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It's Easy Being Green by Martha Frankel "I know what you're thinking," says Tom Green, holding my elbow and steering me through the throngs of New Yorkers rushing around on this clear day. "You're saying to yourself, 'This guy only has one ball. How does it look? How does it work? Can he still have sex?' Am I right?" I would like to say that those thoughts had never crossed my mind. That I have never (never!) imagined Tom Green's testicles. But I'd be lying. "Looks fine. Works fine," says Green. "Any other questions?" Tom Green had been mining his own weird experiences for years before he started making light of his testicles. On "The Tom Green Show," which originated in Canada before it was picked up by MTV, he sucked milk from a cow's udder, let farm animals loose in his parents' home, escorted Monica Lewinsky around his hometown of Ottawa, and even set his own feet aflame. The first US film in which he had a major role, Road Trip, was a big hit in part because of his wacky slurping of a live mouse. But the challenge to bring humor to territories never before laughed about hit an unexpected peak when Green was "touching [his] balls one night" and felt something unfamiliar. Two doctors told him it was a skin condition, but the third realized that it was testicular cancer. He went through surgery and grueling chemotherapy, making sure the doctors saved his cancerous testicle in a jar. A few months later, he did an MTV special about it in which he sang the song "Feel Your Balls." The special was a smashing success and Green says he's heard from hundreds of boys and their parents, thanking him for giving them the warning signs of a disease that most people are, to put it mildly, uncomfortable with. "They write to say that I helped save their lives," says Green modestly. "That makes me feel good." Having walked up and down the street for a while trying to decide on a place for lunch, Green and I finally settle on a funky little diner and grab a booth looking out on the street. Within minutes of our getting settled, a 12-year-old girl comes to the table. "Can you sign this for me?" she asks Green, handing him a filthy napkin. Green doesn't flinch. "Sure. Why aren't you in school?" "Lunch break," she says. PAGE 1 | 2 |
  
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"How do you know him?" I ask the girl, trying to figure out which part of Green's oeuvre she's a fan of. "He wrote 'The Bum Bum song,'" she says proudly. Soon there is a line of kids waiting for his autograph. They are black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and range in age from 10 to 18. "I loved your show when you made your friend learn the trapeze and he puked after," one of them says. Another tells him that she loved Charlie's Angels. One says truthfully, "I wanted your autograph because your girlfriend is that famous woman from E.T., right?" Green chats with each of them. As he approaches 30, Green's humor doesn't just still border on the adolescent, it still is adolescent. And Green is unapologetic. "Fart jokes," he muses. "When do they stop being funny? Never. There are some things in Freddy Got Fingered that have been on my mind for years. Like wanking off an elephant. C'mon, you can't tell me that isn't hilarious. Or there's a scene where I deliver a baby and swing it around by its umbilical cord. What's not to laugh? Or there's this cripple in the movie who likes to have her legs caned with a piece of bamboo. Not funny? Please...I had cancer in my balls, for chrissakes. If I can find the humor in that..." "Do people expect you to be a laugh riot every minute?" "I think when you're playing a wild and crazy fuck-up on television, and making a fool of yourself and acting like an idiot, it's hard for some people to realize there's a lot of thought that goes into creating a joke, and I take it very seriously. And it's interesting when you start taking idiocy seriously. In a way it becomes like a mathematical thing--you can calculate where a laugh is going to come. That's my favorite part, figuring out how to keep the joke going long enough so the payoff is great." "When you got cancer, did you stop drinking?" "Honey, that's when you start drinking." "No, I meant did you have to change your lifestyle dramatically?" "You know, the first surgery [removing the testicle] was pretty painless. But when they took my lymph nodes, that knocked me back for a few mont hs. Then I was getting chemotherapy. But I'll tell you this--once you've had cancer, it's very hard to worry about whether your little skit is working. But as soon as it was over, I felt better and just went back to being Tom Green." For the full story, pick up the April issue of Movieline. PAGE 1 | 2 |