Gangland 1/11/2024

[johnny_scootch]

In the old days there were guys who would rather have been wacked than to live in disgrace on the shelf. Nowadays you have guys who are on the shelf then come off and become captains!

Never ever heard of a guy on the shelf keeping a title seems like an oxymoronic scenario.

[B.]

Yeah as DiLeonardo has said, being shelved is basically a form of death. At least while it is in effect, as they've always taken guys on and off the shelf and they can return in good standing afterward. In Sicily they call it "posato", meaning "posed", as in the guy is frozen and can't move.

It was during his testimony in the Asaro trial where Vitale explained how a shelved member can keep his rank and how being shelved isn't the same as "breaking" someone from their rank. He said when someone like this is taken off the shelf, he resumes his rank as before. I just don't know of any examples where it's happened.

[CabriniGreen]

In the old days there were guys who would rather have been wacked than to live in disgrace on the shelf. Nowadays you have guys who are on the shelf then come off and become captains!

Never ever heard of a guy on the shelf keeping a title seems like an oxymoronic scenario.

Is that what happened with Grillo from the Gambinos?

[aray22]

In the old days there were guys who would rather have been wacked than to live in disgrace on the shelf. Nowadays you have guys who are on the shelf then come off and become captains!

Never ever heard of a guy on the shelf keeping a title seems like an oxymoronic scenario.

Is that what happened with Grillo from the Gambinos?

Yes.

[CabriniGreen]

I mean...look at Vitale. He was basically shelved, WITH his title...

[SonnyBlackstein]

In the old days there were guys who would rather have been wacked than to live in disgrace on the shelf. Nowadays you have guys who are on the shelf then come off and become captains!

Never ever heard of a guy on the shelf keeping a title seems like an oxymoronic scenario.

Is that what happened with Grillo from the Gambinos?

Yes.

Grillo wasn't a captain when he was shelved.

[johnny_scootch]

I mean...look at Vitale. He was basically shelved, WITH his title...

He was ostracized within his own family to a degree but he could still interact with members from his other families. On the shelf means no one in the entirety of LCN can or should.

Grillo wasn't a captain when he was shelved.

Yes that's correct but no one was insinuating that. I just stated that these days guys can go from total disgrace to a captain which would never happen in the old days.

[PolackTony]

I mean...look at Vitale. He was basically shelved, WITH his title...

He was ostracized within his own family to a degree but he could still interact with members from his other families. On the shelf means no one in the entirety of LCN can or should.

Yeah, I think it’s important to also emphasize that a guy just getting sidelined or getting the cold shoulder isn’t the same thing as being shelved, which is a change in a member’s relationship to the organization (as you note, meaning the entire network rather than just the member’s Family). It’s a change in a guy’s status, formally, what anthropologists call a “social death”: exile, loss of one’s identity and place in their community and social network (similar to how the making ceremony is a symbolic death and rebirth into a new “life” as a “man”). As B noted, this is how Michael D has characterized it. It’s the next thing to clipping a guy. In recent years, given the decline in mob murders, it’s also presumably used a lot more than in the past I’d think. Like, 40 years ago they’d have just whacked a guy out, but now they are much more likely to shelve him.

[PolackTony]

. In Sicily they call it "posato", meaning "posed", as in the guy is frozen and can't move.

“Posed” (like how one would do a mannequin) is one meaning of the Italian verb posare, others being “to rest”, “to put an object somewhere”, or “to lay something down”. One can see how the different uses of the word relate to the concept of being put on the shelf.

[Southshore88]

In the old days there were guys who would rather have been wacked than to live in disgrace on the shelf. Nowadays you have guys who are on the shelf then come off and become captains!

Never ever heard of a guy on the shelf keeping a title seems like an oxymoronic scenario.

Is that what happened with Grillo from the Gambinos?

Yes.

Grillo wasn't a captain when he was shelved.

Sonny, who said he was a captain when he was shelved?

Johnny said, guys come off the shelf and then are made captain.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Sonny, who said he was a captain when he was shelved?

Johnny said, guys come off the shelf and then are made captain.

My misunderstanding. Apologies.