FROM February 2008 Issue

Tune in as Keith Valcourt “grills” the funnier half of stoners’ favorite comedy duo.

PORTRAYING A PAIR of street-wise druggies, Cheech & Chong entertained millions through live performances, albums and movies. After the team split up in 1985, Tommy Chong continued to make audiences laugh until 2003, when he was the victim of a heavy-handed federal investigation that included entrapment, a raid and jail time— for selling glass bongs, not drugs. When the Feds threatened to imprison his family, Chong pleaded out and served nine months. Through it all, the laid-back comic never lost his sense of humor. Tommy sat down with HUSTLER to talk about Cheech & Chong’s heyday, prison life and why demons will eventually get George W. Bush.

HUSTLER: Why did Cheech & Chong break up?

TOMMY CHONG: I guess we got rich. That’s what breaks everybody up.

Do you and Cheech talk?

We’re close to becoming a partnership again.

Really?!

Yep. He came at me with an offer I couldn’t refuse. In the past, Cheech wanted to do a play about our life before we were Cheech & Chong. He was trying to do something to keep him from going back to the old bits. I just refused, saying, “If we’re not Cheech & Chong, then I don’t want to be anything.” But now it’s me and Cheech doing our old act on a high scale that encompasses movies and television.

What kept you two apart for so long?

We had a falling-out over his play.We never argued until then, even when we split up. He just sort of dropped a bombshell on me one day: “You know, I have been offered to make a movie without you, and I’m going to take it.” I was like: “Aaaaaahhhh! What?!” It took me lots of years to get over that because I was the director and the writer. The guy, you know?

Were groupies and trashing hotels part of your lifestyle?

We were hippie rock stars. We had our share of comedy groupies.

They were fans. We still got them. As far as trashing and that goes, not a bit. We shared a room for the first tour we went on. We didn’t think anything of it. It was like, “Oh, cool, we got a room.” It wasn’t until later that we started saying, “Hey, I want my own room.” Cheech and I were as tight as could be, when we had to be.

How much pot did you really smoke back then?

I was a pussy when it came to pot. So was Cheech. (Laughs.) There were many times I would go into his hotel room, and he’d be in bed with the covers around his neck, all bugeyed, saying, “I don’t know what I did. I shouldn’t have smoked it.” We were both pussies.

What was it like the morning you were raided?

It was very Cheech & Chong actually. When my wife and I heard the banging on the door of our house, she said, “There’s someone at the door.” I said, “No shit!” I walked downstairs in my little jockey shorts. We have glass doors and windows, so I could see them all [federal agents]. They looked like trick-or-treaters, like a bunch of guys raiding a comedian’s house. It was like being “punked.” They said, “Open up, this is a raid! We have a warrant.” They burst in, handed me the warrant. I couldn’t read it because I didn’t have my glasses, and it was dark. One of them said, “We are here to seize the items on this warrant.” Then he asked if I had any marijuana. I said, “Um, yeah, every room. Take your pick.”

I tried to help him. That’s what stoners do. So I asked them, “What kind of a drug raid is this without dogs?” He said, “We are not really looking for marijuana.” I asked what they were looking for, and he said, “We’ll tell you in a minute.” They went marching out with all the computers. That’s what really pissed me off. Because once they get them, they ruin them. You might as well throw them in the garbage. Fuckers!

The funny part was I turned to the guy and said I got to take a shit. He told one of his guys to go with me. I told him, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. You don’t want to be around an old man when he takes a dump in the morning. That could ruin you.” (Laughs.) They kept asking me if I had any weapons in the house. They wanted to find a fucking gun. If they had, I would’ve been in jail five years.

What were the Feds looking for?

Publicity, bottom line. Right before the raid on Iraq, I was on the road doing all kinds of conservative radio shows talking shit. I think that got me on their radar. They investigated the bong company my son owned. Did the entrapment thing so we would ship bongs across the state line and break the law. They would have gotten my son, so I pled guilty.

What was jail like?

It was like Club Med, only with Cheech & Chong fans. I did the full nine months. (Long pause.) It was good. It was a life-changing experience all around.

Are you angry about the ordeal?

No, because I pled guilty. I also needed the experience. I’ve been talking the talk for years. How many guys can you say have made a living, made millions of dollars getting high? I told my son, if you talk the talk, you’d better walk the walk. I really didn’t believe that you could go to jail for smoking something that makes you laugh. This is an injustice I had to bring attention to.

What do you think of the Bush Administration?

I really think that George W. Bush is going to win Last Comic Standing. He’s got a helluva shot. I don’t see anyone out there that’s funnier.

How long was your probation, and what were the terms?

I had to quit the play I was doing, The Marijuana-Logues.

Why?

When you are on probation, you’re still in jail. That’s why they couldn’t put Scooter Libby on probation. Because he had to do some jail time first. You have to check in with your probation officer. There is a clause in there saying that if you witness a crime and don’t report it, then you are subject to five years additional jail time and five years more probation.

If the government got pissed off at me for doing the “monologues” and checked on the show in Seattle, where they saw several people smoking pot all over the place, and I didn’t report it, I would go back to jail for five years. This is a government that had just put me in jail for one count of [selling] a bong for nine months. They would have loved to get me. So I had to quit the show right on the road, fly back to L.A. and report to my probation officer. I wrote out exactly what crimes I saw and gave the reason why I quit the show. They weren’t happy. I had a feeling they wanted me back in jail.

Have you stopped smoking pot these days?

No. I smoke it now. I broke my fast of not doing it. I was at Hunter S. Thompson’s house, so I had to. I felt his ghost put the joint in my mouth and light it up. Do you worry about getting busted? I’m aware. I don’t travel with it. I got my medical card. When I travel, all the fans give me presents. I just leave it behind. I tell the conservative talk-show hosts that pot is so readily available now, I would be an idiot to take it on a plane. Fucking Homeland Security is gonna look through it. If I have to quit for good, then okay. I’ve never been addicted to anything other than my old lady.

Back to Scooter Libby.

He was the Achilles’ heel of the Bush Administration. Patrick Fitzgerald did to Scooter what they did to me. He wanted Cheney and the big boys. That administration has broken so many laws—not only American laws, international laws. Their ass is hanging out there for the Hague and the World Court. If I were Cheney, unless he gets indicted before he gets out of office, I wouldn’t travel anywhere after he gets out, because the world is angry. Bush went to war on false pretenses. On lies! They invaded a country, executed the leader that they put in themselves. The Bush Administration, Halliburton and those guys are in it for the bucks. They have no soul and no qualms about what they are doing. We live in a perfect universe, and for every action, there is a reaction. No matter how covert their actions are, that shit will come out eventually. Sometimes it takes a long time. In Bush and Cheney’s case, it’s instant.

Why do you think Cheney shot his best friend in the face? I’ll tell you why: demons. When you allow yourself to be absent of goodness, then you are a receptacle for bad demons. Humans are put on this earth as a test. When you get lots of things thrown at you—like the wealth that Halliburton can throw in front of Cheney, or the Arabs can throw in front of Bush—that’s a lot of wealth, and if you are godless in your heart and go for that, you are wide open for the demons. And the demons fuck with you!

Will Bush get away with it?

You gotta have faith. The universe is perfect. To go through life, you have to be in balance. We are all governed by gravity. What happens to these people when they get off balance? Bad things start happening. You don’t have to worry about Bush getting away with anything. Nobody gets away with anything. You think O.J. is going to get away with anything? You think Libby or Cheney are going to get away with anything? (Laughs.) Those guys are suffering like you wouldn’t believe. Can you imagine what it is like in that White House right now? Nothing is working for those guys. It’s demons. They fuck up everything. That’s a demon’s job.

What is your final wish?

HUSTLER has got this first. When I die, I want to be cremated and have my ashes divided amongst all the growers and put into pot plants so there will be a new strain of Chong Gold, man. “Hey, try this: It’s Chongo!”

Stand-up comedian Katt Williams is best known for his pimp-tastic performances in Friday After Next and Norbit. His career continuing to catapult, the diminutive funnyman from Dayton, Ohio, dropped by HUSTLER headquarters for an exclusive Q&A with Music Editor Keith Valcourt. Now find out what it takes to be “ghetto fabulous,” the difference between a bitch and a ho, and
how life under a Katt Williams Presidency wouldn’t be that different from George W. Bush’s corrupt regime.

HUSTLER: You have invented some pretty creative expressions using the N word as a root.
KATT WILLIAMS: I didn’t invent them. I just think maybe I have been bringing them to the forefront. I don’t think I was the first person to say niggerdom. I probably said it best. Sometimes I just mix words together and come up with something. Jesse Jackson has the patent on all of that. So I’m not allowed to actually say I invented any words, because I think Jesse did a lot of it.

After the Michael Richards incident, several prominent comics—including Paul Mooney—came out and said they were not going to use the N word anymore because they thought using it in comedy was no longer funny. What do you think of that?
Respectfully, it is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. I just don’t understand how you are 50 years old—enough time for you to have witnessed that black people have no rights at all—and all of a sudden one white man says nigger three times, and suddenly you have this epiphany. Like the word never hurt you before. It was never a bad word for you until just one moment in 2006.

What do you think of Michael Richards?
I don’t think of him—much like most Americans. I didn’t think of him until that exact moment.

Who have been major influences in your comedy career?
Initially I didn’t know that you could make money telling jokes. I didn’t realize that Richard Pryor was doing that for a living. I didn’t know that Bill Cosby was doing it and getting money for it. I just thought that they were silly, and people caught it. I didn’t know how the whole thing worked. Once I got into comedy, it’s all the usual suspects. I’ve become a student of it and tried to learn from them all. Of course, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce, those guys. But just as much George Carlin and Bob Newhart as anybody else.

When did you decide to make a living as a comedian?
When it worked. It worked the first time I did it, and they gave me $50, and I needed that $50. I also knew I had only been up there for five minutes. So I figured, “Five minutes for $50? That’s crack money!” You’re with the big dogs then if you’re making $50 every five minutes. Of course, later on I found out that was five minutes a week.

Your DVD is titled Pimp Chronicles Part 1. What does it take to be a pimp?
It takes an innate ability to not accept the fact that you can’t win. A lot of time winning has to do with not realizing there is another option. In the original connotation of the word pimp, just that fact that you could have somebody else do some work and by that make your living is an amazing concept. I guess that’s why it has lasted so long. That concept in and of itself is what makes all business run. I don’t think Larry Flynt is actually taking the pictures. I don’t think he’s writing the articles and is actually setting up the art and the direction. What I think he’s doing is pimping. And that is important.

What is the difference between a ho and a bitch?
A ho is a job title or a constant state of mind. A ho is something that you are if you are a ho. Being a bitch is sometimes complimentary, sometimes offensive and sometimes matter-of-fact. Women can use it as a means of empowerment for themselves. I think there is an old adage that goes, “If a man does something, he’s a businessman. If a woman does it, she’s a bitch.” There are other connotations to that word, but they are certainly not the same.

Are there any Katt Williams groupies?
I have fans, and then I have strong fans. Then I have fans that would like to exchange sexual favors as appreciation. They say, “I love your work so much, I’d like to suck your dick.” You can’t fault them for that, because you know if they had a vitamin water and I was thirsty, they’d probably offer that.

How does one go from being “ghetto” to “ghetto fabulous”?
Budgeting. Because you are generally placed in the ghetto situation. Few people actually choose to be “ghetto” or choose to be of or from the ghetto. “Ghetto fabulous” comes from good decision-making, risk reward and time management and all that. And maybe some mismanagement of living on
the risk and saying, “I’m not going to pay the rent now; I’m going to get the best rims the world has to offer and worry about the rent later.” To some it may seem stupid, but the ghetto is stupid for people who have never been there. “Ghetto fabulous” is a way of taking nothing and making it look really, really cool.

Are you political and, if so, what do you think about what’s going on in the world today?
What’s going on?

The Iraq War, for starters.
Ah, yes, that old thing. I don’t know. I’d like to be political, but I don’t know enough. I think I know things, but obviously I know nothing. Because I thought that you could go to jail for perjury. I thought that perjury was when you lie and that the law was for everyone. So I would think I’m being naive thinking that way, that if you were to tell millions and millions of people we are going to war with a country because of “this,” and it’s gonna cost 700 billion and the lives of American soldiers, and you know for a fact that you were lying when you said it and then hooking it up with another war. See, we keep forgetting that Afghanistan and Iraq are not the same place, as much as they have tried to meld this into one thing. We’ve been lied to, but I can’t complain about it, because I’m a student of the game. I first and foremost want to know how the game works. I’m getting a lesson through this particular administration that is very gangster. I’m a fan of “gangster.” As much as I would like to hate Bush and his whole regime, I have to begrudgingly accept it.

What would you do if you were President?
I would follow as closely President Bush’s example as I could. I would make sure that all of my friends were taken care of and that their interests tripled or quadrupled—1,000 percent more than they had when I wasn’t President. If one of my friends shot somebody in the face, I’d make sure he got off. I would do whatever was necessary to line the pockets of the people that I roll with. I would also want to follow Bush’s example in not paying attention to what anybody says. Because it’s terrible as a President if you think about it, but as a man, you can do whatever you want to do and say, “Take it or leave it; sorry, that’s the way it is.” I would try to follow his example again. If anyone had messed with my father, I would avenge my father. Who beat up my father? Let’s kill ’em. I guess I’d be Bush too.

Finally, what do you think about HUSTLER Magazine?
Honestly, it has probably been as important to society as any major publication has been. From my experience, it gave you something you couldn’t get anywhere else. I remember having it at an early age, and it was like we were walking around with this treasure, and we passed it on. We put it under our bed. We only had one copy, and it was probably two years old.We knew all the pages and could turn right to the girl we liked best. It was only later I found that they actually had articles in there. I didn’t know why they threw those in. Not only the HUSTLER Magazine, but the HUSTLER story is amazing in and of itself. I’ve never lost sight of the fact that a guy built all this from pictures—pictures of other people. That type of work ethic and dedication in fighting the Establishment is still evident if you’re picking up a HUSTLER Magazine today. I’m impressed.