20 minutes on the 27-Bryant 08.31.10
Photo by Troy Holden
We don’t know how to characterize Devin’s ride on the 27 except to say that it contains the best of “just another day in San Francisco.” Lend him your eyes.
The stop at Market & 5th is always an adventuresome one. There must be a clinic or city medical service facility nearby, because the folks who get on are often poor or homeless, run down and with bits of fresh gauze and bandages sticking to them. Back-door fare evasion is so common on this route that the driver barks “front door exit only” repeatedly at a couple about to get off. The only would-be evader tonight, though, is an irritable man with bulging plastic bags and an unlit cigarette dangling from his lip, who tries to talk the driver into a free ride. When that fails and the driver orders him off, he departs with a modicum of obscenity, gesture and as an afterthought, the statement “I’ve got a transfer here somewhere.” Rhetorically, I think that statement’s meant to be used somewhat earlier in the argument.
Our regular customers include a frail middle-aged woman who has great difficulty climbing the stairs and reaching the first seat; a nondescript man in a suit, one or two teenagers and a slightly elderly man carrying a bucket full of water and small gray fish, into which he peers occasionally with a look of slight concern. He’s also hooked up a battery-operated air pump to it which hums and bubbles away to itself.
One stop later and we acquire a polite man in a wheelchair (the 27 is a busy route for wheelchairs, having only one on this stretch is actually a bit unusual). The man in the suit vacates the wheelchair bench and folds it up for him, for which the polite man in the wheelchair thanks him. Everyone seems cheered by this exchange and an air of happy anonymous conviviality ensues for a few blocks.
Somewhere around Folsom, we pick up a burly man in a jean jacket with the sleeves ripped off and an airbrushed wolf on the back. The airbrushed feathers dangle from the seams on his shoulders just above the wolf’s head. He plonks down on the seat in front of me, and I brace for the wave of B/O that I associate with the wearers of sleeveless garments during heat waves. It doesn’t come — in fact, he smells fairly nice, like he’d been taking refuge from the heat in an air-conditioned shop that mostly sold herbs and had a small line in incense. He even somewhat displaces the smell of burning plastic from the malfunctioning air conditioner, and the sense of relief afforded by this lasts several blocks, or roughly up until the moment when the polite man in the wheelchair abruptly and vigorously shits himself.
At this point everyone physically able to do so hastily relocates to more distant regions of the bus. The frail woman at the front, being unable to escape, adopts a look of horror and turns away. The man with the bucket of fish stays put but looks into his bucket with greater frequency and more concern than before. The polite man in the wheelchair gets an apologetic look on his face and flicks his lighter around himself in a conciliatory fashion. This does nothing to abate the stench, because (a) his lighter doesn’t work, and (b) to abate a smell of this proportion would require something more along the lines of a flamethrower.
The polite man in the wheelchair gets off at the next stop, which was hopefully the one he originally intended. I make my own escape a couple of stops later; the unexpectedly pleasant-smelling man is now working his small magic on the back row of seats; the man with the bucket of fish is still looking worriedly in at them, and the bus once again smells mostly like burning plastic.
Share your Muni stories on Muni Diaries.
Creative descriptions of eau de Muni 07.08.10
Photo by juicyrai
Here are some of the better Muni smell descriptions we’ve seen in the last month or so:
@holyempressqb: ”shoutout 2 whoever that is that smells like febreeze on muni right now” on June 15.
@kkblabs: ”This woman on the1 rly needs 2close her pits!! Smells like my hot yoga studio but filled w hippies+Mexi food+used diapers! :-x” on June 16.
@nikilips: ”The 22 smells like chocolate raspberry deliciousness. Mmm mmm muni.” on June 16.
@NillaBeans: ”Pro: 38 Limited arrived quickly. Con: It smells like a woodburning stove. The mysteries of Muni will never cease to amaze me.” on June 24.
@coreyr: ”my son upon stepping onto a muni metro train thick with the smell of marijuana: dad, it smells like stinky blueberries.” on June 27.
@cwbayarea: ”Public transportation is not going my way today. This muni smells like rotten hot dogs…” on June 24.
So, now that we’ve brought it up, (I’m totally gonna regret asking, but …) what does Muni smell like to you right now?
Boom Box vs The New Yorker, From Our Story Tent 06.14.10
Ahem, is this thing on?
“A brown liquid was found on Muni line 46 today. Passengers were throwing up when the discovery was made, making this the most amazing bus line in the city today.”
Don’t worry, it’s not true. This is just one of the Muni Mab Libs submitted at the Muni Diaries Story Tent at Outbound, hosted by us and Secession Art and Design on Friday night. Secession Art and Design curated an amazing show, featuring the work of Nate1, Eddie, Duerone, and a collection of wearable art. At our Muni Diaries Story Tent just outside of Secession, we heard some hilarious Muni stories like the one that Mary told in the video above, about a war between a boom box and The New Yorker.
We also collected your brilliant Muni Mad-Libs:
“Riding Muni is better than a night on the cornfields with numerous lucky ladies.” – David.
“Riding Muni is like dating a dude who is clueless about your needs and full of surprises, except it’s never the pleasant kind.” – Fabulous R.
“Riding Muni is better than taking a hot jello bath with Jesse Helms on a summer day in North Carolina on mescaline.” – Felix.
Yow!
If you haven’t made it to Secession yet, be sure to check out Nate1′s paintings featuring BART and Muni, Eddie’s large-scale work that you probably recognize from the streets, and Duerone’s handpainted boxcars. Secession also hosts designers of wearable art, including work from Colleen Mauer, Heather Robinson, and Rachel Znerold.
We’ll be airing more of the stories we collected Friday night this week, and watch our Twitter feed for more Muni Mad Libs submissions from the evening.
A misfired projectile in Tiffany’s airspace 05.07.10
Photo by christine.ricks
Jesse told a two-minute version of this story at Muni Diaries Live! two Fridays ago, and there was no question that he was the crowd favorite of the evening. People couldn’t get enough of Jesse so we asked him to write his story in full here for you.
I was heading home from work, a task that takes about 45 minutes and one transfer. In the afternoons, I prefer to take the 1-California, as it has consistently proven to be the gentler, cleaner, more Asian cousin of the consistently troubling 38-Geary. Little did I know that this was to be no ordinary ride home. This was a bus ride that, even years later, is still burned into the memory portions of my brain (those are somewhere in the upper middle, right?). When dealing with Muni, I suppose one should always expect the unexpected.
As I approached the bus shelter, I heard a loud, angry voice taking someone to task for being a “Lazy-Assed Cracker.” Soon it was revealed that the man attached to the voice was a tall fellow who would sporadically refer to himself in the third person. His name was Leroy. Leroy seemed to be pushing 60, though I suppose he could have been younger. One thing was for sure; Leroy was not new to the streets. He was crusty in a way that is almost special. It seemed that Leroy had maintained a long and devout abstinence to water, since Y2K was a genuine threat. Leroy’s hands were swollen, coated in years and layers of sedimentary funky junk and it dawned on me that Leroy’s claws have quite possibly touched many of the same public surfaces that mine have over the years (I resolved at once to stop biting my nails). His T-shirt advertised the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Olympics and was so timeworn that maintaining its structure must have been accomplished through ancient magic long since forgotten.
‘That One Time on the N-Judah’ 04.27.10
Photo by Flickr user George
The following represents one of the longest Muni diaries we’ve received to date. Incidentally, it comes on the heels of our learning about longform.org, a place for stories that “are too long and too interesting to be read on a web browser.” Someone please submit this one for us, eh? Meanwhile, pour yourself a cup of tea or hot cocoa, and settle in for Davy’s harrowing tale.
Sometimes, well, this is just a warning…this is like the worst of it though, and I was on Muni for fuck’s sake, stuck on the damn train, um, we were coming out of the tunnel, you know, on the N, going through that long tunnel heading west, just before the Cole and Carl stop where the Burgermeister is…um, let me backtrack some here…so, I was at the Giants game, down at AT&T Park, or whatever it was called at the time…they keep changing the name of it, like some girl who’s been married a lot…
Anyway, this is about 5 or 6 years ago now…and I’d been having some stomach trouble already…I think I’d had the shits pretty bad for a few days…a burrito with bad beans or something, but I thought it had cleared up and it was a nice sunny day, kind of like an oil painting, the colors bright and running all over the damn place…nice, it was fucking nice out…a beautiful day for a ballgame, let’s play two, say hey, and all that kind of stuff…so I went to the game, ate a hotdog during the seventh-inning stretch, and the Giants won…pretty okay way to spend the day…of course this was when you could still go and watch the Giants play and have a good time…you can’t watch the Giants anymore without getting morbidly depressed…
It’s Always Happy Hour Somewhere 03.16.10
Photo by Flickr user What What
Ed. Note: It’s been a while since we’ve gotten a gross story, huh? Here’s one from rider Alison. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Living in the Outer Richmond without a car leaves few options for across town travel. If I had ample time on my hands and wasn’t cripplingly lazy, I would walk or bike.
Alas, I ride the 5 Fulton. While other lines in my neighborhood are generally quieter (1 California) or faster (38 and 38Ltd Geary), the 5 Fulton is one block from my house (did I mention I’m lazy?).
Being a relatively seasoned Muni-rider, I’ve found that most Muni lines traverse at least one or two shady neighborhoods and the 5 is no different. From my house to downtown, the bus passes through Western Addition and the section of Market that the city forgot to gentrify.
Last week, on a perfunctory afternoon ride downtown, a man in his early 30′s boarded the bus in Western Addition. When people sit down across from me on any bus, I typically give them the once over and resume whatever activity I’m engaging in to expedite the ride. This particular gentleman caught my attention because, well, he was a midget. No, not a dwarf (characterized by their shortened limbs); a midget. And he was drunk.
He alternated giggling and incoherent babbling with surreptitious swigs of sake from a crinkled brown bag. But his giggles soon turned to looks of pain and before I could determine just how drunk he was, he threw up. Not a projectile vomit but more of a slow, awkward dribble that made its way down his sweater, leaving a unpleasantly colored trail. And, where many individuals who have just thrown up on themselves would cease and desist, he just kept on drinking as if nothing were amiss.
Thankfully he didn’t ride for too long and actually managed to disembark the bus without leaving a mess in his wake. Although my visceral reaction was overwhelming disgust, my heart went out to this small dude who, for the rest of the day, would be wearing his own barf.
14-Mission birth control? 02.17.10
Photo by /\/\ichael Patric|{
Yesterday, we read a little piece on SFGate about the worst places in the Bay Area to go into labor. Unsurprisingly, DMV beat all contenders as the least appealing place to bring a new life into the world (we’re pretty sure DMV might clean up at the Least Desirable Awards Show, but that’s another story).
Perhaps also to no real alarm, Muni made the list. No. 2, in fact. And not just any bus or Metro line. No, special disdain is reserved for the 14-Mission like it is for no other line in town. Does that have anything to do with the fact that there’s more (reported) crime on the 14-Mission than any other? Not that we’re scratching our heads at this result.
But it does make us wonder: What are some other dubious Muni awards you can think of? Worst line to make out on. Worst line to take to a fancy date. Worst line to use for grocery shopping. Share your ideas in the comments, please.
A plastic bag full of rotten fish guts 01.27.10
Photo by post author, Cameo
About a year and a half ago I was on my way to a party and I noticed a really rank smell. I ignored it because some people on Muni just reek. Soon afterward, the train got very full, and while I was sitting, I had people crammed up next to me and hovering over me. I then began to feel the drip. I could feel something cold and oozing slipping down my legs, down my neck, and into my armpit. At first I thought it was water from the train ceiling just dripping down, but when I spelled the stench of rotten fish, I knew it was something much, much worse.
I looked down, and I saw blood spattered on the ground, and when I looked up, I was staring into a bag of cut-up rotten fish guts. The little old lady holding the bag stared at me as the bag dripped on me, until I gave her the face of death. Her friend realized I was about to utterly destroy her friend with the bag of fish guts, and so she pulled her off at the next stop.
Who carries a leaky bag of fish guts on Muni!?
Wonder Bread Under My Seat 11.10.09
Photo by Flickr user Brian_Brooks
This photo, submitted to the Muni Photos Flickr pool by Brian Brooks, just suspended my evening appetite at least a few hours. How about you? Still hungry for lunch?
Seen any delectable delights on your commute? Send photos and stories to Muni Diaries.
Extreme observation of the ‘no eating on Muni’ rule 10.27.09
Muni rider Rose sends us this gruesome photo and description. Help her solve the mystery.
This greeted us last week at the Park Presidio-Geary stop for the 28. No, not a fake Halloween set, a real one with remnants of breakfast. What could be the story behind this?
