He was just a chubby guy from Lafayette with an atrocious plaid hat, an excess of attitude and lots of issues: There was Boulder envy (he would later describe himself as a “local Boulder resident”), “male bashing” by feminists, masculinity, heroism, patriotism, a voracious need for attention, and perhaps something darker.

In the heat of the post-9/11 ditheration, when the Boulder Public Library director resisted demands to immediately hang a flag the size of the mainsail on the Mayflower in the entranceway, Robert Rowan, as he was known in those days, launched a heroic assault on a controversial library exhibit, “Art Triumphs Over Domestic Violence.” It was sponsored by Boulder Safehouse, a shelter for battered women. The controversial piece which had excited a minor fuss, titled “Hanging ’Em Out to Dry,” featured 21 anatomically correct, brightly colored ceramic penises strung out on a clothesline. Rowan went to the library, passing by the (count 'em) ten American flags whose broad stripes and bright stars flew on poles between the Municipal and Public Library buildings. He then stole the crockery cockery, and left behind a virile American flag and a note signed “El Dildo Bandido.” He thus accomplished two bold strokes against what he saw as a lack of proper patriotic fervor and an improper lack of respect for the dignity of the male doodle. A legend was born. The legend of “El Dildo!”

El Dildo! then launched a frenetic personal marketing campaign, first calling a radio talk show to announce his daring raid. He had himself photographed with his trophies, like a pudgy Hemingway. He buttonholed every reporter within reach. He called the failure of the Boulder library to put a flag in the lobby a “kick in the groin to our boys” in the service. He started a website, sponsored by Mannatech, a nutritional supplement marketing company. He founded The American Patriots Foundation. (“100% of proceeds from this fund are donated to the families of those soldiers who gave, and will give, their lives to protect freedom in this land”).

He had El Dildo! T-shirts and coffee mugs made, and hinted at a run for public office, following in the footsteps of his hero, Sen Ben “Highhorse” Campbell. He ingenuously told the Daily Camera he just couldn't believe how much “frickin’ attention” his stunt had garnered.

El Dilly ultimately pled to misdemeanor second degree criminal tampering. A year and a half after El Dildo's exploit, the United States invaded Iraq, with little indication that either protests or flag-waving made the slightest difference. The ten flags between the Municipal building and the Library still fly, but most of the hastily posted American flags that once adorned nearly every Boulder business and many residences have vanished like snow upon the desert's dusty face.

Nevertheless, ever mindful of the strategic importance of the Boulder library building to our nation's defense, the Colorado legislature drafted one of its trademark Feelgood™ bills protecting the citizens’ right to display the flag in a “reasonable” way. In a sort of nutless compromise, there is no penalty assessed for violating the law.

Also vanished is El Dildo’s website, and presumably the American Patriots Foundation, just when one might expect El Dilly to be waving the flag and selling T-shirts and coffee mugs like crazy as the Iraqi mess drags on. Marcelee Gralapp, the library director at whom El Dilly and supporters directed their abuse, retired after 43 years to honors and praise from Boulder citizens.

Copycats have followed in El Dildo's footsteps, vandalizing other library exhibits. When they can still get anyone to listen, an unrepentant El Dildo! and his supporters argue in defense of his vigilante censorship, and insist that El Dildo’s stunt was really a noble attempt to protect the morals of his 5 year-old daughter.

Wenever Mondo Boulder has asked El Dildo himself or certain of his defenders just why a 5 year-old kid would correctly recognize the male deelybob in its fully erect state in that absurd context, the result was an embarrassed silence. Never mind. We don't want to know.

El Dildo's promised run for public office never materialized. His heroism earned him the Big Elephant Award from the Longmont Republican Roundtable/Women in Action, a group whose website also seems to have vanished like dew on the rose.

But El Dildo! also was the recipient of Mondo Boulder's first Dilly. Rowan's desperate bid to grasp immortality by the shaft, the fame and attention that he worked so hard for, will not perish as long as there is a Mondo Boulder.

In our occasional Dillies Awards, named in honor of Our Hero, we not only suffer fools gladly, we celebrate them.

So remember the words of Red Green: “I'm pullin' for ya’; we’re all in this together.”

 
“Let's all Pull Together!”

Just click on The Badge of Infernal Wankery to view the very first inductees into Mondo Boulder's Hall of Infame...