Tom's Blog

May 19, 2008

Good morning gang.  It is Monday again. Man, they just keep coming fast.  The weeks are just blending together.  The months are just swirling past.  It really is amazing how quickly even a year goes by these days. 

I guess the older you get the faster time seems to pass by.  Everything is relative I suppose.  So a day is really a much shorter amount of time, relative to our overall experiences, the longer we are around.  The days are flying past so fast sometimes I can hardly get anything done.  It seems like we are always running out of time around here.

Regardless, we are going to keep plowing forward here at The Channel.  We are finishing up the color correction of our windows here in the studio.  This means we will be pretty excited to fire up the studio during the daytime over the next few days.  It's gonna look great.  We will now be able to shoot the opposite direction if we want, with the windows in the background, and the view.  Should look pretty cool.  We will see.  Maybe if the work gets finished early enough we may even be able to fire it up today.

Hope you guys and gals all had a great weekend.  Mine was about as laid back as it can get.  I sat at in the edit bay for most of it, so my back is hurting.  I actually am in a lot of pain these days from all the injuries, and surgeries, and sitting at computer chairs etc...  I'm not complaining.  But it is something that I have been dealing with and I am going to get a bit more aggressive with treatment I think.  I need to start some form of physical therapy.  Sometimes I feel like an old man, hobbling around.  It's ridiculous.  I mean I'm 36 years old for crying out loud! 

It's funny that as you get a bit older you start to lose track of your age.  I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the blog, but I spent most of this year thinking I was 37.  It wasn't until just a couple of months ago that my mother told me that I was actually 36.  I spent half the year worrying about how I was 37, when I wasn't.  What a waste.  By the time I found out I was still only 36, I almost was 37.  I turn 37 in July.  July 30th to be precise.  Great news, considering I will have already been 37 for a year in my mind by that point.  Damn.  This blog is starting to sound like some crazy guy rambling.  Oh, wait a minute.  It is.  :)

I'm gonna go hop on the other computer and edit some more video from our trip.  We may post a few clips today to get some of your feedback.  Let us know which of the new clips you like, so we will use them in the next season of the show.  Testicle Festival is the only one we have posted from the road trip.  We will be taking it down today, and replacing it with a few others for you guys to check out.  Then we will be taking those ones down also, and holding them for the broadcast versions of the show.  (Tom Green's House Tonight is still available for syndication to TV around the world and will be airing soon on The Comedy Network in Canada)

So consider yourselves lucky gang!  You get a sneak peak of clips from the TV show here at The Channel before anyone else gets to see them.  We will only leave the clips up for a day or so, and many of them will be in raw unedited form.  I think that's kind of fun like that.  To have the process evolve online.  Good times.

Thanks for being part of the fun.  See you next time we flip the switch, and watch for some fun new clips.  Rock n Roll and happy Monday!

Tom Green

May 17, 2008

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

May 17, 2008

This is great.  I just checked out Lamstock's top video where he takes us on a lovely stroll through Dublin.  I would love to see more of this from everyone in the gang!  Show us your part of the world. 

Just let me know when you have posted a video in DepuTV and I will tell everyone to check it out.  You can email me the information about how to find your video in the contact section.  Go check out this Blog gang!

http://tomgreen.com/blogs/lamstock

May 13, 2008

Hey gang.  We are back at The Channel after a long and productive road trip.  2 weeks on the road can be a bit draining.  But I also have to say it was a whole lot of fun.  And on top of the fun, we shot a whole bunch of great footage.  I am going to start editing today after taking the weekend off.  We may even put the LIVE cameras on the edit bay so you can be part of the editorial process.   Nothing like watching in and out points getting set LIVE.  That sounds like some exciting webo-vision.

I will say that I am looking forward to this week, and getting into the groove here.  We have actually built a new mailing list, that we will begin testing today.  If you would like to be a member of this list you can sign up in the top right hand corner of the website.  Just enter your information where it says NEWSLETTER at the top of the page.  This new newsletter is going to work better technically than what we have been using in the past.  So expect frequent updates, and regular "top secret" messages.  Yippee.

If you have been watching our LIVE feed, expect to see a bit more movement on there as well in the coming days and weeks.  Thanks for watching The Channel.  Tell a friend about www.tomgreen.com today!  I appreciate it.

I will check in with you guys in a few hours and let you all know what is going on.  Cheers!

May 12, 2008

Like A Typical Day At The Channel!  :)

Bill O'Reilly Snaps...Again - Watch more free videos

May 09, 2008

Just going to spend a couple of days with Annie and Steve and Rex.  My two Siberian Huskies, and my Parrot.  Nice to see the family again.  :)  You may notice that there is some work going on around the house/channel here. 
I will be leaving the LIVE stream on so you can watch some of the work getting done.  I think I may leave the LIVE feed on all the time now.  So stay tuned.

I am going to lay low for a couple of days while the work is getting done.  Floors are being polished, the house painted inside and out.  We will putting the studio together again Monday and will be going LIVE next week from The Channel for sure.

This weekend I am going to begin looking through some of the footage we shot on the trip.  Editing together some goofy pieces for you guys.  Should be fun.  See you guys Monday!  Have a great weekend gang!

Tom Green

May 07, 2008

We are driving to Los Angeles now. It was a fun trip. Probably one of the most fun road trips I have been on. And I have been to almost every state in the USA. And every province in Canada. I have criss crossed practically every highway. But this one has been great. We made some new friends along the way. Thanks everyone who came out and said hello. It has been a blast.

Tonight I am going to settle down at my edit bay and start looking a footage. And I am going to start cutting some funny stuff for you folks to see. Can't wait to start dropping some stupid clips out there online over the next few weeks. Should be fun.

And I think I have learned a few things this trip. On the open road. I think I have grown a bit, both as a person, and as a video maker. We really dialed this HVX-200 camera. We are getting some really sweet pictures from it, clean pictures, pretty pictures. I love documenting the vast landscapes that we traveled through. The deserts, and the beaches, and the forests. The small towns and the big towns that we criss crossed through along the way. And the interesting people, and quirky characters we encountered. At the truck stops, and the dive bars, and all the places in between.

I am going back to Los Angeles now. This is the city that I have called home for the past eight or more years. I like Los Angeles. But I love being out on the road more. I never really feel lost out in the real world. In fact in many ways, I feel more lost when I get home. LA is a strange place to live if you are not from there. And in many ways I am sad that this trip has to end so soon.

I think typing into this crazy blog over the last few years has helped keep me focused. It certainly is nice to be anywhere in the world, and to have you guys to check in with. I guess you could say over the last ten years I have traveled a lot. I have been to every state except Delaware and New Hampshire. I have been to many of them twice. I have spent months in Saskatchewan. Weeks in Alaska. Days in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, The Carolinas, Kansas, Indiana, Michigan, Massachusetts, Ohio, Nebraska, Wyoming and all the rest.... Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and B.C. Sometimes it feel like I am always on the road.

I have been in Italy, Japan, Germany, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, England, France, Ireland, and some places I must have forgot. We even went to Iraq a few years ago. Right after they captured Saddam Hussein. We went to one of his palaces that had been converted to an internet cafe for soldiers. We flew through Baghdad in Blackhawk helicopters and visited with many US troops. We went into Kuwait, and Quatar, and Kosovo, and Djibouti Africa, and United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, and the list goes on and on.

I am usually happy and comfortable on the road. But as we are driving back into Los Angeles today, I also feel happy to be heading home. And yes, I miss my dogs. I can't wait to see Annie and Steve. I miss my girls.

But one thing I am starting to notice more and more. The more often I am away, in a new place I am surprised how similar everything seems to be. The cities and roads and traffic lights and buildings, and architecture, and hotel chains, and coffee franchises, and fast food stands are in every town. The same. Sometimes I wonder if it is too much of a coincidence. That everything is so neatly arranged and convenient to find. It makes the world at times feel very small. And although comforting in the moment, it is all to often a disappointment as well. It is becoming harder and harder to be surprised. It is getting much more difficult to find something entirely new.

The furthest I had ever traveled was when we flew 24 hours straight around the world to Bahrain. In the middle east. And I thought as I got off the plane how ridiculous it was to be on the other side of this big blue planet. And I thought about how my home where I grew up, was directly beneath my feet. Through all that rock, and magma. And then we drove to downtown Bahrain. And we checked into a Marriot hotel. And then we took a short walk outside in the streets. Past the Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Dairy Queen, the Burger King, the Cinnabon, Starbucks, and more. We opted for the KFC. I ordered the extra crispy, and though delicious, I secretly was wishing for something else in this first experience. Something other than the plastic traffic lights and walk and don't walk signals that we trudged past on the way to our meal. The red painted curbs lining the freshly paved streets, just like the ones in my hometown, and in New York and LA and everywhere else. When you grow up on a skateboard you notice this stuff. There must be a guidebook for urban engineers that gets distributed worldwide. Because the street signs and the painted lines on the road are virtually always the same. That part of it sucks

I have stopped myself lately from being disappointed by these similarities. I instead have tried hard to focus on the things that are new. The surprises are really the things that keep me going out on the road. The little differences that don't immediately thrust themselves in your face, but at closer inspection are just as amazing and surreal.

One of the highlights on this trip for me was in Butte, Montana. At the turn of the century this was a booming copper mining town. Over 100 000 people lived there. Today it is just a fraction of that. The longest running house of prostitution was there for the miners, until it closed in the 1980's. It's still there and has this creepy mannequin in the upstairs window wearing lingerie. The streets on the Sunday we were there were empty. Minus a few lonely pedestrians and the occasional car. The few cars that passed would beep at us with our camera, and pull over to say hello. Evel Kneivel is from Butte. And my favorite place was this Chinese restaurant in the downtown core. It is the oldest restaurant in the USA west of the Mississippi. We popped in for a drink. It has been operated by the same Chinese family since it opened in the 1880's! The booths in the restaurant are the same as they have always been. And they have one of the original menu's on the wall with most item's costing between 10 and 25 cents. It is like walking back in time. It exists as it did 120 years ago. We sat down at the bar, ordered a beer, and stared out the window at the snow capped rockies of Montana. The mountains also had not changed. It was the kind of moment that makes you feel small. It reminds you of your mortality. Don't sweat the small stuff. Not only will the mountains outlive all of us. But so can a Chinese restaurant in Butte Montana. Or the massive redwoods of Humbolt county. It was an amazing trip.

We are heading back into Los Angeles now. Right now. I am sitting in the RV typing this on a fold out table. Thanks for coming along for the ride. I will check in with you all soon, LIVE from The Channel. Stay tuned gang.

Tom Green

May 07, 2008

Hey gang. Well I bet you thought we would have stopped in Las Vegas. Actually we are in the town of McGill Nevada. We stopped last night, in this small copper mining town in the middle of the Nevada desert. Good people here.

We walked around mainstreet for a few minutes. The town has an amazing little bar that has a lot of history. The local folks bought us some beers. The bartender, Norm Linnell has been working at the bar for 69 years. There are pictures of the town on the wall from the 1920's. It is quite the place in the middle of the desert. We ended up staying the night up the road in the town of Eureka.

I am just waking up now, and we are going to begin exploring some of the smaller mining communities in the area. Nevada, is an amazing place. Just yesterday in Mcgill we met a bunch of great people, and interviewed them. I can't wait for you guys to meet Gary. He is a retired miner who loves the chicken at Kenny Roger's roasters. I have never eaten there, but I have to now. You won't believe how good Gary can make Kenny Roger's Roasters sound. Hmmm. Maybe I should just edit the video and show you guys. I will do that soon.

Back in Los Angeles in a day or so. I have to edit all this footage we shot on this trip. Probably shot 100 hours of HD footage, at all the great places we visited. Then in a few days we will start going back on the air and packaging the new season of Tom Green's House Tonight. Can't wait to show everyone the new shows.

I think we are finding a nice tone for the new season. It is a pretty strange thing to keep shooting television year after year. It is an evolution. I know it can be a bit confusing here at the website, because they style of the show has changed over the years. But I think it is important to keep changing.

Even if some of you want the show to always stay the same, I personally have to keep changing. I need to try new things, in order to keep myself interested. It is an exciting experiment, this webo-vision show. We are having a great time. And I personally am really enjoying traveling the country, meeting lots of cool people, and experimenting with new technology.

I am also really learning that I like to keep things positive. It may not be as instantly gratifying, but in the end, staying positive seems to work better in the long run. As I have gotten older, the desire to go out on the street and make people angry has diminished. I guess I just want to have a nice time with folks. Plus, pretty well everywhere we go people recognize me on the streets. I am amazed how in small town Nevada people come running from across the street with copies of the Freddy Got Fingered DVD, or Roadtrip. It just doesn't make sense anymore to be an asshole.

That's not to say that we haven't confused a lot of folks on this trip. I think the bit where we walked across The Golden Gate Bridge will be a fun one. I think we confused a bunch of old people and Japanese tourists. But I just don't have the urge to go get in a screaming match with some security guard anymore. I just don't enjoy the negativity. The older you get, the more you find that negative energy only ends up coming right back at you. If you put negative energy out there, you generally end up going to bed at night feeling bad.

Not that we were ever THAT negative. But I think living my life online the last few years has opened my eyes. I amazed at the horrible things people have written in to this website. I can't even begin to tell you how harsh some of the emails I have received have been. I have been goaded into a few arguments with folks online, and with other people in the media. I never feel good after one of these little spats. And about a year ago I decided I am just finished with them. If somebody writes something negative into this website, or if somebody says something mean about me in the media, I ignore it. Whenever I engage with this type of stuff, I always end up feeling bad. Because inevitably I end up saying something that is much meaner than anything that was said to me.

And I don't like being mean. So if you write a snarky email into the CONTACT section of this website, and you don't get a response, this is why. The fact is, I will remember you. And I will never talk to you again. If you want to be my online buddy or pal, keep it positive.  :)  This website is about embracing positivity. About chillin' with the positive people. And I appreciate the fact that there are so many more of you out there!

In fact, the longer I keep this positive vibe going, the fewer negative emails we even get. I guess I kind of feel like this website is a place where I can make friends with a large community of folks online. Maybe I even look at it like a house party. If you are down with the cause. If you understand the grass roots nature of what I am doing. If you understand that this is just an experiment, and that this website has limited funding, and that this website is a small operation. Not a corporate operation. If you understand that, then you are apt to keep it real and be positive. And when you understand what this place is all about. Then you can hang out with us and have some fun.

Thanks to all the positive people. You are the majority. And I appreciate all of your support. We are heading out into the desert now to talk to more of you. And to have some fun with these crazy new fangled video cameras. I hope you guys all have a great day. Stay tuned. You guys rock.

Tom Green

May 06, 2008

Well we had a nice rest in Salt Lake City.  When I say rest, I simply mean we stayed in the same motel two nights in a row.  We took a day off driving.  But now we are heading back out on the road.

I will say that we are entering the last few days of our road trip.  I want to thank everyone who has been watching and following along.  We are not rushing back to Los Angeles by any means, but we are heading in that direction.  There is still plenty to be seen.  I think today we will be arriving at The Grand Canyon!  We will be doing a multi camera shoot form there.  Should be fun.   We will also be driving the RV out onto a dry lake bed today in Utah.  I am excited about many of the great sites which we should be hitting over the next couple of days.

The good news is that we have had a blast on this trip.  We have figured the details on how to make this mobile studio work.  And we are going to do it again.  The plan is to go back to Los Angeles, and edit all the great footage we have shot.  We are then going to shoot another 24 episodes of Tom Green's House Tonight incorporating all this great new stuff from the road.  And then we are going to tweak the mobile studio, make some technical adjustments, and then hit the road again.

I want to hit every state in the USA and every province in Canada.  Then Europe.  Then the world.  Stay tuned gang.  We are going to have lots of fun here at The Channel over the next couple of years.  And I want to take you guys and gals everywhere with us LIVE.  We also want to make sure we get to all of you who didn't get to see us in person on this round.  We are coming to Indiana, Michigan, New York, Florida, Texas, and Kansas and everywhere around and in between.   Stay tuned gang.  You guys all rock.  Give us a moment to catch our breath, and figure out how to make it happen. 
But we will be back on the road soon.

Thanks again for all of the support, and thanks to all the great people we have met these past two weeks.  Both online, and on the road.  We will be going LIVE today.  Stay tuned.

Tom Green

May 05, 2008

Hey gang.  So we are in Salt Lake City Utah.  We are heading south now as you cn see if you have been following along.  We have been having a great trip, and getting lots of great footage.

We will be shooting some LIVE mobile command center footage today in and around Salt Lake.  Stay tuned.  I think we will probably have some fun today.  Please give us a call on Skype.

I would like to quickly say that we have had a great time, and met so many awesome folks on the trip so far.  It really has been an enjoyable experience touching base with so many folks around this country.  Everybody has been awesome.  

I would also like to say that this has been a nice template for future trips.  When we get back to Los Angeles we will be preparing to shoot another season of shows from the house.  But we also are already thinking about out next mobile studio adventure.  I have a feeling this will be the first of many road trip adventures.

We are currently looking for a sponsor who may want to help keep us on the road for longer periods of time.  Obviously it is quite expensive to be on tour.  I would like to thank The Canadian Comedy Network for providing us with the funding for this first of many adventures.  Stay tuned for the next season of Tom Green's House Tonight which will include all of the footage that we have shot on this trip.  (99 percent of what we have shot has not been posted, or even aired on the website yet.)  I can't wait for you guys to see some of the goofy stuff we have shot on the trip.  Lot's of fun.

So I hope all of you people are having a great day.  We will be hitting the road soon and going LIVE.  Stay tuned!

Tom Green