Muni Diaries

This week's story is from our reigning Muni Haiku champion, Baruch Porras-Hernandez! You can see him at Muni Diaries Live on Saturday, Nov. 4 at the Elbo Room. Tickets are at munidiarieslive18.eventbrite.com

Baruch tells a story of taking a visiting friend on her first Muni ride, promising that nothing will go wrong. And if you've been on Muni at all, you know that's a hard promise to keep.

Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer, performer and standup comedian, named one of the 13 Top Bay Area Writers to Watch in 2016 by 7×7 Magazine in San Francisco. He's been featured in Writers with Drinks, has performed several times with Radar Productions, LitQuake, and is a winner of Literary Death Match, Write Club, The Moth, and of course, Muni Diaries.

This episode features Ronn Vigh, whose attitude and wit earned him a comparison to a young Joan Rivers by SF Weekly. A yoga instructor, Ronn puts his teachings of compassion and letting go (and working on your core) to practice on Muni. You can find Ronn on Twitter @ronnronnvigh.

An unmarked door at a SOMA diner turned out to be a portal that led to a mysterious place, as storyteller Steve Pepple discovers one evening. Steve is a designer at OpenGov, where his work aims to make cities more liveable, whether he's working on a budget or a bus.

What's *your* unexpected San Francisco experience? Is there another portal that opened your eyes to something that's quintessentially SF? Find us on Facebook at facebook.com/sanfranciscodiaries to submit your own story.

Na'amen Gobert Tilahun is a writer whose craft spans multiple genres. The follow up to his 2016 novel, The Root, is The tree, which is coming out later this year. You can find him at naamentilahun.com. In this episode, he shares the magic of the late night metro ride.

Writer Hiya Swanhuyser is writing a book about a lost piece of San Francisco history, the Montgomery Block building, which stood where the Transamerica Pyramid stands today. It was there for 107 years, and was a crucial gathering place for artists and writers, including Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, and thinkers and political people including Emma Goldman and Sun Yat-Sen, among many many others.

Listen and share this San Francisco Diaries episode on the secret past of the Montgomery Block.

You know Sal Castaneda as your long-time KTVU traffic reporter. We grew up listening to him in the mornings, and here he is at Muni Diaries Live with his tale attempted (and imagined) bravado on the 44.

Kirk Read is a writer and storyteller who grew up in Virginia. His memoir, How I Learned to Snap, was named an Honor Book by the American Library Association. He works in the healthcare industry and has curated a host of literary events around the San Francisco Bay Area.

You've seen the marquee, "Touch our junk" on Bush street probably a thousand times. Storyteller Jesse James brings us deep into the back room of the famed adult theater where he unwittingly becomes an employee after a brief interview.

Today's story is a part of our new series, San Francisco Diaries! We are expanding our lens to gather stories about our fair city, and we welcome your stories about the people and experiences that make our city what it is today.

What makes San Francisco our beloved city? How has living here shaped you?

Pitch your stories at [email protected].

Storyteller Jesse James recounts a day that started with ordering a Thor hammer on Amazon -- easy peasy, right? But of course Muni had other plans for Jesse's day.

Jesse James is the former Muni haiku champion, return storyteller, and has had battle of wits against Airbnb's ridiculous ads. You can find him on Twitter at @LoudGayAmerica.

Say you're frustrated waiting for the bus and you fire off a tweet, "Where the hell is my bus?", there are three people at the SFMTA whose job is to respond to you to make sure you're ok. We found these very patient humans at the SFMTA whose jobs we never want to have, and ask them: what's it like to be on the receiving end of all our ire?

As it turns out, it's not all terrible. SFMTA's Schad and Rick tell us all about behind the scenes stories of responding to your Muni complaints and real life crisis -- everything from violent crimes to a lost scarf.

You can find Schad, Rick, and their colleagues at @sfmta_muni.