Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Kemp Powers

Episode Date: March 27, 2021

Kemp Powers, Oscar nominee and writer behind "One Night in Miami" and "Soul", plays our Not My Job Game "One Knight in Miami." He is joined by Helen Hong, Roxanne Roberts, and Alonzo Bodden.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Calm down. What's all the hullabaloo about? I'm Bill Curtis, and here's your host. Both to this show and multiple Airbnb guests who demanded their money back. Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. And thanks once again to our fake audience, which we are delighted to report have all been fake vaccinated. Later on, we're going to be talking to Kemp Powers, who has been nominated for two different Oscars this year, one for writing One Night in Miami, one for co-directing, Pixar's Soul. He is a true hero of the pandemic.

Just as we were running out, he gave us what we needed most, two more things to watch. So don't wait. Give us a call. 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, Peter. This is Jen calling in from Yardley, Pennsylvania.

Yardley, Pennsylvania? Where exactly is that, Jen? Oh, we're just across the river from Trenton, New Jersey. Oh, lucky you. Just to be able to wake up in the morning and see across the mist-covered Delaware the spires of Trenton in the distance. It's paradise on earth. What do you do there in Yardley? Well, I do corporate due diligence, which is a fancy way of saying that I basically Facebook stalk Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs. You Facebook stalk Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs? Yes.

We make sure that mergers and acquisitions are going okay and people aren't paying for terrorists or paying bribes. So just making sure everything's on the up and up. Wait a minute. So you're like Facebooking with a Russian oligarch and saying, sir, are you in the up and up? And there is like, dah, and the merger goes through? Well, a little more than that. All right. Well, that's the general idea though. Well, welcome to our show, Jen. Let me introduce you to our fabulous panel this week. First up, it's a features writer for the style section of the Washington

Post. It's Roxanne Roberts. Hello, Jen. Hi. Next, a comedian doing actual live stand-up in front of people at Laughs Comedy Club in Seattle, April 30th to May 1st. It's Alonzo Bowden. Hello, Jen. Hi. And a comedian bringing

awareness to Asian-American justice issues with her family's YouTube channel Old Korean Dad Stories and Sometimes Mom. It's Helen Hong. Hello. Hi, Jen. Hi. So, Jen, you're going to play Who's Bill this time. Of course, Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotations from 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.

Are you ready to go? Let's do this. Yeah, to go? Let's do this. Yeah, let's. Let's do this. Here's your first quote. It's like a very heavy beached whale. That was the man in charge of removing a ship that got stuck where this week? That'd be the Suez Canal. Yes, you're right.

A gigantic container cargo ship got wedged sideways in the Suez Canal on Tuesday, completely blocking all traffic in the world's busiest shipping lane for what could be weeks. They say it was an accident. The ship was somehow blown into the side of the canal. But we've heard the audio where the captain is saying, hey, guys, watch me Tokyo drift through the canal. drift through the canal. Now, this accident has captured the attention of the world because it is exactly what we all worry about when we try to parallel park. Oh God, I'm stuck here and I'm blocking 10% of the global economy. But isn't this like a huge ship? It is a very, very big ship. How big? It is a very, very big ship.

Like how big? Well, Roxanne, it's so big. It got stuck in the Suez Canal. Actually, everybody has gotten a crash course on like container ships. And it turns out container ships have the last 10, 15 years gotten much, much bigger. So this particular ship, we are told, is as long as the Empire State Building is tall. But how do you explain to your boss, like this is classically, you have one job. Yes.

You have one job. What do you, you know, boss, there were waves. Didn't expect waves in the water. Oh, it was windy. Yes, I have a ship as big as the Empire State Building, but you know, a breeze hit it on the side. There's really, there's no explanation for this. It's like you start, first boss, let me tell you first, I quit.

Now, let me tell you what happened. See, that's the thing I don't get, because they move so slow that for this to get wedged sideways, somebody, maybe they were all drunk or something because you thought that someone would have noticed that it was listing off, you know, to the side. I don't know the education you need to be a ship's captain or to pilot one of these ships, how many years of college and navigation all,

but I do remember in kindergarten, they gave you like a little thing and they gave you blocks and the square block went in a square hole and a triangle went in a triangle hole. So when you see the straight canal, you're like, hey, maybe we should go straight with the ship. Maybe sideways ship doesn't fit through straight canal. Just go back to basics. The best thing, though, is like this has brought the world together.

We're all watching this slow motion disaster and we're trying to suggest ways to fix it. Like the entire world is a neighbor dad now. Like, hey, if you try just rocking it back and forth a bit there, put it forward and then reverse. See if that helps. All right. Here is your next quote. There's no DeJoy in the place tonight. That was Senator Dick Durbin.

He was making a terrible pun about whose new plan to, quote, revitalize what? Oh, the U.S. Postal Service. Exactly right. When Louis DeJoy was appointed to be Postmaster General under the last president, he denied widespread accusations that he was trying to destroy the post office. So this week, he triumphantly unveiled his new management plan, saying, now I'm trying to destroy the post office. The 10-year plan is called, of course, Delivering for America, and it calls for innovations such as longer delivery times, higher prices, and shorter office hours. He tried to work in a provision calling for mail carriers to pee on your lawn as they walk by, but that would require

having to let them drink on their job, so he didn't want to do that. Didn't he pay his bribe money to Trump? Like, why does he still have a job? Well, that's kind of, I'm kind of like, I admire him, because as we all remember he was hired uh under president trump and everybody said that this guy's going to destroy the post office because they don't want to have ballots in the election and the republicans just hate the post office and then of course trump lost the election and left office and you're like dude you can go home it's over but he's like no he is so committed to his mission of wrecking the post office that he's going to see it through then they should mail him his paychecks.

I want to point out something. We all know this guy's name. Our caller, Jen, knew this guy's name. You should not know the name of the postmaster general. It's like not a thing that should come up. If you know his name, there's a problem. It's like when you know his name, there's a problem. It's like when you know the name of a ship,

something has gone wrong, right? Nobody ever says, you know, oh, remember the S.S. Debra incident where it got to where it was going without blocking any canals? Oh, man, he's the ever-given of U.S. government right now. Mr. DeJoy, if you're listening, this is how you fix the

post office. Instead of calling them stamps, call them crypto stamp coin and idiots will pay thousands for them. Millions. Millions even. All right. Here is your last quote. Is the U.S. overrun by chipmunks? Because I'm pretty sure they're the only ones that actually eat it. That was a man named Jay Hibbs on Twitter. He was asking a very reasonable question about the good news that there is no longer a shortage of what inexplicably popular cereal? Shrimp Toast Crunch?

Yum! Oh, God, I remember. It brings back such memories of when I was a kid and being horribly punished. No, not that. It was the other cereal story in the news this week. There was another cereal story? There was another cereal story. I know. It's like, you have

so much bandwidth for cereal stories. I understand. This is a different cereal. I'll give you an interesting fact about this cereal. It involves neither grapes nor nuts. Oh, God. Grape nuts. Grape nuts, yes! How did you guess? It's great news, God. Grape nuts. Grape nuts, yes. How did you guess? It's great news for everybody.

The grape nuts shortage that you were not aware was happening is now over. America's favorite breakfast gravel was gone from stores due to COVID-related supply chain issues, as well as high demand, since it was winter, and a lot of people were stockpiling it to spread on the ice when their cars got stuck. How do you run out of something that no one eats more than once? That's the question. Alonzo, inexplicably, I agree with you. But apparently they are massive Grape Nut fans. So much so that during the great Grape Nut shortage of 2020, people paid huge amounts on the black market to buy these.

No, so much so that the company is going to reimburse people for the black market price. No, like you could go on eBay and pay like $300 for a box of grape nuts. Are they sure people were eating it? Or is this like something you pack around drugs so dogs can't smell the drugs or something? It's got some other use that we're not aware of that these people are using it for. So they really needed grape nuts. It's the only thing that throws off a drug dog is fresh grape nuts. Bill, how did Jen do in our quiz? is fresh grape nuts.

Bill, how did Jen do in our quiz? She did so well with three wins. She deserves a box of grape nuts. Oh, no. Oh, no. Jen, thank you so much for playing. Thanks, Peter. Thanks, Bill. Thanks, everyone.

Bye. Take care. Bye-bye. Okay, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Helen, scientists have found a new effect of environmental degradation. Pollution may be shrinking what? My first thought, and I don't know if it's NPR friendly, I'm going to say, guys... That's exactly what the answer is.

What? Congratulations. A new book by an environmental scientist says not just that sperm counts are falling because of pollution, we knew that, but the delivery equipment is now shrinking to fit. A particular kind of plastic can cause smaller genitals in animals and humans, and it's everywhere. So now do you care about the environment, men? Now do you care?

If anything is to get men to start recycling, this should be it. Well, they thought that this would get people, men, finally excited. But then, of course, the men realized this does not act on extant equipment, but it only affects development in newborns. And all the men realized if they just wait long enough, they can finally truthfully claim to be average. Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z, Generation... Hey, Shorty. Coming up, we finally head back to the office. It's our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAITWAIT-TO-PLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. On NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, we talk about what we're watching, listening to, or just trying to figure out. Like what concert films you should watch if you miss live music. And great books to read, alone or in your book club. All of that in around 20 minutes, every weekday. Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR. Now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast 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 Alonzo Bowden, Ellen Hong, and Roxanne Roberts. And here again is your host, the man who knows there's no I in host, because if there was, that would be hoist, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Right now, it's time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff, the listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game in the air. Hi, you are on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hey, Peter. This is Brian Webster from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Oh, Winston-Sal Salem, named for the cigarette brands. What do you do there? I'm an Amazon driver. Oh, wow. I just want to say thank you, because I don't know what we all would have done this last year without you guys bringing us stuff. Happy to do it for you. Have

you ever noticed, have you ever gotten the feeling that certain people are ordering things they may or may not actually need just to see you, just to have some human contact during the day? Yeah, it's kind of crazy how appreciated we are. Well, Brian, thank you so much for bringing us all our junk. You are here to play a game where you will try to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Brian's topic? Back to work. We are finally heading back to the actual office for a brief period until COVID-20 comes

along. Our panelists are going to tell you about a surprising change we'll see at work. Pick the one who's telling the truth and you'll win our prize, the weight waiter of your choice on your voicemail. You ready to play? Yes, sir. All right. Our first story of workplace innovation comes from Roxanne Roberts. A television producer in Norway has come up with a post-pandemic office show to ease employees back to work. Sven Thornburg is converting an old television studio into a live-in office where 12 entry-level employees will compete over the next year for a $250,000 a year job with Thornburg's Media Empire. Think Hunger Games meets The Office. Quote, people don't want to come back to The Office because they're so used to being at home, he told the BBC.

So I decided to make it interesting. The weekly challenges will include sitting in open cubicles for eight hours a day, getting through meetings without checking Twitter, brushing their teeth and other personal hygiene issues, and dealing with co-workers who microwave fish for lunch. One staffer will be eliminated every month until a winner is declared in April 2021. An office that will be a reality show competition to see who can act like a normal human being after all we've been through. Your next story of something new under the fluorescent lights comes from Helen Hong. It's a year into working from home.

You haven't worn non-elastic pants in 11 and a half months. You have gained the COVID-19 and then some. Your gym is still closed and the idea of adding a workout area to your already cramped living space is like GTFO. The solution? Trampoline desks. That's a standing desk coupled with a trampoline. That's what the fitness company Bellacon is suggesting, and they're not even joking. The maker of high-end mini trampolines, or rebounders, wants to make your Zoom meeting even more awkward by having you bounce in and out of frame while delivering your presentation. Before the pandemic, Bellicon was

on a mission to persuade workplaces to rid themselves of the desk chair, which it calls the most dangerous device in your office, and replace them with mini trampolines, which is ironic because no one has ever suffered a concussion at the office by launching themselves off of a spring-loaded desk chair. For models ranging from $600 to over $1,000, you can bounce your way onto a Bellicon, the poor man's Peloton. The trampoline desk coming to an office home or otherwise near you. Your last story of an office overhaul comes from Alonzo Bowden. It's going to be hard to go back to normal office work when nobody can remember what normal used to be. Some old habits will be hard to get back.

Some new ones will be hard to break. Enter the latest product from the Gould Mirror Company, the Monitor Mirror. It's a small rectangular mirror you can mount on your office computer monitor, so still do what you did while working from home. Constantly stare at your own face during meetings. Inventor Billy Gould says, quote, you can use our standard model to stare at yourself while you're on your computer, or we have a chair-mounted model that you can use to stare at yourself during face-to-face meetings. Our most deluxe model is the conference room array. Every participant around

the table gets their own mirror, so they can continue to stare at themselves helplessly while pretending to pay attention to other people, just like we've been doing since all this started. The Gould Mirror Company is expanding into other transitional products, including the Pants Dickie, a stitched piece of fabric you can lay across your lap, which makes it look like you're wearing pants. What's really underneath is up to you, says Gould. Our lawyers are having some trouble with that one. All right. One of these innovations might be coming to Office Life.

Is it from Roxanne Roberts, a competition show set in an office in which people try to behave like normal human beings again from Helen Hong the trampoline desk even better of course than the treadmill desk or from Alonzo Bowden the monitor mirror which lets you continue to stare at your own face even when we are back working together face to face which of these is the real story of an office innovation as much as I would like it to be the Hunger Games story, I'm going to have to go with the office trampoline. The trampoline desk. All right, you're going to choose Helen's story of the trampoline desk. Well, we spoke to somebody responsible for this real innovation.

So using a trampoline actually gets your body in motion. I mean, it's so much better than standing. That was John Hines. He is the head of PR for Bellicon Trampolines. And this is true, was bouncing on his own trampoline the whole time he enthusiastically talked to us about it. Congratulations, Brian. Thank you so much for playing. Have a good one. You have a good one. All right have a good one all right you too take care brian and now the game which some people think offers the most prestigious prize in the world but of course those people are wrong the game game is called Not My Job.

So about a decade ago, Kemp Powers was a working journalist who had an idea for a play based on a real-life event that happened back in the 1960s. Then that play, One Night in Miami, became a huge success, and then it was made into a movie by Regina King, and then he became the co-director

of the latest Pixar movie, Soul, and now he has been nominated for an Oscar for both of those films. What's he going to do next year? Kemp Powers, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thanks for having me, man. It's fun. It's great to have you. Kemp, I may have gotten the chronology not exactly right, but that's more or less what happened. You had a very interesting couple of years, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, these things, the journey of the movie from my

play to being a film, of course, was a journey of like six, seven years. And of course, with a Pixar film, it takes several years for those things to get done too. But I think the coincidence of the timing is not lost on me. But I didn't plan it that way. So I have to ask, what's it like walking around as a double Oscar nominee? What do you mean walking around my kitchen walking around my bedroom i guess that's exactly what it's like it's like i'm in the same place i've been for the past year which is gaining weight and what does the average they say we're gaining two pounds a month yeah so you can you can do the math and pretty much figure out what i've been doing that's what it's like not exactly what you were imagining as a younger man

with the red carpets and stuff i guess it does seem like a cool joke so so let's let's let's go through it though so you had been a journalist and a playwright and the the play that has become the movie uh now on amazon directed by regina king. One Night in Miami is based on a real event. And I was surprised to find out how, although, of course, you took your dramatic license, how accurate it was that these four men, Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X, actually did end up in a motel the night after the Sonny Liston fight. And your play, now movie, describes what happened. And I have to ask, I used to write plays myself,

did you find it hard as a dramatist to just keep them all in the same room? Yes, that was actually a big challenge. I mean, especially in the early drafts of the play where even the actors were like, why wouldn't I just walk the F out the door right now? You know, like, why would I stay here? So, you know, the play is actually quite different from the film,

but that was definitely one of the earlier challenges. I mean, the biggest challenge, of course, is just not turning it into just a giant book report because there's so much interesting stuff that I learned about each of these four men that, you know, kind of breaking through the iconography was, was really the, the, the big, the biggest challenge of all. I wanted to both be respectful, um, but also, you know, write a pretty interesting and entertaining play and then, and then film.

Only one of the gentlemen is still alive. Has he. Have you had any encounters with Mr. Brown? I have not, but I heard fairly recently from Aldous Hodge, who actually plays him, that he got word that he saw the film and enjoyed it and reached out. It was very complimentary about the film in general and the characterization of him specifically. So that made me very, very happy. I bet you were relieved because I myself would not want to annoy Jim Brown. Oh, no, you got that right. I mean, I was watching an animated show called Tales from the Tour Bus, and they had an episode about Rick James. And for like, out of nowhere, just coincidentally, there's a part in it where Jim Brown shows shows up at rick james house looking for his daughter and rick james like

jumps out the back window so it's just like that pretty much says everything you need to know about people's fear of of jim brown for for many many decades um that even like a coked up rick james would be like jim brown's in the house and just be like, out the back window rolling down the Hollywood Hills. I want to move on and talk about Pixar. You're the co-director of their latest movie, Soul, nominated for an Academy Award. You did it with Pete Docter. How did that come about? It's funny because when my agent called and said, you know, Pixar, Pete Docter, they're doing a new film in there they're interested in your writing the first thing i thought was like i guess pixar's you know must be doing a film with some black people in it because if he read one night in miami you kind of like you know what you're getting let's put it that way yes um and and then i flew up there um and and was really just pleasantly surprised by um just this idea of like i mean i was i was really stunned about

the jazz of it i was like really we're gonna do a kid's movie about a middle-aged jazz musician and i was like all right i'm down for that you know like tell me about this character and he's like oh i see him as being about 45 years old i'm like oh what a coincidence i'm 45 he's like oh he's you know he's from new york i'm like oh what a coincidence so am i 45. He's like, oh, he's from New York. I'm like, oh, what a coincidence, so am I. And so everything that he said about him, I was like, oh, you know what? This guy's literally my age.

So I felt uniquely qualified, especially the journey he was going on, being a little bit older and just finally kind of breaking into the career he'd been trying to do for so many years, which I understood quite personally. That in a weird way i felt like it was the the film the pixar film i was meant to to write and co-direct how did i love pixar i love everybody at pixar uh they're not a lot of black people at pixar

oh no yeah i know i know it was so funny because you know, Pixar uses a car service up in Emeryville to pick people up from the airport. And shortly after we got going in production in Seoul, the car, because, you know, it's Emeryville's right next to Oakland. So a lot of the car service drivers are black men. And I remember once I was in one of the car services and the guy like they don't usually say much but the guy looked around and he's like level with me brother y'all are making a black movie aren't you i was like what i'm like i said why would you say that he's like because he's like i picked up angela bassett jamie foxx donnell rawlings he's like i ain't never picked up this many black people and brought him to pixar So you guys know, I was like, well,

I can't say what we're working on. He's like, well, what is your job? I'm like, I'm the writer. He's like, man,

you know, y'all doing a black movie. You need to stop. So I was like getting interrogated by, by the car service drivers because they were like, yeah, we've never driven so many black people to Pixar before. And all these years.

Well, Kemp powers. It is an absolute joy to talk to you. And we have asked you here, though, to play a game that this time we're calling One Actual Night in Miami. So you wrote One Night in Miami, which made us wonder how much you knew about an actual knight who lives in Miami. And by that, we mean Sir Barry Gibb, founder of the Bee Gees, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, longtime resident of Miami. Answer two out of three questions correctly about Barry Gibb, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners. Any voice of their

choice from our show on their voicemail? Are you ready to play? Yes, let's do it. Bill, who is Kemp Powers playing for? Andrew Sales of Omaha, Nebraska. Here's your first question. In the late 60s, before the Bee Gees transformed into the disco gods we came to know and love, Barry Gibb wrote a concept album for the group called Odessa. According to a recent retrospective in The Guardian, the record Odessa was what? Was it A, quote, what you get when you combine three young men with a large amount of peyote? quote, what you get when you combine three young men with a large amount of peyote. B, quote, a collection of harps, flamenco guitars, mock Gregorian chanting,

a burst of ba-ba black sheep with lyrics about icebergs and vicars and emigrating to Finland. Or C, quote, a total of four hours of a discussion of hair products set to a drum track. I'm going to say A. No, it was actually B, a collection of harps, flamenco guitars, macrogory and chanting. What? I've never heard it. It flopped. I guess that's why they got into disco. All right. Not a worry. You still have two more chances here. They were, of course, as we all know, became huge worldwide stars, but they had to cancel several shows they once scheduled in Singapore after the government demanded that they do what if they wanted to enter the country? A. Cut off their long luscious locks of hair. B.

Transpose all their songs from falsetto down into a baritone range. Or C. Record a dance mix of the number one song in Singapore at the time, the Pina Colada song. Is it A? It is A, Kemp. That's what they did. Singapore had these rules the the uh the

bgs were not the only 70s era rockers who didn't play singapore because singapore required people to cut their hair oh all right if you get this last question right you win our prize one of the last great acts of the bgs in the 70s was starring as sergeant pepper's lonely hearts club band in a movie adaptation of the beatles album produced by their own manager now the soundtrack album the BGs in the 70s was starring as Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in a movie adaptation of the Beatles album produced by their own manager. Now, the soundtrack album to that movie has a unique distinction in music history. What is it? A, it was included on a Russian space probe, but as a warning to any aliens who find it not to come visit. B, it was the first album to inspire a vote on a declaration of war against the United

States in the British Parliament. Or C, it was the first ever record to go return platinum, meaning record stores sent four million unsold copies back to the distributor. Unsold platinum? That's gotta be, it's gotta be that. C. That's what it was!

The Sgt. Pepper's Lonely House Club Band movie starring the Bee Gees was one of the worst films ever made and one of the greatest disasters in pop music history. Bill, how did Kemp Powers do in our quiz? Two out of three. That's a win, Kemp. Congratulations! May it be the first

of many more wins to come in the weeks. Good luck at the Oscars. Congratulations on an amazing year and lots of well-deserved success. Thank you. And good luck in whatever you do next. Yeah, this was great. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Kemp. Kemp Powers is nominated for two Oscars for his movies, Soul and

One Night in Miami. Kemp Powers, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thanks. Take care, Kemp. Bye-bye. Okay, take care. Bye-bye. In just a minute, our listener Limerick Challenge has a tart, oaky finish. 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 Dummy from NPR. On NPR's Consider This podcast, we don't just catch you up on the news. We help you make sense of what's happening, whether it's how to tackle the challenges that come with pregnancy during a pandemic or how to understand the crisis unfolding along our southern border.

We'll fill you in for 15 minutes every weekday. Listen now to Consider This from NPR. Listen now to Consider This from NPR. From NPR and WPEC 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, Roxanne Roberts, and Alonzo Bowden. And your host, the softest working man in show business, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. In just a minute, Bill slurps his Ryman noodles in our listener limerick challenge game. 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. Helen, New York City recently allowed its restaurants to seat up to 35% capacity in indoor dining, but one restaurant is filling the empty space by doing what? Oh, geez. Haven't we already gone through this? I need a hint, Peter. Is that Abraham Lincoln over there at the corner table? And is he melting? Melting? Oh, wax figures? Yes, they are seating wax figurines of famous people from Madame Tussauds. What? That's what they're doing. Sitting in an empty

restaurant can feel lonely and awkward. So Peter Luger Steakhouse in New York is filling their empty chairs with giant wax dolls. Oh, great. Now I feel lonely, awkward and creeped out. You can see Jimmy Fallon, Al Roker, Audrey Hepburn. These are actual wax figures from Madame Tussauds. Yes. Apparently, it's so people can feel maybe that they're eating dinner with the glitterati, even though they're inanimate figures. And this is at a steakhouse, meaning there's open flame around. Yes, exactly. So you literally could melt Jimmy

Fallon down. Aren't all the wax figures standing figures? Do they have to rejigger them? I mean, that's kind of amazing. They had to stand them next to the oven for a little while until they could bend them into the seats, I guess. If you think about it, though, all they really need is the head. They just need the head. Oh, I see what you mean. They just need the head

and then they attach it to a generic body. They just need the head. They could use mannequins dressed in clothes and then just maybe creepy wax hands and the head. Wow. That's not even more creepy. Let's get some mismatched mannequin body and stick somebody's random head on it and let's sit them next to you doing your amuse-bouche. No, thank you. And let's sit them next to you doing your amuse-bouche. No, thank you. In case you care, they have Jon Hamm dressed in costume from Mad Men standing next to the bar. Oh, you know what? I wasn't on board until now.

Okay, now you're like, all right. Roxanne, after Prince Harry destroyed his relationship with the royal family, including his own father and brother, brought scandal to the palace and increased calls for the royal family's abolition. He has announced what he will be doing next. What career is Prince Harry going to pursue? Oh, I love this so much. He's going to be a chief impact officer. For what? For a health company. I'll give it to you. Yes, he is going to be the chief impact officer of a life coaching company. So he's going to be a life coach. Now, we know that Tyler Perry won't let them stay in his mansion forever, but really life coaching? As you say, Roxanne, technically, he will be the quote chief impact officer of Better Up, a life coaching and mental health firm. Chief impact officer, of course, sounds like what a fifth grader says he is right before punching you hard in the arm and laughing. And we just, I mean, Prince Harry is very serious about this.

He's very serious about this. He doesn't see the irony or the ridiculousness of being like, yeah, let me give you some advice. Just be born into a royal family. Exactly. I mean, imagine the life coaching you'll get from Prince Harry. It's like, you won't have everything handed to you in a silver platter.

Every now and then you'll have a picnic while fox hunting. He's a prince of a guy. He really is. He'll be like, oh, it sounds like you're having a hard time. Have you thought about talking to Oprah about it? Maybe it's a reverse thing where you come see him and tell him what real life is like. And he's just like, wow, really? Wait a minute. You wait in lines? You pay for things?

Alonzo, artificial intelligence has rapidly improved over the last few years. But according to the programmer who created a particular field in AI, It really hasn't gotten a lot better at coming up with what? I know there was something about emotions. They can't duplicate emotions. Sort of. There's no better way of giving you a hint than to give you an example of one of the things that these computers came up with.

Bill? Your eyes are like two rainbows and a rainbow of eyes. I can't help but stare. Pickup lines? Pickup lines, yes! Janelle Shane is an AI researcher who a couple of years ago trained a kind of artificial intelligence called a neural net to generate pickup lines.

And she has decided to try it again to see if the computers have gotten any better at it. And apparently the computers are still trudging home from bars alone. Here is a selection from the cutting edge of computer generated pickup lines. I once worked with a guy that looked just like you. He was a normal human with a family. Are you a normal human with a family. Are you a normal human with a family? Hey, my name is John Smith. Will you sit on my bread box while I cook? Or is there some kind of speed limit on that thing? Can I just say, as someone who is single and who does online dating, some of those are actually better than some of the

DMs that I encounter in my daily life. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's better than half the DMs that I get now. So yeah. 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 Wait Wait on Instagram, which thanks to our intern Emma, is frankly better than the radio show at this point. What are you doing here? Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi there. This is Pete Freeman from Malvern, New York.

Hey, Pete, how are you? I'm doing great. Where in New York are you from? I didn't catch the name of the town. Malvern on Long Island, right outside of New York City. You're on Long Island? Oh, yeah. What do you do there? I am a retired music teacher and arts administrator, and I'm currently a trombonist and the president of the Massapequa Philharmonic Orchestra.

The famed Massapequa Philharmonic. Absolutely. Yeah, that's like famed all over Western Long Island. Well, Pete, welcome to the show. 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 into the limericks, you'll be a winner. You ready to play? Absolutely. Thank you. Here's your first limerick. To learn which grape comes from which vine, 10,000 a month sounds real fine. I'm submitting

a tape and then make my escape just to learn what I can about wine. Yes, the Murphy Good Wine in Sonoma is offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some lucky person to earn $10,000 a month, free room and board, and as much wine as they can drink. Now, if that sounds too good to be true, it is. You should know Murphy Good is English for Manischewitz. is you should know Murphy Good is English for Manischewitz. I saw this, like, at this job posting, and I was like, holy crap.

But I think by the time I saw it, I was already, like, the 10,000th applicant for this job. The company, the winery, has apparently been doing this for the publicity they get. That's great. But they also say that the applicant has to, quote, be able to lift up to 50 pounds. So clearly you will be spending some time helping to hide the bodies. Here is your next limerick. From eating and staying inside, there's some poundage I'm trying to hide. My hair has gone shaggy,

so pants can be baggy. My jeans have some legs that are... Wide. Yes, wide. According to the Wall Street Journal, the fashion world is embracing wide-legged jeans. This is great news for all of us who have gained a few pounds over the winter, but also those of us who carry our weight in our shins. Now, you might be saying, all right, skinny jeans are out. What's the big deal? But these are not just sort of like comfortable cut jeans. These jeans are so big,

they turn your legs into like needless rectangles. These jeans are so wide, it's like your legs are confined to a denim oxygen tent. Yeah, it can't just be the wide leg. It also has to be the wide hip and the wide waist. Wide everything. All right. Here is your last limerick. My carnivorous plant is a sly chap, and the tails he relates are a thigh slap. And he says, just between us, I don't come from Venus.

It's lovely to chat with my... Glytrap. Yes, very good. come from Venus. It's lovely to chat with my fly trap. Yes, very good. You'll be happy to know that scientists have figured out how to communicate with a Venus fly trap plant. That's the carnivorous plant. They can exchange signals with the plant through sensitive electrodes.

They can both monitor what the plant is doing and send it commands which the plant follows. So far, it's very good at sit and stay um actually the scientists have proved that they can cause the plant to close its trap as if there were a fly inside which is impressive to botanists and really annoying to the plant does it say feed me see more yeah you think although what's interesting is that they say why are you doing this why are you like sending signals to the venustrap to make it do anything? They say it is a first step towards creating, quote, plant robots. I love that scientists are like, we want to make plant robots.

Yes. And we're going to do it with plants that eat living things. Yes. That's a great place to start. Great idea. Which plant should we start to give like independent action to? The carnivorous one. Great idea. Anyway, Bill, how did Pete do on our quiz?

Pete whistled up a perfect score. Congratulations, Pete. Congratulations, Pete. Yay. Yay. Paul, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Take care.

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. Each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores? Roxanne has two, Alonzo has two, and Helen has four. Four, my goodness. So, Rox and Alonzo are tied. I will arbitrarily choose Roxanne to go first.

Here we go, Roxanne. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill-in-the-blank. On Wednesday, President Biden announced that blank would lead the administration's efforts to manage the border. Vice President Harris. Yes. On Tuesday, North Korea launched a barrage of short-range blanks. Missiles.

Right. This week, Rachel Levine became the first openly blank official confirmed by the Senate. Transgender. Yes. On Monday, the director of the CDC warned that Americans must continue wearing blanks. Masks. Right. Just in time to ruin Easter, Peeps announced their newest creation, blank.

Marshmallow soda. Yes. Peeps flavored Pepsi. On Monday, Miami Beach declared a state of emergency over crowds attending blank. Spring break. Right. On Tuesday, it was reported the U.S. could be facing another shortage of blank. Vaccines. No. could be facing another shortage of blank. Vaccines?

No, toilet paper. This week, two men in India attempted to smuggle gold out of the country under a pair of wigs were caught because blank. Something about the metal detector or something? They slipped off or something? No, they were caught because their wigs looked so terrible. Oh, okay. The two men came up with this brilliant plan. They shaved a circle in the top of their heads. They taped these gold bars to them, and they covered it with wigs. Unfortunately, the wigs were so bad, the men were stopped by airport security,

who quickly found the gold taped to their shaved heads. Fortunately, the men did get away with the gold they hid in their socks and their rectums. Kidding. Security found those too. Okay. Bill, how did Roxanne do in our quiz? She had sex right for 12 more points. She now has 14, a healthy lead. All right. Okay, Alonzo, you're up next. Fill in the blank.

On Tuesday, President Biden called on Congress to tighten blank laws. Gun laws. Yes. On Wednesday, the governor of Virginia signed a law abolishing blank. Confederacy? No, they're abolishing the death penalty. This week, AstraZeneca said that updated analysis showed their blank was 76% effective. Vaccine? Right. This week, a woman in Chicago was shocked

when a security video showed blanks stealing a package off her porch. Raccoon? Close. A squirrel. On Tuesday, a report said U.S. prosecutors were considering sedition charges against the blank rioters.

The insurrection? Yes. On Thursday, it was revealed the New York governor blank prioritized COVID tests for his family. Cuomo? Yes. This week, a woman on her honeymoon had to remove a cute picture of a wine glass that she posted on Instagram because a friend had commented blank. About lipstick on the wine glass? No, the friend commented, I don't know if you care, but your entire naked body is reflected in the glass. The woman had just wanted to share a photo of her celebratory glass of wine on her honeymoon, but she shared so much more. Clearly, this is not what she had in mind when she ordered a full-bodied red. The woman ended up deleting the picture,

but not before 75 people liked it, which she says is, quote, 74 people and my mother-in-law too many. Bill, how did Alonzo do in our quiz? Alonzo had four right for eight more points. He now has 10, but Roxanne still has the lead with 14. All right. How many then does Helen need to walk away with this thing? Ooh, five to tie, six to win. All right, Helen, here we go. This is for the game. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats held a committee meeting aimed at expanding blank rights. Voting. Yes. This week, vigils were held to honor the 10 people killed in a supermarket shooting in blank. Colorado.

Yes. On Wednesday, hundreds of people involved in protests against the military coup in blank were released from prison. In Myanmar? Yes, Myanmar. This week, a woman in Louisiana bought a cake, some balloons, and went out to celebrate the first birthday of Blank. Her pet squirrel. No, the unfinished road construction near her house. On Monday, an advisor to Blank said he had plans to launch his own social media network. Donald Trump.

Yes, following accusations of running a toxic workplace, Blank's talk show lost over a million viewers this past season. Ellen DeGeneres. Yes. This week, a mother denied that she had plans to fight a student at her daughter's school, despite the fact that she had showed up there with Blank. Boxing gloves. Yes. The woman was called to the school to talk about her daughter's history of fighting. And afterwards, the mother got in the fight with the teenager who had dropped the dime. The woman denied that this was planned, but she did show up to the meeting with a boxing glove on one hand. And when they asked her about the glove, like, why do you have a boxing glove in your hand?

This is true. The woman said she could not remove it because it was glued on. Same goes for the metal folding chair glued to her other hand. Bill, did Helen do well enough to win? Yes. You gotta watch her. She had six right for 12 more points. She now has 16, and she is this week's champion.

Oh my God, you brought down Roxanne. This is the first time I have competed against Roxanne, and now I'm afraid she's going to come to my house and beat me up. I won't, I promise. With a boxing glove. In just a minute, we're going to ask our panelists to predict how they're going to get that ship out of the Suez Canal. Wait, wait, don't tell me it's a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago

in association with Urgent Air Cup Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord, Philip Godeka, Right Side Limericks. Wait, wait, don't tell me. Man in music business is Peter Gwynn. Technical direction is Lorna White. Her business and ops manager is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilog. And the executive producer, wait, wait, don't tell me, is Michael Danforth. Now panel, how are they finally going to free that boat from the Suez Canal? Roxanne Roberts. It's simple. Just add cold water.

Shrinkage. Ha! Alonzo Bowden. Someone's going to buy the boat on Amazon and they will deliver it. And Helen Hong. Have they tried broom juice or Metamucil?

Well, if they do, we're going to ask you about it on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, Bill Curtis. Thanks also to Roxanne Roberts, Alonzo Bowden, and Helen Hong. Thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal. I can see clearly now the rain is gone. And we'll see you next week.

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