Category: Photos

From the Vault: Paper Muni Fast Passes Through the Years

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Image courtesy samsast

Before Clipper cards came into your life (“Translink” for you transit OGs), we marked our calendars by the monthly unveiling of the colorful paper Fast Pass. The paper Fast Pass was discontinued in 2011, and today we’re bringing back some of our favorite old Muni passes through the years. From the Muni Diaries vault:

  • Ken Schmier is the man who came up with the concept of the Fast Pass. He’s also the mind behind NextBus. Strange, right? But also, not. This happened around 37 years ago, to the best of our knowledge. The first passes went on sale sometime in 1974. The earliest we could find an image of (below) is October 1976.
  • In a blog post from Chronicle Books, designers for the book publisher lamented the lameness of the Clipper Card look, and paid homage to the beauty of the paper pass.
  • In 2009, local artist John Kuzich opened his Fast Pass exhibit at the de Young Museum. Kuzich asked for people’s passes on Craigslist, then assembled them on panels in really interesting and beautiful ways.

1976 muni fast pass by cranky old mission guy
Photo by Cranky Old Mission Guy

You can see lots more photos in this post. Here are some of our favs:

fast pass collage by steve rhods
Photo by Steve Rhodes

fast passes by christina b castro
Photo by cbcastro

Category: Photos Tags: , ,

In this corner, Muni Haiku challenger’s kickass streetcar tattoo

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katie_boat_tram_tattoo

The Muni Haiku Battle is set to resume its ferocity eight days from now, as syllable-slinger Ronn Vigh squares off against first-time contestant Katie (who also happens to be one-third of the musical group Mesquite and Mustard, but more about that later.) Katie sent us her boat tram tattoo after seeing some other Muni tattoos we posted a few weeks ago. This has to count for something, right?

A week from tomorrow, you can watch Katie and her skin art take on Ronn for what promises to be the most exciting, nail-biting, side-splitting hilarious moments you’ll live to witness (until the next time). Did you get advance tickets to Muni Diaries Live on April 18 yet? Advanced tickets are sold out, but we’ve saved some spots for a few door tickets. Get there early!

Category: Muni Diaries Live, Photos

Muni: Where baseball and unicorns collide seamlessly

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baseball_unicorn_backpack

We’re a San Francisco Giants kind of people here at Muni Diaries. But, contrary to certain belief systems (The Church of Being an Oakland A’s Fan), you can root root root for both home teams unless it’s 1989 and you’re busy being terrified during an earthquake. I was eight, and that shit was scary.

That said, I adore this backpack, which was a 2014 A’s promotional giveaway designed by actual A’s players. MLB.com had some insider-baseball (see what we did there) history into the why, but we tapped one of our go-to A’s fans, Ericka, for more colorful fan perspective:

A lot of teams make the bullpen rookies [ed. note: rookie relief pitchers] do silly stuff like dress up or carry around a crazy bag. The A’s had a Hello Kitty backpack Sean Doolittle carried with pride his rookie season. The next season, they got a Despicable Me unicorn backpack, but it didn’t fit all the stuff they needed (necessities like candy and seeds) so they attached it to the original Hello Kitty, creating an absolute abomination in the best way. It was silly, the fans loved it, and it fit so perfectly with the whole Island of Misfit Toys mentality the A’s have, they decided to make a promo out of it. Doolittle and Ryan Cook designed it. The actual player photos on the backpack are the perfect size to be covered with a small, round button (I hexed out Jim Johnson almost immediately because he’s the g-d worst) so as the guys move on through the revolving door that is Oakland baseball, you can modify without losing the integrity of the unicorn. It’s definitely one of my favorite promotions ever.

My takeaway is that Oakland blasted San Francisco out of its irony orbit with a backpack Lisa Frank would’ve crapped her pants to design. Well done, A’s. Well done.

h/t Muni rider Annette: “Sighting: anyone care to explain this unicorn backpack with baseball player vignettes? #idontsports #icanteven”

Join us at Muni Diaries Live on Saturday, April 18, for a night of true, hilarious, weird, and sweet stories that can only happen on Muni! Grab a ticket and we’ll see you there!

Category: Photos

The true face of waiting in the rain for Muni

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waiting_rain

We’d been holding onto this one since the last time it rained. Yeah, we don’t remember exactly when that was, either.

In any case, Muni rider Bitter Giants Fan graciously shared this with the Intertubes. “Nobody is happy waiting for #SFMuni in this rain…”

Correct!

Join us at Muni Diaries Live on Saturday, April 18, for a night of true, hilarious, weird, and sweet stories that can only happen on Muni! Grab a ticket and we’ll see you there!

Category: Funny: Muni LOLs, Photos, Story Archive
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