DENVER – Gov. John Hickenlooper is a nerd.
To the Colorado political world, that statement comes as no surprise.
Part of his appeal in his 13 years in office – beginning with eight years as the mayor of Denver – has been his quirky personality.
The governor’s staff repeatedly says his relatively transparent demeanor often serves him well, but it can also be a curse.
There have been a time or two when the governor has put his foot in his mouth – think telling Colorado sheriffs in 2014 that he regretted not having all the facts when he signed controversial gun control bills into law.
But Hickenlooper, a 64-year-old Democrat, is unapologetic about his style, which is abundantly clear in his 344-page memoir released last month, The Opposite of Woe: My Life in Beer and Politics.
The book is a project he mulled for a decade that finally came to fruition last month with a book published by Penguin Press.
“It is, in a funny way, a call to action for nerds everywhere,” Hickenlooper recently told reporters in Colorado as part of a book tour, which also included appearances on “CBS This Morning” and NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
He writes about his professional life, which started as a geologist in the early 1980s and turned into a successful bit as an entrepreneur after being laid off. Hick – as he is lovingly known – opened Wynkoop Brewing Co., Denver’s first brewpub.
Some stories in the book are about the governor’s keen business sense when opening Wynkoop, including purchasing toilets – “gorgeous old porcelain thrones” – for $25 each that had decades-old dried feces in them.
Determined to open the brewpub on budget, and unable to turn down such a deal – despite the “flies and maggots” – Hickenlooper removed the toilets and used hammers to remove the excrement.
“If you’re starting a business, you’ve got to be frugal,” a humble Hickenlooper laughed of the very dirty experience.
But it’s not so much the business or even political memories in the book that allows Hickenlooper to connect with readers. It’s the pain and growth from his personal battles that truly strikes a note, from his father’s death as a young child, to the 2012 separation from his then-wife, Helen Thorpe.
“The way she saw it, when my father died, half my heart cauterized. And she said, while the half that was left was wonderful and lovely, it simply didn’t pump all of the emotion sometimes needed,” the governor writes of his difficult past and troubled marriage.
He was engaged twice before marrying Thorpe. He recently married 37-year-old Robin Pringle.
“I wanted to tell that story of someone who was a nerd and grew up with a lot of woe and dealing with some really bad stuff, but my mom was such a great model of what is the opposite of woe,” Hickenlooper told reporters.
Max Potter, the governor’s former senior media adviser and speechwriter, collaborated with Hickenlooper in writing the book.
“I would ask him questions, and his big, beautiful brain would crack open, and you would get like 20 butterflies that would fly at you,” Potter said. “I felt like the guy on the other side of the table with a tiny butterfly net.”
Beyond the deep emotions portrayed in the book, Hickenlooper also candidly recounted lighter tales as a youth, including the first time he smoked marijuana at age 16.
For a governor who opposed legalization in Colorado, it was surprising to learn that he once tried to grow the stuff outside his childhood bedroom window in Pennsylvania – when marijuana was far from being considered a legal substance.
He also once took a nude selfie, which he joked to reporters, “I’m a little surprised the press corps hasn’t demanded to see that selfie. All the time you want transparency, suddenly you change your mind.”
Hickenlooper also writes about the time he saw the X-rated movie “Deep Throat” with his mother, which naturally turned into an awkward silence afterward.
The tales are not necessarily flattering from a public office perspective. Or, perhaps, it is the candid nature of the stories that actually make him a more popular politician.
But the governor tells observers to think twice before extrapolating any larger ambitions based on the timing of the book, which coincides with Democrat Hillary Clinton’s presidential run.
“If I were trying to orchestrate something, or if this was an audition, maybe many of those things I should have left out of the book,” Hickenlooper said. “Anyone who reads the book says, ‘I don’t think he’s trying to use this to leverage himself into higher office.’”