﻿T-BONE SLIM DISCUSSES SCRIPT— 
 
Listen to my words, son, and give ear unto my murmurings, for I (me) am exceedingly wise and do hereby admit it. . . Misunderstand me not the above bit of boneless wisdom holds true only insofar as I know—developments may occur; complications may set in; in fact, all the evifence is not yet in, and cannot be all in until the last straw is muffled: 
Accustom thy eye to printed matter! And learn therefrom, that you must think up all the missing details—for verily writer, skip them, editors scalp them, and printers pie them. . . . 
Insofar as you must “think” to get the full low-down-holt upn knowledge as it is handed down to thee, (that is, pushed up to thee) it will be seen that familiarizing the eye to typographical crowfeet can be classed a “first aid” to undestanding. 
Read not to believe. 
Read not to doubt. 
Reid not to learn. 
Read not to forget. 
Read not to kill time. 
For verily I say unto you, “belief” is thinner than air; “doubt” is thicker than ignorance; “learn” is an admission of ignorance, a selfish tongue licking the hand of conceit, an underestimation of all the things you DO KNOW and, if you do read [and] learn, you’re just like a stately [unclear] reducing fat—I say, nurse the fat you have, and grow more. Be strong and keep strong. 
Read not to forget. 
To read to forget, is resignation—yea, it is SURRENDER. 
It is to dream, semi-paralysis, partial suicide (about 20 percent), a dramatic death-bed scene, a tragedy—only worse than “read to remember.” 
Read not to kill time. 
You’d have to strike fast to kill time—to hit the NOW—the PRESENT. Yesterday wasn’t time; tomorrow—ah, we don’t know whether tomorrow will have time. 
All we know is that right NOW is timo—here all the time. 
Time never is “was.” 
Time never is “will be.” 
Time always is “is”—and you cannot get away from it. 
Read not to believe, doubt, learn, forget or to kill time. 
Merely exercise your eye over the printers hieroglyphics, and knowledge will grew within you like rose of Sharon behind the livery stable. 
You hear apostles of deceit say, “the future looks prosperous.”——What wonderful eyesight! They can see a thing that doesn’t exist. They see into the future—not only do they see “the future”—the future that never arrives—but they see it clearly enough to describe it prosperous. 
They don’t need any “Shur-ons” on on their sap-spouts. 
No man of my acquaintance has ever seen the future—the best m chums can see is the present. 
No reliable person has ever seen the past—only “Sweet or sour” bitter) remembrances of the present-that-was. That is all they saw. 
“Prosperity is just around the corner.” 
Ah, here is vision that bends around the corner—curved vision—may I say, crooked vision. Wonderbull! (Let me say ah! again). Vision that traveös a line of right angle or left angle or—can it be possibull—it is X-Ray vision, and penetrates through brick walls. Ah! Such visionaries should have dimmers on their headlights. Methinks they see too much prosperity—and coke. As you read, the machinery of your thinking apparatus will grow and develop to its fullest possibility and oscillate something scandalous, and you will get quite a kick from separating the bull from the fodder. 
Do not dream through the masters’ advertising sheets of denatured and “rectified” news of robberies, rapes, revels and raids—eat onions, you’ll sleep better—or, better still, pant over the “genuine” TORN DRAWERS MAGAZINE—it will at least keep you awake. What of it if you do get night-sweats! 
Yes, as I said, accustom thy eye to printed matter. But there’s a difference. There’s a difference between papers. To illustrate: a tailor ays, “Suits Made To Order.”—That means nothing new. If he said, ORDERS MADE TO SUIT, that would verge (and surge) right close to the startling. . . . 
Therefore, son, patronize the papers that plug for thee and deign not to stop the other papers from going into hell.—T-b. Slim.