Provincialism will be the death of us

A house divided against itself cannot stand. Lincoln knew it. Jesus knew it. It’s time for this area to figure it out.

I got a press release last week from the Buffalo International Film Festival. The subject line on the press release was “Buffalo International Film Festival is not Buffalo Niagara Film Festival.” Apparently there are two competing film festivals in the Buffalo area and they want to make sure you know that they’re not “those other guys.”

The Buffalo International Film Festival started in 2004 as an effort to promote cultural tourism through movies. Its goal was to encourage film producers to consider Western New York as a backdrop. It’s a good group ... with a good goal. They’re proud of Buffalo and they think it should be showcased to the world.

But their email was a bit snarky for my tastes — especially for a press release. The line that really caught me off guard was “Apparently the ‘City of Buffalo’ is no longer identifiable to the average person as ‘Buffalo.’ Nor is the ‘City of Niagara Falls’ a proudly identifiable city: Buffalo and Buffalo-Niagara seem to have become synonyms.”

What’s wrong with that? Why can’t we just all be Buffalo? There’s nothing wrong with being proud of being from Lockport or Pekin or the Tonawandas or Ridgeway or whatever. I was born in Lewiston. I grew up in the Town of Niagara. I live in the City of Lockport. But I’m a Buffalonian. And if you’re reading this in “one of the eight counties of Western New York,” you should be, too.

Last week Niagara County Legislator Rick Updegrove raised a stink because — at Yahoo!’s request — the company will be donating $3.5 million to the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo over the next seven years.

Updegrove said, “While I certainly appreciate the fact that Buffalo is facing its share of challenges, the reality is that we need to look at a fair and equitable disbursement of those funds so that the people of Niagara County may also benefit.”

What the majority caucus leader meant was: “There’s money. It should be all ours.”

We have free live music almost every night throughout the summer in Western New York. Lockport, Tonawanda, Lewiston, Buffalo. Free music abounds. But rather than trying to promote this unique feature of Western New York, these communities fight with each other — as if what’s prevented Tonawanda from breaking free of the recession of the 1990s is Art Park.

One of the things that prevents us from moving forward is our refusal to do it together. Rather than allowing any rising tide to lift all boats, we try to drown each other in an effort to keep our own heads above water.

I’ve never liked the phrase “Upstate New York.” I don’t remember it growing up. We were “Western New York” and in my mind we still are. I’d prefer, though, that we simply replace “Western New York” with “Buffalo.” Until we do that, we might as well be West Virginia. Or North Dakota. Or any other number of places that the rest of the world doesn’t care about.

Scott Leffler is a father, a writer and a Buffalonian. In that order. Follow his tweets @scottleffler.

Warm weather plays tricks on my mind

Now that the weather seems to have switched to spring for good (ignoring the snow on the ground Monday morning), my mind has jumped forward to all the fun things I want to do this summer.

Add in my impending income tax refund and I feel like I’ve won the lottery and just have to cash in my check. Never mind the pittance that is my tax refund is all but already spent.

With warmer weather, I start thinking about summer festivals and concerts and just doing things outside.

Last week my oldest and I got milkshakes in what I hope I hope to be a recurring theme over the course of the next several months. Milk shakes always perk things up.

Every year I create a list of things I want to do that year. And most years I have to roll several things over. The last two summers I had to roll “skydiving” into the next year. I’m hoping to actually be able to cross it off my bucket list this year.

Many people think my desire to skydive is a bit peculiar — especially when coupled with my completely rational fear of spiders. In perspective: Plunging to my death is not a concern ... but spiders freak me out.

I’d also like to run with the bulls in Pamplona. But that first requires that I get to Spain, which is a rather lofty goal since the furthest I’ve traveled away from home in the past two years is a trip to Rochester in October.

I like to travel. I miss New York City and have been jonesing for a trip to Washington DC since I was leaving the city in April of 2011. I’d also like to find my way back to Ohio this year to visit my alma mater. Haven’t been there in about a decade.

DC, NYC and Ashland, Ohio were all on my “to-do list” in 2012. And they all rolled over to 2013. Let’s hope they don’t roll over to 2014.

It’s not that there’s not a lot of fun things to do right here in Western New York. But I have always suffered from wanderlust.

Over the past couple years, I’ve really fallen in love with taking photos of everything I do. Maybe it’s due to the popularity of that hobby on the Internet. More likely it’s that my phones have had pretty decent cameras on them and as such, I always have the capability of taking cool photos in the palm of my hand.

My latest phone has a 3D camera. I thought it was gimmicky and didn’t expect to use it but have been surprised at just how cool it is. Needless to say, I have a nice collection of 3D photos now and really look forward to taking 3D photos over everything this summer.

Of course, I have to remind myself that it’s not summer yet. And my tax refund is not really comparable to lottery winnings. But the dreamer in me is excited.

Scott Leffler is a newspaper columnist and former radio talk show host. Apparently that makes him part of the problem for which positivity is the only solution. Follow his tweets @scottleffler.