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

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

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

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

Andy and John

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

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