There wasn’t even a pandemic happening when we had this conversation. How quaint. How fabulous.

There was a pandemic during our shorter subsequent conversation, wherein we go over everyone’s favorite virus (further thoughts on that lovely conversation and how it ended up being used in some circles here), but this 20-minute discussion is about everything besides pandemics, which, wouldn’t you know, still have relevance!

There is one interesting twist to our thoughts on buses being free, however; in the broadcast we hypothesize about that oft-trumpeted and frankly lovely concept, but COVID-19 has shown us what free buses really look like. I’ve often thought it was a good idea, but we now know that security personnel at terminals and extra (extra) cleaning would need to be a concern. 

Click here to listen to our January 6 chat! Description from KIRO’s website: 

Nathan Vass drives an overnight Metro bus route through Seattle’s downtown core. He’s also a filmmaker, an artist, and now, an author. On his well-known blog, Nathan tells stories about the people he encounters along his route, and that blog is now a book, called “The Lines That Make Us.
Nathan joins Dave Ross in the studio to tell us some of those stories, and explain why he’s stuck around on one of the least popular routes as long as he has.

Article Author

Nathan Vass is an artist, filmmaker, photographer, and author by day, and a Metro bus driver by night, where his community-building work has been showcased on TED, NPR, The Seattle Times, KING 5 and landed him a spot on Seattle Magazine’s 2018 list of the 35 Most Influential People in Seattle. He has shown in over forty photography shows is also the director of nine films, six of which have shown at festivals, and one of which premiered at Henry Art Gallery. His book, The Lines That Make Us, is a Seattle bestseller and 2019 WA State Book Awards finalist.