Always a Subtext

"The audience knows that people rarely, if ever, understand themselves, and if they do, they’re incapable of complete and honest self-explanation.  There’s always a subtext."

- Robert McKee. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principals of Screenwriting. ReganBooks: New York, 1997. pg 377

Most Important Word to Common

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"My journey in love has led me to this place: of loving with my whole heart, of embracing the opportunity to build a life with someone else. I read somewhere that on average people have about sixty thousand words in their vocabulary, but that on most days we use only a fraction of them. As someone who creates with language, I'm fascinated by the shades of meaning and the range of sounds that different words can create. For all the words I may use in an average day, though, the most important word in my vocabulary is love."

Common from the memoir "One Day It'll All Make Sense"

Why I Don't Nap

Shadow of a Lonely Man (Photo credit: Wha'ppen)

"I don't like to take naps. I don't like to wake up more than once a day. 'Cause when I first wake up I get that shock of who I am and everything. I... I really don't like to do that more than once a day."

from The Lonely Man film starring Steve Martin.

Common's Regret

Common (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

"One of my greatest regrets about my music is that my early albums include lyrics that might be considered homophobic . . .

Here I was claiming the title of "conscious artist," and I had this huge blind spot in my consciousness. I never wanted to be guilty of mismeasuring someone else's humanity. I've had it done to me, and I know the pain it causes. Hearing from that fan opened up my eyes."

- Common from his memoir "One Day It'll All Make Sense"

How Do You Define Art?

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"If art was defined simply by the ability to draw, then my inkjet printer would be a greater artist than Michelangelo."

- Curtis Verdun

Love as a Verb, Noun, and Salutation

Cover of One Day It'll All Make Sense

I use love to describe my relation to God and to family and to friends. I use it in my music. I use it as verb.I use it as a noun. I use it as a way to say good-bye. I picked up that last way of using love from my guy Dart.  I think he started saying it in the 1990s, when it seemed like everyone was saying "peace" - peace this, peace that. Why not say love instead. After all, love is the best means to peace. That idea stuck with me."

- Common from his memoir "One Day It'll All Make Sense" pg 272

Creating Something Delicate and Fleeting

Cover of Common

"When I'm doing a freestyle, my mind is working faster than my mouth, and my memory is all but shut down. You can ask me what I said three minutes after I finish, and I won't be able to tell you the first thing about it. Sometimes you create for posterity; you create with that sense of timelessness. But sometimes you create something that's so delicate-so fleeting-that it can last only for a moment. To me, that kind of creation is no less beautiful, no less miraculous. It's just its own thing."

- Common from his memoir "One Day It'll All Make Sense" pg 44.