For the final stop on my two city tour I visited NYC. While in Seattle I visited a zoo, so I thought it would be fitting to visit the Bronx equivalent. The Yankees were playing their final game in Yankee Stadium and I was determined to score tickets to this historic event. So where does one turn when they want to find something? Why they hit-up my man Craig and his magical, magical list of course.

That's right, I actually used Craigs List for a serious reason this time, can you believe it? I wouldn't have either, but here's visual confirmation. I got tickets from someone leaving for Florida who wanted to unload them before they left, they were actually great seats too.

When I arrived at the stadium I could smell the excitement in the air, or maybe that was just the aroma of drunk Yankees fans. Either way, we all gathered underneath the subway platform, surrounding hordes of vendors trying to cash in on the game. They were peddling t-shirts, jerseys, newspapers, pins, ticket holders and just about anything else you sell with a Yankee logo on it.

As I got closer I noticed they weren't peeing on the wall, they were just trying to chip pieces of it off. I joined them in the chip-fest and managed to pocket some nice chunks of the exterior wall at Yankee Stadium.

By the time I entered the park I was completely high on nostalgia, my eyes darted from corner to corner of the stadium searching for the perfect souvenir to steal from the ballpark I grew up with, but New York's finest were in full force and everything worth taking was completely bolted down. So I grabbed a seat and enjoyed a two hour tribute to Yankees past & present. I was concerned that the magnitude of this event might be lost on some of the younger fans in attendance. This notion was quickly dispelled after hearing the young fan sitting behind me make this poignant sports observation to his brother: 

Yes, now that I think about it I remember seeing plans for the new Yankee Stadium and being relieved that they included an expansive mezzanine pretzel tier to the design. I'm sure your father will be refunded the 400 plus dollars he shelled out on that seat you were sitting in you ungrateful little shit.

But despite the pretzel outage, it was a great game, as the Yankees took the last one at the stadium 7-3. Only one idiot rushed the field and he was quickly taken down by New York's human piñata patrol.

All work by "The Acorn King" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

"The Acorn King's Majestic Two City Tour" kicks off this Thursday.

Get ready, because over the next couple weeks, The Acorn King will be having some whacky adventures in the cities of Seattle & New York.



During this time I plan on getting to the bottom of some of the more popular myths surrounding these cities...hopefully finding out if it really does always rain in Seattle...and if it's true that NY never sleeps? And if NY never sleeps, why don't they go hangout in Seattle and be sleepless, it seemed to work ok for Tom Hanks.



Who will I meet along the way?


What will I do?


And what does all this have to do with a puppet named Tony?
Stay tuned and find out.


Give a squirrel a nut :)

All work by "The Acorn King" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

I first moved to New York City from a small New England "cow town." I'm really not kidding about the cow town part. If you don't believe me, take a look at this Wikipedia page about my hometown.







To back this up, I should also mention that in high school we experienced a 30 minute baseball "cow delay" after a bevy of bovines moseyed onto the field, casually grazing on the luscious expands of left center.



Life in the country was quiet and I became accustomed to the tranquil stillness of the night,
often being lulled to sleep by the sounds of chirping crickets.



Seeking more adventure, excitement, and non farming-related jobs,
I found myself relocating to Brooklyn — more specifically, the border of Bedford Stuyvesant and Clinton Hill.



Let's see what the web has to say about my new community.







My new neighborhood also came with a new nickname: "Vietnam."
Admittedly it lacked the small town charm of "Cow Town," but it's good to know I'm at least living in areas known for something.



As you would expect, this shift in scenery put a serious crimp in my nocturnal routine. I now found myself being lulled to sleep by the incessant chirping of city crickets.



It was at this time I discovered why New York is considered "the city that never sleeps," but I was sure it wasn't for lack of trying.

After several months of sleepless nights, I finally became adjusted and even accustomed to all the sounds of the city — so much so that whenever I'd venture back to cow town, I'd find myself lying awake, listening to the now eery silences of the country.

So now I'd finally become adjusted to the sirens, shots and screams of the night, entering some of the deepest sleep I'd experienced in years.



That is until my new neighbor moved in. He turned out to be a mime, and his silence kept me up until all hours of the night, as he practiced his routine. Walking against wind. Trapped in a box. Pulling a rope.



I couldn't take it. His silence was deafening.


I wasn't going to let this mime cheat me of the sleep that I'd so diligently paid my dues to get. Something had to be done. So one night when I couldn't take his silence anymore, I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine.

I turned my stereo up full-blast, pushed the speakers against the wall
and pressed play on a blank tape.



There's nothing more satisfying then hearing a mime scream.
And to this day, I've never not heard from him again.