Albany

We are more than a punchline (perhaps). William Kennedy won the Pulitzer writing about our town (Ironweed), Phil Jackson started his coaching career here (for the Albany Patroons, the worst-named team in all of sports, but a nod to our Dutch heritage), Mike Tyson lived here during his rise. . . and we have one damned (almost famous) band, and we're proud of them. I know a few of these gentlemen, and they have aged gracefully.

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The irony of celebrating the lifeguard lifestyle in landlocked Albany is beautiful. Nobody, and I mean nobody, surfs the Hudson River.

I read somewhere (probably in one of his books) that Julian Cope and his wife Dorian named their first daughter Albany, as the couple met in that town at one of his Teardrop Explodes gigs.

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I know what you're thinking: [/b]Good thing it wasn't Schenectady.

The fact that the movie Synechdoche took place in Schenectady kind of made the city both cool and weird, not just weird. I avoid Schenectady (despite its proximity) if at all possible.

I didn't know Albany was a punchline. I have heard a joke involving Schenectady, though.

Are you sure it was the town?

I grew up around Albany (Latham) and have essentially nothing good to say about the Crapitol District, I'm sorry to say. Well, except it was possible to find TP on the stands if you knew where to look, and there were the hairy arm hot dogs in Troy. But for me, the best thing to come out of Albany was the road taking me anywhere else.

"there were the hairy arm hot dogs in Troy."

Wow! Hot Dog Charlie's. You are a true native.

God, Latham is awful--I'm glad you got out of there. My wife, an Albany native, always tries to explain it to me. (I get lost up and down the retail hell that is Route 9 on a daily basis.)

I am actually from Boston and then moved to the Catskills (Schoharie County) as an adolescent, so I'm not as against Albany as all of the real locals and prodigals. My wife is an Albany Academy girl (where Melville and Andy Rooney went to school), so I've learned to appreciate it through her eyes. I live in the country right outside of Albany, in Voorheesville--not far from Thacher Park, so my existence is pretty tranquil and out in the mountains (the Helderberg's).

At some point in the 1990s, they started calling it the "Capital Region" rather than the Capital District. I never understood that.



Post Edited (09-03-12 17:38)