Anthony Arguien and Mia Raquel

[00:01] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Testing, 1, 2, 3. I'm Tony Arguin I'm 52, and I live in Santa Monica, and I'm one of the homeless. And it's always been my aspiration to be a movie producer.

[00:16] MIA RAQUEL: Hi, my name is Mia RAQUEL. I am 24 years old. Today is Sunday, January 5, 2020. We are in Santa Monica, California. I am here with Tony Arguien and he is my new friend.

[00:31] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Hello, Mia.

[00:32] MIA RAQUEL: Hi. So tell me about your dreams of becoming a movie producer. Where did that come from?

[00:41] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: That's an interesting question. When I was growing up, the kids would play football in the street, and I didn't like sports. I wouldn't play football with them. So they always teased me and called me bookworm because I always had my nose in a book. And I grew up in a TV set, and my dad was worried about me, and he saw, you know, you never go out and play with the other kids. You're always watching tv. I was doing the crossword puzzles and TV Guide, and I was reading Word Power in Reader's Digest. And I didn't know it at the time, but I was training myself to become a screenwriter.

[01:17] MIA RAQUEL: And what kinds of TV shows were influencing you as a kid?

[01:22] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Well, when I was a lot younger, of course, I used to watch the Wonderful Road of Disney, but I was watching shows like Night Gallery, and I was really putting my dad off. He'd all, here, watch this. And you put on Hee Haw. And I was like, come on, dad. Really? Hee Haw. So I was more into stuff like Night Gallery and watching stuff more on a mature level.

[01:42] MIA RAQUEL: Mm.

[01:43] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: And I think that was a lot due to my mother.

[01:45] MIA RAQUEL: Mm. So would you say that your father wasn't very. You know, he didn't really encourage that, but your mother did?

[01:53] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Well, yeah, my dad was gone a lot of the time. He was a she metal worker.

[01:57] MIA RAQUEL: Okay.

[01:58] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: So he was always on the road, and he was sort of like, coming and going like a in and out father.

[02:05] MIA RAQUEL: And what about your mom?

[02:06] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Oh, she was a homebody. She was there for us all the time, took care of me and my brother. And, yeah, we were estranged from my father, but my brother was closer to him than I was.

[02:19] MIA RAQUEL: Mm. And so what, you know, when you were growing up, like, what was the pivotal moment when you were like, okay, I know I want to be a screenwriter. I know I want to do movies. Like, what? Do you remember that day or that feeling?

[02:34] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Yes, I do. I was 20 years old, and I'd been out of high school for two years, and I was Sitting in a bar with my grandmother. It was veterans of horn wars and she was playing video poker. And I just started writing on paper, pencil on paper, and I wrote till my hand turned black. And I was writing a story called Gangland.

[03:02] MIA RAQUEL: Whatever happened to Gangland?

[03:05] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: I was inspired by Mean Streets to write Gangland. It was supposed to be an homage to Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, Harvey Cotel. They're the ones that did the movie. And it ended up being a blatant ripoff of Mean Streets. So I threw it away, but always remembered it because it was the first time I took a stab at screenwriting.

[03:26] MIA RAQUEL: And so what has happened in the decades since that?

[03:31] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Well, after I wrote Gangland, my Aunt Susie complained that it had too much cussing in it, but my grandma liked the story. Basically, it was a story of Joey Santana, and he wanted to be a priest and he wanted to marry his girlfriend Angela, but at the same time, he's collecting numbers for his uncle. So here he's torn between the mob and religion. And my grandma finished reading it. It was 129 pages. And she goes, well, Anthony, how serious are you about this screenwriting? And I looked at her and I said, I was 20 at the time. And I said, someday I'm going to win an Academy Award. And they all laughed at me, except for my mom and my grandma. Yeah, but my brother laughed at me, my aunts laughed at me. But it's okay. It's okay, because he who laughs best gets the last laugh.

[04:21] MIA RAQUEL: Exactly. Exactly. And so kind of walk me through your journey until now, from that moment, what's been going on in the last 30 years?

[04:33] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Okay, let's see. I started writing after Gangland. I tried writing a story called Precious Time. And the kid was dying of terminal cancer, and he was a genius, and his mom wanted to do everything for him before he died. So I submitted that to the academy in 1990, and I got a rejection letter. And then in 1992, I took my wife, ex wife, to see Batman Returns. And when they were rolling the credits, I told her, ah, I could write a Batman movie. And she looked at me like I was nuts. And I turned around and I wrote Batman 3 deep freeze. And I had Batman and Robin join together to take on Catwoman. And Bruce Wayne is in love with Selina Kyle, but when he's Batman, he has to fight Catwoman. So it's sort of like a psychological study of their relationship. And then I wanted the late, great Robin Williams to play Mr. Freeze. Yeah. So I called Warner Brothers. And I talked to him about it and they said, oh, we're not going to do any more Batman movies because we lost some money, a lot of money on Batman Returns. So I was like, really? And then in 1995, they came out with a Batman Forever and I was kind of upset because they told me you weren't going to do any more Batman movies. So then 1994, I started writing the Godfather 4 because to me, they left Godfather 3 wide open. Andy Garcia takes over the family and then the movie ends. So in Godfather 4, it picks up with Andy Garcia taking over the family and he sinks it into the ground. And I was going to make it like a Shakespearean tale. Oh, wow. Yeah. I was trying to keep in line with Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola and I got as far as 130 pages and I never finished it.

[06:17] MIA RAQUEL: Wow.

[06:18] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: And my ex wife is like, aren't you going to finish it? And I told her, this thing's going to be four hours long. No one's going to sit through a four hour gangster movie. So I took a long break from screenwriting to raise a family. I got married in 1991 and I had my first child in 1996, Mary. And then came Michael, and it was Francis and Susie. So my wife. This is when it got really pivotal. My wife wanted to go back to school and get her degree so she could be an administrator to run her own daycare. So. Cause she'd always taken child psychology and child rearing classes. So I said, okay. So she needed to be a stay at home dad. So I agreed. So I polished off the books by Syd Field screenplay, Screenwriters Workshop Hottie Sarah screenplay and I told her, I'm gonna start writing again. And she's like, really? Okay. We were sitting in a restaurant one day with my daughter and she was 12 years. She would have been. Yeah, she was 8 years old at the time. And she had her little homie action figures and she had a little alien. So I got the homie with the beer can, I dance them over to the alien and said, where you from, esse? And she goes, I'm from Mars. And my wife looks at me and I look at them, I go, that's a movie. And my wife goes, what do you mean that's a movie? I go, the alien crash lands in Los Angeles and now they're dressing it like a cholo and they're hiding it from the Air Force. And all these people are looking for an alien because it has a reward on Its head. And my wife looks at me and she goes, you just thought that up right now? I go, well, yeah. I go, I mean, I could come up with some other ideas. And she goes, what would you call it? I go, an Alien in a Barrio. So I ended up writing. I ended up writing five movies in 2008 as a stay at home dad, I wrote An Alien in a Barrio. And as sort of a parody on ET I wrote Mass Hysteria about nuclear war. I wrote Ripper about Jack the Ripper, and I had Sherlock Holmes and Watson in Ripper. And then I wrote Hill Street Blues, a movie, and Hill Street Blues, the story continues. So yes, I ended up writing five movies in 2008. And, you know, I owe it a lot to being a stay at home dad because that gave me the time to write these movies while I was watching my children. So I would park them in front of this TV and put on PBS for them. And they had this TV show called Cyberchase. And that would be also a pilgrim part of my life because I fell in love with the actress Bianca DeGroat. And she's a light skinned black actress. She's Irish, Italian, black. So she's got all three of those tempers. And I had a crush on her and I realized that she looked like Daniel Ross. And I figured, hey, I could write a Daniel Ross movie for her and she could play Diana Ross.

[09:11] MIA RAQUEL: What happened with that?

[09:13] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: I got her fan mail email address and I wrote to her. I wrote to her in October of 2010 and it took her six months to get back to me. She wrote me, of all days, April Fool's Day, 2011. And I just fell to my seat when I got her letter, because usually when you write to an actor or an actress, you get their public relations. She wrote me herself and basically she said, I'm sorry it took too long to get back to you, but I've been really busy lately. She says, besides, I had to check you out, make sure you're not psychotic and you don't have body parts in your freezer. She goes, no, I'm just kidding. She goes, but being an actress, I do get a lot of crazies in my line of work. She goes, yes, I'd love to read your scripts. Send them on over, I'll take a look at them and if I like what I see, we'll talk. So I wanted to send her my scripts. And my friend at the time, George D. Easley, he used to work for 21st century, Fox Searchlight. He used to work for Fox Searchlight. He said, never send your stuff out if it's not copyrighted. So I never sent her the scripts at that time anyway.

[10:20] MIA RAQUEL: And so where are your kids now? Are they in the area?

[10:27] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: I was married for 18 years and I dated her for two. So I was with my ex wife Maggie for a total of 20 years. My kids are safe in Baldwin Park. They live at my mother in law's house with my ex wife Maggie.

[10:45] MIA RAQUEL: Nice.

[10:45] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: I have Mary Cassandra, Michael, Anthony, Francis Lee and Suzette Lorraine.

[10:52] MIA RAQUEL: What do they think of your dreams, your long term dreams with screenwriting?

[10:58] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: I'm not sure what my kids think about it, but I can tell you my father thinks it's a pipe dream. He said, you need a real career. He tells me, I go, but writing is my career. I told him, he goes, but you haven't sold any movies yet. I said, no. And he goes, well, how do you explain that? I go, go, well, the longer you do something, you can only get better at it. I go, and I'm just going to get better at writing, dad. And then one day I'm going to sell my movies and we'll see what happens.

[11:24] MIA RAQUEL: And have you tried your shot at filming anything or is it mostly just the writing?

[11:30] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Right now I'm taking video production and my professor is Peter Shashtari. And I've shot a few movies in the past, but they were shot like on an i4 phone and my friend Rock shot them, but I wrote them. And one's called the Loan Shark Movie and It's over at YouTube if anyone wants to check it out. Look under Rok, the loan shark Movie. There's another movie called the Life of a Thug. Rok and I wrote and helped produce a movie for Peter Sashtari's video class called the Nature of the Beast. And basically in the Nature of the Beast, you meet this hitman who's just a total jerk. He's getting ready to kill Tim Gunn for a million dollars. He finds a Bible that somebody stuck in his bag, stands up reading the Bible and he has a change of heart. So he's over there agonizing the gun or the Bible? The gun or the Bible? The gun of the Bible. And he's already holding them up. He's over there talking to God and he has an epiphany. He throws a gun away and walks away at the Bible. So those are the kind of movies I want to do.

[12:33] MIA RAQUEL: Yeah, very cool.

[12:35] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Yeah.

[12:35] MIA RAQUEL: And do you want to talk at all about your experience with homelessness in Santa Monica or What, you know, what your thoughts are on that?

[12:44] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Yeah, sure. Because I think homelessness is a very big problem.

[12:49] MIA RAQUEL: Yeah.

[12:50] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: And it's not just facing our state, it's facing our country.

[12:53] MIA RAQUEL: Definitely.

[12:54] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: And I think Trump needs to, you know, like, I think past presidents needed to wake up like Obama. I was surprised he never did anything about it. And I know Trump's got his plate full right now. If I ran, but I just want to say that homelessness is. It's not epidemic, it's pandemic. It's everywhere you look. It's in every major metropolitan city. I ended up homeless. I've been homeless now for 10 years. I ended up homeless because of my divorce, I'm not afraid to say. And all my stuff ended up in a garage at my mother in law's. And my daughter Mary calls me and she goes, dad, you know, we need to raise some money so we can get some school books and some clothes. And I had the whole Punisher comic book collection for starters. I had a record collection, I had a cassette tape collection and a DVD collection. So I had all this stuff sitting in the garage, all my personal stuff. And she goes, can we sell this stuff? And I said, honey, sell whatever you got to to raise that money. All that stuff in the garage is now yours. All I have is what's in my suitcase, that's, you know, and clothes on my back. And I sleep in my sleeping bag. And there's a man who lets me sleep in front of his building. And he goes, yeah, you know, you're welcome to stay here, just, you know, you don't bug the neighbors. So I like having you here. He goes, plus you're here at night so you kind of like watch the place for me. He goes, just make sure you get out at 7:30 in the morning. So I said, okay. So I've been going to school and trying to sell my scripts, you know, because I want to get off these streets. Because I wouldn't wish this life on anybody, you know, not even my worst enemies. You know, being homeless can be. It can be terrifying, you know, because sometimes you don't know where your next meal is going to come from. And, and I don't like to beg people for money or food. So I get food stamps and general relief and I try to stretch that and just take care of myself. You got to find a place to take a shower. You got to find a place to take a bathroom, to go to the bathroom. And these are things that people just take for granted because every day, you know, they have these things available to them. But when you're homeless, it's a different situation. Yeah. And my heart goes out to a lot of the homeless because I've met a lot of talented people among the homeless. And I just want to say right now, I'll be frank with you guys. Half of the homeless are mentally ill. And these people need their meds. And when they don't get their meds, they can get violent. And I think that some of the solutions to homelessness, I think they should bring job training, housing, and job placement house to mentally ill. And no veteran should be homeless. If you fight for this country, you should not be homeless.

[15:39] MIA RAQUEL: Yeah. Someone was telling me recently that there's a law in Utah. Maybe it's Salt Lake, but it's. It's called, like, housing first or something like that. And basically it just provides housing. Like, literally housing first. Because how is someone supposed to get off their feet if they don't have a place to do all those basic human necessities? And I. I just don't see it being that hard to take care of the citizens of this country. And so I agree with you. I think that it's definitely a really intense thing that the government citywide and statewide and the whole country needs to do something about. And talk to me a little bit about how you kind of, like, do your writing, where you do your writing and kind of what places inspire you because, like, you kind of get to move around very freely. Right. So where do you kind of. Where are the spots that draw you when you do your writing?

[16:36] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Well, there's this one place on 20th in Santa Monica, and it's called the Ten Speed Cafe. And you park your ten speed, you go inside, and you get your yogurt or your salad wrap, your salad or your wraps. Because, you know, everybody's on a health kick now. And I like to go there and work on my screenplays. I. Sometimes I get up at 2 in the morning to work on a screenplay. Like, if I get tired, I put. I tell myself, okay, I need to lay down, because if I keep writing, my writing's gonna. It's gonna turn to crap. So I go lay down and. Or I'll get writer's block. If I get writer's block, I go lay down and I wake up with fresh, rough ideas. So it's like I'm writing movies in my sleep. I ended up writing 10 movies this year alone.

[17:17] MIA RAQUEL: Wow.

[17:17] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Yeah. So places to go, public libraries, if they allow me in, because, you know, I got the suitcase and some People don't like you bringing in a suitcase. I go to Long Beach, Mark Twain Library. They're very friendly. I like the atmosphere. I park my suitcase and I take care of business. I used to frequent the Santa Monica libraries, but they've had a lot of violence and issues in the past, so I tend to stay away from Santa Monica. And basically, they threw me out of LA Public Library. They said, you know, that suitcase is too big. And in fact, we don't allow suitcases anymore because they've had a lot of incidents in the past. You know, people can put guns or knives in suitcases. And, you know, we're living in times right now. We're living in crucial times where schools are getting shot up. I'm not trying to get off the subject here, but. So they don't like suitcases and libraries. So I go to Mark Twain Library. That's one of my favorites of the spot on 20th in Santa Monica. And I just go somewhere quiet and work on my screenplays. And it's like me and my manager Leon were talking about this, and he goes, yeah, you know, it's like, I can't put you up on a Holiday Inn or a Marriott. He goes, but you're still out there writing your movies. And I go, well, yeah, you know, it's determination, you know. You know, movies are my life, you know, and. And that's. That's how I make my bread and butter. I write these movies, and then one day I'm gonna meet somebody and say, well, you know, sell my movies to them. And then my mom asked me, she goes, what are you gonna do? Just joking around. She goes, what are you gonna do when you get all. All that money, you know? And I told her, well, I go, I could be a gangster. She goes, I told her. And she goes, no. She goes, your enemies don't waste your time on your enemies. The best revenge is living well. And I like that. I like that. You know, I take my money and buy my mom a new house, ask Bianca Degree to marry me, and set her family up. Her dad's a painter, so I would set him up with a new art studio. And her sister, she's really cool. She's an actress, too. I would say, hey, you know, if you want to run your own boutique, I'll give you the money to set up your business. My mom relocate her, you know, because she lives in Walnut right now, but she lives with slumlord, and she's a hoarder. So she's going through that right now. So I Relocate my mother. I'd relocate my ex wife because right now her mom is in the hospital. My prayers go out to Mary, my mother in law, even though we've had our differences in the past, Mary, I'm praying for you because I know it's tearing apart my ex wife. She's very close to her mother, so I would help out my ex wife and maybe help her get her a new place, a new minivan. I would give her money so the kids could go to nice universities, stuff like that. Because at the end of the day, it's all about your friends and your family. You got to kick down your friends and your family. If you don't have friends and family, you got nothing.

[20:12] MIA RAQUEL: That's true. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you'd want to talk about?

[20:18] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Let's see. I'm a byproduct of divorce. You know, my parents were. I'm not here to slam my parents, but, you know, they got married young and they rushed into it. You know, they were only like. They met in 1964. And it's a funny story because they asked my dad, well, what do you do for a living? And he told him, oh, I'm a truck driver. He was driving an ice cream truck. And my mom was at a party, and I asked her, well, how'd you guys meet? And she goes, well, it was 1964, and she was at a party and she had a beehive hairdo and she had her dress on, and. And she went up to the ice cream truck to get a soda or whatever because she was thirsty. And my dad saw her legs, and he saw, oh, you know, who belongs to those legs? I got to find out who that woman is. And that's how they met. So they started talking and they started dating. And I go, well, how long were you guys dating before you got married? And she goes, I was with your dad for six weeks before they got married. And back then, you know, they were only dated for six weeks, and then they got married, and their marriage lasted 10 years. So that's a long time for only dating for six weeks. And it was a different time back then, you know, times were different, you know, compared to now. And they had me and my brother Rene and Renee. He's a member of the homosexual community. He's lgbtq, you know, and I don't hold that against him. I don't hold that against anybody. You know, to me, to each phone. You know, we just were never close. You know, it's like he got along with my dad, and I got along with my mom, so. And everybody thought, you know, oh, you're a mama's boy. Because, you know, because I was raised by my grandparents when my parents got divorced and I ended. I ended up getting married. You know, I had four kids. I was married for 18 years. You know, I'm bisexual. I've been with men and women, but I prefer women. I prefer women because, you know, for woman, you can have children with her, raise a family with her, you know, and. Yeah, so it's. It's rough. You know, it's rough being a child of divorce because you see your parents fight, and then now you're in a marriage, and you don't want to fight with your spouse. You know, you want. You want. You want to teach your kids values. You want them to be good. You don't want them going around cussing and doing drugs, and you want them to have class. You know, you want them to have respect for people. You want them to go places in life. I got a funny story for you guys. We took an IQ test, me and my wife, online, and My daughter was 12 at the time, Mary. So I take the IQ test. My wife takes IQ tests. She's a school teacher. I'm a screenwriter. So she comes with a 113. I come in for 131. So I'm teasing her. I'm like, yeah, you know, you went to college and you only got a 113. You're a school teacher. You only got a 113. She said, okay, Mr. Hollywood. And I'm all teasing her because I got 131. So my daughter, she's 12. She goes, well, let me take the test. So she goes in there and gets a 144. And she said, how about that? I'm smarter than you and mom, dad, are you mad at me? I said, mad at you? No. I go, I want you to go places in life. I want you to go far in life. I don't want you to struggle ever. I want you to be successful at whatever you do.

[23:32] MIA RAQUEL: Well, they're lucky to have you.

[23:34] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Thank you.

[23:34] MIA RAQUEL: Yeah.

[23:35] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: And thanks for having me here today. And I'm just a little nervous because I'd never done a radio interview before. But, you know, I did an interview at school. The kids interviewed me, and it was called the Motown Story. And I guess I can tell you guys the Motown story right away. The Motown story goes like this. Okay. I was telling you that I wrote that letter to Bianca de Gro and she wrote me back. I used to, like, I was hounding her on Facebook and in her. Her PR told me, okay, leave her alone. She wants nothing to do with you. I go, but I'm trying to make a movie with this woman. And they said, well, you know, she's. She's busy and she's got no time for you. Leave her alone. So basically, they're telling me to stop stalking Bianca the Grill. I wasn't stalking her. I was just maybe stalking her on Facebook. So I said, okay. I got mad. I went on Facebook and I wrote F love. This woman comes in and puts he. He as a comment under. Under what I wrote. I'm like, oh, who is this? You know? So I click on her icon and she looks like Britney Murphy. She's really pretty. So her name's Erin Valencia. So we talked for a whole week. We ended up talking for a whole week on Facebook. And then after a week of talking on Facebook, she goes, okay, now let's exchange phone numbers and talk on cell phones. So now we talk for a whole week on the telephones. So she goes, I'm tired of this push button romance. She goes, for one week, we instant message each other at Facebook, and another week we just talk on the cell phones. We have to meet in person. I said, I go, I agree with you. How are we going to do this? I live in la, you live in Peoria. She goes, well, my dad lives in Arizona, and I'm going to go out there with my girlfriends and you could come meet me in Arizona. So at first I'm looking at my mom like I don't even know this person, you know, she could be. She could be Norman Bates, you know? And my mom goes, anthony, she just wants to meet you. So I took the Greyhound out to Arizona and I met her. I met her in Phoenix, and she was staying at the Buttes, the Marriott Buttes in Tempe. So we went on. We went on a date, and I was with her all weekend, and it turned into a sex marathon. I met her father biological and her stepmother, and her father used to be a spokesman for Toyota Corporation. And her stepmother was a psychologist. So I hit it off with her parents, I really did because I'm good at winning people over. And I try to win people over. And, you know, if you like me, great. If you don't, well, okay, I'll just walk the other way. So we're dropping, you know, she's dropping us off at the end of the night, and he was kind of slamming her because she was like a party girl. And I said, you know, she really is a good person. So, long story short, I went to live with Erin. A week later, she's asking me to go live with her in Peoria, Illinois. And my mom said, you're going to leave everything behind and go live with this woman you met on Facebook? I said, well, I just got out of a bad marriage and you always tell me that I got to meet people, come out of my shell. I go lose myself in my writing. So I put off my writing career, I quit being a security guard and I left California to go live for Imperial, Illinois. So we were living together for four and a half months and she had a problem with drinking. Okay. So I was trying to help her, you know, kick that habit. And it's hard when you live with an alcoholic because they live in denial. They don't want to admit that they're alcoholics. And, you know, you don't want to pick on them, but at the same time, you don't want them getting drunk and fighting with them all the time. So she tells me, let's drive to California so you can see your family for Christmas. And I'm like, you got a Saturn Sky. Saturn sky is a very small car. It was limited edition. And I go, that's 2,000 miles from Peoria to LA. That's going to be the test of our relationship. So we fought the whole way back to California and we ended up getting an inflatable air mattress from Walmart and we put it in my mom's living room and we're camping out at my mom's house for six weeks. And then one day she tells me we're going to go to Santa Monica Pier because she loved to come to Santa Monica. And this is before Santa Monica was alien to me at that time. And she just loved coming to Santa Monica and just going to the beach. And one time we were just eating corn dogs from Hot Dog on a Stick on the beach. And she goes, this is different for me because she was used to eating in four star restaurants. Her ex husband wasn't. He worked for Walgreens and he was a big shot. So he made money hand over gloves, you know, distributing drugs to all the Walgreens. So, okay, so we go to Santa Monica all the time and she tells me we're gonna meet a good looking black guy. And I'm thinking Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington. She goes, no, do you know of Philip Gordy? I go, you mean the Gordy's a Motown and she's all, what's Motown? I'm thinking, wow, she's 40 years old and she doesn't know what Motown is. I go, okay, Motown is like, well, they have all the major black acts, you know. I go, temptations, Miracles, Smokey Robinson, Daniel Ross, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, the Jackson 5. I go, that's Motown. And she goes, okay, well we're going to meet Philip Gordy. So sure enough, we go to meet Phil and this guy comes up with cornrows, a Hawaiian shirt. And I'm thinking, wow, this is the nephew of Barry Gordy Jr. And I'm sitting across from him right now at Mario. So Santa Monica, Pierre, how cool is this? And Aaron's right there for Reiche Coach Anya. Anya was the ex girlfriend of Phil Gordy. So that's how I got to meet Phil Gordy. So I told him about the Motown trilogy. Thank Bianca DeGroat for that. And he goes, what's the Motown trilogy? I go, well, first you have the Dan Ross story, and then you would have the Marvin Gaye story. And then you would have Sounds of Gold, the Motown story itself. How Berry Gordy had to take encounter racism and deal with it to overcome it and start the world's first all black record label, Motown. And he loved it. He was eating it up. He saw, I can get you next to Dana Ross with the tape recorder. I can tell you stories about Marvin Gaye. Because when his mom Rosemary died, he went to live with his aunt Anna and she raised him. And she was married to, to Marvin Gay at the time. So he had the, he had the dirt on Marvin Gaye, Dan Ross and his uncle Barry Gordy. So long story short, I ended up breaking up with Aaron and end up going to live with Phil Gordy to write his memoirs. So one day he tells me, get my phone and call my weed guy. So I take out his phone, I'm looking in his directory, and I find this fat lady with my last name, Phil. How come she has my last name? He wouldn't tell me. So I wrote to her at Yahoo and he, her husband Greg calls and says, who is this guy writing to my wife? What's he want? Why? You know, why is he bothering my wife? So she calls me and she goes, who are you? You know, why do you think you know me? I go, well, we have the same last name. And she goes, well, who's your father? I go, leo Arguien She goes, oh, I have an uncle named Leo. I go, well, guess what? I think we're cousins. So to wrap it up, my cousin, my cousin Debbie married Greg Gordy, the brother of Phil Gordy, their nephews of Barry Gordy Jr. I'm related to the gorge of Motown by marriage. And Barry Gordy is second cousins with Jimmy Carter, and Jimmy Carter is six cousins with Elvis Presley. I know. My life is a circus.

[31:27] MIA RAQUEL: Well, it's your life. And it's got lots of twists and turns. That keeps it interesting.

[31:33] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: It does. It really does. And right now I feel like I'm at act three in my life. And that's why I want to settle down with Bianca the Grill, you know.

[31:41] MIA RAQUEL: Well, I really hope it happens.

[31:42] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Thank you.

[31:43] MIA RAQUEL: And it's been a pleasure. I'm really glad we got to talk today.

[31:46] ANTHONY ARGUIEN: Thank you for having me. It.