#637 - FDNY Firefighter

9:07Theo Von:Yeah, that's where all the water would drain into there. And every now and then, our boss would have to go in there. I'd see him reaching in. He'd have, like, fat on his glasses and shit. It was, oh, it was gross.

9:20Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah, no, I didn't want to stay there. God, yeah. It was cold. It was cold in there too?

9:26Theo Von:Oh, and there was freezers there. And the guys that worked in the freezers, you never saw them. They looked like they were from the Antarctic. They had these hoods and these parkers and their big boots. And you'd see them now and then. They were kind of scary. You know, you were a kid. You're like, there's the freezer men, you know. They never came out of the freezer.

9:43Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, dude. Oh, that's fucking wild. Yeah. Yeah. Be living in there just hiding from your wife and kids probably in there. Oh, God. That's when family life's bad, when you're like,

9:53Theo Von:I don't care how cold it is, I'll stay in there. Yeah, yeah, that's bad. That's the last job you want is working in a freezer.

9:58Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah?

9:58Theo Von:Oh, I think so.

9:59Tony Bonfiglio:That was in the line. And what kind of guys would do it? Was it tough guys? Was it Russians? Who was doing it?

10:04Theo Von:Tough fucking guys. Yeah? Butchers, psychos. They got their own toolbox of knives, you know, the big. Only a couple of times they would pick you up by your shirt, you know. Because we were just the kids, you know.

10:16Tony Bonfiglio:We run it around. Any of them ever get arrested for crimes or anything like that, like you think? Were any of them low-key like Dexters or like kind of that kind of guy?

10:22Theo Von:Yeah, yeah. They were low-key. They were. Strange, some of them. Yeah.

10:27Tony Bonfiglio:Dang, that's wild.

10:27Theo Von:And then you had the women. They were the packers.

10:29Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, they were?

10:30Theo Von:Yeah, they would like pack the chickens and all that. Oh, gift wrapping? And then wrap it and everything, yeah. Women do better gift wrapping. And they had like tough women, too. They were working. It was like the boss of the women was a real tough broad.

10:41Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, yeah.

10:41Theo Von:Oh, yeah. Some girl would have tattooed a Richard Dent on her. Yeah, smoking. Everybody would be out smoking. breaks and the guy would come with the uh the roach coach and call you out for your coffee and shit he would yeah the coffee roach you know they were the roach coaches here and everybody would come out you know what a roach coach is uh-uh it's a coffee truck all right back in the day they would come to like factories oh so it just pulls up and you gotta get your snack and they would be like all right the guy's here and everybody would be out a break get their coffee their lousy donut whatever he had a little bit of a break yeah i like that man yeah dude we started

11:12Tony Bonfiglio:when i was a kindergartner they had uh or i don't know what grade i was in i wasn't even in a grade But it was nap time or whatever at kindergarten. But I wouldn't sleep, right? I would keep my eyes open because they'd bring in this other lady to watch us. Right. And I was kind of curious about her. So I would just kind of lay over there. You were eyeballing her. Yeah, I was kind of eyeballing her, I guess. Because me and my mother were always on the outs. I was shopping around. So I remember at a certain point, she'd come over and kind of kick me a little bit. she'd let me go outside and watch her smoke oh that's funny oh that was nice dude and she had pretty nice hair she looked a little bit like a man yeah but she was definitely she probably what year was that oh this was probably 84.

11:58Tony Bonfiglio:early 80s god yeah she looked like a man but she's like only the third woman i'd ever seen you know so at that point she was really good looking you don't know yeah yeah she's beautiful to me you know she was dying you know she was just stunning, dude. But yeah, she'd let me go out there and watch her smoke and she'd complain about stuff. Oh, that's funny. God, that was nice, man. Just getting a little break, you know? So that was like, it felt like it was my break from kindergarten. Like I were on break. Oh,

12:25Theo Von:I remember kindergarten well. Really? Oh yeah. Nap time. That was the best. Oh yeah. Snack and nap. And then out to the sandbox and dig a hole of China. Yeah.

12:35Tony Bonfiglio:Dig a hole down to a fucking butcher shop.

12:38Theo Von:They would always put like a cone in the sand. They'd be like, oh, you're almost in China.

12:41Tony Bonfiglio:You know, I'd be like, yeah, let's keep digging. Yeah, yeah, dude. And then some kid would get sand in his eyes and he would look like he was Chinese.

12:47Theo Von:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

12:48Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, that's what I got. Good, dude. So, yeah, so take me out. How do you get out of the meat area into the fire? Like, take me out of the freezer into the fire, man. Take me there.

13:00Theo Von:Well, I went, after that, I went to a plastic mold injection factory job. Did you? Unemployment sent me to.

13:08Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, they did? Yeah. They were making body parts?

13:10Theo Von:No, no, we were making there was a game called orthello back then it was like a black and white Yeah, I remember that game and we were making the chips and we made the colored beads So it was all like these plastic mold injectors the color beach like what Mardi Gras or something? Yeah My idea or people just buy them and for their Crafts and stuff like that all they're like a hundred different colors Yeah, and I could never remember the color after I backs boxed it up. I get ready to send it I'd be like, oh, Amstest, brown, green. I'd put something down and then the guy would come back. You can't be yelling at me.

13:43Theo Von:You can't send these out. And I'm laughing. He's like, what are you laughing about? I mean, I'm making$3 an hour.

13:49Tony Bonfiglio:Dude, I remember one time I ate a bunch of mushrooms or whatever after school. And I worked at this mail center, right? My job was to mail out these insurance forms to these different companies around the country. While I'm in the mail room, dude, I'm not doing real good. Oh, I could imagine. Yeah, well, my body had gotten really hot, so I took all my clothes off. Yeah. And I put all my clothes into a box, mailed them to some place. Oh, my God, that's great. Dude, my first girlfriend, her mom got me that job. Her dad, shout out Mr. Earl, he was a fire chief, actually. Oh, really? Yep. But anyway, I got laid off.

14:29Tony Bonfiglio:And yeah, the mother had to come. Thank God it was a day it was raining because she let me borrow a raincoat she had so I could go get in my car. Yeah.

14:36Theo Von:Wow.

14:36Tony Bonfiglio:So anyway, we made some tough choices over the years. But I did have a good time. They had a firehouse down there on Chapatulas in New Orleans. And it would be great because the Mardi Gras parades were down there. So we'd go down there. Yeah. And the firehouse would be open on days like that. And all the families.

14:52Theo Von:Must have been an old firehouse, too.

14:53Tony Bonfiglio:It was beautiful, yeah. I think bring it right up. It's right down there off of Chapatulas over there. And that was it right there. Oh, I see it. that's it right there made it into something yeah they made it into something wow but yeah anyway it was a great time and it was a great time we go over everybody's cooking hot dogs yeah and just you know just having a great time you know that was a beautiful time all the cajun yeah we had so much fun man i'll bet so how do you get into there man how do you get so you're you're over

15:18Theo Von:there making jewelry and stuff well the funny part is they sent me to this place called stonewell plastics in mineola and i go in and i got this little mexican guy he's doing the interview with me. He's got, he's like middle-aged little guy. He's got a little pencil mustache, you know. Oh, yeah. So I'm sitting there. I'm 18, you know. And he goes, so what's your name? And I said, Tony Bonfiglio. He writes it down. He says, and how old are you, Tony? I said, I'm 18. Writes it down. He goes, and Tony, were you born here? I said, no, I was born in New Jersey. He starts laughing. Oh, you'll do, you'll do.

15:56Theo Von:And when I went back there, I realized I was the only American in the place. Everybody else was foreign.

16:01Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, damn. So you're in there learning Spanish, huh? Yeah, Spanish. What languages were they?

16:07Theo Von:Yeah, who was that? It was mostly Spanish. Yeah? Yeah, there was some black people, but even them I didn't understand because some of them are from Brooklyn. I had one friend, he would drive me home. I would say, yeah, I'd shake his head and he'd shake his head and we didn't know what the hell he was saying. Dude, I still can't understand. He'd be like, yeah, I understand. I understand. I'd be like, yeah, Yeah, we're motherfucking...

16:27Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, dude. I mean, look, bro. I don't know what he said. It's 40 years later. Something's never changed, and maybe it's for the best, you know?

16:33Theo Von:Could be, yeah.

16:35Tony Bonfiglio:So you're in there. Are you just like dissing from me? No.

16:38Theo Von:Or how do the winds blow you over to the fire world? Well, then I went, my father got me into the printing union, the Amalgamated Lithographers of America Local One. Wow. And I did that for about four years. But I took the fire department test when I was 18. I was 19, like 78. And was that part of school you had to take it? No, my neighbor came over, and he came in our back door with an application. Johnny LaLima. Thank God, Johnny. Saved my life. Gives me the application, and he says, you'll never get rich on this job, but it'll put a roof over your head and food on your table. So I'm sitting at my kitchen table.

17:14Theo Von:I'm like, okay, Johnny, thanks. I had no idea it was going to be the biggest career move of my life. Dude, what made him even come over there and do that, I wonder? I guess he knew I was going nowhere because he was my neighbor, and they saw us all hanging out all the time, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably figured this kid would be a fireman. It would be all right, you know? Yeah. So thank God. I mean, he saved me because, see, I was going, the printing union was going south. You know, computers were coming in.

17:37Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah.

17:37Theo Von:And they weren't printing anymore on these big printing presses. So I got that. And then about a year later, I took a physical test after the written test. The written test we took in a high school somewhere in Queens.

17:52Tony Bonfiglio:And was there a lot of people taking those tests at the time?

17:55Theo Von:40 ,000.

17:56Tony Bonfiglio:40 ,000 people wanted to be firemen.

17:58Theo Von:Yeah.

17:58Tony Bonfiglio:Wow.

17:59Theo Von:Yeah.

17:59Tony Bonfiglio:Because the job, I think in a lot of ways, it's a very family, like it's a lineage job. Yes. It's like a lot of families do it. Definitely. And there's a lot of esteem with it, you know? Yeah. Good time. Especially at that time, what was it like? Like, was it a very revered position? Did you even think you could get it? Get the job?

18:17Theo Von:Yeah. Yeah, I think I, you know, because I was 19, I was in great shape. And the physical test is really where they separate everybody. The written test was a joke. I mean, it was like third grade questions, you know.

18:29Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah?

18:29Theo Von:Remember any of them or no? Well, you know, I saw the sanitation guy. He was saying about the dirt and the shovel. That's exactly what it was like. What would you use, a garbage truck, a plow, or a shovel and brew? It would be ridiculous. If you got your name right, you know, that was it. So I got a 98 on the written test. probably the highest I ever gotten any test in my life. But what was the physical part like? My father took me to East New York to an armory in this real shit neighborhood. And we parked his Buick Regal. It was like the nicest car my dad ever had. And I bought him these spoke rims for it for his birthday.

19:05Theo Von:Oh, that was nice. So we get there, and he says, here, you take the keys. I'm running for the subway. And you take the car home. I'm like, yeah, you sure, Dad? You want to? Yeah, don't worry about it. I mean, he's an East Harlem guy. so I wasn't too worried about him. So he took off. I go in this armory. It's like when you get in there, it's the size of a football field. And there's 100 guys that day that are going to take the test. And they break you up into like 10 men groups. And you go around all these different stations. And you take different tests. You had to run. One was a mile. One was an 8-foot wall.

19:39Theo Von:You had to jump over the 8-foot wall. That was like the separator. Like if you didn't get over the 8-foot wall, you went to the police department.

19:46Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, sorry, guys.

19:48Theo Von:Hey.

19:49Tony Bonfiglio:That's what separated them. That's what it is, man. Sometimes you got to separate the beef from the pork, you know?

19:56Theo Von:Well, the funny part is I got a zero on one of them. And if you get a zero on one of those stations, you're done. You're not going to get hired. Yeah, for sure. Which one was you? I had this thing called a ledge walk. You had to put on a turnout coat, a helmet. You had to put boots on. You had to put a mask on. And you went up on a balance beam next to a wall. and you had a slide along the wall like you were shimmying along a ledge it was called the ledge walk i'm shimmying along this thing i'm like why the fuck would i be on a ledge i mean is this job that crazy what am i batman you know i'm gonna be out on the ledge and i went all the way down i touched the line i came all the way back and the woman scoring me says you didn't touch the line down there uh-uh what i race all the way back touch the line i come back she ran out of time I got a zero.

20:45Theo Von:I was like, ah, that's it. Everything was down the drain. So come on. You think she just didn't do it correctly? I think. Yeah, I do. I don't. I think she was there to knock some of the white guys out because there was too many white guys on the job, which they were complaining about. They wanted women. They wanted minorities. I think they were told because I stepped on the line. She wasn't even anywhere near the line. No. But, you know, it's like everything happens for a reason, you know? I mean. Right, and so you get to zero.

21:14Tony Bonfiglio:Pissed. And there's 10 stations. You do fine on the rest of them. You get out of there. And are you then waiting for your grade? Like, do you even like.

21:22Theo Von:Yeah, so now after you get all that done, everybody says their half-assed goodbyes. You know, I went back out. Thank God my father's Regal was still there. Yeah. Found that I got into Regal. I found I had a joint in my workout bag. I lit that sucker up. And now I'm driving home. We had no directions back then, so I'm looking for signs for the LIE. Boom, we get home. My dad was there. How'd you do? I said, yeah, I think I did all right. So now the girls have a lawsuit because 40 girls took the test, the first 40 girls ever, and they didn't pass with 40 ,000 applicants.

21:59Tony Bonfiglio:None of them passed?

22:00Theo Von:None of them passed. Were some of the women in there on that day you were there with that 100 people? No, I didn't see any women that day. but we had a couple in my battalion when I got there but so anyway they had a lawsuit and this lawsuit went on for six years so from that time I took the test I didn't get a notice that I was hired for six years because it was because to the women because the lawsuit took so long they usually hire about 2 ,500 people off the list now they had to go deep into the list and because of that zero I was like 4 ,300 on the list so the women saved me thank God thank you girls I Appreciate it.

22:36Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, because rarely does a complaining woman save you. Oh, they saved me that day. Brenda Berkman right there.

22:43Theo Von:Brenda Berkman. Everybody knows Brenda.

22:44Tony Bonfiglio:Pioneering female firefighter. She was the sole named class plaintiff. Yeah, but she was a lawyer. In the federal sex discrimination lawsuit that opened the fire department in New York to women firefighters. After she won the lawsuit in 82, she and 40 other women became FDNY firefighters. Was that a time where, like, were people, like, supportive of the women? Were they against the women? what did that feel like did it feel like they were totally against the women they were oh it's an all-male place you know and yeah and you know i guess a lot of guys they don't feel like

23:15Theo Von:they didn't mind the women that uh really passed the test but to just get on because you're a woman that was not you know today now they have girls you know they're there's so much into athletics and stuff they could pass these tests now but back then you know it wasn't like that so some of it

23:32Tony Bonfiglio:they were just kind of stacking the deck like we're just going to put some extra girls in because Some of that's just a liability. That's it. They want, well, yeah, life and death.

23:38Theo Von:Yeah, and a liability for their own life. That too, yeah. But I mean, if your kid is trapped in a fire, you want the best person going to get that kid, not somebody that didn't make it.

23:48Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, for sure, 100%.

23:49Theo Von:I agree with that. They saved me, and I'm the luckiest guy for that.

23:53Tony Bonfiglio:So you're in, huh?

23:54Theo Von:I'm in.

23:55Tony Bonfiglio:You made it in. Yeah. And do you remember, like, when you do get a letter, it's like, yeah, I'm in, you got it? And does it have flames on the -

24:01Theo Von:My wife came, I come pulling up in the park, lot from the working at Mastercraft Litho and I had a little Chevette we both shared this little Chevette car that my wife bought on her own when we were kids and uh I see her coming across the uh the parking lot with a waving the I said what is it she goes the fire department watch six years oh my department watch they're gonna hire you I said holy shit I looked at it yeah Tony Bonfiglio New York City fireman. Report to Randall's Island, 823-something, 84. I was like, I'll be there. That's pretty cool, huh? Yeah. Oh, my God. I was so happy.

24:39Tony Bonfiglio:She was happy at Santa Life.

24:40Theo Von:She was happy.

24:41Tony Bonfiglio:I was happy. And where did you meet your wife, Christine? I met her. I know she's here with us today. Where did you meet your wife at?

24:47Theo Von:Well, on my block, I was walking up my block in a neighborhood, and her and her sister just moved in from the Bronx. They were in the Marble Hill projects. They were like the last ones out of these projects. And so I'm going up the block. I'm like 14 years old. Yeah. And he's shit. They're coming down with one of my friends. And he's like, hey, these two girls just moved in from the Bronx, you know, Chris and Bernie. And I'm like, hey, first of all, I was like, thought he was pulling my leg. But so that was like where we met. And then, you know, we went through school. We didn't really date until we were like 18.

25:20Tony Bonfiglio:Hey, there you go. That's a great shot.

25:24Theo Von:Yeah. Yeah. It was like size 32 waist back then. Hey, look, I'm looking at Christine.

25:30Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah. Yeah. She's looking good. Yeah. You can say what I'm looking at your waist, buddy. Yeah.

25:35Theo Von:We were, we were, you know, we were like 24 years old there. I was just getting out of the academy. That's graduation day. I'm graduated from there after six weeks of training. Oh, that's nice. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. dude you look pretty pleased well the funny part is they give us your assignment you know so i get this thing 34 truck now like 150 firemen only 10 are going to go to trucks the other 140 are going to go to engine companies there's an engine company they're the water they got the hoses and then there's the truck that's the ladders and the you know they they break down the doors the ledge walkers so i didn't want to go to a truck i was like real i didn't like the heights I didn't like the ropes.

26:17Theo Von:I didn't like the ladders.

26:18Tony Bonfiglio:Look, I got a zero. On the ledge walk. Yeah, you got the wrong guy.

26:24Theo Von:So, and why did they choose you for that then? I have no idea. My father said they saw how good I was at breaking things, that they sent him to the truck. So now I see a truck in Manhattan. I'm like, oh, man. All right. So I tell her, I says, I got it. I'm going to a 34 truck. They gave me a truck. She's like, they gave me a truck. I'm like, yeah, because most guys are in the engine for like maybe five, 10 years before they get to a truck.

26:49Tony Bonfiglio:And so in the engine means they're in the actual fire engine?

26:52Theo Von:They're in the engine and they're a separate company. You know, they're engine A4 and we were allowed a 3-4. It was a big 100-year-old firehouse. And so a ladder, they do different stuff than an engine does. Yeah, the engine puts the fire out. Okay. The ladder opens up, opens up the door, breaks the doors down, opens, cuts the roofs open, makes all the rescues and the searches. is it's a lot more intimidating because you don't have the hose line you're actually in there crawling around with no water no water maybe a can on your back what yeah I was a can man for

27:24Tony Bonfiglio:quite a while and that's heating up quick probably yeah so you get in a ladder and where's the ladder

27:28Theo Von:at what's that like 161st street in Manhattan in on off right in Saddam Avenue in a place called Washington Heights Washington Heights yeah yeah a lot of Dominicans up there oh my god when I got there they were just coming in yeah and they took over with blood man they killed everybody really oh they took over the drug business because that was the hub you had the gw bridge right there you had all the parkways to head out to north brooklyn out to long island so everybody would come in and buy their crack and their cocaine yeah so it was it was badass i mean they would be shooting all day long was it exciting it was yeah oh my god and the place was so crowded it It was like full of people with these old broken down tenement buildings.

28:12Theo Von:Brownstones, tenements, all broken down, 100 years old. The firehouse was 100 years old. Was it exciting to go work there? Did it feel scary? Like what did it kind of become for you? Well, the funny part I was going to say is that I went with my wife from the graduation. I said, we got to go. It's on 84th Street, I told her. I didn't realize that was 84 Engine when I read the thing. So I take her into Manhattan, and I take her down 84th Street, and there's no firehouse. I go all the way back up to the west side. I come all the way down. There's no firehouse. And we're saying, wow, this is nice.

28:44Theo Von:Look at this. It's all money, brownstones, high-end stores. Finally, I go around 85th Street, and I find a firehouse. And I got my uniform on, and they tell you to not always knock on the door and say probationary firefighter, Bonfiglio. This old guy answers the door. What can I do for you, Proby? He knew right away I was a probie just by looking at me with the stuff on it. I said, I'm looking for my firehouse, 34 truck. They said it's on 84th Street. He's like, wow, let me look at that. He's like, dude, you're in with 84 engine, and you're on 161st Street. I was like, what? Holy shit. I had to get in the car and tell my wife we got to go up to 100.

29:22Theo Von:And now we left the glitz, and now we're in this freaking run-down neighborhood. It was like, holy shit.

29:28Tony Bonfiglio:The music's a little bit better.

29:29Theo Von:Oh, you got a lot of salsa. blasting in the streets.

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31:01Tony Bonfiglio:Must spend$5 of real money on prize picks before receiving bonus lineups. Prize picks predict is a registered FCM offering, team picks, and culture picks as event contracts. Both involve significant risk, not for all. Must be 18 and over. And for event contracts via U.S. resident, restrictions apply. Void where prohibited. Use responsibly for help. Call 1-800-426-2537 or visit www.ncpgambling.org. So you're in there. You're in the ladder. Truck company, yeah, ladder company. You're in the truck company. You guys are the ones that go in. So you have more of an ax than you do a hose.

31:31Theo Von:Yeah, we got a forcible entry team. Okay. A roof man. And another guy that's called the OV. He vents out the outside. He goes up the fire escapes.

31:40Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, yeah, peeping Tom probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

31:42Theo Von:You're the guy, the first guy in to breaking the window in.

31:45Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, or just sitting there by it. You know, I won't say nothing. so you do you guys get there before the uh the the like an engine gets there or is it just does

31:56Theo Von:that try to get there at the same time you never know I mean if we're leaving quarters together you know we always let the engine take off first hopefully they go and find a hydrant okay got it we try to get in front of the building with the ladder okay okay got it so so take me on your first fire my first fire well I've been like car fires rubbish fires we had water leaks so many water leaks because it was such an old neighborhood you know when we go to a water leak we got to find out where it's leaking sometimes we got to break into the apartment gas leaks we did everything all the utilities up there so i doing it for about three weeks i'm still wondering oh my god what's going to happen with a job am i gonna what's it going to be like i still have no idea you know i'm a can man the probie gets the can okay and the can means what i got a fire extinguisher with a strap on my back and I got a hook and I'm going to be the guy that if I can put out whatever fire I can with the can oh is it actually helpful is the can helpful it'll put out if a good can man could maybe put out a room of fire okay okay you get your finger over that thing it's you spread it

33:01Tony Bonfiglio:around so it's real it's real yeah okay got it do you remember the the uh day that you get your

33:06Theo Von:first fire yeah it was like three weeks in and I'm doing my first 12 by watch so you have a house watch you know and you got a man somebody's got a man it it's got a computer in there that comes on and tells you what your alarms are and you acknowledge them you hit all the lights you send the companies out so i gotta do my first 12 by so i've i never done a watch alone yet so the 12 by was like you know it was a little scary at first and that's 12 hours no 12 to 3 you do three hour watch okay so 12 o 'clock came i went in i took the book over it's midnight and i'm sitting there and it's like 1 o 'clock in the morning and all of a sudden, like 1.30, I start falling asleep.

33:47Theo Von:I'm like, sleeping. Look, I've had a job before. I know how it is. I'm sacked out. All of a sudden, the alarm goes off. The computer goes, it starts ticking out this alarm. I'm like, oh my God, I was so scared. I got up, I hit the house watch light. I'm looking at the ticket. It says engine A4, ladder 3-4, first two, fire on an eighth floor. So now I got to hit all the bunk room lights. I got to hit the intercom, say everybody goes. I got to hit the three bells. And then I got to acknowledge on the computer both companies, 10-4. And then I got to take the tickets and put them on the truck side and the engine side.

34:22Theo Von:And then I put my gear on and out the door we go. Let's go, Tony. I'm amped up. Oh, man. So now we get there. It's 3.30, quarter to 4 in the morning. And it's like a projects building, about 11 stories. It was a pretty decent building. It was on Amsterdam Avenue. And so we're the forcible entry team. Me, my lieutenant, who was this salty guy from the Bronx, Spinelli, he was like a real, I mean, he was the war days, you know, back in the 60s and the 70s. How salty? Salty means, you know, like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes, he was salty. He had gout. Burly mustache, unruly hair. Gout and his smile, huh? It's all bent and burnt, you know?

35:00Theo Von:Yeah, dude, definitely. Great guy, though, you know? Yeah, it's like he was raised in an ashtray. Oh, yeah. Oh, this guy, yeah. Yeah. So we're the forceful entry teams, a cam man, an irons man. He's got an ax and a halogen and the boss and we're the three guys. So now we go into the lobby door and we hit all the buzzes. Three 30 in the morning. And there's people in there. Yeah, no, they're in there. So all of a sudden they start, but who is it? Who is it? You're like fire department, open the door, open the door, fire department. So they buzz you in. Now they go in the lobby, nothing's showing, nobody's bailing out, you know?

35:33Theo Von:So I'm like, eh, I don't know. So this might not be it. Take an elevator to the seventh floor because the fire was on the eighth floor. So we get to the seventh floor, and you never take the elevator to the fire floor for obvious reasons. So we take it, and we take the stairs to the eighth floor, and we get in this hallway. And now it's like a big projects hallway. I don't know if you've ever seen one of them, but they're painted green, and they got like fluorescent lights, and it's long. So we go to all the doors, and we stick our noses in the jams trying to smell smoke. We don't smell nothing.

36:04Theo Von:So the boss says to my friend Jimmy the Duke, he says, go up to the next floor and check it out. Calls down the battalion, says, yeah, we got nothing showing on the eighth floor. We're going to check out the ninth floor. So with that, now we go into the hallway and my friend is on the top of the stairs and he says, Lou, I think we got something. So I'm like, oh, shit, this is it. I'm in this project hallway, caught at four in the morning. I'm running up the steps with my hook and everything. And I said, the boss says, what do we have? and the Duke opens this door. And I was like, oh, my God. If there was a gate to hell, this was it, okay?

36:41Theo Von:Black, shimmering smoke that looked like satin curtains just going in all different directions. And my first thought was, no way we're fucking going in there, right? I see these guys. Hey, look, let me see a two-bedroom. Yeah. This won't work for us. They're pulling their boots up and they're putting their air, they're turning their air bottles on and everything. I'm like, oh, shit, this is it. So now we're getting down on our hands and knees, and the Duke tells me, you hold my coat, okay? And I'm like, sure, I'm holding your coat. So you're behind him crawling? I'm behind the Duke. The boss goes in first like this black abyss we just crawl into on the floor.

37:18Tony Bonfiglio:What are y 'all looking for?

37:20Theo Von:The fire apartment. We got to find it.

37:22Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, so this is just the hallway? The hallway. Oh, I thought that - Somebody left their door open. Pull up that hallway you had, Nick. Is that the one from the actual building? Oh, this is a general one. yeah i think i know what you're talking about though it's narrow hallways narrow hallways

37:36Theo Von:long green yeah look at that color yellowish green that looked just like that oh god so now we're on our hands and knees and i'm i've got his coat i got the can on my back i got my mask on and we're in total blackness and i'm crawling down like a hundred feet and i'm saying in my mask i'm saying what the fuck am i doing here this is fucking crazy i'm never gonna do this again I felt so helpless. And what am I going to do? It's pitch black. We're crawling in a hallway we've never been before.

38:06Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, dude. Oh, yeah.

38:07Theo Von:So we crawl up, and then all of a sudden, the Duke stops, and he says, we're at the fire door. And I'm like, oh, okay. Can't see nothing.

38:15Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah. It almost seems like some kind of sex traffic. Anyway, whatever's going on, it sounds kind of out of sorts. It's out of sorts.

38:24Theo Von:Anyway, so carry on. Sorry. So it's something that I never, I'm not doing. I'm quitting in the morning. I swear to God, I was quitting. I was like, what are we going to do in here? Yeah. We can't see. I'm on the ground. So finally, we call in, and I crawl in, and I hear the boss. He's up ahead of us in the apartment already. He says, bring the can in here. So now I crawl past the Duke. I'm on my hands and knees. And about 10 feet up, I see the boss on his knees with a glow of the fire. He goes, you see the fire? It's to the left. and I look and there's a room on fire. It looks like cotton candy.

39:01Theo Von:The flames are like all over the place. And how much is it protecting you?

39:05Tony Bonfiglio:How much is your suit protecting you at that point?

39:06Theo Von:Nah, nothing. What?

39:09Tony Bonfiglio:Dude didn't take it off, bro.

39:11Theo Von:Yeah, no. They're just coats, you know, to keep you warm, basically. You got your leather helmet on.

39:17Tony Bonfiglio:Keep you warm. And at that point, does it kind of take on, like do you start to feel a little bit more empowered kind of or something?

39:24Theo Von:No, I felt scared shit. I just wanted to get out of there and get this fire over with. So now I see him and he says, do you see the fire? And I look to the left and I say, yeah, I see the fire. I'm in this mask, you know. And he says, hit it with the can. I got the can and I'm on my knees and I go to hit it and nothing comes out. I hit it again, nothing comes out. I didn't have air in the can. It's like a total fuck up for a probie. You should have put it in there? That's my fuck up. Oh, my first job. So I said to the boss, I got no air in the can.

39:57Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, I've used that excuse a lot of times. A lot of times over the years, buddy. I'll tell you that. And I want to apologize to a lot of his women out there. But yeah, that was my excuse. I got no air in the can. That's a good analogy. I got a ladder issue. But go on. Fully extended. Fuck, you must have been embarrassed, huh?

40:17Theo Von:I wasn't embarrassed, but yeah, I felt like, oh man, I'm going to catch some shit for this. Did you even repent?

40:22Tony Bonfiglio:Did you like just make a sound like you had air in?

40:25Theo Von:Like. I didn't make no sounds. I could believe it because I mean, you always check the can. You know, you got to pressurize it, put a little water. So he says, all right, back out to the doorway. So I, now the fire's coming out over our heads in the hallway. And I get to the door, we came in crawling. And the elevator was right across from the apartment, the fire apartment. And the door opens and there's 84 engine without a mask on the rain they got they took the elevator to the fire floor and they got stuck and they're going down on their knees and they're trying to put their masks on and i'm in i'm yelling in my mask i'm like get the fucking line in here put the fucking five screaming i'm like out of my mind now so finally they get in the line now it's black again and the line is the hose the hose okay and it's all asses and elbows now in this hallway you know that's what we call organized confusion and everybody sort of bringing the line past me.

41:22Theo Von:I see him get up to the room, and the boss says, there's the fire to the left. He crack, I hear the line crack, you know, get the water comes up, he cracks it, and now he hits it, you know, and he starts pushing the fire in, and I squeeze past them because I got to search the apartment. That's my job. And you're searching for it, see if there's anybody in there. The bodies, yeah. Wow. So now I'm searching along the wall and still can't see, and I'd get to a window and I'd smash it out with my hook and I would stick my head out the window because this is the first time I could see again since we left that stairwell, you know?

41:57Theo Von:Oh, yeah, you got to get some fresh air. Fresh air and some view of something. So then I'd go around and then all of a sudden they knocked it down fast and I run into the Duke, the Irons man, and he's like, yo, Proby, you broke your cherry, man, congratulations. And I was like, wow, I took my mask off. It was kind of like still gray smoke and steamy, but it was better than the mask, you know, because that was so confined. So I said, yeah, Jimmy, I said my first fire, but this might be my last fire. I said, I don't know if I'm doing this again. And there we were. We overhauled the apartment, and we threw the mattress out the window.

42:32Theo Von:We took everything out, threw the street down into the street. And who's down there catching that? You're just hitting whoever. That's free. Back then, like, nobody. Who gives a shit, yeah. Just hopefully nobody's down there. You yell out, look out! And then you throw the burning mattress out the window. Aw, shit. I'll throw my ex-wife out that bitch, you know?

42:50Tony Bonfiglio:Don't suck. Let's take that out. Let's take that out.

42:52Theo Von:And then I'm looking out this window, and it's encrusted with all these embers and shit, you know, like gold and amber and everything. And it was like 530 in the morning, and the Manhattan skyline was turning purple. So I had all this beautiful thing I was learning. I was like, wow, this is some sight, you know? Excuse me. Yeah. Now I kiss the sky. Yeah, it was definitely rock and roll, man. I was like, yeah. So now I had to get back, and I put the air in the can when I got back, changed all the masks and everything now I had to go up and see the boss you know take my medicine so I walk up to the truck office and I knock on the door it's open he says yeah come in he's wiping his face down with a towel he just came out of the bathroom I said I may like puppy eyes I said Lou I'm sorry about not having air in the can and he's like wiping his face he goes yeah don't worry about it kid shit happens and I was like oh oh wow thank you I was 23 years old you know So now I'm walking out and he goes, hey, kid.

43:49Theo Von:And I turn around and he goes, you did a good job. And I was like, oh, wow. That's awesome. Yeah. And then I'm driving home saying, am I quitting this fucking job? Because it was like nothing I've ever experienced. And growing up, I did a lot of crazy things. But this was the scariest thing I ever did. But yet it was so exciting and thrilling. I mean, I got home and the grass was so greener. The sky was so blue. And the air that I was breathing was so appreciated. Because you were alive. I was alive, man. It made me, I was like, wow, that was something. Dang. Of course, that wasn't my last job.

44:22Theo Von:I went 21 years more after that, so.

44:24Tony Bonfiglio:What kind of like made you decide, or do you just have to go back to work, and it just kept being like that, or like?

44:29Theo Von:Yeah, no, I, you know, yeah, you know, we were a busy truck back then, because we had a lot of fires, a lot of occupied fires, which are really, they're a lot more intense than a vacant fire, or, you know, something like that. You know, you got a lot of people bailing out, and sometimes they're trapped, and, you You got to get to them, the truck, that's their job.

44:48Tony Bonfiglio:You know what's almost like hearing you say this and like, thanks so much for your time, Tony, too. I appreciate it, man.

44:52Theo Von:Thank you. This is like an honor.

44:54Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, thanks, bro. Are you kidding me?

44:56Theo Von:Yeah. You guys are pioneers. You know, you're the millennial pioneers with entertainment these days. I think you changed the whole scene.

45:04Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, well, I just, I think it's like people just, we got to find more humans that have the best storage, you know? Exactly. It was so crazy. We're just like, we're coming to New York and we just get an email from you the other day that you had seen that we put out a thing about looking for somebody that works in a fire department. And my producer's ex forwarded to me. He's like, can you believe we just, this guy, we're going to be there? I was like, wow, seems really interesting. So I think it was meant to be. Hey, I think so too. And I think I was about to say, I think it was meant to be that your first fire didn't have any, nobody was in it because that would have, that could have been super scary.

45:39Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah.

45:39Theo Von:Yeah. Oh yeah.

45:40Tony Bonfiglio:Take me through like some of the times where there was somebody in there? Like how much of a different scenario is that? Is the energy different when you get there? Who lets you know if somebody's in there or do you even know? Like take me through that process of like right when you get there and then take me into one of like a fire where it was inhabited.

45:59Theo Von:Well, one, well, this one fire where I, uh, we, we lost this little girl and that one really hurt me a lot because, uh, we got to the apartment and my, my Lieutenant, he was an, a little Irish guy the bravest guy I've ever met, Lieutenant Maloney. And I would chase him up to the fire at the door, the caller, and he would knock on the door with his little crowbar. Fire department, open the door. You know, it sounded like some cartoon, you know, the Irish broke. So these people open the doors, and we walk in, and there's a card table sitting there. There's about eight people playing cards. They're eating.

46:35Theo Von:We're standing in the kitchen, the three of us, and we're like, my lieutenant says, What the hell did you call the fire department? So they're looking up. They're like, yeah, I think something's burning in the back. It was a big apartment. So we're like looking at each other. Something burning in the back. What the hell is this? So now we go down the hallway. My lieutenant's cursing under his breath. He's like, oh, he's like, he's motherfucking fucking shit. Yeah, they're still playing cards. Cards is fun, though.

47:02Tony Bonfiglio:Cards can be fun.

47:03Theo Von:They were. But we get into the living room, and there's like these French doors. I don't know if you know the French doors probably from.

47:09Tony Bonfiglio:Is it like that kind of thing?

47:10Theo Von:They're glass paneled and they're like two doors. You open to a room. They're called French doors.

47:15Tony Bonfiglio:You think there's going to be somebody French in there, but there ain't.

47:18Theo Von:Yeah, no French people. There never is, dude.

47:20Tony Bonfiglio:There never is. Typical French. You'll send the doors. We'll be there. They're not. Typical French.

47:27Theo Von:So anyway, I open the French door and the room is on fire. Like, holy shit. Close the door. We get down on our knees, start putting our masks on. And we're calling 1075. five that means we got a working fire he's telling the battalion you know the engine now they're coming up with the line so right before they got the line I says all right guys it's right here I put my mask on I said showtime and I went to open the uh the French doors and I get a call over the handy talkie there's a kid in the room my friend the OV is with the mother out in the street oh so now we bust into these doors they're hitting thank god we had the water hitting And I'm frantically looking for this kid in black smoke.

48:11Theo Von:I'm on the bed. I'm feeling all over the bed. I've got to find this kid.

48:15Tony Bonfiglio:And is it mostly feeling? How far can you see?

48:17Theo Von:You don't see anything. I can put tape over your eyes. It's nothing. And you're feeling with gloves on too. Yeah, sometimes gloves. Sometimes you forget your gloves, but yeah.

48:26Tony Bonfiglio:What?

48:28Theo Von:Yeah. Back then we were like, less equipment, better. You want to get in, you want to get out quick too.

48:35Tony Bonfiglio:No, that sounds like a guy who forgot his equipment. Ah, yeah.

48:39Theo Von:Put air in the can.

48:40Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, put some air in your can, Tony. That's always that guy's excuse, you know? Exactly. But that's a great attitude to take. Like, nah, guys, if there's air in this can, we're going to have to be here all afternoon. Yeah, yeah. We're in and out of this joint.

48:51Theo Von:I could have probably maybe put it out with the can. But anyway, so the engine, I'm in there. I'm going around. And finally, I'm going around the wall. I can feel I'm under the bed feeling around, trying to find this kid. And I get to a window. I break the window out, and I look out the window, and I see my Irons man that was with me. He's in the street with the kid, a limp kid, you know, and they take in the kid. They open the battalion car door. They go in there, and they rushed off the Columbia Presbyterian.

49:19Tony Bonfiglio:How'd the kid get out?

49:20Theo Von:No, he carried. She was unconscious. Oh, he found her. She didn't make it. The kid was dead. Unfortunately, she was burnt. They tried to revive her at the hospital, but it didn't work. so I'm I'm overhauling now and I see my lieutenant and I said uh I just saw Jeff in the street with the kid he's like uh Anthony the kid was right there behind the door and I was like oh I was crushed man I shut that door I felt like I killed that kid you know so uh we go to Presbyterian oh so before we leave now the deputy shows up because now we got a 1045 which is a body and he's like what happened here we're in this apartment people are still playing cards so my lieutenant says well we came up to the apartment and I said I'll tell you what happened and now the deputy looks at me you know I go you see these motherfuckers over here I said they didn't bother to fucking tell us there might be a kid in that back room and I'm throwing f-bombs at him and the deputy says lieutenant you better control your man so the boss puts his arm around my shoulder he says come on come on anthony he called me anthony that's anthony in a brogue anthony let's go down to the street you know and we went down to the street and we went and we picked up my friend jeff at the hospital i said how'd they make out with the kid he said they were trying to revive her they were bringing it to the burn center so that was the last we heard of

50:42Tony Bonfiglio:our but there's no way you could have known that right because you go in and the kid was hiding

50:47Theo Von:behind the door you think somebody would tell us there could be a kid back there it's heartbreaking Oh, man.

50:52Tony Bonfiglio:Do you ever find out why they wouldn't let you know what was going on there?

50:54Theo Von:I guess there was like an SRO bid or something. They were renting out that little back room to this woman and a child, you know. So it was pretty bad. And I had a few of those. I mean, right after I was getting over with that one, I got another one where we showed up without our masks on because it was the middle of the day. Yeah, no, I get it. There was nothing showing. we get out and the guy says hey they're working on the oil burner all day and we had a lot of oil burners you know they would they would smoke up so we're like 10 20 says on the box which means all the other companies take your time don't blow the red lights and shit so now we're heading up to the stairs to the caller's apartment it's you know forcible entry team me lieutenant clipper and this guy jimmy lynch and we get to the door and the woman opens the door and we own the apartment and it's like a slight smoke condition in there but slight so we're like what's what what do we have here so my boss says he was a smart fireman he was from rescue too he said I think we're we got something above us usually it's below us you know but this I guess cuz the light with the smoke was so light so now we get up we don't have no masks and nothing we get to this I see smoke coming out of the doorway you know the locked door in the hallway so I turn around, I donkey kicked the door open, like three kicks, it kicks open, and we got a black wall of smoke.

52:15Theo Von:We're like, holy shit. Now we got, after the 1020, we got to give a 1075, which means now we have a fire. So now we're crawling in. No masks. No masks. We're on our bellies. Was it better or worse without a mask in this place? Worse. It was worse. Yeah. Because you could feel the heat? Yeah. You know, back in the day when they didn't wear masks, like in the 60s and the 50s. Everything was wooden cotton. Then once the 60s and 70s, and everything's vinyl and plastic, and it's a whole different smoke. It's poisonous, so it gets you quick. That's a great point, right? Yeah. Back then, you could suck the cotton and the wood.

52:49Theo Von:Yeah. It's like, yeah, you were smoking - Like smoking a pack of cigarettes.

52:52Tony Bonfiglio:You're like, hell, shit, I wish somebody had a couple tobacco plants, and you had to crawl around for another two minutes in here.

52:58Theo Von:Exactly. That's what it was like. And things would burn slower back then, too, wouldn't they? Well, back then, yeah. Plastics will take off a lot faster. God. So anyway, he crawls in. And we're like, oh, shit, we got to go in. Jimmy goes in ahead of him. And I'm the last guy in. We're like almost on our bellies crawling in. And I hear the horrible words. We got bodies. I'm like, oh, my God. Now we got to give 1045s. So we had 1020. That means don't come. Take it easy getting there. Now we went 1075. Now we got two 1045s, two bodies. so with that I get a body a little girl come they pass it back to me and I cry like shimmy out of the apartment you don't know if she I don't know any I can't see nothing yet I still can't see nothing till I get to the stairwell I knew I had a kid in my arms I see it's a little girl you know face is all darkened so now I'm like oh shit I'm gonna run her down to the EMS is gonna take her in the street and I go running down to the street and there's nobody there and all the people are screaming you know they're yelling and screaming and i'm holding this kid and i'm looking around because we gave the 10 20.

54:06Theo Von:we were take your time there was nobody there yet they're at the malt shop i put the kid down i do cpr on this little girl and i you know i put it down a cup her head and i pretty much all i knew was like a 15 and two you know you get two breaths into her and then you give a 15 and this went on for like 10 minutes before i got relieved and the sound that she was making when the air would come out they call it machine gun breath because it's like and the smell because i had the smell of the burnt lips ah so finally somebody came over and they started taking over and then the ems came after 10 minutes they let me go so now i'm like i'm walking around the sidewalk all these dominicans are very emotional they're all screaming and yelling and crying and everything some of them probably pray and everything yeah for sure i I figured, let me go back up to the floor because the other two guys were working on the mother.

54:59Theo Von:And when I got there, the EMS already took over. And I was like, holy shit. And it was like the first fire we had where the windows didn't break open. They were the new windows that the Gambino crime family put in in all of Manhattan. And they didn't break like the old windows. So it never got air. So it smoldered. And they died from the smoke. And that stayed with me for years. I would like, sometimes I would smell and taste the burnt lips and everything. And oh, it was horrible. That's heartbreaking.

55:33Tony Bonfiglio:Like, who do you even talk to about that kind of stuff? Do you guys go to some of the services? What is some of that like?

55:39Theo Von:I got back in the firehouse. The guys were listening up. They knew. I took my turnout coat off and I just went in. I took a shower. We all took showers. And then the boss says into the office. you know let's talk about it so he says you know we did everything we could it really wasn't nothing else we could do i mean not having the mask didn't hamper us at all because we still got the bodies and uh so then i went home my wife heard about it already on the news and uh so when i got home they all greeted me and that was pretty much you know all i got was some nice hugs and some tears at home yeah yeah you get over it it takes a while though i mean i had a couple of things i had this this junkie that we kept called three times.

56:24Theo Von:We got called to the sixth floor. He kept lighting fires to stay warm in the winter.

56:28Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah.

56:29Theo Von:And he was a young black kid, you know, and so we would have to climb up these vacant stairs. I had to pop a hole in the, in the cinder block walls to get in vacant building. And a couple of times it's happened. Yeah. Oh, well it's the first one. We go up sixth floor, dark, cold. It's icy. It's about 30 degrees out. And nice kid. I have no idea. I got to the back with my, and I see my Irish lieutenant yelling at him. He's like, what the fuck you doing? You can't light a fucking fire, blah, blah, blah. And he was sitting there, and he was in the corner, and I came in, and I put my flashlight on him, and he was looking at me with these eyes, you know, and I was like, God, he had like tombstones in his eyes, you know.

57:08Theo Von:And he was only about 16, 17. So we put the fire out. We leave. Two hours later, we get called back again. Go up. Oh, got to climb these stairs. It's six floors, no steps, just risers. And no lights. It's dark. So now we climb all the way up again. We go through the thing. He lit it up again. The boy says, you can't fucking do this. He's yelling at him and shit. I got the light on him. And the funny part was we just broke into an Entenmann's cake at the firehouse with the vanilla icing that we would keep in the fridge, get it nice and stiff. So as my friend Jeff in the dark, he's putting the fire out.

57:49Theo Von:I put the light on him, and he's still got the vanilla icing on his mustache.

57:54Tony Bonfiglio:Somebody took a piece for the road, Jeff, huh? The boss is yelling at him. That's why he was pissed. This guy interrupted his dessert.

58:02Theo Von:Yeah, all three companies and a battalion are responding every time. And we got chains on. It's snowing. It's not like no easy ride. Right, so you get a lot to get out there. So the third time, I hear we just got back from something. and we went in our bunks, and we'd get in the bunks, and we were like a little pillow talk before everybody was sleeping. And then before you know it, beam, boom, same box. Here we go again. I hear the boss yelling, fuck shit, I'll kill that motherfucker.

58:29Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, dude, let him cook at this point.

58:32Theo Von:We're sliding down the poles.

58:33Tony Bonfiglio:This guy's trying to get to heaven, and you guys keep coming in

58:37Theo Von:and ruining his trip. Third time, so we're in the rig, and I said to my friend Jeff, I says, let's tell the boss, stay on the, don't even come up the stairs, we'll take care of it. And surprisingly, he agreed, so when we got to the door, I says, Lou, we'll take care of it, you stay down here. So me and Jeff go up, my light, my diehard battery died on me. So I had like no light left, I'm trying to follow Jeff's light, and we're going up just on the rises, and then there's no platform, so you gotta like lean over your step to get on, and when you get to the fifth or sixth floor, you're looking down at this skeleton staircase.

59:11Theo Von:What? Yeah, so now we go in, go through the dark apartment again. He's in there again. Now he's got candles burning because we broke his bucket up. We smashed it all up. So we're like, holy shit. So now Jeff is like leaning into him and he says, listen, you can't fucking do this anymore. And Jeff's like the good cop, you know. I'm the bad cop. So I lean into him. I look at him. I says, we come back here again. I'm throwing you out that fucking window. and he just looked at me you know and that was it that was the last time we went back we left there we took his candles but years later i would see that kid's face looking at me and it made me feel so bad a wasted life like that you know heroin he had the the works everything that's scary

1:00:00Tony Bonfiglio:and the fact that he kept going back to do it it's just that power of addiction you know it was cold Oh. Well, I guess they keep you warm up.

1:00:08Theo Von:Yeah, he was in a vacant, yeah. Oh. Yeah. A lot of shit like that. Vacants were disgusting.

1:00:15Tony Bonfiglio:Because it's just, anybody could be in there doing anything, huh?

1:00:18Theo Von:Squatters. Yeah, they're shitting on the floor. They're drugs, needles. And you're crawling around in there because you still have to save them. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, vacant fires.

1:00:29Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, do you start to develop a certain, like, attitudes towards humanity or drug users or society? Absolutely.

1:00:37Theo Von:Call them skells. They're all skells. Yeah. To us back then, you know. And matter of fact, on my block, we had a tight block, 161st Street. And we had a bodega, a gypsy cab dispatcher, a whorehouse, and a bunch of drug apartments. Yeah. And it was a busy block. and we had two guys on the block that were almost there the whole time I was there and they were the lookouts and one guy was bald and we called him eight ball and the other guy always had a hat and we called him the hat so and the funny part was they would watch our cars for us so nobody would break into the cars and shit but you know I mean I would see every agency there is come down and radar block through the years I was there.

1:01:24Theo Von:ATF, Manhattan, Tactical North, CIA. I mean, everything. I'll tell you who was the worst ones was the FBI. They come down with machine guns. I've never seen anybody that. And then they clear the street. They hit all the apartments. It's amazing. I bet they were all just visiting that whorehouse. That whorehouse. I would inspect it now and then. I'd go in there with my hat and And they'd all be looking at me, you know, be like, what the fuck you want? Like, I got to inspect this place.

1:01:57Tony Bonfiglio:What was it like in some of those joints? Was it interesting in there? Was it just women trying to just survive? Most of those types of people?

1:02:03Theo Von:Some middle-aged, young, not too young, Dominican women. I guess they took care of the cab drivers and stuff. And they had the different rooms, you know. Everybody had their little bed in there. Just trying to survive. And I would inspect it, you know. I got you. You got condoms. The condoms are here. Making sure the alarm works, ladies. Yeah, they would be like, come on. Some of them were the prostitutes would be like, get the fuck out of here, man. You know, they'd be up all night. They didn't want nothing to do with me. Oh, I'm sure.

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1:04:51Tony Bonfiglio:That's betterhelp.com slash theo. That would be the wildest thing for me would just be like the access you get. Dude, I remember one time I'm in Kansas City, right? Right. And I guess somebody started a fire, right? And like as a comedian, you go to different hotels. You're always in hotels over the years. Right. And I got to the point where every now, like, you know, every seven weeks, somebody'd start a fire, pull an alarm. Right. And so in the middle of the night, you got to go downstairs and be outside. So I finally decided for myself, I'm going to wait.

1:05:23Theo Von:Yeah, I'm not going out there.

1:05:25Tony Bonfiglio:There was never a good fire.

1:05:26Theo Von:Right, right.

1:05:27Tony Bonfiglio:So I was like, I'm waiting out there for 45 minutes or whatever while they see if there's a fire or not. So I finally said, I'm staying in the room until I smell smoke or whatever. So one time I'm in there, I just made this big sandwich, dude. It was really good. It was one of the better ones I've probably ever made in my life. And a guy, I remember this big fireman with an ax comes in, just opens my door. And the alarm had been going off for a while. and he's looking he's looking for me and I was like is there a fire I missed something yeah he's like you got to get out of here I was like bro I every week they doing

1:06:04Theo Von:this shit I'm not going right I hate it all the time yes but that's the cry wolf thing too though

1:06:09Tony Bonfiglio:you know oh for sure I knew it was on me hey if it's bad come back right now right and I think he's like fuck you know I don't blame him yeah that's that's a fireman attitude yeah and it It should be. Hey, come back if I'm going to burn, you know?

1:06:23Theo Von:Yeah, exactly.

1:06:24Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, there's just a lot of pressure. Yeah, like immediately I was putting all the pressure on this guy. But yeah, what were some of the environments you went into? Like, did you ever just walk into an environment like, oh, well, this is crazy. Or like a drug den or like a -

1:06:38Theo Von:Oh, plenty of drug dens. I mean, every building had a drug apartment where they would sell drugs. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but this one fire that I went to, it was in the middle of the day. It was like the second floor. We pull up. Fire's blowing out four windows. I mean, it was going good. And so we run out. Now we're second due, which means we go to the floor above the fire. So the first due truck has the fire floor. Second due goes to the floor above, which the floor above is really shitty. Because that's where the heat's going up. That's where everything's going, you know. So now we get up the staircase, and it's starting to bank down and get dark.

1:07:15Theo Von:And I see a guy runs past me. no shirt on, no shoes. He's got like a three-year-old kid under his arm and a hefty bag. Oh, yeah. So a politician probably. So he slips by us, you know. So now we're going to take the door in the hallway above the fire apartment. And it's getting smoky. And my boss puts his mask on, but we have to take the door. So I wanted to see a little bit. So I'm hitting the, you know, the guy's got the halogen in the door jam and I'm smashing it with an ax. And he's trying to get a bite on the jam to bust the door open so finally we get it we bust the door open we put our masks on and we go in and we're crawling around and the engine company did a good job they knocked the fire down pretty fast you know so as we're crawling around it's starting the the black smoke's starting to go away and it's getting lighter and I'm I'm on the floor and I'm I bump into a uh a dresser I'm like oh now I can start to see a little bit I put my light on the dresser all the drawers are open stacks of hundreds and $50 bills.

1:08:15Theo Von:Every draw, I mean. No 20s. It was all Coke money. And I'm like, oh my God. I'm still like my one year there. I'm a junior man. You're like, I got to get something for Christine. Well, that's it. I got an angel and a devil on my shoulders and they're fighting it out. We're in smoke. So I mean, it ain't like a setup. Nobody's ever going to know. So I'm thinking, oh my god I could buy myself a new Harley with that money you know and then I was like the the angel would be like oh you buy the new Harley and you're gonna crash and you'll get paralyzed and I'm like oh shit yeah that could happen so now I told the senior man I said Eddie come here

1:08:56Tony Bonfiglio:look in this drawers yeah bring another guy in now senior man you know he's like holy shit Tony

1:09:01Theo Von:he's like what are we gonna do here oh Eddie's setting you up again yeah I'm like you're the senior man you tell me what to do oh this is dirty tennis you guys are playing I could have been stacking thousands in my pocket.

1:09:12Tony Bonfiglio:If Eddie would have been like, hey, let's take a little, you have to, huh? I would, yeah. Yeah, you got to. I think just to even make sure that it is what it is, get it back home. Right.

1:09:20Theo Von:I was young. I had this, oh, it's dirty money. It'll bring me bad juju. It could have. Yeah. You never know. I mean, I think that the karma of it, who knows? Yeah, you don't know. So the boss walks in, the lieutenant, and he's like, what do you got? And I was like, we got all this drawer full of, dresser full of money. He's like, oh, I don't see nothing. He was like, I don't know if you ever see Schultz on Hogan's Heroes. He's like, I see nothing. He turns around. He walks away. So now we go out, and it's still a little smoky, but we could see. We don't have our masks on, and there's another room with a padlock on the door.

1:09:56Theo Von:So he's like, take the door. So he puts the ads in and the halogen, and I whack it with the ax.

1:10:01Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah.

1:10:02Theo Von:The door would bust it open, and Theo, I'm telling you, It was like half the coke in Manhattan was in there. Bricks all the way to the ceiling on all sides of the walls. A pile of cocaine about 18 inches high on the table. We were like, holy shit. So the boss gets on, tell the battalion we got a drug apartment. Send the PD up. So now we're like waiting for the PD to come. We wanted them to come before the drug dealers got back. So finally two NYPD guys show up. And they're like, yeah, guys, what do you got? I said, well, go in that room and go in that room. I said, that's the money room. That's the Coke room.

1:10:40Theo Von:So they both go in. And at the same time, they go, holy shit. Wow. They call a backup. So now we're like, my boss is like, we're out of here. We don't want me nothing part of this whole show here. I'd have stuck around, man.

1:10:54Tony Bonfiglio:Like Joey Diaz says, every now and then you bump into a Colombian.

1:10:59Theo Von:I love Joey Diaz. Oh, he's the best. He was a fireman in Colorado or some shit. Denver. Was he a fireman? Yeah, but he was selling blow. He said all they had was a pickup truck. I don't know if you ever saw it. I think it was on Rogan, maybe. Yeah, it sounded like, bro. Yeah, he said, oh, it's just selling. It was an easy way to sell Coke. He said, I'll go around. People call the fire department. Sorry, Joey, but you did tell that story.

1:11:21Tony Bonfiglio:No, people call the fire department. He shows up in a pickup truck selling Coke.

1:11:25Theo Von:Well, he says it was a ski lodge place. There was never any fire.

1:11:28Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, yeah, that's a great idea, actually. Yeah, the ski lodge was perfect for him. Yes, Joey Diaz has talked many times about having been a volunteer firefighter, which is really a drug dealer, in Aspen, Colorado in the 1980s. Can you imagine him doing that? I bet if you were anywhere with Joey in the 1980s, every place was Aspen, Colorado, dude.

1:11:50Theo Von:I go to a restaurant he recommended in Jersey, a Chinese restaurant. Is it a good spot? King's. Oh, he says, oh, dude, this is the real deal. This is the Chinese food. You know how he talks, right? Oh, for sure. So I go there, and the guy's name is Freddy, the Chinese guy. I'm like, Freddy, Joey Diaz sent me here. He's like, oh, yeah, Joey Diaz. He said, he popular? I said, yeah, he's pretty fucking popular. He's like, oh, I didn't know. Food was excellent. Thank you, Joey.

1:12:16Tony Bonfiglio:I love that food. Joey has the, it's like, bro, I'll be like, dude, my friend died last week in Buffalo, New York. He's like, oh, next time you're in Buffalo. In new places. Yeah, it doesn't matter your friend died. It matters. you got to walk 11 blocks to get this prosciutto, right? Prosciutto. He's like, the only way you get there is by foot, right? I'm like, it sounds very alarming. But dude, he's always got the best food recommendations. Absolutely. He just loves life, man. He just always has a connection to life.

1:12:43Theo Von:Oh, man. What stories? He's so funny.

1:12:46Tony Bonfiglio:He's one of the best. I love him. Yeah, I don't know anybody like him. But I bet in your line of work, you probably met a lot of guys not like him, but with similar energies like him. Oh, crazy people. Yes.

1:12:55Theo Von:When I got on in 83, we still had Vietnam vets that were in the fire army. Really? Today, it's more college kids. They came out of college, and they take the test.

1:13:05Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, a lot of guys that want to be in the calendar or whatever now.

1:13:07Theo Von:It's a whole different thing. Nothing to the new guys. They're all great. But it was a different atmosphere with the vets guys. And plus, back then, they didn't have computers. And there was no cameras. It was BC. So you got away with a lot of shit. Yeah. Today, you go on YouTube. They see you fighting the fire, the OV, the roof man. Yeah. If you fuck up, people are seeing it right there.

1:13:30Tony Bonfiglio:People in the chat are like, get rid of this guy.

1:13:32Theo Von:What's he waiting for? Why doesn't he go in? Where's the hose line? What's taking him so long? Yeah, dude. Bullet comments.

1:13:39Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, like Caruso's a pussy, you know? Like, dude, it's his first day on the job. Absolutely. Dude, that is crazy that that's how it's going to be. Everything's going to be streamed, and people will be able to comment at the moment. Yeah, so that's a whole bit.

1:13:51Theo Von:And the other day I was watching the chief had like some kind of iPad thing or something. And they had a drone in the air. And the thing was showing them all the roof, the holes, the fire, the back. It was like a 3D thing. It was like everything changes, you know.

1:14:08Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, there's already a real estate agent there. Yeah.

1:14:11Theo Von:Everything's changed. Changes. So, you know, when I got on, the guys from the 60s and 70s, they were tough motherfuckers.

1:14:17Tony Bonfiglio:So some of them had come from war actually. Big time. And this was just another place where they at least had, like, camaraderie. They had a brotherhood. Exactly. Wow.

1:14:25Theo Von:Because it was a paramilitary organization. So, you know, you had your lieutenants and your captains and your chiefs.

1:14:32Tony Bonfiglio:Did the stress of the job ever affect guys too much? Was there scenarios like that that kind of happened or not really? No, I think most guys loved the job. What made you end up kind of loving it? Like, what made, like, what kind of changed for you? Like, or when you look back? The brotherhood.

1:14:45Theo Von:Really? Oh, my God. Like, family. Yeah. Yeah, that's why, you know, I did 15 years in 34 truck from a probie. I did 15 years. I think I left there in 98. But, yeah, I mean, I had a lot of friends. I'm still today. You know, we're all together, the wives, the kids. The kids are on the job. Some of them are already captains. Wow. Yeah.

1:15:08Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, I guess that's something that's so nice. It's just that's one thing that's harder I even notice about life, even just like as you get out of times in your life or you're either in school where you have teams that you're on or your buddies are always around or into college, you don't really find a lot of places where there's that much camaraderie anymore.

1:15:25Theo Von:You just don't find it. No. That was it. That was it there, big time. We'd make the meals. Yeah. See, this is a – the two probies are coming off their probation. So when you come off probation, you throw a big party in the firehouse. And they all got lobsters and filet mignons, and they have a big celebration. I remember my probing meal. It was a lot of fun. I came off with another guy, Richie, who we both came out of the academy together.

1:15:53Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, that's nice.

1:15:54Theo Von:Yeah, I know all these guys like family. A lot of them aren't even here with us anymore. Really? Oh, yeah, and that's old.

1:16:03Tony Bonfiglio:A lot of them have gotten older, passed away even? Passed away, yeah.

1:16:06Theo Von:Some of them might have even passed away on 9-11. oh yeah yeah that's a great shot that's awesome dude yeah yeah i mean you could just feel so much excitement there oh my god the fun we would have and the meals that i would make really incredible that's why they kept you around huh oh i was a good cook were you yeah yeah first meal i brought in my mother made meatballs and a sausage and a whole sunday gravy and i bought gavadil and i brought it all in with the bread and everything and the guys loved it you know the irish guys call it red lead that was what they call tomato sauce red lead tonight yeah red lead they loved it they were like man that was so good and everything but you know what kid you got to make it here next time so i was like ah i get it you got to make the meal in the firehouse oh that's part of it everybody comes together you know because it could be all over the firehouse but that's where everybody who's chopping this who's cooking that who's sauteing things yeah who's doing the entertainment the camaraderie i would put my louis prima on the stereo and we would just be going you know jump jiving well and uh yeah i'm just a gigolo and place would be hopping yeah oh it's fun oh that's great meals about 11 guys would eat at the same you know we'd all eat at the same time yeah and then everybody chips in at the end of the meal because you know city

1:17:30Tony Bonfiglio:doesn't pay for anything we pay for everything that's crazy all our tv all they get paid for

1:17:34Theo Von:is the firehouse everything else we have to buy really yeah is it still that way yeah still that way wow well when i was on the job you you bought your own turnout coat and you had a helmet i brought some helmets here too and the helmet fit perfectly to your head they made it a mold to your head so you didn't need a chin strap it just stayed on there and then when giuliani came in as mayor and we had a couple of fires where guys got killed and everything and he couldn't believe how shabby we looked because we had nobody fixed their gear was nobody gave you new gear so you you went years with this gear and it looked like the coats were all ripped up and they you know we looked i loved the way it looked like the blaze news bears huh and all the other fire departments around the country and they already had bunker pants and bunker coats and they had hoods you got to wear these i i hated all of that i hated the bunker pants i hated the hoods and uh so that that changed right there from the uniforms and then they gave us a new helmet three sizes small medium large and they had to have a damn chin strap to hold it on it was a lot heavier oh i hated it yeah but you get charges if you didn't wear it you know if you took your old helmet and you got caught with it or you got caught without your bunker pants on because it was like the to take over you know it takes a few years before the old timers really give in to all the changes everything takes a few years to kind of seep in oh especially the fire department's all tradition

1:19:03Tony Bonfiglio:yeah yeah dude that was one of the nice things even like whenever i would go with my it was my first girlfriend her dad whenever i'd go over there it would just be nice to see the guys all spending time together you know yeah and they would know other fire departments around the city it was just like there was like definitely um it was like this kind of secret society that was a It was a little hidden kind of because you don't really think about the fire department all the time.

1:19:26Theo Von:I didn't.

1:19:27Tony Bonfiglio:But yeah, but they're right there, dude.

1:19:29Theo Von:Yep, yep.

1:19:30Tony Bonfiglio:And they're the first ones that have to get involved when things get bad. Yeah. You know? Yeah, if it's okay to talk about what were things like during 9-11? I mean, I know kind of like what some things were like, but when you look back on it.

1:19:46Theo Von:Well, I got off work that morning. I did a 24-hour tour on the 10th, and I just got home, and I had a power washing painting business on the side. Oh, yeah. And I had my Dominican helper waiting for me at home, you know. So I got home. We came in. I'm making coffee, and my wife calls me. She's at work, and she says, you see what happened? They flew a plane into the towers. I'm like, you're kidding me. I put a little TV on that I had in the kitchen, and I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, what happened? Did the guy have a heart attack? that you know i thought it was like a single plane that the guy just flew in by accident yeah some

1:20:20Tony Bonfiglio:guy just couldn't get a ready first one you didn't know it was terrorists so then i take you get to

1:20:25Theo Von:the paint store and the guys are all around the counter with a tv and i come in and the guy tony turns around the he says why the is they terrorists flew planes into the towers and i'm like holy now i see both towers going now i know you know it was an attack so i says all right we gotta get out of here i got i had to paint a rabbi's house in woodmeyer so i got this painting truck with ladders tony's power washing and paint i raced them on the way there i hear the first tower collapses so i'm like i'm cursing i'm like motherfuckers my dominican guy don't speak english he doesn't really hear but he knows something bad he knows the towers so now i get another 20 minutes 10 minutes later or whatever and i hear the second tower come down and i was at a light i put my foot on the brake and I just started crying.

1:21:12Theo Von:I was on the steering wheel because I knew how many guys just got killed, you know, from this whole deal. Oh, I was crushed.

1:21:20Tony Bonfiglio:So you like, yeah, at that point, did you know because you were privy to the information of, or you just knew how it works?

1:21:26Theo Von:You just knew the way it works. You know, they called in everything once those planes hit, you know.

1:21:31Tony Bonfiglio:Could you have gone back in or you weren't even allowed to go in? When? Like at that moment, since you had just gotten off of a shift?

1:21:37Theo Von:No, well now I'm I'm re I race to the the rabbi's house I throw the ladders the paint I knock on the rabbi's door. I says listen, rabbi I'm a fireman from New York City. I got to go to the Trade Center I knew he knew it because I could hear the TV on inside So he's like, okay, I said Roberto's gonna take care of everything. I told Roberto listen I don't know when I'm gonna see you again, but he's like no worry. No problem. My boss I take care he was such a great guy. So now I'm racing with my van And I'm going in and out of the elevated train. And I've got my hand on the horn. And I'm pedaled to the metal.

1:22:13Theo Von:And everybody's probably looking like, what the fuck is with that painter? I'm in on the wrong side of traffic. I'm just like the French Connection. I'm in and out of fucking cars. I get to the firehouse. And it's chaotic. Everybody's running in. What are we going to do? Who's going? How are we going to get there? One guy said he was taking a boat because my firehouse in Howard Beach was on a canal. Yeah, so my friend Whipper comes in. and he's got a Suburban, and my friend Bobby comes, and he was like, I'm going in with my Suburban. Whoever wants to go, I'm leaving now. And were there some guys that did not want to go, did not want to be involved?

1:22:46Theo Von:No, everybody went. Wow. Yeah, so we grabbed our gear. A lot of guys went to a staging area. They made that mistake because they got stuck at the staging area. We took my friend's Suburban right to the pile, right there. I mean, we were heading down Woodhaven Boulevard, and I'm like - And there was no traffic? It was traffic. I mean, the shit hit the fan already. So the whip is driving crazy, my friend the whipper. And I'm like, whip, don't get anybody killed. There were enough people already. Slow down a little. So we get to the LIE, and the cops have it shut off, the entrance to the Long Island Expressway.

1:23:23Theo Von:So I stick my turnout code out the window, and they move the cop cars, and they wave us in.

1:23:29Tony Bonfiglio:That had to feel crazy. It was, man. Was there some, I mean, obviously there's excitement, probably a ton of adrenaline, fear.

1:23:35Theo Von:And adrenaline. What are we going to do when we get there? Right. We said, we're going to be an ambulance. We're going to take bodies and we're going to rush them to the hospital. That's what we figured. So now we're racing down there and we get to the Midtown Tunnel and my friend Whip is a driver, man. He's the best. We're doing a hundred and we're going through the Midtown Tunnel and it's like a time warp with the lights and the yellow bricks and we're doing a hundred miles an hour. We come out, we head downtown, you know, by the Midtown Tunnel. We head down and he takes us right to the rubble.

1:24:07Theo Von:And we get out of the car and now it's dark, like an eclipse. And all the stuff is coming down on us, all the paper and the ash. It was dark. The walls were standing still.

1:24:18Tony Bonfiglio:Did it look something like this or it looked different? Just like that.

1:24:20Theo Von:That's a few days, a week later or whatever, maybe. But it was dark. And when we got out of the car, we couldn't breathe. So we had to rip up T-shirts and we put them around our faces to breathe. and then I noticed there was an old hardware store right across the street with like a glass door so I grabbed a tire iron I went over I smashed the door open and we all went in we grabbed ropes and masks and sledgehammers all whatever cops came in behind us everybody was grabbing shit so now we start to climb you know and it was like the top of the trade center was only about six stories high now you know and we were climbing and there was nobody around it was quiet dark eerie and we heard all the pass alarms going off that when firemen aren't moving makes a screechy noise and you could hear that all around you know and there was maybe one or two other firemen we were the only ones there and we were going in and out of voids in and out of voids gone anybody hear us banging on shit and waiting to see if that happens and nobody nobody finally we worked our all the way up to the roof of the Trade Center, which was AstroTurf.

1:25:29And now you could see, and it looked like it went on for a mile.

1:25:33Theo Von:It was like a movie set. It was so crazy. And on one side was the EAB bank, and it was on fire. And they had mesh, like the black mesh covering it. And all you saw was the black mesh and the flames coming out. It was like satanic. Oh, it was so creepy. and so now we're climbing all around inside and out of voids and we did this for like maybe about one o 'clock we got there at 11 30 and my friend Bobby says Tony I'm my throat's closing up we got to get water so I said whip we got to get water we got to head to the street now we're now now it's like one o 'clock people are coming in from everywhere firemen from cops firemen the national guard was coming in so we worked our way to the street and then we needed water and uh there was a guy a wall street guy with expensive suit uncovered in cement dust and he had a bottle of water you know like those big bottles the big bottle and he was going around giving everybody water and you know trying to wash their eyes out and shit and we were just waiting our turn to get some of that water and as we were doing that these four women they come out of nowhere they set up two barrels a piece of plywood they had one the bread and peanut butter and jelly and they started making sandwiches out of nowhere it humbled and uh i got a little emotional because it was like uh you know to see all these people coming together right at this time no matter what your race creed color working together so we passed the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we had the water and we went back but before we got up a deputy gets up on a on a car and he yells to whoever can hear you know and it was like six truck we just got a call they're trapped they're in a shaft and we're gonna find them like this is the first time we're hearing anybody's alive we're like yeah yeah so we will everybody starts running forget gear and there's a rescue truck that was crushed and we ran over to the rescue truck and we started opening up compartments i grabbed a jackhammer we grabbed some big ass jackhammer bits bottles fair and now we start heading out to look for them you know at least you had a mission oh we were on a mission now you know now we're looking for it so now another two hours climbing up and down these But meanwhile, Building 7, which is the big building everybody talks about, was on fire from the moment we got there.

1:28:09Theo Von:Every floor. Really? Burned every floor. And what caused that fire? Just the collapse. You know, they had the two trade centers just collapsed right in front of them. There was a lot of buildings on fire. So now we're working up and down, and I take a fall. I fall into a void. And I fall on my right shoulder, and my Bobby comes running over. he's like kiddo you all right i said yeah it fucking hurt my shoulder he helps me up i take the jackhammer i throw it into a void i'm like fuck this shit we had no radios we didn't know if they found anybody or anything oh excuse me my pin it was almost impossible it was impossible finally we threw all this shit down because it was a couple hours already climbing again and when you're climbing up these big jagged pieces of concrete scary in and out in and out and we made our way into a uh a store like a high-end store that was maybe three stories up and we went through the window because that's up what high because the rubble was that high so we crawled into their window and it was a high-end women's store and it's dusty and dark and and we're crawling around i'm looking under all the clothes to see if there's any anything we're yelling anybody here anybody here nobody there so we worked our way back out and now we went to the marriott which was a hotel right there and we came in one of these big broken windows it was right there at ground zero it was right there ground zero huh yeah and we climbed down the debris into the lobby of the hotel we're the the only ones there you know so we're like holy shit look at this place you know we're looking around and it was kind of kept okay it was a big lobby no there was ash and broken glass and shit but it was it wasn't collapsed right so i said look over there i see a fireman sitting at one of those little desks in the lobby we're like holy shit so we go running over first fireman we're seeing you know and he's covered in in shit you know no helmet he's like pale white he's in shock and he's sitting there and we're like holy shit buddy you okay okay and he turns and he looks at me and it's one of the young guys that got on rotation he just left our house and they sent them to manhattan we called him monkey man wow i'm like holy shit monkey what the fuck and he just he looked up at me and he and he said all my guys are dead they're all dead And we were like, oh, shit.

1:30:26Theo Von:And I'm like kind of rubbing his shoulder. My other guys were like, Monkey, Monkey, you all right? You all right? And he was in shock, you know? So we're like, look, Monkey, we got to go, man. You know, you're OK. We're going to leave you here. And it was funny because the phone was on the table with the little messenger light blinking. It was the weirdest sight, you know? And we left him. We climbed back out the window, back onto the debris. It's a long day. Yeah, we were there until like 930 at night from 1130 in the morning. So we were going along we found a hose line believe it or not a hose line all the way from the Hudson and There was a big opening with a like a void that had black smoke was pouring out of it So we had the line and for about an hour and a half We just sat there with building seven about a hundred yards away from us burning and we sat there And one guy would go around through the voids and the other two guys would just hold the hose line pouring it into this hole from hell i mean it was like it was horrible so all of a sudden we're doing that and we see this chief and he says he starts yelling at us he's between us and building seven and he says drop that line get out of here this building's gonna come down so we were like holy shit okay we cracked it open a little wedged it into some rock so the water would keep going down the hole and we took off and we were like hey it was like five o 'clock we're like we're hungry we're thirsty We're tired.

1:31:51Theo Von:We're covered in shit. Let's go back to the rig. It's suburban. And we'll go uptown, and we'll get something to eat, and then we'll come back. So we get off the pile. Like, where's the car? I think it's a few blocks this way. So now we're heading down. And there's nobody around still. I mean, as far as, you know, besides firemen coming in. So I don't know if you ever heard of Penny Crone, but she was like a popular reporter on Fox News. She was a real tough girl. I know about. Yeah, Penny Crone. And I don't know if she was Fox, but there she is. It's very well-known New York reporter. She was out there on the street?

1:32:26Theo Von:She was in the street when we were walking. And she had a microphone and a cameraman. And she came running up to us. She's like, guys, guys, can you give me some information? What's it like down there? So the three of us are standing there. And she puts this big microphone in front of me. And she goes, can you tell me? And I said, oh, it's bad, really bad. She put it in front of my other friend, Bobby. Bad, he says, horrible. My other friend says the same thing. She's getting nothing out of us. She pulls back to ask us another question. And I'm like, holy shit, look over there. And there's this Asian woman covered in dirt, bleeding from her head.

1:33:01Theo Von:And she's got a suitcase in her hand. So we run over to her. We're like, man, ma 'am, are you OK? She was in shock or whatever. And she just kept looking. And my friend went to take the suitcase. She yanked it back. And then she just walked away. And we were like, holy shit, that was weird. What do you think's in that suitcase? my friend said money. She had that grip on that thing. It was full of money. Batch of yen in there, I bet. A lot of yen. Wow. Some egg rolls. I don't know. But we got to the Suburban, and it was covered. Now it was green. It was now gray. So we all get in, and it was like, Theo, the seats, the leather seats were like, oh.

1:33:40Theo Von:We're squishing our backs in. It was getting comfortable.

1:33:44Tony Bonfiglio:I was almost 40 at that time. I can't even imagine. and the fact is you're alive. Like you've been through, I can't even imagine like what your body's going through. Oh, we were beat,

1:33:53Theo Von:covered in shit. And so it was funny because he put the car on and he started up and he put the air conditioner on and it blew smoke, it blew dust at us. Like Lily Munster's vacuum cleaner. I'm like, oh, everybody's getting, we're choking, the thing's blowing smoke out all the dust. We're like, thanks, we needed that. Now we're heading uptown even with the windows open, and the dust is flying off the rig, and we go up to 16 truck up in Midtown somewhere, and we take a break. I go in. We get a drink of water. I call my wife. What has she been thinking? I don't know. It's like 5.30. Oh, I forgot to say, before we got to the car, Building 7 collapsed.

1:34:36Theo Von:We just missed it. We heard a roar. My friend said, 7 just came down. So we were like, holy shit. We just missed it. But you've been near that all day down there.

1:34:45Tony Bonfiglio:All day, it was burning. Because there's a lot of speculation about Building 7 over the years. I think it's all bullshit.

1:34:50Theo Von:You do? Because I was there, yeah. I mean, it kind of gets me a little, because I don't know what really happened that day. Who knows? Who was involved, whatever. I have no idea. Right. But all I know is Building 7 was burning all day long, from first floor to the top floor, every window. So people were saying there was explosions and this and that.

1:35:11Tony Bonfiglio:But you saw firsthand that it had been kind of cooking all day.

1:35:13Theo Von:There's no firemen that I ever talked to that were there that day. No one. Everybody says there was no fucking explosions. Yeah. And they have all these things. Like the other day, I thought I saw an AI bullshit thing about guys saying they heard explosions. Like they're putting that out on the internet. And it looks real. You think they're really firemen. You got to be careful today. You never know what's real.

1:35:31Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, yeah. I agree with that. You can't tell.

1:35:33Theo Von:You can almost tell a little bit today. But imagine a few years from now with the AI, you'll never be able to tell. Yeah. You'll need like an AI detection kit. They probably will have that. Yeah. Maybe we can get in on that. We could come up with it first. Yeah, okay, sure.

1:35:47Tony Bonfiglio:I mean, if that's what we met for today, to be able to start that and keep that out of the world.

1:35:52Theo Von:Yeah, that could have saved the world.

1:35:53Tony Bonfiglio:What about over time with 9-11? There's been a lot of conspiracy theories and stuff like that. Has any of that grown in the world of the fire department culture or anything like that? Or is it person by person? Because you guys were one of the most affected groups, you know?

1:36:08Theo Von:Yeah, 343 men we lost that day. Wow. it's hard to even get over that number yeah it was a lot and we knew it was a lot when we got we left 16 truck we stopped at a genovese drugstore and somewhere in manhattan and we went in and we got a couple of bottles of water about four giant milky ways and some batteries for our flashlights so now we're covered in you know we're up at the counter and the young girl's ringing us up and she goes you guys come from the trade center so my friend bobby's what gives you that idea so So she just looked and grinned. She was like, no charge for you guys. So we took off.

1:36:45Theo Von:We ate our Milky Ways. We had our water. And then we went back to the pile.

1:36:49Tony Bonfiglio:Is there a picture from that day, Nick? If you have that, just pull it up. Don't even wait for me to see that. That's my two buddies.

1:36:56Theo Von:That was a couple weeks later.

1:36:58Tony Bonfiglio:That's Whip and the other guy?

1:36:59Theo Von:That's my friend Andrew and Marty. You would have to go down and work at the trade center. Yeah. And it was very unhealthy. A lot of guys got cancer. A lot of guys died after the Trade Center.

1:37:12Tony Bonfiglio:We just had a breathing expert in the other day, this guy, James Nestor, and he has a New York Times bestseller, a book called Breath. And he talks about, is it ground zero? Ground zero. Ground zero lung? Ground glass lung. Oh, okay. He talks about ground glass lung. Yeah, the glass. It's a condition that happened to a lot of people who were first responders at ground zero. Have you heard about this?

1:37:38Theo Von:Yeah. Well, I never heard about the ground glass, but of course, the breathing, everybody was in, you know, if you were there for like a month or two, some guys were there two, three, four months. My friend Bobby was there the whole time, you know, he just got his nephew on the job. It was his nephew's first job and he was in the trouble. He was there every day looking for his body day and night. Looking for his nephew? Nephew, yeah, for his sister. Yeah, it was.

1:38:06Tony Bonfiglio:God, that's heartbreaking, huh?

1:38:08Theo Von:Yeah. He's a good guy. He's a great guy, too. Who, his nephew? No, my friend Bobby. This is his. He's the boxing. He runs the fire department boxing team. He is? Bring him on. Let's get a picture of him. Bobby McGuire. You see him on there. Bobby McGuire, FDNY Boxing. He's a Golden Glove champ. Is he a pretty interesting guy? Oh, you wouldn't. I don't know if you know the Knicks, but his uncles are Dickie McGuire and Al McGuire and Marquette. The Knicks? Yeah. Oh, there he is. His father was John McGuire, and he was like a big guy in New York. Jimmy Breslin actually called him the king of Queens because he opened the first gay bar in Queens back in the day.

1:38:52Theo Von:Oh, that's incredible, man.

1:38:53Tony Bonfiglio:Oh. Yeah. He sounds like an interesting guy. Oh, he's a great guy, yeah. I bet he's got some great stories, too, just from the boxing history of it. But, you know, Joey Diaz used to shovel ice out of James J. Braddock's driveway over in Jersey. Yeah, yeah. I heard him say that. That's pretty wild.

1:39:13Theo Von:He'd give him a couple of bucks or something. Yeah, he'd give him a couple of bucks.

1:39:17Tony Bonfiglio:And Joey would be like, this guy's been punched in the head so many times. He thought he gave me a five. He gave me a ten. But that's just a wild story right there. Yeah, yeah. Oh, go back and show the guys. That's Marty right there. That's Bobby. That's Bobby? Bobby McGuire. Bobby McGuire. And what was his nephew's name? Do you remember?

1:39:34Theo Von:No, I don't remember. My wife might, but I don't. Alan. His name was Alan. Alan. He was a lifeguard in Rockaway, the kid. His last name was Alan, and he just started on the... He just started. It was like his first job. And Bobby was there, and his breathing is... He's had a lot of breathing problems. Once you're there too long. So anyway, they're having a fight in Madison Square Garden in March. they we fight the cops every year yeah it's called the battle of the badges who's won over time over the years who's won the most you think is well you know the cops are double the the amount of pool that they can get they're twice as big an organization as us you know we're like we're like 30 000 they're like 60 000 but we still we get we get some good fighters and uh we beat them quite a few times we fight they fight everywhere they fight in england they fight in ireland oh really Yeah, they'll fight any fire department, any cops.

1:40:28Tony Bonfiglio:So Bobby and his gang, this is like a thing they do all year. All year, yeah. Oh, he's so busy. So he runs this, the FDNY Boxing Club.

1:40:36Theo Von:Yeah. Oh, wow. They raise like hundreds of thousands for Tunnels to Towers every year. And what is Tunnels to Towers? That's with the World Trade Center Foundation, where the guy's brother ran through from Staten Island. He ran through the tunnel to get to the Trade Center. and he passed away. And so they started this organization. It's huge. Oh, that's beautiful, man.

1:41:03Tony Bonfiglio:We'll make a donation to him. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, right here. Born from the tragedy of 9-11, the Tunnels to Towers Foundation carries out its mission to do good by providing mortgage-free homes to Gold Star and fallen first responder families with young children and building specially adapted smart homes for catastrophically injured veterans and first responders. Wow. They ran through the tunnel with their gear on. to get to Manhattan. Oh. Oh. The FDNY Boxing Club is comprised of active duty members, FDNY and EMS, who train on their own time established in 1982. FDNY Boxing has spent 40 years raising funds for worthwhile charities.

1:41:39Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, they're very good at it. Through spirited competition. Yeah, man, we'll make a donation to them. Yeah, I'm going. Bravest Boxing Team will defend the Big Apple in the second international battle of the badges, huh?

1:41:51Theo Von:The funny thing is the best fights are in the crowd, the cops and the firemen going at it. Holy shit, the brawls. One time I was there and this girl cop, you know, she was bad-mouthing some firemen and she threw a soda at the guy. And the one fireman says, hey, you know, I don't hit firemen. The other fireman said, I do. And he clocked her. Oh, yeah. Boom, she went flying over the thing. The whole fight broke out. It was crazy. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, why don't you throw a soda at you?

1:42:19Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, and with all the people getting sex changes now, you don't know who's got what on them. Exactly. You know, I'm not frisking you first to find out. Yeah, what are you packing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How has the department changed since you got involved in now? Well, from when I got on and then in the early, late 90s, mid-90s, computers came in.

1:42:42Theo Von:And that changed a lot. Computers and now digital things. We had fax machines and computers. And that changed a lot of things. Before, it was just writing in a book. Now more things are more digital. So they had a little more eyes on you. You couldn't get away with as much. Right, a lot more technology, stuff like that. Yeah, because back in the day, the bosses ran the firehouse. There was nobody else that knew what was going on. Whatever they put in the book is what it was. Yeah. In fact, when I bought my house, it was a funny story. I was 24, and I told my boss, I told the bank, yeah, this is where I work if you want to check on my employment.

1:43:18Theo Von:And I gave him the number to the truck office. Yeah. so I said this is what I make you know and it was like twice what I was making he's like oh you can't say that I said just tell the bank don't worry about it and it worked what um yeah what

1:43:32Tony Bonfiglio:did Christine say when you called her that it must have been crazy oh yeah well her sister

1:43:36Theo Von:answered the phone Bernie and I was like Bernie and she's like Tony how the fuck are you what's going on I said oh my god we just got a firehouse we're taking a break and we're all okay and uh and i'll talk to my wife tell her you know i love her and i'll see you in a bit i'll call her later so i hung up and we went back to the we went back to the pile so now we get back on the pile it's like what do we want we first we're walking along and guys are like seeing other guys that you know you're hugging so my friend bobby sees a guy they're hugging and i'm standing there like on a plateau and this guy hits me another fireman he goes buddy you're standing on somebody and i was like oh shit i look down and this guy in his three-piece suit he's like part of the ground he's looking up at me and i'm like oh my god that was the first body i saw all day ah yeah so now we're like okay so now we're moving along what do you want to do they started a bucket brigade i don't know we must had a thousand home depot buckets and you would pass a bucket and take a bucket and some water along for like hours we were doing that you know and it was starting Yeah, it was getting dark out.

1:44:44Theo Von:You know, the day was getting, it was like around 7.30, 8 o 'clock. And so now we're doing this for hours. My back is killing me. And all of a sudden, we hear all this yelling. Everybody's yelling and cheering. It's 9.30 at night, you know, at 9 o 'clock. We're like, what is that? What is that? My friend Bobby goes, look, look over there, down there. And we look down, and here comes a parade of iron workers with heavy machinery, cranes. they got their hard hats on cut off shirts everybody's got their fists in the air they're all hanging off the machines everybody's cheering like we won the super bowl it was like it was a drop in the bucket but they got right to work start taking off all the heavy shit you know i

1:45:24Tony Bonfiglio:mean it had months almost a year to go but oh it was just a start yeah and it just felt so good

1:45:31Theo Von:like we had a chance yeah and then finally we were like you know let's start heading home you know I met a few guys heading home, and I was thinking in the back of my mind, all the guys that got killed, we had no idea how many yet. Can't even imagine. And I run into a friend of mine, and he was off in a rescue company, and I said, hey, John, Tony, how you doing? He goes, you know, Tony, Jerry was working, and Jerry was like one of my best friends. And I was like, oh, God, I just like stepped back. I knew he was in Rescue 1. I was devastated. My friend whipped sore and he put his arm around me.

1:46:09Theo Von:He said, come on, who knew? Let's go. Let's leave. And I was like, ugh. I was, I'm still emotional.

1:46:16Tony Bonfiglio:It's heartbreaking. What was his name? Jerry what? Jerry Nevins. Jerry Nevins.

1:46:21Theo Von:Let's see a picture of him, huh? Funny story. When he told me he was going to leave to go to rescue, I was like, you motherfucker. Are you fucking kidding me? It was like, because everybody was leaving. I was there 15 years. I was losing guys left and right. They were getting made, lieutenant. He wanted to go to a rescue company. And we used to bash rescue all the time. Rescue's like a special company. When a truckie or a fireman gets in trouble, they send a rescue guy to get them. They're like expertise. They're like the Marines or whatever kind of? No. Well, the Marines, but they're like specialists.

1:46:52Theo Von:Is that Jerry? Yeah, that's Jerry. Oh, there he is. And they were on 42nd Street, Rescue 1. So they're right in the middle of Times Square. Oh, they were there. Oh, he made so many rescues. It was amazing. Wow, so he enjoyed it once he got over there. Oh, I used to go to some metal days, and he'd be there, and two, three metals, hanging off of buildings, scaffoldings. It was a lot of times in Midtown, the scaffoldings would break, and they'd have to go over ropes and get these guys. And yeah, he was just a great find. But when he told me he was going to rescue, I was crushed. I was like, you got to be kidding me.

1:47:26Theo Von:He told me in the middle of a box we were checking out a building. So now I get back in the rig, and we're going down the St. Nicholas Avenue, and I turn the ladder all the way out. So now it looks like a square, you know? And I'm like this way looking at him. He's looking. He's like, what the fuck? I'm like, fuck you. And we straighten it out. Now we're crossing over Amsterdam Avenue, and I see them put the lights on. Like, okay, we're getting a run. I see the boss on the phone, you know, and he's taking down the information, puts his arm out. like we got to run sounds like a job numerous calls numerous calls means you're going to work that means people are calling you know i see a fire i see a fire i see right it's not just some weirdo with a ouija board yeah yeah no ouija boards no fake alarms you hear numerous calls you know you're going to work so now we go around broadway and i see we come up and it's a second floor it's blowing out like four windows and there's an awning we're off the fire escape on the second floor and it's still not fire out I got to get in there I'm the OV that's my job so now I'm getting a ladder out I'm putting the ladder up the Dominican guys in the street they're helping me place the ladder into the thing I climb up the ladder I smash the window out I put my mask on and I drop in now it's blowing all the other rooms this room is getting ready to blow you know it gets hot.

1:48:49So now I'm in there and I'm searching around and I get lost.

1:48:54Theo Von:I get a little, I get pumped into a bureau on my knees and I get disorientated and I'm getting scared because my ears are starting to burn. I know it's going to light up. So, which is crazy. I got caught in a closet. You'd never think, how'd you get caught in a closet, right? But I'm crawling in thinking it's an opening and I turned in there and I'm in this closet. Now I can't get out of the closet. I'm going around in a circle. My ears are burning. And all of a sudden I hear Jerry. He came in behind me. Jerry had a bite bar, which was like totally illegal. Instead of having a mask with a net on, it was like you had a little bite bar in the mask.

1:49:33Theo Von:So you didn't need that. You just held it with your teeth, which was totally outlawed, but it made it easier to take it on and off. So I hear him say, Tony. I'm like, Jerry. He's like, you got to get out of here. It's going to light up. I'm like, I can't find my way out. I was like taking my mask off, calling for my mother. I thought I was a dead man. And then all of a sudden I heard the engine at the door and I heard this guy McCarthy yelling, kick its ass, kick its ass, hit it, hit it. And I heard the water coming in and I was like, oh, it was music to my ears. I was going to live again. And then after that, when I was in the street, I was like a zombie, you know?

1:50:10Theo Von:And Jerry was like, yo, what the fuck's

1:50:12Tony Bonfiglio:wrong with you i said dude that was fucking close he just laughed you know but that was it he went

1:50:17Theo Von:to rescue the next day i never even thanked him for uh coming in after me that day oh man yeah i

1:50:25Tony Bonfiglio:mean it's just even the stories are so like exhilarating i can imagine like i can't even

1:50:30Theo Von:imagine what it's like really we were putting a fire out i made a cover of a magazine i think you could bring it up it was called fire command i i didn't know what it was you know it was like one of these buff magazines. Yeah, that's me in the middle.

1:50:43Tony Bonfiglio:In a neck brace?

1:50:44Theo Von:Yeah. I look like an Italian organ grinder, monkey man, right? I thought you were going to show me

1:50:49Tony Bonfiglio:maybe you made the calendar.

1:50:51Theo Von:I got the little ringlets in my hair. I got the bow ties on. And a friend next to me, Kenny, he was a probie. It's a funny story. We had to take this line up, the fire escape, because we got called in as an extra engine. It was a lot of fire. People were trapped. They were having a hard time putting the fire out from the inside. So we're taking the line up to fire. Now I'm in the engine. I'm detailed. I'm never hardly in the engine. But when they need a guy and you got an extra guy, you go across the floor. So now I'm in the engine. And we're taking this line up the fire escape to the fifth floor.

1:51:22Theo Von:And the boss is yelling. There's Joe McLaughlin. He's yelling, Richie, get in there. Hit it. Hit it. Finally, they charge the line. We tie it off to the fire escape. I mean, it's a lot of water going up that high. He's hitting the water. The guy right here, Richie, that's squinting his eyes. And he's hitting the water. and we're pushing our way in. We made it up to the fire floor escape. We pushed the fire in, and now we're crawling in. We're climbing in through the window. The boss is yelling, they're looking at us, Richie. They're looking at us because we're outside on the fire escape. We get in.

1:51:54Theo Von:The ceiling comes down on our heads. All this hot plaster and shit's fucking burned my neck. So now we're getting in. We get to, like, the engine on the other side is coming, and they're making a good push. They're putting the fire out. We're putting the fire out. so now we're at this like wall with a window and I'm I'm on top of something me and another guy we're like kneeling I thought it was a pillow from uh the couch so the boss tells the probe he take the line and shoot the water out the window and it'll take a lot of smoke so we could start to see what's going on here and as they're doing now you could start to see a little the boss takes his mask off and he goes holy shit look what you're kneeling on I look down and we're kneeling on a corpse with no head, no legs, and no arms, and he's all like a crispy burnt.

1:52:39Theo Von:We're like, ah, we all jump off. We're like, holy shit. I thought it was a couch piece, you know? And it was just, that's what happened. They killed this guy. They cut him up, and then they lit the place on fire. That's why there's so much fire. You get a lot of fire in the middle of the day. It's usually arson. Somebody poured gasoline or something. Yeah. So that was a murder, huh? It was a murder. So anyway, Before that, Kenny's a probie. He's probably about 21 years old. And he was in softball, and he hurt his leg sliding into second base. So we were on inspection. I said, Kenny, what happened to your leg?

1:53:14Theo Von:He said, oh, I caught it on softball. I said, oh, that looks fucking terrible. Then we got that run to the fire. So now we're leaving the fire. We're going down the steps. I said, we're all going sick. We're tapping out, right? So I said, we're going to go with our necks from the ceiling coming down. I said, Kenny, take that bandage off and tell him you got burnt on your leg. So we get in the street. The street's busy. It's all fire department cops. There's reporters in the street and everything. And the fire department doctor comes running over to us. And I said, yeah, the ceiling came down on our heads.

1:53:45Theo Von:And he's like, oh. And I says, and this guy got burned on his leg. And he looks, he closed Kenny's leg up. He looks at the softball injury. And he goes, third degree burns patched this man right up. So I look at Kenny because he didn't know. Oh, yeah, it was his first take. So now they take us, we're on the wall, like on Malcolm X Boulevard, and they take us to, we say, where's the boss? We don't know where Joe McLaughlin is. So we see a bunch of people, like, standing around. Somebody's on the ground. They're taking pictures. We go over there, and we see the boss. He's on the stretcher getting his head taped down, and they're all taking pictures of him.

1:54:21Theo Von:And we're like, Lou, Lou, you okay? You okay? And he looks up. He goes, get the fuck out of my pictures, he says. like he's okay so they put us in the bus there he is ah the best joe mclaughlin cpo joe well he was you know he was in the 17 truck in the bronx in the war years so he was like he was a well-rounded fireman a tough as nails wow yeah so he says get the fuck out of my pictures so we're laughing everybody's taking pictures of him so now uh they take us to the hospital you know so we're in the emergency room in Columbia Press, and the young nurses are patching up, and they're laughing with us, you know, and it's a busy emergency room, and Kenny's got his thing on, and so all of a sudden, this like middle-aged head nurse comes in, you know, good-looking woman, probably 40 or so, and so she goes to Kenny's leg, and she moves the bandage.

1:55:15Theo Von:She makes a face, you know, and she's like, when did this happen? And the kid, he's sitting there, you know, he's like, oh, we're all looking at him laughing, you know, and she just like patches it up. She goes, you're lucky we love you guys. And we're like, oh, we love you too. Busted. So about a week or two, a couple of weeks later, I come into the firehouse and this guy says, hey, here's one of the superstars. I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, you made the cover of a magazine. So I'm like, holy shit, you're kidding. So now I go in the kitchen and everybody's clapping and everything.

1:55:46Theo Von:They already have the picture in a frame right but they changed it from report on firefighters injuries they put report on firefighters faking injuries so so they put captions on everybody so you see the woman with her arms crossed in the bandana her caption said I know those motherfuckers are faking and then there's a cop like walking here and he goes yeah chief I got those fakers right here and then this salty Harlem fireman is looking at us and his thing says you guys disgust me look at that sad face oh my god that ringlet hair I love how you guys

1:56:28Tony Bonfiglio:already have your neck braces on oh yeah I kept that in my bag

1:56:32Theo Von:pocket well we had a prop pop closet at home you know canes and braces oh that's hilarious yeah so that's that was that we made that cover

1:56:42Tony Bonfiglio:I still have that hanging today. Oh, just you had to go down to some memory lane, man, just to think about different things. And just to hear about the camaraderie of what the lifestyle was like. Bring up the part about the ground glass lung. Is that what it's called? I just wanted to make sure that I mention it on here so that people know about it. Let me see. Ground glass lungs refers to a radiological finding on CT scans showing hazy opacities in the lungs, often linked to inflammation or fibrosis from inhaling toxic dust at ground zero. Yeah, pulverized. After the 9-11 attacks. The dust cloud contained over 2 ,500 contaminants, 50 % construction debris, 40 % glass fibers, 9 % cellulose.

1:57:25Tony Bonfiglio:Inhaling the dust led to World Trade Center lung injury, with firefighters losing up to 12 years of lung function. 70 % of workers showed respiratory decline.

1:57:36Theo Von:Yeah, the longer you worked down there, the worse it was. Yeah. because the dust really never settled for months.

1:57:42Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah, it's so crazy to think that it created a new disease.

1:57:48Theo Von:Yeah, probably. Well, think about all those offices, all those fluorescent lights, all those computers, they just got pulverized to a dust. That's why everybody was covered between that and the cement. It's a lot.

1:58:03Tony Bonfiglio:Tony, yeah, there's so many more things I want to talk to you about. Maybe we could have you come back sometime. Anytime. And talk about other stuff. Sure.

1:58:10Theo Von:Maybe I'll bring Bobby McGuire with me.

1:58:12Tony Bonfiglio:Dude. Very interesting man. Is he? Oh, my God. No, he seems very interesting. And I want to get a picture up, too. Is this Richard Allen? Yeah, that's his nephew. That's his nephew right there. Get a picture. His sister's son. Of Richie Allen. Yeah. That's awesome, man. We'd love to maybe get a picture.

1:58:28Theo Von:Every year they acknowledge him in Rockaway. They have a big thing with the lifeguards. Oh, they do? Yeah, surfer. He was a big surfer. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I got plenty more stories there. What was the murder? That was a good story. You know what?

1:58:44Tony Bonfiglio:I think I want to save it because there's even some basic, there's like basic questions like, like is our can't, like somebody leaving a candle on, is that like the number one cause of a house fire?

1:58:56Theo Von:Maybe house fires, probably bad electrical work and a lot of off fires, arson, big time. There's space heaters. Space heaters. I don't know if you ever heard of the Happy Land Social Club. I don't know.

1:59:14Tony Bonfiglio:It depends on which one you're talking about.

1:59:15Theo Von:Well, it was in the Bronx. Yeah, it wasn't that kind of Happy Land. Well, I mean, there's a lot of different versions. But a sad story, but I think like, I'm not sure the number, but you can look it up. 87 people died from a gallon of gas in a match. Yeah, it was horrible. You had to respond to that? I didn't respond, but my friend Sully did. he was detailed out to the Bronx and they were one of the first trucks there and when they got in they were crawling up the stairs and they didn't know what they were crawling over and then when they finally found out it was all bodies so it was like crazy He had happy lands.

1:59:50Tony Bonfiglio:And so a lot of times you don't know what's going on, or it used to be you didn't know what was going on until you got in there. No, probably not.

1:59:56Theo Von:You don't know who said it. You're just the adrenaline is running, man. Oh, my God. Your hearts are pumping. And it never gets like old, you know? Oh, my bad. How many years, like they would say, we get there and be a top floor fire. Now you got to carry that mask, all your gear, everything. by the time you get to that sixth floor and you got to put a mask on, you're sucking air. You're like, and now you got to put this little man, the mask is like the man breathing. So you only get air. And I'd be in my mask like, I'm getting out of this fucking city. I'm going to Queens. I thought Queens would be an easier job for me.

2:00:38Tony Bonfiglio:Westchester, send me to Westchester. Anywhere, you know, I'm getting out of this fucking ghetto. Wow. Well, yeah, Tony, thanks so much for your service, man. And yeah, I would love to just have you come back sometime and just be able to just go down. Like there's some other roads I want to go down and learn more about it. Oh, that'd be great. And just, but yeah, I think today we just got a really good idea of just kind of the brotherhood of, yeah, just what your journey has been like kind of getting involved with fire departmenting. Oh, what did your wife end up getting a job in? My wife? Yeah.

2:01:07Tony Bonfiglio:She worked for a printer and then she worked for a dentist. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like dental assistant and kind of stuff?

2:01:14Theo Von:She ran the whole, like, you know, yeah, took the phone calls. Oh, yeah. All the billing. Keeping everything organized. Yeah, she ran it. Yeah, yeah. You know, my wife was a hard worker. Yeah, that's nice. Like I said, she bought her first car when, you know, we were 17 with her own money. Four grand. She bought a Chevette. Oof. Red Chevette. Ugh. Dude, if I saw a girl with a car, yeah, I'm going with her. Yeah, I was like, wow, this girl's got her own car.

2:01:37Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah. Her own money. No, mom didn't buy it, you know? that's my I think the number one thing I'm looking for in a spouse is a hard working yeah because life's hard work yeah you can't try you can't do the

2:01:49Theo Von:door lock anymore right cuz now they're all that trick he always used to say if the girl don't open gets in the car don't open your door she's out yeah so there's all these little tests but yes my wife was a hard worker and a great mother yeah it's a nice thing too oh yeah it's funny because she knows all them years of being in the fire department, I'd come home sometimes and say, oh my God, I had a fire, top floor was burning, I'm telling them all this stuff. And then she'd be like, did you remember that we have to go to school tomorrow? And I'd be like, I just told you this whole story. It seemed like it went right over your head.

2:02:24Tony Bonfiglio:You're like, blah, blah, blah, we get it. Yeah, every fire you've been to.

2:02:29Theo Von:Go spit that black tar in the sink again like you always do.

2:02:36Theo Von:oh yeah behind every good fireman huh oh yeah it's the wives i got some pictures of the fire

2:02:41Tony Bonfiglio:department wives and well look you can show me that as long as they're appropriate you can show me they're appropriate okay good girls okay while you know a lot of them are bronx girls well look these days uh oh yeah tough women over there yes that's what you need in the world you need a good strong lady this is your book right here tales from the tiller yes i didn't even know you'd written this.

2:03:03Theo Von:Yeah, I wrote this. It just came out in September. Really? September. Yeah, great book. Dude, congratulations. Everybody loves it. Yeah. A lot of good stories in there, and I got recipes in there. A lot of good meals. Oh, for sure. Clam Sauce Casino. I think you might like that.

2:03:19Tony Bonfiglio:Bro, I'll tell you this. I took a gal out the other night. Went to a place. They had clams and white wine sauce. I'm a clam guy.

2:03:25Theo Von:That's kind of like oh, you would love the Clam Sauce Casino. Really? Well, you know Clam's Casino? You know, they put the peppers and the onions and a little bacon on it, and then they bake them? No, I've never had that. Louisiana didn't have clam sauce casinos? They might have had it. We had macaroni. There it is. Oh, yeah, that looks good. So I make it, this guy that got in trouble and was sent to our firehouse, and it was one of his meals, and I took it from him, and we make it with the spaghetti. So we put it over with the peppers, the bacon, the onions. God, I want that. Bread crumb and the clams.

2:03:58Oh, I want that.

2:03:59Tony Bonfiglio:I'm a clam guy. Have you seen that kid that says that? No. Bring up that clam kid. I love this kid. But of course, that a fireman's book would have fires with recipes thrown in.

2:04:11Theo Von:Yeah, it's funny because some of the stories are like tragedy, and then it goes right into the recipe. It's a little weird, but... No, no. Oh, that kid that does the Italian words.

2:04:21Tony Bonfiglio:No, no, no. I'm looking for the kid. Yeah, this kid's hilarious. But the... What did I just ask you for, Nick? Clam guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm a clam guy. Kid. Have you seen this little kid? No, I'd see him. This kid, they interviewed him. We'll finish on him. All right.

2:04:38Theo Von:I'm a guy who only basically likes clams, really. I'm a clam guy. Yeah, I like that kid.

2:04:44Tony Bonfiglio:That's all I do.

2:04:46Theo Von:All he eats, he looks like it.

2:04:48Tony Bonfiglio:Clams are awesome.

2:04:49Theo Von:He's just crazy.

2:04:50Tony Bonfiglio:I hate oysters. Oysters. Kid's getting a little bit weird. But yeah, that guy's a clam guy, you know? He's getting a little weird. But I could see you guys just like you guys show up at a fire, but you also brought dinner that has to be preheat, that has to be heated up. So you're like taking it up to the fire with you, leaving it on the ledge.

2:05:08Theo Von:As soon as you sit down to eat, the tone alarm goes off. Oh, every time, huh? And what happens is we have a big thing of foil paper and one guy just starts cutting the foil papers off and the other guys start wrapping. Taking it to go? Otherwise the cockroaches will walk away. We had so many cockroaches in the firehouse. Oh my God, you can never get rid of them.

2:05:27Tony Bonfiglio:Oh God. Yeah. We'll have to hear about it next time. You have a book, Tales from the Tiller, the true stories of heroism, heartbreak, and humor, the luckiest guy alive in his journey in the FDNY. That's awesome.

2:05:38Theo Von:Yeah, it starts with some of my jobs before that and then right through the academy and right up to retirement. Who helped you put it together? Just me and my son. Oh, yeah? And my wife, yeah. Oh, that's excellent. Yeah, it was all in-house. And my brother-in-law, who was in Seattle, he worked for Microsoft, and he did all the proofreading. Did he? Funny story is that he threw his shoulder out working the mouse doing all my corrections because every chapter had like a thousand corrections on it. Well, that sounds like an insurance scam.

2:06:10Tony Bonfiglio:But that'll be the next book, you know? But no, this is awesome. People are already telling me,

2:06:14Theo Von:when are you going to write another book? I'm like, well, I'm just trying to get this one out now. It's hard. I go on the Instagram, that helps.

2:06:20Tony Bonfiglio:And there's always some asshole you write one book. He's like, when's your next book coming out? That guy, he can't even read. It's always people that can't read.

2:06:27Theo Von:Yeah, then what's my next one going to be? like more tales from the tiller. Hey, if it sells, you never know, man.

2:06:33Tony Bonfiglio:I've enjoyed your time today, man. Thanks for thinking about just kind of taking us on a little bit of a journey. Um, yeah, I, we have, we had so many questions for today, so I'd love to be able to get to more. I can't believe how fast it went another time. I know when you're having fun. Hey, you're the man. I'm just glad we're not on fire in here today, man.

2:06:51Theo Von:Checking this lobby out over here too. It's about a thousand years old over here.

2:06:55Tony Bonfiglio:I know this place is pretty cool man. Yeah it's cool. If you get to go to there's like a bar over there and a restaurant just at each end.

2:07:01Theo Von:I went and I looked at them yeah. Yeah it's just cool. It's funny because I've been in like big hotels in Manhattan before and the lobbies are like tremendous you know I mean there's stores and restaurants so I thought it was going to be I never been to the Chelsea.

2:07:13Tony Bonfiglio:Yeah this is a nice place to come if you just come for a meal or something like um they went to the bar last night it's nice in there huh. This is the suite. Yeah Yeah, this is one of the sweets. But yeah, it just feels like, I don't know. To me, it just feels like a lot more chill here. Yeah, definitely. And relaxed. But thank you for your service. I want to say that. Thank you for coming today and helping us share memories of some of your comrades that have fallen over the years and that have also served. And we appreciate it. And we appreciate your wife and son, Dominic. We'll have to put a picture of all of them together at the end of the episode.

2:07:44Tony Bonfiglio:And thanks again, man. Thank you. Yep. We had a good time. It was a pleasure, man, and an honor. Well, I appreciate it, Tony. Thank you very much. Thank you.

2:07:51Theo Von:I'm just floating on the breeze and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone.

2:08:01Tony Bonfiglio:Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind. I found I can feel it in my bones.

2:08:11Theo Von:But it's gonna tell you.