{"id":92555,"date":"2015-12-04T16:00:06","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T21:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=92555"},"modified":"2015-12-04T18:59:07","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T23:59:07","slug":"a-king-sized-bust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/","title":{"rendered":"A King-size Bust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QzywcEgjlhw\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>If you haven\u2019t seen <em>High School Confidential<\/em>, a 1958 cult classic, then do so at once. But if you\u2019ve only got a few minutes, do yourself a favor and watch the \u201cbeat poetry\u201d scene, one of the squarest drags you\u2019ve ever seen, cats. (And much less convincing than <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=63_BMNxTces\">a similar scene <\/a>in <em>The Beat Generation<\/em>.) And yet \u2026 strangely plausible as a poem? Heavy, man. Heavy.\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>My old man was a bread stasher all his life. He never got fat.<br \/> He wound up with a used car, a seventeen-inch screen, and arthritis.<br \/> Tomorrow is a drag, man, tomorrow is a king-size bust.<\/p>\n<p>They cried, \u201cPut down pot. Don\u2019t think a lot.\u201d For what?<br \/> Time how much and what to do with it.<br \/> Sleep, man, and you might wake up diggin\u2019 the whole human race,<br \/> Givin\u2019 itself three days to get out.<br \/> Tomorrow is a drag, pops, the future is a flake.<\/p>\n<p>I had a canary who couldn\u2019t sing.<br \/> I had a cat that let me share my pad with her.<br \/> I bought a dog that killed the cat that ate the canary.<br \/> What is truth?<\/p>\n<p>I had an uncle with an ivy-league car.<br \/> He had life with a belt in the back.<br \/> He had a button-down brain.<br \/> Wind up a belt in the mouth and a button-down lip.<\/p>\n<p>He coughed blood on this earth.<br \/> Now there\u2019s a race for space.<br \/> We can cough blood on the moon soon.<br \/> Tomorrow is dragsville, cats. Tomorrow is a king-size drag.<\/p>\n<p>Hula fast shorts, swing with a\u00a0gassy chick,<br \/> Turn on to a thousand joys, smile on what happened,<br \/> Then check what\u2019s gonna happen, you\u2019ll miss what\u2019s happening.<br \/> Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum.<br \/> Tomorrow, drag.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you haven\u2019t seen High School Confidential, a 1958 cult classic, then do so at once. But if you\u2019ve only got a few minutes, do yourself a favor and watch the \u201cbeat poetry\u201d scene, one of the squarest drags you\u2019ve ever seen, cats. (And much less convincing than a similar scene in The Beat Generation.) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[9377,8711,20437,81,7221,165],"class_list":["post-92555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-beatniks","tag-cult-classics","tag-high-school-confidential","tag-movies","tag-poems","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tomorrow Is a Drag, Man<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"December 4, 2015 \u2013 If you haven\u2019t seen High School Confidential, a 1958 cult classic, then do so at once. 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But if you\u2019ve only got a few minutes, do yourself a favor and watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-04T21:00:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-12-04T23:59:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"A King-size Bust\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-04T21:00:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-04T23:59:07+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/\"},\"wordCount\":294,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"beatniks\",\"cult classics\",\"High School Confidential\",\"movies\",\"poems\",\"poetry\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/04\/a-king-sized-bust\/\",\"name\":\"Tomorrow Is a Drag, Man\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-04T21:00:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-12-04T23:59:07+00:00\",\"description\":\"December 4, 2015 \u2013 If you haven\u2019t seen High School Confidential, a 1958 cult classic, then do so at once. 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