On Millenials and Boomers. 07/28/23

This isn’t entirely new news. Millenials and Boomers have a tough time figuring each other out. So to the millennial readers we have out there, sorry if we don’t capture you exactly. Whaddya want? We’re boomers. I mean we sort of get it. You guys want a balance between work and your personal life and we just want to work, work, work. Well some of us want to work, work, work. And I, for one, am happy to hide behind the hard-working image of my generation while I stretch my arms to get out of bed no earlier than 9 a.m. In other words, maybe I’m a secret millennial (just add another 40-50 years to me, shake, stir and there you have it).

So Miguel kicked some butt, the cash registers rang, but some of Miguel’s millennial employees weren't too happy about it. If truth be told, we remember many a weekend we were asked to come in and work, and many times we were not happy about that either. In fact, I remember one time the ad agency I worked for hired a new hot-shot writer. The first week he arrived in New York, he was asked to work the 4th of July weekend and he wasn't too happy about it. So, he literally bought a few bags of sand into the office and spilled it out onto his office floor, put a beach umbrella in the sand and a beach chair and worked in that environment in his office (remember offices?). Unfortunately for him, the powers that be didn’t appreciate his stunt or the clean up bill that followed his stunt, and he was soon sent packing back to wherever it was he came from in the first place.

So while the first comic is about millennial work ethic (an oxymoron if there ever was one), the second one is about boomer fashion (another oxymoron if there ever was one). What is it about belonging to a certain generation that draws you to different fashion choices? Well one thing is that Boomers remember what it was like to be cool and hippie-like. The height of cool was hanging out at the beach. Now it also is true that as we get older, our bodies tend to settle and become a little less supple than they used to be. So what about a brand that specializes in loose, flowing beach styles, that also hides our stomachs? Voila! Welcome to Tommy Bahama. As I write this, let it be known that I would never stoop to such an obvious choice. Well, except for the Tommy Bahama beach chairs, Tommy Bahama beach umbrellas and a couple of Tommy Bahama, loose-flowing shirts, that’s it. I am certainly not a walking Tommy Bahama ad. Nor does John want to be known as a Ralph Lauren Polo model. We refuse categorization (except for the approximately 10 shirts I own from Untuckit). Okay Boomer?

Enjoy the end of July in whatever style you wear and to you millennials, if your boss makes you work over a summer weekend, don’t cover the floor with sand. It’s not worth it. Take a hint from us. Just call in sick (from the beach).

Have a great (non-working) weekend and we’ll see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Where Do We Come From. 02/03/23

So here’s the deal. When it comes to the subject of where did we come from, there are two types of people. People like John who trace their roots back through the ages and people like me who basically couldn’t care less. Pet peeve, people who say “I could care less,” which means the exact opposite of what they’re trying to say. I think if you could care less, then go ahead and care less. But I wandered off course again. The point is, I know very little about my past and haven’t thought of searching for it. I know one set of grandparents came over from Russia and the others used to live in Boston, but that’s it. After that, bupkis (which means “nothing” for those of you who don’t know a few choice Yiddish phrases). Friends have said to me, “You think your mother’s parents come from Boston? How about their parents?” And I shrug my shoulders and say, “I don’t know.” Whereas John can say he’s 29% Scottish, another 69% from other European locales, and 1% Ivory Coast and Ghana (the latter part is probably why he played jazz trumpet in high school). As for me, there’s the Russian part and then I’m told that my last name (Landorf) is actually German for “country village” so maybe I’m part German and I can see why my ancestors were smart to get the hell out of there. Come to think of it, I do have a predilection for sausage, sauerkraut, brown bread, beer and mustard with seeds, but that’s probably coincidental.

At any rate we decided to invent a past for Marv. Think about it, if we gave Marv my attitude, it wouldn’t have made much of a comic.

Mike: Hey Dad, what are those pictures?”

Marv: Oh just some old family photos I found in the attic.

Mike: Who’s that? Marv: I have absolutely no idea.

See what I mean? Not much of a comic. So we went with John’s ancestor-friendly approach and invented a past life for Marv’s grandpa, which explained the strange last name for a Black man, Mandlebaum. After some back and forth, John wondered about making Morris a baker of Streit’s Matzo. I went into my cupboard and just happened to have a box of the very same. As luck would happen they opened their matzo factory in 1925 which happened to fit our timeline perfectly and the story emerged. How many Black men in the 1920’s can you think of that became Matzo bakers? And how many of those starred for the company hoops team? Not too many, except for the esteemed Morris Mandlebaum, a guy that could make a crisp matzo. And a hook shot from 12-feet.

The other thing we like about the search for Marv’s past is it gave Marv a profound way to bond with his son. Come to think of it, maybe I will get the Ancestry kit after all.

Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll see you next week with the conclusion of the Morris Mandlebaum story and a trip back to Al’s new workplace, Pizza-on-a-Stick.

Andy and John

On Thanksgiving and Feeling Our Age 11/24/22

I was at physical therapy the other week, and I said something about Charlie Chaplin to the therapist who was working with me. Another therapist, a young woman in her late 20’s, looked over and said, “Who’s Charlie Chaplin?” Talk about feeling your age. I looked over and explained he was not only a famous writer, actor and director, he was also a songwriter. Yep that’s right, “Smile When Your Heart is Breaking” was written by Charlie, for his first movie with sound (they called them “talkies” back then) Limelight. But the point is, the comment made me think two things: 1) I must be really old and 2) she shoulda known. I mean, c’mon now. What’s that quote, something like “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”? What about those who never learned history? This is all a lead-in to our first comic of the week, second on your scroll, called “Phone Book.” John and I had, for lack of a better term, a lively discussion about whether or not a kid Sid’s age (approx 30) would know what a phone book was. John asked his kids and one of them said, “Yeah, it’s that thing I used to have to sit on to reach the dining room table.” That about says it all. I suggested John just tell him, “You know, it’s that thing that hangs in every phone booth.”

And next up is our annual Thanksgiving comic/poster. Nothing like eating and drinking 5,000 calories, getting a belly-full of tryptophan and settling on the couch to watch the third football game of the day, to knock you right the hell out. And it’s okay, because you’re with family and they would never dream of being judgmental. Here’s another thing to be thankful for. Ever since John and I left the world of advertising, we’ve become our own bosses. So when I want to take Thanksgiving off or write a short blog today because I’m leaving early tomorrow for my daughter’s house, I just look in the mirror and ask, “Hey Andy, can you write a quickie this week and then go on vacation?” John asked the same of himself. And surprise, surprise, we both said a resounding “YES!”

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and we will be back with you next week.

Andy and John

Gone Phishing

Hello again. We’re baaaack! This time with a three part series about Phishing. Now we regaled you in a past blog entitled “Help Line,” about the horrors of phishing. To refresh your memories, what happened is that I got hacked. Deeply hacked. Someone went on what has come to be called a “Phishing Expedition” and attempted to steal all my personal financial information. They didn’t get it, but not before I had to change every password I’ve come to rely on. And if you are over 60, you know how vexing it is to remember multiple passwords, let alone one. So we’ve got a couple questions for you. Why is it called phishing instead of fishing? Don’t these people know how to spell? I remember a Latin teacher in 7th grade who said, “You think LATIN is tough, try learning English for the first time.” And then he wrote on the blackboard “gh-o-ti,” and said “fish.” The “gh” sound comes from the word “enough'“ the “o” sound from “women,” and the “ti” from “nation.” Fish. The rock band “Phish” ought to sue whoever called this habit “phishing,” but I digress. How did these clowns get into my computer in the first place? Oh wait, that’s because I inadvertently let them in. But that’s precisely the point. You know what was the most galling thing about it? When I explained what had happened, no matter how sympathetic the listener was, I got a chorus of “Oh Andy, you didn’t.” John for instance said, “You know I was warning my mother about the same thing.” I got so many responses from people in my general age group telling me about how they had to help their parents from getting trapped in a phishing scam that I was wondering, how come nobody warned me not too fall in this trap? And your parents??? I’m not your parents’ age, I’m your age. But at least John knew how to recognize the warning signs so that I can now catch them, and if not for John, Sid’s dialogue about phishing would not have qualified as good advice. So thanks John for teaching me and our readers (in part 3 - you’ll have to wait until next week) how to recognize the signs, but no thanks for making me feel even older than I actually am (though truth be told, I am 5 years older than him). Ugh.

It seems these scams get more and more sophisticated as time goes on. One is to call people our parent’s age and pretend to be one of their grandchildren. Something along the lines of, “Hello grandma? This is Timmy. I got into an accident and my car is in a ditch and I’ve got no way to get home. If you could send me $200 for a car service to pick me up I’d be soooo grateful.” And even though the call doesn't sound like Timmy, and even though Timmy parent’s are very much alive and able to help, these poor people are shaken and end up giving pertinent information about their bank accounts in order to help. In my particular case I was led to a totally professional webpage that said “Best Buy Refund Page.” Turns out being a digital pioneer is a lot tougher than it seems. For instance, my wife and I are staying at one of our kids’ houses soon to babysit their daughter and our beloved granddaughter (obviously, one in the same person). They have a tv and a remote, and gave me specific instructions on how to use it. I’m bringing along a book just in case I can’t figure it out again. But it’s an ebook, so it’s still digital, Well, kinda digital.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next Friday with the conclusion of the Phishing Expedition as well as a brand new one on a whole other kind of online scam.

Andy and John

Ever Try Changing Clothes in a car? Don't. 09/23/22

Earlier this summer, our son was invited to a friend’s wedding and was one of the groomsmen. My wife and I were invited as well. We had rented a beach house and drove, in our flip flops, shorts and tees, from Long Island to pick up our son at LaGuardia airport, to then proceed to the Catskill mountains, on a Friday afternoon, at rush hour. The total distance was approximately 2-3 light years. One of my favorite sayings is: Man Plans, God laughs. Our plan was to drive to the hotel where the kids were staying, drop our son off, giving him time to change into nice clothes for the rehearsal dinner. Then we’d go to our hotel, where all the old folks were staying, and change into the outfits we’d picked out for the dinner. It would make a hectic day seem a bit more relaxed. Brilliant right? What happened next gave us enough fodder to make this a 3-part saga, so we can't tell you the ending until next week’s blog. But think about this. If it’s true that when an ordinary man (or woman) makes plans, it causes God to laugh, then just think about how God reacts when AL attempts to make a plan. Trust us, God has plenty of new material.

What happened was there was a little bit of traffic. Okay, a lot of traffic. And cell phone service, once you get to the mountains, ohh, how can I say this politely, sucks the big one. Which means no Waze. Which means in addition to being late, we were lost. We dropped our son off and as we got to his hotel, the entire wedding party was leaving. So we waited for our son to change, and then we drove him to the rehearsal dinner so he wouldn't miss the whole thing. Now it was so late, if we turned back to our hotel, we’d have no chance to make it back to the rehearsal dinner in time. So we went to the upper parking lot, lined in gravel the size of rocks. Looked around and saw it was empty, and proceeded to pull our suitcases from the trunk and change, standing up, in the lot. The full Monty. I know it’s a pain to change while sitting in the car, but this was somehow worse. Imagine, if you will, standing on one foot on this big-rock gravel while attempting to put your opposite foot into your pants leg. The good news is we made it and had a great time. The bad news is I am still picking gravel out of my socks. But when I told this story to John, he immediately saw it taking place in a car, which, I must admit, is a hell of a lot funnier visually. And you wind up avoiding rocks in your socks.

That is it for this week, we will see you next week with the last comic in this series plus we’re starting a brand new three-parter about computer help lines. Trust us, they aren’t the least bit helpful.

Andy and John

Parenting An Adult Child 07/15/22

What does it mean to parent a child? Certainly, it means different things to different people, but how does it change once your kids become adults themselves? I remember many years ago (I’d appreciate a medal just for remembering many years ago) observing a friend parenting her own 6 years old (my kids were 5 and 8 then). The kid was upset about something or other (about what specifically…I do NOT remember), and the kid said something to the effect of “What should I do?” And the parent turned to her child and asked, “What do YOU think you should do?” I never forgot that. because I, on the other hand, would have answered that question directly by telling either of my kids exactly what they should do (“You go up to that kid tomorrow and tell him that what he did wasn’t very nice and it hurt your feelings”). I cleaned up what I would have said for the purposes of this blog. Truthfully it was more like “You go to school tomorrow and sock him in the nose, that’ll teach him for hitting you!” Bad advice, but more importantly, it was an example of telling your kid what to do as opposed to helping him/her to think for themselves. When John and I discussed this series of “Stevie” comics, we discussed a bunch of things. The first was how to react if your son (or daughter) was coming out to you for the first time. What would you say or would you say nothing at all? And how much reaction is appropriate if your “kid” is over 30 years old? This was never meant to be a story judging a person’s sexuality. It was judging the parents reactions to their kid’s sexuality, when their “kid” was all grown up. The humor does not rely on the kid’s reveal of Stevie. It relies on Al and Joanne’s reaction to it. If you happen to judge them as being appropriate, then you are agreeing with our approach to parenting: be vague and keep them guessing. If you disagree with it, well then we have one thing to say, good luck.

That is all for this week. We wrap up the Stevie story next week and embark in new directions.

See you then,

Andy and John

Taking the Plunge 7/7/22

First of all, I’d like to wish Joanie, my beautiful bride of 38 years, a very happy anniversary. I’d like to thank her for sticking with me for so long. It takes a lot of patience on her part, trust me. I love you and thanks for hanging in there. As Paul Simon once sang, we’re still crazy after all these years. And now, back to the comics. With beach season here, we take a look at the relatively new phenomenon of manscaping. At least it’s relatively new to us. John noticed different levels of hair removal amongst different generations and suggested we do a comic on it. Here are a couple of my partcular hair removal incidences. On a family trip to Mexico last year, my aforementioned wife noticed our niece’s husband, age 43, had a well-groomed body. No visible chest hair or back hair or, heaven forbid, shoulder hair. She was asking because her husband (that’d be me), has hair everywhere I don’t want it, and nowhere that I do want it. To put a fine point on it, no hair on the top of my head, but lots of hair on my chest, back and, yes, shoulders. So she asks our niece’s husband how he achieved that look, and he shows her the razor he uses on his chest, coupled with a long folding contraption that enables him to shave his back while in the shower. Naturally, I ordered the same stuff online and started to use it in the shower. There were three distinct problems. One is that it added significant time to the length of my shower. The second point is I missed a spot. Or two. Or three. Okay, I missed a lot of damn spots. And the third was that the stupid batteries wore down in the back shaver and then I said, “screw it” in much more colorful language. Oh yeah, did I mention a fourth problem. You know what happens when you shave your chest hair with a razor? It grows back like a beard, in sharp, scratchy bits. So when you put on a tee-shirt, the shirt sticks to the front of your body and you constantly find yourself pulling it forward to unstick it from your beautifully shaved chest. In short, Joanie, I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with a hairy bald guy. Unless you knock me out first and take me to a body waxer. But I saw the 40 Year Old Virgin and it looks like that really, really hurts.

Next up is the start of a 4-part series on Al and Joanne’s grown up son, Sid. It seems every time we visit Sid, we come up with a multi-part series and this time is no different. We are about to meet Sid’s new beau. John and I wondered how we would react on the inside and outside if we learned one of our son’s had a significant other. Seeing how Al, Joanne and Uncle Tim react before and after they meet Sid’s love interest is the topic for this new 4-part series. Happy reading and we will be back next week with parts 2 and 3.

Andy and John

On Euro Steps and Getting Along 03/25/22

Let’s get a couple things straight. I am a big basketball fan. And I just returned from Europe. And I still have no idea what a Euro step is. John was watching the NCAA tournament and heard the term and didn’t know what it meant either. He asked me. Clueless. I asked my brother who insisted he DID know what a Euro step was and then proved himself unable to explain it, finally leaving me with, “You’ll know it when you see it.” Finally, Wednesday night, when watching an NBA highlight reel featuring the day’s action, I heard the announcer say, “Harden Euro steps to the hoop and lays it in!” I backed up the recording and watched it again. Then again. The player in question stepped to his right, dribbled, sharply cut and stepped to his left, dribbled and then took 3 steps before converting a layup. Now I don’t know about you, but if a player takes 3 steps, that’s called traveling. But now it’s called a Euro step. Does that clear it up? Good ‘cause it still makes no sense to us either.

Next up was how to navigate the time-old conundrum of getting along in a marriage. It’s all about the stuff we choose to say, and the stuff we choose not to say. Of course, this is where the comic thought bubble comes in handy. In the past we covered a trend that is common to us empty nesters. The kids are all out of the house now, but we want to have spare bedrooms for the times they come to visit and for when they have kids of their own. Consequently, we have multiple instances of two people living in large spaces. And we try to yell to each other from great distances. Trouble with that is nobody can hear what the other person is saying. But many of us have been with our partners so long, we know what they’re thinking. In the case of this week’s comic, we say the unsaid out loud and then regret it in a thought bubble. Which is kind of backwards when you think about it. Think the thing that shouldn’t be said (thought bubble material), and say the thing that should be said.

Someone once asked me, “Would you rather be right or happy?” Hint: the correct answer is “happy.” But if I have a great zinger in my mind, I want to say it out loud. Truth be told, this whole scenario came from John, but I wonder if he was channeling me when he let Al say the zinger. That’s a major difference between us. He’d think it, but would be smart enough not to say it. I’d be so proud of thinking it, that I’d say it, and then regret it silently. Too bad life doesn’t provide us with thought bubbles, you know?

Have a great weekend and we will be back next Friday with two new ones.

Andy and John

Badvertising 03/11/22

In last week’s blog we reminisced about how much advertising has changed. This week, it’s more of the same. Hey, many of you have asked about us doing more multi-part series so here it is. Trouble is, we then have to write the blog about the same subject we wrote about last week. Okay, it won’t be exactly the same. It’ll be the same, only different. Glad we cleared that up. This is how targeted advertising has become. Say you were looking for some living room furniture. You type into your search engine the word “sofa.” Now the data scientists of the ad world know you are over 50, otherwise you would have typed in “couch.” Furthermore they know you like soft, overstuffed things so they serve you ads for easy chairs, recliners, extra fluffy pillows, etc. And they know you like the color “yellow” (I just made that part up). So it’s all about data collection, and then how to micro-target all that data to the exact right person. And who doesn’t want to read an entire blog about data collection?

The point is, I can sound like I know what I’m talking about, but I actually have no clue what I’m talking about. The ad business has gone from two weeks in Beverly Hills, driving a Mustang Convertible, and going to Nobu for dinner, to coming up with an “event” and then an invitation to said “event.” Like Tecate Beer Tuesdays at your local taqueria. So a copywriter, which is what I used to be, has to come up with clever lines like, “Music, fun and friends! Join us for Tecate Tuesday’s at Mole Mole in beautiful, downtown Poughkeepsie!” Oh, and they love exclamation marks. Absolutely love them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I don’t know about you but I’d rather be shooting a commercial with Brad Pitt and Penelope Cruz sipping cold ones on a beach in sunny Acapulco, but this is what the business has become. And if you’re really lucky these days, you can shoot a video of people drinking beers at the aforementioned Mole Mole on your iphone, edit it on your computer, and then run it on Twitter for under $5,000, soup to nuts. Which version of advertising would you rather be in?

Happily John and I discovered comics instead which is wayyyy more rewarding (except for the getting paid part).

So that’s it for this week, we’ll be back next week with another multi-parter. And before you know it, Spring will have sprung.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Bad Advice 3/4/22

If a friend asks you to speak with their kid about going into a field you used to work in, ignore the request. Chances are, the field you remember is nothing like the field is today. So your advice tends to be outmoded or worse, irrelevant. Yesterday businesses were more local. Today they are global. They are digital. And they involve algorithms. Hell, not only don’t I know what an algorithm is, I don’t even know how to spell algorithm, I had to rely on spell check. As we’ve written before, both John and I spent our careers in advertising. You used to get an assignment to do one of three things: create a print ad, a radio commercial, or a tv commercial. You tried to be funny, because it made the commercial more memorable. To make up an example, let’s say you were doing an ad for JCrew shirts and they were on sale. You had to come up with a clever headline like “We’re giving you the shirts off our backs.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t so clever, but you get the drift. You hoped someone would see the ad and remember it the next time they passed a JCrew store. That was advertising then. Nowadays you might go into JCrew and buy a v-neck t-shirt. The cashier offers you 25% off if you sign up for the JCrew credit card. You agree. Now they know you and what you like. And you’ll get a text message like, “Hey Arnie, ya know that v-neck t-shirt, size large in blue that you bought last month? Well we’ve got ‘em in all colors of the rainbow for 50% off.” No need to be clever anymore because they already know what you like, so the message just has to be some form of, “Here it is, for less.” That’s what advertising has become. No longer broadcasting, but narrowcasting, one-to-one. And a lot of the jobs in advertising now involve how to discover the most cost-efficient ways to reach your consumer. Who needs a Super Bowl ad for $5 million when you can get a Facebook impression for $10.95? And that was the basis for our comic, Ad Biz, Part 1. In fact I had to call my son-in-law and a good friend’s son just to find out what the hell they did in advertising. I still don’t understand and neither did John, so he promptly took their words (which they intentionally dumbed-down for us), and dumbed them down even further. Got it? Don’t feel bad, neither did we.

And then it was on to Dishwasher, Part 2. In last week’s blog I wrote about how tough it was to find the proper repair person. The “Bad Advice” title of this blog refers to the advice all your well-meaning friends give you to call this person or that one, and when you call, it turns out they don’t do what you need them to do at all. Until you finally get to the one, which in this case, John did. Only to find out that the guy was on vacation for two weeks in Key West. Sounds a lot better than sitting in your dining room thinking up new ideas for comics. But on the other hand, I’d much rather think about new ideas for comics than try to repair dishwashers, which I know even less about than modern advertising. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sink full of dishes to wash.

Have a great weekend.

Andy and John

On Football (yes again) and Destination Weddings 2/4/22

We imagine you non-football fans asking, “So what’s with all the football comics?” Well it’s the NFL playoffs now, the thrilling three-week tournament that ends up deciding who will play in the Super Bowl. After many unexpected turns and upsets, it’ll be the Cincinnati Bengals vs. the Los Angeles Rams. They will play in the Rams’ new multibillion-dollar pleasure dome known by the poetic name of SoFi Stadium. But that setting does not do justice to the inspiration for today’s football comic, titled “Shirtless.” No, that was inspired by the night game a couple weeks ago in Green Bay, Wisconsin. You heard us right, night game, Green Bay, in January. As the cameras are often wont to do, they pan the crowd and always, and we do mean always, there is the seemingly mandatory shot of a bunch of guys in their 20’s sitting in the stands, with temperatures in the low teens, and negative-degree wind chills, without their shirts on. By the way, they are always, and we mean always, drinking ice cold beers (face it, even hot chocolate would become ice-cold out there). And we often wondered, what kind of idiot would do that? Then just like that, the answer came to us. Sid, the headstrong son of Al and Joanne, Sid would do that. And that became our first comic this week. But since we load them into the website in the order they’re completed, the first comic comes up second in your newsletter, which becomes challenging when we do a 3-part story. Got all that? Good, neither do we.

Next up (or first on your scroll) came from a therapist friend of mine whose name will be withheld to protect the guilty). She is getting married next week and she and her husband-to-be chose a destination wedding in Costa Rica. When I asked her why, she said something to the effect of, “This way we can invite everybody from both families while being reasonably sure nobody will come.” Brilliant. When I shared the idea with John, he thought a lot of people would be thrilled to come to Costa Rica so we moved the comic wedding to Kuala Lumpur, figuring, who in their right mind would ever go there? I mean, I don’t even know where Kuala Lumpur is. I didn’t even know how to spell it correctly until I asked the Google. I guess I could ask it where it is located. Just did. Of course, it’s the capital city of Malaysia. Duh, everyone knows that. At any rate, it’s far away. As John likes to say, “That’s the beauty part.” Actually John picked this up from a former advertising creative partner who picked it up from her father, but what the hell, the whole thing is pretty ingenious, don’t you think? Instead of spending days, weeks or most likely months worrying about who to invite and who not to invite, instead of wasting precious brain cells trying to make sure Uncle Marty and his second wife Sarah aren’t seated at the same table as Aunt Esther and her tennis pro, Rafael, just throw the damn wedding in Kuala Lumpur. Or Thailand for that matter (except that didn’t work for one married couple because my wife and I actually attended that one anyway).

So that is it for this week. We’ll be back next week with two new ones about who knows what (actually we know but we’re not telling).

Have a great weekend

Andy and John

What's Next??? 12/17/21

Are we really getting to the end of 2021? And what do we make of these times? If you are anything like us, chances are you find them increasingly hard to understand. This being a blog about a comic strip, however, we are not going to tackle politics or artificial intelligence (speaking of artificial intelligence, spell check just corrected the way I spelled intelligence, but that’s a story for another time), we will confront such life changing events as the all too real supply chain-induced cream cheese shortage. Talk about a problem. I mean, if you’re anything like me, butter just won’t do (John vehemently disagrees with this). In fact, I have a certain family member (who will go unnamed) who likes to PRE-BUTTER her bagels BEFORE she puts them under the broiler, resulting in a golden topped bagel. That’s the good news. But when you next apply a liberal schmear of cream cheese (note: not a coating, not a layer, a schmear) it’s too damn fatty. So leave the butter off, okay?? And speaking of artificial intelligence, it’s not that smart. It just tried to autocorrect my spelling of “schmear” to “schemer.” I can assure you, there was no scheme whatsoever. Clearly, the artificial intelligence is not Jewish. But back to the comic. There really IS a worldwide cream cheese shortage, and when I mentioned to John that I have a half-full container of Whole Foods 365 Cream Cheese plus a back-up container of Philly, he immediately called me a hoarder. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me (though he may have a good point).

Now, back to the future, as we pick up the saga of Sid. You may remember him as the 30-something son of Al and Joanne who still lived at home with his parents. But then he sold an app and is now a rich young man. John and I wondered how a young guy with money would decorate his new apartment. For research I used my own kids. I have a son who loves sports like I do and so a tv plays a prominent role in his apartment. I have a married daughter who is most definitely not a sports fan and the tv plays a minor role in her house. It’s quite possible to go there for a visit and then have to go to the local sports bar to catch the Knicks. So John and I debated, how would Sid decorate. And then he came up with the idea for a hidden tv. We debated should it come down from the ceiling or up from a wall unit. Well, since we didn’t want to break in through the floor of the apartment above (I mean he’s rich, but not THAT rich), we went with the wall unit. That’s the thing about comics, you can pretty much make them up as you go along. And speaking of making them up, we need to make up two new ones, which takes us right into the holiday season.

So merry Christmas, happy Chanukah and a joyous Kwanzaa (in advance)

Andy and John

You Can't Be Too Careful 9/10/21

Actually, you can. In the case of our hand sanitizer comic, Craig was allergic to it. Seems the stuff is everywhere now, drugstore counters, supermarket check-out lines, restaurants - but then they swipe your card in a machine that has everybody else’s swipes and hand you a pen that 2,000 people have used before you and, more hand sanitizer. But this comic doesn’t come from that insight. It comes from John’s wife Linda who mistakenly confused the sanitizer with bug spray. Turns out hand sanitizer doesn’t do a damn thing for preventing mosquito bites. Nor does bug spray do a particularly good job of cleaning your hands. Who knew? One of the most memorable cases of mistaken bottles occurred when my children were 7 and 4. One day when my wife was out of town, I was driving to a rollerblading rink and both my kids were in their car seats. My 7-year-old daughter was playing with her stuffed animals when I heard her say to her brother, “Uh, I don’t think you should be playing with that.” Then I heard the sound of an aerosol being sprayed. I was driving, so I said, “Can you please hand me that, having no idea what it was. It turned out to be a bottle of pepper spray. I exclaimed, “Fuuuuuck!” before I realized what I was saying. The genesis of this story is my wife worked in an office building that was quiet and dark come nighttime, where she went back to work, once the kids were asleep. So I got her a bottle of pepper spray to carry, just in case somebody surprised her. She put it in the center console, just in case…) Two hours and a long shower after, the situation was resolved, the pepper spray washed from our son’s eyes. My wife had just come home from her trip as I was towel-drying our son’s hair. She said to our son, “Hello honey, how was your day?” And he replied, “Guess what, Daddy said fuck!” So much for mistaken bottles.

As for the twins, we had a gender reveal party for Al and Joanne’s daughter a couple months ago and we figured it was time to deliver the twins. Turns out the delivery process is a lot easier to draw than it is to live through.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to spend a good part of the summer in a beach house with our daughter, her husband and their new baby girl, Charlotte. Though my daughter and son-in-law were overwhelmed with love for their daughter, I observed Charlotte not sleeping through the night, my daughter giving multiple feedings, both she and her husband never getting a full night’s sleep, and the toll it took to carry strollers, car seats, diapers, etc. When I explained this to John, he said, “Now imagine if you had twins. They might not have the same nap schedules, feeding schedules, etc.” (He didn’t actually say “etc.” I just put that in because I forgot the rest of what he said.) The comic that followed was what we imagined having baby twins would feel like. Turns out I just got a taste of the real thing. We just came home from a wedding in Denver followed by a few days with our niece, her husband and her kids, an 11-year old daughter and a pair of 5-year-old twins. One twin said to me, “Pick me up!” Followed by the other saying the same. Then the first one asked again and the second one said, “Hey, not fair, you picked her up two times!” You get the idea. The good news is that if you wanted two kids, you get it over at once. The bad news is, as the old Doublemint gum jingle said, “Double your pleasure, double your fun…’

See you next week with two new ones hot off the New 60 press. (There isn’t really a New 60 press, but I just like saying it.)

Andy and John

Good Eatin' 8/27/21

This week we become food obsessed. Okay, okay, we’re always food obsessed. Because face it, once you’re firmly in your 60’s, what else are you going to become obsessed with? 

The point is not everything works the way it used to work. Which is why we came back to food. In the first comic, we return to Al’s franchise, Pizza-on-a-Stick. One of the employees came up with a brilliant idea for dessert, Spumoni-on-a-Stick. What’s the plural of that? “I’ll take 6 Spumoni-on-a-Sticks please?” Or “I’ll take 6 Spumonis-on-a-Stick please?” These are the kinds of meaningful debates John and I engage in. The second one sounds better but the first one is right. Plus, John draws the strip so he won, not that I’m a sore loser or anything. To put the final ribbon on the bow I asked my daughter, an excellent grammarian, which version she preferred. She said, “I know the second one sounds right but the first one is actually correct. You’d order a cheeseburger or 6 cheeseburgers. So…” When she’s right and she agrees with John, it just doesn’t seem fair. But I’ll tell you this, if you come into Pizza-on-a-Stick and order 6 Spumonis-on-a-Stick, I promise not to be literal like John and pile 6 scoops of spumoni on one stick. I know this is fiction, but who the hell would do that?

Okay, now that THAT’S off my chest, let’s go to comic #2, Al’s backyard vegetable garden. John and I have a mutual friend Chris who built a magnificent garden with raised beds and every natural method of maintenance and pest control. John tried to mimic it as best he could, and when I had a house, I maintained a vegetable garden as well but much more basic. Why? For one thing I’m not very good with my hands (a common affliction among us Jews) and secondly, my love of vegetables stops at salads. But the point is, these gardens are a TON of work and they yield very little until you get overrun by cherry tomatoes during the last of summer, and end up having to shovel half of them into the soil so they make for a rich mulch the following summer. Sure, it’s a great thrill to go into the garden and pick out your salad or dinner for the night, but if you stop off at the farmstand on your way home, that works too. Plus, the cost/benefit ratio is a bit out of whack, as Al’s son Sid gleefully points out.

So, as Porky Pig said, Th-th-that’s all folks (at least for this week). We will be back next week with two new ones that take us up to Labor Day! Where does the time go?

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Expanding Families

This week we devoted ourselves to expanding families. Al’s family expands as his daughter Emily is about to give birth to twins. And Marv’s family expanded, or actually, Marv expanded by eating donuts, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But first to the upcoming birth. My own daughter gave birth to our first grandchild, Charlotte, back in April. We raced down to the hospital and when we got there, were told we couldn’t come in due to Covid-19 protocols. I suggested we go back home, because there was nothing we could do by being there. My wife refused and wanted to hang out there, “Just in case…” I could try every logical argument I could think of, but no, she wasn’t biting. It was clear I wasn’t winning this one. She was going to be there for our daughter and son-in-law come hell or high water. Finally, the baby arrived, and thank goodness everyone was okay and we eventually made our way back home. When I told John about this he instantly turned the idea around, saying we didn’t need the Covid part. The essential story was when it comes to the birth of a child or grandchild, mother (or grandma) knows best. So we just focused on the act of driving to the hospital. We all have our emotional connections and if they make sense to us, that’s all that counts. When I am watching a Mets game and it’s a tense situation, I give the pitcher or batter instructions. To the pitcher, “Throw him a curve ball, he’ll ground into a double play.” Or to the batter, “Don’t swing at the next pitch, let him walk you!” My wife will ask, “Who are you talking to?” I know my words have no effect, but what if they do? In a similar vein she knew she had to be there just until the baby was delivered. She knew there was nothing she could do about it, but just in case…

The second comic came from another observation. I shared with John, a story about our rental house this summer. A guest came up with two large cookies. Not just cookies in the traditional sense, but huuuuge cookies with all sorts of goodies baked inside. The guests were staying for a long weekend and for two days the cookies just sat there, still wrapped in plastic. Nobody wanted to be the fatso who committed to an entire cookie which must have contained at least a full day’s worth of calories. So I unwrapped the cookies and broke them up into 40 or 50 bite size pieces and put them out on the counter. Within one day they were gone. Everyone who passed through the kitchen, which was everyone, stopped and grabbed a bite size piece on their way to wherever it was they were going. “Oh, on my way to the pool, a little piece won’t hurt.” “Oh, on my way to the bathroom, what the hell, it’s just one bite.” “Going to run an errand, let me grab one while nobody’s looking.” John shared that he does this with the occasional donut and we had our second comic. Here’s a helpful hint, DO NOT try the broken cookie routine at home. 8 extra pounds later, you’ll be cursing us out.

One last point. The Mets finally won a game Wednesday night and you know why they won? Because I told the batter, Kevin Pillar, to hit a game-winning 3 run homer in the 11th inning and he listened. The fact that I recorded the game earlier and watched it hours after it had actually ended had nothing to do with it. The batter heard me! Everyone has their little emotional tics. And no two people have the same ones. But in the end, they are what make us, us.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Caps for Sale 8/5/21

“Caps for Sale” is the name of one of my favorite books when I was a kid. And it also happens to relate to both of this week’s comics. First the debate about screw-top wine bottles vs. corks. I love a good bottle of wine, and after the ritual of the cork is done - foil cutter, followed by Rabbit brand corkscrew remover, it’s time to pour and enjoy. At this point it’s just, wow, this tastes good and pairs well with whatever the hell it is I’m eating. I can also admit to occasions when we are having something that goes with a white wine at home (a broiled lemon sole, for example) and when I go to reach for the wine bottle I am thrilled when I discover that the wine is actually of the screw-top variety. You mean all I have to do is screw the thing open? No more foil cutter, no more Rabbit? Sign me up. But then there’s the occasion when you bring wine to somebody’s house. If you go to a wine store with a knowledgeable staff, chances are they’ll point you in the right direction. But it’s all about perception, right? Does it make you feel twice as good showing up with a $40 bottle of wine vs. a $20 bottle of wine? And who cares if the $20 bottle is actually superior? It’s the presentation that counts. Does it have one of those ribbons around the neck that have been carefully curlicued by running a scissor over it? But what if (gasp!) the bottle has a screw-top? Is the host going to think you’re a cheapskate? Does the ribbon more than make up for the screw-top? And will the wine’s lingering notes of strawberry and tobacco compensate for the easy opening top? Maybe forget the whole thing and bring a bottle of tequilla next time. But with a cork or twist-off…forget it.

And onto the ubiquitous beach hat. John remembers going on an extended family vacation on a cruise ship while I recalled going to my mother-in-law’s 65th birthday in Lake George (34 years ago!!!!!). John made special embarrassing t-shirts for his family and, in my case, we all had embarrassing t-shirts annnouncing “I’m with Charlotte.” When John and I discussed this idea, he immediately sent me a picture of a guy wearing a wide-brimmed, goofy-looking beach hat, just like the one he drew for the comic. I laughingly agreed that, “Yeah, people would really be embarrassed having to walk around wearing a hat like that.” What I didn’t share with him is that I wear a hat that looks almost exactly like that. It might look goofy, but hey, it keeps the sun off the back of my neck. And if it’s windy, it has strings so you can keep the hat from blowing away by tying the string into a bow under your chin. Well, YOU can tie the string in a bow under YOUR chin, but that is a step too far for me. I prefer to look cool, which is why I lost my first beach hat to a large gust of wind while riding in a boat. The guys in our comic actually WANTED to lose their hats. That was John’s ending, because I am still trying to hold onto my backup beach hat. And one other thing. John’s drawn hat was blue, which is much, much more embarrassing than the hat I wear, which is tan. And tan hats look totally cool, right Stuart? (My older brother-in-law who goes nowhere without the same tan beach hat).

That’s it for this week. Keep your hats on and wear your sun block. We’ll see you next week with two new comics, but we are keeping the subjects under our collective hat.

Andy and John

Sid Grows Up (Al, not so much) 5/28/21

It’s easy for a couple of older guys to poke fun at 30+ year-olds still living at home. But the world today isn’t like the one we grew up with. Steady jobs with benefits that have a career path have been replaced by freelance gigs with no benefits whatsoever. They usually end with some form of “Thanks for the work, we’ll call you again next time we need you.” Followed by the click of a phone hanging up. Sigh. I actually once worked at an agency where I asked one of the other creative directors, “How do you find people who are content making the same ads into different sizes to fit different digital platforms?” His response, “I look for people with no ambition. People who are just happy to have a job.” Yikes. Well, your intrepid cartoonists were not about to let Sid suffer the same fate. So he sold his app for beaucoup bucks. And now he’s a big shot, in the way kids finding their first jobs and apartments are big shots. No place to sit, not furniture, not enough plates or silverware but, damn, there has to be room for a 70” hi-def tv and a Peloton. The Peloton is important because who among us wouldn’t want to have a $5,000 machine featuring a televised sweaty person in much better shape than we will ever be, screaming at you to tighten up that resistance screw, stand up on those pedals and move! move! move! That they have. A couch with an ottoman? Not so much.

And we also wanted to visit that age old tradition when your kid picks up the check for dinner. Most people are touched with love and admiration and a feeling akin to, “Wow our little (fill in the name) has really grown up!” Well, Al feels that as well, but a little dessert and an after-dinner drink would make him feel even better. As long as it’s on Sid.

We’ve spent a lot of time on kids lately. Grown up kids like Sid and his sister. New kids like the one Sam just had. And new grandparents like our characters will soon become (just wait for our upcoming gender reveal party). Maybe it’s because one of us (me) just became a grandpa or maybe it’s just that Spring is in the air, and we see lots of baby carriages out there. In any event we’ve got a lot of fresh new storylines out there for the summer and the best part about our comic book children, is that their crying makes no noise, they can’t pee or throw up on you, and when you’re done reading, you’re done. Sounds like a good deal to us.

See you next week with two new ones,

Andy and John

On the Old and New 4/30/21

First the old. It’s interesting to see which items go in and out of style. And for those of us of a certain age (and a certain temperment) we don’t give a damn even if they have gone out of style. Consider an item I brought to my marriage some 37 years ago. We jokingly refer to it as “The Dowry." It is an old-fashioned jar opener that belonged to my mother. Can’t find anything like it anymore. But I’ll try to describe it. Think of a circular shape at the top, hinged in the middle. The top has grippers on the inside and it opens up to two handles. You simply separate the handles, fit the circle on the jar top you’re trying to open, close the handles and twist. Voila! Open jar. So simple and elegant. Another item just as timeless that’s also been cast into the dustbin of history? The snack table. Nobody uses them anymore. Except very old people. I was watching an episode of “Comedians in cars getting coffee.” Jerry Seinfeld visits Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Every night (obviously this was filmed before Reiner’s passing) Carl and Mel would get together and eat dinner on snack tables while watching Jeopardy. While the point was to marvel at how deep their friendship was and how they acted like an old married couple, I was transfixed by the fact that they ate on snack tables. About a month ago, our kitchen required a major renovation and we were forced to eat on snack tables. I even worked on a snack table, noting how well it fit a MacBook Air and a glass of water. When the construction was completed, we folded the snack tables back up and placed them back into obscurity, in a little corner of the laundry room, never to be seen again until the next emergency. Sigh.

Our second comic deals with texting. Now there are many different types of texters. There’re people who still don’t do it and have no interest in learning how. Then there are people with flip phones who have to hit the “5” key three times in order to type the letter “L.” Next comes people over 50 who text regularly but insist on using punctuation and who hate acronyms. And then there is the millennial generation and younger who want to purvey as much information as possible with as few keystrokes as possible. Hence ”L8R,” instead of “later.” Or “btw,” instead of “by the way.” I took some golf lessons this winter where the instructor showed a split screen of my swing before and after. Only he insisted on labelling the before swing “b4.” I pointed out that that wasn’t the way to spell “before” and he responded by telling me to move closer to the ball. As for the comic, I must admit that John came up with the punchline where Al says, “I’m trying to find the semi-colon.” If it’s old-school behavior to spell words out, it is positively neanderthal to look for a semi-colon. Almost nobody uses semi-colons anymore. They’re about as rare as snack tables.

That’s it for this week. And as long as we are speaking about punctuation, I want to give a special shout-out to our terrific proofreader (who just pointed out I used an unnecessary hyphen in proof-reader), David Ockene, who performs this task every week for free. David, we really appreciate it and you.

See you next week with two new ones. Have a terrific weekend and stay safe,

Andy and John

Finally 03/26/21

Why finally? Because it links this week’s comics. Finally we got Sid out of the house and can plan what to do with his room. And finally we got an appointment for our Covid vaccine shots. First, about the Covid. As a man of a certain age, it reminds me a lot of Vietnam. Huh? Relax, I’ll explain. It was 1971 and yours truly was a freshman at Washington U in St. Louis. I sat around on the floor with a bunch of buddies listening to the radio announce birthdates that were being pulled out of a tumbler. Speaking of tumblers, we also had a bottle of crappy scotch on the floor and we kept taking shots when we didn’t get our birthday called. My roommate’s birthday was May 5th, and I was May 15th. The war was starting to wind down and only the first 50 birthdates called would have to enlist in the army. The voice called out, “Number 5…May 5th.” Now May 5th sounds a lot like May 15th, but it wasn’t, thank goodness for yours truly. My roommate, however, left for active duty and I never heard from him again. I hope he made it. May 15th didn’t get called until after number 250 so I was safe. But what reminded me of Covid is it’s the only time I can remember people hoping they were sick, that something was wrong with them. In the case of Vietnam, something wrong could get you declared 4F. I have no idea what that stands for but it means, you’re out. The army can’t use you. It’s like on a school test. F isn’t a low enough grade for you. You’re 4F. Take that! With Covid, if you weren’t yet 65, you’d have to have something wrong with you in order to qualify for the shot. Anxiety, depression, elevated heart beat, hypertension, you name it. The point is it’s the only other time I can remember people hoping their doctors would find something wrong with them. Bone spurs, anyone?

Next up on your scroll is the inevitable emptying of Sid’s room. All traces of Sid are gone, posters, clothes, shoes, books, hell, even Sid himself. It was what Al and Joanne wanted for the last 5 or 6 years. But, of course, now that he’s gone they miss the hell out of him. I will point out that hey don’t miss him enough to stop contemplating who gets his room and what they are planning to do with said room, once a winner has been declared. And like most marital squabbles, the guy has no chance emerging as the winner. Al, while not an easy man to live with, was easy to manipulate in this situation. A NY Giants foot pillow, to prop his feet up during games, was all it took for Joanne to win the day. Speaking for the entire male gender, we may not think we’re easy to outmaneuver, but trust us, we are. But don’t worry. Al will get his chance. Wait until they start to clean out the garage.

That’s it for this week. Have a great weekend and we’ll be back again next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

The Saga of Sid Continues 3/11/21

Everybody’s got to grow up at some point, right? Even Sid. Look, we get it. This is the first generation that hasn’t had a reasonable expectation of upward mobility. And so because of a combination of low paying jobs, little to no health insurance, and sky high rents, many adult children are being forced to still live at home or to accept their parents’ help in living alone. And we ‘ve been over this territory before. And it’s not particularly funny, especially if you are the person still living home. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for comedy. Between wondering, “what in the name of God is he doing up there?” and the revelation of, “Oh, so that’s what he’s been doing up there!” is where the funny kicks in. And you have to admit, that app of Sid’s is a pretty brilliant idea.

But then we got to thinking, what if Siri or Alexa or one of those robotic female voices could do this anyway? Aren’t they some sort of example of artificial intelligence, or to be hip, AI? So we tested it. Well, in order to sound incredibly hip, we beta-tested it. In other words I said, “Hey Siri, what’s the name of that movie with the guy from the notebook and the girl from the Help? And Siri replied, “Okay, I found this on the web about The Notebook.” So it didn’t work. Which means there is still a need for Sid’s app. And if any of you are smart enough to invent it and you wind up making billions of bucks, just remember who gave you the idea. And return a 33 1/3% of your profits for the first couple years. It’s only fair.

We will wrap up the 5-part Saga of Sid next week and move on to other topics, but if you get a chance we’d love to hear your thoughts about whether or not you’d like these continuing stories from time to time.

And that, is that. Not because it’s currently 68 degrees outside and I’m kinda lazy. No it’s because I’ve run out of things to say about adult children living at home. And yeah, because it’s 68 degrees and I’m kinda lazy.

See you next week with two new ones. Enjoy your weekend and we hope you get vaccinated,

Andy and John