Letting out at Sacramento and Fillmore 01.06.11
Photo by Roshan Vyas
Roshan has this disgusting and far-too-common story to share:
As I got closer, I noticed why no one was standing there: In the middle of the covered shelter area, someone had left a giant pile of poop. This was no dog dropping either. This was human. Everyone was rightly standing outside the shelter and I joined them there.
Checking my phone while waiting for the 1, I noticed the following email from my other half, who had left for work 10 minutes earlier.
Subject: Alert! Poop at muni stop!!!!!
Body: Watch out!Indeed. It was quite the harrowing experience and made for a great story.
As the day went on, questions like “Who would do that?!” and “Who is responsible for cleaning that up?!” came up. Was it the City? Was it a neighborhood association? Was it Marc?
When I got home that night, the pile was gone, but a giant stain remained. Not only that, some of the substance was also left behind as footprints walking away from the pile. Someone had accidentally stepped right in it! How could that happen?! My theory is that it was someone getting off the back of the 1 during the day, who just jumped off the Muni looking forward to getting some Peet’s coffee and maybe a $50 dog bowl at Jonathan Adler.
Little did they know that their day, their summer, was about to be ruined.
That person’s experience is why I now take a moment to look down before jumping off the Muni. If you are waiting behind me, now you know.
You were warned.
Share your Muni stories, photos, video, and ephemera here on Muni Diaries.
Muni Mobile Spinach Deals 11.18.10
Editor’s Note: Thank you for supporting Muni Spinach, a new deal program managed by Mobile Spinach. The Mobile Spinach Muni deals have ended for the year. If you have trouble using Mobile Spinach, email John Vitti at john@mblspn.com. Meanwhile check out our current deals by Scoutmob. If you have other deals you’d like to see on Muni Diaries, please email us!
And all of that would seem a lot sweeter if these restaurants would give me half off the price…
My day dreaming about food aside, this is really to tell you that we’ve teamed up with Mobile Spinach to bring you a huge set of deals on a couple of Muni lines! We all already take the bus from point A to B to C and beyond, which is all the more reason to check out the businesses on your Muni line to see if there’s a coupon you can use.
The participating merchants are pretty awesome: the long list includes Chow and Chez Maman ($20 for $40 of food and drinks), and discount for drinks at Blue Bottle Coffee, Elixir, and Blackbird.
Mobile Spinach is a social mobile coupon company, offering mobile cash that you can store on your phone and deals on local merchants. Their offers are loaded onto your mobile device and redeemable at select locations around the city. The mobile cash never expires – say if you buy the $20 for $40 of food and drinks at Burma Superstar, Mobile Spinach loads your coupon onto your phone, and you can redeem it at the restaurant after you polish off the roti prata.
Mobile Spinach is calling this new campaign is called Muni Spinach. To kick things off, the deals are located at various restaurants, cafes, and shops along the 1-California, 22-Fillmore, 38-Geary, and N-Judah lines. We’ve listed all of the offers, organized by line and stop. Click the merchant you’re interested in and you’ll be directed to the appropriate page so you can buy the deal. All vouchers can be purchased directly from your iPhone, iPad, Android, or BlackBerry Torch. Each voucher is only available to purchase for a limited time, but can be redeemed at any time.
Note: The deals are programmed especially for Android devices, iPhones, iPads, and BlackBerry Touches.
Muni thefts can happen anywhere, anytime 07.19.10
Yes, you’ve heard it all the time. Be careful with your fancy electronics such as phones while on the Muni, especially while you’re riding through a sketchy part of town or on a sketchy line. But that caveat is becoming less and less the case.
I was on the 1 heading westbound coming home from Western Railway Museum today (7/16). The bus (5616) stopped at Sproule Street. Then, out of nowhere, a lady screams, “Help! That guy took my phone!”
I turned my head toward the window and saw a man who looked like he was in his 20s, with a hairstyle of Gavin Newsom (without the gel) and looked like Yvan Attai (the taxi driver in Rush Hour 3). Other than that, he was wearing a black sweater turtleneck and black jeans.
After he ran off, the lady ran after him only to stop short of the alley. A couple of people from the bus went to her, and deliberated on what just happened. The rest of the bus, however, was talking about how young he looked.
What about the driver? Oh, he didn’t do anything except he answered a passenger’s question of what happened. No call to Central Control. Nothing.
After a minute, we pulled off, and as I looked into the alley, I thought to myself, “Why didn’t I run after him?” The answer was not common sense, but it was because I felt an anger, an unexplainable, intolerable anger.
So, a word of caution: NEVER EVER EVER USE YOUR PHONE ON PUBLIC TRANSIT. NOT EVEN ON COMMUNITY SERVICE ROUTES. The lowlifes who roam Muni all day looking for someone to prey on make me sick. And I’m sure they make you sick too. That is, unless you’re one of those lowlifes.
Can’t stop looking at … 06.10.10
Photo by jen_maiser
her hands….. let me back up. I saw my name mentioned on a post by Jeff and decided to finally make an entry.
It’s spring 2001. It just rained like hell the night before and I’m late for work.. as usual. I grab the 1-California from Nob Hill to Fillmore, where I catch the 22 to the Marina.. that’s where I’m working; just behind the Marina Safeway. The buses are filled with cranky, wet, smelly people. I’ve just finished a slew of relationships, and have finally reached the conclusion that I’m just not the type to have a “steady.” I’m a musician and an audio engineer. My work, my life, my schedule (for christ’s sake!) is loopy. I am what I am, and it just doesn’t seem to jive with anybody else. It took a while, but I’m just now feeling OK with it. You know the feeling… SO!
I’m standing on Fillmore at Sac, surrounded by numerous Chinese shoppers on their way back to the Richmond (I say that because I’m over 6 feet…. let’s just say that I’m sticking out) when the 22 arrives… finally. I get on… finally… and see the most amazingly beautiful woman ever… in… my… life! Well, did I forget to mention how late I was? No shower, no coffee… not my best impression. All the lilliputians enter into the bus, there are seats in the back, but, I decide to stand next to her. I’m not thinking clearly yet… so I got nothin’. Big zero. I’m standing there on the lurch-and-puke that is the 1-California, and the woman sitting next to Her gets off…. then – she looks up at me and moves to the inside chair… holy #h&*! What to do?!?! So I sit next to her… “sit next to her idiot!” I tell myself. Well, I don’t want to seem like a fool so I hold my paper out in front of me (turns out that it was upside down). I can’t stop staring at her hands.. they are long and sleek, so beautiful.. plus I can’t just stare directly at her, that would be rude.
No, I haven’t said a word yet.
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.
Photo Diary: The In-Between 04.14.10
The ever-awesome Julie Michelle of the ever-awesome Caliber SF and i live here:SF posts this photo today. We likes.
(click here for a larger version of the image)
New Year Recovery 01.04.10
Photo by Whole Wheat Toast
How’s 2010 on Muni treating you? Contributor Whole Wheat Toast sent us an account of his Muni ride on New Year’s Eve, and we’ve also received some…interesting NYE outfits spotted on Muni.
Whole Wheat Toast spotted a presidential-look-alike on his New Year’s Eve Muni ride and even met a Muni virgin. More from Whole Wheat Toast:
Happy New Year for everyone at the Muni Diaries! Firstly, may 2010 bring you no Muni Fails and utter fortune on the Muni! But, before that happens, of course there are some fails to talk about, right?
So, anyway, after the fireworks ended, I made my way towards the 1 bus stop at Drumm. However, by the time I got there, the bus was already leaving as it arrived. The driver didn’t want to take any chances on a break because traffic was already so bad. In fact, traffic was so bad that it took us twelve minutes to make it from the terminal down to Drumm and Sacramento.
After we made a right onto Sacramento, the operator had accidentally dropped the wires on the bus. So we were maneuvering pretty slowly, but faster than being stuck in traffic. The bus was already a bit half-full when we almost pulled over to Davis. That’s when a mob – literally – started to rush towards the bus. But the driver didn’t let anyone on, and some of us on the bus were cheering that we would be continuing on. However, the driver opened the back door, and the mob already on the bus groaned.
As the mob rushed up the back door, the driver attempted to make his way out the front door. For some reason, the door jammed, despite everyone heading towards the back, and it took him about a minute to force it open. He finally forced it open, and made his way towards the back of the bus to fix the wires. While he was doing that, the bus started to fill up even more! When he finally came back and turned on the power, the back door wouldn’t close because the bus was already so full someone had to step on the back door steps! But, eventually, the door closed miraculously despite having people still stepping on the back door. The mob on the bus cheered and we were on our way…
Got any more tales and pics from the new year? Let us know!
Rider Joseph spotted some revealing fashion on the N on New Year’s Eve. Photo after the jump.
When Women Rule the World: what I learned on the 1 California 10.20.08
Not Connie Chung, but still
I was on the 1 California with my younger sister and cousin when a man wearing his Army uniform came to sit next to us. It’s such a beautiful day, he said, too bad the economy is in the dumps. We laugh and agree. Then he said:
“But you guys, you will do fine, women make better decisions! This bad stuff wouldn’t happen if women ran the world, you know, like Hillary Clinton. Also, I like that Connie Chung too.”
Not missing a beat, my sister said:
“Isn’t Connie Chung busy having babies with Maury Povich?”
1 is the happiest number 04.11.08
Whoever wrote that song about one being a lonely number had it wrong. One, in fact, is the best number, at least in the Muni universe. My search for a new place to call home has mostly brought me to the Richmond and Sunset areas, putting me on the foreign 38-Geary and, today, the 1-California.
There isn’t enough time or space to explain everything that’s wrong with the 38. But what I have to say about the 1 is (hopefully) shortish and sweet.
This has to be the best bus route in SF. A friend said this is among the highest-rated lines for on-time performance and, incidentally, is the one Mayor Gavin Newsom uses. Seeing as how Muni funds are being slashed left and right, I can’t say the latter is that compelling a fact. But anyway…
Ride Muni like a boss. Our Fast Pass Clipper card holders and Muni Diaries T-shirts are on sale 
