It's All About How You See It 01/20/23

After three installments on Craig, we can safely say that the thread of this underwear story has run out. Sorry, couldn’t resist. At the last second, John came up with the final joke on a joke line about putting the item up for sale on eBay. With Dottie asking for Craig’s autograph, you can’t be too sure what her actual motives were. I was listening to sports talk radio in the car the other day (please don’t judge me, the Giants are in the playoffs for the first time in years and I can’t get enough), the former star running back Tiki Barber told a story of people coming up to him asking him to autograph footballs for a holiday, birthday, etc. And then he found out that some of those people were turning around and selling them on eBay. No one has asked for my autograph or John’s. Yet. Of course neither of us were former underwear models either.

The other comic was based on a real incident, as opposed to the stuff we make up out of thin air. John and are both proud new grandparents of beautiful baby girls. I regale him with stories about mine, he doesn’t have as many stories yet because his granddaughter is still an infant. In the case of this comic, it was based on my granddaughter who was about 1 1/2 years old at the time. She came for a sleepover along with her dad and mom (who doubles as Joanie and my daughter). The next morning, our kids packed up the car to go to breakfast and head back home. My wife joined them for the breakfast part. When the kids buckled their daughter into her car seat she started wailing. When Joanie returned home from breakfast, I commented on how sweet it was that Charlotte (our granddaughter) looked at me and cried when they left. I asked her if she noticed Charlotte crying because she missed her grandpa. Joanie told me gently that no, Charlotte was just crying because she hated being buckled into her car seat. Oh well, a guy can dream, can’t he?

Have a great weekend, especially those of you who root for the Giants, and we will see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

A Model of Success 01/13/23

Last week we wrote about the joys of rattling around a mostly empty house. No more kids living at home, but you’ve got all their toys, soccer cleats, lacrosse sticks, finger paintings, as well as copies of every newspaper and magazine you thought was important enough to save. And keep in mind, this was way before digital. Then the inevitable occurs. You feel the need to downsize. And boy do the developers see us coming. The Boomers. Still the biggest blip in the population. New apartment buildings are popping up all over the country. Where I live in Westchester County, there was a massive GM plant that shut down, and guess what it’s become? That’s right, a massive apartment and condo complex. At any rate, we get lured into selling the old house and moving into a new apartment, and that comes along with the dreaded task of downsizing. Do we really need this… fourth set of china, copies of Gourmet Magazine dating back to 1980, old coat rack made of hockey sticks…fill in the blank? And sometimes, sometimes when you get around to rooting through all your stuff, you come upon a diamond. One of those, “Wait’ll I show the guys this!” For those of you who don’t know me, I’m bald. About 10 years ago, I found a picture of myself from college, hair down to my shoulders, wearing a dashiki and playing guitar with a friend at a local college saloon. I shared it at work with my team and even the client. Okay, it was kind of cool, but also a lot embarrassing. So John and I got to thinking. What would be something Al could unearth that would really embarrass him or one of his buddies? And we came up with Craig once modeling underwear, no, not like a Calvin Klein ad, but in a Sears Roebuck catalogue. Pretty tame by today’s standards, but back then, hot stuff! I know more than a few friends who weren’t allowed to have a Penthouse or Playboy, but instead relied on those formerly “racy” pictures from the Sears Catalogue. Not me or John, of course. As the barber from Sweeney Todd famously sang: “Oh, but that was many years ago…”

As for our second comic, it turns out it’s about the same subject as the first. In fact these are parts 1 and 2 of a 3-part series. All about Craig and his underwear. The moral of the story is, when you go through your stuff and find something embarrassing about one of your friends, beware of sharing it. Because chances are, they have something on you as well.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

A Moving Story. 01/06/23

This week Marv and Rachel face a thought many people face in their 60’s (or 50’s or 70’s, but this is called The New 60, so we’re sticking with 60). Just a simple chore, like looking for a pair of scissors, reveals to them that they are rattling around their house now that the kids are grown up and are on their own. My wife and I faced a similar situation 8 years ago and here’s how that went down. We were in our house, the kids had moved away, the school taxes were ridiculous, although we had no kids in school, but we loved our house and all its space. A new apartment complex opened up in the town just north of us. Despite my wife’s protestations to the contrary, I made an appointment, “just to look.” We walked inside an unfinished unit, with unpainted wooden beams and sheets of plastic up, it was a mess. I was ready to forget about it, when my wife came up to me and said, “Let’s take it.” We did and it was one of the best decisions we made. It also occurred to me that the real estate developers see us coming, The baby boomers are at the age when they’re ready to trade their homes for apartments, and the developers say, “Let’s build a place in a town with low school taxes because they have no interest in that, we’ll give them amenities like a yoga studio (‘cause old people like yoga) and they won’t have to worry about shoveling their driveways, and look, here comes a couple of suckers right now! Will Al and Joanne go in that direction? Only time will tell. John, on the other hand, completely upended this cliche, by building his own house in the woods and chopping down trees for firewood. Ahh, different strokes for different folks.

Our other strip deals with a phenomenon known to men of a certain age. We get bored and restless since we no longer have full-time jobs. Some of us take up cooking and eventually we want to impress our partners. (I cannot speak for John’s cooking skills except to say he has made me a mean toasted bagel with cream cheese and nova that would put Zabar’s to shame). So we proudly announce we’re making dinner, and then, just like when we learned how to diaper our children years ago, we learn we’re doing it all wrong. I have, in the past, been accused of such crimes as using the wrong container of blueberries, the wrong jar of peanut butter, the wrong kind of milk, and no, any “milk” that comes from a nut or a soybean is not milk! Okay? Forget about the fact that while many of us have just taken this on, our partners have been doing it for years. We just know we’re doing it the right way. The only concession I will give to my dear wife of 38 years is that I make a complete mess, on the floor, beneath the kitchen counter, on the counter itself, on and underneath my seat while eating, and most egregiously, I never, ever, use the splatter guard! If you can’t relate to this comic, chances are you’ve never tried to cook.

That’s it for this week. We wish you a Happy 2023 and despite the problems outlined above, try your hand at cooking guys. It’s fun. Until you get to the clean up part.

See you next week.

Andy and John

Holiday Cheer 12/30/22

Ahh the holidays. Sure, they are a time for celebrating with family and friends and wishing one another an even better year next year but what about now? As for now, half of the New 60 team (don’t worry John’s friends, it’s not him) came down with Covid for the second time. Despite getting every shot and booster available to mankind. In fact I had a great plan before getting sick. We invited 3 other couples to a jazz concert in our town, followed by a NYE party at our apartment. I pre-paid the tickets without telling everybody and now what? We had to cancel the party and the jazz club won’t refund the money. I guess I was trying to prove to myself I wasn’t like the faint-hearted couples in the comic who couldn't stay awake past 10:30 pm. I’m NOT like that, except with Covid. So please forgive me for being a wimp today and cutting this blog short. I promise to be back at full-strength next week with a full-length blog. But for now, with no energy and no apparent sense of humor, I bid you all a Happy New Year. See you next week.

Andy and John

On Forgetting and the Holidays

This is not about forgetting the holidays. We’re not THAT old yet. It’s about forgetting and the holidays. But the first comic is about forgetting where you parked. And I’m sorry to say that one happened to yours truly. My wife and I went out to dinner with another couple who were visiting us. After dinner was a jazz concert. Because the other couple wasn’t familiar with the area, the plan was that my wife Joanie went with the other husband in his car while I took the other wife in my car. Now get your collective minds out of the gutter. Nothing happened like that except when we walked out of the restaurant, I had no idea where I had parked. As in none. This wasn’t some understandable confusion, like not being able to find your car in a mall lot, an airport or a football stadium. Everybody does that. Don’t they? I mean, even a guy like John might lose his car there. But no, this was different. I couldn’t have been more than a block away. So I walked up the hill a block, down the hill two blocks (to make up for the one block uphill), and then back up to the starting place in front of the restaurant. I turned to my companion and shrugged my shoulders, and she suggested I use my key to unlock the car and maybe we’d see the flashing headlights. I heard but didn't see so finally I hit the “panic” button on the car key and eureka, there it was, one block away on the side street. Which begs the question do they call it a panic button because they know you are panicking? I always thought it was named “panic button,” because you’d use it in a panic, like if you saw somebody about to steal your car. But now I know better. In any case, while sheepishly recounting this to John, he suggested it might be better to have forgotten that Al didn’t drive after all. He had walked to the restaurant and forgotten. I’m still not sure which story is more pathetic.

But let’s get to Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, as those annoying car commercials never tire of telling us. You know the ones. They all have these stupid, oversized red bows on top of cars. I think Lexus started it but now BMW has joined the fray. If you’ve seen the commercial once, you’ve seen it a million times. This time the red bow appears on top of the house, a wind comes and blows it on top of the BMW, whereupon the perfectly coiffed, perfectly in shape grandpa comes out of the front door and thinks his son bought the car for him. Yeah, right. I believe that. And all of this has little to do with our holiday comic, delivered to your inbox two days before Christmas. John suggested Marv for Christmas because he’s rotund and jolly just like Santa. Mark is always struggling with his weight (who isn’t?) and that naturally led to Christmas cookies, and…you know the rest because chances are, you already read the comic. So happy holidays and we will see you next week before we finally get to next year. Where does the time go??

Andy and John

Romance and Reservations. 12/16/22

See what we did there with that title? You have certain reservations about romance, and we’re talking about making reservations for dinner. Both of which have absolutely nothing to do with each other. And now that we have that cleared up let’s talk about Craig. If you happened to read the blog 2 weeks ago, when we started the Craig series, we asked the question: do you know people who are intelligent, funny, in good shape and attractive, everything somebody would want in a mate, and yet they remain single? Of course you do. And now you know why Craig remains single. If a relationship can’t survive a road trip, how’s it going to survive the real stuff? On the other hand, we’d guess many relationships would crumble on an extensive road trip, but that’s a different topic. If you applied the potato/po-tah-to song to road trips, we think it might go something like this: You say Doritos, I say Funyuns, You say taquitos and I say onions, Dortios/Funyuns/Taquitos/Onions, let’s call the whole thing off. And so he did.

Our second comic, first on your scroll this week, is about dinner reservations. If you live in or around a big city, you know how tough it is to get a desirable time at a popular restaurant. You go on a restaurant app like Open Table and you type in your restaurant and are given two choices, 5:30 or 10:00 pm. Everybody wants 7 or 8 and those go first. So you’re left with two undesirable choices. But a funny thing happens on the way towards your 60’s and 70’s and even 80’s. Before, if I had to choose, I’d have opted for the 10 pm. See a movie first then out to dinner. 5:30 is for old people and families with young children. Then John and I took a look in our own mirrors And we saw two older guys who also go out with couples with young kids (our daughters are both married and have blessed us with granddaughters). The baby has to go to bed by 7, which means leaving the restaurant by 6:30, which means dinner at 5???? But after a while, I discovered I like going out early. It means getting home early. And going through season 5 of Yellowstone. Then let’s talk about eating late and the impact it has on my acid reflux. On the other hand, let’s not. As John put it yesterday, we used to be embarrassed to go to dinner at 5:30, but now an 8:30 dinner sounds way too late. Yes it’s true that we are getting older and our habits are slowly changing, but at least for us and our characters, we’re going by kicking and screaming the whole way. I STILL won’t eat lunch before 12:30. Even if it means having no appetite left for my 5:30 dinner.

See you next week with two new ones,

Andy and John

Will it Last? 12/09/22

Anybody remember the movie, “Diner?” It takes place in Baltimore and one of the characters makes his girlfriend pass an impossible quiz on the Baltimore Colts and Johnny Unitas (yes, that’s where they played before slinking off to Indianapolis), before the guy would propose to her. It was a test. Just like the one Craig is giving to Cynthia. How cool is she on a road trip? Is she relaxed enough to eat Slim Jims and peanut butter crackers, and Funyuns? Or is she going to be the kind of woman who only eats organic superfoods and drinks only unsweetened black tea? And in her mind she’s wondering how cranky Craig will be. And how much fun. Road trips are like that. You stop at McDonald’s even if you’ve never otherwise stopped at McDonald’s before. You sleep in motels you wouldn't otherwise dream of staying in. You need a sense of adventure, a sense of humor, and you have to be able to compromise. Just telling you, dear readers, that I possess none of the above qualities. I’ve been on only one road trip with John and that was to a comic show at a Greenwich museum and I can vouch that he wasn't the least bit cranky. Here’s a way we’re different: John, who’s more likely to roll with the punches, came up with the idea for grape Nehi sodas. I, for one, would only drink an orange Nehi, never a grape Nehi. Never. And if you’re not from New York, like my wife (who hails from Pittsburgh), you’ve never heard of Nehi in the first place. Trust me, you’re better off. You know the kind of cloying, artificial “grape” flavor in a grape Tootsie Pop? Well take that X 10 and you’ve got the taste of a Nehi Grape Soda. John’s extra touch of the ice bucket was both funny and extremely necessary. If you think a Nehi grape soda is barf-worthy to begin with, imagine drinking it warm from the machine. Not good.

In any case Craig and Cynthia have so much in common. And next week, we will find out how it all turns out between our two new lovebirds. But ‘til then, hold your collective breath. Or don’t. Because you might pass out and we want you to keep on reading.

One other note, our anthology book of comics, which many of you have inquired about, is now scheduled to come about sometime next Spring. I know, we promised the holidays, but maybe the holiday is more Memorial Day than Christmas. Anyway, we will be sure to let you know. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Relationships 12/02/22

So it’s already December. Where does the time go, and how come we keep getting older each year? Anyway, this week we start a 5-part series on our confirmed bachelor, Craig, and the new “love of his life,” Cynthia. Our guess is we all know someone like Craig. Good looking, intelligent, fit. And the question is: why does he or she remain single? Is it because they want to be single? Or is it because they haven’t met the right person yet? Or are they unwilling to compromise? John and I have each been married almost 40 years, so we are not the best examples. But what about Craig, is he ready to take the plunge? I was once a single guy around 27 or 28 and met a girl who was interviewing at a place I used to work. I saw her lingering in the hallway and struck up a conversation and there was an immediate chemistry. So I asked her out on a date. She was of a similar age and she had been through enough failed romances that she wasn’t messing around anymore. She knew what she wanted (at least she thought she did) and if you didn't meet her checklist, you were toast. Of course I didn't know any of this until I arrived at her apartment for our first (and last) date. She greeted me at the front door and before she put her coat on to go outside, she handed me a list. A literal list of all the qualities she sought in a man she’d be willing to have a relationship with. I kid you not. The lucky man would have to (now this was a long time ago, so my memory’s a bit foggy) love pets, not smoke cigarettes, not drink to excess, be neat, enjoy long walks in nature, etc. For those of you who know me, I don’t respond well to people giving me orders. And yes, I still smoked a pack every 2 or 3 days. Not much, but enough to disqualify me. By the way, I officially stopped smoking on June1, 1986, the day my daughter (my first child) was born, but I was being given a list the second I walked in the door and didn't like it. What I did is sit down in a chair and read the list. Then I pulled a fresh pack of cigarettes out of my jacket and proceeded to hit the front of the pack against my palm, packing the tobacco. She said, “What are you doing?” I explained I was a light smoker and also that I hadn’t grown up with a pet and so was not a natural with dogs. She asked me to please put the cigarettes away and I said, “I don’t think this is gonna work out.” She full-heartedly agreed and we never even went to dinner. True story. But the point is, the older you get, the more rigid you become in your ways. It was Match.com before Match.com existed.

I’m reminded of the Pina Colada song where a bored husband responds to a classified ad saying, “if you like Pina Coladas, taking walks in the rain…” the guy answers the ad saying he loves all those things and plans to meet surreptitiously in a bar at midnight. When he gets there he finally meets the woman who wrote the ad, his wife. Or as Joni Mitchell once brilliantly wrote, “Don’t it always seem to go, you don’t know what you want ‘til it’s gone?” When you’re in your 60’s you think you know what you want, like Craig thinks he knows and Cynthia thinks she knows. Will she be the one? Will Craig listen to his heart instead of his head? Stay tuned. There’s three more comics coming.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week as the road trip continues.

Andy and John

On Thanksgiving and Feeling Our Age 11/24/22

I was at physical therapy the other week, and I said something about Charlie Chaplin to the therapist who was working with me. Another therapist, a young woman in her late 20’s, looked over and said, “Who’s Charlie Chaplin?” Talk about feeling your age. I looked over and explained he was not only a famous writer, actor and director, he was also a songwriter. Yep that’s right, “Smile When Your Heart is Breaking” was written by Charlie, for his first movie with sound (they called them “talkies” back then) Limelight. But the point is, the comment made me think two things: 1) I must be really old and 2) she shoulda known. I mean, c’mon now. What’s that quote, something like “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”? What about those who never learned history? This is all a lead-in to our first comic of the week, second on your scroll, called “Phone Book.” John and I had, for lack of a better term, a lively discussion about whether or not a kid Sid’s age (approx 30) would know what a phone book was. John asked his kids and one of them said, “Yeah, it’s that thing I used to have to sit on to reach the dining room table.” That about says it all. I suggested John just tell him, “You know, it’s that thing that hangs in every phone booth.”

And next up is our annual Thanksgiving comic/poster. Nothing like eating and drinking 5,000 calories, getting a belly-full of tryptophan and settling on the couch to watch the third football game of the day, to knock you right the hell out. And it’s okay, because you’re with family and they would never dream of being judgmental. Here’s another thing to be thankful for. Ever since John and I left the world of advertising, we’ve become our own bosses. So when I want to take Thanksgiving off or write a short blog today because I’m leaving early tomorrow for my daughter’s house, I just look in the mirror and ask, “Hey Andy, can you write a quickie this week and then go on vacation?” John asked the same of himself. And surprise, surprise, we both said a resounding “YES!”

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and we will be back with you next week.

Andy and John

Keeping (sorta) Fit 11/17/22

Our exercise series this week starts with a comic about fitness watches in general. An Apple Watch, a FitBit, or the Google and Samsung equivalents. The idea about these damn, stupid, I mean watches are that they give you gentle reminders to get off your ass and start walking, weight lifting, counting calories, etc. It gets particularly annoying when you’re driving a car or flying in a plane, going to a theater for a show or a movie and the watch tells you, time to get up and move. A short 5-minute walk will get you closer to your “stand goal”. And what is a stand goal, pray tell? You have to stand for a certain amount of minutes each hour. Well, I can’t stand in a theater. What would the people behind me say (probably not much since I’m only 5’6”)? The thing is most healthy people look at a watch deliverring a message as only a minor annoyance. Not yours truly. I shout at it. “I’m driving damnit! Why don’t you earn another hour to your stand goal? I’m just trying to not get into a car accident, is that okay, you dumb watch?” After I broke my ankle this summer I put my Apple Watch in a drawer and never wore it again until I was healed. Everyday there were these messages: “You’re usually much further along by this time of the day.” And I’d look at my “move ring” and see it say that I’d achieved only 1 minute of exercise that day. I switched to my old normal watch, the kind that only tells time, instead. I remember John telling me about chopping down a dead tree in his yard to then chop into firewood. It’s hard, physical work, but halfway through the process he noticed he had forgotten to wear his watch. Hence, he got no credit (at least as far as the watch was concerned) for any physical activity, when in fact he had done a tremendous amount of aerobic and strength training, only he was chopping wood. I am prone to thinking like that myself. I once in a while forget to wear the damn thing and find myself on a 4-mile walk. But my watch thinks I’ve moved 3 steps that particular day. And yet, as soon as I recovered from the ankle and started hiking 2 then 3 then 4 miles a day, I went right back to my annoying digital watch. I wanted to get credit for my exercise. Finally, we ask the existential question of all fitness watches: If you chop a tree down in the forest and forget to record it on your watch, does it really count?

Our next effort was about a date. And our single character, Craig, was scoping out a potential new woman friend who seemed athletic, which he liked. But maybe she was a little too athletic as Craig realized she would kick his ass in the game of squash. Now this thought came from discussing a couple of my youthful experiences I shared with John. I once met a girl at a gym, and we made a date to play racquetball. I had to use every bit of my strength and speed to barely beat her. I don’t think she was very impressed, which is probably why she refused a second date (this time, just dinner with no athletic competition). Another antic occurred when I played a couple of seasons of co-ed softball in my late 50’s. I was standing on third base, attempting to run home when the batter hits a ball to the short fielder (in co-ed softball you usually play with 4 outfielders instead of the traditional 3) and teams usually put their weaker players at that position. Not this team and not this woman. The fly ball was hit, she retreated a few steps, and then started running in towards the ball. She caught it on the run and threw a perfect strike to home plate. If I had run from third, I would have been out by 20 feet. After the inning, I asked her if she played in college, and without missing a beat she said, Yep, starting center fielder at Notre Dame. Okay then. I played intramural sports. Does that count? John, however, was an honest to goodness varsity soccer player, so there. But I digress. As liberated as we like to think of ourselves, most guys don’t like losing to women, even if the woman is 10 times better than he is. There, I’ve said it, so shoot me. Whaddya want? I’m in my 60’!

Enjoy this beautiful, if cold, late fall weather and we’ll see you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

The Art of Compromise 11/11/22

First a little shoutout to a special grandniece, Emery. She has the coolest birthday, born 11/11/11, which makes her 11 years old today. If that doesn't make you want to go out and play the lottery… Anyway, happy 11th, Ms. 11/11/11. And now to the art of compromise. It applies to both our comics this week. The first of course was the final chapter in our “Bhutan” series. In real true life (as my son used to say when he was a little boy) my wife wants to go to Bhutan. You hike, you see temples and you eat…vegetables. The entire country is f’ing vegetarian. It also ranks at or near the top of something called a “World Happiness Index.” If one has anything to do with the other, I’d rather eat meat and be miserable. Ever see a 69-year old man who still pushes his vegetables to the side of the plate? Then you haven’t met me. John is much better in this regard. Except for peas.

The other comic in today’s feed was about getting a new dog. If you are in your 60’s or a little younger or a little older, you probably are struggling with this dilemma as we speak. Dogs are great. Man’s best friend and all that. They also are a major responsibility. Today, on a walk, I watched a couple with their dog. They threw a ball and the dog would bound away happily to fetch the ball and come racing back with it so they could do the sequence all over again. When the guy was talking to his girlfriend the dog would stand there, jumping up and down, way up in the air as if to say, “Hello…remember me? Throw!” And so they did. I got tired of watching before the dog got tired of running and jumping. So about compromise. My wife and I are on the same page on this one. At this point, with the kids out of the house, the last thing we want is to be tied down. I sense John and his wife may be straddling the fence on this one. Why? Because when we discussed the premise, John came out with a list of why not’s in under 20 seconds. Not that he’s been thinking about this subject or anything like that.

One last thought about compromise as it relates to going away on vacation. Some people like action/adventure vacations, diving, hiking, skiing, biking in places like the Maldives, Patagonia (no not the store) and even Bhutan, for heaven’s sake. While others prefer to relax and luxuriate with a spa, a beach, a golf course, stuff like that. My question is this: who WOULDN’T like that? Pass me the Pina Colada please? Oh, and the chips and guac.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Friday with two new ones.

Andy and John.

Bucket Lists 11/4/22

If you are a loyal reader of this comic and blog, you’re probably old enough to have a bucket list. These are the things you want to do and places you want to go before it’s all over. The name, of course, comes from the thought “...before I kick the bucket.” And just like snowflakes and fingerprints, no two bucket lists are alike. Now I must admit that a close family relative of mine has Bhutan on his bucket list and that was the genesis of this idea. As always in this blog, names are omitted to protect the innocent. He is, was and will always be an adventure traveler. My wife and I spent a memorable Labor Day Weekend with him several decades ago. We were becalmed (another word for trapped) on a sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay for 3 days in temperatures approaching the 90’s. We were roasting and if you went below deck it was murderously hot. Finally our adventurer jumped in the Chesapeake to cool off, and was instantly attacked by a school of jelly fish. When we returned home, I wrote an article called “Inward Bound.” If the sailboat was like the program “Outward Bound,” then I wanted to do a program based on the opposite. Instead of being becalmed on a sailboat for 3 days in 90 degree weather, you’d be stuck inside the Ritz-Carlton with air-conditioning, cable tv, and room service complete with french toast for breakfast and steak frites and a nice cabernet for dinner. If I can ever find the article, I’ll repost it as a blog.

When I pitched the idea to John, he immediately got a smile on his face. We googled Bhutan and came up with two important facts: their favorite sport is archery and the entire country is vegetarian. And they also rank high on the World Happiness Index. Put it this way, if you can be happy watching archery and eating vegetables, you are not likely to have the same bucket list as me.

And speaking of bucket lists, do you guys remember the show “Green Acres”? A husband (Eddie Albert) and his wife (Eva Gabor, sister of Zsa Zsa) were thinking of moving to the country. It was at the top of his bucket list, not even at the bottom of hers. The theme song was a classic. Here’s how it opened:

“Green Acres is the place for me/Farm living’ is the life for me/Land spreadin’ out so far and wide/Keep Manhattan just give me the countryside.” To which his wife replied:

“New York is where I’d rather stay/I get allergic smelling hay/I just adore a penthouse view/Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue.”

I consider it one of the funniest (and telling) theme songs ever written. Except for the closing, which was the height of sexism and could never get on the air today. Here is how the argument gets decided:

“You are my wife/Goodbye city live/ Green Acres we are there” (And she spent the rest of her life living on a farm in Hooterville with her husband and a pig named Arnold).

At any rate, Al comes back with a bucket list of his own and next week, in the third and final installment, we reach a decision, and no, it’s not sexist like Green Acres. We promise.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week with the conclusion of the bucket list series and another new direction.

Andy and John

Sucker of the Month Club. 10/28/22

In the past few blogs we have covered hacking, phishing and getting all your personal financial information stolen. What fun. I could write more about it but I don’t know anything more. Otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten hacked in the first place. So let us concentrate on our second comic, which deals with monthly subscriptions. No not the kind like you have for People Magazine. The kind of subscription we’re talking about is the “Sign up now for Disney+ to see the movie of the hit Broadway show Hamilton for the low, low price of $6.99” type of subscription. I certainly fell for that one. And if you’re like me, you write yourself a note to cancel said subscription at the end of the month, and then promptly forget to do so. Some 18 months later you notice the $6.99 monthly charge and go about cancelling but then you find out Season 3 of Ted Lasso is coming up soon so…

I once remember reading about the most contentious divorce case in U.S history. I don’t see how anything could be more contentious than the John Wayne and Lorenna Bobbit case when she sliced off his…anyway, this particular case was contentious as well. It featured a multibillionaire and his wife who was suing him for most of the profits. The reason to bring this up is because he made his billions selling subscriptions to just about anything you could think of. Subscriptions to pens, razors, perfumes, pipe tobacco, cheeses, fruits, etc. Studies have shown that a huge percentage of people who sign up for a subscription keep paying for it in perpetuity.

In our house for instance we have a subscription for clean sponges. Four new ones every two months. As well as for the traveling Quip toothbrush replacement brush heads and replacement batteries. Spotify, all those streaming services like Hulu and HBO+ we pay extra for because we still have cable, and on and on and on. Did you notice that whenever there’s a “+” sign it means that you will now have to pay extra for what you were already paying for? Here’s two more ridiculous examples. We have a music service called Deezer which, like Spotify, costs about $9.99 per month, but promises better audio quality. But my wife listens to a lot of podcasts and Deezer doesn’t carry one she loves. So she signed up for Spotify. Instead of the one person plan for $9.99 there was a family plan for $12.99. She signed and said I could now stop paying for Deezer. I said, “Cool,” and promptly forgot to cancel Deezer. Now we pay a total of $22.98 for what used to cost us $9.99. I know, I’ll get around to it. She also gifted me her Amazon Kindle and mentioned she took a $9.99 monthly subscription and I could read any book in their catalogue (much like Spotify). I said great and then tried to cancel it, but have no idea how to do so.

I think John does not suffer from the same foolishness because he’s the one that knew about the app that gathers all your subscriptions in one place, and unlike Al, he didn’t forget the password. So that is all she wrote for this week. Stay tuned for next Friday when we do the first two parts of a 3-part adventure travel series. This is precisely the kind of thing people our age engage in, as long as their neck/back/foot/migraine/shoulder/elbow/ankle pain doesn't get in the way.

See you then. Oops, got to answer the door. It’s time for my water of the month delivery.

Andy and John

Gone Phishing

Hello again. We’re baaaack! This time with a three part series about Phishing. Now we regaled you in a past blog entitled “Help Line,” about the horrors of phishing. To refresh your memories, what happened is that I got hacked. Deeply hacked. Someone went on what has come to be called a “Phishing Expedition” and attempted to steal all my personal financial information. They didn’t get it, but not before I had to change every password I’ve come to rely on. And if you are over 60, you know how vexing it is to remember multiple passwords, let alone one. So we’ve got a couple questions for you. Why is it called phishing instead of fishing? Don’t these people know how to spell? I remember a Latin teacher in 7th grade who said, “You think LATIN is tough, try learning English for the first time.” And then he wrote on the blackboard “gh-o-ti,” and said “fish.” The “gh” sound comes from the word “enough'“ the “o” sound from “women,” and the “ti” from “nation.” Fish. The rock band “Phish” ought to sue whoever called this habit “phishing,” but I digress. How did these clowns get into my computer in the first place? Oh wait, that’s because I inadvertently let them in. But that’s precisely the point. You know what was the most galling thing about it? When I explained what had happened, no matter how sympathetic the listener was, I got a chorus of “Oh Andy, you didn’t.” John for instance said, “You know I was warning my mother about the same thing.” I got so many responses from people in my general age group telling me about how they had to help their parents from getting trapped in a phishing scam that I was wondering, how come nobody warned me not too fall in this trap? And your parents??? I’m not your parents’ age, I’m your age. But at least John knew how to recognize the warning signs so that I can now catch them, and if not for John, Sid’s dialogue about phishing would not have qualified as good advice. So thanks John for teaching me and our readers (in part 3 - you’ll have to wait until next week) how to recognize the signs, but no thanks for making me feel even older than I actually am (though truth be told, I am 5 years older than him). Ugh.

It seems these scams get more and more sophisticated as time goes on. One is to call people our parent’s age and pretend to be one of their grandchildren. Something along the lines of, “Hello grandma? This is Timmy. I got into an accident and my car is in a ditch and I’ve got no way to get home. If you could send me $200 for a car service to pick me up I’d be soooo grateful.” And even though the call doesn't sound like Timmy, and even though Timmy parent’s are very much alive and able to help, these poor people are shaken and end up giving pertinent information about their bank accounts in order to help. In my particular case I was led to a totally professional webpage that said “Best Buy Refund Page.” Turns out being a digital pioneer is a lot tougher than it seems. For instance, my wife and I are staying at one of our kids’ houses soon to babysit their daughter and our beloved granddaughter (obviously, one in the same person). They have a tv and a remote, and gave me specific instructions on how to use it. I’m bringing along a book just in case I can’t figure it out again. But it’s an ebook, so it’s still digital, Well, kinda digital.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next Friday with the conclusion of the Phishing Expedition as well as a brand new one on a whole other kind of online scam.

Andy and John

To Sit or To Stand? 10/13/22

When it comes to peeing, it seems like we’ve got it all figured out, right? Men stand, women sit. But sometimes we find ourselves out of our comfort zones. In the case of a guy with a broken or twisted ankle, when you can’t put weight on a foot, you are forced to sit and pee. Conversely if a woman has to go really bad, and she’s say, hiking in the woods, she has no choice but to stand (alright, she squats, but that didn’t fit my sentence as well). As Al is about to find out, 1) nobody cares and 2) a lot of guys choose to sit. Who knew? Apparently John knew more than I did and that forms the basis for our two part series. Basically I did my part by breaking my ankle and learning the hard way, while John supplied the reasons a guy might sit.

Our two-part series this week deals with both points. The fact that nobody really cares, and the fact that however you do it is up to you. In fact, this topic is going to result in this week’s blog being mercifully short. Because, I can’t, for the life of me, think of one more thing to say about going #1. I leave you with this funny and true story:

After my bike accident in July, I spent the next couple months on crutches, or on a “knee stroller” and had no choice but to pee sitting down. One Sunday night in late August, my wife and I went out to dinner with another couple we’re very friendly with. Names, as always, are withheld to protect the guilty (and also to assure that I will have at least a couple of friends left after I finish blogging one day). The male part of this couple we had dinner with is both a very loyal friend and a very natty dresser. He is exceedingly neat and a bit germophobic. As we approached the end of the meal, my wife had a pre-existing zoom call and had to leave before dessert. She asked our friends if they would drive me home and help me up the steps to see that I got back in one piece. This was fine, except for one glaring omission. I had to go pee. And since it takes so much longer to do anything when you’re in a cast and on crutches, I knew I couldn't wait until I got home. The fact that the cast was up to right below my knee meant it wasn't going to be easy to pull my pants down, meaning I was going to pee standing up (at last, he comes back to the topic). This required asking my friend to accompany me to the men’s room of this very tony restaurant, and when I saw there was no rail to hang onto, I asked if I could support myself with my free hand by putting my arm around his shoulder. Fortunately for me, the loyal friend part of my friend won out over the fastidious part and he stood there allowing me to hang on his shoulder while emptying my bladder. Again, I never want to name names, but you, sir, are indeed a great buddy.

That’s it for this week. See you next week, same time, same place with two new ones. Enjoy your weekends and if you are a Mets fan like John and me, let It go, it’s time for football.

Andy and John.

Helpless HelpLine 10/07/22

Hi again. It’s your New 60 fellas back with the end of the “Help Line” series. As I wrote last week, more of these incidents happen to me instead of to John, but this week we’re doing two comics about something that has plagued us both. Yes, it’s true, you have to be profoundly untech (is that even a word?) to allow yourself to get hacked. But waiting on a computer helpline, well that’s something we both have suffered through as has everyone who has ever owned a computer (press 1), a tablet (press 2) - no fellow Luddites, not the Bayer Aspirin kind of tablet, or a smartphone (press 3). The evil computer company seems bound and determined to keep you on the line without speaking to a person as long as humanly possible. For me, they keep me on long enough to start cursing and hitting the “0” button (mistakenly thinking that stands for “operator”) while shouting, “Agent, agent, agent, okay representative, representative, representative,” until someone gets on and tells you that you’re been connected to the wrong number, they don’t handle computers issues, but if you are patient while they put you on hold for another 23 minutes and 13 seconds (but who’s counting?), they will connect you with the proper department, when you will have to once again explain the reason why you are calling. Is this any way to run a business? Or do they just hate talking to customers so much they’ll do anything to avoid it. I guess I can understand that too. I heard about a couple that called a TV repairman to fix their Apple TV, and when he got to their apartment, he asked them where their Apple remote was and they didn't know. Then he asked them their Apple password and of course they didn't know that either, so I can understand the frustration of the techies, but c’mon guys, give use a break, especially if we’re over 60 years of age. John envisioned the larger than life ending of Al screaming “noooooo,” so loud, it reverberated throughout not only the neighborhood, but also the entire tri-state area.

A special note of thanks to David Ockene, a, proofreader extraordinaire, who has been patiently reading the New 60 blog for all 3 years of its existence. He would always write us emails pointing out the various affronts to grammar and the English language that I’d make on a weekly basis. Finally one day we asked if he would consider proofreading the blog out of the goodness of his heart, and he responded with, “I was just about to suggest the same thing.” My wife and I finally got the chance to meet David and his lovely wife in person. We all love to point out what is wrong with social media, but David, you’re all about what’s right with it. We wanted to give you a heartfelt thanks for your efforts.

See you all next week,

Andy and John

Help Line. 09/30/22

We finally got to the end of the three part series about getting to a destination wedding. Our ultimate destination to the destination, as it were. And as we described in last week’s blog, the actuality of the situation was that my wife and I changed into our rehearsal dinner clothes in a large gravel-strewn parking lot. It hurt standing on it and we also hoped and prayed nobody else drove up there while we were in our birthday suits. Nobody did, but in the end, when I was putting on my jacket, another couple DID drive up there. They had also gotten lost, but unlike us, they were already dressed.

Onto comic 2. The first in another 3-part series, this time about online “help.” Now why these things keep happening to me, as opposed to John, is a mystery to me. Unless John is not revealing the embarrassing missteps he must take. But this, this felt like a new low. As I was lying about our beach house this summer with my broken left ankle elevated, my wife asked me if I knew about this $249 yearly charge for the Best Buy Geek Squad. I didn't know, but in the back of my mind I might have signed up for it. I saw a phone number attached to the email, and since I was reliant on my wife for everything since I couldn’t walk, (can you get me an iced coffee dear, oh, not so much ice, good, and a little more coffee, good and would you mind putting in some half and half?) Anyway, there was a phone number attached to the email and I promptly called it, after saying heroically (at least in my mind) “Don’t worry dear, I’ll handle it!” Famous last words. I made the call and got a guy from Bangalore on the phone, wanting ro be my friend who will rescue me from the evil jaws of Best Buy. He asked if I was sitting in front of a computer and then he started to direct me to this website and that website and al leading to getting me a refund. Now I will admit I was starting to get suspicious, but then again, he said I had been charged for two years and he was helping me get my $500 back. One of the sites he led me to said “Best Buy Return Site,” so yeah, I fell for it. After much back and forth, he said he sent me the $500 to my bank. Would I please check my checking account to make sure the deposit was made. If I was thinking, I would have thought, how would he even know where to send the money? He doesn't have my account info. And when I checked Citibank, it finally hit me, Oh my god, I just let him into my bank account. At this moment, I told him (in the most gentle way possible) “F^#k you hacker!” and hung up. I went to shut off my computer and that’s when I saw my cursor wasn’t cooperating. Panicked, I now unplugged the computer, turned off the internet router (my wife was working and that messed her up as well) and got off my chair and started rapidly walking to her office (in our apartment). That’s when I remembered, oh no, I’m not supposed to walk and walked back to my knee stroller to enable myself to get to her and warn her. It’s all a happy ending, we reacted quickly enough so the hackers got nothing, but I did have to spend the next couple days online with help desks from the bank, from Apple and others. I recalled all this to John and it left us with this question, why do they call help desks, help desks? What exactly do they do to help? Do you even get a chance to speak with a human? It’s enough to make you tear your hair out, but fortunately for me, I don’t have much hair. But it led us to this 3-part series, so there’s always that. Follow Al in his journey as he gets all the help the help desk can deliver.

One further note of help. After explaining this whole incident to John he just said, when you get one of these emails, just check out the address of the sender. When you see it’s not from Best Buy, but from Dave120.6, you know it’s a scam.

See you next week and in the meantime, have a beautiful, scam-free weekend.

Andy and John

Ever Try Changing Clothes in a car? Don't. 09/23/22

Earlier this summer, our son was invited to a friend’s wedding and was one of the groomsmen. My wife and I were invited as well. We had rented a beach house and drove, in our flip flops, shorts and tees, from Long Island to pick up our son at LaGuardia airport, to then proceed to the Catskill mountains, on a Friday afternoon, at rush hour. The total distance was approximately 2-3 light years. One of my favorite sayings is: Man Plans, God laughs. Our plan was to drive to the hotel where the kids were staying, drop our son off, giving him time to change into nice clothes for the rehearsal dinner. Then we’d go to our hotel, where all the old folks were staying, and change into the outfits we’d picked out for the dinner. It would make a hectic day seem a bit more relaxed. Brilliant right? What happened next gave us enough fodder to make this a 3-part saga, so we can't tell you the ending until next week’s blog. But think about this. If it’s true that when an ordinary man (or woman) makes plans, it causes God to laugh, then just think about how God reacts when AL attempts to make a plan. Trust us, God has plenty of new material.

What happened was there was a little bit of traffic. Okay, a lot of traffic. And cell phone service, once you get to the mountains, ohh, how can I say this politely, sucks the big one. Which means no Waze. Which means in addition to being late, we were lost. We dropped our son off and as we got to his hotel, the entire wedding party was leaving. So we waited for our son to change, and then we drove him to the rehearsal dinner so he wouldn't miss the whole thing. Now it was so late, if we turned back to our hotel, we’d have no chance to make it back to the rehearsal dinner in time. So we went to the upper parking lot, lined in gravel the size of rocks. Looked around and saw it was empty, and proceeded to pull our suitcases from the trunk and change, standing up, in the lot. The full Monty. I know it’s a pain to change while sitting in the car, but this was somehow worse. Imagine, if you will, standing on one foot on this big-rock gravel while attempting to put your opposite foot into your pants leg. The good news is we made it and had a great time. The bad news is I am still picking gravel out of my socks. But when I told this story to John, he immediately saw it taking place in a car, which, I must admit, is a hell of a lot funnier visually. And you wind up avoiding rocks in your socks.

That is it for this week, we will see you next week with the last comic in this series plus we’re starting a brand new three-parter about computer help lines. Trust us, they aren’t the least bit helpful.

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

Perspective 09/09/22

If you’re old enough to be reading The New 60, you’re probably old enough to have grandchildren. And if you’re old enough to have grandchildren you know that you’ve just been knocked back a rung or two in the family pecking order. Speaking from experience, my wife and I rented a beach house this summer and invited our daughter, her husband and their child, who doubles as our first grandchild. Now admittedly she is cute as a button, likely the cutest baby ever (okay that’s just grandpa getting carried away…a little) but enough is enough. One day my wife was feverishly working, door to our bedroom closed as she conducted a zoom meeting on her computer. I needed to desperately ask her a question and couldn't wait for her meeting to end in order to ask the question. She had at least another hour to go. So I gingerly opened the door and entered the room. She looked over her shoulder, saw it was me and waved me away, as if to say “Get out of here, can’t you see I’m in the middle of an important meeting?” I retreated. Now to be fair, she is the only one of us with a full-time job since I unceremoniously “retired” from advertising at the end of 2016, and her work is very important. At any rate, not five minutes later our granddaughter came crawling down the hallway, and I, feeling rejected (and being a wiseass) , wanted to get my wife back. So I said to the baby, “Want to see grandma? C’mon, she’s right in here. So baby Charlotte crawls right up to the door, and slaps at it, making a loud sound repeatedly. My wife comes to the door ready to hand me my head, when she looks down, sees who’s making the racket, and in her sweetest, highest voice, says Hiiiiiiiii sweetheart, want Grandma to pick you up?” And of course she does, brings Charlotte to the computer, introduces her to the zoom meeting, and everybody is oohing and ahhing and speaking in their own high voices for the next five minutes, before she hands Charlotte back to her mom, shuts the door and resumes the meeting. Now couldn't she have done the same with me? Granted she couldn't have lifted me up, but at least an “Excuse me guys, I just have to speak to my husband for a second, oh wait, want to meet him?” I mean I am 69, which is not nearly as cute as our 16- month-old, but I am temporarily disabled with a broken ankle suffered while riding a bicycle. So give me a little break, but wait, I’d rather not have any more breaks. Okay, I guess it’s pretty tough to score sympathy points when competing with a baby. She wins. As does my wife and her accurate set of priorities. But what I had to say was important. Something crucial like, “Could you pick up some tonic water at the grocery store?” In truth it was so unimportant that I can’t even remember what it was. So maybe it wasn't that important, but it did inspire our first comic.

Next up was Pickleball. John is a tennis player and has also tried his hand at Pickleball. It is being billed as a great sport for seniors, right up there with walking and frisbee golf. It requires good hand-eye coordination and not much running since most people play doubles and the court is about a third the size of a tennis court. But what it does require is a lot of quick movements including lunging. Back to my broken ankle. I was reading an article about the emerging popularity of Pickleball, when they quoted Dr. Neil Roth, an orthopedic surgeon, extensively. Dr. Roth said it was a great game for seniors for many reasons but cautioned that he had repaired a lot of broken limbs as a result of Pickleball. That stopped me because that is the same Dr. Roth who just performed surgery on my ankle. When John and I discussed how we were going to approach Pickleball, I suggested doing a comic about a broken limb, but he went right to the fact that part of the court is called the kitchen and we both knew who has trouble in the kitchen. Loveable old Marv, that’s who.

So that’s it for this week. Enjoy your weekend, Can you believe it’s already football season? See you next week with two new ones,

Andy and John