An open letter to the Red Rocks Pisser

To the man (and his family) who climbed up the side of a hill and pissed in front of a parking lot full of women at Red Rocks before the Brandi Carlile concert on September 12, 2026:

The answer to the question you asked incredulously is, yes, you were disrespectful. And to answer your family member’s question, yes, it really was that upsetting to us. You could probably tell from the number of people who yelled up to your son to let him know that he was urinating on native land, damaging protected habitat, and, quite frankly, being super weird in front for hundreds of Brandi Carlile fans.

Since you didn’t seem to understand how your actions were disrespectful, I’m writing this in the hopes that by some miracle of the internets our, shared affection for a queer female rockstar (you can't have been there just for Stephen Wilson Jr., though he is very talented) will bring our algorithms together the way your bladder and your family’s belief in the superiority of their own desires and comfort over others’ did.*

Please read and try to understand. 

The disrespect was not because, as you eloquently explained to me, you are an animal and animals piss in the wilderness. Animals DO piss in the wilderness (where they also eat and sleep). A lot of correct stuff in that point. You can have that one. 

Nor does the disrespect come from the fact that, as your dad shared in your defense, you had been driving “for an hour and a half” and really needed to urinate. As a former public school teacher who suffered irreversible bodily damage from holding in my pee for eight hours in service of educating America’s children, I will never advocate for permanently damaging one’s excretory system. 10/10. Glad you got it all out. Eventually. 

What IS disrespectful is that you have such a lack of concern or awareness for other people that you thought we would all be fine watching you climb up the side of a hill, stand in the wide open air at the very top of that hill (a few yards away from a large, human-obscuring bush) in full view of hundreds of women (including your “very respectful” mother and sister), and urinate.

To your mother and sister, I am sorry that you have experienced this level of disrespect so regularly by men in society that you weren’t bothered by it. You deserve to not have someone pee in front of you. I wonder, though, if you would have felt differently had an unhoused man urinated in front of you in one of Denver’s gorgeous public parks. 

And to your dad. Is this the young man that you raised? With your prestigious university education (I'm assuming you are a proud CU Buff based on your hat), I imagine you tried to teach him that it is against the law to urinate in a public part, regardless of whether said park is sacred Native American land and a fragile ecological environment.

It is my sincerest hope that I have helped you understand why your behavior was disrespectful. In the interest of brevity I left out a few points. I’m certain the other women who cheered for (jeered at?) you will make them in the comments shortly. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. I'm certain Stephen Wilson Jr. can answer them too. Afterall, he’s friends with Brandi Fucking Carlile. 

* Self importance is the only thing that could explain y’all’s ability to park in a made up spot in a lot that had been turning people away for hours.