What the World Needs Now. 12/20/24

In the “good old days (whenever they were)” a hamburger was a hamburger was a hamburger. And taking your kids to the ballgame didn’t require taking out a reverse mortgage. It’s also true that every generation, as it ages, thinks about the good old days. In other words, the days when they knew how everything worked. Case in point: I don’t go to McDonalds much, except when I’m driving long distance and make a pit stop. That’s a lie. I bought a breakfast burrito last week a couple blocks from home. But anyway, I go into the restaurant and there is a giant electronic board upon which you are supposed to place your order and then pick it up at the register when they call your number. I’m sure this is part of a master plot to do away with cashiers. Humans are so inconvenient. When I got to the iced coffee, I wanted it unsweetened, with half and half. That was so complex for this kiosk, that I couldn’t place my order. Finally, in frustration, I went to the cashier. She was fine with unsweetened, but had no idea what half & half was. At one point asking if I wanted the iced coffee half filled with cream. In response, I got a Diet Coke. Which gets us around to smashed burgers, which McDonalds does not have. Pro tip: if you actually want a smash burger, the chain called Smashburger has them. The idea is to press the outside of the patty into the grill so it gets nice and crispy, Now nearly every place you go to has a “smashed burger” or they brazenly violate the copyright and serve “smash burgers.” Only Smashburger can serve a smash burger, okay? It’s just the latest trend and we’re sure something else will come to replace it soon. Maybe a Stuff Burger, where they put the toppings on the inside of the patty. Hey, that’s not a bad idea.

Another thing that’s not like what it used to be is going to a sporting event. The Knicks star point guard, Jalen Brunson was lauded for signing a “team-friendly” 4 year contract extension for $156.5 million. He gave up an extra $113 million that he was eligible to get so the team could afford to sign other good players around him. No wonder they now sell a massive hot dog for $35.00! But it does come with sriracha and fried onions. Wash it down with an $15.00 beer and you’ve got a $50.00 dinner for one. And we haven’t gotten to the tickets, parking, popcorn or soft-serve ice cream served in an upside-down half basketball shaped bowl, complete with team logo. But as John says, it’s not just about the prices, it’s about the baggy shorts that come down below the knees, the elaborate hairstyles, compression sleeves on the arms and knees, and the fact that the players change teams (and therefore uniforms) much more frequently than ever before. As Jerry Seinfeld once put it, when we root for a particular team, we’re actually just rooting for laundry.

In conclusion, I still go to ball games and eat smash burgers so forget everything I just said. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

How to Survive. 12/13/24

Ever watch National Geographic TV (NatGeo if you’re hip)? Or YouTube nature videos? There’s all these great examples of what to do if you’re confronted by a dangerous creature. There’s this bear video where a guy is walking down a beautiful path in the woods when suddenly a bear appears and growls. In this video the hiker raises his arms and spreads them out while growling ferociously. The bear turns tail and runs away. Ahh, so that’s how you do it. If I were hiking on a trail (as I often am) and ran into a bear (which I never have), the last thing I would do is spread my arms out and approach it aggressively. I don’t like my odds. Maybe I’d indulge it in some calming dialogue like, “Hi Momma Bear, you don’t really want to hurt me and I certainly don’t want to hurt you, and I couldn't care less about the stupid bear cub, so let’s go our separate ways, okay?” On second thought, I might leave out the part about the stupid bear cub. At any rate there are other great tips like that. What do you do if an alligator comes after you? They can reach a speed of 40 mph, but their legs are short and they can’t easily change direction. So when you’re running away, just run in a zigzag pattern. Just don’t zig back into the same place you just zagged from. Another survival tip of mine is, if I get into a fight with my wife, just admit I’m wrong. Well, I’m still kind of working on that one.

Our other comic this Friday the 13th is about Friday the 13th. Funny how that works. Now both John and I are not particularly superstitious. I barely know how to spell superstitious. We’re not the kind of guys who throw salt over our respective shoulders. If I see a black cat run by, I think, “Wow a black cat ran by.” If it’s easier to walk under a ladder than around it, chances are I’ll walk under it. So while I don’t believe in superstition, I do believe there’s a power out there that defies logic. Towards the end of my advertising career, I thought of a great campaign idea while riding the commuter train to work. Rather than take notes like a normal person might, I thought, “Hell, I’ll just write this down when I get to work.” The idea hinged on a character in Breaking Bad, Mike Ehrmantraut, who never cracked a smile during six years worth of episodes. My product, the one I was working on, would make him smile. On my ensuing walk to work the idea completely slipped my mind. The harder I tried to remember it, the more the idea faded in my memory. One block from the office a crosstown bus pulls up to the curb. Featured on the side of the bus is an ad for Breaking Bad with a huge picture of Mike Ehrmantraut, played by Jonathan Banks.

That’s all folks for this week. Since today is the dreaded Friday the 13th, take care not to break a mirror. But if you do, chill out. Nothing’s gonna happen to you. Right?

Andy and John

On Bourbon and Beards. 12/9/24

Happy December everyone. I have a rule, actually a friend of mine had the rule and I stole it: clear liquors in the summer, brown liquors in the winter. I’m all about the perfect gin and tonic when the weather’s warm. And a nice scotch or bourbon when it isn’t. But I’m not a purist. John is a purist. Me, I like my scotch poured over one of those massive ice cubes you see in fancy bars. John takes it neat. For you non-drinkers out there, neat means poured straight from the bottle. Real men drink neat. Kevin Costner in Yellowstone would pour his Bulleit Bourbon (wonder how much they paid for product placement) neat several times an episode. I wonder if he’s still drinking it now, but I have to wait since I don’t have the proper level of Hulu t5o watch the end of Season 5 apparently. But I digress. So John went to a party, the host asked him what he’d like. He said, “Bourbon, neat.” At this the host’s eyes lit up and in a conspiratorial whisper, steered John to a special cabinet where he kept “the good stuff.” When John relayed this to me, we thought we’d flip the idea on its head and make the host think this guy was a real man’s man, only to find out he wasn't. One other story on a similar subject. My wife and I throw an annual New Year’s Eve party. One of the couples lived a long drive away and slept over that night. The husband of this couple is a big oenophile (wine lover and expert). He brought wine and champagne for the party and then gave us a bottle of champagne, just for us. The following morning I took out his bottle of champagne, a bottle of fresh-squeezed oj and thought I’d serve mimosas for breakfast. My friend looked at me and said, “You’re not planning to use that for mimosas are you?” To which I replied, “Oh no, just rearranging the fridge” while trying to slyly put the orange juice and champagne away so he wouldn’t notice. The couple went home after breakfast, And as soon as they were gone I turned on college football and drank mimosas. Now I’m stuck. If my friend reads this blog, he’ll never bring me a bottle of good champagne again.

Which brings us around to Craig’s beard. We all do it. Women with different hairstyles and colors, men with a big beard, no beard, perpetual two-day-growth beards (I still don’t know how somebody can maintain a two day growth) goatees, etc. So Craig tries a new beard on. He thinks it makes him look cool. His friends think it makes him look like Santa. Any similarities between Craig’s full, white beard and John’s full, white beard are of course purely coincidental. And speaking of beards, there was a time when my kids went off to sleep-away camp. I decided to shave my head and sport a two-day growth of beard on my face. We got to camp, the kids didn’t recognize me, and both started to cry. That was the end of my trying to maintain a two-day growth, something may son-in-law manages with seemingly no effort. Finally, congratulations to my daughter Ali and son-in-law Mark on the birth of their second child, a beautiful, bouncing baby girl named Emma, weighing in at 6 lbs, 11 ozs.

Have a happy December and we’ll see you next week,

Andy and John

DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? 11/29/24

Ahh the joys of renting. Imagine (as John and I did) getting a call at midnight from a renter complaining that the electricity went down. Or that the air conditioning broke. Or that you don’t have the emergency number for the local electrician. Or that you don’t know where the damn breaker panel is in the dark basement and where is that light switch for the basement anyway??? Actually, we didn’t have to imagine any of that since it all happened to my wife and I last summer. We did have to imagine what it would be like to be on the other side of the equation. To be the owner. When all this went down last summer, it was even worse. The owner was vacationing in Japan. I call, the owner answers. Owner with a sleepy voice: Do you know what time it is here??? Me: “No.”

At any rate Sam and Shellie will surely figure it out. Or not. Today’s “Cabin Rental 3” is the last comic in the Cabin Rental series. Which is more of a relief to Shellie and Sam than to John and me.

Our other comic also comes from something that happened to me and my wife. Here’s the way it goes. Something bad or annoying happens to me and I get pissed off. Then 5 minutes later, I think, oh well, at least this might make a good comic. Then I call up John and tell him what happened and we decide whether or not it’s comic-worthy, kind of like Elaine from Seinfeld deciding if a potential lover is “sponge-worthy.” In this case, we decided it was. The same holds true for John. When something messed up happens to him, he tells me and we go through the same process. Comic-worthy or not. By the way, you can usually tell which comic comes from which person’s experience. If it’s about indoor stuff like moving into a condo, getting a pedicure, or trying to kick dinner guests out of your house because you want to start the Knick game on tape delay, it’s probably from me. If it’s outside, like using a chainsaw, a weed burner, or building a bear-proof bird feeder, well, that’s from John. And then sometimes, actually a lot of times, we just make shit up.

I took my wife to an 18,000 seat arena to see Steely Dan opening for the Eagles. Personally I think the Eagles should have opened for Steely Dan, but that’s a topic for another blog. In this case we parked, I took out my phone and hit the “Find My Car” app and clicked. A couple hours (and gummies) later, we had no idea where the damn car was. The app didn't work because I had failed to click some browser box earlier. I remembered what section (G3), but for the life of me and my wife, we couldn’t figure out what floor the car was on. It took almost 40 minutes to track down the car, but at least when we did find it, most of the traffic had thinned out.

That’s it for this week. Have a Happy Thanksgiving and if you’re visiting relatives, please remember where the hell you parked!

Andy and John

To Buy or To Rent

Maybe there’s this little place you have your heart set on. Maybe it’s a retreat in the woods. Maybe it’s near an ocean or a lake. Maybe it’s near a ski slope. Maybe you can afford it. Maybe you can’t. Maybe you could buy it. Or rent it. Or buy it and rent it out to help you with the cost. Maybe it’s something one of you loves but the other one tolerates. Or maybe, like in Sam and Shellie’s case, it was deeded to you in a will. Whatever (or if you’re a millennial, whatevs).

I know of a couple who bought a beach house, spent a lot to fix it up, and then started renting it to help with the costs. I know because they rented to my family. But, after a few summers, the owners’ family loved it so much they stopped renting it out to us.

I have a good friend who bought a vacation home, and his family uses it some, but they treat it mostly as a way to earn rental income. That’s terrific in the income department. And what could go wrong? Not much, except for the random canoe paddle making a hole in the sheetrock. Or a leak. Or electrical failure. Or air conditioning failure, or they rent to a Mets fan (me) and don’t have the Mets cable channel as part of their tv and internet bundle. Shame on them! But not to worry. Everything is available. At a surcharge.

If my wife and I were fortunate to own a vacation home, I don’t think we’d rent it out. I can imagine sitting at home on a cold winter night, cozy in our sweats or pj’s, fireplace logs crackling away (okay, so we don’t have a fireplace but it sounded good). Suddenly the phone rings at 11 pm and the renter says, “Hi, I can’t get the heat to switch on and it’s getting chilly in here.” I imagine myself saying something soothing like, “Whaddya want me to do about it at 11 pm? Throw on an extra blanket and quit bitching. I’ll call someone in the morning.” And that would ruin my nice, cozy night with our imaginary fireplace.

The other comic plays directly into the careers John and I had for almost 40 years apiece. Advertising products and services. Which I define as making something look and sound better than it actually is. Example: “No other pain reliever gets to the pain faster than … fill in the blank. (Advil, Motrin, Aleve, Tylenol, etc.) The point is, they all get to the pain at exactly the same speed, but none of them work faster. Another trick is putting a question mark at the end of a statement. “The best coffee maker ever?” Well actually it isn’t, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. This constant need to lie about stuff is part of what drove us both out of advertising. The other part was the unwritten rule that people in their 60’s cannot work in an ad agency unless they own the place. The business also changed dramatically (like every other business). Instead of writing commercials and shooting them with big stars and big-name directors, it became planning “events that go viral,” or creating “a virtual town hall,” or stuff like that. And don’t forget algorithms. Towards the end of my career I was working on a project when, thanks to data mining (probably the wrong term) I was told that “We’ve learned that people who like this product like the color yellow, so try to work that in visually, verbally, and make sure there’s lots of yellow on the set.” At that point I knew it was time to skedaddle.

That’s it for this week. And whether you buy, rent or buy and rent out, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Sending holiday wishes, love and kisses,

Andy and John

It's All a Matter of Taste. 11/15/24

Nice hat. Ooh, that looks delicious.What a pretty dress.

Well, what’s nice for some people is not so nice for others. That mohawk haircut? Maybe cool on your six year old grandson, but awful on you. This week we focused on taste and how what looks good to one person may not look so good to another. First is the case of the jaunty hat. Who would even use the word “jaunty” these days. Only an old person. And John and I. I say the “and” part to emphasize that we are most definitely NOT old people. We just observe and write about them. Is that clear?

For me, my dad always wore hats so I associated hats with old guys. When you’re a kid, your dad is always an old guy. Fedoras, golf hats, snap-brim Irish newsboy hats, Al’s ridiculous tam o’ shanter and the ubiquitous baseball cap. Just as an aside, basketball teams and football teams and soccer teams never used to have baseball caps, only baseball teams had them. At any rate, my dad wore hats. He was also bald, and I have inherited that wonderful trait. As my skin doctor said to me as he was scraping off a melanoma, “Wear a hat. Anytime you’re outside. Even if it’s cloudy.” I told him, I do wear a hat, always.” And he replied, “Well you didn't wear them enough as a kid.” As John and I wrestled with the end of this comic, I said, “In no way is this stupid tam o’ shanter hat jaunty!” And he shot back, “Yeah, but it sure is ugly.” Case closed.

Which brings us around to mushroom sliders, which isn’t really about mushroom sliders at all. It’s about sharing. When we see friends, it’s often to go out to dinner with them. You pick a restaurant because you like the food there. Invariably, there is someone who thinks it’d be fun to share. Let me tell you, I don't think it’s fun to share and I’m pretty sure John agrees. Let me rephrase that. If I order the plant-based burger and side salad because I know that’s the right thing to do, and you go for the burger with fries because that’s what you want, then I’m all about sharing. I’ll share your fries and your cheeseburger without hesitation and pass the ketchup please? Also if you want more of my plant-based burger and side salad, knock yourself out. But to me, sharing doesn’t necessarily mean caring. It means eating more of something you don’t want and less of something you do. And then there’s this. If you say, “Why don’t you guys share amongst yourselves, I’m having the (fill in the blank),” you sound like a selfish jerk. After 71 years on this planet, I decided I am okay with being a selfish jerk, as long as I get the fried chicken. And by the way, do you mind if I take a taste of your linguini with white clam sauce?

That’s it for now and we’ll see you next week with two new ones, and before you know it, it’ll be Thanksgiving. Enjoy the weekend,

Andy and John

Self Help 11/07/24

It’s kinda funny. John and I came up with the idea of Marv getting a pedicure a couple months ago. Knowing that the blog this week would feature this comic, and wanting to experience it for myself, I asked my wife to include me when she went for a mani-pedi this past Monday. So I went. At some point the manicurist asked if I wanted clear polish on my nails. My dad used to do this regularly and I thought he looked too polished. But, for the first time in my life, I said yes to clear polish on my fingernails and toenails. On Wednesday I was scheduled for a foot operation to remove a neuroma from the bottom of my left foot. When my wife and I looked over the pre-op instructions (actually she looked them over because I only kind of looked it over) it states on the bottom, please remove all nail polish prior to arrival. So I do this thing once in my 71 years on this planet, and it was not a good thing to do. I said,”I can’t believe I did that. What now??” And she replied, “This is a cotton ball and this is a bottle of nail polish remover. Put your foot up here.” It may seem obvious to you, dear readers, but I was temporarily thrown for a loop. Now I’m in an ace bandage and walking shoe, and there’s no way to put polish on my nails even if I wanted to. And I don’t.

Our other comic deals with Al babysitting his grandson. On the one hand, we want to follow our children’s leads, you know, “make sure he goes to bed no later than 9 pm,” “no candy after 7,” stuff like that. But on the other hand, we’re GRANDparents and our job is to spoil them At least a little. So my granddaughter stayed with us on the weekend before Halloween weekend. We live in an apartment building. She went flying down the hallway and came to a stop at the last apartment. There was a neoprene statue of a ghoul holding out a tray of free Halloween candy. She chose a “fun size” pack of M&M’s. First time ever. My wife, wanting to spoil her but still adhere to our daughter’s wishes, let our granddaughter eat half of a fun-size pack before bed. Then we put the remainder of the pack on a shelf. A low shelf. Upon waking the next morning, Charlotte or “ChaCha” as we like to call her, came up to us and said, “I found the M&M’s. And I ate them” That’s really the best outcome because you tried to be responsible but she got the best of you. Not your fault. Not even a little bit. Our daughter got us back however. When she and our son-in-law came to pick their daughter up, our daughter left us with a big bag of the trick or treat candy that they had collected on their trick or treat excursion. M&M’s, peanut M&M’s, bite-size Snickers bars, KitKats, PayDay, Almond Joy, Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, and more. Now I don’t know about you, but having that bag of candy is pretty damn hard to resist (believe me, we haven’t) so how can you expect a 3-year old to do it?

We will be back next week with two new comics and a blog which I’ll write as soon as I stop eating this last MilkyWay.

Andy and John

Reading 11/01/24

There’s all sorts of reading. There’s reading a newspaper. Reading a book. Reading the room. In fact the same guy (me, Andy) went from reading Dr. Martin Luther King to Dr. Seuss in the same day. As for reading the room, I went from being the class clown in high school to taking improv classes at Second City to a career of writing and presenting commercials and commercial storyboards to creative directors, clients and the like. As soon as you present an idea, you know if it went over or not. Very quickly. You know that feeling when you tell something you think is funny and you’re chuckling as you say it and nobody responds? If you don’t know that feeling you’re either a brilliant comedian or you’re not the kind of person who tells jokes. John was once in a meeting in which the client was postulating on why their market share was dropping (never a good thing when you’re supposedly the creative genius who’s gonna turn the whole thing around). The client starts in with a bunch of “they say” comments. “They say a rising tide lifts all boats.” “They say, when the market’s down your advertising should focus on savings.” “They say, blah, blah blah.” To which John adds the chorus from the old Peter and Gordon song, “I don’t care what they say, I won’t stay, in a world without love.” Cue the sound of silence, or as we like to say, “Crickets,” as in the room was so silent you could hear crickets chirping. Which brings us around to kid jokes. After a lifetime of trying to make people laugh, I now have turned my efforts to my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter. She thinks most of what I say is funny, unlike my wife. Grade A material like, “Watch out, here comes the kissing monster!!!” I even taught her how to tell her own knock-knock joke. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Boo. Boo who? Why are you crying? John has some fart jokes for me when she gets older. But he can actually juggle so he doesn’t have to resort to fart jokes before his granddaughter is ready. But I digress. On Halloween, it seemed the perfect time to tell her the “Booberry” joke you saw in today's comic. If it makes the kid laugh, it’s a hit. But somewhere, deep down inside, you know you’re gonna have to come up with better material the older she gets. But I’m not worried. My daughter is about to deliver her second baby in December. So I can recycle all my groaners for at least another 3 years.

On to the cholesterol test. This really happened to me two years ago. Literally. Except I read the results in bed, not in a doctor’s office. When I told the idea to John, he said, “C’mon, nobody would think being in the 96th percentile was a good thing.” I retorted, “I did!” I was in bed reading my emails including the one about my just completed calcium test when I read the news and shouted out triumphantly to my wife in the bathroom, “Guess what honey, no worries, I’m in the 96th percentile!” Worries. But one stent later and a stronger dose of Lipitor, I’m still standing. John reluctantly decided to pursue this idea and what you see is the result. And I’ve got to tell you, I still think being in the 96th percentile is pretty fantastic.

That’s all for this week. We are going back to work to make sure our comic is in the 96th percentile. Have a great November weekend. November???

Andy and John

Exercise, or Lack Thereof. 10/25/24

In Grand Central Terminal you have a choice of taking an escalator or a staircase. By my unscientific observation, I’d say roughly 98% of folks take the escalator. You have four categories of commuters: 1) people who walk the stairs, 2) people who take the escalator, 3) people who walk up the escalator and 4) people who get pissed off at people who just stand there on the left side of the escalator traffic, blocking the way for the Category 3 folks. How lazy have we become? When I was last in advertising the office had an internal staircase connecting the many floors. I worked with a much younger guy who took the elevator to go DOWN one flight. Now there is the Segway, the revolutionary people mover. If you buy one, you never have to walk down the street again. Just hop on and ride. In New York where I live, you see bicycle messengers flying up the bike lane without even pedaling. Electric bikes. And don’t get me started on airport moving walkways. I prefer to avoid them unless I’m carrying an unwieldy load. I get a kick out of walking faster than the people standing on the moving walkway. But no matter how fast you walk, you can’t go faster than those annoying carts which take disabled people, extremely old people and extremely lazy people to their gate. They beep incessantly so that the walkers have to get out of their way .Al, faced with the dilemma of possibly missing his flight, succumbs to the cart.

Our other comic dealt with Marv’s little addition to his workout. Marv is always looking for a way to make the rules work for him. Remember his small pretzel bowl as a way to exercise portion control? He fit them in the small bowl, but stacked the pretzels sky high. Then there was the diet that gave you a “cheat day” where for one day a week you could eat anything you want. Marv cheated on his cheat day by having two cheat days per week. Hence his addition to his chair exercises by balancing a bowl of ice cream on your stomach while simultaneously doing leg lifts. Neither John nor I would ever do such a thing. Ever. You can look at Marv and say his actions are self-defeating. We prefer to see it as a Master Class in multi-tasking.

Have a great weekend.

Andy and John

Geronimo!!!!! 10/18,24

It’s easy. Just step right up here to the open door…but I’m 5,000 feet up…and jump! That’s what I imagine skydiving to be like. “Imagine” being the keyword. When I was a little kid at camp, I couldn’t bring myself to jump off the high diving board. Once at Club Med they had a “Circus School” which featured trapeze jumping. Into a net if you fell. I didn’t sign up because the net was not enough to allay my fears. But this, this tandem jumping out of a plane like Marv did, this is something seemingly so benign, that George H.W. Bush did it when he turned 90. Not Andrew H. Landorf. No way Jose. But John, well he’s so unafraid he once went parachute jumping without a tandem partner. Just so you don’t think he’s completely crazy, he did it before he had children. As John put it, “First they have you jump off a four-foot platform into a sand pit so you learn how to fall without breaking your leg.” Kinda like that stop, drop and roll thing we learned in school fire drills.

They have a large landing area, a huge circle that you are supposed to land in when you eventually hit, err, I mean reach, the ground. They allow for the wind pushing you off course by dropping a 160 lb. sandbag from the plane and seeing where it lands. They said to John, “Okay Comic Boy, you first.” Alright, they never called him Comic Boy. I added that. John had a helmet on and was connected to the plane’s radio frequency in case anything went wrong. So he jumps and voila, the chute opens. But he finds himself drifting towards some apartment buildings which, you know, would sort of hurt if you smacked into them. So he attempted to radio into the plane to ask what he should do, but apparently the signal got crossed up and what he got instead was a conversation amongst a couple townies that went something like this: Radio Frequency: So dude, what’d you do last night? Oh dude, we went to O’Learys and got hammered.” Meanwhile John, with increasing urgency was saying into his headset, “Hello, Hello?”

This, according to John, was a little unnerving, Thankfully he missed the buildings, but now found himself heading for a thicket of trees. This time, unfortunately he didn’t miss. He hit the tree and though he didn’t break any limbs, the tree couldn't make the same claim. As he untangled himself he found he still had to walk several hundred yards through the woods to a clearing, dragging his massive silk chute along the way until he found his group. Sounds like fun, right? If you want to have the same experience with the same company, you’re out of luck. They are out of business. Due to multiple violations of the safety code.

Phew, I got nervous just writing that. If you’ve ever jumped out of a plane and lived to talk about it, send us a note to either John@thennew60comic.com or Andy@the new60 comic.com and tell us all about it. That’s it, have a great weekend and if you have an urge to go up in a plane, fly Delta, they don’t allow you to jump.

Andy and John

I Can't Bear to Watch. 10/11/24

Yes, that’s the right way to spell “bear.” And it also happens to be a pun pertaining to our second comic about bears. But first, binge watching, or “I can’t bear to watch another episode.” But here’s the thing. If it’s good, really good, you can’t bear to stop watching. Example: a new series on Netflix called “Nobody Wants This,” about a rabbi falling in love with a shiksa. And for those of you who are not fluent in Yiddish (who the hell is?) shiksa means non-Jewish girl. So the tension was great, the acting with Adam Brody and Kristin Bell was superb, and each episode (minus commercials because we pay extra to have the Netflix minus commercials) was only around 20 minutes long. 10 episodes. We saw the first two late on a “school night” and then watched the remaining eight after coming home from an early dinner on Friday. Now before you start making jokes about the early bird special it wasn’t THAT early. The early bird starts around 5 pm or 5:30 latest, not that I’d know. This was at least 6:00, so there. And then the other thing is about the irony of a career ad guy, paying extra to not watch commercials. Now that I’m retired, I agree with you all, commercials suck. Except for the ones John or I did, of course. And by the way, my wife and I also semi-binged the West Wing, seven years, about 22 episodes per year, and each one around 45 minutes. We tried to finish before our summer rental but had eight episodes left. And when we got to our rental house, we discovered they did not have the commercial-free version, so that each episode lasted an hour. If you ever want to see truly terrible commercials try watching them on MAX. On a show that’s being rerun after 25 years. We had friends who stayed with us a couple days and one of them watched the penultimate West Wing episode with us and was so impressed he went back home and binge-watched the entire series. Now that’s dedication. Or profound laziness. Or a little of both. But we have standards. My wife and I couldn’t bear to waste a beautiful sunny summer day watching tv like Al and Joanne did in the comic. So we wouldn't start until after dinner. But that led to staying up way past midnight which resulted in waking up late the next morning, which wasted only half a day inside. Unless our granddaughter slept over, in which case my wife would get her out of the crib and the two of them would play their favorite morning game. They’d walk to our bedroom door, and then ChaCha (her name is Charlotte) would shout: “Wake up grandpa!” I’d be thinking, are you f@#*ing kidding me, it’s 7:30 am, but when I opened my sleep-addled eyes, what came out of my mouth was, “Ok, good morning sweetheart.” Ya know how it is.

Now the other comic came straight from the head of John. Pro tip: if it’s about chopping wood or building stuff or clearing brush, chances are, it came from John. I mean, he lives in the woods and I live in an apartment complex. If it’s about your grandkid running down the hallway, it’s likely from me. But we were having our weekly zoom meeting to come up with ideas and John said, “You know that bears love bird feeders. They open them up and eat all the seeds. Well, no, I know nothing about that, so I said, “Yeah, of course.” So he said, “You sink a really long pole into two feet of concrete so the bear can’t shake the feeder loose, and then the bear can’t reach it. I said, “Duh, of course you do.” And that’s when we came up with the crazy idea of bears doing a cheerleader-type pyramid. I imagined them chanting “Rah, rah, we won’t concede. Let’s climb this thing and eat some seed. Go Bears!”

So that’s it for now, I’ve got to start binging The Bear.

See you next week,

Andy and John

Gadgets. 10/04/24

Here’s the thing about smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and all kinds of other detectors: some awful and evil genius has decided the only time they can fail and go off is between the hours of 2am and 3am. Now thankfully they haven’t been triggered by a life threatening situation. But rather by the damn batteries going out. You know the drill. The battery fails at approximately 2 am, which is extra special when you’re working full time, or when the kids are asleep and it’s a school day. So you get up with your significant other, break out the step ladder, put on a robe, which you forget to tie as you’re climbing on the step ladder, trip over the belt from the robe and then try to detach the housing from the detector. If your experience is anything like mine, you finally get the damn thing off, remove the faulty batteries, and it still shrieks. Ah ha! There’s a little button that looks like a reset button. Let’s press that. Oh no. Let’s not. That makes it shriek at even a higher pitch. So the next and final step is to smash the thing to pieces, right? But what about if it happens in a place you’re renting? Then you can’t exactly smash the thing to pieces. Then you do what I did when it happened this past summer. You remove the whole apparatus and place it in the bottom of the outdoor trash can. Then you go back to bed, and you swear you can still hear it and that you’re awakening the entire neighborhood and that you’ll never be invited back again, and then you do what I finally did. Gave it to my wife who successfully disabled it in about 30 seconds.

Our other comic is about retro. Actually it’s about one of our readers, Susan Richardson. She wrote John that she had an end line “It wasn’t retro when we bought it,” and said, “Here’s a thought, take it or leave it.” We loved it and attached a comic strip to the line. Susan, this Bud’s for you. When did we (or at least John) become so old that the things we grew up with start to be called retro? Bell bottom jeans? Tensor lamps? Lava lamps? Folding snack tables? Dashiki's. All retro. True story. My mother (she divorced my dad when I was nine) had a boyfriend who gave me and my brother tensor lamps, which we thought were the coolest things ever. But when they eventually broke up, he took his lamps back. So when we did the comic about lamps, I implored John, “just not tensor lamps,” and he responded with that three-headed beauty you see in the strip. A few months ago, I saw a “retro edition” game in a children’s toy store. Candyland. It was the first game I remember playing as a kid. So I opened it up to play with my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter. She was not as impressed as I was. Perhaps it was because she was too young to appreciate its “retroness.” Or perhaps, given all the exciting advances with technology, it’s just boring. The game, not me.

In closing (that’s what our rabbi said today during services), you can call us Al, you can call us late for dinner. But please don’t call us retro.

Have a great weekend and we will be back next week with more.

Andy and John

What Else 'Ya Got? 09/27/24

What else ‘ya got? Boy do I hate that response. I once worked for an ad agency that shall go nameless. When it came time to present storyboards or scripts to my GCD (Group Creative Director), he’d say, “What else ‘ya got?” Not anything nurturing like, “I think it would be even better if your character said it this way,” or “What if we change it so the kid gets the last laugh instead of the mom.” No, just “What else ‘ya got?” Which is a snarky way of saying something snarky. Like “This idea sucks, do you have anything else?” I truly disliked that agency. And the lazy jerk who kept saying that. So when John and I talked about this idea of Al trying his magic finger trick on Sam’s son Sammy, it was only natural to have little Sammy come back with “What else ‘ya got?” And I’d be willing to bet we’ve all been there. No, not in that horrible, abusive ad agency. But in the situation when you meet a friend’s grandkid and decide to show off your “magic” skills. Pulling a coin out of the kids ear. Or my favorite riff off that move: tell the kid you’ve got a piece of candy and hold out both fists, asking him or her to guess which hand it’s in. Meanwhile it’s in your back pocket. So when the kid finds out it’s in neither hand, you say, “Wait a minute, I think I see it as one hand looks in the kids ear and the other pull the candy out of your back pocket, transfers it to the “ear hand” and say, “Oh here it is!” Works every time. Until they turn 4.

Onto our other comic this week. Explaining tech to someone who has no possibility of understanding it. I’ll give you an example. When cellphones first came out, I got one, but never used it. I didn’t really understand it. My partner at the time was a good 15 years younger than me and had a cell phone which he used constantly. He once called me at work and I didn’t answer. When we later ran into each other he said, “Where were you? I called. Why didn’t you take your phone?” I replied, I was in a meeting and I left my phone in my office.” He shot back, “It’s called a mobile phone, right? You’re supposed to take it with you. That’s what makes it mobile!” He had a point and I have taken it with me ever since. Now fast forward to today. I am reasonably conversant in technology but not nearly as much as John is, who, I’m loathe to admit, is five years younger than me. But when this tendency really became absurd was at a birthday dinner for my stepmom and her then 95-year old boyfriend, Ron (name changed to protect the innocent). Amongst the guests was my son-in-law Jeff (name changed for the same reason), who heads up the artificial intelligence division of a leading tech company. We were having a discussion about A.I. (artificial intelligence, not Allen Iverson) and its possible uses and misuses when my stepmom says, “Jeff, can you please explain A.I. to Ron?” That was unintentionally one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. I shared the incident with John and we turned it into Marv trying to explain tech to his mom. As I say this, followers of this blog may remember how I inadvertently allowed a hacker into my bank account a couple of years ago so I’m not as savvy as I might sound. By the way, someone tried it again on me just yesterday, but this time I caught it. As a public service, in case any of you ever find yourself in a similar situation, here’s what they do. You get an email of a charge for $800 for something you know nothing about. You call the attached “Helpline” and they listen to your woes, then ask you to give them control of your computer, at which point they tell you they’ve fixed it, but just to make sure, can you go into your bank account to see it you’ve been credited the $800?” Now who would be dumb enough to fall for something like that? Never mind.

Have a great weekend, and if you know of some good new magic tricks I can try on my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter, let me know. She’s already caught on to the hand trick.

Andy and John

Sometimes the Best Thing to Say is Nothing. 09/20/24

Few things are as painful, err I mean exciting, as watching a young child’s ballet recital. Nothing against ballet. Nothing against recitals. Or certainly not against young children. But put them all together and it’s painful. Maybe not everywhere but in Westchester County (where I live and John used to live) they have the recital at the local arts college, SUNY Purchase. The SUNY stands for State University of New York. Did you ever wonder why the “of” gets short-changed? Why not SUoNY? But I digress (what else is new). Anyway, it seems like every single town in Westchester is awash in five-year old girls in pink tutus. These days there are likely a lot of boys in pink tutus as well so the whole thing can last even longer. I mean it’s cute when your child or grandchild takes the stage, but you can’t pick them up to go home until every town has a chance to go on stage. At SUNY Purchase this takes at least four hours. That’s right. Four hours. You can watch them try to plie and stand on their tippy toes for a while, waiting for your kid to get onstage. It’s very cute. But once the kid you’ve come to see has had their turn, there’s still likely a very long time to wait and watch while every single town’s children get their chance to dance, leap and fall down. It was one thing to have to suffer watching your own child, but to do it again with your grandchild? I prefer a kids or grandkid’s sporting event. It’s cute watching them run around and seeing who loves to play and who picks daisies. You’re in and out in one hour. I’ve even watched friends’ kids play. But ballet recitals?? John and I are grandparents of little girls so I’m sure we’ll be put to the test in a couple of years, and I’m sure I’ll cave when the time comes. Finally when Al chooses to opt for a Jets game, he may be signing up for something even more painful (I’m a Giants fan and they suck even worse).

Onto our other comic. Golf lessons. Al thinks about all these things when he plays with his wife. John has recently taken up golf and I’ve been hacking away for the better part of 35 years. Recently my wife took it up in retirement. Suddenly, she’s gotten pretty good. But I still can’t resist saying “relax your shoulder,” or “finish your swing,” or the occasional “follow through.” The ironic part of this is I’m not so good myself. So I’ve got no place giving instruction. I can see what you’re doing wrong, I just can’t do it any better myself. So when John and I conceived this comic, it was with Al saying all these things out loud. We usually write these comics months in advance and John illustrates them the week they are going to run. So when he started to draw the Golf Lesson comic he called me up and said, “Al seems like a real asshole saying this stuff out loud. Why don’t we put his comments in a thought bubble instead?” I said “That’s a great idea. I like that much better,” while thinking, “Did he just call me an asshole?” And then I thought “Maybe I should just think it and not say it, like Al.” My excuse is my dad used to do that to me. But at least he waited until after I screwed up. When I lifted my head he’d say “Look up and you’ll see a bad shot.” And my favorite was when I left a putt short of the hole. He’d say “Son, it’s been scientifically proven that over 88.7% of putts that don’t reach the whole, don’t go in.” I have a close friend who’s an excellent golfer and his advice to me is, “Don’t give your opinion unless someone asks for it.” Maybe it’s better I go to a ballet recital.

See you next week with two new comics and welcome to the Fall. The season of football, changing leaves and yes, ballet recitals.

Andy and John

We're Not Exactly Getting Younger. 09/13/24

I don’t know about you, but I am not getting younger. Definitively. I used to love to run. And then it became walking. And then came a neuroma on the bottom of my left foot that made a long hike painful. Which led to a bicycle. Which led to an electric bicycle. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to pedal. But when it comes to a big hill (I live in the Hudson Valley so everything is straight uphill until you reach the bike path) it’s kind of nice. I put on the battery and an extra- strained face pedaling up the hill so the cars that pass me see an aerobic marvel and think to themselves stuff like, “Man, is that guy in great shape!” Shhh, don’t tell anyone my secret. These days, a big test of mobility is the ability to get in or out of a beach chair. When’s the last time you sat in a beach chair? They now come with backpack straps so you just strap up and walk to the beach. Then you take the chair off your shoulders and figure out how to set the chair up. Now a couple years back, we invited friends to visit us at the beach and noticed that some people have a lot of trouble getting out of said beach chair, names withheld to protect the guilty. You know when somebody’s having trouble getting out of the chair. It looks something like this. First the person tries a rocking motion, weight back, weight forward and…plop, back in the chair. Then my wife or I, or someone in a standing position, offers a helping hand or two. Now some eagerly accept it, while others (particularly men) say, “No, I’ve got it,” and then do another rocking motion, bigger this time, and proceed to fall forward on their knees in the sand and then refuse help to get up from the sand. After witnessing this a few times from a few different people we splurged and bought a higher beach chair. It worked great for our less mobile friends. Then one day last month I was unpacking the chairs from the car and the two chairs on top were the higher chair and a normal chair. We took them down to the beach. My wife scampered on for a walk while I, at the end of a great novel, plopped down in the higher chair. The one we use for our older friends. And you know what? It was good. I liked it. And the getting up part was a piece of cake (which is a weird metaphor. It wasn't anything like a piece of cake. It was easy, so why didn’t I just say that?). Okay, it was easy. Next time, it was back in the lower chair. I refuse to admit I like the high one better.

And on to our last comic in the Employee of the Month series. You know all the jokes about millennials. They don’t work very hard. They put quality of life above all else. They don’t want to work late. Come to think of it, despite being 71 years old, I was a millennial. Or possibly just lazy. John, on the other hand, opted for a four day work week in order to devote more time to his illustrations. Pro tip: don’t ever ask for a four day work week. You end up working five days for four days pay. Unless your boss happens to be a millennial. Then you’re golden.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next week with two new ones hot off the press (except there is no “press” but you get the idea).

Andy and John

Back to Work 09/06/24

Labor Day used to be the worst day ever. For six torturous years (7th grade through 12th) I used to dread it with all my heart. Loved college. High school, not so much. It was grueling, competitive and all-boys (which really sucked). Labor means work yet on Labor Day most people are not working. As a grandmother of mine used to say, “Go figure.” Actually, because she was a New Yorker, it came out more like “Go figyah.” In any case Al, who has a lucrative Pizza-on-a-Stick franchise (who wouldn’t want one of those?) has to be open on Labor Day. I once worked with a guy who just moved to New York to work in the ad agency where I already worked. He protested having to work over 4th of July weekend and was so pissed off he carted multiple sand bags up to his office and dumped them on the floor, installed a beach chair and beach umbrella. Absolute truth. When the powers that be came in and saw what he had done, they fired him. Which was bad for him, but at least it meant not having to work for the rest of the summer. Note to all you employers who force their staff to work holiday weekends: the Labor Day (or any day) bonus is not such a bad idea. Even if it came from Al.

Our other comic, with the Employee of the Month contest, shows that the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. Awarding a hard-working individual with an Employee of the Month award is a well intended idea, but ask the people who didn’t win what they think of the idea. And if they’re of a certain age, like the people who work at Al’s fast food establishment, chances are they grew up in the age of “participation trophies.” Everybody wins. I coached youth sports in the years my now 35-year old son was in grade school. At the end of the year everybody who played recreation league soccer (everybody gets to play an equal amount) got a trophy. The kids who scored 2 goals per game, the great defenders who ran full tilt all game long, the goalkeepers who dove to bat a shot away, and the daisy pickers who cared more about the flowers than the game. By the way, did you know daisies are weeds, not flowers? On the one hand, it’s nice for everyone to be included. On the other, you didn’t do anything to deserve the damn trophy in the first place. One time I had a mother complain that her son was heartbroken that he didn't make the travel team. I explained that it was competitive and there were other players who were better. She said, “How is that possible? He won a trophy every year.”

In any case, goodbye Labor Day and goodbye summer. John might be out there kicking a ball around. Me? I’m going out to pick some daisies.

Andy and John

Practice, Practice, Practice. 08/30/24

Sometimes one of us plucks an idea out of thin air. Sometimes it’s something somebody said. Or an expression we overhear. Or it’s something we take for granted but shouldn't. And sometimes it comes right from the mouth of a loved one. Word for word. We’re talking about ideas and where they come from. In this case, my wife and I were out to dinner. Afterwards she pointed out to me that I shouldn't have said something I said. What else is new? But in this case, I defended myself, saying, “I was just being myself,” to which she replied, “Why don’t you try being someone else?”

The good part about writing a comic is that even if someone criticizes you, even when they’re right, there’s still a good comic that can come out of it. In this case I texted John as soon as I got home that night. And when we met the next morning it became a comic. We just had to change whatever the insult was. In this case the comic was about insulting someone’s new hairstyle. I shudder to think what my actual insulting comment was, but I’m sure my wife remembers.

Our other comic comes from being retired. The thought process is, “Now that I’m retired, I’ve got time to learn to do something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t had the time to do it.” Like taking a cooking class in Italy. Or learning to play a new instrument. Or relearning to play an instrument you once knew how to play. Another variation on that theme is, “If we don’t do it now, when are we ever going to do it.” This includes taking action/adventure trips like exploring Bhutan (I got out of that one thanks to Covid), rafting down the Colorado, or riding a mountain bike down a damn mountain. Ain’t happenin’. Then there’s “we’ve got to do it now, while we still can.” If this means going on a safari, taking up pickleball, or taking the grandkids to Disney, I’m all for it. Well, maybe not Disney. But if it means climbing Everest, my answer to “we’ve got to do it while we still can,” becomes, “I can’t, so let’s not.”

In this comic Joanne reminds Al of all the things he’s taken up and abandoned. In real life I was given a beautiful guitar from a cousin who could no longer play it. I last played for real in college and that was at least 10 years ago. Okay, maybe 20. Screw it, that was 49 years ago, okay? Don’t rub it in. But it turns out, I forgot a lot. Playing an a-minor chord, no problem. A b-minor chord, problem. After a few futile attempts, it lies in its case, taunting me. I will get back to you, guitar, I promise. I’m just a little intimidated by that b-minor, and you really can’t sing Puff the Magic Dragon to your three-year old granddaughter without the damn b-minor. Thankfully she’s still too young to realize I stop strumming every time I get to the b-minor and then resume strumming when I’m back to a chord I can play. Sigh.

Maybe this winter I’ll finally learn to ski.

Have a great last weekend of summer, a terrific Labor Day, but for now excuse us, our class in Acapulco Cliff Diving starts in 15 minutes,

Andy and John

On First Dates and Candlelit Dinners. 08/22/24

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with a bowl of French onion soup. It’s cheesy, delicious, and just the right thing on a cold night. But on a first date? Not that it’s not still hot, cheesy and delicious. It’s just that cheese pull thingy. You know, the part when you manage to cut the soggy bread and the mozzarella and ladle up some soup, all using a spoon (which, last I checked, has no sharp edges) and proceed to lift it to your mouth. It’s inevitable that the cheese will string out from the bowl all the way to your mouth because of the aforementioned no sharp edges on a spoon thing. Okay so now you’re in a pickle. Well, actually you’re in a bowl of french onion soup, but I digress. What options do you have? You have to either try to saw off the cheese with your teeth, or bring a knife up under the cheese pull and cut upwards, or (my preferred method) pull it free with your fingers. Now this is a subtle art that must be timed perfectly for when the other person is not looking. This is particularly important on a first date. Not as important if it’s a long-standing relationship in which case your partner has already become adjusted and accepting of your manners (or lack thereof). One obvious solution is not to order onion soup on a first date. But on the other hand, it’s so damn good I think it’s worth the CPC (Cheese Pull Conundrum). Obviously our character Craig does not agree. But that’s part of the reason he’s still single.

Our other comic came from a John observation about how hard it is to read a menu in a restaurant. One reason is the light is very low. Another is that the type on the menu is very small. A third reason is that eyesight doesn't generally improve with age. So how do we compensate? Do you don a pair of reading glasses? Still doesn't help with the low light. Whip out your iPhone or Apple Watch (which I just learned about last week watching a waiter use his) and put it in flashlight mode? Or do you save yourself the trouble of having to search through your pockets or purse or, god forbid, fanny pack and just hold the paper menu up against the romantic candle on the table. What could possibly go wrong? Glad you asked. I take you back to a time in my early teens when I went to Sunday School (that’s like Bar Mitzvah light) at Temple Emanu-El in New York City. We had a Purim festival. For the uninitiated, Purim is a festival celebrating the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient times. People dress up in costumes, kind of like Halloween. In this particular Sunday School festival, the little girl sitting right beside me leaned over a candle to get a piece of cake, and, as God is my witness, her hair caught on fire! Before the teacher could reach her with a towel, I dumped my whole glass of water and accompanying glass juice on top of her head to put the fire out. It worked. The Sunday School teachers patted me on the back and told me I was a hero, and the girl (whose name I cannot recall) was crying hysterically with singed hair, but it never reached her scalp, thank goodness, The event left an everlasting mark on me (and on her I’m sure), and for this reason, I never hold something flammable near a burning candle. My new go-to is the Apple Watch in flashlight mode. Granted, it’s a little pool of light, but it beats the hell out of holding a burning menu.

Have a great weekend and there’s only one more week of summer vacation and then it’s back to school new crayons, backpack, three-ring binder notebooks...oh wait, that was over for me and John a few years ago. Like 50, but who’s counting?

See you next week,

Andy and John

What Next? 08/16/24

About a year ago, I was channel surfing (the only kind of surfing I’ll ever do), and saw a channel featuring a game between the San Francisco 49’ers and the New York Giants. Ooh, I thought, this must be a replay of that great NFC Championship Game from 2011. So I clicked on the channel and saw…a video game between the two teams. It was a video of two people playing a Madden Football video game. I thought, “This must be the end of civilization as we know it.” But recently, John told me about the Pickleball Channel. All pickleball all the time. And so I looked. And there it was. Did you have any idea people are so enamored with pickleball that they want to watch it on tv? And did you know that there are pickleball teams? And did you have any idea that basketball great Kevin Durant bought one of the aforementioned pickleball teams? Said Durant (yes he actually said this) “We really, really want to leave our mark from day one on how hard this team is going to play and how successful we’re going to be as a group.” Inspiring words, to be sure. Makes me want to watch. But there you have it, people really watch this garb…uhh, stuff. Don’t people have anything better to do? Like read a book (or at least listen to one on tape) or do a crossword puzzle or drink a bottle of bleach?

But people don’t read so much anymore, and that makes us lazy, at least when it comes to language. Over the years in advertising I’ve watched the language get obliterated. So a “request” becomes an “ask.” As in, “The client has an ask…” I’ve got an ask for you, right here. Other favorites are, “I have a hard stop at 5pm.” Or, “Let’s reloop after the meeting.” Or (warning: this one is really gross) “That’s our BHAG.” A BHAG, I kid you not, stands for Big Hairy Aggressive Goals.” Oh those marketers are so clever, aren’t they? Let’s take it up in OND (short for the 4th quarter of the year or October, November, December). Whenever I heard this I’d have to figure out which months OND stood for and by the time I did, the speaker was three paragraphs ahead of me. Another example of business speak is the term “journey.” Life is a journey. You can go on a journey of self-fulfillment or sef-discovery or self-flagellation for all I care. Just don’t call it a journey. Journey is the band that sung the last song in the last episode of the Sopranos, Don’t Stop Believin’.” And you can’t convince us otherwise.

So as you go on your individual journeys of self-knowledge this weekend, think of us and our individual weight-loss journeys (but not before that generous helping of pie ala mode for dessert).

Andy and John

A Burger By Any Other Name... 08/09/24

Last week we wrote about the joys of summer. This week it’s raining and cold and exhibition football has already started, which makes us shout to the Fall season: “Slow down already!!” That said, we find ourselves hurtling towards Labor Day (which marks the end of summer even though it’s not officially the end of summer until Sept. 21st). Which brings us around to things not being what they claim to be. Case in point: the airport security line, home to our first comic this week. My wife and I have opted for everything and anything that can get you through airport security faster. PreCheck? Check. Global Entry? Check. Clear? Check. Though when my wife and I went on a trip this past May, we were standing on a long, slow airport security line while the people who didn’t have PreCheck or Clear or Global Entry went prancing through an empty line straight up to the conveyor belt. Sure, they had to take off their belts and shoes, but they still beat us through security by a good 10 minutes. And why worry about shoe removal when there’s Skechers slip-ons? And how hard really is it to put your belt back on? So I’ve got a deal to make with the TSA. Don’t try to trick me into paying more for the ability to rush to the head of the line and I won’t keep trying to smuggle six-ounce bottles of spf 50 sunscreen into my bag. Okay?

And now the other comic. Like most of our strips, either John or I (or both of us) have experienced or read about what we write about. Now I had to have a stent put in an artery 1 1/2 years ago, and was warned to cut wayyyy down on my meat intake. Like from once a day to once a month. Which raises a lot of questions for yours truly. Does pork count as red meat even though it comes off the grill white? Yeah, I know. But how much fish and chicken can a person eat? As it turns out, plenty. And if any of our dear readers are going through anything like this, I’ll give you some hints. Turkey bacon instead of real bacon…no way. You turn up the flame on the oven with turkey bacon and there’s no sizzling. Why? Because there’s no damn fat. On the other hand, turkey sausage is absolutely delicious. No give up whatsoever. Now that we have sausage settled, what about burgers? If I can’t eat too much meat, can there be a way to eat juicy burgers without eating meat? Yes I know about veggie burgers. There’s stuff like boca burgers, which are made to taste like meat and they’re pretty good. But then along came the ubiquitous plant burger, which now appears on seemingly every menu, even freakin’ Burger King’s. Two brands have reached the plant-burger pinnacle: The Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger. Dutifully, I tried them both out. If you pile a plant burger high with mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles, it’s pretty close to the real thing. Then I tried them without all the toppings. And at least to me, Impossible kicks Beyond’s butt every time. So after coming to that conclusion, we fast forward to a backyard summer barbecue. My daughter is very healthy and is concerned with my health. As proof of how healthy she eats, she likes veggie burgers that taste like vegetables. When I proudly pointed out that I was grilling an Impossible Burger, she pointed out that it actually rivals and sometimes even surpasses a beef burger in terms of saturated fat and sodium. Huh? Are you kidding me? Her advice, “If you’re gonna eat a burger, eat a burger. Just don’t eat them too often.” Sigh. So I counted back a month before Labor Day (August 2nd) and stopped eating meat until Labor Day, on which day I will have a real hamburger and a hot dog! Then it’s back to chicken. Or fish tacos. And perhaps a cold non-alcoholic brew. Or not.

Have a great weekend (if you’re living on the East Coast it’s probably raining) and I’m off to meet a friend for lunch. I’ll start with a side salad and then a nice, juicy, uhh hamb… ehh change that to a cheesy bowl of French Onion sou…uhh make that a tuna burger, medium-rare to the rare side, please?

Andy and John