Such is my story. When I struck out on my own, newly graduated from a fine East Coast university, I lacked a compass to guide me through the seas of financial empires. Lost in the squalls of post-teenage adulthood, I wandered the great seaports of Boston, New York and Fresno, seeking my fortune amidst the docks and wharves that form the backbone of ocean commerce. That’s when I first met him.

He looked like any other fish that had washed up on shore. Scaly and pasty white, I almost mistook him for Marilyn Manson. Almost, that is, until he spoke to me.

“You will be a concert promoter,” he said through his fish-lipped mouth as he flopped amidst the rocks. “Booking shows like The Waterboys and Great Big Sea is your destiny.”

Concerts? Me? A promoter? Ignoring the fact that fish can’t speak, let alone that their little briny brains could not possibly understand anything as complex as the concert industry, I took his advice and plunged into the maelstrom that is the promoter business.

I started out by presenting concerts by Fishbone and Hootie & The Blowfish, all the while my little finny friend whispered tips in my ear. He told me that the concert industry was like the ocean itself. “You’ve got to skin ’em fast,” he said when I asked him how I should bargain with agents over fees for Trout Fishing In America and Reel Big Fish. “Else they’ll begin to smell. You must cast for the best, keep the big ones and throw back the little ones. You must clam every mountain. And above all, never act koi.”

Yes, words of wisdom never rang truer. I’m a rich man now, and I’m calling the shots on tours by U2, Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync. I own most of the promotion companies in the country, and the ones I don’t, well, maybe tomorrow.

And to think I owe it all to the world according to carp.