We must remember that it is a March not a Parade.

I was curious. I was actually looking for an image for a post on a different subject. I wanted a huge crowd of gay people to make a point about straight allies. You’ll understand when you read the post I write tomorrow. I’ll leave you in suspense (albeit a modest amount) until tomorrow on that.

So I googled “gay pride march.” I was looking for an image of a gay pride march that gave a sense of the magnitude of the march, the hundreds of thousands who march on 5th Avenue every June (hundreds of thousands is the truth unlike the tens of thousands you will read about on Monday in every NYC paper. Including the papers NOT owned by Rupert Murdoch).

Here’s what I found.

Page 1. No crowds. No women. At least none of the biological variety.

Page 2. More men. Many seemed to have forgotten to bring most of their clothing. Wait. At last. A big crowd scene. Not in the US. Thank you Ontario.

I gave up after page 5. Just Ontario and this fantastic picture. Look closely and you’ll see that they had a massive crowd despite inclement weather.

Not a single photo from a gay pride parade in the US.

Then I realized I was a professor. I mean. I knew that. But what I realized is that I have access to a huge AP photo library. So off I went. It took me until page 5 in the AP Photo library to find at least one photograph that told a different kind of story.

I double checked that this was not a photo taken by my friends at GLSEN. Nope. The AP as part of a story they were writing during the marriage equality battle last year.

OK, so what’s my point? Every year at this time I am reminded of a battle I had with Bill O'Reilly. His argument was that the gay pride marches are “shooting the gays in the foot.” A strategy that backfires, he claimed. My argument was that photos of parents with strollers or gay alums from Yale don’t make for very interesting photographs. And that media bias is at the heart of the problem.

I further argued that a gay pride march is alot like Mardi Gras - this one day to celebrate difference in all its fun, campy, sexual, outrageous ways. And in ways that are not campy sexual and outrageous.

What did my search reveal? Nobody seems to take pictures of gay pride marches that tell a story of magnitude - the sheer volume of participants. Nobody seems to take pictures of gay pride marches that tell a compelling, emotional story.

Not even our own peeps with our digital cameras.

So here’s what I am going to do. I am going to go to the NYC Gay Pride March on Sunday and I am going to take the kind of pictures I want to see of the march. I will post some of them on Monday.

If you are going to any gay pride march this weekend and would like to join me in taking pix that tell more of the story of gay pride, I would love that. Email me the photos at joan@joangarry.com. Tell me the story you think your photos tell.

I for one would really like to see them. And I’d like to share them.

Every year, on the last weekend in June, Gay Pride kicks off a non-stop 48-hour festival of drink, drugs and debauchery in New York. This year sober gays and lesbians are determined to prove they can party with the best of them. READ MORE

Every year, on the last weekend in June, Gay Pride kicks off a non-stop 48-hour festival of drink, drugs and debauchery in New York. This year sober gays and lesbians are determined to prove they can party with the best of them.

A group calling itself NYC Queer and Sober has announced plans to throw an over-the-top sober “Superheroes Ball” next month, with the weekend’s other attractions including a  “sexy boot camp,” a swimsuit competition, a Hudson cruise, and throbbing music “that sounds nothing like Katy Perry.” Revelers from at least 28 countries are expected, with large contingents from California, Texas, London and Australia.

The event’s Creative Director Cristian Parker, 33, who quit alcohol and cocaine 10 years ago and describes being openly sober as “like being gay in the fifties,” says that previous sober events at Pride were inevitably disappointing. “We’d end up in some public school cafeteria with 24 people and a bad DJ. It was really sad. My newly-sober friends looked at me as if to say, ‘Is this what life’s going to be like from now on?“ He adds, "These days crystal meth is bringing people into sobriety a lot sooner, so it’s really important to keep these younger people interested.”

As an alternative, last year Parker and his friends pooled their resources to throw a party “as retribution for every bad A.A. dance we’d ever been to,” renting a large outdoor space in Hell’s Kitchen for a Wild West theme party that included beef jerky specially flown in from Texas. Over 700 attendees joined in the fun.

Jeff, 48, a Manhattan real estate broker who quit alcohol and crystal seven years ago, attended last year’s event and found it “well-planned, festive and different.” He adds conspiratorially, “I have lots of friends who aren’t sober—who are just social drinkers—who are going to come [sober] to this year’s event, because honestly, it’s a great opportunity for husband-hunting. A lot of the guys there are single, and they won’t be drunk or high when you talk to them.”

Thanks to a friend, also in recovery, I will be able to attend the NYC Queer & Sober events! This should be a blast!!