The 16th Street Mall is perfect for people-watching and eavesdropping. All manner of freaks can be found on the mall -- from the suited to the suit-less -- but the most amusing to watch is the Bitter Biker. The anonymous cyclist rides up and down the mall yelling, "You are all sinners!" and other such Puritan dogma. Sometimes he even throws in a "I am not here to kiss your babies!" On special occasions, he ditches the bike and does his rounds on foot, strumming his guitar and opining -- in key. It may not be music to the ears, but it sure makes the "Hillary is Hitler" guy at Colfax and Lincoln seem a little on the unimaginative side.

The Boulder Fringe Festival is the spawn of a creative seed that began traveling across the ocean nearly fifty years ago. The original fest began in Edinburgh in 1947 and has since happily inspired imitators all over the world. Boulder's version, launched in 2005, was a marathon of spontaneous art, music, performance, puppetry, film, video and installations. The roving exhibition took root online at www.boulderfringe.org and in corners and coffee shops, theaters and galleries all over town. This year's event, slated for mid-August, will last twelve days and include hundreds of participants, all of whom are selected randomly by lottery. Boulder attracts those on the cultural periphery, and the Fringe Fest is a wildly expressive way to see the best of them at work.

Take the customary author readings and book signings, add popular film series such as "Dueling Divas" (a hiss-off between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis), then throw in cooking demos, knitting and journaling classes, theater, concerts, lectures and oddball do-it-yourself events, and you might come up with something as invigorating as Fresh City Life, an ongoing celebration of arts both fine and domestic. And yes, every event is free, though some require advance registration through www.denver.lib.co.us/programs/fresh/.

Sunday nights are the hottest of hot summer nights. It's the night that members of the Colorado Fire Tribe meet up at the Confluence Park boat launch to drum and dance with fire. These are spontaneous, informal gatherings -- no tickets, no reservations. People just wander up on the spectacular view of spinners rhythmically swinging flaming lanterns suspended on chains, twirling fiery batons and dancing with all manner of blazing accoutrements. When it all comes together, it's as much about athleticism and grace as it is about meditation and control. When it doesn't come together, it's mostly about leg scars, nasty head knots and pants on fire. Though seldom necessary, thick blankets are at the ready for stopping, dropping and rolling. And the roiling South Platte river is always available to cool any hotheads.

Back in 1898, moovers and shakers in this cowtown decided to brighten up the January gloom with a major stock show, complete with free beer and barbecue for the locals. After 30,000 drunken Denverites rioted through the stockyards, city boosters didn't risk another stock show until 1906 -- but it's been going strong ever since. The National Western Stock Show now attracts hundreds of thousands of people for fifteen days every January, when they can watch people put down serious money on 4-H calves, see whip-cracking monkeys tame rodeo clowns, buy Ginsu knives, eat everything from funnel cake to Rocky Mountain oysters, and drink themselves silly in the Cowboy Bar, right by where the steers are better groomed than any Cherry Hills matron. This is how the West was fun.

Crested Butte is Colorado's last rugged, old-style ski village, with a downtown full of Victorian cottages and storefronts dating back to the mining days -- and open space providing a buffer between the town and the condos of the burgeoning ski area. For a week every July, Crested Butte gets just a little wilder when the Crested Butte Wildflower Festival is in full bloom. Sure, parts of the festival can be quite cultured -- classes on making botanical teas and potions, for example -- but there are also rough hikes and horseback rides through some of the most beautiful terrain you'll ever see. This year's homegrown festival -- the twentieth in Colorado's official Wildflower Capital -- runs from July 10 to 16. Stop and smell the primroses.

The Walnut Room is best known as a place to catch hip bands, listen to spoken-word artists at the monthly Cafe Nuba events and preview movies made by local filmmakers. On Sunday nights, regulars gather around the bar to catch stars of a different sort. Do the names Moe Szyslak and Abu Nahasapeemapetilon ring a bell? How about Dale Gribble, Boomhauer and Stan and Hayley Smith? If so, you'll fit right in when the bartender turns on the TV for a Fox lineup that includes The Simpsons, King of the Hill, American Dad and/or Family Guy. (Save your serious drinking for the half-hour when the godawful sitcom The War at Home comes on.) Just what was it that Ralph Wiggum found up his nose? Can Hank learn to embrace Bobby's feminine side? What Hollywood star does Roger the alien have a crush on now? Stay tuned.

It seems that every rock-and-roll radio station in town has some form of Beatles tribute worked into its rotation, but the Mountain's Sunday-morning Breakfast With the Beatles stands out every week. Rather than endlessly spinning the fifty or so songs everyone knows by heart, DJ Archer digs deep into the Fab Four's catalogue, pulling out rare live tracks, demos and interviews, often surprising even the most seasoned fan. Archer's theme is more of a thread than a rule, so there are frequent oddities, such as obscure tunes recorded by artists on the Apple label and covers of popular Paul-and-John tunes done by folks from around the world. For the faithful, Breakfast With the Beatles is like that other Sunday-morning ritual: sacred, uplifting and essential.

There's something about the quiet of an early Saturday morning, when the streets are empty and the sky's full of pastels, that makes you feel like the only person on earth. KGNU's Honky Tonk Heroes, three hours of Americana and country-and-Western music, intensifies the disembodied vibe of the wee hours -- but in the most pleasant way imaginable. The show presents an amazing array of old-timey artists who used to be radio sweethearts -- Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, Webb Pierce and Merle Travis -- plus a few wonderful nostalgic, transporting touches. You might even hear twenty minutes of Hank Williams playin' and pimpin' on a vintage recording of "The Old Flour Hour." Forget sleeping in: Honky Tonk Heroes is worth getting up for every time.

Justly, East High School alum Don Cheadle has become one of Hollywood's most talented, sought-after actors. Two years ago, he gave the world a moral wake-up call with his Oscar-nominated performance in Hotel Rwanda; in 2005, he scored again by portraying a thoughtful Los Angeles homicide detective who's having an affair with his Latina partner (Jennifer Esposito) in Paul Haggis's Best Picture winner, Crash. A disturbing meditation on race and bigotry in post-9/11 America, the film boasts an all-star cast (Sandra Bullock, Matt Dillon, Ludacris, Brendan Fraser, Thandie Newton, et al.) that Cheadle, also one of the film's producers, was instrumental in assembling -- at bargain-basement rates.