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'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.
Performing on stage is addictive. The adrenaline rush is exhilarating. When I stop touring for a couple weeks, I get antsy.
When you work in television, working for a big corporation, no matter who you are, you can always get cancelled. That sucks. Do you really want to work with an axe over your head for the rest of your life? Not me, not really, and not if you don't have to.
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.
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.
I want people to know that I'm not just this crazy person flailing around. A lot of thought goes into what I do.
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 tend to find comedy in dark places. I also tend to find comedy in taking on the status quo - which has always been something I find important.
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.
I grew up practically getting into this business because of David Letterman. I wanted to do comedy-based interviews.
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.
I recommend people don't get in high-profile marriages. There are a lot of people in the world. You don't have to marry someone with their own team of publicists, managers, agents, and lawyers.
If I ever interview somebody, I make sure I listen to them. As a comedian, I've gone on so many shows, I've wanted to take things to a crazy place. Sometimes the hosts don't like that.
Whenever you go on TV, there are so many checks and balances; it's a big business with a lot of rules. Stand-up is intimate and the freest, most lawless place I've ever been able to go.
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.
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.
It bothers me when people say 'shock comic' or 'gross-out' because that was only one type of comedy I did. There was prank comedy. Man-on-the-street-reaction comedy. Visually surreal comedy. But you do something shocking, and that becomes your label.
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.
