Your weekend podcast list, Muni Diaries edition

Finishing off week two of sheltering in place, we’ve gathered some fun stories from Muni Diaries Live alums for this weekend. The weather forecast predicts rain, and we hope these podcasts give you a little reprieve, and if you are able, please do support these storytellers and projects.

Learn more about San Francisco history with Shaping San Francisco. The good folks behind Shaping San Francisco are putting their walking and biking tours on pause, but you can enjoy being an armchair historian by listening to their free public talks at home. Topics range from “hidden San Francisco” to “Valencia Street as a Lesbian Corridor: Living Memories” and more.

How to support: Become a patron at Shaping San Francisco’s Patreon page.

Enjoy comedic podcasts hosted by reigning Muni Haiku champion Wonder Dave: Mental Health Comedy Hour and Nerd Rage: the Great Debate. Wonder Dave has reigned supreme with his 5-7-5 rhymes, but when he’s not writing public transit poems (which he really just does twice a year), he’s hosting some very funny, and very nerdy podcasts. Tune in to those podcasts to debate timeless topics like, “Which female superhero reigns supreme in the world of DC comics?”

How to support: Become a patron on Wonder Dave’s Patreon page.

An ode to Muni and BART operators who are working every day to get people from one essential task to another: listen to Kurt Schwartzmann’s story at Muni Diaries Live. Kurt told this story last summer about how Muni drivers provided him the only refuge when he was living on the street.

We’ll keep the stories coming here on MuniDiaries.com and on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Photo by @mwichary.

To eat or not to eat the burrito on Muni?

I’ve gotten happy hour at Phone Booth -> El Farolito -> hopping the 14-Mission or 49-Van Ness/Mission right outside down to a science. I am still working on tamping down the wild-animal desire to tipsily horse into a burrito around innocent people during the ride home.

I’m not the only one who gets comfortable on the bus with tummy fuel: there was a full-on food fight on the J-Church a while back, an errant drumstick, and a forward-thinking passenger using time wisely to prep dinner on the bus. But I suppose it is rude to subject riders to my food smells and napkin-less abandon.

I showed admirable (ADMIRABLE) restraint this time around, but have definitely been guilty of destroying these bad boys on a BART platform (and then in the train) between 24th/Mission and Civic Center. That’s not a long ride, folks, and it was not that late.

What say ye, folks: Throw proper etiquette to the wind (you’ll take our bus burritos from our cold dead hands!) or keep it together until you get home?

A reminder of rainy day dos and don’ts on Muni

The weather forecast calls for three more days of rain, which could mean 72 more hours of improper umbrella use on Muni. Let’s review some important rainy-day etiquette: umbrellas are still best used outdoors rather than deployed inside the bus to deter people from sitting next to you, as in the above photo from Aaron on Twitter.

Fewer people than we thought got the memo…

Photo by @cyclones01

Once you do board with your brolly, remember to keep it folded up, no matter how outdoorsy it might be.

patio_brella
Photo by EC

There is, however, one acceptable circumstance for an indoor umbrella on Muni…

An occasional necessity around here, umbrellas are such a hassleā€”see this compelling case against them. My recommendation? Forgo those pesky nylon menaces and just wear a proper raincoat instead.

pug
Photo by @dearamerican

Got other rainy day pet peeves or tips? Our inbox is open for your suggestions! Email us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com or tag us @munidiaries on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Law and Order, Muni Style

Muni rider Maureen Bogues didn’t think a ride back from a baby shower would be quite so eventful. Staring into screen-addicted oblivion on the way home, a mugger grabs her phone and takes off. Fueled by a combination of adrenaline and reflex, she chases after them. What would you do in this situation?

In this week’s podcast, Maureen shares the details of that eventful ride, culminating in a truly unexpected journey home.

Hear her story:

We’ve heard of other riders taking bus justice into their own hands, and while a lot of those tales had happy endings, we wouldn’t go so far as to recommend that approach. Like the bus robot says, when in doubt, “keep your eyes up and your phones down when riding a Muni vehicle.”

This podcast episode was recorded at Muni Diaries Live last month at Rickshaw Stop. But you don’t have to be a stage alum to land on our podcast; our inbox is open if you have a Muni tale to share. Pitch your story at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com.

Photo by Amanda Roosa

San Francisco Diaries: Fighting the power from WA to CA

Local activist and retired tradeswoman Molly Martin is back on the podcast with a story that starts during her revolution-minded college years in Washington state and takes us through the middle of the AIDS crisis in 1980s San Francisco. Molly is pictured above, back row, far right, in the fabulous crop top circa 1973.

She says this group, which called itself the Rosa Luxemburg Collective, is making a sign for No Way LPMA (the League for the Promotion of Militant Atheism). Larry, the central character in her intersectional story, is in the middle, hand outstretched. Here’s Molly:

Catch up with Molly’s other dispatches: a lesson in international relations on the 14-Mission, and the back story on how lesbians invaded Bernal Heights.

Subscribe to the San Francisco Diaries podcast, brought to you by the creators of Muni Diaries, so you don’t miss an episode. If you’re itching to hear stories like these told from the stage, our live show is back on Nov. 2 at Rickshaw Stop; tickets for Muni Diaries Live are on sale now.

Pic courtesy Molly Martin

San Francisco Diaries: DJ Steve Fabus and the surprise farewell for disco legend Sylvester

DJ Steve Fabus has been called “one of the founding fathers of San Francisco’s gay disco scene,” and we were lucky enough to welcome him recently into our podcast studio. In today’s San Francisco Diaries episode, he shares a story many of us have heard or seen secondhand but was 100-percent real life for him. He moved to the city as a young gay man in the 1970s. At the time, he said he and his friends felt there was “power in numbers” as the gay movement gained momentum…to say nothing about “this amazing party going on,” he recalls.

Fabus has enjoyed a long career that spans from the disco era to today. He started DJing parties at his own flat, just around the block from Harvey Milk’s camera store. Harvey Milk, disco legend Sylvester, and other counterculture luminaries like Peter Berlin, the Fabulous Cockettes, and Pristine Condition became regulars at his events.

As Fabus found popularity and success spinning at venues like the Trocadero Transfer and I-Beam, the AIDS crisis also started to affect many people around him. In today’s episode, he describes the evening he found himself in the DJ booth providing the soundtrack to Sylvester’s farewell party.

Listen to his story:

Subscribe to the Muni Diaries podcast so you don’t miss an episodeā€”and hear stories like these live on stage in just two weeks! Our live show is back on Nov. 2 at Rickshaw Stop.Ā Tickets for Muni Diaries Live are on sale now.

Photo via Electric Soul

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