Indy - July 26, 2023 Vol 31. No. 29

WHO’S THE VICTIM? A PUBLICATION OF CITIZEN-POWERED MEDIA July 26Aug. 1, 2023 | ALWAYS FREE

The Colorado Springs comedy scene grows larger with each new set 8

Our mission is to deliver the truth, build community and engage citizens.

PUBLISHER

Fran Zankowski

COVER DESIGN BY Zk Bradley

EDITORIAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR Bryan Grossman

MANAGING EDITOR Helen Lewis

COPY EDITOR Mary Jo Meade

SENIOR REPORTER Pam Zubeck

CULTURE REPORTER Nick Raven

INTERN Marynn Krull

CONTRIBUTORS

Rob Brezsny, Jim Hightower, Clay Jones, Heather Cox Richardson, Matthew Schniper, Tom Tomorrow, Andrew “Shaggy”

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Nick Raven

Matthew Schniper

Courtesy Kaleta & Super Yamba Band

DENIED

Former chief of staff wasn’t given severance pay

BY PAM ZUBECK | zubeck@csindy.com

FORMER MAYOR JOHN SUTHERS’ CHIEF of staff Jeff Greene has been paid $78,348 since he was let go by new mayor Yemi Mobolade, according to a response to a Colorado Open Records Act request by the Indy

But the series of payments don’t include six months severance pay, to which Greene was entitled “at the sole discretion of the mayor” for his involuntary removal without cause, according to his June 3, 2015, employment letter from Suthers. Greene served as Suthers’ chief of staff for the eight-year span of Suthers’ two terms in office.

Greene was let go by Mobolade as he took office on June 6 and issued a termination letter. That letter said Greene was given 30 days notice and would be paid for that time. “You will not be required to perform the day-to-day duties and respon-

sibilities of the Chief of Staff during this period,” the notice said.

His pay totaled nearly $25,000 and included wages for the Memorial Day, Juneteenth and Independence Day holidays. (Some of those earnings were paid to Greene for time he worked prior to his termination; the total is based on payouts spanning June 10 through July 8 pay periods.)

The largest portion of the payout came for 478.9 hours of unused vacation time, valued at $53,380. Unused vacation time is required to be paid by state law.

Mobolade hired Jamie Fabos, former city communications chief and former Colorado Springs Utilities communications director, as his chief of staff. She’s paid an annual salary of $235,000, compared to Greene’s salary of $231,845 at the time he was replaced.

Suthers openly expressed his disapproval of severance agreements in general, but honored those put in place by his predecessor, Steve Bach, including agree -

ments with former Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Director Karen Palus and former Fire Chief Christopher Riley. Both were paid six months’ salary upon their departures.

City officials who were hired by Bach, have employment agreements and remain on the payroll include HR Director Mike Sullivan, City Clerk Sarah Johnson, Planning Director Peter Wysocki, Public Works Director Travis Easton who was promoted to deputy chief of staff by Mobolade, and City Attorney Wynetta Massey.

Suthers issued only two employment agreements — for Greene and Finance Director Charae McDaniel.

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You will not be required to perform the day-to-day duties and responsibilities of the Chief of Staff during this period.

— Severance notice

Jeff Greene (left) on the day he became chief of staff in 2015

Pam Zubeck

Not only has Amnet been recognized ten times as the Best IT Firm by Colorado Springs Business Journal readers and made its way into Better Business Bureau of Southern Colorado’s Excellence in Customer Service Hall of Fame — They also have the cutest dog!

NO, PLACE

El Paso County commissioners deny $20,750 to youth homelessness nonprofit

BY HEIDI BEEDLE | Colorado Times Recorder

THE EL PASO COUNTY

Board of County Commissioners unanimously voted to deny a $20,750 Community Development Block Grant to The PLACE, a nonprofit that helps youths exit homelessness, over concerns related to abortion and parents’ rights during a July 11 meeting.

“The Board of County Commissioners holds decision-making authority for this type of funding,” says Shawna Kemppainen, executive director of The PLACE, in an emailed statement. “We accept the commissioners’ decision, and we invite them to learn more about The PLACE’s vital work with young people ages 15 through 24 who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The PLACE is a known and trusted organization in the Pikes Peak region, and our work continues to reach 600 [youths] and young adults annually.”

Minors cannot be homeless.

The PLACE was initially listed as one of 17 grant recipients presented to the Board of County Commissioners by Crystal LaTier, the executive director of economic development for El Paso County. The other 16 nonprofits were funded, and the $20,750 intended for The Place was distributed amongst them.

— Commissioner Carrie Geitner

District 4 Commissioner Longinos Gonzalez initially raised concerns about pro-abortion statements allegedly made during a fundraiser last year. “I went to their little fundraiser breakfast, Under the Bridge, last year,” he said. “One of their members, so this is not to say it was the entire board or the entity at all, but I believe it was the chairperson, last year made some statements that were, I think, divisive, controversial. I don’t know why somebody would want to bring controversy when I think, as a whole, the program is very good. I just want to make sure some of the funds will not be going — some of the statements had to do with, again not trying to delve into controversial aspects, but pro-abortion comments that were out of place for the fundraiser. I want to make sure funds that are provided by the county would not be supporting any kind of counseling services, et cetera, as related to abortion.”

District 2 Commissioner Carrie Geitner said she was concerned about child

trafficking. “Runaways are a huge place where trafficking happens,” she said. “That is a well-documented concern that those kids can be preyed upon. Unfortunately, organizations are not immune to that. There are circumstances, and again I can’t speak to what is happening there, so this is more of a preemptive, ‘I’d love to make sure those things aren’t happening there.’ Unfortunately, whether it is drug treatment facilities, or jails, or anywhere else, we know people will prey on organizations and on people in these situations, so I’m really concerned about how we are making sure that if those kids are being served, it’s being done safely. How do we make sure they’re contacting DHS? What kind of controls do we have on this situation? Also, because the laws in Colorado are, quite frankly, egregious, in that parents have very little ability to understand what is going on with their minors. For example, if a 15 year-old shows up to a runaway shelter, what is this organization prepared to in terms of trying to get in touch with parents, trying to respect those kinds of parental rights, because in the state of Colorado they could get medical treatment, including an abortion. They could be counseled to do that and get that without ever notifying a parent, and onward and onward. There’s all kinds of potential medical interventions, mental health interventions, which again could be very good and could be very detrimental depending on who is delivering those. I’m really interested in safeguards that we have on those programs, to make sure that those things are not happening.”

Colorado already has safeguards in place for organizations like The PLACE. “Youth shelters that are licensed by the State of Colorado, such as The PLACE, must have background checks [for staff and volunteers], relevant training, and mandatory reporter status,” says Kemppainen.

But Geitner didn’t see the point. “Minors cannot be homeless,” she said. “They are either living with their parents or they get DHS involved. That’s a specific government responsibility because we have a lot more oversights in that sit-

uation. I would say there is a mechanism in place, and that is that we have social workers who are highly trained in this that have to follow a whole lot of other rules and steps, so I’m not even sure I would agree that it — for those minors in particular, maybe those over 18 — I’m not even certain I would agree that, because the government does not allow minors to be homeless. There are steps and provisions in place for that.”

In fact, homelessness disproportionately affects LGBTQ youths. According to the Trevor Project’s 2021 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, 28 percent of LGBTQ youths reported experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives, and 16 percent of LGBTQ youths reported that they had slept away from parents or caregivers because they ran away from home, with more than half (55 percent) reporting that they ran away from home because of mistreatment or fear of mistreatment due to their LGBTQ identity.

According to Kemppainen, The PLACE served 638 youths in 2022, of those approximately 26 percent identified LGBTQ, and half were Black, Indigenous or people of color.

GEITNER’S HUSBAND, FORMER

Republican Rep. Tim Geitner, spoke at a June 27 Monument Academy board

meeting (a charter school in Lewis-Palmer School District 38) in support of their new transgender resolution [it’s really an anti-transgender resolution] which vowed to “never promote gender confusion or gender dysphoria in students.”

Other members of the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners blamed the Democratic-controlled Legislature for the decision to deny $20,750 to the nonprofit.

“I consider it unfortunate that the state has enacted laws that allow minors to make decisions for themselves,” said District 3 Commissioner Stan VanderWerf, who last year appeared alongside anti-LGBTQ Christian musician Sean Feucht at The Road Church in Colorado Springs, and then marked himself safe from the November 2022 Club Q shooting, where five people were killed at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs.

“Today’s actions were precipitated by feeling uncomfortable in our ability to really set parameters and guardrails that are in line with what we’ve done a tremendous amount of thinking about — how do we protect those most vulnerable in our community?” said District 5 Commissioner Cami Bremer, who, along with her husband, failed U.S. Senate candidate Eli Bremer, hosted a “Red Wave Party” in August 2022 to launch Nine PAC, a political group dedicated to preventing trans-

gender people from participating in [women’s] sports. “I would say that while we didn’t feel comfortable in our ability to do it through this program, through this particular funding, however we do have within our purview of control is ensuring that our Department of Human Services can fill that gap and can fill that need, and that is within our purview right now.”

District 1 Commissioner Holly Williams shared thoughts on other organizations that could benefit from Community Development Block Grants. “My frustration does lie with the State Legislature, taking parents out of the equation,” she said. “I would like to see someone like the Life Network [which operates three anti-abortion “crisis pregnancy” centers in Colorado Springs] apply for this. I will not support the counseling for abortion in minors.”

During a June 2022 candidate forum, Williams said she supported trying to make El Paso County a home rule

county, which would allow it to become a so-called “sanctuary county for the unborn.” Attempts to establish such policies in Park and Weld Counties have been unsuccessful.

“I think this place does provide some good services,” said VanderWerf, “but I see how we could get into a situation that could be a challenge.”

This piece was originally published by the Colorado Times Recorder.

Olympic & Paralympic Museum

Olympic & Paralympic Training Center

A concept design for the Launchpad Apartments.

WHO’S THE VICTIM?

A woman called police for help and wound up charged with crimes

BY PAM ZUBECK | zubeck@csindy.com

WHEN REBECCA VAR-

ney called the Colorado Springs Police Department in July 2021, she wanted to report that her abusive spouse had stolen some of her property.

But CSPD officers instead charged her with abusing her ex-husband, after they persuaded him to allege she was at fault in an assault that happened two days earlier.

Those allegations are contained in a federal lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Denver, on July 12 by Varney against the CSPD, Police Chief Adrian Vasquez and officers David Kester and Carlotta Rivera.

“After enduring a weekend of renewed violence and abuse from her ex-husband, Ms. Varney contacted the Colorado Springs Police Department for help and much needed protection,” the lawsuit alleges. “In response, Ms. Varney was belittled, discounted, blamed for her own abuse, and maliciously prosecuted. Rather than responding to Ms. Varney’s report of abuse with compassion and concern, Defendants targeted Ms. Varney, tampering with a key witness and deliberately misrepresenting evidence to a judicial officer to obtain an arrest warrant, entangling Ms. Varney in the criminal justice system for an extended period of time and causing her economic and non-economic damages.”

litigation currently. If and when a determination is made at the end of the process, we will make comments when it is appropriate.” The spokesperson did not answer a question about whether Kester and Rivera remain employed by the department, but a subsequent IA investigation didn’t result in either being terminated, the lawsuit says.

Meantime, Varney was at Evans Army Community Hospital on Fort Carson, getting treated for her broken wrist. When she called military police about the theft, they told her they couldn’t help because the theft took place off-base, the lawsuit says.

the July 16 attack and that two people who witnessed it were in the home when officers arrived, the lawsuit says.

The economic damages, which aren’t quantified in the lawsuit, stem in part from a criminal charge filed against Varney (which has since been resolved) that prevented her from getting a well-paying job in another state, the lawsuit says.

Asked to comment, a CSPD spokesperson said, “as is our policy we reserve our right to not comment on any pending

ON JULY 18, 2021, VARNEY called to report property theft by her then-husband. Two nights before that, she had been sexually assaulted by him, the lawsuit alleges, and in an altercation, her husband fractured her wrist. Her husband, who was an active-duty soldier at Fort Carson, was served a Military Protective Order barring him from contact with Varney. Despite the MPO, he went to their home and took items belonging to Varney, the lawsuit alleges.

She was tentative about calling CSPD, the lawsuit states, because 10 months earlier she had accidentally scratched her husband while defending herself and her dogs from him. When police arrived, she was accused of being the “primary aggressor,” the lawsuit says, which resulted in a protection order against her.

She then took a plea deal that included probation rather than contest the charges.

Varney had made the July 18 call about the theft because she was trying to leave her husband and needed her property. When the officer grilled her about the broken wrist, she said she had video of

Despite that, “the officers approached their investigation having already concluded that Ms. Varney had violated the 2020 protection order, confirming her fears,” the lawsuit alleges.

In short, officers Kester and Rivera interrupted her, talked over her and ignored facts, not taking time to interview witnesses who were at the home when police arrived. Both officers sided with Varney’s husband, the lawsuit alleges.

They spoke to her for 10 minutes before leaving, and seemed more interested in why Evans Army Community Hospital didn’t contact police when treating her for her assault injury than finding out more about how the injury occurred, the lawsuit says.

Ms. Varney was belittled, discounted, blamed for her own abuse...

— Federal lawsuit

Also, Kester advised Varney that because the couple was married, she couldn’t allege he had stolen her belongings because all the property belongs to them jointly, the lawsuit says.

When the officers later contacted Varney’s husband, after repeated attempts, Rivera spoke with him for 40 minutes during which she told him his wife planned to press charges for the assault, which was not true. Rivera persuaded him to file a complaint against Varney, according to the lawsuit. The husband later recanted those statements, the lawsuit says, saying the cops “pressured” him.

When Kester sought an arrest warrant, he omitted the July 16 assault on Varney, the lawsuit alleges.

THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIAtion of Chiefs of Police’s model policy for interacting with domestic violence victims and perpetrators advises officers to treat all acts of domestic violence as crimes and document them accordingly. Officers also are advised to obtain a comprehensive account of the events from all parties.

Among things not to do, according to the policy is to “make any statement that would discourage a victim from reporting an act of domestic violence,” or “threaten, suggest, or otherwise indicate a possible arrest” that could discourage future calls for help from victims.

Anne Markley, CEO of TESSA, a local agency that serves domestic violence victims, tells the Indy that victim blaming is quite common, but not among law enforcement officials.

Speaking generally and not about any particular case, Markley says, “I would say that victim blaming across the board is something we see, but not from any particular group of people.”

She says the offender often imposes responsibility on the victim for the violence, suggesting, “You did something to make me act that way.”

In turn, victims can be slow to report the abuse, wondering, Markley says, “Is somebody going to believe me? Because my offender has led me to believe it’s my fault.”

Markley speaks highly of local law enforcement officers, saying they receive substantial training about trauma, and victim and offender dynamics. “All

[local] law enforcement goes through that training, and it’s made that system very improved for sure.

“Community based organizations and our parters in law enforcement do listen to victims,” she says.

VARNEY WOUND UP SPENDING

36 hours in jail and lost a job opportunity in another state due to pending criminal charges. Finally, on Oct. 29, 2021, the District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case against her, the lawsuit reports.

Varney later filed a complaint with the CSPD about how the officers treated her and failed to fully investigate the situation. Even after she pointed out witnesses to the assault, neither officer talked to them, the lawsuit says.

“After the resulting Internal Affairs investigation found that Officers Kester and Rivera had conducted an incomplete investigation into Ms. Varney’s claims, the officers were both reprimanded for failing to interview the available witnesses, and Officer Kester was disciplined for filing an incomplete offense report,” the lawsuit says.

“However, neither Officer Kester nor Officer Rivera was provided any discipline or training relating to their conduct during their interviews with Ms. Varney and her ex-husband, their misrepresentation of evidence to support a prosecution for harassment, nor their omission of material facts from the warrant application that resulted in Ms. Varney’s prosecution. Further, neither the DA’s office nor the public defenders’ office was ever informed of the Internal Affairs investigation,” the lawsuit alleges.

The IA investigation found both officers violated CSPD policy by failing to investigate Varney’s report of domestic violence. Yet, the IA report concluded that the complaint about Kester not maintaining an impartial attitude was “unsustained” due to lack of evidence, the lawsuit says. Kester was required to attend a crisis intervention class for “active listening skills.”

“We were stunned to learn that our client had been criminally charged with harassing her abuser after reporting his assault,” Laura Wolfe, Varney’s attorney, says in an email, laying blame on the CSPD’s failure to train and discipline officers.

Neither Officer Kester nor Officer Rivera was provided any discipline or training relating to their conduct.

— Federal lawsuit

IT’S HARD TO TOSS A STONE IN COLORADO Springs and not hit a comedy event these days. The city’s had a traditional comedy club — a place where you can catch a standup set with a host, feature and a national headliner with a beer or peanuts — for decades, but times are changing. The pool of local comedians and the venues in which they perform has grown, maturing alongside a diversifying city.

From Loonees to Lulu’s, Stick Horses in Pants to Oxymorons, the Millibo Art Theatre to the bar with the small stage around the corner, the region is developing its own brand of live local laughter. Even the Pikes Peak Center has gotten in on the action, hosting huge acts like Dave Chappelle, David Spade and newcomer Taylor Tomlinson.

And while the city’s rapid growth means the potential for more comedy enthusiasts than ever, it would be easy to forget that local venues weren’t spared the ravages of the COVID pandemic, which changed live entertainment as we know it.

“Our open mic on Wednesday, we started with, like, two people,” says Eric Phillips, owner of 3E’s Comedy Club, which opened Downtown in September 2020. “It was that way during COVID for show shows. We had a show with four people in the seats and I still had to pay the comedian. I was like, ‘Oh, geez…’”

And to add to the challenges for clubs, now streaming services like Netflix and Amazon produce on-demand comedy specials that gobble up free time at home, while short-form video apps like TikTok fomented a new wave of comics who didn’t use (or need) a physical stage to build sets or massive followings.

But it’s no joke: Whether held together with classy fixtures, spit or glitter, local comedy venues are thriving in a post-COVID world and a political and social climate that begs for comic relief.

YOU DON’T NEED TO STOP BY

LOONEES TOO

many times before you hear a headliner joke about the venue’s shabby strip mall setting, built in the 1950s. Partially obscured from Academy Boulevard by a Goodyear Tire shop and what will soon be a used appliance store, the club has been in its location under different names

and management since 1989.

“It’s an old building. We’ve polished it up a little bit on the inside,” says Erik Hawkinson, the club’s owner. He’s considered other locations like First & Main Town Center off Powers Boulevard, but all featured huge rent hikes.

“My mind always goes back to: If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it,” he says.

Hawkinson grew up nearby in the 1980s, when Academy Boulevard was still on the edge of town.

“I used to ride my bike around this parking lot when I was 12,” he says. “I couldn’t wait to go to Loonees.”

Hawkinson was a little too young for the humor of Mitch Hedberg and George Carlin, but he connected with Dave Attell, specifically his Skanks for the Memories… album which was, coincidentally, recorded at Denver’s Comedy Works.

Hawkinson did eventually realize his wish to go beyond the Loonees parking lot, getting hired as a bartender at age 23. After the Great Recession of 2008, the business began to falter and Hawkinson’s dad stepped in to front the money for him to buy it. Hawkinson would pay him back in a few short years, but recovery was a steep hill.

“This club was in bad shape,” he says. “Late show attendance would be eight people, 10 people.”

Loonees survived 2009 the same way it survived the comedy club bust nearly 20 years earlier: better promotion and by “papering the room,” a practice popularized by other clubs that survived the same bust. Each week, Loonees sends out a hundred free passes to their base of 6,000-7,000 email subscribers while requiring a two-item minimum purchase from patrons. It brings crowds to their theater while helping the bottom line.

As he rehabilitated the business, Hawkinson learned how to book talent from the son of former owner Larry Lee. Like an art gallery curator, Hawkinson arranged events not just at the club, but at The Gold Room, Lulu’s Downstairs and the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

The Colorado Springs comedy scene grows larger with each new set

STORY AND PHOTOS BY NICK RAVEN | nick@csindy.com

Erik Hawkinson

—

Erik Hawkinson, owner of Loonees Comedy Corner

“EVERYTHING I DO REVOLVES AROUND WHAT I’M DOING AROUND THIS PLACE FROM THE MOMENT I WAKE UP TO WHEN I GO TO BED.”

at Colorado College. Over 15 years, he’s built a network of national and local talent that allows him to bring in star comics like Eddie Griffin, Kevin Farley and Nick Swardson, but also headliners and features he knows here in town.

Once a movie theater, the Loonees building is filled with the autographed portraits of the many comic legends who have come through its doors to crack a few laughs on its stage. Hawkinson points out a low-hanging portrait of pre-fame Daniel Tosh, who showed up on Loonees’ stage in 2007.

“He didn’t even headline here, he just featured,” he says.

In a George Carlin graphic tee, black jeans and ball cap, Hawkinson presents himself as a manager who’s regularly in the mix, greasing his elbows to keep his comic machine running at any cost. He steps in to bartend when needed; he takes out the trash; he dashes online to handle the website and social media. Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible to separate the man from the club. Which presented Hawkinson with a kind of existential crisis as the pandemic forced the club to shut down for 19 weeks.

“The moment we got shut down, my life stopped,” Hawkinson says. “I didn’t have anything to do. Everything I do revolves around what I’m doing around this place, from the moment I wake up to when I go to bed.”

But things would soon get even more complicated. For many years, Loonees was the sole comedy club in town, its premier venue.

Then the competition showed up.

EVEN IF YOU WEREN’T COMPARING IT TO THE rickety alley that serves as its entrance, 3E’s Comedy Club looks and feels like a classy, upscale experience. The interior design embraces curves and subtle, recessed lighting; the fixtures and furniture are new and clean; owner Phillips comes equipped with a suit and an easy smile when we chat about how the venue came together.

“This is something I dreamed about when I got here 20 years ago,” he says. “I was like, ‘We need a club here.’ And everybody downtown was like, ‘We don’t need no comedy club here. Comedy club? Get out of here. We got nightclubs. What is comedy?’”

Opening half a year into the pandemic, he describes the club’s first three years as a struggle.

“We signed a lease in February [2020] and we started building, putting stuff in,” Phillips says. “And I’m going ‘COVID? Eh, it’s a cold.’ And then it got worse and worse and it’s like, ‘Man, this is no joke.’”

But 3E’s survived the capacity limits, foggers, UV lights and staffing issues to find its footing not just as a comedy club, but an event space. A military vet and event promoter since 1995, Phillips kept in touch with the comedians he ran into along the way, back before he settled in Colorado Springs.

Phillips thinks big about his and 3E’s role in building a comedy ecosystem here, rather than just being another venue along the highway of traveling comedians. He wants his club to be a place where you can go on for 10 minutes and if you get big at some point, you’ll come back to pay your dues.

“We have young comedians that are here that go to

other places like Seattle and [club owners] are like, ’Oh, you’re a 3E’s comedian, we’ll put you up,’” Philips says. “What I try to promote these guys on is being professional. It’s not the old days where Sam Kinison would go and get drunk and… you can’t do all that.”

In a post-TikTok age, he’s looking for new unsigned talent that he can book directly. (Actually, he and Hawkinson have TikTok fans among their staffs. They admit they don’t scour the app themselves.) Phillips encourages audiences to show up not just for the comics they recognize, but the ones they don’t. Case in point: Now a huge star on the comedy circuit, TikTok comedian Matt Rife recently filled Denver’s 5,000-seat Bellco Theater.

But before TikTok and Bellco, he was at 3E’s.

“I had Matt Rife here two times,” Phillips says. “He had a pretty good audience and then when he blew up, he sold out. And people are like, ‘Well, I didn’t know you had him here.’ Well, he’s been here two times!”

But it’s not long into our conversation that Phillips lays out his grand hypothesis: Colorado Springs has never had a comedy scene and that’s why 3E’s mission has been so important. He’s also not afraid to call out the competition a few miles east.

“When you go to New York or LA or other cities, they have a comedy scene. They have five clubs there,” Phillips says. “The club we had here [Loonees] didn’t build a comedy scene. It was just, ‘This is our club.’ There’s no one coming on in there.”

Phillips also argues against papering the room, making the case for 3E’s model of charging $20 at the door, a price he says is on par with what other comedy clubs charge.

“You cheapen the industry by always making tickets cheap,” he says.

You get a feeling talking to Phillips and Hawkinson that they foster a kind of passive-aggressive rivalry. Last year, when Loonees Comedy Corner won best Place for Comedy in our reader-selected Best Of awards (3E’s Comedy Club won silver), Hawkinson had some barbs of his own when explaining what made Loonees special.

“We’ve just been doing it for so long that we know what we’re doing, as opposed to other clubs that maybe opened in the last year or two,” Hawkinson said last year. “They don’t necessarily know the business or know exactly what they’re doing, [They’re] kind of putting a damper on the art of standup comedy as it is as a whole — the business, everything.”

But those hankering for a cage match between the comedy club owners will be disappointed. Despite their different approaches, the owners respect that each club is

going to do things differently — whether out of preference or survival — and that competition is important in a growing comedy scene.

“There was never any bad blood or anything like that,” Hawkinson says. “There are certain ways to do things and we’re gonna do them the way that we’ve been doing them.”

The duo keep out of each other’s hair with their own objectives. Three years after opening, Phillips is well into developing a second 3E’s location in the buzzing Northside’s Victory Ridge complex.

“[Then] we’ll have three comedy clubs here… two and a half,” Phillips says. “Just kidding.”

Hawkinson isn’t fazed.

“They could do great things up there, it just depends on how you’re booking and how you’re running [the] place,” he says with a smile.

WHEN YOU THINK OF LIVE COMEDY, A BURlesque cabaret might not be the first thing that comes to mind. It’s no surprise then that Bunny Bee and her husband Bee Radd — co-owners of the La Burla Bee burlesque cabaret — spend a lot of time educating people about their club while explaining how standup comics and tawdry strip shows developed together in American culture.

“The definition of burlesque is ‘mockery’ — it’s satire,” says Bee, who is also the outgoing chair of the Las Vegas-based Burlesque Hall of Fame. “The strippers that you see today — and we respect them dearly — they

continued on p. 11 ➔

Eric Phillips

— Eric Phillips, owner of 3E’s Comedy Club

“WE HAD A SHOW WITH FOUR PEOPLE IN THE SEATS [DURING COVID] AND I STILL HAD TO PAY THE COMEDIAN.”

The Jesters ARE COMING!

A pair of Colorado Springs’ inbound comics are unique out-of-towners

BY NICK RAVEN | nick@csindy.com

COMIC VENUES ARE REALLY COOL and all, but what about the talent that’s making its way here to light us up with laughter? The Indy spoke with two outof-state comics about their future stops in Downtown Colorado Springs.

NURSE BLAKE (REAL NAME: BLAKE Lynch) employs comedy as a means to an end. A registered nurse since 2014, Lynch maintains his medical credentials and uses his skits and live shows to connect with and support medical staff across the country. In an era before TikTok, Lynch thought that YouTube was a destination for nursing how-to videos and not comedy, so he launched his second career on Facebook — of all places — in 2017.

“It was after a panic attack,” Lynch says. “I had [come] from working in an ICU in Houston, Texas and I felt alone. I was burnt out. I needed an outlet to connect with other nurses and I learned no matter where you work or live or how old you are, as a nurse we all go through the same things.”

Lynch was not a social media maven and didn’t come to comedy “the traditional way.” Inspired by Joan Rivers’ rapid-fire comic delivery, he uploaded more nurse-related jokes. As his online following grew, he began to build a standup tour by booking venues and selling tickets himself. That tour wound up with a tiny 10 stops. This time around on his Shock Advised tour, Lynch boasts over 100 engagements. After the success of his Denver dates on his previous tour, he decided to come to the Pikes Peak Center, his first time in Colorado Springs.

“The joke with [booking companies Anschutz Entertainment Group and Creative Artists Agency] is I’ll play anywhere with a hospital,” Lynch says.

He explains that while other comics may have a distinct demographic, the nature of health care work attracts people of all ages and races. His 90-minute sets are stories based on personal and work experiences. In a previous tour, he stuck it to hospitals for failing to support their critical workforce through the pandemic. This time around, he steers away from the hardscrabble reality of their work with levity and escapism.

“You don’t have to be in health care to come to my show,” Lynch says. “A lot of people aren’t in health care, but you either know a nurse, you dated a nurse, [or] you’ve been a patient on the other side. Everyone can relate to it.”

ADRIANNE CHALEPAH — WHO RECENTLY gained media attention for cameos in FX’s Reservation Dogs and Peacock’s Rutherford Falls — is a Native comic hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, a town she says is also growing its comedy scene like Colorado Springs. The Fine Arts Center at Colorado College invited Chalepah back after a successful 2019 date and she’s happy to tackle its Night of Indigenous Comedy as a solo headliner.

“I made a conscious move during the pandemic to take jobs that were fulfilling,” Chalepah says. “[But] also — how do I put this without sounding so insulting — worth the time away from my kids. I have four children.”

Chalepah describes the sacrifices she made hopping on the road in a quantity-versus-quality approach to build her profile, taking as many tour dates as possible. That strategy worked when her children were much younger, but COVID was a firm notice that she was needed back home.

“As they’ve gotten older and they have their own lives, I’ve been mindful not to disrupt too much with my silly dreams,” she says with a laugh.

Raised on the Kiowa/Comanche/Apache reservation in Oklahoma, Chalepah sought comedy as a refuge from an environment with which she didn’t connect.

“I came from a very, very conservative town right in the heart of the Bible Belt,” she says. “Everybody is very much striving for a monolithic culture — the American dream, so to speak — and from a young age, I started realizing that I did not fit that narrative.”

Chalepah considers herself an alt comic who often finds herself stuck in her own head. Like Lynch, she’s relied less on traditional comedians to build her act and more on comedy troupes like Monty Python.

“I like to take the audience on an adventure with surprises,” Chalepah says. “And it’s not intentional, it’s just sort of… the weird comes out.”

Whether you’re a budding comedian or just have an intrusive thought you need to get off your chest in a healthy way, Chalepah heartily recommends open mic calls, especially in a city looking to build out its local comic talent.

“Our instinct is usually telling us to not become a target of public humiliation, so if you can get past that human instinct to protect yourself from that, then I think that it can be very cathartic,” Chalepah says. “If all goes well then it feels great. If you completely bomb, then you also have a funny story to tell later.”

— Adrianne Chalepah

“I MADE A CONSCIOUS MOVE DURING THE PANDEMIC TO TAKE JOBS THAT WERE FULFILLING.”

Courtesy Nurse Blake

Courtesy Adrianne Chalepah

would never be where they are today without those who came before doing the slapstick performances and having comedians be part of their acts.”

“Comedy has always been part of burlesque,” Radd says, calling out The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, a show about a fictional female comic who becomes popular in 1950s America. “If you watch old comedians, they talk about how they got their start in burlesque clubs.”

La Burla Bee presents an entirely different vibe than the other, more traditional comedy clubs in town. There’s nothing conservative about the decor here. The old brick walls are bathed with colorful neon. The bathroom doors inform you that they don’t care what gender you are. The stage decor, like the productions the venue puts on, embraces playful fantasy. Everything either glows or sparkles.

Original cabaret productions are parodies rooted in pop culture, to include Hocus Pocus, Marvel superheroes, Grease and more. The club’s producers will ideate a show and once the executive board has signed off, Bunny Bee will write the scripts herself. She recently re-binged The Mandalorian to write a Star Wars parody. (Shows are specifically and explicitly called parodies in promotional materials to avoid legal threats from media corporations.)

On stage, these costumed superheroes and famous characters strip down to their pasties and banana hammocks, clearly having fun doing it. They interact with their intimate crowds in a more theatrical way you don’t typically see with a headlining comedian in another club.

“I think people perceive cabaret in a certain way — that it’s raunchy or the comedy might be this or that — and it’s not,” Bee says. “It’s so much more than that.”

If you’re up for more conventional standup comedy or just want to try out a few minutes in a crowd that’s primed to accept, drop in on Sunday comedy nights managed by head comedian Macie Loureiro.

“If you’re coming to just watch or coming to perform, you’re gonna have an amazing time,” Loureiro says. “What I want to see with comedy [is] something new and weird and different. Come in, try some comedy. Let your freak flag fly. This would be the place to do it.”

Opening on New Year’s Eve 2021, the multi-level club was spared the brunt of COVID and its restrictions. But migrating from its last home in The Gold Room a few blocks away ... wasn’t easy. Moving into the former home of The Underground nightclub across from City Hall brought a learning curve that they equate to moving from an apartment to a house with a lawn to maintain.

La Burla Bee promotes its venue as an LGBT safe space for all comedy fans. After a performance, some acts will even go to other bars (in full costume) and network with the community. Radd says that police have called their club “non-problematic” compared to other Downtown bars, which they attribute to their inclusiveness and the education they provide to the audiences before a show begins.

“We get told by a lot of women [that] they love to come here because they can just dance with their girlfriends and have fun and not worry about being bumped on or being hit on 24/7,” Radd says.

The focus on inclusivity carries on to those who take their stage, too.

“A comedian was banned because there was a trans couple in the audience,” Loureiro says. “It was just a constant bullying and picking on this trans couple. [The performer was] banned immediately. You’ve got to know where you’re at. You’ve got to know your surroundings.”

“We’ve seen every walk of life walk in here and they either find a home where they’ve never had a place they could go or they’ve learned to become accepting of people that are different than them,” Radd says. “We want to normalize everybody. Everybody’s welcome.”

Phillips is on the same page.

“We just try and do good things here for us, for the city,” he says. “I’ve been here a long time and I’ve been involved in a lot of different ways. You want to do something quality because we’re a quality city.”

And Hawkinson says the response from locals has been encouraging.

“Last summer was the busiest summer we’ve ever had,“ he says. “This summer is looking like it’s gonna top last summer. The first quarter of this year was our best quarter ever. We’re just gonna ride it ‘til the wheels fall off.”

— Bee Radd, co-owner of La Burla Bee

“WE WANT TO NORMALIZE EVERYBODY. EVERYBODY’S WELCOME.”

Bee Radd

Macie Loureiro

Bunny Bee

PLAYING AROUND

WEDNESDAY, 7/26

Ryan Flores, Latin Gypsy; John Wise & Tribe, New Orleans R&B/blues/jazz/ island; Roma Ransom, bohemian psych folk ; 6 p.m., Hillside Gardens, hillsidecolorado.com/upcomingevents.

Deirdre McCarthy Band, violin and vocals; 6:30 p.m., Jack Quinn’s, facebook. com/jackquinns.

49 Winchester, “tear-in-your-beer altcountry, sticky barroom floor rockn-roll, and high-octane Appalachian folk,” with Kat Hasty; 7 p.m., Black Sheep, blacksheeprocks.com.

Hymn for Her, “juiced-up, backwoods country blues with a dose of desert rock psychedelia”; 8:30 p.m., Front Range Barbeque, frbbq.com/events.

LOOK’EE HERE!, blues/jazz; 6 p.m., Bancroft Park, occpartnership.org.

Missy & The Dirty Secrets, rock ; 6:30 p.m., Limbach Park, townofmonument.org.

Peak Big Band, jazz; 6 p.m., Bear Creek Regional Park, communityservices.elpasoco.com.

Springs Contemporary Jazz Band, jazz; 6 p.m., Bancroft Park, facebook.com/ SCJBB/events.

WireWood Station, Americana; 6 p.m., Broadmoor Community Church, broadmoorchurch.org/music-ministry.

THURSDAY, 7/27

Dalonious Funk, instrumental jazz/ funk/fusion; 8 p.m., Armadillo Ranch, manitouarmadilloranch.com.

Andrew Duhon, blues/folk; 8 p.m., Lulu’s, lulusdownstairs.com.

Everflare, post-hardcore, with Blanket Sluts, Screaming Goats; 7 p.m., Dog House, doghousecos.com.

Laura Rupejko, rock/pop; 5:30, Uva Wine Bar, uvawinebarcos.com.

Six O’Clock, hip-hop, with DJ Konz, JUS1, HA$H, Moe Hendrix, Mike Steel; 7 p.m., Vultures, vulturesrocks.com.

The Sleeping Giants, Irish/Celtic; 6 p.m., Jack Quinn’s, facebook.com/jackquinns.

Tails, Tunes & Tastes, local variety; 6:30 p.m., Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, cmzoo. org/events-programs.

FRIDAY, 7/28

Ambrosia, rock/pop/folk ; 7 p.m., Pikes Peak Center, pikespeakcenter.com.

BJ Estares, blues/classic rock ; 9 p.m., Cleats Bar and Grill West, reverbnation. com/bjestaresroute61.

Buddy Mondlock Duo, singer-songwriter, with Davis Boye, Mark Gillick ; 7 p.m., Black Forest Community Center, blackroseacoustic.org.

Dakota Ave, rock, with Violence in Violet, SswestT; 7 p.m., Dog House, doghousecos.com.

El Loco Fandango, ZZ Top tribute; 7 p.m., Stargazers Theatre, stargazerstheatre.com.

Family Elephant, rock; 9 p.m., Armadillo Ranch, manitouarmadilloranch.com.

Austin Johnson, rock ; 7:30 p.m., Jack Quinn’s, facebook.com/jackquinns.

Joe Johnson’s Country Store Band, country ; 6 p.m., Goat Patch Brewing Co., goatpatchbrewing.com.

Kaleta & Super Yamba Band, Afro-funk

dance; 8 p.m., Lulu’s, lulusdownstairs. com.

Live Music Fridays, jazz/funk ; 8 p.m., Munchies 719, munchies719.com.

The Martini Shot, variety; 5 p.m., First & Main Town Center, firstandmaintowncenter.com.

The Moldy Figs, jazz; 6 p.m., Wayfinder Coffee, wayfindercoffee.com.

Not Quite Alright, alternative/pop/ disco; 12 a.m., Buzzed Crow Bistro, buzzedcrowbistro.com.

ShaneAthan, hard rock , with Jeffe the GMC, TMC!, Mic Tyson; 7 p.m., Vultures, vulturesrocks.com.

Sofakillers, rock variety ; 7 p.m., Boot Barn Hall, bootbarnhallco.com.

Soul School, dance/variety; 7 p.m., University Village North Plaza, uvcshopping.com/concert-series.

Weathers, alternative rock, with Long/ Last, Silver & Gold; 7 p.m., Black Sheep, blacksheeprocks.com.

SATURDAY, 7/29

A Carpenter’s Daughter, mountain folk rock/Americana; 8 p.m., Jack Quinn’s, facebook.com/jackquinns.

Dead Man’s Ray Bans, singer-songwriter; 6 p.m. Rico’s Cafe, poorrichardsrestaurant.com.

The Deltaz, rock, with Matt Bloom Band, The Silver Riders; 7 p.m., Dog House, doghousecos.com.

The Elegant Plums, funk/rock/soul; 9 p.m., Armadillo Ranch, manitouarmadilloranch.com.

The Jeffrey Alan Band, Merle Haggard tribute; 7 p.m., Stargazers Theatre, stargazerstheatre.com.

Rhett Haney, Country ; 6 p.m., Whiskey Baron Dance Hall & Saloon, tinyurl. com/whisk-dh.

Los Lonely Boys, rock; 7:30 p.m., Pikes Peak Center, pikespeakcenter.com.

Mighty Mystic, reggae, with Mindstate; 7 p.m., Brues Alehouse, Pueblo, bruesalehouse.com.

Morsel, jamgrass ; 7 p.m., 3890 Old Ranch Road, tinyurl.com/Morsel2023.

Prophet’s Tomb, death metal, with Obscene Worship, Insipidus; 7 p.m., Vultures, vulturesrocks.com.

Rafiel and the Roomshakers, R&B/Motown/funk ; 7 p.m., Mash Mechanix Brewing Co., mashmechanix.com.

Red Wanting Blue, rock, with My Life as a Bear; 7 p.m., Black Sheep, blacksheeprocks.com.

0400 Reup’s G-Day Bash: Derez Deshon, rap/hip-hop, with DJ Major Money; 2 a.m., Luxe Lounge, tinyurl. com/0400Reup.

Rocky Mountain Flower Fest: Grass It Up, roots, with Stillhouse Junkies, Deidre McCarthy and Friends; 4 p.m., Venetucci Farm, gathermountainblooms.com.

SUNDAY, 7/30

The Brevet, alternative/indie; 8 p.m., Lulu’s, lulusdownstairs.com.

OFFDASNOW, hip-hop/rap, with KAZI, Chris THE GOD; 7 p.m., Black Sheep, blacksheeprocks.com.

Redraw The Farm, folk ; 5 p.m., Goat Patch Brewing Co., goatpatchbrewing. com.

Michael Reese, rock ; 1 p.m., Armadillo Ranch, manitouarmadilloranch.com.

Traditional Irish Music, Irish; 3 p.m., Jack Quinn’s, facebook.com/jackquinns.

MONDAY, 7/31

Countywyde, bluegrass; 6 p.m., Green Mountain Falls Gazebo Island, discoverutepass.com/monday-music-series.

ElektroHornz, nujazz; 6 p.m., Armadillo Ranch, manitouarmadilloranch.com.

Little London Winds: Pops Concert, wind ensemble; 7 p.m., Soda Springs Park, Manitou, littlelondonwinds.org/ concerts/2023/summer.html.

TUESDAY, 8/1

Sarah Groh Trio, jazz/classical; 6 p.m.,

Afro-funksters Kaleta & Super Yamba Band play Lulu’s Friday night, July 28.

Courtesy Kaleta & Super Yamba Band

Bancroft Park, occpartnership.org.

WEDNESDAY, 8/2

Academy Jazz Ensemble, jazz; 6 p.m., Manitou Carnegie Library, ppld.org/ library-lawn-concerts.

Austin Johnson, rock ; 6:30 p.m., Front Range Barbeque, frbbq.com.

Dina Hollingsworth Trio, jazz; 6 p.m., Broadmoor Community Church, broadmoorchurch.org/music-ministry.

High Desert Queen, rock , with Blue Heron, Hashtronaut; 7 p.m., Vultures, vulturesrocks.com.

The Swing Connection, jazz; 6 p.m., Bear Creek Regional Park, communityservices.elpasoco.com.

3 Car Garage, classic rock; John Wise and Tribe, New Orleans R&B/blues/ jazz/island, Deryk Cunningham,

acoustic pop/rock ; 6 p.m., Hillside Gardens, hillsidecolorado.com.

THURSDAY, 8/3

PLAYING AROUND BIG GIGS

A Kilo 45 Years of Rock Show: Pop Evil, hard rock, with Lines of Loyalty, Lava Gato; 7 p.m., Black Sheep, blacksheeprocks.com.

Arise Roots, roots/reggae, with The Irie; 6:30 p.m., Brues Alehouse, Pueblo, bruesalehouse.com.

Deep Blue Sea, pop/Americana/rock/ blues, 6 p.m., Fox Run Regional Park, communityservices.elpasoco.com.

Stevie P and the Hard Road, blues; 7:30 p.m., Thorndale Park, pikespeakblues. org.

Strawberry Girls, rock, with Oyarsa, Get The Axe; 7 p.m., Vultures, vulturesrocks.com.

Upcoming music events

George Clinton, George Porter Jr., Parliament-Funkadelic , Ogden Theatre, Denver, Aug. 2

Elliot Greer, Globe Hall, Denver, Aug. 2

Amythyst Kiah, Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver, Aug. 2

Gregory Alan Isakov, Fox Theatre, Boulder, Aug. 2

Ween, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 3

The Front Bottoms, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 4

Josh Turner, Pikes Peak Center, Aug.

4

Spyderland, Lulu’s, Aug. 4

Pretty Lights, Mission Ballroom, Denver, Aug. 4-6

boygenius, illuminati hotties, Phoebe Bridgers, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 5

Wolfgang Van Halen’s band and Nita Strauss bring their “Mammoth II Tour” to Gothic Theatre in Englewood on Nov. 28.

Andrew Duhon, Lulu’s, July 27

Alicia Keys, Ball Arena, Denver, July 27

Ambrosia, Pikes Peak Center, July 28

Kaleta & Super Yamba Band, Lulu’s, July 28

Weathers, Black Sheep, July 28

Tedeschi Trucks Band, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, July 28-29

EPROM, Mission Ballroom, Denver, July 29

Los Lonely Boys, Pikes Peak Center, July 29

Magic Beans, Lulu’s, July 30

Big Thief and Lucinda Williams, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, July 31

Rema, Summit Music Hall, Denver, July 31

Rod Stewart & Cheap Trick, Ball Arena, Denver, Aug. 1

Clutch, Dinosaur Jr., Red Fang , Fillmore Auditorium, Denver, Aug. 5

Joe Bonamassa, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 6

Jorma Kaukonen, Boulder Theater, Boulder, Aug. 6

Afroman, Lulu’s, Aug. 8

Gable Price and Friends, Black Sheep, Aug. 8

Satsang, Fox Theatre, Denver, Aug. 9

The Marshall Tucker Band, Pikes Peak Center, Aug. 9

James McMurtry, Lulu’s, Aug. 9

Maggie Rogers, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 9

William Beckmann, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 10

Chicago, Pikes Peak Center, Aug. 10

Decrepit Birth, Black Sheep, Aug. 10

The Pharcyde, Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom, Denver, Aug. 10

The National, Mission Ballroom, Denver, Aug. 11

Jon Pardi, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, Aug. 11

Black Joe Lewis, Lulu’s, Aug. 12

Continued

Appetizers

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AMERICAN

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SAIGON CAFÉ

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Open for Lunch and Dinner Mon-Sat. Welcome to the Saigon Café the award winning Vietnamese restaurant in Colorado Springs. Our cuisine is cooked with fresh vegetables, herbs and meats in authentic Vietnamese style. Try our renowned noodle bowl, a lunchtime favorite. M-Th 11AM–3PM; 4PM–8:30PM F-Sat 11AM–3PM; 4PM-9:30PM

BIRD DOG BBQ

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SONORA’S Prime Carniceria & Taco Shop

WHERE TO START? THE PALETA WITH THE WHOLE OREO encased in it? The michelada to-go kits? Or the Choripollo entrée?

We’re at Sonora’s Prime Carniceria & Taco Shop (sonorasprimemeat.com) at the intersection of Barnes and Marksheffel roads. It’s the storefront that was The Collective for a brief stint, starting in 2017, taken over in 2019 by Happy Belly Tacos. Then came the pandemic. Today, the spot’s an extension of a Mexican enterprise with two locations in Pueblo and one in Tucson, Arizona. This Springs eatery and market grand opened in June 2022.

It’s steadily busy on the Saturday afternoon we drop by, both with deli and market business and restaurant traffic.

From a somewhat large menu that includes apps, burritos, tacos, tortas, enchiladas, combos and quesadillas, we order a couple dishes at the back counter to share.

The Choripollo is a portmanteau for chicken and chorizo, and to make matters more complex, they’re jointly sauced with a thin but hearty queso sauce. The grilled chicken’s generous chile seasoning sets the underlying flavor profile, earthy and scantly spicy, blending seamlessly with the homemade chorizo’s zesty character. The house queso makes it eat more like nap-inducing comfort food, with rice and beans (which rate only basic) adding a side of starch and a small salad and loose guacamole scoop lending fresh vegetal relief. Diced fresh jalapeños as salad garnish offer the most heat on the plate, and with included tortillas (we choose corn) we construct our own napkin-slaying tacos. We’re having fun.

Next comes a big bowl of tortilla soup, from an “authentic Mexican recipe,” fitting for the overcast day. Its chicken broth appears thin and translucent, almost a true consommé, with a mild flavor that inspires me to hit Sonora’s tiny salsa bar (adjacent to the restaurant ordering counter) in search of enlivening elements. Otherwise, the soup’s stocked with ample, soft pulled chicken threads, sogged and submerged tortilla strips, sunken avocado wedges, a stringy cheese goo on the bowl’s bottom and bits of diced tomato floating atop. I add fresh chopped cilantro and white onions, dried oregano and squeezes of lime and I crumble a single dried chile de árbol in search of spiciness. All in, it’s a pleasing soup experience for $11.99....

What you’ve just read is excerpted from my full review, titled “Mexico at home,”

STORY AND PHOTOS BY MATTHEW SCHNIPER

Sonora’s serves a satisfying Choripollo and also plays a community ambassador role.

which can be found at tinyurl. com/sidedishschnip-M. You’re going to want to go there to finish the review, because I dive into descriptions of Denver-made Chupacabra paletas. We sample an Oreo popsicle and a pistachio one and they definitely inspire some musings from me. That, and I’ll tell you more about the aforementioned michelada to-go kits. And I’ll explain why Sonora’s proves to be much more than a carniceria and restaurant; in fact it’s an ambassador.

DINNER WITH ANIMALS

TAILS, TUNES & TASTES (CMZOO.ORG/ events-programs/special-events/tails-tunestastes) is set for both July 27 and Aug. 31 at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (4250 Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Road). Proceeds benefit the care of the zoo’s animals, so you can feel good about punishing the unlimited small plate samples that are included in the $64.75 ticket price. That also gets attendees two drinks (with a cash bar open for followups) and each event will feature six bands spread around the facility.

Now, let’s assume you’re reading this too late to make it to July 27’s event: That’s OK! August awaits. A couple weeks ago, I got a preview tasting of several of the items

off the menu planned for the July 27 event. Impressively, CMZ Executive Chef John Kuespert has created separate menus for each event. And neither list is small, featuring more than a dozen items. See the menus at the zoo’s website. And consider the food descriptions below just a snapshot of Kuespert and team’s overall prowess, which will be back on display in late August.

Kuespert has been in the exec chef role at CMZ for two years, prior to that serving as chef de cuisine at Devil’s Thumb Ranch Resort & Spa in Tabernash, Colorado. If it’s surprising to see such nicely presented, gourmet food served in a zoo setting, I understand. A guest I brought to the tasting was totally bowled over based on his expectations when I simply told him that I was taking him to the zoo to eat. But the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo has had a long tradition of better-than bites thanks to prior chefs like locally beloved Beau Green and hard-working Nathan Dirnberger (now at Royal Gorge Route Railroad). Over the past decade, I’ve reported on many fine meals on the premises.

But back to my recent preview: It’s great to see how sustainability-minded Kuespert is, sourcing local where possible and even contributing honey from his own hives.

Our first course spotlights Rocky Ford melons beautifully, all light and fresh with a pop of sweetness from Kuespert’s honey and acidity from heirloom tomatoes. The next celebrates earthy Microvora-grown trumpet mushrooms atop house sourdough with Boursin and Grana Padano cheeses. Chive garnish and a dousing of fermented honey balsamic sauce play counterpoint. “I’m a big fan of mushrooms” Kuespert says.

Next up, a phenomenal 48-hour sous vide pork belly, continued on p. 16 ➔

Chorip oll o entrée

The pork belly excites all the senses.

CRAFT PUB

ODYSSEY GASTROPUB

311 N. TEJON ST. | 719-999-5127 | ODYSS EYGASTROPUB.COM

Voted Best New Restaurant 2015 by Indy readers. Specializing in an eclectic mix of craft food, craft beer, and craft cocktails. Odyssey Gastropub is a downtown gem with a warm, intimate atmosphere and awesome staff. Start your adventure with us! Mon.- Fri. 11am - 10pm, Sat. & Sun. 10am - 10pm

EDELWEISS RESTAURANT

34 E. RAMONA AVE. | (SOUTH NEVADA & TEJON) | 719-633-2220

For 50 Years Edelweiss has brought Bavaria to Colorado Springs. Using fresh ingredients, the menu invites you to visit Germany. Support local business! We’re open and doing drive-thru and takeout with a limited menu that can be found on our website! www. edelweissrest.com.

SOUTHWESTERN/MEXICAN

JOSÉ MULDOON’S

222 N. TEJON ST. | 719-636-2311 | 5710 S. CAREFREE CR @ POWERS | 719-574-5673

Since 1974. Features authentic Tex-Mex & Mexican fare in contemporary Sante Fe-styled establishment. Across from Acacia Park, and west of Powers & Carefree. Josemuldoons.com. Support local restaurants! We are open for delivery, carry out, and dine-in at both locations! Please check our Facebook page for hours daily, as they are subject to change.

STEAKHOUSE

THE FAMOUS 31 N. TEJON ST. | DOWNTOWN | 719-227-7333

Colorado Springs’ finest upscale steak house and lounge located in the center of downtown. Dine in an elegant and classic steak house environment. Award winning prime steaks, fresh seafood, premium wines, craft brews and piano bar provide a provocative mix of atmosphere and entertainment. Reservations suggested.

MACKENZIE’S CHOP HOUSE

128 S. TEJON ST. HISTORIC ALAMO BUILDING | DOWNTOWN | 719-635-3536

Offering half off all bottles of wine under $100! Voted Best Power Lunch, Steakhouse and Martini! Downtown’s choice for quality meats and mixed drinks. Mackenzieschophouse.com. Open Mon.-Fri. 11:30am-3pm for lunch, and 5pm- close every day for dinner!

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➔ continued from p. 15

seared for a crispy exterior but wonderfully soft interior. It’s Szechuan-hoisin marinated and served with crispy garlic and sesame seeds plus a cilantro topping, all on a pillowy, starchy bao bun. It excites all the senses, ranging from tart to lightly spicy and sweet.

And for dessert we receive what the chef’s calling a Pacific Sunrise Panna Cotta plated with pretty puddles of peach gelée and Kuespert honey three ways: drizzled raw; comb; and a baked honey crisp. Badass. Perfect for summer.

Based off what we did taste from July 27’s menu, I’m bummed I won’t be able to try what we didn’t. I’ll be judging Taste of Pikes Peak Downtown that night, though I do plan to attend the next zoo event in August. Expect more reporting then.

GREENING EVENTS

SPEAKING OF TASTE OF PIKES PEAK (TASTEOFPIKESPEAK. com) — which I’ve provided ample warning about in recent weeks, so no crying if you miss the July 27 event — I want to highlight something cool about this year’s event: The organizers are thinking green.

“Events create significant amounts of landfill waste, and food and beverage events are among the worst,” says co-organizer and Studio Q Events’ Lauren Ripko. “This year, Taste of Pikes Peak is working towards a more sustainable model with the introduction of r.Cup and compostable plates from Eco Products and Western Paper. We’re excited to partner with Food to Power to alleviate significant amounts of landfill waste with their compost program.”

Visit rcup.com/faq to learn about the reusable r.Cups, which are super cool, and work toward reducing waste. According to their site, “The live event industry contributes over 4 billion single-use and disposable cups that end up in landfills each year in North America alone.”

Yikes, we suck! ... But not at Taste of Pikes Peak. Cheers to that.

GABF TICKETS ON SALE

THE GREAT AMERICAN BEER FESTIVAL (GREATAMERICANBEERfestival.com) takes place Oct. 6-9, and tickets are now on sale. New this year at Denver’s famous beer bash: kombucha, hard seltzers and expanded nonalcoholic options will be available on the floor according to Side Dish partner Focus on the Beer (focusonthe.beer).

I’ve attended the GABF many times in the past in a media capacity, doing what I would call fun work. I’m sure you’ve heard someone say that everyone should live in New York once in their life — to which I say nope. Instead, I’d say everyone who loves beer should try and attend one GABF in their life, basically as a pilgrimage. It’s big, it’s loud, it’s honestly a little overwhelming — but yeah, it’s fun, too.

Matthew Schniper is the former Food & Drink editor and critic at the Indy. You can find expanded food and drink news and reviews at sidedishschnip.substack.com.

Great American Beer Festival: It’s a pilgrimage.

File photo

Your guide to events in the Pikes Peak region CALENDAR

ART EXHIBITS

45º Gallery, 2528 W. Colorado Ave., Suite B, 719-434-1214, 45degreegallery.com. Works by wood artisan Thomas Conter and painter Lorraine Danzo.

Academy Art & Frame Company, 7560 N. Academy Blvd., 719-265-6694, academyframesco.com, How Do You See God? — works by artists of “all faiths and beliefs, as well as all media, all ages, and 2D or 3D works.” Through August.

Art 1eleven Gallery, 111 E. Bijou St., 719493-5084, facebook.com/Art1elevenGallery. Large abstract acrylic paintings by Jesse Stockwell.

Bella Art & Frame, 251 Front St., #11, Monument, 719-487-7691, bellaartandframe.com. An Ode to Colorado, work by fine art photographer Andrew Bailey. Reception; through July 28.

The Bridge Gallery, 218 W. Colorado Ave., #104, 719-629-7055, thebridgeartgallery. com. Earth Works, featuring Deena Bennett’s porcelain clay works and her daughter, Logan’s, photos of the landscape around Crested Butte. Through July 29.

Citizens Art Gallery at City Hall, 107 N. Nevada Ave. (second floor in the northwest section of the building; enter through the southeast ADA door). Featuring works by abstract painter Becca Day: “When I paint, I tread a path between design and spontaneity; intention and accident. Each painting is its own experiment. I create non-objective abstraction that allows room for interpretation.”

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 W. Dale St., fac.coloradocollege.edu. Solo(s): Krista Franklin Franklin “creates books, poetry, collages, handmade paper, installations, murals, performances, sound works, sculptures, and lectures.” July 28-Dec. 16. In Conversation: Krista Franklin and Ionit Behar, Thursday, Aug. 31, 6 p.m. Contested Terrains, with a new work by Carolina Aranibar-Fernández, through Sept. 16. “The five artists featured in Contested Terrains acknowledge how human intervention has shaped landscapes across the Americas.” Through Dec. 20. Museum free days, Aug. 12 and 18.

Commonwheel Artists Co-op, 719-6851008, 102 Cañon Ave., Manitou Springs, commonwheel.com. Cheers! Drink Up! — clay drinking vessels in four categories: beer, coffee, tea and spirits. “More than 20 potters from all over the state of Colorado contributing to this celebration of the drinking vessel.” Through July.

Cottonwood Center for the Arts, 427 E. Colorado Ave., 719-520-1899, cottonwoodcenterforthearts.com. Forgive My Pop Heart, for it hides such vacuous sorrow, by poet and artist Jacqueline Viola Moulton. A solo “pop art show exploring that deep and still place underneath the shiny and palpable veneer of the exterior face that we present to the world.” Through July 29.

G44 Gallery, 121 E. Boulder St., 720-9510573, g44gallery.com. Windows by Shannon Mello: “Negative space is so often

overlooked. The spaces between people in this room, ... spaces between trees and their branches. There are perfect little frames all around us creating these small viewfinders of a whole new world of composition.” Bird Brain by Robert Lococo: “The phrase came to being because it was assumed birds lacked intelligence. But there is beauty to being a cuckoo or a boob.” Through July.

Gallery 113, 125½ N. Tejon St., gallery113cos.com, 719-634-5299. July’s show features Irv Middlemist’s mixed-media paintings and Mary Gorman’s paintings on silk

The Garfield Gallery, 332 E. Willamette Ave., 719-227-8836, garfieldgallery.com. Works by Pikes Peak Arts Council members in multiple mediums.

Kreuser Gallery, 125 E. Boulder St., 719464-5880, kreusergallery.com. Playful

Resistance: Play and Beauty as Acts of Creative Resistance — the batik work of Beth and Jonathan Evans and sculpture by Maria Battista. Murmurations, new work by April Dawes , “acknowledges the human need for connection and confronts the haunting loneliness, loss and longing for community in my life, over the last several years.” La Soma, works by Foster and Daniel Romano. Artist talks: July 27, 5:30 p.m., April Dawes and Daniel and Foster Romano. Through July 28.

The Look Up Gallery, 11 E. Bijou St. (inside Yobel), thelookupgallery.com. New works by Rachel Dinda, “a multidisciplinary artist who draws inspiration from graffiti, art nouveau and marine biodiversity.”

Manitou Art Center, 513/515 Manitou Ave., Manitou Springs, 719-685-1861, manitouartcenter.org. Monument, a new show by Manitou artist Larry Kledzik in the Hagnauer Gallery; through July 29.

Portraits of Manitou by C.H. Rockey, features original town views and significant historical buildings. Manitou Springs Heritage Center, 517 Manitou Ave.; manitouspringsheritagecenter.org; through November.

Surface Gallery, 2752 W. Colorado Ave., surfacegallerycos.com. 4D Vision: A capsule exhibit by Claire Swinford: “Her current bodies of work explore, respectively, feminist world-building and liminality through the trope of textiles; and deconstructing the concept of a shared past through the nostalgic visual cues of Kodachrome slide decks.” Fear & Fortitude: A Journey in Geometric Abstraction by Rachel Espenlaub: “a collection of paintings about determination and overcoming fear.” Through July 28.

Through Our Eyes, art from the frontlines of the foster care system, featuring artwork from Kids Crossing foster youths, foster families/parents, caseworkers, therapists and home coordinators. Runs through July 31; PPLD’s Penrose Library, 20 N. Cascade Ave., 719-531-6333, kidscrossing.com.

True North Art Gallery, 31 E. Bijou St., 210842-2476, truenorthartgallery.com. True North After Dark, “all new work by 16 member artists.”

UCCS Downtown, 102 S. Tejon St., downtown.uccs.edu/our-space. Pikes Peak Arts Council member show with tattoo artist/ painter Sole Junkie.

KIDS & FAMILIES

Habitats of the Future, part of the Summer of Discovery: Back to the Moon series. Saturday, July 29, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Space Foundation Discovery Center, 4425 Arrowswest Drive; see tinyurl.com/spacehabitats for tickets and more info.

Girls Hockey for Free, “try hockey in a FUN, safe environment with trained coaching staff... There will be plenty of assistance on and off ice so your child has the best first hockey experience!” For girls ages 4-9; no skating or hockey experience required; equipment provided. Saturday, July 29, 4-5 p.m.; Broadmoor World Arena, 3185 Venetucci Blvd.; girlshockey@csaha. com, 719-675-0078; register at tryhockeyforfree.com/event_detail/1975.

Native Pollinator Class and Hike, “a lesson on the lesser-known but critically important pollinators that we can be on the lookout for and lend a helping hand to.”

Saturday, Aug. 5, 9-11 a.m.; all ages; $5, $4/

member (prepaid); Fountain Creek Nature Center, 320 Peppergrass Lane, Fountain; 719-520-6745, tinyurl.com/epco-fun.

Kids’ Morning Out: Foothills Detectives, “drop off your child (ages 6-11) for a morning spent hiking, playing games and learning how to read nature’s clues.” Saturday, Aug. 5, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; lunch included; $25 per person/$20 per member (prepaid); Bear Creek Nature Center, 245 Bear Creek Road; 719-520-6387, tinyurl. com/epco-fun.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Taste of Pikes Peak, presented by the Pikes Peak Chapter of the Colorado Restaurant Association, with “tastes from more than 75 of the region’s best restaurants, distilleries, breweries and coffee shops.” Thursday, July 27, 5-9 p.m.; Park Union, Downtown at the corner of Sierra Madre Street and Vermijo Avenue; see tinyurl.com/TasteOPeak for tickets and more info.

Elmohr Iris Society annual sale, Friday, July 28, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday, July 29, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Spencer’s Lawn and

ART EXHIBIT

ZoneFIVE, 1902 E. Boulder St., zonefivecs.com. Idiom: Works by Warren Arcila, “a collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures created throughout the years.” Through August.

“Garden” by Warren Arcila

continued on p. 18 ➔

➔ continued from p. 17

Garden Centers, 1430 S. Tejon St.; tinyurl. com/elmohr-2023.

Bronc Day Festival, the 85th Annual Bronc Day Festival in Green Mountain Falls. Pancake breakfast, parade, music, art, crafts, a pie contest, games, food, and a free barn dance at the Green Box farm stand. FridaySaturday, July 28-29; Green Mountain Falls; seebroncdayfestival.org for more info.

Rocky Mountain Flower Fest — A Music Festival Full of Flowers, with an alcohol tent and beer garden, food trucks, you-pick flowers, an artisan market, line dancing in the barn, and music by Steve Harris, Deirdre McCarthy & Friends, Stillhouse Junkies and Grass It Up. Saturday, July 29, 4-11 p.m., Venetucci Farm, 5210 S. Highway 85; see gathermountainblooms.com/flower-fest for full schedule and tickets (also available at the gate).

The Downtown Hoedown! A fundraiser for CONO (Council of Neighbors and Organizations): “Come for line dancing, BBQ from Front Range BBQ, and live music from Extra Gold! After the Hoedown, head to the downstairs at Oskar Blues to keep the party going!” Saturday, Aug. 5, 4-7 p.m., Acacia Park, 115 E. Platte Ave.; $40 ($15 for kids 12 and younger); then 7-10 p.m. at Oskar Blues, 118 N. Tejon St., with live music from Countywide and $1 from each beer sale donated to CONO. See tinyurl.com/CONO-hoedown for details and tickets.

Mash Mechanix Brewing Co. Summer Car Show, “a diverse collection of rat rods, modified rides, stock cars, and trucks.” With live music and food trucks; free for spectators; $35-$45 car registration (carshow proceeds go to local veteran charity, Monster Motors/Hot Rod Garage). Saturday, Aug. 5, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Mash Mechanix, 429 E. Pikes Peak Ave.; register vehicles at tinyurl.com/register-yer-wheels; spectator info at tinyurl.com/mash-cars.

Starlight Spectacular, presented by Trails and Open Space Coalition, “where participants put on their favorite glowin-the-dark gear, light up their bikes, and ride or run into the beautiful Colorado night in the Garden of the Gods.” Open to cyclists (including e-bikes) runners and walkers. Saturday, Aug. 5, 8 p.m. to 12:45 a.m.; Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center, 1805 N. 30th St.; info@ trailsandopenspaces.org; see trailsandopenspaces.org/starlight-spectacular for full schedule and fees.

Manitou Springs Waterfest, celebrating the town’s mineral water springs — history presentations, water games, walking tours and a family picnic with live music presented by Manitou Springs Heritage Center and Museum and the Mineral Springs Foundation. Friday-Saturday, Aug. 4-5; see event lineup and registration info at mineralspringsfoundation. org and tinyurl.com/manitou-heritage.

STAGE & THEATER

Footloose, a stage adaptation of the classic film by the Youth Repertory Ensemble — 32 teens ages 14 to 18. Four shows July

ART EXHIBIT

Solo(s): Krista Franklin “draws on the artist’s vast range of materials and references, situated at the intersection of poetics, popular culture, and the dynamic histories of the African Diaspora.” Opens July 28 at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, 30 W. Dale St., fac. coloradocollege.edu; through Dec. 16.

27-30 at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St.; see fac.coloradocollege. edu/theatre-events/footloose for times and tickets.

Circus of the Night: Angels of Elvis, “with an all-star cast of singers, aerial acrobats, jugglers, and laugh-makers. There will be a lot of swiveling hips as Circus of the Night presents ... a tribute to all the Elvis Imitators that have ever aspired to play Vegas.” Friday-Saturday, through July 29, 9 p.m.; Millibo Art Theatre, 1626 S. Tejon St., see themat.org for tickets and more info.

Taming of the Shrew, “Will’s original battle of wills, staged in an Elizabethan England every bit as stylized and strict as we always imagine it, with one key difference: This society is a matriarchy.” By Theatreworks, through July 30; outdoors at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday; indoors Friday, 7 p.m.; $10; Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater, 5225 N. Nevada Ave.; entarts.org/tamingoftheshrew.

Titanic: The Musical, “featuring a cast of 25 students from Colorado Springs Conservatory’s Musical Theatre Summer Intensive representing nine different schools in the Colorado Springs/Pikes Peak area, along with a pit orchestra comprising local professional musicians.” Four shows Aug. 4-6; Ent Center for the Arts, 5225 N. Nevada Ave.; see tinyurl.com/enttitanic for times and tickets.

“The World” by Krista Franklin

LOWDOWN

By Jim Hightower jimhightower.com

Two-party MEDIOCRITY

ALL THOSE FIRECRACKERS ON JULY

4 got me thinking about the headline revolutionaries who signed the 1776 Declaration, fought the Brits for independence, hammered out the Constitution and installed our Bill of Rights. Old Ben, Monticello Tom, General George, Alex, “Pamphleteer Tommy” Paine, Jimmie and Dolly, Tea Party Sam and others got America’s democratic experiment started, and they’re rightly saluted today, from classrooms to political gatherings of both major parties, as true patriots.

Reflecting on that generation’s remarkable impact reveals the historic potential of our people’s democratic spirit. But it also raises the unavoidable contrast with

our present crop of leading political characters. This is worth noting now, because the Fourth has become the opening bell for America’s quadrennial presidential run (yes, ready or not, the first “debates” are only weeks away, and Iowa’s Republican caucuses are set for Jan. 15).

So here’s my question: Given the current state of our two major parties, would any of the Patriots of ’76 have a snowball’s chance in hell of being nominated for president of the country they founded? Consider George Washington. The GOP’s MAGA crowd would boo him off the stage, Trump would mock the general as “Toothless George,” and the party of Q-Anon, anti-woke nonsense and Marjorie Taylor Greene would place him

Would any of the Patriots of ’76 have a snowball’s chance in hell of being nominated for president?

behind überrich ego trippers like Vivek Ramaswamy and Doug Burgum.

Democrats? While today’s grassroots Dems would rally enthusiastically to the little-d democratic principles and firebrand activism of Thomas Paine or Samuel Adams, the party’s pusillanimous corporate-hugging establishment would bury both in a muddy deluge of money and lies.

This political reality check is not meant to depress us, but to provoke us into demanding and doing better. OK, maybe greatness is now beyond us, but shouldn’t we strive for more than mediocrity and outright goofiness?

MEANWHILE... IT’S 1984 AGAIN IN AMERICA.

Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, antidemocratic doctrine on society. Their regime held power through mind control — they had a “Ministry of Truth” for perverting language and manipulating facts, while their “Thought Police” enforced ideological purity and suppressed dissent.

Thirty-nine years later, here comes a clique of theocratic extremists in our country using Orwellian manipulation in its crusade to take control over every woman’s personal reproductive rights. Having seized the Supreme Court and practically the entire Republican Party, these present-day autocrats are now demanding that state and national lawmakers enforce the group’s ultimate dictate: A total ban on abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.

To their amazement, however, the great majority of Americans (even Republicans) think abortion ought to be generally available, with each woman deciding what’s best for her. Moreover, the idea of Big Brother imposing a federal ban is massively unpopular.

No problem, say today’s Orwellian newspeakers, we’ll just ban the word “ban” from our PR campaigns. Thus, their harsh abortion ban has magically morphed linguistically into a “pro-life plan.” There — feel better?

Doubling down on their propaganda ploy, the abortion truth twisters are also plotting to ban reporters from using what one called “the big ban word.” Antiabortion agents are now barraging news outlets with warnings that any use of that verb will be considered proof of political bias. Sure enough, rather than risk right-wing fury, some scaredy-cat reporters are already caving in, meekly describing bans as “restrictions on procedures.” How nice — a kinder, gentler tyranny!

To keep up with the 2023 version of Orwell’s Thought Police, connect with Jessica Valenti’s diligent tracking of anti-abortion trickery at jessica.substack.com.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

By Heather Cox Richardson heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

OF BEING PLAYED FOR SUCKERS’

ALITTLE

MORE THAN TWO YEARS

ago, on July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to promote competition in the U.S. economy. Echoing the language of his predecessors, he said, “competition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing. Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth…. But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back.”

In that speech, Biden deliberately positioned himself in our country’s long history of opposing economic consolidation. Calling out both Roosevelt presidents — Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who oversaw part of the Progressive Era, and Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who oversaw the New Deal — Biden celebrated their attempt to rein in the power of big business, first by focusing on the abuses of those businesses, and then by championing competition.

Biden promised to enforce antitrust laws, interpreting them in the way they had been understood traditionally. Like his progressive predecessors, he believed antitrust laws should prevent large entities from swallowing up markets, consolidating their power so they could raise prices and undercut workers’ rights. Traditionally, those advocating antitrust legislation wanted to protect economic competition, believing that such competition

would promote innovation, protect workers, and keep consumer prices down.

IN

THE 1980S, GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

threw out that understanding and replaced it with a new line of thinking advanced by former solicitor general of the United States Robert Bork. He claimed that the traditional understanding of antitrust legislation was economically inefficient because it restricted the ways businesses could operate. Instead, he said, consolidation of industries was fine so long as it promoted economic efficiencies that, at least in the short term, cut costs for consumers. While antitrust legislation remained on the books, the understanding of what it meant changed dramatically.

Reagan and his people advanced Bork’s position, abandoning the idea that capitalism fundamentally depends on competition. Industries consolidated, and by the time Biden took office his people estimated the lack of competition was costing a median U.S. household as much as $5,000 a year. Two years ago, Biden called the turn toward Bork’s ideas “the wrong path,” and vowed to restore competition in an increasingly consolidated marketplace. With his executive order in July 2021, he established a White House Competition Council to direct a whole-of-government approach to promoting competition in the economy.

This shift gained momentum in part because of what appeared to be price gouging as the shutdowns of the pandemic eased. The five largest ocean container shipping companies, for example, made $300 billion in profits in 2022, compared to $64 billion the year before, which itself was a higher number than in the past. Those higher prices helped to drive inflation.

The baby formula shortage that began in February 2022 also highlighted the problems of concentration in an industry. Just four companies controlled 90 percent of the baby formula market in the U.S., and when one of them shut down production at a plant that appeared to be contaminated, supplies fell dramatically across the country. The administration had to start flying millions of [containers] of formula in from other countries under Operation Fly Formula, a solution that suggested something was badly out of whack.

THE ADMINISTRATION’S FOCUS ON RESTORing competition had some immediate effects. It worked to get a bipartisan reform to ocean shipping through Congress, permitting greater oversight of the shipping industry by the Federal Maritime Commission. That law was part of the solution that brought ocean-going shipping prices down 80 percent from their peak. It worked with the Food and Drug Administration to make hearing aids available over the counter, cutting costs for American families. It also has worked to get rid of the non-compete clauses which made it hard for about 30 million workers to change jobs. And it began cracking down on junk fees, add-ons to rental car contracts, ticket sales, banking services, and so on, getting those fees down an estimated $5 billion a year.

“Folks are tired of being played for suckers,” Biden said. “[I]t’s about basic fairness.”

Last week, the administration announced new measures to promote competition in the economy. The Department of Agriculture will work with attorneys general in 31 states (including Colorado) and Washington, D.C., to enforce antitrust and consumer protection laws in food and agriculture. They will make sure that large corporations can’t fix food prices or price gouge in stores in areas where they have a monopoly. They will work to expand the nation’s processing capacity for meat and poultry, and are also promoting better access to markets for all agricultural producers and keeping

It’s another part of this administration’s rejection of the top-down economy that has shaped the country since 1981.

‘TIRED

seeds open-source.

Having cracked down on junk fees in consumer products, the administration is now turning to junk fees in rental housing, fees like those required just to file a rental application or fees to be able to pay your rent online.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission released new merger guidelines on July 19 to protect the country from mass layoffs, higher prices and fewer options for consumers and workers. Biden used the example of hospital mergers, which have led to extraordinary price hikes, to explain why new guidelines are necessary.

The agencies reached out for public comment to construct 13 guidelines that seek to prevent mergers that threaten competition or tend to create monopolies. They declare that agencies must address the effect of proposed mergers on “all market participants and any dimension of competition, including for workers.”

Now that the guidelines are proposed, officials are asking the public to provide comments on them. The comment period will end on Sept. 18.

those in rural areas, are quite happy to see consolidation broken up, because it gives them an opportunity to get into fields that previously had been closed to them. In fact, small businesses have boomed under this administration; there were 10.5 million small business applications in its first two years and those numbers continue strong.

This is the same pattern the U.S. saw during the Progressive Era of the early 20th century and during the New Deal of the 1930s. In both of those eras, established business leaders insisted that government regulation was bad for the economy and that any attempts to limit their power came from workers who were at least flirting with socialism. But in fact entrepreneurs and small businesses were always part of the coalition that wanted such regulation. They needed it to level the playing field enough to let them participate.

ONE

OF THE REPORTERS ON THE

PRESS call about the new initiatives noted that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has accused the Biden administration of regulatory overreach, exactly as Bork outlined in a famous 1978 book introducing his revision of U.S. antitrust policy. An answer by a senior administration official highlighted a key element of the struggle over business consolidation that is rarely discussed and has been key to demands to end such consolidation since the 1870s.

The official noted that small businesses, especially

The effects of this turnaround in the government’s approach to economic consolidation is a big deal. It is already having real effects on our lives, and offers to do more: saving consumers money, protecting workers’ wages and safety, and promoting small businesses, especially in rural areas. It’s another part of this administration’s rejection of the top-down economy that has shaped the country since 1981.

Heather Cox Richardson is professor of history at Boston College and an expert on American political and economic history. She writes widely on American politics, and her upcoming book, Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America , will be published in the fall. She is also the author of the widely read Letters from an American , a nightly chronicle of American politics.

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The baby formula crisis highlighted industry problems.

Free Will ASTROLOGY

(July 23-Aug. 22): There are two kinds of holidays: those created by humans and those arising from the relationship between the sun and Earth. In the former category are various independence days: July 4 in the U.S., July 1 in Canada, July 14 in France and June 2 in Italy. Japan observes Foundation Day on Feb. 11. Among the second kind of holiday is Lammas on Aug. 1, a pagan festival that in the Northern Hemisphere marks the halfway point between the summer solstice and autumn equi-

nox. In pre-industrial cultures, Lammas celebrated the grain harvest and featured outpourings of gratitude for the crops that provide essential food. Modern revelers give thanks for not only the grain, but all the nourishing bounties provided by the sun and Earth’s collaborations. I believe you Leos are smart to make Lammas one of your main holidays. What’s ready to be harvested in your world. What are your prime sources of gratitude?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): For many of us, a disposal company regularly comes to our homes to haul away the garbage we have generated. Wouldn’t it be great if there was also a reliable service that purged our minds and hearts of the psychic gunk that naturally accumulates? Psychotherapists provide this blessing for some of us, and I know people who derive similar benefits from spiritual rituals. Getting drunk or intoxicated may work, too, although those states often generate their own dreck. With these thoughts in mind, Virgo, meditate on how you might cleanse your soul with a steady, ennobling practice. Now is an excellent time to establish or deepen this tradition.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): I’m wondering if there is a beloved person to whom you could say these words by Rumi: “You are the sky my spirit circles in, the love inside love, the resurrection-place.” If you have no such an ally, Libra, the coming months will be a favorable time to attract them into your life. If there is such a companion, I hope you will share Rumi’s lyrics with them, then go further. Say the words Leonard Cohen spoke: “When I’m with you, I want to be the kind of hero I wanted to be when I was seven years old.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Your theme for the coming weeks is “pleasurable gooseflesh.” I expect and hope you’ll experience it in abundance. You need it and deserve it! Editor Corrie Evanoff describes “pleasurable gooseflesh” as “the primal response we experience when something suddenly violates our expectations in a good way.” It can also be called “frisson” — a French word meaning “a sudden feeling or sensation of excitement, emotion, or thrill.” One way this joy may occur is when we listen to a playlist of songs sequenced in unpredictable ways — say Mozart followed by Johnny Cash, then Edit Piaf, Led Zeppelin, Blondie, Queen, Luciano Pavarotti and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Here’s your homework: Imagine three ways you can stimulate pleasurable gooseflesh and frisson, then go out and make them happen.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Fire rests by changing,” wrote ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. In accordance with astrological omens, I ask you to meditate on that riddle. Here are some preliminary thoughts: The flames rising from a burning substance are always moving, always active, never the same shape. Yet they comprise the same fire. As long as they

keep shifting and dancing, they are alive and vital. If they stop changing, they die out and disappear. The fire needs to keep changing to thrive! Dear Sagittarius, here’s your assignment: Be like the fire; rest by changing.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): There’s ample scientific evidence that smelling cucumbers can diminish feelings of claustrophobia. For example, some people become anxious when they are crammed inside a narrow metal tube to get an MRI. But numerous imaging facilities have reduced that discomfort with the help of cucumber oil applied to cotton pads and brought into proximity to patients’ noses. I would love it if there were also natural ways to help you break free of any and all claustrophobic situations, Capricorn. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to hone and practice the arts of liberation.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone,” said Aquarian author Gertrude B. Stein. She was often quirky and even downright weird, but as you can see, she also had a heartful attitude about her alliances. Stein delivered another pithy quote that revealed her tender approach to relationships. She said that love requires a skillful audacity about sharing one’s inner world. I hope you will put these two gems of advice at the center of your attention, Aquarius. You are ready for a strong, sustained dose of deeply expressive interpersonal action.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): According to the International Center for Academic Integrity, 95 percent of high school students acknowledge they have participated in academic cheating. We can conclude that just one of 20 students has never cheated — a percentage that probably matches how many non-cheaters there are in every area of life. I mention this because I believe it’s a favorable time to atone for any deceptions you have engaged in, whether in school or elsewhere. I’m not necessarily urging you to confess, but I encourage you to make amends and corrections to the extent you can. Also: Have a long talk with yourself about what you can learn from your past cons and swindles.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): You are about to read a thunderbolt of sublime prophecies. It’s guaranteed to nurture the genius in your soul’s underground cave. Are you ready? 1) Your higher self will prod you to compose a bold prayer in which you ask for

stuff you thought you weren’t supposed to ask for. 2) Your higher self will know what to do to enhance your love life by at least 20 percent, possibly more. 3) Your higher self will give you extra access to creativity and imaginative powers, enabling you to make two practical improvements in your life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): In 1991, John Kilcullen began publishing books with “for Dummies” in the title: for example, Sex for Dummies, Time Management for Dummies, Personal Finance for Dummies, and my favorite, Stress Management for Dummies. There are now over 300 books in this series. They aren’t truly for stupid people, of course. They’re designed to be robust introductions to interesting and useful subjects. I invite you to emulate Kilcullen’s mindset, Taurus. Be innocent, curious and eager to learn. Adopt a beginner’s mind that’s receptive to being educated and influenced. (If you want to know more, go here: tinyurl.com/TruthForDummies)

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): “I could be converted to a religion of grass,” says Indigenous author Louise Erdrich in her book Heart of the Land. “Sink deep roots. Conserve water. Respect and nourish your neighbors. Such are the tenets. As for practice — grow lush in order to be devoured or caressed, stiffen in sweet elegance, invent startling seeds. Connect underground. Provide. Provide. Be lovely and do no harm.” I advocate a similar approach to life for you Geminis in the coming weeks. Be earthy, sensual, and lush. (PS: Erdrich is a Gemini.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): I hereby appoint myself as your temporary social director. My first action is to let you know that from an astrological perspective, the next nine months will be an excellent time to expand and deepen your network of connections and your web of allies. I invite you to cultivate a vigorous grapevine that keeps you up-to-date about the latest trends affecting your work and play. Refine your gossip skills. Be friendlier than you’ve ever been. Are you the best ally and collaborator you could possibly be? If not, make that one of your assignments.

HOMEWORK: What single good change would set in motion a cascade of further good changes? Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.

PUZZLES

All words to be constructed pertain to the topic to the right. To your advantage one word has already been traced. You must trace the three remaining words, using only the letters designated by the darkened circles. Words may begin and end from either column but each letter can only be used once.

Each puzzle has a difficulty rating (right). Four stars signify the highest degree of difficulty.

Given to the right are the point values for each word. Your words must correctly match these point values.

MINI SUDOKU X

SUDOKU X

60 Manipulated unfairly, as a system

61 Type 62 Target for salicylic acid 63 Famous last words? 64 “A Man Called ___” (2022 Tom Hanks film) 65 “Can you repeat that?”

1 Grp. with a 12-star flag

2 Charge

3 Neighbor of Catalonia, in Spain

4 Cocktails of tequila and grapefruit soda

5 Balneotherapy site

6 “Hungry hungry” animal in a popular game

How

12 Poems of praise

13 ___ Major

18 “The ___ Holmes Mysteries” (young adult detective series)

20 Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” e.g. 23 Diamond’s opposite on the Mohs scale

26 Did some intel work 27 It may be passed down from parent to child 28 Shock

29 “That was a close one!” 30 Ten: Prefix 31 Not quite succeed 33 Canadian interjections 36 Spoke with 38 Airing

41 Sir ___ Newton

43 Features of many New York City street corners

47 Word with pants or party

49 Drain, as from soil

50 Tony-winning actress Menzel

51 Subdues, as wild hair

52 Smooths

53 Soapy bubbles

54 “Assuming that’s true …”

55 Black water bird

56 Unfreeze

59 Fishing aid

Find the answers on p. 24

News of the WEIRD

BY THE EDITORS AT ANDREWS MCMEEL

Homewreckers

In 1973, Nissim Kahlon was living in a tent on a beach north of Tel Aviv, Israel, the Associated Press reported. He started scratching into a sandstone cliff wall along the beach, and eventually excavated a cave and moved in. Fifty years later, his created home is a sandcastle, with multiple floors, staircases, detailed mosaic floors and plumbing. But now Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry is moving to evict Kahlon, saying the structure is illegal and threatens the coastline. He said he first got a demolition order in 1974, but since then the government has left him alone, even connecting his home to the electrical grid. “I am not leaving here,” Kahlon, 77, said. “I am ready for them to bury me here. I have no other home.”

But why?

French President Emmanuel Macron now has the singular distinction of being the first French head of state to receive a body part in the mail, the Evening Standard reported. On July 10, a severed finger belonging to a “living human being” arrived at the Elysee Palace, where it was “initially put in a fridge where the police put their snacks,” a source said. “This was to make sure it was preserved and could be analyzed as quickly as possible.” The former owner of the digit was identified and given “full medical support,” but it was unclear what the meaning behind the delivery was.

Precocious

An 8-year-old boy faces multiple charges, including first-degree robbery, after he carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint on July 11 in Montgomery, Alabama, WSFA-TV reported. Officers tried to stop the car, but the little driver wouldn’t stop and later crashed into another car. A witness, “Snake” Knapp, said he saw the kid pick up two adults along the way. “I think parents just really need to know where their kids are, what their kids are doing,” Knapp mused.

Police report

Police in Quincy, Illinois are hunting for a rabbit, NBC Chicago reported. Early on July 6, someone wearing a full bunny suit entered the Winners Wash Laundromat and rifled through drawers, stuffing several items into a backpack. Surveillance video caught the fuzzy culprit, who has not been identified. Quincy police are hopping mad and seeking leads.

Incompetent criminal

KLKN-TV reported that on July 11, an unnamed 20-year-old man from Lincoln, Nebraska, was pulled over near Norfolk as he drove his motorcycle at speeds up to 106 mph. The driver had a suspended license and, in fact, had just left the Stanton County Courthouse, where he had been sentenced for ... driving with a suspended license and speeding. The judge had ordered him to pay fines for both offenses. He was charged again and bonded out of jail.

QUIZ SET No. 1966 (by Shelby Lyman) ; week of Sept CHESS QUIZ

THE TORONTO ZOO HAS A FAVOR TO ASK OF VISITORS TO NASsir the gorilla: Please don’t show him photos or videos on your phone. Like any other 24-year-old primate, Nassir is “fascinated by videos, and screen time would dominate his life if he had it his way,” according to the zoo’s website. The Toronto Star reported that Maria Franke, director of wildlife conservation and welfare, is noticing the effect of visitors sharing their content. “It was causing him to be distracted and not interacting with the other gorillas ... He was just so enthralled with gadgets and phones and the videos.” A sign now warns visitors: “Some content can be upsetting and affect their relationships and behavior within their family.” Phones down, humans.

CHESS QUIZ w________w ásdwdsdkd] à0bdsdpdp] ßsdsdsdpd] ÞdPdsdsdw] Ýsdpdsds1] ÜdsdwdsdQ] ÛP)sds)PI] Ú$wGsdrds] sÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈs BLACK FORCES MATE

Hint: Create a winning pin. Solution: 1. ... Rh1ch! 2. Kxh1 Qxh3ch! 3. Kg1 Qxg2 mate! [Wong-Basanta ‘1999}.

CHESS QUIZ w________w ásdwdrdsd] àdpdsGk0p] ßpdwds0sd] Þ)sdbds)w] Ýsds)w)sd] Üdsdsdsdr] ÛsdsdRdsd] Údsds$wIs] sÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈs

BLACK WINS THE BISHOP

w________w ásds4w4sd] àdp0sdpdk] ßpdsdsdp0] Þdsdw)wdq] Ýwdn)sdRd] Üds)sds!P] ÛPdBdwdPd] Údsdw$sIs] sÁÂÃÄÅÆÇÈs

WHITE WINS THE QUEEN

Hint: Create a winning

Solution: 1. Rh4! wins Qg5, simply Qxg5

w________w árdwdqdsi] à0p0sdRgb] ßwdn0sdwd] ÞdwdBdwGQ] ÝwdP0sds)] Üds)wdw)s] ÛPdwdwdKd] Údwdwdwds]

WHITE HAS A CRUSHER

árdwdrisd]

(the pawn is pinned). CHESS QUIZ

dude. you need to go touch grass.

Photo illustration with assets from stock.adobe.com

Here we go again Focus Education

Finance experts share advice as student aid payments set to resume

BY AMANDA MILLER LUCIANO

As the start of the school year approaches, paying for college is top of mind. And local institutions say there are more and more funding and financing options available for Colorado students.

New and creative options will be essential for incoming and continuing students, as student loan payments — which have been on pause without accruing interest since the beginning of the pandemic in the spring of 2020 — resume in September. Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan that would have eliminated $10,000 to $20,000 in student loan debt for roughly 45 million borrowers across the country.

The first thing borrowers need to do before payments start up again is figure out who their loan servicers are, says Kristina Moss, assistant director of financial aid for customer service and technology at Pikes Peak State College.

“A lot of the loan servicers have changed over,” Moss says. “So, a lot of people don’t even know who

their servicers are anymore.”

Borrowers should have received notification in the mail. But with loans on pause, those notices may have been put to the side and forgotten.

Financial Aid advisers at both Pikes Peak State College and UCCS can work with existing students, prospective students and alumni to navigate resuming student loans.

“We just suggest they call us and we will counsel them as best we can,” Moss says.

For would-be borrowers who are still in college or a trade school or who are planning to start, there are options that could help them finance their educations and maybe even avoid student loans altogether.

“Colorado has really stepped up in the last couple years to find funding for groups who do not traditionally get a lot of support,” says Jevita Rogers, senior executive director of the UCCS office of Financial Aid and Student Employment.

She says the Department of Education has created continued on p. 27 ➔

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Greg

Presented

grant funding to offset costs for those studying to become K-12 teachers and for teachers during their student teaching periods when they are working full time without pay.

“That program has come out in the last few years because we have lost a lot of good teachers because we don’t pay them well,” Rogers says. She adds that there is a similar program for those studying to become social workers.

PPSC is looking forward to officially announcing its participation in the Career Advance Colorado program in the coming weeks once it finds out from the state how much funding it will receive. Through the program, students pursuing degrees in specific areas with sever workforce shortages can apply to have all of their tuition, fees and materials costs covered. House Bill 23-1246, signed by Gov. Jared Polis in May, provides $38.6 million to fully cover the costs of education for those studying: construction, education, early childhood education, firefighting, forestry, law enforcement and nursing.

PPSC plans to utilize its allotment of funding for all of the eligible programs except for nursing, where the school has a wait list of students, says Matt Radcliff, digital strategy manager of marketing and communication.

Students will have to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or the state application. If they are eligible for any other grants or scholarships, those will be applied to costs first with the Career Advance funding covering the remainder.

“It’s a really exciting offering,” Radcliff says.

Other programs are designed to help get students back into their degree programs after stopping in the past.

Colorado also launched a “Finish What You Started” grant program designed to help students who halted their degrees return to schools, Rogers says. It’s a good funding source for those who took a break and want to restart their educations.

Additionally, Moss says there is a “Fresh Start” program that allows borrowers who defaulted on previous student loans to again become eligible to borrow while also putting old loans in forbearance so that students can go to school without having to make payments. Moss says that application process starts with the loan servicers.

The need for more and better financing options is palpable, Rogers says. At UCCS, 9,000 of the university’s 11,000 students are receiving some type of financial aid.

“We are increasingly hearing from parents that they’re still paying off their own student loans, so they can’t help their kids financially,” Rogers says.

She says there are a lot of grant opportunities both at the federal and state levels for those students with the greatest need.

The College Opportunity Fund, created by the state Legislature, is an excellent resource, Rogers says.

“I liken it to a 20 percent off coupon from Bed Bath & Beyond,” she says. Any Colorado resident, regardless of need, can apply for a credit from the state to cover up to $114 per credit hour at a public institution in the state. If all of the aid and scholarships still leave a gap, student loans are a viable way to get a college education, Rogers says. Rates are just over 5 percent right now. That’s certainly better than credit card rates, she says.

The Department of Education has always offered income-contingent repayment options.

“They want to make sure students aren’t living in a van down by the river just to make their student loan payments,” Rogers says.

The key, is to borrow conservatively, she says. Both UCCS and PPSC are among the most affordable higher education institutions in the state, so students don’t need to borrow extravagantly to get their degrees in Colorado Springs.

“In the end, education is an investment in you,” Rogers says. “It doesn’t go away. It’s not like a car that loses value as soon as you drive it off the lot. No one can take it away.” n CSBJ

Roy Hucke, chief compliance officer, Credentialed Wealth Advisors and Julian Heron, chief investment officer, Credentialed Wealth Advisors, and Joe Gebhart, financial advisor at Credentialed Wealth Advisors offered the following advice:

1. How should student loan borrowers who didn’t keep payments in their budget find the room for payments as they resume?

• Calculate minimum payment required to be able to have minimum impact to cash flow. — Hucke

• Visit unclaimed.org to look for lost money to give you a one-time boost as you adjust to the new payments.

— Heron

• Shake out your subscriptions. We all have subscriptions we accrue that zap our cash flow. — Heron

• Lean in to your loves. Ruthlessly cut things you don’t care much about. Love your morning Starbucks? Invest in a better coffee maker at home for the fancy flavors at a fraction of the cost. — Heron

• Cut the cord. Cable is expensive and streaming can cost less if you’re judicious. — Heron

• Add a side hustle or second job. Unemployment was at 2.9 percent as of May, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. While you may not want to hear it, with unemployment that low, getting a part time job or side hustle might just be what you need to boost your income to cover the payments.— Heron

• If you have a 529 plan in a state (not Colorado) that allows it, pay your debt from it. Some states allow borrows to use up to $10,000 of their 529 plans to pay off student loans with tax-free money. — Heron

2. Are there any silver linings in student loan repayments restarting? Any tax advantages or other potential benefits to having those dollars head toward loan and interest payments again?

• Moving forward with a clear understanding is a relief for most people. I have clients that have had money sitting on the sideline not knowing what to do with it in the event they have to pay on their loans once again. Also, people who kept saving the payment are now ahead of the curve with additional funds saved that can now be deployed toward long-term goals.

— Hucke

• For those who had continued to pay, you got a zero percent loan for years, paid down principal and got much further ahead than if the interest was applied.

— Heron

• There is the potential for individuals who did make student loan payments during the pause to get their payments refunded back to them. This option does require you meet Federal Student Aid requirements. Explore studentaid.gov for the details and contact your loan provider.

• You can take a tax deduction for the

interest paid on student loans that you took out for yourself, your spouse or your dependent. This benefit applies to all loans, not just federal student loans, used to pay for higher education expenses. The maximum deduction is $2,500 a year. — Gebhart

3. If borrowers are eligible for incomebased repayment or public-sector loan forgiveness, how might that change your recommendations for repaying?

• Nothing is done until it’s done. I was a math teacher in my previous career. I worked in a rural low-income school district, where I was told my loans would be forgiven if I worked there for five years. At the end of my fifth year, I applied for loan forgiveness and was told I didn’t qualify. Looking back, I should have saved the payments I would have made and been able to apply them toward my loan. If the loan forgiveness had gone through, I would have had a fund of money to use for my future. — Hucke

• The biggest mistake I see for Public Sector Loan Forgiveness is borrowers failing to ensure they get annual credit towards PSLF each year they work. Double check your PSLF documentation and forms are on file every year and you are receiving the proper credit towards forgiveness.

— Gebhart

• Assume the program won’t work, save the difference. If it does, you have a fund to celebrate and be ahead for your future.

— Heron

4. If a borrower is trying to pay the debt down as fast as possible now that payments are resuming, what advice do you have?

• Using a debt snowball process, made famous by Dave Ramsey, is a great approach pay down debt quickly. Focus on higher interest debt first while making minimum payments on lower interest debt. — Hucke

• Make it your priority. Cut elsewhere relentlessly. Don’t just slightly overpay, put everything extra into it. — Heron

5. For those would-be borrowers who are still planning for college, what do you recommend?

• Apply for every scholarship for which you’re eligible. Consider working to help offset living expenses. Only borrow what you need. — Hucke

• Consider lower cost options like online programs, community college, and needbased programs provided by specific universities, including some elite ones.

— Gebhart.

• Consider not going on to higher education at all. The earnings gap between those who go to college and those who don’t is narrowing. — Gebhart.

• Start by saving for life, rather than higher ed specifically. When you are certain college or trade school is your future, 529 plans offer tax advantaged ways to save.

— Heron

Editor’s note: This story is not intended to provide financial advice. Discuss your specific needs with a qualified financial consultant.

A lot of people don’t even know who their servicers are anymore.

— Kristina Moss

5 Questions: Gray Warrior Gray Filter Photography

BY KATHERINE ATHERTON

Gray Warrior was given his native name, Nudá Áxa (pronounced Noo-DONH Ah-xah), when he was 7 years old. From his childhood on the Tonkawa reservation in Oklahoma to his work highlighting native and Indigenous culture and mental health, Gray wants to keep the story of his heritage alive through his art and the stories it tells.

“I’m part of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma,” he says. “We need more native representation. I think that’s the most important thing about any interview that I do, is to help people understand that native representation matters — in literally everything.”

He found his passion for photography through the lens of a disposable camera while training as a competitive cyclist at the University of Kansas, and after relocating to Colorado Springs, he opened Gray Filter Photography.

You came to the Springs as a competitive cyclist — tell us about that. Cycling was life.

My dad started me in cycling. We did freewheel for a couple of years, started racing as a kid, didn’t really get super competitive with it until I went to college. Then that’s when the light switch turned on, and that’s when I got really fast and that’s when I started connecting with students at KU and people in Kansas City for the Colavita/Paris team [an amateur bicycle racing team that competes in road, mountain and cyclocross races based in Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas].

It’s the closest thing you can get to flying without needing a machine. It’s really cool to feel your knuckles touch somebody else’s knuckles going 30 miles an hour around the corner, and dive bombing a hill and getting close to leaning into the sidewalk and all you hear is sha sha sha sha, you know — it’s the best feeling ever. Gets me stoked just thinking about it.

How did you move from cycling to photography?

In Kansas, when I would ride, it was the only time that my brain would shut off. Realistically, cycling helped me get into

Gray Filter Photography

photography, not the other way around. … The landscapes are beautiful to look at — just absolutely amazing. And the rolling storms as you would come back into town, it’s just amazing. Kansas is secretly beautiful, especially in the countryside. I miss it a lot.

I would bring my little point-and-shoot camera out there, and I’d take pictures of the cows that were close to the barbed wire fence, or the wheat waving, or the rolling storms that would come in, and that kind of fed my interest or curiosity. You know, everybody loves Ansel Adams. He’s one of the greatest negative photographers of all time. Then there’s Jimmy Chin and Jimmy Nelson. Jimmy Chin is one of the greatest — he directed [the Oscar-winning documentary] Free Solo, and he’s one of the greatest outdoor climbing photographers of all time. Jimmy Nelson, on the other hand, goes out to Africa solo, and embeds himself into these African tribes. It’s just him and a camera, and he gains their trust over months of time. I wanted to get to know people. I’m good at conversation, but I’m not good at holding on to people for a very long time — so I wanted to figure out how to connect with somebody or find out who people are through photography and through storytelling. Because I love it.

Tell us about the process and challenges of starting Gray Filter Photography.

So I started Gray Filter Photography when I was still working for Colorado College [as an admissions counselor]. It was more of a side hustle and I was dogsh-t at photography. I still am, I feel like — you know, art is subjective and you evolve every year and you change direction and you go up

and down and sideways and inside out. ... And the process is just learning as much as you can. I love the challenges.

I’ve used a lot of my techniques from photography in video work, and vice versa. What I’ve learned in video production, mostly lighting, I then used in photography. It’s a process of composition, exposure, lighting work, learning how to communicate better with your subjects. The challenges are basically like: What do people want? I know what I want. I know when I think a photo looks good, but what do you want, as the subject? What do you want as the viewer? What do you want as the fan?

I think the challenge is not giving a f-ck. Like, doing what you love to do and creating your own view and the people who really enjoy that will come. The right people will come. I think that’s one of the best things that one of my friends told me: ‘The right clients will come to you.’

What are some of the projects that have been most important to you?

I worked with a company here in the Springs called TrueWind Marketing. We went to Reno, Nevada, to work with The National Judicial College, and they were working with [Director of the National Tribal Judicial Center] Judge Jan Morris on his report on how Reservations and their authorities weren’t communicating with the state authori-

ties for the purposes of making sure they’re tracking commercial [truck] drivers … so that they’re not, you know, racing through tribal land and injuring folks.

And then I have a couple of other pieces that deal with mental health and deal with the community, that I published on my YouTube channel that are just for the people. It’s very impactful just for the community. ... I love community pieces and pieces on mental health. I’ve tried to commit suicide three times in my life. I’ve never been into selfmutilation, but I have friends that are very severe cutters and/or have other ways of self-destruction. I think more men need to talk about that, and they need to understand that we are higher statistic in suicide — especially within my age range. And they need to understand that we are struggling. ... It’s OK to reach out; it’s OK to talk about it. I don’t feel like we have a space to talk, and I find that women often get more treatment or more sincere treatment or support for their struggles than men do.

What’s next for you?

The next step for me is creating other businesses working with the community to spread awareness of mental health, suicide prevention, being an advocate for people of color, native and Indigenous peoples, and working to better our community with understanding and love. n CSBJ

I love community pieces and pieces on mental health.

Shatter the silence Green Berets battle mental health stigmas to help prevent veteran suicides

BY CINDY CENTOFANTI

Many who served as part of the post-9/11 United States Armed Forces have taken a piece of the decades-long war on terror home with them.

The Army’s Special Operations Command, or USASOC, has recognized this and, in fall 2022, began actively working to implement a new anti-suicide strategy.

Part of that strategy is to help create a better sense of belonging.

In a 2022 report, USASOC cited 18 suicide deaths among the troops of the command, up from six in 2017 and 12 in 2018.

Calling themselves the “quiet professionals,” the Green Berets, an elite fighting force, are speaking out about the lives taken on American soil and aiming to shatter the silence and stigma robbing them of their brothers and sisters in arms.

Paul Watson, chief operating officer of the Special Forces Foundation, spent 22

years in the military with 13 of those years as chief warrant officer for the 10th Special Forces Group located at Fort Carson.

In an interview on The Veterans Voice podcast, Watson explained his own struggles with mental health and the culture behind keeping that battle internal before he retired.

“Our mentality as operators is mission first, always, always, always mission first.

Unfortunately, I put the mission in front of my family for a long time...,” Watson said. “We all put the mission in front of our mental health and that’s what we’re here to talk about. Shattering that silence is now that we have the opportunity to sit back and talk about it since a lot of guys feel like we lost that purpose, but we have a mission now and it’s to do this. But these guys that are still in it, they’re still mission first.”

Podcast guest Chris Lee, who enlisted

when he was 28 years old, spent 10 years in the Army, seven of those in Special Forces, where he later became Watson’s teammate as a 10th Group medic. Now retired and using social media as a platform to help inspire the military community through his own lived experiences, Lee explains that he too had many low points during the time he served following the troop draw-down in Afghanistan.

“...Getting home and realizing that now everybody’s gone. It’s like, well, what was the point? You know? So I was in a pretty bad spot. I was slamming some vodka Red Bulls at my house and went up to my office and sat down, pulled my pistol out of my top shelf in my office and sat down and put my gun in my mouth,” Lee said. “The only thing that brought me back was I don’t want some other dude raising my kids.”

He said, in that moment, he felt like he’d lost his purpose. Operators strive for a purpose, Lee said, adding that loss of purpose may be the cause for rising suicide rates within the military community.

The USASOC strategy, which was finalized last year, is based on Thomas Joiner’s Interpersonal Theory of Suicide. In part, it references that individuals’ risk for suicide is highest if they don’t feel like they belong, are a burden, and have the means to end their lives, such as access to firearms.

Creating more community engagement is part of the anti-suicide strategy, because it builds a sense of purpose — something Watson and company from the Special Foundation are already trying to implement within the Colorado Springs community before another life is taken.

“We try to give them a goal, giving them something to try to achieve before they do go over the edge and a sense of belonging by joining in the Foundation,” Watson said in the podcast. “But if a guy does go over the edge then that’s when they can call us and we give them the resources for behavioral health and to seek actual treatment.”

The state of Colorado is also acknowledging the military suicide epidemic. Legislators passed a bill in June 2021 standing up an anti-suicide collaborative effort called Next Chapter, which opened in June 2022 and operates out of the Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center, says Roger Johnson, program manager and U.S. Army veteran.

“We are trying to get to veterans before the crisis begins. We are looking to be more proactive than reactive,” he says. “We meet people where they are at before the crisis sets in such as when someone doesn’t have any money, is homeless or facing transitional stressors.”

Both Lee and Watson said their mission is to build that sense of belonging that they themselves once sought as combat veterans experiencing mental anguish.

The full Veterans Voice podcast, featuring veteran Green Beret members Paul Watson, Dean Goble and Chris Lee, is available now at veteransvoice.us. Search “Shatter the Silence.”

Those in need of immediate help can call 988 and speak with a Veterans Crisis Line responder.

The Veterans Voice News Service, presented by The Veterans Voice Project and Mt. Carmel Veterans Service Center, provides weekly, military and business-themed news, analysis and commentary for The Front in partnership with the Colorado Springs Business Journal

We all put the mission in front of our mental health...

— Paul Watson

From left: Paul Watson, Dean Gobel, Chris Lee and Cindy Centofanti discuss mental health on The Veterans Voice.

Courtesy The Veterans Voice

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Stunning stucco and brick 6963 sq ft custom 2-story home on over 1/3 acre private lot in coveted Saddle Rock Golf Club neighborhood!

Open floor plan with 5 beds, 6 baths, study, 4-car attached garage, & amazing 13,504 sq ft lot.

Curved open staircase. Gourmet kitchen. Formal living & dining rooms. Oversized master suite. 3 fireplaces. Wet bars.

Crown molding. Bay windows. Trex deck and balcony. Solar panels. Cherry Creek schools. Close to Buckley SFB, golfing, shopping, dining, parks, trails, pools, club house, playground, and tennis courts. MLS# 2560918

Call Bobbi Price. The Platinum Group. 719499-9451.

indoor pool. Small park. Must conform to blend in (stucco, tile roofing, & privacy walls). May purchase 1 to 5 lots. Call Bobbi at 719-499-9451 for more information.

MLS# 5093736 Call Bobbi at 719-499-9451 for more information.

1601 N Billy the Kid Lane – Pueblo West$28,500

1.47 acre lot at end of quiet cul-de-sac with sweeping unobstructed mountain & Pikes Peak views. Flat at front of lot & moving back the lot gently slopes to allow for a walkout. Backs and sides to open space. Easy commute to both Colorado Springs or Pueblo.

MLS# 5628454 Call Bobbi Price. The Platinum Group. 719-499-9451.

213 Coffee Pot Drive – Crystal Park$64,900

lake, club house, pool, & basketball & pickleball courts. Perfect mountain living close to town, located just outside of Colorado Springs. MLS# 4046587 Call Bobbi Price. The Platinum Group. 719-499-9451.

3179 County Road

61 – Cripple Creek$80,000

Beautiful 5.25 acre lot in a small gated community called Rainbow Ridge with only 9 parcels. Pikes Peak & mountain views. Community-stocked fishing pond on lot. Towering pines & aspen. Lots of sunshine. Located approximately 10 miles south of Divide off Highway 67. Easy commute & private on several possible building sites. This subdivision is off grid. MLS# 8657980 Call Bobbi Price. The Platinum Group. 719-499-9451.

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE WANTED

We

Earning potential $40k - $50k first year 401K, Health, Dental & Vision Ins.

3 Weeks Vacation & More!

Seeking an account executive who is looking for opportunities and creative challenges who can handle all aspects of print/digital advertising sales; prospecting, selling, servicing, collecting while maintaining the credit and sales policies of the company.

– Pueblo - $25,000

4310 sq ft lot in an upscale subdivision of 37 homes. Close to I-25, shopping, and dining. Complex has a clubhouse with a pool table, kitchen, meeting area, &

Build your dream home on this beautiful forested ½ acre lot backing to open space in Crystal Park. Towering pines & aspen. Mountain views & plenty of sunshine. Located in a safe gated community of over 2000 acres with only 350 homes sites. Close to stocked fishing

113 Steep Road

Crystal Park - $100,000

Build your dream home on this totally private 0.7 acre lot in Crystal Park. Hard to find flat building site surrounded by towering trees & 360 degree views of the city, mountains, & rock formations. Electricity is by the lot & driveway is cut in. Less than 1 mile from the stocked fishing lake, club house, heated pool, & tennis & basketball courts. MLS# 9785523

5671 Tramore Court

Banning Lewis Ranch - $419,900

Beautiful 1766 sq ft 3-story that shows like a model. 3 beds, 2 baths, loft, flex space, & 2-car garage. Granite throughout. Stainless steel appliances. LVP flooring. All appliances included, even washer & dryer. A/C. Whole house humidifier. New blinds. Covered patio, balcony, and fenced yard. Maintenance free landscaping. D49. Community club house, pool, waterpark, playgrounds, and more. Close to shopping, dining, entertainment, schools, parks, and military bases. MLS# 9404662

acre lot backing to a common area ravine with pines, scrub oak, mountain views, & wildlife. 3628 sq ft with 3 beds & 3 baths. 2 family rooms. Total one level living in this immaculate open concept home with glass & sunshine throughout.

MLS# 2757407

Picadilly

1408 Tierra Berienda