Radical Transparency

Lots of people say that dinosaurs used to rule the earth.

Those people are wrong.

Dinosaurs used to breathe and eat and poop and hang out. On the earth.

Just sayin.

Or, if you'd rather, a song, in a language with unlimited translations.

Fail?!?

Wrong.

True love.

Coke and hookers just made their first appearance on the Carrot Project Blog.

It's subtle, but they're there.

And, in the name of radical transparency (and maybe also for the love of all language and metaphor), they'll stay.

Until we find out that they've made someone feel uncomfortable.

And then we'll take them down. Because no joke should ever get in the way of being nice.

Max: [pauses, tastes, thinks, swallows] Hmmm. Not bad.
Danny: Max, don't pretend you know anything about beer.
Jon: There's a pretty awesome documentary called Beer Wars...
Zeeko: WHALE WARS!?!?!?

Apparently Whale Wars is a real thing. Which is very cool for whales. But which makes that moment of misunderstanding less awesome than if Zeeko's ears and imagination had transformed the words Beer Wars into a world combo / concept he'd never before that moment considered.

Overhearing the conversation (and never having heard of Whale Wars), I assumed the full awesomeness, smiled big, and quickly typed the dialogue into my phone.

And I post it anyway, even given my overassumption and overjournalistic reaction, because, if nothing else, it demonstrates the speed and unpredictability with which conversations turn.

Ever paused and considered an eye-catching typo and then wondered if the "correctly" spelled word wasn't once just a luckily timed and placed misspelling that quietly slipped into ubiquitous use?

Sowrds.

Swords.

Not obvious to me that we should be using the S W O spelling.

Just sayin.

When I was immersed in Chinese and forbidden from English at Middlebury in summer 2003, I CRAVED this song.  I thought about it every day.  Sang it in my mind.  Tried not to.  Didn't want the English infiltrating my brain.  It was totally weird.  And I was totally weird for being the kid that took the language pledge to totally unnecessary extremes.

After our last morning of meetings with our professors, two of my friends and I stuffed our gear into The Silver Bullet (an old Chevy Corsica that had already been cinematically immortalized) and drove south for New York and eventually Pennsylvania.

I pushed play, and we listened.  Neither of them had heard it before, and we listened quietly for about a minute.  Then Jordan, from the backseat, broke the silence...

Reggae.  But without the Jamaicans.

Dreadlock Holiday is track 1 on Bloody Tourists.  And, while you're listening, I have a question: What does cricket have to do with reggae?

Click here to download:

Dreadlock Holiday.mp3 (4713 KB)

I speak Chinese.  I can understand a lot of Spanish (but when I try to speak it, Chinese usually comes out).  I can handle food and restaurant situations pretty well in Italian.  I can answer the phone in Korean and Mongolian.  And, now, this....

Cue cards, rehearsed and memorized, or improvised?



Rehearsed and memorized, partly anyway, right?

And note the hand motions during the credits.  The guest's last one is hilarious.

According to New York Times translators, as the shoe flew from his hand and toward President Bush, Muntadar al-Zeidi screamed:

This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog.

Gawker, seeking brevity and quite likely poetry as well, adjusted it to:

This is a farewell kiss, dog.

I figured I'd take the next logical step and add that second G