Celebrity Shockers | Outrageous Celebrity Moments, Arrests & Meltdowns

Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Passion or stability?

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.

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.

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.

Celebrity Shockers

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes Still Undecided on Wedding Date

T.J. Eckleburg celebrity shockers, Tom Cruise 19 years

LOS ANGELES – An anonymous source at Cruise/Wagner Productions reports that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may be close to settling on a tentative wedding… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Tom Cruise Alert: Today United Artists, Tomorrow the United States

Chip Hilton celebrity shockers, Tom Cruise 19 years

LOS ANGELES – Be afraid, ye sons and daughters of Xenu. Be fearful of your fate, ye glib commentators and disciples of false prophets. Bow… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Britney Spears Says Her Sons Won’t Get Stuck in Iraq

Chip Hilton Britney Spears 19 years

MALIBU – Britney Spears has joined President Bush, Hillary Clinton, and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in demanding an apology from failed presidential candidate… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Delaware Still Reeling over Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe Split

philmaggitti 20 years

WILMINGTON, Del. – News of the Reese Witherspoon-Ryan Phillippe breakup has sent tremors through the state of Delaware, “The Home of Tax-Free Shopping” and the… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Nicole Richie Celebrity Death Watch

T.J. Eckleburg celebrity shockers, Paris Hilton 20 years

The pending obituary of actress and author Nicole Richie was updated this week after The Simple Life costar had checked into a treatment facility that specializes in… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Madonna, Oprah Give African Babies to Talk Show Audience

philmaggitti 20 years

CHICAGO – Audience members at the taping of The Oprah Show yesterday expected to see Madonna explain via satellite from London why she is right and everyone… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Paul McCartney Hit with New Abuse Charges from Heather Mills

Biff Scuzzy 20 years

Disturbing new charges of mental and emotional abuse have been leveled at Paul McCartney by his estranged second wife Heather Mills , who alleged in… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Jennifer Aniston Pregnant or in Denial about Vince Vaughn

Chip Hilton 20 years

CHICAGO – Jennifer Aniston is either pregnant or in denial about her breakup with Vince Vaughn, or possibly both. These conflicting reports emerged following Ms.… Read More

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.