where you spill half a bottle of Zinfandel on your express button-up... "I spend a lot of time in my church, volunteering and things like that," I said casually... "Actually, I'm a deacon." He smiled back at me weakly... He had no idea what to say.
"I don't know if I've ever met another gay person in this industry," said Nadia Lopez, who for five years has owned and operated am auto body shop in Aurora. "I had to dance around my sexuality at work because I work with men." - Out Front Colorado, 4/4/12
The two dozen pastors gathered in a dreary room adorned with balloons and needlepoint texts from Scripture... "I wouldn't invite just anybody to my church,"...Santorum's message at private conclaves...has been essential to his success. Religious leaders, antiabortion activists, homeschooling advocates and Christian businessmen have rallied to his cause... Guided by the likes of Perkins - who prodded...pastors...to urge their flocks to vote... Tony Perkins said as he introduced Rick Santorum. The overseer of Santorum's grassroots coalitions... "We are the campaign," she says. It helps that Santorum casts his campaign as a divine mission. The result... It's also cash. ...it's increasingly apparent that religious leaders and their parishioners offer Santorum the hope of political salvation. "It looks like God is just trying to bless this man,"... ...Santorum has struggled to win over fellow Catholics, who have leaned toward Romney. Santorum recently suggested...evangelical Protestants "practice their religion more ardently" than Catholics. ...pastor, Dennis Terry...he thundered. "If you don't like the way we do things, I've got one thing to say: Get out! We don't worship Buddha. We don't worship Muhammad. We don't worship Allah. We worship God." - Time, 4/2/12
Our clients come to us afraid. They are afraid to stand up to their abuser. The National Law Center on Homelessness and poverty reported on their website that domestic violence is the leading cause of homelessness nationally. "We also file petitions for undocumented residents... This is literally their ticket out of poverty" and "into work authorization..." - Denver Voice, 4/12
The Hackett sisters...know you will enjoy their unique private viewing rooms and old school values.
...they proudly affiliate with the Association of Cannabis Trades for Colorado (ACTofCO) and Cannabis Business Alliance (CBA).
They cater to a diverse clientele ranging from the creative counter-culture to business professionals, veterans, and senior citizens.
...they are a full-service medical marijuana dispensary with the feel of a neighborhood shop.
...owned and operated by Colordao natives. They hold themselves to the highest standards... - The Hemp Connoisseur, Spring 2012
The new week brings a missing driver at work, and an unexpected shift behind the wheel. The route takes me to a street corner with an ever changing rotation of panhandlers. The one I see today has a grey beard, baseball cap, and tie dyed T shirt. I don't know what it is about the shirt which makes him appear somehow less indigent. On a bus home, a middle aged guy in back is telling someone about how his kids want nothing to do with him, about his truck...
What concerns Susan Sontag is how to live in good conscience if one is an artist, a radical, and a highly rewarded citizen of the American empire. She answers...as an account of her temporary disengagement from the complex society, and of...a brief encounter with a different way of life. "[I] had been unable to incorporate...my...dilemma at being a citizen of the American empire." She records her "initial culture shock," her dismay at...a seemingly impassible barrier between herself and the real, living embodiments of the ideal Other. "...a derisive inner voice" accuses the Other of "posing against overcomplex, hypocritical, devitalized urban society choking on affluence...As eighteenth-century "philosophes" pictured...a pastoral ideal in the Pacific Island or among the American Indians, and German romantic poets supposed it to have existed in ancient Greece, late twentieth century intellectuals in New York or Paris are likely to locate it in the exotic revolutionary societies of the Third World." - The Pilot and the Passenger, L. Marx, 1988
On my day off, I am returning from shopping as I find myself at a bus stop with five drunks, three of whom appear to be a man, wife, and teenage daughter. The daughter appears to have an inch long stitched laceration on her forehead. The apparent father gets up and tells the other two, "Hey, five-0 is coming around the block, you better get up. I see the "dad" and girl slowly walk down the sidewalk. I'm on a train to work on another Saturday at 5:30 AM. An officer is on the train checking fares. There are two young guys sitting across from me. One of them has his fare, the other searches everywhere for his to no avail. The guy with no fare says that they both "were in the strip club until 4." He gets a written warning. he recounts how a friend asked him why he doesn't pay his parking tickets. She asked him, 'Is he not worried about a warrant for his arrest?' He replied to her, "They're going to arrest me, in Florida?" His head is shaved, an earring is in his lip, dimples are in his cheeks, and flames are tattooed onto his left wrist. "Denver PD can suck my dick," he mentions.
It's Monday after work. Baseball season has begun. On an overcast day at the train station, white guys in caps and sunglasses are everywhere. Two of these guys are on my bus home. One has a cap which reads "DEA" on both the front and back. A homeless senior is standing in the doorway, perplexed as to what the driver wants him to do with his root beer bottle. The DEA guy says "Go!. Fuck. Fuckin' bus." As he gets off, he says to the homeless guy, "Take a fuckin' bath, bro. You stink the fuckin' bus up. Nasty bastard." After he gets off, a Japanese senior gets on, and he is non-stop coughing. The homeless man gets up and, in a weak voice, tells the driver he wants to get off. After he does, the Japanese man continues coughing until he also gets off at the next stop.
The next morning, around 5 AM, I grab a bus for a short ways up the street. A woman is reading a hard back romance novel. Her bookmark is a folded paper placemat from McDonalds. I get off and approach another bus bench, where a guy with a grey beard, hunting cap, flannel shirt, and backpack is smoking. When he spots me, he acts as if he has to go. He walks a few yards before he appears to stop and count his change, before he keeps on truckin'. Down the same sidewalk as the DEA guy. The following morning, on the bus is a girl in a hoodie. On the arm it says "give". At the top on the front is a heart-shaped peace sign, with tiny rhinestones around it. On the bus home from work, I'm listening to someone on the phone, "Myra, I just got out of jail. I ain't seen no one but my home boys. I want to see a family member. I'm gonna be very disappointed (if you don't show up). Dig it. You're gonna pick me up. You hung up on me. What's up with that?" This went on for several blocks. Dig it.
The Colorado Street Medics roster has fluctuated wildly over the years... The training sessions frequently draw..."crazy wingnuts who want to fight the government in a shack in the woods." Each class includes at least one extremist who is attracted by the mention of "chemical warfare." "There's always someone who comes in with camo pants tucked into their knee high boots and is like, 'What do I do with the nerve gas?' ...if you're part of We Are Change, you're not anti-racist. We're...anti-supremacy... Colorado Street Medics also turn down requests here at home, usually because the members of a certain cause are all white or religious... One of the medics gives the patient permission to use female gender pronouns before asking his or her own preference. - Westword, April 19-25, 2012
I went through downtown on 4/20/12, my day off. I was on my way to see a doc titled ComiCon IV: A Fan's Hope. Along the way, waiting for a pedestrian mall shuttle, I was next to a street preacher. He was speaking in generalizations with his voice rising and falling. "Jesus let himself be killed. He wants you to live without sin." In the park downtown was a marijuana celebration complete with booths. Celebrants were all over the downtown pedestrian mall. They are just kids, but instead of pop tunes are walking along singing made up songs about marijuana. Many are wearing green plastic leaf necklaces. Someone on the shuttle mentions that she hopes the park is not "contaminated by the bums. Stay off the grass." Civic Center Park is a gathering place, or a place to drop, for many homeless. This marijuana movement as it manifests itself strikes me as thoroughly self-indulgent. A newsletter I picked up off the ground reads as telescopically focused on random information presented as 'evidence' of the importance of their cause. GMO, or genetically modified organisms, are mentioned as a kind of 'anti-marijuana'. A speaker on an theatre stage, at one end of the park, a speaker is pontificating upon "this incredible nutrient" which "cures cancer." I'm struck most of all by the tone of his voice. It's one of absolute devotion; something missing from the street preacher's script.I didn't realize that this gathering was here today, much less that it would be as organized as any other annual event in this park. After my movie, I was back in downtown, where the Friday night downtown dining experience-seekers filling the restaurants had shown up, on the mall where the 4/20 soldiers had been all afternoon. On the way, I was on the bus with a girl in her deathburger uniform. When she got on her cell, she began talking about her personal life, including coming into downtown before work to "see my son. They moved him and didn't tell me. So I came down here and spent the day down here. Least you can do is tell a motherfucker." As I am headed to a connecting bus back in downtown, I see on each of two opposite corners a mime, complete with white face paint.
The next morning, I come out of a supermarket and am waiting for a bus. The stop is next to a new tiny condo unit. It stands where an old apartment building was torn down, and where some street characters lived. Where the same have moved into the new building. One of them runs across the street to ask me for change, to ask a guy in a wheelchair for a cigarette. He tells him, "Hey, I want to show you something. I'm an avid coin collector." One of his pockets sounds as though it's full of change. "Here's one, 1777-1776...1776-1976." He goes into the mini-condo.
It's an uncharacteristically warm and subsequently beautiful day in Denver's Technology Center. I am passing couples on the sidewalk, fresh from the Marriott with their 2012 Denver Star Fest merchandise. "I haven't actually seen anyone dressed as Spock," a woman says as she goes by. The guy holding her hand replies, "There were Vulcans." It's 1 PM. I pass a guy with orange hair, a black robe, and a giant alien ax over his shoulder. The usual Ghost Busters van is parked in the valet area. Inside, a girl in zombie makeup appears to have a bite out of her face. A teenage kid in a trenchcoat has black wings sticking out of his back. Another guy has a green hat with "YODA" on the front, and a fuzzy ear on each side. There's a big guy dressed, I believe, as The Rocketeer. He has a trio of toddlers in tow, all dressed as though they are going out to trick or treat. Except the guy. Another guy getting his tickets with his son is telling the woman behind the table that he's considering learning how to use a lathe. A sign next to the elevators asks guests to limit their number in the elevator to eight, to keep them "running smoothly."
The Tech Center Marriott has a huge area inside, open from floor to the roof, onto which the balconies open. Over the railings, the guests have begun a tradition of hanging banners, mostly Klingon. One is a pirate flag, one is for Gandalf's Order of the Grey. Another reads "Party like a Klingon." Here in the big open area, I'm sitting in a leather chair next to a woman in a pointed hat with blinking lights. The costumed characters abound. Rebel pilots, ST Next Gen. officers, Jedi lesbians, Aqua...Woman, one of the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange. I see a young, thin woman in full Klingon makeup, texting on her phone. Someone has a red uniform shirt from the original Star Trek, with "expendable" on the front. The inside joke is that, every extra's character on the original series in a red uniform always gets killed. I pick up a flyer for another con coming in October before I hit the men's room. I am soon the only one in there when I hear a knock and, "Housekeeping..." with an accent. I answer in Spanish, "Welcome. How are you? Have you seen any crazy (white) people?" "Only a few," they answer in Spanish. The art show this year is sparse. The dealers' room I save for last. I like to give every vendor an opportunity. I could have had plenty of DVDs; Space 1999, Far Out Space Nuts, The Fantastic Journey. I could have had the same AMT kit of the original Enterprise my dad bought me forty years ago. Only, four decades ago, it wasn't $150. It's quite a kind of history of future histories, and has great personal entertainment relevance.
The Star Fest strikes me as, not an exclusively, but a predominantly white experience. Though those attendees who come in costume consider themselves out of the ordinary, the social interaction is predicated upon subtle complexities, much like those presumably other "ordinary" social interactions. The 4/20 rally is a predominantly minority street (or park) party. The dress is uniform to the point of appearing as a bland, singular statement. The social interaction among these faithful strikes me as overly sincere and desperately fashionable, not to mention evangelical.
...no matter how weird it seems to you that people would pay thousands of dollars to fly to Aurora to pretend to be in the Wild West, it's going to happen. ...Pueblo wants to build a riverwalk extravaganza on the Arkansas River, when there's water in it, I guess...and some "moderate income residential housing." ...Estes Park...wants millions of your tax dollars for elk bugling classes. ...Montrose, a place way out west that thinks it's in the mountains but is as flat and dusty as Goodland, Kansas... They want millions of state tax dollars for putting up an RV park. Welcome to the new capital of the Old West.
In 2008, members of the Colorado Minuteman Civil Defense Corps chapter protested against employers who give jobs to undocumented residents. - Aurora Sentinel, 4/19 - 4/25/2012
GI GRILL JIM ODLE...CHAIRMAN OF THE ALL AMERICAN BEEF BATTALON...DEDICATED TO SUPPORTING THE TROOPS FIGHTING THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR...SERVES...A SOLDIER IN THE 349TH PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS COMPANY, A TACTICAL UNIT OUT OF AURORA... "WE'RE FEEDING (THE SOLDIERS) STEAK AND LETTING THEM KNOW THAT RURAL AMERICA REALLY APPRECIATES THEM," SAID ODLE.
To this day, I shudder when I recall...former City Manager Ron Miller who said that in the nearly 13 years he was city manager in Aurora, he was never aware that folks had something bad to say about A-Town.It was that kind of of ridiculousness that helped keep the city and its image from gaining ground for more than a decade. - Aurora Sentinel, 4/25 - 5/2/2012
Today I was sent to work a manager's shift at his store. A customer came in; a tall, soft spoken middle aged guy in a black church T-shirt. On the front, top left, his shirt reads "leader". He brings in his drycleaning, and asks, "Do you want to see spots?" He mentions his clothes having stains from a spilled platter. "This is the tie I remember wearing to dinner. Do you do ties?" I wonder who usually deals with the drycleaning in his house... The afternoon part-time person does not know, after working for us for almost a year, how to bag and put away orders. As a result, I stay an extra 20 minutes, and miss my bus home. Having a half hour on my hands, I stop into this month's rotating business next door, a yogurt place. The patrons reflect the neighborhood's white families. It's just the kind of place which replaced our downtown store, after the property owners doubled our lease. The place where I am now has Hebrew letters identifying the many different flavors, and must be named Smiley's, because the cashier tells me, along with everyone else, to have a smiley day.
When I get off the train on the way home, someone wants to sell me a wallet for a dollar. "I'm just trying to get home." He gets on my bus with a transfer he already has with him. The next morning, I am on a bus to work with a couple of different passengers wearing sunglasses at 5:30 AM. A guy at the train station is asking me for "anysparechange..."
In an effort to deal with increasing numbers of the homeless on Denver's streets, the City Council in expected to consider an ordinance that would ban unauthorized camping throughout the city. - Denver News, 4/10 - 5/10, 2012
...the exhibit at the Denver Art Museum of Madeline Albright's exhibit of pins ahe wore while engage [sic] in diplomatic work... The students prepared questions for Albright... Albright told the young women..."there is no room for mediocrity at the top for women." - North Denver Tribune, 4/19 - 5/2, 2012
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has scheduled a Nation Prescription Drug Take-Back event... It is a great opportunity for individuals who have accumulated unwanted, unused prescription drugs, to safely dispose of those medications. 1. Many teens feel that prescription drugs are safer to use than street drugs since they are prescribed by a physician. ...they are found in medicine cabinets.
...The Older Anericans Act provides funding to...programs in nutrition, in-home care, transportation, disease prevention/health promotion, long-term care overnight, senior employment...essential to maintaining independence for older adults.
A 2008 survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute* found that...around half (49%) reported that the total amount of their savings (excluding the value of their home and any defined benefit plans) is less than $50,000. In addition, 22% of workers and 28% of retirees said they have no savings of any kind. ...every generation...should have a disciplined savings program in place. - 50 Plus Marketplace News, Denver Metro, April 2012
Don't give me teachers. Give me real world gladiators. I don't deal in theories. I want instructors who actually have experience... I crave insights from the front lines, not textbooks. I want every edge I can get. Are you in? I don't take classes. I experience them. Don't give me lectures. Give me dynamic, immersive experiences...like I absorb the world... I want to collaberate in groups. I want feedback from practice tests. ...I'm part of an educational movement. Are you in? - Colorado Technical University brochure
The following day, I am working a closing shift. I stop into a bagel place in a wealthy neighborhood. I get a couple bagels and sit next two a couple of guys having a conversation. "Corinthians 14. Who are we becoming in Christ? We don't teach about that. It's so powerful. In 30 years, I've never had anybody pray over me. You know, something's wrong. You know, it's awsome. I go to these other churches. I just learn things. The grace of God is great, but what does it mean? "
"It means he accepts you where you are. ...spiritual formation. There's not a lot of emphasis on that."
"No there's not. How to be focus on that? A lot of these guys, Global Americans...awakening your spirit... It's powerful. I'm knowing guys who changed their mind, broken off from pornography. Those who are awakened in the spirit are sons of God. We don't want to stagnate spirituality. I think most Christians think, "God, just beam me up, get me out of here." It's changed my thinking."
"We know God is powerful. This is not all there is. I don't want you to feel bad when I go. It's okay. I want you to know there's more. Just havin' a big ass house in Cherry Hills with a gate on it. You know, that doesn't make you happy either. I know someone who has this house. She can't sell it. They won't let her subdivide it. That's not life either. Nothing is what it seems. Everything is not, you know..."
"I quit the club. I left it intact. I didn't fire this guy. After I quit, this guy got fired."
"Well that shouldn't come back on you then."
"The unemployment he gets, plus cash under the table, plus his student loan..."
"Selling this last condo, there's so much crap you have to deal with, so much paperwork, I don't even want to deal with the system."
And just like that. I'm off to work. Some eight or nine hours later, my coworker has given me a ride to a 7-Eleven. She has pulled part way into the drive and stopped. As I open my door, there suddenly is some guy on a chopper right next to me, saying, "Goddamn, goddamn driver. Goddamn driver..."
The next morning, I am walking up the street to the bus stop, past a halfway home in the form of apartments. One of the basement ones has its window open. The inside lights are out, and I see a big screen TV. It appears to be on MSNBC. (Rachel Maddow at this hour?) Do I hear some guy getting oral sex, or is he laughing? Only on the Feds. As I travel through these neighborhoods, the lines of demarcation between class are erased. The resulting collection of random characters have no immediate context. About 25 hours later, I am on a bus to work, sitting behind a woman with two black eyes. She is looking at her face in a reflection in the window. When we get to the train station, she asks me if the trains run this early.
A couple of evenings ago, when I almost doored a Hell's Angel reject, I immediately got on a bus for a short trip up the street. I sit next to a father and his two adorable daughters. He doesn't appear to have the same appreciation for what of what he may consider personally as something of a long ride. I see them again, the next afternoon on a bus home from work, this time with the mom. I see original three a third time the following day, at the grocery store. They may live in a trailer park next door to the supermarket. In the afternoon, I'm on a downtown pedestrian mall shuttle. At the stop for the shuttle, a kid asked me if I was interested in purchasing any of the marijuana buds he has in an orange plastic prescirtion medicine bottle, complete with child safety cap. He asks another kid with tattoos on the shuttle. One of the shuttle's stops is at a corner with a guy who has a guitar and blue hair. The kid asks the guitar guy's friend if he's interested in a purchase. The guitar guy's friend replies, "All I have is a dime!" The kid says, "Okay, I'll be on my phone."
Midnight, 16th Street Mall, at Stout The densest concentration of homeless folk is between California and Champa, where the doorways have been filling up... A guy hanging around in front of the Walgreens tries to hustle a few bucks when I ask questions, as though he's some kind of informant. A few doors down, another guy strumming a battered guitar in front of a closed sandwich shop gets pissy when I stop to talk. "I'm trying to make my living out here," he snaps. He strums a few more chords for an audience of nobody. 1:45 a.m., 16th Street Mall and California A pedicab driver mentions, "The most trouble I ever get is when my drunk-ass passengers want me to let them out so they can go fuck with these guys: 'Oh, let me out a minute, I want to go talk shit to this homeless dude.' Down the mall, two girls stumble past the Sheraton. Inside the hotel, eighteen TVs are all showing the same channel in the empty bar. 5 a.m., 16th Street Mall and California As if roused by some kind of internal alarm clock issued only to the homeless, a large chunk of the sleeping population awakens almost exactly at 5 a.m.
Last week, Westword sat down with Albus Brooks, the...ordinance to ban "urban camping" in Denver...proposal's main propopnent in (city) council, in the conference room of his District 8 office. Albus Brooks: When I first got onto council, one of the first issues people were talking about was we have an incredible homeless issue. The homeless providers were saying, "We need to...provide more services." Businesses and residents were saying, "We've never seen it this bad." One of the first things I saw were multiple, multiple responses from conventioneers where the first and second thing they'd say was, "Do something, I thought you guys were supposed to be the leaders. You're nationally renowned in your effectiveness towards homelessness." Most providers are saying, "We want to help draft the ordinance." That's not going to happen. As a city , this is where civil liberties and government start to meet. I'm elected to protect the public good... - Westword, 4/20-5/2/2012
In Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan's first State of the City Address, he pontificates: "In Aurora, what will happen next is a future so bright that the rest of Colorado will wonder how we got so lucky. We are not lucky. We are good. We have a focus, we have a vision, we have the citizenry, the elected officials...partners to help make things happen." And in true Hogan fashion, he also stressed the importance of debunking the common misconceptions of Aurora. "Now is the time to take the lead on the false images of no trees and rampant crime," he said. - Aurora Sentinel, 4/26 - 5/2/2012
Civilians pity us. They're always talking about the loneliness and the danger. They talk about the sacrifices we have to make to feed the millions topside. They ought to take a good look at their world: crowds, noise, shortages, tension, rules, ugliness, hostility, and more rules. They can have it. Why do they force us to go topside for R and R every two weeks? Why won't they turn us loose? Why keep binding us with their own fears? - "Lobotomy Shoals", by J. Brantingham
