Thursday, February 21, 2008

Desperately seeking priorities.


Managing to claw her way through matters of actual significance, The Blogging Tories' JoJo finds an issue over which to wax apoplectic:

Shining a light on Kitchener Council perks

Ticket-gate continues in Kitchener where the City Fathers of Entitlement are stubbornly holding on to their free Elton John tickets, in spite of taxpayer outrage spilling forth from the news and editorial pages of today's Record.

Yes, JoJo, we've all seen the news, but thanks, anyway ...

Reporters Terry Pender and Frances Barrick ask the front-page question, What else is going on?

Um, yeah, got it, it's outrageous, JoJo ... movin' on, then ...

This editorializing of the news is quite interesting and makes me wonder if the reporters received a fair amount of flack from someone high-up for putting this story under the microscope in the first place. This is Liberal-land after all. Home to Liberal MP Karen Redman and Andrew Telegdi, and MPP John Milloy. The heartland of socialism and entitlement.

All right, JoJo, we get it, it's classless and unfair and those councillors deserve a good spanking, so let's change the subject and talk about ...

As you may recall, Councillor Vrbanovic was recently in Ottawa and on the MDL show pushing for more federal handouts to offset costs for city infrastructure.

Yet he gets a free Elton John ticket courtesy of the Kitchener taxpayer. Why not use it to fix a pothole instead?

Jesus Fucking Christ, JoJo, LET IT GO ALREADY!! God Almighty, but you're over the line from obsessed and way into pathological. Just back away slowly before you have a stroke or something.

Amusingly, JoJo finishes by quoting one of the councillors:

As John Gazzola, one of the few right-leaning council members noted, it is amazing how "serious issues are greeted with indifference, while the tickets issue generated so much buzz."

No shit. And I'm guessing the inherent irony went whizzing right over JoJo's head. Like pretty much everything else.

6 comments:

Ti-Guy said...

Reminds me of the SCTV sketch...Petty Claims Court...in which John Candy whines to the judge about having put 25 cents into a vending machine and not getting his chocolate bar. "I put 25 cents in the machine and I didn't get my chocolate bar...I just want my chocolate bar, your honour...that's all I want, my chocolate bar that I should have gotten after putting 25 cents in the machine!"

The Seer said...

Betcha John McCain never took any free Elton John tickets from any lobbyist, no matter what the meaning of "is" is.

Sheena said...

The tickets were not free.
Sheesh. And it's fucking Elton John. If it was Gogol Bordello or New Pornographers, I could see the outrage...

Not free tickets for a shitty tempermental has been news exclusive here...

liberal supporter said...

It is pretty much standard that any venue will have tickets that are not planned to be sold. Such things as artist comps, house tickets, promoter tickets, Marketing tickets, trouble seats, obstructed seats, wheelchair holds etc. Typically nobody actually gets paid for these tickets, at least not the artist.

So, Joanne would prefer that these tickets be sold, or at least paid for by council, thereby increasing the artist's revenue from the show.

Who would have thought it? Joanne wants to increase Elton John's ability to support himself and his lawfully wedded husband.

Yay Jojo!

Frank Frink said...

As liberalsupporter mentioned above this is SOP in North America's concert/live entertainment biz. About the only thing ls didn't mention was 'media comps'. Quite often one or more local media outlets are also 'concert sponsors' which gives them 'special access' to more tickets, which makes the whole media flap sound even funnier (and more hypocritical).

liberal supporter said...

The Kitchener Record article in the middle of its harrumphing was quite careful to point out that they have own boxes at the Aud, and that therefore it is completely justified that they should get comp tickets. Laughable.