How much can Erie do to keep those people who want employment in "theater, advertising, and fashion?"

I know--add 10,000,000 self-absorbed people.

And if Erie's job market was booming, these expats pursuing careers in theater, advertising, and fashion would be doing it here?

Do you really think that those paragraphs comparing Erie's opportunities in those fields with New York's was generated by a NYT employee? Or is it possible a few of these kids, wishing to be anointed smart, ambitious, and adventuresome wrote and sent the "story" to the Neighborhoods editor?

The real suckitude demonstrated here is that this piece is treated as legitimate by some local yokels.

Interesting how the New York Times article seemed to make more of the fact that the reason these Erie folks are in NYC is due to the lack of opportunity for them back home (in Erie).

In contrast, the Erie newspaper's article on this seemed to have a theme of how "cool" it is for all these Erie people to be in New York. Nevermind the fact that these Erie folks left Erie due to the horrid job market here. Typical that the Erie newspaper would gloss over this.

I was born and raised in Erie, now live in NYC. Many of the jobs the ex-Erieites mention sound impressive but don't pay that much. NYC is no wonderland; the same winnowing process takes place here as everywhere else in life, where the hardest working and beneficiaries of a bit of luck get most of the prizes.

It is easy for former Erie-ites to put down the place but generically smaller cities do have fewer diversions. No reason for Erie to be especially hard on itself.

Hey Joe. This blog entry was written by an ex-erieite who moved to another city for schooling and won't be returning to Erie because of the job market.

How's that for suckitude?

Rich, that's precisely the naïve acceptance of anything with a big city dateline that defines suckitude. It'd be as ridiculous as saying the mass exodus of the best and brightest from New Haven, Connecticut and Cambridge, Massachusetts every May is because of the horrible job markets in those two cities. Enough of self-loathing already!

Well whatever your problem is with the article and big name newspapers is your prerogative. However, I'm not in a naive position to comment since I'm living both sides of the coin.

Self-loathing is one thing. Self-denial quite another.

Most of us migrate to Pittsburgh first THEN maybe to NYC. They missed a step in here.

A native New Yorker friend of mine, who likes to make fun of me for being from Erie, handed me a clipping from the New York Times the other day. I was absolutely shocked to learn that there is "a Gang of Exiles" from Erie, PA, living here, in New York City! With their own website!! And their own day at a bar!!! Wow, news to me.

I was home for Christmas and having a beer with some wild cousins of mine at the Plymouth (a bar that my brother Dan bartended at before moving to Seattle) and ran into a fellow Prep alumnus (now living in Boston) who asked me where I'm at now. I swear he actually gasped when I answered "New York, yep, City."

My family was much the same when I moved here 6 years ago. My mother warned me about "all the crime." My brother asked me if I worried about nuclear terrorism. When (ex- )Erieite cousins come a visitin' from yonder cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City, they all like to define NYC as a cool place to visit, but definitely not a city that they could live in. I just took all this to mean that small town folk were intimidated by the Big Apple, and I was always a bit of an anomaly.

As it turns out, not so anomalous anymore. I had almost given up looking, resolving myself to be content with meeting the occasional Pittsburgh transplant. Close enough I told myself. After all, I graduated from Pitt. To my eternal shame, I once even told a group of four drunken Pittsburghers that I was one of them. I know now that the Steelers and free drinks were no excuse.

So when's the next Billymark's night? Can I bring friends from Cleveland?