Demetri Martin on skinned knees in comedy

Demetri Martin is my favorite comedian. In the past few years he has garnered immense respect for his innovative approach to an entertainment form rife with vapidity. But it hasn't been an easy journey--in an interview with Punchline Magazine in 2005, Martin recounts his early days:


Rewinding his memory some nine years, Martin recalls, “I remember my first two nights when I finally decided I was going to do this. My first night was at the old Boston Comedy Club in the Village; I did 12 jokes, and I got laughs from six of them. And I was shocked. I just wanted to get a laugh on one joke, one real laugh on a joke that I’d premeditated. Because up until then, if you joke around with people, you know, it’s essentially improv. Like you get a laugh in the moment, and you get good at maybe at finding those moments.”

“But stand-up is this weird other thing. It’s preparing a thing and saying it. And when I got like six laughs instead of just one, I thought, Cool. I can do this. I’m a comedian. Oh my God, I got laughs from people who didn’t even know me.”

He pauses for an instant then hits his mouth’s play button again.

“And then I went up the next night… because I booked two in a row, figuring when I bombed the first night, I’d just have to go right back up the second night and do it again. And then the second night I went, and I was like more confident because my jokes worked as far as I knew. And I went up and did like the same set… and I bombed.” He draws the word out. “I just died because none of my jokes got laughs. And I was so confused.”

“Just last night, like 40 blocks from here, those jokes were funny. I don’t understand. I was like, Oh, OK; I guess this is going to be hard. You just have to keep doing it. I mean, it’s like quantum physics or something. You can make a probabilistic statement about it, but you can’t really definitely say, ‘This joke works.’ You can say, ‘This joke works 92 percent of the time or this joke works 40 percent of the time, or this joke works 20 percent of the time.”


What can we learn from this comedian whose acceptance of skinned knees resulted in his long-term success?