Al Carrozza

To describe Al Carrozza is to place a label on an all-encompassing force.

Career-wise he has written as a Newsday Business Staff Writer, taught in New York City classrooms, and performed as a speechwriter producing important and impactful messages delivered at key venues.

He was also a five-star psychic reader for Keen.

He is the creator of UniversalEnzyme.com, author of five books, and has published seven songs as lead singer, lyricist, and guitarist for his band. His CD is called Universal Enzyme.

Albert Kenneth Carrozza has a degree in politics, has been trained in finance at MetLife, and has attended and written with prize-winning and best-selling novelists in creative programs at universities Columbia, Binghamton, St. John's & Southampton.

He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1995. His book Universal Enzyme describes his incredible tale of struggle and recovery. http://universalenzyme.com/Home_Page.html
 

 

 

 

 

PageoneLit.com: Where did you grow up and were reading and writing a part of your life?  Who were your earliest influences and why?

Al Carrozza: I grew up in a small town on Long Island named Medford.   Right on the border between two school districts, I and my older two sisters took a bus to one of four schools depending on grade level and each about five miles from home.  Our South Country School District contained a great cleavage, a dividing railroad track between North and South Bellport that separated a poor and mostly black demographic struggling for survival from their wealthier southern Fire Island accessed neighbors, to say luxury.

I was ignorant mostly as a youth to the fact though not situated in poorer Bellport I too lived on the north side of the tracks in a more middle class neighborhood when society had such a distinct class, before today’s prominent polarities in strata of upper and lower middle class. 

I was of the few in the enrichment program track, the honors curriculum, who was not from a financially prosperous background.  However, I was also the top student in kindergarten, one of only two students in the entire grade that was working out of advanced grade books and I hadn’t attended preschool.

So, I had a promising future.  During contests to test speed and comprehension in Math and English I distanced everyone in the grade.  And I loved to creative write.  My teachers throughout the first six years would plead with me for permission to read my stories to the rest of the classes.  I was shy but normally complied but not without getting to turn the film projector or earning a candy.

My mother was strict on me in terms of education.  She had me doing division in kindergarten.   In fifth grade she arranged a local newspaper to write an article on me announcing I had made it to the New York State finals in a beauty contest, you know walking the cat walk, and I came in second overall.

She, my mom, set up opportunities for me to be in commercials but I knew there was something I didn’t like about that idea and so never pursued it whole-heartedly against my mother’s desires. 

When my parents got a divorce, my grades divorced themselves from high-quantification letters.  In essence I failed many courses, became very popular amongst my peers, and eventually became a legend not for honor certificates but rather for drinking beers and smoking cigarettes amongst masses of friends all throughout Long Island in my teenage years.  I lost my position in society but I found my personality and a commitment to heart.  Until I was betrayed by friends, tortured spiritually with yearnings to know my destiny and losing grace in the public eye.  Soon enough I had schizophrenia.

My Dad carried me many years, a special friend freed me, a beautiful woman derailed me, and now I am headquartered after living in New York City on the outskirts of Manhattan back with my Dad who is my greatest influence on earth aside from God who is here and everywhere too.

 

 

 

 PageoneLit.com:  Why do you write?

Al Carrozza:  I write because when true to voice it is the only pure source on this planet, that and perhaps music which I create and sell as well.  I write because I have had a storied life filled with tragedy yet somehow in reality it has all been only blessings discovered after persistence to survive the difficult stretches.

The written word from the heart and at the same time schooled can create original beautiful moments.  Even a retelling, like Universal Enzyme, when the story is extraordinary  and the theme properly followed through to continuity of message can be something unique and special, in fact especially so. 

Due to my perspective as a success driven diagnosed schizophrenic I have knowledge of areas peoples do not attempt to question in fear of denial of conclusion or satisfaction in answers to inquiries.  I can provide those questions with solutions, genuine in truth because I both experienced it and my clarity survived under great duress and attempted character assassination whether intentional or delivered through ignorance of action.  This I am told has happened because I have intelligence, speak from the heart, and not afraid to exercise the vocals when need be for personal reasons or for necessary societal purposes despite perceived threats because I am protected by truth and paid my service to God.

I write to inform, entertain, and to enlighten.  And I love to write regardless the assignment.

 

  

 

PageoneLit.com:  Do you have any hobbies?  What are they?  How do they enhance your writing?

Al Carrozza: I guess you could call Christianity a hobby.  Christian music is my favorite format and I love listening to great preaching.  Today Joyce Meyer, TD Jakes, Chuck Swindell and Rich Anderson come to mind as great orators, fantastic preachers of our day, of course there are many more phenomenal speakers, obviously Joel Osteen who preaches strictly Christ and Barrack Obama who preaches about the future economy.  I would love to deliver public-sermon like speeches only drafted from scratch. 

My religious undertakings, reading the bible, and delving into the paranormal in younger days has influenced my writing tremendously.  But so have Jim Morrison, James Hetfield of Metallica, and James Joyce whose story “The Dead” is the same scenario my ex-fiancé must experience today only Michael Fury died with passion and Al Carrozza eventually prospered from it.  So to pin one field as the secret ingredient to my particular brand of literature would be difficult, however inspirational feeling combined with extraordinary experiences have enhanced my writing the most I would say, is accurate.
 

 

PageoneLit.com:  Briefly discuss your new novel UNIVERAL ENZYME.  I understand Universal Enzyme was featured in the May 2010 New York Book Expo.

Al Carrozza: Yes.  Universal Enzyme was selected by Strategic Book Group to be displayed at the 2010 Expo in New York.  I was invited in to meet with staff and represent the book personally at their exhibit booth #4577.

Universal Enzyme was ten years in the making.  As events happened I wrote them, and rewrote them, and added as new information and relevant experience occurred that seemed significant to the story.

From beginning to end I hope it reads as an inspiration as to what can be overcome when seeking God and seeing one’s blessings in their darkest hours.

 

 

PageoneLit.com:  What was your experience in a psychiatric ward and how did you get there?

 

Al Carrozza: The psychiatric ward that I was mandated in late 1995 was an enlightening experience.  I entered virtually straight out of Binghamton University where students were young in mindset in regards to drinking beer, partying nights away and feeling unrestrained in those areas for the first time as they were finally free from restrictions of parental supervision and the fact they were at this particular educational institution meant they had disciplined upbringings regarding education and future career.  The other noticeable attribute of these students overall was their drive as they were so competitive in nature and went each person for themselves.  The ward was the opposite.

At the psyche ward the people were more mature, understanding of life and open due to their vast experiences with drugs, alcohol, and being in the system which is society’s remedy to those who need help on mental, emotional, and spiritual levels.  Of course it was the patients that made the experience rich for me, and aside from some inspirational postings on the wall, such as the success writers have had with mental illness including names like Earnest Hemmingway and Virginia Woolf the workers in the place did little but supervise, force meds to be taken in all cases of submission, and run workshops I found boring and uninspired. 

I wound up in the psyche ward because of an incident I had at a party back on Long Island.  Some person showed me things that just weren’t possible back in 1995.  Some have transpired since and become commonplace, some I understand that I don’t think most others do, and the showing of the portal to the heavens, another existence, as my life becomes more mundane is an inspiration to me today now more than a curse because I know firsthand there are other realms meaning there is a heaven and perhaps a hell as well or maybe earth is the hell.  Nonetheless, hell is subjective, and simply making the choices to be happier, more productive, more forgiving is what frees us here on earth both biologically in regards to improving our health through our outlook and spiritually when our time of judgment comes which I have faced such times and will reveal one day in future books in this series Universal Enzyme. 

 

 

 

PageoneLit.com: Throughout your twenties you experienced supernatural events.  Explain.

Al Carrozza: I have confronted higher-level evil.  I have met the highest Good.  And in-between there are beings that understand their impact and choose their sides and there are beings unaware as to what they are portraying but the perceiver, as myself, involved in a different dimension of reality takes in their actions as controlled by a higher spirit either rooted in good or its opposite. For example, there is the telepathic realm where specific content deemed as basically meaningless or “small-talk” has much higher metaphorical and analogical intent.  So the key is to recognize the motivation behind one’s statements regardless the realm: are they consistently for the betterment of one’s cause or are they meant to sway the receiver to travel paths that are against the betterment to their overall growth as a living organism.

The highest-level being I have met was the T-Cell.  He is the creator of us.  And although he has had his difficult plights he is true and noble.  Adam is the first higher-level being we meet in Universal Enzyme.  He is literally the one who causes the downfall of humankind.  T-Cell trains the genuine chosen one. 

 

 

 

PageoneLit.com: Was writing Universal Enzyme therapeutic?

 

Al Carrozza: At times, Universal Enzyme was all I had that connected me with reality.  Writing it was an activity, like washing dishes, that kept me grounded and not floating out into my capacity of thoughts and questions.  In fact it helped me maintain my resolve as to what I did experience, remind myself that I was not crazy nor delusional, and that there was a higher purpose and function in all that I went through. 

Of course, I left out a lot of difficult times.  As when Spielberg created “Schindler’s List” it was discussed in planning boards as to how graphic to make the film for overall impact on the viewer, well Universal Enzyme was of greater word length but cut down to the bone to save reader anguish, repetition of experience, and to save grace for others who may have been implicated in ways not desirable for them or for my own conscience regardless its truth factor.  The think tank was mostly me, but no person is an island unto themselves and I’ve received great feedback along the ways of writing Universal Enzyme. 

 

 

PageoneLit.com:  Describe your title Universal Enzyme as it relates to your book.

 

Al Carrozza:  Universal Enzyme is a concept given to me by a being in which I gave his concept.  Huh?  My friend Tyrone, an Irishman and being of the highest-level I called the T-Cell.  He later explained to me that a T-Cell is a promoter of life in the context of the human body.  They protect, they secure, promote life.  Amongst the biological functions in the chemical makeup of a person is the enzyme.  Well, one day of revelation T-Cell explained the concept of the Enzyme, which is the catalyst in the body that speeds the rate of change in all it comes in contact with.  He claimed the universe revealed to him I was the Universal Enzyme, here on earth to be the catalyst to great positive change.  Consistent with the lyrics of Led Zeppelin’s epic song “The Battle of Evermore” my purpose in the universe was to bring the balance back.  It will be clearer in future novels, and is more understandable reading some of my other literature, like “Messiah”, “Healing”, and “America”, and my upcoming novel “Jack Lincolnton”.

T-Cell would also call me Al-ageddon.

 

PageoneLit.com:  What do you hope to achieve with your book?

Al Carrozza:  Financial freedom.  I so look forward to greater economic philanthropy.  But I will always find a way to assist my friends and loved ones albeit through service or by remaining a light in darkness.

I also wish for society to evolve through different epochs with my literature.  I feel there is much to learn for the reader and it would be unfair with my unique perspectives not to do my best to help others understand that there is more to life than brick and mortar and bridged with spiritual understanding society can reverse, at least in my hopes, many trends that lead presently to its unfortunate degradation.

 

 

 

PageoneLit.com:  What’s next?

Al Carrozza: You tell me.  I am a spontaneous being.  Yet I do foresee delivering speeches globally and perhaps entering politics at the highest levels since I am already privy to its ingredients.  Being both singer and musician performing on Broadway or a concert in Madison Square Garden would be an experience.  Television and movies is a desired direction as well.  As a teenager I directed and acted in my own movies that I created with friends as characters in my skits so these venues as an adult are desirable.