Cheech & Chong on Lakers Fandom, Cannabis Culture, and Classic Comedy - podcast episode cover

Cheech & Chong on Lakers Fandom, Cannabis Culture, and Classic Comedy

Apr 18, 20241 hr 26 min
--:--
--:--
Listen in podcast apps:

Episode description

In honor of 4/20 this upcoming Saturday, comedy icons Cheech and Chong take us on a hilarious journey through their iconic partnership. From reminiscing about the origins of their act and early influences, to sharing behind-the-scenes stories from cult classic films like "Up In Smoke," the duo keeps the laughs coming.

They also open up about their love for the Showtime Lakers, encounters with legends like Jack Nicholson, Pee-wee Herman and Redd Foxx, struggles with racism, and their profound impact on cannabis culture. Get ready for candid tales of their highest experiences, famous smoking buddies, and insights into the stigmas they've helped shatter.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Mm hmmm, mm hmm.

Speaker 2

Jack Summer Tour. We told every when we're gonna make an announcement, you want to let them know.

Speaker 3

Where we're going, I'll let you tell them.

Speaker 1

Oh well.

Speaker 2

June third will be in Detroit. June fourth will be in Chicago. Pre sale tickets are available now using code Smoke.

Speaker 3

Cold Smoke, Got that part, Got that part?

Speaker 2

Tickets go and sell tomorrow noon Eastern for the public.

Speaker 1

Make sure you grab them.

Speaker 3

Hurry up, don't be late, don't be outside going outside, Yeah, because we're gonna be turned up.

Speaker 2

These are our first two stops. Yeah, you have some more stops coming, but appreciate everyone who told us where to come. Chicago and Detroit, y'all showed out the most. We're gonna show up to your city first.

Speaker 3

Man, y'all been asking for the tour. Here it is. Let's make it happen. Turn up.

Speaker 1

June third will be in Detroit, June.

Speaker 3

Fourth, Chicago. Get the tickets. Me and Matt All the Smoke. You never know what's gonna pop up.

Speaker 1

You know somebody's gonna pop up.

Speaker 3

You better be there.

Speaker 2

This episode of All the Smoke is brought to you by DraftKings. It's that time of the year, the NBA postseason is here.

Speaker 3

Are you going with the favorites, the dark horses or the underdogs? Anything can happen. The battles are hot, the stakes are high, and the cash prizes are huge.

Speaker 2

Get off the bench and get into the game with DraftKings Sportsbook.

Speaker 1

Here's the deal.

Speaker 3

Right now, All new customers who bet just five dollars on anything that's right, anything, will get one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets instantly. So what are you waiting for?

Speaker 2

Download the Draft Kings Sports Book AUP now, sign up using the promo code Smoke, Keep the good vibes rolling, and use your one hundred and fifty dollars in bonus bets on DraftKings same game parlay for a shot at even bigger payouts.

Speaker 3

Again, new customers can bet just five dollars on anything and receive one hundred and fifty in bonus bets instantly. With Cold Smoke, the crown is yours.

Speaker 2

This episode of All the Smoke is brought to you by Corse Light. Between work, social media, and the choices life throws our way, It's no wonder where more worked up.

Speaker 3

It's true life throws curveballs and we bout the adversity every day when we pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and make the best of things. And Corse Light is here to celebrate those who rise above and choose a chill mindset.

Speaker 2

That's right. We choose to chill, tough loss in the black top. Why not settle the scores with the ice cold piece offering.

Speaker 3

I like when you find the possum in your kitchen. Sure it's surprising, but you rose up. You found a way to get that home invader out, didn't you.

Speaker 1

That's right.

Speaker 2

Then I made the choice to choose chill. I reach for Corse Light because it's a mountain cold refreshment. That day wasn't ruined it, It'd only just begun.

Speaker 3

When you choose to rise above it all. Choose chill. Choose Corse Light. Get Corse Light delivered straight to your door with Instacart by going to courselight dot com. Slash smoke. That's corselight dot com, slash smoke. Celebrate responsibly Corse Growing Company. Go to Colorado, Welcome back all the Smoke, La jack Man. When I found out we got these two, I couldn't believe it. Pinched myself and they came bearing gifts too, and so I have to try one.

Speaker 1

They got some edibles, we got.

Speaker 2

Astrays, we got grinders. Man, welcome to the show, Legendary teaching. Thank you very much, thank you.

Speaker 1

Well, thank you guys for being here.

Speaker 2

We're going to get into your just the ground setting and trend setting things you guys did in your past, but a house current life. What's going on with you guys today today?

Speaker 4

First I woke up and then here I am. Uh, we're doing a bunch of things.

Speaker 1

Man.

Speaker 4

We got this business going. That's that's kicking ass.

Speaker 1

You know.

Speaker 4

We just we've got it all over the country.

Speaker 3

Now.

Speaker 4

Yeah, we were doing what we were talking about, revitalizing other of pot shops and rebranding them. So that's going good. And what else we just did.

Speaker 5

We're both married to real strong women, so we don't do a whole lot on anything. No, we just how does this look?

Speaker 4

Okay, it's the power of a strong mind. You get strong women.

Speaker 1

That's super.

Speaker 6

Still touring though, right, No, no, no, we know we finally when I went into the monitors at one show, cut the ship out of myself and messed up my knee and he.

Speaker 5

Didn't want to do the wheelchair thing, and we told, are you kidding at the airport, man, do the wheelchair thing, because then they put you on first and anybody with you. Yeah, yeah, convince them to.

Speaker 3

You know, the strippers do it everywhere.

Speaker 1

Now the strippers.

Speaker 3

Have you go to the airport, the strippers and figured it out. They act like they hurt and they get on the plane person, you.

Speaker 1

Know, that's why take it over.

Speaker 3

Yeah, they do that, not now, especially in Miami.

Speaker 4

Strippers are smart. I ran into this guy that my wife is Russian born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russian russ All these Russians are so beautiful and educated and you know, my wife just got her doctorate from s Music and and yeah, all the Russians I know are strippers. There's the other side. You know, they're smart. Yeah, they're smart.

Speaker 5

Just speaking of strippers, do you guys remember La Wanda Page.

Speaker 4

Yeah, aunt ast on Red Fox.

Speaker 5

Remember google her?

Speaker 4

Google her.

Speaker 3

Don't tell me she used to be she.

Speaker 5

Used to be a top stripper.

Speaker 3

Yeah, exotic answer.

Speaker 5

I worked with her in Canada in the fifties and she had an act where she had a live boa snakes, snake and trouble is a snake died, but she kept using it.

Speaker 1

You gotta gotta google her, the one the page.

Speaker 5

She was the funnish, gorgeous, beautiful woman, but she had a sense of humor that was killer. I knew her, I knew her there. Yeah, she kept that.

Speaker 4

Miller Miller, Norman Miller, who was with Red Fox too.

Speaker 7

And she was a dancer in the in the well, the you know the bebop, Yeah, the old bebop when at the end of the war, you know, and jazz and beat and dancing was the thing to do.

Speaker 8

Well.

Speaker 3

Norman Miller was one.

Speaker 4

Of the documentary when she her dancing and the days was it.

Speaker 5

So she being the MC at Red Fox's Comedy Club. And so the first time the Chief and I were ever on stage, ever in a comedy setting, was at Red Fox's Club. And so Norma says, what's your name? And so we told her, you know, Cheech and Chong. And so when a time to announce her, she goes, ladies and gentlemen here there give it up for a geek.

Speaker 4

And I said, who do you want to be tonight?

Speaker 3

Geek?

Speaker 1

A guy?

Speaker 4

I'll be the other guy.

Speaker 5

Lenny Bruce's whole into entourage was there. Lenny had just died a couple of months earlier, and it's entourage used to follow Lenny everywhere. They had nowhere to follow, nobody to follow, and so they they were at the comedy club and when we were there, and Tony Bescuara Lenny Bruce's mother.

Speaker 4

No Len Bruce's father and father in law.

Speaker 5

He was a young Chicano that married Lenny's mother, Sally mar I think said she was like forty and she was like sixty. And Tony lied said he was thirty when he was like eighteen. And they got married and they went on a year honeymoon, and that at the end of the year, you know, they decided, you know, the age thing and everything. But they remained really good friends. And so Tony was Lene Bruce's road manager, and he was the one that bought Lenny the heroine that took

him out. Yeah, And so after we got to know that, Tony saw us right away he adopted us and he became our manager, although we had to support him.

Speaker 4

And that's the way I worked with managers.

Speaker 1

Man And I.

Speaker 5

Asked, I asked Tony, I said, you know, because he was the one that gave Lenny the start. And so I said to Tony, I said, what's the big deal with heroin?

Speaker 1

What is it?

Speaker 5

It's taken out so many people?

Speaker 4

And Tony didn't.

Speaker 3

Say a word.

Speaker 5

He reached in his pocket and pulled out a packet the heroin and gave it to me. And so I took it, put it in my pocket as I always do, and then I hit it in my sock drawer. And then about a month later I took it out and flushed it down the toilet.

Speaker 3

I said, this took out too.

Speaker 5

Many, too many, and it's going to crush me. I know that if I did anything, and I just flushed it down the toilet.

Speaker 2

Tell us about Up in Jokes debuts soon.

Speaker 5

Well, well, one of the things that we noticed we opened some uh dispensaries in Boston, and when we were there, I looked around, Man, this would make a great comedy club, because the thing about comedy clubs, you just need a place that's warm, with a little stage and a mic.

Not even a stage, you just need a microphone. And so we're going to start doing comedy and up in Jokes, and we're going to get all the new Cheech and Chong type or anybody you know that wants to go on stage and then we're gonna introduce the world to some then charge.

Speaker 1

We're going now more than flick business. Now we learned.

Speaker 5

Yeah, so up in jokes is going to be uh, you know, it would be like what dispensaries should.

Speaker 1

Be, whether they are or not.

Speaker 5

See, I was never really even though we had a cannabis cafe in Winniberg movies, what was it still smoking? We had we built a cannabis cafe in Amsterdam, and and when we you know, we finished the movie, the guy kept the cafe.

Speaker 1

Yeah, he kept it going.

Speaker 3

What's the name of it?

Speaker 4

It was Bolgar's yacht. That was the artist Bulgar. Yeah, that made the backwards watches. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah that was but I don't know that what we call it? Do you remember no cafe? Yeah, I had a name on it.

Speaker 8

I can't remember.

Speaker 3

Something like that.

Speaker 5

Yeah, but times have changed and now Amsterdam's bulldogs. It's almost illegal there. Yeah, flipped around.

Speaker 3

I just got I just came from there and I stated the dispensary, the restaurant cafe the whole day and smoked all day every day, like yeah, nice. I love that's nice.

Speaker 8

That was great.

Speaker 3

Yeah, movie shot a movie there.

Speaker 5

You know they heard I directed it, you know, and they heard, oh man chunks coming, you know, so all the big potheads and in Amsterdam they got together, you know, we're going to take Chong up for a night.

Speaker 1

I made it. I made it for a but a half hour. It's different.

Speaker 5

They literally had to carry me, yeah, to my room and put me on the bed.

Speaker 1

I saw two people and the next morning they still haven't been to bed. They're still a party.

Speaker 3

Man.

Speaker 1

Those rush, those Dutch guys, man, they go hard.

Speaker 2

I was in a cafe out there one time, smoking and I saw two people kind of just lose consciousness, and they carried them outside, lift them upside down and poured like water on their neck.

Speaker 1

And on their head, and they came back to That must be the tradition.

Speaker 5

The man.

Speaker 2

That hold them upside down and poured water here and on their face and started coming back to life like some fish.

Speaker 1

I was like, what the fuck is going on? Right? Was crazy?

Speaker 3

Back today?

Speaker 5

I can imagine they had squatters.

Speaker 2

Has it always been not to cut you off? Has it always been legal out there? I'm guessing yeah, Okay, depends on you know who you got in power right now they got sort of they're leaning toward the right wing kind of.

Speaker 5

Okay, so see Amsterdam was always what everybody else is doing.

Speaker 8

They would do the opposite.

Speaker 1

Okay, you know.

Speaker 4

That's that's that's real nature.

Speaker 2

Interesting you guys and else also that you guys have a biopic. Yeah, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Speaker 9

I know, no, go, yeah, doesn't have to be in it.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I'm dead already in this biopic, my kids take over.

Speaker 5

If he's in it, or he's going to be in it, he'll scroll down to his part, learn it.

Speaker 4

Bullshit bullship my line. Okay, that's funny.

Speaker 1

So when did that be dropping?

Speaker 2

And I don't know, Mark, we're going to be doing it in March.

Speaker 4

But oh that the oh the bio. It's not a bio.

Speaker 1

Pick.

Speaker 4

It's actually a documentary.

Speaker 5

It's documentary. Okay, it's more of a documentary. But after the it's a it's called Cheating.

Speaker 3

Chong's Last movie.

Speaker 1

Okay, and so it's going to.

Speaker 5

Be uh, it's a it's a document It started out to be a documentary. But the guy Dave that does that, he's done a lot of good movies, sling Blade those and so he winded him and his editors.

Speaker 1

They took it and they made a real movie.

Speaker 5

Okay, and they got they got us in there fighting and really and so the people that have seen it have really like the act.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 2

This episode of Autist is brought to you by the Sofi NBA Play In Tournament. Six months, eighty two games, and finally the postseason is here.

Speaker 3

First up the Sofi NBA Play In Tournament.

Speaker 2

For this the rules are simple, win and get in. Eight teams battle to earn their playoff spot in a winn or go home style tournament. This tournament is bound to be full of highlights, excitement, and drama. There's no better way to set the tone for the playoffs than this, so make sure you don't miss the action. Watch T and t's coverage of Sofi NBA Playing Tournament on April sixteenth and nineteenth on T and T, True TV, and Max. This episode of All the Smoke is sponsible by the

game Time app. The thrill and excitement of playoff basketball and the concert season is upon us. If you're looking to get in on the action in person, game Time has you covered keep track of the playoff schedules and the concerts with the game Time App to secure your tickets.

Speaker 1

This week is four to.

Speaker 2

Twenty, our favorite holiday and good friend of the show in La Zone. Ice QE is performing at the form with the legendary lineup E forty two, Short, Scarface Exhibit and Mac ten. I packed that show I wouldn't want to miss. When I looked at the tickets last week, they are starting just under one hundred dollars on the game Time App, and if I find the same tickets for less somewhere else, game Time will credit me with

the one hundred and ten percent of the difference. So if you're like me looking for tickets at the last minute, here's a pro tip. You get up to sixty percent off with the game Time app. Take all the guests where I got to buying tickets with the game Time App. So download the game Time App, creating an account and use code Smoke for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms may apply again creating an account and redeem code

Smoke for twenty dollars off. Download the game Time App today, last minute tickets, lowest prices, guaranteed cheat.

Speaker 3

You grew up a straight, a student, son of a police officer. You grew up a biracial Calgary can y'all speak on your upbringers. Tell us a little bout how y'all grew up.

Speaker 5

Yeah in Calgary, Yeah, yeah, Calgary.

Speaker 4

I wasn't born in Calgary, but I went to Calgary when I went to Canada.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I got deported out in Calgary.

Speaker 1

We had a band.

Speaker 5

We had the first soul band in Western Canada, and we got so popular.

Speaker 4

Wasn't I wasn't the shades, the shades. Everybody was a different color.

Speaker 5

We called ourselves the Shades, but we were all athletes, like uh. We had a sax player that could have been a pro pro football player, you know, tight end. And then the singer was a star running back that they were grooming him for the pros, Tommy Milton. This guy's thing was that you kicked the ball to him, he'd run it back for a touchdown for the junior and so so he became the singer. And my brother was a linebacker at the time, and so my brother

became the bass player because we needed a car. He couldn't play bass, but he so we had a lot of and the piano player Bernie. He was like a uh he played football too, but he was more of a bodybuilder, you know, mister everything. And so we had a tough ass band. But we uh, we're so popular. Oh and and I don't know how everything that happened to me very serendipity for some reason.

Speaker 1

Oh I know what happened.

Speaker 5

I got caught with a friend. A friend of mine stole the car and it stalled near my house.

Speaker 1

So he called me up.

Speaker 5

He said, I got a car, but it's not running, and so I went down to help get the car started. Of course, the cops caught us, and I ran home. We ran home, and they followed the footprints.

Speaker 1

So I went to jail. I went to jail for.

Speaker 5

The first time that night, but both of us did. And it was funny too, because we both jumped into bed, you know, with their clothes, and the cop came to the door and my mom says, oh, they've been here all right, And the cop said, excuse me, man, walk why followed the snow into it?

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, took us to jail.

Speaker 5

Well, when I got we got in the end, it was like it was called joy riding. One hundred dollars. Fine, but I my social kind of mind said, well, the reason people get in trouble at colgot there was nothing for teenagers to do. And so I went to the magistrate, the magistrate that sentenced me. You know, I went and I had to talk with him, you know, just knocked on his door. And one day and I went in and talked to him and I told him there was nothing for kids to do.

Speaker 1

And he looked at me.

Speaker 5

He says, weren't you just in front of me, yes, And he says, the kids need something to do, well, go find something to do.

Speaker 1

Go do it. It's your idea.

Speaker 5

And so I started the Team Club, the Shades Team Club. It was a stroke of genius because we got everything donated. We got a hall donated in the Break downtown, the Legion Hall, the best hall you could get. And so our band that's where we started playing. And so our band was first R and B, first time they heard Chuck.

Speaker 1

Berry or Bo Dilley or anything in Calgary.

Speaker 3

And we've packed, We've had.

Speaker 5

People coming from everywhere Alberta pack in the place. Trouble is, they shut us down at midnight. And midnight you got all these rock and roll people had nothing to do, and Calgary. So they went and just terrorized the city. And so the cops called us into the office two weeks before Christmas nineteen fifty eight, and they said, you guys got to get the hell out of town, really, yeah, for good?

Speaker 1

For how long? Like forever?

Speaker 5

And so so we looked at each other with yeah, because you know, we're young. And so we went to Vancouver and that's when we got That's when my career really started.

Speaker 1

Was in Vancouver interesting.

Speaker 5

Because that's all we did was play music and then sleep all night, you know, work all night and then sleep all day.

Speaker 4

And so L A L A I did the exactly same thing and we got arrested.

Speaker 1

Doing different things.

Speaker 4

Was and when we met, we started telling each other that's exactly the same story.

Speaker 2

Should get together, right, And so I read how you so you was? It was it you didn't want to go to the war, so you took off the Canada. I did, so tell us about that part. No, you don't want to know, you don't want to share today, Okay, Well.

Speaker 4

It was it was?

Speaker 1

I was. I was.

Speaker 5

He gets nervous because when we first snuck, we had a sneak into Canada.

Speaker 3

I L A.

Speaker 5

Us from Canada, right, Yeah, they weren't inspecting a Mexican sneak in through Canada. So we'd be on stage and I'd say, any FBI people here at night.

Speaker 4

A shut up the shut no bullshit.

Speaker 5

Man.

Speaker 1

I was after.

Speaker 4

And so so anyway, I was part of the draft resistance move under David Harris and our Muhammad at least signed my draft card. I'm with you if you with me.

Speaker 5

And that's when you quit, right.

Speaker 4

Uh no, no, that's what I was. My last semester in school at cal State Northurg Valley State at the time then it was Valley State back then, Okay, and I took a pottery class because there's this really cute girl that says, what are you doing for this class? I don't know. I'm take pottery with me, okay boom, and took pottery, flipped out. Pottery is my life now. And I quit all my other classes, quit my job, got a loan, and did pottery. That's so I wanted

to be a party. But at the same time I was this draft resist and so they were after us. You know, they were starting to seventy Yeah, they're starting to send people living were and ship and I was a student. I was a two S student, so they but they changed our classifications and then said we're gonna be the first one's drafted and sent to the front lines in Vietnam. And so I said, well, that's a

really good plan. So I wanted to continue pottery. So my pottery teacher said he had this student in Canada that's starting a pottery ex student. Maybe he needs a I got on the dog and went to men and went into Canada, and I was there for the next three years awaiting my pending trial. It was going to come, which happened, which came three years later. We got when we came back to the the case went to court is and and got thrown out, which we knew was

going to have it. Well, we hoped they would have it. You know, they got thrown out. That week, they sent me another notice to appear for physical you know, this is three years later. And then a week later they sent me another notice. Fuck so, but I had broken my leg really badly skiing in Canada, which I never skied before.

Speaker 1

But you took Mexican lessons.

Speaker 2

Yeah, explain what that means.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4

You need skis and proper ski clothes. Those jeans won't cut it.

Speaker 1

He was out there with jeans and a T shirt off.

Speaker 4

You know, I had jeans, have money to buy ski clothes and so and so. I came back, but it got thrown out and so then we were free to do teaching song. But in the interim, man, you know, it was kind of a little dicey because I was back in the country illegally being you know, I was illegal both ways.

Speaker 5

But there's no joke, you know that what do you call a musician with other girlfriend homeless.

Speaker 8

Road?

Speaker 5

And I heard that it wasn't for girls, we wouldn't be here today.

Speaker 2

I mean you kind of see that in the movies. You hang with a lot of girls and kind of find your way. How did you guys meet though? Like, how do you mean you're well, you're already there.

Speaker 1

I had, I had.

Speaker 5

I had a couple of clubs again, very simplicity, nightclubs. I have two nightclubs literally given to me. Hey, because of the band. We had the hot band, and a guy bought a nightclub or building and he wanted to say, no, this is another one, and so they.

Speaker 1

Would you like a club?

Speaker 5

Yeah, of course, So I started After Hours club, which that's where I met Red Fox, and that's where I met all the you know, Motown people and everybody you know, and uh and it was because our band was so so good that we got discovered by Diana Ross and

the Supremes. They came down and it was again, sex has a lot to do with it, because Barry Gordie was doing Diane at the time, and so Diane said, hey, I saw this band, an incredible band, and so Barry said, okay, I'll come and check him out and get a little booty call in the in the meantime. So so Barry showed up and he saw us, signed us and then then forgot about it.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 5

And so then we gigged our way to Detroit and I wrote a song called does Your Mama Know About Me? Everybody recorded it, yeah, and uh yeah recorded it, and that put me in good graces with Barry. But but then Bobby, Bobby was Bobby old school uh rock and roll singer, you know, old school R and B singer. In other words, you had a couple of jobs when you're old school, and one must being a pimp and foremost yeah, and again, don't have a girl and you're

homeless you know. And uh, and so Bobby's mentality couldn't fit in with success on a big on a big scale, you know. So so Bobby went his way. And then I got fired from Motown. Yeah, because I had another gig to play. I had to get my green card. And that's all too.

Speaker 1

Where are you getting your green card at? Laying there wherever?

Speaker 4

It was just laying there. I didn't have my name on it, but it was just.

Speaker 5

So I got my green card and then uh.

Speaker 8

And then we met.

Speaker 4

He was running his family owned It was a family owned.

Speaker 5

It was another club that was given. It was a dinner club in Chinatown, Vancouver. So I turned it into a strip club and we're doing good. That's why I knew about Levanda and all that, you know, because strippers were good and everything. But after I got fired from Motown, I went back to work the clubs to put another band together. Actually, and then uh, then I was watching the strip is because I had a choice that I could work in the after hours club or be with

the naked girls. And I thought, I think I'll do with the girls. So now watched and I realized that they look more beautiful when they come on with their street street clothes, and so I said, wow. And they're good actresses, you know, because when you're a stripper, you're it's an act And so I said, so I wanted, So I created an improvisational acting troupe with the with the girls still doing their strip, but they would have

street clothes on. We'd we'd do sexy bits that we got from Playboy magazine and.

Speaker 1

Uh.

Speaker 5

And so I had a straight man. We had I had a partner that had long hair and a straight guy that looked.

Speaker 1

Like a cop.

Speaker 5

Well, he got fired because we had publicity with publicity shot taken on the front page of the paper with rick Lands and the girls titties on either side. And his Christian wife says, no.

Speaker 4

I found out what he was up.

Speaker 1

So he called me.

Speaker 5

He said, man, I can't, I can't work anymore. And so there was a mutual fan, a Russian that owned a hippie newspaper Ukrainian Ukrainian was Ukrainian, uh and and so he told me he was a big fan of the show. And he says, I know just the guy that you need in your show. And so I went down I met Cheecht at his the hippie newspaper thing. And when I first met Cheech, I couldn't figure out what he was. And he wasn't coming. You know, he's hiding the fact that he was Mexican, you.

Speaker 8

Know, because he was.

Speaker 5

You get to Richard Marron, he wasn't Richard Marien. We didn't hear the man in until we got down.

Speaker 1

Understood how to pronounce it. Yeah, okay, are you done?

Speaker 4

Okay, So none of that's true. He was never in a band, and no, we we like he said it was a friend who had this magazine called Poppin' and I was writing for the magazine introduced us and we hear Tim's writing. When we both saw each other, we both looked at what are you? You know, like it's like a Mongolian biker.

Speaker 3

Was he looked like a mooney.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I just come out of the woods man. That's what I thought. Man like look because he was a blend or something.

Speaker 1

He was a blend of something.

Speaker 4

Yeah, And so he says, well, come on down. I told him I was this great writer for an improv So he says, come down and see this show. And I did, and it was okay, you know, srippers, and but there's one bit that they did. It just cracked me up, you know, So I go, okay, I'll join this thing as a writer. And I started writing for the for the improv company, and then and then and then filling in for people that weren't there. I do every part in the show is so finally, you know,

I could do any of the whole show. At the end of the day, the troops split up and Tommy and I were ones left together. So what do we do?

Speaker 5

Well, we performed one time for the Three Dog Night. Remember the Three Dog Night.

Speaker 1

That band not familiar real, Okay, you are a youngster.

Speaker 5

Youngsters Anyway, they were very popular. They were bigger than they had, more hits than they had like some thirty top ten hits or something. Anyway, the drummer was my first wife, was a beautiful black lady from Calgary named Maxine Well. Her brother, Floyd Snead, was the drummer of the Three Dog Night and so they so they came came to town, and so we put a show together for them with the improv. It was the last show

we did with all the girls and everything. And then then Cheach and I put a band together and we're gonna then we got a gig at the Gardens, the Battle of the Bands, and so we went down there to play the Battle of the Bands. We had our bass player and everybody all ready to go, but we went on and did comedy instead, you know, to begin with, We're going to do a few comedy bits then and go.

Speaker 1

To the music.

Speaker 5

We never got to the wind We just played, did the comedy, took a bow, and then the bass player goes, oh, when's our next gig? Bos because they never played a note. And then on the way home, we're driving to my dad's car and the Winschild wipers weren't working, and so we're taking turns, leaning out with a cold hanger, working the windshield wipers, trying to figure out what to call ourselves. And it was like Richard and Tommy, Mirron and Chong. So I said, don't you have a nickname?

Speaker 8

And he said Cheech and that was it.

Speaker 4

And it was never Chang and Cheach because being musicians, we knew that it scanned better teaching Chong, and so that's what it was. We're gonna take over the world as soon as we can get these wipers fixed.

Speaker 2

So obviously, starting in the music space, transitioning to improv and then ultimately comedy. Like, who were some of you guys earlier influences?

Speaker 3

Was it?

Speaker 2

Was it strictly music or did you like people on the comedy side as well?

Speaker 1

Yeah?

Speaker 4

I grew up with loving comedy, you know, like in every form. Everybody, every comedian was on the Ed Sullivan Show, and any of those guys I've been, I loved comedy, and I memorize all their routines and stuff, and my cousins and I some mothers, brothers. Bye Bye Tommy, he just died, and they were they were heroes. And Millennium, Bruce and all those guys, Bruce Man and so so we we had the same frame of reference. You know.

I think that because I grew up in an all black neighborhood half my life at South Central and then on all white neighborhood and Granadi Hills. So one day everybody was black and then the next day everybody was white. What happened in the nighttime.

Speaker 1

Went from hey, Michigan to.

Speaker 4

Excuse me, sir, That was Canada.

Speaker 1

That was excuse me sir.

Speaker 4

So anyways, you know, but because you know, when when you have this, you listen to the same records, have the same comedy influences. You know, it makes it easier because you have this this background that you know where everybody's coming into. So when we got together, like you know, we like the same people and listen to them and we're you know, encyclopedic about them.

Speaker 2

Long lost brothers. Yeah, in seventy one, you guys drop your first comment. The album, self titled Teaching Show ended up being nominated for six Grammys. You took home one. Do you think that art of comedy has kind of lost?

Speaker 4

No? No, I don't think something.

Speaker 1

From an album standpoint.

Speaker 4

Oh was yeah? Probably albums? Yeah, albums are lost.

Speaker 1

Yeah, just in general.

Speaker 5

There is TikTok now, so you instead of an hour and a half album, you got twelve second bite it done.

Speaker 1

That's what it is.

Speaker 5

Is it funny too, because at one time the singles had to be under two minutes, and then MacArthur's Park come along and it was like a twelve minute bit or something and that that changed it.

Speaker 1

But now it's like TikTok.

Speaker 3

No albums.

Speaker 5

People bringing albums and they don't you know, they don't know. One time, my twelve year old son was standing in front of I bought this old console record player that you could pick up for nothing, and.

Speaker 1

You know what it was because there was youth listen.

Speaker 5

And I came home one day in the l a, I mean in Canada, and my son standing there with an album looking for a slot to.

Speaker 1

Stick it in like a CD. He didn't know how to work out. Yeah, that's funny. What's the backstory of basketball?

Speaker 3

Jones? Oh?

Speaker 5

That that was. We're on our way to the Laker game.

Speaker 3

Do you want to tell it? No?

Speaker 4

No, you tell it?

Speaker 1

Do you tell it?

Speaker 4

Because do you want to tell it? Yeah, okay, we'll tell it.

Speaker 1

We're on our way to the Laker No.

Speaker 5

He always he doesn't believe that half the ship, I say, you know, we're on the way to or when he believes it, then he'll steal it.

Speaker 4

Yeah.

Speaker 5

So we're on our way to the Laker game and Cheaches in the in the back seat. I'm in the in the but the passenger side. Nicholson is driving Jack Nelson and Jack Nicholson and we're late getting there, of course, and so Jack drives on the wrong way on Manchester Avenue for about three miles on the wrong way. It Cheaches in the back singing I got basketball Tones go to basketball Tues.

Speaker 4

There was called es out and.

Speaker 3

Basketball Jones.

Speaker 5

I gotth and it just stuck in my mind, that's finny.

Speaker 1

We got to record that ship. So we did the next day we went in the recording. It was so easy.

Speaker 4

That's a great thing about record industry in those days. I mean, you make a movie, it takes forever to make it, and then it takes forever before it comes out. In the record industry, you go in the studio and you could be on the air the next day. We man so it was like fast, you know, so you could really uh describe what was going on in the scene around you. And that's what made it so fresh, you know. So that was that was I missed records.

Speaker 5

And we used to play basketball, you know, pickup games played at.

Speaker 3

U c l A.

Speaker 1

Went you that was That's that's what we went to. U c l A. Did you always.

Speaker 4

They had this one game where they had it was a charity game where they had all the u c l A guys that had gone onto the pros with celebrities, and they split them in half. You know, half of the u c l A guys wanted to and then and celebrities and everybody was there and Michael Jackson, No, no, no, Jackie Jackie. We used to play with him and all the Hollywood stars, and then Paul and Marvin Gaye.

Speaker 8

Marvin gay.

Speaker 2

You look, he said, you're looking at him? He said, who was good back then? Who they really played?

Speaker 4

Call me Wilt the Stump.

Speaker 5

When we were touring, we go around to the y m c. A Man and we got some of the comedy there. We're playing a couple of ghetto guys, you know, and there's one brother timming down and he's holding his finger up and his partner goes, what.

Speaker 1

We gotta play that? I don't know.

Speaker 3

I don't want to play with people like that.

Speaker 2

So hold on back to Jack Nicholson driving down the wrong way on Manchester heading to the form that ended safely, no trouble.

Speaker 5

Mister Nicholson, Come on, would you like to drive on the wrong side on our street?

Speaker 1

Oh? No? It was what what? What?

Speaker 2

What was the form like back in the day, because we had we've had magic on here.

Speaker 1

We're hoping to get kareem.

Speaker 2

But we've heard legendary stories about the club inside the form and the game and.

Speaker 5

The cheerleaders we're seeing Jerry Buss, the owner. He was up the people man, and he never had a box. He had seats with the people man.

Speaker 1

He was.

Speaker 5

We did say he wanted to sit with Jerry, but no, man.

Speaker 4

See the games we had, we had first little seats, did you all showtime? You know, it wasn't the ones on the court, but the next the next time there was an isle. But we had those seats for a long time. And all the Lakers were our buds.

Speaker 1

You know.

Speaker 5

One time I had I had a friend that had seats at the Clippers when they were like they've kind of they've seen in the high school drives.

Speaker 1

They've always kind of been like this on the ring side one and Charles Barkley was the other guy.

Speaker 5

And I saw that Barkley could get affected if you heckle him. But you got to heckle him properly. And the way that heckle them, especially your ring side talk on your normal voice because he can hear everything. And so I'm sitting there and say, watch Barkley. Watch him. He's ball holling. He won't pass the ball until it's too late. Watch and the next thing you know, he passed the ball and it's too late. He got so pissed. And I'd do it in such a way that I wouldn't be looking at him.

Speaker 10

I'd be just talking looking, So we didn't know where it was coming. Come over to the guy next to me, Mama, yeah.

Speaker 5

Went away, and the guy's looking at him like that, so he started coming down again. I started back again and got shut up.

Speaker 4

Yep.

Speaker 2

What was the comedy scene like in la As you guys are you know climbing climbing the ladder?

Speaker 4

It was bubbling, man. There was a lot of comedians out there, you know, because there was these these comedy clubs started appearing. We were in one of the very first one. It was like right on Sunset Strip and all tiny little rooms. But there was a ton of comedians out there, man, everybody. But we were the only kind of hippie talking about weed or what it was going on the scene. So we were unique in that sense.

Speaker 5

There's a place on Sunset Canopos and it was writing. It was a steakhos and the owner, the kid, the father, the son of the owner, decided he wanted to get into comedy, and so he got a microphone up in the steakhouse and he had they had an upstairs where he could use his a dress room, and so he'd have like a about six or seven comedians.

Speaker 1

And so we joined the group.

Speaker 5

But when we did a bit called the Dogs, Now to forget, this is a steakhoust and the dogs were were smelling each other's butt and it was so funny and so shocking, but it's still a steakhouse. The waitresses would get embarrassed. They would run outside when we did the bit because it was so right right. In fact, we got paid fifty quid in London not to do the bit.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that paid you not to do it.

Speaker 4

Scott's boy, it's a great show.

Speaker 1

Here's fifty quick. Don't do that bit. Don't leave that one out.

Speaker 2

I mean, you guys were against the grain from a standpoint of cannabis and and and movies and in your bits and your and your stand up, was there pushback at all? Or it was fucking I mean, you guys are doing motion pictures. Well I went in the seventies, I went to jail for nine months off the bit of a push up. Pushback.

Speaker 1

Yeah, somebody being chong.

Speaker 5

Everybody else got house and rest.

Speaker 4

So had the good sense not to be.

Speaker 5

Chong we the other Yeah, no, what we What we attacked more than anything, right from the get go, was racism. That's what we attacked. We changed the conception of Chicanos with the with the headband, you know, being the game.

Speaker 1

Head, the gang guys.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and we did it purposely. Like my character in Up and Smoke was a Jewish kid, you know, and and here I am, you know, and rich?

Speaker 8

What was a rich Chinese kid?

Speaker 2

What was what was your cousin's name in that movie that you went to the house Red?

Speaker 1

Yes, ye, Red? Yeah, d Wayne Mendoza.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Wayne, missioned to find some tree.

Speaker 1

Yeah, what's his name?

Speaker 5

The actor Tom Skerrett?

Speaker 8

Yeah, yeah, that was Tom Skirtt. No, I was I was Red?

Speaker 1

Oh no? Or the other character? No?

Speaker 3

The next movie? Yeah, no, what was it?

Speaker 1

Strawberry?

Speaker 3

What was it was? Strawberry?

Speaker 1

Strawberry? Tom skar Yeah, yeah, Strawberry was Yeah. That's about He's still alive.

Speaker 5

He is a ninety Yeah, just gotta get my there you go.

Speaker 3

Legal crack, which I remember about Pee Harmon.

Speaker 1

He's the great Pee Wee Herman. He was a member of.

Speaker 4

A group called the Groundlings, which was a very first improv group in l a. Yeah, they're still there. I mean, and everybody came out of the groundlings and so we we saw them and kind of rated the whole company and put them in our movies. Pee Wee Herman and Dy mcclerk, Phil Hartman, all those guys who put them in the movie. And it was because they knew how to play improv. They were jazz musicians and comedies and so we got along great.

Speaker 1

And Pee was great.

Speaker 4

He had that character right from.

Speaker 2

The beginning, always always interesting.

Speaker 4

That wasn't the only thing he did, but he had that character right from the beginning, which is okay, well he put that character here, be the clerk in the office, or be the guy.

Speaker 1

On the stage.

Speaker 4

You know, worked really well.

Speaker 8

He was, he was He was a funny guy.

Speaker 3

How how easy was it incorporating cannabis into your movies, into everything?

Speaker 5

It was We got away with it because it was over before anybody could do anything, you know, you know, in and out, we never really smoked. We never broke any laws.

Speaker 2

Yeah, did you guys really smoke weed in the movies though in between takes, so it wasn't any But the real stuff was Indian.

Speaker 1

You know, we couldn't stunt weed. It was horrible, horrible.

Speaker 5

But we would get smoked before the take and sometimes they'd say, Okay, we're rolling and we'd be yeah, we're rolling too, And so we we missed the queue and their run back in the day was film, right, and so they were wasting this money film and there are you guys ready? Oh yeah, Okay, then we'd wake up and do the shot.

Speaker 2

How much would be ad living and how much would be script? Once you guys kind of start going ok.

Speaker 4

But we'd ad lib on the script right right right the scene in the car. We did that every night on stage. But there was stuff that we did for the film that you we never did before, and it was only captured because we were doing it all film. That we would improvise all those parts. You know, it's like taking I want to be my same play, my funny, funny Valentine, but Miles Davis plays a different than time.

Speaker 5

And all the actors that we had were horm and writers as well. You know, Stacy Keach sergeants to Danko. Yeah, he basically wrote his his, his and his troop and he put his own jokes in there.

Speaker 1

What what a priest?

Speaker 5

Ondriday what kind.

Speaker 1

Of meat, dude, I don't know.

Speaker 4

Tell us.

Speaker 3

The Yeah, I was born seventy eight, Up and Smoky turn a small budget. It's a forty four million, two more films. This is yeah I was born.

Speaker 5

Yeah, that's and that's how much money they said they made right right money.

Speaker 1

They really made.

Speaker 3

Right right right. It's crazy to think you put on a lot of people. What does the trilogy rank in your eyes?

Speaker 8

Smoke definitely?

Speaker 5

Uh.

Speaker 4

I like the next movie too. It's it's a funnier movie, you know, laugh for laugh and uh, what's one?

Speaker 8

Uh?

Speaker 5

Still Smoking? Still Smoking has all our old bits that we never got around to shoot a movie about, and so we put him in there there and we knew that we wouldn't be doing those bits anymore. So so like the Invisible Wrestler and all those great bits. The classic you mentioned going to jail. Were you in jail with Jordan Belford?

Speaker 2

Yeah, talk to us about uh, just your guys back and forth and kind of friendship and how that kind of turned into.

Speaker 5

Well he wouldn't prinche kiss right away.

Speaker 3

It took a while while just like.

Speaker 1

No, he was, he was great man.

Speaker 5

It was the other prisoners that that had problems with him. You know, I had no problem with it. Wasn't anybody. You know, I was a celebrity, so I was like Jesus walking around. I had everybody the warden. One time we shot a podcast for the documentary and we were using the warden's office in the main the main building. But you know how movies are, you know, you're the king, you know, So so we were they were setting up and I could hear the warden and then walking around

in the other room. So I yelled, hey, quiet, and we're shooting in here, and everybody got all quiet. Tippy too, And here's a warden, Tippy, you know, Tippy doing around for no reason. Man, you know, just that there's one of his his klim men in there.

Speaker 1

Tell him I'm running ship now.

Speaker 3

Yeah, being that both of you guys are basically trendsetters in the Stone of Comedy space. But it's just really comedy. Do y'all get offended? And when people say Stone of comedy and was it did it affect your relationship with be in the face like so many people judging y'all and saying different things, Did ever affect your relationship?

Speaker 5

No?

Speaker 8

Uh not really?

Speaker 5

I mean I couldn't get into Disneyland one time because I had a T shirt that was obscene, you know, and I held a grudge.

Speaker 3

For a while.

Speaker 5

And in fact, when I got offered to do Lyone King, I shaid, know, I.

Speaker 1

Missed moved there.

Speaker 4

Hey she was checked. I got from Holy Jesus, right.

Speaker 5

But the racism I realized myself, you know, over the years, I was really brought up as a white supremacist, you know, seriously. I had all my friends from the country, and and even though I was found out now that I'm part Native, uh we were. I was half Chinese originally, you know, that's what I started. But it was always racism that we encountered.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 5

That's why My brother is three years older than me, and he fought going to school and coming home, you know. And that's the way it was back then.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 5

You look at the toughest guys would see each other and make a date and go out in the back and fight, you know, and it was brutal, you know, coming up like that. And when I was a teenager, I saw the trend was to become a pachuco. Pachuca is a Mexican gang guy. The Zoot suit, you know, baggy.

Speaker 3

Pants, blood and blood out.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and they always had a zoo tattoos right there in the middle there, right there. And it was funny because tattoos are like advertising for criminals.

Speaker 1

You know, you'd have a.

Speaker 4

White tear drop tattoo.

Speaker 5

And so my white supremacy tattoo. My house was also used as a halfway house people getting out of jail. And this one being honest and he and he gave me this tattoo. Wow, that's a white supremacy tattoo.

Speaker 4

He didn't know it was a tattoo, and I didn't know it.

Speaker 5

I didn't know it for years until I was on TV. The guy told you, no, it was down It was on TV.

Speaker 1

I was on TV on television.

Speaker 5

The guy looked at me, biker, that's a white supremacy tattoo.

Speaker 4

Oh shit, but it was free.

Speaker 5

No, but I put it up here. It's it's a homemade needle taking needles, put them together over a pencil and stick it in India ink and then jabbing.

Speaker 1

A good way to stay healthy.

Speaker 5

Yeah, that's what that's that. Yeah, hurt down there. So I was going to get it covered up, you know, change everything. And my son Paris, No, Dad, that's o G.

Speaker 1

That's art.

Speaker 4

It was because one wing's bigger than the other.

Speaker 1

Right, what year was that? What year did you get that tattoo?

Speaker 8

That had to be fifty.

Speaker 5

Probably fifty five, fifty six.

Speaker 4

That was twenty years before you were born, twenty three actually.

Speaker 11

Fifty Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen a lot real movies like Friday, Half Baked, Harold and Kumar, all called classics.

Speaker 3

You have to feel like your pioneers and that.

Speaker 4

Well, of course, and all those guys come up to us and tell us that everybody was in every one of those movies. Chris Tucker, you know, I met him. We used to you guys all the time, you know, you know, we we were big in the black community always because we grew up in the black community, you know, and other other communities. But black people really related to us. It wasn't just because of the weed. It's because we played that kind of music and the struggle too, and.

Speaker 5

Yea, and growing up in Calgary it was really hard to be around black people.

Speaker 1

Both were.

Speaker 5

There were like five families and I swear to God, you know, and then when I when I I started dancing Lindy hop and of course, my partner became the really good dancer black girl, and she was the one that introduced me to the football player Tommy and and and then we had a show one time where Tommy her would dance and we'd play music, and you know, we did a floor show with that, you know. So so my introduction was more like schooling, you know, because it wasn't just I knew.

Speaker 1

Had black friends.

Speaker 5

Man, I had I had a Yeah, I got to the point where I got my own racist name. You know, Hey, chinaman, that's what Bob Marley says. That's what when we met Bob Marley. Yeah, it was in a dressing room with a smoke filled and also I hear, hey, chinaman, say something funny, man.

Speaker 1

Bob said that on one of his friends.

Speaker 4

No, it was Bobby Bob something. No, he was on their own deal.

Speaker 1

Everybody else, you know.

Speaker 5

No, we had, we had, no I got you know, I earned my my.

Speaker 2

Uh stripes, my.

Speaker 5

My prison sentence. I earned it, man, you know, I went through it. And that's why motown. You know that when I see smoking smoking, it gives me big hugs man, because he knows that I was in that secret song writing Little Cadre club that they have, you know, and I got in there. You know, when you get one of them motown stars to record your song, you.

Speaker 4

Know, everybody recorded, Diana Ross, the Jermaine Jackson, Steffan, your Mills, the Harlett's, you know who the heart Lets are. The they were the backing group for Bete Midler, Bette Midler and the har Lets. And in that group was uh uh was on Katie, Katie sagal Kiss from Mary with Children, Linda Hart who's co starred with my girlfriend in tin Cup and the some the Norwegian or a Swede girl. But they recorded and had to hit how does your Mama.

Speaker 1

Know about me?

Speaker 2

You guys obviously came out the gates with once you connected with a lot of success.

Speaker 1

You guys parted ways for a while.

Speaker 2

We don't have to get into that part, but I want to ask you guys as being able to come back together, what did you learn about yourself during your guys' time apart?

Speaker 5

Well, you can't make it in California with out of Mexican.

Speaker 1

I mean, I don't care what you're doing.

Speaker 5

I don't care what you're doing.

Speaker 4

And it took him that long to figure it out.

Speaker 5

And sometimes you say are you Mexican and the guy will go, okay, say he's from Guatemala. There's there's racism amongst the clans. It goes everywhere.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, no, I uh.

Speaker 5

I appreciate the fact that we broke up long enough so that we could become individuals, you know, instead of just being you know, relying on someone there that's always there. You know, this way you have to do both parts yourself.

Speaker 8

More or less.

Speaker 5

And I appreciate that and I respect it too, you know, I respect the the the aloneness.

Speaker 3

Yea, being able to stand on your loan, yeah, on your own. They come back together just makes it strong strong.

Speaker 4

It's like we you know, when we came back together, it was like we never left, right and it was like it said, come down here and join me in this club in La Joya. They were you and so we were doing the club and I said, come on and just sit in with us. Okay. So but they go on stairs they started, and then then then I don't know if you've even announced it, and I just came through the audience and God, remember they went crazy, God said, and we rehearsed.

Speaker 1

Never even talked about you guys. First time back together. Yeah, in twenty.

Speaker 4

Years and and he just killed it. You know, it's okay, like you never.

Speaker 5

Left, like we never left.

Speaker 1

I've read it times.

Speaker 2

You guys would you know, kind of have some conflict off the stage, but when you came together for your act, it was like no one would ever know. And what do you guys attribute that to? Just your willingness to get the job done or agreed?

Speaker 4

Agreed, I indulged.

Speaker 5

You know, you're doing fine, dad, but you know what you could make of Cheat and Chong were And so my son actually got us back together because we had a meeting and it didn't go that well. You know, we had an old argument came out. But then I text Cheat and I said, you know, it was said, hadn't seen you for a while. It was really nice

seeing you, you know, too bad we couldn't work things out. Well, my son intercepted my email and he wrote his own in my mind, he don't do anything, and he let's get together and we can do this and everything else. And so then my son told me he said, first of all, he said how to go with not so he's he's coming over. You're back together, beautiful, it's happening. Then he told me what he did. I got your email, and I'm glad he did tell you. Some in the world says thank you.

Speaker 2

Yeah, my wife got ahold of my emails one time and did some things she shouldn't have did. So luckily your guys worked out in a different way.

Speaker 4

I've heard those stories. We used to talk before they roll the film that sometimes the movies will be talking blah blah blah.

Speaker 1

They got the camera rolling.

Speaker 4

Here we see it at daily.

Speaker 1

You know. That's funny.

Speaker 2

U stigmas throughout over the years about cannabis, and and how do you feel that the progress, you know, over the last few decades.

Speaker 4

It's it's it's you know, it's everyday used. I mean's which is more popular?

Speaker 3

Bear weed?

Speaker 5

Weed?

Speaker 8

Weed?

Speaker 1

You know.

Speaker 4

I mean it's it crosses every single line, the race, gender, anything, old, young. I mean, you know there's guys that are one hundred years old.

Speaker 1

Still smoking weed.

Speaker 8

You know.

Speaker 4

So it's just it just enters into every and and the fact that it does changes your perception.

Speaker 12

Well, it's it's yeah, it's a burning bush A good path for that. Yeah, it's a burning bush that is mentioned in the Bible, you know, when Moses took a hit at the burning.

Speaker 5

And God talked to him and God said, hey, mo, past that snoop. This buds for juice.

Speaker 1

And that's how it got in the Bible.

Speaker 5

Well, the Bible was written on him paper.

Speaker 1

Yeah, there, all the signs were there, and.

Speaker 5

It was medicine four thousand years ago and it's medicine now.

Speaker 1

Still never stopped being. Any of you guys still consume, Well, yeah I do.

Speaker 5

Yeah, so that's my job now.

Speaker 1

So after we can consume together.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah, so I just want to got to say, blaze one up with.

Speaker 5

That.

Speaker 1

Even if we just blow the smoke on you.

Speaker 3

Blowed up his butt.

Speaker 5

Jat, mind don't work anymore, got that job.

Speaker 2

One question, the strength of the plant from when you guys first started getting it used to be hard to kind of come across a good weed back then. Obviously you guys always had it. You guys kept I said, Mexican weed man.

Speaker 1

But the strength from then to now.

Speaker 4

It's much stronger now, I mean much stronger because they're they're breeding it for that. You know, they didn't weed was weed. You get a brick like that was a good rat in the middle of you. Yeah, we especially bred this no it was just you got whatever it was in there. But now let's specifically blending it for raising it.

Speaker 3

Do you like some of the strong stuff?

Speaker 1

Oh?

Speaker 4

You like some strong stuff, yeah, because you don't have to take as much.

Speaker 3

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5

When's the last time you bought weed?

Speaker 8

Oh?

Speaker 4

I was in my youth.

Speaker 1

I bought weed.

Speaker 5

Twenty sixteen, really because it was a little vendor thing and you put money in.

Speaker 1

And yeah, I had to do it.

Speaker 5

Really, that's the only time I remember bought I don't, I can't, I can't remember. I got a friend now. He's a grove freak, you know, k Stacey Keach.

Speaker 3

His brother.

Speaker 5

James, James James, She's uh, he's crazy about growing everything. And so you give him some marijuana seeds. Here, put this in your garden and see what happens. He's growing the best weed Malibu. And James says, yeah, I give it to my friends and keep coming back for more.

Speaker 4

I think the best.

Speaker 1

Stay away right because of the climate.

Speaker 4

I don't know what it is, but it's like Jermichael Vincent, you know who is actor. So he's it was my buddy and he comes over one day and he has these two plants. I'm going over one hundred plants over here in my place, and I don't give you too great, So put him and just put him over there outside under the tree, and I went on tour the next day. Here a couple of days later, he gets raided and they got all the plants. And so these are the only two that survived. And I didn't do anything to them.

I just put them in pots in the ground, and I went on tour, and I came back. They had grown through the bottom of the pots and now they were eight feet tall. And Cola is on them that that long man, and it was like Seaside sent to me, that's what we called it. Didn't use him in the movie, yeah, I think so we did.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we used him in really the.

Speaker 4

Next movie because I had them, you know that crazy.

Speaker 5

Nice dreams, nice dreams with a swimming pool and and so.

Speaker 4

But I didn't do anything none to do it, you know, not even water.

Speaker 8

So wow.

Speaker 2

Yeah, So when I have a little fun with this next segment, I feel free to just blurred out at the highest you've ever been, Do you remember where you were?

Speaker 1

Who was around? That wasn't too long ago. I'm just doing show them.

Speaker 3

What the mad your wife business.

Speaker 1

Definitely your wife. I like that.

Speaker 5

The birth birthday story, your birthday, the seventy birthday when I turned seventy, we had my son took care of the dessert and he had it all medicated, but he didn't tell anybody ship and we never served enough food. So when the dessert came, every was starving, and so everybody dove into the edibles and next thing you know, there are people throwing up all over the place, and and and they couldn't figure out what's going on.

Speaker 1

Oh, it was just crazy.

Speaker 8

Uh.

Speaker 5

Paul Riser and his wife were there, and next thing you know, Uh, Paris is my son's ex girlfriend, kind of wild young chick. She's in there promoting a threesome with Paul and.

Speaker 1

They're going for it. Everybody's going for it.

Speaker 5

So it was crazy. Oh it was. It was fun. Wow, it's going to be a bio pick. We're going to do a movie. I love it because that's what from now on, after we release our documentary, it'll be biopics and we'll go back and cheach his history, my history, you know, right back to the Aztecs and.

Speaker 1

Africans.

Speaker 3

You know.

Speaker 2

If you guys ever need a great guy right here, My got Deon Taylor.

Speaker 3

This is his office.

Speaker 1

But he makes movies. He makes the best movies here.

Speaker 3

Yeah, if you need some help, you need to stone the brother in the movie.

Speaker 4

I'm ready, Yeah, I'm ready.

Speaker 5

That's the only problem.

Speaker 2

Yeah, right here, Remember you used to have the holes right here? Who would want to smoke off? And you're back in your heyday and you guys in your heyday. Between you guys Snoop, Willie Nelson, whiz Khalifa.

Speaker 4

Be real, who would we want to know?

Speaker 3

Who would who would? Oh?

Speaker 1

When you guys in your heyday?

Speaker 4

What do you think.

Speaker 5

Maybe neither one of us were. It's all an act, man, I swear it was all on that I got a little breath mint that I do now it's only tell me the ground, you know, and that that will anymore to put my ass.

Speaker 1

But even back in your guys younger days.

Speaker 4

It wasn't about the quantity of the quantity, was about the quality. Yeah, because people will give us stuff all the time. That's why I've never bought any weeding in these years, man, because like the mountains of it wherever you go.

Speaker 5

And we're musicians back then, and musicians you never bought.

Speaker 8

People would either give it.

Speaker 5

To you or and you just stand next to the guy that had, you know, waiting for your turn. You know, back in the day, they used to make what they called pinners. It was a bear one of dust based and you broined in the tiniest little pinner. But it would be good for musicians because you didn't get too stone. You know, you just get that little buzz, that little memory, because that's all you need.

Speaker 4

Remember, Pat Mariner used to keep that little folding pipe in his in his underwear.

Speaker 1

One hitter.

Speaker 4

Yeah, there was a little pipe and they had Pat Marina. You know, I've heard the name after mister Miyagi.

Speaker 3

He was.

Speaker 4

He was a stand up the hip nip that was his. It was Japanese crazy.

Speaker 1

What used to fly, not to cut you off?

Speaker 2

What used to fly back then like what you can say and what you can and has evolved into like you can't really say anything right now. I've heard his boy, Red Fox, Pat Marina.

Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, they were all in that same thing.

Speaker 5

Well Red Red give him money, yeah something, get him some money. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 8

Yeah.

Speaker 4

He was kind of a mentor a little bit you know when we first met him, to us because he was a professional comedian at the time.

Speaker 5

He did something to me that I'll never forget. Man, the night before I'm going into jail, I just finished talking to my lawyer, who actually told me I can't talk now. I'm watching the Laker game and he hung up on me. Next thing I know, I get a call, phone rings. I pick it up. It's pat Rita and he's mister mcgogg and he says, you're gonna be okay, You're gonna be fine, you know, just take it, do what you gotta do, you know, And he just gave me that. It was pep up serendipity.

Speaker 4

I knew the time he was going to be okay in jail too. I mean I knew he was good, he'd be fine. It's because he grew up with those people. I mean, so did I. My dad was a cop man, so I grew up with all the juveni of delinquents, you know, so you know how to navigate.

Speaker 5

We were in jail together one time.

Speaker 1

Really tell us about it.

Speaker 5

They busted Jim Morrison earlier because he showed his wiener on cheat in the stage, you know, and so they and it got dropped for lack of evidence by this, and so they came up with a five thousand dollars performance bond, and if we got any trouble on stage at all, the promoter got five thousand dollars. And so with Cheech and John, they thought for sure they're going

to grab some money. And so we we did our whole show and no problem except at the end, and the cops were lining in the stage as if they were the crowd was going to riot or something, you know, And so we're doing the dogs and cheeches on his hands and knees and he walks over to one of the cops that were facing away from them and picked the cops hat up with his teeth like a dog running back. Well, the cop did not think that was funny.

And so they're on the phones and we're gonna we're busting Cheech and Chong, and then all the cops started, Hey, I want to bust him.

Speaker 1

I got all their records. Alright, let me be a part of this.

Speaker 5

So they ended up taking us to jail. And at first, you know, we're still off the show. We're still happy. And after a while we're sitting there with all these other people.

Speaker 4

Man, they kept dragging people into the hole in selled unconscious.

Speaker 3

And for drunks, you're sitting that sail, the highs start coming down.

Speaker 1

Well yeah, oh.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and then they separated us. At first Cheech was being funny, this guy blonde cop, you know, and he goes, oh, jail tend, oh jail could we have some pink guys.

Speaker 1

In jail man?

Speaker 5

And then next thing, you know, the guy the jolt and deacons up the teachings that you come with me, and all I heard Chief saying, uh, my dad's a cop.

Speaker 4

You know, I got that out of it. You get in the elevator, you gonn take it up to the second floor. It puts you in the solf And you get in the elevator. It's like, you know, metal the whole thing, and there's big dance all over this fucking thing, man, but on every wall, and this guy's looking at me. And you get up to the second floor and it's noisy and it's hot and it's fully lit and and everybody's okay.

Speaker 1

Here you go.

Speaker 4

No, don't put me in the lion cage.

Speaker 2

She got real yeah off al quick, you guys kind of crossing so many barriers on your rise to fame. Who were some people that you thought like, damn, I'm smoking with. Obviously they probably thought that about you guys, But were you guys in awe of anybody? You know, you just told a quick Bob Marley story, but anybodys You guys were in off when you guys got a chance to sit.

Speaker 5

Down to smoke up with George Harrison all the time? George, Oh, George, Yeah, George's cool guy.

Speaker 1

One day I'm smoking.

Speaker 5

We're smoking, and next thing you know, the joint gets passed over to Tony Dow. You know, Tony leave it to leave it to be.

Speaker 1

He was walling, he was.

Speaker 5

And he turned out to be, Uh, what do you call a sculptor? He's an artist, you know. And so the three of us were there smoking away. We got George played.

Speaker 1

On Huh.

Speaker 4

What tune did George Harrison play on our Basketball Jones?

Speaker 5

Basketball Jones talk about basketball joint? George play the intro because he was in the studio at the same time we were. And so, hey, George, do the intro?

Speaker 3

All right?

Speaker 5

And they said, do you think they're cheaching tongue?

Speaker 1

And what do you say?

Speaker 5

Someone said, what do you think of cheach? And Chong and George is I suppose the funny.

Speaker 4

My favorite guy.

Speaker 2

Was Kareem I'm doing bar and with this the showtime days.

Speaker 8

Yeah yeah right yeah.

Speaker 4

And and and uh my wife and I Ricky We we lived in his house when I was making up and smoke because I didn't want to go all the way out to the beach every day. And I was like, because my call was early. So he moved us into his guest house back there. But he has always been a friend. And but he had a long reach. They could reach across the table.

Speaker 3

Man.

Speaker 4

One time we took him to Dharmo grab this Morocco restaurant and they bring all this food, a whole chicken, and he reaches over the whole and he grabs the whole chicken. It looks like that in his hand.

Speaker 3

Round.

Speaker 1

Okay, thank you very much. What you guys his mind? What are you guys gonna eat?

Speaker 4

No, it really is a very smart intelligence.

Speaker 5

We would exchange weed if we had different weed. And one day, in fact, the day that Elvis Presley died, I got a call from Korean almost the same time. I'm much on TV and Elvis is dead. Cream says, hey, man, come on down. I got some weed, and so I walked down. I'll live down the street from him. I walked down and I got to the to the mailbox and I went to ring the bell and the mailbox lid opened up and this big hand colern with a bag.

Speaker 1

Of weed at the end.

Speaker 5

And I said, no, thank you, I never saw.

Speaker 1

You. Just want to give me some weeds.

Speaker 5

Okay, cream.

Speaker 7

It was like Lurch came out, Yes, you're not dressed yet, Okay, I'll take this back to my house.

Speaker 5

Yeah, but it wasn't that weird. Alvis died and soon after they have no Everything on television was Elvis and my daughter's friend was Lisa Marie. They were best friends at the time. And so they're showing Elvis on TV and I'm sitting there and my precious, my daughter and and Lisa are playing in the behind us. And when when they showed their dad, I kind of looked to see how Lisa would react to her dad. She just glanced at her a little bit. Then she did not relate to that guy.

Speaker 8

Wow, it was weird.

Speaker 5

So insad.

Speaker 3

Coming up? Who is your first celebrity crushes?

Speaker 1

Celebrity crush, crush.

Speaker 8

Celebrity crush? Wow?

Speaker 4

Celebrity crush. Who was the first guy you went out with?

Speaker 3

It makes more sense why we dress, because we act.

Speaker 1

Just like dress.

Speaker 4

There's a reason celebrity crush. God, I don't know Annette from the Musketeers. She's developing there.

Speaker 5

Mine would be Susan Saradon.

Speaker 1

Really remind me who who is she?

Speaker 5

Baby Atlantic City?

Speaker 1

Yeah, okay, that's her.

Speaker 4

That's her real name. Yeah, Rocky Horseshow Rocky horse Show?

Speaker 1

She was the original? Interesting?

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I see why he didn't get your name right for a low wao.

Speaker 8

Right, I'm used to right.

Speaker 2

One of your guys's favorite snacks or munchie When you guys are really on, what's what's the go to snack?

Speaker 5

I can tell you now because I used to be actuated.

Speaker 1

I like ice cream, ice cream.

Speaker 8

I like the ice cream.

Speaker 4

It's bad for it, but I like it.

Speaker 5

Pustachio nuts interesting because I was about say healthy on the healthy side for the eyes, and there they're salty so that it makes you thirsty.

Speaker 3

So we forgot to ask you about your daughter?

Speaker 5

Which one right here?

Speaker 3

Legend?

Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, she's here, she's here. She's uh having a struggle with her career. Now you know a little bit. You know, she hasn't worked for a while, but she's here and she's doing well and she's happy.

Speaker 3

About it.

Speaker 5

She always she's she's the most talented of the gang. You know, I always has been right from the beginning.

Speaker 8

She was crazy.

Speaker 5

She's to give advice at three years old, advice.

Speaker 1

Right, life advice.

Speaker 5

You know, she's what the bo Diddley called him, managed boy, and he managed you know, the manash boy. Yeah what what what would be the girl?

Speaker 3

I don't know, the girlish man bossy bossy.

Speaker 5

No, she's good and her her son, Morgan, is doing really well. And Morgan married Chinese girls. So I got uhcross grand.

Speaker 4

Rainbow retrogreeding raw beautiful.

Speaker 5

Oh, I got, I got a beautiful, beautiful family. Now as does Chech too.

Speaker 3

That's as crazy as this world is. Who do you two guys think will benefit from smoking?

Speaker 8

Oh?

Speaker 1

From smoking?

Speaker 4

My mother in law, Bob, my mother in law. Yeah, she because because my wife is Russian born in Reisling. So my mother in law speaks no English, and she's always honest about something or and we but she she roam's defrigerator, She opens refrigerators, stands in front of for

an hour and looks to see so whateverything. And so we had some some edibles out there in the desert and her sister and her daughter tells him to do whatever you do, don't don't eat anything in the refrigerator, just you know, ask me and I'll get it for you. We come one day around the desert.

Speaker 8

She was in front of the fresser.

Speaker 4

Looking and chewing at the same time, and she found the brownies. Man went fucking right to She's like, you old and rust can't uh and so and so uh, Natasha, my wife tells him what she did. I said, so, so what should we do? She says, well, let's see what happens. And so she was just like cool. So there was time to drive her home and and he says, wow, how long is Sunset Boulevard? It's like taking every day, And.

Speaker 8

So we did.

Speaker 4

After after a while we told her and she got this kind of glimming gleaming her eye and where was that again? I would is that the candy or the thing? So she wanted to go, but she she freaked the most surprised I've ever been in my life.

Speaker 8

She speaks no English, no English.

Speaker 4

I mean, she's been here twenty some years and to say I want a glass of water. It's half an hour to get that out. And so we're at the durnwhere at the table, and I went out and got some Chinese food, came back, distributed all around eating Chinese food.

Speaker 8

It was great at the end.

Speaker 4

And I see her reach into the bag with the fortune cookies and she pulls the one out and cracks it and whip out the thing and say, and we call her Bob. And in Russian grandmother is Babushka, not Babushka. Babushka. So I ain't saying that every time. So you're Bob now. And so he says, hey, Bob, what does your fortune say? She goes, you will have a very auspicious day today as the third trimester of you. But the fuck? And I said, well, this is a setup, man, you know

it's this. And her hear your daughter read another one, what.

Speaker 7

A glorious day, reads the whole thing.

Speaker 4

That's in hard language too. She took English in college in in in in Russia. She can read it but doesn't understand what she was reading, but read it perfectly.

Speaker 5

And I sat there like, and she can use firearms, right.

Speaker 4

Oh, Yeah, she's a great shot and can throwing acts too, KGB. That's what I'm thinking, KGB.

Speaker 5

I believe it in America, I believe.

Speaker 4

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Speaker 1

Those are her book club meetings.

Speaker 2

She goes to book club meetings and sharpens her tools.

Speaker 4

Yeah, that's what she does. Funny because her family old geniuses.

Speaker 2

Did you guys have a particular strain you liked in your heyday?

Speaker 1

I liked weed just in general.

Speaker 3

That's it.

Speaker 4

That might call weed.

Speaker 1

I like that one.

Speaker 4

My favorite was anything given to me by a naked woman?

Speaker 3

Even better, I feel you.

Speaker 1

What was your guys's favorite movie?

Speaker 3

You guys?

Speaker 1

Did each of you guys your favorite movie we did together?

Speaker 3

Yeah?

Speaker 1

Together up in Smoke, Up Smoke.

Speaker 4

I mean it's the first one. Yeah, yeah, what do you like?

Speaker 1

Abe?

Speaker 5

I like them all liked I liked them all. I liked, uh yeah, all of them. All of them had something. Up in Smoke had everything.

Speaker 3

While this place you've been on vacation Pakoma.

Speaker 1

Wild?

Speaker 4

Where's the wildest place you've been on vacation? You've been a bunch of places.

Speaker 5

I'm not joking, I'm.

Speaker 4

Not It was a vacation, like you know, with palm trees and ship.

Speaker 5

Well to me Pulau into the island of Pao. That's off Guam. It's two hundred miles from Guam and it's it's uh skin cat little you know.

Speaker 3

You can.

Speaker 5

Those giant shells that you see in Disney movies, you know, climbshills. I was out with a local Wini with his boat and I found a climb show and struggle with it, got it up, you know. I had a swim underneath the water. He got it up, put it in the boat. I went back down. All of a sudden, I hear a splash my show the boat. Captain.

Speaker 3

No, I don't want that ship in my boat.

Speaker 1

He's threw it up.

Speaker 5

No, that was crazy, like a very very native.

Speaker 8

I like Costa Rica. I used to go to Costa Rica a lot. It's real jungle, you know where we used to go. So that was cool.

Speaker 3

This is the final question. If you could see one guest on our show, who would it be on your show?

Speaker 8

Who'd you want on their show?

Speaker 4

Ray Don Alli Wong Ali Wong. Yeah, she would be good.

Speaker 1

There you go, There you go.

Speaker 3

So you might have to a few. But it's the second part of the question. You have to help us get your answer on the show. Yeah, oh yeah, sure, yeah.

Speaker 1

Probably.

Speaker 4

Cassandra Peterson. Cassandra Peterson is Alvira. She was part of the Groundings. Oh really, she was one of the original Groundings and she was also a Las Vegas showgirl used to with e us.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, yeah, being the Yeah.

Speaker 4

Oh man, it's a beautiful girl.

Speaker 1

Man.

Speaker 4

Yeah, you would get a lot of stories out of her.

Speaker 3

That's cool.

Speaker 2

Well, man, we appreciate you guys this time.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Uh, it was an honor to be able to sit down and share some time for you.

Speaker 3

Man.

Speaker 2

That's a rat burn one cheech and chong. You can catch this on all the Smoke Productions and DraftKings Network. We'll see y'all next week.

Speaker 8

Be's Out.

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file