Their feud? It went up in smoke
Their bickering days apparently behind them, Cheech and Chong say they’re eager to get back on the road for their first comedy tour in more than 25 years.
“We had such a legacy, such a history. We couldn’t escape it, even if we tried,” Tommy Chong said in a news conference Wednesday at the Troubadour, the Los Angeles nightclub where the pair were discovered more than 35 years ago.
The duo said their “Light Up America” tour will kick off Sept. 12 in Philadelphia.
“It’s going to be very theatrical,” said Cheech Marin.
During their original run between 1972 and 1985, the pair released nine comedy albums, were nominated for four Grammy Awards and won one. They also starred in eight feature films, almost always portraying a pair of comical stoners.
Marin, 62, and Chong, 70, who broke up amid creative differences, have tried to reunite before, but have always fought too much.
Says Marin: “We’ve gotten to the age where we don’t feel like fighting anymore, because the end is a lot closer than the beginning.”
The idol of Rich
Country music star John Rich wants like-minded voters to join him in “Raising McCain.”
The other half of the Nashville duo Big and Rich has penned lyrics for a rock-infused anthem focused on the 5 1/2 years Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
A sampling: “He stayed strong, stayed extra long/til they let all the other boys out. Now we’ve got a real man with an American plan/we’re going to put him in the big White House.”
More Spears wounds
A long-overdue update on all things Britney:
•A Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner on Thursday ruled that Britney Spears’ father will retain control of the pop singer’s finances and personal affairs through the end of the year.
James Spears took over earlier this year after a series of high-profile incidents of erratic behavior that twice led to his daughter being hospitalized.
•An attorney for Brit says she won’t seek an extension of the restraining order against her former manager, Sam Lufti, but she still doesn’t want him around.
•A number of news outlets posted online photos of her smoking in front of 2-year-old son Sean Preston, while he plays with her pack of cigarettes.
Quoteworthy
Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton, on the reduced need for new laws cracking down on paparazzi: “If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris (Hilton) is out of town not bothering anybody anymore, thank God, and, evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don’t seem to have much of an issue.”
The birthday bunch
Actor-comedian Dom DeLuise is 75. Blues musician Robert Cray is 55. Rapper Chuck D (Public Enemy) is 48. Rapper Coolio is 45. Singer Adam Duritz (Counting Crows) is 44. Actress Tempestt Bledsoe (“The Cosby Show”) is 35. Singer Ashley Parker Angel is 27.