Arts Briefs

Springsteen hates on Ticketmaster

Bruce Springsteen is sounding less like the Boss and more like Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder these days. It’s not that Springsteen’s gone grunge. Rather, the Boss has spoken out against concert ticket monopolizer Ticketmaster. Last week, scores of New Jersey fans were unable to buy tickets to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band from Ticketmaster.com, and were redirected to a website called TicketsNow.com (also owned by Ticketmaster) where ticket prices doubled or even tripled the original face value.

Before long, politicians were yelling back and forth about it in the U.S. House of Representatives, demanding that the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice investigate, TheStar.com reported. There’s also talk of a merger between Ticketmaster and its major competitor, the promotion giant Live Nation.

On his website, Springsteen criticized the further monopolization of the concert industry, noting that a single system “would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now.” Tickets going on sale for the Boss’ stop in Toronto are already drawing attention for popping up on TicketsNow.com before officially going on sale. It’s a concern because tickets for high profile shows like this one sellout within minutes and pre-sales are another opportunity to inflate prices and exploit loyal fans. Springsteen is reportedly “furious” at how his fans are being treated by Ticketmaster.

If there was ever a time for the Boss to be the Boss and damn the man, this is it.

Nine-year-old creates program for iPhone

What did you accomplish in your ninth year? I mastered the art of two digit subtraction. Apparently, it didn’t mean a whole lot. A fourth grader named Lim Ding Wen wrote a program called Doodle Kids for the Apple iPhone that allows users to “fingerpaint” on the phone’s touch-screen, CBC.ca reported last week.

If the fact that he’s a genius doesn’t impress you, then maybe the motivation for his project will. According to his father, Lim Thye Chean, the boy wrote the program for his younger sisters, who are three and five. What a generous little boy. He’s “probably one of the [world’s] youngest iPhone developers,” Chean said, adding that his son has been programming since he was seven.

Whoa, don’t sound so excited, pops. Not so surprising: “The elder Lim, who is the chief technology officer of a technology company in Singapore, said he teaches children to program in his spare time.”

Etta James has beef with Beyoncé ... and Obama

Even though it’s not really her song, Etta James has reportedly criticized Beyonce for performing “At Last” for Barack Obama and his wife at their first dance during the Neighborhood Ball, InMusic.ca reported.

During a recent concert, James hinted at her discontent: “You guys know your president, right? You know the one with the big ears? ...He ain’t my president ...that woman he had singing for him, singing my song - she’s going to get her ass whipped.”

What make this even more confusing is the fact that Beyonce recently won acclaim for portraying James in the film Cadillac Records and has even performed the song in front of James herself.

Sounds like someone’s a little jealous.

“I can’t stand Beyonce,” James continued. “She has no business up there on a big ol’ president day, gonna be singing my song that I’ve been singing forever.”

Published in Volume 63, Number 20 of The Uniter (February 12, 2009)

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