Pericles in America Transcript
- [Narrator] Many years ago, George Rabos came from Greece to make a better way of life in America. He carried with him the memories and music of the Greek countryside. Today he makes a living selling diamonds high above Times Square.
-(George Rabos) And I work in the middle of the block on 45th Street. That's the building there, on the 12th floor. The window on the right.
- [Jack] Oh, by the way, could you do a nice job on this? You think you could find time to, you know, do a nice job?
- (George) Yes.
- (Jack) Sample quality.
- [George] Always.
- [Jack] Always sample quality. Always. I mean, you're being, you know, good, you know, good quality.
- Always.
- Always.
- That's my motto.
- (Jack) Well, don't you feel that we should, you know, converse with one another? You know, we have the rest of our lives to work. Now don't you feel that we should talk?
- (George) I'm too busy, I wanna work.
- (Jack) Well, George, this is more important than work right now. I mean, you always have the opportunity to make money.
- (George) No, not always.
- (Jack) What do you mean, not always?
- [George] I'm here to work, to make more money.
- (Jack) Why, George? You're being photographed. Why are you in the United States?
- (George) Only to make money.
- [Jack] In other words is there nothing else in this society but money making?
- (George) Yes, that's a good way of putting it.
- (Jack) George is a very negative, very negative approach to the American way.
- (George) Well, that's all that the society has given me.
- (Jack) All that society has given you is money.
- [George] Work and money.
- (Jack) George, you're looking for deeper things, right? Higher value, right?
- (George) Maybe some day, they could offer me something else.
- (Jack) Well, what do you want us to offer you? What is it that you want us to offer you? You're judging, you know.
- (George) Different atmosphere.
- [Jack] What type of atmosphere? What do you object to in the atmosphere here?
- (George) It's not like home. Old fashioned place.
- (Jack) Old fashioned. Circa what, 1930? There's people like you that started the Second World War.
- [George] Not us. We were the last ones that entered the Second World War.
- (Jack) Well, he has this really strong sense of Greek identity. And he's known in this shop as a lunatic. In other words, he constantly talks about Greece and says these outlandish things about the master race. You know, how they are going to defeat the whole world, that Armageddon, you know, they're gonna take over the universe. Is it the universe, George, or just the world?
- (George) The world.
- (Jack) The world. And he feels that most people are inferior to Greeks. What are the people from your village, George? What are they? George, give us some of your opinions of.
- (George) Elite, of the elite.
- (Jack) Of the elite. The people in his village, how many people are there in your village, George?
- (George) Right now there's five people.
- (Jack) Five people. They're the elite. No, wait a minute, wait a minute. I didn't know this when I went there. I expected these people like Pericles, you know, in this village. And as I came into the village, this woman offered me half a dozen eggs, you know? And she didn't look so intelligent, you know? Like she looked very backward in a sense, you know? Like she was offering me what?
- (Jack) Eggs?
- (George) Eggs, yeah.
- (Jack) Eggs.
- (George) Another woman gave us potatoes.
- (Jack) Potatoes. And there were like five people in the village. They didn't seem that different from other people to me. You know, Greeks don't even like this music.
- [Cameraman] Which music do you mean?
- (Jack) This, what region?
- (George) Northern Epirus.
- (Jack) Northern Epirus. No Greeks--
- (George) In the northwest corner of Greece.
- (Jack) The average Greek turns his nose up to this music. He says it's really backward. What do they call it, primitive?
- [George] No, it's not primitive.
- (Jack) That other George said he was sneering at it.
- (George) His opinion. What do you expect? He's from the city and I'm from a church.
- (Jack) And turned me on where I thought I was being polite to you because you're Greek, and I said it was beautiful.
- (George) Armand liked it.
- (Jack) And it's Greek. This lousy Greek over here is telling me you don't have to listen to that crap.
- (George) Armand liked it.
- (Jack) Armand. Armand was a savage man. He's a barbarian. You know what his profession was in Istanbul. I mean, who the hell wants to hear border tones all day long? He has this machine. He puts it on at full volume. Full volume. Everybody in the shop is working, and we have to listen to this for 10 hours a day. This Epirotic noise.
- (George) Well, Jack gave me a Walkman. Sounds like, it sounds like for Christmas. So I just plug it in and I put it on my, ear so nobody has to listen.
- (Jack) To this score to a Boris Karloff movie.
- (George) The Epirotic music.
- (Jack) The repertory of about five pieces. Each piece has about six notes. And they can never hit the note right in the middle. So they keep sliding around. And then George thinks, you know, the variations are really astonishing. These guys are half drunk, so they never hit the right fret. So they go in between . They're either some might come too low, some might come too high, and they're never planning to get it, right?
- [George] Mm hm.
- (Jack) So you think it's beautiful, right?
- (George) Yes. I tell you, I couldn't, I couldn't go without this music. Sometimes I just put it on, I pretend I'm back in the village, even though I'm working here. Well, this is the Greek town of Astoria here, part of Queens. And they estimate that the 200,000 Greeks or more live here on and off. Well, the musicians play a big role in the Greek community here. Whenever they have an affair, whether it's a wedding or festival with a church, it's a custom always to have the Greek music. That's where most of the Greek musicians hang out. It's a type of a cafe that you will find in Greece. This is where Pericles Halkias lives. Pericles, he's like an inspiration to the Epirotic community. He still holds the real Epirotic music inside of him. He has a real feeling for it, you know? And he does not wanna see it changed. He's well known to the old people, but not to the young generation. 30 years ago, he was very popular all over the area of Pogonia. To us, it's like an inspiration. We feel the music he is trying to put out to the people. It's inside of him. He wants to keep it the way, the way he found it. Well, it's bad that the Epirotic societies do not invite him on the dances, their annual dances that they have here. They think that they get another younger musician, they're gonna show something better to the people. We very much criticized them, but they seem to have changed. They want more modern music. And they wanna show that they are something different.
- [Interpreter] They're destroying the music. It's not like it used to be. That's why I stopped going to these things. I tell them, I'll bring Lazarus to sing. They say, no, don't bring him. What kind of music you're going to hear if I don't have the song? The song is the thing that makes me remember all these pastimes, how things were and makes me play good music. There's no Epirus anymore. You cannot distinguish . It's all one thing. We lost the character of Epirus. The problem is that they don't want to, and they cannot maintain the tradition, because the good singers, the good dancers, they died. I'm still alive and I'm doing my best, but I'm not enough. Sometimes they tell me we are from Pogoni and we're dancing Pogoni dances. And I tell them, you are from Pogoni? I don't recognize you. You could be Macedonians. You could be Cretans. So, they tell me very clear, the world has changed. Don't you understand? And I said to them, are you telling me that Pogoni has changed? How can it change? And if it changed, then who are you? What's your identity? You can say that you come from Pogoni, but what does it mean?
- This is the old.
- [Cameraman] How long have you been playing?
- About a year and a half.
- [Cameraman] And why you choose to play with Pericles? To study with him?
- 'Cause he has everything I need. 'Cause we're from the same part of Greece.
- [Cameraman] Were you born in Greece?
- No, I was born here, America. See, I was brought up with the Greek custom here. And I was listening to Greek music since I could understand it. I put on a record or tape, Greek tape, and I play along, try to find the sounds.
- [Cameraman] Do you listen to tapes of Pericles?
- I listen to, if he has any, I listen to his. I listen to his son's. Petrol's.
- [George] Petroloukas, the son of Pericles. He's a modern day musician who plays, besides Epirotic, all other Greek music.
- [Interpreter] It's my finger. I cut it. Was trying to change the strings.
- [Cameraman] Do you repair instruments like your father?
- [Interpreter] I too take care of the instruments.
- I too repair instruments . What can we do? We have to laugh a little.
- I was in Canada and I came here to be with my mother and father in their home. Wherever we go, we're invited to play music for the Epirots. There are Epirots all over the world. Was in Germany. I'm going to Zaire now. I have been in Johannesburg. I go everywhere.
- [George] Well, it's gonna be a big change this summer. I will be going to Greece. I will be getting married in Athens. I was hoping to have the wedding in a village, to have an old fashioned wedding. But it doesn't work out. We're gonna try to have the best musicians. The musicians are gonna be Petros Halkias with his Epirotic orchestra. Her name is Athena. She was born and raised in Athens, but her parents come from the village, the same village that my parents come from. As the custom goes, it's five past seven, and I'm still waiting for the bride. She might be in the neighborhood, but she is going around circles, keeping the groom anxious. That's the custom.
- - I heard you on the radio interview the other day and you were great. Been a long time. God bless you. You're wonderful Just keep it up.
- [Interpreter] There are 164 villages in Pogonia, and I've played in every one of them. I've been to all of them. We used to vary the music we play depending on the-location. Pogoni had some order. Now they only play one style, and they play it over and over again. Music is not noise. Music is something that has to be enjoyed in a peaceful way. But now what they've done is they have destroyed music. It's finished. Except that there are some people who hold the old ways. And who knows? I think that maybe after 50, 60 years, they'll go back to the natural way of playing.
- My baby's name is Petros. It runs to our generations, from generation to generation. They all play clarinet. I think now it's up to seven generations.
- [Speaker] Few people stay in the villages all year long. There are few jobs here and no way to prosper. Then in the summer, for a few weeks, they return from Athens and from America and from all over. They come for the panegyri. That is a celebration for the god and goddess of everything, the ancient god Pan. People bring food, they dance, and they celebrate the local saint's day. That's what the panegyri is all about.
- [Harry] My name is Harry Stavro. I live in Manhattan, New York. I speak Greek here when I come to Greece. He said it's a hard life because they stay in the mountains when it's winter and it's cold and it rains and all that stuff. He said that he started this job from small kid and he hates it and he can't change, can't find another job.
- (George) That's the village of Katouna where I was born. Katouna and Kathismata is one community. Katouna is an extension of the old, the town of Katouna, which is, right now it's in the Albanian territory. So after the war, it got split up, and it stayed those 10 houses that are there, they stayed inside Greek territory. They leveled a couple of houses down and they moved the people inland so they won't escape. So that the old Katouna is deserted now. It's not occupied because of fear they would escape into Greece. It always feels good coming back to this place. Feels like I'm reborn again. This is my house, the house where I was born in. And it raises my spirits every time I come here. Makes me happy, makes me sad, makes me wanna cry. All kinds of things. And unfortunately, I left the village when I was five years old. Went to Athens and then to the States for better way of life. But you always wannna come back to this place. Well, in the future, I would wanna end up here. If I could make a living over here, with the money that I can make here.
- Gypsum. That's the land with gypsum for the parakala music. Not the people living in the parakala, and making join something too.
- Enjoying.
- Of course, enjoying. All the family is over there, lot of kids. Everybody should have almost 10 kids, nine kids, seven kids, five kids. The last ones, nobody stay one, two. Everybody should have a big family. And so poor people.
- [Pericles] 11 years old where I played for my first dance. They came from the other , the people from Kastani came. That's where I held my first clarino. You know, they listened to me and they said, this kid is good. So I started going around different villages. And that's how I got into this. Then I went to Athens, and I was with Karakosta at the Elatos place. And then I went with Violaris, and went with him to San Francisco. When we were in New York, I went to the nightclub, Istanbul, and I played, and they told me, you should stay here. So I stayed in Club Istanbul and I was playing there, and because people loved me. I was playing with Mustafa and other Turkish clarinet, really fast rate. So I stayed and I was doing all right. And you know, I was going to Greece every two years, every three years, every five years. New York, Kastaniani, Kastaniani, New York, Kastaniani, New York, and so on. You see, inside me, I had this burning desire to see my places, to go back. I loved them, I loved them. You see, I, I remember my old days in this place. And when I was very poor, I really had no shoes to wear, no coat. And people would feel very sorry about me. And they would say Pericles, Pericles, let us give you a pair of shoes, let us give you a coat. Well, that was my childhood. And then everything changed. Everything came to me. And now I have the money, I have everything, and it's all useless. That's my adventure.
- (Guard) Hey, closed. How are you gonna keep pushing yourself in? Go in there. We have this for a reason, sir. Do you know that you had a line going this way? They were very nice. I would never.
- (George) Thank you. We showed them the green card. We told 'em why it's with a last maiden name on it. So they told us there was a mistake done either with to our part or with the American Consulate office in Athens. We filled out the wrong name. So we just have to change it. We have to bring a marriage certificate translated to English and get photos. That's proof of the marriage. My father used to work for 14 years about three blocks, four blocks down here, below City Hall. Al Saldelyan on Broadway. He worked there for 14 years.
- [Cameraman] And now where is he?
- Well now he's retired in Greece.
- [Cameraman] Is that the idea? To live in Greece rather than live in America?
- Well, that was his idea from the beginning to come here, you know, to bring his children here, for a better life so then when he gets old, he would go back to Greece.
- [Kid] Air ball, back up. Back up. Oh!
- [Cameraman] Were your kids born here?
- (Pizza Owner) All my kids born here. My son I send five times to the Greece. My family too. About five times, six times, all my family go to Greece. Enjoy themselves. All my kids too small to know about my country.
- [Cameraman] What did you do there in Greece?
- Farms. Yeah, I used to before work. This is my job before in a small village. I take care of all the sheep. Take them out seven days a week, day, daytime, nighttime. No, you ain't cut out for this farm. Now is here different life, different job to work about 100 hours a week, seven days. In my country, is not so hard. I work for not too much money, not much profit. Here it's more better. You work more hard, make more money.
- (George) The Marriott Marquis is beautiful. Something you're not gonna see in Greece. Beautiful modern hotel.
- The truth is that the good ones are gone. What do I need memories? I really don't want memories. Thank God for Americans. Without them, where would I be now? Pogoni people are dead for me. The best are dead. And then you have the children. I mean, you can't blame the children. It's how they bring them up. To tell you the truth, I don't even want to go back to Greece because of the deterioration of music. I cannot hear the things that I like to hear. At least here I have my cassettes. I go downstairs, and I can play some music for you. And boy, you're going to overflow with feeling. And this is the best medicine for me. Very nice. My best memories were from, oh, back in the '30s. Boy, I was like a bird. I was flying like a bird. I had wings then. I remember I used to be with Karakostas in Athens. The people used to come and throw the envelopes with the money and the requests. And I would say to Karakosta, let me, let me do the . Let me do Skaros. Of course we used to play everything, but they insisted they wanted to hear the Pogoni music.
