Stevie and James 07/22/22

So the SOS (Saga Of Stevie) finally comes to an end. Yes, Sid has a significant other named Stevie. And no, Stevie does not turn out to be a boy. And yes, Sid’s Uncle Tim, who is gay, was wrong in thinking Stevie might be a man and Sid might be gay. In talking to some readers about the comic, a couple of people (one who is in her 40’s, for crying out loud) didn’t understand the term gay-dar. As a public service, allow us to explain. Gay-dar is a portmanteau, (a mash-up of gay and radar). It refers to the ability to tell if another person is gay or not. Tim thought it was certainly possible Sid was gay, and when it turned out Sid was straight, Al took a jab at Uncle Tim’s gay-dar. Capiche? Given that most of our readership tends to be on the other side of 50, we wondered how they might react to wondering about the sexuality of their grown children. I know of a dad whose teenage son, in an all-boys boarding school, wondered if he was gay. The dad gave (in my opinion) a beautiful response, saying something to the effect of “It wouldn’t matter to me either way. I would love you just the same if you were gay or straight and you and someone you love and who loves you back will always be welcome here with open arms. The only thing we care about is your happiness.” The kid said thanks, but here’s the kicker. Years later when he knew he was straight, he got angry with his dad and said, “Why didn’t you tell me I was straight in the first place!” So even when you do the right thing, it turns out wrong. That’s part and parcel of being a parent. Let’s hope Sid and Stevie live happily ever after. As an interesting aside, John and I were debating what this woman’s name should be. We went through all the names that could belong to both men and women, and after suggesting the obvious ones like Sam, Pat and Alex, I remembered my own son once dated a girl named Stevi (no “e” at the end) and that sealed the deal.

Our second strip of the week (first on your scroll) featured a concert that John attended with his wife at Tanglewood. For those of you who have never been there or heard of it (think Ravinia, for our midwestern readers) it’s an outdoor concert venue featuring classical music with a few classic folk singers sprinkled in from time to time. In John’s case, he and his wife Linda attended a James Taylor concert early this summer. These things tend to be massive gatherings of older people (I think you get a free pass if you can prove you attended Woodstock) carrying coolers, backpacks, ice bags, wine, cheese and maybe a marijuana vape pen (or two). The tendency most of us have is to look around and think, look at all these old people, before realizing, wait, what do we look like to them? This is also true of the apartment building I moved into 8 years ago with my wife. It isn’t billed as a 55+ community, but clearly it is one. When they had an open house, I whispered to my wife, “Look how old these people are,” before realizing what we looked like to them (impossibly young and beautiful). But back to the comic, John and I talked about what would be the most distinguishing feature of a person attending a (pick one) James Taylor, Steely Dan, Allman Brothers, Michael McDonald concert and we landed upon the bald guy with a ponytail. Yeah, we get it, you used to be cool as hell, but now, you’re 65. Truth be told, I considered the look myself but then decided to go the route of a shaved head and two-day growth of beard. I made the mistake of doing this one summer when we sent our kids off to sleep-away camp. When it came time for Visiting Day, they took one look at me … and burst into tears. Who was this strange man? And what happened to dad? I relented and went back to my Larry David look, clean shaven with messy hair on the sides. And I’ll let you in on a secret. It’s much easier to shave everyday than to maintain the two-day growth look. Or you can go John’s way and do the full-beard, mountain-man look. I’d consider that myself, except I’m way too sloppy of an eater as it is, and the visual of me chowing down a pepperoni pizza with a thick beard is not a pretty image.

So that’s it for this week and we will see you next week with two new ones, hot off the press.

Andy and John.

ON POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND WAITING

“Patience is a virtue,” claimed English poet William Langland in 1360. That’s a long time ago. But today, some 662 years later, we are asked to be constantly patient. Waiting on line at the drugstore, waiting online while that stupid beachball from hell keeps spinning on your computer screen, waiting for a fellow texter to respond, waiting for a table at a popular restaurant (“as soon as that table pays the check, the table is yours”) and most annoyingly, waiting in the doctor’s office which is where we take you in our first comic (second in your scroll). I don’t know how many times I have sat in a waiting room stewing, thinking, “I’m gonna charge them MY hourly fee and deduct it from the final bill!!!!” Yeah right. But this time Al figures, “Screw it, how about I make the doctor wait?” It works in a comic strip, good luck trying it in real life.

Our second strip deals with political correctness. Now surely, if an entire race or culture finds a term insulting, we should do our best to avoid using it in the future. But the rules keep constantly changing. For instance, we no longer should refer to a “master bedroom,” because “master” is a term that dates back to slavery. We should now refer to it as the “primary bedroom.” Just yesterday, I found myself in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, and stopped at a Chinese restaurant named Koi. First of all, every other place named Koi, is a Japanese restaurant. But what struck me most is what was written underneath Koi on the restaurant’s sign in the parking lot. It said, “Koi, Oriental food.” Now I know you can’t say “Oriental” anymore unless you’re talking about a rug, but here was a Chinese restaurant with a Japanese name using the offending term (I wasn’t offended, I was too busy enjoying the chicken with black bean sauce). Similarly, John was listening to classic rock and wondering, what if he was walking along, listening to some playlist on his headphones, singing out loud, and Lou Reed’s “Take a Walk on the Wild Side,” came up. Would you sing the politically correct version instead? Incidentally, “Take a Walk on the Wild Side” along with “Lola” were way ahead of their time, dealing with cross-dressing and transsexuality (Fran Lebowitz once said, “Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women it is merely a good excuse not to play football.”) But I digress. The point is that these two avant-garde songs still had phrases that today seem completely out of touch. So what’s a confused 60-something to do? Don’t ask us, we don’t have a freakin’ clue.

Have a terrific weekend and we’ll be back next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

A TRIP TO THE (USED) BOOKSTORE 2/18/22

Many of us wax poetic over small stores and the lack thereof. The corner drugstore has given way to CVS. The barber shop to SportsClips. And of course record stores, bookstores and dvd rentals to Amazon, Amazon and Netflix (not to mention Amazon). If a superstore like Barnes and Noble struggles, then what chance do used bookstores and record stores have? Spoiler alert: a range from very little to none at all. My 30 something daughter, her husband and their baby live in Brooklyn (where else)? And my daughter recently bought a turntable for them to play actual 33 1/3 lps on vinyl at home. I loved it and as chance had it, there was a vintage vinyl store two blocks from their home. After all, it’s Brooklyn. So I went in to buy them a present. I got lost in the racks, remembering all those albums, and album covers, speaking to the owner and just overall having a great time. I must have spent half an hour in there and I was the only customer that entire time. Then I found the the album that started the late, great Janis Joplin and her band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Cheap Thrills, with the iconic cartoon cover by R. Crumb. I brought it up to the register and the owner told me it was $3.99. I couldn’t fathom it. I gave him $10 and told him to keep the change. He was beyond grateful. So the question is, if that’s how little they’re selling for, then how much can you reasonably expect to get paid when you’re trying to sell your inventory to them? Second spoiler alert: not much.

Which brought John to this idea of visiting a used bookstore. If you happen to have one in your neighborhood, pay them a visit. They’re wonderful places to hang out. They are definitely not wonderful places to make money. As Al vainly tries to bargain, he also shares his thoughts about how it feels to read biographies of famous pepole in the past. And here’s a third spoiler alert: it doesn’t make him feel accomplished. I agree. I mean when I read the biography of Steve Jobs, the story of how he started Apple, got kicked out and then returned to make it the most profitable company in the world…about how he invented the Mac, the iMac, the iPod, iPad, iPhone, AppleWatch and so on, how am I supposed to feel when I realize my accomplishments spanned the range of dreaming up scenarios of women breaking up with their mops and brooms to working on a twice weekly comic strip? At least John invented the Little Caesars guy with his toga so he has a lasting legacy. Sigh. This is why when I go to the bookstore, I read novels. They’re about made-up people and things, so there’s no way to fall short of them. They’re not real. Except for James Bond.

That’s it for this week and we will see you next week with a new series about…you’ll just have to wait. How’s that for a cliffhanger? Have a great weekend, and think about this: no new comics about football for at least 7 months.

Andy and John

I've got too much time on my hands 07/10/2020

If you’re retired, you’ve got too much time to think. And ponder. And rethink. And re-ponder. You think about useful stuff and not so useful stuff. Like retronyms. And what’s the use of your ingenious insights if you can’t share them? John and I both have a love for words and for trivia. Combine them and you come up with a bunch of stuff not many other people give two hoots about. For instance, what’s the only place on Manhattan Island that isn’t part of New York, or for that matter, the United States? It’s considered international territory. It’s the United Nations. Or did you know that Times Square was named Times Square because that’s where the NY Times was published? Or that Woody Allen’s real name is Allen Konigsberg? Well we are filled with such useless, trivial info and couldn’t wait to share it with you all. So we dumped it on Al’s son, because it would take John way too long to draw all of you. And, even though he has great love for his dad, he eventually throws up the white flag. Meanwhile, did you know that Babe Ruth once ate 13 hot dogs at…never mind.

Next up is Malcolm Gladwell’s theory of what it takes to be really good at something. 10,000 hours of practice. Now that might be useful to an 11 year old kid trying to be a great baseball player. Or ballet dancer. Or writer, painter, chef, etc. But what about a 60-something guy trying to learn harmonica? (Or golf, which I still haven’t mastered after at least 10,000 hours, thank you very much Mr. Gladwell). How much patience would it take from the person trying to accrue the aforementioned 10,000 hours of practice, and more importantly, how much patience would it take from his friends and family members forced to listen to many of those musically-mangled hours? Our conclusion: few people would have the patience, up to and including Marv’s wife Rachel.

Hopefully you guys have the patience to wait for us to reach 10,000 hours of comic creation, before we become “experts.” In the meantime we will continue our journey with two brand new comics next week.

Thanks for hanging in there and have a terrific weekend,

Andy and John