#637 - FDNY Firefighter

We're leaving today and entering a world of Mickey Mouse waving, princess meeting and greeting, lightsaber clashing, the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror dropping, Banshee flying, Space Mountain launching, galaxy rewinding, what's the whole deck of galaxy rewinding? fireworks igniting, world of other worlds. For whatever you love, infinite worlds await at the most magical place on Earth, Walt Disney World Resort. We've got new merch. The Year of the Rat hoodies just hit the site. We have them in two colors, and they're made from my favorite hoodie template. We also have the winter sale that's happening right now, 20% off some of your favorites. You can get them before they're gone at theovonstore.com if you get a chance to go there, and if not, that is totally great as well. Thank you guys so much for the support. Today's guest is a retired firefighter and a veteran of the FDNY here in New York City, which is where we filmed. He spent 20 years serving with the fire department in the communities of Washington Heights and Queens and bravely served alongside many others during 9-11. I'm very grateful for his time and his service. He is what I would call a legend. Today's guest is Mr. Tony Bonfiglio. Shine on me And I will find a song I've been singing since the beginning Is it too hot in here for you, Tony? No, I feel comfortable. Okay. Yeah, what kind of temperature do you guys operate at? Well, sometimes it's so hot, you know, In the summer when we're out there in like 90 degree weather and you're putting a fire out, it's hot. You lose so much body water. Yeah? Yeah, it's like when you take off your turnout coat and your gear, it's like you fell in a pool. Have you ever started a fire where you had to pee and by the end you didn't? Oh, yeah. That's what I'm talking about. You kidding me? Yeah. And then sometimes you're so thirsty. I mean, there were times I was so thirsty from pulling ceilings and the plaster dust that I actually would, I look up and would take water coming off the drain pipe, just straight into my mouth because I can breathe. Yeah. Yeah. It gets pretty crummy in there. Oh, I bet. Yeah it shitty 20 years you were Tony Bonfiglio Yep And that Italian That Italian man My whole family from East Harlem Yeah You know we Italian Yeah it fun huh Yeah. Grew up in New Hyde Park. My father moved us out of the Bronx when I was about six. Yeah. And we moved to New Hyde Park. That's like a town on the Queens borderline on the suburb side. Bring it up. New Hyde Park? New Hyde Park. Went to Herrick's High School. What was it like back then? Oh, it was great. It was like all blue-collar workers, you know, all the blue-collar workers' kids, you know. We had bus drivers, cops, firemen, truck drivers. So it was a nice suburb over there, huh? Oh, it was great. Right over the city line. I mean, I had such a great childhood. We had so much fun running around, you know, doing all kinds of crazy shit back then. Hot rods, motorcycles. Mischief, huh? Yeah, Mischief, Rock and Roll, Rock Clubs, Long Island Rock Clubs. Listening to some Def Leppard, some ACDC? Yeah, well, back then it was Twisted Sister, and we used to go to the clubs and see Twisted Sister, OBI. There was a bunch of good bands back then, house bands, but they would play all the cover songs. You had like The Doors, you had Zeppelin. Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Yeah, that's a beautiful time, dude. I think that's the kind of a time that a lot of people romanticize as well. I think so. I always say that when I die, I hope the heavens like the 70s, man, because that was so awesome. Kicked ass. And you were on the FDNY for 20 years? Yeah, 21. 21 years. Yeah. How did you get started? Like, what were you doing before you got into firefighting? Because things are going well. You're listening to Twisted Sister. Yeah, hanging out with the boys, getting in trouble. I did get arrested. I was at Speaks Club once in Lido Beach. and I did get arrested there for, had some weed and a couple other things on us. Yeah, we were young. We were, so yeah, we just, and I was going nowhere. I went to college for like maybe three weeks. Oh yeah, that's not enough. Farmingdale University, I went for food technology. I was going to be a meat inspector. Oh really? Oh yeah. Thank God that didn't happen. Yeah, hell yeah, dude. Well, I was working in a meat factory when I was a kid, scraping hangar room floors like Paulie and Rocky. You know, I had the white coat on. I'm freezing, scraping the blood and the fat off these floors all day. And what was that like over there? So what kind of meats did they even have going in and out of there? Just big sides of beef big factory like hanging rooms big hanging rooms And would you be alone in there Nah there be other people butchers coming in grabbing their meat It was like a big production place you know big time lots of trucks They would give all the meat out to all the restaurants and everything. And that was right in Mineola. Oh, that's pretty cool. And Mineola, is that here in New York? Yeah, Mineola is pretty much right by New Hyde Park. Got it. So you're over there, you're in there with the meat, you know, you're in there at night. Like Rocky hitting the meat. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure when nobody's looking. Because that was right around the time, you know, so. Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, there we go. That's what it looked like. Oh, definitely. Everything turned to veal after this came out. Yeah. You know, that was just, bro, you couldn't get something that wasn't tenderized. It was funny because we were all kids, too, and you would, you know, all this meat after the place closed would be. But we never took an ounce of meat, you know, back then. You got all this beautiful meat. There would be like big tubs of filet mignons, all kinds of things. You guys would just sit in there beating it. A sausage room. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then I had a- So what happens? Yeah, you're in there, you're beating, you guys are punching the meat or whatever. And was that kind of a common future in your area? No, it was not at all. I just got a job there. My friends were all working there. The whole crew was working. Oh, that's fun. And we were the cleanup crew. So once the butchers were all done, we would come in with these high-pressure hoses and we would just hose this whole place down. Y'all were just partying probably. Yeah, and then we'd oil it up with vegetable oil. It was a funny job, yeah. But what was the vegetable oil for? Just make everything shiny and clean because we had online, the inspectors were there. There was two inspectors every day, and they would inspect everything. Oh, so it was pretty. And if they didn't get their payola, then they would knock a machine down, and then they'd have to rope the whole thing off, and we would have to come in and clean the machine, and then they'd inspect it again. So it was a little bit of kind of a meat, was there kind of a meat mafia kind of going on a little bit or something? Meat mafia, yeah. Was there really? Mm-hmm. Wow. It was owned by two Jewish brothers, the Coens. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know something. Something was afoot, you know? And so what makes you get out of there? Were your friends kind of graduating? Because I ended up working at, dude, me and like five of my buddies worked over there at, well, I think it was called Save a Center or something. It was a grocery or Winn-Dixie, maybe it was called. Dude, one of my buddies would come, clock in, go home. And then he would wake up and he'd come clock out, dude. He worked there for like, yeah, he worked there for almost 11 months. Oh, my God. Wow. And the rest of us were afraid to do that. So we actually be in there working but we would during like but it was so much fun as having your friend bro there was nothing better i think than that time if you were either like late years of high school or right out of high school and you got to work with like your buddies who hadn't gone all like nobody kind of figured it out yet yeah you got to work with your friends that's what it was oh saturday morning we'd all be banged up you know from being out drinking all night we'd just be getting home yeah and we had to go in Saturday morning to clean the oil the whole place. So those were fun trips. We'd had oil fights. We'd get soaked in oil. Oh, God. I think we might pick up a new listenership during this episode. Oh, man, we would have some good oil fights. Really? Because you'd have these big squirt bottles, and then we'd have these 55-gallon drums of oil. What? Yeah. And it was seed oil? Yeah, it was vegetable oil. Oh, Lord. We would even do the trucks in the vegetable oil. It looks like they got waxed. What? Yeah, they were all shiny. And what vegetables was it coming out of? I have no idea. Look up vegetable or what? I never even thought about that. What could even have that much oil? Maybe an eggplant? What is vegetable made of? Vegetables. You think, but what? They squish them. Vegetable is made from the oils extracted from various plant parts like seeds, fruits, nuts, and grains, most commonly soybeans, corn, canola, sunflower, and palm. Because that's kind of the oil that everybody's kind of against nowadays you know but i guess you guys were just using it to keep stuff shiny shiny wow yeah i don't even know people use it like that we had these black trucks and they would look all waxed after we were done oiling them all down yeah and it stunk too you know because it was it was such a big place and there'd be a lot of like the bones and the fat and you'd had to go in the pit sometimes it's like you would puke it was so bad smelling what was the pit it was kind of like below the yeah that's where all the water would drain into the... And every now and then, our boss would have to go in there. I'd see him reaching in. He'd have, like, fat on his glasses and shit. It was gross. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah, no, I didn't want to stay there. God, yeah. It was cold. It was cold in there, too? And there was freezers there, and the guys that worked in the freezers, you never saw them. They looked like they were from the Antarctic. They had these hoods and these parkas and they had big boots. And you'd I see them now and then, they were kind of scary. You know, you were a kid, you're like, there's the freezer man, you know? They never came out of the freezer. Yeah, dude. Oh, that's fucking wild, wild yeah be living in it it's hiding from your out of the freezer yeah dude oh that's fucking wild yeah be living in it it's hiding from your wife and kids probably in there oh god that's when family life's bad when you're like i don't care how cold it is i'll stay in there yeah yeah that's bad that's the last job you want is working in a freezer yeah oh i think so that was in the line and what kind of guys would do it was it tough guys was it russians who was doing it fucking guys yeah butchers psychos they got their own toolbox of knives, you know, the big. A couple of times they would pick you up by your shirt, you know. Because we were just the kids, you know, we were running around. Any of them ever get arrested for crimes or anything like that? Like you think? Were any of them low-key like Dexters or like kind of that kind of guy? Yeah, yeah. They were low-key. They were. Strange, some of them. Yeah. Dang, that's wild. And then you had the women. They were the packers. Oh, they were? Yeah, they would like pack the chickens and all that. Oh, gift wrapping? And then wrap it and everything, yeah. Women do better gift wrapping. And they had like tough women, too. They were working. and it was like the boss of the women was a real tough broad. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Some girl with a tattoo of Richard Dent on her. Yeah, smoking. Everybody would be out smoking. Yeah, your smoke breaks. Oh, yeah. And the guy would come with the roach coach and call you out for your coffee and shit. He would? Yeah, the coffee roach. You know, there were a lot of roach coaches here, and everybody would come out. You know what a roach coach is? Uh-uh. It's a coffee truck. All right. Back in the day, they would come to, like, factories. Oh, so it just pulls up, and you go out and get your snack? And they would be like, all right, the guy's here, and everybody would be out on a break, get their coffee, their lousy donut, whatever he had. A little bit of a break, yeah. I like that, man. Dude, when I was a kindergartner, they had, or I don't know what grade I was in. I wasn't even in a grade, but it was nap time or whatever at kindergarten, but I wouldn't sleep, right? I would keep my eyes open because they had this, they'd bring in this other lady to watch us. Right. And I was, like, kind of curious about her, so I would just kind of lay over there. You were eyeballing her. Yeah, I was kind of eyeballing her, I guess. you know, because me and my mother were always on the outs. I was shopping around. So I remember, like, at a certain point, she'd come over and kind of kick me a little bit, and she'd let me go outside and watch her smoke. Oh, that's funny. Oh, that was nice, dude. And she had pretty nice hair. She looked a little bit like a man. Yeah. But she was definitely, she probably. What year was that? Oh, this was probably 84. Oh, the early 80s. God. Yeah. She looked like a fucking man. but she's like only the third woman I'd ever seen, you know? So at that point she was really good looking You don know yeah Yeah she beautiful to me You know she was just stunning dude but yeah she let me go out there and watch her smoke and she complain about stuff oh that funny god that was nice yeah just getting a little break you know so that was like it felt like it was my break from kindergarten like we're on break oh i remember kindergarten well really oh yeah nap time that was the best oh yeah snack and nap and then out to the sandbox and dig a hole in China. Yeah. Dig a hole down to a fucking butcher shop. Yeah, they would always put like a cone in the sand. They'd be like, oh, you're almost in China. I'd be like, yeah, let's keep digging. Yeah, yeah, dude. And then some kid would get sand in his eyes and he would look like he was Chinese. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's when it got good, dude. So yeah, so take me out. How do you get out of the meat area into the fire? Like take me out of the freezer into the fire, man. Well, I went, after that, I went to a plastic mold injection factory job. Did you? Unemployment sent me to. Oh, they did? Yeah. They were making body parts? No, no. We were making, there was a game called Othello back then. It was like a black and white chip. Yeah, I remember that game. And we were making the chips and we made the colored beads. So it was all like these plastic mold injectors. The colored beads for like, what, Mardi Gras or something? Yeah, Mardi. Or people just buy them for their crafts and stuff like that. They're like a hundred different colors. Yeah. And I could never remember the color after I boxed it up. I'd get ready to send it. Get the Omeca. I'd be like, oh, Amethyst, brown, green, I'd put something down and then the guy would come back, you can't be yelling at me. You can't send these out. And I'm laughing. He's like, what are you laughing about? I mean, I'm making $3 an hour. Dude, I remember one time I ate a bunch of mushrooms or whatever after school and I worked at this mail center, right? My job was to mail out these insurance forms to these different companies around the country. Well, I'm in the mail room, dude. I'm not doing real good. Oh, I could imagine. Yeah. Well, my body had gotten really hot. So I took all my clothes off and, uh, I mailed my, put all my clothes into a box, mailed them to some place. Dude, my first girlfriend, her mom got me that job. Her, her dad, uh, shut up, Mr. Earl. He was a fire chief actually. Oh really? Yup. And, uh, but anyway, I got laid off. Um, and yeah, the mother had to come. Thank God it was a day. It was raining because she let me borrow a raincoat she had so I could go get in my car Yeah Wow So anyway we made some tough choices over the years but uh but I did have a good time They were state they had a firehouse down there on choppa tulis in new orleans and it would be great because the mardi gras parades were down there so we go down there and the firehouse would be open on days like that and all the families an old firehouse it was beautiful yeah i think bring it right up it's right down there off a choppa tulis over there and um that was it right there oh i see it that's it right there they made it into something yeah they made it into something wow but yeah anyway it was a great time and it was a great time we'd go over there everybody's cooking hot dogs yeah and just you know just having a great time you know that was a beautiful time oh the cajun yeah we had so much fun man i'll bet so how do you get into there man how do you get so you're you're over there making jewelry and stuff well the funny part is they sent me to this place called stonewell plastics in mineola and i go in and i got this little mexican guy he's doing the interview with me he's got it's like middle-aged little guy he's got a little pencil mustache you know so i'm sitting there i'm 18, you know, and he goes, so what's your name? And I said, Tony Bonfiglio. He writes it down. He says, and how old are you, Tony? I said, I'm 18. Writes it down. He goes, and Tony, were you born here? I said, no, I was born in New Jersey. He starts laughing. Oh, you'll do, you'll do. And when I went back there, I realized I was the only American in the place. Everybody else was foreign. Oh, damn. So you're in there learning Spanish, huh? Yeah, Spanish. What languages were they? Yeah, who was that? It was mostly Spanish. Yeah? Yeah, there was some black people, but even them I didn't understand because some of them from Brooklyn. I had one friend, he would drive me home. I would say, yeah, I'd shake his hand, he'd shake his hand. We didn't know what the hell he was saying. Dude, I still can't understand black people. I'd be like, yeah, I understand. I'd be like, yeah, motherfucker. Yeah, dude. I mean, look, bro. I don't know what he said. It's 40 years later. Something's never changed, and maybe it's for the best, you know? Could be, yeah. So you're in there. Are you just like this in for me? Or how do the winds blow you over to the fire world? Well, then I went, my father got me into the printing union, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America Local 1. Wow. And I did that for about four years. But I took the fire department test when I was 18. I was 19, like 78. And was that part of school you had to take it? No, my neighbor came over. And he came in our back door with an application. Johnny LaLima, thank God Johnny saved my life, gives me the application and he says, you never get rich on this job but it put a roof over your head and food on your table So I sitting at my kitchen table i like okay johnny thanks you know i had no idea it was going to be the biggest career move of my life dude what yeah what made him even come over there and do that i wonder i guess he knew i was going nowhere because he was my neighbor and they saw us all hanging out all the time you know yeah i figured this kid be a fireman it'll be all right you know yeah so thank god i mean he saved me because i was going the printing union was going south you know computers were coming in And they weren't printing anymore on these big printing presses. So I got that. And then about a year later, I took a physical test after the written test. The written test we took in a high school somewhere in Queens. And was there a lot of people taking those tests at the time? 40,000. 40,000 people wanted to be firemen? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Because the job, I think, in a lot of ways, it's a very family, like it's a lineage job. It's like a lot of families do it. Definitely. And there's a lot of esteem with it, you know? Yeah, big time. Especially at that time, what was it like? Like, was it a very revered position? Did you even think you could get it? Get the job? Yeah. Yeah, I think I, you know, because I was 19, I was in great shape. And the physical test is really where they separate everybody. The written test was a joke. I mean, it was like a third grade questions, you know? Yeah? Remember any of them or no? Well, you know, I saw the sanitation guy. He was saying about the dirt in the shovel. that's exactly what it was like what would you use a garbage truck a plow or a shovel and brew but it'd be ridiculous if you got your name right you know that was it so i got a 98 on the written test probably the highest i ever gotten any test in my life but what was the physical part like like take me to that my father took me to east new york to an armory in this real shit neighborhood and he parked we parked his buick regal it was like the nicest car my dad ever had and i bought him these spoke rims for it for his birthday. So we get there and he says, here, you take the keys. I'm running for the subway and you take the car home. I'm like, yeah, you sure that you want to, yeah, don't worry about it. I mean, he's an East Harlem guy, so I wasn't too worried about him. So he took off. I go in this armory. It's like, when you get in there, it's the size of a football field. And there's a hundred guys that day that are going to take the test. And they break you up into like 10 men groups and you go around all these different stations and you take different different tests you had a run one was a mile one was an 8 foot wall you had to jump over the 8 foot wall that was like the separator like if And you take different tests. And you take different tests. You had to run. One was a mile. One was an eight-foot wall. You had to jump over the eight-foot wall. That was like the separator. Like if you didn't get over the eight-foot wall, you went to the police department. Sorry, guys. Hey. That's what separated them. That's what it is, man. Sometimes you got to separate the beef from the pork, you know? Well, the funny part is I got a zero on one of them. And if you get a zero on one of those stations, you're done. You're not going to get hired. Yeah, for sure. Which one was he? I had this thing called a ledge walk. You had to put on a turnout coat, a helmet. You had to put boots on. You had to put a mask on. And you went up on a balance beam next to a wall. And you had to slide along the wall like you were shimmying along a ledge. It was called the ledge walk. I'm shimmying along this thing. I'm like, why the fuck would I be on a ledge? I mean, is this job that crazy? What am I, Batman? You know, I'm going to be out on the ledge. And I went all the way down. I touched the line. I came all the way back. And the woman scoring me says, you didn't touch the line down there. Uh-uh. What? I race all the way back, touch the line. I come back. She says, you ran out of time. I got a zero. I was like, ah, that's it. Everything was down the drain. So come on. You think she just didn't do it correctly? I think, yeah, I do. I don't. I think she was there to knock some of the white guys out because there was too many white guys on the job which they were complaining about they wanted women they wanted minorities i think they were told because i stepped on the line she wasn't even anywhere near the line no but you know it's like everything happens for a reason you know i mean right and so you you get to zero pissed and so but and there's 10 stations you do fine on the rest of them you get out of there and are you then waiting for your great like you even like yeah so now now after you get all that done everybody says they're half-assed goodbyes you know i went back out thank god my father's regal was still there yeah found the found i got in the regal i found i had a joint in my my workout bag i lit that sucker up and now i'm driving home we had no directions back then so i'm looking for signs for the lie and boom get home my dad was there how'd you do i said i think i did all right and so now it's the girls have a lawsuit because 40 girls took the test the first 40 girls ever and they didn pass with 40 applicants None of them passed None of them passed Were some of the women in there on that day you were there with that 100 people No I didn see any women that day But we had a couple in my battalion when I got there So anyway, they had a lawsuit, and this lawsuit went on for six years. So from that time I took the test, I didn't get a notice that I was hired for six years. Because it was? Because of the women, because the lawsuit took so long. They usually hire about 2,500 people off the list. Now they had to go deep into the list. And because of that zero, I was like 4,300 on the list. So the women saved me. Thank you, girls. I appreciate it. Yeah, because rarely does a complaining woman save you. Oh, they saved me that day. Brenda Berkman right there. Brenda Berkman. Everybody knows Brenda. Pioneering female firefighter. She was the sole named class plaintiff. She was a lawyer. In the federal sex discrimination lawsuit that opened the fire department in New York to women firefighters. After she won the lawsuit in 82, she and 40 other women became FDNY firefighters. Was that a time where, like, were people, like, supportive of the women? Were they against the women? What did that feel like? Did it feel like they were totally against the women? They were. Oh, there's an all-male place, you know? Yeah. And, you know, I guess a lot of guys, they don't feel like they didn't mind the women that really passed the test. But to just get on because you're a woman, that was not, you know. Today, now they have girls, you know, there's so much into athletics and stuff. They could pass these tests now. But back then, you know, it wasn't like that. So some of it, they were just kind of stacking the deck. Like, we're just going to put some extra girls in. Because some of that's just a liability. That's it. They went, well, yeah, life and death. Yeah. And a liability for their own life. That too. Yeah. But I mean, if your kid is trapped in a fire, you know, you want the best person going to get that kid. Not, you know, somebody that didn't make it. Yeah, for sure. A hundred percent. I agree. But they saved me, and I'm the luckiest guy for that. So you're in, huh? I'm in. You made it in. Yeah. And do you remember, like, when you do get a letter, it's like, yeah, I'm in. You got it? And does it have flames on it? My wife came. I come pulling up in the parking lot from working at Mastercraft Litho, and I had a little Chevette. We both shared this little Chevette car that my wife bought on her own when we were kids. And I see her coming across the parking lot with a wave in the. I said what is it? She goes to fire department watch six years. Fire department watch they're going to hire you. I said holy shit I looked at it Tony Bonfiglio New York City fireman Report to Randall Island on 823 something 84 I was like I be there That pretty cool huh Yeah Oh my God I was so happy She was happy. She was happy. I was happy. And where did you meet your wife, Christine? I met her. I know she's here with us today. Where did you meet your wife at? Well, on my block, I was walking up my block in our neighborhood and her and her sister just moved in from the Bronx. They they were in the marble hill projects they were like the last ones out of these projects and uh so i'm going up the block i'm like 14 years old yeah and he's shit they're coming down with one of my friends and he's like hey these two girls just moved in from the bronx you know chris and bernie and i'm like hey first of all i was like thought he was pulling my leg but so that was like why we met and then you know we went through school we didn't really date until we were like 18. Hey, there you go. That's a great shot. Yeah. Yeah. It was like size 32 waist back then. Hey, look, I'm looking at Christine. Yeah. Yeah. She's looking good. Yeah. You can say what I'm not looking at your waist, buddy. Yeah. We were, we were, you know, we were like 24 years old there. I was just getting out of the academy. That's graduation day. I'm graduated from there after six weeks of training. Oh, that's nice, huh? Yeah. Yeah, dude, you look pretty pleased. Well, the funny part is they give us your assignment, you know? So I get this thing, 34 truck. Now, like 150 firemen, only 10 are going to go to trucks. The other 140 are going to go to engine companies. There's an engine company. They're the water. They got the hoses. And then there's the truck. That's the ladders. And they break down the doors. The ledge walkers. The ledge walkers. So I didn't want to go to a truck. I was like real, I didn't like the heights. I didn't like the ropes. I didn't like the ladders. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Look, I got a zero. On the ledge walk. Yeah, you got the wrong guy. So, and why did they choose you for that then? I have no idea. My father said they saw how good I was at breaking things that they sent him to the truck. So now I see a truck in Manhattan. I'm like, oh man. All right. So I tell her, I says, I got it. I'm going to a 34 truck. They gave me a truck. She's like, they gave me a truck. I'm like, yeah, because most guys are in the engine for like maybe five, 10 years before they get to a truck. And so in the engine means they're in the actual fire engine? They're in the engine and they're a separate company. You know, they're engine A4 and we were ladder 3-4. It was a big 100 firehouse And so a ladder they do different stuff than the engine does Yeah the engine puts the fire out Okay The ladder opens up opens up the door breaks the doors down cuts the roofs open, makes all the rescues and the searches. It's a lot more intimidating because you don't have the hose line. You're actually in there crawling around. With no water? No water. Maybe a can on your back. What? Yeah, I was a can man for quite a while. And that's heating up quick probably. Yeah. So you get in a ladder, and where's the ladder at? What's that like? 161st Street in Manhattan on Amsterdam Avenue, a place called Washington Heights. Washington Heights. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of Dominicans up there. Oh, my God. When I got there, they were just coming in. Yeah. And they took over with blood, man. They killed everybody. Really? Oh, they took over the drug business because that was the hub. You had the GW Bridge right there. You had all the parkways to head out to Brooklyn or out to Long Island. So everybody would come in and buy their crack and their cocaine. Yeah. So it was badass. I mean, they would be shooting all day long. Was it exciting? It was. Yeah. Oh, my God. And the place was so crowded. It was like full of people with these old broken down tenement buildings. Brown stones, tenements, all broken down, 100 years old. The firehouse was 100 years old. Was it exciting to go work there? Did it feel scary? Like what did it kind of become for you? The funny part I was going to say is that I went with my wife from the graduation. I said, we got to go. It's on 84th Street, I told her. I didn't realize that was 84 Engine when I read the thing. So I take her into Manhattan, and I take her down 84th Street, and there's no firehouse. So I go all the way back up to the west side. I come all the way down. There's no fire. And we're saying, wow, this is nice. Look at this. It's all money, brownstones, high-end stores. Finally, I go around 85th Street, and I find a firehouse. And I got my uniform on, and they tell you to not always knock on the door and say probationary firefighter, Bonfiglio. This old guy answered the door. What can I do for you, probie? He knew right away I was a probie just by looking at me with the stuff on. I said, I'm looking for my firehouse, 34 truck. They said it's on 84th Street. He's like, wow, let me look at that. He's like, dude, you're in with 84 engine, and you're on 161st Street. I was like, what? Holy shit. I had to get in the car and tell my wife we got to go up to 100. And now we left the glitz, and now we're in this freaking run-down neighborhood. It was like, holy shit. The music's a little bit better. You got a lot of salsa blasting in the streets. And now we left the glitz, and now we're in this freaking run-down neighborhood. And now we left the glitz, and now we're in this freaking run-down neighborhood. It was like, holy shit. The music's a little bit better. You got a lot of salsa blasting in the streets. It should be known by now that PrizePix is America's number one sports picks app and the best place to win cash while watching sports with your eyes. The app is really easy to use. That's what I love about it. You just pick more or less on two plus players and lock your picks in. That's it. That's it. Plus, for the big game, PrizePix has you hooked up with a max discount on Drake, Drake May, May. Yup, he needs just one passing yard this Sunday against Seattle to cash in. One yard. That's a no-brainer. And here's my lineup for the big game. Tell me if you want. I'm a novice. 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Call 1-800-426-2537 or visit www.ncpgambling.org. So you're in there. You're in the ladder. Truck company, ladder company. You're in the truck company. You guys are the ones that go in. So you have more of an ax than you do a hose. We got a forcible entry team. Okay. A roof man and another guy that's called the OV. He vents out the outside. He goes up the fire escapes. Oh, yeah. a peeping Tom probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the guy, the first guy in to break in the window. Yeah or just sit there by it I won say nothing So do you guys get there before the like an engine or does that matter We try to get there at the same time You never know I mean, if we're leaving quarters together, we always let the engine take off first. Hopefully, they go and find a hydrant. Okay, got it. And we try to get in front of the building with the ladder. Okay, got it. So take me on your first fire. My first fire. Well, I've been at car fires, rubbish fires. We had water leaks, so many water leaks because it was such an old neighborhood. When we go to a water leak, we got to find out where it's leaking. Sometimes we got to break into the apartment. Gas leaks. We did everything, all the utilities up there. So I'm doing it for about three weeks, and I'm still wondering, oh, my God, what's going to happen with a job? What's it going to be like? I still have no idea. I'm a can man. The probie gets the can. Okay, and the can means what? I got a fire extinguisher with a strap on my back, and I got a hook. and I'm going to be the guy that if I can put out whatever fire I can with the can. Oh. Is it actually helpful? Is the can helpful? It'll put out, if a good can man could maybe put out a room of fire. Okay, okay. Yeah, you get your finger over that thing, you spread it around. So it's real? It's real, yeah. Okay, got it. Do you remember the day that you get your first fire? Yeah, it was like three weeks in, and I'm doing my first 12-by watch. So you have a house watch, you know, and you got to man, somebody's got to man it. It's got a computer in there that comes on and tells you what your alarms are. And you acknowledge them. You hit all the lights. You send the companies out. So I got to do my first 12-by. So I'd never done a watch alone yet. So the 12-by was a little scary at first. And that's 12 hours? No, 12 to 3. You do a three-hour watch. OK. So 12 o'clock came. I went in. I took the book over. It's midnight. And I'm sitting there. And it's like 1 o'clock in the morning. and all of a sudden, like 1.30, I start falling asleep. I'm like sleeping. Look, I've had a job before. I know how it is. I'm sacked out. All of a sudden, the alarm goes off. The computer goes, it starts ticking out this alarm. I'm like, oh my God, I was so scared. I got up, I hit the house watch light. I'm looking at the ticket. It says engine A4, ladder 3-4, first due, fire on an A floor. So now I got to hit all the bunk room lights. I got to hit the intercom, say everybody goes. I got to hit the three bells. And then I got to acknowledge on the computer both companies 10 And then I got to take the tickets and put them on the truck side and the engine side And then I put my gear on and out the door we go Let go Tony I amped up Oh man So now we get there. It's 3.30, quarter to four in the morning. And it's like a projects building, about 11 stories. It was pretty decent building. It was on Amsterdam Avenue. And so we're the forceful entry team. Me, my lieutenant, who was this salty guy from the Bronx, Spinelli, He was like a real, I mean, he was the war days, you know, back in the 60s and the 70s. How salty? Salty means, you know, like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, he was salty. He had a burly mustache, unruly hair. Gout in his smile, huh? It's all bent and burnt, you know. Yeah, dude, definitely. Great guy, though, you know. Yeah, it's like he was raised in an ashtray. Oh, yeah. Oh, this guy, yeah. So the forceful entry team is a cam man, an irons man. He's got an axe and a halogen and the boss. And we're the three guys. So now we go into the lobby door and we hit all the buzzers, 3.30 in the morning. And there's people in there sleeping. Yeah, no, they're in there. So all of a sudden they start, who is it? Who is it? You're like, fire department, open the door, open the door, fire department. So they buzz you in. Now go in the lobby, nothing's showing, nobody's bailing out, you know. So I'm like, eh, I don't know. So this might not be it. Take an elevator to the seventh floor because the fire was on the eighth floor. So we get to the seventh floor and you never take the fire, the elevator to the fire floor for obvious reasons. So we take it and we take the stairs to the eighth floor and we get in this hallway. And now it's like a big projects hallway. I don't know if you ever seen one of them, but they're painted green and they got like fluorescent lights and it's long. So we go to all the doors and we stick our noses in the jams trying to smell smoke. We don't smell nothing. So the boss says to my friend, Jimmy, the Duke, he says, go up to the next floor and check it out. Calls down the battalion, says, yeah we got nothing showing on the eighth floor we're going to check out the ninth floor so with that now we go into the hallway and my friend is on the top of the stairs and he says Lou I think we got something so I'm like oh shit this is it I'm in this project hallway quarter to four in the morning I'm running up the steps with my hook and everything and there I and I said the boss says what do we have and the duke opens this door and I was like oh my god if there was a gate to hell this was it, okay? Black shimmering smoke that looked like satin curtains, just going in all different directions. And my first thought was no way we fucking going in there right I see these guys Hey look let me see a two Yeah right This won work for us They pulling their boots up and they putting their air they're turning their air bottles on and everything. I'm like, oh, shit, this is it. So now we're getting down on our hands and knees, and the Duke tells me, you hold my coat, okay? And I'm like, sure, I'm holding your coat. So you're behind him crawling? I'm behind the Duke. The boss goes in first like this black abyss. we just crawl into on the floor. What are y'all looking for? The fire department. We got to find it. Oh, so this is just the hallway? The hallway. Oh, I thought that- Somebody left their door open. Pull up that hallway you had, Nick. Is that the one from the actual building? Oh, this is a general one. Yeah, I think I know what you're talking about though. It's narrow hallways. Narrow hallways, long green. Yeah, look at that color, yellowish green. That looked just like that. Oh, God. So now we're on our hands and knees and I've got his coat. I got the can on my back. I got my mask on and we're in total blackness and I'm crawling down like a hundred feet. And I'm saying in my mask, I'm saying, what the fuck am I doing here? This is fucking crazy. I'm never going to do this again. I felt so helpless. And what am I going to do? It's pitch black. We're crawling in a hallway we've never been before. So we crawl up and then all of a sudden the Duke stops and he says, we're at the fire door. And I'm like, oh, okay. Can't see nothing. Yeah, it almost seems like some kind of sex traffic. Whatever's going on, it sounds kind of out of sorts. It's out of sorts. Anyway, so carry on. Sorry. It's something that I'm quitting in the morning. I swear to God, I was quitting. I was like, what are we going to do in here? We can't see. I'm on the ground. So finally, we call in, and I crawl in, and I hear the boss. He's ahead of us in the apartment already. He says, bring the can in here. So now I crawl past the Duke. I'm on my hands and knees. And about 10 feet up, I see the boss on his knees with a glow of the fire. He goes, you see the fire? It's to the left. And I look, and there's a room on fire. It looks like cotton candy. The flames are like all over the place. And how much is it protecting you? How much is your suit protecting you at that point? Nah, nothing. What? Dude didn't take it off, bro. Yeah, no. They're just coats to keep you warm, basically. They got your leather helmet on. Keep you warm. But, and at that point, does it kind of take on a, just coach you know to keep you warm basically you got your leather helmet on keep you warm just coach you know to keep you warm basically you got your leather helmet on keep you warm but and at that point does it kind of take on it like do you start to feel a little bit more empowered kind of a song no I felt scared shit I just wanted to get out of there and get this fire over with so now I see him and he says do you see the fire and I look to the left and I said yeah I see the fire I'm in this mask you know and he says hit it with the can I got the can and I'm on my knees and I go to hit it and nothing comes out. I hit it again. Nothing comes out. I didn't have air in the can. It's like a total fuck up for a pro. You should have put it in there. That's my fuck up. Oh, my first job. So I said to the boss, I got no air in the can. I've used that excuse a lot of times, a lot of times over the years, buddy. I'll tell you that. And I want to apologize to a lot of those women out there. But yeah, that was my excuse. I got no air in the can. You know? That's a good analogy. Yeah, I got a ladder issue. But go on. Fully extended. Fuck, you must have been embarrassed, huh? I wasn't embarrassed, but yeah, I felt like, oh man, I'm going to catch some shit for this. Did you even repent? Did you like just make a sound like you had air in it? No. Like. I didn't make no sounds. I could believe it because I mean, you always check the can. You know, you got to pressurize it, put a little water. So he says, all right, back out to the doorway. So I, now the fire's coming out over our heads in the hallway. And I get to the door. We came in crawling. And the elevator was right across from the apartment, the fire apartment. And the door opens. And there's 84 Engine without a mask on or anything. They took the elevator to the fire floor. And they got stuck. And they're going down on their knees. And they're trying to put their masks on. And I'm yelling in my mask. I'm like, get the fucking line in here and put the fucking fire. I'm screaming. I'm like out of my mind now. So finally, they get in the line. Now it's black again. And the line is the hose? The hose. OK. And it's all asses and elbows now in this hallway. You know, that's what we call organized confusion. And so they're bringing the line past me. I see him get up to the room. And the boss says, there's the fire to the left. He cracked. I hear the line crack. You know, get the water comes up. He cracks it. And now he hits it, you know. And he starts pushing the fire in. and I squeezed past them because I got to search the apartment that my job So and you searching for it to see if there anybody in there The bodies yeah Wow So now I searching along the wall and still can see And I get to a window and I smash it out with my hook and I would stick my head out the window because this is the first time I could see again since we left that stairwell. Oh yeah, you got to get some fresh air. Fresh air and some view of something. So then I'd go around and then all of a sudden they They knocked it down fast. And I run into the Duke, the irons man. He's like, yo, Proby, you broke your cherry, man. Congratulations. And I was like, wow. I took my mask off. It was kind of like still gray smoke and steamy, but it was better than the mask, you know, because that was so confined. So I said, yeah, Jimmy, I set my first fire, but this might be my last fire. I said, I don't know if I'm doing this again. And there we were. We overhauled the apartment, and we threw the mattress out the window. We took everything out, threw the street down into the street. And who's down there catching that? He was hitting whoever. That's free. Back then, like nobody. Who gives a shit? Yeah. Hopefully nobody's down there. You yell out, look out. And then you throw the burning mattress out the window. Oh, shit. I'll throw my ex-wife out that bitch, you know? Don't say, let's take that out. Let's take that out. And then I'm looking out this window and it's encrusted with all these embers and shit, you know, like gold and amber and everything. And it was like 5.30 in the morning, and the Manhattan skyline was turning purple. So I had all this beautiful thing I was learning. I was like, wow, this is some sight, you know? Excuse me. Yeah. Oh, I kiss the sky. Yeah, it was definitely rock and roll, man. I was like, yeah. So now I had to get back, and I put the air in the can when I got back, changed all the masks and everything. Now I had to go up and see the boss, you know, take my medicine. So I walk up to the truck office, and I knock on the door. It's open. And he says, yeah, come in. and he's wiping his face down with a towel. He just came out of the bathroom. I said, I made like puppy eyes. I said, Lou, I'm sorry about not having air in the can. And he's like wiping his face. He goes, yeah, don't worry about it, kid. Shit happens. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, wow. Thank you. I was 23 years old, you know. So now I'm walking out. And he goes, hey, kid. And I turn around. He goes, you did a good job. And I was like, oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah, and then I'm driving home saying, am I quitting this fucking job? Because it was like, it was like nothing I've ever experienced. And I, growing up, I did a lot of crazy things, but this was the scariest thing I ever did. But yet it was so exciting and thrilling I mean I got home and the grass was so greener The sky was so blue and the air that I was breathing was so appreciated Because you were alive I was alive man It made me, I was like, wow, that was something. Dang. Of course, that wasn't my last job. I went 21 years more after that. What kind of like made you decide, or did you just have to go back to work and it just kept being like that? Yeah, no, we were a busy truck back then because we had a lot of fires, a lot of occupied fires which are really they're a lot more intense than a vacant fire or you know something like that you know you got a lot of people bailing out and they're sometimes they're trapped and you know you got to get to them the truck that's their job you know what's almost hearing you say this and like thanks so much for your time tony too i appreciate it man thank you for the this is like an honor oh thanks kidding me yeah you guys are pioneers you know you're the millennial pioneers with entertainment these days i think you changed the whole scene Oh, well, I just, I think it's like people just, we got to find more humans that have the best stories, you know? Exactly. It was so crazy. We're just like, we're coming to New York and we just get an email from you the other day that you had seen that we put out a thing about, about looking for somebody that works in a fire department. And my producer Zach forwards it to me. He's like, can you believe we just, this guy, we're going to be there? I was like, wow, it seems really interesting. So I think it was meant to be. Hey, I think so too. And I think I was about to say, I think it was meant to be that your first fire didn't have any, nobody was in it. Yeah. Because that would have, that could have been super scary. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Take me through like some of the times where there was somebody in there. Like how much of a different scenario is that? Is the energy different when you get there? Who lets you know if somebody's in there or do you even know? Like take me through that process of like right when you get there and then take me into one of like a fire where it was inhabited. Well, this one fire where we lost this little girl, and that one really hurt me a lot because we got to the apartment, and my lieutenant, he was a little Irish guy, the bravest guy I've ever met, Lieutenant Maloney, and I would chase him up to the fire, the door, the caller, and he would knock on the door with his little crowbar, fire department, open the door. It sounded like some cartoon, the Irish broke. So these people open the doors and we walk in and there's a card table sitting there. There are about eight people playing cards. They're eating. We standing in the kitchen the three of us And we like my lieutenant says what the hell did you call the fire department So they looking up they like yeah I think something burning in the back It was a big apartment So we're like looking at each other, something burning in the back. What the hell is this? So now we go down the hallway, my lieutenant's cursing under his breath, you know, he's like, all these motherfucking, sucking fucking shit. They're still playing cards. Cards is fun though, cards can be fun. They were, but we get into the living room and there's like these French doors. I don't know if you know the French door is probably from... Is it like that kind of? They're glass paneled, and they're like two doors. You open to a room. They're called French doors. You think there's going to be somebody French in there, but there ain't. Yeah, no French people in there. There never is, dude. There never is. Typical French. You'll send the doors. We'll be there. They're not. Typical French. So anyway, I open the French door, and the room is on fire. We're like, holy shit. Close the door. we get down on our knees start putting our masks on and we're calling 1075 that means we got a working fire he's telling the battalion you know the engine now they're coming up with the line so right before they got the line i says all right guys it's right here i put my mask on i said showtime and i went to open the uh the french doors and i get a call over the handy talkie there's a kid in the room my friend the ov is with the mother out in the street oh so now we bust into these doors. They're hitting, thank God we had the water, hitting them, and I'm frantically looking for this kid in the darn black smoke. I'm on the bed. I'm feeling all over the bed. I gotta find this kid. And is it mostly feeling? How far can you see? You don't see anything. You don't? Put tape over your eyes. It's nothing. And you're feeling with gloves on too? Yeah, sometimes gloves. Sometimes you forget your gloves, but yeah. What? Yeah. What? You don't? Back then we were like, less equipment better. You want to get in, you want to get in, you want to get out quick too. No, that sounds like a guy who forgot his equipment. Ah, yeah. Put air in the can. Yeah, put some air in your can, Tony. That's always that guy's excuse, you know? Exactly. But that's a great attitude to take. Like, nah, guys, if there's air in this can, we're going to have to be here all afternoon. Yeah, yeah. We're in and out of this. I could have probably put that, maybe put it out with the can. But anyway, so the engine, I'm in there, I'm going around. And finally, I'm going around the wall. I can feel I'm, sorry, I'm under the bed feeling around, trying to find this kid and I get to a window, I break the window out and I look out the window and I see my irons man that was with me. He's in the street with the kid, a limp kid, kid and I get to a window. I break the window out and I look out the window and I see my irons man kid and I get to a window. I break the window out and I look out the window and I see my irons man that was with me. He's in the street with the kid, a limp, limp kid, you know, and they taking the kid, they opened the battalion car door. He told, they go in there and they rushed off the Columbia Presbyterian. How'd the kid get out? No, he carried, she was unconscious. Oh, he found it. She didn't, the kid was dead. Unfortunately, she was burnt. Uh, they tried to revive her at the hospital, but it didn't work. So I'm overhauling now, and I see my lieutenant, and I said, I just saw Jeff in the street with the kid. He's like, oh, Anthony, the kid was right there behind the door. And I was like, oh, I was crushed, man. I shut that door. I felt like I killed that kid, you know? So we go to Presbyterian. Oh, so before we leave, now the deputy shows up, because now we got a 1045, which is a body. And he's like, what happened here? And we're in this apartment. People are still playing cards. So my lieutenant says, well, we came up to the apartment and I said, I'll tell you what happened. And now the deputy looks at me, you know, I go, you see these motherfuckers over here? I said, they didn't bother to fucking tell us there might be a kid in that back room and I'm throwing F-bombs at him. And the deputy says, lieutenant, You better control your man. So the boss puts his arm around my shoulder. He says, come on, come on, Anthony. He called me Anthony. That's Anthony in a brogue. Anthony, let's go down to the street. You know, and we went down to the street. And we went and we picked up my friend Jeff at the hospital. I said, how'd they make out with the kid? He said, they were trying to revive her. They were bringing her to the burn center. So that was the last we heard of her. But there's no way you could have known that, right? Because you go in and the kid was hiding behind the door. You'd think somebody would tell us there could be a kid back there. Oh, it's heartbreaking. Oh, man. Did you ever find out why they wouldn't let you know what was going on there? I guess there was like an SRO bid or something. They were renting out that little back room to this woman and her child, you know. So it was pretty bad. And I had a few of those. I mean, right after I was getting over with that one, I got another one where we showed up without our masks on because it was the middle of the day. Yeah. No, I get it. There was nothing showing. we get out and the guy says, eh, they're working on the oil burner all day. And we had a lot of oil burners, you know, they would smoke up. So we're like, eh, 1020, he says on the box, which means all the other companies take your time don blow the red lights and shit So now we heading up to the stairs to the caller apartment it you know forcible entry team me lieutenant clipper and this guy jimmy lynch and we get to the door and the woman opens the door and we own the apartment and it's like a slight smoke condition in there but slight so we're like what's what what do we have here so my boss says he was a smart fireman he was from rescue too he said i think we're uh We got something above us. Usually it's below us, you know. But this, I guess, because the smoke was so light. So now we get up. We don't have no masks or nothing. I see smoke coming out of the doorway, you know, the locked door in the hallway. So I turn around. I donkey kick the door open, like three kicks. It kicks open. And we got a black wall of smoke. We're like, holy shit. Now we got, after the 1020, we got to give a 1075, which means now we have a fire. So now we're crawling in. No masks. No masks were on our bellies. Was it better or worse without a mask in this place? Worse. It was worse. Yeah. Because you could feel the heat? Yeah. You know, back in the day when they didn't wear masks, like in the 60s and the 50s, everything was wooden cotton. Then once the 60s and 70s, and everything's vinyl and plastic, and it's a whole different smoke, you know, it's poisonous. So it gets you quick. That's a great point, right? Yeah. Back then, you could suck the cotton and the wood, you know? Yeah. It's like, yeah, you were probably, yeah, you were smoking. Like smoking a pack of cigarettes. You're like, hell, shut up. I wish somebody had a couple of tobacco plants and he'd crawl around for another two minutes in here. Exactly. That's what it was like. And things would burn slower back then too, wouldn't they? Well, back then, yeah. But plastics will take off a lot faster. God. So anyway, he crawls in. And we're like, oh shit, we got to go in. Jimmy goes in ahead of him. And I'm the last guy in. We're like almost on our bellies crawling in. And I hear the horrible words, we got bodies. I'm like, oh my God. Now we got to give 10 45s. So we had 1020 that means don't come take it easy getting there now. We went 1075 now We got two 1045 two bodies So with that I get a body a little girl come the pass it back to me And I cry like shimmy out of the apartment. You don't know if she do. I don't know any I can't see nothing yet I still can't see nothing till I get to the stairwell. I knew I had a kid in my arms I see it's a little girl, you know, the base is all darkened. So now I'm like, oh shit I'm going to run her down to the, EMS is going to take her in the street. And I go running down to the street and there nobody there And all the people are screaming you know they yelling and screaming and I holding this kid and I looking around because we gave the 1020 we were nobody there yet they at the malt shop I put the kid down I do CPR on this little girl and I you know I put it down a cup her head and I pretty much all I knew was like a 15 and 2 you know you get two breaths into her and then you give a 15 can this went on for like 10 minutes before I got relieved and the The sound that she was making when the air would come out, they call it machine gun breath because it's like, and the smell because I had the smell of burnt lips. So finally somebody came over and they started taking over and then the EMS came. After 10 minutes, they let me go. So now I'm like, I'm walking around the sidewalk. All these Dominicans are very emotional. They're all screaming and yelling and crying and everything. Some of them probably. Praying everything. Yeah, for sure. I figured, let me go back up to the floor because the other two guys were working on the mother. And when I got there, the EMS already took over. And I was like, holy shit. And it was like the first fire we had where the windows didn't break open. They were the new windows that the Gambino crime family put in in all of Manhattan. And they didn't break like the old windows. So it never got air. So it smoldered. And they died from the smoke. God. And that stayed with me for years. I would like, sometimes I would smell and taste the burnt lips and everything. It was horrible. That's heartbreaking. Who do you even talk to about that kind of stuff? Do you guys go to some of the services? What is some of that like? I got back in the firehouse. The guys were listening up. They knew. I took my turnout coat off, and I just went in. I took a shower. We all took showers. and then the boss says into the office, you know, let's talk about it. So he says, you know, we did everything we could. There really wasn't nothing else we could do. I mean, not having the mask didn't hamper us at all because we still got the bodies. And so then I went home. My wife heard about it already on the news. And so when I got home, they all greeted me. And that was pretty much, you know, all I got was some nice hugs and some tears at home. Yeah, you get over it. It takes a while. I mean, I had a couple of things. I had this junkie that we kept called three times. We got called to the sixth floor. He kept lighting fires to stay warm in the winter Yeah And he was a young black kid you know And so we would have to climb up these vacant stairs I had to pop a hole in the cinder block walls to get in vacant building And a couple times it's happened. Yeah. Oh, well, it's the first one. We go up, sixth floor, dark, cold. It's icy. It's about 30 degrees out. A nice kid? I have no idea. I got to the back with my, and I see my Irish lieutenant yelling at him. He's like, what the fuck you doing? You can't light a fucking fire, blah, blah, blah. and he was sitting there and he was in the corner and i i came in i put my flashlight on him and he was looking at me with these eyes you know and i was like god he had like tombstones in his eyes you know and he was only about 16 17 so we put the fire out we leave two hours later we get called back again go up all got to climb these stairs six floors no steps just risers and no lights it's dark so now we climb all the way up again we go through the thing he lit it up again boss he's yelling you can't fucking do this he's yelling at him and shit i got the light on him and and uh and the funny part was we just had uh we just said broke into an enterman's cake at the firehouse with the vanilla icing that we would keep in the fridge get it nice and stiff so as my friend jeff in the dark he's putting the fire out i put the light on him and he still got the vanilla icing on his mustache. Somebody took a piece for the road, Jeff, huh? The boss is yelling at him. That's why he's pissed. This guy interrupted his dessert, huh? Three companies and a battalion are responding every time. And we got chains on. It's snowing. It's not like no easy ride. Right, so you get a lot to get out there. So the third time, we just got back from something. We went in our bunks. And we get in the bunks, and we're like, a little pillow talk before everybody was sleeping. And then before you know it, boom, boom, same box. Here we go again. I hear the boss yelling, fuck, shit, I'll kill that motherfucker. Yeah, dude. Let him cook at this point. We're sliding down the pole. This guy's trying to get to heaven. You guys keep coming in and ruining his trip. Third time. So we're in the rig. And I said to my friend, Jeff, I says, let's tell the boss, stay under. Don't even come up the stairs. We'll take care of it. And surprisingly he agreed. So when we got to the door, I says, Lou, we'll take care of you, you stay down here. So me and Jeff go up, my light, my die hard battery died on me. So I had like no light left. I'm trying to follow Jeff's light and we're going up just on the rise here. So me and Jeff go up. My light, my diehard battery died on me. So I had like no light left. here. So me and Jeff go up. My light, my diehard battery died on me. So I had like no light left. I'm trying to follow Jeff's light and we're going up just on the rises and then there's no platform. So you got to like lean over your step to get on. And when you get to the fifth to sixth floor, you're looking down at this skeleton staircase. What? Yeah. So now we go in, go through the dark apartment again. He's in there again. Now he's got candles burning because we broke his bucket up smashed it all up so we're like holy shit so now uh jeff is like leaning into him and he says listen you can't fucking do this anymore and jeff's like the good cop you know i'm the bad cop so i i lean into him i look at him i says we come back here again i'm throwing you out that fucking window and he just looked at me you know and that was it that was the last time We went back. We left there. We took his candles. But years later, I would see that kid's face looking at me, and it made me feel so bad. A wasted life like that, you know? Heroin. He had the works, everything. That's scary. And the fact that he kept going back to do it, it's just that power of addiction, you know? It was cold. Oh. Well, I guess it'd keep you warm. Yeah, he was in a vacant, yeah. Oh. Yeah. A lot of shit like that. Vacants were disgusting. because it's just anybody can be doing they're doing anything huh squatters yeah they're shitting on the floor they're drugs needles and you're crawling around in there because you still have to save them oh yeah yeah vacant fires yeah do you start to develop a certain like uh attitudes towards humanity or drug users or society absolutely call them skills they're all scales yeah to us back then you know and uh matter of fact on my block we had a tight block 161st street and we had a a bodega a uh a gypsy cab dispatcher a whorehouse and bunch of drug apartments yeah and it was a busy block and we had two guys on the block that were almost there the whole time i was there and they were the lookouts and one guy was uh bald and we called him eight and the other guy always had a hat and we called him the hat. So, and the funny part was they would watch our cars for us. So nobody would break into the cars and shit. But yeah I mean I would see every agency there is come down and radar block through the years I was there ATF Manhattan Tactical North CIA I mean, everything. I'll tell you who was the worst ones was the FBI. Yeah. They come down with machine guns. I've never seen anybody that. And then they clear the street. They hit all the apartments. It's amazing. I bet they were all just visiting that whorehouse. That whorehouse. I would inspect it now and then I'd go in there with my hat and they'd all be looking at me and I'd be like, what the fuck you want? Like, I got to inspect this place. What was it like in some of those joints? Was it interesting in there? Was it just women trying to just survive? It was just some middle-aged, young, not too young, Dominican women. I guess they took care of the cab drivers and stuff. And they had the different rooms. You know, everybody had their little bed in there. Just trying to survive. And I would inspect it, you know. I got you. You got condoms? The condoms are here? Making sure the alarm works, ladies. Yeah, they would be like, come on. Some of them were the prostitutes would be like, get the fuck out of here, man. You know, they'd be up all night. They didn't want nothing to do with me. Oh, I'm sure. Yo, fellas, fellas, fellas, boys, guys. You know what time it is? It's time to level up and get that wiener up. I'm upstairs. Blue Chew just dropped something crazy. I'm talking next level championship belt gold plated energy. Blue Chew Gold is the newest innovation for the number one chewable ED brand. This ain't your grandpa's little blue pill. This is the four in one beast that's setting the gold standard for performance. They know how to do it. Blue Chew Gold dissolves under your tongue, and it works in as little as 15 minutes. Bam! Papa got that board on him. That means you can get it on quicker and stay in the game longer. Elevation without hesitation. 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And I guess somebody started a fire, right? and I'd like as a comedian you go to different hotels you're always in hotels over the years and I got to the point where every now like you know every seven weeks somebody'd start a fire pulling alarm right and so in the middle of the night you got to go downstairs and be outside so I finally decided for myself I'm gonna wait because yeah I'm not going out there there was never it was never a good fire right right so I was like I'm waiting out there for 45 minutes or whatever while they see if there's a fire or not so I finally said I'm staying in the room until I smell smoke or whatever. So one time I'm in there, I just made this big sandwich, dude. It was really good. It was one of the better ones I've probably ever made in my life. And a guy, I remember this big fireman with an ax comes in or just opens my door. And the alarm had been going off for a while. And he's looking, he's looking for me. And I was like, is there a fire? And I missed something. Yeah, he's like, you got to get out of here. I was like, bro, every week they doing this shit. I'm not going. Right. I hear this all the time. Yeah. I said, that's the cry wolf thing too though. You know? Oh, for sure. I knew it was on me. I think, you know, Hey, if it's bad, come back. Right. And I think he's like, fuck, you know, I don't blame him. Yeah That that a fireman attitude Yeah And it should it should be Come back if I going to burn you know Yeah Yeah exactly Yeah there just a lot of pressure Yeah like immediately I was putting all the pressure on this guy But yeah, what were some of the environments you went into? Like, did you ever just walk into an environment and you're like, oh, well, this is crazy, or like a drug den or like a – Oh, plenty of drug dens. I mean, every building had a drug apartment where they would sell drugs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but this one fire that I went to, it was in the middle of the day. It was like the second floor. We pull up. Fire's blowing out four windows. I mean, it was going good. And so we run out. Now we're second due, which means we go to the floor above the fire. So the first due truck has the fire floor. Second due goes to the floor above, which the floor above is really shitty. Because that's where the heat's going up. That's where everything's going, you know? So now we get up the staircase, and it's starting to bank down and get dark. And I see a guy runs past me, no shirt on, no shoes. He's got like a three-year-old kid under his arm and a hefty bag. Oh, yeah, so a politician probably. So he slips by us, you know. So now we're going to take the door in the hallway above the fire department. And it's getting smoky, and my boss puts his mask on. But we have to take the door, so I wanted to see a little bit. so I'm hitting the, you know, the guy's got the Halligan and the door jam and I'm smashing it with an ax and he's trying to get a bite on the jam to bust the door open, so finally we get it, we bust the door open, we put our masks on and we go in and we're crawling around and the engine company did a good job, they knocked the fire down pretty fast, you know, so as we're crawling around it's starting, the black smoke's starting to go away and it's getting lighter and I'm on the floor and I bump into a dresser. I'm like, oh, now I can start to see a little bit. I put my light on the dresser. All the drawers are open. Stacks of hundreds and $50 bills. Every drawer, I mean, no 20s, no, it was all Coke money. And I'm like, oh my God, you know, I'm still like a, I'm like my one year there. So I'm, I'm a junior man. You're like, I got to get something for Christine. Well, that's it. You know, I got an angel and a devil on my shoulders and they're fighting it out. You know, I'm looking at, we're in smoke. So, I mean, it ain't like a setup. Nobody's ever going to notice. So I'm thinking, oh my God, I could buy myself a new Harley with that money. And oh, and then I was like, the angel would be like, oh, you buy the new Harley and you're going to crash and you'll get paralyzed. And I'm like, oh shit, the heck of that. God, I could buy myself a new Harley with that money, you know? God, I could buy myself a new Harley with that money, you know? And then I was like, the angel would be like, oh, you buy the new Harley and you're going to crash and you'll get paralyzed. And I'm like, oh, shit, the heck could happen? So now I told the senior man, I said, Eddie, come here, look in this drawer. Yeah, bring another guy in now. Senior man, you know? And he's like, holy shit, Tony. He's like, what are we going to do here? Oh, Eddie's setting you up again. Yeah, I'm like, you're the senior man. You tell me what to do. Oh, this is dirty tennis you guys are playing. I mean, I could have been stacking thousands in my pocket. If Eddie would have been like, hey, let's take a little, you have to. I would have, yeah. Yeah, you got to. I think just to even make sure that it is what it is, get it back home. Right. You know, I was young. I had this, oh, it's dirty money. It'll bring me bad juju. It could have. Yeah. You never know. I mean, I think that the calm of it, who knows? Yeah. You don't know. So the boss walks in, you know, the lieutenant, and he's like, what do you got? And I was like, we got all this drawer full of money, dresser full of money. He's like, oh, I don't see nothing. He was like, I don't know if you ever see Schultz on Hogan's Heroes. He's like, I see nothing. He turns around. He walks away. So now we go out, and it's still a little smoky, but we could see. We don't have our masks on. And there's another room with a padlock on the door. So he's like, take the door. So he puts the ads in of the Halligan, and I whack it with the ax. Yeah. The door, we bust it open. And Theo, I'm telling you, there was like half the Coke in Manhattan was in there. Bricks. all the way to the ceiling on all sides of the walls, a pile of cocaine about 18 inches high on the table. We were like, holy shit. So the boss gets on, tell the battalion we got a drug apartment, send the PD up. So now we're like waiting for the PD to come. We wanted them to come before the drug dealers got back. So finally two NYPD guys show up, and they're like, yeah, guys, what do you got? I said, well, go in that room and go in that room. I said, that's the money room. that's the coke room so they both go in at the same time they go holy shit wow they call a backup you know so now we're like my boss is like we're out of here you know we we don't want to be nothing part of this whole show here i'd have stuck around man you know like joey diaz says every now and joey every now and then you bump into a colombian you know i love joey oh he's the best he was a fireman in the colorado or some shit denver was he a fireman yeah but he was selling blow he said All they had was a pickup truck I don know if you ever saw it I think it was on Rogan maybe Yeah not like bro yeah he said i was just selling it was an easy way to sell coke he said i go around people call the fire department sorry joey but you did tell that story no people call the fire department he shows up in a pickup truck selling coke well he says it was a ski lodge place there was never any fire oh yeah that's a great idea actually yeah the ski lodge so it was like perfect for him yes joey diaz has talked many times about having been a volunteer He's a firefighter, which is really a drug dealer in Aspen, Colorado in the 1980s. Can you imagine him doing that? I bet if you were anywhere with Joey in the 1980s, every place was Aspen, Colorado, dude. I go to a restaurant he recommended in Jersey, a Chinese restaurant. Is it a good spot? Kings. Oh, he says, oh, dude, this is the real deal. This is the Chinese food. You know how he talks, right? Oh, for sure. So I go there, and the guy's name is Freddy, the Chinese guy. I'm like Freddy Joey Diaz sent me here He's like oh yeah Joey Diaz He said he popular I said yeah He's pretty fucking popular He's like oh I didn't know Food was excellent Thank you Joey I love that food Joey has It's like bro I'd be like dude My friend died last week In Buffalo New York He's like Oh Next time you're in Buffalo It doesn't Yeah It doesn't matter Your friend died It matters You gotta walk 11 blocks To get this prosciutto Prosciutto He's like The only way you get there is by foot, right? I'm like, this sounds very alarming. But dude, he's always got the best food recommendation. Absolutely. He just loves life, man. He just always has a connection to life. Oh, man. What stories. He's so funny. He's one of the best. I love him. Yeah, I don't know anybody like him. But I bet in your line of work, you probably met a lot of guys not like him, but with similar energies like him. Oh, crazy people. Yes. When I got on in 83, we still had Vietnam vets that were in the fire at home. Really? Today, it's more college kids. You know, they came out of college and they get, they take the test. Yeah. A lot of guys that want to be in the calendar or whatever. It's a whole different thing. You know, nothing to the new guys. They, you know, they're all great. But it was a different atmosphere with the vet guys. And plus back then, you know, they didn't have computers and, you know, there was no cameras. It was BC. So you got away with a lot of shit. Yeah. Today you're on, you go on YouTube. They see you fighting the fire, the OV, the roof man. Yeah. If you fuck up a million people are seeing it right there. People in the chat are like, get rid of this guy. Like, what's he waiting for? Why doesn't he go in? Where's the hose line? What's taking him so long? Yeah dude All the comments Yeah like Caruso a pussy you know Like dude he just his first day on the job Absolutely Dude that is crazy that that how it going to be Everything's going to be streamed, and people will be able to comment at the moment. Yeah, so that's a whole bit. And the other day, I was watching the Chief had like some kind of iPad thing or something, and they had a drone in the air. And the thing was showing them all the roof, the holes, the fire, the back. It was like a 3D thing. It was like, and everything changes. Yeah, there's already a real estate agent there. Everything's changed. Changes. So, you know, when I got on, the guys from the 60s and 70s, they were tough motherfuckers. So some of them had come from war, actually. Big time. And this was just another place where they at least had camaraderie, they had a brotherhood. Exactly. It was a paramilitary organization. So, you know, you had your lieutenants and your captains and your chiefs. Did the stress of the job ever affect guys too much? Was there scenarios like that that kind of happened or not really? Nah, I think most guys love the job. What made you end up kind of loving it? Like what made, like what kind of changed for you? Like when you look back. The brotherhood. Really? Oh my God. Like family. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's why, you know, I did 15 years in 34 truck from a probie. I did 15 years. I think I left there in 98. But yeah, I mean, I had a lot of friends that I'm still today. You know, we're all together. The wives, the kids, the kids are on the job. Some of them are already captains. Wow. Yeah. yeah I guess that's something that's so nice is just that that's one thing that's harder I even notice about life even just like as you get out of times in your life where you're either in in school we have like teams that you're on or like your buddies are always around or in the college you don't really find a lot of places where there's that much camaraderie anymore you just don't find it no that was it that was it there big time we'd make the meals yeah yeah see this is a uh the two probies are coming off their probation so when you come off probation you throw a big party in the firehouse and they all got lobsters and filet mignons and and they have a big celebration it's a lot i remember my my probing meal was it was a lot of fun we i came off with another guy richie who we both came out of the academy together oh that's but yeah i know all these guys like family a lot of them aren't aren't even here with us anymore really oh yeah and that pic that's old a lot of them has gotten older passed even or this? Yeah, some of them, I don know some of them might have even passed away on 9 Oh yeah Yeah that a great shot That awesome dude Yeah Yeah, I mean, you could just feel so much excitement there. Oh, my God, the fun we would have. And the meals that I would make were incredible. That's why they kept you around, huh? Oh, I was a good cook. Were you? Yeah. Yeah. The first meal I brought in, my mother made meatballs and sausage and a whole sundae gravy. And I bought gavadil, and I brought it all in with the bread and everything, and the guys loved it. You know, the Irish guys call it red lead. That was what they call tomato sauce. I make red lead tonight. Yeah, red lead. They loved it. They were like, man, that was so good and everything. But you know what, kid? You got to make it here next time. So I was like, ah, I get it. You got to make the meal in the firehouse. Oh, that's part of it. Everybody comes together. You know, because it could be all over the firehouse, but that's where everybody who's chopping this, who's cooking that, who's sauteing things. who's doing the entertainment. The camaraderie. I would put my Louis Primer on the stereo and we would just be going, you know, jump driving well and I'm just a gigolo and the place would be hopping. Oh, it was fun. Oh, that's nice. And great meals. About 11 guys would eat at the same, you know, we'd all eat at the same time. And then everybody chips in at the end of the meal because, you know, the city doesn't pay for anything. We pay for everything. That's crazy. All our TV, all they pay for is the firehouse. Everything else we have to buy. Really? Yeah. Is it still that way? Yeah, it's still that way. Wow. Well, when I was on the job, you bought your own turnout coat and you had a helmet. I brought some helmets here too. And the helmet fit perfectly to your head. They made it a mold to your head. So you didn't need a chin strap. It just stayed on there. And then when Giuliani came in as mayor and we had a couple of fires where guys got killed and everything, he couldn't believe how shabby we looked because we had nobody fixed their gear was nobody gave you new gear so you you went years with this gear and it looked like the the coats were all ripped up and they you know looked i loved the way it looked like the blaze news bears huh and all the other fire departments around the country and they already had bunker pants and bunker coats and they had hoods you gotta wear these i i hated all of that i hated the bunker pants i hated the hoods and uh so that that changed right there from the uniforms and And then they gave us a new helmet, three sizes, small, medium, large. And they had to have a damn chin strap to hold it on. It was a lot heavier. That changed right there from the uniforms. That changed right there from the uniforms. And then they gave us a new helmet, three sizes, small, medium, large. And they had to have a damn chin strap to hold it on. It was a lot heavier. I hated it. But you get charges if you didn't wear it. If you took your old helmet and you got caught with it or you got caught without your bunker pants on, because it was like the takeover. It takes a few years before the old-timers really give in to all the changes. Everything takes a few years to kind of seep in. Oh, especially in the fire department, it's all tradition. Yeah. Yeah, dude, that was one of the nice things. Even like whenever I would go with my, it was my first girlfriend, her dad. Whenever I'd go over there, it would just be nice to see the guys all spending time together, you know? Yeah. And they would know other fire departments around the city. It was just like, there was like definitely a, it was like this kind of secret society that was a little bit, it was a little hidden kind of because you don't really think about the fire department all the time, you know? I didn't. But yeah, but they're right there, dude. Yep, yep. And they're the first ones that have to get involved when things get bad. Yeah. You know? Yeah, if it's okay to talk about what were things like during 9-11? Like what was, I mean, I know kind of like what some things were like, but when you look back on it, like how? Well, I got off work that morning. I did a 24-hour tour on the 10th. And I just got home and I had a power washing painting business on the side. Oh, yeah. And I had my Dominican helper waiting for me at home, you know? So I got home. We came in, I'm making coffee, and my wife calls me. She's at work, and she says, you see what happened? They flew a plane into the towers. I'm like, you're kidding me. I put a little TV on that I had in the kitchen, and I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, what happened? Did the guy have a heart attack? You know, I thought it was like a single plane that the guy just flew in by accident. Yeah, some guy fucking just couldn't get a ravioli down. You didn't know the first one. You didn't know it was terrorists. So then I take you, we get to the paint store, and the guys are all around the counter with a TV, And I come in and the guy, Tony, turns around. He says, what the fuck is they fucking terrorists flew planes into the fucking towers? And I'm like, holy shit. Now I see both towers going. Now I know it was an attack. So I says, all right, we got to get out of here. I got to paint a rabbi's house in Woodmeer. So I got this painting truck with ladders, Tony's power washing and paint. I raced him. On the way there, I hear the first tower collapses. So I'm like, oh, I'm cursing. And I'm like, motherfuckers. My Dominican guy don speak English He doesn really hear but he knows something bad He knows the towers so now i get another 20 minutes uh 10 minutes later or whatever and i hear the second tower come down and i was out of light i put my foot on the brake and i just started crying i was on the on the steering wheel because i knew how many guys just got killed you know from this whole deal oh oh i was crushed so you like yeah at that point did you know because you were privy to the information of, or you just knew how it worked? You just knew the way it works. You know, they, they called in everything once those planes hit, you know. Could you have gone back in or you weren't, you weren't even allowed to go in? When? Like at that moment, since you had just gotten off of a shift? No. Well now I'm, I'm re I, I raced to the, the, uh, rabbi's house. I throw the ladders, the paint. I knock on the rabbi's door. I says, listen, uh, rabbi, I'm a fireman from New York city. I got to go to the trade center. I knew he knew it because I could hear the TV on inside. So he's like, okay. I said, Roberto's going to take care of everything. I told Roberto, listen, I don't know when I'm going to see you again. But he's like, no worry, no problem. My boss, I take care. He was such a great guy. So now I'm racing with my van and I'm going in and out of the L, out onto the elevated train. And I've got my hand on the horn and I'm pedal to the metal. And everybody's probably looking like, what the fuck is with that painter? I'm in on the wrong side of traffic. I'm just like the French connection. I'm in and out of fucking cars. I get to the firehouse and it's chaotic. Everybody's running in. What are we going to do? Who's going? How are we going to get there? One guy said he was taking a boat because my firehouse in Howard Beach was on a canal. Yeah, so my friend Whipper comes in. He's got a Suburban. And my friend Bobby comes. And he was like, I'm going in with my Suburban. Whoever wants to go, I'm leaving now. And were there some guys that did not want to go, did not want to be involved? No, everybody went. Wow. Yeah, so we grabbed our gear. A lot of guys went to a staging area. They made that mistake because they got stuck at the staging area. We took my friend Suburban right to the pile, right there. I mean, we were heading down Woodhaven Boulevard. And it was no traffic? It was traffic. I mean, the shit hit the fan already. So the Whip is driving crazy, my friend the Whipper. And I'm like, Whip, don't get anybody killed. There were enough people already, you know, slow down a little. So we get to the LIE and the cops have it shut off, the entrance to the Long Island Expressway. So I stick my turnout code out the window and they move the cop cars and they wave us in you know So now That had to feel crazy It was man I mean obviously there excitement probably a ton of adrenaline Fucking adrenaline What are we going to do when we get there? Right. We said, we're going to be an ambulance. We're going to take bodies and we're going to rush them to the hospital. That's what we figured. So now we're racing down there and we get to the Midtown Tunnel and my friend Whip is a driver, man. He's the best. We're doing a hundred and we're going through the Midtown Tunnel and it's like a time warp with the lights and the yellow bricks and we're doing 100 miles an hour. We come out, we head downtown, you know, by the Midtown Tunnel, we head down. He takes us right to the rubble and we get out of the car and it's dark like an eclipse and all the stuff is coming down on us, all the paper and the ash. It was dark, the walls were standing still. Did it look something like this or it looked different? Just like that, only that's a few days, a week later or whatever maybe. but it was dark, and when we got out of the car, we couldn't breathe. So we had to rip up T-shirts, and we put them around our faces to breathe, and then I noticed there was an old hardware store right across the street with, like, a glass door. So I grabbed a tire iron. I went over. I smashed the door open, and we all went in. We grabbed ropes and masks and sledgehammers. Whatever, cops came in behind us. Everybody was grabbing shit. So now we start to climb, you know, and it was like, the top of the trade center was only about six stories high now, you know, and we were climbing and there was nobody around. It was quiet, dark, eerie. And we heard all the pass alarms going off that when firemen aren't moving, it makes a screechy noise. And you could hear that all around, you know, and there was maybe one or two other firemen. We were the only ones there. And we were going in and out of voids, in and out of voids, going, anybody hear us banging on shit and waiting to see if that happens, and nobody, nobody. Finally, we worked our all the way up to the roof of the Trade Center, which was AstroTurf, and now you could see, and it looked like it went on for a mile. It was like a movie set. It was so crazy. And on one side was the EAB Bank, and it was on fire. And they had mesh, like the black mesh covering it, and all you saw was the black mesh and the flames coming out. It was like satanic. Oh, it was so creepy. And so we were climbing all around, inside and out of voids. And we did this for like maybe about one o We got there at 1130 And my friend Bobby says Tony my throat closing up We got to get water So I said, Whip, we got to get water. We got to head to the street. Now it's like 1 o'clock. People are coming in from everywhere. Firemen, cops, firemen, the National Guard was coming in. So we worked our way to the street. And then we needed water. and there was a guy, a Wall Street guy with expensive suit on covered in cement dust and he had a bottle of water, you know, like- Those big bottles? The big bottle and he was going around giving everybody water and, you know, trying to wash their eyes out and shit. And we were just waiting our turn to get some of that water. And as we were doing that, these four women, they come out of nowhere. They set up two barrels, a piece of plywood. They had one, the bread and peanut butter and jelly, and they started making sandwiches out of nowhere. It humbled. And I got a little emotional because it was like, you know, to see all these people coming together right at this time, no matter what your race, creed, color, working together. So we passed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We had the water and we went back. But before we got up, a deputy gets up on a car and he yells to whoever can hear. you know and it was like six truck we just got a call they're trapped they're in a shaft and we're gonna find them we were like this is the first time we're hearing anybody's alive we're like yeah yeah so we will everybody starts running for get gear and there's a rescue truck that was crushed and we ran over to the rescue truck and we started opening up compartments i grabbed a jackhammer. We grabbed some big-ass jackhammer, bits, bottles for air, and now we start heading out to look for them. You at least had a mission. Oh, we were on a mission now. Now we're looking for it. So now another two hours climbing up and down these... But meanwhile, Building 7, which is the big building everybody talks about, was on fire from the moment we got there. Every floor. Really? It burned every floor. And what caused that fire? Just the collapse. You know, they had the two trade centers. Oh, the collapse of the other? The collapse right in front of them, yeah. There was a lot of buildings on fire. So now we're working up and down, and I take a fall. I fall into a void, and I fall on my right shoulder, and my Bobby comes running over. He's like, kiddo, you want to play? so now we uh we're working up and down and i take a fall my phone to a void and i fall on my right so now we uh we're working up and down and i take a fall my phone to a void and i fall on my right shoulder and my bobby comes running over he's like kiddo you all right i said yeah i fucking hurt my shoulder he helps me up i take the jackhammer i throw it into a void i'm like fuck this shit we had no radios we didn't know if they found anybody or anything oh excuse me my pin it was almost impossible it was impossible finally we threw all this shit down because it was a couple hours already climbing again and when you're climbing up these big jagged pieces of concrete in and out in and out and we made our way into a uh a store like a high-end store that was maybe three stories up and we went in through the window because that's up what high because the rubble was that high so we crawled into their window and it was a high-end women's store and it's dusty and dark and and we're crawling around i'm looking under all the clothes to see if there's any We're yelling, anybody here? Anybody here? Nobody there. So we worked our way back out. And now we went to the Marriott, which was a hotel right there. And we came in one of these big broken windows. It was right there at Ground Zero, huh? Yeah. And we climbed down the debris into the lobby of the hotel. We're the only ones there, you know? So we're like, holy shit, look at this place, you know? We're looking around. And it was kind of kept okay? It was a big lobby. No, there was ash and broken glass and shit, but it wasn't collapsed. Right. So I said, look over there. I see a fireman sitting at one of those little desks in the lobby. We're like, holy shit. So we go running over. First fireman we're seeing, you know, and he's covered in shit, you know, no helmet. He's like pale white. He's in shock. And he's sitting there, and we're like, holy shit, buddy, you okay, okay? And he turns and he looks at me, and it's one of the young guys that got on rotation. He just left our house and they sent them to Manhattan. We called him Monkey Man. Wow. I'm like, holy shit, Monkey, what the fuck? And he just, he looked up at me and he said, all my guys are dead. They're all dead. And we were like, oh shit. And I'm like kind of rubbing his shoulder. My other guys are like, Monkey, Monkey, you all right? You all right? And he was in shock, you know? So we're like, look, Monkey, we got to go, man. You know, you're okay. We're going to leave you here. And it was funny because the phone was on the table with the little messenger light blinking. It was the weirdest sight, you know? And we left him, we climbed back out, out the window back onto the debris It a long day Yeah we were there till like 9 at night from 11 in the morning So we were going along we found a hose line believe it or not a hose line all the way from the Hudson. And there was a big opening with like a void that had black smoke was pouring out of it. So we had the line and for about an hour and a half, we just sat there. We're building seven, about a hundred yards away from us burning. And we sat there and one guy would go around through the voids and the other two guys would just hold the hose line pouring into this hole from hell I mean it was like it was horrible so all of a sudden we're doing that and we see this chief and he says he starts yelling at us he's between us and building seven and he says drop that line get out of here this building's gonna come down so we were like holy shit okay we cracked it open a little wedged it into some rocks so the water would keep going down the hole and we took off and we were like hey it was like five o'clock we're like we're hungry we're thirsty we're tired we're covered in shit let's go back to the rig his suburban and we'll go uptown and we'll get something to eat and then we'll come back so we we get off the pile like where's the car i think it's a few blocks this way so now we're heading down and there's nobody around still i mean as far as you know besides farming coming in so i don't know if you ever heard of Penny Crone, but she was like a popular reporter on Fox News. She was a real tough girl. Yeah, Penny Crone. And I don't know if she was Fox, but there she is. It's very well-known New York reporter. She was out there on the street? She was in the street when we were walking and she had a microphone and a cameraman. She came running up to us. She's like, guys, guys, can you give me some information what's like down there? So the three of us are standing there and she puts this big microphone in front of me and she goes can you tell me i said oh it's bad really bad she put it in front of my other friend bobby bad he says horrible my other friend says the same thing she's getting nothing out of us she's like she pulls back you know to ask us another question and i'm like holy shit look over there and there's this asian woman covered in dirt bleeding from her head and she's got a suitcase in her hand so like we run over to her we're like man man are you okay she was in shock or whatever and she just kept like looking. My friend went to take the suitcase. She yanked it back, you know, and then she just walked away and we were like, holy shit, that was weird. What do you think in that suitcase My friend said money She had that grip on that thing It was full of money Batch of yen in there I bet A lot of yen Wow Some egg rolls I don't know. But we got to the Suburban, and it was covered. Now it was green. It was now gray. So we all get in, and it was like, you know, the seats, the leather seats were like, oh. We were squishing our backs in. We were getting comfortable. I was almost 40 at that time. I can't even imagine. and the fact is you're alive. Like you've been through, I can't even imagine like what your body's going through. Oh, we were beat, covered in shit. And so it was funny because he put the car on and he started up and he put the air conditioner on and it blew smoke, it blew dust at us. Like Lily Munster's vacuum cleaner. I'm like, oh, everybody's getting a choke in, the thing's blowing smoke out all the dust. We're like, thanks, we needed that. Now we're heading uptown, even with the windows open, the dust is flying off the rig and we go up to 16 truck up in midtown somewhere and uh we take a break i go in we get a drink of water i call my wife what has she been thinking i don't know it's like you know 5 30 oh i forgot to say before we got to the car building seven collapsed oh we just missed it we heard a roar my friend said seven just came down so we were like holy shit we just We just missed it. But you've been near that all day down there. All day. It was burning. Because there's a lot of speculation about Building 7 over the years. I think it's all bullshit. You do? Because I was there, yeah. I mean, it kind of gets me a little, because I don't know what really happened that day. Who knows, you know, who was involved, whatever. I have no idea. Right. But all I know is Building 7 was burning all day long from first floor to the top floor, every window. So, you know, people were saying there was explosions. But you saw firsthand that it had been kind of cooking all that. And all the firemen that I ever talked to that were there that day, everybody says there was no fucking explosions. They have all these things. Like the other day, I thought I saw an AI bullshit thing about guys saying they heard explosions. Like they're putting that out on the internet, and it looks real. You think they're really firemen. You got to be careful today. You never know what's real. Oh, yeah. I agree with that. You can't tell. You can almost tell a little bit today, but imagine a few years from now with the AI, you'll never be able to tell. Yeah. You'll need like an AI detection kit. They probably will have that. Yeah. Maybe we can get in on that. We could come up with it first. Yeah, okay, sure. I mean if that what we met for today to be able to start that and like keep that out of the world Yeah that could have saved the world What about over time with 9 There been a lot of conspiracy theories and stuff like that Has any of that grown in the world of the fire department culture or anything like that Or is it person by person? Because you guys were one of the most affected groups, you know? Yeah, 343 men we lost that day. It's hard to even get over that number. Yeah, it was a lot. And we knew it was a lot. when we got we left 16 truck we stopped at a Genovese drugstore and somewhere in Manhattan and we went in and we got a couple of bottles of water about four giant Milky Ways and some batteries for our flashlights so now we're covered in shit you know we're up at the counter and the young girl's ringing us up and she goes you guys come from the trade center so my friend Bobby says what gives you that idea so she just like looked and grinned she's like no charge for you guys. So we took off. We ate our Milky Ways. We had our water. And then we went back to the pile. Is there a picture from that day, Nick? If you have it, just pull it up. Don't even wait for me to see that. That's my two buddies. That was like a couple of weeks later. That's Whip and the other guy? That's my friend Andrew and Marty. You would have to go down and work at the trade center. And it was very unhealthy. A lot of guys got cancer. A lot of guys died after the trade center. We just had a breathing expert in the other day, this guy, James Nestor, and he has a New York Times bestseller, a book called Breath. And he talks about, is it ground zero? Ground zero. Ground zero lung? Ground glass lung. Oh, okay. He talks about ground glass lung. Yeah, the glass. It's a condition that happened to a lot of people who were first responders at ground zero. Have you heard about this? Yeah. Well, I never heard about the ground glass, but of course the breathing, everybody was in, you know, you, if you were there for like a month or two, some guys were there two, three, four months. My friend Bobby was there the whole time. You know, he, he just got his nephew on the job. It was his nephew's first job and he was in the troll. He was there every day looking for his body day and night. Looking for his nephew? Nephew, yeah. For his sister. Yeah. I was... God, that's heartbreaking, huh? Yeah, he's a good guy. He's a great guy, too. Who, his nephew? No, my friend Bobby. This is his, he's the boxing, he runs the fire department boxing team. He is? Bring him on. Let's get a picture of him. Bobby, you see him on there. Bobby McGuire, FD. My friend Bobby, this is his. My friend Bobby, this is his. He's the boxing. He runs the fire department boxing team. He is? Bring him on. Let's get a picture of him. Bobby McGuire. You see him on there. Bobby McGuire, FDNY boxing. He's a Golden Glove champ. Is he a pretty interesting guy? Oh, you wouldn't. I don't know if you know the Knicks, but his uncles are Dickie McGuire and Al McGuire and Marquette. The Knicks? Yeah. Oh, there he is. His father was John McGuire, and he was like a big guy in New York. Jimmy Breslin actually called him the king of Queens because he opened the first gay bar in Queens back in the day. Oh, that's incredible, man. Yeah. He sounds like an interesting guy. I'd love to get to meet him sometime. I bet he's got some great stories too just from the boxing history of it. You know, Joey Diaz used to shovel ice out of James J. Braddock's driveway over in Jersey. Yeah, yeah. I heard him say that. That's pretty wild. He'd give him a couple of bucks. Yeah, he'd give him a couple of bucks. And Joey would be like, this guy's been punched in the head so many times, he thought he gave me a five, he gave me a ten. But that's just a wild story right there. Yeah, yeah. Oh, go back and show the guys. That's Marty right there. That's Bobby. That's Bobby. Bobby McGuire. Bobby McGuire. And what was his nephew's name? Do you remember? No, I don't remember. My wife might, but I don't. Alan. His name was Alan. Alan. He was a lifeguard in Rockaway, the kid. His last name was Allen, and he just started on the- He just started. It was like his first job. And Bobby was there, and his breathing is, you know, he's had a lot of breathing problems. Once you're there too long. So anyway, they're having a fight in Madison Square Garden in March. We fight the cops every year. Yeah? It's called the Battle of the Badges. Who's won over time, over the years? Who's won the most, do you think? Well, you know, the cops are double the amount of pool that they can get. They're twice as big an organization as us. You know, we're like 30,000. They're like 60,000. But we still, we get some good fighters, and we beat them quite a few times. We fight. They fight everywhere. They fight in England. They fight in Ireland. Oh, really? Yeah, they'll fight any fire department, any cops. So Bobby and his gang, they kind of, this is like a thing they do all year? All year, yeah. Oh, he's so busy. So he runs this, the FDNY Boxing Club? Yeah. Oh, wow. They raise hundreds of thousands for Tunnels to Towers every year And what is Tunnels to Towers That with the World Trade Center Foundation where the guy's brother ran through from Staten Island. He ran through the tunnel to get to the Trade Center, and he passed away. And so they started this organization, and it's huge. Oh, that's beautiful, man. We'll make a donation to him. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, right here. Born from the tragedy of 9-11, the Tunnels to Towers Foundation carries out its mission to do good by providing mortgage-free homes to gold star and fallen first responder families with young children and building specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. Wow. They ran through the tunnel with their gear on to get to Manhattan. Oh, the FDNY Boxing Club is comprised of active duty members, FDNY and EMS, who train on their own time, established in 1982. FDNY Boxing has spent 40 years raising funds for worthwhile charities through spirited competition. Yeah, man, we'll make a donation to them. Yeah, I'm going. Bravest boxing team will defend the Big Apple in the second international battle of the badges, huh? The funny thing is the best fights are in the crowd, the cops and the firemen going at it. Holy shit, the brawls. One time I was there and this girl cop, you know, She was bad-mouthing some fireman, and she threw a soda at the guy. And the one fireman says, hey, you know, I don't hit firemen. The other fireman said, I do. And he clocked her. Oh, yeah. Boom, she went flying over the thing. The whole fight broke out. It was crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, why don't you throw a soda at you? Yeah. And with all the people getting sex changes now, you don't know who's got what on them. Exactly. You know, I'm not frisking you first to find out. Yeah, what are you packing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. um how has the how has the department changed since you got involved in now well from when i was got on and then in like in uh the early uh late 90s mid 90s computers came in and that changed a lot computers and now uh digital things we had fax machines and computers and that changed a lot of things before it was just writing in a book you know now more things are more digital so they had a little more eyes on you. You couldn't get away with as much. Right, a lot more technology, stuff like that. Yeah, because back in the day, the bosses ran the firehouse. There was nobody else that knew what was going on. Whatever they put in the book is what it was. Yeah In fact when I bought my house it was a funny story I was 24 And I told my boss I told the bank yeah this is where I work if you want to check on my employment And I gave him the number to the truck office. So I said, this is what I make. And it was like twice what I was making. He's like, ah, you can't say that. I said, just tell the bank. Don't worry about it. And it worked. Yeah. What did Christine say when you called her that? It must have been crazy. Oh, yeah. Well, her sister answered the phone, Bernie. And I was like, Bernie. And she's like, Tony, how the fuck are you? What's going on? I said, oh, my God. We just got out of the firehouse. We're taking a break. We're all OK. And I'll talk to my wife, tell her I love her. And I'll see her in a bit. I'll call her later. So I hung up. And we went back to the pile. So now we get back on the pile. It's like, what do we want? First, we're walking along. And guys are like seeing other guys that you know. you're hugging so my friend Bobby sees a guy they're hugging and I'm standing there like on a plateau and this guy hits me another fireman he goes buddy you're standing on somebody and I was like oh shit I looked down and this guy in this three-piece suit he's like part of the ground he's looking up at me and I'm like oh my god that was the first body I saw all day ah yeah so now we're like okay so now we're moving along what do you want to do they started a bucket brigade I don't know, we must have had a thousand Home Depot buckets, and you would pass a bucket and take a bucket. Just move the water along. For like hours we were doing that, you know. Like Tantasia. Yeah, it was getting dark out. The day was getting, it was like around 7.30, 8 o'clock. And so now we're doing this for hours. My back is killing me. And all of a sudden we hear all this yelling. Everybody's yelling and cheering. It's 9.30 at night, you know, at 9 o'clock. We're like, what is that? What is that? And my friend Bobby goes, look, look over there, down there. And we looked down, and here comes a parade of iron workers with heavy machinery, cranes. They got their hard hats on, cut-off shirts. Everybody's got their fists in the air. They're all hanging off the machines. Everybody's cheering like we won the Super Bowl. It was a drop in the bucket, but they got right to work, started taking off all the heavy shit. I mean, it had months, almost a year to go, but it was just a start. Yeah. And it just felt so good. Like we had a chance. Yeah. And then finally we were like, you know, let's start heading home, you know? And I met a few guys heading home and I was thinking in the back of my mind all the guys you know that that that got killed We had no idea how many yet Can even imagine And I run into a friend of mine and he was off in a rescue company And I said, hey, John. He said, Tony, how you doing? He goes, you know, Tony, Jerry was working. Jerry was like one of my best friends. And I was like, oh, God, I just like stepped back. Because I knew he was in Rescue 1. I was devastated. my friend whipped sore and he put his arm around me he said come on who knew let's go let's leave and i was like uh i was i'm still emotional over it it's heartbreaking what was his name jerry what jerry nevins jerry nevins let's see a picture of him huh funny story when he told me he was going to leave to go to rescue i was like you motherfucker are you fucking kidding me it was like as everybody was leaving you know i was there 15 years i was losing guys left and right they were getting made lieutenant he wanted to go to a rescue company we used to bash rescue all the time rescue is like a special company you know when when a when a truckie or a fireman gets in trouble they send a rescue guy to get them they're like expertise they're like the marines or whatever kind of or no like well the marines but they're like specialists is that jerry yeah it's jerry oh there he is and they were on 42nd street rescue one so they're right in the middle of Times Square. Oh, they were there. Oh, he made so many rescues. It was amazing. Wow. So he enjoyed it once he got over there. Oh, I used to go to some medal days and he'd be there and, you know, two, three medals, you know, hanging off of buildings, scaffoldings. He'd say, you know, it was a lot of times in Midtown, the scaffoldings would break and they'd have to go over ropes and get these guys. And yeah, he was just a great find. But when he told me he was going to rescue, I was crushed. I was like, you got to be kidding me. He told me in the middle of a box, we were checking out a building. So now I get back in the rig and we're going down the St. Nicholas Avenue and I turn the ladder all the way out. So now it looks like a square, you know, and I'm like this way looking at him. He's looking, he's like, what the fuck? I'm like, fuck you. And we straighten it out. Now we're crossing over Amsterdam Avenue and I see them put the lights on like, okay, we're getting a run. I see the boss on the phone, you know, and he's, he's taking down the information, and puts his arm out like, we gotta run, sounds like a job, numerous calls. Numerous calls means you're going to work. That means people are calling, you know, I see a fire, I see a fire, I see a fire. Right, it's not just some weirdo with a Ouija board, yeah. Yeah, no Ouija boards, no fake alarms. you're going to work. you're going to work. That means people are calling. I see a fire, I see a fire, I see a fire. Right, it's not just some weirdo with a Ouija board. Yeah, no Ouija boards, no fake alarms. You hear numerous calls, you know you're going to work. So now we go around Broadway, and I see we come up, and it's the second floor. It's blowing out like four windows. And there's an awning with off the fire escape on the second floor, and it's still not fire out. I got to get in there. I'm the OV. That's my job. so now I'm getting a ladder out I'm putting the ladder up the Dominican guys in the street they're helping me place the ladder into the thing I climb up the ladder I smash the window out I put my mask on and I drop in now it's blowing all the other rooms this room is getting ready to blow you know it gets hot so now I'm in there and I'm searching around and I get lost I get a little I get pumped into a bureau on my knees and I get disorientated and I'm getting scared because my ears are starting to burn. I know it's going to light up. So, which is crazy. I got caught in a closet. You'd never think, how'd you get caught in a closet, right? But I'm crawling in thinking it's an opening and I turned in there and I'm in this closet. Now I can't get out of the closet. I'm going around in a circle. My ears are burning. And all of a sudden I hear Jerry. he came in behind me and Jerry had a bite bar, which was like totally legal. Instead of having a mask with a net on, it was like you had a little bite bar in the mask. So you didn't need that. You just held it with your teeth, which was totally outlawed, but it made it easier to take it on and off. So I hear him say, Tony, I'm like, Jerry, he's like, you got to get out of here. It's going to light up. I'm like, I can't find my way out. I was like taking my mask off, calling for my mother. I thought I was a dead man. And then all of a sudden, I heard the engine at the door and I heard this guy McCarthy yelling, kick its ass, kick its ass, hit it, hit it. I heard the water coming in and I was like, oh, it was music to my ears. I was going to live again. And then after that, when I was in the street, I was like a zombie, you know? And Jerry was like, yo, what the fuck's wrong with you? I said, dude, that was fucking close. He just laughed, you know? But that was it. He went to rescue the next day. I never even thanked him for coming in after me that day. Oh Man Yeah I mean it just even the stories are so like exhilarating I can imagine like I can even imagine what it like really We were putting a fire out I made a cover of a magazine I think you could bring it up It was called Fire Command I didn't know what it was. You know, it was like one of these buff magazines. Yeah, that's me in the middle. In a neck brace? Yeah. I look like an Italian organ grinder, monkey man, right? I thought you were going to show me how you made the calendar. I got the little ringlets in my hair. I got the bow ties on. And the friend next to me, Kenny, he was a probie. It's a funny story. We had to take this line up, the fire escape, because we got called in as an extra engine. It was a lot of fire. People were trapped. They were having a hard time putting the fire out from the inside. So we're taking the line up the fire. Now I'm in the engine. I'm detailed. I'm never hardly in the engine. But when they need a guy and you got an extra guy, you go across the floor. So now I'm in the engine. And we're taking this line up the fire escape to the fifth floor. And the boss is yelling. This boss is Joe McLaughlin. And he's yelling, Richie, get in there, hit it, hit it. Finally, they charge the line. We tie it off to the fire escape. I mean, it's a lot of water going up that high. He's hitting the water, the guy right here, Richie, that's squinting his eyes. And he's hitting the water. And we're pushing our way in. We made it up to the fire floor escape. We pushed the fire in. And now we're crawling in. We're climbing in through the window. The boss is yelling, they're looking at us, Richie. They're looking at us because we're outside on the fire escape. We get in. The ceiling comes down on our heads. all this hot plaster and shit's fucking burned my neck, so now we're getting in, we get to like, the engine on the other side is coming, and they're making a good push, they're putting the fire out, we're putting the fire out, so now we're at this like, wall with a window, and I'm on top of something, me and another guy, we're like kneeling, I thought it was a pillow from the couch, so the boss tells the probe, you take the line and shoot the water out the window, and it'll take a lot of smoke, so we could start to see what's going on here, and as they're doing that, you can start to see a little, the boss takes his mask off, and he goes, holy shit, look what you're kneeling on. And I look down, and we're kneeling on a corpse with no head, no legs, and no arms, and he's all like a crispy burnt. We're like, ah, we all jump off. We're like, holy shit. I thought it was a couch piece, you know? That's what happened. They killed this guy. They cut him up, and then they lit the place on fire. That's why there's so much fire. You get a lot of fire in the middle of the day, it's usually arson, somebody poured gasoline or something. Oh Yeah So that was a murder huh It was a murder So anyway before that Kenny a probie He probably about 21 years old And he was in softball and he hurt his leg sliding into second base So we were on inspection. I said, Kenny, what happened to your leg? He said, oh, I caught it on softball. I said, oh, that looks fucking terrible. Then we got that run to the fire. So now we're leaving the fire. We're going down the steps. I said, we're all going sick. We're tapping out, right? So I said, we're going to go with our necks from the ceiling coming down. I said, Kenny, take that bandage off and tell them you got burnt on your leg. So we get in the street. The street's busy. It's all fire department cops. There's reporters in the street and everything. And the fire department doctor comes running over to us. And I said, yeah, the ceiling came down on our heads. And he's like, oh. And I says, and this guy got burned on his leg. And he looks, he pulls Kenny's leg up. He looks at the softball injury. And he goes, third degree burns, patch this man right up. So I look at Kenny because he didn't know. It was his first take. So now they take us. We're on the wall, like on Malcolm X Boulevard. And they take us. We said, where's the boss? We don't know where Joe McLaughlin is. So we see a bunch of people standing around. Somebody's on the ground. They're taking pictures. We go over there. We see the boss. He's on the stretcher getting his head taped down. And they're all taking pictures of him. And we're like, Lou, Lou, you okay? You okay? And he looks up. He goes, get the fuck out of my pictures, he says. We're like, he's okay. So they put us in the bus. There he is. Ah, the best, Joe McLaughlin. CPO Joe. He was in the 17 truck in the Bronx in the war years. So he was a well-rounded fireman, tough as nails. Wow. Yeah, so he says, get the fuck out of my pictures. So we're laughing. Everybody's taking pictures of him. So now they take us to the hospital. So we're in the emergency room, Columbia Press, and the young nurses are patching up, and they're laughing with us. And it's a busy emergency room, and Kenny's got his thing on. So all of a sudden this middle-aged head nurse comes in, good-looking woman, probably 40 or so. So she goes to Kenny's leg, and she moves the bandage. She makes a face. She's like, when did this happen? And the kid is sitting there. He's like, oh, we're all looking at him laughing. And she just like patches it up. She goes, you're lucky we love you guys. And we like oh we love you too Busted So about a week or two a couple of weeks later I come into the firehouse and this guy says hey here one of the superstars I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, you made the cover of a magazine. So I'm like, holy shit, you're kidding. So now I go in the kitchen and everybody's clapping and everything. They already have the picture in a frame, right? But they changed it from report on firefighters injuries. They put report on firefighters faking injuries. Yeah, I was going to say, huh? So they put captions on everybody. So you see the woman with her arms crossed and the bandana. Her caption said, I know those motherfuckers are faking. And then there's a cop like walking here and he goes, yeah, chief, I got those fakers right here. And then this salty Harlem fireman is looking at us and his thing says, you guys disgust me. Look at that sad face. Oh, my God. That ringlet hair. I love how you guys already have your neck braces on. Yeah, you got the braces on. Oh, yeah, I kept that in my back pocket. Well, we had a prop closet at home, you know, canes and braces. Oh, that's hilarious. Yeah, so that was that. We made that cover. I still have that hanging today. Oh, just you had to go down to some memory lane, man, just to think about different things. And just to hear about the camaraderie of what, like, the lifestyle was like. Bring up the part about the ground glass lung. I just wanted to make sure that I mention it on here so that people know about it. Let me see. Ground glass lungs refers to a radiological finding on CT scans showing hazy opacities in the lungs, often linked to inflammation or fibrosis from inhaling toxic dust at ground zero. Yeah, pulverized. After the 9-11 attacks. The dust cloud contained over 2,500 contaminants, 50% construction debris, 40% glass fibers, 9% cellulose. Yeah. Inhaling the dust led to World Trade Center lung injury, with firefighters losing up to 12 years of lung function. 70% of workers showed respiratory decline. The longer you worked down there, the worse it was. Yeah. Because the dust really never settled for months. Yeah, it's so crazy to think that it created a new disease. Yeah, probably. Well, think about all those offices, all those fluorescent lights, all those computers, they just got pulverized to a dust. That's why everybody was covered in between that and the cement. It's a dust. Fluorescent lights, all those computers, they just got pulverized to a dust. That's why everybody was covered between that and the cement. It's a lot. Tony, yeah, there's so many more things I want to talk to you about. Maybe we could have you come back sometime. Anytime. And talk about other stuff. Sure. Maybe I'll bring Bobby McGuire with me. Dude. Very interesting man. Is he? Oh, my God. No, he seems very interesting. And I want to get a picture up, too. Is this Richard Allen? Yeah, that's his nephew. That's his nephew right there. Get a picture. His sister's son. Of Richie Allen. Yeah. That's awesome, man. We'd love to maybe get a picture. Every year they acknowledge him in Rockaway. They have a big thing with the lifeguards and everybody. Oh, they do? Yeah, surfer. He was a big surfer. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, I got plenty more stories there. What was the, oh, the murder. That was a good story. You know what? I think I want to save it because there's even some basic, there's like basic questions like, like is, or can't, Like somebody leaving a candle on, is that like the number one cause of a house fire? Maybe house fires, probably bad electrical work and a lot of off fires, arson, big time. Those space heaters. Space heaters. I don't know if you ever heard of the Happy Land Social Club. I don't know. It depends on which one you're talking about. Well, it was in the Bronx. Yeah, it wasn't that kind of happy land. I mean, there's a lot of different versions. But a sad story, but I think like, I'm not sure the number, but you can look it up. 87 people died from a gallon of gas in a match. Yeah, it was horrible. You had to respond to that? I didn't respond, but my friend Sully did. He was detailed out to the Bronx, and they were one of the first trucks there. And when they got in, they were crawling up the stairs, and they didn't know what they were crawling over. And when they finally found out, it was all bodies. It was like crazy. you had happy lands and so a lot of times you don't know what's going on or it used to be you didn't know what's going on until you got in there no probably not you don't know who's who said it you're just you're just the adrenaline is running man oh my god your hearts are pumping and thought you'd never get it never gets like gold you know oh my bad uh how many years like they would say we'd get there and be a top floor fire now you got to carry that mask all your gear everything by the time you get to that sixth floor and you got to put a mask on you suck in air You like now you got to put this little man in the mask is like the man breathing So you only get air And I'd be in my mask. Like I'm getting out of this fucking city. I'm going to Queens. I thought Queens would be an easier job for me. Westchester. Send me to Westchester. Anywhere. I'm getting out of this fucking ghetto. Wow. Well, um, yeah, Tony, thanks so much for your service, man. Yeah. I I would love to just have you come back sometime and just be able to just go down. Like there's some other roads I want to go down and learn more about it. Oh, that'd be great. And just, but yeah, I think today we just got a really good idea of just kind of the brotherhood. Great. Of, yeah, just what your journey has been like, kind of getting involved with fire departmenting. Oh, what did your wife end up getting a job in? My wife? Yeah. She worked for a printer and then she worked for a dentist. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like dental assistant and kind of stuff? She ran the whole, like, you know, yeah, took the phone calls. Oh, yeah. Did all the billing. Keeping everything organized. Yeah, she ran it. Yeah, yeah. You know, my wife was a hard worker. Yeah, that's nice. Like I said, she bought her first car when, you know, we were 17 with her own money. Four grand. She bought a Chevette. Oof. Red Chevette. Oh, dude, if I saw a girl with a car, yeah, I'm going with her. Yeah, I was like, wow, this girl's got her own car. Yeah. On her own money. No, mom didn't buy it, you know. That's my, I think the number one thing I'm looking for in a spouse is hard working. Yeah. Because life's hard work. Yeah, you can't try. You can't do the door lock anymore, right? Because now they're all electric. You always used to say, if the girl gets in the car and don't open your door, she's out. Yeah. So there's all these little tests. But yes, my wife was a hard worker and a great mother. Yeah, it's a nice thing too. Oh, yeah. It's funny because all them years of being in the fire department, I'd come home sometimes and say, oh, my God, I had a fire. Top floor was burning. I'm telling them all this stuff. And then she'd be like, did you remember that we have to go to school tomorrow? And I'd be like, I just told you this whole story. It seemed like it went right over your head. You're like, blah, blah, blah. We get it. Yeah, every fire you've been to. Matches. Go spit that black tar in the sink again like you always do. Oh, yeah, behind every good fireman, huh? Oh, yeah, it's the wives. I got some pictures of the fire department wives. Well, look, you can show me that. As long as they're appropriate, you can show me. Oh, they're appropriate. Okay. Good girls Wild you know a lot of them are Bronx girls Well look these days oh yeah tough women over there yes that what you need in the world you need a good strong lady this is your book right here tales from the tiller yes i didn't even know you had written this yeah i wrote this it just came out in september last september yeah great book dude congratulations yeah a lot of good stories in there and I got recipes in there. Oh, for sure. Clam sauce casino. I think you might like that. Bro, I'll tell you this. I took a gal out the other night, went to a place, they had clams and white wine sauce. That's kind of like, oh, you would love the clam sauce casino. Really? Well, you know, clams casino, you know, they put the peppers and the onions and a little bacon on it and then they bake them. No, I've never had that. Louisiana didn't have clam sauce casinos. They might have had it. We had macaroni. There it is. Oh, yeah, that looks good. So I make it. This guy that got in trouble and was sent to our firehouse, and it was one of his meals, and I took it from him. And we make it with the spaghetti. So we put it over with the peppers, the bacon, the onions, breadcrumb, and the clams. Oh, I want that. I'm a clam guy. Have you seen that kid that says that? No. Bring up that clam kid. I love this kid. But of course that a fireman's book would have fires with recipes thrown in. Yeah, it's funny because some of the stories are like tragedy, and then it goes right into the recipe. It's a little weird, but that kid that does the Italian words. No, no, no. I'm looking for the kid. Yeah, this kid's hilarious. But what did I just ask you for, Nick? The clam guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a clam guy. Kid, have you seen this little kid? No, I didn't see him. This kid, they interviewed him. We'll finish on him Alright I'm a guy who only basically likes Clams really I'm a clam guy That's all I do All he eats, he looks like it Clams are awesome I hated oysters Kids getting a little bit weird But yeah, that guy's a clam guy He's getting a little weird But I could see you guys just like You guys show up at a fire But you also brought dinner I know that has to be preheat, that has to be heated up. So you're like taking it up to the fire with you, leaving it on the ledge. As soon as you sit down to eat, the tone alarm goes off. Oh, every time, huh? And what happens is we have a big thing of foil paper and one guy just starts cutting the foil papers off and the other guys start wrapping this Taking it to go Otherwise the cockroaches will walk away We had so many cockroaches in the firehouse Oh my God You can never get rid of them Oh God Yeah. We'll have to hear about it next time. You have a book, Tales from the Tiller, the true stories of heroism, heartbreak, and humor, the luckiest guy alive in his journey in the FDNY. That's awesome. Yeah, starts with some of my jobs before that, and then right through to the academy, and right up to retirement. How did you put it together? Just me and my son. Oh, yeah? And my wife, yeah. Oh, that's excellent. Yeah, it was all in-house. And my brother-in-law, who was in Seattle, he worked for Microsoft. He did all the proofreading. Did he? Funny story is, you know, he threw his shoulder out working the mouse doing all my corrections because every chapter had like a thousand corrections on it. Well, that sounds like an insurance scam. But that'll be the next book, you know? But no, this is awesome. People are already telling me, when are you going to write another book? I'm like, well, I'm just trying to get this one out now. It's hard. I go on the Instagram. That helps. And there's always some asshole. You write one book. He's like, when's your next book coming out? And that guy, he can't even read. It's always people that can't read. Yeah, what's my next one going to be? Like more tales from the till? There you go. Hey, if it sells. You never know, man. Well, I've enjoyed your time today, man. Thanks for thinking with us. Oh, me too. And just kind of taking us on a little bit of a journey. Yeah, we had so many questions for today. So I'd love to be able to get to more of them. Yeah, I can't believe how fast it went. Another time. I know. When you're having fun. Hey. You're the man. I'm just glad we're not on fire in here today, man. I really am, dude. Checking this lobby out over here, too. It's about a thousand years old over here. I know. This place is pretty cool, man. Yeah, it's cool. If you get to go to this, like a bar over there and a restaurant just at each end. I went and I looked at them. Yeah, it's just cool. It's funny because I've been in big hotels in Manhattan before and the lobbies are tremendous. I mean, there's stores and restaurants. So I thought it was going to be like I've never been to the Chelsea. Yeah, this is a nice place to come if you just come for a meal or something. Like they went to the bar last night. It's nice in there, huh? This is the suite. Yeah, this is one of the suites. But, yeah, it just feels like, I don't know. To me, it just feels like a lot more chill here. Yeah, definitely. And relaxed. But thank you for your service. I want to say that. Thank you for coming today and helping to share memories of some of your comrades that have fallen over the years and that have also served. And we appreciate it. And we appreciate your wife and son, Dominic. we'll have to put a picture of all of them together at the end of the episode. And thanks again, man. Thank you. Yep, we had a good time. It was a pleasure, man, and an honor. Well, I appreciate it, Tony. Thank you very much. Thank you. of them together at the end of the episode and uh and thanks again man thank you yep what a good of them together at the end of the episode and uh and thanks again man thank you yep what a good pleasure man and an honor well i appreciate it tony thank you very much thank you now i'm just floating on the breeze and i feel i'm falling like these leaves i must be cornerstone oh but when i reach that ground i'll share this peace of mind i found i can feel it In my bones Thought it's gonna take