The Eyes Have It. 01/26/24

As we get older, or at least as I get older, my mental perception of myself is slow to catch up with reality. Point in case: my wife and I moved into a new apartment building almost 10 years ago. Everyone in the building was new since it was just built. They had a welcoming party in the clubhouse. And when we walked in, we said to each other, “My God, everyone looks so old,” without considering what WE looked like to THEM. One of the first comics we ever ran featured a youthful Al in his 60’s retying his shoe laces on a park bench, so he could continue his jog. A 90 year old man sat on the bench and admonishes Al, “People our age shouldn't be running.” Our age? Truth is, I’m five years older than John. I’m 70 and he’s 65. When I say to him, “...people our age,” I’m flattering myself and perhaps annoying him. When he says to me, “…people our age,” I am flattered, although now that I’ve mentioned it in this blog, I’m reasonably sure he won’t ever say it again. Don’t get me wrong, there’s wonderful things about getting older, grandchildren, deepening relationships (I now notice that my closest friends and I frequently say “I love you” while saying goodbye) but there’s also, well, getting older. About a couple months ago I was entering a restaurant for lunch. In front of me was this older couple. The husband was helping his wife who was bent over her walker at a 90 degree angle much like the man in our comic. With every step she said, “Oww, oww, oww.” My first thought was: “If I ever get like that, please kill me.” But my next thought was, “Let me help.” So I trotted past them to hold the door open and then again to hold the inner door. This lies in sharp contrast with my doppelgänger, Larry David (people are always saying, “you know who you look like?”), was stuck behind a slow-moving man in a hospital and Larry wanted to go to the bathroom. Badly. So he scooted around the guy, got to the bathroom first and shut the door in the poor man’s face. But I digress. Again. The point is that I referenced my restaurant experience to John and he immediately saw the glass as half full. He said, “At least she probably finds a lot of loose change,” and bingo, a new comic was born.

Our other comic, which is accompanied by a video bonbon, was inspired by our expanding fan base. We’d like to give a shout out to our new business partner extraordinaire, Jesse Samberg, who, in his 36-year-old wisdom, figured out how to get more AlterCocker’s involved (for those of you not fluent in Yiddish, it loosely translates into “old fart”). In addition to some great fan mail (thank you kindly for that) we also got a couple critiques. They can be summarized by the following phrase: “The type is kinda small!” One suggestion is if you’re reading it on your phone, turn the phone sideways, then spread the individual frames wider with your fingers. Another option is to read the comics on your laptop or tablet. Or watch John’s video which we posted today on Facebook and hopefully on our website if I can figure out how to download (or is it upload?) the damn thing. John and I both love language so we tend to be a little wordier than a lot of other comic strips. We also love combining words into one frame so we can have a frame of blank stares, as if the characters are responding to one of their own, with a “What did you just say?” look. In comedy, it's called a "beat." It gives the characters in the comic (and the reader) a moment to react to whatever was just said. See that? You just learned some comedy terminology. Feel free to sprinkle "beat" into your daily conversation to impress your comedy-loving friends.

That said, have a terrific weekend, and if you still can’t read the type, take a beat (see what we did there?) and stop into our local CVS for a pair of reading glasses.

See you next week,

Andy and John.

The more Things Change... 01/18/24

Sometimes we pull comic ideas out of thin air. Sometimes we get them from things that happen in our own lives. And sometimes from things we observe. This one happened right in front of my eyes. There I was on a Saturday, one day before the end of the regular NFL season. We live with an open kitchen design, so the “living room” and “kitchen” are just sort of one big open space divided by a counter. Consequently, when I watch football and my wife invites two of her closest friends over to bake for a party we’ve been invited to, somebody is going to be inconvenienced. A few polite “Honey, could you turn that down” requests from my wife later, I retorted with one of my patented comebacks, “I happen to know you can hardly hear the tv. You know how I know? Because I can hardly hear the tv!” Unlike Sam in the comic, I did not end up in the bedroom watching the game on my phone. That was John’s brilliant invention. Nope. I held firm and watched in the living room. So, I could still see the game. I just couldn't hear the game. Ahh, the art of compromise.

And now about the New Year’s resolution. If you watch any amount of television, and remember, John and I spent almost 40 years apiece creating television commercials (this was before the days when people could fast forward past said commercials) you will notice that they are all for diet pills, diet programs, and most of all, gym memberships. Planet Fitness and Crunch Fitness come to mind. If the gym has enough treadmills, ellipticals, bikes and weight machines for say 100 people, they sell maybe 200 memberships. This is because they know full well that the gym will be crowded in the beginning of January with all those people swearing they’ll stick to a routine “this time,” while knowing full well that most people will come in, have to wait for a machine to free up, and then go home frustrated, never to come back again. So, by February the place is down to the 50 or 60 regulars who always go to the gym. A couple days ago, I went to my gym. Two people were together, approaching the lat pulldown machine that I wanted to use. It’s January, what did I expect? Anyway, the two people approaching the machine consisted of a thin man and a guy with a large pot belly. The thin guy sat down at the lat machine while the pot-bellied guy gave him instructions. Yes, that’s right, he turned out to be his trainer! Oh well, it’ll be February soon enough.

Have a nice weekend and we will see you next week, as they used to say on Batman, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Andy and John

Why the Hell you Gotta Make Things so Complicated? 01/12/24

What do we do when we start yet another year? If you’re like us you probably have a list of things to do. Maybe some new things, Maybe some things that you didn’t get to last year. Maybe some things that you still haven’t gotten to since 2022. But where do you draw the line? Is it planting the mini vegetable garden on the deck of the apartment you moved into back in 2014? No. If you haven’t gotten to it in 10 years, chances are you’re not getting to it, period. At least I’m not. But I thought, at least in this blog, what are the things I’m most likely NOT GETTING TO in 2024. This is a way I devised to save myself the internal pain of feeling as if I failed, if only because I promised myself I’d definitely get to this particular thing in this particular year. Case in point: my wife and I are planning a trip with friends to Greece in May. I promised to myself, I’m going to learn to speak enough Greek to get by when we’re touring the Greek islands. So I took matters into my own hands on January 2nd. Truth. I looked up the website, Babbel.com. You’ve heard the ads. They make it sound like the learning is fun. So I went on the website, and guess what language they don’t offer? You got it. Greek. Now you think it’d be easy to just look up another company that does essentially the same thing like Rosetta Stone, for example. They have exactly four choices: Spanish, French, Italian and something called “all 25 languages.” I don’t want all 25 languages. I just want Greek, and only for a few weeks at that. I want to know how to say, “…a crisp white wine and a Greek salad please.” Or, “Which way is the beach?” But chances are they will understand me better in English than in my poor attempt at Greek, so why bother? Okay that’s one off the list. See how easy this is? But before I go to the subject of our other comic, a quick story: I’m a young man in Paris. I walk into a bakery, or “patisserie,” in case you haven’t taken the Babbel course in French. I want to ask, “how much is this Napoleon?” I start by saying “Comment est la…” to which the surly French counterwoman replies, “How much is what?” “Uhh, I reply, that Napoleon,” She shoots back, “It’s called a mille feuillle, and for a nice Jewish boy like you, five francs.” For the non-Babbel taking folks among us, mille feuille translates roughly into “a thousand leaves,” which refers to the layer-upon-layer of puff pastry. But what I said was: “How do you know I’m Jewish,” too which she replied with a hearty laugh, “Ohh c’mon, your face looks like the map of Tel Aviv.”

And now onto our other comic, in which Marv gets duped into thinking he has to perform a ridiculous act in order to get his microchip-enabled credit card to actually work. Now a certain cousin of mine (names withheld to protect the innocent) repeated a joke he heard, thinking it would make a good comic. In it, the cashier tells the confused customer the proper way to insert his credit card into the machine. “Strip down and turn around,” she says, referring to the credit card. To which the befuddled customer turns around and starts taking his pants off. I repeated this to John who thought nobody would be that naive. So he came back with, “Turn around and say “Mother may I?” I thought nobody would be that naive either. Until Marv catches himself in mid-sentence and realizes he’s being had. Bingo! A new comic was born. But why is it that the more advanced everything becomes the more complicated it gets. Contactless credit cards, 5K televisions (when is the last time you tried turning on a tv in somebody else’s apartment or even in a freakin’ hotel room? It’s hard.) Oh, and if you ever decide to go green and get an electric car one day (I did in 2023) have fun trying to plug it in when you’re in an unfamiliar location, in the rain, while frantically downloading the instructions on your cell phone. How does an EV Connect plug differ from a Blink plug and what about Volta? And who the hell cares. I’m pretty certain you don’t so it’s time to put this blog to bed. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week. Same time, same place.

Andy and John

Happy New Year (unless you're a NY Football Fan). 01/05/24

Another year, another year older. As we head into 2024 (seriously???) I’m reminded of all the preseason predictions about the NY football teams. And no, wise guys, I’m not talking about the Buffalo Bills, the only team that actually plays in New York, I’m talking about the Jets and, sadly, the Giants. All summer I was listening to predictions that the Jets would play in the Super Bowl. It didn’t quite work out that way, but just when I had enough ammo to mercilessly tease my Jets fan friends, the Giants would happen to play actually worse!!! Here’s how crazy I am. While vacationing in Tokyo, Japan, my wife and our travel companions decided to take the last day to go shopping. I stayed back at the hotel, laptop in hand, and watched the entire Giants-Jets game back at the hotel on my iPad. Pro tip: you can watch any game in total on an app called DAZN. It includes a free week, so I subscribed, watched, and then unsubscribed all in a week’s time. Oh, did I forget to mention that the Jets actually beat the Giants in overtime in one of the worst football games ever played? So Jets fans, including John, your team sucks! But not as bad as ours.

And for the sizable portion of our fan base that doesn't give a damn about sports (including, but not limited to, my wife) we did another comic wishing you a Happy New Year. Another comic about fighting off the urge to go to bed by 10:30 and forcing yourself to keep your eyes open until midnight. There are several ways to keep yourself awake at night. One is to avoid stuffing yourself with prodigious quantities of food and washing it down with prodigious quantities of alcohol, but what fun is that? Another is to give yourself the privilege of an afternoon nap the day of the New Year’s Eve party. That should not be a guilty pleasure. It should just be pleasure, period. I slow down almost every day between 3:00 and 4:00 pm. I do this now that I’m retired but I did it while I worked as well. Even, I’m told, during meetings. But I wouldn’t know. I was napping.

See you next week,

John and Andy

On Christmas CleanUp and Christmas Miracles 12/29/23

Christmas is great. The kids (if you’re in our age range, they’re not exactly kids anymore, in fact, some of them have kids) gather around, open their presents, pretend to like them, as the little kids tear open their gifts leaving a treacherous path of cardboard, ribbons and that all time gift meant for causing excruciating pain when you step on them, Lego’s. This is where I believe Chanukah has a distinct advantage. The presents are spread over 8 nights, so it’s like, “Okay, it’s the first night, so let’s light the candle and all open our one present for the night.” To put it in Christmas terms, it’s like 7 nights of stocking stuffers and then one night of the good stuff, like Lego’s. Another Chanukah advantage is that the whole family doesn't descend on you at once. Uncle Harry can come over on Wednesday, while Aunt Marge can make it on Thursday, etc. You tend not to get overwhelmed by either presents or relatives. Then there are the blended families. The ones who celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah. Who have the tree and the menorah. They have the one crazy day of overindulgence PLUS eight more. I guess what we’re trying to say is Happy Holidays.

Okay so what about the other comic? While I claim to be an adventurous eater, I have my limits. A couple weeks ago I went to a Japanese yakitori restaurant that serves every part of a chicken on skewers. And I mean every part. I ate the heart and the gizzard but drew the line at eating chicken testicles. I kid you not. John is, I’d say, more adventurous (except when it comes to peas). He mentioned liking Ethiopian food. Not me. I remember a few decades back when one of my two brothers-in-laws, the same guy who wanted to visit Bhutan, took us out for Ethiopian food when he lived in Washington D.C. We sat cross-legged on the floor and the server placed a huge metal sheet, much like the pan a large pizza comes on when you order it in a restaurant, and on it was this thin, soggy, doughy piece of injera (which is Ethiopian for bread). I remarked to the waitress that we had no silverware. She patiently explained that we are supposed to eat with our hands. That is, you take the platters of steaming vegetables in some type of spiced tomato sauce, tear off a piece of soggy injera, pick said veggies up and wrap them inside your piece of injera, and eat. Yum, except if you don’t care for vegetable stew. Suffice it to say, if you, dear readers want to go to an Ethiopian restaurant, go with John. If it’s pizza, I’m your man. But I will admit, Ethiopian restaurants do tend to be inexpensive. So when John pitched an idea about going out for a cheap, Ethiopian meal, I told him I had recently gone out for an inexpensive meal of pizza and salad to share with my wife and son. I parked at the end of the block, behind the last metered space. And when I returned to my car, I found a $50 ticket on my windshield. (Side note: I wrote the town judge a letter about how I shouldn’t be penalized for trying to support the local economy and he cut the fine to $25). Which is a roundabout way of saying we combined the inexpensive Ethiopian meal with the expensive parking ticket and bingo, we had our next comic.

And that’s the way it happens. Sometimes we dream up ideas out of thin air, and sometimes it’s about what happens in either or both of our lives, with a healthy dose of poetic license thrown in. Have a great last weekend of 2023 and when you’re cleaning up the toys, please wear a thick pair of shoes.

Happy Holidays,

Andy and John

HoHoHo. 12/22/23

The holidays are upon us. The time for buying gifts in impossibly overcrowded stores, putting said gifts together, admiring the gifts you receive and the gifts others have received, and if the recipient of one of your gifts is young enough, playing the gift with them. Now Al (like John) is a model train enthusiast. And he loves playing with his grandson Billy. For me, playing with an already set up train system is lots of fun. Setting it up and then putting it away…not so much. Let’s face it, you’re either a collector or a chuck-it-outer. Collector types love stamps, coins, past issues of cooking magazines they save “just in case” they want to make that recipe that seemed so delectable. Now where was it again? Or what was it again? And which month? Which year? I had a friend who was a collector. He had a model train set with so many pieces, he could have set up a track big enough to fill a convention hall. Okay, I’m exaggerating. A little. Me? Those zillions of baseball cards jammed into shoe boxes, those hundreds of LP’s warping in cardboard wine boxes in our old basement, they could have been worth…nothing. Because I didn’t keep them in “mint condition.” I just kept them. But back to Billy and Al, they bond over trains and will continue to do so, as soon as Billy removes the damn candy wrapper from the tunnel.

And onto Santa Marv. At what age do you stop believing in Santa? For me it was easy. I’m Jewish so we never believed in him in the first place. But it took my kids until around 7 to stop believing in the Tooth Fairy. Listen. Kids are smart. And they know how to get what they want. They’ll drop a hint (or a couple thousand hints) about what they’d like and then put up with almost anything to get them. When you compare sitting on a complete stranger’s lap in a department store with sitting on Grandpa Marv’s lap at home, the choice is easy. The kids (or grandkids) will put up with aunts and uncles telling them how cute they are while pinching their cheeks, to the constant exclamations of “my, how you’ve grown,” as long as they can get their hands on a Malibu Barbie or, for that matter, a model train set. All aboard!

Have a great Christmas and/or Holiday season,

Andy and John

What Will They Think of Next? 12/15/23

Is it just me or does that tinny sound of music and/or dialogue emanating from a cell phone user looking at Instagram (or Insta, if you're young and hip) drive you up the wall? It is like the proverbial sound of chalk screeching on a blackboard to yours truly. Usually we change names in this strip to protect the innocent. In this one we changed sexes. Hint: I am not the one listening to Instagram in the car, at home, etc., but a certain person of female persuasion who lives with me may, perhaps, be guilty. At least sometimes. The thing is, I’m not on the phone very much. Perhaps it’s because very few people ever pick up the phone to call me. But that’s for another blog. This is about cell phones in general and Insta in particular. People love to complain about them but are still accessing them 24/7. For instance, John, who came up with the piano-playing pig, knows enough about Instagram to make me suspect he’s a big user, if not, gasp, a person who posts. Although I did meet his old dog Carlos who definitely did not know how to play the piano, or a violin for that matter.

Now in all fairness I have to admit to this related incident: My wife and I went to a comedy show with some friends featuring Brett Goldstein. Who’s that you ask? He was Roy '“Fucking” Kent in the Ted Lasso series. A gruff guy who peppered the f-word into nearly every sentence, even when talking to a child. Child: “Can I have a cookie?” Roy: “Get it your fucking self.” I made that one up, but it’s pretty close to what he’d say. Anyway we’re at the comedy show in a crowded theater and every time there’s a little bit of quiet, I hear these people chatting. I looked behind me and in front of me thinking, who the hell is that? When, after at least a half-hour, I realized the talking was coming from my pocket. Yes that’s right, I had been listening to a podcast in the car on the way tho the show and it was still playing as I sat in the audience. This meant I had to remove the phone from my pocket in order to silence it. But in so removing said phone, I revealed who the asshole was who wouldn't stop talking during the performance. Heads turned and shot me evil glances as I sheepishly held me hand up to say, “sorry, won’t happen again, mumble, mumble, mumble.” Anyway, as Roy Kent might put it, the rest of the show was pretty fucking unbelievable.

And onto to the holidays. Most of us have experienced them as children, as parents and even as grandparents. And we get it, kids want the latest thing. In the past there have been pet rocks, chia pets, Chatty Cathy (pull the string and she says, “I love you,)” Beanie Babies, My Little Ponies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and also on. (I purposely left out Barbie because, let’s face it, she’s gotten enough coverage this year). So John and I went back and forth, making up some ridiculous ideas for toys. A Vladimir Putin bobblehead, a dog that actually poops and then John just threw out from nowhere, “How about Bronto the Barfing Dinosaur with 8 assorted vomit packs?” I couldn’t stop laughing and that was our comic. What more did you need? What more can I say?

Happy Holidays and we will see you next week with two new holiday-themed goodies. Until then, stay well and don’t go to the toy store looking for Bronto the Barfing Dinosaur with 8 assorted packs. They’ve been sold out, like, forever.

Andy and John

New Tastes. 12/08/23

In a sense, Christopher Columbus was right about the world being flat. Although there is some controversy about whether or not he thought that, let’s just say it’s true. This is a blog, not a history lesson. So that’s established. The world is flat. Or at least getting flatter. Flatter in the sense that new cultures and new tastes keep intermingling and intermarrying, and intercooking (is that even a word?) with increasing frequency. Add to that the ability to instantly communicate with anyone, at any time and you can see why we have so many wild new combinations of ideas and of food. Like avocado sorbet. 50 years ago, I would never have dreamed of eating raw fish. Then about 20 years ago I went to a Michelin-starred sushi restaurant in Madrid, Spain. After a lot of delicious pieces of tuna and yellowtail and sea bream came a, drumroll please, cheeseburger on rice. Yes you read that right. They grilled a piece of hamburger into a shape that would fit perfectly onto a sushi-size bed of rice. It was delicious, but I did get a little embarrassed asking for soy-sauce-sized-saucer of ketchup. Both John and I are open to different culinary experiences. Except for pumpkin spice lattes. Who knows, they might even be delicious, but the ads, OMG. They don’t stop. If you listen to the Wendy’s ad for their Pumpkin Spice Frosty (and could someone please tell that oh-so-hip announcer that the chain is pronounced Wendy’s and not Windy’s) pay special attention to the disclaimer at the end, spoken at the speed of light. He says something like, “Pumpkin Spice Frosties are available for a limited time during which Vanilla Frosties will not be available.” Say what? I guess they have only two Frosty dispensers and are willing to sacrifice the vanilla for holiday season, but not the chocolate. These are the same Frostiss that people in commercials eat by dipping french fries into them. But I digress. I don’t like Pumpkin Spice and I do like vanilla, so I waited for Thanksgiving to be over and for vanilla to make its triumphant return, but not so fast. Make way for the Christmas season, where in addition to the Pretzel Baconator comes, ta da, the Peppermint Frosty! And while I still miss vanilla, it gave us the impetus for one of this week’s comics. True story: John and I worked in an ad agency that had the Wendy’s account. And we both are friends with a guy who was hired to be the voice of the baconator on social media. Truth. And the funniest thing is, he’s a vegetarian.

Okay, so what about the other comic? It has to do with food, without being about food. I will explain by example. A couple months ago, my wife and I attended a Steely Dan concert in an arena. It started at 7:30 and we wanted to get something to eat before. So we went to a concession stand and here was the scene: A couple people were working the grill, cooking up burgers, veggie burgers and chicken to use in various sandwiches. When they were finished with a particular patty they wrapped in up in tin foil and placed it under a heat lamp. I’ll bet your mouth is watering already. You want condiments? Go to the condiment table where there were individual packets of mustard, mayo and ketchup. Napkins, same table, where you pulled them one at a time from a dispenser. Drinks? Over there in the refrigerated case. Sodas, beers, wine in cans, water, etc. Finally, when you’ve finished with all of that, you approach another table where a cashier is standing. He or she punches the prices into a card reader, turns it towards you and you tap your card. Here’s where the fun part comes in. The machine asks if you want to tip 15%, 20%, 22% or “custom amount.” If you pay nothing, because they didn't actually serve you, you turn the machine back towards them and they know you’re a cheap jerk. So I put in a “custom tip” of 10%. You usually tip for service but suddenly, now, you’re expected to tip for…what exactly? My cynical mind thinks I’m tipping because theses companies don’t pay their employees enough in the first place. I mean, when you ask somebody “Can you tell me where the condiments are,” and the response is a no eye-contact point of the thumb, is that really service? And now you see it all over at fast food restaurants, Dunkin’, even Starbucks. The tip is rarely commensurate with the service received, unless of course, some barista is pouring you a peppermint latte.

Happy Holidays,

Andy and John

He Said, She Said. 12/01/23

There is a saying that you should write about what you know. And in general, we stick to that. We once had a fan letter from a guy who said he loved the characters, but suggested we insert a gay character as well. And while we agree (we did introduce a married, gay brother-in-law to Al’s family for a couple of story lines) we try to approach the comic from our perspective, the perspective of hetero white males in their 60’s. What’s that? Yeah okay, I’m 70 (but John’s still a young whippersnapper at 65). And it shows up when we tackle a subject like being transgender. We approach it with the confusion that many people have in their 60’s (and 70’s) regarding their understanding of the trans community. In last week’s blog we talked about how advertising reflects the changing mores of our times. We look back on ads showing doctors in white coats smoking Camels and think, what were they thinking?? What will people think 30 to 40 years from now when they look at our communications today? And I bet one thing that will look naive is our belief that there are only two genders. That you are born one way and that’s the way you should stay. In any event, we hope you look at this comic in the way that our characters look at it: trying to understand and ultimately accept the complexities of life today through the prism of their own experiences. Hence the last line, “I guess Phil lucked out on not having to pay for the wedding.” And now, pardon the pun, let’s transition to our other comic, a dog getting a CAT scan.

Listen, I know people love their pets so much they tend to humanize them. I have a neighbor who calls down the hallway for her dog, “C’mere baby girl.” I have another friend who picks her dog up so it doesn't have to walk on pebbles. Another who has an actual down-stuffed windbreaker that covers the length of the dog’s body and has four holes for the dog’s legs. As Cat Stevens (no relation to Cat Scan) once sang, “Ooh, baby, baby it’s a wild world…” In short, if we’ve managed to offend any pet owners or transgender fans in our audience, we’re sorry. But if we’ve made you laugh, well that’s what it’s all about.

See you next week with two new ones,

Happy Holidays,

Andy and John

On Too Much Food and Too Much TV. 11/24/23

By the time you read this, it’ll be the day after Thanksgiving, but Happy Thanksgiving anyway. Too much turkey, stuffing, pies and football. Here’s an issue. What do you do if you get invited to one of your children’s homes and you’re one of only two people out of eight who want to watch football? Easy. You watch it with the volume so low that you can barely hear it. But what about Marv and Rachel’s situation? What if you have grown up kids who are married or in serious relationships and they all decide to go to the spouse’s house instead? And it’s too far away so you don’t go? It happened to wife and me a couple years ago. Our son was living in Denver. Our daughter went with her husband and child to visit his parents in North Carolina. Sigh. It was just the two of us. Why bother cooking? Turns out any number of local restaurants offered “5-course Thanksgiving Meals To Go!” We ordered the meal for 2 (if you were alone you were out of luck, no option for one person, which is kind of sad when you think about it). Truth be told, the lasagna and Caesar salad looked more inviting to me, but I couldn’t get my wife to agree so we ordered the Thanksgiving special. And I have to admit it was pretty good. It just seemed wrong not to cook it ourselves. And by the way, my wife hates football so we watched a movie afterwards. That made me think that Thanksgiving should be with a large and somewhat rowdy crowd who laughs, loves, argues about politics and watches at least some football. Heck, this year even the Detroit Lions game is good. And now that I think about it, maybe ixnay on the politics. The only thing I don’t like is having relatives who pinch your cheek, (I’m looking at you Uncle Steven) but now that I’m 70 instead of 7, there’s little chance of that happening. And I would not pinch my granddaughter’s cheek ever, but I will repeat some of the dumb cliches like “You’re so cute,” and “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown,” even though I can believe it since I just saw her a week ago.

Our other comic is about politically incorrect jingles. And I must say, it was a fun one to come up with. Sometimes words have meanings that change, like the Flintstones’ “We’ll have a gay old time.” I don’t think Fred and Barney were getting it on. And I’m pretty sure Wilma and Betty were “just friends.” And who can forget Archie Bunker’s “Goils were goils and men were men?” As we’ve noted multiple times before, both John and I spent our careers in advertising. There were some old ads that seem unbelievable today. Like a doctor in a white lab coat endorsing Camel cigarettes as he puffed away. Or, and this is the absolute truth, a woman in pearls ala June Cleaver is bent over her husband’s lap and he is actually spanking her because she didn’t get his shirt collar clean enough!!!!!! Thank God they invented Wisk. No more dirty collars OR domestic violence. In today’s parlance, a win-win. I often wonder, what will look ridiculous about the jingles and ads we see today, when viewed by people 30 years from now. And I’m pretty sure the ones featuring someone pantomiming playing a tennis match in his living room while wearing virtual reality glasses, will be among them.

That’s all for this week, and we’ll see you next week with two new ones, as soon as we come out of our food comas.

Andy and John

We did it! 11/17/23

Maybe it’s because fans identify so closely with their teams. Maybe it’s because people pick their own fantasy teams. But whatever it is, when people talk about sports, they’re apt to use the royal “we”. As in, “We won last night,” or “I can't believe we made the playoffs.” Well I got news for ya. “We” didn’t win anything. The Jets did. Or the Milwaukee Bucks. Not “we.” “We” were sitting on the couch, watching. I must admit, I am guilty of this when talking about my beloved NY Giants, but they’re so terrible this year, I stopped using “we” and distanced myself by saying “them” or “they.” Nobody wants to say “We really sucked on Sunday.” We want no part of that. So it becomes, “They really sucked Sunday.” Can’t have it both ways. But we certainly try. The other royal we that drives us crazy, is when somebody in a group assumes it’s their place to decide what the group wants, as in “We’ll have the Chablis.” Or, as I once heard in my advertising career, “We love this assignment.” Do we? I don't. Don’t assume you know what I want, speak for yourself. And even if you get it right and it is what I want, I’ll disagree with you anyway, just to be ornery (and because you used the royal we).

Let’s raise a glass (or not) to all the types of tequila on the market. There’s blanco, anejo, reposado. and celebrity. You read that right. Peyton Manning has a bourbon. Steven Seagal, a Japanese whiskey. I’m willing to bet he knows even less about whiskey than he does about Japan. Ryan Reynolds has his own gin, because why not? And tequila? We have a George Clooney and now a Duane The Rock Johnson tequila. I’m sure both The Rock and George stand out in the hot fields of Mexico, hacking away at agave plants with a machete under a blazing sun. After which they painstakingly overlook every step of the aging process. Heck, the Rock knows so much about everything, he’s seriously considering entering the 2024 presidential race. I kid you not. Personally, I think he’s more qualified to run for office than to make tequila. Just sayin’.

Enjoy the weekend, kick back with a celebrity brew and wish me luck when we play the Commanders this week. I’ll need it.

Andy and John

Words, words, words 11/10/23

Irregardless is not a word. But what happens is people misuse a word enough and Merriam Webster suddenly considers it a word. A writer named Gilbert Highet famously said “Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old, they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating.” To which a writer named Andy Landorf says, “Yeah, but irregardless is still not a freakin’ word.” There’s so many other examples, each of which sends a “nails on the chalkboard” reaction down my spine. This summer a nephew joined us for dinner at a beach house we rented. He’s a gourmet chef and was giving his knowledgeable advice about how to prepare the meal. I was asking him questions the whole way. But then I asked something like, “a whole handful of salt,” to which he replied, “Not a whole handful, don’t overexxagerate.” I immediately pounced. “Overexaggerate is not a word.” And then he pulled out his phone, looked it up on Merriam Webster and sure enough, overexaggerate is an accepted word. If you can’t underexaggerate, you can’t overexaggerate. If you dear readers disagree with me, you can always comment on the blog and send us your arguments. We’d love to hear from you. Just as long as you don’t say “for all intensive purposes” or “I could care less.” It’s intents and purposes and if you could care less, then care less.” Personally, I couldn't care less (well, I could but you get the point). The final example, I promise, was drilled into me in 8th grade English class. When you are quoting somebody, you say, “Quote (then comes the quote)followed by end quote. Not “unquote”. I was taught that “unquote” meant to undo the quote, whereas “end quote” was the way to signify the quote had ended. Merriam Webster finds “quote unquote” just fine thank you. So all this stuff I’ve been railing about all these years is, for all intensive purposes, nonsense.

Anyways (yeah, I know), the other comic about “stores we’ve outlived” is a New 60 twist on stores that have gone bust. It’s one thing to say “Remember those stores? Now they’re gone.” And it’s quite another to say “stores we’ve outlived.” As if Sears Roebuck and Bed, Bath and Beyond beat us to the finish line. But that’s a race we’ll gladly lose every time.

See you next week with two new ones, and I do mean two. That’s not an overexaggeration.

Andy and John

HAPPY HALLOWEEN. 11/03/23

One of your intrepid cartoonists is back from a long vacation. Actually it’s not as long as it was supposed to be. In the past, we ran a couple comics about traveling to Bhutan, and Al seemed to be going under duress. Well Al kinda, sorta...let’s just say I relate to Al. But I decided to go. And when the time came to drive to the airport, I was coughing and sneezing a little. When we got to the airport my wife took a Covid test kit out of her suitcase, right before we went to check in. I swabbed and bingo, I had Covid. For the third time. Back home I went. Well that’s one way to get out of doing something you were ambivalent about doing. Which happens to be the subject of one of our comics this week. Compromise. More on that in a moment.

But first, if you’ve gotten this far, you saw the pumpkin John carved with the New 60 logo on it. He even managed to carve in the comic book typeface (which of course, he created in the first place)! If you want to see more of his very creative and extremely funny pumpkin carvings, just type, “John Colquhoun pumpkin carver” into your search bar and see for yourself.

And back to the comic. Marriage, like any partnership, is a series of compromises. Like agreeing to go to Bhutan for me, or watching a sports event for my wife. It’s not something one of us would have necessarily chosen. But you go along to get along. Sometimes you even end up enjoying yourself, as I am sure I would have in Bhutan, if not for the 8,500 foot altitude, the occasional 4 am wake up call and having to drink a cup of yak butter tea. I kid you not. But the company and the beautiful vistas while hiking would have been spectacular. In similar fashion, I heard news of a Steely Dan/Eagles concert. I love Steely Dan and called a good buddy who loves them as well. He passed on the offer and my wife (semi-reluctantly) accepted. And it turns out she had a great time. In the case of Al and Joanne, her attitude was helped by the gummy Al offered her. This would never have occurred with my wife and I. Not in a million years. Or at least 70.

Finally, I did join my wife and friends in Japan, which is where they were headed from Bhutan. I’ll take a giant carved Buddha and a Michelin starred sushi restaurant any day over yak butter tea any day. How about you?

That’s it for this week, we’ll be back to you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Moving In. 10/27/23

So about moving into a smaller space after you’ve lived a long time in a house full of kids and pets. It’s an adjustment. I don’t care what anybody says. Take the case of Al and Joanne in their new apartment. His train set, which once had its own place in the basement of the house, is now stuffed into the laundry room. I remember when I was a kid my dad had a big Lionel train set. We had a basement and the basement had a ping pong table which no one ever used after the first couple months. So, down came the net and up went the Lionel Train set. The coolest thing I remember is it came with a rocket launcher and an exploding box car. Was Lionel training us to become terrorists? I don’t know but it was pretty damn cool. Here’s how it worked: You set the train in motion around the track. You had a separate hand-held rocket launcher which fired the rocket in an arc. You had to time it exactly so the rocket would land on the exploding box car and if you were lucky (maybe one out of every 10 tries) you hit the box car and it would “explode into about 4 pieces. Trust me, the only thing cooler was my Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robot game. When you connect with the other robot’s jaw, “Boingggggg” the head would pop off the shoulders on a spring as you “knocked his block off.” Damn, we had a lot of violent games back then. But back to Al.

His once scenic train set now has to lie under a clothesline of wet laundry. And hey, he’s lucky. A couple weeks ago, I took a wet rug and hung it over the railing of our deck. Wouldn’t you know it but some snoopy neighbor took a picture of it and sent it to the management company and I got a snooty letter asking me to please refrain from ever hanging anything over the balcony again. Apparently, it was an eyesore. I thought it was a nice rug, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And there you have it. Apartment living makes life easier. Until it doesn’t.

Okay then. By the time this is published I’ll have been halfway around the world and back, and hopefully will have many funny experiences to share with John and ultimately you all. Thanks for following us and thank you to those of you who have bought the book and written such glowing reviews. We truly appreciate it. See you in November,

Andy and John

New Apartment, 10/20/23

About 9 years ago, my wife and I sold our house. You know the drill. The kids are on their own, the school taxes are ridiculous and you’re rolling around a big house with nobody home. So we sold and moved one town away to a beautiful apartment in not such a good school district. Lower taxes, no hauling the garbage to the curb on one night, hauling the recycling on another, no slipping on the snow and ice in the winter, no mowing the lawn, the front steps, etc, etc. It’s a win win. Except, when it isn’t. I’ve already referred to my favorite exchange from the past, “We don’t have room for four sets of china,” followed by “we don’t have room for four tv’s”. So we compromised, we have 4 sets of china and 4 tv’s ( a couple of which never, ever get used), and very little room to hang clothes and put away kitchen appliances and fancy serving platters which only get used once in a blue moon, or once in a Rosh Hashanah, or once in a Thanksgiving (okay, I said we don’t need all those platters and she said we did and I must admit she may have been right on that one). But where to hang stuff is an issue, especially pictures.

We have an open living room/dining room/kitchen kind of set up. It’s great for conversation because there are no walls dividing the rooms. We also have several big picture windows to enjoy the view. But that’s the problem. And who thought of the name “picture windows” anyway? You can’t hang pictures on them. It reminds me of something the comedian Steven Wright once asked, “Why do we park in the driveway and drive on the parkway?” Now there does happen to be an answer to this perplexing, first-world question. You can now download all your digital photos in a single digital picture frame which then changes every 30 seconds or so to a new photo. In fact, some very good friends bought us such a picture frame as a house gift. But please don’t tell them, we still haven’t figured out how to download the damn photos!

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week with the conclusion of Al, Joanne and the virtues of apartment living.

Andy and John

Keeping Your Memory Sharp. 10/13/23

Damn The NY Times! These puzzles and games they keep coming up with are positively addicting. I now do the big crossword puzzle Monday and Tuesday (haven’t yet mastered Wednesday and beyond), and every single day I do the Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee, Wordle and the newest addition, Connections. That’s a lot of time everyday, but I think it keeps my mind sharp (as does coming up with comic ideas with John). And oh yeah, writing blogs. But you don’t have to subscribe to the Times to help keep your mind sharp. I once read that Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner got together every single night to watch Jeopardy, and shout out the answers, while eating their dinner on snack tables in front of the tv. Being Jewish, they either had deli or Chinese. What else? Spoiler alert: Mrs Maisel stole that Jeopardy insight for the last episode of that series when it showed Midge and Susie playing Jeopardy on the phone, at different ends of the country. So we thought Marv and Al would have fun with the same kind of thing. But who needs Ken Jennings when they have each other. Sitcom Theme Songs for $500? Can other games be far behind? The New 60 offers this service to help keep YOUR minds and memories in peak physical condition. You’re welcome.

And speaking of memory, we were supposed to run our comic about triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, on Friday, May 13th, 2022! But we uhh forgot and ran something else instead. John, cool and collected, reacted by saying, “Well the next Friday the 13th happens in October of 2023, so we’ll run it then.” And miracle of miracles, we remembered!!!! What is it about the number 13 that freaks people out? It’s just a number, but if it’s got a name like triska-whatever-the-hell-it-is, it must be a thing. You know what I don’t like? Apartment buildings and office buildings that skip #13. You know, the elevator goes up and you see the floors counting off on a video screen, 10, 11, 12, 14. What happens if you live on the 14th floor? Wouldn’t you be sort of pissed that it’s really the 13th floor? No? Well I would. At any rate have a happy Friday the uhh 14th? And we’ll be back next week when we don’t have to lie about the actual date.

Andy and John

On high tops and Limitations 10/06/23

How many of us have forgotten their phones? In restaurants, bars, airplanes, taxi cabs, gas station convenience stores, and so on and so on. But some instances are more egregious than others. John was with someone (who shall go nameless to protect their identity) who left their phone on top of their car and drove away. But what made it worse is the phone was in a phone holder which also had room for multiple credit cards. When they realized their mistake they hightailed it back to the parking garage where they encountered a smashed iPhone, but miraculously, the credit cards were all there, scattered on the concrete. Point is, we all do it, even though we’re all so hopelessly dependent on those damn phones. I think the moral of the story is don’t leave your phone anywhere after you use it but back in your pocket or purse or man-bag if you carry one. And certainly don’t leave it in high, hard-to-see places.

Which brings me around to high chairs. Listen, I get it. It’s fun to sit at the bar. In fact, we have close friends who live in London, and when they go out they only like to sit at the bar. For yours truly, there’s two problems with that. For one, I am not only short, I am short-waisted. Which means my legs are proportionally longer than my torso. This sucks when attending movies and concerts, and driving certain makes of vehicles. Also sitting at high tops. But that part I can deal with. The part I absolutely hate is when my napkin invariably falls on the floor. First I stubbornly insist on trying to reach the napkin on the floor while still sitting in the chair. No can do. At least not anymore (it reminds me of a game I used to play with my son during a round of golf. It involved being able to pick up a golf ball from the rough, while in a moving golf cart. I used to be able to do it with about a 60% success rate, now, he does it. I have given up). Then, back to the high chair, I invariably excuse myself, push the chair back, climb down, pick up the napkin and resume eating, until my napkin falls again minutes later. This leads to the final indignity of tucking my napkin into my pants which just doesn’t seem dignified. Or fair.

And finally, for those of you who are wondering why I am writing an October blog in late September, it’s because I am off to Bhutan. Thanks for reading and being a fan of the New 60 and enjoy the fall weather. Just do it on a normal sized chair.

Andy and John

Going With the Flow. 09/29/23

As we get older we tend to get more stuck in our ways. To break the mold, we try new stuff. For Al (and for John), it might mean getting at those stubborn weeds with a literal flame thrower. It gets to weeds between rocks and pebbles by burning the hell out of the weeds. Of course I wouldn't know about this device since I live in an apartment (and let’s face it, I wouldn’t buy one if I still lived in a house). I’d end up burning myself instead of the weeds. But John has one and it feels sort of cool and macho. So we got the idea to dress up Al as Rambo, complete with the bandana-around-the-head thing. When I did live in a house I tended a vegetable garden, hoeing soil, going to the nursery, weeding, etc. I liked getting my hands dirty, literally, by planting the new vegetables. There were only two things wrong with this. One, the deer and rabbits liked to help themselves to our harvest. And two, I don’t care much for vegetables. My other idea (actually my wife’s) for expanding our horizons is to go on a hiking trip to Bhutan, which we will embark on next week. There are only two things wrong with this (what is it with me and two things…). One is that my left foot is killing me. And two, Bhutan is a vegetarian county. And I don’t care that much for…

Our second comic deals with something John and I are both experiencing: sleeping granddaughters. When my granddaughter sleeps over, my wife is telling me to turn the tv down. I patiently explain that when she and I watch a show together, the volume is at level 42. When I am watching something by myself, the volume is at 14. 14!!!(and I hate the overuse of exclamation points, but sometimes they fit). My reply is usually, I know she can’t hear it in her crib in the back bedroom because I can’t hear it and I’m sitting right here (again, time for another exclamation point)! John and I wondered what would happen if a great grandma were to come over. If you’re in your 90’s chances are you’d be hard of hearing and how can you make yourself heard to great grandma while being unheard by your grandchild. It’s pretty tough skating, but I’m pretty sure I’d accomplish the triple axel…yelling to great grandma, waking up the baby, and getting yelled at by my wife. In short, this comic was an easy one. It practically wrote itself.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you again next Friday.

Andy and John

A huge thank you to everyone who has already bought our book and a request (not an “ask,” because “ask” is not a noun) to those of you who haven’t yet purchased one to do so. The New York Times book review called it “the must-have comic collection of the century.” Okay, they didn’t say anything like that at all, but we’re just trying to lure you in. C’mon, we’re ex ad-guys.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Waiting for Godot. 09/22/23

With apologies to Samuel Beckett, today’s blog has little to do with “Waiting for Godot,” and more to do with just waiting. Well, that’s not entirely true. In “Waiting for Godot,” the characters spend the entire play waiting for a someone named Godot who never shows up. It’s about the fruitlessness of waiting for something to happen that never does. Waiting to hit the lottery. Waiting for that long lost love to come running back into your arms, waiting for the Mets to win another World Series (sorry, just had to throw that one in), or in Marv’s case, waiting to lose enough weight to fit back into his “skinny pants.” Or waiting for his lawn mower battery to recharge. At least in the case of the lawn mower, the event he’s waiting for will actually occur. But in the meantime, why not take a little rest?

You know the older I get, the more I appreciate a little rest. You know the cliche, “when you want a task to get done, give it to somebody who’s too busy to do it”? Example: I remember back in time (38 years ago, to be exact) my wife and I both had full-time jobs and my wife was 6 or 7 months pregnant. We were moving into a condo development which was still under construction. One random mid-week afternoon, we both asked for extended lunch breaks, took the train to our new suburb, went into the condo’s office and picked out our floor shade, window treatments, and what seemed like 20 other decisions in about an hour, took the train back into the city, and went back to work. In contrast, I know of someone who was long retired (in other words, with little to do) who took over two years to replace a single set of drapes.

In retirement, Marv doesn't have that much to do. When I worked full-time I used to go to the gym every morning at 7 am to fit in exercise before my work day started. Yesterday, I finished working on the comic, debated going out for an invigorating hike on an absolutely sparkling day, then decided, like Marv to lay down on the couch for “just a minute” while I worked my way through The NY Times crossword puzzle, Spelling Bee, Mini Crossword, Wordle and my new favorite, Connections. Then by accident my eyes fluttered to a complete close. You see, it’s not that I didn’t have enough time to exercise, it’s that I had too much time. Capiche? To be fair John does not fit my cliche, and spends his free time chopping wood, carving pumpkins and building stuff. Phew, after just writing about chopping wood I need to lie down. Just for a minute or two.

On second thought, maybe Marv’s saving his skinny pants has little to do with waiting for something that will never happen, but more to do with hope. Now as the co-creators of Marv, John and I think he might be waiting in vain. But you never know.

Over 200 comic strips, sketches and othe baby boomer-related hilarity available wherever you buy books online (local bookstores to follow)

Getting back to hope for a minute, we hope you pick up our book, The New 60: A Comic Collection for the Ages. You can buy it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble or the Archway Publishing websites. The Amazon link is https://a.co/d/j2wjguY. If you do happen to choose Amazon, please give us a 5 star review and a little sentence or two (or three…the longer the better,) about why you like the book. It helps us move up the Amazon popularity list. You know…algorithms. Okay you don’t know algorithms, that makes three of us.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week,

Andy and John