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While most of the Best of Denver 2008 fallout has been outside the office, there's been plenty of talk here at Bite Me World HQ regarding my Best Green Chile award for Jack-n-Grill. Backbeat editor Dave Herrera takes it very personally when I say things about Colorado-style verde being just an insignificant knockoff of the New Mexican original, and often threatens to punch me for my out-of-towner’s perspective and obvious bias toward the Land of Enchantment.

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In order to make more sense of the world around us, illustrator and public house naturalist Nate Stone is compiling here a taxonomy of different barflies. While you're out and about in Denver, if you spot any of these specimens please add your observations about their habitat (where to find them) in the comments section below. Also, if you have any pictures of these colorful creatures, please email them here so we can fully document their existence.

Denver has been getting a lot of plugs in the national media over the last few months, and nearly all of it has to do with the Democratic National Convention. The city is typically characterized as a vital and prosperous regional center with a personality reflecting both its status as a capitol of the Old West and as a fountain head of the New West. But despite these strokes -- they do like us, they really do -- Denver has a collective low sense of self esteem, which is clearly demonstrated in the way the city government throws tons of money to artists from elsewhere while offering only tepid support for Denver artists.

What’s brought this to mind most recently is the announcement of an art festival called Dialog: City to be held during the DNC this August, which includes participants from just about everywhere but here. It is being put together under the auspices of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs and the Denver 2008 Host Committee by two contract players, Seth Goldenberg and Liz Newton. The two had been the deputy director and the education curator, respectively, at the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver before their jobs were eliminated shortly last fall in a general belt-tightening at the institution. (I think there are many more credible artists in Denver than credible arts administrators.)

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Newspaper editorialists spend more time opining about local politics and global brinksmanship than they do musing about fun and games. As a result, their occasional forays into sports can feel clunky, odd and forced. But understanding that still won't prepare readers for "Broncos Taking Hits On, Off Field," a March 31 Denver Post editorial that's weirdly timed and borderline loony.

The Colorado Rockies made for a more logical editorial choice on the 31st. After all, the date corresponds to the team's 2008 debut in defense of the National League penant they won last year. Instead, Post types chose to complain about the Broncos finishing the previous season 7-9 (that was news months ago, not now), letting longtime kicker Jason Elam sign a free-agent contract with Atlanta (Elam's been on the decline for at least half a decade and was hardly a long-term solution for the squad's special-teams woes) and filling assistant coaching positions internally rather than looking for outside help (the latter method has been used for years with little recent success).

Granted, these scribes have a point when they grouse about the Broncos raising season-ticket prices following a dismal campaign. But instead of focusing on this tin-eared ploy, they delve into ancient history -- the public financing of Invesco Field.

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The Wall Street Journal gave Hank Brown a heckuva going-away present when the former Colorado senator left his job as president of University of Colorado earlier this month.

In a March 22 editorial, the paper called Brown "the best college president you've never heard of," praising his common-sense handling of both the Ward Churchill scandal and the CU athletic department mess he inherited when he took over from Betsy Hoffman in 2005 -- both controversies that got plenty of national coverage, even if they didn't make Brown a household name.

And the editorial proceeded to suggest Brown for president -- no, not of the United States. That's too easy. Why not let him take on academia's most embattled institution? "Send that man to Harvard," the editorial ended. -- Patricia Calhoun

In early March, The Fan, a sports-talk station long heard at 950 AM, announced its move to 104.3 FM -- and as noted in this More Messages blog on the topic, a simulcast on its old dial spot was slated to continue until March 31. Well, the last date has arrived, and as of this writing, the simulcasting continues. However, no announcement of a new format for 950 AM has reached yours truly, and the closest thing to an update available on the station's website (still accessible at Fan950.com) pertains to a home-page advertisement for board operators and interns.

In the meantime, the FM shift is receiving mixed reviews from radio insiders, and it's resulted in diminished time-spent-listening by at least two people who've frequently tuned in the outlet over the years -- one of whom is yours truly.

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When South Park debuted more than a decade ago, Coloradans Matt Stone and Trey Parker offered the most innovative cartoon show in a generation. And they're still leading the way -- now by allowing fans to watch episodes for free at www.southparkstudios.com. "We got really sick of having
to download our own show illegally all the time, so we gave ourselves a legal alternative," Stone and Parker said in a statement announcing the deal with Comedy Central, which started just ten days ago.

Owing to contractual obligations, new episodes are available on the site for seven days -- then are blacked out until thirty days after the initial airing. Which means that the Best of Denver-winning "Britney's New Look," the episode in which Britney Spears hides out in Colorado and loses her head that initially aired on March 19, won't be back until April 18.

Still, that 23 day gap is a small price to pay for free access to some of the most free speech in any medium. -- Patricia Calhoun

For the first time in 25 years, Westword's readers showed the collective good taste to choose something other than McDonald's french fries as the Best French Fries.Their choice? Bistro Vendome, which makes its delicious fries even more addictive with a salty/sweet sprinkle of spices.

The editorial choice for Best French Fries wasn't nearly as smooth a process. Since we're not big fans of sweet potatoes, we'd initially passed over the fries at Bistro Vendome for those at Fruition, a great restaurant made even greater by the spuds, fried in deliciously rich duck fat, that once attended the kitchen’s culotte steak. But one of Fruition's frequent menu shifts ditched the fries (the steak is still on the board), and in a category this contentious, we needed to find a fry that readers could try for themselves.

After some last-minute eating, Jason Sheehan found his Best French Fries: at Encore, the restaurant that opened last December in the Lowenstein project. Fine on their own, these fries are made even better by the squiggle of mustard the kitchen squirts on the spuds before sending them out.

Read about those fries here. And then run, don't walk, to brunch at either Encore and Bistro Vendome, and fry some spuds on for size. -- Calhoun

Beer lovers at Lodo’s Falling Rock Taphouse got to try a unique Colorado pairing Friday night when the staff from Oskar Blues brewery passed out samples of their winter seasonal, Ten FIDY imperial stout, as well as the same beer after it had been aged for three months in a barrel from Stranahan's Colorado Whisky.

Dubbed “The Battle of the FIDYs,” the tasting attracted numerous beer aficionados. The Ten FIDY, already a big beer with more than ten percent alcohol by volume, became even larger with the addition of the whiskey-barrel flavor, which gave it an immense, almost port-like character. Stranahan’s (a 2007 Westword Best of winner makes small batches of whiskey on Blake Street, just five blocks from Falling Rock, a 2008 winner.)

Oskar Blues (famous for its canned microbrews like Dale's Pale Ale) recently opened a new brewery in Longmont to handle its rapid growth. It plans to phase out Ten FIDY for the summer, but will likely bring it back. On tap for the warmer months is something creatively light, said one of the brewers on-hand for the tasting. (The brewery staff, incidentally, were sampling Odell Brewing Company’s new IPA and Hoegaarden when they weren’t drinking their own concoction; always good to know what brewers like.) Sadly, Falling Rock blew through the whisky-aged beer on Friday; hopefully, they'll bring it back another time. – Jonathan Shikes

Every year, our work on the Best of Denver reminds us of not just what's new and wonderful in this city, but what we've lost -- although you don't see the latter in the final issue. We just take note of the dearly departed as we research, then discard, potential awards, because we discover that a certain dish is no longer served -- or that the place that served it has disappeared altogether.

That's what happened with Slayton & Corine’s, a bizarre little to-go joint tucked into the old McKinley mansion at 950 Logan Street. Last year, Jason Sheehan was tipped off to the place by a Capitol Hill neighbor, and he hurried over to try the joint, which he wrote about here.

But sadly, Slayton & Corine's has disappeared, and that wonderful fried tilapia is now just a memory. Ditto for the mean lemon and cream-cheese pie. -- Patricia Calhoun

Trey Deuce original gangster Brad Braxton had been locked up before. He’d been to jail for assault and to prison for selling crack and caught cases for weapons, too. But no one ever called him a sex offender, not until Denver Sheriff’s deputies arrested him last summer when he went to court to handle a traffic matter.

But it turned out the Brad Braxton who was wanted on the sex assault charge warrant was a white man. This Brad Braxton is black.

After spending eight days falsely imprisoned (he was denied bail), Braxton filed suit against the city of Denver. At Tuesday’s City Council meeting it will be determined whether or not the city wants to settle. – Luke Turf

If you feel that Denver’s Public Works has too much authority in your life, you may find catharsis in the artwork of Dan Ericson. The self-proclaimed “street sign artist,” who adopts the nom de plume ‘Dunn’ as a graffiti-esque pseudonym, produces original artwork by painting hip hop tableaus on deteriorated street signs, then gives them to the artists who inspired them. “It’s kind of like backwards graffiti, taking a piece of the city…changing the meaning,” says Ericson. Unlike graffiti, whose proponents have rationalized it as a populist reclamation of private space, Ericson’s art bypasses the ‘public sphere’ altogether.

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Mayor John Hickenlooper and Erin Trapp, director of the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs will announce today -- from New York, no less -- that Denver will host a biennial art extravaganza beginning in 2010. (The pair is in the Big Apple for a confab of the tourist press.) The idea, which has been kicking around for a while, is that once every two years, the city would host an exhibit featuring contemporary art from the Americas -- along the lines of SITE Santa Fe (a catalogue from it is pictured at left).

The Biennial of the Americas, as it is being called, will either be fabulous or a civic embarrassment. Guess which one I think has the edge considering that the city administration is in charge? Here’s a clue: think about the cascade of disappointments coming out of the Justice Center, notably the removal of lead architect Steven Holl. That was about fifteen minutes before Holl achieved international fame with his Nelson-Atkins Museum addition in Kansas City.

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Hold onto your hamburgers and tune up your drive-thrus, Denver: Steve Bigari is coming to town.

Bigari, a Colorado Springs McDonald’s franchise owner who used one of his more ingenious fast-food inventions, a drive-thru call center, to break the drive-thru world record for number of customers served per hour in 2005, then sold his restaurants to focus on America's Family Inc., his charity dedicated to helping the working poor, has set his entrepreneurial sites on the Mile High City. On February 8, he acquired Fat City, a 144,000 square foot family fun center at 9670 West Coal Mine Avenue in Littleton, to expand his successful Colorado Springs operation, Mr. Biggs Family Food and Fun Destination. And, like everything Bigari does, he’s got big plans for his second Mr. Biggs. Very big plans.

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Scott D. Clark, the drunken Denver man who ripped the head off a live domesticated duck in September in the lobby of a St. Paul, Minnesota hotel, was sentenced Wednesday to 21 days in a “workhouse” and eighty hours of community service.

An auditor with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – and Westword 2007 Hall of Shame inductee -- Clark lost his job after the incident, in which he told stunned onlookers that he was hungry and was going to eat it. He then took the bloody body up to the fifth floor, where he was detained. In sentencing him, a Minnesota judge reportedly told Clark he needed help with alcohol abuse and mandated that his community service be done at two homeless shelters, so he could understand what real hunger is. At the hearing, Clark took responsibility for his actions, and was quoted as saying "I understand my actions were shocking and horrifying to the hotel ... and the entire community ... I don't know why I did what I did, but I take full responsibility.”

Hopefully so. Then again, if it quacks like a Shmuck…

To see last week’s Shmuck, click here.