0:00 [Music] welcome back to just getting news out of the closet today we got Anthony back he's out baby out so one of the second most pivoted pivotal moments of your life was when you got laid off tell us about that oh damn fool Joe was like he's this recent he's so disappointed in you um yeah so uh this was 201 11 actually I was uh funny thing is we had already technically started kjas right and I was working for a street clothing company called collusive at the time yay yeah and I was a marketing and sales director there and things were going great but like during that time the economy and things that I
0:51 don't know if I am or am not allowed to disclose but basically our biggest chain retailer ended up fining chapter 11 who's your biggest chain retailer it was metrop Park oh I remember that store yeah damn collusive was in malls like that yeah yeah Nationwide wow they were doing I think it was like 85% of our stuff which means that they had exclusivity on so much of our stuff which also meant when they filed chapter 11 everything went cuz your biggest retailer buyer was gone yeah so so I had to get laid off it was super amicable you guys know that I'm still very close to you know and we do like Kinder bank noodles and a lot of stuff um but I totally understood the situation it was all good but I was like all right cool I got to balce so that same time Ironically in 2011 was also the end of
1:41 my 4 and 1 half year relationship with my girlfriend who I totally thought I was going to marri but it just didn't work out we were living in Hollywood at the time so it was just an ironic time that uh I got laid off uh my heart was definitely shattered in a different way and then of course I had to move move out because I'm not going to like live with my ex-girlfriend so I moved home cuz there was nowhere else for me to go no work I didn't really save anything up cuz I was not a very smart person with a lot of my business uh and I was just living at home heartbroken and it was like the lowest point that I've had probably up until my whole life up until that point and this was a huge thing because this literally 24ish so 24 so that's the lowest point in your adult life so far I was at 24 my whole life up
2:32 until that point but it's such an important moment to me because uh if this didn't happen then I wouldn't have started dancing as a career wow it was just like a thing that I would do extracurricular that's crazy like if I was obviously just still doing well or if the company kept on taking off like I was a marketing director I was sitting at a desk did you ever visit the office uh yeah to pick up clothes once I think yeah I was just sitting at desk and the cool thing is I was just seeding out ████ merch and stuff like that that to to all my dance homies because like dancers look great in our stuff we were sponsored by them as Quest at the same time that he was there oh cool I was going to ABDC sitting in the Press Room and stuff like that because we were a sponsor and we were doing like News interviews and stuff and it was just like a and I was fat and it was a fun time well what year was add that in this is 201 like 10 2011 cuz I remember
3:22 talking to you back then where you actually had like a job that was it that was the job but you were also like figuring out like should I do my own thing and YouTube and all that and you were saying no no no right I said no you have no chance no chance no sh I forgot what it was I remember we were talking about that topic yeah that was that was exactly never going to catch on don't don't do it I would never do it so I remember I'm at home uh I'm trying to get over like what the I guess the deepest state of depression that I've ever felt was uh and I'm going into a space where now I have to like put together my resume again and putting together your resume again is like the most weird thing when you feel like you don't have anything to show for or when you feel like you've wasted like so much of your life you know what I mean especially if the last reference you had was technically you got laid off um so that being said I remember I went
4:14 through like 3 months of like and this was like monster.com era right like right you remember that to like find jobs and and then you would like send out your resume and stuff and then hopefully you get hit back I went on maybe like two or three interviews and one of the interviews I swear to God they they asked this like basic ass question of like why do you want to work here and I think I like blanked out cuz my head was I don't so I didn't know what to say you know what I mean I just it was just hard to ████ so I was like I don't know if this right for me and then I just left oh ████ that's crazy that's like a movie it was a guy like czy I like what you got kid you're hired honesty it was just a weird there's something in you and then I'll go back but I didn't
5:05 have the clarity yet to to be like what I'm going to do so instead of like being by my computer trying to like submit my resume to like more places and looking up different job offerings in my therapeutic sense of self- relief I would just get up in like Freestyle session and stuff and then I would start like choreographing because like that gave me the sense of like this is like what I get to do that nobody can judge me or lay me off for you know what I mean actual question not a bit is that like in Joker where he's just like ████ dancing around like and it's kind of like a weird cathartic space that you create for yourself yeah okay you actually named a pretty good reference yeah thank you but then next thing you know because I'm doing these things uh suddenly I'm choreographing cuz like that's a version of my creative release now I've got routines I got no money but I've got routines so I start hitting up some studios yeah like hey uh
5:57 I don't have a job right now but I got some routines uh do you think I can teach and some people be like they remember me from when I was competing and stuff they like oh yeah for sure come through so I started picking up class jobs and at the time I was teaching for I think it was 20 bucks a class like 20 bucks a class was dope yeah you know what I mean cuz if you have like 10 students that's 200 no 20 bucks for the whole class the whole class that's his cut oh ████ yeah $20 at a studio so then I'll go and I'll teach his classes and I'll get 20 bucks and I so I do the math because math is very difficult four times a month once a week right 80 bucks it's a cell phone bill and like a meal true so I I'm going to do this while I'm like hovering around so I just kept on doing that next thing you know somebody would get win that I'm teaching and then they would like be like hey come teach a workshop they would give me like 30 bucks or like 40 or 50 and then suddenly like momentum starts building I'm starting to get a
6:47 little skinnier too you know what I mean cuz I'm dancing all the time and then the most important moment was when I started picking up enough momentum that I was like you know what this is a conversation I'm going to go get like a a waiting job cuz I need real real money anyway but I want to give myself space to like be able to do dance stuff on the side so I started working as a sushi uh waiter with Lawrence Cal I remember that yeah and then no no not met him I met him in college oh okay uh and then so we start serving together and then like you know dancing and stuff like that on the side and it was just a a ████ it's a good time yeah right and then eventually momenta picks up enough where I look at Mike who's traveling the world like a g after ABDC doing things that are like unbeknownst to to Our Kind at brand new things yeah and I was like man dude do you think I could do this he's like yeah
7:37 that's what it was crazy it like shocked me and then I was like will you help me he's like absolutely and from then just didn't look back so like it if it wasn't for getting laid off like I wouldn't be where I am it's crazy to think that you would have even asked that question at a time that like everyone that knew you would have easily also said yes but your view of yourself changes everything but you would never think that of yourself when and I also never thought I would I would that would be a useful answer I'd be like he wouldn't of course he knows he can do that like why would he even ask that yeah exactly crazy no brain but like we don't know what you're going through or nothing wow yeah you never really know what anyone's going really had no idea there's so many times you you were there at the house and I could have like said something nice to you but I was just like for sure he's got it you didn't even seem like a sad guy or cuz you walk in you're
8:28 probably like I'm sick you're sick want sick in here whatever but everyone's going through some ████ in their brains it's like art though right like unlike for example and you know not to say anything cuz I know you know how I feel unlike uh something where you can either be judged on like winning fights or getting belts this is a super subjective concept like you don't know what's what's good where you at why you're worth it if anybody would ever hire you for your moves like it's weird ████ you ████ make up Moves In on with your socks on on carpet in your room and then you're just like hoping somebody might be down you know what I mean uh and then also like you start doing I was fortunate that we were of the generation where we started doing YouTube videos with this ████ right and you guys know that like I was literally one of the first dancers to do you
9:19 YouTube videos in 2005 wow to the point where even Kev jumbo was like waa dude like you kind of helped inspir me you should have kept on doing YouTube videos I was like ████ you oh D 05 man yeah you know what I mean like dancers dancers weren't doing this ████ and I was putting out like dance videos but the thing is everybody started blowing up on YouTube and I'm over there using copyright music so I'm never making money off YouTube so I'm never thinking that it's like a reasonable thing yeah just you you it really is just a sharing that was the barrier from all the dancers they were just oh we can't really make money all throughout that I never thought dance would be a thing for me so like after college I went into a sales job today's video is brought To You by The Daily drop so I've been traveling for so many years okay I've been travel vlogging I've been enjoying
10:09 this and people go how do you afford it well a lot of it is actually for free and it's done through credit card points and I always thought about like how I can kind of share this information with other people because it does take a little bit of learning it's like Extreme Couponing and stuff like that but the daily drop is here to help you out the daily drop is a free daily newsletter to learn how to book your next trip for nearly free with Miles and points learn how to fly business class without a business class budget see for yourself why over 1 million readers start their morning with daily drop so subscribe Now using the link in the description to get started on earning towards your next dream travel experience I's going like door to door doing s in the business to
11:00 business and then we were doing conventions and stuff and I was really good at it and then my bosses were ████ and they like didn't want me to leave the office straight up they didn't want me to leave the office cuz if I left the office and got promoted I would take my team I had a going away party for all this ████ by the way and then literally the week of vibe after my going away party we do cyborg ninja Scrolls All We Do U Black Ops which is kjas and then that Thursday when it was supposed to be like my last day they told me I can't leave they said I'm not ready but I knew it was ████ cuz I knew they weren't working my whole team was the whole office so this was in Riverside when I was living in Riverside if I would have left that office to get promoted in Arizona then the office would have just crumbled so they failed me or held me back and then I was like ████ this so I quit me and my whole team ended up just quitting anyway W you know what I mean and even then I didn't go back to dance right away even then I
11:50 went to like work for my homies like tech company was a tech startup and then I got uh hired or poached to to go over to collusive the Street clothing company so I was never dance was never like so weird man clearly the thing it was just a thing that I enjoyed doing but it wasn't until I got laid off and my heart was broken and I had nothing and no money and I felt like the lowest of losers the dance was like my salvation not as a career like as like a escape to like feel some sort of like sense of self for that breakup in this meter of like middle being Mutual where was it at we spent like probably 3 months like knowing it was heading that way oh ████ we were just getting disconnected and it was just hard to find away back is all and then she kept on trying to like find her own space I
12:42 kept on trying to like figure my ████ out and it was nobody's fault in a sense but the like true initiating Factor ended up being my fault damn to be honest I ended up ████ kissing this other girl and I I was like whoa and to me that was like that was the uh I I'm too far over so then I told her and then that next day we broke up damn was she down to make it work after the kiss or no or we weren't trying to oh I see we were already both there we just didn't make the move you know why would you if there's nothing left fast forward to today though do you think like dance still has that space because you you do it for work so much right but is it still like your Escape like would you just ████ go and dance to be complet completely honest it is not my escaping Atmore really cuz you're too too too too
13:34 in too sick is God of warrior Escape more than Dan well I beat both of them be hell yeah no um like realistically I mean realistically this is my Escape it's really really bad but um no but but dance in the best and most beautiful way I'm sure you can agree to a version of this like it just mutated into not like the place I wanted to be but the vehicle that I was down to like ride to take me to places I liked being so like if it wasn't for dance I wouldn't have met my best friends I wouldn't have met my wife I wouldn't have gone around the world to like 40 plus countries I wouldn't have you know like experienced so many things in life so for for right now I'm down to at any moment in time Jump in that car with genuine joy and excitement but it's not I'm jumping in the car because like
14:25 that's where I want to be I'm jumping in the car because I wanted to go somewhere did you have anything else that you were like I really wanted to be a ████ guitarist or something but then this is what worked for me I think I did always want to dance cuz like in high school I like also really wanted it I was always that guy that kid too in the family parties that when they'd be like talent show with all the young kids it'd be like me it was always dancing it was putting on Michael Jackson you know how it was always Michael Ja Jackson um and um I wanted to and then I go to high school I go to Sunny Hills High School from like 2000 to 20 4 or whatever and I wanted to dance but then like the one kid who was on Dance production my sister was on Dance production she's like you should join the one boy out of all the girls there like I was clearly gay so it was just like oh and at that time we were all ignorant they already took the gay slot and gay just wasn't
15:17 like like like understood at that time you know what I mean we were just so ignorant to it so I was just like no I social suicide like I'm just going to suppress my desire yeah straight up damn you know there were B Boys in my neighborhood that like that like they were ████ teaching like kid little kids windmills and stuff like that and I would always try to like come by and look but then the dude wouldn't let me because like I'm not trying I can't steal their lesson plan so I go back to my mom and i' be like can I learn this stuff and she like no I be like okay how weird cuz you had to pay for it where what there was just like there literally in a garage in my neighborhood and they were selling lessons for breaking that's not real B boy I've never that's that's crazy to see I mean that's unheard of in the industry at that time I would have been really surprised I asked he's like
16:08 yeah you just got to paid for some lessons I went back to my mom she's like no so like I just didn't have an outlet but I wanted to when I was young yeah um which is also why B Bo was like the first thing I got into when I was like at UCI and stuff like that even though I found out very quickly I wasn't very good and I would get injured all the time and when I was injured cuz I couldn't move I'll would just be like what's this t thing while you're bedridden hands a lot of hands yeah so then I got I got I enjoyed that and uh and then when I fell in love with choreography that was that was the end of it the idea of having people like do or emulate or want to do something that you came up with was like addicting to me that I will never lose the joy for when it comes to dance like creating creating and then seeing how it can turn into something I'll never lose that Joy but ████ no it's not my Escape
17:00 now what do you think it would need to happen for it to be your escape again I would need to not have to um live live off it yeah I think right now if I like if money came from all other sources enough where I was genuinely happy cuz I also really really like making money um if I didn't have to make money off of dance at all I don't even think I would do what I do in dance now I think I would go back to things like break in just because like the place that gives you pure joy is usually learning something it's not being hella good at something and needing to top yourself over and over you know what I mean it's it's learning something and being like holy ████ I got that and Breakin is the number one dance that like gives you the highest level of satisfaction for the most amount of work yeah like took me ████ 5 months to learn windmills wow like you don't do that with choreography
17:50 it takes me 5 minutes to learn a routine you know what I mean like but like to get wi to get my first continuous wi I was at the Ark in UCI by myself it took me five months injuring yourself all the time when I got my first continuous Sills I was by myself I hit it I screamed in that room by myself and then I called my sister to tell her I did wow that's tight bro it's like that video that video of that little kid who's dancing in his that kid is insane sick everybody say anth like when I hit the Nintendo 64 Rainbow Road jump the one that goes to the left changed everything and over changed everything changed my life for damn your controllers I well they were pretty good I really do like the you being off really was the best thing that happened to but isn't that the sign of a productive person when you can get a negative news and then turn it into a positive like what BART did like what Nick did like I just think that's how I
18:40 got to admit it wasn't it wasn't conscious at the time it wasn't like I got to I got to take this bad stuff and moveing in a certain direction it was like man this sucks what doesn't suck real quick you know what I mean and then and then just life kind of happened for me you know yeah so yeah and also like I was just my environment was like my close homies were killing it when you're just surrounded by knowing it's possible that's totally different like you know what I mean I can imagine like that kid in like Slovenia right now who doesn't have it and it's just like watching kids like on YouTube and just being man I want that and not having resource like I can understand how tough that is you know but if feel like the person next to you who you like ride and die with is killing the game it's just one degree of SE separation it's within reach so
19:30 you're like maybe you know what I mean and that's like the that's everything I needed and I was very thankful and lucky for I could not have done it without people like you know Mike and Tony and even like Ryan was living there too and I'm just watching this guy killing on Quest Crew and I'm like he's just nodding at you in the hallway yeah what's up man hey always playing video games yeah yeah so it was I felt very lucky okay genuine question I've been meaning to ask you this you have spent so much of your time doing dance when you at my birthday watching you get wrecked at DDR versus my neighbor Chris Mormon who just plays online poker what's that feel like for you who's done dancing for goddamn forever and then he just like literally sits on a computer all day and makes millions of dollars playing online poker but then he wrecks you a DDR what's that like is that
20:20 humbling if I wanted to be like extremely Petty I'm G to go buy a DDR pad I'm going to practice all the games and Stu like that but that DDR that we playing the music sucked and you know it the music did suck so it's like dude I'm I'm not trying to practice you win if the music sucks also it's like I don't want him to be all mad at me and like murder me there cuz he has murderous eyes he he he he's a vindictive person I will say honest answer okay love it thank you hey thanks thanks for sharing being up when life give you lemon make a lemonade
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