From 1987 until 2008, Gryphon mailed out quarterly newsletters to Gryphon customers and friends. We called our house rag the Gryphon Gazette, and most of its contents were the kind of thinly disguised sales pitches and group class announcements you expect to find in a retailers’ direct mail advertising. I did most of the writing, and tried to keep the Gazette from being too predictable by adding bits of humor here and there. Some pieces, like the two reprinted below, were just an excuse to be silly.
“Lucian Blaga” was a made-up name a friend of ours came up with for the paper labels he added to string basses imported in small batches from Romania. These basses were excellent quality for the price, and since the 1988 Summer Olympics were on everyone’s mind, well, you’ll understand when you read it. And yes, in those days they were still making Levis jeans in San Francisco (sigh).
The second piece was just an invitation for people to drop by the store and share a little holiday cheer with us. Today we’d need a tanker truck full of egg nog if only a fraction of our customers showed up, but back then, a few half gallons of Bud’s Egg Nog was enough for a Gryphon party. We probably even had some left over.
Printed in Gryphon Gazette October, 1988:
Lucian Blaga Basses, They Stand and Deliver
If you play stand-up bass, you know good basses are hard to find. Most of them are plywood, and anything that big takes a lot of abuse when hauled around, resulting in crunched edges, broken neck joints, and worse. The sum of all this is that most used basses sound mediocre and look like…well, they look terrible. New basses, however, cost several months’ wages or are laminated monstrosities better suited as a wooden sleeping bag for your St. Bernard.
Enter Lucian Blaga, our swashbuckling Romanian hero who, with a slash of his chisel and a hard pull on his trusty drawknife, transforms mere spruce, maple, and ebony into fantastic instruments to rescue forlorn bass players needing a quality acoustic bass at an affordable price. Riding through the dark forests astride his trusty steed, Strad, Lucian searches for the tallest, straightest trees from which to make the basses that bear the ancient name “Blaga.”
The muscular Lucian dreams of the day when bass carving is added to the Olympic games and a gold medal gleams in the Blaga family trophy room, outshining the rusty swords and moth-eaten boar’s heads of his ancestors’ exploits.
Later, from deep in the crumbling family castle, his young bride cries: “Lucien, carve basses more, send basses to Freesco. Tell them send me many Levis pairs, 501 buttons, no zeepers.”
Really, folks, we have these great new basses from Romania. LUCIAN BLAGA BASSES have solid carved spruce tops, ebony fingerboard and tailpiece, engraved gears, solid maple backs and sides and a fine amber-shaded finish.
More extras than a Yugo, and sure to last 100 times longer! These European basses are bar better than anything we’ve seen from Asia. We’ve set them up with Dr. Thomastik “Superflexible” strings ($114 a set) and they sound great! These are real basses, for $1295. Check ‘em out here, or if you’re ever in Romania, bring lots of Levis!
Cold Bud Day at Gryphon
Yep, it’s time for a little holiday cheer here at Gryphon so we’re starting a new tradition. “Cold Bud Day” will be Saturday, December 17th. Just step up to the counter and say “Gimme a cold Bud” and we’ll do just that. We’ll hand you a cold cup of genuine, world-famous Bud’s egg nog!
We’ll keep a pitcher of ice water nearby, so if you want a “Bud Light” you can add a little to your Bud’s egg nog and viola! A Bud Light! Fewer calories, same robust flavor, only less of it. Of course you can always bring a hip flask to produce, you guessed it, Bud Lightning!
You all know Gryphon handles only the best, and that’s why we’re serving the richest, most fattening, artery-clogging goo to be found. We’ll probably also have some other health food for you too, like chocolate chip cookies. So walk right in, then waddle out feeling guilty, isn’t that what the holidays are for? Come in early to start the day off wrong, then come back later and finish it off! Unlike that stuffy sociable at Aunt Hilda’s you can’t get out of, you won’t have to worry about the rug here. It already needs cleaning.
OK OK, if you insist on being a spoil-sport, we’ll also have some Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider so you jogger types won’t have an excuse to boycott Cold Bud Day. Just don’t look for any bran muffins.
All kidding aside folks, we hope to see you on Saturday, Dec. 17. Many thanks and Happy Holidays to you all.