|
TEXAS NATIVE KAREN DAY,
CO-PUBLISHER OF THE ASPEN FREE PRESS, is also one of many Aspen interior
designers. Her work has been featured in Metropolitan Home and
House Beautiful. Her Aspen interior design projects have included
the home of architect Bill Poss and Jayne Poss; two homes for Martha Wyly
Miller and Don Miller at Little Woody Creek and Dallas Highland Park;
and three interiors for actress Sally Field in Starwood.
One of Karen's larger interior design
projects was Marolt Ranch for the City of Aspen, which houses 300 employees.
She was born & raised in the oilfields
around Midland, Texas, and was a real estate developer in Houston. See
link below for photos.
Aspen Interior
Designer Karen Day - Photos
KEEP SCROLLING WAY BELOW THE CHAOS OF STORIES UPLOADED FROM ASPEN
FREE PRESS STREET EDITIONS TO WHAT'S BEEN WRITTEN IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS
ABOUT "ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER" SINCE ITS WOBBLY INCEPTION
IN THE THIRD PARKED CAR FROM THE CORNER AT MAIN AND MONARCH IN 1982.
JUNE 11, 2006 UPDATE - - ATTENTION ASPEN
FREE PRESS READERS. Be proud! You can always tell Aspen Free Press
readers by the way they move their lips when they read! Anyway, here's
the announcement: Don't look for the Aspen Free Press on the streets
until late summer and even then only sparingly. Publisher Sterling Greenwood
is applying for Social Security and will be cutting back his schedule.
He has entered a food abuse rebab clinic situated in the mountains of
Central Mexico near the village of Tesquisquiappan (don't even try to
pronounce it). Greenwood, who enjoys "the challenge of the uncertain,"
which Mexico affords, carries 160 pounds on a 5'11" frame and hopes
to be L.A.-homeless-victim thin at 145 pounds when he completes the center's
stringent food abuse therapy program -- daily injections of a centuries-old
Chinese herbal concoction laced with ma juang ie ephedra, a substance
now banned for use as an appetite suppressant in the U.S because it costs
the junk food industry big $$$$ annually in unsold product. (Didn't 300,000
Americans die prematurely of obesity-related afflictions last year? And,
do you ever wonder why any substances, once they're shown to curb food
appetites, become increasingly difficult to get?) "In Aspen,"
Greenwood says, "the only sin is being fat and I don't want to take
any chances."
"Besides," he continues, "I have prostate
cancer and my Uncle Clarence always said that to beat cancer you have
to starve the bastard. You sure as hell don't hand-feed it like a pet.
Treat it like visiting in-laws. Don't keep anything
around they liketo eat." Greenwood emphasizes that he is not a health
care professional, but "just a patient stumbling around in this goat
dance," so readers with prostate cancer or any other kind of cancer
for that matter should be advised to consult their physicians before acting
on any information gleaned here. And the beat rolls on . . . .
ARCHIVED
ISSUES
O..J'S
ASPEN VACATION,
Little Nell Hotel January 11, 2005
ASPEN'S
INNER GONZO -- IN THE NEW YORK TIMES,CLICK HERE.
FOR CUTTING EDGE INFO
ON PROSTATE CANCER (NO PUN INTENDED) GO TO WWW.PSA-RISING.COM,CLICK HERE.
HUNTER
THOMPSON FUNERAL CANNON BLAST -- A PRIVATE SERVICE AT OWL FARM. KEEP
SCROLLING FOR ASPEN FREE PRESS PHOTO.
VERNON
(TX) DAILY RECORD ARTICLE
ASPEN
FREE PRESS/CITIZEN COPE ARCHIVE
MORE
CITIZEN COPE LINKS
BULLETINS -- NOTHING SO
FAR TODAY, THANKFULLY, , KEEP CHECKING.
MOVIES TONIGHT -- NO MOVIE
REVIEWS TODAY. BESIDES, . THIS IS THE KIND OF DAY TO SIT UNDER A TIN ROOF,
EAT PIMENTO CHEESE SANDWICHES AND EAT SNOW ICE CREAM.
BEST BUYS -- HO HUM.THERE ARE
SOME SUPER DEALS IN ASPEN ON RESTYLANE INJECTIONS.AND SOME SPECIALS ARE
EXPECTED SOON, TOO, ON CAVERJET INJECTIONS. KEEP CHECKING HERE FOR UPDATES.
CAVERJET TO VIAGRA IS LIKE A LEAR JET TO A VOLKS. BUT BE CAREFUL. YOU
MAY WIND UP AT THE EMERGENCY ROOM AT ASPEN VALLEY HOSPITAL, PLEADING WITH
DOCS TO "PLEASE JUST MAKE IT GO BACK DOWN." DISCLAIMER: WE ARE
NOT HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS AT THE ASPEN FREE PRESS, BUT WE DO
UNDERSTAND A MAN'S PAIN WHEN HIS MALE MEMBER GETS SO STIFF THAT IT'S NECESSARY
HE BE STRAPPED TO THE CEILING OF HIS BATHROOM WHEN HE PEES IN ORDER TO
HIT THE COMMODE.. BEFORE ACTING ON ANY MEDICAL INFO HERE, CHECK WITH YOUR
PHYSICIAN.
KOBE TRIAL STIMULATES EAGLE/VAIL ECONOMY
(uploaded from street edition 10/16/03)
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
EAGLE, CO., Oct. 16, 2003 -- He went out fast, but not
fast enough. There was a lunch break in Kobe's prelim and cat-quick Dan
Abrams of MSNBC lurched for the courtroom door. He was first out of the
courthouse, but ut Fox's Rita Cosby, at near to a gallop in spiked heels,
overtook him and me both once outside on the straight-away. With her apparent
heft, Cosby could have slung the compact Abrams over her shoulder and
still kept on truckin' in this insane foot-race to get out the news.
Abrams is the MSNBC newscaster covering the Kobe case.
He'd been madly scribbling notes all through the hearing.
Then, in a flash, after he gets to the MSNBC tent, he alights
on an elevated makeshift stage. Notebook in hand, Abrams goes on the air
delivering an extemporaneous account of the morning's courtroom drama.
What the TV viewer can't se is the MSNBC crew in the background. They
look like a bunch of grunges -- bottles and other gunk litter the various
tables out of view of the camera as Abrams does his thing on national
TV. In fact if you could see Abrams below the waist, you'd know he was
wearing faded jeans under that fancy blazer.
That's the way it is in all the tents for media bigshots
and commentators.
There are TV news tents everywhere from seemingly everywhere.
If somebody threw in a ferris wheel and and some bumper cars, this place
would look like a carnival. Or a county fair where you go from tent to
tent and sample homemade pies and cakes, on of which will get a blue ribbon.
Across the road is a big lot jammed with satellite dishes aimed at the
heavens, suggesting nothing so much as one of those eerie outer space
flicks of the fifties. The Vail Daily is 62 pages today, plus four multi-page
color inserts. Wow! Eagle/Vail is booming. The Vail Daily is owned by
the same Reno, Nev., concern that owns the Aspen Times which has 36 pages
today. If only the Aspen Daily News and the Aspen Free Press didn't exist,
maybe the Times would be larger.
In downtown Eagle, at a grill which reminds me of Aspen's
Red Onion, the boisterous news hounds at the next table order a pitcher.
"God bless the pharmacy," one yells, holding up
a glass of beer. "Here's to Rush!"
There's a sign in the window, "Welcome Hunters."
Does that mean us?
Much later I find myself in the courtroom alone. The drama
is over for now. The curtain is closed. I am in an empty opera house.
Some of the players are getting vague and unreal. No matter. I'll file
reports again from Eagle/Vail next week. But, let me leave you with this
one thought: Marcia Clark is a helluva lot sexier in person than on TV.
AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON . . . .
YO ARROYO! PART 2
uploaded from street edition 9/19/03
BY STERLING GREENWOOD 9/19/2003
I FIND CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY CHIP MCCRORY IN HIS
OFFICE ON MAIN.
I TOSS ONTO HIS DESK A MULTI-PAGE PORTION OF THE NCIC
RAP-SHEET, DATED 07/25/01, OF PITKIN COUNTY JAIL INMATE MARTIN ARROYO.
MCCRORY, FORMERLY CHIEF DEPUTY DA IN ASPEN, RIFLES THROUGH
IT, LOOKING AT ALL THE CASES LISTED, INCLUDING TWO FOR HEROIN AND ONE
FOR ROBBERY WHICH DREW A SIX-YEAR PRISON SENTENCE IN TEXAS.
'IT COULD BE A DIFFERENT MARTIN ARROYO,' HE SAYS.
HE'S CORRECT.
IT IS A DIFFERENT MARTIN ARROYO. OR RATHER A LOT OF DIFFERENT
GUYS WITH THE NAME MARTIN ARROYO.
AND NOTHING ON THESE PAGES ANYWAY -- WHICH WERE THE ONLY
ONES PROVIDED ME BY ARROYO -- APPLIES TO THE MARTIN ARROYO WHO IS NOW
LOCKED UP ON RECENT DOMESTIC CHARGES INVOLVING AN ASPEN WOMAN AS THE ALLEGED
VICTIM.
NAMES LIKE 'MARTIN,' AND 'ARROYO,' AREN'T UNUSUAL, SAYS
MCCRORY, AND WHEN YOU PUT THEM TOGETHER INTO THE CRIMINAL DATA BANK, ALONG
WITH A DATE OF BIRTH, "MATHEMATICALLY THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF
THEM," HE SAYS, "LOTS OF TIMES A FINGERPRINT COMPARISON DOESN'T
GET DONE." MCCRORY ADDS, "IT EVEN COULD BE A DIFFERENT MARTIN
ARROYO AND THE FINGERPRINTS MATCH UP."
AT THE JAIL, I INTERVIEW ARROYO. HE'S BI-LINGUAL AND
HAS BECOME SOMETHING OF A JAILHOUSE LAWYER. HE RESISTS BEING REPRESENTED
BY THE PUBLIC DEFENDER -- WHOM HE REFERS TO AS 'WRONGWAY' CONWAY -- IN
HIS PENDING DOMESTIC CASE. AND THE ERRONEOUS RAP-SHEET RESTS AT THE HEART
OF HIS INTRANSIGENCE.
ARROYO SAYS HE HAD MISDEMEANORS, BUT NO FELONY CONVICTIONS
PRIOR TO A DOMESTIC BLOWUP WITH HIS THEN GIRLFRIEND AT NEWCASTLE IN JULY
OF 2001. INITIALLY MISDEMEANOR CHARGES WERE FILED AGAINST HIM IN THE MATTER;
HE GOT FREE ON A $1,500 BOND, HE SAYS, AND WAS DETERMINED, HE SAYS, TO
FIGHT THE CHARGES IN COURT. HE GOT A JOB AND A PLACE TO LIVE IN GLENWOOD
SRINGS, HE SAYS, BUT WAS INFORMED LATER THAT HIS BOND HAD BEEN REVOKED.
THE DA, APPARENTLY, HAD FILED NEW FELONY CHARGES IN THE WAKE OF A FOLLOWUP
POLICE INTERVIEW WITH THE GIRLFRIEND WHO TOLD THEM OF AN EARLIER INCIDENT
INVOLVING ALLEGED MENACING BY ARROYO WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER.
ARROYO WAS RE-ARRESTED AND COULDN'T MAKE THE NEW FELONY
BAIL OF $6,000, HE SAYS. HE FIGURES THE DA WANTED HIM IN JAIL WHERE HE
WOULD BE FORCED TO COP A PLEA IN ORDER TO GET OUT. ONCE IN JAIL, ARROYO
SAYS, HE WENT BEFORE A JUDGE AND ASKED FOR A BOND REDUCTION. THE JUDGE
SAID NO.
"I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG WHEN THE JUDGE SAID I HAD A FAILURE TO APPEAR IN MONTE VISTA, AND I'D NEVER BEEN TO MONTE VISTA," HE SAYS. "I WAS IGNORANT AND DIDN'T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON OR WHAT TO ASK."
ARROYO SAYS PUBLIC DEFENDER JAMES CONWAY ENCOURAGED HIM
TO SIGN A PLEA BARGAIN WHICH WOULD INCLUDE A GUILTY PLEA TO FELONY MENACING
(WITH A FIRE EXTINGUISHER) PLUS A DEFERRED JAIL SENTENCE AND PROBATION.
(EFFORTS TO REACH CONWAY FOR THIS SERIES HAVE BEEN UNSUCCESSFUL).
"I FELT LIKE I COULD BEAT THE CHARGES," ARROYO
SAYS, "BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO SPEND SEVERAL MONTHS IN JAIL WAITING
FOR THE TRIAL SO I SIGNED. I NEVER SAW THE NCIC (FLAWED) PRINTOUT. I NEVER
KNEW IT EXISTED."
MCCRORY SAYS, "THE FIRST THING YOU DO AS A DEFENSE
ATTORNEY, YOU GET THAT (RAP-SHEET) FROM THE DA AND TALK TO YOUR CLIENT.
THE FIRST THING YOU WANT TO KNOW IS WHAT YOUR CLIENT'S DONE. IF THE DA
DIDN'T PROVIDE IT (THE RAP-SHEET), IT'S A DISCOVERY VIOLATION."
THEORIZING THAT THE PUBLIC DEFENDER, CONWAY, SAW THE
FLAWED RAP-SHEET, MCCRORY SAYS, "IF THERE HAD BEEN TWO PRIOR FELONY
CONVICTIONS (AS THE RAP-SHEET INDICATED), A DEFERRED SENTENCE PLEA-BARGAIN
WOULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD DEAL." HE EXPLAINS THAT A CONVICTION AT TRIAL
UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD HAVE MEANT A STIFF PRISON SENTENCE WITH
NO PROBATION UNLESS THE DA AGREED.
A YEAR OR SO LATER, AFTER ANOTHER BLOWUP AT NEWCASTLE WITH
THE SAME GIRLFRIEND, ARROYO FACED FELONY MENACING CHARGES AGAIN. THIS
TIME THE WEAPON ALLEGEDLY WAS A CLAW HAMMER. ARROYO RETAINED PRIVATE ATTORNEY
KATHY GOUDY WHO CONFIRMED TO THIS NEWSPAPER THAT ARROYO'S 7/25/01 RAP-WHEET
HAD BEEN IN ERROR. ARROYO SAYS HE LEARNED OF THE FLAWED NCIC PRINTOUT
FROM HER.
A JURY ACQUITTED HIM OF FIVE OF THE SIX NEWSCASTLE CHARGES,
INCLUDING THE FELONY MENACING (WITH A CLAW HAMMER). HE WAS CONVICTED OF
A MISDEMEANOR -- HARASSMENT -- 'INSULTS, TAUNTS AND CHALLENGES.' BUT THE
CONVICTION WAS A PROBATION VIOLATION BASED ON ARROYO'S EARLIER PLEA-BARGAIN,
AND HE WENT BACK TO JAIL IN GLENWOOD SPRINGS, BUT NOT BEFORE HIS THROAT
ALLEGEDLY GOT SLASHED IN AN UNRELATED ALLEGED MURDER ATTEMPT. (PART 3
SOON)
late-breaking bulletin -- aspen furrier kathy denson 'not guilty' 8/25/03
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
EAGLE, CO., 8/22/03 -- Writer Jack Kerouac followed Denver
speed freak Neal Cassady everywhere, taking notes.
Coast to Coast they roamed. And even into Mexico.
The novel, "On the road," resulted.
It depicted Cassady as a Dionysian. . . a jazz lover with
an oil-burner drug habit, who drove fast and talked faster, a veritable
heart-break kid for a series of women scattered from hell to breakfast
like so many pieces of discarded tissue paper.
In "On the Road," Kerouac invested Cassady's wild-man
traits into the fictional character Dean Moriarty. Sometimes on the pair's
low-roller trips, Kerouac and Cassady hitch-hiked. Sometimes they'd contract
to drive somebody's car cross-coutry. And sometimes Cassady would hot-wire
a car in Denver for a drive into the Rockies to spend time in towns like
Aspen and Black Hawk.
I couldn't keep Cassady out of my mind this morning as
I sat in the austere Eagle County courtroom and listened to murder trial
testimony recounting the life of drug-addled Texas pretty boy Gerald Cody
Boyd, who wandered into the Rockies, leaving a trail of broken female
hearts, only to wind up with his own heart broken -- by a bullet from
a 44-caliber black powder revolver -- after he showed up coked up at a
former girlfriend's ranch "to pick up something he forgot,"
the saying goes, "and it ran flat-assed over him.
Enter criminal defense attorney Scott Robinson, representing
Kathy Denson, wealthy owner of the Draggin A Ranch, plus several fur stores
in Aspen and Vail, now on trial for alleged second degree murder in connection
with the shooting death of Cody Boyd in her ranch home. She could get
16 to 48 years.
The last time I covered one of attorney Scott Robinson's
trials was a decade or so ago in Denver where he defended James King,
a former Denver police officer accused of killing a slew of security guards
at a bank there and making of with tens of thousands of dollars in a robbery
known as the "Father's Day Massacre."
King, also a former security guard at the bank himself,
didn't have an alibi, in my dim recollection of the trial, other than
that he was driving around Denver looking for his chess club meeting,
apparently unaware that his club had disbanded two years earlier. There
were bank tellers at the trial who had told cops they could identify King
as the robber but, under skillful cross examination by Robinson, seemed
to change their minds. Robinson exuded the image of your ideal next door
neighbor, with JFK hair and youthfulness. He seemed to be on nobody's
side, not even his client's. His attitude seemed to convey, "I just
want to get to the bottom of this and see what really happened. Let's
all put our heads together and figure it out." Within the first ten
minutes Robinson had the members of the jury sewed up, so far as gaining
their trust. It was suposed to be an "open and shut case," against
King. But King never even took the stand and Robinson walked him out of
there a free man after the jury returned a "not guilty," verdict.
One of DA's prosecuting King, in what may have been a post-trial
breakdown, was nabbed a few days later for allegedly trying to steal a
vacuum cleaner from Sears. I don't know the outcome of the prosecutor's
predicament. He may have retained attorney Scott Robinson and got off.
Or the whole thing about the vacuum may have been a big misunderstanding.
Whatever, at least the Denver prosecutor made it through all of King's
trial, which is more than I can say right now for Eagle Deputy DA, Greg
Crittenden, himself pitted against attorney Scott Robinson in the prosecution
of Kathy Denson here. As I sit typing this in the Denny's parking lot
at Avon, where I spent last night, I've just learned that Deputy DA Crittenden
has suffered a seizure this morning, and that closing statements in the
trial, which were scheduled to commence today, have been postponed until
Monday.
Kathy Denson is pleading self-defense in the trial. She
also has testified that Cody (who has described himself on occasion as
a hit man) told Kathy he would kill her son if she didn't give him $300,000.
The day before the murder, Cody who was then living with
Monique Seebacher, approached Kathy for money to open a pawn shop, according
to Kathy's testimony. He also needed Kathy's gun safe, she said. He wanted
her to give him "Dimples," the Peterbilt truck she had bought
for his use. He intimated that someone needed to help him buy a house
in Vail, Kathy testified. "I didn't want to fund the things he wanted
to do," Kathy said. The next day, the day of the shooting, Cody arrived
uninvited, according to Kathy. The two argued as they sat at a glass top
antler table in Kathy's house. The gun, an antique replica revolver, sat
on the table.
"Is your son's life worth $300,000?" Cody asked
Cathy, according to her testimony.
She described the scene: "Cody pushed me back, the
rolled back and tipped over the plant. I grabbed the gun. Mitchell, (a
family friend) called. Kathy told him, "It's OK," and I hung
up the phone. "I set the gun down. Cody grabbed it. I grabbed it
out of his hand." Said Cody, "You're going to hurt yourself
with this." He walked away, then came toward her. "If you won't
give me the money, then we'll start with you first," he said. Those
were his last words. She fired one shot.
"I thought he would kill me if I didn't shoot him,"
she said. "He was falling backwards and backwards, farther and farther.
I thought he was faking. I meant to pull the trigger, I meant to shoot
him, but I didn't mean to kill him. I remember him dead everyday."
When Gerald Cody Boyd's mother, Mary Jo Boyd, took the stand
several days earlier, she said about her son, "He loved the ladies
and the ladies loved him. She said Cody had told her once he was a "hit
man," but she figured it was the "tequila talking. She described
him as even-tempered "like his father," but that drugs broke
up his second marriage. . .that he was a long-haul trucker and he started
taking pills to stay awake in order to make deliveries on schedule. "He
hated the drugs," she said. "He was afraid that without them
he would lose his job." She said he told her once that he had some
grass he wasn't going to smoke because Willie Nelson gave it to him. She
also said he played guitar and jammed one day in her Austin home with
a dark-haired man whom she later learned was Jerry Garcia.
How long was Cody divorced the second time? "Not long,"
she said, "the next wife, Debbie, lived across the street. Mary Jo
Boyd said Cody had known and liked Debbie since fifth grade. On page 1
of today's issue Debbie Griffith is pictured. Debbie married movie actress
Melanie Griffith's father after she and Cody divorced. Debbie, who was
married to Cody nearly ten years, testified that Cody never exhibited
violent behavior with her, even though she had once filed a restraining
order on him. Debbie has filed a suit against Kathy (also pictured on
pg. 1) on behalf of Cody's and her daughter, Callie, age 12. In another
photo on pg 1 is Monique Seebacher, Cody's girlfriend at the time he and
Kathy were breaking up. Monique was also an employee of Kathy's at one
of the fur stores (and resides in a condo owned by Kathy) but Kathy fired
her after the shooting. Monique gave Cody a $1,000 gold chain. Kathy gave
Cody $100,000 cash, a $5,500 Rolex watch, a $600 ring, several guns and
a place to live. In closing, concerning Cody's appeal to women, this excerpt
from "On the Road," comes to mind:
". . . . . . because the only people for me are
the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved,
desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say
a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles
exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the
blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"
KNIFE VICTIM GETS JAIL, PROBATION
KEEP SCROLLING FOR ARCHIVES STORIES SINCE
1982, ABOUT THE ASPEN FREE PRESS, WHICH APPEARED IN ROCKY
MOUNTAIN NEWS, THE NEW YORK TIMES, COWBOYS&INDIANS, ASPEN THE MAGAZINE ETC.
. MARTIN ARROYO RESISTED HELPING DA PROSECUTE THE ATTORNEY DONALD BRANSON ON CHARGES OF FIRST-DEGREE ATTEMPTED MURDER AND FIRST DEGREE ASSAULT.
BY STERLING GREENWOOD (6/4/03)
IN THE DAYS AND WEEKS FOLLOWING THE
ALLEGED KNIFE ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE MARTIN ARROYO, LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES
REMAINED UNABLE TO SECURE ARROYO'S COOPERATION IN THE PROSECUTION OF THE
DEFENDANT, ATTORNEY DONALD E BRANSON.
THE PROSECUTION NEEDED A BLOOD SAMPLE
FROM ARROYO TO COMPARE TO THE BLOOD FOUND AT THE ALLEGED CRIME SCENE,
A REMOTE AREA OUTDOORS NEAR OLD SNOWMASS.
ARROYO BALKED.
AND AT ONE POINT, JOE DISALVO, PITKIN
COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT CHIEF INVESTIGATOR, PONDERED RETRIEVING FROM
HIS OFFICE WASTE BASKET A BLOODY THROW-AWAY NAPKIN INTO WHICH ARROYO HAD
BLOWN HIS NOSE.
ALL THIS CAME OUT THIS MORNING, JUNE
4, 2003, IN A COURTHOUSE HEARING BEFORE JAMES BOYD ON A MOTION BY DEFENSE
ATTORNEY GARY LOZOW TO DISQUALIFY THE NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S
OFFICE WHICH OVERSEES DEPUTY DAs IN PITKIN, RIO BLANCO AND GARFIELD COUNTIES.
BRANSON HAS PLEADED NOT GUILTY TO
CHARGES HE SLICED ARROYO'S THROAT WITH A KNIFE IN AN ATTEMPT TO MURDER
HIM THIS PAST APRIL 9.
GIVING TESTIMONY TODAY, DISALVO SAID
THE PROSECUTION NEEDED ARROYO'S BLOOD FOR A COMPARISON OF BLOOD FOUND
AT THE SCENE AND ON BRANSON.
WHEN ARROYO MISSED HIS SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT
FOR BLOOD TO BE DRAWN, DISALVO SAID, "I CONTACTED MR. ARROYO AND
ASKED HIM WHY HE DIDN'T SHOW UP."
"DID YOU CALL HIM TO CHANGE HIS
MIND?" LOZOW ASKED.
"YES," SAID DISALVO. "HIS
GENERAL COOPERATION WAS IMPORTANT TO THE FUTURE OF THE CASE."
"YOU KNEW ARROYO WAS A RECALCITRANT OR RETICENT WITNESS,"
LOZOW SAID. "YOU HAD TOLD MR. WILLS (DEPUTY DA LAWSON WILLS)?
"YES."
"ON APRIL 23, YOU RECEIVED A CALL FROM MR. ARROYO THAT
HE WASN'T GOING TO GIVE BLOOD OR COOPERATE?" ASKED LAZOW.
"OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST TEN DAYS HE HAD CHANGED
HIS MIND SEVERAL TIMES," DISALVO RESPONDED.
"DID YOU CALL MR. WILLS ABOUT THE BLOODY TISSUE EPISODE?"
LOZOW SAID.
"I TALKED WITH HIM FACE TO FACE," DISALVO REPLIED.
"WILLS WAS DIRECTLY INVOLVED WITH PRELIMINARY ISSUES
IN THE CASE?" LOZOW SAID.
"THIS WAS IDEA SHARING OR BRAIN-STORMING," REPLIED
DISALVO.
ONE DEFENSE THEME THIS MORNING WAS TO SUGGEST THAT ARROYO
ACQUIESCED TO A BLOOD TEST APRIL 30 ONLY AFTER BEING THREATENED WITH LOSS
OF 'VICTIMS COMPENSATION MONEY,' IF HE REFUSED TO COOPERATE.
"HE (ARROYO) NEGOTIATED WITH YOU," LOZOW SAID
TO DISALVO.
"YES," DISALVO AGREED.
"YOU TOLD MR. WILLS?"
"POSSIBILY," SAID DISALVO.
DEPUTY DA LAWSON WILLS THIS MORNING ELICITED TESTIMONY FROM
DISALVO TO THE EFFECT THAT ARROYO DIDN'T WANT TO GET BLOOD DRAWN BECAUSE
HE HAS HAD A LONG-STANDING FEAR OF NEEDLES SINCE CHILDHOOD.
ARROYO LOOKS LIKE A MOVIE STAR, WITH A DEEP RESONANT VOICE.
HE OUGHT TO BE IN HOLLYWOOD DOING SCREEN TESTS INSTEAD OF BEING MIRED
IN THESE GRIM PROCEEDINGS.
ARROYO, AFTER BEING SWORN IN TO TESTIFY, DEPICTS ATTORNEY
BRANSON AS ONE WHO RAN UP BILLS AT EX-WIFE PAMELA BRANSON'S HOUSE, WHERE
ARROYO RESIDES. ARROYO'S VICTIM'S COMP MONEY -- SOME $1,600 -- WENT FOR
PAYING BILLS THAT BRANSON RAN UP, HE SAYS.
"DON (BRANSON) HAD BORROWED A LOT OF MONEY, AND A LOT
OF BILLS WEREN'T PAID," ARROYO SAID.
"YOU PAID THEM," DEPUTY DA WILLS SAID.
"YES," REPLIED ARROYO, "CAME OUT OF MY POCKET.
HE'S RIPPED OFF QUITE A FEW PEOPLE WILLING TO TESTIFY."
ARROYO, IN WHAT INITIALLY APPEARED TO BE AN APPARENT CONTRADICTION
OF DISALVO'S EARLIER TESTIMONY, SAID HE HAD NEVER FEARED BRANSON. WHEN
QUESTIONED FURTHER BY WILLS, ARROYO INDICATED THAT PAMELA BRANSON, WITH
WHOM HE RESIDES, , HAD FEARED FOR HER LIFE.
"YOU HAD FEAR FOR MRS. BRANSON," WILLS SAID.
"YES I DID," SAID ARROYO.
SOME QUESTIONING OF ARROYO BY LOZOW FOLLOWS:
"YOU HAVE TWICE BEEN PROSECUTED BY A DA IN GLENWOOD
SPRINGS?"
"YES," SAID ARROYO.
"SHE SAID YOU WERE A LIAR. IS THAT CORRECT?"
"YES."
"OBJECTION," SAID WILLS. "I DOUBT SHE USED
THAT WORD."
"OVERRULED," SAID JUDGE BOYD. "THE WITNESS
IS GIVING HIS IMPRESSION."
"WAS SHE SAYING TO THE COURT THAT YOU SHOULD BE INCARCERATED,"
LOZOW CONTINUED.
"CHECK THE TRANSCRIPT," SAID ARROYO.
"DO YOU KNOW MR. WILLS AND MISS LACEY WORK FOR THE
SAME BOSS?"
"I DON'T KNOW WHO WORKS FOR WHO," SAID ARROYO.
"DID YOU TALK WITH DISALVO ON AN ALMOST DAILY BASIS?"
"I DON'T KNOW IF I TALKED TO HIM ON A DAILY BASIS.
I DIDN'T JOT IT DOWN -- AS TO THE DAY, HOUR, MINUTE."
"WAS HE CALLING YOU FAIRLY FREQUENTLY?"
"WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER FAIRLY FREQUENTLY?"
"HOW MANY TIMES DID YOU TALK WITH MR. WILLS THE FIRST
WEEK AFTER THE ASSAULT?"
"I DON'T RECALL."
"DID YOU TELL MR. WILLS YOU DIDN'T WANT TO COOPERATE?"
"I DON'T RECALL."
"DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT YOU TALKED TO MR. WILLS ABOUT?"
"NO."
"HAVE YOU TALKED WITH MR. WILLS ON THE PHONE?"
"WHEN?"
"YOU GOT MONEY FROM VICTIM'S COMPENSATION. BEFORE OR
AFTER THE BLOOD TEST?"
"AFTER."
DEPUTY DAs IN PITKIN COUNTY, SUCH AS LAWSON WILLS, WORK
UNDER SUPERVISION OF THE NINTH JUDICIAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY, MAC MYERS OF
GLENWOOD SPRINGS WHO IS ELECTED.
ARROYO IS SCHEDULED TO BE SENTENCED IN GLENWOOD SPRINGS
JUNE 12, ON A FELONY MENACING CONVICTION, APPARENTLY UNRELATED TO THESE
ASPEN PROCEEDINGS IN WHICH ARROYO IS THE ALLEGED VICTIM AND CRUCIAL TO
THE DA's CASE AGAINST DONALD BRANSON.
IT'S THE CONTENTION OF BRANSON'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY, GARY
LOZOW, THAT THERE IS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST FOR DEPUTY DAs IN THE NINTH
JUDICIAL DISTRICT TO BE PROMOTING ARROYO AS AN INNOCENT VICTIM IN THE
CASE AGAINST BRANSON -- WHO, IF FOUND GUILTY, COULD RECEIVE A PRISON SENTENCE
OF UP TO FORTY-EIGHT YEARS --ALL THE WHILE CASTING ASPERSIONS ON ARROYO'S
CREDIBILITY IN THE GLENWOOD SPRINGS CASE.
EVEN THOUGH THE CASES INVOLVE DIFFERENT DEPUTY PROSECUTING
ATTORNEYS OPERATING IN DIFFERENT OFFICES OF THE DISTRICT, THE DEPUTY PROSECUTORS
HAVE TWO THINGS IN COMMON, THE DEFENSE THEORIZES -- BOTH GET THEIR PAYCHECKS
FROM THE SAME PLACE AND THEY HAVE THE SAME BOSS, MAC MYERS.
DEPUTY DA LAWSON WILLS VEHEMENTLY DISAGREES. HE CONTENDS
THE OFFICES IN GLENWOOD AND ASPEN OPERATE IN EFFECT AUTONOMOUSLY. JUDGE
BOYD IS EXPECTED TO DECIDE THE MATTER LATER THIS MONTH.
STAY TUNED.
STROKE VICTIM BLAMES
'THE PILL' IN ASPEN TRIAL BY STERLING GREENWOOD 5/28/03
I GRAB A 35-CENT SENIOR COKE AT MCDONALD'S, THEN RUN TO
THE COURTHOUSE FOR THE PRELIMINARY HEARING OF DONALD BRANSON. HE'S THE
ALLEGED KNIFE-WIELDING LAWYER ACCUSED OF TRYING TO MURDER THE BOYFRIEND
OF HIS EX-WIFE WHOM FUGITIVE DOUG MICHALOWSKY GAVE AN ASPEN HOUSE TO BEFORE
HE WENT ON THE LAM, BUT THAT'S ANOTHER STORY.
ON THE STAIRS AT THE COURTHOUSE, I BUMP INTO A PLEASANT
GUY IN A NICE SUIT. "HAS IT STARTED?" I GASP.
"THERE'S A TRIAL GOING ON, IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN,"
HE REPLIES. I RUSH INTO COURT TO SIT IN THE FIRST PEW. NO OTHER SPECTATORS,
YET. NO BRANSON. HE'S A 6'5" POOR MAN'S WILLIAM HURT, HARD TO MISS.
NO DEPUTY DA LAWSON WILLS, EITHER.
WHAT'S GOING ON?
A GLAMOROUS WOMAN WITH CASCADING STREAKED BLONDE HAIR
SITS AT THE 'DEFENSE' TABLE. SHE'S WEARING A DARK PANTS SUIT, ALL BUSINESS.
MUST BE BRANSON'S LAWYER. THEN THE GUY I TALKED WITH ON THE STAIRS COMES
IN TO SIT NEXT TO HER. IT TURNS OUT HE'S DR. LAWRENCE R. MENCONI AND HE'S
A DEFENDANT, ALONG WITH ASPEN CENTER FOR WOMEN'S HEALTH; AND I'M NOT AT
BRANSON'S PRELIM. I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A FULL-BLOWN MEDICAL MALPRACTICE
TRIAL.
THE HEAVY COURTROOM DOOR OPENS AGAIN AND THEY ROLL IN THIS
WOMAN IN A SQUEAKY WHEEL CHAIR AND PARK HER AT THE PLAINTIFF'S TABLE WITH
HER ASPEN ATTORNEY, MARTIN FREEMAN.
LATER IN THESE PROCEEDINGS I SEE HER EXTEND HER FINGERS
TO INTERMINGLE WITH FREEMAN'S.
HER NAME IS COLLEEN DALY. SHE'S CLAIMING SHE TOOK SOME BIRTH
CONTROL PILLS AND HAS BEEN IN A WHEEL CHAIR DUE TO A STROKE BECAUSE OF
IT FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS.
SOMETIME DURING ALL THIS, THE DEFENSE LAWYER IN THE PANTS SUIT TELLS ME HER NAME IS LISA LEASURE. SHE'S
WITH THE DENVER FIRM OF COOPER AND CLOUGH. THERE ARE A LOT OF MEDICAL
TERMS BEING BANDIED ABOUT -- LIKE "ABSOLUTE CONTRA-INDICATIONS"
-- IN THIS ROOM TODAY. I DIVIDE MY TIME BETWEEN THIS TRIAL AND BRANSON'S
PRELIM WHICH I EVENTUALLY FIND DOWNSTAIRS.
BRANSON'S ATTORNEY GARY LOZOW WANTS TO DISQUALIFY THE DA.
HE SAYS HE'S GOING TO FILE A MOTION TO THAT EFFECT. IT SEEMS BRANSON'S
ALLEGED VICTIM, MARTIN ARROYO, WHO HAS ACCUSED BRANSON OF COMING UP BEHIND
HIM WITH A KNIFE AND CUTTING HIS THROAT, IS GOING TO BE SENTENCED HIMSELF
SOON ON A FELONY MENACING CONVICTION BEING HANDLED BY THE NINTH JUDICIAL
DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE THAT IS IS PROSECUTING BRANSON.
BRANSON'S LAWYER DOESN'T LIKE IT THAT THE DA'S OFFICE WILL
BE DESCRIBING ARROYO AS A BADASS IN ONE CASE, WHILE PROMOTING ARROYO AS
AN INNOCENT VICTIM IN THE CASE AGAINST BRANSON.
BRANSON'S LAWYER IS ALSO PISSED BECAUSE ARROYO'S ATTENDING
PHYSICIAN, IN THE WAKE OF THE ALLEGED KNIFE INCIDENT IN A REMOTE AREA
OUTDOORS NEAR OLD SNOWMASS, WON'T TALK TO DEFENSE INVESTIGATOR DAVE OLMSTED
IN CONNECTION WITH ARROYO'S ALLEGED "SERIOUS BODILY INJURY."
BRANSON'S LAWYER WANTS ARROY'S PHYSICIAN TO ELABORATE. ARROYO DIDN'T CHOOSE
TO GO DIRECTLY TO ASPEN VALLEY HOSPITAL AFTER THE ALLEGED KNIFING BY BRANSON,
BUT INSTEAD WENT FIRST TO THE HOME OF BRANSON'S EX-WIFE PAMELA BRANSON,
AT 1230 COOPER AVE., WHERE BRANSON ALSO RESIDED.
DEPUTY DA LAWSON WILLS SAYS ARROYO'S PHYSICIAN WILL BE INTRODUCED
AT TRIAL AS AN EXPERT IN FORENSIC MEDICINE AND WILL SHOW THAT THE ALLEGED
ATTACK ON ARROYO CAME FROM BEHIND, LEAVING HIM WITH A SLICED THROAT. WILLS
SAYS THE PHYSICIAN'S REFUSAL TO SPEAK WITH BRANSON'S INVESTIGATOR IS HIS
"RIGHT," THOUGH WILLS SAYS HE ENCOURAGES ALL OF HIS WITNESSES
TO TALK TO BOTH SIDES. NOT CONCEDING AN IOTA ON ANY ISSUE WITH THE DEFENSE,
WILLS SAYS THE DOC'S TESTIMONY WILL DEAL WITH MORE THAN THE DEFINITION
OF "SERIOUS BODILY INJURY." A NEW LAW IS IN EFFECT THAT MAKES
DOCS SQUEAMISH ABOUT DISCUSSING THEIR PATIENTS' MEDICAL HISTORY, AND ARROYO'S
PHYSICIAN DID NOT FEEL HE HAD SUFFICIENT CLEARANCE FROM ARROYO TO DISCUSS
ARROYO MEDICALLY WITH INVESTIGATOR DAVE OLMSTED. INVESTIGATING FOR THE
DA IS JOE DISALVO. IT LOOKS LIKE JUDGE JAMES BOYD WILL GRANT A CONTINUANCE
HERE.
MEANWHILE BACK AT THE MEDICAL MALPRACTICE TRIAL, SOME SCATTERSHOT
SNATCHES FOLLOW:
-- FREEMAN SAYS DALY WAS ON ORAL BIRTH CONTROL PILLS AS
A TEENAGER, BUT "THEY GAVE HER MIGRAINES."
--JUDGE THOMAS OSSALA SAYS, "YOU KNOW HOW YOU USED
TO GO TO THE RESTROOM AT A GAS STATION AND THEY'D GIVE YOU A KEY WITH
A BIG THING ATTACHED TO IT SO YOU WOULDN'T DRIVE OFF WITH IT? THAT'S WHY
I WANT BINDERS ON THESE EXHIBITS.
-- I ALSO HEAR THE FETCHING ATTORNEY LISA LEASURE ASK TERESA
ON THE STAND IF SHE OWNS FIFTY PERCENT OF THE STOCK OF ASPEN CENTER FOR
WOMEN'S HEALTH.
-- I SEE A MEMBER OF THE FIVE-WOMAN, TWO-MAN JURY TAKE A
SWIG OF BOTTLED WATER.
-- IN REFERENCE TO ALL THE COMPLICATED MEDICAL TERMS, I
HEAR JUDGE OSSALA SAY, "THE JURY DOES NOT GET EVERYTHING BOTH ORALLY
AND IN WRITING. IT'S ONE OR THE OTHER."
-- I HEAR ATTORNEY FREEMAN SAY TO TERESA HALL ON THE STAND,
"WILL YOU PLEASE READ PARAGRAPH 5 TO YOURSELF."
-- THERE'S A BIG SCREEN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM FOR SLIDES
OF MEDICAL RECORDS AND OTHER TRIAL-RELATED DATA. THE BATTLE SEEMS TO BE
JUST HOW MUCH OF ALL THIS THE JURY IS GOING TO UNDERSTAND.
-- THEN FREEMAN ASKS ABOUT SOME BIRTH CONTROL PILLS AT ASPEN
CENTER FOR WOMEN'S HEALTH: "DO YOU RECALL THEY WERE MARKED 'SAMPLE
NOT FOR SALE?'"
-- I HEAR LEASURE ASK HALL, "IS THERE A MESSAGE FROM
JUNE OF '98 THAT DALY CALLED TO ASK WHEN TO START TAKING HER BIRTH CONTROL
PILLS?" HALL ANSWERS, "NO." LEASURE CONTINUES, "IS
THERE AN OVERHEAD CUPBOARD WHERE SAMPLES ARE KEPT?" THEN LEASURE
HOLDS OUT TO HALL A PACKAGE OF BIRTH CONTROL PILLS. "DO YOU RECOGNIZE
THIS PACKAGE?" LEASURE ENTERS THE PACKAGE AS EXHIBIT B-2. THE NAME
OF THE MEDICATION IS ORTHO-TRICYCLEN.
-- FREEMAN TO JUDGE OSSALA, "IS EVERYTHING IN THAT
PACKAGE ADMITTED AS EVIDENCE?"
-- "THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION," RESPONDS THE JUDGE.
-- "I'D LIKE TO OPEN THAT PACKAGE AND SEE WHAT'S IN
IT," FREEMAN SAYS.
JUDGE OSSALA RECESSES THE JURY. HE TURNS HIS GAZE TO ALL
THE LAWYERS IN THIS GOAT DANCE. A JUMBLED ACCOUNT OF WHAT HE SAYS FOLLOWS:
-- "WE ARE PLAYING OUT KING LEAR WHEN THE ACTORS ARE
IMPROVISING TO IMPROVE THEIR LINES."
-- "I DIDN'T FALL OFF A TURNIP TRUCK."
--"I WANT A BETTER HANDLING OF EXHIBITS."
--"I'M WORKING WITH A VERY SHORT STICK
--"SOMEBODY'S GOING TO HAVE TO ACCEPT THE CUSTODY OF
EXHIBITS."
--"YES, YOU CAN CUT THE PACKAGE OPEN."
MORE LATER.
GOT PROSTATE CANCER QUESTIONS? GO TO www.psa-rising.com
TEXAS ATTORNEY DON BRANSON, ACCUSED OF TRYING TO MURDER
THE BOYFRIEND OF HIS EX-WIFE WHOM FUGITIVE DOUG MICHALOWSKI GAVE AN ASPEN
HOUSE TO BEFORE HE WENT ON THE LAM, WAS ARRESTED FOR ALLEGED BAIL VIOLATION..
CONFUSED? IF SO, READ TODAY'S STREET EDITION OF THE ASPEN FREE PRESS.
6/13/03
BY STERLING GREENWOOD 6/13/03
Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying
to catch him Raymond Chandler.
I knew we'd won when we got that last bigot seated on the jury.
Racehorse Haynes
There was a big commotion on the Mill Street Mall outside. They had
Texas attorney Donald Branson, all six feet, five inches of him in cuffs
as revelers at the food and wine thing looked on in stunned disbelief.
It was at that point that I gave up my marathon haggling with the Discover
Card people. I phoned attorney Paul Taddune who loves to represent clients
in credit card bill disputes. He loves it about like Donald Branson, accused
of trying to murder his ex-wife's boyfriend, liked being shackled yesterday
in the midst of families with kids frolicking about on the mall.
"They're filming a TV series here," an onlooker commented.
"Do you owe $6,000, Attorney Taddune asked me me on the phone.
"Not that much," I said. "And if I do, there's no way
in hell I can pay it."
Taddune agreed to give them a call and from then the Discover Card bill
began falling. First to $4,492.76. Then to $3,200. . .just to get me out
of their lives.
Thanks Paul.
MEANWHILE, BACK TO BRANSON, far more interesting.
In telephone interviews with the Aspen Free Press, Martin Arroyo
said that attorney Donald Branson had prepared a will for his ex-wife,
Pamela Branson, to sign. According to Arroyo, Pamela signed the will,
which was notarized at Holland and Hart , on April 8, one day before a
knife-wielding Donald Branson allegedly attempted to slash Arroyo's throat
in a remote area outdoors near Old Snowmass. The will, according to Arroyo,
leaves Pamela's house to Donald Branson's son by a previous marriage.
More later, there's somebody weird at my door.
ASPEN, Colo. -- U.S. Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice joins the Aspen Music Festival and School and
the Aspen Institute in an afternoon of "Words and Music," Saturday, August
2, at 3 pm in the Benedict Music Tent. The event will begin with a conversation
between Secretary Rice and Aspen Institute President and CEO Walter Isaacson
followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience. Afterwards,
Secretary Rice will be joined by current Aspen Music Festival and School
music students to perform two chamber music works. Says Secretary Rice,
"I am honored to have been invited to return to the Aspen Music Festival
and School, and I am looking forward to performing with the students.
The Aspen Music Festival and School gives musicians the opportunity to
learn and cultivate their talents in one of the most inspirational settings
in our country. As a musician and educator myself, I value the vision
of this institution, and I am excited to take part in this year's festival."
Performed first will be the first movement of DvorakÕs Piano Quintet in
A major, B. 155, op. 81 and to follow will be the 2nd movement of BrahmsÕ
Piano Quintet in F minor, op. 34. Secretary Rice has said publicly that
her favorite composer is Brahms. Secretary Rice began piano lessons with
her grandmother when she was three and remains a devoted amateur player,
maintaining an active chamber group in Washington D.C. She attended the
Aspen Music Festival and School as a 17-year-old student pianist and consequently
decided a career in music was not in her future. Secretary Rice went on
to earn her PhD from the Graduate School of International Studies at the
University Denver. As professor of political science, she has been on
the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching
honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and
the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished
Teaching. Her books include Germany Unified and Europe Transformed (1995)
with Philip Zelikow, The Gorbachev Era (1986) with Alexander Dallin, and
Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984).
She also has authored numerous articles on Soviet and East European foreign
and defense policy. In June 1999, she completed a six-year tenure as StanfordÕs
provost, during which she was the institutionÕs chief budget and academic
officer. From 1989 through March 1991, Secretary Rice served in the first
Bush Administration as director, and then senior director, of Soviet and
East European affairs in the National Security Council, and a special
assistant to the president for national security affairs. Secretary Rice
became Secretary of State on January 26, 2005. Prior to this, she was
Assistant to President George W. Bush for National Security Affairs, commonly
referred to as the National Security Advisor, since January 2001. The
event will take place on Saturday, August 2 at 3 pm in the Benedict Music
Tent. Tickets are $60 and $30 and are available at the AMFS box offices
at Harris Concert Hall or the Wheeler Opera House, or by calling 970-925-9042
or visiting www.aspenmusicfestival.com. The Aspen Institute mission is
twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to
reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide
a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues.
The Aspen Institute does this primarily in four ways: 1) Seminars, which
help participants reflect on what they think makes a good society, thereby
deepening knowledge, broadening perspectives and enhancing their capacity
to solve the problems leaders face. 2) Young-leader fellowships around
the globe, which bring a selected class of proven leaders together for
an intense multi-year program and commitment. The fellows become better
leaders and apply their skills to significant challenges. 3) Policy programs,
which serve as nonpartisan forums for analysis, consensus building, and
problem solving on a wide variety of issues. 4) Public conferences and
events, which provide a commons for people to share ideas. The Institute
is based in Washington, DC and Aspen, Colorado and has an international
network of partners. The Aspen Music Festival and School is the United
StatesÕ premier classical music festival, led by music director David
Zinman and presenting more than 350 musical events during its nine-week
summer season in Aspen, including orchestra concerts, opera, chamber music,
lectures, and children's events. The institution draws top classical musicians
from around the world to this charming Colorado mountain retreat for an
unparalleled combination of performances and music education. More than
25 percent of events are free and seating on the David Karetsky Music
Lawn and in the Music Garden is always free. Next summer the festival
will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The AMFS has five orchestras composed
of top professionals and music students, many already beginning their
professional careers. Hailing from 40 states and 40 countries, the 750
students begin vying for a spot as early as October of the previous year.
Renowned alumni include violinists Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Cho-Liang
Lin, Robert McDuffie, Midori, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Gil Shaham;
pianists Ingrid Fliter, Orli Shaham and Joyce Yang; conductors Marin Alsop,
James Conlon, James Levine and Leonard Slatkin; composers William Bolcom,
Philip Glass, Bright Sheng and Joan Tower; vocalists RenŽe Fleming and
Dawn Upshaw; cellists Lynn Harrell and Alisa Weilerstein; performer Peter
Schickele; and bassist Edgar Meyer. ###
KNIFE VICTIM GETS
JAIL, PROBATION
Unrelated case snags DA's star witness against attorney
Don Branson
UPDATE: BRANSON MAKES BAIL 5/7/03
By Sterling Greenwood, 4/25/03
Alleged knife victim Martin Arroyo whose crucial testimony could send
attorney Donald Branson to prison for forty-eight years on attempted murder
and assault charges, was himself sentenced to sixty days jail and six
months probation yesterday in an unrelated Glenwood Springs case.
Arroyo, 37, who police say suffered a sliced throat by a knife-wielding Branson in a grisly incident which unfolded in a remote area outdoors near Old Snowmass on April 9, will face more sentencing still in Glenwood Springs, June 12, on a felony menacing conviction in yet another case. read entire story...
UPCOMING: WHERE IS DOUGLAS MICHALOWSKI? MEET MARTIN
ARROYO, BORN IN BROOKLYN AND REARED ON LONG ISLAND.
FEB 9, 2009 -- -- SENIOR COKES AT McDONALD'S
IN ASPEN; WAITING FOR > THE STIMULUS PACKAGE -- part one in an occasional
Lost on Stimulants series by > Sterling > Greenwood -- I live upstairs
in the building with McDonald's > downstairs > so I come here often. In
the past I've even done layout > for a few > issues > of the Aspen Free
Press, at this very table where I'm > typing now. > Some mornings, when
I can't get sufficiently waked > up to > even dress, I stumble down to
McDonald's in my bathrobe > for the > senior > coffee, plus a senior coke.
> Before they put up that sign, I used to get the coke and > coffee, take
> the liquids drinks back upstairs where I live, then all during > the
day > run down > to McDonald's for free refills. Now there's a sign on
the > soft > drink > dispenser, probably meant for me and others of my
ilk > which says, > "Free > refills are for dine-in customers only." Whoa!!
> I never used to hang out here. I'd get my senior coke and > senior coffee
> and hit the road. But, because of the sign, I became a > dine-in > customer,
> dining exclusively on senior cokes and senior coffee -- no > burgers,
> fries or anything else -- and getting as many refills as > I want >
so long > as I don't leave McDonald's. I can't leave McDonald's. > Otherwise,
> when > I come back I have to buy a whole new senior coffee for > sixty-three
> cents, tax included, and a whole new senior coke for > sixty-four >
cents > tax included. Both used to be about twenty-seven cents > each.
That > was > a deal! > I've got my computer with me today to keep tabs
online about > whether > President Obama's economic stimulus package gets
passed > in the > Senate. > There's supposed to be a vote at 3:30pm. So
I've got > another four > hours > of drinking free cokes and coffee refills.
I ought to be > pretty > wired > by then. > Much of Obama's proposed $800
billion bailout would benefit > ailing > credit card companies and banks
that issue credit cards, > My Uncle > Clarence > taught me early on that
sometimes a person can make too > good a > deal > for hisself.. And it
looks like some banks and credit card > companies made > too > good a
deal for themselves. They got massive numbers of > consumers to pay >
sky-high > interest rates on their credit cards charges and now, as >
you'll > see if you > keep reading this > drivel, > the consumers aren't
coming across with the bucks. > > When I was 13 and bought a motor scooter
> from > Sears > for my paper > route, > there was no variable interest
rate and I knew to the day > when my > debt would be satisfied. I had
36 months > of payments, > $23 every month, then I owed nothing. > If
you have a credit card > and pay the minimum required amount each month,
ask a your card rep how long it will > take > you to > pay the whole thing
off? > The > answer > might surprise you. > If there's any real money
involved, my guess is you'll be dead > and > buried long before. > CNN
says if you owe just $2,000 on a card and > pay > the minimum amount,
together with 14 percent interest, > it'll take > fourteen > years to
pay the thing off. Picture paying 30 percent > interest on > $20k. > It's
boggling, but even more boggling is CNN's report that > American > consumers
charged $2.2 trillion in purchases and cash > advances in > 2007. > Remember
how hot the economy got that year? Too bad it > was fueled > largely >
by the expectation of money that has yet to materialize. > Ever > wonder
> about the last person to buy into a chain letter? > A CNN report also
indicates that the number of credit card > delinquencies are higher >
now than > they've been in several years. The Earth Times says some >
twelve > million > Americans > have yet to pay off their 2007 holiday
debt and that five > percent > are > behind in payments. The Times reports,
too, that > Innovest has > > projected the credit card companies > won't
> collect even a buck for every ten owed -- should current trends continue
-- and will wind up > writing > off > $100 billion in uncollected debts.
Some credit cards are > increasing > their interest rates because of all
the no-pays. > Timesonline.com > reports > that Capitol One raised rates
for some card holders last > month by > some > 7 percent to whopping a
26 percent. Hell 19 percent is > no cake > walk. > Our economy is 70 percent
consumer-driven and consumers show signs > of being > tapped out. > >
I've heard > horror > stories of credit card interest rates up to 40 percent,
> but have > only been > able > to confirm 30 percent. The report of 30
percent came from a think > tank in New > York, Demos, > which bills >
itself as a nonpartisan public policy research and advocacy > organization.
> The name Demos doesn't sound nonpartisan. > Anway, with that new bankruptcy
bill Dubya signed during his > second > term, there's a 30 percent ceiling
on interest. What a > relief, > right? > And hats off to the banking lobby
for the considerable > ingenuity > it > took in getting that can of worms
through Congress. > > The credit card holders who've quit making payments
for > whatever > reason -- lack of money or even as a protest -- are part
> of this > "toxic > debt" you hear about. By sheer numbers of no-pays
alone, > it stands > to > reason the credit-card-related institutions
are sweating. > I mean, > who's > going to pay 30 or even 20 percent on
a loan for very long? > Particularly > when the money that the borrowers
have already sent in > amounts to > several > times the figure they paid
for the items charged on the > card in the first place. > > > > > But
here's what really sticks in a credit card company's craw: > Every > day,
more and more debt is lost to collectors because of the > statute > of
limitations. My guess is that the potential loss of future collections
is one reason politicos > are in > such > a big hurry to pass this stimulus
package. The more time that elapses, > the more delinquent consumers who
will slip > under the > fence. > > And here's what could be sticking in
the craw of the borrower > who's > said "Screw it, I'm not paying anymore:"
If feds take > over > the toxic debt, it stands to reason the long arm
of the U.S. > government > could soon be after their ass. You know like
the IRS > comes after > our > asses > when we're late with a check. Credit
card delinquents > could find > themselves no > longer playing cat and
mouse with with some bank which > shies > from costly litigation. Banks
theorize why chase small > debts in > locations > scattered all across
the U.S., when there's > no > collateral involved? Feds print their own
money and could care less how much litigation costs. > Almost forgot to
mention the most obvious reason -- in my > bent > opinion -- why politicos
want fast bailout action. Many banks, > overloaded > with > credit card
defaults plus other toxics won't be around to > collect > if Congress
fiddles like Nero during the burning of Rome. > What was it Dubya said?
"This sucker > could > go down." In Texas where I grew up there was a
law against > charging > interest higher than ten percent. And branch
banks were > against > the > law, too, in an effort to prevent any one
bank from > getting too > big > to fail. . Maybe we ought to dust off
that old Texas > populist > approach, > look at it again. > I got my first
credit card when I was a senior in college. It > was an > Exxon card and
it just came in the mail one day. Besides > gasoline, the > card allowed
me to charge stuff at Howard Johnson's and > Ramada > Inns, > too. So,
the following summer I hit the road. I drove all > over > the western
> U.S. charging gas on that card the whole way and eating, > sometimes
three > T-bone steaks a day, no place else but Howard Johnson's and >
Ramada Inns > And I slept only in Ramada Inns and Howard Johnson's and
> when > neither > were available I slept in my car because aside from
that > credit > card > I was dead broke. > My best friend in college,
Roland Jones, got a Shell card in > his mail. > Jones used his card for
a road trip to Aspen. I didn't dare > travel to > Aspen because Aspen
didn't have A Ramada Inn, a Howard > Johnson's > or > an Exxon station.
I used to wish I'd received a Gulf card, > because that > card was good
at Holiday Inns and there was one of those in > Aspen. > When I got back
home from my trip out west my family was not > happy.. > They'd been receiving
my Exxon bills and, by reading over > them, > could > see where all I'd
been and what I was throwing money away > on. The > bills > came to more
than $1,000. I read page after page of > charges in > stunned > disbelief.
Some of those towns listed I didn't even remember > being in, > but I
had been doing quite a lot of drinking. At the > bottom of > the bill,
> there was a note that said it would be okay if I just > wanted to >
pay > $22.75 for the month. I was ecstatic. I could send them > $22.75
> easy. > My aunt and uncle warned me that the interest I was > paying
was > more > than 20 percent, which was an unheard of rate to me. They
> also > told > me they'd bet that very little of the $22.75 would be
> applied to > the > principal amount I owed. Not initially anyway, they
said. > I was 22 when all this happened. Aunt Odessa told me > that if
I > kept > making those monthly payments of $22.75, I might get the >
card > paid off > before I was 80. She was prone to sarcasm. She invisioned
> that > only > $1 would go toward the principal and the rest would be
> interest. > Then > at the end of a year I would have paid about $260
in > interest to > Exxon > and reduced my $1000 debt by only $12. She
was wrong. > Exxon as it > turned > out was fair and square, but Aunt
Odessa to her dying day > never > trusted > credit cards. > Now, in defense
of credit card companies raking in high > interest > rates, one could
say that consumers decided of their own > free > will to > pay those rates
ranging from zero, according to Demos, to > the new > ceiling > of 30
percent, depending on the type card and the borrower's > credit > report
> and other factors to be touched upon in a future > installment of >
this series. > That's > true, a person has free will to say "no." But
think > about > this: Comsumers of their own free will also decide to
do > stuff > like > play slot machines, too, and slot machines are outlawed
most > places. > I wonder why. Maybe credit card spending, like gambling
can > become an > addiction. > One more thing. If you're a delinquent
borrower and feds > -- dubbing > themselves > the Bad Bank -- wind up
owning your debt and are hot on > your > trail > there's > one thing you
can do. Just say you want a bailout like > the Wall > Street > banks got.
They'll understand
|
Aspen Free Press
publisher Sterling Greenwood with Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis
at Elevation Bar in Aspen
PHIL SULLIVAN GETS SENTENCED TUESDAY -- In yesterday's trial, District
Judge Gail Nichols found him guilty of ignoring her July court order
to stop both offering free rides in his van and accepting tips from
passengers. (Wednesday Feb. 23, 2011)
Will He Wind Up Behind Bars for Giving
Free Rides, Accepting Tips? (Feb. 20, 2011)
By Sterling Greenwood
State of Colorado is strapped for cash. Governor wants to cut $375
million from education. School closings and teacher furloughs loom.
There's even talk now about closing a prison and reducing "essential
government services."
But never fear. The State, ostensibly in the interest of public safety,
has cobbled together enough money to send lawyers to Aspen during high
season to prosecute that elderly guy in town who won't stop giving people
free rides in his van.
The trial is scheduled for Aspen District Court on Tuesday. But I doubt
anyone from GAFTA (Geezers for A Free Taxi Alternative) will be there
handing out bumper stickers emblazoned with "We Are All Phillip
Sullivan."
TODAY'S QUOTE -- To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing
its best, night and day, to make you somebody else -- means to fight the
hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings. (The late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson used this quote among
others in his book "The Proud Highway."
BUMPERWATCH -- KEEP ASPEN WEIRD
CADMIUM,
CONTAINED IN STREET-DE-ICER MAG CHLORIDE, LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER
By Sterling Greenwood
Hunter S.. Thompson Friends Say Hollywood
Hijacked his 'funeral' By Sterling Greenwood
From Aspen Free Press street edition archives. HUNTER
S. THOMPSON SHOOTS SELF TO DEATH THIS AFTERNOON -- ASPEN, Co.,
(Feb. 20, 2005) -- The Aspen Free Press published a late bulletin
"extra," street edition today informing Aspen locals that
gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson, 67,had shot himself to death in the
kitchen of his farm home at nearby Woody Creek. Click here for more.
Aspen Free Press ----Page 1 | Page
2. WE GOT HUNTER'S AGE WRONG IN THE FIRST PRESS RUN. HE WAS 67,
NOT 65.
ASPEN DAILY NEWS EARLY DAYS RECALLED
BY STERLING GREENWOOD 7/1/08
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS ON ITS 30th ANNIVERSARY.
I REMEMBER ASKING FRIENDS HERE, WHEN I ARRIVED TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO,
IF THERE WERE A LOCAL DAILY NEWSPAPER.
"NO, JUST A WEEKLY," THEY SAID. "THE ASPEN TIMES."
I LOOKED IN THE YELLOW PAGES OF THE ASPEN PHONE BOOK UNDER "NEWSPAPERS"
AND SAW LISTED THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS.
HOW COULD MY FRIENDS THEN NOT BE AWARE OF A DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THEIR
TOWN? (I'm getting too tired to finish this piece with fresh material,
so I'll just substitute from here on with the stuff I wrote on the Aspen
Daily News 25th anniversary, uploaded from an Aspen Free Press street
edition (see link below). The editor of the Daily News on its 25th birthday
was Rick Carroll who is managing editor of the Aspen Times now. The
Daily News general manager then was Greg Nebel. David Cook is listed
as Daily News publisher now, with Dave Danforth still "owner and
mascot." Troy Hooper is current Daily News editor.) read
entire story...
REALTOR
MICHAEL COOPER FOUND DEAD IN HIS APARTMENT AT 435 E. COOPER. For more
pick up Sunday's Aspen Free Press street edition. 6/14/09
UPCOMING
-- MORE NEWS ON PAMELA PHILLIPS.
Read
Sterling Greenwood on HuffingtonPost
Breaking
News in Aspen
... click for more
Aspen Business Brokers instrumental in reopening of historic Red
Onion restaurant
ASPEN, COLO. (Feb. 15, 2010) Ð On the heels of the news that AspenÕs
historic Red Onion restaurant is reopening after being dormant for three
years, Aspen Business BrokersÕ Bob Langley has emerged as the one of
its saviors. ÒBob Langley was pivotal in securing the Red Onion deal,Ó
said Jennifer Colosis, who with her brother, Thomas, recently signed
a 15-year lease to take over the famed restaurant on AspenÕs Cooper
Avenue mall. ÒHis understanding of all the parties assisted greatly
in providing the relationship management that brought this entire deal
to fruition.Ó Thomas Colosis was the former owner and chef of AspenÕs
Blue Maize restaurant. Bob Langley started working with the ColosisÕ
in June 2009 and the lease was fully executed on Feb. 10, 2010. The
ColosisÕ say they plan to keep the Red Onion menu low-priced so it will
remain accessible to locals and true to the character it spent more
than a century establishing. ÒI feel blessed to have been a part of
this transaction because itÕs a win for everyone: the landlord, operator,
and most especially, the town,Ó said Bob Langley. ÒLike a lot of other
people, IÕve missed TomÕs cooking since the closing of Blue Maize, and
look forward to eating it again at the Red Onion.Ó Aspen Business Brokers
specializes in helping local owners find buyers for their businesses
as well as assisting investors in finding great businesses to by on
the Western Slope. The Red Onion, which previously closed in March 2007,
is scheduled to reopen on May 15, 2010. Aspen Business Brokers is part
of the real estate conglomerate headed up by Aspen entrepreneur Marcos
Rodriguez. The other brokerages are Aspen Preferred Properties (Steve
Walker, managing broker), Aspen Real Estate Company (Tony Scheer, managing
broker), Homes Aspen Realty (Donette Vincent, managing broker) and Wendy
Lucas Aspen (Wendy Lucas, managing broker). Sister companies KSNO, KUUR,
TV Aspen Channel 19 and www.AspenGlenwood.com allow the brokerages to
exponentially exceed the marketing dollars offered by traditional brokerages.
BUMPERWATCH -- KEEP ASPEN WEIRD
MAY 19, 2009 -- The movie, "The Solist," is playing at the
Isis in Aspen and guess what! The real-life character depicted in the
flick -- Nathaniel Ayers -- and played by Jamie Foxx used to attend
Aspen Music School. See an Aspen Free Press street edition.
APRIL 9, 2009 -- HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN! Wells Fargo predicts a
record $3 billion first quarter profit. DOW up 200 pts this morning.
Banks and credit unions raked in more than $40 billion last year in
overdraft fees. Wells Fargo has received $25 billion in bailout bucks,
but a Wells Fargo officer told the Aspen Free Press yesterday, "We
didn't ask for bailout money.. We had to take it.." It's a complicated
story.
April 8, 2009 -- A distraught local woman complains that bank card
overdraft fees of $35 a pop for "nickel and dime" purchases
depleted her bank account of funds from a Social Security direct deposit.
The name of the woman may surprise you. She was gratified when the bank
refunded half of the penalty money it had withdrawn.
Banks claim that covering debit card overdrafts is a "special
service," for customers. According to USA Today,, this "special
service" represented a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for banks and
credit unions last year. The Center for Responsible Lending is looking
into the matter and so is the Federal Reserve. . And the Fed has found
that even conscientious bank customers have trouble understanding "precisely
when a deposit will be made available," says USA Today. But let's
say you don't want this "special service," because you don't
want to deal with the aggravation of overdraft fees. Let's say you'd
rather have your debit card withdrawal rejected when you don't have
sufficient funds than have your account in the red. `. Can you opt out
of the "special service?" Stay tuned
APRIL 5, 2009 -- Allman Bros, Doobie Bros. and Drive By Truckers to
highlight Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day Festival, Sept. 4-6. Others
to perform include Franti, Black Eyed Peas and Citizen Cope. And the
beat rolls on. . .
APRIL 1, 2009 -- GRAND JURY TO PROBE CARBON MONOXIDE DEATHS of the
Lofgren family, which occurred at a house just outside of Aspen on Popcorn
Lane over Thanksgiving. Much more on this. Look for a special Aspen
Free Press street edition.
APRIL 7, 2007 - DA to Landin Smith: "We're going to ride you out
of this valley, Shane. We're going to rough you up, put you on a horse
and ride you out of this valley." Words to that effect.
MARCH 11, 2009 -- I skipped Starbucks this morning. Instead I took
the money I was going to spend there and bought four shares of Citigroup
instead.
MARCH 9, 2009 -- ASPEN AREA REAL ESTATE SALES HIT $100 MILLION PLUS,
according to figures of Land Title Aspen. Some $115,836,999 million
changed hands for Aspen and Pitkin county real estate this past January,
down from the $127,200,000 in Jan. '08. The average residential sales
price for Aspen itself in Jan. '09 was $4,978,838, with the average
price per sq. ft. at $1,257.46.
FEB. 26, 2009 -- DOW closed down 88.81 points to 7182.08
FEB.25, 2009 -- MID-DAY DOW 7,195.86 DOWN 155
FEB. 24, 2009 -- President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of
Congress tonight and what did he say? He said the U.S. would come out
of the current economic recession stronger than before. Yea! I mean
who expected the guy to say, "Hey, we're fucked! This sucker is
going down." He did chide banks for unscrupulous lending practices,
thankfully. And he hit consumers, too, for buying stuff they couldn't
pay for. What he didn't say was whether he was going to bail out delinquent
consumers along with the banks. He didn't point out clearly enough that
our so-called "robust," economy of the past sixteen years
-- the one that everyone hopes will re-appear tomorrow --was not so
robust at all. In fact it was ill. Thanks to the willy/nilly proliferation
of credit cards, our wonder economy of the Clinton and Bush administrations
was 70 percent consumer driven. Consumers bought and bought and bought,
but they didn't pay for much. . You could even buy a new home for nothing
down, thanks to Dubya's policies. . Of course home prices and prices
of everything else went through the roof, and the construction industry
boomed and the resort industry boomed and everything boomed, to say
nothing of banks and credit card companies. And Dubya got re-elected.
Who's going to dump a President in a time of plenty, right? But a problem
loomed: Who could keep up with their doggone payments what with the
sky-high interest rates charged by banks and mortgage companies and
credit card companies? Those banks with the sky-high rates are the ones
we bailed late in Dubya's second term because for some reason -- duh!
-- there started being a lot of loan defaults. . Dubya had already signed
a bill into law that put an interest rate ceiling on loans at 30 percent.
That's still way, way too high a rate for long-term money if you really
expect the borrower to pay you back. When I was growing up in Texas
in the fifties, there was a ten percent ceiling on interest rates. It
was there to hold down the number of defaults. Anything higher than
ten percent was considered usurious. Branch banks also were against
the law, in an effort by state government to prevent any one bank from
becoming "too big to fail." Now those Texas policies of old
are beginning to make sense. I wish President Obama had said tonight,
, "Prices have been too high. They're coming down for a while."
UPCOMING IN THE ASPEN FREE PRESS: A SERIES "RESEARCHING OBAMA'S
MAMA" BY STERLING GREENWOOD.who travels to West Texas to the small
town where Stanley Ann Dunham attended third and fourth grades at Hawkins
Elementary School. Her teachers will be the focus of interviews in the
series along with the girls in her Happy Bluebirds group, her neighborhood
playmates she built treehouses with on hot summer days and the members
of her Sunday school class at First United Methodist Church where her
father, Stanley Armour Dunham, was baptized soon after the family arrived
in town in 1951. Stay tuned.
FEB. 24, 2009 -- Stocks rebounded today, the Dow being up more than
200 points after its precipitous slide yesterday to 1997, levels. There
were fears the DOW would close under 7,000 today, but that didn't happen.
I rummaged through a storage trunk today to pick a random 2002 street
edition of the Aspen Free Press. The June 21, 2002 issue showed the
DOW at 9,332, roughly 2000 points higher than where the DOW closed today,
give or take a hundred points or so. Anyway, this guy Bernanke's statement
that the recession would be over this year spurred today's market upswing.
Or at least kept it from going off a cliff. Gosh! Isn't Beranke the
same guy who's been behind all the milti-billion-dollar bank bailouts
that thus far haven't worked? .One gets the impression from TV that
politicos watch the DOW all day and when it goes down they rush to get
on TV in an effort to talk it back up. More later.
FEB. 20, 2009 -- Stocks took another plunge today, the DOW falling
100.28 points, the lowest it's been in six years.
Read Sterling
Greenwood on HuffingtonPost
Stimulants
and Credit Cards by Sterling Greenwood President Obama is in Denver
today, Tuesday Feb. 17, 2009, to sign the economic stimulus bill. And
I just learned that this girl we called "Ann," in my elementary
school at a small town in Texas went on to become Barack Obama's mother.
Okay, it's hard for me to believe, too. I'm staring at Ann's fourth
grade picture in stunned disbelief as I write this. Both Ann and I attended
Hawkins. She was a year ahead of me. Her name was Stanley Ann Dunham,
but I don't remember too many kids calling her "Stanley".
Maybe the name "Stanley" for a girl stuck in the throat. lCome
to think of it, no one much called me Sterling either, not after first
grade when kids laughed every day during roll call as "Sterling"
got called out. I would have traded names with any boy in the school
except maybe for Harvey Elwood Luedtke who insisted on being called
"Butch." More on all this later.
KEEP SCROLLING WAY BELOW THE CHAOS OF STORIES UPLOADED
FROM ASPEN FREE PRESS STREET EDITIONS TO WHAT'S BEEN WRITTEN IN OTHER
PUBLICATIONS ABOUT "ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER" SINCE ITS WOBBLY
INCEPTION IN THE THIRD PARKED CAR FROM THE CORNER AT MAIN AND MONARCH
IN 1982.
MUST-SEE MOVIE -- Barry Levinson's "What Just Happened"
starring Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, Kristen Stewart and Bruce Willis.
Soundtrack includes Citizen Cope.
TODAY'S BUMPER STICKER: KEEP ASPEN WEIRD
GOOGLE IT DEPT -- UP TO OUR EYEBALLS, a book by James Lardner, Jose
Garcia, Cindy Zeldin and Tamara Draut.
.FEB. 7, 2009 -- ARE WE THE GOOD GERMANS OF THE NEW CENTURY? BY STERLING
GREENWOOD -- I'm not referring to U.S. police state tactics set in motion
over the past eight years such as secret police for spying on U.S. citizens,,
wiretaps without a court order, torture of prisoners etc. -- all the
stuff we were taught to recoil from in the land of the free and the
home of the brave. . Seriously would John Wayne do any of that? Just
kidding about John Wayne, okay? What I'm referring to is Germany's past
efforts to print its way out of economic doldrums kind of like the U.S
is starting to do now with the bailout. Excuse me, they're calling it
an "economic recovery stimulus," now. So what's the big deal
about the trillion-dollar U.S. deficit? If the U.S. gives away a trillion
bucks and doesn't get the money back by taxing citizens, where does
the money come from? That's easy. We just print the stuff. The Fed has
enough paper, ink and printing presses to print a trillion dollars in
less time than it takes a metro daily to run off a first edition. But
let's back to the Germans. They flooded the market with marks in the
early part of the last century, according to John Lanchester's piece
in the Feb. 2, New Yorker subtitled, "When central bankers rescued,
then ruined, the world." In 1914, Lanchester writes, a dollar could
be traded for 4.2 marks. In 1922, the dollar was worth 190 marks. Then,
by the end of 1922, it was a whopping 7,600 marks to the dollar. In
1923 it took 630 billion marks to get a dollar. And a loaf of bread
cost the Germans 140 billion marks. I wonder if sometime in the U.S.
we'll be taking a billion dollars to the grocery in wheelbarrows for
a loaf of bread. Remember the Arab oil embargo of the late seventies?
Saudis were tired of exporting oil to us in exchange for pieces of paper
we had -- presto -- just turned into dollars in the back room. And the
beat rolls on . . .,
I got an email from patriot@faxde.com wanting me to write write a letter
of complaint about "illegals," getting tax rebates as part
of the economic recovery package. I wrote wrote back the following to
the patriot --"I hate to be the one to break this to you but, for
all practical purposes ,there are no U.S. borders and there are no illegal
aliens in the U.S. It's just that no one wants to say it outloud. You're
not in 1955, anymore than Dorothy was in Kansas. I suggest you get on
a new soapbox with another message, one that has a chance. Maybe you
can come out against steroids in professional sports. Or, better yet,
more drug urine tests for show pigs being entered in 4-H livestock events."
UPCOMING FEB. 17 --Aspen Public Radio is presenting NPR senior
foreign correspondent Anne Garrels and senior foreign editor Loren Jenkins
in conversation at the Given Institute at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February
17th. Among other things, they'll discuss NPR's coverage - including
Garrels' current work - in the Gaza Strip and Jersusalem. Fifteen dollar
tickets are available now at the Wheeler Box Office and will be on sale
at the Given on the evening of the event. Local students with ID receive
free admission. More information is available online at aspenpublicradio.org
or by calling 920-9000. .
JAN 19, 2009 --"HEY, AMERICA FEELS KIND OF COOL AGAIN INAUGURAL
GALA" -- It's a Rock the Vote concert at 930 Club in DC, with
performances by the Beastie Boys, Sheryl Crow and Citizen Cope aka Clarence
Greenwood. Music to start at 9pm.
DEC. 25, 2008 -- I stumbled down to City Market and, en route, bumped
into Mariah Carey and her husband on Cooper. A classic "Aspen Moment."
They were standing in the entrance of Joan somebody's jewelry store.
Or was that yesterday? I've been in a fog since M.D. Anderson. More
later. SG
STEWART NUSBAUMER IN ASPEN. Is he vacationing or working on
a story? Stay tuned. 12/6/08
Hunter S.. Thompson Friends Say Hollywood
Hijacked his 'funeral' By Sterling Greenwood
Sterling Greenwood
on HuffingtonPost
SAN
MIGUEL DE ALLENDE THE NEW YORK TIMES
ASSISTED LIVING IN MEXICO DALLAS MORNING NEWS
CADMIUM,
CONTAINED IN STREET-DE-ICER MAG CHLORIDE, LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER
By Sterling Greenwood
TODAY'S QUOTE (Sunday Dec. 7, 2008)-- An Aspenite, who warmly extends
a hand, usually is sinking. (Aspen Free Press)
NOV. 18, 2008 -- I haven't seen my cousin, Eddie Lee Copeland, since
our Uncle Clarence's funeral in Texas, but if I go to M.D. Anderson
in Houston for cancer treatment I'll look him up. Eddie gave me a trumpet
once and I played it along with a sax in a teen band in the fifties.
I also tried to sing like Gene Vincent. 'WELLLLL, I WANNA, WANNA, LOTTA
LOTTA LOVIN . . ." My folks started getting nervous about my growing
enthusiasm for "the life," of a professional musician. They
were kind of weirded too about my ducktails. So my Aunt Odessa took
me to Shreveport to visit my cousin Eddie Lee Copeland in hopes it would
"straighten me out." Eddie picked us up at the train depot,
driving a tattered rag-top, flat-head eight Ford. He was wearing a scruffy
black leather jacket and his hair was longer than mine. Really cool,
I thought. Eddie could play any musical instrument. Just hearing him
run scales on a trumpet, sax or even a piano knocked me out. Right off,
I saw I could never be as good a musician as my cousin no matter how
hard I practiced. And as good as Eddie Lee Copeland was, he wasn't even
famous. He was a big deal in Shreveport, but I'd never seen him on national
TV or anything. Anyway when I got back home in west Texas, I started
cutting back on my sax, and piano playing. I never was all that good
on trumpet in the first place. I think I decided to become a professional
golfer or something equally far-fetched. Eddie Lee went on to become
a NASA scientist. He designed one of engines on a moon rocket. He's
retired now, but still has a band -- Ed Copeland and The Spiffingtons.
On New Year's Eve they play for a big dance in Houston at the Petroleum
Club. I want to be there. Eddie has had one heart attack already. I
hope hanging out with me won't bring on another. SG
P.S.
(INSTEAD OF EDDIE LEE, ANOTHER COUSIN BECAME MY MENTOR. .
COUSIN FAYE AKA DR. FAYETTE COPELAND, FOR WHOM THE JOURNALISM BUILDING
AT UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA,-- COPELAND HALL,-- IS NAMED, WROTE A BOOK
"KENDALL OF THE PICAYUNE" ABOUT NEW ORLEANS AND ITS NEWSPAPER
CLICK HERE FOR MORE).
NOV. 14, 2008 -- Don't expect many new posts from me here until I get
a prostate cancer recurrence under control. It seems the cancer has
metastasized to the spinal cord. When this happens, it can make walking
-- something I used to do a lot of while distributing the yellow rag
-- difficult. My psa shot up 200 pts to 705 in a month's time and one
morning I woke up unable to feel my feet. I mean I stepped on them,
ran hot water on them, nothing! Really weird sensation. . Anyway I went
to the ER at AVH and the doc there agreed with me that it wasn't normal
not to have any feeling in my feet. He ordered a CT Scan and a couple
of MRIs for me at AVH, then sent me to Denver as an emergency case.
And wouldn't you know that the CT Scan , which revealed the compression
of my spine by the pc met, also turned up yet another apparently unrelated
cancer mass in my chest. I knew I should have smoked filter tips when
I was a smoker decades ago. Anyway, In Denver, I got radiation to the
thoracic region of the spine, vertebrae #11t to be specific, in order
to relieve pressure on a spinal nerve, created by the met. Now I can
walk okay, but not so well as before and sometimes I need a cane. Maybe
all this will improve but it looks like surgery and chemo and probably
more radiation for me before this ordeal is over if it ever is. . Right
now, as I write this, I'm riding shotgun in a Jeep traveling 90 mph
on I-70 headed God knows where, but I'll be back. Adios for now, .Sterling
Greenwood
ASPEN DAILY NEWS EARLY DAYS RECALLED
BY STERLING GREENWOOD 7/1/08
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS ON ITS 30th ANNIVERSARY.
I REMEMBER ASKING FRIENDS HERE, WHEN I ARRIVED TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO,
IF THERE WERE A LOCAL DAILY NEWSPAPER.
"NO, JUST A WEEKLY," THEY SAID. "THE ASPEN TIMES."
I LOOKED IN THE YELLOW PAGES OF THE ASPEN PHONE BOOK UNDER "NEWSPAPERS"
AND SAW LISTED THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS.
HOW COULD MY FRIENDS THEN NOT BE AWARE OF A DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THEIR
TOWN? (I'm getting too tired to finish this piece with fresh material,
so I'll just substitute from here on with the stuff I wrote on the Aspen
Daily News 25th anniversary, uploaded from an Aspen Free Press street
edition (see link below). The editor of the Daily News on its 25th birthday
was Rick Carroll who is managing editor of the Aspen Times now. The
Daily News general manager then was Greg Nebel. David Cook is listed
as Daily News publisher now, with Dave Danforth still "owner and
mascot." Troy Hooper is current Daily News editor.) read
entire story...
7/25/08 BULLETIN -- JOHN MCCAIN TO MEET WITH DALAI LAMA TODAY IN
ASPEN PRIVATE RESIDENCE. STAY TUNED
7/22/08Obama is in Jordan today and the King of Jordan and his retinue
are in Aspen. Hmmm. "He waved to me," one woman on Main Street
told Aspen Free Press this morning. 7/22/08 WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. The
king made it to Jordan in time to meet with Obama today. It was Monday
when King Abdullah waved to the woman probably on his way out of town.
She told us about it today. I've got her name and everything if anyone
doubts me on this. Okay here's what Aspen locals are pissed about. King
Abdullah and his motorcade went to the Isis Sunday night and the motorcade
remained out front of the theater, idling for hours while the king and
his family were inside seeing a flick.
TODAY'S QUOTE -- "The Aspen Free Press, locals say, best reflects
the town's spirit." Rocky Mountain News '80s feature that keyed
on Aspen's three newspapers.
. CADIUM IN STREET DE-ICER MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER.
By Sterling Greenwood (See link below)
http://www.psa-rising.com/upfront/sgreenwoodcad82003.htm
TODAY'S DALAI LAMA QUOTE -- Crazy Carl Spackler, played by Bill Murray
in the movie Caddyshack, says, " So I jump ship in Hong Kong and
make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over
in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So,
I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai
Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace,
bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the
driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into
a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do
you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga.
So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, 'Hey,
Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you
know.' And he says, 'Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you
die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.' So I got
that goin' for me, which is nice."
Look for a special Dalai Lama street edition from the Aspen Free Press.
There may be one.
DALAI LAMA ASPEN TICKETS-- Two available for July 26 lecture
in the tent. Contact karendaynow@earthlink.net or phone 970-319-4606.
One guy called from overseas to offer $1,000 per ticket if he could
only wait to pay until thirty minutes before the 10am lecture. That's
when his flight into town is supposed to arrive, he said. WOW! One of
the greatest things about living in Aspen is that you can get into some
really bizarre conversations with the most interesting strangers.
JULY 19, 2008 -- NO FACELIFT FOR WOODY PAIGE By Sterling Greenwood
-- Paige looks so young to me on his ESPN show that I contacted him
to see if he'd had cosmetic surgery. Paige and I both started out in
"big city" journalism in Memphis at The Commercial Appeal,
a morning Scripps-Howard newspaper. We covered night police ie street
violence in the wake of the Martin Luther King assassination. "No,
I haven't had a face lift," Paige told me, "but I get ask
about it a lot." But back to Memphis, Paige eventually got transferred
to sports and I started writing a music column "Memphis Beat,"
for the Scripps-Howard afternoon rag and covering rock concerts and
even the world premier of the movie "Woodstock." I remember
particularly a lead Woody put on a baseball story one rainy Memphis
day, which sent editors climbing the walls: "It wasn't a good day
for baseball," he wrote. It was a day to sit under a tin roof and
eat pimento cheese sandwiches."
. CADIUM IN STREET DE-ICER MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER.
(See link below)
http://www.psa-rising.com/upfront/sgreenwoodcad82003.html
Larkin Harris got shot decades ago by an APD officer. Only thing to
save him was his belt buckle. The police bullet bounced off the thing.
More on this later.
JULY 16, 2007 -- TODAY'S QUOTE: "Perhaps more than any other
small town, the whole world comes to Aspen." Michael Flanagin
JUNE 12, 2007 -- TODAY'S QUOTE: "Sometimes back then I got so
damn desperate I'd go out into my own neighborhood and panhandle."
Henry Miller
BUMPER STICKER: KEEP ASPEN WEIRD
CADIUM IN STREET DE-ICER MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER.
(See link below)
http://www.psa-rising.com/upfront/sgreenwoodcad82003.html
UPCOMING -- TB -- HOW WIDESPREAD IS IT IN COLORADO? STAY TUNED FOR
A MULTI-PART ASPEN FREE PRESS SERIES.
MAY 24, 2007 -- TODAY'S QUOTE: "There ain't no clean way to make
$100 million bucks. Maybe the head man thinks his hands are clean but
somewhere along the line guys got pushed to the wall, nice little businesses
got the ground cut from under them and had to sell out for nickels,
decent people lost their jobs, stocks got rigged on the market, proxies
got bought up like a pennyweight of gold, and the five per centers and
the big law firms got paid hundred-grand fees for beating some law the
people wanted but the rich guys didn't." Raymond Chandler in "The
Long Goodbye."
APRIL 27, 2007 -- Nationally-renowned artist Tom Benton, who also was
an architect and sometime law enforcement officer during his more than
forty years of residence in Aspen, died today of cancer. Tom had also
co-published the one-sheet newspaper, The Aspen Wallposter, for
a time with friends including the late gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
More on Tom Benton later.
APRIL 23, 2007 -- Today a quarter-century ago we published the first
issue of the Aspen Free Press. Back then, I was living in a car
parked behind a gas station downtown and showering at the Aspen Athletic
Club. A disbarred attorney, resided in the vehicle adjacent to mine.
In one of the first political campaigns covered by the Aspen Free
Press, Bill Stirling, a political novice, ran for mayor.
He bought a full-page ad in the Aspen Free Press which began, "This
is my only ad." And, indeed it was. But this same ad also appeared
in the Aspen Daily News and the Aspen Times. Stirling
won the mayoral election in a landslide against several better-known
candidates, two of whom were serving terms on Aspen City Council at
the time.. . . .Stirling went on to be re-elected at least twice and
is considered one of Aspen's most popular mayors ever. Or at least in
recent history. Stirling was mayor when the "straight-shot,"
concept was first introduced as a possible new entrance to Aspen,
designed to supplant our current s-curves entrance which has
a small-town feel. Stirling's eyes got wide when he saw a drawing of
the proposed straight-shot now called the preferred alternative.
Seemingly incredulous, Mayor Stirling pointed to the drawing, "It
looks like a speedway," he said. The controversy-riddled entrance
to Aspen issue remains an unresolved hot topic still, but the s-curves
live on so far. And the beat, as it must, rolls on.
BULLETIN 4/6/07--Disregard the drivel below about the Aspen mayoral
election because there's a brand-new candidate now to run against Torre,
Mick Ireland and Tim Semrau. Her name is Bonnie Behrend. Stay
tuned.
TODAY'S QUOTE 4/5/07: I ate between battles, I slept among murderers,
I was careless in loving and I looked upon nature without patience.
Thus the time passed which was given me on earth.-- BRECHT
THE ASPEN MAYORAL ELECTION BY STERLING GREENWOOD
4/5/07
I'm disappointed that both Mick Ireland
and Tim Semrau are running for mayor of Aspen. They will
split the straight-shot vote; then Councilman Torre, God forbid,
a small town entrance proponent, could carry the day.
With both Tim and Mick wanting to be mayor, neither
may win and we risk losing a huge new entrance development ie the "straight-shot"
at the edge of town.
And sadly, too, I fear there are precious few
straight-shot votes to split.
In the last entrance to Aspen election four or
five years ago, despite valliant efforts by both Mick and Tim to sell
us the straight-shot, only some twenty percent of registered Aspen voters
came out for the thing.
Even county voters balked at the straight-shot
proposal,, preferring to retain those silly s-curves.
And the s-curvers weren't gracious in victory
either.
Some got ugly about it all, yelling out quotes
from the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson like, "THERE IS SOME SHIT
WE JUST WON'T EAT!"
But worst of all, Colorado construction interests
missed a $60-$80 million public money gravy train.
Just think how glum Haliburton might feel financially
now if we hadn't gone to Iraq and they'd missed their bonanza -- then
figure that's akin to how the big road construction concerns DID feel
when they were poised to build us that spiffy new grownup entrance into
Aspen with tunnelsr and all and then we went and voted the whole mess
down, sinking the straight-shot like a led zeppelin.
We've got to get real in Aspen, wake up and smell
the coffee!
The curves must go.
There must be another election.
With our puny s-curves entrance, Aspen will never
actualize its potential to bloom into an industrialized city like Detroit,
that is our destiny.
You ever see a giant tractor-trailer rig struggle
to negotiate our s-curves?
It takes the hulking thing fifteen to twenty
minutes to shudder and screech and lurch through. Plus a driver with
the patience of Job. And cops have to halt traffic in both directions
during this truck opera because when the big rigs turn through the curves
they need room to veer into oncoming lanes.
Reminds me of my aunt Mozelle trying to twist
into her girdle, rest her soul.
Anyway, I love my new "S-CURVES SUCK"
bumper sticker. And here's a motto suggestion for all of us who want
the straight-shot: "THERE IS SOME SHIT WE MUST EAT."
C'mon guys, let's do it for Mick and Tim -- win a new entrance for Aspen,
I mean.
No matter which of the three candidates gets
to be mayor.
From Aspen Free Press street edition archives. HUNTER
S. THOMPSON SHOOTS SELF TO DEATH THIS AFTERNOON -- ASPEN, Co.,
(Feb. 20, 2005) -- The Aspen Free Press published a late bulletin
"extra," street edition today informing Aspen locals that
gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson, 67,had shot himself to death in the
kitchen of his farm home at nearby Woody Creek. Click here for more. Aspen Free Press ----Page 1 | Page 2. WE GOT HUNTER'S AGE WRONG IN THE FIRST PRESS RUN. HE WAS 67, NOT 65.
SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2007 -- I'm sitting on a barstool at the Red Onion,
typing this. The place is jammed and there's a line outside waiting
to get in. There is so much noise I can't hear myself think. I just
interviewed a woman here at the bar who said she operates an Aspen shelter
for overfed cats. Maybe I didn't understand her correctly what with
the band cranking up "Mustang Sally," and all. Got to run!
More later.
FRIDAY FEB. 9, 2007 -- This "preferred alternative"
entrance proposal sounds a whole lot like the thing Aspen voters defeated
by about 300 votes in the last entrance election three or four years
ago. Only then it was called the "modified direct,"
or some such. But no matter the handle, locals pretty much called it
what it was -- the "straight shot." Anyway, all this
talk now of a "preferred alternative" route into town
with its gravy train for road construction interests has spurred a rallying
of those in favor of leaving Aspen's s-curves entrance alone.
Die-hard s-curvers don't want the "preferred alternative,"
any more than they wanted the "modified direct." Their
attitude brings to mind words of the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
years back when successfully battling airport runway expansion: "There
is SOME shit we just won't eat." And the beat rolls on . .
.
FRIDAY JAN. 19, 2007 -- Brad and Angelina in Aspen? Well, not now but
maybe last week? The Aspen Free Press is checking out an unconfirmed
tip received this morning at Starbucks that the couple not only was
here last week, but plans to spend more time in Aspen in the future.
Maybe they'll dash up from New Orleans on weekends. Stay tuned!
SUNDAY JAN. 14 -- Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Just saw the guy
on Cooper strolling down that sidewalk in front of the Aspen Square,
close to where photograhers chased J-Lo the week before Christmas and
right across from Mezaluna where Nicole Simpson met Kato Kaelin here
in 1992. Jerry Jones was one of the few people we saw on the streets
this morning. He was with a woman in a long mink coat. And the beat
rolls on . . .
By Sterling Greenwood
Today is Jan. 8, Elvis's birthday. Below is an excerpt about Elvis
from my novel in progress, "No-Problem Bridge and The Aspen
Free Press."
". . . . Or when I was thirteen and saw Elvis in Wichita Falls
before they cleaned him up and he tore into "Baby Let's Play House,"
in a wild fit of hiccups like somebody possessed, raving in tongues
-- WUP, BABYBABYBABY HIC, BABYBABY HIC --and the bass player flailed
the strings of a giant gold-colored fiddle, and in one fluid move sank
to his back, pulling the 6-ft.-high instrument over on top of him, and
he started humping the thing during his solo like it was a woman --
THUMPA,THUMPA,THUMPA,THUMPA --and I thought the roof of the auditorium
would lift off its hinges and into the heavens from sheer teen hysteria."
Jan. 1, 2007
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! It was fantastic on Ajax today.
OFF THE TANGENT: What follows in is an "open letter" to Francilynn
Singleton, which was previously published in the Aspen Times.
Ms. Singleton, I'm sorry you don't like the Aspen newspapers. You were
off the mark, though, linking the Aspen Times with O.J. coverage.
It was the Aspen Free Press which broke the "O.J. in Aspen"
story. The Aspen Daily News did a next-day followup.
As editor and publisher of the Aspen Free Press, I ran the O.J.
story because when a famous personality comes to our town, whom much
of the public feels got by with a double homicide, it's news. In your
letter to the Times, you wrote, "Today in Aspen, O.J. and
you are warmly received. The president, howewver, would not be treated
as well." I disagree, Ms. Singleton. We at the Aspen Free Press
drew criticism from Bush bashers when we published a special inauguration
issue featuring photos of our President's boyhood home in Midland, Tx.
Much of the public apparently feels President Bush stole the 2,000 election
and that people are dying every day now as a result. According to the
U.S. Supreme Court, though, the election wasn't stolen.
And, according to a jury, O.J. didn't murder anyone. Both President
Bush and O.J. are innocent in the eyes of the law and we are a nation
of laws.
Sterling Greenwood
SWITCHING GEARS TO SADDAM HUSSEIN. Some questions from the media to
public officials are ticklish and require tact by a journalist when
presented. But that doesn't mean difficult questions should never be
asked, right? In Hunter's words, "After all we are professionals."
Anyway, here's today's question that you will never hear on "Meet
the Press:"
Now that the former president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, has been convicted
and put to death for his part in the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys
in the town of Dujail in 1981, is there any chance that former U.S.
President Bill Clinton will be tried for his part in the killing of
74 Branch Davidian men, women and children in the town of Waco in 1993?
Answer: NO*
*Except in the unlikely event Congress ever comprises a majoriy of
Branch Davidians.
TODAY'S BUMPER STICKER -- KEEP ASPEN WEIRD
TODAY'S QUOTE: "My life was no life. It was sort of a long, confused
drive." Larry McMurty in his novel, "All My Friends Are Going
to be Strangers."
And the beat rolls on . . .
TOUTS DEPT -- No way anyone's going to sleep through the new album
of RCA pop recording artist Citizen Cope. Entitled "Every Waking
Moment," the new record got released Sept. 12. Our favorite cut
on the CD-- "Brother Lee."
The second anniversary of Hunter's death is coming up soon. Meanwhile,
below is a link to the "extra" the Aspen Free Press published
the day Hunter died.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON SHOOTS SELF
TO DEATH THIS AFTERNOON -- ASPEN, Co., (Feb. 20, 2005) -- The
Aspen Free Press published a late bulletin "extra," street
edition today informing Aspen locals that gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson,
65,had shot himself to death in the kitchen of his farm home at nearby
Woody Creek. Click here for more. Aspen Free Press ----Page 1 | Page 2 The Aspen Free Press wouldn't have had the story about Hunter alone on the streets, but we're the only Aspen newspaper with a local in-house press. The other Aspen rags print out of town. The Aspen Free Press can get late-breaking news out in less than twenty minutes! But in a scramble to get out the Thompson "extra," we got Hunter's age wrong in first press run. The error, which we regret, was corrected in subsequent runs, but our mistake got picked up online unfortunately and thirty minutes later we were getting phone calls from as far away as London concerning verification of Hunter's age. Hunter was 67, not 65 as we initially reported. Sterling Greenwood, who received Aspen the Magazine's "Hunter S. Thompson Student Journalism Award" in the "Best of Aspen" category wrote the story.
Hunter S.. Thompson Friends Say Hollywood
Hijacked his 'funeral'
THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2006 -- We're hoping for a candlelight vigil
for Ken Lay, with Karl Rove, who is in town for an ideas festival, giving
the eulogy. Next week Michael Milken arrives in Aspen.
LATE BREAKING BULLETIN 7/5/06-- Ken Lay or somebody dies early today
in Aspen Valley Hospital after massive heart attack.
MONDAY JULY 3, 2006 -- RUMOR ON THE SUNNY STREETS OF ASPEN THIS
MORNING: BILL CLINTON AND KARL ROVE ARRIVED IN TOWN TOGETHER. REALLY?
STAY TUNED! WE'LL FIND OUT! WE DO KNOW THIS MUCH. BOTH CLINTON AND
ROVE ARE SCHEDULED TO SPEAK AT THE ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL which kicks
off tonight and The Aspen Free Press will be there. We wonder
if Rove will be, though. We figured he'd be in Mexico about now helping
officials down there steal a presidential election "in the interest
of national security." The Free Press has covered Clinton in his
previous trips to Aspen (see "With Bill Clinton in the Hippie Years"
below). And remember that time Bubba visited Aspen when he was President
and someone festooned a banner across the road into town, "INHALE
TO THE CHIEF."Aspen Free Press publisher Sterling Greenwood
wrote about that incident in Vanity Fair. But, back to the Aspen
Ideas Festival. Others scheduled to speak include Wolf Blitzer, Colin
Powell, Queen Noor, Katie Couric, many many more, blah, blah, blah.
. If the Aspen Ideas Festival had any balls it would throw a wildcard
into the mix such as that screwball Dr. Ward Churchill, just to liven
things up, maybe get a real dialogue going. "I may disagree
with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Who made that remark? Nobody in Congress today, we'd bet. Meanwhile,
is trouble brewing over the estate of the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson?
Deborah Fuller who used to work for Hunter claims she is due $100k
and some locals say she deserves it. The Aspen Free Press
broke the news of Thompson's alleged suicide on the streets of Aspen
with an "Extra," edition Feb. 20, 2005. Copies of that
collector edition have sold for as high as $800, we've been told. Horseshit!
Have a safe 4th! And the beat rolls on.
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALICE GREENWOOD who just received a degree
in strategic communication from the journalism school at University
of Kansas, Lawrence.
TODAY'S QUOTE: An Aspenite who warmly extends a hand usually
is sinking. Aspen Free Press.
TODAY'S BUMPER WATCH: FOOD ABUSE KILLS 300,000 AMERICANS ANNUALLY.
IT'S ALL A WORD GAME 6/12/06
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
Feds now are pushing journalists to incorrectly describe illegal immigrants
simply as "immigrants."
I guess the Bush administration is embarrassed about all these people
called "illegals," seemingly being everywhere on TV, running
around loose on President Bush's watch, particularly in light of the
emphasis on increased warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens "in
the interest of national security."
Or maybe President Bush fears his political base may get the notion
that while we've been invading Iraq we ourselves got invaded.
Before going into Iraq, President Bush only rarely if at all described
the worrisome nuclear arsenal in North Korea as "weapons of mass
destruction." The chilling "WMD" designation pertained
mostly to Iraq, remember?
It's all a word game.
Are the undocumented residents in the U.S. to be crudely dubbed "illegal
aliens" or just improperly referred to as "immigrants,"
implying legal status?
Is there "civil war" in Iraq now or just an "insurgency?"
One thing's for sure. It's silly to even discuss deporting ten to twenty
millions of the undocumented here, no matter how they're called. Such
an attempt would result in "civil war," or at least one hell
of an "insurgency. They're here, more are coming, live with it.
And the beat rolls on . . .
SENATE PASSES IMMIGRATION BILL -- The measure includes a provision
for illegal immigrants in the U.S., for more than two years to become
guest workers and register with the Selective Service in the event of
a military draft. Others, who have been here less than two years, would
return to their countries of origin for processing back to the U.S..
The House of Representatives has already passed a bill calling for deportation
of all illegals, estimated to number between 11 and 20 millions. For
more click on your TV. If you don't have a TV, , there's some stolen
ones making the rounds for peanuts. See Ralph Don who lives in the bicycle
locker next to the bus depot.
LOST IN A DENVER IMMIGRATION MARCH, 50,000 JAM STREETS.
Part nine of an eleven-part Aspen Free Press illegal immigration
series 4/10/06
by Sterling Greenwood
I don't mind President Bush's warrantless wiretap policy. (This
is a lie)
Or that feds can now probe my library records. (Another lie).
Nor do I mind taking off my shoes to be searched when boarding at commercial
airlines. (Liar, liar, pants on fire).
Or even Homeland Security's monitoring my purchases of over-the-counter
cold medications. (Sure).
It's all for our nation's security. Right? (With three-fourths of
Americans fat, aren't several hundred thousand of us more likely to
die of food abuse next year than from terrorism?)
But several months ago I bought low-cost cancer meds in Mexico and
my Jeep got searched coming back into the U.S. (This is true)
I got through okay, but started feeling like a fool just a short time
later on seeing illegals crossing the Rio Grande into the U.S., seemingly
easy as pie. (Strange is a more accurate description of how
i felt)
Illegal immigration doesn't bother me, though. I'm an open borders
advocate. (True)
I enjoy the border's "no one's minding the store," ambiance.
Reminds me of Aspen decades ago. (True)
And I never even think about our porous U.S. borders except when I'm
being demeaned by a search at one, ostensibly "in the interest
of national security."
The words of Ben Franklin come to mind: "They that can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety."
And the beat, as it must, rolls on . . . .
Most illegals are from Mexico, Central America and Brazil, according
to The Denver Post citing Border Patrol data, but others caught trying
to enter the U.S. between 2002-05 came from "countries of interest."
They include Iranians (95), Iraqis (74), Pakistanis (660), Syrians (52),
Yemenis (40), Egyptians (106), Lebanesse (91) and Saudis (13). Non-Mexican
illegal immigrants caught coming from Mexico, according to the Post,
include Pakistanis (113), Egyptians (41), Jordanians (55), Iranians
(39), Iraqis (22), Yemenis (15) and Saudis (13). For every illegal caught,
according to the Border Patrol, another two or three get through.
Part 10 soon in a street edition.
OFF THE TANGENT -- There's two-year waiting list now in Aspen to take
the course on how to develop your own eating disorder, a bulimic affliction
which enables so many movie stars to stay thin. . Just a one-year wait
though for how to contract wasting disease. Our latest poll indicates
nine out of ten Aspenites fear gaining weight more than terrorism.
And the beat rolls on. . .
WINTER QUOTE -- "My dad, he starts a family in a new town about
every six years. This isn't so much like a family as it's like he sets
up a franchise." This jewel comes from the novel "Fight
Club." Fantastic tome, not really about what the title may indicate.
G-G-GOOD GAWD THERE'S A LOT OF SNOW OUTSIDE. Have you looked? Took me
thirty minutes to dig out my Jeep parked over on Monarch. It would have
taken longer if the guy living in his car parked next to my Jeep hadn't
helped. Thanks Charlie! Meanwhile another quote comes to mind. This
one from Susan B. Anthony. "I distrust those people who know so
well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides
with their own desires." And the beat rolls on in Aspen, Co., --
City Council meeting at 5. And don't forget to pick up today's street
edition of the Aspen Free Press for our special snow ice cream recipe
dubbed "depression ice cream" in the south -- fresh snow,
whipping cream, vanilla and lots and lots of sugar. Uhmmmm, good! Tastes
like homemade. Seriously. Later. SJG
March 10, 2006-- There are 37,869 registered voters in the 9th Judicial
District. Some 6,734 -- less than twenty percent --voted to recall DA
Colleen Truden. But that's all it took because voter turnout sucked.
Wag the Dog. She's been recalled. Today the answering machine at the
Aspen Free Press offices says "Food abuse arrests, DA recalls and
other pissing contests are our news focus."
Having blown into Aspen in 1980 after
a divorce., Sterling Greenwood, a former investigative reporter/columnist
for Scripps-Howard in Memphis, covered Hunter S. Thompson's 1981 DUI
hearing for Scripps-Howard's Denver newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News.
Click here for story.. Greenwood also worked for the Aspen Daily
News during this period, variously as a contributor, distributor, associate
editor and editor. Eventually, he saved enough to move out of his car
and into an apartment building occupied by a host of other social marginals,
many of whom he had met at the courthouse while covering their criminal
trials. . And the beat rolls on
FOR ARTICLES WRITTEN ABOUT THE "ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER"
IN DENVER NEWSPAPERS AND IN ASPEN MAGAZINE, JUST KEEP SCROLLING . FOR
COMMENTS ABOUT THE ASPEN FREE PRESS AND ITS PUBLISHER IN THE
NEW YORK TIMES SEE "ASPEN'S INNER GONZO," IE SCROLL UP
IN THE FAR LEFT COLUMN.
TOUTS -- 10/24/05 -For a sizzling, erotic romp through Key West,
shot through with mystery and intrigue, read "Metro Girl,"
a novel by Janet Evanovitch. click
here
GETTING ALL THE GOOD BREAKDOWNS DEPT. -- PICTURE THIS: YOUR LONGTIME
FRIEND WHO IS A PSYCHIATRIST TELLS YOU YOU'RE NOT JUST SOME SICK TWIST
AFFLICTED WITH PARANOIA. . . THAT YOU HAVE VERY REAL ENEMIES WHO HAVE
EVEN C-C-CONTACTED HIM! YIKES! THAT'S . . . WELL. . . WHEN YOUR HEARTACHES
BEGIN! STAY TUNED FOR ONE BIZARRE STORY! HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AND MINIMIZE
MULTI-TASKING! THE BEAT ROLLS ON . . . .10/21/05
HUNTER S. THOMPSON 1981 ASPEN DUI HEARING
for more, click here.
OCT. 8, 2005 -- Today's Aspen Free Press quote: "The most stolen
item in all of criminal history has been public money." Jimmy
Breslin. Scroll past the chaos of stories uploaded from street editions
to see what's been written about "Aspen's Worst Newspaper,"
in other publications over the decades.
SEPT 30, 2005 -- Do recall the name of the female movie
star who stripped, then got into a hot tub with Jack Nicholson in "About
Schmidt?" Well she's in Aspen. Just saw her fifteen minutes ago
walking past Under Armour toward Boogie's. Hint: Her last name is Bates.
And the beat rolls on. . .
HUNTER S. THOMPSON 1981 ASPEN DUI HEARING
click here.
SEPT. 27, 2005
WOULD-BE
BUILDERS AND OTHERS HOPEFUL OF BENEFITTING FINANCIALLY FROM CONSTRUCTION
OF A PROPOSED STRAIGHT-SHOT ENTRANCE INTO ASPEN REMAIN HUNGRY FOR THEIR
$80 MILLION PAYDAY WHICH IS WHAT SUCH A PROJECT HAS BEEN ESTIMATED TO
COST. BUT ASPEN LOCALS PUT UP A ROADBLOCK TO THESE DREAMS AND VOTED
TO DEFEAT THE STRAIGHT SHOT PROPOSAL AND RETAIN ASPEN'S SMALL-TOWN S-CURVES
ENTRANCE BY A 56 PERCENT TO 44 PERCENT MARGIN. STRAIGHT-SHOT PROPONENTS
DREW ONLY ABOUT 22 PERCENT OF THE TOTAL REGISTERED VOTE, BUT THE ISSUE
PROBABLY WILL REMAIN UNDER OUR NOSES UNTIL WE VOTE ON IT AGAIN - NOBODY
WALKS AWAY QUIETLY FROM $80 MILLION.- CLICK HERE FOR STORY .THE
ASPEN TIMES, OWNED BY A NEWSPAPER CHAIN HEADQUARTERED IN RENO, NEVADA,
ENDORSED THE STRAIGHT-SHOT. AFTER ALL, WHY WOULD A BIG NEWSPAPER CHAIN
BUY INTO A TOWN IT DIDN'T EXPECT TO BOOM? THE LOCALLY-OWNED ASPEN DAILY
NEWS, ENDORSED THE S-CURVES. THE ASPEN FREE PRESS, ALSO LOCALLY OWNED,
NEVER ENDORSES OR CONDEMNS DICK AS A MATTER OF POLICY. SPEAKING OF
MONEY DEPT. --, OUR CHARGE FOR NOT PRINTING NAMES IN CONNECTION
WITH LOCAL DRUNK DRIVING ARRESTS HAS JUST JUMPED FROM $75 TO $100 PER
NAME EFFECTIVE OCT. 16, 2005-- SAME DAY THE NEW BANKRUPTCY LAW KICKS
IN. AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON . . .
LATE-BREAKING 9/21/05 -- San Francisco 49'ers
lineman Thomas Herrion, who weighed more than 300 pounds, died of heart
disease. Some health quacks claim heart disease in an overweight person
should be attributed to "food abuse." Herrion died in Denver
after a pre-season game with the Broncos. No ephedra or anything else
weird was detected in the post-mortem report so maybe he was just too
fat for football. Ephedra got banned after an overweight baseball player
with an enlarged heart died last year while working out in the heat.
Ephedra, shown medically to combat obesity, is derived from the herb
ma huang, Ephedra was detected in the baseball player's autopsy but
docs declined to link the appetite depressant to the death.
Hunter S.. Thompson Friends Say Hollywood
Hijacked his 'funeral'
Photo coverage of gonzo writer Hunter S.
Thompson fiery funeral blastoff by Karen
Day/Aspen Free Press click here.
Dr. Thompson
will be missed-
The Aspen Free Press published
a Hunter S. Thompson 'EXTRA' edition when Hunter died on 2/20/05
-- the only Aspen newspaper with the story on the street that Sunday
(click below). Apres skiers slumped on barstools read the story in stunned
disbelief. Tourists descended on Aspen Free Press distribution
points in a frenzy for copies like so many hungry birds at winter feeders.
In a mad scramble to get out this special edition which included two
press runs, we put Hunter's date of birth at 7/18/39 which is incorrect.
The date came from Paul Perry's biography, "Fear and Loathing,,
The Strange and Terrible Saga of Hunter S. Thompson," which has
the year wrong in our copy of the book anyway. The date we should have run is 7/18/37. Hunter was 67 when he died, not 65 as stated in the our 'extra.' The Aspen Free Press regrets the error which got corrected for Monday's street edtion. And the beat rolls on . . .
Bill
Greenwood and his historic British Spitfire
HUNTER S. THOMPSON SHOOTS SELF TO DEATH TODAY -- ASPEN, Co., (Feb. 20, 2005) -- Bulletin! "Extra" street edition. Gonzo writer Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, 65, shot himself to death this afternoon in the kitchen of his farm home near this Rocky Mountain resort town. Click here for more. Aspen Free Press ----Page 1 | Page 2
THE
END OF THE AFFAIR WITH HUNTER S. THOMPSON?
Dr. Thompson spent the afternoon of his last birthday celebrating with
two longtime friends -- John Van Ness, a neighbor and criminal
defense attorney who represents NORML, and Ed Bradley of CBS's
"60 Minutes," who resides in Aspen part-time. You may recall
the Aspen Free Press's stumblebum coverage of Ed Bradley's wedding
last summer. You also may recall that several years ago -- when Dr.
Thompson got cited for trying to shoot a golf ball with a shotgun --
he was playing golf with Ed. VANNESS HAD YET TO RECEIVE A FORMAL
WRITTEN INVITATION TO HUNTER'S SENDOFF LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON. SO IF
YOU'RE A LOCAL AND HAVEN'T RECEIVED ONE EITHER YOU'RE IN GOOD COMPANY.
VANNESS WAS TOLD BY ANITA THOMPSON HE SHOULD ATTEND, THOUGH.
AUG. 16, 2005 -- ELVIS DIED ON THIS DATE TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO. THE
FOLLOWING, EXCERPTED FROM "NO PROBLEM BRIDGE AND THE ASPEN FREE
PRESS,"
BY STERLING GREENWOOD, IS ABOUT A YOUNG AND THIN ELVIS.
". . . . Or when I saw Elvis in Wichita Falls before they cleaned
him up and he tore into "Baby Let's Play House," in a wild
fit of hiccups like somebody possessed, raving in tongues -- WUP, BABYBABYBABY
HIC, BABYBABY HIC --and the bass player flailed the strings of a giant
gold-colored fiddle, and in one fluid move sank to his back, pulling
the 6-ft.-high instrument over on top of him, and he started humping
the thing during his solo like it was a woman -- THUMPA,THUMPA,THUMPA,THUMPA
--and I thought the roof of the auditorium would lift off its hinges
and into the heavens from sheer teen hysteria."
AUG 15, 2005-- A SMALL GROUP OF US LISTENED TO THOMAS FRIEDMAN'S
ANIMATED RAP ABOUT HIS LATEST TOME, 'THE WORLD IS FLAT'' AT EXPLORE
BOOKSELLERS THE OTHER NIGHT. I DON'T KNOW WHETHER THE BOOK'S ANY GOOD,
BUT I BOUGHT A COPY JUST BECAUSE OF OF FRIEDMAN'S CONTAGIOUS ENTHUSIASM.
EXPLORE BOOKSELLERS, HOUSED IN AN OLD VICTORIAN ON MAIN, HAS A COFFEE
HOUSE/HEALTH RESTAURANT UPSTAIRS AND IS OWNED BY. KATHERINE THALBERG,
DAUGHTER OF THE LATE IRVING THALBERG. I'VE MET A LOT OF FAMOUS
PEOPLE AT EXPLORE OVER THE YEARS, THANKS TO KATHERINE, MOST MEMORABLE,
ERICA JONG WHO WROTE 'FEAR OF FLYING.' WOW!
WITH BILL CLINTON IN THE 'HIPPIE' YEARS 7/25/03.
"BUBBA'S" ASPEN VACATION STARTS NEXT WEEK
BY STERLING GREENWOOD (uploaded from Aspen Free Press street edition.)
I opened Time magazine to the politics section and there she
was.
It was a color photo of a beautiful blonde, captioned "Who Is
Marsha Scott?"
I nearly fell out of bed.
This was in the late nineties, during the Clinton and Monica goat dance,
and Marsha was described in Time as Clinton's "girlfriend
from his hippie days," now "Deputy Assistant to the President."
I hurried onto the internet to access "Marsha Scott."
There was a blizzard of references:
-- The Deposition of Marsha Scott.
-- Ex-campaign Chief David Watkins says Marsha Scott is Clinton's White
House Mistress, a power in Washington.
-- All the President's Women, Marsha Scott.
-- Scott Marsha, The Secret Life of Bill Clinton.
-- Marsha Scott, The Last White House Staff Member to See Vince Foster
Alive.
-- Marsha Scott, Chief of Presidential Correspondence.
-- Marsha Scott, Chief of Staff in the Presidential Personnel Office.
Reading through all this internet stuff, I didn't know what to believe.
I saw stories about Marsha chairing meetings in Bill's absence, her
attending Vince Foster's funeral with the President.
Who is Marsha Scott?
I thought to myself, "Hell, I know Marsha Scott. Or I used to
anyway. And I'd wondered at times what happened to her.
I stayed at Marsha Scott's in DC decades ago, when I covered anti-war
riots at the University of Maryland for a Scripps-Howard newspaper in
Memphis, where I was based. My previous "out of town," assignment
had been the world premiere of the movie "Woodstock," in Miami.
That week in DC included dinners with Marsha and "attending,"
the riot where overturned charred police vehicles littered the Maryland
campus -- a Fellini movie somehow run amok.
I had met Marsha during my college years when visiting a roommate from
Arkansas. I also crossed paths there with names like Jim Guy Tucker,
Jack Tom Friar, Chet "The Jet" Storthz, John Findley, Poindextar
and countless others, maybe even Bill Clinton I wondered.
Jim Guy Tucker had such a zeal, both political and journalistic that
he smuggled himself into Tucker Prison Farm as an inmate and later penned
a series of newspaper articles exposing that Arkansas penal institution
for the toilet it was.
Tucker was going to be President someday, we thought. And so did everyone
else in Arkansas then, it seemed, except maybe Bill Clinton. As it turned
out Tucker succeeded Clinton as governor or Arkansas before somehow
getting snagged, too, in the Whitewater controversy.
Anyway, I had spent a lot of time in Little Rock, so I phoned up Marsha
Scott, whom I had met there, when I went to DC as a journalist. She
was an aide to U.S. Senator William Fulbright from Arkansas, the most
outspoken dove on the Vietnam War in congress.
There were swirls of people in and out at Marsha's when I stayed there.
. Articulate, animated, exciting people who lived and breathed politics.
Lots of longhairs.
I left the Arkansans long enough to attend a steeple chase in Virginia.
At a party on a guy's farm after the race, I asked the owner what he
raised. "Anything I can smoke," he said.
I drove back to DC that night full of whiskey, one eye closed to avoid
seeing double
As much fun as the Virginia party was, I missed the Arkansas crowd.
Most political types bored me back then, but they didn't.
They were sophisticated hell-raisers, wild and fun-loving -- to say
nothing of idealistic.
I actually had withdrawal when I left them in DC.
I can understand how news types get addicted to living in our nation's
capital where you feel like you're in the world's nerve center and nothing
really happens anyplace else even when it does. Like driving by the
White House the night of the Kent State Massacre to see Dan Rather there
on the lawn in a floodlight, giving his report on President Nixon's
reaction to the deaths of the Kent State student war protesters cut
down by National Guard troops.
Anyway, after I saw Marsha's Scott's photo in Time, I got in
touch with her through a reporter for The Washington Post.
She wrote me a letter on White House stationery, and we've continued
an email correspondence since.
"Did I ever meet Clinton?" I asked Marsha. "I don't
know," she said. "When he's in Aspen, go up and introduce
yourself." I never have. But next week, if I see Clinton strolling
on the mall downtown or something, I just may.
I can tell him about having breakfast with Monica Lewinsky at Main
Street Bakery a couple of years ago.
Or about interviewing Vernon, Tx., native Ken Starr two weeks ago at
The Aspen Institute.
I can ask "Bubba" how gratified he must feel to have had
such capable and loyal staffers, like Marsha Scott, who stood by him
through "High Noon."
Probably, though, I'll ask whether he gets PSA tests.
. Anybody who loves pussy like he's been reported to is bound to have
a lot of testosterone which starts turning into prostate-cancer-fueling
dihydrosterone as men get into their fifties. Anyone want to try and guess former President Clinton's current
PSA score?
"Inhale to the Chief."
Nominated for Quote of the Year, is a statement made by Texas
Congressman Dick Armey when asked, "If you had been in President
Clinton's place would you have resigned?"
Armey's reply: "If I had been in the President's place I would
not have gotten the chance to resign. I would have been lying in a pool
of my own blood and listening to my wife ask, 'How do you reload this
son of a bitch?'"
XXX
FOR ARTICLES WRITTEN ABOUT THE ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER" IN DENVER
NEWSPAPERS AND IN ASPEN MAGAZINE, JUST KEEP ON SCROLLING DOWN. FOR COMMENTS
ABOUT THE ASPEN FREE PRESS AND ITS PUBLISHER IN THE NEW YORK TIMES SEE
"ASPEN'S INNER GONZO," IE SCROLL UP IN THE FAR LEFT COLUMN.
UPLOADED FROM ASPEN FREE PRESS STREET EDITION 2/5/05
AARON RALSTON, TRIBUTE TO ONE ARM --
BY STERLING GREENWOOD -- I was reared
by an uncle who lost an arm in a cotton gin accident. His name was Clarence.
I named my son after him. With
one arm, uncle Clarence built my daughter a playhouse, complete with
hardwood floors, a tin roof and grownup windows and doors. He taught
my son how to fish.
During the depression, before I was born,
uncle Clarence's cotton gin got destroyed by fire. The insurance company
refused to pay. They went to court. Uncle Clarence's lawyer told him
he could bolster his case by fudging on a report -- in effect falsely
claiming that a gin manager was on the premises when the fire started.
Uncle Clarence said, "If you can't win it without lyin', just drop
it." Leon Douglas told me that story back when he was Texas State
Prosecutor. He said, "I'd take that man's word on anything,"
Uncle Clarence told the truth and won his lawsuit.
When I left Aspen in the late eighties for
a time, it was because my uncle was sick. I wrote a column in the Aspen
Free Press about it then which began, "I drove a long way from
the Rockies this week to an ugly place to watch a man die." My
son and I took shifts and stayed with uncle Clarence in his hospital
room. "What is that old man to you two?" a nurse asked us,
indignant at our criticism of his care. We couldn't have begun to explain.
The first time I came to Aspen it was because
my uncle and my aunt Odessa,brought me. I was five. We came because
they were worried about a runaway relative, another aunt, who had moved
to Colorado and married some guy from Montana, who nobody knew, then
became a Bahai. There was a dirt road to Aspen over Independence Pass
then -- euphemistically dubbed a short-cut. And it was scary, even in
summer. We were in a new Buick which uncle Clarence had bought for my
aunt as a surprise after her hemorrhoid operation. My aunt tried not
to appear nervous going over Independence on that skittering, rutted
road, more suited to goats than
to Buicks with slip-o-matic Dynaflow transmissions.
There were hairpin turns through cloud banks
and no guardrails. And at really
high elevations the Buick nearly got bogged in snow. From my back window
perch, I peered over the road's edge into a bottomless fog. We
inched along, never seeing another human. I sensed somebody had read
the map wrong but kept my mouth shut. Uncle Clarence, thankfully, had
both hands then, and he kept them locked to the steering wheel. He kept
his narrow-brimmed Open Road Stetson pulled low over his eyes while
an unlighted Roi Tan cigar bobbed up and down in his mouth like Groucho
Marx. When I told him I smelled something burning, he said it was just
the brakes and for me to be quiet and not look out the window if I didn't
want to get scared.
Once in Aspen, it was a whole different world.
There were tourists everywhere. I got to go swimming in a sunny pool
somewhere downtown. I think it was where the nightclub Double Diamond
is now. If so, somebody built a building on top of the old pool and
rock bands now play in the deep end. What's now Boogie's was a bowling
alley, with kids about my size hand-setting the pins. I don't remember
much else except the weather was mercifully cool compared to Texas summers.
Losing an arm put uncle Clarence in a decline
for a time. He got depressed, started drinking mornings. He sold his
cotton gin and cottonseed delinting plant on the Red River. He suffered
for a time from "phantom limb syndrome." I think that's what
it's called. He could still feel the part of his right arm he had lost
as if it were still connected to his body. It would itch and everything,
nearly driving him crazy. One time, after his cattle got rustled, he
got so upset he started trembling, and he had never been the trembly
type. I had to grab him by the shoulders and pull him to me for him
to get calm.
After about two years, he got used to one
arm, and became his old self...and even better in some ways. He developed
an expanded perception, it seemed. For instance, when my son would go
into the livingroom and plunk on the piano, I hardly noticed it. The
two-armed Clarence wouldn't have noticed it either. But one-armed, he
told me, "I think that child wants to play the piano."
"No way," came my response. Piano
had been forced on me for five years as a child and I still had nightmares
about riding my bicycle over to this scary white-haired woman's house
early mornings before school. I'd arrive sleepy-eyed with frozen fingers
-- unable to run the scales in synch with her metronome. Later as part
of a teen dance band, I got where I could play nearly any musical instrument
I picked up, but to this day I recoil from the piano.
After college, I got married and when we had
a son I wanted to name him after uncle Clarence. My wife, back then,
was all for it but she didn't want him to be called "Clarence."
She said it sounded like he was a chauffeur. So we called him "Cope,"
an abbreviation for his middle name, Copeland. I called him "Cope,"
anyway. His mother preferred "Copey. After
uncle Clarence died of aplastic anemia, my son grieved more than any
of us. He started going by the name "Clarence." The other
night when I saw him perform on the CBS Late Late Show with Craig Kilbourne,
playing and singing the music he wrote, I wished like everything that
uncle Clarence and aunt Odessa were alive. When my son's Dreamworks
CD, "Citizen Cope," came out I took one out to the lonely
dust-blown cemetery in Texas where they are buried and played it beside
their graves. I yelled into the wind, "Sis, Dah, this is Copeeeee
singing."
"Tribute to One Arm" is written
for mountain climber Aaron Ralston, who used a knife to cut off his
arm in order to get out from an 800-pound boulder. This column also
is written for Aron's family and for uncle Clarence, aunt Odessa, and
in special remembrance of my pianist mother, Lois Copeland Greenwood.
The Housing Board story below, "Millionaire Aspen Employees
Occupy Government-Subsidized Housing" is the first installment
in an occasional Aspen Free Press series. The original version
of the updated story below appeared in our street edition on Feb. 8,
2003.
ASPEN EMPLOYEE HOUSING CHEATS WHO ILLEGALLY OWN
LOCAL FREE MARKET REAL ESTATE, TOO -- GET AMNESTY -- BY
STERLING GREENWOOD -- Since the Aspen/Pitkin County Housing Authority
(APCHA) started dealing in affordable employee housing more than twenty
years ago, a rule has been in effect barring owner/occupants of this
affordable, government-subsidized housing from also owning local free-market
residences (the average price of an Aspen free market home runs some
$2.7 million). Why then, was an amnesty (ie exemption) extended
to certain violators of this guideline? An amnesty which renders a huge
free market real estate windfall to the non-compliant. In effect the
amnesty allows owner/occupants of deed-restricted employee housing to
also own at the same time posh free market Aspen residences which they
theoretically can rent out for a king's ransom to the new dumb? Confused?
So are we. Please read on.. FROM THE OFFICIAL 1996, ASPEN/PITKIN
COUNTY AFFORDABLE HOUSING GUIDELINES THIS IS THE WAY THE AMNESTY GOT
PHRASED. . . "NOTE: PERSONS OWNING IMPROVED RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY
(MEANING FREE MARKET, ACCORDING TO CINDY CHRISTENSEN, OPERATIONS
MANAGER OF THE HOUSING OFFICE) RESIDING IN AFFORDABLE HOUSING
PRIOR TO MAY 1, 1994, WILL BE ALLOWED TO RETAIN OWNERSHIP OF THAT RESIDENTIAL
PROPERTY AND STILL BE ELIGIBLE TO RESIDE IN (and own, according to Cindy)
AFFORDABLE HOUSING." PLEASE READ ON. . . . .The cell phone
woke me twenty to seven a.m. in my room at the Cortina. I reached for
the thing half asleep. . A voice said, "It's me." It was a
hoarse woman's voice. I grabbed a Winston from a pack on the floor.
My head ached from Heaven Hill the night before. "Okay, what's
happenin'?," I said. . There was a half-minute silence, then she
started talking. "I've left a page from the APCHA guidelines taped
under a table at the Red Onion. The first table on the right after you
get inside. In that first circular booth. Go over there now and get
it. The cleanup crew might let you in. Then contact Cindy Christensen
at the housing office for an interpretation. I'm not sure, but I think.
. . that because a housing board member screwed up . . .I'm home free."
"I'm lost here" I said. Her voice became barely audible.
"You,'ve been to my condo in town where I live?," she said.
"You've also been to my house here that I rent out to tourists?
You've never seen my other condo which I rent out, too." "So
what" I said. "Well, the condo where I live is employee housing
and I'm not supposed to own local free market dwellings, too."
There was a click and she was gone. I shoved the cell phone into a pocket
of a parka on the floor. I got out of bed, then removed a cigarette
butt from last night's bourbon/coke. I'd slept in my clothes so all
I needed to do was grab the parka and my laptop and step outside to
hit the road. . It was ten below. I walked down Main and got into the
second taxi in front of the Jerome. "McDonald's," I said.
McDonald's is where I am now, with my computer, putting together today's
edition of the Aspen Free Press, "Aspen's Worst Newspaper,"
The Red Onion won't open until 11:30. There's a guy there, too, named
Tom who may give me grief for scraping around under one of their tables.
But 11:30am does roll around and, suffice it to say, I do manage
to get the document taped under the table. And it looks familiar,
so I check my notes from several months back. Hmmm. It seems I've already
talked with Cindy Christensen about this so-called "amnesty"
clause. Just never got around to running anything on it. According to
Cindy, there was this APCHA board member who realized
that he was out of compliance for owning and residing in affordable
housing while also owning free market housing at the same time.
This was in the mid-nineties. The board member should have had his butt
kicked out of the government-subsidized housing program. What happened
was board didn't do anything. Well, the board did quietly write into
its guidelines then a clause which allowed the board member to keep
both his free market and his employee housing. It's an amnesty clause,
as it were, to include all employee housing owner/occupants at the time,
who also owned free market before May 1, 1994. This time frame covers
my female caller, the one who phoned early this morning. , And I know
now what she meant exclaiming, ". . . . I'm home free." All
these years she's apparently lived a nightmare of being discovered.
Why did she not know about the so-called amnesty? Because like a lot
of locals in employee housing she doesn't read the literature sent by
APCHA. The '96 APCHA guidlines comprise 29 pages. Anyway, today's edition
of the Aspen Free Press, is the first time ever that the amnesty
clause has appeared in the public prints locally. Even Attorney David
Myler, who represents Cathleen Tripodi, (a Bush apointee) whom
the Housing Board ordered to sell her deed-restricted ie employee housing
because of allegedly spending too much time away from Aspen, seemed
surprised. "I think they're singling out my client to be the poster
child of housing violations," Myler told the Aspen Free Press.
He said he may appeal the APCHA board's ruling. "We haven't
seen the written order so it's premature." In case you're interested
in knowing the identiy of the APCHA board member who "screwed up,"
and got all this rolling, , phone up Cindy Christensen at the Housing
office, 970-920-5050. She never told me his name. .(To be continued)
THIS NEWSPAPER IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE REV. FOREST
K. WHITWORTH --- DR. ANDREW EDDINGTON --- LENNY BRUCE -- DR. ROLAND
JONES
DIET
MAY REVERSE PROSTATE CANCER. CLICK ABOVE for this Newsweek
story.
COLLECTOR ISSUES
A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS FOR COMPING OUR BREAST CANCER
RESEARCH ADS
CADMIUM -- CONTAINED IN THE STREET DE-ICER MAGNESIUM
CHLORIDE -- LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
Cadmium, contained in the street de-icer magnesium magnesium chloride,
is a human carcinogen, according to the Tenth Annual Report of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. There is no safe level of cadmium
-- a soft, silver-white metal -- upgraded from "Reasonably Anticipated
to be a Human Carcinogen" to "Known to be a Human Carcinogen."
Cadmium has been linked to both breast cancer and prostate cancer. It
has a polmonary toxicity and cause lung cancer. Cadmium is the principal
killer in cigarette smoke. According to a summary chapter from the Toxicological
Profile for Cadmium released by the Agency for Toxic Substances and
Disease Registry (ATSDR), "Most of the cadmium that enters your
body goes to your kidney and liver and can remain there for many years."
The report goes on to say that cadmium can enter your body from the
food you eat, the water you drink, from particles attached to the air
(noteworthy: An Aspen Times series on mag
chloride said Aspen air has elevated levels of both cadmium and arsenic)
or from breathing cigarette smoke. Dr. Stephen Strum,
found of the Prostate Cancer Research Institute (PCRI) in Marina del
Rey, Ca., told the Aspen Free Press. "Cadmium is definitely
associated with prostate cancer risk." When told that Aspen had
used the street de-icer magnesium chloride containing both cadmium and
arsenic, he said, "This is certainly cause for alarm."
In 1982 a medical study showed that the cadmium levels
found in tissue of removed prostate tumors were eight times greater
than the cadmium levels in normal prostate tissue. Another study found
a 25-fold increase in cadmium levels of prostate tumors. A 1997 medical
study has found an increased risk for lung cancer in cadmium-exposed
workers. "but the association was significant only with the cadmium-exposed
workers had also been exposed to arsenic," also contained in the
street de-icer magnesium chloride. According to a report by the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), "Because of the body's
ability to accumulate and store cadmium over long periods of time, the
loss of kidney function may evelop even after a reduction or cessation
of external cadmium exposure" OSHA goes on to say, "exposure
to cadmium causes cancer, kidney dysfunction, reduced pulmonary function,
and chronic lung disease indicative of emphysema." Of course these
conditions don't occur overnight and most people can't tell by smell
or taste that cadmium is present in air or water. . . .water which flows
into rivers and streams from roads coated in cadmium-laced magnesium
chloride to keep ice melted. Federal guidelines continue to call for
less and less cadmium exposure in the workplace, according to OSHA,
"because a number of studies of workers suggest an association
between occupational cadmium exposures and increased deaths from cancer,
most notably prostate cancer." When I was diagnosed with prostate
cancer, the first question a physician asked me was, "Have you
been around cadmium?" I didn't know it then but I had been wading
through cadmium in mag chloride applied to the streets of Aspen for
several winters. Aspen City Council has an on-again-off-again history
with mag chloride. The last winter that I recall the de-icer on local
streets to any extent was, for a time, during the winter of 2001. The
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says, "There are
no good effects from taking in cadmium. Breathing air with high levels
of cadmium can severely damage the lungs and may cause death. Breathing
air with low levels of cadmium for long periods of time (for years)
results in a buildup of cadmium in the kidney and may result in kidney
disease." Other effects that could occur after breathing cadmium
for a long time, besides cancer, are lung damage and fragile bones.
Cancer statistics indicate that the prostate cancer rate in Aspen has
been climbing. It seems like a lot of men here, in their late forties
and early fifties (young for prostate cancer), are getting it. It's
difficult to pinpoint the cause when one gets cancer. Usually it's a
multiplicity of factors, including genetic predisposition, age, exposure
to environmental carcinogens and general health. And, according to studies,
it's not that cadmium necessarily creates prostate cancer from scratch.
Most men, as they age, develop prostate tumors, but they are held
in check by tumor suppressor genes and remain latent, ie harmless. If
these tumor suppressor genes somehow get mutated, a harmless prostate
tumor becomes "clinical," ie needing cancer therapy. One tumor
suppressor gene is the p-53. Clinical tests indicate that cadmium --
contained in the street de-icer magnesium chloride -- even at non-toxic
levels, "impairs p-53 function," not only for prostate cancer
but also for lung cancer and some lines of breast cancer.
ASPEN DAILY NEWS EARLY DAYS RECALLED
--BY STERLING GREENWOOD
ASPEN PRINCESS AND THE SKI --THE SAGA OF ALISON BERKLEY
Uploaded from Jan. 23, 2004 street edition
BY STERLING GREEENWOOD
IT WAS COLD IN ASPEN AND THE WIND CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAINS. THE
REAL WORLD WAS ALWAYS THERE BUT WE DIDN'T GO TO IT ANYMORE.
I HUNG OUT AT A BREAKFAST JOINT CALLED THE VILLAGE PANTRY AND DRANK
COFFEE AND STARED AT THE WAITRESS.
(DON'T WORRY, I'LL GET TO THE PRINCESS -- ALISON BERKLEY --WHO
GOT FIRED BY THE ASPEN SKICO AFTER ONE OF HER "THE PRINCESS PALATE"
COLUMNS APPEARED IN THE ASPEN TIMES.)
ANYWAY, DOCTOR DEATH SCAVENGED DUMPSTERS IN ALLEYS AROUND TOWN FOR
HIGH-TICKET ITEMS ABANDONED BY RICH FOLKS ON THE MOVE.
NEARLY EVERY NIGHT HE'D STRAGGLE HOME UNDER THE HEFT OF SOMETHING LIKE
A STEREO OR COLOR TV OR GOLF CLUBS. I KNOW BECAUSE HE WAS MY NEIGHBOR.
WE LIVED IN ADJACENT PARKED CARS BEHIND THE TEXACO STATION AT MAIN AND
GALENA DOWNTOWN -- A CAPPUCCINO-FREE ZONE KNOWN THEN AS 'LOCALS CORNER.'
ONE TIME, WHILE POKING ABOUT IN A DUMPSTER NEXT TO MCDONALD'S, HE FOUND
A HAND-CRAFTED WEDDING GOWN STIFFLY PERCHED ATOP A MOUNTAIN OF SEE-THROUGH
PLASTIC BAGS CONTAINING HAMBURGERS, CHEESEBURGERS, CHICKEN NUGGETS AND
BIG MACS THEY DIDN'T SELL THAT DAY. ENOUGH TO FEED ME AND HIM AND TWO
DOGS FOR NEARLY A WEEK.
AS FOR THE WEDDING GARB WE HEARD IT CAME FROM A TEXAS HEIRESS WHO PAID
$25,000 TO GET IT MADE SOMEWHERE OVERSEAS, PARIS MAYBE; THEN TOSSED
IT INTO THE DUMPSTER LIKE A SHOT FROM A WINDOW OF A FAST-MOVING FORD
PICKUP AFTER SHE CAME DOWN OFF DRUGS LONG ENOUGH TO SEE IT WAS A WEENIE
SHE WAS ABOUT TO MARRY AND THE FIVE-KARAT DIAMOND HE GAVE HER WOULDN'T
CUT GLASS.
I ENDED UP WEARING THAT GOWN MYSELF LAST HALLOWEEN.
TADATADATADATADA!
HELLO AGAIN FROM THE ASPEN FREE PRESS.
THE FOREGOING IS FROM A NOVEL, "NO PROBLEM BRIDGE AND THE
ASPEN FREE PRESS" WHICH I WROTE WHILE IN NICOTINE REHAB RECENTLY.
THE WORDS IN TODAY'S ISSUE ARE COMING OUT IN A JUMBLE BECAUSE I HAVEN'T
DONE ANY NEWSPAPER WRITING FOR SEVERAL WEEKS. OR HAS IT BEEN MONTHS?
I'M STILL IN A NICOTINE WITHDRAWAL FOG.
I HADN'T ACTUALLY SMOKED CIGARETTES FOR AGES WHEN I SUBMITTED TO NIC
REHAB. BUT I'D CHEWED THAT STUPID NICOTINE GUM TIL ALL MY FILLINGS CAME
OUT, THEN I WENT TO THE NIC PATCHES. I BOUGHT SO MANY BOXES OF THAT
STUFF THAT IT GOT EMBARRASSING.
FINALLY, I TOLD RODNEY AND LIDEKE OVER AT RODNEY'S PHARMACY, "I'M
NOT BUYING THESE PATCHES TO STOP SMOKING. I'M DOING THEM RECREATIONALLY.
I COULDN'T AFFORD TO GO ANYPLACE FANCY LIKE BETTY FORD'S FOR NICOTINE
REHAB SO I JUST GOT SOMEONE TO TIE ME TO A CHAIR AND LOCK ME IN A ROOM
FOR THE FIRST THREE DAYS -- NO SHIT -- LIKE KIM NOVAK DID FOR FRANK
SINATRA WHEN HE KICKED SMACK IN "MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM."
WASN'T THE THEME MUSIC FROM THAT FLICK AWESOME?
OK, THIS COLUMN IS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT ALISON BERKLEY, DESCRIBED
BY TROY HOOPER IN THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS, AS A "CHEEKY
ASPEN TIMES COLUMNIST," WHO "APPARENTLY WENT TOO FAR LAST
WEEK WHEN SHE DETAILED HER PERCEIVED SHORTCOMINGS AS A LOCAL SNOWBOARD
INSTRUCTOR, WRITING, AMONG OTHER THINGS, IN HER COLUMN, 'THE PRINCESS'S
PALATE' THAT SHE FELT LIKE 'SNOWBOARD WHORE' FOR DRESSING IN RED AND
ACCEPTING COLD, HARD CASH FROM SNOWMASS SKI AREA'S 'ULTRA-WEALTHY'"
ALISON GOT FIRED BY THE SKICO AFTER THE COLUMN RAN.
IN TROY'S STORY, HE QUOTED A LETTER TO THE ASPEN TIMES WRITTEN BY WEEMS
WESTFIELD, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS FOR SKI AND SNOWBOARDING SCHOOLS.
TROY WROTE, "WESTFIELD CALLED BERKLEY'S PORTRAYAL OF THE LIFE AND
MINDSET OF A SNOWBOARD INSTRUCTOR 'RIDICULOUS.'"
A WORD OF ADVICE NOW TO ALISON AND TO ALL WOMEN WHO WORK FOR TIGHT-ASSED
ORGANIZATIONS SUCH AS THE ASPEN SKICO: IF YOU WANT TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF
AS FEELING LIKE A SNOWBOARD WHORE, IT'S MORE POLITICALLY CORRECT TO
SAY YOU FEEL LIKE A "LOW COST PROVIDER," DOING TOURIST-RELATED
SHIT WORK.
WHEN I FIRST CAME TO ASPEN NEARLY TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO I LIVED IN
A TRAILER AT SMUGGLER WITH DAVE DANFORTH, PUBLISHER OF THE
ASPEN DAILY NEWS, A ONE-SHEET RAG THEN (IT'S GROWN SIGNIFICANTLY
SINCE). I WROTE FOR THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS AND DANFORTH FOR
THE DENVER POST AND TOGETHER WE PUT OUT THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS
IN A DANK BASEMENT UNDER R-PEA'S PIZZA, NOW PACIFICA.
ANYWAY, DANFORTH AND I WERE ALWAYS GETTING GRIEF FROM LOCAL OFFICIALDOM
ABOUT OUR REPORTING. IN ONE STORY A LOCAL WOMAN WAS QUOTED AS SAYING
TO AN ASPEN POLICE OFFICER, "I WAS JUST A LITTLE FUCKING DRUNK,"
WHEN SHE GOT STOPPED FOR ALLEGED DUI.
MEANWHILE, THE DENVER POST AND THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS,
THEN LOCKED IN A FIERCE CIRCULATION WAR, CONTINUED TO HOUND DANFORTH
AND ME FOR MORE AND MORE "CRAZY ASPEN STORIES," WHICH LOCAL
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE TYPES FOUND EMBARRASSING.
TOURISTS APPARENTLY DEEMED OUR IRREVERENT TRIPE APPROPRIATE FOR A
SUPPOSED-TO-BE-FUN SKI TOWN BECAUSE THEY TREKKED TO OUR BASEMENT OFFICE
IN INCREASING NUMBERS FOR EXTRA COPIES OF "THE NATIONS'S SMALLEST
DAILY," OUR CIRCULATION GREW.
ONE- SHEET NEWSPAPERS ARE A TRADITION IN ASPEN. THE FIRST ONE I EVER
SAW BEING THE HIGHLY POPULAR MIMEOGRAPHED ASPEN FLYER, PUBLISHED BY
PEGGY CLIFFORD, AUTHOR OF "TO ASPEN AND BACK." THE MUCKRAKING
FLYER WHICH CAME OUT DAILY EVENTUALLY SOLD TO THE ASPEN TIMES
WHICH TURNED IT INTO A WEEKLY PUFF RAG WITH A TRADITIONAL NEWSPAPER
FORMAT BEFORE RETIRING IT ALTOGETHER.
MAYBE SOMEDAY THE ASPEN SKICO WILL REALIZE THAT TOURISTS ARE MORE TURNED
OFF BY THE PLATOONS OF NOISY HEAVY EQUIPMENT DAILY ATTACKING THE SNOW
IN OUR SUPPOSEDLY MOTORIZED-TRAFFIC-FREE MALLS -- A SITUATION WHICH
PUTS SMALL CHILDREN AT RISK -- THAN THE RIBALD, IMPUDENT, "TELL
IT LIKE IT IS" JOURNALISM PRACTICED BY THE PRINCESS.
AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON .
A 'GENTLEMEN FOR JUSTICE,' LUNCHEON,'
WITH DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
BY STERLING GREENWOOD (UPLOADED FROM 9/29/03
STREET EDITIONS)
DON'T MISS THE FILM BY WAYNE EWING "BREAKFAST
WITH HUNTER" AT THE WHEELER NEXT SATURDAY. A DOCUMENTARY, IT WAS
18 YEARS IN THE MAKING AND FEATURES, IN ADDITION TO DR. THOMPSON, JOHNNY
DEPP, P.J. O'ROURKE, RALPH STEADMAN, JOHN CUSACK, AND BENICIO DEL TORO,
AMONG OTHERS. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THIS FLICK, GET YOUR TICKETS SOON.
THEY WON'T LAST.
IN HIS BOOK, "THE GREAT SHARK HUNT,"
GONZO JOURNALIST THOMPSON OF NEARBY WOODY CREEK WRITES, "I LIKE
TO EAT BREAKFAST ALONE, AND ALMOST NEVER BEFORE NOON; ANYBODY WITH A
TERMINALLY JANGLED LIFESTYLE NEEDS AT LEAST ONE PSYCHIC ANCHOR EVERY
24 HOURS AND MINE IS BREAKFAST. IN HONG KONG, DALLAS, OR AT HOME --
AND REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT I HAVE BEEN TO BED -- BREAKFAST IS
A PERSONAL RITUAL THAT CAN ONLY BE PROPERLY OBSERVED ALONE, AND IN A
SPIRIT OF GENUINE EXCESS. THE FOOD FACTOR SHOULD ALWAYS BE MASSIVE:
FOUR BLOODY MARY'S, TWO GRAPEFRUITS, A POT OF COFFEE, RANGOON CREPES,
A HALF-POUND OF EITHER SAUSAGE, BACON OR CORNED BEEF HASH WITH DICED
CHILIES, A SPANISH OMELETTE OR EGGS BENEDICT, SOMETHING LIKE A SLICE
OF KEY LIME PIE, TWO MARGARITAS AND SIX LINES OF THE BEST COCAINE FOR
DESSERT. . . RIGHT, AND THERE SHOULD ALSO BE TWO OR THREE NEWSPAPERS,
ALL MAIL AND MESSAGES, A TELEPHONE, A NOTEBOOK FOR PLANNING THE NEXT
24 HOURS, AND AT LEAST ONE SOURCE OF GOOD MUSIC. . . ALL OF WHICH SHOULD
BE DEALT WITH OUTSIDE, IN THE WARMTH OF A HOT SUN, AND PREFERABLY STONE
NAKED."
I FIRST MET DR. THOMPSON IN 1981, COVERING
HIS DUI SCRAPE FOR THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS.
WHEN THE DRUNK DRIVING CHARGE WAS DROPPED
BECAUSE THE PROSECUTION ADMITTED THERE WAS NO BASIS FOR THE CHARGE,
THOMPSON AND I HIT A COUPLE OF BARS EN ROUTE TO WHAT HE CALLED A "GENTLEMEN
FOR JUSTICE" LUNCHEON.
BY 4 THAT AFTERNOON, WE WERE NOWHERE NEAR
THE LUNCHEON, BUT I WAS SMASHED FROM SO MANY BLOODY MARY'S. IT SEEMED
THE BARTENDER SERVED ME ONE EVERY TIME THOMPSON GOT ANOTHER DRINK, WHICH
WAS PRETTY OFTEN.
I STAGGERED INTO THE HOTEL JEROME LOBBY AND
SQUEEZED INTO ONE OF THOSE OLD PHONE BOOTHS THAT USED TO BE THERE. I
CALLED IN MY STORY TO DENVER.
I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT I SAID TO THE DENVER
EDITOR, BUT AT THE END OF OUR CONVERSATION, HE SAID "MAN, THIS
SOUNDS WEIRD."
IT WAS WEIRD.
AT THE DUI HEARING, BLAINE STOKES, THE DEPUTY
DA HERE AT THE TIME, SAID, "THERE WERE NO BLOOD ALCOHOL TESTS MADE,
AND NO INCRIMINATING STATEMENTS BY THOMPSON WERE MADE."
STOKES, ACCORDING TO WHAT I WROTE THEN, ATTRIBUTED
THOMPSON'S JUNE 21 ARREST TO A DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN THOMPSON AND COLORADO
STATE TROOPER BRADFORD BITTERMAN.
"WE FIGURE HE (THOMPSON) DID A HOLLYWOOD
STOP AT A STOP SIGN AND THE OFFICER FELT HIS AUTHORITY HAD BEEN CHALLENGED
AND ARRESTED HIM," STOKES SAID.
THOMPSON RESPONDED, "NOBODY THAT KNOWS
ME WOULD SAY THAT I WOULD RUN A STOP SIGN IN FRONT OF A STATE TROOPER.
I DID JUMP OUT OF THE CAR AND START RAVING. I WOULDN'T TAKE ANY ALCOHOL
TESTS."
WHAT I WROTE IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
THEN WAS THAT THOMPSON CLAIMED HE WAS PROVOKED BY THE TROOPER
WHO GOT SO UPSET DURING THE 2AM INCIDENT THAT HE CALLED FOR HELP.
"BITTERMAN (THE TROOPER) LOOKED LIKE
HE MIGHT HAVE PLAYED LINEMAN FOR AURORA HIGH," SAID THOMPSON WHO
RELUCTANTLY AGREED TO PLEADING GUILTY TO RUNNING A STOP SIGN. DUI CHARGES
WERE DROPPED AND THOMPSON PAID A $16 FINE.
BITTERMAN WAS NOT ON HAND TO TESTIFY, HAVING
BEEN TRANSFERRED, WE WERE TOLD, DUE TO A BUDGET CUTBACK.
LEAVING THE COURTROOM, THOMPSON TOLD ME THAT
HE WAS NEGOTIATING THE SALE OF A BOOK HE WAS WRITING TO BE ENTITLED,
"THE ART OF DRIVING."
UP TO THAT TIME, RECORDS INDICATE, THOMPSON
HAD NOT BEEN ARRESTED DURING THE FOURTEEN YEARS HE HAD LIVED HERE.
ALL THAT WAS TO CHANGE, HOWEVER.
IN FEBRUARY OF 1990, THOMPSON WAS CHARGED
WITH SEXUALLY ASSAULTING A WOMAN WRITER WHO HAD COME TO HIS HOUSE SUPPOSEDLY
FOR THE PURPOSE OF INTERVIEWING HIM.
I WAS IN TEXAS THEN, AND DAVE PRICE, WHO WAS
EDITOR OF THE ASPEN TIMES PHONED ME FOR A HEADLINE IDEA.
"DA SNAGS THOMPSON IN SEX CASE,"
CAME MY REPLY AFTER PRICE AND I PUT OUR HEADS TOGETHER. LATER SOME DRUG
AND EXPLOSIVES POSSESSION CHARGES WERE ADDED.
THOMPSON'S IDEAS FOR HEADLINES, ACCORDING
TO PRICE IN THE TIMES INCLUDED: "LIFESTYLE POLICE RAID HOME
OF CRAZED GONZO JOURNALIST;" "ELEVEN-HOUR SEARCH BY SIX TRAINED
INVESTIGATORS YIELDS NOTHING BUT CRUMBS."
BUT PROSECUTORS WHO TRIED TO NAIL HIM DROPPED
ALL CHARGES IN THE WAKE OF THOMPSON'S SHRILL RHETORIC THAT HE WAS NOT
ONLY INNOCENT, BUT ALSO A VICTIM OF BOTH "SELECTIVE MALICIOUS PROSECUTION,"
AND "UNWARRANTED SEARCH AND SEIZURE." THE PROSECUTION, ACCORDING
TO THE TIMES, CITED A "WAVERING WITNESS," AND "NEW
FINDINGS." AND A WRITTEN MOTION BY MILT BLAKEY, THE DA THEN, SIMPLY
STATED, "THE PEOPLE WOULD BE UNABLE TO ESTABLISH GUILT BEYOND A
REASONABLE DOUBT." SINCE THOMPSON HAD BEEN FACING POSSIBLE LONG-TERM
PRISON IF CONVICTED, SUFFICE IT TO SAY THERE WAS PROBABLY ANOTHER "GENTLEMEN
FOR JUSTICE," LUNCHEON. IT TOOK ME A WEEK TO THE HANGOVER FROM
THE FIRST ONE. AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON. .
ARROYO BACK IN JAIL
FUGITIVE DOUGLAS MICHALOWSKI SIGHTED IN AREA
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
MARTIN ARROYO IS BACK IN JAIL. , THIS TIME FOR ALLEGED HARASSMENT,
CRIMINAL MISCHIEF, MENACING AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
HE WAS ARRESTED LAST NIGHT AFTER A CITY-WIDE MANHUNT WHICH CAME ON THE HEELS OF A SIX-HOUR COURT HEARING WHERE A CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, REPRESENTING ATTORNEY DONALD BRANSON, TRIED TO IMPEACH ARROYO AS A CREDIBLE WITNESS AGAINST BRANSON WHO IS ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTING TO MURDER ARROYO IN A GRISLY KNIFING INCIDENT IN A REMOTE AREA NEAR OLD SNOWMASS LAST APRIL 9. read entire story...
THE ASPEN FREE PRESS SERIES "WHETHER YOU
GO TO JAIL FOR DRUGS DEPENDS ON WHOM YOU BUY THEM FROM," starts
today in our street edition. Nicotine gets first focus, which docs describe
as "every bit as addictive as heroin."
THERE'S A LOCAL HOUSING BOARD CONTROVERSY HEATING UP (SEE "MILLIONAIRE EMPLOYEES," BELOW.) MEANWHILE, THE ASPEN-PITKIN COUNTY HOUSING AUTHORITY HAS GONE TO COURT TO TAKE CATHLEEN TRIPODI'S EMPLOYEE HOUSING UNDER THE GUISE OF FORCING HER TO SELL. IT'S AN UNHEALTHY SITUATION, BRINGING TO MIND FORMER PRESIDENT REAGAN'S DICTUM, 'A GOVERNMENT THAT CAN DO ANYTHING FOR YOU CAN DO ANYTHING TO YOU.'
THEORETICALLY, AN EMPLOYEE HOUSING OWNER, SUCH AS TRIPODI, CAN SPEND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS IN INTEREST PAYMENTS THROUGH THE YEARS -- A SUM MANY TIMES THE ORIGINAL PURCHASE PRICE OF HER DEED-RESTRICTED HOUSING -- THEN THE HOUSING BOARD CAN GET A LAWYER TO EXAMINE THE FINE PRINT ON HER CONTRACT AND EVICT HER FOR ANY PERCEIVED VIOLATION. SHE WILL NEVER GET HER HARD-EARNED INTEREST MONEY BACK AND BECAUSE OF THE APPRECIATION CAPS SET ON EMPLOYEE HOUSING SHE WON'T BE ABLE TO SELL FOR A SUFFICIENT PRICE TO ENABLE HER TO BUY ANOTHER HOME. SEE MORE TODAY IN OUR STREET EDITION.
LATELY IN THE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR SECTION OF
THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS, THERE WAS ONE FROM SHELLIE ROY. SHE SAID, 'THE
CURRENT HOUSING BOARD' EXPANSION POLICY TO ALLOW LOCAL BUSINESSES TO
PURCHASE RO UNITS FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES IS CONSISTENT WITH THE MISSION
OF THE HOUSING AUTHORITY TO PROVIDE HOUSING FOR A LOCAL WORK FORCE."
WELL, ANYBODY WHO HAS EVER WORKED FOR A GUY THEY ALSO PAY RENT TO KNOWS
THAT THE ARRANGEMENT IS A GREAT WAY TO GET AN EMPLOYEE DOUBLY BY THE
BALLS. THE IDEA ISN'T AN ORIGINAL ONE. IN FEUDAL TIMES THERE WERE "EMPLOYEES"
WHO WORKED UNDER THIS ARRANGEMENT AND THEY WERE KNOWN AS 'SERFS.' MAYBE
SHELLIE ROY OUGHT 'WALK A MILE IN THE SHOES' SHE ENVISIONS FOR ASPEN
EMPLOYEES -- MAKE HER HOUSING SUBJECT TO HER EMPLOYMENT AS A PITCO COMMISSIONER.
THEN WHEN SHE LEAVES OFFICE SHE WOULD NO LONGER HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE.
|
Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 -- Today's Quote: I'm an occasional drinker,
the kind of guy who goes out for a beer and wakes up in Singapore with
a full beard. Raymond Chandler, 'The King in Yellow."
NONE DARE CALL IT MURDER
BY STERLING GREENWOOD (MONDAY, NOV. 23, 2009)
It was last Thursday when the only expert in the case of Cheryl Lurie's
death that i know of, Dr. Dean M. Havlik, a forensic pathologist, made
the determination that Cheryl got murdered. Dr. Havlik's finding would
have been the stark lede story front and center in Friday's Aspen newspapers.
Stories next to it would have been bland by comparison. The story of murder,
likely random, on or near a lighted sidewalk in downtown Aspen, would
have been picked up by wire services. The wires pick up just about everything
weird that happens here, so why not this? After Dr. Havlik's disclosure,
our police chief even issued a warning for us to be careful on the streets
after dark. However, the impact of Dr. Havlik's scientific determination
in Cheryl's death got diluted. And the police chief rescinded his warning.
What happened was this: Some 'spin' got unfurled in the case as artful
as anything Bush spinmeister Karl Rove might have conceived. This spin
bumped Dr. Havlik's finding off center stage. It seems that after Dr.
Havlik went public with his report and the police chief had issued his
dire warning, a sheriff's investigator mosied over behind the library
where Cheryl's body was found. Curiously, he went in the dead of night
with a flashlight to investigate Cheryl's death further, some five days
after the fact. The investigator's flashlight beam reportedly illuminated
flecks of blood, or what appeared to be blood, on a sprinkler nozle that
sticks up from the ground near where Cheryl's body was found. Could this
'blood' be Cheryl's? the investigator, must have asked himself. Could
an accidental fall by Cheryl onto this thing have killed her and not a
blunt weapon wielded by a murderer? Word of the investigator's suspicious
finding was quickly relayed to newspapers just under deadline for Friday's
editions. And the police chief rescinded the warning he had issued for
all of us to be careful if on the streets at night.. The investigator's
discovery, publicized next day in the local rags, blunted the impact of
Dr. Havlik's report. Now there's a gathering of more experts in Denver
or someplace scheduled for today to figure out whether the sprinkler that
Cheryl may have fallen on is consistent with her eye injuries. Dr. Havlik
put an assailant or assailants in his scenario who traumatized Cheryl's
head with a blunt object, causing her to bleed to death. Now, with the
new discovery of the ground sprinkler giving rise to an "accident'
scenario, with no assailant, see if you can picture something like the
following in the death of 54-year-old Cheryl Lurie: It's Sunday before
last about 6:30pm. Cheryl is walking fine and seems happy as she leaves
her friends with whom she had been socializing at Bentley's. She proceeds
toward home, north on Mill for two blocks, then crosses Main to the library.
She takes that sidewalk alongside the library, that leads to a courtyard
or plaza behind the building, in plain sight of the APD and PitCo Sheriff's
Dept. less than fifty yards away. Then for some reason she exits the lighted
walkway to enter an elevated, darkened wooded area rimmed by a two-feet-high,
poured-concrete retaining wall erected to hold back the hill from the
pedestrian walkway below. And it was in this wooded strip adjacent to
the plaza behind the library where she apparently starts falling down.
She just up and falls down hard on that sprinkler nozzle the sheriff's
detective found. But before she dies she manages to shield her body from
immediate public detection by lying in grass alongside the top of the
retaining wall right behind a thick, high-backed plank bench situated
on the sidewalk below. In her stunned, bleeding condition in the cold
she was without her purse and coat found some distance from her body late
the next morning. What was she doing up there anyway? If this scenario
turns out to be anywhere near valid, then theoretically there's no embarrassing
Aspen murder; no dangerous thug on the loose to pounce on others of us;
no costly investigation that could lead to an even costlier prosecution
at taxpayer expense; no trial; no police chief warning for us to be cautious
after dark, just as ski season and Women's World Cup start; no bad publicity
from a likely random unsolved murder on our streets, that could put a
crimp in already lagging tourism. Frankly, I doubt it will matter a whit
to Dr. Havlik what the deputy found behind the libary. Being the scientist
that he is, Dr. Havlik, I expect, will stick by his report that concluded
Cheryl was a homicide victim. But there are large deterrents, like cost,
against any small city government pronouncing anyone's death a homicide,
unless it's so obvious, say from eye-witness accounts, that there's no
other way. There's this story, probably an exaggeration, of a small town
in Texas where cops happen on to the dead body of a man in the street.
There are tire tracks from a tractor-trailer rig across his back. The
coroner's rules suicide in the death, the explanation being that the man
jumped from a building nearby to splatter and die on the street before
a semi came round the corner and rolled over the body, case closed. Aspen
authorities are likely to decide Cheryl's death "unattended," and/or "accidental,"
despite Dr. Havlik's report. But it was neither unattended nor the result
of an accident while she was alone. There was at least one other person
there, a murderer. There were two murderers at dishwasher Glen McGehee's
"unattended death" in Aspen in the eighties who finally got brought to
justice when cops re-opened the case after a public outcry in the wake
an independent investigation by this newspaper (See "Aspen Publisher
Spurs Death Investigation" a Rocky Mountain News story uploaded
to this site, scroll below). It had been initially theorized by authorities
that Glen suffered a fatal blow to the head from falling on a rock while
walking along the Roaring Fork River near No Problem Bridge. We'll see
what happens to Cheryl's case that in my opinion was a mugging gone awry.
Don't expect quick resolution. Remember the Lofgren family of Denver (mother,
father, two children) who got wiped out by carbon monoxide poisoning in
an Aspen residence last Thanksgiving? That case still hasn't been resolved
but remains under investigation by grand jury. Maybe the same grand jury
ought to look into Cheryl's death. The Lofgrens, visiting Aspen for the
holiday, perished in a house with no carbon monoxide detector. One question
among the many that loom: : Just how did this death house come to receive
a certificate of occupancy from the county without a detector?
In part because of the Lofgren tragedy, the State of Colorado passed
a law requiring carbon monoxide detectors in all new residences. There
was already such a statute on the books in Pitkin County. There's a law
against murder, too, if only police will enforce it. And the beat rolls
on. UPCOMING PART 2, AN EXCHANGE AT THE COURTYARD BEHIND THE LIBRARY WHERE
CHERYl'S BODY WAS FOUND WITH APD OFFICER MIKE TRACY. According to Officer
Tracy cops spent "hundreds of hours" scouring the area for clues.
Question: Why did Cheryl leave the walkway for the darkened wooded area?
Another scenario surfaces.
MAY 19, 2009 --( The following column initially appeared in an Aspen
Free Press street edition on May 4.) LOST IN BELLY UP by Sterling
Greenwood -- Hello, again, from "Aspen's Worst Newspaper." Several
months ago a cancer met impacted a nerve in my spine. The affliction left
me unable to walk, with a PSA of 700 plus. After radiation at CU Hospital
in Denver, I wound up at M.D. Anderson Center in Houston. I can walk now,
but not so well as before due to nerve damage. I had told myself that
if I ever walked again, I'd put out at least one more edition of this
wretched yellow rag which I started in 1982 in the backseat of a yellow
Cadillac parked behind the gas station at Main and Galena downtown. This
is it! Don't expect much. I'm writing now from Belly Up, a basement nightclub,
at a "Come and Meet Mayoral Candidate Marilyn Marks" event to
which the general public was invited. Free wine, beer and appetizers.
Plus big-screen TVs everywhere. But it's haunting here for me. My dearly-departed
aunt and uncle, who reared me in rural Texas, and whom I still miss every
day, brought me here more than sixty years ago. I don't mean they brought
me to Aspen. They brought me HERE, to this basement where I'm sitting
now. Only then it wasn't Belly Up. It wasn't even a basement. It was a
swimming pool. My aunt and uncle took me swimming right here. The deep
end of the old pool is where rock bands now play. And I remember it all
so clearly because I'd been stuck in the backseat of our Buick on the
road all day, going crazy with boredom and feeling antsy, while my uncle
drove and my aunt fretted about his driving and I couldn't wait to get
somewhere. ANYWHERE! Swimming that day was the only time I ever saw my
aunt in a bathing suit. She'd just got out of a Dallas hospital after
a hemorrhoid operation, and my uncle had given her a new lime-green Buick
Special, complete with one of those new-fangled Dynaflow slip-o-matic
transmissions.
LOOKING BACK to that day in Aspen when I splashed about the pool
that evolved into Belly Up, where right now I'm watching Tiger Woods sink
a putt on a TV screen big as a picture show's, the furthest thing from
my mind was getting married and having children. In later years, though,
I did get married several times. And I did have several children. And
at Belly Up now, there's a big picture of one of those children, all grown
up into a pop recording artist. It's the one I named Clarence after the
uncle who drove me across three states to this very hole where I'm sitting
now. The picture here in Belly Up of Clarence Greenwood aka Citizen Cope
(his middle name is Copeland), hangs among those of other musicians that
blanket the walls.. When I think of my checkered marital past, a quote
from the novel, "Fight Club," comes to mind: "My dad, he
starts a family in a new town about every six years. This isn't so much
like a family as it's like he sets up a franchise." (To be continued)
JAN 25, 2009 -- THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW DEPT.
-- BY STERLING GREENWOOD-- Since the consumer-driven U.S. economy is in
a downturn now, in large part because too many of us consumers have become
tightwads, do you think Congress should pass a law requiring each of us
to spend a certain number of dollars monthly for stuff we don't need?
It's apparent now that, unless consumers are
overspending -- and paying sky-high credit card rates -- the economy just
doesn't sizzle. The fact of the matter is that some of us have become
way too frugal. Too frugal to take a deluxe Aspen vacation, too frugal
to buy a new $90k Mercedes, , too frugal to take on new credit card debt
at 30 percent interest, too frugal to pay down on old credit card debt
at 40 percent interest, too frugal to buy a $3 million third home in the
Rockies, too frugal to make mortgage payments on the $5 million second
home. The list goes on and on but the bottom line is that some of us aren't
throwing away our fair share of money these days. A 'consumer-spending'
law would equitably spread the responsibility among all of us to waste
money in an effort to jack up the economy. Remember what President Bush
said just after 9/11 when the stock market seemed headed through the floor?
President Bush said, "SHOP."
So long as the U.S. keeps its printing presses
oiled, and maintains an ink supply sufficient to print dollars daily,
nothing really bad is going to happen to the U.S. economy. And don't be
concerned with all the gibberish about trillion-dollar deficits and such.
We can print a trillion dollars in less time than it takes a metro daily
newspaper to run off a first edition.
JAN. 19, 2009-- MARTIN LUTHER KING IN MEMPHIS-- BY STERLING GREENWOOD
I covered street violence for The Commercial Appeal, a morning rag in
Memphis, in the wake of the Martin Luther King assassination.
I hadn't been on staff long when he got shot. It seems like yesterday.
I remember hearing the initial frantic report over the cop radio in
the newsroom, that King had been wounded by a sniper and that he was en
route to Baptist Hospital. .
We were on deadline for the early edition which went to Mississippi.
The metro editor lost his cool when cops stonewalled on releasing info
about. King's condition. The editor stood on his desk and screamed. "SOMEBODY'S
GOT TO GET IN THAT HOSPITAL."
The older reporters were already nervous about leaving the newsroom
even to go home, what with all the sirens wailing plus rampant wild rumors
of snipers on buildings.
As a result, those of us in our twenties got sent into maw of racial
turbulence downtown. There was a city-wide curfew imposed, but it didn't
apply to the press. It was eerie cruising the Lorraine Motel late that
night in my ragtop.
DEC.31, 2008 -- ASPEN BOMB SCARE
PREDICTION: BRAD PITT WILL PLAY LONGTIME CONTROVERSIAL ASPEN LOCAL
JIM BLANNING IN MOVIE DIRECTED BY BOB RAFELSON. BUT WHO WILL PLAY PROSECUTOR
CHIP MCCRORY? WHO WILL PLAY DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON? THOMPSON WOULD BE
ROLLING OVER IN HIS GRAVE ABOUT NOW IF HE WERE IN ONE?
LATE BULLETIN: BOMB SCARE SUSPECT JIM BLANNING SHOOTS SELF; NO STRANGER
TO ASPEN, BLANNING GREW UP HERE. HE EVEN HAD A LIFETIME SKI PASS. AND
THE NEW YEAR'S EVE EVACUATION OF THE CORE DOWNTOWN IS NOT THE FIRST LOCAL
EVACUATION BLANNING HAS INSTIGATED. REMEMBER IN '83 WHEN BLANNING RAN
SCREAMING DOWN AJAX THAT "THE MOUNTAIN IS MOVING?" WHAT
AN EVACUATION THAT TURNED OUT TO BE! REMEMBER, TOO, IN THE MID-'90s WHEN
BLANNING TRIED TO HANG HIMSELF ON THE COURTHOUSE STEPS? SOME PASSING TOURISTS
MISCONSTRUED BLANNING'S ANTIC HERE AS LOCAL ENTERTAINMENT. THEN THERE
WAS THAT TIME BLANNING CAME INTO THE CANTINA WEARING NOTHING BUT A JOCK
STRAP AND A FOOT-LONG DILDO WHICH HE POINTED AT COUNTY COMMISSIONERS GATHERED
THERE. AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON . . .
10pm Dec. 31, 2008-- By Sterling Greenwood --There is a "person
of interest" being sought by authorities in the bomb scare. A private
security guard at Cooper and Galena shows me his picture, but I don't
want to run it here unless there are formal charges and that might never
happen because authorities don't know for sure he's involved. "He's
a crazy guy in his seventies, craggy-faced, and he knows dynamite,"
the guard says. "And he's made threats." The guard also says
Aspen is "crawling with FBI now." In the background I hear what
sounds like a bomb exploding. I jump. "That's just a box they're
testing," the guard smiles. You mean a box that might have been a
bomb? a girl asked. The guard nods in the affirmative. "There were
two boxes. The first one didn't go off." At the fire truck situated
at the interesection in front of Boogie's, some tourists are taking each
other's picture standing next to the truck.
The Aspen Free Press got a call this afternoon around 4:30 from Aspen/Pitkin
County Government to evacuate offices because of a bomb scare at local
banks. I went downstairs to McDonald's for a coke and the place was closed
and won't open again until tomorrow because of the bomb threat. I really
feel sorry for the tourists paying $15k to $20k PER NIGHT to stay
here for the holiday festivities (see this week's Mountain Business Journal).
I wonder if they will get some of their money back. A lot of downtown
is closed tight as a drum. I walked down Cooper to City Market which was
open and grabbed a coke. En route, I saw that Paradise Bakery looked open,
but I didn't try to enter the place so I can't be sure. However I could
see lots of customers in Bad Billy's and Boogie's. So it's not like a
ghost town out there. There are official vehicles like fire trucks flashing
lights at intersections to keep people from getting any closer than two
blocks of Vectra and Wells Fargo, the two banks involved. My understanding
is that businesses within two blocks of these banks were forced to evacuate.
I'm going out on foot in a minute to confirm. Already, a report from Aspen
Times says the Hotel Jerome Bar, which is closer than two blocks to Wells
Fargo is blowin' and goin' as usual so perhaps all businesses aren't complying.
Boogie's is just a block from Vectra and doors are wide open there. We're
just getting info in bits and pieces. Everything written here is subject
to change. Stay cool.
7PM -- I'm ambling down Cooper Mall and run into two couples who seem
irked that Takah Sushi is closed due to the evacuation imposed by police.
That's what the sign on the door says anyway. "Isn't there another
Japanese restaurant near here?" one guy sayss. "This town looks
deserted." He's right. Aspen is starting to look like a ghost town.
I walk down Cooper toward City Market again. This time there's no doubt
about it. Paradise Bakery is closed. And I wanted to get some of their
homemade blackberry frozen yogurt too! Bad Billy's two doors down, which
had been packed with merry-makers the last time I went by, looked like
a tomb. Same with Boogie's. I saw one or two small shops open. I was planning
to see the Stones flick tonight at the Wheeler, but it's just a block
from Wells Fargo. I'm going to walk over there anyway to check. You can't
get anyone on the phone in this town unless you owe them money.I found
City Market still full of shoppers. There was this one basket in the frozen
food section just sitting there full of ice cream cartons. At first I
thought it was a bargain basket. I felt some of the cartons and they were
real easy to squeeze. Is this melted ice cream, I wondered. Maybe someone
has loaded a basket with ice cream and split. .I told one of the checkout
guys about it and left. More coming, stay tuned.
Meanwhile, with evacuees huddling in a local school building, is there
going to be a New Year's fireworks display tonight on Aspen Mountain?
Sixteen blocks of the core downtown have been evacuated apparently. I'm
not supposed to be here typing, but I'm sure as hell not going to spend
the night in a school building as one of the evacuees, unless we can use
the heated pool at the rec center. A bomb squad from Grand Junction is
on the scene now, according to the Aspen Times. Meanwhile I'm going back
out and try to get some info that usually available at press conferences.
Stay tuned.
IT'S 9:15 PM AND THE ISLEY BROTHERS'S 'SHOUT'" BLARES from a speaker
next to the public johns at the juncture of Cooper and Mill malls. Snow
is stacked up more than five-feet high on the nearly empty malls and it
feels eerie listening to "Shout," as I see red and blue flashing
police lights in two directions with streets roped off. In Wagner Park
where a dee-jay is playing music, about 50 persons shiver around a big
bonfire. There are a few people eating at Pacifica, but Ruth Chris's has
more customers than I've ever seen there. It's jammed. Likewise the Little
Nell Hotel. "They're turning people away," an officer tells
me, "unless you're staying there." The Hotel Jerome Bar is open
because it's on the north side of Main and Takah Sushi, Paradise Bakery,
Bad Billy's (formerly Cooper Street Pier) ,Boogie's and Mezaluna are closed
because they're on the north side of Cooper. Mark Richards is the only
store open on Cooper Mall. There are people in there trying on coats.
If I want to go to Main, I'm told to go by Aspen Street circumventing
the core downtown. More later.
-- QUESTION OF THE DAY:WILL CHIP MCCRORY POLL AS MANY VOTES TOMORROW
AS A WRITE-IN CANDIDATE FOR DA AS THE CARTOON CHARACTER SAL A. MANDER
DID TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO IN HIS BID FOR THE OFFICE? SAL DID GET THE MOST
VOTES IN ASPEN BUT NEVER GOT TO SERVE.
NOV. 4, 2005 -- September proved to be another good month for City of
Aspen which took in nearly $3 million from retail sales tax revenues alone.
And September is an "off-season" month! City coffers should
really overflow as usual when all the tourists with fat wallets hit town
in December! Some $33 million in total retail sales were recorded for
September. Not bad for a small town with 6,000 residents and no new car
dealerships. Hell, there's not even a funeral home here. The Aspen Free
Press may start one and call it Apres Death.
1,200
PHANTOM "YES" VOTES? The Aspen Times scooped all of us on this
one, even the Aspen Star(click here for more). 11/3?05 Stay tuned.
This bizarre story continues to unfold. And the beat rolls on . . .
10/7/05 --Birthday greetings to Alice Bailey Greenwood.
Note to embattled DA Colleen Truden --ES UN CABEZA PESADA QUE LLEVA
LA CORONA.
COLLEEN VS THE MACHINE? -- THE INQUISITION-IN-THE
MAKING OF "THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE" FOR DA-- COLLEEN TRUDEN -- SEE
"WHY DON'T WE ALL GET DRUNK AND BURN HER AT THE STAKE?"
EVEN IF DA TRUDEN WEREN'T ABLE TO PROSECUTE HER WAY OUT OF A WET PAPER
BAG -- AS HAS BEEN ALLEGED BY SOME WHO WANT HER RECALLED -- WOULD THAT
BE SO AWFUL? AREN'T ENOUGH U.S. CITIZENS IN JAIL ALREADY? MORE THAN TWO
MILLION AT LAST COUNT. MORE THAN ANY OTHER NATION PER CAPITA. THE U.S.
ECONOMY HAS BECOME SO DEPENDENT ON INCARCERATION OF ITS CITIZENS THAT
IF -- POOF BY MAGIC -- EVERY ONE US DIRTBAGS STARTED OBEYING OUR DIZZYING
ARRAY OF LAWS, (OF WHICH THERE ARE MORE AND MORE WITH EACH LEGISLATIVE
SESSION) AUTHORITIES WOULD MAKE JAYWALKING A FELONY IN HOPES OF KEEPING
THE JAILS FILLED AND THE NEED ALIVE FOR MORE PRISONS. DO YOU FEEL ANY
LESS SAFE WITH COLLEEN IN OFFICE? PREDICTION: IN 50 YEARS, IF CURRENT
POPULATION TRENDS CONTINUE, MORE THAN HALF OF ALL U.S RESIDENTS WILL BE
EITHER HERE ILLEGALLY AND/OR BEHIND BARS. Es muy verdad! Es un cabeza
pesada que lleva la corona. Still, it seems somehow un-American that Colleen
can operate "secret police" ie TRIDENT in our valley only because
of the measley 2,537 votes she got in the GOP primary. Considering there
are 37,869 total voters registered in the 9th Judicial District, Colleen's
tally was less than seven percent. What happened was that Colleen's nomination
by the GOP was tantamount to election because there was no Democratic
opponent. Of course, it's not Colleen's fault that Dems are pussies these
days. If Colleen Truden does get recalled, then the only candidate on
the ballot for the job -- former Deputy DA Martin Beeson --can become
our new DA theoretically with only one vote. But that won't happen because
Chip McCrory, himself a former chief deputy DA here and assistant DA under
Milt Blakey is a write-in candidate. Don't sell McCrory short just because
of his write-in status. A cartoon character was a write-in for DA twenty-five
years ago and would have won the election if the State of Colorado had
allowed the votes for the cartoon "Salamander" to be counted.
Stay tuned! Es un cabeza pesada que lleva la corona. . . .
HUNTER S. THOMPSON --HE STAYED LOOSE AND WEIRD ON THE STREETS
-- BUT COPS SURE WANTED TO POP HIM. UPCOMING ASPEN FREE PRESS SPECIAL
REPORT COMPARES LIFESTYLES OF THE KING OF GONZO AND THE KING OF ROCK AND
ROLL. . . . BOTH SOUTHERN, CLOSE TO SAME AGE WITH AN AFFINITY FOR FIREARMS
AND . .
SCROLL PAST UPLOADED STORIES FROM ASPEN FREE PRESS STREET EDITIONS
TO WHAT'S BEEN WRITTEN ABOUT 'ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER,' IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS
SINCE 1982.
AUG 16, 2005 --"JUST HOLD YOUR WATER
'CAUSE HE'S ONLY GONE WHERE ALL OF US GOTTER"
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
-- ASPEN HAS THREE GIVEWAY NEWSPAPERS: THE "LOCALLY-OWNED"
ASPEN DAILY NEWS "IF YOU DON'T WANT IT PRINTED DON'T LET
IT HAPPEN,' -- THE ASPEN FREE PRESS, ''ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER"
LOCALLY-OWNED, TOO, BUT LOUSY -- A WRETCHED YELLOW SHEET I STARTED IN
'82 IN THE THIRD PARKED CAR FROM THE CORNER AT MAIN AND MONARCH AFTER
STINTS AT THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS AS ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THEN EDITOR--
AND THE ASPEN TIMES, WHICH OCCUPIED AN EXHALTED PLAIN THROUGH
MOST OF THE EIGHTIES BECAUSE PEOPLE ACTUALLY PAID MONEY TO READ IT.
WHAT DID THE ASPEN TIMES COST PER COPY BACK THEN? QUARTER A COPY?
THIS WAS BEFORE IT WENT DAILY AND GOT DOWN IN THE DIRT WITH THE REST
OF US AS A GIVEAWAY. I THINK THE TIMES WHICH USED TO BOAST THE
ONLY PAID LOCAL CIRCULATION IN ASPEN, ALREADY HAD TURNED GIVEAWAY WHEN
THE SWIFT NEWSPAPER CHAIN, HEADQUARTERED IN RENO, NEVADA PICKED IT UP
FROM A LOCAL CONSORTIUM SEVERAL YEARS AGO, WHICH HAD PURCHASED IT FROM
THE HIGHLY REVERED BIL DUNAWAY. THE TIMES STILL HAS IT'S WEEKLY,
BUT IT'S A GIVEAWAY, TOO, NOW.
I'M BACK FROM TEXAS AND MEXICO, BUT STILL HAVEN'T FINISHED WRITING
THIS STUPID NOVEL 'SLEEPING LEGAL." . I'VE VOWED TO FINISH IT BEFORE
JUMPING BACK INTO THE GRIND OF NEWSPAPER JOURNALISM. I'VE GOT A LOT
TO TELL ASPEN FREE PRESS READERS ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO ME SOUTH
OF THE BORDER DURING FOOD ABUSE REHAB. UNFUCKING REAL!!!
OH, I ALMOST FORGOT TO MENTION THAT THIS LATEST OWNER OF THE ASPEN
TIMES -- SWIFT NEWSPAPERS -- MAY BE AROUND ASPEN FOR A WHILE BECAUSE
IT BOUGHT THE BUILDING THE TIMES HAS BEEN USING ON MAIN
STREET. THE TIMES STILL PRINTS OUT OF TOWN THOUGH, AS
DOES THE DAILY NEWS SO THEY'RE BOTH SLOW ON THE UPTAKE SO FAR
AS HOT NEWS IS CONCERNED WHICH IS FINE WITH THE ASPEN FREE PRESS
WHICH MAINTAINS AN IN-HOUSE PRESS IN ITS DOWNTOWN OFFICE ON COOPER AND
CAN GET NEWS OF A JURY VERDICT ON THE STREETS IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. OR
FOR THAT MATTER AN 'EXTRA,' ON THE DEATH OF A FAMOUS GONZO WRITER LIKE
WE DID FEB. 20, 2005 WHEN HUNTER DIED. WE --STARTED DISTRIBUTING
THE THOMPSON "EXTRA," -- KAREN AND I AND THREE GUYS WHO CRASH
IN OUR BASEMENT STAIRWELL -- AT EITHER 6PM OR JUST BEFORE 7. WE'RE OF
DIFFERING OPINIONS IN THE OFFICE, KAREN'S BEING IT WAS AT 6 BECAUSE
SHE FOOLISHLY THOUGHT SHE'D BE BACK HOME IN TIME FOR 'DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES,'
AT 8.
THE ONLY THING I REMEMBER WITH CLARITY IN THAT MAD SCRAMBLE OF
CONFUSION IS THAT IT WAS COLD AND WET AND DARK OUTSIDE AS WE DISTRIBUTED
AND THE TOWN SEEMED FULL OF TOURISTS WHO DESCENDED ON US LIKE HUNGRY
BIRDS FOR COPIES OF THE 'EXTRA.'
READER RESPONSE' RIVALED OUR "OJ IN ASPEN" ISSUE A MONTH
EARLIER WHEN I FOUND AN AFFABLE O.J. CURLED OVER A VIRGIN MARY AT THE
LITTLE NELL BAR ACROSS THE STREET FROM OUR OFFICE.
WE FINISHED DELIVERING THE THOMPSON 'EXTRA,' AT 2AM AND GOT BACK TO
THE OFFICE TO FIND THE PHONE RINGING LIKE CRAZY -- CALL AFTER CALL FROM
NEWSPAPERS AND TV STATIONS ALL OVER. THIS DIDN'T STOP FOR A WEEK. I
THINK ONE CALL EVEN CAME FROM A NEWSPAPER IN LONDON. HELL, MAYBE IT
WAS LONDON, CONN.
BUT SO FAR AS RAOUL DUKE IS CONCERNED, 'JUST HOLD YOUR WATER, CAUSE
HE'S ONLY GONE WHERE ALL OF US GOTTER.' I SAW THIS INSCRIPTION ON A
GRAVESTONE IN TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA AS I DROVE INTO TEXAS FROM MEXICO.
LOOK FOR ME ON GRASSROOTS TV AS PART OF A PANEL OF LONGTIME LOCAL MEDIA
HACKS MODERATED BY SHERIFF BOB BRAUDIS.
CIAO,
WHEW!!!
MAY 15, 2005 - I'm off to Texas for off-season, and maybe Mexico,
too, for some alternative prostate cancer therapy. I love those garlic
communes in the mountains of central Mexico near San Miguel. We'll have
this wretched yellow rag on the streets again after off-season, maybe
by August 20 when they blast Hunter's cremated remains from a cannon at
Owl Farm., or whenever the brain fog lifts. . Meanwhile I hope to have
"Sleeping Legal," --completed by then. The 'extra,' we ran the
day Hunter died -- last Feb. 20 -- has been uploaded to this column below.
A hand-wringing Burlingame election. A big pay-day for developers. But
why did sixty percent of registered Aspen voters stay home? See today's
street edition of the Aspen Free Press, "Aspen's Worst Newspaper,"
founded in the third parked car from the corner at Main and Monarch in
1982.
FOOD ABUSE -- HOW DEADLY IS IT?-- See today's street edition for an update.
PLEASE DISREGARD OUR 'HELP WANTED' AD FOR AN ASSOCIATE EDITOR . THE
POSITION HAS BEEN FILLED. THANK YOU.
KEEP SCROLLING TO SEE WHAT'S BEEN WRITTEN IN OTHER PUBLICATIONS
ABOUT THE ASPEN FREE PRESS.
FEB 21, 2005 -- THE ASPEN FREE PRESS BROKE THE STORY OF HUNTER
S. THOMPSON'S DEATH FROM A SELF-INFLICTED GUNSHOT WOUND, YESTERDAY IN
A SAME DAY " EXTRA." . IN THE RUSH, WE GOT HUNTER'S AGE
WRONG. WE SAID HE WAS BORN HUNTER STOCKTON THOMPSON IN LOUISVILLE, KY.,
ON JULY 18, 1939, OUR SOURCE BEING A THOMPSON BIOGRAPHY, "FEAR
AND LOATHING AND THE STRANGE AND TERRIBLE SAGA OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON"
BY PAUL PERRY. IN FACT, HUNTER WAS BORN JULY 18, 1937. THE ASPEN FREE
PRESS REGRETS THE ERROR. FOR 'A GENTLEMEN FOR JUSTICE LUNCHEON WITH
DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON,' IT'S IN THIS COLUMN, BUT SCROLL WAY DOWN.
ACTRESS SANDRA DEE ALSO DIED YESTERDAY FEB 20.
UPLOADED FROM ASPEN FREE PRESS STREET EDITION 1/11/05
Jan 11, 2005 -- O.J. IN ASPEN
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
O.J. Simspon is in Aspen today. It took me nearly a half hour to track
him down to the Little Nell Bar and get my photo made with him there.
I know, I know, I know! I'll get flack for being pictured with O.J.,
but journalism is a low trade at best so see today's street edition
of the Aspen Free Press for story with a photo. Are we giving O.J. too
much coverage? Screw it. Anybody remember Claudine Longet? Nevermind!!!
Back to O.J., Whenever somebody, whom much of the public feels got by
with a highly-publicized double murder, comes to town, it's news. Did
O.J. brutally murder his estranged wife, Nicole, and Ron Goldman? A
jury of his peers acquitted him of those charges. And we are a nation
of laws.
For that matter, much of the public believes President Bush stole the
2,000 presidential election and that people are dying every day now
as a result. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, though, the election
wasn't stolen. And we are a nation of laws. The Aspen Free Press will
run staff photos of President Bush, his relatives and his boyhood home
in Midland, Tx. on inauguration day in a special edition.
The journalist's role is not that of judge and jury, but to convey
accurate information to the public -- information that it doesn't already
have, but would be interested in. And the Aspen Free Press did that
today.
DEC. 31, 2004
'CADMIUM, CONTAINED IN COLORADO ROAD DE-ICER
MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE, LINKED TO HUMAN CANCER. SEE
TODAY'S STREET EDITION OR SCROLL TO ARCHIVES STORY BELOW.
, - DEATH FROM 21-YEAR OLD WOUND RULED HOMICIDE. See this afternoon's
street edition of the Aspen Free Press, "The Roaring Fork Valley's
worst newspaper."
A BLATANT TOUT: SIP SOME HAND-MADE ARTISAN WINE FROM WOODY CREEK CELLARS.
ASK FOR IT AT ASPEN RESTAURANTS OR CALL KEVIN DOYLE AT 970-923-2253.
ALSO YOU CAN TASTE AND EVEN BUY THE STUFF AT GRACY'S ON SUNDAYS.
AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON . . .
By Sterling Greenwood
Thought for the day:
Too bad pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, maker of
the pain medication Celebrex linked to heart problems including death,
doesn't make appetite-curbing supplements containing ma huang ie ephedra,
too. Then ephedra might not have got banned (after, all Celebrex hasn't
been) and I'd be twenty pounds lighter. PLEASE SEE RANDOM POLL BELOW
Our answer to George who dropped us a line: What the Texan character
named Tony said in "No Problem Bridge and the Aspen Free Press,"
was this: "She looks like she went after something she forgot
and it ran flat-assed over her." We'll run the whole series
soon.
Snow everywhere I look on Ajax today. Anyway, here's the Aspen
Free Press recipe for snow ice cream, which we started publishing in
1982. Known in the south as "depression ice cream," all you
need for it is: a giant bowl of clean snow, whipping cream, vanilla
and sugar. Mix it to your individual taste. It really can taste like
home-made ice cream.
UPLOADED FROM OCT. 15, 2004
Do the bells of St. Mary's in Aspen peal partisan? Stay tuned!
-Longtime Aspen local Mike McCollum of Garfield & Hecht has
a new country and western music cd out "Mike McCollum, Just a Workin'
Fool." Read more about it in this afternoon's Aspen Free Press.
. Mike ought to write a song "How to Sue a Fool."
IN A RANDOM POLL OF ASPEN VOTERS THE ASPEN FREE PRESS --"ASPEN'S
WORST NEWSPAPER"-- FOUND THAT LOCALS OLDER THAN THE MEDIAN
AGE OF 38 HERE ARE MORE AFRAID OF WEIGHT GAIN THAN TERRORISM. IN FACT
ONE RESPONDENT TO OUR SURVEY, A BUSH SUPPORTER, SAID HE WOULD HAVE VOTED
FOR KERRY IF KERRY HAD PROMISED TO LIFT BUSH'S EPHEDRA BAN. THIS ALL
SOUNDS CRAZY UNTIL YOU LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. According to a New York
Times story some 300,000 U.S. CITIZENS die annually AS A RESULT OF OBESITY.
That's nearly a million premature deaths in the three years since 9/11.
AND, OF COURSE, THERE'S ALWAYS THAT VANITY FACTOR. READ ALL ABOUT IT
IN THIS AFTERNOON'S EDITION OF THE ASPEN FREE PRESS.
OUR NEXT POLL WILL POSE A POLITICAL QUESTION TO TOURISTS ON VACATION
IN ASPEN: DO YOU VALUE BEING THIN MORE THAN YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE? WE ALREADY
KNOW THAT 10 OUT OF 10 LOCALS VALUE BEING THIN MORE.
CHECK OUT 'FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS,' IF YOU WANT A BETTER UNDERSTANDING
OF PRESIDENT BUSH. THE FLICK IS ABOUT THE INTENSE FOOTBALL RIVALRY BETWEEN
TWO TEXAS TOWNS -- ODESSA AND MIDLAND. "DUBYA" LIVED IN BOTH
WEST TEXAS COMMUNITIES AS A YOUTH. . THOUGH
THE PRESIDENT DIDN'T PLAY VARSITY FOOTBALL, THE FILM OFFERS A GLIMPSE
INTO HIS ENVIRONMENT DURING FORMATIVE YEARS. RETIRED COMMANDER OF U.S.
FORCES IN IRAQ, GENERAL TOMMY FRANKS, ALSO GREW UP IN MIDLAND AS DID
FIRST LADY LAURA BUSH. ACTOR TOMMY LEE JONES WHO COULD EASILY PLAY THE
ROLE OF GENERAL FRANKS IN A MOVIE, ALSO PLAYED FOOTBALL FOR MIDLAND
LEE HIGH SCHOOL, AS DID THE GENERAL. DID TOMMY LEE JONES, LAURA BUSH,
TOMMY FRANKS AND "DUBYA,' KNOW EACH OTHER AS KIDS? SEE THIS AFTERNOON'S
EDITION OF THE ASPEN FREE PRESS. THIS NEWSPAPER'S CO-PUBLISHER KAREN
DAY WAS A FOOTBALL CHEERLEADER IN BOTH MIDLAND AND ODESSA GROWING UP.
SHE DID KNOW TOMMY FRANKS IN HIGH SCHOOL.
UPLOADED OCT. 20 2004
WHAT ABOUT ALL THESE CONFLICTING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION POLLS THAT
DROVE EVERYONE CRAZY DURING THE ELECTION? See this afternoon's edition
of the Aspen Free Press for more on this. I remember covering the' 92
Demo primary in Colorado for the Aspen Free Press. Polls had Bill Clinton
ahead of Jerry Brown by a whopping ten points the day before the vote.
Brown won the primary. I remember the day well. I went to a drive-inn
burger joint on 6th Avenue in Denver and ordered my dinner through a
clown's mouth. Radio reports indicated Clinton a sure winner. Then I
joined a drunken gang of boile-room politicos in the Wazee Lounge who
insisted I accompany them to a fuck flick -- "Debbie Does Dallas"
-- on Colfax, just for comic relief (believe it or not I'd never seen
a porn film). As the movie ended a fat man in a Boy Scout suit, with
a transistor wired to his ear, told me Brown won. And the beat rolls
on . . . . .
FACT -- THE UNITED STATES HAS FIVE PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S POPULATION,
BUT TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE WORLD'S PRISONERS.
FACT -- 79 MILLION REGISTERED U.S. VOTERS DIDN'T VOTE IN THE LAST
PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
LOST IN COLORADO -- BY STERLING GREENWOOD -- AUG. 16, 2004 -- ELVIS
HAS BEEN DEAD NOW SOME 27 YEARS -- A VICTIM OF FOOD ABUSE -- AND IN
THE WORDS OF THE LATE LEWIS GRIZZARD, "I DON'T FEEL SO GOOD MYSELF."
Elvis died on this date in Memphis of cholesterol-clogged arteries and
obesity. In the final days, the King got so heavy he could barely walk.
By then he had even quit sending his jet to Dallas to pickup those two-dozen
cheeseburgers he'd eat in one sitting. An Atlanta newspaper columnist,
the late Lewis Grizzard, wrote a book "Elvis is Dead and I Don't
feel so good Myself." I wrote a book, "No Problem Bridge and
the Aspen Free Press," an exercept from which deals with the first
time I saw Elvis in 1955. Read it in the column to your left. Have a
nice weekend. And the beat rolls on . . . . .
I was in Austin, Tx., when I learned of Elvis's death. The page
one banner headline on the Austin American-Statesman read "THE
KING IS DEAD." I didn't see so large a type in a newspaper again
until 9/11.
Anyway, a year before Elvis died I had bought a new stretched-out
yellow Coupe de Ville right off the showroom floor at Krebs Motor Co.,
in Vernon, Tx., for just $7,500 -- an oil embargo special. Who'd of
thought that a year after Elvis died I'd be living in the thing in Aspen
where I eventually started the Aspen Free Press in the back seat.
-- "Aspen's worst newspaper published in the 3rd parked car from
the corner at Main and Monarch." Now I own an office condo downtown
right across from Aspen Mountain, but I'm being pushed to sell. Real
estate that's just a stone's throw from the swanky St. Regis is too
exclusive for a dirt-bag like me. More than $1 billion in real estate
changes hands annually in this town of 6,000 residents. Parking space
prices will reach $100,000 soon. Read all about it in today's street
edition, plus an interview with James Cole, co-author of the definitive
book on Elvis's death entitled, appropriately enough, "The Death
of Elvis." Of course, Cole may not consent to the interview. I
haven't phoned him about it yet, but he's an old college friend and
I don't expect any flack.
Over the years, Cole has told me many chilling details about his investigation
into Elvis's death. Cole was an investigator for 20/20 and a reporter
for the Scripps-Howard newspaper in Memphis -- The Commercial Appeal
--where I got my start in big city journalism.in the wake of the
King assassination in '68. And the beat rolls on. . .
Meanwhile , , , ,
I've been at an alternative health retreat dubbed 'a garlic commune,'
in the mountains of central Mexico nearTesquisqiappan (don't even try
to pronounce it), about an hour's drive from San Miguel de Allende'.
Something else!!!!
I looked peaked and emaciated when I arrived in Mexico for therapy.
"One of the docs there said, 'I think the first thing we'll
do is take you off your health food diet.'
It was so hot that hardly anybody wore much clothing. Doctors came
around daily to give health lectures, dispense herbal concoctions and
administer injections of red stuff I never could pronounce the name
of, but which made me feel so gooooooood!
There were evenings when I would wander off down a skittering dusty
path to a thatched-roof bar for tequila shots. After a couple, I'd find
myself musing lazily, "Gee, I wonder what's going to happen now.
. . . .because so far, getting prostate cancer isn't all that bad!!
More later.
The above is an excerpt from the novel, "No Problem Bridge and
the Aspen Free Press."
CHECK OUT THE ARTICLE -- "WITH BILL CLINTON IN THE HIPPIE YEARS," -- (AT LEFT) WHICH HAS BEEN UPLOADED FROM STREET EDITIONS
-----------------
HAVING TROUBLE WITH YOUR CONDO ASSOCIATION?
ARE YOU A MINORITY-INTEREST OWNER, UNCERTAIN OF YOUR RIGHTS? DO YOU
FEEL POWERLESS? A COUPLE OF DENVER LAWYERS TO PHONE ARE JULIE WAGNER
AND LYNN JORDON. LYNN WAS ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE COLORADO COMMON
INTEREST OWNERS ACT (CCIOA). TO GET THEIR PHONE NUMBERS SEE STREET EDITIONS
NEXT WEEK.
------------------------
HAS DON JOHNSON PAID HIS GROCERY BILL AT CLARK'S? SEE AN UPCOMING STREET
EDITION? CHECK OUT TODAY'S STREET EDITION!!! YES, IT'S BEEN PAID.
------------------------
WE WILL COVER KOBE LIKE WE DO EVERYTHING ELSE
-- IN RAMBLING, CONFUSING PROSE, SET OFF BY PHOTOS. AND THE BEAT ROLLS
ON . . . .
LIKE WITH THE FURRIER TRIAL, I, WE WILL SPEND
NIGHTS IN MY JEEP AT THE EAGLE/VAIL DENNY'S PARKING LOT -- FOOD AND
RESTROOM FACILITIES 24 HOURS A DAY. YOU CAN'T BEAT IT!
------------
LITTLE-KNOWN-FACT DEPT. -- COKEHEADS HERE
WHO WENT THROUGH REHAB HAVE EMERGED COCAINE-FREE BUT ADDICTED TO THE
ITALIAN BABY LAXATIVE USED TO CUT THE COCAINE. SO THERE ARE FORMER COKEHEADS
ALL OVER TOWN WHO NEED LAXATIVES FOR BOWEL MOVEMENTS. ONE OF COMEDIAN
DAVID BRENNER'S FRIENDS ASKED ME TODAY IF HE COULD PASS THIS ON TO DAVID.
SURE.
----------
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO KATHERINE ODESSA GREENWOOD FEB. 20
-----------------------
MELANIE GRIFFITH LINK SURFACES IN
KATHY DENSON MURDER TRIAL --'VICTIM'S' MOTHER TAKES THE STAND
BY STERLING GREENWOOD 8/24/03
EAGLE, CO., -- A MELANIE GRIFFITH
LINK SURFACED TODAY IN THE MURDER TRIAL OF WEALTHY FURRIER KATHLEEN
(KATHY) DENSON, ACCUSED OF WIELDING AN ANTIQUE BLACK POWDER REVOLVER
TO SHOOT TO DEATH HER FORMER BOYFRIEND, GERALD CODY BOYD, IN HER RANCH
HOME. SHE IS PLEADING SELF DEFENSE.
CODY BOYD'S MOTHER, MARY JO BOYD, TESTIFIED THAT AFTER CODY AND
HIS LAST WIFE, DEBBIE, DIVORCED, DEBBIE THEN MARRIED THE COUPLE'S NEXT
DOOR NEIGHBOR, THE FATHER OF MOVIE ACTRESS MELANIE GRIFFITH WHO RESIDES
PART-TIME IN ASPEN.
MURDER DEFENDANT KATHY DENSON IS ALSO FACING A WRONGFUL DEATH SUIT
FILED BY DEBBIE GRIFFITH ON BEHALF OF CODY BOYD'S DAUGHTER, CALLIE.
MARY JO BOYD RESIDED IN AUSTIN, TX., SOME SIXTY-THREE YEARS WHERE SHE
REARED HER SON. ON THE STAND TODAY, UNDER QUESTIONING BY THE DA, SHE
PROJECTED A SALT-OF-THE-EARTH, NO NON-SENSE IMAGE. SHE WAS A STAY-AT-HOME
MOTHER, SHE SAID, 'AND HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO RAISE HIM MYSELF.' SHE WAS
THE WIFE OF GERALD CODY BOYD SR., FOR TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS BEFORE THE
COUPLE DIVORCED. SHE TESTIFIED THAT HER SON, CODY, KEPT NO SECRETS FROM
HER.
DID SHE HAVE A TEMPER WHEN CODY WAS GROWING UP?
'I USED TO HAVE A BAD ONE 'TIL I GOT SAVED AND DELIVERED. I'M A
CHRISTIAN NOW.
HOW DID HER HUSBAND DEAL WITH HER MOODS?
'HE'D PUT ON HIS BASEBALL CAP AND LEAVE UNTIL I GOT IN A BETTER
HUMOR.' SHE SAID CODY BOYD SR., AND HER SON WERE BOTH EASY GOING AND
LOW-KEYED.
HOW OLD WAS HER SON, CODY, WHEN HE GOT INTO DRUGS?
'HE WAS 14 OR 15.' HE CAME IN ONE NIGHT WHEN SHE WAS FIXING DINNER,
SHE SAID, AND TOLD HER HE WAS GOING TO SMOKE SOME MARIJUANA AND TOLD
HER 'IT MAKES ME HUNGRY.' CODY WAS A DJ, SHE SAID AND PLAYED GUITARS
AT THE HOUSE. ONE DAY HE PLAYED THERE, SHE SAID WITH A DARK-HAIRED MUSICIAN
WHO CODY TOLD HER WAS JERRY GARCIA. AND ONE TIME HE BROUGHT IN SOME
MARIJUANA AND SHE SAID, 'GET THAT OUT OF THE HOUSE.' 'I'M NOT GOING
TO SMOKE IT EVER,' HE RESPONDED, ACCORDING HER TESTIMONY. 'WILLIE NELSON
GAVE IT TO ME.'
HOW OLD WAS CODY WHEN HE FIRST MARRIED?
'HE WAS NINETEEN,' SHE SAID. 'HE MARRIED A GIRL TWENTY-SEVEN-YEARS-OLD,
WITH A FIVE-YEAR-OLD BOY.'
HOW LONG DID THE MARRIAGE LAST?
'THREE OR FOUR MONTHS,' SHE SAID.
WHAT HAPPENED?
CODY TOLD HIS MOTHER, ACCORDING TO HER TESTIMONY, 'I'M NOT GOING
TO LIVE MY LIFE DUCKING POTS AND PANS.' MARY JO BOYD SAID, 'AND IT WASN'T
ANY PLATE. IT WAS PANS. BEFORE CODY AND HIS FIRST WIFE DIVORCED,
HIS MOTHER SAID, 'SHE WAS PREGNANT.'
HOW LONG WAS CODY DIVORCED BEFORE HE MARRIED AGAIN?
'A YEAR OR TWO, AND HE MARRIED ANN DITMORE," HIS MOTHER SAID.
CODY WAS EMPLOYED AS A TRUCK DRIVER DURING THIS TIME. 'HE LOVED THE
LADIES AND THE LADIES LOVED HIM,' HIS MOTHER SAID, BUT WHAT BROKE UP
HIS MARRIAGE WITH ANN WASN'T OTHER WOMEN. IT WAS DRUGS. CODY, SHE SAID,
DROVE TRUCKS AND HAD TO TAKE PILLS IN ORDER TO STAY AWAKE AND MAKE DEADLINES.
HE TOLD HER HE HATED THE STUFF BUT HE COULDN'T STAY EMPLOYED WITHOUT
IT.
HOW LONG WAS HE MARRIED TO ANN?
'ABOUT FIVE YEARS.'
HOW LONG DID HE REMAIN UNMARRIED AFTER ANN?
'NOT LONG,' SHE SAID. 'HIS NEXT WIFE, DEBBIE, LIVED ACROSS THE STREET.'
SEE THE REST OF THIS STORY IN TODAY'S STREET EDITION OF THE ASPEN FREE
PRESS
--------------------------------
WHO TORCHED BACKFLIP BARNEY OLDFIELD'S ASPEN CONDO? READ ON
THE ASPEN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT NOW IS SAYING ARSON DESTROYED BARNEY
OLDFIELD'S CONDO-- NAW!! THIS MAY COME AS NEWS TO ALL ASPEN LOCALS WHO
TAKE THEIR DINNERS IN HIGH CHAIRS. IT WAS AN OPINION VOICED BY THE ASPEN
FREE PRESS WEEKS AGO. SEE 'FIRE PROBE YIELDS MARIJUANA' BELOW.
SEE TODAY'S STREET EDITION OF THE ASPEN FREE
PRESS --- 'ASPEN'S WORST NEWSPAPER' -- ESTABLISHED 1982, IN THE
THIRD PARKED CAR FROM THE CORNER AT MAIN AND MONARCH.
'BACKFLIP' BARNEY OLDFIELD BAILS
OUT ON POT CHARGES FILED IN WAKE OF LOCAL FIRE. STORY BELOW
CONDO FIRE PROBE YIELDS MARIJUANA -- 7/2/2003
BY STERLING GREENWOOD
OF ALL THE INTERVIEWS THIS WEEK IN THE WAKE OF A
PRE-DAWN FIRE WHICH LEFT RESIDENTS OF AN 18-UNIT ASPEN APARTMENT BUILDING
HOMELESS, THERE WASN'T ONE WHERE SOMEONE SAID, "I GRABBED MY PUPPY
DOG, MY CAR KEYS AND MY MARIJUANA AND GOT OUT OF THERE."
MAYBE IT DAWNED ON COPS THEN THAT SOME REFUGEE
FROM THAT CHARRED PLACE COULD HAVE LEFT SOME WEED.
SOURCES TELL THE ASPEN FREE PRESS THAT INVESTIGATORS
MONDAY CONFISCATED A QUANTITY OF GRASS, SOME SCALES AND CASH FROM ONE
OF THE CONDOS AT ASPEN VIEW CONDOMINIUMS, 326 MIDLAND, WHERE THE FIRE
ERUPTED.
AND A JUDGE SIGNED A WARRANT TUESDAY TO SEARCH A
CONDO THERE OWNED AND OCCUPIED BY LOCAL CELEBRITY BARNEY OLDFIELD, 50,
AKA 'BACKFLIP BARNEY' THE RETIRING WINNER OF ASPEN SKI SPLASH.
NO CHARGES HAVE BEEN FILED.
(UPDATE -- JULY 3, 03, BARNEY 'BACKFLIP' OLDFIELD
WAS CHARGED WITH FELONY POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA AND DISTRIBUTION OF
MARIJUANA AS WELL AS POSSESSION OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA. . HE POSTED BAIL
OF $8,000, ACCORDING TO HIS ATTORNEY JOHN VAN NESS.)
I went out to the fire site yesterday. They had a dog out there from
Denver to smell things. Primarily this dog, a sweet female named Erin,
detects signs of arson.
Erin was used courtesy of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, "because
Erin needs experience," one fire official told the Aspen Free Press.
Erin smelled "hydrocarbons," whatever that means.
There was a propane-fueled barbeque grill upstairs on a balcony next
to a partition. A complaint about the grill, reportedly, was made at
the last condo meeting. The grill does not belong to Oldfield, reportedly,
nor was it on his section of the balcony.
There was an alarm system put in at a cost of $18,000 last year which
reportedly went off a lot when there wasn't a fire, but no one heard
a peep out of it when the fire started. THE ALARM DID GO OFF AT ASPEN
FIRE DEPT., THOUGH AND FIRE FIGHTERS SHOWED UP AT THE APARTMENT BUILDING
TO EVACUATE RESIDENTS. Fire officials by presstime today were at a loss
to pinpoint a cause of the fire.
Two condo units were destroyed by the blaze early Monday morning. Others
sustained smoke and water damage.
QUESTION: DID THE FIRE ORIGINATE IN OLDFIELD'S CONDO? FIRE OFFICIALS
THINK IT STARTED ON OLDFIELD'S BALCONY WHERE SOME TIRES AND CARPETING
WERE STORED. OLDFIELD, REPORTEDLY, HAD NOT BEEN ON THE PREMISES FOR
TWELVE HOURS PRIOR TO THE ALARM GOING OFF IN TOWN. OLDFIELD, REPORTEDLY,
ARRIVED ON THE SCENE AT 4:30AM WHEN THE FIRE WAS IN PROGRESS.
QUESTION: DID SOMEONE TOSS A MATCH UP TO OLDFIELD'S BALCONY WHERE THE
TIRES AND CARPETING WERE STORED?
JUST HOW MUCH MARIJUANA WAS FOUND? COPS WON'T SAY. WHAT WAS FOUND LOOKS
LIKE "TOAST," ONE OBSERVER AT THE SCENE TOLD THE ASPEN FREE
PRESS.
HOW MUCH CASH? COPS WON'T SAY.
THIS APRIL 23, 2005 MARKED THE TWENTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ASPEN FREE PRESS, published uncontinuously since 1982.
AND THE BEAT ROLLS ON . . .
www.psa-rising.com IS THE WEBSITE FOR PROSTATE CANCER INFO.
"THE KING OF COOPER
STREET"
PART I
COLLECTOR
ISSUES
Column:
Lost
in Colorado, By Sterling Greenwood
DAILY EDITION
weather
 LYLE DAY SCRAPBOOK
YEA AND WHOOPEE DEPT -- THE S-CURVES ENTRANCE LIVES
ON IN ASPEN FOR A WHILE ANYWAY DUE TO A LOPSIDED LOCALS VOTE -- 1,400
TO 1,119 -- WHICH FLEW IN THE FACE OF ENDORSEMENTS FOR A NEW "STRAIGHT
SHOT,"ENTRANCE BY THE ASPEN CITY COUNCIL, THE ASPEN TIMES (OWNED
BY A CORPORATION BASED IN RENO), THE ROARING FORK TRANSIT AUTHORITY
(RAFTA), AND THE ASPEN CHAMBER RESORT ASSOCIATION (ACRA).
------------------------------
-------------------------
ASPEN DAILY NEWS EARLY DAYS RECALLED
BY STERLING GREENWOOD 7/2/03 (uploaded from Aspen Free Press street edition.)
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS ON ITS TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY.
I REMEMBER ASKING FRIENDS HERE, WHEN I ARRIVED TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO, IF THERE WERE A LOCAL DAILY NEWSPAPER.
"NO, JUST A WEEKLY," THEY SAID. "THE ASPEN TIMES."
I LOOKED IN THE YELLOW PAGES OF THE PHONE BOOK AND SAW LISTED THE ASPEN DAILY NEWS.
HOW COULD MY FRIENDS NOT BE AWARE OF A DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THEIR TOWN? read entire story...
|
This website is being remodeled again, so everything's jumbled. Plus our
press, which we bought years ago in Oklahoma City and hauled to Aspen, is
being rebuilt with parts scattered from hell to breakfast all over the office.
It's been so long since we've put anything on the streets, I'll be amazed
if the press works. So no phone calls please now unless you have money for
me and/or good news. And keep in mind that Im a recovering jerk.
By Mary Eshbaugh Hayes
