And by you, I’m referring to me.

It turns out, as I’ve come to find out over the years, this affinity for bad beer was a birthright.

In the land of Trump, birthright citizenship may not be guaranteed, but no one—and I mean no one—can take away my right to bad beer.

Yes, I’m a Rust Belt fanatic, but I also need to tell the truth.

And while the home of Harley-Davidson knows how to make motorcycles, I’m not one hundred percent sure the same can be said of the brewskis.

Let’s just say I had to take two TUMS to make it through writing this piece.

Milwaukee, the city of my nativity scene, had it all: German immigrants, water, grain, hops, and cold storage.

This formula gave rise to the Big Four, or Five, otherwise known as the breweries that colluded to give me recurrent nausea from 1995-1999, referred to by my parents as the pre-med years.

Consolidation, relocation, and just plain shuttering have altered the landscape considerably, but nothing can negate what the city of Milwaukee has done to my body and the bodies of countless other hardworking college students.

Pabst Brewing Company

Founded in 1844 in Cream City and now based in San Antonio, the company and its iconic Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) have quenched the thirst of many a tight-jeaned hipster and contributed to incalculable hangovers.

Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company

A Milwaukee staple since 1849, Schlitz hit the fritz in 1982, with the rights to the name changing hands a few times since then. You can thank these guys for Old Milwaukee. Enough said.

Valentin Blatz Brewing Company

A thing since the early 1850s, Blatz beer is now apparently produced by Miller Brewing Company (see below) under contract for Pabst Brewing Company (see above). For obvious reasons, I’ve never tried it.

Miller Brewing Company

Founded in 1855 and now under the Molson Coors umbrella, Miller has been poisoning customers for the greater part of two centuries. I mean, is The Champagne of Beers really a brag?

A. Gettelman Brewing Company

The smallest of the five, Gettelman opened shop in 1856 and is now part of Miller (Molson Coors). If you thought Old Milwaukee was bad, Gettelman proved with Milwaukee’s Best that it could get even worse.

The good news, of course, is that in the Rust Belt, we don’t worry about trivial details like quality, revenue, or even continued existence.

Because when bad beer is all you got, you wear it with pride—sucking in, of course.

The post How One City Made Such Bad Beer appeared first on ComposeMD.

Back in January 2024, I did one of these, and according to Google Analytics, at least four people engaged with the content.

As they say, don’t argue with success.

That’s why, almost three years later, I’m back with round two.

This time will be a little different.

All you get is YouTube clips, complemented by small blurbs courtesy yours truly.

A link to the answer can be found at the end.

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1. Oprah Winfrey was born in Mississippi but raised in this city, even attending middle school and high school here.
2. Al Jarreau was an R&B legend, winning ten Grammy Awards in his lifetime. He was born and raised in town.
3. Gene Wilder made a career on the big screen, playing all sorts of roles including Willy Wonka. Like Jarreau, he was born and raised locally.
4. Rachel Brosnahan, too, has dominated the acting world, hitting it big in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She was born here before moving to Illinois.
5. Steve Miller made quite a name for himself in the music business, but not before spending his early years in the burg of interest.
6. Liberace, among other things, could shred the piano, thanks of course to his upbringing around here.
7. Dan Jansen, all these years later, is still the only speed skater you know. He won an emotional Olympic gold medal in 1994 and, more importantly, was born and raised you know where.

The answer to Guess the Burg can be found HERE.

The post Guess the Burg… appeared first on ComposeMD.

But I digress.

This is about my dream, one that could come true as early as this week.

It involves cork, rubber, and yarn, all covered in cowhide and 108 stitches courtesy some factory in Costa Rica.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Pennsylvania grow batches of maple trees, the ones used to make wooden sticks that can smack the cowhide.

You may know this whole operation as baseball.

And that of the Major League variety, headquartered in New York City, is the stuff dreams are made of.

You’ve obviously heard of Field of Dreams, but try this one on for size.

Team A plays in the league’s smallest market by population, a diminutive metro of just 1.5 million. For perspective, that’s around the same as Providence, Rhode Island, and Louisville, Freaking Kentucky.

The squad has never won a World Series, toiling away in relative anonymity for the greater part of six decades.

Its stadium is somewhere near the Great Lakes, a euphemism, as you know, for the Rust Belt.

The place gets cold, and let’s be honest—no one grows up saying they want to live there. In fact, the city that anchors the metro is down 178,917 residents over the past 65 years.

Relative to size, the team pays its players generously, though its payroll is still only the 19th-highest in the league, greater than that of only 11 other teams.

Team B plays in the league’s second smallest market by population, home to around 2.1 million. Compared to that, even Portland, Oregon, feels like the big city.

The outfit hasn’t won the World Series since Harry S. Truman was president. If you’re a numbers person, that was in 1948.

Its stadium, too, is somewhere near the Great Lakes, and yeah, the place is Rusty as hell.

It’s a magnet for lake-effect snow if not necessarily people. In fact, the backbone of the metro has lost 551,200 dwellers over the past 75 years.

The team pays its players almost in accordance to market size, sporting the lowest payroll in the entire league.

It’s a dream come true, that of the possibility that Team A and Team B meet in the 2026 World Series.

The coastal elites will tune out, not wanting to confront a metaphor that shines a light on their overpriced and overrated existence.

The owners will fume, knowing their argument that a salary cap is needed to help small markets will ring hollow, trying their best to downplay the cap’s effect on profits and thereby franchise valuation.

In the grand scheme of things, absolutely nothing will change—big egos and big money always win.

But for one glorious week in October, the little guys on the little lakes will be able to play pretend.

—

Team A = Milwaukee Brewers

Team B = Cleveland Guardians

—

Addendum on October 20, 2026: Team A made it, but Team B didn’t. We’ll call it a minidream.

The post Will My Ultimate Dream Come True? appeared first on ComposeMD.

And that’s precisely because, well, I don’t really know it.

Such is life when, in 1977, a place watches you open your eyes for the first time but doesn’t stick around long enough for you to remember what you saw.

It’s there, a lingering curiosity, your familiarity with the town coming via a data center.

It’s that dot on the map, about 90 miles north of Chicago, where the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic rivers reach the western shore of Lake Michigan.

There were once multiple native groups, followed by 17th-century French explorers like Jacques Marquette.

The Brits eventually took over, chased by the Americans.

The city was incorporated in 1846, gaining its footing as a wheat shipping hub before branching out and attracting all sorts of immigrants, especially from Germany.

Northwestern Mutual, Rockwell Automation, Harley-Davidson, Pabst Brewing Company, Miller Brewing Company—they were all born there.

Then came the rest—the Great Migration, segregation, suburbanization, and a decline in the number of manufacturing jobs.

The city’s population peaked in 1960 at 741,324, now hovering around 562,407.

Two words come to mind: Rust Belt.

But it’s 2026, and more importantly, it’s October.

In other words, I don’t give a sh*t about any of that.

During the tenth month of the year, the mundane—namely economics and politics—take a back seat to the defining feature of American life: baseball.

Let’s rewind the clock.

Back in 1957, the Milwaukee Braves, recently relocated from Boston and on their way to Atlanta, beat the mighty New York Yankees to win the World Series.

Later, other teams in other sports would make the city proud.

In 1971, the Milwaukee Bucks, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, won the NBA title. Courtesy Giannis Antetokounmpo, the franchise repeated the feat in 2021.

In 1977, not long before I was born, Marquette University (remember the French guy?) won the NCAA men’s basketball championship.

But in this flashback, only two years truly matter.

The first is 1969, the year the Seattle Pilots joined Major League Baseball, becoming the Milwaukee Brewers (remember those breweries?) the next season.

The other is 1982, when the Brewers made their first World Series, only to lose in devastating fashion to the St. Louis Cardinals, blowing a 3-1 lead in the sixth inning of the seventh and deciding game.

The Brew Crew has never been back, securing the squad’s status as one of five to have never won the Fall Classic.

And that gets me to my plea, the one where a 48-year-old man begs the team that broke his heart at age four (I don’t actually remember) to make things right.

The Milwaukee Brewers are the best team in baseball, and the time has come for them to reach the pastime’s pinnacle.

So please, bring home the bratwurst (remember the Germans?).

Addendum: On October 28, 2026, the Milwaukee Brewers won their first ever World Series!

The post My Embarrassing Plea to the City of Milwaukee appeared first on ComposeMD.

You’ll just have to trust me on this one.

I’ll even show you the lyrics—in a minute.

Let’s start with the woman who doesn’t rest, like ever.

That’s how, during the highest-grossing concert tour of all time, she worked on two albums (technically three, as the first had 31 songs).

Then, when the tour ended, rather than sleep, she married the man with the goofy smile—you’ll see that in a minute, too.

Like she said:

You only need to find one person in this entire world

Who doesn’t find you completely insufferable

And I have an important announcement to make

I found mine

(My wife is still deciding about me.)

Anyway, that man, who catches footballs for a living, happens to be from Cleveland Heights, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland.

And that’s how the most famous person in the world just released a song called “Cleveland!”

You’ll find it on The Life of a Showgirl (one of the aforementioned two albums), The Encore edition to be exact.

When you read the lyrics, as promised, you won’t find any mention of New York, LA, Chicago, and Miami.

What you will see, after a shoutout to the haters, is a love story, with references to a childhood porch, Cleveland, and The Heights.

It’s a veritable Rust Belt romance.

The lyric video is even rife with images of The Land.

This is something that the Great Lakes, minus Chi-Town and Toronto, never see.

Just run the list, west to east, starting with Duluth, then Milwaukee, Toledo, Detroit, Erie, and Buffalo.

No one famous is crooning about those burgs anymore.

Yet thanks to holy matrimony, we now have the mediocre pop tune “Cleveland!”

That gift, however, does leave one glaring question:

Why, Mr. Kelce, could you not have been from Rochester?

The post Why “Cleveland!” Is My New Favorite Song appeared first on ComposeMD.

But when you’re immersed in Great Lakes segregation, it’s easy to know when you’re not.

This all started on September 21, 2026.

I was somewhere in the Rochester metro area, partly lost, as the space was new—to me.

Thankfully, I had help.

My first guide came from near Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. We talked briefly of his love for hip hop, agreeing that Kendrick had bested Drake.

The second guide was from Fort Erie, Ontario, just across the Niagara River from Buffalo. The trade war, mercifully, was not affecting the flow of humans.

We devised a game plan, a divide and conquer, if you will.

As I made my way through the maze, I flipped between English and Spanish. Punjabi would have come in handy as well, but that would be a project for a different time.

I stumbled upon a duo with hijabs speaking Arabic. We smiled, introduced ourselves, and discussed a management strategy—in English, of course.

Here, the housing segregation that had decimated the region seemed, if only for a moment, like a mirage. Suburbia bled into the urban, the blend sprinkled with hints of rurality.

Melanin dosing spanned the spectrum, from the no-dose to the low-dose to the intermediate to the frankly dark.

A quick listen could tell you if an exchange was with an African American or an African. The same, I suppose, was true for those differentiating actual Asia from somewhere like Milwaukee.

When hunger called, which it always does, I ordered the Italian option, served by a Ukrainian.

The process took an extra minute, as income levels were no barrier to intellectual conversation.

Because in the most diverse place in Rochester, we all shared a common goal.

Some focused on prolonging life.

Others discussed dying in peace.

But mostly, what I felt was hope.

The post The Most Diverse Place in Rochester (NY) appeared first on ComposeMD.

No one, making it perfect for this site.

Let’s dive in.

It’s 2026, meaning there are still eight US states that border the Great Lakes. Those eight account for a whopping 12 NFL teams, aka 37.5 percent of the league, a statistic that should end any discussion about the demise of said states.

But alas, you know I’m cheating.

New York: New York Jets, New York Giants, Buffalo Bills

No one in their right mind would consider the Jets or Giants to be a Great Lakes team. A map and home games in New Jersey cement that conclusion, leaving only Buffalo.

Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers

Philly—no. Pittsburgh is more complicated—Rust Belt, yes, but Great Lakes not so much. Only pesky Erie can claim that status in the Keystone State.

Ohio: Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns

Cincy is way too Kentucky to be Great Lakes. Cleveland, on the other hand, basically plays in Lake Erie.

Indiana: Indianapolis Colts

Sorry, but Indy is too far from Gary to legitimately enter the discussion.

Michigan: Detroit Lions

Technically, Detroit is on a river, but c’mon now.

Illinois: Chicago Bears

The (current) stadium in Chicago is, for all intents and purposes, on Lake Michigan.

Wisconsin: Green Bay Packers

Green Bay, as in the water, is an appendage of Lake Michigan. Enough said.

Minnesota: Minnesota Vikings

Lake Superior and Duluth are a hike, leaving Minneapolis out in the cold.

All told, there are five teams that can undeniably be considered Great Lakes teams: the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers.

Have a look.

In terms of the whole NFL preview thing, I’m equipped to make only one set of predictions:

• The Bills will make the playoffs.
• They will win a game or two.
• Then, prior to the Super Bowl, they will lose in absolutely devastating fashion.
• My son and/or daughter will cry.
• The kids will also be somewhat happy that they don’t have to see me in that slightly-too-tight Bills T-shirt until the next season.

The post The 2026 Great Lakes NFL Preview appeared first on ComposeMD.

Back in 1993, he opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), arguing it would accelerate the loss of American manufacturing jobs and drive down wages by incentivizing companies to move operations to Mexico.

Then, in 2000, he stood firmly against Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) with China, arguing again that it would simply allow corporations to offshore factories to low-wage nations and result in an epidemic of factory closures domestically.

Starting about a decade later, he fought against the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), citing the benefit to multinational corporations at the expense of the American worker.

And when Trump 1.0 tore up NAFTA and drafted the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), he opposed the new deal as well, stating it was a continuation of failed policies.

In his words, a major reason for the decline of the American middle class and the increase in wealth and income inequality in the United States is our trade policies.

On another occasion, he wrote, Let’s be clear: one of the major reasons that the middle class in America is disappearing, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the rich and everyone else is growing wider and wider is due to our disastrous unfettered free trade policy…we must rebuild our manufacturing sector and, once again, manufacture products that are made in the United States of America.

That was in 2011.

The man is a classic progressive, the East Coast dripping from every word he says.

He’s pro-tariff, in a targeted way, provided Congressional approval is part of the picture.

Some call him a tree-hugging socialist.

He prefers to be called Bernie Sanders.

Back in 2016 and 2020, he and Trump both campaigned against free trade agreements.

Are they crazy?

Or are they onto something?

The post The Other Guy Who Hates Free Trade Agreements appeared first on ComposeMD.

Sorry, Sohan.

You shouldn’t have grown up with introverted parents in Western New York. This is what happens.

But bear with me for a moment.

I’ve had a front row seat to something special, something that has flooded the household with all sorts of tunes.

Your mom and I have wondered for years if this was meant to be a gift for us or if it was meant to be shared.

In all honesty, our joy has already been delivered.

You, as a man, have opted to share. (In even more honesty, we love that decision.)

That gets me to now, September 4, 2026, the day you officially released your first single, not including the ones you sent out in boomerang fashion.

It’s called “Him Instead”.

After spending a decade and a half listening to you tinker, I didn’t know what to expect.

I’ve heard you shredding Beethoven on the piano.

And I’ve heard you doing Brubeck on the sax.

Just to please me (but not the neighbors), you banged out some grunge on the drums.

When you took a keyboard to Boston to dabble in funk, you came back playing the guitar instead.

And then I heard those Green Day covers—on the bass.

More recently, you decided to learn a new instrument, the kind that requires vocal chords.

All this, over time, has made its way through the filter that is your brain.

What could the result possibly be?

There’s only one word for it: Sohan.

As your vocals continue to meet your innate musicianship, and as my vocals (otherwise known as unsolicited comments) continue to drift into the background, something tells me that your mom and I won’t be the only ones who know what you can do.

No matter what, thank you for giving me my favorite song from Rochester.

The post My Favorite Song From Rochester (NY) appeared first on ComposeMD.