The denizens of Newberry Street are so desperate to justify their $3000-per-month, 400-square-foot studios that they've convinced themselves that Boston is the pinnacle of culture and civilization, and that no other city (especially not New York) could ever compare.

Yep, Bostonions spend a lot of time talking about how awful New York is, and how the theater scene or the music scene or the art scene or the dining scene is just as good here as it is there.  You might get the impression that a lot of them are pretty hung up on New York, as much time they spend talking about how lame it is.

They say the "rivalry" dates back to the Babe Ruth days, but I suspect it goes back even further.  Boston seems keen on reliving its 19th century heyday, when its big competition was that other bustling east-coast harbor metropolis, Charleston, SC.  This is, in a way, oddly appropriate, since most of the buildings and virtually all of the wretched, twisted streets are remnants of that era.

It's a sight to see when the Yankees come to town.  All the local sports fans can hardly contain themselves, gleefully anticipating their chance to take up the sacred chant taught to them by their fathers and their fathers' fathers: "Yankees suck! Yankees suck!"  And all the abuse, all the vitriolic invective just rolls off the Yankees' backs like water; they're like "uhh...yeah man, whatever..."  To find a more pathetic one-sided rivalry, you'd have to go spend Thanksgiving at the Georgia/Georgia Tech game.

No, really, this year they're gonna go all the way.

Like Arsenio Hall said in Coming to America:  "The land is so big, the choice is so infinite.  Where shall we go: Los Angeles, or New York?"

If they want to have even a chance of competing, Bostonions would do better to pick a rival city that is more in their league...like, say, Charlotte.