Bi-Lingus

Well, I really wanted to write something tonight, but the old "uninspiration" bug has bit me (a common occurrence since I started working in digital media).

So that leaves me with only little choice; stay up really late staring at a blank page, give up at 3AM and post an old blog entry that I took down last year for fear that someone might mistake it as inoffensive. Whatever, bitches...

I've always wanted to speak another language, but considering I have a tenuous grasp on the English, mastering another tongue has always seemed like a pipe dream.

Oh, I've tried; like that one time I got drunk and screamed "me likey taco burrito!" around El Coyote in Hollywood; but that, and the ensuing "race-hate" trial is neither here nor there.

I had seven years of Hebrew when I was a kid, but it was always a little too phlegmy for me. That language is just a distant memory: last time I attempted to do the wine prayer, I ended up calling the rabbi a "funky bacon shmendrick"; but that, and my ensuing expulsion from Judaism is neither here nor there.

Japanese? I went to a boarding school that was 60% Asian. While I found the language pretty and interesting (pretty interesting, at least), I always felt like I was being REALLY, REALLY racist whenever I attempted to speak it. Sure, whenever I couldn't think of a word, I just said "ching-chong Sushi time!", but I'm not sure that was the reason. However, that does explain the great 1999 Japanese/Jewish Riot of Pennington, NJ.

So, being that I haven't mastered any languages, how do I compete in today's fast-paced, take-no-prisoners, International House of Pancakes world?

Babelfish.

No, not that little fish you stick in your ear and it eats your brains...I'm talking about the website. I think it's fool-proof! For example, let's use my introduction to every lady I meet:


Hello, I am Matt Manson and I would like to ask you to have sex with me. Afterwards, we can eat ice cream, watch Science Fiction and talk about our mutual dissatisfaction with our place in life.

See! That's a golden line that will work on any hot piece of tail. But say you're in Kyoto and the girl sitting next to you only speaks four words of English: "SUPER HAPPY FUN TIME". Solution: Babelfish.

Let's translate that into Japanese:


こんにちは、私はマットMansonであり、私が付いている性を有するように頼むことを望む。 その後、私達はアイスクリームを食べ、空想科学小説を見、生命の私達の場所との私達の相互不満述べてもいい。

Easy as that! All I have to do is repeat that to any little Miko that comes into my periphery and SLAM! It's sushi time! Now, what did I just say? Let's translate it back from Japanese into English:


Today, as for me it is mat Manson, in order to possess the characteristic where I have been attached, the fact that you ask is desired. After that, we eat the ice-cream, look at the fantasy scientific novel, our mutual dissatisfaction of our places of life are possible to express.

Wow! It actually made me sound even better! "in order to possess the characteristic where I have been attached, the fact that you ask is desired"? That's fucking Shakespeare! Sure, a drunken, retarded Shakespeare, that's maybe not William, but at least a 3rd cousin.

Thank you Babelfish, thank you technology. You've made me an international Don Juan.