We're not getting old, just older 10/09/2020

There was an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm last year where Larry David wants to go to the bathroom, but this old man using a walker is ahead of him and Larry can’t pass him in the hallway. So behind the guy’s back, Larry waves his arms in a “come on already, get a move on!” type of gesture. I must admit to that feeling sometimes (okay a lot of times) (okay, all the time) but our first comic today is the total opposite of that. It summons our better angels. Kind of like Mike Pence during the debate Wednesday, expressing thanks to Kamala and Biden for their well wishes towards President Trump and Melania’s recoveries. It’s such a relief from the constant fighting, but face it, conflict is much more entertaining. That’s why most of our comics are about some kind of conflict, but this time, we thought we’d try something different. Maybe it’s that we’re getting nicer as we get older but maybe it’s that as we feel more vulnerable, we want to be treated the way Al’s son treated him in this strip. At least in my case, it’s the latter.

Full disclosure: when we decided the plot was going to revolve around building something, an age-old father-son activity, I told John, “You’re gonna have to figure out what they build because I’ve never done anything like this in my life, I’m Jewish.” Except for that one time when my daughter Ali moved into her first Brooklyn apartment with two former college roommates. I took her to Ikea and we bought bookshelves, among other things, and I mounted them above the desk in her bedroom. Luckily she went to work everyday because a couple weeks later, the whole assembly, books and all, came crashing down on her desk when she wasn’t there, thank goodness. But like I said, I’m Jewish.

The second comic features the little kid falling asleep but grandpa keeps reading anyway. Well John had experienced that as a dad, and I have a television version of the same story. Many years ago, when our kids were still at home, we joined them in watching one of their favorite shows, Dawson’s Creek. As the weeks passed, we got into it with them and it became a family activity every Wednesday (or whatever day of the week it was) evening. As we got into the next season though, something happened. The kids started losing interest but Joanie and I were riveted. It got to the point where we were watching it alone because they couldn’t be bothered with such a babyish show. I must admit we watched it right until the series finale when Mitch Leary, Dawson’s father, tragically lost his life. He was driving at night down a two-lane, unlit country road while licking an ice cream cone. The top scoop fell off and he reached down to pick it back up. By the time he was sitting upright he had crossed the yellow line and a two ton truck was roaring to him…I can’t go on. But this is all a (very) long-winded way of saying that sometimes we get more caught up in our kids’ or grandkids’ activities even more than they do.

Enjoy the weekend, and follow our rule, don’t eat outdoors unless the restaurants have a freaking heat lamp!

Andy and John

On tailgating and stuffed drawers 09/25/2020

So I called my buddy Rich up and asked, where are we watching the Giants game Monday night? 3 of us were going to congregate at his house. Then he asked his wife Sue and she was understandably uncomfortable with that idea. Then I offered my apartment and nobody thought that was a good idea either. So we all sat in our individual homes and texted. Not as good. But we have to adjust. No fans, nobody coming over, yikes. I spoke to John about this and offered that they used to have big screens outside Giants stadium, and why couldn’t the guys in our comic get together and tailgate in the parking lot. His response was, “Would they even let you in? I don’t think so.” So we put our heads together and came up with going to the local sports bar. You’re certainly not going to sit inside, but then when you sit outside, could you possibly see the tv inside? Answer: no. Then we thought, if you’ve ever asked to make a call or send a text in a restaurant, you’d have their wireless password, and bingo, our first comic this week was born. The point is, we’re social animals so we’ll figure out a way to get together somehow. But just keep your damn mask on, okay? And around the chin doesn’t count. Neither does under the nose. In the words of Bill Maher, that’s like wearing a condom around your balls. So around your nose and under your chin and then we’re cool, capiche?

Our second comic deals with accumulating stuff. Boxes of stuff, drawers of stuff, magazine racks of stuff, bookshelves of, well, you get the drift. There’s one particular drawer in my kitchen with some knives, a juice-squeezer, tongs, etc. Half the time we open it, it gets stuck. Then you have to root around with your hand to turn something flat so the drawer opens. For instance, we have three pairs of scissors. One of them are the “good scissors”, the ones that work, but we keep the others around “just in case.” When we moved from a house to an apartment we got rid of lots of stuff, like the kids old soccer and baseball equipment, and (sigh) several boxes of lp records, which never made it out of the garage because we just had a cd player.

After all that cleaning out however, we now have new electronic stuff. SInce John is an artist and illustrator, he has even more stuff than I do, but we ran through the list of SWK (Shit We Keep) and came up with the list that appears in this comic. John came up with the electric gooseneck candlelighter, since he actually has one that plugs into a USB port. I still have a butane powered one, though I have no idea where I keep the butane, so when the lighter runs out, I buy more butane to go along with the butane I can’t find, and we wonder how we accumulate so much stuff? How do we avoid getting overrun with it? I have a theory that in every relationship there’s a hoarder and a chucker-outer. I personally have a limit of 3 back issues of any magazine. When we have more than three of any magazine, New York, New Yorker, Bon Appetit, Vanity Fair, I surreptitiously chuck it out. Shhh, don’t tell anyone. But damn, since my wife proof reads the blog every week, she’s going to find out. Oh well.

Have a nice weekend and for our Jewish friends, we hope your fast isn’t too painful (but face it, you’ve probably got a lot to atone for). See you next week.

Andy and John

Summer's going, going... 08/28/2020

As we all cope with the end of summer and the Covid season, we thought about how things have changed. And there’s no better way to express ourselves than another entry in our “Then and Now” series. In the past we contrasted passing around a joint with passing around reading glasses (one is much more fun), sex then and now, and since it is the summer, we took a shot at how we take in the sun. My mother used to put on baby oil and iodine and then hold a reflector under her face. John never knew her and we never discussed this, but he just showed me a picture of “Then” and I said, “Holy shit, that’s my mom.” As for the “Now,” well, that’s easy. Cover up and cover up the cover up some more. At the beach a couple weeks ago, a friend proudly wore a zip hoodie wth UPF 50+. Now I have no idea what the hell “UPF”stands for, but it sounds extremely protective. In short, we love the sun and summer, but do everything in our power to protect ourselves from it.

The second comic came from a discussion about what to do with the grandkids when you’re stuck inside. There’s always the jigsaw puzzle and John introduced me to a trick I’d never heard of. He knows a lot of tricks I never heard of (apparently I lived a very sheltered childhood), but this one was so good visually, we had to make it into a comic. Seriously, what kid would go to the trouble of finding all the pieces that go in the middle of the puzzle, hide them when grandpa wasn’t looking, and then sneak under the table to place his face in the missing hole? Who would even think of that. Hmm, maybe someone extremely visual like, John? Huh?

At any rate, we hope you enjoyed this week’s comics and we will be back with our end of summer strips and then, it’s onto flu season. Enjoy!

Andy and John

The New Reality 05/29/2020

Have you experienced this at the grocery store? You get ready to go, put on your latex gloves (we haven’t used this much latex since college, but that’s another story), slip on your mask, take along your disinfectant wipes and off you go. First anomaly is you get the cart and THEN they have wipes at the front entrance after you’ve already touched the cart. Now okay, we can deal with the one way signs down each aisle and the obvious impossibility of maintaining 6-feet when the person in front of you, mask around his or her chin, is pondering which of 36 varieties of paleo granola to pick. But, then you finally lose your patience and pass them. BUT, and we do mean BUT, the real challenge occurs at the checkout line. Do you think those taped x’s are really 6 feet apart? And is that guy in back of you edging just a little too close? Even that is fine. The real kicker is what we turned into a comic. Andy read that you can pick up the virus when the cashier swipes your credit card through the machine, so he uses his phone and pays in that way. Only problen is A) the phone’s facial recognition feature doesn’t recognize you wearing a mask, requiring him to be one of those aforementioned jerks who proceeds to pull his mask around his chin and B) if the facial recognition still won’t work he now can’t punch in his passcode without first pulling off the damned latex gloves. But you gotta eat, so….

Our second one came from a near mystical experience in Coney Island. Andy decided on his birthday a couple weeks ago to drive down to Brooklyn and walk along the boardwalk. It was a beautiful spring day and he couldn’t pass Stillwell Ave, without getting off the boardwalk and going to Nathan’s. He got the requisite dog and fries and came back to the boardwalk to find a bench facing the ocean, with no one else sitting on it. He carefully pulled out a lysol wipe and wiped the bench down. He unwrapped what is considered the world’s greatest hot dog, and took a bite. It was so good, he closed his eyes and listened to the gentle surf hitting the shore and the sounds of the seagulls. Heaven. Until suddenly some guy comes bounding down the boardwalk blaring rap music from, get this, a boombox! No kidding. Some ear-splitting hip hop dittie about peace, love and understanding. Not really. Anyway, Andy recounted this to John and he said, I got it. Boom boxes and zoom boxes. One thing remains constant. We hate them as much today as we did 30 years ago.

So that’s it for this week. Next week are two goodies about how it feels to get yet another year older and we return to Al’s pizzeria as he considers reopening.

Have a wonderful weekend and if we pass each other, let’s make sure we pull our masks up, okay?

Andy and John

How times have changed 05/08/2020

One thing about this pandemic…it reduces the amount of personal “touches” we have in our daily lives. I’m not just talking about the family members you can’t see and hug. I’m talking about all the tangential people in your life that are suddenly gone. For a suburban New Yorker, there are the people you knew on the train into the city every day, the guy at the bagel and coffee cart, your coworkers, the people behind the counter at the place where you picked up lunch, etc. You also did stuff like going out to dinner, going to the occasional ball game, movie theater and Broadway show. Now all of this is temporarily gone. And the people you do run into are all wearing masks. Andy went to the local coffee shop to pick up a 1 lb. bag of beans last week and two people on the six-foot-apart line he was standing on had the following conversation. Larry: Jim, is that you? Jim: Yeah, who’s this? Larry: It’s me, Larry. Jim: Oh, I didn’t recognize you with the mask, (at which point they each pulled down their masks, which kind of defeats the whole purpose). But that incident is a perfect segue into our first comic.

Andy and his wife Joanie took advantage of Whole Foods’ Senior Hour, where the entire store is open only to people age 60 or over, for one hour, from 8-9 am. Once they got going, they heard, from behind a mask, “Andy, Joanie, hi. It’s my first time taking advantage of being over 60. This is great.” To which Andy thought to himself, is he REALLY over 60 or just close enough so he thinks no one will notice? You know, the only thing worse are the people who bring 12 items to the ‘10 items or less’ express lane. But who’s counting? Anyway, that was the impetus for this week’s first comic.

The second as you scroll down comes from the pandemic giving us so much free time, we can get to those projects we’ve been meaning to get to for the last 20 years. This is clearly more of a John thing than an Andy thing, since Andy has a rule that if something stays in a box through two moves and has never been opened, it’s outta here. If you haven’t gotten to the kids’ bar and bat mitzvah books by the time they hit 30, it ain’t happening. John, in contrast, actually gets to those things. And it is there he noticed he had two prints of every photo he had taken, even the accidental ones of his foot. Good old Fotomat. We guess the offer made sense at the time.

So what’s up for future comics? It seems we only go to two types of places, supermarkets and drug stores, and what’s more exciting than that? We will spend the next week washing our hands and coming up with more CITOC (Comics In the Time Of Covid).

Stay safe,

Andy and John

Togetherness 4/3/2020

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, the question remains: what does togetherness do? If you and your husband/wife/partner/roommate have been cooped up inside for the better part of three weeks due to corona restrictions, we think you know the answer already.

In the past you may have heard your partner tell a particular story 100 times while you sit there patiently and smile. But now, maybe you’re a little bit testier. Maybe hearing the story for the 101st time is not so adorable. Maybe you just want to get on with it and finish the story yourself. After all, you’ve heard it so many times you could finish the story. You know just the right line, where to pause for the laugh, when and how to deliver the punchline, it’s just, it’s not your story. And that little insight was part precursror to today’s first comic. Truth be told, John had the idea for overlapping speech bubbles being a cool way to portray one person cutting off another, and then that very night, when we got to our prospective homes, John found an overlapping thought bubbles cartoon in the New Yorker. The guy was thinking how wonderful it was that he and his girlfriendknew each other so well, they completed each other’s sentences. Meanwhile his girlfriend was thinking, “I hate that you interrupt me all the time!” So we waited a couple months and then put our own spin on it. If you’ve gotten this far you may have noticed we put them in a restaurant with another couple. Nowadays nobody goes to restaurants because they are all closed during the pandemic. One reason for this is we thought it up two months ago and the other reason is ‘cause one day we’re going to go to restaurants again, and this one was about overtalking, not about the novel coronavirus.

The second comic on your scroll IS about coronavirus. Kind of. It’s about what happens when two people are locked inside the same house for too long. Put it this way, if it weren’t for the corona lockdown, this situation wouldn’t have occurred. Okay, it still would have occurred, but with less venom. This idea comes from a couple years back, when Andy was runningn the Cascade dishwashing detergent account at his ad agency. He observed that there were two types of people loading dishwashers, the loaders and the rearrangers. Loaders just want to throw everything in and run the damn machine. Rearrangers see that it could be loaded better so that everything fits in it’s own place and that you can actually squeeze in a couple more dishes or cups if you just do it this way. We imagined that during the corona lockdown, the house could become a bit more combative and that such a conversation might occur.

These times make us all do things we’re not used to doing, especially household chores. For instance, Andy proudly pointed out how he’d just finished vacuuming to his wife (she mops) and she asked, did you remember to do the bathrooms? He hadn’t, by the way. Okay, it’s day 17 of the self-imposed lockdown, make that 17 days, 16 hours, 43 minutes and 07 seconds, but hey, who’s counting?

See you next week and, all jokes aside, everyone please stay healthy

Andy and John

Moving up and moving out 3/13/2020

At the new 60, we try to pick funny situations. But some of them are fraught with emotion as well. Andy has a relative (we keep all our stories anonymous) who lived alone, with a nurse and she had been basically bedridden for a few years. Her nieces and nephews moved her out of the only home she had known as an adult and into an adult living facility. The family dreaded the move but more importantly, her reaction to the move. But what happened was amazing. The woman in question responded by sitting up in her wheelchair, chatting with the other residents, taking part in the activities and basically coming back to life. She never even mentioned her apartment! This of course was the impetus for our two comics this week.

The first one deals with the family nervously breaking the news, but surprise, mom is only too happy to get the hell out. When you think about it, it makes sense. If you are lucky enough to live to a certain age, your friends start dying off, you’re stuck in your apartment, and wait a second this is supposed to be funny, right?

Well, the second comic, now that is funny and not so potentially maudlin. As the baby boomer population ages, these adult communities have more and more facilities to make people’s lives as full as possible. Buses to Broadway matinees, buses to gambling casinos, movie nights, great chefs, card games and a built-in cache of new friends. Who wouldn’t want to live there? This is loosely based on a guy Andy met in the gym, who spent time in a minimum security prison for some kind of insider trading scandal. This is the same place where former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen is staying. The guy said he could watch tv whenever he wanted, they had basketball courts and a softball diamond. He said his friends would come to visit and joke, “I wouldn’t mind living here myself.”

So that’s it for now. Both John and Andy are in grumpy moods because they had separate trips scheduled for warmer climates and now they’re stuck back in the winter. Bah humbug. At any rate, have a coronavirus-free weekend and pump that Purell!

Andy and John

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? 3/6/2020

This week we attempt to answer this age old question. Although one of the “new tricks” is trying to remaster an old trick. Never mind.

The first comic is Marv reuniting with his trumpet. Now that he’s in his 60’s, he’s got all sorts of free time. And why not learn or relearn how to play an instrument? Disclosure: we have a mutual friend who has taken up the harmonica with comparable results, but any comparison between him and Marv is STRICTLY coincidental. Strictly.

But the point is that with this newly open schedule, friends of ours are learning all sorts of new tricks, like how to play golf, do pilates, speak Spanish, etc. So as we dust off the contents of our attics, or sell our houses now that the kids are grown and out, and as we peruse the trumpets, harmonicas, artist’s easels, basketballs, etc., we are tempted to give these activities another whirl.

The next comic up is Sam’s coming to grips with being a new dad. Now this IS a new trick because he’s never been a dad before. And that is a skill that Marv and Al have had plenty of practice at. Just not when they were 62. So in imagining what that could possibly be like, they end up panicking their poor friend. Truth be told, Andy was panicked when he became a new dad, and he was only 33. He had promised to give up smoking (which he did) but in fearing that life as he knew it was about to end, he managed to put on 15 pounds of “sympathy weight.” Andy’s theory: It really isn’t sympathy for what your wife is going through, it’s really panic for what YOU’RE about to go through. Just sayin’. All we can say is “Watch out Sam.” John has a lot of ink in his arsenal and can make you gain as much weight as he wants.

In closing, it seems like you CAN teach an old dog, new tricks. Like starting a comic strip when you’re in your 60’s. Nah. Forget about that example. Too much work.

Have a great weekend.

Andy and John

Old hubby, young wife 2/28/2020

It’s called a lot of things. A May-December romance. Cradle robber. Hollywood romance (think Michael Douglas/Catherine Zeta-Jones). But it is far more common this way than in the older woman/younger man thing, which is getting more popular as time goes on. But back to the older man/younger woman thing, we thought, now THAT is a setup to have some fun with. It doesn’t take much imagination to think how it would go at first, but what about when the passion eventually dies down and reality sets in? What will she think if you want to take her to a Steely Dan concert? Gosh these people are all so old, and come to think of it, so is Sam!!!!

But today Sam had an announcement he wanted to make. He’s going to be a dad. And Sam, never having been a father before, had no idea what to expect. Make no mistake, Al and Marv, who have recently regained their freedom (the kids are grown up and out of the house - mostly) are going to fill him in on what his life is about to become.

No more random Wednesday afternoon, let’s meet at the diner, lunches. No more spur of the moment “Want to go to the Mets game tomorrow?” moments. No more, “poker at my house Thursday.” In fact, Sam’s life as he knows it is over. But he doesn’t know it yet. But don’t worry, he’s about to find out.

Many of our friends are getting that rush of having a new child again, but it’s a grandchild they’re talking about. They love the kids to death but at the end of the day, or the end of the weekend, they get to give the kids back to mommy and daddy. Sam, not so much.

So our first comic deals with the guys’ reactions to Sam’s news and the second one features Dottie - their edgy, sarcastic waitress at the diner - putting her two cents in. Not that she was asked, mind you.

More on this next week and then we’ll move on but this is a storyline that keeps on giving.

Enjoy your weekend and we will see you next week.

Andy and John

On gettting older, not old, damnit! 2/07/2020

The other day Andy was having a fine day thinking up new ideas with John. After they said goodbye, he went into the grocery store. He picked up dinner for that night and noticed a $2.45 discount on the end of his receipt. “What’s this for?” he asks the cashier, pleasantly surprised. She answered, “You get 3 cents off for bringing your own bag and $2.42 off for our senior discount.” Andy said, “But I’m only 26.” To which she gave a good, hearty laugh as if it were the funniest thing she’d heard. But that wasn’t all. That same night his wife and daughter met for dinner in NYC. Ali, his daughter, was a couple minutes late. When she asked for her mom, Joanie, who had already been seated, the hostess said, “Are you with the mature woman?” No shit. Mature woman. Funny but ouch. So here’s Andy’s suggestion to clerks everywhere: If the customer ASKS for a senior discount, then by all means give them the damn discount. But, if the customer doesn’t ask for the discount, don’t offer the freakin’ discount. Maybe it’s worth the extra $2.00 at the movie theater or even the grocery store to have the clerk NOT assume you’re old. And maybe the hostess could have said, are you with the woman with the black dress? Just making a point here.

Which brings us to our first comic today. John read that although your bones stop growing around puberty (of course there are exceptions and people experience growth spurts later) your nose and ears continue to grow. After laughing at that thought, we both blurted out simultaneously, “Well, at least we have that to look forward to.” And comic #1 was born.

As you scroll down you’ll see our second comic, which deals with Sam’s new wife, Shellie. We introduced the idea of her, as opposed to the actual her. A mutual friend told us about a guy in his 60’s who married a woman in her 30’s and now has a 2 year old. We will play out that situation over the next month or so. We wondered, what would Rachel and Joanne (married to Marv and Al) think about Shellie? Would they resent her for being 38? Would they miss Sam’s first wife and be loyal to her? What the hell would they talk about? The possibilities are endless and we intend to mine them.

One final thought: Just remember as the days and years tick on, we’re not getting old. Just a little old-er. Okay?

Andy and John

Zen and the Art of Car Maintenance 12/13/19

Okay, okay you got me. This week’s entries have absolutely nothing to do with Zen.

Nada.

Zilch.

But they do have a lot to do with car maintenance. First of all I need to explain the cultural phenomenon here. Andy is Jewish. He doesn’t know how to do car repairs. John (as Adam Sandler might sing) not a Jew and is therefore a do it yourselfer. But what seems easy often is not. Sure that clown in the YouTube video tells you it’s easy, but when he starts mentioning super hot halogen bulbs and potentially starting electrical fires, well, no thanks. Which is why Al sheepishly ends up going to the service bay of his car dealer. This reflects the experience of one of us. We’ll leave it to you to figure out which one of us that is. Hint: the only thing Andy ever successfully did from a YouTube video was figuring out how to descale a Nespresso Coffeemaker. Please, hold your applause.

This week’s other comic comes with a shout-out to our mutual friend, Alex Avsharian. He told John about this wiggling-your-finger-in-your-ear-to-sound-like-PacMan phenomenon. John asked Alex if we could use it in a strip (no we weren’t desperate, thank you very much) and he said, “Sure, I got it off a meme in the first place.” Thanks anyway Alex. If it weren’t for you, we’d never know how to make that sound. We know other mature tricks like this (how to do a convincing fake vomit sound, for instance) but our huge editorial staff is still deciding whether or not to release that highly classified piece of intel.

So enjoy (or hate) the impeachment trials or if you do still go to work in an office, enjoy online holiday shopping and then the trials (we’ve been there, done that and know exactly how much work is getting done in this run-up to Christmas Break.)

We will see you next week with a theme around those lovely Holiday Cards.

Andy and JOhn

On technology and mustaches: sometimes they work, sometimes not so much 11/22/19

We couldn't let the month of November pass by without a nod to Movember. Huh? Movember is a portmanteau (thanks to Andy’s daughter Ali for the definition), a mash up of two words. And for Movember, guys are supposed to grow a mustache to raise awareness of men’s health issues. The first question we have is why Movember and not Muvember. Mustache starts with mu, last we checked. And why does November get to hog almost all the glory? Can’t we give the poor little mustache two stinkin’ letters? Nooo. It’s all about NOvember. But we digress. The mustache that Al grows to commemorate Movember makes him look like a , well, like a 70’s porn star. Full disclosure, Andy said, why not just say “porn star?” and John replied, “The mustache is specific to 70’s porn stars.” We looked it up and he was right. Why he knew so much about 70’s porn stars is a different subject, but let’s not conjecture.

The second strip, sad to say, is based on a real story that happened to Andy. Most of the time, something funny happens to one of us, or we observe something funny and then we change it to make it a better comic. This particular incident needed no change whatsoever. Andy had just bought the weirdly designed and unsurprisingly expensive Apple wireless earbuds, and when peeing in a restaurant bathroom, the bud fell out of his ear and into the toilet. After debating for at least a minute (am I reaching in there or not?) he rolled up his sleeve and when he bent over, you guessed it, the automatic flush kicked in. The lesson here is clear. If you are over 60 the latest technology is probably not for you. That goes for wireless earbuds and especially for automatically flushing toilets. From now on it’s bulky, old school, Bose Noise Cancelling, over the ear headphones dammit. And leave the ear buds to the millennials.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next week with one new one and one Happy Thanksgiving poster.

Andy and John

Dinner guests from hell 10/25/19

Welcome back, dear readers. You know those people that you haven’t seen in 20 years, then you hook up with them once again, and then you remember why it’s been 20 years since you’ve last spoken? This week we wanted to take you to a dinner with one of those couples. The dinner may seem endless but it’s not the service that makes it long, it’s that YOU want to get the hell out. This particular dinner lasts so long, it takes up both of this week’s comics.

Which brings us around to plastic surgery. As we all know, some face jobs are better than others. Some, let’s face it, really suck. There’s the absolutely “no lines anywhere” look, the “impossibly thick lips” look, the ”more impossibly large boobs” look, and the “subtle but nice” look. That last one makes for a good face lift, but not for a good comic. One time Andy came into a meeting at work, sweating through his blue work shirt, and a woman at the meeting - who was all about plastic surgery - told him, “you know, if you get botox injections under your arms, it can keep you from sweating.” Note: Andy still sweats.

The meal from hell doesn’t end there, though. This couple is one of those notorious “kid braggers.” “My oldest is taking over (your choice): Hollywood, Silicon Valley, Wall St., while our little angel has taken London by storm as a celebrity chef, and is planning a string of start-ups in Beijing.” We’ve all sat through insufferable meals like this, and when you get past a certain age, you (hopefully) curb the urge to say, “why don’t you just shut the ‘f’ up?” Well, we figured out a way to shut them the “f” up, by concentrating on what is really important.

That’s it for now. Have a wonderful weekend and we hope you don’t wind up at dinner with one of those guys. If so, take our advice and call it a night and have coffee and dessert at home. Unless you want to hear about our kids.

Andy and John

On scrolling the web and a personal gas crisis 10/11/19

Do you guys know you need an enhanced drivers license by next year? If you don’t have one by Oct 20, 2020, you won’t be able to board a domestic flight. Armed with that knowledge, Andy went off to the DMV with the necessary multiple forms. When he arrived he had to wait almost two hours. When he got to the clerk, she asked where his social security card was? He said, “I lost it, but here it is on my tax return. She said “That’s the wrong tax return, you need THIS tax return which you don’t have.” Which is why Andy had to apply for a replacement social security card just so he could get his new enhanced license. With us so far? At any rate, while applying, he had to enter his birth date. He scrolled backwards with a vigorous swipe of his index finger, but that only got him back to the 1990’s. So he scrolled again, and again and once more until he finally got to 1953. And THAT, dear readers, was the impetus for our first comic this week.

The next one came from something we all do but never admit to doing. At least John does and it happened to Andy but only once. If you’ve gotten this far, you now know what that is. Andy and John felt the strip needed an intellectual boost so they tackled the delicate and sensitive subject of farting. We know our readers turn to us for insights into the most important and pressing matters of the day and we wanted to let you know how happy we are to research this urgent matter and more like it. You want politics, go the cable news shows. You want insights that can help make you a more well-rounded, intelligent being, come to The New 60.

Have a nice weekend and we will be back by semi-popular demand next week with two new comics.

Andy and John

On the old (thank you notes) and the new (ebikes) 9/19/19

The New:

A comic strip can come from anywhere and anyone. The more John and I experience, the more material we get. This first strip owes a thank you to Stan and Bob from Hastings Velo (shameless plug for a great bicycle store) who sold Andy an ebike and from Mark of Architectural Minerals and Stone (shameless plug #2 for a beautiful store of minerals and gems) who told Andy what he thought of said ebike (It took a lot of stones by the way, pun intended). Now before we go another step further, you might be asking, what on earth is an ebike? An ebike is just like a regular bike, except… it has a motor. When you switch it on and start pedaling, it helps you get up hills. If you’re a fan of these bikes you say, “I use my bike much more often than I would have ever used my regular bike. If you’re not a fan, you say, ‘But that’s cheating.’” The aforementioned Mark, by the way, holds the latter view. So while I felt a bit deflated, John and I got a funny comic out of it, so all in all, it was a pretty good deal.

The Old:

Next up is a strip about thank you notes. Remember them? A lot of people don’t. And while an ebike may improve the riding experience, an e-note just doesn’t cut it. At least not for people of a certain age group. First of all, if you send me an e-thank you note for your wedding or birthday gift, I know you copied the same damn note 100 times and just filled in the blanks for the particular present. Example, “Thank you so much for the beautiful ____________, we will think of you whenever we use it.” Sorry, just doesn’t cut it. So, to our friends and readers, we discuss the dying art of the handwritten thank you note (in cursive, by the way). And if you don’t know what cursive is, then forget we mentioned the entire subject in the first place.

A look at the new and a look at the old. What will we come up with next week? Check your inbox next Friday to see the answer.

That’s it, and have a great weekend.

Andy and John

We Want You! And Al explores Ageism 8/30/19

When we left you last week Al was confronting ageism. He was proving you don’t have to be in your 30’s to be an ageist. In real life, if he had asked a job applicant, “Aren’t you too old for this?” he’d be sued. But this ain’t real life. This is the comics. And Al being Al, never quits while he’s behind. He forges ahead and asks ever more inappropriate questions. This may or may not reflect the career of one of your two favorite New 60 cartoonists, who have been know to ask cringe-worthy questions like, “So, are you gay?” or “Did you hear the one about the Jew, the Black man and the Wasp?” We will leave you to guess which one of us that is.

In this case Al is just curious about why a guy in his 70’s would want to work the counter. And if it’s on his mind, its in his mouth.

In a break with tradition we are also re-posting three of our greatest hits. Why you ask? Well we’re here to tell you why. We are in the process of putting together a “graphic novel” which is fancy talk for a book of our greatest comics along with notations about what led to our ideas and pencil sketches of the creative process at every step along the way. In order to judge the popularity of our strips, we are asking you to respond to this blog by voting for your favorite of the three, or ranking them in order 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

That’s all for now and we will see you next Tuesday. Have a great end of summer and Happy Labor Day.

Andy and John

AL COMMITS AGEISM, YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, AL 8/23/19

Our first idea came from an article Andy’s son Greg sent to Andy. It was about 40 being the new 60. Did anyone say The New 60? The article talked about the last allowable prejudice in these politically correct times. Ageism. The author was saying 40 now seemed old and he felt as if it was perceived the same as being 60 was, hence The New 60. Great article Greg and thanks for the insight. That got us to wondering, are we all subject to ageism, and are we guilty of it, even if we ourselves are seniors? Who among us hasn’t encountered an older person behind the counter at a fast food restaurant, at a Starbucks, or selling running shoes and wondered, aren’t you a little old for this? And the answer is no. If you can do it, then do it. I mean we’re not applying for the Olympic 400 meter relay team. Al confronts such a situation in his fledgling chain store, Pizza on a Stick.

The next idea came from a trip to the Vermont Country Store. Really, that’s what it’s called. They had all sorts of great food, jams, cheeses breads and the like, but, if you are a person of a certain age, they had all this nostalgic stuff from your childhood. 6 oz coke bottles, gummy lemon wedges and orange peels, Colorforms, and toys you’d think don’t exist anymore like, Rock’em Sock ‘em Robots. To us they seem like the coolest things ever made, and we say cliched stuff such as, “they don;t make ‘em like that anymore.” To the younger generation it’s, “yawn, you think this holds a candle to Play Station? Really? Have you ever played Madden 2019? Even once?

No. Because it’s not as good as Rock ‘em Sock ‘em and (if we’re really honest), we’d be terrible at it.

That’s it for this week. See you again next Friday. Have a great last weekend before Labor Day, and stop working so much, will ya’?

The New 60.

Research. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it 7/12/19

We at the New 60 realize viewers have come to expect a certain level of professionalism from this comic strip. We go the extra mile to bring you high-quality laughs- no short cuts taken here, nosiree. It is with this attention to detail in mind that we bring you this week’s two comics and tell you about a recent field trip we went on, all in the name of research. While strolling the aisles of our local supermarket, we noticed how many different versions of popular products there are- line extensions are what we used to call it when we wore our marketing hats. That inspired our first comic. But it’s not just packaged goods that tempt consumers with a wealth of choices. And that leads us to our second comic which we “researched” at an entirely different kind of supermarket.

Al is, shall we say, perturbed at the over 20 varieties of Triscuit crackers he encounters. In the old days if we wanted cheese on a Triscuit, we’d put cheese on for a savory taste. You didn’t need Gouda flavored Triscuits. And if we craved a sweeter taste, we’d put jelly on a triscuit. Or suppose you wanted a thinner cracker? Well then you’d buy Wheat Thins. Not Thin Wheat Triscuits. Really it’s okay to have a little competition. One company doesn’t have to own every variety of every cracker. It’s enough to turn us back into, gasp, bread eaters (but only the gluten free kind). And when’s the last time you checked the cereal aisle? Let me decide what I want to put on my Cheerios. Don’t let some “marketing genius” artificially flavor them for me. And Special K? Fuhgeddaboutit. Just don’t get Al (or either of us) started on this vitally important topic.

Next, we conducted extensive research at one of the new, and very popular, legal marijuana dispensaries. Like we said… no stone unturned (or is it no turn unstoned?) Who knew a simple thing like pot could become as complicated as Triscuits? There’s old fashioned weed, now called flower, vape pens, chocolate candies, grape flavored gummies, something called tinctures, which you take with a dropper and then wax, shatter, pre rolled…you get the idea. And when they start talking about hybrid blends of indica and sativa and ratio of cbd to thc, you need a PhD to understand what’s going on. It makes us long for a simpler time.

Enough ranting for this week. Enjoy the blog, the comics and we will be back at you next week, with two fresh ones. And no, we won’t be offering a Gouda flavored alternative to either comic.

The New 60

Decluttering and other fun topics 6/14/19

Hey, it happens to all of us. The kids grow up, get jobs, and move out of the house. Suddenly the place becomes cavernous. The school taxes are ridiculous, especially since the aforementioned kids are no longer in school. You and your partner think, what are we doing in this money pit? And you move. But first you have to declutter. Out go the kids’ lacrosse sticks, their old cleats, field hockey sticks, art projects, report cards, in short, stuff you saved simply because you had the room to store (and lacked the courage to toss it). It’s easy to get rid of somebody else’s old junk, but what about your own? Surely your new abode can’t accommodate your out of favor exercise equipment, Bowflex, Heavy Hands, ab rollers, etc. It may hurt to give these up for pennies on the dollar, but very few people want them. One of us recalls going out for a run during his yard sale and returning home seeing his old Nordic Track ski trainer in an open trunk, driving down the street. Upon returning to the house, he asked the auctioneer, “so how much did that go for,” and the auctioneer proudly announced, “We got $50 for it.” Forget that it cost $600 new. So if you are considering downsizing, you’ve got two basic alternatives, sell everything you can’t fit into your smaller living quarters for a mere pittance or…don’t move. The choice is yours, our friends. It’s a painful topic, but it makes an entertaining comic strip. At least we hope so.

Our other area this week is computer bots, or in longhand, robots. You know when you get asked to check a box saying “I am not a robot?” and then that isn’t good enough so you have to check how many cars are in the block of pictures, or how many crosswalks or how many cars? And who takes those godawful blurry photographs in the first place??? If you’re reading this blog, you’ve been asked all these questions just to get on our mailing list. It’s a security problem, say the experts. You need this because it’ll protect your readers from being bothered by other internet marketers. Personally, let the damn robots have their day. Just don’t ask me if I’m one of them, okay? So it is both aggravating and the topic of one this week’s comics.

Please enjoy them and let us know what you think in the comments section below. We answer everything we get.

Have a terrific weekend and we’ll see you next Friday. Well we won’t “see you” see you, but you get the drift.

The New 60

Unplugging 6/7

Yeah, we know it’s a little strange writing a blog about unplugging while on a laptop computer. As Alanis Morissette once sang, “Isn’t it Ironic”? And this week, both our comics are about ways to unplug and de-stress. One is about a thing we’ve been doing long before it became a thing. We call it, “taking a walk in the woods.” But it turns out that’s an ancient Japanese custom called Shinrin-Yoku or “Forest Bathing.” Who knew? We stumbled upon it while doing research for a advertising a wood treatment product. It turns out the decaying trees on the ground coupled with the smells of growing trees and leaves give off beneficial smells that reduce stress hormones in men and women. And it’s a slow walk, not a forced hike. But warning, you’ve got to take off the wireless Beats, Bose or Apple headphones and listen to stuff like the birds chirping and the wind rustling the leaves and the babbling brooks. Why do we need this? Well, I can only speak for myself (Andy) but I can often be found watching a Mets game on my tv, while doing the crossword on my iPad and pausing to shoot off an occasional text on my iphone. All this while receiving a bump on the wrist from my apple watch telling me it’s time for deep breathing. We thought the name “forest bathing” cried out for fun and we hope we provided it.

The other comic comes from experience. These Fitbit wrist bands and apple watches are great if you need external motivation to get going. But what if you don’t? Then it becomes annoying as hell. Both John and I have had recent incidents when we took off our watches or bands for some reason, did some heavy physical activity, and then realized we hadn’t put the watch/band back on. Heavens! Sure we got the benefits of the exercise but it totally didn’t count because we didn’t record it. You know, if a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound? So we tackled the absurdity of our reliance on these all-encompassing devices that serve to remind us we have failed miserably as human beings on a daily basis. And we pay good money to find out!

So anyway dear readers, show technology who’s boss this week. Turn off your phone, okay but what if your kids call and they are in trouble? Turn off your tv, but how can I watch the Mets? Turn off your laptop, but how can I read my ebook, and for god’s sake toss away the Fitbit, except I’m about to get my congratulatory 10,000 step thingie. Ya know what? Forget the whole thing and if you gotta plug in, at least make sure you plug into the New 60.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

The New 60