What's in a Name? 05/02/25

Have you ever spoken to someone about, let’s say, a frying pan and then, as if by magic, you are served multiple ads for frying pans? Of course you have. And that’s because Siri and her evil twin Alexa are listening. I was discussing this with John one day and said out loud, “Hey Siri, are you listening to me? And Siri responded, “No, not at this time.” This time??? I think Apple got the message because now when you ask the same question you get, “I respect your privacy and can only listen when you are talking to me.” Uh huh, I bet. Next Siri will be trying to sell us pristine mountain view property in Florida. And to this we add the Mets newest centerfielder, Jose, you guessed it, Siri. I started telling John about this guy and Siri (the Apple version, not Jose) chimed in on both our phones. And we had a comic. For the rest of our working session we referred to the outfielder as “Smith,” so as not to engage Siri. And now the baseball gods have paid us back for making fun of his name. He fractured his left tibia, fouling a ball off his leg and is on the Injured Reserve list. Sorry Jose.

Our other comic comes right from John’s backyard. He noticed a weed-like substance taking over his property. Something he’d never seen before. Something not endemic to his neck of the woods. It was something called knotweed. Well, we are both fans of Abbott and Costello and this seemed to neatly fit into the “Who’s on First” scenario. If only they had a guy named Buttercup playing second and Clover at third. The comic could have never come from my backyard since we moved to an apartment and don’t have a backyard. However, we also are not overrun with knotweed, so there’s that.

We apologize for the brevity of this blog because we’re both traveling to different locales. But not to worry. We’ll be back in the saddle next week.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John (and not Siri)

Streaming and Streamlining 04/25/25

What channel is the Mets game on tonight? I find myself asking my son this question frequently. Just to get this straight, I pay for a premium cable package which includes the Mets on their own special network SNY (Sports New York). But this particular game is on Apple TV +. I’m not sure what the plus stands for but an educated guess is it stands for We Want you to Pay for Apple TV PLUS content you can’t get on Apple TV. I like to record games in advance and watch them later so I can fast forward through commercials (yeah, I know it’s kinda hypocritical after spending 40 years writing commercials, but hey, John does it too.) I also fast forward through inning breaks, pitching changes, replay reviews, etc. But on this particular Friday night (it was only the second game of the season for crying out loud) I came home, went through two remotes to get to my menu of streaming services and yes, indeed, there were the Mets on Apple TV+, but they had the final score of the game posted. I started to watch anyway and part of the way through I hit the wrong button on the remote (the streaming remote, not the regular remote) and when I got Apple + back, the game was no longer available. Hey Tim Cook, I’ve got a rebranding idea for you. How about calling it Apple TV - ? What’s that, too negative? It isn’t negative enough. But that is what television watching has become. Paying extra for everything you want to see. Is Netflix + and Hulu+ and Amazon + far behind? I think in the future, we’ll pay ala carte for every show. Wanna watch the news? That’ll be $1.50. Tonight’s baseball game? $2.00. Breaking Bad? you can have the whole 6 seasons for the low, low price of $55.99. Plus tax.

Our other comic deals with streamlining your possessions. As Eminem once famously put it, “I’m cleanin’ out my closet.” Both John and I do this from time to time and we got to thinking, have you ever owned something so hideous that nobody else would possibly wear it? I’m thinking about the African dashiki I wore in college circa 1971. If Jimi Hendrix could do it, why not me? Forget I asked that question, but I figured whoever picked that dashiki out of a Goodwill bin would be thinking, “What on earth was that guy (me) thinking? I wouldn’t be caught dead in that.” Same with my Keens rubber toed sandals. I wore them to work one time and this woman I worked with said, “You know what I call those sandals?” “No,” I replied. “Deal Breakers,” she responded. I was laughing too hard to be offended. And she later left advertising to write for Jimmy Kimmel.

So that’s it for today. John is out this week and I’m out next week so we hope the New 60 finds you each and every Friday. But I wouldn’t hold my breath. It’ll be there. And two weeks is too long to hold your breath anyway.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Time to Come Home. 04/18/24

I am not proud to admit this, but for a guy who has traveled extensively, the thing I most look forward to is coming back home. You know Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Homeward Bound?” “Home, where my thought’s escaping, home where my music’s playin’ home where my love lies waiting silently for me.” Well my version doesn’t work musically but it sounds like: Home where I can have the food I want to eat when I want to eat it. Home, where I can have my seemingly 800 choices of network tv stations and streaming platforms, home where my gin and tonic lies waiting…” Note: my love doesn’t lie waiting silently for me since she’s on vacation with me. On second thought, I’ll just stick to blogging.

As we age we have to take so much stuff with us that we never had to take before. At least I do. Meds. In little plastic, daily pill packs. This is how I count how many days are left in the vacation. Three pill packs to go, three days to go. My wife drew the line on those long plastic containers with 7 compartments, labelled with the days of the week. She said: “Those are for old people.” I said, “What?” while adjusting my hearing aid. Okay that was just a joke. I don’t wear a hearing aid, but it’s coming soon, count on it. As for “looking old’” I have to face it, 71 IS old. There’s a reason John and I called this strip The New 60. It’s not 60 is the new 40, which is something 60-year olds tell themselves, but is also a complete crock. It’s just The New 60. This is what 60 feels like now. We can do much more that 60-year olds from previous generations. And I hope the same can be said for people in their 70’s. I certainly try as does my young partner who is only in his 60’s. That’s where the pill packs come in.

So dear readers, we have two wishes for you. That you continue to grow older and that you continue to resist it. Gotta run, time for my Jardiance. Have a wonderful weekend,

Andy and John

Travellin'. 04/11/25

Once upon a time we called it “vacation,” which is much less haughty than “travel.” Travel is like milk. There used to be milk, but now there’s one percent, two percent, skim, as well as oat, almond and soy. I will never order a cappuccino with soy at Starbucks. It sounds like pouring salt into my coffee. Same with travel. There used to be travel. Now there’s adventure travel, resort travel, eco travel (which is really just adventure travel with a fancier name) and let’s not forget the subcategory of trips, as in golf trips, spa trips, ski trips and bicycle trips…on second thought, let’s forget about bike trips. I’ve forgotten about them since my last Vermont Bicycle Tours trip in the ‘80’s that I took to impress my then girlfriend and now wife. I’ve still got saddle sores. So that’s that about traveling. Traveling with friends is a category unto itself. Are the other couples as aerobically fit as you? Are you as aerobically fit as they are? Is one person a dyed-in-the-wool vegan? And are you a proud carnivore?

What if one of your friends is a rock-climbing, kayaking, kosher vegan with type 2 diabetes? I suggest defriending them. And then, even if you can agree on what type of trip you’re taking, can you agree on when to take it? Oh, I’ve got a (choose one) wedding, funeral, bar or bat mitzvah, confirmation, upcoming birth of a grandchild that week. I remember years ago becoming closer with another couple. It turned out we both had daughters who went to the same college and were both getting married within weeks of one another. We had the semi-awkward conversation about the weddings and telling each other that the other couple was not invited. Which is kind of like saying, “you guys are really great but you don’t crack the list of our 135 closest friends.” Well we loved that honesty and in fact are going on vacation with them at the end of this month. Walking, not hiking. Drinking wine, not electrolytes. Taking a jeep to the top of a volcano and then back down again, not rock climbing our way up and then belaying all the way down. Hell, I don’t even know what belaying means.

With all these thoughts going ‘round and ‘round, John shared that he and his friends were planning a river cruise of their own. And thus was born our four part River Cruise series.

Have a great weekend and if you’re going on a trip to climb Mt. Everest, please don’t invite us. I have nothing to wear.

Andy and John

April Fools’ 04/04/24

Everyone enjoys an April Fools’ trick, Unless they are the fool. I was describing the April Fools’ concept to my granddaughter at dinner and she replied, “This table is really a mushroom. April Fools.” Not bad for 4-year old. That was until she said, “Grampa’s got long hair. April Fools!.” Grampa, as in me, is bald. I tried to explain to her that it’s not funny if it makes fun of me. Only if it makes fun of other people. That particular lesson didn’t land, since she followed up by looking at the chicken and rice dish I was eating and said, “Grampa is eating a bowl of poop.” At that point I moved onto another game. In the comic about April Fools, Al turns out to be the fool. But that is often the case with Al. One of the best April fools jokes I remember happened to me about 30 years ago. I was driving up the Major Deegan highway right past Yankee Stadium, when the announcer on the radio station I was listening to proclaimed: “Donald Trump has just bought the New York Yankees and is renaming the iconic stadium, Trump Stadium.” I thought “How can you change the name of Yankee Stadium?” Until about 30 seconds later, when the disc jockey exclaimed, “April Fools.”

Our other comic deals with Little League memories. But there’s a subtle undertone of long-term memory. It differs remarkably from short-term memory. I remember when I put my mom in an assisted living facility many years ago. She made a friend there and I took therm both out for breakfast. The friend asked me my name, if I was married, if I had children, what their names were, and where I lived. I answered each question. Then, less than a minute later, she asked me my name, if I was married… This repeated itself several times until I asked her about herself, whereupon she recalled the day she met her husband in perfect detail, an event that was 60 years in the past. Al can’t remember his grandson’s name (Bobby, Billy, whatever, close enough) but he remembered hitting a shot over the 3rd baseman’s head. Hell, he even remembered the third baseman’s name. In fact his name Jimmy Chin is based on Brian Chin, who played 3rd base on my college intramural softball team from 50-odd years ago. At least I remember the name of my partner Jack. Or is it John? But anyway, to get back to my point…what was I talking about?

Have a nice weekend and we’ll see you again next week, if we remember.

Andy and Jack, uhh John

Batter Up! 03/28/25

Listen, don’t get technical on me. I know Opening Day was yesterday, but I wrote this yesterday. And anyway, the blog’s really about spring training. Baseball is a lot of things: a harbinger of spring. The promise of summer. A slow, deliberate sport that takes on the pace of the laziest season. Spring training was a time for drunk, fat, cigarette smoking players to play themselves back into shape, right? The purpose of spring training was to get in shape. Now an athlete is supposed to be hitting the gym 24/7 including during the off season. The players are now in better shape than ever before. But every one of them gets freaking injured. A Yankee pitcher, Gerrit Cole, threw a couple of innings and was done for the year. For the Mets, their second baseman Jeff McNeil is out for a couple months with a strained oblique. He got it swinging a bat. Suddenly we hear a lot about obliques. Never once in all my life have I ever heard of a strained oblique. Until the Yankees got Aaron Judge. Maybe we’re pushing ourselves too hard. Not just professional athletes. Even us. Maybe my Apple Watch is wrong when it tells me, “Get up Andrew, a brisk 20-minute walk is all it takes to close your move rings today.” First of all, nobody calls me Andrew (except for one person and you know who you are), secondly, it’s 11 pm and 32 degrees outside. and thirdly, I’m in my pajamas.

Our other comic touches on the fastest growing addiction among young men. Not ketamine. Not cocaine. Sports betting. As we speak the NCAA playoffs, March Madness, is hurtling towards its exciting conclusion. You can bet on anything. Who wins the jump ball? Who calls the first time out? Who is the first player to score a basket or commit a foul? The only people who get rich on sports betting are bookies or websites like Fan Duel and DraftKings. Before gambling was legalized in New York, people used to ride their bicycles from Manhattan, over the George Washington bridge, until they crossed the border into New Jersey, (halfway across the bridge, over the Hudson River and where gambling was legal) and stop, pull out their cell phones and bet on the Sunday football games while still sitting on their bikes. While it’s true that most bookies get rich (by minimizing risk, believe it or not), that was not the case for poor Sal. It’s akin to what day trading was at the turn of the century. You heard about the success stories. We all thought we were so smart. And then the market crashed. Sal’s a post-crash kind of guy.

That’s it for this week. I have to pick up my backpack and run to the train. But not too fast. I might pull an oblique.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John.

Marriage Advice

We’ve got some simple advice about marriage advice: don’t give it. But does that stop Al? No way. And for any readers who think that Al is anything like me, you can put that to rest. The fact that his name is also my initials, or the fact that John drew him as a combo of me and his famous Little Caesar’s “Pizza Pizza” guy is merely coincidental.

When John and I talked about the kind of stuff husbands and wives do to each other, the topic of throw pillows came up. Almost immediately. In an online Swiffer campaign, this grumpy old man says: “You know what you do with throw pillows? You throw them!!” And with that, he sweeps them off the couch and onto the floor. Thank you to Tanya Mishu and Amanda Melson for coming up with that one. It sums up my feelings about throw pillows to a tee. When you get tired and it’s time for bed, who wants to take 17 throw pillows off the bed before you can turn down the blankets and crawl in? Not me. But this is one of those ridiculous, meaningless things that married couples argue about. And if one of us wins the argument, we can share this valuable advice with our children, when they get married or committed to a serious relationship.

Granted my wife wins most of these confrontations, so the precious few that I actually win stand out. Truth is there aren’t a precious few. There’s only one. And it’s my hockey stick coat rack from 1978. I had gotten my first job in advertising in 1977 and rented my first apartment in 1978. I saw a magazine article featuring a coat rack made of hockey sticks. Picture six sticks with their blades on top for hanging coats. And 6 more sticks with the blades on the bottom so the rack can stand upright. The sporting good store down the block was having a sale on hockey sticks because it was around May. When people come over to our apartment now, the first thing they ask is, “Did you build that?” And I have to explain that my dad never taught me how to build stuff because his father never taught him and I therefore didn't teach my son or daughter. In other words, we’re Jewish. In fact there was an incident in 2008 when my daughter graduated and moved into a shared apartment. We went to IKEA and I purchased bookshelves. I had a drill and mollies and proudly put the three shelves up over her desk. She put books and knick knacks on them and we stood back and admired them. That was on a Saturday. When she came home from work on Monday she told me it was a good thing she was at her job instead of at home because the entire thing had collapsed onto the desktop.

Back to the damn hockey rack. I had it made for me, okay? When my wife first moved in with me to a city apartment, she tolerated it. When she delivered our first child and moved to a suburban condo, she tolerated it. When we finally moved into our first and only house, she said, no way, not in here. And I said, well we need a coatrack so let’s just leave it here until we get a “real” coatrack. Approximately 30 years later, the kids were out of college and we downsized to an apartment, and she again was aghast at the prospect of the hockey sticks. Again I used the LJKUFRO technique: Let’s Just Keep it Until we Find a Real One. 11 years later it remains. But I had to pay for it. We’ve got a ton of throw pillows.

See you next week and have a great weekend,

Andy and John

More Complications 03/14/25

Ain’t technology grand? In order to stream a show on say, MAX, I first grab my “skinny remote” to turn on the tv and I get all the cable and network channels. Then I grab my iPad, access a program called “Compass Control” whereupon my screen (iPad screen, not tv screen) gives me the option of “living room, bedroom, guest room or, drumroll please, Apple TV. Not Apple TV +, the streaming channel, but just plain old Apple TV, which then connects me to all my streaming options. I now scroll down the tv screen (not the iPad screen) using my iPad until I find MAX, which used to be called HBO which then became HBO MAX, don’t ask. A funny side story, in the late 1990’s I was the creative director for the HBO account. I met the head of programming who told me she thought they should switch from showing just movies to creating their own programming. I told her, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. People come to HBO for movies.” Which is part of the reason I’m now writing comic strips instead of ads.

But I digress. Once I highlight the streaming service I want (in this case MAX,) I highlight it and then search through the programming options until I find “White Lotus” and then hit the round button in the middle on my iPad screen so that my tv screen finally shows the program my wife and I were trying to watch. Is that clear?

I didn’t think so. Now it’s one thing to order a streaming movie or tv program. I kind of expect that to be complex. But it’s another thing to make ordering an iced coffee a complex process. Not fair. A couple blocks from where I live is a strip mall with a McDonald’s restaurant as well as a Dunkin’ shop. I was in a rush and wanted an iced coffee and went into McDonald’s. Nobody at the register. Just a bunch of electronic kiosks. They happen to have two options for drinks: Beverages, which as it turns out do not include coffee, iced or otherwise and McCafe Coffees. Here, they have iced coffee. They have milk, they have caramel, they have Iced French Vanilla, or Iced Sugar Free Vanilla (apparently not French) but no half and half, which is the way I like it, with one stevia. John found my pain at trying to order a simple drink very amusing and we turned it into this week’s two part series. Dunkin’ is a little easier because they have actual people take your order. But just up the hill is an independent place with free wifi called Muddy Waters. From now on, I’m going there.

That is all for this week. We’ll be back next week with a two-part series on marriage advice. We ask that you read it but not necessarily follow it. Enjoy the weekend. Spring is springing through,

Andy and John

Why the Hell You Gotta Make Things so Complicated? 03/07/25

Okay, so I stole an Avril Lavigne song title for my headline. Go ahead, sue me. But she has a point. A while back we did a comic about waving your hands under a restaurant bathroom soap dispenser and then the faucet without getting any soap or water. So imagine Al’s gratitude upon finding a bathroom with a faucet and actual towels to dry your hands. Confession: I despise those air dryers so much, I end up wiping my wet hands on my pants. Every time. I think there should be a rule that every restaurant be required to have paper towels, hand-operated faucets and soap dispensers, and to give out free refills on coffee and tea. I would have brought this up to the Department of Government Efficiency, but I was afraid they’d respond by firing every restaurant worker north of the Gulf of America. The point is that in the name of progress and efficiency, everything is becoming way more complicated. How many households are there where only one person knows how to operate the tv remote? How about trying to program a car radio? How about the all-new cooking thermometer I bought that hooks up to your phone and tells you when whatever you’re cooking is done to your desired level of doneness. I was psyched. No more overcooked steaks or salmon ever again. Except for three months, my phone refuses to recognize the thermometer. Either the item is defective, or I’m doing something wrong, or my phone is a big snob and refuses to have anything to do with the thermometer. I vote for door number 3.

Our other comic is also about the shortcomings of modern technology. More accurately, about how modern technology has negatively impacted the ability of millennials to perform tasks we take for granted. For example, I used to know the four-digit phone extension of everyone I worked with. People would ask me, what’s Chris’ extension, and I’d reply: 3602, with no hesitation. I also memorized the phone numbers of my closest friends and family members. Not anymore. I just take out my smartphone, click on their name, and it remembers for me. I call John several times a week and I can’t remember his number. And what about math? When you actually had to figure out problems with a paper and pencil, it forced you to think. To problem solve. Now, with electronic calculators, computers and the aforementioned smartphones, you just type in the numbers and the device figures it out for you. Nowhere is this more noticeable than at the cash register. Say I buy something for $16 and I want $5 in change to give to the parking attendant. I hand the hapless cashier $21 and they look at me in utter confusion. Does. Not. Compute. I then have to explain, I want a $5.00 bill back, and they still don’t get it. So when John brought up this idea for a comic, I loved it. I think the answer is we’ve got to forget the cash and go to the card. Sigh.

That is it for this week. Ooops, I just spilled my water glass. Now I have to go to the bathroom and dry off with a fluffy towel. Almost makes me glad I spilled. We’ll see you next Friday with a two-part series, also dealing with the joys of modern technology. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Stuff We All Get (in other words, SWAG) 02/28/24

We’ve all been to parties and galas, PTSA events, events honoring a friend or relative, and most of these events feature goody bags, or what the industry calls SWAG. Hell, even weddings and bar mitzvahs now come with a little bag of goodies like candy bars, “health” bars, cashews, raisins, water, blah, blah blah. I don’t know about you, but all these PTSA-type meetings give me PTSD. Anyway, they almost always include SWAG. In fact, my wife participated in this industry called “Promotional Products” for 30 years. She knows SWAG. John and I even talked to her about NEW 60 promo ideas. Who wouldn't want to have an Al coffee mug with a scowling Al and a clever message like, “World’s Grumpiest Grandpa,” or a lunchbox with a picture of Marv biting into a BLT? Once we figured out we’d end up stashing 1,000 mugs in our garage, and that we live in an apartment with a public garage, we shut the idea down. But OSCAR SWAG, well that’s a different story. What does Bradley Cooper need with a new Porsche SUV? Or Emma Stone with a new piece of Cartier jewelry? Or take Mikey Madison of Anora fame. What does she want with a new Vera Wang dress? On second thought, forget about it. She can have anything she wants. At any rate, John came up with the free refill punch line, and seriously, as I take notes on this blog, a waiter at City Limits Diner is pouring my son and I our third ice tea refills. So Bradley Cooper and Brad Pitt, you’ve got nothing on me!

Our other comic is about how corny all these Hallmark Cards are. Even the supposedly funny Hallmark “Shoe Box” series. Consider this offer on Amazon for the Shoebox Funny Birthday Card Assortment. Just 12 cards for the unbeatably low price of $9.75. Yeah, we know, we’ve spent far too much time in advertising. A frequent tactic of mine is to think outside the shoebox and buy a card that was meant for another occasion, like a sympathy card when a friend turns 50 or 60 or 70 or…okay I’m gonna stop there. So John and I went for the cross-out technique, even though a knee replacement is far different than a hip replacement, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Have a great weekend and we hope all your body parts, whether they are original equipment or replacement parts, are in good working order,

Andy and John

On Dumb T-shirt cannons and Smart Watches. 02/21/25

John and I were talking about this baseball highlight we once saw where the batter hit a screaming foul ball into the stands towards a dad who was cradling his infant child in one hand. He calmly stuck out his free hand and caught the ball. The announcers went crazy about what a phenomenal catch he made while also noting that he was going to be in huuuuge trouble when he returned home. Which got us to thinking about how often we have seen basketball games and even the occasional baseball game where a player goes diving into the stands for a loose ball (basketball) or a foul ball (baseball) causing the fans in those seats to lose whatever they were eating and/or drinking. When I spoke about this with John, he immediately put a huge bucket of popcorn on Al’s lap and you know the rest. I then sat courtside with a friend at an NBA G-League (the NBA minor leagues) game. My buddy came back with a huge bag of popcorn. The players were literally 10-15 feet away and I was wondering what would happen if they crashed into us. They also shot those t-shirt cannons into the stands during stoppages in play. Sitting in the front row, nobody was firing a cannon at us but you never know. Just don’t bring a baby to the game, alright?

The second comic is about smart watches. I own one and I hate it. It constantly harangues me with messages like “time to stand up,” and I speak back to it with messages like, “I’m driving a car,” or “I’m in a plane and the ‘fasten your seatbelt’ sign is on.” I think they are designed to tell you what you’re doing wrong. Occasionally they say nice stuff like, “Congratulations Andrew (nobody calls me Andrew except for one friend and you know who you are), you’ve achieved your move goal for the fourth time this week. That’s worth a medal.” And then this sorry looking icon of a medal flashes on the screen and turns 360 degrees. Wow, what an award. So if it ticks me off when it tells me I need to do something different and I look askance when it “rewards me” with the aforementioned medal icon, then why do I wear it in the first place? Especially when I have a perfectly good old school watch sitting unused by the side of my bed by my night table. For this reason I will not allow a watch to monitor my sleep patterns. If I wake up feeling groggy, I know it wasn’t a good night’s sleep. If I awake all full of energy, I know it was good. Why do we need a watch to tell us that? And why do we care what it says? All we know is this, Al cares.

Have a great weekend and, oops, my watch is telling me it’s time to go or I’ll miss my train.

Andy and John

What's Love Got to Do With It? 02/14/25

Sorry for the unromantic title on this most romantic (according to Hallmark) of days. But I couldn’t get Tina Turner out of my head. As we get older (or progress, which is much nicer way of saying the same thing) we start to see these ritualistic holidays differently. For example: on New Year’s Eve we used to drink and eat and be merry until somebody shouted, “Turn on the TV, it’s one minute before midnight!” Whereas now we eat, drink, be merry, look at our watches and quietly say to ourselves, “Oh my god, it’s only 9:45 pm.” I know of a friend who said to his wife, “Let’s make a deal, I won’t buy you a cheesy Valentine’s Day card and you don’t buy me one, okay?” To which his wife of many years replied, “Okay, but don’t forget the giant Hershey’s chocolate kiss!” She has her priorities in order. In fact the funny card John and I wrote has spawned many requests like, “Can I get that card?” Or, “That’s my kind of card.” Or, “Now THAT card, I’d buy.” Which brought us back to seven years ago when we were starting to publish our comic strip. A friend of ours suggested we go into greeting cards to make extra money. This proves to me she may have been right. But John and I didn’t say to each other, “Hey, wanna join me in making holiday-themed cards?” No, we said, “Let’s do a comic strip.” Plus, I’m extremely lazy. Now if you still really want a series of New 60 Greeting Cards, drop us a comment, and we will take it under advisement (which is a government double-speak way of saying, “We’ll do it when hell freezes over. Or until Greenland melts," which is actually happening.)

But still, Valentine’s Day is a good excuse to cuddle up with a loved one. As we pointed out in our “Then and Now” series, the price of being romantic on Valentine’s Day is soaring, along with everything else. I actually looked at three of our favorite local restaurants and everyone of them had a “pre-fixe, 3 course dinner, wine additional,” instead of their regular menus. Also, you have limited choices. The prices were so crazy, we decided to cook at home tonight. It brought me back about seven or eight years ago to a Valentine’s night. John and I attended a New Yorker cartoonists retrospective at the NY Historical Society. When that ended I met my wife at a Harlem sushi restaurant. When making the reservation, I had forgotten to check out their Valentine’s Day special menu. We went into this special, off the beaten track, restaurant and were confronted with a tented Valentine’s Special card with two options: the 8-piece omakase menu for $350 each or the 10-piece for a mere $75 extra. And they don’t even have to cook anything. It’s all raw. The place was bedlam and disorganized and when we heard yelling from the kitchen and heard a huge tray of plates and glasses smash on the floor, we were out of there before dessert. We showed them!

So whether you decide to eat at home or go out for a nice dinner (not every place is priced like NYC) have a wonderful Valentine’s Day. And remember this, as Whitney Houston used to sing: And we-ee-ee, will always love you.

Andy and John

Superbowl Weekend

I walked into the local grocery store today and they were out of pigs in blankets. I have a rule, there can be no Super Bowl party without pigs and blankets, but shhh, don’t repeat that to my cardiologist. I wonder what he’d think about a cousin of mine who serves cocktail weenies, or as I like to think of them, pigs without blankets. Are they healthier? Anyway. back to my cardiologist, he’s a subscriber but he never reads this stuff so I think I’m safe.

Super Bowl parties have two kinds of people: 1) The ones who are big football fans all year long and can’t wait for the championship and 2) the ones who are big fans of parties. And never the twain shall meet. One time, many years ago, I went to a Super Bowl party when my beloved Giants were playing. I turned to somebody at the party who was paying attention, and said, “Can you believe they went for it on 4th and 1? He had no idea what I was saying. I was home by halftime. My wife opted for a friend to drive her back home after the game.

The other thing about Super Bowl parties is the commercials. The non-football fans stop talking and gather around the tv for commercials and the halftime show. That’s about it. And here is the thing about being a football fan like me or John, while simultaneously being ad guys, or more in touch with the times, ad people. Come to think of it, it’s a good thing Mad Men was set in an age before political correctness. Mad People just doesn’t have the same ring. But back to the part about being in advertising. Since the party tends to quiet down and pay attention to the commercials, they then invariably turn to people like John and me and ask, “Whaddya’ think about that Dorito’s commercial, and then you have to think of something to say that sounds really smart and insightful, “Yes it was a very funny premise, but do you remember what product it was for?” That always impresses.

Hope you have a great Super Bowl weekend and that your favorite team wins,

Andy and John

Multitasking. 01/31/25

Here’s the truth. Multitasking is impossible. It’s a myth. Whether it’s eating while talking about quantum computing in our first comic or jogging on a treadmill while watching the Food Network in our second strip, multitasking just doesn’t work. Guys, have you ever tried to talk on a cell phone while doing your business at a urinal? Take it from me, don’t.

When John and I used to ply our trades in advertising, either of us would be in the middle of thinking up an idea with our respective partners when an apologetic account executive would invariably knock on the door to talk about a new assignment. So you’re in the middle of an idea, the account person gives you a different assignment, and you start thinking about that. Then they leave and apologize for interrupting and you are expected to return to the idea you were previously discussing. Ain’t happenin’. You have to forget about the new idea and get back up to speed on what you were previously thinking about. In my case this requires me to spend precious minutes talking about where my wife and I went to dinner last night, or the movie we just saw or the Knicks chances of winning an NBA Championship. Okay, maybe not precious minutes. In my case, precious hours. Ask anyone who’s ever worked with me. We are sure this phenomenon applies to every type of business and actually of every aspect of life. Did you ever try having a conversation with somebody who has their face buried in a cell phone? It makes for terrible conversation and I’m sure for equally awful texting.

The idea for the second comic came from me discussing a recent trip to the gym with John. My treadmill was between two televisions, one showing MSNBC and the other FOX. It made me so disoriented, I had to switch treadmills which put me in front of the most deliciously unhealthy sandwich I’ve ever seen. I shared this with John who immediately knew what show I was watching, (Guy Fieri’s “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”). And got us talking about the very sandwich featured in the comic. There was another place that put french fries inside the sandwich. My theory is that the lust for food wipes out the calorie burning from the treadmill and I’m sticking with it.

I’m so adverse to multitasking that I cannot listen to music with lyrics when I write. I start singing the lyrics while I’m thinking of what lyrics go into this blog post. Doesn’t work. I have made a New Year’s resolution to stop multitasking. I don’t entirely trust it because I made it while watching a Knick game on tv, raising a glass of bourbon to my lips and attempting to complete The NY Times crossword puzzle. Oops, there goes my phone. See ‘ya.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

What Are You Going to Do About It? 01/24/25

Have we all survived the election season? Whichever side you’re on, we’re sure you were constantly bombarded by emails, texts and alerts asking you to contribute just one more time because, a) this Senate seat is up for grabs, b) this House seat is up for grabs, or c) democracy is up for grabs. Okay, I gave to the cause a few times but the more you give, the more they ask for. You know what’s not up for grabs? My attention, John’s attention and the attention (and money) of you, our readers. I figured, once the election was settled, at least the texts and alerts would stop. Well, they lessened but they didn’t stop. But I used a trick I learned while recording sports and watching games on delay. Sometimes when you click on a streaming service to watch a game after it is already over, the service gives away the final score. This got me almost as annoyed as the constant calls for political donations. Beep, my phone goes, and I pull it out to find: US Men’s team eliminated in World Cup. Well I was just about to watch that game. But you can turn your alerts off! Miracle of miracles. Except, while you succeeded in turning them off on Amazon Prime, Apple News comes around and hits you on the blind side with the final score. In our first comic of the week, we made those experiences Al’s experience.

Now, if you live in a cold climate, you have been feeling the effects of a cold spell. And we’re talking cold. As I look out on the Hudson River, it is almost completely frozen over. That takes a lot of cold, believe me. These days my wife and I live in an apartment, but when our kids were growing up, we lived in a house. One year, as cold as this one, we threw a New Year’s Eve party at our house. The walkway was covered in snow and ice, and the stone stairway leading up to the front door was similarly icy. In short, an accident waiting to happen. So I salted the walkway and steps (with rock salt, not pink Himalayan). As the guests arrived, shoes caked with rock salt, we asked our friends to please remove their shoes, which everyone did, except for one guy who showed up late. I asked. His wife agreed. He refused. I offered a pair of slippers. He refused. He started to enter. I refused. I hope he enjoyed his New Year’s Eve wherever he ended up. In order to avoid this uncomfortable outcome, I should have used Pink Himalayan Salt like Marv. If it got on the floor, big deal. I could take care of it later with a dust buster. If that sounds like a good idea, please refrain from using Sicilian Sea Salt from a company called SpiceWalla, which sells a 30.2 ounce container for the bargain price of $828.00. I’d rather have ice.

We’s like to add a special shout out to Neil Donnelly (aka John’s son-in-law) for inspiring Friday’s comic. You know how it never snows down south? Well it just did in his hometown of Charleston, South Carolina, and Neil conquered the ice-covered sidewalk with, you guessed it, table salt.

Have a great (and warm) weekend, and if you're out of rock salt, try Morton’s. You can use the leftovers in your scrambled eggs.

Andy and John

Time to Move. 01/17/25

As I mentioned last week, my building is ripping out the wallpaper and carpeting on every floor and replacing it with much better, new and improved (the worst advertising cliche ever) wallpaper and carpeting. I came home early this afternoon to find the hallway full of construction dust. I trudged over the old carpeting and into my house tracking white footprints on the floor. My wife was not happy with me. But I’m still not running for the board.

Now there’s another admission I need to make: Last week, Al bragged to the audience that he was the creator of Sudsy the Talking Sponge. And nobody gave a rat’s ass about it. So what’s the admission, you ask? Well many years back I, along with my art director partner Frank (last name withheld to protect the guilty), came up with a talking sponge idea of our own. For real. And it wasn’t named Sudsy either. It didn't have a name, but it preferred you to use Dawn dish liquid when you were washing dishes. The sponge had many voices and took on many personas. Our favorite was a tough guy sponge who wasn't afraid to mix it up with grease and stuck-on food. It was voiced by Steve Schirripa of Soprano’s fame (Bobby Baccalleri). He thanked us by inviting me, Frank and our wives to a Soprano get together in Atlantic City. Class all the way. The highlight of the evening for my wife is when Tony Soprano joined us on the couch and placed his hand on her thigh. I was about to slug him until I realized that nobody hits Tony Soprano and lives to talk about it.

But back to the condo board. Must we? John came up with the idea of Al peering through the blinds so nobody would see him. That’s how embarrassed he was by his stunning defeat. In the year 2025 we have gotten the message. Condo boards and any other form of politics is to be avoided at all costs. As soon as you voice an opinion, half the audience hates you.

We’ll see you next week with a completely different subject. Until then, have a great weekend and please don’t run for office.

Andy and John

Condomania

I live in a condo. A condo that is undergoing hall renovations. Including new carpeting. John and I initially talked about redoing the plantings but he then pointed out that there’s not much planting going on in January. Back to the carpeting. I bitched to someone in the building who came back with, “If you don’t like it, you should run for the board.'‘ I think you need three qualifications to serve successfully as a member of a condo board: 1) expertise in the field like being a real estate lawyer, 2) a job working in real estate development or property management and 3) patience. I have none of the above qualities.

Imagine sitting on a board on a random Tuesday night listening to people complain about crown molding. I cannot. Years ago, when my wife and I owned a house, we had to go to the town board to get permission to sink a hot tub into our outdoor deck. Three old guys were sitting on a stage asking questions about deck size. I however did enjoy bragging about my big deck. Being a board member is a job steeped in minutia. I often think you’re in the right field if you can put up with the relevant minutia. In advertising and in comic development, John and I can spend an hour arguing about a piece of dialogue or about a punctuation mark. I love it. But talking about property lines? Not so much.

The other thing I don’t love is running for a position. Back in 1971, I was a freshman entering Washington University in St. Louis. Fresh from the VietNam protests, I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring and run for dorm president. I was from New York, had shoulder-length hair and wore an African dashiki. I approached my fellow dorm residents with a clever line like, “Vote for me,” and when they tallied up the votes, I had received only one, from the guy who became my lifelong bestie. I looked as comfortable as Al did introducing himself.

This is the first two parts of a four-part series. Tune in next week to see how Al does.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back with more condo fun,

Andy and John

HAPPY 2025

You know that phrase when you’re on vacation and you have a mimosa or Bloody Mary (a kind of gross name for a drink when you think about it) for breakfast? There’s always a wiseguy who holds his glass up and says, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” while taking his first drink. Well, we applied that same logic to New Year’s Eve. It’s midnight somewhere. In fact if memory serves me well (it often doesn't) John was sketching out the London Eye when we were tossing out ideas and there was our first comic. In fact it was so ingenious, my wife and I decided to try it ourselves. I had a bad cough and cold, so we cancelled our plans and stayed home. I looked up the BBC on my channel guide and saw that I had access to BBC America. Perfect! So just before 7 pm Eastern, we tuned in to see the ball drop and what was on the screen? Turns out BBC America was not on the same page. What was on? A rerun of some 60’s sitcom. Turns out we needed the actual BBC. What was our secret formula for staying up? Streaming season one of the detective series Bosch, on Amazon Prime. Finally at 11:58 we switched to network tv and rang in the New Year. Can somebody please explain the allure of Ryan Seacrest? Anybody?

Our second comic comes from a phrase John uttered that I’d never heard before. The Bar Know-It-All. I never heard the phrase but immediately knew the type. Think Cliff Clavin, the postman in the sitcom, “Cheers.” Such a colorful character, but now, thanks to the iPhone, you can either a) prove that guy wrong or b) become a bar know-it-all yourself. Admit it. How many times have you settled an argument or proved you were right by whipping out your phone? For instance you say “Did you know the Beatles only lasted 7 years after the Ed Sullivan show appearance in 1964.” In the old days you could impress your friends with archaic pieces of trivia like that. Now there’s someone who immediately pulls out their phone and either corroborates your story or proves you wrong. I have done this with more sports trivia than I care to admit. New Year’s Resolution #1: Keep my phone in my pocket. Excuse me, somebody’s texting right now.

As we celebrate the quarter-century mark it reminds me of a game I used to play. How old will I be when we hit Jan. 1, 2000? The answer was an unthinkable 46. Never did I think about how old I’d be when we hit 2025, a quarter way into the new century. You can do the math. I’d prefer not to.

Have a great holiday weekend and thanks for hanging with us all these years, And if you’re wondering what happens to the New 60 when everyone is in their 70’s, this is Comic Land, where nobody ever ages. Just ask Charlie Brown and Beetle Bailey.

Andy and John

Ho Ho Ho. 12/27/24

If you or your kids were fans of the tv show, The OC, you know about Christmakkah. It’s what you celebrate when one parent is Jewish and the other is of a different faith. My wife, kids, grandkids and I all celebrated Christmakkah yesterday. As I see it the kids get a pretty good deal with this arrangement. They get all the presents under the tree Christmas morning and then get a gift every night for the next 8 nights. Christmas started when the day started, but Hanukkah didn’t kick in until sundown. The fact that sundown kicked in around 4:30 pm did not allow Christmas the full day to bask in the sunlight, so on behalf of my people, I offer my sincerest apologies. Not only did Christmas and Hanukkah have to fight it out for the spotlight, so did the NBA. For years Christmas tv belonged solely to basketball. 5 straight games starting at 12:30 pm, all the way through the nightcap which started on the West Coast at 10:30 pm EST. But this year, football and the ubiquitous NFL decided they wanted to share the spotlight and ran two games on Netflix. Not fair. Well the grandkids solved that by starting to cry when I tried to switch from Clifford, the Big Red Dog, to basketball and well, the hell with it. I watched it on delay when we got back home. That said, our first comic has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with holiday travel, and, miracle of miracles, there was no traffic coming into or out of Brooklyn.

Our second comic deals with holiday cards. I don’t believe in them, especially the ones that brag about all the wonderful things they and their brilliant offspring accomplished in the past year. It’s worse when you don’t even know the people. My wife worked in an industry where she knew people from all over the country and they send each other cards every year. I have no idea who many of these people are—little Freddie learned how to swim, Ashley graduated MIT Summa Cum Laude, Johnny is studying the bar, and Sara just started her internship at Goldman Sachs but sadly, our beloved dog Fido passed away. How wonderful for them (except for Fido). Just don’t hog up so much space on my refrigerator. John on the other hand illustrates his own card. If you are a fan of The New 60 or of John or both, you’ll instantly recognize his style. They say opposites attract and this is true of your two humble cartoonists, at least when it comes to cards. One of us rolls his eyes while the other rolls up his sleeves.

Happy holidays and we’ll serve you up our last two comics of 2024 next Friday.

Andy and John

What the World Needs Now. 12/20/24

In the “good old days (whenever they were)” a hamburger was a hamburger was a hamburger. And taking your kids to the ballgame didn’t require taking out a reverse mortgage. It’s also true that every generation, as it ages, thinks about the good old days. In other words, the days when they knew how everything worked. Case in point: I don’t go to McDonalds much, except when I’m driving long distance and make a pit stop. That’s a lie. I bought a breakfast burrito last week a couple blocks from home. But anyway, I go into the restaurant and there is a giant electronic board upon which you are supposed to place your order and then pick it up at the register when they call your number. I’m sure this is part of a master plot to do away with cashiers. Humans are so inconvenient. When I got to the iced coffee, I wanted it unsweetened, with half and half. That was so complex for this kiosk, that I couldn’t place my order. Finally, in frustration, I went to the cashier. She was fine with unsweetened, but had no idea what half & half was. At one point asking if I wanted the iced coffee half filled with cream. In response, I got a Diet Coke. Which gets us around to smashed burgers, which McDonalds does not have. Pro tip: if you actually want a smash burger, the chain called Smashburger has them. The idea is to press the outside of the patty into the grill so it gets nice and crispy, Now nearly every place you go to has a “smashed burger” or they brazenly violate the copyright and serve “smash burgers.” Only Smashburger can serve a smash burger, okay? It’s just the latest trend and we’re sure something else will come to replace it soon. Maybe a Stuff Burger, where they put the toppings on the inside of the patty. Hey, that’s not a bad idea.

Another thing that’s not like what it used to be is going to a sporting event. The Knicks star point guard, Jalen Brunson was lauded for signing a “team-friendly” 4 year contract extension for $156.5 million. He gave up an extra $113 million that he was eligible to get so the team could afford to sign other good players around him. No wonder they now sell a massive hot dog for $35.00! But it does come with sriracha and fried onions. Wash it down with an $15.00 beer and you’ve got a $50.00 dinner for one. And we haven’t gotten to the tickets, parking, popcorn or soft-serve ice cream served in an upside-down half basketball shaped bowl, complete with team logo. But as John says, it’s not just about the prices, it’s about the baggy shorts that come down below the knees, the elaborate hairstyles, compression sleeves on the arms and knees, and the fact that the players change teams (and therefore uniforms) much more frequently than ever before. As Jerry Seinfeld once put it, when we root for a particular team, we’re actually just rooting for laundry.

In conclusion, I still go to ball games and eat smash burgers so forget everything I just said. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John