Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Best of Not My Job February 2022

Episode Date: February 26, 2022

This week we highlight some of our favorite past segments with RZA, Yamiche Alcindor, and more. Plus we remember our friend and panelist PJ O'Rourke who died last week.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. It's definitely good to have more taste, but nobody wants less billing. I'm Bill Curtis, and here's your host who celebrates every President's Day by dressing up as James K. Polk. It's Peter Segal. Thank you, Bill. President's Day is my favorite holiday of the year. To commemorate 45 people unlucky enough to get a terrible job, the rest of us get to take the whole day off of work.

William Henry Harrison was the smartest president of all. Get elected, have a party, die before anything bad can happen. So while we take a moment to reflect on their achievements, we're going to look back at some of our own successes. That is, some of the best stuff we have done in the last few months. For example, in November, we were lucky enough to talk to the actor Ed Begley Jr., whose career spans five decades. In fact, he's done so much. Peter started by asking him which role he's most recognized for. Probably St. Ellsworth because it lasted the longest. It was 140 some odd shows, I believe. It was definitely six years and I was in all but one episode. So it was a good run. And

then other people like Pineapple Express, people like She-Devil, people love Young Sheldon right now. It's a very popular show. And Mr. Mayor with Ted Danson. And I was on Better Call Saul for several seasons. That's another wonderful show. I've been very lucky to still be working after 54 years. I don't care if you're selling used cars or in the storm door business. You work over five decades. You're pretty damn lucky. I would agree. Ed, can I ask one question? Alonzo, anything you want to know, I'll tell you. Well, no, we were talking about this before. You have been in every movie ever made, right? Yeah. But the question is, do you remember any movie or show that you turned down?

Have you ever said like, no, I'm not going to do that one? And having done so many, do you remember that? I didn't turn one down, but I fell asleep at the switch a few times with people. And someone, a very big director, gave me a copy of a book, a very famous book, and said, I'm going to make this in the movie. Would you read it? Let me know if you think you're willing to play this part, that he named the part. It was a very big book. It was a very big movie. I never got around to reading it. I was busy tending my corn and my tomatoes or something. I got busy with something in the garden and it became a very successful movie. So I've dropped

the ball on more than one occasion. Which you have to tell us what it is, Ed. Terms of Endearment. Oh, yes. Now, let's be clear. I never, I probably wouldn't, if I'd gone on an audition, if Jeff Daniels came in before after me. No matter when he came in, I wouldn't have gotten the part. Jeff Daniels was better than I could have ever done. But I was offered that maybe I could have played another part other than that. But I, you know, I wouldn't kick yourself too much about it because Shirley MacLaine was the best choice for the mother. Exactly. And I don't see how you would have gotten that.

Okay, I have to tell you one great thing about Ed Begley. When I met Ed, we were at an event for Heal the Bay, which is an environmental organization. So we're on to, and we're told that, and for those who don't know the Los Angeles area, you have to, the valley is on the other side of some mountains or some hills, right? Hills, the Hollywood hills. And so they said, well, Ed Begley's going to be here, but he's a little delayed because he's riding his bicycle. It just shamed everyone at the event. It just shamed everyone at the event. I got to ask you about environmental activism, which in many ways, when people say Ed Begley Jr., I'm like, oh yeah, the guy who like with the electric cars and who bicycles everywhere.

How do you deal with showing up everywhere covered in sweat? Back when I was riding my bike a lot before going to events like the Heal the Bay event that Paula alluded to, I would just come with what they call a pannier. Then you take it out. It's like a garment bag. And then you carry it into a restroom at the Peterson Museum, if that's where you are. And you do an Irish shower.

You get some paper towels. Or no, I would bring a washcloth with me. And I'd kind of get in the sink. I'd clean up a bit, put on a fresh undershirt, fresh top shirt, pants, belt, shoes, and go into the event. I did that at the Oscars more'd clean up a bit, put on a fresh undershirt, fresh top shirt, pants, belt, shoes, and go into the event. I did that at the Oscars more than once. A lot of people didn't know I'd come on a bike. I was fresh as a daisy, or so they tell me. Did you ever consider just like peddling up on the red carpet? It's like, so what are you wearing? Oh, Schwinn, you say,

as you then go in. I would pedal up to the red carpet and then the valets would take the bike the same way they would take a car. They handed me a little ticket and took my bike. Pretty funny. Can you tell us like the most extreme thing you've ever done for environmental purposes? What about the glove compartment? Oh, that's true. That was fairly extreme. You remember that?

Unbelievable. That's true. That was fairly extreme. You remember that? Unbelievable. I went to an L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting about Lopez Canyon, a landfill in the San Fernando Valley where I live. And so I was there testifying on behalf of the neighbors and the homeowners. And I said, look, we don't need another landfill. It's possible to make a lot less trash. Take my trash, for instance. One week's worth of trash would probably fit in my glove compartment, I said. And later that day, I believe, there's a knock on the door. Yes, LA Times.

I said, I take the paper already. No, no, I'm not trying to sell you the paper. I'm a reporter with the LA Times. And I'm here to see if one week's worth of your trash will, in fact, fit in your glove compartment. I went, OK, have you never done it? I said, no, I just said that at the meeting. I think it's about a glove compartment's worth. And so I said, let, have you never done it? She said, no, I just said that at the meeting. I think it's about a glove compartment's worth. And so I said, let's try it.

I'll go for it. Whatever it is, it's going to be what it is. So write the story, whatever it is. Maybe it's two glove compartments. She said, when is trash day here? I went, it's tomorrow, damn it. You know, so you got a whole, it is a week's worth. Went to each room and gathered everything up, put it in the glove box.

And then I'm there with my biking legs cramming and closed with my feet. And it somehow fit. A week's worth of my trash did, in fact, fit into the glove compartment. It was a very funny piece in the Times. It went, actor crams for test. Oh, that's great. Well, Ed Begley Jr., it is a delight to talk to you. And we have, in fact, invited you here to play a game we're calling...

Ed Begley Jr. Meet Bee Movie Sr. You've been in so many movies, we had to dig pretty deep to find one you weren't in. And we finally did. The Bee Movie, starring Jerry Seinfeld as, well, a bee. So we're going to ask you about it, answer two out of three questions correctly. You'll want to prize one of our listeners the voice of their choice on their voicemail. Bill, who is Ed Begley Jr. playing for? Abe Hansen of St. Paul, Minnesota.

All right. You ready to do this? I'm ready. Here we go. The Bee Movie, which was, remember, a movie for kids, is full of unpredictable moments like which of these? A, a hive where the Queen bee is actually a drag queen bee. B, a joke that implies that the human woman played by Renee Zellweger had dated multiple different insects. Or C, a scene where the bee has to land a plane after the pilot and co-pilot fall unconscious.

I think it's Renee Zellweger answer. You're right, because all three of them were true. That movie is quite a journey. All right, next question. The movie ended up being a bit of a flop, but it remained very popular with some fans. How did one person express their personal love for the B movie? A, a group of students in California wrote, choreographed, and performed a two and a half hour musical based on the movie. B, somebody printed out the entire script and hung it on their bedroom wall. Or C, according to one report from Netflix, over the course of 2017,

one viewer watched Bee Movie 357 times. Somehow I'm buying the 357 times. I think somebody might've actually done that. Somebody did do that and somebody else printed and put it on their wall and somebody else made a musical out of it because once again, all three of them were true. I'm seeing a trend here. Last question. The B movie was not the blockbuster people hoped, but it did do well enough that a company made one of those mockbuster ripoffs called Plan B designed to feed off the real movie's popularity. Which of these was a real

review of Plan B posted on imdb.com? A, 10 out of 10. Always loved the B movie, but it wasn't erotic enough for me. This fulfilled my fantasy. B, the acting is so bad and the animation is so bad and everything is so bad and oh my God. Or C, monstrosity, wrong, vile, unacceptable, icky, unsatisfactory, criminal, God awful, crummy, not good. It could be all three, but it's definitely the last one. So I'm going to go for that again. It was in fact all three. Oh boy. Why can't I see a trend? Why is it so bad in the stock market? Bill, how did Ed Begley Jr. do in our quiz?

Ed is and always will be the hero of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. He got them all. Congratulations, Ed. Yay. Thank you. Ed Begley Jr. is basically a superstar actor, comedian, environmentalist. You can see him Thursdays these days on Young Sheldon on CBS. Ed Begley Jr., what an absolute delight to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us. We are humbled and grateful. Thank you so much. Anytime. Thank you all. This week, we launched a new show in the Wait, Wait podcast feed called Everyone and Their Mom. It's hosted by our social media master, Emma Choi. And every Wednesday, she'll talk with a friend about a story she can't stop thinking about. You'll hear our panelists,

some new comedians as well. Emma promised me if I introduced her nicely like this, she would someday teach me how TikTok works. So enjoy this preview of Everyone and Their Mom. Peter, we're trying something new in the podcast feed. Okay, what is it? Adam, we're trying something new in the podcast feed. Okay, what is it? Adam, we're trying something new in the podcast feed. So I heard. I mean, we're trying something new on Wednesdays. I'm always happy for a new Wednesday thing.

I'm Emma Choi, and there's a lot of stuff that's about to happen in your ears, so hold on to your freaking socks. Your friends from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me are making a brand new show, and it's coming out every Wednesday with me, Emma Choi. I'm your worst nightmare. It's called Everyone and Their Mom. It's kind of about the news, but it's more of just an excuse to talk to a bunch of people that are really super cool. Wait wait, panelists.

Thank you so much for having me. New comedians you're gonna have crushes on. Ow! I just stubbed my toe and also hang out with my family did you get that no i mean mimic your joe joe sorry oh my god sometimes there's music hard to cheat and you're out of luck i've got the keys to your pickup truck but also we're talking about smart stuff yeah the guys i lived lived with in Siberia told me if I ever got lost, follow a river down. That river will get to a bigger river, which will get to a bigger river, and eventually you'll hit a village. To listen to everyone and their mom, follow the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me podcast from NPR, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm very excited. I'm always excited for new things. Oh my god, what is Peter doing here? You can find Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and everyone and their mom in the same feed. Two for one deal. Okay, can you please listen? That's all I'm asking for. Please. Too desperate?

Coming up, veteran news anchor Yamiche Alcindor talks about the perils of covering dead whales, and our panelists lie to you about the importance of math in an educational bluff to listener game. We'll be back in a minute with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Don't tell me the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host, who doesn't really want to be president, but would like Hail to the Chief played whenever he walks into a room, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill.

This week, we are avoiding the risk of trying something new that might end up bad. And instead of going with a sure thing, something good we did a while ago. You can't fix it in post if it hasn't happened yet. Here's a bluff game from last September in front of a live audience in Chicago with panelists Maeve Higgins, Luke Burbank, and Cristela Alonso. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, Peter. This is Spencer, and I'm calling from the city of St. Louis, Missouri. How are things in St. Louis? A wonderful place. Oh, yeah. You know, the other day it was 25 degrees, and tomorrow it's going to be 70. You know the Midwest trauma. It's like living

in many places in one place. It's fabulous. Yeah. What do you do there in St. Louis? Yeah, so I'm an academic advisor for the business school at Washington University. Are the business students all rapacious monsters to be, or are they nice? Oh, I want to keep my job, Peter.

All right, very good. Spencer, welcome to the show. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what is Spencer's topic? Add it up. Math is important for many reasons, and not just for blowing the cover of British spies. He said maths. Get him.

Our panelists are going to tell you a story from the news about the importance of knowing your arithmetic. Pick the one telling the truth and you'll win our prize, the weight weighter of your choice on your voicemail. Are you ready to play? I am so ready. Let's do it. First, let's hear from Maeve Higgins. The market is abuzz with a new app called KidCount, a math app for adults who need help keeping count of their kids and the numbers associated with them. Parents who can't do math struggle with many aspects of parenting. Try picking up your kids from school without quite knowing how many there are supposed to be. KidCount helps keep track of how many kids you have and also tracks the passing of time. Too many 15 year old kids are being jammed into

strollers and fed mashed sweet potatoes because their parents never quite grasped how many units of time they owned them for. At the launch of KidCount, an exhausted woman named Doreen Richardson told reporters, this app helped me to understand that I have five children. It was a shock for sure, but it explains a lot. Plus, they are all different, oh, what's that called? Yeah, different ages. So that's interesting. All right, I gotta lie down. Kid Count, a new phone app to help parents keep track of their kids, how many they have, that is. Your next story of pluses and minuses comes from Luke Burbank. America, land of the free, home of the not particularly great at math, which I know sounds a little harsh, but there is evidence to back that up,

specifically the story of A&W versus the McDonald's Quarter Pounder. Here's what happened. Back in the 1980s, the quarter pounder was a huge success, so A&W decided they'd try to get in on the action. But by actually doing one better, they were going to introduce the A&W third of a pounder. In a random taste test, participants even said they liked the A&W burger better. So it should have been a runaway hit, right? Same price, larger burger. Well, not exactly exactly because you see those same taste testers also reported they'd be less likely to buy the one-third pounder than the quarter pounder because

they thought it was smaller. Flash forward to 2021 and A&W's recent announcement that they are trying again to take on the quarter pounder with their new offering, the A&W three-ninths burger. That is right, three-ninths of a pound, which is way bigger than a quarter of a pound. The burger is a limited time offer, but A&W says if they run out of the three-ninths burger, customers can special request a two-sixths of a pound burger. Only in public radio is that a laugh line.

All right. public radio, is that a laugh line? Alright. A&W having failed with their one-third pound burger, because three is less than four, has gone for the three-ninths burger, hoping that will work. Your last story of math in the news comes from

Cristela Alonso. One of the most popular TV game shows in Japan is Truth or Dare, in which contestants, just like at your slumber party, get to reveal an embarrassing truth or accept a dare to win a huge prize. Kubota Kenta thought he had it made. All he had to do to win $10 million was eat mochi, that small sweet rice snack, for 24 hours straight.

First hour, one mochi. Second hour, two mochi. Third hour, four. Oh, you get it, right? Like so on, doubling the number every hour. The first few hours were not a problem. He even had a couple extra in hour four because he said he was hungry and ate mochi wasn't enough. By hour 15, as he stared at the 16,384 mochi piled on a table in front of him, he began to realize his error. I should have just told them about that time I farted, he was heard to whisper. All right.

was heard to whisper. All right. Which of these is the real story of trouble with math in the news? Was it from Maeve, the introduction of Kid Count? From Luke Burbank, the story of how A&W's third pounder burger failed,

but their three-ninths burger might do well? Or from Cristela Alonzo, the story of a contestant on a Japanese game show who just didn't realize how big things get when you double them every hour. Which of these is the real story of math in the news? Ooh, I think I'm going to have to go with Luke's story because I want it to be true. You're going to go with Luke's story of how people just didn't want a one-third pound burger when they could have a quarter pound burger and they're trying to fix that. That's your choice? All right. Well, we spoke to somebody who actually knows a little

bit about this whole thing. So we just rebranded with our three-ninths pound burger because three ninths is clearly bigger than one quarter. That was Liz Basner. She's the Senior Director of Marketing for A&W Restaurants talking about the three-ninths pound burger. Congratulations to you, Spencer. You got it right. You've earned a point for Luke. You have won our prize, the voice of your choice

and your voicemail. Thank you so much for playing with us today. Thank you so much. This is a dream come true. Oh, it was a pleasure to have you. Take care, Spencer. Thank you. Bye.

Speaking of things that we might need to fix, when we originally introduced our guest, Washington Week anchor Yamiche Alcindor, when she joined us last September, we made a mistake saying incorrectly she had worked for ABC and CNN. However, we were accurate when we called her a reporter on the dead whale beat. Peter began the interview by asking about her run-ins with former President Trump, who sometimes took exception to her tough questioning. It was very surreal, but I also feel very honored that I was able to, in some ways, try to hold him accountable as much as I could. But why do you have to be so mean, Yamiche?

You know, I can tell you why I'm so, I wouldn't call it mean, but I can tell you that the reason why I'm always so pointed and so pressing is at the end of the day, I think about the idea that my parents who came from Haiti were fleeing a dictator in the 1970s. So for me, when I do this job, I think, oh my God, my grandparents and my mother would be tripped out if they knew that I was sort of giving that sort of Haitian fierceness to presidents. Speaking of your background, I want to get into it. You grew up in Miami. Yes, I did. I grew up in what I tell people, Moonlight, Miami. It's a sort of I think it's a good setting for what my Miami is like. I think it's a good setting for what my Miami is like. Yes.

And we were told that like one of your early jobs was scaring ducks away from the McDonald's where you worked. Yep. Yep. Did you scare them away by asking them questions? True story. My first job, I should say, first of all, that I'm a second generation McDonald's worker. So when I got this really legacy job of being a McDonald's worker, the first thing they told me to do before I could graduate to being a cash, to being a cashier,

I had to take bottles of water and squirt ducks out of the drive-thru because they would get together and block the drive-thru and people couldn't order their happy meals because flocks of duck would be there. So there would be Yamiche, the 16-year-old me just squirting ducks away, hoping and dreaming to one day be a cashier. So people didn't run over the ducks. They were like- And ducks don't move. Yo, maybe the ducks are the ones that are messing up the ice cream machines. Maybe that's why they never work. It could be. It could be. Do you ever have trouble leaving the work at the office? Do you find yourself having conversations with friends and all of a sudden asking them very probing questions about perhaps their deepest secrets? I do that all the time. Do you really? So my husband and I are both

journalists and ask each other questions all the time. And then I quickly realized that I really can't leave what is a naturally curious mind at work. I'm the person, if you go to Thanksgiving, I'm going to be the person asking a million questions. I'm going to be the person, if you have a random group of friends and you have someone that's shy, you can sit me by that person. I will get them talking and opening up. So a lot of my friends, when they're having parties, they'll put me specifically at a table with strangers because they'll say like, well, Yamiche can handle talking to anyone. I love that you said that your husband and yourself asked questions of each other. So I'm just imagining you two like sitting down to have an argument about how to load the dishwasher and

you both whip out your notebooks and you're like, okay, I just want to go over a couple of things with you. Do you really believe Yamiche that you should run the entire cycle just to clean one pot? Yamiche, that you should run the entire cycle just to clean one pot. Well, you should also know we have shared to-do lists and shared notes. So my husband is very detail-oriented. He's like, okay, you're supposed to change the AC filter every three months. Have you done that? Did you see the reminder?

Wow. Have you ever had like a really weird beat that you had to cover? I spent a summer on Long Island being the dead whale reporter. So I was an intern at Newsday for two years. And that meant that I was doing whatever they asked me to do. And I realized one summer that there was just a summer of whales showing up on the beach dead. And I just became the reporter who they called on because I was the reporter who would never say no. So it would be like two o'clock in the morning. They'd be like, another one has hit the beach. Like you got to go out there.

And I would be like Inspector Gadget with my notebook figuring out. And I got to be really good at describing the whales and talking about the mushrooms on their stomach. It was a weird, interesting summer, but it kind of, you know, it was my journalism story. Wow. Did you ever go down there and realize, this might be murder?

Yeah. Did you ever draw the white chalk line around the whale? Yes. Wow. Well, at one point, I was driving around looking to see if the whale carcasses were in certain garbage cans. So I was, like, driving around Long Island trying to find the body parts of whale. I mean, it got real weird. What?

Hold on. The whales wash up on the beach dead. And in Newsday, the newspaper of Long Island, sends you to cover the dead whale. And like the whale's gone and you have to go see what happened to the body. So you're checking waste bins to see if people have put whale parts in the waste bins? Exactly right. Outside sushi restaurants.

Who is cutting up the dead whales and putting them in waste bins? Well, I never found any carcasses of whales in waste bins. So I don't know what actually happened to these whale carcasses. Oh, wait a minute. So they said, Yamiche, Yamiche, another whale has whale has died get out there and you go out there and the whale's gone yeah and you're like oh my god somebody took the dead whale and then i call into my editor and i'm like oh my god i can't find the well they're like why don't you go around in garbage cans and search that's hilarious all the way full circle back to mcdonald's really so

so so the idea was like oh someone a well-aning Long Islander, found the whale on the beach and said, well, this is littering. So we clearly have to clean it up. I know I will cut the whale up with my handy chainsaw, which I as a Long Islander always have with me, and put it in various waste bins so it'll be picked up in the morning. That was your editor's working theory of the case. They didn't say that to me, but know or peter yeah it could be the mcdonald's in long island always had two for one fish fillets yeah did you ever i mean this weird summer of the whales dying on the beaches of long island did you ever discover like as you would at the end of the movie about the young amish al cinder covering the dead whale story what was killing the whales i don't remember ever discovering what was killing

the whales i think it just stopped happening and by that point i was probably on to one of the many murders and crazy stories that were happening on to long island because it's a two-year internal just moving from story to story to story and And I quickly learned covering Long Island, all of the craziness of New York City, it all ends up back in Long Island. So you think about Madoff and all the things that were going on. I would end up having these long stakeouts trying to stake out Madoff's family home. So I would be too busy and I wasn't really an investigative reporter to say, I'm going to stick with the dead whale story and see how this ends. I sort of was thrown off and gone to another story. How very cool. Well, Yamiche, it is great to talk to you, but we've asked you here to play a game we're calling Welcome to This Week's Washing. You host

Washington Week. We thought we'd ask you about the week's washing. Answer two questions out of three about doing laundry, and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose in their voicemail. Bill, who is Yamiche Alcindor playing for? Ben Farley of Atlanta, Georgia. All right, first question. Over the years, there have been various kinds of washing technology. Which of these was an actual laundry device you could use in the mid-20th century?

A, a customized metal box designed for students to regularly send their laundry home to mom and get it back. B, a chunk of real radium designed to, quote, glow your clothes clean. Or C, the AeroClean fleet, a service that would clean your clothes by flying them behind a crop duster. I'm going to go with A. You're going to go with A, the customized metal box. You're right. They made these things especially for students to send their laundry home to mother.

You could also get a cardboard laundry mailing box, but if you really loved your kid, you'd buy him a nice metal one. All right. Next question. There have been a lot of advances in laundry technology over the years. For example, right now, in the laundry storage and organization section of Walmart.com, you can currently buy which of these actual items? A, a clothesline with a tiny fan inside it. B, a combination underwear drying basket and mosquito-proof fish meat drying basket. Or C, fabric hardener.

I'm going to go with C. No, I'm afraid it was the combination underwear Underwear Drying Basket and Mosquito-Proof Fish Meat Drying Basket. The official name for the product is, and I quote, windproof and anti-embarrassing underwear, three-layer zipper-hanging basket, anti-mosquito fish meat drying baskets. Wow. Technically, it's a fabric hardener. Yeah, that's true. Here we go. If you get this right, you win. And that's really all that matters in the end, that's true. Here we go.

If you get this right, you win. And that's really all that matters in the end. Am I right? Here we go. Dryers and clotheslines are not the only way to dry your clothes, as was demonstrated by which of these? A, a Brooklyn laundromat just puts wet clothes and uncooked rice like an iPhone you dropped in the toilet. B, early GE microwaves had a pants setting, which would dry a pair in eight minutes. Or C. A Swede got herself the world's fastest internet connection installed at her home,

and she dries her clothes with the excessive heat it generates. This is the most ridiculous question. I'm going to go with C. And you're right. That's what she did. She got this incredibly fast internet connection and threw off so much heat that she says she dried her clothes around it. She said it got, quote, pretty warm. There you go.

Bill, how'd Yamiche do on our quiz? Two out of three, finally. Two out of three is a win for you. Congratulations. Well, after I realized that T-Pain and Martin Short won, I was like, okay, I have to win. You do. You have to win. You cannot be shamed by T-Pain. That cannot happen. That cannot happen. Yamiche Alcindor is the host of Washington Week in Review on PBS, sitting in the seat of the great Gwen Ifill. Yamiche Alcindor, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a delight. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye-bye. Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a delight. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye-bye.

When we come back, Anthony Parowski from Queer Eye shows us how to look good in the kitchen, and RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan reveals his love for HGTV. We'll be back in a minute with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host, who's decided to tell people that instead of James K. Polk, he's dressed as Rutherford B. Hayes. Because honestly, who could tell? Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. One of the great things about our jobs is we get to talk to people

who work in vastly different parts of the culture. For example, last September, we spoke with Antony Parowski, the food guy from Netflix's Queer Eye. Peter, ask him how he landed that job. So basically, it started out with a 30-minute Skype interview that ended up lasting like an hour and a half. And then they invited me to come to LA for chemistry testing. If you ask my four other

castmates, one of us says it was 500 of us. The other one says there were 50. It was somewhere. And, and basically, they just like there was like a fishbowl situation. I don't think I've ever talked about this part. So they had an executive from Netflix, from ITV, which is a production company and Scout who created the show. And they had these fishbowl questions and we would sit and they would ask us a question. Like if you could be like, what would your last meal be or whatever? And then they eliminated a bunch of us. And then the second day,

they started plopping five of us into a room fitted with cameras everywhere and just randomly mixing us in together and showing us a photo of like a guy wearing Crocs and cargo shorts eating a spam sandwich. And we were asked to comment. Oh, my wedding. Those are my wedding photos. There you go. This is like the sequence in Men in Black, right?

Where they're trying to find the next secret agents. This is amazing. So they just threw you into a room with other people and said, be charming with each other. The pressure must have made it hard to be sort of yourself, right? I didn't think that I wanted it that much.

And then there was a little moment where one of the contestants for the fashion position, I got really close with him. He was so sweet um and he wore this like plaid cape with like a little sherlock holmes hat he was like if harry potter and sherlock holmes had a baby it would be him and we got really close and he was like the friend from childhood i never had and then one of the casting associates came into the room and we

realized that they started tapping people and being like hey can you come talk to me and then they would come back sad pack pack their bags and go. Oh my God. They tapped his shoulder. Oh my God. And he left and I was crushed. Yeah. They put a bag over his head and threw him into a white van.

Oh my God. But that's when I realized like, Oh, I actually really want this. Cause I was really upset. So I came in like Phoenix rising and I was like ready for battle. I was like, this is mine. Except I said that internally.

And then I, a couple of months later, I got a call while I was working at a gallery job, the call to change my life. Literally they were like, we'd love for you to be part of the Queer Eye family. Wow. So I have to ask this question. The show of of course, depicts

a makeover of a person's style, everything, sometimes their entire life in the course of a week, a week. Five days, actually. Is that realistic? Do you really meet this person on a Monday and the big celebration that you've planned or set up is Friday? Is that how it works? We never meet the person ahead of time. JVN gets a photo of hair because he wants to know what he's working with, obviously, but we genuinely have not met the person. And that all happens on a Tuesday. So very early in the morning, it's a long day. We call it the ambush where we go to their house, we tear everything apart, and then we build them back up together. Think about what our game plan is. And then Wednesday and thursdays we we switch our field trips around with our little i call them kardashian

moments where we like record our confessionals and then friday or saturday depending on like what the big event is at the end of the week is when we have our goodbyes with them it's it's amazing it's amazing how much you our guys are able to transform people's lives. I mean, every single episode ends in tears. Right. I like those barbecue, the sisters who had the barbecue. Oh, I love them so much. Oh, they're so pure. Well, wait a minute.

For those who haven't seen it, tell us about it. They're just the Jones sisters. Kansas City. They have a wonderful barbecue joint. One of them has another job. They're literally up at three 30 in the morning, every single day going to this spot, smoking their own ribs, making every single thing they sell out by 2 PM. There's a crazy lineup. And they were just like, they haven't renovated in a really long time. And there was their father's sacred

barbecue sauce recipe. And we got them in touch with a canning company so that they could sell it. And they've been selling it so well. Yeah, you couldn't even get it. You couldn't even get it online because they sold out so fast. So wait a minute. So you're working, and I haven't seen this episode, but you're working with two women who were already professional cooks. They have their own barbecue.

Yeah, I'm not going to teach them how to cook. So what did you do? So, I mean, they wanted to sort of monetize on this really special sauce that they had. So I took them to a plant. They met with these like barbecue sauce, science moon, and they came up with like the proportions. They genuinely, they were so protective of their father's recipe because they didn't want anyone to get it. They even on camera, we had to keep on like start and stopping and telling them like, don't worry, we're not recording how much you're putting in. She refused to use measuring tools and she would just like put her hand in and then like throw it into the.

But the scientists like paid attention and I was just there to kind of like facilitate it and gently hold their hand through the process because I had to teach them that they're going to have to trust other people. When your business starts to grow, as life gets bigger and more complicated, you have to find people who you can trust who can help you who you can ask for help for it's it's so it's imperative yeah and I think you were when in that episode with them you were just really like helping them to have confidence in what they did and like you could bring that perspective that was like you're absolutely incredible and now you can have like even bigger business. You don't have to work so hard. And it's so good. Yeah. Let me ask you about your cookbook.

I have it. I've cooked a couple of recipes from it this week, which were delicious. It's got about how many recipes? Like 60 recipes? I think it's like somewhere between 85 and 90. Sure. Okay. It's got like, so 80 recipes

and like 150 insanely gorgeous pictures. Okay. You know what? In my defense, my first book had a lot more photos of me and I pushed for a lot less photos than this one. Thank you very much. I wanted to know more about the food. They're like, Anthony, can you post next to this ridiculous? Why am I shirtless?

No, I'm kidding. Why are you frying bacon shirtless? That's dangerous. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, in October, we talked to RZA, the founder of the hip hop collective Wu-Tang Clan. Peter asked him about the TV show that told the story of the band. I mean, it's a dramatization, right, of two events. dramatization, right, of true events. You know, some things are embellished and some things are actually dampened

so that we don't really give you the whole story. You know, it's worse than what you saw. Yeah. You know, you think about our lyrics, you know, you hear a lot of harsh lyrics, a lot of uplifting lyrics as well, knowledge of self and all these things. And so the show just is a kind of like

a visual replication of our lyrics. Yeah, I totally get that. It's also, I have to say this, a really good TV show. And I was, I shouldn't have been surprised to find out that in addition to producing and scoring the show, you wrote it, at least the episodes I saw. Did you have, I mean, you've taught yourself so many things i know in your life did you have to go out and teach yourself how to write tv oh yeah i mean i read a book i think it's called sid phil screen play yeah yeah famous book yeah yeah so i read that book maybe about i don't know 10 12 maybe 15 years ago i was i was advised by uh a friend of mine's name sophia

chang and she kind of she may have gave me that book. And I didn't read it until Quentin Tarantino told me also, you should write. Because writing lyrics and writing songs are microcosms to the macrocosm that you could get from a whole TV show or a whole film. Right. Is there, again, just looking at your career, where you came from and what you've done, is there anything you found out you can't do? Yeah.

First of all, I couldn't swim until a couple of years ago. Okay. Really? No, you know, look, we all got our limitations. I don't drive. Wait a minute. You don't drive? got our limitations. I don't drive. You don't, wait a minute. You don't drive? It ain't that I, it ain't that I can't drive. My wife won't let me drive.

She says I can't drive. Really? Why can't you, why can't you drive? I just, uh, I don't know. I thought I could, you know, but I'm feeling vaguely better. Uh, we, we heard, I could, you know, but I'm feeling vaguely better. We heard I mean, you are into so many things and so good at many of them. But we did hear you have an I will say an unexpected enthusiasm. Tell me if it's true for HGTV. Yeah, I told you that I have.

I have a very talented producer whose job it is to research our guests. And until this very moment, I thought she was pranking me. No, that's like me and my white favorite pastime, yo. Really? We fall asleep to HGTV. That's like at the end of the night, watch everything, turn to HGTV and bong, bong. Do you have like a favorite show? Are you a Property Brothers guy?

I mean. Oh, the Property Brothers. Whoa, baby. Really? I watch them. I feel like we're very close to the collaboration, the song, Pabream, Property Brothers rule everything around me.

No, they're dope. Love it or less it is dope. I mean, look, we were so into Invested, Flip It. Yeah. Yeah, when they broke up, yeah, when they broke up, the they broke up the the uh the couple wait a minute so okay so this is a show called flip it and it was hosted by this married couple yeah when they broke up it was like that was like dinner table talk at my house like yo

then they got back together i don't want to say their names but i know what you can say in this world right but then they get back together and they're back doing the show again but they're not married no more they did a Wu-Tang move the show must go on I agree the problem with watching HDTV is like you get eventually

you get eventually dissatisfied with your own house right? that's what happens to me I envy too much. Well, you can also find a nice lamp. That's how I'm going to think about everything in my life from now on. Whenever I feel inadequate, I'm just going to shrink everything really small, think about what's within my control,

and whatever the nice lamp is in that situation, I'm going to shrink everything really small. Think about what's within my control and whatever the nice lamp is in that situation. I'm going to find my nice lamp. I am going to, I tell you, because I got to say watching the TV show is a high stress experience. You don't know what's going to happen to Bobby. And I'm just going to tell myself it's okay. The last episode is going to be in bed with his wife looking at HDTV and going, that's a nice lamp and all will be well. I like that. I got to ask you only because everything you become interested in you master, are you going to like

do a home renovation show? No, but we got to, we got an ongoing joke. We do got to own. I hope my wife won't get mad if I say this. I got to check on my wife, you know what I mean? But we got an ongoing, an ongoing joke in our house. We bought our second house. So we, you know, and, you know, but before we bought the second house, we went to a lot of houses. Sure. So we would walk in and we'll look around and we'll go back home and go, the digs. They look, they walk in, but they don't buy.

Meet the father. Meet the conservative father. they don't buy. Meet the father. Meet the conservative father. I don't know. I need more square feet. I need more square feet. The excited wife. Oh, honey, this is so lovely. The don't want to be their son.

Can we leave, mom? And the entitled daughter. Oh, the master suite. This is my room, right? Finally, last week, we lost a dear friend and the world lost an amazing talent. P.J. O'Rourke, writer, journalist, raconteur, and wait-wait panelist, died at the age of 74. P.J. debuted on our show in 2001, first as a guest and then made more than 100 appearances as a panelist. Here is just a small sample of the highlights. P.J. O'Rourke, we're asking everybody what they're most thankful for.

P.J., what are you most thankful for? I'm thankful for the perceived, I'm not saying real, but the perceived liberalism of NPR. Why? Because it lets me hog the stage as the only Republican. I am the grumpy Republican. I'm not happy. I'm a 65-year-old male Republican. We're not happy. Happy is not what we're about. How did they first approach you to be on the show? Oh, I was sitting in a bar in Macedonia. What? As one does.

So the guy that's got Mike's job. The executive producer. Executive producer, Rod Abib. So I knew Rod for years and years as a fellow foreign correspondent. So I'm sitting in a bar in Macedonia getting ready to go into Kosovo the next day. Kosovo was all falling apart. And I look up and there's Rod. And so we sit down and we have a beer.

And I said, Paul, I'm getting tired of this foreign correspondent stuff. And I said, yeah, you know, I'm getting too old to be scared stiff and too stiff to sleep on the ground and so on and so forth. And we're moaning. And he said, yeah, you know, there's this idea, this show we're talking about, NPR show we're talking about, you know, where it's like a panel making fun of the news. And I'm not sure it even had a name yet. And he said, would you be interested. And I'm not sure it even had a name yet. And he said, would you be interested? And I said, sure, absolutely. And I didn't hear from anybody for about three years.

And then one day Rod phoned and said, remember that one we were talking about in the bar in Macedonia? That's – PJ, you have the best origin story of anybody. Yeah, it was a good one. Do you have a favorite Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me memory? Oh, completely. But it has nothing to do with what went on on the show. It was when Dick Cheney shot the lawyer. And Peter had to call me up to find out basically what a shotgun is. What? Well, yeah. I mean, he had to call me up. How's that different from a rifle? Oh, fair enough. That's a solid question.

It was a solid question. So I had to explain the difference. I felt like the ambassador to NPR from some exotic— Conservativalandia. Conservativalandia. Anyway, so I had to explain what a shotgun was and how shotguns work. And then I had to explain how something like that could happen, which is actually, unfortunately, as an avid bird hunter, is all too easily. In 2016, you announced that you were going to support Hillary Clinton instead of Donald Trump. Well, I didn't go so far as to say supporter, but I voted for her. Yeah, and you announced that, and you chose to do it on Wait, Wait. It was very exciting. Well, Peter, I have a little announcement to make. Yes, very exciting. Well, Peter, I have a little announcement to make.

Yes, what is your announcement? Yeah, I have a little announcement to make. I mean, my whole purpose in life basically is to offend everyone who listens to NPR. No matter what position they take on anything, I'm on the other side of it. I'm voting for Hillary.

What? I am endorsing Hillary. And all her lies and all her empty promises, I'm endorsing Hillary. It's the second worst thing that could happen to this country. But she's way behind in second place. I mean, she's wrong about absolutely everything. But she's wrong within normal parameters. That is a ringing endorsement. I tell you, I want to hear that. I want to hear that on TV. And then I want to hear Hillary Clinton say, I'm Hillary Clinton. I'll take it. I grew up a huge fan of PJ's and ended up as his friend, which was even better.

We will all miss him, and we remain grateful that he was a part of this show. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord. Philip Godega writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. And our PA is Sophie Hernandez-Simionides. BJ Lederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills,

Miles Dornbos, Lillian King, and Nancy Seychow. Our nuclear football is Peter Gwynn. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilog. The executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Mike Danforth. Thanks to all of you for listening. I am Peter Sagal, and we'll be back next week. This is NPR.