Prison Break
Alcatraz! Yeah yeah, had to go there. Not as impressive as one would think (there's nothing that can't be banalized by throngs of tourists) but it does have a certain unnerving atmosphere. You can step into "the hole", or isolation cell, and that looked like tons of fun -- claustrophobic, and, for extra measure, completely dark. People often hallucinated in there, and those cells really made me want to get the hell out of them as fast as I could. Bad Feng Shui.
Insert bar joke here.
Welcome to The Rock. (With Sean Connery acshent.)
American prison complex, or Soviet nuclear power plant? You decide.
In 1969, Indians (think Mohawk) occupied the then abandoned island wanting a cultural center there. They got hippies instead.
Oh, fog.
Creepy is as creepy does.
The shower is where you first walk in...to pick up the audio tour.
Just passin' thru.
Pekka and Heli digging the award-winning audio tour.
Five minutes before lockdown, I mean, before the place closed and we had to leave.
Creepy by day, creepier by night.
As silly and walk-through as it seems today, what with the touristy crap and the constant references to the place as The Rock, it must have been an absolute hellhole. The prisoners could hear people celebrating New Year's, women's laughter if the wind was right, and they could peek over the wall to see San Francisco, and life, out there, a mile away. Just imagine.
“Steven’s Last Night In Town”
After one week Oso left town for Mexico, he's back! Only for a couple days (and as I type this, he's already gone again) but long enough to have a couple drinks and dinner with friends who still remain in the City. Good times, chingón!
And he was really excited to be here, too.
With Matej and Petra. (I can never really sneak up on her with a camera. But I did get her hand!)
I Just Want To Ride Bikes With You
Mike's Bikes guys were doing a photo shoot on Valencia when I happened to walk by (the shop is where I got the bad-ass Bad Boy) and recognized somebody from the store. They wanted to get shots of people riding bikes (that guy's a model, or an MB staffer) on Valencia St, which is a main bike drag in the Mission, but it wasn't as easy as you'd think.
"So, where are all the bikers on Valencia when you need them?"