Macy’s, O’Farrell Street, 7th Floor. I’m looking for the Macy’s Fashion Incubator launch event. I see the back of a dapper looking man and overhear him asking for directions, to what sounds like the same thing. He is directed to the 6th floor and I follow, calling after him – “you’re looking for the Incubator event?” He turns around slightly and answers in the affirmative, so I continue to follow him. Approaching the escalator I get another look at him and I say “OH! You’re Willie Brown!” He graciously introduced himself, and then we were on the 6th floor. While we were looking for the event a couple of women noticed him, and started fawning all over him, ecstatically shaking his hand, saying that they loved watching him on tv. The funny thing is, the first woman asked my permission, which I really didn’t understand at the time. While they were glad-handing I found someone who notified me that the event we were looking for was actually in the men’s store, across the street. So I let the former mayor know, and we proceeded to the elevator to go down and across the street.
Waiting for the elevator, I said, “So… What have you been up to since not being mayor?” (NB: turns out he hasn’t been mayor for nearly a decade.) He told me about his column in the San Francisco Chronicle, his regular tv appearances, and training individuals in public service. I don’t watch local tv or read the Chronicle on a regular basis, but luckily I had seen him speak at an Ahead of the Fashion event in January. I was thankful to be able to mention that, because I have no idea how you make small talk with a former mayor!!!
We went across the street to the Macy’s men’s store, and upon entering saw that they only had 5 floors… and the event was on the 7th floor. I mentioned that the invitation said 50 O’Farrell Street, and then he immediately knew where to go. We exited the building, walked a few steps, and then happened up on a red carpet, which quickly led to an elevator. And then things got kind of funny. Everyone became so attentive! We were whisked into the elevator, and the man who brought us there very respectfully introduced himself to Mayor Brown (he seemed content to ignore me, so I introduced myself). Then once we FINALLY made it to the 7th floor, we were very quickly ushered into the event. No need to check in or get a name tag! We were both hovering in the back, then a woman looks at me and says, “we should get the mayor up to the front!”. I was like, yeah… She started leading us through the crowd, so I followed! I had finally realized that all those people thought I was with him, so I went along for the ride. It didn’t last very long though, because as we were inching our way through the crowd someone stopped him to shake his hand, then a few seconds later the speaking portion of the event was over and the crowd disbursed. Making our way through the crowd I saw a few friends and I preferred to say hello, rather than hover around the former mayor and see how many more people would assume I knew him.
And that’s where it ends. I unfortunately did not get a photo with him – because I was trying to play it cool! But I did mention the film festival. And best of all, I now have a great story about wandering through a department store for 15 minutes with Willie Brown.
Willie Brown photo via
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