Chris Carosa %

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

This is What Public Speakers Can Learn from Aristotle’s Greatest Mistake

By Chris Carosa on January 15, 2019

Spoiler Alert: I can only reveal once you fully appreciate the useful parts of Aristotle’s idea.

Have you ever had to – or will you ever have to – speak in front of an audience? It could have been (or be) an audience of one hundred or an audience of one. In either case, you may have noticed what happens when you’re in the audience watching other people speak. Sometimes you enjoy the presentation, sometimes you’re bored to tears. And it’s not based on the nature of the subject.

Here’s why.

Most speakers employ some variation of Aristotle’s Model of Communication. While roughly based on his Treatise on Rhetoric, it does not directly incorporate the persuasive tools Aristotle outlines in that classic volume. Indeed, neither does it involve the five canons of rhetoric, although this makes more sense since Cicero identified them centuries after Aristotle’s death.

Still, despite the lack of these important communication components, there’s another, more important, reason why Aristotle’s Model of Communication often fails. To best grasp the reason for this failure – and how to either avoid it or take advantage of it – you need to understand why this model has been both popular and effective.Continue Reading “This is What Public Speakers Can Learn from Aristotle’s Greatest Mistake”

Posted in Great Speaking Tips, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Advertising, Aristotle, audience, communication, effect, Harold D. Lasswell, Institutio Oratoria, Marcus Fabius Quntinlianus, Model of Communication, occasion, Persuasion, Quintilian, rhetoric, Speaker, Speech, Treatise on Rhetoric

The Aging Curse

By Chris Carosa on January 8, 2019

I sit here watching as Rob Lowe tells us in so many words of the highs and lows of the decade of the 1980s. As I view old news clips of thin ties and big bouncing perms with their constant fluttering curls, I sadly lament the innocence lost, the people lost, the dreams lost. I see in those once thin and optimistic faces the images of people I have known. Not all of them, but far too many.

In those faces I saw the hope for the future, a future that would never be. I lament those souls of time past. Perhaps it’s the Continue Reading “The Aging Curse”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1950s, 1960s, 1980's, Allen Saunders, catharsis, Greed is Good, hoi polloi, immediate gratification, Kerry Drake, Lifetime Dream, Madison Avenue, Mary Worth, materialism, National Geographic Channel, organization man, Reader's Digest, Rob Lowe, Steve Roper, success, to do list, Wlliam Whyte

Uncertainty Breeds Opportunity

By Chris Carosa on January 1, 2019

Uncertainty creates anxiety. It doesn’t have to be that way. For gamblers, warriors, and investors, uncertainty signals opportunity.

Your opponents sitting across the card table from you don’t know the hand you’re holding. Skilled players learn to take advantage of this uncertainty by bluffing their way to higher jackpots. These players accomplish this by both encouraging those with lesser hands to call their bets and intimidating those with better hands to fold. Expert poker players study how to marshall, disguise, and portray their emotions in ways to fool their opponents. That’s how gamblers win.

Similarly, seasoned generals understand the fog of war offers the opportunity to mask Continue Reading “Uncertainty Breeds Opportunity”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings

50 Years Ago When the Earth First Rose

By Chris Carosa on December 18, 2018

It was the first time I flew in a plane. It was the first time I skipped school. It was the first time we took a “real” family vacation.

It would be the first time we wouldn’t be home for Christmas. It would be the first time we’d be having Christmas with no snow. It would be the first time a young astronomy enthusiast would discover his own Christmas “Stars.”

December 1968. California still had a sparkle of promise. When all those who defined cool were still busying themselves leaving on the last train for the coast.

We weren’t leaving. We were just visiting. Courtesy of American Airlines. The excitement derived from all those firsts overshadowed the fact we wouldn’t be spending the Holy Day with the extended family we grew up with. On the other hand, my father no doubt looked Continue Reading “50 Years Ago When the Earth First Rose”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life Tagged 1968, American Airlines, Apollo 8, California, Christmas, Christmas Eve, Earth, Frank Borman, James Lovell, Knott's Berry Farm, Moon, Mt. Palomar, Stars, synchronous rotation, tidal locking, William Anders

George and Me

By Chris Carosa on December 4, 2018

Bush turned to me and said, “C’mon, let’s put our arms around each other to show everyone we’re friends.”

You may not remember this. Leonard Zelig was the kind of ordinary everyday man who you’d expect to live an ordinary everyday life. Somehow, though, he managed to find himself regularly appearing with extraordinary celebrated people during extraordinary celebrated events. Leonard Zelig isn’t a real person. Never was. Yet Woody Allen’s brilliant 1983 mockumentary Zelig left theater-goers thinking he was.

It seems like we all have our Leonard Zelig moments. We live each ordinary day in an ordinary way. Then, fate brings us face-to-face with extraordinary people in extraordinary times. Think about the times you’ve found yourself at the same shop with a movie or TV star – someone who seems so distant because our only connection to them is through some unapproachable media context. When we’re young, that can be a very exciting thing. As we age, we come to understand those distant stars are no different than us.

Like you, I’ve had my fair share of close encounters. Like the time I rode the train seated across from Pearl Bailey. (Don’t remember her? Read “My Lunch with Pearl Bailey,” Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel, September 13, 1990, to find out more about the incident and the subject.) I always tried my best to be polite and respect the person as a person. (Except in the case of John Dean, who, while having dinner with him, I bluntly said, “You Continue Reading “George and Me”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1980 Presidential Election, Buffalo Bills, Central Intelligence Agency, Davenport College, Jack Kemp, John Dean, Monroe County Republican Committee, New Hampshire, Pearl Bailey, President George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Vermont, Vermont State Republican Committee, voodoo economics, Woody Allen, Young Republicans, Zelig

Thanksgiving Leftovers

By Chris Carosa on November 27, 2018

If your family is like our family, you’ve no doubt dined on Thanksgiving dinner for, oh, about five days. Nothing says “Thanksgiving” more than “leftovers.” It is in that spirit that I offer these remnants that somehow never were able to make a complete plate:

Why is it we always end up with more turkey than we started with (as in, a 21-pound turkey yields 25 pounds of leftovers)?

Will the Redskins ever beat Dallas on Thanksgiving?

* * *

Bohemian Rhapsody (the story of the rock band Queen) was much more enjoyable than Continue Reading “Thanksgiving Leftovers”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries

Chris Carosa