Quote of the Day (Billy Joel, on Being ‘Realtor to the Stars’)

“I never went without a meal. I just didn’t have the money I was supposed to have. I know what poor is. When I was a kid, we didn’t have anything. There was a rumor that I filed for bankruptcy — that never happened, either. I owed Uncle Sam a couple of million bucks in income tax, and the money that I thought was there, wasn’t there. I had to sell a place in the city. I was building a house out here in the Hamptons, and I owned a place on Central Park West. I sold it to Sting. I was praying for a rock star. They don’t care what their accountant says. If they want something, they buy it. Then I sold the house that I was building to Seinfeld. I keep exchanging star homes. I bought Roy Scheider’s house. Mickey Drexler bought my old place in Martha’s Vineyard. I’m the Realtor to the stars.” —American rock ‘n’ roll singer-songwriter Billy Joel quoted by Andrew Goldman, “Billy Joel on Not Working, Not Giving Up Drinking and Not Caring What Elton John Says About Any of It,” The New York Times Sunday Magazine, May 26, 2013

I don’t have HBO Max, so I don’t have access to its new two-part documentary on Billy Joel, And So It Goes. But a close relative who saw Part I had excellent things to say about it.

Anyway, recently I came across an interview containing the quote above from the Piano Man. Maybe, in one way or another, he’ll discuss in the documentary his assorted financial messes that led him to his adventures in real estate. Above all, I hope he recovers quickly from his recent health scare, and that we’ll hear him play and sing again, in one form or another.