Jeff Price in The Age Of Corona: On the Ruckus in Michigan & Blessed Indolence!

19 Apr Jeff Price in The Age Of Corona: On the Ruckus in Michigan & Blessed Indolence!

Jeffrey Price is a screenwriter best known for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” “Doc Hollywood,” “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “Shrek III.” He also directed and co-wrote “For Cryin’ Out Loud” and co-wrote “My Brother’s Keeper” for “Tales From the Crypt.” Jeff’s debut novel, “Improbable Fortunes,” came out in 2016. It’s a tall tale about the West, hits very close to home and is readily available at Between the Covers Bookstore and on Amazon. (Go here for my review.) Jeff and his wife, Jennie Franks (of SPARKy Productions ) have lived in Telluride since 1993, where he is an avid outdoorsman and prevaricator of some renown. Jeff’s observations about the impact of the Age of Corona on the healthcare profession, tongue firmly planted in cheek, natch, is here. 

Below is his off-piste take on the happenings in Michigan on April 16.

For more red meat (and images) from Jeff, check out his alter ego at weegee211 on Instagram.

Howdy Friends and Neighbors,

There was a big ruckus in Michigan yesterday. People were protesting Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s decision to maintain the Shelter in Place Order. Myself, I’ve been enjoying my Shelter in Place. I got a lazy streak in me that’s run out of excuses and this one is a Jim Dandy! But the people in the protest want to go back to work. They’re panicked that they won’t have any income. The unemployment relief that the Congress passed didn’t make it out. Seems our president didn’t want the checks to go in the mail without his name on ‘em. Now before you get all riled up and blame the President, he had a good reason to do that. See, the president, God bless him, got this idea that if his name was on all those checks, he could claim 320 million people as his “dependents” in the 2021 tax filing. Hopefully that would offset the losses he’s incurred lately at his resorts and golf courses. You gotta admit, he’s a pretty smart cookie when it comes to those taxes. But we’ll probably never know how smart–cause the Supreme Court is going to hear a couple cases about that in March and well…no surprises there.

Scene from Michigan protest in Lansing. The boys in the band.

But I digress. The protest in Michigan. Pretty impressive. Pretty organized. Shucks, people in Flint drank lead in their water for years and never threw together a hullabaloo like that. It was almost as if a “Higher Power” brought all of them together… just like a miracle. Makes me kinda suspicious. Our president is fond of miracles. He’s already told us that Covid-19 would disappear one day like a miracle. And here’s another thing, he doesn’t like governors who disagree with his virus policies  –even when he disagrees with them himself. He called Governor Inslee a snake. He told us that Governors Cuomo and Pritzker were ingrates for not appreciating him. He called Governor Whitmer “That woman.” I thought that one was pretty weak tea – certainly not as good as “snake” and I was pretty sure he’d circle back for a redo on that one. And here it is. Folks, that march has all the best elements of a Trump rally. You got your Confederate flags, you got your swastikas, you even got your good people on both sides carrying impressive artillery to the Capitol steps.

I wanted to copy that photo of the three armed men to this page, but sorry I just didn’t have the knowhow. Maybe one of you could kindly add it for me. But those three fellas captured my imagination. I was wondering what kind of guns they were carrying. I know something about firearms myself, so I blew up the photo a bit to identify it for you. The heavy-set fella on the left is carrying an AK-IPD. In case you don’t know what IPD stands for, it’s short for Insulin Pump Defender. And tubby’s gonna need to keep that thing loaded because diabetics don’t do too well when Ol’ Covid-19 comes knockin’ in the dead of night.

The same goes for the chubby fella standing to his left. Now that fella’s sidearm I recognized as an JCPC12. In case you don’t know, JCPC12 stands for Jennie Craig 12 Promotional Codes. His doctor told him he has a bad ticker. Another easy mark for Covid-19. And as such, he needs to lose some lbs. That high capacity magazine of Jenny Craig discount promotional codes could keep him in low carb food until the curve flattens–if the stupe would only stay at home! But no, he’s out protestin’. Hey chubby, if Donald Trump told you to jump off a cliff, would ya?

Now the last guy on the far right, the skinny guy…he’s smiling. About what, I don’t know. He’s gonna be on a respirator soon. He already looks delirious.

Okay, I think I’ve beaten this thing to death. I’ll get to the point. What in God’s name are these guys doing on the steps of the Michigan Capitol building with guns? Well, they would say that the Second Amendment gives them that right. But heck, if I was a Michigan citizen and I wanted to go to the Capitol Building to protest their protest and I ran into those fat hombres with guns, I might think those fellas were impinging on my First Amendment Rights to Free Speech with their questionable Second Amendment Rights. Let’s just say a citizen had the mind to go up to a policeman on the scene and issue a formal beef? Probably make an interesting Supreme Court case, wouldn’t ya think?

Stay inside everybody! Banana-grams, plenty of great old movies on TCM and Starz Westerns! And whatever you do, don’t feel guilty about bein’ lazy. I believe we’re covered for that in the First Amendment.