Not Wild but Witty Repartee With Martin, Shearer

Media and movie personality Harry Shearer sat down Sunday with media and movie personality Steve Martin to talk about writing, comedy and the creative process. Shearer, best known locally for his radio program, “Le Show” KCRW-FM (89.9), began the interview with a discussion of Martin’s new bestselling book, “Pure Drivel” (Hyperion, 1998).

The hourlong chat was sponsored by Writers Bloc, a nonprofit organization that will host similar events with authors David Halberstam, Elmore Leonard and Christopher Buckley in the coming months.

In addition to the conversation with Shearer, the evening consisted of Martin reading selections from his book and a question-and-answer session with the audience. The following is an edited version of the evening’s discussion held in Beverly Hills before an audience of several hundred.

Harry Shearer: The thing that surprises people who haven’t read this stuff before is that this is high wit . . .

Steve Martin: . . . You mean a low wit? Or a half-wit?

Shearer: It’s true. For a guy who started his performing career being a zany, it’s an extraordinary transition to wit.

Martin: I don’t know what happened really. Something happened about five years ago. I started writing what you call wit or whatever it is. I sort of got rejuvenated in some way and the things started coming after a dead period, in terms of writing prose. One day it sort of started to come out. Sort of like when you eat something bad.

Shearer: These are pieces that seem to be inspired, in the very truest sense, in that you can’t quite put your finger on what made you sit down and write most of these.

Martin: Well, that’s the actual joy of it is that . . . when you don’t know what’s going to come out. I think you have to be able to find as a writer that state where you don’t know what you’re going to say or what the character is going to say or who the characters are. That’s the biggest thrill of all.

When you start to trust that subconscious thing and you don’t censor yourself--just remember you can always throw it away--that’s when the good stuff comes out.

Shearer: Which is so . . .

Martin: Astute?

Shearer: Yeah, let’s go with that. But somehow [that approach to writing] is in opposition to the way you have to write in Hollywood where you have to know who everybody is and how it comes out before you sit down and start writing.

Martin: I’ve had the experience in my life of scripts that are taken from the writer, then farmed out for technical reasons. We need a woman’s input. So, they give it to a woman. And then they say they need some gags. So they give it to some gag writers. And what you get is a mess. Generally, but not always.

You also get a mess with one writer too. So it’s just a mess, no matter what you do.

Shearer: You are a Southern California native. Yes?

Martin: I was born in Waco, Texas.

Shearer: I was mainly right then.

Martin: Except for the spelling.

Shearer: And the intrusion of state lines.

Martin: But I moved from [Texas] when I was 5.

Shearer: You grew up in Orange County?

Martin: Garden Grove. Where there is neither a garden nor a grove.

Shearer: As I read this book and having seen “L.A. Story” fairly recently, the thought occurred to me that you’re probably the only person in Southern California who needs to be asked this question. You’re very disciplined and you’re very particular about . . .

Martin: . . . who I date?

Shearer: I hadn’t noticed that. About the way things look. Don’t you want to direct?

Martin: No. I like my life too much. They [directors] are the first ones there and the last ones to go. It’s like eight or nine months, no. I’m happy the way I am. . . . But is that an offer?

Shearer: Your piece “Writing Is Easy” takes that premise, which is a ludicrous premise on its face, and works the hell out of it. Do you, as I do, suspect anyone that says the words, “I just love writing”? I think there’s something seriously wrong with them.

Martin: I have a confession to make. I used to hate writing. It was so hard, so hard. And then something came over me, either I found some kind of life going on through writing or like you said--something is wrong with me.

But I do enjoy it. Let’s face it, I don’t have to earn a living from this. I can do it when I feel like it and I can do it when I want to. I find that’s the best time to write. I also believe this: that if you are writing when it’s drudgery, it’s the wrong time.

You have to remember you are writing when you are not [actually] writing. You can pose whatever your dilemma is to yourself and go away. I believe that your subconscious mind will take care of it. Have you ever had the experience where two or three days later you go, “Oh.” That is what you should wait for. That something is happening when you’re not slaving in front of your computer.

Shearer: Do you think of the reader when you’re writing?

Martin: Well, no. I wrote a play called “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” and it was such a great experience because I knew nothing about writing a play. I thought to myself, “I don’t have to show this to anybody. It doesn’t have to be good, so let’s keep writing and see what happens.” When you start thinking that way, you start to think, “What do I like?” But when you write screenplays, you think what do they like? [The first way] is a thrilling way to write, it’s very liberating.

Humor is elusive to people. They don’t understand how it’s done. To comedy writers it’s not a mystery, but to outsiders it is. But, I don’t know, in the back of your head is the memory of the number of times you’ve been wrong about humor.

There was a line in “Father of the Bride” that I kept saying, “This will never, ever, ever get a laugh. Ever.”

The joke was [about] Marty Short, who was playing a wedding coordinator, had an assistant who was Asian. The joke was when we say [to the assistant], “What’s your name?” And he would say “Mr. Finkelstein” or something like that. A Jewish name. And I said this will never work. This is old, this is lame.

It was the biggest laugh in the movie.

Audience: You were terrific in “The Spanish Prisoner,” and I was wondering . . .

Shearer: . . . I wasn’t in “The Spanish Prisoner.”

Audience: Did you have an association with David Mamet prior to that?

Martin: I knew him a little bit and I liked him. I love his plays. He’s a great writer.

In one of his books, he says something profound and kind of controversial, and I’m paraphrasing here, “No art comes from the conscious mind.” I think what that means is that when you, say, look at a narrative painting where everything is spelled out for you, it’s empty and dead. But when it has some mysterious quality that even the artist may not understand, that’s usually when it achieves the highest level.

Audience: Do you do stand-up anymore?

Martin: Where have you been? No, I stopped in 1980 and haven’t looked back. It’s a young man’s game. I think you become frozen . . . well, I did. They don’t now. But I was in a place where I couldn’t think of anymore material and the only way out of it for me was to stop completely.

Audience: What are your greatest influences?

Martin: I think my experiences with people and life itself. You don’t realize how much you know until you start writing it. You walk around in a fog and then you start writing and start paying attention to detail as you write, not as you watch. When you pay attention to detail when you watch, you’re out of life. Things come into your life subconsciously and when you write them down, they come out and you think to yourself, “I didn’t know I knew that.”

Audience: Are you tempted to try another genre? Like short stories or novels?

Martin: Yes.

Shearer: How about an ice show?

Audience: Talk about your need to take time off to write the play and other things.

Martin: It came as a form of depression. I’d been working essentially my whole life. I thought what am I working for? To make another movie? To have some lousy movie come out? I need to step back from all this. I need to find some time to live and to meet people and to be calm. And find out what happens. As it turned out, something happened that you could never expect. Your mind is still alive and it hasn’t been cornered by convention and by expectations.

Audience: Your background is in philosophy. How do you draw on that?

Martin: I draw on it all the time. The things I learned in college--I didn’t graduate; I went for four years. I changed my major when I was a senior to theater. I feel really uneducated. These meager things that I learned in college, I’ve used them my whole life. I’m still using them. I haven’t learned one thing since.

Bookshelf

Rochelle O’Gorman reviews Steve Martin’s “Pure Drivel” on audiotape. E8