But were you actually listening?

Once more, I’ll remind you of a few facts.

Western New York is separated from Canada—Ontario to be exact—by a measly river.

Sure, the Niagara River does have some impressive waterfalls, but at some points along its 36-mile course, it looks like a mere stream.

And when it comes to stanching the flow of people, ideas, and…love, that little stream doesn’t stand a chance.

Again, you’ve heard this in the past, but I do enjoy repeating myself.

Buffalo and Toronto share a public media network—Buffalo Toronto Public Media—that serves both Southern Ontario and Western New York.

Western New Yorkers are far more likely to get their morning cup of joe from Tim Hortons than from Dunkin’.

Labatt Blue, the most Canadian of beers, is brewed in part at the Genesee Brewery—in Rochester, New York.

Similarly, The Tragically Hip, the most Canadian of bands, has a popular tribute band—in Buffalo.

The Triple-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays plays in Buffalo. During COVID, the actual Toronto Blue Jays played in Buffalo.

Approximately 21 percent of Canada’s population lies within the 75-mile radius considered by the NFL to be the Buffalo Bills’ home market, explaining this map.

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But as this article so eloquently points out, all of the above is thin culture.

How about thick culture?

What is life truly like on the international border?

I asked if you were listening for a reason—because that’s where the answer lies.

The Buffalo Sabres of the NHL play both the Canadian and American national anthems before every game, even if that game is between two American teams.

On April 28, 2026, before a playoff matchup with the Boston Bruins, the microphone malfunctioned during the Canadian national anthem.

And here’s what 19,070 (mostly) Americans had to say about the situation.

Because that’s how we roll on an international border.

The post That’s How We Roll on an International Border! appeared first on ComposeMD.

Or, better yet, I could drive ten minutes down the road.

Because as William Faulkner said: The past is never dead. It’s not even past.

In the Rust Belt, history is learned on the way to Walmart.

Past, present, and future—the lines are blurred.

Is that a factory, a startup, or just abandoned?

The hope is for the first two, but we have expertise in the third.

—

When do abandoned buildings become ruins?

Twenty years?

A half century?

A full one?

As a pragmatist, I try not to partake in such esoteric debates—I leave that to the bloggers.

On the other hand, I am interested in why such debates exist in the first place, as in why the abandoned structures are left to stand.

Imagine a strip of abandoned homes. It’s perfect for the homeless, drug-addicted, and criminally-predisposed.

A city knows the neighborhood is unlikely to become a tourist attraction.

And there starts the merriment.

Who owns the home(s)?

Can they be contacted?

Can they be pressured (via fines) into maintenance?

Or selling?

Would there even be a buyer?

If taxes are delinquent, can the city or an associated land bank seize the property?

If so, after clean up, can the property be handed over to a developer?

Does the local economy make such a project appealing to developers anyway?

Are the developers reliable?

Or is demolition the only option?

Should the cleared space become a park?

Or a public art display?

With an eroded tax base, where does the money for all this come from?

The county?

The state?

The feds?

How long will the entire process take?

Even if it ultimately comes together, what if the new incarnation is still appealing to the homeless, drug-addicted, and criminally-predisposed?

—

When do abandoned buildings become ruins?

Twenty years?

A half century?

A full one?

The post The Only Ruins I Actually Care About appeared first on ComposeMD.

On that particular afternoon, I found myself in the Queen City, a fancy nickname for the Rust Belt town of Buffalo.

The primary purpose of the visit was for a dance competition, and, no, not because I’m sophisticated—because I’m a father.

And at this point in my dance dad progression, I don’t have to pretend I care about watching the other competitors anymore.

I’m there to prove to the world—aka my family—how great of a father I am.

But in between events, now that’s where things get interesting.

That’s when I do pretend to be something—cultured.

In 2025, stranded alone at a dance workshop in Sandusky, Ohio, I ventured to nearby Toledo and its art museum, even taking this picture to prove it.

So to keep tradition alive, on April 18, 2026, I made the bold move to visit the Buffalo AKG Art Museum.

That museum, as you know, has one of the most significant collections of modern and contemporary art in the world.

I even mentioned that here.

In full disclosure, I didn’t really know that—I took the line from another book, 100 Things To Do in Buffalo Before You Die (giving full credit, of course).

Upon arrival to the gallery, I wondered if the one in Toledo was a better product—and by better, I mean cheaper. While parking and admission in the Glass City were free, Buffalo set me back $34—$12 to ditch the car and $22 to enter.

I’ll just skip the café, I thought.

Once inside, I started the aimless stroll, feigning interest and, more importantly, expertise. To play the part, I had abandoned the sweatshirt in favor of a collar, throwing in the occasional head nod sprinkled with a few hmm‘s.

I saw a couple names I recognized—guys like Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol.

But there was one room that stood out because, well, it seemed like the museum wanted it to stand out.

The space was dedicated to the work of one Clyfford Still.

And that left me with a burning question:

Who the heck is Clyfford Still?!

I read the placard quickly, knowing those are typically written to violate all rules of writing I’ve learned—you know, use a lot of words that no one understands and find the most circuitous route to saying nothing.

Then I turned to my companion, AI.

Clyfford Still (1904-1980) was a leading American Abstract Expressionist painter.

Not exactly knowing what that meant, I discovered some other key figures in the movement:

• Jackson Pollock (see above)
• Mark Rothko (the name reminded me of the guy who plays the Hulk)
• Willem de Kooning (the name seemed familiar, but I might have been confusing it with Kaiser Wilhelm II)

Still was apparently a bit grumpy, rejecting commercial art markets in favor of reclusion, ensuring that people like me would have to resort to AI to figure out who he was.

The dude loved jagged shapes, the kind in this picture I nabbed (no flash obviously).

And for some reason, he took to the people of Buffalo—their museum would boast the largest collection of his work until the 2011 opening of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver.

To fund that project in the Mile High City, Still’s estate sold a few paintings, with one going for $61.7 million!

As I made my way back to the dance competition, I noted smugly that thanks to Clyfford Still, I had become officially important.

The post Who the Heck Is Clyfford Still?! appeared first on ComposeMD.

Thanks to GPS—and a still-functioning brain—I knew the answer in a spatial sense.

The question I was posing, you could say, was of the rhetorical variety.

The striking Olmsted park—that I had known about.

But I was stunned by the neoclassical, modern, and contemporary architecture.

And inside—that’s where the jaw hit the floor.

It started with Jackson Pollock’s Convergence, drip technique and all.

Next came Andy Warhol. Who can’t get behind Campbell’s Condensed Beef Noodle Soup?

As I roamed around, I stumbled upon some sculptures, one by Edgar Degas and another by Auguste Rodin.

Then came more paintings—and more artists.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Camille Pissarro.

Some guy named Claude Monet.

The dude with the ear, aka Vincent van Gogh.

Paul Gauguin.

Paul Cézanne.

The man obsessed with Cubism—Pablo Picasso.

A lady named Georgia O’Keeffe.

Another lady named Frida Kahlo.

Henri Matisse.

And Salvador Dalí.

Still shaking my head, I walked outside and found the pedestrian bridge.

There was another neoclassical gem to see, one built to resemble the Parthenon.

It was on a lake, and if I was being honest, that was the real draw.

Because next to the lake was the Japanese Garden, inspired by a relationship with Kanazawa, Japan.

And in the garden were cherry blossoms—they happened to be in full bloom.

Where am I? I asked myself again.

Time, as always, was short, and after a couple pictures, I headed to the hotel.

There, in the lobby, I marveled at the light rail, visible just outside the oversized windows.

As I kept looking, I noticed a few rain drops, followed by a few more.

Soon, it was an outright downpour.

Then, I felt a drop—and another.

I looked at my feet and noted a developing puddle.

April showers, needless to say, were not particularly noteworthy.

The only surprise was experiencing them indoors.

Where am I? I asked myself one final time.

The answer, of course, was the Rust Belt.*

—

*Thank you, Buffalo, for being a majestic cultural powerhouse—and not totally put together.

The post Where Am I?! appeared first on ComposeMD.

The first apology, of course, goes to mom.

J.D. Salinger, in The Catcher in the Rye, said it best:

She looked like she might have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. But you can’t always tell—with somebody’s mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane.

At this point though, I’m pretty sure she knows.

There was the first book about Rochester, which was actually the second one.

Then came Buffalo.

Syracuse was next.

And now it’s Toledo.

Freaking Toledo.

At each point, she has felt obligated to buy a few copies, secretly hoping—I’m sure—there would be no sequel.

There comes a point, after all, when the garbage starts to cut into the retirement fund.

For that, I’m sorry.

The next apology, as you might imagine, goes to the wife.

Little did she know how much she would rue the day in October 1997 when she said hello.

Not accustomed to so much attention from the opposite sex, I’ve hung on to that hello like my life depended on it, turning it into 22 years of marriage.

Initially, things looked okay—you know, a doctor in New York City.

But when that turned into a blogger in Upstate New York, things took an indisputable turn for the worse.

To add insult to injury, the wife has to proofread, along the way pretending she gives a crap about yet another book on yet another crappy city.

One word: Sorry.

The final apology, undoubtedly, must go to the kids.

It’s a fact of life—all dads are screwed up.

It could be yelling at the kids when no one’s watching.

Maybe it’s sneaking whiskey in the basement.

Or perhaps it’s just staring off into space, ignoring that which the family says.

The point, however, is to feign normality and save the bizarreness for behind the scenes.

But to air one’s dirty laundry—aka an unhealthy Rust Belt obsession—publicly, now that’s just wrong.

Sorry.

With all that said, and despite the crippling guilt, another book it is.

If you liked the first few, you might like this one as well.

If you didn’t, you won’t.

And if you haven’t read any of them, trust me, you’re not alone.

The post Sorry, I Accidentally Wrote Another Book appeared first on ComposeMD.

The first was Dean Baker, who received a PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.

The second was Mark Weisbrot, who did the same exact thing.

Together, in 1999, they had co-founded the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, DC.

On that day in 2001, they released a briefing paper entitled: Will New Trade Gains Make Us Rich? An Assessment of the Prospective Gains From New Trade Agreements.

February 16, 2026. One blogger.

His name was Amol Shrikhande, a self-proclaimed Rust Belt obsessive with far too much time on his hands.

After many hours of accomplishing nothing, he found it.

The PDF!

Here’s what the two economists, a quarter century ago, had to say about the effects of trade agreements on Americans.

Economists…generally accept that trade liberalization has been one of the factors increasing inequality, redistributing wage income from workers without college degrees to workers with college and advanced degrees, in addition to shifting income from wages generally to profits.

For the vast majority of workers—the three quarters of the labor force who lack college degrees—the negative distributional effects of trade over the last two decades almost certainly outweighed the positive growth effects, causing them a net loss of real income.

…Most of the forms of trade liberalization currently being considered would redistribute income from workers to corporations, and from lower wage workers to higher wage workers.

The [International Trade Commission (ITC)] report found that eliminating the trade barriers it examined would benefit corporations more than workers.

It is important to recognize that the ITC study, like other research on this topic, does not attempt to measure indirect effects that trade liberalization could have on income distribution. Most obviously this indirect effect can take the form of threats, where employers threaten to move their operations abroad unless workers make wage concessions.

Blown away, the Rust Belt obsessive—otherwise incompetent at manual labor—put himself in the shoes of the American worker, the one on the wrong end of these trade deals.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could talk about the downsides of these trade deals without being called dumb and racist?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could mention how the same countries benefiting from the trade deals are sending in illegal drugs, further decimating our communities?

What if we elected someone who could renegotiate these deals? Or use tariffs to try to level the playing field?

What if, heeding the warnings of these two economists, we made American great again?

The post These Two Economists Knew What Was Happening All Along appeared first on ComposeMD.

The mere occurrence of this question within my cerebral wiring quite obviously suggests pathology.

Or does it?

Does Western New York, aka the Eastern Rust Belt, have some sort of connection to the Caribbean island that gave us the most streamed artist on the planet?

Um…yeah.

Let’s rewind the clock to 1901, when nearby Buffalo was hosting the Pan-American Exposition.

There, tragically, William McKinley would become the third American president to be assassinated. This was the same man, of course, who in 1898 oversaw the American victory over Spain in the Spanish-American War. As a result, the US got some new territory.

Puerto Rico, anybody?

Over the ensuing decades, Puerto Ricans would populate cities on the American mainland.

They preferred some spots over others, clearly choosing wisely.

As per the 2020 Census, among American cities with over 200,000 residents, a certain city on Lake Ontario has the highest percentage of Puerto Ricans relative to the total population (15.3%).

Yeah, it’s Rochester. (Number five on that list, at 10%, is Buffalo.)

What does this mean?

If you want to be able to choose among a long list of Puerto Rican restaurants, come to the Flower City. Seriously.

In the summer, check out the Rochester Puerto Rican Festival, around since 1969.

If you’re in the mood for reggaetón on the beach, head to the aforementioned lake.

Should you overdo it and end up in the hospital, there’s a strong possibility your nurse will be Puerto Rican. Sometimes, they hand out souvenirs to their coworkers.

And if you want to listen to some Bad Bunny, make your way to the laser light show featuring his music at the planetarium. (I’m not making this up.)

Speaking of Bad Bunny, the dude has to be singing about Western New York. (I might be making this up.)

—

“Debí Tirar Más Fotos”

Debí tirar más fotos.

I should have taken more photos.

C’mon now—is this not a shout out to Kodak?

—

“Dakiti”

¿Y de nosotros quién va a hablar? Si no nos dejamos ver.

And who is going to talk about us? If we don’t let ourselves be seen.

Clearly, this advice is geared towards Rust Belt bloggers.

—

“Tití Me Preguntó”

Vo’a romperte el corazón. No te enamores de mí.

I’m going to break your heart. Don’t fall in love with me.

This is an obvious warning to Bills fans.

—

So the next time someone claims that we in the Rust Belt are still listening to John Mellencamp, go ahead and tell them that around these parts, it’s all about Latin Trap baby.

Entiendes?

The post What Do Rochester (NY) and Bad Bunny Have in Common? appeared first on ComposeMD.

Clearly, I was not the only one, as when I mentioned the same book several weeks later, the Ohioan receiving the information became misty-eyed as well.

Perhaps it’s the fallen majesty, how a Great Lakes freighter so iconic could simply disappear, swallowed on November 10, 1975, by the merciless Lake Superior.

Or perhaps it’s the irony that the ship, named after the president of Milwaukee’s Northwestern Mutual, could be met with the dreaded outcome that the company insured.

It’s undoubtedly the lives of the 29 men, the ones who brought iron ore from the shores of Lake Superior to the steel mills on the lower lakes. Together, along with the families they left behind, they helped build the American economy.

It’s also the haunting ballad that the shipwreck inspired—the 1976 classic “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Written by the Canadian Gordon Lightfoot, himself an experienced Great Lakes sailor who would become close with surviving family members, the song shattered the idea of what it took to have a hit. Six minutes, twenty-eight two-line stanzas, no chorus, and no hook—raw emotion miraculously translated that formula into number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

And conceivably, it’s the occasional reminder, the type that might arise on a cold winter day courtesy a popular American porter. That tribute comes from Great Lakes Brewing Company, whose Edmund Fitzgerald Porter has accompanied many a conversation around these parts.

It’s all that.

But it’s more.

The reason for the dewy eyes, 50 years after the original heartbreak, can be found on the book jacket of Bacon’s account:

At the height of America’s postwar boom, no region was more vital to the nation’s economic strength than the Great Lakes. It was the beating heart of the global economy—possessing all the power and prestige that Silicon Valley enjoys today.

Bacon goes on to remind us that at the time of the tragedy, Toledo, home to about a quarter of the fallen crew, had a larger population than Portland (OR), Miami, Tampa, Charlotte, and Salt Lake City.

The Edmund Fitzgerald, in other words, has become a metaphor.

Just prior to the fateful moment, as he battled a historic storm and a list, Ernest McSorley, the seasoned captain of the Fitz, said, We are holding our own.

A half century later, we here in the Great Lakes region—including the champions among us—can’t help but look around and wonder, Are we really?

The post Why the Edmund Fitzgerald Still Makes Me Cry appeared first on ComposeMD.

And the worst part is that you’re expected to double down on the suction.

You know, why not put a gate around your already sterile existence?

Better yet, join a country club to verify your worth.

Of the utmost importance, of course, is that your car look like your neighbor’s.

Rush—the band—knew this a long time ago.

The goal, somehow, has become to live in The Truman Show.

It’ll make you happy, as long as you have easy access to antidepressants and depressed therapists.

But what if grime and grit bring the real joy?

Is that delusional, or could it be aspirational?

On January 17, 2026, I found my answer.

It was one of those Rust Belt chic moments, when instead of staring at empty storefronts, my wife and I opted instead for the art museum, aka the Memorial Art Gallery.

Based on her employment status, the wife’s entry was complimentary. I, meanwhile, forked over a 20.

The highlight, according to a museum banner, was a temporary exhibit on Impressionism, as in Monet and the type.

But on the way to that exhibit, tucked away in an unassuming corner, was the real highlight:

Urban Realism.

Go ahead and rewind the clock to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Now start a movement, artistic and literary, that captures the unvarnished realities of urban life.

Focus on the ordinary and their ordinary struggles.

Reject idealism.

Critique power structures.

The naysayers may denigrate the work, labeling it the Ashcan School (in reference to the ashcans used to dispose of fireplace ashes and other rubbish).

Many will fail to see the lure of the grunge.

But along the way, we’ll get Edward Hopper, Charles Dickens, and Richard Wright.

We’ll get, in other words, the answers to some questions.

Is there triumph in imperfection?

Is hardship the root of happiness?

Can grime be beautiful?

Is blight simply biological?

In loss, can we find gain?

Is this why some actually prefer the Great Lakes to the ocean?

Or extract more meaning from Toledo than Santa Barbara?

Is this why doctors prune their jobs and start blogging about the Rust Belt?

Inspired, I took the long way home, the one with a view of Rochester’s Urban Realism.

And then, as expected, I returned to the American Dream.

The post How Urban Realism Saved My Soul appeared first on ComposeMD.