More reliable than the weatherman

Written by Joe Pisani
Wednesday, 09 February 2011 00:00

When I was growing up on the East Side of Bridgeport, there was an ancient Italian woman in the neighborhood named Serafina, who looked like she could have been Julius Caesar’s homecoming queen.

She wore a gold horn around her neck to keep away evil spirits and encyclopedia salesmen, back before we had Wikipedia. When she wasn’t warding off vampires or burying fig trees, her greatest talent was her flawless ability to forecast the weather through some mystical interaction between changes in the troposphere and her bunions, which were so gnarled and scabby they looked like alligator skin and made grown men scream in terror.

Man or beast, don’t drive distracted

Written by Joe Pisani
Wednesday, 02 February 2011 00:00

While I was pulling out of Cumberland Farms, all excited about buying the winning Powerball ticket, I almost crashed into a pole because the car coming at me was being driven by a shih tzu with one of those Fu Manchu mustaches and a pink bow in her hair.

Suddenly, my smart-phone started shouting: “Danger, Will Robinson, danger! Puppy speeding on the Post Road!”

What really scared me wasn’t the dog’s creepy mustache but that she didn’t have her paws on the steering wheel.

Bad behavior that gets rewarded

Written by Joe Pisani
Wednesday, 26 January 2011 00:00

While my daughter and I were driving down the Post Road to the train station, we screeched to a sudden stop behind a long line of cars because someone ahead of us was letting a Mercedes sneak through the traffic to cross the highway.

At that point, my daughter flipped out, pressed on the horn and started yelling at the do-gooder, who to my thinking should have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Courtesy.

“You idiot, I’m late for the train and you’re holding up traffic!” (I’m sure she’d have a different view if she were the one who needed to get across.)

Visions of livestock dance in his head

Written by Joe Pisani
Wednesday, 15 December 2010 00:00

Last week I was happier than the guy who won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes and moved to the Samoan Islands, where women in grass skirts served him piña coladas and strummed on ukuleles.

When I opened the mailbox, nestled among the bills and beneath even more bills was my passport to freedom, the first piece of mail to excite me since 1999 when I got a refund from the IRS, which I promptly used to pay my taxes to the state of Connecticut.

Curled up in the box was a magazine I’ve been dreaming about. Not “Maxim,” I’m too old; not “The Atlantic,” I’m too shallow; not “Martha Stewart Living,” I’m too low-class.

A spirited alternative to too much talk

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 14 December 2010 23:00

Denise was a caring, considerate woman who loved people, puppies and tequila, but she spent too much time listening to talk radio when she should have spent more time at the martini bar.

She started to change. She began to argue constantly about politics and government and scandals and taxes and alleged cover-ups, and in the process, she became an angry, self-righteous, intolerant woman who had all the answers and even more opinions.

Her family pleaded with her to turn off the radio and the TV and stop the flow of negative vibes that were transforming a candidate for the Sisters of Mercy into a recruit for the Taliban, but she wouldn’t listen. It seemed as if she had been taken over by aliens or even worse, the ghost of Mussolini.

I’ve heard similar stories about people on both sides of the political spectrum — liberal and conservative — who became angry and uncompromising.

A gift to make Santa smile

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 07 December 2010 23:00

Christmas is coming. I can tell by the spam cluttering my inbox with special holiday offers for Viagra and great deals that let you buy one suit and get two free, along with three shirts, four ties and an oil change. Christmas is coming. I can tell because my daughters are starting to pay attention to me.

“Dad, are you growing hair again? It looks great!”

“Dad, I loved your column. You’re such a deep thinker!”

“Dad, thanks for my college education, my car insurance and all the terrific advice you gave me over the years. ... Can I borrow $50?”

Advice for Connecticut via Calcutta

Written by Joe Pisani
Wednesday, 01 December 2010 14:16

Somewhere in my distant past — so distant the memory has just about faded — I wanted to change the world. Back then, making a difference was more important to me than making money.

However, “maturity” along with peer pressure and the need to succeed according to the world’s standards, snuffed out that idealism, and I eventually considered it nothing more than a “phase in my life” that ended when I got through adolescence, sometime in my 30s.

So when my daughters tell me they want to “make a difference” and change the world, I shrug, I snicker and I try to discourage them. I tell them they need to get with the program and think more about the critical issues like paying rent, making car payments, having health insurance and saving for retirement (theirs and mine).

Technology turning teenagers into robots

Written by Joe Pisani
Wednesday, 17 November 2010 12:33

I read a terrifying statistic recently. It wasn’t the national rate for violent crime or the number of foreclosures nationwide or the projected costs for health care as Baby Boomers enter their senior years. And it had nothing to do with the notorious obesity epidemic.

It was more horrifying: The average American teenager sends 3,339 text-messages a month, or about six an hour. Since they spend so much time fingering their phones, I have to wonder when they do important things like cleaning their bedrooms, blow-drying their hair and playing video games, not to mention enlightening activities like algebra homework and watching “The Jersey Shore.”

America is still the greatest country in the world

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 09 November 2010 22:30

On my desk, buried beneath folders and files, reference books and unpaid bills, is a wrinkled black-and-white photo of my father and his friends, dressed in their army khakis with aviator sunglasses and combat boots, walking down the Champs Elysées, proudly smiling.

They were young American boys away from home for the first time, thousands of miles from the streets of Bridgeport, the corn fields of Nebraska and the rolling hills of West Virginia.

Unconditional love between man and beast

Written by Joe Pisani
Tuesday, 02 November 2010 22:30

While I was staggering to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I slipped on a “wee wee pad” and almost broke my neck, and in the morning, I discovered my slippers had been chewed to shreds.

I accused my daughters, but they blamed our puppy, who couldn’t defend herself although she had a guilty look on her face.

I’m worried this cute and cuddly puppy, which is half Maltese and half Lhasa Apso, has a criminal streak. Those large eyes and that innocent face can be deceiving.