Customer Reviews

Cheech & Chong: The Unauthorized Autobiography

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Chong provides a very interesting walk through his life and career and tells some good "behind the scenes" stories, but I would have liked more detail in certain areas. More info on how they made the movies and albums would have been nice. It would also have been interested to hear Cheech's side of some of the stories, but it is understandable why that isn't in there. Still, it is a very entertaining read overall.

With the re-emergence of pot-smoking based humor in mainstream America as seen in such box office and T.V. hits as Pineapple Express, Harold & Kumar go to Guantanomo Bay and The70s Show, one can only help to remember when Cheech & Chong literally blazed the way with their weed-smoking antics on-stage and on film. In the past few years a recent trend has appeared all over the best-seller list; recovering drug addicts baring their souls in tell all memoirs that talk of regret, pain, and death (One Million Little Pieces by James Frey, The Night of the Gun by David Carr, Broken by William Cope Meyers).

Tommy Chong's recent release of The Unauthorized Biography of Cheech & Chong definitely doesn't fit into the recent mold of drug memoirs but is more of an entertaining flashback that takes the reader on a journey from the roots of the entertainers to the triumphant days of Cheech & Chong and finally to the separate individuals Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong as most of the younger generation of America knows them by currently.

Tommy Chong delivers ½ (Cheech Marin doesn't provide any input) of an autobiographical story of the two comedians passage from weed pioneers to wealthy and famous celebrities complete with the inevitable scandals and conflicts. Chong relives the improbable fairy tales where the two were without a dime in their pockets and relegated to performing in dingy clubs for payments in cheap bar food to their eventual explosion onto the Hollywood scene in which marijuana humor became their staple.

Although for the majority of the book, the reader is regaled with the fun-loving, pain free pot-toking memories of the past; this autobiography of the happy go lucky potheads isn't without intimate moments. Cheech decides that the one-sided marijuana comedy act that brought them into national stardom wasn't his thing anymore and mainstream acting would be exactly where his career should lead (Nash Bridges). This attitude coupled with other disagreements between the two begins the rift that eventually leads to their split. Tommy Chong continues to concentrate on stoner humor and eventually gets sent to prison for the exact thing he became famous for, pot.

In Cheech & Chong:The Unauthorized Autobiography, Tommy Chong explores the best and worst of times of the already unforgettable pothead duo of Cheech and Chong. This memoir has been released just in time for...wait for it...the REUNION of Cheech and Chong. The two are on a nation wide reunion comedy tour that will stop by in Detroit on September 20 at the Fillmore

Being a fan from my younger days I found Tommy Chongs bio an interesting read. However, I really was a little let down because there were no good laughs. I was hoping for more humor and more detailed stories of partying with celebrities. Some photos would have been nice too.

Written by Tommy Chong, one half of the famous, rather, infamous, duo of Cheech and Chong...this book is a nice concise history of the pair. Naturally, being written by Tommy, it gives a fairly complete description of his start with Motown records and his ultimate progression to standup comedy, first with a troupe, and finally in colloration only with Richard, "Cheech", Marin.
Being a fairly short work, it covers the evolution of the group, rather than dealing with too any specific events...but it DOES succeed in providing a fairly complete picture of Cheech and Chong's career together. Well worth the read for any fan of Cheech and Chong.

Sorry, but I want to read about Cheech and Chong; not about Cheech alone, Chong alone, or about their wives and kids. CHEECH AND CHONG!!! Cut out everything else and the book boils down to about maybe 100 small pages? They don't even meet until page 75. Wayyy too much about the wives. The best parts are simply recitation of the funniest parts from the movies. Needs more comedy. Less about business. Lots of stories about famous people but none of the stories were particularly interesting. I skipped through a bunch of paragraphs. I guarantee you will too. Sad ending too. Was it worth it? Hmmm...probably not. I don't think even hardcore fans would be satisfied. Oh well.

I thought it would contain a lot of information about the comedy team that I enjoyed listening to in my youth. However it was more about his personal life than anything and I lost interest. My mistake for buying it.

...and I mean DIEHARD Cheech and Chong fan, unless you have instant recall of all the bits and movie scenes he talks about, skip this book.

I was given this book as a Christmas present from my brother, who, like myself is a Cheech and Chong fan. I was unaware of this book's existance, actually - and of the stack of books I was given this Xmas, decided to read this one first.

I was not disappointed... with just a couple of exceptions...

-Maybe a few more stories regarding the recording of the albums and/or the movies would have been nice.

-Tommy talks about his marriage, plus his simultaneous dual-life girlfriend, both of which bore him children around the same period of time, but didn't go into the nitty-gritty of maintaining those two relationships and as to whom exactly knew what was going on with the others. I'd have liked to know how that balancing act actually worked (or didn't work).

-The other thing... I know (now) that after this was written, Cheech and Chong FINALLY reconciled and decided to tour "in character" revisiting some of their greatest sketches of the past. I'd have liked to have read the story of how that finally occurred, and the publication date of 08/08 made me hope for at least some of it... but the reality of publication vs. the date of writing means that the final chapter(s) of the Cheech and Chong story are yet to be written.

Still what remains is a fairly good biography. I think Chong did a very good job of telling his own story all the way back to his early days, plus touching on Cheech's story enough to give you something of a handle on his character. I give him credit for stating near the end that he wasn't going to continue Cheech's story after the point where the two of them split as a team, as that should be Cheech's to tell. Unstated, of course, was the fact that Chong was not there to witness that story to be able to tell it. However the story he tells up to that point is one he was there to witness. And, despite the clouds of pot smoke hovering in the background, Chong somehow mangaged to hold on to enough memories to tell some nice tales of the Cheech y Chong story.

Perhaps unlike another reviewer, I thought Tommy's mentions of Cheech's strengths were quite complimentary and not perfunctary. I also got a pretty good feel for the "effect" that occurred when the two of them create and perform together. What I'd really like is an "authorized" version, ie.. having Cheech's side of the story, as well as coverage of the events leading up to and following their reconcilliaton. But as that is, at the moment, still ongoing, I will have to wait for that story.

I have been a C&C fan since my teenage days, and I find myself wishing I hadn't read this book. The first third or so of the book has nothing to do with C&C, but rather Chong's time as a blues guitarist in Canada and the U.S. While mildly interesting, it's not the reason most fans will pick up the book, and could have been significantly condensed. If you want to skip that part, leaf in about 75 pages and begin reading there.

Chong seems to set out to cast Cheech in the most negative light possible from the outset. While he pays him some compliments (voracious reader, photographic memory, very intelligent), Chong implies that he practically had to drag Cheech along on their journey to fame and fortune, claiming the lion's share of the duo's creative output for himself.

Chong apparently fails to see the contradictions in his own behavior and attitudes. He makes a point of saying he wrote the title song for "Up In Smoke" by himself to prove a point to Cheech and the movie's director - "I write alone." Yet, he complains that Cheech did the same thing on "Born In East L.A." In another passage, he says he turned down a role in "The Lion King" with no regrets due to his "hippie code," yet a few paragraphs later (on the same page, if memory serves), Chong complains about an assistant trying to use Chong's Rolls Royce to impress girls. Last I checked, hippies and materialism were not synonymous. Finally, he wraps up the book by recounting a recent meeting with Cheech, where he says he realized he can't work with him anymore - clearly written before the current reunion tour was scheduled.

I am still a fan, and C&C's albums and movies hold a special place in my heart. Chong makes a good point about meeting those you admire when recalling an encounter he had with Jack Nicholson, and I think it applies here. He says that it's risky meeting your idols, because they may end up disappointing you. That was definitely the case with this memoir. I would love to see a similar book from Cheech, if only to hear his side of things. The truth, as they say, probably lies somewhere in the middle.

First two paragraphs explain behavior that I've seen when reasonable folk are swept over THAT horizon; what an insight on the transition to fame. Good on you, Tommy Chong. Here's an idea for you: Tommy Chong and Tommy Magliozzi (one team), and Cheech Marin and Ray Magliozzi (one team) cover the 2012 election. Think about it. Who better to promote democracy and transparency here in the USofA than y'all who are established and unpolitical? I'll bet me left one that you'd get more listeners than formal newscasters. What would Steinbeck do?