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Denver comic Ben Roy on his YouTube special, his punk band, the merits of anger, and pop culture’s demise

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Ben Roy feels the heat from all sides.The Denver comedian and singer of the punk band Spells has taken a hatchet to polite society in his vicious but philosophical jokes, as well as spittle-flecked music performances that find his band setting up on the floor, surrounded by bouncing crowds, as vocalist and songwriter Roy vibrates like a wiry windsock.Related ArticlesEntertainment | “Ted Lasso” star kicks off stand-up comedy tour in Denver this fall After four critically acclaimed stand-up albums, tours and music albums with his band, his Denver-based, truTV series “Those Who Can’t” (with his Grawlix trio, including Denver’s Adam Cayton-Holland and Andrew Orvedahl), and ongoing Grawlix podcasts, his first hour-long video special, “Hyena,” is on the loose.Released by 800 Pound Gorilla Records — the esteemed label for mega-comic Kevin Hart’s LOL! Studios — “Hyena” builds on the 44-year-oldR...

CinemaQ Fest straddles the sublimely ridiculous and the deadly serious

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

The checklist for a well-programmed film festival might go something like this:Deliver a varied slate of films: fiction and nonfiction; feature-length films and shorts; comedies and dramas.Sculpt shorts packages with intentional juxtapositions that delight and create meaningful, pleasing and potent echoes.Host guests and panels that guarantee the film-centric gathering is an event, not just cinema’s version of binge-watching.Above all, engage, entertain and expand comfort zones.Director Sav Rodgers on the search in his personal doc “Chasing Chasing Amy.” Courtesy of Denver FilmFor 15 years, Denver Film’s Cinema Q Festival has been more than checking the boxes. It has been serving, reflecting and expanding that vague yet vital notion of community.Under the guidance of founder Keith Garcia, the LGBTQ+ branded screenings grew from a monthly program to a spotlight section during the Denver Film Festival to an annual festival that will celebrate its 15th year with Thursday’s opening nigh...

One-night only: A chance to see Burning Man-style art in Denver

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Artists Ryan Elmendorf and Nick Geurts will bring a bit of Burning Man to Denver this weekend, installing their large-scale, interactive sculpture “Awakening” in the RiNo neighborhood for a one-night-only event on Saturday.Viewers can enter the sculpture “Awakening” through a door in the ear of its head. Photo by Valerie Santerli, provided by the artistsThe evening offers a chance to see a landmark artwork making its local debut, but it is also a party with some of the special attractions that make the Burning Man festival, staged annually in the Nevada desert, such a wild affair: DJs, performance artists, fire spinners, aerialists, adult beverages and more than 20 vendors selling various wares.It will also serve an artful cause. The $20 admission raises funds that the artists will use later this month to take the piece back to the festival, where they are the de facto ambassadors for Colorado among an international group of over-the-top makers.“I think that what a lot of people ove...

Children’s Hospital Colorado expands genetic testing in hopes of detecting rare diseases sooner

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Stephanie Burkhardt is one of the luckier members of a group no one wants to join: She’s the mother of a child with a rare, incurable disease.When her son Connor was 3, he started having unexplained seizures. Testing at Children’s Hospital Colorado quickly uncovered the cause — a genetic syndrome called Batten disease, which causes waste products to build up in his cells.Children with Batten disease either don’t meet developmental milestones, or lose skills over time. They eventually lose their sight and ability to speak or move, and have a shortened life expectancy. The disease has 13 subtypes, which affect about 14,000 children worldwide.While the diagnosis was devastating, getting it quickly allowed Connor, now 6, to promptly start receiving a drug that reduces his seizures and allows him to attend school and play around their Centennial home like a boy who isn’t sick, Burkhardt said. Most children with Batten disease aren’t able to feed themse...

5 things we learned about Mayor Johnston’s progress on fixing Denver’s homelessness problem

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Making a dent in Denver’s homelessness challenges requires some math.Five hundred existing rental units that can be better leveraged by the city and its housing partners to make them available to people living on the streets; 500 hotel rooms in properties converted into shelters; and 500 tiny homes, ice fishing tents or other small-scale temporary shelters. That’s the formula Mayor Mike Johnston’s administration has in mind to achieve its ambitious goal of offering shelter to 1,000 people living on the city’s streets by the end of this year.“We’re running at all three of those options as quickly as we can and with as much effort as we can in hopes that we deliver on a percentage of those targets on all of those parallel lines of effort get us over that 1,000-person goal,”  Cole Chandler, Johnston’s senior advisor for homelessness resolution, said.Chandler outlined the plan in a presentation before the City Council safety, housing, education ...

Will it spin, or won’t it? The mystery behind Mission Ballroom’s disco ball

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Mission Ballroom has secured its place in the Denver music scene since its establishment in 2019 not just because of the artists who perform there, but in part because of its unique “Mission Ball” – an LED art installation that spins above the heads of concert-goers and lights up the dark.But on some evenings, the ball instead sits unused within the venue at 4242 Wynkoop St., in the River North Art District, leaving attendees puzzled, even disappointed.Don Strasburg, co-president of AEG Presents Rocky Mountains, which owns the concert venue, said the truth behind the mystery is actually fairly straight-forward.Each performer is briefed on the technical capabilities of the room, including the Mission Ball, in advance, and their teams “determine what level of use they want with it,” he said.For instance, the ball shone brightly over the crowd at DJ Fred Again’s show last October. Other musicians, including DJ John Summit, electronic music group M83 and ho...

Fire crews respond as Gardena residence erupts in flames

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Crews responded to a mobile home that was fully engulfed in flames in Gardena Thursday morning. Firefighters were on the scene at South Vermont Avenue near West 135th Street shortly before 5:30 a.m.Firefighters respond to a blaze in Gardena on Aug. 10, 2023. (KTLA)Sky5 was in the area covering a car crash when the crew spotted flames shooting into the air from the burning mobile home.Firefighters were attacking the fire, hoping to stop it from spreading through the mobile home park and to a nearby apartment complex. Protesters shut down 134 Freeway in Glendale It was unclear if anyone was inside the structure when it caught fire.

Investing In The CBD Industry — How Can Average People Profit From The Booming Hemp Sector?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

It’s no secret that the hemp CBD market has skyrocketed since 2018. Shortly after the US federal government gave states the “green light” to produce, sell, and manufacture hemp, there was a massive spike in demand for CBD. Recent estimates suggest the global CBD oil market cap grew to $5.18 billion in 2021, and it’s expected to continue experiencing ~ 16 percent growth each year.Considering the prominence of the CBD market, it makes sense that many people are interested in investing in this industry. Indeed, after people experience CBD oil’s benefits for themselves, they often seek out ways to support this growing sector.Even if you’re not involved in the CBD industry, there are ways you could gain exposure to this market. Remember that the info below is for entertainment purposes and isn’t intended as financial advice. Please speak with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions.Potential Ways To Invest In The Booming CBD IndustryConsider Cannabis-Related ...

Are they students or employees? Stanford joins surge in graduate student unions across the country

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

When fifth-year PhD student Jason Anderson volunteered for a pop-up food pantry on Stanford University’s campus, he would see hundreds of grad students standing in long lines in the middle of their work day, sometimes with a wagon in one hand and a child in the other.“The admin would come to the (graduate student government) meetings once a month and say, ‘We really need extra volunteers. People aren’t showing up,’” said Anderson, a former student government member. “And then all I’m thinking of in the back of my head here is, ‘You know, you’re asking for volunteers from the same population that the food pantry is supposed to serve.’”That affordability crisis is one of many reasons why Anderson, along with other Stanford grad student workers, overwhelmingly voted to unionize in July.They are part of a growing movement at university campuses across the country, following in the footsteps of institutions like the University of Southern California, Johns Hopkins Unive...

‘This is hell’: Repeat outages mar PG&E’s wildfire safety shift from tree trimming to circuit breakers

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 12:01:36 GMT

Laurel Adams Ferns awoke Monday to no electricity at her Walnut Creek home, forcing a trip to a nearby cafe for an internet connection to get through her fourth outage in a little over a month, each stretching more than 10 hours.Pacific Gas & Electric Co., blamed for devastating wildfires sparked by power lines in recent years and under pressure to improve safety, has embarked on a new strategy this year that shifts focus from stepped-up tree trimming near its equipment to advanced circuit-breaker technology. The utility insists the change reduced fire risk with little additional impact on most customers. But customers complain the rollout has been bedeviled by repeated outages — and one of PG&E’s own reports to California regulators shows a spike in customer outages last year as it initiated the program.“For those of us who work remotely,” said Ferns, a lawyer, “this is hell, let alone factoring how many times since this new ‘strategyR...