Then, one day, I was listening to a tape of Native American jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper in my car. And yet, it was a voice that didn't hide its sadness, tiredness, and hurt. I'd listened to the tape countless times before, and enjoyed it every time, but suddenly this one time it seemed to actually speak to me. Jim Pepper's joy in life wasn't about sweetness and light. Life sucks sometimes.
People hurt people, sometimes deliberately and maliciously.
Shit happens, as even TV's Chicago Hope dares to tell us. Great clouds of evil drift over the planet and, as Spalding Grey has said, drift down at different times over different places and leave a trail of horror behind them. Sickness and pain chase us everywhere. But we're alive. It's as if each of those words is capitalized and should be accompanied with a vigorous shake of a fist.