Tuesday, November 10, 2009

They Came From Outta Town- Part Two

A series about New Yorkers who accidentally got born in the wrong city, but somehow found their way home.

Bucko
(b. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)

Writes about cowboy and Jerry Springer rejects. In a party of lots of poets was the only cool person there.

Long answer: I'm not the tough, street-smart New Yorker, or the "pushy" New Yorker, or the worldly one, or the zillions of other types that I think make up the plurality of "New Yorker." I came to NY to make it here, in the words of the Sinatra song, and to be part of a huge metropolis. I'm making it, and I'm part of a community in NY, so yeah, then I'm a New Yorker. When I go to hometown, I can be perceived as pushy, arrogant, self-assured, liberal, cool, impatient, goal-oriented, etc. So in my hometown, I'm a New Yorker. But New Yorkers can spot my non-New Yorkerisms pretty quickly. I grew up on shale and sandstone, not granite, so there are some profound differences that go beyond having had a big yard and played in woods when I was little.

Short answer: If someone said to my face "You're not a New Yorker," I'd say, "Duh. But I've been here close to 20 years, and I WOULDN"T LIVE ANYWHERE ELSE, so fuck off."