Dealing with age 10/02/2020

Wine gets better with age. Not necessarily us. When I was just a wee lad in my late 30’s, my dentist sent me to the periodontist. He was performing oral surgery (I don’t recommend it; it’s not as much fun as it sounds) and he was cutting this, and lifting that, blah, bah, blah. I asked him, “Doc, why is everything falling apart in my mouth?” And he gave me an answer I never forgot. He said, “The way I figure, your biological imperative is to replace yourself in the human race. Well, you’re more than capable of doing that by the time you’re around 17. The only reason we wait much longer is because of advances in science and health and education. But by the time you’re 17 you can have a kid and by the time that kid is 17, your biolgoical reason for being on this earth is over. So that’s why by age 35, everything starts to go downhill. Your eyesight, aches and pains, your hair turns grey, etc. Make sense?” Yes and thank you for totally bumming me out. (Author’s note: I don’t feel I’m bumming you guys out because we’re already older, right? Don’t answer.) But it’s that kind of insight that inspired our first comic. So you can’t touch your toes without bending your knees anymore? You can no longer drive the golfball 260 yards? You can’t run a 10k in under an hour anymore (who are we kidding, you can’t run a 10K period). Join the club. But on the bright side, we get a lot more time off and at the end of the weekend, we can send the grandkids back home.

Our second comic derives from the fact that the more app developers try to make our lives easier, the more complicated they become. I paid my dentist (no, not the guy from the last paragraph) with my online banking app. Then my dentist lowered the price and said, “No worries, just send us another check for the lesser amount and we’ll rip up your more expensive check when it comes in.” And they did just that, but then when I tried to remove the charge from my account, fuhgeddaboutit! We’re sure you all have horror stories with Zelle, Venmo, Paypal and the like, so that is what we tackled. And by the way, even if you DO master Venmo, good luck trying to put in the person’s proper Venmo address. That’s it for now.

At any rate, read ‘em and laugh and we’ll be back at ya’ next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

On tailgating and stuffed drawers 09/25/2020

So I called my buddy Rich up and asked, where are we watching the Giants game Monday night? 3 of us were going to congregate at his house. Then he asked his wife Sue and she was understandably uncomfortable with that idea. Then I offered my apartment and nobody thought that was a good idea either. So we all sat in our individual homes and texted. Not as good. But we have to adjust. No fans, nobody coming over, yikes. I spoke to John about this and offered that they used to have big screens outside Giants stadium, and why couldn’t the guys in our comic get together and tailgate in the parking lot. His response was, “Would they even let you in? I don’t think so.” So we put our heads together and came up with going to the local sports bar. You’re certainly not going to sit inside, but then when you sit outside, could you possibly see the tv inside? Answer: no. Then we thought, if you’ve ever asked to make a call or send a text in a restaurant, you’d have their wireless password, and bingo, our first comic this week was born. The point is, we’re social animals so we’ll figure out a way to get together somehow. But just keep your damn mask on, okay? And around the chin doesn’t count. Neither does under the nose. In the words of Bill Maher, that’s like wearing a condom around your balls. So around your nose and under your chin and then we’re cool, capiche?

Our second comic deals with accumulating stuff. Boxes of stuff, drawers of stuff, magazine racks of stuff, bookshelves of, well, you get the drift. There’s one particular drawer in my kitchen with some knives, a juice-squeezer, tongs, etc. Half the time we open it, it gets stuck. Then you have to root around with your hand to turn something flat so the drawer opens. For instance, we have three pairs of scissors. One of them are the “good scissors”, the ones that work, but we keep the others around “just in case.” When we moved from a house to an apartment we got rid of lots of stuff, like the kids old soccer and baseball equipment, and (sigh) several boxes of lp records, which never made it out of the garage because we just had a cd player.

After all that cleaning out however, we now have new electronic stuff. SInce John is an artist and illustrator, he has even more stuff than I do, but we ran through the list of SWK (Shit We Keep) and came up with the list that appears in this comic. John came up with the electric gooseneck candlelighter, since he actually has one that plugs into a USB port. I still have a butane powered one, though I have no idea where I keep the butane, so when the lighter runs out, I buy more butane to go along with the butane I can’t find, and we wonder how we accumulate so much stuff? How do we avoid getting overrun with it? I have a theory that in every relationship there’s a hoarder and a chucker-outer. I personally have a limit of 3 back issues of any magazine. When we have more than three of any magazine, New York, New Yorker, Bon Appetit, Vanity Fair, I surreptitiously chuck it out. Shhh, don’t tell anyone. But damn, since my wife proof reads the blog every week, she’s going to find out. Oh well.

Have a nice weekend and for our Jewish friends, we hope your fast isn’t too painful (but face it, you’ve probably got a lot to atone for). See you next week.

Andy and John

On losing stuff 09/17/2020

Today’s first comic came right out of a real life experience. It was Friday morning, I was getting my stuff together before leaving to play golf. My cell phone rings. It’s John, asking me a question about next week’s comic. As we spoke, I was busy putting things in a bag. A sandwich, some water, grapes, golf balls, so I was a little distracted. I kept looking around and couldn’t find something. Then I couldn’t remember what it was I couldn’t find. I told John I had to get off the phone so I could find something, and then it occurred to me what I was trying to find. My phone. The very one I had been using to speak with John. Bingo. Comic #1. So that’s the good news. The bad news is this: what level of hell is it when you not only can’t remember where you put something, you also forget what you’re looking for? I’ll say this about that: it doesn’t happen often but it happens more often than it used to. If given the choice, I guess I’d rather lose my phone than my mind. Now, what was I talking about?

Next on your dial is a conversation we had about how much social interaction we allow in our lives. John and his wife Linda have a small core group they socialize with and if people come over to the house, they stay outside. Everyone in the group is mindful and protective about the coronavirus. But what about the people they hang out with, huh? I mean, if you’re the kind of person that limits your grocery shopping to twice a month, do you want to hang out with someone who goes once a week? And who knows how often their friends go grocery shopping anyway? Or eat outside at a restaurant? And now that it’s getting colder, are you willing to eat inside if they limit the seating to 25% capacity? Just how much are you willing to risk for that plate of linguini alla vongole?

So we imagined what it would be like to go over our list of friends and family to decide who makes the cut and who doesn’t this coming season. And how much do we even know about what our partners have done today and how often they’ve washed their hands? All I know is we’ve used an unbelievable amount of question marks in this blog? Even unnecessary ones like in that last sentence.

Well, we hope that answers all your questions and I’d tell you to make sure you read the blog, but you’re already reading it, so never mind.

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

Andy and John

Back to School and Other Fun Topics 09/11/2020

Imagine if you had a kid going back to college. What would you do? Spend up to $70,000 so he/she can sit in a dorm room with a mask and take classes online? And what if you’re a professor like our character Craig? You might think you know your students, but do you really? Craig imagines (hopes) they’ll be on their best behavior. What we imagined? Animal House. Just a quick aside. As I write this today, I may be a bit distracted. Two reasons. One, there’s a crane working outside with a power saw that sounds like either a high-powered dentist’s drill or a gigantic fly. And there’s an actual fly bugging the shit out of me flying around my apartment as I type. Excuse me for a minute. Finally, he’s dead. No, not the guy with the saw, the fly. The fly ended his life being swatted by an issue of People Magazine. At least it’s good for something. But back to college or back to school virtually. I know how I was in college and I know how my friends were back then and it seems like socially distant, responsible behavior is a lot to ask from a bunch of 18-21 year olds. On the other hand, we understand the need for community. This first comic tries to capture the dichotomy.

Next up was what we imagined we might do if we had to get on a plane. My wife’s mother is still alive and turned 99. She lives either a 45 minute plane ride or 6 1/2 hour car ride away. We drove. Let us count the reasons it’s scary to fly. No, in fact let’s not. Instead I will tell you why I am reluctant. One morning, I saw Dr. Joseph Fair, the head infectious disease specialist for NBC on the Today Show. Only he was doing the segment from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from the Coronavirus. He wore a mask, he swabbed down the seats and all the fold-down tables in his row. He was asked how he got it after all those precautions and said, “My best guess is I caught it through my eyes.” Okay, that was enough for yours truly, even though I wear glasses. Maybe if they come up with a hip stylish hazmat suit (anyone for camouflage?), we’ll hop on a plane. But until then, have a wonderful fall and we hope your football team, wherever you live, wins the SuperBowl. As long as it’s the Giants. Okay, John likes the Jets, so them too. And if you’re from somewhere else, don’t worry, neither of our teams has a prayer.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Watching the river flow, and the summer go 09/04/2020

First of all, an early Happy Labor Day to everyone. We pictured a typical Labor Day cookout, 2020 style. So what if Al mistakenly squirts some hand sanitizer on his hot dog. At least it’s sanitized. As summer turns into fall, the virus still hasn’t gone away, people (for the most part) are still not going back to offices and schools are trying to figure out what to do. And sports! We’ve gone from having none at all to having everything at once (yep, football is a week away). So enjoy this long weekend away before work and school should be starting and then get back to whatever it was you were doing before Labor Day. And one more thing, just use the hand sanitizer on your hands.

Next up was a subject for the kind of disagreement comic creators have with each other. I used to think advertising conversations were silly (this beer is made for weekends, this one is for weeknights, but with this positioning, we can own Friday nights), but this one may have taken the proverbial cake. A couple weeks ago I went into the ocean on an East Hampton beach with a friend of mine. Hot day, cold water. He said, “This is refreshing,” and I said, “I gotta pee,” to which he replied, “Let me stand upstream.” I thought that was so funny I wrote it down when I got out of the ocean. I called John and pitched the idea and this is what followed (with allowances for my memory, which at 67 years old is not getting sharper). Me: So the guy says, Wait till I get upstream. John: There is no upstream in an ocean. Me: Nobody will think of that. John: I just did. Remember how many letters we got correcting us on the difference between Medicare and Medicaid? Me: True. John: So we’ll just have the scene play out in the river. Me: But, I wrote in last week’s newsletter that we would have a comic at the beach this weekend. John: Oceans have tides, not streams. Me: Fine, let ‘em pee in the damn river.

Note: outside of that, we never disagree about anything.

Well, maybe not anything.

One thing we do agree on is to thank you all for being such ardent and loyal readers of the New 60. And we will be back to you next week with two new ones hot off the press.

Andy and John

Summer's going, going... 08/28/2020

As we all cope with the end of summer and the Covid season, we thought about how things have changed. And there’s no better way to express ourselves than another entry in our “Then and Now” series. In the past we contrasted passing around a joint with passing around reading glasses (one is much more fun), sex then and now, and since it is the summer, we took a shot at how we take in the sun. My mother used to put on baby oil and iodine and then hold a reflector under her face. John never knew her and we never discussed this, but he just showed me a picture of “Then” and I said, “Holy shit, that’s my mom.” As for the “Now,” well, that’s easy. Cover up and cover up the cover up some more. At the beach a couple weeks ago, a friend proudly wore a zip hoodie wth UPF 50+. Now I have no idea what the hell “UPF”stands for, but it sounds extremely protective. In short, we love the sun and summer, but do everything in our power to protect ourselves from it.

The second comic came from a discussion about what to do with the grandkids when you’re stuck inside. There’s always the jigsaw puzzle and John introduced me to a trick I’d never heard of. He knows a lot of tricks I never heard of (apparently I lived a very sheltered childhood), but this one was so good visually, we had to make it into a comic. Seriously, what kid would go to the trouble of finding all the pieces that go in the middle of the puzzle, hide them when grandpa wasn’t looking, and then sneak under the table to place his face in the missing hole? Who would even think of that. Hmm, maybe someone extremely visual like, John? Huh?

At any rate, we hope you enjoyed this week’s comics and we will be back with our end of summer strips and then, it’s onto flu season. Enjoy!

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

The world is a confusing place 08/14/2020

Is it just us, or does the world seem harder to understand for you guys as well? John and I worked in ad agencies of all different sizes. When we started in the late 70’s and early 80’s there were people who worked for the same agency for their entire careers and retired with a pension and stock. You shot your commecials in LA, stayed in nice hotels, flew business class, entertained your clients and ate great meals. Seemed like a terrific deal. Today, not so much. Who needs to fly? Who needs a camera? Shoot it on an iPhone. Why pay $1 million for a commercial when you can shoot one for $10,000? And really, who needs to pay all that money to an older copywriter or art director when you can get 3 kids for half the price? Trust us, it is confusing. But on the bright side, if it wasn’t for that system, and we were still writing commercials, you wouldn’t be getting these comics. Of course we’d be getting rich, but it’s much more important to service you. And if you believe that, we’ve got some land we’d like to sell you…

At any rate, when the end is near you can see it coming from a mile down the road. Marv was going through similar changes in the printing industry and we thought we’d bring some of our own experiences to the table in figuring out what would eventually happen to him. When offered the chance to take an “early retirement” he jumped at it. And now Marv will think about his “Second Act.” Just as long as it doesn’t involve playing the harmonica.

The next strip practically wrote itself. John’s dad had a high school yearbook where most of the women described themselves as “gay.” My stepmother to this day will describe a party as “gay.” So when John had the thought to make this insight into a comic, I jumped aboard. It’s crazy how language changes and how meanings change and if you don’t make an effort to keep up, it can get pretty confusing. Fret not. We’re here to clear all that up. When Fred Flintstone had a “gay old time,” he wasn’t cheating on the side with Barney Rubble. A birthday party was something you attended, not some organization promoting Kanye West for president. And weed was something you pulled out of your garden, not something you smoked.

We sincerely hope that clears up all the confusion. Stay safe we’ll see you next week and may all your weekends be festive and gay.

Andy and John

Get out there and participate! Or don't. 08/07/2020

What is more romantic than a sun-dappled trip on a kayak for two? Sparkling water, just the two of you paddling in harmony, as you drift through the calm currents on your way to who knows where? My wife, Joanie, and I experienced this tranquility during a trip to Thailand a few years back. Somehow the harmonious part didn’t work out as planned. When I pitched this idea to John, he then went on to explain, the person in the back is just the rudder. All she or he has to do is steer the kayak. The person in the front does all the paddling. And you don’t have to switch sides everytime you paddle. A few strokes on your left side, then gently switch over to your right. In the words of Homer Simpson, “Doh!” Now you tell me. But because John had no trouble figuring out the action and dialogue, I knew he went through the same experience I did, not that he’d readily admit it. Sorry John. What follows is an amalgamation of what happened. Easiest comic we’ve ever done. And to add insult to injury, Joanie and I witnessed another couple on the Thai kayak excursion, paddling in perfect harmony, not a care in the world. Which stood in sharp contrast to our thinking, “When is this f*@^ing thing over already?” Oh and one more thing, those HK’s (harmonious kayakers) were even older than we were, which made our lack of skill even more infuriating. Maybe we’ll get out there on the Hudson River and give it another try. Maybe not.

The second comic strip comes in the aftermath of one of those wonderful field trips at work. You know, the kind that encourage “bonding” or, my favorite expression, “team-building”? Why is it that people who have no knowledge or interest in sports persist in using sports analogies in business. Case in point, I had someone tell me just days ago, that an almost-completed project was “on the 98th-yard line.” I had to correct him and tell him, “No, that would be the two-yard line,” the numbers go up to 50 and then down to 0. And there was another colleague I am very friendly with who used to say, “That’s a straight ball down the middle” (as opposed to a fastball for the non-sporting among you). Do you think I was bigger than the moment and didn’t correct her? Think again.

Anyway, I digress. When John and I put our heads together, we wondered, would we be able to hide our true feelings during a team-building exercise or would we give away what was really going on inside (some form of “Just get me the hell out of here”)? And John came up with the idea of a participation trophy, which seemed to hit the proverbial nail on the head. Or to use another sports analogy, he really hit a touchdown with that one.

Have a good weekend as the summer rips along towards its eventual conclusion. Soon it will be back to school and back to work. Oh, wait a minute…

Andy and John

On getting out there 07/31/2020

Well, we have to get to some form of normal at some point, right? So we thought of Al and Joanne taking a trip on an airplane. The poor airlines have to make money somehow, so they sell us first class, business class, coach, even coach with extra leg room, pillows, snacks and our personal favorite, early boarding. Who knew there could be so many categories, and sub-categories? And how is it that no matter how much privilege we pay for, we still wind of getting on last, with no overhead room for the bags which now go to the cargo hold and then cost you an extra hour as you watch the baggage carousel spin without your bag on it? Ain’t it good to have priority? And that was all it took for our first comic.

Next up we wondered what would happen when people went back to their physical offices. And what would employers do to make their returning employees overjoyed at being back? Plan a corporate retreat? John and I have both been on our share of company retreats before and this time we discussed the kind with “team-building exercises.” I would venture that everyone who has ever been part of a “trust fall” contemplated doing exactly what Marv did and let the bum fall. But nobody would really do that. Except this is a comic, which gives us the right to do anything we like. Sorry Gladys.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Friday (and please, refrain from trust falls),

Andy and John

On two topics that change with age, work and sex 07/23/2020

Let’s start with sex, because, why not? It’s one of those topics you think about constantly in your teens and twenties, talk about with your friends, and seek out constantly. All the models and images you see are people in their 20’s and maybe even 30’s but not much beyond that. Except maybe Jennifer Aniston. But then as you get older, you settle down. Get married. Have kids. Which makes you even older. And more tired. And after a certain age, it’s not a topic you’re talking to your friends about. At least not very often. Which leads us to today’s first comic. One of us (named John) was at a dinner party when a conversation, much like the one in the comic, actually occurred. If that same revelation happened in your twenties or thirties, you might be inclined to ask, “Costumes? What kind of costumes?” At least I’d be inclined to ask that. Truth is, I still am but now l know better than to ask. So sex is still in the air, but now it’s lurking in the background. One of our favorite strips ran a couple years ago. Craig, our confirmed bachelor, was about to have sex for the first time with a woman he was dating. She asked, “Lights on or…” and before she could get the last word out, they both proclaimed, “Off!!!” Telling us what kind of costumes you wear to “keep it fresh” is something we can hear on a “need to know” basis. And we don’t need to know.

The second strip deals with going back to work. It may not have been the greatest to begin with, but now that you’ve been used to working from home, do any of us really want to go back to the office? Back to running for the commuter train during rush hour? Or sitting in your car in bumper to bumper traffic? Or listening to your 32 year-old boss drone on about the vital importance of search engine optimization? Sure you may miss the comraderie, but the rest of it? And now add plastic partitions, indoor mask-wearing, and recoiling in horror when you’ve absent-mindedly touched something. Quick, anyone have some Purell? My forearm touched the banister!” For these and other reasons, Marv is counting down the days until retirement, or even worse, involuntary retirement.

So keep it covered, wash often and we’ll see you next week with two new comics.

Andy and John

Write about what you know 07/17/2020

We often get mail asking us to write more about one particular group or another, and we always reply, we like to write about what we know. That is why the situations (hopefully) feel authentic. One of my favorite emails came from a reader who asked, “Why don’t you feature a cranky old gay man like myself?” That’s a great question and we will try to do more of that in the future, but it will be our perception of a cranky old gay man. Not beig cranky old gay men ourselves, it would sound inauthentic to try and sound like one. Granted, we are plenty cranky and old, just not gay. But most of the subjects we write about are comic spins on things that actually happened to one of us. This week features two takes on stuff that happened to John.

The first came from an observation that John’s wife Linda isn’t particularly fond of bugs. So we imagined a situation where Al and his grandson are inspecting a bug with great interest. Al is feigning interest because he’s enjoying his grandson’s interest. Joanne doesn’t share the same intrigue and may have reacted with a little more passion than the situation called for. We would just like to reiterate that no actual bugs were injured in the drawing of this comic strip.

Next up also came from a trip to the dog trainer. Since the last dog I had was 20 years ago, this is firmly from John’s camp. After learning what dogs react to and how to make them obedient, Rachel decides to try the technique on Marv. Of course, very little works on Marv that doesn’t include food. In a previous strip, faithful readers may recall Sam mourning the loss of his dog. When his new wife wants to quickly replace the dog, Sam naturally wonders if she’d be so quick to replace him when HE died. For those of you who think this is crazy, ask yourself this. How much do you humanize your dog? Hey, they’re part of the family. We can’t help it. Think about it, if you’re in your 60’s and get to the point where you have to put your dog down, are you going to be so quick to get a new one? Or are you going to enjoy your new found freedom from having to find dog sitters when you go away or from worrying about how long it’s been since the dog has been let outside and whether you should skip dessert and get home? Maybe it’s the same way with husbands. Hopefully not, but in any case, have a nice weekend and don’t ask for a Corona with lime. It wasn’t too long ago that a Corona with lime was something you looked forward to at the end of the day. Now Corona and Lyme are two of the most worrisome diseases on the planet.

Boy did this turn maudlin in a second. On second thought just ignore the entire last paragraph except for the “have a nice weekend” part.

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

Happy 4th of July 07/03/2020

Happy 4th of July. Just think of the possibilities. You can gather up the whole family, kids and grandkids and go to the ballgame, or if it’s hot, a trip to the pool or better yet, the beach. And afterwards you can all enjoy a trip to your favorite restaurant or have a cookout at home. But wait a minute. There are no ballgames. And unless your governer is in denial, he or she has already closed the public pool and the public beaches not to mention indoor dining. And that stuff about the kids coming over? Well you can’t invite the kid who went into the office last week but had to quarantine since someone in her office contracted the virus three days ago, and then she can’t bring her husband or the kids so there goes that idea, etc., etc., etc. Which is how John got the inspiration for his poster, a socially distant 4th. At least there’s Hamilton on Disney +, so thank goodness for small favors.

But onto the next one about watching TV at home with mom or mom-in-law. I kept telling John about Ozark, this awesome series on Netflix my wife and I binge-watched and he kept saying, my mother-in-law is here for the time being and she won’t appreciate the language, violence and nudity. So we came up with our second comic, mom friendly TV. The day before we posted it, I was in Pittsburgh with my wife at her mother’s house and we came home after dinner and wanted to watch a movie. Well there’s only so much Hallmark Channel a man can take so we went with our friend Sandy’s advice and watched a Mark Ruffalo movie, “Begin Again.” Joanie’s 98 year old mom watched with varying degrees of interest, and when it ended, I asked her if she was okay with the language. Now in 37 years of knowing Joanie’s mom Charlotte, I can say I have never heard her curse even once. But when I asked if the language was offensive she said with a nice smile on her face, “No, it didn’t bother me. It was all fuck this and fuck that and fuck you. Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

What else can I say, besides have a Happy 4th and we’ll talk to you again next week.

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

Happy Father's Day 06/18/2020

Is it really a Happy Father’s Day? If you’re in the New 60 age group, the kids are out of the house, although they might be back IN the house until this virus subsides sometime around summer of 2021 at which point you’ll be back to work…never mind. The thing is that with social distancing and family distancing and nobody wanting to get on a plane, family holidays are a little different than what they used to be. So John and I imagined what Father’s Day might look like in 2020. And we imagined we’d do it over Zoom, of course. And if you are like me, you have idiotically said cheers over zoom when you’ve “met for drinks or dinner” with friends. Sure you can click glasses with your spouse or partner who is sitting right next to you. But if a virtual clink with your friends or family isn’t enough, you might actually clink the computer or tablet screen itself and if you clink too hard then… So that was our first comic.

Next up was based on an observation. Now that gyms are closed and pools are closed, one of the few exercise options left is walking outside. Now if you are like us and wear your mask, then you notice other people who don’t wear their masks. The other day I was walking and saw somebody without a mask and then he sneezed! Now he turned his head towards the woods and away from the people, but still, it was like he was pointing a semi-automatic weapon at everyone. We went back and forth for a half hour about mask on or mask off for the comic but John is the artist here, so… And the point is, they still ducked for cover.

Hope you enjoyed the comics this week and if you don’t have enough to keep you occupied we put “The New 60 Coloring Book” up on the website. John posted the comics in black and white, so you can practice coloring them in and being your own cartoonist. Just don’t be too good or you’ll put us out of business.

Have a Happy Father’s Day and we’ll see you next week.

Andy and John

On second thought... 06/12/2020

John and I often talk and wonder what the hell are we going to write about, now that everything is reduced to Covid-19. But here’s the thing. Stuff just keeps happening, and since it’s different stuff than we’re used to, it often makes its way into comics. A little while ago, we did a comic about what happens at the checkout line when you have to take your gloves off to get your phone to work. The big trouble with latex gloves is trying to put them back on. I was thinking of this when last week, I found an extra latex glove in my car turned inside out. I mushed the fingers back in the right way and blew it up like a balloon. Just like the clowns do at birthday parties to make the kids laugh. When I got upstairs I brought the glove up with me and proudly blew it up for my wife. I said, “Look, I figured out a fool-proof way to get the gloves to stop turning inside out.” And I blew them up. John had the exact same reaction as Joanie when I told him the story. They both responded by saying some form of “You put your mouth around that thing??!!” SInce this is a family-oriented site, I can’t repeat exactly what they said, but trust me, it was similar. John and I worked hard on crafting the language until we came up with “covid-covered latex surface,” and then John threw in the bit about saving 49 cents. Not 50 mind you, 49. And voila, we had our first comic. I mean, is it really that bad to blow the thing up? On second thought…

The next comic standing is about another idea that seemed good at the time. The logic was impeccable. If you grow your own veggies and herbs, you can not only pick your own salad at night, you can save extra trips to the supermarket. Except when you get to the nursery you find it is packed with people having the exact same idea. It’s packed more tightly than the rows of tomato plants. It’s packed more…you get the idea. In order to avoid one crowd at the grocery store, you are faced with an even bigger crowd at the nursery. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But on second thought…

Have a great weekend, stay safe and we will see you next Friday with two new ones hot off our computers.

Andy and John

Musings on Plexiglass and Getting Older

I’ve got a friend who made adjustments to his office before anyone was discussing the pandemic. He got standing desks for everyone and in an attempt to encourage togetherness, he lowered the partitions between cubicles. Uh oh, or as Astro from the Jetsons would say, “Ruh roh.” So now he has to do it all over again. John and I wondered what Al would have to do to his Pizza on a Stick franchise, to encourage employee safety. Unfortunately, Al being Al, he forgot to order the plexiglass with a pre-cut slot. Sometimes plexiglass protectors are a giant pain, even if there’s a hole in the plexi. For instance, did you ever try to use your phone to pay in a parking lot? There’s usually a space at the bottom of the glass shield, with a curved coin tray at the bottom. If you happen to have one of those bigger sized iPhones, it’s not an easy fit. Anyway, Al went the parking garage one better and left the space out altogether. By the way, it’s a good thing John is also the artist, since he’s got to figure out how to draw glass so you guys will know it’s glass.

The second comic today happened on Andy’s mid-May birthday. It happened to the one of us that is 5 years older than the other one. We’ll never tell which is which. Okay, we will. Sure John has a white beard and everything but I (Andy) am the older one. While discussing our relative ages it occured to us that John is still in his EARLY 60’s while Andy has graduated to his LATE 60’s. Labels, just labels. I mean, you’re only as old as you feel and I feel like…never mind. John and I both worked for an advertising icon named Linda Kaplan Thaler and when she hit a certain age in her 60’s she said “I’m in my incredibly late 40’s.” I think we will go with that definition instead.

So the young, spry John and the creaky, old Andy wish you a beautiful, corona-free, weekend. And we will be back at you next week with a couple new ones, ripped from the pages of whatever it is we experience.

Andy and John

The New Reality 05/29/2020

Have you experienced this at the grocery store? You get ready to go, put on your latex gloves (we haven’t used this much latex since college, but that’s another story), slip on your mask, take along your disinfectant wipes and off you go. First anomaly is you get the cart and THEN they have wipes at the front entrance after you’ve already touched the cart. Now okay, we can deal with the one way signs down each aisle and the obvious impossibility of maintaining 6-feet when the person in front of you, mask around his or her chin, is pondering which of 36 varieties of paleo granola to pick. But, then you finally lose your patience and pass them. BUT, and we do mean BUT, the real challenge occurs at the checkout line. Do you think those taped x’s are really 6 feet apart? And is that guy in back of you edging just a little too close? Even that is fine. The real kicker is what we turned into a comic. Andy read that you can pick up the virus when the cashier swipes your credit card through the machine, so he uses his phone and pays in that way. Only problen is A) the phone’s facial recognition feature doesn’t recognize you wearing a mask, requiring him to be one of those aforementioned jerks who proceeds to pull his mask around his chin and B) if the facial recognition still won’t work he now can’t punch in his passcode without first pulling off the damned latex gloves. But you gotta eat, so….

Our second one came from a near mystical experience in Coney Island. Andy decided on his birthday a couple weeks ago to drive down to Brooklyn and walk along the boardwalk. It was a beautiful spring day and he couldn’t pass Stillwell Ave, without getting off the boardwalk and going to Nathan’s. He got the requisite dog and fries and came back to the boardwalk to find a bench facing the ocean, with no one else sitting on it. He carefully pulled out a lysol wipe and wiped the bench down. He unwrapped what is considered the world’s greatest hot dog, and took a bite. It was so good, he closed his eyes and listened to the gentle surf hitting the shore and the sounds of the seagulls. Heaven. Until suddenly some guy comes bounding down the boardwalk blaring rap music from, get this, a boombox! No kidding. Some ear-splitting hip hop dittie about peace, love and understanding. Not really. Anyway, Andy recounted this to John and he said, I got it. Boom boxes and zoom boxes. One thing remains constant. We hate them as much today as we did 30 years ago.

So that’s it for this week. Next week are two goodies about how it feels to get yet another year older and we return to Al’s pizzeria as he considers reopening.

Have a wonderful weekend and if we pass each other, let’s make sure we pull our masks up, okay?

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