So what was the first time that you ended up touching a
substance? I was 14.
It was actually a winery high school graduation night.
And everyone, like, usually on graduation night, everybody goes
to Makaha Beach. They all party, drink with their
sounds, you know, play sounds and just hang out at the beach.
And I remember one of my classmates had told me, like,
oh, you want to jump? We'll go jump in with my friend.
We'll go for a ride. We was going to go to, like,
drive through a Taco Bell or something.
And I was like, oh, yeah. So I didn't know the driver.
I knew my classmate. And my classmate was also like,
kind of like a family friend. So I did trust this person and I
jumped in with them and we went to, we actually went to a
McDonald's drive through and they seen a guy that they knew
and they jumped out. They jumped out and they
gunpointed him and they took all his like his pouch and his chain
and all his money. And so when they jump back in,
like, that was the first time I've ever seen somebody like use
a gun and gunpoint and rob someone, you know, So I was, I
was like I said 14. So I was kind of like, what the
hell, you know? And so they jumped back in the
car and I see them counting all his money, pulling out all his,
you know, stuff from his pouch. And in my head, I immediately
said, oh, I want to do stuff like that.
Like I want to, I want to rob people because I thought it was
cool. You know, like, I was like, they
got all this money for free. And, you know, so I was like, I
just looked up to them. And so like 20 minutes later,
we're parked in like a back street up the Rd. from my
grandparents house. This is across from Winan High
School. We're parked in like a street
with no lights by a dump, you know, by a little dump area.
And this is where like people used to go to dump their the
washers and couches, you know, those kind of streets where.
There's a lot of streets that over.
There. Yeah.
And so we was right there parked, and this is like late at
night, and they started passing a pipe back and forth, smoking a
pipe and blowing clouds in the car.
And now I'm sitting in the back seat like I want to try, you
know, because I'm watching them. And like I said, I looked up to
these people now because I just saw them do something that I,
you know, thought was cool. And so that's how I first tried.
And at first they were like, no, we don't want you to to try
this, you know, like we don't want to be the ones.
And I was like pressing them like, let me try, let me try.
Like, you know, if not, I'm going to try it with someone
else, you know, so they're like, OK, so they let me smoke.
And it was like the craziest feeling, especially being the
first time I ever tried that. It was like all your worries and
all your cares, it's just like disappears so.
What were you guys smoking? Meth.
It was meth at that time. That's what everybody said.
The first, the first hit is what everybody chases after that,
right? The very first.
Like you literally feel like Superman type, you know, like
it's a crazy feeling like it's like almost like as if like
you're like, like you can barely even like breathe normally
because you're so like pumped up.
It's just like a crazy feeling like that.
You can really just do anything, you know, And it was like I
said, I never tried, you know, drugs before.
And so that was my. First, not even like weed or
anything. Weed, I tried it just, you know,
I never really got into it, but that was like my first hard, you
know, drug and that was where my whole life changed.
Like that night was when the beginning of my whole life
changed. So that guy had took us up to a
Buena Valley. There's a there's a place on the
side. There's like a dirt lane that he
used to live and he took us there and he, there was like a
bus, an abandoned bus, you know, and he took us there and was
getting high and smoking and, you know, just chilling.
And my classmate was like, oh, I'm going to go to the store.
I'll be right back. And my classmate left and he
never came back. He left me with that guy.
And that guy kept me on the bus for 12 days.
He raped me. He fed me all kinds of like
sleeping pills. He wouldn't let me go home, you
know, I would beg him like, please, please, my family's
going to be worried. Please let me go home.
And he's like, no, you're not going nowhere.
He wood forest me to he would have me stand in front of like
the entrance of the bus and he had a water hose like hooked up
to this fence and he would make me like rinse off and he would
like play with himself in front of me.
And I was like afraid, you know, I like for one, I know these
this guy has all these guns because he was showing off, you
know, in the car. So like I'm 14 years old.
This guy was old enough to be my dad.
And so when I noticed like after on like the 12th day and I was
keeping track like as much as I could, but he would feed me
these pills that would make me go to sleep.
I'd wake up with like bruises all over me, bite marks on me.
And so when I I noticed he was falling asleep, I told myself
I'm like this. It's now or never, you know,
like you better get the fuck up out of here.
And so, so I, I had ran away like I got, I had a sheet on.
I didn't have slippers, nothing. I had just a a sheet wrapped
around me and I took off running.
And that's how I escaped that situation.
And it's crazy because I've seen that guy years later and he like
was like, hey, what's up, Taran? How are you?
Like, nothing. Like nothing.
Yeah. At that point had family put out
like a missing persons report or no?
No. So at this point, my mom and my
dad was going through a divorce. So my mom was actually living in
Vegas at the time. My dad was back home.
And so this is, like, during a stage where I was rebelling, you
know, when my mom and my dad split up, I was like, sleeping
at my uncle's, sleeping at my grandma's, staying at Papa's
house. So it was hard for them to keep
up. Yeah.
So because I was either at one of the three houses, you know,
and my mom was, you know, my dad was a single parent taking care
of me and my brother at the time.
So it was, like, easy for me to just be at uncle, Uncle Gabe's
house or PP's house. And, like, they didn't have to
worry, you know? So they just assumed that was.
I was there. Yeah, yeah.
And so when I did come back, I never told anybody.
Like I never talked about it till I was 29 years old.
Like I kept it like a secret for 15 years because it that moment
is what like shaped the rest of my future.
And, you know, for a long time I was like, why the fuck did I
jump in that car? Like, why did I go with them?
But, you know, like, I'm not going to take blame for anything
the guy did. But like, I, I saw how I could
have prevented, you know, like I didn't have to smoke with them.
I could have like got out of the car and, you know, went my own
way. But it's like in that moment,
like I'm so young and naive, I'm looking up to these people, like
not realizing that this is going to change the rest of my life
forever, you know? So like, I didn't want to talk
about it with my family because I didn't want them to go after
the guy because I didn't want them to get hurt, you know?
And so like for me, I just, I carried that, that shame, you
know, and I, and I used like drugs to like numb myself.
I use drugs to pretend it never happened because I honestly, I
just felt disgusted, like I felt gross, I felt violated.
I felt, I just was embarrassed of what happened, you know, and
I felt dirty. And so like I, I use drugs to
make myself feel better and make myself feel like nothing
happened, you know, And so then like that kind of made me into
like a cold person. Like I didn't trust anybody at
all, especially men, you know, now, like in my head now I'm a
full blown drug addict. Like after this experience, I
was a full blown meth addict. And you know, now I'm like fully
into the the scene trying to like what?
Is it like 15? I was 15 now and.
Never know that part of the story heavy.
I don't always talk about it because it is a heavy topic and
not a lot of people are comfortable with it.
You know, you almost made me tear.
I was like, oh fuck, because I, I just know about like the like
none of the crazy shit that we hear, like bull, like the, the
crime and this and that. And then when you just said
that, like kind of caught me off guard.
I was like, oh shit. Yeah, then that's.
So instantly from coming back, I mean, did you go back to your
daddy's house, grandma's house, uncles house?
So I tried to go back to my Papas house and what happened
was one day my auntie was washing clothes and she she's
washing clothes and when she pulled it out to hang the
clothes, a whole bunch of Baggies like, you know, little
plastic drug bags was all over the clothes.
And so immediately she thought was her boyfriend her my uncle.
She blamed him and was like fighting with him like no, you
fucking doing drugs, you know, in a fucking lie.
And like I knew the whole time that was mine and he's like but
that's not mine. Like what the hell are you
talking about? And he was like, go ask her
hand. And so they approached me about
it. And of course, at first I denied
it. And then my family was like,
Bah, don't come around here until you're you're clean and
sober. My family was just like, don't
come around here until you're off of that shit, you know?
And as much as I wanted to be off of it, it's not something
you can just OK, today I'm off. You know it doesn't work like
that. Yeah, I seen it because like,
like I said, you're from that West side, but I'm from Wahiawa
Whitmore. It's just as bad.
So exactly alike. I always feel like guys jump,
they they get evicted from Wahiawa Whitmore, they move to
West side, then they same thing, then they come back.
So I grew up with a lot of people from there, but it's like
you see them and it's like they're stuck in that.
You cannot. It's like, literally it's like,
it's like you, you stuck in chains.
Like that drug held me down for 15 years of my life.
From the age of 14 to 29, I was on meth 15 years.
And like, you know, I did nine years and nine months total in
prison. So like if you add up all that
time wasted, like I wasted it in prison, wasted it on drugs.
Like the people who love me would just beg like please come
back, like come home, you know, like we're here for you, like
we'll help you. But like for me, I thought they
you guys just don't understand. You guys don't understand.
You can't help me. You don't know what I went
through and like, so for me, I would just block them out and I
would stay around these people who I thought was like my second
family, but really could give two fucks about me, you know,
And I spent my time with all these chronics and drug dealers
and drug drug users and, and criminals and Hawaii's most
wanted, you know, until I was just the same like, like I was
arrested 44 times in my life. I was Hawaii's most wanted, you
know, and my life like it literally.
That's why that's why I'm so passionate about speaking to the
kids, because all it takes is one choice, one choice.
I didn't think, you know, when I went for a ride to talk about
it, I wasn't going to come home or that I was going to start
drugs and and be stuck for the next 15 years of my life.
I would have never went out that night had I known the outcome,
you know, But like today, after living all that and stuff, like,
that's why I'm so like, adamant about reaching these youth
because they don't know. They don't, They don't know,
like they're innocent. Yeah.
Like they don't know what, how, how that life will just trap
you. Yeah.
Drugs is not something you can just pick up and put back down.
It's not, it's meant to kill you.
It's meant to destroy you, you know, And so like my whole life
was, was just like, I was surrounded by that, that kind of
lifestyle, you know, the, the wrong people in and out of
prison. And it was miserable, to be
honest. Like, of course there's always
going to be fun, exciting times when, you know, running from the
cops going, you know, and robbing people and stuff.
But in reality, my life was lonely.
It was lonely, it was dark. It was, it was miserable.
And I could never show my face proudly, you know, I was always
embarrassed of who I was, embarrassed of what I'm doing,
you know, like today, I don't feel like that at all.
Can you take us back to that instance that when you came back
home and your auntie found all the Baggies?
Oh, yeah, yeah. So that's when my family first
found out and my uncle was like, yeah, I I've been knowing that
you've been high, you know, it's pretty obvious.
But at the time, I thought nobody knows, you know, but I
was dropping weight like that, you know, and you, and at that
time too, when you're a brand new drug user, you don't realize
like your body movements and your your mouth and your facial
expressions, you don't realize you're like the.
Tweaking. You know what I mean?
Like I like you just and so. Ticks.
Has the ticks and my uncle's like oh, I've been knowing
you've been on drugs you know but he's like now is your chance
for tell your family and and at first I denied it, but then you
know it was it was no sense in continuing denying and I was
like yeah, I'm fucking on drugs and what you know and they're
like don't come around here until you're off of that shit
and so that like took me even further into.
My what was that like though? Did they ask where you had been
for the nearly two weeks? Yeah, yeah.
What? Did you tell him?
I just was saying like sleeping at my friend's house, you know,
because I didn't want my family to know the truth because my
family, like I didn't want them to have a chance to be like, you
see, you see, I told you, I told you.
So like that's what happens when you cruise with these people,
you know, or like with the wrong people.
So like I didn't want them to know the, the reality of what I
was doing or where I was, you know, I was hanging around with
people twice my age. Like literally like my next
boyfriend I got he was I was 415 and he was like 33.
And and like that was my first like relationship with a drug
dealer turned abusive, turned like psycho, like try to take my
life everything, you know. So like, I was 15, running
around with adults, you know, in the streets, learning I was, you
know, learning how to steal cars, learning, you know, doing
burger. You become an adult real quick.
Yeah, you. Guys met that early.
No, but when you you become a real adult real quick when
you're in that like what? Like I said, where I'm from is I
always thought I, I, I did a lot of fucked up shit, but I always
made the right decisions because I never got hooked on drugs, you
know, like, but all my friends are hooked on drugs.
But I was always like strong enough to like, no, like kid,
I'm not going to because my dad would always be like, yeah, you
know, I had uncles and stuff hooked on.
He's like, oh, he'd be like what?
You're hungry. And I would always be like, fuck
no, hell no. But so I, I did all the shit
with him, like, you know, like the cars and all that stuff.
But I just would when it came to the drug part, that's when I was
going. I'm good, yeah, I'm good with
that. You know if.
It had been different relationship with the family and
to where like, I mean, obviously you felt like you were going to
be judged rather than there was going to be acceptance and some
guidance through all that trauma.
How do you think that would have changed everything for you?
I think it would have helped me get help sooner.
Like, instead of holding that weight and carrying it alone for
15 years, like my family would have been there for me.
And I know that for a fact, you know, like, even today, they're
like, man, I wish she came to us.
You know, when I first told my mom about it, she actually heard
about it when I was doing a speaking event.
And she was there and I had to tell her, I'm like, mom, you're
going to hear some stuff that you never knew, you know?
And when she was sitting in the audience and she heard my story
and she just was like crying and bawling and like, why didn't you
come to me? Like why we were, we were there
for you waiting for, you know what I mean?
The whole time. But but in that moment, like I
just felt like I had nobody because that's what I, I
believe. I make myself believe that, you
know, like it's easier to run from your problems.
It's easier to hide from the people who love you because, you
know, I felt embarrassed of who who I was.
Like I put myself in these predicaments and like I knew I
knew what they were going to say, but like, I didn't give
them that chance to be there for me, you know what I mean?
I just use that as my reason to keep running.
Was there like anything different just as a parent now,
is there anything you noticed they could have done different
possibly in terms of passing on judgement or?
I think it, it didn't help me when, when they're like don't
come around, you know, they didn't want it around.
And I understand like they thought that would help me get
sober. Like they thought with if they
say, oh, you know, don't come around and take off that shit
that I would be able to just get off of it.
But yeah, like the, the drugs, like people don't realize like
especially meth, it is it, it just, it grabs you.
It grabs you like it is was like a chain.
Like I was wearing shackles my whole life.
You know, when I was on that drug.
It keeps you stuck in more than more ways than one.
Like that was literally the worst, I guess the worst part of
my life. But at the same time, it built
me up. It built me up because today I'm
a stronger person. Today I'm very St. streetwise
and I'm very, you know, street smart.
I have a lot of wisdom to pass on to my son.
And it's crazy because like, I was just actually talking to my
husband about this and we're watching, you know, this 14 year
old boy get sentenced for being a part of a murder.
And he was getting sentenced to a lot of time.
And I just started crying because I put myself in that
ladies predicament and her son. And I was like, man, I don't
ever want my son to feel like he got to turn to the streets for
anything, you know, like I want to teach him what I've been
through, you know, and I want him to be better than I ever
was. And so, like, being a parent,
being a parent just changes you, you know, it makes you realize,
like, all that shit you used to do is no longer good enough.
You know, even, like, for me, like working my 9:00 to 5:00, I
was driving, you know, to and from work every day with my son.
And I realized it wasn't enough anymore.
I was like, I don't want to teach him to do this.
Like I don't want to teach him to work for somebody else for
his whole life. And so I fucking quit my job.
Like I quit my job to pursue my business.
Like with, no, I had no clue where it would take me.
You know, I didn't know if I was going to have one customer or
not. Like I just took a leap of faith
and I said I need to be more than what I am, you know, like I
need to do more with my life. And that's just what I did.
And it was just on a morning drive to school.
It was on. A morning drive to work.
I was driving to work and I was praying.
I was praying to God and I was asking him for a financial
breakthrough. I was asking him for guidance.
I was asking him to, to like, just give me an idea, you know,
show me what to do, you know, show me so I don't have to work
for, you know, the same people forever.
You know, I was working as a, in an office for over three years.
And you know, when you, you're doing the same thing and you
know, there's no growth, you know, it's like you're running
on a treadmill and you're never going to, you're never going to
go nowhere. And I hated that feeling, you
know, and I was lugging my son with me to work every day.
And I was just like, I don't want to teach him this.
I want to teach him how to be independent, how to be, you
know, a leader, how to and be and take risk for the right
reason. You know, like I did enough
taking risk in my life as far as the bad side.
Now it's time to take good risk as far as like, you know,
risking it all for your business, you know, and having
faith in yourself and your business.
Like that's what I did. And and one day and it was I can
I literally remember the date. It was January 12th, January
12th. I had the vision.
It was like like a few days after I prayed I had the vision.
I just envisioned selling garlic shrimp for some reason.
It was like, as odd as that sounds, like I just had a vision
and I told. You were you like craving
garlic? Shrimp period or.
I was just like, I was just thinking about it and I told my
husband, do you? See like a fucking commercial
with garlic shrimp. No man, it was just, it was just
like a thought in my head. God, just drop.
Garlic shrimp one just hallucinating a mirage.
And I just told my husband I was like, hey babe, we will start
selling shrimp. And he was like shrimp.
And I was like, I was like garlic.
He's not. He's not from.
He's from Nebraska, so does he know about, like, like, you
know, like Hawaii people? We love our garlic shrimp.
Yeah. Did he know?
Him, I took him a few times, yeah, I took him like 3-4 times
back home. So I took him to all the spots,
you know, and he knows he saw the trucks, he saw the line, he
saw crazy, you know what I mean? I introduced him to.
Like I'm from like Whitmore, so we're like Giovanni shrimp.
Yeah, you guys, yeah. I remember going to Giovanni
Shrimp when it was like $8 a plate.
Yeah, no line. Long time.
Ago no line. My friend used to work there, we
used to go there and she's just fucking slide us plates on the
side and then like to go back and see what it turned into.
Now it's like hold, but you know, I don't even want to eat
there because the line is so long.
It's. Crazy.
The truck don't even go anywhere.
Like it's just there and that's it, and then people just stand
in line. And the parking is nuts over
there. Too.
It's crazy. So like I had that vision and I
was like, you know what? I cannot think.
I'm not one business out here who who sells like the garlic
shrimp, like back home. And then I said we're going to
be the next garlic shrimp for the night island.
And it was crazy because I don't even know.
I didn't know if anyone was going to buy my shit.
Like I didn't know anything. I just was like, so boom, I went
on Amazon. I started buying woks, I started
buying all my supplies. But do you study?
My experience Are you a yes? I do.
I cooked in prison, thank you very much.
I worked in the kitchen. Work I.
Did have like a fucking vision, but there's no way in hell I'm
gonna cook anything 'cause I can't cook to.
Say, well, like cooking in prison, like a flex like I just
think about like SpongeBob. It's.
Because you, you learn how to cook for mass amounts of people,
OK, like 500 people at once, you know, you gotta like cook.
So like their pots and their mixers, Like you gotta stand up
and hold the mixers like this, you know what I mean?
So are you? Were you cooking like good food
or like? Just regular prison menu.
What'd you learn in there like? How to cook for plenty people?
How to cook fast? And it was an actually tangible
skill that you were able to take out.
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
And then you learn like food safety and protocols, practices,
you know, sanitary stuff, you know, like it's just you pick up
skills where you can. And I mean, it might sound funny
to you, but like prison food, like, you know, with commissary,
like when we were locked up and had COVID, we had to be
creative, you know, like, so we use you.
Was in there doing COVID. I was in there doing COVID.
Wow. I thought I thought you was out.
No, you came after COVID 2. Years after so I only been out
just over three years right now. Wow, I.
Go to sports longer than that, then you go out and go back.
They come out, I came. Out briefly, and then I found
out there was another case, a federal case.
You was here at all, right? I was in Hawaii.
And then I went back in.
I told her I did another three years and then I came out.
So I came out to Vegas. Yeah.
And so I, we, I write into you when you just got back to Vegas,
just got. Yep, yeah.
So I just been out like October made three years.
October 28th. That's awesome.
And then in three years to turn it like go through all that
because I've seen you like use a limo driver.
Yeah, the office job, obviously. Yeah, I was doing the the
number. I think one time we were all of
us went out and then then like I, I think you forgot like your
something something and I dropped it off to you and you
was driving the golf cart for security at all.
I was doing it all. I was like, she pulled up with
the golf cart, you know, you have my stuff.
And I was like, yeah, and this is OK, and I had this.
She's OK. See you later, woman.
She just left. I was like, oh shit, OK.
I know I was, I was, yeah. I was doing so my first job out
of prison. I was doing security and it was
crazy because like, you know, we from the streets, so we get, you
know. We and use on Sahara too.
Yeah, Sahara and Decatur, like so people, people over there
running stuff out and I try to just Jack them right back and
I'm like, give me this shit, you know what I mean?
Like, but we're not supposed to do that.
So like I went from that job to the office job and I was driving
limos at the same time. I was working 2 jobs doing the
driving the limos and stuff on the weekends, working during the
office during the week, and I was just hustling, you know what
I mean, trying to stay busy. It was like I was just got out
of prison. So now I'm like, I'm really
trying to get my life back together.
Like I just, I had $2000 coming out of prison and I bought a
fucking Honda. The window couldn't even roll
up. You mean the window I had to put
a piece of metal over there for hold the window up.
So I think when it always rolled down like it was, I had to start
rebuild my life from scratch and within one year, no.
So I met my, I met my husband doing that job.
He just came out of prison. He did like 16 years and he just
came out. We met like like a week after he
came out. He he hired, he came on as the
security too. Same job.
Oh, OK. Yeah, and that's how we met.
I thought there was an app or something like prison naturally.
No, no, no, no. We're not alone after lock up,
OK, No, but that's how we met. And then we started dating like
like about three months later. And then one year after dating,
he proposed and we got married. We bought our house.
Boom boom boom. Boom.
When it's the right thing, you just know.
When you're on the right path, it's like everything just feels
right. You know when you're.
Is it because he was 16 years and then years and he's like, we
just. We just meshed like we were and
he's not a drug addict. Yeah, he's cool.
Yeah, he's hella cool. He's a good, like a really good
guy, you know, he was, he was in prison for robbing a bunch of
banks like he was doing for like 5 years before he got caught.
And so. So he's doing pretty good then
for a while. Yeah.
And so like he was. Yeah.
So me and him just. We happened to meet and we
became really good friends and then a year after dating, he
proposed. We bought our house, we had our
son, we got, you know, we had gotten married, all that stuff.
I'm. Going to ask you, are you
pregnant right now? Because this is like a very I.
Had a miscarriage. I had a miscarriage in the end
of January. Yeah, I was a little over 2
months pregnant to a girl. And I thought I saw you post
something about it, but I was like, you know, it's kind of a
scary subject to ask a girl. Yeah.
Yeah, I was, I was, I was 8 weeks pregnant and then I had a
miscarriage in the middle of dinner.
So yeah, that happened. But I, I, I refused to remove
the post because I don't want to pretend like it was never
happened, you know, like, yeah, yeah, to me, it's still, it's
still very much. You know, I just like sometimes,
you know, you ask some girl and you fucking dummy, I'm all you.
Have you ever done that in real life?
You have done. Yeah.
And I'm just like, oh fuck, I feel like an idiot.
But I saw, I saw a post. I just was late trying.
I was just trying to. Yeah, I lost the baby in
January. Your mental fortitude though,
the mental strength, the way you even talk about it right now,
so. Yeah, I had a good, I had like a
month to mourn, you know, and that's when I that's when I had
clarity, when I, when I was going through my mourning.
And that was when I was like, you know what, I got to quit
this job. I got to do something different
in my life, like I need to pull myself up, you know, and, and
that's what I did. I just took a leap of faith.
I and it's crazy because like, like, you know how I was telling
you guys on that day when I had the vision and I told my husband
and he was like, yeah, let's do it.
I went on Amazon and bought me on supplies like the, you know,
the plates, the clamshell plates.
I bought me that. I bought forks, I bought napkins
and then I bought like the woks, the everything I needed.
So then now I started brainstorming like what recipes
I wanted to do, you know, because I made all the recipes
myself. Like nobody can say that I stole
their recipe. Nobody can say that I found it
online because my recipes not online.
You know, my seasonings, my process, I made them all myself.
And so I just was like, OK, let me try this.
So I just cooked one day and I had a vision of what menu I
wanted and everything, you know, and I, I made each item on my
menu and I took pictures of it. And then I just sent it to like
3 of my close friends. And they all came over that day.
They was like, oh, I'll get some, I'll get some.
And that day, Kalena was my actually my first customer.
Well, yeah, she spent $40. She bought 2 plates and she was
my first customer and that's why today, like I have something
called the Kalena Combo, like in light of her being my first
customer, you know, so and I haven't even been in business
three months yet. It's quick.
Yeah, it's quick. It's, you know, like I.
Barely. You do everything quick.
Yeah. Quick to get on.
You're quick to get married. Buy a house.
Shrimp trunk. For real?
Yeah. Like when me and my husband got
together, we wasn't even supposed to be affiliated
because we both used on federal probation.
So he actually got violated for for that like and then when she
found out we bought a house, she there was going to send him back
to prison. But like he went in front of a
judge and explained like look normally and the judge even said
like normally people come out of prison.
They they, you know, go back, they start.
Fucking and they do. The he's like, you're doing
exactly what we want you to do. The only thing is like, you
never get permission, you know, because he's not supposed to
talk to another felon. He not supposed to open up lines
of credit. You're not supposed to make big
purchases and so. Does that you don't.
Do you think that holds it people back?
100% right, 100%, you know, and we're over here, we're both on
federal probation, you know, so we're like living in fear.
Like fuck, I hope they don't catch us.
Like there's times if the PO came over, I had to hide in the
shower, like just keep the shower cuts in clothes and she's
doing a whole walkthrough. Like for real.
Like it was just, but we did what we had to do to keep
ourselves safe, you know, And then by then it was already too
serious to like, we're like, we're about to get married, you
know, And then we had a kid. So I was like, it's, it's, it's
all the way already. We're.
All but like, like now it's the judge said he's good and.
Everything. So we're both off of paper now.
Models of the paper, yeah. And the judge said that the
judges like you guys both are like, you know, doing great.
And that's what they want, you know?
So yeah, that's. The fact that they would that
that's a problem though that. Yeah, they violated him.
He had to go to court and everything because he bought a
house without their permission. Yeah, you would think they would
want you to go in that direction, right?
100% not make it harder for you. But it is though, that's what
see, that's something that a lot of people don't realize is that
like when you come out of prison, the everything's against
you, everything like it don't matter if you did five years, 20
years, like you come out of prison, you have this red flag
on your forehead And every single time someone runs a
background check, all they see is what's on paper.
So for me, like there was times when companies were like, Oh my
God, we're so excited for you start, boom, they get my
background check back and they're like, we're so sorry.
We cannot move forward because they see what's on paper and
like, you can't just prove to them like, that's not who I am
anymore. You know, like I did my time, I
served my time. That's not who I am anymore.
But it's always going to, we have to work 100 times harder
because not only are we battling our inner demons, you know,
we're battling, you know, removing ourselves from places
that when people that brought us down, but now we got to deal
with our, our stigma, like our label, our category, like we're
categorized, you know, people categorize us because oh, oh,
that's what ex drug addict or that's what ex, you know,
criminal or she's a felon. Like everybody talks about
felons, like, yes, we're a felon, but like, that's not who
I am today. Like a lot of my closest family
and like guys I know, really successful businesses are
excelling. Yeah, a lot of drug dealers.
And they went to college. Yeah.
You know how to flip? Yeah.
So like, for me, I was always a hustler.
Like, I went from selling drugs to selling fucking.
What's those pickle kids you guys bought?
Yeah, caddied fruit you guys bought like you guys bought.
Girls like she posts up and then my girl always buys it because
my my daughter loves Pickles too.
She's they want to brought Pickles and we we did this whole
like TikTok thing and I was they OK whatever.
Yeah. Yeah, like, I've, I mean, as
long as I'm not selling drugs, I don't feel like I have anything
to be, you know, embarrassed about, you know, And for me,
like when I got, I got sober, when my brother passed, somebody
had given him drugs. And I vowed to, like, when I got
sober, I vowed to make it a point of my life to like, help
the kids, help kids make better choices, you know, like, help
them realize like, because my brother wasn't a drug addict at
all. He was, he was a good kid.
Like, he was, he was, he was, he was 20 years old.
It was two weeks before he turned 21.
And they were just out of rave and they were drinking alcohol.
And one of his friends gave him a pill, and that pill stopped
his heart within 10 minutes. And he died, Like, he died right
there. And all his friends ran away.
All of them abandoned him, let him.
So like, he didn't even get anybody trying to help him, you
know what I mean? Because he probably would have
survived had they got him to, you know, the doctor that the
hospital in time. But like, yeah, So like when
that happened and I lost my brother, it would make me
realize like I need to do something with my life to make a
change, you know, because I could easily give somebody drugs
that takes their life, you know? And so I got so when I got
sober. So right now I've been sober
over 8 years. I've been clean and sober over 8
years. And like, I pretty much dedicate
my free time to helping the youth.
And I, I try to speak to them at least 2-3 times a month, you
know, at different schools out here in Vegas and with this
program that I'm involved in called Real Talk.
And I just want to make a difference, like if I can stop
them from making the same choices that I did, then I've
succeed, you know? How do you stop kids from taking
drugs? You tell them the truth about it
and you be transparent. A lot of times me growing up,
all we had was like, dare they say like don't do drugs or stay
in school. But nobody goes into depth like
why? Why shouldn't I do drugs?
Because on TVI see all these rappers doing drugs on, you
know, on movies. I see all these people having
fun doing drugs and selling drugs and making all this money.
So like they don't understand why.
Why not? Because it looks cool to them.
It's presented by society as something cool to do.
And so like when you share the reality and, and and the dangers
of it, that's why I get so deep when I share my story to the, to
the teens. I don't hold nothing back
because I want them to know yes, like you can die, you know, yes,
I was living in, in a car on the side of the road.
You know, I was sleeping in people's yards using their water
hose to take a shower sometimes, you know, like sleeping in
abandoned houses. Like, yes, it gets fucking bad.
It's it's a horrible life and it's not all like, you know,
glitz and glam like you guys think it is, you know, like
dealing, doing drugs is not a joke.
It can either destroy your whole life or get you killed or get
you put in prison. I think, I think I think to it
like if you get to see it first hand, then it is like you.
It definitely like you for me. Like I was seeing like I grew, I
grew up. I've seen it a lot.
But my, my choices was always like, OK, like I know what I
knew. I knew between right and wrong
because like my dad, so my dad's older brother, like we grew up
different. Like the way I grew up, I grew
up way different. Like we was exposed to all that.
Yeah, because they might my uncles and everybody sold it
right. But my dad's brother was a multi
multi millionaire houses Pokeye Bay, they maka kilo, they had
townhouses in Waikiki, they had gambling houses, they had strip
clubs. So we grew up in that scene yet,
right. But to see him get hooked on a
drug like my dad is like my dad knew when it was his time and my
dad got what he needed to do and then got what he needed to get.
And then he went straight and legal and legit.
Smart. My uncle went from
multimillionaire to homeless in Vegas.
From all these houses we grew up like there was like me and all
my nieces and nephew or my cousins.
If one person got a dirt bike, we all got there.
If one person got this, we all got it because we had, we grew
up like that, like little better, right?
But to see my uncle go from that to homeless in Vegas and then my
dad's trying to get him to like come back home and like just
come back home already. And no, no, like I'm good.
And then the only reason why he came back is because he's on his
third strike over here. And then, then he, we finally
got him to come back and my dad said, bro, like, this is your
last chance that you have to go sober and get clean.
So he came back and he went clean and then he got in the
union and then he, he like went clean until he passed away
because of our heart problems, because of the heavy drug use.
But we got to witness him being so the from the top of the world
to to nothing, to nothing. Yeah, I know.
I flew up here one time when I turned 21 and he called me his
able and I scored lunch and I already did.
By the end of 21, I'm already like, you've seen it all.
So we're at lunch and he's just like I said, oh, you're not
going to eat. And I'm just asking that on
purpose, you know, you're not going to eat like something, you
know, I'm good. Months ago, OK.
Like I saw him eating and he's like sweating bullets.
But I just looking at him like, man, like you went from like,
you know, in our head. He was at one point.
Yeah. Yeah.
And to and to that. So like that was always like a
conscious thing when when I was around, it was like, do I want
to end up like that, you know? Yeah, I had a friend too, that
everyone used to go to his house.
This guy had money, he had all the cars, you know, all the
TV's. I like the his house was the
party house and one of my friends, you know, decided to
give him crack and he went, no, he started buying crack from
them. Then he started selling his
TV's, selling his cars. Next, you know, still to this
day, he's still sleeping on a mattress on twin mattress by
Makaha Cabanas in the bushes. Like talking to himself.
Yeah. One bad batch to.
Him all it takes. Yeah, yeah, is all it takes.
And there's and like the way people cut their drugs nowadays,
like it's so easy to get, you know, either the fentanyl batch
or you get the bad batch where you just lose your mind.
Like I even even a classmate of mine.
See, that's why I was exposed to it and that's why I did the
fucking PCP. And I said I thought I was going
to be retarded forever. I just, it was in my head like
my dad, like, oh, you'd be like you're fucking uncle damn over
there all fucked up talking to himself.
And I think, no, I don't want. To what do you guys mean by a
bad batch? It's just like a batch that is.
So they cut it with they cut it with all kinds of stuff they put
off just to stretch the amount. So say you get like 1 LB of pure
whatever and then you then you add two more pounds of all this
cut and baking soda and all these other things to as
fillers, basically just fillers. So now you got 3 lbs when in
reality you started with a pound of meth.
You know, now you can say you got 3 lbs to sell.
So now you're giving people this trash drugs.
No, I mean, don't get me wrong, drugs, period.
It's trash. But now you're giving these
people all this stuff that's cut with these chemicals.
And so like some people are just like, they never come back.
They never come back from it, never come back from it.
I know people who went in the store, grabbed literal bath
salts, put them in their pipe and smoke bath salt.
Yeah, I I seen, I seen one where I live in Whitmore like this.
We call her Cat Lady, but she would go into the little
convenient store we have over there and she'd get like Ajax,
pour it in like in the like a container or whatever, and she
like start the Ajax and I was like, bro, is it that far bad?
Like, but she's talking to herself, right?
Like it was like they're gone. You know they ain't coming back.
There's no coming back. Yeah.
No matter if it's sobriety. Nothing.
It's just like your brain is totally rewired, you know, like
you're you're gone now. Some people don't.
Come back, they don't come back for.
Real like for real like I'm, I feel blessed.
I feel blessed because like still got all my teeth.
I still got my, you know, I still like.
That's all. That's all the original teeth.
Yeah, yeah. I still got my teeth.
I still got my brain, you know, like I still, I'm, I'm here.
Like I got, I got out. Of that's the first sighting is
when you're talking to ladies an artist the teeth is all gone
yeah and they're going to talk to you about I know it's gone
that's why I hear talk to my God you.
Don't need high, just show us that.
God, probably. For all we know, it's not even
there anymore. Stop.
So how old were you the first time you'd actually spent time
in prison? Are we like 1617?
How long was that, that first stint?
Not that long because I was going in and out.
I kept getting saved because when it's your first times, like
you get, you get chances, you get chances.
Plus I was young, I had no record.
So, you know, I was going in all the time.
My my thing was I would get high, then I would steal cars.
I'll get high, then I'll break into, you know, somebody's
house, you know, like just stupid ass shit like that.
And so I had, yeah, I had so many charges for like UCPV,
which is stolen cars. And so like I was going in and
out, in and out, in and out. But when I actually stayed for
like, you know, some years, I started in 2005 and then again
in 2019. When you were stealing cars in
high, what were the easiest cars to steal?
Dodges, Jeeps, Hondas, of course.
Mustangs for me, that's mine. One that you can get in the
window without even breaking. It what year were you going for
though? Like, like where's certain?
I don't know, just I just knew visually like which ones was the
ones? Yeah, it's just easy to.
And that is a little too easy to be honest.
Tahoes was really easy too. Tahoe a little too easy.
All you need is a big Flathead, you know?
Yeah, I'm not proud. So you take the cars and then to
a chop shop or. No, no, we take the cars and do
more crime with it. Like what?
Still sounds burglarized. You know, rob people's houses,
stuff like that. Find a drug dealer to, you know,
do whatever too. It's a whole world bro.
A crazy. World, it's a world.
It's a world of its own in, you know, in society, like for real,
for all that it is a world because we only associate with
our kind in that lifestyle. Like the only people I knew, I
didn't know anybody who was good, who was clean, who was
like respectable person. Like everybody I was around was
like gangsters, drug dealers, criminals, you know, like,
that's what I was surrounded by. So like, when I finally got
clean and removed myself, it was a whole new world.
Now it's like a whole new network of people, like, wow,
good people, you know, driven, accomplishing things in life.
Like it was just like where I wanted to be.
So I mean, especially since we were in Hawaii, the the not even
once commercial that campaign was so popular, right?
Which one? But not even once you.
I don't. I never seen it.
I was probably locked up when it didn't.
Work though. What was it?
It was, it was like a meth campaign of, of basically not
doing meth, not even once. Yeah.
And they had like a bunch of like, super dramatic, like
really theatrical commercials of like, what would happen if you
do drugs? And I'm like.
I missed it. I never seen it.
I missed it. I can tell.
No, I'm sorry. Yeah.
But they're really, they're really, really good working
campaigns. Yeah.
I was just wondering if what your reaction was to seeing
those at the time but. I never, I never see them, yeah.
I swear they were running from like the early 2000s O four O 3
to like maybe 2010, 2011. Yeah, that was my first, Yeah.
I was in women's prison during that whole time.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't do I didn't see anything like that.
But I know that like if maybe I had some kind of guidance
growing up with like people like basically kind of like doing
what I do when I go to the schools and I talk like, and
don't get me wrong, it's fucking hard speaking in front of group
of 34500 people that you know, you don't know and you're going
to go up there and you're going to tell them all these things
that you did the. Most vulnerable?
Yeah. And it's like you're, you're
pouring out like your dirty laundry and it's embarrassing
sometimes. And it's like I get like I get
scared before I go. On but the the the bigger
picture is trying to save. Them and I keep that I keep that
goal in mind like when I go on like fuck, who cares what they
think you know like my I'm here to change lives, I'm here to
make a difference. I'm here to stop these girls
from taking the same path as me. I'm here to stop these guys from
using drugs and dying like my brother did, you know, like I
got to remember that that's the goal and that's the reason why I
put myself in this vulnerable. I also feel like maybe like what
you've been through and like, like where I grew up is I don't
feel like most people can like get through that, you know?
Most people can. They don't make the change.
Yeah, and it takes like, it takes a lot of willpower.
Like I have, I have a fucking cousin, like first cousin, like
we was all like me. All my cousins are all public
school like started drinking early, smoking weed early.
But my cousin was like private school and they kind of kept
them separated from us. You guys are the hoodlums.
Yeah, but he's like bad till this day because.
He got there late. Yeah, he never like, by the time
we got to college and stuff or like not even college, but out
of high school, I've been around it enough where I knew when to
say no and if I should go or shouldn't go.
I knew, like, the right decisions, but it's like, I
think he was so sheltered that when he went off to college, he
didn't know how to say no. Yeah.
And then it just like he said that first time and just never
did stop to this day. You get offered bigger things at
those ages, right? Yeah, that's why, too.
When I speak to the kids, I always tell them, I said one day
you're gonna be put in this predicament.
They're gonna bring something to you and you're like, you wanna
try this, you gotta try this. And I said, you're going to have
to find that moment and you're going to have to remember what
I'm when I'm talking to you about.
I said that's the moment when you're going to have to be a
leader and set your boundaries and know how to not be a
follower. I said any one of you can be a
follower. How many of you can be a leader?
How many of you can say fuck no, I don't want to do that shit.
Get the fuck out of here with that.
I want to be somebody, you know what I mean?
I want to do something in my life.
Are you strong enough to do that?
Or are you going to be like, Oh yeah, let me try just because,
you know, just because they're offering you, like I said,
there's going to come a point in time when you have to stand up
and and basically fight for yourself, you know?
And that's what I want to teach my son.
How to do? It's easy to give in to the peer
pressure. It's so easy, it's.
So my dad always, from a young age, always instill that in us.
So you're a leader or you're a follower like when, when, when,
when we get in the truck, you'd a, you'd a dog in the back or
you'd a hunter in the front. And that's, and I always like,
that's something that I always like think about to this day.
Because anybody can be a fire. Anybody can.
When I was working at Finley Kia they had the general sales
manager. He's gotten arrested for
embezzling millions and what not but.
Is that still going on right now?
Yeah, it's still going on. But like he's the first person
that gave me like Roxicid and like all kinds of like like
painkillers and what not. We would do like cocaine off the
front desk and whatnot. But at that point I, I didn't
know. I felt like I didn't know
anything. I was so new into the business.
And he was, I mean, he was only 30, but up to where guys were at
like the end of their career basically.
So it was almost like I was taking guidance from him to try
to figure out like how to get there basically.
Wolf of Wall Street. Kind of, yeah.
But I guess I was being a father, I was trying to be led
by someone, if that makes sense. Right.
Yeah. So how do you pick the right
leaders or guide? Yourself, right?
Leaders, you have to, I mean, you basically got to use your
own discernment when it comes to that.
Like you have to know what you want out of your life.
You want to know, you know, you want to, you want something, you
want to be somebody, you know, you want to be a hair braider, a
dancer, like a designer. Like once you figure that out,
you have to like go all in and and pursue that, you know, and
anything that or any crowd that will distract you from that is
basically some is not good for you.
Well, I, I think that's what I got caught up and was, I was
trying to. Get like him.
Get like him who was like a hot young guy was sitting on all
these boards nada across the nation like.
He's but do you see what I'm saying about drugs can affect
anybody? You can be the richest person,
you know, like have it, have it all together.
I said, but that doesn't like drugs does not discriminate.
Drugs doesn't discriminate and say, oh, I'm only going to fuck
with the poor people. Well, I'm only going to, you
know, get, you know, these people addicted.
It takes anybody who touches it. It was just, I felt like it was
difficult because I felt that was that was just a part of it.
Like that's what you needed to do to be in that position.
You need to do. I had a cup, a mug in my office
that I would just put my Adderall in, smash it up and I
probably put like four or five in there at a time.
And we would just drop the day and just hit it like that, like
it was a cup of coffee. And I, I just felt like that was
part of what we had to do as part of the group.
It was a starter starter kit for salesman.
It was, it was like part of your briefcase.
Yeah. Pen.
Kia Lee salesman sells kit. Cocaine and Adderall, Yeah,
basically just hardly, I feel like with, again, not having
that guidance. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's hard too, because nowadays it's so easy.
There's so much, it's so popular, like drugs are so
popular, even sociable drugs. Like everybody knows when you're
out there drinking in the clubs, everybody, there's at least
fucking 60 guys there who got coke in their pocket, you know
what I mean? It's like it's become an
accepted social thing, you know, just like how beer is now, you
know, like it's become an accepted thing of society.
So it's it's harder to be honest, I think it's harder
nowadays than it was 30 years ago because it's like it's so
much more accepted. And you see it more.
Yeah, it's everywhere. More you.
Know how everybody got that one time all the rap or they still
do it, but the lean face yeah, I never understood it cuz I did
lean. He's like, I was like, oh, it
makes me up a cup. So I was like, fuck yeah, you
know, holding the double cup, fucking acting all cool, drank
it and then fuck, I just fell asleep and I was like, bro,
what's so boring? What the fuck did I why would
you want to do this? Like I'm just fighting my sleep
the whole time, you know? And but I, I tried it like twice
and I was but it's not for me. I can't.
I can't do it. But how do you combat it?
There's so much like art and culture and music that is
glorifying. It's totally glorifying, Yeah.
I mean, fuck, I don't know how to combat it.
It's just basically about having a certain your own mindset.
It's either you want it or you don't, you know, like you want
to be sober, you want to, you know, do something with your
life or you don't. If you're content with like
partying at the beaches every day and not having a, you know,
a career and not having anything for yourself, then by all means,
maybe that is a life for you, you know, But for me, I wasn't,
I wasn't satisfied anymore. Like my life was.
I, I wasn't satisfied because there was a point in time when I
thought I was going to stay on drugs forever.
Like, I'd never thought that I'd ever changed.
I thought I was going to die with a pipe in my fucking hand.
Like, that is how like, I was just like, yeah, I'm going to
fucking do this forever. I'm going to sell drugs forever.
I'm going to get high forever. Like, and I never thought of
changing. But it wasn't until I started,
like, losing people in my life, losing friends.
And, you know, they were dying to like, overdoses.
You know, even one of my close friends got beat up for a bag
like of dope this big and they beat him to death, put him in
the ICU. He died like another one of my
friends shot up dope. She got a it like infected, a
skin infection. She ended up dying.
So like, there's so much people I started losing.
And then when it came to my little brother, like that was
like the, the wake up call, you know, and I thought to myself,
if this doesn't change you, nothing else will ever change
you because you've already experienced the losses, you have
already experienced the misery, you know, the prison time.
Like if this doesn't stop you from what you're doing, then
you're, you're not going to be saved.
You're never going to change, you know?
And so like when that happened, I just, it was a wake up call,
you know, and I prayed to God, I was like, God, please, like take
these demons away from me. Like take this addiction from
me, please. Like, I don't want to be on
drugs no more like help me. And I did.
And I and I booked a flight to stay in like a hotel by myself
for two weeks. And, and that's how I sobered
up. Like I fought, I bought all
these snacks and all these, you know, things.
And I went to this hotel and I fucking gave away my pipe, gave
away my drugs. And I just tried like my best to
just sober up. So for two weeks I sobered.
Up. How was that?
It was hard. It was hard, but like the
biggest thing was just not answering people and not, you
know, being tempted to like reaffiliate myself.
And so I actually started looking for an apartment to move
to because where I was, people like I would my pop, my house is
popular. Like people would just walk in
the garage, like knock on my door, like, Hey, what, you know
what, not then, you know, so I had to remove myself and I found
a place in Mililani, got an apartment and that's how I
sobered up. Like I, I had to just, it was
like my mind just changed, my mindset changed.
I went from being OK with my life to like knowing I can't
fucking do this no more. Like this is just, I wasted so
many years, you know, And so losing my brother was like that
wake up call that I needed. And it's sad to say, like
something that fucked up, something that devastating is
what it took for me to get clean, you know, like, but, and
that's why too, like I'm adamant, like I will never touch
drugs again. I will never touch drugs.
I'll never fucking play with drugs.
I'll never profit off of drugs. I'll never try and make a, you
know what I mean? Like, because drugs destroyed my
life. I dedicated, oh, you know, 20
years basically to, to drugs. And so like today, that same
drive, that same hustle, I just put it into everything that's,
that's legal, you know, like, I don't care if I'm selling garlic
shrimp, at least I'm not selling dope, you know, like I do
everything I can to level up my life, whether it's just me and
my little family, like I, I do, I put that same drive into, into
what it takes, you know, and like for us, when we're on
drugs, we do anything, whatever it takes to stay high,
basically, you know what I mean? Oh, we got to do a home
invasion. Shoot, let's go.
So why can't I put that same drive, that same energy, that
same dedication into my life today?
And that's just that's what I'm doing.
That's what I'm doing. I love that.
Yeah, you have to, you know, can't make excuses because like,
and, and it's like, if I could do all of that stuff, you know,
just for drugs, then I have no excuse.
Like there's nothing. I there's no, I shouldn't have a
limit on how much I can do. You know, it's all about my
mindset, how much I believe in myself, you know, and that's
that's why I'm like, I'm trying so hard today and, you know, to
just, I never thought I would have a food truck and just be
selling, you know what I mean? Like there's 200 people in line
standing to eat food that I cooked with my own hands.
Like, I've never envisioned that.
Yeah. Yeah.
How would you rate your shrimp or stack it up against
Giovanni's or other greats from Hawaii?
Well, for one, it's different. It's different, like it's the,
the way it's cooked and the style is, is it's just a
different flavor, You know, like I'll never take it away from
Giovanni's or cocoa shrimp truck.
They earn their their title, but I will say like, I never copied
their recipes. Mines is different, different
flavors. Mines is really saucy.
Like there's a lot of garlic, you know, a lot of sauce in
every single flavor that I created.
And mines I would say, like my shit's fucking good.
It's good, it's good. It is really good.
It's good and especially like me, I haven't like I was telling
you guys like I haven't even been in business three months
you. Passed the eye test and they
passed the taste test, Yeah, like I saw it on IG and I was
motherfucking look good and they have to order me a plate.
Yeah. And then I got the taste test
and I was getting motherfucker good too.
Shit. What's your most popular items
on the menu right now? Probably the Kalena combo is the
most popular because it's like you get 2 in one because you get
the lemon butter garlic shrimp and then you have the size of
the hot and spicy sauce. So I think that's like the
hottest seller. But all of them, I mean the
garlic scampi and the lemon butter, like they sell like a
lot like Hawaiians love. Their garlic.
I like the lemon butter. Yeah, that's why I'm on lemon.
Lemon butter. Yeah.
But it is like, it's not, but like, don't you like what?
Like you're going through all you went through and then where
you're at now to see people wait in line.
Man, it's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy.
Like that first event that we did when I was asking, you know,
who was putting the event on, I was like, how much should I prep
for? Like just, you know, roundabout
off the top of your head. She's like 06080, bro.
We had 200 something people in a line.
I was like, and I looked out the window.
I was like looking out the window.
I go, who saw those? What are they standing there?
Go that's your line. I was like my line and I was
like, no fucking way. They're like, yeah.
So that was the first time we did anything with the truck,
anything in public. Like that was how I learned was
that experience. So I was like, it was a good
first run because it taught us like what to do, what's better,
Like, you know, so now we have a good system.
Like, yeah, so it was, it was amazing.
It was amazing, like. You sold out before you sold
out, but what is that feeling when like the line is long and
you got to go outside and be like?
We're about to sell out, sorry. It's like 50 more and there's no
place there, you know? Yeah, man, I had to, yeah,
because we still had like probably 30 people in line.
But I try to tell them ahead of time so they don't stay there
waiting. But I just look at I gauge how
much shrimp we got and I was like, hey guys, we're probably
down to our last 25 plates, like let the people in line.
No, like, hey, we only got 25 more.
So, you know, hopefully catch us next time.
Yeah, but yeah, it's amazing. Like it's, it's a lot of work.
Don't, don't get me wrong, it's a lot of work for sure.
It's, it's a lot the prepping, the cleaning, like all that
stuff that go like I don't just wake up and I just start
cooking. Like no, the prepping is like a
six hour prep before each event. You know, the cleaning
afterwards is like 2 to 3 hours every time.
And so it's just it's a lot of work, but I mean, shit, that's
it's a living. Yeah.
It's, it's what's keeping us afloat.
You know, my goal is to eventually have a franchise, you
know, open up multiple restaurants not only in Vegas,
but back home, you know, and maybe have like a restaurant in
Makaha, where I'm from. Hometown.
Yeah, Yeah. They get the Giovanni's on the
the North Shore side. I'll get the West, you know.
So that's the goal. That's the goal.
So would you look at expanding other than just shrimp and
adding other dishes? I don't want to.
I want to just be known for one thing because I don't want to
create another dish that is not good.
So I know I do the shrimp good and that's good enough for me.
So I rather just excel in one day.
Yeah, specialize in one thing because if you go to Giovanni's
or like there's a lime and they're only ordering one thing,
you know. So I want to keep it that way,
keep it simple. Not only that, but like, I think
that's a Better Business model because then I don't have to,
you know, have all these other ingredients and stuff.
Right now all I need is my shrimp, my garlic, my cabbage,
my lemons, and then all my sauces and seasonings, of
course. But if I add steak to the menu,
then that's just one more expense that I gotta keep in
stock. And just so I just like to keep
it simple. I think it's less stress for me.
Quality control as. Well, yeah.
Easier, yeah, you just specialize in one.
Thing. One thing.
Just one thing. I think, bro, I feel like that's
what I always tell people. They tell me, oh, you should do
this, do it. I I sell shirts.
I sell shirts and hats. I ain't trying to do any other
business. This is what I do.
I sell shirts and hats. Yeah, because then I mean, you
know, like, and that's why too, I'm constantly trying to like,
better what I give out. Like even if it's something as
simple as the rice like because I had a.
He's telling me about the. You know, the rice being hard
one time, like because we got the top of the oh, wait, wait.
Can we talk about this? She said she couldn't work the
whole day. She was just thinking about it
the whole day. But you had someone actually.
Yes. OK, so I had one customer.
She just wrote to me. She didn't come from a bad place
or anything. She was just letting you know.
Hey, sis, that we ordered some plates and a couple of the rice
was like hard. And so it bothered me the whole
day. Like I couldn't even think
because I was like fucking rice was hard.
Like what the fuck, you know. And so then I'm now I'm like
make sure we have Saran wrap, tinfoil plus one pan cover, you
know, and then we keep them in the warmers and we have our rice
pots in there. Like we'll serve right out of
the rice pot so that that'll never happen again.
Like it's always like, how can I prevent that from ever
happening? You know what I mean?
Like just simple things, you know, like simple things like
that. I want to make sure and even
like when we put out the plates, I want to make sure they have a
lot of sauce on their plate. I don't want, you know, I want
to like, continuously give them a quality plate.
Consistent. Yeah.
A quality plate. I don't want to.
I'll always use a lot of garlic. I'll always use a lot of sauce.
Like, that's what makes it good, you know, and so.
The biggest thing is when you make a mistake in business like
that, that's how you handle it constructive.
Criticism. Yeah.
And I love constructive criticism.
And I even told them I was like, please let me comp your whole
meal. Like let me cook for you again.
And they're like, no, no, no, no, your shrimp was fucking
amazing. But I just was letting you know
and I was like, thank you for telling us, you know, like, and
so I mean, and I test the rice every single time we open a new
stuff of rice, I said test the rice, make sure nothing's hard.
And so like they grab, you know, and test it and stuff.
Well, on top of that too, it's the energy that you're putting
out and you're cooking with love, you're serving with love.
So this customer wasn't coming to to bash you or the business
or anything. They genuinely wanted to let you
know, hey, like. And she came back.
My very next event she bought again and I said check rice.
Checked her, she's like rice is good rice.
Softest love? Yeah.
Like I just, you know, little stuff like that, I want to
continue bettering our business and then even like our system
now as far as like cooking and plating, we have a better system
now. Like the customers won't wait in
line for more than 5 minutes, you know, once they make their.
Yeah, I've seen the change. Do you?
See the change the first from the 1st till now.
Yeah, but even like the first event you did here to the.
To the next one. To the next one, I've seen the.
Difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So now we have a better system, you know, like, yeah, and I and
I, and that's part of business. You always want to level up.
You always want to better. Yourself, I was telling a lot I
was like wow like the strip is good.
I think you got to like figure out like a better system and I,
I don't know how to cook. So I was like, maybe they need
more walks or something and I was fuck, shut the fuck up.
What you're talking about it's. Hard to because we already
outgrew our. Trucks.
Yeah. Oh, no, yeah, definitely.
You could tell. From the first event I was like
oh fuck. There's four.
There's four of you like in that in that small we.
Already outgrew it so, but now we have a really good system
like we all and we always, nobody had training that day.
Nobody had training. This is everybody just met me at
the spot and we learned. We learned during the event.
I doing this, you doing this you doing?
This hey, you get the cleanup, you get the plating, you doing
this, you do the cashier and that was it.
And so we were all learning and then even the cashier, one time
she was fucking putting all the orders on one ticket.
And I was like, where does this order start and where does it
end? Like it was all written on one.
And I'm like, you have to put your name so that we know who to
call. Like I was like, where does what
order is this? You know, like we had all these
things to fix and, and, and even down to me changing my pans and
having more pans so that the person who's doing the dishes,
there's always clean pans available.
Like, just little tweaks to make your business better, you know,
So I'm like, really proud. I know I even walked up.
I even walked up one time and she was like kind of taking a
break. So she was working the register
and then I was like, I ordered something, she said.
And like she didn't know how to work I.
Didn't know how to work the rest.
I usually cook and I was like, well, but do whatever you gotta
do. Like whatever, yeah.
I had to ask my cousin. I was like how do I do the sale
again? Like how do you do this?
But now I think we have a really good system.
We're quicker and we know too not to pre plate the rice like
keep the rice in the pot, plate the rice last so that it's like
stays warm stays you know what I mean?
Cuz when you need rice uncovered.
Let's start. Here, yeah, the air hits it, you
know, it'll start. So now like we have these things
that we make sure we don't do to keep, you know, keep the flow.
Yeah. So hopefully, I mean hopefully
by the end of the year, beginning of next year, we can
open up our first. Brick and mortar location.
An actual restaurant. Well, I'm going to keep the
trailer. Though get places over here and
just sing. I know big events.
Yeah, I, I want to, we want to open up our first spot.
We just have to, our obligation is to pay off our trailer before
the end of the year, by the end of the year.
So once that's, you know, taken care of, then I want to level
up. Yeah, yeah.
And take the next step. So.
It's good. It's good when you you have that
like insight of what you where you want to get.
Yeah. My my goal, though, is like my
my real goal to get I know it's not anytime soon, but like I
want to franchise kill a kind of shrimp like how Chick-fil-A
yeah, yeah, we get all kind of place yeah, we want that.
We want that drive through and everything like whatever you
know, I want, I want multiple locations, franchise you.
Know, I hope, I hope I can roll up to the friends and Family Day
when that does happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, man, I I really want that. I could definitely see that
model working out. Yeah.
Especially even if it just starts on the West Coast, that
would be huge. Yeah.
Can we talk a little bit about
prison? What was the prison experience
like? For me, the worst part about
prison is just missing your loved ones.
For me, being around other prisoners wasn't nothing to me
because I'm, I mean, I'm always fighting and I was always like,
I was always a strong person. So prison wasn't hard for me.
It was the being away from my family that was hard.
And you know, when you get sentenced and they're like, you
know, OK, you get 10 years, you're like, fuck, 10 years.
You know, like I want to be here for 10 years.
And then you realize all the shit that you just had that you
no longer have and that you're going to come out to nothing.
And having a like these people are going to tell you when you
can shower. You know what, when you can eat,
how long, you know, you got 10 minutes to shower.
You know, it's like every single move is, is, is under someone
else's, you know, permission. And they, it's just, I always
made myself comfortable and that's a bad thing.
It's a bad thing to get comfortable in prison.
But that was just my nature. You know, I'm from the streets
and lived on the streets. So of course I'm going to easily
find make prison comfortable for me.
Clean coffee, Beer. Like it was, it was nothing.
And then so I would try to make the best of my prison time, like
having a girlfriend and doing all those kind of stuff to get
the time to go by, you know. But in reality, the hardest part
is just when you lose family members and you're there and you
can't even go to the funeral, you know, and your mom's sick,
you know, having to go through some kind of surgery or
something and you can't be there.
Just those things that you missed that you realize, like
you can't, you'll never be able to get back.
You can't get that time back, you know, and then when you're
there, you're like, you're forced to contemplate all the
dumb decisions that you made. And you realize, like, man, I
could be outside, you know, in the at the beach right now.
Like, but yet I spent all my time with these chronics who
could give up two fucks about me, You know, like when I had my
family and my family was the only people who supported me,
like my grandma, my mom, my grandma, like literally had to
get knee replacements and everything.
And she'd come faithfully every weekend.
She would come faithfully every weekend, but.
What about when you're in there and like addiction wise?
Like is it like obviously you worry or are you thinking like,
oh, when I get out, fuck. Am I?
Oh, yeah. When I get out, I wanted to be
the biggest dope dealer and just not get caught.
That was my, my mindset, You know, I mean, my mindset was
foolish because at a point in time I was like, it was like a
goal of minds. So that like when I die, like I
get killed from the cops, like that's how foolish my mindset
was. Like I thought that was like a
glorifying moment that if I die, I want to make sure I die this
way, you know, shoot out with the cops or some shit like that.
Like that's how stupid my mindset used to be, you know,
But like being in prison, it's, it's really just dealing with
the, with the reality of where you put yourself.
You know, I had all these chances to do make different
decisions and I didn't. And so in in reality, like
prison was good for me. It was good for me because it
was God's way of like telling you to slow down.
Not only that, but the life I was living, I think that like I
could have got myself killed. The things I was doing, the
people I was stealing from, like just I, I, it would have been no
surprise had I gotten myself killed.
You know, even one day I came into prison and this lady, she's
like, she's like a lady that like reads palms and kind of
like a psychic. And I walked in and as soon as
she saw me, she's like came up to me, literally grabbed my arms
and I was like, you need to stop what you're doing because she's
like, you're going to die a violent death.
And it kind of stuck with me, you know, because she's like,
it's, you're going to die a violent death if you don't stop.
She's like, you need to change your life.
And it just, I always remembered that because I believed her,
because that's the things I was doing.
You know what I mean? I was putting myself in
situations where our fucking people was trying to kill me,
you know, like, but at the time, I just felt like I had nothing
to lose, Like I didn't care for my life today.
I care for my life today. I don't ever want to think of
having to leave this this earth anytime soon because I have a
boy who, you know, looks up to me and depends on me, you know
so, so now I care for my life. Back then I didn't, I didn't
care. I didn't care if I died.
Like there were times when I this guy held me hostage and
there was like 5 other guys with him and he had like a gun in my
mouth and everything and I was begging him to shoot me.
I was begging him to shoot me and tell him I was like do me
the favor. I said make my fucking day.
And he was like you fucking crazy bitch.
Like I was begging him. I was like please fucking kill
me. I didn't want to live, you know,
and so today I cherish my life. Probably even more than yeah,
because of what you went through, yeah.
How did that situation end? They basically came, so they set
me up and got me in someone's shack and then they all pulled
up in a car and basically they were trying to get me to tell
us, one of my goons, to stop harassing them.
So they're like, fucking tell him stop, you know, coming to my
house because I had somebody going to his house shooting at
his house. And I was like, I'm not telling
him because that guy ripped me off.
That guy ripped me off. So I was like, no, I'm not, I'm
not going to tell him that. And he had, they all had guns
pointing at me. And I was like, and he was like
whacking me in the head and I was like talking shit like my
grandma hit me fucking harder than that.
Like, come on, like what you going to do with that?
Like don't pull out the gun if you're not going to use it, You
know what I mean? And so like, he was getting mad
and I was like, I was like, you think you're going to, I think I
said do me the favor. I said, you think I'm fucking
love my life? I said pull the trigger.
Like kill me. Fucking kill me.
Like I said, I hate my fucking life.
Do me the favor, you know, do something I don't have the
fucking courage to do. And he's like, you fucking crazy
bitch. I was like, fuck, you kill me,
you know? And he didn't.
He was like, they fucking left. They left me.
But they, before they left, they were like, yeah, those two holes
outside. That's for you.
And I had a friend with me. They're like that, those two
because, you know, the big machines that dig the holes, it
was in like a junkyard in the back of a junkyard.
And it was a big private property.
And they had like these big holes that they dug with these
excavators. And he was saying that those
holes were for me and my friend, that they're going to bury us.
And I was, I just didn't care. I didn't care about my life.
Yeah. I mean, I'm here today.
They didn't fucking kill me. They didn't shoot me.
They left and that was it. Like I never.
I crossed paths with him once in Hina Mauka.
I crossed paths with that guy in Hina Mauka.
You Remember Me? Fucking he was he was in
treatment and he see me and he came up to me and he's like, hey
Taran. And he gave me a hug, but it was
crazy because like I I let all that go because not only was IA
different person and I did a lot of fucked up things to people,
but so does everybody, every other addict.
So what makes it like I it was no, I I wasn't even mad anymore.
Like I was over it, you know? But he saw me and he came up to
me and was like, how you doing? Like you good you sober now?
And I was like, yeah. And he had, you know, gained
weight too. I knew he was sober.
So. So we both saw each other at
fucking Hina Mauka. And it's crazy because a lot of
us addicts cross paths when we're in treatment, you know,
either on probation, at the probation office, or in some
fucking drug program. Like when like old veterans see
each other. Exactly like it's.
Like you know Gary too. Yeah, Gary.
That's like Gary's my neighbor. Like we, our family houses are
right next to each other and he was always in that life.
Gary, we used to run the streets.
Together. Yeah.
He, he was in there right now, like I said, like where I grew
up. His his family.
House Gary should have been here for the time.
Gary, what a fucking. His podcast will be like 5 hours
long. No, I was not talking.
But yeah, like he was in that whole life too.
Yeah, for a while. Yeah, Yeah.
So it's, it's like when you get sober, you kind of just let go
of the resentments from that life because it's no longer the
world you live in. You know, the when I got sober,
there was tons of people who owed me money.
And I just, I said, you know what, I need to take that as a
loss because I no longer wanted to benefit from drugs.
Like after losing my brother, I said, I don't want nothing to do
with it. I don't want to make money off
of it anymore. I just wanted to be like done
with it. And so when you get sober, it's
like you just have to let that part of your life go.
You can't hold on to people and, and things like that, you know,
because then you're having reservations.
You still want to be 1 foot in and you know, like you have to
completely be done. That's the only way it'll work.
Some people try to keep 1 foot in the door and that's where it
fucks them. It's so easy to get sucked back
into. You see you guys go sober for
years and they were right back in one little thing, right?
Yeah, and it's a lot of time is acquaintances still fucking with
people, you know, smoke. If you trying to be sober, why
are you going to kick it with one of your friends from your
addiction knowing that that guy get one pipe in his pocket and
he smokes still? Like it's like you're, you're
allowing yourself, you know, to get pulled back in, having
reservations basically. There's certain things, yeah,
that just pulls you back. Oh yeah, yeah.
That's how I'm on Coca-Cola right now.
I never drink. Sold off since last September.
He was going to say Coke, but no.
Coca-Cola. No, you know, I drink like I
love my soda, but I started dieting and I told myself I was
going to stop drinking soda. I started dieting before I see
one this fucking Coca-Cola or whole bra fucking hands get all
sweaty and everything. How accurate is Orange is the
New Black to real prison? A lot of it is close, a lot of
it is close. They just dramatize it a little
bit. But in a girl's prison, ain't
nobody raping nobody. Like ain't nobody fucking gang
banging girls in there. It's just that's not yeah, it's
and girls like nobody. This guy's this guy's just
picturing orgy scissors all over the place bro.
Everybody just walking around. And scissors with each other.
There's literally this girl she's from she was from Israel
and she was in in prison. I was in Phoenix, AZ and she
just came in like blonde hair, blue eyes, like it was a white.
It was she was a white collar crime.
So it was like money embezzling shit like that.
Not like a criminal St. you know person right.
So she comes in and she's brand new and you can tell she's
fucking scared like she don't even know how to act.
She's like jumping and I'm like. Oh, you called her?
No. No, so I gave her high jeans.
I was like, I was like, hey, so I gave her like, you know,
shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste and toothbrush.
I was like, hey, you know, because she's not going to be
able to shop until a couple weeks.
We just had store. So I gave it to her and then
she's like, what do you want for this?
Like looking at me and I'm like, what?
What do I have to do for this? And I was like nothing like.
So later on we became friends and she told me she was like,
hey, I got to tell you something.
She's like, I fucking thought that.
Guarantee he's calling. He's calling.
Dave's on that one. Real.
Quick, I was like, are you fucking kidding me?
She's like, yeah, I feel so. She's like really skinny too or
something like small. Yeah, like just a fucking, you
know, a small petite. Fucking you keep walking up to
her. Fucking bitch.
Your fucking mind for the reading for me.
She thought it clean for me. Because she'd be watching too
much Orange is the New Black. OK, so I was like, bro, calm the
fuck down. Ain't nobody trying to take your
coochie or anything like that. I was like this, this is just
some high jeans for you, you know, like so she had kind of
like chill and just kind of like learn the ropes and how it is.
But it was funny. So no rape at all in women
prison? No, I.
Didn't. I Mean, Girls give.
It all no drop in the sofrar. Freely in there, really.
Yeah, there's a lot of girlfriend relationships in
there because that's how girls. They're in fucking relationship
in boat prisons. Yeah, there's, there's that's
how people pass their time. That's just that's just the the
real truth. Like a lot of girls who aren't
gay will be great gay. They call it gay for the stay
because because it's fun. Everybody got to get their shit
off right now. Yeah, it's.
Fun. It's just fun because now, you
know, now you have somebody to wake up to and you guys can go
breakfast together and you guys can go to the backyard and work
out together. You know what I mean?
Like you can bring my hair, I can bring yours.
Like it's just, it's like companionship.
But there's no like massive muff parties where they're just like,
I mean, they're clamming against each other, they.
Have some clam parties, but not like, you know, like how they,
you know, put it out there. It's not like the men's prisons,
like when they do that kind of stuff, but girls, like, girls
will come in and they've never been with a girl before.
And, like, they'll pop their cherry in prison, yeah.
They have dildos in prison. Yeah, we make our own.
Whoa, I don't like what? Pencils, pads, gloves.
What is? That a pencil Dick.
Copy 24 pencils. I mean if if you find some right
now I can make it for you guys. All you need is like 2 pencils,
couple sanitary pads, 11 latex glove or two.
What else we put? In what is the the guys gonna
get the towel with the? You basically just get the
pencils, you wrap them with the pads for the cushion, then you
put the latex glove on the outside and then you like double
up the latex so, you know, protect.
Whatever, so it doesn't like break.
And just what about Lube? What do you guys do for Lube?
Vaseline. So he's fucking impressed, like.
I can go fucking look into them after this.
Are there any male prison guards and female presents?
Oh yeah, The males you get, you get the dirt.
The guys that are in there that you know, easily manipulated
from the girls, you get it all from them.
So I was in. I was wondering like how often
does that happen? I mean, I mean, even for me,
like I used to manipulate guy guards.
Can you bring some makeup? Can you bring this like just
contraband, That's all you know. And like a lot of them are just
easy because they like they don't get attention at home.
So the girls in prison showing them attention, they'd fucking,
they bring food, they bring, you know, all kinds of stuff.
There's guys in there like like my cousin just sending.
Me. They put money on your books.
My cousin just sent me pictures from prison.
I'm like bro, looking smooth as fuck right now with all that
fucking brand new shoes, watches.
Yeah, bro, they have all kinds of cell phones Facetiming you
and everything. Bro that's why I got
transferred. I got transferred from Phoenix
prison to Florence because I was selling cell phones.
I had alcohol like in the jugs and everything.
I was putting them in these water bottles, selling them for
50 bucks. Swipe Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My uncle said he made they have one swipe batch and then they
went blind for like their vision got blurry for like so many
hours. Oh yeah.
So I guess they did a batch and something went wrong with the
batch. They drank it and then they said
their vision was all blurry for for a while.
I was like what the fuck? That happens when you drink like
a really heavy moonshine too. That that same thing, yeah.
Yeah, lose your vision. When is the next event for Killa
kine shrimp? Friday, we got one on Friday and
then next weekend we have like a like a Easter one, yeah.
Where is it at this Friday? This should come out tomorrow
Deep. Root harvest, Deep root harvest,
the dispensary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like we contracted and partnered with them to do their
events and all their customers. They like to give their
customers like a gift kind of, you know, so like the customers
come in, they buy, you know, products from them and then they
give them a ticket. And that's the best.
That's the best gig. Yeah.
And then they just come out, give us their ticket and we give
them like a mini plate half like half the size of a.
Normal. What would be the goal?
Like to have like 5 or 6 businesses that every day you
get to do that? Yeah, yeah, I would.
I mean, the goal shit. I mean, right now we only really
work on the weekends, you know, so, and that's because my
husband still has his his job Monday through Friday.
So it's like we can't fully excel, yeah, with our business
because he's still doing that job, but we.
Yeah, I think the leap of faith pretty.
Soon right and he's down he's ready to go but it's just like
when is the right time for us because on top of that now I
have a 8 month old son so I got to make sure I have a babysitter
lined up you know like yeah yeah there's all these aspects of it
that. It's always the scariest part
about about owning your own business, right?
Yeah, because it's like, yeah, it's basically a leap of faith.
Yeah, yeah. And I remember when, when I had
farmers, like I was working construction making good money
early, I was making really good money and standing out of old
timers. I won't quit and I'm going to do
my shirt business. Then I even fucking quit this
job that people dream of having or sell T-shirts.
Boy, what the fuck you thinking? And I was like, fuck it.
And it's like this is when union job, like people retiring there.
I was like, bro, I'm not going to be 50 years old looking like
you guys. Like, fuck that.
And then like, you're going to quit for sell T-shirts?
And I was, yeah, I'm going to quit for sell T-shirts and then
fuck my dad. I was talking to my dad because
I was still scared, you know, I was scared.
And my dad was like, boy, fuck him.
Like you good at your job. So if this doesn't work, then
you just go back. No, no harm, no foul.
You know, like, but make sure you fucking put the energy out.
So yeah, I chanced it and then fucking the business, turned it
into what it did. And then I see like all the old
timers like after and they're like, oh, good thing you so
stressed out. Yeah, yeah, they Oh yeah.
Fucking good thing with work too.
And, and it's crazy because most people, they have business
ideas, but they are scared to pull the trigger.
So like they're afraid to take that leap of faith.
And and because it takes a lot to actually believe in yourself,
your capabilities even like not only that, but like growing a
clientele. Gloria and clientele, you have
to put in work like you got to go on social media, like you got
to advertise, you have to make posts and make content because a
business with no content, it just.
Nowadays. Nowadays, you're not.
Going to be a business for much longer.
Yeah, yeah. And it's so important like, and
sometimes like if we slack off on our content, then you see
like the orders. And they dip in business.
Yep. So it's like you have to do all
of the above. And so that leap of faith I can
understand because I was scared as fuck.
Like I was scared and so. Just because you own bought a
house? Yeah, kid, no stability.
Right. Yeah, exactly.
They always tell people like all like when I had that when I was
working as a diesel mechanic, but he was making 40 something
dollars an hour like really good money, right?
But it's so easy. Like I when I look back now
sometimes like bro, it's so easy to clock in.
Yep, do your 8 hours, 10 hours clock out.
No worries in a row. None.
Now you're back then. You go.
Yeah, you go. Do your thing, you work 24/7
it's we quit our jobs to work for ourselves, but now we.
Work 21st 2 * 3 times as much even.
Like bro, sometimes we're at home, we're laying in bed and
then, you know, the Ring camera like Amazon comes and they'll
drop something off and I'll be like, oh fuck, there's a thing
on order. Yeah.
And then I get up and get ready. A lot of ready guys to the shop.
I got to install this thing inside the podcast room and
she's doing tomorrow. I say no fuck, I got to do it
now. Like, I'm not coming for a sleep
if I don't do them now, you know, like, so it just never
stops. And in the social media and in.
That's a whole job. Networking.
That social media is a whole job in itself.
Sometimes my husband is like, are you done yet or what?
Like I'm on my phone for like 3 hours.
I'm like hold on. I'm trying to make a real like.
Or caption, right. Yeah, absolutely.
Sometimes to last because I work she's like working on captions.
She's like, what are you doing? And I'm taking long.
And then she looks at me. She says, are you tearing?
I said yeah, because I'm writing a fucking caption right now.
Is this from the heart? Yeah, this is a fucking deep
water. In motion, though, yeah.
It's just a lot of work, man. It's a lot of work.
Nowadays, businesses thrive off of social media.
Yeah, yeah. And your and your networking
skills, right? What drew so much people to the
first event for the shrimp truck?
But I don't know. I don't know.
I no really, it was very odd. Social media I.
Talked. I talked about it like I well.
She has a social media presence and everybody like, to me, what
I feel like it was your story. Yeah, I see.
But your story of like, like, obviously we're from Oahu.
So like he's from Bengali. So you don't know her as much,
but you, you've seen like, terrific, the fucking mug shots.
And she's doing all these things at the school's talking to the
kids. But to me it was like almost
you're, you're in this path where you're you're inspiring
and you're doing good for yourself.
So we want to go and support. It was a more key.
We want to support because she's doing something good for
herself. And that was just off of like
the Instagram stories or. Yeah, and I spoke about it like
once on like I made like a like a video clip about it.
And I said like this is our first public appearance.
You know, we're we're nervous, but we're excited and like, man,
people were literally standing in line for like 45 minutes and
like people came to my next event and was like, girl, I was
trying to get you shrimp the last time.
She's like, I didn't get to I think.
Alana was the same thing, ran out when she went or or.
Yeah, and and so. Even a lot of them, because
Alana is like a fucking fucking shopper.
Online shopper, Right. Yeah.
And then like, she's dropping off Pickles and Pickles and I'm
like, Brad, like, what the fuck are you ordering?
And she says it's from Tarana. I'm kind of like, OK, like Ken's
cool. He's from her.
Yeah, cool. I support like the.
Next one was a tray of. You know, like, yeah, like I
support like, because she's doing the right thing, so it's a
support thing. But if it wasn't anybody else,
I'd be like, stop fucking buying that stupid shit.
Like, what the fuck are you doing?
It's not fucking buying that, right?
But like, like for me, it's her story of where she came from.
And then like, obviously we just have found out more heavy shit.
So even more, you'd want to support, you know?
And my biggest thing is to show people that you basically you
can do whatever you believe you can, because if you believe you
can't, then you're not, you know, but for me, like, like I
was sharing with you guys earlier, January 12th is when I
had the vision of selling shrimp.
January 22nd is when I made my first plates, made my first
sale. I created the business
Instagram, so nobody knew we existed.
January 22nd, you know, February 7th, we went ahead and like
bought our trailer. And this is with no customers
know nothing. This is all just a leap of
faith. Yeah.
Even my mom was like, Are you sure you're going to do this?
Like, I haven't even tried your shrimp.
Like she's like, she's like, is it good?
Like, you know, like I was like, yes, mom.
Yes. The next time you come up here,
we're going to have a fucking food truck.
Like she's like, OK. Like you're really going to quit
your job? I was like, yeah, I'm going to
quit that job. Fuck that job already.
You know, like, I want to do this.
I want to be my own boss, you know?
And she's like, OK, well, I support you.
And and we did February 7th. We bought our food truck and
like March, I think it was February 20, something was that
first event and it was nuts. Like the amount of people who
came out for, you know, just to get plates and.
It's the first of its kind, I think, you know.
Yeah, like. There is no other Ninth Island
garlic shrimp food truck. There is none.
If there is after this, it's because I gave them the idea.
Yeah, yeah. But I'm.
My name is being in the process of being trademarked and
everything, so they can't be saying that they're shrimp is.
Correct. Yeah.
You know more Killer kite in shrimp?
Small kite in your shrimp. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I just, I think like when God's hand is upon your business
like nothing can you, of course you're going to have your roller
coaster moments, your ups and downs.
There's always going to have those bad days, You know, when
you make no sales, it's just business, it's just business.
But like when his hand is upon your business, like you don't
have to worry because he's going to open those doors, He's going
to make those connections like. I always thought to like say,
say like you're, you're obviously you're paying
attention already. So if you're not doing the
poster sales dip, yeah. So if there's no sales, like
what did you do wrong that day or that week or what you know so
you can make your adjustments? Right, Yeah, because my husband
would ask oh, what? Nobody orders because beef we
was making, we was doing like 500 in sales a day from my
house, from my house. Like people was pulling up, like
just buying shrimp. Like there was people pulling up
while there's other people waiting.
Yeah. And then my neighbors are like,
what you selling? And so now two of my neighbors
across the street, they buy shrimp all the time from us.
But like, then, you know, then it went to like couple days
where we didn't have any sales. And my husband and us, he's
like, how come nobody ordered today?
And I was like, yeah, it's because I'm slacking on my
posts. Like it's because I'm not
posting any content. He's like, well, what are you
waiting for? Like, do something, you know.
And so I'll be like, yeah, I will.
And I would create a real, you know, do all that stuff.
But it is time consuming. And especially me being a mom,
like, I'm a stay at home mom too.
So my son demands so much attention.
And it's really like superhero shit, like dealing with being a
mom and a business owner. And, you know, I want to take
care of my husband too. You know, sometimes I neglect my
husband. Yeah.
And it's like you want to find balance so you're not neglecting
your family in the process of running a business.
And and then you don't want to neglect your business too,
because that's what keeps the roof over.
Yeah, yeah, that balance is hard.
That's how that's how I always thought we were like farmers was
like, because I missed a lot with the kids like the first two
kids growing up right. But I was always in my mind as a
kid like I want to fucking do this.
I want to make the money and they would see the they going to
see the sacrifice and they going to get to reap the rewards when
I do get it there. But like sometimes I'm I'm kind
of sad that I missed out a lot on what them growing up.
But then we have two houses in Vegas.
We have a house in Hawaii. Like so always I look back like,
Hey, fuck, I did do, did I do right, you know, like, did I do
it right? But that's why now I try to
spend way more time with them. Like when I had when I had
farmers, they a lot of them wasn't even allowed at the shops
or the warehouse because the brand was such a party brand.
But this time around I was like, I got to make it more so I can
have my kids here. So my kids, they come here, they
hang out. But before they weren't even
allowed at anything, events, shops, nothing, you know, feel.
Like honours brand in general just has more of a family vibe
to it. Yeah, I wanted it to be more
like, of course, we do have the like the party side of it.
Yeah, and the bikers. But I try to make it so that the
kids can be here and it's more a family thing.
Yeah, I like that. Because, yeah, and like I said,
you can get lost. That other brand, you could get
lost so quick in that life too. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. That was a crazy lifestyle.
It was really fun, but sometimes I miss it.
But yeah. Anything else you want to
promote before we do get out of here?
No, I'm, I mean, I'm blessed. Thank you guys for having me
here. I'm honored to be here as well.
I'm just, I'm glad I got to just share, you know, parts of my
story as well. I hope to inspire people, you
know, coming from a drug addict, A felon, you know, someone who
did most of their time and most of their life on the streets and
in prison. This, this is my main goal is
just to let people know that it's all about your mindset and,
you know, belief in yourself. Whatever you believe you can do,
you can do it. What about as far as like your
when you do, when you do talk to kids, like where is that?
Where do you do that with those things?
At random schools. So I'm actually partnered with
LV, what is it? Metro Police Department as well
as Real Talk. Real Talk is a program that does
once the first Tuesday of every month.
So we have we speak to the to the youth about like 3 or 4
speakers, speak to them like every every month and basically
get them through like this program.
They listen to our stories, we pay for their sports, we give
each kid $100 towards sports per month and it's just to keep them
on the right track basically. Is it kids that's already going
out on that path? Or some of them already have
been through the court system. Stuff like that.
Like kids who are high risk. And then I also have another cop
friend that pulled me over in the past and she was found out
who I was and she's like, I have a youth group and can you come
and speak to them? And so that's how I actually
started speaking out here is being pulled over.
And then and don't you like now that the shrimp business is is
on its path, you think it's like a better like it's even more.
You can show them the you can show them the positive.
Yeah, from this to what you can if you're.
Because I can talk about the negative to the glue in the
face, like those stories won't ever end.
Like I have an endless amount of those stories.
But now the positive, like I have something to show.
Like even like just buying a house, buying a home.
Like majority of my family never did that.
Like, not my mom, you know, my dad, like, you know, nobody in
my family really, they did that. And so for us to actually do it
right out of prison, like it, that was an achievement in
itself. You know, especially us coming
from Hawaii, like, you already know how hard it is for.
Yeah. Like, it's that's usually like
something that we feel is out of our reach because everything's
so overpriced, you know? So like coming here and being
able to do that, that was huge for us.
That was huge, like becoming. Homeowners accomplishment yeah I
have friends that moved here and I tell them Bradley you moving
here just what like you're moving from home and you was
like renting but buy your house right away if that's what get it
out of the way get it like no matter how hard you think it is
get it out of the way and then now now it's just maintaining
after that right. That's really awesome though, to
see like the progression and I've been like, like even before
we met, like like officially met, I was already following.
I already knew who you are and the stories are so to see where
it is at now. That's why I was telling Justin
I was like, we got to bring her on, bro.
Like because it's bigger than it's bigger than like the the
strip truck and whatever the goal is like the next
generation. How can we?
How can we make a difference and a change in that rate?
Hopefully we can do a podcast in five years to see where I'm at.
Yeah. In five years I I feel like
we'll be doing another one before that.
Yeah, actually we've never been touched a fraction of the
stories. That's gonna go for hours, yeah.
Dustin's still thinking about the prison.
Orgies. Honestly, yeah, I am.
I've never thought about a woman dropping soap until today.
It's got to be a beautiful sight opening up.
And you know, anything to plug before we get out of here?
What do we have? What do we have?
Oh, I got a level up, level up anime and gaming convention,
which is the really, really big one.
Last year 60,000 people showed up a day.
So I got Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
Got a booth in there. Asset, Las Vegas Convention
Center. What day is that?
It's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, April 25, 2627.
Oh, next weekend. Yeah, and we're the first ones
to ever do like a live mural. So I got my friend like he's a
well known muralist, so he's going to be painting a live
mural and we got a March drop that's going to be matching it
Claw games. So trying to figure out what I'm
going to dress up as. Is it Is it anime?
Going to do like some kind of like.
I feel like, I feel like I have to, right?
Like it's every 60,000 people's dressed up.
I'm not going to be. The only one.
Right, so I'm trying to figure out like what costume I should
wear just. Suppose like a cook or
something, or a chef. I was I was thinking like or
like a game. I was thinking about buying like
a Luigi concert or or Luigi Mario, but getting it extra
small. It's like really tight.
I don't know. I'm I'm still trying to like
figure out what I'm going to because I don't really have like
a favorite you. Got more of a Mario build though
bro, just saying. You know, Louis is kind of tall,
yeah. By 7 and.
Mario's The Short 1. Yeah, yeah.
So I'm just trying to figure that out.
But that's like the next big thing.
And then next month we got a few car meets that's set up already.
Hola Hola this weekend. Yeah, this coming weekend, yeah,
it's kind of shitty because it's the same weekend as the anime
convention, Yeah. So I need to figure out how I
can get to both. Yeah, fun.
Well, hit us up when they're where you guys have some events.
Yeah, for sure we got we got a big one coming up in May 31st is
a big one OK Cars come from like Arizona, California surrounding.
Over here, yeah. OK.
So that's a really big one, so I'll let you know.
Oh, and the new merch from the podcast drop?
Yeah, we got new merch coming soon, so we're working on it
right now because we have these little, you know, like obviously
has been watching our podcast. We have these little funny
things that everybody's saying now.
So we're going to be putting on merch and help, maybe help me
and Justin travel and interview people.
Do more interviews, do more podcasts all over.
So it'll be good fun. Definitely keep a look out for
that. And just check out Tacos Paul I
see down in Henderson for me. Sounds.
Good. See you guys next.
Time, thank you so much.