Yakuza: From Samurai to Slot Machines

That's great news, Matty. It feels weird to talk to you without looking at you, but I've been instructed to do so. That's the whole point to just feel weird, all right, that's the point of life. Well, that's great. Yeah, you guys need to get a website together, Matt. He shakes and said, yes, yes, it's like we've got a MySpace page. It's funny that that's still being financially supported

enough that it's up that you can still access MySpace. Yeah, but have you seen some of the other stuff that's still up, Like my Space has a long way to go to fall off the radar. I'm interested to see when that happens, and maybe there'll be some sort of event. Yeah, can you tell him? Stalling? Yes? Okay, Well that means everybody else can tell too, then, so we should probably start chuck. Um. Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode, uh, the Twisted Life of Marge Twisted World of Marge Simpsons,

The one where she starts selling pretzels? I think, so it's hard to keep them all? You know? Straight? It is? It is? Well? Um, in it, Marge decides to make some extra scratch by selling pretzels. Right. She know she's a part of an investment club, and um, the investment club gets a little crazy and I think she's forced out of their Peta Fleeta Peta franchise, Peter Peter food truck. Basically, she gets forced out, so she goes off on her

own starts selling pretzels. Well, she gets in bed with the mob inadvertently, and when the mob comes to calling just in time and they're they're storming the front door. Is it the mob guy that's always fat tony? Um? The fleet of Peter ladies show up and they want their cut of her turf. I believe, um. And it turns out that they've gotten in bed with the yakuza. Yes, the Japanese mafia and um as the mob as the

yakuza and the mafia are about to battle. The door shuts and all you can hear some stuff, and then the door opens and everybody's like laying debt and it's pretty awesome. That's a troop. But after reading this article how the Yakuza works, I would say that, um they probably had they spoken before they fought, would have found that they had a tremendous amountain common and possibly wouldn't have even fought at all. Yeah, maybe they would have had some wine and sukey or some sushi and pasta

and broke bread together or whatever. The Japanese version of bread is bread. Okay. So that's the intro to how yakuza works. Very nice, that's a good one, it is. And reading this article, you're right, I was kind of like, you know what, it's just like the American mafia. It is so there's like a there's a model out there for organizing crime, and somebody figured it out at some point in time. Maybe it was the Japanese, maybe it was the Sicilians, maybe it was all independent, but the

point is it's out there, it's established. Don't try to mess with it. It's it's perfect, yes, as far as organized crime goes. I guess you're right. Uh, the origins of the Yakuza depending on which history you're following. Um, if you listen to some of the clans and their clans,

I guess it just gave that away. Well, clans families say, Um, they might say like, we have noble origins, and we descended from the Ronin and we're more like your American Robin Hood, although he was an American, your English Robin Hood. We're like Kevin Costner, and um, our lineage is like very proud and honorable. Um. Probably a little bit of an inflated story. Um, because the other side of the coin is that they descended from the kabuki mono the

crazy ones. Yeah, and these are basically we're like masterless Ronan after the samurai. They were just crazy kids. Well they were masterless samurai and they would go around doing bad things with their swords because they didn't have a what's it called again goal in life? Now the master the Oh yeah, I was about to say that, but I can't believe I did that. From memory, I had it you was gonna be so proud, but I doubt it myself. Oh you had damio. I had it my brain,

but I doubted myself, which will make emily prod. So you've got some some political upheaval. I think a time of pieces what it was, and the samurai became basically useless and lazy. Um yeah, I guess that made them cranky because they started to do crime, or they just kind of went into business, which is something the samurai didn't need to do because they were the political elite for a very very long time. Um, they did their

jobs too well. There was a lasting piece and then political people and then all of a sudden there's kind of out on the street. So yeah, they're either going crazy cutting the heads off of peasants for no good reason. They're wandering around not cutting the heads off of peasants, but they're samurai and you don't want to look at them wrong. Or there samurai who are selling apples on the street now, which is new to them, or running

gambling casinos, gambling houses, brothels. Yeah, making money from like ill repute or legitimate ways. But the point is you have these people who are coming into the mark it, who are coming in from the outside, outsiders, exactly like c. Thomas Howell or Ralph Macho. Let's stay gold yakuza. Um, and that's the Yakusa still wears that today, kind of as a badge of honor. They're outsiders in Japanese society. Yeah, which we'll talk about the Korean yakuza later. Does that

always say Korean? Now Korean? Yeah, you're from Georgia. You sound like Hank is Area doing Billy bod Thornton and Homegrown. Um. So the name yakuza, I thought this is pretty interesting. It actually reinforces that outsider status because it came from a game called ocou. Sounds good to me. And uh, it's similar to what we call back iraq. Uh. And that the second digit of the hand is where you get your point value. It's very numerological, Yes it is, so you add up your cards. Yeah, and the second

digit is what counts like in back ireq. Right, so if you have three is or something like that, you'd have eighteen in your hand would be worth eight because it's a second number. The last digit, yeah, sixteen would probably be more appropriate because that's actually two digits. A six is just one digit. You know what I'm saying. No, Well, if it's a two digit number, it would be based on the second digit, right, is it a two digit number, I would think it'd be like zero six. No, I

think it's the last digit of your hand. So like, for example, if you have a in this case, you have um an eight and nine and a three that equals twenty, that your hand is worth zero. So it's the second digit or the last digit, right, But as sixteen would be worth six, Yes, but I guess there's no sixteen. There's if you headed three fours, Okay, I see what you mean. So you take if you have a hand of three cars, you add them up and then whatever the last digit is. If it's a single digit,

it's that. If it's if it's a two digit number, it's the second digit. Boy, there are gamblers out there just like I hate you. No, they're probably just like guys. Stay at the casino, yeah, stick to the shows. So anyway, eight nine in three equals twenty. That is zero points. That is a very bad hand. It's a worthless hand. And the Japanese words for eight nine and three yeah kua yakuza, meaning worthless or pointless and in the vernacular

very round about probably incorrect way of explaining that. So you've got a group of people who know their way around a sword who suddenly are selling um pachinko cards or women yeah um or opium all bet um, and they are they're very proud of this outsider worthless status. You know, they're making themselves anti here us, against the

world exactly. Um. If you are a cop, though, you're probably going to refer to the Yakuza as the boy yokudan, which is basically is a degenerate gangster has no sense of values or tradition. That's right, and that's a very big insult. You wouldn't want to call a yukos a member that, no, unless you you know we're arresting them, and even then you may want to avoid it. Yeah. I saw that name thrown thrown around a lot and

depressed though, So people aren't shy about it. I mean, I'm sure it's like being called a mafia member hood or yeah, a thug or in in the U S a degenerate gangster who has no sense of tradition or values, that's right. However, this article who wrote this was his Ada figures Um. He points out that the most direct ancestors come from the eighteenth century. He called them quasi legal businessmen, and they are known as bakuto and techia is a gambler, Yeah, gamblers, peddlers, Um, not like the

highest repute, I would imagine. Yeah, the is the peddler. Yeah, and I don't think they were either, But they were enterprising businessmen who knew how to make a buck however, Yes, and eventually they decided, you know, if we organize ourselves into these clans, it might be better for business. Yeah, and they did, And a lot of the clans still have the names of these bakudos and techias today. Can you name one the Yamaguchi Gumi clan. There's the biggest one, right, yeah,

eight thousand members yeah. Um, and we should also say that, um, the the that clan, if it has eighty thousand members, it's probably assembled in well, usually Yakusa has assembled in one of two ways. It's a straight up clan and everybody's related, everybody knows one another, or it's a kind of a confederation of clans. So if you have eighty thousand members, it's probably the latter of the two. Yeah,

I would imagine. So the Yamaguchi Gumi clan would be the nominal umbrella clan several other smaller clans that are structured very much like a mafia family with a dawn at the head, but in this case it's called a kumicho yep. And it follows that UM a rough pyramid structure working its way down to uh. I guess the lowest or the highest man on the totem pole, which would be uh, just the you know, the heavy, the thug sure carrying out the tough. The tough assignments the

guy with the baseball bat. Yeah. I was about to say, they might use something else but bare. So they might use two baseball bats and make them like whirl And the only reason you know that is because of Tom's ellick. Uh no, no, no. There's a story about the KFC colonel that they threw in the in the river and I think osaka um Okay. So we've got the hierarchy.

And the key to this hierarchy is something called the oyaban Coban relationship, and that is um much like I'm about to say, much like the mafia, but much like any structure where you have seniority, ideally you have a relationship between the higher ups and the people directly beneath them. Um, and that is the case here with the oyubon coban is the higher up. It's like a father son relationship

or a den master cub scout relationship mentorte. Right. What's what's significant about this is that everywhere within them, the yakuza structure, this clan structure, everyone plays both roles except to the very top and the very bottom. So you are the ayubon, the father to the guy below you or the guys below you, and you're the koban to the guy immediately ahead of you. Yeah, like, let me let me show you how to how to clean your gun properly, right, or your sword? Do they still you swords?

I imagine there's a couple that still use swords, throw back kind of thing. They don't these guns that much? Oh no, No, I actually have a stat because I just got a little curious about gun violence. Six guns for every one thousand people in Japan, compared to eight hundred nine for one thousand in the USA and UH In two thousand and eight, there were only eleven gun deaths in Japan completely and in the US that's twelve thousand that same year. I'm surprised, it said Lowe. That's

pretty high. Um, I know, yeah, I'm saying I'm still surprised that low The thing about Japan is like they don't have a lot of crime, especially violent crime, but when they do it is gruesome, like little elementary school kids cutting the heads off other other ones and like planning it on the gate outside of the school. People. Yeah, people like I'm just killing spreez and like bathing in the blood of their victim and all that. Just like the craziest stuff. It's like this very like straight lice

culture that like has very strict rules. Every once while somebody just pops and like really bad things happen, but it's very infrequent. Yeah. Um. And I did find out though, about two thirds of the gun deaths, which I guess would only be about four people, Oh no, two thirds would be what like uh uh yeah about that they come from the from the Yukuza, which really yeah, like

most of the gun violence is attributed to them. But um, there was a pretty good point in this article later on that, um, they don't really have to use violence or even the threat of violence because a lot of the um extortion schemes that they carry out are based on Japanese politeness. Yeah, I think the implied threat of violence is there though, Oh it definitely is. But they'll be like, we want you to or we strongly feel that you should contribute to this chairit that's not a

real charity. Um, so maybe you should write a check. And people are like, well, of course, I want to help these throwing this golf tournament this weekend. It'd be really great if you were there at about nine am off the green piece a million dollars. Alright, So back to the oyaban Koban. When they submit their relationship, it has done in a ceremony where a third person I guess named Spider pours up some drinks um, pours sake um, and I believe they drink from their own glass. Then

they switch and drink from each other's glass. And then the oyabun is allowed to get hammered, and I guess the koban isn't. No, he just sits there and SIPs yeah, and I guess cleans up after whatever happens with That's exactly how they do the um. That's how you get a sponsor in a but they use coffee instead of sake. Really yeah, very nice. Uh. Oh I mentioned the Koreans. They are they only make up point five percent of the population, but I could I was trying to find

a good number. I found ten percent of the yakuza. That's a pretty big disparity, huge disparity. And apparently it's because in Japan, UM Koreans are are looked down upon in many circles and disrespected and and you know it's it's racial uh bigotry, Yeah, pretty much. And so they're outsiders and so they identify I think, with the Yukuza well definitely, and then that that that further strengthens the

yakuza's um sense of being outsiders as well. Uh. It's also um, very good for business to have Koreans in your gang because a lot of smuggling between Korea and Japan goes on. Yeah, so it's practical as well as prideful. Um. And if you're a woman, UM, don't count on playing ball very much in the yukuza because you are marginalized and you're not going to be doing a lot of work unless it's um it's a prostitute or the servant. Sadly, yes, with one exception. Should we go to that exception? Yeah,

might as well. Uh, Fukio Taka, um Fukio Taka, Fumiko sorry Taka was the wife of Kazuo Taka. Man, I've been screwing their names up left and right now. You were good up until this point. Fu Fumiko Taka, I had it totally wrong. Um she was the wife of Kazuo Tatoka. And um he basically he ran the Yamaguchi Gumi, which it's like such an adorable name, but they'll kill you.

I know. It sounds like a little Teddy Bears of right, or like a whole line of teddy bears that are like slightly different from one another, but you have to collect all eight hundred and there's trading cards to um So he ran that clan from World War Two to the eighties and then he died. Uh and actually, in translated from the Japanese that was like perfectly spoken turned

into tarsan um not bad run. So he died of a heart attack in the early eighties, and Fumiko took over and became the first woman oyobon ever and she she held power for a few months is not very long, no, but like she was it the only one. No one had ever done it since like the eighteenth century, eighteenth or nineteenth century to the eighties, no woman had ever taken over despite kill Billy, there was no woman in power at any point except for Fumiko, and even for

a few months. It's pretty significant, as I understand. Yeah, I wonder I have to look into that why she was, if she was removed or if she was just like this eight for me, right, I have no idea why she didn't maintained power, but she didn't, but she held

the claim together, as I understand, for several months. That's right. Um. One thing you do not want to do if you are in this oh ya bon koban relationship is the koban is disappointed oh yabun because you could um take part in the you be zoom you be zoomi, I would say, you be zoomi. And that is when um, you basically screw up. They give you a knife and a bandage and say you know what to do, just

go do it, and you do it. You cut above or at the first joint of your pinky finger, and um you take it after you've bandaged it up and stopped screaming um. And you take the finger and you present it to the Ayubon say I'm really sorry, let's just forget this ever happened. Can you please take me to the hospital. And he's like, yeah, right, it looks good. And I'll bet if you really wanted to mess with your oban is it oban? Um? Yeah, oban. It is like old lady, I believe like grandma, Um, don't hand

her your pinky. Uh, we'll be to just like pop it in your mouth and eat the guy. Wouldn't that just kind of like consolidate like any fear that the person had for me, it would um. And apparently it is a symbolic weakening of your ability to hold a sword. I say, it's not a very smart thing to do to like physically, you know, give someone a physical disadvantage. That's on your team, right, but I'm not making the rules. Well, it makes sense it weakens your ability to hold the sword.

But in that sense, it also it makes you more dependent on the other CLAM members to help protect and defend you. Like, I see your point, but I think it's cool, Like symbolically it's very cool, I think. Yeah. And apparently, if you keep messing up, then they will um go down more sections of your finger. Then if you lose all your pinky you're still screwing up, they'll

move to your other finger. At that point, I guess you should probably rethink you're, you know, way of doing things like, Um, do you remember the geeky guy from Greece? Uh no, No, he was like just a peripheral character. He wore glasses and he like, oh yeah, yeah. Can you imagine that guy after like two months in the Yakuza, you'd have like nothing left. He just runs into walls all the time. Yeah. I wonder what he's doing now,

I have no after playing the nerd in like eight movies. Yeah, all right, Josh, what does what do the Yakuza do? And I'll go ahead and set you up by saying they kind of do the same thing as the American mafia and the Italian mafia and the Bulgarian mafia and the Russian mafia, which I want to say, Um, do you remember how like the post Soviet Russia just fell

into utter like lawlessness and the mobs stepped in. Apparently the Yakuza went from like relative outsiders to like political powerhouses at the end of World War Two for much the same reason. It was just there were there were organized crimes and the kids in place that we're ready to fill the power vacuum that happened after the Japanese government was um cleaning up the mess. Well yeah, um, and and that's the same thing that happened when the

Soviet Union crumbled. But that's how the yakus I got where they are today. Opportunists. Yeah, interesting in the right place, in the right time, as another way you put it. Uh, yeah, that's true. Um, so apart from gambling, prostitution. Um, you got your smuggling, you got your firearms, you got your porno. Uh, you've got the age old m you've got the age old protection fees, which means pay me and I won't beat you up. Yeah, it's put way better than that,

but that's what it amounts to. Yeah. Um. They also uh recently have killed people, um, eleven of them. Well, no, killed. They don't get into politics that much, but they In two thousand seven, the mayor of Nagasaki was shot and kill old senior member of the Yamaguchi Gumi clan and U two thousand seven, Wow, like murdered in cold blood on the street and um, but it wasn't exactly a yakuza thing. Like he was a senior guy in the Yakuza,

so he ain't messing around. But apparently what happened is he was driving his car through a public works site and drove through a hole and like damaged his car and could never get any restitution from the government, and he got mad and went and killed the mayor. And they think that's what it had stemmed from. How Pesci asked, I know, yeah, that's very Peci asked, although he petch she would have been smarter because this guy was you know,

I don't know. He wrestled to the ground and it's a big hothead and that's true, but he never got napped like that. But this guy got nabbed, and they tried to make it a yakuza thing, and they were kind of like, no, not really, he was in the Yakuza. He was just picked off about his car. We're in no affiliated with this act. So I'm sure that they wish they would have fixed his car at that point. I wonder what kind of car it was. It's just like an accord. Yeah, maybe it was probably not a

Chevy or afford. That's my guess. Um. Sometimes these guys segue into real work, legal work, invest in the stock market in semi legitimate ways. Yeah you can. I mean you can do it legitimately, like you can just take your your illegal winnings and invest in the stock market.

Or you can be like, um, I think this company could make more money under my personal direction, buy some stock, get some dirt on some of the board of directors, and and then send some of your under links to a board meeting and be like, oh, we would hate so much for these pictures of you with your mistress to get out. Um. So I think now our boss, the Kuban, why is what's it? Why? Why won't to get that? Why in there? Our our kyaban is now

the the head of the board of directors of this company. So? Um. In pop culture, yakuza is huge in the that is a huge. Yeah, I think there was an age. It's weird, it's huge, it's crazy. You need my missing wise, I guess so that's what happened. Um, huge on the small and big screen. Like if you think mafia movies are big here and nothing like the yakuza, right, and they're very much idealized over there, like even more so than

we we do the Italian mafia here in our movies. Yea. Um. I looked up lists of the best ones, and it's sort of you know, obviously, if you're doing opinion list like that, it's gonna arrange. But when I saw consistently listed is like, the best is a five part series called Battles Without Honor and Humanity, And I want to check this out. It's supposed to be amazing. I'm writing

it that they compared it to the Godfather trilogy. Um, I imagine they mean one and two only unless the third one of this one started the director's daughter who was a lousy actor and Andy Garcia but happened to be a great director. Yeah, yeah, she's pretty good. Um Andy Garcia, I liked the Yeah, I know, it's just it's weird to see him in the Yeah, I agreed. Uh, what what's another one? Um, well, that's that's the one I had at number one. So I didn't like list

them all out because everyone had their own opinion. I'm gonna search some one out. As far as the West Goest, Black Rain, that was a good yakuza movie, Okay, I was trying to think of one of my first thought, like an idiot was big trouble in Middle China, and then wait a minute, what's wrong with this picture? But um, and I couldn't think of any accusa black Rain of course. Yeah, that's the only one I can think of, unless if you suspect as I do, that Mr Nakatomi was involved

in the Ya Kazan Die Hard. But that's kind of like a sub sub sub plot, a side bet if you will. Yeah, I just remember, I don't remember much about black Man. I just remember lots of motorcycles, that was pretty much it. And raining, it was raining black Um. So I guess you already mentioned Kazu h. I know it's hard, isn't it. He's not even my favorite though, and neither is Fumiko Yoshio Kodama. And I guess we're just touching on the fact that they do get involved

in politics a little bit. Well, this guy got involved in politics a lot. Um. He was a war criminal during World War Two. He was dealing with China and Um was imprisoned, and then after the war, um the occupying American forces freedom Because I guess if you were an enemy of the Japanese state, you were an ally to the US, and he actually kind of proved to be an ally. He made contacts with the CIA and deals with them, and basically consolidated power using the CIA

and the occupying military. Not too bad. And he had made most of his connections in prison, right Yeah. But I think also he had a pretty extensive smuggling network um to basically get materials from China to Japan to Selim a grossly inflated prices um. And if you haven't a smuggling network, you have pretty much by proxy and espionage network. So this guy had like his own little

intelligence military wow, going under his wing. Yeah. And like al Capone, he was finally brought up on like financial uh charges, but died I think right before he uh yeah, before he could stay draw right, But before he died, he had a lot of power and a lot of political influence, and he used to as a right wing nationalist um. And apparently the Yakuza goes through bouts or periods of certain clans are known to be very nationalistic um, which is kind of weird because that flies in the

face of like Korean membership. But I wonder if some clans like don't have Korean members the nationalist ones. Yeah, which is weird. Um so Japan these days, Uh, they say their tolerance is pretty low. Um. In the nine they passed Um. What remember we talked about the Rico Law in the UM. I guess it was the Mafia podcast And basically it beefed up a lot of the penalties um for crimes conducted as yakuza. Um you know,

more jail time that kind of thing. Well, one of the hallmarks of the Rico Act is the higher ups can be held accountable for the crimes canoe the guys further down the ladder. And apparently Japan has that similar clause or statute. So I guess the various oh ya bon would be responsible for whatever the underlings did, for

whatever the kobun did. Yes, very nice, um. But apparently that act worked in a way and didn't work in a way because uh, some say it caused some of the clans to restructure and move into different areas where they overlapped with other clans for the first time, caused

some turf wars, more bloodshed and um. So it made it harder for police to like, you know, get good information because all of a sudden, it was kind of thrown into turmoil, and apparently it's had very little effect on their income because I think like two thousand four, Yakuza as a whole made an estimated like thirteen billion dollars in revenue according to Japan Times. It's a lot. Again, that's a it's uh, let's see. I think it's a trillion and a half youn Wow, that's more than a

fistful Uh, very nice, well, Clan Eastwood reference. That was a Jerry Zucker fistful of yun from Kentucky priv movie. Oh that's right, well, which was a cleaning east Wood reference. Okay, Um, Clin Easwood and his invisible obamatre. Man, Yeah, I guess there's really nothing you can say than politics is getting pretty surreal here in the US. His performance are it is? Uh, and I guess we need and wrap up with um the two twos that they wear very interesting stuff. Man,

have you seen this? I have their usually full body like multi colors sitting here, Torso, but I saw nakedness, like every square inch covered? Really did you? Or you know? They showed people from the rear at least. Yeah, we're in the diapers we'll know these people. They were just totally naked, bare bottom. Do you see these guys? Yeah. Um, when I was in Japan with you me, Um, they have little baths and one of the rules of the baths it's like, if you have tattoos, you can't come

in because they don't. I was a little worried, but I think they figured that since I was obviously American and I just have like one to maybe. Um. They they were like, I think you're okay to maybe I look like, you don't know how many tattoos, but the if you if you have tattoos, they can't ask you to leave. And the whole reasons they don't want trouble. Sure, it's not like the professional wrestling venues where you just know that it's yakuza owned and controlled. Yeah. I don't

think we mentioned that. That's one of the sectors of legitimate business that Yuckus often get involved in his pro wrestling. Pro wrestling, m got anything else on that, Nope, alright, that's Yakuza. Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a yakuza guy. If you want to learn more about yakuza and see some of these tattoo photos that Chuck's talking about. And this may be the only article on the site that has a photo of Jet Lee? Is he in there? What does it say?

What's the caption Jet Lee as rogue in the film War, which focuses on Asian organized crime. Interesting and there's one heck of a caption. If you want to see that caption for yourself, you can type the word yakuza y a k u z a in the handy search bar how stuff works dot com. Uh. And since I said handy search bar, you know what time it is for reels. It's listening to mal um Josh. I'm gonna call this uh video blog. I'm trying to plug but I don't

have the name of it. Oh well, that's rough. But it's from the past, and I like, you know, hey, stuff you should know team. I've tagged along with you through four years worth of s Y s K, but have not yet caught up to the most current editions. I'm writing you from the dawn of two thousand eleven. Whoa is this just an old email? Then new um. In the past, I've seen the rise and fall of

Hiku Theater appropriately celebrated when Josh quit smoking. Yeah, which is it's been a while now to Plus, I don't even remember smokey Josh. Now I know it's nice. Yeah, it's like a whole different thing. Now I'm like judgmental at other smoker, Josh, as it should be. Uh. And I've wondered what the W stands for in Charles W. Chucker's Chuck Bryant. More recently, Chuck has periodically replaced listener

mail with the relatively new Facebook questions. But he points out that again and he's behind the times a bit that's been around. Jerry is as enigmatic as ever, having never actually spoken on air, not true. And Josh has run a commendable, yet untimely i'm sorry, ultimately failed campaign at abolishing Handy from the Handy search bar. Yeah. I just kind of gave into that that was a phase. But perhaps the Josh, Chuck and Jerry I write too

now are quite different. I won't know until I've caught it to the present or future, depending on whether you're reading this from your perspective or mind. Very different. We're aged, yes, we are. A beard has gotten noticeably grayer. I'm sagging I needed to write you now instead of waiting until I caught up. Though, because I've started a video blog, I need to give credit where credit is due. I feel like I've gotten to know the gang fairly well

some with us over the course of two fifty podcasts. Uh. It is this kind of relationship that I'm hoping to build with my audience two podcasts. He's right behind he'up on Um. You've been an inspiration for me, and I hope to form the same kind of connection with an audience through my video blog or vlog or vlog. More importantly, I need to thank you guys for all you do providing something that is real, entertaining, informative, and that has brought me back for all these episodes. So thank you

for the inspiration. You're a fan for the past, present, future. Nate bellpof and I tried to plug Nate's vlog, but he didn't mention it to Nate first rule of thumb is two pass along the name of your blog when writing people that can get the name of this isn't fight Club. I don't even try to look it up and I couldn't find it. So Nate, if you want to write in, we'll post on Facebook. Yes and we

leave the tweet it agreed. Okay, And speaking of Facebook and Twitter, you can join us on Facebook and Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. You can join us on Twitter. Our handle is the very clumsy s y s K Podcast all one word. You'll never find it if you're just searching for us, but it's s y s K podcast. You can also send us an email to Stuff Podcast at discovery com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com h