Because it's theme park planners not being very careful about geography? It's cute, not accurate.
I think that the song is ironic. The California Myth a la the Beach Boys, Annete Funicello and Frankie Avalon, The OC - Dar Williams turns that around. What if western New York were the ideal? She gives all these snapshots of New York, like diner coffee, and a weekly meal of pork on sunday, always served with mint, creaking houses full of age. There are very few references to things specific to the stereotypical SC, only the Miata. None of the usual fun-on-the-beach, Hollywood glamour, finding oneself in California that fills so many other pop songs. She turns the cliche around to a part of the country that no one idealizes, sad old western New York, forgotten, but still steeped in New England. The inverse cliche mocks itself, though, when typical WNY waitresses are characterized as looking liek they "want to leave for the west coast," even if (by gravity defiant's measure) they are already in California.
Because it's theme park planners not being very careful about geography? It's cute, not accurate.
I think that the song is ironic. The California Myth a la the Beach Boys, Annete Funicello and Frankie Avalon, The OC - Dar Williams turns that around. What if western New York were the ideal? She gives all these snapshots of New York, like diner coffee, and a weekly meal of pork on sunday, always served with mint, creaking houses full of age. There are very few references to things specific to the stereotypical SC, only the Miata. None of the usual fun-on-the-beach, Hollywood glamour, finding oneself in California that fills so many other pop songs. She turns the cliche around to a part of the country that no one idealizes, sad old western New York, forgotten, but still steeped in New England. The inverse cliche mocks itself, though, when typical WNY waitresses are characterized as looking liek they "want to leave for the west coast," even if (by gravity defiant's measure) they are already in California.