Finally 03/26/21

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

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

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

Andy and John

Adjusting 03/19/21

Adjustments. We make a small series that most people don’t even notice, but over time, they add up. Having spent nearly 4 decades in the ad biz, I can tell you that products you are very familiar with tweak their labels in small ways, keeping consistent elements, but changing all the same. You wouldn’t notice them from year to year, but if you looked back, say 5 years, you’d see an obvious difference. Coca Cola has the familiar red and white can, but they play with the white stripe, the type face and whether it says Coke, or Coca Cola. Sometimes the adjustment is too much too soon. Does anybody remember New Coke? Exactly.

It’s like that in relationships as well. Al and Joanne are struggling to adjust to life without their son at home. They were also struggling with being able to see the small type on their tv monitor. That was an adjustment that worked out for Al. A similar situation arose in my home a couple weeks ago. The big screen tv went kaput after 6years (they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to, do they?). I wanted a bigger screen, my wife not so much. The old tv was on a bracket where it pulled out and swiveled. The adjustment: a bigger screen, but flat against the wall. Both sides ended up being happy. Of course, most adjustments don’t work like that. It’s usually where either side didn’t get quite what they wanted, but they are at least willing to live with it. Another example happened when we downsized from our house to our apartment. I said, “Honey, there isn’t room for four sets of china.” To which my wife replied, “And there’s no room for 4 tvs.” You can’t argue with good solid logic, so we adjusted. We have 4 sets of china and 4 tvs.

Next week we will deal with compromise, which is really just another word for adjustment. Until then, have a great and virus-free weekend.

Andy and John

The Saga of Sid Continues 3/11/21

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

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

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

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

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

Andy and John

Adult Children 3/05/21

What kind of world is this? When did it become the rule that people of a certain age had to take care of their parents and elderly relatives, and also still have to help their kids out? It’s not all our kids’ faults. Gone are jobs with nice, comfy perks like medical insurance and bonuses and pensions and the guarantee of 40 years with the same company (what the hell is a company anyway?). Nope. Now we live in a “gig” economy. As far as I can tell gig stands for no freakin’ benefits. Gig makes me gag. But this is supposed to be funny, so enough.

We thought we’d take a look at Al and Joanne’s 33-year-old son who works on his computer upstairs and has no income. He does however have a plan. First, we gave him a name, Sidney. And then, as part of our new push to tell more continuing stories, we are doing our first ever 5-part story, the Saga of Sid, if you will. We are going to explore the push/pull of “C’mon kid, it’s time to move out” combined with “Do you have to go so soon?” Sure, they’re pains in the butt but they also solve all your tech problems. Sure, they eat you out of house and home but they also listen to cool music you’d never hear and watch new tv shows you’d never watch. In short, they keep you a little more hip than you’d be otherwise. John and I have no kids living at home, which may be a reason why we are so unhip, even though we did visit a pot dispensary in a past comic.

The other thing about a five-part series is this: once we enter a comic, say Part 1 on the website, and then enter the subsequent comic, Part 2, the subsequent comic comes up first in your feed, so that when you click open your email on Friday, you’d see part 2, followed by Part 1. And then next week, you’d see Part 4 at the top followed by Part 3. In other words, “Help! Where are our kids when we need them???

Have a great weekend and get vaccinated,

Andy and John

On Snacking and Taking Off Your Pants

About taking off your pants…no we’re not about to describe some senior sex ritual. It’s not that kind of comic. So kindly take your minds out of the gutter. We’re talking about how challenging it is to do things you took for granted when you (as Billy Joel once put it) wore a younger man’s (or woman’s) clothes, It’s that moment when you come home from work (do any of you still come home from work?) and slip out of your pants and into your sweats or pj’s. A special shout out to John’s buddy, Billy McGloin, who gave us this nugget. He shared with John his TOPR (Technique Of Pants Removal). According to Billy, you lower the pants leg below your foot, and then, this is critical, step on the pants leg with the OTHER foot. This allows you to remove your first leg without having to go through the annoying (okay, physically challenging) maneuver of having to actually bend over at the waist. It was a really funny insight. And please understand that John and I would never stoop to such a method of undressing because we both have the flexibility of 20-year-olds. Alright, you got me. Maybe I sometimes stoop to the McGloin TOPR, but certainly not all the time. Okay, all the time. It’s a little lazy, but it works. And a cautionary note to all you readers who might be tempted to try this method. Put one hand on the wall to prevent Marv’s fate of falling over. Oh, and if you do fall over anyway, please do not admit to feeling any pain. That’s part of the rule. So when your partner asks you if you’re okay, you just state, “Fine, didn’t even feel it.” And then, after you’ve successfully removed both legs from the aforementioned pants, attempt to regain your feet without moaning out loud. And that, thank you Billy, was the inspiration for our first comic this week.

The second one is almost two ideas in one. The first is part of the The New 60’s reader outreach program, where we give you techniques to make life easier or at least more interesting. If you go back in our archives you’ll find tricks like when you wiggle a finger in your ear, it sounds like Pac Man. We shared with you a failsafe routine for getting your kids to call you back (change the Netflix password) and this week we give you two pointers. The first is how to take your pants off without bending. And the second is how to magnify small print like the kind that’s so hard to read on a menu, a pill bottle or in this case, a snack. You simply take your phone out of your pocket, turn your camera on as if you were going to take a picture of the label or menu, and then zoom in. Warning: when it comes to eating snack packs, we recommend doing this BEFORE you open the package, not afterwards. In Rachel’s case she saw the bold-faced 120 calories and proceeded to dig in to the dark-chocolate covered cherries. Al’s phone trick (which is actually John’s) reveals that the small container has 5 servings. Wouldn’t you want to know that before you started eating? The trouble with after is you are licking your fingers clean and thinking how delicious a snack that was. Dark chocolate, the healthy kind, and cherries, a natural fruit. All that goodness in something that tastes like candy and for only 120 calories? How smart am I? Then Al has to go and ruin it by making Joanne feel guilty about consuming 600 of those little calories. Suddenly they don’t taste so good.

No need to thank us for these two handy life hacks. Just make sure to hold on to the wall for the pants’ trick and to magnify labels before consuming the contents. This way you’ll be happy you learned these tricks. The other way, you’re flat on your back and you just consumed 600 calories and you’ll be cursing us out, and we wouldn’t want that. We’re sensitive. Or at least I am.

That’s all for this week. We’ll see you next week with a four-part series. Stay tuned.

Andy and John

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

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

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

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

Andy and John

On Covid Shots and Almond Milk 2/12/21

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

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

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

Andy and John

Winter Wonderland 2/5/21

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

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

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

Andy and John

Meditations on Meditation 1/29/21

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

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

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

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

Andyyyyyyy and Johnnnnnnn

FRIENDS 1/22/21

I think as we get older, we get a bit more unfiltered. We don’t agree to as many things as we used to agree to and we don’t just go along for the sake of going along as much either. In other words, we become more cantankerous. Today’s first comic results from an inability to filter. And it comes from personal experience. Back when I was working in advertising, sometime in the 18th century, there was a woman who worked for me who used to regularly break down in tears or get worked up into hysterics, and, suddenly, she seemed noticeably calmer. I asked her what was different. She told me she had embarked on Transcendental Meditation and it had changed her life. She even showed me a secret hiding place to meditate during work hours. We worked in a huge NYC high rise on the 32nd floor, but right off the second floor, there was a secret side door just to the left of where the company cafeteria was located. There stood 7 rooms reserved for lactating mothers. At most one or two of these would be in use at a time. She would simply claim one, slide the in use tab outside the door, lock the door and sit in the easy chair with her eyes closed for 20 minutes. Heaven. When she exited, she was refreshed and ready to take on the rest of her day. And she didn’t even have to lactate. So I went to take a course in TM along with my wife and it was terrific. But, I’m ashamed to say, I took my colleague up on her secret the very day after my course had ended and used one of those 7 lactating rooms. Fortunately no one ever saw me exiting, because I had no idea what I might say. “No, you don’t understand, it’s not what it looks like…” But I digress. The funny thing is that after paying a semi-exorbitant amount for my wife and I to get our training and our own personal mantras, a friend pointed out that you could get mantras for free simply by going online. Way to harsh my mellow, dude. And if you want to know what that means in English, it means “way to ruin my peaceful mood.” And so was born today’s first comic.

Our second comic came from John enlisting his wife to hold up the big screen tv while he attempted to connect it to an extending, rotating arm he installed in the back of the wall. Note: this is a major difference between us, I just call the super (I believe it has something to do with growing up Jewish but I cannot prove it). So he wondered, what would happen if we tried to call our friends to help us with a physically demanding task? What would their excuse be if they no longer had to work? And this is where our age difference came into play (I am 5 years older than John). I wanted the excuses to be, “Oh I can’t, I’m having an endoscopy, while John was more in the “Oh I can’t, I’m taking the family on a ski trip,” vein. Since I can’t even draw a stick figure and since his version was more optimistic, guess who won. But in the words of the hit play Hamilton, I say to you John, “Just you wait!”

So that’s it for this week but we will be back next week with parts 2 and 3 of our meditation series. Try it, you’ll like it.

Have a great and safe weekend

Andy and John

Kicking 2021 Off To a Healthy Start 1/15/21

We all make them. We all break them. New Year’s resolutions. I knew somebody a few years back who paid to go to a boot camp, a military-style exercise/torture experience several mornings per week in New York’s Central Park. And when I say mornings, I mean like 5:30 am. This person would dutifully show up, along with a few other hearty souls and proceed to get put through the paces by a drill sergeant, yelling at them to get up, jump higher, calling them endearing names like “maggot” and screaming that they weren’t going fast enough or hard enough. And they paid money for this. Full disclosure, the maniacal training program CrossFit came to my hometown about 15 years ago and before I joined up, I paid the instructor for 3 private sessions, just to see what it was like. Now it should have been a sign that the instructor came to the second session with a cast on his left wrist, but he said it was “nothing, just a little strain” so I carried on. Each session comprised of 3 to 4 exercises. You’d do them and get the form down, and then at the end, you’d see how many sets of the exercises you could fit in a space of 8 to 10 minutes. What could go wrong lifting kettlebell weights as fast as you can from a squat to a stand and back down again? Plenty. I quit when I had to cancel a golf game due to a strained back. I thought, what are you going to do more of in your later years, golf with friends or swing kettlebells under the watchful eye of some freak with a cast on his wrist? Golf won. Though truth be told, I was probably more adept at the kettlebell. CrossFit was the inspiration for Marv’s tire flip, and we think Marv had the right idea by rolling the tire. Who in their right mind would want to flip the damn thing? And by the way, my local CrossFit went out of business.

Our next comic comes from the many mutual family meals John and I have had with our grown children. Now that restaurants are not feasible for the time being we have eaten at our kids’ houses or they have come to us. And, like everything else, food has undergone radical changes. No longer will our children eat Hershey Bars (unless they are under 7 and it’s Halloween). I found an oat milk, 58% cacao, cane sugar free, unroasted dark chocolate bar at my daughter’s house, though to be fair, when I teased her about it, it turned out my wife bought it for her. At any rate, just like our parents had to get used to long hair and bell-bottom jeans, pre-marital sex and rock and roll, we have to get used to cage free eggs, Beyond Meat, gluten-free bread and plant-based proteins. This comic was a nod to that. As a service to our readers, please don’t fall for gluten-free potato chips. All potato chips are gluten-free. We have a really good upscale pizza parlor near us that serves regular (as opposed to gluten-free) pizza but on the very same menu features gluten-free fried chicken. As my grandma used to say “Go figure”. And as I say, “I have no idea what gluten is, but I know I want more.”

See you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Dating in the time of Corona 1/8/21

I was speaking to a friend of mine and asking about her son and his girlfriend. She said they were doing fine (always code for not so great) but that the girlfriend was complaining he never took her anywhere. They never went out, she hadn’t met his friends, etc. All they did was stay over at each other’s apartments and watch tv or movies and order take out. I secretly thought, “sounds pretty good to me,” and John thought it was perfect fodder for our bachelor character, Craig. We added in a few things he never did so it would seem more appropriate for a 60-something and our first comic was born. But it does speak to a deeper truth. Guys in general are happier doing less and women (again, in general) are more social and want to go out, introduce you to their friends, their family and can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want the same. Now I know, this is a sexist generalization but still…

As for me, I’d rather leave what I’m doing (whatever it is) and get back home. Of course, so I can write all you loving fans this blog, that’s the ONLY reason.

Onto the second comic which is spurred again by reality. John heard about somebody with one of these fancy schmancy home security systems which had been sitting in a box at home for a couple months. Now this system apparently has amazing capabilities. It monitors activities at your front door and sends them to your smartphone so you know what’s going on at home on those rare occasions when you actually do go out. The trouble was two-fold: 1) It looked complicated and this person was busy with a bunch of projects so the box just sat there. And 2) the user pays a monthly fee to the security company for the monitoring service, whether or not they’ve decided to take the damn thing out of the box. Fortunately, for this person, his daughter came to visit for Christmas and set it up for him so the problem was solved, but that doesn’t make for a very good comic. So, we came up with the “thrown the box at the robber “ ending which while not practical, would really hurt. Also, the fact that the person in question might be John would also hurt his ego, so we will never reveal whether or not this was based on his own experience. If you want to find out, you’ll have to read about it in the blog. Oh, wait a minute, this is the blog. Sorry, not telling.

Happy New Year and as Jackie Gleason would say: away we go (for 2021). See you next week.

Andy and John

GOOD RIDDANCE 2020, HAPPY NEW YEAR '21 1/1/21

Let us count the reasons to be cheerful that 2020 is finally in the rearview mirror. I cannot begin to describe the thrill of typing “1/1/21” into this blog. First of all, it signifies two less keystrokes because now, you only have to write “21” whereas before you had to write “2020”. Okay it’s a stretch but there’s plenty of other reasons to celebrate as well. The corona vaccine is becoming a reality. A new administration is taking over (no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, the new guy really did win). Hopefully we can move in a new direction and tackle this thing to the ground once and for all. And hopefully John won’t have to keep drawing masks over the funny and farcical expressions he so expertly draws.

We presented you this morning with a John special, a Happy New Year Poster where we take out our frustrations on 2020 by kicking the ever-loving crap out of it. Hey, it’s a legal way to let off some steam. Don’t judge.

And we imagined what it might look like for a 32-year-old living at home to wake up on Christmas morning to find his parents in matching pajamas. He’d conclude it was time to get his own place. And we’d be inclined to agree. We will follow his travels and travails this year.

And finally, we would be remiss without thanking each and every one of our readers personally for your loyalty in reading and following us each week. For sending us on to your friends. For “liking” us on social media. For reading the blog. And so John is going to get into his SUV and go across each and every one of our 50 states to visit and thank…okay, he’s not doing any of that and neither am I. But please accept an electronic thanks from the bottom of our very human hearts. You guys are the best. And hopefully, we will have a book available for the holidays next year.

Stay safe and happy,

Andy and John

Happy Holidays 12/25/2020

Happy Holidays. And good riddance to 2020, though we’re supposed to save that sentiment for next week’s blog. Anyhow, with holiday season upon us we did a holiday themed two pack of comics. Now I celebrate Hanukkah and John is a Christmas guy, so we settled on this idea which gave a shout out to the both of us. But what about Festivus, you ask? Good question. Did you know, that was actually a thing before Seinfeld? No kidding. It seems that one Mr. Daniel O’Keefe of Readers Digest made it up in the ‘60’s, because he was tired of family squabbles around the holidays. He even called for sitting around the table for the Airing of Grievances. I kid you not. And get this, his son Dan became a writer for Seinfeld and wrote the Festivus episode which made the made up holiday famous. For those of you keeping count, the official date is December, 23rd, the date the elder O’Keefe had his first date with his future wife. But I digress. The storing and retrieving of ornaments is apparently such a struggle, it’s almost not worth it. I wouldn’t know. I’m a Jew. But my daughter, who for years, yearned for a tree, showed us and eventually married a Methodist and has that damned tree every year!

As for the holiday card, well that sprung from the mind of John. It’s tough to kiss from 6-feet apart, and by the way, that’s a hell of a lot of mistletoe.

So whether you have your holidays on zoom or together wearing masks, stay safe and we will see you next week with a new comic and a New Year’s poster wishing 2020 a not very fond farewell.

And if this blog seems a bit short, well, cartoonists get some time off too.

See you next week,

Andy and John

Smart Devices 12/18/2020

Smart devices. They all promise to make our lives so much better. But are we smart enough to use them? There are smart refrigerators that tell you when you’re running low on milk, smart toaster ovens that know what you’ve put inside them and how long to bake or broil said item, smart watches, phones, tv’s, and I’m not smart enough to go on with more examples. Our first comic this week deals with a smartphone. Now if you are like me or John, you’ve gotten rid of your landline because it was just an expensive relic that did nothing more than receive useless junk calls. As time went on, my wife and I started ignoring our landline when it rang and our friends and family only called our cell phones. Eventually, the robocallers or bots caught on and now our smartphones get as many junk calls as our landlines used to get. Ahh, but we were smart, so we thought, so we’d outsmart our smartphones. First thing we did was sign up to the National Do Not Call Registry. Total waste of time. Next option was to immediately hang up after each call from Bluffton, Tenn. or Portsmouth, NH, where we didn’t know a soul. Then go into last call, info, and finally, block caller. Also not worth a hot damn. Because as soon as you block this particular number, whoever it is just calls you back on another number. As the pirates used to say, arghhhhhh! So we made a comic out of it. If anyone has any suggestions about how to defeat these seemingly endless crank calls, we’d love to hear about it and we’ll post it on the site, but until then, just don’t answer.

Next up is the smartwatch. I wonder if this happens to you. Almost every night I’ll be sitting on my couch around 10:30 or 11 when I feel a bump on my wrist. Inevitably it’s my watch, telling me it’s time to breathe. And immediately I think, do I really need a reminder telling me it’s time to breathe? Isn’t that sort of obvious? I mean, don’t you need to breathe to be able to sort of, ‘ya know, live? Oh I know, they mean deep breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth, but still, soooo annoying. What’ll it do next, tell me when it’s time to stand? Oh wait, it already does that. This next part is no joke. Kara Swisher from the N.Y. Times wrote that she bought a new watch to test for a column she was writing. The watch measured her pulse and told her, among other things, that she seemed upset at 4:46 pm yesterday and happy at 9:27 pm. Can’t you see it now, an ad for an antidepressant or Tito’s Vodka at 4:47 followed by a promo for a new romantic comedy at 9:28? The more and more devices are thinking for us, the less and less we are being asked to think for ourselves. Now if only someone can come up with a program to write this blog I can lie down and take a nap. John, who cannot be replaced by a bot, is busy working on our Christmas Card.

Have a great weekend and Happy Holidays,

Andy and John

Crossing the Line 12/11/2020

I remember going on safari many moons ago and we passed over an airplane tarmac where there were a group of rhinos. They passed over the pavement onto the grass heading for a grass circle. One of the young males kicked at the grass and mud and peed on it. The guide breathlessly explained that this circle had been created by the elder and that the young male was carving out his territory by pissing on and kicking the elder’s territory. It was quite a sight indeed. Now you’re probably thinking, have I lost my mind? Why am I bringing this up? The answer to the first question is: probably yes. And to the second: because we’re all animals and we all mark our territories. There’s my stuff and there’s your stuff and never the line shall be crossed. It’s called territory. There’s stuff that goes on my side and stuff that goes on your side. But what happens to the stuff we share? Like toilet paper? Or, in the case of this comic, cotton balls? It seems to John and me that these items usually find their way to the side with less stuff. Sharing means caring, or something like that.

Now the other comic is a little idiosyncratic thing from yours truly. When people stop me and say, you know who you look like? The answer is always, Larry David. Now, I don’t see it, (If you want to see my picture, go to our website thenew60comic.com and click on the tab “the creators”) but I do think I act like him. At least sometimes. And this comic is one of those times. The key to his character, I’ve always felt, is “the world is out to get me.” So in this case, when Al pushes the lobby button in an elevator, and somebody gets on after him and pushes the very same button he pushed, it is an affront. Why did she do that? Did she not think he did it correctly? Judging from the comments’ section, not many other people think this way, which says something good about the world, if not about this writer’s psyche.

So that’s it for this week, as we rocket our way to the end of 2020 (thank the lord). We’ll be back to you next week with two new ones.

Stay safe

Andy and John

An Exercise in Futility 12/04/2020

As far as I can tell there are two schools of thought when it comes to exercise. There’s the “Oh My God, I’d Rather Stick Burning Embers Under My Fingernails” school and there’s the “No Day is Complete Unless I Get My Work Out In” school. I belong to the second (in case you’re wondering, golf in an electric cart counts). I will workout unless the weather outside is particularly terrible. And in that case, I’ve got a gym in walking distance. But then Covid hit. And it turns out my local gym reported a case of Covid. And it turns out, the person who got Covid lives in my building. On my floor. And it turns out, we play golf together every Friday in the nice weather, so now it’s back to exercising outside. My friend, by the way, is recovering nicely. And I hurriedly got a test and it was negative. So unsurprisingly, both of this week’s comics have to do with how to get and stay in shape during the pandemic.

One way is to order one of those treadmills which promise the experience of a gym class (think spin class but on a treadmill) in the privacy of your home. Now I know people love them, but, if you’ve ever taken a gym class, you can find much to hate about them as well. Hell, some of them are even called “boot camps.” No thank you very much. John and I discussed it and we found different things to hate. For me, it was the instructor with the headset and microphone yelling at me over the blaring disco music. Disco music? Who the hell listens to disco music anymore? Apparently, these people do. Or maybe it’s not called disco anymore. Maybe it’s EDM (electronic dance music for you old farts) but whatever, it was a horrible experience I will never repeat. For John, it was the yelling. But screaming, virtual instructors aside, these things are amazing. You can walk, you can hike (can somebody please explain the difference to me?), you can jog or run, you can look at the instructor as she/he implores/induces/screams at you to keep going. Hell, you can even have the virtual instructor take over the machine for you and make the incline harder as they he/she/they ramps up the speed while you watch the sun set over the Cinque Terra instead of watching the screaming virtual instructor. Well, you get the drift.

The other comic this week stems from a story I told John about a sweatshirt I bought when staying in Westwood, CA, to shoot a commercial. Having some free time one day, I roamed the UCLA campus and went into the bookstore and bought a UCLA sweatshirt, which to this day remains one of my favorite sweatshirts to work out in. Except. Except I never attended UCLA, never thought about going there, my kids didn’t go there, my wife didn’t go there, nobody I’m related to went there, and almost every time I wear the damn thing and go out for a walk or jog, someone gives me a thumbs up and yells something about the school, like Go Bruins! And I fail to react because I don’t even realize they’re talking to me until several steps later, at which point they’ve written me off as a complete jerk. So now, it has become the sweatshirt of last resort, unless I can cover it up with a down vest or a parka. Upon hearing this story, John (who loves to laugh at my expense) had already written and done a rough sketch of the comic.

So that’s it for this week as we roar into December and the holiday season. Stay safe and thanks for being such a good and loyal audience. We really appreciate it, and that’s no joke.

Andy and John

Thanks for nuthin' 2020 11/27/2020

2020 can kiss our collective butts goodbye. But before it goes we ended our three part advertising saga and John did a Covid-themed Norman Rockwell poster for Thanksgiving. First, about Thanksgiving. We hope you enjoyed yours. We’ll have a distant one, with one kid and her husband in Brooklyn and our son in Colorado. While John and Linda will have two family members visiting and for the rest an equally scattered holiday. For all the wonderful memories Thanksgiving brings, there’s also the political arguments, the aggressive cheek pinching, and drunk uncles falling asleep watching football, so at least there’s a little bit less of that, though to be truthful, this was written before Thanksgiving and I might have too much wine, affectionately pinch Joanie’s cheek and fall asleep watching football, but not during the Steelers-Ravens night game, which might actually be exciting. And I have one question about turkey. If it’s so unbelievably damn good, why does nobody think about making it any other night of the year? Ever? Just asking.

Now onto the ad thing. We all love funny Super Bowl ads with great jokes and visuals at the end, like 90-year-old Abe Vigoda getting tackled at the end of a Dorito’s commercial a few years back. But almost nobody admits to liking a good jingle. We remember them, that’s for sure, but like them? Well, that’s a different story. We all like things we are embarrassed to admit. I, for instance, like Neil Diamond. And This Is Us. As well as a good jingle. But you didn’t hear that here. And when Al is confronted by his buddy on how well the jingle served his business, he was forced to admit it did pretty damned well. That’s his story and he’s sticking with it.

As 2020 comes to close to a close, we hope a vaccine is around the corner followed by a sense of normalcy and hopefully a book of New 60 Comics which will be a perfect holiday gift for next year, hint, hint.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week which is already December. Yikes, how time flies,

Andy and John

On Advertising 11/20/2020

Ahh advertising. It’s a career I spent 39 years in and John spent almost as long (he’s just 5 years younger). And it’s a career I’d like to think we know a little bit about. A little bit. And it’s the career we used to do before this new career as underemployed cartoonists. So when we were talking about new topics to explore for some upcoming strips, we thought, why not write about advertising? Al has a pizza franchise, Pizza-on-a-Stick, so let him try to come up with a new campaign that will take his franchise to the moon (that’s the way they talk in advertising). They say stuff like, “We want to own the casual dining experience.” Or, “We want to own the weekend.” Now the question is, who exactly gave you ownership of a particular day of the week/time of day/mealtime/or made you the official non-alcoholic beverage of the Kansas City Royals? And the answer is, who cares? And that attitude is probably why we’re both doing a comic strip instead of creating ads. That and being over 60, which is a fate worse than death (unless you own the agency, and maybe not then either), but I digress. From our years in the ad wars, we know that franchises like Al’s are given ads from “Corporate Headquarters” in places like Akron, Topeka or Cincinnati. Usually, they hate it. And frequently the individual franchisees want to run their own stuff. And therein lies the tension for the first two comics in our three part series. The third and final part is coming next Tuesday.

Here’s a dirty little secret about most creative people. They thumb their noses at pop culture, figuring anyone can do that, but what I do, now that’s special. So Al’s reaction is based somewhat on that emotion. But he doesn’t want to admit to that so he latches onto another popular trend that has taken off, thanks to the internet. Crowd sourcing. What does that mean, you ask? It means fielding ideas from the crowd (online in general, but in this case from his store employees) for free, but then you only have to pay the person if their idea has actually been chosen. It’s just another way for an agency to not have to pay so many employees. It doesn’t matter if the ideas stink, they’re free! Well, in this case, the crowd sourced idea is so bad, it matters. And the trouble is, even though Al detests that jingle, he can’t top it. More on that next Tuesday.

Anyone want to crowd source some comics?

Have a great weekend

Andy and John

Getting in Shape 11/13/2020

Happy Friday the 13th. You know, there’s all different kinds of getting in shape. You could be in shape for running a marathon, but that does not get you in shape for bringing up a new baby. You could be in shape for being a college student, partying all night and still managing to go to class the next day, while staying up all night the next night studying to pass the test you’re about to take the day after that. That’s one kind of shape. But it doesn’t prepare you for the kind of shape you have to be in to commute while working a full-time job. And that doesn’t prepare you for the kind of shape you have to be in to work a full-time job while being a new parent. Suddenly those mid-week all-night parties are a thing of the past, or else you too will be a thing of the past. At least at work. So Al, in our first comic, preps for watching sports on a Sunday afternoon from 9:30 am all the way through Sunday Night Football which usually doesn’t end until 11:30 pm or midnight. Now that takes a certain type of stamina. So I’ve heard. It can be done, but you have to allow for a few naps along the way. Especially if there’s beer and hot dogs involved. And chips. And guac. Not to mention salsa. A chocolate chip cookie. And the occasional 5 mg. gummy. Again I reiterate, not that I’d know.

Now onto our second comic, which was actually the third in our “Sam’s a New Dad” trilogy. I know, it’s not as intergalactically impressive as saying “The Star Wars Trilogy,” but first of all, “Star Wars“ had a much bigger ad budget and secondly, they had about 6,000 movies so how the hell is that a trilogy? “Sam’s a New Dad” is a real, honest to goodness, trilogy. It takes us all the way from when he first became a new dad to when he settled in to becoming a new dad. Now maybe that doesn’t sound like a very long journey to you but remember those first few days of first-time parenthood? That was a looooong journey. Now imagine going through it at age 60. At this age, what he lacks in energy, he makes up for in money and (hopefully) patience. And that explains the $900 jogging stroller, a “must-have” for any new parent of means.

All right, have a happy Friday the 13th unless you have triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). If that’s the case we gently suggest, GET OVER IT!

ps: I never heard of triskaidekaphobia either until John, aka Mr. Smarty Pants, brought it up

See you next week with two brand new comics and a brand-new saga.

Andy and John