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We Must Do Something About The Dog Lobby

Normal Gossip logo with cartoon characters gossiping
Illustration by Tara Jacoby

Well, friends, here we are; another season of Normal Gossip is coming to an end. What better way to ring out a season full of fish, weed, fancy dogs, and more fish than to excavate the Machiavellian tendencies of a small town’s denizens via a special election for pet mayor?

Come get to know such vibrant and memorable figures as Cheez-It, “Junkle Red,” Flatthew, Sir Midnight the Iguana, and Wolfgang, the rheumy Chihuahua who cannot walk in a straight line. Foul play? Dirty campaigning? The strategic use of doppelgängers? The somewhat less strategic use of memes? You tell us what happened here. We know, but in another way, no one will ever know. 

Our guest this week is the internet’s favorite boy, David Roth! As you know, Roth is an editor and a co-owner at Defector Media. His writing has appeared in The New Republic, GQ, The New Yorker, and many other places. In addition to co-hosting The Distraction, he is a huge advocate for having a little sweetie-treaty in the afternoon.

Roth told Kelsey the story of his turtle Marvin and the pebbles, a tale many years in the making. Then Kelsey brought Roth up to speed on some deeply stupid drama involving the election of a small-town pet mayor with twists, turns, conspiracy theories and dramatic lighting worthy of multi-episode arc on The West Wing. (There are zero explicit walk-and-talks in this episode, and yet I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that they’re present in spirit. After all, Cadillac and Wolfgang need their exercise!) 

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(The transcript for this week’s episode can be found here.)

And if you have some good goss that you want us to hear, the email for that is normalgossip@defector.com, or phone it in to 26-79-GOSSIP.

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