This is always an ambivalent month. When you’re a kid it sucks because Summer Vacation is over and you need to return to prison which is how you feel with grade school and to some extent, high school. Meanwhile, you do get to keep hanging out with your friends, including the ones you didn’t see much of during the Summer. Throw in new clothes, new gear and what used to be a bigger deal until the Aughts, the new Fall TV lineups! University is happier. You get away from your parents again, you see those friends who live across the country again and the parties. The downside here? As you progress, the courses do get harder and more labor intensive.
Adulthood? It doesn’t matter much other than your AC bill going down. Throw in 2020 and its Pandemic, I’d say September will probably reflect May. They both have a Monday-based holiday. In Austin, it’s when the 40° C days begin to decline or rise in May’s case.
My point? I guess I just miss the cautious optimism September used to give me. I could run over to the nearby HEB and get some new school supplies, regain the smell. Oh, not all is lost. The dinosaur broadcast network Fox should be rolling out new episodes of their animated, prime-time shows, namely Bob’s Burgers! Netflix better be readying more Big Mouth since Disenchantment is unknown as per John DiMaggio.
I’ll wrap it up with an explanation for this month’s header art. Around this time in 1985, I saw Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure at a theater in Dickinson, ND, the only “city” on Mountain Time. The trip was my first and only journey to the place which gave actress Angie Dickinson (née Brown) her more famous surname…at least that’s what NoDak’s say despite it being her first husband’s. It was a fun weekend away from Beulah to take the SAT for the third (and worst) time, eat at a couple chain restaurants my small town didn’t have and watch MTV in a hotel room. As for the movie? It lived up to all my expectations. I had seen Pee Wee Herman off/on for a few years already. He had appeared as the character for stand-up routines and gotten bit parts as his real self, Paul Reubens, in several previous movies (Midnight Madness is a fave) and a Steve Martin special. It was just a relief to see somebody’s tight-ten skit/persona succeed as a 90-minute movie unlike the majority of SNL premises.