﻿Slim Gets All Het Up 

(Coldest California in 54 Years) 
 
Rafts of vicious, fluent liars 
Oscillate our ancient spires. 
Vibrate our revered shires. 
Dampen down our jungle fires; 
Therefore, tune your amplifiers 
With a faith that shames our sires 
To the wind-producing criers 
And the sanctimonious friars: 
(Sotto voce:) 
“World is rid of morbid sighers; 
Merchants laugh with happy buyers; 
Once again the boatman hives; 
The depression—Scat!—retires.” 

No one doubts those gifted guyers; 
Each his private wish admires— 
Reaches out and naught acquires 
But a bunch of prickly briars. 
Shakespeare said, “What jokes be diers— 
Slaves to brats of their desires.” 
(Got that crack hot off the wires—. 
Hand me, please, the chert-nut pliers.) 

“What is this,” the wight inquires, 
“Are those burrs celestial fliers 
For to rouse my dormant ires? 
Or to prove my soul aspires 
Even so as regal squires 
For to sing in vested choirs?” 
Pardon me. most meek of tryers. 
Power stirs the world’s suppliers. 

Kindle, then, your fires higher 
That ye need not draw up nigher 
And escape the winter dire. 
This is not a funeral pyre 
And ye need not fret. Require 
Wood whose nature is the drier. 

See! Contempt serenely mires, 
Doubt, suspicion, spite expires— 
Once more judgment fails, misfires: 
“Kerosene!”—the stick perspires. 
Strike up. then, your luted lyre! 
Oil-soaked wood doth so inspire. 
Ailing coals once more conspire 
And we have a roaring fire. 

Two working men hate each other because they both are robbed by the big boys. 
Big boys hate one another because there are not enough little fellows to be robbed. 
Getting so now a man must hide his razor and wrap a log-chain around his neck before he goes to bed . . . 
Japan kept popping away at the “bandits” till China got mad and declared war. 
(China gets mad awful easy). 
Still and all I don’t know, I think I’d get mad myself if a fellow shot at me sixty days and droped pineapples on my quilt sixty nights. 
As to additional territory, let me say, the demand for it is deceptive, is crooked and is conceived in crookedness—condrums sell for “dollar a dozen”, and last a life-time. 
If you ain’t got room for ‘em, don’t make ‘em. 
You wouldn’t put a piano in a bird cage, wouldcha? Neither, would I, unless the cage was a big one or the piano real small. 
Houseful of kids is all right but when the house gets so thickly populated the old man must sleep on the window ledge it is time to place your trust in Akron’s ingenious innerseals. Not only for the comfort side, but also profit—an investment of ten cents at this time repays thousandfold (it costs $600 to raise a kid even on horse feed—oats are so high—besides dozen years is a long time to be stretched out on the sill). 
But what became of that war we had a moment agone? Where the Fordulac backfired in China and American missionaries or mercenaries dropped down on their knees and thought the Japs had tossed a bomb? 
We ain’t talking about that war, it’s old. The new war which is now on tap and will get the front pages cannot be deferred into another month—which goes to show it is not entirely idle for diplomats to fix up wars so long as nations refuse to pay their gamboling bills—France has never been known to crawfish, most of the swearing will be done in good old Polish language. 
War is not of hate or love 
Or insane urge for pelf; 
World is simply holding of 
A quarrel with itself. 
Were I to drop down under a railroad trestle and proceed to quarrel with myself (nobody else near), the passing “nuts” would have me arrested and locked up in a booby-hatch—so senseless is a quarrel of that kind. Yet, the world seems to be getting by with it? (All quarrels are senseless, with or without a partner—in the sense that idiocy predominates and adulterates whatever half baked reason is present.) 

Rugged individualism and devil take the hindmost mean much about the same thing. 
According to Lost Angel’s plan, 
You simply do not eat— 
Unless you have the congressman, 
Jim Beck, for talking beat. 
No viands shall approach “your pan” 
Nor sidle down your neck— 
Unless you are a superman 
And out-talk James M. Beck. 

An impossibility, of course. 
You may equal Mr. Beck who comes from Pensylvania, if his initials are correct, but you can never, never surpass him. Therefore, if you want to eat, I’d advise you’ to go to Pasardina where oratory is classed in the same category with all other bull and fertilizer. 
Einstein is up on Mt. Wilson squinting at the stars; other scientists are back of the Hotel Raymond squinting into coffee cans and analyzing liverwurst—one tenth of one per cent liver 99 and nine tenth suet and the rest transparent rubber. 
Red Hynes has given his hearty disapproval of the communists and the communists disapprove of the Hine’s dictatorship—they’ll be forming a mutual admiration society next. 
Bums object to visitors in their camps because they crave privacy when they peel-out the bacon rind and powdered bread—I don’t blame them. 
They should be left alone until they get the green mold scraped off the smoked pigskin and get their second or third generation of coffee simmering—I always throw my eye out and see to it that they have broken their fast before I approach them—then I hobble up and respectfully listen to the glowing tales of the wonderful repast. “Ha-a!” the bum will belch, “I just downed seven porkchops and a gallon of pure, vita-fresh Maxwell House.” 
I refrain mentioning the foot square piece sow-hide I saw him devour—instead I tell him a couple dirty stories and good time is had by all. Sleeping anywhere and covered with a handkerchief won’t work in sunny California this winter, Feb. 2. San Brunette mountains are San Blonde this morning.