Iowa Day 1 - Presidents, Preservation, and Prehistory
My first full day in Iowa started with a trip to the incredibly cozy Java Creek Cafe in Cedar Rapids. The coffee was good and strong, and the staff was super friendly so it was a great start to my week. I didn’t know much about Iowa before this week other than that one of my best friends from college grew up near Des Moines and one of my favorite indie comedies is based in Cedar Rapids and features some absolutely top-notch John C. Reilley:
After fueling up for the day, my first stop was the town of West Branch to visit the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. It sounded a little bit dry to me, because I had no prior real knowledge of Herbert Hoover other than that he was president during the Great Depression, but I just sort of assumed that nobody named could be particularly exciting. Still it had been recommended to me, and it was one of the only museums open on a Monday so I gave it a shot and I was pleasantly surprised by how much stranger and more fascinating Hoover’s life had been than I had expected. He was like an early Republican Jimmy Carter, in that his presidency was largely a disaster for reasons that weren’t entirely his fault, but his non-presidential humanitarian efforts were some of the most impressive of anyone president or otherwise. There’s something pretty tragic about how much it bares out throughout history that good people always seem to make such bad politicians.
The museum assuaged any concerns I had of dryness by beginning with some charmingly strange portraits of Ol’ Herbert, and an introductory text that promises the life of President Hoover will entail the rise of the orphan son of a blacksmith to a titan of industry and a Great Humanitarian followed by a fall into crushing despair during his presidency and great hatred for him across the nation only for him to pull himself back into the world’s good graces at the end of his life. It’s almost Shakespearean when they lay it all out like that, and regardless of how you feel about the man (a little bit of aggrandizement is always expected at these libraries) at least after reading that you get the feeling like you’re in a for a good story.
The museum was organized as a walking tour through the timeline of Hoover’s life, and it was well-curated with a mixture of photographs and artifacts with three-dimensional tableaus to help bring the text to life. The museum begins on a somber note as the early life of Herbert Hoover was filled with tragedy. “Bertie” as his family called him was born into a devout Quaker family in West Branch, IA in 1874, and he had a hard time basically from jump. When he was two, he had such a bad case of the croup that at one point his whole family assumed he was dead until his uncle managed to resuscitate him. He also apparently got stuck in the mud so often while crossing the unpaved streets that his father’s childhood nickname for him was “My Little Stick in the Mud” which is both sad and adorable. When he was six his father, the family’s primary provider, passed away and three years later his mother also died leaving him and his two siblings as orphans before he hit double digits. The three Hoover children were split up among different relatives, and at just 9 years old Herbert was sent by train to his aunt and uncle in Oregon all by himself with just two dimes and some pastries to his name. Speaking less than enthusiastically about his childhood days, Hoover was quoted as saying “I am not recommending a return to the good old days. Sickness was great and death came sooner.'“ Not exactly rose-tinted glasses.
Life wasn’t much easier for Hoover in Oregon. His uncle was a stern man who expected Herbert to work many chores when he wasn’t in school. Hoover left school at 13 and worked in his uncle’s real estate office during the day, and put himself through business school at night in lieu of a traditional high school experience. All of Herbert’s hard work paid off eventually and he was accepted into Stanford’s very first class. While there, he majored in Geology which is where he met and fell in love with fellow Geology student Lou Henry, whom he would eventually marry. Based on the photos from his college years, you can see Herbert trying to give off more of an air of sophistication and dapperness than his humble origins would suggest.
After college, Herb got a job working in a mine in Nevada for $2 every 10 hours (yikes). Unsurprisingly he wanted a change and applied to work for a London firm that operated gold mines in Western Australia. The firm was looking for a 35-year-old geologist with “a lifetime of experience” but 22-year old Herbert just grew out his mustache and bought a tweed suit and somehow that was enough to land him the gig. Young Hoover traveled across the desserts of the Australian outback living on almost solely sardines and cocoa (so gross) in search of gold until he eventually scouted out a rich vein in what is now called the Sons of Gwalia mine. This single mine proved to be so immensely profitable that his company essentially now controlled over 50% of all gold production in all of Australia, which naturally made his employers pretty chuffed with this little Herbie. He apparently was well-liked amongst the miners too, but I also read that he opposed minimum wages and workers comp and brought in cheap Italian immigrant laborers to quell attempts at unionization so he was definitely more of a company man than a man of a people. While the methods skeeve me out a bit, Hoover sure did make the rich people a heck a lot of richer so they offered him some pretty sizable salary increases and this poor orphan from Iowa was now well on his way to his first million. After his successes in Australia, the mining company offered Herbert a position developing mines in China. Before departing for Asia, Herbert stopped back in the states and asked his college sweetheart Lou Henry to marry him. The newlyweds then went to China together, and after less than a year the Boxer Rebellion broke out and they were essentially trapped there for two years with other foreign nationals waiting to see how the revolution would go. Not exactly a dream honeymoon, but man this guy’s 20s were eventful. The Hoovers made it through the rebellion unscathed and apparently picked up enough of the language while they were in China that for the rest of their lives if they didn’t want people to hear what they were saying they would speak to each other in Chinese. Herbert continued working for the same company for a few years, but some senior partners kept getting sued for shady dealing so he understandably wanted to distance himself from them setting out on his own as an independent mining consultant. He proved to have a shrewd mind for business and emerging scientific advances and was able to make several profitable investments in mines and companies all over the world making him a pretty sizable fortune. He also casually developed a new way to mine zinc, increased copper production in Russia, published a textbook on the science of mining (at some point along the way he became more progressive as his book did advocate for 8-hour workdays and unions so it’s awesome to see someone actually get more moral as they get richer which is not exactly the norm), and he and his wife together published the first English translation of a 16th-century Latin book about mining and metallurgy so clearly they were meant to be together. Somehow he did all of these things before he was 40 and we still haven’t even gotten to Politics yet, so already this museum proved way more interesting than I was expecting.
My favorite artifact from these business years was a letter Herbert sent to his brother which he casually signs “Sincerely your Bro, Herbert”. I was not expecting the word “bro” to be in use in the 19th century, and I fully laughed out loud.
While the Hoovers were living in the UK, the first World War broke out and Herbert’s life took a surprising and incredible turn. Hoover’s Quaker upbringing left him with a sense of obligation to help people during the massive upheaval of the war, and now that he had a multimillion dollar fortune he actually had the resources to make a gigantic difference. His first humanitarian effort during the war was leading a committee with other businessmen to help return Americans civilians stranded in Europe back home. The committee’s efforts were able to provide relief aid to over 40,000 Americans! Hoover’s most significant contribution began though in August of 1914, after the German invasion of Belgium had created a devastating food shortage. The German government outright refused to take charge in supplying any food to the people of Belgium and only agreed to begin importing food if the importation was supervised by the United States since at this stage of the war they were a neutral party. Hoover stepped in to seize this opportunity and established the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). He and the CRB campaigned tirelessly to obtain private donations and government grants in order to raise over $11 million a month for purchasing and distributing millions of pounds of food to starving Belgian families. To ensure that their aid actually reached their targets without German military interference, the CRB developed their own navy, railroads, and factories to sustain and protect their operations ensuring continued relief. At one point, a British officer referred to them as essentially “a piratical state organized for benevolence” which is just fantastic. As the Commission’s head, Hoover personally traveled to Germany over 40 times to argue and negotiate with German officials to work out agreements allowing them access to ports and points of entrance for food delivery and distribution. He also worked out agreements with Britain to allow individual donors to send money directly to Belgian citizens cutting out some of the middle man work of the Commission. Essentially, with no political experience, Hoover became an international diplomat overnight and worked with warring governments to ensure the protection of starving families. It’s estimated that between 1914-1919, the commission bought and shipped 11.4 billion pounds of food to 9.5 million civilian victims of the war which is pretty mind-boggling. In addition to importing food, the cotton flour sacks that the food was shipped in became valuable sources of raw materials, and the cotton was repurposed by Belgian textile workers to make new clothes, lace, pillows, bags, and even canvases for artists. In a show of thanks for his efforts, Hoover was gifted with lots of beautiful art made from these repurposed flour sacks and these were a real highlight of the museum’s collection for me because of both the beauty of the artistry and the powerful story behind it. These gifts, along with other photographs and artifacts from that time, really brought to life the devastation of the war, the true value of the humanitarian efforts, and the resilience of the Belgian people.
Through his humanitarian work, Hoover officially entered government work for the first time when President Wilson appointed him head of the U.S. Food Administration. Hoover was tasked with managing food production and distribution within the states as well as providing food for Allied Forces abroad. Through clever marketing and embracing new forms of media, Hoover was able to persuade the public to go without certain high-value foods on different days of the week (Meatless Mondays, Wheatless Wednesdays, etc.) and in doing so was able to provide over 23 million tons of food to allied powers, while avoid more drastic forced rationing which could have potentially demoralized American civilians. He was praised for his shrewd handling of the situation, and when the war ended he was tasked with heading the American Relief Administration to provide aid and rebuild infrastructure across war-torn Europe. He became a trusted advisor to President Wilson, and strongly advocated for still providing post-war aid to Germany and famine-relief to Soviet Russia which were shockingly controversial ideas despite involving basic human decency. When asked if he was worried that this would inspire the rise of new enemies, Hoover replied "Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!" which is the best kind of badass.
After the War, he was appointed as Secretary of Commerce where helped grow and regulate the radio industry, encouraged the federal government to invest in air travel infrastructure and, get this, inspect planes for safety and require pilots licenses (crazy!), promoted the American film industry abroad, and curbed the rising prevalence of automobile accidents by promoting standards for vehicle safety and consistent rules of the road across states. He also was a staunch advocator of embracing new technology and information, and he actually hired academics from various fields to do research and advocate for best practices based on scientific data which feels alarmingly too uncommon in public policy (across the aisle to be honest). While it did not fall under the purview of the Commerce Department, when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927, displacing over 1 million Americans, the affected states specifically petitioned President Coolidge to appoint Hoover to aid with disaster relief. Coolidge felt like disaster relief wasn’t a federal concern (the museum doesn’t come right out and say this, but Coolidge really sucks), but he eventually caved to everyone saying “stop being an asshole” (I’m paraphrasing) and appointed Hoover to lead relief efforts. Hoover quickly went to work establishing temporary residences referred to as tent cities, raising $17 million dollars for aid, and enlisting the Army Corp of Engineers to instate measures to divert future flooding. His quick response was widely praised, though reports of horrible racial inequality within the tent cities were kept out of the media and this is cited as one of many key inciting incident in Black voters losing confidence in the Republican party. For some reason the Museum doesn’t really talk about that aspect of the Flood Relief quite so much.
Hoover’s popularity with the American public soared to the point where he was the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in the 1928 Election. While he aligned himself with the Republican party, Hoover’s politics had become much more progressive over the years, advocating for a federal minimum wage, forty-eight-hour workweeks, and the elimination of child labor, and his presidential platform was built on public service, conserving natural resources, and reducing military spending which essentially makes hims a Centrist Democrat by today’s standards. However, with the rising fear of socialism worldwide, Hoover was reluctant to fully jump on direct government interventions advocating for a kind of progressive capitalism he called American Individualism that advocated for voluntary support for public programs rather than making this federally mandated. I think in a perfect world, it’s not a bad system, but it is sadly way too naïve trusting that everyone else is acting with moral interests above financial one, and while Hoover lived by his own doctrine , his ideology would very sadly get to put to some pretty extreme tests during his presidency.
Of course the largest section of the museum about Hoover’s presidency was dedicated to unpacking The Great Depression just as most of his term was spent trying (and largely failing) to thwart it. It was a well researched and interestingly curated with lots of great photos and first person documents, but also deeply deeply frustrating to read how preventable so much of the tragedy was and how little we’ve learned from it. The problems began long before Hoover took office, with rampant stock speculation from banks and wall street, commercial production outstripping consumer’s ability to afford said products, a floundering agricultural industry, and virtually no federal social protections in place creating a recipe for disaster. To Hoover’s credit, he wasn’t totally unaware of the worsening economic situation and dating back to his time as the Secretary of Commerce he wrote dozens of letters urging banks and Wall Street to stop wildly speculating (particularly with regular people’s money), but he received only scoffs and insults in reply, even receiving a letter from the head of J.P. Morgan just ten days before the Black Tuesday telling him to “not rock the boat”. This flagrant disregard for any consequences in the interest of short term wealth is truly disgusting to me, and still an all too common practice. While Hoover saw the dangers of these business practices, he was too afraid of government overreach and too enamored with “individualism” to actually make any meaningful strides to prevent over-speculation. This is sadly too indicative of Hoover’s response to the Depression, in that he generally had good ideas but was far too trusting of banks and businesses to really enact them. Even when he did try to take direct actions by having the Federal Reserve cut banks’ access to speculative credit, the banks just ignored him and offered $100 million in new loans knowing he wouldn’t really do anything to them (just gross behavior), and this certainly hastened the big crash. Perhaps his greatest failure was refusing until it was too late to institute any Federal unemployment programs, because he believed so strongly that it the duty of local governments and the wealthy to provide protections for the poor no matter how much evidence he got that they weren’t doing it. He was also essentially allergic to good press, which didn’t help his case. He refused to address any criticisms of him in the newspapers, his press conferences were dry and filled with statistics that didn’t mean much to the average struggling American, and whenever he did do something noble or wise (there’s a sweet story about three orphans hitchhiking to the White House to ask Hoover to pardon their father from jail, which he did almost immediately) he asked the press to keep his name out of it so it didn’t look like he was doing it just for good publicity. He simply wasn’t made for politics and for all his good ideas and intentions he just wasn’t the right man for the job. Lots of New Deal programs were actually continuations of programs Hoover had started (admittedly too late), but a key difference was that FDR knew how to sell them and make Americans feel like there was light at the end of the tunnel. FDR had a sense of doing things that spoke to how people felt while Hoover tried too hard to leave feelings out of it and handle the Depression with cold logic and reasoning which just isn’t as nice to hear when you’ve got no money, no job, or no food.
Outside of the Depression, the thing most often associate with Hoover is his namesake Dam, but even that didn’t really go his way. The massive engineering project was authorized in the last years of Coolidge’s presidency, but the construction largely occurred under Hoover’s administration. Secretary of the Interior Ray Wilbur suggested the name “Hoover Dam” since most dams in the past had been named after Presidents, and he felt that Hoover from his time as Secretary of Commerce had been instrumental in the dam’s development. His successor Harold Ickes, however, hated Hoover and did everything in his power to make sure the official name would be the “Boulder Dam” which is what it would remain until 1947 when Congress voted to rename it the Hoover Dam since that is ultimately what most Americans referred to it as anyways.
Next up was a slight break from Herbert to focus on his wife of nearly 50 years, Lou. Lou was incredibly distinguished in her own right. She was the first female Geology major to graduate from Stanford, and she was an academic all her life, studying Chinese while they were stranded there (making her to this day the only First Lady to be fluent in an Asian language) and working with Herbert to translate Latin texts to English just for fun. During WWI, she worked to help preserve the Belgian Lace industry and was heavily involved with American Women’s War Relief Fund to provide funding for hospitals and jobs for women in Europe. She was the rare First Lady to also be a president, serving two terms as the national president of the Girl Scouts of America from 1922-1925 and again from 1935-1937. The museum had a lovely collection of her clothes, writings, and photographs to ensure that Lou received her proper dues.
Of the photographs from Hoover family life, the one that cracked me up the most was easily this picture of a very tired looking Herbert holding onto one of his children by a leash so he doesn’t wander too far away during a boat ride.
After the little detour, it was back to Herbert’s story and his redemption arc post-presidency. At the time of his leaving office there was likely no more hated man in all of America, so Hoover largely tried to keep himself out of the limelight except to occasionally criticize FDR. Beyond being political rivals, Hoover personally had great distaste for Roosevelt considering him to be callous and conniving, and he never forgave him for intentionally delaying helping out with a banking crisis until after his inauguration so that it would like the worst of it happened under Hoover’s watch. Hoover was almost certainly right about FDR on a personal level, which probably made it sting even more that FDR really was just way better at the job of being a president than he had been because sadly it is a job that often requires being a little bit sleazy from time to time. When WWII started to erupt in Europe, Hoover initially denied Roosevelt’s requests to coordinate relief efforts believing that the US should not get involved but eventually his humanitarian side took over and he helped head the Commission for Polish Relief. As the war progressed, Hoover would also spearhead relief efforts in Nazi-occupied Belgium and Soviet-occupied Findland. After FDR’s death, Hoover was on much better terms with Harry Truman and the two men would become close friends. When the war ended, Truman enlisted Hoover to travel around Allied-occupied Germany and Italy compiling reports to aid in US post-war policy. Perhaps the most important policy enacted under Hoover’s recommendation was the establishment of a school meals program in US and UK-occupied Germany that would go on to feed over 3 million children. When he arrived back home, Hoover became a trusted advisor for Truman and was appointed to lead a commission designed to evaluate the various branches of the federal government and make recommendations for ways to improve administrative efficiency. Outside of politics, he served as a chairman and devoted supporter of the Boy’s Club charity to help give back to orphaned youth like he had been. At the end of his life, he was once again recognized more for humanitarian work than his failures.
After the exhibits about Hoover’s life, the museum featured a recreation of Hoover’s room at the Waldorf Astoria where he lived for much of his later life complete with displays of gifts he had received as president and some absolutely stunning ceramics that had been his White House China.
Next up was a temporary exhibition about the history Iowa’s Farming industry. Highlight’s for me included: various strange marketing materials including scantily clad women in corn fields and something called the Pork Costulator; the powerful irony of cheerful cartoons proclaiming the benefits of toxic pesticide DDT with the caption “DDT was banned in the United States in 1972”; some really depressing statistics about how drastically farm sizes had decreased under the Trump administration while the rate of farms being owned by absentee landlords has increased; some sweet resilience after devastating farm crises during the 1980s led the state to beginning to take more effort to preserve historic and family owned farms as important parts of Iowa’s culture and economy; some gorgeous farm photos coupled with more sad facts about the declining populations in rural parts of the country leading to fewer small farms in general; some pretty gnarly looking corn husking gloves; the shocking fact (to me at least) that prairie grass in Iowa can reach heights of over 10 ft. tall; some more uplifting statistics about Iowa leading the nation in conservation efforts around water quality and implementation as well as investing millions into soil conservation, protecting milkweed and other nectar plants, and protecting butterflies and honey bees, with these efforts leading to both more profitable and more sustainable farms; an incredibly rusty historic cattle de-horner; and some more historic farm-ware from the great Depression through the end of WWII when crops diversified out of necessity to meet demands from the recession and later the war.
Last but not least, there was a pretty astonishing multi-media mural depicting, through a blend of carved wood, paintings, photos, and found objects, various key points throughout Hoover’s life. I don’t know who the artist was, but it was a pretty incredible bit of creativity and a great way to sort of put a bow on all those new information I’d just attempted to absorb for the past few hours.
After all that presidential history, I had worked up quite an appetite so I decided to combine good food and good sightseeing by visiting the Amana Colonies. The colonies were originally a self-sufficient collective of small villages founded by German immigrants who belonged to a persecuted Pietists religious group called the True Inspiration Congregations. LIke more famous self-sufficient Protestant sects the Amish and the Shakers, the Amana colonists became renowned for their craft-making skills which have been an important tentpole of their local economy since their formation in 1856.
The onset of the Great Depression happened to occur at a time where the Amana colonists were already strongly advocating for greater secularization, so the colonies decided to vote for something called the Great Change in 1932 which would incorporate the colonies under one for-profit organization called the Amana Society. The Great Change would allow outsiders into the Colonies allowing for more economic opportunities and greater personal freedom for the Amana Colonists.
Nowadays the colonies are a popular tourist attraction, certified as a National Historic Landmark. Beyond the neat hand made architecture, the colonies are also home to Amana Farms which is the largest privately owned forest in the state so the area is surrounded with natural beauty as well.
They’re also celebrated for their restaurants specializing in traditional German food and brews, so how I could I resist. I made my a beeline for the Millstream Brewing Company Brau Haus, a historic Inn repurposed into a German-style beer hall. Inspired by Amana history, all the dining tables added to the original building are made from wood from local trees and coupled with the old frame and loft of the building it really is a work of art in its own right.
Naturally a beautiful location is only half the battle and fortunately the food and beer more than lived up to their end of the bargain. The brewery became the first Amana owned and operated brewery in over 100 years when they opened for business in 1985, and they pride themselves on brews that are both rich in tradition and not afraid to get a little creative so naturally I had to get a big ol' flight of everything. My flight came with the light and crisp Windmill Wheat Ale, the refreshing Johns White Ale, a Vienna lager style beer called the Schild Brau Amber, a fruity Kolsch style beer aged with fresh peaches called the Fuzz Peach, a rich and malty number called the Back Road Stout, and incredible Nitro Blonde Stout, that looks and drinks like a lager but tastes like a stout. The last one really blew me away, but everything was fantastic, and I was definitely feeling pretty loose after working my way down that line up. Luckily, I was able to pad out all the booze with a really excellent bratwurst straight from the local Amana Meat Shop, grilled to perfection and served on an absoulte dram of a home-made pretzel bun. Toss in some tasty fries, and it was basically a perfect lunc.
As you can tell from this slightly tipsy selfie, after all that I was a very happy little German boy:
After lunch, I had a great time just walking around the Amana Colonies and checking out all the cute shops and historic buildings. I started out with a funky shop called Creative Colony which had all sorts of knick-knacks and antiques to spruce up your home. While there were tons of legitimately great crafts and home-goods, naturally I was drawn to the stranger side of things and my items were these sweetly dopey folk art cows and this absolutely bonkers vintage popcorn tin that for some reason had a nightmarish fancy potato chip named Mister Chips as a mascot who was also holding a smaller version of his own tin for extra lunacy.
Next up I got to take in some some works from over 100 local Iowa artists at the fantastic gallery, Catiri’s Art Oasis. The gallery was located in a beautiful old Amana home, so it had a really warm welcoming energy to go with all the top-notch art in just about every medium you could think of. My favorites included: a sweetly psychedelic portrait of an old hound dog by Kate Hoyer; a stunning stained glass portrait hanging in the kitchen window; rows of excellent ceramics with fantastical multi-pronged vessels by Spirit Dancing Pottery on the top row and more rustically elegant pots and jars by Mary Weisgram; super lovable fish sculptures by Larry Blum; some more shelves of ceramics with a sleek crackle pattern on top and some glazed vessels with nature motifs by Lori Bonz; some dreamy sci-fi art by Richard Trice; some wild photographs by Alan R. Smith of natural landscapes twisted and refracted through glass rounded glass lenses; some folksy ceramic faces by Prairie Dog Pottery next to kaleidscopic glass organments by Scott Simmons; and more of those wilds Spirit Dancing vessels.
I really loved all the art but the two artists that struck me the most were Doug Adams with his intricate and ethereal wire tree sculptures and Laura Lee Junge with her hilariously surreal scenes of anthropomorphized alcohol bottle carousing and having a merry time.
After all that arting about, I made my way to the Amana General Store to check out more great local crafts and vintage aesthetics. It really felt like a time capsule from the old west village. To add an extra layer of whimsy, there’s a year round International Christmas Market so there’s pine needles, fake snow, and bright lights everywhere to make you feel like you’re truly walking in a winter wonderland.
I also got to re-up my caffeine intake at the adorably cozy Amana Coffee & Tea Co. tucked into the General Store’s basement:
After the General Store, I had to go to someplace called the Chocolate Haus, where I picked the up some great home-made peanut butter cups and coconut truffles and the only thing that could make me happier was if they had gleefully insane wall art and luckily I was not disappointed.
As I was leaving, I realized that I’d been taking in all the beautiful old architecture but I hadn’t actually taken any photos of the village exteriors so I fixed that right away:
After the Colonies, I made my way to Iowa City, the home of the University of Iowa and tonight’s open mic. I didn’t know much about Iowa City before my trip, but I’d come back here throughout the week for comedy and I thought it was a really fun college town with two things every college student needs: great cafes and a bustling arts scene.
Just outside the city proper, I got to take in some incredible prehistoric views at the Devonian Fossil Gorge. Located on the beautiful banks of Coralville Lake, the Fossil Gorge was completely submerged until a the lake flooded in 1993 washing away tons of soil and trees to reveal a shockingly well preserved 375-million-year-old fossilized Devonian ocean with fossils of ancient sea life casually poking out of the rock from time to time. The reveal of the gorge was a remarkable window into the world of some of Iowa’s earliest residents, and beyond the paleontological significance the fossil beds have a strange otherworldly charm to them that make them a striking complement to the lush greenery around the lake. It was probably the most surreal I’ve ever been on because you never know when you might come across fully intact fossils just sticking out of the ground, but it made for a pretty perfect way to kill an evening.
And even without any fossils, the vistas would have been pretty special:
After wearing myself out from walking around so much more than I usually do, I stopped at one more coffeeshop to fuel up and hang out before the open mic. I went to the downtown location of local favorite chain Java House, and I was thoroughly won over by their perfect study atmosphere and a mean iced coffee. They also had all kinds of fancy flavored drinks that I’m sure are a big hit with the college crowd.
The open mic was in an awesome college dive with the humorously tongue-in-cheek name, the Iowa City Yacht Club (the state is landlocked, and, while I loved it, I don’t think yacht-owners are their target clientele). I was there a bit early for the mic, so I got a little bit of pub food and a heavy duty stout from Kalona Brewing and got to eavesdrop on the bartender telling a customer pretty hilarious stories about catching underage college kids.
Once the mic started I had a ton of fun, and I thought it was a great introduction to the Iowa City scene because every comic really brought it.
I thought every comic was really strong but my personal favorite of the night was someone by the name of Eric Pursoon (I have no confidence that I spelled that right) who performed in a dress and had a great loose, absurdist delivery. I liked his quick jokes like, “Here's what I've learned about real estate if you live in a college town by any place that has 420 in it, because you will always be able to rent it out” but his bit that stuck out the most to me was a longer story about him meeting Donald Glover at a bar when he was just starting to become really famous. Eric recognized him and started geeking out, but then he got self-conscious that he was coming on too strong so he bought his table a round of drinks, and Donald came over to him and said "You know you don't need to do that, I have money from TV" and Eric just sort of panicked and replied to honestly "It's okay I have money from my dad dying"
Other highlights:
Gerald (he was a great host, but I didn’t catch his last name which is on me)- Alaska is debating a bill about using bacon and donuts to hunt bears. So what now I have to wear a bullet proof vest to go to Alaska?
Sarah Haskins- Taking care of business is the kind of song I think Burt Reynolds likes
Andrew Tysinger- When I get new match on tinder, I just say “Looks like the spider caught another fly”
Ethan Everhart- I saw a guy at the gym with shirt that said "Jesus didn't tap out"
Billy Thomas- My dad gave me a cock ring when I was in 5th grade because he thought it was a necklace
Trenton Orris - Snoop Dogg was in an erectile dysfunctional ad where he clearly refused to even imply that he might have erectile dysfunction so the ad they went with was "Thanks to the miracle of science erectile dysfunction is now optional” This implies some people choose erectile dysfunction.
My own set went well with just about everything landing but I doubt I stood out as much when everyone was doing really well. Still I made enough of an impression that the other comics came over to hang out after the mic, and we just cracked jokes and hung out for a while after the mic. They were all as fun and nice offstage as they were funny on stage. Not a bad first day at all.
Favorite Random Sightings: a Bible school God Squad; a maybe too ominously named tattoo parlor called Insidious Ink; a restaurant called Phat Daddy's; a local honey called The Noble Bee; and an amusingly named clothing stored called Ragstock (clearly shooting for low expectation)
Regional Observations: As flat as the landscape generally is in Iowa, I have to say the fields are really pretty in the summer when everything is green.
Albums Listened To: Another hodgepodge of things accredited to “unknown albums” in my iPod. These included: Raiders of the Lost Ark by John Williams (pretty dramatic start to the day); Ballad of Johnny X by Johnny X; Walrus by Lady Lamb and the Beekeepers; 1% by Lars Frederikson and the Bastards; Ramble On by Led Zeppelin; all my brother and sister’s favorite songs by Less Than Jake (somehow none of them got assigned to their proper albums); a great cover of Iggy Pop’s the Traveler by the Lunachicks; a collection of songs from the first four Mad Caddies albums (also never assigned to their proper albums, I guess i was worse at that during my ska punk phase); One Step Beyond by Madness; Family, Osborne Road, and You Got Me Running by Marc Scullion (a traveling x-ray technician who I was roommates with when I took Irish language immersion classes in Donegal one Summer. These ones gave me some nostalgic tears big time)
Joke of the Day:
Two boys were arguing when the teacher entered the room.
The teacher says, "Why are you arguing?"
One boy answers, "We found a $10 note and decided to give it to the person who tells the biggest lie."
"You should be ashamed of yourselves," said the teacher, "When I was your age, I didn't even know what a lie was."
The boys looked at each other then gave the $10 note to the teacher.
Songs of the Day:
Iconic
I couldn’t find a live clip of the Lars solo song, but here’s a hilarious clip of Rancid on Conan feat. Vic from the Slackers wearing a Russian hat for some reason
Fun cover of maybe my favorite Iggy song
90s ska bands were doing ironic sea shanties long before TikTok
One of My Friend Mark’s Songs: