Tom Green has always seemed to be ahead of the curve. From his rap group and public access television to an early adoption of the Internet and a Web-based talk show, the comedian has done things his way. Now Green has returned to stand-up.
“It’s just an exciting thing,” Green said earlier this month during a phone interview from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland. “I really am very focused on the craft of what I’m doing here with stand-up.”
| Onstage |
| Tom Green |
| Where: D.C. Improv, 1140 Connecticut Ave. NW |
| When: 8 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday. |
| Info: $25; dcimprov.com |
Green performs at the D.C. Improv Friday through Sunday.
A refresher on Green, who turned 40 last month: Popular show on MTV in the mid-’90s; successful battle with testicular cancer; less than successful marriage to Drew Barrymore; movies such as “Road Trip.”
Green’s recent contribution to culture is planking, a fad where people pose facedown with arms to their side, the stranger the location the better. Green used to do a similar pose in the ’90s and has video to prove it.
“It’s funny, because people go ‘How do you invent planking? How do you invent lying down on your face?” Green said. “Well, it’s a very specific move done for a very specific reason. The joke is sort of dead now. When I was doing it, it wasn’t something that people did. It didn’t make any sense, and that was what was funny about it. Now that it’s something that’s done and that’s popular, it really doesn’t work anymore.”
“When planking is being planked in the hands of people that aren’t proper plankers, they don’t really understand the meaning of planking, they’re not going to execute it properly,” Green continued. “There’s some etiquette to it.”
Green has been on the road the last two years, and hasn’t had time to focus on his Web show, which he recently put on hiatus.
“It was literally in many ways kind of a life-changing thing,” Green said. “It really reinvigorated my audience.”
In keeping with his tech-savvy mind-set, Green’s stand-up routine touches upon modernity, discussing the effect of Facebook, texting and other advances in communication.
“A lot of things about our addiction to Facebook and our cell phones and computers and the World Wide Web and information is alarming to me,” he said. “I like to talk about things like this because I’ve been submersed in the Internet myself for probably longer than most people.”
Coming up, Green said he’s developing a couple of television projects, and continuing to tour. He plans on filming a live stand-up special next month, his first in his long career.
“I’m super stoked,” he said. “I’ve always been so focused on trying to deliver my point of view to my audience and I didn’t really want to pull any punches. Here I’m in this situation now realizing this is the forum I’ve always wanted. There’s no gimmicks, there’s no tricks. It’s an amazing adrenaline rush.”
