0:00 and that's where I met Bart and I was you met you met Bart at Community College what's the moment you met Bart yeah that's seems kind of pivotal yeah I don't remember actually welcome back to JK news out the closet we got Joe back today Joe's talking about going to college for his gang his G for the FAFSA for the FAFSA it was bu a pound of weed why did it I left yeah I left the gang I was on my path I I I don't in my mind I wasn't thinking like I'm going to be a good boy like I didn't I didn't know what the that was but I remember going to East LA College and then the goal was get financial aid cuz I need to I
0:51 need to jump start my weed business with my buddies right so we got the financial aid we were able to buy a pound of weed got my classes and for some reason I I somehow got it in my head just like how I this homework that I had to keep straight A that was a good that's a good more money for the financial no cuz I thought I had to pay it back if I don't get straight A's I thought that was the stipulation but it was a c average no research you did like very little research cuz there were people that talked about like oh got to pay back my financial aid and all this stuff and also I didn't know the difference between a loan and a grant what I appli for free money it was I didn't know give it to you you applied for weed yeah but if if it was a loan I also would have been M cuz I I didn't know
1:42 that you had to pay it back so I applied for all these uh Cal grants FASA all these things and I walked into the financial aid office dude like so a lot of people are against government Aid and like all these things right but I was one of the people that actually benefited even though I bought it for weed that I was I think that's why people are against government aid but oh true but there's the but there's a you know there's a there's a light at the end of this got you in the door for school it got me in the door and and yeah I think in most cases guys in my shoes wouldn't have turned out this way and they would just probably flunk right but yeah like I said I thought I had to be a a student and I've only had one year of high school in my life like Dam bro yeah I ditched every day I got you
2:33 know um I I got the GD and then the way I got it is I signed myself out of high school when I was 17 I went to adult school and then the teacher there was like what are you doing here and I'm like I don't know I got to get my degree and he goes no you're wasting your time I'll pay for your GED I'll teach you how to do it just take the test and then go to college so I was like okay so I just follow his directions and how much was the GD do you remember I don't remember yeah but I remember the test being I thought it was really hard cuz also uh I thought College University I thought stuff like that was for geniuses you know you see pictures of Albert Einstein in your high school you know and then you go this is a university person you don't think normal people do that you think normal people go work at the
3:23 grocery store right or Foot Locker or something so like there's a whole different world that I don't know about and then I'm in I'm I'm in this whole system and my Cambodian buddy he's like walking me through this process man tang Tac all of these guys like I haven't seen them in a long time but they're one of the biggest influences of who got me into the door of like like my friends told me about financial aid they walked me through financial aid they brought me to The Bungalow walked me through the office like I was like bro like that was so cool helped me sign up for classes told me I need to go to a counselor to like strategize what I'm going to do by the way likely 164 bucks your teacher really yep during 2000 for GD yeah I just
4:14 looked up damn that's a lot of money yeah he and that's a teacher paying for just cover cover covered it and I'm sure he's not making that m a bill for him you know yeah but maybe he just saw something or I don't know like or maybe he does it for everybody maybe he was trying to have sex with you dude that one that's the one like hey all I want you to do in your life suck me off no no no be kind to hookers and I did I I fulfilled his desire I will your best Padawan Yes master don't beat him up except for with your tongue yeah s yeah so um oh yeah so I was this is the first time in my life were like I think um I was able to pay attention in
5:04 class cuz Community College is so different from grade school the professors cuss they've been through some ████ their storytelling is good they give a ████ about like professors that work in lowincome community colleges they care dude actually do care and they know how to like speak to people that's ████ up all their lives and you're in this community college is weird too you have like a 50-year-old man that could barely speak English sitting next to you yeah you have like child Geniuses that are like doing extra class you know you have a weird classroom you have it's like a jury yeah you have like convicts that are like tear drop tattoos that are like I'm trying to ████ better myself and ████ you know like it is a weird ████ col distract me and I'm here like doing
5:56 arithmetic yeah with a cholo next to me and it's like it is the most weirdest experience but it's the first time in my life where I loved started to love learning MH and I'm like ████ out here I never read a book in my life and I'm reading textbooks and it took me like 3 hours to read the first paragraph cuz of my ad I can't read I don't I don't know what the ████ these words are I needed to read everything with a dictionary next to it cuz I was like what is this word differential what the ████ is different about it like what's different about differential that's confusing to look at the dictionary for a math word cuz uh I started off with uh so you know you do your placement test and then the first thing that you get into they try to see where you're at yeah cuz you got to start the classes and then now I
6:48 started with English 101 and then um I started with arithmetic and math what where would that be in the in the list of that's elementary school that's like the very first plus minus division that's arithmetic yeah that's arithmetic so coming here from Virginia I was like 14 years ahead exactly he caught up though he caught up I was dividing reciprocals and I was taking um we're equal though like different classes to kind of like I didn't know what the ████ I wanted to do but it was just I had to take classes cuz I needed my weed business and around this time is like um I reconnected with some of my high school friends and that's where I met Bart and I was met you met Bart at Community College what's the moment you met Bart yeah that's seems kind of pivotal yeah I don't remember actually
7:38 remember the moment so the moment I met him um I was meeting up with my best friend the other guy who has our long lost brother at the time and then any day brother you got a chair here brother hey what's the name dude we need to get him in here any day I remember uh meeting you either at outside of like either where you buy ████ SC anons or books or something cuz he told me to meet me there cuz I think we going to grab food or something and I remember meeting there and he goes oh this is my friend Joe he went to keple too which is the high school he went to but I never saw him he never saw me and then so I remember meeting him the first day and I remember I think you had your blue Dodgers hat on and then uh I remember that moment and it was just very brief and then the next time I think was at shum which is the MMA gym that we yeah I mean at that time I think I was explor
8:29 like I was like okay maybe I'll do music it's always I've always been creative but like that's when I started building making beats I had a rap crew all this stuff this ████ honestly and I love you it cracks me the ████ up about you it honestly makes so much more sense it does like it like all the whole timeline of how you're explaining everything I'm like dude I think I get Joe even more yeah yeah I get he just wanted to do art and music fell keep ████ them up people ████ them up nonstop even nuns or whatever ever and then he falls in what the it's amazing SDA nuns are crazy he falls into doing like you know he's like I'm trying to just get my weed visit going I have to go to school for it naturally for weed we're like when did you meet Bart he's like honestly I don't remember Bart's like you were wearing a blue hat B wear LA Dodgers hat I don't remember I remember him because
9:20 my best friend introduced so you know like when you're tight with someone if they introduce someone they're like oh this guy means something oh and also his best friend at the time introduced me to multiple people at once yeah so for you like so it was like I'm meeting him I me met I met the ████ City who's this buff guy me and greet how did you know his best friend we were friends in high school oh so when I was at East LA College we walk past each other he goes Joe and then I was like hey and then um he's a very inviting guy so like he's an extrovert yeah and you guys had tattoos at the time already not yet no cuz he was in college after after the military yeah yeah yeah did you show Joe hey check it out he's a friend crazy thing Joe would have never known little both of us we both got look
10:10 at how black this is It's BR you're Japanese this is everyone I fear right but I think you know he was trying to recruit people for his like um the MMA gym oh that guy went there too so he's like Hey Joe you like martial arts and stuff I was like hell yeah and then so I joined and then that's where I remember cuz when you know for some reason me and Bart would be gooping around like and and we be getting in trouble so everyone's serious they're trying to be like Macho dudes and we're over here doing ha while we're ████ each other up right and I love that I love that environment and I love these guys because they were like goofballs but here's an alternative of like okay we're soldiers we're Marin but we're we're not afraid to like get down and and and whatever yeah and I was like hey maybe this is like my next group of friends
11:02 that I can kind of hang with and it's like I it's away from all the dark ████ you know yeah and I remember my cop buddy uh that you've seen here he also trained there too right right he wasn't a cop at the time but yeah he was he was just a part of the group and I think he was like a lifeguard or something like that but um yeah it was just it was just nice like okay I can be around dudes that are if ████ hits the fan you know I feel like protected yeah cuz everyone was down in the group and you guys fought with me with when when ████ went down actually after after we we had we got into fight at bars we had parking lot fights you guys were always there o walk yeah yeah yeah but um it was a really cool time because that's when I started easing up from being such a tough ████ and like they had a
11:53 big influence because they were such goofy dudes and I was like okay and also in the past when you go to martial art places everyone's such a ████ you know yes Sensei hya and then they're so ████ like why you're so tough bunch of ass kissers they're so w by the way uh so Ryan posted this thing at lunch he has Joe in B their shirt list I'm like whatever he's probably doing like a profile for grinder or something and then you posted this thing of like the them from 15 years ago and it's like pretty crazy it's going it's doing really well right now but but like what looking at you you is the most funniest ████ thing because you just look like the toughest ████ like I would have crossed every street to get away for real all the pictures of you with your head shaved I'm like this guy has murdered people I can I can vouch for that fully cuz like I told you guys like I only
12:44 knew of him out of fear in high school which is so insane in high school he was be afraid of Joe is so insane yeah all I mean by that is that he's just the nicest person lovest loving lovingest person yeah but like then I I also know that you know I've never seen a person who could throw an office chair before the weight is so strange how could you possibly throw one with Prof it's on TW but he apparently can so I I I do contribute like my window into being more of like a happy go-lucky guy because of this group like B and his friends were always ████ around and and they're so happy and they kind of showed me an alternative of like hey there's another way we can navigate this
13:34 whole masculinity thing like back then you weren't thinking about manhood like that but you know you need to see examples of like oh like you can be you can hold it down and not be afraid of uh bad guys or or threats but at the same time like why you got to have this whole story of Mr Rambo like why can't you just be a goofy funloving guy and you turn it on when you need to turn it on what's crazy is if I hadn't spent the fifth year in high school I wouldn't be friends with him either really so it was like a perfect like connection cuz the the my best friend was actually technically like me and Joe were class of 02 he was class of 03 oh and then so and so are his other friends and then so it wasn't because it was until I spent my fifth year that I became friends with him and I found out
14:24 we had other mutual friends that were also class of o2 so our our group was kind of mixed it was like I think I should have been 02 or 01 I'm older than him yeah yeah I think we were 02 oh yeah and he was 03 and then so our that group was people that are like plus minus one or two years yeah and so had I not met him then he would have never have introduced me to Joe either damn yeah and during this time I was exploring just like life from music the creativity and I still had um a lot of the PTSD like I remember we both did like Bart was kind of dabbling in that ████ too but I think he was earlier than me to integrate into society cuz the military and all that but I remember we would go cuz that stuff was still active here in the sgv we would go eat late at night and we're just like oh ████ like hit us
15:15 we're like paranoid like it wasn't a place where you can just you had your life was threatened to just go eat at a cafe at night cuz there was always a stabbing or a shooting if you ate at a restaurant every time the door opened you heard it open you'd have to see who it is so as you're eating you're always like okay cool you guys do back to Door ████ or back away from everywhere it's like it's just it's just so natural because like at any minute it could be someone just sticks a gun in and just starts spraying or another click can come in or something that happened 2 years ago oh you beat up my little brother I'm here to ████ you up it's like it could be anything what was like considered a protected territory was there was there there's no territory but Sal bar oh V's hair salon yeah but also that's true even if we were no longer involved or anything right there was
16:05 just residual violence like I remember going out to eat with my friends and you know some guys came and they thought this group was another group and then they would just shoot them all up and there there were always things like that cuz Asians look alike have you guys heard from have you guys heard from these cats since you you're were on were tubing right like you talk about these stories have you heard from many these cats I'm still friends with some of the people that decided to like go on this path yeah and they're just like what in their 40s organized crime like but they told me that it's funny now that they work a lot with their Rivals and that's because in jail like a lot of us are separated by race got it and when you're younger you're fighting over stupid things like oh he looked at me funny which turns into like a 20y year ████
16:56 rivalry right back and forth but then when you get I think when everyone gets older they're like what really matters is the business so a lot of them tend to go there if they didn't die or still you know whatever but yeah so um kind of going back to like my transition into opening my eyes into this world right like The Accidental college student loving education learning how to read meeting these guys learning how to read that sounds crazy and I remember like it's harder pinpoint cuz like it was a blur I was super impulsive I remember there'll be moments like they throw parties House parties and I remember they had a group called like the peacekeepers and we the guys that just want to beat everyone's ass and I was never a peacemaker but I was so inspired by them
17:47 right and I remember um our mutual friend John Cena and he had a party and it was a troublemaker there he was so aggressive and I was like hey dude please calm down right and then when I was like saying that to him he started going off on me and as soon as he was yelling I just started grabbing the back of his head and punching him in his face and then like my my other friend picked me up pulled me to the side he carried me like a baby and he's like we're supposed to keep the peace and I'm like I know but I couldn't control it he was yelling at me it was such a stupid we supposed to how many many was sick though how many fights have you guys been in together yeah that's a good question together oh like anticipating together yeah yeah Battle Royal how many I know about one I think just one yeah I think it was one cuz by that time the one in the bathroom
18:37 bathroom Yeah by that time we went to the bathroom hallway yeah we were not trying to be at all I think we calmed down a lot at that point but it was like still like a big thing but anyways that's a whole different story and I think I told that story before but that was the last time we actually had a real fight with that's my last like street fight ever to yeah ever we call them rumbles but yeah yeah well played but I do think the one of the greatest thing that happened to me at that time was starting JK with Bart because I don't think I had any other alternative of an not only an outlet but a way to like see people in a positive way so like when as weird as this is like you're looking at JK and
19:28 you're like how the ████ did these weird guys making these videos have a background in the background that we did cuz it was one like super gay to do stuff like that yeah but I nothing liberated me more than to just out the closet that that's exactly how I felt I felt like it was like the pendulum you've been forced to be so Macho that like when it was time to make a video I was like what's the gayest I could be and then Uncle Sam was cre out the closet for your considerations streamy think about us thank you streamy is for sure out the closet this is the most out the closet we've ever been and looking back you know what it it's like full circle where like I had to put up this ████ I'm a tough person get my ass beat all the time I want I want to be
20:19 strong and then like I can finally relax and it's like I get to be a kid again and and I and I have this best friend that we're just ████ around as like third graders without getting beat up without getting beat up but we're beating other people hey that's a first for you yeah was kind of like us reliving our childhood we were how that we wish we had and it was pure and I and without who cares like I was so like I think the real strength is who cares who judges us like who cares who like if if if we're gay like I don't care yeah dude just pting films the childhood we wish we had telling you that's L that's really it makes a ton of sense though and it was there was no money behind it it was just let's make fun videos cuz we love doing this and
21:09 giving something to people and being a part of something and then like from there it's like the whole you to it you have to love it everybody was like man where's the check coming from who the ████ knows you have to we did it for like 5 years without any money you have to love it and we still do a lot of things that we should be doing for money but we don't oh or we go to Trump town below M yeah still Circus Circus but I I think the yeah like looking back it was like if I didn't do that there's so many things that help me kind of like see people as positive beings instead of like negative like for example I remember we both had this feeling of like when when a group that looked like a bunch of thugs would look at us we would be like ah ████ they're going to want to
21:59 fight they're going to want to fight right and we get scared and we're like oh ████ I don't want to do this anymore why do I go out but then they go are you guys the guys that that on YouTube and we're like yeah and they're like oh my God it's him and to see guys tattoos ████ all over their body giggling like little girls and like these guys probably would have came up to us 3 years ago and wanted to fight and and you're just seeing these guys so happy I love your videos Man and I and I and it like little by little like I started if a group of people were looking at me it's like more like oh potential friends oh these guys want to oh they love JK let's talk about what our you know JK stuff like take a picture of my girl like you sure man you're not going to kill me after you're not going to jump me this is not a setup and then they
22:51 changed from okay here's a group of guys I'm afraid of them to uh hey you guys are doing something for the Asian Community you guys doing funny ████ keep it going and it was it was you I start looking PE at people as we're one like this is a group like we're one like asian-americans and at the time I was in the Asian bubble so that's What mattered right and then we have to do something because there's nothing out there for us and then and then you start going well what if I had this Outlet way earlier and what if people watching this right now have a Gateway into something more positive cuz we're creating so I I I felt like we were on a mission to like okay we're we're making these stupid ████ videos but it's like really a little bit deeper than just that and we
23:43 should really run with this and we had this mission of all right the black folks got um In Living Color and we grew up on that and the white folks they have SNL and I'm like who's telling our story we're going to tell our story and I think that became this like mission of oh we're gonna do something big and that was like like a like a mission that I felt like all right this is what I'm here to do and and I think that was the biggest thing of like having a purpose having it all kind of came together like we're building a group around something good we're building a community we're going to try to rescue people that are in ruts that maybe we didn't have a place to kind of run away to and it was like something that it was like all
24:33 right this is bigger than me and we need to fight for it and that was definitely and when we come back we're going to talk about Joe founding next shark how he built it from the ground up turned into a ████ Empire when we return click all these ads thank you
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