Stuff You Should Know - Yakuza: From Samurai to Slot Machines

Episode Date: November 7, 2012

The Yakuza trace their lineage back to the 18th century samurai, left masterless following political upheaval, who turned to lives of crime. After centuries, the Yakuza is still going strong, following both tradition and new avenues of illicit revenue. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Hi. Hey and we have a guest producer Matt here today. In the hissy. Yes. Yep. In the leather wing back to the director's chair. Matt who has gotten fan mail before. Oh yeah that's right. Did you know? Lines and scissors is back together. Oh yeah? Yeah. Nice. Don't look at him. He's right

here. I didn't know that. That's great news Matt. Yeah. It feels weird to talk to you without looking at you but then 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 the said yes. Yes. We got a MySpace page. It's so 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 MySpace has got a long way to go. Oh really? To follow off the radar. I'm interested to see when that happens. Maybe there'll be some sort of event. Yeah. Can you tell I'm stalling? Yes. Okay. Well that means everybody else can tell

too then so we should probably start. Chuck. Yes. Have you ever seen the Simpsons episode? The Twisted Life of Marge. Twisted World of Marge Simpsons. Yes. The one where she starts selling pretzels. I think so. It's hard to keep them all straight. It is. It is. Well in it Marge decides to make some extra scratch by selling pretzels. Right? No. She's a part of an investment club. Yeah. And the investment club gets a little crazy. I think she's forced out of their Pita, fleet of Pita franchise. Okay. Pita food truck basically. All right. She gets forced out so she goes off on her own and starts selling pretzels. Well she gets in bed with the mob inadvertently and when the mob comes to call in just in time and they're storming the front door.

Is it the mob guy that's always? Fat Tony. Yeah. Fat Tony. The fleet of Pita ladies show up and they want their cut of her turf I believe. And it turns out that they've gotten in bed with the Yakuza. Yes. The Japanese mafia and as the mob is 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 dead. Yeah. It's pretty awesome. That's a trope. But after reading this article how the Yakuza works, I would say that they probably had they spoken before they fought would have found that they had a tremendous amount in common. Yeah. And possibly wouldn't have even fought at all. Yeah. Maybe they would have had some wine and sake or some sushi and pasta. Yeah. And broke bread together.

Exactly. Or whatever the Japanese version of bread is. Bread. Oh, okay. So that's the intro to how Yakuza works. Very nice. That's a good one. Thanks. It is and reading this article, you're right. I was kind of like, you know, 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 perfect. Yes. As far as organized crime goes, I guess you're right. Right. The origins of the Yakuza, depending on which history you're following. Right. If you

listen to some of the clans and they're clans, I guess it just gave that away. Well, clans, families, same thing. Yeah. 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 wasn't American, your English Robin Hood. Right. We're like Kevin Costner. Exactly. And our lineage is like a very proud and honorable. Probably a little bit of an inflated story because the other side of the coin is that they descended from the Kabuki mono, the crazy ones. Yeah. And these are basically were like masterless Ronin after the samurai. They were just crazy kids. Well, they were masterless samurai. Oh, were they? Oh, yeah. Okay. And they would go around doing bad things with

their swords. Yeah. Because they didn't have a, what's it called again? Goal in life? No, the master. Oh, a Damyo. Damyo. Yeah. I was about to say that. I can't believe I did that from memory. I had it. Yuri's going to be so proud, but I doubted myself. Oh, you had Damyo? I had it in my brain, but I doubted myself, which will make Emily proud. So you've got some political upheaval. I think a time of peace is what it was. And the samurai became basically useless and lazy. Yeah. And 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. Yeah. They did their jobs too well.

There was a lasting peace 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. Yes. Or they're samurai who are selling apples on the street now, which is new to them. Or running gambling casinos. Right. Gambling houses. Yeah. Brothels. Yeah. Making money from like ill repute. Or legitimate ways. But the point is, you have these people who are coming into the market who are coming in from the outside. Outsiders. Exactly. Like C. Thomas Howell. Right. Or Ralph Macho. Stay gold, Yakuza.

And that's the Yakuza 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. Is that how we say Korean now? Korean. Yeah. You're from Georgia. You sound like Hank Azaria doing Billy Bob Thornton at home grown. So the name Yakuza, I thought this was pretty interesting. It actually reinforces that outsider status because it came from a game called Oyacho Kabu. Sounds good to me. And it's similar to what we call a backer act in 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 backer act. Right. So if you have three sixes or something like that,

you have 18 and your hand would be worth eight. Second number. The last digit. Yeah. 16 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 an eight and nine and a three. Yeah. That equals 20. That your hand is worth zero. Okay. So it's the second digit or the last digit. Right. But a 16 would be worth six. Yes. But I guess there's no 16. What are we talking about? There's, if you had three fours. Oh, okay. I see what you mean. So

you take, if you have a hand of three cards, you add them up and then whatever the last digit is, if it's a single digit, it's that. If it's a, 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 on the casino. Yeah. Stick to the shows. So anyway, eight, nine and three equals 20. That is zero points. That is a very bad hand. It's a worthless hand. And the Japanese words for eight, nine and three, yakuza, yakuza. Meaning worthless or pointless 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 Pachinko cards or women. Yeah. Or opium. I'll bet. Oh,

sure. And they are, they're very proud of this outsider, worthless status. Yeah. You know, they're making themselves anti-heroes against the world. Exactly. If you are a cop, though, you're probably going to refer to the yakuza as the Boryokudon. Yes. Which is basically as a degenerate gangster who has no sense of values or tradition. That's right. That's a very big insult. You wouldn't want to call a yakuza a member of 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 around a lot in the press, though. So did you? People aren't shy about it. I got you. I mean, I'm sure it's like being called a mafia member. A hood or yeah, a thug, a heavy 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 this Ed? Yeah. He points out that the most direct ancestors come from the 18th century. He called them quasi legal businessmen and they are known as Bakuto and Techia. So Bakuto is a gambler. Yeah. Gamblers, peddlers. Not like of the highest repute, I would imagine. Yeah. The Techia is the peddler. Yeah. 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.

They're the biggest one, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like 80,000 strong. 8000 members. Not bad. Yeah. And we should also say that that clan, if it has 80,000 members, it's probably assembled in, well, usually Yakuza's assembled in one or 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. Yeah. So if you have 80,000 members, it's probably the latter of the two. Yeah, I would imagine. So the Yamaguchi Gumi clan would be the nominal umbrella clan of 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 rough pyramid structure working its way down to, I guess, the lowest or

the highest man on the totem pole, which would be just the, you know, the heavy, the thug. Sure. Carrying out the tough assignments. The guy with the baseball bat. Yeah. I was about to say they might use something else, but baseball's over there. So they might use two baseball bats for all I know. Right. And make them like Whirl. And the only reason you know that is because of Tom Selleck. No, no, there's that story about the KFC Colonel that they threw in the river. Yeah. And I think Osaka. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2200 pounds

of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil asset. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey witches, I'm Ilaria Baldwin and I'm Michelle Campbell Mason. And together we host the new

iHeart radio podcast, which is anonymous. I am a health and wellness expert. I am an author. I am a mother. I am a wife. Although I feel like putting that in my bio makes me slightly uncomfortable because I have an identity separate from that. He is a husband. Okay, Alec is a husband and he can be Mrs. Ilaria Baldwin. Come to the coven where we don't hold back and we don't shy away from tough topics. We are going to go really deep into women's relationships with each other. So bring your brooms and join us as we tackle why women are pinned against each other and what we can do to stop this vicious cycle. Consider this your invitation to witches anonymous because which please we're in this together. Listen to witches anonymous on the

iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Okay, so we've got the hierarchy and the key to this hierarchy is something called the Oya bun coven relationship. And that is much like I was 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. Right. And that is the case here with the Oya bun co bun is the higher up. Right. It's like a father son relationship. Yeah, or a den master cub scout relationship or mentor protege protege. Right. That's what I say mentee. What's what's significant about this is that everywhere within the the yakuza structure this clan structure, everyone plays both roles except

for the very top and the very bottom. Yeah. So you are the Oya bun, the father to the guy below you or the guys below you. And you're the co bun 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 use swords? I imagine there's a couple that still use swords throwback kind of thing. They don't use guns that much. Oh, no. No, I actually have a stat because I just got a little curious about gun violence. Yeah. Six guns for every 1000 people in Japan compared to 890 per 1000 in the US. No way. Yeah. And in 2008, there were only 11 gun deaths in Japan. Yeah. Completely. And in the US, about 12,000 that same year. I'm surprised it's that low.

12,000. Yeah. That's pretty high. I know. Yeah. I'm saying I'm still surprised it's that low. The thing about Japan is like they don't have a lot of crime, especially violent crime. Yeah. But when they do, it is gruesome like little elementary school kids cutting the heads off other ones and like planning it on the gate outside of the school. People like that happy. Yeah. People like I'm just killing sprees and like bathing in the blood of their victim and all that just like the craziest stuff. It's like this very like straight life culture. Yeah. That like has very strict rules. Every once in a while, somebody just pops and like really bad things happen. But it's very infrequent. Yeah. 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? Out of how many 11 11, like, uh, ish. Oh, yeah, about that. They come from the from the Yakuza, which really, yeah, like most of the gun violence is attributed to them. But there is a pretty good point in this article later on that they don't really have to use violence or even the threat of violence because a lot of the 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. Yeah. Okay. But they'll be like, we want you to or we strongly feel that you should contribute to this charity. That's not a real charity. Yeah. Um, so maybe you should write a check and people

are like, well, of course I want to help these thrown this golf tournament this weekend. That'd be really great if you were there at about nine a.m. to tee off. Right. And the green fees a million dollars. Sure. All right. So back to the Oyabon Koban. When they submit their relationship, it is done in a ceremony where a third person, I guess named spider, pours up some drinks, pours sake. And I believe they drink from their own glass, then they switch and drink from each other's glass. Yes. Then the Oyabon 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 the Oyabon. That's exactly how they do the, that's how you get a sponsor in AA, but they use coffee instead

of sake. Really? Yeah. Very nice. Oh, I mentioned the Koreans. They are, they only make up 0.5% of the population, but I'll try to find a good number. I found 10% of the Yakuza. That's a pretty big disparity, huge disparity. And apparently it's because in Japan, Koreans are looked down upon in many circles and disrespected and, you know, it's, it's racial bigotry. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And so they're outsiders. And so they identify, I think, with the Yakuza. Well, definitely. And then that further strengthens the Yakuza's sense of being outsiders as well. Yeah. It's also 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. And if you're a woman, don't count on playing ball very much in the Yakuza because you are marginalized and you're not going to be doing a lot of work unless it's as a prostitute or a servant, sadly. Yes. With one exception. Should we go to that exception? Yeah, might as well. Fukuyo Toaka. Yeah. Fukuyo Toaka or Fumiko, sorry. Toaka was the wife of Kazuo Taoka. Man, I've been screwing their names up left and right. No, you were good up until this point. Fumiko Taoka. I had it totally wrong. She was the wife of Kazuo Taoka. And 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 bear or something. Right. Or like a whole line of teddy bears that

are like slightly different from one another, but you have to collect all 800. Yeah. And there's trading cards too. So he ran that clan from World War II to the 80s. Not bad run. And then he died. And actually translated from the Japanese, that was like perfectly spoken. I turned into Tarzan at the moment. Not bad run. So he died of a heart attack in the early 80s and Fumiko took over and became the first woman Oyobon ever. And she held power for a few months. That's not very long. No, but like she was it. The only one no one had ever done it since like the 17th, 18th century. Yeah. No, 19th, 18th or 19th century to the 80s. No woman had ever taken over. Despite kill Bill. Yeah, there was no woman in power at any point, except for Fumiko. Even for a few

months, it's pretty significant. And yeah, that's true, 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 ain't for me. Right. I have no idea why she didn't maintain power, but she didn't. But she held the claim together as I understand for several months. That's right. One thing you do not want to do, if you are in this Oyobon-Kobon relationship as the Kobon is disappointing Oyobon, because you could take part in the Yubizumi. I would say Yubizumi. And that is when 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 you take it after you've bandaged it up and stopped screaming. And you take the finger and you present it to the Oyobon. Say, I'm really sorry. Let's just forget this ever happened. Can you please take me to the hospital? He's like, yeah, right. Looks good. And I'll bet if you really wanted to mess with your Obon. Is it Obon? Yeah. Oyobon. Oyobon. Yeah. Obon is like old lady, I believe, like grandma. Don't hand her your pinky. Right. It would be to just like pop it in your mouth and eat the guy's pinky finger. Wouldn't that just kind of like consolidate like any fear that the person had? Yeah, for me it would, for sure. And apparently it is a symbolic weakening of your ability to hold a sword. Yeah. 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 clan members to help protect and defend you. That's true. Like I see your point. But I think it's cool. Like, it's a symbolically, it's very cool, I think. Yeah. And apparently if you keep messing up, then they will go down more sections of your finger than if you lose all your pinky. You're still screwing up. They'll move to your other finger. Yeah. At that point, I guess you should probably rethink your, you know, your way of doing things. It'd be like,

do you remember the geeky guy from Greece? Keniki? No, no. He was like just a peripheral character. He wore glasses. Oh, yeah, yeah. That guy. Can you imagine that guy after like two months in the Yakuza? He'd have like nothing left. He just runs into walls all the time. Yeah. I wonder what he's doing now. I have no idea. After playing the nerd in like eight movies. Yeah. All right, Josh, what is, what did 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 again. Yeah. And the Italian mafia and the Bulgarian mafia and the Russian mafia, which I want to say, you remember how like the post Soviet Russia just fell into utter like lawlessness and the mob stepped in? Yeah.

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 were ready to fill the power vacuum that happened after the Japanese government was cleaning up the mess. Well, yeah. Yeah. And that's the same thing that happened when the Soviet Union crumbled. But that's how the Yakuza got where they are today. Opportunist. Yeah. Interesting. Right place in the right time is the only way to put it. Yeah, that's true. So apart from gambling, prostitution, you got your smuggling. You got your firearms, you got your porno. Yeah. You've got the age old, you got the age old protection

fees. Yeah, 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. They also recently have killed people. 11 of them. Well, no, killed. They don't get into politics that much. But they in 2007, the mayor of Nagasaki Yeah, was shot and killed by a senior member of the Yamaguchi Gumi clan. And in what year? 2007. Wow. Like murdered in cold blood on the street. And 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. He got mad and went and killed

the mayor. Yeah. And they think that's what it had stemmed from. How peshy ask. I know. Yeah, that's very peshy ask. Although he, no, I bet you would have been smarter because this guy was, you know, I don't know. He wrestled to the ground and he's a big hothead and casino. That's true. But he never got nabbed like that. No. 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 yeah, picked off his car. We're in no way affiliated with this act. Yeah. 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 was just like an accord. Yeah, maybe I don't know. It was probably not a Chevy or a Ford. That's my guess.

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 illegal winnings and invest in the stock market. Or you can be like, I think this company could make more money under my personal direction. Yeah. Buy some stock, get some dirt on some of the board of directors. Or make it up. Right. Yeah. And then send some of your underlings to a board meeting and be like, oh, we would hate so much for these pictures of you with your mistresses to get out. So I think now our boss, the Kovon is now Koyabon. Koyabon. Where's that Y? Why won't I get that Y in there? I don't know. Our Koyabon is now the head of the board of directors of this

company. So in pop culture, Yakuza is huge in the, did I say huge? Yeah, I think there was an H. It's weird. It's huge. That's crazy. You need my missing Ys. I guess so. That's what happened. Huge on the small and big screen. Like if you think mafia movies are big here, I think nothing like the Yakuza. Right. And they're very much idealized over there. I'm sure. Like even more so than we do the Italian mafia here in our movies. Yeah. Yeah. I looked up lists of the best ones and it's sort of, you know, obviously if you're doing opinion lists like that, it's going to range. But one I saw consistently listed as like the best is a five part series called Battles Without Honor in Humanity. And I want to check this out. It's

supposed to be amazing. I'm writing it down. They compared it to the Godfather trilogy. Nice. 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. Andy Garcia liked though. Yeah, I know it's just it's weird to see him in that. Yeah. Agreed. What's another one? 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 going to start someone out. All right. As far as the West goes, Black Rain, that was a good Yakuza movie. Okay. I was trying to think of one. My first thought like an idiot was Big Trouble in Little China and then I thought,

wait a minute, what's wrong with this picture? But and I couldn't think of any Yakuza, Black Rain, of course. Yeah. That's the only one I can think of. Yeah. Unless if you suspect as I do that Mr. Nakatomi was involved in the Yakuza and 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 Rain. I just remember lots of motorcycles. Yeah. That was pretty much it and raining. It was raining. Black. So I guess you already mentioned Kazu Teoka. I know it's hard, isn't it? It is. He's not even my favorite though and neither is Fumiko. Well, who is then? Yoshio Kodama. Okay. 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. Yes. He was a war criminal during World War II. He was dealing with China and was imprisoned. And then after the war, 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. No. And he had made most of his connections in prison, right? Yeah. But I think also he had a pretty extensive smuggling network to basically get materials from China to Japan to sell them at grossly inflated prices. And if you haven't a smuggling network, you have pretty much by proxy

an espionage network. So this guy had like his own little intelligence military going under his wing. Yeah. And like Al Capone, he was finally brought up on like financial charges, but died, I think, right before he could stand trial. Right. But before he died, he had a lot of power and a lot of political influence. And he used to use a right wing nationalist. And apparently the Yakuza goes through bouts or periods of certain clans are known to be very nationalistic, right? Which is kind of weird because it flies in the face of like Korean membership. But I wonder if some clans like don't have Korean members, the nationalist ones. Oh, yeah, I imagine so. It is weird. So Japan these days, they say their tolerance is pretty low.

And in 1992, they passed what remember we talked about the Ricoh law in the, I guess it was the mafia podcast. And basically it beefed up a lot of the penalties for crimes conducted as Yakuza. Yeah. You know, more jail time, that kind of thing. Well, one of the hallmarks of the Ricoh act is the higher ups can be held accountable for the crimes coming out of the guys further down the ladder. And apparently Japan has that similar clause or statute. So I guess that various Oya bond would be responsible for whatever the underlings did for whatever the Koban did. Yes, very nice. But apparently that act worked in a way and didn't work in a way because 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, cause some turf wars or bloodshed. And 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. Yeah. And apparently it's had very little effect on their income because I think like 2004, the Yakuza as a whole made an estimated like $13 billion in revenue according to Japan times. It's a lot of yen. It's a, it's a, let's see. I think it's a trillion and a half yen. Well, that's more than a fistful. Very nice little Clint Eastwood reference. That was a Jerry Zucker fistful of yen from Kentucky pride movie. Oh, that's right. Well, which was a Clint Eastwood Eastwood reference. Right. Okay. Clint Eastwood in his invisible Obamacare. What is that, man?

Yeah. I guess there's really not a lot you can say other than politics is getting pretty surreal here in the US. Yeah. It's performance art. It is. And I guess we can wrap up with the tattoos that they wear. Very interesting stuff, man. Have you seen this? I have. They're usually full body, like multicolored, sitting here torso, but I saw nakedness like every square inch covered. Really? Did you? Or, you know, they should people from the rear at least. Yeah. We're in the diapers. Well, now these people, they were just totally naked bare bottom. Do you see these guys? Yeah. When I was in Japan with you, me, they have little baths and one of the rules of the baths is like, if you have tattoos, you can't come in. Oh, really? Because they don't want tattoos? I was a little

worried, but I think they figured that since I was obviously American and I just have like one, two maybe. Yeah. They were like, I think you're okay. Two maybe. I look like you don't know how many tattoos you have. But if you have tattoos, they can ask you to leave. Yeah. And the whole reasons they don't want trouble. Sure. It's not like the professional wrestling venues where they 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 Yakuza often get involved in is pro wrestling, pro wrestling. Got anything else on that? Nope. All right. That's Yakuza. Ever since I was a kid, I was wanting to be a Yakuza guy.

The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jackmove

or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey witches, I'm Ilaria Baldwin and I'm Michelle Campbell Mason. And together we host the new iHeart radio podcast, which is anonymous. I am a health and wellness expert. I am an author. I am a mother. I am a wife. Although I feel like putting that in my bio makes me slightly uncomfortable because I have an identity separate from that. He is a husband. Okay. Alec is a husband and he can be Mrs. Ilaria Baldwin. Come to the coven where we don't hold

back and we don't shy away from tough topics. We are going to go really deep into women's relationships with each other. So bring your brooms and join us as we tackle why women are pinned against each other and what we can do to stop this vicious cycle. Consider this your invitation to witches anonymous because which please we're in this together. Listen to witches anonymous on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. 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? Yeah, right there. What does it say? What's the caption? Jet Lee is rogue in the film war, which focuses on Asian organized crime.

Interesting. That is 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 at howstuffworks.com. And since I said handy search bar, you know what time it is. For reals, it's listening to mail. Josh, I'm going to call this 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 these. You know, hey stuff, you should know team. I tagged along with you through four years worth of SYSK, but have not yet caught up to the most current additions. I'm writing you from the dawn of 2011. Is this just an old email then? No, it was new. In the past, I've seen the rise and fall of

Haiku Theater appropriately celebrated when Josh quit smoking, which has been a while now. I don't even remember smoking Josh now. I know it's nice. It's like a whole different thing. Now I'm like, judgmental at other smokers, Josh. As it should be. 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, he's behind the times a bit. Let's spin 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. Yeah. But perhaps the Josh Chuck and Jerry I write to now are quite different. I won't know until I've caught up to the present or future, depending on whether you're reading this from your perspective or mine. We're different. We're aged. Yes, we are. My beard has gotten noticeably grayer. I'm sagging. I needed to write you now instead of waiting until I've caught up though, because I just 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. It's with us over the course of 250 podcasts. It is this kind of relationship that I'm hoping to build with my audience. 250 podcasts. He's way behind. He's got 200 to catch

up on. 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 from the past, present, and future Nate Belpoff. And I tried to plug Nate's vlog, but he didn't mention it. So, Nate, first rule of thumb is to pass along the name of your vlog when writing people that can get the name of it. This isn't Fight Club. I didn't even try to look it up, and I couldn't find it. So, Nate, if you want to write in, we'll post it on Facebook. Yes, and we'll even tweet it.

Agreed. Okay, and speaking of Facebook and Twitter, you can join us on Facebook at facebook.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. Yeah. 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 stuffpodcastatdiscovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff, stuff that'll piss you off. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being

robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.