It's the Bryan Lair show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. We'll start the show today with

an invitation for you to do something on the air at the end of the show today. And that

is tell one joke that's based on a recent news story. That's right. We're inviting

you to tell one joke on the air that's based on a recent news story. It can be a joke

you make up or one that you heard or read somewhere. Why are we doing this? Well, I confess

that during the writer's strike, I've been missing those late night talk show host monologues,

you know, the jokes about what we mostly cover seriously on this show. I don't usually

watch them live, but I see them passed around the next day, the best of them. And now that

the writer's union is going back to work, hooray? We can have a little fun filling the remaining

void without being scabs. Bill Maher, he was already to be a scab until he got shamed

into not going through with it. Drew Barrymore had some more guilt about it apparently, but

would have been the same result. No, you don't. No, no, you don't. But last night, the writer's

guild leadership gave the green light to go back to the joke writer's rooms, hooray. So while

we wait for the professional monologues to resume, let's fill the last bit of void with an amateur

stage for you. So we're inviting you to tell one joke that's based on a recent news story.

Again, it can be a joke that you make up or one that you read or heard somewhere. And we'll

take your news jokes on the air for the last 15 minutes of the show, around 11.45 this morning,

to give you time to decide on a joke to tell or write one from scratch. And to practice the

timing, because, you know, in comedy, timing is everything. Well, not everything. The joke has to

actually be funny, but timing matters. So you have time to rehearse in front of a mirror or

something from now until 11.45. Let's have some fun with the news if for no other reason to prove

how much we need the real writer's back. And there's no shortage of material to choose from,

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