“In the Midwest and Texas, you either have good housing and no healthcare or you come here and have no housing and really good healthcare”. So says this soft spoken humble man sitting on a sidewalk in the heart of Hollywood, CA.

“I have AIDS”.

He tells me that he is grateful for many things today. “For my life, for the people that come and talk to me and mostly, my Dog. He is everything to me”. He introduces me to Oliver, a small mixed bread PTSD service dog that has been in his life for the past 3 years. “I’m grateful for everything….there’s really nothing that I’m not grateful for”.

“There is nothing that I really need at this moment. I have everything that I need”.

He encourages kids of today to learn and listen to what other people tell you. “Advise. Take good stern advise. Stay HIV negative. Keep your partners and your “clicks” small. You only have a small number of true friends in your lifetime. Stick with what you know until you can expand because, if you don’t, you will run into some real problems”.

“Don’t grow up to fast, if you want to be part of the big world, just wait a minute. It’s going to be there. Don’t try to run right into it, you’ll get eaten up.

19 Dec This entry was published on December 19, 2014 at 1:13 pm. It’s filed under Portraits, Uncategorized and tagged AIDS, Attitude, Black and White, California, Dog, Gratitude, Homeless, Honest, Hope, Los Angeles, Portrait, Service. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.