Jovon Everett: Milwaukee, WI

Thursday, May 8th

I really dug Milwaukee. I will go so far as to say that Milwaukee easily makes it into the top ten tour stops thus far. It had lots of things going for it: 1) A downtown with plenty of life in it 2) Lots of places to eat & drink 3) No really, LOTS of places to drink 4) A visit from Wife!!! 5) More things to see than I could cram in 6) A nice theatre 7) The Hyatt Grand Bed 8) Wisconsin accents.

After my wet travel day, I was happy to check-in to the Hyatt and lay down on the Hyatt Grand Bed. I don't know what the folks at Hyatt have got figured out with their bedding, but it's working. The feather duvet, the firm mattress -- I really like it. Now, if they'd just embrace the concept of the fitted bottom sheet, we'd be in heaven.

TVFRMHRW - Milwaukee

The Marcus Center was just across the Milwaukee River from the hotel.

Ken, Karl, David and I met up for dinner at Karl Ratzch's, a Milwaukee institution since 1904. Chef Otto Hermann opened his cafe in downtown Milwaukee and later passed it on to his stepdaughter and son in law (Karl Ratzch). The menu has an extensive German side as well as a tasty sounding "American" side - I say "tasty sounding" because I never made it past the German portion of the menu. All four of us ordered various schnitzels, bratens and wursts and left very happy (and very full). Before we left, I made a reservation for Sheila Marie and I to return on Saturday!

David outside Karl Ratzch's

The Marcus Center is just one of several downtown performing arts venues: The Pabst Theatre, The Riverside Theatre, and the Milwaukee Rep are all within a few blocks of one another. The Marcus Center contains a concert hall (Uihlein Hall - where we were performing) as well as two smaller theatres, a "pavilion" (where we overlapped with a High School Prom) and an outdoor stage. Since the room was conceived as a concert hall, there were a few challenges to performing a Broadway musical. We use three spotlights, but Uihlein Hall only has permanent positions for two and those are in the far corners. The third spot lived amongst the audience in the uppermost balcony and Jeff, our front light man, had to get creative with the cuing as the lights were off center and couldn't reach the corners of the stage. The audiences in Milwaukee, however, were great and really showed their appreciation.

The Marcus Center

The Marcus Center at Night

The building was lit with a bunch of LEDs that could change the color of the building. It was a really dramatic and pretty effect.

We chased spring even farther north with the trip from Dayton to Milwaukee. It's been like going backwards in a time machine! In Milwaukee, the tulips were just about ready to bloom and the daffodils were in their glory. While many of the trees had blooms and young leaves, as many were just starting to bud. I was worried we would miss spring entirely, but Milwaukee has given me a welcome dose. The weather was also the most spring-like we've seen. It ranged from cold and wet to brilliant sunny days, though a sweatshirt was never a bad idea.

Flowers along the Milwaukee River

The strip of downtown that flanked the river really reminded me of Chicago. All the downtown bridges were drawbridges & the UW Milwaukee Crew Team was constantly rowing about.

Wayne and I went for a drink at the Pfister Hotel on Wednesday night. The Pfister is the grand old hotel of Milwaukee and Wayne is collector of such hotels. On the 23rd floor of the hotel, the Blu Martini Lounge shakes up some mean drinks with a view across downtown and out over the lake. We had a great evening.

I got to enjoy one of those brilliant spring days on Thursday. Gurr, Suzanne, Ben and I took a cab out to the Original Pancake House on Downer Avenue. The breakfast (and the company) were wonderful, but it was the 3 mile walk back to the hotel that made the morning. We all stopped at the bookstore next door: Harry W. Schwartz. Bookstores are dangerous places, they invite me to spend all my money. I have enough trouble working through the stack of books in my trunk and keeping up with my New Yorker subscription without any new goodies from the local independent bookstore. From there, I walked back to the Hyatt roughly following the shoreline of Lake Michigan from the bluffs above. I passed the campus of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee as well as several pretty parks. Along the way, I stopped to gawk at the Milwaukee Art Museum's flashy new building. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the museum's new addition features a 90 foot tall glass atrium that is enclosed by giant movable wings. The wings are part of a kinetic art installation entitled Burke Brise Solei. Every day the wings open and close twice. The wings extend more than 200 feet and are absolutely breathtaking. The whole building looks like a big white bird poised to take off and fly across Lake Michigan.

JV w/ the Original Pancake House's signature apple pancake.

The Milwaukee Art Museum with it's wings extended

The Old North Water Tower - one of the beautiful bits of architecture I passed on my walk. The tower served to dampen the chugging of the steam pumps that pumped the cities water from Lake Michigan around the turn of the century.

Sheila Marie arrived late Thursday night after another in her long series of eventful trips to visit me. Her flight from New York to Chicago was so delayed that we feared that she would miss the puddle-jumper from Chicago to Milwaukee. Fortunately, the puddle-jumper was even more delayed and she wasn't stuck in the Windy City.

Friday, the two of us toured the Miller Brewing Company's flagship brewery in Miller Valley. The brewery has stood, in more or less the same place, since Frederick Miller bought the Plank Road Brewery in 1855. The tour was fun; they took us through the bottling and packaging plants, to the distribution floor and into the Brew House. Before we were ushered into the Miller Inn for some free samples, we peeked into the caves Miller dug into the surrounding hillsides to keep the beer cool through the summer months. Before mechanical refrigeration, Miller's employees would go out to the lake, cut ice, haul it back to the caves and cover it with straw and sawdust to keep the kegs cool all summer long. Of course, the free samples were pretty great too.

JV & SM outside the Miller Brewhouse

Inside the bottling plant

The temptation to sing "Schlemiel Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!" and send a work glove whizzing down the production line on a bottle of beer was almost too much! Wisely, the good people at Miller seperated me from the machines with glass.

JV & SM with some of the free samples in the Miller Inn

After the show on Friday night, we set out in search of the Safehouse. The Safehouse is a "hidden" bar with a spy theme. Behind a facade that read "International Imports" was a small room with an "operative" who took cover money and asked for the password. If you gave the correct password, the bookcase swung open to admit you to the bar. If you gave the wrong password, you had to do some silly dance that those inside the bar could watch on closed circuit TV. Not everyone in our party knew the password, so the rest of us hurried downstairs to see the results! The bar itself was super fun. It was full of nooks and crannies and ranged from dancing (in the main room) to a bartender performing magic tricks (in the back bar) and a blackjack game (in one of the side rooms). There were are sorts of special drinks, including a martini that traveled through a vacuum tube all around the bar to be "shaken". A good cross section of the Spamily turned out and we had a great time.

Ken gave me the evening show off on Saturday night to hang out with Sheila Marie. We kept our reservation at Karl Ratzch and ate our weight in German food. Then we retired back to the Hyatt to lounge about and watch a movie. Gurr and Suzanne lured us out of the room after the show, though. We met the two of them and Ben Davis at the Old German Beer Hall for a Mai Beir (the specially produced spring variation from Hofbrau in Germany).

The weekend went by much too quickly and too soon Sheila was in a taxi on the way to the airport. I also had to pack up and checkout of the hotel on Sunday morning as I took the sleeper bus from Milwaukee to Appleton. The bus ride was a quick one (only about an hour and forty-five minutes), we waited around for everyone to finish their load-out longer than the trip itself. I was checking in to the Candlewood by 2 AM.

Jason outside our sleeper bus

We did have some unexpected fun at the show on Sunday - through a freak combination of sickness, personal days and some contractual days off, we were left one boy short. Patrick was out sick, so Nigel covered for him. Darryl was away at a wedding, so Graham covered for him. Rick was away at a bar mitzvah, but we didn't have any more swings left. Graham and Tera-Lee cooked up a plan to cover most of the important bits in the show by having Tera-Lee step in to a boy's track. Darryl's costumes were a pretty good fit for her and she stepped in to 3 numbers: Finland, Camelot and Bright Side. She was, of course, amazing and the whole company rallied around and had a good time performing with our cross-dressing knight.

With the closing in Milwaukee, we bid farewell to Piper Arpan. In addition to being one of our swings, Piper served as the Spamily Cruise Director. She arranged birthday parties and going away parties. She was always there with a hug and a smile. She was part of the glue that held the Spamily together. Most importantly, Piper was my primary Roadfood buddy. I will miss her. As her final act as Cruise Director, she arranged a party bus (complete with an on-board kegerator) to take folks on a pub crawl to celebrate 3 birthdays (Jen Mathie, Tim and Bree) in addition to her own farewell. There was a scavenger hunt of sorts with points for activities in each bar. Though I wasn't able to make it, I understand that it was a super fun time.

As I said, I really enjoyed Milwaukee. A week wasn't enough time.

An album of my photos for the week can be found here.

Bonus section: Fun With Photoshop!

Across the river from the Marcus Center is the Usinger's Sausage factory and retail outlet: