The Invisible Is Just, So, Obvious

The Revolution is Simple and I'm the Odd Man Out

I believe “Some of the dead are still breathing.”¹

Look.

Over there.

I have seen what can’t be seen plenty of times and felt what may not be real frequently. I wonder, if you remove pain from reality, would you even know the difference between laughing and crying, between the gardens of good and evil?

There are moments when smiling is the wrong thing to do, when enjoying something with taut lips and tears is the only appropriate response. You notice on television some expert on a disaster—wide smiling ear-to-ear, sprightly chirping, “Why, thanks for having me here today, …”—and my mind thinks, how are they the expert? Reading the room is 90% of the talent—in this case, sincerity and sympathy. If you’re going to be the purveyor of the Grim Reaper, behave as such. One time, at the rather garish Garden of Eden in Lucas, Kansas, staring at folk artist S.P. Dinsmore’s self-made grave, a sixty-ish woman turned to me, beside herself, beseeching, “Where was it ever written we’re supposed to be so damn happy all the time? Show me, would you? Would someone just show me?” I didn’t smile back and thought, Amen to that. In fact, there’s your writing lesson for the day. But, let me go on.

There are people I know who are remarkably funny, but I’m not stupid. I know that sometimes, even when they joke, what they say is the precise and exact opposite of funny. If you laugh, it’s insulting. Disguising truth as humor is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Fact: humor is cognitive strength. It was Bob Dylan who said anyone who enjoyed his album Blood On The Tracks had missed the point, "How do you enjoy that kind of pain?”

A few years ago, I met with a friend who had recently died. I had to hold that tricky line between direct and polite. Sadly, he didn’t realize he was dead. He was trolling his own life, unaware. One mistake cost him. Fetching life through bidding and antes hadn’t worked out. He was stuck with the fear we have of a mountain lion in the wild: very unlikely but lurking. You know, the wolf-at-the-door type of thing. I didn’t have to use words. He knew, and I knew—we wished he were still here; but as the Pink Floyd song goes, he needed to move along, lest we become “two lost souls swimming in a fishbowl, year after year.” He went away. I heard his last breath. Felt a flash of red.

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Recently, I ran across this line by Karl Kraus: "The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are." He also penned this: “One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.” I can relate to these ideas. In fact, sometimes I’m convinced the only thing “wrong” with me is thinking there’s something wrong with me. Narratives create characters. As for people, I have my doubts in the aggregate. Statistically, I put my faith in the outliers, knowing full well most things I believe in reside around the edges, which brings me to my publishing life—a reflection of the invisible & my self-made revolution—that place where you see me, but you don’t. Where the dead still roam, and I’m the odd man out.

I find it strange when anyone tells me they’d like to start their own business, in my case, book publishing. Deep down, having your own business is incessantly selling what you can to the highest available bidder. I was a vendor at a national writing conference recently. The very first person to show up appeared to be a middle-aged woman, presumably looking for good books and, of course, a publisher for her new collection of writing. We talked about all this, and as she paid for a book, she paused and said, “You’ve done an incredible amount of work; I suspect you must have lost at least one wife along the way.” That was unexpected and disturbing. Recently, I considered this: does living an R-rated life require an X-rated work ethic? Maybe this explains why the freshly retired begin confessing their sins immediately.

Entrepreneurship 101: Every mistake is yours, whether it is or not.

Know this: People really only want two things—Right Now and Money. The irony: You’ll remember thinking neither of these mattered the day you started your new business.

I wear a coarse-edged badge and keep it to myself. If asked, what’s one bit of advice I’d recommend? There is always someone who wants what you want; the question is, do they want it more?

If you aren’t reading between the lines, you aren’t a real writer or publisher. What successful people want isn’t what’s right and wrong but what’s motivated and effective. There’s a mentality that strikes when you sign the fronts of checks instead of the backs. Like a good chef who can’t tolerate bad flavors, I’ve lost my patience for poor writing. Better to err on the side of quality, not quantity. Quantity can be replaced. Frequently if need be.

Publishing and writing are fly-by-night practices—attempting the impossible by transcribing the invisible. This unnatural world we live in of pomp and circumstance is demoralizing. It’s tiring generating the courage to act. People rightly fear Orwell’s “Big Brother.” Fear losing a reliable path both toward and away from our fables. I want to find cracks that allow light in. You probably won’t believe me, but I’ve been the revolution for thirty-five years now. I’ve touted the same motto inside each and every single book since the beginning: “striving to hear the other side.” I keep trying to let light in.

Maybe it’s true what they say: we are a home of the free and the brave. It’s just that being free and brave takes way more work than anyone thought. I’ve learned this by noticing that some of the dead are still breathing. I’m often considered an odd man out. I admire a line by Edward Abbey: “There is a way of being wrong which is also sometimes necessarily right.”

Over there.

Did you see that?

I felt a flash of red.

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I’m a certifiable member of the

Iowa Writers Collaborative Roundup

a quickly growing group of folks sharing their thoughts on Substack. Check us out: I recommend

Chris Jones

Wini Moranville

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Larry Stone

1. Charles Bowden, Some Of The Dead Are Still Breathing