June 25- July 1, 2009
editorial@boulderweekly.com

A good woman is hard to find
Recently, two men from Omaha, Neb., visited our fair city and had an unpleasant encounter with a local business. In fact, the customer service was so egregious that the men were forced to call the authorities.

After checking into a Boulder hotel room, these two men — whose names have not been disclosed to the media — called a Denver-based escort company called Blonde Bombshells & Brunette Beauties. Apparently, the drive from Omaha was so stressful that both men decided to order “massages.” The ladies from BB&BB arrived with a large male associate and requested the Cornhuskers pay $200 in advance for their masseuse services.

This is where the story becomes concerning. Instead of providing massages, the young businesswomen and their bodyguard pepper-sprayed the shit out of these paying customers and drove away in unlicensed vehicles. How rude!

At this point, the two men decided to call the police. And rightly so. After all, when you request hookers from an escort service and pay good money for a handjob disguised as a “massage,” you expect to get what you pay for, right? Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when prostitutes were honest, well-mannered trannies who performed their duties with a smile and then left after placing a mint on your pillow? What is this world coming to?

But the real problem here is the effect on local businesses. If this incident gets out, we could loose all that Omaha tourism money, which is the backbone of the Boulder economy.

These are my Peeps
Currently, there is an extremely important legal battle being waged in Gunbarrel, Colo., which might alter America’s political infrastructure in drastic ways.

A 59-year-old resident named Carol Burdick at Meadow Creek Apartments claims she is being evicted because of her Easter decorations. As we all know, the First Amendment of the Constitution protects religious freedom for all American citizens. Therefore, this issue is extremely important.

According to her landlord, Burdick left her Easter decorations on her door 17 days past the holiday and ignored several requests to remove them. To protest this tyranny, Burdick allegedly decided to stop paying her rent. This is when management decided to kick her out.

According to the apartment’s management company, they are evicting Burdick because of her non-payment of rent, not because of her Easter decorations. But can we really believe that? Is this just an excuse to persecute Burdick for her religious practices? After all, what kind of decorations did she have on her door? A tasteful crucifix? A picture of Jesus rising from the dead?

Nope, she had Peeps.

Yeah, that’s right, those disgusting marshmallow thingies that look like inbred baby chickens. Apparently, Burdick constructed a pyramid of these colorful sugary candies on the front of her door for all the world to see.

Now, we’re all about freedom of expression here at Boulder Weekly, but c’mon. Not only are Peeps ugly, they also attract ants and opossums and candy-deprived Boulder children who have been raised on organic tofu. Please, just take the Peeps down, and next year buy a goddamn crucifix.

Blame the media
By now, most of the human race has watched U.S. President Barack Obama swat a fly and been impressed with his quick reflexes.

Many have heard that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued a statement in response — which, if true, would have been hilarious and great fodder for this column. Flies aren’t “animals,” insofar as we know. We’ve never heard of anyone wearing a coat made of fly fur. And although insects are definitely life forms in the Star Trek sense of the word, so is the E. coli bacterium. Swat away, as far as we’re concerned.

But it turns out that PETA only responded to requests by the media for a response.

“When the media began contacting us in droves for a statement, we obliged, simply by saying that the president isn’t the Buddha and shouldn’t be expected to do everything right — if not for that, we would not have brought it up. It’s the media who are making a big deal about the fly swat — not PETA,” the animal-rights nonprofit said in a statement.

PETA, taking advantage of the media attention, made a point of suggesting other ways to deal with annoying insects that doesn’t involve harming them.

So the story was really a non-story, concocted by a handful of reporters looking to make a few seconds of video into national news at PETA’s expense. And we’re bummed about that because if PETA had come out on its own condemning the heartless murder of the fly, we’d have made fun of PETA, too.

It’s not that we don’t respect PETA. We do. We support many of the nonprofit’s goals. It’s just that they’re prone to occasional extremes that make for lots of newsroom laughter. Sadly, that wasn’t the case this time.