The glory of GARZILLA

The 35th anniversary of the Gilroy Garlic Festival marks the 15th year of existence for “The Burning Bulb of Gilroy” – the event’s iconic, 8-foot-tall garlic bulb mascot.
The ceremonious lighting of the 1,000-pound steel sculpture heralding the event’s official kick-off is an established festival ritual; a mainstay synonymous with garlic ice cream and local Gerry Foysie who dons his bulbous dress each year and transforms into “Mr. Garlic.”
Many myths surround the origins of the big bulb, however, according to Peter Ciccarelli, media relations for the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association.
The idea for the gigantic garlic – or “Garzilla” as some call it – collaboratively stemmed in 1998 from businessman Steve Janisch and Richard Nicholls, Executive Director of the Gilroy Garlic Festival Association at the time.
“We don’t even know how old the bulb is. It could be thousands of years old,” teased Ciccarelli, keeping an air of mystery surrounding the gargantuan garlic installment. “One day the bulb was mysteriously found on the side of highway 101.”
An article by Patricia DeStasio, commonly referred to by her peers as Garlicia, brings things a little more down to earth.
DeStasio has in her possession a July 1998 company newsletter documenting how The Burning Bulb was created out of steel and sheet metal in three weeks by Eddie Hurtado, who at the time was a fabricator for Christopher Ranch’s “Fab Shop” located on the property.
The herbacious creation was unleashed – complete with roots and an “eternal flame” installment modeled after the Olympic torch – 15 years ago in June, one month before the 20th annual festival. It was stationed like a beacon 24 hours a day in front of Garlic World, a retail store on Highway 101, during that month.
During the 1989 festival’s opening ceremonies, relay runners lit a torch from The Burning Bulb’s flame and made their way to festival grounds in Christmas Hill Park, the heart of Gilroy. The torch was then handed off to festival co-founders – the late Rudy Melone (a former Gavilan College President) and Don Christopher; and the festival’s original head chef, Val Filice to fire up the massive scampi and calamari frying pans used in the festival’s legendary culinary corridor, Gourmet Alley.
The Burning Bulb was then transported by a giant tractor to its place of display not far from the park’s entrance.
When the event wrapped up, Garzilla was stored at Christopher Ranch.
Today, the bulb is no longer stored at the Fab Shop, but rather in an undisclosed barn owned by a staff member of the Garlic Festival Association. It remains there every year in hibernation until the time comes for Garzilla to re-emerge in all of its garlicky glory.
To safeguard the bulb from vandals, the exact location of where it is stored during the off season cannot be revealed, officials explain.
Aside from the hidden storage location of the Garlic Festival’s “eternal element”, as Ciccarelli calls it, several ceremonial changes have been made over the past 15 years.
The burning bulb no longer stands vigil outside of Garlic World in the weeks leading up to the festival.
It does, however, play an important role in the annual Garlic City Fun Run, which gets Gilroy into the garlic spirit two weeks prior to the festival. During the event, the bulb is on full display and lit by the Gilroy Garlic Queen.
It then reappears the morning of the festival’s first day – always on a Friday.
“The bulb is brought in by a trailer Thursday night before the Festival,” Ciccarelli explained. “It is lit Friday morning at 9:45 a.m. by the Miss Gilroy Garlic Festival Queen, the president – this year Dennis Harrigan – and other dignitaries.”
The flame will burn throughout the three days of the festival until it is extinguished by Harrigan at 7:15 p.m. Sunday, marking the official close of stinking rose revelry.
“Every year the president extinguishes the flame in a different way. In the past there have been fire trucks involved,” Ciccarelli recalled.
Harrigan has a surprise up his sleeve for this year’s extinguishing, but his lips are sealed, according to Ciccarelli.
In June, local artist Whitney Pintello visited the barn where the bulb is stored to give it a much-needed makeover.
“The bulb was partly chipped, very dirty and a boring gray color that had shadows spray painted on it. I added in some olive greens and metallic golds to make it look more whimsical,” she said.
Pintello said she was recruited by the festival’s Executive Director, Brian Bowe, to spruce up the bulb for this year’s festival. Having submitted entries to the festival’s poster contest for years – winning first place in 2012 and third place in this year’s competition – and also having a booth in the festival’s mercantile for the past eight years, the event’s staffers know Pintello and her beautiful artwork well.
Pintello said she was tickled when Bowe asked her to paint the bulb and that she had never painted anything like it in size or structure.
“A lot of touristy pictures and thousands of family pictures are taken in front of the bulb every year and it’s an honor for me to have painted it,” Pintello said.