The last remaining crooner blames America for 9/11

Tony Bennett has an album coming out, its called Duets 2, only he uses roman numerals to say ’2′ because simply saying Duets 2 would be too easy. Now stupid people can think he means Duets 11. So he has a new album and to celebrate he went onto the Howard Stern’s Sirius XM radio show on Monday and said that America and its people were to blame for the 2001 September 11th terror attacks in New York. Sweet moves for an 85-year old crooner. He still knows how to seduce the ladies. The ineptitude? Using roman numerals when clear-as-day cardinal numbers would suffice and being controversial on national radio.

Appearing on Howard Sterns Internet radio station the singer was talking candidly about his time in France and Germany during the Second World War where what he saw apparently turned him into a pacifist in later life and perhaps helped put the swing in his croon. Things were going well, Bennett was being his candid yet charming self, Stern was being engaging and all were oblivious to what was about to come. And it was not the lyrics to a song from the album. Oh no.

Things taking a turn for the controversial worse could be an understatement, or not. Everyone knows that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Not that bad publicity would affect records sales for Mr Bennett: currently hovering around 55 million, give or take. The politically weighted interview by-passed the 70s, 80s and 90s and arrived in present day America. Just what could America could do about modern day terrorists Mr Bennett? His response is making MGM-casino shaped waves ripple across Twitter.

“But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right. They flew the plane in, but we caused it. Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”

For more Tony Bennett pearls of wisdom, come here.

Everyone’s 5th or 6th favourite action hero from the 1990s – the one who was in that film… you know, the one with the naked Baywatch star who pops out of a cake…… What was his name? His did the splits over a kitchen counter. No that was Jean-Claude, or was it Dolf Lundgren… Wait. Steven Seagal, that’s it; Master Chef on an action film cooking binge on a train full of ex-KGB agents with a nuclear bomb set to detonate if Mr Seagal doesn’t kill them all quicker than he can chop a carrot and say “souffle” – has been blamed for killing a dog.

Late night films, those ones that start at 2am, are always better when this man turns up

The truth is that he probably didn’t but that isn’t what Jesus Sanchez Llovera believes and he wants a written apology for his kids and $50,000 from the star and the sheriffs office he believes are responsible for the unlawful killing.

“Thats a fabrication. That is just a bunch of crap“

Oprah Winfrey may be the most powerful and richest lady to ever grace the television screen, but she has pissed off Ryan O’neil.

Ryan O’neil is an actor. He was in Barry Lyndon and Love Story and then a bunch of films we at Take The Blame haven’t seen. That’s not to say they are bad, just that we haven’t seen them. Try your own luck at Coming Soon, Hacks or So Fine.

Curse you Oprah... Curse you....

After more than 25 years of estrangement, Ryan and his daughter Tatum agreed to kiss and make up on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN TV network. Probably not the best of ideas as highly emotional family reunions after 25 years are private affairs one would have thought, not for the television. The TV is for sport.

TV being TV, it was all fabricated crap. They did kiss and make up on the TV show, but not in real life. It was faked, acted, planned. They still don’t talk and Ryan blames Oprah. Obviously forgetting that it was him who decided to go on national TV.

In the irony of ironies, Ryan O’neil had the following to say. To a goddamn television magazine. Will these people never learn?

“We only reconciled on the show, not in life We don’t speak. In fact, we’re further apart now than we were when we started the show. So thanks, Oprah, for all your help“

The universe is just one big fucking coincidence. Life is just a coincidence. The perfect levels of oxygen and hydrogen just happened to be in the same place at the same time, creating all living things on Earth, which itself came into being by chance. Coincidence has a lot to answer for. Including the release of Crystal Harris’s single on iTunes the same day she dumps Playboy icon Hugh Hefner, 5 days before they were scheduled to be married.

Age is no barrier for Hugh Heffner.

Hugh Hefner is 354 and Cystal Harris is 25, there was always something unusual about the whole thing.

The closing stages of the 1980′s were famous for the tearing down of The Berlin Wall and Milli Vanilli. That they were both created in Germany is the only similarity that they share. In the 21 years which have passed since the un-masking of the damned, many things have been written, many irrelevant top 100 television countdown  shows about the 1990′s where celebrities who have fallen out of flavour give their inane comments, have been aired; there is even a film in the works about their brazen lies (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0965381/). There has not, however, been an admittance of blame.  We are hereby taking the blame for Milli Vanilli, or rather, the fact that they existed for so long (not the end of Cold War segregation in Deutschland, in case you were wondering.)

Formed in Germany in 1988 by Frank Farian, the original lineup of Milli Vanilli featured a group of, what, at the time, were considered highly capable singers. Unfortunately, image and MTV were beginning to dictate what was  what was audibly, visually, and financially viable in music. For the original lineup of Milli Vanilli – who were deemed to have hit the ugly tree one too many times during their descent to Terra Firma – this meant replacement. This came in the form of the more visually appealing Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus. They had long hair, nice abs and couldn’t sing a note. Which was fine, at least at the beginning.

For those who don’t know the story of Milli Vanilli – undoubtedly because you are too young – basically they pretended to sing a bunch of songs, palming themselves off as, well,  singers, all the while lip-syncing to a backing track, incidentally performed by the same poor souls with radio faces who had initially made up the band. In the age of Xfactor et al. miming is not seen as such a crime, that they got away with it for so long is a crying advert for musical ineptitude and why we are here.

In the two years that they were pulling the wool over unsuspecting eyes they won a truck-load of awards. During the 1989 American Music Awards they won best new artist in both the pop/rock and the soul/rhythm and blues categories and best song for Girl You Know its True. They won best Internationalal artist at the Juno Awards a year later and went on to win a Grammy award for best new artist that same year.

The Grammy award in 1990 is of particular interest, not only because of its calibre (Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, John Williams, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Ray Charles, Leonard Bernstein and Quincy Jones have all won one), but also due to what happened a year earlier during a live performance for MTV at Lake Compounce Theme Park. As the ‘group’ ‘performed’ (and by performed, we mean lip-synced) their biggest hit, Girl You Know its True, the backing track got caught and continually skipped over the main line of the song. In a brazen attempt to conceal their embarrassment, they continued as if nothing had happened. The crowd went wild. Eventually the skipping CD got they better of them and they ran of stage in a Benny Hill fashion. Nobody battered an eye-lid. Not a word, not a comment, not a murmur, not a peep. What on Earth did they think they had been watching? A year later they won a grammy.

That so many people, including the highest echelons of the music industry, couldn’t recognise that what they were watching wasn’t real is tantamount to treason. We take the blame for Milli Vanilli and for all of the ineptitude that let them mascarade around at the same time real things of importance were happening.

Our ethos is simple, we are here to take the blame. Apparently we live in a blame culture; and in a blame culture there needs to be someone who you can turn to when there is nobody else who will shoulder your blame. Whatever the reason, whatever the occasion, we are there for you. From the simple and the transparent – be it stubbing your toe or spilling your tea; waking up late for work or missing the bus – to the arduous, perplexing, intricate and convoluted – your dog died; you hate your boss; the IOC decided to oust you from your abode and build an Olympic sized Ice-rink in your back garden and erect an athletes village in your once pristine street-market turning a once thriving local community into a dull and bland advert for a hotch-potch amalgamation of too much glass, no class and student residents. We are there. Blame us.

Politics, science, philosophy, food, revolution, environment, education, celebrity, television, crime, animals, history, love, money, relationships, family, sport, technology, travel, war, weather, health, business, birthdays, parties, celebrations, drugs, employment, nature………….and breathe…………..cybercrime, nuclear energy, credit cards, pornography, computer games, graffitti, hollywood. Kitchen sink. There is blame.

If you have anything you want us to take the blame for. Tell us. Let us know. Post a link. Send a letter. And we will publish an apology, allowing you to sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that the blame rests with us. Go on, don’t be shy.

Lets be honest. American football is an anomaly. So is Christine Aguilera. So many things are wrong with this combination of characters that apologising for all of them would be more difficult than explaining the rules of American football to an, as yet to be discovered, Amazonian tribe and then, having explained the rules to their blank, non-comprending faces, getting them to sit down on Superbowl Sunday and enjoy the spectacle.  All four, advert filled, hours of it. So that’s not why we are here today.

That over 100 million people tuned into watch The Green Bay Wolverine Dragon Cubs overrun the Pittsburgh Killer Penguins by 7 thousand points to 4 thousand five hundred and sixty eight is cause enough for concern. Didn’t it begin at 1am? Shouldn’t these people have been sleeping? And whats with tipping orange Gatorade over peoples heads? It’s not funny and seems to be the only actual point of the whole shebang they have going on over there.

If you didn’t know, part of the Superbowl megaadvertisingextravganza is the half time show, where like it or not, some band you hate plays some songs you hate even more whilst gyrating about on a specially designed stage made to look like a pair of sunglasses. Our fault. Sorry. Even worse than this is the annual singing of the national anthem before touchdown at the start of the first quarter eighth 10 minutes.

Now you would have thought that singing your own national anthem wouldn’t be too much of a challenge to a singer. Well, it would appear that the pressure of doing it in front of 7 billion screaming fans got the better of dear Miss Aguilera and she forgot the lines. She didn’t forget the lines when she sang the same national anthem one year earlier during the NBA American basketball finals where she did it twice no-less. So why this time? Well, according to the statement released by her publicist it was because she “got so lost in the moment of the song that I lost my place. I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through.” That is not an apology, it is an excuse. We at Taketheblame would like to do what couldn’t be done and apologise.

Contrary to what certain musicians, tour operators or record label execs will have you believe, the cost of concert tickets is most definitely rising, and rising at a rate that far outstrips the natural economic increases that control our economy. Paying above the market value for anything is never a nice experience; it can leave you cold, guilty and ashamed. The bands never apologise do they? You don’t hear Madonna saying sorry for the £300+ it costs to get a seat in the toilet to watch her latest tour or The Rolling Stones following suit. Gone are the days of catching a band that you haven’t even heard of for under a tenner at your local pub; they are playing at the Academy in *insert town name here* and it will cost you £20, oh and by the way, if you want a beer then that will be an extra £5.

Alan Krueger is a very intelligent man. He is Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Policy, director of the Princeton Survey Research Center and professor of economics and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at the really rather prestigious Princeton University in little ol’ USA, and what he doesn’t know about market and price structuring really isnt necessary to know. In a bid to find out if the current rises in the price of a concert ticket are legitimate and in line with inflation, a plan was hatched. A plan that only an extremely insightful, determined and intelligent academic could hatch. (http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S01/18/72I40/index.xml)

Using box office information maintained by Pollstar, an organization that provides concert tour schedules, box office results and other music industry-related data, Krueger discovered “that in the last five years concert ticket prices have grown by 61 percent, while the Consumer Price Index (the measure of the price of all consumer goods) increased by just 13 percent.” There you have it, concrete proof that you, me and we are being ripped off.

There are exceptions to this rule of course, the so-called dinosaurs of rock who could charge pretty much any price they care to think of and usually do. Led Zeppelin at the O2, Madonna on any one of her tours, The Rolling Stones on there ever lasting final tour, The Eagles, The Who, The Sex Pistols, Neil Young etc etc etc… they aren’t dead, just taking a tour. Prince once charged $3121 for tickets to his show. Woodstock cost $6 for a ticket, value for money however you look at it. Whether you view the festival of peace and love through nostalgic or cynical eyes, you cant help but think that what it stood for has slipped from the mainstream of music.

Sorry to all those people who have and continue to pay above the odds for a night out listening to music. Such is the power of music to move people that demand will never decrease but sadly Dr Krueger has more bad news for he thinks the price will continue to rise into the unforeseeable future. Sorry.

David Li, a 32 year old billionaire from Shanghai who made his fortune when he sold his Internet company last year, visited the Na-pa Valley in California to buy some wine for his Sunday dinner last week. Obviously being a billionaire, money is not an object and seeing as though he already has over 100 thousand bottles of wine in his cellar, it probably wasn’t going to be like a regular trip to Bargain Booze for a bottle of rosé. And indeed it wasn’t. His purchase pushed up the price for the average bottle of French Bordeaux, that would have Jilly Gouldings taste buds trying to vacate her throat, by around £3000. Taketheblame would like to offer their apologies to the wine drinking community at large.

On 6 bottles of 1992 Screaming Eagle, a world renowned Cabernet Sauvignon, Mr Li spent $500,000. Or nearly 100 grand a bottle. According to the gospel of sommeliers the world over, only 125 cases of the vintage wine were ever made. Which seems like quite a lot. I mean, its not that rare if over 100 cases were created. There are less Pandas and White Tigers than that. On a panda to white tiger ratio it’s almost a can of Stella. After the showdown Mr Li was heard to say,

“I love Screaming Eagle. It’s the best wine in the world.”

Should hope so for that price. Wouldn’t want him to go out and spend half a million on a wine he wasn’t that keen on. For those that will never get the opportunity to taste such a drink – and lets be honest, who would be able to taste the difference anyway if your drinking it down with a chilli clocking 3 million scovilles – then look to wine guru Robert Parker who gave the vintage 99 out of his magic 100 scale and probably didn’t have to fork out half a million to do so.

Frank Zapper certainly started something when he called his child Moon Unit. Whatever lysergic derivative flowing through his head at that time perhaps influenced his decision, what it didn’t do was cause the rush of blood to the countless others who have followed in his wake. Taketheblame would like to apologise to all the poor people out there who will never remain nameless due to the name they were given.

A Swedish couple have recently had a court ruling over turned allowing them to call their son Lego, after the famed plastic building blocks. This, as you can probably imagine is just the tip of the titanic shaped iceberg. Sticking with Sweden, for they seem as talented as most, Metallica, Ikea, Veranda and Elvis have all been put through the books in the last few years. In Swedish law it is actually forbidden to give offensive, unsuitable or in appropriate names to children. This didn’t stop a couple in 1996 naming their child Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116, apparently pronounced Albin. Idiots. Not sure what the Swedish name police were doing that day.

Sweden has a rival though in the form of China, a country that doesn’t shy away from the damn right ludicrous and strange. There is a trend arising in the East for naming children not with names but with individual letters, symbols or bizarre combinations of words.  King Osrina, Zhao-A and the @ symbol have all been used recently. China does have some defence for its lunacy as only 129 names account for 87% of all surnames. In a country of over a billion, they are some figures to entice some name creativity.

The name game is every where and Taketheblame is taking responsibility for it. It needs to stop. But it wont because in Venezuela they have just lifted restrictions on name calling in fear of impeding human rights so you can go to Venezuela and call your child dodexihedroniclite if you are so inclined. Which brings us back around to rock stars, the biggest culprits of all.

So we take the blame and say sorry to Trixibell, Ugine, Lampstand, Eja, Skylor, Pickle, Blanket, Button, Apple, Grapefruit and myriad of others to hard to mention. May the bullies not get you and your parents millions protect you. Whatever happened to Jane and John and Mary?

In no particular order, the top 5 most searched things on MSN today are…. drum roll please…. Indiana Jones, Jessica Alba, Denise Van Outen, Paris Hilton and Britain’s Got Talent… If Britain does indeed have talent, Indiana Jones aside, then where are they? And what are they going to learn by reading about Jessica Alba. No offence to Jessica Alba, I am sure she is a very nice person, but why do 50 billion people need to read about her? Paris Hilton ditto. Is this all the Internet is good for these days? Just a big shop and somewhere you can read about Indiana and the latest gossip on Jessica Alba. And Denise Van Outen?

There are 76 billion billion pages on the information super highway, each one a potential treasure trove of knowledge. Who is to blame for these five being the most thought after?