Below The Fold

345.

That’s the number of columns (give or take; I started only online on the “hip nightlife” site the Rocky had for the first few couple months of my column. It was an online-only thing until July of 2002 and then I went into print) I wrote for the Rocky Mountain News. From 2002 until Friday, Feb. 20, 2009, I never missed a week. Through vacations, moves, job changes, triumphs and tragedies—personal and professional—I filed my column every Tuesday. Every, single Tuesday, and then waited excitedly to see the final version printed the following Friday.

Today was  number 346, a piece on Katie Mullen’s, the new bar in the Sheraton where the Supreme Court was (posted at the end of this missive).

When I heard the Rocky’s last issue was to be today, I asked for space to pen number 347. It was too late in the game, and sadly, I didn’t get the chance to say what I wanted on the end of a column, the end of a job and the end of an institution.

So, somewhat ironically, I guess, I’ll publish it here, where ink and paper are no longer overhead costs, on the medium that contributed to the decline of Colorado’s oldest operating business. I say “contributed” because there are many more reasons why this happened, and we can discuss that at some later juncture.

Today, this is for me.

I started reading the Rocky sporadically for Bloom County comics when I was around 10 years old, and then religiously after the Rocky syndicated Calvin and Hobbes in the mid-80s. Much like most of the readership,  I loved the tabloid format and the comics section. But more than that, I loved the way the paper was laid out. I loved the photography. I loved the writers. I loved Gene Amole especially, who was the first person to show me how breaking rules for effect when writing was a good thing if you did it right. (I cried daily reading his final columns, hiding in my cube at the day job, hoping no one would notice.)

In January, I transferred to Metropolitan State College of Denver from UNC Greeley to pursue my degree in journalism.

My first class was Into to Journalism, taught by Jay Brodell, the most archetypal old-school newspaperman alive at the time. He had worked in the trenches of the Philadelphia Inquirer police beat for decades, and could out drink everyone. Everyone.

“Take out a pen and a piece of paper and write down your 10-year goal. Where do you want to be in 10 years?”

I wrote: “I want to have my own column in the Rocky Mountain News.”

Eight years later, I got a call from Stacey Sedbrook, a friend I had met during my time at Citysearch. She was working for the Denver Newspaper Agency at the time, and said the Rocky was looking for a male voice as a counterpart to the female voice they had covering nightlife for this new online-only division of the paper. After a short lived, “he-said/she-said” kind of thing, I was the new nightlife columnist. Another couple of weeks later, I was moved to the print version.

Two full years ahead of schedule.

“You have the greatest job in the world.” i don’t know how many times I heard that over the last seven years. And I did. But not for the obvious reason. Sure, getting paid to go out, have a few drinks and then write about it is fine enough, but it’s not why I had the greatest job in the world. The reason I loved my job was because I was writing for the only newspaper I ever wanted to write for.  There was my byline every week; I was attaching my work to a 150-year-old (almost) legacy.

Nothing is perfect. No matter how much I wanted, the Rocky wasn’t hiring new staff writers for entertainment. I would always be a stringer, relegated to the back of the Spotlight section (well, I was in the front of the book once. For one week. And then “the powers that be” decided I was too “edgy” for that placement and should be buried a little deeper. Something about the Rocky being a “family newspaper.” Which is extra funny, because the only thing that makes family digestible for most of us is to wash it down with a considerable ration of booze…), underpaid and underutilized, no benefits, no expense budget, etc., etc… The newspaper industry’s version of a temp.

And I didn’t care all that much. The Rocky gave me pretty much carte blanche to write about what I wanted about and approach it however I wanted. So I did. I was joined by The German, one of my best friends, on many an escapade, and then the cast of characters grew…my beloved Mrs. Buzz…Mom and Pop Buzz…Mr. and Mrs. Buzz-in-law… The Geophysicist and his Rock Star Wife… the Headbanger…the Cheerleaders…The Confidant…the Trainer…the Curator…the Mouthpiece…Kid Sister Buzz (who somehow repeatedly ended up on the editing room floor)… and all the rest.

And somehow… week after week…month after month…I found something new to say about every place I went to. I tried to find the story of the room, capture a piece of the night, set a scene other people could picture. I was often accused of being too nice, and maybe there’s some legitimacy to that complaint. I never called myself a “bar critic” though. I wasn’t trying to criticize anything. I simply wanted to tell a story, make people laugh, and paint an accurate picture of what I encountered on any given outing. No more. (sometimes, a touch less).

It wasn’t easy, and it got harder as time went on— I had to guard against simply “phoning it in,” a trap most columnists struggle to avoid at various stages in their careers. In the last months, it was especially hard. After the announcement about the sale of the Rocky and the stunning lack of interest from potential suitors, staving off apathy and malaise was something I had to be mindful of.

And, I think for the most part, I was successful at the endeavor.

We all knew, I think, that the end was inevitable and close. At least, I did. But I did think we had until the end of March; the end of the first quarter was the circulating rumor, and it was one I believed. So, I was caught as flat-footed as the rest of the actual staff when the announcement came down–moreso, in fact.

The worst part of this whole thing is the fact that we stringers were kind of just written out of the final act. I didn’t have a final column in the can; I didn’t have my Opus, I didn’t have my swan song…

I didn’t get to say goodbye.

So that brings me to here… this moment. My audience will be far more limited that it would have been in print, but if you’re reading this, then chances are you’re somebody who caught my column more often than just in passing. And that remains one of my two most prized successes during my tenure at the Rocky Mountain News: The fact that I was able to hold your interest for so many years.

The other?

In seven years about writing after bars, week after week, month after month… I never once… on any occasion… EVER… made a Cheers reference.

THAT is a uniquely amazing feat, my friends. The first sign you’re reading a hack bar writer, I truly believe, is someone talking about how such-and-such place is “where everybody knows your name.” If you’re reading that, just click off to another page (unless you’re in some museum and reading it in print) because the person who wrote it is an expert in hackery.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to crack open a bottle of scotch, shut off this computer and do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time…

…stay in.

—30—

Katie Mullen’s

16th and Court Streets
Inside the Sheraton Hotel
303-573-0336

• Happy hour: 3pm -6 pm weekdays;  $3 draughts, $4 wines, $2.50 Coors Light, other food and drink specials.
• Bagpipers, dancers, traditional Irish band and all sorts of other celtic nuttiness planned for St. Patrick’s Day (and the Saturday prior)
• Bring earplugs. It’s loud.

There are a lot of things Denver doesn’t need.

Denver doesn’t need more Californians. Denver doesn’t need more traffic. Denver doesn’t need more bad public art. Denver doesn’t need more sports bars and Denver certainly doesn’t need more Irish pubs.
Strangely, no one seems to be paying attention to any of my advice, including Denverites. (Seriously, Denver, I don’t need this kind of treatment. I can go home and get it there.) I mean, what else could be the reason I couldn’t hear the lovely woman sitting directly next to me over drinks last Friday at Denver’s newest Irish pub, Katie Mullen’s?

Slammed.

I have never seen the Supreme Court packed like this. Which, come to think of it, may have something to do with the reason it’s no longer called the Supreme Court.  I think there were something like 80,000 people in there last Friday. Maybe ninety? It was louder than a Broncos game (especially last season).

So, shows what I know. As far as Denver was concerned, she  totally needed another Irish pub.

Granted, it appears owner Paul Maye (who’s about as authentically Irish as it gets), is far more savvy on the subject than I am. Had you been to the Supreme Court in the last few years? The place was basically a hotel conference room with a stage and a bar—except the bar wasn’t on wheels. Katie Mullen’s isn’t a facelift. Joan Rivers gets facelifts. Katie Mullen’s was like throwing Joan Rivers out the window and replacing her with Jenny McCarthy.

They didn’t miss a surface, it seems, in the space. I’m not sure if so much as a light bulb remains from the previous tenant, and yet to stroll through the joint, you’d guess it had been there a lot longer than a few weeks (give or take the several months they poured into rebuilding it). The rusty woods, carefully-placed-and-not-annoyingly-overbearing kinickknackery, charming tapestry, well-selected scotch list, four uniquely themed (subtle differences like between Victorian and Celtic), bars… all of it not only said “this place is totally an Irish pub, man,” but it did so with an attention to detail not normally reserved for a pub genre everyone and their mother is convinced they’re an expert at.

They serve Guinness, too.

The food’s good, although they were out of the signature dish I wanted to try—a Scotch egg (admittedly a Scottish confection, if you must, but “perfected in Ireland” according to the menu), but the Irish stew and Shepherd’s Pie were excellent.

Meanwhile, our party shared contention over just how organic the crowd was: I remained convinced it was a bit manufactured due to the hotel’s captive audience, while my drinking compatriots remained stoically entrenched in the “they’re-all-local-business-people-who-aren’t-looking-for-a-hoity-toity-martini-lounge-or-LoDo-dance-club-and-just-want-to-get-a-drink” camp. (Yes, they said “hoity-toity” and yes, I made a mental note to mock them for it later. Mockery achieved.) The truth is likely somewhere in between, and I intend on making it my business to find out the truth, regardless of how many trips it takes.

One thing is certain: NOW Denver REALLY doesn’t need another Irish pub.