New Tastes. 12/08/23

In a sense, Christopher Columbus was right about the world being flat. Although there is some controversy about whether or not he thought that, let’s just say it’s true. This is a blog, not a history lesson. So that’s established. The world is flat. Or at least getting flatter. Flatter in the sense that new cultures and new tastes keep intermingling and intermarrying, and intercooking (is that even a word?) with increasing frequency. Add to that the ability to instantly communicate with anyone, at any time and you can see why we have so many wild new combinations of ideas and of food. Like avocado sorbet. 50 years ago, I would never have dreamed of eating raw fish. Then about 20 years ago I went to a Michelin-starred sushi restaurant in Madrid, Spain. After a lot of delicious pieces of tuna and yellowtail and sea bream came a, drumroll please, cheeseburger on rice. Yes you read that right. They grilled a piece of hamburger into a shape that would fit perfectly onto a sushi-size bed of rice. It was delicious, but I did get a little embarrassed asking for soy-sauce-sized-saucer of ketchup. Both John and I are open to different culinary experiences. Except for pumpkin spice lattes. Who knows, they might even be delicious, but the ads, OMG. They don’t stop. If you listen to the Wendy’s ad for their Pumpkin Spice Frosty (and could someone please tell that oh-so-hip announcer that the chain is pronounced Wendy’s and not Windy’s) pay special attention to the disclaimer at the end, spoken at the speed of light. He says something like, “Pumpkin Spice Frosties are available for a limited time during which Vanilla Frosties will not be available.” Say what? I guess they have only two Frosty dispensers and are willing to sacrifice the vanilla for holiday season, but not the chocolate. These are the same Frostiss that people in commercials eat by dipping french fries into them. But I digress. I don’t like Pumpkin Spice and I do like vanilla, so I waited for Thanksgiving to be over and for vanilla to make its triumphant return, but not so fast. Make way for the Christmas season, where in addition to the Pretzel Baconator comes, ta da, the Peppermint Frosty! And while I still miss vanilla, it gave us the impetus for one of this week’s comics. True story: John and I worked in an ad agency that had the Wendy’s account. And we both are friends with a guy who was hired to be the voice of the baconator on social media. Truth. And the funniest thing is, he’s a vegetarian.

Okay, so what about the other comic? It has to do with food, without being about food. I will explain by example. A couple months ago, my wife and I attended a Steely Dan concert in an arena. It started at 7:30 and we wanted to get something to eat before. So we went to a concession stand and here was the scene: A couple people were working the grill, cooking up burgers, veggie burgers and chicken to use in various sandwiches. When they were finished with a particular patty they wrapped in up in tin foil and placed it under a heat lamp. I’ll bet your mouth is watering already. You want condiments? Go to the condiment table where there were individual packets of mustard, mayo and ketchup. Napkins, same table, where you pulled them one at a time from a dispenser. Drinks? Over there in the refrigerated case. Sodas, beers, wine in cans, water, etc. Finally, when you’ve finished with all of that, you approach another table where a cashier is standing. He or she punches the prices into a card reader, turns it towards you and you tap your card. Here’s where the fun part comes in. The machine asks if you want to tip 15%, 20%, 22% or “custom amount.” If you pay nothing, because they didn't actually serve you, you turn the machine back towards them and they know you’re a cheap jerk. So I put in a “custom tip” of 10%. You usually tip for service but suddenly, now, you’re expected to tip for…what exactly? My cynical mind thinks I’m tipping because theses companies don’t pay their employees enough in the first place. I mean, when you ask somebody “Can you tell me where the condiments are,” and the response is a no eye-contact point of the thumb, is that really service? And now you see it all over at fast food restaurants, Dunkin’, even Starbucks. The tip is rarely commensurate with the service received, unless of course, some barista is pouring you a peppermint latte.

Happy Holidays,

Andy and John

He Said, She Said. 12/01/23

There is a saying that you should write about what you know. And in general, we stick to that. We once had a fan letter from a guy who said he loved the characters, but suggested we insert a gay character as well. And while we agree (we did introduce a married, gay brother-in-law to Al’s family for a couple of story lines) we try to approach the comic from our perspective, the perspective of hetero white males in their 60’s. What’s that? Yeah okay, I’m 70 (but John’s still a young whippersnapper at 65). And it shows up when we tackle a subject like being transgender. We approach it with the confusion that many people have in their 60’s (and 70’s) regarding their understanding of the trans community. In last week’s blog we talked about how advertising reflects the changing mores of our times. We look back on ads showing doctors in white coats smoking Camels and think, what were they thinking?? What will people think 30 to 40 years from now when they look at our communications today? And I bet one thing that will look naive is our belief that there are only two genders. That you are born one way and that’s the way you should stay. In any event, we hope you look at this comic in the way that our characters look at it: trying to understand and ultimately accept the complexities of life today through the prism of their own experiences. Hence the last line, “I guess Phil lucked out on not having to pay for the wedding.” And now, pardon the pun, let’s transition to our other comic, a dog getting a CAT scan.

Listen, I know people love their pets so much they tend to humanize them. I have a neighbor who calls down the hallway for her dog, “C’mere baby girl.” I have another friend who picks her dog up so it doesn't have to walk on pebbles. Another who has an actual down-stuffed windbreaker that covers the length of the dog’s body and has four holes for the dog’s legs. As Cat Stevens (no relation to Cat Scan) once sang, “Ooh, baby, baby it’s a wild world…” In short, if we’ve managed to offend any pet owners or transgender fans in our audience, we’re sorry. But if we’ve made you laugh, well that’s what it’s all about.

See you next week with two new ones,

Happy Holidays,

Andy and John

On Too Much Food and Too Much TV. 11/24/23

By the time you read this, it’ll be the day after Thanksgiving, but Happy Thanksgiving anyway. Too much turkey, stuffing, pies and football. Here’s an issue. What do you do if you get invited to one of your children’s homes and you’re one of only two people out of eight who want to watch football? Easy. You watch it with the volume so low that you can barely hear it. But what about Marv and Rachel’s situation? What if you have grown up kids who are married or in serious relationships and they all decide to go to the spouse’s house instead? And it’s too far away so you don’t go? It happened to wife and me a couple years ago. Our son was living in Denver. Our daughter went with her husband and child to visit his parents in North Carolina. Sigh. It was just the two of us. Why bother cooking? Turns out any number of local restaurants offered “5-course Thanksgiving Meals To Go!” We ordered the meal for 2 (if you were alone you were out of luck, no option for one person, which is kind of sad when you think about it). Truth be told, the lasagna and Caesar salad looked more inviting to me, but I couldn’t get my wife to agree so we ordered the Thanksgiving special. And I have to admit it was pretty good. It just seemed wrong not to cook it ourselves. And by the way, my wife hates football so we watched a movie afterwards. That made me think that Thanksgiving should be with a large and somewhat rowdy crowd who laughs, loves, argues about politics and watches at least some football. Heck, this year even the Detroit Lions game is good. And now that I think about it, maybe ixnay on the politics. The only thing I don’t like is having relatives who pinch your cheek, (I’m looking at you Uncle Steven) but now that I’m 70 instead of 7, there’s little chance of that happening. And I would not pinch my granddaughter’s cheek ever, but I will repeat some of the dumb cliches like “You’re so cute,” and “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown,” even though I can believe it since I just saw her a week ago.

Our other comic is about politically incorrect jingles. And I must say, it was a fun one to come up with. Sometimes words have meanings that change, like the Flintstones’ “We’ll have a gay old time.” I don’t think Fred and Barney were getting it on. And I’m pretty sure Wilma and Betty were “just friends.” And who can forget Archie Bunker’s “Goils were goils and men were men?” As we’ve noted multiple times before, both John and I spent our careers in advertising. There were some old ads that seem unbelievable today. Like a doctor in a white lab coat endorsing Camel cigarettes as he puffed away. Or, and this is the absolute truth, a woman in pearls ala June Cleaver is bent over her husband’s lap and he is actually spanking her because she didn’t get his shirt collar clean enough!!!!!! Thank God they invented Wisk. No more dirty collars OR domestic violence. In today’s parlance, a win-win. I often wonder, what will look ridiculous about the jingles and ads we see today, when viewed by people 30 years from now. And I’m pretty sure the ones featuring someone pantomiming playing a tennis match in his living room while wearing virtual reality glasses, will be among them.

That’s all for this week, and we’ll see you next week with two new ones, as soon as we come out of our food comas.

Andy and John

We did it! 11/17/23

Maybe it’s because fans identify so closely with their teams. Maybe it’s because people pick their own fantasy teams. But whatever it is, when people talk about sports, they’re apt to use the royal “we”. As in, “We won last night,” or “I can't believe we made the playoffs.” Well I got news for ya. “We” didn’t win anything. The Jets did. Or the Milwaukee Bucks. Not “we.” “We” were sitting on the couch, watching. I must admit, I am guilty of this when talking about my beloved NY Giants, but they’re so terrible this year, I stopped using “we” and distanced myself by saying “them” or “they.” Nobody wants to say “We really sucked on Sunday.” We want no part of that. So it becomes, “They really sucked Sunday.” Can’t have it both ways. But we certainly try. The other royal we that drives us crazy, is when somebody in a group assumes it’s their place to decide what the group wants, as in “We’ll have the Chablis.” Or, as I once heard in my advertising career, “We love this assignment.” Do we? I don't. Don’t assume you know what I want, speak for yourself. And even if you get it right and it is what I want, I’ll disagree with you anyway, just to be ornery (and because you used the royal we).

Let’s raise a glass (or not) to all the types of tequila on the market. There’s blanco, anejo, reposado. and celebrity. You read that right. Peyton Manning has a bourbon. Steven Seagal, a Japanese whiskey. I’m willing to bet he knows even less about whiskey than he does about Japan. Ryan Reynolds has his own gin, because why not? And tequila? We have a George Clooney and now a Duane The Rock Johnson tequila. I’m sure both The Rock and George stand out in the hot fields of Mexico, hacking away at agave plants with a machete under a blazing sun. After which they painstakingly overlook every step of the aging process. Heck, the Rock knows so much about everything, he’s seriously considering entering the 2024 presidential race. I kid you not. Personally, I think he’s more qualified to run for office than to make tequila. Just sayin’.

Enjoy the weekend, kick back with a celebrity brew and wish me luck when we play the Commanders this week. I’ll need it.

Andy and John

Words, words, words 11/10/23

Irregardless is not a word. But what happens is people misuse a word enough and Merriam Webster suddenly considers it a word. A writer named Gilbert Highet famously said “Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old, they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating.” To which a writer named Andy Landorf says, “Yeah, but irregardless is still not a freakin’ word.” There’s so many other examples, each of which sends a “nails on the chalkboard” reaction down my spine. This summer a nephew joined us for dinner at a beach house we rented. He’s a gourmet chef and was giving his knowledgeable advice about how to prepare the meal. I was asking him questions the whole way. But then I asked something like, “a whole handful of salt,” to which he replied, “Not a whole handful, don’t overexxagerate.” I immediately pounced. “Overexaggerate is not a word.” And then he pulled out his phone, looked it up on Merriam Webster and sure enough, overexaggerate is an accepted word. If you can’t underexaggerate, you can’t overexaggerate. If you dear readers disagree with me, you can always comment on the blog and send us your arguments. We’d love to hear from you. Just as long as you don’t say “for all intensive purposes” or “I could care less.” It’s intents and purposes and if you could care less, then care less.” Personally, I couldn't care less (well, I could but you get the point). The final example, I promise, was drilled into me in 8th grade English class. When you are quoting somebody, you say, “Quote (then comes the quote)followed by end quote. Not “unquote”. I was taught that “unquote” meant to undo the quote, whereas “end quote” was the way to signify the quote had ended. Merriam Webster finds “quote unquote” just fine thank you. So all this stuff I’ve been railing about all these years is, for all intensive purposes, nonsense.

Anyways (yeah, I know), the other comic about “stores we’ve outlived” is a New 60 twist on stores that have gone bust. It’s one thing to say “Remember those stores? Now they’re gone.” And it’s quite another to say “stores we’ve outlived.” As if Sears Roebuck and Bed, Bath and Beyond beat us to the finish line. But that’s a race we’ll gladly lose every time.

See you next week with two new ones, and I do mean two. That’s not an overexaggeration.

Andy and John

HAPPY HALLOWEEN. 11/03/23

One of your intrepid cartoonists is back from a long vacation. Actually it’s not as long as it was supposed to be. In the past, we ran a couple comics about traveling to Bhutan, and Al seemed to be going under duress. Well Al kinda, sorta...let’s just say I relate to Al. But I decided to go. And when the time came to drive to the airport, I was coughing and sneezing a little. When we got to the airport my wife took a Covid test kit out of her suitcase, right before we went to check in. I swabbed and bingo, I had Covid. For the third time. Back home I went. Well that’s one way to get out of doing something you were ambivalent about doing. Which happens to be the subject of one of our comics this week. Compromise. More on that in a moment.

But first, if you’ve gotten this far, you saw the pumpkin John carved with the New 60 logo on it. He even managed to carve in the comic book typeface (which of course, he created in the first place)! If you want to see more of his very creative and extremely funny pumpkin carvings, just type, “John Colquhoun pumpkin carver” into your search bar and see for yourself.

And back to the comic. Marriage, like any partnership, is a series of compromises. Like agreeing to go to Bhutan for me, or watching a sports event for my wife. It’s not something one of us would have necessarily chosen. But you go along to get along. Sometimes you even end up enjoying yourself, as I am sure I would have in Bhutan, if not for the 8,500 foot altitude, the occasional 4 am wake up call and having to drink a cup of yak butter tea. I kid you not. But the company and the beautiful vistas while hiking would have been spectacular. In similar fashion, I heard news of a Steely Dan/Eagles concert. I love Steely Dan and called a good buddy who loves them as well. He passed on the offer and my wife (semi-reluctantly) accepted. And it turns out she had a great time. In the case of Al and Joanne, her attitude was helped by the gummy Al offered her. This would never have occurred with my wife and I. Not in a million years. Or at least 70.

Finally, I did join my wife and friends in Japan, which is where they were headed from Bhutan. I’ll take a giant carved Buddha and a Michelin starred sushi restaurant any day over yak butter tea any day. How about you?

That’s it for this week, we’ll be back to you next week with two new ones.

Andy and John

Moving In. 10/27/23

So about moving into a smaller space after you’ve lived a long time in a house full of kids and pets. It’s an adjustment. I don’t care what anybody says. Take the case of Al and Joanne in their new apartment. His train set, which once had its own place in the basement of the house, is now stuffed into the laundry room. I remember when I was a kid my dad had a big Lionel train set. We had a basement and the basement had a ping pong table which no one ever used after the first couple months. So, down came the net and up went the Lionel Train set. The coolest thing I remember is it came with a rocket launcher and an exploding box car. Was Lionel training us to become terrorists? I don’t know but it was pretty damn cool. Here’s how it worked: You set the train in motion around the track. You had a separate hand-held rocket launcher which fired the rocket in an arc. You had to time it exactly so the rocket would land on the exploding box car and if you were lucky (maybe one out of every 10 tries) you hit the box car and it would “explode into about 4 pieces. Trust me, the only thing cooler was my Rock ‘em Sock ‘em robot game. When you connect with the other robot’s jaw, “Boingggggg” the head would pop off the shoulders on a spring as you “knocked his block off.” Damn, we had a lot of violent games back then. But back to Al.

His once scenic train set now has to lie under a clothesline of wet laundry. And hey, he’s lucky. A couple weeks ago, I took a wet rug and hung it over the railing of our deck. Wouldn’t you know it but some snoopy neighbor took a picture of it and sent it to the management company and I got a snooty letter asking me to please refrain from ever hanging anything over the balcony again. Apparently, it was an eyesore. I thought it was a nice rug, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And there you have it. Apartment living makes life easier. Until it doesn’t.

Okay then. By the time this is published I’ll have been halfway around the world and back, and hopefully will have many funny experiences to share with John and ultimately you all. Thanks for following us and thank you to those of you who have bought the book and written such glowing reviews. We truly appreciate it. See you in November,

Andy and John

New Apartment, 10/20/23

About 9 years ago, my wife and I sold our house. You know the drill. The kids are on their own, the school taxes are ridiculous and you’re rolling around a big house with nobody home. So we sold and moved one town away to a beautiful apartment in not such a good school district. Lower taxes, no hauling the garbage to the curb on one night, hauling the recycling on another, no slipping on the snow and ice in the winter, no mowing the lawn, the front steps, etc, etc. It’s a win win. Except, when it isn’t. I’ve already referred to my favorite exchange from the past, “We don’t have room for four sets of china,” followed by “we don’t have room for four tv’s”. So we compromised, we have 4 sets of china and 4 tv’s ( a couple of which never, ever get used), and very little room to hang clothes and put away kitchen appliances and fancy serving platters which only get used once in a blue moon, or once in a Rosh Hashanah, or once in a Thanksgiving (okay, I said we don’t need all those platters and she said we did and I must admit she may have been right on that one). But where to hang stuff is an issue, especially pictures.

We have an open living room/dining room/kitchen kind of set up. It’s great for conversation because there are no walls dividing the rooms. We also have several big picture windows to enjoy the view. But that’s the problem. And who thought of the name “picture windows” anyway? You can’t hang pictures on them. It reminds me of something the comedian Steven Wright once asked, “Why do we park in the driveway and drive on the parkway?” Now there does happen to be an answer to this perplexing, first-world question. You can now download all your digital photos in a single digital picture frame which then changes every 30 seconds or so to a new photo. In fact, some very good friends bought us such a picture frame as a house gift. But please don’t tell them, we still haven’t figured out how to download the damn photos!

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week with the conclusion of Al, Joanne and the virtues of apartment living.

Andy and John

Keeping Your Memory Sharp. 10/13/23

Damn The NY Times! These puzzles and games they keep coming up with are positively addicting. I now do the big crossword puzzle Monday and Tuesday (haven’t yet mastered Wednesday and beyond), and every single day I do the Mini Crossword, Spelling Bee, Wordle and the newest addition, Connections. That’s a lot of time everyday, but I think it keeps my mind sharp (as does coming up with comic ideas with John). And oh yeah, writing blogs. But you don’t have to subscribe to the Times to help keep your mind sharp. I once read that Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner got together every single night to watch Jeopardy, and shout out the answers, while eating their dinner on snack tables in front of the tv. Being Jewish, they either had deli or Chinese. What else? Spoiler alert: Mrs Maisel stole that Jeopardy insight for the last episode of that series when it showed Midge and Susie playing Jeopardy on the phone, at different ends of the country. So we thought Marv and Al would have fun with the same kind of thing. But who needs Ken Jennings when they have each other. Sitcom Theme Songs for $500? Can other games be far behind? The New 60 offers this service to help keep YOUR minds and memories in peak physical condition. You’re welcome.

And speaking of memory, we were supposed to run our comic about triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13, on Friday, May 13th, 2022! But we uhh forgot and ran something else instead. John, cool and collected, reacted by saying, “Well the next Friday the 13th happens in October of 2023, so we’ll run it then.” And miracle of miracles, we remembered!!!! What is it about the number 13 that freaks people out? It’s just a number, but if it’s got a name like triska-whatever-the-hell-it-is, it must be a thing. You know what I don’t like? Apartment buildings and office buildings that skip #13. You know, the elevator goes up and you see the floors counting off on a video screen, 10, 11, 12, 14. What happens if you live on the 14th floor? Wouldn’t you be sort of pissed that it’s really the 13th floor? No? Well I would. At any rate have a happy Friday the uhh 14th? And we’ll be back next week when we don’t have to lie about the actual date.

Andy and John

On high tops and Limitations 10/06/23

How many of us have forgotten their phones? In restaurants, bars, airplanes, taxi cabs, gas station convenience stores, and so on and so on. But some instances are more egregious than others. John was with someone (who shall go nameless to protect their identity) who left their phone on top of their car and drove away. But what made it worse is the phone was in a phone holder which also had room for multiple credit cards. When they realized their mistake they hightailed it back to the parking garage where they encountered a smashed iPhone, but miraculously, the credit cards were all there, scattered on the concrete. Point is, we all do it, even though we’re all so hopelessly dependent on those damn phones. I think the moral of the story is don’t leave your phone anywhere after you use it but back in your pocket or purse or man-bag if you carry one. And certainly don’t leave it in high, hard-to-see places.

Which brings me around to high chairs. Listen, I get it. It’s fun to sit at the bar. In fact, we have close friends who live in London, and when they go out they only like to sit at the bar. For yours truly, there’s two problems with that. For one, I am not only short, I am short-waisted. Which means my legs are proportionally longer than my torso. This sucks when attending movies and concerts, and driving certain makes of vehicles. Also sitting at high tops. But that part I can deal with. The part I absolutely hate is when my napkin invariably falls on the floor. First I stubbornly insist on trying to reach the napkin on the floor while still sitting in the chair. No can do. At least not anymore (it reminds me of a game I used to play with my son during a round of golf. It involved being able to pick up a golf ball from the rough, while in a moving golf cart. I used to be able to do it with about a 60% success rate, now, he does it. I have given up). Then, back to the high chair, I invariably excuse myself, push the chair back, climb down, pick up the napkin and resume eating, until my napkin falls again minutes later. This leads to the final indignity of tucking my napkin into my pants which just doesn’t seem dignified. Or fair.

And finally, for those of you who are wondering why I am writing an October blog in late September, it’s because I am off to Bhutan. Thanks for reading and being a fan of the New 60 and enjoy the fall weather. Just do it on a normal sized chair.

Andy and John

Going With the Flow. 09/29/23

As we get older we tend to get more stuck in our ways. To break the mold, we try new stuff. For Al (and for John), it might mean getting at those stubborn weeds with a literal flame thrower. It gets to weeds between rocks and pebbles by burning the hell out of the weeds. Of course I wouldn't know about this device since I live in an apartment (and let’s face it, I wouldn’t buy one if I still lived in a house). I’d end up burning myself instead of the weeds. But John has one and it feels sort of cool and macho. So we got the idea to dress up Al as Rambo, complete with the bandana-around-the-head thing. When I did live in a house I tended a vegetable garden, hoeing soil, going to the nursery, weeding, etc. I liked getting my hands dirty, literally, by planting the new vegetables. There were only two things wrong with this. One, the deer and rabbits liked to help themselves to our harvest. And two, I don’t care much for vegetables. My other idea (actually my wife’s) for expanding our horizons is to go on a hiking trip to Bhutan, which we will embark on next week. There are only two things wrong with this (what is it with me and two things…). One is that my left foot is killing me. And two, Bhutan is a vegetarian county. And I don’t care that much for…

Our second comic deals with something John and I are both experiencing: sleeping granddaughters. When my granddaughter sleeps over, my wife is telling me to turn the tv down. I patiently explain that when she and I watch a show together, the volume is at level 42. When I am watching something by myself, the volume is at 14. 14!!!(and I hate the overuse of exclamation points, but sometimes they fit). My reply is usually, I know she can’t hear it in her crib in the back bedroom because I can’t hear it and I’m sitting right here (again, time for another exclamation point)! John and I wondered what would happen if a great grandma were to come over. If you’re in your 90’s chances are you’d be hard of hearing and how can you make yourself heard to great grandma while being unheard by your grandchild. It’s pretty tough skating, but I’m pretty sure I’d accomplish the triple axel…yelling to great grandma, waking up the baby, and getting yelled at by my wife. In short, this comic was an easy one. It practically wrote itself.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you again next Friday.

Andy and John

A huge thank you to everyone who has already bought our book and a request (not an “ask,” because “ask” is not a noun) to those of you who haven’t yet purchased one to do so. The New York Times book review called it “the must-have comic collection of the century.” Okay, they didn’t say anything like that at all, but we’re just trying to lure you in. C’mon, we’re ex ad-guys.

Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Waiting for Godot. 09/22/23

With apologies to Samuel Beckett, today’s blog has little to do with “Waiting for Godot,” and more to do with just waiting. Well, that’s not entirely true. In “Waiting for Godot,” the characters spend the entire play waiting for a someone named Godot who never shows up. It’s about the fruitlessness of waiting for something to happen that never does. Waiting to hit the lottery. Waiting for that long lost love to come running back into your arms, waiting for the Mets to win another World Series (sorry, just had to throw that one in), or in Marv’s case, waiting to lose enough weight to fit back into his “skinny pants.” Or waiting for his lawn mower battery to recharge. At least in the case of the lawn mower, the event he’s waiting for will actually occur. But in the meantime, why not take a little rest?

You know the older I get, the more I appreciate a little rest. You know the cliche, “when you want a task to get done, give it to somebody who’s too busy to do it”? Example: I remember back in time (38 years ago, to be exact) my wife and I both had full-time jobs and my wife was 6 or 7 months pregnant. We were moving into a condo development which was still under construction. One random mid-week afternoon, we both asked for extended lunch breaks, took the train to our new suburb, went into the condo’s office and picked out our floor shade, window treatments, and what seemed like 20 other decisions in about an hour, took the train back into the city, and went back to work. In contrast, I know of someone who was long retired (in other words, with little to do) who took over two years to replace a single set of drapes.

In retirement, Marv doesn't have that much to do. When I worked full-time I used to go to the gym every morning at 7 am to fit in exercise before my work day started. Yesterday, I finished working on the comic, debated going out for an invigorating hike on an absolutely sparkling day, then decided, like Marv to lay down on the couch for “just a minute” while I worked my way through The NY Times crossword puzzle, Spelling Bee, Mini Crossword, Wordle and my new favorite, Connections. Then by accident my eyes fluttered to a complete close. You see, it’s not that I didn’t have enough time to exercise, it’s that I had too much time. Capiche? To be fair John does not fit my cliche, and spends his free time chopping wood, carving pumpkins and building stuff. Phew, after just writing about chopping wood I need to lie down. Just for a minute or two.

On second thought, maybe Marv’s saving his skinny pants has little to do with waiting for something that will never happen, but more to do with hope. Now as the co-creators of Marv, John and I think he might be waiting in vain. But you never know.

Over 200 comic strips, sketches and othe baby boomer-related hilarity available wherever you buy books online (local bookstores to follow)

Getting back to hope for a minute, we hope you pick up our book, The New 60: A Comic Collection for the Ages. You can buy it from Amazon, Barnes and Noble or the Archway Publishing websites. The Amazon link is https://a.co/d/j2wjguY. If you do happen to choose Amazon, please give us a 5 star review and a little sentence or two (or three…the longer the better,) about why you like the book. It helps us move up the Amazon popularity list. You know…algorithms. Okay you don’t know algorithms, that makes three of us.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week,

Andy and John

Upside Downsizing. 09/15/23

One of my wife’s closest, longest-term friends happens to be a real estate agent. And she shared the following insight about people “our age.” She said, people always say they want to downsize but they still want every single amenity they had before. Plus room for storage. Not us. We pay extra for storage. You know the deal. We put the stuff that used to be in our garage in boxes that have never been opened, into a storage unit where they remain in boxes, unopened. About the only thing we use from storage is a folding table and chairs which come out for two occasions only. One is tailgating at Giants games (which I do a lot less of the older I get) and the other is for holidays when we have company and we don’t want said company sitting cross-legged on the floor. John, on the other hand, was smarter. He moved from a house to a house. Okay there was a temporary apartment in between, but why make it easy on yourself?

In a previous blog I shared a conversation I had with my wife when we downsized to an apartment, and it was a downsize, from approximately 3,000 square feet to 2,000. I think our exchange captures the essence of the downsize. ME: There is no need to bring over 4 sets of china. They won’t fit. SHE: There is no need to have 4 televisions in a 3 bedroom apartment. They won’t fit.

Guess what happened? We now have 4 sets of china and 4 tv’s. And no place to put anything new, hence the need for a big storage unit. Sigh. As the Fab Four sang, “ob la di, ob a da, life goes on, brah.

And finally, our long-awaited, oft-promised New 60 comic book collection is here. The New 60: A Comic Collection or the Ages. Check it out at https://a.co/d/j2wjguY

Buy early and buy often. Have a great weekend,

Andy and John

End of Summer 09/08/23

Summer is filled with lots of fun activities. End of summer, not so much. In fact last summer nothing was fun for yours truly, coming as it did with a car hitting me while I was riding my bike, which in turn resulted in a broken ankle. But this summer was terrific. No bicycle accidents and my son moved back from Denver to Brooklyn so the whole family is once again in the same area. But the end of summer came with a surgical procedure (don’t worry folks, everything is fine) which led me to think about well, everything, up to and including my longevity. I shared this with a friend of mine, Matt Fischer (who is a friend to John as well,) which led me to reminisce about my father’s passing some 15 years ago. I told him about my eulogy and he told me to put it in a comic. I then shared his thoughts with John, and boom, there it is. I had ended the eulogy saying my dad died doing the Tuesday NY Times crossword puzzle, and that I thought that was one of the easier days. For those of you not familiar with the Times crossword, the easiest puzzle is on Monday and it gets tougher everyday ending with the toughest puzzle on Sunday. And that’s the thing about writing a comic strip. Even when bad stuff happens (or especially when bad stuff happens) you can always make a comic out of it.

Which brings us back to the end of summer. As you readers may or may not know, my wife and I sold our house and moved into an apartment 9 years ago. John moved from a temporary apartment to a house. So I no longer have a vegetable garden while he has a thriving one. But the thing about end of summer vegetable gardens is you get overrun with certain vegetables. If you live in the suburbs, that explains people coming over and dropping off tomatoes, green peppers, etc. In addition to these veggies and other goodies, he grew some of the most gigantic zucchini I’ve ever laid eyes on. Big, green, ripe zucchini. Lots of zucchini. Lots. So he wondered what he might do with that embarrassment of riches. And he suggested a dinner party with everything zucchini. And here’s the thing I love the best about thinking up stuff with a partner as talented as John, we spend a lot of time arguing over the most important issues like, “Do we call it a zucchi-tini or a zucchini-tini?” Zucchini-tini eventually won out, but I am willing to bet it’ll be a good long time before they eat another bite of zucchini at Casa Colquhoun.

That’s it for the summer and for this weekend. We will see you next week with a new series.

Andy and John

Road Rage. 09/01/23

In most couples, there’s an unwritten rule while driving. Usually, one person is the designated driver and the other is the designated passenger. And if the trip is of any considerable length (like for us, visiting our children and grandchild in Brooklyn) the designated passenger usually brings along reading material they’ve been dying to catch up on, and emails they haven’t yet responded to. Oops, there I go again, ending a sentence with a preposition. As Winston Churchill once said about that ridiculous rule; “That is precisely the type of poppycock up with which I shall not put.” But I digress. There’s another unwritten rule about driving. That is when said designated driver is forced to make a quick maneuver like braking or swerving to avoid a crash, said designated passenger is forced to look up from her/his reading material and chastise the designated driver. I’m not saying this ever happens in my family, but if perchance it did it would go something like this: driver is going along smoothly in left lane, keeping pace with the traffic, aware of vehicular activity in front and in the rear. Passenger is blissfully reading a recipe out loud for the driver to make for dinner next week. Suddenly some idiot hotshot driver in a Dodge Challenger (it’s always a Dodge Challenger, right?) cuts our heroic driver off, forcing him/her (I think those are our pronouns, but I’ll get back to you on that) to step on the brake, which in turn causes the following chain reaction: the driver hits the horn and lets loose with a volley of curses, which then causes the passenger to look up from his/her recipe and chastise the driver, which then causes the driver to say “Me????? What about him???? What’d ya want me to do, get into a crash????” If the following sounds familiar, welcome to our world. If you don’t think that sounds familiar, then either a)you are never in a car or b) you’re lying. In any case when John and I came up with this one, the dialogue practically wrote itself.

Our other effort this week, Happy Labor Day, required much less forethought and since it’s about to be Labor Day weekend, where we take a break from labor, we’re gonna sign off early and take a break. We’re done, except for the next 12 hours John has to spend rendering and eventually coloring this year’s Labor Day poster. Enjoy the last weekend of summer and we’ll see you again next week,

Andy and John

Will This Help? 08/25/23

There was a time when every generation seemed to surpass the previous generation, in terms of education and success. Lately, that has slowed down or even reversed. You hear of 30+ year olds still living at home. And we made a character, Sid, Al and Joanne’s son, who lived in his parents home past the ripe old age of 30. What was he doing in his room all day? Why didn’t he go out and get a “real job?”

As it turned out, he was developing an app (of course he was) and he became an overnight internet multi-millionaire (of course he did). And what do internet multi-millionaires do with their money? As I wrote last week, there’s a famous story about how one of these newly minted internet zillionaires actually got NSYNC to perform at his daughter’s bat mitzvah. Not sure if they played the have negila, the traditional Jewish celebratory dance, but that’s beside the point. The point is (is there a point?) that if this internet guy can get NSYNC, then our Sid can have Hootie and the Blowfish. Take that, nameless Internet millionaire. Okay, okay, I know Sid’s band doesn't include Justin Timberlake but it’s still pretty impressive (and it didn’t cost John or me a dime). When Al sheepishly offers to pay for one of the Blowfish, it becomes apparent how wide the financial gulf has become between father and his previously ne’er-do-well son.

In our previous lives as ad guys, the last agency we worked for was undergoing a digital transition. The then Chief Creative Officer kept talking about developing apps and something called “utility.” I didn’t get the part about utility until he revealed the agency’s proudest digital accomplishment to date: an app for a toilet paper manufacturer that told you where the nearest public bathrooms were in whatever area you happened to be standing in; a hotel lobby, a restaurant that didn’t first require you to buy an $8.00 venti latte before revealing the 5-digit code to their restroom, those kinds of places. For somebody who spends a good deal of time walking around NYC, I can tell you, that app had utility.

But back to Hootie for a minute. With our half of the New 60 Comic’s revenue, my wife and I are thinking of hiring the Eagles for our 40th Anniversary…what’s that? One of them recently passed away? Alright then how about Steely Dan…oh wait them too? Then let’s do Tom Pett…you’re kidding… I guess we’ll just go with the “dad rock” station on Spotify.

Have a great weekend and we will see you next week for Labor Day.

Party on.

Andy and John

Sid, I heard you're getting married 08/18/23

John and I once spoke to the head of a huge comic syndication and she told us we have to give people a reason to keep coming back. If everything was a “one-off,” meaning a single comic not attached to an upcoming or previous comic, people wouldn’t be as likely to want to read the next one. It was good advice. So we started to do mini-series comics, 3 or 4-part comics that hopefully keep you wanting to come back for more. She also showed us a comic featuring a pink unicorn to get us to think about what we could do to keep this different from all other comics, but thankfully we didn’t listen to that part (although we had one strip featuring a talking hedgehog). At any rate Sid is getting married. And that lit a fire under our collective imaginations. We thought, so Sid is an internet multi-millionaire, what kind of wedding would he and his fiancee want to throw? And then we let loose. After all, we’re spending Sid’s money, not ours. And his blushing bride Stevie just got a job at Google so she’s not exactly an economic slouch herself.

In this age of excess, with figures like Jeff Bezos building a yacht so huge he asked the city of Rotterdam to dismantle a bridge symbolizing their heroic resistance to the Nazi’s in WWII, so that his yacht could go out to sea, where 5 people paid $250,000 apiece to go to the bottom of the sea in a sardine can, and where Elon Musk sends up billion dollar rocket ships that crash seconds later and terms it a smashing success, how much fun could we have with a wedding? And where does the excess stop? For everybody who rents a private jet for a destination wedding, there are other people that OWN their own Lear Jets, forget about renting! And for everyone that owns a Lear Jet there are people that own Gulfstreams. And make sure the plane isn’t too big, because you want it to be able to land at smaller private airstrips.

Oh the problems of the rich! We had fun imagining how over-the-top you could make a wedding. I once questioned a family member (who shall go nameless) who once worked for an internet zillionaire (who shall go nameless), about his boss’s values. And he replied that the zillioinaire was a great dad because he booked NSYNC for his daughter’s bat mitzvah. Sid isn’t quite there yet, but give it time and we’ll see. As the summer races to a close, we’re hanging on for dear life and asking it to slow down. In the meantime enjoy the last couple weeks and we’ll see you next week with the final installments on Sid’s wedding (for now).

Thanks for continuing to be such loyal readers. We really appreciate it. And finally our new coffee table anthology of comics will be ready for the upcoming holiday season. Stay tuned and have a great weekend,

Andy and John

Give Us a Break, It's Summer! 08/11/23

Over the years we’ve brought you comics on topics like political correctness, forgetting why you walked into a room, parenthood, grandparenthood, marriage, divorce, bad dates, kids moving out of the house, etc. So this week we decided to take a page out of the Seinfeld playbook and write about…nothing. Yep, an ice cream truck and an inattentive waitress. That’s about as nothing as you can get. Except for the waitress part. We don’t know about you, but we have noticed over the years an increasing amount of inattentiveness and/or lack of eye contact from people who are supposed to serve us. Like cashiers, grocery store shelf stockers, restaurant hosts and hostesses, maitre d’s, you name it. Well, you don’t have to name it. We just did. There are a number of possibilities for this, some more painful than others. One is that young people (like the above-named workers) tend to ignore older people (like a lot of our audience, and us). Many years ago, we did a comic based on an actual incident that happened to a friend of mine who shall go nameless. He tried to chat up the hostess so that she’d seat his foursome, after they had been waiting at the bar for some interminable time. Upon approaching the hostess, she said, “Let me see…” and as she ran her finger down the list of guests, she stopped at the following description, “Bald guy, glasses, 4.” Then she turned to my friend who shall still go nameless and said, “You’re the next party of 4.” This is how she saw him. Ouch. It’s almost as bad as being called “Sir.” “Sir” is just another name for “old guy.” “Right this way, sir” is not what I want to hear when I’m being led to a table by a young woman. How about, “Over here, hot stuff,” or something like that?

So that is one possibility for the lack of eye contact. The other is something I like to refer to as “millennial indifference,” or “MI.” This certainly does not apply to all millennials, but it’s still a generational trait. You approach a cashier and they say, “$49.95,” without ever making eye contact. Or they answer a question by saying “aisle 4,” while pointing to it but not ever once making eye contact with you. Or my favorite, you go the grocery store and the cashier not only doesn't help you pack your recyclable grocery bags, he or she hands over the receipt without once registering where your hand is to receive said receipt. I have a method for dealing with this particular slight. I simply stand there, holding my grocery bag open, without reaching for the receipt, until the cashier is forced to make eye contact. Then I politely say, “Will you put it in the grocery bag please?” This is a technique I like to call “the silent schmuck.” It’s when you say a sentence and leave the word “schmuck” off the end. Example, “Have you seen my glasses?” And the answer, a classic silent schmuck, is “Uhh they’re right on top of your head…” fill in the blank.

Our other effort about nothing this week is about paying too much. In other words, sticker shock. Try going out for sushi in the Hamptons some time. But in this case it’s about a friend you used to know from work, trying his or her hand at something else. It’s one thing that Al has become successful at running his Pizza-on-a-Stick franchise and quite another when his friend charges him almost $50 bucks for a couple ice cream cones. But hey, at least the friend made great eye contact.

Have a great weekend and we will see you (virtually) next week with a brand new 4-part series.

Andy and John

Adventure Travel. 08/04/23

Hey, I get it. If you have a yearning for adventure travel, now’s the time. What, you’re gonna wait until you’re well into your 80’s to hike the Dolomites? I can imagine the tour leader saying, “Hey it’s a little steep and on the way down there’s a lot of loose rocks and pebbles, but just go down sideways and you’ll be fine. What’s the worst that can happen?” And chances are you’ll be fine. Except for the hip replacement, the odd cortisone shot to make up for the fact that your knee joint is bone-on-bone, the constant stiff neck (unfortunately that’s the only thing that’s constantly stiff) and the elevated cholesterol levels. In fact I don’t have to imagine it at all. I recently took the exact type of trip I described to Patagonia. John recently completed the 5 Boro Bike Tour, which I couldn't even do on an e-bike. If truth be told (and I told it to everybody on my adventure travel trip), I’d rather be at a beach resort with a spa, one or two golf courses, a couple of nice restaurants, a beachfront tiki bar (and a casino would be nice also). But that’s me.

So John and I sent Al and Joanne on an adventure travel trip to the Grand Canyon, where it’s either 115 degrees in the shade or snowing. My wife and I were supposed to join good friends on such a trip (turns out it was snowing) but had to postpone it, due to the aforementioned elevated cholesterol level which led to a stent placed in the heart of yours truly. So while I need the exercise provided in adventure travel, and also the food (it tends to be a lot of quinoa and fava beans), I still like the fancy resort. I just have to order turkey bacon with my eggs, hold the English muffin, hold the cream cheese, and go for the sushi, not the steak. Sigh.

And here’s the thing about adventure travel. It sounds great. You get lots of oohs and aaah from friends, but do you really want to ride a mule down the rim of the Grand Canyon? John and I have both done it, but the mules do stop every now and then, and their heads actually hang out over the rim of the Canyon. Like wayyyy over. Like there’s nothing between you and a horrible death besides this damned mule, who is walking on loose rocks very, very near the edge Just sayin’. Did I happen to mention it was very near the edge?

So at a certain point you have to put your foot down and do what makes you happy. Which is why I told my wife I’m through with adventure travel. And she responded by booking us on a trip to Bhutan in the Fall. When confronted with this reality, I said, “Yes dear.” Now to be fair, Bhutan does feature luxury amenities. Like vegetarian meals, yak butter tea, Buddhist Temples and archery tournaments. And hey we can always do the resort trip when we’re older, provided I don’t slip down the path with loose rocks.

Have a great weekend and go relax and get a message. You’re worth it.

Andy and John