Chris Carosa

Style or Substance? A Real-World Lesson (Part I)

By Chris Carosa on March 28, 2019

I never had someone so mad at me. And for no reason. We were both in tenth grade. Except for orchestra, we shared no other classes. We did share an Italian-American heritage. And she was mad in a way only an Italian-American can get mad. I’d seen it all before. In my extended family. In my neighborhood. In the dark alleys of the most obscure hallways within the school.

I just didn’t get it. I didn’t even know what a concertmaster was. Yet, there I was. Her, me, and the violin teacher.

But I get ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning of the story…Continue Reading “Style or Substance? A Real-World Lesson (Part I)”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, Great Speaking Tips, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A Tune A Day, Arkansas Traveler, concertmaster, Happy Birthday song, math, orchestra, Pop Goes the Weasel, Santa Lucia, The Irish Washerwoman, Three Stooges, violin

5 Reasons Why Splitting From New York Would be a Bonanza for Greater Western New York

By Chris Carosa on March 19, 2019

A few weeks ago a Syracuse media outlet published an article denouncing the idea of splitting New York into multiple states. It is recommended that you read that article before reading this one. The article was entitled “5 reasons why splitting New York would be a disaster for Upstate,” by Mark Weiner. It appeared on March 5, 2019 on the NYUp.com website. [The on-line version of this Carosa Commentary contains a live link to that article.]

What follows is meant to mimic Weiner’s article by using the same data and quotes to reach a 180° opposite conclusion. It starts with the very title. Weiner concludes “studies show the split into two states would likely be an economic disaster for Upstate New York, experts say. The region simply depends too heavily on taxes and fees paid by wealthy residents and corporations in New York City and its suburbs.” I’ll present his very same arguments, with very little additional information, and come to a completely Continue Reading “5 Reasons Why Splitting From New York Would be a Bonanza for Greater Western New York”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged Albany, David Friedfel, E.J. McMahon, Empire Center for Public Policy, Falconer, Jamestown, M&T Bank, Mark Weiner, Mark's Pizzeria, minimum wage, New York, New York Association of Counties, New York City, Preemption Line, Rockefeller Institute of Government, SUNY, Truck-Lite

That Time I Discovered “Idle Time” Doesn’t Really Exist

By Chris Carosa on March 12, 2019

A well-known academic who researches retirement policy recently referred to me as “the indefatigable Chris Carosa” in an article she wrote for Forbes. In case you were wondering, the dictionary defines “indefatigable” as “incapable of being tired out; not yielding to fatigue; untiring.” If she only knew the half of it.

I got one of those stomach bugs a couple of weeks ago. You know the kind I mean. They come from nowhere and lay you flat for a good twenty-four hours or so. In the interim, you don’t want to eat anything, you don’t want to drink anything – plain and simple you don’t want to do anything.

Except sleep.

And sleep I did. Pang in my gut notwithstanding.

Well, I didn’t quite sleep. It was more like floating in and out of consciousness. (C’mon, we’ve all been there, so you know what I mean.)

Funny thing when I fall under the weather like this. Physically, I’m beat. Can’t move. Don’t want to move. Just want to lay there in a quasi-vegetative state.

Only not really. Because as weak as my body feels, my mind is buzzing like a busy bee. A busy bee trapped in a hive that it finds quite confining.

As my body lay idle, my mind began exploring strange new mental states. It suddenly dawned on me. All this idleness took me away from my routine.

But what exactly was that routine. Sure, there was the routine of work. Yes, work wasn’t getting done, but would prove to be no big deal. (By some miracle, I had entered this Continue Reading “That Time I Discovered “Idle Time” Doesn’t Really Exist”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged multitasking, old movies, Video Game, video games

Confessions of a Numbers Guy

By Chris Carosa on March 5, 2019

Admit it. How many of you read the headline and immediately thought of running the rackets? Tsk, tsk. Too many late-night gangster movies watched on AMC for you!

No, this numbers guy has nothing to do with gambling. I’m not worried about some random fed chasing me down on some random RICO charge. These numbers deal with only one thing: math in its various (legal) applied forms.

My high school teachers knew me better than I knew myself. For four years I paraded from class to class singing the hosannas of science. In science class I asked the toughest questions (especially in physics). In social studies class I trumpeted the scientists during the Age of Enlightenment. In English class I rebelled – even to the point of denying any Continue Reading “Confessions of a Numbers Guy”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Alana Foley, B.F. Skinner, Carol Weissbrod, Cesidia, S.S. Stevens, Sheila Tobias, Sian Beilock, Star Trek, Susan Levine

Classic vs. Timeless: Do You Know the Difference?

By Chris Carosa on February 26, 2019

Ten years ago, I wrote a play for The Monsignor Schnacky Players. It was called The Macaroni Kid. The melodrama told the heartwarming but comedic story of a young orphan trying to reunite with his long, lost mother. Kidnapped by gypsies as a baby, he doesn’t know her name, he doesn’t know where she lives, he doesn’t even know what she looks like. All he remembers is her voice and the beautiful songs she would sing to him.

Now a young man, he decides the only way to find his mother is to sing everywhere, every chance he has. Only then, maybe, if he is lucky, she will find him. (That’s the heartwarming part.)

The only trouble with his plan; he can’t sing. But everyone is so captivated by his story and his quest that they don’t have the heart to tell him. (That’s where the comedy comes in.)

This isn’t a new story. It’s a spin on the familiar “boy-loses-girl/boy-looks-for-girl/boy-finds-girl” three act drama well known among story-tellers, scriptwriters, and playwrights. Lest you think “mother” doesn’t qualify for “girl,” I suggest you reread that timeless Greek classic Oedipus Rex.

There. I just did it. I used “timeless” and “classic” in the same sentence.

Most people view “timeless” and “classic” as interchangeable adjectives. They’re not.

By definition, “timeless” mean “eternal” and “classic” means “highest quality.” That means Continue Reading “Classic vs. Timeless: Do You Know the Difference?”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Adolph Hitler, Attila the Hun, Bach, Beatles, Beethoven, Beethoven's 5th, Beethoven's 9th, Brahms, Brahms' Lullaby, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, City on the Edge of Forever, Elvis, Ivan the Terrible, Jozef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Monsignor Schnacky Players, Oedipus Rex, Pol Pot, Robert Cialdini, social proof, Star Trek, The Macaroni Kid, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor

The Stuff of Dreams…

By Chris Carosa on February 19, 2019

These are not the dreams you have in the daylight. The kind of dreams you have for your children, your career, your life.

No. These are the dreams you have at night. When nobody’s watching. Not even you.

We all dream of the places we’ve been, the faces we remember, and the events we’ve lived. Sometimes we dream of what was. Sometimes we dream of what might have been. Sometimes, well sometimes we just don’t know what we’re dreaming of.

Dreams can be a time machine. Dreams can be a soul machine. Dreams can be a wish machine. That dreams are a machine attest to these two undeniable facts pertaining to Continue Reading “The Stuff of Dreams…”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged chess, Dream, dream interpretation, Edgar Cayce, lucid dreaming, self-fulfilling prophecy, Sigmund Freud

Sorry, Mr. President, It’s Not “Flee” New York, It’s “Free” Western New York

By Chris Carosa on February 12, 2019

If you’re from Greater Western New York, you love it. That makes you part of a long tradition. American patriots felt the same way during the Revolutionary War. In 1779, George Washington dispatched General Sullivan to thwart the British and their Iroquois allies based in Western New York from continuing their lethal terror attacks on the small towns and settlements along the edge of the then New York frontier. When Sullivan’s troops first laid eyes on the beautiful landscape, they immediately knew where they wanted to spend the rest of their lives: Western New York.

Why would you be any different? And yet, living in Western New York too often becomes a burden. Although not as bad as it was decades ago, outsiders continue to disrespect our region. We’ve been the butt of late-night TV jokes. Organizations routinely bypass our bounty, lured by promised riches from others. Even our own state leaders forsake us. We’ve seen this as recently as when the New York-Albany axis decided to use our Continue Reading “Sorry, Mr. President, It’s Not “Flee” New York, It’s “Free” Western New York”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries, Western New York State of Mind Tagged Amazon, Andrew Cuomo, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump, General Sullivan, George Washington, Greater Western New York, Joseph Griffo, New York, New York-Albany axis, Queens, Ronald Reagan

After the Fall

By Chris Carosa on February 5, 2019

I grew up with concrete driveways. That’s what happens when your father and your grandfather were professional masons. I hated those concrete driveways in the winter. All my friends had blacktop driveways. Blacktop driveways retain heat better. When the snow falls on blacktop driveways, it melts (at least at first), making shoveling easier. When it falls on concrete driveways, it doesn’t melt. Try shoveling that. I vowed my house would have an asphalt driveway.

Of course, in those freak lake effect events, the snow accumulates quickly. Especially when it’s cold. Even blacktop driveways can’t help you with the shoveling.

That’s not the only way blacktop driveways can disappoint you.

Asphalt – the material of which blacktop driveways consist – tends to be more flexible than Continue Reading “After the Fall”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged asphalt, Charles Schultz, Charlie Brown, concrete, Dad, grandpa, lake effect, Miss Powell, wrist

The Decade the Music Died

By Chris Carosa on January 29, 2019

We’re a few days away from February 3^rd. It’s a day that forever lives in Rock and Roll infamy.

It was on a cold winter’s night precisely sixty years ago – February 3, 1959 – that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson boarded a Beechcraft Bonanza and found Rock and Roll heaven in a barren cornfield outside of Clear Lake, Iowa.

Much has been written about this, including two film biopics (The Buddy Holly Story in 1978 starring Gary Busey and La Bamba in 1987 starring Lou Diamond Phillips). Perhaps the seminal tribute, though, remains Don McLean’s 1971 hit “American Pie.” It was his song that first used the phrase “the day the music died” to describe the plane crash that took the lives of those young rock stars.

I’m not going to add to the litany of previously published thoughts on “the day the music died.” Rather, I’m going to share with you a conversation I had with a reporter. We sat at a high table in The Menches Brothers Restaurant in Green, Ohio (between Akron and Canton, for those using a GPS). I sipped my Diet Pepsi as the reporter asked me questions about what inspired me to write Hamburger Dreams (my latest book that looks at the evidence refuting and supporting the various hamburger origin stories).

At one point, he asked if I had written any other “food” books. I mentioned A Pizza The Action (albeit it’s more about business than food). Then I added that I had penned a short article on my grandfather’s pizzeria, mapping its beginning to the emergence of Rock and Roll.

That’s when the fun started. Little did I know this reporter, though nearly my age, still Continue Reading “The Decade the Music Died”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 8-track, A Pizza The Action, Akron, album, American Pie, Apple Music, ASCAP/BMI, baseball cards, Bing Crosby, Boy Bands, Buddy Holly, Canton, cassette tape, CD, coins, comic books, Disco, Don McLean, Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Gary Busey, Grunge, Hamburger Dreams, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, Hip Hop, iTunes, J.P. Richardson, Lou Diamond Phillips, Madison Avenue, New Wave, Pandora, pizzeria, Pop Rock, Ritchie Valens, Rock and Roll, Salvator's Pizzeria, Soft Rock, Spotify, stamps, The Beatles, The Big Bopper, The Menches Brothers, vinyl

Would You Rather Be Free or Equal?

By Chris Carosa on January 22, 2019

I call it the “Dichotomy Game.” It acts as a great conversation starter. I use it for more than that. But that’s another story. I will, however, explain how you can play it at home with your friends and family.

First, everyone must remove any self-imposed restrictions on their imagination. You need to think with complete freedom, without the artificial constraints of peer pressure, political correctness, of fear of being made fun of. In other words, you must be completely honest with yourself and with the other folks playing the game.

Ok, have you limbered up those rusty synapses in your brain? Now it’s time to create a list of dichotomies. A dichotomy is a pair of words. In the game you look at each pair of words presented and choose one. Then the game begins.

A word about dichotomies: these aren’t randomly selected pairs of words. They are carefully chosen to cause those aforementioned synapses to fire intensely. (Don’t worry, this mental heat is what fuels the fun in the game).

Here’s a trick that will help you choose enticing dichotomies. To get the gist of this trick, Continue Reading “Would You Rather Be Free or Equal?”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Lifetime Dream