Accelerating Returns

by Peter Anthony

  Chapter 11. Pitch

   

  In downtown Chicago, in a waiting room, Judith tapped her shiny shoe and looked at her silver watch as she waited with Ben Longstreet for Dr. Gaveston to arrive.  Over her head hung a sign, one that said simply everything: Talbot. 

  "What the hell is he doing?  Where is he?" she hissed.

  "He's in the bathroom," Longstreet said, cowering and trying to settle Judith with his hands.  "He's still changing.  He'll be out in a minute.  Ah!"  Gaveston emerged from a door down the hall.  "There is our chef now!"

  Judith regretted turning around.  Gaveston wore a puffy chef's hat and had a strange scarf tied around his neck.  Gaveston looked like a mix of the Pillsbury Dough-Boy and Chef Boyardee.  Judith closed her eyes and opened them again. 

  "What is this?" she asked, with rising anger.  "What are you wearing?"

  Longstreet covered his mouth to stifle his laughter. 

  "My grill attire, of course," Gaveston said with flair.  "I'm a chef."

  "You're not a chef, Dr. Gaveston.  You are only acting like a chef for the next thirty minutes." 

  When Gaveston walked toward her, he tripped on a piece of uneven carpet. 

  "Oh my God," Judith said. "Oh-my-God.  Have you been drinking?"

  "A little."

  "It's nine o' clock in the morning!"

  Gaveston waved a hand in front of his nose.  "Merely vodka."

  In disbelief, Judith said, "Merely!"

  "Merrily!" Gaveston snorted.  "Yes, the same unscented ambrosia that propelled me through the world of medicine for so long.  It's the liquor that incurs no prejudice for my handicap.  The world reviles my terrible disease, this watery joy.  I am a liquid leper.  A modern pariah, all for the afterglow of ethanol.  But quite seriously, vodka keeps my breath from stinking and brings me closer to my fellow man."

  Longstreet corrected Gaveston.  "It's called chronic halitosis."

  "Alas, it's true," Gaveston added in histrionics.  "I suffer that malady, along with mine bouts of ketoacidosis."

  "When he wants to be," Longstreet said, hoping to assure Judith, "he can be quite an artist.  A thespian, if you will.  He wrote a poem once.  It was very short.  Four lines.  Recite it for her, Gaveston."

  Gaveston nodded. "It's an uplifting ditty, to say the least.  Here goes:

   

  Ignorance is bliss.

  Let's burn all the books.

  Solitude is bliss.

  Kill everyone."

   

  Gaveston bowed.

  "And there it is!" Ben said, applauding.  "Gaveston's overdose of hope for everyone."

  "Oh shit," Judith panicked.  "This isn't going to work.  I'm going to have to go in alone.  I made a mistake.  Oh my God."  She rubbed the sides of her pants and folded her arms nervously.  "I'm going to have to make up an excuse." 

  "No excuses," Gaveston said.  "I am le chef today!  I minored in drama."

  "He did," Longstreet said, nodding.  "He acted in a play once."

  "Minored in drama?"  She looked Gaveston up and down.  "And majored in consumption."

  "Summa kahlua latte."

  "Very nice, Doctor," Longstreet said.  "You are nearly a white Russian.  You should drink vodka more often.  You look good today, or better then usual anyway."  Ben fixed Gaveston by adjusting the chef's scarf.

  "Looks good?"  Judith ripped the silly hat off Gaveston's head and held it at Longstreet's nose.  "He's wearing a puffy hat!"

  "Oh, I meant his complexion," Longstreet said, tying off the scarf.  "He's usually puffy all over, particularly in the nose.  If you look closely, Julia, those burst vessels in the tip of his schnozz will remind you of a Manhattan transit map."

  Gaveston asked, "May I have my hat, please?"

  "Do you really think," Judith said, squeezing the puffy hat in her hand, "that a chef dresses like this when he's not cooking?  Even if he is cooking?"

  Longstreet and Gaveston looked at each other. 

  Gaveston shrugged.  "I would."

  "I just cannot - cannot believe you drank before you came here today," Judith said in disgust.  "Are you under the control of alcohol so much that you can't refrain for one hour of your life?"

  "You don't understand, Miss Bentley."  Gaveston cleared his throat.  "Drinking doesn't control my life. My life is controlled by drinking."

  She squinted.  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "I'm saying," he repeated, "that my life is not controlled by drinking. No, my life is controlled by drinking."

  "Isn't that the same thing said backwards? Never mind! Christ, I'm getting sucked into his vortex."  Judith threw the hat to Gaveston and placed her hands on her hips.  "Ok."  She sighed.  "Fine, put your clown suit back on.  Here's what we'll do.  You're coming in with me, Gaveston, but you don't speak English, understand?"

  "Oui."

  "And you don't speak French either, so don't try.  Please, don't try to speak French."

  "Actually," Ben popped up between the two of them and said, "he does speak some French."

  "Well, so do I," Judith said, whirling her neck violently between the two fools, "but we're not going to pitch American businessmen in French, are we now?"

  "She's right," Longstreet said, nodding like a schoolboy rebuked.  He whispered to Gaveston, "Maybe just a light French accent...nothing too strong."

  Judith sighed and held her breath.  "I am not taking a fake frog into that room, do you understand me, Dr. Gaveston?"

  "Ja."

  "That better not be German." 

  "Nyet."

  "I will hurt you...do you copy?  Have I made myself clear?"

  She stopped talking when the doors to the conference room suddenly opened behind her. 

   

  A panel of Talbot employees and consultants covered the entire rear wall of the room.  As the previous presenters filed into the hall, all with a dejected look, Judith picked up her stack of glossy booklets that were printed that morning with updated facts, graphs, and diagrams.  The only point missing from her presentation was the most important thing: the name of a restaurant. 

  She inhaled deeply as she reached into her pocket and pressed a button to begin recording the meeting, hoping to make a tape of her pitch and use it to convince The Raclette owners to sign on with her.  In the door frame, she felt somewhat hopeless entering the conference room with the noxious Gaveston.  

  Fifteen pairs of eyes looked up at her, eyes surrounded by taut skin, fresh haircuts, power ties, silk suits, pitchers of water with beads of sweat running into pools beside heaps of glossy presentations already pitched, black leather chairs, dark walnut tables, and fifteen feet of lush purple carpet between her and those steadfast eyes.   

  The pile of paper in her hands felt heavy, but for a fleeting moment she froze.  The weight in her hands grew heavy and she feared dropping the stack.  Were it not for Gaveston saving her, she might have lost them.

  "Madama, may I azzist yoo with these?  J'aiderai."

  A French accent after all!  The buffoon! 

  She answered him, "Yes, Pierre, please hand these out."  When he took the stack from her, he said, "Merci."  However, now cornered in the room, she had no choice but to play along with Gaveston's fantasy, and the decision to work with the fool instead of against him actually eased her tension.  The weight of paper passed from her arms to Gaveston, and before the first presentation touched a desk, she started warming up the crowd.

  "I understand that I have thirty minutes, is that correct?"

  "That's correct," the moderator said.  "Do you need PowerPoint?"

  "No, thank you. I never use it."  She tugged on the sides of her suit jacket. 

  "Really?  Everyone else today has used it."

  The unscripted question heated her neckline as she tried to decide whether to answer sternly, jokingly, or both. 
The time for hesitation and options had ended when she entered the room. 

  "I'm a minority on this one," Judith said, "but I find PowerPoint is a distraction.  I always feel like we look too much at the screen instead of each other.  I prefer facing customers, clients, and colleagues.  With PowerPoint, I end up standing sideways.  I can't tell if I am getting my point across."

  At least a few of them smiled, which encouraged her to keep going. 

  "Let me get started.  Page 1.  Ladies and gentlemen, I am Julia Bentley-Blackwell, and this is the representative of my restaurant, Mr. Pierre Gobbo dans la Pâte."

  Gaveston bowed and returned to a proud standing position.  "Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs." 

  "The company is called Grams. We have spent the last several months coordinating a business opportunity specifically for this day and no other, seeking to match your profit expectations with a viable investment.  In other words, we are not out pitching every venture capitalist in the country, listing toward every open ear and hoping to score the next big thing.  We're not calling retired uncles and college buddies at credit unions looking for a loan.  We are looking for this opportunity.  Only this one, or none.

  "With that background, you are sure to wonder why.  Why would a restaurant business care where the money comes from?  I'll tell you why.  In fact, everything I'm about to tell you answers that single why.  For starters, Talbot is the right company for this idea, because when Talbot does something, they do it differently.  They don't produce what others produce, simply because it is en vogue.  No, they take a good stance, a methodical approach, and knock the ball out of the park.  Now, restaurants have enjoyed a period of steady growth over the past twenty years.  This demand is due to many factors, which I will not repeat, since I suspect my predecessors have hammered that point home already.  But given the trends in increasing amounts of both diners and restaurants, uniqueness is an absolute essential to success, thus we find this idea suits Talbot, a place of ingenuity.  If we wanted any overseer who projected earnings using nothing more than an Excel spreadsheet, taking 'earnings times two' at the end of each year, we might have pursued a place like Pelius."

  Eyebrows went up around the room, and several people laughed out loud before catching themselves.  Judith did not smile at all, but waited for them to regain composure. 

  "I would love to stand up here and tell you all about the restaurant, the good people, the great menu.  Yes, our restaurant has thirty years in service.  Yes, we have top-notch management.  But believe me - you will hear all of that later.  My concern is how many times you have heard that same pitch today."  She walked to an edge of the panel and measured a stack of presentations using her fingers.  "How many times?  One, two, three, four...how many centimeters tall is this stack of presentations, Mr. Sampson?"

  The eyes on the panel followed Judith and she saw several of them shifting in their seats, which was a good sign.

  "I brought only one representative from the restaurant with me today, because we know that today makes or breaks the pitch next week, and we have one idea to get across today.  No, it is not Pierre's outfit.  I tried to talk him out of that costume, but Gobbo is Gobbo.  No, I'm here to talk about a new paradigm.  We formed Grams as a corporation in this year in Chicago, Illinois in response to the following market conditions.  One."  She held up a finger.  "Lifestyles in North America have become increasingly transient, separating friends, family, and business associates at greater intervals and distances.  I would bet not a soul in this room lives in the same town he or she grew up in.  Two.  Emerging technologies and high-speed internet have allowed for three-dimensional image transmission over long distances.  Three.  A new segment of the restaurant market will be created in the 21st century using advanced imaging techniques.  Four.  The standards set forth by the Internet II consortium have enabled massive transmission and videoconferencing capabilities, and the equipment for it is already available.  Five.  For the past thirty years, North Americans have dined outside of the home more every year, and the trend is likely to continue with social networks becoming increasingly extended.  Ladies and gentlemen: Grams and its associates are intent on inventing, seizing, and owning the virtual dining industry, in effect driving a new market segment. Over the past few years we've spent time studying designs to bring the long-distance dining experience to life. This presentation is a result of that study."  She paused.  "I would expect to see some eyes roll at this point."

  The crowd chuckled quietly.  She took a quick inventory of faces.  A few leaned forward, a few back, but she clearly had the attention of everyone in the room. 

  A man asked, "Can you repeat that? Did you say 'virtual dining'?"

  "Yes. The restaurant market is ready for a new experience.  The main goal of Grams is to create a restaurant experience for diners using available three-dimensional conferencing, to give an unparalleled connection between separated family and friends in the major cities of North America, for starters anyway. Through the use of emerging technologies currently not being exploited, we will accomplish this goal.

  "I say again, Grams intends to offer three-dimensional conferencing for diners.  Let me explain that statement.  This concept offers our customers something that has never been offered before.  We call it holographic dining or virtual dining, interchangeably.  We are seeking a service mark and rights for this idea.  I will now tell you why Talbot might take an interest in the idea.  Holographic dining is available nowhere else in the world.  It is technically superior to any other restaurant experience.  It is a visionary idea that will appeal to everyone who grew up with a smart phone.  It offers a near-flesh link to friends and family, and beats the pants off a phone call.  It saves customers time, saves money, saves space, saves travel.  It doesn't save the airlines, but it makes Talbot money.  It will enrich the bonds of separated associates and unite people.  It will excite the media and keep customers wanting a repeat experience.  Over the past two decades, there has been a continuous increase for connectivity in people's lives. The advent of cell phones, picture phones, social networks, digital images and instant uploads has given the public a higher capacity to be closer to home, so to speak. To us, naturally the next step in the evolution of this connecting process is real-time imaging. Moreover, the venue of a restaurant supersedes other locations as the optimal application for this imaging. A restaurant offers intimacy that cell phones, static pictures, and flat video do not.

  "So now you are wondering just what is holographic dining?  Another way to describe it is three-dimensional dining, since a true hologram has not yet come to fruition in our world of rapidly advancing digital imaging.  For all intents and purposes in the public eye, a hologram is a three-dimensional image transferred from one node in space to another.  A hologram is the image of classic science-fiction, Star Trek, and we feel the technical distinction need not be made of the difference between true holograms and three-dimensional video.  We expect the public to be disinterested in the tedious technical debate about what a hologram is and what a hologram is not.  As long as the customer feels like his family member is nearly-in-the-flesh, sitting across from him, as far as he knows, it's a hologram.

  "I will now describe how we intend to accomplish this task of holographic dining."  She tugged her suit flat once again and resumed.

  "As far back as 1996, companies have created methods of transmitting video images over large-pipe internet connections in real time.  In addition to this remarkable technology, several companies in the imaging industry have created transparent screens that can display images in multiple dimensions.  In proper lighting, the setup will allow a person sitting across from the screen to view the image in three dimensions, as if the projected person was actually sitting across the table.  The screen is not visible; only the image of the person can be seen.  Please open your books to page two and you will see an example of this.  Also, in the appendix, you will find many more pi
ctures of working prototypes.  If you are like me, they will amaze you.

  "While this seems like science fiction, it is certainly not. Companies in Texas and California accomplished this years ago. The possibilities of this technology are clear to us at Grams. There is a virtual need for this to be used in restaurants, in an intimate environment. There will soon be an expectation from customers that restaurants offer this option to diners, such that Grams and its associates will set the standard, right out of the gate. 

  "Now, in addition to the basic transmission of video images that will be displayed in 3D to the viewer, we have conceived various other goals for holographic dining to be researched and plugged into the working model over time. Some examples of preliminary alternatives for this technology include not only virtual dining but also the following items.

  "We have the ability to project clothing onto your virtual image. If you arrive at Grams in a simple button-down shirt and slacks, your image in the connecting restaurant can be fitted for a black-tie ball using video technology that responds to every movement.

  "Dining with your favorite celebrity is now possible. We plan to seek agreements with popular personalities for Grams to store their personal digital images on file so that fans and admirers can go out to dinner with their idols, for a fee, with royalties for the performer based on their hit count at dinners. In addition, we would seek clips of classic stars that can be retrofitted to Grams video for the adoring public to enjoy, so that diners, to use an example, could possibly have a night out with Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra.

  "We can hire one musician for many venues. From a single live performance in one Grams restaurant, every restaurant in the Grams network will have the same transmission being piped in visually and musically, giving the diners a consistent atmosphere for their moods, conversations, and overall experience.

  "Holographic menus are a reality. Using Holotouch technology, patented, Grams will have a menu that appears to float over the table. This will also have interactive capabilities through infrared sensors so that orders or requests can be placed when a waiter or waitress is not immediately available.

  "Grams believes very strongly in technical, financial, business and moral excellence.  To secure a stable future for all those connected with Grams we have set a series of goals.  In the beginning, our market segment share will be one hundred percent  The present market for virtual dining is zero.  It does not yet exist. The advantage will be ours to lose.  How can we keep it?  By decreasing costs for equipment through large vendor contracts that others cannot currently achieve.  Also, we can increase productivity by using intelligent reservation system and adhere to schedule to keep customers moving in at designated times.  Along with this, we will maintain state-of-the-art accounting system for careful tracking, produce daily reports on financial status against the industry and community, support company involvement in various local and national charity events, and celebrate promotional events on all holidays, festivals, and major sporting tournaments.  The possibilities can be endless with a creative staff."

  For another twenty minutes she spoke, setting her hook in the panel.  She paused and looked at the faces of the panel and witnessed a very different ensemble from when she entered the room.  Stony no more, the faces smiled and nodded, bobbed up and down the line, save a few who appeared to be taking notes.  The moderator started to applaud.  The rest followed his lead, ensuring a callback for the second meeting.  Over the clapping she heard someone ask, "What's the name of the existing restaurant that you will use for the business model?"

  Before Judith could answer, she heard the chef speak. 

  "Zee name of zee restaurant?  Zee name eess...Za Raclette!" 

  Judith gave a warm expression and a nod to the panel, but in her mind she was dicing and boiling the glib Gaveston.