Boulder County is made of win
This year’s Best of Boulder™ was a record-setter, with more county residents casting their votes than ever before. That makes the results more fun — and the competition more fierce.
This year we not only had some new names in the winner’s bracket, but a few new brackets, too, like Best Chai Drink and Best Medical Marijuana Wellness Center. Just more proof that Boulder County is always evolving and growing, no pun intended. That doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten old favorites, like Best Music Venue and Best Sandwich, or that you guys have forgotten your old favorites, like Boulder Theater, McGuckin Hardware and Snarf’s, all winners again this year.
It would probably take even more than our 150 categories to completely capture the amazing range and quality of Boulder County’s outstanding restaurants, businesses, entertainment venues and cultural scenes, but we’ve definitely picked out the best of the best (with your help, of course). It’s no wonder that our little piece of prairie heaven ends up on lists like “Smartest U.S. Cities” and “Best Places to Live.”
Along with your picks, we’ve included some of our own “best of” winners, recognizing the ridiculous and the remarkable, from right here in Boulder to across the nation. The winners in these categories might not be too happy with their prize, but we think you’ll get a kick out of our take on the people, places and events that made this past year memorable.
From all of us at Boulder Weekly, we hope you enjoy this year’s edition of Best of Boulder™ and congratulations to all of the winners!
BEST EXCUSE TO GO SKIING
Swine flu
Just when we’d run out of
sick days, personal days and distant “dying” relatives, nature and the
cable news stations came together to give us one more air-tight excuse
to ditch work and hit the slopes: swine flu. With panic over a new
strain of super flu at a fevered pitch, most employers weren’t going to
hassle possible plague carriers into showing up for their shift. A few
sniffles on Wednesday, some hacking coughs on Thursday, and we got
Friday off with no questions asked — Monday, too, for those who could do
a good “sick voice” on the phone. And because hospitals encourage the
diseased to stay home and isolated, we didn’t even need a doctor’s note.
And for those who actually won the contagion lottery? Sorry, you missed
some great powder.
BEST
ACTRESS IN A CORPORATE ROLE
Mary Lee Chin
Last August, when Boulder
County’s Parks and Open Space Advisory Committee held a public hearing
about the possible introduction of genetically altered Roundup-ready
sugar beets on county open space land, someone came to the microphone
who was not what she seemed to be. Mary Lee Chin took the microphone and
told the commissioners how wonderfully nutritious and tasty genetically
modified foods are but failed to identify herself as a representative
of the biotech food industry. Chin, it turned out, was paid to
attend the meeting — and to speak in praise of GM foods — by the
Colorado Farm Bureau.
When confronted by Boulder Weekly, Chin said, “It
didn’t occur to me to [identify myself as a paid biotech shill]. I did
say I’m a strong advocate of biotechnology.”
Prior to playing this role, Chin made numerous
videos extolling the virtues of GM foods, at least some of which are
posted on Franken-food giant Monsanto’s website. Already a
multi-billion-dollar company, Monsanto stands to rake it in through the
sale of Roundup-ready crops, first when farmers buy the seeds, and then
when the farmers buy copious amounts of Roundup. Fortunately, the
commissioners were not swayed by Chin’s “I’m just a concerned citizen
with no hidden motive” routine. They tabled GM sugar beets, opting to
study the matter for a year before making a decision.
BEST EXAMPLE OF DIRTY
POLITICS
Katie Witt’s supporters
The Longmont City Council
election last fall was a lulu. Conservatives were slinging mud at
the liberals, and vice versa. But the Katie Witt-Karen Benker race
reached a new low for a small town trying to reconcile its rural,
conservative roots with the influx of Boulderites who can’t afford to
live in the People’s Republic. In this race, the conservative mud was
especially dirty, and it was bankrolled by an outside group with a
history of filthy political tactics and ties to campaign law violations.
Supporters of conservative Witt included Western Tradition Partnership
(WTP), a Montana group that had funded smear campaigns against liberal
candidates in the past. Part of the group’s money went toward pamphlets
calling Benker a liar, and part went to a “push poll” in which residents
were asked leading questions that implied she was guilty of
discrimination, among other things. WTP was also involved in a law suit
against the city that attempted to shield campaign contributions from
public view. The race put Longmont on the map as a prime battleground
for control of the 4th Congressional District — and as a key factor in
whether Colorado becomes a blue state or a red state. It also exposed
the fact that unseen forces are often at work in local elections that
have historically been sleepy. And it was a sad commentary on the depths
to which we’ve stooped in our political discourse as a country. We’d
much rather call the other side names than actually have intelligent
debate about the merits of any given issue.
BEST MISUSE OF POLICE RESOURCES
Boulder
cops’ visit to Mall Crawl organizers
Last fall, about a month before Halloween, two
local guys announced on Facebook that they were going to try to bring
back the Mall Crawl, that rite of debauchery that used to be held on
Pearl Street Mall every year on Oct. 31. But Boulder cops knocked on the
doors of the two would-be organizers and reportedly told them that if
they went ahead with their plans, they could face legal action and be
saddled with any cost the city incurs dealing with the event. The good
old ACLU jumped in and scolded the city for threatening the two
citizens, saying something about the right to assemble and those pesky
First, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Still, the
men backed off and changed the name of their Facebook group to “The
Artist Formerly Known as ‘Bring back the Boulder Mall Crawl!’” But the
point is this: don’t the police have better — and more important —
things to do? The year before, the cops ticketed about a dozen people
for putting pumpkins on their heads and frolicking naked across a city
block. That night, assailants punched a man and questioned his
patriotism because he was Asian American. A few blocks away, a woman was
assaulted and gang-raped while walking home, the first of a slew of
terrifying nighttime sexual assaults to happen in the following months.
When will Boulder police focus more on preventing assaults and rapes in
our neighborhoods and less on ticketing naked people and stopping
peaceful gatherings on Pearl Street Mall?
BEST DRESSED
Seth Brigham
This local gadfly
pulled the local stunt of the year when he showed up to a Boulder City
Council meeting in February and stripped down to his boxer
shorts. The move not only made a statement about the many ways to
exercise free-speech rights, but also about the asinine efforts of some
to clamp down on nudity in town, what with those crazy pumpkin streakers
and nude gardeners running amok. And then things really got crazy.
One council member drowned
out Brigham’s comments by rubbing his microphone, while another gestured
to police to have Brigham removed and arrested. This lack of tolerance
for criticism and public participatoin was consistent with a council
that only a month earlier had discussed sending “regulars” to the back
of the line during public comment periods. City officials later kinda
sorta apologized and agreed not to press charges, but the damage was
already done.
We
know it can get really annoying listening to these kooky regulars who
get some sort of sick satisfaction out of attending every single city
council meeting, but, hey, that’s tough. It’s easy to listen to someone
when they are complimenting you. The tough part — and the reason the
First Amendment was created — is to listen to those who are critical of
you, especially when you’re an elected official. There’s a basic reason
why criticism of the government is one of the most protected forms of
speech, and it’s not because Bush was so much fun to hate on. It has to
do with that whole thing about having a government “by the people” and
“for the people.” You’ve got to let the citizens speak out when their
elected officials screw up — even if one of those citizens is wearing
only boxer shorts.
BEST
EAST COUNTY RESTAURANT
The Pumphouse Brewery
You walk into The
Pumphouse, located on Longmont’s Main Street, expecting bar food. But
what you get is so much better. Its menu includes all the sports bar
staples — burgers, hot wings, French fries — but even these choices are a
cut above what you’ll find at most sports bars. Their nachos in
particular stand out as perhaps the best in the county and are a B-dub
staff favorite. Order them with the killer guac.
Or try the sesame-crusted
tuna, the shrimp tacos or Greek salad. Salmon in a sports bar? Yes, and
it’s delicious, as is the Caribbean pork tenderloin. And did we mention
dessert? Make sure to leave lots of room. The Pumphouse also has a
gluten-free menu for those with dietary restrictions, as well as
vegetarian choices.
Is
it worth the half-hour drive from Boulder? Without a doubt. And the
wait time for a table isn’t quite as long as you’ll face at many of
Boulder’s eateries.
So
pack up your appetite and head down the Diagonal to give The Pumphouse a
try.
BEST EXCUSE FOR
VIOLATING FIRST AMENDMENT
‘Budget cuts’
When CU President Bruce
Benson and his henchmen announced the closure of CU’s faculty/staff
newspaper a year ago, it wasn’t about the money, and everyone knows it.
The administration didn’t control what Silver & Gold Record printed,
because the editor reported only to an editorial board of faculty and
staff representatives. As a result, the weekly reported news in a way
that was balanced, and sometimes included criticism of administrators.
The administration wanted its own Pravda, and when former CU President
Hank Brown couldn’t emasculate the paper in 2007 by reorganizing its
editorial board, he left the murder on his successor’s to-do list. If it
was really about the money, why didn’t the administration simply tell
the paper to cut its budget to the $100,000 currently being spent on the
unread, online TASS, which replaced the Silver & Gold? Because the
real point was to take away the editorial independence of the
university’s employee publication and stifle the sometimes-critical
voice of those who had started it 40 years earlier — CU’s faculty. In a
university environment, which is supposed to be about open discourse and
free exchange in a marketplace of ideas, that is unconscionable.
What is even more
unconscionable is that CU faculty allowed it to happen. Apparently the
administration has beaten them into submission so many times that
they’ve gotten used to it. Or maybe the traditional university model, in
which the faculty help run the place, is truly dead. Either way,
another local media voice died, which is a shame. Other than the
publication you are reading now, what’s left? Not much, other than the
wire-heavy PostCameraDaily conglomerate, which
has turned recycling and
repackaging the same local content over and over into an art form.
BEST EXAMPLE OF UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES
Firing of Colorado Amazon Associates
In March, Colorado
bloggers and webmasters who partner with online retail giant Amazon.com
received an e-mail from the company informing them that their services
were no longer needed. Amazon associates, as these bloggers and
webmasters are called, place ads and links on their websites that link
back to Amazon.com. They get a percentage of the profit made from
products sold to consumers who reached Amazon.com from the associate’s
website. Associates can thank a dust-up between the state of Colorado
and Amazon.com over Colorado House Bill 10-1193, a bill that requires
online retailers to notify its Colorado purchasers (and the state
Department of Revenue) what they owe in state sales tax. Since the
Colorado Amazon associates represented a “presence” for the company in
the state, the state felt it could treat them like local businesses and
use that as an excuse to impose taxes on them. Their goal was to use
that money to shore up the state’s pathetic budget. But Amazon, being
the obstinate Internet giant that it is, gave the proverbial finger to
Colorado and its state taxes and closed the accounts of their Colorado
associates, costing Colorado residents millions that otherwise might
have been spent in the state. Way to help the economy, Colorado
lawmakers! And way to stick it to the man, Amazon!
BEST REASON TO GO TO CSU
CU Raises tuition … again
There`s nothing like good public education to
really restore your faith in the government’s ability to get things done
well. But then again, we live in Colorado, and most residents of our
good state view any form of government as a snarling, uncontrollable
beast that must be shackled by legislation such as TABOR lest it
roam out of control and drain good citizens of every last penny. Due in
part to extreme restrictions on how the state can raise and spend money,
the University of Colorado gets just a small portion of its funding
from Colorado taxpayers. So, in order to become competitive, the state’s
flagship university continually raises tuition. (Don’t believe us?
Since the 2003-2004 school year, in-state tuition has doubled). CU still
provides an adequate education, and given all the shiny new buildings
and iPod-equipped students, walking through campus is like walking
through an Applesponsored dream world where the recession never
happened. The CU Board of Regents casually approved a 9 percent increase
in tuition for next fall, bringing the grand total for in-state tuition
up to $7,018 a year. With sky-high rental prices ($750 a month for a
room in some 1960s shithole house in Martin Acres?) and pitiful
financial aid, CU is looking more and more like an overpriced lift
ticket — hey, we all know students come here to ski — and Fort Collins
is looking more and more like the better alternative. And when you’re
praising Fort Collins for anything, you know something should probably
change.
BEST REASON TO
GO VEGETARIAN
Masturbating deli worker
Most vegetarians can give
you a long list of reasons to give up sins of the flesh: vegetarians
live longer, meat production really does a number on the environment
and, hey, animals are people, too. If you need one more reason to be
convinced though, talk to the Louisville woman who got a glimpse of some
improper meat handling while shopping at her local Safeway. In January,
she reported to police that while talking to a store employee at the
deli counter she noticed that the man’s sausage was clearly on display.
According to police reports, the employee not only had his fly open and
his penis in plain sight, he was apparently masturbating while answering
the woman’s questions. We can only hope one of those questions was,
“Are you wearing gloves?”
BEST REASON TO LIE TO YOUR DOCTOR
Medical marijuana
Of all things, you
wouldn’t expect a rule-making hearing of the Colorado Department of
Public Health and Environment to have such a profound impact on
Colorado’s political and economic landscape. But when the CDPHE made a
technical ruling last summer on a couple of words in Amendment 20, which
legalizes medical marijuana, they opened the door for an explosion of a
fast-growth industry in Colorado: medical marijuana dispensaries. Now,
as evidenced by a stroll on the Hill, dispensaries are sprouting up
like, well, weeds. And since they’re legal (depending on whom you ask —
they’re in the grayest of gray areas), never has Colorado been a more
ganja-friendly place to be. But with all the cries of shady dealings,
black-market connections, and oh-god-somebody-think-of-the-children,
people are in danger of forgetting the real victim: drug dealers. Facing
a dwindling customer base, your friendly neighborhood pot vendor faces
much better stocked competition from an increasing number of legit,
taxpaying businesses. Can one simple person compete with a dispensary
that employs five people full time? Times are tough for pot dealers, but
not if Denver Democrat Chris Romer has his way. Romer has proposed a
pair of bills that, if passed, will make life much more difficult for
dispensaries and most likely will force many of them out of business. So
fear not, pot dealers: you have a friend in the legislature, and with
any luck, business will be booming once again.
BEST DIRTY SCAM
The
Fort Collins balloon boy
Wow, this was a humdinger, wasn’t it?
And they would have gotten
away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling kid. It was
during a fateful interview with Wolf Blitzer when young Falcon Heene was
asked why he didn’t come out of hiding when he heard his parents
calling his name. His dad, Richard, had to rephrase the question for the
boy, to which Falcon replied, “Um, you guys said that, um, we did this
for the show.”
His mother, Mayumi, responded with a meek, “No,” and the gig was
up.
If you had
planned this, don’t you think you would have repeatedly rehearsed that
part with the kid? “I was too scared to come out because I thought you
would be mad at me.”
But for a few hours there, those of us glued to the live
television coverage on that October day were genuinely sick to our
stomachs, especially parents, thinking that the child might actually be
in that balloon as it soared across the Colorado sky, out of control.
No real harm done, but
talk about one of the most compelling breaking news stories of the
year. It does make you feel sorry for Falcon, who is going to be known
the rest of his life as “the balloon boy,” thanks to his idiot parents.
Some people are just a few kernels short, you know?
FASTEST RESTAURANT SERVICE
South Side Walnut Café
There comes a time when you simply need food … now.
There are plenty of places where you can get “fast food.” But what if
you care about quality and you just finished a workout at Mountain’s
Edge Fitness Center or a run or mountain bike ride on the glorious South
Boulder trails? Or what if you only have 15 minutes for lunch
because you’ve got a deadline to meet? Take it from the staff at Boulder
Weekly: You can’t get a better blend of quality and “now” than at the
South Side Walnut Café. You know the feeling of seeing your waitperson
walk by with an armful of plates that must be yours, given how long
you’ve been waiting, only to see him or her pass you on the way to a
neighboring table? Well, at the South Side you’ll have the opposite
experience: You’ll witness your server walking toward you within minutes
of placing your order and be certain that delicious food is headed
elsewhere, only to see it magically set before you. Be amazed! Be
grateful! Be here … now!
BEST PROOF OF INSANITY
Pat Robertson’s Haiti earthquake
theory
Pat Robertson is 80 years old, so maybe we should cut him some
slack when he says nutty things like legalized abortion led to Hurricane
Katrina. One day, God willing, we’ll all be that aged, feeble and
completely nuts. Then again, he’s been spouting his quackery for
decades, blaming anything from natural disasters to bad traffic on
homosexuals, the ACLU and women’s rights, so it’s hard to say if his
assertion that a pact with the Devil caused the Haiti earthquake is a
sign of decline or part of a history of insanity. Either way, when you
get on national television and tell a devastated nation that they
basically had it coming, maybe it’s time to call it quits. Even Jesus at
his most pissed off wouldn’t do shit like that. A lot of people
probably wish Robertson a worse fate than a belated retirement, but at
least if he gets shipped off to a nursing home, we won’t have to listen
to him spout hatred on television any longer.
BEST DISPLAY OF SEXUAL
IGNORANCE
Teabaggers
Members of the so-called “tea party” movement set the
“dismiss our message immediately” bar low last year when the older,
disaffected white Republicans who make up the movement’s base took the
illadvised step of nicknaming themselves. At first glance, the nickname
must have seemed safe and logical. “Teabaggers” — shorter than “tea
partiers” and much catchier. Plus, it seemed to catch on and ignite a
smile on the faces of the younger folks. Win-win, right? But other, more
tech-savvy (i.e., had access to the Internet, where teabagging
demonstrations can be found on various pornographic websites) were
smiling for reasons too graphically obscene to be printed, even in this
newspaper. Teabaggers started campaigns on Interwebs nationwide to “Tea
Bag Obama” and “Tea Bag the White House,” which, as dirty as it sounds,
actually involved sending tea bags via snail mail. It seemed things
couldn’t dip any lower when teabaggers made the off-the-ball comparison
of President Barack Obama’s policies to those of Hitler and Stalin.
Mouths full of vitriolic rhetoric, protesters spat out an endless stream
of fallacious political arguments and worked collectively to “teambag”
Congress. And though recent events must have left a sour taste in the
Teabaggers’ mouths, as defeating health care reform was their No. 1
priority, protests continue to this day, making the tea bag movement one
of the most potent movements in recent history.
BEST REASON NOT TO TRUST
PALE FACES
New Age guru James Ray
Last October, three people died and 18 others became
ill after crawling inside a pseudo-sweat lodge in search of the
enlightenment promised by New Age guru James Ray, co-author of The
Secret and self-proclaimed personal development expert.
The ceremony was part
of Ray’s “Spiritual Warrior” retreat in Sedona, Ariz., that also
included another ceremony stolen from American Indian culture: a “vision
quest.” Participants paid a reported $9,000 each to participate
in the retreat.
Ray
had promised to push these people beyond their boundaries — and,
apparently, he did. Three people were pushed so far past their
boundaries that their spirits left this earth. As a result, Ray is
facing manslaughter charges to which he has pled not guilty.
Some people have called for
the regulation of sweat lodge ceremonies in the wake of this tragedy.
Perhaps it would be more appropriate if they called for the regulation
of white folks running ceremonies that don’t belong to them.
Of course, the latter is
impossible.
Freedom
of religion means that everyone has the right to pursue spirituality in
the way that seems best to them, even if that means cannibalizing other
cultures and running
ceremonies in ways they were never intended to be run.
BEST PROOF WHITE MAN CAN’T
JUMP
All-American Basketball Alliance
The days of Jim Crow laws
and the “separate but equal” mindset are long gone, but it appears one
man is trying to bring those good ol’ days back. In January, Don “Moose”
Lewis announced the launch of the All-American Basketball Alliance, a
basketball league that requires that players and coaches be natural-born
U.S. citizens and Caucasian. That’s right, a basketball league without
black, Latino, Asian or foreign players … just a bunch of American white
people. Lewis says that the NBA has moved away from the fundamentals of
basketball and that his league will concentrate on those fundamentals,
which he believes are more suited to white players. Basically Lewis
doesn’t want anymore 360-degree dunks, no-look passes, crossover
dribbles, reverse mid-air layups or scores higher than 70 points … You
know, the stuff that makes professional basketball fun and interesting.
It appears, on paper, that Lewis’ league would make a good cure for
insomnia. That is until he hosts an all-star game that pits white
players versus black players he dubbed “Snow Ball vs. Bro Ball.” Yeah,
he went there … luckily we wouldn’t.
BEST EXAMPLE OF RACIAL
PROFILING
U.S. Forest Service
Last August, a U.S. Forest Service warning urged the
public to beware of campers who speak Spanish, play Spanish music, eat
tortillas and drink Tecate beer because they may be armed and dangerous
marijuana growers.
We are not making this up. The Colorado Latino Forum
quickly denounced the Forest Service warning, pointing out that it could
put Hispanic campers in danger from gung-ho types — people who play
country music, eat Wonderbread and drink Bud — who might see a can of
Tecate and decide that hunting season has begun early.
The warnings were issued
after the Forest Service found more than 14,000 ganja plants growing in
Pike National Forest. Law enforcement said at the time that Latin
American drug cartels may be smuggling people into the state in order to
grow pot in remote parts of the mountains.
That might be true, but is a person’s choice of
music, food and beer the best way to identify who’s working for a
cartel and who isn’t? Are these the criteria used by the DEA and the
FBI? If so, perhaps that explains why they’re not making headway against
cartels.
