At my local Muni stop, a passenger has something to say about the impending new wave bus shelters:

Wave shelters do not shelter! Let’s all get wet!

The new Muni shelters may not protect you from the rain, but they may protect you from small fire arms. Useful? Let’s hope not.

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Muni rider Mozart sent us this audio snippet from his ride home aboard the 49-Van Ness. Warning: The clip devolves for a bit into completely offensive, inappropriate ranting, so FYI and throw on some headphones if you’re at work. The clip was just very San Francisco in many different ways, for better or worse.

drunk49

I thought it might be Omer, the infamous Mission District sidewalk “musician.” After seeing a photo of Omer, Mozart thought it could be him. What do you think? I’ve never seen Omer on Muni, but it seems like he’d draw a lot of attention on it.

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Local band Pinched Nerve made a video called Back Door Step Down. Guess where they filmed it?

Watch the video for a party on the 49 that really gets rolling at 2:04. Think the partiers are Pinched Nerve friends or lucky passengers on their way to YouTube Vimeo stardom? You tell me.

Hat Tip: Bernalwood, home of the best local blog masthead ever.

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Have you ever been harassed on the bus? You’d think that after the Muni Humper, people would learn. Not so much. Recently we received a report from Stella, who found some really suspicious bad behavior on the 8X-Bayshore Express.

“I was sitting on the single seats on the 8X and a man got on the bus and held the pole next to my seat…the bus makes a small turn and the man leans toward me and brushes my arm with his hand. I mean this might be understandable if it was a wide turn and if we were going pretty fast, but the bus was not. The 8X is typically a crowded bus and as a non-confrontational person, I didn’t accuse him of anything just yet. So after that I turned my head in his direction and he was staring down at me.

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Sometimes Muni seems like San Francisco’s living room.

One night last week I walked up to the 49 bus shelter on Van Ness and saw that there was a young couple waiting for the bus, each carrying a huge cardboard box that said, Tempurpedic Pillow (with pictures of a high-tech-looking foam pillow). The bus arrived and we got on. It was crowded so the couple stood near the front.

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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A couple weeks ago, rider Martha told us about a 49-Van Ness that smelled like basil, which was noteworthy because the 49 never smells like something you’d want to eat.

“Muni smells like…” actually shows up a lot on the @munidiaries Twitter feed. Here are our recent favorites.

Yummy
@jessicasuzette: #Muni smelled like strawberries, somebody went to #farmersmarket love clean trains.

Could go either way
@WillieFDiazSF: Someone on this Muni bus smells like Hot Dog juice. Makes me wanna have a BBQ.
@jdaisy: this LTaraval smells like fish AND chips.

The Bad
@cache_theory: the smells of the #sfmuni…urine & moth balls
@RGreenberg: Guy just got on #muni smelling like week-old pants, and fertilizer.

The Optimistic
@fsquared: This bus smells like pancakes and syrup. #wishfulthinking #muni

We’re constantly impressed by your creativity and the, um, evocative descriptions you send. So keep ‘em comin’!

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Martha got all next-level on the bus the other day:

I took the 49 home straight from the market with a big bunch of fresh basil and the whole bus smelled like basil!!! It was the best smelling bus ever! I think I’ll always buy fresh herbs if Muni will always smell this good!

Other 49-Van Ness passengers with a sense of smell haven’t been so fortunate. To whit:
Swishy River on the 49

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Reader Karl snapped this pic from his apartment today around 2:30 p.m. He says:

“Ellis was completely blocked the entire time. Looks like both cars were totaled…saw someone being carried from the bus on a stretcher. The lady in the black car was sitting in the driver side until paramedics arrived, but she didn’t appear to be too badly hurt…I didn’t see much outside of the aftermath.”

Did you see this incident? It looks like a 49, and Karl says it took more than an hour to clean up the scene. Send us more info if you’ve got it, and let us know here or @munidiaries on Twitter if things are wonky on Van Ness.

It is certainly not a good day for Muni vs. Other Object, so we’re hoping everyone involved is OK.

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I believe there’s an international school or a hostel on Van Ness, because I often hear hip, young French folks parlez les français. Last week, I watched a group of French students tote a ridiculously large graduation balloon on a full bus. One of them asked me if we had a name for the pinchy chip-clip thing that’s often attached to mylar balloons. I called it a clip, but perhaps balloon enthusiasts will know more. Though I sadly couldn’t get a photo of that one, we at least have this: more French stuff on a Van Ness line.

I take 47s and 49s — pardon, les quarante-septs et les quarante-neufs — all the time and it’s always a treat when I come up on such students. It helps me think dreamily of Paris instead of the yelling guy who shows up on the 47 in the early evenings.

This rules.

Thx: @stankpalmer

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At least that’s what some pamphleteers have in mind. As seen on the 49 by Muni rider Charles. Click image to embiggen.

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