A Matter of Opinions.

On Friday morning, I was watching U2 perform live on GMA. My Mom promptly asked me, "What's so great about them?" I just looked at her and asked, "What's so great about Josh Groban?" Her reply was, "Well...he's got a nice voice." I kinda figure that one could always question others on their choice of music and about a million other things. I just said to her, "I am amazed at the fact that U2 has been around for about 30 years now and they are still relevant." I suppose one might argue that, but it still seems to be that U2 releasing a new album is a pretty big event. I was also impressed this week after seeing John Mayer peform in concert with Chris Botti. John sang a pop standard called "Glad to Be Unhappy". It was originally a Frank Sinatra song. One might scoff at seeing JM sans guitar and crooning a Frank Sinatra song, but I was pleasantly surprised. John later explained that "It was music." I also found a video of John Mayer performing "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" with Chris Botti on Letterman. That was also pretty cool. Dave seemed to really enjoy it.
A month or two ago, someone interviewed some NHL hockey players. They were given various questions. One question was "Whatever happened to...?" One player wanted to know "Whatever happened to Wayne Gretzky?" If you follow hockey at all, you know that Wayne Gretzky is the head coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. So, this was an obvious dig at Gretzky. I told my friend about this and he said, "Ooh!" He knew it was meant as a slam on Gretzky. Another article I read recently talked about great atheletes in sports. The article talked Michael Jordan as an example. It brought up some of the questionable decisions MJ has made as a basketball executive. The article concluded that: It is one thing to have talent. It is another thing to be able to evaluate talent.
I read an article about Steve Ott who plays hockey for the Dallas Stars. Ott likes to stir things up on the ice. In a game against the Anaheim Ducks recently, Ott was standing in front of the Anaheim net. He proceeded to give 2 or 3 crosschecks to the back of a Ducks player. The Anaheim goalie then attempted to slash Ott. A fight ensued between Ott and another player on the Ducks. The only problem was the Ott has a broken hand. He wasn't in any kind of position to fight. So, the Ducks player ponded Ott into submission, because Ott made no attempt to fight back. The Dallas announcers proceeded to talk about how Ott is such a vital part of the Dallas Stars and how the other teams are frustrated by him. As if teams know how important Ott is and that's why they try to hurt him. The writer of the article said, "Nevermind the fact that Ott had crosschecked some guy 2-3 times before the other guy fought him." Anyway, for the most part, I am at peace with the world. Mostly it comes from knowing where others stand on issues that have arisen lately. Once you remove all doubts in your mind, some things get easier.