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The video for Beck's "Up All Night" reminded me of nothing so much as Fiona Apple's "Criminal". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj08Ni3tklw (Remember the incredible buzz surrounding Fiona back in the late 90s?  I love how one person explained Fiona's "disappearance" by noting that she didn't go anywhere, we just stopped listening.)  I don't have space for both of these videos, so cue them up back to back and convince yourself.  I wanted to instead expose any forgotten Fiona fans to her underappreciated cover of the Beatles' "Across the Universe", whose obvious drug-induced lyrics reminded me of nothing so much as the mind-warping, way overlooked Beach Boys anthem "Feel Flows", which Cameron Crowe was spot on in hand-selecting for the "Almost Famous" end credits. The vandalism of the soda shop in "Across the Universe" is an obvious oblique reference to "Pleasantville" (thi

Moraine Avenue is getting a Ziggi's.  Now that is news to warm Estes Park's increasingly coffee-warmed heart. The new proprietors are coy about location, but I'm here for you: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2018/02/prweb15152484.htm Remember Summit View Coffee, the place with the chicken fried latte?  Or "Antonio's New York Pizza 2"?  (As in Anthony DeSousa, Estes Park's roving business philanthropist who promises to do good or break some legs if he don't.)  Yeah, they weren't around long enough for us to remember them either, but a shack sporting dualies and loads of enthusiasm is so distinctive, you don't have to say "double drive through" more than once to let everyone in on the secret of where Ziggi's is soon to set up shop. To recap, Estes Park now has 14 dedicated coffee providers and at least four additional places where you can get commercial coffee from a dispenser or urn.  This is around one coffee outlet per 7

Now we definitely have cause to ask for our $125,000 back, since our former VEP president already had one foot out the door, as today's well-researched and broadly-sourced article from Joe Vaccarelli at the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel indicates: Note the tougher exterior?  Almost leathery. (photograph by Christopher Tomlinson) https://www.gjsentinel.com/news/western_colorado/new-face-at-visitor-bureau/article_ee55cffc-0654-11e8-b257-10604b9f7e7c.html Aside to J. Scott Webermeier:  Throughout my adult life, I have maintained a strict policy of taxpayer-funded officials picking up their own bar tab while on taxpayer-funded vacations.  It's just one of those non-negotiable guideposts that a democracy requires in order to function as a true democracy.  I don't know, maybe I would have a harder time living up to this standard day after day if one or more of these officials were constantly suckling my tiny dick.  Are one or more of these officials constantly suckling

It is so gratifying when this little daily blog entry has an impact outside Estes Park, generally for the greater good.  Our local Safeway, completely coincidentally, I'm sure, lowered their gasoline prices yesterday.  So maybe this was all just a misguided corporate "gouge the tourists on weekends" decision.  Safeway employees have no idea what gas prices are going to be day to day, they just respond to a directive to raise the price or lower the price.  If something came over the batwire to jack prices up $7.23 per gallon, who are they to question? $10 gasoline seems high, probably higher than their hourly wage, so it's better not to bother asking questions where a truthful answer is required, because they know any truth-telling may have them asking their own questions from the business end of a breadline. But you don't think corporate is just going to lower prices in one place without raising them somewhere else, do you?  At Safeway, as in politics, it is alw

For those of you who didn't pick up enough aphrodisiac-related knowledge from bridge club, or were afraid to try, the marketing geniuses at Mary's Lake Lodge came along just at the right time. Remember Mary's Lake Lodge?  A few years ago, they offered "not safe for anyone" X-rated summer stock theater.  Not only were the groans not enough to make them stop, they've now doubled down, offering Valentine's Day adults-only fare loosely based on a 20-year-old erotic cookbook. It's winter, you see, and business is down, so why not get the old checkbook more erectbook by having a meal based entirely on leering?  Hope they throw down some canvas tarp in case some of their patrons get so randy they can't make it to their room (car?) before dripping or dropping something on their mate, or shoot their gastric load on random diners beside them. Of course this is why the Aztecs invented chocolate Chiles, basil, grapes, strawberries, honey, artichokes

Gas prices in town are once again becoming untethered from prices down the hill (meaning from reality).  This morning, Lyons was 40 cents cheaper, and Denver 50 cents cheaper per gallon.  Estes stations may want to consider switching exclusively to digital, because otherwise, staff is going to be at risk of back spasms and nursemaid's elbow straining to satisfy the repetitive price gouging, er, changing. Hurry before these prices go up another dime oops too late When Safeway opened the gas station at the former Silver Lane Stables (how's that for literal progress?), the break in inflated prices (it's hard to say overinflated, because I recognize the fuel trucks have to drive an extra 20 miles uphill from Lyons), was a pleasant surprise, and when the fuel rewards were factored in (remember when Safeway gave a 3 cent/gallon discount just for being a Safeway cardholder?), gas was occasionally cheaper in Estes than anywhere else in the state.  So you have to look back fon

Michelle Ann "Mooshie" Hiland, 30 (Battle Mountain High School 2006, B.B.A. and B.S. University of Colorado Boulder 2011), is one of four female candidates running for Estes Park town trustee. Parents:   Michael Jon "Mike" Hiland, formerly Hiland Development, Inc., Deborah M. "Debbie" Hiland Irwin, Vail realtor Siblings:   Brianna, 31 Employer:   Mtn. Dog Media (Boulder website development and marketing) and/or TrainingPeaks (endurance training software) Address:  1767 Wildfire Road Registered:   Unaffiliated Registration date:   20 May 2016 Full-time Estes Park resident since:   2012 Major Connections:  Distance running, downhill and back-country skiing, self-professed interest in economic development Positives:   Loves the outdoors, great to see young people running, bird-dogged the libertine Fogarty VEP reign, on record as against the aborted recall, participated in Pink Vail (skiing to support Shaw Regional Cancer Center) last year Concer

Man, is this joke old.  I'm surprised Conan didn't just provide the punchline after Norm sat down. Norm Macdonald is either one of the funniest people alive, or caught a break early and rode the inertial indifference wave, or is among the 0.001% of the population so bizarre and so unaware, his behavior is laughable because he's successfully walking the knife edge between insanity on one side and 650-pound man whose family has to feed him in bed on the other. Norm is a bit like Will Ferrell, in that he doesn't really care about audience response, especially if something is bombing.  I think he enjoys the squirm.  His patience to draw out a set-up far beyond necessary verges on drug-induced perseveration. There is a better example of Norm telling a joke (or something, badly), but it is not safe for children (although the framing of the story is ostensibly about children in school - search "funniest joke ever" on YouTube), and although the joke really e

Carlie Jean Speedlin Bangs , 29 (B.A. University of Nebraska-Lincoln 2010), is one of four female candidates running for Estes Park town trustee. Parents:  Andrew "Andy" Speedlin, line technician for Lincoln Electric System, and Julie Gross Speedlin, loan officer Union Bank & Trust Siblings:   Chelsie, 26, and Jordan, 18 Husband:   David Bangs, married September 2011 Children:   Ava and Eleanor Employer:   YMCA of the Rockies Address:   2191 Larkspur Avenue, formerly 460 Aspen Avenue Registered:   Democrat Registration date:  7 November 2011 Estes Park full-time resident since:   2010 Major Connections:   Estes Valley Investment in Childhood Success (EVICS), Roots Community School, Parks Advisory Board Positives:  Loves the outdoors, already has a Weebly campaign site up, great to see young people running, husband participated in St. Baldricks last year Concerns:  Never a good sign when "donate link" on website is up before blog entries, strange

On 2 June 1995, the Estes Park Trail-Gazette published a 400-word letter to the editor from a gentleman named Keith Cox regarding the town board's attempt to quiet title on the F.O. Stanley fairgrounds land.  Mr. Cox was both angry and prescient.  The most fascinating prediction he made in his effort to stir up the sleeping masses, though, had nothing to do with the fairgrounds: "Why should the people of Estes Park have to fear the people they elected?  We have to stop this bureaucratic nonsense now, or one day we will wake up and find a multi-level parking structure on the nine-hole golf course..." Something like this, perhaps? Note that Mr. Cox accurately predicted not only what, but where.  To repeat, the year was 1995.  Mr. Cox, if you are still alive, have your self-driving vehicle pick you up and and take you to headquarters, where you can claim your long-overdue Nostradamus prize.

This tree will be of interest to no one except those attempting to quiet title to land F.O. Stanley donated to the town of Estes Park in 1936.  It was produced in a matter of hours today starting from zero and using only the internet.  It contains tens if not hundreds of errors, and probably scores of missing descendants. What will be fun (at least for me) will be the time lapse of how this tree improves and fleshes out over the next few weeks, now that I am enlisting the help of living family members at the bottom of this tree by sending them this horrible tree.  Nothing like errors in your own history to light a fire. Even just a little accurate information bootstrapped from the internet shows how wrong prominent internet entries can be, and how convincing this misinformation becomes when it is picked up and repeated by other websites.  F.O. Stanley and F.E. Stanley sold their Stanley automobile manufacturing operation BEFORE F.E. Stanley's death in 1918, regardless of wh

Courtesy of Google Maps (I guess I could just fly up there and expense it to the town), we now know that Ms. Forgery doesn't like walking.  I could see wanting to be close to the Convention Hall in Montreal in January, but July seems like an idyllic time to stroll through a lovely European-flavored city for, oh, I don't know, more than 3 MINUTES. So while Estes Park is admittedly not Vail or Aspen, some of our leaders aspire so much to be like them, they apparently spend money as if they were them.  Remember those two equivalent 4-star hotels I mentioned earlier, $100 U.S. or more cheaper per night?  They are, respectively, a 9-minute walk from the southwest or a 9-minute walk from the east to the convention center.  While Montreal is admittedly hilly, the elevation (less than 1000 ft. above sea level, compared to more than 7500 ft. at base camp) would certainly not have put someone as seemingly healthy as Ms. Forgery at a marked SOBOE disadvantage among her colleagues, ev

To:      Mayor Jirsa and the Estes Park Board of Trustees From:  Johanna Darden, 401 MacGregor Avenue, Estes Park, CO 80517 Re:       Lease of Building at 220 4th Street I ask that the Town of Estes Park lease their building at 220 4th Street to the Estes Park Senior Services Center (EPSSC), a 401(c)3 nonprofit organization.   I believe the Community Center senior space and the building on 4th Street are both needed to meet the needs of seniors in the Estes Valley.  Each location would serve different needs.   The Estes Valley Recreation and Park District (EVRPD) classifies people 55 years of age and older as seniors.  With at least a forty-year span in the age of seniors, emotional and physical needs are different.   Members of the Estes Park Senior Services Center have expressed their wish to remain in the building on 4th Street.   Seniors who don’t feel comfortable with what the EVRPD has decided is best for them have been belittled if they express opposing views

Wow, does Liz Forgery know how to spend other people's money, or what? The LHotel in Montreal is not for losers, um, well,  unless you want to lose money Last year's Destinations International annual conference was held in Montreal (this year's is scheduled for Anaheim, so currency conversion surcharges won't apply) from Tuesday, July 11 through Friday, July 14, and featured NBC's Willie Geist.  Let's be generous, and give Ms. Forgery Monday night to get a good night's rest, and Friday night to recover from all the alcohol.  That is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday = 5 days.  Mr. Forgery stayed 12.  Are calendars somehow different in Quebec?  Did she have trouble working the deadbolt?  I don't know if it was the language barrier or what, but Lizzie had a little trouble with taxpayer money, or no trouble at all, if her intended mission was to burn through a lot of it. Check out what rooms are currently going for at the L for an equival