BrandlandUSA

I am not sure whether copper telephone wires will survive, I am sad about Kodachrome and I wonder about the revival of vinyl records. Will newsweeklies make it? Not sure why they should, but they can if they aren’t as boring as Newsweek. And the video store? Well that’s sort of hopeless, but not completely. [...]

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I’d like to send a warning to those cities that are looking at putting up a new venue for their local ball clubs: The era of “retro” parks could end soon. (Quite an upbeat theme for baseball’s Opening Day, eh?) This also dovetails into a recent post on the the status of a ballpark in [...]

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There is an old Sesame Street song called “L is Such Pretty Letter.” It is either sung by Grover or Oscar the Grouch. One of the lines is: L, Linoleum, Listen to Me. ‘Cause “L” is such a pretty letter..” The song came back to us when we were reading today about the Congoleum bankruptcy [...]

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We have added another brand to BrandlandUSA’s 100 Brands to Bring Back. It is the Milwaukee Road’s Hiawatha, and it is the suggestion of New Yorker Jon Vanhala, who understands how cool it was, and could be. Actually he doesn’t need to tell us that. We know it because just the name Hiawatha, from Longfellow, [...]

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Much of old radio has been forgotten, except for a thriving collector industry that has, with the promise of modest returns, preserved a whole segment of American culture for posterity. One of the better known sellers is the Old Time Radio Catalog. BrandlandUSA caught up with Jon Folk, owner of Old Time Radio Catalog, who [...]

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The ABC television drama Life on Mars with Jason O’Mara and Harvey Keitel is the perfect show for BrandlandUSA. Why did we like it? We could put it intellectually, that we liked the central theme about the overlap of past and present. And because it’s a good show. But let’s get real. We watched the [...]

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