Via Steph. Ports O’ Call, San Pedro CA, Spring 2007.

Just in from Dan! More video footage from a fairly blurry 1991; about an hour crunched into a minute. From the color of the paint, it looks to be the week when we moved Dauz from the Redondo Beach garage to our first legitimate shop on Main Street. I’d be 22 years old.

Dan was a pre-Web gadget fiend, and always had his Hi8 cameras perched around the place on tripods. You never really knew when they were turned on, so you’d always felt watched. This possibly has everything to do the with paranoia that plagues me today.

Edited by Dan Dauz.

RELATED: The move to the second Dauz shop on 130th.

Remember these? Allan found this site with a slew of ‘em. Horrible UI, but there are some gems to be found in there with a little work.

RELATED POST: Growing up in L.A. during the ’70s and ’80s

The Ballad of Davy Crockett, 1955

My baby sister got married this weekend. She wore my Mom’s wedding dress from 1967.

With Mom, moments before I escorted her to her seat:

With sis, moments after she became Mrs. Richter:

If it wasn’t already official with 2005’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it’s certainly official now. The Depp/Burton* combination has lost its edge. If there ever was one.

Saw Alice in Wonderland last night, and let me first say that I loved the opening fifteen minutes or so, starting with the concept of the recurring dream. Genius! I also dug the set-up: the nineteen-year-old Alice, the Cornwall setting, the arranged marriage predicament, the walk through the garden with the would-be mother in-law, the beckoning white rabbit. Alice’s anticipated tumble down the hole was awesome, and the opening part in Wonderland with the ‘Drink Me’ potion and ‘Eat Me’ cake was a blast. It was all a great nod to that classic story that we’ve always had somewhere in our consciousness.

Then Alice met the Mad Hatter, and the direction changed. If you can imagine the bastard son of Willy Wonka and Jack Sparrow dressed up as Bozo the Clown with a speech impediment, then you’ve got Depp’s version of the Mad Hatter.

Maybe it’s just because I hate hate HATED Depp’s version of Willy Wonka, but between the quirky laugh du jour, the excessive clown makeup, the regurgitated swaggering skedaddle thing, and the British accent tossed in for effect, I’m afraid Johnny Depp has become a parody of himself. Long known for being an actor who takes chances and pushes envelopes, it’s surprising and even embarrassing to see what he’s done in his last few stints with Burton. Seriously. When he made his entrance in Alice, within three seconds I was thinking, Really? Again? You didn’t! For a long moment there I thought I could feel entire theater getting embarrassed for him. I almost wanted to hide under my chair.

It’s time for Johnny Depp to step away from the Burton thing for a while. Maybe go do a psychological thriller or something. But only after taking a long, long, looooooooooong vacation.

As for the art direction of the 2010 Mad Hatter, why all the makeup? Why the orange eyebrows? Like Alice’s blue dress, the 2010 Hatter would’ve been better served as a nod to one of our favorite memories: the classic old white-haired Disneyish madman we already know and love. (Gary Oldman, maybe? Malcolm McDowell?) Depp just gets in the way.

As for Tim Burton, his “re-imaginings” are feeling less like re-imagined classics and more like rehashed versions of his own movies. All the adjectives that we’ve associated with his work — edgy, dark, unconventional, trippy, different — have gradually become antonyms to recent Burton/Depp projects. They’re canned, they’re templated, they’re indulgent, they’re self-serving, they’re like a wedding speech that’s gone in circles for way too long. It’s not different anymore. There is not a single thing different about a Tim Burton movie scene with Johnny Depp in white makeup in front of a backdrop of twisted branches silhouetted against the looming moon.

All that said, I’m calling it now: a Burton film about Charles Dickens starring Johnny Depp is the universe’s new inevitability.

6.5/10

*And don’t even get me started on Helena Bonham Carter.

Part 1 of 3:

The Twilight Zone: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Part 1 of 3, Air date February 28, 1964, Season 5, Episode 142. Based on the short story by Ambrose Bierce, La rivière du hibou won the award for best short subject at the 1962 Cannes film festival and the 1963 Academy Awards. Rod Serling found it excellent enough to be aired as a TZ episode.

– Part 2 of 3
– Part 3 of 3

These are just some of Hitch’s cameo appearances. Missing are:

Easy Virtue (1927)
Blackmail (1929)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Suspicion (1941)
Spellbound (1945)
The Paradine Case (1947)
Under Capricorn (1949)

*UPDATE* The family has heard from Megan, and she’s OK.

Megan Pentecost has been missing since Thursday, March 4 2010. She was last seen on 19th and Alma in San Pedro CA 90731 on Saturday, March 6.

Height: 5′0
Weight: 110
Hair: Sandy blond, long
Eyes: Bluish
Age: 15

Please call her mother Veronica at 310.938.4027, and leave any information below in the Comments.

This effort is also on Facebook here.

From ProofreadNOW:

On, upon, up on. Do you know someone who is bookish? You might be considered bookish if you misuse upon when you could simply use on instead. Apart from a few set phrases in which upon comes automatically to lips or pen — e.g., Depend upon it! and, for Britons perhaps, Upon my word! — this form of the preposition should be reserved for (1) idioms (put upon); (2) the avoidance of ambiguity, as when on would link a nearer word and upon correctly links the farther one (the effect of the short brisk word on [upon] style); and (3) very occasional effects of emphasis, rhythm, or archaic tone. In this rapid day and age, we bank on, count on, rely on, comment on, depend on, enlarge on, trespass on, verge on, seize on, land on, hit on, recline on, meditate on, sermonize on, and work on. This recommendation has, of course, no bearing on up as an adverb followed by the preposition on. We go up on the roof, get up on an airchair, climb up on a scaffolding, etc. This construction requires two separate words, and up is given an intonation very different from that of the first syllable of upon.

Verbal v. Oral. Verbal means relating to words without specifying whether the words are spoken or written. Consequently, the common phrase verbal agreement to mean one that is not written down is a misnomer. The proper term is oral agreement — oral meaning by [word of] mouth. To capture and preserve the distinction, think of oral exam and verbal aptitude test.

Anytime, sometime. As adverbs, these words are contractions of at any time and at some time. Whenever the full forms cannot be substituted for the contractions, they should not be contractions but two words: I can take you water skiing anytime today, but I can’t give you any time tomorrow; He said he’d come sometime soon, but the engine may take some time to fix, and we might have to leave it with him for some time. Both anytime and sometime are occasionally used as adjectives: Airchairing is an anytime sport; He’s a sometime friend, meaning an inconstant friend; He’s a sometime downhill champion, meaning a former or onetime, downhill champion.

Under Battery Osgood-Farley, Fort MacArthur, San Pedro CA USA, 03.07.2010. Photo by Milena.

Running it.

Rack’em.

Again.

Sitting at the DW kit in Greamer’s studio. Pedals by Axis.

From kabalarians.com, a brief analysis of the new nephew’s first name:

Your First Name of: Milo

– Your first name of Milo has given you a practical, logical, analytical approach to life and a great deal of patience.

– You enjoy working at anything of a mechanical or technical nature, and believe that what is worth doing is worth doing well.

– When you are interested in a project, you concentrate all your thoughts on it and do not appreciate being interrupted.

– This name creates a deliberate and methodical way of thinking and speaking; it takes you time to learn but, once you have mastered a subject, you do not forget it.

– Although the name Milo creates the urge to be reliable and responsible, we emphasize that it limits your versatility and scope, tuning you to technical details.

–This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the elimination system, and through worry and mental tension.

Still no name as of this morning, so I figured I’d throw this one out there.

Welcome to the world, little dude!

*UPDATE 03.05.2010: Milo Hudson Albao. Rhymes with Shiloh, not kilo. (But honestly, as of this moment, I don’t see how he’s not gonna forever be Dime.)

The first couple minutes are particularly bad-ass.

More on Perpetuum Jazzile here.

Just in from my old pal Dan! From 1991, a time-lapse video of us unloading the U-Haul at the loading dock behind our new shop in the hood at 338 W. 130th Street in Los Angeles CA. I was 22 years old. Dan’s the curly guy, I’m the other one. We were here when the 1992 Los Angeles riots broke out.

RELATED: My memories of Horace.

BTW, it’s Dan’s birthday today. Happy 48, dude!

*UPDATE!* Another just in:

*UPDATE 03.10.2010* Another, from around ‘90-’91, Tripper masked:

And another. Here I’m with Junior, Horace’s brother. We’re trying to capture the drum pad in mid-air so that we can use it as a UFO in a video. This is before software made such a thing so easy.

I’m about 21 or 22, and I look like my baby sister.

RELATED: Many years later, as graphic designer, I did a Dauz brochure. Photoshop and AfterEffects would’ve made the UFO thing a breeze.

And another in from Dan. Horace RIP:

Me painting a wall:

M’ites just nabbed this last week as a surprise. We’ve been on a recent Clue kick, and stumbled upon Hitchcock’s similar-looking Why title in one of the catalog inserts inside a vintage Password game (home version) I’ve got laying around. She looked Why up, and tracked down an original 1958 version. Delightful!

Why is a board game from the late ’50s created by the Milton Bradley Company based on the television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The game is no longer produced. There are two different releases of the game: the original 1958 release and the 1967 release, differing only in the box art.

Neither of us had played it before, but it’s great times. Whereas Clue primarily involves the process of elimination (requiring a pen and notepad) in order to determine a victim’s murderer, weapon, and room, Why is more of a combination of Gin Rummy and Concentration, requiring that you declare the identity of a haunted house’s ghost along with the weapon with which they were murdered. Only cards and game pieces are used in Why; pen and notepad not required. This makes for faster play, which is nice. You can do a quick two-outta-three session in about an hour.

Complete description here.

After Alice in Chains, Palladium, Hollywood CA, 02.13.2010.