Posted on: Monday, March 28, 2005

ABOUT MEN

By Michael Tsai
Advertiser Staff Writer

I give. There's just no denying evolution.

That's been clear enough watching my nieces grow up and surpass the Tsai family standards for coolness. (A pretty low bar, to be sure, but let's stay on track here.)

Nineteen-year-old Allie and 15-year-old Jodie both surf and skateboard and can play guitar without looking at their fingers. It's been years since I could guard either one of them on the basketball court. If they had been in high school a generation earlier, they would have had more cool-guy cred than any guy I knew.

Cool. You go, nieces! Three cheers for Title IX!

But I wasn't quite prepared for their 11-year-old brother Devon to join the parade so quickly.

It isn't all those skateboard tricks he can do — stuff I can't even imagine without tripping over myself. Or Lincoln City, the not-so-mini metropolis he's constructed out in his room using models of world capitals. Or the fact that he can whup me at "NBA Live" with both eyes closed and nine fingers up his nose. All good, standard boy stuff.

It's Dev the Suddenly Successful Entrepreneur that freaks me out.

After figuring out that Kobe Bryant makes $32,000 a day for playing basketball — and after watching a few too many episodes of "MTV Cribs" and "Pimp My Ride" — Mini-Tsai has apparently decided to get a jump on the whole fortune-making thing.

And unlike my own childhood enterprises (The Kaimuki Star-Tribune had an audited subscriber base of exactly three), Devon's bright idea — duct-tape wallets! — has actually panned out.

Duct-tape wallets? Brilliant!

Negligible overhead meets high-yield profit. Paper. Duct tape. Badda-bling-bling: wallet!

Three bucks, please.

Truth is, my nephew has always had an entrepreneurial streak. He's sold skateboarding lessons to friends. He recently started his own skateboard merchandise company, complete with hand-drawn logo. He once sold a comedy tape (of himself) to his dad.

But this duct-tape wallet thing is lightning in a bottle.

Crafted from that most beloved of manly materials, Devon's duct-tape wallets are defiantly nondescript, surprisingly durable (repairable, at least) and, well, cheap.

The basic model with money sleeve and credit card pocket sells for $3. The deluxe model, with velcro close, is a buck more. Multiply the average by the 35 people already on the sales ledger and Boy Wonder is making some serious jack for an 11-year-old.

He's no Kobe Bryant yet — thank goodness — but it's fun to think about what Devon will be capable of by the time he gets a driver's license and facial hair.

Hey, Dev. Uncle Mike could use a duct-tape Barcalounger.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2461.