Tommy Chong Ran the First Strip Club in Vancouver | Joe Rogan

Yeah, I went through that. I had two nightclubs at one time, but I never bothered with the money part at all. I just worried about the stage and the mic was working. Where was this? In Vancouver. How long was this? This was the 60s. Yeah, you had nightclubs, like comedy clubs? No, one was an after hours, sort of like a jazz, dance, bottle club. And it was given to me. See, there again, you know, hey, hey, Tommy, you want a club? And I said, sure. The guy bought- Why did he give you a club? Yeah, well, he bought a building. And back in the day, there was a steakhouse in the basement. He says, the cheers. Pay rent when you can. What? So I went in- What was this guy's deal? He owned buildings. He owned all the buildings. Most people that own buildings don't be giving them away. Oh yeah. Oh, they do. Free rent. Free rent. You saw him all the time. You didn't get a year's free rent. Just because they want to get someone in the building. They want to get it going. See, as soon as we started being successful, we were paying $500 a month rent. So he got you going. So we made a ton of money in there. And that's where I got the bands. You know, that's where I hold my skills as a musician and a singer and all that. And then I got offered another club because it was going under. And it was a dine and dance club in Chinatown. And I thought, yeah, I'd make a great strip club. And so we took it over. The Shanghai Junk turned it into a strip club, Vancouver's first strip club. And then- You were the proprietor of Vancouver's first ever strip club? First strip club. In fact, we did a midnight mass at a church. I think we had to strip her dancing. At the church? But not stripping. She kept her clothes on when she danced. Well, that's appropriate. Yeah. You got to- there's a line again. When did you start getting into live shows? Well, when I got fired from Motown, because I had to get a green card and nobody at Motown knew what a green card was. And so I had to miss a gig to get my green card. I got the green card and I came back and I got fired. And so then Barry Gordy found out about it. He said, oh, you're not fired. I said, I think I'll stay fired. I'm going to be at Barry Gordy. I don't want to work for one. And so then I came out to LA and tried to live on the beach and be a songwriter. But then my clubs were calling me because they needed help. So I went back and I turned the strip club into an improvisational club. So we're doing naked improv. It was great, man. All the girls, then there were strippers. Once I turned them into actresses, they were a lot cheaper and they're a lot more beautiful. They talked, they did skits, and then they would take off their clothes when they had to, within the script. And that's where I met Cheech, because we had a straight guy and a straight guy's wife found out what he was doing and you could hold him away. And then Cheech came on board as a straight guy. And then when- This was in Vancouver? Yeah, in Vancouver, yeah. But Cheech was an LA guy, right? Yeah. He was up there in case a Viet Cong attacked from Alaska. So he was hiding from the draft? Well, not really. He was trying to stay out of the way. Let's put it that way. And then he had a sneak back into LA from Canada. Really? Yeah. But it was easy coming in LA from Canada. He just showed someone else's ID and they said, all right, go on. Back in the day. The world was a lot slipperier. So that's why I'm saying I'm so blessed, because everything, the universe, and it was from the I Ching. One of the guitar players turned me on to the I Ching back then. And my reading was perfection. You're going to be, everything's perfect. You're going to really do well. And then Cheech and Chong and all that stuff happened. And here we are. And you guys are touring again. How long have you been touring again? When did you guys get back together? Oh, eight. Oh, eight. Eleven years. How crazy is that? That that's eleven years ago. That doesn't seem like eleven years ago. I know. You say, oh, wait, it's like, oh, it just happened. And you're like, oh, no, no, it's 2019. It's almost 2020. No. I know that that train keeps the rule and it never stops. What is this, Jamie? This is Bobby Taylor in the Vancouvers. Whoa. That's me. That's you? Yeah. How old were you there? Twenty... Bobby Taylor in the Vancouvers. Twenty-eight years. I was like, I have sunglasses on. Yeah. They did it even back then. Wow. Bobby Taylor in the Vancouvers. That's the Motel on Sunset Strip. Is that you with the yellow jacket? Which one's you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's you? Yeah, that's me. Wow. That's me. That's crazy. And then we went over to England, met Jimi Hendrix. Whoa. And changed our lives. This is the way we looked when we went over there and we came back long hair, everybody wore different clothes. Wow. Yeah. Now, when you went from this to comedy, like, how did you make that leap? Well, nobody really knew that I could talk, you know. I was in a black band. So, everybody else, you know, I was a guitar player. So, you know, I had nothing to say other than I owned the club, you know. And no one knew that. No one knew that. I was always a backup guitar player. When I got into comedy, well, it was doing what happened. I had hired when I turned the strip club into an improvisation club, I hired the act we already had, which was a black tap dancer named Taps Harris and Jeannie, a black singer. And they had a band. And so, the first skit I had Taps... The first skit was about a pajama party that all the strippers were having at their house after. And so, they all changed into their pajamas and their little nighties. And that was very sexy. And then Taps comes by after the show, you know, so-called. And they say, hey, Taps, do that number that you did on the show. And so, Taps, first time he ever tap danced, you know, in front of a live audience, because usually he was just an MC. So, he did his tap dance. And it was so good that everybody wanted to encore. So, they made him do an encore. He quit that night. Darrell Bock Really? Taps Harris It was too hard work, man. He was hired to just... And here comes Lolo. And so, the doorman, the English guy named Dave, and so I said, Dave, I need an MC, you know. He said, well, I'll do it if you do it. And so, I, oh, okay. And so, we became... Dave was my first partner. And so, we started... We had long hair. We were like hippies. And so, we did a lot of hippies and TNA jokes, you know, tits and ass jokes. And then, we had a guitar player named Gay Delorum. He wrote our big hit, you know, that You Rake My Eye. He wrote the music. And so, Gay was this incredible guitarist. And he could do all sorts of... But he was a very funny, funny, funny guy. And so, we wrote a skit, you know, where we would torture the audience. They were all bikers, mostly bikers, you know, come to a strip bar, you know, bikers and that. And so, the first act, we had it... Because when we turned it into a theater company, we attracted all the theater people, all the performers, you know. There's a stage. Oh, boy. We'll go work there. And so, we had a mime artist. And so, we opened the show with a mime artist and Gay playing classical guitar. He's playing this classical guitar. Now, this is a strip joint. And all the hardened bikers are sitting around waiting for naked girls to come out. And here comes a mime artist, you know. So, Brittany's picking flowers and smelling them and throwing them, prancing around the stage. And so, the bikers sat through that, you know. And they were yelling things like, hey Elvis. Their remarks weren't that funny. And then Dave would come out. And Dave's a very funny looking guy. He looks like an improv actor. And he'd come out and he sings this horrible song, I dream of Jeannie with a light brown. Her Jeannie is my favorite wired hair terrier. And then, just when the bikers are getting ready to revolt, I opened... I kicked the door open. We had doors in the back, you know. And I kicked the door open and my shirtless, my hair's messed up and I got a rolled up newspaper. And I walk over to Dave and go, what kind of fucking song is that? And I beat him to death with this newspaper. And the bikers just explode. The whole joint just exploded, you know, with laughter. Because we had created that tension that long and then the release was like, it's a roar. And then the word went out, boom. And that place was packed almost every night. Wow, what a weird world it must have been back then. Look at this, the city works. Yeah, there we are. There's Dave. Satirical, sexy at the Shanghai jump. There's Cheech on the far right. Wow, that's Cheech. That's crazy. That's Cheech. That's Dave and that's me. Wow. Without a goatee. And that's the mime artist as Ian, the mime artist. And it's Wendy, Maureen, and Shirley. Wow. What a weird world. Is it crazy looking at that? Oh yeah. Wow. Memories, huh? Wow. Sandy and Lawrence. That was the first strip joint. Starting Tuesday. Yeah. Yeah.