Like most of the nation, I’ve pretty much given up on the ability to focus on anything more than a few fleeting details and whether there’s still TP in aisles at the store.
The tsunami of terrifying and mesmerizing news is just too much to read or listen to for more than a few moments at a time.
I know, Trump, riots, Kanye and the pandemic are head-spinning all by themselves, but you’ll be sorry someday if you don’t take the time to dawdle over The Colorado Governor Show.
If you’re not tuning into the regular press conferences on the Facebook and Twitter feed of Colorado’s Gov. Jared Polis, you’re missing some of the most memorable parts of the pandemic.
In less than a week, Polis called out the state’s mask moaners as “selfish bastards,” did an end-run on himself by mandating masks for everyone, and told everyone he wants to undo an old Colorado blue law — after he makes it far worse in an effort to keep the state’s swacked millennials out of the bars.
Polis is able to get away with what he does because he’s the Artful Dodger of pick-pocket politics. While going rapid fire about how important it is to wear a mask, and stop complaining so much, and would you rather wear a mask or shut down the state again, and it’s just a piece of cloth, and don’t you love your Gramma, and if you don’t wear a mask you’re just a selfish bastard, and hey, I looked that up and it just means “unpleasant,” and if you don’t want to end up like the states most of you moved away from, you better strap that puppy on your corona-hole or just stay home…
Wait.
It can be exhausting but entertaining as you let it all wash over you and then think, “did the governor of Colorado just call the state’s annoying mask deniers, “selfish bastards?”
And then, mere hours later, after dodging the mask-mandate for weeks with the agility of a passionate eater explaining why this is not a good day to start a diet, Polis got religion.
There have been months of “don’t-you-knowing” over why he couldn’t invoke a statewide mask mandate, when he suddenly did. And then he made it sound like he’d planned it this way all along.
Here’s your wallet, mister.
I’ve fallen for this before, most recently in arm-wrestling over whether a mandatory childhood vaccine law is the best answer for protecting Colorado children, rather like a mask mandate. Polis gets away every time before I can call for help.
Colorado barely had time to enjoy the schadenfreude rush of angst from mask-ageddon cults across the state, writhing from the mask mandate, when Polis rolled out the notion that drunken millennials are about to sink our pandemic ship here in Colorado.
The state’s rate of COVID-19 is going in one direction these days, up. The biggest group of infect-ees are the 20-30 types. You know, the ones mixing it up at protests, barbecues, tubing fests and late into the night at area bars that pretend to be restaurants.
In typical Dr. Polis fashion, the guv, without judgment, patted our collective hand acknowledging that old kids will be kids and get sloppy drunk and disgorge coronavirus all over each other, like from 10 p.m. until the bars close at 2 a.m. So, that’s over.
Here’s your watch, mister.
In even more typical Polis fashion, he was talking one minute about how stupid the old 2 a.m. blue-law cutoff is and how he wants to end it and how the state legislature should get right on that. In the mean time, however, he’s going to move last call from 2 a.m. up to 10 p.m. because the pie holes of drunken kids will be the end of us, or at least our ability to get pedicures. That’s because that’s what those damned kids do, but they won’t any longer, except you can stay all night at Denny’s if you want or even at the closed bar that can serve up Cokes and coffee and maybe even more than the chips they offered for dinner to qualify as a “restaurant” until, well, hell the sun comes up and…
Here’s your Ray-Bans, mister.
Wait, Polis just said no drinking past 10 and told the kids that, sure, tie one on if you must, but only with your besties and that means like one or two, and only at home, your home, and yeah, it sucks, it’s the Big Bummer Summer, but when this is all over, the bars will never close and you can drink until you puke and Polis will party right along with you. Only the wildest thing he’s probably ever done at a party is wear a polka dot bow tie with a plaid shirt and mix his one Coors Light with one glass of Strawberry Hill and how radical was that?
The guy is a trip. While you were looking right at him, he bitch slapped the whiny mask bastards, taped a ‘kick me’ tag to the president’s back on national TV, tied a face covering to the mug of mask marauder House Minority Leader state Rep. Patrick Neville, and kicked everyone out of the bars at 10, which is when the rest of us know everyone looks good enough to get close to and before you know it, Trump’s on talking about how beautiful blood tests, iron lungs, Kim Jong-un’s ears and world wars are and Polis is on again next week and, has anyone seen my keys?
Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com