Saturday Alert!!!!

This Just In -

Before the Main Gate at the Summerfest opens... Before the Downtown Trolley Loop is running for the day... before the stalls in Cathedral Square are open for business at the farmer's Market... For those of you Saturday early risers - you KNOW who you are - a special treat awaits this weekend. Chef Brian Frakes will be cookin' up a storm on WTMJ - Channel 4 between 7 and 8am. Even though we're still "Summerfesting," I have on the authority of a little bird (actually a rather big bird - although not BIG BIRD, but - oh, never mind) that he might be giving the nod to the city's upcoming fete - Bastille Days (and, no - we don't mean french fries!). Tune in and see what the Chef de Cuisine from the Grand Hotel of the West has up his sleeve. I just hope he brings back samples!

PS - If you need a wakeup call, just let me know.

What Is the Weight of My Joy?

  Let me begin with an apologiy for the recent “radio silence” on my end. Strange as it might seem to some, That Pfister Guy has a whole other sphere in which he rattles around – a singularly messy, and un-Pfister like place he calls his “personal life” (the term “chaos” having already taken). Things are not been all turndown amenities and complimentary desserts on the TPG homestead. While I won’t bore you with details, let me just say that the going has been decidedly heavy lately, or, to put it another way, if in every life some rain must fall – right now the reservoir feels just about topped up. But that’s not why I’m here.

You see, in the midst of all the chaos, I still find some time for celebration – or more aptly, celebration still hunts me down. For example: This year we had a longer and snowier Winter than we have had in a number of years. Now those of you who know me know that I do not necessarily consider this a bad thing (and God bless the man who invented 4 wheel drive). We had a number of crisp, cold days when the sky was sunny and almost painfully blue, and all in all I was fine with the weather. What I wasn’t expecting was added payoff of a late Spring. Was it just me, or did anyone else notice how the whole world seemed to go from slushy Mojito to vivid Grasshopper green almost overnight? And it seemed that everything bloomed AT ONCE. Cherry Blossoms! Apple Blossoms! Tulips! Dogwood! Lilacs! It was like some Las Vegas Grand Finale where a thousand Penn & Tellers waved their wands and – Voila! – those barren sticks exploded magical bouquets EVERYWHERE! ‘Scuse me for saying, but I was Gobsmacked!

Another example: I am chatting with a guest from Mexico today. She compliments me (would that I had the influence on this score) on the loveliness of our city, the beauty of the buildings and the character of the neighborhoods. I ask her what brings her to Milwaukee, and  she proceeds to tell me that her parents had lived in Milwaukee for several years “after the War” (we both being of an age, we know which war is being referred to when we hear that phrase).  She tells me about where her parents worked, and the neighborhood they lived in. She talks about speaking to her mother on the phone as she walked the blocks of her old neighborhood, stood in front of her old house, how the experience of sharing these places across thousands of miles and almost sixty years with her mother in Mexico almost made her cry – and then it happens!. She and her sisters want to bring her mother back to the city she hasn’t seen in over 50 years, to share it with the daughters who know it only from the stories she has told them of her life as a young bride in a strange country.  And there it is: Something to look forward to – something “out there” to anticipate. We have a reason to get up in the morning, to press on, to keep looking forward! For them it will be the trip, for me it will be waiting here to welcome them “back home.” And for a moment, each to our selves, we celebrate that future date.  I think to myself that - despite the disappointments, missed connections, the perceived indifference, the knowledge that there are hard times ahead, the ache of longing for things taken by age, by disease, by time itself – the World still answers in the affirmative!


That Pfister Guy Gets taken to School

Yes, that’s right – at this, the Autumn of his years, TPG is shaking the moths from his letter jacket, dusting off his book bag and heading to MATC to brush up on “excelling” – or, more to the point Microsoft Excel.
 
Now understand, this is a development that is not without some significance. You see, while he has been many things over the years, TPG has never been – no, not once -“That Math Guy.” There is an irony lurking here, as Mother G, was a math wiz, a woman who stared calculus in the eye and made him blink – a woman who reveled in the sheer joy of, as she called it, “making the numbers jump through hoops.”  While other Moms might be out in the kitchen making a Seven Layer Salad, my mom was in front of a class of eager young minds, doing things with an isosceles that would make Pythagoras break into a sweat. I was very proud that she was my mother. I appreciated the cleverness – the sheer skill involved – and yet...and yet...
 
While my Mom would follow the serpentine path that the numbers and symbols set for her, I kept getting distracted and following my own byways. For instance, did you ever wonder why the numbers are doing what they’re doing? I don’t mean their “work” - like standing in for the four or sixteen or one hundred and eleven things that have to be counted - THAT I get. Writing “12 cows” is a lot more efficient, not to mention more hygienic and less malodorous than trailing a herd along with you into the classroom.

I got that - but what mystified me was the “why” of individual numbers. Not 1, of course - that was self evident - indeed, almost self-ordained. 1, singular, only, unique - almost too overt - too obvious for complete respectability. But, what about the others? What were they doing beyond signifying - and WHY? Why did 2 kneel and bow (in - what? Homage? Supplication?), while 4 just lounged around with his legs crossed, and 7 stared at his feet in shame. And those sinister, Piscean twins 6 and 9 hinted at a shadowy gothic past that made the blood run cold.

If this all sounds a little odd - and let’s face it, it DOES - then you can understand why my relationship with things mathematical has been an ambivalent one. But I persevered, and if I wasn’t the Einstein that my Mom deserved, I learned what I needed to know. For example, when faced with a seemingly insoluble problem, my mother would liken it to one of those knots of thread that are left after you rip that tags off your new Levis. If you just keep plucking at it, eventually you’ll come up with the right thread - and when you pull THAT thread, the whole knot will unravel. Back then, for her it was model for getting to “=”; for me it’s a metaphor for what a concierge - this concierge does. Arithmetic or life in general, if you just keep pulling, ultimately it all adds up.

And so, while I was going to write about my anticipated adventures in Microsoft’s domain it seems I found another thread to unravel, to follow stitch by stitch. And the closer I get to the end of this equation it seems to equal “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.”

Thus Begins a Tale of Wonder.....

  Well, here goes -

Welcome to the world of That Pfister Guy! (Seems like there ought to be a flourish of trumpets or something here, but, as I haven’t figured out how to do anything with Garageband but play samples yet - think I’ll let that go).

OK - That wasn’t so hard I guess.

To bring you up to speed here - March came in, and the Lion King went out of town (you missed a piece I did on the arrival of the National Tour last month, because we weren’t up yet). Brett Favre retired as well, which is having a serious impact on conversation here in Packerland. And I am sitting here in the Comet Cafe, where, since they have Wi-Fi, I have no excuse not to get this puppy started.

So what are we - you and I  - doing here? Well, to tell the truth, this all began with a suggestion from my manager (in the future referred to as “On High”) that we look at ways of expanding the “virtual Pfister” beyond the hotel website. After some initial discussion and trying out a few different ideas, the headiness of the experience prompted him to decree “We must inject ourselves into the blogosphere!”

And so - before you had time to get an inoculation - here I am!

Now a little of the classic “full disclosure” is called for here. I am NOT the ideal candidate to be entrusted with this mission. While I can run off at the mouth for hours on end, I don’t like to write. There. I said it.

I DON”T LIKE TO WRITE!

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the written word - far from it. I am ENAMORED of it - I am a hopeless drunk when it comes to the printed (or virtual) page - I can’t get enough - OF THE WORDS OF OTHERS! As for my own output, well let’s just say that the feeling I get when I behold a complete a page of my own authorship is somewhat akin to the feeling one gets when he steps out of the shower and catches a glimpse of himself in the cold light of the bathroom mirror. What looks back in no way remotely resembles what I had imagined or conceived.

Still, just as I resolve to be more religious in doing my crunches and proceed to flossing my teeth - so I will endeavor to provide you with a useful, and I hope entertaining correspondence from my vantage point in the lobby of the Pfister - truly the heart of Milwaukee in all senses of the word.

I don’t have a particular agenda in doing this (which, I am certain, occasions its share of trepidation in the above mentioned “On High”), other than to keep you current with what the Pfister Guy is seeing, doing, and thinking about things. Sometimes I might tell you about what is going on in the hotel. Sometimes I might tell you what is going on in the city. Sometimes I might just tell you what’s going through my mind. Some of you might even find yourselves starring in your own entry. Sometimes I may throw something out there for discussion. And sometimes I may just start to ramble - it happens.

Whatever this blog becomes, though, it will not really reach its true potential without you. This raises an interesting question - “If a blog is written in the virtual forest, and nobody responds to it - does it qualify as communication?” Just so we’re clear here, I don’t expect that every little opinion I express to ignite a firestorm of e-discourse, but I do hope that at some point you’ll feel compelled to respond to my postings. Whether you agree or disagree, I’d like to hear how these things are hitting on your side of the screen. In other words, unlike Emily Dickinson, I am unwilling to write my letter to a world that never writes to me.
You’ve been warned.

And so, in closing this first installment of what I both hope and fear will be an interesting ride for us both, I just want to say that I really am grateful for your time and attention. I hope I haven’t bored you, and will endeavor not to in the future. I think we share a pretty interesting plane here (and that isn’t just the caffeine talking) and I’m looking forward to exploring it with you.

Guess that’s it for now.

I remain, your friend at the Pfister,
That Pfister Guy

P.S. - (So? Whaddaya think?)