MMR: Damn you Ticketmaster & Suck on it Fox

Matt's Monday Rant: This one's a double.

Ticketmaster, I was forced into your monopoly of fees yet again as the beloved White Sox prepared for the World Series. The tickets were only available through Ticketmaster. So, I have no choice but to pay all of your fees, totaling over $25 for two tickets, which I had to pick up. It would have been more if I could have selected the email option. For those prices, there should have been a freakin’ show for me at the ticket booth – a roller skating monkey, a marching band and Nancy Faust playing organ, something. Instead, I got a "sign here." I didn’t even get the extra large fancy tickets. Bastards, you rat fucking bastards. It was easy to let that one go, as it was for a White Sox world series game.

Looking at other examples (of shows I could never pay for), we have Bon Jovi and Dave Matthews with shows in St. Paul and Minneapolis respectively. For Bon Jovi, the ticket is $87, but building fee, convenience fees, charges and Ticket fast option bring the total to over 102.50 each. For Dave Matthews, tickets are $49.75, but after the same charges for the BJ show $62.00. How can you even charge for the ticket fast option?!?!? It’s all electronic, you don’t even need to print a ticket, stuff an envelope or lick a stamp. I’m doing the work with your computer system and I can’t sue you for repetitive stress injuries or sexual harassment, so why the extra fees? All fees and no value. Again, no roller skating monkey for the 20-30 percent increases. You’re evil bastards – you’re the Haliburton of the event world. If you truly added some valuable services to ticketing that be fine, but we’re forced to use you and that makes me mad.

Recently, I had tickets to an Elvis Costello show in St. Paul. Elvis was sick (sick of you if you ask me) and cancelled at the last minute. While you never had to print anything and I never had to talk to a real person, I was not refunded the entire amount of my transaction. WTF?! You kept the transaction fees for an event that never took place. The real value of money, assholes – you had that money for over 45 days. You suck and your mother smells funny.

Damn you Ticketbastards. Damn you. Fuckos like you probably enjoy having your baseball world dictated to you by hacks like Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. What a bunch of self-important pukes, along with the Fox network you’re making the Fall Classic hard to watch.

Just like every other sporting event you get your hands on, Fox (propaganda network for Bush sex slave Rupert Murdoch – today’s safe word is O’Rielly). You’ve ruined the NLCS, the ALCS and the World Series. You had battling robots in football, a glowing puck for hockey, fake blood splatters for the Ultimate Transubstantiation Championships, and now you’ve brought in a talking animated baseball named Scooter. Fuck Scooter. I suppose the name is OK, as it leaks information about pitchers secrets, but why do we need a cartoon baseball? After Scooter, we get EXTREME sound and graphics whooshing past the screen so that one knows if a replay is about to take place. WTF? Jesus, Maynard the same god-damned play keeps happening again and again…or perhaps it was a replay. Yep, we’re in a fucking episode of Finnegans Wake or Groundhog’s Day. Worst of all, we get Joe "Thank God for Daddy" Buck and Tim "Duh" McCarver. Buck has the job because Cardinal fans had to listen to has dad shake and drool while calling games in St. Louis. Joe mistakes this sperm lottery for people actually enjoying his insight or the sound of his blowhard voice. Joe, you’re not that good. Here’s a tip, when calling a national game stop letting your bias for a team come through. Beyond being a Sox fan, I loved watching Chicago shove it up your ass as they spanked the Los Angeles/California/San Quentin Angels of the West Coast. Why? Because it was so clear that you were rooting against the Sox. My wife, who watches very little baseball and has a cutting honesty, said "Jesus, they’re coming all over themselves talking about the Angels." You were worried about all of the travel they went through to get to the ALCS and how they needed to sleep. Look Joe, they can sleep until spring training.

Then there’s Tim McCarver. He’s had so many bad dye jobs that toxins are leaking through his scalp into his demented brain. This fuck-knuckle was Steve Carlton’s caddy and now he’s going to tell us the ins and outs of baseball. Fuck that noise. Tim, maybe Rowand should have been on second, in game two, but let it fucking go. Your argument hinged on not plating the run. Fuck you, he scored and AJ scored after him. You’re a confused old man. You’re to baseball, what Strom "get that machine out of my face" Thurmond was to politics and responsible fathering. The world has passed you by. Wash out your hair, strap on the adult diapers and enjoy the rest home. Buck and McCarver, only you can make Zelasko and Kennedy’s pre/post game seem tolerable. Zelasko’s pimpette outfits and bling and Kennedy’s forced enthusiasm don’t help, but they’re welcome relief afterEven after seven beers or a stroke, or both, Harry Caray could add insight and keep the game interesting. Christ, Jimmy Peirsol was certifiable and was a better addition to the game. Like my president, I had no choice in your selection and you make me sick.

Oh, I almost forgot about your fucking plants in the audience. Those hacks from "Prison Break" ,or what ever turd you're hard sellin' this fall, aren’t Sox fans. Why do you use your tickets that way? Bernie Mac is OK as he’s from Chicago, he’s a Sox fan and he’s on a Fox show – that makes sense. But disinterested B-lists tv actors don’t deserve promotional treatment. Hey everybody, Hacky McHakerson from the fall’s suckiest show is here – watch our shitty programming after the series.