John Finn, Requiescat in Pace

John Finn, a friend and mentor of mine for nearly 20 years – and a friend and/or mentor to literally thousands of people in the marketing and alternative health worlds — died peacefully early Saturday morning, the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, after a long, courageous bout with prostate cancer. His son, J.T., was with him when he quietly stopped breathing.

John Finn was a legendary writer agent and deal maker, dedicated husband and family man, faithful Catholic, fervent libertarian and foe of Big Government, committed alternative health publisher and promoter, and longtime student of direct response advertising. But mostly, he was just a great guy, someone who had a knack for making friends and inspiring everyone he met with his contagious enthusiasm and casual, but enormous energy.

I first me John in the early 1990s when my new wife and I were eking out a living as freelance magazine writers and publishers of art calendars. John called us up out of the blue, introduced himself and announced that he had some friends who needed some writing work done. He then proceeded to hire us for various small assignments – all paid for out of his own pocket. Slowly, over time, John started getting us bigger and bigger jobs with actual paying clients… until eventually, after two or three years, we were making a decent income thanks to him. John did that with dozens of writers all over the country, some of whom are now multi-millionaires. He knew everybody – from presidents like Ronald Reagan (he met with Reagan in the early 1960s when he, John, published hundreds of thousands of booklets promoting Reagan for president) to saints like Mother Teresa. Somehow his many passions and crusades dovetailed almost perfectly into his work and his global network of friends. As a result, I have never met anyone who so enjoyed his work (which he called “playing,” as in, “I have to go play at the office for a few hours”).

A meeting with John was invariably the same, an “ideaphoric” experience in which you were overwhelmed with so many ideas and possible projects and digressions and stories that it took weeks to digest it all. A typical meeting with John was in the lobby of a plush, luxury hotel where he was invariably meeting some big-wig or potential client or other.

We’d sit in the lobby or the lounge and John would pull out a big box or a brown paper bag and work through his “pile” of clippings, random notes, books and ideas that he had set aside for me. The ideas were invariably big, far bigger than I would have thought for myself, usually involving joint ventures with some of the biggest promoters or companies in the world. John never thought small. He figured that, if you were going to do something, you might as well do it with the top people in an industry, and get paid handsomely for your efforts. (One of my cherished possessions is a photo of John taken in the late 1990s. He is seated at the head of the table with a devilish grin on his face, surrounded by “his” writers — Clayton Makepeace and his wife Wendy, Parris Lampropoulis, Brad Petersen, Kent Komae and myself.

My last meeting with John was in July 2009. He was on his way to an alternative cancer treatment facility outside the country. As usual, John’s personal life and business were basically the same thing: When he was diagnosed with prostate cancer seven years ago, he returned to his publishing roots and began publishing a series of e-books on alternative cancer treatments not available in the United States. Also as usual, he had with him his big brown bag of articles and clippings for me… and he was full of big plans. He looked very thin and weak, but his eyes were bright and shining and he radiated his usual optimism and good cheer.

At this point, John had been diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer that had spread to his bones, but he was determined to beat it. While my wife talked to his daughter Sue and his son Dennis, I spent about an hour chatting with John in his car about old adventures of his and ours. He proudly showed me the Reagan booklet that presciently predicted, in 1960, that Reagan would be president. He told me about his days as a boxer at Notre Dame (John was as fearless as a boxer when it came to the causes he championed, particularly prolife). Although he had a whole bunch of new projects and ideas he wanted me to help him with, I had the overwhelming feeling that, on some level at least, he was saying goodbye.

Now, all I can say is: We will not see his like again. John was a one of a kind who left his mark on almost everyone he met. Like his hundreds, even thousands of friends and colleagues all over the world, I will miss him. Réquiem æternam dona ei, Dómine, et lux perpétua lúceat ei.