July 22, 2025 • 45 mins
Meet Gino Filippone - a luxury real estate agent in New York City. He's a member of The Corcoran Group and was just included as one of the top 25 real estate agents for sales in Manhattan. EnJOY!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
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Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
(00:23):
twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com. See you
on the road, my DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
interesting people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello everyone, my name is Craig Ferguson.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Welcome to Brooklyn, New York, to the Kids Super Studios
here in Williamsburg where.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
We're coming at.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You live from a tens inside a warehouse, which is
a studio and also a fashion place.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
That's a whole thing. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Look, my guest today is a New York legend.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
A good friend of mine. He's also a wheeltor as
well as well.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You're going to hear a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Please welcome to Wonder mister New York Jean no Philippo.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
One day, I remember the day we met because I'd
heard about you before that. We met on my sixty
first birthday, did we Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It was my birthday that day. God, and you when
I put you in my car, Yeah, we went in
your car.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And first of all, you're the only person ever I
ever met who said I love driving in my nest
and you were driving around my then I have good
parking g Yeah, you have very good parking skills, and
you can drive around and you enjoy it, and I've
never encountered that. And it was my sixty first birthday,
and you found me a rental apartment on Second and
(01:49):
eighty second Street. And then I through that period you said,
I remember you said on that day you'll buy in
the next couple of years, you'll move.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Back to New York.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Within two years, I had moved back to New York,
whole family moved everybody back.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That was it. You were very smart to do it
that way. You know, you didn't just go out and buy.
You need to rent and I kept saying, well, the
market is really dipping, but it dipped furst more.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's still going to dip a little more of you think,
so maybe a little bit. I was looking at some
houses on the Upper East sites and apartments and the
Uper East site. I'm like, that's very reasonable for what
it is. But I I do like, like a lot
of people, the Trulia app or the street easy app
in New York.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, that's my porn.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Me too, I say that, but you, amongst other things,
you're a realtor, though it makes sense for you to
look at it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But the but I'll tell you what I love about
it is now there's so much off market opportunity. So
there's like, well there's me and my buildings. So a
broker who knows who seasoned, who knows me, is going
to call and go, do you have anything coming up?
Do you have anybody that you think would sell? And
there's always off market opportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So now I've already we moved into a part aartment,
I guess what, three months ago, and I'm already looking
at the apartment next door.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I told you to start. I mean, she incapacitated yet
that time, and she's very nice. No, no, she's very nice.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I keep like leading over at the top of the stairs.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hey, let me help you done this?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Oh no, they but it's it's fine. But you know
why I was. I was looking at your bio today
and I had no idea none. And I know you
pretty well at this point about the wedding thing, what's
that tell me about?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Like? It was in New York City. So everything I've
ever done has been in New York. From New York,
I just I'm not from the city, but my grandparents
owned a big company and they did all the billboards.
And my father was a street guy from Parkchester, the Bronx,
So we were rare here a lot anyway. But I
mean I grew up in the suburbs, a little bit outside,
(03:52):
and I became a New York City tour guide. I
speak Italian and I used to pick them up at
JFK and give them tours. And I hate the Italians
because the Italians all they want to hear about is
love stories and they didn't really want to connect. And
the British were very refined. They would listen to you.
You know, people in the UK have degrees to do this.
I was just a licensed tour guide and well, I
(04:14):
think also has something to do with the accident Bretton
as well.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
People sound smarter than that smart Possibly I really like
wearing trousers right now if I like wearing pants.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
But how do I say this? There is a certain
perversity to the Brits that they kind of hide, and
I was able to tap into. So I started doing
night tours with them, taking them to sex clubs, health
fires and all these things. And you'd see these people
in literally burbery skirts going to like at two o'clock
in the morning and some guy was licking their toe
(04:47):
at the bar. But that's what they were paying for.
The first thing I realized was they weren't interested so
much in the culture they study. They knew it. I
gave them the tour, and then it was like, do
you really want to see New York now? And so
I would take them to a I wouldn't do the
after hours first, I would do a night tour where
I had a couple in the West Village, Irish Americans.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
We're doing We're doing the drink and they said.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I went to them and I said, would you consider
opening your house like three times a week to fifty
breads each time, and they go and I said to
have cocktails, and they went, well, we're middle class, we
would have to serve our dirves too. I go, that's fine,
and they had taken out a floor so it was
like walking into a loft with a big garden on
Jane Street. It was incredible. I found them just from
(05:32):
knocking on doors you went to. People says this, use
single family houses because people New Yorkers down in the
village are very creative and they like that. So I
sold the tour as a night out with the dinner
at Chumley's, which was an old speakeasy on Barrows. I
remember you had to go to somebody's house together, so
first we would go to Bobby and Jack Gillen's place
and have and they had a big rescue German shepherd
(05:54):
that was crazy, was knocking drinks all over and they
didn't understand the ritz asking. I love the way the
British asked for you know, drinks, you know as it's poured,
you know, Scotch, as it's poor, as its poor and
or you know what is the other line they would
say if they asked for not ginger ale, was it
what's the common drink? Anyway, the the g would mix
(06:17):
it up and put seven up instead, but all the
drinks were filled up to the top, you know, so
everybody was just falling out of the town is when
is this in the eighties. We're talking late eighties, early nineties,
so like the village a late seventeen.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I was going to say, the village in the nineteen
eighties and nineteen nineties is a different, slightly less family
friendly village.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Than it is now. I still think it's pretty artsy
and there are some single family town homes. You know.
The taxes became very expensive, and they were making They
charged me at the time twenty dollars per person, so
one hundred and fifty people a week times twenty dollars
was good with the math, yeah, like a million dollars. Right.
(06:57):
They were getting a million dollars a week off of
me in cash, and they loved it. I was paying
their taxes. It was like having someone.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
How did you get that, though, I mean, how did
you get to.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Oh? Right? Eh, I was doing it, and I just
thought people wanted people were bored. You know, when when
you were a tour guide in New York, you always
sit on there seeing the people to see their reaction, right,
and I could see everything was falling flat. It's like
being a comedian going, oh my god, I've never experienced that.
How dare you? How dare you not? You others have
(07:30):
experienced that? Yeah, the way we I said, you know,
let me come up with something different, because they kept
asking how do people live in this city? And I
was like, well, the same way they live in London.
But really these weren't These weren't London refined people. These
were people from you know, other parts of the suburbs
and suburbs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Let me ask you this though, what how did you
know about the sex clubs?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I know that from a lot of tour guides
started after hour. There was one guy named Giuseppe who
lived on a house boat on seventy ninth Street and
he would take four people. That's all we had were
for it. Like at the time, nobody was really into it.
We would go to do a sex club tour to
take because they wanted to experience.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I've got been to that sex club.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well it's you know, it's pretty much everything that you
can imagine. People just like have sex and the other
people it's more about a fetish and less about the sex, right,
So it's all of the you know, there's a lot
of licking and there's a lot of playing and toying.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It's like that's dogs the.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Dogs. Well now at our age. Yeah, I mean I
get discussed be my dog lives up his leg when
he goes to the bathroom. I don't want to see
that people.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So if you're in a sex club tour and you
go to the sex club, will someone say, hege you
want your leg linked and the lick your leg and
stuff that they loved it. I feel like I was
just annoying and it didn't ever get your legs And
that was an optional tour. That was that was included
in the price, so you should now they'd be going,
so you want you like lick it's actually once.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You go in there like whether you like it or
not any or not. Yeah, that's it. You were just
you had to participate. I don't I don't know. Well,
Hell's Fire used to be below fourteenth Street on where
the Guggenheim is now, but you used to have to
check your clothes to get in and just have your
underwear on. Then they would say to me, Look, you're
coming in with these people. We understand, but we can't
(09:21):
just have like onlookers. They have to kind of participate.
So I said, less is more. That was the tour
would go. They took the I mean, forty people is
a lot. I started out with four and four were
paying five hundred each. It was so expensive. And you
know who, let's talk cultures now. The Italians loved it.
The Italians take them my clothes off. The British were
(09:45):
wanted the experience. I'd like to have my leg lit.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Why I'm on a New York part of the experience
it was.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It was magical, And that's how that kind of started.
It started for me just saying I.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Lived in New York round about time. Well, I was
here in the mid eighties, early.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Mid eight we probably cross paths. Maybe, well i've done.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And I remember the only sex club I'd heard of
and I never went there, but I always wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It was a place called Plato's God's So seventies was
that seventies? Oh my god, that was Brazil. That was
like the first one.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, well no, I just remember seeing ads for it
in the Village Voice and I was like, oh, I
really want to go because like a Scottish Protestant boy,
I'm like, oh, I bet they've got little jumpers off
in there.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
You were, you were, you were ready to roll. The
big one was Hell's Fire, and then the less Squalito
which was underneath Port Authority bus terminal, and there were
drag shows. I was doing theater then as well. You know,
when I travel, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I
always hire a private Like in Prague, I hired a
private tour guide to go to a sex club. I
(10:51):
wanted to see everything. Not the sex clubs, no, but
I wanted to see off the beaten path, the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
What is the sex club's good, Well, it sounds like
the beaten path if you forgive the fun, well, the
the but the I I kind of I'm fascinated by this.
But the idea that all of this is it still
going on others those sex clubs.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm too old. I go to bed at nine. Now what,
I'm sure they are passed the baton to a lovely
group of people. The beauty is you buy and you sell.
I think the gen zs they don't, they don't have,
they don't. Everything's done online apparently. Yeah, you remember the
days when you met someone in a bar and then
you would hook up, and then after they left, you
took your clothing and hung it on the radiator because
it smelled of smoke and that was the only way
(11:32):
the smoke would get it. I mean that's how I
would set my clothes on fire. It never happened. You
were very you would have been a star on this tour.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
But the the idea of it, though, I think apps
have probably taken that all of that away, like because
you you can like if you want. I mean right
back in the day when some of the like real
kind of full on clubs in the village, I think
that's probably all ungraineder and tender. Yeah, that's I don't
think there's gonna you strap into your leather and get
(12:05):
your whistle and go nuts in a dark room.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I mean maybe I'm too old for this, but I'm
hearing now. You can just meet people, I mean they
track you. You can be in the same restaurant and
say let's meet in the men's room. I've had friends
that constantly say they hook up, like in the moment, I.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Feel there might be you can get will be fresh
STDs coming in.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
If it's that easy, I.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Mean, I feel like you shouldn't you interview someone a
little bit?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I would think so, but I mean they can read
your bio.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, I guess no one can hide really, I mean
it's kind of like you can't assume an identity now,
you can't.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I bet the majority of people that are together have
met online.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You know, I think probably no, I think, yeah, if
you're in how did you meet fluid?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Did you mind? You may know? Really AOL you put
money in the machine and it was one of those yep, wow,
he's not gonna like that. I said that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
No, I think it's fine. I think it's uh. I mean,
we can cut it out. But it's it's kind of
amazing to me that you must have been quite early adopters.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Then it was the beginning AOL.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You've got mail, someone wants to lick your leg, and it.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Was fun, it was mysterious. It was that and a
nice way, that erotic place of that took place of
going to a sex club because you had this fantasy
of what the person was going to be like when
you met them, right, and obviously it worked out twenty something. Well, yeah,
you guys have long, long time baby. Yeah, but that's okay,
that's good. Yes, it's excellent.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Hello, this is Craig Ferguson and I want to let
you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy
and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
at the Greig Vergison Show and is this right there?
Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I can't look.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I'm not gonna come rund your husband show you how
to do it. If you can't do it, then you
can't have it.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
But if you can.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Figure it out, it's yours. So how did that turn
into the wedding thing?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Then? Because you you tourists? Said to me, two British tourists,
I'll never forget. They said, we really loved your tour Dino.
I said, well it's Gino actually, and they said, would
you helpless get married? I'm going to call you prefer like,
I mean, would I help you get married?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
And I'm thinking is there a dollar to be made
in there? So I said, I'll get back to you.
What hotel you and I'll be right there, ran down
his city hall and it's when they have the old
bulletproof windows. It was like the set of Barney Miller.
Ye take a number.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And then I looked a little bit into it. I
realized that I could coordinate these weddings because countries are different,
like the UK when I from my recollection, you file
and it's eleven days you have to wait.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, you also have to be interviewed by the Ringing monarchy.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And Paris in France it's two weeks and you must
eat a certain so vegas. It's like, what are you
doing later? So we are twenty four hours in New York, right,
And that was always established to give the couple time
to realize are we going to do we really want?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Like you can get married twenty four hours a day,
you have to wait twenty twenty four Like buying a.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Gun yep, right, okay, yeah, is that what it is
for a gun? Jeez, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
What it is in New York where there are certain states,
the state where I have my other place go buy
a gun.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I'll remember when I just remember that when you come
to be rude, to remember I'm as citizen and I
have a driver's life. I think you know what I'm saying.
Oh my god. So yeah, so I realized I could
do it, and then I coordinated it, and then it
just happened. I opened up this company. The tour company
was called Ultimate USA Tours, and then I opened up
(15:53):
Ultimate USA Weddings and we had contracts with British Airways, Koiwone,
Virgin Holidays, everyone. So we would package the weddings weddings
abroad and they would sell them, and so I would
give them a discount of rate. But we would get
you know, you come and get married in New York,
and then we would arrange for the license, we would
script the ceremony. We would get oh yeah, I got
(16:15):
ordained online. So you're a rabbi, Gino, you're a rab
I'm a vicar. You're a vicar, a rabbi, I'm an officiant,
all right. So you have no your it's a secular position.
You have no religious Well, I mean, I will do
anything as long as I don't have to slaughter an animal.
There's no sack anything I will do. I've done, Yamica's
I've done. You know, I did a Jewish wedding because
(16:36):
my friend married an orthodox guy and for some reason,
his divorce had not been completely finished yet, right, And
so they had this two hundred person highly orthodox wedding
and they went through the whole ceremony, but it wasn't legal.
And then three days later when I met them in
a Mexican restaurant on Ninth Avenue, because I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I like the idea of getting married in a Mexican restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I think that. I mean, I like the idea. Again,
we go back to that kind of slightly perverse thing
of like, oh my god, nobody knows this is a
force except me. And in three days, when the divorce clears,
I'm going to meet them at you know, El Cantona
or whatever. The Mexican place was, La Cantina, and we're
going to make this official. So that's what I started doing.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's it. I mean, we spent quite a lot of
time together talking.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You didn't know that. I just it's never come up.
You just never don't.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I talk about myself a lot, Is that what it is?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
No? We talk about you. No, we talk about Megan
and how beautiful she is.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
We talk about my wife and how beautiful she is,
very beautiful, and she's fun but I will say I'm
married two thousand people, good lord, and of them were Brits.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And you guys do it the interesting way. Where's different
that Americans should listen to. I can attest to this.
You meet in school, this is the general brit You
meet school, definitely, you date, you buy a house together,
you have a child, and then you fly to New
York and dino marriage you Well, you know why why?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Because the tax in Britain, you get no tax break
for being married in brent You feel really yeah, if
you're if you're married to someone, they file a tax return,
You file a tax return. There's no violent joint filing.
There's no that's not going to happen. So there's no
financial incentive to get married. You get married because you
you want to get married, but there's no kind of
like if we get married, you know it's I don't know,
(18:26):
it's different.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Well, out of two thousand weddings, I probably did only
one hundred Americans.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Can you tell when people immediately as soon as you
can touch you know, how many of them have last.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I'm dying to know. I do see on Facebook like
they're having kids, and in my case, some of them
are even had their kids are having kids. I want
to kill myself. It will till I see that, I know,
but very few times I'll get an email going, hey
he died. I mean, what a show that would be.
I'm telling you, if you put me on the evening
news in the UK, people would just their their teacups
(18:57):
would shake. They would go, oh my.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
God, that's our that's the that's she's the wedding guy.
That's do you know.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
The wedding Do you know the wedding of the wedding guy?
I know it's Dina from New York.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
He's back and he's married us.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Do you like that? Would be a fun reality show?
Driving through the UK to see who's you know? Who's
a great idea.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I think we should do it and fight. I think
you and I should do it together.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Who's driving? I can't drive there because I get confused
on the other side of the road. I'm such a
good New York.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I'm going to tell you what I tell everyone when
they talk about my early sexuality.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I so you've got to try it both ways.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Before you know, before you know which you prefer, So
you know if you like driving.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
On one side. Tried driving on the other side. See
what it feels like. Then you'll know.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Sometimes people can drive on any site.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's not the size as much. You know. It drives
me crazy in the UK. Oh god, they're the worst.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
They are terrible and I always miss it and I
hate that they're coming to America now and there's starting.
Oh yeah, you if you go outside of Manhattan, which
I don't like to do, as you know, but if
you do there, they have roundabouts, they have the traffic
circles and they and you know, Americans are not great
with them.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
We're not great. Or yeah, I know, I'll be very careful.
It's horrible. Yeah, when you.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Go to targets or places like that. You know in
the suburbs they have.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Them, they have them. Okay, well I'll look out for them.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But I think that's a good idea. I could drive
you around. I can show you where things are in Britain,
and we can go and meet the uh, the people
that you got married or the grandchildren. It's significant. I'm
telling you.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I actually have been in bars with my partner. I
was in the Hamptons once and a drink came over
and the guy said, that woman said that you married
her and in the UK, I got stopped a few
times every time we go to London. I know the odds,
and I think I sent a picture. But I was
sitting in a cafe in New York City and a
woman I'm sitting and so I'm facing the window with
(20:58):
a friend, just having like a lunch, and this woman
kept walking by staring at me. I was like whatever,
and I'm talking to her, and then finally she put
her phone up to the window and it said, GINO
you married my husband. You uncle and I ten years
ago was the cover of my book. That's what it is.
It's her like this with the picture and on her
I'm not the picture of her on her iPhone. And
(21:20):
I was like, oh my god. Of course I didn't
remember her, but it was.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
See I get out with late night. I did over
two thousand late nights. When I think about it, you
did as many weddings as I did it on late night.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's that. Don't let's think about the price difference. Jesus
shoot me, well, I don't like volunteer work. What I did,
I don't how much were they paying you for a wedding? Nothing? Really,
I mean, we would just rack it up. With like,
do you want hair and makeup? How about a limousine?
You know anything I could sell. I'm the extra guys,
you know, I like to sell the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
About the Did you ever do it like a sex
club night before thing?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Did you? I've taken it back to the sex those
weren't I didn't do that, but I did marry a
couple in bed at the Plaza Hotel. They were in bed,
come in. I was like, who was the witness? Were
you the witness? There was My assistant, Marissa used to
come to the weddings with me and she would have
the license and everything, and I go, I would go,
what are we walking into? She goes, I don't know
they paid blah blah blah. I said, great, you know
(22:15):
sometimes we would do ten eleven weddings a day. I
didn't like that. Oh yeah, I mean, how do you
get to two thousand and a lot of these people
stayed together. I don't know. I have no idea. There
was one really interesting one where Marissa said to me
and she was a beautiful, she's still alive, beautiful Latin
American girl, and she said, I think the groom has
(22:38):
a crush on me and the groom was very handsome,
and then the bride came down. It was I think
it was also at the plaza down the stairs, and
the moment she was at the stairs, she saw the
connection between my assistant and you know, and then she
turned around and walked away. Yeah. Oh, I've had a
lot of grooms say I can't go through with it
(22:58):
our brides incredible. The most embarrassing moment though, is you
know what it is when you go to city hall
with the British couple they have to write down who
their parents are on the license and a lot of
them don't know in Britain.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, my mom, mostly we pro create by children floating
down the river at baskets.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
He was like, I said, I used to save them
ALTI And then if they say that they can't go
through the paperwork, so we would have to say in
advance so you're clear about your putting your parents down,
because if not, John Doe is a perfect name. Just
anything you want to write John Doe, it just goes
on the license. Who cares that? Well? Isn't that fascinating
that things you learn? Like what a moment for somebody
(23:42):
to say I don't know who my father was My
mother met him in a bar and that was it.
Now it'd be like, you know, okay, it's probably not
even on the license anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
But I feel like soon you'll have to do like
you'll have to give blood so they can keep tracking.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That was the old days. You had to do blood tests.
Did you really?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yes, they have that thing, and they have that app.
You've heard this app. It's in Iceland. So many people
are related that they have this app, so you have
to check to see you're not related to the part.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
What else are you going to do in Iceland? Well,
I mean, you know, two hours of light a day,
you're gonna yet, you know, let's go and see by
the way. But reindeer, I don't think so. They want
to know I'm not eating that. Oh they eat you know.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
The only time I've been to Iceland, I stopped at
Wreckuvig Airport for uh the change planes, and I had
some Icelandic chocolate, the worst chocolate.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I ever tasted at to go right through it tasted
like seal. There's nothing bigger than British chocolate. Yeah, British chocolate.
It's the best, I think, so oh my Cadbury that
forget it. This is crapier. I haven't had a Hershey
bar since I was There's a pretty good chocolate in
New York. I know what. I know what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
The mass produced chocolate is probably not as good as
the British stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But I will say.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
This the it's the crisps in Britain again. The chips
they have like yuck and you know, spaghetti flavored chips.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I mean, they're unbelievable. They're delicious and they're delicious. Here
we get your doritles.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
But what we do here is we dippleman things. They
don't diprimant things in Britain because they don't need to.
They're ready delicious. I gained so much weight when I
go to Britain, like I'm still working on.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Getting you were looking very felt. We got thank you,
I have been You're really doing it well.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I've got this scrout this game show coming up, and
I'm doing scrabble, so I felt like all my late
night show suits, I was like, I'll just wear them
on this game show, and none of them fit me.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So now you're gonna have to borrow my clothes.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
No, no, it's all right. First of all, I've got
but I can get into them again now. Yeah, I'm
very excited about it. I haven't had a good dress. Yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
You are. You know exactly what to wear.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I feel like if you're in a suit, you're in charge.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, it's a power thing. Yeah, I know. I still
wear them. Yeah, I mean I always wear a jacket.
I mean, look, I'm out.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You always wear a nice jacket on a Citi bike
bike where I'm always on Citi Bike.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's my porn. I love it. I don't know if
it's just that I'm cheap or what, because I have
saved thousands of dollars because I don't love the subway
so much anymore. I at love the crowds. And I
get because I'm a suburban kid and I grew up
on a bike. I get stimulated when I'm on a bike.
It excites me. I get really.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Explained it like in a sex club.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That we're back to those clubs. Yeah, just fascinating. I
just love to get Yeah, that was what a life.
I love to get on the bike. It makes me happy.
I would have rode here, but I was like.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I'm actually going to take a bike home. You are, Yeah,
because the I just find out that you could. There's
a city bike place just next to the studio. Then
I'm jumping on and then you can go over. They
have a bike land on the Williamsburg Bridge. You can
go right over.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Okay, maybe that's what I'll do. Ye. I just came
from a closing from a mutual who you know, a
very talented actors apartment. I just sold what a journey today?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is that that that good? Today? We won't say who closed,
We won't say who it is. That's very happy. I'll
bet so he sold it, sold it right done? That's
good news. Is he leaving New York? No? He has
another place? All right? Okay, because I sold him? I
which ib we doing? With you two? Going? Yeah? Yeah, John?
Are you ready to move? She's now? Yeah. No. When
we find out what the next door neighbor is going for,
(27:30):
like cellular work on her longevity, she's then you're gonna
have to move. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I feel like the the when I moved back to
New York like two years ago. Really, when you you
kind of plugged me back into the city. I I
kind of regret ever leaving I do. I feel like
this is this is the this is the best study
for me.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I just feel like this one works for me more
than any other place I've been in New York City work.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I mean, don't you think you get more material here
than anywhere? Oh my god, I can't even imagine you
guys in California. I didn't know you then, but it's
like it's so remote out there.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, the kids are really young, so you know, we
were kind of like, you're in that world then you're
kind of dealing with It's all like.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
But that's one cycle.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Well we had too because Myla was young when Megan
and I met, and then when he was about nine
years old, he was just over nine years old. Liam
was born'siga right back into it again, right right, And
so it kind of lasted quite a long time.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
My god, he's gonna he just loves New York, doesn't he? Liam?
Oh yeah, he's crazy for it. It's perfect for you.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean, it kind of It's an interesting thing because
I was talking to us about it today. We were
walking over the street here just in Brooklyn, and Tina
the crossing guard I would have been working here a
couple of days. Tina the crossing Guard stops the traffic
we're walking over the road. She starts talking about when
did you get your first tattoo? I got my friend
she's talking about her tattoos.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Now we know that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
When we come back, we got together a nice call
for right right the way back right. And this city
has I think and people go crazy. Well, people who
don't know don't believe it. This is the friendly city
I've ever been in my life. This is the fabric
of New York.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Unbelievable. You will never see a more And I love
to know where I stand and New York. You will
always tell you and I'm the same way. It's like,
that's a lovely dress. What do you mean lovely? It's great.
It's the most increasing you know they and it's not
an insult. It's just them. Everyone stakes their claim here.
It's it's the most amazing city for that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It has a certain directness which I really appreciate. It
was once I was doing it, I started doing a
Bill Clinton in person.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh really, yeah. I used to do that late night, like.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That was pretty much all I did. But it was
kind of a regular gig guy. I used to do
it late night and I was walking down the street
in New York and a guy shouted really literally from
a construction say a guy with a heart, and went, hey, Ferguson,
nice Clinton.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Wasn't that worth it? Yeah? It kind of was.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Actually, I've had a lot of coffee.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Have you do you drink a lot of coffee? Now?
I do not because we got your coffee. But I
love it. No, I needed this little thing. These. I'm
doing these walkthroughs right now. I have another one today.
It's the pre closing. Didn't we do it in your apartment? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I didn't see the apartment till after I bought it,
Megan Memory, I have to.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Say, I'm noticing that. Another thing is I you know,
I will say that I'm coming up with a knack
of taking an apartment online and saying that's the one
for you. Yeah. Well you well you gave me like
a five block radio, so well that was.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Very specific and where I want it to be. Yeah,
I mean because that because look, location, location, location, Lord.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, it's great. Well we can it's over. But you're
but women, I mean, who knows, cut this out if
you don't want to do it. But women are fantastic
to shop with for real estate. Yeah, they really just
kind of get the whole thing. Well, I think men
like to come in and they're more about the numbers, definitely,
and they kicked the tires as the approval thing. You know,
(31:15):
it's like, okay, what do we got here? You know
what's the pros? And there you're much more vocal about
the pros and cons. Women, it's more of a nesting
See my family in here. It's not so much the kitchen,
it's just the whole vibe of the place. And then
they throw in their decorator hat. It's like, yeah, I'm
that's one of the things I'm very glad about. Megan.
She's amazed she's the.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Design Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. How did you end
up going to real estate from.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I just love I've always loved real estate. And we
were living out in LA and we used to go
to Santa Barber We used to go to Palm Springs
and I would look at these homes and go, holy shit,
this must be fun. If I can't afford to live
in it, I might as well sell it. And so
we were going to make our life out there. But
then my partner did the option the right to share
his life story and did the share show on Broadway.
(32:01):
So I knew I was coming back. I was already
running the businesses in New York and they were running
and so I came back and pivoted and just got
my license, and then I was doing weddings and real estate,
which was incredibly stressful.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, I feel like that's a low because people You're
dealing with people at two different points in the life
where there's a law of emotion involved.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Right, I already know what my next position is. Like,
I am one of those people at any age have
no problem reinventing myself. I'm literally like a person who
if I'm not happy doing it or f I'm saturated
the wedding business. After ten years, I was like, I'm
done right, and I had no problem. I don't look
at it and go, God, i'm a certain age, I'll
(32:42):
never get a job. I don't do any of that.
If it's meant to be, I just move forward with it.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I think that's very healthy. I also think that's New
York a little bit. And I think this is a
city like la and by extrapolation of that show business
I think, and which everything is show business. Everything getting
this is somehow shameful, Like you mustn't.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
You must go.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
You must like have you know, surgeries, and you must
look young, feel young all the time. And I think
in New York that's lass of an issue is like
have a nice coat, right.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Right, So I think the next thing for me, well,
I love real estate right now. I mean, look, it's great,
but it is a relationship business, like weddings were a
relationship business. Oh literally, yeah, you know, I mean it
really is. But there is a thing in the UK
and I can't remember what it's called. I remember a
brit telling me this, which was that when somebody dies,
there's a man that comes in and does the service.
(33:38):
But he's called something. He's not the vicar of obviously,
he's called the and it's got to come to me anyway.
That's what I would love to do in New York. Well, yeah,
work on that. I mean, I'm gonna skip the divorces
because who wants to do that. That's just an attorney.
There's no fun in that. But like the celebration of
life thing, oh what are they called? The person who
(33:58):
comes in? There is a person these humanists humanists, yes, yeah,
and now even religious like the Catholic Church, no one
is doing the wakes and people that I know. It
is just at two they're just doing one day a celebration,
right change now, I think a little bit that's true.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
We had on the podcast William Villanova.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Oh what a name. I love it.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
He's lovely man. He's the head of the the you know,
the big funeral.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Chapel on Madison. Oh my god, yes, I go there
all the time. Campbell's Frank Campbell's Oh my god, he is. Yeah,
he's that's he's the guy in charge. Oh that is
a great guest to have.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
He was fabulous. Why I didn't know about about funerals
and like to be in his position that's like a
four year college degree. Oh yeah, I mean he's like
I mean, I think he does everything though, from you know,
soup to nuts.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I guess that is the place the place to be
honored value that in the Riverside Memorial, Riverside Church. So
so what would you do? Like, Like, I would script
something like I love having lessons more. I loved writing
a ceremony. I had a template and the bride and
groom I would go, tell give me something that you
love about you know whatever, And I wouldn't tell her
(35:14):
and I wouldn't share it with him, and so it
became like a moment. It wasn't necessarily a lot of
times emotional, but at least they have you could see,
you could feel the moment in the room. That's what's
you know what I know.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You go to you've been to Italy recent course.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Right when you go.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
To Italy, do you ever go around the graveyards and yes,
have you noticed this new trend where they have the
video of the deceased that?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, I know, it's it's weird at the graveyard on
the on the tombstone.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The tombstone, you mean you push something in there, you
can make a little video so that you're like, it's genius.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Hey, it's me. I'm well, you know, enjoy your art.
I love that. Yeah, you put a little video on
your tombstone. Oh my god, what a thing.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, I'm not so sure. I mean because look, imagine
you're like your old your grandpa, and someone goes and says, hey,
can't buy it's time to make the video. You're like, no,
I'm fine, No, it's you know, it's a fine.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Grandfather would have just given me instructions on life. I
told you not to take that job.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
But I mean I feel like, first of all, I
don't know how long is that video gonna last. I mean,
the stone's going to be there for a while, but.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
The video just thinking, I'm just thinking, like somebody's just
gonna take it. Well, who's gonna who?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Kind of heartless monsters?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
It's it's a piece of like an iPhone, isn't it.
I mean, what do you do?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I think there's a little there's a little kind of
uh solar thing on the top for power supply.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And then it kind of I love that idea.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I think once you go, like when I go, I'm
not coming. I don't want Aren't you going to be cremated?
No Viking funeral?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I think, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Actually, you know, in all seriousness taking.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Up space, I think that is such an ego thing.
No Viking funeral.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
You get burned, you do, yeah, boat boat out to
see and your children fire flaming iris onto the boat
and then you burn as it. I know, if you
go to Valhalla, tuble is trouble is I think if
that ends, if I end up in Valhalla, I'm going
to be the sassiest of Valhalla there is I'm no
way qualified to sit around.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
You know, you're never going to die. So you've been
spared on so many levels. You have you should would
on so many levels in this room right now. There's
been a couple.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Of times, but things where back then things were a
little more like like in New York when you were
doing the tours. Do you ever ran any danger these
because late night in New York back then it was
kind of different.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
No, But I do see or hear about a lot
of people that I was in business with are dying,
you like, have died, you know, the sad things, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah, it freaks me out.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
It does.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
People that are contemporaries and they like die and like
why could they die?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
You know, it's really weird.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
You run into people that you knew from back in
the day and they look really old, And I'm.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Like, it's a compliment for me that, you know, do
I look? I know, you go back and you go,
do I look like that? Yeah? I know, I do.
Do that. You know what you get for that, a
three way mirror. I told my partner that three way mirror.
You got to see yourself from every ankle, because there
are certain ankles I see myself when I'm trying on
a pair of pounds, and I go sis, and I
(38:20):
realized it's no old guy in the room with me.
It's me from the side.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
So as long as I'm looking directly in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And yeah, you remember the old thing about when you
see a hot girl, she was hotter walking away or
coming towards you. It was never both, you know. I mean,
it's you have to make sure it all ties in, right.
I don't know that I'm ready for a three way mirror. Okay, well,
well I come and look at mine. If you stand
there naked and you change fourteen, well, I mean, then
(38:50):
you know what you gotta do. I gotta call. I
don't know. I'd like, you've had no work done, you
look great, you're rugged, you're ready. Well, God bless you
know not me. I've had work. No, you have? Have
you absolutely a little tweaking here and there.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I'm into it. I'm going I want to mega. I
I want to see a cosmetic dermatologist. Oh really, yeah,
I want to I want to have like all the
same you.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Want to do that like CO two laser thing? What's
that is that? Like they burn your face off and
come back looking like an eleven year old. I don't
think that's the best look for you, but it probably
isn't It kind of one of those you see them
and go, gipe baby or something. Now I'm doing I'm
into the stem cell thing? Was that? So they do
a little they remove your stem cells. I have to go.
(39:38):
It's kind of a lipos suction thing, which is discussed.
I don't do well with needles, so I'd have to
be out for everything, which I love being. I love
that's look if it was proven, Oh my god, count
back from one hundred. Yeah. And then they send your
stem cells to Virginia to a lab and they harvest them,
and then four to six months later you get some
(40:00):
of them back on a drip and they put them
in and all after you do it three times, all
the ages and pain start to go away. That moment
of getting out of bed in the morning going is gone.
You're now the eighteen year old. So it's all cellular
work and it's age reversal, but not so much the
exterior the interior, which is who do I What do
I care? As long as I'm feeling young inside. Yeah,
(40:23):
I'm hearing. I have two people that I've tapped into
one is a big, big person and it's really helped
her knees and she's completely, uh, I know, don't go there,
leave that alone. You knowing those young guys, is it?
Is it very? Is it very? No? I know where
(40:45):
you're going.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I've reached the point light where I hear it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
But stuff for these And I'm like, but that's what happens.
You just you know, don't drink and don't die, is
they say? Isn't it true? It happens overnight, especially with men.
And listen, statistically, men do not lasts as long as women.
Well I've noticed that. Yeah, I mean that is scary.
It is a little bit. But you do you feel
the great beyond? No? What do you mean? Do I
(41:09):
feel like I'm at the end of my life? No?
I mean do you What do you think happens after
you die? I think you're I think it's all energy
and you're reincarnated and it's just energy.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Right, So you don't think it's like, you know, angry
Santo in a club.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I think you're you know, you know, I'm not. I
don't even think you're trying to work out the stuff
you couldn't work out in this life. In the next life,
I think you just immediately are reincarnated. It's a sole thing.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
But but reincarnated is energy, not like like as a
hamster or something.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Maybe, who knows, God, I hope not. I hope I'm
a rescue hamster, because you know the word rescue is
just like living at the plaza.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Well, I don't know how many rescue hamsters are living
in it, but I don't even if hamsters actually qualify
as a rescue animal. I'm sure that there are rescue hamsters,
but I mean it's usually like cats.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Seen them on menus, let's put it that way. Oh no,
oh yeah, I mean it's certain places. People fry up anything.
Oh no, I couldn't eat I know that.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Megan when she was in South America, she was offered
guinea pig, and I think Peru.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I couldn't eat a guinea pig. That's horrible. Yeah, that'd
be bad. My dad used to eat rabbit. My parents.
You to eat rabbit too, That's a delicacy. Yeah, it's
so sad. French. The Italians will eat that horse. Oh yeah,
all of that stuff. I can't eat. God, let's not
talk about that. Okay.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Well, I'm mostly veggie now anyway you are. Yeah, I
was vegan for a long time and then I didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I don't think I could do that, but I'm almost veggie. Yeah,
I'll be a pesca pescatarian.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yes, yeah, I don't you eat the shalefish.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I'm not as much. Well, my partners goes intown in
phylactic shocks, so that limits.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Megan is Oh really, she's terribly allergic to shrimp, was
my partner.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
So I mean I down to an occasional lobster prima
era thing, but I don't even love it that much.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
No, I kin'dt eat see me, I don't eat. I
could eat it, I don't. I'm not allergic to it.
I think it's a bug. I think these things.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Like a crab, a lobster. It's just a large underwar bug.
Well they say they're bottom feeders. Did they are bottom?
Speaker 1 (43:18):
So?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I mean what you're right up? I think I'm going
to go to bottom feeds. I think we're going to
go back to those sex tours again. I want to
go on the UK Evening News and go let's not
talk about weddings. Let's talk about how many of you
people went on that Geno sex Yeah, the Geno sext
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, it was magical.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, it was magical, dropping them off at four o'clock
in the morning and then getting up and doing it
all over again. It was the cycle. They'd come in
on a Thursday, we would do Friday tour, Saturday night,
Saturday night sex club, Sunday hangover, shopping, and then they
would leave Monday and I'd drop them off and pick
up the next group.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I find that fascinating.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
It was the greatest gig and I loved it. I
loved just it was just freedom and it was being on.
It was reading the room and people were like, you know,
the boring tours were when you had like IBM Incentive
tour and those guys didn't want you know, I didn't
do those. Those were horrible because you're just about New
York City. I did learn a lot about New York.
(44:21):
I know all the history, which is why we why
I love real estate so much, because I love those
beautiful pre war the architecture, the history of New York
building buildings around people who didn't want to leave their
little rent stabilized apartment like on the I know buildings
on the Eastie. There are books about this, which is
fascinating for me. They've offered them millions of dollars, will
(44:43):
buy you an apartment, we'll move out, and they won't go,
and they have to build an entire building around a
little townhouse. But some woman on the fourth floor, it's like, uh,
it's just unbelievable. Yeah, that's crazy. Thank you for being on,
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
You're the best you know, or maybe if you're if
you write the stakes, you're written repea
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
(00:23):
twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com. See you
on the road, my DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
interesting people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Hello everyone, my name is Craig Ferguson.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Welcome to Brooklyn, New York, to the Kids Super Studios
here in Williamsburg where.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
We're coming at.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You live from a tens inside a warehouse, which is
a studio and also a fashion place.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
That's a whole thing. Anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Look, my guest today is a New York legend.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
A good friend of mine. He's also a wheeltor as
well as well.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
You're going to hear a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Please welcome to Wonder mister New York Jean no Philippo.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
One day, I remember the day we met because I'd
heard about you before that. We met on my sixty
first birthday, did we Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It was my birthday that day. God, and you when
I put you in my car, Yeah, we went in
your car.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And first of all, you're the only person ever I
ever met who said I love driving in my nest
and you were driving around my then I have good
parking g Yeah, you have very good parking skills, and
you can drive around and you enjoy it, and I've
never encountered that. And it was my sixty first birthday,
and you found me a rental apartment on Second and
(01:49):
eighty second Street. And then I through that period you said,
I remember you said on that day you'll buy in
the next couple of years, you'll move.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Back to New York.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Within two years, I had moved back to New York,
whole family moved everybody back.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That was it. You were very smart to do it
that way. You know, you didn't just go out and buy.
You need to rent and I kept saying, well, the
market is really dipping, but it dipped furst more.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's still going to dip a little more of you think,
so maybe a little bit. I was looking at some
houses on the Upper East sites and apartments and the
Uper East site. I'm like, that's very reasonable for what
it is. But I I do like, like a lot
of people, the Trulia app or the street easy app
in New York.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Yeah, that's my porn.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Me too, I say that, but you, amongst other things,
you're a realtor, though it makes sense for you to
look at it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
But the but I'll tell you what I love about
it is now there's so much off market opportunity. So
there's like, well there's me and my buildings. So a
broker who knows who seasoned, who knows me, is going
to call and go, do you have anything coming up?
Do you have anybody that you think would sell? And
there's always off market opportunity.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So now I've already we moved into a part aartment,
I guess what, three months ago, and I'm already looking
at the apartment next door.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I told you to start. I mean, she incapacitated yet
that time, and she's very nice. No, no, she's very nice.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
I keep like leading over at the top of the stairs.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Hey, let me help you done this?
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Oh no, they but it's it's fine. But you know
why I was. I was looking at your bio today
and I had no idea none. And I know you
pretty well at this point about the wedding thing, what's
that tell me about?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Like? It was in New York City. So everything I've
ever done has been in New York. From New York,
I just I'm not from the city, but my grandparents
owned a big company and they did all the billboards.
And my father was a street guy from Parkchester, the Bronx,
So we were rare here a lot anyway. But I
mean I grew up in the suburbs, a little bit outside,
(03:52):
and I became a New York City tour guide. I
speak Italian and I used to pick them up at
JFK and give them tours. And I hate the Italians
because the Italians all they want to hear about is
love stories and they didn't really want to connect. And
the British were very refined. They would listen to you.
You know, people in the UK have degrees to do this.
I was just a licensed tour guide and well, I
(04:14):
think also has something to do with the accident Bretton
as well.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
People sound smarter than that smart Possibly I really like
wearing trousers right now if I like wearing pants.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
But how do I say this? There is a certain
perversity to the Brits that they kind of hide, and
I was able to tap into. So I started doing
night tours with them, taking them to sex clubs, health
fires and all these things. And you'd see these people
in literally burbery skirts going to like at two o'clock
in the morning and some guy was licking their toe
(04:47):
at the bar. But that's what they were paying for.
The first thing I realized was they weren't interested so
much in the culture they study. They knew it. I
gave them the tour, and then it was like, do
you really want to see New York now? And so
I would take them to a I wouldn't do the
after hours first, I would do a night tour where
I had a couple in the West Village, Irish Americans.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
We're doing We're doing the drink and they said.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
I went to them and I said, would you consider
opening your house like three times a week to fifty
breads each time, and they go and I said to
have cocktails, and they went, well, we're middle class, we
would have to serve our dirves too. I go, that's fine,
and they had taken out a floor so it was
like walking into a loft with a big garden on
Jane Street. It was incredible. I found them just from
(05:32):
knocking on doors you went to. People says this, use
single family houses because people New Yorkers down in the
village are very creative and they like that. So I
sold the tour as a night out with the dinner
at Chumley's, which was an old speakeasy on Barrows. I
remember you had to go to somebody's house together, so
first we would go to Bobby and Jack Gillen's place
and have and they had a big rescue German shepherd
(05:54):
that was crazy, was knocking drinks all over and they
didn't understand the ritz asking. I love the way the
British asked for you know, drinks, you know as it's poured,
you know, Scotch, as it's poor, as its poor and
or you know what is the other line they would
say if they asked for not ginger ale, was it
what's the common drink? Anyway, the the g would mix
(06:17):
it up and put seven up instead, but all the
drinks were filled up to the top, you know, so
everybody was just falling out of the town is when
is this in the eighties. We're talking late eighties, early nineties,
so like the village a late seventeen.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
I was going to say, the village in the nineteen
eighties and nineteen nineties is a different, slightly less family
friendly village.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Than it is now. I still think it's pretty artsy
and there are some single family town homes. You know.
The taxes became very expensive, and they were making They
charged me at the time twenty dollars per person, so
one hundred and fifty people a week times twenty dollars
was good with the math, yeah, like a million dollars. Right.
(06:57):
They were getting a million dollars a week off of
me in cash, and they loved it. I was paying
their taxes. It was like having someone.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
How did you get that, though, I mean, how did
you get to.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Oh? Right? Eh, I was doing it, and I just
thought people wanted people were bored. You know, when when
you were a tour guide in New York, you always
sit on there seeing the people to see their reaction, right,
and I could see everything was falling flat. It's like
being a comedian going, oh my god, I've never experienced that.
How dare you? How dare you not? You others have
(07:30):
experienced that? Yeah, the way we I said, you know,
let me come up with something different, because they kept
asking how do people live in this city? And I
was like, well, the same way they live in London.
But really these weren't These weren't London refined people. These
were people from you know, other parts of the suburbs
and suburbs. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Let me ask you this though, what how did you
know about the sex clubs?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And I know that from a lot of tour guides
started after hour. There was one guy named Giuseppe who
lived on a house boat on seventy ninth Street and
he would take four people. That's all we had were
for it. Like at the time, nobody was really into it.
We would go to do a sex club tour to
take because they wanted to experience.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I've got been to that sex club.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Well it's you know, it's pretty much everything that you
can imagine. People just like have sex and the other
people it's more about a fetish and less about the sex, right,
So it's all of the you know, there's a lot
of licking and there's a lot of playing and toying.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
It's like that's dogs the.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Dogs. Well now at our age. Yeah, I mean I
get discussed be my dog lives up his leg when
he goes to the bathroom. I don't want to see
that people.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
So if you're in a sex club tour and you
go to the sex club, will someone say, hege you
want your leg linked and the lick your leg and
stuff that they loved it. I feel like I was
just annoying and it didn't ever get your legs And
that was an optional tour. That was that was included
in the price, so you should now they'd be going,
so you want you like lick it's actually once.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
You go in there like whether you like it or
not any or not. Yeah, that's it. You were just
you had to participate. I don't I don't know. Well,
Hell's Fire used to be below fourteenth Street on where
the Guggenheim is now, but you used to have to
check your clothes to get in and just have your
underwear on. Then they would say to me, Look, you're
coming in with these people. We understand, but we can't
(09:21):
just have like onlookers. They have to kind of participate.
So I said, less is more. That was the tour
would go. They took the I mean, forty people is
a lot. I started out with four and four were
paying five hundred each. It was so expensive. And you
know who, let's talk cultures now. The Italians loved it.
The Italians take them my clothes off. The British were
(09:45):
wanted the experience. I'd like to have my leg lit.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
Why I'm on a New York part of the experience
it was.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
It was magical, And that's how that kind of started.
It started for me just saying I.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Lived in New York round about time. Well, I was
here in the mid eighties, early.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Mid eight we probably cross paths. Maybe, well i've done.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And I remember the only sex club I'd heard of
and I never went there, but I always wanted to go.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
It was a place called Plato's God's So seventies was
that seventies? Oh my god, that was Brazil. That was
like the first one.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Yeah, well no, I just remember seeing ads for it
in the Village Voice and I was like, oh, I
really want to go because like a Scottish Protestant boy,
I'm like, oh, I bet they've got little jumpers off
in there.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
You were, you were, you were ready to roll. The
big one was Hell's Fire, and then the less Squalito
which was underneath Port Authority bus terminal, and there were
drag shows. I was doing theater then as well. You know,
when I travel, I know this sounds ridiculous, but I
always hire a private Like in Prague, I hired a
private tour guide to go to a sex club. I
(10:51):
wanted to see everything. Not the sex clubs, no, but
I wanted to see off the beaten path, the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
What is the sex club's good, Well, it sounds like
the beaten path if you forgive the fun, well, the
the but the I I kind of I'm fascinated by this.
But the idea that all of this is it still
going on others those sex clubs.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I'm too old. I go to bed at nine. Now what,
I'm sure they are passed the baton to a lovely
group of people. The beauty is you buy and you sell.
I think the gen zs they don't, they don't have,
they don't. Everything's done online apparently. Yeah, you remember the
days when you met someone in a bar and then
you would hook up, and then after they left, you
took your clothing and hung it on the radiator because
it smelled of smoke and that was the only way
(11:32):
the smoke would get it. I mean that's how I
would set my clothes on fire. It never happened. You
were very you would have been a star on this tour.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
But the the idea of it, though, I think apps
have probably taken that all of that away, like because
you you can like if you want. I mean right
back in the day when some of the like real
kind of full on clubs in the village, I think
that's probably all ungraineder and tender. Yeah, that's I don't
think there's gonna you strap into your leather and get
(12:05):
your whistle and go nuts in a dark room.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I mean maybe I'm too old for this, but I'm
hearing now. You can just meet people, I mean they
track you. You can be in the same restaurant and
say let's meet in the men's room. I've had friends
that constantly say they hook up, like in the moment, I.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
Feel there might be you can get will be fresh
STDs coming in.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
If it's that easy, I.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Mean, I feel like you shouldn't you interview someone a
little bit?
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I would think so, but I mean they can read
your bio.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Yeah, I guess no one can hide really, I mean
it's kind of like you can't assume an identity now,
you can't.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
I bet the majority of people that are together have
met online.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
You know, I think probably no, I think, yeah, if
you're in how did you meet fluid?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Did you mind? You may know? Really AOL you put
money in the machine and it was one of those yep, wow,
he's not gonna like that. I said that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
No, I think it's fine. I think it's uh. I mean,
we can cut it out. But it's it's kind of
amazing to me that you must have been quite early adopters.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
Then it was the beginning AOL.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You've got mail, someone wants to lick your leg, and it.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Was fun, it was mysterious. It was that and a
nice way, that erotic place of that took place of
going to a sex club because you had this fantasy
of what the person was going to be like when
you met them, right, and obviously it worked out twenty something. Well, yeah,
you guys have long, long time baby. Yeah, but that's okay,
that's good. Yes, it's excellent.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Hello, this is Craig Ferguson and I want to let
you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy
and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
at the Greig Vergison Show and is this right there?
Just click it and play it and it's free.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
I can't look.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I'm not gonna come rund your husband show you how
to do it. If you can't do it, then you
can't have it.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
But if you can.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Figure it out, it's yours. So how did that turn
into the wedding thing?
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Then? Because you you tourists? Said to me, two British tourists,
I'll never forget. They said, we really loved your tour Dino.
I said, well it's Gino actually, and they said, would
you helpless get married? I'm going to call you prefer like,
I mean, would I help you get married?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
And I'm thinking is there a dollar to be made
in there? So I said, I'll get back to you.
What hotel you and I'll be right there, ran down
his city hall and it's when they have the old
bulletproof windows. It was like the set of Barney Miller.
Ye take a number.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And then I looked a little bit into it. I
realized that I could coordinate these weddings because countries are different,
like the UK when I from my recollection, you file
and it's eleven days you have to wait.
Speaker 1 (14:59):
Yeah, you also have to be interviewed by the Ringing monarchy.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And Paris in France it's two weeks and you must
eat a certain so vegas. It's like, what are you
doing later? So we are twenty four hours in New York, right,
And that was always established to give the couple time
to realize are we going to do we really want?
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Like you can get married twenty four hours a day,
you have to wait twenty twenty four Like buying a.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Gun yep, right, okay, yeah, is that what it is
for a gun? Jeez, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
What it is in New York where there are certain states,
the state where I have my other place go buy
a gun.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
I'll remember when I just remember that when you come
to be rude, to remember I'm as citizen and I
have a driver's life. I think you know what I'm saying.
Oh my god. So yeah, so I realized I could
do it, and then I coordinated it, and then it
just happened. I opened up this company. The tour company
was called Ultimate USA Tours, and then I opened up
(15:53):
Ultimate USA Weddings and we had contracts with British Airways, Koiwone,
Virgin Holidays, everyone. So we would package the weddings weddings
abroad and they would sell them, and so I would
give them a discount of rate. But we would get
you know, you come and get married in New York,
and then we would arrange for the license, we would
script the ceremony. We would get oh yeah, I got
(16:15):
ordained online. So you're a rabbi, Gino, you're a rab
I'm a vicar. You're a vicar, a rabbi, I'm an officiant,
all right. So you have no your it's a secular position.
You have no religious Well, I mean, I will do
anything as long as I don't have to slaughter an animal.
There's no sack anything I will do. I've done, Yamica's
I've done. You know, I did a Jewish wedding because
(16:36):
my friend married an orthodox guy and for some reason,
his divorce had not been completely finished yet, right, And
so they had this two hundred person highly orthodox wedding
and they went through the whole ceremony, but it wasn't legal.
And then three days later when I met them in
a Mexican restaurant on Ninth Avenue, because I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
I like the idea of getting married in a Mexican restaurant.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
I think that. I mean, I like the idea. Again,
we go back to that kind of slightly perverse thing
of like, oh my god, nobody knows this is a
force except me. And in three days, when the divorce clears,
I'm going to meet them at you know, El Cantona
or whatever. The Mexican place was, La Cantina, and we're
going to make this official. So that's what I started doing.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
That's it. I mean, we spent quite a lot of
time together talking.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You didn't know that. I just it's never come up.
You just never don't.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
I talk about myself a lot, Is that what it is?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
No? We talk about you. No, we talk about Megan
and how beautiful she is.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
We talk about my wife and how beautiful she is,
very beautiful, and she's fun but I will say I'm
married two thousand people, good lord, and of them were Brits.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And you guys do it the interesting way. Where's different
that Americans should listen to. I can attest to this.
You meet in school, this is the general brit You
meet school, definitely, you date, you buy a house together,
you have a child, and then you fly to New
York and dino marriage you Well, you know why why?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Because the tax in Britain, you get no tax break
for being married in brent You feel really yeah, if
you're if you're married to someone, they file a tax return,
You file a tax return. There's no violent joint filing.
There's no that's not going to happen. So there's no
financial incentive to get married. You get married because you
you want to get married, but there's no kind of
like if we get married, you know it's I don't know,
(18:26):
it's different.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Well, out of two thousand weddings, I probably did only
one hundred Americans.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Can you tell when people immediately as soon as you
can touch you know, how many of them have last.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I'm dying to know. I do see on Facebook like
they're having kids, and in my case, some of them
are even had their kids are having kids. I want
to kill myself. It will till I see that, I know,
but very few times I'll get an email going, hey
he died. I mean, what a show that would be.
I'm telling you, if you put me on the evening
news in the UK, people would just their their teacups
(18:57):
would shake. They would go, oh my.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
God, that's our that's the that's she's the wedding guy.
That's do you know.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
The wedding Do you know the wedding of the wedding guy?
I know it's Dina from New York.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
He's back and he's married us.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Do you like that? Would be a fun reality show?
Driving through the UK to see who's you know? Who's
a great idea.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I think we should do it and fight. I think
you and I should do it together.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Who's driving? I can't drive there because I get confused
on the other side of the road. I'm such a
good New York.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
I'm going to tell you what I tell everyone when
they talk about my early sexuality.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
I so you've got to try it both ways.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Before you know, before you know which you prefer, So
you know if you like driving.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
On one side. Tried driving on the other side. See
what it feels like. Then you'll know.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Sometimes people can drive on any site.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's not the size as much. You know. It drives
me crazy in the UK. Oh god, they're the worst.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
They are terrible and I always miss it and I
hate that they're coming to America now and there's starting.
Oh yeah, you if you go outside of Manhattan, which
I don't like to do, as you know, but if
you do there, they have roundabouts, they have the traffic
circles and they and you know, Americans are not great
with them.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
We're not great. Or yeah, I know, I'll be very careful.
It's horrible. Yeah, when you.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Go to targets or places like that. You know in
the suburbs they have.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Them, they have them. Okay, well I'll look out for them.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
But I think that's a good idea. I could drive
you around. I can show you where things are in Britain,
and we can go and meet the uh, the people
that you got married or the grandchildren. It's significant. I'm
telling you.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I actually have been in bars with my partner. I
was in the Hamptons once and a drink came over
and the guy said, that woman said that you married
her and in the UK, I got stopped a few
times every time we go to London. I know the odds,
and I think I sent a picture. But I was
sitting in a cafe in New York City and a
woman I'm sitting and so I'm facing the window with
(20:58):
a friend, just having like a lunch, and this woman
kept walking by staring at me. I was like whatever,
and I'm talking to her, and then finally she put
her phone up to the window and it said, GINO
you married my husband. You uncle and I ten years
ago was the cover of my book. That's what it is.
It's her like this with the picture and on her
I'm not the picture of her on her iPhone. And
(21:20):
I was like, oh my god. Of course I didn't
remember her, but it was.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
See I get out with late night. I did over
two thousand late nights. When I think about it, you
did as many weddings as I did it on late night.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
That's that. Don't let's think about the price difference. Jesus
shoot me, well, I don't like volunteer work. What I did,
I don't how much were they paying you for a wedding? Nothing? Really,
I mean, we would just rack it up. With like,
do you want hair and makeup? How about a limousine?
You know anything I could sell. I'm the extra guys,
you know, I like to sell the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
About the Did you ever do it like a sex
club night before thing?
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Did you? I've taken it back to the sex those
weren't I didn't do that, but I did marry a
couple in bed at the Plaza Hotel. They were in bed,
come in. I was like, who was the witness? Were
you the witness? There was My assistant, Marissa used to
come to the weddings with me and she would have
the license and everything, and I go, I would go,
what are we walking into? She goes, I don't know
they paid blah blah blah. I said, great, you know
(22:15):
sometimes we would do ten eleven weddings a day. I
didn't like that. Oh yeah, I mean, how do you
get to two thousand and a lot of these people
stayed together. I don't know. I have no idea. There
was one really interesting one where Marissa said to me
and she was a beautiful, she's still alive, beautiful Latin
American girl, and she said, I think the groom has
(22:38):
a crush on me and the groom was very handsome,
and then the bride came down. It was I think
it was also at the plaza down the stairs, and
the moment she was at the stairs, she saw the
connection between my assistant and you know, and then she
turned around and walked away. Yeah. Oh, I've had a
lot of grooms say I can't go through with it
(22:58):
our brides incredible. The most embarrassing moment though, is you
know what it is when you go to city hall
with the British couple they have to write down who
their parents are on the license and a lot of
them don't know in Britain.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah, my mom, mostly we pro create by children floating
down the river at baskets.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
He was like, I said, I used to save them
ALTI And then if they say that they can't go
through the paperwork, so we would have to say in
advance so you're clear about your putting your parents down,
because if not, John Doe is a perfect name. Just
anything you want to write John Doe, it just goes
on the license. Who cares that? Well? Isn't that fascinating
that things you learn? Like what a moment for somebody
(23:42):
to say I don't know who my father was My
mother met him in a bar and that was it.
Now it'd be like, you know, okay, it's probably not
even on the license anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
But I feel like soon you'll have to do like
you'll have to give blood so they can keep tracking.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
That was the old days. You had to do blood tests.
Did you really?
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yes, they have that thing, and they have that app.
You've heard this app. It's in Iceland. So many people
are related that they have this app, so you have
to check to see you're not related to the part.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
What else are you going to do in Iceland? Well,
I mean, you know, two hours of light a day,
you're gonna yet, you know, let's go and see by
the way. But reindeer, I don't think so. They want
to know I'm not eating that. Oh they eat you know.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
The only time I've been to Iceland, I stopped at
Wreckuvig Airport for uh the change planes, and I had
some Icelandic chocolate, the worst chocolate.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
I ever tasted at to go right through it tasted
like seal. There's nothing bigger than British chocolate. Yeah, British chocolate.
It's the best, I think, so oh my Cadbury that
forget it. This is crapier. I haven't had a Hershey
bar since I was There's a pretty good chocolate in
New York. I know what. I know what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
The mass produced chocolate is probably not as good as
the British stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But I will say.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
This the it's the crisps in Britain again. The chips
they have like yuck and you know, spaghetti flavored chips.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
I mean, they're unbelievable. They're delicious and they're delicious. Here
we get your doritles.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
But what we do here is we dippleman things. They
don't diprimant things in Britain because they don't need to.
They're ready delicious. I gained so much weight when I
go to Britain, like I'm still working on.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Getting you were looking very felt. We got thank you,
I have been You're really doing it well.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
I've got this scrout this game show coming up, and
I'm doing scrabble, so I felt like all my late
night show suits, I was like, I'll just wear them
on this game show, and none of them fit me.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So now you're gonna have to borrow my clothes.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
No, no, it's all right. First of all, I've got
but I can get into them again now. Yeah, I'm
very excited about it. I haven't had a good dress. Yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
You are. You know exactly what to wear.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
I feel like if you're in a suit, you're in charge.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Yeah, it's a power thing. Yeah, I know. I still
wear them. Yeah, I mean I always wear a jacket.
I mean, look, I'm out.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
You always wear a nice jacket on a Citi bike
bike where I'm always on Citi Bike.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's my porn. I love it. I don't know if
it's just that I'm cheap or what, because I have
saved thousands of dollars because I don't love the subway
so much anymore. I at love the crowds. And I
get because I'm a suburban kid and I grew up
on a bike. I get stimulated when I'm on a bike.
It excites me. I get really.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Explained it like in a sex club.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
That we're back to those clubs. Yeah, just fascinating. I
just love to get Yeah, that was what a life.
I love to get on the bike. It makes me happy.
I would have rode here, but I was like.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
I'm actually going to take a bike home. You are, Yeah,
because the I just find out that you could. There's
a city bike place just next to the studio. Then
I'm jumping on and then you can go over. They
have a bike land on the Williamsburg Bridge. You can
go right over.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Okay, maybe that's what I'll do. Ye. I just came
from a closing from a mutual who you know, a
very talented actors apartment. I just sold what a journey today?
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is that that that good? Today? We won't say who closed,
We won't say who it is. That's very happy. I'll
bet so he sold it, sold it right done? That's
good news. Is he leaving New York? No? He has
another place? All right? Okay, because I sold him? I
which ib we doing? With you two? Going? Yeah? Yeah, John?
Are you ready to move? She's now? Yeah. No. When
we find out what the next door neighbor is going for,
(27:30):
like cellular work on her longevity, she's then you're gonna
have to move. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I feel like the the when I moved back to
New York like two years ago. Really, when you you
kind of plugged me back into the city. I I
kind of regret ever leaving I do. I feel like
this is this is the this is the best study
for me.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I just feel like this one works for me more
than any other place I've been in New York City work.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
I mean, don't you think you get more material here
than anywhere? Oh my god, I can't even imagine you
guys in California. I didn't know you then, but it's
like it's so remote out there.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Well, the kids are really young, so you know, we
were kind of like, you're in that world then you're
kind of dealing with It's all like.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
But that's one cycle.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Well we had too because Myla was young when Megan
and I met, and then when he was about nine
years old, he was just over nine years old. Liam
was born'siga right back into it again, right right, And
so it kind of lasted quite a long time.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
My god, he's gonna he just loves New York, doesn't he? Liam?
Oh yeah, he's crazy for it. It's perfect for you.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
I mean, it kind of It's an interesting thing because
I was talking to us about it today. We were
walking over the street here just in Brooklyn, and Tina
the crossing guard I would have been working here a
couple of days. Tina the crossing Guard stops the traffic
we're walking over the road. She starts talking about when
did you get your first tattoo? I got my friend
she's talking about her tattoos.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Now we know that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
When we come back, we got together a nice call
for right right the way back right. And this city
has I think and people go crazy. Well, people who
don't know don't believe it. This is the friendly city
I've ever been in my life. This is the fabric
of New York.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Unbelievable. You will never see a more And I love
to know where I stand and New York. You will
always tell you and I'm the same way. It's like,
that's a lovely dress. What do you mean lovely? It's great.
It's the most increasing you know they and it's not
an insult. It's just them. Everyone stakes their claim here.
It's it's the most amazing city for that.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
It has a certain directness which I really appreciate. It
was once I was doing it, I started doing a
Bill Clinton in person.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh really, yeah. I used to do that late night, like.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That was pretty much all I did. But it was
kind of a regular gig guy. I used to do
it late night and I was walking down the street
in New York and a guy shouted really literally from
a construction say a guy with a heart, and went, hey, Ferguson,
nice Clinton.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Wasn't that worth it? Yeah? It kind of was.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Actually, I've had a lot of coffee.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Have you do you drink a lot of coffee? Now?
I do not because we got your coffee. But I
love it. No, I needed this little thing. These. I'm
doing these walkthroughs right now. I have another one today.
It's the pre closing. Didn't we do it in your apartment? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
I didn't see the apartment till after I bought it,
Megan Memory, I have to.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Say, I'm noticing that. Another thing is I you know,
I will say that I'm coming up with a knack
of taking an apartment online and saying that's the one
for you. Yeah. Well you well you gave me like
a five block radio, so well that was.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Very specific and where I want it to be. Yeah,
I mean because that because look, location, location, location, Lord.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah, it's great. Well we can it's over. But you're
but women, I mean, who knows, cut this out if
you don't want to do it. But women are fantastic
to shop with for real estate. Yeah, they really just
kind of get the whole thing. Well, I think men
like to come in and they're more about the numbers, definitely,
and they kicked the tires as the approval thing. You know,
(31:15):
it's like, okay, what do we got here? You know
what's the pros? And there you're much more vocal about
the pros and cons. Women, it's more of a nesting
See my family in here. It's not so much the kitchen,
it's just the whole vibe of the place. And then
they throw in their decorator hat. It's like, yeah, I'm
that's one of the things I'm very glad about. Megan.
She's amazed she's the.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Design Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. How did you end
up going to real estate from.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
I just love I've always loved real estate. And we
were living out in LA and we used to go
to Santa Barber We used to go to Palm Springs
and I would look at these homes and go, holy shit,
this must be fun. If I can't afford to live
in it, I might as well sell it. And so
we were going to make our life out there. But
then my partner did the option the right to share
his life story and did the share show on Broadway.
(32:01):
So I knew I was coming back. I was already
running the businesses in New York and they were running
and so I came back and pivoted and just got
my license, and then I was doing weddings and real estate,
which was incredibly stressful.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, I feel like that's a low because people You're
dealing with people at two different points in the life
where there's a law of emotion involved.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Right, I already know what my next position is. Like,
I am one of those people at any age have
no problem reinventing myself. I'm literally like a person who
if I'm not happy doing it or f I'm saturated
the wedding business. After ten years, I was like, I'm
done right, and I had no problem. I don't look
at it and go, God, i'm a certain age, I'll
(32:42):
never get a job. I don't do any of that.
If it's meant to be, I just move forward with it.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
I think that's very healthy. I also think that's New
York a little bit. And I think this is a
city like la and by extrapolation of that show business
I think, and which everything is show business. Everything getting
this is somehow shameful, Like you mustn't.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
You must go.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
You must like have you know, surgeries, and you must
look young, feel young all the time. And I think
in New York that's lass of an issue is like
have a nice coat, right.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Right, So I think the next thing for me, well,
I love real estate right now. I mean, look, it's great,
but it is a relationship business, like weddings were a
relationship business. Oh literally, yeah, you know, I mean it
really is. But there is a thing in the UK
and I can't remember what it's called. I remember a
brit telling me this, which was that when somebody dies,
there's a man that comes in and does the service.
(33:38):
But he's called something. He's not the vicar of obviously,
he's called the and it's got to come to me anyway.
That's what I would love to do in New York. Well, yeah,
work on that. I mean, I'm gonna skip the divorces
because who wants to do that. That's just an attorney.
There's no fun in that. But like the celebration of
life thing, oh what are they called? The person who
(33:58):
comes in? There is a person these humanists humanists, yes, yeah,
and now even religious like the Catholic Church, no one
is doing the wakes and people that I know. It
is just at two they're just doing one day a celebration,
right change now, I think a little bit that's true.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
We had on the podcast William Villanova.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Oh what a name. I love it.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
He's lovely man. He's the head of the the you know,
the big funeral.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Chapel on Madison. Oh my god, yes, I go there
all the time. Campbell's Frank Campbell's Oh my god, he is. Yeah,
he's that's he's the guy in charge. Oh that is
a great guest to have.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
He was fabulous. Why I didn't know about about funerals
and like to be in his position that's like a
four year college degree. Oh yeah, I mean he's like
I mean, I think he does everything though, from you know,
soup to nuts.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
I guess that is the place the place to be
honored value that in the Riverside Memorial, Riverside Church. So
so what would you do? Like, Like, I would script
something like I love having lessons more. I loved writing
a ceremony. I had a template and the bride and
groom I would go, tell give me something that you
love about you know whatever, And I wouldn't tell her
(35:14):
and I wouldn't share it with him, and so it
became like a moment. It wasn't necessarily a lot of
times emotional, but at least they have you could see,
you could feel the moment in the room. That's what's
you know what I know.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
You go to you've been to Italy recent course.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
Right when you go.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
To Italy, do you ever go around the graveyards and yes,
have you noticed this new trend where they have the
video of the deceased that?
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yeah, I know, it's it's weird at the graveyard on
the on the tombstone.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
The tombstone, you mean you push something in there, you
can make a little video so that you're like, it's genius.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Hey, it's me. I'm well, you know, enjoy your art.
I love that. Yeah, you put a little video on
your tombstone. Oh my god, what a thing.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Yeah, I'm not so sure. I mean because look, imagine
you're like your old your grandpa, and someone goes and says, hey,
can't buy it's time to make the video. You're like, no,
I'm fine, No, it's you know, it's a fine.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Grandfather would have just given me instructions on life. I
told you not to take that job.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
But I mean I feel like, first of all, I
don't know how long is that video gonna last. I mean,
the stone's going to be there for a while, but.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
The video just thinking, I'm just thinking, like somebody's just
gonna take it. Well, who's gonna who?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Kind of heartless monsters?
Speaker 2 (36:23):
It's it's a piece of like an iPhone, isn't it.
I mean, what do you do?
Speaker 1 (36:26):
I think there's a little there's a little kind of
uh solar thing on the top for power supply.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
And then it kind of I love that idea.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
I think once you go, like when I go, I'm
not coming. I don't want Aren't you going to be cremated?
No Viking funeral?
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I think, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Actually, you know, in all seriousness taking.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
Up space, I think that is such an ego thing.
No Viking funeral.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
You get burned, you do, yeah, boat boat out to
see and your children fire flaming iris onto the boat
and then you burn as it. I know, if you
go to Valhalla, tuble is trouble is I think if
that ends, if I end up in Valhalla, I'm going
to be the sassiest of Valhalla there is I'm no
way qualified to sit around.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
You know, you're never going to die. So you've been
spared on so many levels. You have you should would
on so many levels in this room right now. There's
been a couple.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Of times, but things where back then things were a
little more like like in New York when you were
doing the tours. Do you ever ran any danger these
because late night in New York back then it was
kind of different.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
No, But I do see or hear about a lot
of people that I was in business with are dying,
you like, have died, you know, the sad things, you know, like.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yeah, it freaks me out.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
It does.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
People that are contemporaries and they like die and like
why could they die?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
You know, it's really weird.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
You run into people that you knew from back in
the day and they look really old, And I'm.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Like, it's a compliment for me that, you know, do
I look? I know, you go back and you go,
do I look like that? Yeah? I know, I do.
Do that. You know what you get for that, a
three way mirror. I told my partner that three way mirror.
You got to see yourself from every ankle, because there
are certain ankles I see myself when I'm trying on
a pair of pounds, and I go sis, and I
(38:20):
realized it's no old guy in the room with me.
It's me from the side.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
So as long as I'm looking directly in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And yeah, you remember the old thing about when you
see a hot girl, she was hotter walking away or
coming towards you. It was never both, you know. I mean,
it's you have to make sure it all ties in, right.
I don't know that I'm ready for a three way mirror. Okay, well,
well I come and look at mine. If you stand
there naked and you change fourteen, well, I mean, then
(38:50):
you know what you gotta do. I gotta call. I
don't know. I'd like, you've had no work done, you
look great, you're rugged, you're ready. Well, God bless you
know not me. I've had work. No, you have? Have
you absolutely a little tweaking here and there.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I'm into it. I'm going I want to mega. I
I want to see a cosmetic dermatologist. Oh really, yeah,
I want to I want to have like all the
same you.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Want to do that like CO two laser thing? What's
that is that? Like they burn your face off and
come back looking like an eleven year old. I don't
think that's the best look for you, but it probably
isn't It kind of one of those you see them
and go, gipe baby or something. Now I'm doing I'm
into the stem cell thing? Was that? So they do
a little they remove your stem cells. I have to go.
(39:38):
It's kind of a lipos suction thing, which is discussed.
I don't do well with needles, so I'd have to
be out for everything, which I love being. I love
that's look if it was proven, Oh my god, count
back from one hundred. Yeah. And then they send your
stem cells to Virginia to a lab and they harvest them,
and then four to six months later you get some
(40:00):
of them back on a drip and they put them
in and all after you do it three times, all
the ages and pain start to go away. That moment
of getting out of bed in the morning going is gone.
You're now the eighteen year old. So it's all cellular
work and it's age reversal, but not so much the
exterior the interior, which is who do I What do
I care? As long as I'm feeling young inside. Yeah,
(40:23):
I'm hearing. I have two people that I've tapped into
one is a big, big person and it's really helped
her knees and she's completely, uh, I know, don't go there,
leave that alone. You knowing those young guys, is it?
Is it very? Is it very? No? I know where
(40:45):
you're going.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
I've reached the point light where I hear it.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
But stuff for these And I'm like, but that's what happens.
You just you know, don't drink and don't die, is
they say? Isn't it true? It happens overnight, especially with men.
And listen, statistically, men do not lasts as long as women.
Well I've noticed that. Yeah, I mean that is scary.
It is a little bit. But you do you feel
the great beyond? No? What do you mean? Do I
(41:09):
feel like I'm at the end of my life? No?
I mean do you What do you think happens after
you die? I think you're I think it's all energy
and you're reincarnated and it's just energy.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Right, So you don't think it's like, you know, angry
Santo in a club.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
I think you're you know, you know, I'm not. I
don't even think you're trying to work out the stuff
you couldn't work out in this life. In the next life,
I think you just immediately are reincarnated. It's a sole thing.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
But but reincarnated is energy, not like like as a
hamster or something.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
Maybe, who knows, God, I hope not. I hope I'm
a rescue hamster, because you know the word rescue is
just like living at the plaza.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Well, I don't know how many rescue hamsters are living
in it, but I don't even if hamsters actually qualify
as a rescue animal. I'm sure that there are rescue hamsters,
but I mean it's usually like cats.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Seen them on menus, let's put it that way. Oh no,
oh yeah, I mean it's certain places. People fry up anything.
Oh no, I couldn't eat I know that.
Speaker 1 (42:08):
Megan when she was in South America, she was offered
guinea pig, and I think Peru.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
I couldn't eat a guinea pig. That's horrible. Yeah, that'd
be bad. My dad used to eat rabbit. My parents.
You to eat rabbit too, That's a delicacy. Yeah, it's
so sad. French. The Italians will eat that horse. Oh yeah,
all of that stuff. I can't eat. God, let's not
talk about that. Okay.
Speaker 1 (42:31):
Well, I'm mostly veggie now anyway you are. Yeah, I
was vegan for a long time and then I didn't.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
I don't think I could do that, but I'm almost veggie. Yeah,
I'll be a pesca pescatarian.
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yes, yeah, I don't you eat the shalefish.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
I'm not as much. Well, my partners goes intown in
phylactic shocks, so that limits.
Speaker 1 (42:51):
Megan is Oh really, she's terribly allergic to shrimp, was
my partner.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
So I mean I down to an occasional lobster prima
era thing, but I don't even love it that much.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
No, I kin'dt eat see me, I don't eat. I
could eat it, I don't. I'm not allergic to it.
I think it's a bug. I think these things.
Speaker 2 (43:12):
Like a crab, a lobster. It's just a large underwar bug.
Well they say they're bottom feeders. Did they are bottom?
Speaker 1 (43:18):
So?
Speaker 2 (43:18):
I mean what you're right up? I think I'm going
to go to bottom feeds. I think we're going to
go back to those sex tours again. I want to
go on the UK Evening News and go let's not
talk about weddings. Let's talk about how many of you
people went on that Geno sex Yeah, the Geno sext
Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, it was magical.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah, it was magical, dropping them off at four o'clock
in the morning and then getting up and doing it
all over again. It was the cycle. They'd come in
on a Thursday, we would do Friday tour, Saturday night,
Saturday night sex club, Sunday hangover, shopping, and then they
would leave Monday and I'd drop them off and pick
up the next group.
Speaker 1 (43:58):
I find that fascinating.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
It was the greatest gig and I loved it. I
loved just it was just freedom and it was being on.
It was reading the room and people were like, you know,
the boring tours were when you had like IBM Incentive
tour and those guys didn't want you know, I didn't
do those. Those were horrible because you're just about New
York City. I did learn a lot about New York.
(44:21):
I know all the history, which is why we why
I love real estate so much, because I love those
beautiful pre war the architecture, the history of New York
building buildings around people who didn't want to leave their
little rent stabilized apartment like on the I know buildings
on the Eastie. There are books about this, which is
fascinating for me. They've offered them millions of dollars, will
(44:43):
buy you an apartment, we'll move out, and they won't go,
and they have to build an entire building around a
little townhouse. But some woman on the fourth floor, it's like, uh,
it's just unbelievable. Yeah, that's crazy. Thank you for being on,
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
You're the best you know, or maybe if you're if
you write the stakes, you're written repea
Host
Craig Ferguson
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