Betabrand Podcast Theater: Muni Diaries

Betabrand Podcast Theater Presents Muni Diaries!

Every Thursday night, we turn our legendary retail store on Valencia Street into a Live Podcast Theater. Join us to experience your favorite podcast In Real Life!

**Tickets required for entry. Must be 18 or older. Seating is first come first serve!

About the Show

Everyone has a Muni story, and Muni Diaries is where we blow up the party talk. On March 7, we’ll bring our podcast live to you at Betabrand, where you’ll hear hilarious and true stories and chat with some of San Francisco’s most seasoned commuters. We’ll hear tales from storyteller Dhaya Lakshiminarayanan and San Francisco Chronicle’s Heather Knight and Peter Hartlaub. And just for the Betabrand Podcast Theater, we’ll bring you a new segment called Ask Driver Doug with long time Muni operator Doug Meriwether.

Storytellers

Dhaya Lakshminarayanan is the 2016 winner of the Liz Carpenter Political Humor Award (previously awarded to Samantha Bee, Wanda Sykes and satirist/humorist Mark Russell) presented by the National Women’s Political Caucus. KQED named her one of the twenty “Women to Watch” a series celebrating women artists, creatives and makers in the San Francisco Bay Area who are pushing boundaries in 2016. She is the sole subject of the documentary “NerdCool” which premiered at the LA Comedy Festival in 2018.

Doug Meriwether has been a transit operator for the SFMTA for more than 16 years and has withstood the test of time: He still has his “day” job, working nights on the Mission Street buses. Step up and step in to follow Doug and find your Zen in a trolley. He is the author of two books: The Art of Driving a Bus and A Line Trainer's Guide. In his books, he covers everything from how to pay at the fare box to where to stand while waiting for the bus. Plus, he adds some philosophy on how to maintain dignity and peace when the going gets tough.

Heather Knight has worked for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1999. She has covered the San Francisco political scene out of the paper’s City Hall bureau since 2006 and writes its "On San Francisco" column, covering everything from politics to homelessness to family flight and the quirks of living in the best city in the world. She believes in holding politicians accountable for their decisions or, often, lack thereof—and telling the stories of real people and their struggles. Before joining the City Hall team, she covered the San Francisco public schools, including spending a year at Malcolm X Academy in Hunters Point. She previously wrote for Newsday in New York and for the Los Angeles Times’ Washington, D.C. bureau while a student at Stanford University. She is a Northern California native who lives in the city’s Glen Park neighborhood with her husband and two sons.

Peter Hartlaub is a Bay Area native who has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle since 2000. He was also a Chronicle paperboy from 1982 to 1984. As pop culture critic, he reviews movies and video games, writes feature profiles, and covers local entertainment. One of the first bloggers at The Chronicle, he co-founded the parenting blog "The Poop" and local culture blog and podcast, "The Big Event."

About the Podcast

Muni Diaries, the city's original online journal, has documented the good, bad, gross, and great parts of our lives in transit since 2008. Our newest project, San Francisco Diaries, trains the microscope on stories that happen all over town. Our podcast features true stories told at our live events and new stories recorded just for our podcast.

Muni Diaries and San Francisco Diaries are made entirely of stories from people like you. To submit your own story, tag us @munidiaries on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram or email us at muni.diaries.sf@gmail.com. Subscribe to the Muni Diaries Podcast on any of your favorite podcast-listening apps.