A crowd of people carrying signs that said things on them gathered at City Hall this evening to shout things at each other and at the building itself. When I arrived, there were two guys with bullhorns, one a Muni driver and the other, some young guy (March Against Muni’s Jared Roussel) who was shouting stuff like, “Can’t I get a smile from a driver when I come on the bus?” at which point he would be laughed at and shouted down by the crowd. The gentlemen directly below (Eric Williams) provided my favorite comment of the night, “Where my Hindus at?” as he talked about how he felt that there was a concerted effort to blame the unions, which he sees as a tactic in a battle against minorities. “I’m black. We’re all black, Latino, Asian, Hindus…. Where my Hindus at?”

The self-appointed rider spokesman (dude in the checkered shirt below) and his comments about wanting a smile when he gets on the bus, and that drivers need to be more friendly/less rude, are arguments that have always struck me as odd. Maybe I don’t ride the bus as much as all of you, but I can’t even think of a time when a driver has been out of line. They have to deal with such tremendous bullshit: drunks, violence, fare evaders, etc., and I always see commenters talking about how drivers are rude and how they need to handle the drunks/violence on the bus. I don’t really see what they can do without putting themselves in danger, which they are not being paid to do. But yeah, whatever

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I don’t know who the guy below is, but I’m pretty sure he was just mackin’ on reporters the whole time.

SF Weekly has a story where they actually explain what’s going on at the event.