'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.