At least, forget about using it in a slogan.
Even if it’s possible to get too drunk to remember the Alamo, the state agency that oversees the shrine says that’s nothing to brag about on a T-shirt or frilly undergarment.
A word play on the slogan “Remember the Alamo” has set off a fight between a local businessman and the Texas General Land Office, which assumed custodianship of the shrine nearly a year ago.
Through his company, Qwercky Ltd., Christopher Erck, owner of Swig Martini Bar and The Worm Tequila and Mescal Bar downtown, is seeking a trademark from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the phrase, “I Can’t Remember the Alamo.”
The Land Office, in its first formal action to protect a state trademark on the phrase “The Alamo,” has argued the proposal is disparaging.
In a notice of opposition filed Wednesday, the Land Office argued the slogan dilutes the state’s trademark and denigrates the Alamo and men on both sides who died in the 1836 battle.
The “applicant’s mark disparages the deceased combatants of the Battle of the Alamo by communicating that their sacrifice was not worthy of memory or esteem,” the Land Office said in its opposition notice.
I don’t have a strong opinion on this. If we’re going to trademark “The Alamo”, it’s appropriate to protect that trademark. Seems a bit strange to me to have a trademark on “The Alamo”, but maybe that’s just my not-native-Texan-ness not understanding these things.