A Bad Night Out. 02/24/23

If you are 50 or above, as many of our readers are, it may have been a long time since you’ve had a date. That is, unless you are divorced or widowed. Our character Craig is divorced. Of course he is. We had to have at least one character who was single, because how else were we gonna have fun with stuff like bad dates? If you look back in our archives we also covered awkward moments like getting undressed in front of someone new for the first time. The question was asked, “Lights on or…” and the response was “Off!” before the question could be completed. But back to Craig’s date. Some people are just uncomfortable with silence. I oughta know, since I’m one of them. And when people are uncomfortable with silence they just talk. A lot. In the case of Craig’s date, they talk a lot about themselves. I have been on some of those myself, but it’s been so long ago, I can’t remember the details. But I remember once going to Puerto Rico, and mentioning it and this woman launched into a 10 minute talk about Vieques, where she had gone, which was apparently much, much better that San Juan and featured a bay that lit up at night in a bioluminescent glow, thanks, of course, to microorganisms. I replied, “Yeah, but do they have even one golf course?” And that was the end of that. Then there are the career braggers and, my biggest pet peeve, the name droppers. There’s an easy way to spot a name dropper. They use only first names, as if they and the famous person whose name they just dropped are best of friends. “I was talking to Bradley and Gaga the other day about the sorry state of the Oscars…” So enough about me, how do you think I look? Suffice it to say, we don’t think Craig will be back for a second date with this one.

And speaking of bad nights out, we would be remiss if we didn’t talk about this past week in the world of sports, or rather lack of sports. The Super Bowl marked the end of the football season, and the very next Sunday, the entire NBA got the week off following the All-Star game. So no football or basketball! What’s a guy to do? John, who played college soccer, mentioned there was soccer and I quickly said that soccer didn't count. Truth is, I like soccer and said that only to piss him off. But really, am I going to watch a Champions League game between Eintracht Frankfurt and Napoli? Most of these games could only be watched by streaming and the powers that be insist on streaming them to platforms I don’t subscribe to and then only broadcast the games in Spanish. Gooooooooooooooal!!!! I think not, my goooooal was to avoid them. Al and Marv tried to find something on air by going to a sports bar. I suggested they’d find rugby or college basketball on tv but John came up with cricket. And how he knew about the Pakistan Super League, I’ll never know. But I looked it up and yes, it’s a real thing. Check it out, next time you have four days to spare watching guys collect wickets. And if it’s so much like baseball, why do they call the pitcher a bowler? But tonight, the Knicks are back in action. So at least for me, the world is back in order.

C’est la vie. We will see you again with a new three-part series about Al and his restaurant. Meanwhile, have a great weekend, even those of you in the Midwest who have been clobbered by snow. Stay safe and warm.

Andy and John

And if You Don't Know, Now You Know. 02/17/23

What’s with this title? If you are of a certain age (and most of you are) you might be thinking of Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, “If you don’t know me by now…” but we’re not barking up that tree. Nope, I am referring to “Juicy,” by The Notorious B.I.G. Now, lest you think I am too hip for my age, I didn't know this song either. Many years ago, I was watching the play “Hamilton,” by Lin Manuel-Miranda with my family. In the play, Thomas Jefferson is having a battle with Hamilton and lays out what he considers to be the faults of Hamilton’s position. After doing so, he turns to President Washington, and says, “And if you don’t know, now you know.” At which point my son, in his 20’s at the time, turns to me, and says, “He got that line from Biggie.” And that’s how I know about it, not because I’m a devoted listener of hip hop. And if you don’t know, now you know.

But this title refers to both of this week’s comics as well. The first one about retronyms is actually our second comic on the subject. John, in addition to being an art director and illustrator, is also a lover of words. Which doesn't exactly leave much for me to do, now does it? But the point is we enjoy thinking up categories of words, like retronyms. What is a retronym, you ask? If the comic didn’t define it for you, here’s an example from the Oxford Dictionary: “A cloth diaper is a retronym necessitated by the fact that diaper now more commonly refers to a disposable diaper.” This is an example we can both relate to, being proud grandpas of baby girls. Believe it or not, we have ridiculous arguments over what should be considered a retronym and what should not. For example, “fresh squeezed orange juice.” I consider it a retronym, John does not. If I went on any further I think you readers would be begging me, “Enough! Please stop!” Which is exactly what Craig is saying when he implores Dottie, their waitress, to stop encouraging Al. And if you don’t know, now you know.

Another thing you might not know (because nobody likes admitting it), is our hidden love for musicians, authors, comedians, late night talk show hosts, that we secretly love but are too embarrassed to admit. I’m talking about James Patterson, who I love to read on the beach, but only on my Kindle, not in the hardcover form I actually prefer (incidentally, “hardcover book” is another retronym). This way nobody knows what I’m reading. And in the realm of music, it’s…it’s…okay it’s Neil Diamond. John, whose taste runs to jazz, has no embarrassing loves like this one. At least none that he admits to. So I told John that I had gone to see the Neil Diamond musical on Broadway and absolutely loved it. Ask my wife. For a week afterwards it was Neil Diamond in the car, Neil Diamond at home, Neil Diamond everywhere, until even I got sick of him. At any rate John heard this and said, “Okay, let’s make it Barry Manilow. Al and Marv are in the car, and Marv sees Barry Manilow on Al’s “favorite stations” list. I said, “Great, he’s even cornier than Neil Diamond. What I didn't admit is that years ago, I also saw Barry Manilow at the Bottom Line. And if you don’t know, now you know.

That’s it for today folks. Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll be back next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time. 02/10/23

Pretending to be Jewish, instituting an Employee of the Month award, electing George Santos to Congress — they all seemed like good ideas at the time, but, in retrospect, some of them worked out better than others. Which got me to thinking, what were some of my great ideas that I wish I could take back? There was that party in my early 20’s in a suburb of Chicago, when I tried my first pot brownie. Of course nothing happened so I ate a second one. Whoops. I tried to tell my body, “Slow down now. Stop. You’re plenty high enough. Okay now stop. I SAID STOP!!!!!!” But that wasn’t all, I then snuck out of the party and drove back home, which at the time was Evanston, Illinois. The trip should have taken about a half hour. Ten minutes through some dark, winding suburban streets until I hit the highway, and then another 15-20 minutes until I blessedly reached home. Along the way on the aforementioned dark, winding suburban streets, I noticed a police car coming up from behind me, lights flashing. I cursed softly to myself and stopped (nothing like flashing lights to sober you up in an instant). The officer approaches the car, I roll down my window, lower my voice a few octaves and give my best, “Hello Officer.” He looks at me and says, “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?” And I replied, “No sir. I don’t” And he responded, “9 miles per hour. Try and pick it up a bit and get home safely.” I said (still in my deep octave voice), “Thank you officer and have a nice night.” Phew. Maybe not the best decision making.

And then there was the time at the NY Health and Racquet Club. I went there every morning before work, right when the doors opened at 7:00 am. I was an advertising copywriter at the time and I befriended a guy who designed blue jeans for Murjani. We’d jog together and end up stretching together at the end of our workouts. One day, he tells me he’s thinking of going out on his own and asks if I’d be interesting in doing his advertising to help him grow. I told him, “You know, I’m really flattered, but I don’t know the first thing about fashion advertising, Tommy.” Oh, did I forget to mention his last name was Hilfiger?

But I’d be remiss to mention bad decisions without mentioning one of John’s most egregious career errors. I was between jobs at the time and got a freelance gig at the agency, Ogilvy and Mather. They teamed me up with a guy on staff to write commercials. This guy was an art director who was in need of a partner. His name was John Colquhoun. Yeah, that John Colquhoun. We worked together for a week or so. And then the creative director came over, shook my hand and informed me today would be my last day, but keep in touch. I recounted this incident to John when we reconnected a couple decades later, and he had absolutely no recollection of that week. Had he liked my effort we could have rocketed to advertising superstardom, or, failing that, at least gotten a 20 year jump on the comic strip. But I evidently made such an impression that he still isn’t sure I ever worked there. Like Brando said in On the Waterfront, “I coulda been a contender.” Of course John went on to make a bunch of famous commercials for Little Caesars and even got to work with Jerry Seinfeld for Amex, but still…

At any rate I feel duty bound to reprint John’s response: “Andy likes to bring this up every now and again to make me feel bad and I’m pretty sure it never happened. Or perhaps it happened to Andy and another John Colquhoun. It was Manhattan after all, a city of 8+ million people. You can’t swing a dead cat in Manhattan without hitting another John Colquhoun…”

So here we are. After all these questionable decisions we’re still around. Entering our fifth year of The New 60. Our first published comic was January 25th, 2018. Our thanks to all of you loyal readers who follow the comic and the blog every week. You are what keeps us going. Well, that and the dream of syndication. If and when that day comes, hopefully we’ll learn from our past and give that syndicator a resounding “YES!”

Oh, and if Tommy Hilfiger is listening and wants to remake that offer, I’ll strongly reconsider it.

Have a great weekend and we will see you next week with two new comics.

Andy and John

Where Do We Come From. 02/03/23

So here’s the deal. When it comes to the subject of where did we come from, there are two types of people. People like John who trace their roots back through the ages and people like me who basically couldn’t care less. Pet peeve, people who say “I could care less,” which means the exact opposite of what they’re trying to say. I think if you could care less, then go ahead and care less. But I wandered off course again. The point is, I know very little about my past and haven’t thought of searching for it. I know one set of grandparents came over from Russia and the others used to live in Boston, but that’s it. After that, bupkis (which means “nothing” for those of you who don’t know a few choice Yiddish phrases). Friends have said to me, “You think your mother’s parents come from Boston? How about their parents?” And I shrug my shoulders and say, “I don’t know.” Whereas John can say he’s 29% Scottish, another 69% from other European locales, and 1% Ivory Coast and Ghana (the latter part is probably why he played jazz trumpet in high school). As for me, there’s the Russian part and then I’m told that my last name (Landorf) is actually German for “country village” so maybe I’m part German and I can see why my ancestors were smart to get the hell out of there. Come to think of it, I do have a predilection for sausage, sauerkraut, brown bread, beer and mustard with seeds, but that’s probably coincidental.

At any rate we decided to invent a past for Marv. Think about it, if we gave Marv my attitude, it wouldn’t have made much of a comic.

Mike: Hey Dad, what are those pictures?”

Marv: Oh just some old family photos I found in the attic.

Mike: Who’s that? Marv: I have absolutely no idea.

See what I mean? Not much of a comic. So we went with John’s ancestor-friendly approach and invented a past life for Marv’s grandpa, which explained the strange last name for a Black man, Mandlebaum. After some back and forth, John wondered about making Morris a baker of Streit’s Matzo. I went into my cupboard and just happened to have a box of the very same. As luck would happen they opened their matzo factory in 1925 which happened to fit our timeline perfectly and the story emerged. How many Black men in the 1920’s can you think of that became Matzo bakers? And how many of those starred for the company hoops team? Not too many, except for the esteemed Morris Mandlebaum, a guy that could make a crisp matzo. And a hook shot from 12-feet.

The other thing we like about the search for Marv’s past is it gave Marv a profound way to bond with his son. Come to think of it, maybe I will get the Ancestry kit after all.

Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll see you next week with the conclusion of the Morris Mandlebaum story and a trip back to Al’s new workplace, Pizza-on-a-Stick.

Andy and John

Past, Present, Future. 01/27/23

This week we took a step into the future with Al. He discovered Tik Tok (which John has and I have not). It’s funny, these days even the name Al looks funny. It looks a lot like AI, which for the uninformed stands for Artificial Intelligence. To me, artificial intelligence is like asking a smart person to write your term paper. You are artificially presenting yourself as more intelligent than you actually are. Way back in college I took two courses in the same semester, something like The History of China and The History of Chinese Politics. I needed the latter to complete my poly sci (that’s what we cool kids called Political Science back then) degree. For the first course I wrote “How Confucius influenced Mao.” For the second course I merely reversed the names and wrote about “How Mao Incorporate the Teachings of Confucius.” Guess what? It was almost the exact same paper. As the final semester of my senior year was approaching, I went in to the office of the professor who taught The History of China to collect my term paper and was shocked to find he shared an office with the Chinese Politics professor!!! As luck would have it the shared office was empty and I picked the already graded paper off the history professor’s table before my larceny could be discovered. He gave me an A! The other guy didn't like the same paper as well and it got a B or B+. But I digress. The point is, that’s how I cheated BEFORE artificial intelligence. Does it count as AI when you rip yourself off? And what does that have to do with Tik Tok? Although Tik Tok has a lot to do with recent Chinese history. And it certainly has a lot to do with the future. But I digress, as usual.

The second comic today is another multi-part adventure, this one into the past. In this one, Marv (which auto-correct, a form of artificial intelligence, keeps trying to change to “Mark”) takes a look into his past. How on earth did he, a Black man, end up with the last name “Mandelbaum? “ Suffice it to say you will learn that next week. But it started innocently with a trip to the attic, where Marv discovered some photos from his past. Wonder why all those programs—Ancestry.com, 23 and Me — are all so popular? It’s because of guys like Marv. John has taken a trip to his past through one of these, and I have yet to take the plunge, but we had a lot of fun inventing a past for Marv and his ancestors. We will reveal it in the two comics to come next week. Until then, enjoy your DNA and revel in this fact: you will no longer be bombarded by “Go Giants” missives on this website. They went alright. Straight into the trash can. Sigh.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

It's All About How You See It 01/20/23

After three installments on Craig, we can safely say that the thread of this underwear story has run out. Sorry, couldn’t resist. At the last second, John came up with the final joke on a joke line about putting the item up for sale on eBay. With Dottie asking for Craig’s autograph, you can’t be too sure what her actual motives were. I was listening to sports talk radio in the car the other day (please don’t judge me, the Giants are in the playoffs for the first time in years and I can’t get enough), the former star running back Tiki Barber told a story of people coming up to him asking him to autograph footballs for a holiday, birthday, etc. And then he found out that some of those people were turning around and selling them on eBay. No one has asked for my autograph or John’s. Yet. Of course neither of us were former underwear models either.

The other comic was based on a real incident, as opposed to the stuff we make up out of thin air. John and are both proud new grandparents of beautiful baby girls. I regale him with stories about mine, he doesn’t have as many stories yet because his granddaughter is still an infant. In the case of this comic, it was based on my granddaughter who was about 1 1/2 years old at the time. She came for a sleepover along with her dad and mom (who doubles as Joanie and my daughter). The next morning, our kids packed up the car to go to breakfast and head back home. My wife joined them for the breakfast part. When the kids buckled their daughter into her car seat she started wailing. When Joanie returned home from breakfast, I commented on how sweet it was that Charlotte (our granddaughter) looked at me and cried when they left. I asked her if she noticed Charlotte crying because she missed her grandpa. Joanie told me gently that no, Charlotte was just crying because she hated being buckled into her car seat. Oh well, a guy can dream, can’t he?

Have a great weekend, especially those of you who root for the Giants, and we will see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

A Model of Success 01/13/23

Last week we wrote about the joys of rattling around a mostly empty house. No more kids living at home, but you’ve got all their toys, soccer cleats, lacrosse sticks, finger paintings, as well as copies of every newspaper and magazine you thought was important enough to save. And keep in mind, this was way before digital. Then the inevitable occurs. You feel the need to downsize. And boy do the developers see us coming. The Boomers. Still the biggest blip in the population. New apartment buildings are popping up all over the country. Where I live in Westchester County, there was a massive GM plant that shut down, and guess what it’s become? That’s right, a massive apartment and condo complex. At any rate, we get lured into selling the old house and moving into a new apartment, and that comes along with the dreaded task of downsizing. Do we really need this… fourth set of china, copies of Gourmet Magazine dating back to 1980, old coat rack made of hockey sticks…fill in the blank? And sometimes, sometimes when you get around to rooting through all your stuff, you come upon a diamond. One of those, “Wait’ll I show the guys this!” For those of you who don’t know me, I’m bald. About 10 years ago, I found a picture of myself from college, hair down to my shoulders, wearing a dashiki and playing guitar with a friend at a local college saloon. I shared it at work with my team and even the client. Okay, it was kind of cool, but also a lot embarrassing. So John and I got to thinking. What would be something Al could unearth that would really embarrass him or one of his buddies? And we came up with Craig once modeling underwear, no, not like a Calvin Klein ad, but in a Sears Roebuck catalogue. Pretty tame by today’s standards, but back then, hot stuff! I know more than a few friends who weren’t allowed to have a Penthouse or Playboy, but instead relied on those formerly “racy” pictures from the Sears Catalogue. Not me or John, of course. As the barber from Sweeney Todd famously sang: “Oh, but that was many years ago…”

As for our second comic, it turns out it’s about the same subject as the first. In fact these are parts 1 and 2 of a 3-part series. All about Craig and his underwear. The moral of the story is, when you go through your stuff and find something embarrassing about one of your friends, beware of sharing it. Because chances are, they have something on you as well.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

A Moving Story. 01/06/23

This week Marv and Rachel face a thought many people face in their 60’s (or 50’s or 70’s, but this is called The New 60, so we’re sticking with 60). Just a simple chore, like looking for a pair of scissors, reveals to them that they are rattling around their house now that the kids are grown up and are on their own. My wife and I faced a similar situation 8 years ago and here’s how that went down. We were in our house, the kids had moved away, the school taxes were ridiculous, although we had no kids in school, but we loved our house and all its space. A new apartment complex opened up in the town just north of us. Despite my wife’s protestations to the contrary, I made an appointment, “just to look.” We walked inside an unfinished unit, with unpainted wooden beams and sheets of plastic up, it was a mess. I was ready to forget about it, when my wife came up to me and said, “Let’s take it.” We did and it was one of the best decisions we made. It also occurred to me that the real estate developers see us coming, The baby boomers are at the age when they’re ready to trade their homes for apartments, and the developers say, “Let’s build a place in a town with low school taxes because they have no interest in that, we’ll give them amenities like a yoga studio (‘cause old people like yoga) and they won’t have to worry about shoveling their driveways, and look, here comes a couple of suckers right now! Will Al and Joanne go in that direction? Only time will tell. John, on the other hand, completely upended this cliche, by building his own house in the woods and chopping down trees for firewood. Ahh, different strokes for different folks.

Our other strip deals with a phenomenon known to men of a certain age. We get bored and restless since we no longer have full-time jobs. Some of us take up cooking and eventually we want to impress our partners. (I cannot speak for John’s cooking skills except to say he has made me a mean toasted bagel with cream cheese and nova that would put Zabar’s to shame). So we proudly announce we’re making dinner, and then, just like when we learned how to diaper our children years ago, we learn we’re doing it all wrong. I have, in the past, been accused of such crimes as using the wrong container of blueberries, the wrong jar of peanut butter, the wrong kind of milk, and no, any “milk” that comes from a nut or a soybean is not milk! Okay? Forget about the fact that while many of us have just taken this on, our partners have been doing it for years. We just know we’re doing it the right way. The only concession I will give to my dear wife of 38 years is that I make a complete mess, on the floor, beneath the kitchen counter, on the counter itself, on and underneath my seat while eating, and most egregiously, I never, ever, use the splatter guard! If you can’t relate to this comic, chances are you’ve never tried to cook.

That’s it for this week. We wish you a Happy 2023 and despite the problems outlined above, try your hand at cooking guys. It’s fun. Until you get to the clean up part.

See you next week.

Andy and John

Holiday Cheer 12/30/22

Ahh the holidays. Sure, they are a time for celebrating with family and friends and wishing one another an even better year next year but what about now? As for now, half of the New 60 team (don’t worry John’s friends, it’s not him) came down with Covid for the second time. Despite getting every shot and booster available to mankind. In fact I had a great plan before getting sick. We invited 3 other couples to a jazz concert in our town, followed by a NYE party at our apartment. I pre-paid the tickets without telling everybody and now what? We had to cancel the party and the jazz club won’t refund the money. I guess I was trying to prove to myself I wasn’t like the faint-hearted couples in the comic who couldn't stay awake past 10:30 pm. I’m NOT like that, except with Covid. So please forgive me for being a wimp today and cutting this blog short. I promise to be back at full-strength next week with a full-length blog. But for now, with no energy and no apparent sense of humor, I bid you all a Happy New Year. See you next week.

Andy and John

On Forgetting and the Holidays

This is not about forgetting the holidays. We’re not THAT old yet. It’s about forgetting and the holidays. But the first comic is about forgetting where you parked. And I’m sorry to say that one happened to yours truly. My wife and I went out to dinner with another couple who were visiting us. After dinner was a jazz concert. Because the other couple wasn’t familiar with the area, the plan was that my wife Joanie went with the other husband in his car while I took the other wife in my car. Now get your collective minds out of the gutter. Nothing happened like that except when we walked out of the restaurant, I had no idea where I had parked. As in none. This wasn’t some understandable confusion, like not being able to find your car in a mall lot, an airport or a football stadium. Everybody does that. Don’t they? I mean, even a guy like John might lose his car there. But no, this was different. I couldn’t have been more than a block away. So I walked up the hill a block, down the hill two blocks (to make up for the one block uphill), and then back up to the starting place in front of the restaurant. I turned to my companion and shrugged my shoulders, and she suggested I use my key to unlock the car and maybe we’d see the flashing headlights. I heard but didn't see so finally I hit the “panic” button on the car key and eureka, there it was, one block away on the side street. Which begs the question do they call it a panic button because they know you are panicking? I always thought it was named “panic button,” because you’d use it in a panic, like if you saw somebody about to steal your car. But now I know better. In any case, while sheepishly recounting this to John, he suggested it might be better to have forgotten that Al didn’t drive after all. He had walked to the restaurant and forgotten. I’m still not sure which story is more pathetic.

But let’s get to Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as those annoying car commercials never tire of telling us. You know the ones. They all have these stupid, oversized red bows on top of cars. I think Lexus started it but now BMW has joined the fray. If you’ve seen the commercial once, you’ve seen it a million times. This time the red bow appears on top of the house, a wind comes and blows it on top of the BMW, whereupon the perfectly coiffed, perfectly in shape grandpa comes out of the front door and thinks his son bought the car for him. Yeah, right. I believe that. And all of this has little to do with our holiday comic, delivered to your inbox two days before Christmas. John suggested Marv for Christmas because he’s rotund and jolly just like Santa. Mark is always struggling with his weight (who isn’t?) and that naturally led to Christmas cookies, and…you know the rest because chances are, you already read the comic. So happy holidays and we will see you next week before we finally get to next year. Where does the time go??

Andy and John

Romance and Reservations. 12/16/22

See what we did there with that title? You have certain reservations about romance, and we’re talking about making reservations for dinner. Both of which have absolutely nothing to do with each other. And now that we have that cleared up let’s talk about Craig. If you happened to read the blog 2 weeks ago, when we started the Craig series, we asked the question: do you know people who are intelligent, funny, in good shape and attractive, everything somebody would want in a mate, and yet they remain single? Of course you do. And now you know why Craig remains single. If a relationship can’t survive a road trip, how’s it going to survive the real stuff? On the other hand, we’d guess many relationships would crumble on an extensive road trip, but that’s a different topic. If you applied the potato/po-tah-to song to road trips, we think it might go something like this: You say Doritos, I say Funyuns, You say taquitos and I say onions, Dortios/Funyuns/Taquitos/Onions, let’s call the whole thing off. And so he did.

Our second comic, first on your scroll this week, is about dinner reservations. If you live in or around a big city, you know how tough it is to get a desirable time at a popular restaurant. You go on a restaurant app like Open Table and you type in your restaurant and are given two choices, 5:30 or 10:00 pm. Everybody wants 7 or 8 and those go first. So you’re left with two undesirable choices. But a funny thing happens on the way towards your 60’s and 70’s and even 80’s. Before, if I had to choose, I’d have opted for the 10 pm. See a movie first then out to dinner. 5:30 is for old people and families with young children. Then John and I took a look in our own mirrors And we saw two older guys who also go out with couples with young kids (our daughters are both married and have blessed us with granddaughters). The baby has to go to bed by 7, which means leaving the restaurant by 6:30, which means dinner at 5???? But after a while, I discovered I like going out early. It means getting home early. And going through season 5 of Yellowstone. Then let’s talk about eating late and the impact it has on my acid reflux. On the other hand, let’s not. As John put it yesterday, we used to be embarrassed to go to dinner at 5:30, but now an 8:30 dinner sounds way too late. Yes it’s true that we are getting older and our habits are slowly changing, but at least for us and our characters, we’re going by kicking and screaming the whole way. I STILL won’t eat lunch before 12:30. Even if it means having no appetite left for my 5:30 dinner.

See you next week with two new ones,

Andy and John

Will it Last? 12/09/22

Anybody remember the movie, “Diner?” It takes place in Baltimore and one of the characters makes his girlfriend pass an impossible quiz on the Baltimore Colts and Johnny Unitas (yes, that’s where they played before slinking off to Indianapolis), before the guy would propose to her. It was a test. Just like the one Craig is giving to Cynthia. How cool is she on a road trip? Is she relaxed enough to eat Slim Jims and peanut butter crackers, and Funyuns? Or is she going to be the kind of woman who only eats organic superfoods and drinks only unsweetened black tea? And in her mind she’s wondering how cranky Craig will be. And how much fun. Road trips are like that. You stop at McDonald’s even if you’ve never otherwise stopped at McDonald’s before. You sleep in motels you wouldn't otherwise dream of staying in. You need a sense of adventure, a sense of humor, and you have to be able to compromise. Just telling you, dear readers, that I possess none of the above qualities. I’ve been on only one road trip with John and that was to a comic show at a Greenwich museum and I can vouch that he wasn't the least bit cranky. Here’s a way we’re different: John, who’s more likely to roll with the punches, came up with the idea for grape Nehi sodas. I, for one, would only drink an orange Nehi, never a grape Nehi. Never. And if you’re not from New York, like my wife (who hails from Pittsburgh), you’ve never heard of Nehi in the first place. Trust me, you’re better off. You know the kind of cloying, artificial “grape” flavor in a grape Tootsie Pop? Well take that X 10 and you’ve got the taste of a Nehi Grape Soda. John’s extra touch of the ice bucket was both funny and extremely necessary. If you think a Nehi grape soda is barf-worthy to begin with, imagine drinking it warm from the machine. Not good.

In any case Craig and Cynthia have so much in common. And next week, we will find out how it all turns out between our two new lovebirds. But ‘til then, hold your collective breath. Or don’t. Because you might pass out and we want you to keep on reading.

One other note, our anthology book of comics, which many of you have inquired about, is now scheduled to come about sometime next Spring. I know, we promised the holidays, but maybe the holiday is more Memorial Day than Christmas. Anyway, we will be sure to let you know. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Relationships 12/02/22

So it’s already December. Where does the time go, and how come we keep getting older each year? Anyway, this week we start a 5-part series on our confirmed bachelor, Craig, and the new “love of his life,” Cynthia. Our guess is we all know someone like Craig. Good looking, intelligent, fit. And the question is: why does he or she remain single? Is it because they want to be single? Or is it because they haven’t met the right person yet? Or are they unwilling to compromise? John and I have each been married almost 40 years, so we are not the best examples. But what about Craig, is he ready to take the plunge? I was once a single guy around 27 or 28 and met a girl who was interviewing at a place I used to work. I saw her lingering in the hallway and struck up a conversation and there was an immediate chemistry. So I asked her out on a date. She was of a similar age and she had been through enough failed romances that she wasn’t messing around anymore. She knew what she wanted (at least she thought she did) and if you didn't meet her checklist, you were toast. Of course I didn't know any of this until I arrived at her apartment for our first (and last) date. She greeted me at the front door and before she put her coat on to go outside, she handed me a list. A literal list of all the qualities she sought in a man she’d be willing to have a relationship with. I kid you not. The lucky man would have to (now this was a long time ago, so my memory’s a bit foggy) love pets, not smoke cigarettes, not drink to excess, be neat, enjoy long walks in nature, etc. For those of you who know me, I don’t respond well to people giving me orders. And yes, I still smoked a pack every 2 or 3 days. Not much, but enough to disqualify me. By the way, I officially stopped smoking on June1, 1986, the day my daughter (my first child) was born, but I was being given a list the second I walked in the door and didn't like it. What I did is sit down in a chair and read the list. Then I pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes out of my jacket and proceeded to hit the front of the pack against my palm, packing the tobacco. She said, “What are you doing?” I explained I was a light smoker and also that I hadn’t grown up with a pet and so was not a natural with dogs. She asked me to please put the cigarettes away and I said, “I don’t think this is gonna work out.” She full-heartedly agreed and we never even went to dinner. True story. But the point is, the older you get, the more rigid you become in your ways. It was Match.com before Match.com existed.

I’m reminded of the Pina Colada song where a bored husband responds to a classified ad saying, “if you like Pina Coladas, taking walks in the rain…” the guy answers the ad saying he loves all those things and plans to meet surreptitiously in a bar at midnight. When he gets there he finally meets the woman who wrote the ad, his wife. Or as Joni Mitchell once brilliantly wrote, “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you want ‘til it’s gone?” When you’re in your 60’s you think you know what you want, like Craig thinks he knows and Cynthia thinks she knows. Will she be the one? Will Craig listen to his heart instead of his head? Stay tuned. There’s three more comics coming.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week as the road trip continues.

Andy and John

On Thanksgiving and Feeling Our Age 11/24/22

I was at physical therapy the other week, and I said something about Charlie Chaplin to the therapist who was working with me. Another therapist, a young woman in her late 20’s, looked over and said, “Who’s Charlie Chaplin?” Talk about feeling your age. I looked over and explained he was not only a famous writer, actor and director, he was also a songwriter. Yep that’s right, “Smile When Your Heart is Breaking” was written by Charlie, for his first movie with sound (they called them “talkies” back then) Limelight. But the point is, the comment made me think two things: 1) I must be really old and 2) she shoulda known. I mean, c’mon now. What’s that quote, something like “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”? What about those who never learned history? This is all a lead-in to our first comic of the week, second on your scroll, called “Phone Book.” John and I had, for lack of a better term, a lively discussion about whether or not a kid Sid’s age (approx 30) would know what a phone book was. John asked his kids and one of them said, “Yeah, it’s that thing I used to have to sit on to reach the dining room table.” That about says it all. I suggested John just tell him, “You know, it’s that thing that hangs in every phone booth.”

And next up is our annual Thanksgiving comic/poster. Nothing like eating and drinking 5,000 calories, getting a belly-full of tryptophan and settling on the couch to watch the third football game of the day, to knock you right the hell out. And it’s okay, because you’re with family and they would never dream of being judgmental. Here’s another thing to be thankful for. Ever since John and I left the world of advertising, we’ve become our own bosses. So when I want to take Thanksgiving off or write a short blog today because I’m leaving early tomorrow for my daughter’s house, I just look in the mirror and ask, “Hey Andy, can you write a quickie this week and then go on vacation?” John asked the same of himself. And surprise, surprise, we both said a resounding “YES!”

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and we will be back with you next week.

Andy and John

Keeping (sorta) Fit 11/17/22

Our exercise series this week starts with a comic about fitness watches in general. An Apple Watch, a FitBit, or the Google and Samsung equivalents. The idea about these damn, stupid, I mean watches are that they give you gentle reminders to get off your ass and start walking, weight lifting, counting calories, etc. It gets particularly annoying when you’re driving a car or flying in a plane, going to a theater for a show or a movie and the watch tells you, time to get up and move. A short 5-minute walk will get you closer to your “stand goal”. And what is a stand goal, pray tell? You have to stand for a certain amount of minutes each hour. Well, I can’t stand in a theater. What would the people behind me say (probably not much since I’m only 5’6”)? The thing is most healthy people look at a watch deliverring a message as only a minor annoyance. Not yours truly. I shout at it. “I’m driving damnit! Why don’t you earn another hour to your stand goal? I’m just trying to not get into a car accident, is that okay, you dumb watch?” After I broke my ankle this summer I put my Apple Watch in a drawer and never wore it again until I was healed. Everyday there were these messages: “You’re usually much further along by this time of the day.” And I’d look at my “move ring” and see it say that I’d achieved only 1 minute of exercise that day. I switched to my old normal watch, the kind that only tells time, instead. I remember John telling me about chopping down a dead tree in his yard to then chop into firewood. It’s hard, physical work, but halfway through the process he noticed he had forgotten to wear his watch. Hence, he got no credit (at least as far as the watch was concerned) for any physical activity, when in fact he had done a tremendous amount of aerobic and strength training, only he was chopping wood. I am prone to thinking like that myself. I once in a while forget to wear the damn thing and find myself on a 4-mile walk. But my watch thinks I’ve moved 3 steps that particular day. And yet, as soon as I recovered from the ankle and started hiking 2 then 3 then 4 miles a day, I went right back to my annoying digital watch. I wanted to get credit for my exercise. Finally, we ask the existential question of all fitness watches: If you chop a tree down in the forest and forget to record it on your watch, does it really count?

Our next effort was about a date. And our single character, Craig, was scoping out a potential new woman friend who seemed athletic, which he liked. But maybe she was a little too athletic as Craig realized she would kick his ass in the game of squash. Now this thought came from discussing a couple of my youthful experiences I shared with John. I once met a girl at a gym, and we made a date to play racquetball. I had to use every bit of my strength and speed to barely beat her. I don’t think she was very impressed, which is probably why she refused a second date (this time, just dinner with no athletic competition). Another antic occurred when I played a couple of seasons of co-ed softball in my late 50’s. I was standing on third base, attempting to run home when the batter hits a ball to the short fielder (in co-ed softball you usually play with 4 outfielders instead of the traditional 3) and teams usually put their weaker players at that position. Not this team and not this woman. The fly ball was hit, she retreated a few steps, and then started running in towards the ball. She caught it on the run and threw a perfect strike to home plate. If I had run from third, I would have been out by 20 feet. After the inning, I asked her if she played in college, and without missing a beat she said, Yep, starting center fielder at Notre Dame. Okay then. I played intramural sports. Does that count? John, however, was an honest to goodness varsity soccer player, so there. But I digress. As liberated as we like to think of ourselves, most guys don’t like losing to women, even if the woman is 10 times better than he is. There, I’ve said it, so shoot me. Whaddya want? I’m in my 60’!

Enjoy this beautiful, if cold, late fall weather and we’ll see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

The Art of Compromise 11/11/22

First a little shoutout to a special grandniece, Emery. She has the coolest birthday, born 11/11/11, which makes her 11 years old today. If that doesn't make you want to go out and play the lottery… Anyway, happy 11th, Ms. 11/11/11. And now to the art of compromise. It applies to both our comics this week. The first of course was the final chapter in our “Bhutan” series. In real true life (as my son used to say when he was a little boy) my wife wants to go to Bhutan. You hike, you see temples and you eat…vegetables. The entire country is f’ing vegetarian. It also ranks at or near the top of something called a “World Happiness Index.” If one has anything to do with the other, I’d rather eat meat and be miserable. Ever see a 69-year old man who still pushes his vegetables to the side of the plate? Then you haven’t met me. John is much better in this regard. Except for peas.

The other comic in today’s feed was about getting a new dog. If you are in your 60’s or a little younger or a little older, you probably are struggling with this dilemma as we speak. Dogs are great. Man’s best friend and all that. They also are a major responsibility. Today, on a walk, I watched a couple with their dog. They threw a ball and the dog would bound away happily to fetch the ball and come racing back with it so they could do the sequence all over again. When the guy was talking to his girlfriend the dog would stand there, jumping up and down, way up in the air as if to say, “Hello…remember me? Throw!” And so they did. I got tired of watching before the dog got tired of running and jumping. So about compromise. My wife and I are on the same page on this one. At this point, with the kids out of the house, the last thing we want is to be tied down. I sense John and his wife may be straddling the fence on this one. Why? Because when we discussed the premise, John came out with a list of why not’s in under 20 seconds. Not that he’s been thinking about this subject or anything like that.

One last thought about compromise as it relates to going away on vacation. Some people like action/adventure vacations, diving, hiking, skiing, biking in places like the Maldives, Patagonia (no not the store) and even Bhutan, for heaven’s sake. While others prefer to relax and luxuriate with a spa, a beach, a golf course, stuff like that. My question is this: who WOULDN’T like that? Pass me the Pina Colada please? Oh, and the chips and guac.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Friday with two new ones.

Andy and John.

Bucket Lists 11/4/22

If you are a loyal reader of this comic and blog, you’re probably old enough to have a bucket list. These are the things you want to do and places you want to go before it’s all over. The name, of course, comes from the thought “...before I kick the bucket.” And just like snowflakes and fingerprints, no two bucket lists are alike. Now I must admit that a close family relative of mine has Bhutan on his bucket list and that was the genesis of this idea. As always in this blog, names are omitted to protect the innocent. He is, was and will always be an adventure traveler. My wife and I spent a memorable Labor Day Weekend with him several decades ago. We were becalmed (another word for trapped) on a sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay for 3 days in temperatures approaching the 90’s. We were roasting and if you went below deck it was murderously hot. Finally our adventurer jumped in the Chesapeake to cool off, and was instantly attacked by a school of jelly fish. When we returned home, I wrote an article called “Inward Bound.” If the sailboat was like the program “Outward Bound,” then I wanted to do a program based on the opposite. Instead of being becalmed on a sailboat for 3 days in 90 degree weather, you’d be stuck inside the Ritz-Carlton with air-conditioning, cable tv, and room service complete with french toast for breakfast and steak frites and a nice cabernet for dinner. If I can ever find the article, I’ll repost it as a blog.

When I pitched the idea to John, he immediately got a smile on his face. We googled Bhutan and came up with two important facts: their favorite sport is archery and the entire country is vegetarian. And they also rank high on the World Happiness Index. Put it this way, if you can be happy watching archery and eating vegetables, you are not likely to have the same bucket list as me.

And speaking of bucket lists, do you guys remember the show “Green Acres”? A husband (Eddie Albert) and his wife (Eva Gabor, sister of Zsa Zsa) were thinking of moving to the country. It was at the top of his bucket list, not even at the bottom of hers. The theme song was a classic. Here’s how it opened:

“Green Acres is the place for me/Farm living’ is the life for me/Land spreadin’ out so far and wide/Keep Manhattan just give me the countryside.” To which his wife replied:

“New York is where I’d rather stay/I get allergic smelling hay/I just adore a penthouse view/Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.”

I consider it one of the funniest (and telling) theme songs ever written. Except for the closing, which was the height of sexism and could never get on the air today. Here is how the argument gets decided:

“You are my wife/Goodbye city live/ Green Acres we are there” (And she spent the rest of her life living on a farm in Hooterville with her husband and a pig named Arnold).

At any rate, Al comes back with a bucket list of his own and next week, in the third and final installment, we reach a decision, and no, it’s not sexist like Green Acres. We promise.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week with the conclusion of the bucket list series and another new direction.

Andy and John

Sucker of the Month Club. 10/28/22

In the past few blogs we have covered hacking, phishing and getting all your personal financial information stolen. What fun. I could write more about it but I don’t know anything more. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten hacked in the first place. So let us concentrate on our second comic, which deals with monthly subscriptions. No not the kind like you have for People Magazine. The kind of subscription we’re talking about is the “Sign up now for Disney+ to see the movie of the hit Broadway show Hamilton for the low, low price of $6.99” type of subscription. I certainly fell for that one. And if you’re like me, you write yourself a note to cancel said subscription at the end of the month, and then promptly forget to do so. Some 18 months later you notice the $6.99 monthly charge and go about cancelling but then you find out Season 3 of Ted Lasso is coming up soon so…

I once remember reading about the most contentious divorce case in U.S history. I don’t see how anything could be more contentious than the John Wayne and Lorenna Bobbit case when she sliced off his…anyway, this particular case was contentious as well. It featured a multibillionaire and his wife who was suing him for most of the profits. The reason to bring this up is because he made his billions selling subscriptions to just about anything you could think of. Subscriptions to pens, razors, perfumes, pipe tobacco, cheeses, fruits, etc. Studies have shown that a huge percentage of people who sign up for a subscription keep paying for it in perpetuity.

In our house for instance we have a subscription for clean sponges. Four new ones every two months. As well as for the traveling Quip toothbrush replacement brush heads and replacement batteries. Spotify, all those streaming services like Hulu and HBO+ we pay extra for because we still have cable, and on and on and on. Did you notice that whenever there’s a “+” sign it means that you will now have to pay extra for what you were already paying for? Here’s two more ridiculous examples. We have a music service called Deezer which, like Spotify, costs about $9.99 per month, but promises better audio quality. But my wife listens to a lot of podcasts and Deezer doesn’t carry one she loves. So she signed up for Spotify. Instead of the one person plan for $9.99 there was a family plan for $12.99. She signed and said I could now stop paying for Deezer. I said, “Cool,” and promptly forgot to cancel Deezer. Now we pay a total of $22.98 for what used to cost us $9.99. I know, I’ll get around to it. She also gifted me her Amazon Kindle and mentioned she took a $9.99 monthly subscription and I could read any book in their catalogue (much like Spotify). I said great and then tried to cancel it, but have no idea how to do so.

I think John does not suffer from the same foolishness because he’s the one that knew about the app that gathers all your subscriptions in one place, and unlike Al, he didn’t forget the password. So that is all she wrote for this week. Stay tuned for next Friday when we do the first two parts of a 3-part adventure travel series. This is precisely the kind of thing people our age engage in, as long as their neck/back/foot/migraine/shoulder/elbow/ankle pain doesn't get in the way.

See you then. Oops, got to answer the door. It’s time for my water of the month delivery.

Andy and John

Gone Phishing

Hello again. We’re baaaack! This time with a three part series about Phishing. Now we regaled you in a past blog entitled “Help Line,” about the horrors of phishing. To refresh your memories, what happened is that I got hacked. Deeply hacked. Someone went on what has come to be called a “Phishing Expedition” and attempted to steal all my personal financial information. They didn’t get it, but not before I had to change every password I’ve come to rely on. And if you are over 60, you know how vexing it is to remember multiple passwords, let alone one. So we’ve got a couple questions for you. Why is it called phishing instead of fishing? Don’t these people know how to spell? I remember a Latin teacher in 7th grade who said, “You think LATIN is tough, try learning English for the first time.” And then he wrote on the blackboard “gh-o-ti,” and said “fish.” The “gh” sound comes from the word “enough'“ the “o” sound from “women,” and the “ti” from “nation.” Fish. The rock band “Phish” ought to sue whoever called this habit “phishing,” but I digress. How did these clowns get into my computer in the first place? Oh wait, that’s because I inadvertently let them in. But that’s precisely the point. You know what was the most galling thing about it? When I explained what had happened, no matter how sympathetic the listener was, I got a chorus of “Oh Andy, you didn’t.” John for instance said, “You know I was warning my mother about the same thing.” I got so many responses from people in my general age group telling me about how they had to help their parents from getting trapped in a phishing scam that I was wondering, how come nobody warned me not too fall in this trap? And your parents??? I’m not your parents’ age, I’m your age. But at least John knew how to recognize the warning signs so that I can now catch them, and if not for John, Sid’s dialogue about phishing would not have qualified as good advice. So thanks John for teaching me and our readers (in part 3 - you’ll have to wait until next week) how to recognize the signs, but no thanks for making me feel even older than I actually am (though truth be told, I am 5 years older than him). Ugh.

It seems these scams get more and more sophisticated as time goes on. One is to call people our parent’s age and pretend to be one of their grandchildren. Something along the lines of, “Hello grandma? This is Timmy. I got into an accident and my car is in a ditch and I’ve got no way to get home. If you could send me $200 for a car service to pick me up I’d be soooo grateful.” And even though the call doesn't sound like Timmy, and even though Timmy parent’s are very much alive and able to help, these poor people are shaken and end up giving pertinent information about their bank accounts in order to help. In my particular case I was led to a totally professional webpage that said “Best Buy Refund Page.” Turns out being a digital pioneer is a lot tougher than it seems. For instance, my wife and I are staying at one of our kids’ houses soon to babysit their daughter and our beloved granddaughter (obviously, one in the same person). They have a tv and a remote, and gave me specific instructions on how to use it. I’m bringing along a book just in case I can’t figure it out again. But it’s an ebook, so it’s still digital, Well, kinda digital.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next Friday with the conclusion of the Phishing Expedition as well as a brand new one on a whole other kind of online scam.

Andy and John

To Sit or To Stand? 10/13/22

When it comes to peeing, it seems like we’ve got it all figured out, right? Men stand, women sit. But sometimes we find ourselves out of our comfort zones. In the case of a guy with a broken or twisted ankle, when you can’t put weight on a foot, you are forced to sit and pee. Conversely if a woman has to go really bad, and she’s say, hiking in the woods, she has no choice but to stand (alright, she squats, but that didn’t fit my sentence as well). As Al is about to find out, 1) nobody cares and 2) a lot of guys choose to sit. Who knew? Apparently John knew more than I did and that forms the basis for our two part series. Basically I did my part by breaking my ankle and learning the hard way, while John supplied the reasons a guy might sit.

Our two-part series this week deals with both points. The fact that nobody really cares, and the fact that however you do it is up to you. In fact, this topic is going to result in this week’s blog being mercifully short. Because, I can’t, for the life of me, think of one more thing to say about going #1. I leave you with this funny and true story:

After my bike accident in July, I spent the next couple months on crutches, or on a “knee stroller” and had no choice but to pee sitting down. One Sunday night in late August, my wife and I went out to dinner with another couple we’re very friendly with. Names, as always, are withheld to protect the guilty (and also to assure that I will have at least a couple of friends left after I finish blogging one day). The male part of this couple we had dinner with is both a very loyal friend and a very natty dresser. He is exceedingly neat and a bit germophobic. As we approached the end of the meal, my wife had a pre-existing zoom call and had to leave before dessert. She asked our friends if they would drive me home and help me up the steps to see that I got back in one piece. This was fine, except for one glaring omission. I had to go pee. And since it takes so much longer to do anything when you’re in a cast and on crutches, I knew I couldn't wait until I got home. The fact that the cast was up to right below my knee meant it wasn't going to be easy to pull my pants down, meaning I was going to pee standing up (at last, he comes back to the topic). This required asking my friend to accompany me to the men’s room of this very tony restaurant, and when I saw there was no rail to hang onto, I asked if I could support myself with my free hand by putting my arm around his shoulder. Fortunately for me, the loyal friend part of my friend won out over the fastidious part and he stood there allowing me to hang on his shoulder while emptying my bladder. Again, I never want to name names, but you, sir, are indeed a great buddy.

That’s it for this week. See you next week, same time, same place with two new ones. Enjoy your weekends and if you are a Mets fan like John and me, let It go, it’s time for football.

Andy and John.