June 25, 2009

"Alcatraz"

We had tickets for Alcatraz at 10:30, so we biked down to the piers. There were at least 200 people there for our ferry. We joined the long, winding maze of fellow tourists. The line moved slowly, but the guy behind me stood as close as humanly possible as if to pressure me to keep it moving. I figured out by the way he dressed his children that he must be European. I assumed his proximity was a norm in whatever nation he calls home and eventually forgave him. I found out that the thing holding up the line was a photo opportunity in front of a giant photo of Alcatraz. Patron photography was prohibited in this area or else I would have taken a picture of the people taking pictures in front of the picture.

The ferry ride was short and once we had all unloaded, a park ranger gave us a quick orientation. We wandered around and looked at the exhibits from the Civil War era fort and the Indian occupation. I knew a little bit about the Indian protests on the island in the late 60’s early 70’s after the prison closed, but I didn’t know much about the history before it was a prison. I’m glad that they gave some attention to those parts.
The focus though was obviously the prison. We took the award winning audio tour. It seemed like all 200 of us started the recording at the same time, so we were all huddled around the same cell or point of interest fighting for a glance. I don't know who gives awards for audio tours. Is that a Grammy? Or maybe it's a National Parks Award. A Woodrow Wilson...or a Tafty.
Anyway, I'm glad Alcatraz got one, finally. The east coast has been dominating the past few years. Cape Hateras? give me a break, you're a lighthouse. Alcatraz is a lighthouse and a prison. BOOM!

After, Alcatraz we went to the Musee Mecanique, a museum of old coin operated machines. A bunch of people had told us to find it. It turned out to be right by the Alcatraz ferry. They had all kinds of love testers, shooting galleries and moving diaramas. They even had Pole Position.

We left San Francisco and took a slight detour to Berkley to have lunch my friends Zaak and Silva. We picked up Silva and went to Zaak's office on UC's campus. While we were walking out I heard someone say:
"You know who else died...Farrah Faucett."
Little did I know, but this would be the theme for the next few days.
Outside, we crossed the street to enter a cafe. A car pulled up blaring "You are not alone." And someone was screaming, with a bit of facecious bravado, "Michael!!! Michael!! We were all still oblivious, and I thought it was just a guy being an over zealous fan for fun. The cafe was also playing Michael Jackson, I noticed.
Leaving the cafe, there was a home made poster of the Smooth Criminal with bold letters that read: R.I.P. M.J.
I said,
"Guys, I think Michael Jackson died."
Indeed he had.

We dropped Zaak off at work and Silva back at home. On our way back to San Francisco, traffic was awful and every station was playing his songs. Starved for details we listened to every station break to get more information, but everyone was repeating the same stuff. We wondered why no one was playing Farrah Faucett's music. Then as we drove to LA, it was decided that we would stop at Neverland Ranch.

But, not yet. We had a few stops to make before we got there. We wanted to see Monterey, Carmel and Big Sur, but it was dark by the time we got there so we got a motel in Marina, CA, a small coastal town.