[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Tommy Chong- Stoned on Meditation New Book: The I Chong'
The best thing that ever happened to Toomy Chong was the prison sentence he got a few years back. It revived a dying career as he got much publicity out of being sentenced to prison for a silly, minor offense like having a bong pipe or some such thing. Only the truth is that although, technically, the minor offense is the reason he was sentenced to prison, that isn't the real reason he got the sentence he did. Apparently, no one ever spends time in prison for what Tommy was convicted of. But Tommy was so beligerant in court and so disrespectful of the judge that that is why the judge sentenced him to spend time in prison...it had nothing to do with what he was actually convicted of. So, obviously, Chong did it all as a publicity stunt and...it worked! What a phony. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert Gimbel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tommy Chong The world's funniest stoner on meditation, surviving prison, and his new book, `The I Chong' Illustration by Nathan Ota or Tommy Chong to get straight, he's got to go to God. Not God as envisioned by, say, Jerry Falwell, not the God of hellfire, but the omniscient source of goodness and, yes, jokes. He's cultivated a meditative practice over the years of smash hit movies, Grammy- winning comedy albums, and woozy influence over decades of pop culture as half of the comedy duo Cheech Chong. So when he was busted in 2003 for selling Tommy Chong bongs and sentenced to nine months in the federal penitentiary at Taft, California, one of the items he brought with him was the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. While in prison, he started ruminating on life's lessons, and the result was his new book, The I Chong: Meditations from the Joint. This book is a breezy vision of the man's essential Chongness, as he writes not some preachy life lessons but about a life lived: growing up rough as the mixed-race child of a Chinese father and a Scottish-Irish mother in Western Canada; learning to tango with his wife, Shelby; and using his gentleness and wit to thrive in lock-up. I met the warden one day. I swear to God, I've met fans but he was one of the biggest fans ever, says Chong. He says, `Are they treating you OK?' He turned out to be a really sweet guy. Dean Kuipers CityBeat: Each chapter leaf in the book starts with a hexagram from the I Ching. Tommy Chong: I went through the I Ching and just picked out a heading that would best suit the chapter. And the I Ching I was just doing it it's three lines on top, three lines below. And they're either broken or straight. And it's based on an ancient book called the Book of Changes. You throw them they used to do it with bones, but then they evolved it to coins, and they used to do it with yarrow stalks [a common, long-stemmed white flower]. What you get is a good sense of how you're feeling, where you're at in your life. How is this a book of meditations? I'm a writer, I just write all the time. I hadn't planned it to be a book, I just have a compulsion. I tried to write a Cheech Chong book, and I've been working on it for five years, and I just can't get it going. But this new book was so personal that, when I started writing it, I realized: no one knows who I am. So I started writing about who I am, and I picked out memories from my past and then I realized, damn, I'm almost 70 years old, so I've got a lot of memories. And those are meditative? Well, I'm into meditation. Actually, Cheech turned me on to meditation. When I first met Cheech, he followed that guru from India [Maharishi Mahesh Yogi]. Every once in a while I'd go over to meet with Cheech, and he'd be meditating. It wasn't 'til years and years later that I read a book by Joel Goldsmith, The Mystical I, and he went into the depth of meditating with your mind on God. And so when I went into prison, I thought: well, this is the best place in the world to put meditation to work. What was your meditative practice in prison? I ended up being the go-to guy with the I Ching. You have a lot of time in jail, so I read about how they did it with the yarrow stalks, and yarrow stalks were growing in the Indian garden at the prison. I did I Ching readings for the prisoners and it would blow people's minds. I was in a recreation room and I was throwing coins and doing mine and this guy, Mike, came up to me and he asked, What are you up to, Chong? And I told him, and I said, Do you want me to do your reading? And he said Sure. So I had him throw the coins, and when he read his reading, it blew his mind so bad he just handed me the book and he stayed the rest of the day on his bunk. I read his thing and it said that he had just suffered a terrible accident. And he had, like, a couple of months before, his wife and child were killed in a car accident coming up to see him. The book nailed it. And same with me, my first reading was,
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Tommy Chong- Stoned on Meditation New Book: The I Chong'
I still rate Cheech Chong's 'Basketball Jones' as a classic track the cartoon too, that was wild. Did you listen to George Harrison's guitar on that track? One of the loosest tastiest contributions he ever made, I reckon. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shempmcgurk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The best thing that ever happened to Toomy Chong was the prison sentence he got a few years back. It revived a dying career as he got much publicity out of being sentenced to prison for a silly, minor offense like having a bong pipe or some such thing. Only the truth is that although, technically, the minor offense is the reason he was sentenced to prison, that isn't the real reason he got the sentence he did. Apparently, no one ever spends time in prison for what Tommy was convicted of. But Tommy was so beligerant in court and so disrespectful of the judge that that is why the judge sentenced him to spend time in prison...it had nothing to do with what he was actually convicted of. So, obviously, Chong did it all as a publicity stunt and...it worked! What a phony. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Robert Gimbel babajii_99@ wrote: Tommy Chong The world's funniest stoner on meditation, surviving prison, and his new book, `The I Chong' Illustration by Nathan Ota or Tommy Chong to get straight, he's got to go to God. Not God as envisioned by, say, Jerry Falwell, not the God of hellfire, but the omniscient source of goodness and, yes, jokes. He's cultivated a meditative practice over the years of smash hit movies, Grammy- winning comedy albums, and woozy influence over decades of pop culture as half of the comedy duo Cheech Chong. So when he was busted in 2003 for selling Tommy Chong bongs and sentenced to nine months in the federal penitentiary at Taft, California, one of the items he brought with him was the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes. While in prison, he started ruminating on life's lessons, and the result was his new book, The I Chong: Meditations from the Joint. This book is a breezy vision of the man's essential Chongness, as he writes not some preachy life lessons but about a life lived: growing up rough as the mixed-race child of a Chinese father and a Scottish-Irish mother in Western Canada; learning to tango with his wife, Shelby; and using his gentleness and wit to thrive in lock-up. I met the warden one day. I swear to God, I've met fans but he was one of the biggest fans ever, says Chong. He says, `Are they treating you OK?' He turned out to be a really sweet guy. Dean Kuipers CityBeat: Each chapter leaf in the book starts with a hexagram from the I Ching. Tommy Chong: I went through the I Ching and just picked out a heading that would best suit the chapter. And the I Ching I was just doing it it's three lines on top, three lines below. And they're either broken or straight. And it's based on an ancient book called the Book of Changes. You throw them they used to do it with bones, but then they evolved it to coins, and they used to do it with yarrow stalks [a common, long-stemmed white flower]. What you get is a good sense of how you're feeling, where you're at in your life. How is this a book of meditations? I'm a writer, I just write all the time. I hadn't planned it to be a book, I just have a compulsion. I tried to write a Cheech Chong book, and I've been working on it for five years, and I just can't get it going. But this new book was so personal that, when I started writing it, I realized: no one knows who I am. So I started writing about who I am, and I picked out memories from my past and then I realized, damn, I'm almost 70 years old, so I've got a lot of memories. And those are meditative? Well, I'm into meditation. Actually, Cheech turned me on to meditation. When I first met Cheech, he followed that guru from India [Maharishi Mahesh Yogi]. Every once in a while I'd go over to meet with Cheech, and he'd be meditating. It wasn't 'til years and years later that I read a book by Joel Goldsmith, The Mystical I, and he went into the depth of meditating with your mind on God. And so when I went into prison, I thought: well, this is the best place in the world to put meditation to work. What was your meditative practice in prison? I ended up being the go-to guy with the I Ching. You have a lot of time in jail, so I read about how they did it with the yarrow stalks, and yarrow stalks were growing in the Indian garden at the prison. I did I Ching readings for the prisoners and it would blow people's minds. I was in a recreation room and I was throwing coins and doing mine and this guy, Mike, came up to me and he asked, What are you up to, Chong? And I told him, and I said, Do you want me to do your reading? And he said Sure. So I had him throw the
[FairfieldLife] Re: 'Tommy Chong- Stoned on Meditation New Book: The I Chong'
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, shempmcgurk [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: The best thing that ever happened to Toomy Chong was the prison sentence he got a few years back. It revived a dying career as he got much publicity out of being sentenced to prison for a silly, minor offense like having a bong pipe or some such thing. Only the truth is that although, technically, the minor offense is the reason he was sentenced to prison, that isn't the real reason he got the sentence he did. Apparently, no one ever spends time in prison for what Tommy was convicted of. But Tommy was so beligerant in court and so disrespectful of the judge that that is why the judge sentenced him to spend time in prison...it had nothing to do with what he was actually convicted of. So, obviously, Chong did it all as a publicity stunt and...it worked! What a phony. * Chong was convicted of selling drug paraphernalia because he pled guilty after the feds threatened to prosecute his wife and son (who financed the biz) unless he did so: http://www.salon.com/books/int/2006/08/09/chong/index_np.html This was his web site: http://www.thememoryhole.org/drugs/pipe-sites/chong-glass.htm To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
