Muni Diaries

Artist George McCalman shares a story of how he came to be illustrating strangers on Muni, inspired by growing up on the New York subway system. This in turn helped inspired his Observed column in the San Francisco Chronicle. Nowadays he documents life on and off the bus. Trained as a philosophy-focused fine artist at St John’s University, George had a 14-year editorial magazine career before opening the doors of his creative branding studio McCalman.Co in 2011. In 2016, he resuscitated a dormant fine art calling and began obsessively illustrating, dreaming and painting everything he saw. And we are so glad he did! You can follow him on Instagram @mccalmanco, and go to MuniDiaries.com to see the drawing of the riders he mentions in this episode.

Sureni Weerasekera is a Sri Lankan-born, San Diego-raised, & San Francisco-based stand up comedian, actor and writer. In this story, told at Muni Diaries Live at Rickshaw Stop, Sureni shares a story about how people relate to race while riding public transit. Sureni is a contributing writer and actor for "Life of Trying" and runs two of Berkeley's top comedy shows, "Pizza Party" and "Subhumans." Follow her on Instagram @sureni. Check out her upcoming shows at: surenicomedy.com.

Growing up nerdy is not easy anywhere, especially in Alabama. Storyteller Dhaya Lakshminarayanan thought she'd left those teenage memories behind when she moved to San Francisco. But one day, she unexpectedly reunites with one of her long lost friends who shares those high school memories. Upon finding each other at the Castro Safeway, Dhaya and her friends embark on a new friendship that involves an urban rodeo and other very San Francisco experiences. This story was recorded at the Betabrand Store on Valencia Street in San Francisco, as the inaugural Betabrand Podcast Theater. You can follow Dhaya at dhayacomedy.com. Got your own San Francisco tale to share? Email us your story submission at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com.

Peter Hartlaub and Heather Knight are long time San Francisco Chronicle reporters who have seen it all. But it took riding every Muni line in one day for them to remember why they love it here so much. This year, they will be embarking on a new journey called TotalSF. We invited Peter and Heather to sit down to have a chat about their experience in front of a live audience. This episode was recorded as a part of the Betabrand Podcast Theater at the Betabrand store on Valencia Street in San Francisco. Heather also hosts a podcast called San Francisco City Insider where you can hear all the latest on local politics. You can hear Peter on his podcast, The Big Event. Peter and Heather will be doing their own Betabrand podcast theater event on May 16, 2019.

Matt Shapiro is a musician and the co-owner of the Elbo Room in Oakland. After initially working at the Elbo Room for years as its manager and booker, Matt and co-owner Erik Cantor purchased the bar in 2010.  The Elbo Room has been the home of Muni Diaries Live for many years, and just before its San Francisco location closed permanently, Matt joined Muni Diaries Live on stage to share one of the many memorable, behind-the-scenes tales from the fame club. This story involved Satan, his leather jacket, and the lengths that club owners will go to keep a promise. You can visit the Elbo Room's Jack London Square location in Oakland or find them on Elbo.com. Muni Diaries Live has a new home at Rickshaw Stop in Hayes Valley, with a new show coming up on Saturday, April 6, 2019! Go to MuniDiaries.com to get your ticket today. 

Gwen Carmen is a storyteller, cancer survivor, and a long time teacher of the San Francisco Unified School District. In this episode, Gwen tells a story about taking BART to see one of Aretha Franklin’s final performances. On her journey home from the concert Gwen finds herself in the middle of a crime scene, luckily some of her previous students arrive to save the night. You might remember her from the live shows or from episode 62, where she told a story about bus justice to our live audience about riding the 24. If you have your own story to tell, email us at muni.diaries.sf@Gmail.com.   

Meaghan Mitchell is a native San Franciscan and news editor at Hoodline, which you can imagine gives her tons of local cred. Meaghan shares a story of one really hard day at school and how it brought her to Muni. And podcast listeners: we will be at the Betabrand Podcast Theater on Thursday, March 7 at 7p.m. to tape our first episode with a live audience! If you'd like to be in our audience, make sure you get a ticket (only $5!) by going to MuniDiaries.com. 

Green Apple Books is one of the most beloved bookstores in San Francisco, and a mainstay on Clement Street (and now also in the Inner Sunset). Founded in 1967, the bookstore is now owned by three of its employees. We invited co-owner Pete Mulvihill to the San Francisco Diaries podcast studio to share how he went from being a young book lover working at this iconic shop to being its owner. You can follow Green Apple Books on Twitter @greenapplebooks, and be sure to visit the store on 506 Clement Street. Got your own favorite San Francisco spot with a rich history? Send us your own tale of the city by emailing us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com!

Storyteller Nuala Sawyer was having a terrible year in San Francisco. One of those times in your life when you just think things couldn't get any worse. Then, a man on Muni shared a vulnerable moment with her that changed her perspective. Nuala is the news editor at SF Weekly. She writes about a little bit of everything: City Hall, the courts, homelessness, immigration, housing, crime and of course, transportation. You can follow her on Twitter at @TheBestNuala, or hear her on Rollover Easy Thursday mornings at bff.fm. If you have a story to share on and off the bus, we want to know! You can submit your own diary to the Muni Diaries podcast by emailing us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com, or tag us @munidiaries on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. 

Storyteller Irene McCalphin has often experienced the invasion of personal space on public transit, but this one time she decided enough was enough, and she was going to take up the space she deserves. As co-founder and massage therapist of A Sovereign Embodiment Healing Collective and Board-member of the Body Political, Irene blends magic with massage, storytelling and performance art to liberate, heal and reclaim space for marginalized community.  They’re currently working on a book and facilitating the creation a healing and retreat space for queer femmes in Grass Valley, CA. You can find her writing on MammyIsDead.com. You can also see Irene's first Muni Diaries entry involving a burrito as deterrent for pickup artists. Got your own Muni or San Francisco story to contribute? Email us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com! And remember to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode!

Storyteller Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a writer, performer, host, storyteller, and regular KQED community events host based in San Francisco. He is a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry and regularly organizes poetry shows in the Bay Area. In today's story, Baruch shares an exchange that he had with a visitor while working at one of the longest running gay sex clubs in San Francisco. Upon realizing that the visitor was having a hard time in our city, Baruch encourages him give San Francisco a second try.  Please note that this story has themes about suicide if this topic may be triggering for you. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals: 1-800-273-8255.

Today’s story is from Luke and Chris, who you might know as Sequoia and the Early Bird on the radio show, Rollover Easy on BFF.FM. Rollover Easy is a morning radio show that has a "healthy dose of positive news, banter, and interviews with interesting San Francisco locals." Luke and Chris are up every Thursday morning at 8 a.m. to report on and chat with locals over coffee. In this episode, Luke and Chris shares how their mutual love for Herb Caen led to an art project on Market Street. With little construction experience, these two San Francisco lovers were determined to make Herb Caen's writing come alive to pedestrians on Market Street. Got a San Francisco diary you'd like to share? Email us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com to submit your own!

If you’ve been to our live shows, you know the highlight of every show is The Muni Haiku Battle. It’s a Muni-themed poetry throw down and we’ve had some pretty intense battle on stage of the 5-7-5 variety.  In this episode we have our reigning champion Alexandria Love and challenger Jessica Cohen from our 10th anniversary show this April at the Elbo Room. Jessica is an illustrator, an infrequent performer/fortune teller. Jessica grew up in the East bay and went to college in San Francisco. Reigning champion Alexandria is a writer from Oakland and also the current reigning champion of the Dirty Haiku Battle at Oakland's Tourette's Without Regrets.  You can see our next Muni Haiku Battle at our fall show: Muni Diaries Live, Nov. 3, 2018 at the Elbo Room (tickets).  

In this episode, storyteller Louis Evans shares a story of one seemingly uneventful day when he was leaving the underground parking lot at Civic Center, only to find out that there's an active shooter situation above him. Louis is the host of the new literary event, Cliterary Salon. Cliterary Salon is a show of rowdy, original stories about female sexual pleasure or feminism or anything in that umbrella, bringing a spirit of fun sexuality to a literary scene that's traditionally been focused on cis male experience.

Storyteller Thea Selby has lived in the Lower Haight since 1999. She's a mom, a member of the City College of San Francisco's Board of Trustees, and, as you'll learn in this episode, a tireless advocate for the art that has defined her neighborhood for decades. Listen up as Thea walks us through the tumultuous history behind the Love in the Lower Haight mural project

When City Arts and Lectures call you to be the backup for your favorite writer, you clear your calendar right away. In this episode, storyteller Judson True recalls that one fortunate phone call in 2001, right after 9/11, when he was called to be the backup interviewer for Scott Shafer. The subject? His favorite writer, Joan Didion. Judson is currently the chief of staff for state assemblyman David Chiu. Before that, he was once the spokesperson for the SFMTA, a job that probably no one envies. You can find him on Twitter at @judsontrue.

It wouldn't be a cross-town Muni line if manspreading, drinking, and unintentional, impromptu history lessons didn't factor in somewhere, right? Today's storyteller, Molly Martin, is a tradeswoman and longtime Bay Area resident. Molly previously served san activist and organizer for Occupy Bernal, a neighborhood group focused on fighting evictions in Bernal Heights. She's currently working on a book about the history of women construction workers in the Bay Area.    

This San Francisco teacher survived cancer, taught hundreds of middle school kids, so you bet she wasn't going to let a creeper on the bus get off easy. Gwen Carmen told this story at Muni Diaries Live's 10th anniversary show and our jaws were on the ground. Gwen is an activist, actress, educator, and writer whose work has appeared in Essence magazine, Plexus feminist news paper, Haight Ashbury literary journal, and numerous other small presses during the 80’s and 90’s. She was also the editor/publisher of La Morena Women of Color bilingual news paper. Got your own story to share? We are all ears! Pitch your own Muni or San Francisco story to us at muni.diaries.sf@Gmail.com. You can help us keep the light on at Muni Diaries HQ by supporting us on Patreon. 

Some of you may remember Silly Pink Bunny, a sculpture by local artist Jeremy Fish, which held court in the Lower Haight until 2013. Jeremy joins us on the podcast today to tell the story, in his own words, of the bunny's evolution from a goofy pink (and occasionally peed-on) neighborhood fixture to the revered bronze bunny sculpture it is today. Buckle up for a story that connects art, taggers, grand theft bunny (that's a thing, right?), crowdfunding, community, and condos into one so-San Francisco story.

Nato Green is an organizer, writer, and comedian in the Bay Area. The East Bay Express sums him up as, “a San Francisco-raised father, union organizer, gastronome, bibliophile, and political sparkplug.” Nato wrote for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell on FX. Nato's story takes us back in time to 1990s San Francisco, which was still finding its progressiveness. In this episode, he recalls an act of courage by one of his high school classmates at a time when coming out was even more complicated than today. You should definitely check out Nato's new album, The Whiteness Album, and follow him on Twitter @natogreen. If you liked what you heard today, please support Muni Diaries on Patreon and help us keep telling stories from everyday San Franciscans! You can find us on Patreon.com/munidiaries.