You Can't Fool Me (or maybe you can) 02/09/24

“Mother, make it stop! He’s trying to kill me.” If you’re old enough to subscribe to this comic, you’re old enough to know where that quote came from, The Exorcist. I saw that as a college kid in St. Louis, Mo., and I’ve never been so scared in my life. But the same feeling can apply to the current political season and its unending stream of emails asking for donations. Today’s comic is the last in the three-part series about unsubscribing, but as you well know, once you’ve successfully unsubscribed from one email address, you get hit with another. And another. And still another. You also get hit with three comics on the same subject, but this is our last one on it. We promise. At least for now.

Our other comic is about how we use “company coming over” as a lever to get things done. Why is a loosely made bed okay most of the time but when company comes over, the sheets have to be tucked in, hospital corner style, and on top of the neatly stacked pillows…go throw pillows. I once was a creative director on Swiffer. And my favorite team came up with an online idea about how to clean up the house featuring a cranky old man (I hope they weren't using me or my partner as inspiration), but anyway the guy comes up to a couch covered in throw pillows and he says, “Ya know why they call them throw pillows? ‘Cause they’re meant to be thrown.” And with that he takes his arm and sweeps them all onto the ground.

It’s ridiculous but it’s true. We treat our company much better than we treat ourselves. We use the “good silverware,” and the “good china,” and put out the “good placemats,” and “good napkins,” with a pretty flower arrangement and a soundtrack of jazz or classical music playing softly in the background. And oh, don’t forget the candles or the wine we save for “special occasions.”

But there’s another, more subtle way we use an upcoming party to manipulate our significant others. It’s a great way to get stuff done. Remember those shelves you meant to put up in the bathroom? The walls you were going to paint? The leaves you were going to rake? That pile of bills stacked up on the kitchen counter? There’s nothing like the promise (or threat) of company coming over to get you to clean it the hell up. I feel compelled at this moment to point out that John is very handy and is constantly taking on projects while I, well, am Jewish. Which means I call the super.

That’s it for this week and for our Unsubscribe Series. We’ll see you next week with two new ones, hot off the press (does anybody say hot off the press anymore?).

Andy and John

The more Things Change... 01/18/24

Sometimes we pull comic ideas out of thin air. Sometimes we get them from things that happen in our own lives. And sometimes from things we observe. This one happened right in front of my eyes. There I was on a Saturday, one day before the end of the regular NFL season. We live with an open kitchen design, so the “living room” and “kitchen” are just sort of one big open space divided by a counter. Consequently, when I watch football and my wife invites two of her closest friends over to bake for a party we’ve been invited to, somebody is going to be inconvenienced. A few polite “Honey, could you turn that down” requests from my wife later, I retorted with one of my patented comebacks, “I happen to know you can hardly hear the tv. You know how I know? Because I can hardly hear the tv!” Unlike Sam in the comic, I did not end up in the bedroom watching the game on my phone. That was John’s brilliant invention. Nope. I held firm and watched in the living room. So, I could still see the game. I just couldn't hear the game. Ahh, the art of compromise.

And now about the New Year’s resolution. If you watch any amount of television, and remember, John and I spent almost 40 years apiece creating television commercials (this was before the days when people could fast forward past said commercials) you will notice that they are all for diet pills, diet programs, and most of all, gym memberships. Planet Fitness and Crunch Fitness come to mind. If the gym has enough treadmills, ellipticals, bikes and weight machines for say 100 people, they sell maybe 200 memberships. This is because they know full well that the gym will be crowded in the beginning of January with all those people swearing they’ll stick to a routine “this time,” while knowing full well that most people will come in, have to wait for a machine to free up, and then go home frustrated, never to come back again. So, by February the place is down to the 50 or 60 regulars who always go to the gym. A couple days ago, I went to my gym. Two people were together, approaching the lat pulldown machine that I wanted to use. It’s January, what did I expect? Anyway, the two people approaching the machine consisted of a thin man and a guy with a large pot belly. The thin guy sat down at the lat machine while the pot-bellied guy gave him instructions. Yes, that’s right, he turned out to be his trainer! Oh well, it’ll be February soon enough.

Have a nice weekend and we will see you next week, as they used to say on Batman, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Andy and John

The Joys of Going Electric. 06/16/23

What could be more satisfying than owning and driving an electric vehicle? You can feel proud that you are not contributing to global warming every time you drive to the grocery store. You can marvel at the absolute quiet that envelops you, even as you turn on the “engine.” You can put the pedal to the metal and literally get thrown back into your seat by the acceleration, because the car doesn’t have to switch gears to speed up. There aren’t any freakin’ gears. When you’re stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, you switch to “regenerative braking” and your car’s range actually increases! For sake of full disclosure, I recently bought an electric vehicle and it has indeed been a life-changing experience, but not for any of the above positive reasons.

I am now in full possession not only of a new car but of a new fear called “range anxiety.” The car can supposedly go 270 miles without a recharge. More like 240. And when that range figure dips below 100 you start worrying. Where the hell is the closest charging station? And is it a level 3, that delivers a full charge in under 2 hours, a level 2 that does the same in 12 hours or a level 1 (like what you plug your bedside lamp into (which can complete the task of a full recharge in 100 hours,) which if you’re not a math wizard, is 4 full days plus an additional 4 hours. I took the occasion to drive to John’s house so we could work out the comics and wording for our upcoming Comic Book anthology. It is about 100 miles in each direction, and whaddya know, I had range anxiety. I didn’t feel confident I could go to John’s house and back on a full charge, so John had to pick me up at his local public library, where there happens to be two chargers. Rather than wait there 6 hours for the partial recharging, we went to his house, worked and came back 6 hours later with the car fully recharged. A pain in the butt? Undeniably. As we have stated in the past, our collective misfortunes may be unfortunate, but they are often the grist of the mill for our comics, including both of this week’s efforts.

Back to electric vehicles. The point is, you tend to plan your activities around recharging. One night, my wife and I drove to a mall in another county (about 15 miles away) because they had level 3 charging, PF Chang’s and a movie theater showing the Oscar nominated “Everything, everywhere, all at once.” That made the 2 1/2 hour recharge a non-factor. A win-win-win if ever there was one. I was so happy with that decision, I didn't even contemplate the fact that I drove 30 miles round trip to recharge my car, which only gets 240 miles to begin with. Incidentally, if you find yourself at PF Chang’s, try the chicken lettuce wrap, damn good. As for the movie, not so much. I fell asleep during it (due to a combination of boredom, confusion and a cocktail from the aforementioned PF Chang’s).

One last thought about the comics: we had fun with the level 1 charger that takes over 4 days to fully charge your car. As Marv (and we) imagined, that would mean your invited company would have to stay for 4 days (and 4 hours). We leave you with this quote John remembered from Benjamin Franklin that John remembered: “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after 3 days.” Have a great weekend and we’ll see you again next week with two new ones hot off the press.

Andy and John

To Sit or To Stand? 10/13/22

When it comes to peeing, it seems like we’ve got it all figured out, right? Men stand, women sit. But sometimes we find ourselves out of our comfort zones. In the case of a guy with a broken or twisted ankle, when you can’t put weight on a foot, you are forced to sit and pee. Conversely if a woman has to go really bad, and she’s say, hiking in the woods, she has no choice but to stand (alright, she squats, but that didn’t fit my sentence as well). As Al is about to find out, 1) nobody cares and 2) a lot of guys choose to sit. Who knew? Apparently John knew more than I did and that forms the basis for our two part series. Basically I did my part by breaking my ankle and learning the hard way, while John supplied the reasons a guy might sit.

Our two-part series this week deals with both points. The fact that nobody really cares, and the fact that however you do it is up to you. In fact, this topic is going to result in this week’s blog being mercifully short. Because, I can’t, for the life of me, think of one more thing to say about going #1. I leave you with this funny and true story:

After my bike accident in July, I spent the next couple months on crutches, or on a “knee stroller” and had no choice but to pee sitting down. One Sunday night in late August, my wife and I went out to dinner with another couple we’re very friendly with. Names, as always, are withheld to protect the guilty (and also to assure that I will have at least a couple of friends left after I finish blogging one day). The male part of this couple we had dinner with is both a very loyal friend and a very natty dresser. He is exceedingly neat and a bit germophobic. As we approached the end of the meal, my wife had a pre-existing zoom call and had to leave before dessert. She asked our friends if they would drive me home and help me up the steps to see that I got back in one piece. This was fine, except for one glaring omission. I had to go pee. And since it takes so much longer to do anything when you’re in a cast and on crutches, I knew I couldn't wait until I got home. The fact that the cast was up to right below my knee meant it wasn't going to be easy to pull my pants down, meaning I was going to pee standing up (at last, he comes back to the topic). This required asking my friend to accompany me to the men’s room of this very tony restaurant, and when I saw there was no rail to hang onto, I asked if I could support myself with my free hand by putting my arm around his shoulder. Fortunately for me, the loyal friend part of my friend won out over the fastidious part and he stood there allowing me to hang on his shoulder while emptying my bladder. Again, I never want to name names, but you, sir, are indeed a great buddy.

That’s it for this week. See you next week, same time, same place with two new ones. Enjoy your weekends and if you are a Mets fan like John and me, let It go, it’s time for football.

Andy and John.

On Doctors and Toys 5/27/22

If you’re over 50, you know how it goes. You go out to dinner with your friends and the conversation usually starts with, “So how’s your arm/leg/shoulder/hip/foot/back doing?” And as you describe it, along with what doctor you’re seeing, you usually get a response something like, “Oh, if you’re interested, I’ve got a great internist/oncologist/ foot doctor/orthopedist/gynecologist you could talk to, I’ll text you the number.” This is what led Al to request no doctor talk before the meal started. It’s something I have requested more than once (not that I’m controlling or anything). And it caused us to wonder, are we talking about doctors so much because we have to see them so much more often, or are we talking about doctors because we have nothing interesting left to say? And (this one is only me), are we talking about doctors because we are getting older or does talking so much about doctors and physical ailments actually make us older?

Moving on to our second comic. This one was inspired by John’s Click Clack comic a couple weeks ago. For those of you who might have missed it, Click Clack was a popular toy way back consisting of two acrylic balls attached to both ends of a string. By flipping your wrist up, you made the balls click, by flipping it down you made them clack. Click clack they went until, sometimes, they exploded, sending shards of acrylic flying. Such a game would never be approved today which led us to think about the most dangerous games of our collective youths. We agreed on the EZ Bake Oven and Big League Chew, but we had different recollections of Lawn Darts. The game, as directed, put two people on opposite sides in a backyard. Each player put the enclosed circle or “target” on the ground and the idea was to throw a metal-tipped dart so it stuck in the lawn within the circle. The twist that my friends put on it was to add the game of “Chicken” to the festivities. That is, you became a chicken and lost points if your opponent’s throw caused you to move your feet for fear of getting impaled by the aforementioned lawn dart. Confession, I lost a bunch at this game but avoided getting impaled.

That’s it for this week, see you next week as the summer officIally kicks off. Yikes, how did that happen so fast?

Andy and John

On Retirement. Now What? 4/22/22

I remember my first day of retirement as if it were yesterday. For anybody counting, it was in November of 2016. And to be truthful, it wasn’t exactly retirement, but you get the point. So many of my friends have stopped working and their collective thought is, what am I going to do with all that time??? You’ll figure it out. So let’s get back to my first weekend as a free man. As I often did, I went for a hike with my wife. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost 4 pm and grew worried. She asked, “What’s wrong,” and I replied, “It’s almost 4 and I haven’t gone to the grocery store yet.” She said, “Why not go Monday?” What she was saying without saying is you’re free to do whatever you want now. For me, I was so used to having to fit everything (like groceries) into a tight window on weekends so it didn’t interfere with my work week. But now? What the hell. I instantly felt my shoulders relax. That fall and the ensuing spring were filled with Tuesday bike rides, Wednesday golf games, mid-week afternoon Mets games and in the winter, the occasional afternoon movie (remember when we went to movies), or even a theater matinee. And grocery shopping on a Tuesday. In the morning. With no one there. Now we’re not claiming it’s going to be all roses for Marv moving forward, because, well, he’s Marv, but we are going to examine how his presence (just as mine did 5 years ago) turns the house upside down. Everyone was used to him NOT being there Monday through Friday, from 8:30 in the morning until around 7 at night. We will follow Marv from his retirement party through his first awkward days at home, to his venturing out into the brave new world, sometimes on his own.

Our next comic dealt with, oh yeah, retirement. More on that next week, and if you’re retired, you’ll have more than enough time to see what happens. If you’re still working, you can see what you have to look forward to. And if you retired folks need an idea for what to do, you could, I don’t know…start a comic. Just don’t call it The New 60.

Enjoy the weekend,

Andy and John

On Rabbit Holes and Jackie Robinson 04/15/22

The third time is the charm. We could have gone on amost endlessly with Marv’s trip down the rabbit hole. But enough is enough. And anyway the next step would have been from the Monty Python skit, which would have seen Marv in women’s garments. “I am a lumberjack/I work all day/And I wear women’s clothes. As the New 60 is a family-rated site, we just couldn’t be having that. So Marv stopped with the rugged flannel shirt.

Now it just so happens that today is Jackie Robinson day. And we decided to bring back a New 60 classic. Got to hand it to the Mets, who are unveiling a Tom Seaver statue on the very same day. Now Tom Seaver is probably the best Met player ever, but still, Jackie Robinson. Got to give the man his due. He was a fearsome player who of course broke baseball’s color barrier, and he was strong enough to not let himself be goaded by racist players trying to get him to fight. Everything about the man is admirable. Except if you’re an announcer. You see, Jackie Robinson day is April 15th, right at the beginning of the season. And since every player on both teams wears #42 in his honor, it can get a little confusing if you don’t yet know all the players on the team. Truth be told, I had trouble naming each player on the Pawtucket Red Sox, when I started out as a sportswriter. And they all had different uniform numbers.

But enough about me. Okay, one more thing about me. I have a pinched nerve in my neck and a horrible cough, so I am cutting the blog short this week and climbing back into bed.

Have a great weekend and we will start a series about Marv’s retirement (what the hell do you do all day) next week.

Andy and John

April Fools 04/01/22

April Fools. This time we decided to fool ourselves into thinking the strip was internationally famous. What do internationally famous cartoon strips do to make money? They make stuffed toys out of their characters, right? There’s stuffed Snoopy dolls and stuffed Charlie Brown and Lucy dolls but who the hell is going to want to take an Al Bondigas lunchbox to work? Or drink their coffee in a Marv Mandlebaum mug? Who even goes to work anymore? Which of our female fans would want a Joanne or Rachel purse? So we put on our thinking caps. We’ve already made old people jokes in past comics, with New 60 hemorrhoid pads, dental adhesive, etc., but what could we do to fit a more active lifestyle? And the answer came. Tada. Pickleball! It seems like every other person we know is taking up pickleball. Apparently, it has nothing to do with pickles. It’s a cross between tennis and ping pong (so why not ting tong?) and the court is much smaller so it doesn’t involve much running. What is does involve is a lot of lunging, but what could possibly go wrong with that? So we came up with New 60 pickleball paddles. If Al or Marv were bugging you in the comics one week, you could take their faces and mash them into a pickleball. How much fun would that be? We added bibs for any occasion because both John and I confessed to one another that we seem to be spilling more food on our shirts that ever before, so bibs, they’re not just for babies anymore. Heck, you have old guys wearing adult diapers, so why not a bib? And finally, New 60 sunscreen with an SPF of 1,000. This came from watching people of a certain age at the beach. They wear huge floppy hats, slather themselves in sunscreen and sit under umbrellas all to avoid the sun they seem to be worshipping. New 60 sunscreen. At least it prevents you from doing the t-shirt thing which leaves really ugly tan lines.

And then we turned our attention to a particular breed of sports fanatic. One so crazy that they want to watch every game their team plays. I have this affliction and have passed it on to my son, unfortunately. When you go out of town or go out to dinner, you record the game to watch it at a later date. Then you have to avoid hearing the score so it doesn’t ruin the experience of watching it. I go into an SIMP. What is that, you ask? It’s a Self-Imposed Media Blackout. Sometimes it works, but a lot of times it doesn’t. Many years ago, when my son was about 10 or 11 years old, our family went with two other families on a beach vacation to St. Martin. The trip was great. We were scheduled to fly back home on a Sunday, the very day the NY Giants were playing the Philadelphia Eagles. The last game of the season. The winner goes to the playoffs, the loser goes home for the winter. We were on a plane that day. I had already set the recorder to record the game at home before we went away. The trick was now to avoid hearing the outcome. As luck would have it, the plane was delayed, and then delayed some more. Then it went to pick up more passengers in the Dominican. But the plane had to circle there endlessly before it could land. In fact, it used up so much fuel circling that it had to touch down in Miami before continuing to our final destination in NY. As the plane touches down in Miami, some douchey guy on a cell phone yells out, guess what everybody, the Giants won!!! This was past midnight now and I was ready to kill him. Here’s the really crazy part. When we got home, we watched the whole thing anyway, wrapping up past 4 in the morning. Before you report me to child services, it’s important to note that the kids were off on Christmas break for another week. But this was the genesis for Al, trying to avoid the Knick game. I’m hoping to get over this habit when I grow up.

That’s it, ladies and gents. We’ll see you next week with two brand new ones, hot off the proverbial press.

Andy and John

On College Days (then) and Electric Toothbrushes (now) 01/14/22

It still feels pretty weird typing “/22” into the date space. And I know you think I’m talking about our Then and Now series when I put those words in the headline. But you probably know better, because you likely have read the comics before you get to the blog, and only one of the comics is a “Then and Now .” At any rate, I couldn’t think of a connection between electric toothbrushes and college (trust me, when I went to college they didn’t have Oral B electric tootbrushes with L.E.D. screens on them), so I went with the old standard, On. As in “On college days and electric toothbrushes.”

So let’s start with something I CAN remember. My new toothbrush. I was complaining to John about this new wonder brush recommended by both my dentist and periodontist (don’t ask what a periodontist is because I still don’t know. I just know that it’s expensive and hurts a lot). So this toothbrush encourages you to brush for 2 minutes. That’s a lot longer than it sounds. And if you’re in a rush, like during the mornings, you sometimes cut it a little short. Okay, a lot short. But after I have covered all the teeth, front and back, upper and lower, and am racing out of the house to catch a train, go a gym class or drive to some appointment or other, I look at the screen and see either a complete frown (if I’ve only brushed for say 45 seconds) or a half frown (only the left side is downturned) if I’ve made it to 1:37. I tried to compensate by refusing to look at the small screen on the brush, but it bothered me. In fact it bothered me enough so that I took a picture of the various faces (up to and including the full smile, which I achieve every single night) and sent them to John and said, I think we’ve got a comic here. As soon as I explained the dilemma to him, he countered, “Why don’t you just brush the complete two minutes?” And we had our comic, complete with punch line. I still maintain 2 minutes is a long time.

The inspiration for our other comic came from a crappy winter Monday. Temperatures in the low teens with a howling wind. I was supposed to meet a college buddy, also recently retired, for lunch and a hike…but there were prevailing circumstances: a) it was too cold to hike and b) due to the Omicron variant, we didn’t feel comfortable eating inside a restaurant and c) one restaurant did offer heated outdoor seating but (refer to circumstance a) it was too damn cold outside. So I went to my friend’s house, and he ordered take out and we ate it in his kitchen. Then we hung out and talked. We talked about now, we reminisced about the past and we may or may not have shared a drink and a couple hits of a joint (I’ll never tell). And I laughed because it occurred to me that this could have been 50 years ago on a winter Monday afternoon back in college and we would’ve been doing the exact same thing. I brought this scenario up to John and we molded it into one of our “Now and Then” series. He, as he usually does, steered us away from a more obvious ending to one that basically let the picture do the talking. As the song says: “that’s what friends are for…”

Have a great weekend and we will see you next week with our two latest.

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

It All Depends on How You Look at It 11/19/21

True story. It’s funny, but it still was a digital slap in the face. I was getting ready to pay a bill using the Venmo app. Also, I had just gotten a new, upgraded iPhone. Apparently this Venmo app wants to connect with your telephone list so it can properly direct your payments. It’s just some silly algorithm that checks your phone list out and says “You have 287 friends,” or some such blather. The app counts the number of contacts you have and enters it into the appropriate space. Well, since it was a new phone and I hadn’t yet synched up all my contacts, the damn phone came up with a screen saying “You have 0 friends.” Now granted there’s a sane, rational part of me that laughed and thought “They really should come up with a different way to express that. Instead of saying I have zero friends, they could tell me I haven’t yet synched up my phone list to Venmo.” But nooo. They said “You have 0 friends.” So there’s this other part of me (the part that always takes over) that thinks “Oh really? Says who? What about Jimmie and Rich, and Marvin and Peter and Ted and John and Rob? And let’s not forget Ali, Greg, Joanie, Mark, Buzzy and Stuart. Even though they’re family, they count as friends too, don’t they??? How dare you? But it’s just an algorithm, so let’s move on. And it didn’t really affect me at all. Well, maybe just a little.

Our next comic took place at a trip to the eye doctor. Now we know Larry David featured a trip to the eye doctor last Sunday night on Curb Your Enthusiasm, but we thought up our trip to the eye doctor before his ever ran. So there. Anyway, is there anything worse than failing a test? I had a lot of practice at it in high school, but it still doesn’t blunt the humiliation. And how many tests do we take now anyway, except for those ridiculous online quizzes that nobody takes (except for me). Are you good in bed? Apparently not. Rock hard abs, six steps to help anyone create a six pack. Not me. Are you a genius? See how many of these questions you can answer? Not too many. But failing a visit to the eye doctor? That takes the proverbial cake. No matter how hard you squint you can’t make out the difference between a “c” and an “o” on line 4. Here’s a conspiracy theory. I’m convinced they make the type so small on those eye charts so they can sell you a new set of progressive lenses. And our conservative readers can relax. It’s not THAT kind of progressive.

John is back in town from his daughter’s wedding and we are back in gear. We will see you next week with two new comics including one wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving.

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

These are a few of my favorite things 7/09/21

It’s kinda hard to believe that we are already past two of the big three summer holidays. At least we don’t have to go back to school. But as we race along through the year, it’s good to take stock of where we’ve been and where we’re going. Like Marv, who moved his mom into an assisted living home, where she was happy to go (hey this is a comic and things work out the way we want them to work out, okay)? But now it was time to get her papers in order, whatever that means. To me it means shuffling them around and putting them into piles that make sense at the time, and then never doing anything with those piles. But it was in the nascent days of The New 60 when John and I were at work on a bunch of upcoming comics. We had yet to hit our working rhythm. So, we would either work at his apartment on the balcony or my apartment on the balcony (this is before he moved over 100 miles away-maybe it was my breath?). This was also before the invention of Zoom. On this particular day we were working on my deck and John showed me a bunch of magic marker-type drawings he had done for upcoming ideas. He was very well prepared. He even came with stones to use as paperweights. Trouble is, I live right by the Hudson River and it gets pretty windy (note, if Larry David hadn’t already made it his trademark, I would’ve said, pretty, pretty, pretty windy, but he already said it so I can’t). Moving on, John neglected to place said drawings under said stones when a huge gust of wind came along and blew all the papers off the deck. I live on the 3rd floor so we had to knock on the people’s door on the second floor whohave the deck right below me, and then we actually broke into the deck on the ground floor and recovered almost everything, and while I was breaking and entering, John was going through some prickly shrubbery to recover the rest, and eventually emerged, worse for wear. Somehow, this turned into Marv losing his mom’s papers, but you get the idea.

Next up is the guys at the diner talking about one of their favorite topics, food. Hint to our women fans, when guys get together (heterosexual guys anyway), they used to talk about girls but after a certain age, they talk about food. Not just any food, but the food we sneak so you don’t see us eating it. There, the secret’s out. Shoot me. On second thought, please don’t. We had a lot of (un)healthy debate about McDonald’s vs White Castle vs In ‘n Out, but thought In ‘n Out was too esoteric for our east coasters. Another hint, if you go to In ‘n Out, as I once did with my nephew David, order it “animal style.” It’s an insider’s secret he taught me and now, well, I’ve blown that too. In short, don’t tell me secrets. Shhh. That’ll be our little secret.

We will see you next week with two new ones hot off the press. Until then enjoy your summer weekend.

Andy and John

On implants and veggie dogs 6/25/21

I was in Pittsburgh this past weekend and was bemoaning the loss of a cultural institution there, The Original Hot Dog Shop, listed in Google as “permanently closed.” It was better known as “The Dirty O” or “Essie’s Original Hot Dog Shop,” and it closed after 60 years. It opened up a block away from Forbes Field, where the Pirates used to play, and it debuted in 1960, the year the Pirates beat the Yankees in the World Series. The “O” was so beloved, Mark Cuban tried to buy it to save it, but to no avail. So there I was in Pittsburgh lamenting the loss of the “O” (full disclosure, I had a hot dog and fries there at 3 am after my wedding, some 37 years ago). So I asked a friend, where do you go for a dog these days? And he said Dee’s, without a moment’s hesitation. He added that he went there with his family, including his wife who does NOT like hot dogs. So she ordered a veggie dog, and when she asked the counterman what she should put on it, he replied, “meat.” So there it is. The New 60’s first ever comic that came complete with a punchline. Over the years, we’ve gotten lots of suggestions for ideas that we have taken and tweaked. But until now, no idea had ever come complete with a funny ending. I promised never to use people’s names to avoid embarrassing them, but in this case you know who you are and thanks for the story. It went down easier than, dare we say it, a veggie dog. A lot easier.

The second strip also came from a personal experience. This happened when my dentist shaved my four lower middle teeth into nubs and my periodontist pulled them a couple weeks ago. He put it implants, and I have to wait three months for them to heal. Now, if you are a certain type of person (hint: a guy) and you hear the word “implants,” what do you think of? Not teeth. And that’s what propelled us to our second comic of the week. One reason we love this comic is because it leads us to conversations like the following. I was getting off the plane Monday and looked at my phone and John had sent me his pencil sketch of the implants’ comic. The ending had Sam a little confused as he wondered why anyone would want bigger teeth. I wondered if “bigger” was the right word. Might it be fuller teeth or perhaps rounder teeth? In other words, what word would make the reader think instantly of breast implants. After much back and forth, we decided on “bigger.” And to think we could get paid for doing this…

Enjoy your summer as it starts warming up for good. Half of the New 60 staff is heading out to the beach, but don’t worry, this comic works remotely as well. Have a great weekend and we will be back to you next Friday with two new ones.

Andy and John

Sam Embraces Fatherhood 5/14/21

Being a new father is exhilarating, life-altering and exhausting. But what about if you’re in your 60’s? Luckily, neither John nor I would know, but what follows is what we imagine it would be like. This series is informed by friends of ours who are first time grandparents in their 60’s. It’s pretty much the same experience, except you don’t get to give the kid back to the real mommy and daddy once the weekend is over. In Sam’s case He IS the real daddy. I have a friend who started taking off Fridays so he could help his pregnant daughter by babysitting her toddler. My buddy and his granddaughter had a great routine culminating in lunch at the diner, followed by nap time. Yeah right. Grandpa and his granddaughter would head back to his daughter’s house and lie on couches facing one another. He would put his granddaughter’s favorite blankie around her, and take another blanket for himself. It’s debatable who needed the nap more. Actually, it’s not very debatable at all because each time my friend would feel himself drifting off, his granddaughter would get up off the couch and pull his blanket off, giggling. This went on for a long time before she finally wore out. And by that time, he was toast. That was with one grandchild. Now there are two, and instead of playing man-to-man he was forced to switch to a zone defense.

Our second comic features the other 60-somethings commenting on Sam’s absence from their diner crew. A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, but somehow, someway, he’ll get a babysitter and then life can go back to normal, or at least he can join his buddies at the diner once a week. Is that too much to ask? Not only does a newborn add a lot to life, it also adds many a plot twist to your favorite comic strip. You’ll see them in the coming weeks. Sam got more than what he bargained for but he and Shellie and his buddies at the diner will all figure it out. Or, as the Beatles once famously sang, Ob-la-di, ob-la-da/Life goes on, bra…

See you next week with two new chapters in the continuing saga of Stay at Home Sam.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

The New Normal 4/16/21

If you are like either of us, you start making more and more noises accompanying physical exertion. Bend down to pick something up - that’s a noise. Stretching while getting out of bed - another noise. Leaning over to retie an untied shoelace - yet another. Sitting down in a chair, getting up from said chair, exiting and entering a car, and let’s not even talk about going to the bathroom. The point is the older we get, the more noises we make. John and I thought it would be fun to do a comic on this. The only trouble was how to spell the specific sounds. Like how do you spell the sound when you stretch in the morning? I spell it Uhharghhhh! To John it’ s more of a AAaaarrhghh. Guess who pens and inks in the letters? Guess who wins. I’ve got something to say about that. Unnnnnnhhhhh! Now I promised myself I wouldn’t be like that when I got to certain age, but creeeeeakkkk, here I am. As the saying goes, Man plans, God laughs.

Our other comic is about America’s new favorite phrase to explain everything, “in an abundance of caution.” In an abundance of caution will you please wear a mask before entering, wash your hands before touching, don’t rake the sand trap or touch the flag stick, and subject yourself to the temperature gun. In an abundance of caution my favorite beachside roadstand stopped serving fried whole clam bellies and soft serve ice cream, which were the only two reasons I liked going there. Now don’t get us wrong, we realize much of this is necessary, but some folks take it a little too far. Example, friends who ask, “Have you gotten your vaccine yet?” before they’ll talk to you on the phone. Okay, I exaggerated a little bit there but you get the point. I used to use Lysol wipes to germ-proof the groceries and the grocery bags before putting them away. After receiving our second doses, no more of that. At last, now that we have the vaccine, we can all breathe a little sigh of relief. Just don’t do it if you’re less than 6 feet away from me, okay?

That’s it for this week and we’ll see you next week with two new ones. And if we see you, please make sure to wear a mask.

Andy and John

On sexy voices and unsexy dining companions 2/19/21

You know those annoying calls? Why are they always about extending your car warranty? And why do they chastise you (“This is the fifth time we’ve tried to reach you…”)? Doesn’t work. Yet they keep trying. But sometimes, sometimes that voice on the other end is kind of sexy. And we know it’s a robot voice, but still. John and I discussed whose voice would be the most attractive to our audience. I pushed for Scarlett Johansson but then John reminded me that our comic is called The New 60 and we settled on a cross between Suzanne Pleshette (from the Bob Newhart Show) and Kathleen Turner (Body Heat, among others). And don’t pretend you don’t know Bob Newhart. Anyway, we thought about how many steps we take to ban these numbers from ever calling us back (kind of like unfriending somebody on FaceBook). I have entered my cell phone number on a National Do Not Call Registery, I’ve blocked individual crank calls so many times it makes me dizzy and I’ve said some pretty rude things to these voices before I realized they are mostly robots. None of it seems to work. But what if you really liked that voice and wanted to save it? What would you do then? And that was the impetus for our first comic.

Comic number two comes straight from the front pages (even if you get your newspaper digitally). In New York State, where we both live, indoor dining is open again in a limited capacity with distance and mask restrictions. But it’s been so long since we’ve been at the diner, we (and our characters) were longing to go back in. But we thought, what did people use to do back when people got together? The first thing was pulling out your cell phone and sharing adorable pictures of your family. And we thought, that would be pretty tough from 6-feet apart. For all you naysayers out there, we didn’t put them in masks, since a) they were socially distant and b) you can’t eat with a mask on. But rest assured (at least in your imagination) that they will be putting their masks back on when they leave. Even if they’ve received their first vaccinations.

So that’s the show for this week. Have a great weekend, and if you’re in Texas, we pray you have a warm weekend as well. See you next week with two new ones,

Andy and John

On Covid Shots and Almond Milk 2/12/21

A couple of weeks ago, my wife had to go back home to Pittsburgh. As I drove her to the airport, she asked me to be sure I booked us Covid-19 vaccinations. I breezily said, “No problem.” As we’d speak each night, she’d ask, “Did you book the appointments yet?” And each night I’d say, “No, I can’t find one.” This routine started to elevate to a different level, when my answer was met with a, “Well Peter and Renee (friends) got them.” And soon enough, it seemed like almost everyone we knew over the age of 65 had managed to get one. But not me. When she came back over a week later, she tried herself, and (much to my inner satisfaction), she couldn’t find one either. And then she was on the phone with yet ANOTHER 65+ friend, who had gotten hers. When Joanie asked her friend how she got it, the friend said, “Oh, I asked my niece. She’s gotten appointments for her parents, and us, she just knows what to do.” Then came the follow up question: “Would it be too much of an imposition to ask her if she could schedule one for Andy and me?” Within the next five minutes, we had appointments for our first shots. We had been given two gifts, our first Covid vaccinations and today’s first comic. Plus, I was freed from answering “Did you book the shots yet” question and from giving the “No, not yet” reply. Which is always helpful.

Onto comic two. We have a habit in my family of buying almond milk, using a little then forgetting about it. Judging from some responses to this comic on Facebook, almond milk is not universally loved. One of our readers, Ed Comiskey from Florida, wrote that his favorite recipe for almond milk was to open the container and pour it down the drain. Works for me. I guess it’s good for making smoothies, but c’mon now. Have you ever tried to milk an almond? Hint: doesn’t work. But if you want to live a vegan life, be my guest. I won’t judge. Well, maybe a little. And please don’t invite me over for dinner. Also consider this: Tom Brady, whose TB12 diet includes no dairy, probably drinks almond milk, and what the hell has he ever accomplished?

So that’s it for this week. We will see you again next Friday with two new ones, and if you haven’t gotten your vaccinations yet, don’t fret, Walgreens and CVS are coming to the rescue, and everybody over 60 knows how to find one of those.

Andy and John

Winter Wonderland 2/5/21

Newsflash: it hasn’t exactly been the easiest winter. Now in addition to Covid and Marjorie Taylor Greene, we had a huge snowstorm, another is on the way, and Tom Brady is back in the Super Bowl. Yeah, that Tom Brady. In a pathetic attempt to be topical, your intrepid cartoonists decided to do a Super Bowl comic this week and another about shoveling snow. First of all, it’s important to note that we have entirely different perspectives on the aforementioned Tom Brady, The GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). While I am a Giants fan and we beat Tom and the Patriots not once, but twice, in two Super Bowls, John is a Jets fan and they have had decidedly less success against Mr. Brady. Secondly, through a weird glitch in the universe, both my children were born during Giants Super Bowl winning years, although not against Brady. So the inspiration for watching with your baby comes with experience. Truth be told, it was John’s suggestion, even though it was my experience. My solution, back in ‘86 and ‘90 was to offer my wife the following deal, “Honey, I’ll watch the baby (and in the case of our second child {the kids} all day), but when it comes kickoff time, I’m off duty.” And since my wife doesn’t really care about football, she was only too happy to comply. Now back to the comic. It is my contention that John has been psychologically bruised by having Brady and the Pats beat on his beloved Jets time and time again. So it was no accident when he thought it would be funny to have the baby spit up on his Tom Brady jersey. I don’t think that makes up for all the beat downs but hey, every little bit helps.

Now onto the second comic. I have a friend who is a stand-up comic and writes for Jimmy Kimmel. She once said about Facebook, “They should call it In your Face… Book.” You know, people telling you how much better their life is than your life. How great their vacation is, their relationship is, their kids are, etc. Well that’s kind of the way it is with a lot of snowbirds. I can’t prove it but I have a sneaking suspicion they get a little kick when it’s 78 degrees and sunny outside and they’re lounging in the pool with a pina colada, while we are shoveling 18 inches of snow off our driveways. The reason I suspect this is because that’s exactly how I’d feel if I’d have been smart enough to move someplace warm. And why is it that we Northerners can come up with no better excuse than, “We like the change of seasons?” Don’t get me wrong, the change of seasons is nice, but so is watching the Super Bowl from a hot tub, while nursing a beer and cigar, like I did a few years back at my cousin’s house in Florida. After which, my wife and I flew back home and enjoyed the hell out of the rest of the winter.

That’s it for this week. And before signing off, I’d like to celebrate the life and times of my mother-in-law Charlotte Bluestone, a selfless, loving soul who passed away at the age of 99 1/2 years. You’ll be missed. We will be back to you next week with two new comics. Thanks for reading.

Andy and John

Meditations on Meditation 1/29/21

A couple weeks ago I was in a virtual meeting via Zoom. I was feeling a bit stressful when a friend of mine, Rena DeLevie, sent me an article she had written for HuffPost on the topic of meditation, a sort of how to guide that said to me, however you want to go about it, do it like that. I thought about how I used to do it on the Metro North Railroad, while wearing noise-cancelling headphones, how I would shut myself in a room at home and invariably end up falling asleep, or how I used to purloin one of the rooms set aside for lactating women at work so that I could have a 20 minute session when the need to meditate came on. The article gave me such a good laugh, I shared it with John and it became the inspiration for our three-part series on, you guessed it, meditation. Here is a link to Rena’s very funny guide to meditation:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-feisty-guide-to-meditat_b_9421350

This week you saw the final two installments of our three-part series. In part two Marv picks out a mantra, at Al’s urging. As the aforementioned article said, anything will work. Well, this actually pisses me off since my wife and I paid a small fortune to get our mantras “specially chosen for us” by some Maharishi named Katz at a Westchester Center for TM (don’t ask how much, ‘cause I’m not telling). In fact, and this may go into the category of TMI or Too Much Information (for you folks that hate acronyms) but I frequently push away thoughts of my next meal when meditating. So when the article mentioned tuna fish as a possible mantra, John and I just ran with it. By the way, I do recall my maharishi or guru (or whatever you call him) telling me NOT to meditate right after a meal. “It’s better to be alert,” he said. Well, I beg to differ, unless you want to keep muttering “guacamole” as you put myself into a restful state.

The third and final installment comes from the TM (that’s Transcendental Meditation for you acronym haters) teachings on meditation. They tell you to concentrate on clearing your mind by repeating your mantra softly, to yourself. If you said it out loud, people would likely think you were crazy for talking to yourself about suuuu-shi rollllls, or tuuuu-na or whatever it is you’ve chosen (see, I’m writing this around lunchtime and can’t help the damn food references). The trouble comes with the clearing your mind part. It’s like that old saying, try not to notice the elephant in the room. It’s all you can notice. Try not to think of anything else except your mantra, go ahead, I dare ‘ya. But eat first, trust me.

So that’s it for this week. Thanks as always for reading The New 60 and the blog and for passing it on to your friends. We will see you next week with two new ones and no, they will not be about meditation.

Andyyyyyyy and Johnnnnnnn