cazzi tuoi

the italians, between periods of living in garbage, say 'cazzi tuoi'. literally it means, 'your balls'. in english we say 'sucks for you'. yeah. cazzi miei. i wonder what they say in japanese? actually they probably don't say it; being japanese they live it. try this! drive your car into a little river. stand next to it, in the snow. watch people drive by, drive by, drive by. they all look at the car, look at you and then break eye contact and pretend like you don't exist. cazzi tuoi, motherfucker. yeah. hey japan. fuck you dude! you guys are so polite, except when you are a bunch of fucks. fucking borg, except instead of flying around absorbing others, you just want to go shopping and melt your brains with television. oh yeah, and work way to many hours a day at jobs you can't like. yeah... japan...
now if someone KNOWS you, hell they will help you out no problem! but 'good samaritans?' i have yet to meet a japanese person whom i could describe using that cliche expression. good samaritan means someone who helps a stranger. ain't happening here, unless you put pressure on someone to help you.
a japanese person tried to explain to me: "jason it's because, well, they couldn't pull your car out of the river!" yeah. i know that. but they could slow down, roll the window down, and find out if someone is in trouble. they could offer to call the police. i understand that a society can function without that, but i'm from a place where, if your car falls off the world, and you stand in one spot long enough, some loud mouthed motherfucker stops and say, "HEY BUDDY, YOU ALRIGHT?!"

yeah! yeah, i'm alright! i didn't break anything. thanks though, yeah.. yeah i have a cell phone here, yeah thanks for the offer. no,, yeah.. yeah you're the fourth person to offer in the last ten minutes, no man, thanks. thanks! bye!"

Response to Trent Reznor on the NiggyTardust data.

The latest from NiN.com is this.
http://www.nin.com/index.html#4978432809979160079

I'm glad that Trent showed us some numbers, something I don't think Radiohead has done yet.

So here you go. Saul Williams' previous 2004 album sold 33,897 copies.
The internet release was downloaded 154,449 times.
28,322 were paid for. That is, $5.
$5 x 28,322 = $141,610.

Now assuming every payment was made through PayPal, and PayPal's current fee for accepting credit card payments (for a business) is:

$0.00 USD-$3,000.00 USD	3.4% + $0.30 USD
$3,000.01 USD-$10,000.00 USD	2.9% + $0.30 USD
$10,000.01 USD-$100,000.00 USD	2.7% + $0.30 USD
> $100,000.00 USD	2.4% + $0.30 USD

Phew. OK, I am going to assume that the NiggyTardust album sold $10k - $100k per month. So.... 2.7% of $141,610 is $3,823.47, PLUS $0.30 each sale, so $0.30 x 28,322 = $8496.60...
What the fuck, is this right? Am I messing up on the math? $12,320.07 went to PayPal (under the assumption that EVERYONE bought the record using PayPal)???

Wow.... I want to be PayPal....

OK, so...
After paying PayPal Niggy runs home with $129,289.93
Now, I am under the impression that Trent Reznor, having produced the album, paid some big dollars. How much? I have no idea! But let us assume... 50k?
And then there is the web hosting. I have absolutely no idea how much that cost you, and I am curious as to why you didn't put that information up on your blog post.

They are still going home with more money than I'll be making this year. And cooler jobs, I think.

So now let me get to the part where I wonder about Trent's blog post... he said that since Saul's 2004 album sold about 30k copies and the new one was downloaded 150k times, but only paid for by 28k people, that means only 18% decided to pay. OK.... true.
But then he goes on to say that since they didn't do much marketing, he assumes that the majority of the people downloading the album were previous NIN or Saul Williams fans.

Now Trent... maaaaybe that's true. Maybe. But you've got to remember, this is the Internet bro! I know that when that album came out, I was posting the news all over websites whose readers didn't give a shit about NiN (I wanna fuck you like an animal?), and much less about Saul Williams (who?). But... here's what those websites had in common:
The readers log on to see what's new today.
Free album? Whaaat?
That's what got them. Sure name recognition played a part, but what got most people was the idea of Choose Your Path payment option on an album. So they visited the site. And they said...... "Who the fuck is Saul Williams?"
Sorry. But that's what they said. Because they are computer folk. And they listen to disgusting shit like Dave Mathews etc. And they were not about to gamble their $5. So they downloaded for free, PROMISING themselves (yeah right) that if they liked the album, they would come back and pay the $5.

It's my personal opinion that somewhere around 80 - 90% of those people said, "What the fuck is this, is this really music?" because that album sure as hell was not Dave Mathews. That was a seriously good album. So, those taste testers chose Pepsi, and Coke made no money that day. Then the other people, the ones who actually still listen to the album? Yeah... they probably forgot to go back and pay their $5.

So, I is my belief that the people who DID pay the $5 came in a couple categories.

1. I got moneys, whatever. Here's $5. I don't even care about the music.
2. I have got to support something like this, no matter what!
3. I love Trent. Who is Saul? Errrh... here's $5. Trent.. call me!
4. I love Saul. Of course here is my $5.

So, Saul, Trent... why didn't this album sell more copies?
Why didn't you do more marketing than some obscure Internet posts?

It's my belief that you wanted to tell the fans. You were paying for bandwidth costs OUT OF POCKET. And you didn't want every American teenager on MySpace to come grab the album for free, smashing your bandwidth. Pretty good call.

I also think you wanted to see how far news would spread by itself.

Point is... I think this album was a success. If you and Saul aren't happy, I'll tell you what. I will produce my own album. Won't be good, but you won't pay a dime! Then I'll give you the album, and we'll make a website where we will offer it for $5 or Free. Then you post on you blog advertising my album. Oh, and you have to say I'm a really great guy or whatever. Let's see how many people pay for it. You can keep 90% of the profits. I'd be happy just to pay my rent this month.

P.S.: ~~~~Trent.... call me!

Fart Day

Later in the same day I'm at a different school with a 6th grade class. At one point early on somebody farts. The kids are all sitting on the floor. A hardwood floor. And all the walls are made of a reverberating material. It was something else. I look up to see what the sound was and realize that it was a fart, and that it was the girl over on the right who is blushing and whose friends are all giggling and looking at her. She doesn't see me, she's looking at the floor. I look away so that she doesn't notice that I know. I'm saving it. Like saving a fart. For timing. And potency. Sure, I could say "haha! you farted!" but I would look like an asshole, and the delivery.. please.

I take them all to the gymnasium and make them jump an one foot from one hula-hoop to another reciting the days of the week. Hah. Ok, keep that up for the next ten minutes. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday...
I am tired as hell and sit down. At one point Farty and her friends are looking at me laughing. I guess they caught me nodding off. I look Farty in the eyes, lift a butt cheek up, and say "phoOOT!" Which is Japanese for PBBBBBT! She fucking dies. Pulls out a handkerchief to hold over her face in shame. Mua haha.

God Damn

So about once a month I get to teach a 2nd grade class. That was today at one of my smaller schools. The Japanese teacher decided (I can't remember why) to teach the kids "God Damn!". What the hell do you say to that? I'm trying to teach these littel monkeys to say Big Elephant and Small Monkey and shit... and Dude starts teaching them God Damn! Hum.

yesterday

yesterday at the grocery store i saw a lady with a shirt that said MILKFED.
i wanted to explain what she had written across her breasts... but i just couldn't.

oh yeah, every saturday for the last 3 weeks i've been trying to bike up this mountain! i got all the way up yesterday woohoo!

BOngo Soda

ok. i don't know why. but i bought that soda. that retarded, ill looking drink. i thought.... it looks so nasty, that it must secretly be delicious! i was wrong. it tastes like the concoction of a 9 year old, after he has gotten a hold of a cherry soda, a bag of sugar, and maple syrup. it's nasty. but get this.

i'm driving home, and i keep smelling a hint of body odour. i'm like, what the hell... is the wind hitting me just right and blowing my armpit into my nose? then i realize i only smell it RIGHT after i drink some of the soda. so i try again. inhale, sip sip drink, exhale through my nose. B.O.

somehow this drink makes you smell body odour after every sip. it's something special.

暇町舞鶴

if you read this, sorry i never write. but there is not much going on that is interesting. let's see... i need to find No-Doz, still trying to get a gp2x, and one of the 6 schools i go to sucks. and i have to go there two days of the week. bleah! most of the schools are tiny redneck schools and they're so much fun! oysh. but at the end of the day at this school i always feel like a shithead. and yesterday i think i was dehydrated to boot. so that made for a really super crappy day. oh, here's a pic of an Asian Hornet, jordan! i was a hero at 中舞鶴小学校 when i put this guy back out the window.