So, the NY Times begs a Woody Allen hater named Dwight Garner to review the memoir...

I don't want to go all ANDY ROONEY on you, but since the late ROONEY might well be the kind of "humorist" that makes Dwight Garner wet his shorts, I'll reference him. In style.

"Ever wonder...." Andy Rooney used to wonder. That was his tired, much-parodied opening line when he delivered his folksy (ie, unfunny) light essays on "60 Minutes." In giving us a "slice of life," Andy didn't use rapier wit, nor anything edgy. More of a rusty spoon, spoon-feeding us the obvious in a voice that had all the creakiness of a warped rocking chair.

Have we forgotten that guys like Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl gave us better, and deserve respect? That in Woody's case, the incredibly prolific body of work, which includes several funny books and three of the best comedy records of all time, should be mentioned independently from the Farrowing that is all aboout "she said" and not at all about the law?

"Ever wonder..." why The New York Times would have to beg somebody to review a book, and that before getting to the actual review, this guy would have to wheeze, stammer, clear his throat, utter apologies, and drag his wife and family into it?

When I was reviewing books for the Chicago Tribune, the editor would call up, tell me he found something that he wanted my opinion on, and I'd WRITE A REVIEW. Simple.

I didn't start the review by referencing the fucking CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS and "writer Christopher Isherwood," who almost nobody these days even heard of.

Let's stop right there and ask -- why didn't The New York Times pick somebody who isn't an egomaniac, tiresomely pedantic, and a Woody-hater?

The answer is because The New York Times isn't always FAIR.

I did have a flashback to when The New York Times had somebody review Mort Sahl's "Heartland." Who did they choose? Jean Shepherd. Jean panned the book, of course. At least he wasn't verbose about it. But he didn't bother to explain his long-simmering jealousy of Mort Sahl, which was on record, literally. On his "Foibles" album (Elektra) he offered a dark few minutes on a certain unnamed comedian who didn't tell jokes. He just free-associated and for no reason, audiences laughed. Shepherd had the unnamed comedian talk about Eisenhower: "IKE...golf balls!"

No, that's not exactly what Mort Sahl was about, but it seemed that way to Shepherd, who was not a success in nightclubs.

I was chosen to review comedy books for the Chicago Tribune. I'm known for my books on comedy, and I know a lot of comedians...some more than others. Woody I've met a few times, but not for any memorable length of time (compared to Mort Sahl, for example). The point is, you get somebody who is likely to WANT to read the book, because the review is going to be read by people who are THINKING ABOUT BUYING IT, and not glancing at the subject matter and snorting about a scandal that they probably don't actually know anything about.

The Dylan Farrow Story is not what Woody is about. If you want to read a very good piece about all the reasons why, I defer to Bob Weide: Bob Weide on Woody Allen

I haven't "talked Woody" with Bob. Our views are very similar on Woody. Bob did appreciate my pieces on Lenny and Mort (in "Stars of Stand-Up") and we did discuss the complexities of Mr. Sahl. But I digress...

Back to The New York Times.

Once demonstrating his crappy and faux-Woody attempt at humor ("my wife and daughter...stared at me as if I’d announced my intention to find the nearest functioning salad bar and lick the sneeze guard...." the guy began to outrageously attack Allen, showing a tremendous bias that would make him UNQUALIFIED to review the book.

After all, who the hell is going to be reading Woody's book? I can tell you: HIS FANS. The people who admire him and want to know more about him. Somebody's going to spend good money to glower over a page or two where he REFUSES to acknowledge being the world's worst living pedophile? (He's not Jimmy Savile).

Fer Chrissake...

About the only sign of fairness in the review is this:

How nice. The guy actually sides with Stephen King.

An irony here is that I'm currently reading Woody's book. I'm about 75 pages in. I side with the 75% of Amazon reviewers who give it at least 4 stars and find it a welcome addition to the Woody library.

What surprised me in the early going, is Woody's narrative, which doesn't try for that Perelman-esque New Yorker style of arch descriptions and artificially inseminated one-liners. It is indeed, what it claims to be...a memoir, but it doesn't really deserve that grandiose word. Memoir? No, at 84 Woody isn't grandly looking back. He's frankly telling us his deal. I say "deal," because he sometimes uses 40's street slang, which he didn't even use in narrating "Cafe Society."

Did you see that movie or have you given up on his films over the past 20 years? There's always a reviewer to say "No, no, this IS a good one..." and maybe it is. Or isn't. "Cafe Society" had a Jewish gangster character in it, and in reading the memoir, I see why. Woody gives us a look at his tough father, and also confesses to being somewhat shady himself as a teenager.

If you know Woody from his breezy interviews on talk shows from Griffin to Cavett, you know he can be spontaneously funny. So it is here, that after all these years, he can't help writing about his life without a quip or a pungent turn of a phrase.

Another surprise is Woody's matter-of-fact honesty in admitting that he's not only far from intellectual, there are surprising gaps in even his film knowledge. What, he hasn't even seen "Bride of Frankenstein?" He admits what most of us Woody followers already know -- that he was not a weak nebbish as a kid but a very good athlete, but also admits what we might think he doesn't know -- that anyone who comes to hear him play the clarinet does so because he's Woody Allen, not because he's a great player, or because they share his fetish for New Orleans jazz. The book is pleasantly speckled with frank admissions and observations, with honest recollection more important than always ending with a clever line or descriptions that stretch the truth just for a laugh.

The reviewer:

After briefly REVIEWING, it's back to huffing and puffing. We're told this book "is incredibly, unbelievably tone deaf on the subject of women." How...OFFENDED...is this New York Timeser? Any line Woody writes is seized on as proof that the man somehow hates women, degrades them, and depises them and uses them. That's not what I got in reading this book. It was more about how he adores women, and how from the earliest age he wanted to be with women (his best friend was an older female who went to the movies with him).

The reviewer:

And you wonder about the Farrowing that Woody's endured? How easy it is to take things out of context. To believe what you want to believe. To find something evil in the most innocent joke. Comedy by nature is prone to shock for a laugh, puncture expectations, offer up views so honest that people nod and laugh. "I tell the truth," Groucho shrugged, "and people break up."

In the book, Allen puts all the blame of his failed first marriage on himself. He accurately portrays himself as too glum and neurotic to live with. When he talks about his second wife, Louise Lasser, he writes in glowing, romantic terms, and why not? She was beautiful, and guess what, they are STILL friends to this day. His most famous leading lady in films, Diane Keaton, is likewise still his friend. But this schmuck not only doesn't know the basics that anyone familiar with Allen and his work would know, he doesn't seem to have really read Woody's recollections of the early marriages...not when he was busy underlining one quip to disapprove of.

Gee, Woody is honest enough to lust after “delectable bohemian little kumquats." I'm only surprised this New York Timeser didn't sneer that this is why he cast Mort Sahl's wife China Lee as a dancer in "What's Up Tiger Lily," and why his two marriages to white women failed, and why he's had a successful relationship with Soon-Yi. (Oh, doesn't that upset the Woody haters? His DECADES with Soon-Yi??) At other points, Woody expresses his awe over the unattainable showgirls he was meeting while writing for revues, the bombastic beauties on the arms of other comedians, and the sophisticated ladies of the Upper East Side. No leering jokes, no face-saving comments about their possible lack of equal brain power to his, no put-downs at all. We all know that Woody's admiration for women and ability to understand them would translate into cinematic success. Oh, this guy from the Times apparently doesn't know.

A Woody Allen hater isn't likely to admit that rather than being insensitive toward women, the man is one of the MOST sensitive. But I guess you'd have to be familiar with his work and not just be a tongue-clucker and a pitchforker and stand around cringing at your wife and kid over a writing assignment you got. Woody Allen's films have included some of the best roles actresses have ever gotten...roles written from a woman's point of view and so effective that the awards have come to them...from "Annie Hall" to "Blue Jasmine" and back. And yet this reviewer wants to nitpick over a comical phrase here and there? He grumbles over a compliment over an actress's looks...and later on, also grumbles because Woody had a nice remark about Goldie Hawn that didn't reference how cute she is? Woody can't win at all with this reviewer?

How insane does it get? How about comparing Woody to Donald Trump? All because Woody compliments a woman for looking like a million bucks...which is a big reason why the woman in question was hired for roles calling for an attractive actress:

I haven't gotten to the Farrowing, or Woody's side of it, and I'm not looking forward to it particularly. I'm more interested in his early days, his path to comedy, his appraisals of his films, and of course his views on the main themes of his creative work: love and death, sex and therapy, and looking for meaning in a ridiculous world. The New York Timeser finds it appalling that Woody has some sober remarks to make about Mia Farrow.

Got that? "He alleges some pretty horrific parental misbehavior and neglect on Farrow’s part." Yeah? How about Dylan, who screams that Woody should never be allowed to make a movie, that anyone who gets an award for being in his film should reject it, and I guess that every record and DVD and book be burned. (But let's keep everything by Roald Dahl, Richard Wagner and Roger Waters...)

The New York Timeser grudgingly allows that no criminal charges were ever made on Woody, but HELL, let's just keep screaming and bleating and grumbling. Let's dissect every joke, every movie scene, for signs of misogyny and pedophilia. Let's keep jabbing with the pitchforks, to the point where the head of a book company crumbles because a few Starbucks-sipping saps in his office took an extra hour at lunch to stand outside in the warm weather and "protest" Woody's book being published. Let's not forget that this IS an important issue...the #metoo hysteria that has led to unjust firings and the fracturing of many a thriving career. (Has Dustin Hoffman lost work? Jeffrey Tambor? We sure know Woody doesn't have an Amazon deal anymore, which is far worse than losing Hachette is a publisher.)

And I'll never really know how any newspaper that claims to be honest and unbiased, and only offers what's "FIT TO PRINT," calls on somebody to review a book when that nobody hates the subject of the book, and starts off the review by whining about how his wife and kid reacted. Maybe he'll nobly turn the money the Times gave him to charity. Some charity for the blind.

Is this guy blind to anything positive Woody's ever done? He seems to be. He grumbles in disgust that Woody has nice things to say about Owen Wilson and Goldie Hawn, and considers "banalities" any other pleasant remarks Woody makes about anyone. The guy literally has no time or space for REVIEWING what most people really want to know about:

Gee, you don't get a review that mentions whether Woody answers all questions you'd like to know about Diane Keaton. The review was too busy telling you what a heel Woody is for referring to some trendy tarts as "kumquats," or being critical of Ronan Farrow getting surgery on his legs to make him taller. Well, all I can say is if you're interested in Woody Allen because you have been touched by his work, buy the book. If you hate him because he allegedly touched Dylan Farrow one time, it wouldn't matter how funny or vivid or fascinating his tale of Brooklyn rags to Manhattan riches is.

What Woody Allen & Ronan Farrow Have in Common? EBAY PIRATE BUGGERY

Well, well. New books by RONAN FARROW AND WOODY ALLEN.

Why pay over $20 for the hardcover? Why pay over $10 for an Amazon eBook?

BOTH of these guys are being counterfeited and bootlegged on EBAY, with help from PAYPAL, for as low as $2.49 or 2.99

Who would be low enough and craven enough and scummy enough to do such penny-ante thievery?

Look to SRI LANKA and MOROCCO. That's where the dirt-faced, grinning weasels proliferate, like dung beetles on shit.

PAYPAL and EBAY are pimps who get a percentage on this.

PAYPAL has rules against counterfeiting. Too bad most people have no idea how to go through the hoops and tell them about it. When they make money off illegal sales, why would they be THAT concerned with booting the bootleggers? They'd prefer to be Sgt. Schultz and knnnnow nnnnnuthing.

EBAY actually has a rule against selling digital downloads. After all, it's the professionals (like Amazon) who have that technology. All the scumbags from Morocco and Sri Lanka do is get a GOOGLE cloud and then PM the link to the winning bidder.

EBAY ads look "legit." There's nothing in there about the GOOGLE cloud, and of course, nothing about how NOBODY legit offers both ePub and kindle and PDF versions in the same download. They just offer a very "professional" looking ad:

An IRONY with EBAY, is that like any terrorist group from the stinky rat-ridden sun-baked bastard countries of the region, the creeps in Sri Lanka are very well organized. It's not just a few sub-human roaches having a game. Every time they direct an eBay bidder to the GOOGLE CLOUD where the GOODIES can be downloaded, a PDF "read this" is included:

These backstabbers don't like sharing with EBAY if they don't absolutely have to. Once they hook a customer, it's bye-bye EBAY and BUY BUY direct for $1.99. The money adds up. Meanwhile the authors, who are willing to settle for $1.99 as a book royalty, don't even get THAT. It goes to a semi-literate subhuman roach who happens to be part of a lawless cartel that is coddled way too much by American bureaucracy and stupidity.

How, you might ask, does one report an ILLEGAL item on eBAY? Well, there's a teeny tiny "report item" link in every ad.

Click that, and you get a load of hoops. It's up to YOU to figure out WHERE to report it. Assuming you figure out that you report a counterfeit digital file by pulling down THREE menu options (listing practices, other listing practices, digitally delivered goods), your complaint goes...to GUAM. Maybe SRI LANKA. It sure doesn't go to San Jose (executive office) or Draper, Utah (main complex for personnel).

It goes to some sleepy person who has PRIORITIES, and frankly, EBAY admits that digital piracy may be ignored if there's a lot of porn, gun, drug or other complaints going on.

EBAY also has some dazed "English as second language" stooge fielding complaints for sellers who PRETEND to be in legit place but aren't. A lot of the Sri Lanka weasels put "NEW YORK" as their location, so that bidders will be less suspicious. An interesting EBAY GLITCH will show, if you click on the seller's name, where the seller REALLY is.

Here's a lazy mole from Morocco who figured he'd just use Casablanca as his location, and claim Casablanca is in AMERICA....

In this case, the report goes to listing practices, other listing practices, item location misrepresentation:

Technically, a hard-hitting pink-lipped hero like Ronan Farrow, who cares so much about morality, would have somebody on his vast staff checking EBAY for theft of his intellectual property and copyright. It takes exactly a MINUTE to file a DMCA to eBay's VeRO (verified rights owner) email address.

You'd also think that in these troubled times, publishing companies would want to make sure to get a royalty on EVERY sale, and especially crack down on EBAY where the slime from Morocco and Sri Lanka get a bigger royalty on a theft than THEY do. Some EBAY dealers charge as much s $7.99 for their bootleg, figuring the average bidder has NO idea that the usual suspects (forums, GOOGLE blogs, torrent websites) have this stuff for FREE. Which is where the EBAY dealers get it.

Bidders who type in an author or book title on EBAY and discover they can get a cheap download, are THRILLED. Do they know this stuff is bootlegged?

You'd think that the publishing world, which is SUPPOSEDLY full of brighter people than the music world or the movie world, would know from the destruction of record stores and the emptying of movie theaters, that PIRACY KILLS. Yet, bookstores keep going under, and the big shots like Jeff Bezos and Amazon dictate what paltry percentage they're willing to give to the talent. The answer would be for RONAN and WOODY's publishers to do the minimum, and draft an unpaid intern to file DMCA's and get the bootleggers suspended ASAP. Instead, they're SAPS.

New York Post Page Six - Two Grammar Errors in One Sentence

Cong Rats!

Paige Sicks!

It's not every professional metropolitan newspaper that can make two grammatical errors in ONE sentence. In giving some attention to Woody Allen's memoir (thank you) they got, what too excited to proofread? (Yer well cum.)

THEIR feeling cooled? Understandable, after the birth of "their biological children, Ronan Farrow." PLURAL. See, Ronan's real first name is Satchel. So you've got TWO children, right? He also smugly refused to quash crazy Mama Mia's spiteful suggestion that he was Frank Sinatra's bastard child. Yes, even though this distressed Frank's widow Nancy, Mia's vendetta against Woody knew no sanity. Sound familiar? Mia ready to say anything to make Woody's life difficult?

Thanks to Arcade Publishing for coming through after the Hachette job that RONAN helped pull. Censoring books is never a good thing, and neither is bullying, threatening, or otherwise putting pressure on a book company to drop what you don't like. Ronan, who wrote for Hachette, told them if they publish Woody, they'll never publish him again. Sounds like it would've been a good deal. Or do we need a pretty poisoner with the same kind of mentality as his mommy? It depends on how much you approve of his own bitchy power games (MY books or Woody...). It also depends on what you think of someone who makes it his profession ro ruin any heterosexual who has a sex scandal, but ignore any homosexual who also is abusive. Go after Les Moonves or Harvey Weinstein, but not, oh, Kevin Spacey.....

Y'ALL like my TWIT-WIT and SEX CHANGE?

Twitter...where idiots go to show off their REACTION MEMES.

Twitter's demographics probably show the highest usage among people 15 to 18. In their IQ.

They like it that way. Twitter does. As do the witless time-wasters who haunt it every day seeking for some topic — ANY topic — for their "This is ME" reaction meme. Like THIS one. Apparently this is a white teenager who grabbed a meme of a black guy making a face.

Subject? Rita Wilson (wife of Tom Hanks, but she'd be happy if you said she's a singer) posted something or other about her coping with covid-19, aka coronavirus, aka Wuhan Flu, aka Batshit Blight:

If it was a REAL black woman (aka "woman of color" but not "colored woman," aka African-American) she would've used the same animated GIF but prefaced it with "Y'ALL." That term has made a remarkable comeback from its low toilet seat as a term with a whiff of racism to it, and just a hint of utter stupidity and love of anything that sounds impudently ignorant.

What IS the point of Twitter these days? Is it only someplace for morons to blabber? Like Trump?

The only somewhat intelligent people who seem to get a kick out of it are Piers Morgan and John Cleese, who can't wait for some troll to say something insulting so they can top them. You'd think Piers and John would have something better to do, if only to lessen the amount of money Twitter is making off them.

Or to put it in the Twitter way: PIERS AND JOHN, y'all got something better 4-UR-selves 2 do? Here's ME when I see you responding to some asshole on Twitter!

Coronavirus? IMAGINE....CELEBRITIES to the RESCUE! HooooooRAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Who can we turn to when times are rough?

And friends just can't be found?

In primitive times, you might play a Simon & Garfunkel record!

Imagine...a pandemic. And no toilet paper, too.

NOW WHAT?

Play a John Lennon record? Imagine!

Fortunately, today's answer is not a "record player" it's THE INTERNET.

Fortunately, today's answer is not the GOD who causes viruses and death, it's the healing power of CELEBRITIES.

Oh JESUS.

NO Jesus.

If you work it right, no Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. JUST MATTHEW. PRAISE BE...

That ordinary dope Tom Hanks? He actually GOT the damn virus, and told people he'd be ok. What kind of STAR is THAT?

Matthew....MATTHEW....MATTHEW!!!!

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.

AND?

There are too many sad ordinary sick losers on the planet and the STARS MUST GUIDE THEM...

AH...much better...

THE SARS...er, THE STARS are guiding us!

We can't expect much from the President or from the Pope, but...a KARDASHIAN? There is hope!

Jesus Christ Superstar is not answering our wishes but...JOHNNY LEGEND?

We're talking about a HUMBLE man, that JOHNNY LEGEND. He may look like any crinkly-eyed crackhead, and, if you want to be honest, he might not be the most distinctive singer in the world either, but come on...he is LEGEND.

Just seeing him play with his brat will have the power to heal. Anybody who died of COVID-19 today will surely come back from the dead if only someone prints out the JOHNNY LEGEND article and places it on the corpse's face.

Go to any INTERNET "news" website (you can tell it's a news site if it has a moronic name like DAILY BEAST or a newsy name like NEWSER). You'll happily see smiling celebrities and read HOW THEY'RE COPING.

Or...awwwwwww, people are dying, people are frustrated, but a nation turns it's pitying eyes to the perpetually woeful wimp SAM SMITH. How is Mr. Sensitive handling it all? With a song in his limp and aching heart?

Publicists are happy if they can report one of their clients is either sick, or has some "hack" for dealing with all the boring time spent at HOME instead of the bar.

Who's next to report having some mild version of the virus? And how can this news be spiced up to get more attention?

Iris Alba (he's supposed to be the new BLACK James Bond remember) was announced, with more fanfare than the opening trumpets of the JAMES BOND THEME, that HE not only GOT the virus, but woooo hoooo, he MAY have got it from Prime Minister Trudeau's WIFE!

HAR! That's making scandal and disease FUN! Let's Make A DISEASE Great!

Today's BIG news was supplied by WONDER WONTON herself, Gal Gadot. What's the poop Gal? What's the GOOP?

SHE made everyone happy by digging out that old, old warhorse song "IMAGINE" and got a bunch of her A-list friends to sing off-key lines from it on their cell phones! The woman spared NO effort.

In a mammoth display of PUBLICITY, she gave away this achievement as long as all the YouTube channels of newspapers and magazines and charities ALL slanted it as "HEARTWARMING."

Take a look at some of the cheesy, condescending, sanctimonious expressions on the faces of the A-listers who looked DOWN into their phones at YOU and the other sad nobodies of the world....

...why, you don't even have to hear their tone-deaf yowling, or their pathetic attempts at duplicating Whitney Houston and other syllable serial yodelers, to know that what came out of their mouths was equal to what comes out of their asses:

Last but not least, and looking like a virus that arose from a lump of batshit:

What a collection....some SERIOUS women (no make-up) and duuuuudes with their hair fashionably mussy. CELEBRITIES! STARS!

They're all singing "IMAGINE," and doing their best to make it the most hated song ever written.

The Hachette HATCHET on Woody Allen? Be scared, STEPHEN KING, VERY SCARED

The Tweet from Stephen King:

“The Hachette decision to drop the Woody Allen book makes me very uneasy. It’s not him; I don’t give a damn about Mr. Allen. It’s who gets muzzled next that worries me."

Indeed. We're not talking about an ignorant Nazi-esque mob of Trump assholes shooting at an abortion clinic, or mowing down peaceful protesters who are against racism. This incident involves supposedly BRIGHT and LIBERAL people in the PUBLISHING world who understand what "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" is, and "INNOCENT TILL PROVEN GUILTY" means, and who are against book censoring, book burning, and book banning.

Stephen King could be next. Some little bitch at his book company might find one line in one of his books that gets him branded a monster...and that'll be it. I'm not so sure that some of King's books aren't already on the "banned list" along with "Huckleberry Finn" and "Catcher in the Rye" in some ass-backward part of this grand country of ours, where there is too much whining, bullying and Farrowing.

Self-Publish it, WOODY ALLEN. Forget the swine: Gutless Michael "Beer Hall Putsch" Pietsch

UNBELIEVABLE.

Yet ANOTHER example of how pussified the world has gotten. At this point it doesn't even take the usual two or three whiners to send a Dustin Hoffman running for cover, or send an Al Franken out of the Senate. All it takes is, what? A mumbling bunch of lazy low-paid drones taking a few hours off on a Spring-like day in Mid-Manhattan? One shrill nagger who has made a career out of one incident that may not have happened at all?

The "Beer Hall Putsch" was Adolf Hitler's (failed) insurrection against the Weimar Republic. Michael Pietsch's PUTSCH is sweating like a chunk of rancid pork (praise the memory of my late friend Brother Theodore) and pulling the plug on Woody Allen's memoir.

Pietsch thought that Woody's book was well worth publishing...until...what...a few of his irreplaceable Starbucks slurpers took a little stroll? REALLY? This guy had no idea that he had Pink-Bow-Lips Ronan ready to huff and puff? That Woody hasn't been dogged constantly for over a decade by one pouting and shrieking voice declaring that the world should do as she wants?

Nice...Dylan Farrow has gotten more revenge, but it will never be enough. Eventually she'll go completely bonkers and demand that some deputy from Texas arrest Woody Allen and haul him onto death row, and just wait till the little lady can come down and set off "Old Sparky" in person.

Hooray for DYLAN FARROW, and a big FUCK YOU for Freedom of Speech, innocent until proven guilty, and the notion that the MOB should not RULE.

Well, Woody, the fact is, almost NO authors make money anymore, you can go on eBay and see a bunch of Sri Lankan assholes peddle "ebook only" and "PDF only" bootlegs for $1 to $5 of just about any recent book, and if you have a famous name...AMAZON DOWNLOAD will get your tome in front of your fans. It's quite possible that Amazon won't wimp out like Michael Pietsch, and declare that a charge that never made it to prosecution is enough to ruin a man's life.

Anyone want to go through an entire list of Pietsch's current titles, and scrutinize EVERY author, and EVERY topic, and decide how many of those books should be BURNED? I mean, let's not just ask Dylan Farrow what we should or shouldn't read...let's find a few more obsessed people, some crackpots, some conspiracy theorists, some social justice warriors, some self-rightous PC's (that's pricks and cunts) and have them ALL dictate what should be allowed in AMERICA. How far do you take the PUTSCH, Mr. PIETSCH?

FARROWING Woody Allen? AGAIN? Plus the Little People of Little-Brown Take a Stroll

What a lovely day for a fairly limp little protest against Woody Allen...

Yes, it's FARROWING time again.

“Farrowing” should be a verb, like Tebowing. It should define self-righteous bleating and finger-pointing, and an overpowering grimace that THEIR point of view beats the law, “freedom of speech,” “innocent till proven guilty” and anything else sane.

If Woody Allen walks into the restaurant and you happen to think he’s guilty of something, or you just don’t like the man’s films, you can walk out. What you can’t do, and should not do, is to demand that the resteraunt throw HIM out instead and ban him. That’s FARROWING.

Where’s Woody Allen’s freedom of speech? He’s not ALLOWED to publish his memoirs? Americans are NOT ALLOWED to read his life story as he wants to tell it? As it is, he is not ALLOWED to make movies the way he used to, because of a witch-hunt climate of utter hypcrosity.

I say hypocrisy because of Lillian Hellman wrote a play about some nasty little girl making up a story just to make her father look bad….everyone would rush to see it and cluck their tongues about how awful the injustice is. If Shirley Jackson, Mary Shelley, or any other author wrote about gossip presented as fact, the readers would sigh and swoon and point out the lesson to be learned: INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. Or, DON’T LISTEN TO HEARSAY. Or, A HE SAID SHE SAID is exactly that, so who are you to rush to judgment?

The Social Justice Puppies who took some time off because the weather was nice? And their boss actually tried to reach out to these sensitive souls and they wouldn't have it? In the words of the Twitterverse: FIRE THEM. How about that? How about THEY lose their jobs...the ones who are so dedicated to making sure Woody Allen is denied the chance to publish his memoir? The ones who are always so eager to see somebody lose a job that is better than theirs?

To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in "Mars Attacks," I say: "LITTLE PEOPLE...you LITTLE PEOPLE of LITTLE BROWN...why not take your self-righteous act to the right place? TWITTER? You can tweet all you want to from the unemployment line."

Dylan Farrow is indignant because HER side of the story isn’t being told in Woody’s book. Guess what. It’s not her book. Got that? It’s WOODY’S BOOK. It’s his memoir. He’s telling his side of the story and is under no obligation to add footnotes or an opposing view. Dylan can write her own book, and no doubt she’ll be paid a lot more for hers than Woody is for his.

Meanwhile the publisher who had the versatility to offer readers Ronan Farrow's books and Woody's memoir...saw some employees take a stroll in protest. Because today, March 5th, was a balmy day in Manhattan. If it was cold or rainy, these LITTLE people of Little-Brown would've braved the weather only for as long as it took to rush into a Starbucks.

Yeah, a bunch of pussies at Little-Brown who happened to notice that the weather was nice, decided to go stand outside for a while, and their employer, instead of firing the lot of them, mews and moans and wants to start a “dialogue” about why a publishing company would actually allow an Academy Award-winning director and a famous writer, and the Chaplin of our times to write his memoir. Chaplin, exiled from America thanks to a lot of hypocrisy, including moans and groans about his sex life and his underage or very-young wives, also managed to write a memoir.

In “My Autobiography” Chaplin chose not to address the Lita Grey scandal. He dismissed his underage wife with one line, saying that since he had two grown sons (by her) he wasn't going to make their lives more difficult by bringing up the past. (I don't know if Woody even mentions the Dylan Farrow controversy in his book, but if he does, you can bet it wouldn't be more than a terse denial of the charges, which is what he's pretty much done all along). Did Lita have the nerve to complain that her story should’ve been part of Chaplin’s memoir? No. She wrote her own warped version. Chaplin's book arrived in 1964, and Lita's version in 1966. That's what you do. You don't demand that a book NOT be published. And no, Charlie didn't somehow use his vast wealth and influence to stop Lita's purple prose.

VERY purple. Lita would later express regret that her creepy ghostwriter added so much lurid sensationalism. That's part of the book world, folks. Hedy Lamarr needed money, used a ghostwriter, and was shocked to discover the finished book offering first-person lesbian confessions and a whole lot of other crap that never happened. The ghostwriter for W.C. Fields' mistress Carlotta Monti added a bunch of absurd joke quotes Fields never said. Was it him or Carlotta who insisted that Carlotta was at his death bed? She wasn't. She'd been banned from seeing him because she'd become such a pain in the ass. But in the book, she quotes W.C. as saying, “Goddam the whole world and everyone in it but you, Carlotta.” Jeez.

So the little people of LITTLE-BROWN should've stayed at their jobs, and recognized that the dying publishing world isn't going to get a jolt from a Woody Allen memoir. The man barely breaks even on his films.

It’s not enough that Dylan Farrow can very easily got a million bucks for writing HER memoir on Woody Allen, and being able to put just about anything in it because it’s HER word against his? Isn’t that enough, without kicking “Freedom of Speech” into the dirt and stomping on it with squeals and shrieks?

How many people standing around enjoying a balmy near-Spring day and having cushy jobs, bothered to wonder about how PC Mia Farrow is? How perfect HER record is? Do they know the name of Dory Previn, who lost her husband Andre to Mia Farrow? Frankly nobody should care too much whether Mia was the nut who cut off her hair, married Sinatra, and had people wondering if Frankie Blue-Eyes had suddenly gone boy crazy. Nobody should care too much about Dory Previn’s fragility and the song she wrote about Mia and the agonies she suffered. Nobody should question why Mia adopted eleven children (making a total of 15, and that’s a lot to care for even if you’re not a busy actress with a huge social life). Nobody wonders about the stability of a woman who can be physically violent (The Meade bio of Allen notes that Mia "punched him in the face”) or her motives in turning his two biological children against him?

People are human. They do things they regret, or things they can’t even admit to having done. If it’s against the law, they usually have to pay for it, or, ala Polanski, go on the run and hope that someday they are forgiven (the girl in Polanski’s case has long advocated that people leave the man alone. Enough is ENOUGH.)

How far we do we go in this new era of “fire him” and “jail him” and “make sure he never works again” and the rest of the toxic pitchfork and torch waving? How about a simple “I don’t like your looks” being enough, too? If you look guilty, then you are, ok? Take a look at Dylan Farrow and Mia Farrow. They look crazy. Maybe they ARE crazy because they LOOK crazy?

Do we take into account that, unlike Weinstein or Cosby or Spacey for examples, there isn’t a “serial” history of Woody Allen molesting (touching) a young girl? It’s a bit different when the target of scorn has a long rap sheet, and in too many cases, is caught engaging in the same offensive behavior as rumored or reported decades earlier.

People want to stick up for not only Dylan, but for another hypocrite, Ronan Farrow? What’s with THIS guy? He made a career out of favoritism and nepotism: “It’s Mia’s boy, let’s give him his own cable TV show. He has such PRETTY and bow-shaped pink lips. He’s SO cute. Why, he looks like Frank Sinatra…” Then it’s “Let’s give him a staff and researchers and give him high-end magazines to write for, and let’s give him a book deal, and let’s see…”

Right, Ronan wants to expose the awful-awful world of heterosexual males in power. So he’s going to take down Harvey Weinstein and avoid Kevin Spacey. Nice. Real nice. Note how Pretty Boy Farrow always gets his coy photo in these articles. A picture of dullards outside a book company doesn't make it...gotta have the Pretty Boy pursing his lips coyly.

Are there publishing companies out there who won’t offer a Richard Wagner biography to people because he was an antiSemite? Is whoever publishes Roald Dahl donating their share of profits to the Weisenthal Center? Should the company that published Caryl Chessman NOT have published him, because he was a convict? It seems the publishing world has a reputation for being pretty liberal.

Up to the un-convicted Woody Allen, who hasn’t made a movie in years that Dylan Farrow hasn’t bleated about in high outrage, calling out any Oscar-nominated performer to withdraw into hiding rather than accept credit for an ACTING JOB in a movie some critics liked.

Is Hachette going to suffer #METOO and second guessing over every author they publish now, and turn things down because of something that MIGHT have happened, or something ALLEGED, or something not quite so PC that SOMEBODY might find OFFENSIVE? This is the way the liberal book world is today?