NEWSPEAK Blog

We're here! We're steer!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Cowboys are kick-ass. And there's nothing more genuinely cowboy than the Ride for the Brand Ranch Rodeo, which is going on tomorrow as is all about real cowboys doing real cowboy things, not sparkly-shirted pretty boy pro rodeo posers. Check out the interview Culture Cast did with some of the tough-as-nails cowboys last year:

The Ride for the Brand Cattle Drive just went by on Tejon, with tons of cows, adorable calves and cowboys who could lasso your nose off your face.

These people seemed to enjoy it. I think they're the same people whom I overheard asking, when the Smokebrush toaster went by, "Are those real antlers?" God bless the USA.

Buddy Wakefield coming to Edifice Gallery.

Excellent news for fans of, like, words:

Two-time National Poetry Slam champion Buddy Wakefield will be reading at Edifice Gallery on July 17. Wakefield is, I'm informed, quite the get. He's also crazily intense and apparently travels with his own battalion of trained attack pigeons.

This'll be worth attending, and is just another example of how we suddenly live in a real city with actual cultural events. Congrats to the Zogster and Arnot for getting Wakefield to come here!

Breaking: crazy-panderer's secret location disclosed

For those who haven't heard, the big O is coming to COS tomorrow.  From the Gazette story:

The media was told where Obama will be speaking, but the campaign has not said who has received invitations and has asked that the location not be disclosed.

I don't know if Newspeak! was among the media who were notified, but I'm going to take the chance of compromising our journalistic integrity by sharing with you the following email:

From: staff-l@uccs.edu staff-l@uccs.edu On Behalf Of Chancellor's Office
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2008 7:52 AM
To: staff-l@uccs.edu
Subject: [staff-l] Presidential Candidate Visit

Presidential candidate Barrack Obama will deliver an invitation only address in the UCCS University Center gymnasium on Wednesday, July 2.

The event, organized and contracted by Barack Obama’s campaign team, is not open to the general public.  However, we do anticipate it will garner a great deal of national, regional and local attention for our campus.

Have fun, kids.

Today in not really understanding what things mean.

As I came into work this morning, I noticed this touching block-long sidewalk conception scene:

... As well as some sidewalk graffiti, presumably by the same authors, in front of the Christian Science Reading Room. It read:

TOM CRUISE WAS HERE
P.S. WE LOVE ALIENS

I hustled to the office to grab my camera, but by the time I got back, it had already been scrubbed clean and looked like this:

The very nice man at the greeting desk of the Reading Room said that such conflation of Christian Science and Scientology is a pretty common thing and that they've been subject to similar messages often in the past.

So, for the record (feel free to print, clip and carry in your wallet):

The Church of Christ, Scientist is the one responsible for quite well-respected Christian Science Monitor and is also the faith that sometimes kills its practitioners by encouraging them to decline medical care.

Scientology is the one with E-Meters, thetan levels, Xenu and John Travolta.

Today in COS in pictures and words.

This vehicle was parked right outside my office. Looks like word of the Acacia Park elephant spread quickly—and all the way to Arizona!

Hey, I don't blame the driver for hauling ass up here so quickly. That elephant was freaking awesome.

Outside of Jose Muldoon's:

"Tru playa," indeed! 719!

This is the empty storefront of what used to be Esmerelda's ...

... which is apparently turning into another Mexican place soon. Viva!

The notice on the soon-to-be-closing/has-been-closed window of NYLA, which states the intention to become a hookah bar:

This hookah bar was, last I heard, nixed—both by difficulties in zoning it (even though we've got two hookah bars in town already) and by neighboring businesses who didn't want it there. I'm sure the brittle women's boutiques on the block—one of whom told us that all the "falafel guys," namely the guys from Persian Grill and Heart of Jerusalem, are drug dealers. Well, duh—their skin is slightly browner than yours! What are they supposed to do, work for a living? Nope, it's dealing drugs for them, and probably for the owners and employees of the soon-to-be Mexican place moving in across the alley. What we need downtown is a Banana Republic!

On a different note, dear ladies of Colorado Springs,

You are all looking particularly beautiful today. Keep up the foxy work.

There is a goddamn elephant in Acacia Park right now.

You doubt me? Here's the proof:

And because the elephant is there to promote the Renn Fair, there is also a knight ...

... a unicorn ...

... and a hot dryad. Ye olde mrow!

Sure, when these guys do it, it's "entertaining" and "whimsical," but when I wear a unicorn head and chainmail to work, I'm suddenly the weird guy.

Doggone!

Downtown Dogs, the Republican haven and purveyors of dogs of questionable provenance on which I gorge fortnightly, is for sale.

My suggestion: one of all ya'll lib'ruls buy it, hold a grand opening with a public bonfire of their GOP paraphernalia and then add New York System-style dogs to the menu. Best weiners on the planet, hands-down. My god. And, the staff and owners, weirdly-accented Rhode Islanders all, are unbelievably hostile to vegetarians; it's a glorious thing to sit, stuffing dogs in your maw, and watch as a beef-spattered Peter Griffin dresses down a gaggle of vegan hipsters. Mwah! Magnifique!

Downtown shuttle has a fancy-pants new acronym!

According to an article in yesterday's 'Zette, the ever-popular downtown shuttle has been replaced with seven new multicolored buses and the whole line is now called DASH, as in Down Area SHuttle, with spankin' new kiosks and signs and extended hours. I haven't yet seen one of these gleamin' fancy buses, but I'm terribly excited to. I hear they look like this on the inside:

Bottle service, hot tub and stripper pole included! Meee-owww!

But for serious, I'm not sure if the current line needed upgrading, per se, because I don't often ride the shuttle and have no idea what shape those vehicles were in. But any time, energy and money spent on public transit is usually a good thing, even if that money, in this case, came from Colorado College and the Downtown Partnership—which is to say it came out of downtown merchants' pockets.

Sounds of the Pikes Peak Region: last call, suckas!

All you music-types out there, this is your last chance to submit something to the first edition of Sounds of the Pikes Peak Region, a cross-genre compilation of local music. I've blogged about it before, but the deadline is a-comin' up very soon.

Check out the guidelines and submission form here.

Hail!

President Bush is in town.

No word if he'll be reliving his drunken night at the Broadmoor that caused him to find Christ.