It may come as a surprise to many, but I knew director and producer Brett Ratner waaaay back when, long before he became a power player in Hollywood and while he was a student at the Miami Beach Senior High School and shared classes with my youngest sister.

He was, I took it from her, infatuated with her but my sister was quick to dismiss that, or any romance between the two, stating he was infatuated with just about every woman he was in contact around those school halls.  Given his age at the time and the hormones raging throughout both women and men of similar ages, this isn’t all that surprising.

The Gods know how many times I “fell in love” with women in my classes!

The clearest memory I have of him was one day he came over to our house and we talked a bit about comic books.  If I recall correctly, he was a fan of the X-Men (he would go on to direct the third X-Men film, X-Men: The Last Stand) and, truth be told and looking over his IMDB credits, I suspect he and I shared a lot more in common than that one brief conversation tapped into.

Yesterday, Brett Ratner became embroiled in the current news cycle regarding men in the movie business and the alleged sexual abused/mistreatment of women (and, in one particular case, young men) working with them.

Later in the day yesterday, it was announced that Mr. Ratner and Warner Brothers, who he worked for up until then, have severed ties.  According to Mr. Ratner’s spokespeople, he voluntarily stepped down from his job while there were whispers that it was either he do that or be fired.

Now, I didn’t know Mr. Ratner well enough even back then, and certainly haven’t had any contact with him since that day some thirty plus years (yikes!) ago, to be able to offer any sort of conclusions regarding the accusations against him.

Like most everyone else, I take the accusations at face value and cannot believe the people making those statements had/have much of an axe to grind.  In fact, and I hate to say it, I could see where someone in such a powerful position and surrounded by very attractive women/men could be tempted to step over the line.  Of course, giving in to those base instincts and doing so even one time is one time too many.

We live in interesting times, to say the least.  Not quite a year ago we elected a President who, it should be noted, has more than ten women accusing him of the very thing that is now getting many of these Hollywood power brokers in serious trouble.

There is no strong conclusion to be offered nor a wise quip.  There are real people out there who were damaged by the power plays -sexual or otherwise- of others.  There are also those who enjoyed a lofty place in the entertainment industry who are now looking at exile from their business and, I suspect from some, legal peril.  And, in those cases, it is deserved.

There are few winners here, but if there’s anything at all to be optimistic about, perhaps it is that from here on predatory instincts will be shunted by those in power.  Further, I hope the potential targets of these predators will no longer hide in the shadows and, instead, stand up and speak out whenever they encounter any such abysmal behavior.

At least one hopes.