The Rapacious Vulture With a Heart of Gold

The story is meant to induce a smile. A wonderful gesture to brighten your day:

“Why did I get so lucky? How did this happen to me?” said [Marge] Bishop, who lives in a brown house on a gravelly lot in a wooded area of Gloucester. Her father built the house in 1932.

“I’m just a regular person,” Bishop said. “And I’ve been given this remarkable once-in-a-lifetime gift. It’s incredible. It’s the most remarkable story.”

And what was this "remarkable" gift bestowed upon this "regular person"? Well, let's break it all down.

Mrs. Bishop has had season tickets to Boston Bruins hockey games for 40+ years. When the price of her tickets jumped from $73 to $90 in 2004, she blanched. When they went to $150 in 2006, more than doubling in the span of two years, she had had enough. Then her angel of mercy sprang into action: Charlie Jacobs, son of Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, was giving her a lifetime pass!

What a touching moment! What a great guy! As Mrs. Bishop puts it:

“It was the most unbelievable gesture,” Bishop said. “People just don’t do things like that.”

Stop.

Wait a second.

This is ridiculous.

The team doubles the prices for the best seats by the ice and we are supposed to get all emotional about the two tickets they decided to give away? They literally made up the loss on that with the next two seats by the boards! EVERYTHING ELSE afterwards is pure outrageous profit.

And get a load of the profits we are talking about here:

A review of [father Jeremy] Jacobs’ track record as owner of the Bruins and the TD Garden by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting reveals:

A squeeze on average fans amid a steady expansion of costly season tickets and luxury seating, with ticket prices poised to surge again;

More than $200 million in profits from the Bruins and the garden spanning over the last decade alone, most earned before the Stanley Cup win;

Check out this not-so-moving story from one fan who doesn't feel a tingle from the mere mention of the Jacobs name:

[A] night out at the garden to watch the Bruins – more than $340 for a family of four – costs as much as an afternoon at Fenway Park, long baseball’s priciest ballpark, which weighs in at just over $339, according to Team Marketing. 

In fact, just going solo to a hockey game can be expensive, noted [fan Casey] Robichaud, decked out in a Bruins T-shirt as she watched the game at the bar. 

With an outing at the garden a sure $100-plus night, there are only so many games she can afford to attend. 

Determined to avoid paying the Garden’s concession prices, which include beer at more than $7 a pop, some fans take extreme measures. 

“It makes people think like they have to drink heavily before the game,” she said. 

Fact is, the Jacobs family is sitting on a goldmine and is determined to squeeze every last drop out of the lemons, er, fans:

Meanwhile, the garden itself has turned out to be a major profit center, with a steady stream of concerts, events and corporate sponsorship deals. 

Owned by Jacobs and Delaware North, the garden was listed as the sixth most lucrative arena in the country by Forbes in 2008, with revenue of $106 million. It had moved up to No. 3 by 2010 on the Forbes list, though revenue estimates were not included that year. 

The arena generates anywhere from $15 million to $25 million a year in profit, noted one arena expert. Taking the more conservative end of that estimate, that amounts to another $150 million in profits for Jacobs over the past 10 years. 

That’s a total of well more than $200 million from the Bruins and the Garden, from fans and concert-goers as well, over the past decade, based on Forbes annual estimates and sports business experts. 

Professional sports are all about money today and as long as the citizenry allows itself to be debased like this AND continues to clamor for entry into these corporate cathedrals of greed, things are not going to change. We know this already.

But spare us, please, the knight-in-shining-armor garbage promulgated by a corrupt and compliant mainstream media organ.

You are gouging 17,563 suckers for everything you can get out of them on a nightly basis. Cutting a break to two sheep who'd been fleeced for all they could stand is not going to change that ugly reality one bit.

Only in our decadent modern society can someone this venial and disgusting be hailed as a wonderful giver.

How much more of this are we all going to put up with?

A Modern American Love Story

A memorable episode of the CBS crime documentary "48 Hours" from 2008.

[Note: SPOILER ALERT. Watch the episode first if you don't want it all given away.]

It starts with this typical-looking modern American woman talking about how her New York stock trader husband was her perfect guy, how when they started dating he would surprise her by giving her a whole outfit of expensive designer clothes - dress, shoes, purse - and saying, "Get dressed, we're going to [some ridiculously expensive Manhattan spot]."

He really was the sweetest guy, her "knight in shining armor."

They got married and moved into a "really nice" exclusive Manhattan suburb. She never called it rich or tony, just "really nice."

And he was just the greatest husband. She stayed at home with the kids while he would go and work the floor of the Exchange all day. And as soon as he got home he would not hesitate to change the baby's diapers.

He always gave her fistfuls of cash so she'd have some spending money and they just lived the perfect dream existence.

Then one day the dream exploded.

The beat-down, balding puddle of masculinity lost his job on the Exchange, but couldn't bear to face his wife and tell her because he was always "the great provider" who gave her all these things.

So he pretended to go to work each day as normal, and started scouting out banks to rob.

The first bank he robs he was "scared out of his mind." But he wanted to be the good provider, so he did it.

Got $16,000 or something like that.

Used it to pay:

a. the mortgage on the fancy house in the "really nice" suburb.

b. the bills on the fancy house.

c. the spending money for the wife.

He said it just like that. Where did all that money go so fast? Those three things. Like it was the most normal way in the world to spend sixteen grand.

He robbed like 9 more banks or something before getting caught. And the wife was saying to the camera, "I have no idea why this happened. I never saw this coming in a million years."

He goes to jail and she divorces her "knight in shining armor" because "I need to move forward with my life."

End of a Modern American Love Story.

.... BUT....

On to Part Two: Cashing in on his ridiculous, irresponsible and destructive behavior:

Crimes and Secrets of a Desperate Dad, Why a Wall Street Trader Became the Long Island Bank Robber is available at:

http://www.scribbcrib.com 

It’s available on Pdf and Mobi format formats and will be on Amazon in April.

It tells the true story of why and how a good guy made a bad mistake.

Steve

It's bad enough that this man's moral compass was so warped that he valued material possessions and the pursuit of money more than his own freedom and well-being. But now, after serving time in prison and having his life turned completely upside-down, he responds by.... chasing after the money once again. 

Which just goes to show you that some people never even attempt to gain a true understanding of themselves and the behavior that holds them back in life. You can't put a dollar amount on integrity, Steve. And if you had some of that, you might just find yourself a woman who won't see you as nothing but a cash cow to be milked 'til your very manhood is dry.

Our Post-Christian Culture Responds to Tragedy

This post is not meant in any way to attempt to diminish the tragedy that befell the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. 

That said, the response that was on display in the city over the past weekend is a telling indictment of the shallow times we are living in. 

This ABC News report inadvertently hits the nail on the head with its assertion that Fenway Park is a "civic cathedral" for the people of Boston. 

And that really sums up where we are now. In the past, the churches would be filled after a horrible catastrophe - the start of a world war, civil war, monster flood, etc. People would bow their heads and solemnly pray to a Just God for mercy.

Nowadays it is the sporting arenas that are filled after every disturbance that can be milked to full emotional effect.

Folks don their Sox gear, wave their American flags in grandstanding style and sing along with a Schmaltzy Neil Diamond for "healing".

It all makes for a bizarre quasi-religious commercial experience as the congregation vows that no act, no matter how horrible, will stop the party from going on.

We have become a nation of emotional consumerists and steroidal men wearing sports uniforms are our new high priests.

You have to love the inspiring tag the ABC report closes with:

There's also been plenty of commerce today and that's important because Friday's shutdown really cost this city money. Today money, and good will, have been flowing all day long.

They may bomb our marathon. But they will never break our will to attend overpriced baseball games, eat hot dogs and spend money.

The Tax Inequality Dog and Pony Show

No love for the superrich thieves but this is a hollow argument:

Why? It's all about giving a tyrannical federal government more money.

We don't need to tax the rich more. We don't need to tax anybody more.

We need to cut 90 percent of all taxes and 99 percent of government SPENDING.

The tax inequality squabble is intentionally inflamed to distract us from the real problem: out of control government spending that of course goes right into the pockets of the superrich thieves who own our corrupt lawmakers.

If you want to hurt the superrich, take away their Federal Daddy money, in the forms of military contracts, Big Ag subsidies and a million other examples.

Making them pay more taxes into the very same honeypot that they have their sticky fingers engorged in is not going to solve anything.