#had to get some weed into my system to even start cleaning this sketch up

[ronkeyroo]

🤍  《  Healing an aching heart  》  Vilkas ∘  Raven ∘  Farkas 

[vtforpedro]

First Line Game

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. tagged by @curiousartemis​ thank yoooou. oh boy here we go come rain or come shine (Steve/Bucky) Steve doesn’t know when he started sketching Bucky’s eyes. Maybe that time they were sitting in his bedroom and Steve was leaned back against the wall, his sketch pad on his bony knees, and Bucky was at the end of the bed. Arm on the windowsill, looking out into a hazy morning, smog covering the early sunshine. winter wonderland (Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench) Numbers doesn’t believe in fate, destiny or chance. He doesn’t believe that some things are just meant to be. Fates colliding, destinies intertwining, or, heaven forbid, God’s will. An odd coincidence here and there and being in the right place at the right time, sure, but not that there is anything in this world that’s ever up to a higher power’s influence. sweetheart like you (Credence Barebone/Percival Graves) Credence knows a lot of people. His work lends itself to meeting new people all the time, all over the world, from photographers to agents to makeup artists to fans. There are always new faces in his life, and Credence doesn’t remember most of them because he has a poor memory, but he does remember the people that stand out the most. emotionally yours (Credence/Graves) The summer of 1919 was one of Credence’s best. It was a mere six months after he’d finally escaped the clutches of his mother. He was finished with Ilvermorny and simply hadn’t gone back home but had gone to live with his friend in Upstate New York. love sick (Credence/Graves) If Credence is grateful for anything, he’s grateful for the summer months. He’s twenty-eight years old and working full time in a MACUSA-owned potions brewery. He brews rare potions and aids in research for experimental potions that one day might cure things such as lycanthropy or eradicate dragon pox, so it’s never seen in the world again. under your spell (Credence/Graves) Graves’ department doesn’t often get called in for magical animal activity, whether a death has been involved or not. There are other departments for it, and it’s unusual to get a request for aid from them. But after a third death Upstate in the Debar Mountain Wild Forest in as many days, for what is suspected human activity, the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures asks the Auror department to step in. While they suspect humans are killing witches and wizards, they have never seen anything like it before, only referring to it as werewolf-like but not done by werewolves. bound to lose, bound to win (Credence/Graves) There is no particular just like any other day in the Auror department in MACUSA. Each day can be drastically different than the one before it, from being stuck inside all day with paperwork and meetings, to planning and carrying out raids, to emergencies that take them out into the field unexpectedly. automaton (Credence/Graves) Percival Graves was born in the year 2287, son of a Congressman and robotics designer. His father, Silas Graves, was well known for his harsh politics in an already harsh political climate, in favor of more control over the people the way it used to be, rather than the free society they lived in now. let it be me (Credence/Graves) Credence has been acting since he was fourteen years old. His mother, once he’d hit a six inch growth spurt, decided his face was good enough to try out for commercials or small roles. can’t escape from you (Credence/Graves) Vampires. Credence has known very little else in his life. He vaguely remembers that his mother used to talk about witches when he was young, younger than seven or eight. He didn’t understand then, didn’t understand where witches were or why his mother despised them. maybe you’ll be there (Credence/Graves) It’s a cold day in Stranraer, grey clouds overhead, promising rain this evening. The smell of brine is strong here, as Graves stands on the edge of a pier, leaning against a wooden post and looking out over the sea. as i went out one morning (Credence/Graves) When Graves had been taken out of that hole in the ground, weak and malnourished, near death, he had thought life would never be the same for him. dear landlord (Credence/Graves) Credence has been living in the same apartment for the last three years now. He has two roommates, a couple, the same two who had been happy to have him come in when he was two years into his degree at NYU. The first six months with them had been fine besides some cleanliness issues, but it had all gone downhill after that. At a slow pace but downhill nonetheless, with random parties or smoking enough weed inside the apartment that he’d eventually had to threaten leaving because his clothes were starting to smell like it. Cleanliness also took a nose dive and when one of them lost their job, rent was harder to make every month. had a dream about you, baby (Credence/Graves) Credence is eight years old when he has the first dream. It’s a strange dream, where he appears on a grassy hillside, nothing but miles and miles of rolling hills and lakes laid out before him. There’s a towering oak tree nearby and he sits in its shade and looks at leaves on the ground. let’s stick together (Credence/Graves) Credence has lived in Manhattan for twenty-seven years and though it is the busiest, most populated city in the country, not much happens anymore these days to surprise him. simple twist of fate (Credence/Graves) Credence has known tough times in his life.     Living under Ma’s rule until he was thirteen and called CPS himself one night, taken away and thrust into the foster care system without knowing what that really meant for him. see that my grave is kept clean (Credence/Graves) Graves leads a raid in mid-January. It’s bitter and cold, snow piled up over the property of a large manor. It looks abandoned but they’ve known for some time that it isn’t. a sunday kind of love (Credence/Graves) Credence sits in the sprawling cafeteria in MACUSA with a chicken salad sandwich, a cup of fresh fruit, and a glass of pomegranate juice. His hour-long lunch break has just started and he’s glad to get away from Mister Ibex’s office. He likes his boss just fine, but the closer it gets to Quidditch season, the more irate he gets about everyone doing their jobs wrong - except you, Credence, he always adds kindly - and he uses his lunch breaks to escape. nevertheless (i’m in love with you) (Credence/Graves) It’s a week before Halloween in Ilvermorny and the castle already has a colony of live bats living on the ceiling in the Great Hall. Their droppings are thankfully charmed to disappear through a barrier a few feet below them but Percy Graves finds them irritating when they start to fly around in cloud-like formations. ain’t no man righteous, no not one (Credence/Graves) Credence gets the message from a Patronus while he’s sitting in bed, reading a book, to come downstairs because there’s work for him. He watches the raven disappear from the end of his bed and sighs, in relief and resignation both. --- alright!!! so I’ve learned I have a bad habit of starting with one simple line of ~feeling or description~ that’ll be explained in the following paragraphs. but I doubt it’ll change my writing haha it was nice walking through these fics tho. they weren’t posted all that long ago but it gave me The Nostalgia™ kind of glad it wasn’t all just credence/graves tbh but it makes me laugh there’s no bilbs and his dratted dwarf considering I have more fics posted for them than anyone else! but I’m at 79 fics and working on my 80th fic to publish so, oh my god. never thought I’d post this much when I first started writing fic! I feel like I should celebrate or something my fave one has to be the second one, a Mr. Numbers/Mr. Wrench fic from Fargo season one c: hey you. if you’ve read this far, guess what? you’re officially tagged and I want to see your fics’ first lines pls and thank you c:

[newstfionline]

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Biden’s approval slumps after a slew of crises: AP-NORC poll (AP) President Joe Biden’s popularity has slumped after a slew of challenges in recent weeks at home and abroad for the leader who pledged to bring the country together and restore competence in government, according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Fifty percent now say they approve of Biden, while 49% disapprove. The results come as Americans process the harried and deadly evacuation from Afghanistan, mounted border patrol agents charging at Haitian refugees, the unshakable threat of the coronavirus with its delta variant and the legislative drama of Biden trying to negotiate his economic, infrastructure and tax policies through Congress. Since July, Biden’s approval rating has dipped slightly among Democrats (from 92% to 85%) and among independents who don’t lean toward either party (from 62% to 38%). Just 11% of Republicans approve of the president, which is similar to July.

US hits 700,000 COVID deaths just as cases begin to fall (AP) The United States reached its latest heartbreaking pandemic milestone Friday, eclipsing 700,000 deaths from COVID-19 just as the surge from the delta variant is starting to slow down and give overwhelmed hospitals some relief. It took 3 ½ months for the U.S. to go from 600,000 to 700,000 deaths, driven by the variant’s rampant spread through unvaccinated Americans. The death toll is larger than the population of Boston. Nationwide, the number of people now in the hospital with COVID-19 has fallen to somewhere around 75,000 from over 93,000 in early September. New cases are on the downswing at about 112,000 per day on average, a drop of about one-third over the past 2 1/2 weeks. Deaths, too, appear to be declining.

Yes, the Stock Market May Very Well Be Rigged (Bloomberg) Most Americans believe the stock market is rigged, and they just may be right. Investments by insiders—a senior executive, board member, or shareholder who owns 10% or more of a company—tend to significantly and consistently outperform benchmark indexes. U.S. trading rules make it illegal for insiders to trade on nonpublic information, but it’s long been an open secret that insiders trade on what they know. And no one seems to care.

California to require COVID-19 vaccines for schoolchildren (AP) California will become the first U.S. state to require COVID-19 vaccinations for children to attend public and private schools in person in a mandate that could effect millions of students. Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday announced that the coronavirus shot will be added to 10 other immunizations already required for school kids, including those for measles and mumps. Exemptions would be granted for medical reasons or because of religious or personal beliefs but the exemption rules haven’t been written yet pending public comment. Any student without an exemption who refuses to get the vaccine would be forced to do independent study at home.

Flooded Tennessee town wrestles with how, where to rebuild (AP) In the 100 years that Jim Traylor’s family had lived in his house in rural Waverly, Tennessee, it hadn’t once flooded. The normally shallow Trace Creek where he had fished and swam as a kid had never crossed the one-lane road that separated it from his home. That changed on Aug. 21, when more than 17 inches (43 centimeters) of rain just upstream transformed the usually placid waterway into a roiling river that rushed into his house and devastated the town, killing 20 people before it receded. The water was already halfway up his tires by the time the 79-year-old decided to flee. A hundred years ago, the massive flood would have been seen as a fluke of nature, a once-in-a-lifetime event. Residents could have built back without fear. But today, climate change is making the type of flood-producing rainfall that inundated Waverly more common, experts say. And so now, the roughly 4,000 people who live there face a dilemma. With more than 500 homes and 50 businesses damaged, Waverly will likely see massive losses in property and sales tax revenue even as it prepares to spend millions on debris removal and infrastructure repairs. If those homes and businesses don’t return, the town could slowly die. But if they build back along the creek, are they risking another disaster?

With gas pumps still dry, Britain brings in the army (Reuters) Britain will from Monday deploy military tanker drivers to deliver fuel to gas stations, many of which were still dry on Friday after a chaotic week that has seen panic-buying, fights at the pumps and drivers hoarding petrol in water bottles. With an acute shortage of truck drivers straining supply chains to breaking point the government said on Friday 200 military tanker personnel, 100 of which are drivers, will complete their training over the weekend and start deliveries on Monday. Shortages of workers in the wake of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic have sown disarray through some sectors of the economy, disrupting deliveries of fuel and medicines and leaving more than 100,000 pigs backed up on farms. Retailers said more than 2,000 gas stations were dry and Reuters reporters across London and southern England said dozens of pumps were still closed.

Sick of weeds and trash piles, Rome to elect new mayor (AP) Curbside weeds in Rome grow so tall, they cover car door handles, giving new meaning to the term urban jungle. With sidewalks impassable because of piles of uncollected trash, people resort to pushing baby strollers down the middle of pothole-pocked streets. Overflowing garbage bins attract wild boars, terrifying passersby. As for mass transit, some subway stations in the commercial heart of the city, awaiting sorely needed escalator repairs, have been closed for months. Rome’s first populist mayor, Virginia Raggi is running for a second term in an election Sunday and Monday, and the sorry state of basic municipal services such as trash pickup and street maintenance is a major issue in this city of ruins, just as it was the first time around. When Romans elected Raggi, they had taken to cleaning up Rome themselves, neighborhood by neighborhood, park by park, bagging trash, filling potholes and passing the hat to pay gardening businesses to pull weeds in playgrounds. Some say things are worse now.

Taiwan angered after largest ever incursion by Chinese air force (Reuters) Taiwan sharply criticised China on Saturday after Beijing marked the founding of the People’s Republic of China with the largest ever incursion by the Chinese air force into the island’s air defence zone. Chinese-claimed Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China’s air force near the democratically governed island, often in the southwestern part of its air defence zone close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. Taiwanese fighters scrambled against 38 Chinese aircraft in two waves on Friday, the Taiwan Defence Ministry said. It said Taiwan sent combat aircraft to warn away the Chinese aircraft, while missile systems were deployed to monitor them.

Philippine leader Duterte announces retirement from politics (AP) Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday announced he was retiring from politics and dropping plans to run for vice president in next year’s elections when his term ends, avoiding a legal battle with opponents who question such a move. Speaking before reporters, Duterte said many Filipinos have expressed their opposition to his vice-presidential bid in surveys and public forums. “The overwhelming sentiment of the Filipino is that I’m not qualified, and it would be a violation of the constitution,” Duterte said. “In obedience to the will of the people ... I will follow what you wish and today I announce my retirement from politics.” The 76-year-old leader, known for his deadly anti-drugs crackdown, brash rhetoric and unorthodox political style, earlier accepted the ruling party’s nomination for him to seek the vice presidency in the May 9 elections. The decision outraged many of his opponents.

Kidnapping, assassination and a London shoot-out: Inside the CIA's secret war plans against WikiLeaks (Yahoo) In 2017, as Julian Assange began his fifth year holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in London, the CIA plotted to kidnap the WikiLeaks founder. Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”      In late 2017, in the midst of the debate over kidnapping and other extreme measures, the agency’s plans were upended when U.S. officials picked up what they viewed as alarming reports that Russian intelligence operatives were preparing to sneak Assange out of the United Kingdom and spirit him away to Moscow. In response, the CIA and the White House began preparing for a number of scenarios to foil Assange’s Russian departure plans, according to three former officials. Those included potential gun battles with Kremlin operatives on the streets of London, crashing a car into a Russian diplomatic vehicle transporting Assange and then grabbing him, and shooting out the tires of a Russian plane carrying Assange before it could take off for Moscow.      The intrigue over a potential Assange escape set off a wild scramble among rival spy services in London. American, British and Russian agencies, among others, stationed undercover operatives around the Ecuadorian Embassy. In the Russians’ case, it was to facilitate a breakout. For the U.S. and allied services, it was to block such an escape. “It was beyond comical,” said the former senior official. “It got to the point where every human being in a three-block radius was working for one of the intelligence services—whether they were street sweepers or police officers or security guards.”      Eventually, the threat of direct action gave way to court action. On April 11, 2019, after Ecuador’s new government revoked his asylum and evicted him, British police carried the WikiLeaks founder out of the embassy and arrested him for failing to surrender to the court over a warrant issued in 2012.

[aion-rsa]

Tommy Chong Talks Cheech & Chong Delivery Systems, Old and New

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Smoking more now but getting high less? The iconic comedy duo Cheech and Chong have always had a solution. The very names Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin are synonymous with weed culture. When The Simpsons ran an episode on dispensaries being legalized in Springfield, they referred to stoners as “Cheech and Chongs.” The pair won’t be selling out of the back of an ice cream truck, like they did in Nice Dreams. Cheech & Chong are doing it legal. They even got a license.

Together with Five Point Holdings, they will license the Cheech & Chong Brand to open dispensaries. Right now they’re going for licenses in California, Nevada, Arizona, Illinois and Washington. The dispensaries will feature cannabis products from both Tommy Chong’s Cannabis and Cheech’s Stash brands. The outlets will also be the first place to purchase Cheech and Chong clothing and memorabilia.

The duo goes back to the late 1960s. Chong had been the guitarist and songwriter for the Vancouvers, a Canadian band signed to Motown. When the band broke up he formed the improvisational group City Works. Southern Californian Mexican-American Richard “Cheech” Marin moved to Canada to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War and joined the group. They rolled weed culture in a big bambu, toured and recorded massively successful albums. Their bits altered the consciousness and the history of standup comedy at a time when the art form was going through some of its most expansive and experimental period.

Their movies – Up in Smoke (1978), Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie (1980), and Nice Dreams (1981) – most of which were directed by Chong, lampooned the legal limits imposed on marijuana, and defined the paranoia which surrounded pot for non-white smokers. Cheech went on to direct, write, collect art and act in more than 20 films, including Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and television series like Nash Bridges, Lost, and Grey’s Anatomy. Chong did a regular stint on Fox’s That 70’s Show and an irregular one at the Taft Correctional Institution. He’d gotten caught in a government sting on drug paraphernalia in 2003, signed a plea deal to protect his family and served nine months. Chong consistently promoted the medicinal benefits of marijuana while battling prostate cancer, touted its recreational values and fought for its decriminalization.

John Ashcroft may not like it, but now you can score from the Man himself. Tommy Chong spoke with Den of Geek about smoke, mirrors and rock and roll.

DEN OF GEEK: Have you tried all the strains in the Cheech & Chong brand?

TOMMY CHONG: Probably, but I lose track. People always ask, “What’s your favorite strain?” and I say, “Anything handed to me.” My favorite strain is marijuana. My second favorite strain is cannabis.

You’re on your way to being the Paul Newman of pot. Do you see spreading your seeds as a spiritual calling?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely, but only if I’m asked.

How is this different from Tommy Chong’s Cannabis or Cheech’s Private Stash?

It’s a combination. People got hooked on Cheech’s stash. It’s there. It’ll be there with the locals and everything. But the whole thing, it’s going to be a store and so we’re going to have everything in there. And then we’re going to have new products that we’ve come up with. Cannabis is the main thing and our names are there to give people assurance that you’re not only going to get the best quality but you’re also going to get a few laughs.

And for those autograph seekers and people that are collectors, autograph collectors, I started sketching little cartoon figures so I’m getting deluged with requests for my sketches. And people are sending me free canvases. I had a postcard made up that says the sketches cost a hundred bucks. If they pay it, fine. If they don’t, that’s even better.

I read that you used to give away pot to your opening acts. Did you actually start the dispensary to liquidate your personal stash?

That’s a good question. Yeah, actually. The thing about weed, it’s got a hell of a shelf life. I mean, I’ve got weed here I think it’s been 30, 40 years old, and I smoke it and it works. But you know what happens is, if you smoke a lot of weed, you become an easy high. You know what I’m saying? I’ve been around people, they can never get enough but they can never get enough of anything, be it weed or food or whatever or anything. They’re just people that have a high tolerance. With me, I’m a lightweight. I’m a one-toker, that’s it.

Lucky you. Where is the legalization battle now?

We’re looking to take the stigma off it. Get it legalized federally so we can bank our money, so we can join the corn and barley and the rest of the cash crops. That’s all we are. We’re just a cash crop. We’re an agricultural product, that’s all. It’s no different. Treat us like aspirin. That’s a product from a tree. So, that’s what we want. Take away the racist quality of it and then we’re fine. You take racism out of the country, we’re going to have a nice country. Because right now there are too many little racist things all over the place and this Black Lives Matter, they’re getting rid of a lot of it. Finally, the Washington Redskins are going to change their name.

I’ve been on that bandwagon for a long time because it’s horrible. You know why they called it Redskins? Because there was a bounty on natives for a long time, and so the red signified the blood. So, in order to show that you had killed a native, you took a piece of the skin. Like they did in the old days, they took scalps, you know? The red blood was the red skin to signify blood. Not the color of the man but the color of the blood. It was a bounty. I mean, back in the day natives did the same thing. They scalped white settlers, white people too, for the same reason, so they had proof that they killed or at least scalped somebody. But no, it’s a very militant, racist memory. And then they got a logo of an Indian on the helmet itself. So, no, there’s no place for that kind of racism.

If pot is decriminalized, where are for-profit prisons going to get their free labor?

Exactly. I mean, that’s what Trump was trying to do with the migrants, stick them in prison. You get that free labor. But listen, the drug laws, the cocaine and all that shit, you’re right, it’s all been done on purpose. A lot of them are designed purposely to create that labor force.

You were the only first-time offender caught up in Operation Pipe Dreams and you went under the Bush policy on mandatory sentencing. First of all, were you ever pardoned?

I turned down a pardon. Obama was going to pardon me, but I turned it down because I think part of the pardon process, I may be wrong, is to denounce your crime and say that you would never do that. The reason I turned it down is because it was a bogus charge, it was a racist law, and I’m very proud to have served that time and I’m very proud, really, to have that on my back. They hinted that if I did some anti-drug commercials or something that they could give me house arrest or something. It was all bullshit. I did an anti-drug commercial one time, but it didn’t turn out very anti-drug.

In the ’80s there was this anti-pot PSA on the subways, something like, “My little Timmy is an A-student. He plays on the football team and he works after school. How could someone like him have gotten into pot?” Something like that. I always wondered, and you can tell me, would he have had the energy to do that if he wasn’t smoking pot?

That’s right. Little A-student. Hey listen, we wouldn’t be talking on this cell phone if it wasn’t for potheads. We wouldn’t have had a computer. The computer would have been some dream, if it wasn’t for potheads. Well, look at Steve Jobs and Wozniak. They were big potheads and they would smoke a joint and they’d go, “Oh my God, yeah, here’s what we do, yeah.” So much of our lifestyle. That’s why the legalization thing, it’s just like any other stupid, racist laws that we have that we’re cleaning up as we change administration. One thing about Trump, you got to admit that he did clear the swamp. He did know that he was the Judas goat that we needed to identify the swamp creatures, but he fulfilled that promise.

I read that the first time you got high was after a jazz player gave you a Lenny Bruce record and a joint. Which was the bigger gateway drug and how did they interact?

Well, I used to go to this little jazz club in Calgary because it was really only after-hours place that provided music. It was a private club. And if you brought your guitar, if you were a musician you got in free. I couldn’t play jazz but I was a blues guitar player, so I used to bring my guitar and set it by the door and come in and listen to the jazz. Just hang out.

This bass player, he was a friend of mine, he was a Chinese guy, Raymond Mah, he came back from LA with a Lenny Bruce album and a joint. He handed both to me and I put the joint in my pocket and he lit up one of his joints and it was the first time I ever smoked. I just took a couple of hits and I got so high. Whoa. Then when I went home I did up my own joint. I would just take one toke and it lasted me a month. I had the best time. I’d take a toke and then I’d listen to Lenny and laugh so hard. Oh my God. I played that record for my son and he could not see the humor. He did not see the humor in it at all.

I love Lenny Bruce. He’s a jazz comic really.

Well, jazz clubs were one of the only venues that he could work. There were no comedy clubs. He worked whatever club he could work. But the jazz clubs, The Hungry I in San Francisco, that’s where Lenny worked. He got arrested for saying dirty words on stage. That’s how racist the laws and the cops were back then, they could tell you what you could say on stage or how you could look, how you could dress. It was crazy.

Cheech & Chong came up at the same time as a wave of comedic change was happening: Richard Pryor, George Carlin. Did you see your pot humor as political?

Not really, no. I mean, I was influenced by Lenny but I never had any ax to grind. See, Cheech and I, we weren’t going to be comedians in the beginning. He’s a singer and I’m a guitar player, so we put a band together. Because we’d been doing comedy for nine months, it was only natural that when we stepped on stage the first thing we’d do would be some funny bits.

Well, one funny bit led to another and led to another and led to another. Next thing you know the show was over and we hadn’t played one note. And I realized that, “Oh man, we’ve got something here.” So, I told the band … The bass player was funny. “Hey, when’s our next gig boss?” Because he sat and watched the whole show. But everybody got paid and then we went home and Cheech and I are driving along home trying to figure out what we should call ourselves. I asked him if he had a nickname and he said, “Yeah, Cheech.” And so that was the beginning of a great, great career.

So, in regular conversation you call him Cheech, not Richard?

Yeah, it’s Cheech now. Cheech. Never Richard. His first wife called him Richard because she didn’t want him to be Cheech, she wanted him to be Richard. “Richard.”

Did you see how you were affecting social change, or did you see yourselves as reflecting it?

When we started doing comedy records, that’s when I started doing social consciousness. Like Welcome to Mexico. That was a political thing because at the time they weren’t letting long-haired hippies into Mexico. So we did a bit about Jesus going to Mexico and being kicked out. “Welcome to Mexico. Where are you going?”

“I came to see my children. I have children everywhere.”

Yeah, yeah. Oh God. We had so much fun doing things. But we would do ethnic jokes, but not jokes but bits. Just crazy, and it all came from pot because we could hoard pot. We always had a joint somewhere. It’s funny, we never went out of our way to buy it. It always was there. It’s weird how people, “Hey, you got a joint?” “Yeah, okay.” That’s the way it’s always been. There’s no organization. Like when Cheech and I would record. The first thing we found out after we did “Dave’s Not Here,” we were rehearsing, Lou [Adler] tried recording it live in a studio, but it lost a lot of things. First of all, we had to reset and all that other shit.

So, after one recording session with Lou we said, “We got to record in a mix down room. All we need is an engineer.” And that’s all we did, we did everything with an engineer and just Cheech and I because we needed that freedom to come up with the craziness. Because when you have a recording session, you have to have the music written out, you have to know what you’re doing, you got to rehearse because it costs a lot of money to have people hanging around.

After we did “Dave’s Not Here,” Lou said, “Okay, what else you got?” So, Cheech and I wrote right then, we did “Blind Melon Chitlin’.” I’m getting a lot of flak from that now. Not a lot, but I’m getting some flak for wearing blackface in Still Smoking.

Both you and Cheech straddled the world of comedy and music. So, which tent was more comfortable and who threw the better parties?

When we were just recording, before we became really a touring group, we were hanging out with the Three Dog Night people and going to whatever parties Ed Caraeff had or stuff like that. No, no, we were never into that party. I had been with Motown and our group was very boring. We never partied. And I had a wife. She was my girlfriend at the time. I was married too, so I had two wives. So, we never really did the parties. Let’s take it back. When we were trying to get a record deal, yeah, we would go to the odd party then, but it never turned out well at all. That’s when cocaine was pretty popular and so there would be cocaine parties and they weren’t fun at all. You get too stoned and too worked up. When you’re trying to make it you’re broke. You don’t have any money. So, what you do, you become a hanger-on. You just leech onto whoever’s throwing the party.

We were never consumers, food or booze or anything like that. Actually, what we were doing was collecting bits. We would talk to people and then people would tell us some funny bit then we’d use it, or we’d get an idea to do another bit. But we were just hanging around just to be in the gang more than anything with the Three Dog Night. They knew a lot of the rockers at the time.

Later on when Cheech and I became Cheech & Chong, there were, I don’t know what you’d call them. They’re not really parties but after the show things. Encounters. But even then, both Cheech and I, we couldn’t get too serious with anything because we had a wife and family at home.

I have your unauthorized autobiography. Can you tell the story about the welcome to the neighborhood you got in Harlem?

Oh, welcome to New York. Yeah, Harlem. We were going to perform at the Apollo Theater. Whoa, it was the biggest deal: An R&B group playing at the Apollo Theater. Especially Bobby Taylor because he was from New York and he used to be one of those kids that would go to the Apollo. So, we were all excited. We pulled up in our car. I guess we had a rented station wagon, yeah. And we’re all looking at, I guess it was Patti LaBelle rehearsing, and we’re all there backstage looking, and then we look over and there’s our roadie, he was supposed to be with the equipment. And, “Joe, what are you doing?” “Oh, watching this.” So, we went running out there and sure enough they’d broken into the car and stole the bass. Wow.

But one time I was walking from the hotel to the Apollo Theater and I come up to this group of people and there’s one guy standing there with a guitar, holding a guitar like he’s going to hit somebody with it. And it looked like he was going to hit me. At first, I kind of looked, “What?” Then I turned around and I seen behind me was a guy with a knife, a bigass knife. Next thing you know, the guy holding the guitar, he takes off running, and the guy with the knife runs and starts jabbing him in the ass with the knife. Oh man. And nobody on the street even looked at it. They just went around their business like it wasn’t happening, like it was so normal. It was whoa, like you say, welcome to Harlem. That was scary.

The Vancouvers’ Bobby Taylor was an amazing singer. I know he discovered The Jackson 5 and you guys toured with them. You co-wrote the hit “Does Your Mother Know About Me,” and it builds to this beautiful chord that changes the entire flow of the song and it comes out of nowhere. When you’re writing something like that, what comes first, the words, the melody or that chord?

It was a poem. I wrote a poem. That’s how I write, I write poetry. And Tom Barrett, our composer, we were doing his songs and he looked at my poetry and said, “Do you mind if I take this with me?” He went home and he wrote the first part.

Then he came back to Wes and I, the bass player, and he said, “Now, I’m trying to do the bridge and Wes says, “How about … ” and he played the note, and it’s a major note. Well, it could have been a minor note but I played the major chord with the note because I’m not that versed musically. I’m more of a poet. And so I played a major chord and Tom Barrett goes, “Oh, I like that, I like that.” And it’s backwards, major minor instead of minor major, and he loved it.

Then that kicked it off for the next chorus and then he did it again. That change itself made that song unique. The Tower of Power, they copied the changes because they loved that major chord. It just resonates and all of a sudden you’re going major. I found out too it’s from a classical music score, that they would do that in classical music.

I was with my daughter’s boyfriend, he’s a guitar player, and we were trying to figure out the chords of this one song and he told me a lot of it’s from the classical, if you have classical training. And I think that’s what Tom Barrett loved about that chord too, because it had a classical music sound to it. But yeah, it worked really good.

It’s a beautiful song and that chord is what really propels the whole thing. Can you talk about jamming with George Harrison and Klaus Voorman and Ronnie Spector on “Basketball Jones?”

Well, I never really did because we would lay down the main track and then they’d come in and do their parts. So we never really jammed. Just like The Jackson 5. We were on tour with The Supremes. But when you get your group, man, that’s all you play is your songs. Unfortunately, we never had a chance to jam except when I had that after hours club in Vancouver. That’s when we jammed with some real fucking heavies. Unbelievable. I’ll tell you one story. My club was downstairs from a hippie club called The Retinal Circus and one week James Browne was in town. He was playing at the big stadium, The Gardens Ballroom or The Gardens. Anyway, James’ whole band was there. He had a big 16-piece orchestra.

So, they all came down to the club after and they’re on stage playing with us, with our band. We had a horn man. We had all sorts of people up there. And upstairs The Rolling Stones were appearing and they hardly got a crowd because James Brown was in town and Vancouver was a big R&B town at that time. The psychedelic music, and especially the Stones, they were just not happening at the time at all.

So, I looked up, my brother gave me a sign, I looked up and there’s Ron Wood standing there trying to get in the club. It was packed. I didn’t see Keith or Mick, but Ron was standing there waving at me and saying, “Hey man, can you get me in?” The club was too packed and I just ignored it. So, the Stones never got into our club that night. Oh man.

You got high with three of The Beatles?

Yeah, I got everybody except Paul. I smoked with George many times, many, many times. Every time we’d see each other. He was a guitar player and I’m kind of a guitar player and he really respected Cheech & Chong. He loved what we did. At that level. Like Bob Dylan, he really respected Cheech & Chong too because he saw what we were doing. We were different, unique. We weren’t chasing some kind of fad, we were creating.

I smoked in front of John Lennon. He was sitting on the floor. He’s so funny. I offered him a toke and he said, “No man,” he’s worried about his immigration problems. And who else? Oh, Rod Stewart came in and he refused to smoke because of his voice. And Ringo. There’s another crazy story, Keith Moon. We were getting high in front of Ringo and Ringo was in rehab. He was trying to get rid of an alcohol problem. Paul was the only one. And I put out the word and I’ve got friends that know Paul, that did his videos and that, and they told Paul and Paul’s ready. Whenever we’re together, we’re going to smoke. The only Beatle I never got high with.

Carl Reiner died the other day. His and Mel Brooks’s “2000 Year Old Man,” along with Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” and your and Cheech’s “Dave’s Not Here” are encapsulations of the duo styles. So, who were you following as a duo and where do you see yourselves in the comedy duo history alongside Laurel and Hardy and Key & Peele and Martin and Lewis?

Well, believe it or not, my influence as a duo was the Smothers Brothers. It was Tom Smothers. He played that dummy. I really liked Tom. I liked the way he interacted with his brother. Yeah, that was the only one. Nobody else. We got one compliment one time from Jerry Lewis. They were telling Jerry Lewis, “Hey, there’s no more comedy teams,” and Jerry said, “Oh yes there are.” They said, “Who?” and he said, “Cheech & Chong.” And it was Jerry Lewis. I like everybody.

But we were never that kind of Carl Reiner/Mel Brooks type of delivery. That was really radio comedy where you get out in front. Although Smothers Brothers, I just liked Tom’s attitude with what he had. Cheech and I, our whole thing was unique. We never really copied. Everybody copied us.

We’ve been told by so many people, moviemakers especially, Tarantino and Spike Lee and all these guys, they really appreciated our movie making skills. In the movies, I was influenced by Jerry Lewis because Jerry Lewis used video when he shot his movies and he was the only one to do it. Then I did it and now they shoot movies with video.

Who do you see as the next generation Cheech & Chong?

I have no idea. Key & Peele, they had a shot but then he made that movie and I don’t think we’ll ever see that duo again. As far as comedy goes, I guess Dave Chappelle is a must-see because he’s so wise in so many ways. But I love Kevin Hart. He was a judge on Dancing with the Stars, and when I did my tango he gave me a 10. It was the only 10 I got, from some other comedian. So, I love Kevin Hart because of that. As far as comedians go, my hero for standup was always Redd Foxx. I knew Redd Foxx personally. That was one show that I made sure I saw. I saw Richard Pryor live when he was in the clubs and I saw Redd Foxx in the clubs.

To this day, I have never seen a comedian like Redd. Redd did two hours when I was there. One hour he had the crowd so high they were screaming, laughing so hard, and then he brought them down. He brought them down so much that they were running, literally leaving the club, getting out of the club. And he did it on purpose. Then he opened the door and people would leave and then he went back on stage and did another hour. To this day, I’m in awe. I could never do it. I got to the point where I’d do a good solid hour, hour and a half if I had to, but never like Redd Foxx.

Do you think it’s different doing standup as a duo? Is there less pressure because you’re bouncing off each other?

Oh yeah. You got more control. You entertain each other. Cheech and I always did. Even to this day when we go now, I’ll do some bits alone and I swerve like crazy, I go all over the place. And Cheech, he’s backstage, like old days. We broke the mold. Now, it’s sort of like our golden oldie set

You can learn more about Cheech & Chong’s branded dispensary at Five Point Holdings.

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[lonleygirld]

The In Between. Part One.

thematureapprentice / July 24, 2018 / Rewrite

Yes I know this blog sounds a little like “Stranger Things”, but it’s that simple. This will be the recap on the between, “The Pubescent” to I guess the “now”.

Between year 7 and year 8, My parents decided they would better some other peoples lives and adopt my cousins from overseas to have an opportunity at a better life here. I admire them to this day for that choice, it’s something I hope I can give to someone one day, but it unfortunately backfired on them near the end.

Let’s get into High School. Fuck me sideways what a waste of 4 years that was. If I knew better then I would have just quit school and worked my life away to be in a better position then I am right now.

Again my socialising skills were just as much the same throughout High School, the drifter, floater, lone wolf. I would spend a week sitting at one group of people while talking and sitting with others during classes. I liked it this way, it made sitting with others during classes. I liked it this way, it made me feel like I fit in with everyone, but I guess that wasn’t really true.

Teachers put me down just as much as students did. I really enjoyed some of my studies but never really put my heart into it, I would say I’m kicking myself on not going further with Japanese and Graphics, maybe even Chemistry. I was good at it, but I guess just didn’t want to push myself and let myself down and not have anything my parents could be more disappointed in, even though they never really supported me?. My art Teacher told me I suck at art, because it wasn’t I guess pretty and neat and relevant. LIKE WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. Art is literally in the eye of the beholder, you can not say any art is not art, art is mother fucking art. Yeah okay, I’m mad yet again and I guess it doesn’t really matter. Because to this day I enjoy doing some sketch work here and there, which I hope to share through my blog. Whether it be art or not that does not matter, it’s not like I want to be famous for it. It’s just something I know I’m good at and enjoy doing when I’m down or lonely.

Girls got way to bitchy and stuck up through the years in High School, it was always who was dating the hottest, who is the hottest, who was dating the older popular guy. Like really if you “Popular” kids look back on that now, was that worth everything, was it so fucking important that you had to almost throw your “friends” under the bus for. I grew up in a small town and lets face it almost everyone was everyone’s sloppy seconds.

I think I was in year 9 before I got my first boyfriend, it was a secret, My siblings and I weren’t allowed to date till we “graduated”. He was cute, tall, into basketball, it was cute I guess. To be frank I wasn’t really into the whole relationship thing, having to sit with them on lunches and go meet up just to hang and what not. I remember one night we went out got drunk and we were on the ground out the front of public toilets with me straddling his lap and he was like “let’s fuck right here you’ll be my first”, so fucking flattering lol. We did not, I got up and went to be wild with the group instead haha, leave them wanting more right. One day we just stopped dating, no one really broke up with anyone. This guy is now married with a child, buddy you’re still dating me HOW DARE YOU?! :P

I think another milestone for me not trusting men and being who I am was around age 15. My cousin had his mate over, both around 20 years old. They were under our high set house drinking and playing games. I had to run outside and grab some clothes off the line. I was 15 care free and honestly wearing a sports bra and shorts around the house is not  BAD, even with guests or visitors over. So I did my thing and started to head back upstairs, but on my way up the stairs this guy calls me over. I asked him why and he replied with he just wanted to talk, 15-year-old me didn’t see any harm in that. So I sat on the stair and he sat next to me and started asking question. “How old are you?”, “How’s school?”, I didn’t think much of it so I entertained the idea and answered his question. At some moment he decided it was okay to reach over and place his hands on my breast, I simply froze. I did not know what to do at this stage, then suddenly he was leaning in to kiss me. Right then and there I refused and he tried again with more force, but I shoved him, stood up and went back inside.

That night I crawled into bed and could just hear my cousin and his mate laughing under or close too my bedroom. I was scared and slightly paralysed, my mind forcing scenario after scenario. What if he came upstairs when everyone fell asleep?. What if I fall asleep?. All the what if’s a creative 15 years old could think of. I stayed up all night that night. He went home and nothing came of it. I never said a word to my cousin till this day, I think I may have mentioned this to two people my entire life so far. I now guess I share it all with the interweb too.

Year 10 this girl moved to town and we were pretty close, we were friends till I wrote her a letter probably 8 months of hanging out, that I thought she was beautiful. From then on I was the “FAT DYKE” at school. Such a great label, but I was still talking and hanging out with everyone. I lost some friends here and there over the years but eh I can tell you one friend I lost, I crossed paths with at a LGBTQ Club and she pashed me…… GROSS. I say that in the way that I did not want that to happen nor did I like this person or find them remotely attractive, but glad she got that out of her system? Oh lord the flash backs, she had a lip sore too! HAHA okay stop.

Through out High School I was out most nights drinking, smoking, trying weed. My parents didn’t really seem to care till it was my younger siblings doing the same thing. I would sneak out and go to adult houses with friends, they would feed us alcohol and whatever else. Pretty sure one of my friends were sleeping with one of them now that I come to think about it. I didn’t really care what they did to be honest, it was their life choice just like it was mine to join in on the drinking.

My grades dropped dramatically through my Senior years. I dropped out of so many classes and changed them to simpler ones. Even with the easier classes I just ended up passing High School. I wanted to go into Uni at one point in my life, I wanted to be an Archaeologist, boy that would have been a dream. I’ve always wanted to invent or discover something in my life, I don’t think that will ever happen now.

In year 10 I took a big leap for woman in my town, this was 2003. Woman working in the man’s industry was still not okayish. I did a weeks work experience as a Mechanic. When I first applied for this to be my weeks experience I got all kinds of questions like, “why do you want to do that”, “blah blah would be much better for you”. What kind of shit is that! Let a kid dream and be who they want to be, fuck.

This lady that I saved my first kitten from (she had to get rid of them or her husband was going to drown them), gave me free steel cap work boots because she was all like “yeah woman power, you go girl”, when I told her what I was doing. The workshop was near her store so I went in on my lunch breaks to play with her cat and hang out and tell her all the things I was doing (cleaning) lol.

I think year 10 was the biggest year, I feel like so much happened that year than any other one. The more I think about it, there just so much that was life changing. Like I lost a lot of girl friends, because of my “fat dyke” era. My best guy friend started dating a girl which ended up being a 8 year relationship. My father had a heart attack and survived thank god. My little sister told me she wanted me out of her life from stopping her from hooking up with a guy over 18 years of age. So many mile stones and I still feel like I have nothing to show for it.

I know I met my first huge crush in year 10 and kept it to myself for years, never said anything about it. Even when he dated my little sister. All my guy friends wanted my little sister, I don’t blame them, she is beautiful and skinny and everything society would label as what a woman should be like.

To be continued…