Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Tom Green is in the throes of preparation for the show he'll be filming at Boston's Wilbur Theatre Friday (Sept. 30) — which will be condensed into his first hour-long standup comedy cable special. Green, who rose to fame with his outrageous antics on MTV's "The Tom Green Show," spent more recent years leading the charge into internet comedy with his "Tom Green's House Tonight" talk show, live from his living room. But now he's into another chapter. He's been out on a global standup comedy tour, and he's all about coming back to reality.

"Everyone is doing the Internet now, so I kind of felt it was a fun time to go back to the most traditional medium there is: getting on stage and doing a live performance," he says. "Having been out touring the last two years, I have lots of material, lots of jokes, a whole bunch of stuff I'm going to be doing for the special.

"What's fun about this is that it's a completely different format. My show was out-on-the-street pranks and practical jokes on people, not standup comedy," he points out. "This is going to be the first time, hopefully, people get to know me being myself, talking for an hour."

Green says he doesn't want his show to be "preachy, but it is political, and I do talk about all sorts of different issues, in the media and in my personal life — my experience with cancer and all sorts of things. I find that serious subjects are the best places to find comedy because they're meaningful to people."

Among the topics Green explores is "our addiction to technology and people getting agoraphobic [because] they're so into their Facebook and cell phones. They're giving away their privacy and all this personal information. Most people have had a nightmare experience with Facebook by now. Marriages are breaking up over Facebook. We're being sucked into this digital vortex as a society without really thinking about the consequences." But there are lots of punchlines to this, he assures.

If the raves Green got at the recent Edinbugh Fringe Festival are any indication, the special ought to be well worthwhile. It will likely debut early in the new year. Until then, he has his ongoing calendar of gigs, including the Irvine, Calif., Improv Oct. 14-16. Being out on the road "actually energizes me," he says. "If I get a good amount of sleep every night, it's actually good for my health."

DON'T STOP BELIEVING: Former Antigone Rising frontwoman Cassidy is unveiling her new identity, Boheme, along with her first solo record, "Follow the Freedom" — with a completely unexpected assist by Journey's Steve Perry.

"I grew up in Northwestern New Jersey in an area that had only one radio station — a classic rock station — so I grew up listening to Journey and Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Nicks ...

Steve Perry was a huge influence," recalls the auburn-haired beauty. She was busy mixing tracks on "Follow the Freedom" at Los Angeles' Capitol Records building with producer/engineer Niko Bolas, when Bolas suddenly announced, "'I have a big fan of yours in here who wants to meet you.' I was thinking someone who was a fan of my former band," she says. "I walked into the room and who turns around but Steve Perry? I had to rub my eyes, because I thought I was seeing things. He said, 'Hi, Darlin!'

"I said, 'I am a huge fan of yours! You taught me how to sing.'

"'I did?' he said. 'No wonder you sound good.'"

Perry not only wound up collaborating on the album behind the scenes, but he also performed backup vocal work on "Follow the Freedom."

Cassidy remembers Bolas telling her, "There's some sort of spirit connection there. He recognized something in your voice that sounded familiar.' It did feel a bit cosmic, a bit of a wink from the universe. If you're doing the right thing, the road will rise up to meet you."

That fortuitous turn of events came after years fraught with stress and disappointment for the singer-actress. Despite the success of female rockers Antigone Rising, she says she felt a sense of things going wrong after they signed a record deal.

"We'd been on our own for five years and been really independent," Cassidy says. "As soon as we handed it over, there was a campaign to change the image, to change the sound. 'This is what Atlantic Records wants. This is better for Starbucks.' The public had been responding to how different and unusual the band was, but once we got on a record label, they wanted to temper it. The hair got bigger, the makeup got darker and the clothes got more feminine ... My regret was that I did not fight it more."

After she and her band mates went separate ways, she says, "I was shell-shocked, heartbroken. I lost some of that fight I was born with. It was a tough time." She took time away to focus on acting and other pursuits.

Two years ago, Cassidy picked up the guitar again and found a new sound beginning to emerge. "Based on everything going on in the country," she says, the album's "message is going to be about starting over, about finding the positive in a negative." And she has.

THE VIDEOLAND VIEW: Lifetime TV is planning to bring us "The Pregnancy Project" — a movie based on a true story about a very bright high school girl who set out on a unique research project to prove her theories about stereotypical thinking when it comes to teen pregnancy. She did it by donning fake pregnancy padding as she went through her senior year.

To find out more about Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith and read their past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 MARILYN BECK AND STACY JENEL SMITH

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