The first in what may or may not become a regular gossip column covering the latest dish at the dog parks of New York City.
On Monday morning, Lester followed Bart around the Tompkins Square dog park as Bart shuffled around in ever-tightening circles, then selected a spot and pooped. Without the slightest nod to Prospect Park’s Sheila, widely regarded as the recent pioneer of the move, Lester shamelessly walked over and smelled the product for several seconds. Other dogs, brows furrowed, stole glances and stifled chuckles, with one snarky observer remarking that she “hadn’t seen such an overt act of thievery since My Morning Jacket decided to become The Flaming Lips.”
The city’s canine crème de la crème differed in their prognosis of the scandal on Lester’s social standing. Madison Square’s Adolphus said he still planned to invite Lester to his annual Fête de la Bouche D’Incendie, the white-collared affair favored by the likes of UGA VII and Benji #3: ”What my good friend Lester did was inexcusable, of course,” Adolphus said. “But I’ve known him for months and months, and time will prove that this was truly out of character for a dog I think we can all agree has contributed much to unleashed communities throughout lower Manhattan.”
Others, however, were far less generous: Lacy, president of the tony Riverside Park Four-Legged Diamond Society, said she’d “never in a million years compete for bush space with a mongrel like that. If it were up to me, he’d be sniffing crack needles at East River Park on a four-foot non-retractable for the rest of his life.” And Sir Helmsley, the Chelsea political kingmaker who famously foresaw the Garfield-driven Great Cat Influx of 2004, estimated that Lester’s odds of repeating as one of the town’s “50 Most Eligible Non-Neutered Bachelors” were effectively zilch: “Sure, he’s done some good things over the years, but this is just too much,” asserted Sir Helmsley. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s relegated to Science Diet.”
Asked if this were a possibility, Lester’s caretakers, Joe and Susie Gutierrez, told DFDP that they didn’t know “what the fuck (we were) talking about, and get the fuck away before we call the cops.”
