This week's winner lands on "Free Parking" space. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

I think the prizes on Stump the Sage have become a leading economic indicator these days, and the economy is indeed in deep trouble because for the second time in three weeks, the winning prize was a year of free valet parking at The Cherry Creek Mall! If you think about it, the only real dollar value in this one comes out of the pockets of the guys who park the cars because they aren't gonna get a tip from the schmuck who drives up every week and tells them, "Hey! I'm the dude who won the parking pass on KBCO!" In a way, it's the gift that keeps on taking.

OK... let's check out this week's mental dents and dings:

Question #1: "On Ry Cooder's 'Bop Til You Drop' album, what world class rock artist sang backup on the song, 'Run Grandma Run"? Answer: Chaka Kahn. No stump here so park it yourself, Bud! Grade: C-

Question #2: "What Robert Johnson song opens the CSN song, "49 Bye Byes"? Here's proof that The Sage doesn't have a totally photographic memory like I do because the little acapella riff "Come in My Kitchen" is burned into my high-IQ monkey brain with searing clarity. Grade: B

Question #3: "Who did the original version of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother"? Answer: The Hollies. The Sage knew this one and the guy asking the question didn't... he thought the answer was The Byrds! See tip below. Grade: F

Question: #4: Who was the world class rock artist whom Matt Groening referred to as 'My Elvis'"? Answer: Frank Zappa. While I like this question a lot because Frank and Matt are two of my all-time heroes, this question was ruled out for being too subjective. Grade: D+

Question #5: Who was the bass player in Otis Knight and the Day's band in that great scene in the movie 'Animal House'"? Answer: Robert Cray. Grade: D- EQTTTWA

Question #6: "Eric Clapton had only one number one hit. What song was it?" The Sage thought it was "Tears in Heaven" but the answer was "I Shot the Sheriff". A stump for Broncos tickets. Grade: C

Question #7: "Name the world class rock artist who had five number one hits with five different bands." Answer: Paul Carrack of Squeeze, Ace, etc. A stump and a decent question, but the dude couldn't name all five bands. So... read the tip below! Grade: B

This week's tip: There is this thing on your computer called "Google". It's like a magical genie that can answer ninety-nine out of one hundred rock trivia questions. Use it before you ask your questions, people!

This week's story: One of the most annoying questions called in to Stump The Sage ever was this: "What world class rock artist shares the same name as a character played by Humphrey Bogart?" Answer: Dave Matthews. I can't believe this one was accepted! You gotta ask yourself, what is the overall significance of this question?!!! I mean, it's not like Dave M. was born with a different name and he saw a Humphrey Bogart movie when he was forming the band and he changed his name. Those kinds of questions are the turf of Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Marshall Tucker Band, of course.

NEWS FLASH! I AM LEAVING TOWN TOMORROW TO SPEND THE HOLIDAYS WITH MY RELATIVES IN THE CONGO. I'LL BE GONE FOR THE FOR THE REST OF THE MONTH... NO MORE POSTINGS UNTIL I GET BACK IN 2009. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

This week's video: Nothing gets me more into the holiday spirit than Spinal Tap doing "Christmas with the Devil"...

'BCO Morning show endorsed and approved...

Kudo's to Bret Saunders for endorsing this blog on air this morning around 8:30! I've been sending him mental telepathic monkey voice messages all morning and they sound an awful lot like Kathy Bates in the movie "Misery", "I'm your number one fan!" But Bret's "thumbs up" won't alter my journalistic integrity in here one bit. Don't ever forget: first and foremost, I'm a caustic, opinionated monkey.

So with a flock of Black Crows tickets in his cold, icy hands, The Sage opened the floodgates for lame questions by offering a pair of tickets to anyone who called in to ask a question. Therefore we have quantity, not quality this week. And what happened to the sound effects? With no lighting bolts or funny voice overs, it was like going to church with the pipe organ busted and none of the candles lit. What's up with that?!!! OK, now it's time to do the dirty work. Read 'em and weep is my adjustable slogan:

Question #1: "Who lost his finger when he was a little kid and went on to play guitar for over thirty years?" Another classic EQTTTWA (see my first post two weeks ago). Answer: Jerry Garcia, of course. D-

Question #2: "In 1984, the Black Crows formed under what name?" Answer: Mr. Crow's Garden. A stump! I actually kind of like this answer because it's so goofy. Now I want a Mr. Crow's Garden T-shirt. Grade: C+

Question #3: "What was Betty Rubble's maiden name?" Answer: McBricket. Groan... this one didn't fit the rules but who cares when you are playing tennis with the net down? Grade: F

Question #4: "Who sang the original 'Hard to Handle'?" Answer: Otis Redding. No stump here... it's generally a bad idea to try questions in this genre. Grade: C-

Question #5: "What three colors are mentioned in John Meyer's, 'Neon"? Answer: Red, White and Blue A multiple answer question, but a stump nonetheless. What a lame question! Grade: D+

Question #6: A young kid calls in and asks, "Who wrote the song "Who Do You Love"? Answer: Bo Diddley Grade: B (higher than it would have been for an adult... you gotta love a kid with a passion for rock)

Question #7: "What world class rock artist was asked to score the film "The Princess Bride?" answer: Mark Knoffler. This EQTTTWA gets asked about every six months. Grade: D-

Question#8: What world class artist produced the RHCP album, "Freaky Styley?" Answer: George Clinton. No stump, but lotsa funk! Grade: B-

Question #9: "What is your favorite Janis Joplin song?" Oh man! This pretty much rubber stamps the mood of the morning.
Grade: F

This week's tip: Read the rules! It's ridiculously simple advice, but you can save yourself a lot of grief if you do your homework and read The Sage's Rules.

This week's story: After devouring all 480 pages of Barry Miles' biography of Frank Zappa, I had found an amazing "A+" piece of trivia: Gail Zappa and Jim Morrison were kindergarten classmates together in England, where little Gail hit little Jim on the head with a hammer! So geeked about this question was I that I didn't realize that it broke the "No questions about family members of the band" rule. I tried arguing my "but this trivia is so cool it doesn't need to follow the rules" defense, but that didn't fly in the kangaroo court of The Sage. I realize now that would have gone better if I had tried a different chunk of info from the same book. Get this: Tina Turner and The Ikettes did the mind-blowing vocals in the album "Overnight Sensation", but they weren't mentioned in the liner notes! That's right, The Queen of Rock and Roll and her crew sang on the songs "Dinah-Moe-Hum", "Dirty Love" and "Cosmic Debris".

This week's video: And speaking of mind-blowing vocals, check out John and Yoko performing with FZ in 1971. Yoko sounds like a drowning cat.

Two Turbans are Better than One: Scott Arbough Joins The Sage to Pitch The 20th Annual Studio C CD

Callers had to put their brains in a different space this morning as KBCO program director Scott Arbough joined The Sage in their annual ritual of hyping the sale of this year's Studio C CD. A whopping nine calls were taken by "The Sage of Studio C" today. Since it's a lot of effort for my little monkey fingers to type so much, I'll just cherry pick the most interesting. In honor of Studio C, everyone gets a C today.

Question #1: "What Studio C artists let Keefer play tambourine with them?" Answer: The Gin Blossoms. A Stump! And this woman won possibly the weirdest prize ever... A year's parking pass to the valet parking at the Cherry Creek Mall! WOO-HOO! Don't forget to tip the valet, Baby!! Grade: C+

Question #2: "What Studio C band made a pun using another Studio C artist?" Answer: BNL talk about Art Garfunkel in "If I had a Million Dollars". Sadly, the caller wasn't assertive enough to argue his point and Bret and Scott didn't see the pun here, so it was ruled out. But later the hosts realized the errror of their ruling and gave the guy a win. Grade: C-

Question #3: "Which ground breaking artist didn't appear until the third Studio C disc?" Answer: Mellissa Etheridge. Scott pointed out that it was actually the fourth Studio C CD, so she lost out. Learn from this, Grasshoppers. Grade: C-

Question #4: "Which artist brought in a full-sized harp with him?" Answer: Bryan Ferry. No stump, but anything with Bryan Ferry deserves a mention. Grade: C

Question #5: "Which Studio C artist admitted that he was on heroin when he wrote his latest album?" Answer: Ryan Adams. STUMP! And nice mention of Sting's secret heroin addiction by Bret. I'm so sick of the mainstream media kicking this story under the rug. He gets a pass and Amy Winehouse always gets slammed... WHY?!!!

This week' tip: Make your question interesting! Most people who call The Sage don't realize it, but he actually wants to lose some of the questions. The point of the show is to give away stuff. So if he likes your question, he is more inclined to throw in the towel on an interesting piece of trivia.

This week's story: My psychic senses tell me that just about everyone who read last week's post was thinking, "Just what kind of question would get an A from this goddamn monkey?" I'll tell you, you don't have to get all huffy about it. I have a photographic memory so every single Sage question is burned into my brain with razor sharp accuracy. And the only one that gets an A+ is, "Who was The Beatles' movie 'Help' dedicated to?" This question totally rocks because it's simple, wonderfully obscure and yet accessible to everyone. The Sage generally triumphs on Beatles trivia, but he didn't know this one. Answer: the movie was dedicated to Elias Howe, the inventor of the sewing machine. But the funniest past of the story is that the caller who asked it said that the movie was dedicated to Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. So after a fact check, the prize was taken away. That's about as entertaining as rock trivia contests can be, in my book.

This week's video: Imagine if you could get Merv Griffin, Nina Hagen, and Don Rickles all in a room together to talk about flying saucers and Nazi Germany. You say you can't imagine that? Then you should watch this video....

The Folly of the EQTTTWA

Welcome to the inaugural post of "How to Stump the Sage at KBCO". The format for this blog is simple. First, I scrutinize the questions called in each week. My grading system is tough, totally subjective and I rarely give anyone an A so GET OVER IT if you think you deserved a better grade. Next I offer a tip on how not to blow it with your questions for The Sage of World Class Rock. As this blog progresses, it will become a textbook on all things Sage, and my intention is help raise the bar for this weekly contest of wits. Next in my blog, I tell a story that will help you with your quest to defeat The Sage. Finally, I end the post with a weird rock video.

Our first crop of questions is a bit lackluster. The prizes this week were Snow Patrol and Oasis tickets, so it's possible that this diminished the overall quality of the questions. The theory that the quality of the prize is proportional to the quality of the questions would be a good topic for discussion in a future post, wouldn't it? But for now, let's just assess the damage...

This week's questions:

Question #1: A nervous woman asks, "You know the band Primus? What TV show did they do the theme song to?" Here we have a classic EQTTTWA, or "Easy Question That They Thought Was Awesome". Fuck... we all watch South Park and most of us have noticed that little detail in the credits, haven't we? Grade: D-

Bonus tip: Don't ask a simple question before your real question. If he is in a pissy mood, The Sage could lightning bolt you for starting your call with "Hey Sage, how are you this morning?"

Question #2: "Simon and Garfunkel allowed the lyrics to 'Mrs. Robinson' to be changed in what Albert Brooks movie?" Answer: "Mother". This one scored a stump but it was a little boring for my tastes. So is Snow Patrol, by the way. Grade: C+

Question #3: What band did the Allman Brothers jam with and record a live album with in 1970? Answer: Derek and the Dominoes. Another stump! I kind of like this one as it is an essential piece of rock knowledge. I wouldn't have asked it because it seems like a DJ would have known it. But you can't argue with success and it shows a chink in The Sage's armor. Grade: B

Question #4: "How did The Doors get their name?" OUCH! My brain hurts. Quite possibly one of the ultimate EQTTTWAs here. Grade: F

Question #5: "Susan Tedeschi used what world class guitarist on her cover of an old Led Zepplin tune?" Stump! And game over. This one just wasn't very interesting, but the fact that Kenny Wayne Shepard played it instead of Derek Trucks (her hubby) was a good trick to nab the prize. Grade: C+

This week's tip:

Don't ask an EQTTTWA! Two out of five of the questions above show us that it's a good idea to test your question out on a rock trivia junkie before you pick up the phone. It may be amazing to YOU that The Grateful Dead called themselves The Warlocks back in the mid-60s, but I assure you this little bit of info isn't going to win you shit.

This week's story:

The first time I stumped The Sage was in 2003, and my question was, "Name the Utopia album that was so bad, the record company refused to release it" This led to some good-natured Utopia bashing between myself and The Sage culminating in The Sage throwing in the towel. The answer: "The Disco Jets". If you ever get a chance to hear this album, it's wonderfully bad. They do an instrumental version of the Star Trek theme song, along with a really lame disco song called "Cosmic Convoy". Picture CB radio chatter in outer space set to a thumpin' disco beat. I won a pair of tickets to an Eagles concert at the Pepsi Center and a box set of Eagles tunes. Dr. Lolo and I had a lovely evening that night and our seats were excellent.

This week's video:

Last night, Monique the Monkey Girl and I watched "Not Quite Hollywood", a documentary about Australian B Movies in the 60s and 70s. This film was featured at this year's Denver Film Festival and we managed to procure an advance copy DVD from a high-placed friend of ours in the media. This flick is amazing! There are so many cheesy monsters and car crashes, you feel as if you have died and gone to B movie heaven. Quentin Tarantino is featured throughout the film and he talks about how these movies influenced his work. His comments are hilarious! One of the movies that he raves about is "Stunt Rock", a low-budget gem that merges three discordant themes: rock music, stunt men, and magic tricks. Monique cleverly remarked: "It's like that Simpsons episode where Bart sees the fireworks, puppy dogs and candy store." Check it out...