Demetri Martin is onstage at Seattle’s Moore Theatre. The New York comedian is of slight build, 5’10” and sinewy, with a self-proclaimed “gay Beatle haircut,” but his boundless energy easily fills the cavernous proscenium. “I’m used to performing in a straitjacket, in elevators,” he says as he crosses the stage in his dork-chic New Balance sneakers, “so this is great.”

Martin’s humor is both erudite and goofy: “‘Sort of’ is a filler, but at the end of a sentence, it can mean everything,” he says, and pauses. “I love you. You’re going to live. It’s a boy.” We meet the next morning at a coffeehouse in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, near his hotel. While we’re in line, two college-age girls standing nearby recognize him and whisper, but he doesn’t notice. He orders orange juice instead of coffee and explains that he shuns caffeine. “I rarely eat sugar, either,” he continues. “I don’t like to need anything.”

The son of a Greek Orthodox priest (note: Orthodox priests can marry prior to ordination) and a nutritionist, Martin grew up with his brother and sister in Toms River, New Jersey. His parents co-owned a Greek diner with his grandparents and uncle. Martin, the prototypical “good Greek boy,” served as an altar boy at church and bused tables at the restaurant. He studied maniacally and, to his family’s delight, received a full scholarship to the New York University School of Law. After completing his second year, however, he said, “Fuck it. I’m going to be a stand-up comedian.”

In the past eight years, Martin has played hundreds of shows, many in New York with the lauded theater group Upright Citizens Brigade. He has appeared on David Letterman, written for Conan O’Brien, and received the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award. He is sweetly bemused that the same cousins who chided him when he made twenty bucks a show now tell him, “You’re lucky that all you have to do is write jokes all day.”

—Litsa Dremousis

I. “A LOT OF WHAT I LIKE TO LEARN CORRELATES WITH THE OPPOSITE
OF WHAT GETS YOU LAID.”

THE BELIEVER: Let’s start with the law school thing.

DEMETRI MARTIN: OK. Cool.

BLVR: It’s funny now, but at the time, did your family come after you with the long knives?

DM: Yeah. It’s weird to make a decision where everyone in your life disapproves, pretty vocally and directly. They said, “You’ve got one year left. Just do it.” I had a full scholarship so I didn’t have to pay for it. They asked, “Why don’t you just get the degree so you can have it?” And I said, “You don’t understand. I was trying to figure...