A Denver Story
Denver
My girlfriend Kim got accepted into a master's program in Denver and Tampa. We wanted to visit Denver to get a feel for the program and the city. This would be my first time back in Denver since 2012 when I worked and lived in Denver for a month campaigning for the presidential elections. Kim and I bought our tickets last minute and got an AirBnB hours before we arrived. We flew from BWI with a short layover in Dallas, Texas turned into a 6 hour layover. After the long and unexpected wait we finally got on our plane and made it to Denver. We walked outside the airport to be surrounded by mountains and a beautiful scenic view. We took an hour bus ride from the airport to down town Denver. We made it our AirBnb in River North Art District to be greeted by our hosts and our room for the next five nights. Immediately we were enthused to explore the neighborhood. We walked around to discover murals of west coast art, hip bars cafes, and an abundant amount of breweries just in walking range. We stopped in a place called Los Chingones. The atmosphere of the restaurant was vibrant. I had delicious tofu tacos and Epic brewing company beer. After our first meal and drinks there we made our way back to our place and called it a night.
The next morning we set our sites on venturing to the 16th street mall the main tourist hub of Denver. It was an outdoors mall filled with chains as well as awesome local restaurants and shops. We stopped in Illegal Pete's a place for the best breakfast burrito in my life. This was a place I often came to during happy hour with my coworkers back in the time I lived close by. After breakfast we walked next store to the Tattered Cover, an indie cozy book store/cafe. While we were walking around I noticed a wall of currency I was intrigued by. I asked an employee if I could add onto the wall by donating a BNote and they gladly accepted. We made our out and walked around Cheery Creek. It's a beautiful park, with an awesome water front runner and bikers go through. We visited the place where I once called Denver International Youth Hostel. As soon as we arrived a guy laying next to a dumpster tried fighting me for looking at him. We quickly walked away and started to commence in drinking and eating more.
(Recommendations)
Denver is notorious for breweries and bars. I heard Denver has over 200 breweries. Some of my favorites were The 1up which was an awesome bar arcade in a basement. It had every old school arcade games imaginable. I spent a lot of time crushing Kim in X-men, Simpsons, Street Racer. and Terminator while pounding down local craft brews. We also stopped by a place called First Draft Taproom. It's a poor your own beer place. Basically we were paying for our beer by the ounce. It had over 40 craft beers on tap. It was a dope place surrounded by an alley way filled with dope murals. I also immensely enjoyed Breckenridge, Renegade, Our Mutual Friend and (definitely go to) Ratio Brewery which was a block away from where we were staying in RiNo.
University of Colorado Denver was next place to visit on our agenda. Kim and I went to visit it to get a feel for the school she potentially might accept. We sat down with a counselor and he gave us a tour of the school and the layout of the program. It was incredible, it felt very innovative and structured well. We were noted down falls of expense of living in such a fast growing city and aspects of gentrification that are constantly taking place. The decision was tough because of how awesome the city is and being surrounded by nature and mountains but having the burden of paying a much more expensive living.
The locals life was imperative for us to see before we made our decision. I took the initiative to reach out to Couch Surfers Denver Facebook group on asking if anyone knew any good recommendations to check out and if anyone wanted to meet up to show us around. I got lots of response in a short amount of time. A guy named Robert stood out immediately, he told me to give him a call to meet up. That day we met up at Los Chingones where him and his friends were sitting on the roof top chowing down on chips, salsa, and drinks. They told us all about the city and how it's constantly changing. They told us about work, school, social life. It was a great learning experience. We started talking about hiking and nature. They told us we had to explore the Red Rocks before we leave. Robert offered to take us the next day.
Kim and I got ready and met with Robert. We drove West of Denver seeing mountains and nature along our way. He took us to the Red Rock Amphitheater which has been used as a music venue for decades featuring some of the most classic musicians of all time. The view was amazing, I've never seen anything like it. We hiked up the mountains and enjoyed the scenery. After awhile we got hungry and ate in a small town called Morrison at a place named Tony Rigatoni's it was delicious and the town was really cool. It has an old western feel to it. Kim and I started feeling altitude sickness so Robert took us back to where we were staying. We started feeling a little more leveled so we offered to get him a beer at Ratio. We sat around enjoyed a drink, shortly afterwards he left as Kim and I had the rest of the day to ourselves. We decided to check out the Art District on Santa Fe. It was another cool town, heavily influenced by Latin culture. It had great art work everywhere. We stopped at Renegade Brewery for a beer and a veggie dog from the food truck. We made our way back to our place and ended our night.
The last day we took an hour bus ride from Denver to Boulder to explore a whole new town. Across from the bus station we stumbled upon a farmers market. We walked around and ate an El Salvadorian styled lunch. Afterwards we walked over the down town area where I saw a skateboarder riding through. I stopped him and talked to him about skateboarding. Him and I skated and started showing each other tricks. He did a moving handstand flip that really impressed the tourists walking by. A woman started taking pictures of us skating as a police offer stopped us. The skateboarder Herald started bad mouthing the policeman. The offer became frustrated and wrote him a ticket for $100. The officer left and Herald left quickly afterwards. Kim and I explored boulder a little bit more than headed to the bus station to go to the airport.
Once we arrived we came to find our flight had been delayed by Spirit again. I called the customer service number, but they honestly could care less. We walked up to a Spirit rep and I told him about my last encounter purchasing Spirit tickets and got scammed by a third party company on their website by giving them my card info. He felt bad and switched our seats to way closer to the front. It was nice, but we still had to wait. As we were waiting I was thinking of how my favorite band The Last Shadow Puppets were doing their first show in the US since 2008 the next day in Philly. I talked to Kim about it and considering we were already having the time of our lives why let the fun stop there. We both bought $50 tickets to see them the next day in Philly. I couldn't be anymore excited.
We finally got on our flight heading to Las Vegas! Yes you read that right, we were heading in the opposite direction just to head to Baltimore. The flight was so bumpy and crazy, everyone on that flight had a nervous look on their face as if we were going to crash. We landed safely and the first thing that happened while everyone was getting up a guy dressed like a cowboy threatened to beat up some drunk guy on the plane. I have no idea what was going on but they had a stare down while waiting to get off. We walked in the airport and it was filled with slot machines and casino games. We wanted to see the Vegas strip so we called an Uber super quick and had him drop us off. The strip was so intense, everything was lit up. It was like being in a west coast version of Time Square, Lots of people were drunk, dressed pretty crazy, someone threw a beer bottle in the air and it almost landed on Kim's head. It was a crazy experience there.
After walking around the strip for an hour we made our way back to the airport, checked in, played some slot machines. I made $5 off $1, and finally got on our plane headed back to Baltimore. We made it home after a long flight. We arrived at 7 am and passed out as soon as we got home. I was thrilled to wake up knowing we were heading to Philly later that night and that's exactly what we did.
(The Last Shadow Puppets)
We arrived at the venue to notice there was a massive line waiting to get in. We walked inside a Chinese carryout place. As we were waiting for our food, a guy comes up to us and ask for money Kim gave him some change. The guy replied "Do you have anymore money? This isn't enough". She said no, and I said no and the guy behind us said no. He gave us all a bad look and headed out. The guy behind us was telling us how disrespectful it was that the man was not grateful for what we gave him. I agreed and we started talking to this stranger. It turns out he was the bus driver for The Last Shadow Puppets. He told us about his life and how he came a long way from Puerto Rico to be there. He also told us how respect means a lot to him. The man's name is Hector, him and I agreed on a lot, we got a long very well. He gave me his number and told me he wanted to stay in touch to coach me on life and respect. I thought kind of this. Another man walked into the carryout place while we were still sitting together asking for money. This guy came off more humble, Hector offered to buy him anything off the menu. It was a nice thing to do and was a good lesson in respect.
We walked into the venue to finally see my all time favorite band The Last Shadow Puppets and they put on such an incredible performance!!! I absolutely loved it, the show was worth all the money, travel, and time. They played almost every track off their new album. It was amazing, once the show ended we headed back to Baltimore and finished our amazing trip.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Miscellaneous
The BNote had it's second series reveal featuring Bea Gaddy and Lily Carroll May Jackson on the new notes. We had a fundraiser and raised over $5000 to help print the second serious. Our launch party is April 30th. Where we will be exchanging our the second series finally!
I hosted/played a show at the hostel featuring The John Street Genes, Val Tambien, BaggyPantsRich, Steel Samuria, Pelvis Presley. It was another great turn out. I'm always happy and proud to host these shows at my work. It really allows travelers and locals to meet and enjoy local music together in a historic building.
I played a show at Joe Squared with local musicians Matt Ellin, Bicuspid. Them Animals, Envy The Animals. The show was fantastic and the amenities of playing were very nice. A free pizza per band/musician, two free drink, and a cut in door sales which turned out to be $20 bucks for me. I'll take it!
Here's pictures from the show
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_ZjdAkUiNcGeDRESjBJbm1kdUk&usp=drive_web
The next morning we set our sites on venturing to the 16th street mall the main tourist hub of Denver. It was an outdoors mall filled with chains as well as awesome local restaurants and shops. We stopped in Illegal Pete's a place for the best breakfast burrito in my life. This was a place I often came to during happy hour with my coworkers back in the time I lived close by. After breakfast we walked next store to the Tattered Cover, an indie cozy book store/cafe. While we were walking around I noticed a wall of currency I was intrigued by. I asked an employee if I could add onto the wall by donating a BNote and they gladly accepted. We made our out and walked around Cheery Creek. It's a beautiful park, with an awesome water front runner and bikers go through. We visited the place where I once called Denver International Youth Hostel. As soon as we arrived a guy laying next to a dumpster tried fighting me for looking at him. We quickly walked away and started to commence in drinking and eating more.
(Recommendations)
University of Colorado Denver was next place to visit on our agenda. Kim and I went to visit it to get a feel for the school she potentially might accept. We sat down with a counselor and he gave us a tour of the school and the layout of the program. It was incredible, it felt very innovative and structured well. We were noted down falls of expense of living in such a fast growing city and aspects of gentrification that are constantly taking place. The decision was tough because of how awesome the city is and being surrounded by nature and mountains but having the burden of paying a much more expensive living.
The locals life was imperative for us to see before we made our decision. I took the initiative to reach out to Couch Surfers Denver Facebook group on asking if anyone knew any good recommendations to check out and if anyone wanted to meet up to show us around. I got lots of response in a short amount of time. A guy named Robert stood out immediately, he told me to give him a call to meet up. That day we met up at Los Chingones where him and his friends were sitting on the roof top chowing down on chips, salsa, and drinks. They told us all about the city and how it's constantly changing. They told us about work, school, social life. It was a great learning experience. We started talking about hiking and nature. They told us we had to explore the Red Rocks before we leave. Robert offered to take us the next day.
Kim and I got ready and met with Robert. We drove West of Denver seeing mountains and nature along our way. He took us to the Red Rock Amphitheater which has been used as a music venue for decades featuring some of the most classic musicians of all time. The view was amazing, I've never seen anything like it. We hiked up the mountains and enjoyed the scenery. After awhile we got hungry and ate in a small town called Morrison at a place named Tony Rigatoni's it was delicious and the town was really cool. It has an old western feel to it. Kim and I started feeling altitude sickness so Robert took us back to where we were staying. We started feeling a little more leveled so we offered to get him a beer at Ratio. We sat around enjoyed a drink, shortly afterwards he left as Kim and I had the rest of the day to ourselves. We decided to check out the Art District on Santa Fe. It was another cool town, heavily influenced by Latin culture. It had great art work everywhere. We stopped at Renegade Brewery for a beer and a veggie dog from the food truck. We made our way back to our place and ended our night.
The last day we took an hour bus ride from Denver to Boulder to explore a whole new town. Across from the bus station we stumbled upon a farmers market. We walked around and ate an El Salvadorian styled lunch. Afterwards we walked over the down town area where I saw a skateboarder riding through. I stopped him and talked to him about skateboarding. Him and I skated and started showing each other tricks. He did a moving handstand flip that really impressed the tourists walking by. A woman started taking pictures of us skating as a police offer stopped us. The skateboarder Herald started bad mouthing the policeman. The offer became frustrated and wrote him a ticket for $100. The officer left and Herald left quickly afterwards. Kim and I explored boulder a little bit more than headed to the bus station to go to the airport.
Once we arrived we came to find our flight had been delayed by Spirit again. I called the customer service number, but they honestly could care less. We walked up to a Spirit rep and I told him about my last encounter purchasing Spirit tickets and got scammed by a third party company on their website by giving them my card info. He felt bad and switched our seats to way closer to the front. It was nice, but we still had to wait. As we were waiting I was thinking of how my favorite band The Last Shadow Puppets were doing their first show in the US since 2008 the next day in Philly. I talked to Kim about it and considering we were already having the time of our lives why let the fun stop there. We both bought $50 tickets to see them the next day in Philly. I couldn't be anymore excited.
After walking around the strip for an hour we made our way back to the airport, checked in, played some slot machines. I made $5 off $1, and finally got on our plane headed back to Baltimore. We made it home after a long flight. We arrived at 7 am and passed out as soon as we got home. I was thrilled to wake up knowing we were heading to Philly later that night and that's exactly what we did.
(The Last Shadow Puppets)
We arrived at the venue to notice there was a massive line waiting to get in. We walked inside a Chinese carryout place. As we were waiting for our food, a guy comes up to us and ask for money Kim gave him some change. The guy replied "Do you have anymore money? This isn't enough". She said no, and I said no and the guy behind us said no. He gave us all a bad look and headed out. The guy behind us was telling us how disrespectful it was that the man was not grateful for what we gave him. I agreed and we started talking to this stranger. It turns out he was the bus driver for The Last Shadow Puppets. He told us about his life and how he came a long way from Puerto Rico to be there. He also told us how respect means a lot to him. The man's name is Hector, him and I agreed on a lot, we got a long very well. He gave me his number and told me he wanted to stay in touch to coach me on life and respect. I thought kind of this. Another man walked into the carryout place while we were still sitting together asking for money. This guy came off more humble, Hector offered to buy him anything off the menu. It was a nice thing to do and was a good lesson in respect.
We walked into the venue to finally see my all time favorite band The Last Shadow Puppets and they put on such an incredible performance!!! I absolutely loved it, the show was worth all the money, travel, and time. They played almost every track off their new album. It was amazing, once the show ended we headed back to Baltimore and finished our amazing trip.
...................................................................................................................................................................
Miscellaneous
The BNote had it's second series reveal featuring Bea Gaddy and Lily Carroll May Jackson on the new notes. We had a fundraiser and raised over $5000 to help print the second serious. Our launch party is April 30th. Where we will be exchanging our the second series finally!I hosted/played a show at the hostel featuring The John Street Genes, Val Tambien, BaggyPantsRich, Steel Samuria, Pelvis Presley. It was another great turn out. I'm always happy and proud to host these shows at my work. It really allows travelers and locals to meet and enjoy local music together in a historic building.
I played a show at Joe Squared with local musicians Matt Ellin, Bicuspid. Them Animals, Envy The Animals. The show was fantastic and the amenities of playing were very nice. A free pizza per band/musician, two free drink, and a cut in door sales which turned out to be $20 bucks for me. I'll take it!
Here's pictures from the show
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B_ZjdAkUiNcGeDRESjBJbm1kdUk&usp=drive_web
Pelvis Presley (my solo project) has a new music video for the song "Gal Pal". If you ever wondered what a daily routine of what my life is like all in one video plus lots fruits. Watch away here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb0ex7oSGho
This month I got to see Tokyo Police Club in DC and Beirut in Baltimore live. I met both vocalist after the show, it was incredible. I got to see Dan Deacon, Robert DeLong, and Dj Jazzy Jeff at Light City as well.
I'm very keen with the new music that's came out this month. The Last Shadow Puppets released their second album "Everything You've Come To Expect". I highly recommend checking it out. I've been waiting 8 years for a follow up album since their debut album in 2008. We Are Scientists "Heltzer Seltzer" a band I've seen 10 times live. I've hung out and been drunk with these gents before, great band. Tokyo Police Club also guy put out an EP "Melon Collie and The Infinite Radness Part 1" it's basically Canadian indie pop. It has a few solid tracks also worth checking out.
I'm very thrilled for the rest of this year, a lot of life changing decision are on their way. I'm pumped to be living it.
Thank you for reading!
Follow me at @jameslanee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb0ex7oSGho
This month I got to see Tokyo Police Club in DC and Beirut in Baltimore live. I met both vocalist after the show, it was incredible. I got to see Dan Deacon, Robert DeLong, and Dj Jazzy Jeff at Light City as well.
I'm very keen with the new music that's came out this month. The Last Shadow Puppets released their second album "Everything You've Come To Expect". I highly recommend checking it out. I've been waiting 8 years for a follow up album since their debut album in 2008. We Are Scientists "Heltzer Seltzer" a band I've seen 10 times live. I've hung out and been drunk with these gents before, great band. Tokyo Police Club also guy put out an EP "Melon Collie and The Infinite Radness Part 1" it's basically Canadian indie pop. It has a few solid tracks also worth checking out.
I'm very thrilled for the rest of this year, a lot of life changing decision are on their way. I'm pumped to be living it.
Thank you for reading!
Follow me at @jameslanee
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