{"id":2446076,"date":"2019-07-07T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-08T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=309078"},"modified":"2019-07-07T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-08T03:00:00","slug":"book-addresses-aspens-scandalous-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/book-addresses-aspens-scandalous-side\/","title":{"rendered":"Book addresses Aspen\u2019s scandalous side"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For all of Aspen\u2019s glorious views and charming appeal, there\u2019s also its sinister and seedy side that journalist and author Jay Cowan tells about in a recently released book.<\/p>\n

Cowan, a former editor in chief of Aspen Sojourner, uses his work as a journalist and writer over the years to chronicle the town\u2019s history through the lens of scandal.<\/p>\n

A resident of Old Snowmass, Cowan, 66, had plenty of material to draw inspiration for \u201cScandal Aspen,\u201d a book he shopped around to various publishers but was met with denial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said it was too regional,\u201d Cowan said last week from Montana.<\/p>\n

Cowan then turned to Amazon, where his self-published book debuted June 1.<\/p>\n

The stories will certainly resonate with those who have followed Aspen news over the years, or studied its history dating back to when it settled in 1879 as Ute City.<\/p>\n

\u201cScandal Aspen\u201d also frames Aspen\u2019s seedy side in a historical context, starting with its former version of a rough-and-tumble mining town in the 1880s, when it boasted brothels, saloons, opium dens and other unsavory venues.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor anyone alarmed at the numbers of marijuana dispensaries in the valley today, Aspen in the 1880s would have seemed like a back alley in Babylon,\u201d Cowan wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cScandal Aspen\u201d tackles Aspen\u2019s more recent sensational events that elicited tabloid headlines \u2014 including the domestic violence arrest of Charlie Sheen<\/a> on Christmas Day 2009 and the February 2014 murder of Aspen native and socialite Nancy Pfister.<\/p>\n

The Pfister murder, Cowan notes in \u201cScandal Aspen,\u201d hit home with many residents, even those who were here for Ted Bundy\u2019s escape from a law library in the Pitkin County Courthouse in 1977, or the car-bombing death of cocaine dealer Steve Grabow at the Aspen Club in 1985, or when Jim Blanning threatened to blow up downtown\u2019s banks on New Year\u2019s Eve 2008.<\/p>\n

Bundy would end up getting caught before he went on his Florida rampage and was ultimately put to death, while Blanning killed himself on the morning of Jan. 1, 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a community level, we had lost another good person and advocate even if some people didn\u2019t recognize that,\u201d Cowan wrote of Pfister. \u201cAnd it seemed to signal the final end of that safety and security we always had growing up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book also examines the July 2006 death of embattled Enron exec at one of his Aspen area homes, as well as actor Don Johnson\u2019s local legal issues, and one of the biggest tabloid stories to ever hit Aspen \u2014 the March 1976 murder of ski racer Spider Sabich.<\/p>\n

A chapter devoted to cyclist Lance Armstrong relates the time the mother of his two children took the blame for a hit-and-run in the West End neighborhood when Armstrong was actually allegedly behind the wheel.<\/a> Armstrong, along with gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who once lived in Woody Creek, \u201cwere two of Aspen\u2019s most famous drug users and seem to stand as symbols of their eras and Aspen\u2019s challenging times,\u201d the book says.<\/p>\n

Aside from Aspen\u2019s debauchery and decadence and permissive culture toward drug use, the town also has been the site for international events of import \u2014 say, for instance, the decision by the U.S. to go to war in Iraq in August 1990.<\/p>\n

Known as the Woody Creek Summit, President George H.W. Bush, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Henry Catto, who was the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, signed off on the first invasion of Iraq when they met at Catto\u2019s ranch in Woody Creek.<\/p>\n

No Aspen-area event surpasses that in terms of newsworthiness and significance, Cowan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an extremely tense situation,\u201d Cowan said, his book noting the visit was exacerbated by writer Thompson\u2019s residence\u2019s close proximity to the Catto property \u2014 the Secret Service frowned on that \u2014 and other only-in-Aspen concerns.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s adulterous visit to Aspen also gets the book\u2019s attention, as well as a host of other topics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Ivana Trump and Marla Maples encountered each other on Aspen Mountain during the Christmas holidays of 1990, the story went instantly around the world in at least three or four different versions. \u2026 What was known for sure is that both women were in Aspen with future president, Donald Trump, at the same time. And only Ivana was married to him. The rest of the details varied considerably.\u201d<\/p>\n

rcarroll@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For all of Aspen\u2019s glorious views and charming appeal, there\u2019s also its sinister and seedy side that journalist and author Jay Cowan tells about in a recently released book. Cowan, a former editor in chief of Aspen Sojourner, uses his work as a journalist and writer over the years to chronicle the town\u2019s history through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 00:25:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}