Grandiosity is undervalued

The comedian Chris Rock had a routine that went ""Do you know what the good side of crack is? If you're up at the right hour, you can get a VCR for $1.50. You can furnish your whole house for $10.95."

That's the way I feel about the whole bipolar mess. I know my particular flavor of Bipolar/ADD/ whatever they decide it is this week is very mild. Especially compared to some people, like the guy who wrote "Electroboy" (I'm not linking to something I haven't read) which, when I'm bummed out, highlights the fact that I can't even be bipolar right. I don't get crazy manic where I don't sleep for days on end. I don't get crippled when I get The Blues. I don't want to do anything, and Grey is a more appropriate color for the way things feel, but that's another story for another time. Even my Grand Visions aren't all that grand. I get bogged down in trying to make them work, so I realize when my fantasy machinations come most of them are going to pass soon, so it's nice to daydream.

In all fairness, I'm nowhere near as Fair and Balanced as I portray myself, just ask anyone who knows me.

In this cased though, I can see why Advertising is the right field for me. Were I to follow my other passion, Industrial Design, I'd have to make things that really could possible work in Real Life, or at least look like they could. I'm horrible at rendering and illustration. Horrible. But in Advertising, I can think as big as I want, and roll with it, and then run those crazy ideas through the hecatomb of the pitching process to my teachers.

It kinda sucks when they say go for it, but it's a good kind of Suck. More like a Challenge.

I have a student assignment, for creating a campaign piece for Doctors Without Borders, a very worthy organization if ever there was one. I saw a rather offbeat way to cut through the traditional images of starving babies and haggard doctors, and all that greyness. I ranted for a bit, talked to a friend who's in the business, he loved it, then I ranted on the keyboard, emailed it to my class to get some feedback.

My teacher loved it. He added the caveat that it has to be relevant, and respectful, not just some Art Director's Wet Dream.

I'm a copywriter. So of course it'll be relevant. It might not be pretty, but it'll work. As the week has progressed, my grandiosity has turned a simple print campaign into a full-blown marketing blitz, complete with a proposal for internet, and guerilla pieces and promotional tie-ins with potential partnerships form the commercial world. Like the old Adobe slogan, "If you can dream it, you can do it"

When I get more along with the Idea, I'll post an addendum to this, and a link so you my Beloved Reader can check it out and let me know what you think.

deal?