Author: Tara

Tara Ramroop has laughed, cried, and commiserated with this amazing community from the start. She's been writing for as long as she can remember and riding Muni for more than a decade.

Muni operator Charles Haletky on teaching “professional paranoia”

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Operators are the front-line glue holding this operation together. Still, The Public (myself included) have had a spicy word or two for an operator, occasionally on this very website. So often we’ve had a spicy word for any operator, stranger, or boss on the wrong day at the wrong time. Some wrong days are wrong-er than others.

Veteran operator Charles Haletky joined us at a special Muni Diaries Live in April 2024, which paid homage to the operators, mechanics, trainers, and everyone in the SFMTA universe keeping the machine running. In this recording from the show, Haletky walks us through the highs of “pure, exquisite joy of public humiliation” and the lows of, well…the lowest you can imagine. He reminds us that, as someone who trains the next generation of operators, he needs to be cruel on occasion—not to be kind, but for the greater good.

Listen to the stories on your favorite pod platform:

And then! Subscribe so don’t miss a minute. We regularly bring audio from the live shows, as well as ongoing musings from the everyday Muni experience. Muni Diaries on Spotify? Muni Diaries on Apple Podcasts? Hit us up.

Pic by Emily Huston

Category: Muni Diaries Live, Muni Diaries Live Shows Tags:

Tanea Lunsford Lynx shines light on past-tense San Francisco

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Tanea Lunsford Lynx joined us at Muni Diaries Live in April 2023 to perform I Used to Live Here, her poem evoking the magic of relatives living a mere Muni ride away, the otherworldly dimension between West Portal and Van Ness Stations, and the soothing something about 24-hour Church Street Safeway light. She was one of the San Francisco-born-and-raised artists featured in Muni Raised Me, an exhibit exploring what truly public transit means to those who depend on it—and are ultimately shaped by it.

Here’s Tanea:

Tanea, an artist and educator, gave me chills with her delivery and lyrical gift. She also left me hopeful that the city she “used to” live in and the characters she described can thrive in present-tense San Francisco, too.

You might remember Tanea from Muni Diaries podcast Eps. 140 and 141, featuring Tanea and her students at performing original poetry about our everyone’s favorite school bus. And don’t forget to check out Muni Raised Me co-curator Meymey Lee in Ep. 144.

Muni Diaries is 15 years old! Forget a birth-month, we’ve made it a birth-year. Join us Nov 2 for the festivities at a special Muni Diaries Live. Tickets are available now (but going fast!) on Eventbrite.

Photo by Emily Huston

Category: diaries, Muni Diaries Live, Muni Diaries Live Shows, reflection

Zoiks! Spooky season scaries at the Legion of Honor

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Have you been to the Legion of Honor at night? I haven’t. And I definitely won’t be going after this story.

Muni operator and Muni Haiku Battle champion Mc Allen reminds us of what can go bump (and wrong) on a late-night run. Originally shared at Muni Diaries Live in April 2023, it’s the perfect accompaniment to the seasonal festivities. 

Mc (pronounced “Mack”) was once featured on the Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the NPR weekly news quiz. He believes in the power of Slow Streets, Great Walkways, Transit Only Lanes and No Parking Signs. Mc’s poetry has appeared in The San Franciscan magazine and the Bay City Beacon. He’s been a guest of the Total SF, Roll Over Easy, 99% Invisible, and Muni Diaries podcasts, as well as a twice-victor, once-victim at the Muni Haiku Battle at Muni Diaries Live. Mc lives in Dogpatch with his wife and two kids, and you can find him behind the wheel of the 35-Eureka and the 29-Sunset. 

Here’s Mc:

We might have mentioned one or twice or 20 times, but we are celebrating our 15th birthday. Festivities continue at Muni Diaries Live on November 2, so don’t miss out! We have some anniversary goodies and are putting the variety in variety show. Tickets are available now on Eventbrite.

Photo by Emily Huston

Category: diaries, Muni Diaries Live, Muni Diaries Live Shows Tags:

A leather jockstrap and a dream—how a Mission barbershop kept on keeping on

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Blond woman with tattoos tells a story on stage into a microphone

Jill Sutherlin didn’t set out to become the guardian of a beloved Mission safe space, but the pandemic and a few other twists and turns led her to become one of its fiercest protectors. She takes us through some of those twists and turns in this story, which she told on stage at Muni Diaries Live in April 2023.

Jill proudly hails from Oakland. She is the co-owner of The Refinery Grooming Club: an independently owned, upscale barbershop and the backdrop of this story. She is also a DJ at Bff.fm: an internet-based, community-run radio station in San Francisco, and founder of United Streets Direct Care, a nonprofit donating on-site hair-care services to unhoused communities in the Bay Area and Modesto.

Here’s Jill:

Did you super-tuned in listeners catch the mention of our ongoing 15th birthday celebration? We’re keeping the party going at Muni Diaries Live on November 2! We have some anniversary surprises cooked up and tickets are available now on Eventbrite.

Photo by Emily Huston

Category: diaries, Muni Diaries Live, Muni Diaries Live Shows, San Francisco Diaries Tags: ,

Muni Diaries Live returns on Nov. 2, 2023 to celebrate our 15th birthday

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We’ve seen paper FastPasses and late night transfers come and go, but one thing stays the same: Muni riders are in it together! We’re celebrating 15 years of sharing your experiences on the bus, and we want you to help us mark the occasion.

We’ve invited some stellar storytellers and we’ll be unveiling our commemorative Muni Diary* — gorgeous notebooks handmade by Enon Avital (Dapper Notebooks) featuring cover art by Chris Arvin (Transit Supply). Check out photos of the journal below. It’s perfect for your transit journaling needs.

Join us for an evening of storytelling, hilarious tales and music, and, of course, our Muni Haiku Battle. We’ll toast (bubbly included while supplies last!) to 15 years of transit rider solidarity. All together now: back door!

Muni Diaries Live! Tickets on sale now.

Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023

Doors: 6 p.m. Show: 7 p.m.

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell Street, San Francisco

Photo by Emily Huston

Category: Muni Diaries Live, Muni Diaries Live Shows, News Tags: ,

What lies beneath the streets of San Francisco?

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Paving over the past to make way for the future is a story we know well in San Francisco. But few people I know have taken the time to understand what lies beneath the streets of San Francisco: who those people were, and the impact they had on the birth and growth of neighborhoods and infrastructure. Local author Beth Winegarner is the exception.

San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History is Beth’s newest book, and it’s out now. Beth stopped by the Muni Diaries podcast to discuss how the city’s dead have impacted some of our most well-traveled roads and public transit, early NIMBY antics from our Victorian forebears, and our civic responsibility to residents who’ve passed on.

Beth is a journalist, author, essayist and pop-culture critic who has contributed to The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The San Francisco Examiner—where she first met me in the paper’s Peninsula bureau. She is the author of several books, including Sacred Sonoma, Beloved, The Columbine Effect: How Five Teen Pastimes Got Caught in the Crossfire and Why Teens are Taking Them Back, and Tenacity: Heavy Metal in the Middle East and Africa.

When we get together, the conversation often veers toward San Francisco politics and socioeconomics, and this more “official” talk wasn’t much different. Here’s Beth in conversation with … me!

Visit BethWinegarner.com for info about in-person and virtual events, as well as to order your own copy in time for spooky szn.

Category: diaries, reflection Tags:
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