Lefty Limbo

Thanks to The Wayback Machine, I’ve been able to find my long lost blogs from as early as 2002, when I first began, with Paramecium Parachute: Worldly and not-so-worldly observations from the constantly adrift.

Ah, what sweet days of promiscuity those were, before life really grabbed hold and made me realize that, as much as I loved to write, blogging wouldn’t pay the bills.

I posted several essays back then in fond recall of my ’70s/’80s childhood, complete with illustrations. Collectively I called them Recess Pieces: Tales From The Blacktop. One of my favorite “episodes” was The Arcade Cocoon, which came to mind after my last post regarding Mattel’s handheld electronic games of the late ’70s/early ’80s. Unfortunately the original illustrations have been lost to the wind of cyberspace, however I was able to retrieve the text as it was originally posted in January 9, 2003. Wow, almost 10 years ago.

So what the heck is an Arcade Cocoon, you may ask? It’s what I called the improvised “personal darkrooms” created by kids who wanted to play their handheld electronic games in the broad daylight of our elementary school playground, which hardly had any shade to begin with.

Because of the nature of the handheld game screen and its light source (LED lights), they were impossible to play in direct sunlight. Then one of my classmates came up with the clever idea of using their hoodie (or, preferably, a larger one belonging to an older/larger family member) to create a dark and private environment to enjoy their game to the fullest, and this technique spread like wildfire in my 5th-Grade class. It was the perfect solution for a bunch of us boys who had smuggled our electronic games from home, and wanted to play them without being seen nor disturbed.

So, without further ado, here is the article, resurrected from nearly a decade of dormant slumber. Enjoy.

Recess Pieces: Tales From The Blacktop

This Episode: 1981: How We Made Arcade Cocoons

	First, you needed a fifth grade boy. This was me in the fifth grade. A lil shrimp. You also needed a large jacket or an oversize cotton hoodie (pullover). Either or, but definitely something that stretched and was made of something that blocked the light out well enough. You’ll see why later on. For this example, I’ll use a cotton hoodie.
	Then, you needed to have a handheld game. Folks, this was 1981, ages before the Game Boy. One of my favorites was Mattel Electronics Basketball. Did it have 3D graphics in color? Hell no! I had red LED blips for my Larry Bird and Julius Irving. Nevertheless, it was addicting as all hell.

Then, most importantly, you had to have a vacant school bench out in the schoolyard, and a sunny day. It had to be sunny, otherwise you wouldn’t have had to make an arcade cocoon.

This was especially useful in Spring and the verge of Summer, when the sun was out almost all the time. Plus, we were going to an elementary school which was only two blocks away from the beach. So you know it was sunny almost all the time. Anyways, here’s the drill – first, you had to be on that vacant bench, then…

	First, you took the oversize pullover hoodie and pulled on the hood strings until the neck opening was closed shut. Otherwise, if you had a jacket or hoodie with a zipper, you zipped it up to the top. Then you sat on the bench and brought your knees up close, placing your handheld game in your lap. You turned the jacket backwards and started bringing it up and over your head.
	You’d fit your head through the jacket and continued pulling it down, being sure to keep your knees up. The world would slowly darken and the schoolyard sounds of fights and dodgeball games would slowly fade as it went over your ears.
	You would keep on pulling, stretching it over your knees. This is why it was important that you had something oversized and stretchy, ‘coz bringing it over the knees comfortably was the hardest part. By now, the sounds of frolicking kids and bouncing balls became muffled whisps of wind.
	You brought it down as far as possible, until you were completely enclosed in an Arcade Cocoon. Your whole world was dark now, and that little LED display lit your face in all its glory, the bleeps and blips filling your ears for the whole lunch or recess period until the bell rang.

There was a point where quite a few of us were doing this on a daily basis. There was a whole assortment of games we had, from Basketball to Football, to Space Invader-type games. This handy secluded privacy chamber never had an official name; the “Arcade Cocoon” is something I just thought of now, ’coz sometimes you’d have a bunch of kids cooped up in their jackets/pullovers playing their LED handhelds, and it would look like a bunch of weird cocoons in hibernation. Kinda like Gremlins or Aliens. It made it tough to find your friends sometimes. They all looked like lumps. It was pretty surreal. I wish I took a picture of one of those days. Heh, what did I know or even care about photography back then. It was all about playing those games.

These were the best things ever, but it was simply a matter of time before the teachers caught on. Heaven knows what they thought we were all doing, cooped up in fetal positions in oversize, backwards hoodies. When they found out we were smuggling handheld electronic games to school, they put up a strict ban on them, threatening immediate confiscation if we were to be found with one in our possession. I remember one of my classmates had a really, really nice one which he got taken away. I’m not sure if the teacher even gave it back.

Despite all the hype and scandal they caused, the electronic handheld game craze would soon meet its doom, with the arrival of the Atari 2600 and Intellivision, which would have us glued to our family’s TV screens rather than tiny LED ones.

Fellow ’70s/’80s retro-activist 2 Warps To Neptune has gotten me started on a conversation regarding the remarkable difference between box cover art on old video games and the actual game play and appearance. An excellent example, as discussed on his blog, would be that of Atari’s Asteroids game for the Atari 2600. Here’s the box art and a screenshot of the game below.

The funny thing is, though, as a 10–11 yr. old boy shopping the Toys ‘R’ Us shelves for Atari games back then (1980–’81), this magnificent box art was what caught my eye (and had me promising my dad I’d get straight A’s on my next report card if he bought it for me), even though I knew full well that the actual game would look nothing like it. How about Missile Command?

Check out that box art! Huge, menacing ICBMs incoming and outgoing, and a cataclysmic fiery explosion! Heck, the “missile commander” even has a hot assistant! But the screenshot? The fiery explosion is nothing more than a blocky golf ball, and the vapor trail a jaggy pixelated streak. But I still spent countless hours on this game, imagining I was the sole defender of six cities, whose millions of innocent lives depended on my instincts and split-second decisions under immense pressure. I still remember seeing the box at Toys ‘R’ Us, with a price tag of $39.99 with a vinyl ticket-holder beneath it, from which I had to fetch a ticket to bring with me to the counter to purchase the game (yes, security measures were intact).

How was this possible? In the days long before the hyper-realistic graphics now standard in home video games, us youngsters simply “filled in the blanks” with our home entertainment systems, connecting our own cosmic fantasies with the pixelated graphics presented on the screen. And it worked. I’m sure you’ll hear countless testimonies from other ’70s kids.

Incidentally, this threw me even further back, to my pre-Atari days of handheld LED electronic games, specifically Mattel Electronics Basketball, which I used to play religiously in ’78–’80, often until the unit’s plastic casing was blazing hot from being held in my palms for so long. Here’s an even more extreme example of box vs. in-game art.

Yes, those tiny red LED blips on the court were indeed basketball players, and I (the brightest of the LEDs) struggled against these defenders for 2-point and even 3-point shots from Downtown.

A more popular handheld game amongst my friends was Mattel Electronics Football, which some kids would smuggle to school to play secretly at recess instead of real sports like kickball or 4-square.

Oh, and when Coleco came out with a 2-player version? Dood, it was on. We re-enacted our own Super Bowls on a daily basis. How’s that for filling in the blanks, huh?

I remember in 5th Grade (1981), these handheld electronic games were so popular and prevalent on the schoolyard that the teachers banned them from school. Click here to read how popular these games were at my school back then.

Geez. Would you believe that while I Googled the above images, I discovered iPhone apps by touchgrove that replicate these games down to every last detail—even a price sticker on the box??!

Aw heck, there’s even the 2-player Football for the iPad???

I’m actually totally speechless to how they were able to replicate these in such amazing detail. But, as virtual as they are, for me there still is no substitute for the tactile feel of the real handheld game—from the audible, noisy frenzied clicks of the buttons to the distinct glow of the LED lights, which allowed me to play the game in the complete darkness of my room, long after my parents thought I was asleep. Nevertheless, the folks over at Touchgrove sure know how to market themselves to us ’70s kids. Wow.

Lately the internet’s been a gold mine for recovering long-lost treasured memories of my childhood. One particularly awesome find is this old postcard of Van Nuys Busch Gardens’ Skyrail back in its heyday (thanks to Vintage Disneyland Tickets).

The question of the universe: Why did they shut the Skyrail down?

I went to Busch Gardens a couple of times as a kid in the ’70s, but sadly the only real memories that I have of it are a lake, flamingos, a bird show, and my dad and uncles being happy that there was free beer (I’m certain the free beer is what convinced dads to spend “quality time” with their families there on the weekends).

The only way I remember the Skyrail, though, is seeing it abandoned and “frozen” in its tracks throughout the early ’80s, each time we passed the facility on the 405 Freeway.

Literally, there was one solitary train eerily hanging from its rails, devoid of passengers, on one random curved section of track high up against a building. Each time I saw it, I would trace the track it would have traveled on, noticing how it snaked around the brewery and even inside it!

Eventually, the abandoned attraction became a strange obsession of mine as I attempted to peer through its shroud of mystery. For one, how could I have not ever been on that ride, knowing that my parents always took full advantage of L.A.’s amusement parks in my childhood? Its design was so classic and awesome—Why did they close it down? And, why did they keep the tracks—and a whole train—up if for so many years, if they weren’t ever planning to open it back up again?

The Skyrail Station in its better days. I would've loved this when I was a kid.

Property of Peopletron

There had to be someone else I knew who had the same questions. I began to ask my friends about it in junior high and even through high school, and nearly everyone, except perhaps the biggest nerds, could give a rat’s ass about some “stupid abandoned train hanging over some stupid brewery in the stupid valley.”

Finally, I was able to get some kind of answer from my folks, who said they’d heard that somebody had fallen to their death from the monorail as it toured the inside of the brewery. I’m supposing it caused such a scandal that they just shut it down. I could just see it now, though—shocked and terrified onlookers with the signature gasps of sudden fright and the blood-curdling horrific female scream as they see someone plummet to the ground. That monorail was pretty high up, so I’m sure it wasn’t a pretty sight if that had actually occurred.

Interestingly, I found an old Busch Gardens thread from 2005 in which one comment gave a somewhat chilly insight to the “dark side” of the Skyrail:

Another memory I have is that every so often the brewrey tour monorails would somehow jump the track and de-rail. YIKES! Especially since they were the hanging type of monorail. I remember them being controlled by the tour guide/driver so maybe they were always going too fast around the curves when they should have been slower.

Meanwhile, on a happier note, I’ve found more pictures of Busch Gardens which have blown away more cobwebs in the attic of my mind:

This picture totally unearthed a long-lost memory of me seeing—and even posing for a picture with—that eagle mascot, who strolled the grounds alongside the other exotic birds around the lake. Funny how some memories virtually disappear until something conjures them back into existence. Strange indeed, how our brains function.

I chuckle every time I see that picture. Friendly Greeter. Is there an Unfriendly Greeter at the other entrance?

It just so happens that Patricksmercy (in whose collection the above photo resides) rode the Skyrail back in its heyday, and was more than happy to share his experience with us here on Lefty Limbo. As he recalls:

It was fun! My Catholic School St. Augustine took us on a field trip there, two classrooms of 2nd graders in school uniforms with two Nun escorts and a couple of mothers. The Sky Rail took us through the various plants showing the beer being processes step by step as we viewed from the sky rail.

Thanks, Patricksmercy, for sharing your delightful story of the Skyrail in happier days. Yet the darkside beckons ever so pervasively, so off I go once again to dig for evidence…

The latest addition from That ’70s Box, this one circa 1979. Definitely inspired by a National Geographic issue covering the Apollo 11 mission, and even more so, the infamous filmed footage of the Apollo 11 liftoff, as seen below on YouTube:

Rockets were simply awe-inspiring to me as a kid—from the real thing to the down-to-earth playground version—and to this day, it’s still amazing to me now how something so massive can generate enough thrust to push it all the way into space. Watch that footage yourself and you’ll see what I mean. See all that fire in the beginning of the clip? Can you imagine how much freakin’ propulsion power that is? Crazy.

In earlier renditions of this launch (circa 1976–77), I used to think that the rocket actually broke free from the tower, violently wresting itself from the various hoses and miscellaneous girder-wrapped connections that held onto it. You could see how I probably misinterpreted the images beginning at :34 onwards, especially around :48 when the ice chunks are seen falling—I thought those were pieces of metal and machinery.

Something I’ve rediscovered lately, thanks to Facebook (of all places), are Pee Chee folders, which were supremely iconic of my ’70s and ’80s childhood, not necessarily because of what they were, but because of what kids turned them into.

At first glance, they were innocent, simple folders, whose illustrations (by Francis Golden) hoped to motivate the average student with exciting images of athletes in game-winning action—from the female tennis player frozen in an ace serve, to a football player soaring in mid-air, crushing his adversary in a touchdown attempt, to a group of runners, with one man clearly in the lead, his face filled with confidence and determination.

Mead (the manufacturer of Pee Chee folders) probably had the same intent as any other school-supply manufacturer: Make the kids happy and proud to be in school.

Instead, however, in most cases the Pee Chee folder became an instant billboard to reflect the complete opposite—that school was, indeed, the furthest thought from a student’s mind.

I would dare say that anyone who grew up in Los Angeles in the ’70s and ’80s would regard the Pee Chee folder as a pure icon of their school daze, with fond recall of the hilarious, mischievous and often demented artistic expressions which young, bored and angst-ridden students subjected those poor athletes to.

I myself have started a Flickr group devoted to the preservation of this folk art, and have been scouring the web for surviving specimens. I’ll be highlighting my favorite finds here on Lefty Limbo, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, I encourage all of you ’70s and ’80s kids to dig into your closet/basement/attic/trash/someone else’s trash for these long lost treasures, and post them up before they’re gone forever. Rock on.

(Circa 1976–’78, 6–8 yrs. old) Above is probably the best example of how I exploited the dot-matrix printer sheets that my mom would bring home from the UCLA library where she worked in the ’70s. Once again, courtesy of That ’70s Box which has been a seemingly bottomless pit of drawings from my childhood.

The virtually endless canvas allowed me to create detailed battle scenes such as this one, filled with all the horror and glory of warfare, seen through the eyes of a lad whose dad exposed him to epic WWII films at an early, early age. I can still recall making the various weapon and vehicle noises while I drew, from the chatter of machine gun fire to the droning prop engines of the bombers flying overhead, peppered with the “BOOOZZHHHH!!” of tank turret rounds. It was great fun.

It’s too bad Flickr wouldn’t let me maintain a large size which would allow one to scroll through the scenery. So instead, I had to rescan highlights of the vista for your viewing pleasure. Do enjoy, nevertheless.

Yup, it’s typically no contest between a jeep and a tank. What strikes me most about this scene though is the meticulous detail I put into the soldier’s skeleton. It’s one thing to show the vehicle’s destruction, but the skeletal remains of its driver, stripped completely of its flesh? I was more macabre than I thought.

Wow, I even drew his teeth? I really did want to expose the grim reality of war after all. Funny, to this day I find the topic of our death and mortality the most fascinating of all.

One distinct detail I found myself drawn to in the WWII movies was the swastika, whose emblem became synonymous with “the bad guys”…and in this battle, they clearly weren’t winning…note below though, on the plane’s left wing, it looks as though I’d originally planned to make it an American aircraft (see the beginning of a USAF symbol).

Still wonder how I could spend so much time drawing that skeleton, then only put in half the effort on these “living” soldiers. Hmm. Shouldn’t have turned your back on that approaching bomber there, mister.

Man, this guy really bit it, bigtime. Getting hit by both a bomber and a tank at the same time? That had to hurt, even if for a fraction of a second. I laugh when I imagine that huge bomber going in at an extremely low level just to get that dood. “Take that!” The ghosted image of Darth Vader (drawn on the other side of the sheet) appears to look on with approval.

Last but not least, don’t forget to pull the pin before throwing the grenade.

One of the most impressionable photographs for me in the ’70s (aside from the infamous Farrah Fawcett poster) was this huge fold-out centerfold spread of the USS Enterprise in an old 1964 issue of National Geographic. My dad had a ton of those old yellow-jacketed magazines laying around, and it was only a matter of time before I discovered that particular one.

And boy, was it a discovery indeed. I would spend hours just daydreaming over that picture; imagining myself on the flight deck, walking amidst and touching those fighter jets, or wondering how jacked it would be to fall off that deck into the sea. Needless to say, it definitely had an influence on the subject of my drawings for quite some time—especially Einstein’s formula for kinetic energy, the very first, if not the only, mathematical equation my little mind took interest in.

The date courtesy of my dad, whom I’m 1000% sure was by my side (I was about to turn 6 yrs. old) dictating to me the month, day and year. He was totally insistent on me dating and signing every single piece of art I created. I remember rolling my eyes constantly and begrudgingly doing so when I was a kid, but now I’m happy to find treasures like this that mark a very specific instance in my wonder years.

One of the most unusual, yet extremely precious finds in the clutter of my childhood is this unopened Revell model kit of a Javelin SST.

Not that I even know what a Javelin is, but what makes it valuable is the memory of my dad collecting model kits by the dozens when I was a tiny li’l shrimp (3–5 yrs. old). I vividly remember sitting in the shopping cart while my dad wiped store shelves clean of model kits and HO scale trains that were on clearance, piling all these curious cardboard boxes on top of me while I looked on.

Back in the early to mid-’70s, the department stores we frequented most on the Westside were Fedco, Zodys, and Two Guys. I think Two Guys was my dad’s favorite though; he recalls a time when they were blowing out AHM and Tyco HO train cars at $.50 a pop. Speaking of which, this model here was only $.79 at Radio Shack of all places.

I wonder how long it took for the artist to paint these illustrations. I would imagine much longer than it takes someone to crank something out these days.

You may be wondering if I’m ever going to put this up on Ebay. Heck no. I have been tempted to open it and even build it, but then I knew for sure I’d regret it if I did. Meanwhile, someone did sell one online for 69 Euros ($93 USD).

Wow, I just noticed the ©1971 notation on the panel above. Did he get this one when I was only 1 year old? I wonder if being exposed to models at such an early age got me into all that stuff and made me the geek I am today. Thanks, Dad.

Of all the cool things I’ve caught on YouTube lately, this short but sweet home video of good ol’ Fedco really brought back some great memories. It was taken in 1984—a little later than my heyday (which was probably more like 1976–1981, when I practically lived in their toy section)—but it still gives a rare glimpse into the heart of one of the most beloved and frequented department stores of my childhood. Since replaced by a Target, Fedco has vanished into the mist, but thanks to this video, Fedco Lives!