Speaker 1: That's so funny.
Speaker 2: Disclaimer, we'd like to know before the start of this
Speaker 2: interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the
Speaker 2: guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of
Speaker 2: the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the
Speaker 2: views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Speaker 3: You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience podcast.
Speaker 4: A low.
Speaker 1: In a world. We go, well bye, you know it's
Speaker 1: again in Salty Experience podcast. I'm gonna say this, it's
Speaker 1: the only one that brings the fly house gets a
Speaker 1: table to you.
Speaker 5: Fucking brilliant, great idea, actually says it, but behind you,
Speaker 5: it actually says it behind me? You know?
Speaker 1: Made that my boy Frankie something yep, Frankie, because I
Speaker 1: think we would say that since State one, which is
Speaker 1: like five years ago.
Speaker 5: But anyway, I think that what what shirt do you
Speaker 5: have on there? Kobe?
Speaker 1: I got my met shirt on my just for Gonzo
Speaker 1: this right yere, little one?
Speaker 5: Who is that? Who is that guy?
Speaker 1: So this is a guy that decided to play for
Speaker 1: the Mets and maybe not the Yankees. I don't have
Speaker 1: after how amount of money? Oh seven hundred million?
Speaker 6: No, oh, yeah, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Over seven hundred million to play life and for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Was it a fifteen years, ten
Speaker 1: year contract, ten year contract, something like that?
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: Once he left, I was like, who's.
Speaker 1: Not to mention? He probably made three hundred million already,
Speaker 1: I would say in his Korea?
Speaker 5: Right he speak English? Yes?
Speaker 6: I don't know how well he speaks this kind of English.
Speaker 1: English. We hired him. He barely speaks English. Million, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Anyway, we got a good guess
Speaker 1: coming on tonight. This guy felt chemistry with him already
Speaker 1: in the beginning. The funny guy been in a busy place,
Speaker 1: tell you that much? Any engine doing it? We're engine
Speaker 1: rock broke the room going around the districts? Less shot.
Speaker 5: Are you talking about? I'm trying to get rid of.
Speaker 1: Gonzo? Is irreplaceable? Right? What will we do without Pete?
Speaker 1: I mean Gonzo?
Speaker 5: But we're going to sell all those plastic knickknacks to
Speaker 5: all the time gods, what do you what are you
Speaker 5: gonna do with that that fdmy patch we were talking
Speaker 5: about in the pre show.
Speaker 6: We're gonna get a gold chain that's gonna be right here.
Speaker 5: Ye, Hey, where do you work? You know where I work,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: All the only place to be could springs ag. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well we do it heavy, that's.
Speaker 5: What you like to call it. Yes, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's play some commercials so we can bring a guy
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Speaker 1: There you go. Tonight's health and safety tip is listen
Speaker 1: if you have a problem. When you suspect to have
Speaker 1: a problem, other they're telling you have a problem with
Speaker 1: maybe something like this. You know what a problem is.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of places that the job offers, plenty of
Speaker 1: opportunities to get help. Quitting anything. It could be gambling,
Speaker 1: could be smoking, you could be drinking whatever it is,
Speaker 1: gonzo and crack anything that you think landering you help
Speaker 1: and filandering. I don't know if you can help you
Speaker 1: with that. But whatever it is, reach out. There's always
Speaker 1: help available, all the brothers of there for you always.
Speaker 1: That's all I got. Let's problem.
Speaker 5: Let me just say this quick. When I was talking
Speaker 5: to our guest, uh this past couple of weeks, he
Speaker 5: actually started his podcast, The Kitchen Table basically four or
Speaker 5: geared towards mental health. Really, yes, he did. So that'll
Speaker 5: just be another nugget that you'll love him about.
Speaker 1: You know what I love about him. Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have him. He might be a third. He might be
Speaker 1: a substitute if I'm out or Louis out from now on,
Speaker 1: there we go. If guns is out, we might have
Speaker 1: him as a third.
Speaker 5: He's got good hair. He's got better hair than me,
Speaker 5: and you could that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Well that's not hard, bro, I can get a newborn.
Speaker 1: Baby's got better ahead of me. You kidding me? Forst's sake?
Speaker 5: Put an at. I just got a hecker today. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna put an ahead. Wow, what did I say?
Speaker 1: Eat it? Joe's what.
Speaker 6: Mama's house.
Speaker 1: Guy who created the fire Hours Kitchen Table. Bro, Let's
Speaker 1: get him into here.
Speaker 6: Let's do it all right, You're ready, Yeah, I'm ready?
Speaker 1: Are you ready?
Speaker 5: I'm going to the stay jef d n Why Firefighter
Speaker 5: Kenny Delaney?
Speaker 1: What is that behind you?
Speaker 3: Bro?
Speaker 7: What I was feeling? I was feeling a little nervous.
Speaker 7: Being on the number one podcast.
Speaker 6: Was a little I.
Speaker 7: Got a little nerves going. So I thought I'd get
Speaker 7: a little more comfortable and put.
Speaker 1: Up my sign.
Speaker 7: Really the table, like make me feel like I'm the
Speaker 7: host and I'm interviewing you guys.
Speaker 1: You know what it is that is so original? I
Speaker 1: can't tell you that isn't it?
Speaker 5: You know what?
Speaker 1: Did we just become best friends?
Speaker 5: Yep?
Speaker 6: Ye, it was a little bit more wow.
Speaker 7: I when I came up with this. First of all,
Speaker 7: it was active you came up, but okay, get ahead.
Speaker 2: Ye.
Speaker 7: In the kitchen table we were talking, I was like,
Speaker 7: I thought I was a genius. I was like, this
Speaker 7: is the best name. Everybody will watch it. It'll be great.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 7: Then I upload stuff and there's like a hundred kitchen
Speaker 7: tables and you guys stayed the kitchen table.
Speaker 1: Really, you know you know what, Kenny, I took the
Speaker 1: liberty of let me show you this. So you think
Speaker 1: that maybe you did come up with maybe not? You
Speaker 1: steal and that bring to you the kitchen table, the
Speaker 1: firehouse kitchen table, you know, the one rough right, the
Speaker 1: whole of a thousand stories.
Speaker 5: The unit nothing ahead again, I ve my sorn horn
Speaker 5: and go.
Speaker 4: And a word.
Speaker 1: We welcome back to the unmuted version of the Getting
Speaker 1: Soult Experienced podcast. That's the only one. We don't bring
Speaker 1: only the kitchen table anymore. I'm not saying anymore. Guns.
Speaker 1: We bring the whole fire house experience to you. Bro,
Speaker 1: you could be the Philippines. I don't know. You could
Speaker 1: be a set of word.
Speaker 5: We go.
Speaker 4: We are back, just like Jacob to grub his back way.
Speaker 1: Back at the kitchen table, the firehouse kitchen table, to
Speaker 1: get all these peers podcasts, the only one, the whole one. Well,
Speaker 1: to bring the fire house kitchen table to.
Speaker 4: You in a world we go, man, we would have
Speaker 4: been gone a while. Welcome back to get all these
Speaker 4: peer one. Will we take one day off a week now?
Speaker 1: Thank you. We bring the firehouse kitchen table to you
Speaker 1: once a week. I said it twice. Wow, I don't
Speaker 1: know what I came from. You know, I never saw
Speaker 1: any of those episodes, so I didn't know.
Speaker 5: Kenny, I'll step in here. Listen. We gotta say the
Speaker 5: pledge first.
Speaker 6: Yes, we do, all right, Sorry we ran off the track.
Speaker 3: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States
Speaker 3: of America and to the Republic, for which it stands,
Speaker 3: one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Speaker 5: Still giggling over here, listen, Kenny, we say all the time, man,
Speaker 5: we want, we want, We could wait to get you
Speaker 5: on the show. We wish you the best. But glad,
Speaker 5: I'm glad you put it back up and uh, you know,
Speaker 5: keep it wronging, man, don't give up.
Speaker 1: Appreciate first of all, guys.
Speaker 7: First of all, I mean I am truly honored and
Speaker 7: humble to be on the show that.
Speaker 1: You guys asked me to do it.
Speaker 7: You guys have a long line of warrior guys and
Speaker 7: guys that have just who paved the way for guys
Speaker 7: like me to come on and keep the traditions going
Speaker 7: and do the right thing around the firehouse. And I
Speaker 7: learned from a lot of those guys, So I got big,
Speaker 7: big shoes to fill. You know, I don't have the
Speaker 7: experience that those guys, but I got I got I
Speaker 7: got plenty working in Harlem with guys like Nick and
Speaker 7: and those guys in Big Mac and and God.
Speaker 1: Rest his soul e J. Tierney and Pat Cleary.
Speaker 7: So I mean for you guys to call on me
Speaker 7: and bring me it's really truly humbling experience. I was
Speaker 7: considered you guys the senior guys of the Folluming podcast.
Speaker 1: So I so you know, if you want me to
Speaker 1: go quick you I'll do it. Listen. Kenny the something
Speaker 1: to be said about being one hundred and twenty fifth
Speaker 1: best podcast in the world. You know what I mean? No, no, no.
Speaker 7: When I started mine, I was number seven in Sweden
Speaker 7: for mental health.
Speaker 5: Moving up, moving on up, He's moving up.
Speaker 6: Down.
Speaker 1: Kenny's one of us. Bro get ready fits right in.
Speaker 1: Thank you again, guys.
Speaker 7: I'm really truly humbled and I'm looking hopefully I can
Speaker 7: make you guys laugh, you make the audience laugh.
Speaker 1: And about maybe we do something in trade and maybe
Speaker 1: we have you on a few times and maybe you
Speaker 1: send me that Neon sign back there. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know local pick up only, Yeah, the.
Speaker 5: Warwick guy, he's a Warwick guy. Nice. Yeah, God, you
Speaker 5: know what.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about the podcast little but Whatt's diving too.
Speaker 1: Kenny's career because he's had a very diverse career man.
Speaker 1: Not only in the the fd N Y, but the
Speaker 1: guy's been doing it all over the pops. When you're retired,
Speaker 1: did you bring those bricks with you? Somebody wants to
Speaker 1: know if he took him from fifty nine engine or
Speaker 1: thirty trucks.
Speaker 6: Nobody, Yeah, allegedly, allegedly. I'm sorry, cool, go ahead.
Speaker 5: He wouldn't know that we're going any He was in
Speaker 5: the you know, a slip of a lip sticker ship you.
Speaker 1: Know WHOA that's right, ruff, be good for you, that
Speaker 1: loose slips o rough uh talk gonzo. Let's go back
Speaker 1: to roots here. What's the old school? What's the old
Speaker 1: school tip of the day? What's the word of the day?
Speaker 6: The word of the day? Hold on, hold on, hold on,
Speaker 6: hold on, going back, we're going back to.
Speaker 1: No, I have other thing done it in a while.
Speaker 6: You haven't done it in a while, Big.
Speaker 7: Mac oh Christ, he put him on his spot.
Speaker 1: No, before I know, I was looking for there's the horn, Harlem,
Speaker 1: where's the horn? Hollow Holly crist Sorry, I had to
Speaker 1: make up for the day. There you go, going back to.
Speaker 7: I'm also that also makes me feel good because when
Speaker 7: you guys had Big Jim McClusky on the show.
Speaker 1: I believe the word of the day was allright.
Speaker 6: Oh, I'm gonna have tutes.
Speaker 1: Actually born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, I couldn't tell actually
Speaker 1: really from the Windsor terraced Brooklyn in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: What was it like back in the day? Man? Brooklyn
Speaker 1: was nice.
Speaker 7: Back in the day, park Slope, you know, it was
Speaker 7: still kind of a middle class, lower middle class area.
Speaker 7: You know, it was a great, great neighborhood. Everybody was
Speaker 7: a city worker. Everybody's father was a annotation, fireman, cop,
Speaker 7: you name it. So they all they all told us
Speaker 7: in all group, you gotta take every test, you gotta
Speaker 7: be this, you gotta be that.
Speaker 1: So we all tried to follow in their footsteps.
Speaker 7: And you know, the guys in poss Up, all the
Speaker 7: guys that I grew up with, they truly, they're truly
Speaker 7: the guys and the girls, my crew, our friends that
Speaker 7: that kind of helped me build my character and kind
Speaker 7: of who I am.
Speaker 1: As you see I'm talking with my hands, and.
Speaker 7: You know, they're really truly who kind of started shaping
Speaker 7: me into the person that I am still yet to be,
Speaker 7: still growing as a person of no we lived on
Speaker 7: I grew up in uh a small tenement on Twelfth Street.
Speaker 7: I was born on twelve Street. Moved to a Brownstone
Speaker 7: type building. It's not a Brownstone. They were, they were connected,
Speaker 7: but they weren't Brownstones. But they were kind of had
Speaker 7: the same layout. So if you look at them, you
Speaker 7: look at Brownston. You know what brownstone looks like. It's
Speaker 7: a long stoop, you know, brown freaking building.
Speaker 1: Mine was not.
Speaker 7: The stoop wasn't that long, but it still had the
Speaker 7: dead man's room above the front door. Still kind of
Speaker 7: the same layout, but it wasn't technically a brownstar.
Speaker 1: Right. We have those queen's like Ridgewood Roofie. There's a
Speaker 1: bunch of those.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so you play stickball when you were a kid, bro,
Speaker 8: you know, we played stickballs, Spongebowl, we played you know,
Speaker 8: kill the Quarterback, but we don't.
Speaker 6: Pony.
Speaker 7: We played buck Buck, we played Scalzis, we played man Yeah,
Speaker 7: Manhunt was our favorite. You know, we got Manhunt of Coco, Levio,
Speaker 7: whatever you want to call it. But the greatest thing
Speaker 7: about my neighborhood is was togetherness at the key parties
Speaker 7: in Suicide Hill, Uh in Parks prospect.
Speaker 1: Who's first do over there? One fourteen?
Speaker 7: First due to Farrel's two twenty engine my first company
Speaker 7: what yeah, had a shirt and everything said first to
Speaker 7: the Farrels.
Speaker 1: First, far That's where you went?
Speaker 5: Uh? Is that where you went?
Speaker 1: When you know we went to sign up for Pudgy
Speaker 1: Walsh exactly? Pleasure was his thing was over in Floyd Bennetfield.
Speaker 1: He had his right, but when he went to a
Speaker 1: bar to sign up for it, I forget where it was.
Speaker 5: I think that might have been it.
Speaker 7: Maybe yeah, yeah, I didn't sign up for it there
Speaker 7: when he was doing his thing, I was like, you know,
Speaker 7: we'll get into this. But I was a US Park
Speaker 7: policeman on Floyd Bennefield and I just kind of drove
Speaker 7: over there and I talked to him, and he was like,
Speaker 7: you passed the test.
Speaker 1: Come on once a week.
Speaker 5: What if you want to do?
Speaker 7: Just come on when you want.
Speaker 1: So, So anybody in yet? And what what what did
Speaker 1: your father do? You brought you have any brothers? And
Speaker 1: what family do that? God? So nobody in my family
Speaker 1: was a fireman or my father worked for.
Speaker 7: My father was the Navy. He did four years active
Speaker 7: then he did like twenty two years reserve. So then
Speaker 7: he was a park service worker. He was a forest ranger,
Speaker 7: a forester to the park Service in Prospect Park. He
Speaker 7: cut down trees. Ship, but he worked for the city
Speaker 7: right in the neighborhood, write the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: What do you do in the navy? He was a
Speaker 1: boasters mate in the navy. Yeah, made first class. And
Speaker 1: then he then he got on the ship. What kind
Speaker 1: of ship was young?
Speaker 7: He was on the USS Wasp No, no, no, the
Speaker 7: Wine Dot. He was on the Wine Dot I think
Speaker 7: it was called. He went across the Antarctic. You know,
Speaker 7: that's when that's when men were men, That's when men.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, my old man
Speaker 1: was on an aircraft carrier. Nice.
Speaker 5: Do you know what you want?
Speaker 1: The s s Bennington? Bennington? Right, yeah, nice decommission now,
Speaker 1: but I have a shirt with it nicely all right, So,
Speaker 1: uh you could get uh what was what was uh?
Speaker 1: Let's go back? What was high school?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 1: Were you you good student? You're fucking around? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? My first two years of high school I
Speaker 1: went to La Salle Academy. That's where Roof's cousins went.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, from green Point, you know, back in UH
Speaker 1: back in the late.
Speaker 7: Eighties, you know, the lower lower East start of Manhattan
Speaker 7: was still Shiphole.
Speaker 1: You know, it was crack Crack area, Baby Crack area,
Speaker 1: like crazy.
Speaker 7: The Hell's Angels had had the whole block around the
Speaker 7: corner on Third Street. So taking the train to Lisal
Speaker 7: was you know, you kind of but you're taking your
Speaker 7: life into your hands. But you know, back then it
Speaker 7: was you didn't wonry, but you just kind of just
Speaker 7: did what you had to do.
Speaker 1: That's just how the city was.
Speaker 7: So I did my first two years in the South
Speaker 7: and then I transferred back to the neighborhood in bishop Ford,
Speaker 7: finished up my my my time there because Lisal was
Speaker 7: an all boys school, and I was.
Speaker 1: Like, you know what, I'm done with this, Let's go
Speaker 1: get some a little bit of a tuki.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but back in the neighborhood with all my friends,
Speaker 7: so it was right, I looked at a lot better
Speaker 7: than Bicherpford.
Speaker 1: Catholic, good Catholic school boy, good root. So you graduate
Speaker 1: high school, what do you do? It looks like you
Speaker 1: went to uh right into the navy, right into the navy.
Speaker 1: As friends were going to school.
Speaker 7: Wow, look at that, Wow, look at that guy that
Speaker 7: was seventeen seventeen. Yeah, my mom and dad had to
Speaker 7: sign me over.
Speaker 6: The high school ring and everything. The high school ring.
Speaker 5: Actually, I don't know.
Speaker 6: It might be it might be black ONYX. You know
Speaker 6: what's on the peaky yeah, well.
Speaker 1: Slope you know when you're drinking? Is your mother Italian?
Speaker 6: Bro?
Speaker 1: No, no time.
Speaker 8: I'm American first of all, Irish and Polish. Wow yeah, yes, right.
Speaker 6: We got a couple let me just while on the
Speaker 6: Navy kick before we run off.
Speaker 7: Who was out of the left an Asian guy. So
Speaker 7: that's my that's a very good friend of mine. I
Speaker 7: still speak to him on occasion. His name is Anthony Shackner.
Speaker 7: He is from Tennessee. He went to a submarine up
Speaker 7: in Connecticut, and I still think he lives in Tennessee.
Speaker 7: But I still I still hit him up from time
Speaker 7: to time. Yeah, on the left, the other guy is
Speaker 7: the white guy is Jason Rivers. He was from Camden,
Speaker 7: New Jersey. After after.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the camp, I never saw him again. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the guy with the glasses is he uh, he's Asian, dude.
Speaker 1: I believe he might have some Filipino oh a thingo
Speaker 1: he' wrong and he'll probably hit me up later on
Speaker 1: and be like, dude, he looks like one of my kinds.
Speaker 5: But like, dude, you know me thirty five years and
Speaker 5: you don't know what I am.
Speaker 7: One of the nicest, one of the nicest guys you're
Speaker 7: ever gonna meet.
Speaker 1: Oh, looking at that's that the rear admiral.
Speaker 7: That was the that was the captain, And I think, uh, jeez,
Speaker 7: I can't remember his name, but he was.
Speaker 6: He's too happy giving you that whatever it is. He's like, God,
Speaker 6: let me get this guy out of here.
Speaker 1: He was probably ready to get he was drunk. It
Speaker 1: looks like the dead fish handshake he's giving. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 7: He had one hundred years on. He just wanted to
Speaker 7: get the.
Speaker 1: Hell out of that. So you know, what were you
Speaker 1: doing in the navy?
Speaker 7: I was a whole maintenance technician. I was a welder.
Speaker 7: The proper term is called thurd chaser.
Speaker 1: So I was like the plumber of the name. It
Speaker 1: was a chaser. Was aurchase? Yeah, what kind of boat?
Speaker 1: On any kind of boat or what? I actually I
Speaker 1: got after my a school.
Speaker 7: My school was welding School, which is in Philadelphia. Boot
Speaker 7: camp was in Great Lakes, Chicago. Went to engineering school
Speaker 7: right after boot camp in Chicago, jumped right to a
Speaker 7: school which is my welding school in Philadelphia, and they
Speaker 7: sent me right to a floating dry dock where instead
Speaker 7: of going out to see it, I went up and
Speaker 7: down in the sea and pulled chips in and welded
Speaker 7: on the ships whatever we could.
Speaker 1: So where was that? So it was technically considered neutral duty.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going out to see said duty duty neutral?
Speaker 1: Where were you though, Norfolk, Virginia, Norfolk? Right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what that was. That's a good skill. I have to
Speaker 1: learn why you're in the in the service, bro, good
Speaker 1: skills to pick up, right. Oh it was good. It
Speaker 1: got me. It got me a job after the maybe
Speaker 1: for a year or so before I got on my
Speaker 1: other jump, which is let me check this out, which
Speaker 1: was the United States Park Police from ninety six to two.
Speaker 1: So you did some time there, bro, Yes, they did
Speaker 1: about six years or so. Up there.
Speaker 7: Look at that young guy you get and the guy
Speaker 7: I'm standing next to is actually you on the right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Look how short I am?
Speaker 6: Bro?
Speaker 1: Looks like you look like you just stuck across the
Speaker 1: border or something.
Speaker 5: Dude, you look like a baby. For god, Oh my God.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's uh, that's me, man, It's you know, I'm
Speaker 7: not the I don't know if anybody told you, but
Speaker 7: I'm not the tallest guy walking around as.
Speaker 1: You I mean, crying out loud, I'm five six. Well
Speaker 1: you know that's being tall in me. Isn't that hard
Speaker 1: to do? So I would? Yeah, that's what my kids say.
Speaker 1: Dad was as tall as you like. Yeah, shoot for
Speaker 1: hire or not. Bro, don't use you. Don't use me
Speaker 1: as your barometer, please.
Speaker 7: You know what, here's the thing about that, Like, I
Speaker 7: feel like that's part This is just part of me.
Speaker 7: That's part of what makes me me. It makes me unique,
Speaker 7: you know, being being that small and having this energy,
Speaker 7: And if I was if I was what five nine,
Speaker 7: five ten, i'd just be ordinary. Like everybody to fuck out?
Speaker 6: Do you know?
Speaker 1: I feel like people give me Kenny, don't funk with
Speaker 1: the short guys. Bro, I'll tell you right now, don't
Speaker 1: funk with the short guys. Prove I'm a little teddy.
Speaker 1: I got, man, I got the Napoleonic complex.
Speaker 6: So I'm trying to get past it.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't working.
Speaker 9: I was just trying to distract you, that's all it was.
Speaker 9: We're trying to get trying to get off the short jokes.
Speaker 5: All right, so good, all right, Well.
Speaker 1: Bro I was in I was in fifty nine engineering
Speaker 1: that you say, he's gonna ball.
Speaker 6: Me, not me, but you know, well we're all the
Speaker 6: pd of just that guy?
Speaker 1: Is that you and the tank top?
Speaker 7: Funny thing is that actually looks like Keith Nicoleello.
Speaker 1: In the tank time. He's in good shape.
Speaker 7: Now on that pump, that guy's he was always in
Speaker 7: great shape, always kept himself top still in great ship.
Speaker 1: That guy. Yeah, it looks like a movie started. You
Speaker 1: see that down the back. Look at that Wow, look
Speaker 1: at that guy.
Speaker 5: There's a couple more. I saw it from the emails
Speaker 5: when he's in the f D. I don't know if
Speaker 5: he sees the camera and he does, you know, the profile,
Speaker 5: he's always on his side, you know?
Speaker 1: Is that that looks like me walking regular?
Speaker 5: That's a yeh sticking in your grandma, yea, your grandma?
Speaker 1: Where was that was?
Speaker 7: That was the Horse Mounted Unit office in the Park Police.
Speaker 7: One of my best friends, he was actually my partner
Speaker 7: for a long time, Rob O'Brien. He got on the
Speaker 7: horse Mounted Unit and it was an office in Staten Island.
Speaker 7: So on midnight tours, we go over there and just
Speaker 7: before we go on patrol and just hoot and holler and.
Speaker 8: Have have a great time. And you know that's just
Speaker 8: me being a knucklehead. So you stayed there for a
Speaker 8: while though, Man, did you like the job? But where
Speaker 8: were you assigned?
Speaker 7: I our our our CAD was in Glenn County, Georgia,
Speaker 7: in the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center FLETSI for sure.
Speaker 7: So we did about six months down there, five or
Speaker 7: six months down.
Speaker 1: There, go up to d C. Do a couple months
Speaker 1: in DC.
Speaker 7: It's a little bit of training here and there, and
Speaker 7: then I get assigned to the New York Field Office,
Speaker 7: which was Gateway National Recreation Area run. But you know
Speaker 7: that's Floyd been Afield, the Statue of Liberty. There was
Speaker 7: a Point Rockaways, Great Hills Park in Staten Island, a
Speaker 7: couple other small places in.
Speaker 1: The midgate U. No, it was great.
Speaker 7: You know, federal job. We had city authority and we
Speaker 7: had federal authority. So when we were going from one
Speaker 7: park to another, one federal property to another, somebody cuts
Speaker 7: you off or their speed and we had full authority
Speaker 7: to pull them over. Right in tickets if we had
Speaker 7: to make an arrest.
Speaker 6: We did that.
Speaker 1: It was, it was, it was.
Speaker 7: It was a really good job, you know, a really
Speaker 7: good you know, learning experience, a lot of great people
Speaker 7: on that job, so it really really, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it means a lot to me.
Speaker 7: I went through a lot in the beginning on that job,
Speaker 7: so you know, that job definitely holds a big place
Speaker 7: in my heart.
Speaker 1: So why did you leave there when you went to
Speaker 1: Air Marshal.
Speaker 7: So I'm still I'm still in the park police when
Speaker 7: nine to eleven apples, and we all know how everybody
Speaker 7: felt on nine to eleven and being in a United
Speaker 7: States park policeman. I just didn't feel like I was
Speaker 7: doing enough, you know. I just felt like I needed
Speaker 7: to do more. I wanted to help out. I wanted
Speaker 7: to be in you know, front lines. I wanted to
Speaker 7: fucking I did my time in the military. I was
Speaker 7: already kind of past that. I was waiting for the
Speaker 7: flight department. So they opened up the Air Marshal Service.
Speaker 7: Pretty much, you had law enforcement experience, you had military experience.
Speaker 7: All you have to do is pass excuse me, pass
Speaker 7: a quick background check, the psychological you know, go through
Speaker 7: the academy and stuff and then they'll put you right
Speaker 7: on a plane. And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna give it a shot.
Speaker 7: I feel like I'm helping. I feel like I'm doing
Speaker 7: a service to the country and helping protect civilians or
Speaker 7: whatever from from another terrorist attack.
Speaker 1: And so they didn't have air marshalls. Prior to that,
Speaker 1: there was no such so, no they were air marshalls.
Speaker 7: So back in I want to say it was the
Speaker 7: eighties when there were a lot of hijacks, hijackings going on,
Speaker 7: and they were flying planes to like fucking you know,
Speaker 7: grease or I ran or whatever they want. They built
Speaker 7: up the air marshals back then, but after a while
Speaker 7: nothing happened, so they started downsizing. As the government does,
Speaker 7: they downsize, and there, I believe when nine to eleven happened,
Speaker 7: I could be wrong. There were about fifty active air
Speaker 7: marshals and they were only doing they weren't doing like
Speaker 7: you you're California and backflight. They were doing like six
Speaker 7: guys on a plane going Southeast Asia and doing all
Speaker 7: sorts of you know, tours. But when nine to eleven happens,
Speaker 7: they just opened it up and kind of put as
Speaker 7: many people on flights as they could that had experience,
Speaker 7: and after a while they started kind of weaning down,
Speaker 7: like like you know, trimming the fat off you. You
Speaker 7: go to a second academy. My first academy was in
Speaker 7: Atlantic City. It was only about a week, week and
Speaker 7: a half because I had law enforcement experience. You got
Speaker 7: to pass a firearms qualification, a couple test, blah blah
Speaker 7: blah blah blah, and they get you out on the plane.
Speaker 1: But then a year later you go to uh, the
Speaker 1: real academy, which was.
Speaker 7: You know, I'm not gonna say where it was because
Speaker 7: I don't know what kind of you know, uh, top
Speaker 7: secret ship they got going on. But you do that
Speaker 7: for like a month, month and a half, and they
Speaker 7: really start it got really really difficult and they start
Speaker 7: cutting people out.
Speaker 1: But I was by the time I went there, I
Speaker 1: was already on a fight apartment.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: But like when you get on a plane, not even
Speaker 1: the stewardess to know who the air marshal is, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 7: It is now, but when we got on on a flight,
Speaker 7: we had to brief the crew. Oh okay, so the
Speaker 7: flight attendants and the pilots knew who we were you
Speaker 7: had they actually gave you like a little card. You're like, hello,
Speaker 7: my name is Aaron Marshall, Kenny Delaney, and this, this,
Speaker 7: this and this. But sometimes you tell them kind of
Speaker 7: beforehand and they would they would meet you like before
Speaker 7: you get on, because you didn't want you just didn't
Speaker 7: want it was it was an undercovered job and we
Speaker 7: just didn't want to make you know, yourself noticeable.
Speaker 1: So but you were supposed to brief the crew, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: So you would sit anywhere though, amongst the passengers and
Speaker 1: just sit amongst the passengers. My main focus was protecting
Speaker 1: the flight deck.
Speaker 7: Get if something happens, you get a position of dominance
Speaker 7: in the flight deck and get that plane on the ground.
Speaker 7: Hopefully the pilots get that plane on the ground as
Speaker 7: quickly as they can. Something's going on in the back
Speaker 7: of the plane. You know, maybe your partner will handle
Speaker 7: it or somebody. Hopefully the civilians will step up, especially
Speaker 7: after nine to eleven. You know, people are very aware
Speaker 7: at that time. Our job was to protect that flight.
Speaker 6: So there was two years on it, on every flight
Speaker 6: at least right top secret information.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I don't.
Speaker 7: Liberty you know a little more maybe, but there was
Speaker 7: always that to us, always to us.
Speaker 1: So when you I'm just walking around, So when you
Speaker 1: first get on right right after nine eleven, like as
Speaker 1: soon as the guy walks in with a towel, gonna
Speaker 1: tell you, like, yep, all right, I'm gonna watch that
Speaker 1: guy and.
Speaker 5: This guy right.
Speaker 7: The funny thing is, the funny thing is we would
Speaker 7: have at the time, we had blackberries, and they would
Speaker 7: they would hit us up on the plane if something happened.
Speaker 7: Only one time, only one time we were on the
Speaker 7: plane being excuse me, Me and my partners got a
Speaker 7: text that there was a guy on a watch list
Speaker 7: on our flight.
Speaker 1: Really yep, flying back into into Newark. So you know,
Speaker 1: me and him, you know we we we we get.
Speaker 7: In contact, We find out where the guy is sitting.
Speaker 1: We keep an eye on him.
Speaker 7: We landed, We land in Newark, We get off the plane,
Speaker 7: port authority, met him at the gate, took him behind
Speaker 7: the door, never seen him again, went home, good night.
Speaker 1: Sonless just said, you're not watching any movies, you're eating
Speaker 1: any pretzels. You're keeping your eyes on that guy right
Speaker 1: there is there is no sleeping marshals. Lady like this.
Speaker 1: The lady.
Speaker 7: One of the hardest things in the world was to
Speaker 7: stay awake on a freaking eight hour flight. Oh man, bro,
Speaker 7: you have to get up, your washing, your face, your
Speaker 7: drink coffee.
Speaker 6: Bro.
Speaker 7: I read a book of flight when I was on that.
Speaker 7: I was just leading reading, reading, watching movies, reading, you know,
Speaker 7: But it was it was. It was a very I
Speaker 7: saw a lot of great places in this country.
Speaker 1: I went to a lot of places.
Speaker 7: It was really cool, learned a lot, got trained by
Speaker 7: by some heavy duty guys back in the academy that
Speaker 7: everybody was on the same page. Everybody wanted to do
Speaker 7: the right thing. You guys remember how the country was
Speaker 7: back then.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're all together.
Speaker 7: We all just wanted to just do the right thing.
Speaker 7: And and that was part you know, we all did.
Speaker 1: And good thing. You went on a flight to the
Speaker 1: Philippines twenty one hours, probably put toothpicks in your eyes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that, something like that.
Speaker 7: If there's something like that, this guy's probably going, all right,
Speaker 7: you take ten, you take fifty out.
Speaker 5: Of Yeah, no doubt about it.
Speaker 6: Yeahdad, I wanted to because you mentioned nine eleven pretty quickly.
Speaker 5: I didn't get to them.
Speaker 6: We got a few pictures just so I wanted to
Speaker 6: share really quick, wanted to just touch on them.
Speaker 1: You had, I'm the druck guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, come on, where is that?
Speaker 7: I counted exactly. That's that's me and my my partner
Speaker 7: Rob O Brian. And that was in a couple of
Speaker 7: days after you know, the talers came down. We're just
Speaker 7: just trying to get on bucket for gades and help
Speaker 7: out and just went man, that's all I did, you know,
Speaker 7: just showed up and just and just wanted to help
Speaker 7: out whatever I could.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't remember people.
Speaker 6: Were looking at this photo when they would make comments
Speaker 6: about the orbs and the pictures.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was, you know, they probably would. I
Speaker 1: didn't even realize that, yeah.
Speaker 6: Oh look at this guy here or the lady which
Speaker 6: wanted to you. I'm sorry, the guy in the blue helmet.
Speaker 1: No, I'm the guy in the white helmet closest to that.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, okay, that was that was a contingency of
Speaker 6: park policeman right there. Okay, do your doing your yeah, bro, sorry,
Speaker 6: And there you got.
Speaker 7: So that picture there is National Park Service property, that's
Speaker 7: Federal Hall. Its right across street from Wall Street. I
Speaker 7: don't know if you guys know that that's where George
Speaker 7: Washington took his oath of office. That's owned by National
Speaker 7: Park Service, the government Department of Interior, and.
Speaker 1: That's our property.
Speaker 7: So when nine to eleven happened, they automatically stationed officers
Speaker 7: at that, uh, you know, to protect the Federal Hall.
Speaker 6: Okay, that's true, all right, that was it. I want
Speaker 6: to I want to miss him and come back to him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, back when you're doing it.
Speaker 5: Yeah on Wall Street and you're doing.
Speaker 1: The Wall Street gag. Bro, you're doing.
Speaker 6: The rookie numbers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So when did you take the fire
Speaker 1: department test? Then you had an interest in being a
Speaker 1: fireman or what I wanted to be my whole life?
Speaker 7: Why so back in Park Float wins Terrace, never forget
Speaker 7: for life, the house floor life. I grew up on
Speaker 7: eight Day Avenue between Windsor and Prospect. Two blocks over
Speaker 7: was seventeenth Street and eighteenth Street, and then you got
Speaker 7: to the Prospect of Expressway. So on eighteenth Street and
Speaker 7: eighth Avenue there was a factory, a three story factory.
Speaker 7: It was like eight like where people send the dry
Speaker 7: clean is sending their clothes to actually get dry clean.
Speaker 7: So good so every day, you know, you didn't think
Speaker 7: you see the clothes coming down on the on the
Speaker 7: zip line every day.
Speaker 1: It was just that was just what it was.
Speaker 7: One day, I was a kid, I couldn't have been
Speaker 7: eight years old, maybe nine years old, I can't remember exactly.
Speaker 7: You smell the smoke, you hit a sirens, you know,
Speaker 7: and back in the back in the in the eighties
Speaker 7: and the late seventies, early eighties, that was a normal occurrence, right,
Speaker 7: You just hear them. That was the Warriors, that was
Speaker 7: part of the Warriors, and the guys were just superheroes
Speaker 7: to us. And sure enough, there was a fire in
Speaker 7: that factory, top floor, ripping, ripping out the fucking you know.
Speaker 7: I come out on my stoop and I look over
Speaker 7: and and the rigs are pulling up, and the truck's
Speaker 7: putting a stick up and it was probably two twenty engine,
Speaker 7: it was probably two forty engine. It was probably one
Speaker 7: thirty one truck and one twenty two truck, and the
Speaker 7: guys are going to work. So I I run right
Speaker 7: over there, and I'm just I'm I'm in awe of
Speaker 7: seeing these guys doing their thing. It looks like chaos
Speaker 7: to a civilian. Right, guys stretching lines, guys getting the hose.
Speaker 7: Hear the saws going, you see the stick going up.
Speaker 7: It was just to me, that was it was everything,
Speaker 7: and I just I got this feeling. I was like,
Speaker 7: I I want to fucking do that, man, that's what
Speaker 7: I want to do. I've always had this, I've need
Speaker 7: I need to keep moving, I need this adrenaline. And
Speaker 7: that gave me that, and I said, I gotta.
Speaker 6: Do that, you know I didn't.
Speaker 7: That was way before I knew anything about the flying Point.
Speaker 7: I just saw a fire and I said, I want
Speaker 7: to fucking go do it.
Speaker 1: Those had you have hello, bro.
Speaker 7: They had me at Helloa. You knew the fire went out,
Speaker 7: the water's coming out the window. I was like, holy,
Speaker 7: that was the greatest thing I've ever.
Speaker 5: Seen, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's what made me want to be Why did
Speaker 1: you take the test? I took the test in ninety nine,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, Okay, and now you've gone through two careers,
Speaker 1: oh well, two jobs before and then the job calls
Speaker 1: you when you're a plot police, the job men air Marshall. Right,
Speaker 1: it was it was right after nine to eleven.
Speaker 5: I missed.
Speaker 1: I believe there was a test. I was in the service.
Speaker 1: I believe there was a.
Speaker 7: Test, and I want to say it was ninety five.
Speaker 7: Who ninety four? I can't remember, but I know I
Speaker 7: was away and I missed the test. So then ninety
Speaker 7: two ninety two maybe maybe that was that's when I
Speaker 7: took it. Yeah, was there one after that? I can't remember.
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
Speaker 7: Anyway, you guys know how long it took to get
Speaker 7: on the job or another test to come out.
Speaker 1: So I missed that test. I was in the service
Speaker 1: whenever it was, I get out.
Speaker 7: And now I'm I'm like, goll d, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 7: gonna take the fire department test when it comes out. Yeah,
Speaker 7: I'll fucking I'll collect cobwebs before the next test comes out.
Speaker 1: Something. So I get on the par police.
Speaker 7: I took the police test that took him, my PD NASA,
Speaker 7: UH sanitation I took. I didn't take corrections, no offense
Speaker 7: to any corrections guys out there. But I don't think
Speaker 7: I would do well in prison for me. Those guys
Speaker 7: are something else.
Speaker 5: Those guys are something else, is right man?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I know I know a guy who's correction
Speaker 7: was Marines Corrections, Fight Department, Big Mickey Riley, if he's listening,
Speaker 7: he lives.
Speaker 1: Up here with us, great dude, you know the only
Speaker 1: Irish guys. You know, you hang out with anybody else,
Speaker 1: So what the hell, bro? You know, I hang out
Speaker 1: lots of people hang out.
Speaker 6: Those Oh forget about it.
Speaker 1: To cheese, come on, happy that we got another irishman on.
Speaker 1: So he is.
Speaker 2: He was as far back as I can remember, I
Speaker 2: always wanted to be a gangster.
Speaker 1: Remember, I always wanted to be a fineman. I relate
Speaker 1: that movie to a lot of things in the Fight
Speaker 1: Apartment man.
Speaker 7: All right, But nineteen ninety nine is when I is
Speaker 7: when I was able to take the next test, and
Speaker 7: I did. I got a hundred on the critain with
Speaker 7: my city points and veterans points, I was like one
Speaker 7: hundred and fucking ten. And then I got one hundred
Speaker 7: on it or ninety nine or ninety eight on the physical.
Speaker 7: I ended up being like like three thousand on the list.
Speaker 7: So you know, I was like, all right, I know
Speaker 7: I'm gonna get hired.
Speaker 1: Sooner or later, right just by my time, you know.
Speaker 1: So where'd you get the call?
Speaker 6: I got the call?
Speaker 1: I got on the air Marstrils in ten thousand.
Speaker 7: And two, and it was pretty much the first couple
Speaker 7: of weeks I was on the air, Marshals my background
Speaker 7: investigator call me. He was like, stop getting the shit together.
Speaker 7: Uh you know you're going to be We want to
Speaker 7: get you in the next class or whatever it is.
Speaker 7: I was like, all right, cool, So but my I
Speaker 7: don't remember the guy's name, but my background investigator fucking sucked.
Speaker 7: He dropped the ball.
Speaker 1: He had me doing this, that and the other thing.
Speaker 1: I was like.
Speaker 7: I was like, bro, I held the top secret security
Speaker 7: clearance for the federal government. This background investigation is the
Speaker 7: hardest thing that that I've ever had to do.
Speaker 1: What are you doing?
Speaker 7: Who are you talking to that that you're holding this up?
Speaker 7: I missed a class to two because of the background investigator,
Speaker 7: But maybe that was meant to be.
Speaker 5: Who knows, Yeah, right, you never know.
Speaker 1: Man interviewed maybe one of your ex girlfriends. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know who they were talking to. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know. I thought I have a
Speaker 1: pretty good report and that was a nice guy. So
Speaker 1: where were you when you got the call? Call you? Well?
Speaker 7: I was I was in staten Island in my in
Speaker 7: my sister and brother in law's God rest his soul
Speaker 7: died in nine to eleven cancer Ray Buzzo. Best guy
Speaker 7: I ever knew anyway. They bought a house in Staten Island.
Speaker 7: I lived in the mother in law house.
Speaker 5: You know that.
Speaker 7: I was getting ready to go to work. Actually I
Speaker 7: was getting ready to go on a flight, and they
Speaker 7: called me and I was like, do I want the job?
Speaker 1: You know, what are you kidding me? Of course, yes,
Speaker 1: thought it right now, let's go. Yeah, and you have
Speaker 1: wooden balls. You're like, yeah, bro, I want that job.
Speaker 1: I actually went yes, yes, it was.
Speaker 7: It was just such a great feeling because when I
Speaker 7: took the physical, you know, this is something I wanted.
Speaker 1: My whole life.
Speaker 7: As most firemen do, It's it's a calling. You see
Speaker 7: that fire and that's all you want to do.
Speaker 1: Like it's just like like I gotta do that. But
Speaker 1: when I did the when I took.
Speaker 7: The physical, I studied with Pudgy Walsh. He had me
Speaker 7: coming and doing all the stuff. So I take the
Speaker 7: physical and I'm expecting six foot five, big burley mustache
Speaker 7: fireman to be like, yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's go, let's go. Kenny let's go come on, put
Speaker 1: the pack on.
Speaker 5: Do it, do it, do it.
Speaker 7: I had some ninety year old proctor woman like, Okay, you.
Speaker 1: Can come here, and I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: what's going on?
Speaker 7: I was so when I was doing a hose pool.
Speaker 7: I'll never forget that. I was doing a hose pull
Speaker 7: and I must have been like off to the side
Speaker 7: or like ten feet away, and halfway through it, She's goes, oh,
Speaker 7: you could stand over here in the middle of it.
Speaker 7: So I fucking run back and I do it. It
Speaker 7: cost me like a pointer to two. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: fuck man. I and I came out of there and
Speaker 7: I was so emotional. I just I was like, I'm
Speaker 7: not I'm never getting this job. I know how hard
Speaker 7: it is to get this job. I'm never gonna get it.
Speaker 7: I'm never gonna get the call because I fucked up
Speaker 7: two seconds worth of a host pull.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 7: This is all I wanted in my life.
Speaker 1: What am I gonna do?
Speaker 6: Now?
Speaker 1: You went up and you punched it right in a
Speaker 1: mush No, no, no, I didn't do that, all right.
Speaker 7: She actually kicked me in the ass because I was
Speaker 7: standing in one spot and made.
Speaker 1: Me move over to the ah. Little did she know
Speaker 1: that you one day being Halem.
Speaker 6: Just took me a second to find his day. But
Speaker 6: I have ten pages of sound effects. We haven't used
Speaker 6: it in a while, all right, so you get the all.
Speaker 6: You're going to PROB school. Give me some names. Who
Speaker 6: are you with in provy school? Who who was teaching?
Speaker 1: Who was some of the guys in prob school?
Speaker 7: Donnie I remember Donnie wonder Lick was like the man
Speaker 7: Donnie wonder Lick was was our head company commander or
Speaker 7: a drill instructor, whatever you want to call him.
Speaker 1: And that guy was so fucking inspiring to me.
Speaker 7: Just high energy, just rah rah rah, like military guy,
Speaker 7: like I don't even know if he was in the military,
Speaker 7: but just the way he presented himself and how he
Speaker 7: yelled and how he his confidence and like I was like,
Speaker 7: I will, I will take me with you into fucking hell,
Speaker 7: bro I like curiously, like he was one of those guys,
Speaker 7: and I'm and I was, that's the guy that I
Speaker 7: want to be.
Speaker 1: He was. Was he the guy that gave that speech
Speaker 1: roof no crazy.
Speaker 7: Pe that was crazy p on the on the He
Speaker 7: was shartless on the like on the roof giving a speech.
Speaker 7: You will be old, you will be that's crazy peo.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, I made I made it for Cadence about
Speaker 7: crazy people in the academy too.
Speaker 1: Was he there when you were that crazy?
Speaker 5: Yes he was.
Speaker 1: He was about chief Soakamano. Was he do there?
Speaker 5: But he was gone there that he was gone?
Speaker 1: I can't remember, That's all he used to say. Who
Speaker 1: is there?
Speaker 7: Fucking I can't remember lieutenant name. I have such a
Speaker 7: bad memory with ship like that. I was just trying
Speaker 7: to get I was a squad leader. They made me
Speaker 7: a squad leader, military guy. Of course, my buddy goes,
Speaker 7: my buddy, my buddy, who's in that pictures picture he
Speaker 7: got he was in the class before me. And he goes, Bro,
Speaker 7: with your background, they're gonna want you to be a squadi.
Speaker 1: He goes, don't do it.
Speaker 7: Don't fucking volunteer, don't do it. I go, I go,
Speaker 7: all right, okay, you know I'm nervous.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to fuck do I find it?
Speaker 7: So they called everybody with military and law enforcement experience
Speaker 7: in a room, right, and he goes, and Donnie wanted
Speaker 7: to looks like we got it. They got us whole
Speaker 7: lined up, and he any of you fucking guys don't
Speaker 7: want to be a fucking squad leader, step forward right now.
Speaker 7: So I look to my my right and I look
Speaker 7: to my left, and I go this, and I'm like,
Speaker 7: and I'm thinking of what my buddy said, and I
Speaker 7: go to take a step out. I go, you know what,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and step back. And
Speaker 7: one guy steps forward. And they fucking annihilated.
Speaker 1: This guy.
Speaker 7: The rest of Proby school. Every time he did something,
Speaker 7: they were like, this is the guy that didn't want to.
Speaker 1: This is the guy that big this.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, that's some bad advice, Kenny. I
Speaker 5: don't know. Would you get somebody out advice now you
Speaker 5: wouldn't give I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I think he was fucking with me,
Speaker 1: but I thank god. I just I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm gonna get. Thank God, so you can
Speaker 1: go a squad leader. Usually I let the squad leaders pick.
Speaker 5: Where I want to go.
Speaker 1: No, bro, I picked.
Speaker 7: I had a pick list, and I knew the only
Speaker 7: thing I knew about the fight department was that I
Speaker 7: wanted to fight fires. I didn't know what was busy,
Speaker 7: what wasn't busy, What where was where I thought everybody was.
Speaker 7: I grew up in a time where everybody there was
Speaker 7: fires everywhere. He didn't know any better. So I got
Speaker 7: the pick list and I picked, Uh. My first pick
Speaker 7: was more of a sentimental pick because my best friend's
Speaker 7: dad died line of duty in nineteen seventy four. His
Speaker 7: name was Fabian Extraverierta. He died on a roof in
Speaker 7: Parks Flote, you know, coincidentally, and he was one on
Speaker 7: nine truck, but they were relocated coincidentally. I think two
Speaker 7: one two truck, but I'm not sure they caught a thirdle.
Speaker 7: I think it was a third along, but he was
Speaker 7: on the roof, died on a roof line of duty.
Speaker 7: So one of my first pick, I want to go
Speaker 7: to an engine. To me engine work. I wanted to
Speaker 7: learn the engine, transfer to a truck, maybe make lieutenant,
Speaker 7: and just do the natural progression of the job. But
Speaker 7: the engine work to me was you know. So I
Speaker 7: picked all engines and two forty one engine. I believe
Speaker 7: it was two forty one. I think it was, yeah,
Speaker 7: And that was my first pick, and then everything else
Speaker 7: was like, you know, two fifty five to ninety to
Speaker 7: all really ninety to ninety was busy. But again I
Speaker 7: didn't what did I knew. I was still living in
Speaker 7: Brooklyn at the time. So my last pick was, like,
Speaker 7: you know what Park Slope two twenty, I was fucking
Speaker 7: Fox Slope boom.
Speaker 1: They sent me right too, yo.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but you know it was great about Pox Flow.
Speaker 7: I knew that neighborhood. First of all, the guys were
Speaker 7: fucking awesome, I mean really really together. The house, the
Speaker 7: guys really looked out for really really close. The house
Speaker 7: is immaculate, just like I felt as soon as I
Speaker 7: got there. I felt like the like I felt like,
Speaker 7: all right, this is all proby, We're gonna have a
Speaker 7: great time.
Speaker 1: We're gonna teach you. We're a teacher.
Speaker 7: Like I really felt great going into that house.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 7: So, but that was the and and being in Pox Slope.
Speaker 7: I knew that neighborhood like the back of my hand.
Speaker 1: So anyway we went. My size up was, oh, it's
Speaker 1: a Brownstone. I know I know this place.
Speaker 7: I know the address right away. I kind of know
Speaker 7: what building it's gonna be. I kind of know where
Speaker 7: the hydroens are.
Speaker 1: So it was it was it was really really good,
Speaker 1: right uh oh three guns okay, bronze. So maybe he
Speaker 1: was down in Provy school at that time.
Speaker 5: Ro it's a pretty cool firehouse, Coobs, if you ever
Speaker 5: seen it has two different firehouses.
Speaker 1: But condo is gonna pull it up two twenty.
Speaker 6: I'm working on it right now.
Speaker 1: Who are they with one truck?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 1: Isn't that where little guy was?
Speaker 5: Donny Campbell.
Speaker 8: I was in Provy school with Anthony. Me and Anthony
Speaker 8: got to start to two twenty engine together com.
Speaker 5: This, so you could have been.
Speaker 7: Anthony Anthony Galtieri, My fucking boy, that's.
Speaker 6: About it.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you something. Cunny his house, this fuck
Speaker 1: My grandfather was in his house. He was telling me
Speaker 1: grandfather right.
Speaker 5: I swear my niece's eyes, Kenny.
Speaker 1: That's franky to see. I swear to God Gatty when
Speaker 1: my grandfather, I'm gonna be great. It's gonna be good.
Speaker 1: I got you, don't worry.
Speaker 7: But his grandfather was a thought was was its sign
Speaker 7: to that house? So I thought I was like, I'm fucked.
Speaker 1: I go. This guy's his family was there. I'm fucked.
Speaker 7: I'm a new probe. Everything's gonna be on me, so,
Speaker 7: you know, but Anthony.
Speaker 5: Is a great He had to take all the pressure
Speaker 5: right off.
Speaker 1: He was your lightning, rod bro he was your lightning.
Speaker 5: I mean, he had to take the pressure right off.
Speaker 7: I'm thinking, I'm thinking, you know that I'm gonna be
Speaker 7: the guy at their own because he's a legacy or whatever,
Speaker 7: you know, or there's no and it turns.
Speaker 1: Out, you know, they were just on him. Fucking of
Speaker 1: course could not there it is.
Speaker 6: It was blooms. There was a couple of pictures, but
Speaker 6: I can't it's not just a great.
Speaker 7: Oh, eleven Street was a great block. It was a
Speaker 7: little a little small. It was tough to to respond
Speaker 7: to get out right, you know, but it's a tight block.
Speaker 7: But that house was split. I want to say they
Speaker 7: opened that both houses up seven five to seven years
Speaker 7: before I got there. So you used to have to
Speaker 7: like fucking take a detail and get it go.
Speaker 5: Gunny Campbell. It was my favorite, my favorite guy. Donnie
Speaker 5: was one of my favorite guys.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's the rest of your five now, right, I think, yes,
Speaker 7: I believe the last time I talked to him, he
Speaker 7: was Donne was he came on. I want to say
Speaker 7: it was the class after me or two. Great dude, man,
Speaker 7: love Donny. Haven't seen him in a long time. But
Speaker 7: but being there together, like he was such a great guy.
Speaker 7: Great for Himan, really into the job.
Speaker 5: Just to.
Speaker 1: Really good, dude, really good. The truck pull out of
Speaker 1: one and the engine pull out of the other. What
Speaker 1: are the cars doing in front of the other gate?
Speaker 1: They have the other door?
Speaker 7: Maybe the truck was relocated now the engine pulled out
Speaker 7: of the engine quarters and the truck pulled out of
Speaker 7: the truckle.
Speaker 1: So the truck quarters on the left and the engine
Speaker 1: quarters are on the right. I'm looking at yeah there,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I'll try to pull up a little
Speaker 1: bit closer. That is cool, man, that's really cool.
Speaker 7: You would you wouldn't even know, Like if you're walking
Speaker 7: down the street, you wouldn't even know.
Speaker 5: You wouldn't even know it. The block is like so quaint.
Speaker 1: That's so unique, man. I love that. Very cool, very
Speaker 1: very cool. House is immaculate.
Speaker 5: I told you the story. Uh when I first I
Speaker 5: just must have missed Kenny when he got there because
Speaker 5: I covered a vacation there when I got promoted in
Speaker 5: Junivo two, and but I was already out of there,
Speaker 5: like in December. But that was one of the places
Speaker 5: Cuse where I worked where I forgot. I went in
Speaker 5: there and now it's dinner time, and the guys are like,
Speaker 5: all right, yeah, it's ten bucks you know for the
Speaker 5: meal pay up. So I go to look for my
Speaker 5: wallet and I'm like, holy shit, man, I forgot my
Speaker 5: wallet home, Like you know what I mean, Like I'm
Speaker 5: a covering lieutenant.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 5: Can I ever tell you the story I was when
Speaker 5: But this is the thing.
Speaker 1: They let you, you ain't working here again.
Speaker 5: They pay the offices park inside, right, So I had
Speaker 5: my car inside. So now I'm in my car. I
Speaker 5: swear to god, I'm picking out cars. I'm looking for change,
Speaker 5: the glove box, everything. I don't even remember who it was,
Speaker 5: but one of the guys comes out and says, look,
Speaker 5: what's up. I'm like, dude, I fucking forgot my wallet.
Speaker 5: I'm fucking throwing crazy. They're like, what are you nuts? Like, dude,
Speaker 5: they didn't even think. It wasn't even a thought, Like,
Speaker 5: they didn't break my balls nothing, right, Like, the guys
Speaker 5: were absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: So the next the next time I worked in that area,
Speaker 5: I was working at two oh four and I told
Speaker 5: the guys are two of far. I'm like, listen, this
Speaker 5: is what happened. I forgot my wallet. I gotta I
Speaker 5: gotta buy some shift for them, you know. So they're like, yeah,
Speaker 5: we'll go over there in the afternoon. So they brought
Speaker 5: me to this fruit store. I bought. I don't know
Speaker 5: how much fruit I bought, water mount I bought. I
Speaker 5: bought everything, right, and we drove over there with the
Speaker 5: rig in two o four two or four is closed now,
Speaker 5: but we went there and we dropped off. You know,
Speaker 5: I told the guys, a couple of guys are working
Speaker 5: next thing. I know, they're cutting everything up to the
Speaker 5: guys from two o four were there. You know. We
Speaker 5: just stayed there and you know, hung out with eating fruit.
Speaker 1: Brothers. Bron Love Bro.
Speaker 5: The guy.
Speaker 7: Guys will be like, oh, that's all right, lou you
Speaker 7: convent moment, It's all right, don't worry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, true, good point, yeah yeah point.
Speaker 7: A lot of senior guys when you gotta dick Kenny, Yeah,
Speaker 7: I had a lot of senior guys that Bobby Younger
Speaker 7: was in the truck. I'm trying to think of guys.
Speaker 7: I mean, Frank Tarantino was there, Brian Shehan was there.
Speaker 7: Fucking Matt Jacobs was there. Fuck, I'm trying to remember
Speaker 7: some guys. Carlock O, Carlock rest God rest the soul.
Speaker 7: I believe Carlock passed away. Which Bryan, Brian mccan, Brian mccannon, Brian.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 7: But but Frank was my boy. Frank Tarantino, Anthony was
Speaker 7: my boy. Brown, Rob Brown went it, Rob Brown Brown Ship.
Speaker 7: I don't know, I can't remember. But there was a
Speaker 7: bunch of guys there and I was only there. I
Speaker 7: was I was only there year. You know, work, Kevin Hearn.
Speaker 1: Was there, the hernia was there. Yeah. Did you catch
Speaker 1: me work there? Bro? What's that catching me? Work?
Speaker 7: I caught a little bit of work. But I caught
Speaker 7: my first fire. I caught my first fire on a
Speaker 7: detail in two forty seven job, first job, first real
Speaker 7: job at two forty seven engine on a detail in
Speaker 7: the afternoon as a proby.
Speaker 5: Really you what you have backup?
Speaker 1: I had had the door.
Speaker 7: I had the door because it was a five minut engine.
Speaker 7: I am, I get, you know, it was like one
Speaker 7: of my first details. I'm proby, you know, So I'm
Speaker 7: just I think I was standing in the fire house
Speaker 7: the whole time I didn't sit down. The guys was like, dude,
Speaker 7: take a fucking load off. We gotta go get the meal. Anyway,
Speaker 7: as we're out geting, I think we're out getting the meal.
Speaker 7: We're out on a run, and we get the box.
Speaker 7: While we're out, you know, everybody's trying to put this
Speaker 7: shit on. I'm already ready to go. And it was
Speaker 7: a basement fire in a brownstone type looking building, uh,
Speaker 7: because the basement was like the first wall, but it
Speaker 7: went down.
Speaker 1: A couplet and it was like two rooms.
Speaker 7: It was like it was in the mill of the afternoon,
Speaker 7: two rooms. These guys put it out in like fucking
Speaker 7: two seconds, you.
Speaker 1: Know, but it was it was.
Speaker 7: It was done and quick. And I equate that fire
Speaker 7: to like the first time having sex. You know, you
Speaker 7: don't know if you're.
Speaker 6: Doing it right.
Speaker 5: With your clothes.
Speaker 1: It's dark, it's hot.
Speaker 7: You're sweating, you know, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 7: it's over.
Speaker 1: And then you started asking what happened? Okay, did I do?
Speaker 5: Did I do? All?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: Yeah, So that's kind of what I equate my first
Speaker 7: fly too. And we had guys had the good fella's
Speaker 7: thing up before and when I got back to two
Speaker 7: twenty engine. You know you could hear everything over the
Speaker 7: pitch box. Well, the guys greeted me at the firehouse,
Speaker 7: like when when Henry got out of jail for the
Speaker 7: first time, and they were like, oh yeah, pop ja
Speaker 7: I where they were all there. They fucking hugged me
Speaker 7: and they were patting on the back and they're like
Speaker 7: lifted me up.
Speaker 1: And it was I felt.
Speaker 7: I felt so much love from those guys, and I
Speaker 7: was like, this is this is it, this is what
Speaker 7: I've I've wanted my whole life. And that was what
Speaker 7: was so great about two twenty and twenty two, and
Speaker 7: that's I had didn't have a hard time leeting there
Speaker 7: because of those guys.
Speaker 1: Was so great to me. Wow, did you do a
Speaker 1: thirty day funim? Night and day? They're always firemen.
Speaker 5: Did you hear that?
Speaker 1: I thought we know that ship.
Speaker 6: I was going to ask you to look at you.
Speaker 1: You don't know. You don't know what I did?
Speaker 6: Oh sorry, go ahead, I totally real, coops.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what I was. Oh did you do
Speaker 1: a thirty day detail in the truck? I did?
Speaker 7: I think I did, But I worked in the truck
Speaker 7: all the time. Like, you know, he's just getting going
Speaker 7: across the floor. We were always drilling, you know, two
Speaker 7: twenty and twenty two, not the busiest place, which was
Speaker 7: kind of frustrating for a proby because you'd go twenty
Speaker 7: forward sometimes in the summer time without turning the wheel.
Speaker 7: And you can only clean so much, you can only
Speaker 7: study so much, you know, you can't go. And I
Speaker 7: slept in the kitchen. I didn't sleep up and sleep
Speaker 7: was not I didn't sleep, but I laid down in
Speaker 7: the kitchen. I didn't go up to the bunk room,
Speaker 7: you know, as a proby. But we're always drilled. The
Speaker 7: guys will always always into it, always drilling, because if
Speaker 7: you don't work in that busy of a house, you
Speaker 7: gotta stay sharp by drilling with the guys.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: That's and they were like that. They were really good.
Speaker 1: Like that taught me a lot. Did you do the
Speaker 1: rotation and they have that done? It was done?
Speaker 7: No, they didn't have the rotation. They didn't have the
Speaker 7: rotation all.
Speaker 1: Right, So what makes you want to transfer up to
Speaker 1: the halem? And how do the guys feel about it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you were on it, you were on going.
Speaker 7: Did you did you text him and say, hey, I'm
Speaker 7: gonna say I.
Speaker 1: Have my good moments.
Speaker 7: You know, I want to I want to go to work.
Speaker 7: I want to fucking go to work. I want to
Speaker 7: work in Manhattan. I wanted to work in Harlem.
Speaker 9: I was thinking.
Speaker 6: I was thinking about how I can bring a peppercini
Speaker 6: into this with those.
Speaker 5: It's called living on your laurels. Right there, bro, you
Speaker 5: already had one shot. You' you know, pat yourself on
Speaker 5: the back, and then that's what happens.
Speaker 6: See, do you know I heard my next skit.
Speaker 7: I had heard the sixteenth Battalion was was the best
Speaker 7: battalion on the job. Gentlemen, fireman ninety sixth Street North
Speaker 7: into the Bronx. I really liked the idea of the
Speaker 7: gentleman fireman. You know that I'm not I'm not gonna
Speaker 7: fucking break anybody's chops or say anything bad about anybody.
Speaker 7: And how they do things and how companies run, that
Speaker 7: is what they do and that's how they do it.
Speaker 7: I really appreciated the gentlemanly fireman because I had so
Speaker 7: much to think about already. And when the ticket comes in,
Speaker 7: I know that my place on the ticket, and I
Speaker 7: know my job, and I don't have to fucking think
Speaker 7: on the fly if you get in first, unless something
Speaker 7: crazy happens.
Speaker 1: And I heard he wouldn't have made it ninety bro,
Speaker 1: no ninety engine.
Speaker 7: I worked with a guy he was a detail in
Speaker 7: he worked in I don't know. I think I was
Speaker 7: in detail in two forty and he was working in
Speaker 7: two forty. Was like, he got lifted for something and
Speaker 7: we went on a.
Speaker 1: Box and I was a prod get up to right
Speaker 1: and he goes, I.
Speaker 7: Don't remember who the guy was, and he goes, you
Speaker 7: gotta let everybody he had know that DC is all
Speaker 7: box and nobody can fuck with him. And I was like, wow, guys,
Speaker 7: this guy's fucking curious. Does anybody else here this?
Speaker 6: Like, let's we got this guy.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, let's let's fucking go.
Speaker 5: Let's baby, let's row.
Speaker 7: But that's you know, that's that's great. That's how those
Speaker 7: guys run, and that's that's fine for them. I wanted
Speaker 7: to be, you know, the traditions of the the gentleman
Speaker 7: for him, up and up and you know eight the
Speaker 7: sixteenth Battalion in the Bronx.
Speaker 6: Bro.
Speaker 1: He likes you know, he likes no, no, no, you
Speaker 1: guys are first, you go first. No no no no
Speaker 1: no no no, no, you go first, you're first. You
Speaker 1: know what, Bro? No, no, no, you fuck my sister.
Speaker 6: Now go ahead.
Speaker 1: I insist, I insist.
Speaker 5: Did you actually go? Did you go up to fifty
Speaker 5: nine to meet the captain?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 5: Bro, talk to listen. That's what we do, that's what
Speaker 5: you do, right.
Speaker 1: All right. So here's the thing.
Speaker 7: So this is a story that that I've put it
Speaker 7: on my on my kitchen table.
Speaker 1: I heard of it, never heard of it.
Speaker 7: I completely completely fucked up. And I take full accountability
Speaker 7: for this, and it's my fault. And I just don't
Speaker 7: know what I was thinking. So I I want to
Speaker 7: put my paper in. I'm getting married or moving upstate.
Speaker 7: I want to go to the sixteenth battalion. So my guy,
Speaker 7: my hook goes, you got to put your paper in.
Speaker 7: There's there's an order coming out, and what the I'm
Speaker 7: I'm all right whatever? You know this, three or four
Speaker 7: guys into twenty one, twenty two with their papers in
Speaker 7: for like years. They got to keep reputting their paper.
Speaker 7: I'm like, a I go, I go, yeah, but I
Speaker 7: gotta I gotta go up there and see where he goes,
Speaker 7: the order is coming out. Get your paper in your
Speaker 7: next fucking and then you'll get to go up there
Speaker 7: and don't worry about and da da da.
Speaker 1: I go all right, so I go in.
Speaker 5: I see what's going on here. It's getting see.
Speaker 1: Where I'm going. Yeah, yeah, it was a guy in
Speaker 1: my photio. I want to be a squad leader and
Speaker 1: don't go up and see the captain.
Speaker 7: Good friends, good friends, Give me a second, all right,
Speaker 7: let me get ahead. I tell a guy and if
Speaker 7: I asked he wants to go up there, I'm like, bro,
Speaker 7: do you mind if I put my paper in to
Speaker 7: go up there? I tell my captain, like, just do
Speaker 7: what you gotta do. Put my paper in that den,
Speaker 7: do my twenty four. I get off the fucking next day,
Speaker 7: I get a phone call congratulations, I go no way
Speaker 7: for what they go You just got transmit to fifty
Speaker 7: nine engine And I went, oh shit, I fucking holy shit.
Speaker 7: I didn't get to go up there, and now I'm
Speaker 7: going to probably the toughest fire house.
Speaker 5: On the job. I want to be such a nervous
Speaker 5: I'm nervous right now. I'm already nervous.
Speaker 1: I was a wreck and I knew I I it's
Speaker 1: my fault.
Speaker 6: I fucked up this.
Speaker 7: Anybody on the job, anybody looking at a finement, this
Speaker 7: is what not to do. You gotta go there. I
Speaker 7: broke the tradition of the job.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to.
Speaker 7: I didn't mean to, but it happened. It happened so
Speaker 7: quick my head was spinning. So I get the call congratulations. Now,
Speaker 7: usually when a guy shows up in order that nobody
Speaker 7: knows he's getting lifted, he's a bag of ship.
Speaker 1: He fucking missed.
Speaker 7: And that the other thing, right, like we all we
Speaker 7: all know the deal, and I'm like fuck. As soon
Speaker 7: as I got that phone call, I ran, I got cigars,
Speaker 7: I got my cakes, and I fucking drove up there
Speaker 7: and I was like, I knock on the door.
Speaker 1: And I got I got nerves.
Speaker 5: How nervous were you right at that point? Oh my?
Speaker 7: They opened the door. And the silence that that I
Speaker 7: got from from these guys is worst. Is worse than
Speaker 7: guys breaking your balls. No one fucking talking.
Speaker 5: Bro.
Speaker 1: The crickets were.
Speaker 7: The Crickets were my only friends in that fly house
Speaker 7: for two almost two years. So anyway I get there,
Speaker 7: Big Mac is working, Jim mcclusky's working. I think Keith
Speaker 7: Nicholeello was working and he gets right in my fucking
Speaker 7: face or it was one of my first toys and
Speaker 7: he's like.
Speaker 1: Who the fuck are you?
Speaker 7: Who you blah blah blah blah, and then he you know,
Speaker 7: and I'm just like, I'm sorry. I didn't mean I'm sorry.
Speaker 7: This is where I wanted to come, and nobody's talking
Speaker 7: to me. This is just just he's ripping into me.
Speaker 7: It was Big Mac's working. Big Mac, all right, you here,
Speaker 7: you fucked up your scum, Big, but uh, you're working tonight.
Speaker 7: I go, what do you mean I'm working tonight. He's like,
Speaker 7: you're working it tonight over time. We need a guy
Speaker 7: and I'm like, I don't have any He's like, you're working.
Speaker 7: I was like, all right, I'm working.
Speaker 1: I'm working. I work, you know now working.
Speaker 7: As soon as I show up to the Flyhouse for
Speaker 7: the fucking tour, I got no bunk of year. The
Speaker 7: prob who has to talk to me is like, O
Speaker 7: get this, we'll get you this. And he didn't want
Speaker 7: to be near me. Nobody wanted to be near they'd
Speaker 7: be guilty by association, bro exactly. So that was my
Speaker 7: first talk I took. So the next two years was
Speaker 7: I said, all right, this is this is where I
Speaker 7: want to be. I'm gonna show these guys. I'm gonna
Speaker 7: fucking dig my heels in because that house was known,
Speaker 7: those guys were known, Those tough bastards were known for
Speaker 7: running people out of there. Bosses, firemen didn't map. They
Speaker 7: were fucking tough. And right before, like, I went back
Speaker 7: to the two twenty when I got my stuff and
Speaker 7: one of the guys was like, you know where you're going,
Speaker 7: right bro?
Speaker 1: And I go, yeah, I'm going to fifty nine. And
Speaker 1: you what I'm going to? You know, going up there?
Speaker 6: It's a firehouse.
Speaker 1: He goes, no, no, no, no, do you have any
Speaker 1: idea what the reputation is of that flyhouse? I go, wow, Wow,
Speaker 1: what do I It's the fire house. They're gonna love me.
Speaker 1: I'm Kenny d And.
Speaker 7: They're like they're like, they're like, nah, dude, you're it's
Speaker 7: it's gonna You're gonna have a tough time.
Speaker 1: So I go, all right, I go up there, and yes.
Speaker 7: I had a very very tough time, but I proved.
Speaker 7: I said, I'm gonna prove to these guys I want
Speaker 7: to be here. So I kept my head down, my
Speaker 7: mouth shut. I stayed in the sink.
Speaker 1: I stepped up.
Speaker 7: I fucking drilled, I caught fire. I fucking did everything right,
Speaker 7: everything that I had to do to show them that
Speaker 7: I wanted to be there. Guys came in, got run out.
Speaker 7: Bosses came in, got run out. I dug my fucking
Speaker 7: heels in and I said, I ain't going anywhere no
Speaker 7: matter what you guys, do, what you say, I'm digging it.
Speaker 7: And I took a lot of fucking heat deservingly, so
Speaker 7: I brought it all on to myself. But that all
Speaker 7: being said, once I really proved myself, I fucking belong
Speaker 7: in that place. I fit into that place fucking perfectly,
Speaker 7: you know. And I think the guys started seeing that
Speaker 7: I want to be there, that I'm into the job,
Speaker 7: and if this guy can handle what we're giving him,
Speaker 7: he definitely did.
Speaker 5: That's all they want to do, right, They want to
Speaker 5: make sure that they can depend on you, right, and yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 5: especially if they feel like you're not you're coming in
Speaker 5: the right way, uone unquote.
Speaker 7: I I definitely came in the wrong way. It was
Speaker 7: I hate to say it was a mistake, but I
Speaker 7: fucked up. I learned from that mistake.
Speaker 5: It was Kenny. I didn't even know that. Sorry, I
Speaker 5: just I just asked that question, honestly because I know
Speaker 5: how they're ring. I know what. I went up to
Speaker 5: thirty three truck and I was nervous, and I had
Speaker 5: about five four or five years on the job. I
Speaker 5: can't imagine going to see the captain after like one year.
Speaker 5: So that's why I was asking that question. So that's
Speaker 5: why it just came up like that.
Speaker 1: What would do? And you were doing the right thing.
Speaker 7: You got up to see him transfer this, I said,
Speaker 7: fuck those guys updown, I'm coming out.
Speaker 8: Listen, do you know who worked witching table?
Speaker 1: When I get up here, you guys know who?
Speaker 5: And then and then roll the holls.
Speaker 7: Now, there was some tough, tough bastards in that place,
Speaker 7: and you know they just and a lot they Listen,
Speaker 7: you guys got a picture me. I'm about five feet nothing.
Speaker 7: They made a door for me, right, I think the
Speaker 7: young guys made it. But they made a door for
Speaker 7: me that was about four feet tall and they wrote
Speaker 7: it was ready. It looked like a firehouse door. They
Speaker 7: put a handle on it and they wrote the Laney's
Speaker 7: door and it said so and they put it right
Speaker 7: by the front door, right where the writing list was.
Speaker 7: And I had to look at that door every time
Speaker 7: I came in and out of that firehouse for six
Speaker 7: fucking months. And every time I did, I said, I'm
Speaker 7: I'm fucking coming back, and I'm gonna show these guys
Speaker 7: that this is what I want where I want to be.
Speaker 1: It was tough. It was tough. Man. What was the
Speaker 1: first sign that they made you thought that maybe they
Speaker 1: were accepting you? Like, what was the first one?
Speaker 7: So all this shit's going on, I'm keeping my mouth shut.
Speaker 7: We're getting Proby's in, I'm in the sink. I'm doing
Speaker 7: the right thing. You know, guys are yelling at me.
Speaker 7: One day, I come in right, come in early.
Speaker 1: I come in early.
Speaker 7: I like to get a work at it or relieve
Speaker 7: somebody early, have coffee, be at the kitchen table, and
Speaker 7: the nine by cour in the firehouse is the best
Speaker 7: fucking time in the world.
Speaker 1: So I come in one day. I'm going to grate
Speaker 1: my year.
Speaker 7: Put a butt a rig as soon as you're walking
Speaker 7: and I look for somebody to relieve. I can't find
Speaker 7: my helmet I got my my pants and my my coat,
Speaker 7: can't find my helmet, right, and I'm like, where the
Speaker 7: fuck is where the fuck is my helmet, you know,
Speaker 7: And I'm looking around. I'm like, I know, I know,
Speaker 7: I'm looking up in the rafters. Nothing was hanging up,
Speaker 7: I know.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I know.
Speaker 6: Beautiful.
Speaker 7: All of a sudden, you know, we have we have
Speaker 7: just a straight rack, no no cubbies, you know, it's
Speaker 7: just one big rack of gear. So I see all
Speaker 7: the helmets on top of of the rack, and then
Speaker 7: I see a cardboard box, and I go, what the
Speaker 7: fuck is in that card wood box? I pull a
Speaker 7: cord wood box down and it's my helmet in about
Speaker 7: six hundred pieces with the with the front piece on it.
Speaker 7: Somebody yep, yeah, somebody smashed my helmet under the rig.
Speaker 7: So now I fucking lose it. If the everything that
Speaker 7: I you know, everything was building up in me. You know,
Speaker 7: I'm an updat guy as it is, right, So so
Speaker 7: I'm thinking they crushed my helmet because they want me,
Speaker 7: if they want me out of here. This fucking bad
Speaker 7: that they're gonna crush my helmet.
Speaker 1: I said, this is it.
Speaker 7: I'm either gonna kill somebody they're gonna throw me out
Speaker 7: or I'm getting transferred.
Speaker 1: I'm getting somethings.
Speaker 7: This is it, this is where it's. This is where
Speaker 7: the fucking shit ends. And I kick open the fucking
Speaker 7: house watchdoor and there's three Proby's in there, brand new guys.
Speaker 1: Flip the lights on.
Speaker 7: It's like six in the morning, it's still, you know, dark,
Speaker 7: and I'm screaming at these guys, wait, what the fuck
Speaker 7: happened to my fucking helmet?
Speaker 5: Who did there?
Speaker 1: Tell me to fucking kill him?
Speaker 7: And they're like, Kenny, calm down, please, it was an accident,
Speaker 7: Please calm down. Da da da da da.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is no accident.
Speaker 5: This is you.
Speaker 1: Guys are sending me a message. You want me fucking
Speaker 1: out of here. Tell me who the fuck it was.
Speaker 1: I'll kick the shit out of it and then I'll leave.
Speaker 1: You want me out of here? This, I was like,
Speaker 1: that's it, this is it, It's over.
Speaker 7: It was an accident, they said, a guy freaking pulled
Speaker 7: all the gear off and everything fell down, and your
Speaker 7: helmet got slid under the rig and we didn't know
Speaker 7: it was there, and then the rig ran it over
Speaker 7: and I was like, that's fucking shit. If you picked
Speaker 7: everything up, you would have seen it. Nobody called me.
Speaker 7: Nobody called me to tell me about this, and it
Speaker 7: was my helmet was getting saltyep, you know, like it
Speaker 7: was getting black and flyinman's helmet is his resume and
Speaker 7: it was catching work. And I was so fucking pissed off.
Speaker 7: So the senior guy who was working that day, Rob Cadelka,
Speaker 7: great guy, cuckoo, one of a great, one of the
Speaker 7: best show for his engine ever saw you would drive
Speaker 7: so fast with life you wanted to put your seatbelt on,
Speaker 7: but he get you there, get your water, great out,
Speaker 7: nicest guy in the world.
Speaker 1: Was like, Ken, sits me down in the kitchen. We
Speaker 1: have a couple of coffee. He's like, bro, it was
Speaker 1: an accident. I'm telling you.
Speaker 7: The ship that you're thinking in your head it's over with.
Speaker 7: You're gonna get your balls broke. That shit's never gonna leave.
Speaker 1: But you're it's okay, don't worry. He didn't do it
Speaker 1: on purpose. It was an accident.
Speaker 7: And the guy that did it was a bag of
Speaker 7: fucking shit. And he I'm not gonna say his name,
Speaker 7: but he was like, Kenny, was an accident. I go
Speaker 7: all right, he calms me down, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 7: a cuckoo. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 7: You know, I'm really upset that my helmet was destroyed.
Speaker 5: It was my thing.
Speaker 7: But okay, it was an accident.
Speaker 1: He says.
Speaker 7: Sorry, We're all good, roll good after this, I'm good now.
Speaker 7: The guy doesn't get up until fucking nine o'clock in
Speaker 7: the morning. Like I'm the first guy in the fly house.
Speaker 7: He doesn't come down until nine o'clock. This guy was
Speaker 7: notorious for sleeping late. Blah blah blah blah blah. Everybody
Speaker 7: else is relieved, but there's a bunch of guys waiting
Speaker 7: around to see what happens.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to go home.
Speaker 7: So it's after nine o'clock now, and the guy finally
Speaker 7: comes down at the bunk room and he's like, I'll
Speaker 7: take up on you. And I was like, bro, you
Speaker 7: how am I gonna take up on you? You fucking
Speaker 7: wrecked my helmet And he was like, what are you
Speaker 7: talking about?
Speaker 1: I was like, what do you mean? What am I
Speaker 1: talking about? He was like, I don't know what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I was like, bro, did you not take
Speaker 1: everything off that?
Speaker 5: Oh no?
Speaker 7: And knock everything down. He was like, I don't know
Speaker 7: what you're talking about. I go, you're lying to me now.
Speaker 7: Now I'm starting to get up again.
Speaker 1: I go, you're fucking lying to me now.
Speaker 7: He goes, I don't know talking about. Now I'm fucking
Speaker 7: going at him, screaming at him. They hold the guy's
Speaker 7: are holding me back, and he's like ah and he
Speaker 7: turns around and he goes, fuck you like.
Speaker 1: He does want to go as fuck yous, And.
Speaker 7: I fucking freaked out. I grabbed the box and helmet.
Speaker 7: I threw it at him, pieces of helmet and hitting him,
Speaker 7: like all over the floor. The captain, captain, he's I
Speaker 7: believe he's a chief. Now he might even be like
Speaker 7: a big chief. He was just covering for the day.
Speaker 7: He's like, Kenny, calm down, you gotta get out of here,
Speaker 7: go to Fort Totten and get a new helmet.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm gonna fucking kill him. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna kill him. Get out of here, all right, all right?
Speaker 1: And so I drive to.
Speaker 7: Fort Totten and what happens is I get lost, go
Speaker 7: into four Totten because I don't know where the fuck
Speaker 7: I'm going.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is before he asked, like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: kill this fucking guy. He's gonna laughing.
Speaker 7: I have now I have to call the firehouse and
Speaker 7: be like, where the fuck he's fucking totten. I get
Speaker 7: my new helmet, I get my new helmet.
Speaker 1: I come back.
Speaker 7: And after that I expected to walk in that fly
Speaker 7: house and then be like, you're out of here, you know,
Speaker 7: because the way I reacted, they were like and they
Speaker 7: were like, Kenny, nobody said anything. It was almost like
Speaker 7: symbolic that the helmet getting smashed was like the ship
Speaker 7: that they were giving me was.
Speaker 1: Like, all right, you had enough, You're good, right, and
Speaker 1: it was like.
Speaker 7: Smashing everything away. And from then on, from then on,
Speaker 7: it was fucking it was.
Speaker 1: It was great, man, you know.
Speaker 5: That's how it was from here on.
Speaker 6: It is that the new helmet of the old one.
Speaker 1: Oh that's the helmet. That's the new helmet. That's the helmet.
Speaker 5: That's the morning. Hey, Kenny, who who are some of
Speaker 5: the guys that that you know, you latched out to
Speaker 5: early on? Like, uh, even going through all the turmoil
Speaker 5: and everything, who did you feel like were the guys
Speaker 5: that you really could count.
Speaker 7: On, the guys that I could count on When I
Speaker 7: first got there, one of my best friends in the
Speaker 7: house was Colin Halon, Brandon McCarthy, Ralph Holgwin, Pat Collingsfreg
Speaker 7: Bow fucking Hodges. I'm and I'm naming engine guys right now.
Speaker 7: You know, I can get to the truck guys. John
Speaker 7: Moran got there, a lot of these guys got it
Speaker 7: there after me. So us young guys are now taking over.
Speaker 7: You know, we're taking over from the senior guys, and
Speaker 7: we're all coming up together. Danie O'Connell, Rich mccheel, Danny Hayes,
Speaker 7: Mark Victorio, Danny Erickson. Dany Erickson's a great, great fucking
Speaker 7: enjer man. You know, he had a couple more years
Speaker 7: on than me. Russell Miklich, Greg Williams. All guys are
Speaker 7: all around kind of the same time, and we all
Speaker 7: got to, like, you know, come up together, and uh,
Speaker 7: it was just it was great. Once all that's kute
Speaker 7: was over, we just had such a great time and
Speaker 7: going to the guy you mentioned, Yeah, Colin Hanlon is there.
Speaker 1: Terry O'Connor was the senior guy of the engine.
Speaker 7: That's Mike Canally, that's me and the captain. That was
Speaker 7: just after the night for that tour. His name was Tim,
Speaker 7: Tim something. I can't remember his last name. I'm sorry,
Speaker 7: But this other guy, I won't, I won't.
Speaker 1: Who's the guy right above you.
Speaker 7: That's Terry O'Connor. He was the senior guy of fifty
Speaker 7: nine engine.
Speaker 1: Oh he looks for me. I don't know why.
Speaker 7: He had one hundred years on the job. So when
Speaker 7: I got there, he was the senior got the engine.
Speaker 7: Keith the senior guy in a truck. And Terry's this
Speaker 7: easy going, laid back everything is everything you know. And
Speaker 7: Keith was a maniac, you know, like just in your
Speaker 7: face guy. And I felt like I equated those guys
Speaker 7: to Platoon Elias and Barnes, and I was Charlie Sheen
Speaker 7: and they were fighting for my soul.
Speaker 1: Everything.
Speaker 5: The only thing that could kill BUTNS is bonds.
Speaker 1: The only thing that could kill.
Speaker 7: That's kind of what it was like, like like like
Speaker 7: Terry was so easy going and Nick was so.
Speaker 1: Like wired, yeah wired, you know, just nuts so but
Speaker 1: it was great.
Speaker 5: I gotta read. I gotta read it quick. I gotta
Speaker 5: read a quick text from Uh. Keith always sends me
Speaker 5: text all the time. He says to me, Kenny will
Speaker 5: be a great guest. He was a great fireman. When
Speaker 5: I looked at fifty nine engine and he was working,
Speaker 5: I had no worries. There's an NPO always got water.
Speaker 5: Even seeing him drive the rig on the sidewalk, the
Speaker 5: hook up on the backstep, he was feeling and determined.
Speaker 5: Please let him know.
Speaker 7: Love you Keith, Keith, you know love I love Keith.
Speaker 7: You know Keith was Keith just taught us so much.
Speaker 7: He was such you think of fireman, you think of
Speaker 7: FDN Y New York City fireman. A guy like Keith
Speaker 7: pops up so into the job, so into the traditions,
Speaker 7: taught us like man work axes and fucking holligans and
Speaker 7: and just we would light shit on fire in the
Speaker 7: in the in the parking lot and just cut up
Speaker 7: stuff like it was always drilling with the guys, always
Speaker 7: expected so much of us. Brought out the best fireman
Speaker 7: that that we could be. Like you think that you're good,
Speaker 7: and then now you're climbing a stick with all the
Speaker 7: shit on. And he just was amazing, you know, like we.
Speaker 7: Keith was tough to deal with in the beginning for
Speaker 7: anybody see any guy like that and junior guy. But
Speaker 7: after once you prove yourself to Keith and you know
Speaker 7: that you want to be He knows that you want
Speaker 7: to be a fireman, and you prove yourself that you
Speaker 7: can learn in the job and do a good job.
Speaker 1: He's got your back for life. He bleeds for the
Speaker 1: job that guy still does. And that's a guy bro.
Speaker 1: No matter where you go in this country, because we
Speaker 1: go to a lot of trade shows, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: no matter where you are in the country, somebody knows
Speaker 1: this guy. He's amazing.
Speaker 7: To the truck, you know, I I did think about
Speaker 7: going to the truck, but you know, my love of
Speaker 7: the job was engine mark. I love stretching hose lines
Speaker 7: and putting water on fire. You know, that's that was
Speaker 7: my lovely job.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got to do a job. Every the truck's got
Speaker 1: to do everything.
Speaker 7: They got to vent search fucking open up windows, open
Speaker 7: up the roof, do what they got to do for
Speaker 7: us as engine guys can put the fire out. You
Speaker 7: take a beaten in there like a beaten if they
Speaker 7: if they aren't venting, you know, So it's it's it's
Speaker 7: it's a it's a it goes.
Speaker 1: Hand in hand.
Speaker 7: But my prevy, my love, my adrenaline with stretching hose
Speaker 7: lines on the nozzle on the backup and going into
Speaker 7: the seated fire and putting water on fire.
Speaker 1: So you know, so being a guy that they were
Speaker 1: trying to drive out of that, how long before they
Speaker 1: actually gave you the nozzle or did they give it
Speaker 1: to you early to see what you you know, what
Speaker 1: you could do.
Speaker 7: So even though even though I came in the way
Speaker 7: I came and nobody was talking to me, they still
Speaker 7: had rules, and the rules were senior guy in his
Speaker 7: groups gets the nozzle. So there was always got different guys.
Speaker 7: I was always in my groups because nobody wanted to
Speaker 7: do mutuals.
Speaker 5: With me, so I was.
Speaker 1: So I always I had the nozzle a lot.
Speaker 7: And then there was there was one time Colin Hanlin,
Speaker 7: great buddy of mine, young guy, he was supposed to
Speaker 7: have the nozzle, and they changed things for me to
Speaker 7: give me the nozzle that tour. They're like, let's see
Speaker 7: what this kid can do. Give them the nozzle and
Speaker 7: see what happens. And sure enough I catch a first
Speaker 7: two fucking nozzle job across the street from the firehouse,
Speaker 7: top floor brownstone, fucking kick ass job at the change
Speaker 7: of tours at like seven thirty eight.
Speaker 1: In the morning.
Speaker 7: Everybody's in the front, everybody's there. It's right, it's in
Speaker 7: the summer time. Keith is coming down from the second floor.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, why is there fucking smoke coming from
Speaker 1: the Province store. And we're like, holy shit.
Speaker 7: So the guys bring the bells before they can get
Speaker 7: get to the dispatcher, you know, to tell him to
Speaker 7: turn out the companies. We're ringing bells and popping the doors.
Speaker 7: The guys are all all these senior guys are running
Speaker 7: out from the kitchen, running up to the brownstone, no
Speaker 7: fucking bunk of gear on, kicking doors open.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I'm like, I'm like, all right, I put my bunker
Speaker 7: gear on, I got the nozzle column puts his bunking
Speaker 7: gear on. The engine show who pulls the rag out,
Speaker 7: pulls up to the hydroen, which was probably, uh, you know,
Speaker 7: one hundred and fifty feet away or so, right on
Speaker 7: the on the block. I go, I go to I
Speaker 7: take my folds, he takes his folds. We go to stretch,
Speaker 7: and this even the control man who was the senior guy,
Speaker 7: ran up to the fucking billy. Everybody wanted to get
Speaker 7: in there. So we at the moment we didn't have
Speaker 7: anybody controlling the stretch. There was a senior guy, Kevin Shanahan. Yo,
Speaker 7: Hope you're listening to yo fucking Hope. You know he's
Speaker 7: a friend of mine. I'm saying, I go, Kevin, can
Speaker 7: you please control this stretch until our control man gets
Speaker 7: He's like, yeah, yo it. So we fucking stretch up
Speaker 7: to the Brownstone. We're going up to the top floor
Speaker 7: flaking out the host. Colin's got to kick open the
Speaker 7: fucking door on the floor on the floor below, and
Speaker 7: there's some naked guy standing there. He must have been
Speaker 7: getting out of the shower. He's like, bro, I need
Speaker 7: your appallment, and he goes okay, and he slams the
Speaker 7: door shut on Colin. So and he and when he
Speaker 7: gets up to back me up, he's like, no, there
Speaker 7: was a naked guy in the.
Speaker 1: In the landings.
Speaker 7: That Brownstone had very small landing.
Speaker 1: So I get it.
Speaker 7: I'm going up to the top landing and now I'm
Speaker 7: looking at fire out this door from the top of
Speaker 7: the door to the bottom of the door. Blow fortune
Speaker 7: out like fucking and and all I thought was for
Speaker 7: a split second, I went, that's beautiful. Look how beautiful
Speaker 7: that fire is. I was so like enamored by by
Speaker 7: with is.
Speaker 6: This when you look at the fire just like that
Speaker 6: from the outside.
Speaker 5: That's that's a good side, because that's a good.
Speaker 6: I know what that is.
Speaker 1: That's that headshot that you send out to.
Speaker 5: Get my good side right right right, bro, I can't
Speaker 5: hear you.
Speaker 1: It looks like quasi motive.
Speaker 7: We get up to I get up to the top
Speaker 7: floor and I'm looking at this fire just you know,
Speaker 7: split second. I go now, I can't wait to keep
Speaker 7: the fucking ship out of it. And there's six truck guys,
Speaker 7: some with bunker gears. I'm not all leaning up against
Speaker 7: the wall with this fire.
Speaker 1: I go get out of the way. You guys ain't
Speaker 1: going in there without me. Get out of it. Close
Speaker 1: the door, close the door.
Speaker 7: The one guy reaches with the hook, he closes the door,
Speaker 7: gets gets control of the door.
Speaker 1: You know, smoke. Now I get up there. I'm fucking
Speaker 1: ready to go.
Speaker 7: And Colin comes up behind me and the and then
Speaker 7: camm in the audience.
Speaker 1: He goes, you know you're going in first. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 7: I open the line and the door fucking swings open.
Speaker 7: I'm hitting fire. I'm hitting fire. I'm hitting fire. And
Speaker 7: the door only opened up halfway. It stopped right there
Speaker 7: and cut off.
Speaker 1: The whole hallway.
Speaker 7: So the fire was to the right of us, like
Speaker 7: it was just fucking pouring out and I can't get
Speaker 7: till now I'm finding the fire on my left hand
Speaker 7: and I'm trying to get the door open on my right,
Speaker 7: I'm trying to kick, and I'm like, I can't, I
Speaker 7: can't get Something is blocking that door.
Speaker 1: Whether it was a rug.
Speaker 7: A desk, I don't know, but it's blocking that whole
Speaker 7: way off from the front of the apartment to the rear.
Speaker 7: But now the front of the apartment. Ten forty five
Speaker 7: jumped out the window as they were trying.
Speaker 1: To set up for a roof for a rescue at
Speaker 1: jo No shit, So.
Speaker 7: The front of the apartment's lighten up. So I'm like,
Speaker 7: the truck's got to get in here to get this door.
Speaker 7: So I there's about this much room, about this much
Speaker 7: room in between the door and the wall. So I
Speaker 7: just put the nozzle in there and I just try
Speaker 7: and put out as much fire as I could, right
Speaker 7: and then I turned and put and go to the
Speaker 7: front to put that out to turn around. Once I
Speaker 7: turn around, the truck had the door off, and just
Speaker 7: make the push down, put those two three rooms back
Speaker 7: out and uh and the fire went out really quickly.
Speaker 7: But turns out that the guy that they were trying
Speaker 7: to roof for a rescue.
Speaker 1: He fell.
Speaker 7: He fell out the wind though and hit like all
Speaker 7: the electrical lines and ship and the guy lived.
Speaker 5: What I always say that you you know, you get
Speaker 5: to you get to your place, right. They don't know
Speaker 5: about you, right, and you kind of went in little backwards.
Speaker 5: You show them that job right there. That's all I
Speaker 5: want to know, right, I mean, you're gonna I don't
Speaker 5: give a ship what happens, But you put out three
Speaker 5: rooms of fire like that, they're gonna you know, they
Speaker 5: still might be obviously they're still going to break your balls,
Speaker 5: but in the back of their head they're happy, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, Like you're part you're going to
Speaker 5: be part of that company.
Speaker 1: Well, they take note of it anyway, right, I know
Speaker 1: I would. They definitely took note.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: It was hard.
Speaker 7: Some of the guys like Kenny, good job. Some guys
Speaker 7: are like, all right, you know that what was great
Speaker 7: about that. I caught a lot of work in the
Speaker 7: first few years in that flyhouse, so you know, I
Speaker 7: was just showing them how what I want to do,
Speaker 7: how I want to be And listen, everybody fucks up
Speaker 7: a jobs. Everybody makes mistakes. Yeah, yeah, every single job
Speaker 7: doesn't go perfect. But if you could acknowledge that, learn
Speaker 7: from that, and hopefully nobody gets seriously hurt or heard
Speaker 7: it all from your mistakes and you can drill on
Speaker 7: it and talk about it in the kitchen about the job,
Speaker 7: then really that's all they want. They can they can
Speaker 7: teach you and train you, and as long as you
Speaker 7: want to be there and you know and they know
Speaker 7: that and you're that's it.
Speaker 5: That's it.
Speaker 7: That's that's really what we're in a.
Speaker 1: Place like that, Bro, you have it's not going to
Speaker 1: be low before you're able to redeem yourself. It's not
Speaker 1: like you gotta be going to another fire fairly quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how is.
Speaker 5: Kirk lest I was going to say, how was he?
Speaker 5: I love that guy?
Speaker 7: He was so great, so much experience. It was so
Speaker 7: fun talk, you know, working with him because his stories
Speaker 7: were just hysterical and the way he told them we're
Speaker 7: just we're just great, and that guy was just I
Speaker 7: love that guy and learned so much from him working
Speaker 7: with those guys, being a young guy in the job
Speaker 7: and knowing how the job was. I just loved working
Speaker 7: with those guys and the experience that had. It gave
Speaker 7: me so much confidence.
Speaker 1: You know. So now the whole firehouse, bro, who wrote
Speaker 1: you the hardest? Who do you have to really convince
Speaker 1: the most? If you had to say, one guy in
Speaker 1: the firehouse, which.
Speaker 7: Is probably Listen Keith, was really really tough, especially in
Speaker 7: the beginning. A lot of the a lot of the
Speaker 7: the younger guys, a lot of it like the middle
Speaker 7: of the road guys kind of you know, they were
Speaker 7: like because they took the heat from a lot of
Speaker 7: these guys before and now they had somebody right.
Speaker 1: It's always like that, bro, It's always the guy who
Speaker 1: just a few more years than you who breaks your
Speaker 1: bulls the most. Man, you know, the senior guys.
Speaker 7: There was a guy he was like, he was like,
Speaker 7: I think he's still I don't really talk to him,
Speaker 7: but there's still the guy that's like, he's just the
Speaker 7: fucking guy that just showed up and I was like,
Speaker 7: I'm sorry he was like, damn whatever, you know he
Speaker 7: still holds a grudge.
Speaker 1: Whatever, I don't what am I gonna do this?
Speaker 5: This that's in the end. That's when you talk about
Speaker 5: Neanderthal fireman. That that's what we talk about, right, Like,
Speaker 5: that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Some guy wanted to know what if you know what
Speaker 1: the difference is between an e ers and an EMS box.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was gonna wait for the right time for that.
Speaker 5: You know what, I didn't see it between.
Speaker 7: Bro, who the fuck is ex Delta?
Speaker 1: Who knows you?
Speaker 6: Bro?
Speaker 7: So all right, funny fucking story, funny story. So I'm
Speaker 7: there like a week and a half, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, and oh my god, and a half a week
Speaker 1: and a half, they shoved me. You know, I step up.
Speaker 7: They put me on the fucking twelve by twelve bye
Speaker 7: for anybody doesn't know, there's the midnight fucking watch. So
Speaker 7: I come from a pretty slow place where we didn't
Speaker 7: really run after midnight, so the tones didn't go off
Speaker 7: too much. And now I go to a place where
Speaker 7: I'm petrified. I'm just sitting like, I'm just like fucking scared.
Speaker 7: I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Nobody's talking to me. Two twenty engines. Nobody's talking to me.
Speaker 5: Bro.
Speaker 6: I was just like what.
Speaker 5: I was like, what did I?
Speaker 6: What did I do?
Speaker 5: Man?
Speaker 1: Where did I?
Speaker 5: What am I doing? What A doing?
Speaker 1: The tones go off.
Speaker 7: Now it pops up engine only r S right, and
Speaker 7: I'm I'm still like it's dark. I'm like, I can't
Speaker 7: fucking I love you too, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know who you are.
Speaker 6: Won't reveal himself for herself.
Speaker 7: So I'm like, I'm like trying to like fucking figure
Speaker 7: it out. Like I'm like, e R what the fuck?
Speaker 1: EMS?
Speaker 7: I said, e MS.
Speaker 1: I had never seen an.
Speaker 7: R S box in two twenty two in the year
Speaker 7: that I was there, so I was like, no, you know,
Speaker 7: and if you know, if you remember, if you're reading
Speaker 7: an er S box and it turns out to be
Speaker 7: a job immediately as you're reading it, the fucking they
Speaker 7: fill out the ticket while I'm still reading. So we
Speaker 7: have a policy. I don't know who how you guys
Speaker 7: do it. You read it twice so you get it right.
Speaker 7: So I read it once and I go engine only
Speaker 7: e MS right because I'm trying to turn out the
Speaker 7: company's fist. And as I go to read it a
Speaker 7: second time, I now I see that it says E
Speaker 7: R S, but I can't say it because the fucking
Speaker 7: full ticket pops up and it says fire thirty first dude,
Speaker 7: And I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, the trucks go
Speaker 7: to a fire, engines go to an MS run and
Speaker 7: I'm ringing bells.
Speaker 1: I'm popping those. You're gonna put the doors up. I
Speaker 1: gotta put the doors up.
Speaker 6: I gotta. I haven't.
Speaker 1: I'm turning the companies and I don't know what to say.
Speaker 7: I'm fucking panicking. So we the engine engine turns out
Speaker 7: of court is first, believe it or not, because I
Speaker 7: called engine only first. So we get to the spot
Speaker 7: the truck fucking rips. We stop at the corner waiting
Speaker 7: for any MS person and the truck rips by us,
Speaker 7: and we look up the block. There's people pointing, and
Speaker 7: we look up the block and this fire ripping out
Speaker 7: the first block of this brown stone. And if we
Speaker 7: all go holy ship, and we're trying, we're putting on
Speaker 7: We're putting our stuff on the Holy Ship. The truck
Speaker 7: fucking peels by, takes the fucking block. The engine goes
Speaker 7: up with with with stretching hose lines fucking frozen hydrant.
Speaker 1: Uh, we're in there.
Speaker 7: You know, Tom Heally, Tom Healey, the great Tom Heally,
Speaker 7: the best character on the job. Frank, he's fucking he's cutting.
Speaker 7: It was it was a vacant so he's cutting the
Speaker 7: the window. Yeah, and in this fire like licking out
Speaker 7: on his head. He thought it was snowflakes hit them
Speaker 7: and he's like, I can't believe what's going on here.
Speaker 1: But I said, I said, he are ms when it was,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you didn't get right.
Speaker 7: They already hate me, they already hate me, and now
Speaker 7: I fucked up the take.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say, you couldn't even have fucking done.
Speaker 5: The only thing that made that good was that there
Speaker 5: was a fire. For God's sake, at least it was
Speaker 5: all right then, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: But a fire and we still we still got him
Speaker 8: first new and you know, can you imagine they would
Speaker 8: have packed your shipations. I was like, I'm that's it,
Speaker 8: that's it.
Speaker 1: I'm fucking.
Speaker 6: E r s the mask.
Speaker 1: But I never said, I don't know. Let me ask
Speaker 1: you a question. At any point, did you almost say
Speaker 1: fuck this, I'm going back. I can't.
Speaker 7: So it was it was very difficult, you know, I was.
Speaker 7: I was having a tough time, you know, just coming in.
Speaker 7: I was like, these guys don't want me. Who wants
Speaker 7: to be in a place. The guys don't want They
Speaker 7: don't want you to you know, Like I want to
Speaker 7: be there, but they don't want me there, So why
Speaker 7: would I want to stay in place? But I I
Speaker 7: am so stubborn. I would cut my nose off to
Speaker 7: spite my face. It's a it's a quality that I
Speaker 7: hate about myself. I'm working on it every day. But
Speaker 7: I said, I said, I'm not leaving. I'm not letting
Speaker 7: them win. I'm not letting them in.
Speaker 1: That's what they do. They want me to go and
Speaker 1: then be like I remember that fucking little ship that
Speaker 1: came up here and didn't say nothing.
Speaker 7: I was like, I'm not I'm not going inwhere you're
Speaker 7: gonna have to deal with me. And I'm telling you, guys,
Speaker 7: transfer in and transfer out while I was going to
Speaker 7: so they were kicking guy like it's just and I
Speaker 7: was like, I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not going not gonna be that guy.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna hold my breath like a little kid and
Speaker 7: not fucking go until I went and It wasn't a
Speaker 7: win to lose. It was just eventually I proved myself
Speaker 7: because I fucked up and I just had to prove myself,
Speaker 7: just like you have to do any job, any man's job.
Speaker 1: You gotta prove this stuff, you know, And that's it.
Speaker 5: That's it, Especially with fifty men. Yeah, fifty rough, I
Speaker 5: mean yeah, yeah, everybody's different. Every personality is different. Right,
Speaker 5: You're never gonna make everybody happy, you know, and vice versa.
Speaker 5: It's just, uh, it's it ain't easy, man, you know. Done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know they're tough guys. But then anybody ever
Speaker 1: come up to you and like apologize for being such
Speaker 1: a dick to you, like, hey, listen, we had it
Speaker 1: wrong or whatever. No, those guys are.
Speaker 6: Where he calls off, hey, I'm sorry if you're being
Speaker 6: a thick to you during high school and he closes
Speaker 6: his name home with.
Speaker 1: Those guys. Are those guys they still break my balls
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 5: They're still like they're still like I was gonna say,
Speaker 5: if they're still talking, if that guy's in the chat
Speaker 5: and still putting about the EMS thing, that thing has
Speaker 5: never died, yeah, I mean never.
Speaker 1: It follows you forever.
Speaker 7: And that's and it becomes fun. It's a fun story.
Speaker 7: Nobody got hurt.
Speaker 1: We forgot it in. You know, it's just on on
Speaker 1: my podcast. Oh, I didn't know you had a podcast.
Speaker 1: Most of my most of my stories are me fucking up.
Speaker 1: I can admit.
Speaker 7: I can just make it of myself. You know, we
Speaker 7: all but that's but that's part of it. Like everybody
Speaker 7: sucks up, man, But you got to learn from those
Speaker 7: mistakes and try not to make those mistakes again and
Speaker 7: just move on. You know, as long as nobody gets hurt,
Speaker 7: you're gonna suck up. Everybody's gonna fuck up, but you
Speaker 7: gotta step up the fuck up.
Speaker 6: Bro.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, Hey Kenny, how was it like being in that place,
Speaker 5: like after you got past all this ship, like having
Speaker 5: ten fifteen years whatever you had, Like that place has
Speaker 5: such a uh like pride right like uh and tradition
Speaker 5: like every every time you see those guys out of
Speaker 5: Saint Patty's Day or whatever. Right, you just how is
Speaker 5: it being in a place that has so much like
Speaker 5: pride in how they do things and keep the tradition
Speaker 5: and all that right?
Speaker 1: It's just great?
Speaker 7: You know, Like you knew fifty nine and thirty when
Speaker 7: the Holmes you showed up like guys, all right, we
Speaker 7: got it like that. Everybody carried that pride, that tradition,
Speaker 7: and we wanted to keep it going because all those guys,
Speaker 7: all those tough ass bastards, they fucking they put up
Speaker 7: with a lot of shit and they passed it on
Speaker 7: to us, and we wanted to live up to those standards.
Speaker 7: So we all had a lot of pride.
Speaker 1: We kept it going. I hope they're keeping I think
Speaker 1: they're keeping it going.
Speaker 7: I don't know a lot of the new guys. I
Speaker 7: met a couple of them, but I loved, you know,
Speaker 7: I love being there. The guys were great. I just
Speaker 7: loved that that we were a tough house, like guys like,
Speaker 7: oh shit, I don't want to I don't want to
Speaker 7: go there, you know. Like but that being said, as
Speaker 7: tough as we were and as tough as we were
Speaker 7: on each other, anytime anybody got detailed there, they would
Speaker 7: fucking treat it like gentlemen. They didn't have to pay
Speaker 7: for meals, they didn't have to do anything. We treated
Speaker 7: those guys like gold. So anybody that showed up, they knew,
Speaker 7: they said, oh that's a great fucking place, man, that
Speaker 7: really is a good place. They treat the guys right,
Speaker 7: they know what they're doing, uh, and and they keep traditions.
Speaker 7: It was it was really really a great place.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: Keith always said, we got we got our fucking diplomas
Speaker 7: from UCLA, the University of your corner of Lennox Avenue,
Speaker 7: and that just just that experience was just so great, man.
Speaker 1: It really was cheas probably too, but that the chiefs
Speaker 1: would probably happen.
Speaker 7: To see you on the box, right, I mean the
Speaker 7: sixteenth Battalion period, you know, eight eighteen, twenty three, fifty
Speaker 7: nine and thirty sixteenth Battalion one of the top notch,
Speaker 7: if not the top notch, in my opinion, the top
Speaker 7: knoche battalion on the job.
Speaker 1: Everybody they showed up, we just knew what we were doing.
Speaker 7: Everybody knew was sixteen I was going to be twenty eight.
Speaker 7: What they were doing and how they were doing and
Speaker 7: who's working, you just fucking knew. There was no questions,
Speaker 7: like you never had to worry. If sixty one wasn't
Speaker 7: gonna make the push for eighty, you knew they were
Speaker 7: gonna fucking get that ship.
Speaker 5: You knew.
Speaker 1: And if not fucking we're gonna be right there with them.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 5: Like we were.
Speaker 1: We were very close battalion, and I love that. I
Speaker 1: love going to the to.
Speaker 7: The Gocitos guys and hang out and them seeing us.
Speaker 1: It was just a lot of fun. Man, great, great guys.
Speaker 1: Whether they just start driving, Kenny, I.
Speaker 7: Actually started driving right before I became a first grade fireman.
Speaker 7: I wasn't even first grade fireman yet, and I was terrified,
Speaker 7: terrified to drive the fire engine.
Speaker 6: You know there It was like it didn't look like
Speaker 6: it like yeah, I got to oh.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because we were parked, we weren't driving.
Speaker 6: Hit any garbage. Just wanted to know, just ask.
Speaker 1: Who I hit?
Speaker 2: I hit?
Speaker 7: I hit something else other than the funny story of
Speaker 7: me fucking up again. New chauffeur right. Got the guys,
Speaker 7: young guys in the back. I think they might have
Speaker 7: been the scene and guy in the back, but they
Speaker 7: were letting me drive. Uh Danny Dostra double days retired?
Speaker 7: Now is the was the engine board?
Speaker 1: We get?
Speaker 7: We get a call uh EMS box in the subway.
Speaker 1: One hundred and thirty fIF street e R S which
Speaker 1: one I didn't I didn't call it rsn't remember ship.
Speaker 7: So make the right out of corners, go up to Powell,
Speaker 7: make the ride on one three five.
Speaker 6: Come down.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm gonna make a right on Lenox.
Speaker 7: They have you right in front of the subway station
Speaker 7: with it em E M. S. Box is so as
Speaker 7: I'm I'm trying to cut the corner fucking pretty tight,
Speaker 7: so the guys didn't have to walk too far. And
Speaker 7: there was a light pole don't a walk, don't walk
Speaker 7: with a light on it right on the corner, and
Speaker 7: I fucking cut the corner too close and I sheared.
Speaker 7: I sheared the bottom of that light pole off, and
Speaker 7: the boss is going, you're gonna hit the pole. You're
Speaker 7: gonna hit the fucking pole.
Speaker 1: And I go, I go, what you know? The pole
Speaker 1: fucking boom, It hits the tree.
Speaker 7: He's like fucking nine feet tall, hits the street, comes down,
Speaker 7: and the boss freaks out. The guy's in the back
Speaker 7: of laughing, and I'm like, holy shit, I just hit
Speaker 7: this pole and knocked it over on one hundred and
Speaker 7: thirty fifth Street and Lennox Avenue, and I look over
Speaker 7: across the street and there's a cop car with two
Speaker 7: cops in it, and they look the other way and
Speaker 7: they drive off.
Speaker 1: Double l that's old school, that's fucking great. He's pissed.
Speaker 7: He gets out and now we're all laughing, and he's
Speaker 7: mad that we're laughing that I did this. So I
Speaker 7: step on the light pole like I'm Captain Morgan. I'm like, guys,
Speaker 7: take a picture.
Speaker 1: How are you like? I just slaid a dragon? And
Speaker 1: he was so mad.
Speaker 7: So we get back to the fire house and he's like, Chief,
Speaker 7: distress happened And Chief was like, didn't hit anybody? And
Speaker 7: he's like, uh no, I don't think I don't think so,
Speaker 7: and he was like, all right, don't worry about it,
Speaker 7: right it up and if something happens, we'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: We go for another run like an hour later, and
Speaker 1: the pole is gone.
Speaker 6: So I knocked over a pot.
Speaker 5: That bro.
Speaker 1: They came up in like in like an ow man.
Speaker 5: But every anything you could imagine.
Speaker 7: Driving an engine or a truck in New York City
Speaker 7: is is really really it's insane double park cars. But
Speaker 7: once I got into it, once I got comfortable, I.
Speaker 1: The most bro. I think I loved it.
Speaker 6: It was Joe, did you get skinny? You too?
Speaker 5: Yes? Oh my god.
Speaker 7: We used to go down the FDR on occasion and
Speaker 7: its fucking by the u N and gets like this
Speaker 7: and you.
Speaker 1: Just go, everybody go like this, We'll get through it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, but it's great. I love I love driving the engine.
Speaker 7: I love being an engine.
Speaker 6: We call that the r O D position down here
Speaker 6: retired on duty.
Speaker 1: Did you did you get to seat Kenny eventually? No?
Speaker 7: I never got to see. We never technically had seats.
Speaker 7: But usually the senior guys would drive, but but they
Speaker 7: technically didn't have to see. So a lot of times
Speaker 7: I would come in, I would be driving, and the
Speaker 7: senior guy would get over time and you know, you
Speaker 7: got to give him the show France. But I ended
Speaker 7: up driving a lot. You caught a lot of work,
Speaker 7: pumped a lot. You know, it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I loved.
Speaker 7: I loved driving the ngine. That picture is from Brian
Speaker 7: Quinn's Rooffrop Rescue in twenty twenty one, I think. And
Speaker 7: I pumped I back stretched eight lengths of three and
Speaker 7: a half to the Siamese pretty much by myself. And
Speaker 7: I was on the sidewalk of Lenox Avenue. Oh that
Speaker 7: is the sidewalk, Yeah, sidewalk. And I didn't know any
Speaker 7: better because there's a subway tunnel that runs right onto
Speaker 7: Lenox Avenue, and I'm like, is the way to the
Speaker 7: rig gonna fucking collapse this sidewalk into the fucking tunnel?
Speaker 2: Late?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I can see. I definitely posed. You saw
Speaker 6: the camera guy?
Speaker 1: Oh he's doing.
Speaker 6: I know.
Speaker 1: So what major did you think about? I'm sorry I
Speaker 1: say that again.
Speaker 5: Though, Did you ever think about studying at all?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 7: I took the test, but I didn't I didn't really study.
Speaker 7: I read the books, you know, for evolutions and shit
Speaker 7: like that, you know, just for drills and stuff and
Speaker 7: just to keep up. But I never really studied study
Speaker 7: to become a lieutenant. So I took the test twice though,
Speaker 7: but I didn't do too good.
Speaker 1: But you know, some guys have meant to be, you know, chiefs.
Speaker 1: Some guys are meant to be Indians, right, Kenny. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved I loved what I did. I love being
Speaker 1: in the fire.
Speaker 7: You know, we need lieutenants, obviously, we need good ones,
Speaker 7: and they're great guys that got promoted at fifteen one
Speaker 7: and thirty. But once you're a lieutenant, you're out of
Speaker 7: the out of the loop. You're not in the back
Speaker 7: room anymore. You're not with the guys too much. Yeah
Speaker 7: you no, just for an hour or two during change
Speaker 7: of toils. But in dinner or lunch, Roofie was one
Speaker 7: of the better. He was a great officer. Too much
Speaker 7: smoke up?
Speaker 6: Who who I feel that?
Speaker 1: Louis? Oh look, so what what made you want to retire? Eventually?
Speaker 5: Hang it up?
Speaker 7: I just you know, I was getting tired, man, I
Speaker 7: had I wanted to sleep more. I got sick of
Speaker 7: fucking community. I didn't I didn't have that feeling that
Speaker 7: I used to have when I first got on the
Speaker 7: job of going into fires. You know, you catch a job.
Speaker 7: This picture right here, I don't know if you can
Speaker 7: see it. This is this is a fucking hundred alarm
Speaker 7: that we caught across the street from the firehouse during COVID,
Speaker 7: and I got bumped to the backstep.
Speaker 1: And it was at that time.
Speaker 7: I don't know if you guys were working then at midnight,
Speaker 7: if you're working too much. The hours were crazy. They
Speaker 7: were kicking guys off the rig, closing companies. Guys would
Speaker 7: show up out of nowhere. You didn't know who was working.
Speaker 1: It was just it was it was.
Speaker 7: It was a nightmare, and I was getting tired anyway,
Speaker 7: And one night we catched this, We catch this alarm
Speaker 7: and I had the nozzle and tones go off, and
Speaker 7: we knew it was a job. We could smiley and
Speaker 7: it's because it's pretty much right around the corner. And
Speaker 7: I got and it's the show for me, and I'm like,
Speaker 7: where the fuck where is everybody?
Speaker 1: And some probat from.
Speaker 7: From the Bronx comes out of the back room. He's like, hey,
Speaker 7: I'm your control man, and I was like, fuck, man,
Speaker 7: here we go, you know. So we get dressed, we
Speaker 7: get on the rig, we go around, and you know,
Speaker 7: I'm taking my folds off.
Speaker 1: Trying to win.
Speaker 7: Sixty nine engine shows up and I was like, thank god, guys.
Speaker 1: They're like, hey, what do you want us to do?
Speaker 1: Is it just back me up?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 7: And I and I usually a file like that. I
Speaker 7: take my folds and I was licking my my chops
Speaker 7: like I can't wait to get the fucking it. I
Speaker 7: can't wait to go to work.
Speaker 5: This one.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I was like, this is gonna suck.
Speaker 1: This is gonna suck.
Speaker 7: Like that's when I kind of knew, right Like I
Speaker 7: didn't love it. I didn't love it anymore. We got
Speaker 7: our we got our asses kicked there like we didn't
Speaker 7: get into fundy. They were calling people off the roof
Speaker 7: right away. Shit was falling on us, and I was
Speaker 7: like pushing a two and a half in for freaking
Speaker 7: how long I was fumbling. It was just I was like,
Speaker 7: you know, I knew, I knew, and I was I
Speaker 7: was healthy and I can still go down on my
Speaker 7: own terms. That's when I that's when I knew, you.
Speaker 1: Know, for the most part, my uncle did forty three years.
Speaker 1: He said to me, uh, you know how excited you
Speaker 1: are when you're on vacation to get back to work,
Speaker 1: Because we're not excited like that anymore. You know, it's
Speaker 1: time to pack it in. That's good, you know, like
Speaker 1: I used to be on vacation call fires like, how
Speaker 1: are you on vacation? Yeah? Now you get the FireWire
Speaker 1: wrapp and you see what you're missing? What FireWire?
Speaker 5: That's what I thought.
Speaker 1: Whatever, Okay, that's we're We're in business with the fire
Speaker 1: wi We have the salty wire with them, So check
Speaker 1: it out, all right, So what are you doing now
Speaker 1: besides the kitchen table firehouse podcast?
Speaker 7: So I for to keep you know, fine, looking for
Speaker 7: my purpose, because as a man, we all need a
Speaker 7: sense of purpose, right right. I was in a military
Speaker 7: cop and Marshall fireman always had that sense of purpose
Speaker 7: to wing to work, helping out the community, helping out
Speaker 7: my brothers, you know whatever. I retired, and I was
Speaker 7: the first six months were great. I was like, I'm
Speaker 7: this is great.
Speaker 1: I'm catching up on shit, I'm.
Speaker 7: I'm not missing anything with the family and dah dah,
Speaker 7: dah dah. And all of a sudden, I started feeling like, shit, man,
Speaker 7: I'm I'm not that.
Speaker 1: I was missing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 7: The wife, I'm come home and she's like, what did
Speaker 7: you What did you do today? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 7: I didn't do anything today, you know. So I was
Speaker 7: feeling like I felt like I was withering away. I
Speaker 7: lost my sense of purpose. I needed to find something
Speaker 7: else to do. I needed an outlet. So I figured
Speaker 7: everybody else is fucking doing it. I'm watching everybody talk.
Speaker 7: I figured I've had a lot of mental health issues
Speaker 7: in the past, a lot of experiences that that have
Speaker 7: got me to that place. And I was like, you know,
Speaker 7: what if I can bring I missed the guys at
Speaker 7: the table, and the guys at the table are where
Speaker 7: I had therapy, right, like just talking to them, talking
Speaker 7: about family, and you don't even know you're in like
Speaker 7: a therapy with them because they all understand what you're
Speaker 7: going through and you understand them and they know what
Speaker 7: you're doing. And so I was like, I started really
Speaker 7: missing that I didn't have any outlet. I don't have
Speaker 7: anybody to talk to or as the group, you know,
Speaker 7: as a tribe.
Speaker 1: I felt like I was.
Speaker 7: So it's like, if I thought this and I can
Speaker 7: talk like I'm at the kitchen table with the guys,
Speaker 7: It'll make me feel better. And if and in turn,
Speaker 7: maybe I can fucking help somebody off the ledge. Maybe
Speaker 7: I could let somebody know that they're not alone in
Speaker 7: this world and feeling the way they feel as much
Speaker 7: of a man as they think they are a tough guys.
Speaker 7: That a lot of guys to feel the way you feel.
Speaker 7: For thirty years, I kept my mouth shut. I never
Speaker 7: said nothing in anybody, and it manifested in anger, violence, alcohol,
Speaker 7: just not sleeping, all sorts of shit. And that's just
Speaker 7: to be for me to be a full present man.
Speaker 1: I got it.
Speaker 7: I had to control all that shit and by talking
Speaker 7: about it and having this outlet and maybe helping people,
Speaker 7: letting guys know that you're not alone. Bro that maybe
Speaker 7: I that was helping me do this. So I started that,
Speaker 7: you know, it was it was very, very time consuming
Speaker 7: and very tough to do.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 7: It just and then I didn't feel like was working out.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 7: And then I got a job in the local school
Speaker 7: district as a security officer, and I felt, oh, I
Speaker 7: got a first sense of purpose. Now I can protect
Speaker 7: these kids. Something happens, I'm gonna put myself in the
Speaker 7: way of the threat to those kids, you know, role
Speaker 7: school shootings or whatever. I had no problem talk, you know,
Speaker 7: being in my head going I'm gonna I would take
Speaker 7: a bullet for any one of these kids, because that's
Speaker 7: my sense of purpose now.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of what I'm doing now, you know,
Speaker 1: in a nutshell. If you guys want to see more
Speaker 1: of Kenny, just hit us up in the comments and
Speaker 1: say we need more Kenny, and we'll have Kenny on
Speaker 1: the show. Maybe you fill in maybe.
Speaker 5: The uh just put the podcast back up. What is
Speaker 5: it on the Kenny d right, The name.
Speaker 7: Of it's the Kitchen Table, but I think the handle
Speaker 7: is at Kenny D five nine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Kenny D. I looked it up today when you
Speaker 5: told me.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so it's that, Kenny D. I'm still so so
Speaker 7: much to learn. I have no idea what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: I just we need Kenny. Thank you. It could Jacob
Speaker 1: appreciate that.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: It's so it's you guys know how time consuming.
Speaker 1: Man, When I was down one day a week instead
Speaker 1: of too we were losing right cookies and.
Speaker 7: Then I'd put up like a like an interview or something.
Speaker 7: I'd be like, oh, this is just gonna be the best,
Speaker 7: and like five people watching.
Speaker 5: What It takes time to get It takes time to
Speaker 5: get traction. But you did have you know, you had
Speaker 5: the guys live in front of you right, you were
Speaker 5: doing it together, you know, Kevin and I started that.
Speaker 5: But it's it was tough to do, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. More tough.
Speaker 7: Guys got time, they got families, they got whatever. It's
Speaker 7: really really tough. I just felt like if I sat
Speaker 7: with them, I'd have a better report. I can I
Speaker 7: can drag out like the kids to the table was
Speaker 7: about mental health through all my experiences. So if I
Speaker 7: could sit with a guy and I can maybe get
Speaker 7: more out of him than than through like the screen
Speaker 7: or whatever. So I was like, got it, but it
Speaker 7: was really hard to get guy, but this is so
Speaker 7: convenient doing it this way, you.
Speaker 1: Know, started getting salty family, Kenny will use you.
Speaker 7: I appreciate it, man, this is this is a lot
Speaker 7: of fun. I'm really really I enjoyed.
Speaker 5: Really we started doing it like that and then covid
Speaker 5: uh kind of put the on that and then we
Speaker 5: started doing the Brady Bunch like you see. I mean
Speaker 5: that's how it turned out. So that kind of helped.
Speaker 5: And then love it. You know, it was like you said,
Speaker 5: five people watch it. But because COVID happened, like it
Speaker 5: was perfect timing for us because now everybody was home
Speaker 5: and just the start of it and we started getting
Speaker 5: traction like right away, you know, which you know, we
Speaker 5: didn't really think was gonna not like that anyway.
Speaker 1: Now people come just to see Gonzo.
Speaker 5: So yeah, how do you say that?
Speaker 3: Man?
Speaker 9: I received two calls this week from uh, well, people
Speaker 9: wanting information because they saw me on the show for
Speaker 9: the department. I was like, oh, I like, I don't
Speaker 9: know if it's a good or a bad thing, but.
Speaker 5: And are they hiring you? That's all we want to know.
Speaker 5: They got catch.
Speaker 1: And you know what you got to do? Though, bro,
Speaker 1: know what time it is?
Speaker 5: At that time? Time is it is?
Speaker 6: I think I think it's time for old school tip.
Speaker 1: Time for it's time for the kitchen table, old school
Speaker 1: tip of the day.
Speaker 6: There you go, I got the floor screen, whatever you
Speaker 6: want to call it.
Speaker 7: So my old school tip of the day is for
Speaker 7: new guys coming on the job. It's job is full
Speaker 7: of tradition. This job is rich in tradition. We've done
Speaker 7: things pretty much the same way for a very long time.
Speaker 7: The reason being because it fucking works. Yes, times are
Speaker 7: changing and fires are acting different, and you know the
Speaker 7: the materials and fires are changing, but for the most part,
Speaker 7: the fundamentals of the job stay the same. Fucking direct
Speaker 7: interior attack to the fucking fire, aggressive interior attack, vent
Speaker 7: horizontal ventilation and fucking vertical ventilation. You all fucking do
Speaker 7: that stuff. You meet in the middle the fire goes out, right,
Speaker 7: That's how we talk, That's how it is. Keep that
Speaker 7: tradition up. Don't try to overthink things. Fucking just don't
Speaker 7: try and be like one of them guys like you know,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna invent the fucking uh. I'm gonna invent a
Speaker 7: nozzle that fucking opens and closes with the uh, with
Speaker 7: the with the sense of the heat. You know, I
Speaker 7: wouldn't even have to touch it. It'll it'll do its
Speaker 7: own thing. Bro Open a nozzle, make a fucking push,
Speaker 7: and just keep fucking going. And that being said a
Speaker 7: lot of the new guys.
Speaker 1: Coming on the job.
Speaker 7: I mean, I don't know now I'm gone three years,
Speaker 7: but the job. You're not an individual anymore. This job
Speaker 7: is a change of lifestyle. Whether you're married and have kids,
Speaker 7: you are going to have to change how you do
Speaker 7: things in your life. Yes, your wife and your children
Speaker 7: will come first, and everybody on the job if something
Speaker 7: happens to them, will help you out. But the job
Speaker 7: isn't and should not adapt to you. You need to
Speaker 7: adapt to the job, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 7: keep those traditions. We shouldn't have to work around you
Speaker 7: as collectively to dance around what your little needs are.
Speaker 7: The needs of the few never outweigh the needs of
Speaker 7: the many on this job. And that's what I have
Speaker 7: to say. So you know that's that's that's really you pull.
Speaker 1: You pull the spot on us, Bros. The needs of
Speaker 1: the of the many outweigh the needs of the needs
Speaker 1: of the few, never outweigh the needs going on?
Speaker 5: Right, come on?
Speaker 1: I had something similar to that. You ready, But that
Speaker 1: one guy thinks five guys are an asshole, But five
Speaker 1: guys think that the one guy is an asshole. Guess
Speaker 1: who's right, Probably the five guys. That's what I'm saying, bro.
Speaker 1: So if you want to see more, Kenny, I want
Speaker 1: to see more. Oh, what's there's a guy who's shorter
Speaker 1: than me. Thank you. I don't know how told you are.
Speaker 1: You didn't you didn't divulge that information, bro, six and
Speaker 1: a half.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: Warm Mountain in the summer time. I'm like, you saw
Speaker 1: Darren in there, right? Roof?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Arren came back.
Speaker 1: Diamond's back. He's got an infection in his leg.
Speaker 5: He does all right.
Speaker 6: They gotta they gotta cut his big coat off. And
Speaker 6: I'm just kidding, no stopping, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: Ice to see darn in there. God speed, get healthy
Speaker 1: there roughly any shout outs, Buddy, I got nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: God got Bobby Austin next week probably.
Speaker 6: Sorry ahead, So procain, you want to know if you
Speaker 6: knew Jay Messing.
Speaker 1: Yes, they work for j Messenger. I actually saw him recently.
Speaker 1: I'm still friends with Jack.
Speaker 9: Yes, all right, excellently and one last one really quick.
Speaker 9: You guys should be getting us up with the super chat.
Speaker 9: But anyway, Kenny wanted to know. I wanted to know
Speaker 9: about the preference or Riggs Seagrave, the key km.
Speaker 1: Oh you know what I was.
Speaker 7: I got used to the Sea Grave, but but when
Speaker 7: the k and came around, we had a couple of
Speaker 7: problems with it in the beginning, like minor ship. But
Speaker 7: like after a while, I was like, this is I
Speaker 7: drove more with the km ME than I did with
Speaker 7: the Sea Grave. So I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: stay km H.
Speaker 1: Good choice there, you Gony. Thanks for coming on today, BROV.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have you back on anytime you fucking want
Speaker 1: me on. You just let me know. I appreciate a
Speaker 1: couple of people, maybe a guy that likes to go
Speaker 1: hunting and now and again, I don't know, so Kenny
Speaker 1: will be me, you and Gonzo. This guy, this guy
Speaker 1: I see his eyes like that, like, oh what fun.
Speaker 4: We do have?
Speaker 1: Bobby Austin one eleven guy, Uh, he'll be on next week.
Speaker 5: Spoke recently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he sent me some pictures. I just spoke to him.
Speaker 1: I'll reach out to him again and that's all I got.
Speaker 1: Keep on watching we get some good things. Oh God,
Speaker 1: So you keep bringing up and I keep forgetting County.
Speaker 1: Me and Roofie. You'll be out the Harrisburg Fire Expo
Speaker 1: on May sixteenth and May seventeenth. Roofy, You'll be pulling
Speaker 1: more of the weight because I'll just be getting my
Speaker 1: new knee going right after that, before that, actually right
Speaker 1: before that, So he'll be doing the heavy lift and
Speaker 1: I'll be sitting there with my leg up, you know,
Speaker 1: signing helmets because that's what I did.
Speaker 5: I'll have his pen ready. God help me get my
Speaker 5: pen and.
Speaker 1: My crutches ready. All right, guys, thanks for joining us tonight.
Speaker 1: I had a great time.
Speaker 7: Am I able to shout out a couple of uh? Absolutely,
Speaker 7: So I'd like to shout out first and a couple
Speaker 7: of three charities. I'd like to really quick do it.
Speaker 7: The first charity is to Live Like Chris Foundation Live
Speaker 7: like Chris dot org. Christopher Tucci is my wife's cousin.
Speaker 7: He was twenty seven years old and he died suddenly
Speaker 7: of an undiagnosed heart condition, and it was really really
Speaker 7: tough on the family. As you can tell, I'm a
Speaker 7: little emotional, really really tough on us. And Chris is
Speaker 7: one of the reasons why I started this because Chris
Speaker 7: lived every single day like it was he just he
Speaker 7: he was like the key to life is to never
Speaker 7: give up. So they started a foundation for him and
Speaker 7: in his name, and it's just grants for people who
Speaker 7: need it or whatever. So that's to live like Chris
Speaker 7: dot org. Live like Chris Foundation. That's number one, and
Speaker 7: that's very, very close to me and my family's heart.
Speaker 7: Number two is Tomahawk Charitable Solutions dot org. Tomahawk Charitable
Speaker 7: Solutions is the charity company of Tomahawk's Strategic Solutions, which
Speaker 7: is a company owned and operated by Tier one Special
Speaker 7: Forces fucking veterans that teach military, teach law enforcement, and
Speaker 7: security how to deal with incident responses, active shooters, all
Speaker 7: sorts of stuff.
Speaker 1: I used to work for them.
Speaker 7: I was a role player for those guys, and those
Speaker 7: guys are have done things that the people in this
Speaker 7: country will never ever know. So they started an organization
Speaker 7: called Tomahawk Charitable Solutions dot org and may help. One
Speaker 7: percent of that money goes to veterans and first responders
Speaker 7: in need.
Speaker 1: So checked out those guys out.
Speaker 7: And number three another one who my buddy, Damien Et
Speaker 7: saverieda whose father died minded duty that I was telling
Speaker 7: me about earlier. He is on the board of the
Speaker 7: Friends off Firefighters dot org. And I know you guys
Speaker 7: had Nancy carbon On a long time ago, and they
Speaker 7: have done so much great work for mental health for
Speaker 7: firemen in the City of New York.
Speaker 1: And they are in need of donations.
Speaker 7: So please any one of those three donations or charity
Speaker 7: if you can just donate, check it out, whatever, please
Speaker 7: do it.
Speaker 1: And uh, we're having a show from her firehouse soon.
Speaker 1: Bro oh you really yeah, mental health, So you'll be
Speaker 1: welcome to join us if you want. Yeah, when is that?
Speaker 6: Let me not.
Speaker 1: I don't have a date yet. I have to call
Speaker 1: her back, but it's going to be sometime fairly so.
Speaker 5: Touch basically, Kenny. So let me make sure I got
Speaker 5: it live like Chris dot org, Tomahawk Charitable Solutions dot
Speaker 5: com dot org and Friends of Firefighters.
Speaker 1: Obviously Friends of Freighters.
Speaker 5: Alright, all right up on the description.
Speaker 1: Get into your wallet you Chief Bassetts, donate something a
Speaker 1: couple of bucks. Don't take much of shekels. Let's a
Speaker 1: couple of shekels. Guns, you know, let's go. I'll do
Speaker 1: your reaching for the gun. All right, guys, we'll see.
Speaker 1: Oh it's empty. How is it? You just don't want
Speaker 1: to clean up the masks? All right? Until next Thursday.
Speaker 1: You know what we're gonna say, Stay low.
Speaker 5: And go, Kenny, Thanks a lot, brother Lem big one. Everybody,
Speaker 5: all right, guys.
Speaker 6: Happy saying Patty's Day. Make good decisions this weekend. Make
Speaker 6: good decisions, make good decisions, and we're rolling heavy in
Speaker 6: South Florida.
Speaker 1: Remember, remember it must be true. If you're heard, it's
Speaker 1: the kitchen table, damn you. We'll see into at the show. Thanks, gentlemen,