This week’s show was recorded in Chicago with host Peter Sagal, guest judge and scorekeeper Alzo Slade, Not My Job guest John Cusack and panelists Rachel Coster, Adam Felber, and Joyelle Nicole Johnson. Click the audio link above to hear the whole show.

Who’s Alzo This Time

Spring Broken; All The President’s Feet; Marty Supreme Jerk?

Panel Questions

In The Hole At Whole Foods

Bluff The Listener

Our panelists tell three stories about something 30 years in the making, only one of which is true.

Not My Job: John Cusack answers our questions about people who should’ve said nothing

Legendary actor John Cusack plays our game called, “Say Nothing”. Three stories about people who should have stayed quiet.

Panel Questions

The Worst Photographers; The Happiest Place on Earth and Your Deepest Secret

Limericks

Alzo Slade reads three news-related limericks: Just Churn It; United Against Noise; H2Occino

Lightning Fill In The Blank

All the news we couldn’t fit anywhere else

Predictions

Our panelists predict what will be the big surprise at this year’s Oscar ceremony.

President Trump announced Friday afternoon on his Truth Social platform that Richard Grenell, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, is leaving his position at the head of the Kennedy Center before it closes for scheduled renovations in July.

Trump,, who has been chairman of the Kennedy Center since Feb. 2025, said that he is promoting Matt Floca, the center’s current vice president of operations, to chief operating officer and executive director. Grenell’s departure comes about three months before the Kennedy Center is set to close for renovations, which President Trump has said would take two years.

As NPR reported last month, the renovations as detailed in an internal memo include some facility repairs and cosmetic changes, including to public spaces that were just renovated two years ago. In his Truth Social posting Friday, the president repeated his claim that the renovations will be a “complete reconstruction” of the complex.

Grenell, who served as the center’s president, has a reputation as a Trump loyalist and has frequently deplored what he has called “leftist activists” in the arts. During Grenell’s tenure, which began as interim executive director in Feb. 2025, the Kennedy Center has experienced intense tumult. Numerous prominent artists have canceled their performances and presentations. One of the center’s core tenants, the Washington National Opera, severed its relationship with the Kennedy Center last month. Many longtime staff members have departed. Ticket sales have plummeted.

Grenell, who had no prior arts administration experience prior to his Kennedy Center appointment, told PBS NewsHour in January, “We cannot have arts institutions that lose money.” He insisted that productions at the Kennedy Center needed to be revenue generators or at least revenue-neutral – a non-starter in the performing arts, in which large legacy institutions generally depend on a balance of earned revenue, philanthropic giving and some amount of government grants.

Last November, Senate Democrats opened an investigation against Grenell, accusing him and the current Kennedy Center leadership of cronyism and corruption, citing “millions in lost revenue, luxury spending and preferential treatment for Trump allies.” Grenell denied the allegations in an open letter posted to social media on the official Kennedy Center accounts, which has since been removed.

In his Truth Social post, President Trump praised Grenell, writing: “Ric Grenell has done an excellent job in helping to coordinate various elements of the Center during the transition period, and I want to thank him for the outstanding work he has done.”

News of his departure was first reported Friday by Axios.

My New Year’s resolution is to walk in Griffith Park once every other week. This shouldn’t be hard to accomplish — I live a 15-minute walk from one of the main park entrances — and yet, I am averaging more like once a month. Still, those occasional walks are already among my most memorable experiences of the year: the densely green foliage from all the rain, the reward of a strawberry lemonade from the Trails Cafe, lying on the grass in front of the observatory and watching the clouds expand and thin, gossiping with a friend and taking a photo of her against the auburn hills at sunset, hearing hungry coyotes yipping beyond the bushes. It seems that every year the thing I’m missing and striving toward is to be outside more. One time I read a list of suggested new year’s resolutions that included stepping outside as soon as you wake up, to have contact with the Earth first thing. I tried doing this, but I mostly just felt confused and tired under the sun on my front porch, waiting for the Earth to work on me. I’ve since accepted that I am a gal who likes to be in her pajamas for as long as possible in the morning, reading on the couch.

But I need to be outside more. Which is also my way of saying I need to be with others more, I need to pay attention more, I need to be a part of the physical world more.

This issue celebrates the Los Angeles outdoors, the many lives to be lived under its unencumbered sky. There are less rules outside, fewer boundaries: coffee dates prolong, walks meander, thoughts digress. And yes, because we are blessed with famous weather, whole neighborhoods and districts can risk spilling out into the sidewalks, where laughs get louder, music gets blasted and the street fashion becomes a runway. It’s become much too easy to recede into the claustrophobic containers of our depression-inducing screens. Traipsing down the Hollywood Farmers Market with giant heads of lettuce and overgrown bouquets feels not only like release, but also resistance and resilience. We’re still bargaining for gold hoops and oversize blazers at Santee Alley, getting dressed up for each other at the Venezuelan coffee shop on Melrose, and dreaming through the colors of Chinatown. We’re still picnicking under piñatas, and some of us still gather at newsstands to flip through artful magazines and meet like-minded strangers. It can be beautiful out here.