Hollywood Exclusive by Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith

Tom Green Takes His Show Worldwide, Including War Zone/Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson Talks About What Makes Him Weep

Tom Green has been doing his stand-up comedy thing all over the world this past year. But no doubt, his most recent foreign travel — touring military installations in Afghanistan this month — will continue to stand out in his mind ahead of other gigs.

"It was a bizarre, surreal, exciting experience," he declares.

"You are very aware you're in a war zone. If you go to my website (tomgreen.com) you can see video, as we're flying in a Chinook helicopter — see these guys hanging out the windows with machine guys, watching for missiles. That was the most nerve-wracking thing to me — the helicopter. It hugs the ground, and it's like a roller-coaster as they make combat-evasive maneuvers."

"I went over with the Canadian military," explains Green, whose father was in the Canadian army through his growing-up years. His biggest show was in Kandahar, performing before a crowd of Canadian, American, British and Australian troops.

Having toured Australia and the U.K. in recent months, he's found scant need to tailor his material to fit different nationalities.

"We are living in a very connected world of very common experiences now," he notes.

That's a topic viewers are bound to see him touch upon this summer; he has a new hour-long Showtime comedy special in the works, along with a documentary chronicling his travels. Such a peripatetic life is the antithesis of the Internet show he's been doing the last four years or so from his own living room.

"Basically, that sort of led to this," he says. "I've been having so much fun doing the Web show, which is very interactive, it seemed like a good time to take the show to everyone else and say hello. Also, touring the world doing stand-up is something I've always wanted to do. It's a challenge for me to try to do this. A couple of years ago, I started writing and performing it. ... I didn't intend to be touring full time for more than a year, but it becomes very addictive."

Green is headlining close to his L.A. home come April 8 and 9, at the Flappers Comedy Club.

Followers of Green's Web show will be interested to know he's getting ready to move it out of his house and into a new facility.

"It was fun doing it there at first," he says. But now, not so much.

He is also preparing to launch a new comedy website, Lafftube.com, with "live programming on all day" in addition to videos. Along for the ride will be some current comedy podcasters Green says he'll help develop.

BIG GUYS CAN CRY, TOO: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson will be front and center entertaining his male constituency next month, starting with his return to the WWE to host "WrestleMania 27" April 3, and continuing through release of the fifth "Fast and the Furious" testosterone-fueled street-racing action flick April 29. So — of course! — Entertainment Weekly used the occasion to ask the big guy what made him weep.

"I'm a very emotional man," says Johnson.

Those emotional things include his daughter's birth in 2001.

"I'm an only child and grew up with a very selfish 'I gotta take care of me' attitude. And when I first held my baby girl, it hit me like a ton of bricks that there's someone else in this world that I must commit to..." Aw!

Then Johnson's stroll through memory lane takes him to such moments as earning his first WWE (then WWF) world championship in 1998, winning the national championship with the University of Miami football team in 1992 and this one that will hit home with a lot of men:

"I accidentally closed the garage door on the front of my black Ford F-150 about three months ago. I shed a tear when I saw that happen. That's my baby, my favorite car to drive." Sniff. Sniff.

The issue hits stands tomorrow (3/25).

PERSEVERANCE PAYS AGAIN: Kudos to Ralph Macchio for doing a splendid job his first week on "Dancing With the Stars." And more, kudos to Macchio for having the persistence to successfully press into new career territory after things slowed down for him. In 2010, his hilarious "Wax On, F—- Off" comedy video went viral, giving the industry and public a fresh take on his persona. As he told us, the video, directed by his friend Todd Holland of "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Larry Sanders" fame, "generated a decent amount of activity for me. That was part of the plan." He guested on "Psych" and "The Whole Truth," and worked on the project he may produce for A&E that has to do with the gypsy subculture in New York City. And now, he's landed on "Dancing," where it looks like he's a natural. Fancy footwork indeed.

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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