Glazed and Confused


Photo by Lady in the radiator

100 Muni StoriesRider Ben sent over this diamond of a tale involving alleged porn stars, beer, and someone who thought he was Jet Li. Read on.

I’ve been riding MUNI for about 10 years now. My morning commute involves a three-way with the bus, the underground, and the F train. I used to wear headphones when on transit- it kind of lets you get out of the ugliness of being squashed with 1200 other people in a small, dirty, hot vehicle that starts and stops ease of a jackhammer. Headphones put you in your own world. But while I’ve had many, many terrible experiences on the bus, there’ve been some diamonds in there, too. This story is sort of a mixture of both, depending on which seat you were in.

I was waiting at a stop for the 21 last Saturday, wondering why I was even going out when I didn’t feel like it, and listening to a drunken conversation between two guys with huge fake mustaches. They had decided to explain their fake mustaches by telling people they had just come from a porn shoot, and were making up titles (their running favorite was Cumming to America). After the predict-a-bus said “Arriving” for about 15 minutes, and they’d come up with nearly every porn title ever imagined, the bus finally came.

Even when the bus is nearly empty like it was that night, I still like to sit in the back seats that face each other. The two mustaches followed to the seats across from me, and on the other side of the aisle an older couple sat across from a rather large, round, drunk hipster who somehow had a full plastic cup of beer. I hurried to sit down because I’ve been on the bus before, unlike the mustaches, and I knew that the bus driver likes to go from idle to 25 mph in half a second. Sure enough, the mustaches were scooped into the seats with a thump.

On the other side, the hipster’s beer had apparently sloshed forward (he was facing backwards), and he tried to “save” it by diving. In his drunkenness, he must’ve mistaken himself for Jet Li, when in reality he more closely resembled a garbage bag of oatmeal, and he sprawled onto the floor/old couple and completely covered them in beer. The lady gave a loud shriek and cringed, drenched, but the man stared forward without so much as a blink. The fat hipster was now on his knees, laying in the man’s lap, and everyone was very quiet for several seconds- I counted 3 drips of beer from the lady’s nose before anyone on the bus moved. Then the hipster looked up from the old man’s lap, saw how beer-soaked they were, and began giggling furiously. He didn’t even attempt to apologize as he peeled himself up off the floor and sat back down.

The couple waited until everyone finally looked away and then moved to another seat, embarrassed. The hipster was still giggling when he leaned over and told me “You know what the funny part is? The funny part (burp), the funny part is, I think they’re going to the same party as me.” I don’t know how he figured that, but when the old couple got off the bus two stops later, damned if he didn’t follow them. And he even looked up at me in the window and mock-splashed them again with the plastic cup, to a wave of laughter from the bus.

And then one mustache pointed to the poor couple walking away and said “Dude. Glazed and Confused.”

San Francisco Character – Vivienne, Muni Operator

Rider Madeleine sent us a story about Vivienne, who drives the 108-Treasure Island. Vivienne has been a Muni operator for 20 years and is “very humble as to the importance of her job,” Madeleine reports. Madeleine, who is Swiss, tells us one reason why she enjoys having Vivienne on her bus:

I like her calling me ‘sweetie.’ I know, this is nothing unusual around here, but given that I am Swiss and used to Swiss public transit operator attitudes, the idea of being called ‘sweetie’ by a Swiss bus driver just amuses me… they are waaay too stiff and formal to do something like that.

Vivienne told Madeleine about what happened during a graveyard shift on the 91-Owl when she picked up a man on Van Ness who said he had just been hit by a cab. Read the rest of the story at Madeleine’s blog, SFCharacters.

Got another Muni driver who made an impression on you? Let us know. Or even better, are you a Muni operator? We want to hear from you!

Weekend photos: Meanwhile, on Muni…

Meanwhile, On Muni
Photo by David Lytle

By the time you return from your weekend of fun, a little more than half of the Muni service cuts you saw in May will be restored. In other Muni news:

  • ‘Ambassadors’ place extra eyes on Muni (SF Examiner)
  • Time for Muni drivers to pay to park (Matier and Ross on SFGate)
  • Pier 70 Development: Streetcars Included? (Market Street Railway blog)
  • SFMTA restores service Sept. 4 (tomorrow!) (SFMTA)
  • Muni Accepts Gun Group’s Poster Promoting Use of Firearms (SF Weekly)
  • Central Subway Public Art Program Announces Winners (Central Subway Blog)
  • Dean Clark, District 6 Supervisor Candidate, Responds to Muni Questionnaire (Muni Rider Voter Guide)
  • Muni overhead pole spears sightseeing bus (SF Examiner)
  • 43 Masonic Catches Fire (Bay City News via SF Appeal)
  • West Portal Muni Construction Project Almost Done (Bay City News via SF Appeal)
  • Muni operators’ legal strategy could stall service reductions (City Insider on SFGate)

Oh, and ready or not, you’re in for a few weeks of Muni Diaries without Jeff, who is going on his honeymoon with the lovely Tara!

See how cute and transit-obsessed they are?

So, if you see something noteworthy on Muni, remember to share it with your fellow riders here. Don’t leave me hanging, y’all.

Enjoy the photos and your weekend!

Interior ex Milan Peter Witt car
Photo by Stephen Rees

Sleepy and Restless
Photo by Thomas Hawk

Waiting for the train & Ferry Building
Photo by Lorena

Plants vs. Zombies. Perfect way to pass time while waiting for a train.
Photo by Josh Lee

I've Been Waiting All Of My Life
Photo by Troy Holden

I didn’t go to Burning Man. Burning Man came to me.

arc

Take it away, bhautik joshi:

True story of San Francisco: Why is this photo blurry? Ostensibly it’s taken from a window of a moving bus, but the real reason we were moving quickly is because we were being chased by giant twinkies. That’s right, giant, articulated four-ton twinkes, scooching their way caterpillar-like up Columbus Avenue, flattening Democrats and Republicans alike as they brought their sugary wrath upon North Beach. The whole episode came to a sticky end when the twinkies became jammed in the Broadway tunnel, at which point the kids from the nearby school swarmed out and ate the twinkies to death. Such a sad end for these beautiful, terrifying creatures.

Taken with the galactic bendycam 19.

On a separate note: I am so outta here for the next three weeks*. Play among yourselves, and spare Eugenia’s sanity as much as humanly possible.

* Hell no, I’m not going to the dirty, hot desert to dance. It’s my honeymoon, people. Mediterranean, here we come!

At the Giants Game: Phyllis’ Grandkids Learn the Stops

I was sitting in front of my computer yesterday afternoon thinking: I wish I could be sitting outside in this beautiful weather and drinking a cold one… Then Jeff reminded me that FlipCam was taking Muni Diaries to a Giants game that very evening. How did FlipCam read my mind? How did FlipCam know that the weather was going to be freaking perfect? How did FlipCam know I was willing to pay $9 for a Coors Light?

So we took this opportunity to ask throngs of Giants fans on Muni about their Muni-riding experiences. As much as the metros were packed, most of the folks we talked to were pretty satisfied with riding Muni to and from the games: “No big problems…yeah it’s crowded but that’s how it is, you know?” Perhaps it’s the non-Giants-watching riders who have more of a beef with the packed trains.

And then we ran into rider Phyllis, who told us how you can tell whether your grandchildren are real Giants fans (see above video; 0:32 if you’re impatient and don’t wanna peep Jeff’s mad video-editing skills).

Also, Jeff would like to add: the Giants totally dogged Denver!

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