This is maybe not the best time ever to be a copywriter. If you have a job, you will probably lose it within the next couple of years, 10 years max but very possibly before Labor Day. If you do not at present have a job, it's time to take a long hard look at a new career in a sector of the economy not being ravaged by digital technology:

• diagnostic-imaging technician
• casual-dining assistant manager
• burglar

Please understand that when the president talks about "retraining," he's not talking about steel-mill workers (those guys have long since donned green scrubs and started processing MRI scans for $12.25 an hour). He's talking about you. Act now or risk being a freelancer/barista for a long, long time.

Or you could pull a Lawson Clarke.

Title: malecopywriter.com Marketer: Lawson Clarke

The website isn't especially robust or razzle-dazzle, but it does embrace a number of genuinely inspired elements, including the URL itself.

After 15 years in the business working for such clients as Jack Daniel's, Carnival cruise lines and Ocean Spray, the 37-year-old Bostonian is simply not prepared to let his recent layoff define his persona. Much less his destiny.

Understanding full well that he is on a path to being found by worried neighbors bloated, decayed and being eaten by his cats, the former Arnold creative is trying to regain his rightful place in the advertising economy by advertising himself into a new gig. He is doing so via malecopywriter.com.

This is something you should check out.

The website isn't especially robust or razzle-dazzle, but it does embrace a number of genuinely inspired elements, including the URL itself -- which is paradoxically generic and revealing at the same time -- and a wildly stupid/funny welcome page. This consists of a paunchy and hairy Clarke himself, sprawled nude on a bearskin rug, ? la Playgirl centerfold circa 1970, pursing his lips like Zoolander and fig-leafed by circa-1970 portable TV.

It, of course, is playing "The Star-Spangled Banner," like a local TV station's end-of-broadcast-day sign-off, circa 1970. The logo, which is really, really big, consists of girly silhouettes surrounding the words "Male Copywriter" in a go-go font, circa 1970.

There are three possibilities: 1) The man is a dick. 2) He is a normal guy posing as a dick, for laughs and attention. 3) He is a dick, ridiculing his own circa-1970 sensibilities for laughs and attention.

Who cares? He's a fantastic character. And his message on the contact tab proves it:

Hello, I'm Lawson Clarke.
Am I serious? Yes, I am very serious.
I'm also a copywriter. I worked at Arnold for four years.
Before that I worked at Clarke Goward Advertising. My daddy owned it.
Before that I worked at BBDO/West in Los Angeles. Yes, it's true.
I went to school at Occidental College. I also went to Boston University. They gave me an M.F.A. in film. That is also true.
Hope you enjoy my work. I love you.
[email protected]

He loves us! The rest of the site is his portfolio, which is pretty good -- especially his print campaign for Progressive insurance's motorcycle coverage. One ad shows a guy in full protective gear, minus his motorcycle, sitting in a double-wide working on a kitty-cat jigsaw puzzle. The headline: "Life Without Your Bike is Just Life."

Substitute the word "copywriting" for "your bike," and you'll see why this guy (whom I do not know) needs a look.

You certainly don't want him imaging your kidneys.