Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Best of Not My Job 2019

Episode Date: December 28, 2019

It's the end of 2019, so we're looking back on some of our favorite guests from the year; José Andrés, Marin Alsop, Steve Earle, Jennifer Weiner, and Anthony Anderson.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey everybody, this is Peter Sagal. I'm the host of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. We are now officially in the third decade of our show, which also means it's our third decade of asking you, our listeners, for your support. And without you, we cannot bring you the hard-hitting, sensitive journalism you have come to rely on from us. Paula, a classic product is getting an advisory label now. It's warning consumers against overuse. What is the product? Overuse. Overuse. And it's a classic. Too much an advisory label now. It's warning consumers against overuse. What is the product? Overuse? Overuse.

Oh, and it's a classic. Too much of this is dangerous. Uh, uh, talcum powder. No, no, it's not that. You also want to limit the amount of milk you might be dunking them into. Cookies? Yes, well, specifically Oreos. Oreos?

Well, a row isn't too many. Public radio is listener supported, which means, first, what you've heard is your fault, and second, your gift allows us to do what we do. Please donate to your station now, which supports programs like us, by giving at donate.npr.org

slash wait. And thank you. From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Hey, Times Square, count to ten. I'm your New Year's Eve bill drop. Bill Curtis, and here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. We're in the holiday sweet spot, that glorious time of year when there are no rules.

We can gorge ourselves on leftover Christmas cookies and candy canes before pretending to make all sorts of New Year's resolutions. Peter, as God is my witness. I promise to ride the new Peloton you gave me every damn day. One man who has an even more generous spirit than I do is our new friend, humanitarian and chef, Jose Andres. Chef Andres joined us on a beautiful summer day outdoors at Wolfstrap near Washington, D.C. in August. Chef Jose Andres, welcome to Wait, Wait, No Time. I've never been surrounded by so many people that speak proper English at once.

It's amazing. My wife and I, which by the way, she listens to you guys all the time. Wow. She's my translator because I can never understand anything you say. She tells me, can you wait until the show is over so I tell you all the words you don't understand? It's so unfair. So you are one of the world's most celebrated chefs. So we just have to ask you, what do you think of the Popeye's chicken sandwich?

I waited in line, and then by the time it was my turn, the Popeye was gone. But there's so many amazing chicken sandwiches in America. Very different. You are on the line waiting for an hour, and next door is another place that has a sandwich that's good or better, but everybody has to be in the line. It's like going to Disney. You go, and you are in the line.

Like, well, sometimes the line is not the way forward, people. Find your own line. Find your own line. Find your own line. That's the answer you wanted to get? I don't know what I wanted. That's a great answer. I know that a lot of chefs, famous chefs, award-winning chefs,

often have a favorite junk food or something because they're just so tired of fancy food when they want to eat. Do you have one of those favorite guilty habits? Yeah, I love canned food when they want to eat. Do you have one of those favorite guilty habits? Yeah, I love cans. Canned food. Cans of food. C-A-N.

Yeah, I got it. Do you care what's in the can? Or is it just the container? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love, you know, the Finding Nemo, the little eggs, the black eggs. They call it caviar, the fancy people. That's good canned food.

I mean, if you don't have caviar in a can, you can eat spam and it's good too. If you can choose, I love caviar. I love the fact that after a day of cooking brilliant food for expensive patrons, you know, in fabulous restaurants, you relax just with a simple dish of caviar. I like food in a can. Let me put it this way. Imagine you're hungry. You have nobody around you. You have a can. You open the can. You are eating. Amazing. Can food Should

Deserve An opportunity In our lives People of America Do you eat spaghettios? You know the little like Pasta with the Sauce in the

No No No Cause that's That's the caviar of pasta Just so you know He has some He has some standards Peter

Sardines Sardines yeah, you like that. Mussels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oysters. So you just want fish in a can. Oysters come in cans? But the fish feels so protected in a can. Oh, yeah, the fish is lying there going,

nothing's going to happen to us in here. Take a look what happened to Nemo in the anemone. I mean, in the can, nothing happens until you open it. Yeah. And especially when you knock, can I open you? And the fish tells you, yes, Jose, you can. Yes, you can. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

I just figured out your reference to Finding Nemo. Did you mean the eggs that Nemo's mom lays in the very beginning of the film, that big pile of eggs, that are then all eaten except for Nemo, which is the starting tragedy of the whole story. So you are, in this metaphor, the barracuda. No, I am more protective than the barracuda. I mean, I don't want to eat them the first moment I see them.

No, no. I put them in the refrigerator. I keep them. I make sure the temperature is right. Only when I feel it's the right moment, I really eat them. Yeah. I mean, you're not a savage. It's very different than a barracuda.

I mean, I'm more like More like a seal. I mean I'm so happy when I hear that I start clapping Now one of the things we wanted to talk about you is you have a bunch of restaurants two of them if I'm not mistaken Have two Michelin stars, which is a very difficult thing to get in this world And we understand that Michelin star reviewers, nobody knows who they are. They're not like newspaper reviewers.

Everybody knows their name, if not, they're what they look like. Do you guys who want a Michelin star, who might get one, do you try to figure out who they are? Do you look for the people with the fake mustaches? Yeah, like, I think that guy's from Michelin. I'm sure we do. Really? So if we wanted to convince you

that we were a Michelin reviewer so as to get better service, what should we do? Well, you come in and you look like a super interesting person. You start smelling the air. You see the temperature.

Wait a minute. You wave your finger in the air and then you look at. Wait a minute. You wave your finger in the air and then you look at... No, hold on. I am overacting, but it's for you. It's for you to understand the idea in case you guys don't get my English. Yeah. And usually they may be

alone and they're looking to the right and they're looking to the left and they don't talk to anybody, that may be a Michelin critic. Or it could be a sociopath. Has no friends. Has happened before. I'm sure. You get both.

Everybody gets served. Has only happened once. How long did that person sit there? He ate the entire 30-course menu. Did he really? Yeah. Because he was going to protest your politics, but he got a little peckish. At the end, he went from one political party to the other.

That's how it was. I want to ask you one more question before the game. So you're a great chef. You're a master of several different cuisines. Is there one thing that you're terrible at making? Like, for example, your kids would never eat your mac and cheese. Is this going to make it into the show? Yeah, I don't know.

It depends how honest you are. It's so hard for a chef to recognize your weakness. Let me tell you one thing. You may tell me anything you want. If whatever I did was wrong, it was not my fault. There you go. You are a chef.

But I can tell you one thing. What? Some of my most popular dishes, they're never mine. The number one dish everybody in America has repeated the most, gazpacho. Yeah. You know the recipe, who is from? Yeah, who? My wife.

Oh. And I love it, and I love her. Her gazpacho is unbelievable. For the English-speaking people, unbelievable is beyond unbelievable. Well, Jose Andres, we are so delighted to talk to you, and we have invited you here to play a game we're

calling... Michelin Star Meet Michelin Man! So as we've said, you've won Michelin Stars as well as other awards, but what do you know, sir, about the Michelin Man? The weirdly bloated, rubberized spokes mascot for the Michelin Tire Company. We're going to ask you three questions about the Michelin Man, the weirdly bloated, rubberized spokes mascot

for the Michelin Tire Company. We're going to ask you three questions about the Michelin Man, answer two of them correctly, and you will win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of their choice on their home answering machine. Bill, who is Jose Andres playing for? Gabriel Patterson of Ruston, Virginia. All right.

All right, the first question, the Michelin Man, who has a name, it's Bibendum, wasn't always the cheerful figure he now is in advertisements. Early on, around 1900, he was depicted doing what? A, beating up a horse, his main competition. B, drinking a glass of nails and broken glass. B, drinking a glass of nails and broken glass, or C, eating a pint of ice cream by himself after a bad breakup with the Michelin woman?

B as a boy? B as a boy? I think it's very obvious to me that the correct answer is B as a boy. You are correct. I don't know how you figured that out. The idea is, of course, that he was such a tough tire or made of such tough tires that he could down broken glass and nails with no harm.

All right, next question. He wasn't always depicted as a tough guy. They changed his image back and forth. In one early poster, he was depicted doing what? A, lying down under a maiden jumping from a burning window so she could bounce. B, removing a tire from his own abdomen to help a family fix a flat. Or C, letting a drowning swimmer suck air out of his tubes. I like the one of the belly giving a time.

I don't feel so bad now about my belly. I think it's B for belly. And again, you are right. The poster, he's pulling a tire out of his own abdomen to hand it to his family. But don't worry. So they can fix it. Very generous.

Your last question. The Michelin Man was given his own column in a company magazine back in 1907. And here's the Michelin Man speaking for himself. And he used that platform to do what? A, complain about how his rubber was getting thinner as he aged. B, invite people to come on over and blow into his valves. Or C, brag about his vast success with the ladies. C?

It is, in fact, C. Wow. Bill, how did Jose Andres do on our quiz? His ingredients were perfect. Three of them. Very well done. Chef Jose Andres' new cookbook is Vegetables Unleashed. It's available now.

Jose Andres, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Come. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up, we talk to a country music rebel and a classical music outlaw. It's Steve Earle and Maren Alsop. That's when we come back on 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 at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Peter Sagal.

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. Today, Bill and I are squeezing all the last bits of joy from 2019 before we step into all the wonder and mystery of 2020. Will this be the year we finally get flying cars and robot pizza? One of the great joys of the past year was meeting conductor Maren Alsop, who overcame rejection from Juilliard by starting her own orchestra. She is now the music director for symphonies in Baltimore and Brazil. When she joined us last summer, Peter asked her if she always loved playing music.

No, I was born with a job. My parents were professional musicians. My dad was a violinist and my mom a cellist, and so they needed a pianist, and so they said, Oh, let's make one. So I was born with a job job and really i hated the piano i hated it i retired when i was six from the piano now was that because you didn't like the piano or because you just resented your parents like like this is why you were here well how much

time do we have now no they they tricked me into playing violin and then i you know for every kid there is a there is the right instrument how do you trick a child to playing the violin i've left we have now. No, they tricked me into playing violin and then I, you know, for every kid, there is a right instrument. How do you trick a child to playing the violin? I've left some candy inside this odd wooden object. But it was very close

because they said, they said, you want to go to summer camp? You know, and so I already had an archetypal image of summer camp,

you know, with sailing and swimming and horseback riding. Somehow horses got in there. They said, oh, before we go, we forgot to tell you, you might have to play the violin. And this camp is called Meadow Mountain.

It's fondly called the concentration camp for violinists. And when you got there, they just put you in your little cell and handed you a violin? Yeah, the teacher said, so you're going to practice from eight until 1 every day, five hours. Luckily, I was 7.

I had no real sense of time. Right. Wow. Well, 7 years old, and they made you practice your violin five hours a day, and this was supposedly for pleasure. This was camp. Right.

I mean, there's so many things to say. Of course. Well, she was practicing. What were the other activities, like weeping? No, no, yeah, weeping. The only sport we were allowed to do was ping pong. And so I am awesome at ping pong. And is it true, we read that you decided at some point you wanted to be a conductor?

Well, what happened was that after practicing for five hours for eight weeks, I was pretty good. So I got into Juilliard right after that, but I played in the orchestra, which I loved. And they got some complaints that somebody was trying to lead the whole orchestra from the back of the second violins. And so... Wait a minute, so they actually brought you in? Did they complain about you? They brought my... How do you try to conduct the orchestra from the second violin? I think the problem was I was having a really good time. I liked the timpani guy was really cute back there. And I was just having fun.

And, you know, I was just moving. And everybody else was, you know, already like Stonehenge. And I was busy. And then luckily my dad took me to a concert. And I saw the conductor. He came out and he started talking to me. Talking to the audience. Talking to me, I thought. And, you know, he was really excited

and then he started jumping around and conducting and I thought, oh, nobody's yelling at this guy. I could do that. In fact, he's doing the yelling. Exactly. And he was sweating and spitting and that was Leonard Bernstein. Oh!

Wow. Why? So you saw Leonard Bernstein. Oh. Wow. Why? So you saw Leonard Bernstein, and I should say somewhat famously, you became, I guess, a student isn't a good enough word, one of his protégés. I did, luckily. That was the highlight of my life. How does one become a protégé of a conductor?

Like, I'm thinking of Karate Kid. You know, like, is there a lot of work with the swish of the arm? There's a lot of that. Yes. I guess what's really under the question is that every kid who goes to see a concert thinks he or she can be a conductor, right? The actual movement that you make, forgive me, looks simple. So what is it that goes into conducting? Oh my God, these questions. You said they were going to be easy, Peter. I said my questions were going to be easy. I said nothing about faith.

But listen, it's all about body language and connecting. Not only that, and I say this because I'm privileged enough to see you work. Something I noticed, most people can't see this because the conductor has their back to the audience. But because music is playing, you cannot shout instructions. You must indicate what you'd like a musician to do through facial expressions. You have to have a wide range of dirty looks. Really? Or encouraging looks.

Or question marks. Or maybe it just looks like you're not really going to play it that way, are you? Sort of more like that. Or also, you know, you have to anticipate. Sometimes people are about to play at the wrong moment, you know, and you have to kind of anticipate like preventive conducting, I call it. You know, like, don't do that.

Well, Marin Alsop, it is a pleasure to talk to you, but we have in fact asked you here to play a game we're calling You're a good conductor But are you a super conductor? You're pretty good We have heard, I have seen At musical conducting But what do you know about the other kind of conducting?

Conducting electricity We're going to ask you three questions About that other kind of conducting If you get two right, you win a prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might like on their voicemail. Bill, who is Marin Alsop playing for? Lucinda Watson of Chattanooga, Tennessee, who was this month's winner of our smart speaker quiz. You could be a winner too. Just ask your smart speaker to open the wait, wait quiz. All right, you ready to do this? Here we go, Maestro.

Lightning rods were all the rage after they were invented in the late 18th century, so much so that they turned up where? A, attached to racehorses, hoping they'd give them an extra kick. B, on cannonballs, in the hope that it would attract lightning onto someone's enemies.

Or C, on top of ladies' hats, because they looked cool. Oh. Let's see. We got the horseback. We got the cannonball. So it would fly over there, lightning would hit the cannonball, blow up your enemy, or ladies'

hats because they looked stylish. Yeah, but that would hurt, wouldn't it? The ladies? That could be really dangerous. Well, ladies have already made sacrifices for fashion. We're going with the hat? Yeah. Okay, we're going with the hat.

You're going with the hat. You're all right. Wow! It's amazing, by the way, how you got them all to work together like that. All right, next question. Electric fences are excellent conductors, of course, but they're not just for farms.

Someone once seriously suggested using an electrified fence for which of these uses? A, surrounding mixed martial arts fighters at the first UFC bout. B, keeping the political press from harassing senators. Or C, managing the line, which gets quite extraordinary, at Franklin's Barbecue in Austin, Texas. Okay, I'm going to go with the barbecue

because the electric and the barbecue, it sounds kind of... No, it wasn't the barbecue. It was the mixed martial arts, but I just want to say that I'm glad that you mentioned the barbecue because the only reason I put it in here was that they would hear it and send us some barbecue.

I appreciate the help. All right. You get this last one right, you win. Your last question is about superconductors. These are the remarkable materials that conduct electricity with almost no resistance. Very useful in industry and science. In 2010, a group of Japanese scientists made an incredible discovery about superconductors. How did it happen?

Was it A, one of them was picking out ham at the grocery store freezer section, noticed it was colder than the frozen chicken. That led to the discovery that ham makes an excellent superconductor. B, an incompetent lab assistant made contact with two electrical leads and the current passed through his body

with excellent efficiency without harming him. So he now works as a professional superconductor. Or C, the scientist got drunk, dunked a superconductor in booze, and discovered that red wine increased its conductivity 62%. C. All right, we're going with C. I'm trusting them. It is C. It is amazing. What happened?

They all got drunk, and they were like, oh, I wonder what all these boozes are. So they tried all the boozes in the superconductor, and they got amazing results. Red wine increases conductivity of the substance they were using 62%. Bill, how did Marin Alsop do in our quiz? Well, she's a winner in our book. Congratulations. Marin Alsop is the music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Marin Alsop, thank you so much for joining us My pleasure, it's been a pleasure Give it up for Martin Alsop So if you face classical music and turn 180 degrees, you'll be looking at Steve Earle, a country music singer-songwriter who doesn't really fit the Nashville stereotype. Steve came to Chicago last spring, and Peter asked him

if he considers himself a country musician. I've been called country singer, country rock singer, and folk singer in the New York Times crossword puzzle. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, you have one of those great names with a vowel at the beginning and end. You're all set. My dad, I'm in there a lot. My dad thought I'd finally made it when I made it to the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Yeah, congratulations. You got your start really early. You knew what you wanted to do from a very young age. Yeah, I didn't finish school because I regret that now, but I just didn't see how they were going to teach me anything more about what I wanted to do. And my parents were incredibly supportive. I finally dropped out when I was 16 and I started playing coffee houses. I met all these guys that have been playing folk music for a lot longer than I had. And that's where I first heard of Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

And my new record is a record of songs written by Guy Clark because I made a record of Townes songs 10 years ago. And I do not want to run into Guy on the other side having made the Townes record. I understand. He wouldn't like that. We read that you were such a fan of Townes Van Zandt that you actually went to where he was and tracked him down. I did that. I did the same thing with Guy. I tracked Towns down in Houston

and he turns up at my gig. There's about four people there, including Towns. The second set, I finally come down and here's Towns sitting in the front row. He drank a little. He was pretty lit and he was sitting there and he did not make

a sound while I was actually singing. Between every song, he'd lean back and go, play the Wabash Cannonball. I'd trudge along, and then get to the, play the Wabash Cannonball. I finally had to admit I don't know the Wabash Cannonball. And then he said, you call yourself a folk singer, and you don't know the Wabash Cannonball? And I'm like, so I played this song called Mr. Mud and Mr. Gold, a song of his that has about a million words and then he shut up. Yeah, well.

And then we introduced ourselves afterwards and he became a teacher for some time. Oh wow, that's really amazing. Yeah. You've been through a lot. I mean, if you read a little bit about you, you find out, I mean like for example you played a recovering addict in the wire i

did and and apparently it was it was not a stretch for you isn't it yeah david simon's idea for me to because i was offered acting roles when i was a lot younger and a lot better looking than i am now and i hated it when actors made records so i just always turned them down and didn't think it was something i wanted to do but dav David's a big music fan, and he called my manager. He says, I've got this character, and I think Steve could do it, and would he like to read for it? And I read for it just on the,

made a tape in a studio. And, you know, it was, I played a redneck recovering addict, so like you said, I didn't have to really act. Yeah. We were reading that you live in New York, and the most amazing thing we read is that your enthusiasms in New York are yoga and

Broadway musicals. That's pretty much it. And baseball. And baseball. Yoga was just a thing that was sort of I fish with a fly rod, and I travel places where that's

fun to do, and I fell in a river for the first time, you know, and I was just getting back in the bug, floating down to the next spot, and talking to a friend of mine. And I just said, man, my core strength is just going. And he said, well, you know, I've been taking yoga a couple of times a week. A guy comes, and I thought, I spend money on dumber stuff than that. So I'm kind of an old hippie anyway, and so I've known about these things all my life.

But through that association, I met a yoga teacher in New York and started studying with her. I'm on blocks and, you know, a lot of cheating going on because I started when I was 60. Yeah, I understand that. You've been married six times, seven times? Six times? Seven times, six wives. Right.

I have to correct, for the record, seven divorces. Oh, excuse me. I'm single at the moment. Oh, excuse me. Okay. Now, when people talk about people who've been married a lot, we often joke about hope over experience, and they just think this time it's going to work out, and we talk about people who've been married a lot, we often joke about hope over experience.

And they just think this time it's going to work out. And we talk about people's optimism. What I was thinking about in your case is if you meet a woman and the woman knows you've been married, say, let's pick middle, five times before. How do you convince her like, no, really, it was always their fault? Well, wait a minute. Here's the real question is if you've been married six times, and you meet a woman that's willing to marry you... That's what I mean, yeah. Yeah, that should give you pause.

I'm finally starting to get it. Yeah. Well, Steve Earle, we've invited you here to play a game we're calling... Steve Earle meet Steve Urkel. As I'm sure you remember, you've been around. Yeah. Uber nerd Steve Urkel, who's one of the most popular TV characters of the 1990s in the show Family Matters. I'm guessing you didn't have a lot of time to watch TV in the 1990s.

You know what? I don't think I've ever seen a complete episode of Family Matters. That's great, because that's the whole principle that you're not supposed to know anything. Knowledge hurts. I was hoping you guys would mess this part up. Yeah. We're going to ask you three questions about that icon and the flood pants and suspenders.

If you get two right, you win a prize for one of our listeners, the voice of their choice and their answering machine. Bill, who is Steve Earle playing for? Brian Hines of Pleasant View, Tennessee. All right. Wow. Ready? Cool.

Here's your first question. Now, the popularity of the character of Steve Urkel was great for the actor in the TV show, but bad for whom? A, the actual Steve Urkel, for whom the character was named, who spent a decade enduring jokes and disappointment that he didn't talk funny.

B, the belt industry, as Urkel's suspenders caused a 40% decrease in sales. Or C, speech therapists who had to deal with people trying to talk like Urkel. Oh, well, let's say B. You're going to go for B, the belt industry? People stopped buying belts because the suspenders were so sexy? Yeah.

No, it was actually the real Steve Urkel. The real Steve Urkel. The real guy named Steve Urkel who the character was named for, and he did not enjoy it after a very short while. Two more chances. Here's your next question. Urkel's popularity led to a number of branded products,

including which of these? A, Steve Urkel nerd glasses with masking tape pre-applied. B, Urkel O's breakfast cereal. Or C, an automated chess player called the mechanical Urk Breakfast cereal I guess It is the breakfast cereal Yay Last one for all the marbles

Jaleel White the actor who played Urkel went on to have the usual struggles of an actor associated with one role He tried appearing on Dancing with the Stars but what happened? A. Asked to dance in-high pants and suspenders, he swore and stomped off the set.

B, he was so obnoxious to other participants that he became known as Jerkle. Or C, he insisted on doing his own choreography for the Jitterbug section and broke a hip. Oh. Let's see. B. B. It is B!

He, by the way he denied the rumors that he was unpopular and said he got along great with everybody. He was still voted off the show though. Bill how did Steve Earle do? What a smart guy. He got two out of three so you won. Congratulations Steve.

Steve Earle's new album is called Guy. It's out now wherever you listen to music. Steve Earle's new album is called Guy. It's out now wherever you listen to music. Steve Earle, thank you so much for joining us here at Way Bigger Than. Steve Earle, everybody. When we come back, best-selling author Jennifer Weiner reveals how her mom reacted when she published her first novel called Good in Bed. And Anthony Anderson from ABC's Black-ish

reveals the pain and pleasure of going to work with his mom. We'll be back in a minute with more of 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. Here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. Here is your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. In just a few days, 2019 will be a distant memory,

and we'll look back and laugh at all the money we spent on things like oat milk and CBD underpants. In 2020, I'm looking forward to oat milk underpants. Before we go, we want to spend a minute remembering the good times and people we met earlier this year, including novelist Jennifer Weiner. Jennifer joined us in her hometown of Philadelphia in June. We started by asking her how she got her start. So you came to Philadelphia as a journalist. Came as a journalist.

And you published your first novel in 2001. 2001. Which was, like many first novels, autobiographical. A little bit, yeah. So if you write an autobiographical novel called Good in Bed, aren't you bragging a little? Everybody says that the happiest day of your life is when you get to go tell your parents that someone is publishing your book. Right. And I'm sure this is true for every author who did not call their book Good in Bed

and has to go tell mom. And my mother, who had been incredibly dismissive, she didn't believe me. And so I got to go home and I said, you know, Simon & Schuster is publishing that novel. And she started to cry and she gave me this hug and we had this moment. And then she sort of draws back a little and says,

what's it called? So I say, good in bed, and she says, what? And I said, it's good in bed, mom, and she sort of draws back, and she says, Jenny, how much research did you do? As an autobiographical novel, though, did you include identifiable details about people you knew and had grown up with and perhaps who had mothered you? Yes, I mean, my mom had been married to my dad at one point, and then they got divorced, and then about 10 years after that happened, my mom fell in love with a woman. You know, and we were, me and my siblings, we were shocked by this and didn't know what to make of it and, you know, kept asking each other, like, did you know? Did you know? Like, well, Joe is like softball. And I'd be like, that is a stereotype. But, you know. What was it like? I mean, usually we ask people, what was it like to come out to your parents? What was it like for your mom to come out to you? It was weird. She didn't tell

us, right? She showed you. That's exactly what happened. My youngest brother, Joe, went home to do his laundry and calls me at work at the Philadelphia Inquirer and says, there's a woman living in the house. There's shoes, and they're not Fran's shoes. And there's clothes, and it's not Fran's clothes. And then he said, and I was in mom's bathroom looking for toenail clippers, and I found all these love letters signed Karen.

So I call my mother up and I say, Joe says there's a woman living in the house and there's this pause and then she says, that's my swim coach. Oh my God. See now, I should have known then, right? But I was just like, Fran, you know, you're 54 and it's not an Olympic year. And then she says, you know, that's Karen and she's the aquatics director at the West Hartford JCC. And we're in love, you know, see you for Passover kind of thing. And you said to yourself, that night will be different from all other nights. It's true. That night will be different from all other nights. It's true. Boy.

Your latest novel, Mrs. Everything, is about your mother. Well, it's loosely inspired. It's loosely inspired. A little more thickly veiled this time. Yeah, it's a woman who's gay and who grows up at a time when that is totally not allowed. And I was reading, it's really gripping and interesting. And there's a sex scene pretty early on. I know.

What was it like to write a sex scene involving your mother? Oh, it was horrible. What was it? Horrible. I just had to sort of pretend that she was never, ever going to read this and that I was never, ever going to see her again. Right. Never, ever going to meet.

And she would somehow be like hit on the head and forget my name or the very fact of my existence. Has she in fact read it? Yeah. And what did she have to say? She said, my daughter has a very vivid imagination. All right, Jennifer Weiner, we are delighted to have you here. But now it is time to play a game that we're calling

Weiner? We the Weiner. It is the best ever time, not to be named Weiner, but to be a Weiner with so many places you can leave complaints. We're going to ask you three questions about negative reviews we found on TripAdvisor. In particular, reviews written by frequent TripAdvisor reviewer, my own father, Matthew Sagal. So we're going to ask you three questions about reviews left by my father, Matthew Sagal. Get two right, you win our prize for one of our listeners, my father criticizing

the size of your portions on your voicemail. Bill, who is Jennifer Weiner playing for? Lynn and Diego Warshawski who are celebrating their 25th anniversary here today. Hey! Don, nice. Don't let them down. So here's your first question.

What did my father, Matthew Sagal, say about an Italian restaurant in Salem, Massachusetts? A, quote, I was disappointed to find the bread basket did not have those crunchy breadsticks. I like them. B, quote, I have little patience for excuses which we got like very busy

tonight I didn't notice a busy night discount or C quote despite what the waiter might tell you pizza bagels are Italian food and they should serve them okay

I have to pick one? You have to pick one, yeah. There's like an attempt at a joke embedded in one, which is what I could see Peter Sagal's father making. All right. It sounds like he was trying to be funny. Yeah, where's the late people discount? That's the one, of course.

All right. Here's your next question. There's another Italian restaurant that's got a bad review in Sarasota, Florida. What did my father say about their ambiance? A, you don't get that warm feeling that they are glad you are there. It's more like, I wish all these people would go away so I can go home. B, I think those Chianti bottles with candles in them are nice, and I don't know why they don't have a few.

Or C, just so you know, the picture above the bar, supposedly of Rome, is really of Naples, and they should know that. I'm going to say it was the mural one. The mural was... You like that? The audience likes that. It was actually the first one. Oh, they didn't make it feel welcome.

I'm really sorry. He needs to go to the Olive Garden. When you're there, you're family. You're family. And they have the breadsticks. All right, here's your last question. Get this one or you win. As part of a pretty negative review of a Massachusetts seafood restaurant,

what did the reviewer, my father, say to the server, Lorna? He sent her a message in the review. Was it A, to Lorna, I won't send you the bill for the shirt you spilled sauce on because I probably would have done it myself soon anyway. B, Lorna, just so you know, when I ask you to write down the specials, it's not because I'm annoying, it's because I'm hard of hearing. Or C, attagirl, Lorna, You should be working in a place that deserves you. Oh, wow.

I'm going to say he said something nice to the waitress. You are exactly right. That's the kind of guy my father is. Bill, how did Jennifer do in this quiz? She is so interesting, I'm going to give her two out of three and a win. Congratulations, Lorna. Jennifer Weiner's

new book is Mrs. Everything. You should read it, especially if you are her mom. Jennifer Weiner, thank you so much for being here on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. What a pleasure. Jennifer Weiner, everybody. You've seen Anthony Anderson on TV and in movies. He hosts the new version of To Tell the Truth,

and he's the father on ABC's award-winning comedy, Black-ish. Anthony joined us in August, and Peter asked him about joining the long list of beloved TV dads. So Black-ish is like your signature. You've done so many things, but let's just focus on Black-ish because there's a huge tradition of like family sitcoms right it goes back to God I don't know father knows best and and and is it like a burden to be right now America's favorite TV dad? No I just want to get out there where we just want to get out there and tell our stories and and have fun doing it and hopefully

it resonates with an audience the way that it has for the past six years. And do people like assume you're wise because you play a TV dad? No one would ever assume that I'm wise. All right. That's... That's straight right. All right. That's fine about blackers.

I wanted to talk to you about the much more challenging and important thing that you do, which is hosting a game show. Not only hosting a game show, but hosting a game show with my mother as my sidekick. What? What? Nobody told me this. Your mother is your sidekick? Yeah, my mother is Mama Doris.

That's my real mother, the woman that birthed me. Right. And it's funny how it came about. I was doing an episode of Celebrity Family Feud with me, my mother, my sister-in-law, my brother, and my aunt. That's on the show. Jesus. And the first question posed to my mother, where would a naked magician pull a rabbit out of? And without hesitation, my mother screamed to the heavens,

His a**, Steve! And did Steve Harvey give her one of those five-minute-long burning looks? No, no, no, the burning laugh. Production shut down literally for about five minutes. Right, just you're all dealing with that. Yeah, and after the show, the producers came over to me and said, Hey, Anthony, can we talk to you about your mother? And I was like, Hey, guys, I told you she was a live wire.

I do apologize. And they were like, No, that's just it. We want your mother to be on your game show with you to tell the truth. And I was like, Really? And they were like, Yeah, what do you think about it? I said, I think it's great because it gets her off my payroll and puts her onto yours. Now that she's a celebrity,

has it gone to her head? Is she demanding a bigger trailer than yours now, or what? Demanding a bigger trailer. She wants to get paid more than I do. She has an entourage. She has her own personal wig maker. Oh my god That is amazing She's evolved

She is truly a diva I have a question Go back to the magician The naked magician I don't see any other answer Yes I was thinking the same thing, Paul. I didn't want to let it go, though.

No disrespect to your mother's cleverness, but what other answer is there? Neither do I. Yeah. That answer was on the board. Absolutely. Now, we heard that you are a pretty enthusiastic golfer, and in fact, you've golfed with President Obama. What was that like?

That was one of the best rounds of golf I've ever played. President Obama talked a lot of trash. And I'll tell you this. He took all of our money. Did he really? He's that good of a golfer. It was Chris Paul, myself, Michael Phelps, and President Obama. President Obama doesn't hit the ball long off the tee.

He hits it about 220, 230 yards, but he hits it straight as an arrow, right down the middle of the fairway, and he ended up taking money from all three of us. I was about to say, you say he took all of your money. You, Chris Paul, and Michael Phelps have a lot of money. And President Obama didn't have a problem taking any of it. No, he wouldn't. Was he like, you know, so we're going to make this interesting?

Is that how you're going to play? He kind of suckered us into a bet. How so? Because we didn't know if we could approach President Obama like that with a bet. So we bet amongst ourselves. President Obama like that with the bet so we bet amongst ourselves and on the third hole while we were teeing off

Obama was like so uh you guys aren't going to include me into the bet and we were like oh well sure Barack come on get on board this is what we're playing for he was like alright and he commenced to whip our a**. Wow.

What a delight to talk to you, Anthony. But we have invited you here to play a game that this time we're calling... You've been sent down to AA. Your initials are AA, of course, which made us think of AA baseball. That is the minor league. So we're going to ask you three questions about minor league ball. Answer two correctly, you win a prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might like on their answering machine. Bill, who is Anthony Anderson playing for?

Eric Christensen of Anaheim, California. A local. All right, you ready here? I'm ready. All right, here's your first question. Minor league teams are famous for their promotions, right? One promotion thought up by the West Virginia Power was stopped before it could happen.

What was it? A, animal sacrifice night, in which they were to recreate with a live goat, an ancient pagan ritual. B, salute to indoor plumbing night, in which they would close the bathrooms and ask everyone to use porta-potties instead. Or C, wife swap night, in which everybody had the chance to and ask everyone to use porta-potties instead, or see Wife Swap Night,

in which everybody had the chance to go home with somebody else. Wow. West Virginia. That's definitely wife swapping. You are very certain. Yes. You went for the wrong stereotype. It's indoor plumbing.

It's Indoor Plumbing Night. They wanted to do this because the idea stereotype. It's indoor plumbing. It's indoor plumbing night. They wanted to do this because the idea was you really appreciate indoor plumbing when you don't have access to it, but the health authority shut them down so they weren't able to do it. All I have to say is you'd really appreciate someone else's wife if you've been married

as long as some other people have been. All right. Here's your next question. You still have two chances. You can still win this. Something that's never happened before happened at an Atlantic League minor league game. What was it?

A, a player swung his bat so hard it came around and hit him in the head so he knocked himself out. B, a coach was ejected from a game for arguing with a robot umpire. Or C, a pop fly was caught and carried away by a seagull resulting in the first ever bird-assisted home run. The baseball player swung the bat so hard

that it swung around, hit himself in the head, and knocked himself out. Oh, the audience doesn't like that. I don't know if you can hear, Anthony, but they're all saying it's B. I'm going with swung and hit himself in the head and knocked himself out. it's B. I'm going with slung and hit himself in the head and knocked himself

in the head. I admire you, sir, but they were right. It was, in fact, B. They're trying out this thing where a robot calls balls and strikes. A coach did not like the calls, argued, and was thrown out by

the human umpire who was monitoring. All right, you have one more chance to get one right. Here we go. Minor league games are known for their shenanigans, but one catcher tried something that cost him his job. What did he do? A, he carved a potato to look like a baseball and threw it to trick a runner while holding on to the real ball to tag him out. B, he used poison ivy to turn the opposing pitcher into an actual belly itcher. Or C, tired of squatting behind the plate, he dragged a Barker laundry out there

and just sat there and challenged them to make a move. I am going to have to go with carved a potato and threw it to get the person out while he held on to the ball. That's exactly right. And I just want to say, he did this. It worked.

He got the guy out, but he was immediately thrown out of the game, and his baseball career was over. But the potato ball is now preserved in a baseball museum. It was such an amazing thing. Oh, I love it. I do, too. Bill, how did Anthony Anderson do in our quiz? He got one out of three.

That's okay-ish. Congratulations, Anthony. Anthony Anderson has been nominated for an Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy, again for his lead role in ABC's Black-ish. Anthony Anderson, what a joy to talk to you. Thanks for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Bye, Anthony.

That's it for our look back at 2019. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Aircraft Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord. BJ Lederman composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dernbos, and Lillian King. Our technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager isillian King. Our technical direction is from Lorna White. Our business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is California Ian Chilog. And the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me

is Michael Danforth. Thanks to Bill Curtis, all our panelists, all our guests. And thanks to all of you for listening this whole year. We are so grateful. I'm Peter Sagal, and we'll see you next week. year. We are so grateful. I'm Peter Sagal, and we'll see you next week. This is NPR.