Motivation can run low on Friday evenings. How's about a chillaxed event with great music — stuff that's mellow but not at all boring — and a fun, light sport like shuffleboard to pass the time. If that sounds ideal, then head to the St. Pete Shuffle to catch Rebekah Pulley and the Reluctant Prophets, St. Pete's sublime, female-led folky-country-slightly-rockin' ballads and Tampa's mostly female but completely atmospheric, avant-pop band Sleepy Vikings. 7-11 p.m. The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Courts is at 559 Mirror Lake Drive N., St. Petersburg.
He’s wry, baby-faced – too smart to be in with the jocks but too suave to get his ass kicked. Demetri Martin has gained TV and celluloid stardom as a pop-culture philosopher, minimalist illustrator and mantic of semantics. For those who haven’t caught his Comedy Central TV show Important Things with Demetri Martin or seen his “Trendspotting” segments on The Daily Show, Martin is like a cuddlier Steven Wright. He tinkers with common words and phrases by way of palindromes and other witticisms, and illustrates jokes with charts, graphs and “breakdowns” on a large drawing pad. In past routines, Martin has demonstrated how funny he find farts by location, provided a “flowchart of clowns” and put a spin on wise old sayings such as “Only people trapped in glass houses should throw stones.” If that weren’t enough, Martin has been known to bust out a suite of musical instruments. For some, all this brain-geekery might seem a bit much, but Martin’s timing and uniquely charming charisma make it all so dern watchable. Side note: Martin appeared in the Ang Lee film Taking Woodstock and has a couple of more film projects in the offing. See him now while he’s still hovering under the radar. Demetri Martin, 8 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 21, Ferguson Hall of the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N MacInnes Place, downtown Tampa. $35. Call 813-229-7827 or 800-955-1045. demetrimartin.com, strazcenter.org.
Yes, you may own a well-used copy of 1984’s Stop Making Sense and can pop that baby in any time to feed your Talking Heads fix.
This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2010.