HAPPY NEW YEAR 12/31/21

This week we bid adieu to 2021. And it got us to look back at last year’s New Year’s Eve poster when we were gleefully kicking 2020 out the door. This year had to be better, so we featured Al’s happy new grandchild, dressed up as 2022 and Al as Father Time (not particularly enjoying the moment), or, in Al terms, being Al. 2021 looked a lot better than 2020 for a while, but now that the Omicron variant is here, things are upside down again. Suddenly we do not feel as free to hop a plane, go to a hotel, dine indoors, take in a play or, heaven forbid, a movie in an actual movie theater. One ultra-responsible, artsy movie theater near me is staying open, at half capacity, but is no longer serving their delicious popcorn with real butter (rather than butter-flavored topping—word to the wise, don’t ever buy something that says “flavored” or “style” it bears no resemblance to the real thing. A couple years ago a woman sued Kraft when she discovered that the “guacamole-style” dip she served for her Super Bowl contained no avocado. I would’ve sued her for buying guacomole-style, but I digress). I guess we’ll have to stop shaking hands again and start doing elbow bumps when we meet friends. I don’t mean to suggest we will look back fondly on 2020 someday, just that 2021 felt all too similar to 2020. Or as Janis Joplin once vamped in a live recording, “It’s all the same f’ing day man,” only she didn’t say f’ing.

Our other comic is based on a present my wife sends to her favorite clients and friends during the holidays. It is a massive tub of chocolate-covered popcorn. And when I say chocolate-covered, I don’t mean just chocolate-covered, you actually have to bite through layers of chocolate just to get to the actual popcorn. It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. John and I both took on this challenge in our respective houses. He challenged himself last year to see how long he could make the popcorn last. He failed miserably. I told him this year I could make it until mid-January. I just recycled the empty plastic bin a couple days ago, on December 29th to be exact. But I have an excuse, I swear. The excuse is our 32-year - old son came home to visit and consumed massive handfuls, accompanied by milk. I realized how quickly I had to replace the half gallon of milk to estimate how much chocolate popcorn he consumed. So that’s my excuse. On the other hand, my wife was recovering from a breakthrough Covid case (she was triple-vaxed) and out of concern for me and my son, never plunged her hand into the popcorn tub. Thankfully, she is all better, and what I’m trying to say is I ate way too much of that stuff. But it’s okay. Now we can live up to our New Year’s resolutions about hitting the gym on a regular basis. Or, if you invested in home exercise equipment, about riding that damn bike several times a week. But first you have to take all the shirts and hangars off the Peloton handlebars before you begin. Otherwise your knees keep bumping into the shirts and if they’re not covered in plastic from the dry-cleaners, you might sweat all over them. And then you’ll think, “Forget it, it’s too big a hassle,” and go back to eating chocolate popcorn.

Have a wonderful last weekend on 2021 and we’ll see you next year with two new ones, once we sober up from New Year’s Eve.

Andy and John

Happy ChrismaHanukwanzaakah 12/24/21

I know, what about Kwanzaa? Listen, it’s hard to combine Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa into one happy word, so I stole ChrismaHanukwanzaakah from The Urban Dictionary and the OC. But please keep it between us that I ever watched The OC. I have an excuse. The kids were young teens and we used to watch it with them. The problem was, they got bored and we got hooked. Had to hang in there until the bitter end. But that’s our only example of such deviant behavior. Well, unless you count Dawson’s Creek. I mean, who among us didn’t shed a tear when Dawson Leary’s dad, Mitch died in a collision with a truck at night? Granted, when his ice cream fell off the cone onto the floor on the passenger side, Mitch should never have bent over to pick up the ice cream. But when he did and set his eyes back on the road, what did he see except for blinding headlights and a blaring truck horn? I can’t go on. Suffice it to say, it left an everlasting mark. So for now let’s go with ChrismaHanuKwanzaakah. Feel free to write in if you’ve got a better way to keep everyone happy.

But this comic came to John when he and his wife Linda went shopping for a Christmas tree. I must confess, my wife Joanie and I don’t have one because we’re Jewish and celebrate Chanukah. Anyway, the tree farm had a tree shaker, so the loose pine needles don’t get all over your floor. And he wondered, what would happen if the shaker shook too hard. Your answer is comic #1. One final note on Christmas trees. My daughter Ali, when she was a little girl in a car seat, used to love the pretty Christmas tree in Dobbs Ferry where we would exit the highway to go home. Every time we passed it she’d say “want a Christmas Tree, want a Christmas tree.” And we’d patiently explain, “We don’t celebrate Christmas honey, we’re Jewish.” Finally, when she became 5, she crossed her arms and defiantly responded, “Fine, then I’ll marry someone Christmas.” 25 years later, that’s exactly what she did. And tomorrow the family is going to their house to exchange presents under their beautifully decorated tree. But for our Jewish friends and readers, they celebrated Hanukkah too.

Now onto the holiday card. We immediately liked using the bare tree as the symbol for our holiday card. One reason is because it makes for a neat package this week: shake the tree bare and then use the bare tree as our card. But the other reason was it symbolized 2021 for us. We checked out our Happy New Year card from last year and it showed the cast kicking 2020 out the door. Couldn’t wait for 2020 to leave. But guess what, 2021 hasn’t proven to be much better, at least as far as Covid goes. But, it’s a new year, with new discoveries and maybe, just maybe we can kick this thing in the butt. Anything, anything, to not have to keep dancing this dance. I leave you with a funny scene from two weeks ago. My wife and I went to a Broadway show, the Lehman Trilogy. Before the curtain went up, I noticed this guy one row in front, talking and gesticulating with his mask under his nose. I gently tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to please pull his mask above his nose. After the first intermission I went to buy a bottle of water and came back to my seat and took a big sip. He turned around in his seat and said, “Excuse me, can you please pull up your mask?” Yikes.

Happy Holidays and we will see you next week with two new ones. The last two for 2021.

Andy and John

What's Next??? 12/17/21

Are we really getting to the end of 2021? And what do we make of these times? If you are anything like us, chances are you find them increasingly hard to understand. This being a blog about a comic strip, however, we are not going to tackle politics or artificial intelligence (speaking of artificial intelligence, spell check just corrected the way I spelled intelligence, but that’s a story for another time), we will confront such life changing events as the all too real supply chain-induced cream cheese shortage. Talk about a problem. I mean, if you’re anything like me, butter just won’t do (John vehemently disagrees with this). In fact, I have a certain family member (who will go unnamed) who likes to PRE-BUTTER her bagels BEFORE she puts them under the broiler, resulting in a golden topped bagel. That’s the good news. But when you next apply a liberal schmear of cream cheese (note: not a coating, not a layer, a schmear) it’s too damn fatty. So leave the butter off, okay?? And speaking of artificial intelligence, it’s not that smart. It just tried to autocorrect my spelling of “schmear” to “schemer.” I can assure you, there was no scheme whatsoever. Clearly, the artificial intelligence is not Jewish. But back to the comic. There really IS a worldwide cream cheese shortage, and when I mentioned to John that I have a half-full container of Whole Foods 365 Cream Cheese plus a back-up container of Philly, he immediately called me a hoarder. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me (though he may have a good point).

Now, back to the future, as we pick up the saga of Sid. You may remember him as the 30-something son of Al and Joanne who still lived at home with his parents. But then he sold an app and is now a rich young man. John and I wondered how a young guy with money would decorate his new apartment. For research I used my own kids. I have a son who loves sports like I do and so a tv plays a prominent role in his apartment. I have a married daughter who is most definitely not a sports fan and the tv plays a minor role in her house. It’s quite possible to go there for a visit and then have to go to the local sports bar to catch the Knicks. So John and I debated, how would Sid decorate. And then he came up with the idea for a hidden tv. We debated should it come down from the ceiling or up from a wall unit. Well, since we didn’t want to break in through the floor of the apartment above (I mean he’s rich, but not THAT rich), we went with the wall unit. That’s the thing about comics, you can pretty much make them up as you go along. And speaking of making them up, we need to make up two new ones, which takes us right into the holiday season.

So merry Christmas, happy Chanukah and a joyous Kwanzaa (in advance)

Andy and John

Things Just Ain't What They Used to Be 12/10/21

Obviously, a lot of stuff just ain’t what it used to be. Like me for example. A couple of weeks ago, my 36-year old son-in-law Mark ran the New York City Marathon. My wife Joanie and I went to watch him in Brooklyn along with our daughter Ali, a former NYC marathoner herself, and her daughter Charlotte, a marathoner-in-training. Of course she has to learn how to walk first, but anyway… You see, I’ve always harbored a “bucket-list’ desire to run a marathon. John already ran his, the bastard. Then I gave up on it. While training in my early 30’s, my knee locked up on me after a half-marathon. Nonetheless, there we were on 4th Ave in Brooklyn when Mark came running by to say a quick hello. As Mark hugged his daughter, an older runner came up and hugged his granddaughter who was right next to where we were standing. As he ran off, I asked his son how old his marathon dad was, and he said “68” which happens to be my exact age. If that wasn’t a sign from God to get out there and run one next year I don’t know what a sign looks like. Of course there was also another sign near the finish line of two people, who appeared to be in their 30’s, sitting on a bench, having their feet and shoulders rubbed by their respective partners, and burying their faces in their hands, crying tears of pain. Nonetheless, I went out the next day and ran, or should I say jogged, 2 miles at a super slow pace. As I came back to my apartment building feeling all proud and accomplished, the doorman looked concerned at my reddened face and hard breathing. With all seriousness he asked, “Are you okay. Should I call 911?” He sure knows how to ruin a good buzz. At any rate, this desire to run a marathon spurred on our first comic.

Next on your list is a comic about logos. I would love to be a professional golfer on the PGA Senior Tour. Trouble is, I usually shoot in the 90’s. But if I were on the tour I would object to all the logos I had to wear. 2 or 3 on the hat, one on the shirt, left side, another on the shirt sleeve, perhaps both sleeves, and let’s not forget the belt and perhaps the pants and certainly the golf glove, golf bag and ball. I would put my foot down and say absolutely not. Until they described to me how much I’d be getting paid for all these logos. Then I’d suggest another one on each butt cheek. But enough about me. This is about John. He needed some new clothes and he went with his wife Linda to the outlet mall and he observed that clothes today just ain’t what they used to be. Everything in the store had a logo on it. And not just a small logo. A big, fat, honking logo. A logo that shouts, “Look at me, I don’t wear just any shirt, I wear a Polo by Ralph Lauren” (whose real last name is Lipshitz, but for some reason they thought it wouldn’t make a good logo, so they went with Lauren and the polo ponies). Ya know it’s not so much the polo pony itself that’s objectionable, it’s the SIZE of the polo pony. And you’ve got to ask yourself, does the three-striped Adidas logo on the pants leg really go with the Nike swoosh on the sneakers? And would anybody in their right mind wear a Champion long-sleeved tee underneath a Tommy Hilfiger sweater? I mean, nobody is going to be able to admire the full-length CHAMPION logo running down your right arm and who’d want to miss that? So John’s shopping trip became the subject of today’s second comic.

And that’s all we have for this week. See you next week with two new ones.

Happy Holidays

Andy and John

Then and Now 11/3/21

A lot has changed between then and now. Boy, now there’s a deep insight for you. We explored those very changes in different ways this week. Let’s talk about pickup trucks, shall we? Way back when, they used to be the sole vehicles for people who needed them. Farmers, construction workers, home builders, remodelers, etc. Fast forward to the 1990’s, I was shooting a television commercial with a hotshot director who had directed a few Hollywood hit movies (name being withheld to protect the guilty). He drove to the set in a shiny, brand-new pickup truck. Now this guy, like me, grew up Jewish in New York. I asked him why a pickup, and he said, “It’s cool.” Well it might have been, but he certainly wasn’t. It’s not like he needed it. He didn’t haul his own equipment around. He had “people for that.” In fact, he didn’t even have to haul his half-caf/half-decaf cappuccino because he had someone bring him that every morning, along with his breakfast burrito. As far as I could tell, he never had to carry anything. After that, I noticed that seemingly every third car on the LA highways and freeways was a pickup truck. There couldn’t be that many farmers barreling into Santa Monica at 7 pm when the shooting wrapped. And that brings me to today. When two people I know and respect, John, my partner in crime, and Mark, my son-in-law, decided they were in the market for pickup trucks themselves. They are from different generations and their reasons for wanting a pickup were completely different as well. John wanted a truck to simply haul garbage to the town dump, to dispose of fallen trees, or to haul lumber from the local Lowe’s store. Whereas Mark wanted one to carry his surfboard and to have a second row of seats in the cab, so his baby daughter could ride safely in her car seat. Suffice it to say, they had very different reactions at the dealership. While John was thinking, “Why do I need an extended cab? Who the hell am I taking along with me to the town dump?” Mark was thinking extended cab, wireless hotspot, cool. And this dichotomy was the inspiration for our first comic.

The second comic was a horse of a different color. John and I have talked about this one for almost a year, and you can see from the details in the illustration how long he had pondered this one. As America has changed, as society has changed, so have our stores. Sure you can understand how typewriter repair shops, camera shops and video rental stores have all gone the way of the Edsel, but do we really need competing drugstores and cell phone stores and coffee shops and donut shops that compete with the coffee shops on every corner? Seriously? Oh, excuse me, I’ve got to run to Walgreens to fill my subscription before they close. Or was it CVS?

That is it for this week and as we bundle up for winter, your two comic guys will see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Thanksgiving Fun 11/26/21

Thanksgiving. What else were we going to write about this week? Thanksgiving is great. The family gets together, and who doesn’t love family? Then we carve the turkey, and who doesn’t love turkey? Besides me? I also don’t love sweet potatoes with marshmallows, roasted carrots or brussel sprouts, but that’s another story. By the way, just so you don’t think I’m a total curmudgeon, I’m good with stuffing, orange-cranberry relish, gravy and pies. Ahhh, the holiday spirit.

In celebration, we decided to devote both comics to this beloved day. I mean, who hasn’t fallen asleep after stuffing themselves on cheese, crackers, wine and the Detroit Lions. Why are the Detroit Lions on every single Thanksgiving at 12:00 Eastern? Is it in the Bible? “Thou shalt watch 3 hours of possibly the worst team in football get trounced every year.” I must have missed that passage. What happens when you fall asleep in front of the family? Some people leave you alone. But others, armed with cell-phone cameras, are all too eager to embarrass the hell out of you. And that was the inspiration for our non-poster comic this week.

The inspiration for the poster? Well duh, that was Thanksgiving itself. And this year, we are giving ourselves a present by writing a much shorter blog, ‘cause guess what, the doorbell is ringing, the Lions game is starting and here comes family…

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours,

Andy and John

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

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

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

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

Andy and John

Perspective 11/12/21

Perspective is a funny thing. I remember being 9 years old when my parents called me into the living room with solemn looks upon their faces. They said, “Grandpa Sam died last night, he was only 61. Such a young man.” I distinctly remember two thoughts coming into my 9-year old mind: 1) “Poor grandpa. And 2) 61 is really old.” Another example revolves around a summer when we took our young kids to Disney World and then later that summer to a local, small-sized retro amusement park in Rye, NY, called Playland. I loved that place as a kid, but now, being an adult, I realized I could see from one end to the other. It’s about 3 to 4 city blocks long. My kids, being decidedly smaller, were overwhelmed with all the games and rides. And I asked, “Which place do you think is bigger, Disney World or Playland?” And at once they gleefully shouted out, “Playland!!!” There’s one thing that can be said about perspective: it always changes.

Like our perspective about our misspent youth. I remember a friend showing me the huge field he used to play on when he was a kid. Baseball in the summer, football in the fall. Upon revisiting it, it was a small patch of green surrounded by a bunch of dirt. Or, a couple years ago, this Italian restaurant I loved as a child reopened. It was called Grotto Azura, which means Blue Cave. And you went literally underground, down a couple flights of stairs. The place served family-style huge plates of pasta and clams and sausage, anything you wanted, and it was decorated as if it were a cave. Coolest place ever. When some friends came in from out of town, my wife and I took them there. What a spectacular letdown. The underground part was closed because there wasn’t enough business to justify opening it. And when we tasted the food, we understood why there wasn’t enough business. It sucked. Perspective.

Which brings us to Joe Namath Electric Football, a game both John and I happened to own. I remember getting it as a holiday present. It came with 22 football player statues, 11 for each team. You put them in position on the “field”, which was a board that vibrated when you turned it on. The problem was the players didn’t necessarily travel in the direction you wanted them to go. They went backwards, they went sideways, they fell down. In fact, I think it’s safe to say they never went in the direction you wanted them to go. It was the worst football game I’ve ever played. It was even worse than the food at the new Grotto Azura! This must have been before the days of product testing because the damn thing never worked, ever. Kinda like Joe after his knees were shot. Sorry Jets fans, that was uncalled for. The game seemed like a good idea at the time, but trust us both, it wasn’t. Now Madden 22? That is a good football game. Not because either of us know how to play it, but because we’ve seen our kids play it and those images are a LOT more realistic than Joe Namath Electric Football.

So that is that for this week, but we would like to give a special shout out to John, his wife Linda and their kids, especially daughter Alison, who is getting married this weekend in beautiful, bucolic Charleston, South Carolina. Cheers.

Andy and John

If Martians Could Hear Us Speak, What Would They Think? 11/05/21

As anybody over the age of 60 can attest, going out to dinner with your friends becomes increasingly complicated. First, there’s the ailment discussions. “Oh, my knee is killing me, what’s the name of that foot doctor you like?” “Feet and knees are different things.” “I don’t think I’ll have a drink tonight, my headaches have been acting up.” “Ya know I complained to my doctor about acid reflux. He said to lay off red wine, red meat, chocolate, cigars and alcohol.” And that’s before we start to order the food, which is what one of this week’s comics is focused on. When did we transition from asking for a caesar salad to asking for a caesar salad, no anchovies, hold the croutons, dressing on the side and please make sure that egg yolk isn’t raw? Remember the Burger King jingle, “Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don’t upset us?” That’s where it all started and I’ll tell you one thing, they upset me! And let’s not even start with gluten-free. Okay let’s. Does anyone know what the f#@k gluten is? I certainly don’t but I know I sure as hell like it. Stuff like bread, cake, pasta have gluten in them, and they taste pretty damn good. If you have a certain medical condition and can’t eat gluten that’s one thing, but for everyone else, enough with the gluten-free alright? Have you ever tasted brown rice pasta or red lentil pasta or (yummy) chickpea pasta????? About as tasty as cauliflower pizza. A couple months ago, we bought a loaf of gluten-free bread at a nearby farmer’s market. As we put two slices into the toaster oven, the most remarkable thing happened. It started to bubble. Have you ever seen bread start to bubble? No. Because bread shouldn’t bubble. It should turn brown. Period, the end. Give me a good slice of old-fashioned sourdough any day of the week. Oh, and gluten-free potato chips? Every potato chip ever made has been gluten-free to begin with. They’re potatoes. As for fat-free and gluten-free, We think they ought to be free, because that’s all we’d be willing to pay for them.

And then we tackled the wonderful world of cliches. Stuff people say without giving it a second thought. Jerry Seinfeld once said, “When I’m going to visit a friend and another friend says, ‘Send them my best’, I want to say, is that really your best-- to ask me to tell them you send your best? Why don’t you pick up the phone and tell them yourself? Wouldn’t that be better?” There are so many examples of these silly sayings we don’t think about, but I’m not going to repeat them here, because they are sure to become fodder for future comics. But about the one we chose, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” I mean we’re sure there is more than one way, but why such a gory metaphor? And why would you want to skin a cat anyway? Isn’t that what cat lovers love about cats in the first place, their furry, huggable skin? And it’s not like we eat cats, so there’s absolutely no reason to skin a cat in the first place. Nonetheless, Marv manages to come up with an answer. Which brings us back to the title of this blog, If Martians could hear us speak, what would they think? We think the Martian would say, “You know what, I”m heading back to Mars.”

On Gender Reassignment and Halloween

Sometimes the subjects of these blogs fit into a neat little headline. Like last week’s for instance. One comic was about filling your car up at gas stations and another about trains, so the title “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” came naturally (even though there wasn’t anything about planes). But, sometimes the two comics have absolutely nothing in common and so I am forced to go with the more prosaic, “On Gender Reassignment and Halloween.” If you readers have any suggestions for a more pithy title, send them in.

Let’s start with Halloween, even though the comic is only remotely about Halloween. I live in Tarrytown, NY, and right across the street is North Tarrytown, which has been renamed Sleepy Hollow. If there was ever a place that went absolutely nuts for Halloween, this is it. Washington Irving, who wrote the Legend of Sleepy Hollow (the one with the headless horseman) has the next town over named for him, Irvington. They have haunted hayrides with high school students dressed up as ghosts and witches who pop out from behind trees and scare the bejesus out of the little kids on the hayride. I have a couple questions here. 1) why is that considered fun and 2) what does bejesus mean? Anyway, suffice it to say that this corner of Westchester County takes its Halloween seriously. Having said that, my wife and I moved to an apartment building 6 years ago with mostly empty nesters so there’s almost no trick or treating involved, and no need to dress up like a haunted figure to answer the door, because no kids are showing up in the first place. But this comic was really about crass commercialism. There are stores (remember stores, they were those buildings with signs in front before Amazon took over?) that cater to one holiday season at a time. There are Christmas stores, Summer stores (patio furniture and beach chairs, etc.) and Halloween stores. But the funny thing is these places run out of costumes or Christmas trees or decorations or deck chairs long before the season they are meant to serve. I mean, who even thinks about Halloween decorations in September? Apparently a lot of people, because when (if you are like us) you finally get around to shopping for Halloween, everything is gone and the store is loaded with Christmas decorations. In October! John and I had a discussion about the clerk at the store, whether he should say we ran out of Halloween stuff after Labor Day or should we say after Columbus Day. Columbus Day won because it was more believable.

Then there was the comic we called Gender Bender. Now everytime we broach a controversial subject we tread carefully, not wanting to offend anybody. But let’s face it, that’s pretty damn impossible. When we were putting this one together, we focused not on the gender reassignment surgery, but rather on Marv’s uncomfortable reaction to it. Our guess is that would be pretty typical amongst people in our particular age group. But who are we to judge? In this case, it turned on the lie everybody says when they run into someone they haven’t seen in many decades…”You haven’t changed a bit.” Doesn’t matter if they put on an extra 100 pounds, had hair plugs, silicone boobs, lap-band surgery or even if they changed sexes, we all say the same thing. But face it, everybody changes. Except for John and me who still have all our hair, which miraculously hasn’t turned grey, all our height and all our physical strength. We haven’t changed a bit. Except for, well…everything.

That’s all folks for this week. Have a great weekend and we will see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Planes, Trains and Automobiles 10/22/21

Okay so there’s not really a comic about planes this week, but the trains and automobile parts, yeah. First the car part. When it’s time to fill up (and you drive a gas-powered vehicle) we get less and less help from the “service station.” I mean, where’s the service? Nowadays you’ve got to get out of the car, remove the gas cap, squeegee your own windshield, fill ‘er up with gas, pay in advance with your credit card that the pump doesn’t recognize in the first place, so you have to go inside anyway, and then you forget your mask so you have to return to the car to get your mask, and you haven’t even started pumping the premium yet. Want to check your oil, or refill your washer fluid or make sure the tire pressure is good? Fuhgeddaboudit.

This is one of the ways that society has unravelled. I was low on gas, and out on the eastern end of Long Island this summer when I pulled up to an old-fashioned gas station this summer with a name I’d never heard of. Royal Gas. I was looking in the glove compartment for the aforementioned gasoline credit card and when I sat up I nearly had a heart attack. There was this stranger hanging by my window, way too close, looking in at me. Tentatively, I rolled down said window and shakily asked, “yes?” The scary guy then said, “Regular or premium,” and it took my another second to realize that he was going to fill my car up for me. What was he gonna do next, offer a free toaster oven? Not. But that fit the narrative for our first comic, another in the Then and Now series.

Next up was the second and final version of our Model Train series. As we pointed out last week, John was much more into electric train sets than I was. Only thing I remember about my dad’s set was a rocket launcher and one of the coolest things ever, an exploding box car. Okay maybe it wasn’t the coolest thing ever, but it was pretty cool. No, really. I guess you had to be there. At any rate, we wondered what would happen if Al’s grandson got his hands on the train set, without having Al peering over his shoulder with one of those dad-like, “Don’t you dare touch anything until I say you can” kind of looks. The kid lets his imagination run wild which is obviously an excuse to let our imaginations run wild, and this was the result of our overwrought imaginations. Speaking of imaginations, I imagine some of you thinking, “Grow up already and write about something relevant or at least something happy,” but as Leslie Gore might have sung decades ago, “it’s our comic, and we’ll whine whine when we want to, whine when we want to, you would whine too if it happened to you.”

We will leave you with that and have a pleasant weekend, email the comic onto your friends so WE have a pleasant weekend and we’ll see yo next week with two new ones hot off the proverbial press, or at least off the internet.

John and Andy

The More Things Change... 10/15/21

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I’ve never quite understood that one, but whatever it means, it applies to both of this week’s comics. First the Train Set. Now John and I grew up differently from one another. He loves to build stuff, cut down trees, carve pumpkins, manly stuff like that that he probably learned from his dad, who in turn learned from his dad and so on. And so he is naturally enthralled with things like train sets. Me, I’m Jewish. When something needed fixing or building, my grandfather called the super, my father called the super and I call the super, and we don’t even have a superintendent. So we found a guy who is great at fixing stuff and call him when the need arrives, which is often. But back to the train set. Come to think of it, my dad did have a Lionel train set at one point. I can remember an exploding box car, which you tried to hit with a rocket launcher as the train was moving, but that’s about it. I imagine John’s childhood train set to be much, much more detailed. With the diversity of train set experience hanging between us, we settled on one thing we have in common, age. And let’s face it, when you want to show off your fancy toy train set to your grandkid and the kid doesn’t recognize anything in it, it’s a little deflating. And that was the influence for the Train Set comic. But not to worry, we are going to have a second train set comic next week. You don’t build (in this case, draw) a whole train set only to use it once.

Next up is the trip to the library. But what this is really about is clutter. Maria Kondo wrote a best-selling book about removing clutter. Really, people are attracted to books like hers, which to me seems like more clutter, but anyway… She says that you should only keep things that “spark joy.” I say, “spark this.” But she has a point. In my childhood home, the train set didn’t spark as much joy as the ping pong table it was sitting on, so after a while, bye bye train set with exploding box car and rocket launcher. I have a theory that there are two kinds of people in most relationships, hoarders, and chucker outers. I am a chucker outer. If I buy a new pair of jeans, which isn’t often, I put an older pair in the clothing bin in our local strip mall. Same with shirts, shoes, etc. My wife is a “collector.” In this case we switched roles and made Marv the hoarder. His wife Rachel wants to get rid of stuff. But when he was at the book fair at the public library, he saw so much stuff that sparked so much joy, he kind of forgets his mission.

7 years ago, my wife and I, empty nesters now that our kids were out of the house and graduated from college, sold our house and moved to an apartment. Now that requires a whole bunch of downsizing and, let’s face it, different things “spark joy” in different people. I remember a conversation we had upon moving in. Me: We cannot possibly have 4 sets of china in an apartment. She: Or 4 tv’s.

Guess how that ended? As I might say, you never know when a 4th person might come over and want to watch something different from what 3 other people are watching, so we really need 4. And as Joanie might say, this was my mother’s set, this was my grandmother’s set, this is my great grandmother’s and then there’s our everyday dishes and it makes me feel good to have them. So we compromised and kept everything, just in case.

That is it for this week. We will be back to you next week with two new ones, including what Al’s grandson wants to do with the train set.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

When I'm 64 10/08/21

You know the Beatles’ ditty. This writer happens to be 68, but there are no song titles about that particular age. So we went with 6'4. And what does that have to do with the price of sliced bread, you ask. Actually, nothing. And everything. Because when you reach your 60’s, you can say it’s the new 40, but you’re only kidding yourself. It’s the New 60 (see how we cleverly threw that plug in?). You still play golf, but it’s in a cart. Okay, you might walk and carry occasionally, but only for 9 holes, not 18. Gone are the pickup touch football games, slow-pitch softball leagues, full-court basketball and road races. Now it’s a nice hike or walk. And that’s more than fine. But this week we focused on two activities that time is starting to infringe on (and yeah, I know I ended the sentence with a preposition, but you know what Churchill said about that rule? He said, “That is precisely the type of poppycock up with which I shall not put.”) I wish I could say it as well as Winston, but I’ll just stick to ending the occasional sentence with a preposition (from). See, I’ll even do it if it makes no damn sense.

At any rate the two activities we presented were 1) a trip to the county fair and 2) eating at the diner. Now everything being equal, we would have run the county fair in the heat of the summer, but this is when they happened to fit into our crowded calendars, so forgive our lack of timeliness. The County Fair is ripe with lots of fun activities, funnel cakes, Corndogs, Skee-ball and of course the rides. I have a couple of stories about the rides. The first one revolves around the time I went with a friend to Six Flags. He took his two sons who were around 7 and 10 years old and I took my daughter who was 11. Truth is, we’re both scared of things like loop-de-loop roller coasters and elevator drops. So while my friend and I encountered these scary rides, his two boys said, “Let’s go,” while my daughter was unsure. So I did the brave thing and hid behind her. I said to my friend, you go with the boys while I stay with Ali (my daughter). I mean I had no choice, did I? But secretly I told her “I’m glad you didn’t go. These things scare the hell out of me.” The other story was during a summer between college years. I went on a double date with my cousin and her serious boyfriend (who was also my roommate) and this girl I had just met. We went to a Chinese restaurant and then to Playland, a small deco amusement park in Westchester County, New York. Well the combination of egg rolls, moo shu pork and a swaying Ferris Wheel didn’t sit so well with yours truly, as a wave of nausea took hold. All I could think of was, please hold it in until we get down. Somehow I managed to do that and ran over to the bushes immediately after the seat bar was lifted. Just like Al, I tossed my cookies, as the saying goes, but this time my “cookies” happened to be the aforementioned egg rolls and moo shu. Maybe there was a fortune cookie in there somewhere so I could literally say I tossed my cookies, but it was not a great way to impress a girl on a first date. Suffice it to say that the amusement park is one area where we get less enjoyment the older we get.

Which brings us to another situation that does not improve with age. Hypochondria. I mean, do you listen to some of the discussions we all have when we go to dinner with similarly-aged friends? “Oh, my knee is killing me. I don’t think I can walk with you tomorrow.” Oy (for our Jewish friends, and me), my acid reflux is killing me, can you please serve it without the red pepper flakes.” Or, this is the absolute truth, my wife and I ate with very close friends of ours last weekend and when I remarked that the guy looked like he lost weight, he immediately replied, “It’s probably a deadly stomach disease.” So there you have it. In this case we had the guys show concern about a mysterious new black spot on Al’s arm. If you haven’t already read the comics, I won’t spoil it by telling you what the spot actually was.. John and I went back and forth several times about whether it was too gross to have him eat the “spot” after he scratches it off his arm. Lest you think we’re too prudish, the only reason he didn’t pop it in his mouth is because we ran out of frames. And there you have it, the sturm and drang of a cartoonist’s life. To eat or not to eat, that is the question.

And that is it for this week, we’ve got a couple new ones for you next week. Have a great weekend.

Andy and John

Picture This 10/01/21

John and I both attended recent weddings at which there were photo booths. Which led us to do a comic about, well, photo booths. Actually it led John to the topic and I just went along because I had nothing better to offer. At the wedding I attended, I submitted to a picture with my wife and the parents of the bride. I put on my best smile and tried like hell to keep my eyes open when the camera flashed. It worked! A nephew of mine had a different use of the photo booth. He used it as a kissing booth with one of the cute young women at said wedding. My wife has many rules for taking pictures and she has imparted them to me. Shoot from above (one has no control over that in a photo booth). Keep your chin up (this is called DCA - Double-Chin Avoidance). The booth situations are so freaking awkward that it makes people (okay, it makes ME) uncomfortable. Thus the dialogue between Marv and Rachel as he tries and fails at everything she suggests. But at least he has a cute butt.

The other comic, ostensibly about a sausage upgrade at our favorite franchise, Pizza-on-a-Stick is really about second acts in general. Just for the sake of clarity, a second act refers to the career you pursue after your first career is over and done. The thing about second careers is that they are usually a chance for the pursuer to be in charge. Your own business, be it a bed and breakfast, a cookie-making factory, a comic strip (now where did that idea come from?) and a pizza franchise. Since it’s yours, you care about it way more than if you were merely an employee. On a little side note, a friend of ours, a super-talented art director and big fan, Tanya Mishu, sent us a YouTube video of a new franchise idea, Pizza in a Cone. Seriously. Imagine an ice cream cone filled with piping hot tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and fillings. Now imagine biting into it. It seems to us like you’d burn the hell out of the roof of your mouth, but what do we know? Suffice it to say, Pizza-on-a-Stick is a way, way better idea. And Al, the former ad man/employee and now a boss, wants to make his new venture better. So he went farm to table with his pizza toppings. What could possibly go wrong?

When you’re an employee, you gleefully help yourself to the free bagels, coffee, cream cheese, birthday cake, beer (during pub hour) and assorted snacks. When you’re the owner, suddenly the free giveaways are costing you a bunch. So who wants a second career again?

That’s all for this week folks. But we’ve got two more coming up so hang on to your hats, have a wonderful weekend and we’ll see you next week.

Andy and John

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus 09/24/21

I actually have no idea about the planets. Suffice it to say that men and women are, well, different. Take the case of television watching, for example. When we watch something my wife likes, she will ask me to turn the volume up so she can hear it. When I watch a ball game, any kind of ball game at any time of the day or night, I am asked to turn the volume down. When I mentioned this to John, he immediately went for an English period drama (the most boring thing we could think of to watch (although I did love The Crown) vs. the most boring sports moment we could think of. The announcer saying what yard line the football is on. You see, if we had the announcer saying “Touchdown” or “It’s outta here” for a home run, that would be loud all by itself, so we went for dull, the ball is on the 35-yard line.

We shared a beach house this summer with my daughter, son-in-law and their child, our first grandchild. After the kids put the baby to bed, we’d all watch a drama (no, not an English period drama. It was Designated Survivor, if you must know) and I swear, the volume was up to 30. When said drama was over, I’d tune in the Mets game, which I had previously recorded. The volume was at 15, and I was repeatedly asked to “Turn that down, wayyyyy down.” I pointed out that nobody in the house could possibly hear it, because at this point, I couldn’t hear it. Men are from Mars…

Our other comic came from nowhere else but our imaginations. We’ve all heard of the cliche of the husband running off with the nanny, or babysitter or au pair, or whatever else you call them these days. And we flipped it on its head. If you remember a storyline from our recent past, Sam and Shellie hired a male nanny (who had just come out of prison—hey it’s a comic, we can do anything we want). And when Sam decides to do a guy thing and go to the car show, well, what’s a woman supposed to think? That men are from Mars, and women are from Venus. We rest our case.

That’s all she wrote (who the hell is SHE anyway)? Have a great weekend and we will see you next week with two new comics.

Andy and John

Twins, twins 9/16/21

Twins are nature’s way of saying, so nice, let’s do it twice. On the one hand, you get over the process of having a complete family more quickly, but on the other hand…

What if they’re not on the same sleep schedule, feeding schedule (well that would be technically challenging since there’s only one mom and two kids) or pooping schedule? So John and I decided to have a go at another three part series, called Twins Come Home, parts 1, 2 and 3. So why do they appear on the website in reverse order, you ask? That may be because someone has not figured out how to put them in, in the correct order. One of us, but that particular person, if it happened to be me, should be given a pass today because it’s Yom Kippur and because that person happens to be fasting, and because being hungry makes that person pissed off and because that same person is expected to write a sunny and funny blog while he’s hungry and pissed off, capiche? I’m not saying that person is me you understand but if it were, that is how I’d react.

Oh yeah, the comics. Part one was last Friday featuring the exhausted parents and the calm, cool and collected grandparents. We can afford to be cool because we get to sleep through the night and not be awakened every 3 hours or so. So we imagined what would happen if the grandparents offered their services as babysitters for a night. We imagined the bedraggled couple would accept their offer rather quickly.

This summer, my wife and I shared a beach house with our daughter, son-in-law and their new baby. They wanted nothing more than a night off to feel human, go to dinner and a movie, and we wanted nothing more than to hang with the baby and put her to sleep. A win-win if there ever was one. Which leads to the part 3 comic, in which no sooner do the parents leave, than the baby starts shrieking. This too comes from personal experience. I recounted to John how my daughter asked me to babysit for one half an hour while she got on a phone call about a potential freelance job. My wife was working, my daughter and son-in-law were working so it was just me and the baby for 30 minutes, from 2pm until 2:30. I couldn’t wait. As soon as my daughter got up from the living room the baby started crying. I picked her up to soothe her. She cried louder. I rocked her in my arms, she began to shriek. Doors opened from other rooms, what are you doing to her? Nothing! I swear! I took her outside so nobody could hear anymore then when she calmed down I walked back into the kitchen to see how much time had passed. It was 2:08 This went on for the rest of the time, outside, inside, me: oh look, this is a tree, these are branches, want to shake the branch, go ahead, shake it…2:12

Finally, mercifully, my daughter’s phone call was over a few minutes early and she came out to her daughter who suddenly was all smiles and sunshine. When my daughter asked how it went I said, “Fine,” even though everyone in the surrounding zip codes could hear it wasn’t fine. John turned this story into Twins, part 3, even though you see that comic first, is that clear? Yeah, I don’t understand it either.

Enjoy the weekend a lot more than I am enjoying this freakin’ fast. And we will see you next week with two new ones, not about the twins.

Andy and John

You Can't Be Too Careful 9/10/21

Actually, you can. In the case of our hand sanitizer comic, Craig was allergic to it. Seems the stuff is everywhere now, drugstore counters, supermarket check-out lines, restaurants - but then they swipe your card in a machine that has everybody else’s swipes and hand you a pen that 2,000 people have used before you and, more hand sanitizer. But this comic doesn’t come from that insight. It comes from John’s wife Linda who mistakenly confused the sanitizer with bug spray. Turns out hand sanitizer doesn’t do a damn thing for preventing mosquito bites. Nor does bug spray do a particularly good job of cleaning your hands. Who knew? One of the most memorable cases of mistaken bottles occurred when my children were 7 and 4. One day when my wife was out of town, I was driving to a rollerblading rink and both my kids were in their car seats. My 7-year-old daughter was playing with her stuffed animals when I heard her say to her brother, “Uh, I don’t think you should be playing with that.” Then I heard the sound of an aerosol being sprayed. I was driving, so I said, “Can you please hand me that, having no idea what it was. It turned out to be a bottle of pepper spray. I exclaimed, “Fuuuuuck!” before I realized what I was saying. The genesis of this story is my wife worked in an office building that was quiet and dark come nighttime, where she went back to work, once the kids were asleep. So I got her a bottle of pepper spray to carry, just in case somebody surprised her. She put it in the center console, just in case…) Two hours and a long shower after, the situation was resolved, the pepper spray washed from our son’s eyes. My wife had just come home from her trip as I was towel-drying our son’s hair. She said to our son, “Hello honey, how was your day?” And he replied, “Guess what, Daddy said fuck!” So much for mistaken bottles.

As for the twins, we had a gender reveal party for Al and Joanne’s daughter a couple months ago and we figured it was time to deliver the twins. Turns out the delivery process is a lot easier to draw than it is to live through.

My wife and I were fortunate enough to spend a good part of the summer in a beach house with our daughter, her husband and their new baby girl, Charlotte. Though my daughter and son-in-law were overwhelmed with love for their daughter, I observed Charlotte not sleeping through the night, my daughter giving multiple feedings, both she and her husband never getting a full night’s sleep, and the toll it took to carry strollers, car seats, diapers, etc. When I explained this to John, he said, “Now imagine if you had twins. They might not have the same nap schedules, feeding schedules, etc.” (He didn’t actually say “etc.” I just put that in because I forgot the rest of what he said.) The comic that followed was what we imagined having baby twins would feel like. Turns out I just got a taste of the real thing. We just came home from a wedding in Denver followed by a few days with our niece, her husband and her kids, an 11-year old daughter and a pair of 5-year-old twins. One twin said to me, “Pick me up!” Followed by the other saying the same. Then the first one asked again and the second one said, “Hey, not fair, you picked her up two times!” You get the idea. The good news is that if you wanted two kids, you get it over at once. The bad news is, as the old Doublemint gum jingle said, “Double your pleasure, double your fun…’

See you next week with two new ones hot off the New 60 press. (There isn’t really a New 60 press, but I just like saying it.)

Andy and John

FROZEN TUNDRA 9/02/21

This week marks the unofficial end of summer. We celebrated it with a bag of frozen shrimp, and even though it’s not going to get freezing cold until December, I couldn’t think of another metaphor to link frozen shrimp and the upcoming fall season.

About the shrimp. As we get older, we find new and unique (not to mention embarrassing) ways to get hurt. Many moons ago, we did a comic about a guy breaking his finger trying to fish something out of the pocket of his skinny jeans. Now I didn’t do anything close to that humiliating, but… I went for a walk on the beach with my family and I asked to carry our grandchild in a contraption called a snuggli, in which you carry the baby in front, much like a kangaroo carries her baby in a pouch. You know beaches. They’re tilted so one leg comes up shorter than the other, but I figured you make up for it on the way back. Wrong. That evening my left ankle swelled and stiffened and I had to apply ice packs. I told John about this and how I used that ice pack on my foot all year, and now what should I do because I had two separate aches and only once ice pack. He came up with frozen shrimp. I, however, was all about bags of frozen peas because I heard people use them for injuries, but, as we’ve chronicled many times in the past, John hates peas, and besides, they do not comprise a main course, so shrimp it was. And can you really blame Al for using the frozen shrimp on his ankle? It’s not like he was touching the shrimp. They’re in a damn bag! And as he helpfully pointed out, he had already started the thawing process for dinner. A win-win situation if there ever was one.

As for our Labor Day poster, well Al’s daughter was in labor about to deliver her twins and voila, we had a Labor Day poster. We hope you have a much less painful Labor Day than she did and we’ll see you right here— same Bat Time same Bat Channel next week with our first two comics of the fall.

Andy and John

Good Eatin' 8/27/21

This week we become food obsessed. Okay, okay, we’re always food obsessed. Because face it, once you’re firmly in your 60’s, what else are you going to become obsessed with? 

The point is not everything works the way it used to work. Which is why we came back to food. In the first comic, we return to Al’s franchise, Pizza-on-a-Stick. One of the employees came up with a brilliant idea for dessert, Spumoni-on-a-Stick. What’s the plural of that? “I’ll take 6 Spumoni-on-a-Sticks please?” Or “I’ll take 6 Spumonis-on-a-Stick please?” These are the kinds of meaningful debates John and I engage in. The second one sounds better but the first one is right. Plus, John draws the strip so he won, not that I’m a sore loser or anything. To put the final ribbon on the bow I asked my daughter, an excellent grammarian, which version she preferred. She said, “I know the second one sounds right but the first one is actually correct. You’d order a cheeseburger or 6 cheeseburgers. So…” When she’s right and she agrees with John, it just doesn’t seem fair. But I’ll tell you this, if you come into Pizza-on-a-Stick and order 6 Spumonis-on-a-Stick, I promise not to be literal like John and pile 6 scoops of spumoni on one stick. I know this is fiction, but who the hell would do that?

Okay, now that THAT’S off my chest, let’s go to comic #2, Al’s backyard vegetable garden. John and I have a mutual friend Chris who built a magnificent garden with raised beds and every natural method of maintenance and pest control. John tried to mimic it as best he could, and when I had a house, I maintained a vegetable garden as well but much more basic. Why? For one thing I’m not very good with my hands (a common affliction among us Jews) and secondly, my love of vegetables stops at salads. But the point is, these gardens are a TON of work and they yield very little until you get overrun by cherry tomatoes during the last of summer, and end up having to shovel half of them into the soil so they make for a rich mulch the following summer. Sure, it’s a great thrill to go into the garden and pick out your salad or dinner for the night, but if you stop off at the farmstand on your way home, that works too. Plus, the cost/benefit ratio is a bit out of whack, as Al’s son Sid gleefully points out.

So, as Porky Pig said, Th-th-that’s all folks (at least for this week). We will be back next week with two new ones that take us up to Labor Day! Where does the time go?

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Expanding Families

This week we devoted ourselves to expanding families. Al’s family expands as his daughter Emily is about to give birth to twins. And Marv’s family expanded, or actually, Marv expanded by eating donuts, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But first to the upcoming birth. My own daughter gave birth to our first grandchild, Charlotte, back in April. We raced down to the hospital and when we got there, were told we couldn’t come in due to Covid-19 protocols. I suggested we go back home, because there was nothing we could do by being there. My wife refused and wanted to hang out there, “Just in case…” I could try every logical argument I could think of, but no, she wasn’t biting. It was clear I wasn’t winning this one. She was going to be there for our daughter and son-in-law come hell or high water. Finally, the baby arrived, and thank goodness everyone was okay and we eventually made our way back home. When I told John about this he instantly turned the idea around, saying we didn’t need the Covid part. The essential story was when it comes to the birth of a child or grandchild, mother (or grandma) knows best. So we just focused on the act of driving to the hospital. We all have our emotional connections and if they make sense to us, that’s all that counts. When I am watching a Mets game and it’s a tense situation, I give the pitcher or batter instructions. To the pitcher, “Throw him a curve ball, he’ll ground into a double play.” Or to the batter, “Don’t swing at the next pitch, let him walk you!” My wife will ask, “Who are you talking to?” I know my words have no effect, but what if they do? In a similar vein she knew she had to be there just until the baby was delivered. She knew there was nothing she could do about it, but just in case…

The second comic came from another observation. I shared with John, a story about our rental house this summer. A guest came up with two large cookies. Not just cookies in the traditional sense, but huuuuge cookies with all sorts of goodies baked inside. The guests were staying for a long weekend and for two days the cookies just sat there, still wrapped in plastic. Nobody wanted to be the fatso who committed to an entire cookie which must have contained at least a full day’s worth of calories. So I unwrapped the cookies and broke them up into 40 or 50 bite size pieces and put them out on the counter. Within one day they were gone. Everyone who passed through the kitchen, which was everyone, stopped and grabbed a bite size piece on their way to wherever it was they were going. “Oh, on my way to the pool, a little piece won’t hurt.” “Oh, on my way to the bathroom, what the hell, it’s just one bite.” “Going to run an errand, let me grab one while nobody’s looking.” John shared that he does this with the occasional donut and we had our second comic. Here’s a helpful hint, DO NOT try the broken cookie routine at home. 8 extra pounds later, you’ll be cursing us out.

One last point. The Mets finally won a game Wednesday night and you know why they won? Because I told the batter, Kevin Pillar, to hit a game-winning 3 run homer in the 11th inning and he listened. The fact that I recorded the game earlier and watched it hours after it had actually ended had nothing to do with it. The batter heard me! Everyone has their little emotional tics. And no two people have the same ones. But in the end, they are what make us, us.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John