Demetri Martin Interview Uncut

These Are Questions…And Answers

Demetri Martin performed at The Vic on Thursday, November 2nd behind his new CD/DVD, These Are Jokes. Martin recorded the CD over a couple of nights at the Lakeshore Theater in Chicago last February. Since then, he has been working at “The Daily Show” as a Trendspotter and also signed on to be the spokesman for the new Microsoft Windows operating system, Windows Vista. He called me from the tour bus on his way from Boston to Albany.

Scott: Why did you choose Chicago to record your CD?
Demetri: I choose Chicago because the summer before I tried to record my CD on my own, I didn’t have a deal with Comedy Central or anything, and the emails I’ve got the last two years were generally Texas, like Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago, so that summer, when I first tried it I went to San Francisco, I booked my own little gig…I just checked where I got emails from and the city the people generally wanted me to come to and I never got to perform in Chicago, and I didn’t like the way the recording came out (in San Francisco) because I didn’t hear it right, there were not enough microphones in the room, I mean the crowds were awesome, but the quality wasn’t good, like I don’t want to put this out. So then I ended up getting a deal with Comedy Central so I got better help so they could give me a good sound engineer. And I said I’ll do Chicago, ‘cause I haven’t been there and I bet you that’s the biggest crowd. So my first gig ever in Chicago are the ones that are recorded for my CD.
S: It seems like a lot of comedians are doing Chicago now for whatever reason.
D: The crowds are awesome, they’re great. They’re just, really like, warm, and into it.
S: What were you like in college?
D: I’m a dork, I procrastinated a lot, I liked hanging out with my friends, I got good grades. I did a lot of activities.
S: What were you involved in?
D: Student government, soup kitchen, I ran the soup kitchen, I started a youth group for Greek kids, what else did I do? I did some intramural stuff. Um, I can’t remember, it’s a long time ago now.
Scott: What’s the biggest difference between working for Conan and The Daily Show?
D: The biggest difference is I don’t have to spend that many hours at the Daily Show. I was a full time staff writer for Conan. It was about sixty hours a week. The Daily Show is once a month. Just go in the office, know what I mean?
S: Do you get to choose the Trendspotting topics or do they kind of suggest them to you?
D: It’s 50/50. I started by pitching them, and I get to pitch them and then sometimes they give it to me. It goes back and forth, like something is coming out and they’ll be like ‘Why don’t you do this?’ And it could be cool, and other times they’re like ‘What about this?’ and then they’re like good, light it up, let’s see what you got.
S: Have you noticed a lot more increase in your popularity since you started doing the Daily Show?
D: There’s a slight increase. It’s all on a small scale. When you’re in comedy, you tend to think things are bigger than they actually are. But every now and then you get a glimpse from the outside, in the regular world, and I’m really flying under the radar. So then in comedy, you can feel yourself kind of getting more exposure, but outside it’s just like a little drop, a blip.
S: Have you met anyone from working with TV that you were in awe of meeting?
D: No, but I got to meet Woody Allen and that was pretty cool. I don’t tend to get too star struck but he was pretty interesting. And I met (Steven) Spielberg. Those are a few biggies that I was just lucky to be in the presence of people with that are that accomplished. Even if it’s just like a half an hour, it’s just like ‘Wow, that’s great’. They were both gracious and they seemed like normal cool people, like nice people. You read so many things about people and you just know them as a weird public figure, not that I know them personally, but to be able to talk directly to that person, it’s a little bit surreal. They were really nice, Woody Allen was very friendly and outgoing and talkative, and I had read things like he doesn’t look at you, you know, he’s weird, blah, blah, blah. He was really nice, taller than I thought he would be, and he seemed like a really well spoken older guy. Steven Spielberg was very relaxed, kind of soothing, calming, you know? They’re self possessed; they’ve made so many things in their lives they just really know who they are.
S: How did you get hooked up with Windows Vista?
D: I got an email out of the blue and it said “Would you be interested in doing an ad campaign?” I said, ‘maybe I don’t know,’ and it went further and further and I ended up pitching them an idea and they liked it, so it kind of went forward.
S: The clearification.com website is pretty cool, you can’t even tell it’s an ad almost. The webisodes are really cool too, it seems like you have a lot of creative control.
D: Yeah, it was awesome. I didn’t get to direct, but I got to get my input on almost every part of it. And I got to write and act in it. So they were amazing, like I thought it was so cool they said ‘don’t worry, we’re going to be really hands off they just want something out there that’s very soft, the product placement is not obnoxious, and sure enough they stuck to their word, it’s really cool.
S: Are you going to be doing more with them in the future, like television ads or are you just going to stick to the webisodes?
D: For Microsoft, it’s just the web. They’re sponsoring an hour-long special I’m doing for Comedy Central. So again, that will be kind of soft advertising. To me it’s all very tasteful. I think it was a good decision in the end.
S: How did you get started with the glockenspiel and all the other instruments?
D: I did a one man show in 2002, and I wanted to score it, I wanted to make a real one man show, and it involved creating as many aspects of it as I could. So in addition to writing and performing the show, I thought I could put music in the show that I write myself and play. I made the clothes I wore in the show, I painted the postcard that would be posters for the show, I did some drawings for the show, but I didn’t know how to play music or anything, I didn’t have any instruments, I Started from scratch at that point. And I just fell in love with trying to learn and play music. So I just decided to try to put more and more of it in my act because I liked how it set the mood and it’s fun for me onstage to try to do a couple things at once.
S: Who do you listen to, as far as music goes?
D: I love the Beatles. And a lot of indie rock stuff. I kind of go through favorites, like Granddaddy, Elliott Smith. I’ve been listening to Leonard Cohen lately, ‘cause I never really listened to him. Jeremy Enigk, he has a new album coming out, he’s like a lo-fi singer songwriter kind of guy. I like Death Cab, I just watched the Bob Dylan documentary, awesome.
S: I saw Bob Dylan last night, he was here in Chicago, it was pretty cool.
D: You saw him? Really. How was it, did he do a lot of weird mumbling?
S: Yeah, he like barks the words almost, it’s kind of awkward. But at the same time you feel like, ‘wow that’s Bob Dylan’ and you’re so entranced by the whole experience. But as far as musically, it was kind of a disappointment.
D: Yeah, I heard that from somebody else. Did he do “Like a Rolling Stone?”
S: Yeah he did, he played some of his new stuff too and that was pretty cool too.
D: How big was the venue?
S: About four-thousand seats or so it was pretty intimate.
D: That’s pretty cool. Sweet. It’s too bad I missed it. It would be like ‘holy s***.’ It’s so cool to see Bob Dylan, there’s certain people that are just a part of history, on that level like that. I’d like to see (Paul) McCartney, I think that would be cool.
S: I saw McCartney last year, it was a lot better than Dylan, but he played a much bigger venue so you didn’t feel as connected. Anyways, what’s the best and worst part about being a comedian?
D: The best part about it is that it often doesn’t feel like work. It just feels like thinking and talking. The worst part about it is when it feels like work, because you can’t stop thinking or talking, it stays with you all the time. You don’t really leave the office, you kind of go everywhere with it. You can lose the other part of just having a life. I think that’s the danger of it.
S: How long of a process is it to be able to write a joke and then actually perform it?
D: Sometimes I think of one just before I go on. And then other times it will be in my notebook for a couple years, just trying to figure it out and fix it. You kind of find it’s very non-linear, it’s just trusting your own little head to go where it takes you, and then recording what you find when you go there. Then you say it to other people and see if they think it’s funny too, if they don’t then you learn quickly, ‘ok then that shouldn’t go in the act.’ Yeah, it’s very simple.
S: What are you working on now?
D: I’m halfway through a screenplay, after the tour I’ll finish that one. Then I’ll have the holidays, then I’ll rewrite another movie, that I actually wrote a script for with my friend. Then after that I’ll probably rewrite the first draft of the screenplay, then after that I’ll write the first draft of the third one, and then it’ll be the summertime, and I’ll take a break.
S: Is writing screenplays harder than writing a standup act for you?
D: Yes. It’s definitely harder for me. It’s incremental, you know? I guess a screenplay can be, but it’s one big piece, whereas a joke is short and if it’s no good then you can just move on.
S: How hard was it to try to get your mom and your grandma to participate on the CD?
D: They were willing. They were like ‘yeah we’ll do whatever you want, let us know.’
S: Are you surprised you got a parental advisory sticker on the CD?
D: Yeah, I knew that, I was there for the edit, and I kept a couple jokes that curse in there, part of me wanted to have no curses on the CD, but I wanted it to be kind of honest, I just wanted it to be like one of my shows. Yeah, I curse a little bit, I don’t do too much dirty stuff, but there’s some curses and stuff.
S: I was kind of shocked that they gave you an advisory sticker, but I could see how they did.
D: Yeah, I’m not a big dirty comic, for better or worse I do curse sometimes, but if I do another one maybe I’ll do it with no curses, who knows.
S: One last question and I’ll let you go, are you doing anything for Halloween?
D: I thought I was going to, I didn’t know what I was going to be but I would just go to my friend’s, my friend has a Halloween party every year, it’s really fun and you see a lot of people there in New York, but I’ll be in Columbus, doing a Daily Show spot.
S: What are you doing for the Daily Show?
D: I’m doing a Trend Spotting piece, So I don’t know if I’ll be in the edit room that night, so I might be dressed as a guy trying to edit his piece.

An exerpt of this appeared in the November 3, 2006 issue of The DePaulia