Common isn’t just a rapper and an actor anymore. He can now add children’s author to the list. He turned his difficult breakup with Erykah Badu into a love lesson in his children’s book titled, “I Like You But I Love Me.” Badu left Common and eventually told him it was because she liked another guy. He was heartbroken and turned it into a life lesson for youngsters.

His lesson: no matter how much you love somebody, you have to love yourself first. If you love yourself, you’ll have boundaries and you won’t give up certain things about yourself because it shows a lack of love for yourself.

Common’s getting pretty sappy if you ask me. Plenty of Common’s fans blame Erykah Badu for influencing his work too much and changing his attitude. Many think Badu is at fault for his experimental album Electric Circus in 2002 which wasn’t well received.

“Only two things come from Texas, son, and that’s steers and queers. And I don’t see no horns on you boy.”

Texas is a land of machismo. Oil wells. Cattle. Cacti peppering the dusty plains, where men chew gravel and spit out asphalt. Or maybe my mom just watched too much Dallas when I was a kid. I don’t know, but I certainly have an impression that it’s a manly state.

Still, the place is not without its more leftist lifestyles, including a healthy contingent of homosexuals. When I noticed the Gay Flag on a bar a block away from the hotel I thought, “well bless their hearts. The roughnecks haven’t driven the gays from the streets of Austin.” And yes I know Austin is the most liberal places in the state, but still.

The thing I noticed most about this gay bar was that it was full of regular old people watching rock ‘n’ roll bands. And that’s what Austin gay bars have in common with the countless UT frat bars that line the 6th street corridor: during SXSW their clientele is pretty much the same: industry people and hardcore music fans getting fucked up and watching hundreds of bands. Together. As One. Ommmmmmm…..
Rock Music: the great equalizer.

(UPDATE: I apologize for the brief all-caps diatribes about broken cameras and hating internets, which I have since deleted. I was drunk and shit was not uploading and Brit and Matt were telling me to hurry. It was an intense and frustrated moment. No offense intended.)

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