An Extraordinary Time

Can poodles really be gay? In an off-the-paw survey in the Poodles for Pride group at Seattle’s Gay Pride parade, over half of them have girlfriends or boyfriends. Some are fond of the same sex, others prefer the opposite. Some are dating poodles of a different color and others are crossing breeds. Perhaps poodles are just promiscuous. One thing’s for certain, poodles have an image to uphold. In their pomp and funny hairdo’s, they are different than other dogs- sometimes judged critically and ostracized from the “real” dogs at the park. It’s OK though. According to they’re parents, they’re Proud to be Poodles.

Seattle author Bruce Bahemihl, Ph.D., writes in his book Biological Exhuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. “The world is, indeed, teeming with homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered creatures of every stripe and feather. From the Southeastern Blueberry Bee of the United States to more than 130 different bird species worldwide, the birds and the bees ‘literally, are queer’.”

Maxine Weyant, 50 and her poodle Bennie, 2
“Bennie kind of has the biker dude outfit. He’s neutered and he’s got two brothers at home who are also neutered, but that doesn’t mean he won’t hump things. But he doesn’t have any girlfriends or boyfriends, just lots of buddies.”

Kathy Cain, 53
Bennie’s getting more conservative because last year he went naked and now he’s got leathers.”

Gail Ferrari, 51 and her poodle Willie, 1 year
(Willie) has a boyfriend named Rusty. They’re starting to have regular playdates and their very competitive with each other….Willie chose the colors (of my skirt) and he’s very fond of white poodles. He’s just out here representing diversity in dogs and people and colors, whatever. He’s very open.

Jenepher White, 47 and her poodle Madeline, 3
She’s here to support her Moms and show that even poodles have pride. (She’s a) toy poodle. She feels great to stand out in the crowd. You know all these big poodles…you guys are fine, but me? I’m the only one like me!”

Cat Ritinger, and her poodle Vita Pepita
They’re very proud poodles and they want to speak for gay pride and proud to be alive. Her girlfriend is home, Tin Tin. She couldn’t come because she just had babies. She was artificially inseminated. But they’re very much in love.”

That (“poodle”) stigma is so not them. Particularly the standards….are noble dogs, are hunting dogs, loyal dogs. The funny thing is they’re considered the antithesis of macho but actually they’re very macho if that’s what you want them to be. I know some macho men that are now poodle men. And they’re straight!”

Eric DuBois, 55 and Jim Green, 44 and their poodle Luc, 2.
He’s got two Dads and he’s never known anything different, so he doesn’t see (anything) unusual about this. He’s only two years old so we’re a little limited about what we’re talking to him about yet but we’ll get there as he grows older.

He already dates. He has a girlfriend, Poo Bear. She’s an apricot poodle. Oh, absolutely (we’re supportive). We’re color blind pretty much. Apricot’s wonderful.”

Though thought of today primarily as entertainment for children, puppetry has a long history of espousing political agendas. One of the earliest and most famous puppets is Punch and Judy originating from the commedia dell’arte in Britain in the 17th century. According to an article appearing in the Detroit-based Fifth Estate paper, Spring 2000, by Kerry Mogg,

”This hunchback, with his large, hooked nose and insanely boorish manners, was a hero of the lower-classes. Punch broke the most sacrosanct laws imaginable in a time when conformity was imposed in every sphere of life…. He mocked the law, God’s and king’s …. As George Speight tells us in Punch and Judy: a History, Punch was a subversive jester, “the simpleton who could answer back to Bishop and King, the fool with the license to poke fun at anyone.”

In this vein, at the Fremont Solstice parade Brian Kooser, Nick DeMarco, and Josh Okrent of the Monkeywrench Puppet Lab developed the float “Fountain of Youth” featuring giant babies each with their own agenda.

Holly Chernobyl, 26 Mexican baby
I’m gonna get chased by the border patrol babies and I’m probably gonna say a lot of things in Spanish. Viva la revolucion! I’m a little nervous (about being chased by the border patrol) but I think that they’ll be gentle.”

Brian Kooser, 43 rich white baby
We are an organization of puppeteers that try to bring a different vision of puppetry out into the world. Puppetry has a tendency to be something that is left for kids and that’s never been the case in the past. It’s a recent development with television and that sort of thing.

We wanted to make it timely to whatever was going on at the time…So we’ll have our little terrorist baby, and we’ll have the national guard baby, and we’ll touch on a few other touchy subjects and hopefully offend as many people as possible.

I’m the fattest so I’m the rich, white baby. I felt that I’d be the best representative of the American culture so I got the silver spoon and the un-deformed, perfect cherubic face.”

Mathyas Elliott, 17 one of the National Guard babies
I wanted to be with the National Guard because you get to chase the Mexican. I think it will be fun. I have an actual role and that’s the kind of thing that I’m into.”

Nick DeMarco, 19 handy capable baby
He’s got an infected eye and he’s a little handicapped but he’s going to make it. He’s going to do his best… I just wanted to make a gross baby. Its a lot of fun. Its just a bunch of dudes running around in diapers.”

Rachel Sprague, 23 military baby
I’m chasing her, the Mexican. I’m looking forward to getting to use my water pistol and waddling around as fast as I can. This is awesome.”

Diedre Muns, 40 the only female baby
I’ve got a nice little blond tuft on the top. … maybe they’ll pick on me, maybe they’ll take care of me. Who knows. It depends on what kind of older brothers they are. I’m one of the least statement because I’m a little tired of politics and I just wanted to be a baby. I always wanted to go back into the womb, drink some milk, just relax.”