San Francischronicles, Chapter 4.

Federal Penitentiaries and Instruments of Death: The centerpieces to any good vacation.

The house Rebecca grew up in.

ART!

ART!!!

It's nice to know that you can visit any anarchist bookstore in the country and be ensured to hear a conversation between the person that works there and a customer about how Ayn Rand had it so, so wrong, and that she was the prime reason they became anarchists in the first place. I bought a Dosteovsky book and got the fuck outta there.

There's always room for more awesome Shepard Fairey prints.

San Francischronicles, Chapter 3.

It is a little known fact that Rebecca instills sheer terror in seagulls. In addition, these sea-faring, fish, bread, penny, and occassionally,in a pinch, Alka-Seltzer eating flying bags of dirt are intensely poop shy, and cannot bear to let anyone see them relieve themselves, and will fly away with much immediacy upon being seen. Here we have an example of both.

Standing sideways in front of the war machine.

So, first time ever riding the train/trolley/whatever in San Francisco. Nice view, cool breeze. In fact, I was just about to take a picture of the Bay Bridge from the window of the moving train when I hear a loud crash. The driver yells, "Oh, shit!" and the train halts to an immediate stop. The doors fly open and the driver bolts out. As does everyone else on the train. Dude, this kid got HIT by the train. He was on a bike. You can't see him, but he's surrounded by all those people. He was alright. But, Rebecca and I both expected to see a dead body when we got off the train. Good times.

Then, ironically, I died on the bus. After becoming retarded. Rebecca seems oddly hopeful.

I like how the Golden Gate Bridge is in focus and we're not. I'm serious.


For Joey: The stinky seals at Pier 39.

San Francischronicles, Chapter 2.

We're staying at Fisherman's Wharf. This is the view from Tarantino's, a restaurant right around the corner. View our ghastly images ingesting food!




Camera perched precariously on a wine menu, Rebecca sat perfectly still for 732 seconds, which is how long it took to get the correct exposure needed for the extremely low lighting in the restaurant. And also why she hates me.




Our generous waitress took this photograph, even after my insistence that the flash would completely eradicate the scenery behind us, which is the only reason we wanted a photo there. We might as well have been at IHOP. Our generous, dumb waitress. Also note that I am still in a state of near catatonia, a remnant of my airplane tranquilization.




I proved that waitress wrong, boy. Just look at the majesty of the beautiful wharf and the hundreds and hundreds of sailboats and fishing skiffs. After our meal, the chef came out and explained how he was trying to illustrate the inherent violence in dining, in the vein of Kurosawa. I said, "Dude, we had cheese ravioli and the vegetarian linguine." His eyes flickered and twitched a few times, he shuffled his feet back and forth quickly, and said, "G-g-g-get the f-fuck outta my restaurant." Then a Dick Dale song blared through the P.A. and he half-walked, half-ran, knees unbent, back towards the kitchen, punching an Asian busboy who was cleaning a table squarely in the face.

Beach and Hyde Street, walking somewhere.
Doing what we, er, at least, I do best. Note Rebecca's uncanny ability to remain almost perfectly still. These are all five second exposures.

San Francischronicles, Chapter 1.

Plied with unnameable medication and a $5 Bloody Mary, I am in California now, when nearly the last thing I fully remember is throwing away half of an absolutely terrible bean burrito that I purchased from Taco Bell Express at the airport.



I don't remember taking this picture at all. In fact, as I recall, I was in the middle seat at the beginning of the flight. Now,here I am looking out the window. How queer.









The closer to the ground, the better, I always say. The sweet, sweet realease of death will have wait for another day, methinks.








This is what it looked like in my somehow inebriated and impossibly alive condition. And no, I wasn't on acid. Stop asking.











This is my new office for the next week. Free internet! Fuck yes.













More later, likely when drunk.

I'm going away.

I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow. I'll be gone for about a week, hopefully. I hate flying. Flying is for phantoms and people who are secure in humanity and technology. I am neither of these things. If I live, I will update you on my travels. Don't be too confident. I'm not.

P.S. If I die, please label me a prophet and publish everything I've written as gold. But, pile all the money on my makeshift grave and leave it there. Do not attempt to use it. I will make your walls drip blood, and you will never have to use your air conditioning again. But don't consider that to be a good thing.


Hopefully this won't be me.

The Infinite Wisdom of Do-Gooders.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from my old roommate. I was watching a movie and eating at the time, and my phone was across the room, sitting on my dresser for some odd reason, and so I didn't answer it. Minutes later, I checked the new voicemail that popped up on the screen, and heard this: "Jon- it's Steve. The cops were just here at the house, looking for you, actually- I guess someone called them about your blog, so I just wanted to let you know. You might wanna take it down, or whatever. I don't know- give me a call."

Called them about my fucking blog?! What?! Why?!, I wondered. Oh, shit! The Bert blog! In the course of a few seconds, a number of things flashed across my memory that led me to believe that this definitely was the blog in question: pissed off emails from Steve's girlfriend about disrespecting him by "beating" his dogs, a cowardly anonymous comment left on said blog chastising me for my reactionary actions towards the dogs, and the realization of just how much I fictionalized my cruelty towards the dogs in the blog based on the incredible amount of anger and sadness bearing down on me as I wrote the farewell letter.

Fuck.

I went immediately to the miraculously online computer and took the blog down. Feeling somewhat relieved and even more paranoid, I cautiously peered out the front door to check for any police that might be slowly approaching my house, creeping, ever-so-silently, lest they clue me in to their presence. No one. I sat down on the porch to smoke a cigarette. Then I began to think: Why did I take that down? You can't get arrested for a blog! That's total bullshit! And who in the FUCK called the cops on me??! What the hell is wrong with people? I decided to call Steve, who assured me that it was neither he nor his girlfriend that ratted me out to the fuzz. Furthermore, he informed me that the cops had arrived at the house with dog requisition equipment (a term I just made up- sounds more official), required Steve to step outside while they checked on the condition of the dogs, and finally, after sorting through all the various bits of information that are required upon a visit from the boys in blue, asked him if he wanted to press charges against me, which he refused. Of course, there would have been no evidence to do so anyhow, but nonetheless, it saved us both a lot of time and trouble, not to mention any great amount of ill-will that would have surely come of that.

We then began ruminating on just who might have called the cops on me. Steve told me that the cops said that they had just gotten the call that very day, which means, if true, that the rat was over two months late in reporting my heinous written crime. We then speculated that perhaps someone had reported the abuse to the SPCA, who then filed a complaint with the police department, who in turn, in the true bureaucratic fashion of governmental agencies, filed it away under "Things to Do Right After You've Ticketed Everyone in The Area Who Has Parked the Wrong Way on the Street," and so now showed up at the offender's address.

Er, old address. Here's the rub of it all, the mystery, the unknown, the goddamned X-factor. Whoever it was that did their civic duty by phoning in an awful crime, perpetrated by a cold-blooded, merciless would-be serial killer, or worse-terrorist!- didn't know me all that well. Perhaps they were worried about getting murdered. Who knows? They did, however, know me well enough to know where I used to live. The cops surely didn't get that information from pulling me up in their system. My license still says I live in Arlington (I keep this license so I have more time to get away with all the horrible crimes I commit. It's boring, but it's my life..), and none of the bills at the house were under my name. The only things that bore that address with my name were my credit card bills, and that's it. Sure, with enough sleuthing, I'm sure the cops could've found that information out, but I can assure you that the investigation never got that deep, especially when the the complaint comes from an individual's speculation based on what they read on A B L O G.

And so, on an inquisitive note, Steve and I hung up the phone, no closer to an answer, but at least my paranoia was greatly allayed. I cringed to myself, went "Psh," and immediately returned to the computer and reposted the blog, and nothing has come of it, nor will anything.

That's just some expository information for you, the reader, to ingest. This post is actually meant for the person who knows all this stuff already. Yes, you- yeah, the windbag, candy-ass piece of shit that called the cops on me for no fucking reason. The anonymous ship in the night, the miserable, self-loathsome puke that punches you in the back of the head after you think the fight's over. You know who you are- and guess what? So do I! You don't know me, and you never will, so why don't you just keep your grubby, lonely paws out of other people's business? Now, if you want to make any of this your business, I offer an open invitation, yet again, to you faceless heroes, to feel free to contact and talk to me personally. You know how to do it. Shit, it wasn't hard for you to find my address, huh, so it shouldn't be too hard to track down my phone number, or my email address, or even my Myspace page, right? I'll do ya one better: jgpool@gmail.com. No excuses now!

If you can unveil yourself, you stalwart of truth and goodness, I shall be happy to make your acquaintance and explain a number of things to you from my own mouth that might possibly shed some light on your dim wits. But I know you, and so does everyone else. You'll stay in your little gutter and just stab at people's ankles with a rusty pocketknife as they walk by right before rushing back into the murky shadows, carefully nursing your adrenaline boner.

Get your facts straight before you play the saint, douchebag. Had you read my other blogs, you could've saved yourself an incriminating, recorded, part-of-the-public-record-and-so-therefore-available-through-the-Freedom-of-Information-Act 911 phone call. You see, in an earlier blog that I wrote, I was shot in the head with a .12 guage shotgun, and as I attempted to drive away from the scene of the crime, my vision blurred and finally disappeared altogether. Because I DIED. Fucking moron.