The Brooklyn Pride Parade

By Brooklyn Bill

My basset hound, Rudy,* and I went to the Brooklyn Pride Parade that Father Tony previewed in the post below. It was fun.**

It started out how every pride parade worth a damn starts: with dykes on bikes!

If it weren't for his T-shirt, I swear I wouldn't have known he was a lesbian.

Later, there were dykes on bike-cycles:

And there was a bicyclist on the sidewalk behind me who had the coolest sleeveless T-shirt:

Gay Men of African Descent had one of a handful of floats in the parade:

One of the GMAD guys stopped to pet Rudy. He was adorable. And he showed me a photo of his little dog, who I think he said was 15, like my Emme.

There was a bear, the mascot of Cheer New York:

And then there were these bears:

My friend Wayne is in the center.

It was good to see some youth in the parade, from Hetrick-Martin Institute/Harvey Milk High School:

Anti-DADT activist Dan Choi walked with the City Council:

I wasn't cheeky enough to yell "Hey, Dan!" to get him to look my way for the photo.

I don't know who the grand marshalls were. I had assumed there would be some info about them on Brooklyn Pride's Web site, but I didn't see any. I sent an inquiry to Brooklyn Pride's media e-mail address and will update this post later, when if I get a response.

On the four-block walk down 3rd Street to 5th Avenue before the parade, Rudy and I met a guy who also has a basset named Rudy (!) and another sweet hound named Lola. I'd heard from other dog people in the neighborhood that this Rudy existed but, somehow, they'd never met. The other Rudy's daddy, José, is a professional photographer. He took some snaps of my boy and of the three dogs together, and he said he'd put them on his site.*** I imagine they'll be included in the portfolio called Man's Best Friend, which, btw, has some delightful corgi shots near the end. I can't wait to see them.

Here's a photo I took of the other Rudy:

And one of the three hounds together in which Lola is, unfortunately, looking away:

My Rudy really is huge in comparison with other bassets.**** The other Rudy is fully grown.

*I left my corgi, Emme, at home. My baby girl is recovering from surgery and wasn't up to meeting her public.

**Unlike the first BPP I went to, back in 2006. Here's a bitchy, fairly early Hawleyblog post that's noteworthy mostly for the cute (and tiny but embiggenable) photo of Emme's cousin, Cody, yawning and expressing my sentiment toward that Brooklyn Pride.

***In searching for José's Web site, I found the blog of his sweetie, Lisa, that goes by the name Knithound Brooklyn.

****But not fat! The cutie from GMAD lost major points when he described Rudy as big AND FAT. I'm touchy about the subject because my family had an obese Irish setter when I was growing up and I've vowed never to let a dog of mine get overweight like that.