we who are about to die salute you...

Morituri te salutamus. You probably know this famous greeting ill-fated gladiators made to the Emperor, when he was gracious enough to bestow upon a fight, his presence. Not the most exciting thing to look forward to, I must say. But, hey, they had a job to do right?

In many ways, I feel like a gladiator.

Okay, make that one way. And believe me, it's not an easy way. You see, I'm a copywriter, and my job demands that I come up with creative ideas and strategies that sell whatever message, service or product my client wants to pass across to his Target Audience. It may seem fun at first, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, you get to understand that a lot of brain power goes into producing one single communication material (or ad). Well, then again, a lot of brain power is supposed to go into it.

Here lies my pain.

Today, a lot of the ads on the pages of the papers and on TV make me want to shoot myself. No, really! It seems everyone's doing a wam, bam, slap-it-on kinda job, thinking the rest of us humans out there suddenly developed the intelligence of mules. I mean, who on God's green earth approves the stuff called ads these days?! Who's the sucker that pays for them?

What does my ranting have to do with Russell Crowe and the other half clad men in leather? Nothing. Except for the fact that credible copywriters are fast becoming extinct, and are slowly being replaced by half-baked, 419ing, pretentious usurpers to the ad throne.

E dey pain me oh!

Where are the writers?! Stand up before someone runs us out of the scene, and we become, just like the gladiators, a people of past glory and fame.

We who are about to die salute you.

 

With tears that knew not whence they came,

And laughter that knew not why,

We fought to live, our rage to tame;

In truth we lived a lie;

Only to turn back and reclaim

With heaves and many a sigh;

In death we'll live past this wretched game

For while we live we die.

7/7/2005.