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

Britney Spears to Write Children’s Book [Update]

philmaggitti Britney Spears 20 years

MALIBU – Despite the demands of motherhood, Britney Spears still intends to finish a children’s book this year; after that she plans to write one.… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Britney Spears Gets Apology from National Enquirer’s Pecker

Chip Hilton Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan 20 years

BOCA RATON, Fla. – The National Enquirer‘s chief executive, David Pecker, confirmed that his organ’s British and Irish editions had apologized to Britney Spears for publishing… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Brad Pitt Launches Mission to Become Most Annoying Celebrity

philmaggitti 20 years

NEW YORK – Brad Pitt used the bully pulpit of the Today show to launch his campaign to win People magazine’s Most Annoying Celebrity of 2006 award. In a… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Jessica Simpson Launches Book-of-the-Year Club

Biff Scuzzy Paris Hilton 20 years

LOS ANGELES – Jessica Simpson believes Oprah’s Book Club puts too much pressure on its members. In a recent Maxim interview Ms. Simpson declared, “People who lead… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes Present Baby Suri Hotline

philmaggitti celebrity shockers, Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise 20 years

HOLLYWOOD – Tom Cruise has finally responded to growing speculation that his alleged daughter Suri does not exist. Mr. Cruise announced yesterday through the pubic… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Jessica Simpson Thinks Divorce Made Her Younger

Chip Hilton 20 years

MALIBU – Any news report that begins with the words “Jessica Simpson thinks” is bound to raise eyebrows. The last time Ms. Simpson thought, at… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Paris Hilton Stalker Has Hollywood’s Support

philmaggitti Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton 20 years

LOS ANGELES – The Paris Hilton stalker who turned up at her father’s office carrying a knife last week has become an overnight cause celebre… Read More

Celebrity Shockers

Britney Spears Supports Restricted Licenses for Teens

philmaggitti Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton 20 years

MALIBU – Britney Spears has thrown her weight behind a national initiative to restrict driving privileges for sixteen-year-olds. The once-and-future mother announced yesterday that she… 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.