Colorado – The Journal of A_C

The content below is from Episode 134 of the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast

If you are hearing this than you are still listening to the Who’d a Thunk It? Podcast after a 2-week break.
- They say podcasts that miss release dates (regardless of the reason) suffer by losing their listeners.
- I got married and because I hugged like 140 people during my wedding, I got covid and felt awful. Those two reasons and because my voice was practically gone all last week are why I skipped two weeks.
- Sorry, Who’d a Thunkers. But we are back!

RECOMMENDATION SEGMENT

This week I recommend you watch Ted Lasso on Apple TV
- I know there aren’t many people with Apple TV, but this show is worth checking out. At least the first season anyway ( I haven’t started season 2).
- But during my wife and I’s time quarantined off from the rest of the world for the last 8 days we found some cool shows.
- I hit play on Ted Lasso not thinking much of it except that I like the main actor Jason Sudeikis. I was pleasantly surprised to find this is a very good feely show to enjoy.
- Here’s the plot:
  - An American football coach is hired to manage a British soccer team; what he lacks in knowledge, he makes up for in optimism, determination, and biscuits.
Jason Sudeikis usually plays a raunchy character for many of his more popular roles like Horrible Bosses and We’re the Millers, but in Ted Lasso he is a super kind and loveable character.
This show made the depressing reality of quarantining a little bit better and I wanted to share it with you guys.

NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT

Traveling can be fun or it can be a nightmare… or both.
- But when arriving at Denver, Colorado via airplane, the gazes of travelers inevitably fall on a giant statue that not only appears as if it has trotted right out of a nightmare, but has a back story suggesting it is cursed.
- This is a tale of art, tragedy, and conspiracy theories.

The gigantic statue of a blue horse with red glowing eyes standing on its hind legs outside of Denver’s International Airport has the official moniker of “Blue Mustang,” but everyone calls it Blucifer.
- Weighing in at 9,000 pounds, the 32-foot tall fiberglass sculpture was initially designed to capture the feel of the American Wild West. With bulging veins and articulate muscles, Luis Jiménez, the artist behind the sculpture, felt that his horse would represent the power and freedom of the American mustang.
- The airport wanted to get a tourist attraction right near the airport property for people to pull off the road and take a picture with it. They started looking around for sculptors in 1993, but the statue wouldn’t be erected for another 15 years due to all sorts of problems.
- There were airport security concerns and legal issues:
  - Luis Jiménez, head sculptor, was paid $165,000 upfront and promised to pay another $135,000 once the job was finished (totaling $300K). But Jiménez kept missing deadline after deadline so the city filed a lawsuit against him to try and get their money back.
  - The lawsuit bared no fruit for the city of Denver and they would eventually pay the sculptor team a total of $650,000 before it was all said in done.
    - Some conspiracy theorists suggest this sort of deal was as if the city of Denver had made a deal with the devil.

One of the main reasons for delays was the death of Luis Jiménez himself in 2006.
- A sad loss of life, but not unheard of as he was 65 at the time of his death. But Luis didn’t die of a heart attack or stroke… He died while working on the sculpture in his workshop. A large section of the 32-foot tall, 9,000-pound sculpture fell onto its creator’s leg, crushing it and severing an artery. The piece of his own artwork pinned Luis against a steel support beam as he bled out.
- After his death, the sculpture would be finished by Luis’s sons. The finished product would never be seen by its creator.

American mustangs attack and defend by rearing, similar to the pose of Denver International Airport’s big blue horse. Photo credit: skibreck (istock).

Luis Jiménez didn’t just create Blucifer. He is a well-known artist that has works featured in the Smithsonian.
- Before he finished Blucifer, Luis created a couple other horse sculptures so he could get a better feel for the larger peice. They are almost exact copies of Blucifer. They are worth a pretty penny these days due to Blucifer’s fame.

One of the most fascinating stories behind Blucifer’s creation was Luis’s choice to pick the color Blue for this massive sculpture.
- Legend has it that roaming around Colorado’s vast San Luis Valley is a powerful wild mustang leading a herd of wild horses… and he is bright blue with red glowing eyes. They say this blue wild mustang can always find water and grass for his herd. Besides the color of his coat and eyes, this mustang doesn’t seem too mythical, but then there is the fact that he can supposedly fly… But that is why Luis chose the color blue for his fiberglass sculpture and gave it red eyes. A flying wild legendary mustang is the perfect mascot for an airport.
- The eyes of Blucifer actually glow and that is a tribute to Jiménez’s father who owned a neon sign shop. When Luis was a young boy he would spend time in his dad’s sign shop and be fascinated by the glow of the neon. Through that early fascination and the love of his father, he made Blucifer’s eyes actually glow.

I personally think Blucifer looks badass. I love it and so do many people.
- But there are also critics out there.
- Some believe that a sculpture that caused the death of its creator should not be displayed and that displaying it is even disrespectful
  - This actually made me chuckle because any artist who died doing what they love (creating art) would be LIVID if they found out the piece they gave their life for would up being destroyed or worse, collecting dust in a basement somewhere. Plus, Luis’s sons finished the piece. No one is disrespected by this thing… at least not by Luis’s death.
- Other people don’t like how the horse’s genitalia is not omitted from the piece…
  - Ok, this is weird. It’s a horse. Horses have genitalia. Simple as that. Grow up.
- The statue is officially called Mustang, but nicknames like Blucifer, “Satan’s Stallion,” “Denver’s Demon Mustang,” and “DIAblo” were all created to give the statue a negative persona. I think it just makes the statue even more badass LOL.

Poor Blucifer gets a bad rap. It is an amazing work of art that should be celebrated even more than it already is, because it captures the spirit of Colorado so well. But considering all the conspiracies surrounding the Airport it represents… Bluey was bound to get some bad rep.
- Not only has Blucifer got the conspiracy theorists all riled up about satanic rituals and whatnot… but There are a ton of conspiracy theories surrounding this airport itself, and it all started with the construction.
- Massive delays of 16 months and a $4.8 billion price tag ($2 billion over budget) led people to think something was going on that they didn’t know about.
  - Where is all that extra cash going? Is it a big laundering scheme? Are they building an underground bunker?
  - My guess is that all that money went to human mistakes.
- It’s also the largest airport in the United States for no apparent reason, nearly double the size of the second largest.
  - That is sort of stange considering Denver is in the middle of the continental US and not near a large sea port or anything.
- Then there was a former construction worker who claimed that there were five multi-level buildings beneath the airport built for an unknown purpose.

If that’s not enough, there’s also super creepy murals on the walls that some people claim depict an apocalyptic scenario in which the New World Order is taking over the modern world.

These fears have also stemmed from the airport’s dedication stone, displaying a Masonic symbol and giving thanks to the “New World Airport Commission” for their support in funding the project. Is something strange happening at Denver International Airport? Probably not, but perhaps.

Nothing has made me want to visit Colorado more than knowing it is the base of some new world-order conspiracy!
- JK, I have a buddy who lives in Colorado who just got married a month before my own wedding and I would have loved to have been there for it… but the dingus listed an Air BNB as the reception for us to stay in saying it sleeps 32 people… when Air BNB says it only slept 17… LOL
- Plus, he suggested guests fly into Albequerque New Mexico… which is a 6-hour drive by rental car to the venue… some quick googling found there was an airport 20 minutes away from the venue. Too many dingus variables going on with that wedding. But I wish him and his new partner the best of luck.

So what do you think Who’d a Thunkers?
- Is the Denver International Airport a secret bunker for the world’s elites to hide in when the apocalypse hits so they can emerge as the new world order and is Blucifer the satanic symbol to represent that new world order?
- Or is it just a badass piece of art by a great artist who tragically died working on his own creation?

THANKS FOR LISTENING WHO’D A THUNKERS!

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