CHAPTER 26

You’re into video, I’m into film

So I’m alone in Malibu playing the guitar, feeling sorry for myself and trying to stay in a marijuana-induced fog for as long as I could stand it. My comedy partnership was ending. My marriage was breaking up. And I had a big house payment due soon. So much fun. I wonder where my moon was during this period, astrologically speaking. Probably up Uranus.

One evening, Linda Livingston, one of my oldest and dearest friends, called me up and said, “You’ve got to get out of the house! Come on down to this show I’m working on.”

Linda was always involved in a million projects and was good in all of them.

“It’s a laser light show,” Linda continued. “It’s going to open the Olympics here in LA. They’re going to run through the whole show. Come on! Have some fun.”

OK, what the hell. Linda’s right. I could do with a little fun.

When we got there, there was a nice mellow, hip-looking crowd milling about. The show started, and it was spectacular. It was a great example of the artistic possibilities for what a state-of-the-art laser show could do at that time.

As soon as the show was over, Linda grabbed me and said, “Come on, let’s take some pictures!” She maneuvered me towards the photo pit. She pulled me over next to a beautiful young woman.

“Cheech, this is Patti. She works on the show. You met her before. I brought her in to show you some artwork.” I vaguely remembered and just smiled and nodded.

“Here you guys, let’s get a picture.”

I said OK and put my arm around Patti’s waist. It was like I had grabbed an electric eel. Everybody around us noticed it, too. I kind of walked away stunned.

The next morning, I woke up and called Linda and asked for Patti’s number.

Patti Heid is from Appleton, Wisconsin. She is blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, and funny… and an incredibly good, edgy artist. Our small talk, when we were getting our picture taken, had consisted of Patti saying that they were also celebrating her birthday, which was that day.

“Wow, really? My birthday was yesterday.”

We looked into each other’s eyes and we each knew what the other was thinking.

RUN! RUN! GET OUT OF THERE! DON’T LOOK BACK! RUN!!!

We didn’t do that. Instead, we were married for twenty years. There were incredible highs and very low lows. Joey and Jasmine, my next two children, were born while we resided in Malibu. Joey developed a deep affinity for the ocean as I did. He was a member of the Junior Lifeguards from the ages of nine to eighteen. Jasmine, not so much so, but she really loves the beach part. Jasmine became more of the artist, like her mother, and graduated from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, maybe the most prestigious art school in the nation or even the world. I love Joey and Jasmine with all my heart.

Well, Patti and I jumped into a hot and torrid relationship. She moved right in with me in Malibu as I tried to figure out what to do next.

And then one day I saw the future… MTV.

MTV has been around so long by now that they don’t even play music anymore. But back when Music Television launched in 1981, it was pretty soon showing music videos 24/7, and the record-buying public was quickly glued to the channel. It was the hottest thing going, and that was all anybody in the industry talked about. Record sales (then soon compact disc sales) started to zoom.

Then in 1982, when Michael Jackson started releasing the videos from his legendary album Thriller, the whole thing took off into the stratosphere. I sat there and watched in amazement, just like everybody else. Jackson released seven singles, and seven videos, from that album over the course of about a year.

I was watching one of them in 1984 during my period of laying low and getting started with Patti. And then it hit me—this genre was perfect for Cheech and Chong!

We were musicians, filmmakers, and comedians. We could make video albums that were musical and funny and visual, just as we had made record albums. This was a godsend.

I called my friend Peter Lopez, a music industry lawyer who knew everybody and asked him if he knew where I could take my idea. He immediately mentioned Irving Azoff, then head of MCA Records. A quick meeting was set up. I pitched Irving the idea of a video album, and he bought it right there in the room.

I couldn’t wait to tell Chong.

I had to wait for morning in Paris so in the meantime I started sketching out ideas for bits and songs that we could turn into videos. My head was buzzing with images.

Finally, I reached Tommy in France and started babbling about MTV and Irving Azoff and we could get a deal and make video albums and it would be great and… nothing.

He was, shall we say, underwhelmed.

Yes, he had heard of MTV. They had it in France, and he made it obvious that he wasn’t as excited about the idea as I was. In the end he said, “You’re into video, I’m into film. But if you want to go ahead, I’ll come in and do a couple of bits.”

Gee thanks, Chong.

I made the deal and started writing songs. By now, the idea had evolved into individual videos of the songs and a “mockumentary” about the making of the videos. I figured that I would direct the videos and Tommy would direct the mockumentary part. I had three songs sketched out in no time, and I waited for Tommy to show up.

A couple of weeks later Tommy came over from France and we worked on the songs and went into the studio to record them.

I then set about putting a cast and crew together. I still needed another song and waited for inspiration. I would not have to wait long.

One day I was sitting in my kitchen having my morning coffee and reading the newspaper when I came across an article about a young boy (I think he was twelve) who had been caught up in an immigration raid. Because he was mentally disabled, he wasn’t able to communicate to the agents that he was an American citizen, and they mistook him for a Mexican illegal and deported him to Tijuana.

At the same time, the radio was playing Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born in the U.S.A.” I started laughing when I put the two together and began singing “Born in East L.A.” The lyrics came out in a gush and I had my fourth song.

I had to get permission to parody Bruce’s song. I figured that wouldn’t be a problem since I’d become good friends with Springsteen’s piano player, Roy Bittan. Also, the first time that Bruce Springsteen ever played with a band after releasing his first album was opening for Cheech and Chong sometime in the 1970s. Roy eventually joined the band, and I met him along the way. We hit it off immediately and are still pals today.

The funny thing was that I never knew what the original song was about. I just remember hearing the chorus “Born in the U.S.A.” I had to rush out and get the CD to find out that the song was a protest about the treatment that the returning Vietnam War vets were getting. I was sure that Bruce would respond to my story of the unjust treatment by the immigration authorities… and he did. I got his permission, with Roy’s help, and got ready to record “Born in East L.A.”

The studio we’d be using was in an expanded trailer set up in Dennis Dragon’s backyard in Malibu. Totally Cheech and Chong. Dennis was the founder of the Surf Punks band, but also a pretty good engineer. In his own studio, that is, where only he knew how everything worked. But it worked.

Dennis came from the musical Dragon family of Hollywood. Carmen Dragon, his father, was the conductor of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra and did classical recordings. His brother, Daryl, was the Captain, of the Captain and Tennille.

(Fast forward: The first time I ever played “Born in East L.A.” live onstage was at a benefit in Malibu with Dennis Dragon on keyboards and Eddie Van Halen on guitar. A rare, early performance for young Edward, who proceeded to drink copious amounts of alcohol despite having a second show to do. Good luck on that one.)

So there I was, a few weeks later, waiting in the trailer slash studio for Tommy Chong to show up. I had a feeling Tommy might pull something. He had been dragging his feet the whole project—that is, when I could get his feet in this country.

Finally, I could wait no longer and I called his house. I was surprised when he answered. He was still home.

“Hey Tommy, we’re at the studio waiting for you. Did you forget?”

“No, it’s your song, man, you do it.”

His tone was flat and cold.

“We have to record the middle section with me and you going back and forth.”

“Go ahead, man, it’s your song, you record it.”

“The middle section is for two guys—me and you.”

“It’s your song. You’ll figure out something.”

“So you’re not coming in?”

“No.”

“Wow… OK, see you later.”

In all the years we had been together and all the projects we had done together, I had never once not been there for him. We may have argued back and forth, and sometimes it got very heated, but in the end we always worked it out. This was the first time I asked him to be there for me… and he refused. I sat there for a long time silently and took in what this meant. I wasn’t so much mad as I was very sad.

Dennis Dragon broke my reverie. “So what are we doing?”

I thought for a few seconds and then said, “Set up a mike. We’re finishing the song.”

I went in and recorded both parts in one or two takes.

I put the crew together and began filming the videos. The mockumentary part was being filmed as it happened between the scenes. I tried to get Tommy to participate as much as possible, but he stayed true to his word when he’d said he would come in and do a few bits. And he’d already done that a few weeks before.

Chong was not on the song for “Born in East L.A.,” so he wasn’t in the video, either.

He went back to France to join his family and I guess to do “film.”

The “Born in East L.A.” video was released to MTV and became a sensation. It went to number one, and for a while it seemed to be on every time you turned on the TV. It was either “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits or “Born in East L.A.” The overall quality of the video was helped a lot by my in-house art director, Patti, who designed all the sets and half the costumes, all while being pregnant with Joey.

Roy Bittan told me that many times during Springsteen’s concerts that year the crowd would sing “Born in East L.A.” when they played “Born in the U.S.A.”

From out of the blue, I got a call from Irving Azoff, who told me that he had shown a prerelease copy of the “Born in East L.A.” video to Frank Price, who was now head of Universal Pictures. He said that Frank wanted to have a meeting. We had made two movies for Frank when he ran Columbia Pictures, so he was well acquainted with our work.

Frank got right to the point. “I think that there’s a movie here,” he said. “But it’s for you by yourself. Let me know what you want to do but I’m ready to make a deal.”

The moment of truth had arrived. I could continue to struggle along with Chong, which I didn’t want to do. Or I could make a movie on my own.

I asked Tommy to come to my house for a meeting. He planned to pitch me an idea for a TV show.

Before he could get started, I told him that Frank Price had offered me a deal to do “Born in East L.A.” as a solo project… and I was going to do it.

I could see that it shocked Chong to his core. He really thought that he had me completely under wraps.

“I still want to do movies with you,” I told him. But I don’t think he heard me as he turned his back on me and walked out to his car and drove away.