Muni Diaries Live is back on April 15!

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Twice a year we bring the best public transit stories to the stage, and for our ninth trip around the sun (where did the time go?), we’ll be back at the Elbo Room on April 15 with a fresh batch of only-in-SF stories just for you!

The photo above is Alexa von Kickinface, who brought down the house with her Muni-themed burlesque number last year. What else do we have in store for you this time? For this show, we are bringing back our Muni Haiku champion for a new battle! Tickets are on sale now, so grab one while they’re available.

Our storytellers:

Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a writer, performer, host, storyteller, and regular KQED community events host based in San Francisco. He has performed in L.A., Washington D.C., NYC, Canada, and all over California. His writing has been published in numerous anthologies and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry and Lambda Literary Fellow in Playwriting. He regularly organizes poetry shows in the Bay Area, is currently the curator and head organizer for The San Francisco Queer Open Mic, and is program director for Donde Esta Mi Gente. He was born in Toluca, Mexico, and grew up in Albany, California. Read more

Best friends form a band just for their pal’s Muni-driving dreams

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Courtney Riddle is the zine ambassador of Market Street, selling small handmade books out of a formerly abandoned newspaper kiosk, The Grand Newsstand. She’s been spreading zines to unwitting tourists for more than a year now. But secretly she harbors another aspiration: driving Muni. There’s just one small problem she had to overcome, as she tells the audience in this week’s Muni Diaries podcast episode.

Courtney’s best friends aren’t deterred by anything that stands in the way of her dreams! Naturally, they wrote a song about it and dressed up in coordinating Muni-themed outfits to sing it to the crowd at Muni Diaries Live.

Listen to the episode here:

Episode Extra: Watch Courtney and her friends at Muni Diaries Live. “Courtney for president!”

The Muni Diaries Podcast features stories from Muni Diaries Live, plus new stories from our archive. To subscribe, find us on iTunes, Google Play, or use this RSS link. New episodes will be released every Tuesday, so subscribe to the podcast for great new stories from the bus!

Photo by Justina Wu

An update on Peter Hartlaub’s 77X-Candlestick Express story

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Back in 2014, journalist Peter Hartlaub took the stage at Muni Diaries Live to talk about the now-defunct 77X-Candlestick Express, a.k.a., the Muni Booze Cruise. That story is featured in this week’s podcast, and for that reason, we reached out to Peter to see if he had any “episode extras” he could send us. Boy, were we (and now, you!) in for a treat.

Here’s what Peter sent us:

Hello, Muni Diaries friends,

An update since my Muni Diaries tribute to the 77X Candlestick Express:

After the Muni Diary, I ended up going to the last game at Candlestick Park with my dad Phil Hartlaub, sister Toni Kam and aunt Susan Leal. I thought that would be my closure, but I was assigned to cover the last big event at the ‘Stick, Paul McCartney’s concert. I had seats on the field, but snuck up to Upper Box Section 32, and convinced an usher to let me sit in my family seats one more time – even though they were roped off. I listened to “Live and Let Die” and “Hey Jude,” then left.

Our Candlestick seats sit in my parents’ backyard. I’ve already retained a lawyer for the legal fight for them that will ensue between me and my sister when my parents are gone.

I haven’t traveled on a Muni Van Ness line since.

Wow. I love everything about this!!! (I’m willing to overlook the football parts.)

Thanks, Peter!

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Muni Diaries Live: 6 stories, 2 street birds, and 1 incredible evening

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Photo by Justina Wu

Last weekend we experienced what can best be described as a love letter to San Francisco when we saw more than 200 of you pack into the Elbo Room at Muni Diaries Live. I can’t say that we’ve recovered from election results, and perhaps we never will, but it warms my heart just knowing that there are still people who will cheer for your bus line and root for your success in getting a late-night transfer! Let’s count down the many ways that we celebrated getting from point A to point B.

The photo above is one of the surprising and awesome moments from the show: Grand News Stand owner Courtney Riddle shared her dream of becoming a streetcar driver one day. Look closely and you’ll see that she’s embroidered the Muni worm on her cardigan, and her dress is made from fabric that has streetcar prints on it! That’s some serious dedication. When she shared her streetcar dream with her partner, he won the Best Boyfriend awards by writing a rap song in her honor.

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Photo by Melvin Wong

I mean…how much more awesome can people get?

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Muni Diaries is now a podcast!

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We have some very exciting news to share: Muni Diaries is now a podcast! For awhile now, we’ve wanted to create a podcast from all the great stories that riders like you have submitted to us. Well, we did it!

On the Muni Diaries Podcast, you’ll also hear great Muni stories you might not have heard before. The show features stories from Muni Diaries Live, stories from our archives, and some other great content in the future. To subscribe, find us on iTunes, Google Play, or use this RSS link.

On MuniDiaries.com/podcast, you’ll find the latest episode and episode extras. For this week’s episode (which you should totally listen to), we have a photo of Chris O’s record collection.

We’d like to thank our awesome podcast producer Peter Clarke and J. W. Friedman for writing, playing, and recording the music in the show.

We hope you’ll subscribe to the Muni Diaries Podcast. New episodes will drop every Tuesday, so be sure to subscribe. If you like what you hear, share it with all your podcast-listening friends.
Photo by Right Angle Images

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