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Who's Bill This Time

BILL KURTIS: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is, WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. Hey, before the apocalypse starts, let me be your last Bill and testament.

(LAUGHTER_)

KURTIS: I'm Bill Kurtis. And here is your host at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, Peter Sagal.

(APPLAUSE)

PETER SAGAL, HOST:

Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: We are delighted to be back here in San Francisco. Later on, we're going to be talking to San Francisco 49er, Hall of Famer Jerry Rice. He...

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Yes. He's still popular around here. He was a football legend back in the day when it was OK to like football.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: And I do want to say how great it is to be back in San Francisco, such a beautiful city any time of the year. And of course, we cannot think of a better time to just get 2,000 miles closer to North Korea.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: So if you've ever thought about calling in to play our games, I would not put it off.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: The number is 1-888-WAITWAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. It's time to welcome our first listener-contestant. Hi, you are on, WAIT WAIT... DON'T TELL ME.

KAREN LAURITZEN: Hi, this is Karen from, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

SAGAL: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho - I've never been there.

What is that like?

(APPLAUSE)

LAURITZEN: It is gorgeous.

SAGAL: Yeah, it's up there in during the mountains and stuff?

LAURITZEN: Yes.

SAGAL: That's awesome. And what do you do there?

LAURITZEN: I am a second-grade teacher...

SAGAL: That... [empty]

LAURITZEN: ...And hobby cake-maker.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: I'm sorry. You said you're a hobby what?

LAURITZEN: Cake-maker. I make fancy, beautiful cakes.

SAGAL: Really? Oh, that's - you're, like, one of those people who, like, puts your cakes up on Instagram and that sort of thing?

LAURITZEN: Oh, yes. My cakes have their own Instagram.

SAGAL: Oh, excuse me.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Well, Karen, let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a comedian who'll be performing at, Flappers Comedy Club, in Burbank, Calif., on August 12, it's Alonzo Bodden.

(APPLAUSE)

ALONZO BODDEN: Hello, Karen.

SAGAL: Next, it's the comedian who'll be at the Carolina Theatre in Greensboro, N.C., on, October 21. It's Paula Poundstone.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Finally, it's a humorist and the author, most recently, of "Save Room For Pie." It's Roy Blount Jr.

ROY BLOUNT JR: Hey.

(APPLAUSE)

BLOUNT JR: Hey, Karen.

SAGAL: Karen, welcome to our show. You're going to play, Who's Bill This Time? Bill Kurtis is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. Your job, of course, is correctly identify or explain two of them. Do that, you win the prize, the voice of scorekeeper emeritus Carl Kasell on your voicemail. Are you ready to play?

LAURITZEN: I am.

SAGAL: Well, then, let's do it. Your first quote is from someone who clearly felt relaxed and mellow on his summer vacation this week.

KURTIS: They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Who was that?

(LAUGHTER)

LAURITZEN: That was our president, Donald Trump.

SAGAL: Yes, indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

BLOUNT JR: You know, I kept thinking this week about the scene in the Marx Brothers movie "At The Circus," when the strongman, who's the bad guy, is beating up Harpo.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BLOUNT JR: And Groucho says - you big bully, what are you doing picking on that little bully?

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: I was just thinking how dangerous that threat would be if they gave him the real nuclear codes.

SAGAL: Exactly.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: During the first week of President Trump's three-week vacation at his golf club, observers noted that his behavior was correlated to the weather. When it rained and he couldn't golf, he sent angry tweets. Well, on Wednesday, it must have been hailing turds from the sky...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Because the president decided to threaten North Korea with nuclear war. Now, we found out later that the president was quote, "improvising," when he made that statement you heard. None of his advisers knew he was going to say it. Well, the two things you do not want to hear improvise are a jazz musician and Donald Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

PAULA POUNDSTONE: Well, he says now, that he may not have gone far enough...

SAGAL: Yes.

POUNDSTONE: ...That these words, with fire and fury, weren't tough enough. And so he's going to add bigly.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

BLOUNT JR: You can't just let something go. I mean, if you're going to react to everything that that guy in North Korea says, you're just going to have a full-time job.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah.

BLOUNT JR: I remember when Muhammad Ali was insulted by somebody, and he just sort of disdained to reply. And somebody says, why don't you say something back? And he said, a dog can bark at the moon. If the moon ever barks back, that'll be the most famous dog in the world.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Yeah. Seriously, he is - Donald Trump, before he's done, is going to take out so many people, the whole world is going to look like the crowd at his inauguration.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: All right, very good. Here is your next quote.

KURTIS: I'm pretty sure I just broke the world record for mansplaining.

SAGAL: That was a woman named Kristina Hollie on Twitter. She was one of the many people who commented on a memo released that got its author fired from what big tech company this week?

LAURITZEN: Google.

SAGAL: Yes, Google.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The author of this memo, which was instantly leaked to the media, was dubbed the Google Bro. He said he'd been on a long flight to China, so he decided to write a memo explaining why women are not naturally suited to the tech industry. This is what happens when the only in-flight entertainment is "The Emoji Movie."

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: It's funny how many people - like, even as a comic, people ask me all the time about what - you know, how come there's fewer women? Or...

SAGAL: Yeah.

POUNDSTONE: ...People ask me, what's it like being a woman comic as if I've had another experience to compare it with.

SAGAL: Yeah.

(LAUGHTER)

POUNDSTONE: I say, well, before...

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: I just wonder, how quickly after Google fired him did Uber hire him?

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Funny you mention that...

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: ...It just so happens that Uber, as you may know, has been searching for a female CEO. And they've narrowed it down - this is true - to three candidates - a man, a man and a man.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: OK, fine. They're all men. But one of them had tried knitting, and another one of them once listened.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right, your last quote is from a Craigslist ad that got some attention this week.

KURTIS: I'm a 40-year-old male looking for a worthy female with beauty and smarts to experience the totality in Oregon.

SAGAL: That was a man hoping to get busy under what big event in a couple of weeks?

LAURITZEN: The solar eclipse.

SAGAL: The big solar eclipse, yes. Very good.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: The summer's eclipse on August 21 has been called the last one we will see in our lifetimes. Now it's being called the last one we'll see in our lifetimes if we all live till August 21.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: It's causing a boom in tourism in places that don't normally get tourism but happen to be in the path of the totality. That's the places where the eclipse will be complete. It's led to such great tourism slogans as - come see Carbondale, Ill., at the one time you won't be able to see Carbondale, Ill.

(LAUGHTER)

BLOUNT JR: That's probably when it's at its best.

SAGAL: Yeah.

BLOUNT JR: I've never been to Carbondale. But...

POUNDSTONE: Oh, have you not been to Carbondale, Ill.?

BLOUNT JR: No, uh-uh.

POUNDSTONE: Oh, jeez. When the sun is up and working, it...

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: So this guy's plan is to hook up every solar eclipse? That's aiming low.

(LAUGHTER)

BODDEN: That...

SAGAL: Yeah. Every 240 years, he gets lucky.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is interesting and true; 92 percent of the counties in the path of that totality, complete darkness, voted for Trump, which is ironic...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: ...Because the last thing in the world they wanted was to make America darker.

(APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Did you know...

BODDEN: But they're not worried about it because, in their world, the eclipse isn't real.

SAGAL: That's true.

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Bill, how did Karen do on our quiz?

KURTIS: Wait until she tells those second-graders she's got them all right.

SAGAL: Congratulations, Karen.

(APPLAUSE)

KURTIS: Perfect score.

SAGAL: Karen, thank you so much for playing.

LAURITZEN: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIGHTS OUT")

SANTIGOLD: (Singing) Lights out. Shoot up the station. TV's dead. Where's there to run? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.