Merry Xmas from Your Friends at Stone & Clone Associates, Inc. ™

A Merry Xmas from your friends at Stone & Clone Associates, Inc.™

Rummaging around my storage boxes, to my delight I discovered a series of photos that I knew would make this holiday season complete. It also proves that madcap and insanity have long ruled my life.

In 1979, my sister and I came up with a terrific idea: to make strange greeting cards to capture sentiments best left unsaid. She was great with the one-line zingers and I kinda diddled with photography. Neither of us could draw. We formed a legal corporation named, "Stone & Clone Associates, Inc."

That was a derivation of a fictional company I created for my final exam at B-school in 1978. The purpose was to incorporate all the management theories we learned and show examples within the context of an organization. The actual name in the case study I wrote was, "Stone and Clone, Pioneers of Genetic Engineering." The most colorful feature was that it had three divisions: Fertility and Reproduction, Birth Control and Cloned Pets Made to Order™. Imagine my surprise when the professor phoned me a week later.

"That has to be the funniest paper I ever read in my life!" Most of my business school professors didn't know what to make of me as I usually prefaced all my case studies with quotes from the doyenne of capitalism, Ayn Rand.

"Does that mean I got an A?"

"Even better. Would you mind if I use it in my classes as a case study?"

Yes, since 1978, that paper was showcased in classes at the MBA Program in Management Studies at Pace University making me a legend of sorts. But, I digress...

My sister obtained a deer hoof as our only prop. And then we got a little bit creative. You know that ol' saying: It's so bad, it's good. Perhaps not. These are some of the highlights:

Property of Stone & Clone Associates, Inc.™

Property of Stone & Clone Associates, Inc. ™

Property of Stone & Clone Associates, Inc.™

Makes you wonder what was on our minds, right? Too bad I don't have the captions my sister wrote. They were hysterical! Needless to say, we had no idea what the hell we were doing. And a great idea devolved to "What were we thinking? We don't even know how to take pictures!"

As usual, we were ahead of our time. Years later, greeting card companies came out with outlandish cards. Even though we never made anything out of this, I was dogged for years by NYC and NYS tax departments.

These are some pics we took of ourselves: