From The Top

Way back in the days of NGDA, my coworker Pat Murphy and I were always trying to hatch get-rich-quick schemes. And why not? It was working well for Pets.com and that goddamm'd sock puppet.

At some point, for a reason I'm not entirely sure of, we had a meeting in his Brewery District bachelor pad with the "manager" of a popular Columbus band. I put manager in quotes because I can't get my mind around why a band from Columbus would need one.

On second thought, maybe I should have put the quotes around "popular"...

The specifics of our high-powered business development meeting are long lost, but I do remember him making a point on the importance of humility. He used Pat Benetar as an example and said that it was important to be good to people on the way up, because you never know when you'll need them on the way back down.

Flash forward some 13 years, I was browsing through Tokyo's Hakuhinkan Toy Park when I came across this:

Indeed, it's a long way from keeping celebrity backsides in business to exercising tubby Japanese school children.

If you'll excuse me, I'm overdue for my Taebo workout...