Hal bids farewell to a faithful old friend!

7/18/2018

The big blue postal mail deposit box near my apartment will be removed tomorrow, Thursday, July 19, 2018. I have mailed thousands of packages to all of you since October 1991, and this receptacle has been the starting point of the journeys to all of you.
On Monday I saw an official U.S Postal Service info memorandum attached to rhe box. Here is what it says:

I do not understand how a reduction of service is an enhancement of service!
Any way, it is with great sadness that I bid a find farewell to this old friend!
The final two pieces of mail that I deposited in the box this morning went to Jay Peele (Shatter Wax) and Danny McGuire.

17 Comments

Little Fyodor

7/18/2018 10:52:05

"I do not understand how a reduction of service is an enhancement of service!"

Well......... >theoretically< they can apply the money saved to somewhere where it's more needed or better utilized, providing better service to the overall population being served if not necessarily to you personally. Whether that'll actually happen versus various other possibilities is anyone's guess unless one chooses to kill the brain cells required to follow the details of all that they're up to, such is our Kafkaesque existence....

Regardless, I feel your sadness!! That sucks to lose such a trusty old friend!! An era has passed.....

C. Goff III link

7/18/2018 11:41:41

A tear in my eye here. I am amazed you still had this cute little box in your hood. Such things disappeared long ago in all my Kansas and even my pre-1995 California neighborhoods. (There are mailboxes directly in front of post offices here in Kansas now, even though they leave the doors to the actual POs open all night for folks to drop letters through the slots within...).

As "enhancement of service," well, we all know who really creates fake news, don't we?

May you find joy in the new paths that you make for your future postal activities, Mr. H.

Little Fyodor

7/18/2018 13:40:39

Yeah these guys are definitely going the way of the dodo bird, and it's sad on various levels.

Carl Howard

7/18/2018 13:14:07

Yeah, that's what I look for in convenience - its direct opposite.
Because you know, that's what shows we really REALLY fucking care about you.

Lord Litter link

7/18/2018 14:38:16

yeah .. I LOVE this comment .. !

That's the way I see it! .. *they* found so many ways these days to say *all will be better we care so much for you* even so it's obvious that something is very wrong .. but *they* found many ways to make it sound so smooth..so wonderful ..so..

.. and the real horrible aspect is there are soooo many people out these these days who believe them...

Goodbeye good old (unknown) friend...

Lumen K

7/18/2018 13:39:53

Doubtless a reduction in service is euphemized as greater efficiency when budgets do not allow sustaining the current level of service.

Jeff Central

7/18/2018 16:31:07

That is a bummer. How far is the NEW mailbox from this one? Might need to get a little more exercise in Hal. I always go straight to the post office. I heard they pick up items at your house now too but I think you need to be home for that.

Chris Phinney

7/18/2018 20:18:16

Yeah right & we all know how the USPS is. Reduction of service will help my ass.

Frank

7/18/2018 22:10:26

I feel your pain Hal! Now, this might be a dumb idea... but can't you ask if you can have the mailbox(your own art(ifact) like 'Fountain'? Otherwise, they will probably throw it away. It is something that I would consider, but as I said maybe a dumb idea.

Hal McGee

7/19/2018 03:10:47

Hey everybody, it is not ACTUALLY all that big of a deal. I am just being nostalgic. I have calculated that I have probably mailed at least 10,000 packages, letters, and postcards from this blue mailbox. It just feels like the end of an era. There is a post office at the hospital where I work, so on the days that I work at my job I can deposit outgoing mail there. On the days that I am off from my job I can leave outgoing mail on top of my building's mailbox array shortly before the day's mail is delivered. The big blue mailbox was highly convenient because it was right alongside the lane that I walk to go to the bust stop to go to work, and Stanley and I walk by it often on our daily strolls. I can deposit mail there and know that it will be protected from the often-wet Florida weather. I think that what has happened is that the blue mailbox is very old and worn-out, rusted and in need of a paint job, and rather than spend money to replace it the U.S. Postal Service has chosen to remove it instead. The USPS's priorities are changing. They now seem to be focusing their efforts on Priority Mail box delivery for Amazon and other businesses. Rafael and I joked that the only people who use the postal mail these days are Mail Art people like us and our friends (many of you). Ken Montgomery told me that we can feel glad that they are only removing a big blue mail deposit box and not eliminating our ability to mail postcards, mail art and other small pieces of mail. I hope that that never happens! But I think that it will... some day. That is why I am making efforts to mail as much stuff as I can while I still can. In the last five days I have 47 copies of the new EC Compilation.

Little Fyodor

7/19/2018 07:59:28

Good points, Hal.

A good 99% of my mail comes from businesses anymore. Junk mail, sure, though hey, occasionally there's actually a credit card offer or coupon or some shit I'm actually interested in! Oh, and bills and shit. I sift through it all to see if anything's worthwhile or requires my attention before recycling or trashing it. But point is, it's all business. I get very, very little from friends or anyone just trying to communicate with me personally. Most of that kind of stuff, is done, y'know, here, electronically, nowadays. Whatever other evil reasons may be at play in the removal of those good ol' sweet great blue boxes, I think at least some of this is just a reflection of that. But it's still sad to see the blue boxes go, and especially one that helped mail so much great shit from Hal!!

Chris Phinney

7/20/2018 16:20:15

So yeah I get all the junk mail, the bills, but I usually mail my stuff to people by going in the damn post office,sending it so I can track it! Why because thats me I want to know my art arrived. Lots of times before the individual I sent it does. Because I dont trust the USPS, in particular Memphis, had a contract lost I mailed overseas for use of some art recently. I do drop my bills in the blue box though :) A while back a good friend mailed me his magazine took me a month to get it. This is in the USA I might add, today my bitch is on the 14th of this month I had two items mailed to me from a great friend to two different addresses, one I recieved on the 17th, today is the 20th & the other package still has not arrived. Many many years ago I had a guy who worked for me lived in a really bad part of town, the mailman in his hood threw the mail in the ditch & went in a boarded up house & smoked crack all day. Also way back when had a po box got a package of tapes, all crushed & in a plastic bag with a apology, yeah play this mfucker lol ,,also years ago the mailman at my house was seen wearing a watch that was bought for me which never arrived what time is it man? Time for me to stop thats what time it is. The USPS wonders why they are losing money. C'mon are they really, nice pension bucko!

Lord Litter link

7/21/2018 06:01:53

Many thanks for this *US mail* report. It's the same here - since *they* invented the service friendly *all is good* world, ALL real service went down the hill.

I remember my mailman to whom I gave all the wonderful stamps I received via the cassette packages. My mailman was a stamp collector. This way we really knew each other and he made sure I would receive all my mail ...

This kind of *human service* was strangled by algorithm ... all over the world.

Now we have alternating mailmen/women driven by their job with no time at all for a small talk ..... about..stamps for example...

Rafael González

7/23/2018 10:11:01

Blue box, we will miss you!

Jack Hertz link

7/23/2018 14:17:58

RIP Mail Box. You were always there for us. Someone should do a comp called "Funeral Music for Mail Boxes", or something along those lines. I'd contrib!

Hal McGee

7/26/2018 10:15:18

For what it is worth, the big blue mailbox is still there one week after the scheduled day for its removal. I tempted fate and this morning I deposited an outgoing piece of mail in the big blue mailbox! Long live the blue box!

Rafael González

7/26/2018 19:08:22

Long live!!!!

Electronic Cottage
Editor
Hal McGee

I have been making my own homemade experimental music since 1981.

I was an active participant in the 1980s Cassette Culture scene, and I operated the Cause And Effect Cassette Distribution Service and label, and recorded solo as Dog As Master, and in a duo as Viscera.

From 1989 to 1991 I published six issues of the original Electronic Cottage print magazine.

In the last 36 years I have recorded, produced and released more than 300 solo audio works, collaborations and compilations. In the last two years I have revived my personal zine, HalZine.

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