Vancouver is one particular of the most wonderful towns in North The united states, and in 1969 it was the “San Francisco of Canada,” with all the counterculture implications—only Canadian, so it was a lot more polite… as in “Can we please have a revolution?”
On my very first day in Vancouver, my roommate Len MacMillan took me to the corner of Main and Pender, the most squalid level in the metropolis. It was the conjunction of Chinatown, Skid Row and Junkyville.
As we walked by a nightclub named the Shanghai Junk, I could not help but observe their promotional images in a minimal waterlogged glass showcase. “The Junk,” as I was to arrive to know it, was Vancouver’s initially topless bar. Mild-several years from what we know as a topless bar currently, these ladies wore significant pasties with tassels and sequined underwear.
The photographs in the situation confirmed the females interacting with some thoroughly clothed hippie/greaser guys dressed in police uniforms with military helmets on.



My first response was, “What the fuck is this?”
Oddly more than enough, I’d noticed one thing identical when I was in substantial college. There was this place on Ventura Boulevard in the Valley called the Zomba Cafe, and it was a burlesque residence that showcased strippers and comedians. But I just considered these pics have been odd and humorous and walked on.
About a thirty day period later on, I ran into a large university buddy of mine from Los Angeles who was in Vancouver mainly because of his troubles with the draft. Hank Zevallos was an odd character. He was senior class president. He also ran monitor and was an aspiring writer who wrote for the school newspaper.
Hank instructed me that he and another dude, a Ukrainian named Ihor Todoruck, experienced started a new music-scene magazine called Poppin. They had ambitions to be even larger than Rolling Stone, but correct now they had been marketing their publication on the streets of Vancouver. Hank, who was the editor, remembered that I made use of to do some composing for the university newspaper and prompt that I could compose some pieces for Poppin.
No matter what.
“I could put your title on our masthead,” Hank continued. “You could get cost-free albums and get into displays totally free and get absolutely free drinks and foods.”
Now I was listening.
In quick get, I went to a bar and was launched to Ihor, the magazine’s publisher. Right after a extensive dialogue and a few brief beverages, in which I briefed him on my qualifications, Ihor mentioned I could work with Hank and produce for them.
Before I remaining the bar, Ihor gave me a mischievous smile and said, “There’s this man I imagine you should satisfy.”
He stated he knew this dude named Tommy Chong who was functioning an improvisational theater enterprise in a prime-significantly less bar in Chinatown. I swiftly understood that he was speaking about the Shanghai Junk, the bar I experienced handed when I was walking all around with Len that to start with day.
Sooner or later, I’d comprehend that Tommy was the musician that every person in Calgary understood simply because he experienced co-written the song “Does Your Mama Know About Me?” that Diana Ross and the Supremes experienced recorded. It was initially a hit for Tommy’s band, Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers, on Motown Information. He was a legend in Calgary. The track went on to be recorded by other performers, way too, like Stephanie Mills, Jermaine Jackson and the Harlettes, Bette Midler’s backup singers.
As we arrived off the stage, a person of the band customers asked, “Well, when’s our upcoming gig?” Tommy and I both of those appeared at each other and knew the respond to. There would be no future gig for the band. We were being now a bona fide comedy duo.
Ihor set up a conference, and we have been to fulfill at a farmhouse out in the countryside. On the appointed day, I drove out there and knocked on the door, which was speedily opened by a very really youthful blonde hippie-type chick. It was Shelby Fiddis, Tommy’s girlfriend, a human being I would occur to know really very well for the up coming forty several years (and counting). Crawling around the ground was an angelic minor just one-year-previous woman with cookie smeared all above her face, Precious Chong. Tommy arrived out from a back bedroom, and at the fast we initially laid eyes on just about every other, we both experienced the exact imagined: “What the hell are you?”
Tommy was carrying brown leather-based trousers held up by a huge leather-based belt mounted to a handmade hippie belt buckle. He was also sporting a blue nylon wifebeater T-shirt that discovered a crude, handmade eagle tattoo on his still left arm in which just one wing was bigger than the other… and not on reason. He had extended, wild black hair parted in the middle. To top rated it off, he had a scraggly and sparse Fu Manchu moustache and goatee… and he was brown, which I took to be a excellent sign.
The general outcome was of a hippie-biker Mongolian weight lifter. And he had gold-framed eyeglasses and a large gap in his front enamel. You know, your common topless-bar improvisational-theater seem.
I was sporting the precise reverse search. Working at Sunshine Village Ski Resort essential a short haircut and no facial hair. I seemed like a narc, which every person in the troupe would suspect at very first.
I started filling Tommy in on my track record, starting off with my draft-resister position and ending with my working experience as a member of Fast Theater, an improvisational theater group in L.A. A complete fucking lie, but a really superior improv. I experienced witnessed Quick Theater quite a few instances and promptly realized I could do improv.
Tommy realized that I was a writer for Poppin journal, so he hired me as a author for the group. But very first I experienced to appear down and check out the exhibit to see if we were a suit. I asked him how much the occupation paid out, and he explained sixty Canadian dollars a 7 days.
Right away, I realized we were a match.
Do You Have a Nickname?
Very promptly we heard of this “battle of the bands” at the Garden Auditorium. Great location to try out out our new act. We obtained a time slot for Tommy Chong and the City Performs. I experienced read Tommy say more than a couple situations that the subsequent act or team he was in would have his identify in the title. He did not want to be nameless like he was in Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers. I fully comprehended. I required particularly the similar factor.
Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong at New York’s Bitter End in 1972. (Image by Allen Eco-friendly
We made the decision to start out with a few of comedy bits and then perform some audio. We began out with “Old Person in the Park,” in which Tommy performs a crotchety old geezer and I engage in a biker. We have a dialogue, which is pictured on the again of our initial report album. We started accomplishing the bit when every person was continue to milling all-around. Very rapidly a bunch of men and women rushed to the front of the phase. I considered they were heading to leap onstage, which is what we were being used to, but they just preferred to listen to what was heading on. These little ones, for the most section, would in no way have absent down to the Junk. So whilst they under no circumstances heard of us… we were them. When we completed the bit, we obtained a massive cheer. We knew what a rock‘n’roll audience was like. We both of those had been musicians and performers all our lives. I’d been in a selection of bands all through high faculty and college or university. Tommy, the exact. We experienced a lot more to give them, and we did.
We went into a further little bit, and most of the arena had quieted down and had been following us. They needed a further little bit and then a different. We never ever obtained about to the new music. The band stood there the whole time. We received a rousing rock‘n’roll reception. As we arrived off the stage, a single of the band members asked, “Well, when’s our subsequent gig?” Tommy and I both of those looked at just about every other and understood the respond to. There would be no upcoming gig for the band. We were now a bona fide comedy duo.
As we drove household in Pop Chong’s auto, we had been floating on a cloud of euphoria. In Vancouver, the place it always rains, it’s vital to have windshield wipers that operate. Ours did, but the windshield-wiper motor had been broken for a though. The wiper was hooked up to a straightened-out wire apparel hanger that the driver made use of to transfer the blades back again and forth… by hand. We did not treatment, although, as we drove along bursting with pleasure. We went again and forth going above the clearly show and how the viewers responded. We were thrilled that they not only listened and laughed, but that they didn’t toss shit at us.
Before long we have been driving alongside in a pleased silence. Though performing the windshield wiper, Tommy seemed shed in a reverie.
“We need a new identify.”
We both of those recognized that “Tommy Chong and the Town Works” would not perform if there ended up just the two of us. So we tried using out all the combinations.
Marin and Chong.
Chong and Marin.
No. Both of those sounded much too substantially like an ambulance-chasing, “Se habla Español… and Chinese” legislation organization.
Tommy and Richard.
Richard and Tommy.
No. Sounded like two white men.
Then eventually, Chong asked, “Do you have a nickname?”
“Well, my family members phone calls me Cheech, which is quick for chicharrón.”
“What’s a chicharrón?”
“It’s a pork rind, you know, a deep-fried pig pores and skin. They’re all curled up and modest. When my uncle Bano noticed me for the first time in my crib he mentioned, ‘He seems to be like a tiny chicharrón.’ It quite rapidly acquired shortened to ‘Cheech,’ and that was normally my nickname in the relatives. Everybody in my family members had nicknames, generally two or a few.”
Chong stated softly, “Cheech, Cheech.” And then “Cheech and Chong.” And that was it.
We did not even check out “Chong and Cheech.” We had been both musicians, and our ears explained to us that title had the suitable sound. Cheech and Chong… and that’s the way it’s generally been. We drove into the rain, in excess of a bridge that was condemned and experienced a large indication that warned Move forward AT YOUR Have Risk.
Tommy, when nonetheless doing work the wiper by hand as we disappeared into the fog, softly chanted, “Cheech and Chong, Cheech and Chong… Guy, we’re gonna be major.”
1 Compact Issue
Nevertheless we did not know it at the time, and hadn’t prepared it, our initially gig as Cheech and Chong was at that battle of the bands at the Backyard garden Auditorium. We played one particular additional gig in Vancouver atRonnie Scott’s Blues and People Club on Davie Street. It was Could 1970.
Scott’s was the epicenter of the blues and people scene in Vancouver. We were opening for blues wonderful T-Bone Walker. The moment yet again, persons in this scene had hardly ever viewed us, but we went over excellent.
T-Bone was very late finding on, and when he did present up, he was completely drunk and experienced to be served onto the stage. He sat down in his chair, and a roadie laid a guitar in his lap. The band,which experienced already began to enjoy, waited for him to sign up for in.
At last, he begun participating in his guitar and singing in a incredibly drunk voice, slurring all his text. The strings on his guitar experienced been loosened for the plane journey, so they have been all out of tune. But it did not bother T-Bone, for the reason that he just retained singing and enjoying. I never believe he even knew exactly where he was. A roadie crept onstage and tried out to tune as he played, which only seemed to annoy him. The band concluded the tune, and the audience leapt to their ft to give him a standing ovation.
Tommy and I almost fell more than laughing in the again of the home.
Later on on, Chong would use that efficiency as the basis of his blind blues singer Blind Melon Chitlin, which is even now in our act now.
After the clearly show, Chong and I experienced a dialogue about what we would do next. If we genuinely preferred to make it, we would have to go to possibly Los Angeles or New York. New York was cold and we realized no one there, Los Angeles was heat and I grew up there. There was only a single challenge: I was preferred by the FBI simply because of my draft-resistance activities.
Chong reported softly, “Cheech, Cheech.” And then “Cheech and Chong.” And that was it.
You have to recall that there was overall bureaucratic and administrative chaos in the United States at this time. The Vietnam War was raging, and a large portion of the place, in particular college-age children, were being accomplishing almost everything they could to fuck with the authorities. I figured they had been under no circumstances likely to detect li’l old me. This was effectively prior to the computer system age. They were nonetheless producing carbon copies of shit.
So I went to the airport armed with a phony ID. It was the driver’s license of my good friend Monthly bill Knorr… with his photograph on it.
Still, I was a very little bit nervous… so, I looked for a bar at the airport. I observed some thing Irish sounding with a shamrock on it so I went in and requested a double vodka on the rocks.
My address story, if I wanted a single, was that I was a writer for Poppin magazine, which I was, and I was likely down to the U.S. to do some interviews with the Grateful Dead, Santana and the Jefferson Airplane. I ordered a further shot. I downed it as soon as it came and then got up and walked to Gate 34.
Rounding a corner into a very long hallway of gates, I observed Led Zeppelin coming out of a door at the other finish. Robert Plant and Jimmy Webpage led a gang of roadies. There was no one else in the hallway. They acted like they were being currently being attacked by a hundred groupies. They were laughing at the top of their lungs as they pretended to kick them absent and struggle their way as a result of the nonexistent group. I assumed I was in the film Blow-Up.
I steeled myself for my interaction with the U.S. border officer. As I confirmed him my phony ID, I leaned in intently so that he could get a whiff of the vodka on my breath. I preferred to make positive he believed that I was a journalist. I started out telling him my story of going to get interviews. He stopped me in the middle of the tale, handed me back my ID with Invoice Knorr’s photograph on it and stated, “Welcome to the U.S.”
I stepped across the line and, immediately after three many years, I was again household.
Excerpted from Cheech Is Not My Authentic Name… But Never Call Me Chong. Copyright © 2017 by Cheech Marin, Reprinted by authorization of Grand Central Publishing, New York, NY. All legal rights reserved.
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