Well, He Sits Up There on His Leatherette.....

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One of the things that has perplexed me to no end over the past couple of weeks is the "outrage" over the allegations against movie producer Harvey Weinstein. NOT because of what he's alleged to have done. No, rather because Hollywood's fake elite is acting as if this is something that has never happened before. Disgusting? Absolutely. New? Hardly. It was called "the Casting Couch" way back when. How old is this? In 1979 the Eagles had a song about it on their final pre-breakup album, The Long Run, called "King of Hollywood." It detailed the Casting Couch in rather explicit details: Well, he sits up there on his leatherette Looks through pictures of the ones that he hasn't had yet Come sit down here beside me, honey Let's have a little heart to heart Now look at me and tell me, darlin' How badly do you want this part? On Steve Goodman's final album (released five days after he died in 1984), Santa Ana Winds, he also addressed the issue in the song "Face on the Cutting Room Floor" (which was later covered by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band): Then one night he tells her that she'll never get anywhere In her clothes He says, "That's what it takes to play Movie Land musical chairs" So now she knows In the Goodman song, however, the starlet decides to leave instead of play the game ("Goodbye Hollywood, leaving tonight on the 2:30 'Hound, sunrise on Sunset, she won't be around"). That's an exception. Most stayed and played the game. Even those "recent" songs reflecting the Casting Couch aren't the tip of the iceberg. Anyone remember Jack Woltz, the sleazy movie producer who woke up with a horse's head in his bed after saying "no" to Don Corleone in The Godfather? Like many of the characters in that movie (and novel on which it's based), Woltz was a fictional character with more than a passing resemblance to a real person: in this case, Columbia Pictures co-founder Harry Cohn. One of the most frequent words used to describe him in a quick Google search is "lecherous." Rita Hayworth, according to her biographer, refused to visit his bedroom in exchange for better movie roles. She became a legend anyway. And, if you run over to another popular search place -- Amazon -- you'll find a number of books, some decades old, about the subject. It's interesting to me that "we" know that's wrong. If your boss offers you a promotion in exchange for a quick trip to the supply closet you go running to the union or the government and a lawyer and a news station. In contrast, these multimillionaire actresses were content to play along. Now they're pissed and they're pointing fingers. Why now? We'll probably never know. Here's the Eagles song. It's hardly one of my favorites of theirs, but it's so appropriate for the news from Hollywood: