This is a true story: A couple months as I was returning home from a long day at the office, as I pulled in my driveway I was snatched out of my car, blind-folded, dragged into another vehicle and then flown in some type of small aircraft for what felt like hours but was most likely 30 minutes. After the plane had landed I was brought into a large warehouse, with numerous rows of cardboard boxes. I was told to sit down on a very cold aluminum chair as two shadowy figures pulled my blindfold off, then sat across from and said, “We want you to write for Candied Pop!” Startled and extremely confused, I shouted back, “What in tarnation is Candied Pop?” Yes, I used the word tarnation, because I was amused that I was surrounded by boxes and boxes of cigarettes. After what felt like hours, but was probably more likely thirty seconds, I agreed to join these two strangers, who later turned out to be James and Scott, in the their unique, wordy and worldly conquest against, well I am still unsure about all the details. I do recall something along the lines of, “We want to read your reviews, postings, bloggings, stories, fantasies, what-have-you, anything about music.” Yes, that was it, their exact words. I remember now, I am good at that and hardly ever make things up. Shortly later as they released me one of them, probably the tall one said, “Okay you’re free to go but we don’t want to see or hear about any funny stuff, you got that?” So I suspected that I had to keep to the deal and only dish out my thoughts and ramblings which were solely relating to music. Until I see this post, about a Norm MacDonald album, by Scott, you know one of those shadowy figures. Oh I guess good ol’ Norm is making music now, I think to myself. I read on; this isn’t music, this is… “funny stuff”. Heck, I can do anything I want here, I bet I can write what I had for dinner last night and they won’t even notice. So here I am, submitting my thoughts on Demetri Martin’s album These Are Jokes.
If you’re a Daily Show viewer you probably seen Demetri Martin pop up in bits such as his spotlight on youth culture called “Trend-Setting”. Martin is 33 years old but with his mop-top haircut and his youthful threads he looks and acts more like he’s 23. He has been compared by many to the comedian Steven Wright, because of his quick one-line jokes and dry sense of humor. But Martin’s jokes have an intellectual cleverness to them as he’s not disengaged from his audience. The fact that he is a Yale graduate does not come off as surprising since his jokes are cerebral and more in tuned with what is actually going in society. These Are Jokes opens with an old lady claiming to be Demetri’s grandma. She politely welcomes us to the CD as Demetri breaks in with a slow, scruffy rap, “Hey, Hi, Hello. One Time I did a show. On stage with the mike-ra-phone. No get ready, These Are Jokes”. All accompanied by strange theatrical music that reminds me of little known band called Turtletoes. For the most part the album is entire performance recorded earlier this year in Chicago. The jokes rarely get offensive, I think he drops the F-bomb once or twice throughout the entire recording and he only subtly dwells into drugs and sex.
When Martin dishes out one liners and builds upon these short jokes, he makes it easy for mental images to materialize. “Swimming is a confusing sport,” (a little pause you think he’s going no where with this) “Sometimes you do it for fun, but other times you do it to not die.” (the punch-line is made, lots of laughs, but then he continues with) “When I am swimming sometimes I don’t which one it is. You have to go by the outfit. Pants! Uh oh” The visual image of Demetri wallowing around in a body of water, with a slightly nervous look on his face emerges. “Bathing Suit, Okay!” With a simple “Okay” he expresses that he’s content that he’s alive with a completely unbothered approach” “Naked, We’ll see” (a giant smirk leaks out that will lead nowhere with the ladies). Some of his jokes work as short as they are “If I had a bookstore I would make the mystery section really hard to find”. Others he takes what appear to be random thoughts and elaborates upon them to expresses how we would see them in our own world. “Whenever I have a drink with a tiny umbrella in it, I take it out and save it. Then I wait for a rainy day and I break it out”. That alone gets a lot laughs but then he stretches it out a little longer; “When I see people on the street and say how’s it going? Pretty crappy weather. Also watch out there’s a wizard back there. Yeah this was large and I was Korean. He was pretty mad” which produces a mass attack of laughter.
Demetri doesn’t just tell his jokes but for a lot of the set he incorporates music into the act, playing guitar, keyboards and the occasional singing. In “the Remix”, he takes all of his well known one-liners and remixes them with a glockenspiel and keyboard. In “Personal Information Waltz” Martin mixes his quick one-line jokes as SNL’s Will Forte screams out some Ohs, Whoas, and Yeahs and bunch of other crazy noises like he’s some kind strung out homeless man who used to be a R&B singer. What is actually appealing about the track ins that Martin is laughing along which connects him with the audience. The album ends with three strange “songs” that were not a part of the live recording. Again his grandma pops back for a visit (and possibly his mother), where he proclaims his love for grapes in “The Grapes Song”. He chants like Frank Black on “The Wisdom Song” and the CD concludes with his grandmother telling a strange tale about a man named Johnny, backed by his simple guitar strumming.
In some sort of promotion for Windows Vista, Demetri has a site called Clearification which will feature seven short films, (only one is up right now). The short film shows a little different side to Demetri’s comedy as it is more situational rather than observational. The band Film School provides the instrumental guitar pluckings and the fantastic design of the site, created by Michael Gillette has the feel that it was created by a very artistic teenager. Available in the download section are a couple of short jokes and the edited version of Film School song “11:11″. You can obviously find a lot of short videos on YouTube as well. Pick up the entire album, These Are Jokes on eMusic or iTunes. Now I have to go watch my back and make sure I am not being followed again, I don’t want to get bullied into joining some beatnik poetry club.
