Julian Dorey Podcast - 9/11 Victims Kids UNLOAD on Coverup & Tell Most GUT-WRENCHING Story You’ll Ever Hear…

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

SPONSORS: 1) GHOSTBED: Visit https://GhostBed.com/julian and use promo code JULIAN for an extra 10% off sitewide, plus $250 off mattress bundles. JOIN PATREON FOR EARLY UNCENSORED EPISODE RELEASES: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey CLIPPERS DISCORD: https://discord.gg/8QmWEKJ3BT NEWSLETTER: https://juliandoreypodcast.beehiiv.com/get-julians-top-10-books (***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Matt Bocchi & David Ferrugio lost both of their fathers in the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2011. MATT's LINKS: - IG: https://www.instagram.com/mattyboch/?hl=en - BOOK: https://a.co/d/04URASms DAVID's LINKS: - YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_jnuH15XMk2Vx_7_-aIAw - IG: https://www.instagram.com/deadtalkspodcast/?hl=en - BOOK: https://a.co/d/01OO4vkJ FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY IG: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://x.com/juliandorey JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 00:00 - 25th Anniversary of 9/11, Matt Bocchi’s story of that day 13:24 - The Horror of the WTC that day, Matt on seeing family that day, Dad identified 24:31 - David’s story on 9/11 35:01 - Matt meets Medical Examiner at 9/11 Memorial, Hard to remember his father 48:20 - How David talked about 9/11 w/ family afterwards, Still a Mystery 25 years later 1:00:53 - Matt’s Mom, Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, Conspiracy Theories 1:10:14 - “The Looming Tower,” HERO: Welles Crowther, September 12th unity 1:19:54 - David’s sister’s heart-breaking plea, Matt married w/ son today 1:28:56 - David’s Guilty Feelings, The year after 9/11, “Worth” movie 1:38:20 - Dealing w/ Death, Post-9/11 Matt’s Uncle begins S*****y Abusing Matt 1:48:17 - Why Matt came forward about his abuse, Uncle sent to prison 1:59:56 - The awful things that occurred, Matt turns to dr*gs to cope 2:13:54 - Matt’s years of addiction, crime & close calls (STORIES) 2:35:01 - Matt fails test at Probation, Matt breaks and finally gets clean 2:44:07 - 9/11 Commission, The Saudis, LIV Golf 2:52:56 - The Saudi Coverup Exposed (Omar al-Bayoumi Video), Epstein & the Saudis 2:58:06 - 9/11’s Redacted 28 Pages, The 5 Dancers on 9/11, JFK Part 2 3:04:41 - 9/11 “Closure” & Grief 3:14:25 - Matt & David’s Work CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 474 - Matt Bocchi & David Ferrugio Music by Artlist.io Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027 Volt and 2026 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. I'm rubbing off on you, huh? Yeah, what the hell, man? I wore sleeves specially for you today after last time. What does that mean? Why would you do that? Because, you know, last time I was like, well, you know, you showed up. No one was here because Dief was out of town. And, you know, that was a memorable. experience for you. So I'm like, this time I'll be classy. I'll have sleeves on, we'll do it right, and you show up looking like Julian Dory. This is so intentional. I mean, jumping from no shirt to sleeves, like he's on middle ground. Listen, there's a middle ground. You're not there. That works, but it's great to have you back, David. Glad we could do this. I'm really honored we could do this

today as well. And welcome to the show, Matt. It's great to have you. Thank you for having me on. Of course, of course. So we are here. We're recording this a couple days before crazy, the 25th anniversary of 9-11, which has just been like, holy shit, I'm getting old thinking about that. But, you know, it is a seminal moment that changed the country for sure, definitely changed the world. And it also was a tragic day where just under 3,000 people lost their lives. And both of you did lose your fathers that day. So, you know i i can't even fathom that all the years i've been talking about this on the show all the years i talked about it before it's just like unbelievable to me that there were two buildings that used to stand right there and now aren't and you know people had family members that just went to work on a normal day and never came home but david you and i last year had a chance to go through some of your story i'm going to have you do some of that again today because that was just one piece of that podcast last year just for people who didn't hear it but matt for people that aren't aware of

your story and your dad. How old were you on 9-11? It was nine years old. My dad was 38 years old. The oldest of four boys. My youngest brother was born June 2001. So yeah, dude, just went to work like it was a normal day. And what's crazy is that my dad would go into the city super early in the morning to work out at the gym in the Marriott Hotel. Missed that. Slept in missed the morning workout. Ooh. And I mean, for him sleeping in, it didn't mean shit, right? Like it was just he got to the city at, I don't know, probably 7 a.m.

So as I remember and David, I know remembers too, like it was just such a perfect day. Crystal clear blue sky. Like the way I describe it because if you only know the feeling if you're in the northeast, that transition from summer to fall. Like you could feel it in the air was like palpable. You could feel it. Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge huge help. Thank you.

And I got pulled out of class at about 9 o'clock in the morning. And I walked into the hallway with the classmate of mine. Superintendent of my school walked into the class. Where did you live? I lived in Marra, San, New Jersey. Went to a small school in New Vernon called Harding Township Middle School. Okay. Like maybe 300 kids totaled in the whole school, K-3-8.

My class was considered big. I think it had 50 kids. And very sheltered community, I feel. And the teachers were young. They didn't know what to say or what to do. I don't even know if there was a TV in the office. I really don't know if they were watching this unfold. I can't remember.

I never saw the footage in school. So I walk into the hallway with my classmate. And my brother Nick, who was seven, was standing in the hallway with his teacher and my classmate's brother. And they huddled us together and they were like, we think a small plane hit your dad's building. they're both safe. There's nothing to worry about.

They're evacuating the tower. And that was that. My classmates' dad worked on the 33rd floor. I had no problem getting out. And then they took us and brought us to this room. We called the computer room. It was like the luxury playing gizmos and gadgets and games like that, right? And it was so what was bizarre to me was watching the kids get pulled out of class.

And it was like every 20 minutes, you'd see moms and dads running down the hallway, pulling kids out. And my mom didn't come to school to get us. Oh, it was moms and dads coming in. Moms and dads. There were dads too, yeah. Oh, wow. So a lot of people who either weren't in the city yet or were on their way in, turned around, came, like, everyone was freaking out. Yeah.

And so I sat in this classroom. No one in the school knew that my dad had called my mom. And so I can kind of backtrack. So leading up to 9-11, my dad had what I consider a spiritual, premonition. My dad came from very humble beginnings. My grandparents came here right after the World War, World War II, from Italy, barely spoke English when they came here. Where in Italy? My grandfather was from Parma. My, uh, hold on my, yeah, grandfather was from Parma and my nunno's from Napoli. And so, um, came here after the war and, uh, lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

and my dad had a sister who died as an infant. He also had an aunt who died of ALS. So about two weeks before 9-11, he woke up in the middle of the night screaming, pointing to the foot of his bed. My mom woke up with him, and he was like insisting that his late aunt was standing there healthy,

holding his infant sister. And like, that was his, they were like telling him to come. some crazy shit. Now, did you know, I mean, you were young. I didn't know this at the time. He didn't tell you. No, I didn't know this at the time.

But your mom, obviously. And he was insisting that it was not a dream, like that they were there. So for the two weeks leading up to 9-11 after that night, he was just going on and on and on about like, I feel like I'm going to die young. Like, I want to be cremated when I die, like all these crazy things. And the weekend before, he said to my mom, like, I'm going to quit. Like, I'm not happy. He was having some issues at work. He worked at Canter.

What did he do? He was the managing director of interest rate options. He worked on the hundred fifth floor. Oh, at age 38. Age 38. Oh, he was very successful. He worked very, very hard. Yeah.

And he was like, I'm going to quit. I'm not happy. So that morning, 849, three minutes after the plane hit, he called her from his cell phone. And that was what was kind of rare is that what people don't always really know is it was really hard to actually get cell phone service. in those offices, even though there was the antenna. So he got through. And all the stories of the people getting through on their cell phones because the office signs were all dead is miraculous.

It's so, that's a strange thing that gets ignored. Gets ignored. Yeah. So even today you have problems in those buildings. Yeah. Get in service. Yeah. So he gets through to her, picks up the phone.

My mom picks up the phone. She's like, what's going on? He's like, hey, she thought seeing his cell phone pop up. up on the house phone call her ID that he walked out because he never would call her during the day. So did she already know the tower was no idea? Because he could only call her three minutes after. No idea. Yeah. So he liked to pull pranks and jokes. So my mom answers and she's like, he's like, Michelle, do you have the TV on? We think of a small playing hit. I'm gathering my stuff, beginning to evacuate. And my mom was like, this, John, this better not be some sort of sick

joke. And when she said those words, the line cut off. He had actually said to her too, do you have the TV on. So line cuts off, she turns a TV on, and they just now are covering it, right? It's three minutes later. And all these, like, we don't know what hit, like all the reports of, we take a small plane hit. They didn't know at that time. They were saying like a Cessna or something. Yeah, exactly. So she sees the smoke billowing out of the building. And back and forth, they were calling each other and she would answer and just hear static. And when she kept calling his cell phone, because the office line was dead, he'd answer. And then, there was static. And finally, he got through to her one last time and basically just told her

that he loved her and goodbye. What time was that? Probably, I don't know. I asked her if she ever pulled the logs from like Verizon. She never did. But she wrote a letter to him when we buried him. And 849 was the number she wrote for the first call. It didn't say the second call. It had to have been right before 9 o'clock because my dad's brother, my uncle, was the last one to get through to him right at 9 o'clock in the morning. And no one spoke to him again after that. Whoa. What floor was he on? 105. 105.

Yeah. So it hit at 846. Yeah. And it's unfortunately a very famous story that Cantor, in particular, where both of your father's worked, lost like everybody because they were all above the hit zone at that point. 101 to 105. Yeah. So the smoke and the temperatures, as far as I've been told, like in the first 10 minutes,

just got to insane levels. almost unsurvivable levels right there even before the second plane hit the other tower and that kind of lines up with like the last time your dad talked to your uncle was nine o'clock that's not that long after so what's interesting is i've done a lot of extensive research over the years that was where my first obsession regarding or addiction that i dealt with was 9-11 and it stems from when i came home from school later that day and i saw the footage and then when the footage was being played on that TV. There was a family friend sitting on the couch.

She changed the channel when the buildings come down on this TV replay. And she went over to a Spanish news station. And the first thing I saw was someone jumping. Oh. That fucked me up. And changed me. I was nine years old. That is what affected me tremendously.

So that led me down this road of research. And then these documentaries started coming out. And these families from Canter were being interviewed. And they were like, oh, I was, you know, looking at these photos of all the people in the windows and I was zooming in and I was enhancing them enlarging them and they would say how they'd contacted photographers so I started email on the photographers when I went to high school I took the train of school same train I would go in New York City so I emailed these guys and I was like hey can I come to your galleries and see these photos none of them responded to me but none of them responded to me

I think they just were like we you know this is some grieving kid like what do you say like how do you do this right I would think that if you wanted to come come see the pictures that they took though if they if they saw the emails i kind of assume someone did yeah that you would respond to that though that's a little strange yeah yeah he'll get a response right yeah yeah so it's kind of weird to you right not to get a lot of response yeah the photographer one that i reached out to in particular was known to be sort of a like obviously he's an artist if you will so he viewed it as like i think he only was selected with the fans that he met with in the beginning. I want to say he only did that in the early years.

I reached out to him probably five years later. So like I think a lot of them were like, out of sight, out of mind type of thing. Yeah, I feel like this kind of transcends art though. I agree with you. Yeah. Listen, I agree with you. I would I look back. I look back like years later and I was like, did you ever respond. He never did. Summer's officially over, which means back to reality for most of us. And there's a real window right now for you're fully in winter mode to fix your sleep instead of just pushing through another season on a bad mattress. That's where my friends at GhostBed come in. They have more than 20 years of manufacturing experience,

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Great news. The federal EV rebate is back. Eligible customers get up to $5,000 with the federal EVAP rebate on select 2027 Volt and 2026 Equinox EV models. Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. So there was another one that I got in contact with years later. his son actually and his son

described how his father was very traumatized obviously by what he saw and what he photographed and he said he would look into some stuff for me and it just has been hard for him to get his dad to agree to look at certain things and I described

what my dad was wearing and asked him if he could look through it and he said that he would and he at least got back and this was honestly this was recent this was over the last few years years that I contacted him. I saw him post something on this Reddit page and I personally reached out to him. There are a lot of people I talked to who were there that day, whether they worked in the buildings who were more likely were right by there and were looking up when this was happening

and we're escaping the dust cloud when everything fell, who will not talk about it. And I fully understand that because it was just every single beat of that day from the things they had to immediately accept were happening, which is like watching people. make the decision of do I wait here and die or do I jump to my death? All the way to like think of the world's ending when it comes down. It's just the post-traumatic stress of that is so insane. Yeah. That like I totally get it.

Well, what I was going to say before is that there were reports that the 100th floor and the 101st floor, where the how the smoke went, hit those floors harder at first. Why did they say that? I don't know exactly. there are pockets of floors, pockets of the canter offices that were actually immune to the smoke and the fire, mostly the smoke, hitting them until later. That's why as you look at some of the photos, right as the building's coming down, the smoke is dark and arid, but you could see people in the windows still. Right. There were still hundreds of people standing in the windows.

Like, people don't realize that. And now it makes you wonder how many people are behind them, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's what's hard to think about. But and then another thing, too, is Windows on the World Restaurant, which was above the canter floors, also, for whatever reason, got hit harder by the smoke sooner than some of the pockets of the offices. And it wasn't it, it's been a while, but people, they couldn't access the roof either. It was locked.

It was locked. There was a kid that worked in my dad. He was 23 years old. And my dad was his boss. And he made a call to his parents. and the rumor was that he said we're going to try to get to the roof. So I believe that my dad, they tried to go up. Now, I don't know.

Like, do they get up there and it was locked? Like, by that point, like there was no. And they couldn't, that was the other thing, the helicopter pilots there, like some of the guys who were flying around, there were news pilots. I think there were other types of pilots as well. They were making attempts to get even anywhere near the roof. And scientifically, it was not. There was only one pocket on like the northwest corner. I think it was.

It's in the Nat Geo documentary where they can literally, you see how close they get. And you could see the people in the windows, like waving at them, standing in the windows waving at them. And the pilot said, you know, we tried to get there, but there was no one there. There was no one on the roof. Like, it's wild. You know. So you're in school, though. 9 o'clock.

You remember seeing your seven years? year old brother pulled out of class and you're seeing a bunch of moms and dads come and pick up their kids, but your mom's not there. So do you, do the teachers just like take the principal's office? What happened? We sat in that computer room for the rest of the day, basically, and then went back to class and then got on the bus and went home. And when I got home, you went back to class? Like for like maybe a little bit. And then we were like, it was a very, no one knew what to do. Right. No one knew what to do. You know, I think most of the afternoon was in the, that computer room. You know, we might have been in the principal's office for a little bit, too.

Did you have any concept at that point that your dad might not be getting out of those buildings? No, I had no idea. No clue. No idea. The teachers didn't even know about the phone calls. So I think that no one, I don't think people realize the severity. I think people thought that those people were going to be able to get out. Yeah. You know. Now, who, you took the bus home from school. So when you got home, was your mom there? Oh yeah, there was probably, there was like 30 or 40 cars parked in the driveway. I really, I kind of struggled for a long time with why my mom kept me in school and then I understood when I got home why she decided to do it and I can understand it. And I've done a lot of interviews and things over the years where people, I've seen people like say like, how could,

how could she do that and all that stuff? But it's like, for us to go home and then see the TV footage and then to try to pretend like things are normal. Like she was trying to preserve our last chance of normalcy. Right. Because it was fucked from there on out. I mean, we didn't go back to school for three weeks. It's like, how do you describe the commotion? People running to the house in the days after,

and I'm sure you remember this too, like bringing food, like trays of food and there's nowhere else to put the food. Like you can't even fit it in the fridge anymore. Like, no one knew what to do. And, And, you know, again, she's a three-month-old at the house, too. Oh, shit. My youngest was three months.

My youngest was three months old. My youngest brother. My other brother, Michael, was three years old. So you got a seven, a three, and an infant. And an infant. So it's, you know, they just didn't know. I take issue with people who play the hindsight 20-20 game on something like that. Right.

You're reacting moment by moment. Right. Like, we know all about this now. Yeah. But I remember that day. I was seven, eight years old. And it's one of the first things I can viscerally remember every single part of the day in my life. Like there's things I can remember from before I was eight, but not like every single piece.

That day I know every minute of it. And it was so chaotic. And I was in South Jersey. So there's fewer people who have exposure to people in the towers. There were some. But, you know, for people to like try to determine how you're going to respond in the instant to that, when you're also watching on TV, just like everyone else,

wondering if your loved one is going down with those buildings? Like, come on, that's crazy. Also, too, I think people don't understand how different the world was back then. Oh, yeah. You know, like, you would, I don't know if you could still smoke on planes at the time,

maybe. God, it was a better time for that. Yeah. Still smoke on planes, maybe, but like the security, there was no security. Amanda, were you alive? No.

You weren't alive. Oh, you're post 9-11? Wow. That's wild. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. It's just different.

different time just different same thing with like how the hijackers got their stuff on the plane yeah it just it was just different yeah you book a flight now you and you look down the receipt of all the taxes and there's a september 11th tax like people don't look at that probably and like know what that is right but it's there we can talk about that today too obviously there's a lot there's still an ongoing lawsuit yeah and everything yeah kind of wild so we're gonna get to a lot today people but i want to make sure we get through the starts of some of those stories here so when when was when you got home and saw the 30 to 40 cars you in the driveway and you went inside. Did your mom at that point, like, you know, because you're old

enough. You're not like three. Did she pull you aside and say like, hey, we haven't been able to reach your father or did that come later? That came later. I walked through the, through the hallway through the kitchen. And as I kind of entered the kitchen area, there was like family members. Cell phones weren't as much of a common thing back then, right? So, but you still had people on cell phones. And there was these newly established hotlines at hospitals, obviously, but there was hotlines for the hospitals as well. People were calling in to see if you'd heard anything or if a person was there. So I kept walking. And there were so many people crying. And then as I turned the corner, that's when I saw the footage. And then when I saw the other piece that I talked

about before, I physically reacted to that. You know, that's when I started, I was like, I was extremely upset my grandmother saw that and grabbed me and kind of brought me outside and said go you know to go play on my friend who was my neighbor was that your father's mother my mom's your mom's mom and uh you know at that point i it was you know it was too late right and then i just remember how people were coming in another house all day long um over the next two days that we had like a memorial at our house like not a memorial but like a prayer service um and then a week later they came to the house to tell us that they found him oh they found him they found him so it's crazy because david and i started talking about this so all these years i thought that they found my father

three days later that was the for whatever reason that was the day that i thought he was found he was found basically two days later and he was identified by his wallet that was in his pocket so um I went to the memorial, and I met with the chief medical examiner, the doctor over there. And I looked at his file and his report and everything like that. And so basically he was mostly found two days later. He wasn't identified fully. I should say he was identified by the wallet, and then the rest of the remains weren't confirmed until different points.

Right. So they came to the house to tell us that they found him due to. the wallet. And then as time went by, we, you know, we buried him. We buried him 10 days later, but we continued to get remains that were cremated. Per his wishes. Per his wishes. Yeah. That's pretty what that premonition to is, it's pretty insane. Yeah, it's crazy. You wonder, that's the kind of shit that makes me just be like, what type of dimension are we tapped into here? You want to hear a crazier dimension? Sure. My dad's father was 16 years old. maybe a little bit older i i always mess this up he was taken him and his father were taken during

world war two after the the germans and the italians broke off the axis okay so now the nazis invaded various parts of italy they also we were not jewish but we they captured non-jewish people italians and made them essentially they're prisoners of war right and they were brought to forced labor camps. They were not killed by gas and all the other things that the Jews back then, the Italian Jews, were killed by in the concentration camps. But they were basically worked to death. My grandfather's POW number was 9-11. I'll pull the photo. We'll get the photo of that. That's when I say like dimensional crazy fucking weird shit, like. So you said he had 80 years to prevent 9-11. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. God.

Damn it. Yeah. So it's like, you got that whole like dark comedy thing. I love it though. Yeah. I love it. I mean, he does it for a living. I hope he's got it.

Yeah, he's got a good. And he delivers it. That's crazy. Isn't that crazy though? That's crazy. Wow. So I don't know, man. It's some weird stuff.

That is some weird stuff. Really weird. All right. So we'll come back on the timeline, but let's come over to you, David, for people that didn't hear our episode last year. Just pretend no one's heard that, obviously. Because, you know, we do a lot of episodes here. And that one also, I think, is one of the more underrated podcasts we've done. That was one of my favorite podcasts last year.

But you obviously have your own show where you go through all this stuff with all different types of people from all different backgrounds who lose loved ones in different ways and kind of how they deal with their grief, how they deal with death and the concept of it. And we'll link that down below. Obviously, everyone should go check that out. But you lost your father on 9-11. Where were you when you found out the towers were hit? Honestly, a very similar experience that we've had, which is why I'm kind of sitting here locked in. I guess, dude, I got super, sorry to, I'll get to it in a second, but I got like super emotional. As soon as you said your dad's age, because my dad was 46 and also seemed to be applying,

you might have been more successful at 38 than my father. But besides that, I'm 37. Yeah. And so I'm not quite at the age of my father, which is a thing. You know, my sisters are getting closer to 46, and it's just a weird, trippy idea. And I'm already going to be your dad's age. Yeah, I know. to think how young that is.

Obviously, there are younger people. I mean, I know that, but to like hear it sit next to me. It just like, it just hits differently. Plus, we're both baby boys at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hit me different. But, um, similar to Matt's story, I was left in school. And I had a similar, a similar thought process, but I did always sit with the idea.

Was it better to pull us into the chaos? Like she didn't know. And I watch it live. If I snuck to the TV, watched it live, see my mom freak out. Yeah. I think that would have been a worst decision. So I back that decision. make our mom's made.

Yeah. But my, I feel like you even have a better memory at nine, or nine, right? Yeah. Because that day was like split in two for me where I remember first period came my buddy Jeff, who was late. So he apparently caught the 846 first impact. Comes up to me knowing my dad works in the trade center. And he said, you know, Dave, doesn't your dad work in the World Trade Center?

I go, yep. And he says, a plane flew into the building. And that was just difficult to understand. I don't know what it meant, nor did I think it was as serious as, I don't think anyone and thought it was as serious when they first heard it or saw it, perhaps. And I didn't know what that meant. So I tried going to the main office. They didn't let me make a phone call.

And similar to your place, a lot of people were as a commuter town. I believe in Middletown, my town lost the most people outside of the New York jurisdiction, like 30-some odd people. So a lot of students had families and whatnot that worked there. So they were probably trying to keep it under control like you alluded to. No one knew what to do. Didn't allow me to make a phone call. My mom left me in school for similar reasons.

I was safe. I was right down the street, perhaps it's giving me the rest of that day. even though I was still paranoid and didn't know what was going on, it was as normal as it could have been as opposed to going home. And the bell rang, and that was the time to go back. And one thing I get tripped up on is

while my imagination is running the entire day wondering what was going on, knowing something took place, it was actually happening. So it was my imagination versus this reality that was actually occurring. And while I was unsure of what my father did and happened to him

and what was going on, it was happening. You know what I mean? While that wondering was happening, that's just something that is kind of going in retrospect. But by the time I came to walk home, at 2.33 o'clock, so it was all done. I'm walking with my best friend James.

And it was quiet from what I remember and what he expressed to me. And I remember getting around the bend, similar to yours again. I saw cars outside. And that was the moment where I knew shit went down. I was like, why the car is outside? And my cul-de-sac at Tuesday at 3 o'clock. I was like, okay. Even at 12, I knew something went down.

And it's always interesting than 9 and 12. It's a small gap now, but it's a big gap then. You know what I mean? The level of understanding for better or for work. there is a big developmental aspect there. So I just wonder what those feelings were between us, as you explain. Get to the house. Me and James get separated. I don't know who separated us. I remember someone trying to keep me away from the TV. And I started walking to the living room I wanted to see what was going on. And I remember seeing my cousin's face. And I see Joey's eyes

right now. And as I'm, he's looking at me, he was obviously fearful. But now looking back again, the whole timeline jumping. So he just, he just knew my life was about to get flipped upside down in about seven paces. I looked at the TV for the first time. That's when I saw the footage. And I remember everything just came out of me. It just broke down crying. But the difference between my experience,

which I'm, for lack or better words, slightly jealous of is everything blacked out. Yeah. I don't remember anything after that. Obviously, that day at a minute of all, everything else was scattered beyond that, but I don't remember anything after 3 o'clock when I first saw the footage.

Yeah, when did you, you don't remember a while, like a couple days after that. Yeah, that's like, I don't remember anything. When I see anything, anything, I'm jumping around, but I don't really remember that next day, the day after. I remember things happening. I just can't view the patchwork of when that was. Like, I know things I was doing.

I remember the memorial service, which I don't know if it was a couple weeks later. We didn't find anything. My dad got identified, I think, a while after. And I went to the 9-11 where to look at his file. I just don't recall the date when they first found one piece of them. They found one part of them. That's it. They identified them by the one piece that they found, but that was a while after.

And so we didn't get any confirmation. It was just a knowing. And I remember asking my mom on my podcast, like, when do y'all remember knowing he wasn't coming back? And my mom said that next morning. And of course, she wanted to hold hope for her children, but she was just trying to put the logistical pieces together, the smoke, and he was so high up.

There was almost no shot as much as he wanted to hold on. But her waking up, she just knew that he wasn't coming back. And I don't recall having a sit down about this is what happening. It was just like we knew. just as much as I saw the footage for the first time, besides it being violent, like, oh,

no, he's even at 12, like, this is, he's not coming home. Yeah, you see, I would imagine,

too, like trying to put myself back on that day, but like, especially the adults that day, who have a better concept of life than an eight-year-old would have. When you see that come down like that, you got to be thinking that's an unsurvivable event. It's a hundred,

what is it, 110 stories, you know, coming on itself. And it was like, Like, wasn't long either. You had the first one fall. The last one fell at 10.08, right?

Something like that. 1029. It was 102 minutes. 102 minutes. And so the South Tower was hit 16, 17 minutes after the North Tower but fell first. Yeah. Right? Yep.

When did that fall? Do we have the time on that? 59, I think. 9.59? I think so. Damn, the South Tower that was that quick? It was that quick, yeah. Wow.

Well, it's funny you mentioned about like the, was it right? 9.59. So the blackout stuff because I, after that piece of the footage that I saw, my grandma told me to leave, the rest of the things that I remember are scattered too. And, like, even, I had to, like, fact-checked so many people in my family

when I was writing my book because I was like, did I dream this or did this happen? I had to ask questions. I was, like, interviewing everyone. I said, yeah. Yeah. My mom, like, my mom wouldn't even remember certain things. So I had also realized, like,

okay, like she was going through her own grief and trauma. Interesting, though, like your mom said you the next day, for us, it was two days later, the 13th, which is eerie to me because that's when he was found. That's when we had that prayer service. And there's like people sitting on our lawn with candles. And then there was like this massive gust of wind, apparently, which I remember it, but vaguely. And my mom turned to my grandfather, her dad, and said, he's not coming home. She still held on to belief and hope that he might.

But we had family who worked in the downtown I had an uncle who worked in the Trade Center too And one of my uncles my mom's cousin Came home he took him hours to get back to New Jersey Did he like do the whole walk? He did a walk and then like had like took like a small boat with someone or something like that It might be taking one of the ferries over here It was something like that and the car like hitched a rise somehow it was some crazy story He told me before but I forget right now

when he got to my mom he got to our house that night he said to my mom i hope we find them that's what he said to my mom like he knew like there was no fucking chance he said i hope we find them and so like i hear these stories and i've been told these stories as the years have gone by and like i always will like break down when i hear it but it's i think people don't understand if they weren't in york city and like so for me where my fucked up brain goes is when i'm there downtown and you see how big those pools are and you have to realize like those were buildings and i don't think people understand how catastrophic it really was that's that's where i kind of wrestle with this thought like they don't people don't realize like this was like a war zone

on a beautiful sunny september day downtown and out and turned into like a war zone like they don't get that especially after 25 years you see it so much it's it's almost it's so much in your face that Not that it gets numb, but I made like a post day the other day just talking whatever comes out. I mean, I don't know. What I say sometimes? But I was like, yeah, we can just watch our dad die. And obviously other people are too. But sometimes we're looking at it like this is obviously catastrophic violent event.

Everyone knows that we're watching it. But it's almost oddly pushed to the side and maybe I'm wrong. That is that we're watching this event. But we're forgetting that we're watching thousands of people die. Correct. On video one by one. I said that this morning. I said, anyone can access.

my dad's final moments on YouTube. Like that's where I will never compare my loss, our loss, with someone else who lost a parent in any way. And it's always traumatic, no matter what. But I think that where it goes over a lot of people's heads is they had, maybe they had a goodbye, it was private, they were able to grieve in private. We will never have private grieving. Never.

And then you, and like I said to my mom the other day, from the 20th anniversary to the 25th now like this all feels like one blur to me of like things I've done throughout the years whether it's media things like that and all the calls are coming in on the monumental years but the years in between the days in between are the days that like I get tangled up in it you know I'll be honest like when I went to the memorial to meet with that medical examiner back in June I've been in a really good spot with my descent into looking at the footage and I struggle with that because that's where I wanted to. I felt like I looked at that footage so obsessively to connect in a weird way with my dad.

Anyway, I've been at a really good place at that. And when I went to the memorial and met with that woman, she's really sweet and really nice and knowledgeable, it sent me down a little bit of a spiral, like in the weeks after. Like, I was definitely, I was affected by it. I'll be honest. Like, I was affected by it. And we had spoken.

And when I got off, when I got off the phone call with you, I called her and set up the appointment. And I was like, I just got to do this. And I knew it would be difficult to do, but I was like, I have to do it. You know, I've been saying I'm going to do it for two years. I just have to go meet with her and see what this is all about. But I see your point completely that, like, you getting to have your private moment to go do that,

you're still examining something that's an extremely public event that the entire world gets to examine as well. It's a strange dynamic. You get to the memorial and it's also the World Cup. So there's a lot of tourists that were in the city. Well, I always wrestle with this because when I go to the memorial and you see people standing there at the pools and you see, look, it's hot. It's the summer, right? You see kids sitting on the pools, on the names. You see people taking selfies.

And it's just, to me, I don't know. I try not to get emotionally attached to it. And I have to understand that people don't have the same connection. But it's still difficult. How many times have you been to the pools, would you say, over the years? Probably maybe less than 10 times. times total. Less than 10. Okay. So, you know, as someone who didn't lose family in the event, even me, every time I go by those things when I have to be in that part of Manhattan,

you cannot not stop. You can't not stop and like stand there. And it's never for like 30 seconds. You know, you're there for a couple minutes because I really, the way you described it a few minutes ago about how it was a war zone and you realized the scope of the fact that there were two buildings standing right there, it really hits you. But as you were pointing out for people who haven't been there before, they have all the names pretty beautifully carved in along the edge of every single person that perished in the towers and on 9-11. And, you know, it's a really solemn thing. And maybe I'll say this, probably the World Cup wasn't the best time to be going there because you're going to see more of that stuff you don't like. But I

will say most of the times I go there, you know, I think a lot of people, there's something about it when they're there that the majority of people, they get it. Yeah. And they're like, woo. Yeah. You know, and I, and I think, I hope people listening to this who maybe have just walked by that before, not really thought much of it, or, you know, wouldn't think of memorials like this, understand the gravity of that and how it affects, you know, living victims of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of that event. Because it's a serious thing. doesn't matter how many years will pass. That's, that's, you know, your guys' lives were completely upended. Yeah.

In one day. Yeah. How well do you remember your dad? I remember him pretty well. I mean, things have sadly faded as time has gone by. You know, I have, I have his voicemail recording. Like, you know, when you'd call his cell phone, I have that saved. I have, like, home videos.

Like, I did lose remembering what his voice sounded like for a long time. have to kind of play that back to remember it do you remember when you started to forget that like how old you were i mean probably early teenage years i would say it's hard to hold on to it like you you don't yeah you lose it you know you lose it um but i do remember him pretty well and it's interesting because i don't have many memories pre nine 11 anymore like i can't think back kids say like oh people say like oh i remember what it was like when i was in kindergarten like i don't remember or anything like that. Not like that.

I have like the summer before my dad died. The last thing I really remember is when I was eight going to the World Trade Center for the Christmas party. And from like then to 9-11 is like a blur. And then 9-11 happens. And then the days after are a blur, weeks after are a blur. And it's like, I can't remember what Christmas or like any, I don't know.

So then things fade. It's just reality. Do you remember what he was like though? Oh, yeah. Remember his personality? Yeah, yeah. Very charismatic person, very happy. happy, love to joke around.

He just loved life. I mean, that's like the crazy thing is I hear all the people who die 9-11, it's like they were all described very similarly to me. They loved life. They appreciated life. They were just a joy to be around. And they were taken so soon. Yeah. Which is kind of weird.

So, yeah, he just had this snack about him. I don't know. He was very approachable and like. Most people loved them and if you didn't love him he said okay. I don't care. You know, that was his person out. Very very North Jersey Italian exactly Spot on. Yeah. I feel like I know. You flip you the bird. At least we do that here in New Jersey as opposed out in LA they smile at you. You walk by and then they say go fuck yourself. Yeah, they tweet and they tweet about it. Yeah. Actually not X anymore. I'm not gonna go in California. Yeah. Right. That's that's a I've heard a lot of people talk about that though in different contexts at all ages when when they lose people and then you know five, six years. I'm. later you start to you're like wait was a voice like this or was it like that so really it's that's a really odd thing to deal with and it's hard also when you're in the middle of growing up as well so then all

the experiences that you know you have that you're supposed to have like your dad there to help you with that you did until you were nine and then suddenly you don't have it but what about your brothers because they were younger you know your seven-year-old brother i imagine he remembers your dad a little bit a little bit we you know it's it's interesting because my brother nick and i approached nine 11 differently for a long time he would feed into a lot of the conspiracy stuff and all the on all the the the background stuff which opened my eyes to a lot of things too he's very research oriented and he's smart he's very smart and so he opened my eyes to a lot of things that i was not aware of i had a different approach to it and I think that I don't know I don't talk to him about what he remembers I probably should to

to this day you don't really talk to him no I talked to my brother a lot yeah yeah but I'm saying you don't really talk to him about what he remembers no it's hard I don't know guys can be different yeah I don't have sisters right it's like my my two youngest brothers don't remember anything they will sometimes ask questions but it's hard I think that's hard for them too because they didn't have, they don't have a memory. They don't remember. So the three-month-old obviously doesn't at all, but the three-year-old doesn't remember your dad at all.

Maybe a little bit. Maybe small things. They share a very similar path. I mean, we all share the same passions my dad had, but like my brother Michael really, my dad was obsessed with cars. And Michael was like that too. And, like, no, has very knowledgeable facts about them and all that stuff.

Can spot what that is when he sees a drive-by, whatever. But no, he doesn't, it's just hard. I don't know. Like, my story became very public, and I think that was kind of hard for them. I'll speak. I won't speak for them, but I'll assess that I think it was hard for them, harder than maybe they let on to believe. That your story became public? Yeah, my story, our family's story became public. Okay. You know? I don't think, to my knowledge, any of them have finished my book. I think it's very challenging for them to read, truthfully. My mom read it, my stepdad read it, but I don't think any of my brother's, finished it. Wait, so did your story really go public, like through this book? Yeah. You're saying? Okay. Yeah. And that, you wrote that in 2020. No, I actually finished it in 2017. Didn't get published until 2020. The long journey. What made you want to do that, I guess, like writing it sub 15 years later? Well, so I journaled since I was 10 years old. My mom's brother, who I'm very close with, my uncle, my godfather he gave me a journal for christmas the year after nine 11 and he described this he wrote this little note and said i have stacks of these journals throughout the years you know try to write in it every

night and actually i take that back it was the first christmas after 9-11 and um he just basically encouraged me to write so i did and i would write every night in that journal and Then there was a period of my life where I stopped and then I continued and would stop and continue. So I dealt with drug addiction. We'll get probably into all that. But I started speaking at schools when I was about nine months sober. And I'd go into schools and I would never really go fully into my deep wounds of my story. Kind of surface level describe what happened to my dad, what happened to me getting sober, et cetera.

One day I went into a school and I got fully honest and I basically shared everything. I didn't plan what I wanted to say. I just let it all out. And the senior, I'll never forget, came up to me after. And he said, I want to let you know I went through something very similar. And you inspired me and you should consider writing a book. That summer I started writing the book. That's cool.

And the book changed. I mean, believe me, like it was a lot. Yeah, we got it right here, sway. Yeah, sway. So we'll have that link down below for people to check it out. It changed a lot. I cut a lot of stuff. I rewrote a lot of stuff.

my first editor was like you're not getting deep you're kind of just like reflecting too much you need to like really tap back into that nine-year-old and you could say you don't you know you didn't have it all figured out because you didn't right in the 14-year-old voice and all that stuff and so it took it was challenging for me and it opened up a lot of things inside of me that I had suppressed for a long time so my brother is basically there's a lot of stuff about my dad in there that you know now like people who never really knew, now they know. Yeah. You know, and that was hard.

What are, what are some of those things? Yeah, just like for an example, when they found my dad, like they found, I guess I might as well just say it. Like they found his lower half first. That's how he was identified. Like I said, his wallet, his keys were in his pocket, his phone. And like his wallet was not burnt or anything like that. It kind of charred, but like it was very waterlogged. And there was photos of me and my brothers in the wallet, which are stained, watermarks.

You know, they have water stains. There was money in there. Do you guys have that stuff? We have it all. Yeah, we have it all. His business cards, his credit cards, all the stuff is in there. And so, like, that type of stuff, I think was hard, you know. Especially my younger brothers who didn't maybe know.

My mom sat me and my brother Nick down in my dad's office, we called it, his little home office, and told us that he wasn't coming home. Like that's she delivered that news when they found them. But they didn't tell her until a week later, right? That's what I'm saying. A week later is when she sat us down and said like he's not coming home. And you remember that very well. That is like the last piece around that and I have like like bits of his funeral.

And that's it. How'd you react like once she finally? I broke down immediately crying. So you give you an example, right? Like Nick, me and Nick were different as kids. And he said, my dad's dead. Okay. And he got above the chair and he walked out of the room.

Me, I started hysterically crying. And I think Nick has worked through his, you know, his grief with it too. It took us years for us to connect and share tears together over it. Years. Yeah, I would say. I mean, it was just traumatic events affect people differently. For sure. You know, and I have, like, friends who, like,

I have one of my best friends to this day. His dad died at Kenner as well. And I told him that I went to the memorial. I met with that medical examiner lady. And he asked me, he's like, I'm just curious. Like, why? He's like, why? He's like, I don't really, I don't care to know.

Like, I've dealt, I've dealt with my own ways around it. And what I think may have happened. He didn't tell me what he thinks happened to his dad. But he's like, I just, I don't know. Like, what do you gain from it? And I'm like, I don't know, but I wanted to do it. Did you find friction with that between the two of you, noticing how differently you grieved?

Was that, was that the friction? Yeah, probably. And I think that's what he struggled with was that I was so open about it. I don't know if you have any similar experiences yourself, but like it just people react to it differently. I mean, especially in general, that's probably one of the hardest dynamics,

I think, in my opinion, just from the familial aspect of it. Yeah. But just relationships in general, how different everyone handles everything and that could rub people the wrong way for me or the other person based on how you're handling it. Now, we are talking different age ranges here with your families respectively, but if I remember correctly, David, you were the youngest, right? Yeah, two older sisters are seven years older than me, five and a half. Okay, so two older sisters and you were the oldest, yeah.

And you were about 13? 12, yeah. 12? And you were nine. So, again, like, it's a different spectrum completely, but it's interesting, like, as you grow up, you were the young. young one at that point and you know your sisters are navigating through this but as you're growing up you're the oldest one and you have two siblings who really can't remember shit yeah you know they were way too young that's like a these are two very different experiences of how to later deal with it so

like david would you say that as once you got past the period where it was just kind of blacked out to you like your sisters were there to really talk with you over you over the years or was that also a slow process of actually having communication there? I think it was a slow process. Again, a lot of the pieces I had to put together kind of what you said in regards to asking people questions. I had asked my mom, my sister's questions. And one thing my sister said in our family episodes, like, yeah, I don't really remember

us talking about it for the first few weeks. But then there was a point, and my mom reminded me that she would give us the opportunity to speak when we were eating dinner and I would just sit there not say anything and observe. And that was somehow I took it for a long time, which is why I kind of do what do now because I felt a guilt of, not even a guilt, a, I didn't express much. I didn't, I didn't get it out. But I had, I was raised by three women. Yeah. And which I think is a big difference just being raised for having men around me or boys around me because obviously we deal with it differently, but women are a little bit more expressive for the most part, more gentle around these things,

not to generalize any of it, but having the women's perspective was a big deal for me. But a lot of my journey again was forgetting, remembering, asking questions. And as it became a man, things started opening up and understanding it. And one of the things I did, which I seemed like you were doing, was I was watching the footage over and over again in the early teens, looking for every angle. And I wonder if it's partially because we hadn't, we didn't have so many, we had no answers, even 25 fucking years later,

we still have answers. But besides that, we just, I didn't, I wanted to know what he experienced. What did he, did he suffer? It was her pain. Was he a hero? Was he scared? And answers I'm never going to get. So I just wonder if I wanted to see it to have some control over finding out what's going,

on getting information. Everything was already public. I wanted to be there. So a lot of my process was diving into my own, but I did have a support system. It was just different for each of us. Did you, this is like kind of a strange question, but when you were going to try to figure that out

to see if you could find something that, like, puts you there and figures out what he was feeling, what he was thinking, if you could even get an answer to that. Did you feel like going into that, that that would change things for you or it was strictly just because you wanted to know? Honestly, I did it because I wanted to make myself cry. I think that was the initial thing.

I knew I wanted to get some shit out of me and I knew that would make me cry and if it didn't, that's a whole other problem. But I just wanted to get it out and I wanted to sit in it. And then I feel like I defined it later in life as kind of an exposure therapy that I didn't realize I was doing,

but I kind of did by putting myself there, by forcing myself to watch it, by letting it come out and not running from it or looking away from the screen and jumping to my mom to hug her. It was just sitting in it, letting the cry out, being scared, trying to put myself there

because I wanted to be there oddly and by doing this I just forced myself to feel it and let come see what came out and then afterwards I kind of just take a breath and then I realize I'm still here as corny as that sounds I was kind of what it was I wanted to cry and I wanted to put myself through it

and even 25 years later I don't seek the footage as much but when it pops up which is very often it's just like I watch it and then I get that feeling back a little bit but at the same time I kind of want that feeling. You know, and I'll say this, just being someone from this part of the world, you know, where you did know people who were in the towers at least, like there were a couple

guys from my town who died there. And like New York's right here and it's somewhere that, you know, I call home now and everything. Like we experience thinking about that day in a different way than, I mean, you guys in a way different way. But I mean like people who didn't personally have family members in their experience thinking about that day in a way different way. no disrespect than someone who lives in Utah. 100% or something like that, you know? And so that is the one thing, because I've had my own journey with going back to that day and trying to piece things together.

And I still don't know what the fuck happened there. I think we would all like to know. But, you know, I would find that when I would have the conversation over the years of people who were from this part of the world, there was, I don't want this to come across the wrong way, but there was a little bit more of a reverence for the day itself. rather than when you're having those conversations about what really happened with someone who's not from this part of the world. I'm not blaming those people, but like they don't have that emotional attachment to it. Correct.

And even I do to say nothing of what you guys have to it as well. Like is that frustrating sometimes, you know, like how people will talk about it? Yeah, I mean, I live in South Florida. I don't even, I'm going to ask David, too, like what people in L.A. think. But like, yeah, it's two-hour flight south. And I think the people down there, this is my first time being up north. in four years. Really?

For the memorial, for like this time of year. Normally, yeah. I mean, yeah. The last time I was up here was, I think, 2020. Like, I'm here a lot, but for 9-11. For the memorial. It was 22.

So, which was actually probably good for me in a way, but people down there don't get it, you know. And also, too, like kids now were not even born, so they don't understand. So, like, when I'm going to schools, I'm like, yeah, like her. And, uh, no, what I'm going to, like, I'm going. going to schools and these kids are just, it's just so foreign to them and they only know, they hear of things to like meme cultures. I've had people reach out to me about like lost footage and my knowledge of lost footage and I'm like, this didn't exist. Wait, lost footage. A lot of like people who suspect there's like a lot of lost footage like of people who were videoing that day.

Yeah, there's like people, there's these, these folklore videos that people think are real that occurred, that didn't really occur. There's one that's very, it's all over these 9-11 Reddit pages have them pull it one of them is called what was it called it's not the guy who was watching I was supposed to be there? No

LOL Superman they call it LSM and it's supposedly a video of someone falling from the building and landing in the plaza never existed but people have reached out to me because they heard my story about looking at the footage and I'm like I was pulling videos from LimeWire

before YouTube was like fully... YouTube came out... Lime wire. That's why I was pulling videos from LimeWire. I don't know you were doing videos on LimeWire. Yes. Music. There's videos too.

And YouTube was what, 2006? Yes, 2006 it got in my freshman year of high school. And I remember pulling videos and like, I never saw anything like that. So anyway, I've had people who reach out to me about that type of stuff. And I'm like, if this is what they're pulling from what they're hearing on this podcast or that story or reading this article, whatever. I feel like they've lost the plot in many ways. But there's just a, I don't know, they're just not sensitive to what happened. Right.

It's history. I mean, it's history, but it's also, you know, you go to the memorial, it's people. It's obviously, like, I don't need to preach to you guys. But like, it's many people who in an instant were gone. And so there has to be a way. to talk about both things. And if you got to put them even in separate lenses, fine. But like that's just always, that's always been a tough line for me.

Because like I said, like, I can't imagine it for you guys. But like, for me, it's like my life, I can like chart it back. Yeah. To that day. Well, it's interesting too about the pools that the people's names, I'm not sure if you know this, the people's names are strategically placed around whether Canterford Joe people as an example. are next to the people that they worked with that we're friends with.

And they piece everyone together. And the same thing goes for the fire departments and all of it. And they're pieced. They're placed on that portion of the pool by the people they were closest with. So not everyone knows that. They did. There's so many little details that people don't know. They did do.

I'm not sure how you guys feel overall. It seems like you like it. But from my perspective, like as far as how they did the whole area right there, it's pretty amazing. It's beautiful. And then there's the family room, which I didn't know about until 2021.

That's like private, right? Private family rooms can go in there, you can write a letter, you can leave a photo or whatever, which I've gone in there a few times. And then obviously the room where the it's behind the big blue wall, no day shall race you from the memory of time.

That's where the repository is. And so what I learned was when I went in the room, room and I looked at the file. There's two rows. One row is of remains that have yet to be identified and the other row is remains that have been identified, but the families don't want calls anymore. So the families don't want calls because there's more and more research and there's more and more ways that they've identified people. Like last, I think it was last year there was like five new people that were identified. How did they do it? Just new DNA testing. So like if I'm understanding from

something almost microscopic in a way or yeah i don't know yeah i mean they have the whole rel like you said of unidentified remains so they just one by one i guess putting in whatever they got can we google that deep recent remains identified it's like a year i want to say it was a year ago from nine 11 and how they did it and i think that that's wild i don't know i mean i literally when i went through the same woman i gave her my information yeah yeah i did the same thing ABC News 9-11 victim identified using first of its kind genetic genealogy technique. An adult female was formally identified using the technique. Let's go down. So this was even more recent than I was doing too. Yes, this is August 23rd, 2026. It's like two weeks ago.

25 years after the September 11th, 2001 attacks, New York City is still working to formally identify all of the nearly 3,000 people killed at the WTC. Now for the first time, the city's office of the chief medical examiner and the NYPD Detective Bureau have identified a 9-11 victim using genetic genealogy, which combines DNA testing with family tree research. The family of the newly identified victim, who was an adult female, declined to publicly come forward. She is the 1,654th to be formally identified, which means we have over, 1100. We have over like 1,300, isn't it, 2977? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like 1,300 people still not identify. So let's go down deep. It's a breakthrough. Dr. Jason Graham, New York City's chief medical examiner told ABC News, I'm delighted to be able to say that we've now applied new methods to the WTC identification efforts, and we have a new identification for the first time in 25 years using new methods forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Such a breakthrough was unimaginable 25 years ago because the methodology did not exist. The technology really wasn't there.

There's a lot of good future with genealogy. Forensics investigative genetic genealogy has helped police solve long-term unidentified coal cases. More recently, the medical examiner's office and the police department have applied it to the World Trade Center victim ID. Dr. Gen Odian is the woman that we met with. Oh, that's who you met with? Yeah. She's super sweet. Yeah, super sweet. So she's with the, she's a forensic anthropologist in New York medical examiner's office.

So she does other things obviously with the city, not just dealing with a non. I don't know, actually. She literally is the one who's there. She has an office and she goes downtown to the memorial. And she, this is what she does. She's been interviewed several times over the years by ABC. Yeah, she's a great. She was so gentle about it.

Very gentle. Yeah. Just sit down one, just one on one, sit down and look at the file and just breaks. She's very patient. Like, she took, like, I had to take a couple of breaks and she's very patient. And you went alone. Yeah, I went alone. You went alone as well, right?

Yeah, I was by myself. Yeah. So how did, in the months afterwards, like, how do you remember, like, your mom, obviously, she had four kids, including a literal infant? Like, how did, how did she deal with this? My mom was 36 years old. 36 years old. And like you're talking about the age. I'm 34. My wife is 37. Yeah. You should figure that one out, bud.

37. 37. 37. Run that back. Make sure we get that real quick. I'm 34. My wife is 37. Okay. All right. So. So. Birthday present pretty big this year, pal. Yeah, exactly. So as I've gotten older, I have a son now, nine month old. Congratulations. Thank you. And that's where it's because. become a little bit more trippy for me as I'm like, my dad was not much older than me. And it's just weird. So like I look at my mom in a different lens now. Yeah, my mom grieved. Like she was going through a hard time, you know, um, there were times that I didn't understand her grief. I resented her for it. You resented her for it.

Because I just couldn't understand what I was. I come home from school and she would be sitting in the same spot every day, pretty much, crying. And it affected me. And she knows this, but it really affected me because you can't, how do you console your mom? Like, you don't know what to say. I didn't know what to say to my mom. Like, I would give her a hug and kiss and tell her I loved her

and you can't take away the pain. Like you wish you could and you try everything you can, but you just can't. And I have my own pain. So... Did you feel like you had to grow up overnight? Yeah. And I would, you would.

was told by my dad's dad, my grandfather, my non-know that I needed to be the man of the house. I was 10 years old when he told me that. And I felt this, he didn't mean harm by it, but he did, it was just hard to be the oldest of four boys and like feel like you have to be a father figure and a brother and like sort of like a pseudo husband straight, like weird. No, I know what I'm saying? Absolutely. So I struggled. And then when I was going through struggles, as I got like a little bit older than that, like, I felt like I was letting them all down because I couldn't even take care of myself and let alone be a role model. What about your friends, like in school, you know, where I imagine they were kind of there for you? Oh, yeah. My friends are amazing, but what do you say? What do you say?

Yeah. Like, I think that they, they struggle with what to say. Because so many people would say, like I'm so sorry, you know, they can't say I know what you're going through, right? But they would try so hard to level with you. And there's just no way to do it. So they try to take your mind off of it and things like that. But, I mean, it's just, it's hard. And so, and all my friends do my dad. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I, it was hard for me to grasp what my mom was going through. And as I've gotten older, I have an appreciation. because I understand that she lost the love of her life suddenly. It was fucked me up a lot over the years. My dad had a vacation day scheduled for September 12th. Oh. And then you have like the sleeping thing on that day. And there's a lot of people too who like the washer broke or something happened that day and they happened to be home and it's like.

Yeah. And then I think about what would have happened to my father if he was not there. I think about that. And I, and I, as crazy as this sounds, like I, he would never have been the same. He would never have been the same. I've watched. I've never heard someone say that before. Yeah, I know.

That's, but that's the way I look at it. Yeah. That's the way I try to look at it, I guess. But it's, because I've watched the people that I am close to, some of them who worked in the World Trade Center. But he worked above those floors, too, where everybody, perished and if he was supposed to be wow like my dad had a colleague her name was gloria she was a very nice woman and uh she wasn't there and so i remember my mom telling me she got in contact with glory like soon after the plane hit or gloria called her or something like that and my mom was like

you know where is he and she was i wasn't there i was off today so um and i just know that it affected the people who survived. It affected them. You know, I mean, it's just undeniable. Like, you lost the entire firm that was there. So it would have changed him. It would have changed them. Obviously, there's a lot of questions around all who was involved that day

and where money came from. And like we said, we're going to talk about that lawsuit in a little bit and all that. But do you guys remember the moment when you found out, you know, who they were saying did this? and what it was about and did at nine years old like did you grasp like oh terrorist attack like like al-Qaeda yeah i mean that's what they threw on the newspaper so quickly after um yeah 30 minutes after they were saying asama bin laden yeah exactly yeah i mean i had like my way of dealing with it

with my friends like we would take uh we'd have these printouts of Osama bin Laden and like take airsoft guns and like shoot them like you know just like as the as i got a little bit older and it's probably like your age at the time like 12 i remember doing that like I had Rob in that chair a couple months ago. Oh, no shit. My buddy got me a signed Bin Laden, Times cover with his signature on it, with like a big bullet hole through it or some shirt.

Really? Everyone likes to fight over that. I do think Rob fired that shot. Yeah. I do think he did. Yeah. It's like an unpopular opinion these days because there's like so much internet drama on that,

but I really believe he fired that shot out of him. Yeah. Is it just a gut feeling or should he's saying? I believe him. Yeah. I do. I mean, you know how it is. Like you said across from people.

for a long time I had a man here three and a half hours yeah I think he did yeah but you knew so you knew it was in you know this guy was someone up in Laden yeah planned it and that was like enemy numero no for you I mean yeah at the time yeah when did the first was it Fahrenheit 9-11 was it the first that like was a big first thing right the first one pretty much yeah was that do you know yep yeah so I feel like it was around then or a little like whenever I first saw that where I started maybe thinking that makes sense maybe there's more to it. More to it. The first few years, I didn't know my ass or my elbows. I wasn't even, I didn't think... That tracks with the age of when we were shooting BB guns at.

But yeah, no, exactly. And then obviously there's been so much stuff that's come out over the years. Then loose change came out, I think, in... Which I know there was some... 2005. Okay, yeah, I was going to say 2006. There were some elements of that that I believe were proven to be false, but a lot of it partially true but even just like besides just whatever was true whatever was false just the general idea that people were questioning it oh yeah yeah that's when it was like okay people are asking questions and that was just kind of the river from there there there are a lot of people though to who were there that day or lost people that day who can't even talk about that and i fully

understand it because they're like they don't want to think about it they don't want to know about it I was just talking with a guy last week who is longtime firefighter in New York. He joined after 9-11. And he's like, you can't even bring it up in the firehouse. And he respects that and understands that. But you guys are also, you were young, both of you, when it happened. And then you're growing up. You see some of these things come out in the media as well.

And you're like, wait a minute. Saudi Arabia had a bunch of people that were maybe funding something. And we're not talking about that. And then you go and like you're doing your investigations. but, you know, at what point, or did you ever find yourself, I don't want to go too far with it, but like going down the rabbit hole and being like, wait a minute. Or was it more like you're trying to find out more if that makes sense?

Talk about the conspiracy theories? Yeah. I don't believe that the government plan 9-11. What I believe is that they could have prevented it. and they didn't. I don't think that they knew the extent of what was going to happen. I think I'm with you. That's where I stand.

Now, I mean, I'll talk to you for hours about Saudis and all that stuff and we'll get to that. But, um, and I think that they, they use, they use 9-11 as a way to invade. That I can- Operation Northwest. Yeah. That I will say for sure. Mm-hmm. You know, we'll never let a good crisis go to waste. Correct.

Yeah. Yeah. They fear mongered and they, they, they, they, they, they, they, you know, that I will, that I will, use that patriotic unity, which this country lacks now, as a way to like, let's get the enemy. That's right. I had a lawyer on the show. I didn't drop the episode yet, but one of the guys representing Motley Rice, one of those guys in the show just to chat up with him. And one thing he said that I think makes sense.

He was like, I started questioning him to see what he wanted to say. And he was like, you know, what they didn't do well then. And he's not sure they still do well now is the intercommunication, where one department communicates with another and they're communicating what information they have yeah it's like one department might want to be a hero and keep certain information either that reason or they just don't do a well job communicating and so i think it's a smorgasbord of that where maybe it was just turning a blind shoulder shoulder is also the nuance of maybe they're just fucked up yeah but yeah yeah yeah or maybe they fucked up on purpose i don't know there's a million different angles

but that the idea of just not communicating between departments and who knew what right who knew what's that's a real thing for sure if you ever read the looming tower like that's there's regardless of whether you think that's only part of the story of the whole story it's a piece of it for sure and that whole like even just looking at agency to agency CIA and FBI that was a real like Chinese wall between him that shouldn't have been there and God I always forget his name John what is it John McLean not John McLean's from fucking diehard that's die hard. John the man who knew type in the man who knew deep and we'll get it about the towers, FBI? John O'Neill. John O'Neill. That's it. Can you pull up a photo of him?

Yeah. So this guy... I feel like I've seen... I've heard about him, but I'm trying to picture him. Well, they later made a mini-series out of it where Jeff Daniels played him based on the book. But this guy, John O'Neill, he was a controversial guy at FBI. People either loved him or hated him. He kind of rubbed people the wrong way sometimes because he was a real bulldog and not a perfect guy morally off the court. But he was pounding the table about... in Lodden for years and years and years and years. And then he ends up kind of unceremoniously

getting forced into retirement from the FBI in August 2001. And he takes a job, I think, on August 17th, 2001, I want to say, as the head of security at the World Trade Center. And he died in the towers that he had warned were going to be hit. Holy shit. And it's an insane story. But there's a really sick, sick, sick testimony line that came out during the hearings of this guy Michael Shore, I believe that's his name, who was on the bin Laden desk at CIA, who fucking hated John. Now, John dies in the towers and he's testifying, I don't know, two years later, three years later, and you think bygones be bygones, you know, obviously this is horrible, whatever, but the guy's being cross-examined by the senator, whoever it was.

and he says you you hated john o'neill or something like that and you know yada yada yada and michael shore leans in and says no i'd like to make a correction i said the only good thing to come out of that day is that those two towers fell on him jesus wow and i'm just like fuck you dude like there's just there there's there's there's a line with something so far past it but you hear stories like that you talk about like your dad's premonition and stuff like that. This guy was also like investigating it. Right. And he, and he was telling, it's on record, he was telling people. And then. There was a guy in the South Tower, Rick, uh, Resccarella, I think is last, yes.

Yeah, I met his wife, very sweet lady. He knew. He suspected it. Like, he was running the whole entire company. We're from Morgan Stanley. He was running the whole company through security, evacuations. He's a head of security over there because he suspected that there was going to be another attack after 93. And he saved all those people. because of how prepared they were. Yeah, Rick Raskerland? Rick... Yeah, I can't believe I just...

You're taking Rick Resk 9-11. It'll come up. Yeah. I want to make sure we get that right, too. What level of security was he? He was the head of security of Morgan St. Orcairia, right? Rick Riscoria.

Yeah, I think that's him. Yeah. He got a crazy story. And, yeah, I met his wife and his daughters about five or six years ago. What's that like to meet people that you haven't met before? So I wanted a story like that, and I'm sure David could attest this too. I wanted one of those stories.

And I got very close with Allison Crowther too. Well's. Yeah, yeah, Wells Crowler. And I wanted a story like that. And you're just never going to get that fucking story. And that's like, that's the difficult part about. What do you mean you wanted this story? I wanted like, okay, I know, some good Samaritan act.

Yeah, exactly. Some good Samaritan act that my dad did or something, like some last person he spoke to. I don't know, just something more. You just want to know what the hell you experienced. And that's the, and David said earlier, which is so true, when you see the footage, like, to understand that there were people that were dying in the building, right? And then you just don't, like, it's a public display of death. The only actual real death that you see, I mean, you see the buildings hit the building,

the planes hit the building, or the people falling. You don't see what's happening inside the building. you don't see what all those people are doing in those upper floors and all the commotion and all the chaos that was probably ensuing and that's what I really struggled with like wondering what happened in there and then there's all the documentaries that come out and they try to do these depictions and portrayals of you know playing the narrative but like how I don't know how accurate could that really really be I'll tell you what I do know for sure I could go to bed with this and be 100% certain about is that all the floors above there were every

one died, there are so many amazing heroic attempts and stories that happen that we will never know about that. Correct. Correct. And you actually mentioned one earlier. I've thought about this a bunch where you talk about you see all the people in the windows and you don't see the people behind them. Right.

And the chances are the people behind them in many cases, actually I hope this was the case because this would have been the best way to go, died of smoke inhalation, right? Rather than, you know, the horror. have actually fallen through the building, and you wonder how many of those people said, no, you take the spot. Right, right. Little things like that,

and I'll bet it was a lot of them. There's a lot of, you know, horrible, sad stories that I've heard over the years and just things, like by chance things, you know, and pregnant people at Canter, like things like terrible, like just horrible stories. You know Michael Hinkston's story, right? The blind man who survived?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, it's crazy, too. A blind man survived with his dog Rosalie. Right, right. Let him out of the building. obviously a bunch of people, but his dog guided him essentially out of the World Trade Center survived. And he was on the upper floor, like the 70s maybe. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, you mentioned it. So we should talk about that too. For people who haven't seen

there's an unbelievable feature that ESPN's done for many years on Wells Crowler. Oh yeah, yeah. And what he did because he was a really terrific lacrosse player, I believe. Yeah. And all that. But for people who aren't familiar with that story, can you tell them what he did in the building that thing? He was a volunteer firefighter as well. And so, So basically he was in the South Tower and I think he was in the lobby or he got down. I don't know all the ins and outs of it, but basically he always had this red bandana in his pocket that his dad gave him. And when the smoke started going, he put the bandana over his face. And he saved about, I don't know, 10 or 15 people if you want to look it up.

But over the few days after, there was all these reports of these survivors saying this man in the red bandana saved me. He led me to safety. He did this. He did that. And then his parents showed a photo. And it was him. And he saved, like, a decent amount of people. And then he just, he went back up.

Yeah. He went back up. Yeah, there you go. People, that's unbelievable. That they know of. And like, so. That is the one thing about this days like this that are just like such a total loss in every way. They also somehow highlight the best of the human spirit too.

Yeah. And that's the beauty of like when you see the photo. to people leaving the building. There's no discrimination. There's no color. There's no race. There's just people helping each other. Yeah, you mentioned this a few minutes ago, and unfortunately, it's a great point. But, like, there was no more united time than September 12th, 2001 in this country. And to think about it, there was, like, the most, at the time, most contested election of all time, eight months before that, that, like, went to court. You know, that you would think, like, things were kind of divided. And in an instant,

Everyone came together. And the sad part about that to me is it takes like an event like that for people to see each other as humans or be like, you know, we can disagree on a few things, but let's agree on the things that make us fucking human and American. Right. Like, it's crazy to me. And now 25 years later, I'm seeing in the common section almost the opposite now where people are reminding people of the unitedness, but also reminding people of the divisiveness that we're now seeing the new elected mayor and people having problems with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Everyone for New York is so sad. They forgot 9-11. They forgot 9-11, which is they're pointing to the unitedness that we have, but also now creating divisiveness by talking about that. Exactly, yeah. Which is just interesting. And I think that's, I feel like the city in many ways, like the, they lost the plot, like a long time ago in a way.

But you're right, because I think that people highlight things that shouldn't be talked about as much, and then it creates that divided. Like, I literally posted a video. I got my sister's permission. It's the most emotional, emotionally triggering. video that I have because there's a video of my sister days after in Middletown, New Jersey. I guess a news crew came to town and offered families an opportunity to hold signs up. And my mom didn't want to go from what she recollects, but my sister Jacqueline,

for older sister, for whatever reason, like, no, let's just go, let's just go. And I don't remember this, but you see me in the backwards with like my fake ghetto ass slanted backwards at. And my mom. Now you got a forward. Now I got a photo. The sleeves and thanks to you. I was trying to be cool.

And so it's a video of worst transition to the worst video of all time because it's so emotional. but my sister just with a news reporter holding a patch together photos on my dad with his name saying look for the deak chain that he used to wear this that and the other photo of me and my dad on and my sister's just crying hysterically begging for god for my dad to come home and i saw you can find it on the internet if you want but it's You posted out on the answer now? Yeah, I posted it again. It's posting it for many reasons. This is a reminder and it was a lot to post. I'm sure. Yeah.

We did it. And my whole point of telling this story is because the comment section, again, is just people are just, yeah, there's a lot of beauty in there and solace. That's not exactly what I'm looking for. But I do think the power of sharing that video is hoping to bring the remembrance of that day, what it really is, the details of it. But then there's people just commenting on it, just completely deflecting off, which is what it is. I'm like mad. just it's outside of me us in many ways because it's a historical event but just shows how like the desensitivity and it's different you were talking my people in utah it's just different when you're

outside of this like talking about war war two in 1970 like obviously that's a war global different but you're just detached from it in many ways and it's that video in the comment section sometimes just an example of that and it's uh and i again it doesn't it doesn't piss me off i'm just like shaking it because i think humans are idiots it is what but it kind of is what it is but it's just fascinating it's like a big social experiment sometimes we notice the way people handle it comparatively to maybe us or being local well just this this is the part i always remind myself of first of all half of them aren't real half of the other half of retic and then on top of that you also got to look like unless it's something really bad where someone has like some unhinged opinion

and you literally see a big ratio comments are such a small percentage of what's actually there like Like, I'll see, some of the nastiest comments I'll look at might be, you know, whatever, a thousand comments and they're mostly all attacking something about somebody. And then you'll see like the video has 102,000 likes or something like that. And you realize most, and the like ratio is like 97.8. And you realize most people are like, oh, yeah, no, this makes sense. And then there's a few people like, fuck you die. Yeah. You know, and you just kind of, sometimes it's hard because you're like, Jesus Christ, you know.

But you've got to put that in perspective all the time. I've done, I've looked at, and I was told a long, long, long time ago, I'm going to give you this recommendation. Don't look at reviews of your book, ever. But I've looked at reviews on my book. Yeah, you got a book that just came out today, by the way. Yeah, exactly. Literally. Yeah, it's like QVC for 9-11.

Right. That's a great title, by the way. You're not dead yet. I love it. Beautiful. Literally today. That's crazy. That's weird.

It's very weird. Yeah. And, uh, people, their comments about the, the, the book. and just like their takes on me and then I've looked at articles that I are you know like this Fox what I call it? Fox who's original is like a short thing I did

a few years ago and reading the comment section and that on that page and it's like yeah like people just say like messed up things dude like I mean one dude wrote a review on my podcast the one thing that dropped me down to like 4.9 or some shit

and he was any and he gave me a one star based on the one episode he listened to I'm like, you don't have to like the episode, but you're judging 260 episode the whole show based on one episode. I don't know if they know what they're doing. I'm like, it is what it is. But humans are just, we're just, we're solved down. Yeah, you win some. You lose some on the internet.

Yes. That's how you got to look at it for sure. It's just, it's harder when you have, you know, when it, when it's something so objectively personal and something like that, like that video, which, do we have that up, Dave? Are you on, was this on yours or on dead talks? I don't think, I didn't want it on my page page page, so it might have been a trial. It's on Facebook for sure. Look at my ugly mug. Oh, you did a trial.

Yeah, I just, I was fine not putting it on my main feed. I don't know. I was fine. But no, it was on Facebook. It was posted if you go to Dead Talks Facebook. It's fucking, it's, it, that bangs me up way more than the footage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I've watched the footage so many time, but it's my fucking sister letting her soul out. It's the raw.

Yeah. It's just a lot. You'll find it on Facebook. There's a few posts down, but, yeah. And you guys, you were telling me before when, when we got here, this is the first time you two have been in the room together. Yeah. So you've known. How long have you known each other now, at least?

It was this year. Probably a year, right? Yeah. Wow. So even all this years later, like, you can meet people that experience the same exact thing as you. That's such a wild thing. And a similar...

Same company, same floor. Same company, same floor, same... And similar reaction. Three years apart. And, like, I used to think I was so fucked up and unique in that I looked at the footage. And then all these years later, I find out like, so many people like us that did it too. Yeah.

And I became hardened to it where I wouldn't react to it for a long. time and now I've reverted back to like if I do see it which I do see it I do have I don't always cry but I have I feel it for sure I didn't feel it for a long time well that's the importance of when there are looking yeah but this whole sharing stories and stuff like that whether you have a freaking book or not it's just sharing stories of these experiences because outside of even 9-11 you find similarities which is comforting and then you find the differences as well which you learn something from that too because if we could talk to 100 other people that were nine to 12 they lost their dad we're going to find the

similarities but we're going to find the differences too not one it's just a different fingerprint for everyone yeah absolutely how long ago did you get married met almost two years ago okay because i wonder if you know i'm not sure the timeline of like how long it was where it was harder for you to feel things but the fact that like now you've had these and you mentioned some like this earlier but you've had like the last couple years you got married and had your own kid and you're coming up towards the age your dad was right there's something that something very in like a good way like evolutionary about that where you're like whoa I'm in his shoes now well I also had to like my wife's from Miami my wife's actually from Cuba but she came

in when she was 10 years old a Cuban from Miami Cuban from Miami yeah exactly yeah no it doesn't happen that's revolution it's like a New Yorker and spent on exactly so she her you know she was 12 and yeah dude like she has no it's just different for her it's different for her it's different for but I'm saying like your dad was he was a he was a young father right yeah coming up in his career and stuff right right 38 years old right 33 34 yeah yeah you know what I was trying to say is that I think it's allowed me to the things I used to frustrate me a lot more about people's people in Utah and all their like reactions Utah is just getting a lot of Utah's getting hate today I guess but I've learned to appreciate that not everyone had the same experience yes we have a unique

experience. So I've tried to show my wife through my own journey why it was so different. Not because I lost my dad, but like for all my other friends who were, who grew up in the town I grew up in and went through it as well. Like, it changed us. For sure. You know, and that's just what I've tried to appreciate is that not everyone has that experience, you know. But yes, I, yeah, you're right. Like, as I got to my dad's age, I'm sort of filling that role in a sense. All right, we have this video that David was talking about. So here comes. the tears. Let's play this real quick. This is your sister? Yeah. How did you know?

It's okay to my back. Did you in my back? How many days after my dad? That's like a day or two days or something? It's okay. It's good to my dad. Yes. Come in the back.

How many days after? What's that again? David? There's like a day or two, two days or something. But even besides the personal, um, take on that, the impact that he said, that was a town. You know what I mean?

Like your town lost people, middle town lost 30 plus people was a town. That was the big one. Yeah, a big one, of course. Remember, like every area, people, it's just, sometimes I look at it. I'm like, this event is just bigger than me.

It's bigger than our experience, but that doesn't dowindle our personal experience and connection. It's not like hurrah, hurrah kind of thing, but it's just bigger. Yeah. It's just bigger. It's way bigger than that.

And it's just something that I've took me a lot to consider Sometimes I feel like I felt guilty of almost being too honed in on my experience. What was I going to do was boys? But it's like my grandmother lost his son when she's in her 70s or whatever, eight close to 80s at the time if she was. And like my aunt lost a brother, cousins lost an uncle. It's like this is this onion and web of the experience.

And again, that applies to death in general. It just affects it's not just, it's not just, you're 9-11 experience. But the 9-11 experience is a unique experience. and it's just bigger. It's outside of myself. And I just kind of take it for what it is sometimes. Yeah. Over the next year, you know, obviously the blur of the few weeks after it is an

odyssey that you can't even really put yourself back there. That's just insane to even try to deal with that at the ages you guys were. But over the next year, as you tried to return to life and, you know, go to school, have your new normal. obviously it's an extremely difficult time but like do you remember that well or is that also kind of a blur the rest of fourth grade for me was a blur I remember going to fifth grade um to this day my favorite teacher was my fifth grade teacher she was and it was like my first year try to try to be normal um but then it's like you get to the first year anniversary and then

it's like or remember in the i remember in the first year when I saw in fourth grade like six months and then it's like nine months later and like you're just like that was a blur to me but I remember my mom like saying that oh it's been six months or whatever and then like you get to the first year and then

I don't know it was you didn't really go back to normal I guess you found a new normal like that was what it was transition to a new normal because life was just different and at the time you would explain how you and your next younger brother was that Nick or Michael Nick

Nick Nick? So you guys obviously like handled grief a little differently. And this was at that time, you guys aren't really talking about it. No, we would talk, but yeah, not that detailed. Not that detailed. It's also very fresh. Like I feel like things really evolved after like four or five years later. The documentary started coming out.

Things started coming out. Then the commission report came out. Like those first few years, the commission report was what? 2002, I want to say. I think it was like a three seconds. show four like they were doing it they were doing in 2002 maybe yeah um yeah let's get that right i i'm trying to remember when did it come out deep hearings were throughout 2003 and 2004 it was released in july 2000 okay so released july 2004 but the hearings are all in the year

building up to that there's a movie or a documentary movie i don't remember um i'm drawn a blank on the name of it now um michael keaton oh yeah with it the fans was it worked Worth. Yeah. That's what it was a weird. Crazy. It's a weird thing to watch. That's about a whole other thing looking at what our families. Yeah. Wait. Worth? Why do I not know that? I love my. So like that's what I'm saying there's like layers to this. There's so many layers. Oh, that's why. Did it really? That was a great movie.

Wasn't dopesick not the long? It was in all the 10 points. Yeah. So what was worth about? It's about how the families each had a value. you essentially put on their loved one. Oh, I did see this. I'm sorry. Now I'm remembering it. Yeah. And there's intricacies for the people who were like engaged or the people who weren't legal.

Like there was like things like that where I mean, my uncle when he came in the pot, my dad's best friend, he brought it up. My dad is different than your dad having the vacation in September 12, but it reminded me of this. My dad was set up for a promotion, like a big promotion where his, he was about to make a massive of advance in his career. He's met up his own desk, I believe, a trading desk. And that was to come.

He was told it. It was going to come in the next few months or end of the year. And then 9-11 happened, but there was no record of that. And then that was like a whole needle in the haystack of when this whole worth thing. I don't know my mom talking about. She's like, she's like, I don't fucking want it. She didn't want to do it any. She didn't want the money.

And but that was a whole calculation thing that one of those aftermath of layers of it. So my mom keeps a lot of things. I went to look for my dad's signature for something. And then I saw paperwork that she saved and just unleashed this whole thing, kind of with the war thing, just this paperwork, the bureaucracy, the administrative stuff that comes with death. And of course, 9-11 adds extra layers to it,

but just the administration that comes after someone dies in general was something I was so oblivious to. I, again, didn't know it asked for my elbow, but it's kind of like frustrating on my own aspect. When I go down my own path, what did I do? What did I do? What did I do? And I'm looking at all the things my mom had to do behind the scenes that she kept from us that was just part of the process.

Yeah. And then you got the whole worth thing that just added a whole other thing to it. Yeah, they tried. They with things, they put a price on life. And it's, it's, I think it's one of the just strangest things we do as humans with that, you know? And it's like, so you have all these people die and you're like, well, there were janitors and there were CEOs. Right. Right.

Exactly. It's like, but they were all people loved by other people. What the fuck are we talking about? They all died the same way, basically. They all died the same way. If you want to look at it as just like a class action lawsuit, why is that if ever you were going to be socialist, this would be the moment.

You know what I mean? At the same time, what's the difference between someone that has life insurance? Like, how does that work? Well, I was going to say, too, then there was life insurance policies that weren't paying out if there wasn't a body or it weren't remains found.

There was things like that. Because then you didn't, by proxy, you didn't have a death certificate. So, oh, that's great. Because we didn't get a death certificate so we was found. And that was much later. That was a weird moment. Looking at the death certificate, like,

letting the last year or two for me for the first time and it had the reason for murder. I think it said murder. I don't think it said terrorism. I think it said murder. Yeah. Multiple, for us, it was homicide caused by multiple blunt force trauma. That's another weird.

When you think about it, we look at our dads. Our dads were killed. Yeah. That's just a weird. Again, this is all the layers of this not harping on 9-11. It's just, it could really extrapolate this, but with our personal experience, it's just, okay, man, my dad was

It wasn't straight bing bang to the head kind of thing, like personal, but nevertheless, their dads were killed. Right. And that's one of the things I think about as one of the lessons, if you will, it's the absurdity of which happened. One of my biggest things was, okay, so at 12 years old, my closest people could just die in a blink of an eye end in that way. So we're talking about growing up, whether I grew up quick or not, it was just this

ultimate realization that I had to either consciously or subconsciously understand was, oh, no, this is, so this is life. This is what can happen in life. And you have a choice of being paranoid the entire time for the rest of your life, neurotic of my mom could die, or this could happen. Everything could go wrong at any second. Or you could be aware of that and then think, all right, then I got to squeeze everything out of this.

Right. Even when, I'm not saying it's a worthy sacrifice. I don't want to learn. I've fucked that lesson. Yeah. But the reality of it is just the absurdity of which it happened and then it could also hit you at home that directly, just open. up the quote unquote reality of what life can hit with you with yeah but you can look at the

other side too just as quickly shit could be great right but it was just a shitty way to take it and learn it matt had you ever experienced death anywhere close to you before you're dead no no had you ever thought about it a ton no not until you died and though david was saying like i had this i was super neurotic when it came to my mom she i remember when she would um when she started dating and i was like I'd freak out. How much, how long after? A few years. Yeah.

But I started freaking out thinking like something bad is going to happen or, you know, like something bad's going to happen or, and like bug out and have all this anxiety. Like, it would ruin me at times. It's super neurotic. Like anything bad could happen at any point. It's like you almost become like morbid curious in a sense because you've been exposed to death in such a unique and publicized way, but also like, like, an event that completely altered and changed history for all generations that i think we at least in my

experience we figured that out more as the years went on we knew it was going to change everything when it happened don't get me wrong but like you get to 06 oh 7 08 oh 9 now like it's a new presidency and everything did global financial crisis 10 11 you start to see the reverberating effects right that it had and like today it still gets strong like the echo of that gets stronger and stronger which is a strange thing because you get farther and farther away from the event but you're like whoa everything socially economically culturally within this country and in places around the world just completely changed yeah from that yeah that's much bigger than us yeah yeah for sure head back to the streets and fx is the drop a snowfall soccer watch wanda bell and leon simmy

Fight to reinvent themselves in 90s Los Angeles, where the fallout from the crack epidemic fuels the rise of West Coast rap. Ambition, loyalty, and survival collide, as everyone risks everything to build something lasting and FX is the drop, a snowfall soccer. Streaming now on Hulu on Disney Plus. Click or tap the banner to sign up now. Do you, when, but that moment, like,

when your mom started dating specifically was like a, would you say I was like kind of, like a triggering thing to make you think more like the worst is going to happen. I just I had a lot of fear as a kid. A lot of fear. I mean, I didn't deal with any death. Like I had like great aunts or something. My great grandmother I remember died in like 2004 or 2003.

But like my dad was the one. And then like I still have both my grandmothers. My grandfather's passed away in 2013 and 2017. So like no immediate. No immediate family. Like nothing besides my dad. So yeah, you just don't know. Like it's like what could happen next?

You know? Yeah. Had you dealt with it, David, with anyone really close to you before your dad? Obviously not that close. But the closest was my dad's dad. I remember that funeral and see my dad cry and understanding it. And then I guess the notion subconsciously that my mom's dad died a year before I was born so that contemplation, someone not being there.

There's really just my grandfather. but obviously that's not that it's nothing but it's something I observed and took it because I vividly remember seeing my dad cry for the first time so not really comprehending it except I was in single digits at that point I believe but other than my

hamster stimpy hamsters yeah I watched that thing died now that I think about that was a very traumatic event because I was watching my hamster breathe and I was crying because my hamster was just dying in front of me and then we tried to bury it and my dad did not want to bury it and he was like

fucking just shoveling next to my trampoline and there was just that was oddly traumatic watching my hamster die not 9-11 traumatic but it was traumatic hamster it's tough the goldfish too when the goldfish starts to like flip over and go up you're like oh no well they have like a seven-second memory so they're probably fine yeah yeah but still that was your goldfish yeah yeah yeah you're right yeah so your your mom ended up remarrying though my mom remarried yeah how was that how old were you when she remarried? 15?

Yeah, I mean, it was, yeah. I have a good relationship with my stepdad now, but there was a lot of, like, 9-11, just, it was like a ripple effect for me. I went to my mom and my dad's brother ad nauseum, asking them the same questions, mostly my mom. What was the phone call like? what could you hear in the background, you know,

did he sound scared? I found this box that my mom put in this closet in my dad's office in the house that had the stuff that they found on him, his wallet, all that stuff, had a file, the autopsy report. And I found this letter that she wrote that I talked about earlier that she buried with him. and I read that and that described a lot of the stuff that she went through that day things that she didn't even really remember and so she had described it you know she when he called her she picked up and she heard like the normal commotion in the background like people

yelling I mean he's on a brokerage for so they're always yelling they're on phones like the box like and so I'd ask her about that and then anyway it got to this point where she was it was just too much. It was just too much for it. And then I had an uncle through marriage who was the one who said, yeah, I'll talk to you about it. I'll ask you the questions about it. Whatever you want to know. Wait, uncle through marriage? Yeah. So he was married to my mom's sister. Got it. Okay. And he's dead now, actually. And yeah, basically he started feeding me all these fucking lies and telling me all these things that I wanted to hear. And he said to me, yeah, like, you know, Your dad jumped.

Your dad jumped from the building. That was my thing. Did he fall? Did he jump? Was he in the building when it collapsed? I wanted to know. When did you find out these were lies? Not until years later until I was like 18 years old.

Was he still alive at that time? He was still alive. He didn't die until literally six months ago. Whoa. So. I mean, I can't really imagine that. Why did he, did you ask him why he did that? He was praying on me.

He was praying on me. So basically what happened? was I had a team of uncles, married uncles, two blood uncles, my mom's brother, my dad's brother. Like all these people who were looking out for me and my brothers. Like, you know, you have like a lot of people who prey on vulnerable kids in these moments. So there's coaches that could, you could potentially be of harm. There's counselors, camp counselors, like, you just never know. So they all stepped in to like be like protective of me and my brothers, right? and that one uncle was a predator, plain and simple,

and he would eventually sexually abuse me. And so that fucked me up, obviously. And so it was all around 9-11. It was all around like the things he was telling me. So when he told me those things, I'm thinking finally, like at 14 years old, I'm like, well, now I'm being told the truth. Someone's finally looking at me as the adult that I believe I am, as a kid and i'm getting told the truth um i kept that a secret obviously and for years but um

so after he was doing those things he abused you or before before my dad you no no before he was telling when he was telling you those lies did he abuse you after that or was he already abusing you he abused me he he used that as his entryway he used it as his way to get close to me because my mom and my dad's brother my dad's brother was 23 years old my dad died he's 15 years older than me so he's like an older brother I never had yeah him and my dad were 15 years apart as well right he was grieving he was in law school he was becoming an adult himself like he was finally he's getting into the workforce like and for my mom um she was going through her own life moving forward right and so me like when I tell you like obsessive is one thing like I was

addicted to wanting to know what happened like any moment that I had to look at the footage, I looked at it. Like to a point that it was like, it was not healthy. I'll be honest. It was not healthy. So I would interrogate my mom, like interrogator. My dad's brother, same thing, interrogate him. And he was like trying so hard to help me. So then that other uncle basically was the one who was like, what do you want to know? Fahrenheit, I remember, Fahrenheit 9-11 just came out too. And he was like, we had me watch that. I don't know. I watched that. I watched that and like didn't show anything to me. But like he wanted, he just knew that there was.

a way to finally break down that wall. And when you're like so vulnerable and you're so effed up, you know, and so that happened. I've never, I've never heard a story like that before. It's really, it's messed up. It's messed up. I mean, they're all messed up. That's a whole different level. Well, and that's, so when I finally came forward about it and then I, I, so I got sober in 2015. Oh, okay. I just celebrated 11 year sobriety. Congratulations on that. Let me get a timeline here, though. Okay. So you... So I was being groomed, clearly, if you will, from like 11, 12-ish years old.

And then he started to a major. And nothing happened for a little while. And then like when he found out that I was so enthralled in this 9-11 stuff, like the desire to know more. And like, I'm going, I'm sort of going through puberty. Like I'm, you know, sort of becoming a man. Like my mom didn't know how to handle certain things with me. I was angry at her. I would get pissed off.

Like I just was, I wanted to talk to her and like try to know and learn and dissect things and understand it for myself and wanted her to level with me. She didn't know. All she, she told me what she did know. I didn't want to hear it. I was convinced otherwise, like whatever she was withholding for me, which she had nothing that she was withholding. But I was like, there's something that she's not telling me. And like when you have a fatherly figure and I had several of them who are trying to help you in their own. own various ways. None of them in the ways that I wanted to be helped. Like, I wanted someone

to talk to me and tell me what I was perceiving to be the truth that was withheld, right? As if they all knew the answers and were not telling me, right? So he pretended like you knew the answers. And that's what it was. And so there was not, there was, it was all lies. It was all lies. So that happened in like 2005 or 2006. And you didn't tell anyone about it? I didn't tell for a long time. How did you, but how, God, that's such a. So it's like when my mom is trying to help me and my dad's brother is also trying to help me,

but he's like going through his own thing and he's in law school and now he's graduating law school and it's like this other uncle is close to home and like we're with them all the time and seemingly he's a father figure because he was an approachable person. Like it's always like the people you least expect. And when I ended up coming forward about this years later, I mean, it took my whole entire family by surprise.

Oh, they, no one knew. You didn't tell anyone even in the intermittent years? No, no one knew. Was he still in the picture at that time? Yeah, he was still in the picture. And like the craziest thing, man, is that he had abused like several, not family, several other kids. So like, did they get in touch with you after you came forward? So what happened was, I came forward when I was in my first year of sobriety, right?

I wasn't planning to ever come forward. I came forward. And so... How'd you do it? Because my third youngest brother called me and said something on a phone call. I was sitting in my sober living in Derry, New Hampshire, and I'll never forget. And he was, like, saying these things on this phone call, and I was scared that he was going to be abused or that he had been. He was just saying things about my uncle that I was like, did something happen to you?

Oh, about the same uncle? Same uncle. Did something happen to you? And he said, no. But, like, it scared me. And I was like, at that point, I was like, I'm 23 years old. If I don't do anything and or say anything, and as a result, my brother, something happens to one of them, then I have to live with that.

So I came forward. And I ended up getting him on a recorded line, admitting to everything. And so when we went to court and he was facing, he was facing a long, long time in prison. He got a plea deal. And when we went to court, that was the argument was the fact that not only did he abuse me after my dad died, like, that's sick. But he literally and specifically used 9-11 as his way to do it. And so, like, look, yeah, that's, it's tragic, it's fucked up, and it screwed me up for a long, long time. And I'm not saying any of this for sympathy or anything like that.

I'm saying this because, like, there are so many other stories of other kids. kids, 9-11 kids too, that were abused. So that's like the sickening thing about it. Like someone used an event so tragic, losing a parent so tragically, so publicly, for their own, you know, sexual deviances. And so as messed up as it is, I've used it as a sort of way to, I mean, obviously it takes vulnerability to talk about it. but um i have yet to go to a school especially in the last few years that there's not at least one kid who's who hasn't been abused like this shit and like what's fucked up is i don't even live in

new jersey anymore and yet i go on facebook and i get all these feeds on my on my on my what do you call it home page this coach this teacher it's like all and it's not just new jersey but it's like this new jersey there's all this recent stuff in the last like three weeks i'm like what the fuck is going on in New Jersey like coach this coach that like guy filming a girl on these kids under their skirts like all these things and I'm like it's just it's bad you know and so and it's and it and it and it can ruin someone and it can ruin someone so like yeah I mean look I'm not any more unique or or stronger than anyone else but I I was I was dealt the cards I was dealt you know plain and simple that's I

I seriously, I've never heard anything like that. Yeah. I've heard some crazy ones. That's a whole, to prey on 9-11 itself when you were a victim of it. Yeah. He was close to my dad, too. That's like the thing. That's insane.

And like, and then I find out years later, like, my dad wasn't super fond of him, but he, like, made it seem like they were super close. Right. So he was married, he was married to the sister of your mom? Yeah. I don't mean, I like strategically wrote it in the book where it wasn't like that. Oh, okay. I don't give a flying fuck anymore, truthfully.

Like, you know, it's the guy's six feet under. And, uh, what am, I don't have anything to be scared of in that regard. Yeah. I was scared for a long time, believe me. I don't know why I was, but I was. And, um, yeah, like, I changed his name in the book. Like, I changed a lot of names in the book. And, uh, I had some family who were like, you know, you changed all these other people,

like, like, like, drug dealers and people like that. But like, I should have fucking blasted his name. I mean, it's all over. Like, I can, we can talk about it, but like. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. You mentioned earlier about how you go in public. There was some, I want to see friction for a lack of better words.

Your family had a different approach on it. Was this story, have friction about you sharing it? Like, was it more proud of you as they should be for opening up? No, they were proud about that. My cousins, his kids, do not talk to me. They hate me. They hate my mom. They believe that I should have kept this within the family.

So to answer your question, I come forward. They believe you should have kept that in your family. They didn't believe me. They didn't believe me. They didn't believe you. I had three felony drug charges. So I'll come back to that. I'm just, let's stay with this.

So I had three felony drug charges. And basically he was telling his family that I was doing all. of this that I was making up this whole elaborate thing to get off of these drug charges as if they're like the two are correlated in any capacity so anyway I come forward the prosecutor's office in Morris County sends out a thing I was so I couldn't definitively tell them my age I couldn't like this is the power of trauma blacking out like throughout it all right like I knew how old I was I couldn't prove it when I sat in that police station okay I was for 14 years old. Right. So when you're at certain gaping of ages, it's automatically first,

first degree sexual assault automatically. But when you get a little bit older, like as an example, 16 years old, which I was not 16 years old, but because I couldn't prove in that moment when I came forward when I was reporting it that I was 14, they charge them with second degree first. So the article comes out. Then I go back to New Hampshire in my sober living and I'm like light bulb clicks. I'm like, It goes off. I'm like, yeah, I got it. I know how I can prove it now. Go back to New Jersey, sit in the Morris County prosecutor's office, the victim's unit, and I tell them how I can prove it. And I prove it. And then I get him on a recorded line. And he admits to everything. And like the sickness about this guy, man, like predator. And his kids still don't talk to you, even though he admitted to all of it on a recorded line. Yes. And I don't even know if they know if they've ever read my book. It's all in the book. I don't know if they've ever read it. Yeah, but that's also like a case that their dad was involved in presented in court, right? They didn't go.

They didn't go to the sentencing. My aunt didn't go. So, but during the case? So it wasn't like a, it wasn't like a trial. So he did a plea deal. He did a plea deal. So after the second report, they charged him at first degree. So now he's facing 20 plus years in prison.

And here's the problem. The state of New Jersey had just changed the statute of limitations. Literally, that's the reason why I was able to come forward. So it was just under 10 years that it occurred So I was able to come forward So I come forward They felt like they didn't have sustainable evidence So they just said hey

We're gonna give him a plea deal We're gonna give him this plea deal He'll be facing 10 to 15 years Guaranteed he will go to prison for 10 to 15 years Are you okay with us giving him this plea deal? And I was like yeah sure I was like newly sober definitely vulnerable Sort of like reverted back to like a childhood

Like mindset in the sense. because I was like really like living and re-feeling all these things that I had suppressed for a long time. And I said, yeah, sure, right, yeah, let's do it. He's going to go away. We don't have to do trial and nothing like that. Well, they remove the first degree charge and only give him the second degree charge as part of the plea. The max he's facing is seven years in prison. And he gets sentenced to those seven years and he serves four of the seven years.

literally my book came out six years ago to the day today he got out one week before it came out oh man dude so like during it was covid right he was supposed to get out in december of 2020 and like he kept getting all this like good time applied then it was like thanksgiving and then it was like october and then like boom september and then boom last week of august he got out in 2020 and um he was on lifetime parole megan's loss registered sex offender all that stuff um And he literally died 10 years, pretty much 10 years to the day, which is the craziest part that I came forward. I came forward in February 2016. He died in February 26.

And like the day, it's like it was... Did he remain married to you? No, my aunt divorced him. My aunt divorced him. But I mean, like the relationship was severed between me and her. And I've tried, you know, to be a peace and to try to forgive. I don't forget, but I try to forgive. that's as corny as it might sound like that's what I've learned to do in recovery because look

I carried that resentment I harbor that resentment who is affected and affects me that's um you know I've covered a lot of hard stories in here seriously like I've and and on that topic I've had some tough ones in here where people talk about that and that just gave me like a feeling in my gut I've never had talk I didn't know if I was going to even talk about it I just you but um that's like insane that's just like wow i'm sorry so i go back and like look at the at those years and then i look at my relationship with my mom and like he had essentially severed all my connections he had broken the connection i have my dad's brother at that point he broke it he used all this is what i'm telling you man like predators are sick people they're manipulative people they

know how to manipulate and they know how to take advantage so it's one thing to do the act it's it's another thing to essentially cut off all mechanisms of escape and help. So like the relationship with my mom, well, I strongly resented my mom for a block of years because she had remarried. And the remarrying piece was one thing, but it was like all the lies that he told me about my mom and about my step. All things that were just bullshit. And that's so hard because he was in a position of trust and that made you believe things. and now you probably feel bad that you believe those things. That's not your fault.

Yeah. So that was part of the sentencing was like the power, right? Because there's a clause. When a person's in a position of power, usually family, or some examples, teacher, student, or coach student, etc., those get looked at in a more severe light when it comes to the courts. Obviously, this was family. And, I mean, the 9-11 piece of it didn't add to it.

obviously he didn't get sentenced to the rest of his life. He should have never seen the light of day ever again. I agree. What I was going to say before is after the second arrest, they put out a tip line and basically said if anyone comes forward with any news, anything about this guy, anything about if he did anything to you, come forward type of thing. And there's a lot of anonymous tips that were sent into the local police departments. No one came forward.

But both of those police. departments in these neighboring towns in New Jersey came to me and said like yeah we had these reports and these cases of he did this to other kids we can't do anything about it because they won't tell us what their age was at the time we they won't come forward and tell their story if one other person had he would have never gotten out you know but at the end of the day man it gave me a voice and I you know I ran with it ran with it were you at such a hard place for anyone to be and the people around you to be too because he's like a trusted person in the family and there's no reason to think like correct obviously something like that but were you pissed at people

in your family for no no no i wasn't pissed at people in my family but like the first um you know there were slight things that occurred right his passes if you will the the icing on the cake was one night I had seen some very graphic 9-11 footage. No one was at my house. My mom wasn't home. And I called him. And he asked me to send him the link to what I saw, which the thing that I saw actually wasn't even 9-11 footage.

It was just, there was a thing you could do back then on Google, where you could tag things on a Google image search. So people were putting out images that were graphic and saying it was something related to 9-11 when it was. wasn't. And I saw this and I sent it to him. And then within a matter of probably 30, 45 minutes, he came to my house to console me. Right. And then that's, so that's, that was his way. And he would talk to me about it. He would show me things that he would find. Like, and so I was just trying so hard to navigate this as a kid and then young adult and like

try to understand and like no one felt like I had no one to go to obviously. And like, it's like, You're already dealing with the grief. You're already dealing with this feeling of being isolated and looked at differently and feeling differently. And then you have this occur. And it's like, I really, I went to a high school that I was the only kid who lost a father on 9-11. There was one kid in my greed who lost his brother. Where'd you go to high school? I went to C&Hall Prep.

Oh, really? Yeah. And a school of 1,200 kids. And there's two of us. and the other kid he's a friend of mine now but he didn't want to talk about it that much he was at the time it was just different for him

I wore this bracelet I still wear it I've worn like four of them at this point because I've broken them it says my dad's name in the World Trade Center just to give you an idea like kids would make fun of me for wearing the bracelet you know what I mean like kids just didn't know like this is what kids do that's kind of crazy you know what I'm saying

so like that age it's just because like all boy school kids want to be funny or whatever I don't know, but like, I already felt spotlighted is what I'm trying to insinuate here. I really felt like different. And I was like, there's just no way I could say anything because then I'm just going to be made fun of and ridiculed. And there's just no possible way. Is that what made you want to try substances to get away from it?

To escape, yeah. It was the first time I fell normal. I started smoking and drinking when I was 14 years old, 13 years old. It didn't become a problem overnight. I would smoke weed and drink every weekend. My friends, parties, whatever, never had a problem really until, like, my junior year of high school. I was smoking a lot more senior year. I was smoking pretty frequently.

When I got to college, I went to Villanova, and there was a lot of kids who were doing pills. Oxies were huge, and cocaine was huge. And I started doing Coke and Adderall in my freshman year, it didn't hit me. It didn't have the hold on me. And my sophomore year of college, I was 19 years old. I was sitting in my dorm room. I just smoked up with my friends. Fucking stone sitting there playing FIFA.

And like one of my friends walks in the dorm room, pulls out a baggie of pills from his pocket, a bunch of baby blue pills, little ones, and he pulls it out and he like holds it up. And I'm like looking at it. And he was like, have you ever done these before?

I was like, no, what is it? He's like, they're called blues. It's like you're stoned, but better. I'm like, all right,

fuck it, let's do it. And he breaks the 30 milligram oxy in half, slides me 15 milligrams. I snored it. I was off, dude. That 15 milligrams eventually would be 900 milligrams a day. It's fucking sickening, man. It breaks literally sickens me.

900 million grams of us. I snore 30 of those pills a day. 30. It's disgusting. It sounds crazy, but if you, you know, anyone who was in that world knows the progression, man. You just don't feel it. Like you're just chasing and chasing and chasing and chasing. So yeah, everything I said I wouldn't do, man, I did, you know, and most importantly, right, like lied and robbed and cheated and stole from my mom and broke her heart a million times, like put her through the ringer. You know, it's like, I think back on like 9-11 when I was in college and like I would be getting fucking so high and like watch the footage just to try to feel something. And like, I'm already like numbing myself, but I need to feel something.

So I like look at the footage. Like I was just so lost, man. Like just so desperate to, I don't know. To heal. That's like the best way I could put it. Like I wanted to heal so badly. You had to heal in a lot of more ways than one. Yeah.

And it was like life really threw the kitchen sink at you in every possible way. And that's why like, you know, and I hear how you talk about it. And there seems to be like regret at some of the things that happen and things like that. I'm not like saying like, oh, it's fine. You robbed from your mom or shit like that. But people get pushed to things. Yeah. Some people really get pushed to things.

Yeah. And I'm no doctor here. but I would say you were quite pushed in the direction of just getting me out of whatever the fuck this is I'm feeling. And I got more than a lot of empathy for that, man. I mean, I don't. There's no excuse, right? Like, I don't take any, I'm not a victim. And I appreciate you saying that because you're a stand-up guy and everything.

But I just, I can't imagine growing up how you grew up and then having the very thing that was already the most traumatic thing used again. you in the way it was. Yeah. And possibly not wanting to get... Yeah. I don't... Yeah, dude. I mean...

But you know what? Like, that's... The baffling part about it, man, is that the book comes out. And you're going to see this. I promise you. I don't know. You're going to see it. There are so many other 9-11 kids, now adults, who were dealt shitty hands to.

Yeah. You know? And there's a lot of kids. who went through worse things than me. That's crazy as it sounds. Worse than you? Yeah, I don't know all their stories, but I've heard bits and pieces,

and like, those stories aren't always publicized, you know, but a lot of people reached out to me. And I immediately found solace in knowing, like, maybe I gave them some sort of hope to speak up. That's right, dude. And it's more than just that, too. It's more than just that community, which of course can identify with you,

but like whenever people are brave enough, to tell these kinds of stories and how it happened. Those are the coolest messages I get from the podcast when people are like, hey, I saw that podcast with so-and-so. I just want to let you know, like, that was six months ago, and now I'm clean. Right. Like, you get messages like that. And I look at it and I'm like, holy shit, dude, I'm doing this in my second bedroom right

here. You know, but people like you come in here and do that. And it never, not only does it never get old, I never lose the gravity and appreciation for, you know you being vulnerable like that because it really does make a difference for a lot of people i just know because someone did it for me and a person who had no no who did it for you no connection to my story i was in my sober living and i was it was like telling you man god my dad like everything intervened and was looking out for me at one time i got the phone call well this part and this is the thing i was sober and it's still hazy um it's the power of trauma truthfully it just blacks you out

I was in a sober living with about 45 men and there was a guy who was in there who had basically been gifted a second chance because he was in prison for some very bad things and

the court went a little easier on him and let him go to treatment and when he was in his treatment center he spoke in front of all these guys we were in like a big you and he talked about being sexually you've used this guy was big and tough and tatted up and all that stuff and I'm like maybe everyone's intimidated by this guy but no one was like laughing and I was looking around the room like no one's

laughing at this like hearing these words no one's like snickering or there's nothing so what's going on here so I walked up to him after and I will never ever forget it and I said listen I just want let you know I went through something very similar and you really inspire me to speak up dude and he was like you and I are not the only ones who went through it where the ones you have the courage right now to speak about it. And I literally have taken his words and applied it to my life. He had such a different story than me. Very bad story. You still talk to him today? Yeah, you know, he wasn't, he wasn't sober for a little while. He didn't stay sober, but he's, he's back. And I told, I told him that I talk about that story because it changed me. It changed me fundamentally, man.

Like, then I get the call for my brother. Did I do my fifth step, my first fifth step in AA? How do, can I back up for one second? Yeah. How did you, how did you even go to get clean from this? Because that's, I mean, 900 milligrams a day is, uh. I was in my first detox at 20 years old. And what caused that? Like, what got you there?

So, March 2013, I was doing 10 oxies a day. 300 milligrams. Cry for help. I stole from my mom. Took her debit card. went to the ATM, guessed her pin. I knew that she'd always pull out $200 every week for groceries and for this. I'm going to a little spending, whatever.

So I pulled out $200. She didn't notice the next day. I did it again, $200. She didn't notice. The next day, $60. For whatever reason, the $60 was like the trigger. And $60 would get me about two pills. So she calls me into my dad's office, this infamous room that like all these things have occurred in.

And she sits me down and she goes, she has her statement highlighted. And she's like, what are all these charges? I didn't take out this money. Did she know you had it some sort of practice? And she said, what's going on? And like I broke down. I said, mom, you know, I'm addicted to painkillers. I think I need help.

I think I need some fucking help. It's the first time I admitted it. At that point I've been using for, I've been doing pills for, six months maybe, eight months, the most. Doesn't take much, man. It doesn't take much. It doesn't take much. And I'll tell you like, I went to that detox.

While I'm in that detox, they're giving me a medication called Suboxin. Which would they give you for withdrawal, but it blocks the opioid receptors in your brain. That's right. You cannot physically get high after, while it's in your system, you need to wait at least 72 hours. I think it is. Something like that. Otherwise, it does nothing.

And you also can't take Suboxin too soon after using because it'll put you into precipitated withdrawal, which is like the worst withdrawal ever times a million. So anyway, I'm in there. Counselor calls me into her office on day five being in detox. I was going to be there for like seven or eight days. And she sits me down. She says, your mom's on the phone. Hands me the phone. I'm like, hello? And my dad's dad died of a heart attack. So I was very close to my grandfather. And I hung up with my mom. I walked out. I walked up to the nurse. and I said, I'm not taking the Suboxone anymore. And she's looked at me and she's like, you know you're going to be in withdrawal.

I'm like, yeah, I know. I planned it. The moment I got out of that detox three days later, I left and I got high. Went to my grandfather's funeral. This is one thing, you know, I talk about regret. Like, I don't have a lot of regret. I've made my immense. I've made a living immense to my father,

graveside immense to my father, I mean, living immense to my mom. You know, my dad wasn't even alive for all of this, obviously. But, like, I've made my immense to him. And, um, I, went to my grandfather's waken funeral. I had a baggy full of pills in my suit jacket pocket, right? And I'm sitting with my grandmother. And my dad's brother asked me to speak on behalf of my father. My dad was the oldest, and I'm the oldest. I was the first botchy grandson. So I was the first continuation of the name, right? And he asked me to speak. I'm

half of my dad and being the oldest grandson and I said okay yeah I'll do it right and I'm texting my dealer the whole time texting my dealer like when can I meet you when can I meet you because I was so afraid of not having pills to get me through this and I had enough in my pocket to get me through the night into the morning which is what like every addict's thing is that get to the morning wake up you're in your dope sick you get high you figure out the way you're going to get to keep it going and my dealer hits me as I'm sitting in that front row about to go up and speak. She hits me. She was, if you want to come through and cop, you got to come now. I walk up, I walk, I get up and I walk out and I never, I didn't say a word. And my whole family just watched

me leave. And that is something that I, that really bothered me for a long time. I made my, I made it a grave site immense to my grandfather, but it really affected me. I mean, I, I was so powerless in that moment. That run continues for a few more months. That summer, I go to my second detox. And while I'm there, I'm getting high in detox, I get out. How do you even... Because I was out a place that I wasn't staying at. It was like a weird, like intensive outpatient place. So they're giving me Suboxin. But as I, they give it to me, I put it under my tongue. I'd walk away from the counter and throw it out. And I'd get high. And that run then continued for two and a half years. When Westchap first took flight in 1996,

the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere. And two out of three women rocked the Rachel. While those things, stayed in the 90s. One thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when Westjet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us

at Westjet.com slash 30 years. And I graduated from Villanova. You graduated from Villanova during this whole... Graduated from Villanova? You're a fucking Galaxy brand, bro. Holy shit. Not even, man.

I just kept it going, man. I don't know. Like Villanova's a hard school It was challenging Not a community college or something Like holy shit I don't know how I kept it afloat truthfully

I mean I struggled Believe me I was this close to withdraw Going on a medical leave But they were encouraging me to do so I was failing classes Like I didn't have a good GPA But you still

But I graduated Ended up passing Yeah I gotta have Huberman study you Shit So Wow Damn man

So I graduated You're living like that For two and a half years To take that much I mean Total of four years of active use with oxies and heroin and Xanax and cocaine. I'm glad you're still here, man. I shouldn't be. Truefully. I should not be. It's funny. Like reading that because it's like the amount

of close calls I had, there's no doubt in my mind that there was something looking out for me. I know it was my dad, but like there was something there. Because like there were a lot of close calls in the end. Like May 2015, I was supposed to get high with a friend of mine from college. We were both in New York City. He worked in New York City. I was working in, I worked at three different firms in one year out of college. I couldn't keep a job. Yeah, but what, what type of work? Finance.

I was trying to be like my dad. So this is like, you know, it's crazy because I never wanted to be in that field. My dad hated his fucking job. But I was like, I'm going to do it. Right. I want to do it to be like him. I want to do it to keep his name alive. And like, I get my first job out of school.

I worked at RBC. Can you know me? Yep. I was on a bond desk and great opportunity that I ruined and I had some crazy stories about that but like yeah I ruined it and

I failed my series 7 and I had walked into the exam blitzed out of my mind and they tell you to write this like T-chart for the options table. The options portion of the exam was heavy back then it was like about 50 55 60% of the exam

and if you're right put call buy sell the right way it's your cheat sheet well it's a six hour exam three hours into the exam you get your break I walk out my little pink sheet because you're allowed to leave with it

and I walk into the bathroom and I realize I flipped the fucking thing and I failed by like three points so if I had gotten that right and they give you the result right there to submit it and it's right there and it's immediate it's immediate

yeah and so I had fit and this is where again like it's a gift from God because if I had past that exam, who knows where I would have been. Like, I was going to get a promotion. I was going to get a big commission. You get a promotion doing 900 milligrams of a month. Yeah, and like, dude, I was so...

You're making me second guess everything I've done sober. You are built different. I can't do half the things you've done like that. I never met someone that productive who did a lot of oxy. I'm just letting you know. I think that I just had this way of... I'm not a genius, believe me. I am not a genius.

Might be a little smarter to give yourself credit for it. Maybe, maybe. But dude, honestly, Oh, you want a break for one second? Let's take a break. Let's take a break. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's take a break for the bed.

We'll be right back. I got a pizza. All right, we're back. Your bladder's okay now? It's crazy. It's not the fucking post office. You don't have to like clock out. You can fucking go.

But like I just said, though, after what you went through, and me complaining about a piss? I'm a pussy. He's like, I'll take this pain. Hold it, hold it, hold it. That's it. But you were just saying, so you didn't pass the series seven. and you're grateful now that that happened

because you're like, who knows where I would have been because obviously, I guess after that... I was making good money out of college too and I had no money to my name. So I think that if I hit those goals and then continued in that field, then I don't know what would have happened. But anyway, I remember where I was going,

a friend of mine from college, we were supposed to get together and get high. And he bailed on me. And he went home to New Jersey. And he died of an overdose. Oh, man. And I found out soon thereafter that he only left because like he basically got a victim from his apartment and like all these things happened. And and I just don't know.

Like if I was with him that day that night like we were planning like what would have happened? Like he it was, it was. Fennel was just becoming a thing. Right. So when I first went to detox in 2013, There was guys in there that were in there for fentanyl patches that were like that was they were severe pain management cases But there was not pills laced with fentanyl and then like when I get heroin in New York in New Jersey It's by the bundle a little wax paper baggies and they have a stamp on them right so I don't know how much was in each bag but in other states they do them by the gram and then it gets to a point like when I went to

to Derry, New Hampshire, like, all these kids from Boston and mass are coming into this sober living. And they were telling me, like, there's no dope anymore. Like, so the heroin I did was brown. They were like, this is, it's like white powder. Like, they know it's fentanyl. And they're purposely wanting to get it. And that's like the sickness of addiction, man. Like, people die from a bag and like the attic wants that back. They want to feel that high. And like, so yeah, God intervened several times. My dad intervened several times. I had a sign for my father ultimately. Um, so, um, so, yeah, Well, your friend passes away.

My friend passes away. So my friend passes away. A month prior to that, I get put on probation for one year in the state of New Jersey for my felony charges. So you already had felony charges from college? I got arrested. I got arrested. No, no. So I graduated from Villanova in 2014.

In November, 2014, I get arrested for speeding. I get pulled over for speeding. And I have three ounces of weed and 50 oxies on me. And you were, with pending charges, you were able to work at it? the bank. I was able to keep it going. So here's what happened. God, I wasn't allowed to work at a bank because I had a fake ID. Hold on. Wait, what bank is this? So, so, so, so it's, it's, it's fucking Canada, bro. So we're going to talk about, like, you think I'm a genius. Well, here's where I'm not a genius. So I get arrested. Okay. I get arrested and I get a lawyer and he's like, here, here's my

retainer. Like, here's my, you have to sign this agreement and here's my retainer. So I'm still high. I'm at work. And I print the fucking retainer. Oh, no. From the work. Oh, my. Fill it all out. Scan it and set it to my attorney. I get called into HR.

And they're like, we saw this. It's got flagged. What happened here? And I don't know what I said. I'm just like a, I'm not a con onerous, but like I'm like a talker. And I said whatever I said to like sort of get around it. And like, I was good. Like I didn't get let go because of this.

Now, mind you, nothing happened yet. I wasn't sentenced anything. This was November 2014. And you're like, don't worry about it. Hey, we'll figure it out. Very New Jersey. Yeah, exactly. So I don't know what I said.

I shmoosed it. I don't know what I said. Like, I think I said I got like pulled. I don't know. Honestly, they didn't drug test me nothing after the year. Like when I was when they caught this. So I don't know how I got around it. So then April 2015, after like all these little things that I did manipulate the system a little bit.

My lawyer worked in my favor and he was like, look, we're going to get you. drop down on these felonies and they're going to be misdemeanors. But if you if you screw up and you get drug tests and you fail, they will send you, they could potentially send you to jail that day. Right. And there's no, you know, three strikes. You get lucky if they give you a second chance, but this is what it's going to be. So I get sentenced to one year probation and he tells me the first letter is going to come

probably in like two months. And my friend dies in May. In June, I get the letter. Early June. The letter. A letter in the mail for my probation for Mars County probation services or whatever it was. And it was like, your first drug test. On the bottom, it's bolded July 22nd, 2015 at 10 a.m. in Dover, New Jersey. So I'm like, all right, I got like two months to get sober. Two months to figure this out. Like I called one of my dealers who I knew was on what's called drug was called drug court in New Jersey where he'd have to call in a number of a phone number every day.

They would read off his number or color depending on the day. And if it was picked, he'd have to go in the test. He told me he'd get mouth swapped. So what he would do was drink this mouthwash and like swallow it. And it would give you clean saliva for like 30 minutes. So I went to a smoke shop in Patterson, New Jersey. And I bought two vials, two little bottles of this mouthwash and two bags of synthetic urine, fake urine. And I was staying with my grandma for a couple weeks.

My mom was like, afraid something was going to have. Like, she, like, was really worried, obviously. I was, like, didn't look the way I looked today. I was extremely overweight. I had no color in my face. My body was shutting down on me. You were overweight. So I was addicted to opiates and benzos.

That combination completely messes with your metabolism. Like, I was eating junk food left and right, fast food, all that stuff. But, like, I couldn't go to the bathroom, you know, because the opiates, they make you constipated. So, like, I couldn't go to the bathroom. So, like, I just. you know, I was horrible shape. I didn't take care of myself physically. I didn't eat healthy, nothing. Didn't drink water. So anyway, the morning of that drug test, I go to the, to the, to the testing center. I pull onto my spot and I get high. I start drinking the mouthwash. And I go

inside and I sit down in the waiting room. It's like a kind of like another like square room and there's like a guy in one corner in a gray sweatsuit. It's the middle of summer. And another guy in another corner and they're both like chugging water doing jumping jacks and I'm like sitting there like with this complete ego in a suit and tie and I'm like these fucking guys man like I drank my mouth wash I'm gonna go in there I'm gonna swab clean I'm gonna walk out and I'm gonna keep going my lawyer told me if I passed the first drug test like they might not call me again for the rest of the year you might get lucky you might never get called again he knew though he's like something like you're not sober he knew I wasn't sober so I'm looking at my wash I'm like okay I got like 20 minutes left

the clean saliva and I get called into my PO's office. I sit at her desk and on the keyboard is the mouth swap in the packaging. I'm like looking at the mouth swap and I'm like holy shit like this is it I'm gonna she's gonna swap me I'm gonna pass I'm out of here and she has like a stack of papers and she's going through all the papers asking me all these questions and like my youngest brother I was at my mom's house and she was like your youngest brother's under the age of 18 so if you fail this test we can call Dyphus and all this thing I'm like okay yeah sure whatever and she looks at me She's like, are you gonna pass? I said, yeah, I'm gonna pass. Are you sure? I was like, yeah, I'm gonna pass. And she like bends down, grabs a cup, hands it to me. And I'm like, and it hit me. And I'm like, the fake urine was not trapped to my leg. Grab the cup, going to the bathroom. When I get into the bathroom, it's like an angled mirror. So in these centers, like a guy walks in with you or a woman walks in with a female and they watch you. They watch you pee. And so like, I go in, I walk up to the urinal and the angled mirror is there. And they're, like, a guy walks in with a female. And they watch you pee. And so like, I go in, I walk up to the urinal and the angled mirror is there. And, the guy is not watching me pee.

I'm peeing into this cup. And I look, and he's looking at the, literally like this, and he's standing, staring at the door. And I'm like, if only I brought that fake urine. And so another moment, right? And so I walked back in her office. I sit back down at her desk. I'm waiting for her to come in.

And she comes in and she starts spinning the cup in a circle and showing me everything that I failed for. Like things that I had no idea, still to this day how I ingested them. Like what pill I did or what powder I snort, whatever I did that was leased, I don't know. And she sits down and she's like, look, you had two months notice of this test.

Like you literally two months notice. I don't know if this is a cry for help, but you genuinely can't stop. And I cut her off. And I was like, man, like sincerely, like I want to get sober. Like I want to stop. I really want to stop.

I can't stop, but I want to. And she was like, look, I'll give you one more chance. You come back in one month, and you're clean and sober, I will drop all these charges down to misdemeanors. If you stay sober for one year, you'll finish this probation and you will not go to jail. If you come back in one month and you fail that test, there's no more second chances. You're going to jail that day. I stood up and I shook her hand.

I said, okay, deal. I left, called out of work, went back to my mom's house. No one was at my mom's house. And this is where it's like, it gets emotional from me because I will never, I will never forget, like, that day. And I got home, I paced back and forth. that same kitchen hallway I walk through on 9-11, back and forth, back and forth, debating what to do. Go back in one month, bring the fake urine, bring the mouthwash again, and maybe con the

system and pass the test, or maybe just wave the white flag and surrender and say, I need some help. I made myself a drink, roll myself up a joint. Call him one friend, he's like, dude, just go back in a month and bring the fake urine, you're good. Another friend's like, just go to treatment. Why don't you just go to treatment finally? get go to rehab for real i walk outside to the backyard and i spark up the joint and i look up and it's like so vividly crystal clear blue sky just like 9-11 and i'm like fucking done done i'm so stoned and i just

started hysterically crying hysterically crying and i'm like dad please please give me a sign i need hope so talked about my dad's premonition that same timeline the two weeks before I don't know why or how this even came about, but my dad said to my mom, how he wanted to be cremated, which I mentioned. But he talked about when he died, he was going to come back as a fly. Don't know why he said it. I don't know why. And my mom on September 12th was told to look for the signs from a family friend. She said, Michelle, look for the signs.

And that night, this fly lands my mom's nightstand. And like, dad was like, like, I talked about like the. The memorial service, the candlelit service with the win and all that, that was her moment where she was like, that's it. That's her sign. When I say that I've had, I had visits, still to this day I do, but then visits from this very specific type of fly in moments that I can't explain. You know, dead of winter, side street in Philly, getting high in my car,

windows up, flies in the car. Like all these other random moments. And on that sunny day in July 2015, I'm leaning on this railing and this fly lands on the railing. And it just sits there. And I'm staring at it. And I'm like looking at the joy and I'm like, I'm so fucking stone. Like, what is going on here? And I'm crying hysterically.

And I'm like going like this to make it go away, fly away and it won't go. Won't go. It's spinning a circle. I pull out my phone and I start recording it. I still have the video. Start recording it. Me, you used to hear me. you know, sniffling and this fly is just sitting on the railing. And I put out the joint and I said,

I'm done. I'm done. I walked inside. I called up a detox. This lady picks up and I said, ma'am, I'm not sober right now. Please get me in tonight. I need a bed tonight. I need a bed tonight. And she said, I can't get you until Friday morning. I said, okay, fine. I gave her all my information, my insurance, all this stuff. I'm like, I need the bed. Please reserve the bed for me. And I wrote my mom this long letter. I had committed credit card fraud on my mom's accounts. Like she was dealing with all this stuff with American Express and Chase and all these things, like all these things that she knew I did, but she couldn't prove it. And I admitted to all of it. And I was like, mom, like, I'm going to treatment. I'm going to get help. Friday morning, I'm going to detox. And I've

been sober since. I was July 24, 2015. And man, like, you know, six months into sobriety and all that stuff I come forward about the abuse. Like, dude, like, I did my first, fourth and fifth step, and I had, like, signed from the fly. You know, I had all these other moments in that first year of sobriety where, like, I felt my dad's presence. felt it, knew it, he was there. And like, you know, it's like these moments, these things you just cannot explain. And that's kept me through. It's kept me sober.

I had a really strong resentment towards God for a long time. My dad was a strong man of faith. I had a really strong resentment against God. And I was told that I needed a higher power. I needed to pick something greater than myself. My first sponsor said, it doesn't matter what it is. I said, I'm going to make it my dad. That's it.

And I've run with that for 11 years. You know, and like, so there's a lot of young guys who struggle when they get sober, like, oh, like, I don't want to pick, you know, I need a higher power. Like, what is that going to be for me? And I'm like, well, I tell them my story. I'm like, this is my higher power. And so we have this, like, a little cutout thing that someone made, my mom had made of a fly. And, like, I talked to some of my dad's college.

colleagues and they can all they all like attest to why he would like fly on the wall like that type of thing and like that was like my dad's personality like just this exuberant in your face but in a loving way type of guy you know and um yeah and you just quit that day i went to detox and i man i'll tell you like that detox physically was the hardest thing i went through i i had two seizures in a week because of the amount of zanics i was addicted to if i was not under medical supervision I would have died. The opiate withdrawal is you can't die from it, but benzo is an alcohol, you can. And it was scary.

And then I went to, I had always avoided 30-day treatment. That was my thing. I was like, I'll go to detox, but I won't do anything more. So I went to detox for, it ended up being 10 days. Then I went from there to 30-day treatment. I was there for 34 days. And then I went to the sober living thinking I was going there for 90 days. I stayed there for nine months.

Good for you. And changed my life. Changed my life. You know, like I... Did you totally remove it? Do you feel like you totally removed the... I don't even know the word here, but... The feeling of need for that for substances?

Like, like you... Meaning as someone who was addicted very heavily to things, like in the years after that, it wasn't like... It was a constant demon hanging over you. You were like, that was an old me. I got sober at 23 years old And I was told that I needed to be Comfortable

To a degree around alcohol Like weeds public Like weeds legal right Right right I needed to be comfortable Doesn't mean I want to put myself in situations I used to be in So yeah like If I have a problem with someone drinking Or like smoking a joint at a wedding

Like whatever Walking in New York City three hours ago And I'm like you whiff it everywhere you go You know And sometimes I'll be like yeah it smells nice Like, I'm not going to deny it. Like, I am human. I wish there is a part of me that's like, yeah, if I could smoke weed and it would just stay with that, yeah, I would smoke weed.

But I know myself. I know who I am. I tried. I tried just drinking. I tried just smoking. I always went back. That's just me. The people in my life who can smoke or drink and have a glass of wine at dinner and that's fine.

Like, I just know who I am. It might not happen right away, but it will get me again. Right. You know that that's really mature that you know that about yourself. I just, I won't take the risk. That's, and again, like also, like you were saying, like a 23 to kind of make that. Yeah. I did enough, I did enough damage in those years to know, like, okay, like, it's just not worth for me, you know.

But again, like, I have friends who drink, my wife, like, she's not an alcoholic or anything. Like, she can have a glass of wine. And you live in Delray Beach. I live in Delray Beach, man. Like, you know, it's the rehab capital of the world. You're dangerously close to Fort Liquordale right there. Jesus Christ. You know, but, um, I.

I put myself in situations that would baffle a lot of people. I've learned how to live my life sober and have fun. You forgive yourself, though? I've forgiven myself. I would hope so, yeah. Yeah, that's the bottom line. You know, I don't ever, and good for you for being, like, so mature about it in every single lens. But, like, you know, it's not to say, like, oh, it's all excused or something like that.

You don't want to be like that. Like, people that will say, I don't regret anything I ever did because it made me who I am today. That's a dangerous thing if you're not learning moving forward, which clearly you don't have a problem with. But, you know, I would like to think that, like, people who go through the kinds of things that you did, especially after the fact who then are brave enough to, like, be able to get through it and get yourself on the other side. You have the grace for yourself to be like, hey, you know, there's things I regret there, but like, I understand how I got pushed there. And you should be really proud of yourself for pulling yourself out of that.

I think I am. And I mean, look, I've been connected to a lot of people. in this 9-11 community as a result of this. So I say like my story's not unique. There have been widows who I've been in contact with who had problems with drinking or whatever the case may be. I mean like there are, I've been connected to a lot of people. It doesn't excuse and 9-11 was never, and this is where the growth really came from me.

It was like when I came forward about being abused, my mom called me. When I got back to Delray that night, she said, or excuse me, Derry that night, she said, uh, this is why. This is why you did the things you did. Like, it wasn't just dad. It was, it was this. And this was like the mature moment for me where, like, I realized, like, I was actually learning.

And I said, mom, like, I'm an alcoholic. I'm an addict. This is how I am. I've been like this since I was a kid. Like, I had the traits. I had it addiction to love. I had it before my dad died. Yeah.

And then his death brought it out. His death brought it to light sooner. And then drugs and alcohol, it was going to be drugs and alcohol, it was going to be something else. I know that. And I've seen that in sobriety too. Like, I've had my own, you know, I had a struggle with gambling for a little while.

And I haven't gambled in six years. Like, I can't do anything safely. Right. You know, so that gets me outside of myself. But I told her that and she just couldn't understand it. And look, there are other 9-11 kids who didn't, who don't have a problem with drugs. drugs and alcohol. Like, you know, so it's just, it was never an excuse. I used it a little bit as an

excuse in the beginning. Yeah, it did. But it's just not the reality. Yeah, it's clear. Like, there's a, whenever I hear a story like that, that firm line in the sand moment, it's, it's like the biggest growing moment that a human being can have because you just go from this. All right, I'm at the bottom of the ditch right now. I'm going to have to get out of this. Let's not ignore that. But it becomes clear. And you're finally like, oh shit. All right. Right. This can't be this way. Right. A lot of people never get to that moment. It's good for you that you did. Thank you. And, you know, I guess, how did your siblings like deal with that era too? You know, your younger brothers? Yeah, that was hard for them. That was hard for them. I mean, you know,

there's, I have videos on my phone that I sometimes will rewatch from like the last two weeks of my active addiction was very, very, very bad, basically a blackout. I tried killing myself. That didn't work obviously try to make it look like an accidental overdose um and i there's videos that my brother's filmed um one of which is funny that we laugh at now i had this bad a session if you will addiction if you will with uh with sugar candies and things like that so i used to eat rice crispy cereal and i would put sugar on top and it was like and the way it would like when you put the milk in there It does like this like almost pop rock sounding thing. Yeah.

And it's amazing. And I'm blitzed out of my mind and I'm eating it in the kitchen with this big bowl and this big like pasta spoon, wooden pasta spoon. Oh yeah. My brother's filming me and he's like, he doesn't know like he's laughing, but like it's like it's bad. And I do not look good. I do not look good. Huge belly hanging down. And then the other video which is which saddens me is one of me nodding out outside and my brothers were filming me.

and they're laughing. They didn't understand it because my youngest brother was the one that was laughing. So he's like 14 at the time? 15? No, he was, yeah, he was like 14, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And he's so immature for his age, right? And he just didn't understand it. The things that they had seen with my mom and me, like my mom having to like, you know, try to wake me up and, you know, a lot of arguments and things like that, like her taking stuff from me, like, just a lot of,

things that I put them all through, you know, so I had to make my amends. Um, and I had to forgive myself, you know, my youngest brother, I really, I brought him on a drug room with me. Um, I left the kid in the car to go get high. And so, yeah, that messed me up for a while. And it was hard for him to hear it. He knew, you know, he was young when it happened, but like, when I made the immense to him, he was like, just, I'm glad that you're doing better. And, you know, it's like you have to live with that, but you have to forgive yourself, too. Oh, yeah. You know.

It seems like, yeah, you have a great mom, too. No, she's amazing. Poor, you throw it. And then, you know, she knows you're under the influence when you're doing those things, too. People do things that they don't. Yeah. They would not normally do. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah. So. What about your stepdad? Was that tough, like, that relationship during that time or? He didn't know how to approach certain things. It was hard for him. No one's ever going to be your dad.

So he tried, it's a hard line. A lot of baggage to walk into. Oh, yeah. Believe me. A widow is one thing. 9-11. Four boys who are, can be a little rough, you know. A friend of mine married in 9-11.

Yeah. Widow with three boys. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. It's hard. I don't blame the kids at all. It's a very difficult dynamic.

Yeah, it is. And always the. we're marrying no matter what is always hard but but he's you know my mom and him are so happily married and you have a good relationship we have a really good relationship yeah yeah so um you know it's it's it's hard and as i become a father too it's been hard because i i think about things i reflect on things and i wonder what it would what it would be like if my dad was here and you know i i feel him don't get me wrong i feel his presence um but it's hard i'm i'm we name him we name my son after him. That's cool. My dad wanted to name me after him, being the first, the last second

he pivoted. You named after your dad, right? Yeah, just like the middle man. Yeah. So he pivoted, and he said, I'm going to give him his own identity. That was his thing. Okay, so he named me Matthew John. His name was John. And then as we kept going, he, same thing. And then my youngest brother, who never knew my father, really, he was going to name him, John Paul. And, and, and, um, then, And I, as a nine-year-old, was like, that's not fair. Like, you were going to name me after you, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm the oldest. And I felt like kind of guilty about that for a second.

But then he was like, you know what? Yeah, he should have his own identity. He should have his own identity, too. So he named him Paul, which is his middle name. That's cool. So then as like a nice homage to my father, we named him, my son, John. And, you know, it's been a beautiful gift, beautiful blessing. Circle of life.

Circle of life, yeah. And he's like the next generation. 100%. So it's cool, man. And it's, yeah, I often say, like, to think I could have missed it, you know. Right. But now you're here. I'm here.

And now you get the opportunity to do that. Yeah. And, you know, hopefully as your son grows up, get to do the things that was taken away. Yeah, exactly. To be able to do. Yep. Yeah. And I'm sure you'll have an extra special appreciation for that that even, like, very excited fathers out there can't possibly have.

Yeah. Which is, that's kind of cool. Yeah. Absolutely. Do this. Good call. You just edit me out of this episode, please. No, not at all.

This is great. You told me this. I know, man. I know we just met this year, but dude, proud of you, dude. Yeah, man, likewise. Especially hearing it, but, you know, you don't have to give me the likewise. I appreciate that. It's just your story is incredible.

And now I've got all the details. It's just proud, man, screw it. Yeah, a lot of resiliency. I mean, at every step, for sure. And I just, I don't know, a podcast like this are my favorite just because it's like, like I was saying earlier, it just gives an example for people out there to see. Like, there's someone that's going to hear this right now and just be like, whoa, I see myself in that. Yeah, I hope so, yeah.

That's so cool. Well, we were going to be talking earlier about some of the stuff around like how you dealt with after 9-11. We just took a crazy, amazing tangent right there. That's a perfect example of the ripple effect of how different. I know you didn't say you had this stuff before 9-11, but it's afterwards. Yeah. Crazy, man. Yeah.

You can kind of see where it all. That's something. But you were, before we got all into this, in your personal story, you were talking about how, like, the 9-11 commission report came out. And there was like, okay, what the fuck is going on there? And David, you mentioned some in the years right after that. You started obsessively, like trying to go look at some of the footage and find things out. But what kind of gets ignored, in my opinion, in the media, is the fact that there has been a literal ongoing legal process. If you even want to call it that, it's been an embarrassment in some ways as to

how this is going down. But like a legal process with the entire 9-11 victims as a class action with the Saudi government. Yeah. Because the Saudi government had all kinds of people that, you know, definitely knew something or were around something and you guys, righteously so and your families are trying to get answers. And now there's, it's moving, something moving forward in court finally? Yeah. Last year, the federal judge who's overseeing the case essentially ruled that the Saudis do not have a position to dismiss the case, which they've been trying to do. Now, they, I'm sure you heard about the live golf tournament? Yes, but please explain this to people.

Okay, so four years ago, you have the PGA, which is, you know, the biggest golf network of tournaments. and the Saudi family, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has essentially sportswashed in many different capacities. They were involved in sports watch. That's what it's called. I like that. Fact check the soccer team. There was a soccer team that they did a big buyout or something and invested a lot of money into. So basically what they've done is a big FU to the 9-11 communities essentially is they've taken their money and they have a lot of it.

And they put it into all these different pools and just said, okay, instead of settling this case and being done and taking full culpability, we're just going to spend money all in these different places and make ourselves look better. So four years ago, they established this tournament, this golf league called the Live Golf League. And the idea was to make golf fun. And it's like there's these events and golf is, you know, and I'm a golfer. But golf has this time, has this ability at times to be, you know, the game. this like almost like snooty kind of sport in a sense right and they wanted to be fun and they're playing loud music and all this things and like you know drinking and whatever trying to make this whole thing and their idea was to basically poach all the big players so they throw millions of

dollars multi millions of dollars at the biggest players in the game Phil Mickelson I think he got 200 million dollars yeah didn't they go after like the shambo brian de chambot i can't stand him i have i have i have a very strong vendetta against the guy a vendetta i do i do i really don't i don't like all right roy held strong right right and basically the players who went over to live could not go back to the pgat so then you know there was what pissed me off was that bryson and i actually deemned him and he never responded um he said this thing on on air a few years ago And it was basically saying the 9-11 families, it's been 20, what do you say? It's been 21 years.

They need to move on or something along those lines. And it pissed me off. It really does me. You really said that. When they've had no justice in courts. No justice in court. So if we can get the number, they spent a lot of money, like over a billion dollars easily to get these big players, right? And so four years ago, I started doing a lot of advocacy work.

And I had to really take a step back because it was draining. but just basically to show and this is the thing like my friends who knew my father all reached out to me and said like I yeah I had no idea that the Saudis were involved they didn't they didn't know like because this wasn't

listen let's be real this has not been a thing that's been publicized correctly until recently um so that was you were right by the way Deef pulled it up 1.3 to 1.6 billion specifically dedicated to signing bonuses and guarantees for poach golfers.

John Rom got 300 to 350 million. And so like I saw, I started... Were you LeBron? I started seeing some of these people's arguments and saying like, oh, it's life-changing money. And like, you know, like, what would you do? And like, sure, like, I could sort of see it. But boomer Sison, love the guy.

He plugged my book years ago. He actually referenced my book with the event, with the live event. So the first event was at Trump Bemin. I remember that. It doesn't matter where you stand in the political spectrum, but that was what really bothered a lot of 9-11 families was that the first events happening in our backyard.

Like Benminster, New Jersey, where there was a lot of families in the nearby towns. My town included, who lost people, families, and they're having the first event there. And they're parading around and meanwhile, this is all the Saudis. So anyway, that's just to give you some backstory. But, yeah, October 7th, the proceedings are apparently going to be continuing.

So this also came up in the Epstein files, too. And you were telling me before you at least saw some of this. But there's literally, I don't know if we can pull it off J-mail, Diff, and he probably already has it, if he's probably already has it, Diff is fast. But there's literally an email where Jeffrey Epstein's going back and forth. And the context, this is like maybe 2016, 2017. the context is he's explaining legal maneuvers to be able to delay these hearings in court, meaning he's working, obviously, directly against you guys, the 9-11 victims families,

to try to, I don't know, aid the Saudi government in a way. And you just see stuff like this. And it's, I mean, it's slap in the face when I read it. I can't imagine what it's like for you. and the fact that there's been clear protection over the years. We saw one that really bothers me, man. Muhammad bin Salman killed Jamal Khashoggi, ordered the killing of him in the Saudi consulate in Turkey.

And there's even evidence this one is not 100% proven, but there's strong evidence that he was on the video monitor in the room while they chopped this guy to pieces. And we saved them. We let it go. we kept all our arms deals in place. So I look at this and I go, you know, everyone talks about the relationship with Israel

and how messed up some of that is. Like, you also have to talk about this one too because there's something there behind the scenes that like these guys were also directly involved in some way in 9-11. And then they're also killing journalists while they're living in the U.S. by the way, operating for U.S. companies.

And they just get away with it. I don't understand what that is. Well, then there was people who reached out to me when this first became a thing. And they were like, well, you know, the Saudi family is connected to this and that. And they have investing in meta as a Facebook as an example. And I'm like, I'm not denying that they don't have involvement in numerous big companies and organizations in the United States. But what the whole point of this tournament was literally to create an event where they were essentially, you know, money laundering and sports washing.

image and for what now the tournaments failed no longer it's it's dissolved basically i think um not all the players so now was the whole thing too the players then were able to come back to pga and so there was a whole outcry about that the players who stuck with the pga and said i'm not going to take the saudi money now these guys get to come back they took all that money now they come back and people are like well that's a smart business move like yeah like can i see that side of it sure but at the same time i'm like you're just taking blood money right right Right. You're taking blood money. And that, you know, the argument I could see being made, like, are we taking blood money if there's a, you know, settlement or whatever?

Which, who knows what's going to happen with this, right? But at the same time, it's like, these people were culpable. We know it. It's proven. And it wasn't until the British government brought that video to justice. I think it was a year ago of what's his name, parading around the White House, the Capitol building. a video that we had, the United States government had and was withheld.

What videos is this? I don't know about this. What's his name? He was scouting the area. He was scouting the area. And he was filming it and he was showing them. And it wasn't until the British government. This is prior to 9-11, obviously.

So they have a Saudi scouting the area. What's his name? Omar Abuayumi, I think. Right? Am I right? I didn't see it. There's some airy shit. It's crazy, man.

And it's like then that, This is where you can kind of run into this rabbit hole of like what did our government The man new videos of a man in 9-11 lawsuit reveal extremist links. Deves get in the video that it's just loading. But let's at least read it. So we have it. So the man at the heart of the $1 trillion lawsuit brought by 9-11 families had extensive links to Saudi government officials and went paintballing with one of Al-Qaeda's future leaders video obtained by the BBC reveals the footage which the FBI has. within days of the 2001 attacks stands in stark contrast to Omar al-byumi's 25 years of

denials that he was an extremist in the Saudi spy by you me who claimed to be a student when he was in the United States is seen in the clip what embracing Anwar al-a-laki so this was an American citizen that Obama drone strike he loved drones the drone strike out in Africa, which was controversial because he was an American citizen, but he was on foreign soil, I guess, at the time. So he's seen in one clip embracing Anwar Al-Aki, who would go on to lead al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and another by Yumi and Al-Laki are paintballing near San Diego with an official from Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Islamic Affairs. The videos form part of the 9-11 family's lawsuit against Saudi Arabia and have never been shown publicly

before. The lawsuit argues Saudi Arabia was complicit in the attacks and that Bayoumi aided two of the 19 hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with another crashing in Pennsylvania. This is the part right here. Byumi was arrested in the UK by the Metropolitan Police days after the attacks and the videos were found among his possessions along with other crucial evidence. This included a diagram of a plane with a flight descent equation written alongside. And the FBI was there. They were there for the interview. Multiple FBI agents received copies of the diagram, but it was never shared with the British interrogators, even though it had been couriered to the police station where Bayoumi was being held in custody.

The diagram was also kept from some FBI agents investigating Bayoumi as well as the 9-11 commission, the independent inquiry into the largest mass murder in U.S. history in which nearly 3,000 people were killed. Bayumi was never prosecuted. He and the Saudi government did not respond to the BBC's request for comment, but both have always denied any involvement in or prior knowledge of the attacks. The FBI declined to comment. Wow. So the video that I was referring to, this is different, is one of him, and I'm sure he could find it. And he's walking around the area. So the fourth plane, presumably. Was supposed to be DC. Yeah. And so, yeah. And that wasn't until.

They released, the British released that video. And I believe it was a year ago. And again, like, we've known about this. How does it make you feel to find stuff out like this so long after? I mean, it's fucking frustrating. Yeah, I mean. But it's not shocking at the same time. That's the weird part.

That's the messed up part. Like, how long did it take for the 28 pages to be released? And they were redacted. The 28 pages? Isn't that the I'm pretty sure that was Obama that spearheaded That's the video that I'm referring to What Saudi intelligence officer

Films location in D.C. Two years before 9-11 So it was two, okay. Okay, let's play that. Yeah, well, there you have it. Oh, beloved Ashamed brothers are greeting to you from Omar Al-Bayumi. They say that our kids are demons,

however, these are the demons of the White House. They are going upwards as you are seeing. I'm reading his translation here. Okay, this is the new White House. Also, the airport is not far away. There are cars, looking at Secret Service cars. You said that in the plant. Look up the pages.

That's like saying, hello, I'm guilty. Like, you can't. Wow. Are you talking about Epstein, like the delay tactics? The lawyer I spoke to said something. He's like, yeah, we get these documents. They're redacted, and then we have to go through another process to get the redactions clear.

So this, Dave just pulled this up. What are the 28 pages? They are redacted, classified final section of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into the September 11, 2001 attacks. They detail potential unverified connections and financial support between the 9-11 hijackers and individuals who may have been linked to the Saudi Arabian government. The Obama administration declassified and released the long-hidden 28 pages on July 15th, 2016 following years of pressure. What were you going to say? But most of the information that was what we needed, be redacted. Yeah. So it's been a lot of fight and and pursuit and there's been a lot of

laws and all these things that have been passed recently to help us. But like it's and the frustrating aspect of it is that each administration has promised that they were going to do what they all should have done a long time ago and they haven't. Yeah. You know and so it's why should it be so much effort for us to do this? This is this is where that's where people run wild with the conspiracy theories. Dude, I would just love to be a fly on the wall in the rooms where they talk about this. I know you would probably love that even more than me. But, you know, I wonder if there were people in our government,

even if it was two or three, who maybe knew it was going to happen. And we're like, this isn't the worst thing. We can use this, which would be sick. And then I wonder what foreign governments knew about it. And I'm very, in my opinion, having looked at this case, I'm comfortable that there were elements of the Saudi government who were directly involved, let alone knew about it. And there were elements of the Israeli government that knew about it.

And I've had Jim DiOrio on here who was in the FBI investigating things around the case. He told a famous story that hadn't been told before back. Told it in episode 48 and then he told the full thing when he came back in like 74 and 75, I think, or 73 and 74. But, you know, he arrested the financial arms in a Jersey Shoretown on September 15, 2001. And it's an insane, like hairs on the back of your neck hearing about it. But it's just the tip of the iceberg. These guys were funneling money in for the hijackers and stuff like that. And, you know, he wonders about all the people that they didn't arrest or cases he didn't get to make.

you know i i remember a phone call i had about the with someone at the fbi i was there at that time about the whole guys the the the masad guys who were filmed in fort lee the quote-unquote dancing israelis and i just asked them i said what happened there because you know they had the abc report 10 days later then nothing was heard about it these guys were sent back on november 6th 2001 to israel they're seen on an israeli talk show never seen again and there was just a long silence on the phone and the guy said brother I think about that once a day every day wouldn't I like to know I'm like what wouldn't you like to know you were in the fucking office that arrested them what does that say about you know how high up

the levers go with something like this to just whatever the truth is like let's say the truth weren't even as bad as we think it was the cover up has made it way fucking worse and then when when I about the people like you who lost people in it and you think about like justice justice is never going to bring your family numbers back no money's ever going to replace the whole loss or anything like that but the quote unquote air quotes of like closure you never get the ability to do that and in some ways your government in some ways in a lot of ways like your government my government is at the top of the process to make sure that that doesn't happen and something about that is just so fucking sick to me and I can't imagine how that makes you feel

every day. There's no closure. I even ask that question like, all right, the fucking money they're going after. What does that do? But the end of the day, it's just the truth. Yeah. It's just the truth. Yeah. And again, the more they cover it up for whatever reasons, regardless whatever direction you want to go on the side of the aisle,

it's what the fuck is taking so long? And then there's just these nuances, the relationships, the geopolitical issues or whatever you want to build it to put another McDonald's there. I don't know. It's just it's frustrating. It's Yeah. It's like when, how long is this going to keep going on? Yeah. In 25 years. It's going to be JFK all over again. We're going to go by. That's right. And what and to this day, like, however many years it's been for JFK, like, has that full story ever been really? No. Not even close.

You know, so it's like, and I, I've had a lot of conversations with people about that too. But. Yeah. What do you do? Right. There's nothing. That's the worst part. There's nothing you can do. other than like try to yell loud enough that maybe someone will be forced to do something. But like you said, it's been 25 years. Yeah. You know, do your families have a, do people within your family or is there kind of mix have strong issues with the story and think that there's, that it's been a lie. I know you mentioned your brother earlier, but is it rampant across your families or how would you describe that?

For me, no. No, my, my, my, my aunts as an example, won't, they don't, they don't, bring that type of stuff up. Right. And I understand that completely. Yeah, I mean, like, it's also never, I feel like there's never been a time that I could ask them or, or question them about it. Yeah, I don't know.

I think I'm bringing it up in two days now that you bring it up. Yeah. Yeah. Curious. It is just one of those things. Like, us going to the memorial to get that file. Okay, what does that do for that? And it might not spend us to be necessary for my, our heads.

Yeah. You know, we've sought so much information for whatever. reasons. Right. I don't even know what it would do for me. Like, I try to put myself there, say it is revealed. So I mean, let me get all the truth. Right. And then what? What am I, then what? Yeah. I mean, I want it, yes, I think, I think there's power to knowing, but, and then what? Like, I honestly feel like if it was revealed, what's going to change. I still don't think anything changes. That's the thing for you guys. Yeah. I'm not sure. It doesn't ever bring them back anyway. But even just in general, like the world. Obviously, more truth the better.

and that can afflict more change, but what the fuck do we do? Right. If people don't see justice for it, then it doesn't, it's like, it's almost in the sick way. It's like, ha-ha, all right, there you have it. That's what would sit wrong with me.

But my friend Joseph Scott Morgan, who you should definitely have on your show, by the way. He was a long-time medical death investigator. I've had him on my show a bunch, one of the best storytellers ever. But, you know, when he talks about death, death and grief and things like that. He takes it so seriously because he used to be the guy that had to go notify a family member

that like, you know, we just found your family member murdered or something like that. And it's still every single one of them gets them to this day. But, you know, he talks about it. He's like, he's got a real problem with the word closure. It's like it doesn't exist. Because he's like, you know, that's not to be a Debbie Downer or anything. But the fact of the matter is once it's done, there's nothing that can change it. finding out every which way it happened and stuff like that.

Yeah, it might help in the grief process, but you don't, he's like the term closure makes it sound like, all right, we've shut the door and we're moving on with life. He's like, there's not one person I ever talked to who didn't carry that with them for the rest of their life. I carried it with me. I didn't know the people, you know? I don't know if that speaks to kind of how you guys feel about things, but that always stuck with me when he said that.

Yeah, I just think the grief evolves. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think it's close. but if anything, it's one less box that you can check in a way. I don't know if that makes sense where it's so you harp. We have these conversations constantly over the last 20 years and think about what ifs and what's the truth. And then if it is put to bed, okay, now that's one less thing to constantly contemplate over.

But then it's just still left with the truth and then what the fuck you do with the truth. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So it's a never-ending cycle. At what point do you, like, sometimes I'm like, what am I supposed to do? When I was a kid, was I supposed to go to war? So I was supposed to sign up?

Maybe I should have. I don't know. Like, what would that have done? And then at what point is like, what's my lane? You know what I mean? Like, I'm doing my work right now. And my lane isn't to get all political and push that. Is this not?

And at what point do I just stay in my lane and contemplated? I think that's important. But I don't want to sit. I can't sit in it forever. Right. But then what gets, what changes from that? You said grief evolves over time. Yeah.

I just think that it, like, there are moments for me where I feel like it was yesterday, where I feel like the loss, I'm feeling it heavier in that moment. And then there are times where I feel like it's, yeah, it's been 25 years. However, I still think about it. And it's interesting because I, I'll speak for myself. I think about my dad every day. I do. whether it's good things or bad things, I think about them every day.

And I have friends, you know, who've lost their dad on 9-11 as well. And my one friend said to me, like, I don't think about him every day. And I was like, okay. And I'm like, that's not me, though. And, like, no one's right. No one's wrong. It's all different. And so for some people, like, yeah, if they can, I don't know.

I mean, again, like, it's just different for every single person. I don't know. I haven't asked my brothers. do you guys think about that every day? I know I do. It doesn't make me any better or worse than you. Right. You know, it's just, it's just how I am.

And I will say I've come to a better place with it. I don't look at the footage the way I used to. The times that I'm exposed to the footage are when I do something on TV, and they show the footage next to me. So in the years prior, everything was streamed because it was COVID. Right. And, you know, years after COVID. And I always did Zoom.

So I'll be watching the interview as I'm giving the interview, right? And I see what they're showing on TV next to me. And it's like, picture of my dad and me. And then it's like, here's the building's on fire. And that, that'll hit me. Yeah. It's like such a, they just try so hard to like capture the audience with like. Oh, sensationalized.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's and, you know, it's, I don't know there's a more generational piece of footage than that. Like if you, if you're looking at history 600 years from now and what's the main image of like this era,

I don't have a better candidate to them there. I mean, the biggest city in the world just, you know? But it's a strange thing. Like you said,

every time you're seeing that, you're seeing a replay of losing your family. Right. I think it was, I hope I don't miss attribute this, but I want to say it was Andrew Garfield.

I heard him. say something recently where he said grief is the price you pay for the love you didn't have a chance to express. You agree with that? I just simplify. It's a beautiful quote. I just think it's just love. But it's also, it's everything.

Grief is literally everything to me. Everything is just a smorgasbord of emotions. Sometimes you don't know what emotions you're feeling. Sometimes you don't know if the emotions are coming from the grief. It's just like it comes, it oozes out of you, don't know when. I mean, it's been 25 years. I was literally looking at. from the view of my hotel looking at the World Trade Center,

I just kept like, I was playing with the shear that was in front of it. Yeah. Going back and forth to like see it and not see it. And I kept like flickering in my imagination, seeing the towers there, just seeing that they used to be there. And I was crying, just thinking about it. I just like 25 years later. Yeah.

And I'm still shedding tears. Right. But that's grief. Again, this is my specific, our specific experience in 9-11, but it shows up down the line. And we lost our dad at 9 and 12. So I feel like I'm living in the future.

that I was grieving as a boy knowing it wasn't going to have. And now I'm in these moments. I wish I could share with my father. And that's the representative of grief too. It's like these new memories I'm not going to get and you're not going to get with your loved one. And that's why it just pops up like a groundhog. You never know when.

It could be on a Tuesday at three o'clock. Something hits you. But I like to like that sadness because it is that love that I think he was expressing. I sometimes I want to dive into as a reminder, not only what we endured, but also it's my dad. Like that pain,

if grief is love and, grief is pain it's all together and that love is that pain and it's pain because of that love yeah and sometimes that's why i want to feel that pain because it's a reminder of the love and i forget so much of my dad and what he felt like and sometimes all i have is that emotion and so i don't want to forget that but at the same time we got to remember it's love because he can i don't want to dwell on it so much but it is important to sit in it contemplate it feel it yeah and it sucks yeah but you know it's what it is and there's a lot there's a lot of shit I would trade for it but there's a lot of good

shit that came from it as fucked up as it was there's a lot of beautiful shit I mean I would have never met you yeah exactly granted I would rather not have met you if my dad was still alive but nevertheless you're a great guy you take the kids out of jersey never never never it's it's true though I mean there's a lot of good things that came out of it too for sure yeah you have to see like the beauty and that silver lining I would imagine as the years go on you know absolutely you have to but yeah so sucks it does i i genuinely can't imagine but

you guys both do an amazing job of of telling your stories and you know david you do it really well through the podcast through other people's stories as well but thank you so much no thank you for having this i mean david thank you for this i mean like what a gift this was you know i've never done this before like i've never been in a podcast studio like this no i have not like this I've been in a podcast studio before, but I'm saying like I've never done a podcast like this with someone like David. I'm just not much to listen, man. Yeah, no. I mean, it's just this is really, really, really special for me.

Well, I'm glad to hear that, man. I'm glad we could all put together and kudos to you, David, for being able to get this, make this possible. But what we're recording this a couple days before 9-11. This is going to come out on the 25th anniversary on 9-11. what are you guys, sorry, I'm tripping off my table right here, going down, but what are you guys going to be doing on 9-11? We're doing a small family, well, we have a memorial in the town that I grew up in in the morning. I have one thing I'm doing for media that day, that's it.

And then spending the afternoon in my family. That's nice. Yeah, just simple, it's going to be a beautiful day. Love that. I look at the weather. It's going to be a nice day. And just try to, well, what, We've done differently in the last few years.

I'm sure you're going to test this too, probably. It's more of like a celebration of my dad, not as much of a grieving. I still feel the emotional hangover, and I'm going to feel it heavy this year. I already know it in the days after. Like the 12th is always the day you wake up. You're like, oh, fuck, I feel like shit.

I don't feel it like there's the, I have a friend who lost her down 9-11 as well. She describes it as the anticipatory anxiety as you lead up to it, and it's so true, because it's not the day itself for me anymore. It's the days leading up to it. it's talking about it incessantly for the days leading up to it day comes you feel like shit but you kind of get through it and then it's the days afterwards like you kind of have a relief

but you feel it's heavy yeah this is like those anniversaries in general when it comes to grief it's just that's it's that's i've talked about that's amazing you're saying next it's that september 12th yeah it's the day after day after day after is so is okay it's like christmas you lead up to christmas well terrible christmas but you get to christmas you're hype their stress once it's over like, that's it. Now it's done. Yeah, exactly. But it's a reminder of zooming out. I think that December, September 12th is a reminder of zooming out.

It's just everything else has come before it. But this year, 25th, I'm just going to be with my family. That always gets more emotional. When you're with everyone now, the grand, like, niece and nephews. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a whole other weird thing. And I think they know Grandpa David from stories. They, it's just, it's just weird, man.

The more time goes by and the more it feels like a fuzzy, grainy family video and it gets weirder and weirder. Yeah, dude, that's so spot on. It's fucking weird. That's so spot on. I'm glad you guys are both going to be with your family, so I think that's pretty cool. Yeah. And nice and low-key as well in that way.

But thank you guys so much. Thank you. This was awesome. And I know people are going to be really inspired about the story. They got to hear today from you. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, of course. Thank you, brother.

Thank you. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is? Give it a thought. Get back to me. And by the way, books are linked down below. Check them both out. Peace.

What's up, guys. Thanks so much for watching the video. If you have not subscribed, please hit that subscribe button before you leave, as well as leaving the like on the video. It's a huge huge help. You can join my Patreon via the link in the description. And you can also join my clipping community via the Discord link down below. See you for the next episode.