Sticking It To The Man of the Day: In a largely symbolic — but nonetheless commendable — “f*ck you” to the likes of ticket vendors who charge exorbitant service fees, one jam band has scalped tickets to its own show.

Here’s how it went down, according to the New York Times:

One Friday afternoon recently, about 50 fans and friends of the band String Cheese Incident took $20,000 in cash to the Greek Theater in Los Angeles to take a small stand against the system — in this case, Ticketmaster.

With money advanced by the band, each person had enough to buy eight tickets at $49.95 apiece for the group’s show in July. Once all tickets were in hand, almost 400 of them, they were carried back to String Cheese headquarters in Colorado and put on sale again through the group’s website — for $49.95.

“We’re scalping our own tickets at no service charge,” explained Mike Luba, one of the group’s managers. “It’s ridiculous.”

SCI still charged $12 for postage to mail the tickets, so fans really only saved about $5, but still — movement’s gotta start somewhere.

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Infographic of the Day: Presenting the epic evolution of Liz Lemon’s hair, just in time for tonight’s season finale of 30 Rock. Blurgh!

(Click here for full infographic.)

[flavorwire]

Say What Now of the Day: A Republican Super PAC backed by Cubs co-owner and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts was secretly collaborating with a top political branding group to smear President Obama and destroy his chance at re-election come September — but their 48-page playbook, called “Next,” was leaked to the New York Times, which published the attack plan today.

The $10 million strategy character assassination will highlight Obama’s association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who they say preached a “black liberation theology.” According to the Times:

The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”

Obama’s camp has responded accordingly:

The blueprint for a hate-filled, divisive campaign of character assassination speaks for itself. It also reflects how far the party has drifted in four short years since John McCain rejected these very tactics. Once again, Gov. Romney has fallen short of the standard that John McCain set, reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.

Romney, predictably, denounced the effort:

I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described. I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity — particularly for those in the middle class of America. And I think what we’ve seen so far from the Obama campaign is a campaign of character assassination. I hope that isn’t the course of this campaign. So in regards to that PAC, I repudiate what they’re thinking about.

Fun fact: The group hopes to snag Jon Voight for the voiceover.

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RIP: Donna Summer, at 63: Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco, died this morning after a battle with cancer. She was 63.

Summer was a 5-time Grammy winner who shot to superstardom in the ’70s with iconic hits like “Last Dance,” “Hot Stuff,” and “Bad Girls.” Her reign continued into the ’80s, with “She Works Hard for the Money” and “This Time I Know It’s for Real.”

From TMZ:

We spoke to someone who was with Summer a couple of weeks ago … who says she didn’t seem too bad. In fact, we’re told she was focused on trying to finish up an album she had been working on.

Summer is survived by her husband, Bruce Sudano, their two children — Brooklyn and Amanda — and her daughter, Mimi, from a pervious marriage.

[tmz]

Yearbook Quote of the Day: Eight high school seniors with the last name Nguyen joined forces to bring us the year’s best yearbook quote:

We know what you’re thinking, and no, we’re not related!

(Embiggen.)

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