Tag: MUNI

Hip hop and a party

Posted on by Liz

I took the 49 and the 30 buses across town to the Palace of Fine Arts for the International Hip Hop DanceFest – its 25th year! If you can, grab tickets and go tomorrow, it was an incredible trip.

The show was particularly great this year. I think my favorite peformance was the one led by Selasi Dogbatse from Brussels, “A Piece of Me” , which was incredibly emotional and dynamic – it seemed to go through a narrative of culture, family, artistic expression and a sort of artistic journey, but what often made it great was the relationships between the dancers as they really danced with each other in a communicative way that also felt like change happening between them. Ensemble work where everyone was individually going through artistic growth by their interactions in the actual performance! I don’t really know how to write about dance, but that was my impression!

colorful stage full of dancers

Wildly energetic and skilled dances from Flawless (London) who were acrobatic and stylish, House of Jit (Detroit), Wanted Posse (Paris) were total crowd pleasers, big ensembles. Wanted Posse acted out fantastic scenes from a 1920s speakeasy, House of Jit showed off Detroit style which I was not familiar with but which is FAST and complicated and looks super cool.

hiphop dancer on stage

There were two smaller acts, Snack Break Movement Arts from Philly, and Ben Donner who gave a heartfelt solo dedicated to his grandmother, as the opener to the show. Snack Break’s set was really beautiful as well and told a loose narrative of childhood friendships, games, rivalries and fun as the two friends compete and play – it had a nostalgic feel as they incorporated hopscotch and hand clapping in with their hip hop and swing moves.

Then there were the local ensembles, California representing! Str8jacket from San Mateo had a lot of young people and great choreographic talent. I thought of my son’s old group Community Street Jam and the choreo by Barb Miron and her crew who were often paying homage to Jabbawockeez, with fast and complex moves that never felt repetitive. I never know how they remember it all! Whew! They had great energy and I love the bay area waacking, popping, and whatever they were doing, I think I’d call it House. Then Versa-Style Dance Company from LA giving us a more matured west coast style infused with salsa that had the audience screaming and hooting! Along with a kind of similar feeling to Selasi Dogbatse’s group in that you could see different personalities and artistic journeys expressed and the joy and difficulty of creativity and collaboration. It feels wrong to pick favorites but they were also my favorite, they were just so perfect in every way and I could not even keep still in my chair! I had to go home and do some dancing around too!

The best thing about hip hop is the supportive culture that always shines through in Micaya’s shows, you can see the emotional strength of all the collaborations and of the (temporary) community around the show that she creates. Really a joy every year — I put it on my calendar for November just as soon as the “Save the Date” email arrives!

Micaya in a colorful dress with the mic in hand

I had a little interlude at Crissy Beach feeling the sand in my toes, admiring the pelicans, taking pics of the bridge and enjoying the late fall sun. Right near me a group of obviously queer parents of toddlers were dressed in spangles and sparkles for the birthday party of a little kid who has the same name as my son who I was thinking of all day long since we have always tried to go to this show together! It was funny to wish this tiny, silver sparkle loving Milo a happy birthday while I was thinking of my own grown up sparkle-loving Milo!

On the bus on the ride home I got lucky with entertaining bus driver action. It was rush hour crowded on the 49 but the driver kept us all amused in front of the bus with his friendly greetings and running commentary.

At one stop there was a lady with a giant cart with stuff strapped to it with bungies, a load higher than her head and probably about 2 and a half feet wide. Our driver pulled up and was like, “I am sympathetic to your situation but you got a lot goin’ on sister”. Very much standing room only at the front of the bus with me also wedged in there in my powerchair absolutely surrounded by close up butts and elbows. Cue an argument from Cart Lady. “But my dog needs these things and I have to protect my dog! When is the next bus!” (They come about every 5 minutes!) I assume there was a dog in the crate strapped at the bottom of the pile. No one likes to be passed up and I felt sympathetic but it was just impossible.

Then the kicker, she yelled, “BUT YOU LET WHEELCHAIRS ON THERE!! IT’S NOT FAIR” The entire front half of the bus groaned and rolled their eyes and me and the driver started laughing once he had pulled away.

“Look now, we’ve seen everything, if you have wheelchairs, you gotta also give equal rights to dogs!!”

“The thing is, I’m way more fun than a dog!”

Later on the ride the nice driver was telling stories of how he worked on all the Bay Area bridges in all weather and how cold it was but how beautiful.

I was also called “Sir” yesterday and “Buddy” “Pal” and “My man” today at random times so my nonbinary haircut must be doing its job.

Bus poetry

Posted on by Liz

Very excited about this bus poetry project by Mc Allen:

“Some news: I have been given a poetry column in the @BayCity_Beacon. I will write a poem for _every_muni_route_ in San Francisco. If you followed #TotalMuni2018 or #SummerofMuni this will be up your alley.”

I’m so going to show up on Sunday on the sidewalk and check this out. And maybe bring my own Ode to the 14 and the 49 (it needs to be written!)

Anyway …. I just wanna be friends with all the bus poets. So much love!

The logo is so clever, too, it’s the gorgous, swoopy MUNI logo but reworked to get the letters POEM into the swirls!

Bus encounter of the day

Posted on by Liz

I got on the bus just before a very old lady with a walker and a fancy hat, as the driver let the ramp down first and it makes more sense to park my chair before her walker, kind of shrugging and smiling a little and she nodded and smiled back. I am so relieved she isn’t annoyed. She is very beautiful, her skin drawn very fine over her high cheekbones. On the bus she asked me some questions about my chair. How much… What was the cause… She would like one maybe but feels she needs the exercise. She has a nice accent, faintly British sounding but African or Caribbean, I can’t tell. I talked about my free tai chi class at the senior center. Another lady got on with a very large wide walker and could not get past. “Mira….” she said, grabbing the first lady’s walker to fold it. “No, you can’t…” The walker was not foldable because the basket underneath was full of stuff including Michele Obama’s book. No, no, I’ll go back here (I slowly trundle further back on the luckily uncrowded bus) and turn around, then there’s room. The first lady didn’t want to scoot down a seat. So the one with the large walker was now able to go around and sit next to her. “What does that mean, Cowwwwwmoooca?” “….?” Comooooooca over there on that sign? I peer around the front of the bus. “Cumaica. I ummmm I don’t think that’s a spanish word it’s probably from some indian language like the name of a place. Maybe it’s Mayan? Or like, sounds more like an um, Taino or Arawak sort of language? I don’t know” THe spanish speaking lady nods when I sum this up as “una palabra de los indios?”. Well you can find out. Tell me what it means. “Ok… ok yeah I can look it up right now. (thumbing my phone) I love the internet. OK uhhh it’s definitely gonna be a place name. Yes! It’s a place in Nicaragua.” But what does it MEAN. I don’t know…. I’d have to dig a little more. Another lady gets on the bus, sparkly eyed, about my age, in a cute scarf. “Oh! You! You are so pretty. You look so familiar. You look beautiful, just like my mother!” “Well what a nice compliment. I like that. Thank you!” “Yes, you could be from my village. It is not really a village but it was. In Ethiopia. Where are your people from?” “I can’t really, we don’t really know a lot but actually I’m researching my geneology and making my family tree. ” “Well you can get the DNA” says the Ethiopian lady. “Yes I’ve been thinking about doing it. I’m going to do it. Did you know you can go to the place, in the East Bay they have a big place, the Mormons, and look up a lot of that history. I don’t know why the Mormons have it but they do.” I chime in. “It’s because they think everyone in their records goes to their heaven.” “They really think that?” “I guess so.” “Well…. huh. ” We all laugh at this.

The Spanish speaking lady with the big walker has to get off the bus. We prepare to do our do-si-do dance in reverse but the bus driver is angry. She is grabbing the Ethiopian lady’s walker but she’s holding onto it tight. “No! You don’t have to do that. She is going to move back there and then she is going around. ” MA’AM…. MA’AM… YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME says the grim bus driver lady. MA’AM YOU HAVE TO LISTEN. We are all arguing with the bus driver and trying to explain we have it under control. The bus driver wrestles the walker away from our dignified friend. “She took it. She didn’t have to do that. Well!” We all look at each other. The lady with the large walker gets off, ducking her head in apology at stirring up a problem. The bus driver gets back onto the bus with the walker. “YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME” she scolds. “YOU SEE HOW EASY THAT WAS? YOU SEE HOW EASY THAT COULD HAVE BEEN? YOU ALMOST GOT THAT LADY FALLING OVER. YOU CAN”T BE TRIPPING THAT OTHER LADY.” “That isn’t how it was, you see, we were going to move back and let her get off.” she said firmly. I spoke up as well and said, that’s how she got on, we just moved for her and it was fine! But, we shrugged and let the driver keep talking. She finally went back to take the wheel. Behind the partition out of her sight, I stick out my tongue like a child, playing to my sympathetic audience so we can get a laugh out of our sadness. “What are you going to do. The truth is the truth.” says our queen. “She has a hard job. But she could have had more respect,” I say. We all laugh kind of like we just did at the Mormons’ database of heaven.

“My mother would like you.” our friend resumed. “The place where my village, not really a village, it is a PROVINCE, well, it was good, and the people were so friendly and good. Well, now, you could not even buy a house, a place just the size of this, this front of the bus, just so little, is 300 thousand dollars! You can’t live there.” “Well…. Someone sure got rich off of that,” I say. “They did, and you know who got rich from it…. ” No… who? “The ones who came to power. They got rich.” We all are thinking on that as the lady my age who looks like the 90 year old Ethiopian lady’s mom gets off the bus waving to us. “I am going to the doctor. The new one isn’t as good, because, they aren’t by the ferry building, so I don’t get as nice of a lunch.” We discuss the pleasures of the Ferry building and then I have to go. Sometimes the ephemeral nature of these bus friendships gets to me. I think that I will have a good old age someday. There will be moments of indignity but also we will have solidarity and a good time.

Random encounter: scooter demo on the bus

Posted on by Liz

Random encounter: On the 49 bus yesterday I explained my scooter to a woman who was very interested in one for herself. Then had to start over but this time in Spanish for another woman and then the first one began translating for someone who spoke Mandarin. 5 people took cards with the name of the scooter on it (at least…. I may have lost count). Somewhere between 24th St. and 14th St. I finally just took the whole scooter apart, folded it up, passed around the lithium battery, then put it back together (by request). “FREE SHOW Y’ALL!!!”

The first lady (the Chinese translator) nearly got off the bus with me to try it. She had opinions on reupholstering, making it easier to fold, a better cup holder, my decorations, the good qualities of the little bell on my handlebars (which she kept reaching over to ring, looking at me and giggling)

It was a little bit emotionally exhausting and I missed my usual Ingress hacking/Pokémon catching fun for the bus ride but it was also super fun. We had good cameraderie going in the front section of the bus.

If everyone I talk with about mobility scooters gets one, none of us are gonna be able to fit on the bus 😀 They will need more and better buses, that’s all!