If you've paid attention in the past few years—and even if you haven't—chances are you've seen Demetri Martin. He's appeared on The Daily Show, hosted his own show for two seasons, starred in an Ang Lee movie, and now he's back with his first book, This Is A Book, which hits bookstores today. As he headed off to start his book tour we caught up with Martin, who talked with us about important things like the genesis of his new book, where he gets his haircut and why Jersey Shore is weirdly validating for the Jersey-bred boy.
So This Is A Book by Demetri Martin is your book, not to be confused with These Are Jokes, which is a DVD and comedy album by you. What inspired you to write and draw a book? When I had the TV show a couple years ago, and it was just starting up, my agent said, "You know, this literary agent wants to meet with you. If you have a book idea, this might be good timing to see if someone is interested." We met and I mentioned that I wanted to try to write a book at some point, where I could figure out how to do bits on paper, or at least translate my sensibility into different forms that could just be received simply through reading rather than performance or music or anything else. So that was the genesis of it for me, figuring out a way to be content on paper, not knowing really what specifically I would do.
I got the deal, but then the show was really very time-consuming, so I never got to finish it. And then when the show ended they said, "All right, you really gotta do this book." So I finished it. And now that's what the book is. It's kind of grab-bag, a lot of different bits.
That was actually my next question. It seems to be made up of short scenes, story sketches and actual sketches. Is there a significance to the order or did you just like the way it flowed in this format? That was more the second, I think. I think it flowed pretty well for me once I shifted things around. I wanted to have a somewhat balanced distribution of drawings, a few list pieces, some longer stories, and then some of those kind of first-person type essays, so that if anything structurally it's still like anything else. I wanted to separate them a little bit. Having the two groups of drawings, the charts and graphs, and the crossword puzzle—those to me were kind of visual little buffers. More like interludes.
Did you write everything in the book for the book or was some of it leftovers from the show? More than ninety-something percent was for the book. There are a few little things—one thing is I took an old stand-up joke and I just expanded it into an essay. The one about the guy whose dad was raised by wolves, that's a stand-up joke from years ago. I thought it would be funny to write an essay from that guy's perspective. So that's kind of an adaptation and an expansion of an old idea. There was a sketch idea I had for the show that we didn't get to shoot, and that's one of the stories about the guy who travels through time. I got to expand it, it's a lot more involved than what we would have been able to shoot on the show. Little things like that. I wanted to write a book and make content specifically for a book. I'm working on my next book now, which will probably be more stories. So that was my first attempt. Now I'm like, "Ok, cool, I'll do a book of drawings that will be all drawings, and a book of stories that could just be all stories." Now I can specialize.
You are about to go on a book tour. Is this going to be your first book tour? Yeah. I'm in Indianapolis right now, I'm doing stand-up tonight. This isn't really a book tour stop. But I'm going to find a place to get warm. I'm getting battered by the wind, I'm already a wuss after being in California just for a couple years, it's crazy.
Book tours can be pretty grueling... I'm trying to shield with my notebook, I'm just going to go find a place to sit. Damn, it's cold. I thought I'd just walk to the bookstore. I'm by the highway now... okay, that's a little better.
So book tours can be pretty famously grueling on authors. Are there any basic questions you are dreading having to answer over and over for a week? I don't think so. No, it's funny. Doing stand-up all these years... often at the end of the show, I'll do a Q & A at a college if people are interested and want to talk. I do plenty of crowd work during my shows. I guess it'll be different when I'm in a bookstore, when I'm sitting behind a podium or whatever it is. I don't really care. If you ask me that in a week, maybe I'll have a more educated answer. So far, I'm not too worried.
And Important Things With Demetri Martin is really gone, right? Yeah...I think it was near the end of the second season, we were pretty sure we wouldn't be continuing. I was kind of relieved because it's hard to pull off that show. There was a lot of content for the amount of time that we had and the amount of money, and I was really trying to squeeze in everything I could into it. So, in a way it was nice to say, "Okay, cool, I can move on to other stuff now."
You said that you are working on a second book already, but what else do you have in store. The last time I did a stand-up special, I think it came out in 2007. So, I'm going to shoot a new stand-up special. I'm writing material, to try to figure that one out. And I'm writing a movie that I hope to direct and get financing for, so we'll see if that happens.
What's it about? I'm still trying to figure it out. I have this little workspace, this little office that I rent. I put all these cork boards up, moving my little note cards around, figuring out which idea has the most promise. I don't really know yet. It's funny, I vacillate between more concept ideas, or higher concept ideas, and more grounded ideas. I wrote this other one called Will, that's been in the works for a while. Maybe it'll get shot in the next year, I don't know. That one I wrote for a studio. That was more concept-y. I'm thinking I might try to do something that's more grounded. But the interesting thing is, for me, writing stories for the first time, really sitting down and writing out a story, that's helpful because it's helped me appreciate the art of storytelling, rather than trying to sell a story or produce a story. You know what I mean? Or shoot a story. Just, how do I get back to the basics of a simple narrative? What can I do with the narrative? Working on a book of stories is kind of not that different in a way to generating a movie. [Sounds of wind finally stop] I made it. I'm in the Salvation Army. I can take off my sweater.
You were talking about using little note cards to plot this out, and you are pretty well known for the white board. Did you ever approach 3M for that sponsorship? [Laughs] No, it's funny, someone asked me recently, "Hey, did you see those commercials where there's a guy with a white board and a similar haircut to you?" And I was like, "Oh yeah, I think I've seen that." "Do you think that you were, you know, part of the inspiration?" I don't think so. I think I just happen to use a large pad in my stand-up. It'd be nice to think that people would see my stuff that much. But no...the truth is, when I do a live show, if I do ninety minutes or something, maybe ten minutes of it is with some drawings, but I guess that's what kind of pops out.
That's sort of what stuck. Fair enough, on Twitter and Facebook, I've been posting drawings. I do little line drawings on my phone and then I upload them. I really like drawing, I have notebooks full of drawings. To me, it's one way of delivering content. I like telling jokes. Sometimes I play some music. But it's not like I'm trying to be a musical comic. It's like, cool, more of a variation of the presentation.
You mentioned your haircut. I have to ask: who cuts your hair? In New York, I used to go to this lady named April.
Does she use a bowl? Because you have an amazing haircut. I think if you look at my haircuts over the last I don't know how many years, they are all just kind of variations on different Beatles haircuts. I'm a Beatles fan and I also just have a certain kind of hair, I guess. It just kind of grows down. When I was a kid growing up in Jersey, I wanted to have like, cool, spiked hair and stuff, but my hair doesn't really grow up, it just grows down, so I had to put stuff in my hair. But I don't really want to do that as an adult. I could have short hair and it would more of a Caesar, I think. Or I could have it a little bit longer, and have something else going on. But she cut my hair and then I moved!
You don't live in New York anymore? No, I live in California now. But I go back to New York a lot, I guess I'm kind of in both places. I rented out my place in New York just recently, so I have to stay in a hotel when I go to New York this time, which will be weird because I lived in New York for thirteen years.
And your parents are still in Jersey? Yeah, and they are from Brooklyn.
It's not far. No. Culturally it's very, very far, but geographically it's pretty close.
It depends on which parts of New York you go to. There are some parts that are very similar to Jersey. I guess that's true, yeah.
Between your show and The Daily Show and your film work, do you get recognized much? Not really. I get recognized if I'm near a college campus, or in certain neighborhoods or demographic areas. Not too much. Sometimes. If I go to a college they know I'm coming and they'll see me at Subway. Sometimes I get recognized from the Woodstock movie, which is interesting for me, because I think of myself mostly as a comedian because that's what I've been doing the longest. But someone might say, 'Hey, you're an actor right?' Yeah, I guess... yeah, sure.
Well, in LA everyone is an actor, right? Yeah, it's true. "Are you a waiter, are you an actor, what are you?" One of those.
Since we are a New York City blog, I want to ask a few New York questions. I'm happy to do all New York questions, I love New York.
When you were growing up did you come into the city much? Yeah, pretty frequently. My mom's parents still lived in Brooklyn at that time, and my dad's parents lived in Staten Island by then. We used to go periodically, for holidays and go up sometimes just to visit. My dad's parents would take us into the city. Take us, like, buy us... my dad's mom would buy us a new winter jacket or something like that. And around the holidays we would go see the windows at Saks Fifth Avenue. And my parents, I remember—I was really into breakdancing when I was like in fifth grade. I loved breakdancing. I was into popping and the whole thing.
This was like '85, '86? Might have been '84, '85, '86, somewhere around there. I remember a couple times my parents coming home and saying, "We were in the city! We saw these breakdancers! You would've loved it!"
I always wanted to go up there to see breakdancers on the street. That's funny to me. The other thing I longed for at the time—oh after that, my other thing was skateboarding, and all the skateboarding magazines featured the West Coast, Del Mar and Santa Monica. Places like that. Skating eventually took off on the East Coast, lots more street skating and people skating down stairways. That really seemed like a West Coast thing. I was on the Jersey Shore. It was kind of like a pale imitation.
Ah, the Jersey Shore. What do you think of the show? I haven't seen it. I know what it looks like. To me it's a weird, weirdly validating thing because that's where I'm from, so I can point to it as shorthand of people wondering why I am the way I am or what I'm reacting to or maybe why I feel like an outsider sometimes. Because that's what my high school was like. It's like your tough guy culture, a pridefully ignorant...I don't know what the word is, defiantly ignorant. So, to me it's a good reminder of what I managed to wiggle away from. I never really identified with it, but it is where I'm from.
That is an interesting way to think about it. Right, at least I can acknowledge, that's where I'm from, that's what I got away from. But I don't know, it sounds like they fight a lot, and they just drink and stuff, right?
Yup. Anyway, last question, when you are in New York, do you have a favorite place you like to go eat? I'm a real creature of habit. The places I used to go and I'll probably go to when I'm in town are, Bar PT, the Vaselka, Yaffa in the East Village...Where else did I go a lot?
Did you go to The Kiev before it closed or were you always a Veselka person? I did, I did, but I switched to Veselka pretty early on, but I did go to Kiev. A couple of comics introduced me to that place a few years ago. I'm trying to think of my neighborhood, what else I really liked. I lived in SoHo for a while so I lived right near Bar PT, so I loved that. God, it's sad—I know that I'm a creature of habit but I know that I'm not that much that I only went to three restaurants.
Oh you know what I liked? I liked Three of Cups. I like Italian food. Three of Cups was really good, hearty—their bolognese was the thing. I went to Schiller's a few times, that was kind of new, that's Lower East Side. I used to go to The Hat all the time, I haven't been there in a while. Voodoo Lounge used to be a big stand-up room on Monday nights and then the building got razed, so it's so sad that the place doesn't even exist anymore. We used to go to The Hat after those shows. I always see comics at the Veselka.
Cool. Anything else people should know about your book and why they should buy it? Yeah, it's pretty much all new content, and there are a lot of different kinds of content in it. There are a lot of chances for people to find something they like in it. I worked really hard on it, so that counts for something. And yeah, I'm happy with it, I think it's a good book. You can read it out of order. Relatively.
Always good to be able to read things any way you want. Thank you so much for talking with us. Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it!
