FRIENDS 1/22/21

I think as we get older, we get a bit more unfiltered. We don’t agree to as many things as we used to agree to and we don’t just go along for the sake of going along as much either. In other words, we become more cantankerous. Today’s first comic results from an inability to filter. And it comes from personal experience. Back when I was working in advertising, sometime in the 18th century, there was a woman who worked for me who used to regularly break down in tears or get worked up into hysterics, and, suddenly, she seemed noticeably calmer. I asked her what was different. She told me she had embarked on Transcendental Meditation and it had changed her life. She even showed me a secret hiding place to meditate during work hours. We worked in a huge NYC high rise on the 32nd floor, but right off the second floor, there was a secret side door just to the left of where the company cafeteria was located. There stood 7 rooms reserved for lactating mothers. At most one or two of these would be in use at a time. She would simply claim one, slide the in use tab outside the door, lock the door and sit in the easy chair with her eyes closed for 20 minutes. Heaven. When she exited, she was refreshed and ready to take on the rest of her day. And she didn’t even have to lactate. So I went to take a course in TM along with my wife and it was terrific. But, I’m ashamed to say, I took my colleague up on her secret the very day after my course had ended and used one of those 7 lactating rooms. Fortunately no one ever saw me exiting, because I had no idea what I might say. “No, you don’t understand, it’s not what it looks like…” But I digress. The funny thing is that after paying a semi-exorbitant amount for my wife and I to get our training and our own personal mantras, a friend pointed out that you could get mantras for free simply by going online. Way to harsh my mellow, dude. And if you want to know what that means in English, it means “way to ruin my peaceful mood.” And so was born today’s first comic.

Our second comic came from John enlisting his wife to hold up the big screen tv while he attempted to connect it to an extending, rotating arm he installed in the back of the wall. Note: this is a major difference between us, I just call the super (I believe it has something to do with growing up Jewish but I cannot prove it). So he wondered, what would happen if we tried to call our friends to help us with a physically demanding task? What would their excuse be if they no longer had to work? And this is where our age difference came into play (I am 5 years older than John). I wanted the excuses to be, “Oh I can’t, I’m having an endoscopy, while John was more in the “Oh I can’t, I’m taking the family on a ski trip,” vein. Since I can’t even draw a stick figure and since his version was more optimistic, guess who won. But in the words of the hit play Hamilton, I say to you John, “Just you wait!”

So that’s it for this week but we will be back next week with parts 2 and 3 of our meditation series. Try it, you’ll like it.

Have a great and safe weekend

Andy and John

Thanks for nuthin' 2020 11/27/2020

2020 can kiss our collective butts goodbye. But before it goes we ended our three part advertising saga and John did a Covid-themed Norman Rockwell poster for Thanksgiving. First, about Thanksgiving. We hope you enjoyed yours. We’ll have a distant one, with one kid and her husband in Brooklyn and our son in Colorado. While John and Linda will have two family members visiting and for the rest an equally scattered holiday. For all the wonderful memories Thanksgiving brings, there’s also the political arguments, the aggressive cheek pinching, and drunk uncles falling asleep watching football, so at least there’s a little bit less of that, though to be truthful, this was written before Thanksgiving and I might have too much wine, affectionately pinch Joanie’s cheek and fall asleep watching football, but not during the Steelers-Ravens night game, which might actually be exciting. And I have one question about turkey. If it’s so unbelievably damn good, why does nobody think about making it any other night of the year? Ever? Just asking.

Now onto the ad thing. We all love funny Super Bowl ads with great jokes and visuals at the end, like 90-year-old Abe Vigoda getting tackled at the end of a Dorito’s commercial a few years back. But almost nobody admits to liking a good jingle. We remember them, that’s for sure, but like them? Well, that’s a different story. We all like things we are embarrassed to admit. I, for instance, like Neil Diamond. And This Is Us. As well as a good jingle. But you didn’t hear that here. And when Al is confronted by his buddy on how well the jingle served his business, he was forced to admit it did pretty damned well. That’s his story and he’s sticking with it.

As 2020 comes to close to a close, we hope a vaccine is around the corner followed by a sense of normalcy and hopefully a book of New 60 Comics which will be a perfect holiday gift for next year, hint, hint.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week which is already December. Yikes, how time flies,

Andy and John

New Dad 11/06/2020

Confession: we rented a house in East Hampton for our 30th anniversary in 2014 and never looked back. We’ve done it every year since. Why do I mention that? One it’s a great bribe to get your kids to come and visit you all the time. But the other reason is you see all sorts of sights. From the beautiful…the pristine beaches, spectacular sunsets, the golden light … to the less than beautiful … including older, saggy men with young starlets strolling down said pristine beach. And that leads into today’s comics. Sort of. It’s not that Sam is in his 80’s and Shellie in her 20’s (and believe me, I’ve seen that combo). It’s not even that he has attracted her with his spectacular wealth and power (of which he has neither). It’s just that he married a significantly younger woman. And we thought that might affect the dynamic between Al, Marv and Sam. Primarily because Al’s wife Joanne and Marv’s wife Rachel liked Sam’s first wife and related to her, and they were all part of the same generation. But this new young whippersnapper Shellie, as they say in Brooklyn, fuhgeddaboudit. Except now Shellie (the young whippersnapper is 40, mind you) has had a baby, and this brings Rachel and Joanne around. And it’s going to make Sam’s life far different from his buddys’ lives all over again. First they were the ones who couldn’t stay out late, who had to cancel plans because they couldn’t find a baby sitter, who were always exhausted, but now HE is goingto be the one experiencing all of that when Al and Marv can stay out as late as they want (of course, being in their 60’s that’s not very late, but it’s nice to have options). The first comic also touches on the fact that men are basically babies themselves. Think about it. The woman does all the carrying. Goes through all the nausea. Bares all the labor pain and is the baby’s source of nutrition. And Sam sort of feels bad that all the attention is on the baby and Shellie. We all go through personal growing pains. Sam is about to go through his.

The second comic, on the same topic, touches on the ways in which society has changed and keeps on changing. When we grew up we had chocolate cigarettes and even better big, fat chocolate cigars (only milk chocolate in those days, thank you very much) and who can forget Big League Chew, which took a cancerous product like chewing tobacco and reformulated it as shards of bubble gum. It even came in a resealable pouch just like the real thing. In the past we ran a comic about a grandchild’s horror that Al was still using plastic straws. And so today, we thought one further shock to Sam’s reality was that he no longer could pass out cigars. But hey, organic fruit rollups are almost just as good. Especially when paired with an aged 12-year old scotch. Sam’s life is about to change big time.

Ours, not so much. We’ll see you next week with two new ones.

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