Transcript: Back to School, Hollywood: Start with Porky’s

Rob Long's syllabus for reaching young men again

This is Rob Long with Martini Shot, for The Ankler.

It doesn’t really matter how old you are, does it? When Labor Day rolls around, it just feels like back to school, even if school is many years away. It’s a long-standing tidal urge, when September hits, to buy some pens and a new backpack and a Trapper Keeper binder with Mork from Ork on it, though perhaps I’ve said too much. For the record, I never had one of those binders — not because I was too cool, but because I wasn’t nearly that organized. There was no real trapping or keeping during my school years, just a lot of spiral-bound notebooks with papers cascading everywhere.

And in show business, it’s not really back to school but back to business. August is spent mostly pushing and postponing things until our three favorite words — “after the holiday” — come true, and it is after the holiday, and we are now facing all of the meetings and decisions and conversations we’ve happily put off. September is when all of those bills come due.

For me, though, it really is back to school. I am, in fact, back in school and this week I’m back to being back in school. Just like the old days.