Episode 1640 - Tom Green

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Lock the gates!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast, WTF.

Welcome to it.

What is happening?

What is going on?

I am newly awake.

I am on the road.

I am in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

I have just woken up and I'm looking out at these massive towers, massive towers of, from what I understand, may or may not be occupied apartment buildings.

But

I did two shows last night.

Today is Sunday.

You'll be listening to this Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or maybe years from now.

I just wanted to tell you that

what you're listening to is a man in Toronto in a hotel room having his second Nespresso coffee that he made with that machine.

I don't want to say it twice.

I'm not promoting it.

But I guess what I am saying sort of, you know, in a coded way is not a bad hotel room when you got the real Nespresso pods because sometimes you get those,

what do you got, knockoff pods.

You don't want the knockoff pods, not as good.

They don't even look as pretty.

Why is it that they can't make,

what would it take to make them look as pretty as the real ones, the knockoff ones?

It just got to look a little shittier.

So you're like, I guess these are okay.

But then when you see the real ones, you're like, these are like fucking gold.

This isn't even a plug.

But maybe, maybe, no, it's not.

I don't need an espresso machine.

Anyway, how are you guys?

Pow!

I just shit my pants.

Just coffee.co-op.

That's a classic.

Thought I'd throw that in there.

Anyway, speaking of Canada, Tom Green is on the show again today.

And,

you know, I like Tom.

And I don't always put Tom into perspective, into context, in terms of sort of what an important fella he was in the history of the media world that we live in.

And, you know, I missed the whole Tom Green thing because I don't think I was the right age.

I think him and I are around the same age.

And when he was doing his crazy shit, well, he's, you know, he's actually five years younger than me it wasn't my thing i knew of him but i wasn't watching mtv the more as i get older i got to be honest with you

it seems that i missed just about

everything

i don't know i i don't know exactly how but i can kind of figure it out like you know i didn't watch seinfeld i didn't watch the simpsons i didn't watch i just missed fucking everything musically i missed most things i missed everything that was going on in new york in the early aughts and I was fucking there for part of it.

I didn't, I just missed, I just missed everything.

And the reason is, the reason that, I don't know if I'm late for the party or not, but the reason that I have to pick up on things later

is because all I was fucking doing is stand-up comedy.

That's all I did.

I wandered around during the day writing things down, and then at night, I would sit in comedy clubs.

And most of the time, I wasn't living in a situation where I had a dvr or a video cassette player so i just wasn't watching shit for years

when many things happened i didn't i don't even i didn't even have a fucking tv set

in new york city when i lived there in the late 80s not i didn't even have a fucking tv i don't know how the hell whatever but i missed it all but now thank god because it's all available all the time on your hand, you can just pull up on your fucking phone or wherever, and you can catch up.

You can reintegrate.

You can fill in those blank spaces of years in your head.

So, except for COVID, that kind of, that one fucked us all.

I seriously am still not correct time-wise.

And I think I said this before,

because of COVID, I think I should be 58 years old and not 61.

But that's my opinion.

But I just missed it all and I missed Tom.

But, you know, I had him on the show.

And generally, when I have somebody on the show, you know, I get into it.

I look into it.

I experience whatever they did as much as I can.

And I was looking back at Tom's stuff, and you know, the documentary about him and just how fucking punk rock and fucking nuts he was.

And the fact that I think he, you know, kind of invented Eric Andre and sort of invented the modern video podcast, which was, you know, hijacked by, you know, you know, the rest of them.

It's very funny.

There's this funny doc out there, kind of one of those underground docs about comedy and where it's at now.

And some of it is

about,

you know, the collapse of comedy and

the rise of the podcast and how Joe Rogan kind of took Tom Green's idea.

And it's actually in the dock, but he's able to isolate the moment on Tom Green's podcast where Joe was a guest and sort of had the idea to do it.

And then this guy who made it, no one knows who does it.

No one knows who makes these things.

He's made a couple of them.

They're kind of smart.

They're kind of like,

Adam Curtis, who I like, but more specific and more structured.

But there's a point in the dock.

It's called How Comedy Became a Dystopian Imperial Hell World.

It's on YouTube.

Comedy Czar, How Comedy Became a Dystopian Imperial Hell World.

Don't know who the guy is.

I believe he's Canadian, the guy who made the dock.

But

he sort of cites Tom Green as the originator.

And then he speculates or he fantasizes about a world where Tom Green would be the biggest podcaster in the world and not Joe.

And what an amazing world that would be.

But anyway, Tom is back and he's kind of settled.

He's a bit of a settled man now in a way.

He just did like four episodes of this mini kind of series of him moving to the farm.

He's moved back here to Canada and he bought a farm.

Again, he was on the show years ago on episode 360 in 2013.

And now he's got this

thing,

Tom Green Country.

It's four episodes, the docuseries, and it's about him just buying this farm and living on it.

And it's kind of sweet.

He's got a comedy special out.

He's got a comedy special out, Tom Green, I got a mule.

And

he's got another thing.

This is Tom Green, the documentary, which he directed.

He's kind of an important guy.

And it was good to see him again.

And now he goes everywhere with his dog Charlie, who was

in studio.

And it was a great conversation.

So that's happening.

That's happening soon if you're listening to this now.

It's the last week of my tour.

And man, am I shredding my brain?

Am I just fucking trying to...

Oh, my God.

I'm in Burlington, Vermont tonight at the Vermont Comedy Club.

Two shows tonight and then one show tomorrow.

I'm in Portsmouth, New Hampshire at the Music Hall on Wednesday, this Wednesday, May 7th, and then Brooklyn, New York at the Bam Harvey Theater for my HBO special taping this Saturday, May 10th.

Two shows there.

I don't know what's available.

I don't think there's tickets for that Vermont run available.

There might be a few for New York.

Don't know.

Maybe not.

I know there's a few for Portsmouth.

So if you're anywhere within a couple hours of Portsmouth and you need to see me, you might, that one you could probably get into.

There's a lot of tickets sold.

Listen to me.

The insecurity speaking up.

No, don't get me wrong.

Don't get me wrong.

There's definitely, you know,

a lot of tickets sold.

But yeah, so I've been up here in Canada and traveling up here was pretty easy.

And again, you get that tremendous sort of load off.

You get the MAGA load off your back.

Everything just, your body relaxes, your brain relaxes, the pace changes.

This theater is crazy.

The small theater at the Elgin, it seats about 800 or 900, and there's fake leaves everywhere.

Apparently,

I don't know when they found this theater, they had knocked out a wall or something years ago, and they didn't realize there was a theater in there, and it had all this shrubbery growing, these vines growing around the whole building.

I'm sure there's a documented history of this.

I don't know.

I'm just, I'm kind of going off something.

I half listened to somebody telling me.

And it was so unique that they just kind of redid it with fake leaves.

Very interesting theater, but it's probably the best one I've played up here.

But I told the audience, I said, you know,

I definitely am kind of happy for y'all for.

going politically the way you did.

And I got to be honest, I'm kind of leaning a little bit towards that 51st state thing.

I mean, I think that it might be a good thing that just selfishly, we could use the votes down south there, down where we are.

We could use the electoral votes of the state of Canada to help us in these upcoming elections.

They laughed.

I don't think I was serious, but you know, take it for what it is.

It's kind of amazing that at least I know at this point that when I'm converging on a big thing, especially something like a comedy special or something that requires all of me and I am the one doing it, my brain really does everything it can to kind of make it much more difficult for me.

I just start

spinning and figuring out things to obsess on, beating the shit out of myself,

thinking I'm horrible for

any

number of ways,

wondering about my appearance, wondering about the clothes I've chosen, wondering about the material, wondering if I want to be alive anymore.

I mean, wondering if I'm going to get sick, wondering if I'm losing my memory, wondering if I'm going to remember.

I mean, it's like the way my fear and panic manifest because I feel pretty confident

about the work.

You know,

I feel ready.

I'm almost too ready.

Last night I did one set that was just tight and quick and focused, no beats.

And I realized on the last special that I kind of did that too, that there wasn't a lot of kind of a slowing down or casual nuance to the thing.

But I just get my brain into this mode where I just want it to be tight as fuck after being loose as fuck for a year and a half, two years of this material that's been building.

But just what I'm doing to myself, laying in bed, just like not wanting to fucking get out.

And I guess it's all some sort of that's the battle of me where, you know, I've got to.

correct my brain and not let that voice.

It's really a struggle between the voices of like, you know, who I've become and like what I am professionally and the obstacles I've overcome in my life and in my mind, versus that

guy who's been with me since I was in high school.

That just says, You suck, you awkward fuck.

I mean, you just like,

you're just going to make everyone uncomfortable.

You're going to start crying.

I mean, you know, it's just the list is kind of insane.

And I just have to keep the dominant present me,

you know, focused and functioning.

So that's my process.

What's your process, huh?

So, look, Tom Green,

it was great to see him.

It's a nice little ending to this conversation.

All three of his new projects are on Prime Video.

This is the Tom Green documentary, the comedy special I Got a Mule, and the docuseries Tom Green Country.

And this is me

reconnecting with Tom.

My dog's here.

She'll calm down in a second.

I'm just going to take her, my dog Charlie, who's with me everywhere.

I'm going to take her.

You bring her on stage now.

I bring her on stage, literally take her everywhere with me.

But

it's fun traveling with a dog, you know?

Is it?

When you do stand up and you're always on the road and you

have a little friend with you, I enjoy it a lot.

It seems like

I can't do it with cats.

Yeah.

How long have you had the dog?

She's turning five, so she's turning five.

I got her during the pandemic.

Yeah.

And that's kind of led to a lot of changes in my life.

I got Charlie.

And like, I took it real seriously, the pandemic.

Like, I stayed inside.

Well, where were you?

Here?

I was here.

I was still, I was in LA.

You were up in the hills?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You were pretty freaked out.

Well, you had dealt with major health issues before.

So I imagine your sensitivity to the possibilities.

Exactly.

And also the unknown.

It's like, you know, I got, I don't know what, at one point, I just said,

you know, fuck it, I'm going to the store.

Yeah.

And, you know, I would double mask.

I would be the guy in like a spacesuit at the Whole Foods because I just couldn't stand

being in-house.

I was ordering all my groceries on the Instacart.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

I literally was doing these, like washing them with bleach.

Yeah, sure.

The grocery, sure, wiping them down.

Yeah.

And then

I, 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, like, what were you getting flack about?

Was it?

Oh, just just because of...

Because I was.

Pro-vaccine, reasonable stuff.

I mean, this was sort of before the vaccine was out, but I was talking about the vaccine.

And eventually I stopped talking about it because I just didn't feel like listening to all that crap.

And

if people don't want to take a vaccine, that's cool.

And if people

don't want to spray their groceries down with Clorox bleach, that makes sense, too.

Sure.

I probably was overreacting a little bit with that.

Yeah, but we didn't know.

Why not overreact either?

You know what I constantly think about that I really can't understand is when it's just this idea, like when...

When other people wear masks, people still wear masks, and people wore masks before COVID, mostly Asian people who were ahead of the curve on that.

Right, yeah.

But when they travel.

But the people that get upset of like, you know, why the fuck are you wearing a mask?

It's like, what difference does it make to you?

Yeah.

Just shut up.

It was amazing that it became political.

Yeah, I just don't understand.

Like, because usually when you resent something about somebody else, it has something to do with you.

So like in their dumb minds, it implies that you're mocking them.

Yeah.

It's like, I don't even, I mean, I understand it, but how do you surrender that?

It doesn't matter.

I just, I, I, I fester on it.

All right.

So, but before you went to Canada, back to Canada, which, you know, I'm waiting on a PR visa, and I hope I get it.

Could you talk to somebody?

A permanent residency?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Can you put a good word in for me?

Sure, absolutely.

Yeah.

Are you thinking about coming up to Canada?

Well, I want to have the option.

Yeah, yeah.

I love it up there.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I have found.

They love you up there too, do they?

Yeah, absolutely.

You do shows up there, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I do.

I do all right up there.

I shot a show up there, but I always go up there to work, but I find it very relieving.

What city would you go to?

Vancouver?

It feels like a West Coast vibe.

You're used to it.

It does.

It does, but like I haven't spent, I spent some time in Toronto, but I've not been up in the country like where you are, I don't think.

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, I'm sort of between all three of them.

So, yeah.

But am I wrong in remembering?

Were you in Costa Rica?

I have gone down there quite a bit, yeah.

But

I never lived there permanently.

Because I think when you resurfaced, at least in my life,

it was like Tom's in Costa Rica, and I'd see clips from you in Costa Rica.

I go there on vacation a lot, yeah.

Oh, okay.

So it wasn't like you moved there?

Never moved there, no, no.

Oh, you like it down there?

I love it down there.

I have a little spot down there.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah, so it's a.

You do the winter?

Well,

this winter I didn't go because I.

You got a farm now.

Yeah, I got a farm.

But I was touring in the U.S.

this winter in my camper van, which is a whole other adventure.

What do you got one, those silver ones,

an airline?

It's a Ram ProMaster.

It's a small conversion van.

Okay.

And that's what happened.

That's kind of what got me moving back to Canada was

in the pandemic.

I got Charlie and I got my dog Charlie.

And she's named after Travels with Charlie,

John Steinbeck.

Okay, yeah.

And which is him driving around in a camper with his dog.

Yeah.

Sort of wrote a book about America.

Yeah.

So I'm somewhat.

You were following that trail.

Yeah, somewhat of a, you know, sort of a dissection of some of the political differences in the country and stuff is his book, you know.

But I made YouTube videos about it that were not political at all, but just going out to the desert.

But that kind of

led me to want to live more close to nature because I spent, you know, a year of 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.

So did you find that, like I find that unless you make an effort to get off the interstate,

you're not going to see anything.

Exactly.

So you had to make some choices.

Absolutely.

I would never on the interstate as much as possible.

Just sometimes I'd

still a lot left out there.

I discovered stuff out there that I had no idea existed, which is 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 it.

I just went back this winter again to do more of this

exploring and discovering these Native American ruins that are out in the desert of the southwestern United States.

Started out, I went to this place, Chaco Canyon, in New Mexico.

I grew up in Albuquerque, yeah.

Oh, okay.

So have you been in Chaco?

You've been to Chaco?

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't that just amazing?

Yeah.

Did you go to the hot springs up there?

Isn't there some hot springs up there?

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,

first of all, just kind of somewhat baffled that I didn't know about it already.

Well, they're all over.

It's weird because some of them aren't

marked in a big way.

And a lot of them aren't really maintained.

You can just sort of like, oh, yeah, the cave's over there.

Exactly.

Yeah.

yeah.

And you just go.

So it's just on this tour, I was just on this winter.

Did you go to Pecos and stuff?

No, where's that?

New Mexico?

No, no.

There's a Pecos National Monument.

I can't remember if that's, that might not be all the way back to Native Americans, but there is another one up there where

they would live in the mountain in these caves.

There's one in the cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado.

Yeah, Mesa Verde.

That's a big one.

Yeah, that's a big one.

That one's very

organized, right?

Organized, yeah.

You can walk through the Anastasi.

Wasn't it the Anastasi India, I think?

And you can go through that whole tour?

Yeah, the Anastasi.

It's called the

means the ancient ones.

Yeah.

And so what was it that was connecting you to all this?

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 a road, away from people, and making some,

having something to take a picture of.

I just really got back into photography.

Or you're just a good camera.

Video, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I was shooting.

Well, I was shooting, I have a little Leica that I shoot film on, too.

Yeah.

But also a lot of video I was doing with the 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.

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

then you get out there and you just sort of

I know it's always kind of weird when people say this the energy you feel this energy right but like I don't know if it's just sort of psychological you kind of feel like wow there's people that were living here yeah 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 about like, okay, why do we make

why do we put videos and pictures up on Instagram?

You know, is that the modern-day petroglyph?

Is that what we've become?

Like, 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.

I think the big question about in terms of

like I maybe that's true,

but like I'd like to think there was just a few people that were really good at it back then.

Yeah, sure.

And they kind of left that job to them.

Aside from that, there was just sort of my name, I was here.

Yeah, yeah.

But I think that, you know, some petroglyphs, like, that must have been a special person

that was in charge of that.

And now, like, it's definitely not special.

Yeah.

And I think it's more comparable, I mean, a lot of the Instagram to maybe where they shit.

But every once in a while, a special petroglyph maker makes an Instagram video.

Sure.

Yeah,

but they're everywhere out there.

That's the thing that you sort of start to look at.

Little markets everywhere, yeah.

Everywhere.

And,

you know,

there's places up in the mountains of Colorado and Utah where they're not even, like, where there's these stone structures.

You know, everyone always talks about Machu Picchu.

Yeah.

Everyone always talks about Machu Picchu.

Sure.

Chaco Canyon is basically as big as Machu Picchu.

I mean, it's this huge thing.

Yeah, a lot of stuff in there.

Why is that not all talked about all the time?

Well,

it's a good question about, like, because

there are all those little ones.

Like, there's definitely sort of sides of rocks that are filled with stuff.

So, like, I guess the question is, is like, is this someone declaring their existence?

But did you look into the spiritual symbols or anything or why they are what they are?

Yeah, I haven't really gone too deep into what the petroglyphs, as much as more of just looking at these ruins more has been something that's been approaching it is kind of uh haunting in a nice way yeah like uh when you go out there but also new mexico is stunning yeah so there's a

yeah there's a weight to it you know like you're like am i feeling am i projecting this just because it's beautiful or is it fucking magic yeah exactly and but but along the same lines like you got to think like when those tribes were out there that it was even more beautiful because there was less you know you didn't drive somewhere, there was no expectation, it just was.

So Chaco Canyon was a place where people,

just from this from me reading about it, but

in the last couple of years, but you know, people came from all over North America

to sort of meet there.

You know, from as far as

from Mexico.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it was built in 875, so it's all pre-Columbian stuff, right?

It's like it was there from 875 till around

1150.

Yeah.

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 macaw from as far as Mexico up to New Mexico.

And

pottery and all these things they find.

So it's been heavily studied.

It's interesting.

When I got into it, I found a book about it.

It was actually written by Mike Judge's father, James Judge.

I guess he's from New Mexico.

He's from Albuquerque, yeah.

Yes, he spent his life like

James Judge,

who just spent his life out there at Chaco Canyon and was sort of

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?

He kind of said something like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just heard his father just passed away.

I didn't talk to Mike about that, but they told me that at Chaco Canyon, they just passed away.

But yeah, I guess Mike grew up out there.

His dad dragged him to the dirt.

His dad dragged him out to the dirt.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's fucking great.

But when, like,

you know, I kind of re-watched some of the, I watched all the

Tom Green countries that they gave me.

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, yeah.

Not necessarily doing more of that episode, but of that show, but a similar show.

So that was a one-off, the four episode?

That's a one-off thing, yeah.

That was the transition?

Yeah, possibly, yeah.

Yeah, we'll see.

But you didn't want to, it's not a continuing story?

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.

There is no end to it.

That's true.

No, I know.

It's like day-to-day up there.

Absolutely.

You know, and I'm sorry about the chickens.

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, and Peter.

And it was all part of your first, your introduction into the life.

Yeah, and I was having fun with my chick.

I have new chickens now,

but I don't name them anymore.

It was Loretta, Patsy, Shania, Dolly, June, and Ann.

I named them after country singers.

Of course, two Canadians in there, Shania Twain and Ann 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.

The fucking coyotes sweep in my yard here.

I have a catty over there, and I think they think of it as like a lobster tank.

And I'm the matrix D.

You know, I'll take the orange one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I know.

You got the cats.

Yeah, I think I lost.

I've been through cats that have disappeared, and I've had ferals get ripped up by those coyotes.

Your cats go outside here?

No.

Yeah, yeah.

There's everyone's familiar.

At the old house where you were at, I used to let them out.

It was ridiculous.

I don't know how they all lived, but one of them got got.

And then there was a feral cat out there, a deaf guy who couldn't hear, but he lived for years.

He eventually got taken by the coyotes.

It's a horrible feeling.

I was pretty upset about it.

But it's interesting.

I've got new chickens now.

I don't name them anymore.

I don't individually recognize any of them.

They all look the same to me now, sort of purposefully.

And I've lost a couple of more.

There's a lot of wolves and coyotes and all sorts of stuff up there.

I know that was great when he set up that camera.

He seemed to be truly amazed at what...

I did not expect

everything.

The bears.

Every kind.

I knew there were bears.

I'd heard rumors, but I didn't know they were just walking up and down the trails.

At night, just hanging out.

A porcupine?

Yep, yep.

It's crazy.

But it's not crazy, but it's so beautiful up there.

And the appeal of it is very understandable.

I mean, I think about it a lot.

You know,

I plan to sort of end up either in Canada or New Mexico, but I don't know about a farm, but you didn't know about it either.

No, it's not.

And the responsibility of it, I guess, like anything else, I get overwhelmed with anxiety.

So I'm like, you know, what the fuck am I going to?

But you pulled in the community, old friends, people that did the stuff that needs to be done in order to establish the thing.

And when you watch how you handled it, you're like, oh, this is doable if you just, you know, get the guy to build the fence.

Exactly.

You don't have to build the fence.

Well, the good news is I'm not trying to run a

profitable farm business.

I'm not farming the lifestyle thing.

I have my animals that I have to feed every day.

I've got

this mule, Fanny, and Kia, a donkey.

Well, that's a question I wanted to ask.

Why?

Because I don't know that.

Like, I always knew there was a difference between a mule and a donkey.

But why not just a horse?

I mean, the mule is a very stunning animal, that one you got.

Yes, she's a big one.

It's a unique, and it does, it's as big as a horse.

She may be the, she may be the, she's

maybe larger than most horses, actually.

She's her mother's a Percheron horse.

Okay, so what's a Percheron?

It's like a

workhorse, almost like a Clydesdale, like a

a French type of European workhorse.

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.

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 chrome homes and

a donkey is 66 or whatever, and the mule is 65.

What a stunning animal, though.

Yeah.

The color and everything doesn't look like a horse.

Most people think, yeah, she's,

at first glance, people would think she's a horse.

Yeah, but if you keep looking at it, she's got the mule features.

And they were just built for work.

Yeah, and they're very sturdy animals.

They're a great animal to ride.

They're a little more difficult to,

you know,

get into a rhythm with.

You got to kind of earn their trust.

It's a whole thing.

Like you can really, really,

I mean, I think we can really get into this actually because we could talk about this in detail.

It's really quite interesting.

I had no clue.

I didn't know anything about this.

That was clear.

Yeah.

But it's been two years now since I got her.

And so like we shot this the summer before last.

Yeah.

You know, everything takes forever.

So,

you know, the first year was a lot of learning, and now I've really kind of gotten

quite comfortable with

riding her, you know.

And we go off every day when I'm home, we just go off on these rides and down the trails and out into the wilderness.

Yeah.

And, you know, you talk about anxiety, right?

Like, I also, you know, probably most comedians, I certainly feel like maybe

more than average have anxiety, right?

Yeah.

And for me, like,

getting

these animals, specifically riding a mule, has been the best thing for my anxiety because it's a combination of a lot of things, like

just being in nature has always been nice for me.

Being alone in nature has always been nice for me.

Being around animals is nice for me.

And then getting exercise is quite...

a lot of exercise when you ride a mule, you go off all day and you're riding this thing.

You wouldn't think.

But you're engaged.

You're engaged and your mind is focused on the present, right?

You're not, you know, I don't want to fall off this thing or I'm going to get hurt.

So there's all of that.

But then it's also just like the thing that was sort of the most unexpected part of it, which

I've kind of found fascinating, is that you have to kind of

riding a mule

teaches you to

at least

you have the mule has to trust you and has to want you to be the leader.

Right.

And has to trust that you know what you're doing, which when you don't know what you're doing, it's very difficult to make her trust you.

They sense that.

I've always been afraid of horses, and they feel that.

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?

Yeah.

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

couldn't really go anywhere.

And now you know her politics.

Yeah, exactly.

So, yes.

And, you know, so I had some people that, that, that, the, the ladies that raised her.

Yeah,

they were upset when they.

And they, they, yeah, they, they, they had her for 10 years.

They've been really helpful.

They're, They're up in Thunder Bay, Ontario, which is 18 hours north of me.

Imagine how big Canada is, right?

An 18-hour drive north from where I am into northern Canada.

So it's like Club Med down where we are for this mule.

She's like, oh man, it's bomby down here.

But

so we went out, they came down and we went out for a ride, and they were driving in this little ATV thing ahead of me.

And I'd sort of learned that Fanny,

the mule's name, doesn't like the sound of these ATVs, doesn't like ATVs.

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, well, Fanny's not going to want to go around the ATV.

It's parked in the trail.

There's a little space I could go around, but I'm going to.

And then 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.

And they say, no, no, just go around the ATV.

Fanny's not going 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, no, no, no, it's not that Fanny doesn't want to go around the ATV, it's that you

are worried that she doesn't want to go around the ATV.

And that's why she's not going around the ATV because she can tell that you're worried about it.

She can feel.

So you start to go, okay, you start to have to train yourself.

When you're riding along towards something and you go, okay, she's not going to want to go that way.

You have to say, no, no.

You have to stay in your head

confidently.

In your head, not

we're going around there.

We're going around day to stay confident.

You know, if you feel nervous, you got to take a deep breath, make those nerves go away.

You got to be cool.

And it's like the antithesis of who I am, right?

Like, you actually have to be cool and comfortable and relaxed, you know?

Yeah.

And it's like, but I'm riding a giant mule that goes, but I have to be relaxed.

And I have to not be worried about some

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.

Well, that's all anxiety is, is projection of fear.

You know, that's the core of like mine, just the dread or the expectation.

Yeah.

But basically, it's like with any animal, you're going to, like,

I guess the word is anthropomorphize.

You're going to project your feelings onto them.

And they're sort of like, all they're responding to is your nervousness, or they know.

Yeah, so that's the way they communicate.

I mean, they don't have language, right?

So, they've always communicated through energy, right?

Like, is it interesting?

Well, that's interesting to me too, isn't it?

Because, like, you know, you're kind of balls out whatever generally, the history of your expression is like

and now, like, uh, but there's a that's being present too, but it's kind of forcing uh almost chaos because that's where you're comfortable.

But this is so specific that, you know, it's just a dynamic in your brain where you realize, like, you know, I've just got to,

because I don't know that you, do you feel like you ever really even acknowledged that space in your mind before?

Yeah, like not as much.

That's why I'm saying it's really getting me more in tuned with what, with that, sort of getting ahead of the anxiety.

You sort of,

because when you're, now when you're riding along, you start to realize there's a direct sort of

relationship between that anxiety and this animal's sort of reaction and to it, you start to try to go, okay, let's think about my thoughts and think about what I'm thinking and

breathe calmly and stay calm and feel good and be positive.

And it's working.

And it works.

And so then you sort of take that into

life with

people too.

Because you go, okay, when you think about it, we didn't always have language, right?

We didn't used to probably, when we were cavemen or whatever, we were running around like, follow that guy.

He seems like he knows what he's doing, right?

And so,

you you know, I can, yeah, 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.

You know, and then you go in, and sure enough, they don't fucking buy it.

You know, I wonder why.

Probably because they could tell that you didn't believe in it, you know, that you weren't in control of your horse.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Maybe.

Yeah.

But it is kind of interesting, though, that before, like, because I start to think about

the type of, you know, even when I've had this thing where I'm watching, you know, everyone on YouTube, anyone who's talking now, everyone's become a broadcaster of some kind.

And there's a zone of

energy that you live in when you do that.

There's almost a mania.

And now that people watch influencers and that they think this is the tone you exist in, this sort of balls out kind of like, I'm talking now and this is what's happening.

It's a very specific part of the spectrum.

But I think people are doing it in regular life now, that there's this mania that happens.

And

there's all kinds of other human ways of communicating that are not that.

But I think when I think about all your work leading up to this,

that the

chaos you created, I don't know why, because your parents seem pretty level-headed people.

I think I was rebelling.

Well, yeah, well, there's that, but also there's a comfort in chaos.

Like, you know, once you create that zone, it's a real buzz.

Yeah.

You know, to, you know, because you don't know what the fuck is going to happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, anytime.

And you're just, you know, throwing yourself out there physically and mentally.

And, you know, whether it ends good or bad, you definitely get high from the insanity of it.

And now everything is, you know, you're kind of, you've brought it all in and you're dealing with yourself.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's wild.

Yeah.

I, I, uh, you know, my dad was a

captain in the military.

Yeah.

You know, army captain.

And he was kind of a

pretty strict guy, but also a very funny guy.

Yeah, he's funny, yeah.

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.

You would always sort of,

you know, when you were a kid, you'd go out and he'd sort of do things like kind of goofy things that would kind of,

you know, kind of shock you.

I remember you

go fishing and you'd eat a grasshopper in front of me.

You know, what the hell?

You know, you know, funny stuff.

And then my mom's more of a sort of a, has a little bit of a cynical, sarcastic stuff to her, which is, yeah.

so the combination of them was always

very funny.

Like there was always a lot of

humor at the dinner table and things like this.

Everybody kind of razzing each other essentially to a certain extent.

But

yeah, on the new show, they're kind of more the funny ones.

They're the stars of the new show, I think.

The relationship isn't me pulling pranks on them and doing the stuff I did when I was a kid.

Well, it's kind of funny that,

because like, I don't know, there's a certain kind of personality, and I'm not a parent, you're not, and right?

You don't have kids.

Nope.

Nope.

That,

you know, 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, I'm probably going to be getting married very soon.

Really?

Yes, absolutely.

So I 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.

How the fuck am I older than everybody?

How the fuck did that happen?

Well, someone's got to be older than someone.

Yeah, I know, but it's...

You're younger than a lot of people too, though.

No, I know, but it's one of those, it's part of that realization of,

you know, time and life is that I think because it took me so long to kind of

land

that, you know, I always just assumed that everyone was my peer in our business, you know, after a certain point.

And now there's just like there are these kids who are huge and they're like 40.

And I'm like, what the fuck?

What have I been doing?

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 in a very Canadian way to meet, by the way.

I was

playing hockey on my pond, and I put a video up on Instagram, and she sent me, forward 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 then I responded.

And it turns out she was from a Canadian military family, grew up in the same small town.

Before I moved to Ottawa, I was in this little military base called Pettawawa.

We went to the same elementary school

and hit it off, and now

we're engaged.

And you've got a common history in some weird way.

Yeah.

You're returning home, buddy.

Absolutely.

She lives just down the road, and

it's been great.

So we live together now, but yeah, it was.

And I am in a pretty remote area, too, so it was kind of felt like it was meant to be.

Yeah, well, I think the thing I was noticing, well, congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That I was noticing about your folks is that if you're a certain personality and you're a kid and you're not a criminal per se, but they realize, you know, that like they, one, can't control you and two, they're kind of amazed at whatever you're becoming, that there's a distance there, that there's an appreciation.

They have to be parents still, but they're just sort of like, he's going to do something.

You know, and they have a faith in it.

And it seemed like they have that with you somehow.

That's absolutely, I think, what happened.

It was very conflicting for them, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Barging into their bedroom with a decapitated cow's head in the middle of the night.

A little much.

But they're going, oh, it's creative.

I don't get it, but it 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 till I was about 19, and then I stopped, and I started again maybe 20 years ago or something like that.

Maybe not even.

But

at 16, you know, when you're on a school night, Thursday night was the amateur night at Yuck Yucks in Ottawa.

And I'd

get on the bus and go downtown to do stand-up and not get home till later in the night.

Or they'd let me take their car or whatever.

I think they'd probably let me take their car now that I think about it.

But,

you know, that was

pretty cool, you know.

And when I was

in this rap group when I was a kid,

we went down to New York and they, you know, 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 good supportive parents, I mean, that's an important thing when you're in a creative business, I think, because it's a lot of uncertainty there.

But

they were always

very encouraging, you know, even though at the same time they were very realistic and worried about there's possibility that it's not going to work out, so you better have a plan B and all that kind of stuff.

But I kind of refused to admit that there was going to be any other route for things, and that I think was where the kind of conflict might have been.

Well, after a certain point, there is no other route.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, you just, what are you going to do?

I just realized there was no way I could do anything else.

I don't think it's also interesting about Canada, and I try to

assess my own feelings about it, that I think just even the fact

of living out in the woods or having the farm and being alone up there,

that

there's just no denying on a cultural and

in every way that Canada is a safer place than here.

And it makes a big difference in your peace of mind and in your engagement with other people.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.:

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, yeah.

But

and

I, I kind of,

again, again,

I love Los Angeles, lived here 21 years.

It's funny, I was saying to my fiancé when we were driving yesterday on the 101 freeway.

I was like, it just sort of occurred to me, you know, this is weird.

You know, it actually feels more normal for me to be driving on this freeway today than it does when I'm driving on the highway back at home.

Because I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm back there.

But at the same time,

it's odd because I lived here 21 years, 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 serious 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, it would have probably would have never been able to leave, and it would have been strange.

But it's

it seems it seems it seems it's it does seem sort of uh interesting to be home like that.

But no, I'd say I'd say that the um

to your point, like um

so

I got used to living in Los Angeles.

I remember the first

five years I was here, you know, when I'd go to sleep at night,

I'd be kind of s scared.

Yeah, like, you know, I was lived alone at first in a house that I was renting from William Shatner, who's my first landlord, which was ridiculous.

MTV moved us out here and they said, okay, you can find a house to rent.

Here's your budget.

So I went on the, found the house that I could rent.

Turned out it was William Shatner, had a house next door to him that he rented out.

He literally would come over and pick up the rent check sometimes.

It was like, welcome to Hollywood here, Captain Kirk.

Here's the rent check, you know?

And he's a funny guy, and he's Canadian.

Yeah, absolutely.

He was great.

So you must have been able to really lock in on a frequency with him.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean,

we got to have a few good chats.

He was great.

But it was like, it was strange because it was like, you know,

you'd sort of, I'm alone in the Hollywood Hills, sort of, you know,

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.

Oh, okay, I guess it's pretty safe here.

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, wait.

Oh,

it is less stressful here, you know.

And for 20 years, I noticed that every time I went home,

it's a sort of, I wasn't sure if it was just because I was home or if it was just, you notice it too.

You do notice it.

Well, like I talk about it, like even like during

the first Trump presidency, I'd go work in Canada, you know, and I'd fly up there.

And literally, when I got off the plane, I'm like, it's not up here.

You know, whatever that psychic weight

of fear and intensity, it just doesn't, it's not up there.

And you can feel it immediately.

I mean, now it's like it's, it's, the relationship now between the two countries, you know, it sort of,

it kind of illustrates exactly, you know, what, you know, the difference is because now Canadians are pissed off and afraid.

And that's how we live down here all the time.

I just hope it doesn't pollute the psychic environment up there.

You know,

not to dive into like something that's going to piss everyone off, but it's it's guns too.

Like there's just

you know, people

walking around with a sidearm on their hip, you know, like I was in Utah the other day, and I'm buying a camera, and a guy had a Glock on his hip, and I'm like, I'm kind of like, oh, boy, you know, is that really necessary?

And, you know, it's like, and he didn't look like he was like the most stable individual either, you know.

So I'm like, you know, don't, don't, let's not get into an argument here.

You know, up in Canada, the worst thing that happens if you get in an argument with someone is you get in a hockey fight, you know, so you might get punched in the nose or something.

Totally.

And that's, that's, that's, that's, like, almost all of it.

You know, because now, yeah, with the, with with the carry laws everywhere, you just have to exist in a world where, like you said, that guy doesn't look like he's official in any way.

Yeah, and then it becomes like an arms race.

Well, do I need one then to defend 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 like, it's not like your right to defend yourself doesn't really help you, really.

I mean, yeah, it's just there's a we're right at the edge of a strange lawlessness.

But I also think the combination between guns and socialized health care, it makes a big difference.

Oh, yeah.

Because you can always go to the doctor and you know in your heart and mind that it's not going to bankrupt you.

Yeah.

And

then

you know someone's probably not going to shoot you.

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 are maybe a little bit more

Republican than your average person.

And

they're like, well, the health care system up there is no good because

the health care system is good in Canada, but they sort of feel like,

well, I can get my health care here.

Yeah, because you can afford $1,500 a month for your insurance, right?

But I know so many...

RNA specialists.

Yeah, and I know so many people in Los Angeles who I work with who were 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 like you're terrified oh if I get sick I had a friend of mine who who

thought he had testicular cancer actually which I had you know and he was kind of

terrified about going to the doctor.

I'm like, you got to go to the doctor and get a check because the only way you live is if you go right away and get it.

So eventually he went, but he was worried about the bill and then he had to go, went back to Arizona because it was easier for him to do it there.

But it was like,

he ended up being all right,

but just seeing that sort of decision-making being based upon how much it was going to cost and seeing that over and over is something that like,

you know, if you're

not some

rich

television producer or something like that.

You know, you don't necessarily understand what it is that normal people are going through.

Whereas, you know, I go home to Canada and it's like, you you know, okay, I've got my

health card here.

I'll pull it out so you can see what it looks like.

It's very, very,

you know, official.

Yeah.

That's my firearms acquisition certificate.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm not that.

Everyone has one of these, like a driver's license.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So it's just like a driver's license.

And that's where you live on the farm.

There's a clinic you can just go?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, it's just the same here as hospitals.

You go to the hospital, you go to the emergency room if you need to.

You go to your doctor's office and you just give them your health card.

It looks like a driver's license.

That's what I was wondering when I was watching it.

I'm like, you know, with it's an interesting thing, I think, also the community that has to be built around just homeownership in general, but a farm is that you have to engage with the community because you're going to need help.

And you have people to do the specific things that you don't know how to do, or at least show you how to do it, and they come out and do it.

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 know, have a farm to each side, and there are these huge

thousand-acre properties on the other sides of me and stuff.

So it's miles down the road to the next neighbor.

But

the first day I was there, my new friends came up and said hello.

And now that they've been farming there for generations, and

they have a tractor.

They come over, and they help me do the hay every August.

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 interesting because you're not engaging with that many people who are

practically nobody actually that's in show business.

So you're sort of.

But that's the thing is the shift from, you know, when you're in show business, your whole life is built on selling an illusion, either of yourself or an idea for this fiction that everyone can watch.

And that's your life.

And

it seems kind of boundless in possibility, but it requires you engaging with this business to deliver the goods.

Whereas their life is, you know, whatever they're farming or what it is community centric.

And this is the life.

We're going to go do the hay.

And there's no other thing like, we just do that as a hobby.

No, no.

It's like, this is it.

And

there must be some sort of transition to a life like that where your alone time becomes much different.

Because, well, I imagine you still fester and you're probably thinking of ideas and writing things down and on a microphone and whatever but but there is a kind of

an incentive to appreciate the slowness of it yeah absolutely I get up 6 30 in the morning every day I always was a fairly but you know but part of the reason you know like there's nothing to do at night you know once the sun goes down I'm gonna go get sushi on Ventura Boulevard you know

stumble in in my uber you know after three martinis you know at two in the morning you know no I'll go go to bed at 10 o'clock, you know, get up in the morning, I go right out to the, you know, make coffee, I go out to the barn, and I get three big 60-pound bales of hay, and I throw them out into the field.

That's during the winter and the fall when there's no hay.

To feed the feed animals, and then I brush them off, and sometimes I'll saddle up Fanny and take her for a ride.

What do you do at night?

Just watch shit?

Well, because I got up at six in the morning, I just go to sleep.

It's not the compulsion.

Yeah, it's sort of of ⁇ I mean, no, I mean,

I've been making music, so I

play piano or

write or

but I

tend to be asleep by 11.

How's that studio working out on top of the barn?

Right now the barn's just sort of an empty loft, but when I do a podcast or something in there, I just set it up each time, you know.

Oh, so it's not a

permanent workspace.

No, it's because it's I have a more of a permanent studio workspace in the house,

upstairs in the house.

But the loft of the barn is very

cold.

It just has the roof, but the sides are kind of open.

Yeah, yeah.

But it looks cool.

Visually, it looks cool in the summer, and in three seasons, it's pretty cool.

But no, I have a little recording studio in my house.

Are you doing something regularly?

Yeah, yeah.

I just put out a record this year, a country album.

A country album.

Yeah, yeah, I know you're a guitar player, right?

Yeah.

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.

I do, yeah.

And

I wrote the whole soundtrack for the show.

But that's the kind of stuff I like to do.

In some ways,

I end up having so much more time to be creative up there because I

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.

But it's a different type of creativity.

I mean, how do you look at, you know,

what interests you now versus kind of the adrenaline that drove your entire life previous?

I mean, is there a part of you, like, I remember, I don't remember when we did it, but it's funny because I think about it and I talk about it.

I know what you're going to talk about.

You do.

I know what you're going to bring up.

The Byron Allen.

Yeah, the Comics Unleashed, yeah.

I knew you were going to bring that up.

Well, just as soon as you said it, like, because you know.

Why'd you know I was going to bring it up?

Well, just because I was thinking about when we would have done something, when we did something together, and I was like, and

you were thinking about the adrenaline-fueled.

But my feeling was like.

I can explain that.

I can explain myself for that.

Well, no, but here's my side of it.

I remember it.

It was like you, it was Ornie Adams, John Lovitz.

Who else was on that episode?

Who were the comics that were on?

Was it Alonzo Bowden, maybe?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I just remember when you do those panel shows,

like you kind of see who the other guests are.

Because, you know, especially with that show, you want to get

your licks in.

in.

And then, like that day or the day before, they were like, It's going to be you, you, so-and-so, so and Tom Green.

I'm like, oh, fuck.

He's going to take over the whole thing.

I'm not going to be able to get a joke out.

And then I thought, maybe it'll be all right.

But you come out and within three minutes, you're in the fish tank.

I mean,

and I'm like, fuck, I knew I wasn't going to get a joke out.

The amount of times I have 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.

It's like,

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.

Now, 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 guess I'm just going to have to jump in the fucking fish tank, I guess.

And all the other comics are like, well, now it's about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was, and yeah, you know, I kind of definitely,

I mean,

I think a lot about that really two or three year period of my life when I first moved to Los Angeles and

the show was on MTV and it was doing good.

And I was going on all the talk shows and I'm thinking about

when I'd go on Conan or when I'd go on Leno and

I never did this with Letterman because I wouldn't dare, but on the other shows, I would go on and just like kind of be a fucking maniac.

You know, I'd come in with a costume or an ostrich egg and crack it over my head.

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 into the apartment and do something nuts and

just eat dog food or do something crazy.

But it was also coming from a place of complete sort of

anxiety over not knowing what to do.

Well, I guess if I go over the top

crazy, you know, then maybe it'll, it'll,

whereas maybe I was a little bit afraid to go on and just sit there and try to kind of talk and be funny.

It would have been much easier to come out dressed as a.

And also expected.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, 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

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 watched Johnny Carson, but it was more because of Letterman, right?

So I want to sit behind a desk too, you know?

But

so I was just so terrified, you know, and you want to be with him, you mean?

Yeah, yeah, and he was also, I guess obviously he's a bit more of a cutting than Jay or Conan.

Okay.

I was going to go on there,

maybe he might not put up with that.

It's so funny, man, because I interviewed him in this house.

He came up there.

Before I set this up out here, he came up into the house.

It was kind of funny because you spend your whole life kind of loving a guy.

And also, for me in my generation, that was the show you wanted to get on.

And I did it a few times.

But

when you host a daily show, their memory of anything, it's just,

they don't remember that much.

Yeah.

But, but something funny did happen that was the best moment I had with Letterman was odd because I was at the comedy store one night on a, on a produce show, a comic produce show in the main room.

And then the manager comes in back and he says, you know, Letterman's here, you know,

and my first thought was like, this was only a few years ago.

I was like, am I in trouble?

What is going on?

And he had no show or anything.

He had just come because someone brought him down.

He wanted to see me.

And then we're on the back porch or the back patio there at the comedy store.

And I'm just talking to him.

And he's

very complimentary.

That is so cool.

And I said something and he laughed.

And it's that laugh that we grew up with, the laugh that you always wanted your whole life.

And I'm just on the back patio at the Button Comedy Store.

And he's laughing.

And it was like, oh, my God.

Yeah.

And it's made Letterman laugh like that.

That's amazing.

It's the best.

I've never had the opportunity to talk to him outside of camera or just.

He's very sweet these days.

You know,

He's a different guy in a way.

I'm so glad that it's neat to see that he's out doing so much stuff, like going on podcasts and stuff, because it's not like he didn't go the route of Johnny Carson and just sort of become a sluice on his boat out and never took him.

I don't think he'd see him again.

I think he might have tried.

You know what I mean?

But that's sort of where you're at, too.

You're kind of like, you know, you have to, you're up against that.

It's weird that you get to a certain age and you have such an impact on so many generations.

I thought it was interesting in the doc about how Eric Andre at least gives you credit for inventing him.

Yeah, yeah, it was cool.

He was very cool about that.

Yeah.

And also I saw some other random kind of self-produced documentary where the guy who made that kind of credits you with creating the video podcast.

Right, right, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you and I, we sort of were the early adapters to this shit, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it was, you were probably the first podcast, I guess, right?

In LA that

was having

comedians and stuff.

Yeah, it was all audio.

Well, I mean, Carolla was around and Pardo and a few other people, but, but, you know, we stay in audio because that's what we do.

Yeah.

But the video thing, I don't think we could have assumed that the ability to do video podcasts would actually hijack and overwhelm mainstream show business.

Yeah, amazing.

You know, I, I,

I, I, uh,

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 get a television show unless I just made one myself, right?

Right.

And so that was the sort of the public access show that we started in 1994 up in Canada, the Tom Green show,

was just my friends and I making it, you know.

We didn't actually build the studio, though.

There was a studio there already.

The cameras and everything were there at the studio.

But my friend Glenn Humplick, who and my other friend Phil, who were on the show,

they're like tech guys.

Ottawa's pretty tech.

And my dad also was a became a computer guy when he retired from the military.

He was COBOL program.

Lots of technology up there in Ottawa.

So believe it or not.

But

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, push it, and it would post automatically onto the website, onto TomGreen.com.

And so I just, it was nothing.

It was just me walking around New York, you know, hey, I'm in New York, you know, and then hey, everybody, you know, watch the show tonight or whatever.

But there was this sort of awareness that, oh, you can put audio on the website.

Yeah.

And then I was like, well, when can we put video on the website?

And we were sort of waiting, you know, like, when can we put,

it's getting faster.

How long can we put video on the website?

And,

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.

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 ourselves and 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?

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

catered to corporate sort of websites.

You could put a corporate video up or whatever, right?

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

became the TriCaster, but it was the Video Toaster at the time, which was a switcher, a television switcher that they would sell to churches, right?

And like to do, you know, to plug their cameras in and film the church service or whatever and put it

and

you know they they set me up with this thing and

you know started just kind of engaging with all these sort of technology

kind of people and

and it was it was it was wild because it worked you know but uh but

there was sort of this sort of feeling of like well you know you know

it was interesting because I would invite

people up and you know and

people would kind of of come to the house and they thought it was weird.

You had all these cameras everywhere.

But I remember there was a,

sometimes I hope that I'm just dreaming this happened and it didn't actually happen.

But I do actually believe this happened.

I remember once checking my email and I had all these, like, we're uploading our footage every day to the website.

Yeah.

Before YouTube existed.

And 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.

I'm doing my own thing.

You could have been on the ground floor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was sort of like...

There were 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 the time.

And you had to

sort of, you had a vision that you had to then engage with these other people that were.

We did a streaming show for Air America in 2007 or eight, and there was no streaming audience, really.

Yeah, yeah.

But we spent a lot of money to create a website where we could upload, you know, videos every day.

But there was still,

I think YouTube was probably pretty young, but there was just no audience for it.

And now that's the whole audience.

Yeah.

And sometimes you kind of miss your timing on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, you know, we did a streaming show, but no one could stream.

The pioneers leave with the arrows in their back.

That's a good one.

But do you ever find, how do you deal with, it looks like in Canada, when you're doing stand-up,

that because you're sort of one of their own and stuff, they're just happy to see you.

And they're like, you know, they've been with you the whole time and they're proud of you.

And, you know, they seem to have

a deeper and kind of heartfelt appreciation of people that age

in the world that they live in.

And you know what I mean?

In the sense that, like, you know, this is Tom Green now.

We can accept that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, it's, it's honestly, it's

the,

in the States, too, it's like, you know, it's at this point, you know, the people kind of grew up with me on TV, too.

It's like I had a show, was it last night?

Night before last night, in L.A.

at the L.

Ray Theater, and it was great.

It was great.

But I've been on tour in the U.S.

all winter.

Shows have been awesome.

I mean, it's, it's, it's.

What's the age group?

Is it like, you know, are they it's it's it's it's interesting.

There is a

younger audience coming too as well, but it is, you know, it's

a pretty broad group of people, you know, for sure.

And

but

yeah, it's it's it's it is a combination of I try to talk about some of the old stuff, you know, and talk about some of the stories and things from, you know, Eminem rapping about me and all these some of the pranks and things like that.

And then I I

of course try to to do material as well and bring new material.

And so it's kind of now been touring, you know, long enough that I think I have a lot of people that come out from just from seeing me do stand-up the last time.

Right.

But also, like, you're because you're kind of in a way,

even though you did stand up early on, you know, you have the chops, but now, like,

the pressure is not to be crazy.

Yeah.

You're just sort of reflecting on your life.

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 the thing that I think what I also kind of come to the conclusion is that, like,

uh-oh, Charlie.

Uh-oh.

You okay?

She's just.

She's cute.

Yeah, she's okay.

She's just, she probably ate some grass this morning.

And now I I gotta clean up the vomit.

Yeah, it's okay.

You're okay, Charlie.

You're okay.

You're okay.

You're okay, Doug.

You're okay.

She, good news, is there some paper towel ready.

Sure.

One second.

Charlie, you okay?

You're okay, baby.

You're okay.

Come over here.

Come over here.

It's okay.

Come over here, Charlie.

It's okay, baby.

It's okay.

You're okay, baby.

Come here.

Come here.

You okay?

Uh-oh.

At least moment in the same place that moment before.

Hold on one second.

She'll be okay.

It's sort of

she just.

Oh, shit.

Now I'm really fucking...

As I was saying, this is all a setup, baby.

I'm all in the China shop, right?

He's up to his old tricks.

Not the coffee.

He'll break the microphone.

He brought the vomiting dog.

I knew this would end here.

No, she's okay.

Yeah, good.

Sometimes she eats some grass in the morning.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

But when you have animals, you live with vomiting animals.

Yeah, yeah.

She's okay.

Are you okay, baby?

Yeah, you're okay.

You're okay.

She is okay, too.

Yeah, she's not worried.

She doesn't vomit every day, but she has vomited occasionally like that.

And it's usually because she ate some grass in the morning or something.

Yeah, she seems all right.

She's a rescue from the Bahamas.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

Island dog.

Yeah, yeah.

And

but yeah, you just lie down there.

Yeah, no, but it's.

When we started the show, you know, video cameras were new,

and the idea of having a completely unfiltered, crazy, you know, when I was a kid too, and I was a skateboarder and running around doing crazy stuff, but there wasn't all this crazy stuff, you know.

It wasn't TikTok and there wasn't people running around.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was unique.

So yeah, it was kind of like you had the, it did stand out to have that ability to go just do something completely uncontrolled.

Yeah.

But now it's, you know, like you get up in the morning, you pick up your phone and you're inundated with crazy shit on your phone every day.

Yeah,

it kind of makes me want to do something normal.

It's almost weirder to do something kind of normal.

Like, oh, I'm at a farm, I'm learning how to ride a horse.

Oh, that's almost weirder

than

me, and maybe even just in general.

Like when you watch the internet now, it's so much crazy shit.

Oh, maybe something that's kind of nice and well, also, it's like there's

a kind of mature self-ownership of it.

Like, you know, I think that we all kind kind of do our crazy shit and do our youth in a certain way.

But as you get older, you realize, like, well, that was just me kind of like swinging my dick around or whatever, just, you know, trying to get out of me.

But eventually, the best thing that can happen is you land in yourself and believe that that's enough.

You know what I mean?

Like,

I'm just a person, and this is the life I'm living, but my mind is my mind, and I'll share this with you in this way.

I'm not going to, you know, dump milk on myself.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's like,

you know,

I say sometimes like it's like when I was a kid, I was like terrified about the future, right?

Yeah.

So you kind of have to over

fight the future.

Yeah, yeah.

I was terrified.

There's so much, you know, and I'm much calmer now because when you're a kid, it's like your future is so unpredictable.

There's so much ahead of you.

And now that 53, there's, I say, so much less of my life left to ruin.

You know,

so it's like you can kind of,

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.

And also the combination of just aging and then having gone through the cancer thing, you know, you've got two, you know, that perspective came on you kind of, you know, in a shocking way.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That you survived the cancer thing and that kind of reconfigured your sense of life.

And now it's just you've lived.

And now this is a lighter sort of acceptance.

Yeah.

I think about the, I got 28 28 years old, I got cancer.

That's why I stopped the show on MTV was when I had cancer.

And

I

sort of crazily actually kind of am glad that it happened now, that I've survived it, because it's like I go,

it does sort of make you realize, oh man, you know, like anytime like anything bad happens, I'm like, well, at least I'm not like in the hospital with my, you know, lymph node dissection healing, you know, which was sort of an even bigger surgery that I had to go through.

Yeah.

So it's like, you know, you kind of, your perspective changes for sure.

But yeah, and the other thing that's changed a lot in the last few years is just with the internet is like, I remember during the pandemic,

you know, I literally just started doing all these Zoom calls with people.

So you realize, well, you don't really have to be anywhere anymore in specific, you know?

And with stand-up, we're traveling all the time anyways.

that you know I guess when you go home you can go home to wherever the hell you want really you know and you're enjoying the stand-up I love it.

I love it.

Yeah.

So this winter,

I've been on I took the camper van again for this

tour.

I started up in Canada.

I drove down through Nashville, down to Tulsa, and down to Dallas and Austin, Phoenix, and up through Colorado and back up to Pitcher.

For 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.

Yeah, he's no Dean me.

So it's been super fun.

But, you know, usually I just go to

get a local comic to come open up the show, and then I do it.

But

yeah, no, I love it.

And,

yeah, it's been great.

Well, good.

It's good to talk to you, man.

Yeah.

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 on the show.

You're driving up?

Yeah.

So this run, we flew into Phoenix from the farm, rented a car.

Who?

My fiancé and I.

Oh, and has she been to the States a lot?

No, not really.

So

she's seeing the country, yeah.

So she's been a couple places, but not.

So she hasn't seen San Francisco or not.

No, exactly.

That's going to be great.

Yeah, it's really fun.

Oh, that's really.

Fly back to the farm from Seattle.

Is Dean going to do those shows up on the coast with you?

I think he's just doing these ones.

Yeah.

I don't think he's going to go all the way up the coast.

He's been the LA ones, yeah.

All right.

Well, good seeing you.

I'm glad you're well.

Nice to meet Charlie.

Yeah, she's feeling better.

Look, she's looking at you.

Yes, she is.

All right, Tom.

Have a good, safe trip.

Thanks, Mark.

Dog puked on my rug.

That Tom Green, he set me up.

It was great to see him.

You can watch the special, his dock, and the series Tom Green Country on Prime Video.

Hang out for a minute.

Folks, if you have a WTF Plus subscription, you can go back and listen to the first time Tom was on.

It was all the way back in 2013.

I've been married twice, man.

They were both three and a half years.

I think the thing is, you got to imagine what would it be like for you.

Yeah.

What's your first wife's name?

Kim.

Kim.

Yeah.

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?

Oh, yeah, I remember you with Kim.

Weren't you married to that Kim?

Welcome to my life.

That's episode 360, available ad-free for WTF Plus subscribers.

To sign up for WTF Plus, go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

Here's some, uh, here's a Mark Marin Oldie guitar noodle thing riff.

Go.

Boomer lives

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