2 westword.com WESTWORD SEPTEMBER 19-25, 2024 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | W ® 7 HIGH ON THE HIGH LINE Investors who planned the canal as an irrigation bonanza were left high and dry. But the trail has become a treasure in metro Denver. BY BENNITO L. KELTY 12 STRANGE JOURNEY Henry Award-winning Two Cent Lion Theatre stages The Rocky Horror Show. BY TONI TRESCA 15 JUST DESSERTS These (not-too-sweet) treats are stunners. BY MOLLY MARTIN 19 MELODEATH MADNESS NightWraith celebrates an album release at the hi-dive with an all-local bill. BY JUSTIN CRIADO 12 Culture 15 Cafe 19 Music CONCERTS/CLUBS ................................... 22 27 Marijuana CANNABIS CALENDAR ............................ 27 ASK A STONER ......................................... 28 VOLUME 48 NUMBER 4 SEPTEMBER 19-25, 2024 E D I T O R I A L Editor Patricia Calhoun Editorial Operations Manager Jane R. 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PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTIAN HUNDLEY “MEASURE FOR MEASURE II,” HANNAH METZGER, SEPTEMBER 12 L I P S E R V I C E You let Representative Monica Duran play the “young and homeless single- mom” card in her advocating for Prop KK, Firearms and Ammo Tax, to pay for Colorado’s Crime Victim Support Fund, never mentioning that she has been one of the leading supporters for Colorado’s gun control — which has been an abysmal failure, as eloquently expressed by your article “Armed and Dangerous” (Vol. 47, No. 31). Her virtue-signaling has contrib- uted to the state’s ongoing carnage and mayhem by enacting laws that have been useless at preventing violent crime and murder. This insulting tax penalizes law- abiding gun owners who go out of their way to be…law-abiding. She helped make the mess and now demands that someone else foot the bill. Meanwhile, how much of this tax will be paid by criminals when they buy black-market guns and ammo? Exactly the same as what Representative Duran has contributed to improving public safety. Nothing. Mario Acevedo Denver This is not an attack on Westword; I just feel that certain reporters at other papers have stopped reporting and have even gone the extra mile to untangle Donald Trump’s words. That is not reporting. Reporters today are trying something new, and I predict if it continues, it will have devastating results! You see, they forgot the two basic rules of reporting, which are to be objective and to be hon- est. So, following a speech by Trump, they mistakenly believe they are supposed to be interpreters, translators and decoders. And so they look at his jumbled speech with almost no complete sentences, they re-read his words as he jumps from one topic to another with the lightning speed of a fl ea and the attention span of a gnat, and fi nally, they scratch their head and make a stab at writing down what THEY believe Trump MIGHT HAVE MEANT to say. Seriously, guys? You are decoders and translators now instead of reporters? I know you want good headlines; I, too, took journalism. But stick with the plan of reality reporting, which is to state exactly what was said. If, for example, Trump is asked exactly how he plans to lower the cost of child care in America, then report the plans he divulged. If he did not lay out any plan — then report that. If he veered off topic and spent more time talking about tariffs than child care — then report that. It is not your job and never was your job to try and fi gure out what a speaker might have meant. Reporters who travel down that path inevitably veer off the road of accuracy. I know it is fun to give opinions (after all, that’s why I’m writing mine), but reporters are not talk-show hosts, opinion columnists or speech decoders. Reporters are simply supposed to report. Rhonda Webster Denver “MIC DROP,” EMILY FERGUSON, SEPTEMBER 12 T H E M O N E Y P I T Great story on DNA Picasso, and thanks for the amazing cover photo and video. His work in this city is inspiring. Joel Levin Denver You’ll have to move elsewhere to make any money. Denver isn’t even what it was a decade ago. There is no music scene here. Kyle Marc Denver It’s not just hip-hop: Electronic music, rock, rap and even country gets looked over and dissed only because it’s from Denver and not L.A. or NYC. It’s bullshit, and newspa- pers like Westword and ticket companies like Ticketmaster and production companies like LiveNation are guilty of helping streamline the industry so that Colorado artists actually have to leave Colorado to make anything of themselves. Travis Burns Sioux Falls, South Dakota
