Alan Dumas..a Rocky Mountain Memory

Sometimes I think when a person comes to our minds who's no longer with us,it's that person's way of checking in with those of us left behind.

Alan Dumas checked in with me today.

For those of you who didn't live in Denver Colorado in the 1980's and 90's ,Alan Dumas was a writer and DJ who graced the Denver scene till his sudden and untimely death in 1999.

I first knew Alan as a voice as he was one of those who "Rocked the Rockies" on KBPI which then was on 105.9 FM.( It's since moved) but I got to know Alan through a couple of the more notable events in my life.

The first occurred in 1987 while Alan was a writer for Westword, a Denver Alternative Weekly.
After an evening of beer and pizza at Beaujos on Colfax Avenue with my buddy Doug Anderson..well to be honest,I drank all the beer,the campaigns for Mayor of Denver and Election Commissioner respectably were launched. Though it was a non-partisan race,Doug and I were endorsed by the Libertarian Party. Westword wrote one of the first comprehensive articles about the race for Mayor. In that piece,something to this effect was written..David Daniels,Libertarian is also in the race,he is the first of the "fringe" candidates to declare.. I wrote Westword thanking them for placing me in that category,noting all the ideas considered mainstream that had its start in the fringes.
Later I got a phone call from Alan. He didn't write the piece,but called to state he liked my response to it. He then asked me if I planned on attending the first major debate. He told me he'd be there. I don't know whether Alan said something to the other writers at Westword or what,but starting from that first debate,where Westword reported that I stirred the crowd up,I got more coverage than any of the other "fringe candidates" that entered the race.I think Westword led the way in my race getting daily coverage in both Denver newspapers as well as Denver's tv stations.

I do know that according to John Ashton,a Westword writer at the time stated to me that Dumas put him up to offering me a joint prior a debate. For that gesture,when my buddy Doug won his Election Commissioner's race,thus becoming the first Libertarian elected in a major city,Alan got the scoop as to Doug's first words when I and a group of friends marched into the noted(???) Denver bar Shotgun Willie's where he was tending bar that night. For the record,those words were "You're shitting me?"

The next came in 1994 when I returned to Denver from Minneapolis to present my play Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh. Alan was now the theater writer for the now defunct Rocky Mountain News. He had me come to the Rocky's office for an interview prior to the play's premier. We talked a lot then about music and marijuana. Alan loved the Grateful Dead and connected to the play from the standpoint of the similarities between Deadhead and Reggae cultures. Dumas called Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh the "top cultural event" in his best of the Arts of 1994 column. To me personally,he described it as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show of Theater" in that audiences would return night after night,cheer and boo the various characters,dance to the reggae music in the play,and share joints with the actors in the play. He also knew about those not too fond of the play..like the cops. I never told Alan that real marijuana would be used in the play,but he sensed from the beginning that attending the play would be more akin to attending a reggae show,thus he wasn't surprised when he learned about police surrounding the theater and questioning me about marijuana usage at a presentation of the play on the campus of Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Though it was theater editor Jackie Campbell who was credited with the byline,it was Alan Dumas who reported to the Rocky Mountain News of the incident where police surrounded the Bug Theater in Denver and arrested 4 members of the audience.
There was also the night where due to a blizzard,a performance was cancelled. Alan called me to ask about the cancellation. "How many people did you have to turn away?" he asked. I told him "about 30". He then said to me,"You turned more people away than what the (downtown and major theater) Denver Center for Performing Arts had in attendance!" He seemed to be thrilled to tell me that.

The last time I saw Alan in person was at the coffeeshop at Alfalfa's (now Whole Foods) in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. It was shortly after Jerry Garcia's death,so we had to acknowledge that.

Thanks Alan for checking in today!