A good one for me personally, and for the show, but a lousy one for blogging. Like a lot of people, I ended up putting way more energy into my Twitter feed than keeping up a blog — why say something in 2 paragraphs if 140 characters will do? — and while I can’t promise to do better in the new decade, I do thank all of you who keep me bookmarked or on your RSS feed for keeping the faith. Me = Godot, almost.
And, As I’ve been saying to my colleagues, this may have been the best year ever for Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. There were a lot of specific highlights — our show at Carnegie Hall high among them — but mostly, it had a lot to do with the addition of two new staff members, Ian Chillag and Eva Wolchover. Along with Mike Danforth, our Senior Producer, and producer Emily Ecton, we had as much fun behind the scenes as, hopefully, you all do listening in, and I think it really showed.
I am always mindful of the fact that, like Tinkerbell (a character conceived of by a playwright, I note) we don’t exist without your applause. If people didn’t listen, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy ourselves so much making noise. So let me end the year — from an undisclosed, paradisaical location – by saying, thank you, thank you, to each and every one of you, and we’ll try to do it again for you next year, as long as you keep allowing us.
One of the things I collect, besides grievances against all those who have wronged me, is stories of what people do while they’re listening to the show: dish washing, house-cleaning, laundry. One guy told me our show helped him strip the paint from his boat one summer. Stephen Colbert told me he listens to our show while chopping vegetables for soup. (Though he told Ira Glass the same thing, so now I’ll never trust again.) Many people, knowing I’m a runner, tell me our show has gotten through some long lonely runs. My job: making America’s otherwise dreary tasks bearable. Hey, somebody’s got to do it.
Last night, after our taping, we were greeting the audience members and signing autographs, per usual, when I was approached by a lovely young woman, and her date, both seemingly in their mid-twenties. She was dressed, or rather decorated, in hipster/goth style, with black hair, piercings, and a fine collection of rings. In fact, I complimented her on her lovely Green Lantern power ring, and she told me she had it custom made at Tiffany’s. “Blue Box and everything,” she said.
So she was telling me about how much she likes the show, and that she often listens at work, when maybe she shouldn’t. I asked what she did for a living. (more…)
You can get to Carnegie Hall by bidding for two tickets to see Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me there on October 22.
I donated this pair of tickets from my personal reserve to Alternate Roots, to raise money for the care of Jo Carson, as described below. All the proceeds will go directly to Jo, via Alternate Roots (that’s not entirely clear from the auction site, but it’s true.)
The Carnegie Hall show sold out in an hour, and at present we have no plans to return to NYC. If you live in or near the city, want to see Wait Wait live, and want to help out a dear friend of mind, this is a great way to do both. Please bid here.
I was working on an upcoming script today, and thought it would be funny if people were writing novels on Twitter… so I started coming up with Twitter versions of classic novels. For example, The Grapes of Wrath:
Times are hard. Sister breast feeding homeless guy. I am so outta here.
And then I said to myself, hey, why not go to my own site on Twitter, and ask other people to contribute their ideas. And Twitter, shall we say, responded. Results are here.
I am a devoted fan of Dan Savage, so was distressed to see his blog post taking me to task. It’s like being condemned by a dear friend…A dear friend who I admire for being willing to condemn everybody else, so I guess I should have seen this coming.
Dan was talking about a segment on this week’s show in which we quoted Andy Card talking about the “locker room” atmosphere of the Obama Oval Office, because Obama had been photographed sitting at his desk (the Resolute desk) without a suit jacket. Dan feels we knowingly or unknowingly were parroting a false Republican talking point; ie, that Bush and Reagan always wore suit jackets in the Oval Office, when photos (in his post) show clearly that they sometimes did not.
Well, you can listen to the show yourself, or read the transcript of the segment (I’ll post it after the gap) and decide for yourself if we were parroting anything. For my part, I’ll say this: if there has been any single theme to emerge over the last eight years, it’s the displacement, sometimes intentionally, of substance by symbolism. President Bush himself seemed obsessed with appearances; America always had to “show the world” and “send messages to our enemies” because we didn’t want to “send a signal” that would show we were weak, etc. Historians might decide, someday, that the entire rationale for the Iraq War boiled down to sending a message to the world… a trillion dollar Twitter post: “@muslimworld We will kick ur a$$ & take names!”
This tiny little brouhaha seems to me more of the same. That Andy Card would get all steamed up about the message Obama was sending by wearing shirtsleeves is, to me, hilarious, and it’s my fault if I didn’t make that clear enough in this week’s show. Perhaps I thought it was more self-evident than is the case. And I think that those who believe that brandishing pictures of W. without a suit jacket proves anything about anything important are making a similar error.
And, in regards to being a “card carrying member of the liberal media:” actually, these days it’s a little bar-code thingie on our keychains. They scan it at the checkout and we get 20% off our quinoa.
Transcript of the offending comment follows: (more…)
I often do an Icerocket search for my name or the show’s name the weekend after a taping, to see if any bloggers have posted an insta-review of the experience. It’s nice to get honest feedback, and on occasion has helped us solve a customer service problem. This one might be the most exhaustive review ever… I think it takes longer to read than to listen to the show. I do not condone the PJ hatin’, though. Not liking PJ O’Rourke because he’s rude is like not liking Picasso because he drew faces funny.
1) A friend fact-checks Moose Skowron’s reminiscences, as recently heard on our end of the year “Not My Job in Review show.” The results are not pretty, but it’s hard to blame Moose. I prefer to live in a world in which Moose actually broke Gene Mauch’s leg, although I don’t know if Gene Mauch would.
2) Fans of public radio — and you are all fans, right? — should bookmark the new Radio Public website and blog, run by old friend and colleague Josh Andrews. It will be to Public Radio what TMZ.com is to Britney Spears.
3) Last night, Beth and I were lucky enough to attend “Kevin McDonnell’s Epiphany Spectacular,” a great evening of music, mostly written by Chicago uber-drummer Kevin, mostly written for productions at the House Theater of Chicago. The amazing Andrew Bird (who is, in fact, somewhat birdlike in his manner) did a couple of numbers, but so did my friend Nate Allen, aka Artistic Director of the House Theater. Nate sings his own songs like a true Rock Star, with panache and verve and guts and glory — think a straight Freddy Mercury, a thin Meat Loaf, a suburban Springsteen. And, despite all this, he rarely performs his music. If I could sing like that — as in the coarse joke about the dog and its own nether regions — I would never do anything else. I’d be doing it right now.
4) Our guest on Wait Wait this week is Campbell Brown, new star on CNN. I personally believe that she rocks, speaking of rock stars. She seems so refreshingly sensible. Tune to see if that’s just a facade.
you can make it… well, why bother with anywhere else? Last night (Thursday) Wait Wait returned to Boston after an seven and a half year absence, playing to a sold-out Wang Theater downtown, around 3300 seats, the largest paying audience we’ve ever had.
As I said to the audience after the show, in an atypically sincere moment, I spent a lot of time growing up in and around Boston. My mother’s family lived there — my grandfather, and then my uncle (who was at the show, with his companion and my parents) ran a small grocery store in Cambridge for 50 years, 1949-1999. I spent all my summers on the North Shore, Marblehead and Swampscott. I watched Yaz play at Fenway Park. I got taken for rides on the Swan Boats, a somewhat dull amusement I enjoyed anyway. And eventually, I attended a small technical college down the river from MIT, majoring in dental hygiene and post-modern literary theory.
So for me, this show felt like a homecoming. Technically, my real homecoming will be when I play the Meadowlands, but since I refuse to set foot in New Jersey ever again, this will have to do.*
On Thursday morning, I ran across the Common to Charles St, then down the river to the BU Bridge, then back past MIT to the Longfellow Bridge, then back to the Public Garden and the hotel. It was raining, and I was soaked, and both felt, and wished, that I had never left.
I was lucky enough to meet him, and to host him on our show, and to talk with him, though all that was many years ago. From what I am told, during these last years, he was tired, and deaf, and worn, and ready to go. Still, though, Chicago just lost its heart.
I only have one Studs story. I offer it in the manner of tossing a daisy onto a huge pile of bouquets:
Back in 1998, when I first arrived in Chicago, WBEZ offered Studs a chance to continue doing interviews, after his long partnership with WFMT came to an end. I made a point of coming down to watch from the control room, as he was 86, and who knew when the day would come when he would have to stop.
On this day, he was interviewing Howard Lyman, the former Texas cattle rancher turned healthy food advocate, who had been Oprah Winfrey’s co-defendant in a spurious lawsuit filed by the Texas beef interests. The case had just been dismissed.
“So, Howard, what you been up to?” shouted Studs. He was going deaf, and like a lot of such people, spoke loudly.
“Well, Studs, I’ve been spending a lot of time down in Texas, with Oprah,” said Lyman.
I looked at my friend Tish who was producing the interview, and we both looked down. Like I said, Studs was 86, and not quite the man he had once been. I could see Lyman, through the glass, and he leaned forward, in a kind way, to speak to Studs.
“You know, Studs…” he said gently. “Oprah Winfrey.”
“Oh sure, Oprah Winfrey!” said Studs, suddenly certain, suddenly smiling. “Ya see, I used to know an Oprah Levine.”
I am pleased (and a tad self-delusional, in that I have only spent one evening in his physical presence) to call John Hodgman a friend. Everybody knows that he is a) the PC in those ubiquitous Mac ads, b) a sometimes correspondent on the Daily Show, and c) an extremely funny, very original humorist. But he is also (kind of on the sly) d) a very smart guy, as he shows in his occasional long pieces of cultural journalism for the New York Times. In this Onion AV interview, the interviewer goes political and Hodgman goes right there with him, and offers the best non-insider analysis of the presidential campaign I’ve seen to date, and I include my own. Check it out. Executive summary: Obama will win because he inhabits the real world, and his opponents, for purposes of the campaign, do not.
And also, please, check out next weekend’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, because John will be our guest, live on stage. That’ll make it two evenings!
