Excuuuuuse Us. 06/12/26

We seemed to have touched a nerve with a comic we also posted on Facebook last week. It’s the comic in which the kid asks Al’s son Sid what will he get for working a few extra hours one night. Sid tells him he gets the reward of helping the company. But the kid, not falling for it says, “No really boss, what do I get?” This infuriated a few Gen Z’ers on Facebook. Well actually 14,000 of them. If we were petty we’d point out that they were getting this comic for free, now weren’t they? So that is where we came from. Our joke was the next generation explaining to the generation below them… oh forget it. Instead we will quote the humorist, E.B. White, who said: “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process.” In other words, Get the f@%k over it!”

Moving on to this week, our first comic was one of those “what were they thinking?” kind of comics. Yes it’s true, they used to sell chemistry sets with radioactive uranium in them. But we thought that hiding under a desk would save us from a nuclear bomb so it wasn’t really an issue.

As you know, the World Cup officially opened yesterday. The ticket prices are outrageous. In addition, every hotel, rental car, train ticket and restaurant have jacked up their prices to astonishing levels. Although they don’t seem so astonishing compared to trying to see a Knick NBA Finals game in Madison Square Garden, where a seat close enough to actually see the game will run you about $15,000 per ticket. If you want to sit way up high where you can’t see the players so you end up watching them on the Jumbotron screen in the Garden, it’s only $4700. Such a deal. So Al’s son Sid, being an internet multimillionaire, invites Al to the luxury box he’s bought through his company. I once went to a Knick game in one of those suites and, just like in the comic, most everyone had their backs to the court, oblivious to the game. Not only would they not know the score, they’d be hard pressed to tell you who was playing. I imagined if you asked them they’d say, “It’s ummm, the Knicks against uh, against…bartender, another Jack and Coke please.”

So please have a great weekend and if you’re watching the NBA Finals or the World Cup, turn on the tv. It’s much cheaper like that.

Andy and John

Sharing is Caring 06/05/26

Togetherness is a beautiful thing. It can also be a pain in the butt. Especially when one spouse works much harder than the other. My wife is actively involved in a charity (Girl’s Inc.), is an executive coach, takes golf lessons, goes to pilates, and has a lot of meetings, Zoom and otherwise. I write (actually co-write) a comic strip. And don’t forget the blog (that’s the name of the thing you’re reading right now). Most every day we try to do four New York Times puzzles together: crossword, mini crossword, Wordle and Connections in case you were wondering. And we try to have a show to watch at night—like The Pitt. I’m also a crazy NY sports fan so if I have to wait for my wife’s zoom meeting to end before doing the puzzles, and after the next episode of The Pitt, it means I’m starting my game around 10:30 or 11 pm. Which makes me groggy when I wake up the next day (the gummies may have something to do with that as well, but don’t tell anybody). And you don’t want your comics or blogs to be groggy, now do you? So sometimes I’ll do the puzzles or watch a random episode alone. I’m not above telling a white lie and watching it again and acting like it was the first time, but at any rate, that was the inspiration for our first comic.

As for our depiction of Gen Z (if we have Gen Z readers, our apologies, but hey, this is a geezer’s opinion of Gen Z so please take it with an entire shaker of salt). We tend to complain about their work ethic. But here’s the kicker, our kids — the millenials— think Gen Z workers have a weak work ethic. My theory is that we boomers were so busy working, we missed a lot of our kids’ childhoods. The result is that they grew up and vowed not to be like that. To a point. But now when they’re interviewing a Gen Z’er for a new job they get flustered and go back to what they remember their parents saying. I bet all the generations secretly agree with each other. However, agreeing does not make for funny. We actually fell for bs like “You’ll get the satisfaction of knowing you did a good job for the company”. They don’t buy that and the next generation buys it even less. They want a work/life balance and who knows, maybe they’ll achieve it. All I can say for sure is that working from home beats the hell out of the alternative.

As they said in Looney Tunes, “Th-th-that’s all folks.We’ll see you next week with two new ones, but for now we are signing off. Gotta achieve that work/life balance thingy,

Andy and John

Home Made. 05/29/26

Simplicity. You want to judge a brand of ice cream? Try the vanilla. Italian cooking? Try spaghetti with tomato sauce. If an ice cream maker can churn out a great vanilla and a chef can make a great pasta pomodoro, sign me up. If they can do that well, they can do anything well. My wife and I went to Scarpetta, and tasted the most amazing spaghetti with tomato sauce I’ve ever had. We went back a couple times and it was always great. Then one night, some good friends were coming over to dinner and I decided to try to recreate it myself. In fact I found a YouTube video of the chef, Scott Conant, describing step by step how to make his “simple’ sauce. You start by cutting an “x” in top of 20 plum tomatoes, putting them in boiling water for 5 seconds, then plunging them in an ice bath. Then removing the skin of all 20 tomatoes, halving them and removing the seeds from each. And that’s just the start. By the time our friends arrived I cried, “Helllllp!” and they pitched in. Including making the basil infused olive oil which must be drizzled into the tomato reduction bubbling on the stove at just the precise time, and that ain’t even the half of it. So imagine my surprise when just a week later, I walked into our local grocery store and there was a presentation Chef Scott Conant himself, promoting his new cookbook and line of pasta sauces. And there it was, for just $6.99, the exact same sauce I sent four hours making, in a glass jar labelled Martone Street. Now you tell me?! By the way, the only part I could not do by myself was flipping the pasta up in a pan so it turns over. The chef did this repeatedly without spilling a drop. Show off. I knew if I attempted one flip, there would go 4 hours down the drain, or more precisely, into the grout of the backsplash. But as John and I often say, when life throws you a lemon, make a comic out of it.

While tomato sauce inspired our first comic, the other strip was all about John. John is a collector. I am a chucker outer. John has shelves and shelves of mementoes, collectibles, and miniature versions of everything including a 1/2 inch log harmonica that plays “Oh Susannah.” I barely have shelves. So we combined our two views into the comic. Where John sees whimsy, creativity, and fond memories, I gasp at the overwhelming amount of stuff and think, “When are you going to clean that up? Do you really need a squeaky dog toy that is a replica of Ronald Reagan, an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile whistle and a Mr. Softee Hot Wheels truck? My thought is, “Hell no,” where John would reply, boastfully with, “You wish you had a Jacob DeGrom Rookie-of-the-Year 22-ounce souvenir Pepsi cup.” Having said all that, I must admit it is a very impressive collection. I’m just glad it’s in his house.

Have a great weekend and I just wanted to point out that my slightly muddy softball, commemorating the Idle Minds winning the 1981 New York City Parks Dept Manhattan Championship, THAT is worth keeping.

Andy and John

World Cup Fever. 05/22/26

John played varsity soccer for his college. I coached grade school soccer. I never called it football or even futbol (these other countries sure spell things funny, or funnily, but funny sounds better). To me football is that stuff the Giants and Jets attempt to play, even though a foot is only applied to a ball on field goals and extra points. Nonetheless World Cup Futbol where they do use their feet all the time (except for the goalkeepers who can use their hands - never mind) is coming to North America this June. It’s all anybody can talk about in New York. You don’t hear a word about the Yankee bullpen, the Met injuries or the Knicks threatening to win the NBA Championship for the first time in 53 years. No, it’s soccer, soccer, soccer. Okay, maybe I’m being a tad sarcastic. The crazy thing is that no one is talking about the world’s most popular event coming to our shores. No one. Yet. But once it starts it’ll be all people tallk about. Sure these are these old farts like Mike Francesa who say idiotic things like, “I hate soccah (that’s how he pronounces it), I mean, first of all who wants to sit around for an hour (pronounced ow-ah) to watch these guys run around a field and win a game 1-nothing.” Good question Mike, except the game lasts 90 minutes, it’s played on a pitch, and the victorious team won by a score of 1-nil. Ted Lasso got us excited, the World Cup will get us going gaga. But when we ran World Cup, part 1 on Facebook, the futbol lovers came roaring out of the closet. They were pissed off. Consider this from a Mr. Phil White: “American willful ignorance prevents them from appreciating The Beautiful Game.” But a Mr. Dennis Jensen made us laugh out loud by quoting John Oliver on the World Cup: “It is like the Super Bowl. Except the rest of the world actually gives a fuck.” One thing we all have to admit, the World Cup is a much better use of the word “World” than the World Series (unless you consider a league with 29 cities in the continental U.S. and one from Canada to represent the world).

Our second comic is about, wait for it, soccer, futbol or the beautiful game, however you’d like to refer to it. I was thinking I should attend a game as a “bucket list” experience. After all, a bunch of games are being played at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey, a mere 20 miles from my house, but there’s a catch. In fact there are many catches. The first is the price. The tickets are literally thousands of dollars apiece, unless you choose to sit at the very top of the stadium where the prices start a more “reasonable” $1370. But the seats are so high up, you end up watching on the stadium screen. So why not watch at home on my screen? Or I could fly to Monterrey, Mexico to catch Sweden vs Tunisia starting at $408. Much better, but then there’s the part about flying there and renting a hotel or Airbnb. Come to think of it, maybe that “bucket list” concept is a bit overrated, although…

Anyway, that’s all we’ve got for this week. In the meantime, once the tournament starts, hold onto your hats and yell Gooooooooooooooal! Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Fear of Flying. 05/15/26

People of a certain age remember Erica Jong’s groundbreaking book, Fear of Flying. It was about, among other things, telling women they could have sex without strings. It introduced us to the term “zipless fuck,” which was about what we just said it was about. Thankfully our comics this week have nothing to do with that. It refers to getting on a plane to see your grandchildren and always catching whatever cold they happen to be carrying at the time. Face it grandpas and grandmas, you love the hell out of them, but nursery school, day care, McDonalds ball pits…who knows how many germs they’re exposed to. Truth be told, if they allowed adults in, I’d dive into a Mickey D’s ball pit. It looks like a lot of fun. Sure you’ll likely get a cold, but a little Zicam, Vicks Vaporub and a box of Puffs Plus with aloe, and you’re right back in the game. John’s grandkids live in South Carolina, which requires him to fly and let’s face it, airplanes are probably just as bad as ball pits. But in the end, as John put it, when you see their snotty little faces, you just have to hug them. For me, it’s only a car ride to Brooklyn to see the little ones. I hug and kiss their “snotty little faces, and then grab a Kleenex to wipe said snot from said noses. My older granddaughter tolerates the nose wipe, the little one hates it. Listen, the more germs they get exposed to, the more immunities they develop. But I have heard of some new parents (maybe because they lived through the pandemic) require the grandparents to get a Covid shot, flu shot, and to personally sign six-page vaccination spreadsheet before being able to enter the house. All I can say is I used to drink water out of the garden hose while one of my grandpas chain smoked cigarettes and I turned out okay (depending on who you ask).

Our other effort is yet another Jeopardy game. Thanks to all of you who wrote in saying how much they like those. We will sprinkle them in from time to time. Like airport codes. Who comes up with these? New Orleans is MSY. Newark is EWR (what’s wrong with NWK)? And my favorite, YYZ, which of course means Toronto. Thankfully our assistant Chat GPT has the answers to how those codes came into existence. New Orleans? An aviator named John Moisant was celebrated and the land used for the airport was once a stockyard, so Moisant Stock Yards or MSY. Newark? U.S. airport codes avoid starting with the letter “N” because of old naval/radio designations. Who knew? So EWR. That is a strange designation but hey, it’s New Jersey. And finally Toronto. I read the explanation and I still can’t understand it. Anyway, gotta run. I’ve got a flight from Westchester Airport, HPN. The PN is from White Plains. Nobody knows where the H comes from. But at least this one makes sense, Nothing says White Plains like PN, right?

Have a great weekend and the part about going to Westchester Airport? That was made up so we could squeeze the PN part in. See you next week,

Andy and John

The Good Old Days. 05/08/26

Remember when you used to go to a restaurant, a waiter or waitress would serve you, and then you’d leave a tip depending on a) how good the service was or wasn’t and b) how cheap you were or weren’t? Well those rules, like most rules, don’t apply anymore. My wife and I attended a concert in an arena where you walked to a self-serve area and picked out food and drinks that were sitting pre-wrapped under warming lights, your choice of regular burgers, cheeseburgers, veggie burgers and veggie cheese burgers. That was it. Then there was a refrigerated section with cold soft drinks, seltzers, beer and pre-canned vodka drinks like the ubiquitous Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka. You made your choices and proceeded to the checkout counter where a human being rang up your order and you then tapped your credit card. Then came the prompt, how much tip would you like to leave, 10%, 20%, etc. The question in my head was, “A tip for what, exactly?” John always prefers to lean on the generous side to prevent them from expectorating and that gave us the impetus for our first comic. At least in this case, you didn't have to worry about them spitting on your food since the burgers were pre-wrapped in tin foil. But my favorite tipping story ever occurred when my wife and I went out to dinner at this fantastic hole-in-the-wall gem called Drop Pasta Not Bombs. No kidding. We ate dinner there and the bill came out to around $80. We were served by a high-school girl who was so nice and accommodating, we left her a $25 tip. It was on one of those machines they bring to your table, you choose your tip while the server discretely looks in the other direction. The girl came back to the table with a huge smile and said, “Thank you so much! That was so generous!” We smiled and told her she did a great job. Once outside I told Joanie, aka my wife, “It wasn’t that good of a tip.” Was I mistaken. When I looked at my phone later on that evening I discovered that my tip wasn’t for $25. It was for $225. When I hit the prompt on her machine, at first the “2” didn’t show up, so I hit it again. I guess that first “2” did in fact show up after all. Sigh.

Our next comic is another one in our “Then and Now” series. John and I were discussing cookware, pots and pans, when it occurred to us that we used to discuss another kind of pot with the same degree of specificity as we used to discuss types of marijuana. If you are old enough to recognize the term, “Acapulco Gold,” then you’ve come to the right place. Nowadays they have dumb names like Wedding Cake, Amnesia Haze (no thanks - I’m in enough of a haze already), Honey Badger and Kush. My absolute favorite old time name was Maui Wowie. And listen, don’t assume I take anything like this. I just looked up the names online. And if you believe that, I’d like to sell you some oceanfront property in Nebraska.

Have a great weekend and a happy Mother’s Day. Summer has been threatening to break out all week (except for a snowstorm in Denver on Tuesday). And if you’d like to leave us a tip for the comic strip, ahh forget about it. Just don’t spit on it.

Andy and John

Remote Learning. 04/29/26

It’s a case of art following life.. Just after John and I thought of the remote control comic, I tried to fix a doll called Mensch on the Bench. For those of you who don’t speak Yiddish, a mensch is a person of integrity, honor and decency. For a period of time between the end of my advertising career and the beginning of the New 60, I was asked to be the voice of the mensch. I said such things as “Open the vindow, I’m shvitzing (open the window I’m sweating), ” Or “Vould it hurt to call your zaydie once in a while? (Would it hurt to call your Grandpa…). Our grandkids were coming to sleep over and I knew the five-year old would love to hear my voice when she pressed the hand of the Mensch. Only problem was the battery had died and I couldn't get the battery cover opened. Before you rush to judgment, it didn't slide open, it required a very small Phillips head screwdriver. I screwed and screwed (please calm your sophomoric minds) but the screwdriver kept turning and nothing was loosening. I accepted defeat and went to the hardware store for help. One guy used a flat head screwdriver to pry it partially open while the other guy unscrewed it. So it took two to tango. My manhood was restored. Until I opened the new set of batteries and put them in backwards in the hardware store. The owner stifled his laughter and said, “Uhh, you put them in backwards. See this plus sign…” So when Rachel told Marv he put the remote control batteries in backwards, I had empathy for his plight.

If our other comic sounds like it was written by a five-year old, it essentially was. I took my oldest granddaughter and her mom (my daughter) to a silent movie. When we explained what that was, she asked if she would be allowed to laugh. I told this to my former roommate and bestie who instantly said, “You should use that as one of your comics” I pitched it to John, he agreed, and with a few minor tweaks, you see the result. As Art Linkletter used to say, “Kids say the darnedest things”. And they make for good comics, whether they know it or not. Next week we’ve got one straight from John’s granddaughters.

Finally be on the lookout for a YouTube video of John and me. We were interviewed on the ‘Chris Voss Show.” He interviews CEO’s, inventors, writers and even us. We will post it on our website next week as soon as it becomes available.

We will see you next week with two new ones and as the Mensch would say, “Oy! Enough already vith the blog, these people have other things to do!”

Andy and John

Looks Can Be Deceiving. 04/24/26

Forget fake news for a second. Let’s talk fake pictures. One of my granddaughters just turned 5. Thanks to Yellow Submarine, turns out she loves the Beatles. So grandpa (yours truly) sees this really cool Beatles baseball cap online, It looks like a weathered blue denim cap and on the crown is a sewn-on picture of the Fab Four walking across Abbey Road. Cool, right? Thankfully I didn’t say anything early on to her because the hat took almost two months to finally arrive at my house. I eagerly unwrapped it to find an overly large, shiny, polyester blue cap with an unimpressive sketch of the guys crossing Abbey Road. I was bummed, I was going to return it with a pissy email (which always seems to do so much good) but my wife and I took it over to our granddaughter’s house, where her eyes lit up and she promptly, happily put in on her head. Hey, she’s 5. But it’s still a fake picture, the hat in that picture was so much nicer than the actual object. Sort of like the photo of a McDonalds quarter pounder with cheese. It looks like a fat, juicy burger, the cheese melting over the side of the burger. Of course the one you actually get at McDonalds, the real one, is a flat, round piece of meat, grey throughout, no thicker than a coaster. And that cheese? Well it would be melting over the side if the damn burger were remotely hot, but nooooooo!!!

Okay, I got a little carried away there, but John had a similar experience buying a hoppng bunny for his granddaughter. It hopped okay. It just looked nothing as impressive as the picture of it looked. So what is a pissed off consumer to do? Get in touch with the manufacturer? Hah! The name is written entirely in Japanese. If that’s even Japanese. Anyway, it’s a lot of fancy, curlicued letters that don’t resemble a language John of I could come close to understanding.

I think that’s why they don’t have a customer service number that connects to a human, non-precorded voice. An actual human. Because this way they never hear your complaint so they never have to respond to it. This is all the fault of the NY Times. Let me explain. The Times used to have a fantastic sports section, but they shuttered it down and now use an online source, the Athletic, to act as their sports section. I’m not a fan of it, so I subscribed to the NY Post which has a great sports section. But boy do they bombard you with ads in the middle of whatever column or story I’m reading. That’s how I found the Beatles hat. That’s how come I spend 45 minutes looking up an article before I even get to the article. I get hit with various come-ons for easy walking shoes for seniors with poor balance, the only nail clipper you’ll ever need, you’ll never believe what this former child star looks like now (But she’s never part of the list, is she?), and my all-time favorite: get a rock-ha…never mind. But all these cheap, untrue come-ons gave us the idea for the miracle cures. What a carnival barker used to look like and what they look like now.

The point is, please be careful about buying something without seeing it first. And if you buy it online, good luck trying to find someone to speak to. Oooh, I think I hear the doorbell. It must be that Ginsu knife I bought where they throw a tomato up and the knife slices it mid-air. Here honey, please toss me the tomato..

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

What Do you do Week Nights at 7? 04/17/26

If you answered, “Watch Jeopardy,” then you are in the right place. And don’t be embarrassed to admit it. According to the documentary, “Mel Brooks, the 99-Year-Old Man,” Mr. Brooks watched it religiously with Carl Reiner every night at Carl’s house. At that point they were both widowers and took comfort in each other’s company. Mel would come over, they’d set up folding tables in front of the tv, and eat Chinese or deli, because…what else? And then they’d watch Jeopardy and try to shout out the answers before the other guy. If you didn’t state your answer in the form of a question, you were out. In fact, there was once an episode of the Jerry Seinfeld series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, where Jerry comes over for Jeopardy. Good thing he arrived early because they immediately send him back out to get Chinese. After all he was much younger and more fit then they were. Who else was going to pick up dinner? In the documentary, it was revealed that as a way to honor his friendship with Reiner, Brooks continued to come over to Reiner’s house every weeknight to watch in the same chair with the same folding snack table almost a year after Reiner’s death. Sigh.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I think women enjoy bonding with one another while men enjoy competing as an important part of friendship. It’s subtle but true. Instead of saying, “I love Steely Dan,” we say stuff like, “What’s the best Steely Dan song ever?” Or “How many times have you seen them in concert?” I once had a friend ask me if I wanted to see Knopfler. It was a subtle challenge to see if I knew that Mark Knopfler was the lead songwriter, singer and guitarist of Dire Straits. It was a test and this time I passed it. But the crazy part is I was really proud of myself for getting it right. And it was a hell of a concert.

It is in this spirit that Al and Marv test each other. I wonder if anyone would guess, “All in the Family” if our line was “Gee our old LaSalle ran great?” This was part of what John and I discussed when making these comics. One of us saying, “Nobody would ever get that!” And the other one saying, “That’s what makes it perfect!” “Nobody would get that” was the winner, and there you go, Competition. But it’s what makes this entire process so rewarding. And fun.

Question: What tv show jingle had the line, “Here’s Cathy who loves a minuet, the ballets russes and crepe suzette?” Write us back and see if you know. And above all, please give your answer in the form of a question. Also, send in some other jingles you know and love and if we pick one for a future New 60’s Jeopardy comic, we’ll give you credit and a free subscription for a year to the comic, which represents a savings of…oh forget it, it’s already free. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

The Adventure Ends. 04/10/26

I have taken many shots against adventure travel, but maybe there’s a way to do it that doesn’t seem so, well, adventurous. Have you ever tried glamorous camping? The portmanteau for that is glamping. I once took a safari featuring a glamping site. All day you saw magnificent African animals, lions, rhinos, hyenas, zebras, elephants. It was fascinating. The only exercise required was walking to breakfast and then to the open air Jeep. If you saw kudu on the trip, that night’s dinner might be Kudu Wellington. After dinner you go to your glamorous tent. But not alone, because there might be a baboon not so happy to see you. No kidding. But that tent. Nicer than a lot of hotel rooms I’ve stayed in. A raised platform of varnished teak, a king bed with anti-fly drapes, a full bathroom with shower and toilet and running water. This was not exactly roughing it. And it certainly was an adventure. One I will never forget. But it’s the more vigorous type I rail against.

When I was younger, we did two, count them, two Vermont Bicycle Tours. Vermont, the green MOUNTAIN state. Back then they had these low handle bars where you had to bend over to decrease your wind resistance and ride a hard narrow saddle so you don’t sink, therefore getting the most out of each pedal. That was also an unforgettable experience. The part I remember is getting back on the bike the next day. Put it this way. I didn’t know if I’d ever be capable of having children since I couldn’t feel anything down there in the place you do child-making stuff. I’m happy to report however, no lasting damage was done. Now however, I ride an e-bike with a soft, cushy seat and something they call “pedal assist.” It amplifies the effort you make when pedaling. I happen to live in a New York suburb in what is called the Hudson Valley. I’m at the bottom of said valley so to get anywhere you have to go straight uphill. Like I have to go up an enormous hill to get to a beautiful, relatively flat, bike trail through the woods. I used to put my bike on a rack on my car and drive up the hill to the path. Now no rack, just pedaling. I put on the pedal assist to level 5 (the max) and I’m gliding uphill while the poor people in their spandex suits and bent over handle bars are huffing and puffing and standing up on their pedals and breathing hard. I passed one of those guys on my e-bike last fall and he looked at me with a sense of longing in his eyes. As if to say, “How can an old guy like you be getting up here while a young guy like me is out of breath?” I anticipated his thoughts and said, “Don’t worry, I’m cheating.”

So that’s how I stand on adventure travel. John, on the other hand, is a fan. If you get a chance you can post on this blog to tell us your adventure travel adventures. If we love one, we might even turn it into a comic. Thanks and have a great, slightly adventurous, weekend,

Andy and John

Non-Adventurist Travel. 04/05/26

John actually walked the trail he drew in our comic, Sedona, part 2. You know, the one that said, “8 people have died on this trail this year.” Truth be known, that particular trail was in Zion National Park, not Sedona, but why quibble? You’ll get a good look at it next week. So how much adventure can you take, dear readers? I guess it all depends on who you are, how old you are, and how much physical risk you feel comfortable taking. Me, I see a sign that says, “8 people have died this year (doing exactly what the hell you’re about to do)” I’m outta there. Okay it didn’t really say the ‘doing what you’re doing’ part. I just threw that in. But to others, like John, it’s just a fun challenge. When you hit your 60’s (and in my case, 70’s, but who’s counting?) You can say to yourself, “We don’t have many years left when we can take physically demanding trips like this so let’s do it while we can.” That is my wife’s philosophy. And apparently John’s. For me, ehhh, it goes something like this: “We’re getting older. We did that adventure stuff when we were a little younger. See that thing over there? It’s called a beach chair. This thing over here? A book. My exercise will include setting up the chairs and umbrellas. Maybe walk a mile on the beach before jumping in the ocean (if the water is not too cold). Let the young whippersnappers get hypothermia while climbing Mt. Everest. If I walk 9 holes on a golf course while carrying my bag, I need oxygen for that. No way am I climbing a scary ridge with loose rocks, hiking up a rocky trail with 50 mph winds making you feel like you’re going to fall over, or going on a bike tour covering 30 miles per day. I’ve done those things, as Billy Joel once sang, “When I wore a younger man’s clothes.”

I think of vacation as a time to chill out from your day to day labors. To take a break. But in my case, a break from what? Eating? The comic takes work, but it takes John a lot longer since we both think them up, but he is the one that has to draw the ideas and color them. So I really can’t complain, but if I didn’t complain, I wouldn’t be me. So I’ll complain. Do you know how long it took to write this blog??? Woe is me. I need a break, as long as it doesn’t involve getting off the train one stop earlier in order to hike to Machu Picchu. The hike took at least 8 hours. It ended up with a downhill over wet rocks where I slipped three different times. It was a bit over 10 years ago. I dream about it often. In nightmares.

Have a great weekend. Happy Passover and Easter. I will be roughing it by playing a round of golf (but not carrying- in a cart).

Andy and John

Seemed Like a Good Idea. 03/27/26

Yogi Berra was once asked about whether or not he and his Yankee teammates were going to this popular restaurant after the game. His response, “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded” has become legendary. While it doesn't make sense literally, we all know exactly what he meant. It’s great when you have a secret spot that only “people who are in the know” know. There’s a place in NYC, in the theater district, where you have to walk up a flight of stairs to get in. It looks like a regular brownstone and you are walking up this outside flight of stairs, and there isn’t even a name on the door. But once you know, you know. I was once in a bar in Milwaukee that you entered through a telephone booth. Once you dialed the secret number, the back panel of the booth slid down and you entered the bar. Like you were in the tv show, “Get Smart.” When our kids were little, there was a place that was a former lunch counter restaurant that made stuff like grilled-cheese sandwiches, but in the kitchen was a Japanese chef who specialized in the most delicious Italian food my wife and I have ever had. What a secret. Our kids would have the aforementioned grilled cheese while my wife and I would eat the most amazing pasta dishes. Then it got discovered. Moved into a fancy setting. No more kid’s food, plus it became harder to get in. Sadly, it went out of business within a couple years. We hope Armondo's has a better fate.

Our second comic features Al playing pickleball with his son and two of his son’s friends. John plays pickleball. I played once. Doubles. My wife was not a fan and did not want to play again. I did want to play again. So I asked my son. Sure he’s half my age. Literally. I’m 72 and he’s 36. But I had PBE (PickleBall Experience) while he had none. For those of you who don’t know the rules, the first person to get 11 points wins the set. My son said, “I’ll give you 5 points a set,” which means he wanted to start each set 5-0 in my favor. I said, “I don’t need that.” And he said, “You have no chance otherwise.” “But you’ve never played before,” I shouted. I refused his charity. First set, Greg 11-Andy 3. Followed by 11-4, and finally 11-7. I was getting closer. Until I lost the last set 11-2. On a side note we played a week later and I took the five points. Still lost every time. Anyway when I told John the story, we came up with today’s pickleball comic. Notice that he put Al in a doubles match. I told John, “But I played singles,” to which he replied, “Nobody plays singles.” I can tell you this: I’m not playing anymore singles unless the other guy is twice my age.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week with two new ones hot off the Macintosh,

Andy and John

It's Not Easy Being Green. 03/20/26

If you had to take a commuter train to work and back home everyday, you’d know what we meant. John and I travelled this way for decades. And the single worst day of the year, every year, was St. Patrick’s Day. Now sure, there were daily annoyances. People who thought you should stand for 40 minutes while their backpacks got an entire seat. Loud people who shouted across the aisle to one another. People who listened to loud videos without headphones. It got so bad that Metro North (they run the trains in NY and CT) created a quiet car where no talking was allowed. Did that stop any of these noisemakers? No it did not. But the worst, the absolute all-time worst, was St. Patrick’s Day when people not only got super loud, they also were super drunk which led to super-disgusting vomiting on the floor of said train. This year Metro North issued a “No Alcohol on Board” policy that threatened to have you removed if you brought alcohol on board. Great, but by then it’s too late. They’re already bombed. And in essence they did bring alcohol on board. And then they left it there. Sigh. One great part about writing a comic is it doesn't require us to commute. Side note: I really hate vomit.

The other comic deals with AI. Artificial Intelligence AI, not AL. I mean c’mon, AL is anything but artificial. What you see is what you get. But he’s also not that intelligent, so please don’t confuse the two. But these algorithm people are something else. First they figured out how to only feed you stuff you’re already interested in, ensuring you never get reasoned opinion from the other side. But then they figured out how to flatter you in order to keep you engaged. One of the old theories was enragement equals engagement. The more outrageous something is, the more time we spend reading it. But there is something even more insidious than creating rage. Something that works even better. Flattery. Not the honest, heartfelt kind. But the servile, obsequious kind. The “Oh sir, you are the most intelligent person in the world” kind of flattery. When you ask a question to Siri, Claude, Chat, no matter how banal or stupid, if you ask,” Should I pull my pants down before I go to the bathroom,” it answers, “That’s a great question.” I tested it over and over until I finally got a mild rebuke from Chat GPT. It answered my query by saying, “No, it’s never a good idea to shove marbles up your nose.”

Words to live by. Have a great weekend and excuse me, if I insert these tweezers I might be able to remove that…

Andy and John

Who Can Forget Whatshisname? 03/13/26

John and I recently returned from separate trips to the Galápagos Islands. It is a topic very much made for The New 60, and it’s in our personal incubators. But for now, let’s concentrate on the here and now. The Oscars are coming up. I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I try to see all the nominated movies before the show. But this year’s show runs right up against a Knick game, so all that movie watching was for naught. It’s hard to keep up with current movies. We all have so many distractions now that we didn't have decades ago. There’s movies in theaters. Movies on Netflix. Movies that started in a theater and went straight to Netflix. And let’s not forget Amazon Prime (as if we could). The point is that it’s almost impossible to keep up with everything, especially when you throw in all the great streaming tv shows, that are every bit as good as movies and our ubiquitous cell phones. So if that doesn’t make it hard enough, consider that our collective memories are declining. Most of ours. Our apologies to our younger readers.

But failing memory jokes aside, I have another beef about awards shows. As you may recall, both John and I spent our careers in advertising. Ad agencies figured out that if their agency wins prestigious awards, they’ll attract more clients. So in the period preceding the Cannes Gold Lions (advertising’s equivalent to the Oscars, complete with red carpet, believe it or not), many agencies try to create commercials strictly to win awards, not to sell products. In the same way, Hollywood creates movies at the end of the year specifically to win awards, not to sell movie tickets. They know what fills theaters. Romcoms, Marvel comic superheroes, and extensions of a movie franchise. Mission Impossible part 17 anyone?

And now that we have taken care of the Oscars, what about Friday the 13th, which is…today? Most of us don’t believe in bad luck when a black cat crosses our path or when walking under a ladder (why would anyone do that anyway?) but we all are a little superstitious. Maybe it’s carrying a lucky rabbit’s foot or a picture of a saint. Maybe it’s tossing salt when it spills, or praying to God before your airplane takes off or lands. How about having a “good luck song,” or a good luck omen (every time I see a rainbow, I immediately buy a lottery ticket). They are kind of like conspiracy theories. You either believe in them or you don’t. Now I personally have no superstitious beliefs, except for when I watch a Knicks game and I shout at the shooter, “Make this shot!” Almost every time I do this, the shot goes in. This despite the fact that the shooter can’t possibly hear me and that I am frequently watching the game two hours after it’s already over. It doesn't matter, I believe it works. Until it doesn't. C’mon Jalen, hit it! Damn, he missed.

See you next week with two new ones. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

A Hazy Shade of Winter. 03/06/26

I was away last week in the Galapagos Islands. While my wife and I were basking in the sun and snorkeling, the rest of my family got hit with another blizzard, this time with 22” of snow. Supposedly worse than the one a few weeks ago. The Hudson River was completely frozen over. Dirty roadside snowbanks, black ice, we hadn’t seen anything this severe in years. So what’s a team of comic maker uppers to do? A two-part series on having the winter blues. The Who sang, “There ain’t no cure for the summertime blues,” but I prefer to complain about the winter. So we wrote about winter blues and I come back and what happens? A warming trend, that’s what. No more ice in the Hudson. That baby’s flowing the way it was intended to flow. And next week? Next week? The high temperatures from Sunday through Wednesday are 60°, 65°, 68° and 71°. 71°??? Who has winter blues when it’s 71°?

Nonetheless your trusted comic guys wrote about the winter. Who would have predicted shorts weather? Neither of us claims to be Nostradamus here. We barely know how to spell Nostradamus (spell check helped). So the first comic was about where Al and Joanne should go. The second one was about a hot tub. Let’s stop right there. I love hot tubs. Love them. About 20 yeas ago we lived in a house with a deck and backyard, but after a couple decades of use, including kid’s birthday parties, an engagement party, etc, an architect friend attended and said he thought the deck was unstable and needed to be replaced. Damn. But out of necessity sometimes comes opportunity. Such as, if we need to replace the deck, what about sinking a hot tub into it? It was an immediate hit. I used to go out there at night to see the stars and I even used it all winter, when I had to trudge a short path through snow. But there’s something magical about cold air outside and the steam rising from the hot tub, beckoning you (okay, me) to get in here and relax. It was the perfect respite for my daughter after she finished running the NY Marathon one year.

I loved that hot tub, and when it came time to move out of our house and downsize to an apartment, I told the buyers of our house, “Look, it even comes with a hot tub.” They said, “We don’t want the hot tub.” I was so incensed I wanted to cancel the sale but my wife reminded me we had already signed the papers, so…

The kicker was that I had to PAY to get the tub removed. That’s right. A mover had to take all the fencing off the deck, move a heavy truck onto the lawn, thereby destroying part of it, and then hydraulically lift the tub up and over the deck, never to be seen again. Sigh. So that’s it for this week. Now that we’re done with the blog, I’ll jump in the hot tub. At least I would if I had one. So we’ll let Al and Joanne enjoy it instead.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Heading in the Right Direction. 02/27/26

Just what you’ve all been waiting for! Advice from the New 60. It’s about subscriptions. Not the kind we forgot about and are still paying in perpetuity. More on those later. No, I’m talking about the ones you have but don’t really use and you are thinking about doing the unthinkable—unsubscribing. John had such an experience with a small-town local paper. He reads the national papers, but did he really need the local one? Upon calling the representative and explaining his reason for wanting to stop, the guy kept continually lowering the price. This is the advice part. Call up your subscriptions, or at least the ones you are not sure about keeping and tell them you want to discontinue their service. Listen to them squirm. My wife and I had two separate music accounts, Spotify and something called Deezer. The Spotify family plan was cheaper than the two separate services individually. I emailed Deezer to unsubscribe and they sent subsequent versions of, “Are you sure?, we’re willing to throw in 3 months for free, we’ll upgrade you to our premium service at no extra charge for the first year!!!”

It reminds us of an old joke. A guy walks into his boss’s office and says, “I want a raise to $200,000 and I won’t take a penny less!” The boss stares silently and doesn’t say a word. The guy then says, “Okay, $175,000 but that is the absolute bottom.”

The boss stares. You get the idea, the boss never says a word and the worker keeps lowering his price. The kicker is the guy offers to work for free, the boss remains silent and the guy finally says, “I’ll pay you.” And the boss sticks out his hand and says, “Deal.” It’s a good trick, and I’d use it if it were possible for me to remain silent. Which is not remotely possible. I still get magazines I never read and subscribe to streaming platforms I bought for one particular series and then never watched again. We bought an Amazon Kindle and took the option to read any book any time for the low, low price of only $10.00 per month. Terrific. Until we realized 8 years later that we had never used the service and finally had the wherewithal to cancel that feature. All that time I was downloading books on my iPad. Take that Amazon!

That’s all for this week. And thank you all for subscribing to The New 60 Comic. Unfortunately (since it’s currently FREE) we cannot lower the price…

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Winter Olympics. 02/20/26

I love sports. Tossing a ball around, playing a round of golf, riding a bike, hiking a trail. That’s exercise but I was really talking about sports on tv. Football games (did you know a couple years ago, 93 of the top 100 rated tv shows for the year were NFL games?) True. So there, basketball and baseball! I follow all my favorite NY teams religiously. But there comes a time every year, in the dead of winter, when the football season comes to a close with the Super Bowl, and basketball is playing its last couple of games before the All-Star break, which lasts a bit more than a week. To recap, no football, no hoops, and baseball hasn’t started up yet. But not to worry, there’s the Winter Olympics from some places called Milan Cortina. Actually that’s two places they’ve mushed into a single place. Try as I might, I can’t get beyond my disdain for “Big Air” skiing, the ski jump, slalom combo, curling, synchronized swimming. These sound like made-up sports to me. There’s a reason for that. They are made-up sports. Try as I may, I just cannot bring myself to sustain any interest into something I don’t understand and won’t see for another four years anyway.

And there’s something else. Whether its slaloming down a hill at 75 mph or ice dancing with a tall guy and petite woman (so he can toss her in the air and catch her and spin her, put her down gently and then eventually marry her). They practice relentlessly for four years awaiting their one chance, which might last all of three minutes. If the ice dancer falls only once, if the gymnast doesn’t “stick her landing,” if the biathlon guy misfires his rifle, then all their hopes and dreams go up in flames. And not Olympic flames. That’t it. Kaput. They’re done. The Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks lost three times this season and they won it all. The best basketball team loses 20 times before the playoffs even begin. Baseball? The best team loses at least 60 times while the worst team still manages to win about 60 games. But in the Olympics, one slip, one fall and everything you’ve dedicated your life to achieving is poof, gone, out the window. Too much pressure. I hate watching when their dreams come crashing down to earth. It makes me wonder what Olympic event I might excel at. The only thing that looks remotely possible is curling, but I’m afraid my broom would touch the stone and then I’d be toast. John is a lot bigger than me and played collegiate soccer. He might be able to play a few minutes of center forward in the Summer Olympics, but me? No shot. The only thing I could win gold at is sleeping, which is exactly what I end up doing every time I attempt to watch the aforementioned Winter Olympics.

Sweet dreams,

Andy and John

Turn Out the Lights, the Party's Over. 02/13/26

The last football has been thrown, kicked or fumbled. The last runner has been tackled, or has broken away for a 60-yard touchdown, the last pass interference penalty has been called until next fall. For some, it’s thank the lord. For others it’s time for FW, or Football Withdrawal. When Monday Night Football debuted in the ‘70’s, one of the commentators, Dandy Don Meredith, a former quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, would sing, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over,” whenever a game was out of reach for one of the two teams. This was revolutionary back in the day, when it was thought that acknowledging the fact that the game was over would cause people to turn off the game. As if they wouldn’t have done that already.

But as the clock wound down to the final minute of a boring, one-sided Super Bowl, that song from Dandy Don played in my head. Turn out the light, the football season is over. All the plans, the get togethers, the attending of games or going to family or friends’ houses to watch, all that came crashing to a halt. But first the Super Bowl and obligatory Super Bowl party. It’s about more than the game. It’s an excuse to eat all the stuff you’ve tried to avoid all year. We invited a neighbor and our son. The healthy part included crudite with a pureed vegetable dip which was barely touched. The rest was stuff I’m not supposed to indulge in due to (pick one) maintaining a healthy weight, a family history of heart disease, two stents, etc, etc. So we kept it healthy with buffalo chicken wings, pigs in blankets, pizza (both plain with basil and sausage and mushroom), beer, tequila, and, oh yeah, a salad with pine nuts and creamy balsamic vinegar. That was as good as the game was bad. Our neighbor and my wife left after dinner not five minutes after the game started. My wife, because she had a meeting and doesn’t give a damn about football and our neighbor, who had no meeting but also doesn’t give a damn about football. In an ironic twist, John and I thought up and wrote the comic about friends leaving early, weeks before the Super Bowl, so this was merely a case of life imitating art.

So how does a football nut replace Sundays, Monday nights, Thursday Nights and my favorite, a special Saturday edition of Thursday Night Football? I didn’t make that up. Amazon Prime did. Am I supposed to watch curling? The biathalon? The new season of the PITT?

I like the PITT but the … Spoiler Alert … I could have done without the scene of the old woman with impacted bowels, a moment I still can’t get out of my head. With no more football, John and I will tackle (sorry about the pun, couldn’t help myself) new subjects. Until then, we hope these comics and blog will help kickoff (ugh, make it stop!) a great weekend.

Andy and John

On Chocolate Chip Pancakes and the last Day of Football. 02/06/26

John is an artist. I am not, unless you consider writing an art. So when I showed him a picture of the Mickey Mouse pancakes I made for my granddaughter, he laughed and told me it looked more french toast than Disney. The secret he said was to pour the ears over the circle you use for the face. This way they drip onto the face and look like three separate circles, a face and two ears instead of one continuous piece of pancake that looks like a misshapen square. Sigh. I hate it when he’s right. But this isn’t so much about that as it is about when little kids learn to manipulate. When they become smart enough to know what you’ll approve of and what you’ll disapprove of. Last summer I came home with two grocery bags in my arms. She said, “Grandpa, can you help me put on my bathing suit?” I said, “Sure honey, let me just put these bags down.” By the time I came back, she had her baby sitter putting on her bathing suit. I said, “I thought you asked me to put it on.” She said, “No I didn’t say grandpa, I said glampa.” I put my chin in my hand and said, “I must have misheard you.”

Onto the SuperBowl or, as I call it, the last week of football. After this I go into football mourning, and no these spring leagues like the USFL don’t cut it. The season kind of ends for me with the previous round. Nobody who doesn’t like football watches the NFC and AFC Championship games. But everyone watches the Super Bowl. I have been to my share of Super Bowl parties. Not anymore. Nobody pays attention to the game, and I like to hear the announcer explain the intricacies of the big plays. But John and I can tell you the worst part. It’s people asking you your opinion of the commercials that just aired. It usually begins with, “You’re in advertising. What did you think of that commercial (or this commercial or the next commercial?” And you’re stuck explaining it while the game is back on. When my family and I first moved to the burbs (when we had our first child and our city apartment was no longer big enough), we were invited to a Super Bowl party in a neighboring town. Trouble is, my favorite team, The Giants, were playing in that particular Super Bowl. This time my other SBPP (Super Bowl Pet Peeve) worked in my favor. Halftime all year long is precisely 12 minutes long. In the Super Bowl you’ve got Bad Bunny, or in the past, Eminem or Tom Petty or even Diana Ross and they’re on for at least half an hour if not more. So this time I got up at half-time and said, “Excuse me folks, I’ve got to go.” And was home to watch the second half in blissful silence.

This weekend, my wife and I are inviting one guest, our son (who is as crazy a fan as I am if not more so) and we will watch. There’s even a possibility I’ll pay attention to the commercials.

Have a great weekend and don’t bet too much,

Andy and John

The More Things Change the More They...Change. 01/30,26

Since when did it become so hard to watch tv? Well that depends. If you’re reading this, chances are you remember the good old days. The days when you turned the tv on with an on/off switch. You actually got up from your coach and manually changed the channels. Not that there were so many choices.

In New York we had the three networks, CBS (channel 2), NBC (channel 4), ABC (channel 7). That was basically it for the big blockbuster shows. Oh sure we had fill-ins. Channel 5 was a local FOX station before FOX became FOX. Channel 9 was called WOR. They showed the Mets games for free! Imagine that. And they had Chiller Theater which used to scare the bejeezus out of me and my younger brother. You want Dracula, Frankenstein, Godzilla, King Kong (“Oh,no, it wasn’t the airplanes, (insert long meaningful pause) it was beauty killed the beast.”) And a personal favorite, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, with one of my favorite movie voiceovers of all time, when Kevin McCarthy looks into his girlfriends eyes who had fallen asleep in one second and had become one of THEM. “In a second, the woman I loved was an inhuman enemy bent on my destruction.” If you’re getting the impression that I watched far too much tv as a kid, you’re right. But to finish the channel lineup, we had channel 11, WPIX, which showed the Yankee games for free and finally Channel 13, WNDT, which was the PBS station which I never watched. That’s it. 7 channels.

Now, I’ve got one remote that turns on the cable tv and then a second remote that turns on streaming tv, I do all this through an Apple TV, which is not a tv at all but a box that allows your tv to stream. Huh? Oh, and that’s not all. The cable has to go through HDMI 2, while the streaming goes through HDMI 4, requiring you to hit the input button on the regular remote but not on the Apple Remote which makes the switch automatically. But don’t worry, as soon as you figure it out, it’ll change again. No wonder I read so many books.

Which brings us to our next comic, corkage fees. If you don’t know what a corkage fee is, it’s something snooty restaurants charge when you bring your own bottle of wine. It can be as high as $50.00. The reason they do this is obvious. It’s to encourage you to buy their wine and discourage you from bringing your wine. Alcohol is by far the biggest profit maker for a restaurant. John and I were talking about this and the thing that seemed disingenuous was the term “corkage.” They’re really not charging you $30 -$50 to remove the cork, are they? So I asked John, what happens if you bring in a screwtop bottle, no corkage there? And he said, then it’s a screwage fee and bam, we had our second comic. Sometimes it seems so easy, but most of the time, it’s not.

Well that’s it for this week. Before we go I have to open a bootle of Snapple Diet Peach Tea. The best part? No cap opening fee. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John