The Root of the Hill

The Root of The Hill is one of Boulder's location's I feel is worth mentioning. So just to give an idea of what this little underground mecca has to offer... It's a very eclectic small retail spot on the Hill (a college student infested lump at the center of Boulder) with a conjoined underground venue and dispensary. The store sells for the most part a great selection of urban clothing, paint, and glassware alongside a number of other random oddities. The Root hosts a number of small to moderately sized parties showcasing local and underground acts from all over the western half of the United States every year. Most frequently raves, but the occasional hip-hop act can be found on stage. Given they have to compete with the nearby Fox Theatre they seem to hold their own.

What really needs to be noted about The Root is that though a phenomenal place to find a dope hoodie or a fat marker, what inspires me is the noble attempt at linking Boulder to a very small niche culture based around underground creativity via music and art, be it hip-hop, dubstep or a hat designed by Jeremy Fish. A culture that certainly isn't prevalent in such a small city.

Whether or not the owner (Mike, pictured above) is even aware that half of what he offers in his shop relates to my own deep seeded interest in underground creativity with pieces in his store designed by Munk One and clothing produced by Upper Playground, a site that supports such prolific contemporary artists like David Choe and Estevan Oriol, I am not sure. I lied... I'm actually pretty positive he has no idea whatsoever. This however just adds to the magic of the spot though, surfing through the racks of shirts and rifling through the store finding little bits and pieces, shards of a culture that's thriving far from where we are here in Boulder, that somehow traversed the midwest and made it to The Root of the Hill. It's nice knowing that there's somewhere here I can access that little piece of culture outside of a computer.

The shop might be expensive, the company might be disorganized and some of the parties might be half-assed. But for what little it has given me I am very very grateful.

Smelly Deli

If you are between the ages of 16 and 32, reside in Boulder and are not located in the county jail you have probably paid a late night visit to this dump site.

The University Hill Market & Deli is a great late night drunkard's mecca out front of The Fox on The Hill. The gyros at this place will make your penis stand on end. The affectionately dubbed "Smelly Deli" has virtually everything you could possibly need between the hours of 10pm and 3am. Especially seen as all you could possibly need between the hours of 10am and 3pm besides a Miller Lite consists of some food, a pack of cigarettes or a condom, maybe all of them. Remember, condom is to penis as sandwich is to mouth.

The real beauty about the Deli is located towards the back of the store and to the right at the end of the rainbow of Energy drinks and Sodas. This bathroom isn't clean, it's functional. It's actually filthy. This is without a doubt the most tagged bathroom in Boulder, and it's phenomenal. The number of one time 2am blurbs, colors and hand styles could hold my attention for hours. Be aware these aren't just scribbles they are signatures, signatures that took hundreds sometimes thousands of repetitious movements to create that specific style, those clean beautiful lines. A person literally has to learn to wield, not just hold, but wield their marker to create those lines on hundreds of different surfaces.

The real special thing about this location though is anyone who has ever tagged anything in Boulder has more than likely been in their and written their piece. The real fun in being in that bathroom is if you've paid any attention to the infrastructure of the city you can find tags from all over Boulder on the walls of this bathroom. Write your piece before they finally decide it's time to clean shop.

Flowers and Wallets

If you look closely you can find little creations in all corners of the world. These little pieces were created by one of our inventive homeless population here in Boulder.

Whilst I was taking photos of this particular little installation outside Nick-N-Willy's a young lady from Two Hand's Paperie came up behind me and asked if I knew who made them. I was extremely pleased to hear that she herself knew the artist. The gentleman's name I am still unsure of but after a short conversation with another friend who works at Spruce on the West end of Pearl I was informed that it may be "Doc". Doc has apparently been creating these little, what he calls, "flowers" and "wallets" for a while.

Unfortunately the young lady from Two Hands informed me that she had seen him being arrested just prior to when my discovery was made. Whether this was in relation to his squatting on top of the Antiques store across from Lolita's I don't know. Luckily I caught a glimpse at his little creations before all traces of his work had been trashed or discarded as just mangled aluminum. Hopefully we will witness the return of his flowers to the small neglected corners of Boulder soon.

People create for different reasons and it is a rare few artists that create without tripping over there ego. Doc managed to transcend that gap and sculpt these phenomenal little creations out of human detritus with no thought of gaining any recognition for his work.