Happy birthday to you...Happy birthday to you...You look like public transportation...and smell like it too! That's right folks...MUNI has a big birthday this year. This is the year that MUNI turns 100! I know, we were all secretly hoping that it would have passed away quietly in its sleep about 10 years ago...but it's still hanging on. Personally, I think it just wanted to hear Willard Scott from the Today Show say, "...and Smuckers Jam would like to wish MUNI a Happy Birthday! MUNI from San Francisco is 100 years old today. MUNI still enjoys breaking down in the middle of rush hour and confusing patrons with how to open the back doors! MUNI claims that the secret to a long life is to let anything and anyone ride." Well if that's the secret to long life, I'll pass. Somehow I think that if anyone from Smuckers had ever ridden MUNI at any time in it's 100 year history, they would
not be wishing it a 'Happy Birthday'! More like,"Die, MUNI, die!" or "Go to light, MUNI, go to the light!".
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| Obviously speaking French! |
In honor of MUNI's birthday, I decided to do a little digging into history....(and for the record, if you ask me ANY questions related to history, my answer will ALWAYS be Chappaquiddick...see previous post!) Anywhoo, I found some interesting little nuggets of history about 1912 (the year it all began)...MUNI related and otherwise. For example, did you know that in January of 1912 the Republic of China was proclaimed??!?! COINCIDENCE??! Doubt it! It was also the year of the International Opium Convention...again, coincidence??! Also, what are the chances that the world's most famous (or infamous) ocean liner, the Titanic, hits an ice berg and goes down....while the world's most famous municipal transportation system is being born? Reincarnation? Probably. MUNI is a lot like the Titanic. You know, overcrowded, sinking fast, and with very few survivors...It's the Titanic except without that hottie, Leo DeCaprio....or that annoying Celine Dion song. I swear, if I never hear that song again it will be too soon! For that matter, if I never heard Celine Dion again it would be too soon! Did you ever notice how she speaks French out of one side of her mouth and English out of the other side? It's hard to convey in writing, but she will say, "Thank you, thank you" out of the right side of her mouth and then "merci beaucoup" out of the left side while her face is all contorted like she had a stroke or something! If I have to hear about how she lived in a one room shack with a dirt floor with her 13 brothers and sisters, all while she was being "coached" by her now husband Reneé, I just might vomit. Seriously?! He just turned 70 while she is 44. This wouldn't be so disturbing if they hadn't met when she was nine. NINE! That means when she was nine, he was 35! What a CREEPER! I'm willing to bet that there are stricter laws governing
hockey trades in Canada than there are laws against dating a 9 year old! But I digress....Back to reincarnation. It's also the year that Eva Braun (Hitler's girlfriend), Julia Child (crazy lesbianesque chef), Pat Nixon (the most traveled First Lady is U.S. History), and Minnie Pearl (crazy granny from Hee-Haw who probably returned that hat with the price tag on it) were all born...and I can definitely see a bit of each of them when I ride MUNI...evil, food, lesbians, politics, and cheap crazy entertainment in every ride! Ironically, it was also the year that the U.S. Public Health Service was established...um,
HELLLOOOO?! MUNI should have been priority numero uno on the top of
THAT list! Epic fail, Public Health Service. Epic. Fail.
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| I can smell the patchouli coming from this picture! |
The early days of MUNI relied on horses and was more like a local stagecoach. Why can't we go back to that?! A stagecoach?! I would
totally ride that to work everyday! Apparently they got rid of it because of the 'pollution of horse waste' on crowded city streets...And I ask you, how is that different from today?! I bet you ten bucks that it was wayyyy cleaner back then and probably smelled wayyyy better, even with an occasional 'road apple' to step over. Interestingly, once these stagecoaches were phased out, they were used as housing and spawned a unique neighborhood of these former vehicles known as Carville-by-the-Sea. Ok, so
that has not changed! People are still sleeping on MUNI and basically living on its platforms. Also, on any given day, you could probably see a whole commune of patchouli-smelling-tree-hugging-hippies living out of a single school bus in the Haight. Really when you think about it, what's the difference?
In 1988 after much debate (hey that rhymes!), the city created the Department of Parking and Traffic, which should just be called "The Department of Traffic" since parking can't be found in the City! The DPT adopted the slogan, "Transit First" and had that slogan embedded in the City Charter....This makes me scratch my head...if "transit" is "first", what the hell is
LAST?! Oh wait! It's probably education...or safety. YES! Safety is last! This is evident if you have ever ridden on MUNI...especially an overcrowded 30-Stockton headed to Chinatown or a super sketchy 14-Mission where I once saw a passenger punch his seat mate squarely in the face as the bus was slowing down to a stop, and then calmly exit through the back door. This is minor compared to stories I have heard or even things I have witnessed. So if "Transit First" is the slogan for the DPT, what is MUNI's slogan? I think MUNI's slogan would be something like, "MUNI, disappointing patrons for a century". Or maybe, "MUNI, getting you from point A to point B....eventually".
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| The perfect cake for the occasion! |
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Back to safety and incidents on MUNI...There was a recent article in one of the SF-tabloid-type papers that said that 95% of MUNI crimes go unreported. I wonder why this is? Maybe it is because no one wants to fill out an incident report about the skeevy old man rubbing his package against your thigh in rush hour traffic...and how embarrassing would it be to describe the homeless guy at the back of bus who was doing the five knuckle shuffle with his red rocket?! Or maybe it's because MUNI protocol states, "Alert driver if it is safe to do so". This immediately poses so many problems that it makes my head spin. For example, other than screaming, "This guy is rubbing his junk on me", how exactly would you alert the driver on a crowded bus? Chances are that once you
do alert the driver, the perp will just jump off at the next stop...which leaves you looking like the crazy one! MUNI protocol also recommends that you call 911. Ummm, that would be all well and good if there was actually cell phone service underground! Then MUNI goes on to say, "DO NOT use a cellular phone until you are a safe distance away (approx. 300 feet). If possible, use a land line phone to report suspicious activity". Why they say, "DO NOT use a cellular phone" is beyond me....It's not like we are in an airplane and the radio waves are going to interfere with the radar and take us all down in a flaming fire ball! I ask you...where the HELL are you going to find a pay phone...on a train? On an
underground train?! Do they even
have pay phones any more? Let me tell you, if I see a phone booth, it better have a mild-mannered guy in a suit with nerdy glasses and blue-black hair who is changing into his Superman outfit, because at that point
he will be the only one capable of saving me!!
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| Sometimes I picture MUNI as a 100 year old drag queen monkey. |
So how does MUNI plan on celebrating it's 100th birthday? I mean really...what is it that 100 year olds do to celebrate? I would think that at 100, every day you're still alive and don't break a hip would be a celebration! You would also think that at 100, a decent celebration could consist of a healthy BM, a cup of hot water with lemon, and a nap...sounds boring, huh? Well, it sounds more exciting than the actual celebration, which consisted of the mayor driving the newly restored first MUNI rail car up and down Market Street. Woo hooo! Sorry I missed that one. I mean it's not your usual Jager-bomb, drag show, waking up on the bathroom floor wearing hot pants and a clown wig kinda birthday, but hey...whatever floats your boat...or...err, drives your rail car?
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| Nice leathery skin! |
What on earth do you get a transit agency for their 100th birthday? I Googled some ideas, and the best I could come up with was a "flannelette open back nightgown" and a T-shirt that reads, "100 and my kids still can't keep up with me". Keep up with you?! That's because they're dead! I think I'll just go with the "Spoil me. I'm 100 and still sexy!" trucker hat. I would love to see my bus driver wearing that when the doors open and I climb aboard in the morning! Although, there's something quite refreshingly urban about hearing 13 seconds of Nicki Minaj looped through a shitty t-mobile phone speaker over and over...Hmmm, oh wait! Someone gave MUNI that
last year for their birthday! They must have really liked it because they use it
ALL the time! There's always the David Beckham pajama pants. They look good on everyone...they even made this tour bus look great and I think MUNI and a tour bus would wear the same size...Hmmm...imagine if all MUNI vehicles looked like this! Well, I could always get MUNI something
practical like tube socks or a "MUNI Driver-to English" translation dictionary, but who likes practical? And I think I know MUNI better than most, and since there's not a lot of common sense going on with MUNI, the dictionary probably wouldn't get much use...or it would get lent to those TSA people in the airport and never returned. I got it! Do you know where I can buy a land line...preferably one that comes with a phone booth?
Here's your SAM:
Thank you for riding MUNI for 100 years!
Yours Truly
P.S...Don't forget to send me your public transit stories, pictures, and links. And if you're not following me on Twitter, what's wrong with you?! Follow me @I.Ride Muni
What on earth do you get a transit agency for their 100th birthday? I Googled some ideas, and the best I could come up with was a "flannelette open back nightgown" and a T-shirt that reads, "100 and my kids still can't keep up with me". Keep up with you?! That's because they're dead! I think I'll just go with the "Spoil me. I'm 100 and still sexy!" trucker hat. I would love to see my bus driver wearing that when the doors open and I climb aboard in the morning! Although, there's something quite refreshingly urban about hearing 13 seconds of Nicki Minaj looped through a shitty t-mobile phone speaker over and over...Hmmm, oh wait! Someone gave MUNI that last year for their birthday! They must have really liked it because they use it ALL the time! There's always the David Beckham pajama pants. They look good on everyone...they even made this tour bus look great and I think MUNI and a tour bus would wear the same size...Hmmm...imagine if all MUNI vehicles looked like this! Well, I could always get MUNI something practical like tube socks or a "MUNI Driver-to English" translation dictionary, but who likes practical? And I think I know MUNI better than most, and since there's not a lot of common sense going on with MUNI, the dictionary probably wouldn't get much use...or it would get lent to those TSA people in the airport and never returned. I got it! Do you know where I can buy a land line...preferably one that comes with a phone booth?
