They've gotten out of control, these Boston fans. They've mutated. There was a time when they took a perverse pride in their suffering, when they romanticized their lack of sports luck. Then the Pats won and the Sox won and the Celtics won and, more recently, the Bruins won. Whatever humility Bostonians had was long ago traded for some of those giant "We're No. 1" foam fingers and a slew of omnipresent smug smiles.
The people in Boston have become obnoxious, arrogant, condescending. And those are just my friends up there. The rest are worse, an openly supercilious lot who never hesitate to tell you exactly how good they have it. Pride, as Marsellus Wallace said, will mess with you.
Boston has always been a great beer town - try Bukowski Tavern or Sunset Grill if you venture up that way - but the favorite intoxicant these days is victory. The city is hammer drunk on titles. Since 2002, the Patriots have won three championships, the Sox have captured two, while the Celtics and Bruins claimed one each. As a result, the fans there have become the sports equivalent of the mouthy businessman who gets loaded at the bar and won't shut up about how much money he's made and how much better his life is than yours. He drones on and on about his summer house and his expensive cars and his cushy Rich & Famous lifestyle while you order up another happy-hour discount brew and thumb the already well-worn want ads. The Karmic bartender needs to cut them off. Their gloating is insufferable.
"Since he was born, I've been to every parade with my son," Michael Kairevich III told the Boston Globe after the Bruins beat the Vancouver Canucks. According to the story, the dad and the boy even have a special parade route spot in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. They go there after each title. It's sickening.
