There are a number of mysteries in life: Who built the pyramids? What happens when we die? Why are there five syllables in the word monosyllabic? Why is lemon juice mostly artificial ingredients but dishwashing liquid contains real lemons? Whose cruel idea was it for the word “lisp” to have an “s” in it? And, most recently, who is behind The Welcoming Committee and when and where is the next Guerrilla Queer Bar takeover?
If you’re not hip to it, once a month GQB picks a certain venue to turn pink.
The location is kept a secret until just beforehand and you have to be on their member list to find out where and when it’s going to happen. This week, we chatted with Mary Pitek, one half of the duo that runs the Philadelphia branch of TWC, the parent group that organizes the monthly events and much more.
PGN: In doing my research on you, it seems like you get around! I read about you in Rhode Island, Buffalo, Alabama, Boston and Philadelphia. MP: Yeah, I seem to travel a lot. I’m just coming from three weeks of traveling and I’m glad to be back at home in Philly for a couple of weeks.
PGN: How long have you lived in our fair city? MP: I moved here last August with my girlfriend. She’s in grad school at Penn. Although it’s only been a little while, we really feel at home here.
PGN: Where are you originally from? MP: I’m from Buffalo, N.Y. When you meet people from Buffalo they either admit it sadly or with a lot of pride. I’m the latter type.
PGN: So did you laugh at us overreacting to our recent snowstorms? MP: [Laughs.] Yes, it’s a little pitiful. Though part of the reaction is valid because Philadelphia and cities across this corridor just don’t know how to deal with snow. They just push it to the side and let it linger. Parking is horrible and no one can get anywhere. Whereas in Buffalo, we have plows attached to our school buses!
PGN: What’s the worst weather you’ve experienced? MP: When I was in grammar school I remember one storm when we got 3-4 feet of snow. They used to wait until 1 a.m. to make a school-closing call. Because this one didn’t start until about 3 a.m. they didn’t bother to call school off so we all went and got stranded, similar to the kids in Alabama this winter. But I think it was a little more warranted with 3-4 feet of snow!
PGN: I would think so. It’s crazy, they predict 3 inches of snow here and we close everything down. I think the school districts are all afraid of lawsuits. MP: Probably so.
PGN: Tell me a little bit about your family. MP: I’m the youngest of five. We’re all very close-knit though unfortunately not close geographically. My father was a bit of an entrepreneur. Right now he’s working as an executive coach and my mother is a high-school art teacher. Both of them have a theater and arts background; they met while getting their MFAs in Wisconsin.
PGN: It sounds like you’re an even combination of both of them, having your father’s entrepreneurial side and your mother’s artistic side? MP: Yeah, it’s funny to realize that you’re cut from the same cloth as your parents. I’ll do something and say, “That was totally you, Dad.” They are both very active in my life. They always want to hear what I’m doing and what’s going on. I actually just got off the phone with my mother. It’s cool that even though neither of them have ever been involved in finance or the LGBT community, they’ve opened their arms to both. And they always give me a new perspective on things.
PGN: They must have gotten it right, since they raised an Ivy League student. What was Brown University like? MP: Brown was interesting. It’s the only university where undergraduates can design their own course of study. It gives you the freedom to try new things.
PGN: What were some of the extracurricular things you did on campus? MP: I was involved with the crew team for all four years. Mostly as a coxswain, but also as a rower. That took up a lot of time, about 30 hours a week.
PGN: A coxswain is the one who yells, correct? MP: [Laughs.] That’s the general perception but I like to think we do a little more than that. We motivate the team and figure out the rhythm of the crew.
PGN: What do you do to motivate people in a boat? MP: It’s interesting because there are eight people in that boat — eight personalities, eight attitudes, eight levels of strength — and as coxswain you have to pull them all together into one rhythm. There is a surprising amount of psychology behind it. When you’re doing a seven-minute race, everyone is going to hit the wall at a different time, so I had to know my teammates well enough to know when those points were going to happen and be ready to keep them fired up. So I needed to take time on and off the water to get to know them. I’d do the workouts with the team and eat with them, give shoutouts on race day to get people psyched up. Also, being a former rower myself helped. When you’re yelling at people to go their hardest for seven minutes, it helps to have their friendship and respect.
PGN: That’s cool. Anything else? MP: On top of that, I had several jobs while in school. I did everything I could to help contribute financially towards my college education. I worked in sports marketing, I was a ball girl for men’s lacrosse, I watered fields, I acted as a DJ for the men’s basketball and — I wasn’t allowed to reveal this while I was in school — I was the Brown Bear mascot for the school.
PGN: [Laughs.] You’ve just been shrouded in mystery throughout your life. What do you do now? MP: I’m the vice president of operations for Advisor Perspectives, which is a financial newsletter. I’m in charge of managing the production of the newsletter and our advertising accounts. It’s fun! And it allowed me to move here from Boston and work remotely.
PGN: How did you get involved with The Welcoming Committee? MP: After I graduated, I moved to Boston. I had a weird social time trying to find my rhythm and meet my people. I think a lot of people go through that. I found out about the Guerrilla Queer Bar events started by Dan Heller in Boston and went to some of them. He later formed The Welcoming Committee around the GQB parties and I became a member, went to a bunch of the events and got more involved. When Dan heard I was moving, he asked me if I’d be interested in expanding TWC to Philadelphia. We were both so excited about the idea we started doing cartwheels into each other! That was in July. I moved to Philadelphia in August and our first event was in September, so we moved pretty fast. PGN: What’s the most fun about TWC? MP: Hmmm, I’m trying to decide between two things. We get a lot of great feedback and it really keeps me going from month to month. People in Philly are amazing. They are so interested and engaged. I love when people show up to our event and they seek out me or Kevin Haines, who co-produces with me, and demand information. They’ll start out by saying, “I don’t know why I’m here. I came alone, tell me more about what you’re doing.” As I explain, their eyes light up and they ask a million questions. I’ll find them later in the evening surrounded by four or five people that they met there, looking really happy and they don’t even have time to talk to me anymore. I love when we can make people feel confident enough and curious enough to just come on their own and know that they’ll meet people here. The second thing is more personal. I’ve been able to meet so many amazing and interesting people through TWC that selfishly I’ve been able to build my own group of friends both in Boston and here in Philly
PGN: What’s your crowd usually like? A lot of bar events seem to be male-centric. MP: We don’t track who walks in the door, but it’s pretty even. Our mailing list has about 47 percent identifying as female, 48 percent identifying as male and 5 percent identifying as other. One of the things we want to accomplish is making sure it’s inclusive for everyone. There are a lot of silos in our community. We want to make sure that everyone feels comfortable, that cliques are mixing and people are talking to people they might not normally meet. We are really proud of that.
PGN: I like the fact that The Welcoming Committee events get people out of the bars and into other venues and activities. MP: Oh yes, just this year we took four busloads of folks on a ski trip, we took 70 people to the Philadelphia Opera and we joined with the Boston TWC to take over the 76ers game against the Utah Jazz.
PGN: What are some of the things coming up in the near future? MP: Well we have a Guerrilla Queer Bar coming up on April 4 but we haven’t announced yet where it’s going to be and, on April 12, we’re doing a derby takeover. We’re taking the crowd to see the Philadelphia Roller Girls. We always have at least six things on our docket that we’re trying to plan for the future. Something exciting coming up in May is the launch of a new city. I can’t tell you where it’s going to be yet but we’re going to have the first triple-city baseball takeover. In Boston, we’re going to go to the Red Sox game, of course here we’re going to see the Phillies and the third city will go see their home team play. And we’ll have some other things on the agenda that are outdoorsy and/or low-priced over the summer. The nice thing about expanding nationwide is that we have several travel trips coming up so it’s a chance to meet people from other cities as well. I urge people to go to the travel takeover page on the main website and see what’s coming up. There’s a rafting takeover in June and a cruise takeover in September, a casino takeover in November and a ski trip again next January.
PGN: Fun! So let’s get to some random questions. Do you have any pets? MP: I do! A little 3-year-old pitbull named Haven. Her full name is CK Dexter Haven. She was named after Cary Grant’s character in the movie “The Philadelphia Story.” [Laughs.] She was named that before I moved here.
PGN: I assume you’re a film buff. MP: I actually am not a film buff. It’s kind of a joke among my friends how little I know about pop culture. You do not want me on your trivia team in the pop-culture category. My friends tolerate it, but they find it annoying how little I can relate to things everyone else seems to know.
PGN: What category would you take the lead on? MP: Architecture and history and what I call “Dad facts” — those dumb little facts that no one should know. PGN: Like what the little piece at the end of your shoelaces is called? MP: Yes! And I actually know that, they’re called aglets. PGN: What is your pet peeve? MP: If flakiness is considered a pet peeve then that would probably be it. PGN: What is your most treasured possession, something you wouldn’t sell even if offered great sums of money? MP: I have a collection of Buffalo Bills football memorabilia. I’ve actually been offered quite high sums of money for it but I won’t sell it. PGN: When was the last time you blew bubbles? MP: Actually it was this past summer! Some friends of mine and I bought some sidewalk chalk and bubbles and relived our childhood.
PGN: Any tattoos? MP: Yes, I have one. It’s an aerial view of the neighborhood I grew up in in Buffalo, surrounded by 13 ginkgo leaves.
PGN: What’s a song you’re embarrassed to admit you like? MP: Right now it would probably be “Timber” by Pitbull and Ke$ha. PGN: What’s your current state of mind? MP: Excited. Things are pretty good right now. PGN: When was the last time you did something you said you wouldn’t? MP: Oh man, probably today. I sat around the house when I said I was going to go out and exercise. PGN: Do you have a motto? MP: Honestly, I don’t think I do. My girlfriend Rada has taught me the idea of using mantras in your life. I don’t have one in particular that I use. Depending on the situation and my mood that day, I’ll bounce around from mantra to mantra and use the one that suits me for that moment.
PGN: Do you have one for today? MP: Just making sure I’m extremely present. [Chuckles.] I think it’s going pretty well.
PGN: What’s your favorite pie? MP: I love my mother’s homemade pecan pie. Did you celebrate Pi Day? PGN: No, I didn’t know there was a Pi Day. I’m missing out. MP: It’s celebrated on March 14 and even though it’s about the numerical equation, we still celebrate it in my family by eating pie.
PGN: Now I’m hungry. What traits do you deplore in others? MP: Selfishness. I think it manifests in a lot of different deplorable ways.
PGN: Wrapping up, part of the fun of Guerrilla Queer Bar is the mystery that surrounds it. How do you keep it a secret and who knows where you’ll go next? MP: We have a small inner circle comprised of the people in Boston who are fulltime and do a lot of the coordinating with the larger venues for us. On the local level, Kevin and I keep it pretty close to the vest. I don’t even tell my girlfriend until just before the event. Fortunately, she’s been able to make most of them. And hopefully we’ll see you at the next one!
PGN: For sure! I can keep a secret …
For more information, visit www.thewelcomingcommittee.com/philly/.
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