May 15, 2025 • 29 mins
On January 28, 2008, a thoroughly cold and miserable Monday evening in Manhattan, Tom Postilio and Mickey Conlon were invited by a mutual friend to a concert at The Town Hall on West 43rd Street. The weather nearly discouraged Mickey from showing up, but with some persuasive prodding from their host, he did. Just a few minutes before showtime, Tom and Mickey were introduced to each other for the first time. Despite having many friends in common, somehow, they were unaware of one another. Neither of them could have known that night that they were already on their way to becoming “Tom & Mickey.” Like any great romcom, there were complications at the beginning that threatened to hijack their happily ever after. Perhaps it was a shared love of Sinatra, the Great American Songbook, and old Hollywood that bound them. Or was it fate’s determination? Come hear the tale that launched a romance, an epic business partnership, and, yes, a podcast.
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The Tom & Mickey Show is produced by director & editor extraordinaire: Stephen Penta
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's the Tom and Mickey Show.
(00:01):
Everything is show-based.
It lights camera action. Presenting...
The Tom and Mickey Show. Free to be you and me. We're on the cusp of our 17 year anniversary since the night that we met 17 years ago.
It was a night sort of like this. It was a disgusting night. Well, there was precipitation on the night we met. It was icy, it was cold, it was a Monday. It was a Monday. Nobody wants to do anything on a Monday. The theater is dark, but not on the night we met. The theater was not dark. The theater was very bright. The theater was very bright, but I almost didn't show up.
Yeah.
The venue was the Town Hall. The Town Hall. West 43rd Street. That's not a civic building for those who are wondering. It's a performance venue. Pre-war, beautiful theater. Probably holds about 1,200 plus people. It's not about right.
And we were both... We were accidentally introduced by our dear friend, our beloved friend Mark...
He had what? Four tickets that night. I think so. So Mark invited you. He invited me and he invited me to bring a guest. And I asked my friend Gary. Yes. So there we are. I remember distinctly the wind was howling.
It was getting later and I thought, I'm not doing this. You're not going out. And then my phone rang and it was Mark.
And he said... He's clairvoyant. Well, I said, what are you... He said, you're not going to cancel on me, are you? And I said, are you a witch?
He said, come on, you have to come. I said, it's cold and it's damp and it's Monday and I have things to do tomorrow.
And then he reminded me of something critical in our introduction, which was...
Marilyn May is on the bill. Marilyn May is on the bill. The reason. She's 79 years old. How many more times will you get to see Marilyn May perform? That was like the curse of the cat people. And 17 years later, we've seen Marilyn May perform. 370 times. Double check your count. I think it's... I am over 700. I was going to say 3,700 million billion. We've seen her a lot. We have seen Marilyn a lot. Yeah. She's our spirit angel and Mark... Our fairy godmother. Is Mark our fairy godmother? Our fairy godmother.
In any event, that's what brought us together under the marquee at the town hall at about 753 p.m. on that fateful night.
And Mark introduced us. I introduced my friend Gary and Mark... You said or did Mark say? Mark said this is my friend... I don't remember. I don't remember if I... Wait a minute. Wait a second.
You said Mickey. Okay. Mark said it but it was loud. So then you said you repeated it. And I leaned in and I said, "Nicky?"
And you said...
No, Mickey, like Rooney. As one does.
Mickey Rooney. I mean, really.
In retrospect, there are so many other Mickeys. Well, Mickey Mantle... Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mouse. Mickey Spillane. Mickey Rourke.
Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney. You knew how to get to a guy's heart.
(00:22):
That's how you knew I didn't think I was on a date because I don't think I would have said that. I wasn't on a date at that point. That was the start of it all. The four of us took our seats. The show went on. It was a wonderful evening of music and comedy.
And then at intermission, I made it abundantly clear that Gary was just a friend. Just a friend friend. This was not a euphemism friend. We skipped along to the after party. It was an after party, right? There was an after party. There was some horrific buffet at an Italian restaurant somewhere. It was right on the block. Yeah, it was on the block. So nobody had to travel too far. And then being a Monday night, people started to splinter off kind of quickly because it's school night. Yeah. And then it was Marilyn. Marilyn invited us to Birdland. Yes. So every Monday night in New York City, there's this wonderful event called Jim Caruso's Cast Party. At the legendary Birdland Jazz Club. Yeah. And it's an open mic night and you just you never know who might be there.
Well, that particular night, Tony Bennett was going to be in the audience. Marilyn May knew that and she was inviting us and a whole slew of other people to make sure that the audience was stacked.
Now, for those who don't know Marilyn May, I think it's important to point out that Marilyn May is a legend. A living legend. Marilyn May was Johnny Carson's favorite singer.
Oh, my friend, we're older, but I'm wiser.
She appeared on The Tonight Show seventy six times more than any other performer. Yeah.
Ella Fitzgerald called her the greatest white singer in the world. I'm probably paraphrasing that. But but that's I mean, that's high praise from Ella Fitzgerald, who was a very dear friend of of of Marilyn's. But as we skipped along with Marilyn towards 44th Street, it was just the three of us. Yeah, just three of us holding her hand and walking to Birdland. And she was so excited to perform for Tony because she hadn't done that before. Yeah. And we walked in the door and as we're getting seated, Jim called Marilyn up to the stage. Yes. And as soon as Marilyn was approaching the stage and came on to the stage, Tony and his entourage got up to leave. They were paying their check, getting ready to go. Yeah, that was quite a thing. So as Tony was walking out in front of the crowd, of course, all eyes were on him and Marilyn.
Well, gave him she gave him a farewell salute. She gave him.
From the stage and the audience went banana banana. It was hilarious. It was hysterical. She did not get to sing for Tony Bennett. But we saw her. We saw her. We saw her. Our date went on. Well, it wasn't a date yet. Well, it wasn't a date. We'd ordered Scotch. I remember that. Yes, that's right. We had a Scotch. It was a cold night.
And I remember you leaned in with a very vague and I thought mysterious question, which was,
so, and Tom said, panning the room, what do you know of this world? This world. What is the, what did this world? This world of the great American songbook and cabaret people. Well, that wasn't very clear. I didn't know if this was some kind of existential question. What do you know of this world? Well, fast forward. We figured out that I knew a whole lot about this world and we connected yet again on the topic of Frank Sinatra's Madison Square Garden concert, October 13th, 1974. Sinatra came out of retirement.
She gets hungry.
He was put in the round. The great champion back in the ring. Howard Cosel did the voiceover over the Woody Herman thundering herd playing Sinatra's vamp with all of his hit tunes medley. Boy, was that exciting. And the two of us, we both spoke basically Howard Cosel's voiceover, which 17 years ago, we might not remember. I don't think we both spoke it. I think I spoke it and I could kind of see that that blew your doors off. Because that's, I would say in the pantheon of Sinatra recordings, I would say that's a little bit more esoteric. That's a little more esoteric, but for the Sinatra lunatic. So I should have known what I was getting into at that moment. No, no, no. No lunatic. I only saw him 17 times in concert.
Be nice. You wish you saw Sinatra. I wish you saw Frank Sinatra in concert. I do too. God, I do too. Anyway, so we went on, we went on and we, yes, when you knew the Howard Cosel voiceover, but it was a record that your mother played in the car. Oh, all the time. In the house, it was the cassette was in the car. As a huge Sinatra fan, it's one of the most exciting Sinatra records because it's live and you feel that New York City energy.
It's just cacophonous insanity in that room. 20,000 people screaming and cheering for Sinatra back. The main event.
I'm Howard Cosel.
My Sinatra lunacy.
How do I tell that? I mean, I can shorten it. Okay. I can help you shorthand this.
Go ahead. Because you know the point. You're in elementary school. You were doing a production of Annie. I was daddy Warbucks. But Annie couldn't sing, so you got to sing tomorrow. The sun will come out. Et cetera. And then you heard the song. You heard the recording. Right, right. So, Annie, so Andrew McCardle was, so this was a big hit in the late 70s. She was going to appear on a TV special. I sat there in my home, my childhood home in Ozone Park, Queens. I knew that she was going to sing tomorrow because she's Andrew McCardle from Annie and she sang New York, New York. And I think I cried because I wanted to hear tomorrow. But my parents consoled me by saying that this was a hit record by this wonderful singer named Frank Sinatra. And that's where it all began. Yeah. And then they took me to see Sinatra on June 10th, 1984. We went to Carnegie Hall. My mother, my father, my brother, Chris, was three years younger. They got four tickets at my request to see Sinatra in concert. And it was an epiphanic moment.
It was an epiphany. Yeah. It was an epiphany. I just was blown away by the fact that this man with silver hair and a black tuxedo walked out onto a dark stage without any fanfare, without any introduction. He just walked out onto the stage when the house went dark and the entire audience just stood up and screamed and applauded for five minutes. And as a 14 year old kid, I thought, whoa, what's that? So that kind of started the whole thing. Well, and kudos to your parents too for embracing live entertainment and taking their 14 year old kid, I'm sure at no small expense to Carnegie Hall. Absolutely. Thank you, mom and dad. And now we're taking them to concerts. Thanks. Sparing no expense. It comes full circle. But thank goodness for my grandmother, my mother's mother, and more, who insisted that the kids had to always go to theater and get out to hear live music. And she, my grandmother was the person that sent the family to see Annie on Broadway when it was a big hit in the 70s. So that started all of that. And then I had a singing career as a professional singer.
That's another whole story.
(00:43):
Speaking of, on the night that we met, I distinctly remember when I, obviously you passed the, you passed muster because you knew of that world, that world. But I remember I asked you about Peter Allen. The final quiz was, do you know who Peter Allen is? Yeah. Because that's another massive influence in my life. Or, you know, I loved Peter Allen. We can do a whole episode on Peter Allen. I think we're already into our fifth season with the lineup you've proposed. It's terrific.
You, you did know Peter Allen as well. Yeah. Boy, I never got to meet him though.
Well, I'm sorry about that too.
But we have YouTube and I was also just born too late.
What does that mean? Oh yeah, you are a few years younger than me. I'm six years younger. How dare you. Well, you're six years older.
That's funny. Older.
So when I saw Sinatra at 14, you were eight. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, yes, I saw Peter Allen concert twice and it was miraculous. Miraculous.
But that night, I mean, we really, we really connected and that was the beginning of us.
Look at that. And then there's another whole section to that story.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Cause after that night, Mickey and I, we set up a date later that we, so that was Monday and we were going to get together on Thursday.
Things didn't go that smoothly.
I know it was a bad sign when I checked my voicemail and Tom left a very brief message that said, hi, I have to take a pass on tonight. Yeah. Did I cancel the day of? I think it was the day of. No, I couldn't have because, well, maybe I did because I would have had group therapy on the Wednesday night before. So it's possible that I got feedback from my gay group therapy and then I canceled on Thursday. That is possible. It takes a village to ruin a date apparently.
But when you, you, you sent the message, I have to take a pass. I have to take a pass. I started reaching out to people for the translation of what that means.
And some, one friend said, no, no, reschedule people are busy. I said, then you call and say, I have to reschedule. You don't say I have to take a pass and offer, no, I'll be in touch to set something up. Right. So then remember I called you, we spoke for a few hours. We got that sorted out. Well, what's that? You know, we should be clear about the fact that Mark thought he was on a date with you, but I didn't know I was on a date with Mark. Yeah. So I got some, I got some serious flack from my dear friend and I spewed my guts in my little group therapy that Wednesday night. Cause I always had group on Wednesday, uh, back in the day.
And it, yeah, it was just, it was like, you've got to pause. You know, you have to let them figure their stuff out and not get in the way of that. So, and I did, you did, you did in 36 hours. I had a heart to heart with Mark in his office and that was cathartic. And it also gave me the opportunity to ask him, because I could tell he cared very much about you, um, to ask him, um, if is there, is there anything I needed to know? Like, are you a psychopath? And he said, no, no, he's a great guy. So that's good more. Tell me, I'm sure he's had a lot of other nice billable hours. Enough of that. Yeah.
When I left Mark supported us trying it out and seeing what we could do. And I remember it was a torrential downpour that night. I remember that. And I was coming over. Well, we thought you were coming. Well, you were preparing as if I might be. As if you might come over. Yeah. But I remember texting you as I was standing waiting for the rain to pause. I just wrote free to be you and me.
Yeah. And I thought that was cool. That was kind of nice. Free to be you and me. Yeah.
Yeah. Marlo Thomas didn't get the credit she deserved for that.
Yeah. And then you came over and here we are 17 years later. It's exhausting.
I think since we met, there were some bumps in the road. My stepfather passed away less than a month after we met. So that took me away from nurturing the relationship and trying to grow that. But we got closer and closer and I knew this felt like a very good thing. And I remember, I think there was a defining moment because I've heard people say you can learn a lot about people when you travel with them. You learn their quirks, you learn their habits, you learn if you are capable of living together. So we did a sort of what was it? Five country, six country. Oh my God. European Odyssey in September of 2008. So that was late. So we met in January of 08. So in September of 08. September of 08. Decadent and crazy. We haven't traveled like that in 17 years. At the beginning of our trip, the world started to crumble. The Lehman had gone under and we're sitting in the beach in Sardinia looking at our phones going, should we go back?
(01:04):
There's nothing we can do about it.
So we hopped from country to country. Five countries. Five countries and we did very well. We did very well and not too long after that we moved in together.
That's right. Within the year. Within the year you moved into my apartment and that's when you discovered what I kept in the freezer. Oh, this is, yeah.
Everything was going swimmingly. I really thought this is a terrific guy. An immaculate home. Immaculate. Very beige, but immaculate. But he lives like a grownup. This is so refreshing. Then one day I opened the freezer drawer and I moved some things around and there were about, I'd say 16 or 18 bags of frozen blueberries. 18. I always kept 18 bags of blueberries.
I thought it unusual because I'd never seen you eat a blueberry. No, no, no. Every morning I would have a blueberry shake with yogurt and other things that I thought I was doing myself all kinds of. But nothing else in the kitchen existed in those kinds of proportions. In those days life was simpler. This was before you made fancy dinners and martinis and dimmed the candles. I would have a tuna fish sandwich for dinner. I didn't see any tuna fish. All I remember seeing is 18 bags of frozen blueberries. I really didn't want to dig too deep to find fingers or human remains.
I confronted you immediately and you explained. You explained and I did witness you having smoothies. Thank you. There you go. I rest my case. I had smoothies. But that was one of those moments I thought maybe he was a little crazy. Not crazy, just obsessional.
Most obsessional personality.
Currently Zoloft 100 milligrams is, you know, that's the good one.
That's good. For now. For now. Because everything in life is for now.
What are you saying? There have been bumps along the way?
Listen, I always believe in wearing my seatbelt on every airplane at any time. Keep your seatbelt on. That's true. There's always a bump. There's always a bump.
At the time we met, I was at core, right? I was clear. Yeah. Because I was a founder of a boutique real estate firm called Core and you were doing Broadway producing at that time, right? Yeah. So the financial crisis comes, the real estate market fractures.
Your business became very difficult. Yeah. As if it's not already difficult. Oh, it's a hideous business to begin with.
One high five for every 10 gut punches. But the climate for raising capital had really changed. And, you know, when the world's in financial crisis, you know, conspicuous consumption sort of goes out the window. It's like buying a fancy car when people are starving. Yeah. So realizing that the times weren't going to be a change in any time soon. I had to look at my options. One was corporate and I'm not really a corporate guy.
And besides, most corporations were laying people off left and right at that time.
And I thought about the things I know how to do. And it happens that I had gotten my real estate license in college and it's something I really like doing and something I was good at. I thought, what better time than the worst real estate market in New York City history than that moment to try my hand at it? Bingo. And so I did. Yeah. I was back in. We realized, and I think this is after we started working together, which was 2011. It's 2011. After.
Which we start. The stakes here are especially high. They have a size of the space. Yeah. No, it's an enormous entertaining space.
I started on Selling New York, HGTV Selling New York, the first real estate reality show in New York City. It was a lot of fun. It was very successful. We did eight seasons. It was around that time that you and I started to work together. We just decided, well, why don't we just do this together? All for one and one for all. And there we were. There we were. Went off on our journey. Nearly a year ago, we went to Compass. And it's been a fantastic, fantastic move. Listen, I mean, like baseball players are recruited from team to team. If you're successful in the real estate business, you get a phone call every other week from XYZ company, hey, come over here. We'll offer you a Volkswagen and a free popcorn machine or whatever. But it's they woo talent. They want to bring people in who bring in a lot of commission dollars. And fortunately, we've been in that situation for the majority of our careers. But I'd say, too, you know, in our business, the grass always seems to be greener. Of course. And people buy into that way too easily because it takes time to establish yourself within a company to identify your brand within that company and to build a successful business. So when other people were hopping from one lawn to the other, looking for that greener grass, our mindset was to take care of your lawn, take care of your garden, and we turned down a lot of offers along the way. But in a moment of personal and professional growth, we just felt it was it was the right time to explore changes. Compass is great. Growing every day. Robert Refkin is a breath of fresh air. He's younger than both of us. He is younger than both of us. Yeah. Darity. Yeah. So that brings us up to the current moment in our real estate trajectory, although there's a billion stories along the way. It's not all real estate. We've talked about the idea of a podcast. And I think a lot of people talk about the idea of a podcast as if it's something that's just used for self-promotion or to bat away at one particular topic or one particular profession or segment of a business.
And so it seemed to us very natural and people said to us for years, why don't you guys do a real estate podcast?
And we really worked around that. We said we certainly could. We know wonderful architects and developers and designers and civic planners. You know, there are all kinds of people talk to clients about their buying experience.
And we started listening to a lot of these podcasts and they're dreadfully boring. If you're, if you're talking about looking at the last quarter year over year, we saw a 2.1% decrease.
(01:25):
You're scaring me. You're scaring me right there. Well, that scared us. I mean, it was just, I mean, if it's, if it's, if it's a discussion that is completely in that
mode, that feeling that just reading stats and stuff, I mean, that's, that's not at all interesting, but we've had interesting lives. We know we've had a ton of interesting people and we want to have conversations with them honest to God conversations. We, we have had the privilege of meeting and getting to know and becomes friends and family with some of the most storied people who've ever walked this planet. And those storied people have stories to share. And we pinch ourselves on a daily basis, just that, you know, we get to not only hear these stories firsthand, but almost be part of the story and continue because, you know, regardless of how many documentaries are made or books are written about something, there's an oral history and passing it down. Absolutely. And there, and there are people from all walks of life. Oh yeah. Each and every, when I think of all the people that we are being in touch with now to have these conversations, it's really a pretty stellar list. But there are not all household names. They're not even all famous, but there are people who've moved in the shadows of these people, of historical events, of making records, of knowing the other people behind the scenes. And it's absolutely, wow, it's a heady experience.
Indeed.
Part of our successful business, a major part of it is that everything is show business. Everything. Mel Brooks said it so perfectly. I think in this business, if you were a doctor before this, that's where your clients are coming from. You're coming from a medical field. If you were a lawyer before, that's probably a great source of leads. We are show trash at heart.
So, you know, we just know a lot of people. In the best way. In the best way. I would say that with love. Yeah, we do mean that. We've been dirty rotten stayouts, you know. Not anymore. Well, in our younger days, we were dirty rotten stayouts, but good times, good stories. But a lot of our clients did come from show business. And I think what separates our relationship with our clients versus other agents who deal with celebrity clients is that ours are coming to us organically. They're coming to us because we know them. Sometimes it's word of mouth from another, a mutual friend. And it's a very different kind of relationship than when somebody's business manager or agent or somebody puts them in touch. We can be as discreet as they want us to be. Or we could be as look, there's celebrity cash. A has a value, even if it's not a cash value, it has publicity value. And some clients have said, I really don't want anybody to know about this. Let's keep it under the radar. And like, we're perfectly fine with that. Then we have others who realize the power of promotion. Who else are we allowed to talk about?
I'll save something for the next one. Okay.
To a land where the rain can't breathe. To a land to a shining sea. To a land where the heart's not free. To a land where the children are free. And you and me are free to be. And you and me are free to be. And you and me are free to be. And me.
From the greatest city on the planet Earth, it's the Tom and Mickey Show.
(00:01):
Everything is show-based.
It lights camera action. Presenting...
The Tom and Mickey Show. Free to be you and me. We're on the cusp of our 17 year anniversary since the night that we met 17 years ago.
It was a night sort of like this. It was a disgusting night. Well, there was precipitation on the night we met. It was icy, it was cold, it was a Monday. It was a Monday. Nobody wants to do anything on a Monday. The theater is dark, but not on the night we met. The theater was not dark. The theater was very bright. The theater was very bright, but I almost didn't show up.
Yeah.
The venue was the Town Hall. The Town Hall. West 43rd Street. That's not a civic building for those who are wondering. It's a performance venue. Pre-war, beautiful theater. Probably holds about 1,200 plus people. It's not about right.
And we were both... We were accidentally introduced by our dear friend, our beloved friend Mark...
He had what? Four tickets that night. I think so. So Mark invited you. He invited me and he invited me to bring a guest. And I asked my friend Gary. Yes. So there we are. I remember distinctly the wind was howling.
It was getting later and I thought, I'm not doing this. You're not going out. And then my phone rang and it was Mark.
And he said... He's clairvoyant. Well, I said, what are you... He said, you're not going to cancel on me, are you? And I said, are you a witch?
He said, come on, you have to come. I said, it's cold and it's damp and it's Monday and I have things to do tomorrow.
And then he reminded me of something critical in our introduction, which was...
Marilyn May is on the bill. Marilyn May is on the bill. The reason. She's 79 years old. How many more times will you get to see Marilyn May perform? That was like the curse of the cat people. And 17 years later, we've seen Marilyn May perform. 370 times. Double check your count. I think it's... I am over 700. I was going to say 3,700 million billion. We've seen her a lot. We have seen Marilyn a lot. Yeah. She's our spirit angel and Mark... Our fairy godmother. Is Mark our fairy godmother? Our fairy godmother.
In any event, that's what brought us together under the marquee at the town hall at about 753 p.m. on that fateful night.
And Mark introduced us. I introduced my friend Gary and Mark... You said or did Mark say? Mark said this is my friend... I don't remember. I don't remember if I... Wait a minute. Wait a second.
You said Mickey. Okay. Mark said it but it was loud. So then you said you repeated it. And I leaned in and I said, "Nicky?"
And you said...
No, Mickey, like Rooney. As one does.
Mickey Rooney. I mean, really.
In retrospect, there are so many other Mickeys. Well, Mickey Mantle... Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mouse. Mickey Spillane. Mickey Rourke.
Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney. You knew how to get to a guy's heart.
(00:22):
That's how you knew I didn't think I was on a date because I don't think I would have said that. I wasn't on a date at that point. That was the start of it all. The four of us took our seats. The show went on. It was a wonderful evening of music and comedy.
And then at intermission, I made it abundantly clear that Gary was just a friend. Just a friend friend. This was not a euphemism friend. We skipped along to the after party. It was an after party, right? There was an after party. There was some horrific buffet at an Italian restaurant somewhere. It was right on the block. Yeah, it was on the block. So nobody had to travel too far. And then being a Monday night, people started to splinter off kind of quickly because it's school night. Yeah. And then it was Marilyn. Marilyn invited us to Birdland. Yes. So every Monday night in New York City, there's this wonderful event called Jim Caruso's Cast Party. At the legendary Birdland Jazz Club. Yeah. And it's an open mic night and you just you never know who might be there.
Well, that particular night, Tony Bennett was going to be in the audience. Marilyn May knew that and she was inviting us and a whole slew of other people to make sure that the audience was stacked.
Now, for those who don't know Marilyn May, I think it's important to point out that Marilyn May is a legend. A living legend. Marilyn May was Johnny Carson's favorite singer.
Oh, my friend, we're older, but I'm wiser.
She appeared on The Tonight Show seventy six times more than any other performer. Yeah.
Ella Fitzgerald called her the greatest white singer in the world. I'm probably paraphrasing that. But but that's I mean, that's high praise from Ella Fitzgerald, who was a very dear friend of of of Marilyn's. But as we skipped along with Marilyn towards 44th Street, it was just the three of us. Yeah, just three of us holding her hand and walking to Birdland. And she was so excited to perform for Tony because she hadn't done that before. Yeah. And we walked in the door and as we're getting seated, Jim called Marilyn up to the stage. Yes. And as soon as Marilyn was approaching the stage and came on to the stage, Tony and his entourage got up to leave. They were paying their check, getting ready to go. Yeah, that was quite a thing. So as Tony was walking out in front of the crowd, of course, all eyes were on him and Marilyn.
Well, gave him she gave him a farewell salute. She gave him.
From the stage and the audience went banana banana. It was hilarious. It was hysterical. She did not get to sing for Tony Bennett. But we saw her. We saw her. We saw her. Our date went on. Well, it wasn't a date yet. Well, it wasn't a date. We'd ordered Scotch. I remember that. Yes, that's right. We had a Scotch. It was a cold night.
And I remember you leaned in with a very vague and I thought mysterious question, which was,
so, and Tom said, panning the room, what do you know of this world? This world. What is the, what did this world? This world of the great American songbook and cabaret people. Well, that wasn't very clear. I didn't know if this was some kind of existential question. What do you know of this world? Well, fast forward. We figured out that I knew a whole lot about this world and we connected yet again on the topic of Frank Sinatra's Madison Square Garden concert, October 13th, 1974. Sinatra came out of retirement.
She gets hungry.
He was put in the round. The great champion back in the ring. Howard Cosel did the voiceover over the Woody Herman thundering herd playing Sinatra's vamp with all of his hit tunes medley. Boy, was that exciting. And the two of us, we both spoke basically Howard Cosel's voiceover, which 17 years ago, we might not remember. I don't think we both spoke it. I think I spoke it and I could kind of see that that blew your doors off. Because that's, I would say in the pantheon of Sinatra recordings, I would say that's a little bit more esoteric. That's a little more esoteric, but for the Sinatra lunatic. So I should have known what I was getting into at that moment. No, no, no. No lunatic. I only saw him 17 times in concert.
Be nice. You wish you saw Sinatra. I wish you saw Frank Sinatra in concert. I do too. God, I do too. Anyway, so we went on, we went on and we, yes, when you knew the Howard Cosel voiceover, but it was a record that your mother played in the car. Oh, all the time. In the house, it was the cassette was in the car. As a huge Sinatra fan, it's one of the most exciting Sinatra records because it's live and you feel that New York City energy.
It's just cacophonous insanity in that room. 20,000 people screaming and cheering for Sinatra back. The main event.
I'm Howard Cosel.
My Sinatra lunacy.
How do I tell that? I mean, I can shorten it. Okay. I can help you shorthand this.
Go ahead. Because you know the point. You're in elementary school. You were doing a production of Annie. I was daddy Warbucks. But Annie couldn't sing, so you got to sing tomorrow. The sun will come out. Et cetera. And then you heard the song. You heard the recording. Right, right. So, Annie, so Andrew McCardle was, so this was a big hit in the late 70s. She was going to appear on a TV special. I sat there in my home, my childhood home in Ozone Park, Queens. I knew that she was going to sing tomorrow because she's Andrew McCardle from Annie and she sang New York, New York. And I think I cried because I wanted to hear tomorrow. But my parents consoled me by saying that this was a hit record by this wonderful singer named Frank Sinatra. And that's where it all began. Yeah. And then they took me to see Sinatra on June 10th, 1984. We went to Carnegie Hall. My mother, my father, my brother, Chris, was three years younger. They got four tickets at my request to see Sinatra in concert. And it was an epiphanic moment.
It was an epiphany. Yeah. It was an epiphany. I just was blown away by the fact that this man with silver hair and a black tuxedo walked out onto a dark stage without any fanfare, without any introduction. He just walked out onto the stage when the house went dark and the entire audience just stood up and screamed and applauded for five minutes. And as a 14 year old kid, I thought, whoa, what's that? So that kind of started the whole thing. Well, and kudos to your parents too for embracing live entertainment and taking their 14 year old kid, I'm sure at no small expense to Carnegie Hall. Absolutely. Thank you, mom and dad. And now we're taking them to concerts. Thanks. Sparing no expense. It comes full circle. But thank goodness for my grandmother, my mother's mother, and more, who insisted that the kids had to always go to theater and get out to hear live music. And she, my grandmother was the person that sent the family to see Annie on Broadway when it was a big hit in the 70s. So that started all of that. And then I had a singing career as a professional singer.
That's another whole story.
(00:43):
Speaking of, on the night that we met, I distinctly remember when I, obviously you passed the, you passed muster because you knew of that world, that world. But I remember I asked you about Peter Allen. The final quiz was, do you know who Peter Allen is? Yeah. Because that's another massive influence in my life. Or, you know, I loved Peter Allen. We can do a whole episode on Peter Allen. I think we're already into our fifth season with the lineup you've proposed. It's terrific.
You, you did know Peter Allen as well. Yeah. Boy, I never got to meet him though.
Well, I'm sorry about that too.
But we have YouTube and I was also just born too late.
What does that mean? Oh yeah, you are a few years younger than me. I'm six years younger. How dare you. Well, you're six years older.
That's funny. Older.
So when I saw Sinatra at 14, you were eight. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, yes, I saw Peter Allen concert twice and it was miraculous. Miraculous.
But that night, I mean, we really, we really connected and that was the beginning of us.
Look at that. And then there's another whole section to that story.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Cause after that night, Mickey and I, we set up a date later that we, so that was Monday and we were going to get together on Thursday.
Things didn't go that smoothly.
I know it was a bad sign when I checked my voicemail and Tom left a very brief message that said, hi, I have to take a pass on tonight. Yeah. Did I cancel the day of? I think it was the day of. No, I couldn't have because, well, maybe I did because I would have had group therapy on the Wednesday night before. So it's possible that I got feedback from my gay group therapy and then I canceled on Thursday. That is possible. It takes a village to ruin a date apparently.
But when you, you, you sent the message, I have to take a pass. I have to take a pass. I started reaching out to people for the translation of what that means.
And some, one friend said, no, no, reschedule people are busy. I said, then you call and say, I have to reschedule. You don't say I have to take a pass and offer, no, I'll be in touch to set something up. Right. So then remember I called you, we spoke for a few hours. We got that sorted out. Well, what's that? You know, we should be clear about the fact that Mark thought he was on a date with you, but I didn't know I was on a date with Mark. Yeah. So I got some, I got some serious flack from my dear friend and I spewed my guts in my little group therapy that Wednesday night. Cause I always had group on Wednesday, uh, back in the day.
And it, yeah, it was just, it was like, you've got to pause. You know, you have to let them figure their stuff out and not get in the way of that. So, and I did, you did, you did in 36 hours. I had a heart to heart with Mark in his office and that was cathartic. And it also gave me the opportunity to ask him, because I could tell he cared very much about you, um, to ask him, um, if is there, is there anything I needed to know? Like, are you a psychopath? And he said, no, no, he's a great guy. So that's good more. Tell me, I'm sure he's had a lot of other nice billable hours. Enough of that. Yeah.
When I left Mark supported us trying it out and seeing what we could do. And I remember it was a torrential downpour that night. I remember that. And I was coming over. Well, we thought you were coming. Well, you were preparing as if I might be. As if you might come over. Yeah. But I remember texting you as I was standing waiting for the rain to pause. I just wrote free to be you and me.
Yeah. And I thought that was cool. That was kind of nice. Free to be you and me. Yeah.
Yeah. Marlo Thomas didn't get the credit she deserved for that.
Yeah. And then you came over and here we are 17 years later. It's exhausting.
I think since we met, there were some bumps in the road. My stepfather passed away less than a month after we met. So that took me away from nurturing the relationship and trying to grow that. But we got closer and closer and I knew this felt like a very good thing. And I remember, I think there was a defining moment because I've heard people say you can learn a lot about people when you travel with them. You learn their quirks, you learn their habits, you learn if you are capable of living together. So we did a sort of what was it? Five country, six country. Oh my God. European Odyssey in September of 2008. So that was late. So we met in January of 08. So in September of 08. September of 08. Decadent and crazy. We haven't traveled like that in 17 years. At the beginning of our trip, the world started to crumble. The Lehman had gone under and we're sitting in the beach in Sardinia looking at our phones going, should we go back?
(01:04):
There's nothing we can do about it.
So we hopped from country to country. Five countries. Five countries and we did very well. We did very well and not too long after that we moved in together.
That's right. Within the year. Within the year you moved into my apartment and that's when you discovered what I kept in the freezer. Oh, this is, yeah.
Everything was going swimmingly. I really thought this is a terrific guy. An immaculate home. Immaculate. Very beige, but immaculate. But he lives like a grownup. This is so refreshing. Then one day I opened the freezer drawer and I moved some things around and there were about, I'd say 16 or 18 bags of frozen blueberries. 18. I always kept 18 bags of blueberries.
I thought it unusual because I'd never seen you eat a blueberry. No, no, no. Every morning I would have a blueberry shake with yogurt and other things that I thought I was doing myself all kinds of. But nothing else in the kitchen existed in those kinds of proportions. In those days life was simpler. This was before you made fancy dinners and martinis and dimmed the candles. I would have a tuna fish sandwich for dinner. I didn't see any tuna fish. All I remember seeing is 18 bags of frozen blueberries. I really didn't want to dig too deep to find fingers or human remains.
I confronted you immediately and you explained. You explained and I did witness you having smoothies. Thank you. There you go. I rest my case. I had smoothies. But that was one of those moments I thought maybe he was a little crazy. Not crazy, just obsessional.
Most obsessional personality.
Currently Zoloft 100 milligrams is, you know, that's the good one.
That's good. For now. For now. Because everything in life is for now.
What are you saying? There have been bumps along the way?
Listen, I always believe in wearing my seatbelt on every airplane at any time. Keep your seatbelt on. That's true. There's always a bump. There's always a bump.
At the time we met, I was at core, right? I was clear. Yeah. Because I was a founder of a boutique real estate firm called Core and you were doing Broadway producing at that time, right? Yeah. So the financial crisis comes, the real estate market fractures.
Your business became very difficult. Yeah. As if it's not already difficult. Oh, it's a hideous business to begin with.
One high five for every 10 gut punches. But the climate for raising capital had really changed. And, you know, when the world's in financial crisis, you know, conspicuous consumption sort of goes out the window. It's like buying a fancy car when people are starving. Yeah. So realizing that the times weren't going to be a change in any time soon. I had to look at my options. One was corporate and I'm not really a corporate guy.
And besides, most corporations were laying people off left and right at that time.
And I thought about the things I know how to do. And it happens that I had gotten my real estate license in college and it's something I really like doing and something I was good at. I thought, what better time than the worst real estate market in New York City history than that moment to try my hand at it? Bingo. And so I did. Yeah. I was back in. We realized, and I think this is after we started working together, which was 2011. It's 2011. After.
Which we start. The stakes here are especially high. They have a size of the space. Yeah. No, it's an enormous entertaining space.
I started on Selling New York, HGTV Selling New York, the first real estate reality show in New York City. It was a lot of fun. It was very successful. We did eight seasons. It was around that time that you and I started to work together. We just decided, well, why don't we just do this together? All for one and one for all. And there we were. There we were. Went off on our journey. Nearly a year ago, we went to Compass. And it's been a fantastic, fantastic move. Listen, I mean, like baseball players are recruited from team to team. If you're successful in the real estate business, you get a phone call every other week from XYZ company, hey, come over here. We'll offer you a Volkswagen and a free popcorn machine or whatever. But it's they woo talent. They want to bring people in who bring in a lot of commission dollars. And fortunately, we've been in that situation for the majority of our careers. But I'd say, too, you know, in our business, the grass always seems to be greener. Of course. And people buy into that way too easily because it takes time to establish yourself within a company to identify your brand within that company and to build a successful business. So when other people were hopping from one lawn to the other, looking for that greener grass, our mindset was to take care of your lawn, take care of your garden, and we turned down a lot of offers along the way. But in a moment of personal and professional growth, we just felt it was it was the right time to explore changes. Compass is great. Growing every day. Robert Refkin is a breath of fresh air. He's younger than both of us. He is younger than both of us. Yeah. Darity. Yeah. So that brings us up to the current moment in our real estate trajectory, although there's a billion stories along the way. It's not all real estate. We've talked about the idea of a podcast. And I think a lot of people talk about the idea of a podcast as if it's something that's just used for self-promotion or to bat away at one particular topic or one particular profession or segment of a business.
And so it seemed to us very natural and people said to us for years, why don't you guys do a real estate podcast?
And we really worked around that. We said we certainly could. We know wonderful architects and developers and designers and civic planners. You know, there are all kinds of people talk to clients about their buying experience.
And we started listening to a lot of these podcasts and they're dreadfully boring. If you're, if you're talking about looking at the last quarter year over year, we saw a 2.1% decrease.
(01:25):
You're scaring me. You're scaring me right there. Well, that scared us. I mean, it was just, I mean, if it's, if it's, if it's a discussion that is completely in that
mode, that feeling that just reading stats and stuff, I mean, that's, that's not at all interesting, but we've had interesting lives. We know we've had a ton of interesting people and we want to have conversations with them honest to God conversations. We, we have had the privilege of meeting and getting to know and becomes friends and family with some of the most storied people who've ever walked this planet. And those storied people have stories to share. And we pinch ourselves on a daily basis, just that, you know, we get to not only hear these stories firsthand, but almost be part of the story and continue because, you know, regardless of how many documentaries are made or books are written about something, there's an oral history and passing it down. Absolutely. And there, and there are people from all walks of life. Oh yeah. Each and every, when I think of all the people that we are being in touch with now to have these conversations, it's really a pretty stellar list. But there are not all household names. They're not even all famous, but there are people who've moved in the shadows of these people, of historical events, of making records, of knowing the other people behind the scenes. And it's absolutely, wow, it's a heady experience.
Indeed.
Part of our successful business, a major part of it is that everything is show business. Everything. Mel Brooks said it so perfectly. I think in this business, if you were a doctor before this, that's where your clients are coming from. You're coming from a medical field. If you were a lawyer before, that's probably a great source of leads. We are show trash at heart.
So, you know, we just know a lot of people. In the best way. In the best way. I would say that with love. Yeah, we do mean that. We've been dirty rotten stayouts, you know. Not anymore. Well, in our younger days, we were dirty rotten stayouts, but good times, good stories. But a lot of our clients did come from show business. And I think what separates our relationship with our clients versus other agents who deal with celebrity clients is that ours are coming to us organically. They're coming to us because we know them. Sometimes it's word of mouth from another, a mutual friend. And it's a very different kind of relationship than when somebody's business manager or agent or somebody puts them in touch. We can be as discreet as they want us to be. Or we could be as look, there's celebrity cash. A has a value, even if it's not a cash value, it has publicity value. And some clients have said, I really don't want anybody to know about this. Let's keep it under the radar. And like, we're perfectly fine with that. Then we have others who realize the power of promotion. Who else are we allowed to talk about?
I'll save something for the next one. Okay.
To a land where the rain can't breathe. To a land to a shining sea. To a land where the heart's not free. To a land where the children are free. And you and me are free to be. And you and me are free to be. And you and me are free to be. And me.
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