Another Fond Farewell

I was honored with another tribute at the end of my high school career, this one for The Villager, where I've written a weekly column for three years.

Villager columnist Mike [Michael] Mazenko is moving on. “The time just seems right,” he told us.

Julie and Mike Mazenko came to Colorado in 2003 for an opportunity to teach at a high school he was told would be a great fit. Former Cherry Creek High School Principal Kathleen Smith agreed. That began a 21-year career that included shaping the academic future of over 2,000 young people, including several whose last name is Miklin, as a teacher and administrator in a school he wrote about in his last regular column for The Villager that appeared on page three on March 28. He called it, “The Creek Mystique.” It included some great success stories of Creek alumni.

In addition to the attraction of teaching in a high school where kids were eager to learn and had families who supported that goal, the Mazenkos fell in love with Greenwood Village as a place to raise a family. Now that Austin and Chloe, Julie and Mike’s offspring, are attending college in New York and Washington DC, that mission has been accomplished. Chloe is still in her undergraduate years at American University and Austin will be pursuing a Ph.D. in math at New York University. Neither is likely to be back in Colorado soon. Like all parents, the Mazenkos want to be near their children.

Read the rest of the story ...

New Music Venue Lot 46 Opens in Old Edgewater Inn

A new spot for live music is opening in Edgewater. I did a sneak peak preview for Westword:

What's old is new again in Edgewater with the arrival of Lot 46 Music Bar at the Edgewater Inn.Lot 46 comes to the neighborhood courtesy of longtime Denver entrepreneurs and music venue owners Niya and Grant Gingerich. The couple established the popular Local 46 music venue and beer garden in 2012 after taking over the Music Bar, which had been an anchor at 46th and Tennyson for decades. Niya and Grant seem destined to provide live local music to a close-knit community in the spirit of the classic public house. As Niya always tells friends and neighbors, “I want this to be the locals' spot, the home away from home.”

The Berkeley neighborhood was reeling two years ago when real estate development closed Local 46, a beloved music venue and watering hole. Niya and Grant quickly found a new location, buying the historic Edgewater Inn, a 75-year-old pizza institution founded by Denver legend Ben DiPietro. “I grew up going there for pizza,” Niya reflects. After purchasing the Edgewater, it wasn’t long before she was itching to expand and provide local music again.

Conventional business wisdom is to find a niche and not try to be everything. But that never really sat well with Niya. “I want to be the place where there’s something for everyone,” she says. That idea reflects a sociological concept known as a community’s third place: After home and work, there’s the gathering place, often the pub or local watering hole, and any place Niya runs will inevitably showcase live local music.

... Read the rest of the story in Westword ...

FoCoMX 2024 - Day 1

From Michael Kirkpatrick on the patio at Equinox Brewing to the indie rock of Menyuska at Moe’s BBQ to the Dave Beegle Duo at the Visit Fort Collins sitting room to 10 Cent Stranger and Alex Dunn at Equinox to Soy Celeste at The Art Lab to Pep Squad and Bleak Mystique on the rooftop bar of Illegal Pete’s to the groovy sound of Slow Caves at Wolverine Farm Publick House to the incredible sounds of Violet Pilot on the Old Town Square to a raucous set from Horsebitch at The Aggie …, our minds have been properly blown on the first day of FoCoMX 2024 in the heart of downtown Fort Collins.

Looking back on 21 years

I was so honored to be featured in Cherry Creek's award-winning student newspaper, The Union Street Journal. As I bid farewell to a place I've called home for twenty-one years, one student asked if I would be open to story on my career there. Of course, what a wonderful send-off.

When Michael Mazenko started teaching English 31 years ago, the top charting song was “Whoomp (There It Is)” by Tag Team. The NBA champion was the Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan. The NFL champion was the Dallas Cowboys led by quarterback Troy Aikman. Now, after a career of classroom teaching, admin work, guest writing, and mentoring students, he plans to retire at the end of this school year.

“It’s definitely melancholy, but I also know it’s time to move on. It’s time for me to go to the next place on my journey,” Mazenko said.

Mazenko has filled many roles in his time at Creek, and his impact has spread far beyond his English classes. As an administrator for eight years, he helped with planning events like speaker assemblies and hosting the talent show.

“Working with Dr. Keogh on graduation for eight years was just one of the true joys of my experience here because our graduation is so special. I loved working with the performers,” Mazenko said.

Read the rest of the story at The Union Street Journal

FoCoMX: The Biggest Little Music Festival in America

Loved writing about this event for Westword, and I can't wait to embrace the indie music scene in Fort Collins at FoCoMX:

Every year in downtown Fort Collins on a weekend in late April, “the streets are alive with the sounds of local music.” That charming assessment comes from Greta Cornett of the Fort Collins Musicians Association (FoCoMA) as she excitedly discusses FoCoMX.

Started “for musicians by musicians,” according to Cornett, FoCoMX is a locally organized event from the Fort Collins Musicians Association (FoCoMA); this weekend will mark its sixteenth iteration, on Friday, April 19, and Saturday, April 20. Growing out of the nonprofit’s FoCoMA Peer Awards, the event began in 2009 as a DIY showcase for local talent, complete with handmade tickets. The first year included four locations with four bands in each spot, but it's now expanded to nearly 350 acts across 35 to 40 venues.

The festival is a well-oiled machine that keeps its small-town vibe by being volunteer-driven, and is, Cornett notes, “intentionally inclusive of all genres and musicians." While the festival originally focused on Fort Collins artists, planners later opened lineups to all of Colorado. "The best way to build our scene is to share our scene," Cornett says. "We want to showcase Colorado music.”

Read the rest of the story at Westword.com

Thinking About What Comes Next

Even though I’ve been teaching English for three decades, I still tell people that when I grow up, I want to be David Brooks of the New York Times, or an essayist like Chuck Klosterman or Dave Hickey, or perhaps an author like Geoff Dyer or even Michael Lewis. In reality, I am first and foremost a writer with a talent for sharing information, ideas, and insights via the written word. Now, as I wrap up a cherished career in public education, I am pondering the life of a writer.

I’ve been freelance writing for many years, serving as a Colorado Voices columnist for the Denver Post, and for three years I've written an education-focused column called “Unpacking the Backpack” for The Villager, a small suburban newspaper. As a commentary writer, my beat has been "education, parenting, politics, pop culture, and contemporary American life." A common theme of my writing is issues in public education, such as advocating for reforms on career and technical education. Additionally, I've been an enthusiastic advocate for gifted education, and I've spoken on numerous panels at state and national gifted education conferences. I am an education policy geek who has testified several times before the Colorado Senate Education Committee, and I’ve presented to both district and state boards of education. As a lifelong educator and writer whose mom was an editor and feature writer, the worlds of education and journalism are embedded in my DNA. I am a writer with vast experience in public education, and I am an experienced educator who can write insightful, informative articles about schools.

For several years I have also been writing about music, arts, and culture in the Denver area, specifically arts pieces for 303 Magazine and music writing for Westword. That interest and focus grew out of my writing on the people and culture of schools. My articles have sung the praises of high school mathletes, praised the brilliance of speech and debate competitions, reviewed high school productions such as musicals and jazz concerts, and profiled cultural events like our school’s Ethnic Fest and the district poetry slam. Creative non-fiction, including personal narrative, social commentary, and pop culture criticism, is my jam. My writing and research style has developed over the years as a sort of Robert Fulghum-esque, David Brooks-ian, Malcolm Gladwell-like stew of intellectual pondering with an accessible bit of pop culture philosophizing.

Cheap Perfume Takes Colorado Fem-Core on the Road

Cheap Perfume, a Denver riot grrrl punk band, blew me away the first time I saw their live show. Now, they're heading out on tour, and I got the chance to talk to them about the trip:

As anyone in Denver’s punk scene knows, a Cheap Perfume show is a sonic blast of guitar chords, big drums, quick and heavy bass, and scathingly sharp yet sardonically poetic messages of social justice and empowerment. It’s also a helluva lot of fun. That’s the appeal of a band that is, as it calls itself, “fun, foul-mouthed and unapologetic.” 

Now fans outside of Colorado will get the chance to experience Cheap Perfume’s sound and attitude as the band embarks on its first-ever tour this month. The self-described "fem-core punk" group will join the Atlanta-based rockers of Sarah and the Safe Word (SASW) for a West Coast run starting on April 24 at the Nile Underground in Mesa, Arizona. Then Cheap Perfume will be back to its Denver stamping grounds on Sunday, May 5, for a victory lap at the hi-dive.

...

Read the rest of the story on Westword.

Denver Band Broken Record Takes Its "Stadium Emo" Sound to the East Coast

A new piece on the Denver indie scene for Westword:

If you don’t yet know what “Denver Stadium Emo” is, then you need to check out Denver’s own Broken Record, a mainstay on the Denver scene since late 2017 that just won a 2024 Best of Denver award.
“Our good friend Jay came up with that description,” laughs Lauren Beecher, lead singer and guitarist for the band. “We’re obviously an emo band, but we’re also not afraid to make our songs sound big, or to add a grander rock element.”

That approach has built a trusted fan base in Denver, and, despite the band mostly playing clubs, the term came to fruition in December when Broken Record’s “See It Through” filled Ball Arena during an Avs game.

Broken Record's sound is distinct, but its ’90s threads are clear with the deep post-punk, indie-rock and emo vibe that marked the decade. While Jimmy Eat World is “obviously a huge influence,” Beecher’s soulful lyrics and crisp melodies amid post-punk power-pop guitar chords hint at Gin Blossoms, too. “I basically learned to read off the lyrics book of New Miserable Experience while riding in the car with my mom,” Beecher adds. The jangly guitar and lyrical storytelling defined that pivotal Gin Blossoms album, which Rolling Stone described as “marrying world-weary lyrics with ebullient melodies.” Similar emotion comes through on Broken Record’s second LP, Nothing Moves Me, released last August on Really Rad Records and listed in UPROXX’s best emo albums of 2023.

.... Read the rest of the article and watch the band's new video

The Creek Mystique

My college-age kids have thrived not just from their natural abilities and parental love and support but because of a special place called Cherry Creek High School. My wife and I moved to Colorado twenty-one years ago specifically so I could teach at Creek, a school filled with opportunities for every way that kids manifest their individual gifts. I’ve served numerous roles at Cherry Creek, including administrator and GT Coordinator, and I can’t imagine a better place to work and send our kids.

For years, my office was the contact point for prospective Creek families. In meetings I always told parents and future students, “Every kid can find their niche at Cherry Creek, because we have every niche.” For example, when my son was a freshman, a group of his friends went into the Activities Office and asked “when does the Dungeon & Dragons Club meet?” We didn’t even know D&D had become popular again, and that first year just seven kids met weekly in the Activities workroom. The club has grown to 120-plus kids, and on Friday afternoons, the IC Lounge is packed with raucous game playing

Sometimes Creek is a place where kids discover who they are, and it might not be who they thought they were. Last year at graduation, Ben Parris spoke passionately, humorously, and self-deprecatingly about how he came to Creek ready to become a championship golfer. During freshman year he realized, with some blunt advice from his coach, that he wouldn’t make the cut. From that setback Ben found his home among our Emmy-winning sports broadcasting program. Ben is now thriving on the air at ASU, and while Ben will never play in the Masters or US Open, I won’t be surprised to someday hear him broadcasting the events for ESPN.

Years ago a young man named Frank Swann came into our fine arts program as a freshman and started working in the sound booth. After studying technical theater at NYU, he went on to become Production Manager for a new Broadway show called Hamilton. Another gifted Creek grad from the music program, Austin Wintory, won a Grammy award for his musical score of the video game Journey. Jesse Aaronson, a 2014 grad, just finished his first Broadway role in Tom Stoppard’s Tony-Award-winning play Leopoldstadt. You see, Cherry Creek is where ideas are hatched, passions are discovered, talents are cultivated, and dreams come true.

Of course, not everyone will or should become an award-winning this or that. Everyone should, however, become the best version of themselves. That happens everyday at Cherry Creek. Students go on to become successful engineers, accountants, dentists, community organizers, and teachers. Rebekah Lee was a gifted language student who was awarded our Future Teacher Scholarship. She then came back to student teach at Creek, and we hired her because we don’t let go of talent when it wants to come home.

And many Bruins do. Dozens of alums work there, like Matt Weiss, a Teacher of the Year and founder of our award-winning broadcasting crew. Assistant Principal Dr. Keogh was a Meistersinger during her years at Creek. This year at the winter concert, I had the joy of seeing her go on stage and sing with her daughter Maddie who is now a Meistersinger and talented dancer with our state championship Poms team.

The basic description of Creek is a comprehensive public high school, a neighborhood school. And you might think, they’re not a performing arts school. Then you go to plays, musicals, and choir, band, or orchestra concerts and you realize, we kinda are. You might think, they’re not an elite sports academy. Then you walk down trophy hall, and realize, we kinda are. You could say, they’re not a STEM magnet. Then you see our robotics program, math team, cybersecurity club, independent science research, and national science fair achievers, and you realize, we kinda are.

It has been an honor, a privilege, and a joy to work at and send our kids to Cherry Creek. After thirty-one years in education and two decades under the Creek Mystique, it’s now time for me to move on. I moved to Greenwood Village for Cherry Creek, and it has been everything I hoped for and more. It’s always bittersweet to walk away, but I will forever look back with fond memories, and like we say, “Once a Bruin, Always a Bruin.”

Can You See Yourself?

If we know any person well in this world, it should be ourselves. I’m sure that after fifty-four years on this planet, I should have a pretty good idea of who I am, what I believe, and how I want to live. Yet, in looking back over my life, I realize that a complete lack of self awareness has been my most obvious trait. Interestingly, that’s not an uncommon characteristic in the contemporary age.

In the first act of Shakespeare’s “The Tragedy of Julius Caesar,” the lead conspirator Cassius speaks to Marcus Brutus, trying to convince him to join the plan to assassinate Caesar. As the two men cautiously measure their words, feeling out the other’s inclinations, Cassius asks “Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?” It’s a rather poetic way of suggesting Brutus might not acknowledge who he really is and what he really thinks, especially in regards Caesar’s growing threat to the republic Brutus so dearly loves. In theater the heart of tragedy is often when a character comes face-to-face with his true identity, which can be inspiring or crushing.

The challenge to know and acknowledge our true identity is at the heart of all existential questions about the meaning of life and individual lives. Often our true identity is more clear to others than to ourselves. For much of my life, other people have held up a mirror to my face and subtly or bluntly showed me who I am. Similar to Cassius clarifying to Brutus his vexations, friends have basically said, “Since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself that of yourself which you yet know not of.”

For example, I went to college to be a history teacher, never knowing my true passion was the art of language and the teaching of writing. I used to meet friends outside the English building where they took a poetry class together. We’d play hacky sack and frisbee and listen to John play guitar. “You should take this poetry class,” they told me. “You’d like it.” Though I initially scoffed, I eventually took the class and another from the same professor.

The following semester over beers one night, my roommates said, “You talk about your English classes all the time, but you never mention your history classes. Why aren’t you an English major?” I stared at them dumbfounded, then changed my major the next day. Like many English teachers, I spent my early years as an aspiring novelist, to no avail. Fortunately, I later found success in the nonfiction world, which has produced the bulk of my writing. It took my friend Daniel saying, “You know, you have a lot of success publishing nonfiction, yet you always write fiction. Why do you think you’re a novelist?”

Even my wife pointed out to me in our late twenties that I actually did want to get married and have kids. It wasn’t that she wanted something I didn’t. She just wasn’t going to waste time in a relationship that didn’t have common goals. As it turns out, we are each other’s one and only, and our family has been my greatest blessing. Amusingly, our friends in college knew we’d become a couple long before it occurred to us – they asked to be invited to our wedding long before we ever dated. Self awareness can be elusive.

Often people identify themselves by their jobs, though it’s a weak substitute for identity. What we do is not who we are, and the distinction between action and identity is a tricky one. In a world where work hours are less defined by the punching of a clock, the notion of identity linked to jobs is increasingly complicated. I often ask the kids in my class, “Are you a student?” While they think they spend most of their time in school, the reality is that that school is, in many ways, a small part of who they are.

In numerology, 2024 is an “eight year,” meaning the numbers add up to eight. Eight years are years to “take action” and become who you really are. This year may be the time to finally get up and on to whatever comes next in our lives. I still recall my dad saying, even in his fifties, “I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.” I know the feeling.

Gregg Deal Combines Punk and Indigenous Activism With New Band Dead Pioneers

So excited to write about this band for my first published piece in Westword:

With his new musical project, Dead Pioneers, Indigenous activist Gregg Deal wants to remind listeners that “We Were Punk First.” A nationally acclaimed visual artist and spoken-word performer, Deal recently filmed the band’s video for its single “Bad Indian” at Seventh Circle Music Collective, the DIY live-music space in west Denver. Following Dead Pioneers’ indie self-titled album release in September, the band performed at the Skylark in mid-January alongside Cheap Perfume and Elegant Everyone, and after just a few shows, Dead Pioneers is already generating serious local and national buzz.
“I accidentally started a band,” Deal says. Working with guitarist Josh Rivera and drummer Shane Zweygardt, friends from the local music and arts scene, Deal's original plan was to simply integrate punk riffs with his spoken word for his performance-art piece The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy. But he inadvertently became a songwriter through that experience, and took the first step toward forming a band in early 2021 after meeting Lee Tesch, lead guitarist for the American-English punk band Algiers during an artist residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida. While planning a poetry reading for the community, Deal and Tesch wound up in the studio and recorded a six-minute version of “Bad Indian.”

Back in Colorado, Deal shared that recording with Rivera and Zweygardt, and they quickly realized they might have something special. “As we tried to figure out next steps,” Deal says, “we got so caught up in it that I just started writing.” After raising enough money to bring everyone together in Fort Collins, Deal partnered with the Music District, which donated rehearsal space, and Dead Pioneers was born.

.... for the rest of the piece check out the story in Westword

Understanding Abstraction

Whenever someone looks at a piece of abstract art and says, “Well, I could have done that,” my immediate response is a blunt, direct “No, you couldn’t have.” I stand by that assertion despite bemused and annoyed counterarguments, and I explain that the primary reason they couldn’t have done it is quite simply because they didn’t do it. Art doesn’t happen by accident or without intentionality. Art, even seemingly chaotic pieces of abstract expressionism, is not just a disorganized collection of color and lines.

Sometimes people who look at abstract art dismissively deride it even more harshly by saying “my six-year-old kid could do that.” I respond with my same direct answer. “No, they couldn’t.” There’s a clear distinction between intentional pieces of abstract art and the whimsical play of a child. Abstract art is guided by concepts such as geometry, color theory, contrast, relationship, light, shade, and meaning. That concept of meaning is what often gives viewers pause. But, in fact, the movement is called abstract “expressionism” for a reason. The artist is most certainly expressing intentional meaning.

Numerous studies have confirmed how easy it is to tell the difference between high quality abstract art and a child’s scribblings or an amateur’s attempt to mimic it. Researchers will pair various pieces of professional art by trained experienced artists with the work of a child. When they share these art pairings with audiences with varying degrees of artistic knowledge and experience, there is little doubt about which is which. Time and again viewers can instinctively identify the high quality intentional pieces, and more than 80% of viewers can easily discern the professional art from others’ work.

I’m often bemused by people who criticize and dismiss a beautiful abstract color palette but then marvel at the abstract beauty of a sunset. Living in Colorado, a land of expansive overwhelming landscapes that truly inspire, I think of and appreciate abstract art the same way I marvel at the grandeur of a breathtaking sky. Those stunning displays of color, with swirls and blends are the spirit of abstraction. In fact, appreciating landscapes is a helpful avenue into understanding abstraction. When people gaze at a picturesque mountain valley or a breathtaking sunset or a grove of golden aspens, they are quite literally appreciating the beauty of abstract art and color theory.

Abstraction has a close connection in both art and literature with the concept of distortion. Writer Flannery O'Connor once said, “I am interested in making a good case for distortion, as I am coming to believe that it is the only way to make people see.” Distorting something to make people truly “see” it seems to be counter-intuitive, though one could argue that all literature distorts information in order to make the point clear. From exaggeration to understatement to stock characters, metaphors, and cliched endings, abstraction and distortion can make the truth plain to see.

Often that truth, that revelation, can only come from – in Flannery O'Connor's word – distortion. How often have we encountered characters who only truly exemplify a trait or an idea because the trait is so glaringly obvious? How often have we told “some stretchers,” as Huck claims Mr. Mark Twain did, in order to impact an audience and help them “see” what we mean? Distortion and abstraction are natural parts of our language and our thinking.

This concept of distortion is particularly interesting because the word has a negative connotation. Certainly, to exaggerate a detail is in some ways deceptive. It might even be dishonest. But if we shift away from the concept of “distorting” and instead focus on simply emphasizing, then the act seems almost necessary.

Artist John Kascht, whose caricatures of many iconic figures have become iconic themselves, explains that he is not distorting the figures he draws but instead magnifying their traits. Kascht’s works have been featured in the Smithsonian, and his video explanation of his craft as he draws Conan O'Brien is fascinating in its analysis of the concept of artistic distortion – or magnification, emphasis, exaggeration, even abstraction.

This concept of emphasizing an idea or subject beyond its obvious reality is integral to our understanding of art, especially movements like impressionism, cubism, and abstract expressionism. And whether it's the writing of Flannery O'Connor or the caricature art of John Kascht, whether it’s the literary genre of Romanticism or the philosophical concepts of postmodernism, the techniques of abstraction and distortion are integral to the beauty of art.