Men Who Dance the Giglio Transcript
- [Announcer] Number two. [Announcer] Number two. My family has been involved with this, long before I was born. When you say something is in the blood, this feast is in my blood. It runs in and out, through every artery and vein, and every blood cell, every new blood cell, it's still there too. As a child, I--literally-- I've always been asked, how long I've been in the feast. And, it might be a stock answer. For me, anyway, it's a stock answer to say I've been in it since before I was born. I Look at the faces of the guys and I understand it's very deep. It's rooted right into the-- time they were little kids. It's rooted into my kids since they were little kids.
I had records of Phil Gaby and I played these records and I remember my little boys, when they were little little guys, picking one another up and carrying themselves in the chair to the music. My father used to take my grandfather. Of course, my mother came, my grandmother came, we all went. It was a real feast. We used to go to Brooklyn. We used to go to Astoria. We used to go to 108th Street East and we used to see the Giglio all over the place. And, when I was a little kid, I used to look up at this tall thing and I used to get so scared when I saw this thing go up in the air, and the guys underneath and this thing shaking up there. I used to get scared. Sometimes, I remember I would cry. And, my father would hold on his shoulder and I would watch. I was in awe. I was in total awe. They start around two, four, six. We heard the recordings every morning. At seven o'clock in the morning before they go to school. You hear the tape playing. The Giglio song.
Every kid, I know my son did it on a Casio. He figured out how to play the Giglio song without no music. My grandson was born they made him a small shirt. He was like two weeks old. They must've took a shirt, and stretched it on a sign, and made it, when it went back it was a perfect little Giglio shirt. We took him home from the hospital with it. The attendance on Giglio Sunday is something around 10 to 15 thousand, I would say. I mean, you were here for Giglio Sunday, you saw the streets. The streets were overwhelmed with people. The steps of the church are packed with people. They go around the corner, they go up the block, they're in between the stands, standing for a little shade. I would say it has to be at least 10 thousand people. All I could say, I don't know how much they make because I really don't tell their value, but I know that almost every year on Giglio Sunday, by the end of the night they're sold out. You can't even get a sausage. You get an odor of the last sausage cooked. You can't get a sausage out there at all, because they're gone.
And the zeppole man the same way. I couldn't tell you how much he makes in a day because I really don't know. But I know at the end of the day, he doesn't have anymore dough to throw into the hot oil. And he doesn't, sometimes, even have the oil to cook it in. I know at the end of the day on Giglio Sunday, and on the other days they're there, sold out. Many, many people come for the first time. And there are a lot of people that come year after year. And even they make the comment when it first moves. But to hear the people that have never seen it, that are standing there, kinda skeptical, saying, "this big thing, they're gonna lift it up and walk with it, or dance, they say they dance it." "They're not going to dance it." "What are they going to do?" "They probably roll it." And what you'll see is, a big space with this gigantic structure in front of you that looks like it's as high as a five-story building. You'll hear the band on the top strike a note. And they'll start playing the theme song. Please, please. Move back. We need lots of room. We're going all the way to that. You'll see a guy about 10 feet away from the Giglio with a cane in his hand. And he'll be directing the men underneath.
The band on top will play, and when it plays up until the chorus of the theme song, at a certain downbeat, at a certain note, all the men together in unison will lift this structure up on their shoulder. And the guy with the cane will instruct them where to go. Whether to walk straight, backwards or turnaround, or what. And for the people that are far away, like down towards the end of the block by the church, they only see this slight movement. They're really not sure what happened. Until all of a sudden the Giglio starts to move off the sidewalk and it's coming forward into the square. You'll see the men underneath there, struggling to gain space with their feet. You'll see men with their arms wrapped around each other's stomach for support, or holding each other by the hand for strength just to keep it up. And all of a sudden you hear the crowd. It's like the wave, you know the wave that you see at the baseball stadium? Well the sound gets like a wave. It just gets louder and louder.
All the oohs and the ahhs and the applause that starts, because the people now realize that this structure is actually moving. This giant statue that's been standing there on the corner all these days is moving! And they realize this is such an extraordinary event that they're witnessing. And then, at the command of Capo Paranza, the guy with the stick, the music will stop, and the Capo Paranza will give four direct commands in Italian. [Capo Paranza] Which means hey fellas, hey guys. Which means get it up on your shoulders. Stand straight, is what we're asking them to do. Stand up straight, lock your knees, get up, bring your shoulders up. means get ready. means throw it down. Down! And everybody in unison will drop it. And all four corners have to go down in unison.
[Capo Paranza] If you consider there are about 120 people underneath there, and they pick it up with deadly accuracy. All picking it up at the same time. And they drop it the same way. Which is important because this is a two and a half ton structure. If you dropped it on one side, its own weight could maybe collapse or will damage ya. [Capo Paranza]
This is Brooklyn Dancing Tower, the feast of the Giglio. This is an exhibit and a brochure that I had work on. It just has everything. In 1903, Italian immigrants from Nola, a small town near Naples, settled in Williamsburg and for the first time in America they celebrated the Feast Day of Paolinus, the patron saint of their home. The new immigrants carried tower, the Giglio, on their shoulders through neighborhood streets and festivities and brass band music. They had done so almost every year since.
My grandfather and my grandmother were raised in a little town of Saviano, which is right between Naples and Nola, and they grew up with the Giglio Feast. And my grandfather used to sit me down so many times when I was a kid and tell me all about San Paolino. How when he was the Bishop, the barbarians came over and they attacked the town, and they took some of the Catholic population overseas as prisoners. To save a widow's only son, Paolinus offered himself as a slave in his place. And somehow, I have no idea politically how this happened, according to the legend he was able to have some kind of audience with the big cheese out there. So when he got to the shores of Nola, or whatever the shores were there. I don't know the place, how it looks like. They greeted him when he came off the boat, they greeted him by throwing lilies at his feet. Lilies at all the people. All flowers. Now the name Giglio means lily in Italian.
During the 1920s and '30s, Italians from the various neighborhoods regularly visited and participated in each other's feasts. Italian Williamsburg was, and to a great extent still is, a good example of what many New Yorkers nostalgically remember as the old neighborhood. Residents are for the most part working class, living in small, older single family homes, served by bakeries, grocery stores and other family run businesses. Children still play stick ball on the streets. Men fly pigeons from the rooftop coops. And women sit at the windowsills and keep tabs, this is how they used to sit out the window, and keep tabs on everybody in the neighborhood. Which was our own police protection. See, today nobody looks out for, nobody cares. But those days, we cared.
That was in the '40s, 1949. Around that time. This was the feast that they were talking about in there. The society did their own feast. This is along Metropolitan Avenue. I'm not going to show you the difference with the wood. And this is outside the Emil's Bar and Grill. [Man] That's Metropolitan there. He was one of the ones that sponsored the feast on Metropolitan avenue. [Man] This is me. This is my granddaughter bringing me up the flower as a Capo. This is Mario and this is Duke, between me. They took a picture with me. This guy used to be the first Turk in our feast when we started, Mario Davido. This is the one they build near the house. Yeah, this is a wooden one. Abidi was such a Giglio fanatic. They loved that. So anything they would tell him, he would do. Lo and behold, he did it. He did it!
The first time I played Giglio was in 1962. I was brought over here by a good friend of mine, Joe Morrola, who played trumpet and french horn and other instruments as well. Getting up there the first time it was a little, it's an interesting experience. The first time they pick it up, and it shakes, and you're dancing around to the music. You don't know exactly what is going to happen. And there's a great fear that when they put it down maybe it's gonna fall over or something like that. And you're going to go flying, catapulting out into the audience below.
Part of the mystique of becoming a Capo is being identified with a song which he leads in the Giglio. It really doesn't matter what the song is, though, like a nickname, it may reflect a personal attribute and so identify its owner. Thus, one Capo uses the theme song from the movie Rocky because he was once a boxer. Do you know who that is? That was, Cheech Collazo.
Each Capo has different songs that they want to hear. You don't have any time to start flipping through sheets of music, you've got to know these things and you've got to know them by heart. We played every kind of song. I mean, we played everything from Tiptoe Through the Tulips, the band has to be very, very well-versed because you'll get some very unusual requests while you're on top for Giglio, ya know? Here it is, the Lily of Heaven, or Giglio Paradise. It is the English version. [Interviewer] Can you sing it for us, in Italian? Oh, I don't know--no. Or is it just in English? Well. ♪ Oh the Feast, we all love ♪ ♪ Has returned ♪ ♪ It's the feast that's so lovely to see ♪ ♪ Oh we wait and we dream all year long ♪ ♪ For the joy that we know it will bring ♪ ♪ The streets overflowing with people ♪ ♪ There are so many to be seen ♪ Well, anyway, that's the part of that. The Giglio moves on the music and with the music, almost all the time. There are very few times when it doesn't move without the music. So, music kinda drives it and keeps everybody in step underneath, because it's very, very important.
One of my brothers worked on Wall Street. So he's used to cash. So my brother, the oldest brother, that was the Capo, he said, "what is Wall Street doing with you guys?" I said to him, "Louie, he lifts." "What, because he works on Wall Street he don't lift?" In '76 I was ordained a priest. In that year I blessed Pete Marcheto's Giglio. I blessed it. And then I got underneath and lifted! After the lift, a lotta times your knee buckles and now you can't straighten up again. When you lift you are supposed to be lifting with your legs. You gotta lotta weight on ya, it's coming down. You're walking. It's not like you are just standing there lifting. It's supposed to be bittersweet. It's supposed to be painful. It's supposed to be a great day.
Different people offer up the Giglio lift for different reasons. Deceased members of the family, loved ones, for the neighborhood, it's a lotta different reasons. First lift is nothing, because you're just starting out. You're nice and cool. You're nice and cool. Then as it goes two, three more lifts and your binding. Some of the guys, they don't go all the way down 'cause they're leaving it, goes down on your shoulder. When you come out at the end of the day you've got a lump on your shoulder. You see some guys, they got a lump, but it goes away.
It's like a . The first three lifts are a piece of cake. After the third lift of the day, now you gotta get the fourth, the fifth, the sixth lift. Now it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Now it's 5 o'clock in the afternoon and you started this thing at noon. It feels like you are on your deathbed. At the end of the day, after like four hours, it starts draggin'. It gets heavy, heavier and heavier! Beginning of the day you lift it to the sky, at the end of the day it's draggin'.
And then everybody shows their bruised shoulder. This was their first year. You're gonna see them here for the next 30, and then you'll see their kids after them. Did ya lift like this all day? Nah, I'll tell ya, my legs and arms. No, just 'cause your taller than the guys, ya know? My legs and back, well fine. The only thing that was a little tender was my shoulder. All right. That's all. I put a little heat on it and now I'm fine.
Whatever happens tonight just remember that Saturday is the most important day. Right. This is the first year that I did it, which is 1995. My brother, Craig, and my other brother, Dr. Paul Addio, we were the three brothers. We all lifted it. And we thought it was going to be tough, but when you have the 5,000 people cheering you on with love and joy and admiration, and the pride and tradition that you have in your family heritage, that weight of 85, 90 pounds on your arms is nothing at all.
The Capo means "head." The Capo Paranza is the "head Paranza." The Paranza is the guy underneath the Giglio lifting. The Capo Paranza is the guy with the bastone who leads the hundred Paranza underneath. And his word is law. I can actually remember being in a carriage and watching the Giglio going down Havemeyer Street, and looking at the guy in the front. I really feel like I can remember saying to myself, even as a little baby, two years old, saying, "I wanna be that man in front." "I wanna be that guy with a cane leading."
I used to take my cousins into the woods down their street. And we used to walk into the woods, and I used to get this gigantic log off the ground. I used to say, "come on, get underneath the log!" We used to put it up on our shoulders and I used to lead like we were marching with the Giglio. With the log on our shoulders, I would be singing the notes of the music. I didn't know the words, but I would just sing the notes of the music. They would all follow me in the woods down in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. They didn't even know what I was doing, but we had a ball.
After, I guess, about ten years or so as a Lieutenant, my time came to be named an apprentice Capo. I was named an apprentice, and of course eventually worked my way up and had the happy pleasure of being the number one Capo back in 1991 and '92. Everything was on my shoulders and it was a dream. Now, I lifted. I've been lifting for, has to be, 30 years I lifted. I just became a Lieutenant two years ago. So now I have to work my way up. Unfortunately, I'll be 90 when I'm up. I'm never going to be Capo number one. I'm a lifter. If I were to become a Lieutenant tomorrow, it'd be 30 years before I could become Capo number one. That's the kinda wait we're talking. 'Cause there are apprentices, Lieutenants. Yah, it's like 30 years you wait, 'cause you have so many different promotions.
When I got in front of that Giglio, everything inside me was tingling. The band started, I yelled to Larry . It was just overwhelming. It's an experience that--it's a shame that everyone can't get. And you really have to work to get to that point. It's an experience that I will never, ever forget. When you're number one, you walk out of the house that morning, there isn't a care. You don't have a pain. You just take the day the way it comes. It's an achievement, because not everybody can get that far. We've got 300 lifters, can't have 300 number ones. Some guys will make it, some guys won't. A lotta guys would love to be number one, but they are happy where they are now as a lifter. I think my job in life is to be a Paranza and that's it. That's as high as I'm gonna go, and I'm satisfied with it. Let other people administrate. Let them all do what they gotta do. I wanna be right there in the grassroots, right in the mud with everybody. It's a lotta adventure there, it's where all the action is.
[Capo Paranza] This year my husband was number one--and I was thinking, what can I do to draw some attention to the women of the feast. So I thought about it, and thought about it. I came up with my version of the Giglio. A little pink flowery Giglio with Saint Paoline, instead of Saint Paolinus. Evelyn, the woman who made the whole structure, told her daughter to draw the stature for me. She made her draw it exactly the way it appears on the real Giglio. So when my sister-in-law and I went to see it, we said, "oh, it's beautiful!" "It's great." "Wait a minute, it's supposed to be a woman!" Evelyn turned around and said, "oh no, oh no!" "I'm not doin' it." "I draw the line." We found that funny. We took it home, to my house. We whited out the beard. We put lipstick on it. We gave her curls, I wish we had that on log, it was straight down. [Man] It's got this beard, you had to be here. Yah, it's a pretty ugly woman, but it's a woman.
[Capo Paranza] Then everybody jumps on top of them, they kiss them. [Man] They kiss them and do all that stuff. Then the next day they knife you. See that day everybody forgets everything, believe me. They forget their enemies, they forget their problems, they forget every single ache and pain they have. The next day, it all comes back. I gotta tell ya the truth. It's changed. But it has not changed radically. There's been a little bit of a change, but the neighborhood is stable, it's indeed a very strong, stable neighborhood. Very, very fine. I also feel, whether I be right or wrong, I'm not a sociologist on the issue, but I feel though this neighborhood has remained stable partly because of the feast and the parish of Our Lady Mount Carmel.
The neighborhood is really held together with this feast. People come around year after year, most people coming back to their roots, people that have moved away to Long Island. People that move to Florida, they come every year for the feast. They're rooted, they still have family here. Most of the family that is here is very involved in the feast. If the feast weren't here there wouldn't be that attachment.
You tell me, what else do we have here? If you live your whole life in this neighborhood, help me out here, what else do we have? I think if it weren't here, I don't even know that I would still be here. I might have moved out of the neighborhood. What I'm trying to say is it's not a negative thing. What I'm saying is we were always basically 20 years behind the rest of everybody, so now that we're catching up, we're still behind, it's still more intact than the other neighborhoods is what I'm trying to bring out. Do you understand what I'm saying? You might use the word anachronistic. I don't know if I can agree with that because I think today people, by and large, are searching and going back to their roots, and looking for their roots. More and more people are trying to find the cultural link, whether it be cultural or religious, to their past. Every culture has their tradition and their rituals that they have brought over the ages by word of mouth and by action in order to keep their people alive.
The people from Nola have brought their tradition over that started in the 4th, 5th century. It's been going on ever since, year after year. Imagine hundreds of years, where the world is moving all around you, but in this little corner of the world the people are still living out a story, and a legend that is in their blood and in their system. They don't only hear the story, they actually live the story. When you come to our neighborhood during the time of the feast, let me tell ya, you're gonna find other people besides Italian people in the streets. For that day they all become Italian in spirit, in flavor, and feeling, ya know?
