Me, Tom Green and a World of Jerks

Tom Green and I have been orbiting one another for a long time.

He was born in 1971, and I came along two years later.

In the 1980s, when we were both supposed to be in bed on a school night, we were both staying up late watching golden-era Late Night with David Letterman.

In the early 1990s, when Maestro Fresh Wes, the Dream Warriors and Michee Mee were putting Toronto’s hip hop scene on the map, Tom was rapping in the group Organized Rhyme and I was rapping (far less conspicuously) in my mom's basement.

We finally met in 1998.

The Tom Green Show was a cult hit on Ottawa public television. Tom pioneered the type of public absurdity and shock humour that would make shows like Jackass widely palatable. I think he influenced reality television in general.

I was sent to Ottawa by Freewheeling Magazine editor Jonathan Bogo to meet Tom just before his show was picked up by MTV. I got to watch a taping, where I discovered the band Scratching Post, and interview Tom the next morning for a long-lost and I think never-published article.

Tom and Monica

We almost met a second time shortly after that. I was arriving at LAX with my band for a gig on the Sunset Strip, and to my surprise, there was Tom standing at the baggage carousel. But I didn’t interrupt him because he was in an embrace with Presidential sex scandal subject, Monica Lewinsky! Hand to God. They were pulling some kind of publicity stunt at the time.

Only months into his MTV gig, Tom was diagnosed with testicular cancer. True to his brand, he made a TV special about it, complete with graphic surgical footage. He also got married to Drew Barrymore and filed for divorce about six months later.

Years passed with no Tom Green in my life. Then, in 2008, he was cast to star as the villian alongside Dave England from Jackass in a stoner snowboarding movie called Shred. And guess who got a bunch of his hose-head songs placed on the soundtrack?

That’s right, Me!

This little career break was followed by having several more songs placed on the equally hazy 2009 follow-up, Revenge of the Boarding School Dropouts.

I’m not sure when I’ll cross paths with Tom Green again, but I hope it's soon. In the meanwhile, here’s one of my tunes from the RotBSD soundtrack (lyrics below).

World of Jerks by Michael Wickware

Some people master self-devotion

They just have needs instead of emotion

See them standing in the line, livid, livid

See them driving in the car living in a world full of jerks

And i’m one too

Some people captivate their own bad self

They just don’t stop to notice anyone else

See them waiting for the bus, livid, livid

See them acting like a jerk living in a world full of jerks

And I’m one too

We’re our own heros but we’re losing the fight

Don’t want to give up on humans but I just might

We’re getting dangerous, livid, livid

It could be any one of us living in a world full of jerks

And I’m one too