There's nothing that screams "happy holidays" like leather boys making teddy bears for kids, and the Denver Boys of Leather are holding their 5th annual Build-a-Bear charity event at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center from 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, December 9.

"It's a bunch of kinky people coming together and making stuffed bears, monkeys and Hello Kitties to support a child advocacy group," says DBL member MasterSquirrel.
He goes on to explain that Denver Boys of Leather is a community-based group of submissives, slaves and other service-minded kinksters and leather folks who come together to socialize, and they hope to get "as many bears as we can out the door this year for the children."

So will anyone actually be wearing their leather to the event? Master Squirrel says, "there will be a few in leather pants and vests, but no jockstraps. We are right across from Santa, so we have to be appropriate," he chuckled.

The event will be held at the Build-A-Bear store at the Cherry Creek Shopping Center, located at 3000 East First Avenue.

Follow us on Twitter!

Like us on Facebook!

Please don't steal Christmas, Occupy Movement.

There once was a Grinch who hated Christmas. By extension, he also hated a group of creatures called Whos who loved Christmas, and so one night he snuck into their village and stole all of their Christmas presents, which did not deter them from celebrating Christmas anyway, and then the Grinch learned the meaning of Christmas and everybody was happy.

Cool story, except in the real world, Christmas is about presents and true justice can only be applied through force. But there is a lesson we can take from this Dr. Seuss-penned tale if we see it as an allegory, and in that allegory, Occupy Protesters are the Grinch who Ruined Christmas with Shiftlessness.

More »

If only I was the Criss Angel of retail.

When I'm not interviewing drag queens, reviewing concerts and rating Santas for Westword, I'm working at Shirt Folding Store. For twenty hours a week, I fold shirts (and, more important, jeans) alongside other part-timers, who in their other jobs might be bank tellers, professional eBay auctioneers, art-history majors and spoken-word artists.

I have held my position at Shirt Folding Store off and on since 2006, and to a surprisingly great degree, have very much enjoyed telling customers how cute she (or he, if/when a man is forced into Shirt Folding Store by his wife/mother/girlfriend to try on clothes) looks in the jeans I have so painstakingly helped them pick out. For a non-commissioned salesperson, I go to great lengths to make sure my customers leave Shirt Folding Store in love (or at least in like) with a perfect pair of jeans. I love my job.

This is why I get so pissed off when I encounter an asshole.

More »

Alex Xiao Wu (left to right), Uri Talmor, Ryan Danielson, Devin Jamroz, Colin Swan and Ben Hauth.

This year's holiday play at Denver's Dangerous Theatre has everything you could ever want to see: rednecks, guns, cussing, sex, violence, intrigue -- and an angel in his underwear. Kentucky Claus & the Rebel Elves, which opens tonight, is an hour and 45 minutes of backwoods insanity, starting with six brothers whose Christmas isn't turning out to be so bright and cheery: Their truck won't start, there's a blizzard, and the eggnog is snowed in the shed. With no way to pick up their girlfriends -- and their Christmas supper -- they take to the woods in search of something to shoot for dinner, and end up popping a cap in jolly old St. Nick.

More »

Geoffrey Kent as Crumpet.

A few years ago, when actor Gary Culig abandoned his beloved longtime role as Crumpet the Elf in the Bug Theatre's perennial holiday production of The SantaLand Diaries, he left the local field wide open for a new kind of Crumpet, the sourly wry Macy's elf based on the true adventures of humorist David Sedaris. On cue, Geoffrey Kent of the Boulder Ensemble Theatre jumped right into Crumpet's pointy little shoes in 2009 and claimed the sprightly gear as his own.

More »

We all do these things. Maybe not everything on the list every time, but what's the use of having relatives that we visit if we can't rifle through their crap, steal their personal hygiene items and exploit their imperfections to feel better about ourselves? Making them embarrassed and miserable by telling everyone that they buy Toaster Pastries instead of Pop-Tarts just adds to the spirit of the holidays -- and family.

If you can check off ten or more things on the following list of twenty, then congratulations -- you are the person that your family has to convince themselves to invite over every year.

More »

Tear it to shreds, America.

It's Black Friday in America. When flat-screen TV's at deep discounts cause annual madness. It's like that scene in 28 Days Later, when a cluster of people become infected with rage and turn on one another like mindless flesh-craving monsters.

Here's a compilation of videos from today, Black Friday 2011.

More »

Courtesy of Adam Rose

Sublime's "Santeria" is playing over the speakers at Fallen Owl Tattoo when owner and artist Adam Rose introduces himself, his shop and his mission: "We're a solid old-school shop, and we have old-school values. We're very focused on the children." In the flier for the West Colfax studio's latest project, that idea is depicted literally: Two toddlers play with a toy train while showing off full-body tats.

It's a little unsettling, but its heart -- Rose's heart -- is in the right place.

More »

I've been making the pilgrimage every Christmastime to the Kloewer family home on Elati Street, just north of Belleview, for at least the last eleven years, and this is why: Being Jewish and all, it doesn't really feel like Christmas until I've immersed myself in some sort of urban electric madness...even if I don't get there until after Christmas is over, as it happened this year. Ever since I was a twelve-year-old kid walking home from a friend's house in the December dark, I've been drawn to the light, and I still, to this day, remember fondly a certain house with wild decorations on East Bails Place that used to brighten the trek.

More »

Christmas can be intense: Rife with familial undercurrents and financial strain, the yuletide can bring a time of crushing disappointment, dissolving relationships, mounting tension and exploding tempers -- but if we open our hearts and we wish hard enough, it just might also be a time of redemption. As it turns out, those hoary themes have been Christmas realities for many of us here at Westword, and so today we bring you those stories, the stories of our weird, dumb, touching and strangely familiar Christmas.

More »