Mae Martin: I’m a TV
When I first moved to Toronto in 2007 I imagined that I would be spending all my time skulking awkwardly around the Mirvish stage doors waiting for the musical theatre stars to come out and sign my program. While that was sometimes my experience I was surprised to find quite early on in my Toronto adventure that I actually spent a lot of time nursing one vodka cranberry (in a big cup) in a dark back room at Clinton’s Tavern or the brand new Comedy Bar because I’d fallen in love with improv. I actually did one of my final projects for my Masters Degree at the University of Toronto on Ghost Jail Theatre, which meant I was there “researching” at least once a week. There is no bigger dork in the comedy club than the kid who is there for school.
I met a lot of improvisers who I idolized immediately, Alana Johnston, Kayla Lorette and Fraz Wiest especially, and I would have (and did) follow them anywhere in the city to watch them be hilarious. During this time I kept hearing folks talk about Mae Martin, who was from Toronto but lived in the UK, but who would periodically come home for both shows and shenanigans, and both were, obviously, legendary. I wanted to see Mae Martin perform, but whenever they were in Toronto, I was always in Halifax. My sense was, though, that Mae was friends with everyone and all their friends were sure that they would be the one to break through in the industry in a big way.
Over a decade later I was not surprised when I saw Mae’s name when I was scrolling through Netflix as part of Comedians of the World (2019), and I watched their standup set “Dope” and really dug it. After that I followed them on Instagram and started to pay closer attention to their career, which led me to the Handsome Podcast, which they co-host with fellow comedians Fortune Feimster and Tig Notaro, their television series Feel Good (2021), and their standup special Sap (2023), both also on Netflix, and I was even able to watch a livestream of Mae doing improv with Alana Johnston and Stephanie Allynne at the Elysian Theatre in Los Angeles, which took me right back to being twenty-five at Comedy Bar.
I recommend that you check out all Mae’s eclectic work (I binged watched Feel Good in two days). I do want to say a bit more about the Handsome podcast, and then I promise I will get into Mae’s album I’m A TV. I only started listening to podcasts after my mom died because I needed a way to fill all the silence that suddenly consumed our house. I wasn’t familiar with Fortune Feimster or Tig Notaro before I started listening to the podcast, but it first aired three months into my grief and their first guest was Sarah Silverman, so I was curious to see what it was all about, so I decided to go for it. That episode was off. the. rails. I was surprised by the format because the guest asks Martin, Feimster, and Notaro a single question (and then answers it themself), but it is more about learning about the podcast hosts rather than learning about the celebrity guests, which very much turns the format of podcasts with famous guests on its head. I immediately loved it, and was so invested in learning more about these three people who live in Los Angeles, who are friends, who are funny, who have lives that are very normal and relatable and very fancy, and often absurd, at the same time. At the end of each podcast Notaro says, “let’s keep growing the Handsome community,” and it really does feel like a community. I have never laughed out loud so much at anything in a purely audio format before, and I have laughed so hard- sometimes while I’m taking my dog for a walk- one time at home I nearly did an I Love Lucy level spit-take. It’s so joyous, and all the conversations are completely spontaneous, yet over the last nearly two years jokes have built upon jokes, stories have become sagas, myths have become lore, and you really feel like you’ve been part of something really special. During the last two years when so much of my life has been me grieving and the stress, sadness, and lonesomeness that comes along with that, every Tuesday and every Friday I look forward to being able to learn something new about these three incredible humans who I have become so invested in caring about. My favourite moment in the podcast was when Sharon and Bram from Sharon, Lois, and Bram sang their question, and they addressed each host by name, and when they said Mae, Mae audibly teared up, and then I teared up, and it was one of the most quintessentially Canadian moments I’ve ever had in my life.
Okay, so this year Mae Martin, who has also written for Baroness Von Sketch Show (the best sketch show, in my opinion), and who was also in Carolyn Taylor’s I Have Nothing, which is on Crave, released their debut music album I’m A TV, begging the question: what can’t they do?
Martin describes the album as “earnest” music, and it has also been characterized more generically by critics as “indie rock,” or “dreamy pop,” but I definitely think “earnest” is very much at the heart of it. The songs were all written by Martin and produced by Wes Marshall and Jason Crouse. Martin sings lead vocals and also plays the guitar, bass, piano, and harmonica. When I heard the hook for the first single from the album “Good Dream” on Instagram I immediately preordered the album. I can’t explain exactly why but it does remind me of being in Toronto in the summer in the late Aughts, which is such a romantic-nostalgic time for me, and not just the allusion to the 2009 garbage strike. One of my favourite songs is “Big Bear,” which captures the freedom one feels when they are somewhere else from where they are expected or assumed to be. The lyrics begin, “Nobody knows I’m in Big Bear/ Nobody knows besides me/ They all think I’m in London/Where I’ve got no intention to be/Nobody knows what I’m doing/I’m just looking at the rocks and trees/Saw a picture of myself looking ten years older/I just came out here to breathe.” The album does really capture elements of Martin’s experience as someone who has spent much of their adult life hopping between Toronto, London, and Los Angeles, and navigating relationships, responsibilities, and expectations in each of their three lives there.
The album’s title comes from a line in “Stowaway,” another of my favourites, which has especially poetic lyrics. The chorus goes, “You can stay if you want to/ ride in my fortune/ make one another cry,“ which suggests some tension in the relationship around belonging, and also leaving the choice up to someone else.
“Quiet Street” hits the listener straight in the heart as Martin sings with supreme vulnerability, “We′ll turn onto a quiet street/Go for dinner like twice a week/Turns out time can be slow and sweet/Don’t get tired of me.” “People Get Back Up” is similarly heartbreaking, with a quite straightforward narrative of Martin coming to terms with the loss of their friend, Jesse, and whether there was more that could have been done to change his trajectory. Martin sings, “I guess I’d heard that you were down/I didn’t wanna pry/people get back up or else they die,” but also says, “I had a hunch we were the same,” which just really beautifully captures the way we tend to walk in this life- never sure when to give people their space and privacy, never sure when we know someone well enough to impose on them with personal questions, never knowing if it’s going to be seen as a lifeline or an embarrassing overstep.
“I Love You So Much” is an unrequited love song where one close friend wonders if the other might want to change their relationship from platonic to something more. My favourite thing about this song is how they begin with “If you ever want to throw a bomb into your life/ say the word/and we’ll head out in the storm/I’ll put down all the love that’s in my hands and keeps me warm” and then they quickly pivot to the much more casual, “anyway, are you okay? How are you doing these days?” In many of these songs there is an element that leaves the future up to chance, to the universe, that seems to trust something bigger than their own agency, and I find that there is something so beautiful and freeing about that.
I was told when I was in my early 20s that there was something magical about Mae Martin, and now a decade and a half later I have learned that this is true. Indeed, they have certainly broken into the industry, and they are continuing to do work that feels very introspective, creative, and interested in exploring a variety of different ways of telling stories and connecting with audiences.
The prophecy has been fulfilled.
Mae Martin has music shows coming up in June in San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and on June 13th at the Vogue Theatre in Vancouver. You can visit their website for more information and to buy your tickets. You can find I’m A TV wherever you get your music, or you can buy an LP, CD, or cassette tape here.
Handsome releases new full episodes every Tuesday and new Pretty Little Episodes every Friday and you can find them wherever you listen to your podcasts.
Keep It Handsome.
