Cheech & Chong by Tommy Chong

Author:Tommy Chong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

OUR FIRST MANSION

Malibu, California, 1972

Cheech rented a house in the Hollywood Hills and became the party guy in town. Without Barbie he was a free man. While he dated a bevy of eligible Hollywood ladies, one in particular fed my admiration for the Cheech charm. Joni Mitchell, the genius Canadian songwriter, was entangled with Cheech for a while. Gaye Delorme, the guitarist, was staying with Cheech when Joni was over with David Geffen, who was Joni’s personal manager at the time. Gaye was trying to convince Joni to buy a Canadian-built acoustic guitar, but David Geffen shot the deal down when he said he didn’t especially like the guitar. David knew the music business and Joni respected his opinion, so she passed on the guitar. This did not stop the Canadian from trying. Gaye wrote the music and the riff for a tune soon to be known as “Earache My Eye”…or “Mama Talking to Me.” Gaye came up with the music and the first line, “Mama talking to me,” and I added, “trying to tell me how to live, but I don’t listen to her cause my head is like a sieve…My daddy he disowned me cause I wear my sister’s clothes. He caught me in the bathroom with a pair of panty hose.”

I was the first to buy a house in Malibu. Shelby, Precious, and I were still living in the little apartment on La Jolla between Santa Monica and Melrose with our landlord friends Frank and Rosie Bartolotti. It was a perfect setup for us because Frank and Rosie had become our L.A. family. They helped us in so many ways. Shelby and Precious would eat with them when I was on the road. Rosie taught Shelby how to be a wife Italian-style, which included whipping up a four-course Italian meal on a moment’s notice. Up until then, I was the designated cook in our relationship. One time Shelby was visiting Rosie when I called up to tell her that supper was ready. Rosie looked at Shelby and asked, “Does Tommy do the cooking?” When Shelby answered in the affirmative, Rosie immediately took her aside and began teaching her how to cook Italian food. Shelby became a fabulous cook, and each time I sit down to one of her meals, I send a thank-you to Rosie.

Between recording albums and making personal appearances, Cheech and I began amassing enough wealth to buy our own homes. A friend turned me on to a realtor who showed me the house in Malibu. The owner and builder of the house was a gentle old cowboy by the name of Byron Vandergriff, who had designed and built quite a few homes in and around Los Angeles. Byron handpicked the land years before he bought it. He used to visit the spot when he was a boy, back when Malibu was still one huge ranch owned by a single family. I could picture the then-young cowboy fantasizing about the dream house he would build when he eventually owned the land.

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