FAT CATS

The full-page newspaper ad for THE CONCERT FOR JOHN KERRY at Radio City Music Hall had a star-spangled banner wrapped around an electric guitar. Black background. White type. It said: "A Change Is Going to Come." It said there will be performances by Jon Bon Jovi, Whoopi Goldberg, Wyclef Jean, John Mellencamp, Bette Midler, James Taylor and Robin Williams.

But here's where it gets interesting. According to the ad, tickets are on sale by phone only through Ticketmaster. The ad gave the number to call. It also gave a different phone number and organization for "VIP Orchestra tickets and Premium Seats." I wanted a regular ticket. The kind that ordinary people could buy. There were no prices listed in the ad, but I figured I'd go as high as $100 if I had to. (Frankly, I didn't really care about the show. I wanted to go strictly for research, to see whether it could serve as the model for a fictional event in a novel I'm writing.)

The Ticketmaster operator set me straight. The price of a "regular," non-VIP ticket for a seat in the orchestra is $1,000. "What's the cheapest seat in the house?" He told me: $250, in the balcony. No wonder there is no mention of ticket prices in the ad, or even on the Ticketmaster site for the concert. Why advertise bad news? They need to give you that in private. "Never mind," I said. "You're sure this is a Kerry fund-raiser, not a Bush fund-raiser?"

Will somebody please remind Kerry and the show's producers -- Jann S. Wenner, John Sykes and Harvey Weinstein -- that ordinary people don't have $1,000 to shell out so showbiz celebrities can raise funds for a multimillionaire candidate, even if he is a Democrat? Even if we need him to rid ourselves of the multimillionaire Republican in the White House?

The show is likely to be SRO, and if it isn't they'll paper the house. But one thing is certain. It will not be ordinary folks cheering the candidate on at Radio City Music Hall. It will be an audience of fat cats.

Footnote: The online reproduction of the full-page ad, THE CONCERT FOR JOHN KERRY, mentions price information (in very small type) that did not appear in the print version.