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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.

Top ten list illustration of a sickly teenage boy in a doctor’s waiting room, pale skin and hoodie, head drooping as he wipes his nose on his sleeve

Future meth PSA model auditions in doctor's waiting room.

The Ten Sickest Looking People in the Doctor’s Waiting Room

philmaggitti Dark Humor, top ten lists 8 months

Waiting rooms are basically Ground Zero for humanity’s decline. You sit under those florescent lights, breathing recycled coughs, surrounded by people who look like they’ve… Read More

In this satirical commentary entry, Skeleton in an orange T-shirt holding up a pink sock over a laundry basket filled with mismatched clothes.

Dead men don't match socks.

The Buck-It List 3.0

philmaggitti blog, top ten lists 8 months

Welcome to The Buck-It List 3.0. Ten additional things you should stop doing before not going gently into that good night. If you have already… Read More

Still life parody of one of the new Dummies books offerings--How to Survive a Family Reunion for Dummies.

The new Dummies books—because mediocrity evolves faster than common sense.

Top Ten List: Stupidest Dummies Books Everver

philmaggitti top ten lists 8 months

There are more than 1,800 Dummies titles in print, with 250 million plus copies sold worldwide. That’s not a publishing success, it is a mass… Read More

In this Book of Daze article Travis Kelse appears in a green-and-orange-checksuit. Soooo ugly.

"Does this make me look like I read books?"

Ten Reasons Why We Never Wish to Hear About Travis Kelce Again

philmaggitti top ten lists 8 months

Travis Kelce is not especially interesting or good looking. He is a phenomenon of excess, a man so thoroughly media-saturated that his mere existence feels… Read More

Cartoon piggy bank in a leather jacket hitchhiking away from a burning dumpster labeled “Retirement Fund” — perfect visual for a satirical why you will never get rich quick.

When your retirement plan is literally on fire.

Ten Reasons You Will Never Get Rich Quick

philmaggitti Dark Humor, top ten lists 8 months

1. You Treat Money Like a Guest StarIt breezes through your life like a cameo appearance on Friends. Fun while it’s here, gone before you… Read More

Psychedelic poster featuring a smoking alien, Santa with a joint, a grinning skull, trippy flowers, a talking mushroom, and a stoned pug — all surrounding the text “The Top Ten List of Best Stoner Albums of All Time.”

Ten Best Stoner Albums Ever

philmaggitti top ten lists 8 months

10. Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath (1970)Best Track to Melt Into: “N.I.B.”The first album ever to say, “What if we tuned our guitars to the… Read More

Illustration of ten diverse, quirky Americans lined up in two rows, representing the last people in America who do not have a podcast — part of a humorous top ten list.

The Last People in America Who Do Not Have a Podcast (Top Ten List)

philmaggitti top ten lists 8 months

America has more podcasts than citizens, which means someone, somewhere, is hosting two of them just to cover for the slackers. In a nation where… Read More

Aged, ghoulish Rod Stewart in a leopard-print lounge suit singing under a spotlight — the perfect visual for the ten most embarrassing Rod Stewart songs.

"D'ya think I'm sexy?"

The Ten Most Embarrassing Rod Stewart Songs

philmaggitti top ten lists 8 months

Once upon a time, Rod Stewart was a raspy-voiced singer who gave us Every Picture Tells a Story – a record so perfect it should… 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.