I'm a lasagna boy!

Cease and desist yr emotronica

The New York Times reports on indie-rock experimentation and trademark law.

Postal Service Tale: Indie Rock, Snail Mail and Trademark Law

November 6, 2004
By BEN SISARIO

About two and a half years ago, Jimmy Tamborello and Ben
Gibbard began to make music together despite the distance
between them. Mr. Tamborello, who makes electronica with a
group called Dntel, lived in Los Angeles, while Mr.
Gibbard, who sings in the emo band Death Cab for Cutie,
lived in Seattle. They sent each other music through the
mail, completing songs bit by bit, and after about five
months, they had finished an album.

In honor of their working method they called themselves the
Postal Service. Their album, "Give Up," was released by the
Seattle-based Sub Pop Records in early 2003 and became an
indie-rock hit, eventually selling almost 400,000 copies,
the label's second biggest seller ever, after Nirvana's
"Bleach."

Then they heard from the real Postal Service, in the form
of a cease-and-desist letter.

"It was really polite," said Tony Kiewel, an artist and
repertory representative at Sub Pop who works with the
band. "It said that the Postal Service is a registered
trademark of the United States Postal Service, and that
though they were very, very flattered that we were using
the name, they need to enforce their copyright."

The letter arrived in August 2003, and for months the label
and the band fretted over the consequences: Would the band
have to change its name? Would Sub Pop have to destroy its
stock of the album?

The outcome was as unusual as the band itself: this week
the United States Postal Service - the real one, as in
stamps and letters - signed an agreement with Sub Pop
granting a free license to use the name in exchange for
working to promote using the mail. Future copies of the
album and the group's follow-up work will have a notice
about the trademark, while the federal Postal Service will
sell the band's CD's on its Web site, potentially earning a
profit. The band may do some television commercials for the
post office.

The group also agreed to perform at the postmaster
general's annual National Executive Conference in
Washington on Nov. 17. The attendees might not realize what
a rare treat they are in for since the Postal Service does
not play many gigs. Mr. Tamborello and Mr. Gibbard are busy
with their regular bands: Dntel, with its atmospheric
electronic dance music, and Death Cab for Cutie, which has
become a college rock favorite for its heartfelt, jangly
punk rock known as emo.

Gary Thuro, a manager of communications for the United
States Postal Service who handles licensing and promotion,
said the publicity would be valuable.

"We're always looking for ways to extend our brand and
reach into areas we don't typically reach," he said, "like
teens and people in their 20's, who are typically doing
business online and are not familiar with the Postal
Service."

Not familiar with the Postal Service?

"I have three kids, and they do most of their
correspondence online," Mr. Thuro said.

He said the post office had been looking to promote its
brand through popular culture tie-ins and cited the
campaign for the 2003 film "Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat."
The post office is ending its sponsorship of Lance
Armstrong's cycling team at the end of this year.

The agency's only concern, Mr. Thuro said, was that a rock
band might prove an inappropriate mascot for a federal
agency. But when executives met with Mr. Tamborello and Mr.
Gibbard in Los Angeles earlier this year, they were set at
ease. Soft-spoken, well groomed and unusually polite, they
are two of the least offensive rock stars imaginable, and
their music - bubbly yet pensive electronic pop with
earnest vocals by Mr. Gibbard - is unlikely to dissuade
anyone from buying stamps.

Mr. Tamborello, 29, said the band was happy to comply with
the agreement.

"Doing promos for the post office seems a little bit
weird," he said. "But it's a funny story for them to have -
it's a good story of how you can still use normal snail
mail."

He noted that the regular mail is inexpensive and easy to
use, and that packages containing their working discs
arrived in a couple of days, a comfortable margin for their
unhurried schedule - although when finishing the album,
they did use Federal Express a couple of times.

"Just to get it back and forth as quick as possible," he
said. "It saved a day."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

So divorced from everything electronic.

Not just because I like the logo

I'm installing Knoppix Security Tools Distribution to old laptops that I have lying around. I've uncovered vast amounts of old NICs, power supplies, hard drives, dongles (!!), and random computer crap in my apartment. Every time I think I've cleaned up, there's more.

Els Quatre Gats

barça. It's also available via Atom/RSS. I'm in heaven. I gotta figger out how to feed this in to my screensaver, and then I can run three monitors' worth of barceloca while I daydream.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who snaps photos of stray cats in Barcelona.

Maybe partying will help.

Today I could not marry. Today I did not obtain reasonably-priced drugs to treat my health problems. Today I bought an assault rifle. Today I did not have an abortion. Today I have no health care. Today the library was closed (but the Wal-Mart was open). Today the French spat disrespectfully in my general direction. Today my children learned nothing in school, because the schools have no money. Today the government failed to audit big businesses.
Today the 1% of Americans who have a lot of money got to keep that money; the rest of us are paying more in taxes for fewer public services. Today the bus broke down, the highway was in disrepair. Today the pollution from the factory clouded the air.

Tomorrow you will have no health care. Tomorrow you will not be able to marry¹. Tomorrow your neighbour will have an assault rifle. Tomorrow you will have no friends overseas. Tomorrow you will have no friends in your neighbourhood, because you distrust everyone. Tomorrow the exhaust from cars moving slowly choked the air.

Notes.
1. Unless you are Christian^TM.

Electioneering.

Google has information on how to find your polling place, as well as blogs about election shenanigans. The photograph above doesn't show the line that stretched down the block, past the placard-waving idealists, in front of the honking cars, around the vandalised taqueria, and ended with an old woman sitting in a lawn chair. Once inside the polling place, people were pushed up into every corner, furiously filling out the four voting sheets. Some people didn't know to remove their voting receipt from the ballot before feeding it into the Eagle vote tabulator, and did not receive proof of voting as a result. The official Board of Elections sign above the tabulator had the cart before the horse: "Insert ballot into Eagle / Remove receipt" it read in three languages, but really one had to remove the receipt first, and then feed the Eagle.

I've voted early and often in the San Francisco General and Consolidated, but never have I seen this energetic and this involved a line. The day-labourer election officials were, of course, overwhelmed and even more flustered that usual. Voters were well-behaved, but it's early yet (writing this from a phone while waiting in line!).

Una más!

On the 10.37 Caltrain this morning, I sat next to a young father and son. The kid was about 2 years old, on his second train ride, and endlessly excited: "bicicletas! Una más!" he cheered as cyclists boarded. He said that he has taken the train to see baseball, and that was "awesome." He had quite a vocabulary! He pounded the palm of his hand against the window as we pulled out of the yard and saw trains undergoing repairs; his father explained that some of the trains need to be fixed so that we can continue enjoying them.

Suiting up for a ride in the park!

Anna and I went for a sun-shiney ride in Golden Gate Park: her first ride in several years; I was breaking in a new saddle on a new bicycle ('05 Bianchi Pista). All 'round, a spectacular morning. Traffic was extra light because of Daylight Savings Time.