Show Notes
You're back and ready to hear the rest of that story aren't you? Well I bed you didn't know that you would learn something listening to this! Check out the books Tommy talks about, they are incredible.
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...... ~ Steve the Robot
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Tommy Chong Interview - Part 2
[00:00:00] Kenric: girls were making you do, man, the things that you'll go through just impressed that one girl
Tommy Chong: that's that's how Cheech got into pottery.
Kenric: Oh, are you going
Tommy Chong: to tell us the story when he went up to when he, you know, he had a avoid the draft cause he, they drafted his ass, you know, because, and so, so he had a. Skip up to Calgary, but while he went up there and he worked with the top, uh, uh, Potter, like I said, teach it very artsy. Yeah. But so I asked him this recently, I said, how'd you get into Potter is when I met this girl
and she was taking pottery.
Kenric: So I just took pottery.
Tommy Chong: W w when me and the, the native Elvis used to play guitar practice, you know, during tunes, uh, girls or girls would phone or we'd we'd [00:01:00] phone them. And we say, Hey, listen to this. Then we put the phone down and we'd play and forget they were on the phone. Yeah. And we played for a couple of hours. Then we look at and look at all the phone or pick up the phone and they'd still be there.
Wow. Incredible.
Kenric: You know, you're doing something right at that point.
Tommy Chong: The girls did
Kenric: it
Tommy Chong: once she came down and she brought everybody and then the club was so successful for like
Kenric: five years straight,
Tommy Chong: every night, seven nights a week, we just never closed. And we just, we just pumped it out and, you know, it was after hours, started 11 o'clock at night and go to six in the morning and there was
Kenric: Know,
Tommy Chong: we had no problems, you know, playing, you know, playing all night and, uh, yeah, it was, it was great.
Kenric: Is that when Cheech came into the picture,
Tommy Chong: Nope. Nope. That was the after hours club. That's when, uh, uh, Motown came into picture van arise, Diana Ross, [00:02:00] what was D was doing a show and her and the Supremes came down to the club.
And once they heard us, Diana phoned Barry Gordy and said, you gotta hear this guy. You gotta hear this group. And so Barry literally flew to Vancouver and heard us inside us. And then forgot about us. And, and then we, uh, yeah, that was it.
Kenric: What was it like, yo? Yeah. What was it like meeting Diana Ross? I'm kind of shocked.
I didn't know that you, that she came and played your club. That must've been exciting.
Tommy Chong: Well, no, she didn't play, she was cleaning the big clubs in town, but it was the after hours club, but she still came and
Kenric: hung out in your club, right?
Tommy Chong: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She came down and that
Kenric: was the whole thing. I,
Tommy Chong: you know, I never saw her.
I was busy doing something else, but, but, uh, you know, I was told, Bobby told me. Yeah, Bobby Taylor, and then, uh, did next thing you know, Barry's flying in and everybody's sucking
Kenric: up to Barry, you know, I'm sure they, till
Tommy Chong: they told [00:03:00] Barry that we retired the chair that very Saudis.
Kenric: Could you pick out the chair after you left?
Tommy Chong: Yeah.
Kenric: What was Barry Gordy like?
Tommy Chong: Great. Great, great, great. I, again, you know, because he heard Bobby, I did, I didn't mean the night that he came.
Kenric: Right.
Tommy Chong: Uh, but, uh, but we heard, you know, and then we got the contracts and all that stuff, you know, and
Kenric: like I said, he
Tommy Chong: forgot about us. So what we did, we booked ourselves all the way from Vancouver to LA.
Uh, no. From Vancouver, we then we've worked, uh, Seattle in a club in Seattle, and then we worked at a club in, uh, in Los Angeles and Maverick's flats. And the word word got out that, you know, Bobby Taylor and the bank.
Kenric: Oh no, we lost him. I'll
Tommy Chong: call him back,
Kenric: man. I'll call him back. [00:04:00] Alright.
I got Tommy Chung's phone number.
Tommy Chong: Awesome.
Kenric: You said he gets bad reception up there sometimes.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. I heard that. Oh, we'll give him
Kenric: a. We'll give it a minute and then we'll call him back.
Tommy Chong: You have a minute. Yeah.
Kenric: So he's great. He's funny. And he's just so open honest. It's just very earnest. That was a great word for it.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. I have a lot of fun to sit sitting here.
Listening, taking notes.
Kenric: Yeah. He's fun. Alright, let's try again.
Hey, there you are.
[00:05:00] Tommy Chong: What happened? We got, I
Kenric: don't know. Yeah. We just got disconnected for a second or not for a second.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. Okay. Okay. We heard anyway,
Kenric: you're playing in LA.
Tommy Chong: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We, um, to Motown, you know, it was, it was exciting. First of all, um, we had to get a new band because the band that we got discovered with,
Kenric: yeah.
Tommy Chong: They went down to LA to celebrate. You know that we got to start with Motown and then they couldn't get back into Canada.
Kenric: Oh no, how come we couldn't come back here?
Tommy Chong: Well, they never had work, permits working illegally, you know? And, uh, and so we had to get a, another, Oh, we got this phenomenal drummer from Portland and we picked up the musicians as he went down to the States.
And so we played Seattle. Then we played, uh, uh, LA [00:06:00] and then we. Flew from LA to right to Detroit
Kenric: 67
Tommy Chong: 66. Well, his, he was 67 when we recorded it.
Kenric: Yeah. That's
Tommy Chong: 66 67. When, when we finally recorded it and you know, our claim to fame, you know, we, we, we recorded, I wrote a poem. And this a songwriter that was hanging around with us actually was in the group for awhile.
Yeah. A piano player. He saw my writings and he, he asked me if he could take it home and put music to it. And I said, sure. And so that was, uh, does your mama know about me?
Kenric: Yeah. So,
Tommy Chong: so yeah, so we, we, uh, we had a hit song right away and Diana Ross loved the song. And so she recorded it as well.
Kenric: I saw Bobby Taylor to interview and he talked about how he didn't like the song.
He was like, I didn't like that song, but, uh, Gordy said, no, that's a smash hit. That's a smash hit. [00:07:00] I was like, Oh yeah, it's on dude. It was funny. Cause he did, as he did his Barry Gordy impression and he,
Tommy Chong: yeah, yeah, yeah. Juno's a cool,
Kenric: we definitely had a Glint in his eye gleam in his eyes. He was saying it, you know,
Tommy Chong: you know the thing that we've met, Barry Gordy and Barry Gordy, blender to meet.
The guy who wrote the song, the music, Tom Barrett, while he was with us and very goes, what, well, you better get him. That's the guy you work. And so, so tell him beard fluent, I think the next day. And then he stayed with Motown until he got killed in a very tragic boat accident, but he stayed with Motown.
Did, uh, Vanilla fudge. Oh, cool. Oh yeah. Yeah, he did. Yeah. It was vanilla Verger or there's another group out of Motown. A white guy. Yeah. It's a rock rock band. Anyway. [00:08:00] Uh, the night. Yeah, tell him. And I never, we only wrote that one song he liked to sing, but Bobby said he didn't like the song.
Kenric: Yeah. It's on the, uh, you can, you can, YouTube.
It was like one of those behind the music or maybe it was your E true Hollywood story of Cheech and Chong. That's what it
Tommy Chong: was. Yeah. But you know, Bobby has,
Kenric: because I, what he was saying it, and then he'd get it there.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, they used to have a Bobby Taylor alert at Motown.
Kenric: Oh, that's funny.
Tommy Chong: Good. Bobby was John Belushi. You know, there was always the Baluchi alert whenever he went anywhere, you know, because they'd get all jazzed up on Coke or something, and then they would have these great ideas. Oh, you gotta hear this, you know, like blue she'd walk in and. Just rip off whatever was playing on there and put on his CD and crank it up.
It'd be some punk rock group, you know, and it just turned it up loud. Well, [00:09:00] body used to. Imitate Barry all the time. You know,
Kenric: he went on his tongue.
Tommy Chong: Yeah,
love it. Yeah. So the head of Bobby Day they're alert the series bugs and the receptionist would phone everybody's Bobby Taylor's in the building. Bobby Taylor. So you could either lock your door or, you know, disappear or, or, or put up with it.
Kenric: Oh my God. That's hilarious. How did you meet?
Tommy Chong: Barry's still here.
He's uh, you know, I see sweet Suzanne depasse once in a while. Cause you know, with my alone, with my Trumpy friends, She's in a gang. So I, every once in a while, I'll see Suzanne. That's cool. I'll get my latest Barry Gordy update.
Kenric: Yeah.
Tommy Chong: But he was very, very, very cool.
Kenric: That's cool.
Tommy Chong: Because when I got fired from Motown, because I had to get a green card, you know,
Kenric: we
Tommy Chong: got [00:10:00] deported from, uh, Detroit right away, almost right away.
Cause now I bet the black musicians got kicked out of Canada. Right. Yeah. And so we heard all these white musicians from Canada. Well, they got kicked out of the States,
including me. Oh, man. And so I had to get a green card and I knew I was going to get a green card anyway. Yeah. And so I got one for myself, one for my wife, my first wife, Maxine, and the girls. And I got all the girls down here legally and yeah, everything fine. And, uh, yeah. But, uh, and then I was working. For Barry.
I was kind of like, uh, being in a house credit for one of his girlfriends. Yeah. And that was the gig. I had a miss to go to get my, uh, my, uh, green card. And so Johnny Bristow was the road manager at the time. Uh, he had [00:11:00] no idea what a green card was and he was trying to be this authoritarian, uh, road manager.
So he told me if you leave, you're fired. You kind of, so do you know, who's, who's this guy telling me, you know, very, I got very good, his personal phone numbers, so, but he, it was word. I came back to the gig and I knew I was fired because I was in Detroit where we had to go. And there was no ticket for me to go back to, to, uh, cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Kenric: I have my
Tommy Chong: girlfriend there in her new baby. And so I had to go back and then I got told I got fired right in front of everybody. And now they could have saved me, you know, the band, the band could have said, okay, if they're fine, I'm fine too. But of course they never, you know, and that gave me more reason to quit anyway.
And so, [00:12:00] so after we quit, I. You know, we saw a movie called, I love you. Alice B Toklas
Kenric: was a Peter Sellers
Tommy Chong: and it was all about, it was all about LA. So we're sitting in called that Detroit scene. What do we do? We packed up, we booked down lane, very Gordy, gave me enough money to do that. And he gave me a nice, nice little bundle to continue with
Kenric: that's integrity.
Like we were talking about earlier. That's awesome.
Tommy Chong: The aunt, and then. Years after teaching. I, you know, got our hit record here. Very good. He shows up at the. The comedy club with Stevie wonder, Stevie became a big teaching charm fan. That's awesome. Because, you know, cause I did a bit called blind melon.
Chiller.
Yeah. Yeah. Barry Gordy Berry Gordy came up. We had a nice little reunion.
Kenric: That's awesome. That's [00:13:00] that's, that's a great story. When you, uh, started writing up the movies. You did. I think you co-wrote the first four, right?
Tommy Chong: Yeah. I kind of wrote them off.
Kenric: Yeah. Oh really? I, yeah. I gotta tell you. I felt like the course again, brothers is one of my favorite movies of all time and I thought it was odd.
I thought it was underrated. I thought people like, cause everybody wanted to like. Cause it was, it was more of a complete movie to me, you know? And, and everybody just wanted the, the short skits, like you did and up in smoke and nice dreams.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. Yeah. They wanted every area. They always want your hit movie.
But the thing is, you know, it was cheats that really wanted the course of your brothers to be the way it was. Cause he didn't want to do, he didn't want to do that. He was, he didn't want to do anything. Right. It didn't want to work. She didn't want to go. Didn't want to do the course of your brothers. Then he said, okay, we do the course, your brothers let's not have any dope in it.
That's let's do a straight movie. I said, no, I'm fine. Okay. Alright. So I, I literally broke, you know, I would use teachers' [00:14:00] experiences. So, you know, he would tell me a story and I'd make a movie out of it, you know? And, and that's what we've done all along, you know, same as the record bits and that's, you know, Well, he would give me, he would give me a little hint and then flesh it out and, and, and, and, and put it all together.
Cause you know, I was the one, the older one was experience, you know,
Kenric: especially recording experience, you know? And
Tommy Chong: so I had that, I learned that. You know, with Motown and the, you know, that whole system, but as far as the movie goes, see, no one wanted, I was the only one that wants to do a movie. Cause I didn't want to go back to Australia because every time we didn't play Australia, we'd miss winter.
I mean, summer, right? Yeah. So we would go to Australia to be there winter. And then we come back for our winter, flip that back to Australia for their winter goodbye, you know, and I got tired. I said, I don't want to do that. [00:15:00] I want to do a movies. Teaching tone, got to do movies. And so the first movie I wrote was.
Was a Jack in the wheat stark. Yeah, that was the first one, but then Lou got involved and so Lou wanted to do, uh, uh, cheating Sean's greatest tips. So we could have his records, you know, it'd be in the movie, uh, but then halfway through or, you know, just writing the movie, the first part, uh, teaching, I decided we'll use the Pedro and man characters.
And so then I wrote the scenario for them, you know, do we truck and, you know, getting busted, you know, and the whole premise of, uh, you know, the opposites, I'm from a rich family and he's from the poor Chicano family. Cause I wanted to show the, the mixing of the, of the cultures and, and how, how music. Uh, did unites everybody, you know, and, and, and, and that, [00:16:00] that's what I did.
And then I also wanted to show how healthy marijuana was compared to the other drugs, which I think I, yeah. And, uh, yeah, it was, uh, it was the surprise here. And then unfortunately, you know, Uh, people took advantage of, uh, the hard negativity and, uh, you know, I mean, we still got scars. It still hurts to sit down, but
Kenric: he made it through.
Tommy Chong: Okay.
Kenric: What in nice dreams you had Peewee Herman on.
Tommy Chong: Did you, did you guys,
Kenric: when you met him, did you know that he would be. What he became.
Tommy Chong: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He was, see, I was trying to pay homage to the improvisational, uh, schools because that's how I got my start. You know, I was, I'd go to the committee. I go to second city and sit there and be entertained.
Then I'd remember [00:17:00] the bits and then I'd show my, my group, the bits, and we would do our version of it, you know? And that's really, you know, we got our start with the improvisational, uh, techniques. And so I, I tried, I reached out to the committee, but here. At all, you know? And so I went to the Groundlings and that's where I find pili and people.
I didn't find Michael Winslow there, a casting agent from Michael up in San Francisco.
Kenric: Okay.
Tommy Chong: So we've got Michael, but, uh, for the most part, I would use all improvisational actors and real funny people.
Kenric: Well, that's your background, right? That's what you started doing all that.
Tommy Chong: Yeah, well, you know what I learned, it's just instinctive that if you give someone a chance, their first chance, then you've got a loyal subject or loyal, [00:18:00] whatever cameraman or writer or actor they're loyal to you for, for emperor.
You were there first and people don't forget that. And so a lot of people that we had, and it was in, I've always wanted to get my wife. You know, in the movie and I'll be,
Kenric: Oh, we lost you. Are you there?
Tommy Chong: He could be putting her in, in every other movie after that.
Kenric: So right when you said I try to get my wife in the movies, you cut
Tommy Chong: out. Oh. Oh, and then, uh, so, so what I did, I put teacher's wife in there.
Kenric: There you go.
Tommy Chong: So, so he could say anything and she did a beautiful job, Ricky.
[00:19:00] Yeah, she was there. She was the rich girl know. And uh, and then I put both of them in the course.
Let's see at that time, chief really didn't want to do any really didn't make our Purdue. Yeah. Howard Brown. He was the guy that put, put us, first of all, got us free of Lou Adler and he got us, uh, uh, got us the four movie deals, you know, her three, was it three D yeah. Three movie deals, you know, so. So, um, the Cheech was still angry about that.
And then he, then he, well, he got tired of being teaching. You know, the teacher
Kenric: are playing the same character.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. Well, it was, uh, You know, I mean, it's up to you, you know, do what you do with your character.
Kenric: Yeah. Yeah. We had the same character. He born in East LA, which I love that movie, so
Tommy Chong: yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's the [00:20:00] same character. Well, the thing was important. He felt late. He never had to be telling him what to do. Yeah. You know? Yeah. He just went on his own and he did his own, you know, and, um, and I was thinking for a while there, you know, he might've. So he had a career there, but you know, he, it's not as luck, but it's not, you know, he, he likes to work is w
Kenric: when you think back of your guys as long career and all the things that you've done, is there any thing that you would, Oh my God, I can't believe that just happened
Tommy Chong: again.
Kenric: Hey, this time you called me. Yeah.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. I got you.
Kenric: What do you think of VACCA over your career? Is there anything that you would have done differently? To get to the place that you're at now,
Tommy Chong: you know, thinking about it. No. Yeah, no. First of all, every decision I made, you know, had consequences. Yeah. [00:21:00] And, uh, and that's the whole point.
Yeah, that's it is right. I, I could have, uh, I, you know, I could have sued Lou Adler. I could have, uh, we could have been in litigation and gone through all that crap. And then who knows, you know, but I wanted to just make movies. And so rather than that, I, I didn't want to hurt anybody's life, you know? And so, uh, I couldn't, no we're doing a documentary.
My, uh, Robbie, my daughter and her husband, Dave, um, they're filmmakers, we're doing a documentary of three really in depth. Look at my life. Penn teaches like, Oh, that's awesome. There's a lot of questions like that in there, you know, but you good. Have you done anything different? The bongs? Yeah. You know, I mean, there were guys that I met that could have warned me.
You know that, do that. The feds were
[00:22:00] Kenric: right,
Tommy Chong: but they never told me good rather than get mad. He said, you know, you don't want to mess with faith. Yeah, but that's,
Kenric: I mean, it's commendable that you won't get mad at him. Cause I, I, I, I feel what you're saying, but it's kind of like the friend that laughs at you, cause you got a booger hanging out your nose, but it doesn't say anything.
And then let you walk off with this booger hanging out your nose as you go talk to all these different people and go buy a record and do all this stuff. And you're like, man, you couldn't tell me how to bat in the cave what's going on with you.
Tommy Chong: But then, you know, but then things work out because you have nothing else. You find out their character.
Kenric: Right. You know,
Tommy Chong: if nothing else, nothing else, they're going
Kenric: to be who they are.
Tommy Chong: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, so no regrets? No, no, none at all. If anything, that's one thing you don't want. Yeah, because that drains you that's like having too much clothes on when you're sitting.
[00:23:00] Kenric: Right. It's it's dragged down. Yeah. It's like getting in the ocean with your sneakers on what do you do?
Tommy Chong: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. No, no. I mean, that's the whole point of life, life really is to be lived and all the mistakes you don't want to do cameos in that just sometimes you'll ask me, give some advice.
You know, just, you know, just keep, keep your eyes open. I just enjoy the shit out of everything. I love it, you know, because, because it's, it's exciting. It's not forever. Yeah. I had a conversation with Tim Leary. Yeah, Tim was always trying to talk about leaving the planet, you know, getting a spaceship, finding another Hertz, you know, Jenna and I, one night I told Tim, Tim.
We're ready on a spaceship. We're floating through this thing. Yeah, you couldn't get a better [00:24:00] spaceship than the one we're on. You don't have to get in some cramped quarters wearing special suits so you can breathe. You know, you can go through space, enjoying the allied yourself. We're already on a spaceship.
Kenric: You can drop your LSD and be fine.
Tommy Chong: And, you know, they said to me, no, They're just like John Lynn. Oh my God.
Kenric: Well covered Timothy Leary. I take that as a compliment.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. You're just like John man. John started to, I try to teach him and he didn't learn anything.
Kenric: Well, you told everybody to drop out. Come on, man.
Oh, I love it. When your documentary is getting close. I will reach out. Cause I'd love to have you and your daughter back onto in your daughter on to talk about the [00:25:00] documentary. I mean, that would be amazing. Oh
Tommy Chong: yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it's good. It's going to be good. You know, I mean, it should have been finished well was finished like three years ago, but, uh, Dave and Robbie, might've the filmmaker because he got to know me and then he realizes that there's a lot of, there's a lot of
Kenric: depths there.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. They're long layers, you know, it's not
Kenric: just to Tommy Chong onion.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. Yeah. It was like my cameos sometimes, you know, people will ask me to do a cameo and he'll say, yeah, uh, just, just be funny.
Kenric: Right?
Tommy Chong: Well, It's not that easy, you know, it's just telling someone, just take your share. Yeah,
Kenric: no, go ahead. Take a shit right in front of us.
Tommy Chong: So there's a few things that has to happen before you can do it. They're
[00:26:00] pretty low budget, but, but I understand, you know, because they're paying so much money for the cameo, you know, they want their money,
Kenric: right.
Tommy Chong: But th but the smart weights they'll ask me, uh, to, for some wisdom right now, because you know, I'm, I'm an old guy I've been around. I can, I can definitely help you in that area.
You know, as far as making you laugh, uh, I have to get to know you because, you know, I don't know what your sense of humor is. You know, what makes you laugh? You know, Sometimes it would make me laugh. It makes other people cry. You know,
Kenric: we'll just do Wednesdays with
Tommy Chong: Tron
Kenric: every Wednesday and we'll get nuggets of wisdom from John.
Tommy Chong: Well, if you did it, you know, I mean that, that, that really is our, our, our, uh, you know, job now. And when you get older, you know, that that's what your job, it really. [00:27:00] The best you can do to people. It just say, keep going, keep doing. Yeah, whatever it is, you know, like I gotta watch, I got one of those Amazon watches.
Yeah. And every once in a while, it'll bring in and say, okay, you got to stand up. Now
Kenric: give me 3000 steps. Then you can sit back
Tommy Chong: down. So, so I do. I looked at, Oh,
Kenric: how did you make it? How did, how did you make it through the sixties, seventies and eighties, all the excess that was going on, especially in the drug culture. And you're known for the Stony comedy counter-culture of everything, you know, what did you do that that was different than watching some of these people that couldn't make it through?
Tommy Chong: Well, I did role models. Yeah, my role models were alleys bodybuilders. Oh, interesting. Steve [00:28:00] reads. Well, I know to some degree, I know I knew Arnold when he first come over, he used to sit on the bus beach with my wife. I remember it now, but, uh, and, uh, you know, uh, she, Arnold. Yeah, but what it is was the weight of care philosophy, the bodybuilders philosophy.
That I really loved. It was workout laying in the sun. He tells me, yeah, that's it. That's it. And read, read as much as you can work on that brain as well as, as, as your muscles.
Kenric: Do you have any suggestions on books that people should read today?
Tommy Chong: Oh, for, for bodybuilding
Kenric: in general? Yeah. Or maybe it was body building, but in general,
Tommy Chong: Well, no, there's a, there's a book that I use with my, with my daughters.
Um, because after I had a cancer [00:29:00] operation, uh, you know, there's, there's spiritual books that I, that I. Discovered many, many years. And, uh, so I, I just read them and reread them just over and over again. And, uh, but I couldn't read. So I asked my daughter to come read to me and wow. What happened? Both my daughters, you know, they were, you know, at that time of their life, you know, little midlife crisis kind of thing, you know, and they started reading to me and they got as much out of it as I would get at.
Kenric: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
Tommy Chong: And, and so, so that's what I, that's one of my, uh, Go to things with my daughters. They do you want a chapter? Yeah. Come on over. And so they come over and they'll read me the chapter. Now the book there's two books. One is, uh, two [00:30:00] authors. Really one out there is, uh, Emmet Fox.
And, uh, he's a spiritualist and he wrote about the 10 commandments and what he is, he kind of explained the Bible, the Bible wasn't written as, as we know it. Right. You know, but it's a burst in the chapters and all that, you know, it was far from it. It wasn't even close to that. The reason the section to the Bible up the way they did was so that, so that you could.
Take bits and pieces of it. But the Bible basically was not to be taken verbatim
Kenric: either. Right.
Tommy Chong: Izzy. And so Emmet, Fox teaches you what different things in the Bible means, you know, like, uh, going up to the mountain, does it necessarily mean
Kenric: right? You know, it
Tommy Chong: can, it can be a part of your life. You know, and, and so [00:31:00] when you, when you learn these, it's like learning directions.
Yeah. You get somebody to ship you something, and then you put, try to put it together. And the last thing you do is to read the directions. Well, the Bible, that's the first thing you should do for life because the Bible is full of life lessons. You know, it's a whole thing, you know, there really was, there was a Moses, but what he did, Oh, you know, same as Jesus.
Uh, there was a Jesus, right. But he, he wasn't white and he wasn't tall and he wasn't blonde. He was probably five foot seven and probably very, very Brown. And very nondescript. Right. And he was a laborer. So you probably. Built pretty good. You know, they call him a carpenter, but that's a nice way of saying it laborer.
Kenric: Right.
You
Tommy Chong: know? And, and, and, and so when they wrote the [00:32:00] Bible, they wrote parables parables, and, and they weren't really true. Like there was a man. Well, yeah, there was quite a few men, you know? Uh, and, and so when you read him at Fox, he, he gives you the meanings, the true meanings of it. So he does the sermon on the Mount and he does the, uh, and that's the ones I've been reading lately.
No, I got another book. Another writer. His name is Joel S Goldsmith.
Kenric: No, I'm looking these up, as you're saying.
Tommy Chong: Yeah, his, his, his book changed my life. Literally. Uh, I have been on a spiritual path for some time now. Of course the jazz musician turned me on, you know, and so once he did them, then I got into these, uh, uh, Feedlot.
Oh, did I lose you? No, no, you're still here.
Kenric: Yeah,
Tommy Chong: I'm [00:33:00] listening. There's a, another writer called T lot saying grandpa and he wrote a book called the third eye. Now that was the very first book that I wrote read that changed my life. And then from then on, I just started Catherine ponder. She's another, a self help group.
Kenric: Mine was a Paulo. Coehlo. Who did yeah, he did the Alchemist. I might've said his name.
Tommy Chong: Right, right,
Kenric: right, right. Yeah. It change the way I thought about the things around me, um, what I was living for and, and was I really going after the right things? You know what I mean? Yeah. And it just made me think of, I should be listening to what my inner monologue is telling me more than what the news is telling me.
I'm supposed to be
Tommy Chong: interested in. Well, both, both , you know what I tell people, I said, we all have the God app. We [00:34:00] all have God app and God is the most used. The spiritual world is probably the most powerful word in the English language. Or any language. Yeah, God. Yeah. I mean, just to mention as a word, God can change everything.
And this is what I tell people, you know, this is what I've been doing. I tell it, preach it to everybody. Is that, uh, especially with regrets or fears or anything, you know, if you get jealous or any kind of weird thoughts creep into your mind, replace it, replace the thought with the word God. Or just the thought of God and, uh, and miracles happen when you do that, but you really have to do it.
You have to, because once you do that, you'll feel a physical change come over. You, you know, you feel this [00:35:00] relaxation, it's like getting high, you know, and all you have to do is use that God hap, which is just thinking, put God in your. I think thought process. And once you do that, then everything, God comes to you, you know, in everything.
Good. It comes to you and like the thoughts, because that's what you want. You want good stuff that's to come to you. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the good thoughts, there are sometimes answers to your problems. I would say you go, Oh, I know what I can do with that. Oh. Especially to do writing a movie or something, you know, all of a sudden you can go, Oh, right.
After we do this, we could do that. Right. I better write that down. Or if you're writing songs, you know, what re what, what, what do I want? I'll say, Oh, right. That word works, you know, because, and that's really God, uh, uh, answers when your
Kenric: prayers.
Tommy Chong: Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. W cares Prairie prey, you know what killed me, you know, where they [00:36:00] had the, uh, Uh, the shutdown, you know?
Yeah. The churches were pissed because they couldn't make money off these people.
Kenric: Right? Yeah.
Tommy Chong: Cracked me up. I want us to be in here. No, I want people to get cold. You understand? It's called a pandemic. It's to keep you, keep your mouth shut. Yep.
Kenric: Keep your physical body
Tommy Chong: safe. They just keep you put something on your face to keep that trap shut.
You don't go to church because the Bible teaches you. You don't need a church to pray and
Kenric: Oh man, you know how long it took us to get my 80 year old mom to, to not want to go to church. And to go on zoom and just beats you so stubborn. It was like, well, if I'm going to get it, I'm going to get it. And it's like, you know, it's God's will, if I'm going to get it, it's God's like, no mom [00:37:00] you're, you don't make it easy.
Tommy Chong: You don't
Kenric: make, it's not like, Hey, there's a killer in the other room. You don't go, well, let me run over to that other room. Then
Tommy Chong: it'd be like the Eskimos, you know, uh, w when they get too old, they washed out to the cold.
Kenric: Oh, that's crazy. I didn't know that.
Tommy Chong: Oh yeah. Yeah, because they don't want to date because they don't want to, uh, you know, especially, yeah.
You see,
Kenric: they don't want to be a burden. They
Tommy Chong: didn't want to be a burden. So they walk out into the cold and that's where they die. So unless your grandma wants to do that, but yeah, they have to go to church because you know, they've been brainwashed into that. But no, no, no.
Kenric: Once she got to zoom though, she's been okay.
Tommy Chong: Oh, yeah, there you go. That's the same as my wife, you know, she's on zoom with all her, her lessons in that I think it's going to change. It has changed the world
Kenric: in so many ways, you know? Yeah.
Tommy Chong: Because she has shit. I, you know, I'm not going [00:38:00] to leave. I love my house bed. I don't want to go.
Kenric: I don't want you to go anywhere.
I don't want you to getting COVID. I want you to be safe and healthy.
Tommy Chong: Okay. Okay. I think my wife is calling me
Kenric: now. Hey, thank you so much for coming on and being a part of this really appreciate it. It was, we, I know we took way more time than we thought we were going
Tommy Chong: to that's okay. That's okay. You guys take advantage of an old yappy old guy.
Kenric: Yeah. At least you see through our veil very easily.
Thanks so much, man.
Tommy Chong: We'll talk to you soon. Thanks. Take care. Bye. Yup.
Kenric: Wow.
Tommy Chong: That was cool. How cool was that? That was awesome.
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