Here Comes Summer. 05/19/23

If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve likely seen both of today’s comics already. One dealt (mercifully) with Al’s final game as an ump. And the other deals with Marv settling in for the season with his new backyard setup. But first a word about the strip. Well it seems that Andy (that’s me) turned 70 last week, which begs the question, can a 70-year old still write about life in your 60’s? And the answer is, hell yeah. And John is still squarely in his 60’s. I can hear you 60 somethings sitting back there saying, I still play tennis while you play pickleball, I ride a real bike while you ride an e-bike, I walk 18 holes, blah, blah, blah. Let me tell you something, I can do everything you 60-year olds can do. Just not quite as well. And to tell the truth, I haven’t yet tried pickleball. Besides, as John points out, Charlie Brown never aged, nor did Lucy, or Popeye. And neither did Beetle Bailey, Dagwood Bumstead or for that matter, Dick Tracy. So the New 60 will continue to be the New 60, and besides, John is 5 years younger. And he plays tennis. And rides a real bike. Far. Which gets us back to summer.

Sure Al tried his hand at umping the boys of summer, but a brutal collision at home plate, getting barreled over by an aggressive 8-year old, ends his newest career path. Which is a good thing, because sooner or later he was bound to call his grandson Billy out at the plate, and who knows where that would’ve gone? Actually we do, but we’re not telling.

And then there’s Marv in his new backyard setup. When you have dreams like building a pool, buying a sports car or (in my wife’s case) traveling to Bhutan, if you don’t do it now, when are you gonna do it? Now is the time to go for it. Unless you’re like the long-suffering fans of the old Brooklyn Dodgers who, upon losing to the hated Yankees year after year (except for 1955 when they finally beat them), adopted the famous slogan, “Wait ‘til next year.”

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

Andy and John

It Depends on How You Look at It. 09/16/22

A lot of us are getting to the age where we’re becoming grandparents. For John it was a little over a month ago and for me it was April 2021. Now most grandchildren come with two sets of grandparents, and chances are, they are both over the moon with their new arrivals. So, with this being baseball season, and with John and I both being New Yorkers, we figured we’d get the twins a matching set of Mets’ pajamas. In fact, my son bought his niece NY Giants’ pj’s, which she proudly (okay maybe not proudly, but she wore it, okay?) wore during the Giants improbable victory against the Tennessee Titans last Sunday. And even though we have only good feelings towards the other set of grandparents, there is still an underlying pang of jealousy. From one side: “Oh, you took them to Disney World, how great.” From the other, “Oh, you spent the summer with them, how great.” So what if both sets of grandparents bought onesies, which competing team’s onesie would piss off a Mets fan more? The Braves? The Phillies? Nah. The Yankees, and that was the inspiration for our comic.

Next came a situation based on an invitation to the Catskills. It was a wedding and my wife and I accompanied our son there this summer. One thing about mountains, they have no telephone reception and very, very spotty WiFi. We were trying to get somewhere and trust me, it’s hard enough to do out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s nearly impossible to do so without wifi. You end up asking people and they end up misunderstanding you. It’s a rule. Plus, when you’re giving me directions, don’t tell me, “head north out of the parking lot.” Tell me “make a left out of the parking lot.” Because a) I don’t know which way north is, and b) I’m too embarrassed to admit it. This trip proved challenging in many ways which will lead to another strip in the near future and that’s one of the great things about having a comic strip. When you get lost, frustrated, hacked, become the victim in an accident, etc., it still sucks, but at least you can say to yourself, “Well, that’s another strip!” We’ll see what kind of trouble we can get in in future months, but until then, enjoy. And wait for our new collection of comics in a coffee table book this holiday season.

Andy and John

Leftovers 08/26/22

As the summer rushes to a close (can Labor Day really be a week away), we start packing up to return to our normal routines. If you happened to rent a vacation home, it’s time to take stuff out of the refrigerator and either 1) toss it out or 2) take it home. Hint: toss it out. But it is our observation that most couples consist of a hoarder and a tosser outer. This inevitably leads to conflict. “But this yogurt is one day past its expiration date! Toss it!” Followed by “We haven’t even opened it. It’ll be fine tomorrow.” Followed by, “I won’t eat it!” Followed by, “Fine, I will!” Sound familiar? Well there’s a crucial step prior to the tossing out step. And that is the “to go” step at the end of a typical restaurant meal. Most restaurant meals are way larger than they need to be (except for molecular gastronomy, which we covered in early August) which leads to the inevitable decision at the end of said meal. The waitperson approaches the table with some form of “Would you like me to wrap that up for you/still working on that/do you need more time?” My least favorite end of meal request happened in a fancy Portland, Maine, restaurant when the waitress inquired, “How were your flavors?” I wanted to reply, ”I don’t know, eat me,” but decided (for once in my life) that marital happiness trumped cleverness, and responded, “Fine.” Back to the takeout. John pointed out that most take out containers make it back to the refrigerator (unless you forget them overnight in the back seat of your car) where they remain unopened for the rest of the week, before being tossed into the garbage -unopened and uneaten. You’d think we’d learned our lessons after repeating this habit after almost every restaurant meal, but nah, we’re likely to reply to the waiter/waitress, “Thanks, I’ll take it to go.”

Our other comic is also about leftovers. Leftover Covid tests, to be exact. Did you know that Covid tests have an expiration date? John did. I had no clue, but the knowledge that the tests had a time limit changed our behavior around the tests. We’re having company for dinner tonight? Ask them to take a test. You coughed, sneezed, felt tired, felt sad that the Mets got swept by the Yankees, take a test. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I am awfully tired of continually sticking that overgrown Q-tip up my nose. Ugh! Maybe that’s why Dr. Fauci decided it was time to retire. In any event, stay safe and Covid-free and if it means sticking that swab up there again, and if I have to, then sigh, stick it I will. Have a great weekend and we will see you on Labor Day weekend as we prepare to launch into the fall. At least we’re all old enough to not have to go back to school.

Andy and John

Ahh, Baseball and Fresh Dirt. What could be better? 5/13/22

With summer rapidly approaching, our thoughts turn to baseball. And since this is the New 60 Comic, we turned to the joys of taking your grandchild to a baseball game. As summer rituals go, this one can’t be beat. But, it gets even better when it comes to teaching your kids (and now grandkids) how to keep a proper baseball scorecard, a feat both John and I managed to pass down. My first job out of college was as a sportswriter for the Pawtucket Times, and part of that job was, from time to time, to be an official scorekeeper for the beloved minor league team, the Pawtucket Red Sox. Trust me when I say it didn’t pay well. You got $4.50 for the scorecard you turned in to the league and an additional $4.50 for the one you turned in to the team. I learned this one night when covering for the sports editor for the local newspaper (my boss) who was attending the wedding of his 8th or 9th chlld (I didn’t do such a hot job of keeping score of how many children this guy had). Before the game ended he called from the wedding to tell me to just leave the scorecards on the scorer’s table, and he’d turn them in. When I turned to a fellow reporter who worked for the Woonsocket Call and asked why my editor would ask me such a thing, he replied, “Because he’s a cheap bastard who was thinking about the $9 bucks he was missing out on.” That summed up my editor perfectly. Anyway, suffice it to say that the experience made me into a pretty good scorekeeper. For instance, do you know what it’s called when a guy steals a base and the catcher doesn’t try to throw him out? Defensive Indifference, and it goes in the scorebook as DI. Did you know when the pitcher walks a batter, you don’t score it as a “W” for walk, but a BB for “Base on Balls?” Did you know when a pitcher strikes a guy out, it doesn’t get scored as an “SO” it gets scored as a “K?” Unless the batter strikes out without swinging his bat, in which case it goes into the books as a backwards K (there’s no way to type that on a computer)? Did you know, and more importantly, do you care? Well, it’s a time-honored tradition to pass this skill along to the next generation, but it is becoming a lost art form. When my dad used to take me to games, he’d buy a scorebook and pencil for 0.15 cents. And he’d lose interest in scoring by about the 6th inning. So is it any wonder that when Al teaches his grandson, the kid takes his eye off the ball, so to speak, and turns said eye to a gigantic swirl of cotton candy? I’m proud to say that my son, even at age 7, would’ve known how the bases got loaded, and besides, he never cared much for candy. My wife and I used to routinely steal his Halloween candy and when he got a little older, he’d just hand it to us.

Our other comic this week goes to the joys of grandparenthood (is that even a word?). Unlike scorekeeping, which never changes from one generation to the next, the rules of being a parent, and therefore a grandparent, are constantly changing. Hence when you treat your grandchildren the way you treated your own children, you may be out of step with current thinking. Our childhoods were more laissez-faire. When we said we were going bike riding with our friends, our parents said, “Okay, just make sure you’re home for dinner by 6.” Not so much anymore. Nowadays the parent drops the kid off for a playdate, and then the playdate parent says “You can ride your bikes but just around the block and don’t you dare go into the street!” So it is in this changing environment that Al falls a bit short of his daughter’s expectations. Although both John and I thought his comeback was pretty good. Anyway, it’s a new dynamic. We were used to telling our kids what to do, but when it comes to taking care of their kids, they’re the ones telling us what to do. Although we still might let them stay up a half-hour after their appointed bedtimes, but shhh, please don’t tell.

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

Andy and John

On the Joy of Baseball Day Games and Click Clack 05/06/22

So many things we used to play with as children have now been reconsidered as hazardous. I am reminded of a scene from Mad Men. Sally Draper, daughter of Don and Betty, was having a good time, running around with a plastic, dry cleaning bag over her head. Her mom, Betty Draper, possibly the worst mom in the history of television (June Cleaver she wasn't) calls her daughter over to chastise her. But what comes out of her mouth is “If the clothes that were in that dry cleaning bag are on the floor of my closet, you are going to be one unhappy young lady!” It was with that type of empathy and foresight that the makers of Click Clack must have tapped into when inventing their product. It was two acrylic balls attached at the opposite ends of a piece of string. When you flipped your wrist up and down the balls would click together at the top of their arc and then clack at the bottom. Click, clack, it went faster and faster until, oops, the acrylic balls had a previously undisclosed tendency to shatter, sending shards of sharp acrylic pieces flying through the air. As the saying goes, what could possibly go wrong?

The other comic at the baseball game, that scene actually happened to me. Or something close to that. I went to a midweek afternoon game, my favorite kind, just me and thousands of brightly t-shirted camp kids, and randomly started a conversation with another guy two seats to my right. The seat between us was empty. Somewhere in about the third inning I heard somebody in the row in back of me address his friend by his full name. I recognized the name so I turned around and saw not one, not two, not three, but four guys I used to work with, including the guy who initially hired me. I was happy to see them but mortified that I was there by myself. I wondered what they were thinking, “Poor guy, he has no friends,” so I started talking more to the guy two seats away in my row. I think I fooled them. But when I told this story to John, he came up with the whispered bribe, “If I buy you a hot dog and beer will you pretend to be my friend?” Now in reality, I didn’t quite sink to that level, but I came pretty darn close. Truth is, I plan to go to a couple more midweek afternoon games this summer, so if I sort of know you, do me a favor and sit somewhere else.

Happy Cinco De Mayo and Happy National Cartoonists Day to the best cartoonist I know, and also the one I work with, John Colquhoun.

Andy and John

Are You Guys Still Talking About Retirement? Yes! 4/29/22S

So here’s the thing. We thought about Marv’s retirement and found we could do 5 comics on it. First the retirement party at work where everyone says how much they love you and loved (note the use of the past tense here) working with you. Then you get to the first days at home. If Marv bears any resemblance to me, it’s that his wife Rachel (in the wake of the pandemic) works at home and was used to having the place to herself between, say 8:30 am and 7:00 pm. And she is very self-sufficient. So when Marv starts hanging around the house wanting to “help” or accompany her to the grocery store, thereby turning a 45-minute trip into a 2-hour ordeal—”Hey what’s that brand of fabric softener you wanted me to find? And what aisle again?”—he ends up driving his poor wife crazy (not that I or John, who works from home, would ever do that). Soon Marv will find the joys of a mid-week afternoon baseball game (no crowds, just you and busloads of camp kids) or the occasional mid-week afternoon bike ride, golf game or movie theater. Sometimes, yeah sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and go yourself, where you will encounter other like-minded individuals in similar circumstances and hopefully nobody you know.

So as Marv expands his world, we expand right along with him, making new friends along the way. With every new phase in life John and I discover, we will have our characters discovering right along with us. I will speak for myself here and not my very busy partner, but after 40 years of working, how much do I miss it? Not one little bit at all. Except for meeting and working with people you like everyday. And now that more and more people are working from home, you don’t even get the “working with people you like” part anymore. But you know what, I like that “working from home” title so much, I am officially unretiring. From now on, I’m working from home, even if I’m taking a nap.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

On Retirement. Now What? 4/22/22

I remember my first day of retirement as if it were yesterday. For anybody counting, it was in November of 2016. And to be truthful, it wasn’t exactly retirement, but you get the point. So many of my friends have stopped working and their collective thought is, what am I going to do with all that time??? You’ll figure it out. So let’s get back to my first weekend as a free man. As I often did, I went for a hike with my wife. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost 4 pm and grew worried. She asked, “What’s wrong,” and I replied, “It’s almost 4 and I haven’t gone to the grocery store yet.” She said, “Why not go Monday?” What she was saying without saying is you’re free to do whatever you want now. For me, I was so used to having to fit everything (like groceries) into a tight window on weekends so it didn’t interfere with my work week. But now? What the hell. I instantly felt my shoulders relax. That fall and the ensuing spring were filled with Tuesday bike rides, Wednesday golf games, mid-week afternoon Mets games and in the winter, the occasional afternoon movie (remember when we went to movies), or even a theater matinee. And grocery shopping on a Tuesday. In the morning. With no one there. Now we’re not claiming it’s going to be all roses for Marv moving forward, because, well, he’s Marv, but we are going to examine how his presence (just as mine did 5 years ago) turns the house upside down. Everyone was used to him NOT being there Monday through Friday, from 8:30 in the morning until around 7 at night. We will follow Marv from his retirement party through his first awkward days at home, to his venturing out into the brave new world, sometimes on his own.

Our next comic dealt with, oh yeah, retirement. More on that next week, and if you’re retired, you’ll have more than enough time to see what happens. If you’re still working, you can see what you have to look forward to. And if you retired folks need an idea for what to do, you could, I don’t know…start a comic. Just don’t call it The New 60.

Enjoy the weekend,

Andy and John

On Rabbit Holes and Jackie Robinson 04/15/22

The third time is the charm. We could have gone on amost endlessly with Marv’s trip down the rabbit hole. But enough is enough. And anyway the next step would have been from the Monty Python skit, which would have seen Marv in women’s garments. “I am a lumberjack/I work all day/And I wear women’s clothes. As the New 60 is a family-rated site, we just couldn’t be having that. So Marv stopped with the rugged flannel shirt.

Now it just so happens that today is Jackie Robinson day. And we decided to bring back a New 60 classic. Got to hand it to the Mets, who are unveiling a Tom Seaver statue on the very same day. Now Tom Seaver is probably the best Met player ever, but still, Jackie Robinson. Got to give the man his due. He was a fearsome player who of course broke baseball’s color barrier, and he was strong enough to not let himself be goaded by racist players trying to get him to fight. Everything about the man is admirable. Except if you’re an announcer. You see, Jackie Robinson day is April 15th, right at the beginning of the season. And since every player on both teams wears #42 in his honor, it can get a little confusing if you don’t yet know all the players on the team. Truth be told, I had trouble naming each player on the Pawtucket Red Sox, when I started out as a sportswriter. And they all had different uniform numbers.

But enough about me. Okay, one more thing about me. I have a pinched nerve in my neck and a horrible cough, so I am cutting the blog short this week and climbing back into bed.

Have a great weekend and we will start a series about Marv’s retirement (what the hell do you do all day) next week.

Andy and John

Disappointing Results 7/23/21

Did you watch The Queen’s Gambit, a remarkable series about a fictional chess prodigy? Well, if you’re anything like me, it renewed your interest in chess, a game with no luck involved. A game that mirrors life itself. Are you defensive-minded or aggressive? Do you hide in the bushes, waiting for the right moment to attack, or are you out there big and bold, saying to your opponent, “Come get me”? I for one am aggressive. But when I said, “Come get me,” people had no problem getting me. First up was my son-in-law Mark. He and I were both basically starting from scratch. We’ve now played 5 times and he’s beaten me 5 times. At one point, one of my attacking moves left me so vulnerable, he said with pity, “Oh Andy.” Okay, so maybe I can’t beat him. Next up we had a visitor to our beach house who proclaimed, “I haven’t played in at least 15 years and I don’t think I have ever won. You’ve got nothing to worry about playing me.” He won. Finally, we had another couple over and the wife loves games. She is an avid bridge player, but didn’t know the first thing about chess. I thought, “Haha, at last, someone I can beat.” I offered to teach her the basic moves, like “This piece, the pawn, can only move straight ahead but it has to capture on an angle.” So, I showed her and corrected her and at some point she moved a piece directly challenging my king. I said, “Now you are supposed to say check.” And she tentatively called out, “check.” After studying my options I realized it was actually checkmate.” So John changed my friend’s character to an 8-year-old grandson, because we figured it was more embarrassing to lose to a first-time chess-playing kid than a first-time chess-playing adult (either would be embarrassing and I’d lose to both of them). We tweaked the ending, and that was our first comic. Oh by the way, I take back everything I said about “The Queen’s Gambit.” Chess sucks.

Now onto one of our secondary characters Sam, who used to be an announcer who made money by reading commercials. Now he is the official voice of the “Boulder City Boulders” minor league baseball team. My first real job out of college was as a sportswriter for the Pawtucket Times in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and our big team was the Red Sox’ AAA affiliate, lovingly known as the PawSox. As an aside, Pawtucket lost their beloved franchise to a newer stadium in Worcester (pronounced Wooster), MA, with the unfortunate nickname, WooSox, but there you go. Anyway, we invented a character for Boulder City, their all-time leading home run hitter, Bob “Long Ball” Bixon. As it turns out, Long Ball was a bit disappointed at the turn out for Bob Long Ball Bixon Bobblehead night, and who could blame him? As a former Boulder star who hit 38 career homers, he thought he deserved a bigger turnout. We didn’t tell him that half the people who attended were there for the postgame fireworks, because you know, Long Ball is sensitive about stuff like that. Let’s keep it as our secret, huh.

So that’s it for this week. We will be back at it again with two new ones. Until then, have a great weekend.

Andy and John

Nothing's on tv and doin' nothing 08/21/2020

With no movies, and not much going out to dinner, a lot of us are spending a lot more time together and watching a lot more tv. And when you do get to see friends, you find out they’re doing much the same. Not surprisingly, the conversation turns to some form of “Did you see that great series on TV?” Pre-pandemic, the answer usually was, “We did not.” But now, at least before the baseball season resumed, we had a chance to catch up on all we missed. There was Ozark and Catastrophe and Schitt’s Creek and Little Fires Everywhere and The Morning Show, to name a few. We loved them. And then there was Fleabag. When I mentioned to John that I was laughing my ass off, while Joanie was only watching politely, he said he had a similar experience. When it came to Ozark, at least in my household, we were both so into it. We’d ask each other questions like, “What do you think will happen next?” or “Why did Wendy do that?” Does she want to die?” For Fleabag, it was, “What’s the name of that show again?” And so our first comic of the week was born. It is another version of “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus”. I can barely stay awake during an awards show, whereas I find the Mets endlessly fascinating, even when they’re 3 games below .500. Don’t ask. Well, we can always watch the political conventions. Or not.

Next up comes from a common experience and a twist on a joke we heard from our friend, Marvin Waldman. The joke was about feeling a sense of accomplishment from doing nothing. Just make it feel like something. There’s an old cliche that states, if you want to get something done, give it to somebody who’s busy. Conversely, you don’t want to give the assignment to someone who has nothing to do. They have the time to mull over every decision from inside and out and take forever to complete the task. For instance, now that I’m retired (except for this comic strip) I was supposed to return two items to our storage locker (less than half a mile away) and still haven’t gotten to it 4 days later. In contrast, when I was working full time in advertising, my wife was pregnant with our first child, and we had to move from the city into a townhouse in a nearby suburb, we took a train out during lunch, stopped by the condo development office, and chose the wallpaper, kitchen floor, cabinets, lighting fixtures and window treatments in under and hour and took the next train back to work.

Maybe having too much time is a problem. But I’ll take it.

Have a terrific weekend and enjoy the last of the summer. We will be back next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Back to (some form of) Normal 06/26/2020

It had to happen sooner or later. Slowly but surely we’re getting back some of our old lives. Traffic is returning (not so good). Restaurants are reopening (good), but only at half capacity, (not good). People are getting a little less stringent about their masks, (good when it’s us, not when it’s somebody else). And yes, we feel brave enough to order takeout (definitely mixed). And that is the impetus of today’s first comic. We’ve seen so many places have so many different rules about what they will and will not allow. There’s our favorite Italian restaurant, which asks what color and make car you drive and your license plate, before you pull up to the curb. But I’m wary of that, because when they ask what kind of car I drive, if I say “an Audi,” will they say, “Oh, in that case we have to add a 20% GLCT (German Luxury Car Tax).

At any rate John and I have tossed around war stories about getting takeout and the tremendous steps you have to take before you show up (it’s an amalgamation of every rule the two of us have encountered), and we wondered, what would happen if you forgot something? Would you have the patience to go back their again and ask for it? John and I both decided, definitely not. Even when the local restaurant two blocks from my house forgot the salad dressing. Bastards.

The other comic, and this week you WILL receive two comics, is about, heaven forbid, going back to work. Since John and I both stopped going to an office before we started the comic, we can only imagine what it would be like, but whatever it is, it’ll likely suck. Oh sure it’ll be good to see your friends again but do you have to wear your mask indoors? What about gloves? And what about those perks, like the coffee maker? Are you reaching into the fridge and taking out the milk carton that 27 other people have touched? And about coffee. I went into a Starbucks before they shut down for awhile and they took away all the options for personalizing your coffee. For me, it’s iced coffee, and if I want to put in skim milk and top it off with half and half, and a packet of Truvia (1 and 1/2 packets if it’s a large) I’d appreciate you not looking at me that “what a weirdo” way. At least I didn’t order oat milk. But back to the office. We imagined what Marv would think, and it went something like this: “You can take away the free pens, make me swab down my laptop after every use, and wash my hands frequently…BUT DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT TAKING AWAY THE CRUMB CAKE!!!”

Believe it or not, we’re heading headlong into the summer season and we will see you next week with a new one and a happy July 4th poster, suitable for framing (just thought we’d throw that in there).

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Stay in Your Lane 4/10/2020

We wrote you a newsletter explaining why not all our comics would depict situations in and around the coronavirus. So what did we do? Almost all coronavirus. Finally last week we had two couples go to a restaurant. Remember those days? But you’ve got to admit, the news and concern about the aforementioned virus is pretty much all-consuming. However, The New 60 is all about what it’s like to be of a certain age in the here and now. Take the first comic in your scroll this week. It concerns a guy in a supermarket, trying to decide whether to go on the much shorter self-checkout lane or go to a traditional lane with a cashier. That’s a subject that works both ways. Both before and after corona, our motivation is the same. To get into and out of the store as fast as possible. But now in the age of Corona, we want to get out even quicker. And so we brave the self-checkout lane, but hey, it’s not as easy as it looks. And fine, we’re good with how to position the bar codes when every purchase gives off that satisfying “beep” but what about produce? They don’t have bar codes. And how about if you brought your own bags, place them on the converyor belt and then it starts moving away from you? Not that this would ever happen to either one of us, but it happens, trust us. And how honest are you going to be when you bought organic cucumbers but when the price chart comes up on the screen, you see regular cucumbers are cheaper? Huh? And then, no matter how smart you are and no matter how technically proficient you are, something goes wrong. Always. You hit debit when you meant credit, you forgot to enter your coupon number for a particular item, and you don’t know how to make the screen go backwards, you get the drift. That’s why they always have those people stationed nearby. So that when everybody yells “Help!!!!” they can come over and fix your problem. Except that almost everyone in line is yelling help and the final result is you get stuck in the supermarket longer than if you had just gone over to the traditional checkout line in the first place. Ugh. But if you do go traditional, promise us you won’t be one of those people who take 12 items to the 10 items or less express lane. Andy is counting and he does not like getting stuck behind those guys.

The next comic is about dealing with the novel coronavirus and all the new rules. We don’t care who you are, but if you are housebound for a considerable length of time, you go stir crazy. You’ve got to get out and do something, even if it’s exercise. If you are like either of us, you are desparate to change your routine of the last three weeks, even if just a little bit. So if you usually go walking in the woods with your mask and gloves, chances are you want to walk somewhere else with your mask and gloves. That is why we took you to the high school track. Lots lanes on the track and long benches on the sidelines so it’s relatively easy to maintain social distance (and shouldn’t it be called physical distance anyway)? Social is defined as “…needing companionship and therefore best suited to living in communities,” and distant is well, distant. So social distance is an oxymoron if we’ve ever seen one. Anyway we had fun on the track with the fact that once we get tired of our new activity, then what? Do you want to go back home and shelter in place some more? We didn’t think so.

In closing this week, please have some patience with your cartooning buddies. It’s a little tougher coming up with new stuff when you can’t do 95% of the stuff you used to do. However fear not, we will slather ourselves in hand sanitizer and press ahead. See you next week with two new ones. If there is a next week.

Peace, love and social distance

Andy and John

Zen and the Art of Car Maintenance 12/13/19

Okay, okay you got me. This week’s entries have absolutely nothing to do with Zen.

Nada.

Zilch.

But they do have a lot to do with car maintenance. First of all I need to explain the cultural phenomenon here. Andy is Jewish. He doesn’t know how to do car repairs. John (as Adam Sandler might sing) not a Jew and is therefore a do it yourselfer. But what seems easy often is not. Sure that clown in the YouTube video tells you it’s easy, but when he starts mentioning super hot halogen bulbs and potentially starting electrical fires, well, no thanks. Which is why Al sheepishly ends up going to the service bay of his car dealer. This reflects the experience of one of us. We’ll leave it to you to figure out which one of us that is. Hint: the only thing Andy ever successfully did from a YouTube video was figuring out how to descale a Nespresso Coffeemaker. Please, hold your applause.

This week’s other comic comes with a shout-out to our mutual friend, Alex Avsharian. He told John about this wiggling-your-finger-in-your-ear-to-sound-like-PacMan phenomenon. John asked Alex if we could use it in a strip (no we weren’t desperate, thank you very much) and he said, “Sure, I got it off a meme in the first place.” Thanks anyway Alex. If it weren’t for you, we’d never know how to make that sound. We know other mature tricks like this (how to do a convincing fake vomit sound, for instance) but our huge editorial staff is still deciding whether or not to release that highly classified piece of intel.

So enjoy (or hate) the impeachment trials or if you do still go to work in an office, enjoy online holiday shopping and then the trials (we’ve been there, done that and know exactly how much work is getting done in this run-up to Christmas Break.)

We will see you next week with a theme around those lovely Holiday Cards.

Andy and JOhn

Take me out to the ballgame 10/4/19

This week we thought we’d devote both comics to the National Pastime, baseball. Or at least it used to be the National Pastime (and why does “pastime” have only one “t”?) until football took over. But we digress. We have a character, Sam, who - in addition to being a commercial voice over artist - has a sideline gig as the stadium announcer for the Boulder City Bullets. Bowing to political pressure, the Bullets are changing their name to the Boulders. No big deal, unless you happen to be the mascot, Bobby Bullet, for the better part of three decades. This comes from an actual incident, in which the former Baltimore Bullets of the NBA, moved to DC and got rebranded, The Washington Wizards. Or take the case of the Milwaukee Brewers’ Bernie Brewer. Everytime the Brewers would hit a homer, Bernie would hop on a slide, and when he disappeared from view, foam and bubbles would fly up indicating he landed in a giant keg of beer. No more. Now he just hops on the slide and gets off. We imagined what a mascot might feel like when he or she got “rebranded.”

Next comic up also came from an actual incident. Andy was attending a Mets’ game when the scoreboard lit up with the “Kiss Cam.” For those of you who don’t know what a Kiss Cam is, it’s a camera that finds couples, puts their picture up on the scoreboard, and expects them to kiss. The crowd then roars its approval or disapproval on the passion (or lack thereof) displayed. At the game in question, the people profiled for the Kiss Cam did their jobs and kissed. Except for one couple who did not. The camera came back to them three different times as the boos grew louder. Finally the guy gestured to the girl he was with and mouthed the words “it’s my sister.” We didn’t copy the moment, but added our New 60 twist to it.

That’s the last baseball comic you’ll see from us until next spring. But now it’s on to falling leaves, football, sweaters and eating. See you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

The (not so) great outdoors. 4/26/19

If you live in the northeast like we do, you’ve endured another cold, snowy, wet winter. Now that the weather is warming, you can’t wait to get out there. One of us did just that last Monday. I called a buddy on the spur of the moment and said, “Let’s play golf, right now.” The friend (names are omitted to protect the innocent) belongs to a country club, so we met there. I took out my pull cart and was told that pull carts were against club rules. My friend calmly strapped his bag across his back and started walking uphill to the first tee. Way uphill. Not wanting to panic or seem like a wimp, I carried my bag (for the first time in my life, I’m sorry to admit). John said, that’s a comic, and we dreamed one up.

The second strip comes from the fact that both John and I are big Mets fans. Watching a game a couple weeks ago, the announcers said it was Jackie Robinson Day. Jackie Robinson wore #42. That number can never be worn again by any player in the major leagues. But on this one day, every player in the major leagues wears #42. The visiting team made a pitching change and the Mets announcer, Gary Cohen, had no idea who the new pitcher was. He said “Coming in to the game, #42, uhh, wait, there is no #42.” Voila. Comic #2.

In addition to thinking up ideas, we also have to think about who plays what roles. In this case it was easy. The character of Sam Lipisi used to be a commercial voiceover, the kind of guy who says “This Bud’s for you.” So it was an easy choice to give him a side hustle as the announcer for the local baseball team, the Boulder City Bullets. We thought Sam needed a foil to play off, so he invited his friend Marv to sit in with him in the booth on Jackie Robinson Day and watch his buddy not know a single player on the other team. As the cliche goes, “you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” In this case, you couldn’t tell the players even WITH a scorecard.

Enjoy the great outdoors this week, and let’s hope it turns out better than it did for our guys.

See you next week.

The New 60

Getting Up There 12/13/18

This week we take a look at getting older. How do we deal with age? It’s the noises we make when we bend down to pick up something we dropped. When we get into a car. When we get out. Just going through the motions requires a little more of us than it used to. I can see it in John’s balky knee. Or my neck.

About that neck. I was 24 years old, just starting my first job in advertising at NW Ayer Chicago. I started on 7/7/77 (got married on 7/7/84, so 7/7 is a big day for yours truly) and they promptly told me they had a slo-pitch softball team. Well, I’m not the world’s most naturally gifted athlete, but I love playing softball. I rode a bike to the office and after work, hurriedly pedaled to the park where we were playing. No time to warm up, but what the hell, I was 24. I put on my glove and was told they don’t play with mitts in Chicago. The ball its a little bigger in circumference and after it gets smashed around for a few innings, it becomes slightly mushy. They put me at third base. Wouldn’t you know it, but the first pitch got smashed on the ground to third. I fielded it cleanly, and it hurt like a mother, but I wasn’t gonna let anyone know that. I was going to show off my “rocket” arm. So I reared back and threw was hard as I could to impress my new co-workers. I felt something tear between my neck and shoulder on the right side as the ball went on a straight line…5 feet over the first baseman’s head. Today, I still wake up and feel shoulder/neck stiffness in the exact same place.

So we took Sam to an undefined gym class and watched him compensate. This was an amalgamation of John’s knee, which made him switch from singles to doubles. And my shoulder and recently my foot. Oh yeah, and tennis elbow too. There’s always golf, but the tennis elbow put a damper on that. There’s hiking in the woods, which my wife loves as well. Well plantar fasciitis starts rearing up but only after 4 miles. Every time. So I could stand that and kept the walks to that length or less. But when you compensate (top of the toes) and then it hurts to walk, period. But there’s always the elliptical. And if that hurts the exercise bike.

We had fun with Sam dealing with the very same shortcomings. Read it and see what he ends up doing.

We’ll talk to you next week, our last comic of the year before taking a couple weeks off. But I gotta run. I’m late for Pilates.

The New 60