Muni Diaries

This weekend is Pride weekend, and we are highlighting stories from our LGBTQ community.

Today's story is from Kurt Schwartzmann. Kurt is an artist, printmaker, and photographer. In 2006, he lost all vision in his left eye due to complications of AIDS. In the first half of 2007 Kurt was homeless and living on the streets of San Francisco. Muni buses, running around the clock, often provided him the only safe place to sleep at night. He dedicated his first series of 64 drawings to Muni operators, depict his view of what's in front of the "yellow line."

This story was told at Muni Diaries Live in April, 2019 at Rickshaw Stop. If you'd like to see more of Kurt's art, visit www.yellowlineart.com.

And remember to subscribe and rate this podcast if you liked what you heard! If you have your own story of Pride to share, email us at [email protected].

Ady Lady is a writer, performer, and all around funny person who's been described as wildly funny by The San Francisco Examiner. She's written and performed two solo shows: Sara Jane Tried to Shoot the President and From Piss to Bliss. She says she actually started writing From Piss to Bliss in a desperate attempt to maintain a state of love while riding Muni.

This story was recorded at Muni Diaries Live at Rickshaw Stop in April, 2019.

If you liked what you heard on the Muni Diaries podcast, don't forget to rate our podcast on iTunes and share it with your friends. Follow us @munidiaries on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to stay up to date on the latest entry in our collective online journal.

San Francisco has been a place where many young transplants found their own identity and voice. In today's episode, storyteller Colin Daly shares the tale of a house on Folsom Street where he and his group of friends found their own "chosen family" in the 1990s. The friends lovingly named the house "Camp Folsom," where a room in the Mission was only $300 and life lessons—about money, community, heartbreak, and learning to be a grownup—were included in the rent.

We are celebrating the release of Tales of the City on Netflix with our own tales of the city. If you have your own tale, we want to hear all about it! Email us your story at [email protected].

When the bus came to a halt, storyteller Kathleen Auterio noticed a familiar face from her Mission neighborhood. What happened next will keep you on the edge of your seat. This story was recorded at Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco.

Kathleen was born in Boston but has called San Francisco home for 19 years. She is a heavy metal and horror movie fanatic, and has told stories at The Moth Grandslam, Risk, Porchlight and many more events in the bay.

Subscribe to the Muni Diaries podcast so you don't miss an episode of true and hilarious Muni tales! And rate us on iTunes; we want to know what you think!

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 [email protected].

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 [email protected].