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An eight-ton, 45-foot sperm whale carcass washes up on your beach.
一头重达8吨，长达45英尺的抹香鲸尸体被海水冲到了你所在的海滩
What do you do? You can't move it.
你会怎么做？你不能把它搬走
The thing is falling apart.
因为那东西会四分五裂
You can't bury it. There's water under the sand.
也不能埋，因为沙子底下有水
You can't throw it back in the ocean.
扔回海里也不行
Of course, the tides can push them back in.
当然了，海水能够把它重新卷入海里
Might as well blow it up?
那……不妨把它炸了？
It was an ordinary day in November, 1970.
那是1970年原本寻常的一天
November 12, 1970, to be exact.
准确的说是1970年11月12日，
Thanks, Paul.
谢了，保罗
This here is Paul Linnman.
这位是保罗·林曼
He was a television reporter for Portland's KATU,
他曾经是波特兰市KATU电视台的一名记者
and on November 12, 1970,
就在1970年11月12日那天
Paul was assigned a story that would change his life forever.
保罗接到了一个报道任务，而这一任务彻底改变了他人生的轨迹
What to do with one 45-foot, eight-ton whale,
一头45英尺长8吨重的鲸鱼
dead on arrival on a beach near Florence.
死在了弗洛伦斯附近的海滩，要怎么处理呢
Whales washing up on the beach in Oregon are not an uncommon occurrence.
鲸鱼被冲上俄勒冈州的沙滩早已不稀奇
But it had been so long,
但这条鲸鱼实在是太长了
state officials didn't know how to get rid of that giant, stinking carcass.
州政府的官员也不知要怎么处理这个体型庞大，逐渐发臭的尸体
That's precisely why the Oregon Department of Transportation
正因如此，俄勒冈州的运输部
decided to use dynamite.
才决定用炸药把尸体炸掉
The plan was to blow the whale into smaller pieces,
他们计划把鲸鱼炸成小块儿
and have scavengers like seagulls eat the rest of it.
让海鸥等腐食动物把它们吃掉
Paul and his cameraman set up their shot
保罗和他的摄影师架好相机
and waited a thousand yards away from the blast.
在距离爆炸点1000码开外的地方等着拍摄
Within, I'd say, about 20 or 30 seconds, it was soon raining down on all of us.
我估计，不到二三十秒，鲸鱼肉就纷纷砸在我们所有人身上了
And larger pieces that came down, it became louder and louder
大块一点儿的落下来的时候声音越来越大
until you realized, wow, if one of these chunks hits me, I'm a goner.
你会觉得，哇，要是这样一块砸到我，那我小命就没了
We start running in the direction of the parking lot,
我们开始朝停车场跑
and that's when a piece of blubber about the size of a small coffee table
就在那时，一块差不多一个小咖啡桌大小的鲸鱼肉
completely flattened an Oldsmobile.
落下来，直接把一台奥尔兹莫比尔给砸平了
KATU's exploding whale report was a viral video in the pre-internet age.
在还没有网络的时代，KATU电视台这一炸鲸鱼的报道以燎原般的速度传播开来
It's inspired parodies and one-man shows,
不少恶搞和独角戏的灵感都来源于这一报道
and for Paul Linnman, it's been career-defining.
然而，对保罗·林曼来说，这一报道则奠定了他职业生涯的基础
It's something that reoccurs in my life in one way or another every single day.
每天，那一幕都在以这样或那样的方式在我生命中重复上演
I know what's gonna be written about in my obituary.
现在我终于知道我的墓志铭该怎么写了
