Put it this way: in Hollywood the only difference between summer and the rest of the year is that in summer, when we drive with the car top down, we also have the air conditioner on. For real people (defined as “those who do not work in or around the 310 telephone area code”), the ideal of summer is like fun itself. It’s hard-wired into their brains the moment they have their first Sno-Cone, or hear their first ice-cream truck, or smell the distinct scent of chlorine, Coppertone and hamburger.

Which is why it’s so puzzling to Americans to watch Europeans on vacation. Is it fun, trooping along the Cinque Terre as the Italians do each August, shouting into their cell phones at Mamma back home, “Fa caldo, Mamma?” Or marching along the meltingly hot streets of New Orleans, as I saw some German tourists do, with a loaf of bread and a grocery bag of sandwich fixings? “Lassen uns haben ein Picknick,” the father kept grimly intoning to his drooping, miserable family.

Americans–at least the real ones–race through the rest of the year, work well in excess of the standard number of hours per week (memo to French readers: this number is a good deal larger than 35), commute long distances to work, take piles of work home, think about work and even dream about work. So when summer rolls around, sure, they pack up the car and drive somewhere hot and crowded like the rest of the world. But the true essence of the American summer is spent lazing around the backyard (we have bigger ones than our European friends, much, much bigger ones, and pity those poor Japanese and Chinese) drinking beer and watching the kids jump in the sprinkler.

That’s why my best friend, an actor, was once told by his agent that “vacations are sacred.” The agent had announced that he was going on an African safari for three weeks. “I’m going to be totally out of the loop!” he cried. “Time for me to get to know me again.” It was going to be just him, his girlfriend, two of his most important actor clients and their girlfriends.

“So it’s not really a vacation,” my friend said. “It’s work, right?”

“How do you figure?” the agent asked blankly.

“You’re going with two of your clients.”

“Oh. That. Well, they’re friends, too, you know.”

The agent touched his arm gently.

“Are you jealous about the safari? ‘Cause don’t be. I had to have a million shots in the ass, and the malaria pills made my pee smell funny.”

“Yeah, but what if something comes up for me?” my friend asked. Like a deal that required the ardent attentions of an agent.

“Just call me.”

“Call you? In Botswana?”

“I’m taking a satellite phone, silly,” said the agent, rolling his eyes. “I’m not a hermit!”

No doubt this is why so many Europeans prefer California, with its year-round kickback attitude, to anywhere else in the United States. They understand the cell-phone-on-the-beach vibe we’ve got going on. They also probably understand why, for work or vacation, the second best place in the world is Hawaii. The weather is beautiful, the water is pale blue and everyone else from Hollywood is there too. This means that you can sit by the pool, have a drink on the veranda, even snorkel along the reefs and never be too far from a cell phone, a copy of that day’s Variety or a deal in the making. It’s said that the busiest day in Hollywood is Christmas Day in Hawaii, and the busiest place is by the pool at the Kapalua.

For the rest of America, forget it. Labor Day signals the end of summer, the end of fun, the back-to-work rhythm we’ve all got drumming through us. (Real people, anyway.) But out here, it’s just one more day of sunshine and tough beach parking. One day you’re at the beach; the next you’re buying candy corn and Thanksgiving pumpkins. There’s no put-on-a-sweater phase in between.

Perhaps we’re not so different from Europeans after all. The French make a big show of the start of autumn, calling it la rentree, as if now that summer’s over they’re all going to buckle down to a hard year of two-hour lunches and 35-hour workweeks and scheduled strikes. Hey, we in Hollywood know better. So have a nice autumn, all you real people. If you want me, I’ll be by the pool.