I Am Desperately Trying to Give Away Millions of Dollars

. . . But Nobody Wants It!


Here are three business plans I years ago gave to my close friends, who are an MBA and two attorneys. They laughed at me, dismissing the plans as silly and unworkable. But as recent events will prove, Preston L. Allen is, as always, ahead of the curve.

1) A Clock that runs backwards (counter clockwise). You can hang it on the wall behind you in the bathroom so that while you are shaving you can keep track of time by staring straight at the mirror instead of turning around; the backward-running clock on the wall behind you will read forward when you look at it in the mirror.

2) A company that harvests human breast milk from lactating women and markets the milk and its related "human" dairy products.

Check eBay and you will find people looking to purchase breast milk as well as looking to sell it . . .

3) Celebrity funerals: People, I argued, will be willing to pay top dollar to be buried next to celebrities; therefore, we run a company that pays living celebrities a few million dollars up front to allow a select number of their fans to be buried near their final resting place; the company then charges the fans, wealthy fans, a tidy sum for the privilege of being interred near their favorite movie star, musician, athlete, politician, and so on; the burial spot will be predetermined so that if the fan dies before the celebrity, he/she dies knowing that eventually, and eternally, the celebrity will reside nearby.

In the case of celebrities that are already deceased, I argued, our company will make arrangements with their surviving kin, or caretakers of the property; for example, for fans of Elvis Presley, Graceland would be contacted to make arrangements to have select fans buried near the King (is Elvis actually buried at Graceland? I do not know, but it makes little difference. In fact, whether he is buried there or not, many of his fans would pay for the privilege of being buried there.)

Think about this third business plan as you read the following brief article about Marilyn Monroe--and remember, Preston L. Allen, your forward-thinking novelist, came up with it first.


Thanks,

Presty

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An American widow sold her husband's burial crypt directly on top of film legend Marilyn Monroe's final resting place for $4.6 million on Monday, through online auctioneer eBay Inc.

Elsie Poncher has said she was selling the crypt in a small, celebrity-heavy cemetery in Los Angeles to pay off her mortgage.

The auction opened earlier this month at $500,000 and attracted 21 bids before closing on Monday. eBay did not say who submitted the winning bid.

"We are currently working with the seller and the high bidder to finalize the sale and will be happy to report more of the details once the sale has been completed," it said in a statement.

Poncher's husband, Richard Poncher, bought the crypt from baseball star Joe DiMaggio, Monroe's ex-husband, as the famous couple was divorcing in 1954.

Monroe died at age 36 in 1962. Richard Poncher died in 1986 at age 81. Elsie Poncher said her husband's body was positioned to allow him to look "face down" on Monroe.

She plans to move his remains over one spot to a crypt that had been intended as her own final resting place. She now will be cremated when she dies.

The Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery, surrounded by office buildings in the suburb of Westwood, is home to such celebrities as Dean Martin, James Coburn, Roy Orbison, Truman Capote, Natalie Wood, Carl Wilson, Minnie Riperton and recent arrival Farrah Fawcett.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Dean Goodman)
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