Screw mountains, here are 10 things we think Colorado should be famous for instead

Culture By Isabelle Kohn

For years, Colorado has lived on in infamy as a place to take your Stepford wives and 2.5 children on a skiing trip during the holidays, but we think it's high time we take a second to look at what Colorado should really be famous for. Hint: it involves cocaine and cheeseburgers.

1. HATING THE OLYMPICS

Colorado is the only state in history to turn down the Olympics. When Denver was offered the position of honorable host of the 1976 winter games, the city was like, "Nah, fuck off." Their reasoning was that the infrastructure that needed to be built to accommodate the games would be too financially and environmentally costly, but we like to think it was because they didn't want to have a bunch of big-haired men in glittery disco tights being more fabulous than the native cowboy variety.

2. CHEESEBURGERS

The hamburger may have been invented in Hamburg, Germany, but nobody thought to throw some cheese on those suckers until Colorado man Louis Ballast did — he was awarded the trademark for the name "cheeseburger" in 1935. So world, you can thank us for making you so gloriously fat.

3. BEING SO GODDAMNED HIGH

We're not talking about weed, although we'll get to that later. Colorado is full of other high shit, like the highest incorporated city (Leadville at 10,430 feet), paved road (Mt. Evans Scenic Byway at 14,258 feet), auto tunnel (Eisenhower Tunnel, at 11,013 feet), suspension bridge (Royal Gorge Bridge at 1,053 feet), highest sand dunes above sea level (Great Sand Dunes at 13,604 feet) and mean altitude in the country. Oh, and speaking of being high, Colorado has the highest rate of cocaine use per capita in the country — which is definitely something to pat ourselves on the back about, really hard, with freakishly strong blow-induced force.

4. HOT PEOPLE

Cities in Colorado have a habit of being rated as some of the top fittest areas in the nation, and one only needs to have a pair of slightly functional eyes to see most people here are wondrously hot and ready — like a Little Cesar's pizza. Plus, with 300 days of sunshine (more than Florida, baby), there's a lot more reason to expose that skin to the grateful eyes of onlookers ... and cancer-causing UV rays, but don't worry about that right now.

5. CLIT TICKLING

Boulder is home to the clit-worshipping capitol of the world, thanks to TurnOn, an orgasmic meditation program that invites Colorado residents near and far to come-on-down and get their clits rubbed by strangers for 15-minute intervals. There are more than 400 officially trained bean strokers in Boulder who've mastered the art of the clit, which is probably a lot more than we can say for your boyfriend.

6. GETTING DRUNK ON PRECIOUS BEER

Colorado has more microbreweries per capita than 47 other states, which means Coloradans spend an inordinate amount of time wiping rare artisanally crafted beers out of their handlebar mustaches with one hand, while they blog about it with the other. Hardly anywhere else in the world will you find so many whiskey-aged white ales, smoked tea Saisons, and carrot-vanilla IPAs. And we wouldn't call Coors a microbrewery or anything, but let's just say that Coors is to Coloradans as water is to the rest of living things.

7. BEING ARTY AS FUCK

artist: Michael Tompsett

The Denver metro area (an area the size of Connecticut) has a self-imposed 1/10 of a cent sales tax for the arts, which is distributed to 300 arts organizations and facilities around the city. Likewise, our residents are first in the nation for attending arty-farty type stuff like the theater, music events and museums. The area is jam-packed with more galleries and studios than you can shake a stick at — if you're the type of person who's inclined to shake sticks at such things. We're learnt as fuck.

8. THE MUSIC SCENE THAT'S BETTER THAN ALL OTHER MUSIC SCENES

photo: Robert Castro for Ultra5280.com

Colorado's local music scene isn't as much of a "local music scene" as it is a breeding ground for artists that'll soon dominate everyone's Spotify. Consider that Denver has Red Rocks Amphitheatre in its backyard, and the state is host to tons of local festivals like the UMS, the Westword Showcase and Global Dance Festival (among many others), it's no wonder the state is either a destination point for international talent or a formative scene for musical masterminds to develop. Not only do we have more music venues than Austin, TX (the actual "Live Music Capital of the World"), but Denver is also loosely considered by many as the "EDM Capital of the US" — the womp is definitely with us.

To name a few acts we're allowed to claim: The Fray, 3OH!3, Nathaniel Ratelifff and the Night Sweats, OneRepublic, Big Gigantic, GRiZ (sort of), Michal Menert, Grieves, The Yawpers, Devotchka, Tennis, The Lumineers, Paper Bird (especially Esmé Patterson), the Flobots, Breathe Carolina, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, The Motet, Pries and, oh, so many more ...

9. GENERAL DEPRAVITY

Frozen Dead Guy Days, couch burning, drugs, bacon and beer festivals, DIA New World Order conspiracies, orgasmic meditation, EDM, snowboarding ... all signs would point to Colorado being some sort of mysterious, hedonistic pleasure den, hell-bent on living it up any way you so choose. If you can't have fun in Colorado, you're probably in a coma ... or in one of our many high-capacity prisons. Which is not fun ...

10. AND LAST, BUT NEVER LEAST ... WE'RE THE WEED CAPITAL OF THE UNIVERSE

Any Colorado list would hardly be considered complete without a shout-out to our now-historical legacy of being the first state in America to get legally high on the weed.

- Cover art: reddit user DunkenPlums