Taking Down Ticketmaster: A 16-Year Battle | Tommy Dorfman | Ep 219

Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Ryder, sports talk. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. Okay. Now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. Alright. Alright. Here's a tip for all these Americano League teams. Don't do wait. You said tip. Yeah. Tip. Okay. With a p. Would Keep jamming. The ticket the ticket colon. Nothing but a big jerk off set. Is this a cool night or what? I thought somebody would hear that and go, bullshit. I'm back, bitches. And are the stars done? What? Are the stars done? Not officially. Do you think they're done? No. I believe. You think they're gonna come back? They at least have a chance. You really believe? Sure. Minnesota hasn't closed out a series n ever. You think the stars are done, Becca? I'm afraid that they might be. Oh. I'm afraid they may have one more win, but I don't think that when they come back, they're gonna win. Still hanging on, are you? Yeah. Tell me there's a chance. I'd say there's a chance. Okay. Well, I'm telling you there's a chance. Okay. But I'm also telling you there's not. I'm confused. I am too. I don't see much hope myself, though. Didn't feel it in the arena last night? No. No. No. It was horrible in the arena last night. Except for your BTO encounter. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah. That was fun. We love you, Brett. We do. Alright. Let's see. This is the which day? What's the date today? The twenty ninth. Wednesday, the twenty ninth. We are coming up on the end of the month of April. Ready for the merry merry month of May. And, this is your dark companion. Around here, we like to go to shows and stuff. And I know out there, a lot of you guys like to go to shows. It's, just something you do. You know? And I've been to more good to great shows than I can possibly count, and I'm extremely grateful for each and every experience that I've had. Thing about it is to get into a show, you gotta have a ticket. A ticket. And sometimes in the process of scoring tickets for shows, it can get quite pricey. And a lot of the time, it can turn into just a flat out runaround. And it also happens that back at a time and there was a time when it was not this way. But these days, there is one and only one outfit that produces shows, sell tick sells tickets, all of that. That is Live Nation Ticketmaster, and we have all sat by and watched as they have become big, big, big, and trounced out any and all competition that they might have incurred at one time or another. And, believe the word is a monopoly that some might say they have. Now I'm not here to throw out accusations or anything, but, yeah, it's what it is. Well, there is a guy who has taken it upon himself for some time now to try and take Rainbow Ticketmaster down, And he joins us today. He is Tommy Dorfman. Thanks a lot for having me, Mike. Well, thank you for doing this. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you very much. Where are you joining us from today? I'm in, New Jersey. New Jersey. That's a part of the world that you hail from? That's where I came from. That's where I built my, built my career out of. Jersey born, dirty Jersey. Mike has a history with Jersey. Mike does. I hope it's good. It's pretty good. In theory, I do. I was arrested once for buying, possessing, and receive receiving stolen goods in Bergen County, New Jersey. Nice. In my backyard. Yeah. Trouble is I've never been to New Jersey, except, actually, I have now because when they they had the Super Bowl up there, we we went to the Super Bowl. And Sorry. Okay. There were quite a few activities that went on in New Jersey. So I guess now I have set foot on New Jersey soil. But Incident free. Yes. Incident free. That's when I was arrested. I was, like, in my in my twenties. And believe it or not, there was a time when there was a case. Anyway, it's good to have you with us, but this story is so big and so all encompassing that I hardly know where to start. So let's just start from the first. What set you out along this road? To battle Live Nation or my career? Yeah. Well, either or both. What kind of career do you have, first of all? Well, the career that I used to have is I started in the music industry in the late nineties, lived on my own since I was 16 through underage house parties, got arrested in New Jersey too, Mike, for throwing underage house parties. That's how I got into the industry. Over time, worked real hard with me and my team, and I built up to become the largest promoter in the electronic dance field. It was called house music back then. In New Jersey, New York, we for over fifteen years, ran almost every major nightclub. Did everything from the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, through New Jersey, New York, came through me, down all the way to Miami. Got my career to the top. I won the number one sound system in the world. I beat a big state like Texas and Amsterdam, another country. And got to the top. I wanted to get bigger, though. I had plateaued. So I went to produce I wanted to get into the festival business, into the stadiums. Right. And house music EDM was becoming mainstream. It was, like, back in the day, like, when rock and roll blew up. I predicted that this was gonna blow up just like rock and roll, which I was correct. So I signed a ten year deal for was we're talking about the home the Super Bowl, home to the Jets and Giants at the MetLife Stadium Mhmm. With the largest state fair in the East Coast to produce all concerts and festivals for ten years. I was on the putting on the largest EDM festival the East Coast had ever seen, been over a 100,000 people. And we had all our talent in place. We had our staging in place. We had everything in place until a company, Live Nation Entertainment, found out about it, wanted it. I didn't let them in, and they wiped me out. And that's why we're here today sixteen years later. And when you say they wiped you out, how did they do that? Did the show go on? No. They went on a multipronged attack. I had a contract. They went and attacked the landlord of the my the my the owner of the state for Meadowlands. His name's Al Dorso. They went into him, and that's why my contract with kicked these guys out. They're thieves. They're robbers. Get them the fuck out of here. They went to the sports authority, the owner of the stadium. This is our stadium. Kick them out. Then they came and went directly to all the talent agencies, the largest ones in the world, William Morris Agency. And they told me this directly in meetings when they try to force to partner with me. There's loopholes in your contract. We're gonna kick you out. And you know what my loopholes were, Mike? Needed to secure talent. You know what they told me? I I went to a meeting with them. They're two top executives. And be I walked in. I said, hi. My name is Tom. Before I could even say my name is Tommy, there's fucking loopholes in your contract. We're gonna blow you out. We're gonna block all your talent worldwide. I had millions of dollars in offers out to the talent agencies. They were accepting. We were booking flights for the artist on the process of that. If I did not partner with them and then they threatened to block in tickets from Ticketmaster. Now, at the time, was like, how are you going to block my tickets from Ticketmaster? I do business with them. They say we bought them. We own them. I thought they were bullshitting until I went out of the meeting, Googled Live Nation Ticketmaster, and they just had purchased them. They gave me a ultimatum. I either kicked my two partners out of the festival, partner with them, which they had no right to, and they would fund it and buy me. And then we would produce the event. I wouldn't kick my partners out. Then they blocked all the talent for the event, and they wiped out the entire event. So never took place and wiped out my whole career. Wow. And you had no recourse? No. This is the I'm giving you, like, the g rated version too. If you wanna go higher than harder than g, you can around here. Okay. Cool. Because we were not regulated. Oh, good. Good stuff, man. I didn't know how I was rocking live in Texas. So yeah. So they they came in. I dealt with the mafia before the they came in attacked worse than the mafia. They literally just came in. Like like I said, hi. My name's Tommy. Nice to meet you. I didn't even wanna meet them. They just threatened the the guy I had the contract with, telling him they wouldn't allow him to put his fences up for his fair, that everything was blocked. They wouldn't told him no no tickets for the for my festival. No tickets for the fair unless he kicked me out. So this was I have the top executives on tape recording, unfortunately, from this. And then after that, they came in after, wiped me out. I was done. I was nominated the number one promoter. I was pretty famous in my industry at the time. I was nominated number one promoter in New Jersey by the largest publication in New Jersey Star Ledger. And then Live Nation got my name removed from that nomination, bad mouth me through the whole industry, killed my whole entire career that I built from living on my own at 16 and working really hard to build to the top for fifteen years. And I ended up going homeless, lost everything. And then I've been battling them in federal court for sixteen sixteen something sixteen years now. God. How do you even afford a fight like that for that long? It was really hard because at first, I lost everything. Like I said, I went homeless. So I had to find a job because I've been my own boss and entrepreneur since I was 16 years old. So I was going in. It was hard to even get a job because my resume was like this, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, this, this. And they're like, what the hell are doing in here? So I got a job going door to door selling cable. I had to get good of it really quick, and I did. And working real hard doing that, I was able to pay for the lawyers, pay for the litigation, And then I've worked for sixteen years building a business up doing that to pay for this litigation, which has not been cheap in a lot of time. And I only have one lawyer, but I do a lot of legal work myself throughout the whole nights for over sixteen years because that's the only way I can continue a case against a company that has 2,000 lawyers, 2,000 paralegals against my lawyer, Andrew Smith. Props to him. He's awesome, but it's one guy. We're we're we're versus, you know, 2,000. Where does this sit now? So I there's no reason my case, Mike, shouldn't my lawyers thought the case would have been in trial in one year. Okay? That's what I thought it was gonna be. Live Nation just is really good at a couple things. One being a monopoly, one being a criminal enterprise, other one threats, delays, paying lobbyists, and paying high priced lawyers. There's no reason my case has not been in a jury trial. For the last six years, it's just been sitting. I had a trial date two years ago. The judge put it the federal judge put firm trial date. Witnesses subpoenaed. Live Nation wanted the sixteenth mediation. I didn't want it. I was forced to. I don't want their money. I want this evidence that I have that shows that their company's a racket exposed to a jury for the public to see. I had to take the mediation. I didn't take their money as we're sitting here because I won't. And I've been waiting two years and that's where it's at. The the the federal courts the founding fathers, I think they thought of me when they made the constitution right to a speedy trial. Mhmm. But there's, like, a little loophole in civil courts. You're not entitled to a speedy trial, and the judge can prolong it and or Live Nation can or the judge or whatever you wanna call it. Our lobbyists prolong it as many years as they want. And my witnesses are getting old, and that's why I started speaking publicly. How do you proceed with this? Well, to me, when this started off, I lost this massive festival. We were looking at a $100,000,000 just off the ten years on just the EDM music scene. I did other stuff from Latin, hip hop, you name it. I wanted my career back. I wanted my money money. And then two years later, they bought a company for $50,000,000, the Electric Daisy Carnival, similar to what I was doing at EDM. They put it on in my same parking lot at the Meadowlands with the same artist that I had that they blocked. So I was pissed. Wanted a little revenge. But then as time passed through the litigation, I saw so much internal information of Lab Nation showing how through financial fraud, accounting fraud, illegal kickbacks and rebates, racketeering, that I just at certain time, just seeing these ticket prices ripping everyone off, the fans of mainly you know, I was one of the first victims of this Live Nation Ticketmaster merger talking about, but fans get ripped off every day. All the independent promoters, they all got destroyed. They're all gone. Either that or they bow and took Live Nation's money and just worked for them as slaves. Artists, artists developments destroyed. The music industry that made me. That's what made me survive. At 16, I lived on my own. If it wasn't for music, I wouldn't even be alive right now. That's what made me. And I just felt then I have that moral obligation. I have the right I feel I have to do this for a greater good for, like, my kids. I have kids now from all these years. It's crazy. And some of my one kid wants to produce concerts. But you know what? Other people's kids want it, and they should have the right to. And it's just it's just wrong. It's you know, they got Lav Nations got convicted as a monopoly. Not guilty on every charge, thank to the state AGs, not the DOJ they caved, but they're more than a monopoly. This is a criminal enterprise. And I won't stop until I get it in front of a jury and I get their CEO, Michael Rapinoe, and his top associates locked up in prison because I have the evidence to prove that they have two sets of cookbooks, and I have those receipts. How do you go about bringing all that stuff to the fore? How do you get somebody with who has the authority to do something about something like this? How do you get them to pay attention to you? Well, end of the day, it's if the politicians, if any state attorney general's listening, any congressman or the senators, you wanna you wanna reach out to me, feel free to. There was a congressman, the late congressman Bill Pasquale, two years ago. He passed away. He found information about my case. My expert, doctor Richard Barnett. We found information of Live Nation running a legal kickback scheme, a racket, wrote a report. Live Nation suppressed it with their high priced lawyers. The late congressman found it. Live Nation's lawyers did like the biggest oopsie ever, Mike. They accidentally put it on the federal court website. We didn't even know it was there. He found it, and he sent it to the congress, the senate, and the department of justice to investigate. So it's sitting there. They have it. I have the information. That's up to them. But I look at what I can control. I get in front of a jury. I'm going to bring all this evidence out, and I'm gonna expose it for the whole entire public and world to see. And then I feel when that is exposed, ticket prices will drop 30 to 40% overnight because that's how much money they are stealing and ripping everybody off from these illegal kickbacks. And that's my hopes. And if you get me if I get in front of a jury, they can't stop me from getting in a jury. It's just a matter of time. If it takes another year, fans get ripped off more. If it takes another ten years, I ain't quitting. But that's my hopes and well, that's what I'm gonna do. And just need to get in front of that jury. Well, our little politician or a politician that's got some guts to dig into this and and bring up a criminal investigation, which needs to be done. They got found to be guilty already of being a mafia. I mean, a mafia, they should monopoly, but it's a mafia. Yeah. Well, our little podcast is glad to do our part to get you out there, but something tells me you're gonna need something a little bit bigger than us. How are you gonna how do you go about getting people like that interested in this and on on your side? Well, Live Nation has spent a lot of money on lobbyists. A lot of money. Yeah. It's tough. The just their case versus the Department of Justice, the Department of Justice, it's a bipartisan issue, people against Lab Nation ticket masks. That's one nice thing. They they make one thing bipartisan in the whole country. The DOJ caved in. There was a heavy lobbyist influence. The state attorney generals continued the case bipartisan now, and Lab Nation got found guilty for being a monopoly on every single count. But it it is tough. It is tough because the power the company has and the influence it has over the media, over whole entire industry. So I do my best and you know what? People like you putting the word out, it helps. And I will tell you this, I've had a massive support on the back end from the people that it expects, the fans. I get hit up from fans across the world every single day, and they're asking me, like, keep fighting, Tommy. Don't give up. Independent promoters, they won't come out and speak publicly for me. I don't blame them because they'll have no more career. Artists, they're you you they just got Live Nation got convicted of being a monopoly, ripping the artists off. Not one artist has came out and said a word. I don't blame them because they'll have no shows for them. Pearl Jam did it in the nineties just against Ticketmaster, and they had no shows. That's before Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged and became this worldwide calamity. So those artists, though, come to me on the back end, and they're thanking me for what I'm doing even though they can't speak publicly. But the fans, you know what? They're they're firing me up and keeping that fuel off, their support behind me, keeping me going. Do you hear personally from quite a few? I hear all the time personally. I get hit up on all my social media sites, emails constantly day and night with the fans hitting me up, asking my opinion, offering support, offering to come to the court. It's my last court hearing I had, which was last year in November. It was pretty cool. I actually showed up at the court, and I was shocked because I don't like going to court, and nobody does. And it's hard to get people to protest. It was about a 100 protesters there with signs, justice for Tommy D, shut down Live Nation, lower ticket prices. I was like, wow. I'd I'd be working. Thank you. But, that really got me fired up, and I was like, there's no way I could no way I could throw in the towel. I'm I'm going all the way. There's gotta be a little bit on the expensive side too. Yeah. I've done this all on my own dime, and time. So, yeah, it's it's been a lot. It's not right. It shouldn't happen in it shouldn't happen in America, and it shouldn't happen in America. Do you have anyone kind of financially helping you at all? Like, do you have any of those supporters or maybe even other maybe musicians or anybody trying to throw you a dime or 2, or is it all self funded essentially? I haven't taken any money from anybody, so it's been all self funded. Wow. Wow. That's should be giving them some money. Gladly. I will I will will do it for you. Nice. I'll just take a trip down to Texas, get a good steak, some beers down there, get a vacation for two days. I'll take that. That'll work. There we go. He's got a sofa lined up right for you. That's right. You are quite you are quite welcome to make your way down here. You know, this is this is something that we've heard so much about for such a long period of time. But I gotta tell you that when all of this stuff that I have and I have quite a dossier here on you. But until that was put in front of me, number one, I didn't I hadn't heard of you. And number two, just the expanse of this case and how long it's gone on, what these guys have gone through to shut you down, I had no idea, man. I I just had no idea. So they must do a heck of a good job of of keeping the the word out or keeping it from getting out. And I feel like it's a pretty easy assumption that Tommy's not the only one they're doing this to. Mhmm. No. I was the first victim of this merger. Right? When Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged, they violated the consent degree order, wiped me out within a few months. But victims are the independent promoters. Most of them are all gone or bought by Live Nation. The victims are the fans every single day. And why you didn't hear from me, Mike, was I stayed quiet. I respected the judicial system for, I think, like, fifteen years. Then I'm realizing my witnesses are getting old. I'm from the nightclub industry. You know? I'm of good health, but the some of the witnesses were older. They were living legends, but they party. You know? They're not vegetarians. And I'm like, they're not gonna be make it the only way Live Nation beats me is my witnesses die of old age or, you know, unhealth. So I was like, you know what? I gotta bring this to the public, and that's when I started speaking. You know? I couldn't get can't get my justice and stay in court, and this is the fans deserve to hear the story and deserve to know what's going on to them, and the industry deserve change. So I decided to speak up publicly, and that's what I'm doing. Exactly what kind of change would you like to see brought about? Or or I guess let me put that another way. What might it look like? So Live Nation should be broken up right now. The the judge is making a decision in New York, federal court. He's making a decision when they were found guilty of me in monopoly. First of all, they need to be split up into as many pieces as possible, the company. I go a step further. They need to meet. They need to be shut down because it's not a company. It's a criminal enterprise. It's basically like a mafia running a company across the whole entire nation. Now what this would look like there is independent promoters. Think about back in the day, how many independent promoters were out there. They will come again. They will thrive. You'll have promoters that don't exist. They'll do it. Look at me. I was nobody. I was an independent promo. I I said I wanna just create a club empire with a blind faith. I worked hard and did it. There's tons of kids that wanna do this. Kid people love the industry. People love music. There'll so many artists that aren't developed. There's famous art there's so many artists better than artists you watch right now, and we'll never know their name. SlabNation never let them exist. Independent promoters create artists. They create artist development. That'll thrive. There'll be competition. Competition is good in every single industry. The clubs will thrive. The whole industry will thrive. And then how nice is it when you're an artist or a fan? If you can pick, I wanna go to this concert from this promoter. I wanna go to this concert from this other promoter because they have better production, better theme, better pricing, better security, whatever it may be. Mhmm. It's nice for people to have choices. When you only have one choice, it's just wrong. And the what they do by having that that mafia running the whole entire organization and running a legal rebate scheme and ripping off fans every day, the fans pay for this and pay the price. And the scene's been destroyed. It's still it's there is no scene. People are like, oh, independent. There is no independent promoters. What? A few? There's the lie it's just the Live Nation entertainment industry. That's it. That's what that's what needs to change. And look at what happened since they merged with Live Nation and Ticketmaster. The prices got up to thousands of dollars. That's not inflation. That's Live Nation inflation. Yeah. And people have to choose if they skip the rent payment, if they missed their mortgage, take a second mortgage to go to a concert because people think it's all for the rich. Working class people go to these shows. Their kids wanna go. They go. And then they they can't afford to go to a club the next night. They can't even afford to pay their bills, and it's just wrong. It shouldn't be this way. And that's why I'm making this stand. Tommy, do you also recognize and I mean, I'm sure that you do. This doesn't even just affect the musical artists and touring artists. This affects sports. I mean, personally, I know that there's season ticket holders who pull their hair out just trying to access their season tickets on a regular basis to some of the sports here in Dallas because they are forced to utilize Ticketmaster even though these season ticket holders are saying, get away, get away. We can't take it anymore. But they basically run and own the venue. Yeah. It's it you're absolutely right. It affects every industry from sports to NASCAR to Disney on Ice. My mom told me at one point, yo, Tommy, just take their money and protest them. And I was like, mom, how can I protest them? She's like, don't go to their events. I said, okay. My kids can't go to any sporting events. I can't take them to I don't go to operas, I can't take them to Opry. Can't go to Disney On Ice. Can't go to a concert. You're locked out of society. So you can't protest them. And you're absolutely right. It affects every single industry of live entertainment, in sports across the whole entire nation, and now even growing to the world. And that's why this is a bipartisan issue. And, you know, like you said, it was not always this way. I remember when I was first breaking into the radio game back in the Pleistocene era where we had concerts that would come through here. And there were three, four agencies, you know, there are outfits that would bring these shows in. And, you know, there were comp competitors and everything like that, but but you never had any trouble getting tickets. And it was all on the up and up. They were not outrageously priced. These guys were competing against each other, and and it was a whole different era back then, but it can happen. It has happened before, and it can happen. You're absolutely right. And look at me as an example. My I came from a working class family. My dad, I was fortunate enough. Tickets weren't crazy. I went to Michael Jackson. I went to Prince, Madonna, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue as a kid, you name it, because the tickets were cheap, affordable. And that got me into music. And that's why I actually became an independent promoter and became created an empire out of it. And so many kids, you know, get locked out. They only get to go to one show, if any. You know? And you're absolutely right. This is this can thrive again. People are like, oh, it can't thrive. Yes. It can. It happened before. It's only this way because there's one mafia controlling a whole entire industry through multiple industries, every single aspect of it, from the parking to the beer to the hot dog man they own. And they extort and take money from every single person. If you if a venue I don't know if you know this enough, Mike. Somebody's state owned venues. They don't wanna pay Live Nation kickbacks for them to put shows on in there. They go to the venue and say, you need to pay us $15 ahead or no show for you. And you know what? We'll let you raise the cost of your rent, the security, and we're gonna pass it on to the artist. We'll pass it on to the independent promoter. And for us, we're gonna take all that money and put it in our pocket. NBC recently just did an investigation on this. Pulitzer Prize journalist, Gretchen Morgansson. She found hundreds of events from Live Nation through their own internal documents. There's two sets of books. The book for the artists and co promoters in a show before these illegal kickbacks was negative $1,500,000. Negative $1,500,000. For Live Nation, the other set of books, what they put in their pocket, $15,000,000 profit. Now if you're an artist and you're losing this money, what do you do? Raise ticket prices. And the venues are extorted, and these are state funded. There's this is literally misappropriation of state funds. Taxpayers are actually the fans pay for this, but taxpayers are paying for this at venues that are state owned and state funded. It's it's really disgusting. Crazy. Alright. This is Tommy Dorfman. He is fighting the battle with Rainbow Ticketmaster. Not Rainbow Ticketmaster. Oh my god. Boy, there's no. No. There's that in a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take two in three, two, one. Alright. This is Tommy Dorfman. He is fighting the battle with Live Nation and Ticketmaster over the price and accessibility and air everything else having to do with your ability and your financial wherewithal to be able to go see a show and get tickets and everything like that. Yeah. Back in the day, I did too. They at least sound friendlier. Yeah. It it was friendlier, and it was local. It was all, like, right here. It was not national. It was cool. It's a better time. It was a better time. Well, we will be back with more of Tommy here in just a second. Tommy, if you need to, go in there and get something to drink or just wanna kick back for a few seconds, you can do that. Cool. Diet Coke, I'm fueled by, so thank you. Alright. We will set you free for just a few minutes because right now, it is time for us to get into the dreaded and feared mid show read. Alright. Now I'm seeing nothing appear on the teleprompter today. Just just do Just do which one? Do here. Oh, okay. Yeah. The problem. Alright. Yes. Alright. I'm holding in my hand something is known as the full spectrum salve stick. This comes from the CBD house of healing. Now you may think, okay. Well, what are you doing with that? Well, here's what I'm doing with that. I hurt these days. I'm an old guy. When you're an old guy, you start to hurt. You don't know what's causing it. You just know that it hurts, and you want it to feel better. And you know what? This makes it feel better. This stuff works for me. And if it works for me, I bet it'll work for you. So if you're roaming through this planet on in pain, there's no reason for that, man. What you need to do is go to the CBD house of healing and talk to them. Tell them what's going on. And chances are they're gonna have something that will make you feel better. Maybe it's this. Maybe it's something else. They have all kinds of stuff along these lines in there, but they will have something for you. And like I say, I can't sit here and guarantee that it's gonna work, but this did for me. And it did if it did for me, I bet it'll do the same thing for you. The CBD House of Healing is located on Plano Road at Northwest Highway in the northeast quadrant of that burgeoning intersection. Now if you listen if you watch the podcast long enough, you probably heard us talk about them before. The owner is a registered nurse, and up there, they approach this from a highly medicinal standpoint. It's not a place where you go in to get some zigzags or something like that. No. It's it's not like that at all. It's a a legitimate, competent business, and they can help you out. They are ready to help you out. So go by there. Tell them you heard about it from us here on YDC and start your healing process at the CBD house of healing. Anything else? Mm-mm. Alright. This is Tommy Dorfman back with us. Tommy, you got us still? I am here. Thank you. I got that Coke Zero break. Good to go. Alright. He's pipe ended. That is good to go. How long do you think this this might take for this for there to be some kind of decision on this? Or or let let me put it like this. Do you ever see a day where you just say, man, I thought this as long as I can, I can't do it anymore and just walk away from it? Well, you know, I I can't walk away from it. The information I have, nobody else has, and it shows why the ticket prices are 40% higher, and it shows how this is being run. It it's a criminal enterprise, so I can't walk away. I've been fighting this for sixteen years. I won't quit. I won't stop. If it takes another fifteen, I'll keep going. I'm not stopping until their top executives at this point are thrown in prison. Do you fear for your safety? Look. I battled the mafia. Growing I'm from New Jersey. We have the five families here. I got my ass kicked by the mafia. I had guns in my mouth from the mafia. But you know what? End of the day, I didn't pay them a dollar. They started they by not paying them, they respected me. Then they actually became my club goers. They came to my clubs. Their kids came to my clubs. They spent the money at my clubs, and then they left me alone. So you know what? I battled tough organizations. I know I'm up against a 36,000,000,000 company, but end of the day, it is what it is. You know? When they would come to your clubs, would they pile up to you and be cool and everything like that and say, hey, Tommy. How's it going? And act like, there was, you know, nothing between you or anything. Yeah. Absolutely. They'd come in, be shaking my hand, and then it'd be bringing all their guests in as well too. Absolutely. Soon as they realized, hey. He's not he won't pay us. They let they let it be. They let me do business. Live Nation didn't let me do business. That must have created a little bit of a strange dynamic. Yeah. But you know what? I grew up, you know, through the streets. I grew up against the five families. So it it, you know, it worked out. You know what mean? They didn't end of the day after that over years, then they stopped. They left you alone. You know? They didn't didn't you pay them. They would then respect it. They treated you a class at least. Like, they can at least in a I I sat in diners with guns pulled out under my legs, but at least I got to sit down. Hi. My name is Tommy. Hi. I'm mister Gambino. We got a conversation. Okay? With Live Nation, the conversation was, hi, I'm Tommy. Go fuck yourself. Then at 10,000 people, it's ours or you're out. This is our stadium. You know? That's how, you know, the Live Nation, at least the mob does it with Klas. You know what I mean? Live Nation doesn't have the respect. They just shake your hand like a gentleman and do it like Klas. How long ago did you see this dynamic between Live Nation and the mob coming together? Has it always been like that, or or was there a time when you started to see a certain maybe gradual change in the way things were done? So Live Nation existed right up until 2000 and when they got me, 2011. They just merged with Ticketmaster. That's when they became the the mafia. Yeah. Because that's when they got really powerful. Look. They used the power right there saying we will allow you to get tickets to your show if you don't partner with us or take our money. Well, they had that power from Ticketmaster. So their CEO, Michael Rapino, built in this culture, and it comes from the top. It's like a mob boss. You know, if you don't cut the mob boss's head off, I'm not calling for anybody to cut Michael Rapino's head off. But I'm just saying if you don't put a mob boss in prison, you know what? Then it gets spread. It becomes the culture of the company. And then it's basically the same thing as Hitman underneath. That's what the type of people he uses, just gangsters in suits, top executives that did the exact same thing to me, so many other people, and so many fans every single day. But it's run by the top of the company, and the company's run literally like a mafia. And, you know, at least I'm from New Jersey, New York. Mike, we have five families. Okay? So at least the mafia competes with each other. They cause there's competition. There's only one crime family in the entertainment industry, and that's Live Nation with one godfather, their CEO, Michael Rapinoe. So, you were selling cable and Internet door to door for a while. What do you do today? I sell cable and Internet door to door. Oh, still? Yep. This case is funded from Internet cable door to door. I sell solar door to door. I built a company doing so, and that is what funded it funds this battle against Live Nation for sixteen years and is continuing funding it currently right now. I got good at what I do. Yeah. How big is your territory? Like, how far out do you sell? I'm in the currently, I'm just in the in the just in the Northeast right now. Would love to get down into Texas. Bring it on. Anybody wants to work for me or work with me, let me know. I'd love to open up in Texas. Maybe we can make that happen for you. Yeah. Do some reads for them. Yeah. We know we know some people. Yeah. And we'll do some reads for you. Change is needed, and people can make change. People ask me, what can they do? And you asked me before, what can I do? Well, what can people do? Well, you know what people do? You vote. Lobbyists, they pay a lot of money. But you know what? People vote. This is bipartisan right now. I called for the state AGs that supported and continued that case. I'm calling for all people to vote these people back into office if you care about this. But I'm also calling people to go call your state attorney generals now. Push them to open a criminal investigation into this. And if they don't if you really care about music or you care about getting ripped off to go to the cowboys game or whatever it is in sports, NASCAR, and you care about this. If you don't care, vote for whoever you want. I'm not telling you to vote for. But if you care about this, demand your politicians do action. Demand they investigate. And I'll tell you some hope that just happened, Mike. Mean, Portland, mean. Just two days ago, there's a group, the main music alliance, the independent promoters, the independent artists, Live Nation was trying to put a venue in there. They battled. Been like two year battle. They battled their politician, their council people, telling them they're gonna vote them out of office. I was helping working with these people, and it just got voted that Live Nation can't put that venue in there with people filling the council halls, protesting. It was a close vote because the lobbying money was big on the Live Nation side, but the fans won because the fans have the power of voting. So if you care about this issue, hit up your state attorney generals, hit up your local politicians, hit up your congressmen, hit up your senators, tag them all through the Internet, call them, don't harass them, and ask them to investigate this, investigate this company. It's you you did the job convicting them as a monopoly, but they're a criminal enterprise. Look into it. I have the books. I have the receipts. There are two sets of them. And that's what can make change. People. People can do it. The fans, artists can't do it because they won't have a career. The independent promoters, there isn't any. They're owned by Lab Nation if there is any. Very few. What can who can do it? The only one left are the fans. Politicians, there's so much lobby money there. But you know what? If you push, you vote, and your vote is way more powered for the now live lobbyist money by Lab Nation. It's happened up there, but up there in that part of the world, things are a little bit different from other parts, say, like the remote yet burgeoning outpost of Dallas. What would it take? Or what do you do you have any idea what it might take to institute such a movement like that down here? Because, you know, like I say, we operate a little differently. Well, I'm happy to come down there, speak anywhere. I'm happy to go get on a stage, speak in front of anything, speak in front of your assembly hall, congress hall, and whatever anybody asks me to do. I'm more than happy to do that and help lead that movement, but I'm just a soldier. It takes an army, and the army are the fans. The army are the fans. Yeah. As we well know. Yes. Tommy, thank you for doing this, man. It's been really terrific talking to you. It's a story that a lot of us were not terribly well done or not too keenly aware of, especially aware of the detail of it and and what goes where of it and everything like that. But you've enlightened us today. Keep on keep on find the fight. I won't quit, man. I appreciate you having me on and getting my voice out to the to the to the big state. So thank you. We'll buy you a steak if you ever make it down here again. There you go. Alright. There he is. That is Tommy Dorfman joining us today here on Little YDC. We thank you for watching all this today. Very interesting show that we did. You probably learned something that you didn't know. I know I surely did. But thanks to Tommy. Thanks to Shupi, Ashley, Beckham. Thanks to all of you guys. Now there is one thing we need you to do for us. That is get us out there. Put us on your social media. Help others learn about little YDC because we're just a little independent podcast, and we're just trying to make it through this world. So get us out there, help us out, and we'll keep on doing it. Thanks for watching! You're Dark Companion is a stolen water media presentation.