5/11/09
Is anybody else watching Demetri?
I think his show (Important Things with Demetri Martin) is pretty good. It was on regular rotation here the Parr/Becker household before it got into reruns. He was a classmate of mine in college, even in the same major I think, but I don't think I ever had a conversation with him. Too bad.... I was worried I might find it irritating that a 36 year old non-slacker was doing Gen X humor but (a) I don't know what any of those things is so how irritated could I be? and (b) he does of lot of clever Carlin-esque word play that gets me every time. And how about a skit where Gallileo, Ben Franklin and Shakespeare visit a TGIFridays and get kicked out for accosting the waitress? Good stuff...this isn't it.
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9 comments:
First, it was the JE IM Secretary putting on airs as if he had cured the entire city of Boston of a dreaded curse just because he he pushed some papers for a baseball team.
He never won Tyng on my watch, and I still have the framed newsletter where we swept JE in 6 games in one night to knock them out of contention our senior year.
But whatever, Theo, I am glad you were able finally to find success with one sort.
Now, we got this jackass who comes ONE position ahead of me in alphabetical order in our class and suddenly HE is the most successful D. Martin from Yale '95?
This guy spends 4 years telling bad inside jokes for an Improv group none of us saw more than once and suddenly I am supposed to watch him on Comedy Central acting like he's 25?????
Yeah... okay.... I am. He is almost as funny as me, and the man has yet to greenlight any of my projects yet.
So, until then. this guy (like Theo) is a poor substitute for me -- but all we got.
Seriously -- it's hysterical.
I think you are misguided about what Gen X means. I, for instance, am Gen X and I am older than Demetri Martin. Demetri Martin is not Gen X.
See definition here, from Wikipedia:
It wasn't until Canadian author Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel, Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, about young adults (who were then in their late twenties, born in the late 1950s to 1960s) in the late 1980s, that the term more accurately described the cohort that would eventually be labeled Generation X (even though technically the characters in the novel were late baby boomers). Coupland's book also helped to popularize the term.
maybe I meant Gen Y humor? look, I said I didn't know what it meant. it's just he has a shaggy hair cut and skateboards.
Yes, perhaps Generation Y. I suppose if you were born in the mid-90s, you might be sporting shaggy hair and skateboarding around. All the skateboarders I currently know, though, are over 30 so maybe skateboarding is now out of style and Demetri Martin is the perfect demographic for it - mid 30s.
Defined demographically
Generation Y is the generation following Generation X, especially people born in western culture from 1982 (Millenials) to the mid-1990s.[citation needed] The generation is also alternatively defined as the children of the Baby Boomer generation.[citation needed] People born in the early 1990s are sometimes lumped into Generation Z (though the majority opinion begins this generation around 1996), however most commentators believe the main Generation Y cohort consists of those born starting in 1982. [17]
So, if Demetri (and me and Will) are neither Gen X nor Gen Y, then what are we?
According to the Hoover Institution, Generation X can cover those born from 1964 to 1978. http://www.hoover.org/multimedia/uk/3420651.html
I bet there are lots of competing definitions. I just know that during my time at Yale, I felt bombarded by articles referring to my generation as Generation X.
Somehow that was supposed to explain why I should have been sadder when Kurt Cobain died or something.
What about Generation Jones?
Wait. Now that I've actually looked it up, I see everyone who comments here (including me) is too young for Generation Jones. Ah well.
Don - you may indeed be Gen X (I think I am) but in Will's original post he was accusing Demetri of acting too young for his real age by referring to him as acting Gen-X-y. Seems like we can at least rule that out.
I guess it wasn't his age that left me accusing him of 'acting' gen X-y as much as it was the fact that he is a Yale grad who dropped out of NYU law to not slack but to work hard to be a comedian and, as a result, famous. But I may be off equating Gen X with slacker-dom or maybe skateboarding with either? whatever. just watch the f#$%ing show.
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