A Passion For Ideas That Can't Be Killed
Mike Catherall
December 05, 2008
I´ve been gone for a while. I´ve been dead to the world. I took my work back underground and got buried in freelance. Then they wrapped me in a flag and pocketed the pennies and just like that: I was gone. I´ve left Hong Kong. Who knows for how long? And I´m now your ex-Copywriter in Asia.
Unfortunate family circumstances brought me back to Canada. So I´ve been down in the lab, with a pen and a pad, mixing up the medicine and thinking about the government. But now I´m back from the dead to the land of the living, with some unfinished business back here in this world.
You may have seen my bloody fingers and dirty old nails. That´s right. I´m clawing through the topsoil with the weeds and the leaves and the sticks in my mitts for only one reason alone.
I have a passion for ideas. It´s so fierce, you could offer me a billion-dollar-a-year job at a bank, at a counter, doing nothing in the Caribbean and I wouldn´t take it. I have a passion for ideas that´s so intense, you could row me out to a little tropical island somewhere and leave me to the snakes and sharks and I´d still make my way back. I have such an undying passion for ideas that you could chop me up into little pieces and feed me to dogs and I´d still turn up with a spec spot, right there in my trail of blood.
You can´t kill pure passion. You can try to break its spirit or crush it down. You can bury it in the cold, cold ground. You can beat on it and hate it. You can slice it or fillet it. But you can´t kill it. It will crawl from the grave with arms extended, and its mind half gone, to eat brains and wreak havoc on the nay-saying villagers with their rusted-out pitchforks and old burning torches.
They tried to kill my passion once in Australia. They said, "You can´t make TV ads without being in a big agency." But I did. It hooked up with a Norwegian film crew and a Swedish stripper and a couple of shopping carts and we made a whole bunch of spots, some still running to this day.
They tried to murder my passion in Montreal. They said, "You can´t just stroll into a radio station and get something on the air." But I did. I gathered a bunch of telemarketers and collection agents and phone sex operators, and we left a million Montrealers scratching their heads.
They tried to stifle my passion once in Hong Kong. They said, "No one just comes here with a battered old briefcase and starts knocking on doors without knowing no one." That didn´t stop me. And then next thing I knew I was making ads at Ogilvy.
Every day, people try to kill my passion for ideas. But it can´t be done. It can´t be killed. I have an undying devotion to the creative process. So dusting off the dirt and wiping my hands on my shirt, I´m back from the dead once again. But times are tough, so wish me luck, as I lumber my way into town.
Unfortunate family circumstances brought me back to Canada. So I´ve been down in the lab, with a pen and a pad, mixing up the medicine and thinking about the government. But now I´m back from the dead to the land of the living, with some unfinished business back here in this world.
You may have seen my bloody fingers and dirty old nails. That´s right. I´m clawing through the topsoil with the weeds and the leaves and the sticks in my mitts for only one reason alone.
I have a passion for ideas. It´s so fierce, you could offer me a billion-dollar-a-year job at a bank, at a counter, doing nothing in the Caribbean and I wouldn´t take it. I have a passion for ideas that´s so intense, you could row me out to a little tropical island somewhere and leave me to the snakes and sharks and I´d still make my way back. I have such an undying passion for ideas that you could chop me up into little pieces and feed me to dogs and I´d still turn up with a spec spot, right there in my trail of blood.
You can´t kill pure passion. You can try to break its spirit or crush it down. You can bury it in the cold, cold ground. You can beat on it and hate it. You can slice it or fillet it. But you can´t kill it. It will crawl from the grave with arms extended, and its mind half gone, to eat brains and wreak havoc on the nay-saying villagers with their rusted-out pitchforks and old burning torches.
They tried to kill my passion once in Australia. They said, "You can´t make TV ads without being in a big agency." But I did. It hooked up with a Norwegian film crew and a Swedish stripper and a couple of shopping carts and we made a whole bunch of spots, some still running to this day.
They tried to murder my passion in Montreal. They said, "You can´t just stroll into a radio station and get something on the air." But I did. I gathered a bunch of telemarketers and collection agents and phone sex operators, and we left a million Montrealers scratching their heads.
They tried to stifle my passion once in Hong Kong. They said, "No one just comes here with a battered old briefcase and starts knocking on doors without knowing no one." That didn´t stop me. And then next thing I knew I was making ads at Ogilvy.
Every day, people try to kill my passion for ideas. But it can´t be done. It can´t be killed. I have an undying devotion to the creative process. So dusting off the dirt and wiping my hands on my shirt, I´m back from the dead once again. But times are tough, so wish me luck, as I lumber my way into town.
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