14130 Jill Nicolini Interviews Mr. John Riggio Architect and CEO of John Riggio, RA Architect LLC

Broadcasting from the business capital of the world, this is the Podcast Business News Network.

Welcome back to the show, our professional of the year. We're excited. John Riggio, our pro tennis player, architect, friend, author, is joining us again. You're gonna get some pro tennis tips today. Oh, that's for sure. We're gonna hear some good stories and dive back into his pro tennis life, career, and all of that entailed with more miraculous and amazing stories. And yes, he was engaged to be married to Lady Gaga. Great stuff we're learning. What else is on the horizon today? Because you can't top that, I don't think.

Yep. Today I made a brand new artificial intelligence photograph of the tennis fox. Let me just

Sure.

show you right here. I'm gonna show you. Okay, so this is my page on X. And this is the tennis fox. I just have a little post here. You can find me very easily. You have to put my name in there.

Oh, look at you. I love it. Oh, my God, that looks just like you in fox form. It does.

This is the tennis fox. I put this together and I made this amazing artificial intelligence generated photo. And I put this on the page here. It looks really amazing. Able to put this whole thing together. This is how I look. And I think also I have some nice things to show on this page today. Let's see if I could just do this. Okay, so what's happening is particularly on my X page, you can see the intro video that we already made about my book. And this is the book, My Own Court, The Life Story of Tennis Legend John Riggio. It's on here. And from there, you could also get the links to buy the book too, of course.

Um, down here, there are a couple events coming up for uh in-person meeting. I have two of them. One of them is on May ninth. And that is over at the um great big book swap. I'm there, I'm gonna have some books and I have uh my own table there. If anyone's interested, they can come meet me, I can autograph a book for them.

Oh my goodness, this is amazing. I'm so excited.

I have copies of that.

So wait, this is May, wait, May ninth, you gotta tell us, where, where is this?

Okay, it's right over here, it's located in uh what's called the Liquid Church in Parsippany, New Jersey. And that is uh here in New Jersey. There is a fee to walk around, but you can also bring books, you could swap books. And I noticed here they even have a plant swap this year, this is something new. Uh, it's a very nice uh location, it's a building with um large interior space in there. And it's like on from eleven AM to two PM, so you have to get there sort of in the morning time, otherwise the whole thing is already over by.

Of course, and I'm sure there'll be a long line, John, this is so exciting, I love it. And for those just on the podcast who can't see uh the John Frigio Tennis Box, you gotta check out the podcast. And of course, just go to his Facebook page because this is so cool. Um, okay, let's get started now, we're gonna talk more today, obviously, about the book, um about your backstories.

I have another one from Flemington on the May twenty-four too. Might as well, now, people can plan ahead. And people have a busy schedule, when I was younger, I had to plan ahead a month in advance to do anything. So this year, this is uh coming up in the Flemington Summer Book Fest.

Mm-hmm, I see that.

What's happening here, this is over here in more to the uh central to south Jersey. They have this here and they're gonna have all kinds of tents with authors.

I was gonna say, don't forget the tent, it's gonna be warm.

Yes, so mine is on the uh Sunday, May twenty-four, this is the Memorial Day weekend, um the twenty-fourth, it's from ten AM to six PM, I'm there. Um, to sign books, you can come buy books, and they also have a book swap, they have this thing there where you. Are given this plastic bag and you fill it up with as many books as you want for like five dollars. Uh, I was already there last year and they're having it again. I'm signed up. I have my own table and everything and uh, this is really good. They're, they're having it there on the twenty fourth for the authors. But for um, the other two days, they are having a book sale event. And that's over here in the Flemington Summer Book Fest.

Wow.

That is really good. This is something new and uh, it's really excellent.

Oh my god.

So I think with this here and then just I have some pictures of the uh, fan club and things like that.

Yeah.

And um, that's just about it there. Let me just stop this sharing on this here. Okay, good. So then my book here, I have a copy of this here. This book is my autobiography I wrote in twenty twenty five. It shows my tennis career. It shows some stories of my professional work as an architect. And uh, this is very good to buy. You can read it also on a um, a book like um, an ebook. You can get the ebook and a lot of locations have the ebook. You can get it online from Amazon, Kobo, all kinds of different webpages. Or you could order the uh, hard cover or the paperback is available too.

And uh, so that is really good.

Yeah, but come to one of the book fairs. You want to get an autograph copy. Seriously. John, I'm so proud of you. You know, we've been together here um, on the show for many years now. And you've accomplished so much. I mean, your whole life and, and each and every week, I say this every week though. You cease to amaze me like because there's something new each and every time. And I know today, uh, there's going to be a wow factor. There always is with John. Um, John, are we going to talk more about the, the tennis playing, the pro tennis playing for now? Or what story? Are we talking Leoni Helmsley, Bill Clinton? Um, what other celeb do you know? Are you friends with? This is just all juicy gossip stuff too, which we love.

Yeah, sure. I have a lot of stories. Um, sure, we can just get right to those stories instead. So I think uh, I was talking a lot about um, My friend Angie, who is Lady Gaga to a lot of people. And then also, I was talking about stories with Casey Ho, who has her own clothing line with Balagas lattes and Pop Flex. And, but I was really understating some stories. One story I could really explain today, it's all entertainment, it's all entertainment based. And it's really amazing.

What was very interesting was, me and Casey Ho, we didn't make friends. But I think the key thing with me and her is, I was originally introduced to her at the Southeast Tennis Center Manhattan. I had a multimillion dollar contract on playing tennis there, it's my own court. There are stars, entertainers stopping off to see me. And I think my sponsor Gloria, I was playing Vanderbilt, she was there. And she was really very nice, she was starting to think about introducing me to potential wife. And so when I was there, there was also some other producers and people there.

And they were telling me the same thing, they were saying that Casey Ho is a good marriage for me. They were saying they want me to marry her. And then I was introduced to her by Gloria and she told me that Casey was a model, like a fashion model, doing fashion modeling in Manhattan. And she thought she was really impressive. And of course, she is very impressive, she's a nice lady. And so I talked to her, but of course, this is years and years ago, we're still very young. And she is telling me that she isn't really getting into modeling.

She's mostly working as a fashion designer.

Okay.

What she did do for a long, long time, working for Shen.

That is the clothing company, I think it's based in China, and she's working there in Manhattan. And um, just by chance with this whole thing, it turns out Casey and Angie, they're really good friends.

Still to this day, does she, does she make some of her clothes and stuff? I don't, I didn't know this.

Yes, they, they are very good friends together.

So cool. We're talking what year? Just put us back and give me like a timeframe, what, what year we in?

Actually nineteen eighty-eight, nineteen eighty-nine.

Okay.

And then this goes all the way through all the different chapters, going to the nineties, it heads all the way to even the two thousands. Going all the way to like the year twenty nineteen or something like that. Uh, I still meet them every once in a while. And, but I think this interesting key thing about this story was when I met Casey and I was introduced by Casey, she's already having a couple of people telling me that I have to marry Casey. And with Casey, when I was talking to her, she's telling me that she already has a planned marriage with somebody. This is like someone that's around her. And um, so the, the story with this is over the years, just to jump ahead to

say the whole story was she was always getting told to marry me. And we were meeting so many times, the tennis center, we did some friendship things, met at some uh, social networking, I'll describe some stories later. And uh, we were friends. And uh, we even did this whole thing with this um, fake engagement to get married, that we were getting married. And uh, some of those things were very good. I think the strangest problem is that it is not my fault. What happened was she was assuming that somehow I was telling people, like my sponsors,

to have her and me meet together, go to social networking, things like that. And uh, it isn't true. I never even requested to meet her one time. And then the funny part of the story is somehow she is the one that originally said that she wanted to get married to me. She had put in this request. So what happened is this. Kept going to every sponsor that I had. And she immediately um had no idea who was putting this through. And when this truth is really was her is really what the problem was. And um.

So I think overall, the facts were uh. She um. Obviously did not want to go ahead with the marriage. Because she already has a previous arrangement, already was married. Uh I think this marriage with someone is on her blog on the internet. And I've met him before. I think um. I don't know if the person has changed or is the same person. But I thought it was this guy from Norway. He's trained as an engineer in college and uh. I've talked to him a number of times and that was his her marriage. Uh but this thing was forcing us to get married. Cause me horrible problems. They by doing this.

And it's really her uh idea. So how much they can marry to me. She wanted to um. Uh uh uh to get married and. Um um us getting together made like all kinds of holes going on. They were directing me to marry her. And I think the idea of marrying her isn't too bad. We end we get along very well. Um you know, there's some love there and. We uh very friendly with each other. We like helping each other. And I'll talk about some stories in a few seconds about that. And um. This uh the the problem was really trying to force this marriage.

With her always saying that she already has a marriage was becoming a little strange. There was a lot of wasted hours and times. They could have done that with anyone else that was compatible. And it very possibly would have gone ahead. I think one example of that was Angie. Who is uh Angelina uh Germanada. This Lady Gaga, she when we met, we got along great and there was no stops to get married initially. And went all the way to getting an engagement by her parents gave us the engagement. I didn't even initiate this, we even, we got together, we were standing there together, holding hands and they took a photo. That it was a serious engagement by their parents. Now this whole thing changed because of that guy Martin Scorsese.

Put pressure on them, saying they gotta cancel it with also the producer that you see in the CDs as other kid. We're gonna completely boycott her uh entertainment. Now, I think one thing with the entertainment. Um, there's other, there are other stand ins that in fact might have been doing even better. I was even told to make friends with the other Lady Gaga.

Wow.

And I um, I've known her a number of years too. She's very similar, almost looks identical. But this one, uh Angie, the parents are there. I'm there, we get engaged and then they have to eventually break it off because of the threats to her career. And she ends up having to marry or stay with Martin Polanski, like our mom Polanski was her friend.

Oh my gosh.

I've, yeah, I've met the mom Polanski was there too. So um, this story now Angie is friends with Casey. Now Angie's in, we're getting en- engaged to, I'm getting engaged to Angie. Casey is still an idea to get married, they're saying, and Angie is like best friends with Casey Hope. And what ended up happening was an interesting set of stories. I think one set of stories was um, the whole thing with the networking party. The networking party where Casey Hope went to the networking party. And she wasn't really doing any, but she's not working really, I met her and

they were doing the same thing again about saying I should get married to Casey again. It's very serious. And so I counted the number of chapters. It comes out to about six chapters in total. Of them really saying I have to get married to Casey and I'm willing to entertain the idea. We get along really excellent, but she has this conflict of having a marriage.

Uh, calling us so wishes. And then what happened is, so this is blocking this whole problem and it's becoming a really thing. It's really like ripping my memory and causing a big problem for me. They were also doing things like I had explained, trying to like hold um a a space for me and her where we're like isolated and we have to get together to go out. So what happened is um

at the networking party that was located at the Webster Hall. I talked to Casey and um she has ideas of doing this thing with the bio lattes already. And she's into that idea. She wants to go ahead with it. And I was saying, you know, this, I know a lot of people in different areas. I know like all the richest people, I know the um all the top people in the internet field, like the things like Facebook and everything like that. I know all the people in the super rich. I used to live with them. I know all of them when I were their houses. And um she really wasn't the um up with doing things like that.

And I was just describing some things to her about how people, you know, act with each other, they make friends, things like that. And um so to really to give her a gift of friendship. Because she was starting to get upset and she was falsely accusing me of um saying I had to marry her. I offered her a gift to meet some people that are are uh people you see on television, the news, and she's accepted that idea. So um we were gonna go to the La Barbat. So back then, the La Barbat had this networking party that I used to go to. I used to meet a lot of people who were the future of governors, New York and New Jersey and things like that, a lot of other people in finance.

And I let her come with me. The only problem started to happen was it turns out she wasn't really able to get into that party. She was a little bit like uh in a in a lower area and um.

I told her we have to go in there as friends. You know, holding hands. So all this type of thing also brought about a lot of issues with her relationship with her husband and her. How she is going around the city and everything. She's telling me she cannot do anything. And it's too obvious that she is with me. She's gonna ruin her marriage. So what happened is I told her to. If you, if you go in there, I'll go there to the party. You go in there and then you say that you are friends with me, with John Riggio. And she went in there and she said she's friends with me and I let her go into the networking party.

Oh, wow.

So I was there at the networking party, um, one night she's alone, one night she's with her husband. And she gets to talk to some people. I was so used to things that that is not a big deal for me, but it was something new for her. And I think she really liked it too. She was very good. So they let her do that a few times, um, then the doors closed for her. She wasn't really allowed to do that. And what happened was, um, that location, La Barbat. There was some interesting things that took place. Uh, unfortunately, one thing about it is that even though there's a very nice networking party for us. And all different people there. There is also a couple other groups of people. One in the basement, they have the disco dancing with, the group is very nice down there.

And they had this other thing in the back of the building with like this like sex room and, uh. What happened was she ended up going there, looking for the networking party. She ended up bringing Angie with her. And, um. I think her going in there with Angie is like letting like to.

I don't, I don't know how to explain that. But she was looking all around there and I was going in there looking for them. Of course, they are on the idea that we're going there with friends. And I think there's all kinds of wild things that took place there. Um, which was very interesting. I think I learned some interesting lessons with her. And I think something I learned was, um. I think this started to happen again with people in entertainment seemed to have some kind of thing where people start to control their lives. Maybe they also are not really, uh, particularly when I was with, um. Heard that things were not going as usual. They were not going as usual.

So this is what was happening, like the procedures of like you would go out with someone. Yeah. So you would, uh, go to a restaurant and maybe then from there you would go have dessert and then go home. And that's how it works. With them, things were a little different and, uh, it was very interesting. I was with them. We had some drinks together. But I noticed the group of people that were there, they were sort of aware was going on. I think they knew that Angie was Lady Gaga. And, um, some things that were happening there, they didn't approve of. They didn't approve of at all.

And, um, I think they, um, didn't really like them and it caused a problem and they had to, both of them ended up leaving. And, uh, we met there a number of times.

And, uh, so that was like this, uh, interesting experience. I think this thing with Casey at that time also was really a good time for us to really, um, uh, have some kind of, uh, like a fake engagement or marriage. But I think what was happening was she wasn't aware of the timing of what's going on. Because at that time I was single. My girlfriend Delita had already passed away. And I had finished my education, my experience. I had a license, um, for architect work and, um.

So really, I could in fact get married to Casey or Angie and go anywhere in the USA. I'm free to go anywhere at this time.

Yeah.

I don't have to do anything. I don't have any office yet. It was a very good time. But they, in fact, were telling me the story that they were having little problems too. That they um were getting a little isolated. They were getting isolated. And uh so this is another thing that she didn't really grasp onto. Because I think what was happening was building up this idea of someone telling her to get married to me, even though she's the one who wanted to do it originally. Um and they were saying very clearly out loud that they had to get married to her. This um that uh

that maybe also it was also like peer pressure. You know, we're there in the middle of a nightclub, particularly Wester Hall. She's with me in front of everyone. And they know we're going out together. It's very clear. In fact, I think there was one young lady behind us who kept saying um uh because I was there with with um Casey and then a couple nights I was there with um Liz Kraznawalka and she, the lady, somehow was someone who was watching. I thought maybe she was paparazzi.

Oh my gosh.

Or someone, but she was watching and she was saying, aren't you going out with the other lady, Casey? And why are you going out with Liz all of a sudden? And you're back with uh Casey?

Oh my gosh.

I had to explain the story, but I think this kind of situation was putting pressure on Casey and um this was becoming a problem. And so then from there, I invited her over to the barbat. And the barbat was a little wild place uh in the areas that she entered into. And I went followed them and found those same areas. The police had to come down there a couple times. All kinds of interesting things. I had to tell her to get out of the, out of the nightclub eventually too. The crowded people were observing. Her, um, they thought maybe also things weren't going good. They weren't, most people were probably

doing things like myself, how they were acting. And I think, uh, they, Casey and Angie were coming there. And they were doing things a little looser. They weren't really, um, they just observed that from where we were. So the whole thing was a little while back. It went on for a little while. I don't know how many times we were there, maybe ten, twenty times, but then we had left and we didn't go back there. I think that bar eventually it, it closed and things like that. And we weren't there, but that was one very interesting chapter of us, uh, doing things together. And, um, with this whole thing with the marriage. Now, what happened was with her, um,

um, years later, again, we did the whole thing where we were doing this thing where they wanted to really say that we were engaged. Me and Casey. And I think this whole thing, I had looked at this thing and I see that this whole effort to try to marry me with Casey, give me a lot of problems, was sort of coming under something called, um, have the word right here.

Yeah, and we just got two more minutes left, John, okay?

Future faking, future faking.

What?

The whole thing, even though it meant, well, it was sort of coming out as future faking. In fact, what happened

I've heard that, okay.

Kind of like nineteen ninety-nine, two thousand, year two thousand, nineteen ninety-nine. I receive a call from my sponsor from years ago, Gloria Vanderbilt. She calls me on the phone. She tells me I have to go find Casey Ho and get married to her. I say, okay. I try to call her and find her. And then, um, Gloria calls her. And I'm not sure who is saying who. If she's Casey saying that. Telling Gloria I'm supposed to get married to her, but I'm certain that Gloria called me and told me to find Casey Cohen and get married to her right away. And um, this, this is before me and Casey did this thing with the fake.

And this, but this, this story with Casey was a little bit strange. I think uh, there was an opening for us to get married, but she in fact um, had this conflict with this marriage with her friend, which was paranormal. And, and I noticed um, so it was really, really very frustrating situation. There was a lot of uh, emotional stress involved with this whole situation. It was frustrating. They also, a lot of strange things were happening that since they were starting to say that I have to get married to her, they were

doing something where um, we were having problems, that they were uh, doing something like you said, like uh, a separate uh, people. And this situation was a little bit, very stressful. I wasn't the one that was telling them to do this. And um, this was always coming out time and time again with my sponsors. Uh, what happened is I think years later, I described in the last one, I was doing some ballroom dancing. I had a new girlfriend, more divorced. And I'm, just by chance, I meet Casey, I meet Angie, they, they have Roman Polanski's there and she has her, um, uh,

she has her boyfriend, her husband from uh, all, all times of a few years. And uh, and it was very interesting situation. Um, yeah, Casey introduced me to one of her adult star friends, Crystal. And um, but I already had a girlfriend there. At first, my new girlfriend didn't get along with them. And we didn't, she didn't get along with them, which is a very interesting situation.

And uh, so I, that was a very nice story and I did get to see her even after that. I think me and Casey, she came down to my tennis meetup, you know, I made that tennis meetup in twenty sixteen. And she did come down to my tennis meetup. Of course, I invited her. You has my phone number. Uh, she's very talkative on the phone. That's the one thing about Angie and Casey, they are really like talkers on the phone. And I think that is one problem. So she did come down to my tennis meetup and everything and she was telling me about her company was really doing very good. At the time, I think she had over a million people or something were looking at her blogs and everything.

And so I talked to her back then and I, I think I've seen her again since uh, that time. And uh, but that's really the present time. But uh, this has started back in nineteen like eighty-eight and it's continued on even today. It's a sort of interesting situation. I think the, the biggest solution to our problems was really for us to just stay friends. And um, we always like to help each other. I think the only thing is I always thought that when I was helping her, I was doing a better job. When she was giving me advice, helping me. Uh, but she did, did equally give me uh, help to try to help me.

Um, and things like that and was always very nice and uh, generous. Matched me with some of her girlfriends, things like that.

Wow.

She's really good. So we have very nice cooperation together.

Uh huh.

And, and I think the thing with the bio of the lattes, I have no idea. She wasn't very talkative about what she's doing. You know, I think everyone would probably do that. They don't wanna ruin things on themselves. You know, blow out a mouth into everybody. But she in fact was starting to do some nice things. She was autographing some of her clothes.

Oh wow.

Like boxes of clothes and she would autograph them and give them to some people that were coming there at the dance hall. And uh, this is something really interesting. So she was doing very good. And um, I uh, I was really happy for her. I was always very supportive. I wasn't trying to ruin anything for her. I think she started off, uh, like I said in nineteen eighty-eight, they told me she was a fashion model. Doing modeling. And I think, I think maybe she was um, pretty good at presenting herself. She's very nice, she's very good at presenting herself, and I think that's really one of her

great advantages is to do that. I think I saw some of her blogs on the Instagram. She still has that ability, which is very good ability, to present herself to people. And overall, she is very nice.

Oh, great. Well, we gotta wrap it up from there. Amazing. How do we contact you? Tell us quickly.

Sure, you can get on to my X page, you can go on to my webpage, www.johnriggio.com. And also on Facebook, John Riggio Pro Tennis Player.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Have a fantastic day and love speaking with you, John. Enjoy. Bye bye.

Hello, my name is John Riggio. I'm the CEO of John Riggio Art A Architect LLC. I provide architect services in the New York City metropolitan area. That includes New York City, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. My areas are specifically Long Island, the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Yonkers. In New Jersey, it is North Jersey, Central Jersey, and South Jersey. In Philadelphia, the areas are the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

You can find out more information about my company at www.johnriggio.com. That's spelled J-O-H-N-R-I-G-G-I-O dot com.

And there you will find out the description of my work. It shows a portfolio, pictures of the different job types. And I also have my contact information there. It shows my business address. From there, you can contact me and we can discuss your project. First, we will make a initial consultation. And then from there, we will then go over designing your project and then constructing your project. So I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you. Bye.

Broadcasting from the business capital of the world, this is the Podcast Business News Network.

It's Thursday night and you're grabbing drinks with some friends. Started off with a pitcher for the table, which quickly becomes two. There's pool.

And there's the photo booth.

Alright, everybody squeeze in. Say cheese!

Followed naturally by an order of wings. And another.

Can we get some extra ranch sauce?

Then there's the ceremonial nightcap.

So what are we doing this weekend?

And lastly, it's back to the car, which, if you're buzzed...

Could be the most expensive night of your life. Getting pulled over for buzzed driving could cost you around $10,000 in fines, legal fees, and increased insurance rates. Nothing kills a buzz like getting pulled over for buzzed driving, because buzzed driving is drunk driving. Brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Ad Council.