Upstate New York Gets You More Greek Tragedy Rock Drama Per Mile

The Morning News is running a great series of real life stores from Gary Benchley, Rock Star. The first is about his move from Albany to The City.

Side note: everyone in Upstate calls The City "The City"; everyone outside of New York forgets there's a state in which The City resides. Everyone ignores New Jersey except for the mythical people from New Jersey, who tend to bend the truth and claim they're from the City in the worst cases, or if they're more honest, they indulge in some sci-fi style mental terraforming wherein wherever they're from -- Tabernacle, for instance -- is suddenly "really close" to Manhattan.

Gary's a true son of Upstate, going from Rochester to Binghamton to Albany and now to The City, which I respect, being a native of Gloversville, Johnstown, Amsterdam, (all briefly) and mostly Schenectady. Like him, I moved eastward too, in smaller more local doses, until I moved to Ireland which was a lot more east then I ever expected I'd go to live.

Then again, I live in the Bay Area these days. I miss the East Coast a lot.