Hugh MacLeod

The project was four years in the making.

“It took me nearly four years to find the right book deal,” MacLeod said from a bench by the Sul Ross campus fountain. “I didn’t want to harm the integrity of it. Several publishers wanted to make it more business—ee, sort of a ‘how-to’ book.”

Eventually, the New York branch of the largest publisher in England, Penguin, took it as it was – complete with cartoons.

In June, his book was featured in  the Texas Monthly magazine.

“I can’t quite bring myself to say it, but my essential act, that is, what I love to do, is draw cartoons,” MacLeod said, his blue eyes peering through black framed glasses.

MacLeod attended primary and secondary school in Edinburgh, Scotland and was an English major at  UT Austin. He drew cartoons for the Austin Chronicle in the late 1980s but stopped cartooning for 10 years to run off to Chicago, London and New York and work as a copywriter for an advertising firm.

“In New York I started drawing cartoons again, this time on the back of business cards,” MacLeod said. “The next phase of my life was beginning, I could feel it.”

The book is about creativity and the muses that feed it. It’s about habits that creative people use to bust through the mundane. The title speaks to the importance of not giving up on your dreams.

“Only you can decide to pursue your idea. The decision is yours alone. Many say, ‘I can’t because my rich uncle thinks it’s a bad idea.’ MacLeod said, as drops of water from the drizzle beaded on the brim of his cowboy hat.

“There’s a chapter in my book called, ‘Good Ideas Have Lonely Childhoods.’ Uncertain Embryoes. The really good ideas start out there.” He waived his hand toward the gray sky. “For two hundred years they thought William Blake (the poet) was a madman.”
The cost of being creative has its own price, according to MacLeod.

“When you are creative it’s hard to turn off the tap, hard to extinguish that thirst and I think that’s why many turn to drugs and alcohol. People move to Terlingua and say, ‘I’m going to write a novel – glug, glug, glug. It’s a hard thing to manage.”
The drizzle stops and a group of students stand near the fountain.

“I wrote the book to vindicate those years,” he nods at the students. “The twenties are a tough time. If I could save one kid from stepping on a land mine – then its valuable. That’s where I was coming from when I wrote the book.”

MacLeod’s favorite character in literature is Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“He was persecuted by his neighbors but he loved them anyway and was man enough to shoot the rabid dog,” MacLeod said. “It’s bittersweet. We have to teach our children curiosity, kindness and a work ethic. These values will create a natural aversion to the usual vices in life.”

MacLeod lights a cigarette and smokes for a moment quietly. He’s dressed in shorts, hiking boots and wears a sheathed Bowie knife on his belt.

“The older you get the more time you need to think,” he said.

MacLeod’s grandfather Donald MacLeod was an early influence.

“He was a good man, which is something I hope others will say of me. Grandfather was a very wise man a Scottish Highlander – a ‘Crofter.’ He had a bit of land, but like all crofters he always had five jobs going: growing potatoes, then lambing, working on the roads, harvesting seaweed, building barns.”

He had experiences and he liked to learn. He had stories. You don’t get good stories for free. You have to go climb the mountain yourself.”

 “Dubliners,” by James Joyce, a collection of short stories, is one of MacLeod’s favorite books.

“The theme is this urban Irish Victorian passive aggressive unexpressed Celtic howl. A sort of rebellion against the Northern European conservative mind - that and a lack of sunshine is why they drink so much.”

With howl in the air, we move to Beat poetry.

“They’re the rock and roll of lit. My favorite is Alex Trocchi’s, “Young Adam.” People like Kerouac – they get it all out there, good or bad. I admire their bravery.”

MacLeod looks at the wet ground.

“I met a young poet in Marfa last night. We agreed, unless the poet reaches up and rips your heart out of your chest, there’s no reason for it.”

MacLeod lists his favorites: William Blake, William Shakespeare, Philip Larkin, Wilfred Owen and T.S. Eliot – all English except the American turned Englishman, Eliot.

MacLeod’s blog site, GapingVoid.com, averages 15,000 hits a day. “Random acts of traction,” as he calls it.

“People like to put things out on the internet. Whether it’s ‘Jesus Christ is my personal savior’ or the best brownie recipe in the world or a band you really like – it’s a social virus.

“Books are important and different from the internet. Why? I love the quietness of books. The internet is a very noisy place – it’s good, it’s social. But I think a great luxury is a room to think and read and have peace and quiet.

The big sky quietness of the Big Bend may be one reason MacLeod is out here.  He visited Alpine to see his father William Macleod, who is also an author, about a year and a half ago.

“I always liked Texans. And I am internet enabled so I can live out here. After a few years the New York cocktail conversation lost its edge for me. People leave places under duress or because they’re no longer learning from it. I said, ‘Dad, I don’t have to leave,’ and he said, ‘No you don’t.’ And here I am.”

MacLeod has a company called Futile Marketing. He also represents a winery and has decided to start promoting Stoemhoek Vinyards wine in Alpine.

“It’s the most unlikely place to launch a South African wine,” MacLeod said.

“But so was a cowboy movie set in outer space (Star Wars). There’s been a lot of weird ideas: personal computer, Darwinism, Jackson Pollock splashing paint around.”

Along with working on a second book, MacLeod continues to cartoon. His biggest professional influence was the late Charles Schultz, author of the comic strip, “Peanuts.”

“He was the first cartoonist, I’m aware of, that used deep dark complex emotions to charge silly little children’s stories. He generated meaning beyond the superficial.”

So what it’s the meaning of life, Hugh MacLeod?

“Grace. When you come to a point in your life where you feel grateful that in spite of death, you’re allowed to be here. If you don’t get to that point, life’s a lot sadder. I say ‘Yes’ to life in spite of the inevitable end.”