Country Living. 06/28/24

Hurray! Summer’s here! And so are bugs! And mosquitoes! Wait, don’t mosquitoes count as bugs? Never mind. Point is, there’s a lot to love about the summer. And a lot to hate. It seems like there are basically three types of preferences for summer living, among people lucky enough to be able to afford choices for summer living. One group loves the beach. There’s nothing like the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, the gentle ebb and flow of the tide, the squawk of the seagulls, the occasional whale sighting, long walks and cooling dips. There’s nothing like it. Unless you hate sand, have fair skin and don’t want to get sunburned, think it’s a pain in the butt to load your car with Tommy Bahama chairs and umbrellas, coolers, plastic glasses and towels, sunscreen and talcum powder. Talcum powder? Yes there’s a little-known trick for removing the wet sand from your feet before getting back into the car. You sprinkle talcum powder on your feel and ankles. It instantly absorbs the wetness, then you brush it off with your hands and the sand comes completely off with no effort. Now it’s true that talcum powder has been linked to some serious diseases, but man, does it take the sand off! Except for the little grains that find their way into your sandals, the floor mats of the car, the beach house you rented, and of course, the bedsheets.

Another option is the country house. If you’re a country person you probably like hiking, forests, mountains and building stuff with your own hands. A swimming pool is always a nice accessory. Sure there are bugs. And bumpy driveways (John has a long and bumpy driveway that was the inspiration for Sam’s long and bumpy driveway). Full disclosure: John is a country guy, I’m a beach guy. He can build a deck or an outdoor garden or a manly fire pit. If a tree falls, he gets out his chain saw and cuts it into firewood. I can barely get the beach umbrella into the ground (although we have the kind where the end looks like a big plastic screwdriver, so that helps big time). As for firewood, we buy it in bundled logs outside the grocery store.

And then there’s a third type. The stay at home in the city type. Good news: you can easily get into plays and restaurants and comedy clubs and museum exhibitions that are tough to get into when everybody is home. It’s less crowded. There’s less traffic. And it can seem like you have the whole place to yourself. Of course there’s also an unrelenting hot sun bouncing off the pavement when you walk, heaping bags of trash on the street waiting for collection, no place to jump in the water, and you are just counting the minutes or seconds until you are back home. Inside. But no bugs.

The classic push/pull between city and country folk was brilliantly covered in the show Green Acres. Da da duh da da: fresh air! Da da duh da dam Times Square! And in this series we are having fun with Sam’s country enthusiasm and Shellie’s country reticence. But hey, how come there’s no Green Acres chorus about the beach???

Have a happy summer wherever you are and however you choose to spend it and we’ll see you (virtually) next week with our final two installments of Sam and Shellie’s country house.

Andy and John

Sonny Starts and Sam's a Free Man 5/21/21

Becoming a grandfather for the first time in your 60’s is a wonderful experience. Becoming a father for the first time in your 60’s? Not so much. At least not in our limited imaginations. So we show Sam in his attempt to be a househusband and he fails spectacularly. That’s one element of our story. The next one is the search for a babysitter or nanny, if you will. So we decided to go against type. Instead of the typical au pair from a Scandinavian country, we decided to go with a big guy with two sleeves of tattoos who has been recently released from prison. And, of course, he happens to be an impeccable choice. On a personal note I happen to have a son with two sleeves of tattoos who happens to be great with kids, though thankfully, he’s not a prisoner.

Our ex-con Sonny studied child psychology while he was in the pen and has a chance to show off his skills. As a babysitter/nanny, he beats the hell out of Sam, who has never been to prison either (at least not as far as we know). And now, a brief respite from the land of funny into the land of serious. These days there is a rash of violence between people just because somebody looks different or comes from a different country or speaks a different language or even has an accent. Sonny is our small attempt to say don’t judge a book by its cover. And yes, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

We will see you guys next week with two new ones featuring a return visit from one of our most popular characters, Al and Joanne’s son, Sid.

Have a great and (at least in some areas) maskless weekend.

Andy and John

New Dad 11/06/2020

Confession: we rented a house in East Hampton for our 30th anniversary in 2014 and never looked back. We’ve done it every year since. Why do I mention that? One it’s a great bribe to get your kids to come and visit you all the time. But the other reason is you see all sorts of sights. From the beautiful…the pristine beaches, spectacular sunsets, the golden light … to the less than beautiful … including older, saggy men with young starlets strolling down said pristine beach. And that leads into today’s comics. Sort of. It’s not that Sam is in his 80’s and Shellie in her 20’s (and believe me, I’ve seen that combo). It’s not even that he has attracted her with his spectacular wealth and power (of which he has neither). It’s just that he married a significantly younger woman. And we thought that might affect the dynamic between Al, Marv and Sam. Primarily because Al’s wife Joanne and Marv’s wife Rachel liked Sam’s first wife and related to her, and they were all part of the same generation. But this new young whippersnapper Shellie, as they say in Brooklyn, fuhgeddaboudit. Except now Shellie (the young whippersnapper is 40, mind you) has had a baby, and this brings Rachel and Joanne around. And it’s going to make Sam’s life far different from his buddys’ lives all over again. First they were the ones who couldn’t stay out late, who had to cancel plans because they couldn’t find a baby sitter, who were always exhausted, but now HE is goingto be the one experiencing all of that when Al and Marv can stay out as late as they want (of course, being in their 60’s that’s not very late, but it’s nice to have options). The first comic also touches on the fact that men are basically babies themselves. Think about it. The woman does all the carrying. Goes through all the nausea. Bares all the labor pain and is the baby’s source of nutrition. And Sam sort of feels bad that all the attention is on the baby and Shellie. We all go through personal growing pains. Sam is about to go through his.

The second comic, on the same topic, touches on the ways in which society has changed and keeps on changing. When we grew up we had chocolate cigarettes and even better big, fat chocolate cigars (only milk chocolate in those days, thank you very much) and who can forget Big League Chew, which took a cancerous product like chewing tobacco and reformulated it as shards of bubble gum. It even came in a resealable pouch just like the real thing. In the past we ran a comic about a grandchild’s horror that Al was still using plastic straws. And so today, we thought one further shock to Sam’s reality was that he no longer could pass out cigars. But hey, organic fruit rollups are almost just as good. Especially when paired with an aged 12-year old scotch. Sam’s life is about to change big time.

Ours, not so much. We’ll see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Ahh yes, it's Valentine's Day 2/14/2020

If you’re a cynic, you could call Valentine’s Day a cheap, Hallmark Holiday, invented only to sell cards and chocolate. But face it, nobody likes it when you forget their birthday, and a lot of people don’t appreciate it when you forget Valentine’s Day. We’d say, mostly women don’t like it, but we are living in politically correct times, so we said people don’t like it. Even though, with all the pink ribbons and heart-shaped boxes it’s clearly aimed at…

We digress. The past two years we did comics about our hapless guys forgetting and either trying to make a last-minute, desperate, Hail-Mary pass, OR - as we did last year - have the guys suffer the consequences. So this year, we wanted to try something different by introducing a new character, Sam’s new wife Shellie. Last week Craig, our confirmed bachelor, noticed that Sam and Shellie were rarely included when the couples went to dinner or on vacations. And Al and Marv revealed their wives didn’t much care for Shellie. Not because she’s a quarter of a century younger than them mind you, just ‘cause.

So Al and Marv felt a bit guilty about this, as they pondered an invitation to Sam and Shellie’s for a Valentine’s Day Dinner party (see how we cleverly wove Valentine’s Day in there?). After a little convincing they all agree to go to the party.

Our second comic in this continuing saga takes place at the aforementioned party. When Shellie refuses a drink, the wives know something’s up. Al and Marv have no idea what’s going on. So this year, rather than being clueless about Valentine’s Day, they are clueless about Shellie.

At this point you may be wondering if men are so clueless, how can men think this stuff up? And we would say to you, uhh, we have no clue. So have a great weekend and oh yeah…

Happy Valentine’s Day

Andy and John