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Hey, it's Peter Sagal here, and I want to tell you about some exciting things that are coming up in this podcast feed, other than just me telling you about exciting things coming up in the podcast feed. The Democratic National Convention is in Chicago this year, and we realized, so are we! So wait, wait, is going to the convention. We'll be bringing you bonus podcasts with our exclusive convention coverage, talking about the things no one else knows.

is brave enough to. And Wait, Wait producers Ian Chilog and Mike Danforth are bringing back How to Do Everything. It's my wife's favorite comedy podcast from NPR. And I wish I was kidding. We'll have fresh episodes for you right here in the feed. Get ready for all this new stuff coming your way. Don't be scared by what's new. Embrace it. You'll love it.

From NPR in WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm the man who makes rich people open their wallets just so they can hear me say their name, Chioki Ianson. And here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Chioki. Thank you, everybody.

As hard as it is to believe, we have arrived at summer vacation 2024, which means it is time for Bill Curtis's annual pilgrimage to Ibiza. So we're lucky to have Chioki fill in for him. Somebody had to be there to hit you if you pronounced it Ibiza.

So while Bill is partying till dawn, we're going to amuse ourselves with some highlights from our past shows, starting with an extended version of our visit with Jason Isbell. The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter joined us soon after releasing his latest album, which he wrote while on the set of the movie Killers of the Flower Moon, in which he starred. Thank you. Thank you very much. So great to talk to you.

I just, first we need to start with a fact check, which is your band, the 400 unit is named after an asylum? Yes, and it was really just, it was part of a hospital, a general hospital, and the floor where they put all of the mental health treatments

patients was called the 400 unit and me and everybody else that I knew and that I grew up with had family who had spent time in the 400 unit if they hadn't done so themselves and uh and so it was kind of a it was a thing in our family when somebody would have a come apart you know my granddad would say be careful we're going to send you to the 400 unit and eventually I found myself after naming my band the 400 unit I found myself judging their talent show and

Really, I mean, it was incredible. There were some extremely talented people in there, as you might imagine. People think you're one of the greatest songwriters alive. Like John Mayer called you our greatest living lyricist. So my question is, what is his problem with your tunes? That's what I thought, too. He doesn't like my guitar playing. Yeah.

I think he made up for it when he wrote that song about your body being a wonderland. Yeah, it was originally Wonder Bread, but he changed it. LAUGHTER

And I heard you say once that when you met Bruce Springsteen, he immediately launched into one of your songs. He did, yeah. He said that his son had brought my album home and he had really fallen in love with this song called Traveling Alone. And then he leaned in and he started singing it.

And I immediately thought, oh, my God, this man is singing my song in Bruce Springsteen voice. But, yeah, he was very, very kind, which meant a whole lot to me. Sure. Well, how do you respond to that? Did you feel like you needed to do a little, you know, dancing in the dark for him just to even things out? Yeah, I felt like I needed to do that. I sang Thunder Road in its entirety a cappella. I did a knee slide at the end.

There is, I don't know what you want to call it, a stereotype, a cliche, maybe even a joke about you that you only write very sad songs. But have you ever just sat down to just like, you know, just show the world and write a song like, my puppy is so cute or something like that just to show you've got that club in your back? No. No, I've never...

I haven't. I've written songs for my daughter. My daughter is eight years old. Oh, sure. And I have made up songs for her that are happy. And she did not like them, so I went back to this. And so I read this thing about you that you went to college, you were a creative writing major, but you left college one credit shy of getting your degree.

And then just recently, years after you left school, you went back and they gave you your degree. Is that right? Right. Well, I didn't go back. Like they, I don't know if I'm supposed to tell this. Um,

So what happened was it was a human fitness and wellness course. So it was a book course about like how many calories are in a cupcake. And they would take you in and pinch you with the little forceps and tell you if you were overweight or not. And I was not about to do that. So wait a minute. This was the only course you had to take to graduate college.

this human health course and you were like absolutely not I'd rather just leave yes he'd been pinched enough he was like I gotta get out of here it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life because I remember distinctly thinking I can get out of here and walk

out and no one's going to arrest me or anything. You can like, don't tell your children this, but you can just leave. And so more recently, the college approached you and said, we are aware that you were one credit shy and you never graduated. So

They said that I knew enough now about those things. Well, knowing a lot of your songs, you know, there's a track that didn't make Southeastern that's all about how many calories in a cupcake. So they obviously... And that one is the saddest of all. Yeah.

With tears in their eyes, they were like, you finally get it now. How many calories have I handed you? How dare you? You've broken it. And they gave me my degree. But I don't know if the degree that they gave me is a degree that existed before that moment or not. It looks like something they made up. Like it's got the word studies in it more than once. I don't know. Yeah.

I don't know what I can use it for, but I'm very proud of it. Sure. You are married to another wonderfully talented singer, musician, and songwriter, Amanda Shires. And you were actually on NPR's Tiny Desk concert. And you were with her, right? And there's this moment during the concert that you do where your beautiful, talented wife dies.

looks at you and leans close and says, do I have any boogers? Yes. And you lean in and you check and you say no. Right. And I just want to say, is that like what your relationship is normally like? I think so, yeah. I think that's true love. If you feel comfortable enough to ask and they feel comfortable enough to answer, then, you know, you're being a good friend to that person in that moment. Yeah.

And, you know, the only other option was just go with the boogers and play the show with the boogers. Yeah. And nobody wants that to happen. Yeah. The problem is when I see boogers and she doesn't, then we have a problem.

And when that happens and you're like, you have boogers, and she's like, no, I don't, do you say, well, I'm a college graduate? Yes. I have my degree in studies and other studies. Um.

Jason, Isbel, it is so much fun to talk to you. We have invited you here to play a game that this time we're calling Big Ben is Clock? No, Isbel.

So, we have decided to ask you, Jason Isbell, three questions about Big Ben, which many people don't realize is not the clock. It's the bell in the clock. Answer two out of three questions correctly, you'll win a prize for one of our listeners. The voice of anyone they might like from our show going bong, bong on their voicemail. Bill, who's the best?

Who is Jason Isbell playing for? Jared Maynard of Dearborn, Michigan. All right. Here's your first question about Big Ben. The man who designed Big Ben, both the clock and the bell, was Baron Grimthorpe, who was a lawyer and self-proclaimed expert on clocks. In fact, his fame about his expertise on clocks was such that he was repeatedly elected president of Britain's Horological Institute.

Great guy to have in charge, but there was a problem. What was it? A, he was never weirdly on time to the meetings. B, he was so obnoxious as a person, a condition of him becoming president was that he never attend any of its dinners. Or C, he demanded that the clock in the Institute's clock tower be digital. Sure. Mm-hmm.

I mean, since you called him a self-described expert, I would say that he's not somebody you would want to sit down at dinner with. You're exactly right. I would go with B. That's right. In fact, he was originally charged with picking someone to design the clock, and he said, you know who's best at designing clocks? Me. Me.

All right, you got that one right. You were very sharp on that. Graham Thorpe, as I said, gave himself the job of designing the clock and the bell, which immediately cracked the first time they hit it with something. And he dealt with that disaster by doing what? A, he took responsibility, apologized, and handed off the job to someone else to do correctly.

B, he claimed that he meant it to crack because it would sound better that way. Or C, he made friends with a guy who worked at the foundry that made the bell, got him drunk, and convinced him while drunk to say that it was all their fault. Ooh, C is tempting. But it's hard for me to imagine this man making friends with anybody.

I'm going to go with B again. No, it was actually C. He did get the guy drunk, convinced him to say it was the foundry's fault. That not being true, the foundry sued him for libel and won. And then he got angry and said it again, and they sued him again, and they won again. So, last question. If you get this right, you win. In addition to the bell of Big Ben and the clock, and the bell, by the way, is still cracked. The

The barren is memorialized forever by what? A, the phrase to Grimthorpe, which means to ruin a building while attempting to restore it. LAUGHTER

B, an act of parliament requiring all clockmakers to this day to prove that their products were not designed by Baron Grimthorpe. Or C, being the only person to be buried in a small nave of Westminster Abbey known as the Jackass's Corner. I think it's A. I think it is A. You're right. It is A. Yes.

- Wow. - Phil, how did Jason Isbell do on our quiz? - Well, we know he did not grimthorpe this. Two out of three, you're a winner, Jason. - Again, Jason Isbell is a celebrated singer-songwriter whose new album, Weather Veins, is up for three Grammys. Jason Isbell, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. What an absolute thrill to talk to you. Take care.

When we come back, we talk to two authors, one who is the most prolific author in the world, James Patterson, and one who might be if she didn't also have to host a TV show, Rachel Maddow. That's when we come back with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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stay secret. Discover how Claude can transform your work at anthropic.com slash Claude. From NPR and WBZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Chioki Ianson, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Chioki. Thank you all. Thank you.

Come on, people, make it believable. Thank you, Chioki. So this week, Chioki is filling in for Bill, who got an early start in his summer vacation. And we're also revisiting some of our favorite moments from the past year while the rest of us are trying to find him. Where in the world is William Horton Curtis?

For many years, we had wanted to interview MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, but it was impossible because she was too busy. Finally, she reduced her broadcast schedule to just one hour a week. That's hardly working at all.

You'd be surprised, Chioki, how taxing it is. Anyway, Rachel has more time now to write books. And at the start of the year, we interviewed her at Carnegie Hall about her latest, a book called Prelude, as well as about how she stumbled into her remarkable career. Everybody, we heard that back in college at Stanford, everybody thought you'd be a professor because you were, to use a term that I think is an approbation in these circles, an egghead. A little bit of a dork. A little bit of a dork. Yes. So how did you stumble into broadcasting?

I was finishing my dissertation, living with friends, totally broke, and I got a job as the news girl on a morning zoo radio show. You are kidding me. No, it was a live on-the-air audition, and I got hired on the spot and started the next day. And how did you fit in in the whole morning zoo crew type ethos? Well...

One of the things that happened on our morning zoo show is called the Dave in the morning show sure And we used to write jingles for local businesses. Oh wow yeah I think I speak for your international fandom to ask can you still do a jingle? I remember bits of them for example It's not just for Cinco de Mayo so put on a suit and a tie-o

I don't remember how that one started. There was something about, you can't borrow my chainsaw. Somewhere on Route 9, get yourself a chainsaw because you sure ain't using mine. Green Mountain Power, out in Florence, Mass. We give you the power to cut your freaking grass. I do remember some. Do you remember what it was like to transition from radio to TV? Something I've never dared to do.

I have never really admitted to myself that anybody can see me when I'm on television. In my mind,

It's just me and a microphone. If you think about it, you can't see them. So it wouldn't be fair if they could see you. Right. Exactly. I wear the same clothes every day. Right. There's nobody else in the room except for a nice lady named Jackie who stands next to the camera. Yeah. And I don't pay very much attention to what the visuals are on the screen. And I just think about the script. Right. Does it ever get intense? Because I know people look to you not just for information and analysis, but for kind of hope.

Do people come up to you and laden you with that? Because that would be a lot. I don't feel beleaguered by it or anything. I have nothing to complain about at all. I do sometimes worry when people say that I am the thing that gives them hope. I just think, wow, that is a gossamer thread. Because I'm just a person who talks about the news on television. You should have other resources. I understand you've become quite the Fisher person.

Yes, I do it a lot, but I'm bad at it. Really? Yes. What kind of fishing? All the fishing. All the fishing. Fly fishing, spin fishing, ice fishing. Ice fishing? Ice fishing is my favorite kind of fishing. So you're telling me that if I'm out there in the mountains of the Berkshires and there's a frozen lake, I can look out there and there's a huddled person sitting there next to a hole in the ice, it could be you? Yes. Wow. Yes. Staring into a hole, happier than I am at any other time of the year. Really? Yes. Yes.

I could do this all day, but we do have business to do. You have a new book out called Prequel, which is about the pro-fascist movement in America. But since you have written a book called Prequel, yes, we have asked you to play a game we're calling... The worst prequel of them all. Meaning, what do you know...

About the Phantom Menace, Star Wars Episode I. Oh, no. Right. Oh, no. So your job is to answer two or three questions correctly about the Phantom Menace. Oh, no.

I saw the first Star Wars movie when I was four, and that's the only Star Wars movie I have ever seen. And the only time I've ever seen that one. Do you know what they're about? They're about war. Yeah.

And stars. And they're stars. I can do this. Okay. Bill, who is Rachel Maddow playing for? Lee Woodyer of New York City, who is celebrating his 60th birthday with us here at Carnegie Hall. Here's your first question.

Now, we all know, you may remember this. Remember the lightsaber fights in Star Wars? The swords? You remember this. Well, you have to have lightsaber fights, and they had them in The Phantom Menace, but they were hard to get right when they were filming. Why? A, all the lightsabers had been thrown out when Lucasfilm moved their offices in 1994.

B. Actor Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan, kept making lightsaber noises with his mouth, which were really hard to remove in post-production. Or C. George Lucas insisted that the actors fight with real lightsabers. I'm gonna go with B. B is the answer. Ewan McGregor. Wow. You would know this if you were that kind of nerd.

rather than the brainiac. But it is literally impossible to pick up like anything, even a flashlight and not go. And Ewan McGregor could not stop himself from doing that. Okay.

The movie sets were built only to be as high as the actors' heads, right? Because the rest of the expanse of whatever room they were in would be created digitally later, right? But there was an unexpected problem with that supposedly money-saving technique. What was it? A, Liam Neeson, who was in the film, was so tall that he cost the set crew an extra $150,000 in construction costs.

B, George Lucas said the doors will be CGI too, so the construction crew did not put any openings in the wall for the actors to walk through. Or C, whenever an actor ran on the set, his head would bounce too high and disappear. We think it's Liam Neeson. You're right. That's true. This is great. I love this. I love that you're answering this as a collective. Yes. So appropriate for you MSNBC people. This is the most liberal collective thing I've ever done. I know. It's really good.

All right, last question. The parts of the movie that were not shot on digital sets were made in the deserts of Tunisia, where it got so hot that what happened on set? A, the actors playing Jedi Knights demanded and got air conditioners put under their robes. B, Natalie Portman and the other actors actually fried an egg on top of R2-D2.

Or C, they needed four standby actors ready to get into the metal C-3PO costume because they kept passing out. Oh, wow. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Trust your feelings, Rachel Maddow. All right.

air conditioners. No, it was actually they fried an egg. Oh, you're kidding! Yes, they did. An actor named Ahmed Best who was in the movie said that they did that and as far as we know he had nothing else to do with the film. Yeah.

Bill, how did Rachel Maddow do in our quiz? How could we make Rachel anything more than a champion? Rachel Maddow is the host of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, and her new book, Prequel, debuted at number one at the New York Times bestseller list. Rachel Maddow, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.

In October of last year, we went to Hartford, Connecticut, where we interviewed best-selling author James Patterson. How best-selling is he, you ask? Well, he doesn't even live in Hartford. He just flew in on his private jet.

Peter asked him about his remarkable stature in the world of letters. We were looking into this and everything I said is true. You are, in fact, the best-selling author in the world. One piece of data we came across is like seven percent of all books sold in a year are your books, which is something to be proud of. I assume you're proud of it, yes? Yes.

You know, just very quickly, and I don't know who said this. It wasn't me, but I love it. And I think it's as true for 20-year-olds as it is for somebody my age, 30-something. And what it is, my time here is short. What can I do most beautifully? And for me, it's telling stories. And that's what it's all about. I don't care about anything other than that. Okay.

This is a hard question to ask any artist, especially a very popular one, but I'll try. Can you explain your success? Do you know why you are on the top of that list? I don't think about it that way, but it's just story, story, story, story. I mean, you know, the real estate thing, location, location. It's just story, story, story. Right. And you were not at first a novelist. You were in the advertising business. Yeah, but I've been clean for over 25 years. Oh, I'm glad. I'm glad.

Congratulations. Thank you. You have a chance. And were you all, did you always want to be a writer? You were one of those guys who... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally. And did you have to go through like an apprenticeship of like, did you write a lot of novels that you had to throw away before you got good? No, I was really lucky in that the first one I wrote, I was 25, 26 years old. It won an Edgar's Best First Mystery and...

And that's the best thing I've written. I haven't written anything even close to that since. - Really? - I was really good. I had a lot of problems when I was 26, yeah. - Now look, you've written, like I said, in every genre. I tried to find one. The only things you haven't done are epic poetry and erotica. - I did epic. Erotica, at a certain age, that comes off the scorecard. It's just not gonna, I'm not going to erotica.

Really? All of a sudden you sat down to write it instead of doing anything? Just not feeling it. They just watch some TV and go to bed, and you're like, that's exciting. Yeah. Okay. You're an immensely popular author. Do you get recognized in public? You know, it's a mixed bag. I was in a restaurant in Florida, a town where I favorite restaurants, and they took us to the seat. And I'm walking down the aisle with my wife, and this lady pops up, and she says, I know you.

you sold us our life insurance. So I do get recognized. So like a half credit, a half credit. You know, I went with it. But the weird thing is, so then we sat down, and during the appetizer, somebody in back said, are you from Massachusetts? I turned to him and I said, you're Tom Clancy. This is true. This is within 10 minutes. Yeah. So yeah, I do get recognized. Right.

You want funny stories. I do, I do. Would it be amusing to ask you about your feud with Stephen King?

You know, we don't have a feud. He has a feud. I like his books. Although the new one is so weird. They put this cover, Holly, with a nice little house. It looks so cute. It's about these two old people who are cannibals. Right. You know? And that's what I swear to you. You think that's a comedy. It's just weird. He is a very, very good writer. And I'll leave it at that. That's where I come out on Stephen King. Wow. Okay. Well. I didn't know authors had beef like that. They do, man. Like rappers.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no, no, no. A lot of John Irving. There are a lot of that stuff. I'm not into it. Really? There are a lot of literary... Did you used to have literary beefs when you were young? When I'm a kid in New York, I did see one there. And I go into this... There was a party, and in this back room, I swear to God, there's James Baldwin and Norman Mailer, and they're arguing, but they have their fists clenched. Right. And they're both little. They're like about 5'4", something like that.

James Baldwin and Norman Mailer are going to go at it. Well, they were going at it verbally, but it was like this kind of, you know, it's weird. That's how writers, we don't really fight, but we'll fake it. We'll threaten it. I guess Norman Mailer liked to box. I would box him. I wouldn't be afraid of him. You think you could beat him? Yeah, hell yes. That's how you become the world's best-selling author. Thank you.

Well, James Patterson, we have asked you here to play a game we're calling... I've got an hour until my flight and money in my pocket. So your books do very well in airport bookshops when people need something gripping to get them through a flight. But we were wondering what other fun things can you buy in an airport?

Answer two to three questions about other airport purchases correctly. You'll win our prize for one of our listeners, the voice of anyone they might choose in their voicemail. Bill, who is James Patterson playing for? Catherine Nyhan Chaney from New Britain, Connecticut. All right. Catherine, if I mess this up,

I'm going to get you a dozen Dunkin' Donuts or some Grater's ice cream. So no matter what, you're going to be a winner. All right. And I'm going to mess it up. The first thing you can buy in an airport...

Auntie Anne's pretzels, okay? The original logo of Auntie Anne's pretzels was the name of the store in an old English font with the image of a pretzel. Where did that pretzel image come from? A, they took the Mr. Salty pretzel logo, flipped it, and made it blue.

B, they took one of their actual pretzels and just Xeroxed it. Or C, they drew an outline of a pretzel and asked a focus group where the pieces of salt should go. Okay. I'm going to, because I think this is going to go A, B, C, so I'm going to go A. No, it's actually B. They just Xeroxed a pretzel.

All right, you have two more chances, so I think you'll do fine here. Sometimes spending money at the airport has an added bonus, like at the Changi Airport in Singapore. Oh, boy. For every $10 you spend in the airport shops, you also get what? A, one free ride on the airport's four-story slide.

B, a pack of chewing gum seized from a Singapore resident. Or C, an entry in a raffle to ride in the cockpit on your next flight. Oh, perfect. Okay. Who knows the answer to this? One person. One person. We going A again? A. We're going A. A is correct, everybody. Congratulations. It is the world's highest slide in an airport. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. I could...

I could do a scene there and kill somebody. There you go, yeah. All right, last question. If you get this, you win. All right. We all know about buying overpriced water and snacks and, of course, books, but which of these can you get in an airport somewhere in the world if the mood happens to strike you while you're at the airport? A, a root canal. No.

be a $1200 ham that comes in its own suitcase or C: a wedding? Hmm. C! C! Actually, all of them.

So I was going to win no matter what. You were going to win no matter what. That fan finale, it's about stories. Very nice. The dentist is in the... I thought the dentist thing, that was my guess. There's a dentist who works inside the Munich airport. The $1,200 ham is at the Miami International Airport, and I forget where you can have the wedding. So just ask in the next airport. Thank you, and that's good for that person, whoever that person is. Bill. Bill.

How did James Patterson do in our quiz? Two out of three, he's won. You win. Company won. James Patterson's latest book is 12 Months to Live, written with Mike Lupica. James Patterson, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Thank you, thank you. James Patterson. When we come back, two musicians iconic in their own ways. One a queen of the Broadway stage and the other a queen of the Stone Age. That's when we return with more Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from NPR.

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From NPR in WBEZ Chicago, this is Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz. I'm Chioki Ianson, and here's your host at the Studebaker Theater in downtown Chicago, Illinois, Peter Sagal. Thank you, Chioki. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. So, as we take our summer break, we thought we'd give you a break from the heat with some of the coolest guests we ever had. Now, Patti LuPone is the epitome of the Broadway diva. Her career began on the Great White Way 50 years ago when she created the title role in "Evita." But when we spoke to her in 2023,

she said she was actually done with Broadway. That is true. I mean, I'm not done with the stage, but I'm done with sort of, I don't know what Broadway is anymore. I

What I want to do is I want to make my downtown debut. I want to work on East 4th Street. So you want to do the whole theater career in reverse. You want to go from being the biggest Broadway star there is to playing in a cellar, probably naked, smeared with some food for no money at all. Yes, exactly. No, I want a Broadway salary downtown. Good luck, Ms. Lowe. Good luck. That'll happen. Hey, um...

Patty, Adam Felber here. I have a question. Maybe you can help me. I've got a 15-year-old son whose sole ambition is to move to New York and be on Broadway. So as a Broadway legend, do you recommend that I send him to military school or break his leg? Oh, don't send him to military school. I won't. He's going to be in military school on Broadway. Seriously, you know, it's people...

I don't understand why people want to be on Broadway. It is extremely hard. You have to be an athlete and a monk. You know, there's such joy in it. There's ecstasy in it. And there's also incredible pain and depression in it. You can be in a hit or you can give your life to a flop. And you just have to roll with the punches. And sometimes that's really, really hard.

So break his legs. Break his legs. I was about to ask you if we could have you say that all again, but with some stirring background music. That's beautiful. And another thing that happens, as I need not tell you, is sometimes you're doing all that work and somebody pulls out their cell phone

And I just want to speak for everybody on every stage in front of an audience everywhere to thank you for what you did famously when, I understand the story, you were doing a play at Lincoln Center and some guy was like, I think it was, of course I'm thinking it's a guy, only guys would be this rude, texting through the entire show and you just reached out and grabbed his cell phone? Well, it

Well, it was a woman. Oh, excuse me. It was at the Mitzi New House, which is a smaller theater than the Vivian Beaumont. It was an off-Broadway house, so it's a smaller house. And she was in full light. And her husband or her boyfriend was watching the play, and she was texting for the entire first act, and everybody could see her texting. And at the intermission, there's only five of us in the play, we come off stage, and we're like, did you see that woman texting? Yeah, yeah, she's not going to be back. Yeah, she was bored out of her mind. She...

we start the second act and she's still texting. It's the second act. She hasn't put the phone down. I don't know if she's on eBay. I don't know what the hell she's doing. Dale's talking and I'm thinking, I don't know

"How am I gonna get that phone?" Have you ever wondered what actors are doing when the other actor is speaking? Now you know. So you're thinking to yourself, "How am I gonna..." I make an exit on that side of the stage and my line is, and remember, community theatre has the word "community" in it, and I would go and I would shake the hands of the people in the first row.

on that side of the stage, on the side of the stage where she was texting. But I didn't shake their hands that night. I just went up to her, placed my right hand on her shoulder, and palmed the phone out of her lap. And I couldn't believe I got it. And I got on stage. I got

And the audience on the other side of the stage gasped and applauded. And then backstage, the stage manager was in the gods someplace. He said, thank God you got the phone. I gave it to the assistant stage manager. They gave it to the house manager. I should have held on to it. Yes.

If she wants the phone back, she's got to come and answer some questions that I'm going to ask. Or you just could have answered every text by saying, I'm sorry I didn't respond. I was seeing the most amazing play. Well, Patti LuPone, I could talk to you all day, but mainly we have you here to play our game. And this time we're calling it...

LuPone, meet LuPine. That's right. LuPine, meaning, as I'm sure you know, pertaining to wolves. We're going to ask you three questions about our LuPine friends. And if you answer two of them correctly, you'll win our prize for one of our listeners. Any voice they might choose for their voicemail. Bill, who is Patti LuPone playing for? Chibn Church of Orlando, Florida. All right. You ready to do this? I am. All right. Here is your first question.

In 2011, a 13-year-old boy in Norway encountered a pack of wolves while walking home from school, and he survived that dangerous encounter by thinking quickly and doing what? A, taking off his headphones and blasting the heavy metal band Creed at full volume to scare the wolves away. B, he offered them generous social welfare benefits in return for not eating him.

Or C, he lulled them to sleep by performing a one-man version of Henrik Ibsen's Enemy of the People. He's got to be free. That's right, yes, absolutely. Thank you.

All right, two more questions. A man committed an armed robbery of an Illinois bank a while ago while wearing a big wolf mask. No one was hurt in the incident, but there was collateral damage of a kind. What happened? A, a local German shepherd was wrongfully arrested for the crime. B, local news anchors reporting the story couldn't stop laughing at the mask and could not continue the newscast. Or C, two days later, someone at the bank called the police when a guy with a big beard walked in.

I'm going to go with the newscasters laughing. You're exactly right, Patty. That's what happened. To be fair, it was a pretty funny looking mask. All right, last question. To no one's surprise, there is a lot of werewolf erotica out there. So which of the following is a real title from the goodreads.com list of best werewolves?

Werewolf erotica. Here are the choices. Which of these are on Goodreads.com's list of best werewolf erotica? A, How to Flirt with a Naked Werewolf, B, His Purrfect Mate, or C, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? I'm going to go with the first one. You're right, but all of them were. What? All of them are on the list.

A lot of mysteries here. First of all, werewolves don't purr. They don't purr. They don't purr. They don't purr. They don't purr. Second, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone has no werewolves in it.

Bill, how did Patti LuPone do in our quiz? Patti, you are perfect in this game. Three right, you are a champion. Perfect Patti. Patti LuPone is a legend, as you all now know, of both stage and screen. Patti LuPone, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. What a joy to talk to you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

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Finally, we're digging deeper into our archives to bring you one of the coolest musicians we have ever convinced to talk to us squares. Josh Homme founded and fronted the bands Caius, Eagles of Death Metal, Queens of the Stone Age, along with many other musical projects.

When he joined Wait Wait in 2017, Peter asked him if it was true that, as a child, his first love was polka music. Well, I mean, I think much of the rock and roll that you love started with polka. And I... Oh, yeah. I understand.

You started your first band when you were 12? I was an early bloomer. Yeah, and what was that band like? Well, it wasn't that good, honestly. It just, from the town that I'm from, there wasn't much to do in Palm Desert, California. And so to play around with your friends and extend that into music was just something natural. So your first big band that got attention was Kias? Am I saying that right? Right.

Pius. Pius. That's okay. And this, I heard, came from a Dungeons and Dragons thing? Well, as I said, in the desert, there's not a lot to do. Yeah, you mentioned that. Palm Desert, California is... Your band should have been named the Melted Instruments. It's unbelievably hot there. I can't even believe... I've never seen children there. Yes, well...

All the children are melted down and turned into old people there. It happens really quickly. That's very believable. I heard that your entire band got the same tattoo a particular date. What?

Well, yeah, unfortunately, that's true. All right. Well, what happened and why did you do this? We played a show in Germany where everything went wrong from the intro music not going off when we started to singing into a mic that's only plugged in on one end. And...

It just sort of continued on and on and on. And it was that the date was Freitag 415, which means Friday at 415 in the day. But also, coincidentally, in German, Freitag means Black Day. Right. And fortunately for you, Germans are so forgiving and easygoing. Well, it was only in front of 45,000 people. 45,000 people. So you decided to take this disaster and tattoo it onto your bodies.

Yeah, but I only got it on my forehead, so it was no big deal. I mean, I play music and dance around and drink tequila for a living, and I think that never forgetting your worst show in order to make that the floor of what you do and to try to reach for more, that's the minimum obligation of the job. Josh, at what point did you know that was going to be the floor? Right. Right.

Because that's confident. Yeah. Well, I just assumed, you know, but I still have time left to break the floor open. I was about to say. Do you still have space on your body for another tattoo? I've got tons of space. I'm 6'5", so I've got a lot of space. All right. Can I just say, though?

I just want to weigh in as like an advice columnist. Like that is the most well-adjusted response to failure I have ever heard in my life. I think that is awesome. Really? Tattooing it on your body? Yeah. Really? It's sort of, yeah, no, because I mean, I see it as like you're claiming it. Like, oh yeah, we did that. That happened. Yeah. We were there. I think that's great. Well, perhaps in this day and age, people don't take as much responsibility as they should. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know if I've ever spoken to a musician, certainly, who had so many different bands at once. And these bands have different people in them, right? So you have one band with one group of guys and another band with another group of guys. How do you keep them all happy? Guys and girls. Yeah. Excuse me. Of course, guys and girls. How do you keep them all happy? Do they ever get jealous? I do a lot of scheduling. Oh, really? Does one know about the other? Yeah.

Well, they do now that you said so. Is it like they're listening at home and says, wait a minute, he has another band? Do you ever play a song from one band accidentally with another band and that's how they find out? Well, I mean, that's the nexus of drinking tequila. Yeah.

Well, Joshua Homme, we are delighted to talk to you. We've invited you here to play a game that this time we're calling... They're the Modern Stone Age Family. Since you founded the band Queens of the Stone Age, we thought it only right and proper to ask you about the

kings of the Stone Age, namely the Flintstones. Answer two out of three questions about the great classic animated show. You'll win a prize for one of our listeners, Carl's voice on their answering machine. Bill, who is Joshua Homme playing for? Mike Seberg of Baltimore, Maryland. All right, first question.

Many of us watched the show, of course, during its many years in syndication, long after its 1963 debut. But those lucky enough to see it when it first aired in prime time were lucky enough to see what on the Flintstones? A, the first known TV nip slip, long since edited out, when Fred leaned over to pick up a rock. B, Fred and Barney taking cigarette breaks. Or C, a prehistoric minute with a scientist offering real facts about the Stone Age.

uh I would say B and that time it was probably a ciggy break by those two it was it was in fact a commercial for Winston cigarettes who sponsored the show and in those days what they would do is the commercials were part of the show the characters in the show would smart start smoking Winston's hey isn't it great Barney we're smoking Winston cigarettes thousands of years before they would be invented all right so

Second question, Joshua. The Flintstones live action movie, you may remember, came out in 1994 with John Goodman as Fred Flintstone. The movie is historic in an unusual way. What is it? A, it featured Elizabeth Taylor in her last on-screen role.

I'm going to have to go with Elizabeth Taylor making that mistake and being in this final. You're right. It was, in fact, Elizabeth Taylor's last on-screen role.

Elizabeth Taylor, who you know was once the biggest movie star in the whole world, ended her career playing Fred Flintstone's mother-in-law. Well, you know what? She has the date she did it tattooed on her breast. LAUGHTER

So that Flintstones movie, that live-action movie, took many, many years to get made. It went through many, many versions of story and script. In an earlier version of the script, the movie was going to be very different. In what way? Was it, A, it was going to be a loose adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, in which Fred and Barney lose their jobs and travel through landscapes of want and hunger? B, it was supposed to have a twist ending, in which it would be revealed that it takes place thousands of years in the future, after an apocalypse...

Or C, it was supposed to be an opera climaxing with the aria Nessun Wilma. Wow. Or D, it was supposed to be good. Hey, do you know that movie made more than $100 million? In a row? Yes.

I'm just going to go out on a limb and say B, it was supposed to be from the future, although it's just a guess. No, it was actually the first one. It was going to be...

Fred and Barney as Okies in an adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath. Yeah. They decided that was going to be a downer. They threw it out and wrote something else. But it's true. I kind of want them to make that now. I do. Bill, how did Joshua Homme do in our quiz? Well, he won with two out of three. Congratulations. Congratulations, Joshua. Well done. The new Queens of the Stone Age album, Villains, is out now. Joshua Homme, thank you so much for joining us on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

Thank you. That's it for our Turn On Your Radio and Turn Off Your AC edition. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is a production of NPR and WBEZ Chicago in association with Urgent Haircut Productions, Doug Berman, Benevolent Overlord, Philip Godega, Wrights, our limericks, our public address announcer is Paul Friedman, our tour manager is Shana Donald, our vibes curator is Emma Choi. Thanks to the staff and crew at our home, the Studebaker Theatre, BJ Liedemann,

composed our theme. Our program is produced by Jennifer Mills, Miles Dornbos, and Lillian King. Special thanks to Monica Hickey. Peter Gwynn is making sure we get sunscreen on the hard-to-reach spot on our back. Technical direction is from Lorna White. Our CFO is Colin Miller. Our production manager is Robert Newhouse. Our senior producer is Ian Chilock, and the executive producer of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me is Michael Danforth. Thanks to everyone you heard on our show this week, all of our panelists, our guests, Choki Ianson, and of course, Bill Curtis. And thanks to all of you for listening. I'm Peter Sagal. We'll be back next week. Thank you.

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