Midlife Preserver

The sad thing is I’m so damn happy. . . .

--From Loudon Wainwright III’s song “So Damn Happy”

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It’s only fitting that Loudon Wainwright III’s new album is titled “Little Ship” and that its cover artwork features the veteran folkie in an inflatable raft paddling away from a Titanic-like luxury liner.

In an age of mega-selling blockbusters with their state-of-the-art effects, Wainwright’s introspective, no-frills approach is somewhat of an anomaly. Nevertheless, few entertainers uncover the emotional complexities of the human condition as strikingly as Wainwright, who performs solo Tuesday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

A confessional singer-songwriter willing to bare his soul, Wainwright explores such universal themes as family and parenting, love won and lost, and middle-age anxiety with bite, humor and honesty. One minute, the divorced father of four snickers and sneers as yet another relationship unravels (“I’d Rather Be Lonely,” “Unhappy Anniversary”); the next he’s crooning a poignant birthday lullaby to his daughter (“Five Years Old.”)

What brings a compelling edge to Wainwright’s muse is his imaginative, often-satirical prose; twists of phrase and double-entendres transport ambiguous characters to life. Although his only commercial hit was the Top 20 “Dead Skunk” in 1973, he has turned his witty, frequently cynical storytelling into a praiseworthy, 30-year career.

“Family life has been a principal theme of mine for about the last 10 years,” he said in a recent phone interview from his New York apartment. “One record [1992’s ‘History’] was almost exclusively about that [topic]. Everyone’s a member of some family, so hopefully, there should be a kind of recognition factor going on.”

But surely the man feels emotionally naked in songs as personal as “Your Mother & I,” when the words form a lump in the throat: “Your mother and I are living apart/I know that seems stupid/For we weren’t very smart.”

“I guess I’m just an exhibitionist, like that guy in a trench coat,” Wainwright said. “I don’t know, I write about what interests me, and those are the very personal things. I just want to make sure [the material] is not gratuitous or sensationalistic. . . . So I’ll review the songs and then ask myself, ‘Is this really what happened, or at least my version of what happened?’ If the answer is yes, I’ll go ahead and perform it or put it on a CD.”

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Recent times find Wainwright, 51, facing that dreaded demon known as the midlife crisis. That period of change and self-examination is expressed in a self-deprecating new song titled “I Can’t Stand Myself.” Reduced to “bar-hopping and girlfriend shopping,” the protagonist barks out: “I sure can pick ‘em/I’m looking for my next victim . . . there’s someone out there/imperfect for me.”

“I don’t know [anyone] who avoids” a midlife crisis, Wainwright said. “I mean, people can sit there and say it doesn’t bother them . . . and you can either believe them or not. Is it a crisis? I don’t know. . . . Everything is relative. Compared to famine and genocide, I suppose it really isn’t. But it’s certainly a difficult period of transition.”

An enduring characteristic of Wainwright’s work is humor, whether it’s dark, subtle, biting or just plain silly. Two of his funniest tales recall a psychedelic, mind-altering trip gone bad (“The Acid Song”) and his dismay over the repeated misspellings of his name (“T.S.M.N.W.A., short for “They Spelled My Name Wrong Again”).

“If you can get someone to laugh, it lets pressure off,” Wainwright said. “Plus, I just enjoy making people chuckle, and that’s certainly a part of my show. It’s something I do pride myself in being able to do.”

Though sometimes when playing live, his sarcastic shtick becomes tiresome.

“ ‘Don’t push’--I have to remind myself of that all the time,” he said. “Ya know, don’t force it . . . just let things happen as naturally as possible. I think that goes for almost anything in life.”

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But he wasn’t amused early in his career when many music writers touted him as the new Bob Dylan. Like his reaction to many affairs throughout his life, he wrote a song about it, “Talking New Bob Dylan.”

“That was an annoyance, mostly,” Wainwright snapped. “It’s a thing lazy journalists do when the next guy comes along with a guitar. I was certainly one of the first ones [in that mold], but there were plenty of others . . . John Prine, Elliot Murphy, Steve Forbert and [Bruce] Springsteen. I’m sure they’re saying someone else is now the new Bob Dylan.”

Obviously, this contemporary folk singer never did attain Dylanesque status, as if anyone could. Still, Wainwright did act and sing in one of the most respected and popular TV series in history--”MASH.”

“[Series creator] Larry Gelbart saw me performing at the Troubadour in L.A. back in the ‘70s,” Wainwright recalled. “He just thought it’d be interesting to have a character who sang and played the guitar. So I became Capt. Calvin Spalding, a singing soldier for three episodes of ‘MASH.’ Along with, ‘He Wrote “Dead Skunk,” ’ this too could be on my tombstone: ‘MASH Man Kicks the Bucket.’ ”

* Loudon Wainwright III, Allan Goodman and Huck Flynn perform Tuesday at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. 8 p.m. $12.50 (714) 496-8930.