Brandi Carlile helps us say goodbye to Bill Kurtis!

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm legendary anchorman Bill Curtis. Well, where are we? Yeah. And here's your host at the Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. We got a great show for you today. Later on, we're going to be talking to the fabulous singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile. But first, back in 2014, when our original judge and scorekeeper Carl Castle retired, someone suggested that we should ask Bill Curtis to succeed him, and I said, are you nuts? Why would Bill Curtis, groundbreaking journalist and giant of broadcasting, squander his hard-earned reputation doing our silly little show every week? Well, today, either Bill is stepping down after being the hilarious beso profundo soul of our show for 12 wonderful years, or he finally came to his senses. So, if you want to be one of the last people to benefit from his wisdom and or his mistake, give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Now, it's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Tiffany Washburn. I'm calling from Dayton, Ohio. Hey, Dayton is a beautiful place. I think we're going there later on. What do you do there? I am a mom of two, and in my free time, I'm a can-can dancer with Madame Gigi's. Hold on, wait a minute. Oh, another one. There's so many of us. I really, I got to talk to our screeners. Too many can-can. Wait a minute, you're a can-can dancer, like the Moulin Rouge can-can? You come down and kicking it like that? Exactly like that. Wow. That's amazing. Is there a lot of call for can-can dancers these days in today's economy? A surprising amount of demand, yeah. When you're in town, you should stop by. Oh, yes. I'm making a note here. Absolutely. Absolutely. Stephanie, welcome to the show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, a comedian who you can see in Chattanooga, Tennessee on June 24th at the Comedy Catch with the show The Muslims Are Coming with Equally Threatening Friends. It's Nagin Farsad. Hi. Hi, Nagin. Next, it's the host of the daily podcast TBTL and the public radio variety show Live Wire, which will be live at the Reeser Center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon on May 29th. It's Luke Burbank. Hey there, Tiffany. Hey, Luke. And you can see her June 26th in Atlanta, Georgia at the Buckhead Theater and hear her on her podcast, Nobody Listens to Paula Poundstone. It's Paula Poundstone. Hey. Hey, Paula. Hey, Tiffany. Tiffany, welcome to the show. You're going to play Who's Bill this time. Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from this 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 for your voicemail. Are you ready to go? I'm ready. All right. Your first quote is from an NPR news story this week. Interest is surging in the tiny bulbous legumes. That was NPR's annoying way of saying that as food prices go up, more and more people are eating what? Is it chickpeas? It is chickpeas and other beans. That's the answer we were looking for. Oh, the magical fruit. Yes. Yes. Economists right now are pointing to a somewhat troubling indicator. Americans are buying lots and lots of beans. I was worried when I saw the New York Times say, seven delicious meals you can cook over a trash can fire. I love that this is an economic indicator. I mean, we've been like focusing on the price of gas so much. We should have been focusing on the gas that comes out of our butts more. When you think about it. I guess it won't work scientifically, but you could think one surplus would solve the other shortage, right? Yeah. We're not just buying more beans. We're really into them. This is true. There are bean influencers online. And real bean fans call themselves, again, I'm sorry to say this is true, leguminati. Oh, they run everything. They really do. I've heard that. It goes all the way to the top. Right. Right. This is happening, of course, as beef prices are reaching record highs. As are smugness levels among vegans. And vegetarians. Yes, true, true, true, true. I have to say, like, I know that this is sort of NPR framing this, the fact that people can't afford maybe to eat the kind of protein that they would like, which would be more like meat-based, chicken-based. But as a person who is, generally speaking, mostly vegetarian, I'm appreciating some people coming over to our slightly gassy side of the fence on this. Right. I was on Interstate 5 over in the Pacific Northwest where I live. And one of those big trucks that's got all the chickens in it, like, they're bombing down the highway. And I looked at it, and a chicken looked into my soul. Really? And I have never been the same again. Yeah. It was like, save me. I mean, it was. It was. It was. I'm saying, you know, let's give the beans a try, everybody. Just leave the windows open at night. Yeah, exactly. Here is your next quote. The Golden Girls templates and doers. That was the New York Times talking about how the. Well, the latest trend in TV is shows about whom? The older segment of the population? Yes, the older segment of the population, yes. Seniors, old people, geezers, yes. More and more TV shows are both featuring and are designed for older people, from the Matlock reboot to this new Netflix show, The Burrows, and other shows that will be on way too loud when you go home to visit your parents. It's true. There are a growing number of TV shows that are featuring older characters, like Only Murders in the Building, or Shrinking, or 75 Years Young Sheldon. Why am I leaving now? That's true. This is your moment, Bill. I didn't love the fact that in this New York Times piece, the photographs of some of the actors were, I would say, roughly my age. Yeah, terrifying, isn't it? Like, Alfred Molina is not that much older than I am. And yet, he's playing a senior citizen. Yeah, so this is their idea of letting, you know, I wasn't ready to be part of that population so quickly, but I guess I'm here. In fact, this is interesting, The Burrows on Netflix, this new show that sort of inspired this article, it's set in an old age home, and it's made by the people who made Stranger Things. In fact, Stranger Things dragged on so long, they were just able to cast the original kids from the show as senior citizens. I just segued into that. Have you heard about the, they have a new one of those reality shows, Cops, but it's older cops, and the criminals just get away. And they're going, I gotta sit. I just, let's go, I'm spitzing. And I'm telling you, right, if you're younger, you want older people to watch shows about older people, just to avoid that awkward moment when your uncle tells you he's all caught up in euphoria. Wait, what is euphoria? That's the right answer, Paula, that's the right answer, very good. You represented your demographic well. Tiffany, here is your last quote. Boo, boo. That was graduating classes around the country reacting to all these commencement speakers who chose to talk about what new technology? AI. Yes, AI, it is commencement. It's the commencement season, and speaker after speaker are bringing up AI and getting booed by the graduates. Yes, AI is not for graduation speeches. It's for writing the papers that help you graduate. Did the Secretary of Education, what's her name again? That would be Linda McMahon. Did she do any graduation speeches and talk about A1? Which she famously did, reading a speech. Reading from notes in Congress, talked about the potential of A1. But that was at the Western Oklahoma School of Rib-eyes, so it was honestly relevant to the graduates. So I want to ask, any of you, assuming you all graduated college, if so, do you remember your commencement speech, or the commencement speech that was given? Nope. Nope. No, my son graduated from high school in a very small program. He graduated in a class of one. Really? Yeah. They had to cut-- Cut, pump, and circumstance short. Yeah. It must have been great. You didn't have to wait for his name to come around when they were accepting the diplomas. No, exactly. Yeah, it was right there. Duh, duh, duh. OK. Bill, how did Tiffany do on our quiz? Tiffany was crystal clear with a perfect score. Congratulations, Tiffany. Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Paula. Yeah. I know you enjoy movies. I do. When you're out-- You're at the movies and you have to use the bathroom. It's stressful 'cause you don't wanna miss any of the movie. But now a movie theater in Switzerland has found an elegant solution. What is it? They have a guy that sits beside you when you come back and whispers what happened while you were gone. No. They have a guy that stands in the doorway just outside your stall and tells you what's happening on the screen while you're gone. At a normal volume. All right, if he's in the bathroom with you, how would he be able to watch the movie? Okay, they have a guy that stands just outside the actual bathroom, holds the door open so they can see what's happening on the screen, and shouts to you towards the stall where you're sitting. These are all wonderful ideas. If somebody steals this, I'm going to be so pissed. Literally. Literally, but they came up with another solution. Oh, boy, you got any hints from me? I mean, presumably you could sit there and watch the movie the whole time. Oh, my God. The film shows in the bathroom? Yes. Oh, that's awful. There are TV monitors in the floor in front of every toilet so you can watch the movie while you're using the toilet and not miss anything. Wow. Yeah. I remember when I watched Oppenheimer, I needed a break because I thought it was too intense, and it would have been horrible if, like, I went to go take a break in the bathroom and it was still there. Yeah, and it followed you to your car. Everywhere you go, Oppenheimer is playing. Yeah. No, that's abusive. That's not a good relationship with Oppenheimer. Yeah, when I walk into the bathroom, I say, I have become deaf. Either of us. One son of the moon is. Coming up, what if our Bluff the Listener game was actually called Blurf the Listener? 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. From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Paula Poundstone, Nagin Farsad, and Luke Burbank. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much. Right now, it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT if you would like to play our games on the air. Hi, this is Rhonda Graff calling from McCook, Nebraska. McCook, Nebraska. Where is that exactly? We are smack dab between Denver and Omaha and home to Senator George Norris. Oh, Senator George Norris? Yeah, you've got to go back a ways to, you know, electricity. Oh, I'm sorry. And now we're to broadband. The Senator George Norris. Now I know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Rhonda, welcome to the show. You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Rhonda's topic? Just one letter. One letter can make a big difference. Consider the priest who told the congregation that all singers go to hell. This week, we heard a story of something off just by one letter, and the consequences were remarkable. Our panelists are going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win our prize, the Wait, Waiter of Your Choice on your voicemail. Ready to play? I am. First, let's hear from Nagin Farsad. Dr. Mariano Cohen is a well-respected urologist in Argentina who was invited to speak on a local radio station. He was probably flattered that his vast knowledge of urology was going to be useful on a more public-facing scale. It's about time that the study of the testes, prostate, vas deferens, and yes, the seminal vesicles be taken as a serious matter of public health and not, as an uncomfortable joke made by dirtbag comedians on silly quiz shows. But when the urologist went live on the airwaves, the first question he got was, where did he study to become a ufologist? As in, someone who studies UFOs. Quote, I'm a urologist, not a ufologist, he said, as all the genitals he studied metaphorically shrank. In the end, urologists are still the one doctor no one wants to see, but they're a pretty decent stand-in when it comes to explaining inexplicable orbs with strange behaviors. A urologist invited onto a radio show because they thought he was a ufologist. Your next alphabet account comes from Luke Burbank. According to a story this week in The Hill, about six months ago, Ben Forstag was at his desk as regional director of the FBI, the Farmington Bratwurst Association, a Michigan-based lobbying group representing the cased meats industry, when he got an email from Kash Patel ordering him to look into a series of bank robberies in the area. Why, though, would the FBI director reach out to him? Well, thanks to a typo on his LinkedIn page, his name came up when Director Patel googled Michigan Regional Director of the FBI. Patel was actually emailing a guy whose real expertise was how spicy is too spicy when we're talking kielbasa? The even more amazing part, Forstag nabbed the suspect. With no legal authorization, he staked out the one bank in town that hadn't been robbed yet, and sure enough, he caught the bandit when he showed up, something he said he saw in a Matt Damon movie. Someone listening. His job is with the FBI, instead of the FBA, ends up catching a criminal. Your last story of someone playing loose with the letters comes from Paula Poundstone. Tech Tech, who Wired Magazine has put in the top slot of their Who to Watch in Tech list, recently held their Spring Fling Employee Recognition Luncheon at the Southport Hyatt in Boston. The round tables were festooned with bouquets of flowers. The event featured an improv teacher who led the attendees in some hilarious group storytelling, but there was something missing. The lunch. In fact, the crowd grew a little restless digging through their bags for power bars and candy by the last speaker, who shook his head slowly and moaned in response to each disturbance during his somewhat out-of-place testimonial about the challenges of his life as a very tall man, his struggles with depression, and the difficulties of finding work as a butler in the current economic climate. Of course, CEO Watson threatened never again to use Let's Have an Affair, her go-to party planners, until they showed her a copy of the email asking for the event to include Lurch. Lurch was the butler from the Addams Family. So, one of these single-letter typos made it into the news this week. Was it from Nagin Farsad, a urologist who got invited to talk about ETs and UFOs, from Luke Burbank, somebody who was a regional director for the FBA, being mistaken for someone from the FBI, or was it from Paula Poundstone, a corporate event that went awry because they ended up with this visit from Lurch, the butler from the Addams Family, rather than a delicious lunch? Well, while I love the Lurch idea and I believe the FAI, I'm going with number one. You're going to go with Nagin, the story of the urologist mistaken for a ufologist. Well, to bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone familiar with the real story. You log on to a call to think you're going to be asked about your medical expertise, and then someone's like, do you believe in aliens? And you're like, how is this relevant? Yeah. How is it relevant? That was Dr. Reena Malik, a urologist, explaining the mix-up in this week's news. Congratulations, Rhonda, you got it right. Thank you. Thank you. And now the game where people who have won a lot try to win one more thing. It's called Not My Job. Brandi Carlile says that from an early age, she knew she was going to make it as a musician, and she was right. She has won 11 Grammy Awards and two Emmys. She has an Oscar nomination for a song she wrote for her childhood idol, Elton John. Her new album is called Returning to Myself, and she joins us now. Brandi Carlile, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't. Don't tell me. Hello, everyone. Let's start with this Elton John thing. I was reading your memoir, or rather listening to you read it, which was pretty great, and you write that you were such an Elton John fan as a pretty young girl, you actually dressed like him in a singing competition? Oh, yeah, many singing competitions, and also Halloween, and I went to school with homemade Elton John jewelry. I mean, I was a massive Elton John fan, as a teenager. Right, so, and how much did you stand out amongst your peers being, you know, when they'd come in doing whatever they were doing? In Maple Valley. Yeah, Washington. This is rural Washington, right? Your mother got you this white suit that she bedazzled, and you had big fake glasses. What did they think of you? Well, it was 1995, so it wasn't exactly the height of teen pop idol fame that Elton John experienced in the 70s, so it was like they were all discovering Elton John through me until The Lion King, and then they all understood. - That's my obsession. - Really? And they all realized you were a prophet before your time. So later on, you not only met Elton John, but collaborated with him and became very close friends. How early in your relationship did you tell him about this? Like, immediately, I got right in there. Hello, my name is Brent. You don't lie about that kind of thing. You just have to get it right out in the open, you know? And I think when you're Elton John, you can't decide to choose friends based on who's a fan and knows your music. It's like, he'd have no friends at all if he didn't know well. Granted, if you're an international superstar of that duration, yes, everybody's going to be your fan. Not everybody is going to dress up as you as a 12-year-old girl. No tomato. One of the interesting things about you is you meet Elton John, you become close friends. You meet Joni Mitchell, you become collaborators. Hi, Brandy. Yeah. Hi. Have you ever. Have you ever. Have you ever felt shy about reaching up to any of your idols? No, I'm not very shy at all. In fact, I'm married to a British woman, and she just. She's in constant state of cringe because I will walk straight up to new people or people I admire, and I will just get right in there with a hug. And I just. I have no. Life is too short to not be friends and to get close with people you respect. I hear you. There you go. Have you ever been rebuffed? Yes. Oh. All the time. All the time. All the time. Really? Can you dish on somebody who wasn't nice to you? No, I can't get specifics, but I will say that I've had moments, even with my closest friends, where they've been like, oh, piss off, Brandy. I didn't recognize you right away. I was fascinated to hear the details of your background. You grew up, as I said, in rural Washington State. You've written and talked about how poor your family was growing up. In fact, unless I got. If I get this wrong, sometimes the family would eat only if your father shot an elk or deer from your window? I mean, I wouldn't say that we would only eat if we shot an elk or deer, but there were definitely a few elk and deer shot from the window. And. From the window part. I mean, when you're just sitting around the house and somebody says. It's a reverse drive-thru. Yeah, kind of. I don't understand why we can take the screen off. Yeah, true. It's like, well, somebody says, so what's for dinner? And your dad says, well, let's. Let's find out. And he goes to the window. You also write about how your father more or less treated you just the same as he treated your brother, who was very close in age. None of that girly stuff for you. In fact, and I loved this story, he drove you to go have a fight with a bully? Yeah. Yeah, he did. He drove me to go have a. You know, you don't. It was in the 80s. You don't miss your fistfight appointments if you make them. Right. So, I'm just, again, just. I mean, I guess, plaudits to you for having the courage, plaudits to your father for supporting you and your goals, but I'm just curious as to how that went down. Like, you see your dad and you say, dad, there's this kid who's been bothering me and I challenged him to a fight and we agreed to meet down by the lake at two. Can you give me a ride? Is that what happened? That's exactly what happened. Really? And your father said, okay. Yeah. And he drove me to the lake and he dropped me off and then he left. Left, left. Wait a minute. So, he drives you to have a fight with a boy. Wait a minute. I'm remembering in detail. Two boys. Yes, yes. And he drops you off and he just leaves? He left, yeah. I didn't see him until I went back home at dark. And me and the boys, we did get into a scuffle and one of them fell in the lake and we wound up playing the game of baseball, the baseball diamond all together. Wow. Who got the most points? I got the most points in the first game. So, as I indicated, you had an extraordinary amount of confidence in your career as a musician. You dropped out of high school. You went up to Seattle. You did make it, to put it mildly. I think we had the total of 12 Grammys to date? Two Emmys? One Oscar nomination? Eleven. Eleven. Excuse me. We'll keep our fingers crossed for this year. All right. Fingers crossed. I have to ask, that's a lot of Grammys. Eleven. Where do you keep them? I keep them all. I keep them all on top of my piano that I've had since I was 18. It's a 1900 upright old granny piano that I write tons of my songs on. And the whole top of it's just covered in Grammys and Christmas lights. Wow. That's really cool. Thank you. It's a nut. You know, it occurs to me, you have enough of them, you could do like a whole dinner party and everybody gets one at their place setting, like holding the napkin or something. Well, I definitely don't hide them when people come over. No, sure. Well, Brandi Carlile, it is an absolute. Absolute delight to talk to you, but we have asked you here to play a game, and since your latest album is called Returning to Myself, we've asked you here to play a game that we're going to call. Returning to the Store. Because when you think about it, returning to yourself is pretty easy. For example, you don't need a receipt. So, returning to the store, though, is a different thing. We're going to ask you three questions about people returning things to the store where they bought it. Get two out of three right. You'll win a prize. You'll win a prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose for their voicemail. Are you ready to play? Yes, sir. All right. Bill, who is the great Brandi Carlile playing for? Jennifer Coggins of Richmond, Virginia. All right. Here we go. Here's your first question. In 2018, a man in New Jersey was sent back to the grocery store by his wife to return a $5 bottle of orange juice because she thought it was too expensive. His wife, it turns out, turned out to be very wise. Why? A. While he was at the store returning it, a plane crashed into his empty house. B. The next person who bought that orange juice found a live scorpion inside. Or C. He spent the five bucks he got back on a lottery ticket that won him $315 million. This feels like C to me. It is C, Brandi. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And we presume after he won $315 million. $315 million in the lottery, his wife let him buy as much expensive orange juice as he wanted. Meanwhile, I get in trouble when I spend the grocery money on the lotto. I said, fine. Just got to win, baby. All right. That was very good. Here's your next question. Amazon promises easy returns. But one Amazon customer who tried several times to return an item got so frustrated that she did what? A. As vengeance, she bought a piano on Amazon and instantly returned that so Amazon would have to pay for it. B. She went to Amazon's shareholder meeting and tried to return the item directly to Jeff Bezos. Or C. With a friend, she embarked on an epic quest to cast the package into the fires of Mount Doom. Well, I really want this to be B, so I'm going to go B. She turned out she was an Amazon shareholder, so she got to go to the shareholders meeting. She stood up and said, Mr. Bezos, I have this package. You won't take it as a return. I want to give it to you. Bezos was very gracious about it. He apologized. He asked if anybody else there had anything they needed to return. It was pretty cool. However, you can still hate him. All right. Here's your last question, Brandi. You're doing as well with this as you seem to do with everything. Here's your last question. Costco, famous for their incredibly generous return policy. In fact, at Costco, somewhere in the country, once accepted. A return of which of these? A, the bones of the rotisserie chicken a man had just eaten in the food court. B, a dead Christmas tree in the first week of January. Or C, everything a particular guy had ever bought from Costco. I'm going with the dead Christmas tree. Well, you're right, but all of them were true. Wow. Costco will take almost. Anything back if you bought it at Costco. That last guy, everything he'd ever bought, he pulled up with a U-Haul. He unloaded all this merchandise he had bought over the years. He said, well, I'm moving. And I figured instead of putting this in a moving van, I'll just return it to you, take the money, and buy it new when I get to my new home. Wow. Bill, how did Brandi Carlile do in our quiz? Perfect score. She did three in a row. Wow. That's impressive. A lot of points. Amazing. Amazing. Brandi Carlile is a Grammy and Emmy-winning singer-songwriter you can see in the road this year. Tickets for the Human Tour are on sale now. Brandi Carlile, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you. Bye, Brandi. Bye, Brandi. Thank you so much. Bye, Brandi. Thank you. In just a minute, Bill shakes his moneymaker in our Listener Limerick Challenge. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to join us in the air. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Luke Burbank, Paula Poundstone, and Nagin Farsad. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you. Thanks, everybody. In just a minute, Bill Serrett. you one last time with some topical yet beautiful poems in our listener limerick challenge if you'd like to play give us a call at 1-888-WAIT-WAIT that's 1-888-924-8924 right now panel some more questions for you from the week's news mcgean according to the wall street journal to get their kids more time on standardized tests parents are sometimes claiming those kids are suffering from what um yeah their kids suffer from like not wanting to do it no no no i'll give you a hint uh it doesn't stand for i be smart oh wait wow kids suffer from international baccalaureate syndrome so close so damn close yeah i don't remember wait yeah but but pooping and stuff yes pooping and stuff that would be slightly more yeah more slightly more scientifically ibs irritable bowel syndrome parents across the country are apparently falsely claiming that their kids have irritable bowel syndrome just so that their kids can have unlimited bathroom breaks during the sat test kids with ibs and similar issues of course they're allowed extra time so many parents have never been more furious to have children without any neurological or medical problems why aren't they why doesn't the uh sat like testing service pro just provide diapers yeah you know that'll show them that's yeah yeah so basically what's happening is like some parents are accusing other parents of having their kids fake this so they get that extra edge of constantly being able to take extra time and it is true they've done studies of like like eruptions if you will of ibs among young people and they're and they're sort of centered in wealthy neighborhoods wow really so there you go that's because beans are better for you no this is as a person who did poorly on the sat i can tell you that i would not have traded my low sat score for my fellow yeah nathan hale high school seniors thinking that i was about to absolutely destroy my pants there's probably like a lesser you could there's not there must be like a lesser thing that's like i'm sorry i need more time i have bunions i'm sorry i need more time i have bunions you know what i mean something yeah i got extra time for my sat by telling them i had bone spurs coming up it's lightning fill in the blank but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme it's really like a play on air call or leave a message at one triple eight wait wait that's one eight eight eight nine two four eight nine two four you can see us most weeks right here at the studebaker theater in downtown chicago and you can catch us in the road as well we'll be in milwaukee wisconsin on july 9th and in beautiful sonoma county california making our debut there on july 30th for tickets and more information to all of our live events go to nprpresents.org hi you're on wait wait don't tell me hi hi who's this my name is brooke i'm calling from pearland texas so what do you do there in pearland i work in the non-profit field yes oh more and more of us are doing that highly recommend yeah well welcome to the show brooke bill curtis is going to read you three news related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each if you can fill in that last word or phrase correctly and two of the limericks will be a winner you ready to play i'm ready here's your first limerick with a permit at age 45 i'm the oldest beginner alive i stall and i swerve go too slow hit the curb i'm an adult who's learning to drive yes a column in the guardian describes the humiliation of learning to drive as an adult makes sense nothing strips your dignity away like one of those student driver be patient bumper stickers on your bmw i should like maybe be taught how to drive by an adult because i draw i have a driver's license but i don't really drive yeah and you live in new york i live in new york city i don't need it and then it now it's i'm just it's terror and what at one point i was driving in los angeles but then i had to like parallel park this was years ago and i couldn't figure out the parallel park and there was a guy and it was a large space i should have been able to do it and ultimately this i was so stressed out this random stranger was like helping me and then i was like can you just do it so a random man got in your car in my car and parked it for me and as i like gently cried on the corner that's very nice though it's a lovely story thank you yeah did you fill out a police report when he drove off here is your next limerick it's a baby name you will regret even romeo would be upset g-h-i for a j is just not okay it's 12 letters to spell goes with romeo juliet juliet yes this week the mirror reported on a woman who is in a horrible fight with her best friend laureen over laureen's new daughter's name that new daughter is named juliet that's lovely but laureen has spelled it g-h-i-u-l-i-y-e-t-t-e juliet it's an incredibly elaborate way to spell it and by elaborate i mean dumb so We'll get more points that's true well she'll be called miss g her whole life yeah yeah or whatever her middle name is what yonder window breaks yeah here is your last limerick older wedding guests started to tut but mostly we busted it out she was doing the worm but her clutes were too firm so her dress tore exposing her butt yes good guess this week's viral wedding video was of a bridesmaid who danced with the groomsmen down the aisle to the couple at the altar like the cool kids do and then as a little extra flourish both she and the groomsmen hit the floor right in front of the couple to do the wedding and then the groomsmen came out of the room and her dress immediately split open from him to the middle of her back revealing her entire but everybody knows that's a terrible faux pas you're not supposed to steal attention from the bride's but thankfully somebody captured all this on video from just the right angle behind and the bridesmaid herself posted it with the caption and this is true stop zooming in you bastards but then of course it led to this insane bradzilla moment when the bride said well i wanted matching bridesmaid dresses so the rest of you hit the floor bill how did brooke do in our quiz brooke did really well got them all right wow we're hard congratulations brooke well done take care and thanks for playing all right bye-bye now onto our final game lightning fill in the blank each of our players left 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as they can each correct answer now worth two points bill can you give us the scores again paula and nagin each have two luke has four all right paula and nagin are tied so paula why don't you go first here we go fill in the blank on tuesday president trump announced a new 1.8 billion dollar fund that could benefit the people involved in blank january 6th right on thursday the dnc released the so-called autopsy of the 2024 blank uh presidential election right this week the surgeon general posted an advisory about the dangers of blank time for kids and teens um screen time yes screen time paula after being forced out by cbs blank ended his run as the host of the late show steven colbert yes this week analysts reviewing president trump's financial disclosures suspect that while attempting to buy over a million dollars of pharmaceutical stock he accidentally blanked um bought over a million dollars of pharmaceutical stock no he accidentally bought more than a million dollars of a conveyor belt sushi restaurant stock wow because it had a similar name following negotiations with fifa mayor and mom donnie was able to secure 50 blank tickets for new yorkers soccer tickets yeah world cup tickets very good best known for being the u.s's first openly gay congressman blank passed away at the age of 86 the great barney frank the great barney frank this week spectators at a runway show at sydney fashion week were surprised to learn the avant-garde soundtrack playing as the models were coming down the runway was actually blank um uh lion king no it was actually just the fire alarm going off the models at this australian fashion week show walked the runway for a good five minutes back and forth as the fire alarm blared oh my gosh the sophisticated audience was like wow what a cool artistic choice commenting in the heightened sense of emergency in our society the flames and smoke filling the room also a bold choice bill how did paula do on our quiz she got six right total to 14 she did very well she's in the lead all right mcgean all right you're up next fill in blank on tuesday a trump endorsed challenger beat representative blank in kentucky's gop primaries uh massey yes thomas massey on monday a judge ruled that the gun found in his backpack would be allowed as evidence in the trial of blank uh mangione mangione luigi mangione this week tens of thousands of people faced evacuation orders as blanks blazed through southern california again wildfires right on monday the who said that the blank outbreak in central africa merited serious concern ebola right this week the new ceo of xbox announced plans to make that game system relevant again by changing its name to blank uh ozem no good idea uh changing the name from xbox to xbox but now it's in all capital letters this week a school in maine apologized after students attending a dinner at the school were served blank for dessert shards of glass no although close they were served a tray of baked dirt according to school officials a science class had been conducting an experiment to see if plants grow in soil that had been sterilized in the oven and this baking dish filled with dirt was accidentally picked up with the food for the dinner and placed down the table and trust us you do not want to know what those gummy worms actually were bill how did nagin do well our quiz she got four right eight more points total of ten means paula's still out there all right and now for the what i hope is the last math problem you're ever asked to do how many does luke need to win five to tie six to win here you go i just want to double check you got the note yeah from my mom about the ibs all right luke this is for the game fill in the blank on monday the average blank price in all 50 states rose above four dollars a gallon gasoline right on wednesday the u.s indicted former cuban president blank on murder charges castro right this week iran's leader said that country's enriched blank must stay within its borders uranium right on wednesday space company blank announced plans to go public spacex right this week a politician in the uk who declined interviews due to what he said was an important prior commitment was seen minutes later blanking feasting on beans no drinking beers at a pub after she was found not guilty of tax evasion a court ruled that spain's tax authority must pay pop star blank 64 million dollars shakira right on monday auditions for who will replace daniel craig as the next president of the united states will be announced on monday the next blank began bond right this week the washington post profiled an airport detection dog who recently sniffed out two duffel bags filled with blank uh. illegal food yes i'm gonna give it to you one hundred pork sandwiches of the beagle sniffed out the sandwiches at the minneapolis st paul international airport where someone was illegally transporting those sandwiches from thailand officers celebrated this dog for his remarkable achievement rightly so because of this one thing that really proves a dog is an elite law enforcement canine it's immediately detected when someone is holding a meat sandwich he should be allowed to eat whatever he catches yeah i think so that's true people with yeah bill did luke do well enough to win wow he got seven right fourteen more points eighteen wins this week congratulations yeah you can hear the enthusiasm in just a minute we're gonna ask our panelists to predict now that bill is retiring from our show what will he do next but first let me tell you that Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Hair Cup Productions. Hey, Doug, what are you doing here, Berman Benevolent Overlord? Philip Godica writes our limericks. Our public address announcer is Paul Friedman. Our ops manager is Jasira Vardak. Thanks to the staff and crew always at the Studebaker Theater. BJ Liedemann composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Blythe Robertson and Monica Hickey. Peter Gwynn is our tomato. Emma Choi is our vibe curator, technical direction assistant, Lorna White. Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilock. And the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, that's Mike Danforth. And now, for 12 remarkable years, Bill Curtis has performed with us and he has traveled with us. Hang on. He has traveled with us from Seattle to Florida. He has stood on stages in places like Red Rocks and Carnegie Hall and Tanglewood. And he has said the most ridiculous things. In that most serious of voices. And he has often said how lucky he feels to have done all that with us. But Bill, for once, you're wrong. We are the lucky ones. The producers and engineers and managers of our show and the panelists and of course me. Because we got to spend 12 years doing that with you. So, let's in fact give it up for our legendary anchorman and our dear friend, Mr. Bill Curtis. One more time. Wow. Wow. So, panel, what will Bill Curtis do next? Nagin Farsad. He's tired of being objectified for his voice so he's going to be a male bikini model so he can finally be objectified for his body. I'll do it. Luke Burbank. Whatever the f*** he wants. Ha! Ha! And Paula Poundstone. Bill will be applying for the weaponization reparations from the 1.7 billion dollars. And if I do any of that, we're going to ask you about it and wait, wait, don't tell me. So thanks to Nagin Farsad, Paula Poundstone and Luke Burbank. Thanks to our fabulous audience who are here for this show at the Studebaker Theatre in downtown Chicago. Thanks to you for listening in wherever you may be. I'm Peter Segal and Bill, in the end, the only way you know something is absolutely true is if you say it. So, would you please do the honors. This is NPR.