Tommy Chong |
“I’m a doper comedian and I’m here because I made a stupid joke about a bong being the only Weapon of Mass Destruction the Bush administration found,” says Tommy Chong at the start of his nine-month sentence in a federal pen. Although Josh Gilbert’s documentary doesn’t add much to that statement and seems padded at 78 minutes, it does call attention to the folly of the “war against drugs” and also to the early countercultural comedy of Cheech and Chong. (The recording of “Dave’s Not Here” remains a stoner classic.) In recent years, Chong had been supplementing his stand-up income by selling bongs over the Internet and thus had become the figurehead target of John Ashcroft’s drive to ensure America’s security by mass arrests of head-shop suppliers. Gilbert ignores the other side of the issue, and interviewees like Bill Maher only echo his argument. Fortunately, Chong has the best lines. “People ask me what it’s like in jail,” he says. “I tell them, wait and see.” On the Web
AKA Tommy Chong:http://www.akatommychong.com/
