Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Because of the changes in the Padres team I played with last year, I felt like a veteran recently when I worked out with Jason Kendall and he told me he's liked listening to my records since he was a kid!
For me the march was a labor - a labor of love - but I was busy handing out flyers for the National Association of Black Social Workers, so I really wasn't standing in the crowd listening and observing. I was busy.
And I thought that was the best way for me to participate, because standing in the crowd and listening is a fantastic education, but it's not my nature. I need to be involved. So I did that instead.
I've had songs written during the Falklands war, and during the first Gulf war I got letters from soldiers saying they were listening to these songs, like Island of no return.
I'll make music, whether or not anyone is listening, for the rest of my life. It's a natural form of expression for me, the same way I draw and write and sing.
I was blown away by the control and the range that I was hearing. I'm listening to Pavarotti and thinking, What the hell have I been doing with my voice all these years?
Earmarks have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the people. This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.
Listening is more important than anything else because that's what music is. Somebody is playing something and you're receiving it. It is sending and receiving.
The strange thing is that since I've been offered lots of films I think that maybe they think that I've sold out to Hollywood. Which is not the case if anybody's listening.
