8 Oct 2011

Finding Your Roots in Milwaukee

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Joe, the newest addition to the lobby bartending staff, is standing behind the green marble countertop, polishing a glass; his black pants, stiff white tuxedo shirt and black vest with gold-threaded “ThePfister” monogram crisp in its newness.  “I just had the best calamari in the city,” he says, “at Umami Moto.” The female half of […]

6 Oct 2011

Clap, Clap, Clap-Clap-Clap

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Milwaukee is hot with Brewers fever right now. Skyscrapers have windows lit up in a pattern that reads “GO MB!” and the scrolling signs on the fronts of the city buses stream route numbers alternating with “Go Milwaukee Brewers!” Sculptured sheep that graze peacefully in empty storefronts now wear team garments. One night last week […]

29 Sep 2011

Dinner for Books

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“Life is a bunch of crazy!” interjects the young man seated across from me at a table in one of the back rooms of Mason Street Grill, as he shakes his head with slow acceptance of this fact.  Nate, 14, is the son of one of the dinner guests, herself the long-lost childhood friend of […]

26 Sep 2011

Faith, Family and Friends

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This Sunday, thousands of women who were breast cancer survivors and fighters, along with their friends, families and supporters, gathered in the rain at the lakefront for the annual Susan G. Komen race for the cure.  Somewhere in that crowd were some folks likely staying the night in one of the InterContinental Hotel’s Pink Rooms. […]

22 Sep 2011

Relakin

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In Colorado, you have “relatives” and in Kentucky you have “kin.”  So what happens when a group of people from both states work together and play together so often they consider each other family?  Well, the Colorado folk now have kin, and the Kentucky folk now have relatives!  And what happens when you get adopted […]

16 Sep 2011

The Turk’s Head

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Jimmy McManus sits at a table in the lobby bar, having a beer.  He’s heavily bearded, gruff and scruffy, in a t-shirt featuring a skull & crossbones, drinking a nice pint of beer.  His appearance indicate you might not want to run into him in a dark alley, but he has the biggest, friendliest smile […]