Pic: Even our boutique ice cream is armed with sugar glass for protection as we prepare for court with Lady Gaga.
You would honestly think Lady Gaga has better things to be doing eh? But no, she is still rattling on about ‘Baby Gaga’.
I don’t know about you, but for a little baby, it made one hell of a lot of noise. Isn’t it time for an industrial dose of Calpol for the storm in a D-cup that simple won’t melt away?
Apparently no.
Lady Gaga doesn’t want to quit gurgling, or throwing her toys out the pram.
She is the dominatrix of pop, determined to drop a flask of freezing liquid nitrogen onto my genitalia, cook them to –196 degrees and then smash them with her poker face. (Fortunately for me after being warned in the confessional box about women like her by Father Patrick, I wear my Catholic guilt standard issue barbed wire underpants as ecumenical protection.)
So where are we today?
Well, firstly we have been extraordinarily charitable. We agreed to change the name, not because we wanted to, but because if she had obtained an injunction she would have bankrupted us within two weeks of opening. We did this early on and thought, not unreasonably, that this would be the end of the matter.
When we didn’t hear back, we offered to withdraw our trademark application (going over and above what was asked) and suggested a couple of alternative names so we wouldn’t fall foul of her sensibilities in future. You know, Baby O’Gaga (St Patricks Day version – rhymes with Radio Gaga?), Gelato Germanotta (The authentic version) etc.
Instead of Radio Gaga however, there was Radio Silence from her lovely lawyers, Simon Tracey et al at Mishcon de Reya.
Now, in a frankly bizarre letter, they are demanding the following:
- The Icecreamists issue a JOINT press release WITH Lady Gaga citing agreement.
- We pay Lady Gaga £4,000 towards her costs despite AGREEING to her demands. (Lady Gaga earned over $62 million last year).
- Threaten to sue us for ‘damaging her reputation’.
- Claim rights on a dress that was influenced by the Jean Paul Gaultier designed conical brassiere for Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition Tour.
- Demanding a share of the ‘profits’ from an ice cream that was on sale for just 3 hours.
- And, for those that might have doubted Lady Gaga’s involvement, it is stated that Ate My Heart Inc (the company bringing the action) is 100% owned and controlled by Lady Gaga.
- Remove all third party media references from our web sites, Facebook pages and this blog.
- Demand I sign undertakings as a private individual.
We have responded:
- We will see you in court and the first defence witness we will be calling is Lady Gaga.
- Lady Gaga is implacably hostile and clearly intent on strangling at birth a business start up and demanding money with menaces. We will not be bullied or intimidated by a global superstar who uses her massive legal and financial firepower to threaten individuals or a fledgling business with bankruptcy and censorship.
- A struggling ice cream parlour cannot afford to feed the ego of this pop megalomaniac to the tune of this sum of money in either hard cash or soft scoops.
- With regards to the joint statement Lady Gaga can make any statement she wants. We won’t be dancing to her tune (it’s probably someone else’s anyway). The reason why Lady Gaga wants this statement is so she can establish case law in a legal land-grab over the word ‘Gaga’ and ownership over the first utterances of our children. This theft of common words that belong to us and our children is unacceptable.
- I will NOT agree to any undertakings as a private individual nor will I be bullied into making a ‘joint statement’ with Lady Gaga. Satire has a long and honourable tradition in the UK from Spike Millligan to Monty Python and if I want to change my name by deed poll to ‘Lady Boy Gaga’ (think chicks with licks) then that’s my fucking perogative Gaga.
So there it is in all its tiresome, tedious legalese. By the time we settle this, Baby Gaga will have grown up, married, divorced, had kids and Lady Gaga will have melted back into the pop-culture mixing bowl where she came from.
Equally you can’t have someone so deluded and warped by her own fame that in her first act as the ‘Great Dictator of Intellectual Property Law’, she will own the first utterances of our first born and claim them as her own let alone have a bus load of legal gestapo running around the planet waging war on companies and individuals threatening to seize their ‘bank accounts and personal assets’ if they don’t agree.
It’s pathetic to pick on a tiny ice cream parlour who agreed to what you wanted on the first place. I can only guess these new actions demonstrate the hypocrisy of a woman who claims to celebrate artistic freedom and liberty on the internet whilst privately crushing these principles under her jackboot.
Call it what you will, (I know what I call it), there’s going to be a Cold War and we are going to fight it armed only with our trusty spoons and scoopfuls of ridicule, satire and subversion.
Oh, and some sprinkles too.
God Save The Cream!
Matt O’Connor
N.B. Oxford English dictionary definition of GAGA: Pronunciation: adjective informal; slightly mad, typically as a result of old age, infatuation, or excessive enthusiasm. Origin: early 20th century: from French, ’senile, a senile person’, reduplication based on gâteux, variant of gâteur, hospital slang in the sense ‘bed-wetter’.