Instead of interviewing Antonio Villaraigosa, you turn on the audio recorder, sit back and watch the show unfold.

Anecdotes flow from his mind like the Los Angeles River after a storm. A quick glance at the former Los Angeles mayor and council speaker always draws a bewildered crowd. His booming, carefree laugh mixes with eloquent rhetoric about democracy, working families and hope.

To watch Villaraigosa in action is to watch a true political master at work who loves the process as much as the destination — and Californians will have a front-row seat to it for the next two years.

Thirty years after winning his first election, Villaraigosa, an East Side native, is back in politics, this time announcing his candidacy early in the 2026 California gubernatorial race. Villaraigosa is trying to distinguish himself from other major Democrats who have previously announced their candidacy (Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, California Education Commissioner Tony Thurmond, former State Comptroller Betty Yee and State Sen. Toni Atkins) by running from the “radical center,” which he has long described as a magical place where people can come together to fix California better than either the right or the left can alone.

“In a world where there's so much gridlock, it's groundbreaking to put together a strategy to break the gridlock and move forward,” Villaraigosa said last week during an hour-long luncheon at La Parrilla in Boyle Heights.

In Sacramento, where Democrats hold supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature and Republicans have not held statewide office for the first time in more than a decade, gridlock is rare. Villaraigosa said his main opponents are Wokosos It's a state where Democrats complain about crime, homelessness, the cost of living and gross inequality, but believe the status quo won't fix anything.

“To be honest, when I started, I wasn't much of a hands-on problem solver,” he said, “but over time, I realized that if I wanted to get things done, if I wanted to achieve big things, I had to work with people, even people who didn't agree with me.”

My request was for La Parrilla, a longtime favorite restaurant of Eastside politicians. I wanted a place with good food where I could watch politicians in action in their hometown. The moment he walked in, my wish came true and everyone stopped what they were doing.

“That's right, Jeffe!” he declared to server Eric Gabriel.

“¡Hey Mr. Garcetti!” the 29-year-old Boyle Heights resident joked.

“Hard Pegandle“Villaraigosa's voice was a little hoarse after a day in which he made more than $1.5 million on the phones,” Villaraigosa replied.

Server Ana Borol came over to give him a hug.

“You used to have parties here all the time,” she teased him in Spanish. “You used to come here a lot.”

“But now I live far away,” Villaraigosa pleaded like a Chicano Dennis the Menace.

He asked about a photo of himself near the entrance, and I found it just above his head in our corner booth: He was deciding between beef or chicken fajitas at a staff party celebrating our historic 2005 mayoral election victory.

I asked him how the Villaraigosa of today is different from the Villaraigosa of the past.

“You mature over time,” he said. “You get a little more humble. You learn humility when you lose a few times. But I'd rather talk about the same thing.”

As we enjoyed an appetizer of macaroni soup, he launched into a five-minute recounting of memories from his life on the East Side.

“This is a place where the salt of the earth people live,” he concludes, moving on to guacamole topped with La Parilla's salsa de chile de árbol. “And, you know, it's like, 'Local boy. [made] “That sounds like a good thing to a lot of residents.”

He paused to watch as a La Parrilla employee poured a giant jug of Jamaican into a percolator.

“Be careful!” he advised loudly in Spanish. “Amazing! Not a drop spilled!”

His phone blared with a variety of sounds — drums, laser beams, chimes — signifying different people trying to contact him. Villaraigosa ignored them all, explaining what motivated him to run for governor again after finishing third in 2018: the people he met while touring the state as Gov. Gavin Newsom's infrastructure secretary in 2022.

What on earth did they say to him? I asked as the main courses came: 3 tacos for him and a taco de queso panela for me.

“How about we eat some of this first and then we can talk?”

I think so!

For the next 10 minutes, we caught up, he stopped eating to joke with the La Parrilla staff, and finally posed for a photo with Gabriel.

So what exactly did those who urged him to run say?

“You know, I never asked.”

Villaraigosa attributed the win to his track record in Sacramento and Los Angeles of working across political lines to get things done.

But do you think that's what Californians want?

“Well, obviously they didn't want that last time!” Villaraigosa laughed. “But I think people are ready for it now.”

His main campaign promises wavered: strengthening Medicare (“healthcare is a right”) while making California a pro-small business state (“You can be pro-worker and pro-business. I have been. I don't see those as contradictions”) and doubling public transportation while “streamlining the permitting process” to build more housing.

“I'm from Boyle Heights, so I know a little bit of Yiddish,” Villaraigosa said. “I StrugglingPer.”

He recounted the time he got a call from the vice mayor for economic development about a man who wanted to open an operations center in the San Fernando Valley.

“He's really upset because it took so long,” Villaraigosa recalled the deputy mayor telling him. “I said, 'Do you want to call him?' And I didn't know who he was.”

It was Elon Musk.

“So I called him and he was very upset. He said there was too much bureaucracy and red tape in the city. I told him to slow down. 'Tell me what the problem is,' he said. We did it in three months.”

“If you're mayor, that's your job,” Villaraigosa continued. “If you're governor, that's your job. I think we'll have a guy running…”

He pointed to a photo of himself hanging on the wall.

“Look, you say, 'What's the same?' I'm still that guy who rolls up his sleeves and goes for it. I wanted to achieve my goal last night, and I worked late into the night to do that. That's just the way I am.”

As I asked my final question, a waiter brought Villaraigosa a cup of hot water with honey. He'll turn 73 in 2026 and, if elected, would be the oldest governor in California history. Did that worry him?

His million-dollar smile lit up.

“To be honest with you, it was just reporters who asked me that question. And the funny thing is, one of them compared me to Joe Biden, and that made me start laughing.”

Villaraigosa's cell phone rang again.

“This campaign is going to be about the future. It's going to be about the high cost of education for young people. It's going to be about the high cost of housing for young people.”

He leaned directly over my phone, which was lying on the table between us, while he recorded our conversation.

“I was in the gym this morning at 4:50 a.m. I go to the gym six days a week. I'm hiking, I'm working out, I'm eating well and I'm preparing for this campaign.”

He quickly rose to his feet and shook hands.

“You're the best, bro. I need to go now.”

Villaraigosa paid for lunch with cash and headed out the door. As he left, he was heard to say, “Hello, how are you?”

A minute later, my phone rang: he had received a parking ticket.

“I was walking back to my car and the parking attendant printed it out,” he said, laughing. “He realized who I was and started apologizing. He was like, 'I'm so sorry. I'm a huge fan. I shouldn't have had to do this, but I have to.'”

Villaraigosa laughed again: “I told him, 'You're doing your job, don't worry about it. Just give me the ticket and I'll pay for it.'

He paused, then laughed again. “Sixty-three dollars!” $63“…Let's talk later, brother.”