In a doubles interview in Parade magazine, tennis star Chris Evert tells how everything changed when she came to visit Martina Navratilova in Aspen: "When my first marriage was ending, I was kind of down, and Martina said, 'Come on up to Aspen' and taught me how to ski. We would ski from 9 to 2, play tennis for two hours, then be in the gym for two hours—and she showed me what she was doing with weights. We did this for a week. Not many people who are No. 1 and No. 2 competitors would do that.... [Andy Mill] was so cute. He woke up and said, 'I can’t believe I slept with Chris Evert in Martina Navratilova’s bedroom!' Martina was responsible for me meeting him, and he and I had a great 20 years, so I feel like I’m not a total failure in life!"
"She was on her way to making history," writes blogger Jamie Lynn Miller, "yet, she kept her progress relatively under the radar. Throughout the project, she proceeded with quiet determination and a reverence and humility for the project..."
"The hotness of Sarah Palin has not gone unremarked," blogs the Con Man, "nor should it any more than John F. Kennedy’s so-called “charisma.” Sex appeal is a huge bonus for a political candidate regardless of their 'capacities,' to quote the late Al Campanis, and speculation about Sarah Palin’s bodyparts will continue as long as the half-time Governor of Alaska continues to sling for the fences.... For me, it comes down to this: if she weren’t such a puppet and a parrot—if it were possible for her to have an original idea in her head—then she would be red-hot regardless of age, state, or circumstance. She’s smart enough, but the problem is she keeps opening her mouth and nothing worth knowing ever comes out. Talking points are not sexy. Repeating your political mantras on cue is a bore. Not even Elliot Spitzer could spend five minutes in a room with Sarah Palin without running from the room like a loon."
The hotness of Sarah Palin has not gone unremarked nor should it any more than John F. Kennedy’s so-called “charisma.” Sex appeal is a huge bonus for a political candidate regardless of their “capacities,” to quote the late Al Campanis, and speculation about Sarah Palin’s bodyparts will continue as long as the half-time Governor of Alaska continues to sling for the fences.
Continue Reading Add comment July 28th, 2010
This past Saturday signified the 18th anniversary of the pivotal moment when my life forever changed. Eighteen years ago a freak somersault on Snowmass Ski Area shattered four vertebra splintering bone fragments into my spinal cord and robbing me of the use of my legs. It is almost as if eighteen years ago I took my last breath in one realm as I transitioned into a different body—an ethereal body intertwined with my physical self. My angels looked over me as I settled into a form that felt still, incomplete, imprisoned, and half of the woman that I used to be. Yet as I lay immobile in starched white hospital linens, and while my heart grieved for the loss of my legs, my spirit somehow rose to the occasion, determined to be undefeated and to soar in the imaginings of my mind. I believed in possibility then…and eighteen years later I still believe. A divine light has protected and guided me along my path and in turn I’ve allowed my light to shine from within. While I still have unfulfilled dreams and aspirations, I am the woman I am today because of this journey. I refuse to allow myself to be paralyzed in my mind but to seize my inner strength, endurance and resilience to overcome. I will never give up in pursuit of quality of life. I accept where I’m at right here, right now…and with gratitude in my deepest self, I live with hope for what the colors of a new dawn shall bring tomorrow.
Continue Reading Add comment March 6th, 2010
Aspen, Colo, Pathfinders, a comprehensive psychosocial program for cancer patients and those suffering from life-threatening illnesses, is highlighted in the new documentary Pathfinders: What Love Is.
Continue Reading Add comment February 7th, 2010
Click to see all the video from the series on VH1.... then tell us what you think....
2 comments January 6th, 2010
I can't help but share this Christmas Eve communique from Elizabeth Milias's Denver lawyer. I can only imagine that Elizabeth, a former Pentagon spokesperson, insisted that the word should go out on the eve of Christ's birth that she has been wronged by the heathens.
Enjoy....
Continue Reading Add comment January 3rd, 2010
In my family, when we read about somebody crashing a dinner at the White House, we know how it’s done because our Mom already did it.
Continue Reading Add comment December 1st, 2009
By Frosty WooldridgePart 3: Freedom to breed
As I reported in an earlier column, 46 million women abort their babies annually worldwide. In the U.S., the number falls to 1.2 million annually. Why a much less number? American females practice birth control, so much so, they average 2.03 children per woman.
You may debate the morality or immorality of 46 million abortions, but if you live in America, you may not possess a clue as to the circumstances of their choices. It’s easy to ride the high moral ground when you’re not living in the filthy cesspool of misery inhabited by several billion humans on planet earth.
Continue Reading Add comment June 8th, 2009
Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, has signed a law which "legalises" rape, women's groups and the United Nations say. President Karzai helped rush the bill through parliament to appease Islamic fundamentalists in his hope to win the August election.
Continue Reading Add comment March 31st, 2009
There aren’t many times when I miss Woody Creek, or Colorado for that matter. But the times I do wish I was there happen in the fall when the leaves are dropping from the trees, flying through the air and covering the back roads to Maroon Bells or Ashcroft. 
A very peaceful feeling comes over me when I am the only driver on an orange and golden pathway that flares up behind me in my rear view mirror. It’s almost magical.
Then there is Christmas in the Rockies. For 22 years, there has been no other song that meant more to me at this time of year than “Colorado Christmas.” It was written by the late Steve Goodman and made popular by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s recording, with Emmylou Harris adding her touch to the background vocals. The song was the perfect soundtrack of my life back in 1986.
I was living with my husband in Southern California, impatiently waiting for the summer of 1987, when we could move to our new home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Our property awaited us for the log home we were planning to build. Our neighbors in Steamboat, who owned the property below us, were former co-workers of mine. They both left that hell known as Southern California two years prior and were living the life ‘happily ever after’ in Colorado. I could hardly wait to make the move.
My friends in Steamboat sent us a very personal Christmas present. They knew exactly how I felt, trapped in California, longing so much to be in the mountains. They knew what it felt like to wait, counting down the months and days, the way a prisoner chalks off the days until his release.
This present was wrapped in blue paper with white snowflakes designed to scatter across the paper. It was a small package; about the size of a cassette tape. I learned something new about my friends that Christmas. Music meant almost as much to them as it does to me. What they had chosen as their gift to us was a homemade bootleg tape of their favorite “Colorado” songs. I popped the tape into my stereo tape deck and those first few guitar chords of “Colorado Christmas” began to play. I had never heard the song before, but I knew right away it was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; the lead voice was unmistakable.
“Lookin' out the window of this Hollywood hotel
You'd never know that it was Christmas Eve
The billboards and the neon took the place of silver bells
And the temperature is eighty-four degrees.”
Oh, how true that was! I hated California. I hated the crowds. I hated the traffic. I hated the weather. I hated the smog. I hated everything about living in Southern California. I had no Christmas spirit.
“But all along the Rockies you can feel it in the air
From Telluride to Boulder down below
The closest thing to Heaven on this planet anywhere
Is a quiet Christmas morning in the Colorado snow.”
This verse did me in. Tears ran down my face and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop them. It was Christmas morning in Burbank, California and I wanted to be in Steamboat. I wanted my mountains, the snow, the pine trees and aspens. I wanted my Colorado and there were no airline tickets under my Christmas tree that morning.
“But now the sun is setting in the California sky
And I can't find the spirit anywhere
So I think it's time for me to tell Los Angeles goodbye
I'm going back home to look for Christmas there.”
The song became my anthem for the next seven months. I played it for everyone who would listen. I recited the lyrics to people who wanted to know if I would miss California at all.
Since that Christmas Day in 1986, that song was my favorite, with more special and personal meaning to me than anyone I knew could understand. I wish I could have met Steve Goodman to thank him and tell him what a profound song he had written. Maybe I should have told the guys in Nitty Gritty, but I never did.
I haven’t been able to listen to the song for three years now, for more reasons than can or should ever be explained in a blog. I no longer have a favorite Christmas song. I might be too old to even need one now.
Even though I do have a few occasional days of snow here on the Oregon Coast, my snowmen are made of sand now. My sandman holds a surfboard instead of a snow shovel. He wears a grass skirt and sunglasses.
Tonight I will be on a boat decorated from bow to stern with Christmas lights. We will form a parade in Yaquina Bay after dark. I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
While I have no regrets of leaving, there are still times when I miss Woody Creek, and Colorado in general. I’m glad they only happen a few days out of the 365 each year. I can happily live with that.
8 comments December 6th, 2008
I used to think nothing Marilyn Marks could do would ever shock because I know her and her kind so well.
But Marilyn Marks shocked me today to the bone when I learned she has been contacting our Aspen Post bloggers—and spreading the rumor to at least one blogger that my engagement was in trouble because of the “stress” of working with Post Time News to do stories for Factual Aspen Investigative Reporting (FAIR).
At long last, Marilyn, have you no decency? Is there nothing to which you won’t stoop?
Continue Reading Add comment November 17th, 2008
