Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

MD

Mavis Drouk, emotional escrow officer

Believed to be near Harrisburg, PA

Stability. Passion is what people choose when they still believe a staircase can be made entirely of sparks. Stability may not sing outside your window, but it does remember where the insurance cards are.

RC

Rufus Clenn, freelance thunder consultant

Last reported west of Tulsa, OK

Passion, obviously. Stability is just boredom wearing shoes with arch support. I want life to arrive late, smell faintly of lightning, and explain nothing until several lamps have been broken.

NV

Nora Vell, deputy curator of small regrets

Possibly sheltering in Eugene, OR

Passion is useful for beginnings, stability for the paperwork afterward. I prefer both in moderation, which is another way of saying I would like to be ruined briefly and then driven home safely.

Hillary’s Gal Pal Elton Is the Dunce Cap of the Moment

18 years philmaggitti dunce cap

A baby curiously touching a man's face while he lies on grass. — The Bum Bandit

Hillary Clinton’s longtime admirer Elton John is the latest recipient of the Postcards from the Pug Bus Dunce Cap of the Moment award.

Mr. John–a portly, overbearing, needy little show off in carnival drag–has long been more famous for his emotional outbursts, compulsive shopping, and substance abuse than for his melodies. (Think Perez Hilton without the self-deprecating charm or sense of humor.)

At a fundraiser for Ms. Clinton in Madison Square Garden the other night, Mr. John declared, “I never cease to be amazed at the misogynistic attitude of some people in this country. And I say to hell with them.”

Right-o, you hair-plug-wearing bum bandit. Anyone who does not vote for Hillary is a misogynist? How insightful. Why not put a sock in it and leave political commentary to persons of any persuasion who still have access to a brain?

Ms. Clinton, who attended the concert with her husband, Festus, and their daughter, Lassie, wasted no time in likening herself to the title of Mr. John’s song “I’m Still Standing.”

There are, however, at least two other Elton John songs that describe her more accurately: “The Bitch Is Back” and “I Am Your Robot.”

In related news, a radio station in Montana rather tastelessly suggested that people fed up with Mr. John’s perpetual grandstanding should beat the stuffing out of his CDs and tie them to a fence.

If you enjoy burying the clowns, grifters, blowhards, politicians, billionaires, influencers, and public nuisances who make life dumber by the day, browse more dunce caps–from all cat and no cattle to pinheads.

The preceding is satire. Straight up, Skippy. No warranties are expressed or implied. For life advice, try a professional. For investment tips, try a dart board. For salvation, the gentleman in the robe has been handling that portfolio for 2,000 years.

The Pug Bus Breaking News

The Pug Bus Breaking News requires no email address, no mother's maiden name, no first pet's nickname, and no DNA sample. You simply mash the link below and read.

Deliver It

⚡ Scholars at the Royal Institute for the Advancement of Obvious Things have concluded, after eleven years of exhaustive inquiry, that people who speak at great length in meetings do not thereby become more correct. The findings have been submitted to a committee for review.

⚡ It has been determined by authorities in several jurisdictions that the phrase "I just want to be honest with you" reliably precedes the portion of the conversation one would most prefer not to have. Legislation is pending.

⚡ The Bureau of Perpetual Reassessment has announced that this is not, in fact, the most divided the nation has ever been, a distinction that continues to belong to a prior era when the disagreements concerned rather more consequential matters and people occasionally died over them.

Adverse Effects

The following lines of prose cleverly arranged as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval ...

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

Read It All

By seventy you know which doors you walked past without opening,
can name the rooms you never entered,
hear the echoes anyway.

The years do not accuse.
They simply pile up like newspapers you meant to read,
each one carrying news that is no longer news.

You think: I should have said that differently.
I should have stayed. I should have gone.
The mind is efficient this way,
filing the same cases under the same wrong headings,
finding them again at 3 a.m. in perfect order.

What surprises is not the weight of it
but the patience —
how regret waits,
how it has nowhere else to be,
how it sits across from you at breakfast
and asks for nothing,
knowing you will offer it everything
on your own.

The body slows.
The catalog does not.
You carry the unlived lives
the way old houses carry
the smell of people who are gone —
not haunting exactly,
just present,
just there,
just refusing
the simple courtesy
of leaving.