Postcards from The Pug Bus

Lifting a satirical leg on popular culture

Persons in the Ether

Question of the Week

Heartbreaker or heartbroken?

GL

Gert Lampley, retired apology archivist

Currently avoiding Dayton, OH

Heartbroken. Heartbreak gives a person depth, posture problems, and one drawer full of things that should have been thrown away during the Clinton administration. Heartbreak is not pleasant, but at least it comes with receipts.

VC

Vance Cribble, certified exit strategist

Last seen near a bus station in Reno, NV

Heartbreaker. Not proudly, but efficiently. Some people end relationships with long talks and herbal tea. I prefer a clean emotional incision, followed by relocation and a new email address no one deserves.

SL

Shonda Leek, municipal tenderness inspector

Allegedly stationed outside Utica, NY

Both, obviously. First you break someone’s heart by being honest, then your own breaks because honesty turns out to be less freeing than advertised. Love is just a minor clerical error with candles.

O.J. Simpson Book, TV Special, Calendar, Video Game Canceled

19 years philmaggitti

In a development that surprised absolutely nobody, every single O.J. Simpson–related media project scheduled for release this week—the book, the TV special, the calendar, and even the ill-advised video game—has been summarily canceled.

A News Corporation spokesperson confirmed Monday night that the entire O.J. product line had been “sent back to creative for a long, reflective timeout.” The decision followed chairman Rupert Murdoch’s announcement earlier that day canceling If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened, along with two prime-time interviews that had been slated for Fox.

The ripple effect was immediate. HarperCollins (publisher of the book), Fox (home of the interviews), and the niche subsidiaries responsible for the O.J. calendar and video game abruptly pulled the plug on all pending releases. As one unnamed insider put it, “The universe sends you signs. This one sent a billboard.”

The canceled calendar reportedly featured twelve highly stylized images of Mr. Simpson modeling outfits “associated with the incident,” shot by an A-list photographer who insists the work was “tasteful, conceptual, and deeply misunderstood.” Meanwhile, the video game—also titled If I Did It—was described as a “hypothetical exploration of hypothetical hypotheticals.” Beta testers were less charitable.

One internal reviewer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “Even though he’s not in game-shape anymore, he still wears a watch cap with gravitas. August was particularly… memorable.”

News Corp is not expected to revisit any of these projects in the immediate future, though industry veterans say the company has a history of unexpectedly reviving dormant franchises. “But maybe not this one,” the insider added. “Some things are better left in the vault, behind a steel door, under a mountain.”

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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 disguised as poetry may induce brief clarity, misplaced certainty, and the sense that something has already been decided without your approval.

There is a moment, just before sleep,
when the mind loosens its tie
and admits what it spent all day denying.

Read It All

There is a moment, just before sleep,
when the mind loosens its tie
and admits what it spent all day denying.

You remember the thing you said—
not the words,
but the angle of them,
how they leaned slightly wrong
and stayed there.

A life is not ruined in grand gestures.
It goes soft at the edges first.
Corners round off. Standards blur.
You start calling things “fine”
that would have once kept you awake.

Which is the problem.

Because now you do sleep.

Beautifully. Efficiently.
Like someone who has made a series of
very small, very reasonable surrenders
and arranged them into a pillow.