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

New Rules 10/30/2020

With apologies to Bill Maher, we’ve stolen the end title of his show to make a semi-clever headline for the blog. Shameless, I know. And it applies more to the second comic in your scroll anyway, so the hell with it. First off, we wanted the chance to showcase some of John’s other talents. Besides illustrating and writing and animating, he is a renowned pumpkin carver every Halloween. But what if you weren’t so renown and your grandchild wanted to carve pumpkins with you? What would you do then, huh? You’d have to pretend you knew what you’re talking about wouldn’t you? I ask because neither of us are grandparents yet but one of us is about to become one in May, God willing. We will reveal who when the time comes. Anyway, there’s only a short period of time when your kids think you know everything, and if you’re reading this blog, chances are your kids have figured you out a long time ago. (Okay, an extremely long time ago.) But then there are the grandkids, and for a few years, we can still fool them. But some kids are more artistic than others and in this case, you can’t even fool them. So this first Halloween comic is a take at how it feels when the kid figures you out. (In my case I knew I was done artistically when my daughter hit 1st grade. She had to do a diorama about the Wild West in a shoe box for class. When she asked me for cotton balls to represent clouds, I knew I was toast.) I’m sure John’s kids had a higher bar to climb.

Our second spot came out of our New England trip. This is the third and final comic from that trip but it centered on outdoor dining. Our kids are way more responsible than we are during the pandemic, mostly because they don’t want to be the cause of us keeling over. So each night of the two nights we were there, we ate outside. In October. In Maine. At night. And did I mention we were outside? One night the restaurant had large propane lamps and we asked the waiter if he could please move the one over there just a wee bit closer to our table. Immediately there were howls of protest from the table who’d had it moved closer to them before we got there, the bastards. Thankfully they were on dessert when we were just starting, so as soon as they signed their check, boom, we moved the lamp closer. But on the second night, well no such luck. No heat lamps. Because every freakin’ restaurant for miles around had ordered them way before so there are no more to be had. And here’s a public service. You know the kind where you can see flames all the way up the stem? Well they’re not as good as the mushroom shaped ones with the flame only at the top. The curved top makes the heat radiate down towards you. So if you insist on eating outside this winter, remember this tip. And also, buy some stock in a propane gas company. But what I most remembered about our cold, outside, non-heated meals were the attempted smiles on everyone’s faces, as if to say, no problem here, we’re being responsible AND we’re enjoying the hell out of ourselves. The truth was revealed when the waiter asked us if anyone wanted coffee or dessert and the whole table simultaneously shouted, “NO!” before the waiter could finish his sentence. My softly uttered “Cappuccino and creme brulee please” got lost under the emphatic roar of the “no.” John came up with the “anyone interested in our blanket menu” line and we thought that was a more unexpected way to go, so there you have it. But truth be told, I’m still a little peeved about missing out on the creme brulee.

So th-th-th-that’s all folks for this week. Enjoy your no trick or treat Halloween and prepare for your no family Thanksgiving and we will see you (virtually, of course) next week with two new ones.

But first, a long awaited promise to show you a link to John’s pumpkin carving expertise. It’s worth it, if you can figure out how to open it. Which of course depends on my ability to copy and paste it. Here goes:

https://www.facebook.com/outrageouspumpkins

Happy Halloween,

Andy and John

Getting Carried Away 10/23/2020

In the last blog I revealed that my wife and I went to Portland, Maine, a couple of weeks ago while John and his wife went to the Cape. We both visited New England, and I promised that these would lead to several comics. The first on your list is about my favorite show courtesy of Mother Nature, the changing of the leaves. The breathtaking beauty of red, orange, gold, green and yellow leaves. But the New York area (where we live) is awash in another less beautiful tradition. And that is a not so silent competition about being and experiencing “the best.” When it comes to leaves, that means going during “Peak Season.” What is the proper definition of peak season? Duh, It’s the weekend you choose to go leaf-peeping. But there is an unofficial definition as well. And it changes depending on where you live. On the east coast, it starts earliest up north, where the days get shorter and the nights get colder a lot quicker than they do further south. Hence, states like Maine and Vermont and New Hampshire see their leaves ablaze in color weeks sooner than in New York. New Yorkers want to brag that they are seeing the leaves at their peak, and the locals take great delight in proving them wrong. And that was the premise for our first comic. Marv and Rachel just loved, loved, loved the spectacular colors but they needed the approval of a local to tell them they were there at the exact right time. And when they found out it was past peak, well then the leaves weren’t quite so beautiful. Confession: neither John nor I are competitive about silly things like that, though I must point out that since Cape Cod, Massachusetts, is well south of Portland, Maine, that we saw much much better leaves than they did.

Comic 2 in your scroll had absolutely nothing to with our mutual trips to New England. But it has everything to do with the dread that lies close beneath the surface of each and every one of us. Fear of Covid. (I sneezed, that’s a sign! I think I might have a temperature, that’s a sign. I’m really tired tonight. Is that a sign? Well you got only 5 hours of sleep last night and you hiked 8 miles, so that could have something to do with it. No that’s not it, I’ve got to get tested.)

The point is that so many people have contracted it, and nobody really knows how they contracted it, that we will go to any length to avoid it. Including my taking a jog in the rain so as not to run on the nice, indoor treadmill at my local gym, only a five-minute walk away. Fear of Covid even conspired to ruin Al’s Taco Night. Fortunately, in Al’s case, he will live to see another comic which next week will feature yet another New England inspired misadventure.

That’s it for now, and we’ll be back with two new ones for Halloween weekend, where there will be no trick or treating, which is a real shame, especially since John is a champion pumpkin carver. We’ll put a link to his personal site up next week so you can view his work.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Too Much Info (TMI) 10/16/2020

We all know about TMI, too much information. It’s like when a little kid asks, “where do babies come from,” and you tell them the real truth, “You see the man sticks his…” that’s classic TMI. All the kid wants to hear is, “The stork drops them off through the chimney,” or some similar nonsense. But this tendency to divulge too much happens in all aspects of our lives. Note the endless shows about politics and what this crucial decision means moving forward, but if each state can do “x”, than that will result in “y”, which will overturn our entire system of justice and our democracy will be at stake. Both John and I have inquired about participating in making phone calls encouraging people to get out and vote. And we got to wondering, how would those phone calls be received by the people we were calling? There are actual training sessions available teaching you how to deal with the recipients of said calls. “1) Engage their level of interest, if it’s high go to b) if not, revert to point a). Nowhere do they tell you what to do if the recipient of your call tells you to go f#*k yourself, which we imagine might occur on a fairly regular basis. Now of course, we are both from the New York area which might account for our cynical views, but it formed the basis for the first comic today. It’s another example of the cliche, “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Next up came from a trip my family took a couple of weeks ago to Portland, Maine at the same time John’s family went to Cape Cod. Several good ideas for future comics came out of these mutual trips, but today’s emanated from a Sunday morning visit to Holy Donuts in Portland. I have a very good friend who has a wicked love for donuts. To make you hate him even worse, he’s really thin, not an ounce of body fat on him. But man, does he love donuts. So when we told him we were heading off to Portland, he said, you’ve got to try Holy Donuts. They’re made with real Maine potatoes. Now what is a potato doing inside a donut? I don’t know and I don’t care but it tasted great. Like the best donut I can ever remember eating. But back to the TMI thing. Me, my wife, daughter and son-in-law stood outside the line debating what to order. There were more flavors than I ever knew existed. What happened to the glazed cake donut, or the chocolate donut with icing and sprinkles or, heaven forbid, the old-fashioned jelly donut? When we approached the counter, we read the menu. And not only were there choices like lemon zest or coffee cake or maple-glazed with bacon, there were all those versions in gluten-free or vegan varieties — not the bacon one, of course, which is what I ordered—but all the rest. And lest I forget , one of the flavors I requested was sold out, however if I wanted the sweet potato donut version as opposed to the regular potato version, I was welcome to order it. I declined. But it made for a pretty funny idea for a comic. I have one question about the whole experience. Was the line so long because the donuts were so delicious (they were everything my skinny friend promised they would be) or was it so long because there was too much damn information about the myriad number of donut choices available? Verdict, I don’t know and after my first bite, I no longer cared.

Thanks for sticking around to read the blog and if you like reading it as much as I enjoy writing it, then please tell your friends about it. Thanks and we’ll see you next week with two new ones.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

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

Dealing with age 10/02/2020

Wine gets better with age. Not necessarily us. When I was just a wee lad in my late 30’s, my dentist sent me to the periodontist. He was performing oral surgery (I don’t recommend it; it’s not as much fun as it sounds) and he was cutting this, and lifting that, blah, bah, blah. I asked him, “Doc, why is everything falling apart in my mouth?” And he gave me an answer I never forgot. He said, “The way I figure, your biological imperative is to replace yourself in the human race. Well, you’re more than capable of doing that by the time you’re around 17. The only reason we wait much longer is because of advances in science and health and education. But by the time you’re 17 you can have a kid and by the time that kid is 17, your biolgoical reason for being on this earth is over. So that’s why by age 35, everything starts to go downhill. Your eyesight, aches and pains, your hair turns grey, etc. Make sense?” Yes and thank you for totally bumming me out. (Author’s note: I don’t feel I’m bumming you guys out because we’re already older, right? Don’t answer.) But it’s that kind of insight that inspired our first comic. So you can’t touch your toes without bending your knees anymore? You can no longer drive the golfball 260 yards? You can’t run a 10k in under an hour anymore (who are we kidding, you can’t run a 10K period). Join the club. But on the bright side, we get a lot more time off and at the end of the weekend, we can send the grandkids back home.

Our second comic derives from the fact that the more app developers try to make our lives easier, the more complicated they become. I paid my dentist (no, not the guy from the last paragraph) with my online banking app. Then my dentist lowered the price and said, “No worries, just send us another check for the lesser amount and we’ll rip up your more expensive check when it comes in.” And they did just that, but then when I tried to remove the charge from my account, fuhgeddaboutit! We’re sure you all have horror stories with Zelle, Venmo, Paypal and the like, so that is what we tackled. And by the way, even if you DO master Venmo, good luck trying to put in the person’s proper Venmo address. That’s it for now.

At any rate, read ‘em and laugh and we’ll be back at ya’ next week with two new ones.

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

On losing stuff 09/17/2020

Today’s first comic came right out of a real life experience. It was Friday morning, I was getting my stuff together before leaving to play golf. My cell phone rings. It’s John, asking me a question about next week’s comic. As we spoke, I was busy putting things in a bag. A sandwich, some water, grapes, golf balls, so I was a little distracted. I kept looking around and couldn’t find something. Then I couldn’t remember what it was I couldn’t find. I told John I had to get off the phone so I could find something, and then it occurred to me what I was trying to find. My phone. The very one I had been using to speak with John. Bingo. Comic #1. So that’s the good news. The bad news is this: what level of hell is it when you not only can’t remember where you put something, you also forget what you’re looking for? I’ll say this about that: it doesn’t happen often but it happens more often than it used to. If given the choice, I guess I’d rather lose my phone than my mind. Now, what was I talking about?

Next on your dial is a conversation we had about how much social interaction we allow in our lives. John and his wife Linda have a small core group they socialize with and if people come over to the house, they stay outside. Everyone in the group is mindful and protective about the coronavirus. But what about the people they hang out with, huh? I mean, if you’re the kind of person that limits your grocery shopping to twice a month, do you want to hang out with someone who goes once a week? And who knows how often their friends go grocery shopping anyway? Or eat outside at a restaurant? And now that it’s getting colder, are you willing to eat inside if they limit the seating to 25% capacity? Just how much are you willing to risk for that plate of linguini alla vongole?

So we imagined what it would be like to go over our list of friends and family to decide who makes the cut and who doesn’t this coming season. And how much do we even know about what our partners have done today and how often they’ve washed their hands? All I know is we’ve used an unbelievable amount of question marks in this blog? Even unnecessary ones like in that last sentence.

Well, we hope that answers all your questions and I’d tell you to make sure you read the blog, but you’re already reading it, so never mind.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Back to School and Other Fun Topics 09/11/2020

Imagine if you had a kid going back to college. What would you do? Spend up to $70,000 so he/she can sit in a dorm room with a mask and take classes online? And what if you’re a professor like our character Craig? You might think you know your students, but do you really? Craig imagines (hopes) they’ll be on their best behavior. What we imagined? Animal House. Just a quick aside. As I write this today, I may be a bit distracted. Two reasons. One, there’s a crane working outside with a power saw that sounds like either a high-powered dentist’s drill or a gigantic fly. And there’s an actual fly bugging the shit out of me flying around my apartment as I type. Excuse me for a minute. Finally, he’s dead. No, not the guy with the saw, the fly. The fly ended his life being swatted by an issue of People Magazine. At least it’s good for something. But back to college or back to school virtually. I know how I was in college and I know how my friends were back then and it seems like socially distant, responsible behavior is a lot to ask from a bunch of 18-21 year olds. On the other hand, we understand the need for community. This first comic tries to capture the dichotomy.

Next up was what we imagined we might do if we had to get on a plane. My wife’s mother is still alive and turned 99. She lives either a 45 minute plane ride or 6 1/2 hour car ride away. We drove. Let us count the reasons it’s scary to fly. No, in fact let’s not. Instead I will tell you why I am reluctant. One morning, I saw Dr. Joseph Fair, the head infectious disease specialist for NBC on the Today Show. Only he was doing the segment from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from the Coronavirus. He wore a mask, he swabbed down the seats and all the fold-down tables in his row. He was asked how he got it after all those precautions and said, “My best guess is I caught it through my eyes.” Okay, that was enough for yours truly, even though I wear glasses. Maybe if they come up with a hip stylish hazmat suit (anyone for camouflage?), we’ll hop on a plane. But until then, have a wonderful fall and we hope your football team, wherever you live, wins the SuperBowl. As long as it’s the Giants. Okay, John likes the Jets, so them too. And if you’re from somewhere else, don’t worry, neither of our teams has a prayer.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Watching the river flow, and the summer go 09/04/2020

First of all, an early Happy Labor Day to everyone. We pictured a typical Labor Day cookout, 2020 style. So what if Al mistakenly squirts some hand sanitizer on his hot dog. At least it’s sanitized. As summer turns into fall, the virus still hasn’t gone away, people (for the most part) are still not going back to offices and schools are trying to figure out what to do. And sports! We’ve gone from having none at all to having everything at once (yep, football is a week away). So enjoy this long weekend away before work and school should be starting and then get back to whatever it was you were doing before Labor Day. And one more thing, just use the hand sanitizer on your hands.

Next up was a subject for the kind of disagreement comic creators have with each other. I used to think advertising conversations were silly (this beer is made for weekends, this one is for weeknights, but with this positioning, we can own Friday nights), but this one may have taken the proverbial cake. A couple weeks ago I went into the ocean on an East Hampton beach with a friend of mine. Hot day, cold water. He said, “This is refreshing,” and I said, “I gotta pee,” to which he replied, “Let me stand upstream.” I thought that was so funny I wrote it down when I got out of the ocean. I called John and pitched the idea and this is what followed (with allowances for my memory, which at 67 years old is not getting sharper). Me: So the guy says, Wait till I get upstream. John: There is no upstream in an ocean. Me: Nobody will think of that. John: I just did. Remember how many letters we got correcting us on the difference between Medicare and Medicaid? Me: True. John: So we’ll just have the scene play out in the river. Me: But, I wrote in last week’s newsletter that we would have a comic at the beach this weekend. John: Oceans have tides, not streams. Me: Fine, let ‘em pee in the damn river.

Note: outside of that, we never disagree about anything.

Well, maybe not anything.

One thing we do agree on is to thank you all for being such ardent and loyal readers of the New 60. And we will be back to you next week with two new ones hot off the press.

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

Nothing's on tv and doin' nothing 08/21/2020

With no movies, and not much going out to dinner, a lot of us are spending a lot more time together and watching a lot more tv. And when you do get to see friends, you find out they’re doing much the same. Not surprisingly, the conversation turns to some form of “Did you see that great series on TV?” Pre-pandemic, the answer usually was, “We did not.” But now, at least before the baseball season resumed, we had a chance to catch up on all we missed. There was Ozark and Catastrophe and Schitt’s Creek and Little Fires Everywhere and The Morning Show, to name a few. We loved them. And then there was Fleabag. When I mentioned to John that I was laughing my ass off, while Joanie was only watching politely, he said he had a similar experience. When it came to Ozark, at least in my household, we were both so into it. We’d ask each other questions like, “What do you think will happen next?” or “Why did Wendy do that?” Does she want to die?” For Fleabag, it was, “What’s the name of that show again?” And so our first comic of the week was born. It is another version of “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”. I can barely stay awake during an awards show, whereas I find the Mets endlessly fascinating, even when they’re 3 games below .500. Don’t ask. Well, we can always watch the political conventions. Or not.

Next up comes from a common experience and a twist on a joke we heard from our friend, Marvin Waldman. The joke was about feeling a sense of accomplishment from doing nothing. Just make it feel like something. There’s an old cliche that states, if you want to get something done, give it to somebody who’s busy. Conversely, you don’t want to give the assignment to someone who has nothing to do. They have the time to mull over every decision from inside and out and take forever to complete the task. For instance, now that I’m retired (except for this comic strip) I was supposed to return two items to our storage locker (less than half a mile away) and still haven’t gotten to it 4 days later. In contrast, when I was working full time in advertising, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and we had to move from the city into a townhouse in a nearby suburb, we took a train out during lunch, stopped by the condo development office, and chose the wallpaper, kitchen floor, cabinets, lighting fixtures and window treatments in under and hour and took the next train back to work.

Maybe having too much time is a problem. But I’ll take it.

Have a terrific weekend and enjoy the last of the summer. We will be back next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

The world is a confusing place 08/14/2020

Is it just us, or does the world seem harder to understand for you guys as well? John and I worked in ad agencies of all different sizes. When we started in the late 70’s and early 80’s there were people who worked for the same agency for their entire careers and retired with a pension and stock. You shot your commecials in LA, stayed in nice hotels, flew business class, entertained your clients and ate great meals. Seemed like a terrific deal. Today, not so much. Who needs to fly? Who needs a camera? Shoot it on an iPhone. Why pay $1 million for a commercial when you can shoot one for $10,000? And really, who needs to pay all that money to an older copywriter or art director when you can get 3 kids for half the price? Trust us, it is confusing. But on the bright side, if it wasn’t for that system, and we were still writing commercials, you wouldn’t be getting these comics. Of course we’d be getting rich, but it’s much more important to service you. And if you believe that, we’ve got some land we’d like to sell you…

At any rate, when the end is near you can see it coming from a mile down the road. Marv was going through similar changes in the printing industry and we thought we’d bring some of our own experiences to the table in figuring out what would eventually happen to him. When offered the chance to take an “early retirement” he jumped at it. And now Marv will think about his “Second Act.” Just as long as it doesn’t involve playing the harmonica.

The next strip practically wrote itself. John’s dad had a high school yearbook where most of the women described themselves as “gay.” My stepmother to this day will describe a party as “gay.” So when John had the thought to make this insight into a comic, I jumped aboard. It’s crazy how language changes and how meanings change and if you don’t make an effort to keep up, it can get pretty confusing. Fret not. We’re here to clear all that up. When Fred Flintstone had a “gay old time,” he wasn’t cheating on the side with Barney Rubble. A birthday party was something you attended, not some organization promoting Kanye West for president. And weed was something you pulled out of your garden, not something you smoked.

We sincerely hope that clears up all the confusion. Stay safe we’ll see you next week and may all your weekends be festive and gay.

Andy and John

Get out there and participate! Or don't. 08/07/2020

What is more romantic than a sun-dappled trip on a kayak for two? Sparkling water, just the two of you paddling in harmony, as you drift through the calm currents on your way to who knows where? My wife, Joanie, and I experienced this tranquility during a trip to Thailand a few years back. Somehow the harmonious part didn’t work out as planned. When I pitched this idea to John, he then went on to explain, the person in the back is just the rudder. All she or he has to do is steer the kayak. The person in the front does all the paddling. And you don’t have to switch sides everytime you paddle. A few strokes on your left side, then gently switch over to your right. In the words of Homer Simpson, “Doh!” Now you tell me. But because John had no trouble figuring out the action and dialogue, I knew he went through the same experience I did, not that he’d readily admit it. Sorry John. What follows is an amalgamation of what happened. Easiest comic we’ve ever done. And to add insult to injury, Joanie and I witnessed another couple on the Thai kayak excursion, paddling in perfect harmony, not a care in the world. Which stood in sharp contrast to our thinking, “When is this f*@^ing thing over already?” Oh and one more thing, those HK’s (harmonious kayakers) were even older than we were, which made our lack of skill even more infuriating. Maybe we’ll get out there on the Hudson River and give it another try. Maybe not.

The second comic strip comes in the aftermath of one of those wonderful field trips at work. You know, the kind that encourage “bonding” or, my favorite expression, “team-building”? Why is it that people who have no knowledge or interest in sports persist in using sports analogies in business. Case in point, I had someone tell me just days ago, that an almost-completed project was “on the 98th-yard line.” I had to correct him and tell him, “No, that would be the two-yard line,” the numbers go up to 50 and then down to 0. And there was another colleague I am very friendly with who used to say, “That’s a straight ball down the middle” (as opposed to a fastball for the non-sporting among you). Do you think I was bigger than the moment and didn’t correct her? Think again.

Anyway, I digress. When John and I put our heads together, we wondered, would we be able to hide our true feelings during a team-building exercise or would we give away what was really going on inside (some form of “Just get me the hell out of here”)? And John came up with the idea of a participation trophy, which seemed to hit the proverbial nail on the head. Or to use another sports analogy, he really hit a touchdown with that one.

Have a good weekend as the summer rips along towards its eventual conclusion. Soon it will be back to school and back to work. Oh, wait a minute…

Andy and John

On getting out there 07/31/2020

Well, we have to get to some form of normal at some point, right? So we thought of Al and Joanne taking a trip on an airplane. The poor airlines have to make money somehow, so they sell us first class, business class, coach, even coach with extra leg room, pillows, snacks and our personal favorite, early boarding. Who knew there could be so many categories, and sub-categories? And how is it that no matter how much privilege we pay for, we still wind of getting on last, with no overhead room for the bags which now go to the cargo hold and then cost you an extra hour as you watch the baggage carousel spin without your bag on it? Ain’t it good to have priority? And that was all it took for our first comic.

Next up we wondered what would happen when people went back to their physical offices. And what would employers do to make their returning employees overjoyed at being back? Plan a corporate retreat? John and I have both been on our share of company retreats before and this time we discussed the kind with “team-building exercises.” I would venture that everyone who has ever been part of a “trust fall” contemplated doing exactly what Marv did and let the bum fall. But nobody would really do that. Except this is a comic, which gives us the right to do anything we like. Sorry Gladys.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Friday (and please, refrain from trust falls),

Andy and John

On two topics that change with age, work and sex 07/23/2020

Let’s start with sex, because, why not? It’s one of those topics you think about constantly in your teens and twenties, talk about with your friends, and seek out constantly. All the models and images you see are people in their 20’s and maybe even 30’s but not much beyond that. Except maybe Jennifer Aniston. But then as you get older, you settle down. Get married. Have kids. Which makes you even older. And more tired. And after a certain age, it’s not a topic you’re talking to your friends about. At least not very often. Which leads us to today’s first comic. One of us (named John) was at a dinner party when a conversation, much like the one in the comic, actually occurred. If that same revelation happened in your twenties or thirties, you might be inclined to ask, “Costumes? What kind of costumes?” At least I’d be inclined to ask that. Truth is, I still am but now l know better than to ask. So sex is still in the air, but now it’s lurking in the background. One of our favorite strips ran a couple years ago. Craig, our confirmed bachelor, was about to have sex for the first time with a woman he was dating. She asked, “Lights on or…” and before she could get the last word out, they both proclaimed, “Off!!!” Telling us what kind of costumes you wear to “keep it fresh” is something we can hear on a “need to know” basis. And we don’t need to know.

The second strip deals with going back to work. It may not have been the greatest to begin with, but now that you’ve been used to working from home, do any of us really want to go back to the office? Back to running for the commuter train during rush hour? Or sitting in your car in bumper to bumper traffic? Or listening to your 32 year-old boss drone on about the vital importance of search engine optimization? Sure you may miss the comraderie, but the rest of it? And now add plastic partitions, indoor mask-wearing, and recoiling in horror when you’ve absent-mindedly touched something. Quick, anyone have some Purell? My forearm touched the banister!” For these and other reasons, Marv is counting down the days until retirement, or even worse, involuntary retirement.

So keep it covered, wash often and we’ll see you next week with two new comics.

Andy and John

Write about what you know 07/17/2020

We often get mail asking us to write more about one particular group or another, and we always reply, we like to write about what we know. That is why the situations (hopefully) feel authentic. One of my favorite emails came from a reader who asked, “Why don’t you feature a cranky old gay man like myself?” That’s a great question and we will try to do more of that in the future, but it will be our perception of a cranky old gay man. Not beig cranky old gay men ourselves, it would sound inauthentic to try and sound like one. Granted, we are plenty cranky and old, just not gay. But most of the subjects we write about are comic spins on things that actually happened to one of us. This week features two takes on stuff that happened to John.

The first came from an observation that John’s wife Linda isn’t particularly fond of bugs. So we imagined a situation where Al and his grandson are inspecting a bug with great interest. Al is feigning interest because he’s enjoying his grandson’s interest. Joanne doesn’t share the same intrigue and may have reacted with a little more passion than the situation called for. We would just like to reiterate that no actual bugs were injured in the drawing of this comic strip.

Next up also came from a trip to the dog trainer. Since the last dog I had was 20 years ago, this is firmly from John’s camp. After learning what dogs react to and how to make them obedient, Rachel decides to try the technique on Marv. Of course, very little works on Marv that doesn’t include food. In a previous strip, faithful readers may recall Sam mourning the loss of his dog. When his new wife wants to quickly replace the dog, Sam naturally wonders if she’d be so quick to replace him when HE died. For those of you who think this is crazy, ask yourself this. How much do you humanize your dog? Hey, they’re part of the family. We can’t help it. Think about it, if you’re in your 60’s and get to the point where you have to put your dog down, are you going to be so quick to get a new one? Or are you going to enjoy your new found freedom from having to find dog sitters when you go away or from worrying about how long it’s been since the dog has been let outside and whether you should skip dessert and get home? Maybe it’s the same way with husbands. Hopefully not, but in any case, have a nice weekend and don’t ask for a Corona with lime. It wasn’t too long ago that a Corona with lime was something you looked forward to at the end of the day. Now Corona and Lyme are two of the most worrisome diseases on the planet.

Boy did this turn maudlin in a second. On second thought just ignore the entire last paragraph except for the “have a nice weekend” part.

Andy and John

I've got too much time on my hands 07/10/2020

If you’re retired, you’ve got too much time to think. And ponder. And rethink. And re-ponder. You think about useful stuff and not so useful stuff. Like retronyms. And what’s the use of your ingenious insights if you can’t share them? John and I both have a love for words and for trivia. Combine them and you come up with a bunch of stuff not many other people give two hoots about. For instance, what’s the only place on Manhattan Island that isn’t part of New York, or for that matter, the United States? It’s considered international territory. It’s the United Nations. Or did you know that Times Square was named Times Square because that’s where the NY Times was published? Or that Woody Allen’s real name is Allen Konigsberg? Well we are filled with such useless, trivial info and couldn’t wait to share it with you all. So we dumped it on Al’s son, because it would take John way too long to draw all of you. And, even though he has great love for his dad, he eventually throws up the white flag. Meanwhile, did you know that Babe Ruth once ate 13 hot dogs at…never mind.

Next up is Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of what it takes to be really good at something. 10,000 hours of practice. Now that might be useful to an 11 year old kid trying to be a great baseball player. Or ballet dancer. Or writer, painter, chef, etc. But what about a 60-something guy trying to learn harmonica? (Or golf, which I still haven’t mastered after at least 10,000 hours, thank you very much Mr. Gladwell). How much patience would it take from the person trying to accrue the aforementioned 10,000 hours of practice, and more importantly, how much patience would it take from his friends and family members forced to listen to many of those musically-mangled hours? Our conclusion: few people would have the patience, up to and including Marv’s wife Rachel.

Hopefully you guys have the patience to wait for us to reach 10,000 hours of comic creation, before we become “experts.” In the meantime we will continue our journey with two brand new comics next week.

Thanks for hanging in there and have a terrific weekend,

Andy and John

Happy 4th of July 07/03/2020

Happy 4th of July. Just think of the possibilities. You can gather up the whole family, kids and grandkids and go to the ballgame, or if it’s hot, a trip to the pool or better yet, the beach. And afterwards you can all enjoy a trip to your favorite restaurant or have a cookout at home. But wait a minute. There are no ballgames. And unless your governer is in denial, he or she has already closed the public pool and the public beaches not to mention indoor dining. And that stuff about the kids coming over? Well you can’t invite the kid who went into the office last week but had to quarantine since someone in her office contracted the virus three days ago, and then she can’t bring her husband or the kids so there goes that idea, etc., etc., etc. Which is how John got the inspiration for his poster, a socially distant 4th. At least there’s Hamilton on Disney +, so thank goodness for small favors.

But onto the next one about watching TV at home with mom or mom-in-law. I kept telling John about Ozark, this awesome series on Netflix my wife and I binge-watched and he kept saying, my mother-in-law is here for the time being and she won’t appreciate the language, violence and nudity. So we came up with our second comic, mom friendly TV. The day before we posted it, I was in Pittsburgh with my wife at her mother’s house and we came home after dinner and wanted to watch a movie. Well there’s only so much Hallmark Channel a man can take so we went with our friend Sandy’s advice and watched a Mark Ruffalo movie, “Begin Again.” Joanie’s 98 year old mom watched with varying degrees of interest, and when it ended, I asked her if she was okay with the language. Now in 37 years of knowing Joanie’s mom Charlotte, I can say I have never heard her curse even once. But when I asked if the language was offensive she said with a nice smile on her face, “No, it didn’t bother me. It was all fuck this and fuck that and fuck you. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

What else can I say, besides have a Happy 4th and we’ll talk to you again next week.

Andy and John

Back to (some form of) Normal 06/26/2020

It had to happen sooner or later. Slowly but surely we’re getting back some of our old lives. Traffic is returning (not so good). Restaurants are reopening (good), but only at half capacity, (not good). People are getting a little less stringent about their masks, (good when it’s us, not when it’s somebody else). And yes, we feel brave enough to order takeout (definitely mixed). And that is the impetus of today’s first comic. We’ve seen so many places have so many different rules about what they will and will not allow. There’s our favorite Italian restaurant, which asks what color and make car you drive and your license plate, before you pull up to the curb. But I’m wary of that, because when they ask what kind of car I drive, if I say “an Audi,” will they say, “Oh, in that case we have to add a 20% GLCT (German Luxury Car Tax).

At any rate John and I have tossed around war stories about getting takeout and the tremendous steps you have to take before you show up (it’s an amalgamation of every rule the two of us have encountered), and we wondered, what would happen if you forgot something? Would you have the patience to go back their again and ask for it? John and I both decided, definitely not. Even when the local restaurant two blocks from my house forgot the salad dressing. Bastards.

The other comic, and this week you WILL receive two comics, is about, heaven forbid, going back to work. Since John and I both stopped going to an office before we started the comic, we can only imagine what it would be like, but whatever it is, it’ll likely suck. Oh sure it’ll be good to see your friends again but do you have to wear your mask indoors? What about gloves? And what about those perks, like the coffee maker? Are you reaching into the fridge and taking out the milk carton that 27 other people have touched? And about coffee. I went into a Starbucks before they shut down for awhile and they took away all the options for personalizing your coffee. For me, it’s iced coffee, and if I want to put in skim milk and top it off with half and half, and a packet of Truvia (1 and 1/2 packets if it’s a large) I’d appreciate you not looking at me that “what a weirdo” way. At least I didn’t order oat milk. But back to the office. We imagined what Marv would think, and it went something like this: “You can take away the free pens, make me swab down my laptop after every use, and wash my hands frequently…BUT DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT TAKING AWAY THE CRUMB CAKE!!!”

Believe it or not, we’re heading headlong into the summer season and we will see you next week with a new one and a happy July 4th poster, suitable for framing (just thought we’d throw that in there).

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John