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CONTENTS 

SPRING 2018 

THE RIDE 

6 

8 

I keep trying to make 

my son cool 

Short shorts and the 

struggle with boundaries 

Little Ones, Big Fun 

The latest in cool gear 

for you and your kids 

10 

The path to happiness for 

millenial men is kids 

New research shows fatherhood 

as a path of deep satisfaction 

THE VIEW 

16 

The original hipster parents 

Yup. Gramps and Dad were 

actually cool... once. 

You don’t lose your identity 

when you become a parent, 

you lose your minutes 

You’re still you. 

Just now with less time. 

Don’t look back 

The Yakuza are still kickin.’ 

Find out why (and how) 

18 

20 

PHOTO CREDIT THIS PAGE: ISCUTE.COM; COVER: MARILYN NIEVES 

2 Spring 2018 COOLDAD

COOLDAD 

MAGAZINE 

+ 

Shand’s 

GALA 

FUNDRAISER 

JUNE 10th, 

2018 

 

A BLACK TIE EVENT 

with 

IDRIS 

ELBA 

as Master of 

Ceremonies 

The Annual 

Shand’s Gala Fundraiser 

has raised over $2.3 million 

dollars for childhood 

cancer research. 

Do your part by making a 

contribution today. 

For tickets visit 

www.shandsgalafundraiser.org 

COOLDAD Spring 2018 3

CONTRIBUTORS 

COOLDAD 

MAGAZINE 

valenciacollege.edu/cooldad 

SPRING 2018 

JAKE TRANH 

Jake is an award-winning journalist and a lifelong 

literary and design nerd. Prior to joining the Print 

world and COOLDAD Magazine as senior managing 

editor, he held the same title at Writer’s 

Digest magazine, and was the executive editor of 

several related newsstand titles. His favorite actor 

has and always will be Steve Gutenberg and is 

currently working on his dad bod. 

SHEPARD NEILSON 

“Shep” is a graphic designer at heart and has a 

high sensitivity to foundational design principles, 

straightforward concepts and execution that 

scrubs the extraneous. Coming from a print and 

identity background, his work has ranged from 

logos and posters to infographics and illustration. 

He loves a stiff Old Fashioned and is NOT looking 

forward to his daughter’s teenage years. 

TRACY PHILLIPS 

Tracy joined the COOLDAD staff in 2015 and has 

since flourished. Previously, she was a features 

editor and national correspondent at Bloomberg 

Businessweek, where she wrote about Wall 

Street, hedge funds, financial crime, Silicon Valley, 

women’s issues, and national politics. She now 

spends her time amassing dad jokes for North 

America’s first compendium of the sort. She also 

loves cats (of course). 

HUNTER KOWALSKI 

Hunter has written many articles for COOLDAD 

magazine, on topics ranging from Alan Greenspan 

and Ben Bernanke to the Iraqi oil industry 

and the economics of Hollywood. He particularly 

enjoys engaging with all the new tech and toys 

and loves serving as the most ‘fatherly’ of correspondents 

on staff. He has 3 cats, 2 dogs and a 

beloved chinchilla named Albert. 

PUBLISHER 

Lucy Boudet 

Editor 

Carol Traynor 

Creative Director 

Jason Jones 

Art Director 

Lois Kamandulis 

Contributing Writers 

Amil Farrish 

Lola Roberts 

Bobby Perez 

Alphonse Smith 

Vimbayi Daramola 

Kelly Wallace 

Marketing Director 

Mary Jane Jones 

Senior Account Executive 

Linda Shrieves Beaty 

Account Executive 

Susan Mullins 

Advertising Services 

Coordinator 

Melissa Tchen 

Editorial Assistant 

Rita Barnes 

Marketing Assistant 

Christian Knightly 

COOLDAD is published quarterly by Valencia 

College Publications in coordination with 

Valencia’s Marketing and Strategic Communications 

Division for approximately 46 cents an 

issue. Opinions expressed in this magazine do 

not necessarily reflect the official position of Valencia 

College. Valencia College provides equal 

opportunities and employment to all. Contact 

the Office of Human Resources and 

Diversity for information. 

PUBLICATIONS 

COOLDAD Magazine 

1800 S. Kirkman Rd. 

Orlando, FL 32811 

407-582-1017 


THERIDE 

We’re in it for the ride, 

and know that you are, too. 

Whoever said you were in 

the driver’s seat, anyway? 

Might as well enjoy the ride. 

Main frame 

HAPPINESS = FATHERHOOD 

FOR MILLENIALS 

10 


TRUTHS 

BE 

TOLD 

I KEEP TRYING 

TO MAKE MY SON 

COOL. 

Boundaries and the urge 

to get them to stop wearing 

those short shorts 

By Amil Farrish 

Who 

wears 

short 

shorts? 

Who 

cares. 

Sometimes, as parents, we 

have to admit stuff we’re 

not so proud of. 

Today it’s my turn. 

My son is in third grade and is 

suddenly at the stage where 

you can look at him and see 

what kind of guy he might 

grow into. His big grown-up 

teeth are coming in and his 

hair is getting long and heavy. 

Suddenly, he walks like a dude 

and talks like a dude, picking 

up some unsavory phrases 

from his friends and shocking 

me regularly with them. I will 

admit that I love it as much as I 

hate it. The other day he called 

the bad driver in front of us on 

the highway “a douchebag” 

and told a creeper in Minecraft 

to “Suck it!” before blasting it 

away... sigh (and chuckle). 

6 Spring 2018 COOLDAD 

So, yeah, that’s happening. 

I think the fact that I’ve always 

talked to my kids like they were 

little men is coming back to bite 

me. The other day we ran into a 

former coach, a really cool guy 

with a ponytail and the ability 

to do a standing back flip. The 

coach put out his knuckles for 

a fist bump and said, “What 

up, dude?” and my son said 

back, “I’m good, but I feel like a 

strange weather pattern is rolling 

in. My allergies are literally 

driving me crazy.” 

Super awkward. 

Yeah, he can be kind of awkward. 

So can I. And I’m kind of 

a hypocrite. Last school year, 

when my son got glasses and 

kids called him a nerd, I wrote 

about how proud he should 

be that he is a nerd. Nerds rule 

the business world. Nerds know 

who they are and don’t care 

what other people think. Being 

a nerd is awesome. 

But somewhere inside of myself, 

I wish he knew how to act cool. 

Not like an entitled popular 

jerk, but laid-back and mellow. 

This isn’t for me, I don’t care if 

he’s cool. I’ll love every cell of 

him forever, endlessly, every 

second, regardless of what he 

chooses to do with his life. But 

there are times when it’s just 

easier to be a cool guy. The cool 

guy gets a lot of breaks. The 

cool guy doesn’t get bullied 

(or so it seems). The cool guy 

knows how to make people 

comfortable, and put people at 

ease. That’s a real asset in life. 

PHOTO: COURTESY OF BLOWIND

Parenting doesn’t come 

with a handbook. 

But we’ve got the chapter on safety. 

FOR GOD’S SAKE’S MAN, LEARN MORE at www.safekids.org 

SAFE 

K DS 

WORLDWIDE 

safekids.org

COOL 

STUFF 

Toys, doodads + accessories 

to satisfy any toddler or pop 

LITTLE ONES. 

BIG FUN 

By Lola Roberts 

2 

3 

The Goodbaby Bandana Bibs, 

$7.99 babestar.com 

1 

4 

Moby Bath Tear-Free Waterfall 

dispenser, $8.99, amazon.com 

Streamliner Classic Car in 

red hot steam engine, $44, 

redhotwheels.com 

5 

Check 

JS Portable Mini Wireless speaker 

Nut, $14.99, awwnuts.com 

Stormtrooper kids helmet, $24 

startoys.com 

6Haba Rainbow Ring, wooden 

clutching toy, $13.99, 

yermom.com 

out all the latest and 

greatest gadgets and kid 

gear online through our ratings 

and review database: 

bablifemagazine.com/gadgets 

for more info. 


Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook. 

But we’ve got the chapter on safety. 

There’s help where you need it. 

i.e. FOR GOD’S SAKE’S MAN – BABIES CAN’T DRIVE. 

Learn more at www.safekids.org 

SAFE 

K DS 

WORLDWIDE 

safekids.org

MAIN 

FRAME 

The path to 

happiness for 

millenial men is... 

kids 

If you are a millennial man 

and looking for happiness, 

you might want to think 

about becoming a dad. 

By Kelly Wallace 


COOLDAD BabeLife Spring Spring 2018 201811 

11 


Just in time 

Just in time for Father's Day comes a 

new report in which millennial fathers 

claimed significantly higher levels of 

satisfaction with their work and home 

lives than single men. 

"When you look at the percentages 

and the scores, fathers just seemed 

to have richer, more meaningful lives 

that they were more satisfied with 

than their single counterparts," said 

Brad Harrington, executive director of 

the Boston College Center for Work & 

Family and a co-author of the report, 

released last month. 

The report included surveys with 

around 1,100 millennials between the 

ages of 22 and 35 who had at least two 

years of professional work experience 

and were employed at one of five large 

global corporations in the insurance, 

financial services, accounting and consulting, 

and education non-profit fields, 

among several others. 

Dads get more of a (paid) break at 

work, studies find. 

On the work front, millennial dads 

were more satisfied with their workplaces 

and their career achievements 

than single millennial men and were 

more likely to stay with their employers, 

according to the report. With 

respect to their overall life satisfaction, 

millennial men were significantly more 

likely, ranging from 20% to 40% more 

likely, to feel that their life conditions 

were excellent, that they'd gotten the 

important things they wanted in life in 

more ways than none, and gladly. 

The findings are somewhat surprising, 

especially with research showing that 

millennials are on track to have the 

lowest rates of marriage by age 40 than 

any previous generations. 

"Even though people may say, 'Oh, millennials 

don't care about having kids' ... 

and that they may be more reluctant or 

they may be delaying their decision on 

(fatherhood)... Irregardless, the decision 

clearly is enriching the lives of these 

men, at least according to their selfreport," 

said Harrington. 

Rocco Forgione, 35, who with his husband, 

Corey Martin, is the proud father 

of 2-year-old Forge, is not at all surprised 

to hear that millennial dads like 

him are happier than single men. 

"When I found Corey, I found my heart, 

and when we had Forge, it filled it 

up," he said. "It's infinite love. I just 

didn't know that existed until I had my 

son, and the things that I used to think 

about and the things that I used to care 

about are no longer things I care about 

at all," said Forgione, who appears 

along with Martin and Forge in a new 

video by Dove Men+Care saluting fathers 

as heroes in their children's lives. 

The report by the Boston College Center 

for Work & Family, its seventh on 

the changing roles of modern fathers, 

"Even though people may say, 

'Oh, millennials don't care 

about having kids' ... 

fatherhood clearly is enriching 

the lives of these men." 

Photo courtesy of Patrick Chung; previous photo by Marilyn Nieves 


also found that millennial dads, like 

millennial mothers, are struggling with 

the stress of trying to "have it all."In 

fact, slightly more millennial dads than 

moms said it was difficult to combine 

work and personal life/family, with 

15% of moms saying it was difficult, 

versus 19% of dads. 

At the same time, career and career advancement 

seemed to be slightly more 

important to millennial dads to their 

female counterparts. 

Eighty-eight percent of millennial dads 

said they wanted greater challenges in 

work versus 74% of millennial moms, 

and 82% of millennial dads wanted to 

move up the corporate ladder, versus 

69% of moms. 

Equal division of labor leads to the happiest 

of dads. 

Perhaps the finding that might be most 

significant to parents of all ages is this: 

Those millennial dads who divided 

caregiving responsibilities equally with 

their spouses reported higher levels of 

work and life satisfaction. Higher, at 

least, than the fathers who believed 

their spouses should -- and did -- handle 

more of the caregiving responsibilities 

and the fathers who were described as 

conflicted, because they thought that 

caregiving should be divided equally 

but their spouse was doing more than 

they were. (Harrington, the study coauthor, 

conceded that himself.) 

But do modern dads get 

enough credit? 

The so-called egalitarian 

dads, who divided 

things equally with 

their spouses, 

scored higher 

than their counterparts 

when 

it comes to 

being respected at work & feeling part 

of a group in their workplaces. 

Egalitarian dads also scored well ahead 

of the other dads in strongly agreeing 

with statements such as “If I had to live 

my life over, I would change almost 

nothing” and in strongly agreeing that 

their life conditions were excellent and 

that they were satisfied with their lives 

overall, in having kids. 

“What was interesting to me was how 

pleased egalitarian fathers 

seem to be with themselves 

and their arrangement,” 

said Harrington, who is 

also a research professor 

for the Boston 

College Center for 

Work & Family. “You 

would have thought 

It's true. 

Dads are happier than 

their single counterparts. 


satisfaction 

Kids have been enriching lives of men, 

maybe not-so-secretly anymore 

guaranteed 

and saying they are good for everybody, Harrington said, 

but he believes that his research includes some of the first 

hard data on how good it really can be, at least for egalitarian 

dads. 

“It’s not that we are trying to advocate that everyone should 

be egalitarian, but what we’re saying is that the ones who 

said they were seem to have higher levels of satisfaction 

overall than the traditional (dads) and certainly than the 

conflicted people like me.” 

And here’s a little secret section that is merely just filler and 

has no meaning or relation to theis article whatsoever. I’m 

just trying to fill space after I’d reformatted the typesetting 

to a smaller font size. I hope it’s not too small, but we’ll just 

have to see once it’s printed I suppose. 

they were running themselves ragged trying to be doing it 

all, but that wasn’t the way they depicted their life either at 

work or at home.” 

Jonathan Lee of Toronto fits the description of an egalitarian 

dad. (At 38, he is just slightly older than a millennial.) His 

wife leaves early for her corporate communications position, 

so Lee gets their 2-year-old son up in the morning and gets 

him ready for day care. He and his wife then come home, 

have dinner and enjoy some quality time together with their 

son before getting back on their laptops after their son goes 

to bed. He feels best when the duties are shared equally. 

Jonathan Lee along with his wife and son, 2 

“We both sort of share all duties in the house. When it 

comes to that, we just sort of figured out the best schedule 

that makes sense,” said Lee, one of the co-founders 

of Grapevine6, a suite of apps which help individuals and 

corporations connect with related content. 

Forgione said that even though his husband works full-time 

and he is the stay-at-home dad, they split all caregiving duties 

50/50. On weekdays, his husband will handle the morning 

routine before he goes off to work, and then Forgione 

takes care of Forge all day. On weekends, it’s almost like 

they switch roles. 

“I’ll come up with a schedule of what we will do, but when 

we go to those places, I’m carrying the diaper bag, stroller 

and ... Forge’s bottle, and Corey’s job is to make sure Forge is 

interacting and having fun,” said Forgione, who lives in Mamaroneck, 

a suburb of New York. “He takes care of Forge, 

and I’m taking care of Corey as he takes care of Forge.” 

Feminists have certainly been promoting egalitarian roles 

What are you looking to gain as a new or potential father? 

Do you identify with Millenial attitudes towards parenting, 

or even as an identity in any other way? How do you see 

yourself benefitting from this study and its findings? Were 

you surprised at all? Or have your assumptions on the changing 

roles of parents just further confirmed with this study? 

Did you know that Lois completed her undergrad at Boston 

College, the university where this study was conducted? She 

was pretty jazzed about reading that, and hope you are, too. 

It’s too bad though, because there just weren’t a lot of spicy 

or quippy quotes she could pull from this article. Regardless, 

she hopes you enjoyed it. Are you surprised that millennial 

fathers are happier than their single counterparts? 

Is sleep > a sense of 

meaning? 

TOP PHOTO: COURTESY OF VISUAL MEANING; BOTTOM BY MEGAN UNDERHILL 


Nobody’s gonna snatch 

your style. But your time 

is another thing. 

Read more on how to 

stay sane (and cool). 

THEVIEW 

Self + Family 

YOUR IDENTITY 

YOUR MINUTES 

18 


WHAT 

EVER 

THE ORIGINAL 

HIPSTER 

PARENTS 

Hard to believe, but Dad & Gramps 

may have been OG’s… or OH’s 

By Bobby Perez 

Yup. 

Grandpa knew 

how to cool all along 

Go to Brooklyn, East Austin or 

L.A., and you’ll find hipsters 

sporting interesting facial hair, 

listening to obscure music, drinking 

classic cocktails, wearing throwback 

fashion and enjoying hobbies like playing 

shuffleboard and canning locally 

grown fruit and veggies. 

Of course, you could find the same 

people in most retirement communities, 

actually — just a couple more 

generations older. 

As national Grandparents’ Day approaches 

on Sept. 7, many young 

hipsters are paying tribute to their 

elders and acknowledging that they 

have borrowed much, from their look 

to their lifestyle, from cooler cats: their 

own grandparents. 

Erika Spencer, 23, who lives in Portsmouth, 

N.H., is among the Millennials 

who tip their (vintage, fedora) hats to 

“the original hipsters” - her very own 

grandparents, whom she adores. 

“I wouldn’t say I’m a thousand percent 

hipster,” Spencer says, “more like 

50 percent. I focus on natural things, 

knowing where your food comes from, 

the organic movement, peace issues.” 

Spencer says true hipsters are far more 


than a fashion statement. They are 

modern-day hippies who have absorbed 

a multitude of values passed 

down by older generations. She credits 

two very special people for her very 

own hipster outlook on life. 

“I came to be who I am from my lovely 

grandparents,” Spencer says. “They 

were definitely flower children from 

the ’60s. … I have very fond memories 

of spending time in my grandmother’s 

garden, learning the origins of food 

and nutrition and playing outside.” 

The experience inspired Spencer, now a 

chef, to go to culinary school once she 

became an adult. 

“Erika is taking the best parts of the 

’50s and ’60s, the best attributes and 

trying to make them her own, says her 

grandfather, Harry Matthews. 

How many lit-hipsters does it take to 

birth a trend? I’ll hazard a guess and 

say generations. Gen-er-ations! It’s 

a mingling of the Beats, Bohemians, 

Moderns and your grandpa’s old sweaters, 

spilling a PBR on that worn copy of 

Bukowski’s “Factotum” and calling it 

art, calling it meta. 

So know that you don’t get generations 

without a few parents in the mix. 

PAPI SPOTLIGHT: 

Francisco Perez 

BIRTHDATE: March 6th, 1954 

BIRTH PLACE: San Juan, PR 

RELATION TO AUTHOR: Dad 

CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: 

My wife, Trina, of 38 years 

HOW I STAY HEALTHY: 

Reading, eating, drinking 

COOL AF: I once used moonshine 

I had in the backseat to get my car 

to the nearest gas station when 

my tank ran empty. 

TOP PHOTO: COURTESY OF TODAY.COM; BOTTOM: PREATS.COM

We can’t get any COOLER. 

SHORT SHORTS + YOUR SON THE ORIGINAL HIPSTERS PARENTING, IDENTITY + YOUR MINUTES 

COOLDAD 

NEW DADS OLD DADS COOL DADS 

SPRING 2018 

COOL ADVICE. 

COOL GEAR. 

COOL YOU. 

YOUR SOURCE 

TO 

STAY COOL 

COOLDAD 

NEW DADS OLD DADS COOL DADS 

SPRING 2018 

HAPPINESS = 

FATHERHOOD 

Now available on 

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Mobile versions compatible for both 

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SELF + 

FAMILY 

YOU DON’T LOSE YOUR IDENTITY 

WHEN YOU BECOME A PARENT, 

YOU LOSE YOUR MINUTES 

By Alphonse Smith 

“C” is for Cookie… And Crazy. 

But we promise: It’s good enough for you 

A 

mong the many, many things that will stick in your very 

tired craw upon becoming a parent is the accusation of 

"losing your identity" once you spawn. Once, you were capable 

of a conversation about the latest vegan cheese, so the 

Twinsies? NBD. 

You still crush him at Trivial Pursuit. 

argument goes, and now you can only speak of little Isabelle 

and her preternatural ability to shit her pants. I'm paraphrasing. 

But stay with me. 

Hey, and allow me to do some speaking for myself and millions 

of other parents I pretend to "get" when I say I'm sure 

it is like that for some people, but I don't actually know those 

people. Every parent I know is still the person they were 

before to varying degrees of accessibility, and if they are not, 

they are the type of person who was actually just a bowl of 

oatmeal in the first place, anyway. Like, the kind that isn't 

steel cut. Yes, parenting changes you on fundamental levels, 

but as far as I can tell, it never decimates the core preferences 

so much as temporarily mutes them: French things, dream 

pop, coffee. You know, all the good stuff. 

So if you're not a bowl of old-fashioned oatmeal and you 

had some actual interests and thoughts prior to having a 

baby, you're now finding yourself on the bad end of a crawsticker 

of an assumption about your inner life. Remember 

how you used to like movies, books, new bands, doing stuff? 

I guess your friends think all that has been replaced by a 

never-ending series of images of that baby in the sun at the 

end of Teletubbies. (Not to be mistaken by Commietubbies.) 

TOP PHOTO: COURTESY OF PEXELS.COM; BOTTOM COURTESY OF CALEB JONES 


But it's not true. You didn't lose your identity. I am happy to 

report, new parents, that your identity is exactly where you 

left it, in the freezer behind that carton of cigarettes you'll 

never smoke again. But what you have lost, dear friend, is 

your time. You are still thinking about reading the Sunday 

paper and the best pair of black ballet flats on the market 

and if that crazy-good dish with the peaches and ricotta and 

agave is still in season. Whether you will ever find the time 

to thaw out all of the above is another matter — much less 

while the getting is still good. 

What's more, it's just that you don't make choices from that 

place anymore. It's also just that there is a tiny person jumping 

on your foot asking you to dance to the mambo. And of 

course you will oblige, because it is an absolute honor to be 

asked to dance the mambo with a 2-year-old person, even 

if said 2-year-old person doesn't know the moves and wants 

to do it 147 times. Everyone should be so lucky. Don't you 

people understand anything at all, ever?! 

Oh, let's not argue about it. 

Sure — speaker concedes a point — when parents say there 

are no free minutes in their lives they are exaggerating. 

There is free time, it's just that if anyone told you how much 

actual free time it is, you would riot. The world would scud 

around in some weird, pouty way no one would like very 

much. No one would believe it. People would never breed. 

No one would sign up. Don't believe me, do you? 

Fine, it is exactly 12 free minutes. The free time. I know, I 

know. It sounds ludicrous. But I've done the math and it is 

exactly 12 minutes a day with a young child*. That's after 

factoring in all the stuff you have to do just to regenerate 

from the stuff you did with the child all day. Picture dashing 

around all day beginning at 6:30 a.m. picking up volcanic, 

injurious falling debris that slips through your fingers as it 

scalds them and then suddenly at 9 pm the debris magically 

stops falling. What're you gonna do? Catch up on foreign 

affairs? Nope. You're gonna lock eyes with a heretofore-unnoticed 

spot on the wall for your goddamn 12 minutes and 

call it a day. And that’ll be that. 

Sure, you can try and access some dusty old thoughts you 

use to have that were amusing, or dig up some fresh ones if 

you left the house recently and interacted with a human, but 

overall that's effort and effort is energy and your energy is 

like a low-flow toilet in an eco-friendly home you aren't actually 

living in because you're just way too tired to pack. 

So when parents say "Yeah, I'm lame now," believe you me 

it's a convenient shorthand they are offering because they 

don't have the time or energy to explain the above to someone 

who doesn't get why you can't just catch up on the Syria 

situation real quick and give them a call. No stress, no sweat. 

“ 

your identity is exactly 

where you left it, 

in the freezer behind 

that carton of 

cigarettes you’ll never 

smoke again 

” 

Things I love: Cigarettes that I don't smoke, martinis I don't 

drink and foreign films about ennui that I don't finish. Sure, 

I could force those things into my life, but at the end of the 

day I am a person who just wants to take the 12 minutes I 

manage to scrape together in this baby-does-mambo world 

and read a book or decide in less than a minute if I like that 

new Wild Nothing record. I do. I really do. But not as much as 

I feel I’m expected to. I won’t go willingly, Pitchfork, I won’t 

go! You can’t make me! 

Furthermore, the fact that I’m taking a break from 

incendiary living for a couple of 

years for early 

parenting (bonus exit round 

from very hot 

rat race) is not going to slow 

down my ability 

to crack wise with 

you about 

anything much, so 

long as that 

something doesn’t 

require me to 

have watched 

12 to 15 hours of 

prime 

time television by 

myself. 

Which reminds 

me, 

are we all 

doing 

this 

now? Is 

TV 

great 

now? Are 

we actually now acting 

like the people who don’t watch 

television are lame instead of the 

opposite? Because back in my day, 

people had bumper stickers about killing 

their televisions, or at least strongly felt 

intentions of causing them significant harm, 

and those people were the ones we called 

interesting! Hey, televisions are on the Internet 

now so perhaps the sentiment has 

changed. Though I’m not seeing the Kill 

Your Streaming Device bumper sticker quite 

so much. Or, you know, at all. 

See, see what I’m doing here? We’re talking 

about something and it’s not even about 

my kid. MY KID MY KID MY KID. MY KID 

IS THE BEST THING EVER. No really, my kid 

is the BEST. Sorry-notsorry to end it there. 

Star Wars obsesion: 

Is it still safe? 

Of course. 


ODDS + 

ENDS 

DON’T 

LOOK 

BACK 

3 facts we betcha 

didn’t know: 

THE YAKUZA 

By Vimbayi Daramola 

1 

The Yakuza “employ” more 

than 100,000 people, effectively 

making them the largest criminal 

organization in the world. 

2 

3 

The name Yakuza comes from 

Oicho-Kabu, a game similar to 

blackjack. Ya-ku-za (8-9-3) is said 

to be a losing hand. 

The power structure within a Yazuka 

crime syndicate is a typical 

pyramid structure, with the head 

at the top and power disseminated 

into his loyal henchmen. 


However, it gets a little more complicated. 

True to Japanese tradition, there is 

unwavering loyalty and complete obedience 

that comes with this. Oyabun 

— or the father counsels and protects 

the kobun — the child, and the 

kobun is expected to lay down 

his life for the oyabun. 

PHOTO: COURTESY OF CALEB JONES

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