Who's Bill This Time
NPR
Saturday, April 18, 2015
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Bill Kurtis reads three quotes from the week's news: Non-surprise Announcement; The More The Merrier; Special Delivery.
Transcript
BILL KURTIS, BYLINE: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL Me, the NPR News quiz. I'm legendary anchorman Bill Kurtis.
(APPLAUSE)
KURTIS: And here is your host at the Wang Theater at the Citi Performing Arts Center in Boston, Peter Sagal.
PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. I agree with you.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: I'm right there with you on the excitement level. It is great to be back in Boston. We have a great show for you today. We're going to be talking baseball, but in rhyme, with Dick Flaven, the poet laureate of the Boston Red Sox. Now Dick has written a whole book of poems about the Red Sox. This is harder than it sounds. We know because we tried and we couldn't get further than the first line.
KURTIS: There once was a team near Nantucket.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Didn't know where to go after that. We don't care what your name rhymes with, just give us a call. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT, that's 1-888-924-8924.
It's time to welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME.
CLARE ROCKEY: Hi.
SAGAL: Hi, who's this?
ROCKEY: This is Clare.
SAGAL: Hey, Clare. How are you? Where are you calling from?
ROCKEY: Great. I'm calling from Arlington, Va.
SAGAL: Oh, Arlington, Va., right outside Washington. What do you do there?
ROCKEY: Well, I work for the federal government.
SAGAL: I see. So you're one of those Washington insiders we hear so many bad things about.
ROCKEY: (Laughter). Not quite.
SAGAL: No, not really?
ROCKEY: Not really.
SAGAL: You're not one of the people we have to grab our country away from?
ROCKEY: No, I'm actually a regular person just living and working here.
SAGAL: I didn't know there were such things. Well, welcome to the show, Clare. Let me introduce you to our panel this week. First up, it's a humorist who will be hosting The Hatch - Storytellers On A Mission, Saturday April 18 at the Latchis Theater in Brattleboro, Vt. It's Tom Bodett.
TOM BODETT: Hello, Clare.
(PLLAUSE)
ROCKEY: Hey, Tom.
SAGAL: Next, it's a contributor to "CBS Sunday Morning" and the host of "Science Goes To The Movies," which you can find at cuny.tv. It's Faith Salie.
FAITH SALIE: Hi, Clare.
(APPLAUSE)
ROCKEY: Hi, Faith.
SAGAL: Finally, it's a comedian and the author of the LA Times bestseller, "I'm Not A Terrorist But I've Played One On TV," Maz Jobrani.
MAZ JOBRANI: Hi, Clare.
(APPLAUSE)
ROCKEY: Hey, Maz.
SAGAL: So Claire, we like to start the show with a game we call, Who's Bill This Time? We'd like your help with it. Bill Kurtis is going to perform for you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you will win our prize - the voice of the legendary Carl Kasell on your voicemail. Ready to go?
ROCKEY: Ready to go. I'm a little nervous.
SAGAL: All right. Now your first quote is just one of the soaring goals laid out in a video announcing someone's candidacy for the presidency.
KURTIS: Most importantly, we just want to teach our dog to quit eating the trash.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: That was one of the many aspirations we heard in whose announcement video?
ROCKEY: I'm going to have to say Hillary Clinton?
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Oh that was a tense pause there, evoked suspense.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: To the surprise of absolutely no one, this week Hillary - and that is what she wants to be called, OK - announced she's running for president. Everyone immediately started talking about, you know, how it was no surprise. Of course she was running for president. She's been preparing her whole life to run for president. But does anybody really want a surprise presidential candidate? You don't want to go in for brain surgery and say, no, I don't want somebody who trained for 12 years to do this. I want a fresh face with bold, new ideas.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: None of that inside the medical school thinking.
BODETT: I think, you know, the news is so desperate to find something new to say about her that they went nuts over what she ordered at Chipotle.
SAGAL: This is true. So she made her announcement and then immediately they started following her. And she went into a Chipotle in Ohio. And this is the crazy thing - she ordered - walked in from her van, ordered lunch, got it and left. And no one noticed inside the restaurant. Did you know that?
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: That's not a good sign. You know, these politicians are known for their charisma when they walk into a room. You know, the place just turns and stares.
SALIE: She wasn't about charisma, she was about guacamole.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: She was just - I mean, I know. She just wanted her burrito bowl and get out. Maybe you can just dim when you're just getting take out.
JOBRANI: But that - that's actually a great sign. Chipotle should put that into a commercial. We're so focused on your burrito, we don't care who's there.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Yeah. Our focus is on your quality.
JOBRANI: Yeah, have you seen those people work when you go in there? They're just like, you know, black beans or pinto beans? They're just going down the line. We don't care if Brad Pitt comes, we're making a burrito. That should be their tagline. We don't care if you're the president, we're making a burrito. Chipotle
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Did you guys know - did you watch her announcement video? 'Cause it was weird because it's all these people talking, you know, nice people, all kinds of people - gay couples, ethnic couples talking about all the things they want to do. Open a new business, buy a new home, right? And it was like one of those pharmaceutical ads for something too embarrassing to actually discuss. So you're like, what are these people's problem? It was like a Flomax ad for someone who can't stop running for president.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: And it didn't help that when Hillary Clinton finally appeared, she was required by law to spend four minutes talking about the side effects of her candidacy.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: She could've had Bill be like, it worked for me.
SAGAL: Very good, Clare. Here is your next quote.
(LAUGHTER)
KURTIS: Yesterday is over and we are never going back.
SAGAL: That was Senator Marco Rubio advocating for a linear understanding of time as he announced that he was doing what?
ROCKEY: Running for president.
SAGAL: Of course, running for president.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Everybody's running for president. I'm surprised you're not running for president.
(APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: Senator Marco Rubio announced his candidacy this week, staking out a place in the field as the hottest candidate for president - at least until Ryan Reynolds announces.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: You know, he's young, he's good-looking. Instead of the classic guy you want to have a beer with candidacy, he's running as the guy you want to have breakfast with in the morning. You know what I mean?
SALIE: I like his - the way his name appears on his signs.
SAGAL: Yeah, it's all lowercase.
SALIE: It's all lowercase, very E.E. Cummings. And then, I don't know if you noticed this, he dots his I with a - an outline of our country.
SAGAL: Really?
SALIE: That's hard to do. I've tried hearts, I've tried Wyoming. Wyoming's easy, but an outline of our country? That's presidential.
SAGAL: So do you think that when he writes his little notes...
SALIE: Oh, it takes forever.
SAGAL: ...When he does a little I, he has to draw a little United States?
SALIE: That's right. When he's signing autographs, he's just going to be held up.
BODETT: Yeah. I bet he doesn't get Maine right. Nobody gets Maine right.
SAGAL: Yeah.
JOBRANI: What's the minimum age, 35?
SAGAL: Yeah, he's like 43.
JOBRANI: He's 43.
SAGAL: So he sneaks in over the wire.
JOBRANI: I'm 43.
SAGAL: Yeah.
JOBRANI: I - he shouldn't be running the country.
SAGAL: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: He won't be. I mean, he can, but he's got an obstacle - people still remember his brother George W. Rubio. That's going to be an obstacle.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: All right, very good. Clare, for your last quote, here is Jeh Johnson, who is the head of Homeland Security.
KURTIS: What's a gyrocopter?
SAGAL: It was a little alarming that the head of Homeland Security did not know what a gyrocopter is because this week a guy in one did what?
ROCKEY: He flew his gyrocopter onto the capitol ground.
SAGAL: He did that. Yes, very good.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A gyrocopter, for those who do not know, is a tiny, sort of one person helicopter, or what all you nerds now want for Christmas. Doug Hughes, a mail carrier from Florida, flew his gyrocopter to the capitol to deliver a protest letter about campaign-finance reform. It was peaceful, it was colorful, it was kind of fun. It was harmless. And it has caused endless debate about why we didn't kill him.
(LAUGHTER)
BODETT: Oh, I know why.
SAGAL: Why?
BODETT: You can imagine, you know, they've got all the SWAT guys on the roof and the ack-ack guns and everything. And the guys buzzing in, they say we got a bogey - bogey 3 o'clock. Bogey 3 o'clock. You got him? Yep, I got him. I'm following - wait, wait. He's a white guy. He's a white guy. Hold fire. Stand down. Peaceful protester.
(LAUGHTER)
JOBRANI: Tell it like it is, my brother.
SAGAL: I know.
JOBRANI: As the Iranian, I appreciate you saying that.
(LAUGHTER)
SALIE: No this gyrocopter, it's powered by Greek lamb, right?
SAGAL: I believe so, yes. There's a big debate about whether it's called a gyrocopter or a hero-copter.
SALIE: Right.
JOBRANI: Did he fly all the way from Florida?
SAGAL: No.
JOBRANI: Oh, 'cause that would've...
BODETT: Gettysburg.
JOBRANI: Imagine if he flew from Florida and then they shot him down. He'd be like, come on.
SAGAL: Well, we knew he would've flown from Florida because he would've done it the whole way with his blinker on.
(LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Bill, how did Clare do on our quiz?
KURTIS: Well, as to be expected from a government worker. Clare, you got them all right, 3-0.
SAGAL: Well done, Claire.
ROCKEY: Woo-hoo.
SAGAL: Close enough for government work. Thank you so much for playing.
ROCKEY: Thank you.
(APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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