We’re born
into a bright and shiny world
crawling through life
later learning
our whole world
is just trash and shit
We die
but baby
it was still
cool to
fly

With my folks in town for the week, I took advantage and spent an afternoon with my kid and my dad at Toes Beach, Westchester’s local surf spot which was my second summer home as a kid.

This was truly a memorable event; as simple and mundane as it may have seemed, it was the first time three generations—and three Gregs—of the Narvas clan gathered on the shore. My head tingled when I realized that.

The littlest Greg had a blast with his new Bruder© CAT Grader (which is totally awesome, btw)—the beach sand couldn’t have been a more perfect landscape for him to peruse. In the meantime, the same landscape also served as an immense canvas for my dad and I to build sand castles, using the super-cool Lakeshore Make-A-Castle Sand Molds. Enjoy…oh and also, see if you can spot the Pinoy squat. =)

(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.

Here’s a question—why don’t pictures have these cool rounded corners anymore?

Cutting the cake as per usual, surrounded by friends who can’t wait to have a piece. The girl in the upper left is Beth. She was a neighbor who was a year or two older than me. A big computer gamer back then, she introduced me to the ancient online community of BBSes (Bulletin Board Systems)—dedicated computer users connected by their phone/modem lines over a decade before the “internet” took the world by storm. Pretty crazy.

It almost requisite that any kid’s birthday party photo album will have shots of “kids eating birthday party food.” My parents nailed that for sure, in this set and in future parties I had. When I look at this shot, I actually do remember being intrigued in whatever it was my friend Dave was talking about (left of Kubo), but I wish I could remember exactly what it was.

I can vividly recall so many other memories of my ‘80s childhood, but my day-to-day pre-teen conversations remain as hazy and grey as the school day mornings back then. Maybe we were talking about video games or BMX bikes. This was before girls even mattered. Speaking of my star grandma, there she is on the far left, with my youngest brother about to get a heap of that cake.

Meanwhile, onto more vivid moments caught in time. I’ve always liked this picture for many reasons: 1) It captures a favorite pastime of mine—emulating Bruce Lee. I’d dare say there was no other heroic role model for ‘70s and ‘80s Asian kids to look up to. 2) It fully reveals the wacky side of my old buddy Kubo (to my left, in his own Kung Fu rendition), and 3) It also shows off the full-on fashion of the day, as worn by my other friend Cary (to my right)—Op (Ocean Pacific©) shorts, Hang Ten© tube socks and Vans© Slip-Ons—a favorite of many kids being the ones with checkered soles (as seen). I wonder why they didn’t bring those back with the onslaught of the Vans Renaissance. I remember us being so into it that we even checkered the soles of our regular Vans with black markers.

We also get a glimpse of my birthday presents, amongst them a gumball machine, which I remember receiving. I just wish I could remember what was in that box to the right of it…

What I do remember is the craziest gift that year being the Rubik’s Barrel/Octagon that my friend Cary got me. As if the Rubik’s Cube wasn’t enough of challenge, here was this nutso barrel puzzle that turned into all these ridiculously random shapes as you attempted to solve it. I never solved that thing. Nor did I ever solve the Rubik’s Cube. Nevertheless, the initial intrigue was unmistakable. Just look at that expression on my face.

Of course, these days if one was stumped on the cube, he or she need to look no further than Google, where you can find the solution in a mere matter of seconds. Also these days, some people can even solve it in a matter of seconds too.

The Rubik’s Barrel/Octagon is kind of a rarity these days, but it’s out there if you look for it.

Another prized possession was the Othello board game as seen above, which wasn’t nearly as impossible as the Rubik’s Barrel but super fun nonetheless, when I had the chance to play my friends.

In Kubo’s hands on the lower right was the Mighty Men & Monster Maker by Tomy©, another enjoyable plaything which allowed me to create random heroes and creatures by tiling together various heads, torsos and legs. The creations came to life when a paper was placed over the pieces and rubbed over with a hard stick of waxy charcoal. The raised relief of the plate details “drew” the creatures onto the paper, and afterwards I was free to color them in with the included pack of colored pencils which offered a basic spectrum of costume and flesh tones.

Both the packaging and the toy itself were highly original, and the plates provided quite an assortment of fantastical creatures with lots of detail. Although fun for awhile, it soon landed into my “toy box of no return,” in which my parents stashed all the toys I abandoned and/or neglected. I’m not sure why I lost interest in it…perhaps the plates made it too easy to create monsters that were out of this world. I had much darker creations in my own head.

Notice also, the shiny new Atari 2600 joystick on the table, right beneath the Othello box. I received my Atari that same year, but I think a couple months before my birthday. It was something I begged my dad for, and as frugal as he was, he made me hold out until the price had gone down to something he could afford. Initially it was $219, then later $179, and finally we bought it for $139 in 1981. Funny, only weeks after that it went down even further to $119.

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.

Look Ma, foreshortening!

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):

Where the heck did this come from?

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.

Thrusters, girders and beams, oh my.

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.

Yes.

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:

Whatever you do, don't take a plane.

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?

Sign of an innocent mind?

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?

Yay! We won the world cup!

Interesting to see someone waving a Spanish Neo-Nazi flag (similar to the one above) upon the victory of Spain at this years FIFA Copa Mundiál without incident. If anyone did that over here, there’d be a tremendous uproar, followed by endless reruns of the Time Life DVD commercial The Nazis: A Warning From History.

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 =)

Not to be outdone, Stiff Little Fingers also put on a stellar performance—yet another band I wish I knew back when they were really doing their thing. Here’s some snaps from my lil’ Point n’ Shoot, starting with Jake Burns (lead vox/guitar):

Ian McCallum on rhythm guitar…



And Ali McMordie on bass.

Couldn’t get a clear shot of the drummer, but I’ll look around to see if anyone else got one. Their energy was out of this world. I can imagine a kid saying “Jake Burns is me dad!” I’d be totally stoked. I hope my kid can say that about me someday.