Dear Ticketmaster...

Below is the content of an email I sent to Ticketmaster today in regards to the high-priced tickets (and expected high service fees) for the upcoming Paul McCartney tour. Now, I'm not planning to see this guy, but it's a Clear Channel show and I couldn't resist looking at the prices of the seats. They are: $50 nosebleeds - $250. That is FACE value of the seats. Throw in $10-20/ticket service fees and you are looking at the cost of two cross-country plane tickets.

Thank you TM and Clear Channel. Thank you for allowing me to send you another email.


To Whom It May Concern:

I'm sending a pre-emptive email about tickets for the Paul McCartney show.

I noticed seats for the Chicago show are a meager $50 - 250 per seat face charge. Do you have a contact at Clear Channel I can contact so I can properly tell the appropriate person to kiss my buttocks? I'd also like to thank them for their pricing-out of any normal salary-making individual.

Lastly, I wanted to know who at TM I should forward my arm or leg too in response to the expected $15-20 per ticket "convenience" charges since it's so easy doing business with the only company that can sell tickets in the U.S....especially on the web. Also, would it be easier if I bought the tickets directly at the United Center and simply offered to bend over? Any help would be appreciated.

Sincerely,
A fan sick and tired of high priced tickets and service charges that are making it impossible to attend more than a single show a year

Damn You TicketMaster!!!

If there' s one company that has a monopoly over the entire U.S., it would be TicketMaster. Want to try to go see a concert at a non-TicketMaster licensed venue? Good luck. It ain't happenin'.


ENOUGH ABOUT POLITICS Ticket prices: Something we can all agree on
By Hannah Selinger RAW STORY COLUMNIST

If I had magical powers, the first thing I would do is make Ticketmaster disappear.
Seriously. Enough talk of abortions, Terri Schiavo, the Papal death, the broken economy, the filibuster, the war in Iraq, the Christian Coalition, and the Bush Administration. I want to talk about tickets.

It was one thing when I failed to get World Series tickets to see my beloved Yankees crush the Mets in 2000. Back then, in what now seems like a prehistoric era, technology was not as advanced, and dedicated fans had to use the telephone to get tickets, which meant listening to the busy signal for an hour before an operator got on the line and announced that the games had been sold out.

Okay, I could accept that. It was the World Series. Everyone wanted to go see New York’s finest play New York’s… second finest. Sure, I knew scalpers were making the most of the situation, buying the tickets in bulk and then selling bleacher seats for $500 a pop. But when your team is playing for the ring, you can almost overlook that kind of thievery.

Almost. One year later, I found myself fighting the phone lines again, this time to get tickets to see my team get slaughtered by the Arizona’s dynamic duo, Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. In return, I got a busy signal and a prime place on a friend’s couch when, to my chagrin, I was unable to get tickets.

Sometimes baseball is best enjoyed from the privacy of one’s home, so not going to those games wasn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ll concede defeat on those two hard-fought battles because I still had access to the games, which were, after all, nationally televised. This morning, however, marked a very different milestone in my history with Ticketmaster.

All I wanted to do was see the Boss in Boston. Bruce Springsteen is playing an acoustic tour with a one-night stop at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre. I came to work a half hour early; I logged on to Ticketmaster before the tickets went on sale; I made a pact with myself to incur credit card debt on the Boss’ behalf.

The precaution turned out to be a waste of time. At 9:02, exactly two minutes after the tickets had gone on sale, the concert was sold out. At 9:03, GreatTickets.com and eBay and other scalper havens were selling my tickets for over three times face value, despite the Ticketmaster promise: “In the spirit of fair access and to ensure Bruce’s fans obtain premium seating, this event is a “WILL CALL ONLY” event. UPS, ticketFast, and regular mail will not be available as delivery choices.”

Now, hold on. Fair Access? Premium Seating? For whom? Paying a scalper $300 for $75 tickets is not ‘fair access’ and reading about the concert’s set list the day after on Backstreets.com is not really ‘premium seating.’ Sure, I’m bitter about the tickets, but I’m more incensed about the inability of normal people to go to normal concerts for normal prices. Springsteen may be a legend, and he may have a legendary following, but this should not preclude non-legendary Americans from seeing him play.

In an age of corporate dominance, what room is there for ordinary people and ordinary concerns? The tickets were overpriced in the first place, fetching between $75 and $85 per seat before the absurd Ticketmaster processing fee. Now, opportunist scalpers are selling the seats for even more ridiculous prices—one Craig’s List poster offered balcony seats for $900 apiece.
If they were serious about ‘fair access,’ Ticketmaster would have established a more equitable process years ago. But the truth is, the company needs to sell tickets, and it is not their concern how those tickets get sold. If a scalper hacks into the system and buys each and every seat in Boston’s Orpheum, Ticketmaster still makes money. If Bruce Springsteen plays a sold-out concert to an empty theater, Ticketmaster walks away unscathed.

Some years ago, Eddie Vedder, lead singer for the Seattle-based band Pearl Jam, engaged in a year-long legal debate with Ticketmaster, refusing to allow Pearl Jam tickets to be sold through them. Vedder’s point was valid and promptly overlooked: Ticketmaster is a monopoly, owning access to almost every ticket at every venue for every concert nationwide. They can charge whatever processing fees they want and they can conveniently ignore the rampant scalping problem because their business is never in jeopardy.

Not getting tickets to a concert may seem like a small issue and, really, it is a small issue, unless you see it as emblematic of the growing conflict between business and people. Big business is, in truth, never concerned with the every day struggles of every day Americans, and Ticketmaster’s behavior makes that strikingly clear. Consider it just another notch on the belt of a country that has turned its back on Americans in favor of corporate interest.

The New Gene Award

In the words of Dave Chappelle, I'm back bitches! It's a celebration!

Today, I'd like to offer up my first "award". You'll notice that it's a "weekly" award, but due to my sometimes laziness - as shown by my two week absence - the award may go out every two or three weeks. Basically, it will be assigned whenever it's necessary.

Ladies and gentlemen, the award for "Jagoff of the Week" goes to:

House Majority Tom DeLay

(applause)

First, Tom started off the month of March with a bang, or should I say a hiss. That's the sound of the feeding tube coming out of Terry Schiavo and all the hot air that soon came out of Tom DeLay's mouth. So Tom took a private, personal family case and turned helped turn it into the catastrophe that it was. Super duper Tom. You are a marvel. The fact that you and your republican leaders then sent out a memo to your consituency telling them how this issue would help you gather support from the millions of white, southern, racist, bigoted - ahhh, but holy - rednecks, well, in the words of Dana Carvey impersonating Ross Perot, "I mean, that was just sure genius."

That alone would have won you the award. The know. You had to push the edges. And so the your month dragged on. To a point where it was revealed that you actually helped pull the plug on your dying father when he was basically brain dead - something similar to Ms. Schiavo. Naturally, you and your speech writers said that withholding food and water from Ms. Schiavo was completely different than say, withholding the electricity that kept your father alive. Sure. Whatever you say.

And that brings us to today's report. The cherry on top of the shit-sundae that is Tom DeLay.

Today, it was revealed that a $60,000 1997 trip to Russia by DeLay and four of his staff members, along with $440,000 in lobbying funds, was funded by an off-shore bank account run by Russian big business (think oil and energy; a real stretch for another Texas Republican. It's hard to think of another Texan w/power and such ties to big industry). One of those lobbyists was Jack Abramoff, who is now at the center of a federal influence-peddling and corruption probe related to his representation of Indian tribes. DeLay has claimed in the past the trip was funded by Washington-based non-profit organization.

The 1997 Moscow trip is the third foreign trip by DeLay to be scrutinized in recent weeks because of new statements by those involved that his travel was directly or indirectly financed by registered lobbyists or a foreign agent.

DeLay did try to defend himself. On March 18, he portrayed criticism of his trips and close ties to lobbyists as the product of a conspiracy to "destroy the conservative movement" by attacking its leaders, such as himself. "This is a huge, nationwide, concerted effort to destroy everything we believe in," DeLay told supporters at the Family Research Council, a group of freakishly ultra-conservative Christian zealots.

The three foreign trips at issue share common elements. The sponsor of the Moscow trip, the Capitol Hill-based National Center for Public Policy Research, also sponsored the later London trip. The center is a conservative group that solicits corporate, foundation and individual donations.

Is Tom DeLay the only politician to exemplify hubris at its worst? Doubtful. Is it a republican issue only? Hardly. But in the case of this reader, his actions deem him the strongest candidate to take home the Jagoff of the Week Award.

Coming in a close second, would be Senate Majority Leader, DOCTOR Bill Frist, who believes that tears and sweat can cause AIDS. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, that comment almost makes me cry...but then I'd have to put a condom over my head.

And a final FYI for those of you who haven't seen the news this past week. Two big stories that haven't been covered that much. 1) Sorry to report, but the Pope is dead. 2) This woman named Terry Schiavo, well she had her feeding tube removed and she also died. Too bad none of the news stations spent enough time running these stories into the ground.

Bring on the Jacko trial!!!