Ames Progressive

Finally, the day has come: Gavin’s Journal has found its new residence, and this time it’s here to stay (tentatively, no doubt).

The gods have been looking kindly upon the Ames Progressive lately. We’re working on our fourth zine-formatted issue, which should be out come end of January. Response has been pretty fantastic; it’s safe to say our publication has some stellar stickin’-it-to-the-man times ahead.

With a bit of friendly advice from Iowa State University J-school prof and attorney Barbara Mack, we’ve established ourselves as a non-profit corporation. Soon we’ll be in the process of hunting for grants to supplement the financial side of things, which will be of great relief to our meager college-kid incomes should our efforts prove fruitful.

We have an office space now where we’ve been holding events to chill and collect donations. First it was in the old Iraq Campaign office, which Sue Dinsdale let us have until that lease ran out on the 15th. Now we’re in a larger adjacent room at 118 Hayward Suite #3.

I often hear the parrots at The Ark pet shop chirping at night. We also share the building with The Scallion Korean Restaurant, Domino’s Pizza, Nite Owl Printing, a couple haircut shops and a counseling service. And probably something else I’ve forgotten by now.

A lot of ex-Bohemians (the closed bistro, not natives of Bohemia) have been showing up to our music nights (open mics Sundays at 8 p.m., prescheduled stuff Tuesdays at 8), among them the venerable Michael Martin, Eric Coleman and Sean Retz. I invited my parents to this Tuesday’s show; my mum counted about 50 people in the space at what appeared to be the time of peak attendance.

Boheme owner Pete Sherman showed up at our first Sunday open mic night with an update. Rumors have spread of a new sports bar at the location, but there might yet be hope. Pete said he’d talk to two Des Moines residents the following day who were interested in leasing the Boheme and reopening it true to form. I haven’t heard anything since.

Now, allow me to backtrack. On the night of the 11th, I was at a friend’s apartment partying when I received a call from my esteemed colleague Greg Bonett, who arrived several minutes later and escorted me into the hallway. He told me something along the lines of the following: “Dude, there’s a pile of dog shit in our office space with vomit all over it. What should we do?”

It didn’t take us long to decide to do nothing, for the time being. And unfortunately I drained my cell phone battery later, presumably in the middle of the night, and missed the alarm signaling clean-up party time come next morning.

Our art director, Kim Smith, showed me a cell phone snapshot of the scene of the crime later that day. No urine, just a few healthy looking turds with vomit topping and a few paper towels placed neatly on top, ostensibly as a heavily intoxicated peace offering.

So stay vigilant Ames, there appears to be an excreter on the prowl. For our part, we’ve been doing a good job keeping things nice and tidy and all locked up since.

Hope you enjoy the new site of the Progressive and the new home of Gavin’s Journal. Things are still pretty rough around the edges, but we’re making good progress working out the kinks.

Stay tuned for a briefing on Ed Fallon’s official announcement of his bid to unseat third district Congressman Leonard Boswell. And thanks for reading.

g.