Cheech & Chong Get Set To Light Up Akron, Man

[Ganjarden]

Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin are the rock gods of stoner comedy. And like any self-respecting rockers, they really don't have to spout their own routines. Just spit out a line or two, and the fans will finish it for them.

So, you wonder, does it bother 'em at all?

"Heck no," said Chong from Vancouver, British Columbia, in a conference call with partner Marin, who was in Los Angeles. They were on the line for an interview to preview their "Cheech & Chong: Light Up America" show at the University of Akron's E.J. Thomas Hall on Friday, Nov. 6.

"It helps us find our place," Chong said in the voice that launched a thousand bong hits. "We're old, man. We lose our place, and it helps us figure out where we are."

Sit around an office water cooler and ask anyone of a certain age what the funniest Cheech & Chong bit is, and you'll get a hundred different answers. "Dave's Not Here." "Basketball Jones." "Class! Class! Claaaaasssss!" "Looks Like Dog [bleep]." "Earache My Eye." "Pedro & Man at the Drive-Inn."

But Chong volunteered -- and Marin agreed -- that the most requested bit is "Hey Margaret," about the middle-aged couple in an X-rated theater. That Chong would chime in with that opinion isn't that much of a surprise, since it is the self-described (jokingly?) "Canadian minister of marijuana" himself who provides most of the raunchy commentary for the bit.

The routine, which is recorded for posterity on "Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album," evokes instant memories for those in their 50s who watched Chong on "That '70s Show" because they're pretty sure they lived the era, even if they can't remember it.

Marin and Chong went through a bitter two-decade split that began in 1985, sparked by differences over who was THE creative genius behind their comedy. Whether they resolved that issue is still their secret.

In an interview with The Plain Dealer before a 2005 Cleveland staging of his one-man show "The Marijuana-Logues" was canceled, Chong even talked about a rumored movie reunion and how the rift was involved even then. The initial idea was for Chong to direct, which was anathema to Marin.

"Cheech is kind of adamant he doesn't want me directing," Chong said then. "He doesn't want me to be outside that door going, 'Hey, it's me, man! Let me in.' " In other words, Tommy's not here, man.

The movie still hasn't been made.

"The Marijuana-Logues," by the way, was canceled because federal authorities ruled that traveling outside California would have violated the terms of Chong's parole; he served nine months in prison for selling bongs and other marijuana paraphernalia through the mail.

That parole period is now over, Chong said, so there is no such danger about Friday's show in Akron.

But the two realize that they are institutions to a generation, and specifically the generation that now is at the peak of its earning (and spending) power. Hence, the reunion.

The unlikely pairing of the Canadian hippie and the East L.A. Chicano actually occurred in Canada.

"I'd never met a Mexican, so I put an ad in the paper for one," Chong said, jokingly. (You're more likely to see former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft at a Cheech & Chong show than get a straight answer from these guys.)

At the time, Chong was managing a strip club in Canada and playing music. The two actually began as part of a comedy trio, then segued into bandmates, and finally into the Cheech & Chong we've come to know, love and raid Oreo aisles in the 7-Eleven with.

But music remains a part of their act. The Alice Bowie character who sings the punk song in "Earache My Eye" is likely to resurface on the E.J. Thomas stage. Which should quell the lament for those who've too long been without such classic lyrics as "My momma talkin' to me tryin' to tell me how to live / But I don't listen to her 'cause my head is like a sieve. / My daddy, he disowned me 'cause I wear my sister's clothes. / He caught me in the bathroom with a pair of pantyhose."

Humor like that comes has to come from a warped mind. And it's easy to see how these fellows were destined to be the progenitors of stoner comedy. Ah, but were they?

What of Gracie Allen, the supposedly vacuous counterpart but actual comedic genius to George Burns? The guys concede that it's possible she was a stoner comedian, with her non sequitur answers to Burns' straight lines, but there's no evidence to that end. That title should probably go to Charlie Chaplin, Marin and Chong agreed.

And both said that Richard Pryor's observational -- and painfully honest -- drug humor was a great inspiration to them.

But they insist that they are the real inventors of stoner humor, and they feel they've never really been given their due for its creation. Spicoli? Spicoli? The Sean Penn character from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" is, like, TOTALLY a Cheech & Chong derivative.

After seven albums, and about as many movies, Cheech & Chong fans can say one thing: We get the toke, er, joke.


News Hawk- Ganjarden http://www.420Magazine.com
Source: Cleveland.com
Author: Chuck Yarborough
Contact: Cleveland.com
Copyright: 2009 Cleveland Live, Inc
Website: Cheech & Chong Get Set To Light Up Akron, Man