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.

Celebrity Shockers

Diaz Tells Court She’s Proud of Her Breasts

21 years Chip Hilton

LOS ANGELES – Cameron Diaz told a fascinated jury yesterday that she is as proud of her breasts “as any mother would be of her children.”

Diaz, who is known around Hollywood for not being the sharpest note on the scale, testified that she considers her breasts “my two closest friends” and often seeks their advice on important decisions. Diaz further revealed that she turned down the starring role in Wonder Woman on the advice of her breasts.

“Patience and Prudence, that’s what I call my girls, told me they wouldn’t look right in the role, so I said no,” Diaz giggled.

The star of There’s Something about Mary and other films, Diaz, 32, made her curious revelations while she was testifying in the trial of John Rutter, the photographer who snapped S&M photos and video footage of Diaz and various naked men when she was nineteen.

Diaz’ attorneys maintain that Rutter forged her signature on the release forms for those images then tried to extort $3.5 million from Diaz and her breasts in 2003, just before the release of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, which starred Diaz and her breasts.

Diaz told jurors she was not ashamed of posing nude or of displaying her body “in a tasty manner” in print.

“I thought my boobs looked great” in the contested photos, she said. “At least I had them going for me.”

Testimony in the Rutter trial is expected to continue on Monday, with no word yet about whether Diaz’ attorneys plan to put her breasts on the stand.

In other news, a suit filed by Julia Roberts against her breasts has been settled amicably out of court.

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.