I got to hang out with Tommy Chong yesterday.

[StrictlyRockers]

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=2903025&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
http://www.wtopnews.com/index.php?nid=114&sid=1071859

PIEDMONT, Calif. (AP) - Comedian Tommy Chong will help raise money to defend the self-proclaimed "Guru of Ganja," who is charged with growing hundreds of marijuana plants for a dispensary.

Chong, who starred with Cheech Marin in stoner movie classics "Up in Smoke" and "Nice Dreams," will appear at a $125-per-person event for Ed Rosenthal.

Rosenthal, 62, famed for his marijuana cultivation books and the "Ask Ed" column he wrote for High Times magazine, will host the event at his Piedmont home on March 4.


"The party will celebrate how far we've come in legalizing medical marijuana as well as provide me with the money I need to fund my current trial that is defending all of our rights," Rosenthal said.


Rosenthal, who's scheduled to appear in federal court March 19, estimates his trial and related expenses could cost more than $300,000.


Federal prosecutors accused Rosenthal of growing marijuana, laundering money and falsifying tax returns from October 2001 through February 2002.


In a post to his Web log, The Blog of Chong, on Saturday, Chong urged his readers to attend the benefit for Rosenthal and donate to his defense. "Ed is being dogged by the feds for his marijuana work with sick people," Chong wrote. "It is the feds who are sick."

I got to hang out with Tommy Chong yesterday.

Ok, actually I'm not really all that cool. But I did something cool yesterday. And I do a reggae radio show and that's pretty cool, but that's only tangentially part of this story. I volunteered at this benefit for my friend, Ed Rosenthal, and Tommy Chong was there.

Tommy Chong came over to Ed's house in Piedmont for a benefit for the legal defense fund. The feds are trying to prosecute Ed again after it didn't work the first time.
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=3369
http://www.safeaccessnow.org/

And so, Ed asked Tommy Chong to come out and speak and sign autographs and be a part of a fundraiser for the legal defense fund and for GreenAid.
http://www.green-aid.com/

I am a volunteer for Americans for Safe Access and for Cannabis Action Network (CAN), and I have been a medical marijuana activist for years, so I got to volunteer at the party. Not a bad gig since tickets were $125.00 and it was nicely catered. There was way more hanging out going on than "volunteering". I'd say about 150-200 people showed up. Good band.

Tommy Chong showed up at about 2:00PM. I got to hang out and talk to him for about an hour with just a couple of other folks. He was so cool! He was just like...well, it was really cool, ok? He was Tommy Chong! Just sitting there! He was such a great dude to hang with...really, really funny.

Just before Tommy showed up I had just finished hanging out with Ed. Ed took off with Tommy Chong like he usually does. I didn't see them for a minute or so. Then Tommy showed up and we talked to him for a while longer. I think Tommy may still have a bit of probation from his sentence for selling Chong's Bongs across state lines. And so, Ed and Tommy disappeared to talk strategy for a while and then came back. These are two of the front line warriors in the government's phony "War on Drugs" which is really a war on people.

They are going after these two as part of an organized, coordinated campaign of intimidation. We will let them know that it is going to backfire on them in a big way! Already the federal DA has offered Ed a first deal which includes no (zero!) additional jail time. That would be in addition to the one day sentence he got at the first trial. (haha!) Of course Ed won't take the deal because he's Ed. The feds sound like they may be beginning to understand how much bad PR comes from pursuing these cases.

Ed and Tommy gave long speeches at the end of the night. Tommy was so great! He spoke for a long time, and he was hilarious! He hung out in all the circles and talked to everyone for hours and passed things back and forth and signed autographs. He was very gracious and warm and funny. Tommy and Ed will each be doing telephone interviews on my reggae show next week. Here's Tommy speaking for an hour on his recent book tour promoting his new book, "The I Chong: Meditations From the Joint".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iKAfqWPkQU

While I was hanging out talking to Tommy, the Joe Rogan-Carlos Menstealia controversy came up. Tommy wanted to talk about how he had gone through a similar thing back in the Sixties. Even though there were some people there who were Tommy's age, no one was steeped enough in 60's comedy trivia minutiae to know about this stuff.

So anyway, apparently Tommy Chong was accused of borrowing material from a comedy troupe in San Francisco called "The Committee" back in the Sixties. Has anyone here ever heard of The Committee? Tommy made it clear that in reality he had taken some material, reworked it heavily and then done the bit. He said that the comedy troupe didn't feel that way, though. They never really buried the hatchet with him over the borrowed material, even though he made overtures and tried to do the right thing about it.

I got the impression that this had all happened before he had hooked up with Cheech. He also made it sound like Cheech and Chong may possibly be getting back together for another movie in the future. They still have a small feud going right now.

I don't see a problem with taking an idea and then turning it into something unique and making it your own by reworking it substantially. But simply altering a few words or changing only the type of animals used in the joke is stealing material.

If you want to fight back against the feds and their drug war, you can help out one of the front line fighters, Ed Rosenthal, by donating to GreenAid. If you want to help fight back against the war against medical marijuana patients (I am one), donate to Americans for Safe Access. Please help us stop the war on patients' rights. Donations are tax deductable. Peace.

http://www.safeaccessnow.org/
http://www.green-aid.com/

SR

[youngdem]

1. Dupe.

[StrictlyRockers]

2. Hehe. I kinda doubt it.

:bounce:

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Ed Rosenthal is quite cool, too

Nothing against Mr. Chong, but Rosenthal is, for want of a better sappy label, a Real American Hero.

--p!

[StrictlyRockers]

4. I totally agree. Ed is one of my heroes. He is courageous.

And he has a very beautiful family. What is really amazing is that all of this has brought them even closer together. For others it might have been the opposite.

[MuseRider]

5. Now that is just too cool.

How fun for you!

An answer to your question, I seem to recall something about The Committee but it was the 60's so don't ask me anything else, I do not remember :).

[StrictlyRockers]

6. It was fun.

[StrictlyRockers]

7. Kick

Scooter Libby in the nutz.