“As I mentioned many times, I’m the third generation of my family born in the city of San Francisco. As a San Francisco native, I rarely indulged in typical ‘tourist’ activities. My Grandma used to bring us to Playland at the beach, which I absolutely loved, especially the Fun House. We went to the zoo and Golden Gate Park, and every once in a while we’d go to the Wax Musuem (which both delighted and terrified me), but other than that we rarely played tourist.
When Mark and I planned our trip to San Francisco, he told me he always wanted to go to Alcatraz ever since he was a kid and loved watching the old black and white gangster movies. I immediately jumped on the opportunity. First of all, I had only been to Alcatraz once in my life. I took a group of gang teens there when I was working with them when I got out of college. No more ideal fieldtrip for a band of Crips and Bloods, and Sudenos and Nortenos, than a trip to Alcatraz. Of course, since I was supervising a group of gang teenagers, I wasn’t really ‘enjoying’ the trip as an aesthetic or otherwise culturally insightful experience. The kids wanted to see Al Capone’s cell. I wanted to make sure none of the kids left their own tags on any of the cells. The only memorable part of the trip was that I was cold.
So I was happy to go again. Not only does Alcatraz appeal to me from my love of film noirs and gangster movies, but it is also BRAND NEW territory for me in San Francisco. It is a rare place where I have no personal history.
So we headed out there on the ferry. We took our cameras and tripods and decided to blow off the audio tour and just explore it and experience it on our own. It was a fine day and a great experience. There were a couple of things that struck me:
- What does it say about this country that a brutal and horrific prison is a number one tourist attraction and National Park?
- What does it say about this country that the prison was built by men who were then its first prisoners and locked in its cells?
- Let’s not even get into the state of prisons in this country now (the privatization of prisons and the criminalization of poverty).
- Remind me NEVER to do anything that lands me in a place like Alcatraz. Holy fuck I cannot imagine spending my life in place like that.
- Stepping inside one of the isolation cells caused my heart to constrict. I think it may have been the onset of my horrible flu and kidney infection — inner trauma. (just kidding)
- Imagine being a ‘child of Alcatraz’ – one of the children who grew up on the island. Talk about a weird childhood.
- Imagine what that place must have sounded like at night! The din!
Anyway, we spent many hours walking around and shooting photographs. It was a great day. These were my keeper shots.
Back to writing about Melancholia.
PS: I guess I should add an obligatory shot from the ferry approaching the island, this shot with tugboat and Golden Gate Bridge. Here you go:”
art in and around South Florida
