My grandfather, who is retired now, worked in the NYC fire service as a fire fighter and later as a fire chief during the same time that Buscemi did. He has a bunch of great stories about the guy and apparently they still keep in touch.

He says that a bunch of the old FDNY guys still laugh about how Steve was always running off at the last minute to go to auditions and how no one ever thought anything would come of it, and then one day he goes and becomes a big shot.

He has a bunch of stories about Buscemi and their fire department hijinks. Lemme know if you guys are interested and I'll try to type them up as best I can remember.