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Author: Susan Viebrock

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Kevin Rucker

Denver is Telluride Inside... and Out's home away from home, so last weekend we decided to get an up close and personal look at the oldest part of the city.

LoDo is the handle Denverites assigned to the Lower Downtown Historic District, located just northwest of Downtown Denver near the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River. LoDo, the original settlement of the city, is now a mixed-used neighborhood known for its vibrant nightlife with 70+ bars and restaurants – and at least as many ghosts. More later.

College history instructor Kevin Rucker is a descendant of Puritan settlers. His grandma, a hardcore genealogist, hooked him into an exploration of the past. Dressed in uniform, a paisley vest and bowler hat, the man cuts as colorful a figure as the miscreants and madams he describes on his spirited walking tour. (We are talking the liquid and supernatural variety.)

23 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" to listen to Judy Shepard's conversation with Susan]

10521 It's been a long trip over bumpy roads for the woman who was once a stay-at-home mom and sometimes substitute teacher who enjoyed a game of card with friends. Today her presence in Telluride brings greater urgency to the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and hope to the gay nation.


International spokesperson, activist and executive director of the non-profit that bears her son's name, Judy Shepard is everywhere you want to be during Gay Ski Week in Telluride.

22 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Steve Fassbinder's interview with Susan]

Doomsday He's known as Dr. Doom, an interesting coincidence for anyone participating in the Telluride AIDS Benefit, an organization whose mission is to turn the tables on doom through Awareness, Respect, and Esteem. A.R.E. You Safe? is the theme of the non-profit's 2010 fundraising, outreach and education campaign which culminates in the gala fashion show, Saturday night, February 27, where Dr. Doom will be a featured designer for the third year in a row.


Dr. Doom is Steve Fassbinder's alter ego, a name from Burning Man that stuck to his skin like the desert heat. Fassbinder is, to pull out a well worn but nonetheless true cliche, a Renaissance man: the former bike messenger and three-time Single Speed World 24-hour Solo Champ and inductee into the 24-Hour Solo Mountain Bike Racer Hall of Fame is also an artist who refuses to be pigeon-holed.
22 February, 2010 /
[click "Play", an anonymous client speaks about WestCap and how Telluride AIDS benefit helped him]

The Western Colorado AIDS Project (WestCAP), the primary beneficiary of the Telluride AIDS Benefit,  was established as a grassroots initiative in 1989, just four years after "the virus" was announced in our nation's capitol as big trouble.


In 1994, WestCAP was still a very small nonprofit operating out of Grand Junction, administered largely by one part-time nurse. Clients being served lived primarily in Mesa County. Then along came Robert Presley, whom WestCAP helped in his struggle with HIV/AIDS. In thanks, Presley and his local legacy, the Telluride AIDS Benefit, reached out to WestCAP, supporting the growth of the agency into a much larger and more effective nonprofit.
21 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Kelley Hunt's conversation with Susan]


Telluride Blues & Brews Fest favorite, singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Kelley Hunt returns to town for a much anticipated return performance at the Sheridan Opera House. Show time is Tuesday, February 23, 8 p.m.

Kelley Hunt performs everything from hot bar blues to cool R&B in a big, rich, sexy, soulful voice reminiscent of pop/blues diva Bonnie Raitt. The singer naturally combines the influences of R&B, roots rock, blues gospel, folk and soul into her own style and sound, all wrapped up in a Midwestern identity: The sounds of the place she grew up, the grasslands of Kansas’ Flint Hills, are unmistakably there in her rhythmic piano phrasing and the earthy honesty of her vocal delivery. What’s more, Hunt turns a piano into a boogie woogie blaster, and now for something completely different, she adds electric and acoustic guitar to the show.
21 February, 2010 /

The Valentines keep coming from Telluride's Wilkinson Public LIbrary. Here's what happening during the rest of February in the words of Program Coordinator Scott Doser:

Monday, February 22nd at 6 p.m.

The Telluride Music Lover’s Film Club presents:
 
“The Dream’s On Me”
The Story of Johnny Mercer
 
This is an excellent look at the career of the greatest lyricist of all time - Johnny Mercer. His songs are so much a part of American life from "Hooray for Hollywood," "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby," "Jeepers Creepers," "One for My Baby and One for the Road," "Laura," "Autumn Leaves", "Glow Worm," "Moon River," and "Days of Wine and Roses" - to name just a few. He had a way with words no other lyricist has been able to match. The documentary contains numerous clips of Mercer - who had a great voice - along with other greats such as Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and so many others. You get a good look at Mercer's career. Directed by Clint Eastwood
21 February, 2010 /
The Telluride Music Lovers Club was formed to educate music lovers through the showing of top-notch documentary films about luminaries and organizations within the music field.

On Monday Feb. 22nd, at 6 pm (at the Library) the Telluride Music Lovers Club and the Wilkinson Public Library present the next movie in this series: "Johnny Mercer, The Dream's on Me."
21 February, 2010 /
[click "Play to listen to director Krissy Smith talk about "Big Love"]

Image001 Telluride's SquidShow Theatre Company turns up the heat with its winter production of Charles L. Mee's "Big Love." (No, not that one. It's not HBO.) Performances are February 21, 22, 28, and March 1 at The Ah Haa School for the Arts (300 South Townsend Avenue). Show time is 8 p.m. Admission is FREE.


Mee is a playwright after Telluride's heart, the ultimate recycler. The writer/historian is known for radical reconstructions of found texts which he uses to create what amount to staged collages: "Big Love," based on "The Suppliant Women" by Aeschylus is a vaudevillian tragic-comedy that infuses the ancient text with pop songs, helicopters, dancing, singing, acrobatics and Mee's words.
20 February, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear Susan's interview with Ed Hendrikson]

Africa 08 086 As the definition of the world shrinks through telecommunications and tragedy, countries become communities like Telluride, with different constituencies but similar challenges. AIDS is one problem we all share. Yes, still.

The Telluride AIDS Benefit is a model nonprofit: the organization asks for very little in monetary support from the greater Telluride region, but puts Telluride on the world map in a good way: TAB's welcomed embrace extends all the way to Africa.
 
AIDS may be the worst health calamity since the Black Death of the Middle Ages, on a fast track to becoming the worst pandemic ever. And, according to online research, 10 of the 11 infections that take place every minute around the globe occur in Sub-Sahran Africa, where in some countries teachers, doctors and nurses are dying faster than they can be replaced and treatment ranges from poor to nonexistent.

19 February, 2010 /

[click "Play", Kristin Holbrook talks sequins] Paul Simon wrote a song about a lady who wore diamonds on the soles of her shoes. Telluride Inside...

19 February, 2010 /