CARL KASELL: From NPR and WBEZ Chicago, this is WAIT WAIT ...DON'T TELL ME, the NPR news quiz. I'm Carl Kasell. And here's your host at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago, Peter Sagal.
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PETER SAGAL, HOST:
Thank you, Carl.
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SAGAL: Thank you, everybody. Thank you so much.
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SAGAL: We got a great show for you today. Actor Rob Lowe will be joining later to talk about his career and his new memoir and maybe get some advice from Carl because, you see, Mr. Lowe, hard as it is to believe, is 50 years old now. And let's face it, being sexy when you're 25 is easy.
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SAGAL: In your golden years, it takes genius.
KASELL: There are no real tricks to it, Peter.
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KASELL: You just have to be me.
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SAGAL: We'll want to hear your secrets. Give us a call at 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.
LESLYE QUEEN: Hi, this is Leslye Queen from Athens, GA.
SAGAL: Leslye Queen from Athens.
QUEEN: Yep.
SAGAL: How are you? I've heard that Athens, Ga., is the Athens of Georgia. Is that right?
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QUEEN: Indeed, it is.
SAGAL: That's awesome. And what do you do there?
QUEEN: I am a stay-at-home mom and semi-professional volunteer.
SAGAL: A semi-professional volunteer?
QUEEN: I just do a lot of volunteering.
SAGAL: I understand.
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SAGAL: Well, thanks for volunteering to be on our show. Let me introduce you to our panel this week, Leslye. First, a comedian who'll be performing at the Punchline in San Francisco on May 19. It's Brian Babylon.
BRIAN BABYLON: Hey, hey. How are you?
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SAGAL: Next, it's a comedian and the head writer in Comedy Central's "Inside Amy Schumer." It's Jessi Klein is here.
JESSI KLEIN: Hi, Leslye.
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SAGAL: And finally, it's the author and humorist whose voice now haunts a second generation of radio listeners - Tom Bodett is here.
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TOM BODETT: Hi, Leslye.
QUEEN: Hi, Tom.
SAGAL: So, Leslye, you'll start us off with Whose Carl This Time. Carl Kasell right here is going to read you three quotations from the week's news. If you can correctly identify or explain just two of them, you'll win our prize - Carl's voice on your home answering machine. Are you ready to go?
QUEEN: I am. Thank you.
SAGAL: All right. Here is your first quote.
KASELL: It's time to burn the beret and very the blue dress.
SAGAL: That was somebody making - I think everybody would agree - a timely and welcome return to the public spotlight with an article and photo shoot for Vanity Fair. Who is it?
QUEEN: Oh, my God. I know this.
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QUEEN: Can I have a hint?
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QUEEN: I know I heard this.
SAGAL: Well, think beret, blue dress.
QUEEN: Oh, my God. Monica Lewinsky.
SAGAL: Oh, my God.
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SAGAL: Yes, indeed. Monica Lewinsky returned with us to the thrilling days of yesteryear - 1998 when 'to Lewinsky' became a synonym for something we already had a lot of synonyms for.
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KLEIN: I feel like when that happened, that was maybe, if not the first time, one of the first - in the first three times that I ever went on the Internet to look at something.
SAGAL: Yes.
KLEIN: Like, I was like what has happened? And I think I need to look on the Internet.
SAGAL: This Internet thing.
KLEIN: Yeah, I feel like...
SAGAL: This series of tubes.
KLEIN: And then - this series of tubes. And then I started reading. It was like the day that it all...
SAGAL: Yes.
BODETT: Yes.
KLEIN: ...Came out. And I was like, oh, the Internet is very useful.
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KLEIN: And also very disgusting. And it has remained that way ever since.
SAGAL: Pretty much.
KLEIN: Yeah.
BODETT: I had a 13-year-old son at the time. And it was just like, Carnise (ph), you stay off the news.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: Stop watching that news.
SAGAL: Yeah. Here, stop reading the newspaper. Here's a Playboy or something.
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BABYLON: But why do people still give her a hard time? I'm like this everyone, even in this snooty NPR crowd, has hooked up with someone that you work with from like Little Caesars or - that wasn't the president.
SAGAL: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What did you just say?
BABYLON: No, I'm saying...
SAGAL: For Little Caesars?
BABYLON: No, I'm saying like, if there's someone who...
BODETT: Did you hook up with somebody from Little Caesars?
BABYLON: No, that's a moot point.
KLEIN: It's really - and also, I'm going to go out on a limb and say how old was she when that happened? Twenty?
SAGAL: She was 24.
KLEIN: Oh, maybe it...
BABYLON: Oh, that's player hating.
KLEIN: Maybe it was her fault a little.
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KLEIN: I was about to say, like, she was 20. It wasn't in any way her fault. Twenty-four, maybe you know know better. I don't know.
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BABYLON: You know what, guys? Can we just turn this frown upside down? Can we all just find a way to make Monica Lewinsky's life better?
SAGAL: How would you suggest we do that?
BABYLON: Oh, boy. You mean it. I know. I threw that out there.
SAGAL: Yeah, yeah.
KLEIN: Why don't you take her out to Little Caesars and just like talk it out?
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BABYLON: Yeah...
KLEIN: Treat the girl to a slice, Brian.
BABYLON: Yeah.
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KLEIN: Second Vanity Fair article.
SAGAL: I know. All right, Leslye, here is your next quote.
KASELL: This research may suggest that Bram Stoker had ideas ahead of his time.
SAGAL: That was a medical professor named Andrew Randall commenting on the shocking news that what may help us all live forever?
QUEEN: Drinking blood?
SAGAL: Yes.
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SAGAL: Drinking blood - or the blood of the young.
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SAGAL: We have found the secret of eternal youth. It is the blood of young people. It's true. You know what this means? Finally, we have found a use for children.
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BABYLON: I mean, that's the last thing I want to hear some 1 percent-ers hear.
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: They'll - they'll blend up some kids, man.
BODETT: Yeah.
SAGAL: So the way this works...
BODETT: Yeah.
SAGAL: ...Is they did these experiments with mice, and they injected blood from young mice into older mice. And the older mice regained their strength and vitality.
BABYLON: How do they keep trying to compare what mice do to what humans do? Like, why do every time - oh, if a mouse does this, it might be good for a human.
BODETT: They never did say that it was baby humans that would make humans younger. What they said was baby mice make older mice...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BABYLON: How do we know...
BODETT: It could be the baby mouse blood is the key.
BABYLON: That - yeah, maybe it's just straight - skip the kid. Maybe just baby mice blood that we need to drink.
BODETT: Yeah.
KLEIN: But the other question, though, is with mice...
BODETT: There's not a lot of blood in a mouse.
KLEIN: ...How can they tell? I've never seen like a mouse that looked older to me than another mouse.
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KLEIN: Like, I've - I don't feel like I've...
BABYLON: You're right.
BODETT: Yeah.
KLEIN: ...Ever watched a mouse, like, fade away. Like, they're - they seem to just be, like, a mouse, and then they're like...
BABYLON: Dead.
KLEIN: ...No longer a mouse.
BODETT: They do. They seem to go, right - yeah. They're very short middle-age.
KLEIN: Yeah, I know.
SAGAL: Well, actually mice - mice...
BODETT: ...Explains my cat - why cats seem to live forever, like that nine life...
SAGAL: Yeah.
BODETT: ...Cat thing.
KLEIN: Maybe.
BABYLON: Dude, he's smart, bro.
BODETT: What are they eating?
BABYLON: Mice.
KLEIN: You just figured it out.
BABYLON: Well, I hope this wasn't tax dollars spent.
SAGAL: Oh, I think - I'm not sure.
KLEIN: Does this mean that as a lady - I feel like I already spend so much money on, like, stupid stuff I'm supposed to put on my face. Am I going to be paying like $300 for two ounces of mouse blood?
BODETT: Probably.
KLEIN: And be like standing in front of a mirror, like, enacting some scene from "Carrie" with this mouse blood on my face.
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BABYLON: There's a facial.
SAGAL: Rub the mouse on your face, yeah.
KLEIN: I'll be ready in five minutes, babe.
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KLEIN: Just rubbing baby mouse blood on my face...
BABYLON: Yeah.
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KLEIN: ...To be beautiful for you.
BABYLON: Right.
BODETT: Honey, you smell mousy.
KLEIN: Just another minute, babe.
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SAGAL: Leslye, are you still with us or have you given up in disgust?
QUEEN: (Laughing) I'm here.
SAGAL: All right, Leslye. This is your last quote.
KASELL: The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. What's our excuse?
SAGAL: That was astrophysics Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking this week as a U.S. scientist through the White House released a dire new report about what?
QUEEN: Climate change.
SAGAL: In fact, yes.
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SAGAL: Climate change.
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SAGAL: Dire reports on climate change are the new Facebook baby pictures. They keep coming, and we keep scrolling passed them. First, you may remember the U.N. published a report. Now the White House says that global warming is already affecting the United States - heat waves, droughts are getting worse. Everybody has to get together and do something, but it's not going to work. This is America. This is a country that invented keyless entry so we wouldn't have to expend the effort to turn keys.
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BODETT: Yeah.
SAGAL: This is the country that gave everybody a gun so we wouldn't have to get up, walk across the room and stab somebody. I mean, this is...
BODETT: The American way.
SAGAL: This is not an energetic nation.
BODETT: Yeah.
SAGAL: And, you know, we used to think global warming is just a problem that our children are going to have to deal with. So to hell with is. But now we know we have to keep our children healthy so we can drink their blood.
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SAGAL: It all comes together. Carl, how did Leslye do on our quiz?
KASELL: Leslye, you had three correct answers. So I'll be doing the message on your home answering machine or voicemail.
SAGAL: Well done.
QUEEN: Yay.
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SAGAL: Thanks so much, Leslye.
QUEEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.