A Day in the Life of a Nutcracker Ticket Scalper

         Professional ticket scalpers have moved in on the Boston Ballet's annual Christmas performance of The Nutcracker.

                                                      The Boston Globe

“Is it a good seat?  You can see right up their freakin' tutus!”

Talk about a nutcracker—my nuts are cracking from the cold cause it's freezin' out here!  But a guy's gotta make a buck, and scalpin' ballet tickets in sub-zero weather pays the bills.

It ain't like the 80′s, a course.  Back then, da Garden was sold out every night.  Maybe Larry Bird wasn't the most graceful guy in da world, but let me tell you, he packed ‘em in, night after night.  I was makin' money hand over fist.

Bird:  No vertical leap.

Unlike da ballet—you couldn't give dem tickets away back den!  One time I loaded up on American Ballet Theatre ducats 'cause Cynthia Gregory was comin' to town.  I lost my freakin' shirt.  I tell yas, after that I didn't touch ballet fer probably a decade.  Opera, maybe, but then you had Sarah Caldwell, a three time Pro Bowler at left impresario, doing the fat lady thing at the end of the game.

Gregory:  Couldn't hit the open jumper.

Then a coupla years ago the Nutcracker moved from the Wang Center to da Opera House cause the Rockettes came to town.  Talk about rubbin' Boston's nose in it!  Why not throw the Yankees World Series Victory Parade down Boylston Street while you're at it—sheesh!

Caldwell: The opera is over, the fat lady has sung.

But a smaller house means less supply for the same demand—bingo, I'm back in da ballet business!  Me personally, I'm so sick of The Nutcracker I'd rather be dead in a ditch than have to watch it again.  The kids, they get bored after a while, too  It's the moms—without them there wouldn't be no box office at all.

See, the moms want to stuff the kids with a little culture along with all da commercialism of Christmas, so they're willing to pay ten times face value for tickets where you need a sherpa to get you to your seat!  If that's being anti-commercial, it's payin' off fer me!

“We'll make base camp at Row QQ, then ascend to your seats in the morning.”

You know, it's funny, when you watch basketball on TV the announcer's always talkin' about some point guard's “ballet-like grace.”

 
Rajon Rondo, jete

But when I switch to Bravo, you never hear da host saying how some prima ballerina's got basketball-like form and beauty.  It should be a two-way street, right?  I mean, if it's truly a transitive relationship.

Anywho, I gotta shut my mouth, there's a guy over there I don't like the looks of.  Could be a plainclothes cop, trying to entrap me with an offer to purchase three tickets for him and his two phony-baloney “daughters.” 

Daughters my ass—them two is vice squad plants if I ever seen ‘em.

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Dance Fever.”