I Can't Bear to Watch. 10/11/24

Yes, that’s the right way to spell “bear.” And it also happens to be a pun pertaining to our second comic about bears. But first, binge watching, or “I can’t bear to watch another episode.” But here’s the thing. If it’s good, really good, you can’t bear to stop watching. Example: a new series on Netflix called “Nobody Wants This,” about a rabbi falling in love with a shiksa. And for those of you who are not fluent in Yiddish (who the hell is?) shiksa means non-Jewish girl. So the tension was great, the acting with Adam Brody and Kristin Bell was superb, and each episode (minus commercials because we pay extra to have the Netflix minus commercials) was only around 20 minutes long. 10 episodes. We saw the first two late on a “school night” and then watched the remaining eight after coming home from an early dinner on Friday. Now before you start making jokes about the early bird special it wasn’t THAT early. The early bird starts around 5 pm or 5:30 latest, not that I’d know. This was at least 6:00, so there. And then the other thing is about the irony of a career ad guy, paying extra to not watch commercials. Now that I’m retired, I agree with you all, commercials suck. Except for the ones John or I did, of course. And by the way, my wife and I also semi-binged the West Wing, seven years, about 22 episodes per year, and each one around 45 minutes. We tried to finish before our summer rental but had eight episodes left. And when we got to our rental house, we discovered they did not have the commercial-free version, so that each episode lasted an hour. If you ever want to see truly terrible commercials try watching them on MAX. On a show that’s being rerun after 25 years. We had friends who stayed with us a couple days and one of them watched the penultimate West Wing episode with us and was so impressed he went back home and binge-watched the entire series. Now that’s dedication. Or profound laziness. Or a little of both. But we have standards. My wife and I couldn’t bear to waste a beautiful sunny summer day watching tv like Al and Joanne did in the comic. So we wouldn't start until after dinner. But that led to staying up way past midnight which resulted in waking up late the next morning, which wasted only half a day inside. Unless our granddaughter slept over, in which case my wife would get her out of the crib and the two of them would play their favorite morning game. They’d walk to our bedroom door, and then ChaCha (her name is Charlotte) would shout: “Wake up grandpa!” I’d be thinking, are you f@#*ing kidding me, it’s 7:30 am, but when I opened my sleep-addled eyes, what came out of my mouth was, “Ok, good morning sweetheart.” Ya know how it is.

Now the other comic came straight from the head of John. Pro tip: if it’s about chopping wood or building stuff or clearing brush, chances are, it came from John. I mean, he lives in the woods and I live in an apartment complex. If it’s about your grandkid running down the hallway, it’s likely from me. But we were having our weekly zoom meeting to come up with ideas and John said, “You know that bears love bird feeders. They open them up and eat all the seeds. Well, no, I know nothing about that, so I said, “Yeah, of course.” So he said, “You sink a really long pole into two feet of concrete so the bear can’t shake the feeder loose, and then the bear can’t reach it. I said, “Duh, of course you do.” And that’s when we came up with the crazy idea of bears doing a cheerleader-type pyramid. I imagined them chanting “Rah, rah, we won’t concede. Let’s climb this thing and eat some seed. Go Bears!”

So that’s it for now, I’ve got to start binging The Bear.

See you next week,

Andy and John

Gadgets. 10/04/24

Here’s the thing about smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and all kinds of other detectors: some awful and evil genius has decided the only time they can fail and go off is between the hours of 2am and 3am. Now thankfully they haven’t been triggered by a life threatening situation. But rather by the damn batteries going out. You know the drill. The battery fails at approximately 2 am, which is extra special when you’re working full time, or when the kids are asleep and it’s a school day. So you get up with your significant other, break out the step ladder, put on a robe, which you forget to tie as you’re climbing on the step ladder, trip over the belt from the robe and then try to detach the housing from the detector. If your experience is anything like mine, you finally get the damn thing off, remove the faulty batteries, and it still shrieks. Ah ha! There’s a little button that looks like a reset button. Let’s press that. Oh no. Let’s not. That makes it shriek at even a higher pitch. So the next and final step is to smash the thing to pieces, right? But what about if it happens in a place you’re renting? Then you can’t exactly smash the thing to pieces. Then you do what I did when it happened this past summer. You remove the whole apparatus and place it in the bottom of the outdoor trash can. Then you go back to bed, and you swear you can still hear it and that you’re awakening the entire neighborhood and that you’ll never be invited back again, and then you do what I finally did. Gave it to my wife who successfully disabled it in about 30 seconds.

Our other comic is about retro. Actually it’s about one of our readers, Susan Richardson. She wrote John that she had an end line “It wasn’t retro when we bought it,” and said, “Here’s a thought, take it or leave it.” We loved it and attached a comic strip to the line. Susan, this Bud’s for you. When did we (or at least John) become so old that the things we grew up with start to be called retro? Bell bottom jeans? Tensor lamps? Lava lamps? Folding snack tables? Dashiki's. All retro. True story. My mother (she divorced my dad when I was nine) had a boyfriend who gave me and my brother tensor lamps, which we thought were the coolest things ever. But when they eventually broke up, he took his lamps back. So when we did the comic about lamps, I implored John, “just not tensor lamps,” and he responded with that three-headed beauty you see in the strip. A few months ago, I saw a “retro edition” game in a children’s toy store. Candyland. It was the first game I remember playing as a kid. So I opened it up to play with my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter. She was not as impressed as I was. Perhaps it was because she was too young to appreciate its “retroness.” Or perhaps, given all the exciting advances with technology, it’s just boring. The game, not me.

In closing (that’s what our rabbi said today during services), you can call us Al, you can call us late for dinner. But please don’t call us retro.

Have a great weekend and we will be back next week with more.

Andy and John

What Else 'Ya Got? 09/27/24

What else ‘ya got? Boy do I hate that response. I once worked for an ad agency that shall go nameless. When it came time to present storyboards or scripts to my GCD (Group Creative Director), he’d say, “What else ‘ya got?” Not anything nurturing like, “I think it would be even better if your character said it this way,” or “What if we change it so the kid gets the last laugh instead of the mom.” No, just “What else ‘ya got?” Which is a snarky way of saying something snarky. Like “This idea sucks, do you have anything else?” I truly disliked that agency. And the lazy jerk who kept saying that. So when John and I talked about this idea of Al trying his magic finger trick on Sam’s son Sammy, it was only natural to have little Sammy come back with “What else ‘ya got?” And I’d be willing to bet we’ve all been there. No, not in that horrible, abusive ad agency. But in the situation when you meet a friend’s grandkid and decide to show off your “magic” skills. Pulling a coin out of the kids ear. Or my favorite riff off that move: tell the kid you’ve got a piece of candy and hold out both fists, asking him or her to guess which hand it’s in. Meanwhile it’s in your back pocket. So when the kid finds out it’s in neither hand, you say, “Wait a minute, I think I see it as one hand looks in the kids ear and the other pull the candy out of your back pocket, transfers it to the “ear hand” and say, “Oh here it is!” Works every time. Until they turn 4.

Onto our other comic this week. Explaining tech to someone who has no possibility of understanding it. I’ll give you an example. When cellphones first came out, I got one, but never used it. I didn’t really understand it. My partner at the time was a good 15 years younger than me and had a cell phone which he used constantly. He once called me at work and I didn’t answer. When we later ran into each other he said, “Where were you? I called. Why didn’t you take your phone?” I replied, I was in a meeting and I left my phone in my office.” He shot back, “It’s called a mobile phone, right? You’re supposed to take it with you. That’s what makes it mobile!” He had a point and I have taken it with me ever since. Now fast forward to today. I am reasonably conversant in technology but not nearly as much as John is, who, I’m loathe to admit, is five years younger than me. But when this tendency really became absurd was at a birthday dinner for my stepmom and her then 95-year old boyfriend, Ron (name changed to protect the innocent). Amongst the guests was my son-in-law Jeff (name changed for the same reason), who heads up the artificial intelligence division of a leading tech company. We were having a discussion about A.I. (artificial intelligence, not Allen Iverson) and its possible uses and misuses when my stepmom says, “Jeff, can you please explain A.I. to Ron?” That was unintentionally one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. I shared the incident with John and we turned it into Marv trying to explain tech to his mom. As I say this, followers of this blog may remember how I inadvertently allowed a hacker into my bank account a couple of years ago so I’m not as savvy as I might sound. By the way, someone tried it again on me just yesterday, but this time I caught it. As a public service, in case any of you ever find yourself in a similar situation, here’s what they do. You get an email of a charge for $800 for something you know nothing about. You call the attached “Helpline” and they listen to your woes, then ask you to give them control of your computer, at which point they tell you they’ve fixed it, but just to make sure, can you go into your bank account to see it you’ve been credited the $800?” Now who would be dumb enough to fall for something like that? Never mind.

Have a great weekend, and if you know of some good new magic tricks I can try on my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter, let me know. She’s already caught on to the hand trick.

Andy and John

Sometimes the Best Thing to Say is Nothing. 09/20/24

Few things are as painful, err I mean exciting, as watching a young child’s ballet recital. Nothing against ballet. Nothing against recitals. Or certainly not against young children. But put them all together and it’s painful. Maybe not everywhere but in Westchester County (where I live and John used to live) they have the recital at the local arts college, SUNY Purchase. The SUNY stands for State University of New York. Did you ever wonder why the “of” gets short-changed? Why not SUoNY? But I digress (what else is new). Anyway, it seems like every single town in Westchester is awash in five-year old girls in pink tutus. These days there are likely a lot of boys in pink tutus as well so the whole thing can last even longer. I mean it’s cute when your child or grandchild takes the stage, but you can’t pick them up to go home until every town has a chance to go on stage. At SUNY Purchase this takes at least four hours. That’s right. Four hours. You can watch them try to plie and stand on their tippy toes for a while, waiting for your kid to get onstage. It’s very cute. But once the kid you’ve come to see has had their turn, there’s still likely a very long time to wait and watch while every single town’s children get their chance to dance, leap and fall down. It was one thing to have to suffer watching your own child, but to do it again with your grandchild? I prefer a kids or grandkid’s sporting event. It’s cute watching them run around and seeing who loves to play and who picks daisies. You’re in and out in one hour. I’ve even watched friends’ kids play. But ballet recitals?? John and I are grandparents of little girls so I’m sure we’ll be put to the test in a couple of years, and I’m sure I’ll cave when the time comes. Finally when Al chooses to opt for a Jets game, he may be signing up for something even more painful (I’m a Giants fan and they suck even worse).

Onto our other comic. Golf lessons. Al thinks about all these things when he plays with his wife. John has recently taken up golf and I’ve been hacking away for the better part of 35 years. Recently my wife took it up in retirement. Suddenly, she’s gotten pretty good. But I still can’t resist saying “relax your shoulder,” or “finish your swing,” or the occasional “follow through.” The ironic part of this is I’m not so good myself. So I’ve got no place giving instruction. I can see what you’re doing wrong, I just can’t do it any better myself. So when John and I conceived this comic, it was with Al saying all these things out loud. We usually write these comics months in advance and John illustrates them the week they are going to run. So when he started to draw the Golf Lesson comic he called me up and said, “Al seems like a real asshole saying this stuff out loud. Why don’t we put his comments in a thought bubble instead?” I said “That’s a great idea. I like that much better,” while thinking, “Did he just call me an asshole?” And then I thought “Maybe I should just think it and not say it, like Al.” My excuse is my dad used to do that to me. But at least he waited until after I screwed up. When I lifted my head he’d say “Look up and you’ll see a bad shot.” And my favorite was when I left a putt short of the hole. He’d say “Son, it’s been scientifically proven that over 88.7% of putts that don’t reach the whole, don’t go in.” I have a close friend who’s an excellent golfer and his advice to me is, “Don’t give your opinion unless someone asks for it.” Maybe it’s better I go to a ballet recital.

See you next week with two new comics and welcome to the Fall. The season of football, changing leaves and yes, ballet recitals.

Andy and John

We're Not Exactly Getting Younger. 09/13/24

I don’t know about you, but I am not getting younger. Definitively. I used to love to run. And then it became walking. And then came a neuroma on the bottom of my left foot that made a long hike painful. Which led to a bicycle. Which led to an electric bicycle. Don’t get me wrong, you still have to pedal. But when it comes to a big hill (I live in the Hudson Valley so everything is straight uphill until you reach the bike path) it’s kind of nice. I put on the battery and an extra- strained face pedaling up the hill so the cars that pass me see an aerobic marvel and think to themselves stuff like, “Man, is that guy in great shape!” Shhh, don’t tell anyone my secret. These days, a big test of mobility is the ability to get in or out of a beach chair. When’s the last time you sat in a beach chair? They now come with backpack straps so you just strap up and walk to the beach. Then you take the chair off your shoulders and figure out how to set the chair up. Now a couple years back, we invited friends to visit us at the beach and noticed that some people have a lot of trouble getting out of said beach chair, names withheld to protect the guilty. You know when somebody’s having trouble getting out of the chair. It looks something like this. First the person tries a rocking motion, weight back, weight forward and…plop, back in the chair. Then my wife or I, or someone in a standing position, offers a helping hand or two. Now some eagerly accept it, while others (particularly men) say, “No, I’ve got it,” and then do another rocking motion, bigger this time, and proceed to fall forward on their knees in the sand and then refuse help to get up from the sand. After witnessing this a few times from a few different people we splurged and bought a higher beach chair. It worked great for our less mobile friends. Then one day last month I was unpacking the chairs from the car and the two chairs on top were the higher chair and a normal chair. We took them down to the beach. My wife scampered on for a walk while I, at the end of a great novel, plopped down in the higher chair. The one we use for our older friends. And you know what? It was good. I liked it. And the getting up part was a piece of cake (which is a weird metaphor. It wasn't anything like a piece of cake. It was easy, so why didn’t I just say that?). Okay, it was easy. Next time, it was back in the lower chair. I refuse to admit I like the high one better.

And on to our last comic in the Employee of the Month series. You know all the jokes about millennials. They don’t work very hard. They put quality of life above all else. They don’t want to work late. Come to think of it, despite being 71 years old, I was a millennial. Or possibly just lazy. John, on the other hand, opted for a four day work week in order to devote more time to his illustrations. Pro tip: don’t ever ask for a four day work week. You end up working five days for four days pay. Unless your boss happens to be a millennial. Then you’re golden.

Have a great weekend and we’ll be back next week with two new ones hot off the press (except there is no “press” but you get the idea).

Andy and John

Back to Work 09/06/24

Labor Day used to be the worst day ever. For six torturous years (7th grade through 12th) I used to dread it with all my heart. Loved college. High school, not so much. It was grueling, competitive and all-boys (which really sucked). Labor means work yet on Labor Day most people are not working. As a grandmother of mine used to say, “Go figure.” Actually, because she was a New Yorker, it came out more like “Go figyah.” In any case Al, who has a lucrative Pizza-on-a-Stick franchise (who wouldn’t want one of those?) has to be open on Labor Day. I once worked with a guy who just moved to New York to work in the ad agency where I already worked. He protested having to work over 4th of July weekend and was so pissed off he carted multiple sand bags up to his office and dumped them on the floor, installed a beach chair and beach umbrella. Absolute truth. When the powers that be came in and saw what he had done, they fired him. Which was bad for him, but at least it meant not having to work for the rest of the summer. Note to all you employers who force their staff to work holiday weekends: the Labor Day (or any day) bonus is not such a bad idea. Even if it came from Al.

Our other comic, with the Employee of the Month contest, shows that the pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. Awarding a hard-working individual with an Employee of the Month award is a well intended idea, but ask the people who didn’t win what they think of the idea. And if they’re of a certain age, like the people who work at Al’s fast food establishment, chances are they grew up in the age of “participation trophies.” Everybody wins. I coached youth sports in the years my now 35-year old son was in grade school. At the end of the year everybody who played recreation league soccer (everybody gets to play an equal amount) got a trophy. The kids who scored 2 goals per game, the great defenders who ran full tilt all game long, the goalkeepers who dove to bat a shot away, and the daisy pickers who cared more about the flowers than the game. By the way, did you know daisies are weeds, not flowers? On the one hand, it’s nice for everyone to be included. On the other, you didn’t do anything to deserve the damn trophy in the first place. One time I had a mother complain that her son was heartbroken that he didn't make the travel team. I explained that it was competitive and there were other players who were better. She said, “How is that possible? He won a trophy every year.”

In any case, goodbye Labor Day and goodbye summer. John might be out there kicking a ball around. Me? I’m going out to pick some daisies.

Andy and John

Practice, Practice, Practice. 08/30/24

Sometimes one of us plucks an idea out of thin air. Sometimes it’s something somebody said. Or an expression we overhear. Or it’s something we take for granted but shouldn't. And sometimes it comes right from the mouth of a loved one. Word for word. We’re talking about ideas and where they come from. In this case, my wife and I were out to dinner. Afterwards she pointed out to me that I shouldn't have said something I said. What else is new? But in this case, I defended myself, saying, “I was just being myself,” to which she replied, “Why don’t you try being someone else?”

The good part about writing a comic is that even if someone criticizes you, even when they’re right, there’s still a good comic that can come out of it. In this case I texted John as soon as I got home that night. And when we met the next morning it became a comic. We just had to change whatever the insult was. In this case the comic was about insulting someone’s new hairstyle. I shudder to think what my actual insulting comment was, but I’m sure my wife remembers.

Our other comic comes from being retired. The thought process is, “Now that I’m retired, I’ve got time to learn to do something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t had the time to do it.” Like taking a cooking class in Italy. Or learning to play a new instrument. Or relearning to play an instrument you once knew how to play. Another variation on that theme is, “If we don’t do it now, when are we ever going to do it.” This includes taking action/adventure trips like exploring Bhutan (I got out of that one thanks to Covid), rafting down the Colorado, or riding a mountain bike down a damn mountain. Ain’t happenin’. Then there’s “we’ve got to do it now, while we still can.” If this means going on a safari, taking up pickleball, or taking the grandkids to Disney, I’m all for it. Well, maybe not Disney. But if it means climbing Everest, my answer to “we’ve got to do it while we still can,” becomes, “I can’t, so let’s not.”

In this comic Joanne reminds Al of all the things he’s taken up and abandoned. In real life I was given a beautiful guitar from a cousin who could no longer play it. I last played for real in college and that was at least 10 years ago. Okay, maybe 20. Screw it, that was 49 years ago, okay? Don’t rub it in. But it turns out, I forgot a lot. Playing an a-minor chord, no problem. A b-minor chord, problem. After a few futile attempts, it lies in its case, taunting me. I will get back to you, guitar, I promise. I’m just a little intimidated by that b-minor, and you really can’t sing Puff the Magic Dragon to your three-year old granddaughter without the damn b-minor. Thankfully she’s still too young to realize I stop strumming every time I get to the b-minor and then resume strumming when I’m back to a chord I can play. Sigh.

Maybe this winter I’ll finally learn to ski.

Have a great last weekend of summer, a terrific Labor Day, but for now excuse us, our class in Acapulco Cliff Diving starts in 15 minutes,

Andy and John

On First Dates and Candlelit Dinners. 08/22/24

Listen, there’s nothing wrong with a bowl of French onion soup. It’s cheesy, delicious, and just the right thing on a cold night. But on a first date? Not that it’s not still hot, cheesy and delicious. It’s just that cheese pull thingy. You know, the part when you manage to cut the soggy bread and the mozzarella and ladle up some soup, all using a spoon (which, last I checked, has no sharp edges) and proceed to lift it to your mouth. It’s inevitable that the cheese will string out from the bowl all the way to your mouth because of the aforementioned no sharp edges on a spoon thing. Okay so now you’re in a pickle. Well, actually you’re in a bowl of french onion soup, but I digress. What options do you have? You have to either try to saw off the cheese with your teeth, or bring a knife up under the cheese pull and cut upwards, or (my preferred method) pull it free with your fingers. Now this is a subtle art that must be timed perfectly for when the other person is not looking. This is particularly important on a first date. Not as important if it’s a long-standing relationship in which case your partner has already become adjusted and accepting of your manners (or lack thereof). One obvious solution is not to order onion soup on a first date. But on the other hand, it’s so damn good I think it’s worth the CPC (Cheese Pull Conundrum). Obviously our character Craig does not agree. But that’s part of the reason he’s still single.

Our other comic came from a John observation about how hard it is to read a menu in a restaurant. One reason is the light is very low. Another is that the type on the menu is very small. A third reason is that eyesight doesn't generally improve with age. So how do we compensate? Do you don a pair of reading glasses? Still doesn't help with the low light. Whip out your iPhone or Apple Watch (which I just learned about last week watching a waiter use his) and put it in flashlight mode? Or do you save yourself the trouble of having to search through your pockets or purse or, god forbid, fanny pack and just hold the paper menu up against the romantic candle on the table. What could possibly go wrong? Glad you asked. I take you back to a time in my early teens when I went to Sunday School (that’s like Bar Mitzvah light) at Temple Emanu-El in New York City. We had a Purim festival. For the uninitiated, Purim is a festival celebrating the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient times. People dress up in costumes, kind of like Halloween. In this particular Sunday School festival, the little girl sitting right beside me leaned over a candle to get a piece of cake, and, as God is my witness, her hair caught on fire! Before the teacher could reach her with a towel, I dumped my whole glass of water and accompanying glass juice on top of her head to put the fire out. It worked. The Sunday School teachers patted me on the back and told me I was a hero, and the girl (whose name I cannot recall) was crying hysterically with singed hair, but it never reached her scalp, thank goodness, The event left an everlasting mark on me (and on her I’m sure), and for this reason, I never hold something flammable near a burning candle. My new go-to is the Apple Watch in flashlight mode. Granted, it’s a little pool of light, but it beats the hell out of holding a burning menu.

Have a great weekend and there’s only one more week of summer vacation and then it’s back to school new crayons, backpack, three-ring binder notebooks...oh wait, that was over for me and John a few years ago. Like 50, but who’s counting?

See you next week,

Andy and John

What Next? 08/16/24

About a year ago, I was channel surfing (the only kind of surfing I’ll ever do), and saw a channel featuring a game between the San Francisco 49’ers and the New York Giants. Ooh, I thought, this must be a replay of that great NFC Championship Game from 2011. So I clicked on the channel and saw…a video game between the two teams. It was a video of two people playing a Madden Football video game. I thought, “This must be the end of civilization as we know it.” But recently, John told me about the Pickleball Channel. All pickleball all the time. And so I looked. And there it was. Did you have any idea people are so enamored with pickleball that they want to watch it on tv? And did you know that there are pickleball teams? And did you have any idea that basketball great Kevin Durant bought one of the aforementioned pickleball teams? Said Durant (yes he actually said this) “We really, really want to leave our mark from day one on how hard this team is going to play and how successful we’re going to be as a group.” Inspiring words, to be sure. Makes me want to watch. But there you have it, people really watch this garb…uhh, stuff. Don’t people have anything better to do? Like read a book (or at least listen to one on tape) or do a crossword puzzle or drink a bottle of bleach?

But people don’t read so much anymore, and that makes us lazy, at least when it comes to language. Over the years in advertising I’ve watched the language get obliterated. So a “request” becomes an “ask.” As in, “The client has an ask…” I’ve got an ask for you, right here. Other favorites are, “I have a hard stop at 5pm.” Or, “Let’s reloop after the meeting.” Or (warning: this one is really gross) “That’s our BHAG.” A BHAG, I kid you not, stands for Big Hairy Aggressive Goals.” Oh those marketers are so clever, aren’t they? Let’s take it up in OND (short for the 4th quarter of the year or October, November, December). Whenever I heard this I’d have to figure out which months OND stood for and by the time I did, the speaker was three paragraphs ahead of me. Another example of business speak is the term “journey.” Life is a journey. You can go on a journey of self-fulfillment or sef-discovery or self-flagellation for all I care. Just don’t call it a journey. Journey is the band that sung the last song in the last episode of the Sopranos, Don’t Stop Believin’.” And you can’t convince us otherwise.

So as you go on your individual journeys of self-knowledge this weekend, think of us and our individual weight-loss journeys (but not before that generous helping of pie ala mode for dessert).

Andy and John

A Burger By Any Other Name... 08/09/24

Last week we wrote about the joys of summer. This week it’s raining and cold and exhibition football has already started, which makes us shout to the Fall season: “Slow down already!!” That said, we find ourselves hurtling towards Labor Day (which marks the end of summer even though it’s not officially the end of summer until Sept. 21st). Which brings us around to things not being what they claim to be. Case in point: the airport security line, home to our first comic this week. My wife and I have opted for everything and anything that can get you through airport security faster. PreCheck? Check. Global Entry? Check. Clear? Check. Though when my wife and I went on a trip this past May, we were standing on a long, slow airport security line while the people who didn’t have PreCheck or Clear or Global Entry went prancing through an empty line straight up to the conveyor belt. Sure, they had to take off their belts and shoes, but they still beat us through security by a good 10 minutes. And why worry about shoe removal when there’s Skechers slip-ons? And how hard really is it to put your belt back on? So I’ve got a deal to make with the TSA. Don’t try to trick me into paying more for the ability to rush to the head of the line and I won’t keep trying to smuggle six-ounce bottles of spf 50 sunscreen into my bag. Okay?

And now the other comic. Like most of our strips, either John or I (or both of us) have experienced or read about what we write about. Now I had to have a stent put in an artery 1 1/2 years ago, and was warned to cut wayyyy down on my meat intake. Like from once a day to once a month. Which raises a lot of questions for yours truly. Does pork count as red meat even though it comes off the grill white? Yeah, I know. But how much fish and chicken can a person eat? As it turns out, plenty. And if any of our dear readers are going through anything like this, I’ll give you some hints. Turkey bacon instead of real bacon…no way. You turn up the flame on the oven with turkey bacon and there’s no sizzling. Why? Because there’s no damn fat. On the other hand, turkey sausage is absolutely delicious. No give up whatsoever. Now that we have sausage settled, what about burgers? If I can’t eat too much meat, can there be a way to eat juicy burgers without eating meat? Yes I know about veggie burgers. There’s stuff like boca burgers, which are made to taste like meat and they’re pretty good. But then along came the ubiquitous plant burger, which now appears on seemingly every menu, even freakin’ Burger King’s. Two brands have reached the plant-burger pinnacle: The Beyond Burger and the Impossible Burger. Dutifully, I tried them both out. If you pile a plant burger high with mustard, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles, it’s pretty close to the real thing. Then I tried them without all the toppings. And at least to me, Impossible kicks Beyond’s butt every time. So after coming to that conclusion, we fast forward to a backyard summer barbecue. My daughter is very healthy and is concerned with my health. As proof of how healthy she eats, she likes veggie burgers that taste like vegetables. When I proudly pointed out that I was grilling an Impossible Burger, she pointed out that it actually rivals and sometimes even surpasses a beef burger in terms of saturated fat and sodium. Huh? Are you kidding me? Her advice, “If you’re gonna eat a burger, eat a burger. Just don’t eat them too often.” Sigh. So I counted back a month before Labor Day (August 2nd) and stopped eating meat until Labor Day, on which day I will have a real hamburger and a hot dog! Then it’s back to chicken. Or fish tacos. And perhaps a cold non-alcoholic brew. Or not.

Have a great weekend (if you’re living on the East Coast it’s probably raining) and I’m off to meet a friend for lunch. I’ll start with a side salad and then a nice, juicy, uhh hamb… ehh change that to a cheesy bowl of French Onion sou…uhh make that a tuna burger, medium-rare to the rare side, please?

Andy and John

The Joys of Summer 08/02/24

I am a dinosaur. I love baseball and going to baseball games. I do not, however, enjoy catching foul balls. 1) They hurt. 2) Catching one looks cool on tv, but is terrifying in person. I meant, unless you’re 12 and remembered to bring your mitt, you’ve got no chance. And I’m not talking about hard line drives. Even balls that are fouled up way high in the sky. They hurt too. And 3) Did I mention they hurt?

A couple years ago I went to a Mets game and since they weren’t playing that well, the seats were going for less on the secondary market. I went to an afternoon game and one of my favorite Mets at the time, Juan Lagares, a great centerfielder but not such a great hitter, hits a foul ball way up into the air. As it was descending I thought, “Oh good, that’s coming right to me.” Followed by, “Oh sh*t, that’s coming right to me!!!” I put up my hands defensively, as much to protect my head as to catch the ball. As it came hurtling down with mind-numbing velocity (hey, we’re writing the blog so we can make it look as heroic as possible) the ball missed my hands entirely (phew) and came down one seat to the right of me, hitting the concrete floor and bouncing underneath the empty chair. I leaned over, picked up the scuffed ball and took it home, where it resides to this very day. If you ask me how I caught it, I’ll tell you it was a screaming line drive coming right at me and I barely blinked an eye. I just stuck out my left paw and made a one-handed grab while simultaneously holding a Nathan’s hot dog with mustard and sauerkraut in the other. Another few weeks go by and I go to another game and at this one, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was sitting a few rows ahead of me. Same deal, foul ball goes way high up and comes hurtling down in his direction. He puts his hand up, misses the ball. Said ball then crashes into the concrete step next to him, bounces up softly, and he grabs it out of the air. Turning towards the crowd with his arm, foul ball in hand, raised triumphantly to the crowd and the tv cameras as if he caught the ball out of the air in the first place. But I know the truth governor. And I’m spilling the beans.

The other great summer activity is swimming. There’s swimming in the lake, the ocean or the swimming pool. In this case Sam went the bargain route and bought the backyard, inflatable version of a swimming pool. You know the type. Little kids love to splash around in them and it will keep them occupied all day. Unless there’s a big, hairy, slightly porky old man taking up all the space. John also bought a backyard, inflatable pool. Now I’m not saying he takes up all the room in the pool and meanwhile his kids are big enough to toss him out, but trust me, little kids see us much differently than we see ourselves. I once went into an outdoor hot tub in a California hotel. It was peaceful, quiet and I could see the stars out over the Pacific Ocean. Just then a mom came in with her toddler. The kid takes one look at me and says, “Look mom, why is that man so hairy?” Followed by, “Why does he not have any hair on his head/” The mom giggles and apologizes, and I told her not to worry about it. And then I submerged her kid underwater for the next 15 minutes. Okay, I didn’t touch the kid, but I had evil thoughts.

As Porky Pig used to say,” th-th-th-that’s all folks.” We’ll be back next week with two new ones and until then, if you’ve got an inflatable pool, try getting out and giving the kids a chance.

Andy and John

There's No Waffling When it Comes to Breakfast 07/26/24

Did you ever wonder why it is that the more expensive a hotel is, the less they offer for free? You go to a Motel 6 or Super 8, you get free wifi, free cable, and free breakfast. You go to a top hotel, (which we used to do all the time in advertising) they offer fast wifi for $15.99 a night. And for breakfast you can order a $6.00 cappuccino, $21 dollar scrambled eggs (at least the toast is free) and a $9.00 side of bacon (turkey bacon is better for you but requires a $2.00 upcharge). Water? That’s on them unless you want bottled. Oh a little fruit, you ask? Try our fruit cup, which we call a fruit salad, for $14.50. But who cared? The company was paying. Then came holding companies who bought up all the independent ad agencies and made them more “efficient” by firing all the back office workers, and cutting down on how much meal money the employees could charge when they were away from home, in a hotel, and had no choice but to eat out. One of my favorite memories was when I tried to save the company money. I took my laundry to a $10.00 wash and fold laundromat. They handed back my laundry, warm, fluffy and neatly folded for $10.00, as advertised. Trouble was they gave me a hand-written receipt on one of those little green pieces of lines paper you get at diners. I turned the partly-smudged, hand-written receipt in to accounting, and they disallowed it because it wasn't a computerized receipt. I had to eat the $10.00. Lesson learned. Next time I was at the same hotel shooting a different commercial, I had the hotel do my laundry, because they gave computerized receipts. The bill? I kid you not, was $212.00. The company accepted that with no questions. Maybe if they tried allowing hand-written receipts they wouldn’t have had to fire so many workers. Just sayin’.

But onto waffles. This week’s comics are from John’s experiences. I am more of a bacon and egg or breakfast burrito guy (we were always shooting commercials in LA, so they had breakfast burritos instead of breakfast sandwiches). John, as it turns out, is a waffle man. If you are not a waffle aficionado you will likely find that making a waffle with a hotel waffle maker is a complicated experience. And if you want your waffles, it is apparently painful to watch somebody who is in front of you, figure out how to make their waffles. So Marv, who has this in common with John, helps the guy in front of him. Partly because he’s a nice guy. But mainly because he wants to make his own waffles already, dammit! Truth be told, John and his wife attended an out-of-state wedding this weekend, and managed to find a hotel with a waffle maker. We came up with the idea (really he came up with the idea) of doing a two-parter about waffle makers and this past weekend he lived up to the comic. What isn’t clear was whether he put the butter on before the syrup or vice versa. He’s not telling.

Anyway on to the Olympics. Have a wonderful weekend, and if you’re reading this over breakfast, try adding some sliced bananas on top of your Eggos.

Andy and John

Man Plans, God Laughs 07/18/24

Calendars used to mean one thing. There were Playmate of the Month calendars, Sexy Fireman of the Month calendars, and plain old calendars that your mom used to hang up on the wall. Each day had a box and on each box was written the appointments for the day. Pack school lunches 8 am, grocery shopping 9 am, dentist appointment, 11 am. And unless you were a hopeless day drinker (that’s a phrase I wasn’t even aware of until my friend Matt Fischer accused me of it when I wrote him “lmk” instead of “let me know”), most people managed to keep up with these appointments. Even though they were written in pencil or pen, they were written in stone. Nowadays (is that even a word?) things are “written down” electronically. Heck, we even have calendars on our phones. But it seems to me that electronic plans are worth the paper they’re written on. In other words they’re as likely to be canceled as they are to be kept.

John and I have both had extensive dental work done in the past year. Crowns, root canals (trust us, they ain’t beautiful like Venice canals) periodontal cleanings that are worse than filling cavities, you name it, one of us has had it done. And just like the comic, if we had to change the appointment or the dentist had to change it, the next available appointment was months in advance. This is no joke. I had an appointment with a nutritionist (I prefer burgers, dogs and pizza to dark, leafy greens and vegetable medleys) in January of this year. They gave me an appointment in May. I said yes but totally forgot we were going to Greece in May. It was impossible to coordinate a time that worked from Greece so I rescheduled and the earliest they could come up with was late July. At least I think it’s late July, because I can no longer find it on my digital calendar. Sigh. I guess there’s nothing more to be done except to throw a couple of Impossible Burgers on the grill, topped with cheese and not the vegan kind. Although my extremely healthy daughter tells me they have as much saturated fat as the real thing, so on second thought…

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Friday. Don’t forget to mark it on your calendar.

Andy and John

Carpenter Bees?

Let me admit to something. Despite running a two-part series on Carpenter Bees, I haven’t the slightest idea what a carpenter bee is. John not only knows what one is, he knows what they do, so I take his word for it. I've heard of carpenter ants (I think). But carpenter bees? I have this image of a bee with goggles and a belt weighed down with heavy tools so that you see its butt-crack every time it bends over, but apparently that’s not what it looks like. According to John, it looks just like a regular bee except instead of buzzing around and pollinating flowers and making honey, this little guy (actually female) likes eating wood. And she pollinates as well but forget the good stuff. This is all about smearing the reputation of the carpenter bee. According to my vast research on these dreaded insects (okay, I just looked it up on Google), they prefer unpainted, weathered wood, especially softer types of wood like redwood, cedar, cypress and pine. Duh. John apparently used one of these types of wood while building the beams on his house and the bees said to themselves, “Whoopee! We’re moving in with John and Linda!” Which begs the question, do bees say stuff to themselves like “whoopee,” but that’s a subject for another blog. On second thought, maybe not.

According to this same website, carpenter bees don’t mean any harm. In fact, the males don’t even possess a stinger (I’m sure there’s a sophomoric sexual entendre in here but I will NOT sink that low) and all the little hole drillers want is to provide a safe environment for their young. Also, only the female is the hole driller which also leads to a sophomoric sexual entendre but this blog is rated PG, so please get your collective minds out of the gutter or at least out of the carpenter hole. The way to eliminate them, according to the website, is to add a protective coat of paint. While this may work in reality, it didn't stop John’s imagination, so he resorted to his inner-Rambo (trust me, he has one. Check out our comic when Al goes shirtless and dons a scarf tied around his head like a headband as he eliminates weeds with a flamethrower) and pulls out the Super Soaker. Ask anyone who’s ever been splashed by a Super Soaker, that stuff hurts! It comes out in a stream so powerful it should have been part of the assault weapons ban. If it feels like that to a fully grown human, imagine what it must feel like to a carpenter bee. We did.

Have a wonderful weekend and add an extra coat of finish to those beams, okay?

Andy and John

Ahh Nature...

Who among us doesn't like nature? Who among us would admit it if we didn’t like nature? Shellie is a city girl. I grew up as a city boy. So I get her. And John gets Sam. Some people know how to pitch a tent. I know how to pitch a baseball. And not that well, mind you. Years ago I took my young son on a baseball trip across the country. When we got to Detroit to see the Tigers we went to their stadium, Comerica Park (what the hell is a Comerica anyway?), and in one of the concourses they had a pitching machine. You stood on a mound 60’6” away from home plate (just like in the big leagues) and throw a baseball while a speed gun tracked how fast you could throw. My son, in his young teens, got up and fired one in at, if memory serves me right, around 62 mph. I chuckled softly and said something like, “Pretty good for a kid. But watch this.” I wound up and fired the ball and the radar gun hit…48 mph. And it hurt my arm. And my ego. Anyway, back to nature. Must we?

We must. My wife and I rent a beach house every summer and we love the idea of eating outside at night. Surrounded by nature. The house has outdoor speakers so you can play music while you eat. The pool has solar lamps around it and the pine trees are backlit. It’s a beautiful setting. Here’s the usual dinner drill: We have guests over. We go outside to set the table, rough-hewn and cut from a tree, place the plates and napkins and wine glasses, light some candles while the grill is grilling something healthy like salmon (except for July 4th and Labor Day when it’s burgers and dogs all the way). We bring out the salad and appetizers and then people start slapping at their necks, their arms, their legs, etc. It’s the damn mosquitoes. Oh we’ve tried citronella candles, an electronic device that emits a “non-toxic mist guaranteed to keep the bugs away,” and then invariably we ask, “Would everybody be happier taking their dinner inside?’ At first there’s a tentative, “If that’s what you want,” which immediately turns into a groundswell of “Yes!!!” as everyone runs inside, nature be damned.

I think the point is (is there really a point?) not that some people abhor nature. It’s that they’re simply uncomfortable around it. And yeah okay, some people abhor nature. You either grow up in a house in the country with two dogs or in the city with none. Where other people see wonder and beauty in a baby fawn, others see…deer ticks! Let me tell you, having suffered through a near fatal case of Lyme disease in my early 30’s, deer ticks are no picnic, (although I think I got my deer tick bite during a picnic). So while Shellie hates the thought of bats, she hates the mosquitoes even more. Somehow we think she’ll survive. And that little Sammy’s relationship to the great outdoors is shaped more from his dad than his mom.

So have a happy 4th of July. After finishing this blog, I am headed out to commune with nature on the beach. Just me, our guests and the great outdoors, covered with a spf 50 sunscreen, a large, floppy hat, sitting on a Tommy Bahama beach chair under a matching Tommy Bahama umbrella. which no ray of sun is capable of penetrating. Until our party of four decides to pack it up a couple hours later, because, you know, too much sun.

Have a great holiday,

Andy and John

Country Living. 06/28/24

Hurray! Summer’s here! And so are bugs! And mosquitoes! Wait, don’t mosquitoes count as bugs? Never mind. Point is, there’s a lot to love about the summer. And a lot to hate. It seems like there are basically three types of preferences for summer living, among people lucky enough to be able to afford choices for summer living. One group loves the beach. There’s nothing like the sound of the waves crashing on the beach, the gentle ebb and flow of the tide, the squawk of the seagulls, the occasional whale sighting, long walks and cooling dips. There’s nothing like it. Unless you hate sand, have fair skin and don’t want to get sunburned, think it’s a pain in the butt to load your car with Tommy Bahama chairs and umbrellas, coolers, plastic glasses and towels, sunscreen and talcum powder. Talcum powder? Yes there’s a little-known trick for removing the wet sand from your feet before getting back into the car. You sprinkle talcum powder on your feel and ankles. It instantly absorbs the wetness, then you brush it off with your hands and the sand comes completely off with no effort. Now it’s true that talcum powder has been linked to some serious diseases, but man, does it take the sand off! Except for the little grains that find their way into your sandals, the floor mats of the car, the beach house you rented, and of course, the bedsheets.

Another option is the country house. If you’re a country person you probably like hiking, forests, mountains and building stuff with your own hands. A swimming pool is always a nice accessory. Sure there are bugs. And bumpy driveways (John has a long and bumpy driveway that was the inspiration for Sam’s long and bumpy driveway). Full disclosure: John is a country guy, I’m a beach guy. He can build a deck or an outdoor garden or a manly fire pit. If a tree falls, he gets out his chain saw and cuts it into firewood. I can barely get the beach umbrella into the ground (although we have the kind where the end looks like a big plastic screwdriver, so that helps big time). As for firewood, we buy it in bundled logs outside the grocery store.

And then there’s a third type. The stay at home in the city type. Good news: you can easily get into plays and restaurants and comedy clubs and museum exhibitions that are tough to get into when everybody is home. It’s less crowded. There’s less traffic. And it can seem like you have the whole place to yourself. Of course there’s also an unrelenting hot sun bouncing off the pavement when you walk, heaping bags of trash on the street waiting for collection, no place to jump in the water, and you are just counting the minutes or seconds until you are back home. Inside. But no bugs.

The classic push/pull between city and country folk was brilliantly covered in the show Green Acres. Da da duh da da: fresh air! Da da duh da dam Times Square! And in this series we are having fun with Sam’s country enthusiasm and Shellie’s country reticence. But hey, how come there’s no Green Acres chorus about the beach???

Have a happy summer wherever you are and however you choose to spend it and we’ll see you (virtually) next week with our final two installments of Sam and Shellie’s country house.

Andy and John

Gift-Giving. 06/20/24

Remember when our kids were little and they’d bring us gifts from school? The Mother’s Day hearts, outlines of their hands to look like turkeys for Thanksgiving and the Father’s Day ash trays? Ash trays? Yeah ash trays. That’s what dads did back then, they smoked cigars. Handed ‘em out when the kids were first born. We come from a time when a bubble gum manufacturer thought it was a good idea to shred the gum, put it in a resealable pouch, and sell it like the bubble gum version of chewing tobacco. Big League Chew. I confess to stuffing a “chaw” between my cheek and gums on the softball field (to look like a big leaguer) until I realized that you can’t chew the damn stuff until you put it between your teeth. But that was then. As for now, I still have a laminated bookmark from my daughter and a NY Giants coaster from my son. Still use them.

Speaking of gifts, how about the gifts given in wills? There’s an Advertising Hall of Fame ad for Volkswagen back in 1969 (the days after Mad Men) featuring a long line of limos and, in the back, one young man driving a VW Beetle. The announcer reads the last will and testament of the deceased. I’ll spare you the full script but as you see the limos go by and the fat cats in the limos, the announcer says, “To my business partner Jules, whose motto was spend, spend, spend, I leave nothing, nothing, nothing. Finally, to my nephew Harold (the young man bringing up the rear of the procession in his VW), who said a penny saved is a penny earned, I leave my entire fortune of $100 billion dollars.” Now Sam wasn’t going to inherit anything like Harold’s $100 billion. John and I don’t even know how to write that amount down. Suffice it to say it’s a lot of zeros. So we (in the guise of Uncle Eddie) decided to give him a house in the country. Shellie doesn’t know from country. Green Acres here we come.

That’s it for this week. Have a terrific weekend in the country, unless you’re like Eva Gabor, in which case you want to tell us “Dahling I love you but give me Park Avenue,

Andy and John

Whose Line is it Anyway? 06/14/24

Ever been to Costa Rica? You can’t go there without experiencing a zip line and getting to rappel down a waterfall. Fun. Unless you’re terrified. One of us is that way. Here’s a hint: John once parachuted out of a plane. I still refuse to go off the high diving board at the local pool. As it happens, the both of us, at completely different times, went with our families to Costa Rica. You can have a beautiful vacation on the beach or you can have an eco-vacation in the rainforest. My family did a little of both. We actually had to rappel down a waterfall, each time you let go of the rope to descend you bounced your feet off the rock. And your feet got soaked because you were hitting the waterfall. Now I was wearing open-toed Keen’s sandals, a shoe that is so ugly, a female comedian friend of mine referred to them as “deal breakers.” But I digress. The point is, the looser you hold the rope, the more freely and effortlessly you descend. But if you are terrified you hold on to the rope tightly. Which results in you taking twice as long as it should and a pair of rope-burned hands. But that is nothing when compared to a zip line. For those of you who have never experienced one, you climb up a ladder perched against one tree. The trip organizers put a helmet on you, gloves to protect against those previously mentioned rope burns, and hook up your safety vest to a safety harness. In sum, you are pretty safe. The only thing you can’t do is panic and apply the brake too soon. If you do this, you won’t have enough momentum to reach the tree and platform on other side. Instead, you’ll just hang down from the middle of the rope while everyone laughs at you as you now have to propel yourself hand over hand to get to the other side. Exhausting and humiliating at the same time. Not that I’d know. So John and I thought it would be funny to have a terrified Marv have to take the zip line to get to the reception for Sid’s wedding. Our choice came to Marv and his bulk, tie flapping in the wind, vs. an older woman with a clutch and her pearls flapping in the wind. We looked at each other and decided nobody would know who that woman was (heck, we didn’t know who that woman was) and decided to have Marv go along for the ride.

Then there’s the other kind of line we like to avoid. The line at the prescription drug counter. There’s a couple of reasons we find ourselves on these lines more than we’d like. One reason is we ain’t exactly getting younger. And the other more sinister reason is we are being targeted by pharmaceutical ads. All the shows we watch, like nightly news, cable news, golf tournaments, TONY Awards, they see us coming. And every single ad is either an insurance ad or a pharmaceutical ad. And of all the pharmaceutical ads in all the world, the one that drives John, me and a host of other people crazy is the ad for Jardiance, the little pill with the big STOR-ee to tell. As far as I know, you emphasize the second syllable, sto-REE, not the other way around. In musical terms it’s a syncopation - “a disturbance or disruption of the regular flow of rhythm.” Another sterling example is the jingle for the charity Kars for Kids. They sing, “do-NATE your car today.” So one issue is how badly the songs are written and the other one is you can’t get the damn thing out of your mind. At least we can’t. So have a wonderful weekend and in an effort to get those songs out of your head, just remember, we all live in a yellow submarine.

Andy and John

First World Problems. 06/07/24

Of all the problems in the world, having too much money to spend doesn't seem like a biggie. But we’ve seen it before. Professional athletes, actors or app developers, hedge funders and corporate lawyers who earn untold riches before they’re old enough to understand it’s not going to last forever. I know of a certain actor who lives in a fancy building in Brooklyn. There’s a rooftop deck for the building. Said actor (trust me, you know him) bought 3/4 of the deck, the part with views of the Manhattan Skyline, the New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty for himself, and let the other 29 tenants split the 1/4 of the roof that’s left. The part without the views. And this from a guy that probably spends no more than 4 weeks a year there. Yeah, that kind of money. Or there’s the recent example of a 22-year-old multimillionaire athlete who covered the floor of a strip club with $100 dollar bills so his friends could have unlimited fun.

We didn't give Sid that kind of money, but close. What would he do with it? What would we do with it? You’d like to think you’d be responsible, but hey, why settle for a mere car when you can just as easily afford a Maserati? Thank goodness the comic doesn’t make the kind of money. The kind that would give John or me the type of aforementioned trouble our young billionaires have to deal with. On the other hand, as The Beach Boys once sang, “Wouldn't it be Nice?” The point is that while we would be sorely tempted to do crazy things with unlimited money, we’re in our 60’s (okay, okay, one of us is in his very, very early 70’s) we at least have some perspective. For a young kid, it would be awfully tough or nearly impossible not to spend it recklessly. Like a private destination wedding in a foreign, far away land. A private plane that doesn't serve its passengers microwave trays of salisbury steak (whatever that is) and pop chips, but instead passes out elk-burger sliders and hand cut fries with a lemon aioli. Heck, it’s not John’s money or mine. So we can spend it as recklessly as we want. So there!

Have a nice weekend, and take it from us, chopped chuck and American cheese makes a better hamburger than ground sirloin and roquefort. Any time.

Andy and John

The Good and Bad of the Web 05/31/24

The internet can be bad. If you’ve ever ordered an article of clothing off the internet (and who hasn't?) you know the rule. It never fits. Ever. Take shoes for instance. I know I’m a size 8 1/2 here in the good old USA. But what size am I in Europe? I think I’m a 41. But it could easily be a 42. Shirts, fuhgeddaboutit. Small, medium large, that - I get. But collar size? Sleeve length? No shot. And our size changes as we get older so what you think you know may very well not be accurate. Which brings us around to Marv and his shirt. Maybe the sizes in China are different. Maybe Marv put on a little weight. But Rachel could have been a little nicer. She could have just gazed at his stomach and not said anything, but that doesn't make for a funny ending.

And then the internet can be extremely good. Like for Sid. Remember Sid? He is the son of Al and Joanne. Sid lived in their basement into his early 30’s working on an idea for a “killer app.” Sid was devastated when Al and Joanne took him off the family phone plan (my kids still haven’t forgiven me). And then one day, as if by miracle, Sid emerges from his room to announce he was a newly minted internet multi-millionaire. Funny how that works. So John and I asked ourselves, what would a guy with untold riches do for a wedding. And since we don’t have to pay for it, we had no problem spending Sid’s money. In this era of celebrity weddings, Peltz-Beckham, RFK Jr and Cheryl Hines, Ben Affleck and…wait a minute, that one just ended. Anyway, we wondered what a pair of healthy, wealthy 30-somethings would do if they could do anything they wanted. In the next couple weeks, you’ll find out.

What’s the most extravagant, over-the-top wedding you’ve ever attended? Write us and if we hear something really crazy, we’ll write about it in the blog. Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next week with two new installments of Sid’s big event.

Andy and John