Funny Blood

My Aunt Helen sent me the following.

Hey KRANKI Martin -

Hope all is well. Let me know how its going. Just wanted to pass on this info, since this guy's been in the news lately:

I think I told you that Demetri Martin (the comedian) is your blood relative (but not through the Martin line - strange coincidence that you have the same last name). Your great-grandmothers were sisters. Your grandmothers are 1st cousins.

He's been on Jon Stewart, written for Conan, will have a new Comedy Central show in 2008. He's about your age. His grandmother Dina and uncle Johnny were at Aunt Mary's funeral and I sat with them at the luncheon. The uncle have me his dvd and cd (not the latest), which I can send you if you want. Demetri often uses his mother & grandmother in his comedy, talking about Yiayia, growing up Greek, has his grandmother respond to his jokes, etc.

Anyway, you said your Australian friends know of him. His humor is a bit like yours - cerebral and observational. Below are some links. Don't know if you would want to reach out to him, since you have so much in common. (I even think he was briefly married in his early 30's and is now divorced.) His website/myspace invites people to e-mail. Just a thought. To me, its almost surreal, parallel-universe-type stuff, so I just had to pass this info on.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14653866 - recent NPR radio interview

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7120270 - NPR radio interview

http://television.aol.com/news/story/_a/jon-stewart-backs-demitri-martin-show/20071003065809990001

http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/demetri_martin/index.jhtml - video spots on Jon Stewart

http://www.demetrimartin.com/main.html - his website

{BTW, here is how you are related:
Demetri's great-grandmother (Evangelitsa (Sissas)) & Matthew's great-grandmother (Anastasia (Sissas) Bendo-Poulos) were sisters.
Demetri's grandmother (Dina Agrapides) & Matthew's grandmother (Effie (Bendo) Yovanopoulos) are first cousins.
Demetri's mother (Lillian (Agrapides) Martin), married Dean Martin (Greek Orthodox priest, now deceased). Lillian and Effie are 2nd cousins.
And besides the above blood connection, Demetri & KRANKI are also connected via the Finale family through different marriage lines! It's a very small, very close, world.)

Keep in touch,
Helen

I'm not sure how I would go about communicating with somebody I am a fan of. It has a rather sycophantic, star-fucker quality to it that rubs me the wrong way. Would I even want to meet him if he were just my cousin who had some boring office job? Probably not. But if he was a funny cousin with a boring office job I think I would.

Does contacting him make me a star fucker? Did I mention I don't like star fuckers and hangers on? That's probably why I didn't ride some body's coattails to fortune back when I worked in Hollywood.

Please take a moment to weigh in with your opinion.