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Description
We're Not So Different

With two other wonderful friends, I met again today with Jimmy Obrien, a homeless friend who you have probably seen in other shots of mine on here already. We met to discuss future plans for political documentary work.

Meetings with Jimmy are always fun, relaxed and valuable. His life paints a critical social picture of novel proportions. From a childhood of traumatic family experiences to a young adulthood of selling drugs to pay the rent, drug addiction and gang violence--all of which climaxed with the explosion of a police car and seven years in prison.

From that point, the story weaves through periods of more drug problems, a reunion with his mother that ends in a violent confrontation with his step-father, short moments of employment and failed attempts at starting over--all the way to a life-changing experience of self-actualization.

The last years of his life have been spent fighting his own AIDS and helping others learn to love and forgive. Forgive themselves as well as forgive others. He calls himself a rit-rat. I call him a brother's keeper. Jimmy sees the lines of economic divide and he searches daily for ways to bridge those lines with true humanity. He shows his love and concern for those on all sides of it, but fights the intolerance that is so present amongst us.

He's no bum. Jimmy gives food to the homeless even when he has none for himself. He sparks conversations with the rich and acknowledges their solidarity with him. People suffer, he says, no matter what their 'status.' "The only hope to help ourselves is to give a hand to everyone we can." He's no bum.

The doctors have recently said that Jimmy has, at most, three years to live. "I have bigger things to worry about," he says. What does that mean for the rest of us?

Nikon D200 | Nikkor 85mm f1.4

Description
We're Not So Different

With two other wonderful friends, I met again today with Jimmy Obrien, a homeless friend who you have probably seen in other shots of mine on here already. We met to discuss future plans for political documentary work.

Meetings with Jimmy are always fun, relaxed and valuable. His life paints a critical social picture of novel proportions. From a childhood of traumatic family experiences to a young adulthood of selling drugs to pay the rent, drug addiction and gang violence--all of which climaxed with the explosion of a police car and seven years in prison.

From that point, the story weaves through periods of more drug problems, a reunion with his mother that ends in a violent confrontation with his step-father, short moments of employment and failed attempts at starting over--all the way to a life-changing experience of self-actualization.

The last years of his life have been spent fighting his own AIDS and helping others learn to love and forgive. Forgive themselves as well as forgive others. He calls himself a rit-rat. I call him a brother's keeper. Jimmy sees the lines of economic divide and he searches daily for ways to bridge those lines with true humanity. He shows his love and concern for those on all sides of it, but fights the intolerance that is so present amongst us.

He's no bum. Jimmy gives food to the homeless even when he has none for himself. He sparks conversations with the rich and acknowledges their solidarity with him. People suffer, he says, no matter what their 'status.' "The only hope to help ourselves is to give a hand to everyone we can." He's no bum.

The doctors have recently said that Jimmy has, at most, three years to live. "I have bigger things to worry about," he says. What does that mean for the rest of us?

Nikon D200 | Nikkor 85mm f1.4