WWDTM: Lewis Black

0:04From NPR and WBEC Chicago, this is, wait, wait, don't tell me, the NPR News Quiz. Sink your teeth into me, North Carolina. I'm your hot and saucy Bill-B-Q.

0:24I'm Bill Curtis, and here is your host at DPAC in Durham, North Carolina, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all so much. We are delighted to be back in Durham, a place known for polite and kind Southern gentlemen, just like the Jason Isaacs character in The White Lotus. Later on, we're going to be talking to the comedian Louis Black, famous for his back-in-black rants on The Daily Show and for playing anger itself in Inside Out, and also a proud graduate of the University of North Carolina. I know that's a little surprising, but that's why he sometimes shouts at people in a drawl.

1:08We want to hear your delightful regional accent. Give us a call to play our games. The number is 1-888-924-8924. That's 1-888-wait-wait. Now let's welcome our first listener contestant. Hi, you're on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Hey, Peter. This is Tim calling from Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, right outside of the greatest city in the world, Philadelphia. Okay. Hey, I'm glad you clarified because I wasn't quite sure what you were going to say. Philadelphia, Swarthmore, I know, famous for its college. What do you do there? Correct. I actually don't work at Swarthmore, but I work in higher ed communications at another local university.

1:41Oh, really? So you live in Swarthmore where Swarthmore College is, but you're like to hell with you when you work for somebody else. You got that right. You know, sometimes you just got to get away. Yeah, I understand. Rebel, why don't you? Yeah. Well, welcome to the show, Tim. And let me introduce you to our panel this week. First, he's a comedian you can see at the Wall Comedy Club in Bakersfield, California on May 3rd. It's Alonzo Bowden. Hello, sir. Hello, Alonzo. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Next, he's a comedian and the host of the 5 o 'clock somewhere news on Instagram. And he'll be opening for W.

2:13Kamau Bell at Chicago's Den Theater on April 26th. It's Adam Burke. Hello. Hi. I'm good to talk to you. And she is a comedian you can see on tour in Honolulu, April 25th, Nashville, May 2nd, and St. Louis on May 3rd. It's Dulce Sloan.

2:33Hello, Dulce. It's-a me! Tim, welcome to the show. You, of course, are going to play Who's Bill this time? Bill, as he always does, is going to read you three quotations from this week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain 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 it. Let's, your first quote is about a university's response to threatened funding cuts. It's like Goliath versus Goliath. That was a comment in a New York Times article about what university that, to many people's surprise, is standing up to the government?

3:08Harvard. Harvard, yes. The Trump administration is trying to yank$2 billion in funding from Harvard after that University refused to cave to their demands. Harvard's stance does seem brave, but like all Harvard students, if they lose their funding, their dads can take care of it. Were you guys surprised to see Harvard taking this stance? I don't know if I was surprised considering $2 billion to Harvard is like, what, 20 bucks? Yeah. Like, yeah, we'll go through the couches, we'll get the spare change, we'll cover the$2 billion. Now, Harvard, of course, they had the advantage of having an example of what happens if you do cave, which is what Columbia University did recently.

3:54Now, Columbia, I know, but they're paying for it. Now they are required to devote most of their research to studying if the water is making us gay.

4:06And? And, well, we'll find out. Research takes time. I have to say, personally, it is so exciting to see people finally rooting for Harvard. This is a change. I actually wore my Harvard t-shirt out in public the other day, and instead of people shouting, hey, jackass, they yelled, way to go, jackass. Wow. I can't believe you figured out a way to work out to include that you went to Harvard into that sentence. I was so deft. Well, I mean, I've been doing that for years, but now for the first time ever, I may not get mocked for it. How could I resist? All right, here is your next quote. We're going to put the ash in astronauts.

4:57That was pop star Katy Perry talking about her trip where this week with a crew of other women? Into space. Into space, yes. Yes, Jeff Bezos' rocket company Blue Origin launched the first ever all-female crew into space this week, including Perry and Bezos' fiancée Lauren Sanchez. It was an inspiring moment for women, including little girls everywhere who now know that you can do anything if you have a rich boyfriend. Which is what I've been trying to teach these girls. People are criticizing, you know, this 11-minute flight up and back for being like just a dumb PR stunt. But it is a step forward for women in space.

5:45Think about it. The last time a woman went to space, they left her there for 11 months. I have to say, Peter, as a comic, when we do shows, the worst thing is when a bachelorette party walks in. You're just... And this, now the whole country gets to see why we don't like bachelorette parties. This was just a giant bachelorette party. Look how rich we are. We're going to fly to space for 11 minutes. Then we're going to come back and get drunk. And they... Yeah, well, isn't that the issue? Because that's the problem that people said, when they said, like, this is feminism and inspiration. If they just called it space brunch, nobody would have cared.

6:24You know what I mean? It's just zero G karaoke. We would have been fine. I know. I should say, by the way, some of the commentary about this seems a little sexist, so I just want to say for the record that I also thought it was stupid when Michael Strahan went up there. Hey, hey, hey, get off my boy Strahan now. I do know at one point they're up there, and they're all taking selfies, and someone gets their attention and goes, hey, everybody, look at the moon. Let's look at the one thing we can already see from the Earth. But they were marginally closer. You know. I should say that on board this ship were Lauren Sanchez, Gail King, Katy Perry, and two women with bad publicists.

7:09Ah, could you imagine being in the Anne Moore on the bottom of this article? No, it definitely seemed like a crew that was picked by guys, you know, in the Blue Origin boardroom saying, Okay, what celebrity deaths could our company recover from? Wow. First straight hand, now Gail King, how dare you? Also, Gail King was defending this and she said, look, this is actually, this is science and this trip proves that we, one of the things that Blue Origin is trying to do is show that we can shoot waste products into space. Into space, yeah. Which feels like a bit of a self-own. A little bit, a little bit.

7:54All right. Your last quote is a description of a particular vacation resort outside New York City. It's like summer camp, except with a really fancy bed and premium craft cocktails. Right. Now, that resort was appealing to the growing number of vacationers who are trying to recreate trips from when? Bless you. Their childhood? Yes, their childhood. Very good, Tim. People are setting out to recreate their childhood vacations. It's a trend the Hilton Hotel chain in their newsletter is calling, quote, time travel. And they say it is, quote, about recapturing the sense of joy, stability, and comfort those memories are built on, unquote.

8:40Memories like the time your sister bit you in a Motel 6. Vintage vehicles are also back. This is true. That sounds amazing. I'd give anything to once again ride completely unrestrained in the back of a Chevy Caprice station wagon. Again, are these people who had nice childhoods? That is my supposition. Yes. But the other part of this is that your family's not there. That's the other part of a childhood vacation is that you went with your family. I mean, urns are pretty transportable. Okay. This is true. There's a lot of nostalgia for old school style travel. So, like, they brought back the Pan Am airline brand for, like, charter trips.

9:27You can fly Pan Am again. And for extra versimilitude, one-third of the flights will be hijacked to Cuba. What word did you just say? Versimilitude. That's that Harvard panel. That's Harvard. In case Trump is listening, realness.

9:48Bill, how did Tim do in our quiz? He gave us a great start. 3 and 0. Well done, Tim. Thanks, Peter. Bye-bye.

10:04Right now, panel, it is time for you to answer some questions about this week's news. Alonzo, the drugs we take often pass into drains, toilets, and then into rivers and lakes, and it turns out that anti-anxiety drugs are doing what to wild salmon? stopping them from spawning? No, it's sort of affecting their behavior. They're swimming downstream. Whoa. How about a hint? I'll give you a hint. If you see a salmon riding a motorcycle without a helmet, now you know why. They're daredevils now? Yeah, it makes them reckless. Reckless wild salmon. Scientists wanted to see what the drugs we're putting into the rivers via our wastewater were doing to the fish who live there.

10:47So as an experiment, they dumped a bunch of anti-anxiety meds into the water where some certain salmon were spawning, and they found out those salmon ended up being far more reckless than the others. These salmon were like, come on, guys, it's just a bear. What's it going to do, catch us in the air? What is reckless behavior in a fish? That's a good question. Is it like it lets itself get caught because it wants a lip piercing? Something like that. Was this one of them schools that lost funding? Can I order Xanax salmon at the restaurant? And is that more? And of course, the medicated fish were more likely to make it back upstream to spawn.

11:29But as many of us have experienced, once they got there, they weren't really interested. Gonna have to start spilling some Viagra. Yeah.

11:42Coming up, our panelists try some Easter innovations in our Bluff the Listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT-TOPLAY. We'll be back in a minute with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

12:03From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Bill Curtis. We are playing this week with Alonzo Bowden, Adam Burke, and Dulce Sloan. And here again is your host at DPAC in Durham, North Carolina, Peter Sago. Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much. Right now it is time for the Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Bluff the listener game. Call 1-888-WAIT-WAIT to play our game on the air. Or check out the pinned post on our Instagram page. That's at WaitWaitNPR Hi, you're on WaitWait, don't tell me Hi, this is Anthony Oliveira Calling from St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis, we love St.

12:47Louis Despite being from Chicago, we're cool that way What do you do there? I'm actually a zookeeper here Wow Do you get to work with the big fun animals Like the tigers and lions and stuff? No, I actually work with the insects

13:05You have You work in a zoo for insects? Are they responsive to your care, the insects? Like when you walk up with leaves, do all the centipedes crawl over and sit up and beg? No, they're really not great for companionship. Well, Anthony, it's nice to have you with us. You're going to play the game in which you have to tell truth from fiction. Bill, what's Anthony's topic? Easter? I hardly know her. Easter is this weekend, and if you are sick of the normal Easter traditions like the Easter bunny, or wondering what the hell is exactly inside a Cadbury cream egg, there is somewhere a brand new Easter trend on the rise.

13:46Our panel is going to tell you about it. Pick the one who's telling the truth, and you'll win the wait-waiter of your choice on your voicemail. You ready to apply? Yeah, I'll try my best. All right. First, let's hear from Adam Burke. When Irving Berlin wrote In Your Easter Bonnet with All the Frills Upon It back in 1933, little could he have imagined that his rocking ode to Vernal Millinery would still resonate with the youth some 90 years later. But so it is, with some of the biggest influencers on social media not only celebrating the colorful headgear, but making bank doing so. I first did a shoot of me in a homemade Easter bonnet as a joke, says popular Instagrammer Tabitha Clack, who boasts 2 million followers online.

14:26When the picks proved a hit, high-end fashion supply company Seams Pricey reached out for a collab, as the kids say. Before long, Clack realized she could fit multiple sponsors on a single bonnet, with one of her 2023 pieces sporting a bottle of air freshener, several candy brands, and a fifth of vodka all artfully attached to her festive crown. This in turn motivated the competition, with rival influencers trying to see how many promotional items they could cram onto their seasonally adorned noggins. I might have overdone it last year, says beauty influencer Skylar Schapp, who somehow managed to attach five shoe brands and a compact air fryer onto her Easter 2024 bonnet, injuring her neck in the process.

15:11Undeterred, she plans to return this year with some Tylenol-branded haberdashery with matching neck brace, of course. Easter bonnet influencers on the rise. Your next story in your Easter basket comes from Alonzo Bowden. While Leah Winley of York, Iowa loved clothes, she also loved Jesus. So this year, she and her friends Andrea and Debbie all gave up buying clothes for Lent. Well, new clothes, that is. Vintage is fine. Now, as Easter nears, Leah's Lent fashion has started a huge craze. Everybody's wearing the new Easter vintage look around York. And it's not just regular vintage. they've gone Victorian.

15:54But apparently the local cineplex hasn't shown a Christmas carol for a while, so they're guessing how to wear the different items. When Andrea arrived at church in a corset, she was told by the very agitated minister that a corset isn't actually a shirt. Debbie thought her bustle skirt was quite elegant when she put it on, but it was also huge and she lost half of it climbing out of her Uber. The church elders, while impressed with the young women's efforts, asked that perhaps next year they could give up fruit or chocolate instead.

16:31Vintage Victorian Easter wear gets popular in Iowa. Your last bunny tail comes from Dulce Sloan. In today's edition of Voting Does Matter, cooks and homemakers on the internet are suggesting we dye potatoes for Easter because eggs are too expensive. Yes, I said potatoes. It's a move that had one our writer asked, what in the Great Depression is this? So this year we will celebrate the resurrection of my Lord and Savior by releasing hordes of well-dressed children into a backyard to search for colorful tubers. There's even a recipe for deviled potatoes, too. That's got to be an unsettling experience.

17:13You think you're biting into an egg, but no, it's a potato. And sure, dying and decorating eggs is the Easter tradition. But do you know why? No? Me neither. All right, here are your choices. From Adam Burke, influencers on Insta and elsewhere taking up the Easter bonnet to show off their paid promotions. from Alonzo, a group of ladies in Iowa go all Victorian in their Easter wear, or from Dulce, because of the price of eggs, more and more people are hiding Easter potatoes on the lawn for their kids to find. Which of these is the real story of a new trend in Easter? I'm going to go with Dulce's story about dyed potatoes.

18:01Died potatoes.

18:05You're choosing Dulce's story well. To bring you the correct answer, we spoke to someone who is familiar with it. Potato skin is not the same color as egg shells. Which is part of the reason that they're not a good substitute. That was Amanda Mactus, the associate editor of Delish, who commented on the real story of potatoes being used in place of Easter eggs. She doesn't recommend it, neither do we. However, Anthony, you got it right. Dulce was telling the truth. She gets a point. You win our prize. The voice of your choice on your voicemail. Well done. Thank you, thank you.

18:50And now the game where we have local celebrities on to answer questions about things that are far away. Now, you might know Louis Black as one of the most successful comedians of the last 30 years, or from his comedy specials, or from his Back in Black segments on The Daily Show, or from his role playing the actual embodiment of rage in the Inside Out movies. But did you know he is a proud University of North Carolina alumni? We are happy to welcome him back to the place where he learned his genteel manners. Louis Black, welcome to Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Well, thank you. It's great to have you.

19:23It's great to be here. So you are very well known and have been for a long time for your rants, for getting angry and upset about things. Was that something you did from the beginning, or did you discover it one day? I discovered it. I mean, and I really, I wasn't angry on stage. I realized that I was suppressing the anger. Finally, as I was rolling along, a friend of mine, another comic came up who was, and he said, you know, you're really angry, and you should let it come out. You should go on stage and yell everything. And he said, I'm on stage yelling all the time, and nothing that I'm yelling about should anybody be angry about?

20:06Right. I mean, this is a guy who put plumber's helpers on his head. And so I did it. And it literally was, I went, that's it. There you go. And that was the... So your life was changed by Gallagher. That's amazing. Who knew? So, I mean, they used to say about Don Rickles who did insult comedy that he was an absolute sweetheart in real life, nicest guy you ever met. Is that like you? Or are you like actually in real life, not that angry? No, I mean, who could be that angry? It's exhausting. I thought you, actually. I thought you were the best at it. I wake up and either I'm looking at a newspaper, I'm turning the TV on, or I'm looking at my phone, and within five minutes I'm livid.

20:50Something has occurred that has driven me completely nuts. Yeah. I think everybody listening and watching you right now have had that experience, but none of us have figured out how to make a living at it. Yeah. You don't work up to it. You don't go like, I'm going to be irked first and then slightly annoyed, just straight to rage. Oh, yeah. There's no pedal. That broke. Lou, I don't know if I ever told you this, and to everyone, Louis Black is a friend and one of my comedy heroes. I had to stop watching you so I didn't do you because the rants just come out, and then you realize like, wow, I'm as mad as Louis Black.

21:33I'm doing really good here. Yeah. I got to calm down a notch. Love you, man. Love you from day one. The same. You've become so well known for it and so successful at it. It's what people expect. And I'm wondering if it's ever like hard, if you ever have to like take a moment, meditate, and find your unhappy place. Oh, no. Just always right there. No, I, and I'm sure you've experienced the same. I can be standing off stage talking to somebody about their, like their new dog, or you've got a puppy, and kind of be waxing on with them about it, and then it's like showtime, and literally, that's it.

22:17Boom, and now we're off. And I just started. Wow. It's just the way it is. I mean, I've been doing it so long, it's automatic. Do people like, because you're well-known and beloved, do people ever come up and go, wow, Louis Black, hey, condemn me. People, people, I have achieved something that is so bizarre, they will actually tell me and I can't, can you, will they just say, what happens if I say the word? You can do whatever you want because who'll know? Go ahead. Yeah, okay. So they will say, could you write, could you give me an autograph for my brother-in-law and just write, f*** Tommy. I'm like, okay.

23:01I literally was approached time after time, can we take a picture? Do you want to do this? Yeah, let's do this. It's true. For the radio listeners, a rude gesture was made. See, and that's a professional note that they're not going to have. The one thing that we found out about you that I was genuinely surprised by is that you have been the paid spokesman for Aruba, the island of vacation destination. Yeah. God bless. Yeah. That was a great gig. I bet it was. It really was. But I'm thinking to myself, like, what was the process where, like, some advertising agency said, okay, Aruba, beautiful, lovely, laid back.

23:46I know, Louis Black. The idea was that I obviously hated everything, but I liked Aruba. And reason enough for everyone to get on a plane and go there. I remember the slogan, Aruba, it's f***ing gorgeous.