Tom Green
Appearances
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
We went down to Temple. I remember passing out the flyers. Do I remember the drive getting there? No.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
Jenna and I met on the very first day of kindergarten. I had an accident, and I got to go to the nurse and get new clothes. Jenna didn't like the outfit she was wearing that day, so she also had an accident, so she could change her outfit.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
I just remember screaming, like, and that was it. When I got to my parents, I just fell into their arms.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
The trial was one of the hardest things I ever did, but it was one of the easiest decisions I ever had to make.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
It was harder than I imagined. But with the countless people on our side, we somehow all made it through.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
Passionate, she was ready to pursue film. She was really excited to finally get started on her career path.
20/20
Death in the Dorms Season 2: Episode 1: Jenna Burleigh
It really was a small blessing in disguise for both of us because she did come home and I did get to have her around for so much of my college career.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Uh, you know, a couple of times you hear he brought his own writers or something like that. And it's like, well, it wasn't really, it didn't really bring writers. It was more like one of my high school friends.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. OK, that's cool. That makes me feel better. Yeah. 20 years of anxiety over. I believe it. No, because like, you know, a lot of it was also just about wanting to bring your your friends with you who came up with me and and be part of the part of the SNL experience. But but, you know, I mean, it does definitely kind of.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, it was a lot going on. I just moved basically to the United States from Canada, but really just moved to Los Angeles. I was in New York for about a year with the show on MTV. Then I just moved the show out here, and that threw us for a little bit of a loop there. But, you know, dealt with it. We filmed it, put it on MTV, and the cancer special, you can watch it on YouTube.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I've never done a sketch before. Yeah, exactly. Let's just dress up as eagles and run around and scream at each other. That was kind of like the thing. I wrote these bits that were more just sort of like, you know, explosively strange, but not necessarily involving a whole lot of acting, you know?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But, you know, I think that what happens also is, or what happened to me was all of a sudden there was all these opportunities and they were opportunities that like, I felt like, I don't know how to do that, you know? And it's sort of like, well, maybe I'll pass on that. Not because... because I'm too good for it or whatever. It's more like I'm afraid of not pulling it off, you know? Yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And so that may sometimes have come off as arrogance or something when really it was more probably fear-driven again, you know? So there's a lot of that.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It's pretty wild. When I'm on tour doing stand-up, At least a couple times a month, somebody will come up after a show with their wife and they'll just say, man, I went to the doctor.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
This is going much better than I thought it would. I was expecting you to grill me a little bit, Neil.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, it was kind of like, I think when I got that sampler and the drum machine back in 1985 or whatever it was, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
No, I just watch the show, and I know you can be kind of a little edgy with people. Oh, okay.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Plus, again, fear. I'm naturally always assuming I'm about to get to.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, and it was the realization that, like, oh, nobody had a sampler in Ottawa. And so I realized early on technology is changing at a rapid pace. If you get in there with some little creative piece of technology before anyone else has it, then, like, I sometimes joke, I say, you know, if you're the first person to do something, you're going to be the best at it, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Because you're the only person doing it. We were the only rap group in Ottawa, so we were the best rap group in Ottawa, you know? Yeah. By the way, not bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, we were very Canadian. But, you know, we loved it. I mean, and I liked making the beats. And, you know, Greg, my friend from high school, was an incredible rapper. And we had a good time. We went down to New York when we were...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
so i was 17 and years old he was a little younger than me maybe i was maybe i was 18 he was 17 and uh before we got the record deal we had an opportunity to come down to new york city and record just completely independent with with this uh producer that was in the documentary boogie bradley and um and that was kind of like okay this is cool he showed us a lot of
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
cool techniques for making beats and stuff and rapping. And, you know, first thing I wanted to do when I got to New York was go to the Letterman show. So I went and stood in line at 6 o'clock in the morning.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, like a real rapper, exactly. But... So it was sort of this idea that I started thinking about what technology was out and the video cameras were exciting. We got to shoot some videos when we made the rap album, so I started sort of seeing cameras and filming as a sort of a means to... getting your creativity out there. And that was kind of it.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It sort of quickly, I went to school, took broadcasting school, learned how to run cameras so I could get a hold of the cameras and the editing equipment. And then I just sort of was always kind of looking at technology basically at that point. So that was, I was aware that we were trying to use video cameras in a way that nobody had yet. We were trying to, it was not a reality TV show yet.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I'm sure there were. It fortunately didn't last too long because then you start getting some negative sort of response from things. Like when my movie, Freddy Got Fingered, came out, that was the first sort of, wow, this is not fun. People are being really mean, like the writing up Roger Ebert and stuff. It was just incredibly terrifying to hear. And then you sort of kind of,
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
They'll start crying. I sometimes even get a little kind of worked up about it. But it's nice to see. You know, it only hits young guys, right? You can't get it if you're, I mean, you don't expect to get cancer when you're in your 20s. So a lot of times guys don't do anything about it because they're embarrassed.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
go through a little bit of a crisis where you're going well do I have the you know the confidence anymore to go out and and just kind of go for it but also at the same time you sort of nobody comes in and tells you okay A year ago, nobody was expecting this, but now they're expecting this. So when you go do something crazy, they're expecting it. It's kind of a different joke.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And it kind of happens so fast, you don't really necessarily calculate that until all of a sudden, okay, now I'm going batshit crazy on Conan or something like that. And, you know, maybe I should just go on and just, you know, talk about, you know, what I'm doing or something. Would you listen, do you think? I guess let me try and say it better.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It's like when you're kind of like just a kid in Canada and you got no money. I didn't have any money, you know, and I didn't have any sort of. you're kind of like rebelling and wanting to make noise and wanting people to look over, look at me, look at me, look what I'm doing. Then all of a sudden when everyone's looking at you, that's kind of maybe a good time to kind of not be like that.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But you're still kind of flying forward, you know? Yeah. So that's when sometimes I think, man, there should be kind of a little, you know, a little handbook for gross-out comedians who get a big show or whatever, you know?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
He did pretty good, but some of those other guys, they might have, maybe could have used a little help, because, you know, I know. Yeah, there's addiction. I know them all, they're friends of mine, but people, it's tough on anybody. And you see it happen to a lot of young people who go through, you know, the ringer and get thrust into the spotlight.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But it's not the kind of thing you can sort of spend your life complaining about, like, oh, geez, I mishandled that six months of my life where everybody was looking at me too much, you know? But, you know, you're still kind of in the back of your mind.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
The month before I got on MTV, my dream was to be able to get a job in television so I could get an apartment or something like that, move out of my parents' basement. And it wasn't host Saturday Night Live or direct a movie.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, they think it's something that'll go away on its own. They don't want to go to the doctor. Yeah. I got misdiagnosed. They thought it was epididymitis, they said. They gave me antibiotics, and then that didn't go away. But yeah, I think it's ultimately some young guys aren't as paranoid as I was.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. I mean, it was maybe in the back of my mind, I thought maybe in five years, I could maybe host a talk show or down the road, or the show could lead to something else. But But, see, the power of MTV was something I didn't anticipate. You know, it was different back then.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
We didn't have MTV. We didn't have MTV. So, like, I knew what it was, of course, but, like, we didn't grow up watching MTV. I didn't really understand the way they do the programming. Back then, there was, like, five other shows. There was like Real World, Road Rules, Total Request Live, Daria, and Celebrity Deathmatch were the five other shows, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And so because of that, they would run the Tom Green show like six times a day in blocks. And so it was very instantly sort of like ubiquitous. Yeah, it was wallpaper. Everybody knew the show very quickly. So it did happen quickly. But it was exciting. What's the downside? I feel like I was humbled somewhat quickly, though.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Probably just the idea that there's not enough time to kind of acclimate to this new reality and sort of adjust, you know. sort of at appropriate rate, you know, where to really kind of, you know, because I was not just adjusting, I was just adjusting to, just being in Los Angeles was crazy. You know, not even, like I didn't come here to sort of, you know, go on auditions and work my way up.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It was just instantly here. The show got moved here, you know. Todd Phillips asked me to be in that movie Road Trip. Yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I was fortunate. I did have a really good manager who I'd met in Canada, the late Howard Lapidus. And he set me up with a business manager and an agent. And everyone was really kind of sort of...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
supportive in that way i felt like i had a good and my parents were very good with with the whole thing so i didn't feel like i was kind of lost at sea or anything like that but but you know it was uh it was it was uh yeah it was it was pretty pretty wild crazy time for sure yeah absolutely yeah and and you sort of you sort of uh you know uh then you find it it's very surprising when
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
you know, when I put out the movie Freddy Got Fingered, it was just sort of such a whiplash effect, you know, where it was like one second they're, you know, saying your shit don't stink, and the next second, oh, this really, this shit really stinks. Yeah, this really stinks like shit, yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, and even more so now. Because once you're right once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The moment there's anything even subtly wrong, I'm just immediately at the doctor. But I'm lucky I did because if you wait around, then it spreads. Otherwise, it's a pretty curable disease.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It was supposed to stink, but so that was kind of depressing, you know, actually anxiety-inducing and sort of tough, but, you know, you get over it.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, I... Of success. I went and bought a Porsche and a Range Rover, and I'm driving around a Porsche. Payments or cash? I forget what they had me do, but it was like, you know, whatever was best for the taxes. I think it was a lease, actually. Yeah, a lease, yeah, yeah. But, you know, so I had these two sweet cars, although the Range Rover broke down right away.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Like, I... That kind of just happened somewhat, like, she asked me to be in Charlie's Angels, so that's how I met Drew, when she asked me to be in Charlie's Angels. I'd lived in Los Angeles for, like, a day or something like that, and I got a call from her, and I met her at a... Again, part of the montage.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Restaurant down here, downtown, we met, and then she asked me to be in Charlie's Angels, and that's how we met, and, you know, but... Yeah, that obviously added to a lot of the hoopla around things. There was this sort of much more of a... I think that was a big part of what actually made it much more complicated was because the show that, although it was...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
really doing well and was, I think the insanity of the show contrasted with the sort of more, sort of, you know, mainstream world of show business that Drew was in with doing Charlie's Angels. It kind of was a little bit of a clash there.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Oh, yeah, it was stressful. Yeah, it was definitely. And you're you're you're not used to being stressed out about something, like you said, good, you know, like stressed out about something going good. It was more like, oh, I don't want to screw this opportunity up, which is more stressful than having nothing, you know?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It's like, well, you know, I've got nothing to lose. By the way, everyone's watching now. I have something to lose, you know, and I don't want to screw up this opportunity. This is a one shot, you know, you got here to...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
to to blow its opportunity you know so so so yeah it becomes much more stressful you know life became much more stressful even though it was uh still also very exciting and fun at the same time and you know you you have a hard time instantly understanding how to you know, just sort of navigate through relationships in the world.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I think sometimes you'd sort of feel like maybe, you know, like you didn't, really want to or know how to share the excitement of it with people that weren't necessarily... Benefiting from it. Going through the same thing. So it was, the world does change a little bit. But again, these are sort of first world problems.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Well, I mean, I think when you're, like I was like, when I went before I had cancer, I was 50 pounds lighter than I am now in the same height. So like I grew up like extremely thin, right? Like, so I was always very insecure about my weight, you know, like even high school, you know, like I'd, I'd be so, so thin that I was kind of like embarrassed of it. Like my legs were so skinny.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I was, so it was like, I was used to being kind of like, you know, definitely, you know, not the cool kid, you know? And, um, So you kind of come up with a way of navigating through the world when you're that person. You know, I'm going to walk into class and I'm going to trip over the garbage can and all the kids are going to laugh, you know.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It was sort of like, you know, how I realized how to make friends when I was in grade two or second grade, right? Yep.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, I Americanized it for everybody, yeah. So I do that on stage a lot, too. I'll, like, say Canadian stuff and the audience will, you know, just kind of... But... So then... you know, it's a pretty big shift. Did you resent it? I don't think that dawned on me instantly, you know, because you still are the person that you are, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And it takes maybe even years for you to realize, oh, no, no, I'm not the same person I was just six months ago anymore because it's the way, not even, or maybe you are the same person, but maybe the way people perceive you is completely changed.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
The way sort of the world perceives you is different. You know, when you're a kid living in your parents' basement and you're running around taping pork chops to your head with a video camera, people are like, oh, isn't that cute? You're trying to do your little show. And now you're, you know, the show's a big hit and people kind of, you know,
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
maybe are even a little bit sort of resentful, like you said, or that you're... Why did you get that show just by taping meat in your head, you know? Whereas six months before, it was kind of funny that you were taping meat in your head, you know? So when people sort of respond differently to you and you don't really understand why, it takes a little bit of time to kind of process all that.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And you kind of almost have to kind of rejig your whole kind of act a little bit, you know? But... So... You throw going through cancer in on top of that, which was extremely, extremely physically demanding. The right testicle removal was nothing, right? They go in, they just shuck it out like a oyster. They cut you up here, by the way. They don't cut through the scrotum, okay, just so you know.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I just want you to know that my scrotum is like there's no scars. It's not scarred up or anything. I'm sure it's an incredible scrotum.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Keep it beautiful. Scrotum, just so everyone knows. But to clarify that part, that detail. But so that was essentially what I'm saying is that was a very simple surgery. Did you take? But then they go here. They took some lymph nodes out.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
They did not, but they had to test them. And then that was sort of this weird elective surgery that I had to test them because it was maybe not there yet because they couldn't see it in the MRI. So I elect to do the surgery. That was, you know, that was sort of a decade of pain, basically.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, absolutely. Did you take anything for it? I was, I did not, I did initially, there was sort of all the, I never really got, I got off the painkillers right away. I just sort of suffered through it really. But it was kind of like, it was a kind of a pain that went from extreme pain to sort of within a few months, more of a dull sort of constant sort of aching in your body that was,
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, is this going to ever stop? I can't do what I normally do. You know, I don't have the energy. I don't have the kind of, you know,
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Third base, of course. They were great. But, you know, we were kind of... Definitely loved hip-hop music. I did a radio show at the college station when I was in high school. I'd go down and do a rap music show. I made beats. That was kind of how I got into technology and video and everything was through the rap group Organized Rhyme. I'd work my summer job. I'd save up. I'd get a sampler.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
sort of unbridled sort of positive sort of sort of sort of uh you know sort of a you're you're kind of feeling just sort of did it feel like a greek tragedy did you look at it in a religious way did you look at it in a spiritual way how did you if you say religious way i do do and i'm not like um You know, I did actually pray, you know, for real.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, I'd been to church as a kid, and I, you know... You're aware of it. I'm aware of it all. I was, you know, not sort of... not from an extremely religious background, you know, just sort of culturally religious. My parents took us to church when we were kids and stuff.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But then, you know, here I was, you know, when I had the cancer, and I was like so, you know, on one hand so excited that things were going well with the show, and on the other hand... Like, oh my God, am I going to fucking die right now? This fucking sucks. So it was like, I remember just sort of sitting there going, I'm going to pray to God, you know, like completely 100% seriously.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
No, you know, just in the hope that... Not as a bit. Not as a bit. Inside my head. I don't even know if I told anybody, you know. But then, you know, then you end up surviving.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I definitely allow myself to believe that it's a possibility now, sort of like a Pascal's wager kind of thing.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
No, I didn't take it that far. I just considered it really, really bad luck. you know yeah really shitty timing bad luck um but uh but um but yeah so it's uh you know that's it was uh yeah it was crazy shit and did you so the 10 years of mild a mild throb a a consistent Yeah, and it's sort of kind of, yeah, it was kind of also just sort of a loss of energy, you know.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I mean, you can sort of see pretty dramatically the difference in just when I would do a show or something. Before it was I was always screaming, running, jumping, throwing my body through things. And then I became more like, okay, let's try to – I think it's partially physical and all that.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
and partially due to just getting older, partially due to just all the other sort of just changing life things that happened. But I think it all added up to a different way of performing.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, I kind of asked to direct it. They initially said no, and then I went in and asked again, and they said yes. So then we were getting ready to shoot, and I got cancer, and it was delayed about probably close to a year before we shot the movie. They waited for me to get better, so. Maybe not even a year though. I was kind of in pain when I was shooting Freddy Got Fingered for sure.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I didn't really share it with people. I didn't talk about it publicly. I've started to sort of...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
occasionally mention it not too much but you asked so i'm talking about it now but uh but um can you believe this fucking baby won't shut up about his chronic pain that he got from cancer what a fucking pussy am i right uh yeah yeah but uh yeah you know so it's it's kind of uh yeah it was it was it's um yeah i don't know i i felt like it was um
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I don't know, I just didn't really feel like it was a very funny thing to talk about. Yeah. And I also was kind of under the impression that it was going to go away. And then it sort of like... You thought you had a deal where you do the treatment. Yeah, sort of like it was treating a little better and then it would be like six months, it's not going away.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And then you sort of get more, then you start to get sort of panicky and then it just keeps going. But, so that leads to kind of, in the back of your mind, sort of very sort of tough emotional things to deal with, you know, that you kind of eventually sort through over time.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It was weird. And at the same time, you're grateful because, you know, I met a kid in the hospital who was 24 years old and he was a fan of the show. He was a snowboarder and he had the same thing and he didn't make it. So it's like, you're like, oh, I can't be complaining too much, you know?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it was... Relationships are very hard to begin with. Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
particularly was made more difficult because i was just brand new in town you know i didn't even really sort of i was still navigating just being in the public eye generally you know and then that sort of fast-tracked it into sort of a different sort of uh sort of level of scrutiny you know yeah and uh but uh i mean like i think you hit the nail on the head relationships are difficult in general um especially when you're young and you're busy yeah you throw the two people are busy and you're
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
you know, being pulled in all directions, it's, you know, it's probably not, I mean, it's, you know, without getting into detail, right, it's just probably, you know, overcomplicates an already complicated situation, you know, so, yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
yeah writing mean things yeah especially about me i was kind of it was kind of easy to kind of pick on me i think a little bit because uh everybody has known her her whole life and here's this new sort of weirdo she's coming around yeah and then you don't resent her directly for that but there's probably some amount of like are you cool with them saying this but meanwhile she has nothing to do with it yeah yeah yeah yeah i know it's it's definitely uh you know um but
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, I'm... You know, I learned a lot about the business through Drew. I mean, she was always very supportive and, you know, was producing that movie. And to be able to be there and to observe all that happening when I just got here was kind of an amazing thing, you know. And, you know, that's cool.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And, you know, obviously I just did her show a couple of years ago, and she's, like, doing great. And I just got engaged, you know, so I'm engaged.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
That's great. You know, I moved back to Canada and I live on a farm now and I met in the most Canadian way possible. Well, maybe not the most Canadian way possible because we met on Instagram, but I was putting videos up of me playing hockey on my pond. This is the Canadian part. That's very Canadian, yeah. And she sent sort of a meme video of a homemade Zamboni, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And then we started talking about that. It turns out we're from the same small town. We're both from a Canadian military background. Oh, great. We have an army up there. And my dad was a captain in the army.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. We'll see. Yeah, exactly. We might have to try it out soon. We'll see what happens. But no, but it was, yeah, so it was great. So it's going great.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Awesome. Awesome. I do have one testicle. Yeah. Well, I lost my testicle in 19 what it was 2000. You think I'd remember the year. Yeah, I was doing my show on MTV and we filmed it all. We filmed the whole ordeal. But I still have the left one, so everything's fine.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, it's cool. It's, it's like, it's, it's, I'm not, I didn't retire. I'm not retired. You know, like I'm not retired. So it was more of a kind of a, a lifestyle choice really. Part of it was like, COVID happened, the pandemic happened. So, you know, for the last, you know, I don't know, almost 20 years, I've been touring all the time, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, just going out on the weekends and doing standup and you have a year booked of shows ahead of you, you know, and you know what you're doing. And then, you know, maybe they canceled all the shows, right? So, so.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, I got this camper van, I got my dog Charlie, and I started going out in the desert and filming stuff and kind of getting, you know, into figuring out some film stuff, some lenses and things I hadn't really ever gotten around to doing, you know, with some of these new cameras.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And so it was always, especially when, you know, when doing the show back in the day, we were using video cameras. We have a zoom on it. You didn't think about it, but now you start getting into that and, and the technology that's changed and editing again on a, you know, on a laptop and all of this. And so I built this little studio and was going to the desert doing all this stuff. And yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
All of a sudden, I'm realizing I've got a television studio in my van. It was a year of not really going to a meeting in Hollywood, getting on the 405 and drive out to a meeting. But we were having a lot of meetings, you know, on the Zoom call. Aren't they great? Get on these Zoom calls. I don't have to go anywhere. And, you know, just kind of planning what I'm going to do.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And the show that I did on Prime, you know, we sort of started talking about some of these ideas I had with people. But it sort of dawned on me, I don't have to really be, I don't have to be in Los Angeles if I don't, really need to be here or want to be here. I love Los Angeles. I'm going to come back all the time. But I wasn't married, didn't have kids. There was nothing holding me here.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And my parents are doing great, but they're getting older. I wanted to kind of spend time with them. So I was out in the desert in this van. I'd wake up in the morning in the Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, outside of some Native American ruins. I'd be making coffee, watching the sunrise. And
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
you know getting a nice shot of it over and I'm just thinking now this is a way to live out and I'm out in the wilderness I love this I love it so it it actually felt better yeah I just loved getting up in the morning being all alone out there in nature and uh and uh and uh you know at the same time you know you could continue to do what you do so so uh I have a I have a I just started working with a new manager right before he was a great guy you probably probably know him Rory Rosegarten and uh he he
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I was like, do you think I need to stay in Los Angeles? I kind of want to maybe move back to Canada. And he was like, well, he produced Everybody Loves Raymond and was Ray's manager for years. I flew down every week for 10 years or whatever it was. Where does he live, Canada? In New York, yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So it was completely just kind of, you know, Of course, you can live wherever you want. So that was encouraging. I hadn't really sort of, I wasn't sure what he was going to say. Oh, you should probably stay in LA. But it was purely for, I wanted to be close to my parents and my brother. I'm 53. I was 50 at the time. I was kind of thinking, you know, I've been here 20 years.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It might be fun to go try something different. I didn't move home to my hometown. I moved out to sort of the wilderness. So that's sort of, you know, not exactly where I grew up. Completely different life than I ever had. You know, I've got this mule now. which has actually been kind of the most amazing thing, learning to ride a mule as a regular thing that I do now.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Like I get up in the morning, and I'll go out to the barn, and I'll saddle up this giant 1,400-pound animal. A mule's half horse, half donkey, so she's a percheron horse and a mammoth donkey mix, right? Mm-hmm. towering over you. And on the show that we did for Prime, she arrives on camera when I got her. That was coming up on two years ago now. So the first year of...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, I think that probably a lot of people felt that way because it was – I mean, doing it in Canada for – probably 10 years, really, you know, if you include the rap group, right? And then, you know, obviously MTV is such a... Especially then was such a... You know, you get on MTV, and they were playing the show five times a day. It was sort of thrown right into American culture.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
on my own going out and learning how to saddle up this giant animal and ride off into the wilderness by myself was not easy right like they don't listen to you all the time you know they're they say stubborn as a mule what mules are they are they uh erratic or they just are like quietly so this is the part that i think is like can you be injured oh yeah you can be injured yeah because it's a long way down if you fall off and you know they buck and everything
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Well, they don't – she was a well-socialized – she was 10 years old when I got her, so she so far hasn't bucked. But, you know, they can spook or jump and they can fly off. But I've been fortunate to not fall off, but too much. Twice I did. But it's more about just kind of learning to – I think we'll find this interesting.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I found it completely fascinating because, you know, initially I thought, okay, yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
pull the rein this way she'll go that way you pull the rein that way she'll go that way and then if you look first okay then they kind of follow your movements you know push with your foot and look and they'll follow your movement say oh that seems pretty straightforward i know how to look that way that way yeah no big deal you know so you know it's working great for a few weeks and then all of a sudden she stops turning left she just won't turn left anymore and every time i go to turn left she refuses you know now i'm like kind of
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
battling with her and she won't turn left and now I can't go for a ride and I'm getting increasingly frustrated and I built this fence and I got you know we're supposed to be riding through the wilderness together right yeah be part of my idea Yeah, yeah, exactly. This was something that I was just, you're ruining the whole plan here.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I started getting sort of some more, the people that raised her came back and met with me. And we went out and they gave me some more tips and tricks. But the thing that was really fascinating about it was... So the reason mules are considered stubborn is because they're extremely intelligent. They're smarter than horses, okay? Donkeys are even smarter than mules, and they're half donkey.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So because they're so intelligent and intuitive, they feel your energy more than a horse. They really sense like what you are going through as a person, like they can sense if you're nervous, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
yeah yeah it's it's they can almost read your mind yeah exactly it is definitely like that so you know it all kind of it all kind of came together one day i was out riding her and the people were showing me you know some lessons i guess and they were on an atv in front of me that and they had already told me okay fanny's doesn't like atvs so we're going to stay for our head right doesn't like the sound doesn't like them
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So whenever I would get near an ATV or an ATV, she would really kind of resist, right? I think I over or misunderstood when they said that she doesn't like ATVs. Really, I took it in more of an extreme way. So really what was happening was as I rode towards them this day, she stopped. She wouldn't go towards them. And I just said, you know, oh, she doesn't like the ATV.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And they told me that like a couple weeks earlier. Yeah. So no, no, it's not that she doesn't like the ATV. It's like you're worried about the ATV. I'm worried about the ATV. So then she can tell I'm worried about the ATV so she doesn't want to go forward, right? So they're always feeling your energy and your confidence, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It was a real whirlwind. But yeah, it was... It was exciting. I did stand up when I was a kid. When I was 16, I started doing it. And I stopped when the rap group got the record deal. I was about 19. We stopped at Yuck Yucks in Ottawa, where the same club where Norm Macdonald started.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And the reason they listen to you for that confidence is because they have to trust you to be their leader because you're the one deciding to go off into the wolf and bear-filled woods. And if you're an idiot and don't know what you're doing, then you could get her hurt, right? And since they're so smart, they're being protective of their own, you know,
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
self-interest and they'll decide to not go if you seem nervous. So it opens up this whole new sort of realization of like, okay, this is how animals communicate to each other through energy, right? This is probably how human beings communicated to each other before we came up with language, right? So, you know, follow that guy.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Exactly, and then you start to go, oh, okay, you know, maybe that's why, you know, like, you know, people talk about manifesting things, right? Oh, maybe you're manifesting things when you feel confident or you think of something in your head, you can make it happen. Maybe it's not some, you know, you know, spiritual sort of goo-goo-ga-ga kind of thing.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Maybe it's just happening because you believe it could happen, so then others around you who can assist you in making things happen believe that you believe it, and then you march forward in a positive way, right? So that was kind of amazing because now when I
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
you know, and then you learn lots of other little things which are more obvious but weren't obvious at first, like things like, you know, bring an apple with you and when you get to the furthest point on the ride, give her an apple and then she's always going to want to ride out there. Oh, that's funny. Yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But, you know, so when I get up every morning and go and saddle her up and get on her and she's my buddy now and we're friends and we go for a ride and I'm sort of feeling how I'm feeling and if I feel she's sort of,
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
uncertain about something i'll try to control my breath you know try to control my energy try to say positive thoughts in my mind we're going to go down that trail not oh she's as soon as you hear yourself in your head say oh she's not going to want to go down that fucking trail instead you say we're going to go down that trail and then she goes down the trail and it's like
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you kind of got to get good at really kind of really believing it that you're going to go down the trail.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I am trying to do it in regards to performance. You know when you get like... I always get anxiety before I go on stage, which I kind of love. But sometimes it gets a little too much. There's a line where, I mean, anytime I've not been nervous before I've gone on something, it's not gone well. But too nervous is also not good. So to find that sweet spot, I'm drawing from this.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Because you go, OK, this is going to go well. Feel good about this. Don't. Don't say positive things in your head and sort of be aware of that kind of negative thought that might be in your head that could be holding you back.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So, yeah, I think it does translate into lots of aspects of life, just relationships and, you know, just even in general conversation with people to just, you know, simple way of saying just keep it positive. But, you know, it's also deeper than that because it's like.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It had never occurred to me that you can keep it positive on the outside, but your inner voice being nagging away is still causing a problem, even though nobody can hear it.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It's sort of like the improv of Canada. And Howard Wagman is a manager there, still runs the place. He's Mark Breslin's nephew who runs the whole club. But, you know, I was just a kid doing it. And it sort of – because I'd go down there to see Norm. I'd go down there. Because he had not come to the States yet.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
That's cool. I actually came up with a way of not being on my phone. I got an Apple Watch for when I ride and I leave my phone at home. I had to bring my phone because, you know, if you fall off and break your... leg or whatever, you gotta call somebody. So, and then, you know, I'd be out in the beautiful field and checking my, taking pictures for Instagram.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And then reading the comment, oh, look, they like the tree. I just took a picture of it four seconds ago. So, you know, you kind of like ruins the whole, the whole, So I got an Apple Watch. That was actually good because it kind of keeps me off my phone, but it still has fall detection too.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But I often now will just wear the Apple Watch and leave the phone at home, and you can't get sucked into that social media world on the phone, but you can still call for a tow truck or something like that if you need, or an ambulance.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Well, this is sort of and it ties into procrastination because I think my what I do when I'm procrastinating is I go into doom scrolling and watching, you know, and
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Maybe I would have watched television before, you know? Like, I honestly don't watch much television anymore. I go on there and I... And I've actually now started to try to watch more television.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Because as a way of not being... The healthy choice. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, it's like... But I've... I've come to the conclusion that it's not exclusively just sort of this, you know, search for sort of attention for my own, you know, or validation. It's also just these things are addictive. Like, it's a drug. They've got us by the short hairs here. They have us caught up in this thing.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And, you know, when I'm on that phone sometimes for, you know, an hour or whatever, just flipping through, looking at, you know, all the stuff that pops up, you know... I have kind of gotten to the point where I'm starting to really kind of resist it, even though I still am on it too much. And it's scary to me.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I mean, it's clearly something that I've wanted to get rid of the phone entirely, like I wanted to get rid of it, and I still may. I'm trying to find an alternative.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It was just too, wasn't quite efficient enough. So I may do that. But then at the same time, it's like I do like... I film stuff and put it up on my social media. I enjoy that. So it's just trying to find a way to kind of not get caught into that sort of... I'm not so much reading the comments anymore as I'm just looking at stuff. I go on TikTok. And for some reason, TikTok really...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Unbelievable, yeah. And it's starting to cross over into a place now where I'm maybe not as addicted to it as I was because I've sort of lost a little bit of interest. And that Apple Watch was helpful. I find the more I... The more I go out without my phone and spend a full day without my phone, it's very quickly I'm less addicted to the phone. So that would be my procrastination solution to tip.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So I'm, yes, and I want to talk about this because I think, you know, We've probably talked about this before, but because this may be sort of a normal thing to talk about when it comes to being creative, right? But it's like this sort of feeling of, I'm making music now, so I just put out a little country album, right? And I like to write songs. I'm trying to learn how to play the guitar better.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So I want to practice the guitar. I want to learn new chords. I want to learn how to play the piano. I have sort of lessons that I teach myself. I have to, you know, I like to write, you know, write jokes. I go sit down and go through my phone. That makes it worse, too, when you put notes in your phone because then every time you go to look at your notes, you're back on the phone.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So I have to organize all these thoughts and ideas, but then in your mind you kind of sometimes think, you know, what if I write a song and it sucks? It's not going to be any good. So the negative voice comes in. And so then you go, well, I guess I'll look at my phone for a minute. I can't suck at this. Think of something. And then all of a sudden, you're on the phone for two hours.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And you're tired. And you didn't write a song. So that's the kind of thing. want to keep writing new stuff, new material. Yeah, I have to put pressure on myself to make sure. Because it's like when you stand up, if you don't force yourself, push yourself to do it, then you stay in the same fucking joke for two years. And then that's annoying.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, there were Canadian comics that would sort of, you know, before they, you know, if they moved down to the States back then, they would just sort of tour the Yuck Yucks chain. And so Norm was kind of at the top of that group. And then shortly after I discovered him, he moved down to L.A. and started working as a writer on Roseanne, I think so.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So that's, I'd say, the thing that is the most frustrating about these phones and about procrastination is when you stop doing what you know. And then as soon as you do sit down to write something, let's say a song, any time I sit down to write a song, it actually turns out to be kind of like Well, it's a song. It might not be the best song in the world.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, and I kind of like it, and it becomes something. And then three weeks in between trying to do it again, because I was looking at TikTok for three weeks. So it's like every time you kind of eliminate those distractions that are taking you away from something that It's not like it's taken me away from going out and working in a coal mine or something like that.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
It's a fun thing that I'm wanting to do. But I guess you have that fear of failure every time. Every time I think of writing something, oh, I'm going to spend the whole day making a beat on my computer, and it's not going to be any good, and I've wasted the whole day doing that. So then you go waste the whole day looking at your Instagram stuff.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
That's why we like looking at... I might be a bit different in that. I'm pretty... Like with my friends, I mean, we talk... talk a lot.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, I'm an open book with people. But I do have a sort of a somewhat I mean, I'm sitting here talking about my testicle for half an hour with you. But I don't think I have a problem with honest, intimate conversations.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But, you know, I remember when that happened, when he went to Roseanne and then Saturday Night Live, and I was just like, wow, he was just here in this little dark basement a few months ago.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. No, I feel I'm somewhat comfortable with that. I've just always kind of felt like, okay, I have to do something every day that's going to, you know... keep the dream alive. I'm going to write a song or write a joke. I've got to go on tour. I've got to book a tour. So I'm a little bit maybe... What's the dream?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Probably just to not have to get a real job or something like that. No, I mean, it's sort of like, yeah, just to kind of... You know, it's a bit of a bit that I've done. I say, you know, I was a lot more stressed out when I was young because you have your whole life ahead of you, but now it's a lot easier to be less stressed because I've got so much less of my life left to ruin.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, it's sort of like easier to be a little calmer now. I could probably just do nothing and kind of coast to the finish line on this one and wouldn't have to worry about it. But when you're 20 and, you know, if this should...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
This is it. Yeah. So so but but you still kind of are so used to kind of that sort of and it's probably something that's much deeper than just personal. So I'm sure it's in our DNA. Right.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Kind of, you know, we're not going to. Yeah. So it's, you know, but has your relationship with yourself changed? Yeah. I mean, yes. I think in the most dramatic fashion, literally in the last few years, moving back to this country setting where I get up in the morning and I go outside and breathe some fresh air. And the seasons, too, by the way, help.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
When you go outside and there's snow on the ground and it's cold and you get this dopamine rush from a cold blast of air hitting your face, that kind of jolts you to attention a little bit, too. And honestly, I think it kind of has an impact on your mood, being freezing cold. You know? Yeah. You hear about people that ice plunge? Yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, that was sort of the thing. It was sort of the first time you're really going out to see comedy in a live venue. You're 16 years old. You're just kind of excited to be in a bar.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Well, it's going outside in Canada half the year is a natural ice plunge just this side of the house. So it kind of... People complain about the cold in Canada. People are like, why did you leave Los Angeles? It's like, you know, I kind of like the cold. I feel my mood has improved since I've been home in Canada.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But it's also hard living in Los Angeles when you're in this business because you're just surrounded by so much creativity. You know, like so many people doing what you do, what you want to do.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. So it's like you kind of... In some ways, it kind of be you can't get away from it ever. You know, you can't get away from, you know, work.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And so now it's kind of like feels almost a little bit more like it felt like before I ever... before I ever came here when I was just a kid in my basement making rap beats. Now I get up in the morning and I go outside and I go, well, I don't have to go make a song or write a joke today because nobody else is doing that around here.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, like my neighbors, you know, got a beekeeper over here and they're farmers and they're not writing jokes. And so now I'm just going to do it.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, it's... No, Toronto's the most multicultural city in the world. But... it it is uh it is sort of uh so it's it sounds like it's easier on your constitution problem yeah it is it is it it makes it makes it kind of feel like you're and also i find i find and maybe this is just hopefully this will last but i feel like like it feels weirder to be a comedian living in the wilderness.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, it kind of feels like I'm doing something I'm not supposed to be doing, which is kind of why I got into it in the first place. So that's, I think, been good for me, and I'm enjoying it. And the great thing about doing stand-up is that I leave the wilderness all the time. I just had sushi at Sushi Yaw. I used to go there all the time. I haven't been there in four years.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I get to go get sushi every once in a while and do some city things. And how's the relationship with your partner? It's really great. I mean, we're getting married this year, and that's also kind of a nice sort of settling thing, you know? Oh, that... don't have to worry about that entire part of my life anymore.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
yeah and then he's and it was just he was you know he was in his 20s you know yeah and it was just mind-blowing yeah you know because uh because obviously there was was weird comedy back then but he was sort of one of the ones that really stood out that i saw live that was sort of more out of the box than a lot of the more sort of straight straight edge kind of comedy that was going on at the time yeah he had like great tastes and great instincts and like not a hacky bonus but just had like
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, not worried about it, but I've certainly joked about, you know, I don't want to die alone. I have a bit about that. You know, I talk about having, you know, wanting to, you know... Well, I won't do a bit, but I talk about that a lot. And so it's like, yeah, it's a good feeling. You know what it is? I'm trying to think of a good answer.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And I'm actually really just thinking about the answer to this. Like, The idea of like, you know, like I lived by myself for a long time, right? So it's kind of nice. We're on this tour. Like Amanda's on this tour with me. We're driving, right? I bring my dog Charlie with me. And, you know, I've done tours before just myself and my dog Charlie.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And I started worrying about Charlie actually more than myself. I'm thinking, what happens if I...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
had a heart attack while i was driving down the highway what's going to happen to charlie yeah no i mean she's just going to be like you're going to put her in the pound and you know and yeah peoria and then she's just gone so it's like to have somebody there to kind of like you know if you have a heart attack in the middle of the night or if you you know if you faint or something there's somebody there to kind of to kind of and also vice versa to help someone else through life and to have a have that kind of partnership is kind of a nice nice thing for sure
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, I don't know if that's a selfish reason to get into a relationship, to have somebody there to scrape you off the floor. But, you know, it's kind of a calming thing. Look, we all have our reasons. It is a calming thing to have that kind of partnership, you know. And so, you know, this is – and we just did this – tour this winter from January till April.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I took my camper van and did a stand-up tour. Amanda came with me. We drove all the way down through, you know, Nashville down to Houston and over to Phoenix and did shows every night. How many shows do you do? I was doing one-nighters all the way across, so I didn't like probably... For months?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, well, I would take a couple nights off here and there, and I took a few weeks off in the southwest to go explore some Native American ruins. But yeah, I did like, you know, probably... Steal your... Steal some ruins? Steal some ruins, steal some old arrowheads and pottery and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But... But...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I was saying it's pretty amazing that we've been able to literally... I mean, we're not sleeping in the van every night when we're on tour. We get a hotel, but then we go out and do these adventures and these camping adventures. But to be just in a small consumed space with someone for two and a half months is... is pretty new for me, actually, to be honest with you.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
I've never really found that kind of level of comfort with even in relationships before where usually after a little, after an overly lengthy vacation, you can't wait to get home so you can like go on tour or something for a few weeks, you know? Haven't gotten to that point here. It's not at that point.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, for one, I think I'm in a calmer place now, just like for all the reasons we talked about. Just she's from where I'm from. We went to the same elementary school, not at the same time, but she's a little bit younger than me.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
16, 18? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, something like that. She's 35, so a little bit more than 15, yeah. Okay, good show business. Yeah, but... It's the law. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah. But I think we kind of have similar sort of, you know, outlook on things.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. And just shocking. I wish I could remember some of the bits he did back then, but it was just, it was that sort of idea that you can just sort of turn the whole idea of stand-up sort of upside down and do it differently and kind of confuse and shock everybody, which was kind of amazing to me. And, yeah, but, you know, it's hard doing stand up when you're 16 years old and 17 years old.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know what it is, is... I always try to be careful because it's not like I had nice girlfriends in the past and everything. But there's something about moving away to a city that you're not from. And often... If you're in a relationship, those people are often not from here either, right? So there's sort of a kind of a disconnect with where you are actually where you are.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Like your family is over here and over here, and a lot of people are here to pursue some sort of lofty idea. And so, but when I'm back home in Canada and my parents are down the road and her family's down the road and everybody's sort of there and we're all comfortable and we kind of feel like we're at home, I think it does make things a bit easier.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So, and also just her in general, she's very positive sort of energy to her that is very supportive and helpful for me in my life. So yeah, it's good.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. And for me, it was just the confidence. I was terrified, you know. Yeah. And you're performing to a bunch of college kids, you know, and you just didn't have that kind of confidence to, or life experience or anything to really add. So it was more of silly, you know.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
silly plays on words and silly ideas but you know i wore i wore beige khaki pants and sneakers and my dad's suit because i wanted to look like a letterman you know so because i loved letterman that was really why i went down there i just loved letterman so all right so within the the context of the movie the thing that i was curious about is so it you really got shot out of a rocket
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
The amount of times I've thought in my life about like, oh, if I could go back to that moment, what would I do differently? Because there's this sort of, you know, the sort of weird moment that happened where All of a sudden, the show was a hit, essentially.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, well, okay, that makes it easier. Look, you have to have a certain amount of unbridled, even if it's misplaced, confidence to be able to just have the gall to decide to do that. Like, we're going to go paint my parents' car and film it and expect somebody's going to think that's interesting. And just the amount of work that we put into filming it every day, it sort of slowly built its...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't good timing for sure. I mean, it's never good timing to get testicular cancer, but it was particularly bad because the show had just come on MTV and things were going good for me. You were cresting.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, it was a few years, and I did the show for probably four years without making money doing it. Then we got picked up by the Comedy Network the year before MTV picked it up, which was a little new cable network. But we sort of had this sort of... I guess I'd say sort of a skateboarder mentality. I watched all the Bones Brigade, Stacy Peralta, Future Primitive, Animal Chin.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, the idea of watching them go just, you know, cruise down the street on their skateboards and cause chaos. It was the first time I'd ever seen that, you know, because there hadn't really been video cameras before that. And all of a sudden you're sort of seeing a professionally produced video, but it's not totally professionally produced. It doesn't totally look like what you see.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. And so when you're in that skateboard world, it brings you into listening to rap music too. You're listening to music that was made in a basement somewhere. There was a little bit of a feeling of, we're going to dismantle the way television gets made. A little bit of a youthful naivety kind of thing.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
But then all of a sudden, I'm getting asked to go on The Tonight Show or Conan or Letterman. And Letterman was the first show that I went on that was... The first two shows as a talk show I went on was Oprah and Letterman.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah, it was surreal. And I was somewhat subdued on those two, you know? I mean, I didn't have the, I think, the...
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
were you humble or were you scared or were you i was i was terrified i'd say on letterman on letterman i mean i i i was definitely you know he was my hero i watched everything he did and i was just loved the fact that i was getting asked to be in letterman and it was the first show and it was all kind of new so i was i was definitely uh kind of very sort of
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
You know, I did not try to go on and, you know, light the couch on fire. All right, yeah.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Yeah. But then, you know, once I got into sort of the sort of feeling of that things were working, you know, all of a sudden, you know, I was getting, you know, a lot of attention for it. I really wanted to try to do sort of something crazy every time I went on a talk show.
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Well, I guess what I guess I'm sort of saying is, yeah, like I kind of think that like to think like maybe to jump ahead a year I hosted Saturday Night Live, okay? And I had a couple of friends who worked with me on the show, and I asked them if they could come kind of help write some skits with us, right? So they said, sure, right?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
So we're down there, and they gave us a little room and writing skits. And in hindsight, I kind of think, man, I should have just not tried to write anything, you know? Because it's like, you know, we were trying to go, let's make this the craziest episode, you know? And, you know, I think that kind of was maybe a little bit much, you know?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
And also, you know, going on The Tonight Show, and I'd just go on in the sort of some outrageous, you know, dressed as a tree or something. I think a lot of it came from sort of a fear of failure by just doing it normal, you know?
Blocks w/ Neal Brennan
Tom Green
Just going on and being funny, you know, in a normal way. I thought, well, I can hide behind some outrageous sketch. Then another part of it was that also I loved watching Chris Elliott come out from under the stairs on Letterman and turn the whole show on the set.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, yeah. It was one of these things where it was obviously... It was a very... I pushed the envelope as far as the outrageousness in the scenes, and it was very silly. I don't know if there was a feeling of why... why was I directing this thing? Or I don't know. I don't, it's really hard to say.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It was one of those things though, where I had that opening weekend experience where, you know, there was all of this anticipation. We were all really excited about it. You know, we, we thought it was pretty funny. You know, we enjoyed it. And then, and then when it came, you know, when the, the Roger Ebert came out and sort of did his sort of review of it, it was kind of like,
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
oh, that's not very good, is it now? So it was sort of very disheartening.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. So back in the olden times... Three movies would come out every weekend, and it was very important that you went to the right one and spent your money in the right place. So they would have these critics who would advise you on how to spend your hard-earned dollar. So people would watch that as a television show? They would watch critics talk about movies?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
On this thing called television, of course, yeah, absolutely. And they were very respected, their opinions.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You know, he was my old boss. He fired me on The Celebrity Apprentice. I have to hear this story.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It was the head of the studio, New Regency... Arnon Milshon. I don't know if you know Arnon. Of course, I know of him. He took me aside after the Roger Ebert negative review and told me, you know, my very first movie, Tom, was King of Comedy, and Roger Ebert destroyed it. And 20 years later, he actually was the only movie he's ever reversed his opinion on it. That's a Martin Scorsese movie.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Exactly. But funnily enough, he did kind of A few years later, Ebert did kind of give a little bit of a, not a complete reversal, but he said, well, I'm still thinking about that movie. There's something weird about it. But what did Gene Siskel say? Well, it was actually Ebert and Roper. Remember there was a short period of time there where it was that Roper. And he didn't like it either.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But it wasn't really, it's weird because, you know, Well, it's very much like stand-up in a lot of ways. You can sort of choose to shock or polarize your audience or maybe purposefully push half of the audience away for the entertainment of the other half of the audience. This is what I thought we were doing.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
We were making this movie that was going to be so weird that maybe half the audience would get up and walk out of the theater and And then the half that remained would be sitting there like they were in on the joke, right? People like you and me never have the whole audience.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. And I think with that movie, part of it was... I guess we kind of felt like part of the punchline was the fact that some people just weren't going to get it. Like that was kind of the punchline, you know, like this was so stupid that like, how could you have made something so stupid? And people get angry about it, and that's what's funny.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And so I was surprised that Roger Ebert and Roper weren't able to kind of sort of step back a bit and go, oh, it's some 28-year-old kid who's just, you know, fell off the turnip truck here in Los Angeles, and he's trying to make a weird movie. And let's, you know, maybe understand that this isn't, you know, he wasn't trying to make the jazz singer. You know, this is supposed to be stupid.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But instead it was just sort of treated as it was. Well. Not a successful... I'm sure you're a fan of Spinal Tap.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I actually got it back today. I was wondering about that.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. Yeah, that's amazing, because that was sort of, you know, what year would Spinal Tap have been? Early 80s? Oh, yeah. Early 80s? Late 70s, early 80s, mid-80s? Not 70s. Mid-80s then. Early 80s?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It's kind of amazing to think that people would have actually believed it was real. I remember when I started my show in the 90s and I was pulling pranks on my parents, people didn't understand that they were not actors at first. They thought, oh, those... People would say, are those your real parents? You know, they hadn't sort of been inundated with reality TV yet.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So they were sort of unable to sort of process the fact that some kid would go, you know, paint pornography in his parents' car or paint their house. And so they just thought they were actors, which blew me away because, I mean, they obviously weren't actors. It was obviously a home video kind of thing.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, it was like just before that. Right, just before that. Yeah. So let me ask you this. When did you decide you wanted to do a second TV show in your living room here?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't actually recall ever being in this room. Really? Yeah, it might have been the second after me this was built, or maybe... I don't know. I'm not sure.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, well. Why? It wasn't exactly the way it went, but. Drew did. Yeah. I do remember having a conversation. I'd probably just moved to Los Angeles just weeks earlier, and I remember having a conversation with you through the fence once because the dog ran over there or something. Through the fence. Yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Really? You don't remember? You know, I did not smoke marijuana when I was making my show back in the day. I was like afraid of it. I was like this uptight kid who didn't smoke marijuana. I do occasionally now, but back then I was not... What? Maybe I'll wait a little bit because I might stop... I'll make even less sense than I make now, but... They used to be so...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It was an amped up anti-drug era in the 80s with the, this is your brain on drugs and Nancy Reagan and the egg and the frying pan. And it's like, that's my brain in a frying pan, frying my brain. So, yeah, I can see why people would have been a little worried about it with that sort of being constantly plugged into our minds. Yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, it's... Do you have chickens? I have chickens, yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I've been thinking about this, getting into the egg business.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You could be my egg distributor, my dealer. I'll be the... Yeah, well, it's amazing, you know, how many eggs a few chickens will lay. Like, I don't eat a ton of eggs, so I don't actually go—I have six chickens, and I have these other guinea hens, they're called, which are sort of like a cross between a quail and a turkey, but they run around the property and they eat a lot of bugs and stuff.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That's nuts. quail and turkey fucking now, is it? No, they're actually there. I mean, I don't think that's where they actually look like that, but they're actually their own distinct species called guinea hens. They eat a lot of ticks. A guinea hen will eat thousands and thousands of ticks and bugs a day, so they clear out the whole property of all these. You have ticks up there?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, you know, we didn't until five years ago. Global warming, climate change has They've moved north. They've been in the U.S., of course, forever. But they come up from Pennsylvania and New York on the deer. But five years ago, there were no ticks in Canada. So that's climate change.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I remember when my show was on MTV, I was where I was signed to the William Morris agency and It's like when you watch Danny Thomas as a kid.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But I get about, if I go in the chicken coop, Back to this egg deal we're working on. Yes. And I haven't had a... I haven't gone in there for a few days. I'll go in there, there'll be like 45 eggs in there. Like, each chicken is laying one or two eggs a day. And so, you know, if you...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
If you have six chickens, you definitely will never be able to eat all the eggs that those six chickens will produce.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You know, the thing is, well, you know, they're not fertilized yet unless you have a rooster. So they're not really. Oh, is that right? I don't know if it would be considered a chicken abortion until the. So I don't have a rooster. So if you don't have a rooster, then the eggs are never going to hatch.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, I think it just fucks the chicken, actually. Yeah, but then the egg comes out. Then the egg comes out, and it's a fertilized egg, and there's an embryo in it. It's like a great sex ed class right now, Bill. You know what a chicken does, what a rooster does to a chicken.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That's the difference with the chicken. The egg hatches outside the body, but it still has to be fertilized, I think, beforehand. So if you don't have a rooster, you never have a fertilized egg. By the way, I didn't know any of this shit until three years ago either, so I have chickens now, so I know a lot of this stuff.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It must have been in 2000, I would say, because it was when my show was on MTV in Los Angeles. Was Drew already living here? Yes, yes, she was, yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, I mean, if you have a rooster, then you'll get fertilized eggs. But then the chicken still has to sit on it and incubate it for a period of time before it hatches. So even if you have a rooster, you can still get your eggs.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Sure, absolutely, yeah. I think so. It must be. Well, of course it must be. I haven't thought about that, but it must be. It must be. Why would it not be? Tom, you're so reasonable.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It makes sense to me. It depends who you ask. It's so funny that you go from ultimate weirdo to ultimate non-weirdo.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I thought that, like, there's so much weird shit on the internet now. Right. You got it right. Like, how do you sort of... You're right. You get up in the morning, you pick up your phone, you're seeing, like, violence and, you know, Karens getting, you know, chased through malls and screaming at people and everyone... Fighting and, you know, so were you going to compete with that? Right.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Or, no, I thought maybe the weirdest thing that I could do is to go do something really normal.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Become a farmer. Zig when they zag. Absolutely. You know, that's it. And there's a lot of comedy in my new show. I mean, my parents are on it. It's just more situational. So it's you and Nicole Ritchie. Simple life type thing. It's a little bit like that. It's Ava Gabor, but you... It meets the simple life. Do you remember Green Acres? We almost called the show Green Acres, but it was taken.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Wasn't that great? That was a little before my time. You should watch them. Yeah. I remember watching reruns of it. I was more of a Beverly Hillbillies kind of guy.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I was basically doing my show on MTV. I'd just moved to Los Angeles, and I was here for probably just a couple of months or something like that, not too, too long. But, yeah, it was because the place burned down, so then we moved. That was a scary thing. Now, were you here the night that that happened? Do you remember the fire?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It was sort of the opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies, right?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But it was shot probably in the parking lot at CBS Radford.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It's interesting living in Canada as a Canadian, having lived here and then moved back to Canada. And with these tariffs that are being implemented, or threatened at least, people are obviously very upset in Canada about this. Now it's going to completely decimate the economy, and of course it's going to have a same sort of effect on the American economy in a lot of ways. It's a terrible idea.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So it really doesn't make a lot of sense. No sense. But then, you know, there's a hockey game, U.S. versus Canada this week, and the Canadian crowd booed the American national anthem, of course. Now, this was not a very nice thing to do normally. It's from my garden. Okay, I'll get that. Where you used to live. Under a normal set of circumstances, I don't think the Canadians would boo No.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
He did legalize weed, though. That was one thing he did. I love that. But he also resigned, so.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You know, he was my old boss. He fired me on The Celebrity Apprentice. I have to hear this story. Yeah, because I went out drinking with Dennis Rodman on the night I was the project manager.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, well, it was after we weren't taping the show.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I had a big job. I was the project manager. You've seen the show before? You know how it works? You have to sort of compete business tasks. I never watched that show. Well, it's a business competition, and I sort of fancied myself a pretty good businessman. We had to build a wedding dress store, and we were competing, the guys versus the girls.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I had to sell more wedding dresses than Joan Rivers and Khloe Kardashian and her team, and I had Clint Black and Herschel Walker and Dennis Rodman on my team, right? And so it was very serious, right? But then after the, you know, I could tell we were kind of going to lose because my team sort of mutinied against me. Scott Hamilton as well, Olympic gold medalist, they kind of
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
They kind of wanted to lose and then get me fired. And so I was kind of a little upset about that. So I went out drinking with Dennis Rodman after the show that night. And I guess we were a little hungover in the boardroom the next day. And the president fired me. The president of the United States fired me. Well.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I think he was talking about trilateral weapons. China, Russia, U.S.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
He was a lot of fun. We had a lot of, we became friends when we were there on the show. He was the only one that was kind of sort of not really uptight about the game. He was having fun with it. These reality shows are pretty nuts. I assume you've never been on one of these kinds of shows. I got asked to do it, so I did it. It seemed like a fun thing to do. And it was fun to do.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Oh, that's amazing, yeah. So you must have slept pretty good through that, huh?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But it is sort of like a Stanford prison experiment type of situation. That's exactly what it is. And it's clearly... It's purposely orchestrated like that. It's not unintentionally so. I mean, they'll put, you know, the celebrities. We'll put the celebrity apprentice, it was called, right? So they'll put the celebrities in a room.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
A room kind of like this, but it'll be Dennis Rodman and Herschel Walker and Clint Black and Brian McKnight and Scott Hamilton and myself and a couple other people. And then it'll be a day, you know, a television shooting day. Everyone will come in it. you know, nine in the morning, it's eight in the morning and there'll be cameras all around, locked off with, you know, no camera people in there.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And then they just basically don't give you anything to do for like way too long, like four hours. And there's like, there's a cheese plate and a coffee and then people just, and there's a competition that has some rules and there's a bit of a hierarchy that they create within the group because there's a project manager who becomes the leader of that group.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And then people disagree with the leader and they all form these little sort of Lord of the Flies type sort of groups. And then they film it and it's pretty hilarious, you know, usually. And I think that's why people enjoy it. But being actually in there and being actually, you know, you don't want to be piggy, you know. It does seem…
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
They study this. I don't know for certain, but I would assume they have studied the science of it, and they figure out exactly who's in there, and you know, what would get them mad at each other.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I think they cast it that way. I think they put a bunch of people in there that would probably be, you know, maybe a little bit nutty. People like myself and Dennis Rodman and Scott Hamilton. Everyone knows Scott Hamilton's a bit of a wild man.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That was, you were a... Well, so, well, to break down the actual game, because it did get pretty serious there for a bit. So in the second episode, first episode of my season, each episode, someone gets fired. First episode, Andrew Dice Clay, my good friend, who I'm sure you know very well, got fired. I know Randy, yeah. He got fired for...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
He was a bit it was a bit aggressive with Donald Trump when he asked for the first on the first episode. Dice kind of was a bit aggressive with Donald Trump because there was not enough butter for the bagels in the green room. And he got angry about it in the boardroom on the show.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, that was a scary situation for sure. I had just gone home. About six months earlier, I'd just gone through cancer treatment. Right. Because I had had testicular cancer while I was on MTV. So my show had ended. I fear that one. Yeah, that's not a fun one to have. But it's a good one because you don't die from it usually. Right. How did they detect it? Well, I noticed something was kind of...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It was hilarious. I mean, it was so funny. I mean, it was kind of probably not what you would really do if you were going to try to win the game to start complaining immediately. What do you get if you win? I think you win money for a charity of your choice. That's what it was, yeah. Why even try? Exactly, yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, well, it quickly becomes a point of pride to the people in there about trying to prove that they are
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
smart you know it was your charity sick kids it was a cancer cancer yeah so you fucked a bunch of kids because you and dennis rodman wanted a drink no no no no no i i uh by that point i i knew i was i was not going to uh be uh because i had an alliance against me you see uh bill an alliance again so my team had sort of turned on me and decided to get me fired so i uh i basically just uh
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I threw in the towel pretty much and said, okay. Rough few years, bro. Yeah, it was funny. Fire, divorce, Trump. By the President of the United States. By the President of the United States.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Those were kind of, in hindsight, as I look back on it, they become kind of funny stories. Those are some of the funniest things that happened.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Is that something you did? Did you ever work as a short order cook somewhere?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Because the grease would come up, you'd be burns on your arms. Yeah, I know that. I used to cook, I got fired because I miscooked a chicken burger at Dairy Queen.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That's definitely not the worst thing that could happen is getting a little chicken grease on your arm. It really hurt.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
See, I have honestly not, like I did not, when I first ever tried that, I was kind of later, maybe I was in my 20s, and it made me sort of have a panic attack in a way. I found very paranoid the first time I ever smoked marijuana. Well, it can.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I felt some pain down there in my right testicle. Actual pain? Yeah, it was a throbbing sort of thing, and I went to the doctor and got checked out, and that's what happened. You didn't feel anything? Well, like, I mean, yeah, a little bit of pain.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And I've tried to make it work. It's a fear of a loss of control. So why does that not always happen, though? Why does it happen when people eat that, not when you smoke at them?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It's an art form to make beer, you know? I don't know how they do it, but I know it's... It's German, you know. It's like barley and stuff in there. Oh, yeah. All beer tastes different, different kind of... You know, this is a Pacifico, and this is a lager. Nice.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But a beer with the 12%, it's still kind of a slower kind of tension. Right. Yeah. It's just a little more, you know. To me, it's almost like I'm rehydrating a little bit with a beer. It's almost like a glass of water sometimes, you know. You don't have to think of it like you're just drinking it to. to get drunk or whatever, right?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
With beer, it's sort of more like just a, come on, Bill, have a beer. Just have one beer.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I was in an episode of the Trailer Park Boys with Billy Bob Thornton. What's that? Canadian legends, the Trailer Park Boys. Do you know them? I don't. They're very funny. You have to have the Trailer Park Boys down here on the show.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, it's a TV show up in Canada. The Trailer Park Boys? Yeah, it's been a hilarious show. On now? It's been on for a long time, but it's on now, too, for sure, yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
No, well, actually, the right one had gotten significantly larger as well, which I was kind of thinking.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And so that would have been. How old were you when you were watching SCTV? Were you- 23. Yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
doing anything else because i always kind of as a kid i kind of knew i'm not going to be happy doing anything else yeah that's a lot of pressure on your that's that and so yeah i felt that way i felt that way that's did you have a backup when you were starting i didn't really have much of a backup plan because i mean i i went to school for broadcasting so i knew i was going to work i wanted to do something technically at least because i guess i could have done
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
more technical side of the business too. I do like camera work and editing and stuff like that. That might've been, but yeah, so it's terrifying.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I think so, yeah. You would feel something, some sort of a dull, aching pain is what I felt. Some people feel more pain, like sharper pain, but I felt a dull, aching pain. And then you'll go to the doctor, and sometimes they'll misdiagnose it. And so, like I was misdiagnosed initially. Is that right? Yeah, they said it was epididymitis, and they put me on antibiotics for a
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, well, I. Much more than a farmer. Yeah, well, it's, yeah. So when you get to interview people, The cast members of SCTV for the first time. How old were you when you first interviewed Martin Short? And what was that like? Well, Martin Short's become a great friend of mine. Sure. So when the first time you met him, though, was it just kind of an incredibly sort of weird experience for you?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And it's probably you relate to that character because you probably would like to be Jiminy Glick sometimes when you're interviewing people, I would think, right? Would that be kind of a dream to be able to just sort of one night come out and just say— Yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Do you remember when you saw a talk show for the first time? Who was it? And who was your favorite talk show host from before 1980? Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson. Okay, yeah. That was my era. I mean, I was a little... Of course, it would be... Other than Johnny Carson, I guess I would say. Oh. We'll talk about Johnny Carson.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
a few weeks and we went off and shot another show with Monica Lewinsky. Well, we drove up to, flew up to Canada with her and shot a television show for MTV with her. She's felt a few balls in her day. You know, I'm just, I'm lobbing these up for you, Phil. I appreciate you taking the bait there on that one.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
In Canada, he had a talk show. I believe it was before the one he had in the U.S. too. So we grew up with Alan Thicke on TV. A lot more even. Let me tell you now a thick story that's so funny. You did a show, Thick of the Night, right? Oh, yes. I have the T-shirt. He got me the T-shirt. Yeah, he was hilarious. I got to interview him a couple of times on my web podcast show that I did. Oh, you did?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, you know, that's funny. He was a great guy. He was a great guy.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I got to know Norm MacDonald when he came to my web show, and he's from my hometown of Ottawa. He grew up blocks away from each other. but he was not at the same time. He was a bit older than me, but I remember I saw him for the first time at Yuck Yucks when I was a kid. I would go down to Yuck Yucks, and he was performing. Before he was on Saturday Night Live. Yuck Yucks in? In Ottawa.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I would see him in Ottawa. Where? What city? Ottawa.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, and Yuck Yucks is, you know, do you know Mark Breslin? Why didn't I get that gig? You know, well, you have to be from Ottawa. Oh, really? They didn't have American comics? No, they didn't.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, no, for sure. It was a lot of Canadian comics just started at Yuck Yucks. I played Winnipeg. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's... Which one did you play? Have you played in the clubs there? Rumors? I mean, it was 1992. You ever play the Rumors Comedy Club in Winnipeg? Shout out to Rumors Comedy Club. It's a great comedy club. It's been there since the 80s.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Winnipeg's... Did you enjoy your time in Winnipeg or were you just kind of in and out?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, we got Winnipeg. Okay, whatever. Let's go. That kind of thing. That's cool. Exactly. Well, I've had a lot of fun in Winnipeg. It's good. Go Jets, you know, Canadian city. Well, Canadians. I don't know. There's really a reason why their team is called the Jets, by the way. The hockey team is the Winnipeg Jets. I don't think there's really a lot of jets or anything in Warwick.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You've been to every city in Canada probably, right?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I did hear you say that, but I wasn't sure if I believed it or not. But you're like 100% stopped or just like slowing? Well, you can still go and do a couple shows a year if you want.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
How often are you, I mean, I don't know if people like to hear about writing and stand-up sets, but how often do you try to
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It takes a lot out of you just having to exude that kind of emotional energy live every weekend. No, I like that part. Is it the anticipation of it? Is there anxiety that you get before the show? The travel, just exhaustion. It's exhausting, yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That's not a legal contract. I mean, you can always change your mind at any time.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Maybe another year you might start to get the itch for it.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. Did you ever take a break before for a year or two? Never. Never. Yeah, exactly. So that's why it feels weird. But it doesn't mean you can't take a break. It's because you've never done it before. It doesn't mean you can't take a break. It could just be a break. Maybe you're just taking a break.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But maybe it's just a break. Maybe it could be a five-year break.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I don't want to see you quit doing stand-up just because you decided to quit.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Right. And that's what that's. I was because I was actually about to ask you. why you built a television studio in your basement here. But that's the answer. Yeah, it's fun. This is kind of like you can just kind of.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
When you say since, do you say since COVID or since the pandemic? You know, either one.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
When the pandemic happened, that's when I kind of moved, right? I moved back to Canada. Oh, that was the impetus. Yeah, it was, yeah. Okay. And it was kind of like, because I'm touring all the time, and my tour was canceled for the whole year, and I was sitting there going...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Okay, I didn't have a TV show to go to every day, so I'm sitting around my house going like, what the heck am I going to freaking do this weekend? Right. And so I got this camper van. I got my dog, Charlie. I started going out into the deserts out here and filming some stuff for basically just because I wanted to go check out the desert, but filming some stuff for social media.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And then I decided to move back. I sold my house, moved back to Canada. Sure. Thank you very much. What did you do with that other one I gave you? I smoked it. No, here it is right here. There it is. There you go. Thank you.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Oh, no, I didn't smoke it. It's exactly what it was. But I got this camper van, and so now I'm touring... You have that?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I don't smoke, but... I'm touring with my... I'm now driving on my touring more is what I'm getting at. I haven't been going to the airport and flying to... Instead, I've been doing these... So I drove here from Canada in a camper van. Oh, what? Right now. What? Yeah, so I left Canada. That's so Tom Green. In my camper van with my fiance and my dog. And we drove and we did gigs all the way down.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, I mean, I'm not going to say what I'm guilty of in the terms of farting too much department, but I don't try to fart a lot if that's what we're talking about here, Bill.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Honestly, this isn't really the first thing I want to talk about when talking about my new engagement. You know, she's amazing, and that's why we're having a lot of fun. She puts up with the absurdity of this idea of traveling around in a camper. But we are staying in hotels when we're not. She loves it. No, we're having a lot of fun. We're having a lot of fun. Are you funny all the time?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I'm pretty tired right now, now that you mention it. Because I drove here in a camper van. That's amazing. I slept in the Mojave Desert. I appreciate it so much. Four nights ago. I really appreciate it. It's beautiful out there. Have you ever slept out in the Mojave Desert? Fuck no. It is so beautiful out there.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But there's also... Seeing the sunset coming up over the mountains in the Mojave Desert.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, that's... What's not... What's... But why does that sound bad? It's not nothing. There's beautiful practices and wildlife.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
No. Wow, really? That's amazing. Never slept. I'm sleeping in a camper van. It's scary sleeping in a tent. Animals can tear through that tent.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You're right, I would have never guessed that. I am right, aren't I? Would have never guessed that, no. That's right. That's amazing. So was that just kind of, was he a friend of yours? No, I was opening for him. Yeah, that's cool.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And what venues would you be performing there all around today?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Sort of like a Hollywood Bowl kind of. Yes, yes. Got some gravitas to it, but you're outside. It's like camping outside. But you're not. You're watching a show. Yeah. Yeah. Jim McKay. Sort of like camping. You feel like you did something in the nature. Right. Blanket. Yeah, yeah. A blanket may be involved. You've really never gone camping. Anyways, it's fun because you get into it.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yes, absolutely. These aren't even my balls and I'm pissed off. Did you just make yourself a drink there? Yes, can I do it for you? I suppose I should have a drink then. Yeah, if you want. Yeah, what did you have there? What did you make there? Is it a little? It's just tequila. Okay, that sounds good. Yeah, I think. A little rot gut. Why not? Never heard a farmer like you? Absolutely.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
nature and you really kind of ensconce yourself in that it's a very calming or relaxing thing to do. I think nature's a great town.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I knew you were joking. I just wanted to put it on the record. I did not do it.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I know there was no reason for them to think that, but some people still get confused and think the wrong thing. I just want to make sure.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So is it more fun doing television when you have the internet as well as a factor or is it more fun doing television when there was no internet? Because you seem like you're having a lot of fun with the internet.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So I would expect that you would say that – but I'd expect you would say that it was probably this is more fun to have this kind of – but then you also have to deal with the complexity of all that kind of just energy on the internet that we're talking about.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, I was just saying, yeah, you know what? What were we talking about, Bill?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
No, but you, I knew exactly what we were talking about until you questioned it. And then it made me sort of second guess myself. And now my mind's gone blank. What the hell were we just talking about, Bill?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Sitting around in these extremely soft chairs, by the way. I don't feel like it's... I've got a beer, you know, this is incredible. What we were talking about, okay, is before the internet...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. And how they just take- I know what we were talking about. I just pretended we didn't see what happened.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But of course, I actually want to know the answer too because- I want to give you the answer.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You lose control of the narrative because the wrong clips go out.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I've got my middle people. Yeah. So before the internet, you didn't have to, but there was still people would write about the show. Well, they got my first show canceled. Yeah, exactly. So there was still this sort of different kind of energy pushback.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
We're using that word to make sure you're not doing it. Have you been credited with being coining that term? No. You don't want to be credited with that.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Those were crazy times. It was 9-11, right? 9-11, yeah. That was crazy times. And, you know, was that the beginning of this sort of new kind of crazy that we're seeing in our politics?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I mean, it's a heavy thing to blame me with, for sure. It's a lot for me to consider. You know, it's crazy, though. Was that the beginning of this sort of... Things weren't as political before that. I mean, it seems weird to say.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Obviously, things have been political forever, but doesn't it seem like... I think what you mean... Has there not been sort of a reprieve on this kind of divisive politics or something for 10 years or 20 years?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, that's where the chads were being counted in Florida.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Oh, Christopher. Oh, yes. Right. I didn't hear you talking about Christopher. She's been on real time. She's great. Yeah. Well, she was the minister.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Trudeau resigned. Savvy. But it has still not been an election as of yet, so they're going to call in an election soon, and there's going to be a leadership race on the Liberal Party. Christia Friedland is running for leader of the Liberal Party, and there's also Mark... Kearney, as well, is another hike. But you're parliamentarians. Yeah, I am a parliamentarian.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I used to go up there all the time. I used to go up to the parliament buildings all the time, though, when I was a kid in Ottawa. I used to go down there and just play soccer on the front lawn of the parliament buildings. Are you kidding? No, I actually did do that, yeah. Because? Because I was doing... I was doing a college radio show in downtown Ottawa.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And I would say at the end of the show, on midnight till 2 in the morning, every Friday night, I'd say, anyone want to come meet me on the front lawn of the parliament buildings? Bring a soccer ball and some pizza, and we'll go play soccer out there till 4 in the morning. And then we'd go and we'd play soccer. Not to cut you off of that story, but it— No, no, no. It's so— No, I love that.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That was one of the fun things I love to do in Ottawa. That's why I— You know, when you talk about— You talk about the Canadian government and— Trudeau and all the elections and all the stuff that's going on out there, I also think of it sometimes just in real personal terms. I basically grew up in Ottawa.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
When you say parliament, for instance, I think about how beautiful our parliament buildings are. Have you seen our parliament buildings? Have you seen them before, Bill? Quite beautiful buildings, by the way.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Really? Yeah. You wanted to do radio, but you just never?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So at what moment do you get up on stage then? What age?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
They must have loved that. I mean, it's got to be better than poetry. I mean, I like poetry. I'd rather see someone attempt stand-up than someone sincerely pull off poetry, to be honest with you. It's fun even watching stand-up when it fails, really, sometimes. But in that environment, in college, it must have been good. So did you do that regularly then?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Okay, okay. I know. I guess you know more than I do. You've probably met more astrophysicists than me, so I wouldn't really know. I'm just speaking off of a hunch, basically.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, because do people come up and ask him sort of technical questions that they really need answered?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Right, right. I don't want to talk about the wormholes or string theory anymore.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Asteroid, yeah, absolutely. No, 2032, yeah? Yeah. And there's also, I thought you were talking about the astronauts that are stuck up there.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Absolutely nice. I see an asteroid. The entire planet is going to be destroyed in 10 years. What are you planning on doing about that? That's a good question.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I was never really good at math, but yes. 2032, okay.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You're saying making an extra effort to survive seven years so you can see the asteroid? Or would you rather just not have to witness that?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It's that it creates a... Yeah, the whole atmosphere is full of dust, and the sun is bluffed out, and it becomes frigid winter, and we all freeze to death. Except for those few hardy enough ones who dug little shelters for themselves and lived off freeze-dried noodles for the next... Generation, essentially.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
How do you think it would affect... You want to be part of that group that ate freeze-dried noodles underground for a generation to try to repopulate the earth, or would you rather have a direct hit? You say direct hit. Well, when you put it that way. You get to continue. You could probably open up a little... You know, comedy club in there or something like that. Keep everybody entertained.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Repopulate the earth eventually because of you, because of you keeping everybody.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
There'd be stuff to do, yeah. So when you built the studio here, this has got to have been a lot of fun, right?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, I'm not talking about the structure. Just when you put the cameras in and started doing the show here, That must have been a lot of fun, right?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So I had built a studio in my house in 2005. I had a lot of people over and did a lot of interviews and interviews. And I got to make so many good friends. I got to know Norm MacDonald, I mentioned, who was idolized growing up. But then I got to know him and become friends with him. But that's a great thing about doing this. It's fun. But you've got a studio here.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So other than Johnny Carson, before 1980... Who was your favorite? Well, I'll tell you who else was out. Including David Letterman.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Right. It was out of all of the others. Merv Griffin, Jack Parr.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Did you like Jack Parr? I bet you liked Jack Parr. As I say, before my time.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
My fiance is here as well. Oh. I'm engaged. My fiance is out in the control room.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And then he came back a week later and went back on the air and said some funny line. No. Because when he quit, he said, there's got to be a better way to make a living than this. And he quit on NBC Live, walked off. And then he went away to Africa. And then he came back and he... The show was still a hit. They gave him the show again after he quit.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
He came back live on NBC, and he said, I went and had a look, and when I left, I said there's got to be a better way to make a living than this. I went and had a look, and it turns out there isn't. And then he continued the show for like another, I don't know how many years, few years, not too much longer. Yeah.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Or no, it was Johnny Carson after Jack Parr, right? Steve Allen, Jack Parr, Johnny Carson.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Incredible interviews, though, with Jack Parry, Kennedy, Muhammad Ali, and all these sorts of people.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. It's always been very controversial, the whole hierarchy in talk television.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. And it seems like it's become kind of the priority is to talk about that subject and to talk politics. It used to be one joke about Reagan or something, and then we'd move on. The whole monologue's about politics. It's all about the sort of social issues.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Why is that? Why isn't there not a more... Is it because it's just... social media has divided things so much that you have to pick a side firmly? Is that what it is? Does the internet made that happen? Because the shows have their internets. They get all these comments coming through. Oh, we better please these comments.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I'm just going to say, anytime you mention a Canadian, I'm going to say they're Canadian, just so you know.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You feel it's too partisan, for sure. Is that what you got out of that story? SNL-less.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So the idea that we have to have a few... There was always sort of politics in SNL, but now more so than ever. I mean, it was Gerald Ford fell down a flight of stairs.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, exactly. So why is that though? Why has everything gotten so political?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
He had to split the audience. Right. Well, first of all, they felt that... There was three channels and Walter Cronkite's on at night. They can be non-biased or to be central. Then when the cable came in.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
CBS never went right wing and NBC went left wing back in 1953 to compete against each other. That's exactly what I'm getting to.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, is it just because the, is it regional? I mean, you travel around the country. So, you know, is that what it is? Just because most television has always come out of New York and Los Angeles, I guess, right?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
How old are you now? I'm 53. Yeah, 53. And, you know, I'm not essentially... Doing a lot of farming, really. I live on a farm. There's hay fields that we cut the hay, and I have a donkey and a mule, and I ride this mule. I didn't know anything about mules. What is the difference between the donkey and the mule, if you may? Yeah, because I actually thought they were the same before I got the mule.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
When the TV expanded, there was, yeah, so yeah. But it was a network show.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You know, he was my first landlord in Los Angeles.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Not what I said at all. I know. But he's a good guy, though. Why can't we just go with that? It's a better story. When I came to MTV, I rented a house. Is that right? He owned the house. Wow. He would come over and say hi once in a while. Great. A lot of fun. Great guy. Must be fun to sit to talk to. I've never gone to interview him. I've gone to interview people, though.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I've done quite a few interviews over the years. I enjoy it. I enjoy it.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. Well, it's a nice opportunity to get to interview. I've got to get to interview. I have interviewed a lot of people though before because I've done – Oh, I know. Like that's something that I've kind of enjoyed the – really enjoyed kind of trying to – not just doing it because I like meeting people and like getting to know people but it's also – Yeah, it's been fun. It's been fun.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I built a TV studio in my living room in 2005, right? That's so you to put it in the living room. Well, you know, my house wasn't as big as this. So I had a couple of rooms. One of them was the living room. That was the only room that was big enough to put a couple cameras in.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But no, it was fun. It was fun. And, you know, it's like... But there is sort of something about being able to have a... So when you have guests now to do this in your home where you live now... Well, I'm not really doing a podcast right now where I'm interviewing people, so I'm just kind of not doing that. But I may build a podcast studio in my barn, though. I have a barn. I have a barn.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Do you have any pets right now? Yes, but they're not horses. No. Dogs?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. Good guard dogs that let you know when there's something going on?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You've had them most of their lives. Oh, yes. So they weren't always... No. When they were younger, were they good guard dogs? No, were they good guard dogs? Did they bark? No. Always been kind of just a chill dog.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
A mule is half horse, half donkey, so it's like a hybrid. Fanny is her name, and her father was a Mammoth donkey, and her mother was a percheron horse.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You know she's doing that because she's trying to protect you.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Because she loves you. Chico takes his job very seriously. Loves you and wants to make sure that you are safe.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I mean, the last time you saw Chico. Was right before I came over here. So still alive, I would say.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah. Well, it's... it is i'd like to thank the academy no no but it's because because you you know you're it is a one of the one of the worst things you have to do right i mean animals are a family right these are family you know i had to put i had two huskies for 15 years i went through that it's a Horrible thing, right? But you have to kind of move on. And they had great lives, I'm sure.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Half donkey, yeah. They have 62 chromosomes. A donkey has... Oh, sorry, 63 chromosomes. A donkey has 62, and a horse has 64. It might be the other way around, but... One way or another, the odd number of chromosomes, the 63 chromosomes, means they're sterile, can't reproduce. So the only way you can make a mule, two mules won't make another mule. You can't breed mules.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Sure. The Poconos. Well, that's Pennsylvania. Oh, yeah, right, right. No, sort of what I'm thinking of.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
There's a lot of shacks and meth in Alabama? Yeah. You said you'd think it was like Alabama, and then you said shacks and meth. I'm just like, there probably is a lot of shacks and meth in Alabama.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, we were talking about... Something important. Yeah, you know, let's talk about... We don't have to talk about meth anymore. I don't think we really need to talk about meth.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Have you taken meth? I've never taken meth, for the record. I've never partaken in the meth... You have actually been... At Cornell. Cornell was... It was a different time. You were... It was sort of all these drugs were kind of new experimental. The Beatles were just kind of... Right? The Beatles, right? The Beatles.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
No, no, but they got the ball rolling on that, and now it's Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. What was music we listened to?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Did you listen on a record, on vinyl? You had a record player in your place?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
um i was all tapes pretty much vinyl just disappeared basically when i was a kid so it was cassette tapes was pretty much my era which was seemed like it wasn't as cool as vinyl but now at this time you know i would love to be in a cassette tape world right now listening to music on cassette tape or vinyl you know it's a well i don't i don't love having to listen to music on this digital stuff but it's it's great to have access to the music but it was nice just be able to
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
put in that album, push play, listen to the whole album.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And do you listen to your vinyl a lot? No, never. You never listen to it? Why would I? Do you have a record player?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You have to get donkeys and horses and put them together.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Oh, the actual original iPod? Yeah. Like not your phone.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You just have a vintage one? I have five of them.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I promise you. I agree with that. I don't have one, but I remember having them. It's nice because all the music's there. It doesn't disappear. There's no ads popping up. It's your music. You feel like you own it. Thank you.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Really? You're not a fan of some over-long intros in the 70s rock stuff? You just want to get right to the guitar solo or right to the first verse? There's big intros in some of those old Led Zeppelin songs.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So this is a pet peeve of yours and therefore you've gone and you've edited a lot of your songs?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
A pet peeve would be... It irritates you enough that you've actually done something about it. Like you sit down at a computer and edit the front end of a bunch of songs so you don't have to listen to them ever again.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, yeah, because you just want to get to the meat of it.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I'm not saying it's a nutty thing to do. I'm just saying it's a little more. Most people would just not do anything about it.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, it's not crazy. It's just a little bit more than the average person would do. They wouldn't go and cut the song, cut a little file and only carry a vintage iPod.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
The only thing that allows them to do that. They just listen to a different song without the intro they don't like or whatever.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I like that. The sound quality is better too, I think, than through the internet. The sound quality is actually better. Also, I must say. More resolution or whatever than the audio.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So this is on your iPod, and then it's plugged into your speakers? Yeah, yeah. You plug it in the car? When you get in the car, do you plug it in the car? I have one. You can get in the car, yeah. So it's an iPod.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Music is a very important thing, like to actually listen to music and enjoy music. Oh, so important.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Even for you. So you really do think there's sort of a, like some synchronistic sort of.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Songs will come on that are just, it just doesn't make any sense that that would play right now. Is it possible like a lot of songs have themes of emotion and. It sort of reappears throughout us. I thought about it. I swear to God. Because a lot of songs are both. That's exactly the right answer to what I'm saying. You're feeling bad a certain day and a sad song comes on and oh, you know.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
If it was just that simple. But it's more specific than that.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
No. There is, so you consider yourself a spiritual person?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Fucking the female horse. I know. Not the other way around. Right. So like a horse doesn't generally want to have sex with a, I'll say it more politely, have sex with a donkey for some reason. So, and it's, I don't know, it's, I wasn't there when it happened. You know, I just got, I, she was 11, 10 years old when I got her, but it was, it was, it's been a lot of fun.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Even some form of energy coming from the iPod, though, some sort of, maybe that could be God. That's what I'm saying.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
They could change the format that music's recorded on.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You sort of have this organized set of music. You could just get a record player and get back to listening to music, but they can't take that in the car and all that stuff.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
We have freedom of speech in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
There was a... Something about sharing news on social media.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I think there's been some misinformation about... I'm getting all Canadian right now, but there's been some misinformation about Canadian freedom of speech, though, that's been floating around out there. Like, we've got freedom of speech in Canada. It's in our... Our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We have freedom of the press, freedom of assembly.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I've never experienced a situation where I can't say something up there. There are hate speech laws in Canada, so there are things you can't say, but. You know what, who would want to say that shit anyways, right? Well, that's not what free speech means. Right, it's a slight, but there's a clearly defined definition of what hate speech is. So it's not overreaching, you know, it's fairly specific.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So it's not really pretty much say anything you want except for extreme things that you would not agree with, I would think, and that nobody would really want to agree with in a civilized society.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
There was a lot of talk about TikTok in America, though. That's almost like a clamping down of.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
The first most blatantly illegal thing he did. I think it probably was favorable to him, TikTok. It was favorable to Donald Trump in the election. So why would you want to cancel that?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
And it travels through the internet at the speed of light more than other things possibly.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So, like, lots of black guys who... You like Kodak Black? He's pretty... I'm not sure I could name one of his songs, but I like his music.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I mean, I listen to it a bit. I like it. I don't know. I'm not super aware of everything.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Uh... I listen to a lot of music that I – I was going to ask you that too, but I did ask you that. But if I would go to – I listen to like Joy Division. Joy Division. New Order. I listen to Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash. I know him. Yeah, I listen to – Johnny Cash. Neil Young. I listen to – Neil Young, Canadian. Yeah, absolutely.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I think when you're getting two different species to procreate, there's a little bit of human interaction.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
that's it's a very it hits close to home when you hear some neil young talking about ontario it's like tom petty singing about ventura boulevard you know right oh i get it it tugs on the uh that's why i sang it yeah absolutely no yeah yeah no i listen to uh no let me think of what else i listen to i want to i want to because when i was when i was younger i listened to a lot of rap music but i don't really listen to it as even the music i listened to growing up it doesn't
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I don't feel like listening to, I won't say name the particular bands, but I don't feel like listening to rap music that much as an adult. I want to listen to something more like,
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
On this particular trip, it's been driving. So it was one-nighters. So it was in Chattanooga, Nashville. And you drive to like a band. I was on this trip. Over the last 20 years, I usually flew out. But when COVID happened, I kind of got this van.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I started enjoying driving around because rather than going to a comedy club for a weekend and doing four shows, it's more like, oh, I'll just do one-nighters across as I go. And then not have to go to the airport, not have to go through all that. What do you do after the show? Well, right now I'm traveling with my fiancée, so we're having a great time.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
We go, you know, get dinner and do what a man and his fiancée does after a show.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But other than that, we go get dinner and go visit the city, and we have a few days off here and there. Well, right now, we're not actually doing any shows until I'm in Colorado in a couple of weeks, so I'm here in Los Angeles for a week. You know, here's something. I left Los Angeles and had not come back for... Three and a half, almost four years until three days ago.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
So I lived here for 18 years. I lived here for 20 years. Really? When COVID happened, I sold my house when COVID happened that I'd owned for 18 years. There was nothing that brought you here? Well, I came here to see you. No, I mean, in all that time. No, there's nothing. Well, I wasn't trying to purposely avoid it, but I just kind of...
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Yeah, it was sort of, there was no real reason to come other than I have friends here that I miss, but I talk to them all the time on the phone and stuff and FaceTime and stuff. So I was kind of excited about setting up this farm. So this is actually the first time I've been back. So it's kind of interesting. And this is on Netflix? Prime, Amazon Prime.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
It's okay. I just wasn't told, but it's on Amazon called... I don't think we would have talked about a lot of the things we talked about tonight if you had watched it, so I think it worked out for the best.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Not love her again. I'm sorry. I guest hosted his final show that he was doing there. Did you ever do a show in Burbank in that church? A million times. Oh, in Burbank? Yeah, when he was doing it on Aura TV. Oh, Russian TV? No, he had a show on Russian TV, which is politicking, and then he had a talk show. on Aura TV.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
That was so much fun. Thank you. Thank you. An honor. An honor and a pleasure. Thank you, Bill. Thank you.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I could see, you know, if you've seen Freddy Got Fingered, I mean, I know a little bit about that. Right. Oh, right.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
But no, it's been an amazing thing. You know, I moved back to Canada, where I'm from, so I live not too far from where I grew up and my parents lived down the road. And, you know, I found this property. Can we say what province this is? It's in Ontario. Yeah. Yeah. Sort of between Toronto and Ottawa. Closer to Ottawa. Yeah. Don't tell the nuts where you live. No, no. Ontario's pretty big.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Ontario's about twice the size of Texas. So they'll have a hard time narrowing it down just from that. But we're a big country up there. The future 51st state, potentially. Well, fingers crossed. It'll be the only state in America where nobody in it wants to be American.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Except for Jordan Peterson, Wayne Gretzky, and that guy from Shark Tank.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Well, I don't know. I do know that he hangs out a little bit at Mar-a-Lago and that it may be that Mr. Trump was, President Trump was attempting to maybe get him to run for prime minister.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
I am actually not, it's not that I wasn't, uh, it's just a nice, it's nice to be closer to my family and, uh, it's a nice change for sure. I like, I like being in nature, you know, I like being out in the, in the, uh.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Actually, I met her there. So I met her after, after I moved. I moved three and a half years ago. I met her up there and, uh, and, uh, so she's Canadian and, uh, My life's really coming together as soon as I went back to Canada. I don't know what it is, Bill, but... Do you have kids?
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
You know, I don't know. I... I'll probably tell them I'm a comedian. I, too, are doing stand-up comedy. I don't know if I'll bring them to one of my shows in the first 10 years, but maybe I'll show them the documentary that I just put out. That should explain it. What about Freddy Fingred? You'll have to wait until they're at least 14 to see that one.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
Early 2001. It was like the fire and then that. Yeah, it was right. A lot of things happened in close succession.
Club Random with Bill Maher
Tom Green | Club Random
A lot of good things happened. A lot of weird things happened. You know, I mean, the fact that they let me direct the movie and do this movie when I was just on MTV. Why were people so mad about it? I think it was just... I mean, it's a good question, because it's kind of gotten a little bit of a... Resurgence, because that's what happens over... People actually say they like it now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But now you take it back to the year 875, you're out in the desert. And this place, Chaco Canyon, was a whole society where they did trading and people came from all over North America there. So it's a very peaceful thing. I do enjoy it quite a bit.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
This is her first time actually really coming to – throughout a lot of the United States too. So she's from Canada and hasn't been out to the desert before. So, but she's, I mean, she's, we're having fun, you know, we're having fun out there, but it's, you know, we just have, this is our first trip doing this, so it's been cool.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
No, no, no. Okay. It's the first time engaged since, yeah. You know, no, it was not scary because... Because that was Drew Barrymore, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. But no, it wasn't scary because Amanda's amazing. So I knew it was the right thing, this was the thing to do.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
when I say that out loud you know you're a young guy too to think that there was a lot of things that happened that you know I don't know if you want to talk about you know I'm talking a lot about energy but coincidences and synchronicity and things like this I moved back to Canada and I have a pond on my property and in the winter it freezes over and I shoveled the snow off the pond and I was playing hockey on the pond like skating playing hockey on the pond and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Shot a video of that and put it up on the social medias. There we go. Wow, that's beautiful. Here we are out at the pond. Wow, you got a fast guy on the draw out there. I just literally just said that and he instantly found. So we're drilling a hole in the pond here and then we can pump the water out of that back on top of the pond and give it a nice smooth flow. I see, that's my friend Ryan.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Then we get a pump, we just stick a fire hose down in there, and we pump water out of it. We pump it up on top of the ice, and just basically flood the ice, and then it freezes, because at night, and then we get some nice smooth ice out there. How long does that process take? Just a day. This just took a day. The next morning, it was completely frozen.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But then you get two feet of snow, and then you've got to do it all over again, which kind of puts a damper on it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, and then it gets – it's cold. It's below zero. So then the next morning it was pretty much ready to – Now, normally you would shovel it off first, but we just kind of were kind of a little lazy about that, I guess. And we just flooded it instead, which it ended up working out fine. But probably would have been better if we shoveled it off first.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But that seems like that would have been a lot of work.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But there you go. See, and then... So yeah, so we were doing this and then I was shooting these videos playing hockey. There we go. This is the next day? Yeah, it's like probably the next day.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Well, you know, if you have a pond, I mean, those are the barns in the background. That's my house up there behind there. And so, you know, we used to do it in my backyard when I was a kid. Like we used to flood the backyard and... Yeah, Gretzky talked about that when he was on air.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Oh, okay. But it had been knocked out previously in a hockey game of some sort.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. I kind of like to just kind of do these sort of ambient sort of things to kind of just kind of bring you into a certain place. It's sort of like I like photography. This is just doing it with video and being there. Yeah. But after I posted that video, Amanda, my fiance, she saw it and she sent me a message on Instagram. This is how we met.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And it was a video of a Zamboni, a do-it-yourself Zamboni, which is what a Zamboni is what you use to clean off the ice in a hockey rink, right? And so it was this homemade one. And we started, I just started talking to her because I thought it was a funny thing to send. And we
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It turns out we went to the same elementary school and, uh, yeah, it was just sort of, uh, it was, it was, it was just went, went from there. So cool. Congratulations. Yeah. Thanks man.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah. No, they are for sure, yeah. No hesitation. They were excited for me to come home, believe it or not, because sometimes people wonder, because I used to do a lot of pranks on them. Do they still talk to you? But my parents, we were always very close, even when I was doing my show on MTV and doing pranks on them and annoying them with the video camera.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
they would sort of laugh afterwards and, and we've, you know, always had a very close relationship there. They're actually in my new show on, on prime. It's, you know, it's sort of about me moving home. Okay.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And there's a documentary on prime and then the show called Tom green country. And, uh, sort of, sort of about me settling in at the farm and, uh, And they're hilarious. I mean they really make the show. Like there's something about their sense of humor is – they're kind of razzing me in the new show more than me pulling pranks on them. I don't do that anymore.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
They've retired from being pranked. From being a victim? Yeah, absolutely.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It feels good, actually. Yeah, it was weird. I just moved four years ago. It was kind of... Somewhat spontaneous decision. You know, when COVID happened, remember that? And everything stopped. And all of a sudden, you know, I've been touring and everybody stopped touring, right? At the beginning. Yeah, everything kind of just stopped.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I think there was kind of a, a few layers to that for sure. And that's a cool question. It's a great question because like, One thing was we never really had a video camera. I grew up in the 80s, so we didn't have a video camera or even a film camera. We didn't even take a lot of photos. It was kind of expensive. People that had a video camera, they had a lot of money to have a video camera.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
We never had a video camera. And so when all of a sudden they became somewhat attainable, I would sort of sign one out at school and I would – I found that it was kind of a – first of all, I love comedy. So I loved David Letterman. I love watching him go out in the street and do stuff and I loved – Monty Python and SCTV and I just loved comedy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I was doing stand-up comedy in Ottawa when I was 16 years old and I would go down to watch Norm Macdonald when he was in his 20s. It was sort of this amazing thing and I somehow had this sort of feeling that if I could just get a video camera and go film stuff that maybe I could... you know, make a show or whatever.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I'm trying to remember if it was just me that stopped or did everyone stop?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But there's also a skateboarder, you know, and that was sort of skateboarding videos were, holy shit, look at this. This is amazing. How did you find that so fast? Yeah, there me at 16 years old. Yuck, yucks. How did you find that so fast? I don't even know how, you must've had that in advance. That is unbelievable. Is there some sort of weird algorithm here or something like that?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah. So about the first six months or so of that, I was kind of. I'm going to do. And then I just kind of realized I, well, I got this, I was telling you about my van. I got this van and I started going out into the desert and making videos and stuff. Here and outside of LA? Just outside LA.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, look at that microphone too. It's like, I don't know, they didn't even use the right microphone back then. But I – no, I just – I don't know. I often kind of like think there's something about like –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I don't know, I think I've always been really afraid of the concept of like being dead, you know, like being gone and like there being no sort of, you know, recollection of anything that you've ever done, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And I always found it interesting to just kind of document things and just record things and that'll be there, you know, in some electronic way floating around there forever and sort of feels in a little way like kind of like sort of a
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
weird kind of immortality in a way you know I think that's kind of what fascinates me about these these ruins in the desert too like these people came and built these things in the year 875 and I'm walking through it and looking at it and filming it and talking about it with you and so they're kind of in a way kind of remembered you know yeah and then there was also just kind of the blatant you know
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
When I was younger, I was a little – quite a bit different than I am now. I think I've calmed down quite a bit. Like when I was younger, I really always needed to be kind of like the center of attention, the class clown, moving around a lot. It was weird as a kid. So to me, it seemed like a really good way of just kind of documenting all of this silliness. And I loved it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I love filming stuff and showing it to people at school.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And I love being out in the desert so much and just waking up in the morning with a cup of coffee and just looking at the sun coming up over the mountains and just the peacefulness of that. Yeah. It's out in the Mojave desert. That was like the first day of the trip, I think four years ago. And so then, you know, I just decided to sell my house. I'd been in my house for 18 years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Absolutely. Yeah, I can relate to that because I talk a little bit in my stand-up special about not having kids. And I sometimes think it's kind of a bit of a message to my future children that, you know, that I'm aware that I haven't had them yet, you know? And so I totally understand what you're saying about that. It's... Yeah, I mean, it's...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's a weird thing because 20 years ago, nobody had – definitely 30 years ago, nobody had video cameras really like they do now. But now everybody with their phones, everything documented. It's so normal now. But I just put this documentary out on Prime, which is – it's called This is the Tom Green Documentary. It's sort of a play on my old theme song on my show.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So I went through like thousands of hours of video. I'm going back looking at 17-year-old me running around doing stuff. And it was actually kind of a pretty –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
somewhat terrifying experience actually because it was like this opportunity to kind of tell the story of everything that happened with my show and everything that happened with my experience here in la and i i wanted to kind of uh you know tell the story right and i've got so much video and combing through all of it was at times you know uh
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Somewhat kind of like I would be looking at myself like I'm looking at a completely different person and I can't even believe – I'm finding things I don't even remember happening and I'm looking at things that are just so completely bonkers and silly and ridiculous. I'm like, whoa. Sometimes I couldn't look. At the TV, I'm like, oh my, what was I doing? That's how you made us feel. Yeah, exactly.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I was doing it to myself 20 years, 30 years later. And no, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody to go make a documentary about yourself. Definitely hire somebody to do that. Never watch it. But no, it was fun because I wanted to tell the story the right way. But- But it was also kind of very surreal.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's like the first scene of the documentary, I'm sitting with my mother and she actually says, are you really supposed to do direct a documentary about yourself? I mean, can't you kind of whitewash that a little bit? Are you going to do that? Yeah, I'm going to do that. So But honestly, the – I wanted to be – I wanted to be – I did not want to completely like put a false story out there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I sold my house and went back to Canada and bought a farm near where my parents live. And just, I can't believe four years went by. But yesterday was the first day back in Los Angeles. In the van, we drove back down in the van. So I've been touring with my fiancé who you just met. I have a fiancé now. Went back to Canada. I've got a fiancé from Canada now. Yeah, good choice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So I think the hardest part was trying to figure out how to not be too self-deprecating. Oh, yeah. Because you think – you know, when you get to my age, you know, you look back and you think, oh my God, I wish I hadn't done that or I wish I hadn't done that or I shouldn't have said that or shouldn't have done that. And, you know, I have a lot of those things, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
They're constantly rattling around in my head. And you start to think like, you know, man, maybe this is a good way for me to go and just like apologize for everything that I perceived that I've done wrong in my life, right? And then you have to kind of take a step back and go, well, wait a minute, you know, like that might just be in my head, you know?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people about you know, people that I know, people I'm close with about the story of, really, it's the story of the show and takes us through the story of kind of creating the show and then building, you know, before the show with my music and then after the show with building, you know, sort of a web TV studio, right, here in Los Angeles.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And it's sort of a telling of that story. But then I wanted to talk, you know, a bit about some of the, Personal sort of things that I went through. I had cancer when I was on MTV and I talked about that. I made this movie, Freddy Got Fingered, which was not critically completely embraced. Yeah. So, you know, so it's like I wanted to explain myself a bit.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But then, you know, at the same time, there's a lot of people now that like the movie, believe it or not. So I didn't want to completely, you know. And hate the critics now. Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of like it was a very tricky balancing act.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And then on top of that, there's just so much footage and so many weird little funny clips that only I know are the ones that people like or people have or haven't seen. And I kind of wanted to make sense of that all and piece it all together. I don't think anyone else would have been able to find it all. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I mean, you know, it's interesting because, like, in fact, that's part of what the documentary is about. Because, like, when I got into making the show when I was growing up, all I could even imagine myself doing was I wanted to be a talk show host. You know, I wanted to do basically a show like David Letterman. Right.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
have guests on, and then I go out in the street and, you know, be a nutcase, you know, do goofy stuff, right? And I got to do that, you know, a few times over the years. And, you know, when those shows go away, you know, Initially when that happened, that was back in the day of MTV. The first show I stopped when I got sick. So it didn't actually get canceled, the Tom Green show.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And we came back in the van. And just drove into town yesterday and it's pretty weird because it's like it feels like I – nothing's really – it kind of makes you think about time. Time is weird because I went away for four years and then you come back and I drove past my house that I lived in for almost 20 years. And now I'm staying in a hotel right down across from where the house is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But then when I started – I did a nightly show. It kind of – when it kind of got canceled, I was thinking, oh my gosh, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to me that I could ever imagine that I'm not going to be able to do anything. a nightly talk show. This was devastating to me.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And as time marches on and I look at all the things that I've done instead, touring, doing standup or moving back to the farm and everything in between, I kind of realized, man, I'm kind of
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Kind of glad that actually didn't work out because if that show had been a big hit, then I would have been going down to the same studio every night for the last 30 years and I wouldn't have gotten to do all these other things. So Freddie Got Fingered, of course, was a – idiotic movie, you know, purposefully so.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah. I wrote it with my friend, Derek, and we, I directed it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It was, yeah. Wow. It was, but it was, we had a budget, you know, it was 20th Century Fox. We had, you know, cause the show was doing good on MTV. So they, they let me direct it, you know, they let me do that, which was, you know, probably a mistake, but no, No, it was – we really pushed it to make it like – we were in our 20s. So the idea was let's make this the craziest movie ever made.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's literally we actually believed that we could do something like that. And so it gets complicated because then – How do you define failure? It came out Roger Ebert and – it wasn't Siskel. It was the other guy. He had another guy there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, even he didn't like it. He didn't? Even Roper didn't like it. I mean it wasn't even Siskel. It was Roper, whoever that guy was. They trashed it and you're kind of thinking at the time, man, this is devastating. Ebert and Roper are – trash in my film, you know? But, and you think, oh, you start to question, you know, every sort of choice you've made, you know?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
At the time, like, it was the end of, you know, the line if these guys trashed your movie.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's like my first movie and all this stuff riding on it. And then these come on, just destroyed it. And I remember just sitting there, like, watching this, just thinking, oh, my gosh, this is it. You know, this is the end. But, you know, it wasn't, you know, I just kept going, kept doing my thing. And you look back at it and go, it's kind of funny now that they didn't like it, you know?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, it's kind of awesome that they didn't like it. It's weird because there's a weird sort of counterintuitiveness to it because we set out to make a movie that those guys would not like. And then when they don't like it, you're upset about it. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's like I kind of thought that they would sort of see the irony and go, I know we're not supposed to like this, but actually this kid's pretty clever. No, no, no. They didn't say that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Do you remember? $14 million. Wow. They spent on that. Plus an additional 10 on promotion and advertising and stuff. Advertising. And you know what? I will say it made it all back on DVD. Remember DVD? Yeah. Remember they used to put DVDs out? So I think I've heard it made $35 million on DVD. So it actually was a profitable movie. Yeah. Made $14 million at the box. I'm here defending it now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It made its money back. No, but it did. So it did make its money back. But you know. Ebert and Roper aren't going to tell you that, though. They're not going to tell you that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
No, no, exactly. It was. I mean, it was in a way, but in the sense that it bombed. But, you know, no, it was – It's funny. It's funny though because – It's cool that you did it though. There was a long period of time there where I was made to feel like it was a really bad decision. And then in the last like 10 years, it's like all I hear are people saying they love it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Someone today showed me they had an x-ray cat tattoo. It's a character in the movie. So it's like – it is a little confusing when you talk about sort of – I mean your question was how do you handle things like failure and things like that. It's like – And it's kind of – the more of those kind of things you go through, the more you kind of learn to kind of embrace it in a way.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I can actually see the house from the hotel room. I sort of did that on purpose because I thought it would be weird. And I went to Arts Deli. I lived sort of in the Studio City area here. And I went to Arts Deli and got my same pastrami sandwich and my chicken noodle soup. And I've been going to some of the same restaurants, just been here for a day and it doesn't feel like it's been four years.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
We start back tomorrow. Kind of like a Joe Dirt 2, 3 kind of thing?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Well, you know, the thing is that you're in good hands here because you're with a guy that's done this a lot before. Right, he's done it a lot.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But, you know, I think that – I don't know. It just seems like the way things get released these days and the ways people embrace weirdness these days, like I'm assuming it's kind of a – A weird movie?
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E564 Tom Green
It's just like old school funny. So like a funny movie, right? Like, you know, you have this incredible thing going with your show here. So you have your audience built in. So you don't really have to worry about the same things that maybe back in the day when you put out something crazy and sort of in a sea of somewhat normal movies coming out every weekend. Yeah.
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E564 Tom Green
All getting funneled through this sort of mainstream cinema release system.
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E564 Tom Green
It's very strange. Like we had to take the movie and focus group it. Oh, wow. And then people would sit there with pads. And it was in Phoenix. We flew down to Phoenix to focus group Freddy Guthrie.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. For some reason they do them there in Phoenix. And like – Then someone stands up after the movie and asks them what they didn't like about the movie. Well, with Freddy Got Fingered, I mean we're sort of supposed to not like any of these scenes. You're supposed to be polarizing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So it didn't really kind of work with the focus group system and then you had to make changes to it and all that kind of stuff. But you probably – you guys probably – or have a lot more creative control over things.
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E564 Tom Green
It feels like I actually, I'm driving here, you know, today I was sort of almost forgot that I didn't live here anymore. I kept thinking, oh, I'll go back to my house after. Oh, right. I don't live here anymore. So that's a strange thing. But on the flip side, the last four years, I've got a farm, which I've now really settled into.
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E564 Tom Green
When I was doing the web show at home? Well, I mean, it was, So there wasn't really sort of podcasting yet. It wasn't really a thing really, right? So we built the studio and it would basically just stream to my website. I mean there was no Instagram yet. YouTube had just started. And people would come and watch it on the front page of TomGreen.com. And we actually had like a –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
company in san francisco that made like the the video playback system you know so cdn content distribution network was basically so we would upload a video to that we there was we weren't uploading it to youtube and linking it or there was there was no youtube really so so it was kind of just a big sort of science experiment that i was doing with uh you know my group of friends um and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And I had the sort of goal of trying to sort of make it a show that would become profitable, get advertisers and maybe sell it to television, which we did a little bit of that. So I was kind of pretty driven, I guess. And it's kind of what I notice now with like
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
podcasting which is amazing is like you know the people that have these incredible businesses that they've got going these incredible you know artistic visions they have for themselves they're all kind of have that same kind of drive in them you know they get up in the morning their mind is just like how are we going to make this better today you know how are we going to make this awesome today you know so it was kind of it was kind of like that you know we were getting up and turning on the studio every night and I'd be inviting up
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E564 Tom Green
Rappers and Too Short came up and Jurassic 5 and Exhibit and then you wrap up comedians – invite comedians up and like Joe Rogan would come over and Norm MacDonald who I became good friends with would start coming over all the time. And literally like hundreds and hundreds of people would come over and it became this kind of really – fun thing to do. I wasn't doing stand-up at the time.
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E564 Tom Green
I hadn't done stand-up in years. So I was really just doing that. And... You know, it was ridiculous. I mean, we were just enjoying the absurdity of it. Oh, yeah. Was it so stressful? It was because I put pressure on myself and I would actually get stressed out about it. And then we would have people that would prank call us.
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E564 Tom Green
So I had this phone system on the desk and you could just call it and it would ring and I'd hit answer. So we had like – People trolling us basically. I remember getting Rick rolled for the first time. And it was like, oh, I kind of felt like – I don't know if I'd ever heard of Rick rolling before I got Rick rolled. Oh, yeah. It's cool.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And it became kind of like a little bit of a game, like where we were – There was a switch that I built with – Bill Schnitzer was his name. He worked there and Victor, a couple of the guys that worked there. And we built the switch under the desk.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I've got these incredible animals, which are now I'm really bonded with this mule and this donkey and
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It was like metal and it was like we got a metal box with a switch and we had wires and we soldered them together and then the wires ran out to the computer. And then Bill was able to program the computer so that when like I flipped that switch, it would – like if everything was off, it's the middle of the night in my house. It's quiet night. Nobody there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And if I were to get up at 1 o'clock in the morning by myself – and put clown makeup on, which I often did, and a top hat and walk out into my living room and flick the switch. The switch would turn on the lights, would turn on the cameras, would turn on the computers. This computer would tell this computer to start recording. The phone system would turn on.
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E564 Tom Green
It would send it to the front page of my website. Just one switch. I haven't done anything. All I've done is put on some clown makeup and flip the switch, right? You don't have to put on the clown makeup, but I did do that often.
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E564 Tom Green
It was called The French Clown of Midnight. I'd speak in French in clown makeup. And you wonder why it didn't work out. But then the phone would start ringing, and I'd just be doing the show. I'd have a switcher on the desk so I could switch the cameras, and I would just start taking calls. And it was really the only live video on the internet. Like, really. There was no Instagram Live or anything.
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E564 Tom Green
two horses and uh chickens and it's just like this it's sort of been an incredible incredible journey the last four years so yeah it's been cool was it something that you always wanted to have you feel like a farm i guess every human kind of maybe feels something like that i'm gonna get a little bit of land i'm gonna get some animals was it that or was it no it's weird because i never really imagined having a mule um you know like and riding a mule every day i
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So it was like... You imagine, when I was a kid, I wanted to do, I like prank calling the radio station. I'd like to call into the radio station. And I would call into the radio station and I'd record it. And then I'd call into the radio station and I'd pretend I was like my friend's father. And I'd call and I'd start complaining about my son and I'd use his name and I'd play the tape back to him.
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E564 Tom Green
And it was hilarious to me, you know. And so I loved that, like, Pranking a radio station and I kind of started to realize like we're the only live show on the internet right now with a phone with no call screener. All these people like me around the world could now call in and prank me.
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E564 Tom Green
And so we kind of got into this little sort of war basically, which was fun because I would get angry about it. But then also I kind of didn't have to turn the phone on. Right, right, right. Um, so it was, it was, it was really fun. And, you know, I got to meet a lot of great people, you know, I mean, that's where I really got to hang out with, you know, Joe Rogan for the first time, really.
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E564 Tom Green
And, uh, and Norm, who I became really close with and, and so many other people. And, you know, it was, it was, it was amazing.
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E564 Tom Green
Well, at the very end, I did not know that he was sick. I didn't know he was sick. So that was – It seemed like he kept that from everybody. Yeah. And he's from my hometown. He's from Ottawa, Canada. And he started at the same comedy club that I started at Yuck Yucks in Ottawa. Howard Wagman, who's the – still owns the comedy club in Ottawa – Yuck Yucks, which is like all across Canada.
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E564 Tom Green
I've been to one of them, I think. Yeah, yeah. So he's awesome and he put Norm on the stage for the first time and tells a story about how Norm got off stage the very first time he did stand-up. He was in his 20s and he didn't think he did well and he was walking down the street. I'm never going to do that again. And Howard –
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E564 Tom Green
It's weird, like I find myself sometimes now talking about 2005 like it was like 50 years ago or something like that. But it really is, things have changed so much in the last 20 years with social media that it does really feel like kind of a different world. Like I remember Norm would come up and the first time he came up, I just couldn't believe I was going to hang out with him.
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E564 Tom Green
sort of in some ways kind of doing a make-believe talk show even though there were people watching it was kind of like you know experimental talk show and he was getting into that and then the show would end and we'd go you know on YouTube and go look at videos and I was like I remember it was like YouTube was so new that it was just the strangest thing I'd be sitting with Norm Macdonald after doing this for two hours and we'd be sitting there watching you know
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E564 Tom Green
Crazy clips that he would find, you know, like baby versus cobra, you know, with the cobras mouth sewed together.
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E564 Tom Green
Grape lady falls. I remember watching these videos with Norm and just dying of laughter, you know, in the middle of the night and just thinking this is cool. Now it's just so normal to look at viral videos and stuff. But back then we thought we were just – have you ever seen this video? I've never seen this. Oh, man. I mean it's a little bit – can you play the audio too? Is it possible?
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E564 Tom Green
I love that that's your takeaway for this, her head size as well. It is true, though, by the way. I'd never noticed that.
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E564 Tom Green
Right. Or at least just talk in sort of the amount of words that your head should justify, your head size should justify.
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E564 Tom Green
Did you notice right away that she had a particularly small head or was that something that sort of dawned on you later?
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E564 Tom Green
So once she got under that, the hair was puffed out, probably purposefully. We probably knew that her head was small.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah. Yeah. I sort of thought – initially I thought it would be kind of funny. And then the mule I happened to find, Fanny – is her name. And she's this beautiful mule. She's this huge animal. And that's Kia, the donkey in the background. And so it's just become this sort of amazing change. But yeah, I...
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah, I know. Was that incredible? It was cool. You got to host it. I did. I know. That's amazing. I was on tour. I wasn't able to go. I would have loved to have gone to that. That must have been wild. I went to the 40th. And I remember that was – that is just the most surreal thing. If it's anything, I imagine it was. Like just everybody is there, right?
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E564 Tom Green
And I wish I didn't. This sort of social anxiety when you're in an environment like that, where there's just all these people that you admire and respect and are around you and everybody. I kind of don't even feel like myself. It's a sort of a very stressful thing for me. Yeah. So in some ways, I was kind of- That's a good word. It's stressful. Yeah. Yeah.
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E564 Tom Green
You know, initially I hadn't really thought of necessarily getting a farm with a mule and all this stuff. But I wanted to get a place that was kind of in nature, really was. And then the farm happened to have these old barns on it. And I thought it'd be kind of cool to get a mule in those barns. So I now am very much loving life up there.
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E564 Tom Green
But you're on top of the world right now. You just interviewed the president of the United States. I mean everybody – you've got this incredible show. I mean I'm sure everybody was super excited to see you there. So you probably don't really have any reason to feel nervous, but you still do, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So like when you go to the inauguration and you've already – now you know the president of the United States because you had this interview with him.
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E564 Tom Green
Like did you kind of hang out with him at the inauguration or – No, no.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah. So when like when he like came on your show, right, it was right before the election and he was doing a lot of podcasts and stuff. Did he did they approach you or they call you? Is it his son was a fan of your show, right? Is that what he said?
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E564 Tom Green
I get up in the morning and I saddle her up and ride off into the wilderness. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Really?
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E564 Tom Green
um you know i don't know that's just my thoughts it's kind of a endless sort of uh you know uh quagmire you can find yourself in once you start talking when you get into politics i agree in this world we're living in now because it's like you know you go on the road you do stand up all around the country and you know everybody's sort of divided in a way. Right.
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E564 Tom Green
I mean I always loved animals. I have my dog Charlie and I've always enjoyed being outdoors. But I mean it just kind of – I know every once in a while, you know, sometimes when an idea pops into your head and then you just go with it and then all of a sudden you've done it. This is like that, except it sort of occurred to me afterwards.
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E564 Tom Green
And then you start to have firmly choosing a side and all of a sudden half the audience doesn't want to have any fun anymore.
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E564 Tom Green
So it's kind of like you got to be fine. We got to make these choices now. Like, okay, well do I, do I want to give my opinion anymore about what's going on in the world? Uh, you know, and then, You have to choose one of the set of opinions that are on this side or the set of opinions that are all evenly and neatly put on this side.
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E564 Tom Green
And as soon as you state your opinion about one of these issues that just happens to be on this side, then anybody that doesn't agree with you no longer wants to fuck with you and come to your show or have a good time or have a laugh with you. So it's just such a shitty thing to have to deal with that, right? So how do you kind of like juggle that?
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E564 Tom Green
Because as a Canadian, it's like right now in Canada, people are pretty upset with Donald Trump because he's putting these tariffs on Canada, right? And saying they're going to make us a 51st state. Saying they're going to annex Canada. People aren't too happy about the idea of being taken over by the United States of America, doesn't it?
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E564 Tom Green
It's not something that people are super excited about hearing. So you kind of go – it's funny because sometimes I think like – well, I think a lot of Americans who don't think about it that much might think like – Oh, Canada is going to be the 51st state. I bet you everyone in Canada must be really excited about being the 51st state of the United States.
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E564 Tom Green
But, you know, I'm kind of saying, well, no, it'll probably be the first state in America that nobody in it wants to be America. You know, so so because, you know, we've. we've got our own country. It's not that we don't, don't, don't love America. I love America, but we, you know, we sort of have our, our, our, our entire different culture. You know, you go to Canada all the time, right?
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E564 Tom Green
They're not even, they just came off just to apologize.
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E564 Tom Green
You know, as I was doing it, I was realizing, you know, I'm going to have this mule for the rest of my life. You know, like they live to be – donkeys live to be up to 40, 50 years old. Oh, my God, really? He is only three. So it's a lifelong commitment. The donkey could live after you. Absolutely. She probably will.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah. No, it's interesting. I think, you know, there's a thing that's going on, the hockey games in Canada now where the USA and Canada are playing.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah, the Canadian fans were booing at them, right? Yeah. You know, sometimes I go like, well, I don't – based on the reaction on social media, I sort of feel like maybe not everybody in the US necessarily understands why that's happening. They don't know it's about the tariffs. They're not booing the national anthem. They're booing this – the fact that –
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E564 Tom Green
These tariffs are being put on, which is going to, of course, devastate – the economy on both sides will suffer from that, right? I'm sitting here talking about it like I know about it. I should probably know more about it. But it's like – I think people are just kind of like, why are you guys doing this to us? So it's kind of an interesting thing.
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E564 Tom Green
But you want to talk about issues sometimes and then you go, OK, I've just waded into this sort of hornet's nest situation. and I'm never going to hear the end of it. So it is interesting. What was it – when you're at the inauguration, after the inauguration, were you like kind of just – are you kind of – who were you hanging out with there?
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E564 Tom Green
But yeah, so it's – so but it's – I think maybe I was looking for something that would kind of ground me and give me that home base that I needed. This is the first time I've ever lived somewhere where I know I'm going to be there for the rest of my life. Wow. I'm planting trees. Yeah. I'm thinking, oh, in 20 years, that tree is going to be – these trees are going to be bigger and I'm kind of –
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah. They're going to become Canada's 11th province. Good. Yeah.
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E564 Tom Green
i would love it if we started trading pieces of our trading now that i'm totally for new york and california come join canada and take one of them you guys can uh you know take i'm not gonna say who you guys can take but you know because we but no i know you're talking about dude i gotta be political that's all i'll say brother no no just be in quebecois actually je parle francais i lived in quebec a lot in my life yeah so i grew up in quebec so i love quebec yeah
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E564 Tom Green
yeah you must have been up the montreal festival over the years or yeah we went there a couple times um i love quebec it's fun yeah edmonton we got some other places we're going to still calgary and ottawa and winnipeg we're going to go to this year oh yeah so when you're in ottawa maybe if you're rolling past the farm and the tour bus oh come by the farm and uh we'll go ride some mules or something how far outside of town are you guys
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E564 Tom Green
About like an hour or so. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. So sort of not too far, you know. I'll come pick you up in my pickup truck. We'll go hang out.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, definitely. You know, I'm getting married. So, you know, knock on wood, everything goes well with that. And, you know, maybe there'll be some – We'll see. We'll have to ask my fiancée.
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E564 Tom Green
Yes, yes, yeah, for sure. No, I think that's a possibility for sure.
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E564 Tom Green
I was starting to question whether or not it was going to be part of my life because, you know, I mean, I think you kind of alluded to this earlier. You know, you want to, you know – If you're going to get married, you want to get married to somebody that you love and actually think that this could last forever, right? I was starting to question whether or not that was maybe possible.
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E564 Tom Green
I wasn't sure if that was possible anymore to find somebody that I thought would last forever with. But when I met Amanda, she's outside. I hope I'm getting some brownie points here. But I realized this is the one. Wow. But until you meet that person, it does start to feel kind of like, geez, this is getting a little kind of uncertain here.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah, I think kind of, I mean, I think being home where I'm from helped, you know, because it's like, I don't know. I mean if you're not from Los Angeles, then it's kind of a weird place. If you're from Los Angeles, it's normal. But if you're not from Los Angeles, it's kind of a weird place. So you're here probably focused on your career and your work and so many other people are.
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E564 Tom Green
It's kind of hard to I think find a good – I'm not saying it's impossible, but it seems like it is kind of harder in this environment to find somebody that you can – I mean I don't know. Are people watching going – are we going to be taking relationship advice from me? I don't know. I don't know if that's – No.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah. They're going to put a tariff on every – you know, Canada is the largest trading partner of the United States. Nice. And so much of the goods that come into the United States from Canada –
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E564 Tom Green
are you are being brought in by american businesses to you know like wood you bring wood and lumber in to build houses right so when you put a 25 tariff on lumber that means flannel everybody that flannel if you're a big flannel company making flannel pajamas all of a sudden flannel pajamas are going to be 25 more expensive so it's really it's going to affect uh you know businesses on on both sides of the border obviously not just canada but also everything will go up in price
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E564 Tom Green
So – and I'm not exactly sure the reason for it to be honest with you.
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E564 Tom Green
Absolutely. I don't think there's a real border security problem between Canada and the United States though. It's – but that's –
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah. It's – the claim that there's fentanyl coming into the United States from Canada I think is a little bit exaggerated because I don't really think that that's actually the case. Something like a very small amount is coming in from Canada. Yeah.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah, it's – I mean it's weird. I moved here when I was 28. I think it was 28 or 29 when I moved to L.A. I'm 53 now. And I mean, I loved it. I had a great time here. I wasn't leaving L.A. because I didn't, you know, like L.A. or anything. It was more I wanted to be close to my parents and they're still doing good and I wanted to be close to family and stuff.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I think that's what they're – I think that's what he's asking them to do. And I think we already do have – again, I'm not a representative of the Canadian government, but I do think that we already do have a lot of – There's only so much you can do to seal off a border, right? And I don't think there is that much fentanyl coming in from Canada really.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, I think it mostly does come in from the southern border.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
a little bit like that but you know hopefully hopefully it'll resolve itself I do think that it's probably going to end up causing a lot of economic problems on both sides of the border and probably they may may not go for it but you know sports exciting for a while though yeah exactly that's a side effect it was a good fight right off the top of the game the other day you know it's pretty cool we like a good hockey fight so that's cool and it is nice when countries sometimes don't get along a little bit in sports right I've always I've always admired that yeah
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E564 Tom Green
Maybe more fights in the NBA would be good. Physical fights. Yeah, look at that. Oh, definitely. I believe both those players are American too. I'm not sure how quickly a researcher can tell us that. But even though the Canadian team –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Maybe that's not true at all, what I just said. I don't think Canada got the win in this game. But that's okay. Yeah, we lost the game, absolutely, which is really kind of... I know. But it is nice to see everybody having a good time watching a hockey fight, for sure. Yeah. Absolutely.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Oh, wow. That's definitely something that I could see a lot of people probably would be guilty of for sure. Hey, shoot is shoot, you know? Yeah, I could see that being. I mean, I don't want to get into too much personal detail, but I think I'd probably be locked up for a long time. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Now, I'm assuming this is a parody site, but the world's so crazy right now that I'm actually asking this for real. Is this a real article? This is a real article. article right there.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So this is not The Onion or something like that or Mad Magazine or something?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Conception begins... And it rhymes nicely too. Conception begins at erection act. I mean, it's a nice rhyme to it, which is also nice.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But yeah, it is a unique place for sure. People come here from all over the world. Yeah. pursue their dreams and there's sort of an energy there that's exciting. But, you know, when you – as I got a little older, you know, I left when I was 50 and, you know, not married, no kids, COVID happened. I wake up. I've been in my house for 18 years. The real estate market went up.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, I mean I'm assuming – I don't know how much I want to talk about this in detail with you.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
A felony for men to discharge semen without the intent to fertilize. That is an amazing, amazing idea. I mean, I actually would love to see that sort of applied that law just to see what would happen. I mean, it would be interesting to see what would happen. It's genital communism in a way, I guess.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
They're making a valid point when you put it that way. Absolutely.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It was a wild – Somewhat terrifying experience. You know, I had just gone through some pretty – I'd just gone through surgery like a few months ago.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. And I'd had this lymph node dissection and I was kind of like – It had affected my sort of energy levels a lot. So it was kind of – there was a lot going on in my life when I actually got the call to do that show and to do Saturday Night Live. And it was really cool though. The thing that was cool about it was Lorne Michaels, who's Canadian, and I was just so kind of sort of –
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E564 Tom Green
Kind of sort of overwhelmed that I was asked to do it, right? Yeah. And I had a couple of friends who I grew up with who worked on my show with me. And I said, you know, can they come in and like kind of work with me and do some – help write some skits and stuff. So they gave us a little office and that stuff. We went in there. We were sort of writing skits up and everything.
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E564 Tom Green
And, you know, they actually kind of ended up giving me a lot of kind of creative freedom on the show to kind of write sketches and stuff. And, you know, in hindsight, I kind of wish they hadn't.
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E564 Tom Green
Yeah, well, because we really kind of made some really weird fucking sketches, you know. I think maybe it would have been cool if I maybe I'd just gone in and done the stuff that they had written. But like I was sort of definitely, you know. Freddie Got Fingered hadn't come out yet.
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E564 Tom Green
So like I was still kind of riding high on this hit show and we come in and we say, OK, now let's write some crazy sketches, right? And I mean the stuff we wrote was really, really weird.
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E564 Tom Green
Let's make it ours. I think so. I think so. And, you know, sometimes I think there was a misperception maybe among some of the cast that I brought my own writers in, which wasn't really the case. It was more like it was my buddies and they'd come up with me with the show.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
You know, it was kind of like we were, you know, when we made the show in Canada, some of my friends came down with me to the States.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I want them to be included in the show. So we kind of went and did that. Yeah. I mean, it was an amazingly exciting experience. I mean, my parents were there on stage with me. It was one of those things where you kind of can't believe that it actually happened while it was happening. And I did a lot of sketches with Will Ferrell.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
One of the – like here's an example of something that I – I wouldn't say I regret this but like – but I kind of regret this. So there was a sketch where I'm a wizard and I'm holding a pig, like an actual pig. And it was Molly Shannon and Will and I'm a wizard. Wow. And I didn't really have any lines in the sketch or many lines in the sketch. It was mostly Will and Molly were doing this sketch.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I was like, oh, maybe I should sell it now as opposed to, you know, five years ago I wouldn't have wanted to sell it. So there was a moment in time, maybe I'll sell this place, you know, that I've been living in for 20 years, waiting for the right moment to feel like it was time to go. And because, I don't know, I kind of felt like I wanted to be back where I grew up, you know.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But I noticed during rehearsal that if I just kind of lightly sort of tickled the pig's belly with my finger, that it would start to squeal extremely loud, right? And so I did that once during rehearsal and then somebody said, oh, you better not, you know, she'll squeal if you touch her belly. And so I said, okay, fine. And there's a rehearsal show and then there's the actual show, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And I kind of maybe regret this, but I did note that, okay, let's get through the rehearsal show. But then live, I'm going to make that pig squeal, right? Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So it did kind of – Sorry, I meant pig. No, but it was kind of – it kind of threw the sketch off a little bit. You just already kept squealing that? I realized that. It did kind of throw the rhythm of the comedy off a little bit, but – How many times did you squeal it? It just sort of became sort of a bit of a mess.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And were you getting a squeal every time he touched his belly or did you have to really – No, I just had to kind of just lightly sort of pet her there and she would just start – But it was amusing to me, but I'm not sure if anybody else enjoyed it that much.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Right. It was like that. Yeah. So but, you know, it was an amazing experience. I was total honor to be able to do it. Yeah. You know, I mean, I, you know, it was cool. I mean, the cast was Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan, Molly Shannon, Anna Gasteyer, Tracy Morgan. And, you know, you know, there was...
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's a weird environment like Saturday Night Live, especially when you're young and you don't really know. Like, you know, we were talking earlier about like going to – you were talking about going to Chris Rock's party and like you didn't know how to act or whatever because there's all these people here and it's kind of complicated.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So you're getting thrust into an environment like that and then it's – Even as the host, it sort of felt like kind of a competitive environment because all the cast members are trying to write sketches and get them on the air every week. And I didn't really know how it worked really at the time. In hindsight, I now realize how it works and I might have done things differently.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But when we were trying to put these sketches on the air that we were writing, maybe that was kind of pushing another sketch off and we didn't really – I wasn't really thinking of it like that. So it kind of created – it's kind of a weird environment. The more I kind of – you know, sort of hear people on podcasts who've been on the show, talk about the show.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It seems like everybody's gone through that experience who's been on that show where it's very competitive and, and stressful for people. And, uh, that made, that makes me feel a little bit better about my experience there because, you know, it was, it was kind of, uh, uh, you know, a stressful experience, you know, cause you know, everybody's going to be watching the show it's live and, uh,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
you know, I'm, uh, you know, you're doing all this weird stuff. That's not necessarily, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a little bit out of my element. I didn't do sketch comedy. Yeah. That's scary. So it was, it was, it was, but it was cool.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I mean, you're not from here either. So, you know, there's something... There's something very sort of I guess deep that you feel when you're home. I'm sure – you're from Tennessee.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Another thing that was weird that happened on the show, so there was a sketch that I did. It's called a sketch, like I did with Will Ferrell, where we're both dressed as eagles. And this was one of the ones that my friends and I wrote, okay? It's sort of hard to sort of say that we wrote it, but... The sketch was Jimmy Fallon and Molly Shannon are looking at Will and I who are eagles, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
We wrote this out, by the way, on paper and handed it in and then they said to do it. And then Will and I decide to fly up into the audience, okay? And I thought it would be fun to go in the audience. So we fly into the audience and And then we chew up carrots. And then I believe Will chews up a carrot. And I believe he sort of spits the carrot into my mouth.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And then kind of we end up sort of – because you know how baby birds will chew up the food and feed it. Mother birds will chew up the food and make it easier for the baby to eat. So this was the sketch we did. Oh, yeah. Oh, God. So somehow I kind of maybe probably would have been better if we just kind of did the sketches that their writers had written.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, so we're doing this sketch, this skit. And so, you know, when you host the show, you got to run to get ready for the next sketch because you got to take off your eagle costume and put on another costume, right? And so I'm running down the stairs and I'm running through the backstage area and just sitting in the darkness, you know, just backstage standing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Tom Hanks is just sitting there in front of a monitor watching the show. And I'm in the eagle costume. I'd just done that. I make eye contact with Tom Hanks. So now I'm like, oh, I was already kind of nervous. Now, like, I got Tom Hanks in the dark watching. And I'm going like, how did that eagle sketch go? You know, and I'm sort of getting ready for the next sketch.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Not sure how the eagle sketch went. And Tom Hanks is watching. So it kind of throws you a little bit. But then there's a big after party after the show and Tom Hanks was real nice and he was hanging out talking to my parents and stuff. Oh, that's cool. It was pretty cool. No, it was an amazing thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's the kind of thing though like it's kind of like you go, geez, it would be nice to be able to do it again someday because I think like doing it the first time is sort of so – I don't know that that would ever happen, but probably in an alternate universe, I might be able to do it again someday. But like you go, okay, I sort of understand how the system of it works now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And it would be probably – I probably would not have done that. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Like when you go back to Louisiana, you must feel like, oh, now I'm at home, right?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. And I think that generally you can – at least take those lessons and apply them to something else.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
No, it was not Michael Jackson, but that would have been amazing if it was Michael Jackson. No, it was David Gray. Oh, yeah. But, man, it would have been amazing. No, nothing against David Gray, but have you ever had Michael Jackson?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Have you ever interacted with Michael Jackson, uh, in any way or no, no, that would have, I mean, that would have been amazing, but yeah, he was great. And, uh,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Another weird thing that happened on the show. One thing that was weird that happened on the show. So I was backstage getting ready for the show. I don't even know if I should tell this story. I don't even know if I should tell this story. Let's talk about something else. It's a weird story.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Oh, okay, yeah. It was just interesting. So were you chatting with Madonna? No, no, no, no, no. She's quite interesting on TikTok these days. Oh, is she? She does some pretty sort of out there stuff on her TikTok. I've got to follow her.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
One testicle, yeah, my right testicle and some lymph nodes as well.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
No, the lymph nodes are actually behind your intestines and they have to like – they cut me up here and they had to remove those. And that was just to check to see if the cancer had spread into them. Wow. And the only way they could really check and know for 100 percent sure if it had spread was to take them out and look at them under a microscope and stuff. So –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
so they had not spread so then that meant i did not have to have chemo and stuff but they did take my right testicle which was uh honestly like when i found out the show was on mtv at the time and you have it still yeah i did not keep it like indefinitely but that is it in a plastic bag right there how many ounces is it you know i i don't remember weighing it exactly but i know it's quite heavy for sure oh hell yeah i can give you that
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Fuck yeah. We don't have no light testicles around here. But we filmed the whole sort of surgery for a show on MTV. That's actually the whole show there, the Cancer Special, which is on YouTube. But you'd see my documentary on Prime too where it kind of walks through that whole – That's Glenn Humplick who is my friend and co-host on the show.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And here he is sort of after my surgery coming down and playing with my testicle. A little bit of sashimi there. Yeah, it's a little sashimi. Yeah, that's what he says. It sort of looks like chicken. And then my mom says, I don't know what kind of chicken you're eating. Yeah, so that is my cancer-infected testicle right there. But I still have the left one. It's the middle one now.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I can still ejaculate just a little. No, it's pretty good, actually.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Only $5,000 for me. Oh, yeah, that's true. Which is a benefit in Ohio to have testicular cancer.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It was offered and I refused to do it. I did not refuse, but I just sort of opted out on the prosthetic. Did you ever look at them at least? I think I did. Yeah, I think I did. This was, you know, 20 years ago. But I'd heard the doctor kind of said, you know, a lot of people get them, don't like it. They say it kind of sort of feels weird or whatever. So I just figured, no, I don't need one.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So, you know, but I mean, I don't know how much you want to talk about my ball sack, but I mean, it doesn't really seem that much different like down there. Like, I mean. Oh, I could imagine that too. As you're talking. It kind of all just kind of sort of morphs into kind of like a. Because like the, like the, like they don't like, like they don't actually like.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
go through the scrotum to get the testicle. You know that? Like they don't actually cut the scrotum. Oh, nuh-uh. No, they go in, they cut you like up, sort of up here, like under your pubics, hair kind of thing, under your pubes. They go in there and then they kind of go in and they just sort of shuck it out like an oyster from above.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
So it's sort of not really, like the scrotum is completely intact. You know, like there's not some sort of, you know, sort of scarred scrotum or anything. Like I don't have a scarred up scrotum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like it's totally normal scrotum. Yeah. Good.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Like there's a, there's a little scar up here, but I'd had a, I'd had a hernia operation before when I was like, you know, younger. So they just went through the same thing. So it's like, you wouldn't need just a little scar there. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
A lot of my friends in Canada have had hernias. A lot of your friends in Canada have had hernias, really? Yeah, I'm just wondering. I'd be curious to see if there's more in Canada. That would be certainly an interesting statistic for sure.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I gave myself a hernia on my show, live on the public. It was on the public access version of the show years before we were on MTV. And it was kind of a strange episode, probably one of the weirder ones where we said, okay, I'm going to break the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest fingernails. Have you ever seen those?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Exactly. So for whatever reason, this doesn't even sound like it could even possibly make sense to describe it. But the idea was, okay, it was Glenn and myself. It's a live show. It was on community cable. It's not on a big network. So it was sort of late at night. And we said, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to try to break the record for longest fingernails. I had a bunch of milk.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It was calcium. And I set it up all very seriously. And then I start drinking milk. And then for the entire hour, I just basically drank milk and kind of stared at my fingernails for an hour and didn't do anything, right? Just kind of progressively got a little bit more kind of sort of weird.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And then towards the end of the show, I kind of stood up and started thrashing around sort of somewhat violently. I don't know. There's no real logical reason for it. It was like a milk overdose or something. And I – I started doing this thrashing, and I hit the desk, and I flipped the desk over, and I felt something pop in my abdomen.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And then we went off the air, and I went up to the bathroom, and my intestine was like pushing out through my abdomen. And went to the hospital and I had given myself a hernia. So that's how that happened.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
No. The worst one ever was just two years ago. I stepped on a fire on the beach in Costa Rica.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It had been buried under sand. And I walked up to this bonfire and the edge of the fire had been buried and my foot went into it. And yeah, I got third degree burns on both my feet.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, no. They – yeah. It was – that was maybe the worst. And that was just three years ago. I almost lost my foot.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
For 10 days in a Costa Rican hospital and then I was medevaced on an air ambulance back to Canada actually and spent another week and a half in the hospital there. And yeah, my foot is pretty messed up right now. But it's better. It's better. Not 100 percent but – I've had a few good injuries. Oh, there they go. They're there. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
You found the unedited version. Yeah. Yeah, that – wow, look at that. Yeah, it was – and look at this, the top of my foot. Wow. The bottom of the foot ain't good either.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, those are my feet right there. That was just – that was maybe coming up three years ago now. So, yeah, that was maybe the worst injury ever. So, yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
The 28th or something, when was it? Yeah, yeah. It's all on Amazon Prime. On Prime. This is the Tom Green documentary. And then the stand-up special. It's called I Got a Mule. I Got a Mule. It talks about my life on the farm and getting my mule. And, and then the show, which is, it's a four episode sort of series of me moving to the farm called Tom Green Country.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Amanda's here. It's her first time in Los Angeles. Nice. At least you get to be a host and a tour guide. That's kind of nice. Showing around my old hometown, my new old hometown.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And I recorded all the music for the show as well. There's a country album that I put out, which is the sound for the soundtrack for the show, which is called Home to the Country, which is on Spotify. It's called what? It's called Home to the Country. Home to the Country. It's the name of the album. And that's out on music, wherever you get music now. And then I'm on tour. I'm actually on tour.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
I'm getting back in the camper van and we're going to start do a little bit more camping and touring around with my fiance up through the desert. And then we'll be picking up the tour again March 14th in Colorado. And it'll be Colorado Springs, Aspen, upwards to, you know, up through, where are we going? Indianapolis, St. Louis. All the dates are on my website, but Chicago.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And so touring and driving back to Canada. And then I'll be riding my mule all summer. So when are you in Ottawa?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's definitely like not something that I expect to really go viral in a lot of ways because it's like very long form stuff that I just really like shooting like that.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
getting into a i'm getting into a world yeah that's what it feels like yeah that's cool that's cool i mean like to know that you've watched it because it sort of is sort of it's not like i'm a mainstream comedy sort of piece that i'm putting on my youtube channel right now it's it's you know i want to kind of just capture what it feels like being out in the desert and in these amazing places or being on the farm with with the animals and uh
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, so that's been pretty wild. So like because when I got this van, I kind of got pretty good at it, like going to really remote places in the American Southwest particularly, like in New Mexico, Utah. Zion? You go to Zion? Yeah, I went to Zion. I did camp in Zion, but like there's this other kind of land called BLM land. It's Bureau of Land Management land that is –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And so I like shooting and capturing images that are sort of calming and beautiful. And it is the kind of thing that – the show is not like that. The show is – there's a lot more going on. But there is something nice about just kind of putting it on and sitting back and just kind of like – it's like an ASMR type of thing.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting. I mean I think a lot of it started just as me kind of like really trying to experiment with the cameras and just trying to figure out how to make these cameras work and capture the sort of the cinematography the way I want to capture it. And I think that maybe it may evolve into something a little bit more faster paced at some point.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But right now it's just a lot of this sort of slice of life stuff that I put up on the YouTube channel. Yeah. And, you know, I have a podcast that I do, you know, one episode every six months or something like that. I might start doing the podcast again and putting that up to kind of give people something a little bit more familiar to watch. But right now, yeah, that's what it is.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And I just – I kind of – just enjoy taking people to these places. I mean, I find it interesting that, like, you know, everything's so fast-paced now. Like, you know, everything is so... People's attention spans are so short now that it's kind of interesting to sort of do something that's kind of not that. And, again, it's... It's not – the algorithm doesn't really work in its favor.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
You have to say something shocking within the first 10 seconds and then put some words on the screen and do all these things that you can do to really capture large audiences. But if you do watch it, you sort of do kind of get sucked into a little secret universe in a way. There's even little messages sometimes I'll put like 45 minutes into a video that will –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
you know, if you made it that far, you know, then you might say something in the comments and then I'll know that you actually watched 45 minutes. And so there is a lot of people that do get it, you know, which is fun.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And it's kind of neat to, you know, it's impossible to capture the energy of what it's like out there in nature by doing something fast paced because so much of what's amazing about it is just the calm stillness of it also. That's what it is on the YouTube channel. It's a bit different, but.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah. It's cool. It's weird today because there's so much energy online, like so much craziness and pranks and just, you know, like, you know, just the insanity that you can see every day on your phone. Like before you get out of bed, you're just like, you know, if you pick up your phone and you get that in your head too early in your day, your whole day could be just kind of. But you started it.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show, Theo. I mean, it's awesome, man. I love the show, and I just appreciate you having me on.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Basically all of the desert and land that is owned by the US government, it's managed by the Bureau of Land Management and they'll cut roads into the desert and they'll put sort of campsite areas with fire pits and stuff. They kind of keep it somewhat organized so that people don't go driving all around the desert and trash in the desert. They have these roads and stuff. So
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
You can get – I got this app. It's called Dirt, D-U-I-R-T. It's like it's basically an app that gives you all the different locations of these sort of really obscure places that are not even in national parks or anything. D-U-I-R-T? Yeah, yeah. And so it kind of like you find stuff that is just – Unbelievable.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Like, you know, I sort of can't stop talking about it to people that don't know about it. But like, I mean, you may know about Chaco Canyon, but I'd never heard of it before. It's in New Mexico. And in fact, if you go to my last YouTube video on my YouTube channel. That's just a video I shot a couple of days ago.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Um, and you can scroll down to like the second video, the second video, this is Chaco Canyon. So this is like native American ruins that are, uh, essentially like built in the year 875. It's like, you know, and it's like this, it's a city, you know, it's like a city in the desert. Um, and it's just out there in the middle of Northern New Mexico. This is, this is Amanda, my fiance, Amanda. And, uh,
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Yeah, I think so. We're just going around making these videos, but you'll see. Look at this place. So it's like everyone always talks about Machu Picchu in Peru, and they talk about all these incredible things in ancient places. But the fact that you can just drive out of Albuquerque, drive north of Albuquerque, Wow, this is there? Yeah, this is there. And it's really remote.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
It's on the Navajo Nation land. And so we just were out there camping for four nights and exploring and hiking off into this beautiful desert. Getting some good rest out there?
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
cooking on the campfire and and it's just been uh fun and i enjoy photography you know you're shooting this really really well yeah i got sort of lots of different cameras and stuff and i uh i like to kind of uh do that so it's there's something about shooting out in the desert that's just so beautiful because you have these long horizons and you know big open spaces but
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
And there's an energy there that is just something that's hard to put your finger on but it just – I always kind of sort of – I never really kind of really maybe didn't even believe in that when I was younger when people would talk about the energy and Sedona has got this energy.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But I feel this energy out there that's just of the people that live there that built that place and other places like it. So it's kind of fun to go seek those places out. Yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
But there's some great... You've met a lot of women that have said that? I mean, I just think you meet a lot of women who are, you know... Very specific thing for a lot of people to have said, but yeah.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
What you just said is like really interesting because I was talking to basically an archaeologist the other day and he said exactly what you just said. Like there's this thing called intuitive archaeology where they go – because there's still stuff out in the desert that people haven't even found yet. It's how big it is and how vast it is. So they go –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
Out into these canyons in northern Arizona and Utah looking for signs of ancient settlements and stuff. And they're sort of taught to intuitive archaeology. If you're in a place that feels like it would be a nice place to have lived, a beautiful place, there's a good chance that feeling is correct. And then you should sort of listen to that instinct and start looking for –
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
signs of ancient civilization. But it's pretty amazing because... You do feel something out there. I don't know. I was talking about this friend the other day too. Like you ever go in like an old comedy club that's been – like Zany's in Nashville or downtown Chicago is an old club.
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
E564 Tom Green
You see all the old pictures from the comics from back in the 70s and 80s and it's – you know that club has been there forever and you kind of feel the energy of – you see a lot of comics that have passed away on the wall and you see – God, Sam Kinison performed here. You know, I can sort of feel that energy of the performance in the room, you know? So... That's from 40 years ago or whatever.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, and then I would actually film that and put it on Instagram. Yeah. And then that's when I realized we had some division in our society. People yelling at you for believing the bullshit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go back to Canada. Okay. And I did. I went back to Canada. What was that based on? The decision to go back to Canada? No, but I mean, what were you getting flack about?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Oh, just because I was... Pro-Vaccine, reasonable stuff. Yeah, I mean, this was sort of before the vaccine was out, but I was, you know, talking about the vaccine. And eventually I stopped talking about it because I just didn't feel like listening to all that crap. But like, you know, if people don't want to take a vaccine, that's cool.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And if people don't want to spray their groceries down with Clorox bleach, that makes sense too. I probably was overreacting a little bit with that. Yeah, but we didn't know. Why not overreact?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Sie lieben dich auch da oben, oder? Ja, absolut. Du machst auch Show da oben, oder?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Welche Stadt würdest du gehen? Vancouver? I think I think it feels like a West Coast vibe. It does. It does.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
No, no. I'm out in the middle of the wilderness, sort of outside of Toronto and Ottawa and Montreal. I mean, if you were to drive outside of those cities, you're sort of between all three of them.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I have gone down there quite a bit, yeah. But I never lived there permanently.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Never moved there, no, no. Oh. Du magst es da unten? Ich liebe es da unten. Ich habe einen kleinen Spot da unten. Oh ja? Ja. Du machst den Winter? Well, diesen Winter bin ich nicht gegangen, weil ich... Du hast einen Farm jetzt. Ja, ich habe einen Farm. Aber ich war im US-Tour diesen Winter in meinem Camper-Van, was ein ganz anderes Abenteuer war. Was hast du da? Einen Silber-Van?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Es ist ein Ram Promaster. Es ist eine kleine Konversion-Van. Okay. Und das ist, was passiert ist. Das ist das, was mich dazu gebracht hat, in Kanada zurückzukehren, war in der Pandemie. Ich habe Charlie und ich habe meinen Hund Charlie. Ja. Sie ist genannt nach Travels with Charlie. Steinbeck, John Steinbeck. Okay, ja. Und das ist er, der in einem Camper mit seinem Hund unterwegs ist. Ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Er hat ein Buch über Amerika geschrieben. Ja. Also bin ich ein wenig. Du folgst diesem Weg. Ja. Yeah, somewhat of a dissection of some of the political differences in the country and stuff is his book. But I made YouTube videos about it that were not political at all, but just going out to the desert. But that kind of...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
led me to want to live more close to nature because I spent a year at the beginning of the pandemic going around the van. I'd go out to LA, I'd go out into Utah and I'd go do photography out there.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Exactly, yeah. So you had to make some choices. Absolutely, I would never run the interstate as much as possible, just sometimes I'd take it. And there's still a lot left out there.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I discovered stuff out there that I had no idea existed, which has now taken me down, possibly down some sort of rabbit hole that may continue for the rest of my life, for all I know, because I love, I just went back this winter again to do more of this, exploring and discovering these things. Native American Ruins that are out in the desert of the southwestern United States.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Started out, I went to this place, Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, yeah. Isn't that just amazing? Yeah. Did you go to the hot springs up there?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, I didn't go to the hot springs, but I started going to all these different ruins and making videos and photography of it. And I just find it completely fascinating. Fascinating because... Erstens habe ich mich überrascht, dass ich es bereits nicht wusste.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, Mesa Verde, that's a big one. Yeah, that's a big one. That one's very... Organized, right?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, the Anastazi. It's called the... That means the ancient ones.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
What was so fascinating about it? Well, you know, it started out as just kind of wanting to get out and be... Out there on the road, away from people and making some, having something to take a picture of. I've really got back into photography. Film or just a good camera? Video, yeah. I have a little Leica that I shoot film on, but also a lot of video.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I was doing with a little Sony A7S III, just a little, but I was getting into kind of, figuring out the lenses and things that I kind of meant to get into over the years. With both video and still? Yeah. Okay, yeah. So I just kind of really kind of was getting into that. So I was like, oh, well, I've got to find something to take a picture of. And then you get out there and you just sort of
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I know it's always kind of weird when people say this, the energy, you feel this energy, right?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And I don't know if it's just sort of psychological, you kind of feel like, wow, there's people that were living here 2,000 years ago and they're, you know, these buildings that they built remain and you can kind of feel, you know, the footprints of these people and you think, wow, you know, it starts making me think like about like, okay, why do we make
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Why do we put videos and pictures up on Instagram? Is that the modern-day petroglyph? Is that what we've become? Do people like to leave some sort of marking of who we are so future generations can see it? And it used to be, okay, all these petroglyphs out there, let's draw these little drawings.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Sure, sure. Yeah, but they're everywhere out there. That's the thing that you sort of start to realize. Little markings everywhere, yeah. Everywhere. And, you know, there's places up in the mountains of Colorado and Utah where there's these stone structures. You know, everyone always talks about... Machu Picchu. Ja. Everyone always talks about Machu Picchu.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Chaco Canyon is basically as big as Machu Picchu. I mean, it's a huge thing. Yeah, a lot of stuff in North America. And why is that not all talked about all the time, you know?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, I haven't really gone too deep into what the petroglyphs as much as more just looking at these ruins more has been something that's been... It is kind of haunting in a nice way.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, Chaco Canyon was a place where people, just from me reading about it in the last couple of years, but people came from all over North America to sort of meet there. Names? Yeah, from Mexico. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was built in 875, so it's all pre-Columbian stuff, right? Yeah. It was there from 875 till around 1150. Yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And I guess there was a drought and they left, but they found like macaw feathers and so they know that people were coming with, you know, macaw from... Ja. Ja, er ist aus Albuquerque. doing research on it. Did you talk to Mike about it? I did call him and talk to him about it, yeah, I asked him about it. Was he like, oh, my dad was always out there?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
He kind of said something like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard, I just heard his father just passed away, I didn't talk to Mike about that, but they told me that at Schalke Canyon, he just passed away, but yeah, I guess Mike grew up out there. Dragging his dad, dragging him into the dirt? Dragging him out to the dirt, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Cool, thank you. Yeah, there's just four of them, so yeah. Are you doing more? Yeah, well, I'm doing some more stuff this summer, yeah. Not necessarily doing more of that episode, of that show, but a similar show, yeah.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I may do more, but right now it's a nice little beginning, middle and end to it. But I am doing some more shows this summer with a different broadcaster.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yes, I know, it was tragic and quite heartbreaking for me actually when that happened because I really had sort of named them all, you know, Loretta, Patsy, Shania. And it was all part of your first, your introduction into the life. Yeah, and I was having fun with my chickens. I still have new chickens now. But I don't name them anymore. It was Loretta, Patsy, Shania, Dolly, June and Anne.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I named them after country singers. Of course, two Canadians in there, Shania Twain and Anne Murray. But I was bringing Loretta into the house and playing piano with her and all this stuff. And you go into town one day and come back and it's just a massacre. The coyotes, right? There's lots of wild animals there.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
That's a... Ja, es ist ein schreckliches Gefühl. Ich war ziemlich überrascht darüber. Aber es ist interessant, ich habe jetzt neue Kühe. Ich nenne sie nicht mehr. Ich kenne sie nicht mehr individuell. Sie sehen alle gleich aus. Ich habe ein paar mehr verloren. Es gibt viele Wölfe und Kajotten und all diese Sachen da oben. Ich weiß, das war toll, als du die Kamera aufgestellt hast.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Er scheint wirklich überrascht zu sein. Ich habe es nicht erwartet. Ja, alles. Die Bären. Ich wusste, es waren Bären. Ich habe Gerüchte gehört, aber ich wusste nicht, dass sie einfach auf und runter die Straße gehen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Well, the good news is I'm not trying to run a, you know, a profitable farm business. You know, I'm not farming crops. I have my animals that I have to feed every day. I've got... Das ist eine Mühle, Fanny und Kia, ein Hühner.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Sie ist vielleicht größer als die meisten Hühner. Ihre Mutter ist ein Percheron-Hühner. Was ist ein Percheron? Es ist wie ein... A work horse, almost like a Clydesdale. It's like a French type of European work horse. Fancy horse. But a big horse, though. And her daddy's a mammoth donkey. So a mule is half horse, half donkey. It's two completely different species bred by humans.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And they have one less chromosome than a horse and one more than a donkey. Or maybe it's the other way around. So they're sterile. They can't reproduce. So like, I think it's a I may be getting this backwards, but a horse has 64... 4 Chromosomes and a donkey is 66 or whatever and the mule is 65.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ja, genau. Ja. Ja. Und für mich ist es das Beste, wenn ich diese Tiere bekomme, speziell wenn ich einen Mäuse fahre, weil es eine Kombination von vielen Dingen ist. Nur in der Natur zu sein, war immer schön für mich. In der Natur alleine zu sein, war immer schön für mich. Um die Tiere herum zu sein, war schön für mich. Und dann zu exercizieren.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Es ist viel zu viel zu exercizieren, wenn du einen Möwen fährst. Du gehst den ganzen Tag weg und fährst dieses Ding. Du bist engagiert. Du bist engagiert. Du bist engagiert und dein Geist ist auf das Präsent konzentriert. Du willst nicht davon fallen oder du wirst getötet. Es gibt all das.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Aber es ist auch das Unerwartete, was ich faszinierend fand, ist, dass man... Reiten mit einem Mehl... ...lehrt dich, um... Zumindest, ähm, du hast, die Mühle muss dir vertrauen und sie muss dich wollen, dass du der Führer bist. Richtig. Und sie muss vertrauen, dass du weißt, was du tust, was du nicht weißt, was du tust. Es ist sehr schwierig, sie zu vertrauen, weil sie das spürt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich habe immer Angst vor Pferden und sie fühlen das. They feel it. And if they feel you're nervous, then they're worried about, like you say, okay, we're going to ride off into these woods full of wolves, right? And you feel nervous. They go, well, I don't want to go there. This guy is going to lead me off into danger here. This guy's an idiot, you know?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
So, you know, so I think the sort of light bulb went off for me one day when I was having trouble, you know, getting her to listen to me. She wasn't turning left, literally. She would just not turn left. So I really could only really... Ja, ich sah sie. Ja, sie waren überrascht, als sie... Sie sind sehr hilfreich. Sie sind in Thunder Bay, Ontario, 18 Stunden nach Norden von mir.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Verstehst du, wie groß Kanada ist? Eine 18-Stunden-Fahrt nach Norden, von wo ich bin, in Nordkanada. Es ist wie Club Med, wo wir sind, für dieses Muehl. Sie ist so, oh Mann, es ist bombig hier. Sie kamen runter und wir gingen auf eine Reise. Sie waren in diesem kleinen ATV-Gerät vor mir. And I'd sort of learned that Fanny, his name, doesn't like the sound of these ATVs, doesn't like ATVs.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
They'd stop the ATV on the trail. And I'm riding up towards them. And they're sort of giving me some direction. And as I'm getting closer, I start thinking, okay, Fanny's not going to want to go around the ATV. It's parked on the trail. There's a little space I could go around. And so Fanny stops. And I'm saying, Fanny's not going to want to go around the ATV here, so I guess I'll stop.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
They say, no, no, just go around the ATV. Fanny's not going to want to go around the ATV because you guys told me that she's afraid of ATVs and she doesn't seem to like the sound of ATVs. And Fanny's resisting. And then they say to me, no, no, no, it's not that Fanny doesn't want to go around the ATV, it's that you... Ja, genau. We're going around there. We're going around there. Stay confident.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
You know, if you feel nervous, you gotta take a deep breath, make those nerves go away. You gotta be cool. And it's like the antithesis of who I am, right? Like you actually have to be cool and relaxed, you know? And it's like, but I'm riding a giant mule. But I have to be relaxed. And I have to not be worried about some...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
fictional scenario that I'm creating in my head, that she doesn't want to go this way. And so then you realize that translates into like human life, right? Because if you walk in... Well, that's all anxiety is, is projection of fear.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, that's the way they communicate. I mean, they don't have language, right? So they've always communicated through energy, right? Well, that's interesting for you, isn't it?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, like not as much. That's why I'm saying it's really getting me more in tuned with that, sort of getting ahead of the anxiety. Because now when you're riding along, you start to realize there's a direct sort of... And it's working. Yeah. Mit Menschen auch, weil du denkst, wenn du darüber nachdenkst, hatten wir nicht immer Sprache, oder?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Wir haben wahrscheinlich, wenn wir Kave-Männer waren oder so, running around like, follow that guy, he seems like he knows what he's doing, right? So, you know, I can kind of relate it to life in Hollywood, you know, you're on the 405 going to a meeting at Viacom. to try to pitch some idea and in your head you're like, oh, they're never going to fucking buy this fucking thing.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And then you go in and sure enough, they don't fucking buy it. I wonder why. Probably because they could tell that you didn't believe in it.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Pretty strict guy, but also very funny guy. Yeah, he is funny, yeah. And then my mother also is very funny. They're funny in different ways. My dad's a bit silly when he's funny. He would always sort of... You know, when you're a kid, you had to go out and you'd sort of do things like kind of goofy things that would kind of, you know, kind of shock you.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I remember you'd go fishing and you'd eat a grasshopper and what the hell, you know, funny stuff. And then my mom's more of a sort of a, has a little bit of a cynical, sarcastic side to her, which is... So the combination of them was always very funny. Like there was always a lot of... Humor am Abendessen und solche Sachen. Alle rassen sich einigermaßen zusammen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Aber ja, im neuen Show sind sie eher die lustigen. Sie sind die Star des neuen Shows, denke ich. Die Beziehung ist nicht ich, die Pranks auf sie zieht und das, was ich als Kind gemacht habe.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
That, you know, I, I, it's hard. I am engaged now, though. Are you? Recently engaged, yes. Is that true? Absolutely, as of, as of just a few months ago and probably gonna be getting married, uh, very soon, so. Really? Yes, absolutely. So I may have, may have a kid next time I come here. How old are you now? I'm 53. I'm 53 years old. That's it? Yep, yep. How the fuck am I older than everybody?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
You're younger than a lot of people too, though.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I don't know. For what it's worth, I'm turning 54 in July. So I'm basically 54. Okay, well, that makes me feel a little better. And you met her up there? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, she's Canadian. And a very Canadian way to meet, by the way. I was...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
playing hockey on my pond, and I put a video up on Instagram, and she sent me, forwarded me one of these meme videos of somebody who had made their own Zamboni, you know, which is the thing that you ice the rink with. Do-it-yourself Zamboni, and I responded, and it turns out she was from a Canadian military family, grew up in the same small town.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Before I moved to Ottawa, I was in this little military base called Petawawa. We went to the same elementary school. Oh, wow. Und wir haben es geschlossen und jetzt sind wir engagiert. Und du hast eine gemeinsame Geschichte in irgendeiner Art und Weise. Ja. Du kommst nach Hause, Buddy. Absolut. Sie lebt gerade auf der Straße und es war großartig. Wir leben jetzt zusammen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Und ich bin auch in einer ziemlich breiten Gegend. Also es fühlte sich so aus, als ob ich da sein sollte. Ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I don't get it, but he seems to be popular. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, well, when we did that, it was just public access TV, so they were probably a little bemused and concerned. But, you know, I started doing stand-up when I was 16. Yeah. And didn't keep it up, right? I did it until I was about 19, and then I stopped, and I started again maybe 20 years ago or something like that, maybe not even.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
But... Yeah. Yeah. They let you do it. It was pretty cool, you know. And when I was in this rap group when I was a kid. Yeah, I remember. We went down to New York and they paid for the recording time and stuff. And so it was like, they were always very supportive of all this stuff, which was good. But it was, I don't know, I think they kind of, you know, I think if you got...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich glaube, das ist ein wichtiges Ding, wenn man in einem kreativen Geschäft ist, weil es da eine Menge Ungewissheit gibt. Aber sie waren immer... Yeah. It's also interesting about Canada and I try to...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
It absolutely is a safer place. I mean, it's not to say that there's not, you know, in the big cities, you know, there is definitely problems, just like everywhere else. But even those are dramatically... Muted. Muted, yeah. Yeah. But, and... I kind of... Ich liebe Los Angeles, habe hier 21 Jahre gelebt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Es ist witzig, ich sagte zu meiner Freundin, als wir gestern auf der 101er-Fahrt fuhr, es ist mir aufgefallen, dass es seltsam ist. Es fühlt sich eigentlich normaler an, auf dieser Fahrt zu fahren, als es heute ist, wenn ich auf der Fahrt nach Hause fahre. Ich komme mir immer noch an, dass ich da zurück bin. Aber gleichzeitig... You know, it's odd, because I lived here 21 years.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
So 21 years as an adult driving around, you know, whereas in Canada, when I left, I was 28. So I'd only really been driving around in a car for 12 years. My parents' car for half of that. So it's sort of... You know, I left Los Angeles right at a time where, you know, if I'd been here another 10 years, I probably would have never been able to leave and it would have been strange. Maybe.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
It does seem sort of interesting to be home like that. But no, I'd say that the, to your point, like, so I got used to living in Los Angeles. I remember the first... Vor fünf Jahren, als ich hier war, wenn ich abends schlafen würde, wäre ich ein bisschen erschrocken. Ich lebte zuerst allein in einem Haus, das ich von William Shatner verkaufte. Er war mein erster Landwirt. Das war verrückt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
MTV hat uns hierher gemeldet und gesagt, okay, du kannst ein Haus verkaufen, hier ist dein Budget. Also habe ich das Haus gefunden, das ich verkaufen könnte. Es kam heraus, dass William Shatner ein Haus neben ihm hatte, das er verkaufte. Ja. Er kommt einfach mal her und kriegt den Rentenschein. Er sagt, willkommen nach Hollywood, hier ist Kapitän Kirk, hier ist der Rentenschein.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Und er ist ein lustiger Kerl und er ist Kanadier. Ja, absolut. Er war großartig.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ja, ja. Ich meine, wir haben ein paar gute Gespräche gehabt. Er war großartig. Aber es war wie, es war seltsam, weil es war wie, du weißt, du würdest sortieren, ich bin allein in den Hollywood Hills. Ja. Sortieren, du weißt. flimsy door there, you know, you're kind of looking at it out of the corner of your eye at night. And then you sort of get used to it. Okay, I guess it's pretty safe here.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
But then what would happen is when I would go home to Canada to visit, the second I would get home, I'd kind of be... Oh, warte. Oh. Ja. Es ist weniger stressig hier, weißt du. Und ich habe das für 20 Jahre bemerkt, jedes Mal, als ich nach Hause ging. Ich habe es bemerkt. Ich war nicht sicher, ob es nur weil ich nach Hause war oder ob es... Nein. Du hast es auch bemerkt. Du hast es bemerkt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
You know, not not to dive into like something that's going to. Exactly. Let's not get into an argument here. Up in Canada, the worst thing that happens if you get in an argument with someone is you get in a hockey fight. You might get punched in the nose or something like that.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, and then it becomes like an arms race. Oh, do I need one then to protect myself? And you kind of go, well, geez, you know, if two people start shooting at each other at the camera shop, I don't think anybody's kind of come out of that on top, you know? It's not like your right to defend yourself doesn't really help you, really.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Those are two big relaxing things. And I've had a lot of conversations with my friends in Los Angeles, some of them who have a lot more money than your average person and maybe a little bit more Republican than your average person. And
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
you know, they're like, well, the healthcare system up there is no good because, you know, the healthcare system is good in Canada, but they sort of feel like, you know, Well, I can get my healthcare here. Yeah, because you can afford, you know, $1,500 a month for your insurance, right?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, and I know so many people in Los Angeles who I work with who were, you know, young film students who were helping me film stuff and they didn't have health insurance, right? And so there's this sort of thing you start to notice where it's like so many people are just living in fear of getting sick, you know? Totally. Like you're terrified, oh, if I get sick. I had a friend of mine who...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich dachte, er hätte eigentlich Testikulärkrankheiten, die ich hatte. Was war er in Ordnung? Panik. Wenn man kein reiches TV-Produzenten ist, versteht man nicht, was die normalen Menschen durchgehen. Ich gehe nach Kanada und habe meine Gesundheitskarte hier. Ich hole sie aus, damit man sehen kann, wie es aussieht. Es ist sehr offiziell. Ja. Das ist mein Feuerwehr-Akquisition-Zertifikat. Okay.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ja. Ich bin nicht das. Jeder hat einen dieser. Wie eine Fahrradlizenz. Ja, ja, absolut. Also es ist wie eine Fahrradlizenz. Und da, wo du auf der Farm lebst, gibt es eine Klinik. Ja. Und du kannst einfach gehen. Ja, absolut. Ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I talked to my neighbors down there, everyone's friends, everyone was really welcoming. Even though it's, you know, the properties are spread apart, and you have a farm to each side, and there are these huge...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
you know, thousand acre properties on the other sides of me and stuff, so it's miles down the road to the next neighbor, but you know, the first day I was there, my new friends came up and said hello, and now they've been farming there for generations, and they have a tractor, they come over, and they help me do the hay every August, you know, we go out, they cut the hay with their tractor and bale it all up, and then we all together go throw it into the barn for the winter for the animals, and it's...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Es ist interessant, weil man sich nicht mit so vielen Leuten engagiert, die praktisch niemanden sind, der im Show-Business ist.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ja, absolut. Ich komme um 6.30 Uhr morgens jeden Tag auf. Und ich war immer ziemlich, aber du weißt, aber Teil der Grund, weißt du, wie... There's nothing to do at night. Once the sun goes down, I'm going to go get sushi on Ventura Boulevard. Stumble in in my Uber after three martinis at two in the morning. No, I'll go to bed at ten o'clock. Get up in the morning, I make coffee, I go to the barn.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Und ich habe drei große 60-Pound-Bälchen Hefe und ich werfe sie ins Feld. Das ist im Winter und im Sommer, wenn es keine Tiere gibt. Und dann brusche ich sie aus und manchmal fahre ich Fanny auf und nehme sie für eine Reise. Was machst du am Abend? Just watch it? Well, because I got up at 6 in the morning, I just go to sleep. Oh, okay. So there's not the compulsion. Yeah, sort of.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I mean, I've been making music, so I play piano or write or... But I tend to be asleep by 11 about. How's that studio working out on top of the barn? Right now the barn is just sort of an empty loft. But when I do a podcast or something in there, I just set it up each time. Oh, so it's not a permanent workspace.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
No, because I have more of a permanent studio workspace in the house, upstairs in the house. But the loft of the barn is very, you know... Ja, es hat nur den Ruf, aber die Seiten sind ein bisschen offen. Ja, ja, aber es sieht cool aus. Visuell sieht es cool aus im Sommer und in drei, drei Saisonen ist es ziemlich cool. Aber nein, ich habe ein kleines Rekordstudio in meinem Haus.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Und du machst etwas regelmäßig? Yeah, I just put out a record this year, a country album. Yeah, I know you're a guitar player, right? I'm working on being able to play as good as you can, but I am enjoying it. I've always sort of fiddled with my acoustic guitar and I can play some chords and stuff, but I've been writing songs. It looks like you've got a good group of people up there to play with.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I do, yeah. And I wrote the whole soundtrack for the show. But that's the kind of stuff I like to do. You know, just... In manchen Fällen habe ich so viel mehr Zeit, kreativ zu sein, weil ich... Don't get distracted by going down to get sushi on Ventura Boulevard every day. You know, it's like, okay, okay, I'll go ride the horse and I'll come home, I'll write some stuff in the afternoon.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I know what you're going to talk about. You do? I know what you're going to bring up. The Byron Allen thing? Yes, the Comics Unleashed, yeah. I knew you were going to bring that up. Why? Just as soon as you said it. Why did you know I was going to bring it up? Well, just because I was thinking about when we did something together and you were thinking about the adrenaline-fueled thing.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich erinnere mich, das war du, das war Orny Adams, John Lovitz, wer war noch in dem Episode? Wer waren die Comics?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Fuck, I knew I wasn't going to get a joke off you. The amount of times I've thought about that over the years and just thought, oh my God, what the hell was I doing? Because here's what really it is, though. I wasn't doing stand-up then. I'd done stand-up when I was a kid. But then I went to broadcasting school. I started doing my videos and pranks and stuff. And now I'm on Comics Unleashed.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Now on Comics Unleashed, what's the premise of the show? They go to the comic and then you tell a joke. Well, I don't have any jokes. So I'm just going to have to jump in the fucking fish tank, I guess.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I kind of definitely, I mean, I think a lot about that. Ja. Ja. Ja. And it was coming from a place of a combination of, first of all, I was always loved when I'd see, you know, I grew up loving watching Chris Elliott come out of there and do something nuts. Just to eat dog food or do something crazy. But it was also coming from a place of complete sort of...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Anxiety over not knowing what to do. Well, I guess if I go over the top. Yeah, make something happen. Crazy, you know. And then maybe it'll, you know, whereas maybe I was a little bit afraid to go on and just sit there and try to kind of talk and be funny, you know. It would have been much easier to come out dressed as a, you know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I like that you saved the respect for Letterman. Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, so I, because I just... He's the best, dude. I just... It wasn't a matter of it was being disrespectful for the other guys. It was... Because obviously I love Conan and I love... Yeah, sure.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
It was more like... I think I just was so wanted to... You know, I mean, my first show, the Tom Green show, I was sitting behind a desk, you know? Why am I sitting behind a desk? Because I grew up watching Letterman and I love Letterman. It wasn't because I watched Johnny Carson. I could watch Johnny Carson, but it was more because of Letterman, right? So I want to sit behind a desk, too, you know?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
But... Ich war einfach so furchtbar. Oh, um mit ihm zu sein? Ja, und er war auch, ich glaube, er ist ein bisschen mehr ein Kutzen als Jay oder Colin. Wenn ich da weitergehen würde, vielleicht würde er das nicht mitnehmen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Das ist unglaublich. Das ist das Beste. Ich habe nie die Möglichkeit gehabt, mit ihm auf der Kamera zu sprechen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich bin so froh, dass es so schön ist, dass er so viel macht, wie auf Podcasts und so. Es ist nicht wie... He didn't go the route of Johnny Carson and just sort of become a recluse on his boat out and never see him again.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Richtig, richtig, sicher, ja, ja, ja. Ich meine, du und ich waren die ersten Adapter zu diesem Scheiß, oder? Ja, ja. Ja, du warst wahrscheinlich der erste Podcast, glaube ich, in L.A., der... But it was all audio. Comedians and stuff.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, amazing. You know, I... Because it's like... I went to broadcasting school. That was really kind of was my route into this business, right? I assumed there was no way to possibly... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tech guys, you know, Ottawa was pretty tech. And my dad also was a computer guy when he retired from the military. It was a COBOL program. Lots of technology up there in Ottawa.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
So, believe it or not. So, when the internet, like when we were on MTV in 99, Glenn had set up a thing where I could call my cell phone, leave a message on this number, Ja. Ja. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I kind of make a joke sometimes in my stand-up. I say, you know, I built a TV studio in my living room in the early 2000s because I just made this movie, Freddy Got Fingered.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And after you make a movie like Freddy Got Fingered, if you want to do a television show, you have to build a TV studio in your living room. So sort of necessity was the only way to really make a show at this point was let's just build it ourself again, you know. But now it was kind of like... okay, what's the technology that's out there? How do we stream to the front page of the website?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
So I started looking into all the different various people that were doing these things and were trying to do these things. And there was a company up in San Francisco called, they were called bitgravity.com. And they were a CDN content distribution network, right? So they were essentially servers that you could upload your video to. And it was really interesting.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
catered to corporate websites, put a corporate video up or whatever. So I contacted them and we did sort of an arrangement where I could upload my videos. Then I reached out to another company that was Dann kam der Tri-Caster, aber damals war es der Video-Toaster. Das war ein Televisions-Switcher, den sie an Kirchen verkauften, um ihre Kameras reinzuschalten und den Kirchen-Service zu filmen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Sie setzten mich mit diesem Ding ein und begannen sich zu engagieren mit all diesen neuen Technologien. Und es war wild, weil es funktioniert hat. Aber es gab dieses Gefühl, es war interessant, weil ich Leute anrufen würde. Und die Leute kamen nach Hause und dachten, es wäre seltsam. Du hast alle diese Kameras überall. Aber ich erinnere mich, manchmal hoffe ich, dass ich...
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich glaube, dass das passiert ist. I remember once checking my email. We're uploading our footage every day to the website. Before YouTube existed. I got an email. It's like, hey, we're up in San Francisco. We like what you're doing. You should come visit us sometime. We're doing a whole thing up in our apartment here called YouTube. I'm like, oh, thanks, man. Now I'm doing my own thing.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
You could have been on the ground floor. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. But it was sort of like... There was those days where it was kind of, there was some video online, but it wasn't really comedians talking to each other and things like that. And that was kind of... The beginning of it.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
In den USA ist es auch so, dass die Leute mit mir auf der TV aufgewachsen sind. Ich hatte eine Show, war es letzte Nacht? Die Nacht vor letzter Nacht in L.A. im El Rey Theater. Es war großartig. Aber ich bin auf Tour in den USA im Winter. Die Shows haben großartig gewesen. Was ist die Zeit... It's interesting.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
There is a younger audience coming too as well, but it's a pretty broad group of people, for sure. But Ja, es ist eine Kombination von... Ich versuche, einige der alten Sachen zu erzählen und einige der Geschichten zu erzählen. Von Eminem, der über mich rappt und einige der Pranks und solche Sachen. Und dann versuche ich natürlich auch Material zu machen und neue Materialien zu bringen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Und so ist es jetzt schon lange genug gedauert, dass ich denke, ich habe viele Leute, die von mir aussehen, die die letzte Zeit Stand-Up gemacht haben.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, actually, yeah, we were going to talk about that a second ago. That's something that I've been trying to kind of process over the last couple of years, why I'm not... You know, humping dead moose all the time or running around doing crazy, you know, shock stuff. But I think what I also kind of come to the conclusion is that, like, Oh oh, Charlie, oh oh, are you okay? She's just puked.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, she's okay. She's just, she probably ate some grass this morning. And now I gotta clean up the vomit. Yeah, it's okay. You're okay, Charlie. You're okay. You're okay, dog. You're okay. Good news is there's some paper towel right here. One second. Charlie, you okay? You're okay, baby. You're okay. Come over here. Come over here. It's okay. Come over here. It's okay, baby. It's okay.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Halt mal einen Moment. Sie wird in Ordnung. Es ist ein bisschen... Sie hat einfach... Oh, Scheiße. Jetzt bin ich wirklich... Wie ich gesagt habe... Das war alles ein Setup, war es nicht? ...ich bin nicht in einer China-Stadt. He's up to his old tricks.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I knew this would end here. No, she's okay. Sometimes she eats some grass in the morning. When you have animals, you live with vomiting animals. Yeah, yeah. She's okay. You okay, baby? Ja, du bist in Ordnung. Du bist in Ordnung. Sie ist auch in Ordnung. Ja, sie sieht gut aus. Sie vomitiert nicht jeden Tag, aber sie vomitiert manchmal so.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Das ist meistens so, weil sie in der Früh etwas Gras gegessen hat. Ja, sie sieht in Ordnung aus. Sie ist eine Rettung aus den Bahamas. Echt? Ja, ja. Ein Eilendog. Ja, ja. Und, äh, und, ähm, aber, äh, sie liegt einfach da unten. Ja, nein, aber es ist, ähm, als wir das Show begonnen haben, weißt du, Videokameras waren neu. Und die Idee, eine völlig Ich war ein Kind und ein Skateboarder.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Aber es gab nicht all diese verrückten Sachen. Es gab kein TikTok. Es gab keine Leute. Es war einzigartig. Es war so, als hätte man die Fähigkeit, etwas komplett unkontrolliert zu machen. Und jetzt? Du wachst morgens auf, holst dein Handy und bist inundiert mit verrückter Scheiße auf deinem Handy jeden Tag. Kind of makes me want to do something normal.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
You know, it's almost weirder to do something kind of normal. You know, I'm at a farm. I'm learning how to ride a horse. You know, oh, that that's almost weirder. Yeah. Then for you. Yeah, for me. And maybe even just in general, you know, like when you watch the Internet now, it's so much crazy shit. Oh, maybe something that's kind of nice and.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich sage manchmal, als ich ein Kind war, war ich furchtbar über die Zukunft. Du musst also über... Furchtbar über die Zukunft. Ja, ich war furchtbar über die Zukunft. Ich bin jetzt viel ruhiger, weil wenn du ein Kind bist, ist dein Zukunft so unvergesslich. Es ist so viel vor dir. Und jetzt, 53, ist es so viel weniger von meinem Leben übrig, um es zu zerstören. Um es zu zerstören, ja.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Es ist so, dass du... I could probably just do nothing now and coast to the finish line, you know? This probably takes a lot of the pressure off, you know?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich habe 28 Jahre alt, ich habe Kanzer. Das ist der Grund, warum ich das Show auf MTV stoppte, als ich Kanzer hatte. Und ich bin sehr glücklich, dass es jetzt passiert ist, dass ich es überlebt habe. Es macht man sich sicher, dass wenn etwas Schlechtes passiert, man zumindest nicht in einem Krankenhaus mit einer Lymphenodissektion heilt.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Das war eine größere Erkrankung, die ich durchgeführt haben musste. Deine Perspektive ändert sich sicher. Das andere, was sich in den letzten Jahren viel verändert hat, ist das Internet. Ich erinnere mich an die Pandemie. You know, I literally just started doing all these Zoom calls with people. And you realize, well, you don't really have to be anywhere anymore in specific, you know.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
And with stand-up, we're traveling all the time anyways. But, you know, I guess when you go home, you can go home to wherever the hell you want, really. And you're enjoying the stand-up? I love it, I love it, yeah. So this winter I've... I took the camper van again for this tour. I started up in Canada.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I drove down through Nashville, down to Tulsa and down to Dallas and Austin and Phoenix and up through Colorado and back up to Pittsburgh. Just you, no opener? Yeah, I usually pick up just a local person. Dean Del Rey has been opening up the shows here in California with me, which has been great. So it's been super fun.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Usually I just go to get a local comic to come open up the show and then I do it. I love it. It's been great. Well, good. It's good to talk to you, man. I'm actually from here, I'm going, I'm in beautiful downtown Bakersfield tomorrow night, then San Francisco at Bimbo's, and then Portland, Seattle, and Eugene, Oregon, and Seattle's the last show. You're driving up?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Yeah, so this run, we flew into Phoenix from the farm, rented a car. Who? My fiance and I. Has she been to the States a lot? No, not really. So she's seeing the country, yes. So she's been a couple places, but not... So she hasn't seen San Francisco or Portland? No, exactly. That's going to be great. Yeah, it's really fun. Oh, that's really fun. Fly back to the farm from Seattle.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Is Dean going to do those shows up on the coast with you? I think he's just did these ones, yeah. I don't think he's going to go all the way up the coast. All right.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I think the thing is, you gotta imagine, what would it be like for you... What's your first wife's name? Kim. What would it be like for you if every time you left up your house, every day, for the rest of your life... Between five and ten people, between the time you left your house and got back home, came up to you and said, hey, how's Kim? Have you talked to Kim lately?
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Oh, yeah, I remember you were with Kim. Weren't you married to that Kim? Welcome to my life.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Mein Hund ist hier. Sie wird sich in einem Moment entschärfen. Ich nehme sie mit. Mein Hund Charlie, der mit mir überall ist. Ich nehme sie mit.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Ich bringe sie auf die Bühne. Ich bringe sie mit. Aber es ist Spaß, mit dem Hund zu reisen. Ist es? Ja, wenn du aufstehst und immer auf der Straße bist. Ja. Und du hast einen kleinen Freund mit dir. Ich habe es sehr genossen.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
Wie lange hattest du den Hund? Sie ist fünf Jahre alt, also fünf Jahre alt. Ich habe sie während der Pandemie bekommen. Ja, das hat mich zu vielen Veränderungen in meinem Leben geführt. Ich habe Charly bekommen und ich habe die Pandemie wirklich ernst genommen. Ich bin drin geblieben.
WTF with Marc Maron Podcast
Episode 1640 - Tom Green
I was ordering all my groceries on the Instacart. Yeah, yeah, sure. I literally was doing these, like washing them with bleach.