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Confession
of a Canine Scripture Scout
by Marvin
Payne
Did I ever write
a column here that dealt with my species-change operation? You’d
think I’d remember. It’s been fifteen years now since that event.
(I probably shouldn’t say “event”--it actually was more of a process,
involving a number of procedures over the length of many months,
beginning in the winter of 1986. It must have been complete by 16
December of 1987, because my journal informs me that I confessed
it that evening to a stunned group of close friends. It wasn’t particularly
painful--the procedure, not the announcement--except for a lingering
mild discomfort in my throat, which probably wasn’t really designed
for barking.) The change caused a little bit of a stir. Some found
it disturbing.
For example,
I remember being interviewed on local radio in my new persona (animala?).
Everything was going reasonably well when I suddenly found myself
gnawing the (very bone-like) microphone. The station program director,
a very conservative sort of guy, had a hard time with that.
I guess I shouldn’t
try to blame circumstances, or excuse my choice on the grounds that
I was far away from the stabilizing influence of home and family.
But still, that’s how it happened. Unfortunately, a certain kind
of guy, when he gets involved with the military, gets tattoos, starts
using tobacco and refined sugar, and reverts to using some of the
words he learned in junior high school (not everybody--some commence
immediately to be all that they can be, but only if they believe
in their hearts that they’re really an army of one, and, well, anyone
with the intellectual will and creativity to believe in that notion
can probably resist any temptation the Adversary may throw in their
path). I think I may have similarly succumbed, and I wasn’t even
enlisted.
I’d been hired
to play some concerts for soldiers training at Ft. Benning, which
is a sub-state of Georgia. (It was placed in Georgia because it
wouldn’t have fit in Connecticut--or in any number of other states,
but who can resist any excuse to write, speak, whisper, or merely
ponder the spelling of “Connecticut”?) I was there for a weekend,
but that’s all it took. On the third day, I found myself sitting
on the lawn in my host’s backyard with a legal pad on my lap, recklessly
mapping it all out.
Not only would
I dare to become canine, I would surround myself with people who
would accept me without question, with neither prejudice nor patronization,
and who would never raise the awkward question, “Is this natural?”
Because I retained enough sense to realize that such people couldn’t
be found in the real world (remember, this was way back in 1986,
and anyway, I’m not, for this particular column, considering either
the executive district of San Francisco or the judicial district
of Massachusetts part of the “real world”), I determined to invent
these people, right there in the shadow of the dark Georgia woods.
They would be children, no less: an unquestioning boy named Skyler,
his co-conspirator in this charade, Sue, and a near-toddler in their
thrall, Baby. And they would pretend it all could be real within
the innocent walls of their tree house. Yeah... that just might
work.
Musical Audio-Adventures
So began “Scripture
Scouts,” at the prompting of one Larry Barkdull, creative entrepreneur
who simply requested, “Something for kids about the scriptures,
and we gotta have Melanie Hoffman songs.” Melanie and her musical
wizard husband Roger (the title of whose song “Consider the Lilies”
would one day grace the sides of busses in Utah, being the title-song
of the Tabernacle Choir’s hit CD) joined with me in making a series
of musical audio-adventures for children (if that didn’t make sense,
imagine “radio plays”) about the Book of Mormon. Not long after
we began, I was teamed with Janice Kapp Perry (who was already plenty
famous without even the benefit of busses) and her able son Steven
Kapp (Perry, of course. The “Kapp” is so people won’t confuse him
with the lead singer in “Journey,” which I’m told is a group engaged
in making young-people’s music). We dove into the wonders of the
New Testament, and came up, spluttering with joy, with six more
episodes.
I was the sheriff
of the scripts for these adventures, directed the kid actors, and
played, yes, the dog, Boo.
(Larry brought
his three-year-old son Nathan with him to my studio one day. Larry
and I had to talk some business. He had told Nathan that they were
going to where Boo lives. My studio in those days was also a theatre,
and Nathan immediately began searching the place for Boo, coming
back periodically, discouraged. To keep him out of our hair--I had
some, then--I would go out, duck behind some curtains, and bark
something at him, whereupon he would look for a while longer and
his dad and I would confer. This happened two or three times. Finally
Larry had to give up the deceit. He called Nathan into the control
room and said, “Nathan, do you know who this is?” Then I talked
to him for a long time as Boo. His eyes were shining. When he got
home, he ran to his mother and shouted breathlessly, “Mom, mom!
I went with dad and we met a man who could talk just like Boo!”
Well, what can ya do?)
Sometime during
the New Testament series, Larry introduced me to Natalie Sleeth,
a popular (nearly worshipped, I believe, in some quarters, although
she will not hear and answer your prayers) Protestant composer who
lived in Denver. You’ve heard her music, if not her name. Larry,
a sometime music publisher, had hooked her up with the Tabernacle
Choir and it was love at first sight. It boosted Larry’s stock significantly.
So in time, she heard some Scripture Scouts and joined the team,
canine collaborator notwithstanding. (Not only was it the only time
she ever collaborated with someone from another species, it was
the only time she ever collaborated with anybody. I felt kind of
honored. We worked very closely, spending time together almost daily,
wrestling out meanings and trying to capture them in our stories,
but we never actually met face-to-face. On the phone, I tried to
talk as much like a human as I could, but she never dared a meeting.)
She and I made a series beginning in the Old Testament, and then
she died, but not without writing several dozen yet unreleased songs
to my story outlines for the next couple of unreleased series, because
she wanted to go out writing Scripture Scouts.
The Unoffended
There were others
who weren’t offended at my species change. Some were so deeply unoffended
that they mortgaged their farms in Idaho to help pay for it. I finally
abandoned my last worry about it offending people when Deseret Book
Company (not widely recognized as one of your more liberal and devil-may-care
publishing houses) picked up the project and commissioned a new
series on the Articles of Faith.
We (Hoffmans,
Perrys, and Paynes) had a funny experience with Deseret Book Company
one evening last week. They had, in 2003, released all the old Scripture
Scouts episodes on CD, so we were invited to their annual “Thanks
to the Authors” banquet on top of the church office building (well,
not actually on top--I mean, it was still February, so they gathered
us in the banquet room just under the top). The funny part is that
we were sitting around tables with people who were fresh from finishing
their 2003 releases, suffering so much from writer’s cramp that
they were having difficulty operating their forks, and we were shoveling
down Chicken Oscar as though we deserved it, even though we hadn’t
done any work for Deseret Book for eleven years. They’re so nice
they probably would have served us Purina Dog Chow if I’d asked.
This is why
I’m reminded of my species-change operation now at Backstage Graffiti
time. You see, in 2004 we’ll be up there again on the 26th floor
around those tables, and probably get Purina for sure. This is because
they’ve asked us to make another series of Scripture Scouts, this
time about the Family Proclamation, which we have nearly completed.
In fact, I should be in the other part of the studio right now,
singing Boo’s songs for episode five. (This is the one about “wholesome
recreational activities.” And wait ‘til you hear the super-adventures
of “Dadman” and “Nurturemom”!)
We love learning
together about these treasures of the Restoration. Hugh Nibley said
that if you can’t make something clear to a five-year-old, you probably
don’t understand it yourself. So we’re trying to understand the
proclamation. And emerging from that understanding is a strengthened
resolve to repent (once the series is out, of course) of my species
change. This scene, from episode two, helps me in that resolve:
BENNY At the
reunion, Grandpa read us the Family Proclamation.
BABS Our
treasure map!
BENNY
Yup, and he said, “I want all you boys and girls to be happy with
your gender!”
JEN Yeah!
(sings)
Be happy with your gender,
it’s part
of who you are,
like the
wetness of the water
or the
shining of a star.
BENNY Jen, you
sound just like Grampa!
JEN You
try. He’s you’re grampa, too!
BABS Mine
too!
BENNY
I got one! I got one!
BABS What?
A gender?
BENNY
No, a verse.
Be happy with
your gender
whichever
it may be,
‘cause
if you had no gender,
you’d
be no he or she.
BABS Wow, I’m
glad I’m a gender! It’s fun bein’ a girl!
BOO (to the
tune) Woof woof woof woof woof woof woof...
KIDS Boo, whatcha
doin’?
BOO Woof!
Sounding like my grampa! I think.
Be happy with
your gender,
it’s not
an accident,
because
your Father made you
the way
that you were meant.
BABS You sing
funny, Boo!
BOO (accelerating)
Be happy
with your gender,
it’s in
your DNA.
And that
part never changes,
no matter
what they say.
JEN Boo!
Be happy with
your species,
‘cause
if you are a dog...
KIDS Gender!
BOO Okay. Is
gender important?
BABS It’s
totally important at this reunion!
BOO How
do ya know?
BABS Today
they’re having a whole big meeting about genderology...
(back to the
column)
Well, genders,
species, let’s leave ‘em alone. God knows best--although he may
ask some odd things of us as we try to serve in his army.
Which reminds
me, a kind of funny thing about Scripture Scouts is that, even though
the whole thing got invented on a military base, the following realization,
a creative year later, came as a surprise to me.
12 September
1987
“With all the
adversity surrounding this Scripture Scout work, it never really
hit me until about midnight last night that we really are at war
with the Powers of Darkness, and they fight dirty. So this beautiful
autumn afternoon I choose to do battle in the tree house, armed
with my son Joshie’s little tape player, my new little scriptures,
and my friend Rosanna’s little word processor. (The first scripts
were penciled on a legal pad.)
“There is already
evidence of weakness in the Enemy’s strategy. He arranged to have
our telephone disconnected in order to dishearten us, but instead
it has brought a marvelous peace into our headquarters. He has also
foolishly made an ally of the power company, which could result
in our defeating the television.
“I feel confident
of a small victory today, although my sentinel in this tree house
fortress, Frisky the cat, is asleep at his post.”
I suppose the
fact that Frisky and I could coexist so amicably in the tree house
might tend to betray this whole species-change thing as not entirely
real. Okay, it’s not. You probably didn’t think so, anyway. And
I think Frisky would agree with you.
But don’t tell
Boo.
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