Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Este and Alana Haim

Episode Date: December 19, 2020

Este and Alana Haim, two-thirds of the band HAIM, join us along with panelists Tom Bodett, Helen Hong, and Peter Grosz.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, it's Peter, and this week's show you're going to hear, my gosh, it's a great one. At one point you are not going to believe what, okay, well, no spoilers, you probably want to find out yourself. I hope you look forward to every week's show, God knows I do, as does everybody who works on it. People tell me it means a lot that we've still kept up the show during this very strange year, and believe me, it means even more to us. It's a way of being together when we weren't

allowed to get together. And that's why I don't actually feel that bad about asking you for a donation right now. We only get to do this and provide it to everybody for free because so many of you contribute to your local station, which in turn helps support us. So because we got through this terrible year together, and hopefully we will enjoy a much better 2021 together, donate what you can at donate.npr.org slash wait. Thanks. And really, just wait until you hear... Okay, fine. Never mind. Here's the show. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Jingle bills, jingle bills, jingle all the bills. Bill Curtis, and here is your host, a man as fertile as the plains of Kansas, Peter Sagal.

Thank you, Bill, and thanks as always to our fake audience, which this week are all the people in my head telling me that, yes, my new baby son is in fact the finest, most beautiful child to ever be born. It is true, I was out for a couple of weeks because my wife and I had a baby. Both are doing fine, and it'll just be seven short years until he's the perfect age to appreciate the humor on this show. In the meantime, my sincere thanks to Maz Jobrani, who did such a great job filling in for me that I told the baby he'd have to change his own diapers and ran back before anybody got any ideas. But if you've been waiting to call into our show until I was too sleep deprived to make any sense at all, now's your chance. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT.

That's 1-888-924-8924. Let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Patty Scarf from Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hey, how are things in Kalamazoo? We once had a fine time there doing our show about six or seven years ago. Oh, they're delightful. A bit cold, but it's winter in Michigan.

And what do you do there? I sell alcohol. What a great business to be in now. So you're a first responder. You're a frontline worker handling the catastrophe. I do bring much needed supplies. Yeah. Well, Patty, welcome to our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's an actor and writer you might remember from his role as Mike Pence on The President Show, which is now streaming on CBS All Access. It's Peter Gross. Hello. Thank you for your service. Next, a comedian who could be seen in the CBS comedy The Unicorn Season 1 on Netflix and hosted the trivia podcast Go Fact Yourself on the Maximum Fun Network. It's Helen Hong. Patty, you're doing God's work. Thank you.

And an author and humorist on a leave of absence to spend more time with his beard, it's Tom Beaudet. Oh, Patty. So, Patty, you're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations we found in the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them,

you will win our prize. Any voice from our show you might choose in your voicemail. You ready to go? Let's do it. Let's do it. Here is your first quote. You didn't flinch. That was Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York on Monday talking to the first American to get what this week?

The coronavirus vaccine. Yes, the coronavirus vaccine. The only liquid more valuable in this crisis than alcohol. The coronavirus vaccines were finally delivered this week with news channels showing live shots of planes carrying it, landing at airports, UPS trucks waiting to carry it away. We all remember where we were when the first crates of vaccines were delivered. We were at home where we have been for nine months.

But finally, on Monday, we got to watch as the first healthcare workers got their shots. They were smiling. They rubbed their arms. Then they slowly transformed into vampires. Damn it, we really should not have rushed this. You know what? I was really reticent about getting it,

but then I saw online they gave it to Ian McKellen, Sir Ian McKellen, and if it's good enough for Gandalf, all right, sign me up. Wait a minute. Gandalf doesn't need the vaccine. Can he just like pound his walking stick into the ground? You shall not infect me. Now, right now, of course, as I'm sure you all saw on tv the vaccine is going to medical professionals other frontline workers that's terrible for us normals we'll be last in line and what if when

we get the vaccine all they have left is like the markdown irregular vaccines like wait this says it prevents barona virus i'm gonna get wall vax so most of us will be waiting for months to get this thing we desperately want it's like a playstation 5 that hurts it would be interesting if there was a list of everybody in the country and it was like not just by group but they were like okay first uh the president the vice president then all the way down and you could really tell like i'm behind this guy named gary williams he lives in the phoenix i guess he's like his heart is a little worse than mine, so I guess he'll get it before me. You call that a heart condition?

I'll show you a heart condition. It'd be worth doing in alphabetical order so that Mark Zuckerberg goes last, I guess. Oh, that would be fantastic. The CDC, of course, is working on their messaging to get people to accept the vaccine. We are Americans, after all. We don't like things like vaccines. So they're going to call it the Doritos Modernos Locos vaccine. Modernos Americans, after all. We don't like things like vaccines, so they're going to call it the Doritos Modernos Locos vaccine.

Modernos Locos is free. They need new ranch flavor. I'm not going to get the vaccine. I'm getting the double vaccine with cheese. The Oreo big stuff vaccine. The double stuffed vaccine. I'm getting Pfizer and Moderna. Patty, here is your next quote.

Today, I want to congratulate President-elect Joe Biden. That was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Was he speaking this week or six weeks ago when Joe Biden actually won the election? Unfortunately, this week. Yes, he spoke this week, 40 days after Mr. Biden won the presidency. He won the presidency again for something like the three-dozenth time this week when the Electoral College formally met and voted. Was Trump talking to Biden when he said, you'll get tired of all the winning? Like they say, it's not over till it's over 42 times in a row. Somewhere a very hoarse fat lady is saying, what more do you people want?

I didn't realize it was 40 days. It was actually 40 days. Very biblical. That means that Mitch McConnell, he just gave up being a responsible person for Lent. Apparently he just shifted it early. Now, of course, because the election has actually been been over, the president elect has been naming his cabinet. Former Governor Tom Vilsack was named agriculture secretary, beating out Representative Gerald Nadler, who, like Tom Vilsack, has a name that sounds like testicle. former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg. He was named Secretary of Transportation. That is historic.

He is the first openly gay cabinet secretary and also the first ever transportation secretary. Not old enough to drive. Yeah, he's going to convert electric... It's not going to be any electric buses and stuff. It's going to be all big wheels. His first initiative is going to be find out why trains in the real world

don't have faces on them. I want to ask a serious question about Pete Buttigieg. What qualifies somebody like him, in all seriousness, to be Secretary of Transportation? Just like a general competence? What does it actually take?

Because he clearly has no experience. People say he doesn't know anything about transportation. That's not true. He's from Indiana. He knows what the American public wants, which is to drive through Indiana as quickly as possible. He's going to raise the speed limit in Indiana to 100 miles an hour. No, actually, a number of people pointed this out, that one of the things that qualifies Mayor Pete, or assumed to be Secretary Pete, to be Secretary of Transportation, is that he is, in fact, a nerd. He just loves minutiae and policy. One of the things he loved to talk about is about the smart sewage system that they had

installed in South Bend. And the idea is anybody who'd get so excited about a smart digitized sewer system is just the guy to handle complicated, boring infrastructure projects. Is a smart sewage system the same as a sentient sewage system? It'll tell you when you need more fiber in your diet. Exactly. All right, Patty, we have one more quote for you. Here it is. It's still beautiful. It's just skinnier and smaller and shorter than normal. That was a person quoted in the Wall Street Journal

describing what they'd be decorating this Christmas thanks to a big shortage of what? Christmas trees. Christmas trees. There is a big shortage of Christmas trees. There's a rush on them. People really want something to celebrate. Christmas trees are selling for as much as $1,800.

What? Trees are so hard to find, people are instead putting their ornaments and tinsel on COVID vaccines. Prices have increased, they say, over 50% for the popular Fraser fur and 40% for the slimmer but more particular Niles fur. There you go. $1,800 for a Christmas tree? Yeah, people just want to feel normal.

They want to feel Christmassy. The Christmas tree from the peanuts sold for $5,000. That's how in demand they are. People are so desperate because they can't get trees that they're doing things like putting a red and white suit on a lazy boy and pretending it's Santa Claus. Go ahead, kids, sit in Santa's lap. Hey, pull Santa's handle. Now, it may seem like a problem, but there is a solution. We use one holiday's problems to solve another's. Remember all those surplus turkeys that no one was buying because Thanksgiving's got canceled? Well, introducing the gaily decorated Christmas raw turkey.

Hey, kids, your presents are just inside next to the giblets. Go get them. Yeah, we got a 16-pound tree. Normally we get a 22-pound tree, but there's not many people. It's a great tree. It'll serve a whole family. It's amazing. Bill, how did Patty do on our quiz?

Perfect from Kalamazoo. Good going, Patty. Congratulations. Do you have a particular cocktail as an alcohol salesperson to celebrate a win? Yeah. I'm a whiskey drinker. Absolutely. As we all are slowly becoming.

Patty, thank you so much for playing. Thank you. Thanks, Patty. Bye-bye. Thank you, Patty. Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about the week's news. Helen, people cannot travel because of the pandemic, of course, but the New York Times travel section rose to that challenge. They have been publishing

a series of articles instructing people how to do what? Imagine traveling? Yes, to pretend to travel to various destinations around the world. This week, the article is How to Pretend You're in Singapore. In prior articles, they've done Tokyo, Dakar, Hawaii, more. Each article provides local music you can listen to in your home, local recipes you can make in your kitchen, and films you can watch on your TV. But remember to leave at least one hour per virtual visit just to stare at a wall and remember how depressing this all is. It's a guided meditation, but they're taking you at this exotic locale that you've never been. Almost. It's like that. It's a way for people to be annoying and pretentious about traveling without being able to travel. It's like, I'll be honest, everybody. Everything's really been different for me since I pretended to go to Paris. I did the Mexico City one and it was very authentic I got diarrhea I couldn't leave the

hotel for a week it was I did the I did the Tokyo one and I gotta tell you I just can't eat American sushi after eating authentic sushi over my sink yeah I did the Turkish one and I smuggled some heroin from my bedroom to my to my living room and I uh a horrible experience in jail. I thought it was going to be that they've been publishing ways to take hallucinogens. I showed my worries to the door Now I'll be sitting to the door. Now I'll be sitting in the shade with my beverage aid.

The perfect spot to spend my days. I finally found my escape. Coming up, our panelists celebrate the ancient ways. It's our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Ecologist Daniel Stryker studies how bats spread disease. The way that people get bitten is literally as horrifying as it sounds. The scientific side stories that helped us make sense of 2020. That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Helen Hong,

Peter Gross, and Tom Beaudet. And here again is your host, a man deftly muting his Zoom whenever his baby cries. It's Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Right now it is time once again for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me You've Left the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Nathan from San Antonio, Texas. Oh, we love San Antonio.

What do you do there? Well, I work in IT. Up until about a month ago, I was running the IT at the Alamo. Really? Wow. Oh, we love San Antonio. What do you do there? Really? Yeah. Wow. I guess you'll never forget that. Well, welcome to the show, Nathan. You're going to play our game in which you must try to tell truth from fiction. What is Nathan's topic, Bill? Ancient artistes.

to tell truth from fiction. What is Nathan's topic, Bill? Ancient artistes. As the world becomes more modern, ancient arts become threatened, like calligraphy or making thatched roofs or the lost art of wearing pants during the day. Our panelists are going to tell you about someone intent on preserving an ancient art

threatened by the modern world. Pick the one who's telling the truth. You'll win our prize. The weight-waiter of your choice on your voicemail. You ready to play? Absolutely. Let's do it. First, let's hear from Peter Gross. Linguistics professor Daniela Savali of Milan, Italy specializes in dead languages, languages no one speaks anymore, like ancient Aramaic or English before we started like inserting the word like before every other like word. And like Professor Savali is teaching a new course at a local

elementary school in Milan in something called Giptenöla. Giptenöla devolved over centuries into the modern Pig Latin that we learned in fifth grade. We all remember, you take the first syllable of a word and you move it along with the sound A to the end of the word. So for example, if you were speaking to a colleague about an important matter and you asked them a question like, do you have a crush on Janie Watkins? You would say, Udeyeyeavheyeushkreanyanejayatkinswe. But Professor Savali wants to teach 10-year-olds the historically correct version of the language, and speaking Giptenula is a little bit different. The rules for this are monosyllabic words are pronounced backwards, multisyllabic words are split into their component syllables,

then rearranged alphabetically as long as the first syllable doesn't come first alphabetically, and while there is no A sound at the end, there is a guttural uh sound that is placed between each syllable. So the sentence, do you have a crush on Janie Watkins, becomes ad euoi evha aheserc noni oje kins owat. A thing of beauty indeed. An Italian teacher trying to preserve the ancient genuine form of pig Latin. Your next story of an ancient art comes from Helen Hong. A village in Sri Lanka is struggling to maintain a bizarre but cherished heritage. Haircuts given by live crabs. The crab claw haircuts date back generations in the village of Arogan. A village elder recounts the very first crab haircut happened because of a drunken dare between two fishermen.

But that first crab barber did a fantastic job. The haircut was so unique and stylish, all the fishermen soon wanted one. Then their wives and children wanted them. Soon, this became the calling card for our village. The trick is to get the crab very angry. The angrier the crab, the better their haircut. We anger crabs by putting things they want to eat directly in front of them so they have to walk sideways and make a bunch of sideways turns to get at it.

But the crab haircut practice is now dying out. These young kids, they want smooth hair, complained the jagged, banged elder. A quick survey of teens and 20-somethings in the village discovered a different reason for steering clear of the practice. So many people have lost parts of their ears, exclaimed a 22-year-old with a chic, smooth bob. Indeed, many ears in the village looked as jagged as the hairstyles. Elders in the village have started an Instagram account, at crabcutsarecool. Sure, your ear might get a little pinced, but everybody will notice your hair first.

Crabclaw haircuts in a village in Sri Lanka. Your last story of preserving the old ways comes from Tom Beaudet. 65-year-old Kung Fu master Wang Lui Tai is worried. Tong Bei Kwan, his unique centuries-old strand of Kung Fu, popularly known as Iron Crotch, seems to be in danger of dying out. Mastered by developing the ability to take hits in the body's weakest points, strangely, fewer and fewer people are taking up the discipline. In an effort to boost its appeal, Wang came up with the famous technique involving a steel-capped six-foot log weighing 90 pounds being swung through the air into a man's crotch. Despite how it looks, Wong insists, it doesn't hurt much.

When you practice Iron Crotch Kung Fu, as long as you push yourself, you will feel great, said Wong, who was the head of the Wuntun Martial Arts Academy. Mastery of the iron crotch is gained by taking hits to the business district while using cuizhong breathing. Cuishong, one imagines, translates roughly as gasping for air in the fetal position, then throwing up. Fellow master, 53-year-old Tang Xiaoshan, hastened to add, we also have iron throat, iron head, iron chest, and iron back. Way to sell it, guys.

The future of this ancient tradition appears to be in the bag. All right. So one of these three things exists and is dying out, so people are trying to save it. Is it, from Peter Gross, the original genuine form of Big Latin? From Helen Hong, the dying art of cutting hair with crab claws attached to crabs? Or from Tom Beaudet,

the rare strain of Kung Fu known as Iron Crotch? Which of these is the real art form that people are struggling to preserve? I'm going to take a shot with Tom's story on the Iron Crotch. Which of these is the real art form that people are struggling to preserve? I'm going to take a shot with Tom's story on the Iron Crotch. Your choice is Tom's story of Iron Crotch Kung Fu

and the campaign to save it from dying out. Well, we spoke to someone familiar with the real story. The Iron Crotch is an interesting martial art. I just don't understand why anybody would want to strengthen pain in that area. That was Hidafi Bertha. He's a striking coach and owner of Bertha Boxing, talking about the iron crotch technique

and clearly not being too enthusiastic about it. But nonetheless, you got it right. Tom was telling the amazing truth. There is something called iron crotch kung fu, and they, you got it right. Tom was telling the amazing truth. There is something called Iron Crotch Kung Fu, and they are trying to save it. You have won our game, and Tom has won a point. Thank you so much for playing. Thank you very much. Welcome back, Peter. Congratulations. Thank you very much. It's great to be back. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. And now the game where we ask talented people to talk about things other than their talents,

which is nice because who wants to brag? It's called Not My Job. There are a lot of great bands and a lot of successful bands, but only one great successful band that regularly performs in a delicatessen. The band Haim is three sisters from LA. Their new album with a picture of them in Cantor's Deli in Los Angeles is called Women in Music Part 3. And two members of the band, Esty and Alana Haim, join us now. Welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. It's a pleasure to have you. Thank you for having us.

We're so excited. Thank you for having us. It's an absolute thrill. But I'm right about delicatessens. You guys are like devotees of the Kibbitz Room over at Cantor's, right? Yes. We love delis i don't think it's a secret but we had a band with our parents called rockenheim it was a cover band

we would only play covers and our first gig was when i think i was either seven or eight and it was at the kibbitz room and we got paid in matzah ball soup because that's like what the payment is there and that was like what the payment is there. And that was like our first gig. Like my first gig was at a bar. Now we're like actually friends with the Cantor's family because they can't get rid of us where they're like once every couple of days you could find us at Cantor's before COVID. For people who don't know, Cantor's is like the classic old deli in LA. It's in the Fairfax district, which historically was the Jewish district.

And I just love the idea that one day, I don't know how long ago, 20 years, somebody walked in and said, hey, there's a nice Jewish family playing in the other room. Want to have a drink? Well, there actually was literally one person in the crowd. Like it wasn't like a publicized. It was like one guy. There was like one guy that he must have been like the guy that just goes there every night to just get wasted and he was the only person there he was sitting at the bar and i remember there's like a there's video of it of me asking danielle we were all wearing like butterfly clips and like limited to outfits like sparkly jeans sparkly jeans like i think my shirt said like soccer on it like

like 99 angel angel one percent devil and there was like a guy there was a guy that could not believe that we were playing our instruments and in the video you hear him screaming like this isn't real and you can see that you had one you had one audience member and he was a heckler he was a heckler he was a heckler and you see danielle like in the video like she's doing like terrifying danielle's first solo that she ever learned was hotel california what and she played the whole solo and she was like nine or ten and the guy was like where's the recording wait i can't even can we just back up and talk about the fact that your parents pimped you out like the von trapp family well it's actually a pretty crazy thing my dad so my parents have

always loved playing music they were never professionals they just like my dad played drums my mom played guitar and like her claim to fame is that she won the gong show like when she was around my age awesome and my dad always tells a story like that he had a dream like literally like a prophecy like a dream that he woke up one one night in the middle of the night and like woke up my mom and was like i just had a dream that we had a band with the kids. And I think we should do. Oh, wow. How old were you at the time? I when you started playing guitar, when we started? Well, I was like, four when we started rocking him. And the only thing that I could play was like percussions. Like I would my dad would give me like a cowbell, like a chamber and like very Partridge family style, like, like, the only thing I could play and Danielle I mean Danielle started when she was how old at the

Danielle started when she was like five or six and five or six me like so I and I was like eight or nine and like imagine the older sister looking at the middle sister and she's just like she's literally like the Steve Van Zandt at like six years old and I'm sitting here like I can barely push on the string. So your parent, your father says, I had this dream. We're going to be a band. And the fact that you guys were not like, this is crazy. This is weird. We don't want anything to do with this. But you're like, yes. And now you're like a huge hit band. You play Saturday Night Live and guess what? Taylor Swift. This is really weird. It was cool, though, because the thing is,

my parents, every every we only had radio in our car so we would only play krs 101 which was like the oldie station but like we would record songs on a tape deck and then learn them by ear like with my mom like we would all sit around and like learn the chords and like for me because we would pretty much only listen to krs i was like learning songs that were on the radio not knowing knowing that they were really old songs. I thought the Beatles were alive and well and playing. Like Tori, I was like, we should go see these guys. They're really great.

I mean, once we got into our teen years, it was like, mom, get a little tougher. We want to play sublime. Your teen rebellion wasn't like, yes, we're going to be in a band just like you insisted that we are, but our like yes we're going to be in a band just like you insisted that we are but our rebellion is we're going to shift our repertoire take that exactly and growing up we i personally thought every family had a family band so i didn't think that it was weird and it wasn't until i was in middle school basically or like fifth grade

when i asked my friends or my friends were like we're gonna go to the mall on Saturday SC do you want to go and I was like I mean yeah but like aren't you in rehearsal how did you guys tell once you guys hit it big how did you tell your parents they weren't in the band anymore yeah we kicked we kicked mom and dad out of the band I mean they were just stoked that we wanted to be in a band with each other like they thought we weren't like killing each other by the time we were teenagers it was never like a you will play music and you will be a rock band oh my god it was the opposite of anything yeah we're like yeah you think it's fun but also get a job and go to college are they are they still like that or they're like yes playing saturday night live is

nice but you know there is like a post-BA pre-med thing you guys could do. I mean, my mom and I still talk about it. My mom's like, do you ever think you're going to get, like, you know, a math degree? Do you think you can go now? What if you get hot to get in? I'm like, Mom, Mom. We have to go on tour. We have to go on tour, Mom.

You know, education's important in this family. My parents gave up on me and Danielle. Danielle and Alana were hanging out behind the dumpster at our high school smoking cigarettes. Yeah. Well, that also works if you're going to go into music. Well, Esty and Alana, it is a joy to talk to you, but we have invited you here to play a game we're calling...

You're My Wonderwall. So you two with your sister are part of a successful sibling band and basically you have one job. Don't be like Oasis.

That band's founding brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher became legendary for the feuds that led to the eventual breakup of the band. So we're going to ask you

three questions about the Gallaghers and if you answer two of them correctly you will win our prize for one of our listeners. Oh, my God. Okay, here we go.

Bill, how are Esty and Alana Heim playing for? Amy Lee of Phoenix, Arizona. All right. Here's your first question about Oasis and the Gallaghers. Liam and Noel Gallagher's fights and feuds were notorious for most of the band's career. In fact, someone once capitalized on their reputation for fighting by doing what? A, a special Liam and Noel edition of Rock'em Sock'em Robots was released by Mattel. B, a nine minute recording of one of their arguments was released as a single by a record label. Or C,

a pair of tag team pro wrestlers who called themselves Croasis and their gimmick was they'd always end up beating up each other. Oh, my God. Essie, do you know? I actually, I think it might be B. All right, it's B. That's what happened. This single was released under the name Wibbling Rivalry and went to number 52 in the British pop charts.

Wow. Crazy. We should cover it on our next record. All right, here's your next question. In 1996, the band appeared on MTV's live concert show Unplugged, but Noel announced when he got on stage that Liam wasn't going to be there. Where was Liam? Was he A, locked in the dressing room exactly where Noel had left him, B, at Noel's house setting fire to it,

or C, in the audience, heckling Noel? Should we go with A? I think he locked him in the dressing room. Let's go with A. Let's just see what happens. Let Liam lock Noel in the dressing room. No, in fact, Liam was sitting in the audience and he heckled. Oh, that makes me angry.

You just need one more and you win. No one will ever remember you got one wrong as long as you win. Otherwise, it's lifelong shame. The brothers were famous for dissing each other in the press. Which of these was once said by Noel about Liam? A, quote, the only thing that keeps me for punching him in the face every minute of the day is that he looks like me. B, quote, he's like a man with a fork in a world of soup. man with a fork in a world of soup or c quote i have immense respect for his musical talents but sadly we have differing visions of what we next wish to explore i think it's b the soup one do

you agree oh my god i'm so scared yes it's b yes okay bill how did two of the heim sisters do on our show they got two right and here you win with it. Absolutely. It's all you needed. Yay! That's all I wanted. Esty and Alana Haim are two-thirds of the band Haim with their sister Danielle. Their new album Women in Music Part 3 is up for Album of the Year and Best Rock

Performance at this year's Grammy Awards. Esty and Alana, what an absolute joy to talk to you. Thank you so much for being on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you guys so much for having us. Take care. Bye. In just a minute, Bill tries to sell you a three-room house in a spooky listener limerick challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us on the air.

We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR. Peter again with just a reminder to donate, if you can, to your local station via donate.npr.org slash wait, and also a reminder that Hydrox cookies were invented before Oreos were. Oreos are a ripoff of Hydrox. Isn't that crazy? From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We're playing this week with Tom Bodette, Helen Huang, and Peter Gross. And here again is your host. No, no, no, no. He's the father, not the grandfather, Peter Segal! Thank you, Bill! A sigh of truth there.

In just a minute, Bill's got Rhyme Nuts roasting in an open fire. It's the Listener Limerick Challenge. If you'd like to play, give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. But right now, panel, some more questions for you from the week's news. Tom, this week investigative reporters discovered that a website by and for women sharing a deep common passion for something was sadly fake what were these women supposedly passionate about motherhood no oh god i need a hint because i'm thinking well if you love scrapbooking you'll love frackbooking. About oil exploration? Close enough. Natural gas.

The website was called Women for Natural Gas. And looking at it, you'd think it was just a homemade passion project by a bunch of women who just wanted to tell the world how natural gas had changed their lives. But no, it turns out they're stock photos of women with invented backstories. What was the purpose of this? Was this to get other women to go on and on about the joys of natural gas? Apparently, you know, natural gas, as you know, has this public relations problem because

they get natural gas these days by fracking, which can be very destructive to environments and can cause all kinds of problems. You've all seen the stories of people turning on their faucets and flames coming out near fracking sites. So presumably this was a public relation saying, oh, no, we're natural, normal women just living the American dream. And we love natural gas. It showed them working in the natural gas industry, bathing their adorable babies in natural gas, heating their homes with pumpkin spice natural gas, having, you know, me time in the bath with a glass of wine lit only by flare stacks burning off excess methane.

Are you sure they weren't drinking a glass of natural gas? Exactly. Sounds totally natural to me. Reading a romance novel about a shirtless fracker. Peter, in 1937, an ancient mummified man was found in what is now Texas. And just this week, archaeologists finally determined that that man died of what? He died of boredom because everything sucked in the Middle Ages. No, that's not right.

Don't worry. He did not die of boredom. Give me a hint, please. I'll give you a hint. Unfortunately, the man lived hundreds of years before the invention of Metamucil. Oh, no. He died of constipation? He did. He died of constipation. The man had a

blockage that caused his colon to swell to six times its normal size. A condition called megacolon, by the way. Megacolon is also the name of the punctuation mark you use between the phrases, check this out, and this man's colon was six times its normal size. Oh, what a way to go.

Where did they find him? Well, apparently they found him in Texas. They found him in 1937. And the research is also notable for determining exactly how long it takes after finding a mummy for scientists to say well i guess it's time to look at his colon the nice thing about scientists who research mummy colons is when they find something like that that's like the best day i'm going to be in the cover of the journal of mummy colons they were so excited the new england

journal of mummy colons yeah it might be just a specialist who goes all over the world when a mummy is discovered with a possible colon issue. And they fly the guy in. He gets a call. Where are you going now, honey? Oh, honey, you think he's tied down? You think he's tied down to one woman, Tom? No, not even close.

The international jet set playboy mummy colon examiner. Every day I want to go. Every day I want to go. Coming up, it's lightning fill in the blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT.

That's 1-888-924-8924 or click the contact us link on our website, waitwait.npr.org. Also check out a special holiday edition of our bonus podcast, Letter from the Editors, where you can hear things

that got cut from the show. What makes it a special holiday edition? Well, you just have to tune in and be disappointed to find out. Find it in the Wait, Wait podcast feed. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Matthew Zippel from Hillsborough, North Carolina. Hey, how are things in Hillsborough?

Oh, pretty much the same as ever, I guess. What do you do there? I'm a PhD student in biology at Duke University. Oh, what are you studying? So I study the social behavior of baboons as part of a much larger project called the Amboseli Baboon Research Project, which is a long-term study in southern Kenya that's been ongoing for nearly 50 years now. This is a weird question. Is this the same baboon study that Robert Sapolsky was a part of and wrote his book Primates about? Because that is like one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read, and it made me just want to go stare at baboons.

Yeah, he's an excellent author, and it's very fun to stare at baboons. I envy you, a life of staring at baboons. Well, welcome to the show, Matthew. Bill Curtis is going to read you three news-related limericks with a last word or phrase missing from each. If you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly into the limericks, you'll be a winner. You ready to play? Yes, I am. All right, here is your first limerick. Though Ghostbusters might be undaunted, a house filled with ghouls is not wanted.

Both agent and seller cast out spirit dwellers. We promise this house is not... Haunted. Right. A Baltimore realtor offers an additional selling point to help her move her houses. She's added a tile to the for sale sign in front of her houses that reads, not haunted. It's guaranteed. She verifies this with the seller that the home is free from paranormal activity before she posts the signs.

And she says she can sense supernatural presence herself. What a great realtor. Don't worry, the only spooky creaking sounds you'll hear at night are from the rotting foundation. Yeah, that just makes it very suspicious. It's like if I was swiping through Tinder and a guy's profile is like, doesn't have STDs. Yeah.

Right. Now STD free. What if your house was haunted by like a ruthless real estate agent? This house is overpriced. Shut up. Shut up. What if you get haunted by a ghost that's like, just say it's not haunted. Just say it's not haunted.

The paper that officially says it's not haunted and a pen just floats in. It's like, stop that. Alright, here is your next limerick. The folks who get airsick won't smuckle, because tummies will jiggle and jerkle.

We are coming to ground on a flight path that's round, because our runway is built in a circle. Yes, a circle. Aerospace engineers now say they can revolutionize air travel by creating one giant circular runway instead of the grid pattern that we have at most airports, which means you can just sit in one location anywhere along that circle and see all the crashes. The problem is, apparently, regular runways take up too much space and make too much sense. So a Dutch designer says that building one two-mile-long circular banked runway would maximize safety and efficiency it allows multiple planes to take off and land at the same time and as anyone who's

driven through a say traffic roundabout will tell you what in god's name are they thinking but once you get in there how do you get out if it's a circle there's a like say it's just like the round it's just like the traffic circle, right? You go around until your exit's there. And that's like there's the old couple in the Prius airline. Yeah. It's just creeping along and going around and around and around. All right, Matthew, here is your last limerick.

Most drones whiff around like a lame blower. They make sounds in the yard like a tame mower. But mine will aim higher. Fights wasp nests with fire. My drone comes equipped with a flamethrower. Flamethrower, exactly right. There's finally a drone strike even Obama can't keep secret. A small town in China figured out how to deal with their terrible wasp infestation. A drone with a flamethrower attached.

What? Yeah, it's a real, huh, why didn't I think of it thing. And then it's a because it's a horrible idea thing. And finally, it's like an, oh, my God, everything is on fire thing. They took a drone, right? One of these little remote-controlled flying vehicles. They put a gasoline tank and a three-foot nozzle on the drone. What? And that sounds like something you can build at home but do not build it at home it works they flew it up to the wasp nest and they they sort of probably said something snarky

to the wasps and then they it worked well i have a buddy who's a drone pilot he's he does all kinds of cool things with them and his drone will come back if it goes out of range, you know, and he loses control of it. It's programmed to return to where he was. So imagine if it had an active flamethrower on it. I was like, no, no, go away, don't come back, don't come back. Bill, how did Matthew do in our quiz? Matthew lit it up with a perfect score. Good going, Matthew. Congratulations, Matthew. Oh, well, thanks very much.

Good luck with the doctorate. All right. Thanks very much, Peter. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Now on to our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as they can. Bill, can you give us the scores?

Helen has two, Peter has three, and Tom has 30. Okay, Helen, you are in third place. You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. On Monday, Attorney General Blank announced his resignation. Barr. Yes, Bill Barr. On Thursday, French President Blank tested positive for coronavirus. Macron. Macron. For the third week in a row, more Americans than expected filed for blank. Unemployment? Right. On Tuesday, the FDA approved emergency use of the first at-home blank test. Coronavirus. Yes. A man in Florida was somehow able to retrieve his golf ball

and continue playing after it landed on a blank. On a flamethrower drone. No, on an alligator. On Thursday, the East Coast was hit with its worst blank in years? Snowstorm. Right. A woman in Wisconsin who was upset the post office didn't pick up packages she had set out for delivery forgave them after she found blank.

Um, that there were baboons having sex on her lawn? Close. She found a note that said, couldn't get packages, animals chasing me. Security footage showed the postal worker attempting to pick up her delivery, but having to abandon his mission after being chased away by a flock of chickens. Despite this, I love this, he was able to leave a note, which explains why you can hear him in the video yelling, fine, but do any of you chickens have a pen? Bill, how did Helen do in our quiz?

Well, she got five right for ten more points. She now has 12 points and the lead. All right, very good. I'm going to arbitrarily choose Tom to go next. Tom, fill in the lead. All right, very good. I'm going to arbitrarily choose Tom to go next. Tom, fill in the blank. On Sunday, the White House confirmed that hackers from blank executed a cyber attack on many U.S. agencies. Russia. Yes. On Tuesday, the FDA endorsed Moderna's blank. COVID vaccine. Yes. This week, the USPS said the extraordinary amount of blank is threatening to overwhelm the service. Oh, mail, packages.

Well, specifically Christmas presents, but I'll give it to you. On Tuesday, Trump's neighbors in Florida tried to block him from moving to blank after Biden's inauguration. Mar-a-Lago. Yes, he signed an agreement saying he would never live there. The creators of popular new video game Cyberpunk 2077 are offering refunds thanks to a glitch that causes your character's blank to blank. It caused his head to explode.

No, it causes his package to pop out of his pants. The game has now been withdrawn from the Sony store. Following years of criticism, the baseball team in blank announced they were changing their name. Oh, Cleveland. Yes. On Thursday, officials reduced Rush's doping ban, but the country will still miss the next two blanks. Olympics. Yes. On Thursday, officials reduced Russia's doping ban, but the country will still miss the next two blanks. Olympics. Yes. Pepsi has restarted the cola wars with their new chocolate-flavored drink called Blank.

Oh, looks like poop. No. It's a new drink from Pepsi, chocolate-flavored, and it's called Pepsi Coco-Cola. They say the flavor is inspired by hot cocoa, hence the name Coco Cola. It's also inspired by just wanting to screw with Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola company, meanwhile, is getting in on the good-natured competitive fun with their new beverage, Pepsi's and Desist. Bill, how did Tom do in our quiz?

Tom had six right for 12 more points. That means he has 15 and the lead. All right, then. So how many, then, does Peter Gross need to win this thing? Well, Peter needs six to tie and seven to win outright. All right, Peter, this is for the game. Fill in the blank. On Tuesday, Joe Biden campaigned for the Democratic Senate candidates facing a runoff in blank.

Georgia. Right. On Sunday, a former staffer accused New York Governor blank of sexual harassment. Cuomo. Right. This week, Secretary of State blank announced he was quarantining after being exposed to COVID-19. Mike Pompeo.

Yes. On Monday, the U.S. officially removed Sudan from its list of countries sponsoring blank. Sponsoring a local softball team. No, terrorism. Right. This week, a group of burglars in Canada apologized and offered to pay for damages after they realized blank. They burgled the house that Justin Bieber grew up in. No, that they had accidentally broken into the wrong house.

On Tuesday, NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo signed a record $228 million extension to remain with the blanks. Milwaukee Bucks. Right. Best known for his spy thrillers The Night Manager, Tinker Tailor Soldier's Spy, and many others, novelist Blank passed away at the age of 89. John le Carré. Yes. This week, residents of a town in New Jersey who kept complaining about hearing something

that sounded almost exactly like a cannon going off discovered it was Blank. A toilet. No, it was a cannon going off. off, discovered it was blank. A toilet! No, it was a cannon going off. The town that was bothered by this booming, regular cannon-like sound were both surprised, and also not

at all surprised, that the source of the noise was in fact a cannon. Apparently the owner of a nearby vineyard had been using it to scare birds away from his crops. When asked why he didn't just use a scarecrow, the man said, I am. What do you think I'm loading the cannon with? Bill, did Peter do well enough to win?

Almost. Peter had six right for 12 more points. That means with 15 points, he and Tom are tied. They're co-champions this week. Congratulations. Yay. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict what will replace Christmas trees as the new holiday decoration now that Christmas trees are in short supply. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago

in association with Urgent Haircut Productions. Doug, but what if he's left-handed? Berman, benevolent overlord. Philip Okotika writes our limericks. Our house manager is Gianna Cappadona. Hey, and this week we have to say goodbye to our intern, Darius Cook. Darius, your boundless enthusiasm made you the perfect intern for our new all-remote world. You impressed us with your confidence and your fearless pursuit of the guy who biked from Poo Poo Point to Pee Pee Creek.

You have a bright future ahead of you, Darius, because someday you'll be allowed to go outside and see the sun again. Thank you, Darius, and we wish you the best of luck. Our web guru is Beth Novy. BJ Lederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks just one more time to Ismael Lutfi. Our warmest chin is bearded 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 and the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Mike

Danforth. Now panel, what will replace Christmas trees this year? Tom Baudet. Pyramids of empty Amazon boxes and then we can wipe the British Commonwealth's eye with the day after Christmas being Unboxing Day. Helen Hong.

We're going to cut off our pants and turn them into wreaths. Because what else are we going to do with pants anymore? And Peter Griffin. We'll replace trees with a naturally occurring winter resource that we will never run out of. Mounds of slush. Everyone, gather around and trim the slush with ornaments and lights, and then watch it melt slowly into the carpet. If any of that happens,

we'll ask you about it on wait, wait, don't tell me. Thank you, Bill. Thanks to Peter grows, Helen Hong and Tom Bodette. And thanks to all of you listeners for sticking with us this whole year.

It was a really tough time, but we got through it together. No matter what happens in 2021, whether things get better or they're just terrible in a whole new way, we are looking forward to getting together with all of you each week and making fun of everything that goes wrong. I'm Peter Sagal. We'll see you next week. This is NPR.