About the Chicken Story (and Perils of Running a User-Generated Site)

I was standing on the side of the stage at the Make-Out Room last Friday at Riders with Drinks when our emcee Suzanne brought up four members of the audience to tell their own Muni story. As one of the audience members began to tell a story about an Asian (Chinese?) woman bringing a live chicken on the bus, I cringed. The story sounded uncomfortably familiar.

In the story, the bus driver tells the woman that live animals are not allowed on board. NonplussedUnaffected, she snaps the chicken’s neck and boards the bus.

Minutes later another writer in the audience approached us and echoed my discomfort: This story sounded remarkably like an urban legend she had heard before.  When it was time to give away a prize to the best storyteller, the audience chanted, “Chicken! Chicken!” I felt even more uncomfortable. In the chaos of running an event, we did not have a chance to intervene on stage, but the “chicken story” stayed in my mind all weekend.

A little internet search showed that various forms of the “chicken story” has been circulating the city for a few years. But if an audience member said that she witnessed the story first-hand, isn’t that the end of story?

Not for us.

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Another Douche on the M-Train

the muni - a world unto itself

Muni rider William has some choice words for “another douche on the M-train.” He sent us this story:

So, short and simple: I’m sitting on the M-train minding my own business when all of a sudden I hear a guy shout out at me, “Stare somewhere else, dude.”

At the time I had been looking toward his side of the train but just daydreaming and gazing around. What do you expect people to do when they are on the bus? Sure I could read a paper, but it’s 6:30 a.m. and I get my paper when I get to work. Even if I had headphones like most people do, they are still typically facing upward and looking around. Furthermore, you were just sitting there gazing forward as well–therefore, you were likely inadvertently staring at someone else on the train.

Technically you were staring at me if you even happened to be looking at me supposedly staring at you. Quite frankly you were nothing that would even be worthwhile to look at. If I wanted to be staring at someone I would definitely be staring at more attractive people on the train, and just considering I am a straight male I would have been looking at an attractive female if I was actually gonna stare at someone. Don’t flatter yourself. If you can’t stand people looking around on public transportation I have some advice for you — get off!

Had a strange or funny incident on Muni or BART lately? Tell your story here.

Photo by Flickr user *christopher*

Mohawk Town

mohawk-on-muni

From our inbox from a Muni rider:

Last night I took the K to West Portal. I don’t know when she got on the train because I was busy playing with the new apps on my blackberry, but sometime between Forest Hill and West Portal I looked up and saw her. She looked like a beautiful, swirly and colorful cartoon. She had stars and swirly things painted on her face. She had fake flowers tucked into her mohawk. I’m so glad I put down my crackberry and enjoyed the ride.

Saw something intriging on the bus? Email us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com.

Just Another Night Riding the 22

Knife

It was a Friday night and I was on my way home from work. I had just gotten off BART at 16th Street and walked over to the bus stop to catch the 22. At first, everything seemed normal. Lots of people were begging for change, people were talking on their cell phones, other were people standing around waiting for the bus and tons of people were walking by in the general area. It seemed like another normal night at 16th and Mission.

As I waited for the 22, I heard some rowdiness over yonder, behind me. I looked over my shoulder and I saw that there were some guys goofing around with each other. They weren’t yelling. Just bumping into each other and being loud.

A few seconds later, these guys walked around to the front of the bus shelter where I was standing. There were three of them. Three Hispanic guys who spoke only Spanish. They were all over the place. One guy was even wandering in the street. I noticed that each of them had a bottle of tequila in their hand.

Suddenly, a black guy came out of nowhere and started speaking broken Spanish to these guys. The black guy walked in the street a bit and around the bus shelter, in plain sight of me, but out of view of the cameras located at the intersection. I’m not sure what triggered it, but one of the Spanish-speaking guys must have pissed off the black guy. This black guy was a young kid with nothing to lose. He seemed to be by himself and started talking mad shit to these guys in Spanish. It almost seemed like he was trying to egg them on into a fight. As soon as the black guy walked right in front of me, he lifted up his sweatshirt to show the fact that he had a gun in his drawers. Everyone standing in the bus shelter bolted out of the area, including myself. The other guys saw the gun, but continued talking back to the black guy. It was like the threat of the black guy having a gun and using it didn’t even phase them. These guys were obviously intoxicated.

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Philosopher’s conversation

conversation on a bus

“You know I am going there because I have to go, not because I want to go. There is a difference between ‘have to’ and ‘want to’.” The woman screamed.
A man approached her and looked like he was kissing her.
Then, he screamed, “There are two type of people in this society; one that has money and one that is drunk. Everyone else is in between. If you are not one of these two, don’t fucking come knock on my door! The light is on, but I won’t answer.”
Approach to the woman again, he makes a Karate-like move. Then, he sits on the chair and screams, “I like Stephen King!”
It is quiet for a moment, then the woman screamed at the man, “At least I know where I am going! But you don’t know where you are going!!”
He screamed back to her, “But I know where I am!”

She repeats, “I know where I am going but you don’t know where you are going!”
He responds, “But I know where I am!” Then they begin to shout back and forth.
”I know where I am going but you don’t know where you are going!”
“But I know where I am!”
“I know where I am going but you don’t know where you are going!”
“But I know where I am!”
The man says, “You know, there are people who have and people who don’t!”
The man continued, “You, you, you what! You want to or you have to what?”
The woman screams back to him, “I tell you here is my answer, ‘I don’t know!’ There are always three answers to everything I want, I have to, and I don’t know!”
She continues, “But I know where I am going and you don’t!”
“But I know where I am!” The man screamed. “Have a seat. There is a seat here” He continued as he pointed to the seat next to him.
But she screams, “No! Someone’s ass was sitting there! I am not going to put my ass on someone’s asshole!
“Bitch! You are a fucking bitch, you know. You know what I call someone like you? A Hooker! You are a hooker!”
She says, “Hey, don’t limit your view. If you named it but you can’t see beyond it!
He yells, “Bitch!”
“Hey, be careful what you call me because you don’t know who is listening to you!”
He repeats, “You are a fucking bitch!”
She now screams, “You are an asshole!”
“How did you know my nick name?” He is suddenly calm.

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Canon in D Jam Out at Powell Station

Here in the Bay Area, home to world-class symphonies, ballets, and operas, we tend to undervalue so-called street musicians. New York, Paris, and London, to name just a few “Western” examples, do not take for granted the value of a sweet, sometimes semi-spontaneous burst of aural delight to break up the monotony of their streetlife. Is it because streetlife here is so readily associated with mental illness? Is it because the music we hear at BART stations and even occasionally on Muni is actually just shitty, and we’d be better off listening to the crazy shit people say around here? What is it?

In any case, we were happy to find this gem on Twitter late last week. This is worth breaking up your day with. Come on, feel the noise!

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