D.J. Demers on Comedy, Hearing Loss, and Finding the Funny

Speaker 1: Welcome to This Week in Hearing. I’m Gael Hannan, co-author of Hear & Beyond, and this week, comedian D.J. Demers and I are going to be talking about humor and hearing loss, two of my favorite topics. DJ is a fellow Canadian, and he is a standup comedian and widely known for his television appearances America’s Got Talent late-night talk shows, and he’s done some fabulous streaming specials as well as his series called One More Time situation comedy, and we’re gonna talk a bit more about that. I know DJ from his presentations to hearing loss organizations, where his humor has made people laugh about their hearing loss, and that’s something that they can’t do very often. I’ve also seen him in one of his favorite places, a comedy club, doing what he loves to do. DJ, welcome.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Gael. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1: Oh, well, it’s great to have you to myself for a little while. So whenever I see you, you’re just performing, and people are loving it, and hard to get at you, so I’m glad that you’re here. So we’re gonna talk about hearing loss, and we’re gonna talk about humor ’cause you combine those into a fabulous package. Tell me a bit about when you first started doing standup, and did you include… did you talk about your hearing loss right from the start?

Speaker 2: There’s been a mistake. I told you people I did not want to talk about my hearing loss at all on this episode, so no I, yeah, I mean, I’ve, I don’t know if it was like my MO when I started standup to talk about my hearing loss, but it very quickly became a part of, you know, what I talked about because it’s such a big part of who I am but I think what doing standup helped me recognize is that it is such a big part of who I am. I might have been in a bit of denial about that or maybe even you know, a willful attempt to make it less a part of my identity, but then you realize when jokes are coming to your mind and you’re writing ’em down, you’re like, oh, there’s so many funny things that happen, and the funniness comes from embarrassment or just being different and all these things that are useful assets in comedy and, and writing funny jokes. So yeah, it, it was a… it was definitely a part of my standup from pretty early on but not necessarily what I liked to do to make people laugh before standup. I like to make people laugh about other things. I wasn’t, like, on the schoolyard always joking about my hearing aids or whatever, you know? So, yeah.

Speaker 1: I think it… yeah. I’ve never, ever joked about my hearing aids, so that’s that’s something that when I first saw you perform, I can’t remember, it must have been on, on TV or something, and you made jokes you were talking about your hearing aids, especially the routine that you do that when you realize someone else was doing very well talking about his deafness but I think it was wonderful you were laughing had us laughing about hearing aids, and it… part of what we’re seeing a little bit more about seeing hearing loss in popular media and TV shows, before it was always people who are deaf, and now we’re seeing regular hard of hearing people who say pardon on TV shows, and I have a feeling that you have been partially responsible and contributing to that. What do you think?

Speaker 2: I think that’s very flattering. I would never say that. Well, I mean, I’ll say on a very personal level, the idea that there’s some kid out there who’s watched me and been like, “Holy crap, I feel a little better about my hearing aids. I had no idea you could just talk about it, be chill like that.” You know, because I’ve always tried to just talk about it in a chill way and not necessarily like a woe is me but I’m overcoming kind of way and if there’s somebody, yeah, to… I think if there’s even one kid out there who got something out of that, then I’ll gladly take a little credit, but I think the big thing is these kids now, I keep saying these kids as if I’m 80 years old or something, but I feel like there’s more empathy in general I like to believe and I feel like they want to see varied experiences, and it’s not the same media landscape it was 30 or 40 years ago ’cause the actual people consuming it are changing, and I think there’s a lot of people doing amazing work and, and being entertaining and educational, and I, I, I love when I see somebody on TV who’s different, or sometimes I’ll watch old shows from the ’80s and I’m like, “Oh man, actors used to look weird and, like, they, they weren’t all, like, perfect and,” you know? So, anyway, it’s always shifting, and I’ve never thought of myself as trying to, like… I’m just trying to make a living and, and be funny and not put so much importance on, like, shifting. That’s a huge burden to take on to try to shift a whole media thing, but I love when people email me or come up to me after a show and show me their hearing aids or like, the fact that that you can have these kind of open conversations with people ’cause they feel comfortable because you’ve just been joking about it. That’s the kind of stuff I love. There’s, there’s power in that for sure.

Speaker 1: And, you know, when you talk about taking off a hearing aid and showing it to someone, it was something… you would never do that. When… I mean, I’m substantially older than you, but we would never do that probably because the old ones were so yucky-looking. They

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Oy, oy, you know? Today, they are the streamlined little beauties with these many of them with the little tips. And, you know, you can show it off and it, it, there’s no problem there, so…

Speaker 2: You remember the color the molds used to get back in the day? You know one time, this is a kind of a terrible story, but I was talking about how my hearing aids were stinky on stage when I was like a year or two into standup. I was doing an open mic in Toronto, and this guy was like, “How stinky.” And there was only like five people in the audience and this one guy. Anyway, long story short, by the end of it, I, he smelled my hearing aid. He had to smell it for five seconds and I gave him five dollars. And then he ended up giving the giving me my money back. But yeah, this dude, and my hearing aids were stinky. Some guy, random guy in the audience just smelled my hearing aid mold for five seconds.

Speaker 1: That, that is just gross.

Speaker 2: That’s just some terrible open mic comedy that eight people shared on a Wednesday night in Toronto.

Speaker 1: Oh. That’s, that’s hilarious. Well, you know. In your TV show, One More Time, and and then we… I wanna talk a little bit about that. Just for people watching in the US it’s a Canadian show, and I believe that it’s not on… Well, DJ can fill us in, but it’s not on television there, but it’s available on YouTube. And DJ, tell us a bit about the show, and then I wanna talk about how it impacted me and probably many other viewers with hearing loss. Tell us a little bit about the premise of the show.

Speaker 2: It’s a guy, me, named DJ, who is the manager of a used sporting goods store called One More Time Sports. And yeah, just him leading his employees. He’s kinda like a nice, naive guy. He’s a former pro hockey player, and he wears hearing aids ’cause he’s me. So just this hard of hearing manager running a sports store in Ontario, Canada, and the hijinks that they get up to.

Speaker 1: What I loved about it is it’s very Canadian-humored to begin with, and I think that for American viewers will enjoy it and love it, but there are just so many little Canadian-isms in there that that you worked in. Were you a writer on the show as well?

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I was running the writer’s room with Jesse Gabe, who was the showrunner. So yeah, we were the, we were writing it with six other writers too.

Speaker 1: And it was great and… But what I loved is that hearing loss was just natural, and that’s the way it was and I think if there was any bit of stigma that you worked into it, it was done for laughs, but it was just done so naturally. Very similar I found the way in Schitt’s Creek, one of its allures for me was that all the different types of sexuality and gender, it was just, there was no bias, there was no anything attached to that, and that’s how I felt about your show. Hearing loss was treated as normal. And, I’m assuming that’s what you were going for.

Speaker 2: 100%. I mean, yeah, it’s just this guy living his life with hearing aids, so funny things happen, but the joke is never like… Yeah, I mean, basically, I just wanted to make it as funny as possible, and I never find it funny when you’re trying too hard with the messaging. So if there was something that played for laughs involving the hearing aids, that was fair game, and that was kind of the only, that was the main criterion for anything we wrote. And you know, I’m gonna revise my answer from earlier, because when you were talking about changing the media narrative around hearing aids and everything, I am proud of One More Time for that reason, because I was a hard of hearing guy who was at the forefront of the show. And like you said, it wasn’t a big deal by design and I was really excited to keep going with that to see if I got cochlear implants in real time, ’cause I’m debating getting one right now. In real time on this show, you would see somebody switch from hearing aids to CI, which I think would have been powerful too and but still only to get It would all be in service of laughs, which I thought I love working within that constraint of like, it has to be funny. So yeah, I, I I loved making that show and the Canadian-ism, you know, living in LA for many, many years, I was surprised by how many Americans I met who loved shows because of the Canadian-ness of it, Trailer Park Boys or you know, even Schitt’s Creek has the Canadiana aspect to it, it’s a bit more ambiguous, but Letterkenny. So I, I was excited to make a show that felt Canadian, because Canadians are funny.

Speaker 1: You are. We are. Canadians are funny, and maybe we often think that No, I think we all agree that we’re, that we’re funny and that we appreciate good humor and all different types of humor. It… But one thing I wanted to ask about the show, whether you play this for laughs, just before we started this, I, I went, I was looking on YouTube and I was looking at an episode. Your hearing aids didn’t seem to fit very well, DJ.

Speaker 2: Really?

Speaker 1: Yes, they seemed to be like too short and so that, that… And I’m wondering whether you did that on purpose to make sure that we always saw your hearing aids.

Speaker 2: No, no, just ill-fitting hearing aids. And also, I was going through a hell of a time that summer while we were filming it ’cause I didn’t realize the molds that I had at that time were silicon, and my ears reacted very adversely. I’m allergic to it, so I had to get like the hypoallergenic one, but I didn’t know, and for two months instead of, you know using the scientific method and deducing that it was my molds that were causing the problem, I just dealt with this terribly red, irritable… The makeup department had to put makeup on it, and then I had to put my hearing aid in over that because my ears were so inflamed, and then only after we stopped filming did I put it together that it was the mold, so not only were my hearing aids ill-fitting, but my ears were on fire they were so red. But that’s another thing, people with hearing aids notice that kind of stuff. Their audiologist will come up to me after shows and be like, “You got a…” cut that or it’s not in right.” Like, they see everything, and you see everything.

Speaker 1: I apologize for insulting your hearing aids and you. I’d thought perhaps that was that you were going for laughs that way. So I know that as

Speaker 2: I’m not excited.

Speaker 1: … so I. You’re gonna, you’re gonna go and look them up and say, “Really? I thought I think they looked okay in that shot.” So, I, I do apologize.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean, you can’t. I keep… I don’t try to hide them, so it But I don’t know about… Do I did, I realize maybe I am trying to hide it, but I’m, I’m a girl and I’m wearing my hair longer, so with the You don’t really have that option to hide even if you wanted to.

Speaker 2: I had long hair for a bit in my early 20s, and I’m sure part of it was for that reason.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: Also, I was just living young and wild and free, but it didn’t hurt that it was covering the hearing aid, too.

Speaker 1: So what’s next, DJ? What’s what’s coming up for you? What can we look forward to seeing?

Speaker 2: That’s a good question. I’m trying to get another TV show made right now that I, I wrote. Yeah. I’m very excited about it, so I, I hope we can do something with that. We’re, we’re very far away from the end, but we’re, we’re not at the beginning, so we’ll see. Gonna, you know, hit the road in a big way. I just had My baby girl was just born a few months ago, so I’ve been chilling a little bit right now, but Papa’s gotta make some money, so I’ll be hitting the road again soon. I don’t have all my tour dates booked yet, but I’ll be putting all them up. Yeah. Just I, I might start a podcast. To be honest, I’m just kinda trying to figure out exactly what I wanna do next, because whatever I do I’m, like, gonna… You know, if this show… If I’m able to sell it, I’ll do that, devote all my energy to that, or if I start a podcast, I’m not gonna half-ass it. I wanna make something awesome. So I’m just trying to figure out… Stand-up’s always gonna be the thing, so you can come see me on the road, but beyond that, I’m trying to figure out what the next big thing I wanna put my energy into is, which is exciting. Got a few ideas.

Speaker 1: I have seen you perform and present at number of hearing loss conferences, both in Canada and the US, and I think there’s a plane going overhead and I hope there’s a plane going overhead, ’cause if it’s not, it’s in my head and that’s the problem. And just the… How you were able to just talk about hearing loss and it… What it’s like to live with it, but in a way that lets us laugh and and identify and recognize ourselves and what daily life with hearing loss is and hearing aids, because that’s always been one of your, your, your key focuses. And I think that well, I’d love to see you working with the hearing loss groups more and with… And I would love hearing care professionals who are a big audience for them, for this podcast that we’re doing right now, hearing care professionals audiologists, hearing instrument specialists to have you come and talk. So because I think you have You’re delivering Whether you realize it or not, you’re delivering a message in a, in a, in a very, you know clear and funny way, which makes a difference in our lives. And again, going back to when I first, saw you and it just, ugh. It, it made me feel good about myself and, and being a hearing aid user. So,

Speaker 2: Well, that makes me happy.

Speaker 1: Well, you know, I’m, I’m glad that makes you happy, because you make me happy when I watch you do your comedy and your specials and that sort of thing. Have you done other acting at all? Like,

Speaker 2: I acted right after we finished One More Time last year, I got this movie that It’s not Hallmark, but it’s like a Hallmark kinda movie. So I… It came out in France last year, and I think it’s coming out in North America this year, but yeah. The only other acting I’ve done on top of One More Time was this Christmas romantic movie. Yeah.

Speaker 1: you did a Hallmark Christmas romance?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it’s not Hallmark, but it’s that style, and I forget what it’s called ’cause it’s not out here yet, but anyway, yeah. I can’t wait to see it if it ever gets released in English because it was cheesy.

Speaker 1: Now, did your, did your character have hearing loss?

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that’s the thing is they… It was supposed to be like a 20-year-old. I was a young… I was the brother of the, like, main romantic lead, the, the female romantic lead, and he was supposed to be like the snotty-nosed, like, younger brother with hearing aid. And then I think they couldn’t find a younger actor with hearing aids, or I don’t know why, but they… My agent ended up sending them my tape and they were like, “Well, we’ll just rewrite the character a little bit so he’s older instead of younger,” and yeah, I was the older brother with hearing aids.

Speaker 1: Oh, so you weren’t the romantic lead?

Speaker 2: I was the brother of the woman falling in love, yeah.

Speaker 1: Okay, well, that’s, that… Okay.

Speaker 2: It’s not as impressive, I know, but hey, I was a comic, I was a comic relief coming in, you know? I added a couple lines that made ’em all laugh that they said they were gonna keep in, so I’m really curious if they did, because I had just come off filming One More Time so I was in a funny mood, but I’ve never been on anyone else’s set before, so I, like… The first time I tried a joke, I was like, “Oh, no,” and everybody started laughing and I was like, “Yes!” And then he was like, “Awesome, do it on the reverse cover.” So I did it again so they can actually use that. And then the next day, I had a great line, I was like, “Sweet, I’m gonna do another one for laughs here.” I said my line, and then said the little thing I wanted to add, got a laugh again, not as thunderous as the day before, but pretty big. And then the director comes up to me and he’s like, “Just say the words on the page.”… but I got one… I think I got one good one in there.

Speaker 1: Yeah. don’t blow yourself up to be bigger than you are, right? You know? Let… You know, be a Canadian, you know?

Speaker 2: I thought I was Robin Williams there, laughing for an hour straight.

Speaker 1: Well, I have not done film or TV, but I used to do stage. And acting with a hearing loss is challenging, especially on stage, because I really had trouble with the audio cues. And, and the, the play would have to be staged and directed so that I could… was always had sight lines so that I could read the lips of other actors. And if, if that wasn’t possible, there had to be some sort of visual cue. So I remember we were doing very briefly, we were doing a play in which we had to… I had to different time older cast, younger cast. Anyway, the lights were to come up and there was supposed to be something and I… a sound cue that I couldn’t hear, so the woman next to me would move her foot. So as soon as she moved her foot, then I would start to speak. But it was very nerve-wracking having to depend on that sort of thing. So but,

Speaker 2: 100%. I, I wanna do improv. I wanna get into it in a pretty big way, but I’m nervous about that aspect of missing cues and people turning the other way and saying some important line, and there’s a lot to be nervous about when, when there’s, there’s no structure, when, when there’s no way to guarantee that you’re gonna be able to get the same cues as everyone else.

Speaker 1: When I was in my 20s and living in Vancouver I used to do improv and loved it. But my hearing got worse and worse and they’re just… I, I just… even thinking about doing improv just, just makes me nervous because improv has to be, you know, fluid and, and on the moment and you need those I mean, visual cues, yes, and visual messages, but you really need to be able to hear on a dime as it were, sort of, you know.

Speaker 2: I, I kind of love the idea of going into it though and being like, “Hey, every character I play is gonna be hard of hearing, so everyone in this scene is gonna have to adjust to that.” You know? The idea of kind of taking the power back in that way. Like, “Yeah, I didn’t hear you. Yeah, I wear hearing aids. Can’t you see?” Like, every character. Why not?

Speaker 1: Well, you know. Hey, what… we might have something here. If you do it, I’ll do it. Maybe we could get a few other people with hearing loss and we’ll have a, a hearing loss improv group. What do think?

Speaker 2: I love it. I’m in.

Speaker 1: I’m nervous. I’m nervous already.

Speaker 2: No, but we’re all gonna miss the cues. we’ll have no cues. It’ll be chaos up there. Can I, can I tell you a really funny story about when my hearing loss messed up a live show?

Speaker 1: Well, as long as it makes… well, as long as it’s funny, yes, you can.

Speaker 2: Okay. Well, now there’s a lot of pressure, but I’ll try. you

Speaker 1: You said it was a funny hearing loss story.

Speaker 2: No, no. You… this is one of the funniest things that’s ever happened to me and, and no hyperbole. So my buddy, Joel Ward, is a great magician based out of LA. San Diego now, but he was doing this show in Vegas with a few other magicians. I forget what theater we were at. Big theater. Like 1,000 seater, 1,500 seater. And then so he is not on stage at this time and another one of the magicians that’s part of the show is looking for a volunteer, right? And I’m sitting like second row and I’m like, “Don’t pick me. Don’t pick me.” I’m like, “Why do I feel like he’s gonna pick me?” And he’s like, “You, right there.” And a light shined on me and Joel told me after that he was trying to call to his friend ’cause he was in the wings. “He, he can’t hear. He’s very deaf. He… no, not him.” And he didn’t hear him, so he brought me up. So I’m sitting there and the magician’s doing all this stuff behind me. I’m sitting there on a chair with like 1,500 people watching me. I’m like, “I can’t hear a thing. This is gonna be a nightmare if I have to hear anything.” The magician starts giving me directions on what to do when… he’s like, “I’m gonna do this in three seconds and the card will be here.” I can’t remember what it was, but he’s telling me what to do in three second and then the three-second mark hit and he does his thing, but I didn’t move the way I was supposed to. And so I’m just sitting there and the magician trick didn’t work and he was like, “Oh, hey. Sometimes magic doesn’t always work.” And like ushered me off stage in and I’ve messed up his trick in front of a whole theater of people. I’m, I… like, I made this magician admit magic’s not real with my deafness and my friend, Joel, after said him and all the magicians were dying laughing back there knowing ’cause he told him that he’s not gonna hear these directions. So yeah. I messed up like a, a trick on a big Vegas magic show because of my deafness. It was so embarrassing. This was only… I was probably like 20. I was 30. This wasn’t that long ago. So I was a full-grown adult and it was probably the most embarrassed I’d been since like I was a kid.

Speaker 1: Oh, no. I’m laughing but I’m also just dying inside of I just, I just, I just was there with you on that stage going I… and I would start to cry. I would, I would just be… I wouldn’t wait to be ushered off stage. I would just be so…

Speaker 2: Yeah. Pretty, pretty unbelievable.

Speaker 1: Okay. Well, you know, we’ll have to follow up on this group. We could call ourself The Miscues or something like that and,

Speaker 2: I like that.

Speaker 1: We, we could, we could do it for charity one night just so then… so that we don’t have to pretend that we’re serious about it, that we’re just doing it for charity, so

Speaker 2: That’s a good way to dip our toe in the water but we’ll know that’s

Speaker 1: Think so?

Speaker 2: something big.

Speaker 1: Okay. I think so. So we’ll, we’ll talk about that. DJ Demers, thank you so much for being you and for being funny and for being deaf. Thank you. Because if you weren’t all of those things, then you wouldn’t be having the impact that you do. So thank you for your time. It was a pleasure to talk with you and we’ll do it again. What do you think?

Speaker 2: We’ll do it again on stage with a couple other deaf people when bringing The Miscues to the world stage. But no, I, I I always enjoy when I see you out at Hecklers in Victoria and wherever we run into each other, Montreal a couple years ago. So yeah. It’s always great to run into you and I’m glad that you had me on your podcast. And thank you for saying all the kind word, too. You’re doing amazing things too and I really respect what you do in the hearing loss field too, so you know, much respect to you and, and gratitude as well.

Speaker 1: That is very kind, so to you and so thank you very much and we’ll talk soon.

Speaker 2: Okay. Thanks, Gael.