chris pearson and mr beans the cat!

Cal-Berkeley grad, environmental engineer, bass GTR and founding member of The Czars. I have a yurt, an electric car, and have an awesome cat named Mr. Beans

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Inflation would have taken a $35 concert ticket to about $50 today. The jump to $350 came from a change in how the music business makes its money.

Fifteen years ago, the concert was an ad. Artists made their money selling albums, and the tour was there to sell more CDs. Then streaming showed up and wrecked that. Spotify pays about $0.003 to $0.005 per play, so an artist with 10 million plays in a year makes around $30,000. Money from recorded music fell so far it hit bottom in 2014 at $13.1 billion, down from $22 billion in the CD days. The album stopped paying the bills.

So the tour became the paycheck instead of the ad. For many working musicians it now brings in up to 80% of their income. Even Taylor Swift, the biggest streaming artist alive, made 91% of her 2018 money on tour and under 6% from streaming. When the live show is the only thing left to sell, it gets priced that way.

Then there is who controls the tickets. Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged in 2010 and never let go. Ticketmaster now handles about 80% of tickets when they first go on sale at major venues, and Live Nation owns or runs close to 78% of the big outdoor amphitheaters. In April 2026, a jury in New York found the company ran an illegal monopoly that overcharged fans. Live Nation made a record $23 billion in 2024.

Fees pile on top. A 2018 government report found fees add about 27% to a ticket's price, and a look at 40 recent concerts put it closer to 28%. That turns two $100 tickets into a $256 bill. To be fair, the venue keeps most of that fee, not Ticketmaster, whose own share is only a few percent.

The biggest jump came from something newer. After the pandemic, promoters saw that fans would pay almost anything, so they turned on dynamic pricing, the same way airline seats cost more as a flight fills up. Bruce Springsteen's $400 seats shot up to $4,000 and $5,000 the moment they went on sale. Live Nation's own finance chief said it plainly: stadium tickets are now priced to scare off scalpers. That means setting the official price at whatever a scalper would charge, so the extra money goes to the artist and Ticketmaster instead of a reseller.

The $35 ticket made sense when a concert sold a $15 album. The $350 ticket makes sense when the concert is the product, the streaming money barely counts, and one company controls almost the whole path to the stage.

[chris pearson and mr beans the cat! @pearsonalized]

@BobbyAtTheSpa #weekdayirad

[chris pearson and mr beans the cat! @pearsonalized]

@COSportsNut Karl Mecklenburg

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Richard Gere on Trump: “We’re living in the darkest moment that I’ve experienced on this planet. Whoever thought America could turn like this? Whoever thought that a maniac like this would be president and dismantle all the good things? America’s never been a perfect place, but it has a perfect ideal. First day this guy dismantled almost everything that was good about the US government and people”

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

The Big Lebowski (1998) has dialogue so ridiculously specific that entire conversations from the movie just became part of everyday vocabulary. Wild that it opened to mixed reviews before turning into one of the biggest cult comedies ever made.

[chris pearson and mr beans the cat! @pearsonalized]

@Seinfeldism1 Is that Rick Astley?

[chris pearson and mr beans the cat! @pearsonalized]

@Gypsycapper I’m rooting for him! 3 second place finishes. He deserves this one.

[Acyn @Acyn]

FROST: We asked Pam Bondi multiple times, are you going to come and speak with us under oath? She would not say yes. We want her under oath because we do not trust her. Why don't we trust her? Because she's a liar.

[Tom Santos @tommysantos14]

When Trump leaves office:

The Department of War will go back to being the Defense Department.

The Trump Kennedy Center will go back to being the Kennedy Center.

The Gulf of America will once again be the Gulf of Mexico.

The unfinished East Wing (it won't be finished by the end of Trump's term) will be rebuilt by the next president, and it will not be a ballroom.

Federal agencies packed with unqualified loyalists will fire those people and rehire the career experts Trump fired.

The Department of Justice will go back to enforcing the law instead of protecting the president.

Scientific agencies like NOAA, the EPA, and the CDC will go back to publishing research without political interference.

The U.S. will re-align with its allies and not with its enemies.

The presidential pardon power will stop being used as a rewards program for loyalists.

Inspectors General will go back to investigating corruption instead of getting fired for it.

The White House press room will go back to having briefings, with real journalists and not podcasters.

U.S. foreign policy will stop revolving around flattering dictators.

And the world will progress as though Donald Trump never existed.

[Governor Newsom Press Office @GovPressOffice]

NOW THAT I, GAVIN C. NEWSOM, AM OFFICIALLY PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (THANK YOU DONALD!), I HAVE MANY BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS TO MAKE! FIRST, EVERY TRUMP EXECUTIVE ORDER IS NULL AND VOID, STEPHEN MILLER AND EVERY TRUMP GOON IS FIRED, AND THE TRUMP CORRUPTION PROBE IS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED! HEALTH CARE IS NOW FREE FOR ALL AMERICANS (NO MEASLES!) AND ALL MOMS GET FREE CHILDCARE SO WE CAN HAVE MORE BABIES!!! ALSO CANNABIS IS NOW LEGAL AND ABORTION IS BACK FOR WOMEN WHO WANT IT. I WILL SOON BE BANNING ALL TICKETMASTER FEES AND THERE WILL BE NO MORE COMMERCIALS ALLOWED DURING NBA AND NFL GAMES, AS WELL AS ALL BRAVO “REAL HOUSEWIVES” SHOWS (LONGER EPISODES!). EVERY AMERICAN FAMILY NOW GETS A “TARIFF AND GAS SPIKE REFUND” TO BUY A CHEAP ELECTRIC CAR! THE COUNTRY IS NOW RUN BY SOMEONE WHO CAN ACTUALLY COMPLETE A SENTENCE. AMERICA IS NOW “HOT” BECAUSE YOU HAVE A DYSLEXIC PRESIDENT INSTEAD OF A BRAIN-DEAD ONE. BIG UPGRADE!!! — GOVERNOR GCN

[Lazzyyyyyy @em_Lazzy]

I’ve never seen anything like the Epstein files in my life

-Raped
-Cannibalized
-Trafficked
-Filmed
-Terrorized
-Tortured
-Murdered
-13, 14, 15 year children

ZERO arrests

I don't understand how we're not having a global revolution right now.

[Jenni @hashjenni]

He raped chiIdren and he's stiII president.

He bIew up a schooI in Iran, kiIIing at Ieast 175 innocent peopIe (mostIy chiIdren), and he's stiII president.

[ThePatrioticBlonde™🇺🇸 @ImBreckWorsham]

Hey, @POTUS… This you?

[JEFF @jeffisrael25]

let me get this straight

a team will not be playing in the FIFA World Cup because they are currently being bombed by the FIFA Peace Prize winner

[The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost]

BREAKING: The new Iranian Ayatollah just announced he’ll agree to open the Strait of Hormuz and let all the oil tankers leave the Red Sea in exchange for the US releasing all the Epstein Files with no redactions.

[Acyn @Acyn]

CNN montage of conflicting statements from Trump on war

[chris pearson and mr beans the cat! @pearsonalized]

@You777Rock I love Brussel Stouts!

[chris pearson and mr beans the cat! @pearsonalized]

@Gypsycapper Good pick yesterday and good luck today!

[Andrew Weinstein @Weinsteinlaw]

This killing of Alex Pretti reveals a dark truth about the administration's view of gun rights: they are not universal. They are reserved for the "right" kind of people. If you are a MAGA supporter, your gun is a symbol of freedom. If you are a protester in Minneapolis, your gun is proof of terrorism.

The "right to bear arms" has been replaced by the "privilege to bear arms," contingent on political alignment. This is the hallmark of a militia state, not a constitutional republic.