Lefty Limbo

Chips, Flips and Kung Fu grips…The Mighty 690 playing REO Speedwagon’s Take It On The Run and living in the sun in 1981…here and now folks, I present you my 11th birthday, packed with pics from the good ol’ golden days.

(Above) Before the festivities even started, I couldn’t wait to dig into the twin-bagged goodness of Laura Scudder’s chips before the guests showed up. And by golly, would you believe that I found what I believed then to be the record holder in the world’s biggest potato chip. When I found that big honking Sasquatch paw in the bag, I squealed in delight—“Dood! Lookit this chip! Dad! Get me the ruler and take a picture!” Yes, super dork indeed. I still vividly remember sticking out my tongue and my dad filling the entire room with blinding white light from those old Kodak flash cubes.

Dig the camo pants, courtesy of my grandma, who was constantly dishing out duds for me (she was an awesome seamstress). She even made my birthday shirt for my 13th birthday. And that striped JCPenney shirt was one of my favs too. Meanwhile, my brother (to the right) sports a Fred Perry, decades before their mainstream hit here in the U.S.

As soon as all my friends showed up, it was time to get the party started. And a real life of the party back then was Kubo (the blonde boy above), who made his debut star appearance in my 10th birthday from the year before. Here he is singing some crazy rendition of “Happy Birthday,” mouth cupped for effect and amplification. He was a total extrovert, and I wonder if he used that unique quality to get him somewhere when he got older. I hope so.

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Yet another treasure uncovered from the mysterious box. Fisher-Price toys defined a large part of my childhood in the ’70s—actually a lot more than I realized, after looking at this ad, dated 1973. Now that I remember, I had over half of the toys seen in this ad. Weird how things can bring back long lost memories, like fetching a lost boat out of a dense pea soup fog.

Fisher-Price’s Adventure Series, released in the mid-late ’70s, were definitely amongst my all-time favorite toys, even to this day. If I could, I’d hunt down all my old Adventure Series toys and give them to my son. Unfortunately, all my original playthings have long since disappeared, save for a handful of them. I wish my parents had preserved my ’70s toys in a big box as they did with my artwork. Man that’d be so awesome.

Yet another treasure dug up from the ’77 box is this old folder, whose front I adorned with yet another Star Wars battle scene. This one actually surprised me a little, since nobody, not even a TIE Fighter, is being blown to bits. Instead, it seems the X-Wing in the foreground has two darkside bogies on his tail. Hmm. That sounded interesting.

Something tells me this is from closer to ’79 or maybe even ’80 (*Update: It is from 1979 –GN). I don’t remember having the knack for foreshortening back in ’77, but who knows. What really strikes me about this layout is this thing (slightly enhanced for detail):

Kinda interesting that I really took the time to put in some detail in it, yet I have no idea where I conjured it from. I’m pretty sure I must’ve referenced it from an existing spacecraft, judging from the intricacy. I showed it to a buddy of mine and he remarked how it looked like a small thumb (on right) was holding the ship aloft.

Of course, he also remarked on the peculiar flagship which appeared in the middle of the melee…“Man…is that a Gregship?”…sure enough, it was, in all its thrusting glory. But, inquiring Jedi minds want to know—was it trying to join the fight, or trying to get the hell outta there? Either way, I could totally see and hear myself drawing that thing, making the BRRSSSSHHHHH booster sound with my mouth as I drew the thrust jetting out the rear.

Ah, and hanging in the distance like a morbid moon is the master of all death and destruction, in quiet observance of the showdown. Yes, the Death Star need not participate in such petty skirmishes; it saves its power for the obliteration of planets. “Carry on, little ones,” the metal mother murmurs. “Just be home in time for supper.”

Update: I’ve received 3,942 emails asking what was inside the folder. Well, if you must know, it was a compendium of typical schoolwork, meant to engineer and wield the young mind with essential tools to tackle future real world situations.

Most of the paperwork wasn’t anything interesting…well, not interesting enough to be included on the pages of Lefty Limbo. However, there was one page that made the grade:

At first glance, it may look like just another ditto from the ’70s. One of those school assignments that, if one was lucky, he/she got to get a whiff of its chemicals if it was run hot off the press.

But, a closer look reveals a young mind that had already been engineered, perhaps by society, or perhaps out of a simple awareness of life’s possibilities, good or bad. Taking a look at the bottom portion of the paper, the paper prompts the student to list the advantages and disadvantages of traveling by different modes of transportation. It begins with a train as an example, filling in the blanks for you:

• Advantages: You don’t have to do the driving.
• Disadvantages: You can’t make stops when you want to.

Next mode of transport? A car. Here were my written responses as seen above:

• Advantages: You can stop when you want to.
• Disadvantages: Gas shortage (a sure sign of the times, there was a big energy crisis in ’79).

Last but not least? A plane. The advantage? “You can sleep.” Simple enough. The disadvantages?

I was 8 years old at the time (for most of the year). Now, at a young age, it was common for me to ask for help from my parents when it came to homework and such. But I don’t think I got that answer from my folks. Nope, I think that was just me, on my first wee little steps to morbidity. Note that there is no “can.” Instead, there is a certain conviction that it will happen. “You get highjacked.” Well, that counts as a disadvantage, right?

Just so that we’re all on the same page, here are a couple of photographs of the “1977″ box which my parents gave to me a year or so ago. Yes, this is the same box from which my Star Wars drawings came from.

After over 30 years of storage, this box has summoned a myriad of memories which I’ll be happy to share with you all. Better add some oil to my scanning machine.

Sometime last year, my parents presented to me an old, weathered cardboard box which had been in storage for over 30 years. On it, they wrote in black marker: G.N. SCHOOL WORKS 1977+.

Sure enough, held inside was indeed a well-preserved time capsule of my wonder years; a collection of doodles, random graded school assignments and even some old magazine clippings and coloring books from about 1977-79. I’m slowly curating it for the choicest specimens and I’ll be sure to share them with you all.

By far, though, the most landmark discovery of this box of memoirs was the multitude of Star Wars drawings; a true testament of my total infatuation over the movie release in ’77. In an earlier post, I’d shared a Star Wars illo which I found in one of my old photo albums. Hoo boy, that was just the tip of the Hoth Iceberg, as you’ll soon find out.

Anyways, I’ve made it my duty to scan these Star Wars sightings and post them to the Flickr group, Growing Up Star Wars: 1977-1985 (a must-see and must-join for all ’70s and ’80s kids). But for the lucky thousands of Lefty Limbo fans, here you’ll get to see the pictures and read my lengthy commentaries. You may now commence to jump up and down in unbridled excitement.

You were all privy to Lord Vader, who graced the intro of this article. Now let’s take a look at R2D2, who resided on the back side of this delicate, aged canvas…

A closer look at the upper right corner reveals that R2D2 is not alone, but rather holding up an excursion to the Millenium Falcon parked in the background, perhaps to evade Vader on the other side of the paper. Or to hunt him. Either way, here you see Han Solo and co-pilot Chewbacca. Han Solo yells, “Come on, Artoo!” while Chewbacca beckons with his own wookie response—GRUNK.

“Grunk?” I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw that. What strikes me also is the ghostly entity to the right of Han Solo…I’m not sure who that’s supposed to be but I must’ve changed my mind and erased him/her.

Looking at this closeup, I also noticed how I was starting to get a slight grasp of perspective. I rendered some dimension in the frame of the “garage” in which the Millenium Falcon sits, yet I couldn’t quite get the same effect on the ramp, hmm?

The late ’70s were definitely formative years for my illustrative ventures. My mom was a librarian at UCLA at the time and often came home with reams of discarded computer paper which I could draw on. The large format presented a galaxy of possibilities, mainly for me to fulfill my fantasies of epic X-Wing vs. TIE fighter battles, as seen above.

As you’ll begin to notice, as I share more of these illos with you, I typically drew X-Wings blowing TIE fighters out of the sky. In Star Wars, TIE fighters had this exciting way of meeting their doom—in furious explosions which sent their panels splintering off into space, end over end like playing cards flung across a room. I truly relished in recapturing this aspect in my battle scenes. But in this one, I even included a somewhat tragic detail of the circular cockpit glass flying off. Poor TIE pilot. Dood, hold your breath, maybe you’ll make it. Yeah right.

A closer view to the area just left of the TIE fighters reveals yet another threat from another galaxy…Cylon Raiders from the original Battlestar Galactica series of 1978! That was another series I was obsessed with. I owned several Battlestar Galactica toys including the Cylon Raiders, and here I depict how the wings opened up to reveal their missile-launching capabilities.

I’m not sure what those dark masses are, gathered above the center portions of the Raiders. Kinda looks like a group of people, huh? Were these sporty convertible Raiders cruising with the top down?

Sigh. So the fun has just begun. Stay tuned for more scanned Star Wars goodness. Enjoy =)

In my childhood, one of the greatest escapes was the local video arcade. Throughout the ’80s, there were several on the Westside that I frequented:

• The Sega Center (later Time Out) in Fox Hills Mall
• Westworld in Villa Marina Shopping Center and Westwood Village
• Captain Video in Westwood
• and my local Westchester favorite, The El Dorado Bowl

There wasn’t a better way to escape boredom, homework, household chores, and sometimes life in general, than to break my dollars into quarters which I routinely fed into the awaiting machines, whose passage to paradise all started with the push of the Player 1 button.

Video arcades these days are practically extinct. None of the arcades I mentioned above still exist, except for The El Dorado Bowl, whose current selection of arcade games is a scant hollow shell in comparison to the wonderland it used to be.

Yet, in a brief Google for “’80s arcades”—an attempt to find even the smallest shred of visual evidence of these arcades—I stumbled upon three websites which, if whose forces were combined, may be able to construct a complete virtual arcade environment which I could escape to once again:

The Arcade Ambience Project: Seemingly the most popular destination for those who did the same ’80s arcade search, Mr. Hofle has dedicated himself to painstakingly recreating the aural ambiance of a typical video arcade by combining multiple sampled arcade sounds pertinent to different landmark years of the genre: 1981 (which rules), 1983, 1986, and even 1992 (Boo!! j/k). Available as downloadable MP3s and as high-quality audio CDs, these reminiscent blips and bleeps are a must-have for those who miss those days like I do. And they’re not short, either—the 1981 clip, for example, is an hour long.

CoinOpVideoGames.com has regaled us with a whole slew of authentic personally recorded arcade sounds direct from 1982 (what a year), when two best friends decided to use their Sony TCS-310 Stereo Cassette Recorder to record video game sounds. The up-close and personal feel of the recordings made me feel like I was right next to them watching them play. Being able to hear their young voices commenting on the action brought me right back to my Vans Slip-On-wearing days, back when they made checkers on the sole. Yes, on the sole. Try flashing back to that, kiddos.

Last but definitely not least, Cinemarcade’s Arcade ’84 project puts us smack dab in the middle of a virtual 3D mall arcade, with a 3-minute walk through the aisles, surrounded by the sights and sounds of games in action, complete with background music (which was common at arcades)—in this case, “Stone In Love” by Journey, which freakin’ rocks.

Each of these sites captures the old video arcade ambiance in different ways. If these three guys met and collaborated, I think they’d be able to create a complete virtual arcade environment to thrive in. Perhaps I should make some introductions…

I was totally stoked to find these KLOS stickers inside a book I bought from a garage sale in the mid ’90s. They totally brought back golden memories of my childhood in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when KLOS 95.5 FM was one of the definitive stations of Los Angeles (alongside KMET and the Mighty 690). One couldn’t drive around Los Angeles back then without seeing these adorning car bumpers and rear windows.

One could order stickers directly from the station by writing to them with a SASE. I remember sitting down and writing on notebook paper, “Dear KLOS: Please send me 3 large “TOO HIP” stickers and 6 small ones, and also 3 large “KLOS 95.5″ stickers and 6 small ones…” Within a day I’d receive a pack of shiny stickers which I would plaster on my Trapper Keeper, bedroom door, etc. I tripped out that their PO Box was “95.5!”

The best thing about finding these stickers are the band ones. Pat Benatar, Foreigner and Missing Persons are also early ’80s rock icons, and one could not get these from the station, but rather, you could only find them at the concerts. So if someone had these, that meant they either saw the band live, or were lucky enough to know somebody who hooked them up with the stickers (killer!).

October 1983.

My mom asked me what I wanted to do for my 13th birthday, and I couldn’t think of any place better to go than the urban wonderland that was Fox Hills Mall. It was perfect—we could have lunch at Round Table Pizza, then I could waste the entire afternoon on arcade games at the super-mega Sega Center on the second floor.

She agreed, and said I could invite some friends. Cool! So I carefully handpicked from my peers at Orville Wright Junior High…kids whom I thought were cool and would definitely dig video games like I did. The choices were easy:

• Dave: He was my best friend after all, so that was a no-brainer.
• Ernest: The quiet, smart nerdy kid who spent all his time studying…he needed a break!
• Doug: The ultimate Star Wars collector (he had every single action figure, vehicle and playset…in pristine condition—and still does)—he’s in!
• Brandon: The perfect G.I. Joe playmate who liked to build model airplanes (and set them on fire); I liked to spend the night at his house and stay up ‘til 3AM playing Defender on his Atari 5200…and we both thought Men At Work ruled!
• Aaron: In elementary school we both listened to The Mighty 690 religiously and always waited for Charlie Daniels to say “son of a bitch” in the Devil Went Down to Georgia song. I could’ve sworn it happened once.
• Lionel: The all-around mellow man who still sported his ‘70s coke-bottle glasses; his mom packed him killer Italian sausage sandwiches for lunch, which she wrapped ever so delicately in crisp wax paper…and he often shared them with me.
• Russell: The mild-mannered ace athlete whom I’d known since the 4th grade, whose fatal slicies in handball left us all in the dust.

Oh, and that’s my brother in the foreground, who was looking just as forward to the festivities as everyone else was…
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