17,500 -- The number of tickets available for Tuesday morning's memorial service for the late entertainer Michael Jackson.
500 million -- The number of hits in the first hour on the Staples Center website where you can register for the lottery to win tickets to the 10 a.m. service.
Billions of dollars -- What the Jackson family, Sony and Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz' AEG company that owns Staples and was arranging the Michael Jackson tour stand to make in exploiting his death, his music, his celebrity.
Millions of dollars -- What LA taxpayers will spend for police and other services Tuesday at AEG's Staples Center and LA Live -- both heavily-subsidized to begin with -- for the Michael Jackson service.
It doesn't make any sense at all, does it?
Why should the long-suffering taxpayers of LA -- who have given hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to Anschutz and massive tax breaks to Sony and other entertainment companies that continue to support runaway production -- pay for the exploitation of Michael Jackson's death?
The answer is we shouldn't.
Huge crowds, their emotions at a fever pitch fed by the media frenzy, will show up for this event which is being used by all those who stand to profit handsomely from the death of this tragic figure.
Cops on overtime will be needed to avoid a riot. There will be tons of trash. It will go on for hours and hours and tie up traffic throughout the downtown area.
I guess it really doesn't matter. The city is going broke, its leaders lack the will to do anything about it, so why not live it up because there's no tomorrow.
Ron Kaye