Our Memories Aren't Quite What They Used to...wait what was I saying? 03/08/24

Sometimes we get ideas out of thin air. Mostly from experience. And occasionally, from a reader’s experience. In this case a good buddy of mine, Peter Samberg, an excellent lawyer, has become an adjunct professor of Law at Mercy University, or more accurately, Legal Studies Program Coordinator, Mock Trial (in other words, adjunctpProfessor). He actually made a reference to everybody’s favorite lawyer, Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinny.” As it turns out, Pesci is everybody’s favorite lawyer who is older than 50. I mean c’mon now. who among us doesn’t remember “two yoots?” But in this case, when the good professor brought up a legal argument made in “My Cousin Vinny” he was met with a classroom full of blank stares. I’ve heard that from other adjunct professors I know. Any attempt at a cultural reference that has great meaning to us, has little or no meaning to them. Now to be fair, it works both ways. Case in point, I took my family to see “Hamilton” when it opened. When the epic duel happens, they sing a song “Ten Duel Commandments.” My son calmly turned to me and said, “Oh, he’s riffing off ‘The Ten Crack Commandment’ by the Notorious B.I.G.” Huh? Oh yeah. Of course. I knew that.

Our other effort this week happened when John and I asked each other how many telephone numbers we remember. Not many. And here’s the thing: I have an almost photographic memory for numbers. Before the cell phone became ubiquitous, I worked in a smallish (is that even a word?) ad agency of about 200 or so people. Everybody had a 4-digit extension attached to the agency’s main number. I still remember mine, X 5169. But here’s the thing. I knew almost everyone’s 4 digit extension. Seriously, people would come up to me and ask, “What’s Jessica’s extension?”And I knew. But now, no way. And it’s got nothing to do with aging. For example John and I call each other multiple times each week. Neither of us has any idea what the other guy’s number is. Why? Because of our damn cell phones. There’s no reason to remember anyone’s number. It’s just, “Hey Siri, call John.” But what happens if your cell phone dies? Those same phones give students no real reason to know their times tables in math. “Hey Siri, what’s 12 multiplied by 2?” These are all lost arts. But supposedly when your phone performs all these tasks, it frees your mind up for more conceptual thinking, like “I wonder what I’m gonna make for lunch?” Or “If I leave the house at 3:30 I’ll have plenty of time to get to the dentist’s office for my 4:15.”

Anyway, have a great weekend. I am off for a mid-week golf trip ‘cause that’s what you can do when you stop working a full-time job. I hope I remember my phone.

Andy and John

Improving Memory and Health 1/21/22

First the health part. Now if you are like many of us, you’ve made a few New Year’s resolutions that you are promising to stick to. High on the list is the vow to stay in shape. There’s an old Nike ad I love and it features a lone runner in silhouette on a distant bridge running across the background of a beautiful sunset. And the copy goes something like this (remember, I’m relying on my memory here) “Why do I run? Because there’s this guy, he’s fat, balding, approaching 50 and he’s trying to catch up to me, and I won’t ever let him get me.” At least it’s pretty close to that. Now we just have to modify that copy to say “He walks with a cane, he runs out of breath too easily, he’s in his 80’s (okay, his 90’s) and I won’t let him catch up to me.” Scary, right? So to prevent this from happening, yours truly joined a beautiful, new health club. The other day, with the temperature hovering around 8 degrees, I went. I hopped on the treadmill to do “interval training” where you walk or run at a slightly faster pace than usual but then, every five minutes, you run like a bat-out-of-hell for one minute. 5 minutes later, you run like a slightly faster bat-out-of-hell and so on. Here’s the problem. In keeping up with the latest health and safety protocols, the gym requires everyone to wear a mask. I totally get it and support it. But try sprinting with a mask on. It’s not fun. The “gasping for air” part becomes much more difficult because you’re trying to breathe through a mask. But I figured out how to show them! I just pulled the mask away from my face, sucking in all that potentially covid-ravaged air, until my breathing calmed down. When I mentioned this to John, he said something like, “Yep, that’s a comic.” Don’t ask me exactly what he said because my memory isn’t quite what it used to be. Which segues perfectly into our second comic, Memory Tricks.

Now this is one that popped out of John’s head in whole. It wasn’t like, here’s an idea, let’s discuss. It was more like here’s an idea and I even sketched it out. And here’s the thing. it was damn good. We usually deal in reality, and say the things most of us think but don’t say out loud. This one was a full-scale trip to the land of make-believe. What appealed most to me was the vision of Mickey Mouse on the toilet. Anyway, the trick described in the comic is an actual memory trick. It’s not the trick I would have used to remember, but it was funnier than mine. Mine would skew closer to reality, when thinking about how to remember I’d left the memory book in the bathroom. I would have thought, this book is shit, and that would have helped me remember it was in the bathroom. John’s vision is much more fun and a hell of a lot better to visualize.

That’s all we’ve got this week, keep your masks on when you’re indoors with strangers, yeah even in a health club, and have a good weekend

Andy and John

Both Ends of the Life Cycle 5/7/21

That’s convenient, now isn’t it? My daughter just had a baby a month ago and now Al’s daughter has one! Imagine the coincidence. Is it art imitating life? No, it’s just a damn good storyline. But unlike Al’s daughter, mine actually revealed her baby’s gender (a girl, Charlotte) as soon as she found out from the doctor. But John and I felt a gender reveal party was just too juicy to pass up. It’s the kind of thing that has made its way into the cultural zeitgeist, and most of us 60+ year-olds have heard of it but actually have no idea what it means. John and I actually called our daughters to get the lowdown. The bottom line is this: some people want to know the gender of their baby before it comes out, some want it to be a surprise and some want to make it an excuse for a party, or in the lexicon of today, an event. As my children used to say “In real true life,” one of these parties had a couple setting off fireworks, which led to a massive wildfire destroying thousands of acres of California. Another in Mexico just last month had a small plane flying over Mexico, set to reveal the baby’s gender. The only problem was it crashed and the result wasn’t pretty. We promise a gender reveal party somewhere down the road where nobody dies or even gets injured. But don’t ask us what the baby’s gender is because we ain’t tellin’!

The second strip is something a lot of us in this age group has gone through or is going through. It involves selling your parents’ house because either they’ve moved into an assisted living home or they passed away. Gosh this blog is very morbid today, isn’t it? John and I have both been through some form of this and everybody tells you the same thing, “Don’t get emotional. Whatever the buyer want to do with the house is up to them. It’s no longer the home you grew up in. It’s now their home.” You can nod along in agreement to this very rational piece of advice, but when the moment comes, all reason flies out the window. Marv’s interior dialogue goes something like this: “That was MY room damnit! And if I say it’s a great boy’s room, then that’s what you should use it for. I don’t care that you don’t have kids. Keep your freakin’ loom outta here and put up some posters of Jacob deGrom, okay?!” (By the way, that last piece of punctuation - ?! - is called an interrobang. John taught me that from a book about cartooning, written by Mort Walker, the creator of Beetle Bailey). At any rate, Instead of that angry interior rant, Marv just says, “Or a loom, a loom would be perfect in here.” This type of debate between the internal dialogue and what actually pours from our characters’ mouths is the type of discussion we have every week. If you know us it would come as no surprise that I would be the type to say the internal dialogue out loud whereas John would go for the second, more politic way of speaking. Since you’ve already read the comic, I guess you can figure out who won the debate for what Marv actually does say.

So that’s it for this week. Next week we’ve got another series coming up. We’ll be checking in on Sam, as he deals with the demands of being a new dad in his 60’s. The fun begins.

Have a safe, covid-free weekend and thanks for staying with us

Andy and John

On Memories and How to get Remembered 4/23/21

If you’ve never spent anytime working in an ad agency you should consider yourself lucky. If, however, you have spent the better part of three decades in the ad game, as John and I each did, then you know all about product placement. This phenomenon has only gotten bigger over time, since most people record shows and fast forward through the commercials. According to the two of us, this is now acceptable since you no longer risk fast forwarding through any of the commercials we created. This is why you now see tv shows and movies where people drink a can of Diet Coke, or open up an Apple computer (it’s always Apple, never anything else) or pour a glass of Casamigos tequila over a very large ice cube. That’s one of the ways products advertise themselves, but how about comics? “Who gives a damn” you ask? We do! Gone are the days when you split your proceeds equally with a syndicate, and popular comics would collect $50 a day for every newspaper in which they appeared. You could make a fine living indeed like that. But nooooooo. That model no longer exists. Physical newspapers almost no longer exist. So now you publish your comic for free, people tell their friends about it (hint, hint) and then you develop such a large following that the advertisers come flocking to your website. And then your characters can appear on t-shirts, coffee mugs and the like. So we wondered, what type of products would fit with a comic about people in their 60’s? What type of audience is attracted to our comic? In general, our audience is comprised of people in their 50’s through 70’s and beyond. The male/female split is about equal. Most of our audience won’t be carrying a lunch box to work and we don’t think their grandchildren will be interested in a Marv lunch box anyhow. So we came up with a bunch of really sexy items like hemorrhoid donuts and adult diapers. Trust us, we would have included dental adhesives and generic Viagra, but we ran out of room. But think about it, if you were strolling down the aisle of your local Walgreens and saw a package of adult diapers adorned with pictures of Marv and Al and Rachel and Joanne, wouldn’t you be tempted to buy it? I mean, who could resist? Look for them soon at a store near you. And if you don’t need such a product, how about branded New 60 memory pills? We all need those. And who can remember the name of Preva something or other anyway?

Which is actually a slick segue into our second comic, a trip to the store to buy memory pills. The trouble with the pills is you have to remember the name of them from the time you saw them in a commercial (because you forgot to fast forward through it) up until the moment you ask for whatchamacallit in the store. I imagine they have secret training sessions at every CVS and Walgreens with the employees. And management tells them, “Now remember, if you see a senior approaching you in the vitamin and supplement aisle and they ask, “What’s the name of that…” you just cut them off and say “Prevagen.” And to the makers of Prevagen, you can thank us for mentioning you right now and to start working with our lawyer on an endorsement deal. Think about it. You could feature us in an episode of The Kaminsky Method. Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin are in the drug store, and one forgets the other’s name, despite the fact that they have been besties for years. Michael turns to Alan, and with totally natural-sounding dialogue, says “Hey what’s your name, what’s the name of that memory pill you’ve been taking?” And without skipping a beat, Alan says, “Why that’s The New 60 version of Prevagen, the only memory pill I use.” Do you see how seamlessly that fits in? But what if by chance, Michael Douglas reacts by saying, “Now wait a minute, isn’t that the comic where the guy named Marv wants a soup spoon and when he goes to the kitchen to retrieve one, he forgets why he’s in the kitchen in the first place? Why would I want a memory pill endorsed by those clowns?” Then we conclude he doesn’t need the product in the first place. So there’s absolutely no downside. Do you hear that Prevagen? Huh?

So that is it for this week, A special birthday shout out to Andy's wife Joanie today. Happy 34th (x2), love ya honey. We will be back with you again with new comics and a blog to close out the month of April and soon, summer will be here. Yay.

Andy and John

Food Fight 05/22/2020

Now, more than ever, our lives revolve around food. With everyone sheltering in place, we are more likely to talk about food, think about food, shop for food and yes, fight about food. This week’s two comics take their lead from that. The first one comes from the insight that when you wear a mask, 1) most people don’t know who you are and 2) most people can’t hear what you say. Andy goes on a lot of hikes and when he passes somebody not wearing a mask, he mutters into his mask, “wear a f^*%king mask.” When he sees a mask worn under someone’s chin, he is reminded of Bill Maher’s comment, “wearing a mask around your chin is like wearing a condom around your balls. It doesn’t work!!!”

When Andy related his habit of muttering mean stuff under his mask to John, it inspired John to think about point #1, “under that mask, you can do just about anything you want, because nobody knows who you are.” Despite being married to women, Andy and John both love Broadway show tunes, so our initial thought was to have Marv belt one out. But then John wanted the theme from Oklahoma and Andy wanted “Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes,” so we scrapped that and came up with “What’s New Pussycat?” which is not a show tune at all so you might as well forget the previous two sentences. And don’t suggest we delete them, it’s not in our contract.

The second comic strip today is also concerned with food. If you’re like either of us, you want to minimize trips to the grocery store. That being said, you probably eye what’s in the fridge and plan your next meal accordingly. What if you saw some cheddar cheese and had two slices of bread? You might ponder a grilled cheese sandwich. What about if you had two slices of bacon left and wanted to limit your dairy? Well then let’s make it a BLT. What if you wanted to cut out meat? We didn’t get that far and it messes up the idea (eg: one impossible burger left, not so funny), so we landed on a BLT. What if you inadvertently ate the one thing your spouse had their eye on? Or what if he or she unwittingly did that to you? How far would you go to replace what they longed for? Apparently, not that far.

That’s it for this week. Andy is off to watch Game 3 of the 1986 World Series, and please, don’t tell him who won. He’s pretending he doesn’t remember so the game still seems exciting to him (don’t ask). We will be back next week with two new ones that reflect our new reality. Gosh that sounded dire, but like the comics hopefully show, you can still have a bit of fun, even in a pandemic.

Andy and John

On resolutions and remembering 1/17/2020

Who among us has not made a list of New Year’s resolutions? Who remembers them? Not important. We’re here to make fun of your resolutions. If you are in The New 60 age range, chances are one of your resolutions was to stay in shape. Now you can do that in age-appropriate ways like, walking, bicycling (on an ebike, of course), swimming, golf (in a cart, duh), tennis (doubles only, double duh), pilates, yoga, etc. And then there are the sports we make fun of. Why? No wise guy, not because we can’t play them anymore. Because they are sports where the participants refuse to give into age. Okay, we also can’t play them anymore. Examples: pick up basketball, over 50 slo-pitch softball, touch football, even soccer. Note: Andy plays golf mostly in a cart and John plays tennis, mostly doubles, so don’t even THINK about making fun of either of those activities. In our first comic (which appears second in your email) we picked on pickup basketball because, in the immortal words of Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman in MIdnight Cowboy) “I’m fallin’ apart here!”

The next comic, which comes up first (don’t ask, it’s complicated) is about memory. Specifically, remembering people’s names to whom you only have a tangential connection. Now, if you are like us, you have developed strategies to combat the embarassment of forgetting somebody you are supposed to know. There’s the one on one meeting: just introduce yourself, hoping the other person will introduce themselves. It goes something like this, You: “Hi, Andy.” To which the other guy say: “I know, Tom.” To which you reply, “Of course. Hi Tom.” Then there’s the two on one where you know only one of the other people’s names. You say to the person you don’t know, “Hi, have you met George?” And the other person says, “No, I haven’t, pleased to meet you, I’m Tom.” (By the way, why are we always forgetting Tom?) That method is almost foolproof. But then there’s the situation where you get approached by two people and you forget both their names. Then you’re screwed. You have to go for the Hail Mary of “Do you guys know each other?” In our comic, they said “No” at which point, you’re done.

So what are some other solutions to this embarassing phenomenon, which we guess, does not improve with age. One idea is to hire one of those senate aides who goes around galas whispering in the Senator’s ear, “That’s Martha, the representative from Arizona. That’s her husband Bill beside her, and their oldest daughter Claire is going to be a freshman at Arizona State in the fall.” Lacking somebody like that, you can always rely on your spouse or life partner. In Andy’s case, his wife Joanie once rescued him be saying, “You remember Tom (poor Tom again),” to which Andy stupidly replied, “No.”

At any rate, thank you for continuing to read us. Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next week.

Andy and John