Rob Long
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Articles by Rob Long
The fussiness of small portions and fancy wine
Please don’t interpret this as a cry for help, but: I like to eat alone sometimes. Not always, of course. No one enjoys a convivial dinner with friends and companions as much as I do, but every so often I like to sit at the bar of a local restaurant with a book or the newspaper, a steak, and a glass of red wine. It’s one of the great uncomplicated pleasures of adult life, and like every uncomplicated pleasure, someone is always trying to complicate it. Print subscriber?
When another’s fear is our entertainment
I have an Italian friend who drives like he’s in a death race with every other car on the road, which is to say he drives like most of his countrymen. For the past few days, he was at the wheel as three of us made our way from Sorrento to the hill town of Fiuggi, and he bore down on every car in front of us at a speed that suggested he either did not see it or planned to drive straight through it.
Let’s learn from the younger generation on ditching smartphones
The unexpected life lessons of the Army First round of October Social Security payments goes out in three days Trump offered $5,000 for your vote. Hear me out, Democrats — go... Darline Graham debate make-or-break moment for Trump-backed nominee Losing 2026 is bad — getting locked out until 2036 is the...
When not to stew over that unearned b-plus
My friends who are parents of college-age children have a new favorite thing to complain about, and it isn’t tuition, although it’s close. It’s grades, or more precisely how easy it is, even at the most expensive institutions, to get an A. That’s the grade you get for showing up to class reasonably often, turning in work reasonably OK, and being reasonably awake and hygienic while doing so. Stay informed.Stay ahead.
When hobbies, obsessions, and eccentricities take over late middle age
At a certain age, everyone you know starts going through things. That’s the phrase we use — “He’s going through something” — and I’ve noticed it’s deployed the same way regardless of what’s actually happening. We say a hushed, slightly ceremonial “She’s going through things,” which could mean anything from a divorce to a diagnosis to a second bankruptcy. It’s a euphemism built to cover a lot of ground, though most of my friends are up to or approaching 60, so there’s a lot of ground to cover.
Rob’s Free For Now Newsletter
Years ago, around the time that many of my male friends were getting married, I noticed something. A few months after the ceremony — after the wedding pictures were framed and displayed, after the tropical honeymoon was a happy memory — my friends started getting fat. And noticeably so. Their shirts would be stretched taut against their bellies, little darts of flesh visible as the shirt fronts pooched out.
Questionnaire: Rob Long, candidate for House District 90
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Name: Rob Long Campaign website: RobLongForFlorida.com Date, place of birth: January 13, 1985, Gaithersburg, Maryland Education: Penn State University, B.S. in Civil Engineering (2008); University of Florida, M.B.A. (2012) Occupation: Director of External Affairs, Netta Architects, Florida State Representative Work history past 15 years, starting with the most recent.
Drunk on Generosity
I made an on-line donation to a local charity recently, and received an effusively grateful letter from the executive director, which made me very nervous. How much had I donated? I was pretty sure it was about $200 — it’s a good organization, doing effective work in my area, so I was feeling generous. But I was feeling up-to-$200 generous, and when I read the note from the director — “Dear Mr. Long: We cannot thank you enough for your recent very generous gift.
Learning to love those who misuse the language
Here’s a confession: When people commit certain grammatical errors on TikTok, I instantly discredit everything they’re about to say. Actually, that’s two confessions. The first is that I’m a language snob. The second is that I’m on TikTok. Already a print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account Trusted reporting.Unlimited access. Subscribe for full access to Washington Examiner coverage, expert political analysis, and subscriber-only journalism. Get Unlimited Access › Already a member?
Delray Beach's cautionary tale an Amendment 3 warning | Opinion
In 2024, Delray Beach blew a $6.2 million hole in its budget plan with a politically attractive property tax rollback. The consequences were immediate and serious. One year later, two of the three officials who supported it reversed course and joined me in restoring a more sustainable rate. Amendment 3, which will appear on Florida's November ballot, would sharply expand the homestead exemption and reduce the property-tax base available to cities and counties. It would be far more consequential.
The Hardy Boys shows us how childhood has changed
It has been said that the reason women join book clubs is to be able to drink a few gallons of Chardonnay with some close friends. That may be so. But men, at least men my age, join a book club to grumble and complain and grouch about stuff. The actual book, which for the women is merely an excuse to twist open another bottle, is for us the touchstone to a litany of grievances about the way things are these days. Already a print subscriber?
Delray Beach's cautionary tale an Amendment 3 warning | Opinion Original
Florida's Amendment 3 would expand the homestead exemption, significantly reducing property tax revenue for cities and counties. Delray Beach's tax rollback led to public safety staffing shortages, a police chief's resignation, and unfunded city services. Unlike a local budget decision, Amendment 3 would be a constitutional change that could not be easily reversed by local officials.
The irresistible lure of duty-free shopping
We already know this rule: You aren’t permitted to leave a museum without running into a gift shop. I also discovered late last week in Paris that you can’t walk out of the newly restored Notre-Dame cathedral without passing a large gift zone near the arrow that points to Sortie de secours.
An international journey reveals America does most things right
This week, on a Zoom call with some colleagues, I told the group that I have been traveling around Europe and the Caucasus since May. One of my colleagues responded with a flattering shout. Wow! she said. You’re not just a tourist, you’re a traveler! Which was gratifying, of course, but also made a complicated distinction.
When a slow trip can have great rewards
On a clear day, from the right spot on the Maltese coast, you can see Tunisia. It’s about 200 miles away — closer than Los Angeles is to San Francisco — and for most of recorded history, arranging travel from one to the other was about as complicated as hailing a cab.
What ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ can teach us about banking
If you’re over 40, none of the following will require explanation. It’s literary canon, etched into your memory over countless summer days watching reruns, or days spent home “sick,” watching game shows in the morning and comedy reruns in the afternoon until your parents came home and you had to pretend that you hadn’t spent all day watching TV.
Rob Long | Substack
Rob’s Free For Now Newsletter Writer/producer/author/lazybones. IG: @rcbl. Shoutout: @southfoodways @mfpla Rob’s Free For Now Newsletter 2 SubscribeMessage ActivityPostsLikes & RepliesSubscriptions (37)
When traveling to Amsterdam, attend to the locals’ accents
I come back to Amsterdam a lot, and every time I arrive, I feel a little sheepish about speaking Dutch.
From the Travelogues: Shamans & Lemurs
“Is there any way,” I asked my guide during a recent trip to Madagascar, “that we could visit a local shaman? Instead of seeing more lemurs?” He shifted uncomfortably. What he wanted to do was show us more lemurs, the gentle monkey-like creatures that populate the island. That’s what tourists come to see, after all. I don’t really care about lemurs, to be honest. Cute, furry things swinging through the trees?
The souvenirs and memories from trips overseas
Something happens to me when I travel. I become a magpie. Inside Scoop: Working-class zeros, Courting Disaster, Nevada’s big gamble Socialist primary wins could complicate Jeffries’ path to the speaker’s gavel DSA’s winning streak faces its biggest test in swing states At home, I’m fine. At home, I am, if anything, a little severe about stuff — I don’t need it, I don’t want more of it, the drawers are full enough.
Artificial Facial Intelligence
“I’m really worried about what Artificial Intelligence is going to do to the culture,” a woman I know told me recently at a party. “I’m concerned that AI is going to make us lose the things that make us human.” I nodded in sympathetic agreement, which is what I do when I vehemently disagree. I’m not trying to be mean here, but the woman who was so concerned about losing the things that “make us human” is probably sporting about $100,000 worth of elaborate plastic surgery.
Horror movies can’t compete with an active imagination
“Your problem,” a friend of mine said to me recently, “is that you have no imagination.” Prince Harry and family meet with King Charles for the first time in four years Taylor Swift reimburses New York City for police overtime during wedding: Mamdani Apache helicopter pilots suspended after South Carolina beach air show We were discussing summer movies — horror movies, in particular — and because we are both in the entertainment industry, we were talking about the box office, which lately has...
What I Learned From Jimmy Burrows Original
On my third day in show business, I went to Stage 25 on the Paramount Studios lot to get a cup of coffee and a doughnut. It was January 1990, and I had just been hired as a staff writer on the long-running hit comedy Cheers, and so far I had made two important career discoveries. First: that every working soundstage has a table somewhere groaning with snacks and treats.
An old friend’s surprise at a new vocation
I was in Paris last week for a party to celebrate the wedding anniversary of old friends. I know that’s a polarizing sentence to read. People hear “Paris,” and they quickly feel as though they need to have an opinion. Sometimes it’s: Paris? In June? With all of those tourists? And sometimes it’s: Lotta snobby, rude waiters, if you ask me. And sometimes you have to brace yourself for a geopolitical rant. Paris, for a lot of people, is not a neutral location.
James Burrows Knew When ‘We Got Nothing’ And How to Fix It
Rob Long spent four seasons writing on Cheers, the iconic ’80s sitcom that lasted 270 episodes. Today’s Martini Shot podcast is about Rob’s time with Cheers co-creator James Burrows, who died on June 19 at the age of 85. The transcript of Rob’s essay is in full below. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts. We’ve all had this experience, haven’t we?
When a haircut goes right, there’s something genuinely wonderful about it
Everyone has their own birthday rituals. Some women take spa days, some wine collectors drink a special bottle from their cellars, some people sit and wallow in self-pity. I know a guy who is severely lactose intolerant, and once a year on his birthday, he indulges in a few pints of premium ice cream and then has the courtesy to sequester himself in privacy for a few hours as the effects take place. It’s a small price to pay, he says, for a once-a-year treat. Me, I get a haircut.
I Will Not Read The Comments
Once, a television project I’ve been working on was mentioned favorably on an entertainment industry website. I wouldn’t have known, but a friend sent me a text message. “Hey, there’s a story about you and your new thing on the web,” he texted. Followed by a link to the story. A few seconds later, he texted this: “DO NOT read the comments.” Of course, by then it was too late. (And I think my friend knew that.) I had clicked over to the article intending to scan it quickly and move on with my day.
Will you just smile already?
Someone took my picture last week. “Smile,” she said. “I am smiling,” I said.
The varieties of show-business experience
In both, there is the burden of authority — you are responsible for everything, and when something goes wrong, it is emphatically your problem to solve. The phone rings for you. The buck stops with you. In both, there is the matter of consensus-building: you have constituencies with competing interests and strong opinions, and your job is to keep all of them moving in roughly the same direction without letting any of them notice that you’re doing it.
The straight scoop on inner circles
At first, I laughed. What a baffling mystery, Holmes! And then the Curious Case of the Conundrum of the $280,000,000,000 was afoot! After I was done laughing, I tried, in good faith, to ask myself whether there might be some interesting and previously untold story behind the way the Jeff Bezoses stormed the citadel of international fashion and glamour. Some hidden charm. Some private gift for color and cut. Some long-suppressed passion for tailoring that had at last found its outlet.
Florida hurt Palm Beach County's voice in Washington | Opinion Original
May 5, 2026, 5:05 a.m. ET Florida lawmakers have passed a new congressional map despite the current one being drawn in 2022. The new map splits communities like Delray Beach, potentially diluting their representation and access to federal resources. Critics contend the process lacked transparency and violated Florida's constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering. Florida did not need to redraw its congressional map this year.
Florida hurt Palm Beach County's voice in Washington | Opinion
Floridians won't just see fewer competitive districts. They will see fewer representatives with any reason to listen to those who disagree with them. Rob Long Opinion Contributor May 5, 2026, 5:05 a.m. ET Florida did not need to redraw its congressional map this year. There was no new census, no population imbalance and no court order requiring it. The current map, drawn by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022, is still in use.
Grab bars in the shower is a damn convenient feature. At any age.
Standing under the hot water with one hand resting lightly on the EZ-grip bar bolted to the tile — well, it’s a spa-like environment. It turns an experience that could at any moment become a mortifying accident, or a bathroom fatality that even your closest friends would have trouble not laughing about, into something safe and pleasant and civilized.
The pros and cons of using the f-word
I didn’t know what two times meant. I was 7. But I assumed, with the logic of a 7-year-old, that two times was simply part of the act to which the word referred — that everyone knew it was something that happened two times. It was only years later that I realized this was just wishful thinking.
When vintage fashion sits in your closet
But here’s the sad truth: The jacket has spent most of its life in my closet, unworn. I’ve worn it a handful of times over the years, and each outing has been, objectively, a triumph. Once, a stranger stopped me on the street and told me it was the finest example of that kind of jacket they had ever seen. High praise. But still: I went home, hung it up, and didn’t wear it again for years. Then, on a separate occasion — different city, different crowd — someone offered to buy it off my back.
Pub trivia artifacts
She and some classmates had gone to pub trivia — a weekly event at a bar in Princeton where teams compete to answer questions about history, science, pop culture, and whatever else the trivia master decides is worth knowing. They have these all over, of course, but my guess is that the one at the Princeton bar is a very high-end trivia contest.
I See Dead Shows
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler. There’s a version of the television comedy writers’ room that gets described in articles and Hollywood memoirs and old episodes of the Dick Van Dyke Show as a kind of creative paradise — funny people sitting around a table, pitching jokes, laughing, ordering lunch. And that version isn’t wrong, exactly. It just leaves out the part where everyone is also being systematically destroyed. In a productive way of course. In a funny way.
Too Wordy
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler. I never know how much of a life recap I need to do, so just in case, here’s a quick one: As some of you know, I’m currently a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, working toward a Master of Divinity degree and, eventually, ordination in the Episcopal Church. I know, I know. It’s a lot.
Lincoln lovers
A friend of mine has a vintage Jaguar — a beautiful, impractical thing that he loves the way some men love boats, which is to say expensively and idiotically. He talks about it a lot, and I nod and pretend to listen — I know next to nothing about cars, which is why I happily drive a Subaru. But as much as I love my Subaru — it’s a practical, reliable car, which cannot be said about my friend’s vintage Jaguar — I have to admit it’s missing something in the romantic pizazz department.
Learning to shut up
A young man bought me a cup of coffee last week. He wanted some career advice, and I never turn down an opportunity to deliver wisdom over a free coffee. So I let him pay for the coffee, we found a place to sit, and I did my part: I delivered wisdom for about 45 minutes. About show business, about Princeton Theological Seminary, about the many lessons I’ve learned and the many mistakes I’ve made, and the many opinions I hold on a wide variety of subjects. I was, in short, magnificent.
Florida takes a stand against 'forever chemicals.' | Opinion Original
Florida's legislature passed the Joe Casello Act to phase out firefighting foam containing PFAS, also known as "forever chemicals." PFAS are linked to serious health issues, including cancer, and have contaminated groundwater across the country. The bill honors the late Rep. Joe Casello, a former firefighter who championed the cause. This legislation strengthens standards for the containment, collection, and disposal of these hazardous substances.
Baby talk
A friend of mine — she’s in her early 30s, no children — was having lunch recently with a friend and that friend’s 3-year-old daughter. At some point during the meal, her friend got up from the table, leaving my friend alone with the child. What followed, she told me later, was something close to a panic attack. “I just sat there,” she said, “completely frozen. I didn’t know what to say.” This is not a particularly anxious or socially awkward person.
Hollywood's Employed Unemployeds
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler. A friend of mine has been having a hard time in the entertainment business lately. I know, I know — this isn’t really news in the traditional sense. Or unique. It’s been that way for a lot of our friends. And he’s a writer — a good one — but he hasn’t worked in a while, and recently he asked me for advice. We were at Zankou Chicken. Just to set the scene. I hate giving advice.
Book clubs are about more than just books
A few years ago, a college friend called me on my birthday. He’d been feeling, he said, a little isolated — not lonely exactly, but cut off. His work life had shifted, most of his colleagues were younger, and the jokes and comments he’d make in Zoom meetings and on Slack weren’t landing the way he’d hoped. In at least one case, an offhand remark he delivered during a Microsoft Teams meeting inspired a concerned email from HR. He needed, he said, a safe space. People his own age.
'Wake Up Dead Man' and Religion on Screen
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for The Ankler. A friend asked me to come to his birthday dinner next week. “That is,” he added, “if they’ll let you out.” “Let me out?” I asked. I have been a student at the Princeton Theological Seminary for more than a year. I’m about mid-way through the Masters in Divinity program, on my way — God willing and the people consenting — to ordination in the Episcopal Church. But I still have some in my circle who don’t quite understand what I’m doing with my time.
Curling up with the Good Book
When I was in my early twenties, eating alone in a restaurant was fraught with anxiety. Walking in by yourself, being led to a table, sitting down across from an empty chair — you might as well wear a sandwich board that reads Nobody wanted to have dinner with me. Whenever I did, I always brought a book, thinking it made me look intellectual and self-sufficient, when in fact a young person eating alone with a book looks even more pathetic than a young person eating alone without one.
Headshot
About 15 years ago, when I was doing a weekly commentary on a local Los Angeles public radio station, the management hired a professional photographer to take some publicity shots. They remain among the worst photographs ever taken of me, and they also remain among the first results that pop up after you Google my name. Please don’t, though. They’re really awful.
Faith Is So Hot Right Now
This is Rob Long with Martini Shot for the Ankler. When I tell my friends in show business that I am now at Princeton Theological Seminary, getting a Masters in Divinity and on my way — I hope, or inshallah as we Episcopalians say — to ordination in the Episcopal Church, their response is usually to nod thoughtfully and say something along the lines of “can’t wait to read the pilot.” “But I’m not doing this to get a pilot script out of it,” I always say.
The realities of residuals
When I tell people that I have enjoyed a 30-year career writing and producing television comedies, and that one of them was the long-running hit sitcom, Cheers, I know what they are thinking. They are thinking, Boy, I’ll bet that guy is just living large on those residuals. Residuals, for those of you who are not in show business — though, to be honest, are we not all in show business, when you think about it?
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