Profile flakiness and the veil of silence

With the profile assignment, I got my first taste of how difficult it can be to get people to talk to you when you want more than just a couple of answers from them. My potential profile subjects in and around Nob and Russian hills have been eluding me for weeks, and at one point it felt as if I had exhausted most of my viable options. Luckily, due to some last minute frantic phone calls and a genial previous contact, I was able to eek out an interview from a decent subject.

But before it came together, I got to run the gauntlet of Nob Hill evasion and, frankly, snobbery that proved maddening at times. My first idea was to write a story about the Fairmont's Tonga Room and Hurricane Bar. The tacky, faux-Polynesian restaurant/bar is a relic of the San Francisco of old, having been around for over half a century, and possessed high news value due to the Fairmont's recent development plan to wipe the place out and put in a parking garage for proposed condominiums that would take the place of numerous empty hotel rooms. It seemed like the perfect fit, but when I finally got a hold of the manager on site after countless phone calls, messages and emails, she told me that, though she had gotten all of my emails and messages, she wasn't allowed to give interviews and that no one except the public relations manager could speak with me at all. She said had passed my information onto the company's PR manager and that she would definitely call me within the next couple of days. Fine, I thought, that should still work, but I wasn't about to wait around for this person to make first contact. So, I called and emailed the PR manager for almost a week with no response whatsoever. Either she’s an extremely busy woman that’s never in the office and doesn’t have any access to a computer or smart phone, or I was being ignored after the promise of dialogue.

At this point, I decided that it might be a good idea to try some other places. I contacted the owner of the Bigfoot Lounge: not a whole lot of news value, but its quirky log cabin design centered in Nob Hill (plus the fact that they light the bar on fire at midnight) was intriguing enough for a desperate student. Again, I was referred to the PR manager, whom I then emailed and called over the span of a couple of days. Again, no response. In fact, out of the 6-7 different people I called or spoke with just trying to get to the people I needed to speak with, none ever followed up or answered again when I called. So I tried again, contacting a high-end dog walker whose business was called "Ruff Lauren" (the name alone was hilarious enough to generate interest). The lady, though she did call me back, said she couldn't do any interviews until June. At least she got back to me.

Through it all, I still clung to my vision of writing a relevant, timely story about the Tonga Room and that the ever-evasive PR woman would call me back soon and everything would be perfect. But, with time running out, I went back to my very first list of contacts from the start of the semester and, on a complete whim, got in touch with the chef of La Folie restaurant, one of the most celebrated and expensive fine dining restaurants in the city. Here, at this place where a nice dinner for two can run more than my share of the monthly rent, I found the one solace from the silence and snobbery of the surrounding neighborhood and was welcomed by the chef and got an excellent interview from him. Difficult, surprising, and ultimately worth it (if the piece turns out decent), this project shed much light on the fact that it can be damn near impossible to get people who hardly want to give someone such as myself the time of day to answer a few questions for an article. My only hope is that, as soon as I'm done with this class and have moved onto further writing, my time in and around Nob Hill will be seriously limited.