May Peace Be With You. 05/03/24

If you’ve ever been to the Hamptons, you’ve seen it. The coupling of a younger woman and a much older man. Good luck with that, because 70 can’t keep up with 40 no matter how hard 70 tries. So how do these seemingly incompatible couplings occur in the first place? Glad you asked. A leading social scientist (whose name escapes me) made a scale, assigning different values to different assets. Intelligence, attractiveness and money being among the highest scoring assets. To serve up a cliche, a 70-year-old male or female movie producer would score very high on the money, power and influence scales, while scoring lower on the attractiveness scale. While the 25-year-old arm candy would score high on the beauty scale, but not very high in the other categories. Does Robert DeNiro becoming a father at age 80 ring a bell? While there is no way these aforementioned pairs should fit together, when you add up the scores on this social scientist’s scale, the pairs make an even match. All of which has little to do with Sam and his much younger wife, Shellie. He liked Shellie and was amazed she went for him. But with age difference comes different responsibilities. Most guys in their mid 60’s aren’t first learning how to put on a diaper (unless it’s on themselves). The inspiration for this comic came from a recent experience I shared with John. My wife and I (we are only 3 weeks apart in age, I might add) took care of our granddaughter one weekend. On the list for that Saturday was taking our granddaughter Charlotte to a 3-year-old birthday party at the NY Aquarium in Coney Island. The party room consisted of a bunch of 3-year olds and their parents. A couple of the parents introduced themselves and said, “Oh, you must be Charlotte’s grandfather.” I told John this, and his response was, “Yeah, so?” And I countered, “You don’t think it’s funny everybody just assumed I was the grandpa? He didn’t think that was surprising in the least, so the hell with him (he’s 5-years-younger anyway, the whippersnapper). And that’s when he suggested the school play might be a better venue for our character Sam, who actually IS a 60-ish parent of a small child. Hilarity, well at least awkward hilarity, ensues. I hate it when he’s right.

The other comic this week was very close to an actual experience I had in Japan last year. My wife and I were part of a three-couple trip. We were being led by a guide to the Temple of Peace. To get there, you had to stand on a long line, and then walk, single file, over a narrow bridge to get to the beautiful orange temple which was in the middle of a lake. The line stretched backwards, up six flights of a huge staircase. When we saw the line I said to our crew, “Screw it, why don’t we just run up there to the side of the line and take a group picture with the Temple in the background. Some of the people on the line thought we were trying to cut to the front and I explained, “Oh no, we’re just taking one picture and then we’re leaving.” Trouble was, nobody spoke English except for one person who exclaimed, “No cutting.” When I shared this experience with John, he liked it, we turned it into a comic, and we allowed the idea to cut to the front of our comic line this week.

That’s it for now. Join us again next Friday. With summer just around the corner, we take a trip to the country club. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Watching the Big Screen 4/9/21

Here’s another problem with getting old. Whining about the fact that things ain’t like they used to be. This observation is always followed by the phrase “these days.” Examples: “Politics is too partisan these days.” “You have to be so careful about what you say these days.” And, relating to our March Madness comic, “College basketball is too much like the pros these days.” As John and I were talking about the NCAA Tournament which ended Monday night (it was really over in the first ten minutes, it just lasted until the final buzzer at which point nobody was watching except for people who attended Baylor) we remarked that the only thing amateur about college hoops is when you see the players reduced to tears when their team finally loses. Then we thought that the truly great players play only one season of college before turning pro, so just how sad are they? They are about to earn unfathomable riches. And yeah, it sucks that old (fill in your alma mater here) lost, but the hell with it, I’m going to the Oklahoma City Thunder!

The other comic this week (not as timely as March Madness) deals with the phenomenon we are all experiencing in real time. A few months ago, one of the major studios decided to release all its upcoming movies to theaters and to HBO Max at the exact same time. This means no more exclusive runs at the movie theater. First of all, what is HBO Max anyway? I already pay for HBO, now I have to pay MORE for Max???? But the point is, that there are fewer and fewer reasons to go to a movie theater and we will be streaming more and more movies in the comfort of our own homes. I must admit I used to like the movie theater experience. The audience shrieks at a scary movie or laughter at a comedy is infectious. There’s surround-sound, DOLBY digital and IMAX. But now the audience is infectious as well. And if you’re on the short side like me, there’s always a 6-footer who decides to sit right in front of you. And let’s face it, the popcorn sucks, unless you go to the Alamo Drafthouse. So we had Al and Joanne recreate the experience at home without going into one of the discussions I have with my wife around home movie watching: do you pour the raisinets straight into the popcorn bowl, or eat them separately.

One final personal note. John and I write about what it’s like to navigate your 60’s because we like to write about what we know. However, we’ve written about being grandparents without personally knowing what that’s like. I am proud to say as of Tuesday night, I now know what that’s like. My daughter Ali and her husband Mark had their first child Charlotte Tuesday around 10pm. My wife Joanie and I are now first time grandparents. And it couldn’t be sweeter.

See you next week with two new ones — comics, not grandchildren.

Andy and John