WWDTM: Becca Mann

0:00Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.

0:14From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. Fun fact about my voice. This is me on helium.

0:31I'm Bill Curtis and filling in for Peter Sagal, Here is your host at the Studebaker Theater at the Fine Arts Building in Chicago, Illinois, Nagin Farsad. Hey! Thank you, Bill. And thanks, everyone. I'm filling in for Peter Sagal because thanks to the shutdown, he's stuck at his crafting convention in Sheboygan. Now, we have a great show for you today. We're going to be joined by record-setting open-water swimmer, Becca Mann. And that's right. And just to make her feel at home, we're going to make sure our show is also infested with great white sharks. But first, it's your turn to brave the phone lines.

1:14Give us a call to play our games. The number is 1-888-WAIT-WAIT. That's 1-888-924-8924. Now let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Stu from Amsterdam, New York. Hi, Stu. What do you do in Amsterdam? I teach high school civics and economics.

1:38So do you have any finance tips for me? Absolutely. I work in public radio on occasion, so I might need them. Substitute teaching is quite lucrative. All right. Now, Stu, let's introduce you to our panel. First, his band Super Spreader is playing the Village Arts Theater on October 10th with special guest Lisa Loeb. It's Adam Felber. How you doing, Stu? Hey, Adam. Next, a writer for Clean Slate, now on Amazon Prime, it's Shantira Jackson. Hi, Stu. Hello, Shantira. And a comedian recording his next stand-up special in Chicago at the Den Theatre on November 15th. It's Hari Kondabolu. Hello, Stu.

2:29Hello, Hari. All right. So, welcome to the show, Stu. We're excited to have you. You're going to play Who's Bill This Time? Bill Curtis is going to read you three quotes from this week's news. If you can identify two of them, you'll win our prize, which is any voice from our show, on your voicemail. Are you ready? Let's go. All right. Here is your first quote from Pete Hegseth. No fat generals. That was secretary of whatever it's called now, Pete Hegseth, speaking to a room full of whom at a big meeting in Virginia this week. That would be generals. That's right. So when hundreds of generals and admirals from all over the world were suddenly summoned to the U.S.

3:18for this meeting, no one had any idea why it was happening. And now that it's over, we still have no idea why this is happening. Hegseth and President Trump both spoke to the group, and they had lots to say about the general's appearance, calling out, quote, fat generals and beardos. Taking his cue from Sigma Phi Delta, Hegseth then took out a Sharpie and started circling all the general's fat parts. There was a 300-pound admiral who was like, but I'm cool, right? It's weird, right, how obsessed with the generals being hot, right? They're like, the United States shall have the deadliest, bravest, most bangable fighting force of the entire world.

4:08Yeah, Higgs says red and no fat generals directly off his dating profile. We have a history of fat military men, though. Colonel Sanders. I'm assuming General So was a little chubby. General Mills. Very good. Captain Crunch was not particularly svelte. Wait, was Captain Crunch the parakeet? No, Captain Crunch is the serial man. Oh, okay. Who is the parakeet? You're talking about Toucan Sam? Yeah, that's okay. Sorry, is Toucan Sam not military? He has a big beak, so he might not make it. He's not Officer. class, that's for sure. Well, disregarding that Fat General's is an incredible name for a Chinese chain restaurant.

4:57Oh, yes. Many military folks made the point that these guys literally have more important things to be doing, right? Like, at this very moment, Portland, Oregon is completely undefended.

5:15From what? Having too much granola. I don't know. Yeah, they're famous donuts. I'm not sure. All right, Stu. Here's your next quote from actress Emily Blunt. Good Lord, we're screwed. Blunt was talking about Tilly Norwood, the next great Hollywood actor who just happens to be entirely what? Oh, jeez. I don't know if I know this one. Um, uh, AI. That's right. Good guess. That's a guess. Yeah. That was a good one. That was a good guess. Really good. That was the correct answer. This week, a technology creator unveiled Tilly Norwood, an AI actress that we may soon see in starring roles. If you're wondering what she looks like, imagine a woman.

6:08That's basically it. All right. But honestly, can you imagine going for a role and your agent telling you that Tilly Norwood is already attached to the project. And you're like, well, drag and drop her into another email then. I don't even know if I would be, I don't really feel worried because it's a teenage white girl and I am almost a 40-year-old black lesbian and we're not going to compete. I'm safe. They don't put you up for those roles. I feel safe. Oh, I see. I feel safe. I feel like I could lose a few roles. well I can't wait to see the paparazzi photos of her dating a macbook pro but I'm so mad because I didn't realize she was fake until after I made her my celebrity hall pass wait if there's going to be no more actors who's going to wait tables

7:06I think I think that's the only thing they'll let us keep doing All right. Stu, are you still there? I am still here. Yes, please. Okay. Here's your last quote. Clean socks only. No holes. Those are the slated rules of a company in the UK, one of many workplaces now instituting a policy that people remove their what when they arrive at the office? Their shoes. That's right. Their shoes.

7:38More and more startups are enacting no-shoe policies to optimize efficiency. Now, I would certainly be more productive if I had to glue my eyes to my laptop to keep from seeing whatever is going on with Kevin's toes. First of all, I don't want to see any man's foot ever. Especially at work. This is a very pro-lesbian policy. Yeah, I don't want to see a man's feet at all. And then I also think that if you are going to show feet, you shouldn't have to do it for free. So feet cost money. 100 % fair. Feet cost money, baby. So I'm not showing my toes to corporate. Yeah, yeah. Subscribe to my OnlyFansverse Corporation.

8:26Absolutely. Remember when we used to work from home and didn't have to wear pants? This feels like they're peace-mealing our freedom back. I don't like it. Right, all the comforts of home. How embarrassing would it be to get called into HR and they're like, and this little piggy got furloughed. I'm so sorry. Bill, how did Stu do? It takes a teacher to lead us. That's 3-0 for Stu. You're a win. Well done, Stu. Congratulations, Stu. Thanks for calling in. Thank you very much.

9:08Right now, panel, I have some questions for you about this week's news. Adam, the UK's National Health Service made headlines this week when they officially encouraged people to look at the benefits of marrying whom? Um, their moms. Oh my God, you're so close. Really? I've spent some time in England. It's actually less close than mom. They're stepmoms?

9:37That's just normal. They're cousins? They're first cousins. That's right. Oh, wow. Okay. I wanted you to get an applause, but it is really gross. According to some people who clearly want to marry their cousins, cousin marriage can be quote linked to stronger extended family support and economic benefits well they definitely save on the wedding because you only need one side of the aisle for the ceremony fair am i gonna get in trouble for saying this feels very british yeah who released the study the royal family yeah they got centuries in on that like and i know that my favorite part of any wedding is the father slash uncle daughter dance

10:36the only thing i want to do with my cousins is take a walk away from the family on thanksgiving like that's the best like you see your cousins and you're like do you want to go talk about this family and then you go outside and do the cul-de-sac together. That's true cousins. And in this scenario, that's your meet and cute.

10:57I'm so sorry. Okay, look, look, look. If marrying your cousin seems wrong, we get it. Keep it casual. Just be cousins with benefits.

11:11That's worse. That's worse. I know, sorry. For kings and queens, for you and me It's the same inevitability I promise you this, someday you'll fall in love Alright, coming up, a totally bingeable Bluff the Listener game Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TO-PLAY We'll be back in a minute with more of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR Support for NPR and the following message come from Jarl and Pamela Moan, thanking the people who make public radio great every day and also those who listen.

11:54From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis, and we are playing this week with Hari Kondabolu, Adam Felber, and Shantira Jackson. And here again is your host at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago, Illinois, Nagin Farsad. Thanks, Phil. Right now, right now it's time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play. Hi, you're on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Hi, this is Kurt from Clemson, South Carolina. Hey, Kurt, what are you doing, Clemson? I am a sports broadcast TV director and producer. Oh. Oh. So is this like a, forgive me for literally knowing nothing about your field, is this like a good time for sports?

12:52Oh, yeah. Well, before I worked here, I worked at a PBS and NPR station, so I would say, yes, it's a great time for sports. Fair. Ooh, burn! That's funny. That's funny. Well, it's so nice to have you on with us, Kurt. You're going to play the game where you tell the truth from fiction. What's the topic, Bill? The biggest thing to happen to TV since color. Every so often, there's a huge leap in television technology. There was color, then HD, then collagen injections after we all saw what we look like in HD. Now, our panelists are going to tell you the next great leap. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win the wait-waiter of your choice on your voicemail.

13:40Voices such as this voice that you're hearing right now. Are you ready to play? I'm ready. Let's go. Awesome. First up, it's Adam Felber. For the geek who has everything, there's a new TV feature that supplies the one thing they may not have. Friends. Last week, Amazon Prime showcased Watch Pals A new feature that allows you to turn on a variety of AI friends Who will watch content with you and kibitz about what you're seeing There's Nelson, the film nerd Who will pepper your viewing with trivia like Oh hey, that's the guy from The Sopranos There's Eddie, who will watch sports and root for your team Yelling biased commentary like No way, that was a foul, are you blind, ref?

14:21And then there's Munts your funny buddy who roasts and jokes his way through the movie. At the demo, while watching John Wick 3, Muntz somehow fixated on fat-shaming Lawrence Fishburne's Bowery King character, saying things like, Bowery King? More like Burger King. Yes, just like your friends, the AI is not always funny. Amazon spokesperson Audrey Weck says that watch pals are not intended to replace real friendships, but enhance them. Although it could end a few friendships, especially if you happen to be watching a movie with your buddy, Lawrence Fishburne. All right.

15:02A new AI friend for your TV viewing from Adam Felber. Your next story of Tune Up for Television comes from Shantira Jackson. With more and more Americans cutting the cable cord, a cable service in Omaha, Nebraska, is trying to win back people by offering a new TV plug-in called Make It Better that allows you to change the endings of your favorite television shows to the endings that you prefer. Do you wish the lady in Fleabag made out with that priest? With Make It Better, they make out for a long time. There's also a feature that just deletes all the episodes that are bad, making Lost exactly four seasons long.

15:45The plug-in is still in its beta stage, but a nationwide rollout is expected in the summer of 2026. All right.

15:57So a new service that'll change TV show plots from Shantira Jackson, and your last story of a boob tube noob comes from Hari Kundabolu. Do you want a 55-inch TV but don't want to pay for it? Historically, the only way to do this was armed robbery. But not anymore, thanks to telly. No, telly isn't just the silly thing British people call television. Telly is a company that sends you a free TV in exchange for watching ads via an ever-present 10-inch display that stays on screen at all times. It's like Times Square in a box. Even when you turn off the TV, the ads stay on the screen. Forever reminding you that HIMSS offers erectile dysfunction pills.

16:45and capitalism will never let you sleep telly also monitors your audio and video content channels you watch and duration of your watching even telly is like jesus christ dude you're watching way too much naked and afraid it's just a nice free tv with an incredibly threatening aura that is constantly watching you, like the government. But don't worry, you don't have to watch the TV. Just kidding, you do. If you don't watch it enough, telly charges you$1 ,000. Even worse than the TV with mandatory ads, paying for a TV with mandatory ads.

17:33Okay, Kurt. we have got an AI friend to watch TV with from Adam Felber. Make it better, a new service that will change TV show plots from Shintira Jackson and from Hari Kondabalu, a free TV that forces you to watch TV. Which one is real? I got to go with Hari's Tele TV, I think. Okay, and to find out the correct answer, we spoke with someone who actually tried this new innovation. Tele requires you to use the TV as the main TV in your home, and you're going to have to live with ads.

18:13Yes, booze! Also, this audience is like, we don't watch TV, we only listen to radio.

18:25That was Emma Roth, reporter for The Verge, who lived with a telly. Congratulations Congratulations, Kurt. You got that right. And you earned a point for Hari, and you've won our prize, the voice of your choice on your voicemail. Congratulations, and thank you so much for playing with us today. Thank you. Took myself down to the TV store. Replaced the set I'd smashed on the floor. Like a lover's quarrel, guess I lost my head. I pounded on that sucker till I knew it was dead. And now, the game we call Not My Job. Becca Mann is one of the most impressive swimmers in the world. In 2019, she became the first person to swim the 40-mile channel crossing three Hawaiian islands.

19:18This was just four years after winning her second national championship in the open water 10K. She's also the author of two books, one a sports memoir and the other a dystopian young adult novel. Clearly, someone got her a pen that writes underwater. Beckham Mann, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So, okay, I fully don't understand why you do what you do.

19:54A lot of people don't. You're in the majority there. I'm not even quite sure. So I have so many questions. Let's just start with like, do you ever get freaked out by the open ocean? Not the open ocean itself. I sometimes get freaked out by my mind just because it's so, like I'm in a sensory deprivation tank, it feels like sometimes, and they can sometimes spiral out of control. So that's honestly the only thing that really scares me about open water. So like your thoughts are more terrifying than sharks. Definitely. Sharks, at least you know what you're getting there.

20:34Oh my gosh. I hope you do therapy.

20:42So, you know, one of the things that I thought about, like when thinking about these adventures that you go on is that you're in the water for a really, really, really long time. So what are some of the weird kind of physical side effects of this kind of swimming? So when you're in salt water, you will start swelling. So like about nine hours in, my nostrils were swollen together. And then when I got out of the water, my uvula was hanging onto the back of my tongue and I couldn't swallow for the rest of the day. It was disgusting. Oh God, this is where I pretend to really know what a uvula is.

21:23It hangs on the back of your throat. Either way, I sense that this is bad. Um, I, that, this again kind of conjures the question of like, why do you do this to yourself? But, um, what is your, like, what's your big goal now? I mean, you've already done so much is there another like a record you want to set yeah so I actually took after that swim I took five years off of swimming that was like the last thing that I wanted to do with my career because I just narrowly missed my third Olympic team and I didn't want to end on a failure so um I love swimming and I figured why not just see how long I can love swimming for in one period and then after that took five years off and I was just really missing swimming so I got back into it a year ago and then um made the national team again after five months of training so I'm hopeful Yeah.

22:12Thank you. Daddy behavior. Yeah. So now I'm just kind of taking it six months by six months and seeing what happens from there. And as long as I keep enjoying getting into the pool every day to train, I'm going to keep sticking with it. When you're in the open water, are there people that are like watching you or tracking you in some ways? You're not completely by yourself, right? Yeah. So there was a kayak that was probably like five to ten feet away from me the whole time. and then a boat that would stay like 200 meters ahead. And then every like 20 minutes, I'd swim up to the boat. And my mom was actually on the boat and she was violently seasick the whole time.

22:50She was not happy. Never doing this again. And she'd throw me a feed. We call them feeds. They're basically just like liquid fuel. So like a Gatorade with like some sort of energy gel melted into it. So yeah, I wasn't fully alone, even though like I couldn't touch the boat. Nobody was allowed to touch me because then you're disqualified if that happens. But there were people nearby in case I needed help or anything. Okay, so there were people nearby. My question is, what's the most incredible thing you've seen in the open ocean? Because I won't be going. I need to live vicariously through you.

23:26I think I've seen three sharks, and I really love sharks. All of them were, it was two black-tip reef sharks and then one white-tip reef shark. And I think that they're just such beautiful creatures. all of them were like very peaceful and yeah I love I love all the animals they're probably surprised to see you what are you doing in my house oh yeah they have they have a real reputation for being peaceful so that's those ones in particular I met some nice ones so speaking of like fish have you ever like had a relationship with a fish in this style of my octopus teacher I can't say that I have I mean are you open to that I'm open to everything we'll see We'll see where life takes me So like when you're I guess ever relaxing If that happens for you Like you're on a girls weekend at the beach Are you just in the water Because you feel like you have to be in it at all times Like what is your relationship with water When you're not racing in it Yeah I love the water I especially love when I can convince my non-swimming friends to go in the ocean with me.

24:35I feel like that's the sign of a true friendship, if I can convince people to go swimming in the ocean with me, because that's where I'm the happiest, and I love sharing that with people. And how do you convince them? I tell them that if anything happens, I'll make sure that they're safe and I'm the one who drowns or gets eaten.

24:55So there's such a small chance of that happening, and I think it reassures them, so that's usually my line. Do you ever like swim in a hotel pool and just like casually do laps but also smoke everybody and show off? Definitely. I think both of them. Depending on what kind of mood I'm in. Oh, Becca, man. Well, we've actually asked you here to play a game we're calling. Tanks for joining us. So, you know all about. Oh, no. Oh, no, is right. You know all about open water. So we're going to ask you about closed water, aquariums. Answer two out of three questions correctly, and you'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of any of us, on their voicemail.