Gryphons
Author Notes

‘Gryphons’ started off as a Rocky Horror, fan fic, believe it or not, written by myself and my departed best friend, Shane. We had no concept of fan fiction, and in all honestly had no idea back in 1983 that there even was such a thing. I was a stay-at-home mom with a small child, and Shane worked nights at a place called Gandalf’s Pizza. (Half off Boromir’s Lasagna if you brought in the ad! I should know, I watched her design them.) We had a lot of time on our hands, and when Shane went to work, we would write each other stories, and read them to each other when she got home. Eventually, the fics evolved into a highly complicated 1800 page tome, and we found we no longer had a fan fic. We had a world, with customs, philosophies, and idiosyncrasies.

In 1986, I found myself working at a radio station - 96.1 CKO. I was the night operator. And it was during the dark silent hours in the radio station that I wrote Gryphons. Now I have always had a love for not just rock music, but the myths that surround it. My friends and I used to swap tales about rock groups the way some civilizations swapped myths of their gods. Keith Moon in the swimming pool, Yoko Ono in a bag on stage, the eerie legend of how a blues singer sold his soul to the devil to be able to play the guitar – didn’t matter if it was true. It was fun, and we were in love with rock music and everything about it.

Gryphons is a blending of those rock myths with our Rocky Horror fics into a teen-scream romp – no brain cells required. The book was originally intended for publishing, and my girlfriend Nina and I spent hours posing guys to look like band members, taking fake publicity photos, putting together fake band bios and mailing them out with sample chapters to publishers. Sadly, no one bit. Nina and I broke up, the book went into a drawer, and never saw the light of day again. Until now.

The slang expressions the people use are all taken from a book of out-dated swear words I found in the library. Names for the musical instruments Shane and I cooked up on too little sleep. The unusual capitol CZ combination of letters (pronounced ‘s’) in one character’s last name denoted a distinguished lineage, but I can no longer recall what it meant, and the notes are long gone. The ‘ae’ combination that crops up in many places fascinated me at the time, and is pronounced as a long ‘a’.

The book is flawed in many ways. There are wild stylistic changes from where Shane and I traded off writing. Some parts only make sense if you know the background. It was never meant to be taken seriously, and a work of art it is not. But Shane and I had a really good time writing it, and I remember times laughing fit to wet myself at the in-jokes and non-sequitors. You’ll know Shane’s characters when you see them – they are dark and intense, and make my guys all seem like stand-ins for a Disney character.

Okay, I’ve finished apologizing for it. Now sit back and enjoy, and don’t take it seriously. It’s only Ra Khan Roll

Disclaimer:

All original fiction and the characters, places and situations with them are copyright Alyx Shaw, and may not be published, copied, distributed or archived without the author's prior written consent.

The characters, places and situations described in these stories are fictional unless otherwise stated in the story headings.

(C) 2008 Alyx Shaw