wow scott, a little rough on los angeles, no?

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vincent213

wow scott, a little rough on los angeles, no?

Post by vincent213 »

Okay, so i wasn't born in los angeles. i'm actually from new york. southern new york (there is, as anyone from new york knows full well, quite a difference from upstate and southern new york). it's not manhattan but it's close enough. anyway, i moved to los angeles about six years ago. i thought like scott. all east coasters do. "oh, los angeles has absolutely no culture or landmarks." for starters, it has trechery of images, the painting scott puts to great use in his first book. dodger stadium- where good seats are cheap to buy. very underrated architecture all around. a river that runs without any water. and admit it, you would think it cool if YOU saw Newman from Seinfeld in your grocery store, and Alton and Irulan from Real World Vegas in Baja Fresh. and much more if you just take the time to look. sure, hollywood IS a shit hole. we all know that. but so much about los angeles in bad press. like, you can't get shot by a gang member at random. well, you can but you probably won't.

for shame scott. for shame.
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Post by Greg Stephens »

You forgot to mention the Getty Museum, the La Brea Tar Pits, the Hollywood Bowl and one of the best comic shops in the entire world (not hyperbole!), Meltdown.

But the presence of places of cultural value in L.A. doesn't negate the fact that many of the things L.A. is known for are really cultural junk-food.
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Post by Scott McCloud »

Okay, I can get carried away, it's true.

I guess I refer to the MJT as LA's "One True Cultural Landmark" in the same sense as The Clash was known as "The Only Band that Matters." Or the way the way Bill Mudron exclaimed "Princess Mononoke can kiss my ass!" after seeing Grave of the Fireflies.

Let's call it the "Emotional Superlative" school of praise.
vincent213

meltdown as the best comic shop in l.a.?

Post by vincent213 »

i'm partial to house of secrets in burbank where they allow you to check out certain books for two weeks- like the library. hi de ho in santa monica is good, too, although they are pretty pretentious.
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Re: wow scott, a little rough on los angeles, no?

Post by Guest »

there is..quite a difference from upstate and southern new york
No there isn't. "Upstate" is a term used by NYC folk to describe the entire state except for NYC (including Long Island).

Northern NY is quite a bit different from southern NY in that we never complained about people from NYC calling us upstate because we never talked to those people.

I grew up in the Finger Lakes and went to college in the North Country. It wasn't until I moved to Dutchess county that I heard anyone call me "upstate".
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Re: wow scott, a little rough on los angeles, no?

Post by Guest »

No there isn't. . . Northern NY is quite a bit different from southern NY in that we never complained about people from NYC calling us upstate because we never talked to those people.

so is there or isn't there a difference? and, for the record, i never claimed one to be better than the other. [/i]
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Re: meltdown as the best comic shop in l.a.?

Post by Greg Stephens »

L.A. comic shops: Actually, Vincent, House of Secrets is my regular Wednesday stop for comics and I agree it's pretty good. Hi-De-Ho is also good, and Golden Apple ain't bad. But I call Meltdown the best because it's clean, well-lit, spacious, and has a large selection of graphic novels, trade paperbacks. The front window displays change regularly and it's the sort of store that you can bring anybody and they'll generally agree that it's a cool place. I've never seen another comic shop like it.

Upstate/Southern/Northern/Western New York: I grew up in Northern New York (which they like to call, as has been mentioned, 'the North Country'), went to college in Westchester County (technically 'Upstate' becuase, even though it's only 1/2 hour by train from Grand Central Station, 'Upstate' being, as has been mentioned, an NYC term for anything that ain't NYC or Long Island. Yup, it's a pretty useless term, but it's the one everybody knows, even though they don't know how useless it is) and make a visit to the Buffalo area each year (which is 'Western New York' no matter how you slice it) and have grown accustomed to having to explain the geography of the state to people who don't know it well, or at all. Here's how I do it:

New York State, I explain, is shaped like Snoopy's head in profile when he's facing to his right, your left. (See? Comics to the rescue- Everybody, but everybody knows what Snoopy looks like.) New York City is located down by his collar, Buffalo is located by his nose and where I'm from is sort of up near his eyebrow.

I've also gotten good at drawing the 30-second map of New York.
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Upstate, indeed.

Post by Rip Tanion »

Speaking as someone who is NYC born and bred, I know that L.I., the Hudson Valley, and the Catskills are NOT upstate, nor have I ever refered to said regions as such. True there are some of my friends from Manhattan who think Westchester is upstate; especially those who grew up on that crowded isle, and never went anywhere by car, because the only Mahattanites who own a car are those who either can afford the exorbitant garage fees, or those who have the patience to drive around all day, looking for an elusive parking spot on the street. I, however, a Bronxite, grew up only a couple of miles from the Westchester (a.k.a land of Sub-Urban Living Dead) border, and in my neighborhood, parking was cheaper and more available, thus my family had a car (and later, I had my own hunk o' junk), so we drove all over your so-called Southern New York. I know better.

In my mind, anything south of Coxsackie (I just love saying that name) is NOT upstate. Anything north of Albany, and anything west of the World Famous Roscoe Diner, IS upstate. However, I'd say every New Yorker with half a brain knows that Long Island is NOT upstate. We city folk just call it "the Island", or the land of confusing parkways.

BTW, Vincent where exactly from Southern NY are you claiming to be from? Are you a sub-urban brat, or a Catskill townie?
Greg Stephens wrote:New York State, I explain, is shaped like Snoopy's head in profile when he's facing to his right, your left. (See? Comics to the rescue- Everybody, but everybody knows what Snoopy looks like.) New York City is located down by his collar, Buffalo is located by his nose and where I'm from is sort of up near his eyebrow.
So does that make Long Island his WWI flying-ace scarf?

I have more to add about my thoughts on L.A., but I'll post them up later. My keybord fingers (all two of them) need a rest.
"Park the beers, and grab the smiles. It's flight time." - LtCdr. J. Robert "Bobby" Stone, USN (R.I.P.)
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Re: Upstate, indeed.

Post by Greg Stephens »

Rip Tanion wrote:So does that make Long Island his WWI flying-ace scarf?
I'm going to have to add that to my spiel.
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vincent213

bronx, croton, and the southern tier

Post by vincent213 »

"BTW, Vincent where exactly from Southern NY are you claiming to be from? Are you a sub-urban brat, or a Catskill townie?" -yeah i don't know how to quote- insert you new york joke here.

bronx by birth. croton-on-hudson (or, simply, croton, or the rusty crouton) by adolescence, puberty and high school. westchester is not as
the land of sub-urban-living-dead as you say, but rather it is purgatory where the punishment is hearing the question "what do you want to do today," everyday, yet never having an answer.

look, the debate will rage always as to what is upstate new york. i agree that roscoe's demarcates western new york (i had a friend who went to alfred u. so i'm familar with the southern tier), but i am inclined to think that anything north of westchester county becomes the boondocks. westchester snobbery? perhaps. but we are a short train ride (40 minutes by express) to the city. we (westchester) are, esentially, the suburbs of manhattan (plus we have sing sing prison). surely dutchess county can claim no such fame. i mean, basically, croton was close enough to manhattan that i could intern at valiant comics at 23rd and 7th during the school week.
can you do that from poughkeepsie?

anyway, the harsh side of me says you can tell when you are in upstate new york when the satellite dishes becomes larger than the mobile homes.the nice side of me just keeps quiet.
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Re: bronx, croton, and the southern tier

Post by GlenSS »

Anonymous wrote: anything north of westchester county becomes the boondocks.


How many people live in a boondock? What is the criteria? Would that be me with a high school class of 160 people? Or my second cousin's class of 8?
Anonymous wrote: roscoe's demarcates western new york
Never heard of it. I looked it up. So, 80% of NYS is "western" now. Always nice to know...
Anonymous wrote: was close enough to manhattan that i could intern at valiant comics at 23rd and 7th during the school week.
can you do that from poughkeepsie?
While living in an apartment in Wappingers Falls, my neighboor worked in the WTC and commuted daily - of course she got paid...
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Post by Rip Tanion »

vincent213 wrote:bronx by birth. croton-on-hudson (or, simply, croton, or the rusty crouton) by adolescence, puberty and high school.
Born in the gold ol' Bronx. 'ey? East or west of the Bronx River?

Ah, yes I've driven by C-on-H many times, usually en-route to the Bear Mountain Bridge, in an effort to avoid bad tie-ups on the Tappan Zee. I think we used to pass by it whenevered we'd take a Cub Scout trip to Mohansic Park, also.
GlenSS wrote:While living in an apartment in Wappingers Falls, my neighboor worked in the WTC and commuted daily - of course she got paid
My fourth grade teacher lived up in Wappingers, and commuted to my school in the Bronx every day. Of course, it's pretty long commute. I seem to remember that he came in late at least one morning a week.

If someone asked me where Croton or Wappingers (or even Poughkeepsie - where they pick their toes) was, I would't answer Southern NY. I'd answer that it's part of the NYC Metropitan Area, north of the Bronx. Here a rule: If Metro-North goes there, than it's part of the NYC suburbs. I would think a good portion of Croton's residents ride the Metro-North Hudson line to commute into Mahattan every weekday.

If large segment of an area's population work, or attend school, in a large, metropolitian city, than that area can be considered a suburb of said city. Even if most of the people in a town don't work in the big city, if they live within a reasonable commuting distance, I'd still consider it sub-urban. Of course, the further you get from the city, the more the line between the burbs and the country blur. When my aunt and uncle moved up to Middletown, NY, when I was a kid, I always considered it the country whenever we visited them; even though my uncle drove to the train station every morning to began his ardurous commute to his job in Midtown Manhatten.

My comments an L.A. are still pending, since I was only there once, and that was 26 years ago, so I'm still gethering my recolections.
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vincent213

Post by vincent213 »

i'm from east tremont, then i lived in yonkers and then croton before moving out of state.
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Post by Rip Tanion »

East Treamont? That neighborhood has been going to hell for years. Your folks were wise for getting out of there.

Yonkers is one big burgh, but I'm familiar with the area around Central Ave.

I grew up in that 35 hi-rise units of "worker's paradise", built at the end of the '60s, Co-Op City, in the North East Bronx. Or as we later called it Co-Crap City. It's gone to hell, as well. All of us who grew up there are so screwed up, they gave us a message board. I haven't been on there in a couple of years, though.
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vincent213

central avenue

Post by vincent213 »

i used to go to the arcade at nathan's all the time. :D
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Post by Rip Tanion »

What kid who knew about that Nathan's didn't love the game room. That Nathan's had an arcade long before arcades could be found in every neighborhood, and before video games could be found in most candy and drugstores. They were always the first to get new games, and they always had some cool and unique games that no body else in the area had.

Damn, you jar some great childhood memories in me. I would let my parents drag me shopping all over Central Ave., so long as we ate at Nathan's. I was a slow eater as a kid, but I would scarf down my food as fast as I could, so I could get inside that arcade. My favorite was always Death Race 2000, where you had to run people over, and a gravestones would pop up. Morbid for fun kids of all ages.

I hadn't eaten there for several years until recently, when a friend of mine moved in just down the street from there. The old floors, that used to say "Adventurer's Inn" around a badly drawn pirate, are long gone. Up front they have one of those safe-plastic toddler climing areas (when I were a young'n, I had play on rusty metal monkey bars, by cracky!) But the arcade, in the back, is still there, though all the games have changed, naturally. There's a lot of "cockpit" games there now.

Sorry to have dragded an L.A. thread three-thousand miles east, but ah...memories.
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Guest

new york comic shops: dragon's den

Post by Guest »

on central ave., that used to be my favorite comic shop until they started in with being more of a video game store. is it still there? i remember their back issue bins just blew me away. i had never seen a comic shop so big before, mostly my experience had been a couple of shops in ossining, and one in peekskill, in the beach shopping center (if you now the area).

you can put the new yorker in so cal, but you can't . . . um . . . you know, put so cal in the new yorker. or something to that effect.
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Re: new york comic shops: dragon's den

Post by Rip Tanion »

Anonymous wrote:on central ave., that used to be my favorite comic shop until they started in with being more of a video game store. is it still there?
If you're speaking of Dragon's Den, they moved, a few years back, over to the Cross County shopping center (another place my parents used to drag me shopping all the time as a kid). Barnes & Noble bought the space, as well as the nieghboring stores, and built a huge book store. There's still a little comic book shop across the street, right near the Pizza Beat, but there's no comparisson. I haven't been to the Cross County in while, so I don't think I've been to the new Dragon's Den.
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