Heater on Muni: Hell Yes or Hell No 01.23.12
Photo: CarbonNYC
Q. Who loves talking about (complaining about) the weather?
A. San Franciscans (myself included).
Remember when it started to get cold before it got warm again? In that not-so-distant past, I put up an important poll on our Muni Diaries Facebook Page:
Heater blasting on Muni is:
a) Like winning the transit lottery on these chilly days. I love it.
b) Like stewing in armpit stench. Hate hate hate.
c) Indifferent.
There were a couple votes for A. As rider Elizabeth said, “Heat is always a win as far as I’m concerned. Would rather smell some body odors than be cold.” A couple others, including rider Faern, said it depends on the type of bus. Faern cited the 22, which…OK, we can stop right there.
Still, B won by a pretty wide margin amid concerns over the B.O. hot-box. Oh, and the fact that it’s allegedly not that cold (what about the wind?! THE WIND!?) in San Francisco. I’ll be out completing my Christmas Story look, then.
Wouldn’t you know it, some recent tweets to @munidiaries side with our B voters. @missmarymary says, “Sweatiest commute ever. Dear muni, rain =/= cold,” while @janepfrank reports it reaching a million degrees on her 38-Geary.
So, which is it, A, B, or C? This is very important, you guys.
Philosophy on the 6 Parnassus 01.11.12
Interesting what you can learn from a sticker…
…especially ones you find on Muni. Add your own Muni story to Muni Diaries.
Speak Softly, Carry a Horn on Muni 12.08.11
…unless the guy at the very front honks the horn affixed to his cane. Per Sarah:
Hard to tell from afar, but there’s a squeaky horn on the end of that old man’s cane. I wonder if he uses it like a car horn, when people are walking too slowly in front of him, or to tell his wife to hurry up because he’s waiting outside.
It would certainly come in handy on Muni, let’s not kid ourselves here. Bravo, cane-horn guy. Few people can pull this off, but I think he does it well.
Photo Diary: My Parents on Muni 12.05.11
Photo by Alfredo M.
The people in the photo are my parents, Alfredo and Maria. The photo was taken in the Mission district in 1987. I asked my parents about it some months ago and was actually surprised to hear that the photo was taken the day they found out they were going to have a baby. The baby was me, their first born. By the look on my dad’s face, I’d say they were really happy.
Streetcar Avengers Fighting Crime and Missed Runs 11.09.11
Art by San Francisco-based artist Julian Lozos. Check out his Kickstartr page (goal met!) for more on his calendar project.
Pretty cool. It’s like choosing which of the X-Men you’d want on your side in a fight (JEAN GREY).
I pick #130 for its deadly combo of style and substance. MSR says it was part of a commission to expand service for the Pan-Pacific International Exposition: the event that brought us the Palace of Fine Arts and showed off a rebuilt — on landfill, but still — post-1906-earthquake San Francisco. Plus, it’s done a tour of duty on almost every streetcar line.
My favorite-favorite F coaches, though, have to be the PCC cars. Smoothest, cushiest ride in town if you time it right (PSST not around 9 a.m. or 5 p.m.).
Meander over to Bernalwood to see more local-landmark superheroes.
Contagious Laughter on the 33-Stanyan 11.07.11
Photo by Dave Schumaker
Muni rider Kevin has proof that laughter is contagious: including (especially?) when you’re on a nighttime bus full of strangers.
She’s sitting mid-bus: a tiny woman in an anorak jacket with the hood pulled up to her chin, giving her a weeble–like look. She’s talking a mile a minute to no one I can see, punctuating her monologue with the “HA HA HA” laugh. It’s a big laugh for such a little lady. There’s a definite twinkle in her eye.
I look around at my fellow passengers. They’ve all heard her. Frankly, you couldn’t not hear her. Most are smiling. Some are laughing along with her. The guy next to me is shaking with silent laughter. Every “HA HA HA” brings him closer and closer to losing it.
I crank down my music to try and hear what she’s saying. From what I can make out, it’s mostly a stream of nonsense. But whatever it is, it sure is amusing the hell out of her and, by extension, most of us as well.
We San Franciscans get used to daily encounters with the crazy. It’s usually sad, sometimes gross and, once in a while, scary. Tonight, at least, it came in the form of a bus ride full of laughter.
Laughed for no goddamn reason on Muni and wish you could do it more often? Got the giggles waiting for your bus? Send us your story once you’ve collected yourself again.
If and When You Like-Like a Muni Driver 11.01.11
Image: Flickr user jchinn84.
@marisalevinson on Twitter poses a perfectly valid and hypothetical query:
What do you do if you have a crush on a muni driver…Hypothetical situation…
Rider “Mike” left a missed connection for Muni driver Jackie. But how would you (or did you) go about it? Send us your solutions and shouts out to your uniformed objects of affection.
Video: Grand Slam Champion Joyce Lee at Muni Diaries Live 10.06.11
Later that evening, Joyce picked up the crowd by a story about riding the bus with her mom, who told the kids on the bus how it’s done.
Joyce is a frequent performer at Tourettes Without Regrets, the amazing monthly show at the Oakland Metro that is part spoken word slam, part variety show, and the rest — you just have to see for yourself. The next show is tonight, so don’t miss it!
We hate to lose such a local talent, but Joyce has big ambitions — she is going to Kenya later this month to hold free creative writing and poetry workshops for Kenyan women. If you are interested in her project, check out Joyce’s blog.
Hey Chris Brown, don’t let the back door hit you… 10.06.11
Raphael spotted this and sent it over to our inbox:
After seeing these adds on a million buses, I thought it was about time someone said something about it. I saw this on the N.
Advertisements are almost always ripe for commentary. We found that someone had some opinions about this No Strings Attached ad. And another crafty writer decorated this Bebe (we think) bus shelter ad. Spotted something amusing? Send it this way.
Pillow Talk on the 49-Van Ness 08.18.11
Photo by juicyrai
Sometimes Muni seems like San Francisco’s living room.
I settled into a seat and the man next to me, a large scruffy older guy carrying a box of Chinese leftovers, pointed to the couple and said, “Hey, what are those?” “Pillows,” the girl said. “How much are they?” the big guy asked. The girl, a little uncomfortable already, said, “Oh we got them on sale.”
Where? The big guy wanted to know. The boyfriend tried to fend off all the questions about these shiny new pillows, but the big guy really wanted to know everything about them. “Well I hope they are comfortable. You guys look like newlyweds and you’ll probably be testing them out a lot! It’s like buying a new car, you gotta test the ride, you know what I mean?!” The people around him laughed and the big guy launched into a different conversation with another guy about cars as we passed by the car dealerships on Van Ness.
The young couple seemed relieved that the attention was off of them. By this time a new crop of passengers got onto the bus and I heard one of them say, “Hey, what’s in those boxes? Pillows? Where’d you buy those?”
A whole new thread of conversation about foam pillows was being started among the new strangers in the front of the bus. The big guy was still deep in his car conversation and I thought, Hey, this is San Francisco’s living room.
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