Ticketmaster can eat my ass.

You know what's a great pastime? Going out to a concert with your friends, or by yourself, either way is great. You know what ruins the great pastime of concert-going? Ticketmaster.

Since the beginning of time man has hated fees. In fact, even God hates fees (tithes are not fees because God already owns your money, look it up). In the Bible, or some similar book, a man named Jesus throws money collectors out of the temple. You know why he did it? I'll tell you why, because Jesus hates fees! Maybe "hate" is too strong a word to use in conjunction with the Son of God, but I don't make a rope whip and beat people I strongly dislike, know what I'm saying?

Anywho, Ticketmaster is to fees as Howard Stern is to the sybian. They may not have invented them, but they sure as hell are the number one supporter of 'em. One of the best things about going to a concert is finding a band you like that is having a concert with cheap seats. "Sweet! Haley Joel Osment and I See Dead People are having a show and tickets are only $20," you say. Not so fast my taste challenged friend. Tickets were 20 bucks, before the tax of $1.60 and the whopping $7.50 ticketmaster slapped on! But wait, there's more. You also need to pay a building and facility fee of $1.50. Over half the price of your ticket to that gawdawful mess of a shriek fest is tax and fees. Slap on parking, and your average day shifter at the Spearmint Rhino has to choose between seeing the Pussycat Dolls to learn some new moves, or buy another 8 ball. Decisions decisions.

Shame on you Ticketmaster, shame on you. Making the working girl class, choose between higher education (new tricks for a stripper is higher education, that pole is tall) and the life blood that fuels their high heeled romps to Warrant's "Cherry Pie."

I, being a great American, will suggest a way to take the fees out of the equation for the fans, but still generate a profit for the evil monopoly. Make the fees indirectly proportional to the quality of the music at the show. It works like this: the Rolling Stones are arguably one of the greatest rock bands of all time. They are also reanimated corpses that move in a surprisingly lifelike fashion. That's almost two shows in one, the fee: $.50. Now, say you want to see an Ashlee Simpson concert, and not because your a fat, greasy pedophile looking to pick up some trim. Your ticket price is $50 plus the $35 awful as all hell, caterwalling, lipsynching, nosejob subsidy fee. $85 total, it's no problem since the only people that would see that crap only make $5 a week in allowance and can convince their parents to buy them ponies, cell phones, and concert tickets (filthy little whores, I never got a pony). It's a win win situation.

There you go, if you have good taste in music (as determined by me) almost no fees, and if you don't, then you pay out the ass. For my small part in creating the fee to quality ratio, I will take 1% of all fees generated from crappy artists.