Reflections on a Golden Era.

In the advertising industry we live, we're so often told, in dark times.

There are people, it seems, who have made careers telling people how lousy their careers have been. And other people who have spent their careers telling others how things used to be better, "back in the day."

Sure, there are changes that have wreaked havoc on our business. Mostly, the money men have taken over and taken the lion's share of perks and salaries and advancement and security for themselves.

That's the way of the world, isn't it? Isn't Donald Trump's lackey Steve Mnuchin figuring out more ways for the rich to pay fewer taxes and therefore get richer?

But there's something we little guys get out of the business that the ubermensches, for all their mammon, can't have.

Right now I'm out in Santa Monica shooting a package of new spots. 

We're lucky.

We get the feeling, the exhausting feeling, of making something--something we're proud of, something that goes beyond money. We get the camaraderie of being part of a team--a team all working together, doing something we love. We get to work with some of the top practitioners, some of the top craftspeople, some of the top creative people in the world.

We can be sad about what we don't have, or what we have no longer, or what we might never have again.

Or we can enjoy our few special moments in the sun and conclude with as rousing an affirmation as jaded ad people can muster: This doesn't suck.