25 - Anthony Mastronardi & The Man from Stigliano

Sitdown comedians and cousins Evan Mastronardi and Chris Bojemski examine their great-grandfather's, Anthony's, 5 year search for a man from his home village within Stigliano, Italy. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You're listening to the brolic. That'show we start very good on the All
Things Broke network. All Things BrokeThis is a biweekly, sometimes conditional unemployment
podcast inspired by the doll up wellI Man Paying off Debt, writer of

(00:26):
the more Comfortable Seats on the MetroNorth sometimes and Daddy to a Wildcat.
Read a story of New York historyto my cousin Chris, who has no
idea of what the story is goingto be about. And it's been a
couple months, Evan, you forgotto say your name again. I've been

(00:49):
wanting to say this all day.Nineteen nineteen two thousand, the year of
our Lord Optimus Prime. All Right, the guy who's filming turns the camera
on himself, and you believe fromI don't even know it again, there
will be no tables, ladders,chairs here, gentlemen. That's pro bono
thirteenth century Gregorian chance. He keepsclaiming he's been poisoned yet by the fist

(01:21):
fucking Adderall then you take beca beckpause port. There's a McDonald's university.
His decision to enlist was quote aprimal compulsions, a living exclamation. Boy.
Yes you may have the mob,but I got the city. Have
you ever met your ex wife?Because if their exhausted Alexander Graham cell,

(01:48):
that's a bit number. I don'ttalk to Galado five times a day.
He's got my fucking house. HeLARPs. Hey, just say, you
know former marine Fonkosovo help of aformer IPD commissioner in jail and now being
hunted by him. How are youdoing? I'm saying on your daughter's couch.
Cag is credited in this film,Evan, I am looking at the

(02:09):
official Wikipedia page for Hamble University.Well it was only a matter of time
before we put these two things together, all right? Uh? Everyone,
Uh, the prolic is brought toyou By's accounting, because when you need

(02:30):
money to disappear, you call thePentagon Pentagon Accounting. I would never trust
that business. Yeah, but theylose like trillions of dollars, right,
and then you can't get taxed onit. So it's like, I R
S. What what fucking uh?Two hundred thousand dollars bonus in a rubo?

(02:53):
Are you talking about? Smart?Pentagon? Pentagon can lose an entire
if they could lose any sixteen,they can lose an island all right,
they could lose you being on anisland, right, call it Bernie made
off in Sons Accounting, Sam Banquinfor you here, Yeah, Ponzi Bay

(03:15):
Accounting, Ponzie Bay. It's notabout the little zel payments that the IRS
sounds me about. Like the IRS. What the guy I was speaking with
like didn't understand the concept of remotework and that there's not always a physical
location that everybody's act you know.Wow wow, So when they send their

(03:39):
people, they're sending their best.They they're just working in that. I
wonder what it's like in there,actually, I mean, I bet there's
pictures. I bet you can justsee it. But I wonder if,
like you know, the cartoonishly boringlike office spaces where everybody just works,
not even in a cubicle, justlike an open grid, yeah, an

(03:59):
open one with just like everything correct. But these are the people who wouldn't
they They when they need interoffice mailto happen, they really put it on
like a wheelie and like just startwalking it from like office to office instead
of getting up. Yeah. Ialways used to do that when I worked
for QUNI. They would be like, hey, you could put this in

(04:20):
an inter office mail get there ina few days and I'm like, hey,
isn't that a check in like someone'smoney. They're like yeah, Like
so here's what I'm gonna do.I'm going to stand up, take the
check, walk five hundred feet andcome back. Okay. It's like when
you're when you're on an office callwith like multiple people in the same overall

(04:42):
office and it's like maybe one connectionis pretty shitty, and it's like if
only there was a way. Ithink the technology just isn't there yet.
I mean, I think I thinkjen Ai is going to get that,
you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, but like not today,

(05:03):
maybe tomorrow. It's just kind ofcrazy. We still there's still such a
discrepancy between motherfuckers who who are goingto have neuralink and then this guy from
the I r S that doesn't understandthat physical locations of startups does not exist,
and the I r S guy hasevery he's going to have the neuralink
guys by the balls, man,Yeah, they are going to face I

(05:26):
know. It took them like asecond or two. They caught up the
cryptocurrency faster than I expect them to, right, Like they were like,
hey, no, that's not justfree money, you know what I mean?
Yeah, Okay, okay, okay, that's good because God forbid we
make money like God exactly. Godforbid that there is if you commit tax

(05:48):
fraud thought crime over neuralink. Yeah, Bill, Bill in on the fifth
floor of whatever fucking yeah Irs building. God is gonna on the press phone
to be like yeah, okay,yep, you can get him. All
right, I'll talk to that guytomorrow. Yeah. Now, Bill's gonna

(06:09):
be in your brain cell. Bill'sin there, man. So that's what
I did with uh in Travis Mail. Here's what you're gonna do. You're
gonna go to Pentagon's accounting dot com. Okay, You're gonna file your tax
returns there because any sort of moneythat you think you have, they could
get taxed on the Pentagon can loseand never be held accountable instead of just

(06:30):
being a random fuck like me whohas to account for six hundred dollars in
an off Brandzell account. Not offsite, not off shore, I just
mean off brand as in I don'tknow why these fuckers didn't just use Zel,
but they decided to use like randomZell competitor, which makes this whole
thing even worse because it's I forgoteven what it's called. I think it's

(06:51):
called like Vanilla or some shit.It has some random ass fuck name.
It took me so long to evenfind the place because I've only been paid
through it like twice in my lifefrom these people. I wouldn't uh.
I don't think i'd ever do ajob if someone If someone told me they

(07:11):
were gonna pay me through that,I think I would through Vanilla, through
extract, I'm gonna pay you throughCoca Nibs. Vanilla direct Pay on the
app store has a whopping eight totalreviews, and I'm sure one of them
is Jim from the IRS and he'slike yo, He's like, Yo,

(07:36):
this is not gonna work. Howdid you find How did they even find
this ship? Yeah? I getpaid. I get paid through icing.
Well, it went to a bankaccount. Eventually they have they can see
your bank accounts. I'm sure there'ssome legal process for them to be like
what the fuck, No, no, I get Jim could find a fucking

(07:58):
crumbing somebody's ass. I'm not talkingabout gin, I'm talking about the people
who sent me the money. Howdid they go through a payment and could
be like, yeah, because theygot because they got shut out of all
the other ones. You worked forthe scammiest people in the world. Dude.
To my credit, I've avoided allreal scams. I've just unfortunately met

(08:20):
this thing called extreme incompetence. Attimes, I'm sudden that they that they
paid you in six hundred American dollars. I mean for for that could have
been six hundred fucking yen. Yeah, that could have been six hundred pay
serinos, right, that could havebeen six hundred fucking skyrim bucks. What's

(08:41):
it called a sceptum septim? Thatsounds like, isn't that part of your
body? Isn't a sceptum? Likea medical thing? I'm fact checking.
I'm fact checking my elder scrolls knowledgeright now. Sept Them is a medical
term. It's also well, it'salso it's also a coin in the in

(09:03):
the vast world of tamriol. Sookay, fucked. You know, next
time Jim calls, I'm going totell him my made money in septems and
he got to search tamriol. Ijust want to fuck with them now.
Trying to get it to focus.There we go, boom focused. Okay,
yeah, all right, early nineteenfifties, no specific year any anywhere

(09:28):
in the first half. We thinkwe're fifty two to fifty three. Okay,
you're you're her Lord Francis Albert Sinatra, Anthony MASTERRINARTI is living in the
Fortum section of the Bronx. Now, Fordam is internationally known by Italians.

(09:50):
I didn't realize it. No,it is at the time. It was
at the time that ship was likeLouis Seafood, seafood at the time.
No, Now, motherfuckers don't know. But at the time where Italians were
coming here, fucking turnding them outon boats, you know that Fordham was
known because so many of them endedup in Fordam, And just finding hilarious

(10:13):
that like, yeah, that thisone part of the Bronx is very specific.
Like there are motherfuckers in Brooklyn whodon't didn't know and still don't know
what Fordam is. In our lordyear of twenty twenty four, they were
much happier. No, they didn'tget to go to game stop on Fordham
Plaza or be recruited by the military. But it's just so funny that,

(10:37):
like in the early fifties, there'sthis people in Italian villages are like I
must put a futam Oh my god, bottom plaza. I don't think anyone
went there because they want I'm justgonna say, I don't think anyone who
arrived in America off of a boatpost post the sixteen hundreds did so because

(11:05):
they really wanted to be here.There's there's like a serious gap where like
people showed up here, they arrivedhere because they were made to against their
will, or because where they wereshowing up from was worse. It was
worse, and and they went wherethey were forced to or where they had

(11:26):
to listen. Listen. People camehere believing wild shit. Okay, remember
that, people didn't believe the streetswere paved with gold, not piss.
Not gold piss. That's what thesubway is. But it's actual. I
said nothing about this. I don'tknow why you brought up this, because
piss is gold. That's the goldthat you shall find. That gold you

(11:48):
won't find anything else. So it'sinternationally known because they keep coming here so
often. For those who don't know, Fordham is it's not too far from
you, boy, It's somewhat inthe west Bronx. It is where Fordham
University is one of the locations.The other one is in Lincoln Center.

(12:11):
Fordham Area Botanical Gardens is also closeto their Bronsou is close to there,
and the aforementioned Fordham Plaza for usbroke Broke Bronx motherfuckers would go instead of
yeah, Triple B's would go whenwe needed to shop somewhere, and we

(12:33):
would feel like, you know,we would feel like we were really the
ship shopping at Fordham Plaza because there'sno where we weren't going to, like
you know, soho in high schoolat one point in my life I did
have the Pippins and not the Jordan's. So this is the lineage that I
come from. The work, thework right, the working class shoe It

(12:54):
was a big deal when I gotmy first af one, But anyway,
same here, you got them forme, Yes, I needed to pass
along. Uh you know, socialmobility, shoes, shoe mobility, it
is important. That's really what shoesare about. Period. Yeah, but
they are about mobility, and yetit's it's more impressive the economic mobility from

(13:18):
sketchers to an air force one isstarted from the bottle. You'd be amazed
how many people in the bay rep. The sketch rep the sketch so so
you could there's some sketchy motherfuckers anyway. So and he lives in an anything.

(13:43):
He lives in apartment with his wifeTeresa, his son Joseph that my
middle name, and his younger brotherof course, as we know, Rocco.
So we think this is around andand now at this point, I
just like that it is revealed toChris why I needed him for this one,

(14:05):
that this is our grandfather when heis very very young. Uh so
we think it's about fifty two fiftythree. So at this time our our
great grandfather's Anthony. So Anthony's beeninjured, his legs injured. I don't
exactly know how was injured, butyou know, after a certain point,
old immigrant Italian men, it didjust wake up and there's an update and

(14:28):
it's an injury. Okay, Igotta I'm gonna I was gonna say something
wild now I gotta provide context.Earlier this week, Evan hit the group
chat with knowledge of a of acop that shares our family name, who's
apparently awful. Yes, and Ithought this was going to be I misremembered
the name and thought that this wasgoing to be about him, so so

(14:52):
imagine my surprise when this is thisis about our very own family. Because
the name's Repeazza. Yeah, itkept. And it's worse for the it's
worse for the women. It's Iknow, I don't know a single Italian

(15:16):
woman who isn't named Nicole, TheresaVictoria name one. I believe he was
injured. We're supposed to do thingsI know nothing about. I'm just gonna
say I I I believe he wasinjured. If I remember right, falling

(15:39):
off of a garbage truck was thestory. You're right. It was he
got he got knocked off of itor or something happened and he just like
shattered his fucking leg or back orsomething. You're right. And to be
clear, this man was straight fromItaly, had no qualifications to be driving
a garbage truck in Fordham or youknow, it wasn't driv I don't think

(16:02):
he was driving. I think hewas the guy who was on the back.
That must have been a side job. Because he did drive a truck.
He ran a junk yard. Hewas the proprietor of a junkyard.
This is this, I believe thisis also our same relative who insisted that
you needed to crash a car threebelieve the quote was you got to smash
among the car three times before youknow how to drive. Well, that

(16:23):
makes sense because our great grandfather actuallypaid for his driver's license. He did
not qualify for it. He puthe put money on the seat, said
I'll be back in a half anhour, and a license had been printed.
I don't like what's going on here. Probably not well. I could

(16:44):
just imagine like some guy in ina in a small office just writing Anthony
okay, master of Lardie, justjust on an index card and leaving it
like drawing his picture anyway, becausethey didn't have any machines then. But
anyway, So he's injured, andmy our grandfather, Anthony's son, Anthony's

(17:11):
son had to drop out of Fortombecause Anthony's hurt. He can't run the
junk business anymore, a real junkbusiness, not the quote unquote junk business,
the real one. He can't runit anymore. Teresa, of course,
a woman working in the fifties,what are we doing. Let's not

(17:34):
reinvent the wheel here? Come on, now, that's I'm pretty sure they
would, Yes, but women.Women didn't have much of a wide assortment
of things. They could work inthe garment industry. They could work in
a garment industry, or they couldbe a nurse. Yeah. No,

(17:56):
no, I'm not. I'm notarguing that they know. But am I
misremembering who this is? I thoughtthis is Papa's father, our grandfather's father.
Yeah, And I thought I thoughthis mother worked the convenience store.
No, his mother is in Italy. His mother isn't here our grandfather's mother.

(18:27):
No. I thought you meant Anthony'smother. No, I don't know
that is No. I thought Ithought Anthony's Anthony's wife, Theresa. Yes,
I only had three choices. Ithought she worked the I thought she

(18:48):
worked the deli, the convenience storythat they had. I thought that was
our grandma's mother. Was that?But do I have the sides mixed up?
I think it's gonna be good,be a fucking rough episode with me
trying to cut in like this,It's okay, we only have so many
choices of names and professions. Atthis point, it's gonna happen. We're

(19:10):
done. We're bound to just fallon They only have three names, and
they've all worked all three jobs.We're we're really I mean for all the
versatile ship. It's like it's likematching the names. All right, So
have we matched the Terreza with themeat store and the Anthony with the mazzarell?
Okay, so what's left? Dowe have a garbage man? And

(19:33):
do we have a Vinnie? Ithink that's the only one. This is
like logic games for Italian immigrants.If they if they put those on the
L side, we would have donevery well if they put Italian immigrant logic
name if Vinnie can only have oneof three jobs, right, and and
he and and the man can onlybe named one of three things. So

(19:56):
anyway, Terresa is at home.Joe, our grandfather's older brother, is
at this thing called the Korean War, so kind of busy. Yep,
not close by. There wasn't venmo. You should hear our grandfather yell about

(20:17):
that one for a while. It'suh something else almost like he was there,
although it was his brother Joseph,who was so our grandfather who is
studying pharmacology, he has to dropout afford him and work during this time.
So that was that, and that'swhen he was in mind you he

(20:38):
is starting pharmacology at former university atsixteen. Oh, I'm trying to do
the Gareth voice, like the teenagervoice now. When I was sixteen,
oh, I was working. Ibarely got a Joe that a camp counselor
made. I was going to saythat I don't even know if I I

(21:02):
don't even know if I had ajob at sixteen. I think I did.
I think I was a more guide. You were, you were.
You weren't doing the tour guides yet. I don't think I think I was.
I think I did. Sixteen youwere, you were leading the group
of Russians into the Battle of TimesSquare. I think I it might not

(21:27):
have been that early, but yeah, later I thought you were. Probably
because remember I don't think I wasdoing anyway. It's not it's not doesn't
put me in a better way.I wasn't doing it. I probably should
have been. Really, in NewYork, you're not unless you do the
s Y E. P. WhichI applied when I was in college.
You're not support There's only so manyjobs you could do that young, and

(21:48):
most of them are like in astore. Uh so it's probably for the
best. So, yeah, Iwas when I was sixteen, I was
just on the block with my boyWillie. There was there was no real
aside from yeah, I did worksupervising nursery, and I ended up supervising
basically a decade and a half lateras well. Just a different age group,

(22:12):
but anyway, so so a parent. So one day, while Anthony
is home not that mobile, ourgrandfather's working, mom's home, older brother,

(22:33):
our grandfather's older brothers in Korea,they get a letter from a group
of people. And by day Imean first Anthony. Anthony gets a letter
from people that were apparently from thesame town in Italy. So they're from
the town of Stiliano, which isthe very bottom of the boot, so

(22:53):
very close to so like the closestto Sicily you can get without being in
Sicily. And when I did ourancestry, I found out that, at
least for myself, so it's probablyshare of course, similar to your it's
Sicilian is number two in our Italianness. It's not it's very high for

(23:19):
a group that never thought they hadanything to do with Sicily. Number one
is Campagna, which is in themiddle of the boot, but Sicily is
number two, and Sicily is theclosest to Like I said to Stilliano,
that you could get without by beingoff the boot, by being the rock,

(23:42):
so and so that it kicks.That's how the northern that's how the
mainland Italians look at the Sicilians asthe rock that they're kicking. So there's
obviously so our grandparents refuse to believeit for a while until I basically proved
to them that every other thing thatit's said in the report was correct.
So this probably was in line.But anyway, so they're from the same

(24:06):
town. Apparently it's still Jana anduh. They they wrote someone within this
family group wrote to our great grandfather. He hadn't heard from them number of
years, but they write to him. But they tell what they tell our
grand great grandfather, Anthony is this. They tell him we are looking for

(24:32):
our father. So it's a groupof siblings. He came to America and
we haven't heard from him in afew years. Because at this time there
was no way to get like youcouldn't even do a long distance call,

(24:52):
like in order to know how someonewas doing in the new country. Yeah
do you had to You had towrite and hope it was coming from a
person you had to check the fuckinghandwriting man, or they had to show
up at your door so you knewthey had all their limbs, yeah,
or or they needed to like here'sa picture of me writing this letter like

(25:18):
to be yeah, like there's somany things like variable envelope had to be
pressed with the family seal exactly,Like all right, here's what you do.
Okay, we can only get oneof three jobs. All right,
so when you do this, I'mgoing to assume you get a job in
the fucking uh sausage establishment. Okay, You're gonna take a small piece of

(25:41):
sausage and you're going to put itin the envelope, and that's how I'll
know it's you. The sausage topepper ratio in this. We have to
agree on this. This is Idon't think this is actually Tony. I
don't think this is that's not thisis wrong. I would never use this

(26:03):
much fennel. Yeah no, Tony, Tony can barely find a pennel.
So so now are our great grandfather, who is not very mobile, who
mind you had to stop working,looks at this like a fucking mission impossible
letter and goes and who are theynaming what who are they naming in the

(26:26):
letter? Their father? I don'teven know what his name is. I
just know no so no relation tous, just looking for someone's I believe,
I believe these people are not relatedto us. They're just from the
same village. They they know aboutthe foredom. The kind of shit that
people could accomplish before social networks isfucking astounding to me. The idea that

(26:48):
that you could find people in adifferent country, people you had probably never
heard. I mean, there mighthave been like fifteen people living in this
fucking down back then, so theymight have known. But still, hey,
can this letter make its way tothe assholes who used to live here
like twenty years ago. I don'tlike one of them. They're probably dead.
Get it out to Florida. Iwouldn't fordam Ius to know where these

(27:11):
people are. Fuck it, itdon't make its way to where it has
to go. Okay, all right, because unless I'm guessing Anthony gave his
address the address he expected to which, by the way, immigrants were in
tenements at times, they didn't knowwhat address they were really gonna be.
I'm guessing I'm guessing this family didn'thave an address written down anywhere until nineteen

(27:33):
eighty three retroactively. And I knowwe owned a house before, that doesn't
matter. So however they got theaddress maybe I bet you are. Anthony
just said, just put ford themall right, how many people could there
be? And then it just thenall then the postal workers saw on Italian

(27:55):
last name. Okay, there's Tony, there's Veto, and there's there's fucking
a. All right, I'm gonnafind all of them, all right,
and we're just gonna keep passing itaround until we get the last name.
Right, Oh, there's a Roco. That's a new one. And then
and then it finally got its Wellthis is this is it's I mean,
it's interesting, right, but likethis is why immigrants what I mean,

(28:18):
I know, at least from Italythey would show up and their last name
would be the place that they wereshowing up from, like their hometown.
Yeah, because like sometimes that's justhow it went down. Things would get
It wasn't even a matter of likemaking themselves more findable. It was just
like a matter of things literally gettinglost. In translation. They're like,
oh, yeah, what's your lastname? And they say, uh Rome,

(28:41):
still young. I don't know fuckit. Palermo. Right, we
had a land lord named Palermo.He was his family was literally from Palermo,
Italy. Right, that's just howshit whatever whatever, their original last
name was lost of the ages.Congratulations, you're from Palermo. Yeah,
exactly. It's like thinking of thefirst thing that comes to your mind that

(29:04):
sounds or yeah, they didn't understandwhat name was. Our great grandfather decides
that we're gonna he's gonna take onthis mission. All right, he's gonna
find their father, Okay, andthey thought so because they thought he's dead.

(29:26):
They they thought he's dead. Andas our grandfather quips, because back
then, you know, you couldget killed on the streets in New York.
It's like, yes, as oneperhaps could a few decades later.
Started but but okay, uh,they think they have a tip. Okay,

(29:49):
are you ready for this tip?Yep. He's in a They think
he's in the part of New Yorkcalled Philadelphia. All right. I just
feel like Italians are just picking upon words that they've heard repeated in association

(30:11):
with because because to them, NewYork is the United States of America.
To them, it's like all ofthem America. Like maybe has some extra
land. But it's like one bigNew York. Who named this part of
that? I don't want to.I'm not trying to. Who's responsible for
this? Who's responsible for the tap, for calling for calling this Philadelphia?

(30:34):
No? The children looking for theirfather, Oh they okay, Jesus,
they think he's in they think he'sin the part of New York that's called
Philadelphia. What what this is?It's not in New York. So we're

(30:56):
getting started, right, We're gonnastarted, all right. That'll that'll I
could take like a horse drawn carriage. That'll take you know, it should
only take me like three weeks orsomething to get to I might suffer another
broken weg fucking fracture in my skullor something. Have to hunt for deer
along the way. I have tohunt hunt for deer phi Staate. Thank

(31:19):
Christ for trains. Yeah we stillhad those then, uh so, but
but they didn't take you. Theyhad to take you out of New York
unfortunately, to get the Philadelphia.I also found out that Italians called cream
cheese Philadelphia because of the brand.But they Italians have, apparently, I

(31:40):
think they have times have a habit. It seems of hearing one thing be
popular in association with a broader thing. Yeah, pretty much. They see
you open a laugh out there.What are you on the Googles? You
on the Googles? Now, whatdo you look it up? Tell?
What does the Google say to youabout the weather? Yeah? Exactly,
I'm on the I'm on I'm onAci Weather. I don't know what what
do you? Yeah? No,does does your Facebook have a keyboard?

(32:06):
It's every every single dude, Ithink until the day she died. Yeah,
every single thing that played a videogame to my mom. Yeah,
a woman born in the modern era, I just want it said. Everything
was everything was the Nintendo. Yeah, everything if it could play a video

(32:32):
game, it was the Nintendo.Where I'm amazed that you were in the
difference between a game boy and asmartphone. Yeah. Uh so so that
iPhone's got Pokemon blue right, Yeah, yeah, it's just right. I'm
like opening I'm like opening up Tetris. I'm like, yeah, so this
one you could. Yeah, socall me on your Tetris and uh we'll

(32:57):
we'll up. It's like when youknow Kelly all In in that video Dilemma
was texting Nelly in Microsoft cell.You found that class that's crazy. You
could just look at anything up onthe Googles you because it's a sidekick and
anything that you're typing as long asyou're typing on a sidekick. Actually,
it's more work to get Microsoft cellon a sidekick in the early two thousands.

(33:20):
I don't even know how that happened. That's my question. How do
Excel even get you? I haveno I dude, I I've never seen
a spreadsheet on the phone and I'mnot trying to change that reality for myself.
So a sidekick. This was backwhen the text from the same person

(33:44):
came in different boxes like mister Caseyand Yo, what's up bitches? It
would just be each in its ownbox. It wouldn't be a long thread.
This is at that time and speakingof off brand earlier, back when
it's a it's a pattern. Ihad the Pippins people at Jordan's. They
had the sidekick. I had thexenon named after the element on the periodic

(34:08):
table and the headlight that was theLG xenon was what I had. I
did not get the sidekick, andlike I remember being impressed, Well,
it didn't come with Microsoft itself.No, that's different. So Uh,

(34:30):
I mean they're from in Italy.I don't understand the size of countries.
Really, this is part of it, because Italy is like barely California.
California is big, probably going tobe in total mass, certainly in population,
but in total mass, it's probablybigger than Italy. So they don't

(34:52):
get that New York is but inone state. So many people go to
New York, they probably think NewYork is at least half the country,
and that all these other cities thatthey hear here and there, it's just
all under the umbrella of New York. So I'm sure I'm sure Prey went
to this day. Actually, ourown family does not understand that. When

(35:14):
some bad ship goes down in La, Like our grandparents will still call me
right and they're like, oh mygod, Christopher, were you anywhere near
the shooting? And I'm like,what the fuck are you talking about?
Now? H No, I didn'tknow. Sorry, you might have heard
about a forest fire in LA thatis literally an entire day of driving away

(35:42):
right right. But but to themit's like, you know, Youonkers versus
Putnam County. Well, it's California. How big could it be? Right?
Come on? Come on, it'sit's it's Westchester plus like half of
Rockland. Right. So so he'she's probably thinking, all right, we're
off to a great start. Right. He rode back and he said,

(36:09):
okay, can you give me theaddresses of what you've heard in this Philadelphia.
They they're pretty much stuck on Philadelphia. They thought that that would be
the you know, just like sendinga letter to Ford him. They thought,
yeah, no, Phili. Shouldn'tthat be enough Philadelphia? There be
so many buildings on that street Philadelphia. Yeah, all right, so he

(36:30):
said, there's a start. Now, Terrista is starting to get worried because
we're already wrong with like the sixthBorough of New York being Philadelphia. So
we're ready not to a great likehe doesn't have much to go on.
Where is this man going to go? So he's his crippled self is going
on a mission. He's going withthe limp. But he's he's allowing it

(36:51):
to happen. Okay, so he'sstill now he had to go back to
work at this point because the billswere get and you know, the financial
situation was an issue. Looks likehe ended up doing uh loggerhead I guess
would something with wood that's interesting.I don't know. I guess he couldn't

(37:14):
do the junk yard, but hehad to do some other sort of trade.
He'd never been to Philadelphia, buthe's gonna try to find out how
to go. So he ends upgoing to a bus station and he used
to go down to Philadelphia, andthen he started to figure out. So
he's taken a bus trip now toPhiladelphia to find on his days off from

(37:39):
work, to find this man whohe's not related to, and his wife
must just be like, these arethe things you have chosen to do instead
of spend time with me. Yeah, right, Like I think it's just
a testament to how bored people wereat that that's a that's a thing to

(38:00):
do. I guess, yes,But I also think it's stubborn existed by
now, so you could have justgone and done that, right, he
could have, but there were options, for sure. It's just like,
yeah, play dominoes, you know, stuff happened, drink uh, drink,

(38:21):
go to the social club with theboys. So now he's pretty much
said, this guy's not in Idon't I don't think he'd explored all the
Philadelphia I think he just got tiredof Philadelphia being in the equation and just
said, all right, this guy'snot here. I'm not going to do
this anymore without any sort of lead. So he goes season New Jersey.

(38:43):
Now I can only so he goesto New He had less reason to be
in Jersey, though, I willsay, and and for another thing,
I would love I would love tohave seen someone from my family just show
up at a city and be like, hey, stopping random people, have
you ever heard of ever heard Iheard of this guy Tony. Everybody's like,

(39:05):
what the fuck are you talking aboutthat? What he probably did is
he probably just found like five Italianpeople or like went to the Italian neighborhoods.
He just probably stuck to the Italianneighborhoods that he could find in Philadelphia.
He just said, Okay, doesthis DELI look like it will it
will lead to something promising. Okay, I'm looking at the meats from the

(39:28):
ceiling where we're getting somewhere. Andthen he probably just asked around there.
So after a certain point, Iguess he's gone through enough communist Philadelphia,
so now he's going to New Jersey. But in New Jersey he gets a
tip now that he's somewhere in NewYork. So basically, what the fuck

(39:51):
was he doing? So he comesback to New York. Now he doesn't
know is it going to be NewYork City, New York State. But
the Italian community hadn't really explored thewilderness that is Putnam County and in Westchester
County yet most of them were thatthat untapped region. Most of them were

(40:15):
still in New York City. Sohe he pretty much settled on Hunt's Point,
which was Jewish and Italian in theSouth Bronx okay uh. Hunt's Point
was popular to the town because therewas a lot of land, and they
where there's a lot of land,they can make a little farm to grow
tomato. It was a Monday night. I'll never forget. It was Labor

(40:37):
Day weekend, all right. Hewasn't home round out that week. He
said, he walks in Common asa cucumber, and he's like, all
right, so he's eliminated. He'seliminated the outer New York. He's he's
saying, it's got to be inthe city. I've got enough tips.
Now he is in seas somewhere herein New York City, there's no Westchester,

(40:57):
there's no Putnam, there's no LongerIsland, no Philadelphia, no fucking
New Jersey. All right, weknow he is somewhere within these five boroughs.
How did he get these tips?We don't know. His mother,
his wife would ask him. Hewould say, what, well, what
does it matter where I get thisinformation from? You know who knows?
Okay, of course, I'm like, it doesn't. Oh god, men,

(41:21):
men don't want to be bothered withthese details, all right, the
how and the why and the what? Right it doesn't. So he thinks,
to speed this along, I'm gonnago to the Italian consulate. So
you go to the Italian consulate andhe basically says, I'm looking for an

(41:45):
Italian. Uh, I'm looking foran Italian in New York City. Can
you help? He may have hadprior associations to the land of Philadelphia,
but he's here now. Well,this shouldn't be hard, sir. I

(42:07):
mean, we only have millions ofactual paper copies to look through. He
had a name. He gives themthe name and whatever information he had,
and they're like, well, whathow old is this information? And he's

(42:28):
like, well, I think thisis from their their his children who haven't
seen him in years. So theConsulate's like, wait, you're giving me
information that you've had about maybe iswhereabouts. We don't even know what his
name is here. He could have, like you said, he could have
changed his name to Joe Stigley forall we know. Dead. Yeah.

(42:50):
So the Consulate is like, we'renot going to look for a guy that
you that nobody's seen nor heard fromin a long time, you know,
for all they yeah, for allthey know, he could have been made
to disappear or disappear himself. Thisis it's been five years apparently since he's
been last heard from. All right, so you gotta send a letter pre

(43:15):
pre you gotta know, pre internet. You gotta understand. I know,
stamps weren't that much shine shine ashoe one right, by a stamp,
by a stamp. You don't haveto send a letter. You can send
just send a little scrap of ofyour neck tie. Yeah, just that
you're alive, the feel of sausagea day. All right, I'm here,

(43:40):
I'm alive. You can send anempty envelope with a tomato sauce stain.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sois that our grandfather is thinking he's
old, he's going where old peoplemight be. He goes to a hospital
on the low where East signed andthey're all along. Was our mystery man

(44:07):
on a hunch? Wait a minute, what on a hunch? He says,
well, he's probably old, andhe shows up at a hospital hears
old. So he goes to theold people things the first thing he should
have done there he's their father,and they he's an old guy. They
know he's old. He's anyone didn'tbe someone's child. They could have been

(44:30):
eight thirty year old who are writingto him. The people who are writing
to him are like in their thirtiesand forties. How do we know that?
Because from we don't even know.We don't even know what motherfucker's name.
We don't but he did. Idon't know nothing nothing As in typical

(44:52):
fucking fashion, nothing I have heardso far from our family has made sense,
and that includes from him and fromyou. No. No, he
left as an adult, and thisis years later. He knows there's these
are adult children. These are adultchildren right now. No one knows the
damn thing. It's not an eighthgrader writing from Italy. Okay, okay,

(45:13):
okay, it's not a kid writingthe fucking said, we don't know
if these kids are fourteen or thirtyfour. Well yeah, I mean people
started working when they were seven,so but it doesn't. But anyway,
he thinks he's old. They're worriedabout They say he's old, and they're
worried about him. So he findsthis man in a hospital bed on the
Lower east Side. Yeah, lowereast side of the Upper east Side.

(45:37):
One of these fuck does he haveto say for himself? Yeah? I
think he actually said I want togo home. Could you imagine just this
guy just in a bit, Oh, both both legs dropped up. He's

(45:57):
like a great grandfather is like JesusChrist, you're worse shape than me.
So what's wrong with him? What'swhat's the story? One guy's one guy's
limping in, two guys are limpingout. He's an assisted living now how
now my question that I never figuredout that no one knows. How did
he get an assisted living? Likeit's one thing to just get into a

(46:17):
hospital, someone sees you, theythink you're injured, but assisted living there's
a process there. Yep. Ithink he probably thought for a little while,
this is a good deal. They'regiving me food. I'll have to
talk to my bitch family ever again. But then I guess he got bored
with playing the maj On and theBengo so much chess in the park before

(46:45):
you're yeah, uh so now he'slike, okay, so now I gotta
get this motherfucker home because he doesn'twant to stay there. He wants to
go home. So he goes backto the consulate and he's like, so
I found him, and they're likeyou again, stop so you stop finding

(47:10):
people. Don't ever, don't everembark on a quest like this ever again.
Yo. Our grandfather hit great grandfatherhit the side quest jackpot. Yeah,
this dude, this dude saw thecampaign story of getting his ship back
together and getting back on that garbagetruck, and he was like, no,

(47:32):
I you know what I need rightnow? I need a two thousand
hour distraction. Yeah, I needa three state I need How long was
the search? I mean he's taken. He's taking the bus down to Philadelphia
on weekends for how long a year? Two years? This search took five
years, this search. The searchencompassed an entire presidency. Oh my god,

(47:59):
can you imagine being could you imaginejust being the wife during this time
and like for five years, yourhusband is like, all right, I
could spend time with you, butI'm gonna go to Philadelphia and find a
man who may or may not existwell while i'd live. So the Consulate
is like, yeah, we're notpaying for that to send him back.

(48:22):
To send him back. Now,they're not paying for so our grandfather gets
enough money together, all right,so he pays No, oh god,
a great our great grandfather. Yeah, I'm sure Pop contributed something with the
money he was making. He's atthe bank now. He started his long

(48:42):
tenure working for banks when he's likeseventeen years old. So he wants to
go back home. They don't,they don't want to pay. He finally
gets he's trying to figure out,how am I going to get this guy
back, because like I can't puthim on a cruise ship, Like,

(49:07):
how am I going to find theold Italian man transport? We need a
fucking galley. I think that's allwe're gonna be able to afford. Here
is it is a stowaway spot ona fucking on a fucking sale ship sailboat.
Well that's funny you mentioned that becausethat's basically what happens. That's the
guy on a steamship that mostly carriedcargo, and then we put him on

(49:31):
that Titanic. He just and hetakes some money. He says, look'sen
he puts it because because our greatgrandfather solved the most things with the little
money he made. He got thelicense. This way, he's taken them.
He probably got half his tips thisway. Who knows who he had
to pay in what pool hall.So now he's taking the money. He

(49:53):
finds a worker on the steamship andhe goes, all right, giving you
this, you take him, he'syour new cargo. And he goes back
home Toataly. How do you getthis motherfucker out the hospital? I think,
well, that that okay. Physicallyyou bring up a good point.

(50:15):
Administratively, I don't think they cared. But physically it's like he's limping.
That guy can barely walk. Yep? Are they are? They like half
hobbling, half rolling in like abroken ass wheelchair down to the docks at
night. You can get shot onthe streets in New York. You get
killed in the streets of New York. You got these two old men falling

(50:38):
over each other, trying to makeit to trying to make it to a
to it to an old world boat. You could kill yourself on the streets
of New York a parent without eventrying, run over by a damn horse.
Yeah, so they puts him onthe dock. He gets I don't

(51:00):
know how he does it on Ijust I just want to paust for a
second and realize, like this isthe links an old Italian man would go
that supersedes his emotional availability to hiswife, Like that is a mile and
mile away, but a multi yearsearch for a man in Philadelphia while I'm

(51:22):
crippled do that, but vulnerability thatI cannot do. It's just like they
could do no idea what their marriagewas like. So endeavors she No,

(51:43):
she didn't, she did thought itwas a lunatic. So so, Teresa,
what's your husband doing? How's he? What's how what? What work
is he in? Well, he'sin the finding old motherfucker's work, isn't
that one. There's always something happening, I mean, you know, just
this is just recently had these motherfuckersdigging tunnels under synagogues and ship and it's

(52:06):
like, what's what's voyshit? Doingthis weekend. Well, he's digging a
fucking hole. Oh, he's likelandscaping. No, no, no,
he's burrowing beneath the earth. Yeah, he's trying to find a way to
Brooklyn. Out of Brooklyn. He'swith the trains show. He's doing his

(52:32):
own thing. He is the trainso he is single handed transport. So
he gets he puts him on thechip. But now we have a new
problem because remember what, there's nocommunication during this time, So our great
grandfather has to write a letter,make sure that letter gets to whatever small

(52:57):
bumberfuck town in Stiliano and needs toget to and make sure that they get
that letter in time to get them, or else he's going to be lost
in Italy. Even better, putthe letter on the man. Look a
little signpost. This is to bedelivered to fun. Fun fact. You

(53:20):
used to be able through USPS tomail children. You can mail a kid
through USPS and and uh postal workerwould be responsible forgetting them for me to
be Yeah, what what can gowrong? I mean what what? But

(53:40):
it was better than it was betterthan sending them with no chaperone and no
documentation. Though you may have justsent them to their kidnapper, but sure,
but you know also or kidnapped ontheir way to their kidnapper by the
postal person. So there's like thepossibilities are endless. So I'm not advocating

(54:05):
for it, and just so wedon't, I'm not saying I want to
bring back, you know, mailingpeople. Yeah, yeah, child prayer.
You know, I do love theidea of this old guy showing up
on a dock in Italy and beinglike, where's my fucking family? And
I think the little paper says,no, really, where's that his fucking

(54:25):
family? We think the little papersays, and we think his family is
from a little part of Italy calledPortugal. Portugal from of Philadelphia. Oh,

(54:45):
Philadelphia is that way. But andthe people in Italy are like,
he has to go and find thesome creep cheese. Okay, we'll send
you to Foredom. We know exactlycheese. It's an American thing. Get
on the boat, buddy, it'syeah. The man has a sign on

(55:10):
the cheese. The man's holding asign that's his return to sender and bring
back cream cheese. And the citythey take the cream cheese and they're like,
honestly, this could be a job, they pay him. It's a
whole new life starts all over again. He's like, fuck it, I
found my calling. Yeah, mycalling is shipping, is importing, exporting,
bringing one brick of Philadelphia cream cheeseback and forth from from from from

(55:36):
New York, high value commodities.Man. So then they they get it.
I don't know how long. Idon't know the exact like gap here,
they get the letter. He's juston the dock. He thankfully he

(56:00):
hasn't moved. He can't move thatmuch in the first place, but he
hasn't wandered off. He's just theyget there. It's just the man is
just exactly where they dropped him,and they pick him up, get their
cargo, and they take him backhome. And then like a few months

(56:24):
later, our grandparents get well greatgrandparents, Yeah, get a record.
So it's like an LP. Andon the LP is a voice, like
a voice note, so like whatwe do now, like that's the og

(56:46):
voice note. They did it ona fucking LP, and it's the uh,
it's the family. But the thingis that they know they kind of
like they could write Italian, butit's been so long that in the dialect
is now so heavy that they couldbarely understand what the fuck they're saying when

(57:10):
they listen to the LP, sowe know they're thanking. He knows he's
being thanked, but the Italian dialect. Maybe it's because he's been away so
long. Maybe the person who madethe LP is like an older person.
I don't fucking know. But forwhatever reason, at this point, it's
barely understandable what they're actually saying.But they do understand that they're being thanked

(57:36):
for finding the man wow and shippinghim back home. And you got it.
I didn't know that. I didn'tknow that you could do this back
back. I mean, I meana one off, a one off I
message voice note printed onto onto aonto an LP is recorded. Yeah yeah,

(57:57):
the LP yeah well yeah, butI mean it has to be.
It has to be pressed. Ithas to be. That has to be.
You have to set it. Ibelieve in wax. It's not it's
not a it's not like you scratchit in while it's happening. You have
to you have to press an LP, like with a machine. Could you
imagine where they had to go?Guess this missing? You know what probably

(58:22):
happened? They probably they probably yetthey probably went somewhere else just to do
that. Man, they are goingto be so upset when tapes are invented.
Yeah, but also imagine doing allthat the imagine doing all that and
no one knows what the fu youwere saying. Yeah, so do we

(58:43):
still have this somewhere? Yes,it is somewhere in our own archives.
Well, we need to find it, and I'm gonna I'm gonna make a
trip to Italy and I'm gonna I'mgonna We're gonna find someone who can understand
it. Now do we know theywere from Stilliano? This is the post
to be the same people who What'swhat's possible is that by the time all

(59:07):
this happened, it's possible that someonewasn't there and it was like another relative
of them that made it. Butyes, these are the people it's supposed
to be, at least on behalfof the people in the village who wrote
our great grandfather that their father wasmissing somewhere in New York. We gotta

(59:27):
find this, and I I gottatake it somewhere. I gotta, we
gotta, we have to find this. We'll get a part too, Yes,
this subscribe to the Patreon Yeah,the decoded episode will be its own
thing. Uh, we have togo. We have to we have to

(59:52):
find. We have to barter witha tub of Philadelphia. We gotta,
we gotta say, because it maybe the universal currency. At this point
they were, buddy, don't talkto me about bitcoin. Okay, we

(01:00:13):
Italians been doing this for a longtime. Yeah, all right, you
want to do You want to talkbusiness, You want to talk things being
worth tens of thousands of dollars.Yeah, you bring me the Philadelphia brick.
Don't show up at my fucking businesswithout the Philadelphia brick. So yeah,

(01:00:37):
I mean it. It. Itspanned five years, It spanned it
spanned two addresses. They moved duringthis time, from Fordham to West No,
the fucking world worked the way theworld worked pre nineteen eighty astounds the

(01:01:00):
ship out of me, and thatincludes lead in the air. Yeah,
I still believe in your theory thatlead had a significant impact on critical thinking
during this time, not my theory. And I so after that, of

(01:01:25):
course, I just talked to ourgrandfather. Just some other funny notes.
One time, Joseph, his brotherbefore being in Korea, clearly had a
gambling problem, and of course anItalian having a gambling problem in the Bronx.
You might who could have ever heardof that? Who I'm wrong?
Begging begging our family to stop beingsuch a cliche business gambling. I mean

(01:01:53):
there's victors and Paul's and peters.But anyway, so you know, if
you have a debt, it couldbe with probably some unsavory people if if
things don't go right. So ourmother took this into our own hands.
She went up to the pool hall. She found Joseph in the middle of
playing pool, and according to Papa, she dragged him by his hair down

(01:02:16):
the stairs. And two blocks Andit's just and that is one way of
solving a gambling problem, dude.Draft things would suffer at the hands of
art, at the hands of ItalianAmerican women, the Anti Draft Kings Association
to just be a picture of amom pulling the hair of our I guess

(01:02:38):
great uncle going use this code,motherfucker's uh two but that's committed. Two
blocks's commitment and two blocks is aheadof hair, because that that's something I
can and I can just picture.I could just ma but yeah, and

(01:03:01):
then it's like the boys are playingstickball across the street, just watching them
being dragged, yeah, or theydon't knew if they laughed, they'd be
dragged. Yeah. And another funnything I know this we had we have

(01:03:22):
cousins and this is this is ahall of fame name. We have cousins
named the Galapos. It is thatis a that's like s tier Italian name
right there. That is that isa cut above the mistaking it. That's

(01:03:45):
a that's a premium slice of shoot, premium wide. And one of these
cousins had a habit. That's whenthe Albanian at the shop really likes you.
It's so it's so Italian it becameAlbanian these cousins. I believe these
are the cousins that had a habit. I just thought it was funny that

(01:04:10):
I think they went to another cousinand were like, so I really want
to make wine, and can Iuse your basement to do it? Like
they had a habit of using someoneelse's I just find it so funny they
use someone else's basement to make theirwine. It was just like, could

(01:04:33):
you just imagine, like that conversationsources you had back in the nineteen fifties,
Yeah, you know it someone else'sresources Hey, this, this whole
story is about not knowing a guyin America and finding using people you don't
know to find the guy. Youdid find the guy. Yeah, people
did ship for each other, Iguess is the big takeaway. But please,

(01:04:57):
don't leave your wife for five yearstrying to find some dude. Don't
trying to find a man, justa guy, just some guy. Don't
leave your Yeah, he don't leaveyour wife trying to find a man for
five years. I mean, it'sgonna have it. Yeah, it's it's
not gonna it's it's not gonna end. Well, at least not now.

(01:05:17):
Back then it was pretty much yousign a contract in blood and you're pretty
much with the same person all thattime. But yeah, Italians signed a
contract in fucking tomatoes. Well thereyou have it, man. So yeah,
it's a story of determination. It'sa story of our long lost borough

(01:05:41):
of Philadelphia. The human perseverance,for sure, human perseverance. I would
have I'm telling you now, Iwould have threw that letter out thirty seconds
give me. If I felt motivatedto get up and look, I would
have done one Google search. Ididn't find them. A Google search back

(01:06:06):
then was just finding Italians with thethree most prominent names and asking each one
of them and then if you geta consensus of those people. Yeah,
yeah, it's a Google Googleani search. That's what that was. It was
a Goomba search, that's all itwas. You just asked three. You

(01:06:30):
find a Vic, you find aPeter, you find a Paul, maybe
you find a Dominic. You askedthem the question, Well you need to
find a fifth one, all right, so we Anthony, of course,
so you need to find a fifthone because someone has to be the tie
breaker. And yeah, the majorityrules is Google is the So we learned

(01:06:53):
we have determination in our veins,stubbornness and uh probably uh, thankfully we've
broken the curse of emotional availability uphere going to the imaginary burrow Philadelphia.
While crippled here, I go toas few boroughs as possible, and that

(01:07:15):
includes Philadelphia. Yeah yeah, notas well, said stan Island. So
that's it. That's quite a bralic. It's a personal bralic, but it
is. It is a great Italianimmigrants story, and it's it doesn't make
sense, but it's not supposed tomake sense. It's it's just to that

(01:07:35):
man that had to be done.Fuck everything else. Fuck health, fuck
marriage, fuck everything else. Iam finding this man, and I'm sending
him home. I guess. Iguess if we if we uh, if
we asked enough, maybe, ifwe asked enough other people's great grandfather,

(01:08:00):
they would all have a story aboutthis one crazy motherfucker coming up to them
and be like, have you haveyou seen Joseph every every He must have
asked every every Italian in the TriState area and beyond. Yeah, and
he had to pick a fucking Lucianowhen he was seventeen. Like he looks

(01:08:23):
like that. Now you seen him? God, sir, you should be
in a hospital. You can't walk. But I need to make it to
New Jersey. Someday I will findI will find a way to follow up
with this for sure. You knowwhat, I think it would only be
right if I showed up in Stillianoand I was like, Yo, I'm

(01:08:45):
looking for a guy. Now.Now now what we have? Now you
now you find you find out youdid we did you a favor. You
find me the guy, same one. I bet he's here. Check out,
check the hospital. You have ahospital? Check at Yeah, it's
the fucking Where's where's Waldini? Yeamm? Hmm yeah, I'll see you

(01:09:11):
next time. Good luck anybody,And don't don't go looking for things you
really really really want to find,right Yeah, if you're gonna leave your
wife for a man, you know, just be out with it, Okay,
don't don't take don't take five yearsand say you're looking for for Luciano
and Philly. All right, justjust just bite the bullet. Oh yeah,

(01:09:35):
yeah, good advice, Good advice,