I’m less than two months away from earning my “10 Years of Motherhood” pin. Technically, I think I probably earned it five or six months ago considering it’s been about 10 and a half years since I started with my first bout of morning sickness. Nonetheless, my oldest is about to turn a decade old and my motherhood will officially do the same.

As this monumental milestone inches closer and closer to reality, I suspect I’ll struggle to grasp  and accept its weight in more ways than one. I’m counting on fits of denial, phantom ticks of my biological clock seeming to beg for one more baby and two to four middle-of-the-night, where-has-the-time-gone panic attacks. Perhaps because we are just so busy on a daily basis or perhaps because the fits of denial have already begun, what should be a wicked tugging of the ol’ maternal heartstrings has so far manifested itself in a completely different way. As I soak up my three wonderful children each day, all I can seem to think of is, “I can’t believe I have been having to repeat the same thing over and over for almost ten years now!”

.

That’s right. I have been spouting off the same motherly instructions for 10 long years, many to no avail. “Brush your teeth.” “Put that away.” “Please eat something.” “Turn the TV off.” “Say ‘thank you.’” “That’s enough.” “Put your clothes back on right now.” Over and over and over again.

My inability to get through to my fairly good children after reiterating the same simple commands repeatedly every day for nearly a decade makes me realize that not everything is our fault as parents and that children aren’t necessarily steered into compliance by suggestions from parenting magazines. I’ve spent years, nay, nearly a decade working tirelessly to mold my children to the best of their abilities and I have yet to feel triumphant enough to take a victory lap or two.

Despite my best efforts (make that 80 percent or so of my best effort or so), we’re still combating messy rooms, nose picking, picky eating, food all over the house, inappropriate attire, writing on furniture, homework refusal, bathing refusal, bedtime refusal, most every other kind of refusal, forgotten toilet flushes, sibling rivalry, hitting, yelling, and the all-time classic, talking back. Every. Single. Day. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Fortunately, the years of experience have not left me completely without beneficial parenting skills, as I can name your toddler’s ailment in four symptoms or less and change a diaper with my eyes closed. Still, I can’t help but wonder at what point I’m finally going to get good at this. My bossy 9-year-old, school-hating 7-year-old and TV-addicted 3-year-old don’t quite move me to pat myself on the back for a job well done.

And then I remember a story a friend once told me. He spoke of how when, pre-children, he groaned at some friends with children for not being available enough and canceling plans at the last minute. “What jerks,” he thought. Upon having his own children and partaking in the 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year state of responsibility that is parenthood, however, he had an epiphany. “All of a sudden I realized,” he confessed, “that all of those years I was the jerk.”

Between his declaration and my ongoing realization that my kids aren’t and will likely never be parenting-magazine perfect, I’ve decided that much of raising children has to do with simply acknowledging what a jerk you’ve been most of the years prior. Even though I knew kids like the back of my hand before I even had my own, deep down I still had the notion that many a parent was doing it wrong.

Growing up, you think your own parents are doing it all wrong and then throughout young adulthood you can barely see children out in public without contemplating how superior your parenting skills are going to be to their parents’ skills. “My children will never be like that,” you oh-so-foolishly gloat.

Yet, here I stand, 10 years into the parenting gig and, despite both encouraging good choices and setting good examples, I can’t even get my kids to wear coats in the wintertime. That “10 Years of Motherhood” pin is no doubt going to be a reminder of how little I have it all figured out rather than a badge of wisdom. In the wise words of Michael Franti, “The more I see the less I know.”

Shannon Szyperski and her husband, Michael, are raising three children in Sylvania. Email her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Family Practice, Shannon Szyperski, Steve Martin, The Jerk

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2013 at 6:04 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Family Practice.
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The setting is a tiny bar in Paris, circa 1904. Two men who will soon change and shape the century that is to follow will have a chance meeting: Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso.

“One of the things that makes this encounter so interesting is that you have two notorious people from the 20th century who changed history coming at it from very different perspectives, very different kinds of inspiration,” said Jeremy Meier, assistant professor of theater at Owens Community College.

This fictional meeting is the premise of the play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” written by actor/comedian Steve Martin. Meier is directing a production of the comedy that will be performed at Owens’ Center for Fine and Performing Arts’ Mainstage Theatre on Nov. 17-20.

Meier, who teaches the majority of theater classes at the college, said that he sees productions as an important part of the students’ learning process.

“I think of the student production season as a supplement to what the students have in the classroom. A lot of focus on character study, possibilities for physical movements — the production itself is a valuable tool for students to have learning opportunities in the classroom applied to an actual production,” Meier said.

This is not Meier’s first time visiting the Lapin Agile. Eight years ago, he directed a production of the show in Columbus, where he had just finished his Master of Fine Arts degree at The Ohio State University.

He’s worked at Owens for the past four years, directing student productions — one in the fall, one in the spring. Last year, when the department was considering shows for the 2011-12 season, he presented “Picasso” as a possibility.

“They overwhelmingly wanted to do this one because of the challenges that the design offered them artistically, and also because of the unique performance opportunity,” Meier said.

The auditions took place in September. Though the show is largely an ensemble piece, with Picasso and Einstein just two parts of a larger cast of characters, Meier said those two roles in particular presented some challenges.

“Einstein and Picasso are two of the more difficult roles to cast, because the audience has specific expectations of what they will look like, what they’ll sound like, what their personalities might be, just based on their reputation,” he said.

The show is also challenging to its performers in its tone. While filled with tremendously funny moments and surprises, “Picasso” also has a fair share of poignancy and surrealism at its core. The actors frequently break the famous “fourth wall” and converse with the audience over the course of the show, for example.

“There is a challenge in that, because we rehearse it for five weeks where the actors are working on it, and they have a three-person audience — myself and the two stage managers,” Meier said. “That’s something that the actors have to have an awareness of, building a much larger space and reaching a very live and very responsive audience.”

The challenges extend to the technical aspects of the performance for Meier and his crew, as well. The bar set the show takes place in has been given its own surrealist touch, almost emulating the title artist’s own Cubist tendencies. It was an approach, Meier explained, that began from looking at photographs of the actual Lapin Agile, a real Paris bar that exists to this day.

“It’s a real dive-kinda looking kind of place,” he said. “A really kinda dirty looking bar. I was surprised. Rather than going for a literal representation of that, we wanted to come at that from an aspect of abstraction.”

But the focus will still be on the colorful and memorable characters who populate the space — not least of which being the fantasy versions of two geniuses who impacted the coming century in ways no one could have possibly imagined.

“The playwright purposefully has these two guys roughly around 25 years old, just before their genius is recognized and realized — it’s a year before the Theory of Relativity is published, a few years before Cubism. It’s about characters on the brink,” Meier said.

“Because the audience is very often acknowledged and addressed, I think possibly the playwright wants the audience to think about what will become of the 21st century.”

“Picasso at the Lapin Agile” will be performed at the Owens’ Mainstage Theatre on Nov. 17-19 at 7:30 p.m., and on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 3 p.m. Tickets are $12.00 for the general public and $8 for Owens staff and students. For more information, contact the College for Performing Arts at (567) 661-2787.

Tags: Einstein, Jeff McGinnins, Owens Community College, Picasso, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Pop Goes the Culture, Steve Martin

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Pop Goes the Culture, Theater.
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Steve Martin and the banjo go way back. How far back? It’s surprising the Smothers Brothers didn’t adopt him and form a trio.

Martin, who won an Emmy for comedy writing for the siblings’ variety show in 1969, featured the five-string instrument in his stand-up act. His 1977 debut album, “Let’s Get Small,” opens with “Ramblin’ Man/Theme From Ramblin’ Man” with the comic clad in the white suit playing and encouraging the audience to sing along.

“I used the banjo onstage during my comedy show in a kind of comedic way and also in a serious way,” he said. “I always played a serious banjo song at least once during even my highest moment of stand-up.”

The wild and crazy Renaissance guy can’t contain his creativity — comedy, movies, plays, essays, books, bluegrass. Whether he’s writing about art, tossing out a perfectly timed one-liner, bringing down the movie house, or ripping through a clawhammer banjo solo, Martin’s genius is evident.

“When I started [writing music] again, I felt I was using another part of my brain. I was staving off Alzheimer’s,” the 65-year-old quipped.

His 2009 disc, “The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo,” won a Grammy for best bluegrass album and included Dolly Parton and Vince Gill.

For the follow-up, Martin found five amigos — The Steep Canyon Rangers — guitarist and lead singer Woody Platt, bassist Charles Humphrey, mandolin player Mike Guggino, fiddler Nicky Sanders and banjoist Graham Sharp. Released in March, “Rare Bird Alert” contains 10 new songs penned by Martin and two he wrote with the band. Paul McCartney and the Dixie Chicks sing on the disc, which includes a tender ballad, a barnburner dance song, and a couple humorous numbers.

Martin and The Steep Canyon Rangers will play a sold-out show June 25 at the University of Michigan’s Power Center for the Performing Arts as part of the Ann Arbor Summer Festival. See the complete festival lineup at annarborsummerfestival.org

The popular performer fielded questions from the media, including Toledo Free Press, in a teleconference and talked about the new CD.

How did you pick the banjo?

Martin: When I heard it, I literally could part with my ears the other instruments and just listen to the banjo. I just loved it, loved the sound of it, both its melancholy aspect and its, you know, dynamic speed. I loved it.

As a comedian, actor and writer, was it easier to be taken seriously as a musician?

Martin: Sometimes when actors try to become musicians, there’s a great resistance. … There’s something about the banjo, or other instruments, it looks and sounds very difficult. And it is. All instruments are difficult. And so suddenly they’re not laughing, you know, when suddenly you play a three-finger banjo thing at lightning speed. It’s just as simple as that. I always think: What would I think if I saw David Letterman pick up the violin and play Mozart? I would go, wow, you know, and it was decent.

Would you pay to see him?

Martin: I don’t know about that. It depends. … I have to have confidence in my own music or honestly I wouldn’t put it out there. I really wouldn’t.

There’s a live version of “King Tut” on the new disc.

Martin: I thought it was a funny idea to do a bluegrass “King Tut.” … The reason I finally put it on the record was I also want people to know that our live show is fun. That when they come to the live show, it’s not going to be me standing onstage with my back to the audience playing 30 songs in a row, you know, with no comedy.

What’s the story behind “Atheists Don’t Have No Songs” and how has it been received?

Martin: Religious people have this great art and great music, and atheists really don’t have anything. So I thought it’d be really funny to write a hymn for atheists. … And we decided to try it one night in a show. And in the middle of it, the audience started laughing and we just kind of looked at each other, and we knew we had a new four minutes for our show.

Did Paul McCartney really say you sounded terrible as a singer?

Martin: It wasn’t quite like that. … He thought I was going to sing [on “Best Love”] and I said, OK, but I’m a terrible singer. And when I got there, he said, when you said you were a terrible singer, I thought you were being humble but you weren’t. No, it was done with a sense of humor.

What was it like working with the Dixie Chicks?

Martin: I jumped at the chance because I know they have great harmony. And the song [“You”] is made for harmonies. … They did a beautiful job. And they were really delightful to work with. And there was no — you know, one of the rumors on their breakup — well, they all seem to be very, very close friends in the studio.

How has the traditional bluegrass community responded to you, especially as you’re infusing humor into the music?

Martin: I never know what they say behind my back. But to my face it’s been very, very good. … Almost all the bluegrass shows do comedy. So that’s sort of a tradition.

“The Big Year” movie due this fall is about bird watchers. Is “Rare Bird Alert” a tie-in?

Martin: It doesn’t tie into the film in a kind of commercial way. We were involved in bird watching and the lingo of bird watching and that just seemed like a good title.

What do you like about playing with a band?

Martin: I like the camaraderie of it. I like improving my musicianship. I enjoy doing the comedy portions onstage in small doses.

Tags: In Concert, Steve Martin, Vicki L. Kroll

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2011 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Featured, In Concert.
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One of the great guilty pleasures of Twitter is following celebrities’ accounts. Many of them, of course, are little more than publicity tools, written by assistants and image doctors. But then there are the celebs who actually seem to put effort into their tweets, and turn out a product as entertaining as anything they do in “real life.” Here are 10 great ones:

Adrianne Curry (@AdrianneCurry): The first winner of “America’s Next Top Model” and star of “My Fair Brady” is one of the funniest and most frank posters on Twitter. You have to love anyone who swears like a sailor, parties like a supermodel and is as passionate about geeky issues as the self-described “angst-ridden, video-game-loving child of the ’90s” is.

Sample Tweet: “wow … the fact that im only a little tired with no hangover is awesome!”

Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano): The former “Charmed” star states in her bio, “This is my official page. I tweet a lot. Consider yourself forewarned.” And so she does. But it is almost always interesting and usually is filled with loads of links to fascinating articles.

Sample Tweet: “Just got back from the ‘Young Hollywood Party’. Young Hollywood’s auto-tune music made me miss Oingo Boingo.”

Chris Jericho (@IAmJericho): I follow a lot of wrestlers, but Jericho would be the one I’d most recommend to non-wrestling fans. Continuously entertaining, the wrestler/rock star/author/game show host/parent keeps fans up on his latest escapades, especially now that he’s on hiatus from WWE.

Sample Tweet: “Due to all of this spare time I have now, I’ve taken up knitting. Just finished up a lovely powder blue petticoat. Any takers?”

Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien): Fans going through Conan withdrawal while waiting for his show on TBS to start need not fret. O’Brien has been busy posting some of the most hilarious jokes on the Web via his Twitter feed, which reads like a very long version of his opening monologue.

Sample Tweet: “Rahm Emanuel has left the White House to run for Mayor of Chicago. Wow, and I thought I was the only one moving to a lower-paying job.”

Diablo Cody (@diablocody): The Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Juno” offers a continuous string of engaging information on her upcoming projects, the realities of Hollywood  and her life.

Sample Tweet: “My mom just cut up a Chipotle burrito and put a tiny slice on a plate for me. I’m shocked she didn’t chew it first.”

Felicia Day (@feliciaday): You may not know the talented Ms. Day just yet, but you will soon enough. Appearing on shows like “House” and “Eureka” have surely raised her profile, as has her own creation, the wildly popular online geek sitcom “The Guild.”

Sample Tweet: “Question: I’ve carried a turkey sandwich around all day in my purse. How many hours before I will get food poisoning by eating it?”

Roger Ebert (@ebertchicago): The world’s most famous film critic, Ebert discovered Twitter last year and has taken to the service like a duck to water, using it to spotlight links, articles, reviews and his own passionate opinions on the movies, politics and more.

Sample Tweet: “After vetting 76,248 comments on my blog, I conclude that right-wingers, in general, cannot spell.”

Seth MacFarlane (@SethMacFarlane): The “Family Guy” creator started his official account a while ago, but only recently started updating it in earnest. And who could have guessed, it is largely comprised of a wildly eclectic — and wildly funny — series of random thoughts and one-liners. Tremendous stuff.

Sample Tweet: “I support the right of the Jedi to build a temple, but does it have to be two blocks from the ruins of the Death Star?”

Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo): Another recent arrival on the Twitter scene, the comedy legend has quickly adapted to Twitter with a wonderfully witty and charmingly odd feed. As with every other media he’s tackled before, Martin is testing the barriers of what you can do with Twitter — with awesome results.

Sample Tweet: “Played San Luis Obispo last night. Santa Barbara tomorrow, San Diego Saturday. Then Scottsdale. Fired agent. I SAID ONLY SAINT THEMED TOWNS.”

Wil Wheaton (@wilw): One of the first to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, the former-child-star-turned-Internet-icon has one of the best accounts on the service. If you’re a geek and you don’t follow Wil Wheaton, you’re not really a geek.

Sample Tweet: “It fills me with joy to watch my first game of the 10-’11 NHL season on CBC, in the original, untranslated Canadian.”

E-mail Jeff at PopGoesJeff@gmail.com.  (Follow him at @jeffmac813)

Tags: Adrianne Curry, Alyssa Milano, Chris Jericho, Conan O'Brien, Diablo Cody, Felicia Day, Jeff McGinnis, Pop Goes the Culture, Roger Ebert, Seth MacFarlane, Steve Martin, Twitter, Wil Wheton

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 2:29 pm and is filed under Pop Goes the Culture.
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His “Community” character, Jeff Winger, bristles when called a “hipster,” but Joel McHale’s biography damn near defines the term.

McHale, 39, was born in Rome, Italy, so he has a classic European pedigree. He played football as a walk-on for the University of Washington, so he has athletic cred. His acting roles include “Spider-Man 2,” “The Onion Movie” and “The Informant!” so his choice of material marks him as a savvy collaborator. His TV appearances include “CSI: Miami,” “Will & Grace,” “Pushing Daises” and voicing skits on “Robot Chicken” but are topped by his 7-year stint as pop culture commentator on E!’s “The Soup” and the NBC college-based comedy “Community,” which co-stars such hipster icons as Chevy Chase and “The Hangover” breakout star Ken Jeong.

McHale

On the show, he gets the girl(s), dominates the paintball showdowns and plays billiards naked, which he can do as he has a physique more like the statues of his native Rome than the majority of stand-up comedians (he was one of People’s “Sexiest Men Alive” in 2009).

Oh, and he lives with a gorgeous wife and two kids in the Hollywood Hills.

In short, McHale has parlayed his smirking, pop culture-referencing personality into a Hollywood dream life. During the Aug. 29 opening skit at the Emmys, McHale danced and sang “Born to Run” alongside Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Betty White, Jon Hamm and the “Glee” cast, the latest sign of his rise to the upper tier of Hollywood’s It List.

During a recent telephone interview to promote his Sept. 4 appearance at Caesars Windsor, McHale talked about gearing up for the fall premiere of “Community,” in which he plays a lawyer sent to a lackluster community college to finish his degree.

“We started shooting three weeks ago; we just completed everything for the first episode. Betty White guest stars,” he said.

McHale said White was “terrific” to work with and he also shot an episode with an “80 pounds lighter” Drew Carey. He said he remains “blown away” by the level of writing “Community” offers him as an actor.

“After reading the pilot, I was so excited to try to get the role,” McHale said. “Creator Dan Harmon is a genius; he wrote the pilot and is highly involved in the process. Episodes like the ‘Modern Warfare,’ with the paintball tournament, or the one where Abed runs the campus by controlling the supply of chicken fingers, I am just always amazed at what they come up with.”

McHale said one of the new season’s early highlights is an “Apollo 13” episode.

The script read-throughs are “like a Christmas gift,” McHale said.

“You don’t know what you are going to get, but you know you are going to be happy,” he said. “Working with Chevy Chase, who has the greatest stories in the world and is someone I grew up with, is like, ‘Hey, you don’t know me, but I’ve known you for a long time. I can quote almost the entire script of ‘Fletch’ to him, so I’m sure it becomes a little creepy after awhile.”

While McHale’s Winger is on the surface callow and self-absorbed, he is also the not-quite-heart-of-gold leader his group of misfit friends depends on. That creates some specific acting challenges, McHale said.

“I have never done anything like this,” he said. “I have been in plays and a lot of leading roles, but this is different. You can’t play Jeff as a straight jerk, or people won’t watch. The guy could be a complete jerk, but the reason he has done so well in his life is that he was a successful lawyer; he could convince and charm people, and I keep that in mind. He can get people to agree with him, but at the same time he has a lot of base motivations, which Britta [a classmate and love interest played by Gillian Jacobs] points out to him every day.

“I liken it to that Sam and Diane thing from ‘Cheers’ where they are constantly telling each other what is wrong with each other. It’s the most fun I’ve had in my life, and I attribute it all to the writing. They cram so many jokes into those 22 minutes, it’s like a lasagna.”

Despite the tight writing, McHale said there is a bit of wiggle room for improvising.

“Dan is very good to us; he’ll say, ‘If you can come up with something better, great.’ And people like Danny Pudi, who plays Abed, and Don Glover, who plays Troy, and Ken Jeong, who plays Señior Chang, are masters of improv,” McHale said. “So they can really come up with some amazing stuff.”

Despite a 25-episode first season, a no-brainer pickup for a second season and positive reviews, the recent Emmy nominations overlooked the show.

The cast of "Community."

“I did get to announce the Emmy nominations and I will be a presenter, so the Academy has been very good to us,” McHale said. “If you get recognized, it’s great, but if you don’t, you still go to work and thank God you have such an incredible job. Plus, the shows they nominated are terrific, so I don’t think they got anything wrong.”

McHale said unlike his “Community” character, his persona on “The Soup,” on which he summarizes and comments on the more bizarre and foolish television moments of the week, is closer to his real personality.

“It’s definitely a heightened version of myself,” he said. “If I was as casual and smart as Charlie Rose, I don’t think it would be as interesting. It’s performance-mode Joel. It’s me, but once again I owe it to the writers of the show.”

Have there been any awkward moments as McHale has run into his targets while promoting “Community” on other shows?

“No one has come up to me on the streets and punched me yet; we only make fun of people who are asking for it,” he said. “If you are doing something that calls attention to yourself to get more press than the average din of Hollywood, we’re going to make fun of you. A couple of reality TV people have come up to me and said, ‘Hey, you made fun of me,’ and I can usually say, ‘Yeah, you were drunk and topless in the pool, and then you vomited on your friend, so what do you want us to do?

“I made fun of Martha Stewart and Regis [Philbin] and then gone on those shows, but Regis says some pretty awesome, crazy stuff.”

McHale’s “Soup” contract is up in December; he said he is in talks with the network.

“I want to do it, I love doing it and I love the staff. We’ve made the schedules work, but I would like to do more movies and keep touring,” he said.

McHale’s next major movie is “Big Year.”

“All of my scenes are with Steve Martin,” he said. “It has Jack Black and Owen Wilson. Kevin Pollack and I play business partners; Steve Martin is our boss. He is one of the coolest people I have ever met and I could not believe they cast me.”

Asked if working with Martin and Chase presents opportunities for story sharing, McHale said, “I talk to both of them about ‘Three Amigos.’ It becomes like the Chris Farley Show; ‘Remember when you did that thing?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘That was awesome!’”

The multi-tasking of movies, TV and touring often requires his family to travel, McHale said.

“If I am in a city my wife wants to visit or I am going to be spending multiple days in, we bring them along,” he said. “If it’s just one night, I’ll fly in and out.”

How do McHale’s two sons, Eddie, 5, and Isaac, 2, react to seeing their father on television?

“They couldn’t care less,” he said. “They see me and say, ‘Thank you, I would now like to see Thomas the Tank Engine.’”

McHale has some upcoming highlights that might even impress his kids, including an appearance at Carnegie Hall.

“Yeah, that was bribery,” he said of the austere date. “That was a horrible scheduling mistake. It’s one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me and I can’t believe it. I still expect them to tell me it’s a typo.”

McHale said his stand-up act covers a mix of “Soup”-like pop culture references and family topics.

“There will be Kardashian jokes,” he said. “So Khloé, get ready.”

Tags: Caesars Windsor, Chevy Chase, Community, Joel McHale, Steve Martin, The Soup

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 31st, 2010 at 11:23 am and is filed under Comedy, Star.
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With no introduction or celebrity fanfare, Steve Martin steps onstage with the Steep Canyon Rangers bluegrass band, a banjo strapped to his chest.

He’s not there to tell jokes, though he manages to squeeze in a few. He’s there to play music — songs from his Grammy-winning bluegrass album, “The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo.” He will appear April 19 at Orchestra Hall at Max M. Fisher Music Center.

Martin tells the crowd he met the band at a party in North Carolina, “but when we’re in California, I tell people we met in rehab.”

Steve Martin

With that, he begins to play, with such conviction and skill that he’s clearly not joking. A banjo player for 45 years, Martin says he wrote every song in the hourlong set, just as he did all 15 tracks on his album, which spent a year atop Billboard’s bluegrass charts. He toured the country playing banjo last year and is embarking on a second nationwide tour on April 19. The Steep Canyon Rangers serve as his backup band.

The 64-year-old actor-writer-musician says he fell in love with the banjo the first time he heard it during the 1960s folk-music craze.

“It was just the sound of it,” Martin said in an interview before taking the stage. “It was like my ears were trying to part away the other instruments and focus on what is that instrument, and I’ve always loved it.”

He told the audience inside the 250-seat Largo theater that he appreciates the banjo’s “elements of sadness and melancholy — like the expression on my agent’s face when I told him I wanted to do a banjo tour.”

When Martin talks about music with a reporter, though, there are no jokes. He approaches the subject with the same earnestness and focus that he does his writing and acting projects, pausing intermittently to pick away on the banjo in his lap.

After spending two months on the road with the Steep Canyon Rangers last year and winning a Grammy in January, Martin has become an accidental ambassador for the banjo and bluegrass music.

He speculates that only half the crowd at any of his concerts are there for the bluegrass and banjo music, “but they all go away very happy.”

Martin’s success with the banjo has boosted bluegrass, says Rangers leader Woody Platt.

“Steve’s notoriety as a person, as a comedian, as an actor, I think is really wonderful for bluegrass music,” Platt says. “We’re a niche market and we need as many things as we can get to broaden the spectrum of listeners.”

While Martin plans to keep up with writing (he has a novel coming out in November) and acting (his next film is “The Big Year” with Jack Black and Owen Wilson), it seems his heart is in his music.

“I like it all, but I’m finding that certainly music introduces me to a whole new group of people that I really, really like,” he says. “It uses another part of my brain and it’s just another experience for me, another discipline that’s really fun and unusual.”

Touring is nothing new for Martin, who used to play the standup circuit. But playing music on the road is different from telling jokes.

“I much prefer playing music,” Martin says. “Because comedy, you’re on stage, it never stops. It never stops being worrying. But a song lasts three minutes.”

And it’s “comforting” to look out into the crowd and see people happily humming along to the music, Martin says.

His latest tour begins in Detroit and includes stops at the New Orleans Jazz Fest and the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. He’s also planning to pen a second banjo album.

Just as he can’t keep comedy out of his concerts, a laugh or two might also sneak onto the new album.

“I’m going to write a song called ‘Women Like to Slow Dance,”’ Martin says, “but we’re going to make it really fast.”

Back on stage at Largo, Martin keeps the crowd smiling with his special mix of finger-picked five-string comedy.

“I try to write songs based on personal experience,” he says. “This next one is called ‘I Think My Masseuse is Too Chatty.”’

Tags: Steve Martin

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, In Concert.
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