McHuston Booksellers

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Tag: Books and Bistro (Page 76 of 92)

Google this. I mean – search using Google brand search engine.

October 2, 2013 /

Suppose you’re a famous artist and people want to buy your stuff, just because your name is on it. Then some knock-offs start signing their paintings with your name, just because they sell better that way. Who you gonna call? The signature police?

You gotta protect what’s yours, even if it’s just your name.

Just heard a television commercial for Band-Aids. Oops. Make that: BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages. Sometimes it is hard to remember that the little strip that we attach to our boo-boos isn’t called a Band-Aid. It is a bandage. Technically, it is an “adhesive bandage” if it is the peel-and-stick kind.

On the commercial, the kid is singing the old jingle and I can mentally sing along because it’s the same thing I’ve heard since I was a kid scuffing up my elbows in bicycle crashes. Here’s how it goes:

I am stuck on Band-Aids, cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me!

Except, that isn’t how this kid sang it. His version had one more word: Brand. “I am stuck on Band-Aid’s brand, cuz Band-Aid’s stuck on me!” Still works musically. Half-notes instead of the whole-note. In doing that, the company protects its registered® copyright.

Hopefully.

Here’s the thing. If a company’s name becomes identified as its product, the term becomes generic. Here’s an example.

Aspirin.

In a lot of countries, even to this day, that would be in big letters as the brand name for a product – acetylsalicylic acid. As in Aspirin brand Pain Reliever. In the US, it has become Bayer® brand aspirin. Because in the US, Aspirin® did not protect the name from becoming generic.

Here are a few others: linoleum (maybe the first one to become generic, in 1878 (note that none have a capital letter in front, which they all would have had as a brand name); thermos (1963), dry ice, escalator, videotape (already pretty much obsolete), cellophane, and – get this – heroin.

Heroin was trademarked by Bayer® Company back in 1898. They got distracted for some reason and failed to protect the brand name. Who’d ’a thought?

There are plenty of others. Kerosine. Lanoline. Except, these days, they are kerosene and lanoline. No CAPS. Generic terms, assimilated into the language collective. It is fu-tile to resist.

There are some companies that have battled the Big-G in keeping their name off the generic list. Some are continually misused.

“Will you hand me a kleenex?”

No. Sorry. It’s a Kleenex® brand facial tissue.

“Well, then. Will you xerox this for me?”

Nah. I can photocopy it on the Xerox® brand copy machine.

In our part of the world, we don’t often hear people ask us for a soda pop. Don’t even hear those terms separately. As in, Let’s get a soda. Or – wanna get a pop?

Mostly, we hear, “Ahhhhh, Ma. We weren’t doin’ nothin’… We was just out gettin’ a coke.

No. It’s a Coke® brand soft drink, bottled by Coca-Cola®. And it stays that way only as long as the company continues to run advertising that makes it clear that the name is a brand name associated with a product. Nothing generic.

And – just so you think of this when you see the Band-Aid® brand adhesive bandage commercial, print it out and stick in on the fridge with some scotch-tape (or Scotch brand cellophane adhesive tape), or – just use a post-it® note. Ooops. Post-it® brand self-sticking note.

Meanwhile, I’ll get a brillo pad® and some clorox® and clean up the Book Shop®.

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow OK!

Backhoes and Buggies.

October 2, 2013 /

We’ve come a long way in a hundred years. Back then, the District had dirt in the streets. But now – HEY! – there is STILL dirt in the streets!

The price of progress…

Lots of construction activity at the Rose today. Pouring a new sidewalk on the side of my neighbor, the Main Street Tavern. They’ve been hit doubly-hard, since the work was just wrapping up in the front. The gang is still welcoming folks inside, those who have successfully run the hardhat gauntlet.

Back in the days of the dirt street on Main, it was bank tellers doing the welcoming in that building instead of a hostess and servers. It was called First State Bank and was chartered in 1902. Recall, this was pre-statehood and Broken Arrow was in its infancy. (You can only imagine the wooden diapers.)

At that same time, the Katy railroad planned to run a spur from its north-south line and was granting town-sites where the tracks would run. The Arkansas Valley Town Site Company grabbed up three locations and company secretary William S. Fears picked the name Broken Arrow for an area he selected 18 miles southeast of Tulsa.

Oh, the festivities when that first brick was laid for the building that would become the Main Street Tavern only a short century later! “Up your nose with a rubber hose!” exclaimed Mr. Fears, as he raised his glass of stout and straightened his party hat. (Just kidding about that part. History should be fun, too.)

The rail line was finished in 1903, running right through Broken Arrow. Maybe you’ve stopped for it once or twice. The tracks are still there under the auspices of the Union Pacific railroad.

The bank was located north of the tracks and later changed its name to Citizens National Bank. At statehood, there were about fourteen-hundred hardy souls who called Broken Arrow home. Most worked their farms and came to Main Street to visit the mercantile and the bank. As it turned out, the little community didn’t need three banks at the time.

Citizens was sold to First National Bank and AVB (then called Arkansas Valley State Bank), with the two institutions guaranteeing the deposits of those folks who had entrusted their savings to the struggling bank. It was a time of public spirit, compromise, neighborly involvement, caring, and Rooster Day parades. (We still have the parade, at any rate.) No one lost a nickel.

Not even when First National was held up in 1934. Mr F.S. Hurd was standing at the teller counter when a couple of shifty-looking fellows burst in bearing pistols. One of them called out, “Take it easy boys! Here is where we get you!”

Mr. Hurd – a bank officer – reached down for his own firearm and addressed the overall-wearing-robbers (part of the Oshkosh b’ Gosh gang, I believe). “I don’t believe you will!” replied Mr. Hurd, just before blasting one of the bearded bad-guys.

The gunman fell to the ground. His companion – as well as Mr. Hurd – decided that was a pretty good place to be. They dropped to the floor, too. So, for a time the bank was quiet (except for the excited breathing of the wounded man), while each plotted a plan of action from the vantage point of the floor-tiles. Finally, the second robber helped the first man to his feet. They looked around the bank, shuffled out the door to a waiting car, and drove away.

“Up your nose with a rubber hose,” called Mr. Hurd after them. (Kidding again.)

You can see in the image that somebody made off with the pointy thing on top of the building, but the rest of the structure is rock-solid and revitalized, thanks to a civic-minded citizen and an investment in preservation.

The heavy equipment will be gone soon, just like the horse and buggies in the old-time image. Then, we’ll raise our glass of stout and call out the familiar toast…

(You didn’t think I would go there again, did you?)

Come visit!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main, Broken Arrow, OK!

Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel!

September 30, 2013 /

Suddenly, Pat hurls himself at the maniac Weazel!

Can’t ask for much more excitement than that, don’t ya know… In fact, before even hitting Page 1, there’s a scary pop-up in which Connie must peel potatoes or lose his ears. Sounds like my childhood! Zowie! (Kidding there, Ma…)

Almost eighty-years ago, a young fellow named Milton moved to New York City. The kid could draw. Got himself a job with the Associated Press in the features department – that’s the bunch in charge of comic strips. The head of a competing art syndicate liked Milton’s work, and hired him to draw a comic strip he had envisioned.

It hit the papers in 1934. Terry and the Pirates.

Loads of action and adventure. Great artwork. Terry was a cabin-boy type on the ship of the worldly Pat Ryan, who had some outlandish confrontations with Dragon Lady, the Pirate Queen of the Orient.

Milton Caniff drew the comic strip for a dozen years, but – back in those days – the publication rights and ownership of the character belonged to the syndication group. Caniff was paid a salary for his efforts.

As anyone who has ever hoisted a Dilbert coffee mug will realize, there’s Gold in them-thar Marketing Rights.

Caniff quit adventure on the high seas and traded it for adventure in the clouds – leaving Terry and the Pirates and creating his own strip called Steve Canyon. The high-flying Air Force hero appeared in newspapers nationwide, enjoyed by millions of readers. He continued the comic until his death in 1988.

A year after Terry and the Pirates made its debut, Caniff wrote and illustrated a hardback book version, complete with three “Pop-Up” pictures. It’s not politically correct these days, but its Oriental dialogue-affectations might be compared to the dialects in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer adventures.

Needless to say, the book is scarce in any condition. With all three pop-ups completely intact, it’s a rare find and nice addition to the shop’s offerings.

I’ve long been a fan of the newspaper comic strips. As a kid, I aspired to draw that sort of thing for my living. (Bligh’ me, yer a smart one Weazel! …another pipe dream, busted.) I remember admiring artwork like The Spirit, another action hero drawn by Will Eisner – a contemporary of Milton Caniff.

I still read the “funnies” in the Tulsa World, but the artwork just isn’t the same. You can click on the image to compare the portraits of Steve Canyon and “Dilbert” – the creation of cartoonist Scott Adams. (The humor in the Dilbert strip is as sharp as anything out there, and particularly sharp on the modern office culture.)

But it ain’t Terry and the Pirates:

THEN, out of the South came the great terror of the China Sea – TYPHOON!

Here that wind, Limey?” exclaimed Weazel. “We strike now!

And how they struck! They cut the ropes on all but two of the lifeboats, scuttled the ship, took command of the entire crew at the point of guns! Dmitri carried out his foul part of the scheme, too. Drawing a gun, he shoved Mr. Drake, Normandie, and Terry, who had come to warn them, into a closet and tied them up.

Suddenly Connie remembered something. He ran to the place he had hidden the life preservers. “Yipple Dipple!” he exclaimed. “Come now lickity-skip!”

It doesn’t get much more exciting than that, huh?

Come visit, lickity-skip!

McHuston

Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main Street, Broken Arrow OK!

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