Simian Mobile Disco, "Hotdog" (2007)

For the past few years, my favorite Pride event has been the one with bitches on parade. "That hardly narrows it down," you say, but I am thinking of the actual dog show organized by Pets DC. They've been holding it for the past fourteen years: dads and moms bring their beloved pooches down to Dupont Circle and enter them in categories like "Most Mysterious Heritage," and "Best Vocal Performance," while the crowd oohs and aahs, and it always makes for a jolly afternoon, and all for a good cause.

When I've been in DC for the summer, I always made sure to amble down to the event with Tee and Heather (aka Downy, aka Skittles [don't ask]), as spectators. I'm not there this year, so of course it's the time Tee chose to finally enter Heather into, heee, the "Best Senior Dog" competition. (She's fourteen, you know. A Grande Dame.)

Her giant head has been blurred to protect her identity.
And she came in third!!! She's officially almost-almost the cutest Pet Of A Certain Age in the greater Washington area! Her dad was really proud -- and we're guessing that Heather was happy too, although it was hard to tell, because, at her moment of triumph, she was apparently more interested in sniffing the penis of the dog next to her on the winner's podium. But since this was a gay pride event, this only sent the crowd into a frenzy, because all the fags could relate.

We're now a little worried, though, because Heather has caught pageant fever. She's started only answering to "JonBenét." She's working on a Mount Rushmore headdress. As her militant uncle, I called her on the phone and lectured her, explaining how we could see the dog show as an analogue for the way the gay community can be so fascist about notions of beauty. But Heather countered by pointing out that, even if that was true, at least this competition wasn't ageist, and so she continues, in the aftermath of her victory, to walk around waving her paw like she's some imaginary Miss Universe contestant.