by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Inspired by the deadpan brilliance of Steven Wright and the drop-dead boredom of law school, Demetri Martin left university to be a stand-up comic. A lesser talent, with lesser ambition, could have easily ended up ghost-writing jokes for hacks, or bagging groceries, or hustling.

But Martin’s subtle, observational humour, packaged in a lo-fi multimedia format, won him Scotland’s prestigious Perrier award, a year-long stint as a writer for Conan O’Brien (a “great” but demanding job that he left to hone his craft) and a high-profile, low-pressure gig as the “Trend Spotting” correspondent on The Daily Show, where he started out as a lowly intern. He’s also seen two NBC sitcom deals die after handing in ideas that were too weird and, he theorizes, “too good” to be realized.

The Mirror caught Martin in the middle of a last-minute home recording session for his upcoming comedy CD, and a mild panic attack brought on by chronic procrastination.

Demetri Martin: Basically, before I go to Montreal, I have to get everything in, and I’m supposed to be writing a screenplay at the same time. I’m in deep shit.

Mirror: Screenplay?

DM: I got a deal to write a script for Dreamworks—they paid me—so that’s due in 12 weeks. I actually got to pitch it to Spielberg, and he was excited.

M: Spielberg? Presumably this is a comedy, right?

DM: Yeah, it’s a comedy about the Holocaust. No, it’s a comedy, but I guess I veer towards the earnest sometimes. I’m not all that ironically detached.

Comedy booms

M: What do you make of being tagged “the voice of generation Y”?

DM: Sometimes people think I’m younger than I am because I have a stupid haircut and I wear sneakers and stuff. But that’s cool. I’m 33. I’m definitely X, but my voice carries into Y. I use a plug-in.

I don’t know how it is in Canada, I haven’t performed there very much, but in the States, college kids and young people seem more interested in comedy now than when I started in ’97. Or maybe MySpace and certain things that have proliferated on the Web just make it easier to see how much young people are into it.

M: Maybe a new crop of comedians is just phasing out the boring relationship and gender clichés we grew up on. Stand-up has a pretty bad rep.

DM: It does seem like most stand-up is crap. The ’80s packaged and truncated stand-up so much that all these weird clichés ended up being what it actually is. When people start doing stand-up, it’s like they’re doing an impression of what they think a comedian is. And when you try things that aren’t that, you’re labelled an alternative comedian. But Steve Martin and Albert Brooks and a lot of those guys would now be called alternative, yet they predated the crappy comedy boom of the ’80s.

Bombing, bragging, bubbling

M: How did you get started?

DM: Trial by fire. You just book an open mic, or some “bringer” show where you have to bring people to get on stage, and I just started doing it, and bombing quite a bit. I still bomb, though less frequently. If you’re really growing and finding your limits, awkward silence is gonna be a regular part of your development. It’s like skiing—if you didn’t fall, maybe you were playing it a little safe. I like drawing, painting and playing music, and I’m not good at any of those things, but I’m obsessed with trying to progress and get better at them.

M: When did you start working those elements into your act?

DM: In 2002, I did my first hour-long show that wasn’t just jokes. I thought, I wanna make a true one-man show, which means I’ll write it and perform in it but I’ll also do slides of my art, I’ll score the show and I’ll make my clothes. I’ll just do the best that I can at each thing and that will be my style, but more importantly it’ll be an honest presentation of where I’m at. So I was bragging to my friends, “Yeah, I’m gonna do everything,” [and they asked], “So, do you play music?” I said, “No, but I’ll figure it out.” So I bought a four-track, a guitar, a keyboard, some harmonicas, a tambourine—I started from scratch, and it was so hard! I mean, it was just impossible to play guitar. Talk about working with constraints! It was like, in two months, I will be presenting this show, music will be played—I won’t be playing too much of it live but I’m gonna have backing tracks, and I don’t want it to be too shitty, it’ll be embarrassing.

I remember learning a C chord. I needed music that was hopeful for one part, so I’d be like, “C, that sounds nice. What’s next?” It was just the easiest shapes that I could handle and keep rhythm, and then you add a glockenspiel and a little bass and all of a sudden, I was like, “Oh my God, I’ve got music here!” Then I just fell in love with playing guitar and I learned how to finger-pick. Sure enough, I worked out this little pattern and now [the music is] like a river flowing under stuff–it just kind of pops and bubbles.

It’s nice.

M: But you’re not a musical comedian in the tradition of Henny Youngman or Mark Russell.

DM: No, but personally I don’t wanna hear just jokes for an hour. Even if the thread is that they’re all similar jokes from the same guy, I’d rather they went through a landscape of some kind–drawings, piano, guitar, photographs, maybe strung into a story. So if that makes me a musical comic or a prop comic or an art comic or just a douchebag, to me, it’s just a little more fun.

Demetri Martin is at Cabaret Juste Pour Rire from July 16–22, $17.50, Call 845-2322 or check www.hahaha.com for details.

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