Shirtless, joint in mouth, and in the driver’s seat of a sketchy San Francisco Muni bus, Cam McKeel took the internet by storm in a viral video that shows him steering what appears to be an SFMTA city bus around Oakland.
The video, which was posted Oct. 7, has 6.8 million views on Instagram. It depicts a man whipping a bus around a corner and flashing a casual peace sign out the busted-out windshield as the “Not in service” light flashes overhead.
Commenters responded to the 20-second clip with wonder, amazement, and laughing-crying emojis. To some, McKeel’s swagger exemplified the caption that “Oakland is like a GTA server.” Others had pressing questions.
“How tf did he get a City bus to the Town?” one asked.
Well, we have answers. Last year, The Standard sat down with McKeel to understand how he obtained his fleet of muni buses. (There is more than one).
We were unable to locate McKeel for a fresh interview in the wake of his newfound internet fame (calls went unanswered, and a search in Oakland proved fruitless), but here is what we know about the weed-growing former physician’s assistant cosplaying as a bus driver.
Who is this guy?
Originally from North Carolina, McKeel left a checkered past to chase a hot-boxed dream of freedom in California nearly two decades ago.
The onetime physician’s assistant lost his medical license indefinitely in 2007 after he was accused of stealing prescription pills, driving under the influence, and strangling a woman, according to the North Carolina Medical Board (opens in new tab).
McKeel denied the allegations in an interview with the Standard.
Soon after he ended up homeless in the Bay Area. He started growing cannabis, which again landed him in trouble with the law (opens in new tab).
In 2019, the Chronicle reported that McKeel and his friends were using a collection of Muni buses to grow cannabis. The operation caught the ire of local officials, who accused him of growing for profit rather than for personal use.
“No one can smoke that much pot,” alleged Joe DeVries, who at the time was an assistant to Oakland’s city administrator’s office. “He did it without getting permission from the city, without getting permission from the owner. No, that is not OK.”
McKeel at the bus encampment in 2019. | Source: Gabrielle Lurie/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
McKeel contended that he actually could smoke that much weed. “I smoke a lot of weed. As much as I can, as often as I can, as soon as I wake up, before I go to bed,” he told the Chronicle.
“This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. I’m not a bad guy,” McKeel said. “The alternative is me on the sidewalk asking somebody for weed, and here I’m not asking anybody for anything.”
McKeel did move his encampment grow operation and eventually stopped growing weed altogether. When The Standard caught up with him in January 2025, there were no cannabis plants in or around his bus, although he admitted to still smoking the plant.
How the hell did he get a bus?
Obviously, the first question is how and why he got a bus in the first place. When it was posed to McKeel, he turned philosophical. The bus affords him a degree of freedom unattainable from a regular car or van, he said.
There’s also the sense of liberation that comes with living an unbridled lifestyle out of a vehicle once responsible for ferrying people to their nine-to-five jobs.
And plus, it’s just so spacious.
“I’m not going to pay for an apartment when I can get one of these,” McKeel said. “I’m just done with humans. I’m done with this whole financial structure.”
McKeel said he purchases buses on the cheap at auctions held in Sacramento, which periodically offers out-of-commission vehicles to the highest bidder.
Source: Gabrielle Lurie/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Case in point, an auction over the weekend saw a 40-foot New Flyer Xcelsior Passenger Bus — complete with a plastered AI startup ad — on offer. The fine print warned that the bus was “non-operational” and needed service for an “emissions recall.” It sold for $4,600.
The perks of living in a bus end when it inevitably breaks down. Last year, McKeel was living in two Muni buses he had parked next to each other near Campbell and 24th streets in Oakland. Neither bus had worked in more than a year. After hundreds of thousands of miles transporting San Franciscans, the buses had made their last stop — and so had McKeel, it seemed.
“I signed off. I quit,” McKeel said. “I’m just waiting to die.”
McKeel said if the government gave him the money to get a bus going for longer than a few months, he would lower California’s homeless population by one.
“Fill the tank and give me a fresh battery,” McKeel said. “I will leave the fucking state right now.”
At least based on the recent video, it appears that promise did not have wheels.