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The media's coverage of the Colorado Rockies' remarkable late-season surge is put under the microscope throughout the November 1 Message column. However, there wasn't enough room in the petri dish to fully discuss the dubious performance of the team's public-relations personnel, as well as past problems spelled out in a pair of previous pieces.

The PR office's most recent strike-out took place in relation to the World Series ticketing debacle. Spokesperson Jay Alves and other squad representatives laid low for far too long during the system meltdown, and when Alves finally deigned to address the situation, he did so in an imperious tone that was as insulting as it was unnecessary. Moreover, rather than taking responsibility for the problems, Alves suggested that a malicious computer intruder had caused the crash. If there's evidence to suggest something of the sort, he was entirely justified in making these claims. If there's not, and if the Rockies are running local authorities through their paces for reasons of public-relations spin, the repercussions could potentially get ugly.

Whatever the case, Alves' prickliness was very much in keeping with several incidents reported in the Message over the past few years. A July 2000 offering reveals that the team once refused to make its players available to appear on yakker Jim Rome's syndicated radio show as punishment for remarks made by the host, and quoted the Fan's Sandy Clough, who'd also gotten into a dustup with Rockies management, calling Alves "a lightweight" and a "phony." Just over three years later, an October 2003 edition of the Message told a similar tale -- except this time, the Denver Post was on the receiving end of a Rockies banishing, for the sin of accurately using quotes slugger Larry Walker gave to reporter Troy Renck in a column by scribe Mark Kiszla. The team eventually started talking to the Post again, but Alves failed to return five phone calls from yours truly on the topic.

Executives with the Rockies' organization have built up a large reserve of good will thanks to the remarkable performance of its young players. They should spend it wisely -- and if they don't, the media has every right to hold them responsible whether the Rockies are National League champs or not. -- Michael Roberts

Blake Mooney was recently laid off from his job at NewMediaCompany.com and has somehow found some time to give a glimpse into the week in the life of a man on the dole. This is his story.
Monday
Tuesday

Wednesday:
Everyone knows if you’re a male and you find yourself laid off from your job, the first thing you do is grow a beard. It’s a look that tells everyone around you, “I have no responsibilities and no boss or dress code, so why even fight with the whole personal hygiene thing.” You’re also supposed to walk around in slippers and a bathrobe most of the time, clutching a copy of the want ads in one hand and a cup of coffee spiked with Kahlua in the other. You definitely need to let your apartment get all cluttered up, so when your friends come over to visit, the stink hits them in the hallway and, concerned for your lack of direction, they give you a big pep talk that suddenly jolts you from your waking coma. You clean yourself up in the shower, print out a bunch of resumes, get a great new job and finally meet the girl of your dreams, all while Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best,” plays somewhere in the background.

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As noted in this blog, TV comics have been ripping the Colorado Rockies ever since the Boston Red Sox snuffed out their late-season winning streak in brutal (and widely televised) fashion. But Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert, host of the regularly hilarious Colbert Report, deserves special praise for criticizing one of the team's extracurricular errors -- its attempt to trademark the term "Rocktober."

In his October 27 column, Rocky Mountain News editor/publisher/president John Temple properly chided the team for overreaching in its attempt to take legal control of the term. But he also goes too far when he states that Rocky columnist Bernie Lincicome "invented the word back in 2005" -- a claim on par with the old Al-Gore-invented-the-Internet saw. In truth, Rocktober has been used for years, generally in a rock-and-roll context. Countless radio stations and concert promoters have employed it in commercials, advertisements and so on.

Colbert played off this angle in a monologue that closed his October 29 edition, congratulating the BoSox "not for winning the World Series, but for punishing the Colorado Rockies for trying to trademark the word 'Rocktober.' Nation, 'Rocktober' belongs to all of us. Trademarking it would be like trademarking 'By the dawn's early light' or 'Karma Karma Karma Karma Karma Chameleon.' As every American knows, 'Rocktober' follows 'Zeptember' and proceeds 'Tullvember,' which gives way to 'AC/December,' which rocks right into 'Stonesuary.'" Moments later, after putting mini-Red Sox helmets on the KISS action figures that populate his holiday-themed Rocktober creche, Colbert concludes with the following: "So, Rockies, hands off 'Rocktober.' If you really want a month to honor you, I've copyrighted the name 'Choketember.'"

Too eyeball this sequence, click here. -- Michael Roberts

The night after the Colorado Rockies were swept out of the World Series, the late-night comics started hitting the team out of the park. First Stephen Colbert took aim at the Rockies' attempts to copyright "Rocktober," and then David Letterman offered up his Top Ten Colorado Rockies Excuses:

10: "Even we've never heard of most of our players"

9. "Didn't want game 5 to preempt House"

8. "Relax, there's still a lot of baseball to be played"

7. "The curse of the Bambino?"

6. "At that altitude, the beer really knocks you on your ass"

5. No number 5 -- writer preparing to go on strike

4. "Turns out our 'flaxseed oil' really was flaxseed oil"

3. "O.J. stole the equipment!"

2. "Manager distracted by Joe Torre walking around with his resume"

1. "Forget us -- someone want to explain the Jets?" -- Patricia Calhoun

Bill Ward, the club guy behind Slim 7 at 1443 Larimer Street and owner of Denver’s new, and until recently unnamed, pizza restaurant in the alley between 14th and 15th streets on Larimer Square, has finally settled on a moniker: the Pie Hole.

Ward had been fighting for his right to use Pi as a name and the mathematical symbol for pi as on his logo, but in doing so, he ran up against the lawyers for Stonebridge Companies, a hotel management company in the process of opening a pizza joint called Pi Kitchen + Bar inside the new Hilton at 1400 Welton Street. The way these fights usually go, he who has the most scratch wins, and Stonebridge brought more pesos to the fight than Ward -- not to mention the not insignificant weight of law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. Also, Stonebridge was willing to pay the money for a full, national trademark on the name Pi -- a move that generally settles these kinds of slap fights toot sweet.

So Ward lost the name Pi, despite his claims of having registered the name with the Secretary of State long before the other Pi started slinging cease-and-desist papers. And what does he do next? He picks a name -- Pie Hole -- that’s not only used by several other pizza joints across the country, but also happens to be the name of the all-pie restaurant owned by the main character on the new ABC show Pushing Daisies.

Anyone want to start laying bets on how long he gets to keep this one? -- Jason Sheehan

Blake Mooney was recently laid off from his job at NewMediaCompany.com and has somehow found some time to give a glimpse into the week in the life of a man on the dole. This is his story.
Monday

Tuesday:
It shouldn’t be this easy. Before I started collecting unemployment, I was under the impression that in order to get paid, you had to head down to some government office and stand in long lines that would make the DMV look like the express lanes at the grocery store. You would wait there in your brown and disheveled clothes for an hour or two, shuffling your feet and sharing looks of quiet desperation with your fellow hard-luck cases. When you finally got to the window, the clerk – voice hoarse with the residue of 20 cigarette breaks per shift – would impatiently ask a few questions and hand over a check with the disapproving glare of a mother picking up her kid from detention.

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For Alek Komarnitsky of Lafayette, Colorado, holiday decorations aren’t just a hobby, they’re a way of life. A very, very insane way of life.

Komarnitsky became a local hero four years ago when, as part of his neighborhood Fouth of July parade, he drove his nine-foot-tall inflatable Incredible Hulk doll around in his Oldsmobile Delta 88 Convertible. His fame spread nationwide during the 2004 holidays when, thanks to some sneaky web trickery, he suckered media outlets around the world into falsely believing that people could turn on and off the 17,000 Christmas lights on his house through his website. A year later, he did it for real, giving web surfers complete control over his 26,000 Christmas lights (for those counting, that’s one thousand more than Clark Griswold).

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So... you thought you could pick up a daily newspaper in Denver and not see a Colorado Rockies story on the cover? Think again. On October 30, two days after the Rockies were bested in the World Series by the Boston Red Sox, the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post again published special World Series sections -- this time focusing on the happier moments from the season rather than its heartbreaking conclusion.

Why? No doubt commerce had a lot to do with it. The World Series proved a boon for the dailies, which are struggling to maintain revenues in a steadily declining national newspaper market. Betcha they planned a minimum of five bonus sections to correspond with what would have been the first two games in Boston and three potential Rockies home games, with a season-ending compendium serving as a backup plan should the team suffer a four-game sweep.

Obviously, this last option became the only viable one following the BoSox's fourth consecutive victory. As a result, the latest sections are stuffed with extremely dispensable filler, including oversized photos, pages filled with stats, paragraph-size bites about teams throughout Major League Baseball, and so on. The worst entry by far, though, is the Post's "Get Crafty With Fan Gear Before Rocktober's Up," in which the paper's food editor, Kristen Browning-Blas, who's said to be "as handy with a sewing machine as she is with a food processor," offers tips about turning commemorative fan towels into the items seen here: a messenger bag, a pillow and a purple cape.

Oh...my...God.

In a Message column that ran just as the MLB playoffs were getting underway, Rocky editor/publisher/president John Temple conceded that the sports department at his paper hasn't been cut as deeply as other divisions in the wake of buyouts, staff attrition and other belt-tightening measures, and it's obvious why not. Sports attracts the sort of readers who still pick up the physical paper, as well as those who frequent the websites of major dailies, and it also provides an excuse for profit-padding extra coverage that would be inappropriate and impractical in a news context. The dailies couldn't have made big bucks publishing, say, an advertisement-packed wrap-up of the Columbine massacre -- but they certainly can in connection with a huge variety of sports events and developments. Indeed, the October 30 papers contain a second sports special in addition to the regular one: a preview of the 2007-2008 Denver Nuggets, who begin regular-season play on October 31.

Oh yeah: the front page of the Rocky's October 30 news section featured a shot of Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre, who almost singlehandedly defeated the Denver Broncos in a game broadcast nationally the previous night on Monday Night Football. And the main news story involved charges made against Nuggets backup J.R. Smith stemming from a recent incident at a night club.

On days like this, it seems that the dailies won't cover anyone whose job doesn't entail wearing a jersey. -- Michael Roberts

When a half-pound of ground, nicely fatty Angus beef is whacked onto the hot steel, it produces a flood of meat juice that caramelizes instantly into a crispy halo of blood and fat around the edge of the burger. It’s like meat candy, the delicacy you lose when a burger is cooked on a slotted grill, which is the traditional cooking surface for burgers smashed by hand.

Line up, vegetarians, for your meat candy, your halo of blood and fat.

Although I’m not going to make any new friends this week among Denver’s gentle herbivores, all you meat-eaters should be happy. Because I’ve just found two fantastic burger joints where we can get our fix. One is Smashburger, a new outpost at Colorado and Mississippi (there’s a second in Wheat Ridge), where the Cervantes Capital investment group has come up with a better burger for burger-lovers. The second is an export from the Midwest to Thornton: Culver’s, which serves a butterburger -- much to the delight of gastroenterologists and cardiac surgeons everywhere. Come back here on Wednesday for the full details. – Jason Sheehan

Place your bets, place your bets. Anyone’s a winner, anyone’s a loser.

Especially these shows.

Every season, there’s a TV dream that dies early. Someone’s pet project gets hit by the car of audience reaction, and has to be put down so it (and no one else) can suffer. So what else is there to do, really, but place wagers on which will feel the pinch of the euthanasia needle first?

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Every Monday morning, millions of Americans roll out of bed, wipe the crusties out of their eyes, pour themselves a cup of joe and enter into the dispiriting ritual of the work week. They suffer through the humiliation of gridlocked traffic, pay far too much to park the car they paid far too much to drive, and shuffle off to anonymous workspaces under the harsh glare of fluorescent track lighting. For lunch, they get a quick fix off food that makes them feel terrible, for desert they take a lashing from their ironically titled superior for missing some mundane detail in a task primarily created to test the completeness of their obedience. They get back in their cars, which only remind them of their burdensome debt, get shamed by traffic a second time, and wind up with one, maybe two quality hours of time with their families before moving onto the never ending household tasks necessary for maintaining a mortgage.

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If politicians like anything better than flag-waving, it's pennant-waving. Over the weekend Denver school board candidate Arturo Jimenez papered west Denver with these purple door-hangers. The back features a cut-out bat you were supposed to wave while cheering on the Rockies. Not much cheer followed; if you're going to kiss up to the local sports team in order to get elected, timing is a bitch. Look for the candidate's next flyer to be decked out in blue and orange. –Alan Prendergast

Of all the people 50 Cent has rapped with over the years, Adam Schrager has got to be the most unlikely. Schrager, after all, is a Channel 9 reporter who specializes in political matters, not a cultural correspondent with a well-known reputation as a hip-hop head. Yet the two of them will be chatting on October 29 for a segment on Your Show, a Schrager-hosted Sunday morning public-affairs offering that was the subject of a Message column a few months back. Moreover, the man born Curtis Jackson will be answering questions submitted by Channel 9 viewers -- a key component of the program.

In an e-mail, Schrager explains that 50 Cent will appear via satellite. "They pitched me," he reveals, "saying he wanted to talk about this and that. I said I'd love to have him, but I had no desire to ask about this and that unless our viewers wrote in questions about those things. They agreed."

According to Schrager, "We've received a pretty significant number of questions, and maybe the coolest thing is, none have come from people who have e-mailed in before from what I can tell." He adds that "there has been a particularly stunned look from many colleagues when they hear we booked him (maybe they think I'm too dorky, I don't know). But it goes to the overall point of the show. We're giving viewers access to people that they've never had before. I love that."

So, is Schrager that guy in the office who loudly chants "No Cadillac, no perms, you can't see/That I'm a motherfuckin' P.I.M.P." in his cubicle while cranking his iPod? Not exactly. "I like hip-hop," he asserts, "but I'm more old school, having gone to school in the early '80s. But what 50's done as a businessman, actor and musician is impressive for sure."

Check out this odd couple at 10:30 a.m. on Channel 20, 9News' sister station. Betcha it's gonna be hardcore. -- Michael Roberts

This week we argue over who's the bigger Rockies fan and let our flyover state inferiority complex get the better of us, much to the chagrin of Red Sox fan in the office.

Ah, yes, I remember now: that’s what it feels like to lose. It had been so long since the Rockies had dropped even one game – much less two in a row – I had forgotten the word for that queasy, tingling sensation that surfaces up from the top of the stomach and settles around the midsection of the chest.

Disappointment, we meet again.

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