New Year Recovery


Photo by Whole Wheat Toast

How’s 2010 on Muni treating you? Contributor Whole Wheat Toast sent us an account of his Muni ride on New Year’s Eve, and we’ve also received some…interesting NYE outfits spotted on Muni.

Whole Wheat Toast spotted a presidential-look-alike on his New Year’s Eve Muni ride and even met a Muni virgin. More from Whole Wheat Toast:

Happy New Year for everyone at the Muni Diaries! Firstly, may 2010 bring you no Muni Fails and utter fortune on the Muni! But, before that happens, of course there are some fails to talk about, right?

So, anyway, after the fireworks ended, I made my way towards the 1 bus stop at Drumm. However, by the time I got there, the bus was already leaving as it arrived. The driver didn’t want to take any chances on a break because traffic was already so bad. In fact, traffic was so bad that it took us twelve minutes to make it from the terminal down to Drumm and Sacramento.

After we made a right onto Sacramento, the operator had accidentally dropped the wires on the bus. So we were maneuvering pretty slowly, but faster than being stuck in traffic. The bus was already a bit half-full when we almost pulled over to Davis. That’s when a mob – literally – started to rush towards the bus. But the driver didn’t let anyone on, and some of us on the bus were cheering that we would be continuing on. However, the driver opened the back door, and the mob already on the bus groaned.

As the mob rushed up the back door, the driver attempted to make his way out the front door. For some reason, the door jammed, despite everyone heading towards the back, and it took him about a minute to force it open. He finally forced it open, and made his way towards the back of the bus to fix the wires. While he was doing that, the bus started to fill up even more! When he finally came back and turned on the power, the back door wouldn’t close because the bus was already so full someone had to step on the back door steps! But, eventually, the door closed miraculously despite having people still stepping on the back door. The mob on the bus cheered and we were on our way…

Read more of his account here.

Got any more tales and pics from the new year? Let us know!

Rider Joseph spotted some revealing fashion on the N on New Year’s Eve. Photo after the jump.

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Who says your kid won’t look good in Muni?

Just in time for Christmas!

Coming off the heels of this post on BART Diaries, we couldn’t help but notice these adorable toddler tees adorned with (you guessed it) Muni art!

How cute. No, really.

According to the site, New Skool “is owned and designed by Bay Area Designer and Graffiti Artist Nate1 MPC,” and designs “kids and adult clothing for the Hip Hop minded.” What better intersection for hip hop than everybody’s least-favorite pubic transportation agency?

There’s more toddler and infant wares to be had, and some neat art with Muni in it. So head over to New Skool today. And feel free to tell ’em what sent ya.

Pleasant surprises

Rider Alert
Photo by Telstar Logistics

It’s hard out there for an urban lady. You get cat-calls on your way to work, then you get yelled at all the way down the block for ignoring them. You turn around and look at everyone walking behind you, conveying to even the innocents that you could identify them in a lineup if you had to. It’s a part of a semi-automatic routine adopted for our various journeys throughout town. So pardon us if we’re a little suspicious of any and all people, particularly males, if we’re waiting for the bus.

So there’s this tall, larger, older-to-middle-age guy standing at the 14-Mission/49-Van Ness/former 26-Valencia stop on Otis Street. He’s got a little bag of presents in a tote bag, a receptacle that, for some reason, was not capable of holding the many items he had dangling around his neck. FastPass. Keys. Other card-type things. He’d probably have a troll on there if he could. His jeans are hiked up beyond his gut, resting comfortably around his chest. His vibe was a little off, right from the get-go. But a lot of people in SF are a little off; the question, as always, remains as to whether he was silly-off or dangerous-off.

He turns and asks me and Jeff, Mr. Muni Diaries, about the 26, after realizing on his own that it wasn’t in service anymore. His conversational rhythm came with lengthy, continued stares once you’ve answered his questions. He didn’t turn and look away at anything while he was talking. He didn’t turn around and see if the bus was down the street. While he stared our faces raw, he explained how he had many VHS tapes he was attempting to convert; had a little machine and everything. We basically ran into Milton from Office Space.

Less than a minute into this conversation, I did what any urban lady (or gentleman) does: suspiciously attempt to figure out whether this stranger is dangerous or just weird. The resulting train of thought, for those of us who weren’t Green Berets, is actually an amazing one, I must say. It can prompt everything from laughter, to embarrassment, to relief, to further suspicion, in the span of a minute, unlike any other learned or innate behavior.

“…what’s he staring at?” > “Hmm, could he be sizing me up for his freezer at home?” > “Does he have anything sharp?” > “What’s his expression like…you can always tell these psycho killers from their eyes, right?” > “Ah. Harmless.” It was a pleasant surprise, one that did make me feel a little silly (Who’s afraid of Milton? Turns out I am.)

But I really wouldn’t have it any other way if I’m going to keep (and I will) calling this wacky place home. Thanks, evolution.

The 49 From Hell

Having put in a good 6-mile walk the day before, I decided I would take it easy today. Ha! What should have been a leisurely jaunt ended up being a 5-mile forced march.

I decided I would take a trip down memory lane and go down to Fisherman’s Wharf and the place where, in 1971, I worked as a teenager — Cost Plus Imports.

After checking the bus schedule, I decided to take the 22 to Mission and 16th and then catch a 49-Van Ness. The 49 runs every 10 minutes, so the wait would be short.

I got to 16th and Mission without incident.

I waited as 10 minutes went by and no 49 bus. Then 15 minutes, then 20. By now, an obviously impatient crowd was gathering and constantly looking down the street for the 49. One woman tried hailing a cab with no results and then got back up on the curb and started her wait again.

Elvis, seen above, seemed to be taunting me as I impatiently waited for the 49 to arrive.

While waiting I had the pleasure of being harangued by some crazy woman who accused me of being a cop and there was a constant parade of the unwashed masses going by the bus stop. I had never had the pleasure of waiting for a half hour at a Mission and 16th bus stop before. What fun!

Finally, the 49 came and it was already packed. We crammed our way into the smelly, stifling sardine can of humanity and all clung on for dear life as the bus lurched back into traffic. I was flanked by a woman holding her nose, a guy on a scooter in the handicapped slot, and some poor slob who was trying to manage a large heavy box on his shoulders while trying to hold on.

Meanwhile, some lunatic was hurling disparaging remarks punctuated with expletives at the bus driver while a woman next to him gave him crap about it. With each stop it got worse as more and more people jammed themselves onto the bus. By now it was like a sweat bath. Yummy.

Finally, the driver stopped taking more passengers (there was another 49 bus just a block behind us). At Geary Street half the bus emptied out and I got to sit down for the remaining four blocks of the ride. I got off at California with a great sigh of relief and relished the cool breeze. What a ride. Thank god I don’t have to endure this on regular basis like many of these hapless souls. Jeezus…

Excerpted from Epic Road Trips.

BART duds for your bambino

BART rider (and friend) Dave Imlay tipped us off over the weekend to this amazing find: a BART onesie. From Dave:

I spotted this at the Renegade Craft Fair today. Kinda cute. Kinda stupid. They actually had a lot more but I was in a rush so I didn’t have time to shoot any more pics.

With Dave’s help, we tracked down a site that sells these darn cute getups. The site is called New Skool, and they also sell toddlers, men’s, and women’s urban-inspired clothing.

We hear these items make for superior Festivus gifts.

San Francisco: Our Beautiful Town

SF_Municipal_Railway_Streetcar_MOE6386_jpg_998x727_q85

Yeah, we know there’s poop and pee and trash and nutjobs all over the damn place. But at the end of the day, San Francisco really is a pretty place.

Last week, we came across Pictory, “a one woman operation” collecting photos that tell a story. The woman, Laura Brunow Miner, put together her first compilation honoring the beauty of San Francisco. And what would a pictographic showcase of San Francisco be without a shot of one of our famed streetcars?

The above image was shot by Beijing-based photographer Owen Tiam, who was gracious enough to let us run it here on Muni Diaries.

See more of Owen’s photos here.

See the rest of the San Francisco showcase on Pictory here.

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