Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan hesitates before eating hissing cockroaches yesterday at the Capitol
ALBANY- In the darkest days of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s daily press briefings were must-see-TV for residents of the state experiencing the nation’s worst outbreak as well as other Americans who feared their communities were next.
But ever since New York turned the covid corner, the ratings for the press conferences, still held daily around noon, have decreased sharply. Announcements concerning the state’s slow and deliberate progress toward reopening businesses, mixed with more typical Cuomo topics like the state budget, just can’t match grave warnings of overflowing hospitals and mass death when it comes to Nielsen numbers.
Hoping to prolong his elevated national profile and recapture that March magic, the governor announced via Executive Order this week a new program called “Lockdown Wars!” that will require county executives to compete with one another in game-show style challenges, with the winners able to proceed more quickly in reopening their economies.
In the first challenge, which aired earlier today between the governor’s update and questions from the press, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan (pictured above) faced off against Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus in a live hissing-cockroach-eating contest. Ryan, who managed to eat 13 of the exceptionally large invertebrates to Neuhaus’s nine, won the privilege of being able to reopen Ulster’s nail salons and tattoo parlors in phase 2, while in Neuhaus’s Orange County, outdoor dining – allowed elsewhere in this phase – won’t be permitted for two more weeks.
When asked how he made these determinations, the governor responded brusquely, “I listen to the experts.”
Future challenges will pit Rockland County Executive Ed Day against Monroe County Executive Adam J. Bello in an American-Ninja-Warrior-style obstacle course at West Point and Westchester County Executive George Latimer against Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro in a dance-off at Albany’s Palace Theatre.
“It’s been tough for the gov to go from being idolized for his straight-talk and competence, everything that Trump was not, with talk of “Cuomosexuals” and displacing Biden from the top of the Democratic ticket, to his current position as the guy who may have been responsible for thousands of excess nursing home deaths,” said aide Rob Garnett. “He insisted on doing these daily press conferences long after everyone lost interest. Handing out these little freedoms in dribs and drabs to different regions of the state based on god knows what formula is about all he has right now to stay relevant, so we’re going to milk it as long as we can.”
