| 
A Brief
History of Letting My Talents Be Born
by Marvin Payne
A couple of
years ago, I wrote here that a personal history might be easier
to write if it has a very particular focus. The example I gave
was that I had written one called, "My Life According To
The Acquisition And Disposition Of Various Fretted Instruments." (Sometime
when I’m really up against an impossible deadline, I'll share
it with you.) I've owned about forty guitars, banjos, ukes, and
bass guitars, and the circumstances around the owning and playing
of each of them recalls lots of interesting (I think) stuff about
my life. To reaffirm that *HELPFUL CONCEPT, and to reintroduce
myself (the last time was that same couple of years ago) I thought
I'd share with you a piece I wrote for my web site, marvinpayne.com
(found on the internet at http://www.marvinpayne.com )
a while back (in a sector called "Who Is This Guy?").
I called the following A Short Artistic History Of My Life.
"My family
was not musical. When she was a small child, whenever my mother
would burst into song, as children are wont to do, people would
gently ask, 'Maxine, can you whistle?' As she couldn't, that
was kind of that. My father, who could actually whistle, couldn't
actually whistle anything composed by someone else. His own compositions,
though numerous, never reached beyond four notes. One of my brothers
had learned to play 'The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze'
on the piano, but didn't often. My family was not musical.
"But I
was. On my first Christmas morning, in 1948, I was discovered
to have sprouted my two front teeth, which was, presumably, all
I'd wanted for Christmas. This event connected me with the world
of music generally, but was, unfortunately, the closest I've
ever come to being involved with a hit song.
"It was
Christmas morning again, perhaps seven years later, when my family's
non-musicality was formally defined. I'd been mailed an LP of
satirical songs from my older brother (the pianist), who was
a missionary in a distant land (Texas). In the liner notes was
a joking reference to something that I guessed should be pronounced
'Batch Foogyoos.' Puzzled, I showed the reference to everyone
in the house, and nobody had any enlightenment to offer as to
what a 'Bach Fugue' might be.
"Still,
there was a piano in our home (it had been a player piano, good
for developing the hamstring muscles). When I was nine years
old, I found in the piano bench a little booklet entitled 'How
To Play The Ukulele In Five Minutes.' I was nine. I had five
minutes. A half-hour of mild whining led to the purchase of a
plastic uke at the local music store. After that emotional investment,
and after the breathless mastery of a few chords, I wasn't even
particularly offended when the 'five minute' guarantee turned
out to have been pure hype, it having really taken nearly an
hour to get good at it. But then, I was nine, after all. It was
the beginning of fretted instruments for me.
"Next
milestone: I'm now a freshman in high school. I'd signed up for
Men's Glee Club to be with my friends. One day, inexplicably
(and I mean Way inexplicably), the teacher held a casual poll
on the question 'Who is the best baritone in the section?' I
was elected. This poll was not repeated in any other section,
and the point of it was never discussed, nor the result ever
remembered. Except by me. Over the next couple of years I memorized
all the bass arias in the Messiah. I still know them. It was
the beginning of imagining I could sing.
"I had
in the meantime become passionate about folk music. It was either
that or 'I met you at the dance and our love will last for weeks.'
I went to Peter, Paul, and Mary concerts and watched through
binoculars to learn the chords. But before anybody knew about
Peter, Paul, and Mary, I heard the Chad Mitchell Trio sing a
song called 'Blowin' In The Wind' (on TV) and they said a guy
named Bob Dylan had written it. I told all my little chums, 'Bob
Dylan will become Somebody.' At length, there were Bob Dylan
albums, and I got them. Down the back were these long strings
of words, little short lines, almost never rhyming. I thought,
'I can do that! I can not rhyme! I can refuse to capitalize!'
And so I wrote that way--for all my English assignments. My teachers
were appalled. I fancied myself a poet. It was the beginning
of something, even if it was the end of good grades.
"(Side
story, which is an update on my unmusical family: My dad, who
ignored my pleas for a surfboard or a shirt with a Pendleton
label, could see where my passion really was, and when I wanted
a banjo he took me right down to the wino-and-burlesque-and-pawn-shops
district in L.A. and we combed the place for a good deal. This
is my father who would come to my choral concerts at the high
school and blissfully sleep through them all, waking up for my
solos. One time he walked in from work carrying a Mexican 12-string
guitar he'd bought on the way home, just because he'd seen it
in a store window and thought it looked like something I could
use.)
"Biggest
milestone: There I was later, a young adult, playing my fingernails
to shreds and writing those Bob Dylan wannabe songs, appearing
less and less suited to the notion of higher education or conventional
employment. My dad said, 'Hey, if you're going to pour all this
energy into writing and sharing songs, why not write about what's
most important to you?' Lit match to gasoline. I became an absolute
fanatic, writing about my particular vision of our relationship
to our Maker and (Dare I say it?) the purpose of life. It was
sometimes brilliant, usually pretty insufferable, but it was
probably the single-minded focus I needed to get myself irretrievably
committed. I made about a dozen albums, mostly released as LPs,
and wore out two Ford vans, from brand-new to barely standing,
criss-crossing the country playing gigs. I was a songwriter,
pure and simple. And only. I wrote a book, but insisted that
on the dust jacket I be identified as a songwriter. I got involved
in writing a couple of plays, but only because I was a songwriter,
and songwriters sometimes do that. I recorded and performed,
but only because I had written the songs. Then I took on a songwriter
job that busted me out of that tunnel-vision. I was, in fact,
tricked into becoming an actor.
"In about
1980, I was asked to help with the lyrics for the stage adaptation
of a popular novel, 'Charlie's Monument.' We wrote it in an obscene
hurry, and the first western states tour came limping home after
three months, having lost seventy thousand dollars and the good
nature of the cast. But the leading lady, the sound guy, and
the road manager felt that there was a good show at the core
of it all, and talked the investors into allowing another half-dozen
performances around Utah. They'd hastily re-written and re-cast
it, were scheduled to re-open in two weeks, and asked me to direct
it. I told them I'd never directed anything. They said that didn't
matter. I told them I'd never acted in anything except a couple
of musicals in high school (because the a cappella choir was
in charge of the musicals) and a couple of operas in college.
They said that didn't matter. I told them that I'd attended probably
six or eight plays in my life. They said that didn't matter.
They said I was a good talker and knew what the show was supposed
to accomplish. I said 'Okay, pay me a lot of money and I'll do
it.' They paid me a little tiny bit of money and I did it.
"I had
asked if they had a Charlie, the leading man (very demanding
role, a one-armed, hunch-backed, crookedy-legged penniless orphan
who somehow gets the town beauty to fall in love with him). They
said no, but some good actors were coming in to read for it.
Well, it turned out that all the guys they had in mind were of
the wrong gender or planetary origin, whereas I was about the
right height and knew the songs and was in charge of getting
the show up. So halfway through the first week of the two weeks
I walked up to the leading lady, Rosanna Ungerman, and said,
'Surprise, I'm your leading man.' I told them I'd do the first
couple of performances, until we could get an actual actor. I
stumbled out onto the big stage at Utah State University, and
after twenty minutes you couldn't have pried me out of that role
with a crow-bar. I was thirty-three years old, suddenly thinking
'Wow! This is what I want to be when I grow up!' (Thirty-three
is when hobbits come of age, you know.) Well, I've been standing
in audition lines ever since.
"When
I can't seem to get cast otherwise, I usually write something
myself and star in it. But I do lots of things now. I'm no longer
merely a songwriter. [Among other things, I’m an online columnist!]
I like it. The only time it's awkward is when I come to that
'occupation' blank on loan applications. The last idea I had
(while trying to design a business card) was 'artistic facilitator.'
We'll see. I just want to be useful, and answer well for the
gifts the Lord has lent me for awhile.
"Did I
call this a 'short' history? I'll stop now.”
*HELPFUL CONCEPT:
Any of you
might undertake to write—
1) A Short
Spiritual History Of My Life (meaning, of course, Your Life),
or
2) A Short
History Of My Life According To The Cars I’ve Owned (I think
this one would be fun--matter of fact, I think I'll do it), or
3) A Short
Financial History Of My Life (I think I won't do this one), or
4) A Short
Psychiatric History Of My Life (I'll do this one as soon as the
medication kicks in).
Any of them,
with respect to the command to write a personal history, would
count. (Although having written one, you’d probably find yourself
wanting to write another, simply because you might find that
A Short Dental History Of My Life, however colorful, might not
be the whole you.)
--------------------------------------
Visit
marvinpayne.com!
"...come
unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift..." (from
the last page of the Book of Mormon)
Click
here to sign up for Meridian's FREE email updates.
© 2003 Meridian
Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
|
