Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I ride it. I am Mr. Aspen! At least according to the Aspen Times Best of 2022 competition. Some — including Lo Semple with her two pairs of underwear tucked under her snow pants — might disagree. They’re probably right and should sue the newspaper.
I haven’t been this excited since they crowned me Mr. May for the 1984 University of San Diego Men’s Calendar. At the time, I played it cool. I learned from this mistake. I know I’m not cool enough for this honor, so I’ll be honest instead: I’m thrilled!
This could have happened in several ways. The first is that I fell on a rotten layer of journalistic snow, setting off an avalanche of community shock that rocked a stalwart of that community, The Aspen Times, from its 140-year-old foundation in town. I wrote a column against a Russian billionaire – he was born in the Soviet Union and renounced his citizenship, but he still made his fortune in Russia – which was boosted because at the same time the billionaire owners absent from the newspaper were secretly supporting the same guy, who was suing them for writing articles (and reports) about him.
This debacle triggered adjacent lava flows of recent changes accumulating in Aspen, so we finally saw the carnage piled in a heavy heap on the valley floor. The citizens were amazed. I left the paper to protest the ruthless and senseless firing by the owners of one-day editor Andrew Travers after he published three enriched columns and a series of explanatory emails that initially formed the fault line. With this bad decision, they find themselves buried in a thick crust of community ice.
I fully understand that I could be Mr. Aspen in a retaliatory vote. It’s not so much for me as it is against arrogance, billionaires and Airbnb (aka The Man).
I thank Wendle Whiting, my fellow columnist at the Aspen Daily News, for probing the debris and making my name known amid allegations against the Times of burying selected votes and an entire category in the preliminary phase of their own competition.
On the other hand, this title could have come about by sheer luck, with me blindly laying two fingers directly on the pulse of this community over the past year. Good fortune smiled as I drooled in a vial at the airport parking lot COVID testing site in February. The woman who patiently administered it thanked me for some recent chronicles and encouraged me to, “Please continue to pay attention to the locals.
It marked the spirits. It was as if I had been entrusted with a good and honorable goal to pursue, a rarity in the field of column writing.
I spoke with peers. They miss old Aspen. But they were explaining it by thinking something like, “It’s probably just me getting older.” I wrote that they weren’t too old to remember why they made this place their home.
I listened to people who work. They lamented working harder, commuting longer, and feeling less appreciated than ever. Then they too would cancel their own feelings by saying something like, “Ah, I’m just exhausted. I wrote that they weren’t too tired to see the truth.
Perhaps most instructive is that I skied with a lot of young (and patient) kids last winter. They despair of the impossible dream of ever putting down roots in Aspen. And they, too, would backtrack: “But I know Aspen has always been expensive.” And I wrote that they weren’t too young to see that the math didn’t work anymore and I confirmed that there were fewer couches to crash on until something else appears.
Perhaps all people needed to hear is that their concerns about Aspen’s direction are legitimate. They may be reassured to read that it is not an evil, lonely thought that the community they fell in love with is on life support. It was perhaps encouraging to hear that we are all in the same boat.
I put it all together in a column called “Aspen Sucks” in March. The locals got it right away. Most visitors and developers probably never will. This is the time in my six decades of life here when I have felt most fully connected to this community. If you’re the poetic type, call it magic.
Maybe that’s why people voted for me. Amid a haze of delusion and ego, I hope it was. Anyway, if this title of Mr. Aspen came to me as a joke, I will laugh at my expense. It’s cheaper than buying yourself a beer almost anywhere in town. If it were to appreciate the meaningful connections we’ve made over the past year, I sincerely thank you. Even for Aspen, it’s been just crazy, the same as ever. I love it – and so do you!
Roger Marolt doesn’t care if you call him Mr. Aspen or Mr. May, but don’t call it a powder day. [email protected]
Comments are closed.