CURTIS SLIWA Talks Violence, Vigilantism, Jewish

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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Adam Friedland?

  This episode is brought to you by Major League Baseball. There is nowhere left to go. Two teams, one championship. Watch the World Series. Yeah, the World Series, presented by Capital One on Fox and Fox One. No time like October. Visit MLB.com/Postseason to learn more.

• 0:17Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by EA Sports FC27. Welcome to the world's game. FC27 is introducing The Grounds, where the streets meet the stadium. Connect with friends, go pro, and express yourself on or off the pitch. Play FC27 with the ultimate edition September 18th. Learn more at EA.com. Rated E for everyone. Includes in-game purchases, including random items. The Grounds is only available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2 versions.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  I was crying.

• 0:53Adam Friedland?

  Were you crying?

• 0:54Speaker 02

  To your mom.

• 0:54Adam Friedland?

  Seriously? Oh, man, okay. I mean that.

• 0:56Speaker 02

  Come on, I said bad things about your mom.

• 0:58Adam Friedland?

  No, no, you were saying, no, we were busting balls. I'm not offended.

• 1:01Speaker 02

  I believe that God writes shit in the book.

• 1:03Adam Friedland?

  I'm not offended, I'm not offended.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  How am I gonna get through the pearly gates?

• 1:05Adam Friedland?

  No, come on. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Give me a hug. You wanna give me a hug?

• 1:09Speaker 02

  I can't.

• 1:10Adam Friedland?

  I love you.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  No, no, please.

• 1:12Adam Friedland?

  You wanna give me a hug?

• 1:13Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  All right, don't shoot. Remember, there are rules here. If you got a gat, don't shoot. That's all I ask.

• 1:51Adam Friedland?

  My guest this week is Curtis Sliwa. He's a politician, radio host, and the founder of The Guardian Angels, a vigilante justice group started in 1979 to patrol the New York City subways. Curtis has lived quite the life, surviving two separate taxi-related murder attempts. One in the backseat of a yellow cab at the hands of the Gambino crime family, and the other when he ran into traffic and got hit by, it was pretty funny. Don't laugh.

• 2:21Adam Friedland?

  Love him or hate him, he's as New York City as they come.

• 2:25Speaker 02

  You know, can I do a scene out of The King of Comedy where I basically have kidnapped him and I take over the show?

• 2:33Speaker 02

  What do you think? Was that not one of the greatest movies of all time? De Niro kidnapping Jerry Lewis? Hey, Jerry, I'm a person of no consequence.

• 2:43Adam Friedland?

  I am Adam Friedland. Welcome back to The Adam Friedland Show. And by the way,

• 2:55Adam Friedland?

  I'm rich now. Nice. Enjoy the show.

• 3:03Adam Friedland?

  Ladies and gentlemen, let's give it up for New York City legend,

• 3:08Adam Friedland?

  radio host, founder of The Guardian Angels, former candidate for mayor of New York. You wanna show them the back of your T-shirt or your jacket? The people's mayor of NYC, Curtis Sliwa. Thanks for coming, thanks for joining us.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Oh, my pleasure.

• 3:24Adam Friedland?

  You were telling me that soccer, I mean, this is a good indication of the political divide because you're, you know, you're a Republican, you like, you like American football.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  Let's be honest. Zohar Mandami loves soccer, right?

• 3:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Kickball, kickball, goal. After 90 minutes, it's 0-0, 0-0. What a boring game.

• 3:46Adam Friedland?

  Hockey could be 0-0.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Eh, but that's more Canadian than American. Trust me.

• 3:51Adam Friedland?

  What about the Rangers?

• 3:51Speaker 02

  American smash mile football. I love the Rangers. I was a Ranger fan before you were birthed.

• 3:56Adam Friedland?

  Oh, come on, come on.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Absolutely. You know what I remember?

• 3:59Adam Friedland?

  You've been a Ranger fan for six months, we all know that.

• 4:01Speaker 02

  No, no, let me tell you, I was in the old Garden, right?

• 4:03Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  50th and 8th. Afternoon matinee show. $1.50 for a student government organization with a student government organization card. A buck fifty.

• 4:13Adam Friedland?

  When was that, in the 60s?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can brown bag your own lunch about 66. It was a brand-new guy, Bobby Orr, rookie on the Boston Bruins against the lowly Rangers. Let me see if I can get them. All right, Jackman in goal. Harrison, Nielsen.

• 4:31Adam Friedland?

  Harrison, Nielsen, yeah.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Defense. And then, of course, you had the line of Jeubert, Rotella at center, and Hatfield on the left wing, and still they lost. But what, for a buck fifty?

• 4:43Adam Friedland?

  That's not bad.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  In the old Garden. You know what you get now for a buck fifty? You get Ugats.

• 4:47Adam Friedland?

  Ugats.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  You don't even get, you get bupkis. You don't even get cockroach hairs for that.

• 4:53Adam Friedland?

  Really? They have hairs on the cockroach?

• 4:55Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely. You've never looked at them closely?

• 4:57Adam Friedland?

  I have not, no.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Come on, really?

• 4:59Adam Friedland?

  No, I, a woman usually screams and I have to kill it.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Very important man to her.

• 5:04Adam Friedland?

  And show them how brave I am.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Observe the rats and the cockroaches. As they go, so go us. They will out-survive us.

• 5:10Adam Friedland?

  Mandami's against the rats, I like that.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  He's against, but you never.

• 5:14Adam Friedland?

  The rats are disgusting.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  You never beat the rats. Look, trust me, I know two-legged rats and I know four-legged rats.

• 5:19Adam Friedland?

  They're survivors, those guys. They can hold their breath underwater for like 10 minutes or something.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  You will never beat the rats or the mice.

• 5:27Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  You can have detente. You can have a ceasefire. All you do is, and I wanted to be the rats off Eric Adams, that crook, but he didn't want me, I would have done it no charge because I'm nocturnal.

• 5:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 5:39Speaker 02

  You explain to the rats and the mice, look, you can come out at night because you're nocturnal, but you gotta stay in during the day.

• 5:46Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 5:46Speaker 02

  It's sort of like the peace we have with Iran now, right?

• 5:49Adam Friedland?

  Right, how do you, how do you explain that to the rats, though?

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Uh, well, you gotta feed them a little bit of that Parmesan cheese. When you want a two-legged rat.

• 5:57Adam Friedland?

  Like Ratatouille.

• 5:58Speaker 02

  Right? Like Sammy the Bull Givano to sing. You give him some Parmesan cheese. Likewise, with the four-legged rats and the mice. It's all up here. It's all up here, see? And I was willing to share it with the city.

• 6:11Adam Friedland?

  This is why, this is why with the kind of ideas you would have brought as mayor.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  For bupkis.

• 6:12Adam Friedland?

  That's why I voted for him. I didn't want to vote for a rapper and I didn't want to vote for the Cuomo, so that's why I voted for you. One thought, yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 02

  You weren't a Cuomo sexual? Don't lie to me.

• 6:21Adam Friedland?

  Me?

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:22Adam Friedland?

  No, most likely not.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  I mean, smacking fannies and killing grannies, you would have even thought of voting for that guy?

• 6:28Adam Friedland?

  It was a little bit too much about the Jews, and I was like, stop talking about Jews.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  What is it, but you're a Jew, aren't you?

• 6:33Adam Friedland?

  I know, but I was like, stop talking about it.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  No, no, but this is all they want to talk about.

• 6:36Adam Friedland?

  We like quiet, we like quiet.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Palestinians, Israelis, Palestinians.

• 6:39Adam Friedland?

  What does that have to do with New York?

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 6:41Adam Friedland?

  So it's just like, shut up, like, just be, we like quiet. We like to, when things, we like the quiet and we like whispering.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  This is good, this is good.

• 6:49Adam Friedland?

  No, of course, it's stupid.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Don't you love this?

• 6:52Adam Friedland?

  Yes.

• 6:52Speaker 02

  They start singing, "From, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." And I say, what happens to the Jews? Do they all move to Boca Raton? And then, on the other side, I say, and what about Palestine? The Jews say, "There is no stop, still is Palestine."

• 7:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  There are Palestinians, right? So there's Palestine.

• 7:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 7:10Speaker 02

  So you're right, we should just stop discussing this.

• 7:13Adam Friedland?

  Well, just for the mayor, it has nothing to do with it.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Mayor.

• 7:16Adam Friedland?

  We don't have the army, we don't have the army.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  Congress people, assembly people, state senator, city councilman, that's all they want to talk.

• 7:23Adam Friedland?

  Well, in Congress, they, they fund it so that they, they should be like talking about, you know, their decisions, whether or not they fund these kind of things. But in New York City, what the fuck does it have to do?

• 7:34Speaker 02

  It's nothing to do with our life. Nothing to do with picking up the garbage, making sure the schools work, making sure the trains run on time.

• 7:40Adam Friedland?

  It's just a bit embarrassing.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  The basics of what a mayor has to do.

• 7:43Adam Friedland?

  It's a bit embarrassing, it was embarrassing for Jews, it was like, it's all about us. And it's like, also, you're not Jews, bro. He was an Italian guy.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Let me ask you a question. Are you the chosen people?

• 7:54Adam Friedland?

  No. It's ridiculous.

• 7:56Speaker 02

  According to the Old Testament, you are.

• 7:58Adam Friedland?

  Who cares?

• 8:00Speaker 02

  Okay, good, good, good.

• 8:01Adam Friedland?

  It's just, according to the Old Testament, that what?

• 8:04Speaker 02

  I didn't think I'd be agreeing with this guy too, out of the box.

• 8:07Adam Friedland?

  Wait, because I don't believe in this, this, God is like, he's rude and.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  No, no, no, Hashem.

• 8:13Adam Friedland?

  Hashem is.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Hashem.

• 8:14Adam Friedland?

  Okay. Bar Hashem.

• 8:16Speaker 02

  You're waiting, are you waiting for the Messiah to come?

• 8:19Adam Friedland?

  I'm not a fucking, I'm not a, like a, I'm not like a.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Come with me to 770 Eastern Parkway, right? We're diving together.

• 8:27Adam Friedland?

  I like them, I like them, I like, I like. No, but I like, it's, for me, it's just like, it's, you, you just do, read the words and you don't know what they mean and it's boring.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  Now, let me ask you a question.

• 8:38Adam Friedland?

  That's kind of nice, though.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Do you have separate plates for dairy and meat?

• 8:41Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm not, I'm not kosher.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, you are BLT Jew, bacon, lettuce, and tomato.

• 8:47Adam Friedland?

  I just, I, no, like, my parents are Jewish, my parents are annoying, sorry. But like, that's just what.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Doesn't that come with being Jewish?

• 8:55Adam Friedland?

  We're funny, yeah, yeah, you know, like, I don't know, I kind of, I, like, I.

• 8:59Speaker 02

  Tell me, tell me.

• 9:00Adam Friedland?

  I don't like, being alive is painful.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  When did you have your first BLT sandwich in which you crossed the line? It's like crossing the Red Sea.

• 9:08Adam Friedland?

  No, we, we would have bacon out of the house.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Ah, ah, you see?

• 9:12Adam Friedland?

  But we would have shellfish in the house. It didn't make sense. We'd have shrimp in the house, but we could have.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Oh, you had treyf?

• 9:18Adam Friedland?

  Of course we had treyf.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Treyf! Oh! What kind of a Jew are you?

• 9:23Adam Friedland?

  I'm just a non-idiot. Yeah, yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  Non-denominational Jew.

• 9:27Adam Friedland?

  No, I mean like I.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  You're not a Hasidim, you're not Orthodox.

• 9:30Adam Friedland?

  I'm cultural. I'm cultural. Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  A little reformed, right? A little reformed.

• 9:34Adam Friedland?

  No, no, reform is stupid. Reform is like, reform is like acoustic guitar lesbian, like, let's talk about God. And that's even worse. I go to Orthodox because it's the least spiritual, because it's boring.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Could I ask you a question? Do you pay for your seat during Yom Kippur?

• 9:49Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, no. We went to Chabad because it was free.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. All right. Lubavitch.

• 9:53Adam Friedland?

  That's insane. But like, but we weren't Lubavitch. But like, yeah, we went because it was free and I did the whole shebang from our.

• 10:00Speaker 02

  Have you ever danced with the Lubavitch?

• 10:02Adam Friedland?

  The best part of Jewish is that one thing, the dance.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  Kabbalah. Were you breaking the glasses and all that?

• 10:08Adam Friedland?

  I haven't been married yet. It's in, it's in September and you will be there, my friend, and you will be at the Beemer.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Will this be an arranged marriage for you? Are you going to, are you gonna have a shidduch?

• 10:17Adam Friedland?

  No, we're not doing, it's nothing like that. The only thing we do is the sex through the, sex through the sheet.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  What woman in the world would want to be married to this guy? If I had to profile him, it would be schlub next to his name, right? A schlub, right?

• 10:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, I do well. I do well. You and I both, we're both ladies men, okay?

• 10:33Speaker 02

  I used to be.

• 10:35Adam Friedland?

  In New York City, in New York City, you could be this and you've seen enough Seinfeld and Woody Allen movies that.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. You gotta understand, in certain spots.

• 10:43Adam Friedland?

  You could be this and you get, and, and, and the women, the women think this is acceptable.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  They want to see the scat role.

• 10:49Adam Friedland?

  No, no, even before I had the scat role.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  You're really?

• 10:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  What is it so endearing about you that the women just can't stay away from you?

• 10:56Adam Friedland?

  Because you know, it's, you could be a little bit of a, like a little bit of a nebbish.

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Very nebbish. You're very nebbish. Yes, yes.

• 11:03Adam Friedland?

  That's the type. Dude, this is what happens when two alpha bulls get in a room and we just butt heads. I want to get into you.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  You want to get into my life?

• 11:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, because your life is fascinating. I've done nothing. I've done bupkis. I've done bupkis with my life. You've done it a lot more with your life. So I've, I've kind of like, I want to, I want you to tell your story, I think, you know? You're from Canarsie?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Originally Canarsie, Brooklyn.

• 11:26Adam Friedland?

  Brooklyn, right.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  But I spent some time in Brownsville in East New York, the trifecta, the troika, the Trinity.

• 11:32Adam Friedland?

  Okay. And, and you're like, Gotti, he'll come back later when I ask you about what happened in 92.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  What are you afraid to talk about now?

• 11:40Adam Friedland?

  But John Gotti, John Gotti was from your neighborhood. Were you like aware of him like growing up as a kid? Yeah, yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 02

  He was this big macha, right? That everybody was afraid of. They, they would bow to him. They would kiss his ring. Except, I would never, I would never schlep to Gotti.

• 11:55Adam Friedland?

  Did the, did, did the wise guys ever try to like recruit you to like get in, get in with them?

• 12:00Speaker 02

  No, because remember I'm a mutt. I'm part Italian on my mother's side, but as.

• 12:05Adam Friedland?

  So you can never be a made guy?

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Exactly. But they, they didn't trust me. Would you trust me?

• 12:11Adam Friedland?

  Uh, yeah. 100%. Yeah, that's why I voted for you.

• 12:14Speaker 02

  You think I would take the, I don't, I don't believe you voted for me.

• 12:16Adam Friedland?

  I voted, and I offered a full-throated endorsement of you.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Cross your heart and hope to die. Wait, you're a Jew. You can't do that.

• 12:22Adam Friedland?

  Ross, yeah, it doesn't mean anything. Ross means nothing.

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Hey, knock on wood. Oh, you can't do that either.

• 12:26Adam Friedland?

  But this is more of a laminate. Okay. Wait, but so, so there were wise guys in your neighborhood. This was like an old, like an old New York, it was like kind of ethnic white kind of enclave of Brooklyn, right?

• 12:37Speaker 02

  Let me explain, and my wife Nancy is going to be very upset when I use this analogy. If I picked up a dead cat in the street and swung it around my head, every fifth person in Canarsie that I hit was a mobster choking on his lobster.

• 12:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  Because you know how I love cats and you know how my wife loves you, but I have to use that analogy so you understand.

• 12:56Adam Friedland?

  That's a Jewish custom, the cat, swinging a dead cat around here.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  You remember Goodfellas, right?

• 12:59Adam Friedland?

  Of course.

• 13:00Speaker 02

  Luquezi's, Pauli Verio, Avenue D, you got the Chop Shop there, then you got the Bamboo Lounge that was in Canarsie. They torched it there. And you had Gelfkins, which was right on Flatlands. You would go in, but sometimes you'd come out in a body bag.

• 13:15Adam Friedland?

  Tell us about the hole.

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Gabish, gabish.

• 13:17Adam Friedland?

  Oh, agabish. Tell us about the hole. Do you know about the hole?

• 13:21Speaker 02

  About the what?

• 13:22Adam Friedland?

  The hole, the, the neighborhood where it's under the water table.

• 13:26Speaker 02

  That's East New York.

• 13:27Adam Friedland?

  But east, between, what, what it's, it's.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Linden Boulevard.

• 13:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Linden Boulevard.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Or Fountain Avenue.

• 13:32Adam Friedland?

  But that's where the mob used to dump bodies, right?

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you see, I used to take my Rocket 88 Olds and go.

• 13:40Speaker 02

  You know what that was?

• 13:41Adam Friedland?

  Uh, scooter?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  Oh, racing, man. Drag racing over there on Fountain Avenue.

• 13:46Adam Friedland?

  What kind of car is a Rocket?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  A Rocket 88 Oldsmobile. All you had to do is like, you get like one and a half miles a gallon and like you fly.

• 13:54Adam Friedland?

  The cars were long back then.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Oh, big.

• 13:56Adam Friedland?

  And they, they weighed like a shit.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  Gas guzzlers. By the way, many accidents back then. And I never had a, I never had a driver's license.

• 14:04Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Never.

• 14:05Adam Friedland?

  Do you got one now?

• 14:06Speaker 02

  No, I've never driven legally, but I don't drive at all. See, we're making news here.

• 14:12Adam Friedland?

  Oh, my God. We got a big one. We got a big one. We got a big one.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Four times I took the test. Yeah, I had long hair. I looked like a hippie. So my Supreme Cugine said, hey, look, the guy who gives you the test, who was always the same guy, he hates you because he thinks you're a hippie scum.

• 14:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Just put $20 there when you go in. I said, I don't believe in bribing. I'm sorry. I couldn't parallel park if you put a gun to my head. If this was Deer Hunter, right, and you put it, I couldn't parallel park. He failed me four times. But he was looking for the moolah schmoolah. There's no doubt he wanted a payoff. So I never got a license.

• 14:46Adam Friedland?

  Why not?

• 14:47Speaker 02

  I never got a license.

• 14:48Adam Friedland?

  Put it on his seat.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Remember, they tried to bribe me to get out of the mayoral race. I will not bribe anybody.

• 14:55Adam Friedland?

  How much they offer? 10?

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Uh, 10 million tops. Adams, I think, accepted for 20 mil. By the way, where's Eric Adams?

• 15:02Adam Friedland?

  Wait, wait, wait. You turned down $10 million to stay in the race?

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Hey, look, Adams, where's he with the 20 mil that I think he got? Albania. He became a citizen of Albania. Eric Adams, swagger man with no plan. Who the hell becomes a citizen of Albania? Except if you got shade on your face, right?

• 15:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I mean, like, he was, he was kind of, he was kind of like a.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  You're Jewish, right? You know, he's selling to your people Bitcoin, AKA crime coin, to fight antisemitism. And how many schmucks and putzes who are Jews are buying that crime coin?

• 15:35Adam Friedland?

  If they lost their money in that, they deserve it and I'm happy. I'm glad for him. I'm glad for him. Any idiot that bought Stop Antisemitism coin.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  God, this is the trifecta, the troika, the Trinity. Three things I agree with this guy.

• 15:47Adam Friedland?

  We agree on everything. Just stop. Wait, you were on a show, Romper Room, when you were a kid?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Oh, that's when I became lenslice.

• 15:54Adam Friedland?

  What is that?

• 15:54Speaker 02

  See, like, all you had to do is invite me and tell me you had cameras in the room and I was gonna show up. So here I am.

• 16:00Adam Friedland?

  You're crushing it right now.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  A little kid on Romper Room, there were doobies and dompies.

• 16:04Adam Friedland?

  Doobies like weed?

• 16:05Speaker 02

  Well, that came later. Uh, doobies and dompies. Dompies were bad, doobies were good.

• 16:12Adam Friedland?

  I got you.

• 16:13Speaker 02

  And I was a doobie. Five straight days on Romper Room and I was on TV Channel 9. And man, I'm telling you, I got addicted. It's like, man.

• 16:24Adam Friedland?

  Did you want to be an actor or a dancer?

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Oh, I actually was in Somerstock up in Plymouth Rock with my cousin Jimmy Lonergan, who had a Somerstock theater with his, his partner Leon. And my first role, Helen Keller. My older sister, Alida, played Helen Keller.

• 16:41Adam Friedland?

  Oh, you didn't play.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  And me and my youngest, no, no, I wasn't a trans then. Although sometimes I identify that way.

• 16:46Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. You're an actor. You're an actor. You could act, why can't you be a woman? Like, I don't know. It's acting.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 16:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. What were her lines?

• 16:53Speaker 02

  When I was asked.

• 16:54Adam Friedland?

  What were Helen's lines?

• 16:56Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 16:56Adam Friedland?

  What were the lines?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  The lies of Helen.

• 16:58Adam Friedland?

  The lines.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  The lies. I don't know. That was my older sister. All I had to do was cut out paper, paper little machete things with, if you remember the circled scissors. So you didn't cut yourself.

• 17:09Adam Friedland?

  It's kind of insane that Helen Keller learned how to read and write but didn't know how to hear or see.

• 17:14Speaker 02

  You know where she was based out of?

• 17:16Adam Friedland?

  Russia.

• 17:16Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:17Adam Friedland?

  She was Soviet.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Forest Hills. Yeah, a lot of Russians there now. That's right.

• 17:21Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 17:22Speaker 02

  Right there. Right there. 71st and Continental.

• 17:24Adam Friedland?

  She became a communist, no?

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Uh, she flirted with socialism communists. Why? You have a problem with that?

• 17:30Adam Friedland?

  No, I, I'm a, that's what me.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Oh, you are?

• 17:33Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  What are you? Explain this because nobody seems to know what a socialist or a communist is. If I stopped 100 people out in the street, you think they would know?

• 17:44Adam Friedland?

  I, yeah, I, I know. They're all idiots, but I'm, I'm pretty smart.

• 17:48Speaker 02

  So what are you? Tell me.

• 17:50Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. Fucking, uh.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  You're an independent, autonomous, free thinker.

• 17:54Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. The way that people identify themselves like.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  You're not involved in idolatry. Say it one more time.

• 18:00Adam Friedland?

  I believe in democracy, I guess. And then I, I believe in.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  One person, one vote.

• 18:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, but I would take $10 million to drop out of the race for sure. But, but that's $10 million. It's like, it's like when you're growing up and your friends are like, would you suck a dick for a million dollars? No way, bro. It's like a million dollars.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Are you used to joke like that all the time?

• 18:19Adam Friedland?

  That's the way teenage boys all joke around about. No, no way I suck a dick for a million dollars.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Teenage boys, they wanted a match size. I mean, that was the big thing back then. Size.

• 18:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. We're, of course, Jewish summer camp.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Did you whip it out?

• 18:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I was, I was packing, packing. Absolutely. Why?

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Oh, my God. Come on.

• 18:36Adam Friedland?

  Why?

• 18:37Speaker 02

  You, you got lured into that, man.

• 18:39Adam Friedland?

  By my friends?

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:41Adam Friedland?

  During COVID, we were all sending pictures to the boys chat. It was funny. As a bit, yeah. We were like, it's gay to send your girls a dick pic, but it's funny to send your boys a dick pic. And then I sent one and then my friend Brian said I was puffed. And then he sent it to my girlfriend. He's like, is Adam puffed? And I was like, I was like.

• 18:58Adam Friedland?

  Okay, cut all that. Anyway.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Let me ask you. Let me, let me.

• 19:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  That wouldn't have even made it up in the old Catskills at the concourse.

• 19:06Adam Friedland?

  Whatever. You come from a generation where it's gay to eat pussy, right?

• 19:10Speaker 02

  What the hell are you talking about?

• 19:12Adam Friedland?

  You, why, you, you.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  I could be your grandfather. Show some respect.

• 19:17Adam Friedland?

  So in your generation, it's, it's a, it's a thing that it's homosexual to eat a, to, to do cunnilingus on a woman. I'm a liberated, uh, modern man.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  What the hell is this guy talking about?

• 19:28Adam Friedland?

  You're my best friend. Okay. At eight years old, you were mugged.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Many more times than just eight years old.

• 19:35Adam Friedland?

  You wanna tell us about that?

• 19:36Speaker 02

  When you're a tough guy, let me explain something.

• 19:38Adam Friedland?

  But you were eight years old.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, every tough guy says that they've given people beat downs. But if you're a real tough guy, you got beat downs and you gave beat downs.

• 19:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Of course, I caught my fair share of beat downs.

• 19:50Adam Friedland?

  So what was the situation? That was your first brush with violence or something? That's what I understand.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Here I was, on my way to the candy store, the candy store to get a comic book.

• 20:02Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  And some of the Supreme Cougsines, who were a little older than me, surrounded me.

• 20:07Adam Friedland?

  So it was like teenagers?

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 20:10Adam Friedland?

  So it's not a mugging?

• 20:11Speaker 02

  I'd say a year or two on me.

• 20:14Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so you just got in a fight with the older kids?

• 20:16Speaker 02

  There wasn't even a fight, man, he jumped me.

• 20:18Adam Friedland?

  Why would they call it a mugging?

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Let me ask you a question.

• 20:20Adam Friedland?

  That's not a mugging.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  You don't sound to me like a fighter and you don't sound to me like a lover.

• 20:25Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 20:26Speaker 02

  You're sort of like, you're staying on the sidelines and then who's ever winning, you jump in, that's right, get him, sal, video, I was on your side all the time, right?

• 20:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, I'm a fence sitter, I go with the...

• 20:37Speaker 02

  You go with the winner?

• 20:38Adam Friedland?

  I go with the winner, of course. Yeah, no, no, no, I mean, I think that I, in school, the kids get like, like their voices dropping, beards like years before other kids. And so I was like, I have to survive somehow, so I just started making jokes. Yeah, that's kind of how I survived.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Not very good jokes, I might add.

• 20:55Adam Friedland?

  You weren't there. How do you know?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  Because I grew up with guys like you, Canarsie was Italians and Jews.

• 21:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:02Speaker 02

  See if you notice.

• 21:02Adam Friedland?

  I would have run that, I would have run Canarsie if I was there.

• 21:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, you see...

• 21:05Adam Friedland?

  I would have been the top dog.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Did you ever notice why Italians and Jews get along so well?

• 21:09Adam Friedland?

  Because we're in love with our mothers and that we think life is painful and we hate ourselves.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  They both hate the Irish, because the Irish were the cops. And they hated the Jews because they thought that the Jews were Christ killers. And they hated the Italians because they said, oh, all they do is they drink wine and they're members of organized crime. So Jews and Italians bonded, bonded together. Murder Incorporated.

• 21:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, Lucky Luciano.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  You're people were the toughest of the tough.

• 21:35Adam Friedland?

  Bugsy Siegel, yeah, yeah.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  That's right, but even before that...

• 21:38Adam Friedland?

  Meyer Lansky doing the books.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  That's right, but Lepke and Gura of Brownsville. Do you know that Anastasia, who was the mad assassin, would subcontractors hit to the Jews in Brownsville because they were the toughest of the tough? What happened to you?

• 21:53Adam Friedland?

  Me?

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, must have been a weak Jew.

• 21:55Adam Friedland?

  Well, I have a question, I have a question, right? Like, when you heard about that thing in Minneapolis, right? With the Somalis, who are like, they're 98% legals here? Like, isn't that kind of what us guys did, like when we came over here? Were we all doing Somali daycares?

• 22:11Speaker 02

  You mean we were like boat jumpers?

• 22:12Adam Friedland?

  No, we were doing Somali daycare frauds.

• 22:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it was olive oil.

• 22:16Adam Friedland?

  Isn't it kind of the same thing as like what we were doing? It's just an immigrant group?

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Let me give you the difference.

• 22:20Adam Friedland?

  It kind of just reminded me of that.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Let me give you the difference. Italians were involved in import-export, right? Olive oil.

• 22:26Adam Friedland?

  I'm just saying, it's like a...

• 22:27Speaker 02

  You know how much of the olive oil is fake, fagazi olive oil now in the world?

• 22:31Adam Friedland?

  I'm not saying it's the same crime, I'm saying...

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Seventy-five percent!

• 22:34Adam Friedland?

  I know that, that pisses me off to know it.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  What happened to the real olive oil?

• 22:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I know.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  You people grow it in the Middle East and you fight over it with the Palestinians over the olive trees.

• 22:43Adam Friedland?

  Not me people, my friend, not me people, no. But, no, what I was saying is like, just like, kind of like an immigrant group trying to like, we were kind of a bit breaking the laws too, a little bit.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Like, what were you doing?

• 22:56Adam Friedland?

  Well, I wasn't here, I, my parents moved here in the 80s, so, but like, but...

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Jewish lightning, Jewish electricity, is that what you're talking about?

• 23:05Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, you're missing my point. I'm saying, when I saw the daycare fraud, I'm like, yeah, we were doing like little rackets and schemes ourselves, like when we, after we came over off the boat from Ellis Island. So I'm like, a little bit like, why, why is like, yeah, it's just a couple of generations ago that we got here and it's kind of like the same kind of shit.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  You're trying to say that's like evolutionary, you come over here...

• 23:26Adam Friedland?

  I'm just saying that the...

• 23:27Speaker 02

  You don't have two nickels to rub together and right away you're in a racket.

• 23:31Adam Friedland?

  I'm just saying the way that people, it sounds the way people are describing Somalis is like...

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I always thought...

• 23:36Adam Friedland?

  Kind of how they described us, a little bit.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Let me ask you, let me ask.

• 23:38Adam Friedland?

  Right, is that not right?

• 23:39Speaker 02

  I always thought the making of the matzahs by Sam was a racket. Because to make good matzah, it takes 18 minutes, right?

• 23:47Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. It's disgusting, it gives, it gives you...

• 23:50Speaker 02

  The Gentile has to tell him how to make matzah.

• 23:53Adam Friedland?

  No Jews make matzah, and we don't know anything about the lightning, I, it's boring.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  No, it's Jewish electricity, Jewish lightning, right? Hey, look, you say everybody had a racket.

• 24:03Adam Friedland?

  We know romantic comedies and we know like that, that's, yeah.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Hey, and who's 100 years old?

• 24:08Adam Friedland?

  Uh... Oh, Dick Van Dyke, Dick Van Dyke.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, but he's not a Jew.

• 24:13Adam Friedland?

  Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel, Gibson.

• 24:16Speaker 02

  Mel, Mel, not Gibson, he hates Jews.

• 24:18Adam Friedland?

  Mel Brooks.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  Mel Brooks, yes, okay, good.

• 24:20Adam Friedland?

  Mel Gibson, okay.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Hey, this is good Jeffrey.

• 24:22Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so, so you're eight years old, you get mugged by the stupidest criminals ever.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  A few times, a few times.

• 24:26Adam Friedland?

  By the stupidest dumbass criminals ever, because you're, you have what?

• 24:30Speaker 02

  Jaddrules, knuckle draggers.

• 24:32Adam Friedland?

  You have a nickel, right? And these, and these animals come and they beat you up. And then you decided to devote your life to the martial arts. Is that correct?

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Well, my dad decided that, he was a merchant seaman.

• 24:42Adam Friedland?

  And your dad was a big, a buff guy?

• 24:44Speaker 02

  Oh, man, let me tell you.

• 24:45Adam Friedland?

  A merchant sailor, so you are Jewish.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, merchant seaman, they were the scourge of the earth, what are you talking about?

• 24:51Adam Friedland?

  What are you talking about merchant?

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Not merchants, like the Chinese and the Lebanese and the Jews.

• 24:57Adam Friedland?

  I don't know about that.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Who traveled the world as merchants, merchant seamen, what a stoona, right?

• 25:03Adam Friedland?

  Okay, well, I love this guy.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  What, are you a schmendrick?

• 25:05Adam Friedland?

  Of course I'm a schmendrick, I'm a shulamil shulmazal, okay. Yeah, so, so wait, so you started studying the martial arts karate, right?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  No, judo first.

• 25:13Adam Friedland?

  Judo.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Oshoto karim.

• 25:15Adam Friedland?

  Okay, and where was your dojo and who's your sensei?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Ridgewood.

• 25:18Adam Friedland?

  Ridgewood, Queens.

• 25:18Speaker 02

  I used to have to take the LL train, lousy line, to the Hamburg train. The, it was made Hamburg because there were all Germans living there in Ridgewood.

• 25:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Fresh Pond Road.

• 25:31Adam Friedland?

  Oh, now it's Polish, but it used to be German.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  Now it's all the Gen Z'ers and millennials.

• 25:36Adam Friedland?

  Well, that's where they have the hall, what's it called?

• 25:39Speaker 02

  It's too expensive.

• 25:40Adam Friedland?

  Gottschir Hall, that's like German.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then the Polonaise was in Greve Point, but you see...

• 25:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, this guy over here ruined it.

• 25:46Speaker 02

  You millennials came over...

• 25:47Adam Friedland?

  You know, they're getting a Whole Foods.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  The rent is too high to pay.

• 25:49Adam Friedland?

  They're getting a Whole Foods.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Gentrification, where are all my Polish brothers and sisters in solidarity, right?

• 25:55Adam Friedland?

  No, no, not so loud, come on.

• 25:56Speaker 02

  Did you know I was the grand marshal of the Polanski Day Parade in 2000?

• 26:00Adam Friedland?

  You were.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  And when I came out of St...

• 26:01Adam Friedland?

  Did they give you like a baton?

• 26:03Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, and when I came out of St. Patrick's Cathedral with my red beret, tux and tails on, there was a tourist bus from San Diego that came up. And they said, Curtis, I didn't know Polish people have a holiday for Roman Polanski?

• 26:17Adam Friedland?

  Ah-ha.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  I said, no, Polanski, Kazjuzko, and it's not Kasijasko, it's Kazjuzko, can you say it right?

• 26:25Adam Friedland?

  Of course, of course.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Okay, do you have that mustard? When given a choice, you take Hebrew national or you take Kazjuzko mustard?

• 26:32Adam Friedland?

  Neither.

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Oh, God, what kind of Jew are you?

• 26:35Adam Friedland?

  I get like a kind of a French...

• 26:36Speaker 02

  What, you got mayonnaise?

• 26:37Adam Friedland?

  No, I get like a French, kind of like, you know, with the seeds, the mustard, what's it called?

• 26:41Speaker 02

  God, you're so forgetful.

• 26:43Adam Friedland?

  A dijon, dijon. Okay, wait, so, so you did judo, then karate, you were a popular kid, you were good at sports. What sports did you play?

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Baseball.

• 26:54Adam Friedland?

  Baseball, what position?

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Centerfield, third base.

• 26:58Adam Friedland?

  Ooh, centerfield.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  And my...

• 27:00Adam Friedland?

  Willie Mays.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  No, Mickey Mantle.

• 27:02Adam Friedland?

  Mickey Mantle.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Mickey, Willie Mays was too good for me.

• 27:05Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, you couldn't go over the head, yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Oh, that's right, Mickey Mantle was right there.

• 27:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  But my game is stickball. I was the commissioner of stickball for 12 years here in New York City.

• 27:16Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Under Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.

• 27:18Adam Friedland?

  Bud, Bud Segal over here, yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Bud, no, no.

• 27:22Adam Friedland?

  No, no, now it's Manfred.

• 27:23Speaker 02

  Wait a second, you think I have a bad rug on my head and I'm wearing the polyester waffle weave flame retardant pants of Bud Selig?

• 27:30Adam Friedland?

  I don't know why you're wearing that hat, or...

• 27:31Speaker 02

  You know, when I was on ESPN, did I ever tell you I did ESPN, that Curtis Lee was super sports spectacular? I was railing on Bud Selig, who was the owner of the Brewers and the head of Major League Baseball.

• 27:42Adam Friedland?

  I thought he was in Baltimore, no?

• 27:43Speaker 02

  And the boys from Bristol called up and said, fire him, and they fired me.

• 27:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you can't go out at the finish.

• 27:50Speaker 02

  Bud Selig was from Milwaukee.

• 27:52Adam Friedland?

  Milwaukee.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Not Baltimore, man, get your city straight.

• 27:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, wait, so you're a Yanks fan?

• 27:57Speaker 02

  Absolutely, there is only one team, I hate the Mets.

• 28:00Adam Friedland?

  Were your parents Dodger fans?

• 28:02Speaker 02

  No, my dad was from Chicago, he's a White Sox fan and he hated my hero Mickey Mantle.

• 28:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  So you know why it turned out the way I am, man, I hated that man.

• 28:11Adam Friedland?

  Did you butt, you butt heads with your old man?

• 28:13Speaker 02

  No, only on the White Sox and the Yankees. He called Mickey Mantle a bum, a degenerate and alcoholic, he was right about all that, but...

• 28:20Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 28:20Speaker 02

  He was my hero, number seven in the pinstripes, Mickey Mantle.

• 28:23Adam Friedland?

  Maybe your dad wanted to be your hero and he's like, why, why are your hero worshiping this man?

• 28:28Speaker 02

  And then, you know, the worst moment of my life?

• 28:30Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Years later, I met Mickey Mantle, I did his gin mill right there on Central Park South.

• 28:34Adam Friedland?

  Did you cry?

• 28:35Speaker 02

  And he was a total degenerate, he was a nasty person. I met Willie Mays up in Riverdale, I thought, Willie, say hey, kid, he was nasty. And Joe DiMaggio was nasty, three of the best ballplayers of all time. And they just were nasty.

• 28:50Adam Friedland?

  Rich pricks, yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  Weren't even rich, they made a hundred thousand dollars each a year, you know?

• 28:55Adam Friedland?

  Who's the nicest famous person you've met?

• 28:57Speaker 02

  The nicest famous...

• 28:59Adam Friedland?

  The best, the best guy?

• 29:00Speaker 02

  The best guy, Michael Baricich, right? Nice guy, guy so nice, he would take a bullet for me even though he wasn't a blood relative.

• 29:08Adam Friedland?

  Robert De Niro?

• 29:09Speaker 02

  Oh, get out of here, De Niro, probably hates me, I have no idea. One time I walked up to him, I was introduced, he looked at me.

• 29:15Adam Friedland?

  Bob.

• 29:16Speaker 02

  If looks could kill, I would have been a cadaver in formaldehyde.

• 29:19Adam Friedland?

  That's his face, but he has that face.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think he's a Curtis fan. You know, I don't know anybody who's really nice, to be honest.

• 29:25Adam Friedland?

  You've never met a nice, like, famous person?

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Man, a priest I didn't trust, you understand why?

• 29:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Nuns, nuns were nice. Although they hit you so hard, your mother would feel the vibrations with that three-foot ruler.

• 29:39Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 29:39Speaker 02

  I was raised by Josephite nuns. These were Irish nuns up in Crown Heights, Eastern Parkway, who told me that St. Brendan the Navigator discovered the new world and not what I was told by the Italian-Americans in my family and in Canarsie, that it was Christopher Columbus.

• 29:55Adam Friedland?

  Does it piss you off when people try to shit on Columbus? Like Native Americans and stuff?

• 30:01Speaker 02

  Christopher Columbus, right?

• 30:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  He was a degenerate, he had his problems.

• 30:06Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 02

  He had his eccentricities.

• 30:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  He was Jewish, did you know that?

• 30:11Adam Friedland?

  They, it's actually fake.

• 30:13Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 30:13Adam Friedland?

  They try to say he's Jewish, but he's not, yeah.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  He had a brish, trust me. He had to drop his drawers to prove that, he had a brish, come on.

• 30:20Adam Friedland?

  Some people just like that style.

• 30:21Speaker 02

  You know, back then, that's how...

• 30:22Adam Friedland?

  People like a hoodless style.

• 30:22Speaker 02

  You know, why do you think he had to escape Spain in 1492?

• 30:26Adam Friedland?

  He was doing it on behalf of...

• 30:27Speaker 02

  When Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand walked the Inquisition on your people and said, either Converter died, and he decided to leave with the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa and the Maria.

• 30:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, it's three, actually, the Santa Maria.

• 30:40Speaker 02

  No, no, you're wrong.

• 30:41Adam Friedland?

  No, no, the Santa Maria was the third one.

• 30:42Speaker 02

  The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa and the Maria.

• 30:44Adam Friedland?

  The Nina, the penis and the Santa Maria.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  That's right, four of the ships, three of them made it.

• 30:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  As he went...

• 30:51Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so he called one the Santa Maria after one law, he combined the names?

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 30:57Adam Friedland?

  Nothing.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  Are you trying to instruct me on the hero of my piece? Christopher Columbus?

• 31:03Adam Friedland?

  I thought you, so you're Jewish?

• 31:05Speaker 02

  No, he is Jewish.

• 31:06Adam Friedland?

  I thought you were Newsboy of the Year.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  Yes, I was. The daily newspaper boy of the year.

• 31:09Adam Friedland?

  And President Nixon gave you an award for being Newsboy of the Year?

• 31:13Speaker 02

  In the White House.

• 31:14Adam Friedland?

  In the White House.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  He gave me a cheap pen and a tie clip. They told me his consigliere do not ask any questions of the president.

• 31:22Adam Friedland?

  Who's the consigliere?

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Uh, well, Chief of Staff, whoever that was at the time.

• 31:25Adam Friedland?

  Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  And what do you think this Weisenheimer did? I asked him a question.

• 31:29Adam Friedland?

  What'd you ask him?

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Excuse me, Mr. President. You campaigned on the fact that you would end the war in Vietnam, and yet you opened up a secret war against Laos and Cambodia. And guess what? They shined their boots on my backside and kicked me to the curb.

• 31:42Adam Friedland?

  Wow, yeah, that was after, uh, Si Hirsch, yeah.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Question authority.

• 31:48Adam Friedland?

  Let's fucking go.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  No idolatry.

• 31:49Adam Friedland?

  Let's fucking go. How old were you when you were Newsboy of the Year?

• 31:52Speaker 02

  How old I was, 16.

• 31:54Adam Friedland?

  16. I saw a picture of it. You're quite a handsome young man. Good-looking young man.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Please, don't come on to me.

• 31:59Adam Friedland?

  Did you used to pull a lot of chicks, grown up?

• 32:01Speaker 02

  Not really. I was still sleeping with my baseball glove at that point.

• 32:06Adam Friedland?

  You were fucking a baseball glove?

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Of course. You hug your baseball glove. You have 50 rubber bands around it.

• 32:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  One for softball with a clincher, the other one with a hardball. And I used to sleep with both of them until all of a sudden I started chasing skirts.

• 32:18Adam Friedland?

  How old were you then?

• 32:19Speaker 02

  And my marks went down. And then my mom said, "You gotta go back to Catholic school. You were in Bilducy Junior High School." I was in SP. We thought it meant special people, not for me. I ended up going to Brooklyn Prep.

• 32:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, so you went to Brooklyn Prep. You were president, student body president?

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:35Adam Friedland?

  You were a star athlete. You were popular.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say a star athlete. I was captain of a team that won no games.

• 32:41Adam Friedland?

  Well, you were the captain, a captain of time.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  Cross my heart, you don't mind if I cross my, cross my heart and hope to die.

• 32:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  I was the captain of the baseball team as a sophomore.

• 32:52Adam Friedland?

  A capo de duty.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, very good.

• 32:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Good. This guy's a slow learner, isn't he?

• 32:58Adam Friedland?

  I'm not a slow learner.

• 33:00Speaker 02

  It's okay. Let me ask you a question.

• 33:01Adam Friedland?

  Commendatory.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Did you like Ronzoni, Sonoboni? Were you a spaghetti bender? Did you like spaghetti?

• 33:06Adam Friedland?

  No, you don't break it. You don't break it like these, like the Medegon do.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  You have to.

• 33:11Adam Friedland?

  No, you don't break the spaghetti.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  What, are you a northern Italian? What, you got your nose in the air like you don't care?

• 33:16Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no. The way they look down on us, those freaks.

• 33:19Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 33:19Adam Friedland?

  The way they look down on us.

• 33:20Speaker 02

  You're the ones who used to hire my grandfather to dig the ditches, like they do the Mexicans now.

• 33:24Adam Friedland?

  No, we're paisa, you and me.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  Hey, oh, paisa moi, huh?

• 33:27Adam Friedland?

  Okay, so you're student body president, star athlete, Newsboy of the Year. You saved, uh, people from a burning building.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Five people.

• 33:35Adam Friedland?

  Five people.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  So the Nixon, Nixon five, I saved five people from a burning building.

• 33:39Adam Friedland?

  You are a star, you were a judo, a judo black belt?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  No, by then I was a street fighter.

• 33:46Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  Throw all the rules out.

• 33:48Adam Friedland?

  Have you attained a black belt in any martial arts?

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Let me tell you something. You gave me a chance. I'd jap you from the back. That's the only way you could whip me.

• 33:54Adam Friedland?

  What is jap, like a Jewish-American princess?

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Ah, whoa, I knew many of those.

• 33:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, oh, God.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Do I need to go through them?

• 33:59Adam Friedland?

  Blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, wait, go through them, go through them.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Now I know why Jewish men die early when they marry a Jewish woman.

• 34:07Adam Friedland?

  It's true, it's true. It's like, please, cancer, please take me away.

• 34:10Speaker 02

  Yes, please, enough.

• 34:11Adam Friedland?

  Please, cancer, please.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  They turned the boys into Mama Lukes.

• 34:14Adam Friedland?

  So all of-

• 34:14Speaker 02

  As do Italian mothers, the Mama Lukes.

• 34:17Adam Friedland?

  Oh, we love the ma, we love the mother, we love that. And your mother was, uh-

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Ah, Francesca, she was a saint.

• 34:22Adam Friedland?

  Your mother was a press secretary? Okay, but let's go into this. I just want to finish your upbringing. All of those facts, I'm reading them, like, you're like, this is a perfect college applicant, right? Like, how do you find yourself at McDonald's on Fordham Road in the Bronx? After high school?

• 34:36Speaker 02

  Well, it was quite a short trip.

• 34:38Adam Friedland?

  You were a student body president.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, but I announced that we were gonna have an initiative and referendum not to wear jackets and ties.

• 34:46Adam Friedland?

  You wanted to wear berets?

• 34:47Speaker 02

  No, no, no. Just wanted to wear civvies, regular civvies.

• 34:50Adam Friedland?

  When'd you find out that looked good?

• 34:51Speaker 02

  No, there was no berets back then.

• 34:52Adam Friedland?

  There was no berets.

• 34:53Speaker 02

  I had more hair on my head.

• 34:54Adam Friedland?

  Uh-huh.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  So the students actually voted not to wear jackets and ties. I led them on in protest. And then the headmaster, Father Alexander, and the prefect of the discipline, who hated my guts right down to the marrow of his bone, said, "You're gonna be on the outside looking in." And kicked me out of high school, and I never looked back. I could have had-

• 35:14Adam Friedland?

  But you were the president.

• 35:15Speaker 02

  A partial scholarship to Brown University because I was the recycling guy, before there was even recycling.

• 35:20Adam Friedland?

  That's the other thing I forgot. That's the other thing I forgot.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  I thought you were smart. You're Jewish. You're never supposed to leave things out.

• 35:26Adam Friedland?

  Okay, here's my question.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:27Adam Friedland?

  He used to collect garbage all over his neighborhood to clean up the streets.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Tons.

• 35:31Adam Friedland?

  Which is a theme of his life. And you brought it home, and your neighbors complained because there was too much-

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Wouldn't you?

• 35:36Adam Friedland?

  Why didn't your, why didn't your parents let you turn the house into a dump?

• 35:40Speaker 02

  But let me ask you a question.

• 35:41Adam Friedland?

  Wait, wait, why did your mom and dad let you do that, though?

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Because my mom and dad were very much like Unitarians. As long as you did the work, they would support you. They said, "Look, if you believe in this and you do the work, we're gonna be there." And my dad had to come back from the ship and meet with the neighbors, who felt their property values were going down. Because there was a junkyard on the corner, which was my house.

• 36:04Adam Friedland?

  My mother would have killed me if I did junk.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, your mother would have said-

• 36:07Adam Friedland?

  They liked cleanliness.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Had nothing to do with that junk man on the corner.

• 36:10Adam Friedland?

  They thought you were God's gift to the planet Earth, your parents.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 36:14Adam Friedland?

  You had good parents.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  But did I ever tell you how the Jewish guy would come around-

• 36:16Adam Friedland?

  What does it have to do with Jewish?

• 36:17Speaker 02

  With the truck, and he would weigh the aluminum, the copper, and he put his thumb on the scale, you know, not for me, but for the other day.

• 36:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  I'm not saying anything about the guys from Dean Street.

• 36:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  The Italians were worse with wastepaper.

• 36:31Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  I'm telling you, they wouldn't take my wastepaper. I was trying to save the world, recycle the trees, clean air, Mother Earth, global warming, climate change. I'm the only Republican who talks like that.

• 36:42Adam Friedland?

  You're the star boy, and then you're at McDonald's, Fordham Road, Bronx.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  Well, before I got there, I was pumping gas at Rocky Shell Station overnight, and then packing groceries at an AMP as the key man. And then I found my calling.

• 36:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  The Golden Arches in the Bronx.

• 36:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 37:00Speaker 02

  And I took the number two train, the Beast, from Rockaway Avenue. I was living in Brownsville, then on Osborne and Hegement. The only mighty mighty-

• 37:08Adam Friedland?

  Is that like an hour? That's like an hour?

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I had married, first marriage, you know. She met Jacoby, I met Myers, and only lasted about an hour. She was from the Virgin Islands. We lived in Brownsville. I took the train from one tough neighborhood to an even worse neighborhood, where the Bronx was burning, and I loved every second of it.

• 37:28Adam Friedland?

  So you were trying to get away from your wife, so you went to, like, basically-

• 37:31Speaker 02

  No, no, she came with you.

• 37:32Adam Friedland?

  The most dangerous place in New York City to get away.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:35Adam Friedland?

  Like, I'm gonna go to the Bronx while it's burning during the summer of Sam. Yeah, that's how much of a battle act she was.

• 37:41Speaker 02

  I had such nachos, such joy, let me tell you. I had no service, no service. I found my calling.

• 37:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, okay, wait, so-

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Now, one last thing about Mickey D's.

• 37:54Adam Friedland?

  Your night manager, yes.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Mickey D's would not allow me to go to McDonald's University in Oak Brook.

• 37:59Adam Friedland?

  Why?

• 38:00Speaker 02

  They said that I was special ed.

• 38:01Adam Friedland?

  Because you got kicked out of school? They said you were special ed?

• 38:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they thought I was more of a bouncer than I was a manager. Which, in the Bronx, you really needed a bouncer, not a manager.

• 38:09Adam Friedland?

  They judged a book by its cover, because you seem like a tough guy, but you're also an incredibly intelligent person.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Says who?

• 38:16Adam Friedland?

  Not McDonald's, apparently.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  No, but this is a man-

• 38:19Adam Friedland?

  I find you to be incredibly intelligent.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  This is a man who voted for me, you see? That proves that he voted for me, because he thought I was intelligent.

• 38:26Adam Friedland?

  That's what I did, and I was proud of it.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 38:28Adam Friedland?

  And I'm proud of it. But, okay, wait, so you're at McDonald's, you're in Fordham Road. Let's go, 1977, there's a serial killer in the Bronx, right? There are rolling blackouts, like, it's a real shit, like, fucking, like-

• 38:41Speaker 02

  It's bad.

• 38:42Adam Friedland?

  Terrifying place.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  The Bronx is burning.

• 38:43Adam Friedland?

  And then you meet, you meet a man who's still, I assume, your best friend. You want to tell me about him?

• 38:49Speaker 02

  The mad Chinaman, Don Chin.

• 38:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I would, yeah.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  320 pounds, he had been a member of the Savage Skulls. And he said, "Curse, you can manage this McDonald's, the Roy Crock way, or you can manage it-"

• 39:04Adam Friedland?

  Ray Crock, yeah, yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to do that, yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Excuse me, you insult me. In the Bronx, they didn't want Ronald McDonald to come to that McDonald's.

• 39:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 02

  They wanted the Hamburglar. The kids asked for the Hamburglar, not for Ronald McDonald.

• 39:18Adam Friedland?

  I would ask for Grimace.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  How come you didn't laugh at that joke, huh?

• 39:21Adam Friedland?

  Because it wasn't funny, it was not funny at all.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  What kind of an audience is this here? But anyway, the point is, Don Chin told me, "You could do it the Roy Crock way."

• 39:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Or, as you say, Ray Crock. Uh, or, "And I'll carry you out. There'll be six guys carrying you out. I'll give you your eulogy. Or you could do it the Don Chin way and survive to open up the restaurant another day." I chose the Don Chin way.

• 39:44Adam Friedland?

  So he, so he said, "You, in order to fucking manage this McDonald's in the middle of just a fucking really dangerous-

• 39:52Speaker 02

  It's a rough, rough area.

• 39:52Adam Friedland?

  Rough area, right? Um, you gotta learn how to be tough, and you gotta learn how to, like, command the McDonald's." You had, you had people coming in, that was a birthday, you had people coming in, B-boys, MCs, DJs, uh, graffitis, knowledge.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Black Spades, Savage Nomads, Savage Skulls.

• 40:11Adam Friedland?

  They called themselves that.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Ah, just go down.

• 40:13Adam Friedland?

  Oh, so it was like Warriors?

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Boy, that's right.

• 40:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  And we started at the same time the movie The Warriors came out.

• 40:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  And quite frankly, if you need to know what I was starting in, my baptism was in fire. It was just like what you saw in The Warriors, with no cops around. But one thing, my law and order in the restaurant. You came in, you gave my closer's a hard time, Ralphie Vincennes, three snaps up.

• 40:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  I'd go over the counter and give you a therapeutic back massage. No homophobic language. Now, in a rough neighborhood, that's pretty tough.

• 40:45Adam Friedland?

  Well, there was a, there was a gay coworker that you were friends with, and you did his, you administered his wedding.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  I married him in ninth, I personally did not marry him. I had enough marriages.

• 40:55Adam Friedland?

  You didn't get married to him?

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Exactly. But I married him as the so-called clergy, the pastor. 1977.

• 41:03Adam Friedland?

  Seventy-seven.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  That's right, 77 Sunset Strip. 1977, in the community room of a project in Soundville, I married Ralphie, my closer, to his long-term boyfriend, Vincennes. And do you know-

• 41:16Adam Friedland?

  An Italian guy?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  No, he was Puerto Rican.

• 41:20Adam Friedland?

  Okay, Boricua.

• 41:21Speaker 02

  This was a Boricua map.

• 41:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, okay.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  The place was packed, outside the gangs were looking inside like, what the hell is this?

• 41:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it's tough being gay in that, in that environment.

• 41:31Speaker 02

  Very tough. But 1977, you know what the Democrat and Republican attitude towards gays getting married was? You should be happy to be domestic partners.

• 41:41Adam Friedland?

  Did your friends survive the 80s, your gay friends?

• 41:45Speaker 02

  I know a lot of gay and lesbians and transgender.

• 41:48Adam Friedland?

  No, no, but like gay men, a lot of them died like in the f- in the f- in the years.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Oh my god, that was a horror age.

• 41:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  And the nation turned our backs on them. We didn't do all we could have done for them.

• 41:57Adam Friedland?

  Did you, did you know people that died?

• 41:59Speaker 02

  That was the evil Dr. Fauci. Appointed by Ronald Reagan then to deal with AIDS. Hey, what did he do, Fauci? You did all that.

• 42:07Adam Friedland?

  No, he went to bathhouses to study gay.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  I only wish he did.

• 42:12Adam Friedland?

  He did, no, no, he said he did that.

• 42:13Speaker 02

  He said he did.

• 42:14Adam Friedland?

  He said he did that.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  You believe Fauci?

• 42:16Adam Friedland?

  I mean, if you're gonna s-

• 42:17Speaker 02

  You believe that COVID-19 came out of a wet shop in Wuhan? And not out of the laboratory that he funded with the red Chinese? We now have CIA documents, Criminals in Action, who verified that. Ask Rand Paul, the ophthalmologist, you know Rand Paul.

• 42:31Adam Friedland?

  He's an eye, yeah, yeah, Kentucky, Kentucky, yeah. Yeah, well, I'm just saying that, that, that's another like layer of what was going on in New York, which is like pretty, I mean, it's, there's a lot of fucking, it was a crazy place.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  You know this guy likes to drop the F-bomb a lot, is that when he gets nervous? And then you notice he gets a little nervous, he sort of loses his track. Boom, the F-bomb right away.

• 42:53Adam Friedland?

  I don't know, I was just trying, I was thinking we were getting along.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  Hey, do I need to get the Rokey's laundry soap and wash your mouth out? You know, your mom should have done that a month of Sundays ago.

• 43:00Adam Friedland?

  My mother, my mother thought I, I was God's gift.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  Oh, can we do a little therapy for you now? You wanna just tell us what the-

• 43:06Adam Friedland?

  I'm a very well-adjusted person in fact.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  Tell me, how was it, you were living with your mom, you know, did she get into your head?

• 43:12Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, she wasn't like that, she was like awesome, she was so sweet. Yeah, my other friends' Jewish mothers were like ju- psych, Joseph Stalin.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  But yours was the best, not like the rest?

• 43:21Adam Friedland?

  Mine was the best, yeah, yeah, we were like, we were really close.

• 43:24Speaker 02

  She let you put mayonnaise, right?

• 43:26Adam Friedland?

  She passed away, she passed away a couple of years ago, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry. No, it's fine, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Wait, is he acting like it's not a big, he's making fun of me for my, having a dead mom? Is he fucking making-

• 43:36Speaker 02

  You never make fun of somebody's mothers who's died.

• 43:40Adam Friedland?

  You were already making fun of my mom.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  I need to impale myself right now.

• 43:44Adam Friedland?

  Don't impale yourself, I wanna talk about-

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Straight to hell without an espresso for disparaging your mother.

• 43:49Adam Friedland?

  Don Chen walks, Don Chen rides a motorcycle into McDonald's, right? He gets off the motorcycle, what does he have with him? What does he have with him? A machete.

• 43:57Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 43:58Adam Friedland?

  Were you crying?

• 43:59Speaker 02

  A machete, machete. I was crying.

• 44:02Adam Friedland?

  Were you crying?

• 44:03Speaker 02

  To your mom.

• 44:04Adam Friedland?

  Seriously, oh man, okay, I mean that.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Come on, I, I said bad things about your mom.

• 44:07Adam Friedland?

  No, no, you were saying, no, we were busting balls, I'm not offended.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  I believe that God writes shit in the book. How am I gonna get through the pearly gates?

• 44:14Adam Friedland?

  Oh, come on.

• 44:15Speaker 02

  And disparaged his mother who was said was a good mother.

• 44:17Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, no, no, no, you're a good guy, come on. No, no, no, I was, we were busting balls, we were just being guys. You didn't know that, come on, bro, come on, listen.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Did you know that John Gotti Jr. and Victoria Jr. are Jewish by birth? That the mother, that's right.

• 44:31Adam Friedland?

  Allah Vah.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Who married John Gotti Sr. was a Ukrainian Jew from Brownsville. They'd all like hearing that. Now you know why they shot me five times with a hollow pistol.

• 44:39Adam Friedland?

  Cause they were Jewish, cause they were Jewish.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  No, because they didn't like that kind of infogee. Do you know who the toughest man alive, right? What was the greatest movie of all time, Raging Bull, right?

• 44:48Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Jake LaMotta, right?

• 44:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, and he never, and he never lost. He never, he never went down.

• 44:53Speaker 02

  Oh, he did lose.

• 44:54Adam Friedland?

  He never went down, he never went down.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  Hey, Ryan, no, knock me down.

• 44:57Adam Friedland?

  Did you fuck my wife, did you fuck my wife?

• 44:59Speaker 02

  Please, don't interfere with my story. He was born of a Jewish mother.

• 45:04Adam Friedland?

  The Bronx Bull.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Which means, he's a Jew. When they talk about the Jews, they say, no, not Jake LaMotta. I say, you should be proud, that pound for pound, the toughest man ever to walk around was Jake LaMotta. Let's give a nice round of, wait, wait, wait, wait. Later on, he was a pedophile, no, can I take that back? He was in Epstein, can I take that back, please? Hey, by the way, how come we're not talking about all the guys who were involved with Epstein?

• 45:29Adam Friedland?

  Cause I wanna, I want you to tell your story, I want you to tell, I, I, and I went, so, so, so your best friend, who tells you to be tough, who tells you to fucking run this to McDonald's with respect? You're in a black neighborhood, you're a fucking white guy, you're like, sorry for saying that for it. Like, you, you need to command respect, you're, it's a fucking crucible, it's a trial by fire. He comes in with a machete, he jumps over the fucking counter, what, what happens next?

• 45:50Speaker 02

  Uh, he comes into the prep area, they called the prep area.

• 45:54Adam Friedland?

  The mad Chinaman, yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  The mad Chinaman, he's a little out of his mind, he's a little muchu gubats.

• 45:59Adam Friedland?

  Muchu, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:00Speaker 02

  Oh, he was drinking.

• 46:01Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 46:02Speaker 02

  And now he starts swinging the machete at me.

• 46:05Adam Friedland?

  This is your friend, though?

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Well, this is, this is the Bronx. Friend today, foe tomorrow. He would have given me a big, a great eulogy.

• 46:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 02

  He tried to chop my head off, I had to block it, he's pushing me down, he almost pushed me on the grill. And as I was there, he let me up, he starts, a mad banshee leg, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

• 46:27Adam Friedland?

  Don Chen.

• 46:27Speaker 02

  He gets on his Harley, his Harley is parked right there, in the dining room.

• 46:32Adam Friedland?

  Inside.

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Who's gonna stop him, right?

• 46:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 46:34Speaker 02

  Okay, and then he goes out, next day he comes like, that never happened before.

• 46:38Adam Friedland?

  He blacked out, it was crazy.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  He was bugging out.

• 46:41Adam Friedland?

  No, but you think that that was like his, like, this is your final test?

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it was, you know, this was sort of like, whoa.

• 46:47Adam Friedland?

  So you're, so as a manager, your crew at McDonald's was, was a crew, actually. It wasn't so much like, you have an old lady that's like doing the fries, you, you had a fucking tough crew.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  If you just got out of Rikers Island.

• 46:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  And number one, I was hiring you on the crew, cause you had to cover my back every time I had to go over the counter. And I had to go over a lot.

• 47:06Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 47:06Speaker 02

  There were all kinds of problems.

• 47:07Adam Friedland?

  How many ti- how many fights have you been in, in, you think, the span of your lifetime?

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Well, you see, the beauty of it is, I was hit so many times with so many objects that it moved the collagen around naturally.

• 47:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:19Speaker 02

  I don't have to worry about that anymore.

• 47:20Adam Friedland?

  You look great, you're a handsome guy.

• 47:22Speaker 02

  Well, you know, I used to also be a whirling dervish in the disco era, you know, before your time.

• 47:26Adam Friedland?

  I know, you were a fixture of Studio 54.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  That's right, no, no, they wouldn't let me in, I was a BQE guy, you know, no, no, no, you're BQE, man.

• 47:33Adam Friedland?

  You're a little bit of the Saturday Night Fever kind of guy.

• 47:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're from Brooklyn, get out of here. But anyway, you go to a club like Pastels in Bay Ridge. I'm from Canarsie, my cousin's friends at Canarsie. Bath Avenue boys, Bay Ridge boys, they didn't like us. So I'd be dancing with all the gals, because the guys, they didn't wanna dance, they didn't think that was very manly. And then all of a sudden, bam, I catch you right in the schnoz.

• 47:55Adam Friedland?

  While you're like doing like this? You got schn-?

• 47:59Speaker 02

  Please, don't insult me, man.

• 48:01Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  You wanna show me that again, that move of yours?

• 48:03Adam Friedland?

  I don't know.

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Oh, god.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Look at this, man. What are you, a disco duck? My god.

• 48:12Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm not from that era.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Man, please.

• 48:14Adam Friedland?

  Well, show us how it's done then.

• 48:15Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, so, bust your schnoz, right? Because that's the other thing that Italians and Jews share, they have big beaks. You hit them in the beak, nose, well, my nose almost shattered.

• 48:27Adam Friedland?

  And big swans, too, big swans.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  And you know where they dragged me into?

• 48:29Adam Friedland?

  Where?

• 48:29Speaker 02

  The ladies bathroom. Told all the girls, hey, get out of here, Vicky, get out of here, Angela, we got some work to do on Curtis.

• 48:37Adam Friedland?

  And they were all naked.

• 48:38Speaker 02

  You got a quarter, hey, Sal, you got a quarter, now you know what the quarter was for?

• 48:41Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 48:42Speaker 02

  That tampon machine, what do you think stopped the bleeding in my schnozola? I'm bleeding on my polyester waffle weave flame retardant shirt, my bell bottom pants, I got my, my marshmallow shoes on. Oh my god, the only thing, tampons up there. And then they take them out, put new tampons in, that's what they do when they operate on you, nasal.

• 49:04Adam Friedland?

  That's kind of nice of them to stop the bleeding, the, the mean guys.

• 49:07Speaker 02

  God, my god, it was the only thing that worked. So that's why, I remember in the previous election, they called, who, that tampon Tim, you know, the governor of Minnesota?

• 49:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Could have called me tampon Curtis.

• 49:17Adam Friedland?

  No, I would never.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  Of course you wouldn't, cause I hit you so hard, your mother-

• 49:21Adam Friedland?

  Because you're my best friend, you're my best friend, we're best friends. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop, stop, stop, stop. Oh, give me a hug, you wanna give me a hug?

• 49:27Speaker 02

  I can't, no, no, please.

• 49:30Adam Friedland?

  You wanna give me a hug?

• 49:31Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no. Please, how do I know you don't have Ebola-like flesh-eating virus?

• 49:36Adam Friedland?

  Yo, I saw you at Pride yesterday. You were at Pride yesterday, dancing.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Did you see me dancing on that float?

• 49:42Adam Friedland?

  All the, all the Mets of Fanuks liked you.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Oh, what, what, what did you call my friends, Fanuks?

• 49:47Adam Friedland?

  Is that rude or nice?

• 49:48Speaker 02

  That's rude.

• 49:49Adam Friedland?

  Okay, I would never.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Oh, you are rude boy, man, you blood clod, you Yankee man.

• 49:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Rastafari, yeah, okay.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, here's a spliff, puff puff pass.

• 49:56Adam Friedland?

  I don't smoke weed anymore, I try, yeah, okay, I know, I really don't.

• 50:00Speaker 02

  This guy, I'm telling you.

• 50:01Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  If I gave you Maui Wowie and Hindu Kush, are you telling me you wouldn't do puff puff pass?

• 50:07Adam Friedland?

  No, I would, it makes me paranoid, it makes me feel terrible. I did it on the show once with 2 Chainz, and it was, everyone said, you're a pathetic loser, I was freaking, I just stink.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Well, I, I agree with them on that, but there's no doubt about that.

• 50:18Adam Friedland?

  No, no, but normally, when I'm not on weed, everyone thinks I'm the coolest guy. Okay, wait, so, so, wait, so, so from that crew at McDonald's, that crew develops into the Magnificent 13, is that right?

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Well, first, the Burger Boys.

• 50:30Adam Friedland?

  The Burger Boys, that was your name. And then you're like, let's assemble a crew, and let's like, all this violence, all this turmoil around us, let's do something about it, is that correct?

• 50:38Speaker 02

  Let's patrol the number four chain, the Muggers Express, the worst subway line of a very horrible subway system in New York City.

• 50:44Adam Friedland?

  And that was like a time where like, public services had abandoned, like, people in that area.

• 50:49Speaker 02

  There were no cops at night, we were on the visk of a, uh, on- The verge of a fiscal collapse. We were gonna go chapter 11. And the incoming mayor, Ed Koch, had to cut firefighters, cops, social workers, teachers. It was mishegosh. It was a mess.

• 51:04Adam Friedland?

  So, wait, so from the time, I think it was like, what, 6:00 PM to 5:00 AM? There was no patrolman?

• 51:10Speaker 02

  By the way, are you keeping track of all the Yiddish words that I'm using and the Italian words? Please.

• 51:14Adam Friedland?

  No, no, I do not keep track of anything Jewish, okay? Keep track of the Italian thing? We need to put in the documents. Okay. No, all right. There were no patrolmen at night, basically, right? So, the subways were just like open, like...

• 51:29Speaker 02

  It was the Wild West. You could come on with a gang. Or a lot of them guys, they had the reverse, you know, they had the reverse sheepskin coats. They had their name buckles. And they come ditty bopping through Manhattan Mason and Brooklyn Taker. Give it up, give it up right now.

• 51:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, but you're Brooklyn.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  Now, you would have been target number one.

• 51:52Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 51:53Speaker 02

  Because you look like Bernard Getz, the subway gunman. Didn't anybody ever tell you that?

• 51:57Adam Friedland?

  Well, that's your friend.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  No, I know, but hey, I'm just saying.

• 52:00Adam Friedland?

  That's the guy you stood up for. I would not stand up for him.

• 52:02Speaker 02

  You're the vic. You're a perfect vic.

• 52:05Adam Friedland?

  No, I would be in an Uber personally.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  If I was gonna thug somebody up.

• 52:08Adam Friedland?

  In 1977, I would take Uber.

• 52:09Speaker 02

  With four guys, you would be the guy on the subway they come and pick on. You know that.

• 52:14Adam Friedland?

  No, I'd be driving my Rolls Royce around town with a fur coat.

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Oh, Rolls Royce, oh.

• 52:18Adam Friedland?

  Going to Studio 54 with the most beautiful women. The most beautiful women, just begging to be with me.

• 52:22Speaker 02

  What a fantasy.

• 52:23Adam Friedland?

  Every woman wanting to be with me.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  Why are we in here doing this?

• 52:25Adam Friedland?

  And then I'd be at CBGB's with the punks.

• 52:28Speaker 02

  CBGB's? What do you know about CBGB's?

• 52:31Adam Friedland?

  What do I know about...

• 52:33Speaker 02

  Do you know the greatest counterculture group of all time was who?

• 52:38Adam Friedland?

  The Clash.

• 52:39Speaker 02

  The Clash?

• 52:39Adam Friedland?

  And they wrote a song about you.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  That's right. Red Angel Dreadnought.

• 52:44Adam Friedland?

  Let's go!

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Oh! Look at that, what a, what a hazaray. What a hazaray.

• 52:49Adam Friedland?

  Just a little bit. Hazaray, okay.

• 52:52Speaker 02

  Can't take this.

• 52:53Adam Friedland?

  Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. So, did you meet Joe Strummer?

• 52:56Speaker 02

  That's you, B.

• 52:57Adam Friedland?

  You met Joe Strummer? The lead singer of The Clash?

• 53:00Speaker 02

  No, I never met them.

• 53:01Adam Friedland?

  Dude, that was like my favorite, one of my favorite bands growing up.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  They were in the LES. And they were watching what we were doing. And they created this song. I had no idea.

• 53:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  I didn't follow counterculture music. You know, I was more Cosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

• 53:15Adam Friedland?

  Oh!

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Jim Morrison, The Doors, the greatest of all time.

• 53:19Adam Friedland?

  Nah, I don't know.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  What is it?

• 53:20Adam Friedland?

  No, he's not. He's kind of a little bit of an idiot. No, The Doors are good. He's, when you read the lyrics, it's a little bit stupid sometimes.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  All right, see, now, all of a sudden, you're a musical j-.

• 53:30Adam Friedland?

  I like Crystal Ship. I like that song.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  Oh, you do?

• 53:32Adam Friedland?

  Before you slip into unconsciousness. I'd let you have another kiss.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  Are you a frustrated performer? Be honest, man.

• 53:47Adam Friedland?

  Yes.

• 53:47Speaker 02

  You're calling, you thought it was gonna be the great white way Broadway, and it just, it ended up with doing a podcast.

• 53:54Adam Friedland?

  I wanted to be in Oklahoma, growing up.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Do you know who else does a podcast? My freaking dentist and plumber. You gotta listen to my podcast, Curtis. Why do I have to listen to your podcast? Oh, I got the greatest podcast in the world.

• 54:07Adam Friedland?

  Curtis, I could not agree more with what you're saying right now. Yeah. When I see like, I see NBA players starting podcasts, I'm like, I have to do this because I'm not in the NBA. Like, why are you doing this right now? It's demeaning to be doing this. But I...

• 54:21Speaker 02

  You know what this is?

• 54:22Adam Friedland?

  Point of clarification, this is a talk show, this is not a podcast. And that's why I'm giving you such a brilliant review right now.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  Oh, excuse me. You know what this is the equivalent of? In the 80s, every other block had a comedy club, remember?

• 54:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, that was during the boom. That was during the...

• 54:34Speaker 02

  Now, try to find a comedy club. Ain't easy to do.

• 54:37Adam Friedland?

  No, it's more easy than anything.

• 54:39Speaker 02

  This is what's gonna happen to podcasts. Eventually, it's gonna go...

• 54:42Adam Friedland?

  I completely agree again.

• 54:43Speaker 02

  Gone, extinct.

• 54:45Adam Friedland?

  Honestly, I 1,000% agree with you again. They need to go, they need to be over. I mean that.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  Excuse me, why as a Jew do you wear Galway golf? You know, that's...

• 54:55Adam Friedland?

  Callaway, Callaway.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Isn't that...

• 54:56Adam Friedland?

  But Galway, because you're, it's a Napolitano...

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Isn't that very waspy?

• 55:02Adam Friedland?

  Like, Galamad?

• 55:03Speaker 02

  Isn't that very waspy?

• 55:04Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm a, no, I'm a golf, one of the best golfers.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Oh, you are? Good caddy? Are you a good caddy? Did you start caddying?

• 55:11Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm a 39-year-old.

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Did you ever wash the balls there for the guy who had the big bertha there?

• 55:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, of course. Okay, wait, wait. So, how does your crew become, how do you, how do you become the Angels? Right? How does, like, when do you put the beret on? When do you take the apron, turn it backwards, and make it into a cape?

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Right. Well, after we were the Burger Boys to test it out, I then had to start to sort of create a look. And what was the opposite of the Hells Angels, which was the image for all street urban youth to follow? Could you believe this? You were like the KKK, the 1%. They hated black people.

• 55:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Altamont is terrible, yeah.

• 55:51Speaker 02

  Oh, you followed Altamont, huh?

• 55:52Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm a big Stones fan.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 55:54Adam Friedland?

  I'm a big Stones fan.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  Let me notice, West Coast was violent, East Coast, oh, Woodstock, half a million strong up in Bethel, New York. Peace, love, happiness, and fornication.

• 56:04Adam Friedland?

  Were you at Woodstock?

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Hell, no. 1969, how old do you think I was? I was born in 54.

• 56:09Adam Friedland?

  You're 15.

• 56:10Speaker 02

  Yes, very good. You are Jewish.

• 56:12Adam Friedland?

  I researched, I researched, I researched you.

• 56:15Speaker 02

  Oh, researched, okay, all right. You're sure that's not AI? You're sure that's not Google?

• 56:19Adam Friedland?

  No, I just said 15.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  All right, all right, okay, very good.

• 56:22Adam Friedland?

  Okay, wait, so, so, wait. Keep going, like, you formed the Angels, and then you, like, when did the Angels become known? Like, how did you become a fixture? Because you very quickly, from being like this star kid, to being a manager at McDonald's, you became a New York City kind of character and fixture, and like, you became part of the tapestry of the times, the 80s. The 80s, like, you're like a character in the story of New York.

• 56:47Speaker 02

  It came about from a negative connotation. I was called a vigilante.

• 56:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 56:50Speaker 02

  I was called a gang leader, because it was a group of predominantly blacks and Hispanics. And there was a lot of stereotyping going on, so it was difficult. In the first 13 years, I got wooden shampoos and concrete facials from the police. I'll never forget, I got arrested one time by a sergeant, and I said, "What's the charge, Sarge?" And he said, "Take the position, put your hands behind your back. What's the charge, Sarge? Inhaling and exhaling. You do us a favor if you would just stop breathing."

• 57:23Adam Friedland?

  That's so mean.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  That's how much they hated me.

• 57:25Adam Friedland?

  That's mean. And so, you were, you were the head of this organization? You've always been the leader of the organization? What's your title in the Angels?

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Some will call me a...

• 57:36Speaker 03

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• 58:03Speaker 04

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• 58:34Speaker 05

  Before this...

• 58:38Speaker 05

  There's this.

• 58:42Speaker 05

  As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people growing the grass, paving the lots, welding the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hard-working people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com/jointhetraids to learn more.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  Grand poobah?

• 59:04Adam Friedland?

  Grand poobah, I like that.

• 59:05Speaker 02

  No, I don't believe in idolatry.

• 59:07Adam Friedland?

  So, what are you?

• 59:08Speaker 02

  Angel One.

• 59:09Adam Friedland?

  Angel One?

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Angel One.

• 59:10Adam Friedland?

  Oh, yeah, and on the radio, that's Angel One.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  Angel One. Code red, Angel One.

• 59:15Adam Friedland?

  Okay, and so, like, what crimes, I just like, just for the audience to describe the Angels, like, so everyone's on the same page. Like, how many, like, what crimes did you deal with primarily? Violent crimes?

• 59:26Speaker 02

  Gangs, really. Gangs would come on the trains.

• 59:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  And they would just rob people indiscriminately.

• 59:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Our presence prevented that, and at times, we had to get a little physical. There were no cops around. But a lot of people remember, we were the only thing that prevented them from being robbed.

• 59:42Adam Friedland?

  And in terms of the leadership structure, did people try to challenge your authority at any points, like, within the ranks?

• 59:47Speaker 02

  Always, absolutely.

• 59:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  I'd be lying to you if I said it didn't happen. You always have people who assume that what you're doing, they could do better.

• 59:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. And were there people that like, tried to like infiltrate? Like, did you ever like, I'm sure like, because the feds didn't like you, I'm sure they tried to get guys to like, get in.

• 1:00:06Speaker 02

  It wasn't the feds, they didn't really take an interest. NYPD, and Ed Koch, right.

• 1:00:11Adam Friedland?

  And the transit police, yeah.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  What they called his consigliere, his advisor on legal issues.

• 1:00:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  They hated us. So, they had what was covert operators, who were members of the police department, young, graduating from the police department. So, they were of the same age as the guardian angels. And you could tell who they were, because they wanted to cooperate and help you in every way. "Oh, I got a car."

• 1:00:36Adam Friedland?

  Oh, they're overeager.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  "Oh, I could take you here. I could get this printed and all that." And immediately, my street smarts would kick in and say, "These guys are being too helpful." So, we'd isolate them, because we realized why they were there. They were not there for the right reason.

• 1:00:49Adam Friedland?

  And did every, did anyone ever like, try to like, put on the uniform, like, on a train that was like a criminal? Like, try to like, go in disguise?

• 1:00:56Speaker 02

  Well, the reason that didn't happen...

• 1:00:58Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Speaker 02

  Wasn't because of anything we did.

• 1:01:01Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  But the criminals so hated us, despised us, loathed us.

• 1:01:05Adam Friedland?

  They're like, I would never.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  We had six guardian angels who were shot and killed in the line of duty.

• 1:01:09Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  That a thug didn't want to be seen as a guardian angel, because for whatever reason, whether glory, or maybe using it for a bad reason, now in the neighborhood, it would be stigmatized as a guardian angel, and they had to deal with thugs and tougats.

• 1:01:25Adam Friedland?

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• 1:02:04Adam Friedland?

  Oh, is my golf bag?

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 1:02:07Adam Friedland?

  No, okay, never mind, okay.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  Do you have attention deficit disorder, seriously?

• 1:02:11Adam Friedland?

  No, because I'm waiting on this golf bag because I got this.

• 1:02:14Speaker 02

  Did you ever take Ritalin, you know, to sort of like focus you?

• 1:02:17Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  You can admit it, it's.

• 1:02:18Adam Friedland?

  I did back in the day.

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Prescribed, alright, now I understand.

• 1:02:21Adam Friedland?

  Back in my, back in my.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  I'm looking at you.

• 1:02:23Adam Friedland?

  Back at my rock bottom, I used to.

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  Right, but you see in Manhattan, everybody has your shrink. Rich people have a shrink.

• 1:02:28Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm over, I don't go to shrinks, I'm over it.

• 1:02:30Speaker 02

  Uh, psychiatrist?

• 1:02:31Adam Friedland?

  Because, no, sometimes shit happens.

• 1:02:32Speaker 02

  Psychologist?

• 1:02:33Adam Friedland?

  No, no, no, I went for a long time, now I'm an adult man, I'm like, shit happens. Sometimes that's just some shit.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  No therapy, right?

• 1:02:39Adam Friedland?

  No, because you think about yourself too much.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  You freestyle now.

• 1:02:42Adam Friedland?

  No, now I can just fucking deal with shit when it happens.

• 1:02:44Speaker 02

  This is good, he has graduated, man, I am so proud of you. No, I am so proud of you.

• 1:02:49Adam Friedland?

  Okay, wait, wait, wait, so, let's talk about Lisa. Let's talk about Lisa, okay?

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:02:55Adam Friedland?

  Your wife, so you meet this fashion model.

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  Second wife, yeah.

• 1:02:58Adam Friedland?

  Second wife, second wife. So, you meet this fashion model, and she takes your breath away.

• 1:03:03Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 1:03:03Adam Friedland?

  She takes your breath away.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  Yes, she was a curator of an art gallery and a fashionista model, yes.

• 1:03:10Adam Friedland?

  And she's, she's from the other side.

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  And a black belt in karate, goju.

• 1:03:14Adam Friedland?

  She's from the other side of the tracks. She's like a, she's like a, well, she's well-bred, kind of.

• 1:03:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, she grew up in the suburbs.

• 1:03:22Adam Friedland?

  In the burbs, yeah.

• 1:03:23Speaker 02

  Ridgewood, New Jersey, Lake Forest, Illinois. Her father was like a vice president of American Care, great family.

• 1:03:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, and so then, so you meet her, and then she, she, in 81, she kind of joins the ranks of the, of the.

• 1:03:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, right away.

• 1:03:38Adam Friedland?

  Right away.

• 1:03:38Speaker 02

  Within like the first six months, I would say.

• 1:03:40Adam Friedland?

  And you guys were trying to cover up your love affair, it was kind of like longing looks across the, across the headquarters, right?

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  You mean like, we had the urge to merge, is that what you're trying to say?

• 1:03:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you guys were like, it was like tense, it was kind of sexy, think about it.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, you're getting psychosexual.

• 1:03:54Adam Friedland?

  My understanding, my understanding is that you didn't want to mix like, that with the, with the, you know, uh, in the context of you running the organization, so you had to keep it under wraps. And so there was like a, there was like a tension with you and Lisa.

• 1:04:06Speaker 02

  What are you, are you a?

• 1:04:07Adam Friedland?

  She's a model, I mean, I'm just, when I was reading this, I'm like, damn it.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Are you a freak? I mean, what is wrong with you, man?

• 1:04:12Adam Friedland?

  I just think it's quite romantic, in fact.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  This was a professional relationship.

• 1:04:15Adam Friedland?

  So then, when, when did you guys?

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  She came from a different world, I came from a different world. We just happened to collaborate.

• 1:04:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  On something that we agreed on, and from that, a partnership, a respect development. What are you seeing to make it so dirty?

• 1:04:31Adam Friedland?

  And so, and you were seriously injured in a karate fight with her, she seriously injured you. She broke your legs?

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  I would say that, I would say it was a good punching bag for her, because she was an accomplished. She was an accomplished black belt in goju, yes.

• 1:04:44Adam Friedland?

  And she fucking, she broke your leg?

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Uh, fractured it.

• 1:04:46Adam Friedland?

  She fractured it?

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:04:48Adam Friedland?

  Was that when you were married or before?

• 1:04:50Speaker 02

  Uh, no, that was when we were married.

• 1:04:51Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, you know, sometime, and it wasn't a marital dispute.

• 1:04:56Adam Friedland?

  But it was like, in the context of a karate, karate demonstration, really? Damn, were you getting something in on her, at least?

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 1:05:03Adam Friedland?

  Did you get a couple in on her, at least?

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  I'm not gonna hit a woman.

• 1:05:07Adam Friedland?

  So why, so it's not fair, why are you fighting a woman? So obviously, she's gonna break your leg, she's a black belt.

• 1:05:12Speaker 02

  I realized that.

• 1:05:12Adam Friedland?

  So you're like, what were you doing, like this?

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  You're a guy, ready to hit a woman, no, no, no.

• 1:05:16Adam Friedland?

  No, wait, no, I would never fight a woman to begin with.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:05:19Adam Friedland?

  Especially my wife, especially in front of the angels.

• 1:05:21Speaker 02

  No, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 1:05:22Adam Friedland?

  No, you stop it, no, no, you do not put that on me.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  I would just absorb whatever blows came from that woman, I would not hit a woman.

• 1:05:28Adam Friedland?

  No, and, and me too, and that, and.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  No, no, I don't believe that.

• 1:05:32Adam Friedland?

  And the cops would laugh, the cops wouldn't take it seriously, and they'd be saying, why, why were you wearing that to me?

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  You mean, the cops would laugh at you, seriously?

• 1:05:40Adam Friedland?

  They would laugh at me if I'm like, if I'm like, I'm getting, I'm getting hit by my.

• 1:05:44Speaker 02

  I would suggest you, I know you have this psychosis.

• 1:05:47Adam Friedland?

  If you're getting beaten.

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  You need therapy, psychologist, psychiatrist.

• 1:05:50Adam Friedland?

  I'm over therapy.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  No, no, come on, I'll pay for it. How about if I flipped the script for you, huh?

• 1:05:54Adam Friedland?

  1990, you got a job as a radio host, 1992, uh, in April, you're attacked by the Gotti's and Gambino's with bats.

• 1:06:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the first attack.

• 1:06:04Adam Friedland?

  In July.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  July is the second attack.

• 1:06:08Adam Friedland?

  During the, during the election for mayor, I remember it went viral, you talking about the, the attack in the, in the, in the cab.

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  Well, let's start though, first with the baseball bat attack.

• 1:06:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:18Speaker 02

  So, I'm doing Angels in the Morning with Lisa at that time, and I have a special edition of Mob Talk. Remember like, when OJ was on trial, everybody wanted to talk about what happened in the case the day before?

• 1:06:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Uh, when John Gotti senior was on trial the last night before they sent him away, triple life without parole to Marion, nobody wanted to talk about the case the next day.

• 1:06:39Adam Friedland?

  Because they were scared.

• 1:06:40Speaker 02

  Not Stern, not Imus, not anybody, because they were scared. And they said to me, Curtis, do yourself a solid, don't talk about this. That is a guarantee that I'm gonna talk about it, because I grew up with these gavons, these yadruls.

• 1:06:54Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you think that, was there like a neighborhood rivalry, did they see another guy from Canarsie that was like, more popular than them? That bothered them?

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  No, I think what they objected to is I was destroying this myth that you're safer in an organized crime neighborhood than you would be in a normal.

• 1:07:09Adam Friedland?

  Oh, that they're a community organization.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they said, oh, yeah, and they brought in the heroin, and now all of a sudden, they wanted black people using the heroin, and now their own sons and daughters and grandchildren are using the heroin, and they say, you need to take the code of omerta.

• 1:07:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 02

  You need to not discuss our business on the radio. And I continued to discuss it.

• 1:07:27Adam Friedland?

  Kind of like Israel, a little bit.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Oh. How come you bring it right back to Israel, huh?

• 1:07:32Adam Friedland?

  Because it's like, they get mad at you if you talk.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  Oh, oh, I see, I see.

• 1:07:35Adam Friedland?

  It's a little bit of a, it's a little bit of a conspiracy of silence.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  I understand that.

• 1:07:39Adam Friedland?

  Whenever I talk about it, people, they got mad at me.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  This is like going back to the Stern gang, right? In Israel, you remember?

• 1:07:44Adam Friedland?

  The Stern gang, though, yeah, that's all, yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 02

  You have a blue up?

• 1:07:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Baba Booey, Artie, Robin.

• 1:07:49Speaker 02

  Okay, we got it, see you for real.

• 1:07:51Adam Friedland?

  All right, let's go. Wait, so, okay, so April, you, you're attacked with a bunch of, a bunch of, a bunch of baboons with bats, right?

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  John Gotti junior gets the orders from headquarters, his father, because he was the underboss.

• 1:08:04Adam Friedland?

  His dad is in jail at the time?

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's in jail, and by the way, he's listening on the radio to me each morning, and dropping more F-bombs than you have.

• 1:08:12Adam Friedland?

  Oh, they didn't know that there was a radio.

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  Ah, exactly.

• 1:08:15Adam Friedland?

  You didn't know that there was a radio.

• 1:08:16Speaker 02

  It wouldn't have mattered.

• 1:08:17Adam Friedland?

  No, no, you thought.

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  You know me, I'm a, I'm talking away.

• 1:08:20Adam Friedland?

  No, you thought he was away in the jail, you wouldn't get in trouble.

• 1:08:22Speaker 02

  So he tells his son, he says, I need you to shut this guy up. You and your crew take care of it. So they attacked me with baseball bats, not Gotti junior, he was observing. So you had the UN, you had Brian McGlocken, the Irishman, you had Stephen Kaplan, a Jewish guy who should have been in Baruch, studying math, right?

• 1:08:42Adam Friedland?

  I agree.

• 1:08:43Speaker 02

  Instead of trying to knock my block off, and Rogirio, it was in his DNA, like father, like son. They hit me about 38 times with baseball bats. I could see the Joe DiMaggio autograph on the Hillary and Brad's be Louisville slugger.

• 1:08:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Speaker 02

  And I was able to survive, they broke my elbow.

• 1:08:59Adam Friedland?

  Did they get in trouble for that?

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Uh, no, because this was before Rudy Giuliani, Mike Comba, the chief, became the mayor. Nobody got arrested back then. So I get taken to Beth Israel, they tell me, we'll release you in about a week, you got a serious concussion, and you got the broken elbow. I said, I'm signing myself out, you can't do that, I said, yes, I can.

• 1:09:19Adam Friedland?

  Did they give you protection when you were in the hospital?

• 1:09:21Speaker 02

  Hey, Jamie, oh, God, sick of the broken.

• 1:09:23Adam Friedland?

  So how do you know that they wouldn't go back in the hospital with the bats?

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  You've been watching too many movies and TV shows. So the next day, I'm back on the air.

• 1:09:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  And now I tell the story of the murder that John Gotti junior committed at the Silver Fox Disco and Gin Mill in South Ozon Park, against Danny Silver. He found Danny Silver in there, who apparently had gotten a consignment of cocaine and didn't pay the vig. So he surrounds him with his homies, he said, hey Danny, why are you avoiding me? And Danny's dancing, you know, with his gumada there, or whatever, and he said, get the fuck out of my face.

• 1:09:59Adam Friedland?

  To you?

• 1:09:59Speaker 02

  He says this to Gotti junior.

• 1:10:01Adam Friedland?

  Oh, to Gotti junior, right.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  And Rogirio gives him a shit, boom, boom, boom, boom, 48 times, he guts him out, right there on the floor, and everybody, you didn't see nothing, right? No, we didn't see nothing. So they go back to the Bergen Hunt Fish and Shoot Human Beings Club, where John Gotti senior is holding court, and they tell him.

• 1:10:21Adam Friedland?

  But there's a thing called Shoot Human Beings Club?

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, the, it was right there on 101st Avenue in Ozon Park, this was their club.

• 1:10:28Adam Friedland?

  Like, it would be on Google Maps if it was around today.

• 1:10:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, try it out, Bergen Hunt Fish and Shoot Human Beings Club.

• 1:10:34Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 1:10:34Speaker 02

  Because that's what they did there, was shoot human beings.

• 1:10:36Adam Friedland?

  I think the cops should have, they were obviously, they should have paid attention to that place.

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  The cops were on the payroll, as was the DA John Santucci, who would have 12-hour luncheons at the old Alder Donna Restaurant, right there on Peking Avenue in Cross Bay, with who? John Gotti senior and the Gambino Crime Family.

• 1:10:53Adam Friedland?

  That's a long lunch.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, and they would order trafe, they would order lobsters and lots of shrimp.

• 1:10:59Adam Friedland?

  So like, you were like, I'm not gonna shut up, okay? But like, uh, obviously, you knew there was a target on you, right?

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  Do you ever shut up at all?

• 1:11:04Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm saying like, you kept going on the radio talking about them.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:11:08Adam Friedland?

  So like, but like, you had to have it in the back of your mind that you were gonna, that they were gonna maybe come back and try to do.

• 1:11:14Speaker 02

  What do you think, I'm naive?

• 1:11:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, okay, so then.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  What do you think, I went to some elite college, and I was sort of just hopelessly not realizing as a street guy that I am.

• 1:11:24Adam Friedland?

  You went to the school of hard knocks?

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  Of course, I realized that they may have put a target on my back.

• 1:11:29Adam Friedland?

  So, so like, um, uh, what, I mean, like, uh, I guess a couple of months later, they, they did, literally?

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  June 19th of 1992.

• 1:11:38Adam Friedland?

  You were going to work at the, at WABC?

• 1:11:41Speaker 02

  By the way, not the federal holiday Juneteenth, and nobody can tell you what Juneteenth is.

• 1:11:45Adam Friedland?

  All right.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  Mark it on your calendar, June 19th, 1992, I'm going to WABC, I'm in a cab, bang, bang, bang, five times with hollow point bullets.

• 1:11:55Adam Friedland?

  And they hit you every, every one of those five times?

• 1:11:57Speaker 02

  Well, they fired six shots, this is Michael Leonati, he was the hitman, they told him, Little Nick Carazo, Jojo Carazo and Canarsie, the Gambino Crime Family, they got the contract on me, because the father was disappointed that Junior didn't do the job with the baseball bats. And they told Michael Iannati, do not shoot Sliwa in the head.

• 1:12:18Adam Friedland?

  Why?

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Shoot him throughout the body, bleed him out, put the last bullet right there between his eyes.

• 1:12:23Adam Friedland?

  Oh, because they want you to be in pain before they kill you?

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  No, because they know you can't move then. It's gonna be an easy headshot. Iannati tells him, "I'm the hitman. Don't you tell me what to do." First shot was right at the head. I didn't do any Bruce Lee move.

• 1:12:38Adam Friedland?

  You dodged?

• 1:12:39Speaker 02

  Wah! No, it just missed. It went right through the back window.

• 1:12:42Adam Friedland?

  From one foot?

• 1:12:43Speaker 02

  He missed!

• 1:12:44Adam Friedland?

  But he's one foot away.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, it happens.

• 1:12:46Adam Friedland?

  They got this idiot.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  It happens. And then he starts firing away. I got hit five times and I jumped out of a moving cab.

• 1:12:52Adam Friedland?

  At your...

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  A- aerated me. He was aiming...

• 1:12:55Adam Friedland?

  But he's trying for your dick?

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, my three-piece set. And that's not the knife, the spoon, and the fork, okay?

• 1:13:00Adam Friedland?

  So he's trying to go head-dick?

• 1:13:01Speaker 02

  Exactly!

• 1:13:03Adam Friedland?

  That's alright.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  You see, now you're, now you're learning.

• 1:13:05Adam Friedland?

  So question, like, um, you, when I've heard, uh, read about you telling the story, there was a guy under the glove box with the gun?

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  That's Michael Iannati.

• 1:13:13Adam Friedland?

  How, how small was he?

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  Under the dashboard.

• 1:13:15Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, how small was he?

• 1:13:17Speaker 02

  Not that small. He's a big dude.

• 1:13:19Adam Friedland?

  How much room was there under a dashboard?

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  Hey, what do you think? I, I measured it. What do you think? I was like, trying to build a closet under there?

• 1:13:25Adam Friedland?

  But that's a really small place. It's just like...

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  Would you like to simulate that? We can, we can hotwire a yellow cab and we can actually drive it in front of your studio here. And I can showcase to you how you could fit underneath a dashboard.

• 1:13:38Adam Friedland?

  Well, I, what I thought was that in Ocean's Eleven, the Chinese guy, when he, they put him in the box, yeah, yeah. That, well, I only know...

• 1:13:45Speaker 02

  This guy is making a joke out of something.

• 1:13:46Adam Friedland?

  It's not a joke. It's not a joke, but I was just like...

• 1:13:48Speaker 02

  Is this comedy or what?

• 1:13:50Adam Friedland?

  It's just that, I'm not making a joke of it. I'm just like, the, the first thought I had was like, that guy's just sitting there like, like cramped for like hours. And he's like, "Let me know when Sliwa's in here so I can go out and boom, boom." You know, like, it's just, uh, I don't know. That was just the image I had in my mind. Yeah.

• 1:14:05Speaker 02

  But you really think that this jadru, uh, this guy who couldn't chew gum and think at the same time, Michael Iannati?

• 1:14:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:13Speaker 02

  You really think he thought this out? Or he was just...

• 1:14:16Adam Friedland?

  No, no, it's just like, those guys are, just seem to be like, complete, like, uh, like, uh, like they hit, they bonked their head a little bit.

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  Still not.

• 1:14:22Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  It's like, guys like this in the neighborhood, I would always ask the old timers.

• 1:14:27Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  I'd say, "Why is, why is he called Crazy Vinnie, Crazy Sal, Crazy Joey?"

• 1:14:33Adam Friedland?

  Cause he's a little retarded?

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  Cause he fell on his head at birth and they had to put a plate in his head. And I said, "Could everybody in this, this Canarsie of mine have been born and then had a plate put in their head?"

• 1:14:44Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:45Speaker 02

  And became a geriatric, espresso-sipping, psychotic killer of organized crime? I ask you that?

• 1:14:52Adam Friedland?

  No, no, I mean, it's, their mothers probably drank a lot when they were in there.

• 1:14:56Speaker 02

  You seem a little frightened. You seem, you're schwitzing a little bit on your show.

• 1:14:59Adam Friedland?

  No, not, because I have the angels with me right now. I'm not scared at all.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Oh, no, that's okay.

• 1:15:03Adam Friedland?

  If he wanted to try something, I'd be good. I'd go, go ahead and try.

• 1:15:07Speaker 02

  Is he wearing his Depends? Cause I don't want him to have an X-lax attack. Yeah, very embarrassing.

• 1:15:11Adam Friedland?

  I'm not, I'm not wearing a diaper right now at all. But, okay, wait, so, so you, you get out of the car because...

• 1:15:18Speaker 02

  I jump out of the car.

• 1:15:19Adam Friedland?

  Because the, the backseat is, is, uh...

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  They have stolen that cab.

• 1:15:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  And took it to the biggest chop shop in the Northeast, Carmine Agnello, son-in-law of John Gotti Sr.

• 1:15:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:30Speaker 02

  Married to Victoria the putan, right?

• 1:15:34Adam Friedland?

  The bit, the, the prostitute, Victoria the prostitute?

• 1:15:37Speaker 02

  You remember she had that A and E special? Victoria Gotti and the Three Little Jadrus?

• 1:15:43Adam Friedland?

  Oh, the wife. Oh, yeah, I remember the show.

• 1:15:44Speaker 02

  Where they had to have subtitles?

• 1:15:45Adam Friedland?

  Gori Abadi, I remember the show, yeah.

• 1:15:46Speaker 02

  It was tougher to understand Ozzy Osbourne. You had to have subtitles. Her three sons, she claimed one of them was going to Harvard. Had to have subtitles. You couldn't even understand what these knuckle draggers were saying. It's in their DNA. So anyway, Carmine Agnello took the yellow cab and customized it. As you said, they cut the handles off inside, put them back on with crazy glue.

• 1:16:09Adam Friedland?

  So you couldn't get out?

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  Because little Nick, Nick Carraga, who grew up with me and hated me and I hated him, uh, we were like two scorpions in a Brandy glass. Said, "Curtis will try to fight his way out. He will reach for the handle." And when he reaches for the handle, he's gonna get the handle and then you pop more lead into him.

• 1:16:26Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, well, I think anyone would try to get out.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  And that's exactly what they did.

• 1:16:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so these were guys from the old neighborhood. Like, you had, you had history with the old neighborhood.

• 1:16:32Speaker 02

  They were mostly from Canarsie, yeah.

• 1:16:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Um, wait, so then, so then in order to get out, cause it's just an incredible story. In order to get out, you leapt forward, crossed the driver, and then, and got out the window. Is that correct?

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  Right over the gunman. The gunman was sitting right there.

• 1:16:46Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Speaker 02

  Right, and I went right over his shoulder halfway out. So D'Angelo, who is the driver, smashes me into the parked car. They figure that's it. He pulls away and then Iannati puts the last bullet in my back and pushes me out. And they figure I'm dead on arrival.

• 1:17:03Adam Friedland?

  Did you feel like you were dead? Like, you were gonna die?

• 1:17:06Speaker 02

  I was bleeding out back.

• 1:17:07Adam Friedland?

  You were terrified?

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  So I'm right on the corner of, uh, East Sixth Street and Avenue B.

• 1:17:11Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 1:17:12Speaker 02

  This is when it was the alphabet junk.

• 1:17:13Adam Friedland?

  So you're in the alphabet city, so it's also a dangerous place?

• 1:17:15Speaker 02

  It is when it was bad.

• 1:17:16Adam Friedland?

  With junkies, yeah.

• 1:17:17Speaker 02

  Exactly. It's not like it is now where you'd have to take a reverse mortgage and a payday loan just to rent a closet.

• 1:17:23Adam Friedland?

  NYU's throwing up on the street.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  Exactly, okay. So I'm on the ground and who happened to be on a payphone? No cell phones back then. But a member of the Hells Angels. That was their gin mill right there, B and Sixth Street. So he turns me over, cause he sees I'm bleeding out. Says, "Curtis, don't die on us." And all the Hells Angels run out and they're looking at me. And then all of a sudden, one of them yells, "The cab, it's coming back. The cab is coming back." So what do you think all these roided up monsters of Mayan do?

• 1:17:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  They run back into the bar.

• 1:17:53Adam Friedland?

  They ran away?

• 1:17:53Speaker 02

  They ran into the bar. I'm sitting there, right, laying out, and I'm watching this cab come to me. And it happens not to have been the same cab, but it was some guy speaking Farsi, you know, on a CB radio.

• 1:18:04Adam Friedland?

  Oh, a different guy?

• 1:18:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, he just missed me. The next thing you know, the meat wagon shows up, 5-0, the police show up. They scrape me up all over the asphalt. They put me in a body bag. They pump it up with air, the way you would pump up a bicycle.

• 1:18:17Adam Friedland?

  Wait, they thought you were dead?

• 1:18:18Speaker 02

  Uh, I was bleeding out real quick.

• 1:18:21Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 1:18:21Speaker 02

  When I was in that bag, you know, where they were trying to suppress the bleeding, you could hear my blood sloshing.

• 1:18:26Adam Friedland?

  Oh, my word.

• 1:18:27Speaker 02

  Then they took me to Bellevue, hit every pothole imaginable. I, I felt like it was Snoop Dogg and, uh, Dr. Dre driving, you know, hydraulics.

• 1:18:36Adam Friedland?

  A rough ride, yeah.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  And then the moment they get me into the, uh, ER, I remember the scalpel, they were cutting me open. Two days later, I wake, uh, wake up in the ICU. It's a meat locker.

• 1:18:48Adam Friedland?

  It's a miracle.

• 1:18:48Speaker 02

  They got tubes in every orifice in my body. Who's the first person I woke up to?

• 1:18:53Adam Friedland?

  Your butt, sorry.

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  Who do you think was the first person I woke up to? My enemy of all enemies. No, no, she was there, but she was not the first. Oh, God forbid.

• 1:19:02Adam Friedland?

  Your enemy of all enemies? Uh, Ed Koch?

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  Yes!

• 1:19:06Adam Friedland?

  No!

• 1:19:06Speaker 02

  Ed Koch was right there, yes!

• 1:19:08Adam Friedland?

  No! And you, did you guys, you guys made peace, you and Koch?

• 1:19:13Speaker 02

  So I'm looking at Ed Koch.

• 1:19:15Adam Friedland?

  Do you want one?

• 1:19:16Speaker 02

  And remember, I'm still, no, please.

• 1:19:18Adam Friedland?

  Okay, you don't drink water?

• 1:19:19Speaker 02

  I don't know what you're putting in that water.

• 1:19:20Adam Friedland?

  It's, it's sealed.

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  Is, is that from the River Jordan? Is that holy water?

• 1:19:24Adam Friedland?

  Why are you making this about Jewish?

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  Is that how Jesus was baptized?

• 1:19:27Adam Friedland?

  No, it's a sentient...

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  By John the Baptist?

• 1:19:29Adam Friedland?

  It comes from Jersey, probably.

• 1:19:30Speaker 02

  Did you ever see the River Jordan? You see, it's a little trickle now. It's all bleeding. Your next war there is gonna be not over oil or olive oil. It's gonna be over water. But anyway, I divert to the Middle East.

• 1:19:40Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, no, it's true. Yes, yeah. But you know they have desal, what, we don't have to talk about it.

• 1:19:44Speaker 02

  Why, why are you digressing?

• 1:19:46Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm not digressing. You brought up fucking Israel again. You're obsessed with Israel. You, you're just like Cuomo. You're just like Cuomo. You're just like Cuomo. Okay, wait, wait.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  I am not a Cuomo sexual.

• 1:19:55Adam Friedland?

  You are, you are the Cuomo sexual. You were on the Cuomo sexual float at Pride yesterday.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  By the way, let me get back to here. So, I wake up and it's the image of Ed Koch and I thought I died and went to hell without an asbestos suit. I look over Cardinal O'Connor. He's got the extra munchin vests on. This is the death right vestments. Just in case I kicked it. And then in the middle was my wife Lisa and I recognized, wow, I survived for another day.

• 1:20:23Adam Friedland?

  Holy shit.

• 1:20:24Speaker 02

  It wasn't until 12 years later that they indicted John Gotti Jr., Iannati, and D'Angelo for the kidnapping and attempted killing.

• 1:20:31Adam Friedland?

  And that was in the Racketeering case, 2005, correct? And you testified?

• 1:20:35Speaker 02

  I testified three times. There were four trials.

• 1:20:38Adam Friedland?

  Four trials.

• 1:20:38Speaker 02

  Wait, say, I, it put four, so. I testified three times. There were four trials. He skated on technicalities. Iannati, the gunman, got 20 years. He's out. And D'Angelo became a cooperating witness, told the story the way I did. And I think he owns a pizza parlor now somewhere on Staten Island.

• 1:20:55Adam Friedland?

  Alright. So, and so after this happens, like, how did you, like, how did you, were you ever afraid that they would try to get you again or...

• 1:21:02Speaker 02

  Oh, they were trying to. There was no doubt.

• 1:21:05Adam Friedland?

  Did you, like, do you have anyone, like, like in your family, wise guys or something like that? That could have, like, that could have, like, been, like, leave the boy alone?

• 1:21:11Speaker 02

  There were some extended relatives. How do I put this?

• 1:21:14Adam Friedland?

  Did they try to be like, just don't kill Curtis? He's a good guy?

• 1:21:17Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:21:17Adam Friedland?

  No.

• 1:21:18Speaker 02

  There were some extended relatives I had who lived in Howard Beach, you know, old Howard Beach, not new Howard Beach.

• 1:21:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:24Speaker 02

  And after I had recovered, was sitting around, you know, Sunday, they're not wearing any, uh, Guinea t-shirts on, you know, they're just bare chest.

• 1:21:31Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:32Speaker 02

  "Hey, you know, Curtis, you deserved that." I said, "Oh, tell me, tell me."

• 1:21:36Adam Friedland?

  Your family?

• 1:21:37Speaker 02

  Yes. Why, why did I deserve it? Cause you're a rat. You eating the Parmesan cheese.

• 1:21:42Adam Friedland?

  Oh, merita.

• 1:21:42Speaker 02

  And you know what I told them? "I'm the biggest rat going. I love to eat Parmesan cheese."

• 1:21:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  And they looked at me and said, "That's why they tried to kill you."

• 1:21:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. And did you stop talking to those people or are you, they're still a family?

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  Oh, they're family. Blood is sticking to water.

• 1:21:57Adam Friedland?

  That's how I feel, that's how I feel. I feel the same way about some of my guys. They drive me, they drive me with sugar, but I'm like, yeah.

• 1:22:02Speaker 02

  You gotta keep all together, you know, it's very tribal, very tribal.

• 1:22:06Adam Friedland?

  So from 92 to 2015, there, I, I see kind of this period of like, you, between the shooting and then 2015, you kind of like, try to get the, the band back together, so to speak.

• 1:22:17Speaker 02

  Ooh, I like that.

• 1:22:18Adam Friedland?

  Right. Yeah, so there's like this period where there's like, uh, there was a, a series of slashings on the subways.

• 1:22:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:22:24Adam Friedland?

  And you're like, I, I have this image of, of you in my mind where you're like, you're like going, like, there's a guy like, you know, doing welding with Sparks and he takes his mask up and he's like, "I need you to do one last job." Did you hit up, what was your first call? Dawn?

• 1:22:39Speaker 02

  What a great comic that would be.

• 1:22:40Adam Friedland?

  Would Don, Don was your first call?

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  You think you could create this like Marvel Comics, you know, about?

• 1:22:46Adam Friedland?

  I don't know. I see everything as a movie. All of this would, all of this would be a movie.

• 1:22:50Speaker 02

  Who created Marvel Comics?

• 1:22:51Adam Friedland?

  Stan Lee?

• 1:22:52Speaker 02

  That's right. What was your first?

• 1:22:55Adam Friedland?

  Jewish, yeah, Jewish, yeah.

• 1:22:56Speaker 02

  You could do the Curtis Lee with Guardian Angel comic book.

• 1:22:58Adam Friedland?

  You want me to? I wanted, we could do the movie.

• 1:23:00Speaker 02

  Oh, absolutely.

• 1:23:01Adam Friedland?

  We could do the movie because they tried to do a movie in the early 80s and then they tried to do a Law and Order SVU episode and we got to get it right for the first time.

• 1:23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was horrible.

• 1:23:09Adam Friedland?

  They're, they're fucking, they're rubbish.

• 1:23:11Speaker 02

  After that Law and Order episode, you actually felt empathy and sympathy for John Gotti Jr. and not for me.

• 1:23:17Adam Friedland?

  Yes, it's absolute rubbish.

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  That was horrible. But we got to start this way. We got to start, we can't go the whole nine yards.

• 1:23:22Adam Friedland?

  Let's go, let's go with this.

• 1:23:24Speaker 02

  Matchbook.

• 1:23:25Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 1:23:26Speaker 02

  Magazine cover, comic book, full novel.

• 1:23:30Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:30Speaker 02

  What do you think?

• 1:23:31Adam Friedland?

  I think, and what about a, a kind of like, um, maybe a mold of your manhood, the ladies?

• 1:23:37Speaker 02

  What do you say?

• 1:23:38Adam Friedland?

  What about that?

• 1:23:39Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 1:23:40Adam Friedland?

  What, but come on, you're a sex symbol a little bit.

• 1:23:42Speaker 02

  Are you a freak or what?

• 1:23:43Adam Friedland?

  I'm not saying, not for me, but for the ladies, for your dorky, your sexy.

• 1:23:46Speaker 02

  You must have mentioned phallic symbols about four times, four times. You mentioned phallic symbols.

• 1:23:51Adam Friedland?

  What are you, Sigmund Freud?

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  This guy's a freak!

• 1:23:53Adam Friedland?

  So, okay, so you come back 2015, there's a series of slashings. New York City's changed a lot.

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:23:59Adam Friedland?

  Okay, if you want to go from 1977 in the Bronx to like 2015, you've seen the city change and you've become part, you were part of its tapestry, as I said earlier, which is kind of an embarrassing kind of.

• 1:24:08Speaker 02

  Well, it changed from clearly all gangs, all the time.

• 1:24:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:12Speaker 02

  To now unfortunately, a lot of emotionally disturbed persons who act up at a moment's notice.

• 1:24:18Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. And, and, and do you, do you feel like, um, I've, I've heard you speak about the, the homeless, like, do you feel like it's, uh, I've, I've said this before, but like, um, in the future, it will seem like kind of ridiculous to people that we just walked past people suffering.

• 1:24:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, my father would take me to where you first discovered CBGBs. There was the Bowery and the Sixty.

• 1:24:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. It's a John Varvatos story.

• 1:24:40Speaker 02

  That's right. That was where all the flop houses were.

• 1:24:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:42Speaker 02

  Where you had to say a prayer at the Salvation of Army.

• 1:24:45Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:45Speaker 02

  Uh, and sing a song to Jesus in order to get your soup and bread.

• 1:24:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:49Speaker 02

  And my father would tell me, there by the grace of God, Curtis, go you, never make fun of these people, always help them. He'd have conversations with them. And I thought my dad was, had all the furniture upstairs and rearranged in the wrong rooms.

• 1:25:02Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  But I could see every time.

• 1:25:03Adam Friedland?

  But they were veterans, a lot of them too.

• 1:25:04Speaker 02

  Excuse me?

• 1:25:05Adam Friedland?

  He served, he was in the service and they were veterans a lot of these days.

• 1:25:08Speaker 02

  That's right. Merchant seamen.

• 1:25:09Adam Friedland?

  And we kind of abandoned them when they came back home.

• 1:25:11Speaker 02

  They weren't merchants.

• 1:25:12Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:25:13Speaker 02

  Like Jews and Chinese and Lebanese. They were merchant seamen. They were considered the scourge of the earth.

• 1:25:19Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:20Speaker 02

  You know what they used to say? Oh, the seamen are coming. Hide your daughters and wives. They all have scurvy and they all have syphilis.

• 1:25:27Adam Friedland?

  Well, they were saying, oh yeah, that's not nice.

• 1:25:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Do I need to educate you on the history of that? You know, per capita, per person, more merchant seamen were killed in World War II than the other members of the uniformed service.

• 1:25:39Adam Friedland?

  More than the Marines or the Army. Is that right?

• 1:25:41Speaker 02

  Merchant marines, yes.

• 1:25:43Adam Friedland?

  Really? Where? In the Pacific Theater?

• 1:25:44Speaker 02

  Pacific and the Atlantic.

• 1:25:45Adam Friedland?

  The Pacific was hell.

• 1:25:46Speaker 02

  Remember, once the ship got hit with a torpedo, down to Davy Jones's locker.

• 1:25:51Adam Friedland?

  Oh, that's right, because they had a.

• 1:25:52Speaker 02

  They couldn't stop.

• 1:25:53Adam Friedland?

  The U-boats, yeah.

• 1:25:54Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 1:25:55Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, where?

• 1:25:56Speaker 02

  Nazis!

• 1:25:57Adam Friedland?

  No, no, yeah.

• 1:25:59Speaker 02

  Nazis!

• 1:26:00Adam Friedland?

  Wow, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:02Speaker 02

  Hey, by the way, didn't one of your people do Springtime for Hitler? Who is that again?

• 1:26:05Adam Friedland?

  No, Bruce.

• 1:26:06Speaker 02

  That's right!

• 1:26:08Adam Friedland?

  Okay, wait.

• 1:26:09Speaker 02

  And you know what he said about that when he got criticized? He said, I fought in the Battle of the Bulge against Nazis. What were you doing? Great response, Mel Brooks.

• 1:26:17Adam Friedland?

  We're fucking allowed to make jokes about Nazis and if you want to stop us, you can't, because that's the thing, we're allowed to make jokes about it. It's like, I love it. Okay, anyway, but like, I want to know about like, what is the bridge there to get you to like, are the, are the angels active in that period? Like, like, uh, do the, like, what, what inspires you to get like, to get a team back together, assemble a team? I'm assuming Don is your first call.

• 1:26:42Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:26:42Adam Friedland?

  The Mad Chinaman.

• 1:26:43Speaker 02

  Don was well off.

• 1:26:44Adam Friedland?

  He was at McDonald's corporate.

• 1:26:45Speaker 02

  Uh, corporate. He was selling french fries, you know, out in Idaho.

• 1:26:50Adam Friedland?

  I saw that, yeah. I looked him up. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:52Speaker 02

  Uh, but I stayed in touch with him, you know, as a friend. But really, this was more a pivot and shift. We had guardian angels all over the world now.

• 1:27:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 02

  And you have to try to say, what is the problem? What can we get our volunteers to do that is not being done? And increasingly, helping the homeless, helping the emotionally disturbed.

• 1:27:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:27:12Speaker 02

  And if you notice, all the candidates, they pay lip service, they don't do anything.

• 1:27:16Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:16Speaker 02

  Uh, de Blasio, he was too busy doing puff puff pass pass on the back.

• 1:27:20Adam Friedland?

  He was blazing the whole time.

• 1:27:22Speaker 02

  Oh my God, was he blazing.

• 1:27:23Adam Friedland?

  The whole time he was the mayor?

• 1:27:25Speaker 02

  Every night on the back porch of Gracie Mansion, he was doing puff puff pass pass.

• 1:27:29Adam Friedland?

  Maybe he had a sleeping issue, no?

• 1:27:30Speaker 02

  Uh, the problem is, he slept too much.

• 1:27:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, that's true.

• 1:27:34Speaker 02

  He didn't wake up.

• 1:27:35Adam Friedland?

  Especially during COVID, yeah, that's right.

• 1:27:36Speaker 02

  And then you had Eric Adams, swagger man with no plan, who would party to the break of dawn in every nightclub, the only way you could get him to your neighborhood. And now we have Zohar the Magnificent and Madame. They all talk about the homeless and the emotionally disturbed. You know what they do? Ugats. They do bupkis.

• 1:27:51Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:51Speaker 02

  And the people, as you said, they put window shades on their eyes, cotton balls in their ears. They don't want to deal with it.

• 1:27:59Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. What, what should we do? Like, you know, living in a city, you kind of have to like have a cognitive dissonance when you see, like, if it, if it really fully, when, when I first moved here, I moved here in 2014, like, the first time you see a truly suffering human being, it's, it's jarring. And you have to kind of like have horse blinders in order to just get to work on the train or like, you know, like, what do we as a society, like in your mind, what should, what should we do?

• 1:28:24Speaker 02

  Well, you can't become immune to that feeling. That initial feeling you had was the correct humanitarian feeling.

• 1:28:30Adam Friedland?

  It's an empathetic feeling, yeah.

• 1:28:31Speaker 02

  By yourself, it's difficult to do much. But if you mobilize and organize, which is how I was taught by my father, Rules for Radicals, you know? You never read Rules for Radicals, did you?

• 1:28:45Adam Friedland?

  Angela Davis?

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  No. Well, got close. Angela Davis, Soledad Brothers, right?

• 1:28:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:50Speaker 02

  That whole era, except, uh, this was Saul Alinsky.

• 1:28:53Adam Friedland?

  Saul Alinsky. Oh, that's Obama's boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:28:56Speaker 02

  And that's how you learn how to organize.

• 1:28:58Adam Friedland?

  So you like Obama?

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  Uh, Obama? Look, smooth operator, community organizer, but again, it's idolatry. Trump idolatry, Obama idolatry, Zohar idolatry, question authority.

• 1:29:11Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:11Speaker 02

  Never accept what they say. I don't trust any politicians.

• 1:29:14Adam Friedland?

  What, what, you like when the, we, we're getting a little bit ahead, but like, actually, fuck it. I want to talk about it. Like, when the, when the, when the microphones got cut at the end.

• 1:29:22Speaker 02

  How many F-bombs does that, are you keeping count there, young whip and snapper?

• 1:29:26Adam Friedland?

  I got a dirty mouth. I got a dirty mouth. I got a dirty mouth. I'm a blue comedian. Okay. Wait, but like when the microphones were cut, like, what were they like as guys like Cuomo and, and Zohar, like, just as guys, like, interacting with him?

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  Andrew evilized Cuomo was exactly as he appeared.

• 1:29:42Adam Friedland?

  He was a jerk?

• 1:29:43Speaker 02

  Dystopian.

• 1:29:44Adam Friedland?

  He was a jerk to you?

• 1:29:45Speaker 02

  Uh, he felt he was entitled.

• 1:29:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:48Speaker 02

  He wanted a coronation.

• 1:29:50Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:51Speaker 02

  Uh, I felt he was evil.

• 1:29:53Adam Friedland?

  Okay.

• 1:29:53Speaker 02

  I could feel the evilness. Now, I knew his father, Mario.

• 1:29:58Adam Friedland?

  And his father actually, I, I think perhaps, you could correct me if I'm wrong, perhaps the rivalry with Koch inspired this, but he actually praised you as lieutenant governor.

• 1:30:08Speaker 02

  He was the first elected official to support us and praise us. And yeah, part of that was his rivalry with Koch who hated us.

• 1:30:14Adam Friedland?

  It's a little bit mean to what he said.

• 1:30:15Speaker 02

  But he was genuine.

• 1:30:16Adam Friedland?

  No, no, but the slogan against Koch, vote for Cuomo.

• 1:30:19Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, well, that Andrew came up with. You see, Andrew always denies that.

• 1:30:23Adam Friedland?

  Andrew came up with that for his dad.

• 1:30:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:30:24Adam Friedland?

  Not the.

• 1:30:25Speaker 02

  He was the campaign manager at 23.

• 1:30:27Adam Friedland?

  Oh, wow, for his dad, yeah.

• 1:30:29Speaker 02

  And so his dad was losing to Ed Koch. They had a runoff in the Democratic primary in 1977.

• 1:30:35Adam Friedland?

  And they said, vote for Cuomo, not the homo.

• 1:30:37Speaker 02

  And then all of a sudden, they came up with this idea, Andrew Cuomo, and they said, Dad, you got to go for this or you're going to lose to Ed Koch.

• 1:30:42Adam Friedland?

  Because he's a gay man.

• 1:30:44Speaker 02

  Vote for Cuomo, not the homo. They had them all printed up. His dad, it was like the Hamlet of the Hudson, who always should I, shouldn't I? Took 38 seconds to agree.

• 1:30:52Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:52Speaker 02

  The next day, the polls showed that Ed Koch was plummeting. And then David Garth, who was his campaign manager, said, Ed, I got this, don't worry. Called up Bess Myerson, the most beautiful Jewish woman who ever existed, the first Miss America. Every boobie and zater said, I hope my son or grandson will be with Bess Myerson.

• 1:31:11Adam Friedland?

  Bess Myerson?

• 1:31:12Speaker 02

  Bess Myerson. And then David Garth convinced her, I want you to attach yourself to Ed Koch, because he was gay.

• 1:31:18Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 1:31:19Speaker 02

  But pretend that if Ed gets elected mayor, as you swap spit everywhere you go.

• 1:31:25Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:25Speaker 02

  That you're going to have a marriage in Gracie Mansion. And all the boobies and zaters, all the Jewish old ladies who are playing Mahjong, you know, at the.

• 1:31:33Adam Friedland?

  So Bess does a beard for him?

• 1:31:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:31:36Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, okay, cool.

• 1:31:37Speaker 02

  And a very good beard, I might add.

• 1:31:38Adam Friedland?

  So why didn't she want to find a husband, like a nice, like a guy that wasn't gay?

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  No, I think she was doing it more as a favor to David Garth. Uh, she was very.

• 1:31:46Adam Friedland?

  Who's David Garth?

• 1:31:47Speaker 02

  He, he was the campaign manager who got John Lindsay elected, Ed Koch elected, and Michael Barchi Trudy Giuliani elected.

• 1:31:55Adam Friedland?

  Ooh, Bess! I'm looking at pics right now.

• 1:31:57Speaker 02

  He was wild. He was out of control, but he knew politics.

• 1:32:00Adam Friedland?

  Oh, this is a, this is, wow, she's quite a looker, this woman.

• 1:32:03Speaker 02

  You see, I'm teaching you something. This is a teaching moment for you. The Gentile is teaching the mooker boy. The mooker boy.

• 1:32:11Adam Friedland?

  I wasn't around in the olden days.

• 1:32:12Speaker 02

  Did you study Talmud? Did you study Torah?

• 1:32:14Adam Friedland?

  No one knows what's in the Talmud unless you're one of those guys in South Williamsburg.

• 1:32:17Speaker 02

  No, come on, you must have studied. Come on.

• 1:32:19Adam Friedland?

  No, it's the most boring.

• 1:32:20Speaker 02

  You see, they teach you there to question authority, right? You question the rabbi. This is what I believe in life. You must question.

• 1:32:26Adam Friedland?

  It's the most boring debates about like, oh, and if you do this, can you keep the Shabbos if you do, blah, blah, blah. The rabbi's talking about the most boring, it's rules.

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  But you do question the rabbi, you see? In real life, we are told, don't question our leaders.

• 1:32:38Adam Friedland?

  It's all, it's a story about like.

• 1:32:39Speaker 02

  I, I've been, I've sat there in Jerusalem and watched that.

• 1:32:42Adam Friedland?

  It's a fake thing.

• 1:32:43Speaker 02

  It was an enlightening experience.

• 1:32:45Adam Friedland?

  I mean, it's a fake thing.

• 1:32:46Speaker 02

  It almost made me want to get a bris.

• 1:32:48Adam Friedland?

  Did you, so you're, you got, you added us as an adult man? It might hurt.

• 1:32:53Speaker 02

  No, I wasn't. Look, I am an AMP Catholic. Ashes on Wednesday, palms on Sunday, then you don't see me for a month of Sundays.

• 1:33:00Adam Friedland?

  AMPF, forced it.

• 1:33:01Speaker 02

  So if I'm dissatisfied with one religion, you think I'm going to convert to another religion?

• 1:33:05Adam Friedland?

  But religions, they're all ridiculous. It's like the one that you, if you're born onto one and it's the right one, it's like stupid.

• 1:33:11Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:33:12Adam Friedland?

  Because what about another guy? He's born into another one, he thinks it's the right one.

• 1:33:15Speaker 02

  See? And by the way.

• 1:33:17Adam Friedland?

  It's stupid.

• 1:33:17Speaker 02

  Look at all the evangelicals, right? They love the Israelis, but then on the day of rapture, when it's all over.

• 1:33:23Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:33:24Speaker 02

  The Messiah comes down.

• 1:33:25Adam Friedland?

  You think that's ridiculous that you believe?

• 1:33:28Speaker 02

  Either the Jews convert or they die, right?

• 1:33:29Adam Friedland?

  They think there has to be a cow that's red or something ridiculous.

• 1:33:32Speaker 02

  So let me ask you a question. Why do you put up with this nonsense?

• 1:33:36Adam Friedland?

  What do you mean put up with the nonsense? What do you mean? What do I put up with?

• 1:33:40Speaker 02

  See, he's asking questions.

• 1:33:42Adam Friedland?

  No, I'm asking you, like, I'm asking you, I'm asking you, like, what do you qualify to put up? What am I gonna fight them? Like, right, no, I speak.

• 1:33:50Speaker 02

  Question, question authority, question the evangelical.

• 1:33:53Adam Friedland?

  I've spoken very publicly about my opinions on, uh, on what's happened over there.

• 1:33:57Speaker 02

  This is good.

• 1:33:58Adam Friedland?

  And that it is.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  Why are we talking about Israel and the Palestinians again? Why do you always keep bringing it back to that subject?

• 1:34:04Adam Friedland?

  You just brought it up.

• 1:34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you have a tick. You have like a knee jerk reaction every time I mention it.

• 1:34:08Adam Friedland?

  Curtis, you're doing a honeypot where you're setting the trap and I respond to you and then you say that I brought it up.

• 1:34:13Speaker 02

  Did you ever have honey buns? You know, honey buns.

• 1:34:15Adam Friedland?

  You and, it's a classic, you and Don Chan doing a honeypot.

• 1:34:18Speaker 02

  Did you ever have honey buns?

• 1:34:19Adam Friedland?

  Yes.

• 1:34:20Speaker 02

  In jail, that's like currency. Honey buns.

• 1:34:22Adam Friedland?

  I know, I was in the.

• 1:34:24Speaker 02

  And Newport mentos. You gotta have the box, not the soft.

• 1:34:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:34:30Speaker 02

  You think you could survive in jail?

• 1:34:31Adam Friedland?

  I would be top dog.

• 1:34:32Speaker 02

  Now, you'd be a Maytag.

• 1:34:34Adam Friedland?

  I would, they would eat me alive. They would eat me alive.

• 1:34:36Speaker 02

  Punk City, protective custody.

• 1:34:38Adam Friedland?

  No, I joined Muslim Brotherhood, I think.

• 1:34:42Adam Friedland?

  Why not, why? I joined the Brothers.

• 1:34:45Speaker 02

  That's eight, that's eight.

• 1:34:47Adam Friedland?

  He likes that, he likes me.

• 1:34:48Speaker 02

  That's good, that's good.

• 1:34:49Adam Friedland?

  Wait, wait, okay. So I wanna talk, like, what was, you said Cuomo was a jerk? What was Zorong like when they cut the mics?

• 1:34:56Speaker 02

  Zorong was interesting.

• 1:34:57Adam Friedland?

  He's a nice guy, or a regular, or?

• 1:35:00Speaker 02

  What it was is, obviously, he's got that.

• 1:35:02Adam Friedland?

  He's talented.

• 1:35:03Speaker 02

  That smile, 24/7, 365. But I had seen him in action in the streets. You know, they say he's the Manchurian Kennedy.

• 1:35:11Adam Friedland?

  Campaigning, yeah.

• 1:35:12Speaker 02

  He was organizing. Do you know the DSA only has 15,000 members in all of New York City?

• 1:35:17Adam Friedland?

  What's DSA?

• 1:35:19Speaker 02

  Democratic Socialists of America. The ones who've taken over the Democratic Party. Like, 15,000.

• 1:35:24Adam Friedland?

  Are they good or bad?

• 1:35:26Speaker 02

  Well, it depends what the issue is, right? Like any group. Republicans, Democrats, MAGA, conservatives, independent, whatever the issue. But the point is, they work hard, and that's why they're winning elections.

• 1:35:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, they're pounding the pavement.

• 1:35:40Speaker 02

  Oy, bay, how do they do this? Cause they're out there. They're working hard by day and then they party till the break of dawn at night. What does every young person wanna do after a hard day's work?

• 1:35:49Adam Friedland?

  Party, yeah.

• 1:35:50Speaker 02

  And hook up, right?

• 1:35:51Adam Friedland?

  And that's just like, just like Eric Adams.

• 1:35:52Speaker 02

  Right. Now, people who supported me and the homosexuals who supported Cuomo, they'd come out and they'd work hard for one day. And then they had to get Epsom salts for their dogs. They were barking, they had to take Band-Aids. You didn't see them for another three days.

• 1:36:07Adam Friedland?

  But I think, I gotta tell you, I think you, for those Zorong guys, like, last Halloween, you were like the biggest costume.

• 1:36:15Speaker 02

  Zorongistas, they're Zorongistas.

• 1:36:16Adam Friedland?

  You were like the biggest costume in New York City. Like, everyone became quite fond of you in the election, whether or not, besides the Cuomo guys.

• 1:36:24Speaker 02

  Well, remember the famous.

• 1:36:25Adam Friedland?

  They all became quite fond of, you became like, uh, like, uh.

• 1:36:28Speaker 02

  We know how that happened.

• 1:36:29Adam Friedland?

  A hit, yeah.

• 1:36:30Speaker 02

  Debate number two. Errol Lewis, New York One, asked a question.

• 1:36:34Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:35Speaker 02

  If there was ranked choice voting in a general election.

• 1:36:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:39Speaker 02

  Andrew Cuomo, who would you vote for? Nobody. And then he turned to Zorong Mandami. If there were ranked choice voting in a general election, who would you vote for, Zorong Mandami? Oh, I'd vote for Curtis. And that's when I popped that line that went all over the world.

• 1:36:55Adam Friedland?

  What'd you say?

• 1:36:56Speaker 02

  Stop glazing me, Zorong. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:01Adam Friedland?

  Wait, wait, you had that, you had the, you talked about the cab? And then the other one was when you talked about that you love EDM music.

• 1:37:07Speaker 02

  Oh, electronic dance mu- uh, music. The Chainsmokers, I'd listen at night after everybody told me to drop out, drop out, drop out. "Don't Let Me Down," by Dire. "Don't Let Me Down, Don't Let Me..." And then in the morning, four hours later, I'd put on Bun. "Today is the greatest day of my life," that great Berlin EDM guy.

• 1:37:26Adam Friedland?

  Wow. Do you like, uh, uh, uh, Fox's, uh, what's the song that we like, Caleb?

• 1:37:32Speaker 02

  What is this, uh, what is?

• 1:37:34Adam Friedland?

  What?

• 1:37:36Adam Friedland?

  Clarity, do you like Clarity by Zen featuring Fox's?

• 1:37:40Speaker 02

  Mecha, mecha, polka, polka.

• 1:37:41Adam Friedland?

  Okay, do you like, do you like Chainsmokers Coldplay? "I want something just like."

• 1:37:46Speaker 02

  Paris, yeah.

• 1:37:51Speaker 02

  This guy is not EDM, no.

• 1:37:52Adam Friedland?

  We like EDM here, we do.

• 1:37:54Speaker 02

  Do not associate him with electronic dance music. It is an insult.

• 1:37:58Adam Friedland?

  Why, why, why? I've got, people associate me with everything, except for, uh, wait, okay, so I just, like, you went through this experience, like, as a Republican candidate in New York City, which is like, at this point, Republican has changed. I mean, we had Mayor Lindsay, we had Pataki, you know, like.

• 1:38:14Speaker 02

  And Rudy.

• 1:38:14Adam Friedland?

  We had Rudy, right? And then we have, you know, like, Bloomberg was kind of a bisexual or whatever you wanna call.

• 1:38:20Speaker 02

  Who was that?

• 1:38:21Adam Friedland?

  Mayor Bloomberg, I said, whatever, he was some, some type of something.

• 1:38:25Speaker 02

  He was whoever he could buy.

• 1:38:26Adam Friedland?

  He was anything.

• 1:38:27Speaker 02

  Mayor Bloomberg thought everybody had a price.

• 1:38:29Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:38:30Speaker 02

  Everybody had a price.

• 1:38:31Adam Friedland?

  But nowadays, in New York City, it's about like, what, it's like 25% Republican.

• 1:38:36Speaker 02

  No, much less, 10%.

• 1:38:37Adam Friedland?

  10%, okay. So like, what in your mind is being a Republican and living in New York City at this, at this point?

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, you live in the cloud of Donald Trump and MAGA.

• 1:38:48Adam Friedland?

  And you think it colors what a Republican is.

• 1:38:50Speaker 02

  Well, yes, but to give you an example.

• 1:38:53Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:54Speaker 02

  I'm in gay pride yesterday. I got nothing but cheers.

• 1:38:57Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:58Speaker 02

  The schmuck, the putz, Chuck E. Cheese, Schumer got booed. Does that tell you it's not about your political party, but how people relate to you?

• 1:39:06Adam Friedland?

  Could have been.

• 1:39:07Speaker 02

  When they see me, they don't necessarily see Trump.

• 1:39:10Adam Friedland?

  But they, it could have been the beret.

• 1:39:11Speaker 02

  Trump hates me.

• 1:39:12Adam Friedland?

  No, they could have, the beret, they like fashion.

• 1:39:15Speaker 02

  What are you trying to say? It's like Che Guevara, the red beret, whatever?

• 1:39:17Adam Friedland?

  No, no, I'm trying to say gay guys are like, that's fierce.

• 1:39:20Speaker 02

  Cool, hip, happening.

• 1:39:21Adam Friedland?

  No, no, I, I think that they might think it's like fierce.

• 1:39:24Speaker 02

  Explain yourself, as Ricky Ricardo would say to Lucy. Explain yourself, young man.

• 1:39:28Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:29Speaker 02

  One yam?

• 1:39:30Adam Friedland?

  She would be really annoying to Ricky, you know?

• 1:39:32Speaker 02

  Who was that?

• 1:39:32Adam Friedland?

  Uh, Lucy.

• 1:39:33Speaker 02

  You know the accuser of being a communist?

• 1:39:36Adam Friedland?

  Really?

• 1:39:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, you didn't know that? Lucille Ball and Humphrey Bogart?

• 1:39:40Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:40Speaker 02

  And Laurel Bacall, when Joe McCarthy, Machine Gun Joe, said.

• 1:39:46Adam Friedland?

  Did you ever meet Roy Cohn?

• 1:39:47Speaker 02

  And it, oh my God, gay is the day as long.

• 1:39:50Adam Friedland?

  I know, but did you meet him?

• 1:39:51Speaker 02

  And tried to expose him. Yes, I did.

• 1:39:53Adam Friedland?

  What was, what was that guy like?

• 1:39:55Speaker 02

  Uh, he was in a Cadillac DeVille, no top.

• 1:40:00Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:00Speaker 02

  You know, convertible, with a guy who had to be like 22.

• 1:40:04Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:05Speaker 02

  He had the man tan, you know, the tan you get out of the can all over him. And they were driving out to the Hamptons. Meantime, he would go out of his way to accuse people of being communists and gays. This was a self-hating game.

• 1:40:17Adam Friedland?

  He sent the Rosenbergs to the, to be executed.

• 1:40:20Speaker 02

  Horrible.

• 1:40:21Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, he was a Jewish guy, too.

• 1:40:22Speaker 02

  And running around with J. Edgar Hoover, who by the way.

• 1:40:25Adam Friedland?

  Cross dresser.

• 1:40:26Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, so over Cardinal Smolten, yes, yes. You see, the ones who hated them the most, unfortunately, were self-hating gays.

• 1:40:34Adam Friedland?

  How many times have you interacted with the president over the?

• 1:40:37Speaker 02

  Donald Trump?

• 1:40:38Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:38Speaker 02

  Oh, Citizen Trump. I had a love-hate relationship with him for at least 30 years.

• 1:40:43Adam Friedland?

  30 years.

• 1:40:44Speaker 02

  Uh, since he was president, zero, none.

• 1:40:46Adam Friedland?

  What do you make of him as a person? Like, what, like, what's going on there psychologically? Listen, independent of politics, like, what, what's the, where's the pain? Like, what made Trump, Trump?

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  It's an I am, he's an I and me guy. It's all about Donald Trump. It's not about MAGA or Republicans or America. It's what is in the best interest of Donald Trump.

• 1:41:06Adam Friedland?

  But that has to come from somewhere, you know?

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  Uh, I would say a lot of insecurity probably when he was young.

• 1:41:13Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:13Speaker 02

  You know, Fred was the dad, Fred was the builder. He constantly clashed. Do you know his father Fred couldn't even handle him? You know where he sent Donald Trump for high school?

• 1:41:24Adam Friedland?

  Military school.

• 1:41:25Speaker 02

  That's right, US Military Academy upstate. You know who also went there at a different time? John Gotti Jr. because John Gotti senior was in prison and couldn't handle his son. So where do you send sons who rebel against their fathers?

• 1:41:39Adam Friedland?

  Uh huh.

• 1:41:40Speaker 02

  US Military Academy. Look at LaSalle in Long Island. That used to have the Cosinosture win.

• 1:41:45Adam Friedland?

  How'd you avoid going, cause you, you, when you were a young man, there was the draft.

• 1:41:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:41:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, how did you get out of that?

• 1:41:50Speaker 02

  Oh, I was part of the anti-war movement.

• 1:41:52Adam Friedland?

  Did you burn your car?

• 1:41:53Speaker 02

  No, I didn't burn my car. Luckily, the number didn't get called. They were phasing it out then. Gerald Ford, who replaced that crook, Richard Nixon, who claimed he was gonna end the war and just expanded it.

• 1:42:05Adam Friedland?

  Well, Kissinger just kept the war going.

• 1:42:07Speaker 02

  Oh my God, Kissinger was who disgraced.

• 1:42:09Adam Friedland?

  That guy goes to hell.

• 1:42:11Speaker 02

  By the way.

• 1:42:11Adam Friedland?

  First ballot Hall of Fame, hell.

• 1:42:12Speaker 02

  Let me bring it back to Israel.

• 1:42:14Adam Friedland?

  No, stop it.

• 1:42:14Speaker 02

  So Israel is being attacked, right, by all the Arab armies. Do you know that Henry Kissinger, the Jew, who went to George Washington High School in Washington Heights, but had that accent? He advised Richard Nixon, don't help Israel, it'll anger the Soviet Union. Richard Nixon, the anti-Semite, said, no, no, no, no, I'm helping Israel. You see that? The anti-Semite helped.

• 1:42:37Adam Friedland?

  I gotta think about that one.

• 1:42:39Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no.

• 1:42:39Adam Friedland?

  I gotta think about that one. I don't know, I gotta look up on that, I gotta look up on what the, I'm a waiting seat guy, I got.

• 1:42:46Speaker 02

  Aliende, elected socialist leader.

• 1:42:49Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:42:50Speaker 02

  Of Chile. And he launched a coup with Pinochet. And they killed all the socialists.

• 1:42:56Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, Lumumba, Lumumba in the Congo.

• 1:42:58Speaker 02

  I know there are some out there, all socialists. Do you know how many things from socialists we benefit from in America?

• 1:43:05Adam Friedland?

  How many?

• 1:43:06Speaker 02

  40-day work week.

• 1:43:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:08Speaker 02

  Social security.

• 1:43:10Adam Friedland?

  40-hour work, yeah.

• 1:43:11Speaker 02

  Yes, I'm sorry, very good, thank you for correcting me.

• 1:43:13Adam Friedland?

  Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.

• 1:43:15Speaker 02

  Very, okay, go through the whole.

• 1:43:16Adam Friedland?

  What else, what else, what else?

• 1:43:17Speaker 02

  Public schools, libraries, go through the whole.

• 1:43:21Adam Friedland?

  And also, like, you saw firsthand, as an angel, the failure of the government to give services to its citizens.

• 1:43:29Speaker 02

  Now, now, we're getting to the, the issue, right to the marrow of the bone. I believe, if you're gonna trust government, you're gonna be disappointed, no matter who the leader is that you backed, or what party. They will always promise everything, and they can barely deliver.

• 1:43:43Adam Friedland?

  But let me cut you off. You were running for mayor, though, so do you think people should have trusted you, then?

• 1:43:48Speaker 02

  To a degree, because I believe more in self-help. I would have encouraged people, stop depending on government. When you see garbage in the street, is that because of government? Or is that because people are not cleaning up after themselves?

• 1:44:00Adam Friedland?

  It's because the trash, they're not picking, the government is picking up the trash.

• 1:44:03Speaker 02

  Because people are throwing the garbage all over the place, and they want the government to clean it up for them.

• 1:44:07Adam Friedland?

  So what do they do if you don't have the sanitation pick up the trash?

• 1:44:10Speaker 02

  My grandfather, Fidel Bianchino, who died at the age of 99.

• 1:44:13Adam Friedland?

  You make your parents' house into a dump.

• 1:44:14Speaker 02

  That's right, Fidel Bianchino, would sweep the whole block.

• 1:44:17Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 1:44:19Speaker 02

  But you see, back then, people had that philosophy. They'd get down on their hands and knees, they would scrub the sidewalks, and they would scrub the stoops, and not just their own property, other people's property. We've lost that. Our attitude now is, government should do everything for us.

• 1:44:35Adam Friedland?

  So, but, but, but what I'm saying is, the government didn't, there weren't patrolmen on the streets, right?

• 1:44:40Speaker 02

  You mean, police, right?

• 1:44:41Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, yeah. Every night, right, they're, they're, they just went away, and then crime, like, obviously, the government should have patrolmen.

• 1:44:50Speaker 02

  Oh, there are basic things they have to do, but when the government fails to deliver, which oftentimes they do, then people must mobilize and organize, and make up the difference. They have to. You need to scrape the barnacles off your backside, get your rearing gear, get out into the streets and make a difference. Do not wait for government to solve all the problems, because they'll be a dollar short and a day late, and they'll be picking your pocket along the way.

• 1:45:14Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. I guess, you spent a lot of time in poor places with poor people, right? And like, you've, you've helped poor people and underserved people throughout, I mean, since the late 70s. I mean, like, you've devoted your life to it. Do you think poverty creates crime?

• 1:45:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:45:35Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. So then, wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be more effective to fight poverty, then, I guess?

• 1:45:41Speaker 02

  Well, you can do both simultaneously, but I think also, the other problem is, most of the crime is committed by young males.

• 1:45:48Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:49Speaker 02

  Having been in jail myself for periods of time, and locked up with these young men, not able to read, not able to write, not able to communicate, no, no male figure of authority who has a positive influence in their lives, that's gonna put you on a one-way street to Palookaville.

• 1:46:06Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 1:46:07Speaker 02

  We gotta straighten that out.

• 1:46:08Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, so the public services need to be improved, I suppose, right?

• 1:46:12Speaker 02

  No, no, you see, if you're always gonna depend on government, there are things you can do voluntarily to improve that, in every neighborhood that can occur. And men have to step up and take responsibility. They are the, they are the ones who are the predators. Men are predators, not women. They are the ones who are abandoning families and leaving them to their own means. And they are the ones who are basically, are teaching a lot of the young men the wrong things to do in life. We gotta straighten them out.

• 1:46:41Adam Friedland?

  The predators, yeah.

• 1:46:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. Now, now, see, if you say that in the inner city, and I say that in the inner city all the time, my complexion is not my protection. I'm called a racist. No, no, I'm dealing with reality. This is the reality. You wanna deal with this situation, or you want me not to offend you? I'm here to tell you the truth, whether it offends you or not.

• 1:47:03Adam Friedland?

  You've arrested a ton of people, citizens' arrests, of course, like, probably thousands of people in your lifetime, right?

• 1:47:10Speaker 02

  I'll say hundreds.

• 1:47:11Adam Friedland?

  Hundreds, okay. How, how do you feel when you're in that situation? How does it make, like, you, like, what, like, emotional process is that, are you going through on your end?

• 1:47:19Speaker 02

  I would say, when you decide that you have no other choice but to restrain somebody, or block their path of exit, that technically is a citizen arrest. It's like, why do I even have to do this?

• 1:47:30Adam Friedland?

  Right.

• 1:47:30Speaker 02

  And then you recognize, because there is nothing to fall back on. You are there, right there. Sometimes I've done it on my own, sometimes in the company of guardian angels. And if you don't restrain this person, and then follow it through the criminal justice system, shame on you. Now, the checks and balances are.

• 1:47:47Adam Friedland?

  And also, you're protecting someone that's in peril, too. So it's, there's an immediate need for you to intervene, right?

• 1:47:53Speaker 02

  Right, but the checks and balances are, if you use excessive force, if you detain the wrong person, guess what? There is an army out there who practices their martial art every day, lawyers, I sue. And they're gonna be suing you for every nickel, dime, or penny you have.

• 1:48:08Adam Friedland?

  When you were on Fox TV a couple of years ago, there was a, there was some of the, some of your crew were, were detaining a migrant.

• 1:48:15Speaker 02

  Me and the crew in Times Square. This is when the Venezuelans were running wild in Times Square.

• 1:48:19Adam Friedland?

  But it turned out that he was from the Bronx, right, like?

• 1:48:22Speaker 02

  I, we grabbed somebody that we thought was a migrant. It turned out not to be a migrant, was a Puerto Rican. We had a difference of opinion with him, we didn't handle it well. And so, we had to, we had to restructure our training after that.

• 1:48:38Adam Friedland?

  Do you worry that, like, that there could be, like, I remember after the Boston bombing, like, people on Reddit were, like, accusing the wrong people, and like, and like, doing citizen, kind of policing, and then, kind of destroyed those people's lives that weren't associated with the bombing whatsoever. Do you, how do you, do you worry about that, like, as a tension for someone that's doing? Because obviously, if you think about the picture you painted of 1977, the Bronx, like, that is, you, you felt a need that the government had failed, where the government had failed. I, I, I think that, like, you know, I, I'll put it in a different way.

• 1:49:13Speaker 02

  Well, I'll tell you the difference. This is the difference.

• 1:49:15Adam Friedland?

  When you see someone go in a squad car that you've detained, like, does it feel bad, like, still, like, or does it?

• 1:49:22Speaker 02

  I'd rather it not have happened.

• 1:49:24Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, you'd rather it not have happened.

• 1:49:25Speaker 02

  And I don't know yet who that person really is, I don't know much about them.

• 1:49:29Adam Friedland?

  Do you consider that, like, they're, yeah, I guess, like, it's just, it, obviously, if you're protecting someone's life, like, that's the primary concern, but like...

• 1:49:38Speaker 02

  Well, it's because you're on the spot, this is what you have to do, you wish you didn't have to do that.

• 1:49:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, it has to be morally, like, quite complicated for you as a human being, because like, this other person's freedom is being, gonna be taken away, you know, like? And it's just like, it doesn't feel great, maybe.

• 1:49:52Speaker 02

  Well, nowadays, with no cash bail, nobody's freedom is taken away, because you might go in to get processed, you're out before the paperwork is finished. It is a turnstile justice. You know who created no cash bail? Andrew Evil Eyes Cuomo!

• 1:50:07Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. So, so how does it feel, I guess, like, if you, you know, if you just paint a picture, like, there's a drug dealer on the corner, he gets arrested, there's another drug dealer on that corner. Like, does it often feel, at times, feel demoralizing? Like, you're treating a symptom of something that's like a sickness, that's, like, you're trimming a leaf of a trunk that's like, that has a disease, right?

• 1:50:26Speaker 02

  No, that's a good analogy, but I would say, if you're in a neighborhood, it does not want that drug dealing.

• 1:50:32Adam Friedland?

  Sure.

• 1:50:33Speaker 02

  And you remove that drug dealer, and he's gotta deal with the criminal justice system, then you gotta be there to make sure another drug dealer doesn't take his spot.

• 1:50:41Adam Friedland?

  People don't want crime in their neighborhoods, effectively, essentially, right? Like, no one does, right? Like, poor people don't either.

• 1:50:47Speaker 02

  And it's predominantly in poor neighborhoods. We don't give the same attention to a poor neighborhood, like Park Avenue in the Bronx and Park Avenue in Brooklyn are poor neighborhoods. Park Avenue in Manhattan is treated completely differently.

• 1:51:01Adam Friedland?

  Right. So, so if you're, like, seeing that, that process, where, like, just like, someone's replacing someone else, right? And there's just this cycle, like, doesn't it, does it inspire you to, like, go after the bigger fish, you know?

• 1:51:14Speaker 02

  Well, I did. That's why I went after the Gotti's and Gambitos.

• 1:51:18Adam Friedland?

  But they're not, like, in the government, they're not, like, you know, they're not, they're, they're feeding drugs, for sure.

• 1:51:22Speaker 02

  Right, but they also controlled the judges, the prosecutors, the cops. So even though they weren't the government, they controlled many aspects of the government.

• 1:51:33Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:51:33Speaker 02

  And so, sure, I was used to busting drugs.

• 1:51:36Adam Friedland?

  Well, they controlled corruption also, they were, they were, yeah, yeah.

• 1:51:39Speaker 02

  But I went after the biggest of the big.

• 1:51:41Adam Friedland?

  And that was because you felt frustrated by, like?

• 1:51:44Speaker 02

  No, because I didn't like the myth-telling of Italian organized crime. They were bringing heroin in to the minority communities. They wanted blacks to be addicted. Then all of a sudden, when their own children and grandchildren were being addicted, they say, oh, we had no control. Well, you're the guys who brought it in to begin with. I don't wanna hear this, my neighborhood is safer with organized crime than it's not. And I would bust that bubble, and they hated me telling that story, because I had credibility in that area.

• 1:52:11Adam Friedland?

  Because there's omerta, too. It's like, we don't talk shit about our people, right? Not in front of them.

• 1:52:15Speaker 02

  Except that.

• 1:52:16Adam Friedland?

  Not in front of them.

• 1:52:17Speaker 02

  Except that mutt, Curtis Sliwa, he's got no respect.

• 1:52:21Adam Friedland?

  That half Polack.

• 1:52:22Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly.

• 1:52:23Adam Friedland?

  That Metzep Polack.

• 1:52:25Speaker 02

  Well, the funny thing, when I was growing up, the Gavones in my neighborhood would say, you're Polish? Polish? What is that? I'd say Poland. They'd say, what is that? It's a country in Europe. The only thing they recognized was Italy, they didn't know anything else. Because there'd be a big picture of Italy in the pizzeria, if you know, the boot and all that. That's all they knew, Italia. Did you ever see, what, the greatest movie that Spike Lee ever made?

• 1:52:54Adam Friedland?

  Do the Right Thing?

• 1:52:55Speaker 02

  Of course. Danny Aiello and his sons, running the pizzeria at Bed-Stuy.

• 1:53:01Adam Friedland?

  You think they did the right thing at the end of that movie?

• 1:53:03Speaker 02

  You mean, with Radio Raheem? Man, wasn't that a great movie?

• 1:53:07Adam Friedland?

  It's an amazing film.

• 1:53:08Speaker 02

  God, that's so good. That was when Spike Lee was at his best. Mookie, he was Mookie, right? He was the little rigger. You had Radio Raheem, who was the other guy? Hey, I want more Parmesan cheese on my slice. How come you don't got no black people on the wall? When you got your own pizzeria, you can put Malcolm, Max, Martin Luther King, as long as I own this pizzeria, it's Joe DiMaggio and Frank Sinatra. Academy Award. Danny Aiello is no longer with us, I miss you dearly.

• 1:53:41Adam Friedland?

  What, so what, you, you come from, like, an Italian neighborhood, but your first wife was from the Virgin Islands.

• 1:53:48Speaker 02

  Virgin Islands, Brownsville.

• 1:53:50Adam Friedland?

  You ran an organization of mostly black and Hispanic men. How, I mean, how'd you get the, like, how'd you get the hood pass? Like, how'd you get the respect of, like?

• 1:53:59Speaker 02

  I was known as the Caucasian Persuasion, the Snowball. I could rock your world, because they would challenge me.

• 1:54:08Adam Friedland?

  Break, like, dancing, or, no, fighting?

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  Obviously, I could dance, I was a whirling dervish, and I could do the robot.

• 1:54:15Adam Friedland?

  Can we see?

• 1:54:16Speaker 02

  You ever see?

• 1:54:17Adam Friedland?

  Just do it. Holy... You get it, then? Keep going.

• 1:54:28Adam Friedland?

  Wow. Pretty good. Give it up for that, guys.

• 1:54:31Speaker 02

  Pretty good. Come on, give it up.

• 1:54:32Adam Friedland?

  Yeah, I got it.

• 1:54:33Speaker 02

  Give it up. This is Dance Fever.

• 1:54:35Adam Friedland?

  You can be one of those, you can be one of those guys that's all painted silver on the street.

• 1:54:39Speaker 02

  Exactly. Oh, very good. You're good too. Yeah, yeah, alright, yeah. Wow, this guy can't be Jewish. You actually have some rhythm.

• 1:54:49Adam Friedland?

  Thank you, thank you. That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me ever.

• 1:54:52Speaker 02

  I don't know about that.

• 1:54:53Adam Friedland?

  I think, I think I will close on this one last question. I think like...

• 1:54:57Speaker 02

  That's it? I thought this was just the start of a little thing.

• 1:55:00Adam Friedland?

  No, we're gonna be, this is part one. We're gonna be doing a lot of these.

• 1:55:03Speaker 02

  We're doing a sequel.

• 1:55:04Adam Friedland?

  Sequel!

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  I gotta have a sequel.

• 1:55:08Adam Friedland?

  When you reach the end of your life, like, what do you hope people say about you? Like, how do you want to be remembered?

• 1:55:14Speaker 02

  Man, you know, every day I could reach the end of my life with all the enemies that I have.

• 1:55:18Adam Friedland?

  I know, I know. So you have to think about that.

• 1:55:20Speaker 02

  What would I want to be remembered as?

• 1:55:25Speaker 02

  He died. He tried.

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  He died. And he tried. Nobody should ever think that they're the be-in or end-all. You know, this world has been around a lot longer before and will be around a lot longer afterwards.

• 1:55:42Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:42Speaker 02

  But did you try to make this world a better place than what you were birthed into? And I think that's the litmus test for all of us. Whether we are men and women of means, whether we have the pedigree to inherit something where we could make a difference. I detest these masters of the universe, these billionaires and millionaires, who think that they are the beginning, the end-all, the be-all. Artificial intelligence. Bitcoin, that is nothing more than crime coin. They are destroying things, destroying things.

• 1:56:17Adam Friedland?

  And they don't care about the effect that it has on people.

• 1:56:20Speaker 02

  No, and artificial intelligence, right?

• 1:56:22Adam Friedland?

  I don't, yeah.

• 1:56:23Speaker 02

  I mean, aren't you worried as a person?

• 1:56:25Adam Friedland?

  I've tried to use ChatGPT, it never works.

• 1:56:28Speaker 02

  You like to cheat. You like to use artificial intelligence.

• 1:56:30Adam Friedland?

  No, it doesn't work. When I'm researching, I like ask it a question and it's always wrong.

• 1:56:33Speaker 02

  How about you go to the freaking library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd?

• 1:56:37Adam Friedland?

  That's what I do.

• 1:56:38Speaker 02

  You get the encyclopedia.

• 1:56:39Adam Friedland?

  That's what I do.

• 1:56:40Speaker 02

  This is what your chosen people used to do.

• 1:56:43Adam Friedland?

  That's what I do.

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  After school. What did they do? They taught me this. Like the chosen people, they went to the library, the blue-haired matron, and then once she credited you, she took us into the back room. And you know what was the internet of my generation, the baby boomers?

• 1:57:01Speaker 02

  Black in the back, white print, microfilm. Microfilm!

• 1:57:06Adam Friedland?

  Micro fish.

• 1:57:07Speaker 02

  I discovered the world that the Jewish kids knew. That's why they did better at extra credit reports. That's why they graded out better. That's why they were Arista. And I said, who am I gonna hang with? My Supreme Kujins are gonna end up in Attica or Damiraya.

• 1:57:22Adam Friedland?

  Up the river.

• 1:57:23Speaker 02

  I'm gonna follow the chosen people to the blue-haired matron, where I discovered microfilm. And then, when I would take a book out, I had to pedal immediately on my big Schwinn chief bicycle to get that book back into the night depository, because the next day, the old blue-haired matron would come to your house without a warrant, want to kick in the door. I want that book back now!

• 1:57:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:48Speaker 02

  Oh God, that was so great. Thank you, thank you Jewish people. Thank you for allowing me to have a part of your life.

• 1:57:55Adam Friedland?

  I've actually been lying. I'm not Jewish. I'm a Wahhabist.

• 1:57:59Speaker 02

  By the way, we didn't talk enough about Israel and the Palestinians.

• 1:58:02Adam Friedland?

  Can we stop with the Jewish? He died, he tried.

• 1:58:04Speaker 02

  Why do you guys, let me ask you a question. If you're at each other's throats, you both eat hummus, right? I hate hummus. I hate those garbanzo beans when they're simmering. The stink! And yet, you Palestinians and Jews, you love the hummus, and you're constantly battling over olive trees that help make the hummus.

• 1:58:25Adam Friedland?

  We got the hummus from them.

• 1:58:26Speaker 02

  I understand.

• 1:58:27Adam Friedland?

  They made the hummus. And then we called it Israeli.

• 1:58:30Speaker 02

  I hate hummus. I hate hummus for the passion.

• 1:58:32Adam Friedland?

  It's good. It's pretty good with baby carrots. Have you had it?

• 1:58:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:58:35Adam Friedland?

  No, come on, a cruded table. He died.

• 1:58:38Speaker 02

  It makes me want to projectile vomit.

• 1:58:39Adam Friedland?

  Yeah. He died, he tried.

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  He died, he tried.

• 1:58:45Adam Friedland?

  Curtis Lee, why?

• 1:58:46Speaker 02

  And, by the way,

• 1:58:47Adam Friedland?

  Yeah?

• 1:58:47Speaker 02

  will this be my lasting legacy? This interview right now?

• 1:58:52Adam Friedland?

  You think so?

• 1:58:52Speaker 02

  We put it in a time capsule.

• 1:58:53Adam Friedland?

  Do you think this is the best interview you've ever given?

• 1:58:55Speaker 02

  I have to say it is the most dysfunctional

• 1:58:59Adam Friedland?

  I think it's really good.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  interview that is the real Curtis Lee.

• 1:59:03Adam Friedland?

  I think we got, I think it was amazing.

• 1:59:04Speaker 02

  I think we have one man who's...

• 1:59:06Adam Friedland?

  This is my favorite interview I've ever done. I need it.

• 1:59:08Speaker 02

  Attention deficit disorder, ADD,

• 1:59:10Adam Friedland?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:10Speaker 02

  with Curtis Lee, who actually had a match when it came from flipping the script from one subject to another subject. I give you cred, man.

• 1:59:19Adam Friedland?

  You're my man.

• 1:59:20Speaker 02

  You kept up with Lee.

• 1:59:21Adam Friedland?

  This is, listen, this is, I feel like it's a real honor.

• 1:59:25Speaker 02

  You've been blessed.

• 1:59:25Adam Friedland?

  It's a real honor.

• 1:59:26Speaker 02

  You've been sanctified.

• 1:59:27Adam Friedland?

  It's been, it's been a real pleasure.

• 1:59:29Speaker 02

  Now you can wait for the arrival of the Messiah.

• 1:59:34Adam Friedland?

  Manachim Shneur's in Red.

• 1:59:35Speaker 02

  Yes! Lubav, it's 770 East of Berkeley. I know them. I've seen them all over the world in the Ha'baat.

• 1:59:41Adam Friedland?

  We want Messiah. Now, Curtis Lee, why everyone, let's give it up for him.

• 1:59:45Speaker 02

  Messiah, Messiah, Messiah, Messiah.

• 1:59:47Adam Friedland?

  Ayah, yah, yah, yah, yah. Messiah, Messiah, Messiah.

• 1:59:53Speaker 02

  This is...

• 1:59:54Adam Friedland?

  Ayah, yah, yah, yah.

• 1:59:56Speaker 02

  Messiah, Messiah, Messiah, Messiah.

• 1:59:59Adam Friedland?

  Wow! That was good, Chris. That was good, Chris. That was good, Chris Lee.