Childhood –
Demetri Evan Martin was born on the 25th of May 1973. He grew up in Toms River on the shores of New Jersey with his family with whom he is very close. His father was a Greek orthodox priest and his mother was a nutritionist, eventually taking over the family diner. Before the diner, Demetri’s family had a seasonal small business by the shore, where he was forced to work from the age of eleven for 50c an hour. Around his work and schooling, he would surf, skateboard and do mind puzzles. Eventually his parents conjured their life savings together and invested in the family diner, still in New Jersey but further inland, where Demetri was also forced to wait tables. Demetri was the head alter boy at his church and was the leader of his church GOYA (Greek Orthodox Youth Association), later becoming “the president of all the Greek kids in New Jersey” as he was named the leader of the New Jersey GOYA. Demetri has fond memories his father speaking at church, his sermons apparently based on three dot points of information which he could talk about for an hour. His father was a great public speaker with an authentic presence, which could be credited with Demetri’s ability in public speaking. As a child Demetri would watch the Pink Panther and was a fan of Gary Larson, the artist behind Farside. He also grew to become a huge fan of comedian Steve Wright. His father was also a fan of comedy, a fan of names such us as Bill Cosby, but unfortunately passed away in 1994, at which time Demetri claims he did not think ‘the cake streak is over.’


Education –
Demetri refers to himself as a ‘nerd’, claiming that he spent most of his schooling days studying his puzzle books and teaching himself a set of ‘useless talents’ such as juggling, riding a unicycle, and being ambidextrous. From the sixth grade Demetri ran for president or vice-president at school and won every year, all the way into Law school. This, combined with his role as GOYA president, helped to build his confidence (as he used to stare at his feet a lot) and his public speaking skills. He recalls the time he discovered his ability to sense a good time to tell a joke explaining, “you start sensing these windows that you have when speaking to a group of people, certain moments that when you say something you'll probably get a laugh. Something funny, but it's more about that window that you have. It's like a pregnant pause that if you take advantage of it you'll hit it right. I just started to learn where those windows were.” From the age of eleven, Demetri had his mind set on becoming a lawyer. He recalls people describing a law degree as “a ticket, even if you don’t use it it’s a ticket. You know you can do other things with it. You can go into politics or… that’s the only example I can think of but there were other things as well.”(1)
Once he had his heart set on going to Yale and ultimately Harvard Law, his mother says “when demetri makes up his mind there is no changing it”, his schooling was focused solely around his soon to be career. At the end of school he attended the prom with his soon to be girlfriend, soon to be wife, and unfortunately soon to be ex-wife Jen. When the time came to apply for law school, Demetri was accepted into Harvard (at the time with about a 2% acceptance rate), however was also accepted into NYU (New York University) with a full scholarship. He decided to accept the offer at NYU, regardless of the fact that it did not offer a business major, to be closer to his then girlfriend who was attending medical school in New York. He also says he took the offer as there was a comedy club directly across the road from the university and he told himself that he would try one stand up so at least he wouldn’t regret never doing it. However after a week of being there he was thinking “this is boring. Is this was this is?” Although it only took a week for him to realize he built his future around a career which he didn’t enjoy, he continued his studies there for two more years. During this time he claims, “I wasn't the class clown, but I was starting to become the "crazy guy" at law school, which is the guy who is not so much "crazy" as "annoying."” He was so bored with law that he started up a game in is class, where he would decide a word before class that you would have to include in your answer if you were called upon. Around this time he states “I got bored and grew restless. I had no other plan for a job, because from seventh grade on, I had planned on law. So I shifted my focus from classes to extracurricular activities … I took up painting, drawing, and complaining about how much law school sucked. I made progress in all three areas. I skipped classes and spent a lot of time skateboarding and playing basketball” (1)

With only a year left before graduation, and apparently “the easiest year” of them all, he dropped out to begin his career in comedy. “Nobody liked my decision to leave law school, except for me.” He explains, “I had a full scholarship, good grades, and only one year left—the easiest year. The only problem was that I had no passion for it. When I dropped out, everybody was disappointed. People said I should get the degree to have something to fall back on. That didn't make sense to me. Couches are good for falling back on, or fat people who are sunbathing, not degrees in things you don't like. "(2)


Career –
According to Demetri “I got into stand-up because I love stand-up. Specifically in stand-up, I love jokes. I love short, structured ideas and a punchline.”(3) He began performing at the Boston Comedy Club in New York and performed in small rooms in bringer shows (must bring a certain amount of people to get stage time) or ones where you have to “bark to get spots” (advertise / pester people to some to the club). He said his aim in his first show was to get one real laugh, and as it turned out he got six out of the twelve jokes he told, and his career has taken off from there.

He became an intern for ‘The Daily Show’, to which he would return after eight years to become the shows resident “trendspotter.” Between then he went on to "work at temp jobs, then become a full-time proofreader, do hundreds of stand-up shows, some comedy festivals, a couple of writing jobs, some screenplays, two pilot scripts, and about twenty minutes of Pilates" His two pilots, which he wrote for NBC have“ both failed to make it to production” because as Demetri puts it, “it seems they were too "weird" or "alternative" or "awesome." I think it's safe to say that they will grow old in oblivion.” He has attended the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for four year in a row with his one-man-shows, ‘If I’, ‘Spiral Bound’, ‘These are Jokes’ and ‘Dr Earnest Parrot Presents Demetri Martin.’ As well as his one-man shows, he has had two specials, ‘Demetri Martin. Person’ and ‘Comedy Central Presents Demetri Martin’, been on TV with shows such as ‘Important Things with Demetri Martin’ and ‘The Daily Show’, has written for shows such as ‘Late Night with Conan O’Brien’ and has become the face of Windows Vista. He has also written and featured in many movies and in cameo TV roles.(3)

(1) NPR, February 1, 2007 - read the full article here
(2)A.V Club by Sean ONeal November 29, 2006 - read full article here
(3)A.V club - read full article here