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.

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 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.

Bright light city gonna set my soul, gonna set my soul on fire. I got a whole lotta money thats ready to burn so get those stakes up higher…..

So how high do you want them to be raised? The stakes I mean. How much do you have to loose? Las Vegas is a hot bet of mentalism and surrealism. The home to crazy bets and even crazier people. It doesn’t sleep and there is no time for there are no clocks. Time is an idea here. They know it exists but bear it no mind. A bit like Switzerland. As the hours wear on, the stakes get higher and losses get chased as small fortunes are won and giant fortunes lost. How high again?

At the Bellagio Casino on the main strip, tucked away at the back of the auditorium, is a small games room known as ‘Bobbys Room’, and it is here where you will find the really high stakes you are after. In the early part of the century a team of professional poker players, lead by Doyle Brunson, took on billionaire Andy Beal in what was to become the biggest card game on the planet. Blinds were set, and increased, until at one point in proceedings they were resting lazily at $100,000 and $200,000. That’s a car and a house every time you get dealt some cards. The players had to put 200k just to play their cards. Crisis? What crisis?

But all is not flowers and roses. Head for Vegas while you can, because it wont be here forever. Las Vegas is sinking, and not into the Nevada desert that surrounds it. Visitor numbers are down and gambling revenue is plummeting, the recession is hitting the ravaged, beating heart of America. The money is drying up and there is no-one to blame. In the first quarter of this year gambling revenue was down 4%, the biggest drop since 1970 and serious cause for concern for a city whose life blood is the constant ringing of the slot machine bells.

After the terror attacks on The World Trade centre when America seemed to hoard its money as if the sky was falling down, Las Vegas carried on regardless, a rolling freight-train, shackled by nothing. Something different is happening now though. The once impervious city is taking body blows as the global economic heat finally takes hold and the desert barometer is showing no signs of letting up. The stock price of the MGM Mirage, owner of 9 hotels and casino resorts on the famous strip, including the aforementioned Bellagio, have tumbled from over $100 before Christmas to under half of that now.

The same company has terminated the contracts of over 400 employees to save revenue. New hotels and Casinos are being half built and left to the birds as investors pull out and building firms go bust. A $6 billion replica of the New York Plaza has been shelved and the $3 billion Cosmopolitan resort is half built after the developers defaulted on a $760 million loan from Deutsche Bank.

But of course this is of no use to you. The part time American gambler, the dreamer and the steamer, the loser. Big or small, the amount is irrelevant, there is always only ever one winner and we all know who that is. But the casinos never apologise do they? They never take the blame for the bad luck, for the our draw, for the fish that got lucky. For the luck of the draw, the bad cards on the flop or the momentary lack of breath as the balls bounces from red, slowly slowly slowly into black. 22 is nearly 21. Oh so near. Just 1. For all the bad beats on he Vegas strip, Taketheblame holds its hands up and says sorry. The cards were dealt and we are to blame.

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.

“Have you seen…’insert any film title here’?”

“Do you mean the original or the remake?”

Everybody has had this conversation and sadly in the years to come you are going to have it every-time you talk to anybody about your favourite film, or indeed, any film. Such is the appetite of film producers to rape the archives and simply remake a film that has already been created, written and acted out before, that one day every film conceived will have its own doppelganger. Taketheblame would like to apologise for this most uncinematic of developments.

If the first time is always the most memorable, then why repeat the exercise in a futile attempt to recapture the essence of the original experience? The reasons why the cinemas are flooded with recycled films are obvious, and they are creative, that is why all remakes are so much better than their predecessors… hold on, no they aren’t, must be money. There is a serious advantage to the tried and tested. If a film, such as Robocop, was hugely successful 20 years ago then there is a high chance that the first weekend of general release will see the film recoup its cost. That it is a shit is inconsequential.

The Ring, a Japanese film of immense imagination and genuine fear was remade into an American fiasco with none of the soul, flair or originality of the original. The same was true of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film so powerful in its brutality that is should not have been touched. Continuing on the horror theme, for they seem to be butchered as much as any other genre, The Amityville Horror was robbed of its demonic core in the 2005 remake and Assault on Precinct 13 was a disaster in itself. That Hitchcock’s ornithological masterpiece The Birds is set for a remake is treason, the outcome potentially as scary as the 2005 remake of Black Christmas.

The Fog, The Fly, The Great Gatsby, The Hitcher, The Hills Have Eyes and The Importance of Being Earnest. The Italian Job, Ladykillers, The Music Man, The Mummy and Friday 13th. They have all had their power, influence and enjoyment taken from them in the pursuit of box office figures, and we are sorry.

A not so interesting fact is that the Bee Gees have sold over 220 million records. Probably down right scary rather than interesting you would have to admit. That’s a lot of sales and equates to 1 in every 3 people you meet owning at least one album. Maybe Living Eyes from 1981 or the follow up to Saturday Night Fever. Not bad for a band from the Isle of Man. But a sorry state of affairs as far as the British public go. The once heralded greatest musical nation on earth has some explaining to do. Some blame needs to be accredited. Have you ever met anyone that admits to liking them? No, nor have we. All your friends who only like bands you have never heard of, in all likely hood listen to the Bee Gees behind closed doors. And that is not all.

The top 100 biggest selling artists of all time reads like a who’s who of the worst chord sequences imaginable. Garth Brooks, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, ABBA, Julio Iglesias, Whitney Houston, The Back Street Boys for Gods sake!!! Wont it stop? All of these artists and more have sold well over 100 million albums and whats worse is they are likely to be joined by the like of Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, Boyzone and who knows who else. As more and more radio stations pollute our Internet and Myspace churns out mediocrity after mediocrity, the trend is set to continue. And yet everywhere you go, people will never admit to liking these people, they will like The White Stripes and some fresh punk band from Tokyo, Some unknown DJ who scratches the theme from Bergerac over some Italian rap. No they don’t, they like Phil Collins!!!!

Taketheblame would like to take full responsibility for the sordid purchase of the worst records released.