CHEECH AND CHONG REUNITED, LIKE OLD TIMES

The Bong Remains the Same

EL PASO - After 23 often bitter and contentious years apart, Cheech
and Chong's decision to have a reunion tour came as a bit of a
surprise last year.

"We always got along when we were working," 70-year-old Tommy Chong
said in a telephone interview. "We never fought when we were working
on movies, records, television or anything. It was when we had nothing
to do except argue that we didn't get along.

"Now, we've got a lot of work to do."

No kidding. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong launched their "Cheech and
Chong Light Up America & Canada" tour in September, reviving old music
and comedy bits like "Mexican Americans," "Earache My Eye" (complete
with Marin in a tutu) and the old couple in a porno theater. The tour
comes to the Inn of the Mountain Gods in Mescalero, N.M., on Thursday.

Originally scheduled to run through November 2008, the tour has been
extended a couple of times and is now expected to end in April.

But that will hardly be the end for the duo, which is working on
several projects that should help keep the name alive and generate a
substantial windfall.

Projects include an animated film based on skits from their albums, a
tour documentary, a potential theater production and maybe more touring.

Marin, 62, said they weren't sure what to expect when the first batch
of tour dates was announced last July.

"We didn't know," he said. "We said, 'OK, we'll book a bunch of dates
and see who comes.' The reaction was tremendous right away. So we
said, 'OK, we'll add a few more dates.'

"Now we're into (April) already, with multiple shows in (just about)
every city."

The content is hardly new. The only real addition is "Born in East
L.A.," a parody of Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." from their
last album, 1985's "Get Out of My Room."

"We'd never done it onstage. We never did it together. He recorded it
by himself," Chong explained. "I had to learn the cop part. And I
wanted to make sure we got some salsa dancing in there, so I combined
it with salsa. My wife Shelby, who opens the show, teaches salsa. It's
probably the biggest hit of the show."

"Yeah," Marin added, "it goes over well."

So, apparently, do skits written and performed more than 30 years ago
during the era of Vietnam, anti-war protests, Watergate and recession.

Were they concerned the material might be as stale as a crusty old
bong?

"It's exactly the same," Marin said, noting that period's parallels
with today. "We're in an unpopular presidency, an economic crisis and
an unpopular war. It's exactly the same, except there's no draft."

There was a draft when they met in Vancouver, Canada, in 1968. Marin
had left the United States to escape conscription and learn about
pottery. He got a gig performing at Chong's topless club.

Forty years later, Marin is bald and heavier, and his trademark
mustache is long gone. Chong's hair is shorter, but totally
gray-white. Yet their influence on popular culture remains as strong
as Acapulco gold. The movies they made in the '70s and '80s, including
"Up in Smoke" and "Nice Dreams," live on on cable and DVD. The duo
practically created the stoner film genre, which blew box-office smoke
in the '90s with the "Wayne's World" movies and more recently with
"Pineapple Express."

Dusting off the old bits wasn't all that difficult, they said, though
they did have to refer to videos on YouTube a few times.

"It was almost like second nature," Marin said. "We rehearsed about
two minutes then went onstage like we never left."

Marin compared their return to the stage with having a tattoo removed.
"You try to get it off with a laser," he said, "and you have a scar
that looks just like your tattoo."

There certainly was some emotional scarring after their split in
1985.

Marin launched a successful acting career, starring in the "Born in
East L.A." movie and opposite Don Johnson in "Nash Bridges" on CBS.
His TV and film work includes stints on "Judging Amy" and ABC's
"Lost," plus voice work in "The Lion King," "Cars" and the recent
"Beverly Hills Chihuahua." He has also become a noted collector and
advocate of Chicano art.

Marin has spent a lot of time in El Paso this decade -- more than 30
years after Cheech and Chong performed at the El Paso convention
center in the early 1970s.

He made a rare return to the stage in 2001 for a trio of concerts with
his acolyte, comedian Paul Rodriguez. He also received a key to the
city in 2003, when a 15-city tour of his Chicano art collection came
to the El Paso Museum of Art. He played in a charity golf tournament
in El Paso in 2007, donated nearly $32,000 worth of prints of his
collection to the Museum of Art, and took part in a panel discussion
on Chicano art at the museum last March.

Chong, meanwhile, continued to perform solo, including at the
now-defunct Bart Reed's Comic Strip in El Paso. He made a couple of
movies that came nowhere near matching the popularity of Marin's
string of films. His most visible role was playing -- what else -- a
stoner on the hit TV series "That '70s Show."

But Chong went to prison for nine months in 2003 after he was convicted of
conspiracy to sell drug paraphernalia. That inspired his 2006 book, "The I
Chong: Meditations from the Joint." He also wrote and directed the
off-Broadway stage show "The Marijuana-Logues" and recently published
"Cheech and Chong: An Unauthorized Biography."

The pair had talked about some kind of reunion for several years, but
it didn't turn serious until after Marin's divorce and Chong's
incarceration. They often refer to this as their "felimony" tour. A
live documentary of the tour will be taped during March 14 shows in
San Antonio.

"Our show, for some reason, has hit a chord in people," Chong said,
"where they want to see the same bits and they laugh at the same bits
and the same way every time."

Like the sticky resin on a good bud, the reunion has been anything but
harsh, the duo said.

"Our show is like a crop of good weed. It's harvest time. We're gonna
harvest 'til everything's gone and take a break," Chong cracked.

"We'll enjoy the fruits of the harvest," Marin added.

Do they still toke?

"We use suppositories," Marin joked (we think).

"I quit for the tour and my own peace of mind," Chong said. "I didn't
want some day to have some guy hand me a joint and handcuffs at the
same time. It's not worth it."