NORMAL HEART

The ‘Normal Heart’ is based on the autobiographical play written by Larry Kramer. It is about the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, a gay Jewish-American founder of an HIV advocacy group. Preferring to make waves and call attention with loud public confrontations as opposed to the sedate private strategies favored by his fellow and closeted lover Felix Turner, their differences lead to confrontations that threaten to undermine their mutual goals.

The other night I happened to find it on HBO as a rather fascinating and historical story . The reason I watched it was because two of my favorite actors: Jim Parsons and Julia Roberts starred in it, Julia Roberts was super and I can’t say enough about Jim Parsons as an actor, not only for his part as Sheldon on ‘The Big Bang Theory’, but for his particular excellent Broadway theater performance in ‘Harvey’.

I have been a great supporter of gay rights, and I have my reasons. Many years ago, I hired a fellow when I worked for an agency in Manhattan. He was talented but gay, and I knew he was. I knew he could do the job and that to me was all I cared about. I wasn’t particularly interested in his life-style or his politics, just what he could bring to the table. He was a good man, and good artist and tried to keep his sexual preferences to himself, which I appreciated.

As I was offered a position in a larger company, I took it and called this fellow to join me there, and he did. We became friends, not colleagues alone. One day on his birthday, like I did for all those who worked under me, I took him for lunch to celebrate his birthday, and he came out to me and admitted he was gay. I told him that I suspected that, and didn’t care: I was till buying him lunch. He got a big kick out of it and so life went on.

Then one day he started missing days, calling in sick. The days led to weeks and one morning I got a call from him. “Joe, I have aids!” It sounded so distant and far away, and I knew his time was up. I would call him a few times a week to talk and try to make him know he was missed. Then within months, his Mom called to tell me he died, in his home in Erie Pennsylvania.

His mom wrote a letter to me, that I still have, telling me how grateful he was that I was his friend, that I had helped him pay his medical expenses and that I was the only one that seemed to care.

And so, back to ‘Normal Heart’, watching the movie raised long ago memories, and taught me just how insensitive we all are about this issue of Gay Rights, and the need to help each of us here on Earth to survive. I got mine and the heck with anybody else has no place among civilized people. Judging based on how you pray or handle life, is not valid for someone else, nor is wrapping ourselves: in the American Flag and condemning others in how they live and believe. This world is too judgmental, too unwilling to understand other people’s culture, and too quick to forget their own shortcomings.