For about three or four years, I was in a lot more physical pain and stress than anybody knew. When I would meet people, I was kind of standoffish. That was because I was in a bit of a funk.
Tom Green
The easiest way to win the competition for eyeballs in the digital age is to broadcast bad behavior. People like watching train wrecks.
In 1980s, I discovered 'Late Night with David Letterman.' It was on one of the 13 cable TV channels. They didn't have 25 late night talk show hosts trying to be the most outrageous. There was the likeable television genius Johnny Carson and his mad-genius counterpart Dave. There was nothing else crazy on TV every night, and there was no Internet.
Before the cell phone and the Internet, you felt a more pure sense of liberty than we do today. Whenever you left the house, and the phone, in your kitchen attached to the wall, nobody was able to get a hold of you.
I do sometimes find it interesting when I look at a lot of the pranks that are out there, and I see kids doing the exact things that I did in the '90s. Like, I would go out on the street on crutches and fall down, and people would help me. Or I would paint my parents' house plaid; I've seen that replicated.
I try to make a point in my life to leave the cell phone in the car sometimes, to try to unplug as much as possible.
You might remember me from Eminem's rap lyrics.
The thing to keep in mind is that's how I started long before MTV and Twitter and Facebook. I studied at broadcasting school so I could learn how to shoot and edit videos, and tried to create my own television show so we could see through these wacky visions we had of funny bits we wanted to shoot.
I found myself trying to work within the Los Angeles system. I had an agent and a manager, which I still do, and going to meetings with networks about game shows and reality shows and projects that weren't mine. It was fun, but it wasn't what I'd set out to do.
Performing on stage is addictive. The adrenaline rush is exhilarating. When I stop touring for a couple weeks, I get antsy.
The dirty little secret that nobody likes to talk about is that things just might have been better before the Internet. We had more time to ourselves before cell phones and text messaging and Facebook consumed our lives.
With the long-format interview, I can get into really interesting conversations with my guests. You know what it's like to get the opportunity to speak to really interesting people and pick their brain about things. To have time to let a guest actually speak and tell a story and get into detail is really exciting.
How can we be free when we are prisoners to social media, in a world without privacy? How can we be free when our every movement is tracked and every conversation is recorded and can easily be held against us? How exactly are we free if we are tethered to our cell phones?
I could sit here and say, 'What would have happened if I hadn't made that crazy television show, if I hadn't made those crazy movies?' Well, I'd be back in Canada working at Dairy Queen.
If something becomes mean-spirited and hurtful, it's not funny.
Technology can't eliminate the need for people going to want to go out and see theater and standup comedy.
I've always found success in sort of separating myself from the pack mentality things.
When I was a television broadcasting student in 1993 up in Ottawa, Canada, and my friends and I started making a show, I consciously set out to apply comedy to technology. I started tomgreen.com back in 1994, and we weren't able to put video on there yet, but we were aware that that was coming.
I don't really consider myself an actor, and I don't know if I'm a comedian.
Yes, I worked hard to put together an experimental show on a budget of zero. But I was not being exploited by anyone. I was in charge.
Steve Jobs is considered an amazing genius and made billions of dollars. Sure, we overlook that he didn't pay his share of taxes and didn't believe in charity. But other than these occasional rumblings of dissent, he is pretty much held in high esteem.
I really missed what I'd done on Rogers Cable, which was shooting and editing all my own stuff.
I think all comedy has victims, really. Even if it's not a victim that appears on camera, usually there's a victim. If it's political comedy, if you're talking about the president or whoever, there's a victim there.
I'm incredibly proud to bring back 'Tom Green Live' for a third season on AXS TV. AXS TV's commitment to unique, out-of-the-box humor, in a completely open and uncensored format, is unparalleled.
I've got friends all around the world, but it still never ceases to amaze me when I come to a place on the other side of the planet that I've always imagined going to, and to get there and be meeting people all over on the street who know me - it's very exciting and humbling.
Comedy is delivered to people in the same form that music is being delivered: by YouTube. People are sharing music and comedy in the same way now.
Everyone on 'The Apprentice' hates each other. They put you in a room, and they don't give you anything to do. They leave you there for 10 hours... they don't give you any food or water, and you start getting angry and arguing with each other.
I'd love to interview Mark Cuban!
When I started my show, it was a public access show in Canada, and I was a broadcasting student in the early '90s, years before I was on MTV. We were kids sort of experimenting and trying to take on the system - you know, the media machine.
I always have gotten nervous before every show. But the second I step onstage, it's all gone. It's sort of like an adrenaline rush for me.
I'm talking about some real subjects and issues in my standup. I'm attempting to make a point about technology and how it's changing our society and our lives, and our addiction to social media, and how it affects marriages and relationships.
Not many people get that chance to have multiple studios wanting you to make a movie with them.
I used to do stand-up when I was in high school. But I was also making beats for this rap group, and when we got a record deal, I sort of stopped doing the comedy and focused on the music instead. When that ended, I decided to go back to school, take broadcasting, and start my show on public-access TV.
When my first show was on MTV, and it was this outrageous persona, I think people certainly didn't know what to think. But it was a performance. I'm sure people didn't know that it was a performance; they thought maybe I was just nuts, but that was all intentional.
I have the version of me where I'm interviewing someone, where I definitely am the straight man, and I like to show a lot of respect to my guest and let them take the reins. I don't like to compete with my guests. I don't like to be funnier than my guests or get into a 'Who's wackier?' sort of thing.
After my show and others like it began airing on TV, network executives started to see that there was a market for outrageous, over-the-top content.
I have a different perspective on the world than the way I looked at the world when I was 20. I was kind of naive. I'm a cancer survivor, been working in this industry for a time, and older with more opinions, more experience.
I don't want to make fun of somebody because of the way they look, where they're from, or their religion.
When I was younger, I was emulating David Letterman. David Letterman would yell out of his office window with a megaphone, and the next thing I'm doing is standing on the roof of a parking garage with a megaphone.
As comedians, we all get into that mode of thinking of the worst thing imaginable - but you usually have the ability to pull back before releasing it to the world.
When you get older, you look at who has power differently. When you're 21 years old, and you do something ridiculous at the National Art Gallery and get kicked out by the security guard, in your mind, you're speaking truth to power.
I think that young people - teenagers, college-age people, anyone under the age of 30 - know when they're being pandered to.
All of my old videos and the things I did on MTV, my old public access show - it was sort of all made for the Web, even though they were made before the Internet was broadcasting video.
It's nice to go skating in a parking lot and hang out with people who aren't talking about their next movie role.
When I started doing stand-up again, a lot of it was coming from an angrier place, and I quickly learned that doesn't spell a good time in a comedy club.
Whenever I do something, I tend to focus on it and spend all of my time and energy on it.
If an audience is loud and in a party mode, that's an audience that can absorb comedy.
I assumed I'd never be divorced.
I tend to sit around with my friends a lot and rant and rave about things I think are ridiculous in the world, and I tend to make fun of myself a lot.
Sometimes it's nice when you go out on the road, and you come back, and your girlfriend's left you. You have complete freedom at that point.
