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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.

In a cultural commentary about eliminating gay eliminating marriage, an intact legally man and woman are picture with their son.

An intact family as God intended and the church should, too.

A Cultural Commentary on Eliminating Gay Marriage

T.J. Eckleburg blog 8 months

Throughout history, moral courage has often required standing against the cultural tide to protect the most vulnerable. This cultural commentary on eliminating gay marriage is… Read More

Open letter image of a man pointing at another man with TDS.

How to greet a person with TDS.

An Open Letter to Suckers Suffering from TDS

philmaggitti blog 8 months

For more open letters guaranteed to make their intended recipients go apoplectic and have a heartattack. How to greet a person with TDS. Dear TDS… Read More

In an open letter to Jason Isbell the recipient is sitting on a cloud, wearing a halo, strumming a guitat.

What a friend we have in self-righteous Jason.

An Open Letter to Jason Isbell, Patron Saint of Self-Righteousness

philmaggitti blog 8 months

Dear Jason Isbell, You don’t know me, I’ve got better taste in friends, but I sure as hell know fools like you. I know the… Read More

An open letter to Joe Biden who is attempting to eat an ice cream cone that is dripping all over his suit.

Elder Statescone: Making a Melty Mess Since Delaware.

An Open Letter to Joe Biden

philmaggitti blog 8 months

Dear Joe Biden, I have learned recently that you are still making public appearances. Please stop. In the name of all that is sagging, stammering,… Read More

a bowl full of pills

"One pill makes you larger, and one pill ..."

The Buck-It List, 2.0

philmaggitti blog 9 months

Ten more things you should stop doing before not going gently into that good night.The Buck-It List, 2.0 (1) Saving receipts. What are you going… Read More

In cultural commentary a young man holding a basketball while a ghostly image hangs above the court

"He started singing ..."

The Day the Music Died

philmaggitti blog 10 months

A long, long time ago, a large jukebox hunkered in one corner of the cafeteria of the prep school I attended. With few exceptions, I… Read More

grubby looking Reddit user slaving over a lap top

"I Reddit, therefore I am."

Satirical Commentary Reddit Blows

philmaggitti blog 11 months

And so do lazy writers who quote Reddit users without actually speaking to or identifying them. Like turds in a punch bowl, annoying (and almost… Read More

Road sign with five different roads going every which way

"You're either on the bus or off."

Bus Stop

philmaggitti blog 1 year

The school-bus-yellow school bus rattled down Meeting House Road with twenty or so prep school students on board. They were escorted by a history teacher… 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.