I Can't Think About Elvis Without Thinking of Cheech, Chong and Mom

Note: Caveat Reader! Let the Reader beware! I feel a rambling post coming on. This topic has too many tentacles to my past for me not to get wrapped up in a number of them. Hopefully it will be an enjoyable read. It's a story I love to tell, especially on this day - the anniversary of the event - but I've never written it down before. When I tell it, I feed off the comments of others to make it more entertaining, usually in a self-deprecating way. But none of you are here as I write, so I'll have to draw on past experiences of telling the tale. My good friend Ed is the one I like to tell it around most. He shares my appreciation for one of the items involved, and he has the keen ability to make me laugh hard at my moronic behavior. I also like to remember my mom in this pose. It's how I picture her uttering her "lines", and it makes me feel warm inside

See, lots of tentacles, and I haven't even started. Don't say I didn't warn you...

It was the summer of 1977 and I discovered the drug culture. No, not like that. In the safest way you can - by comedy. One afternoon, a guy 3 years my senior played his Cheech & Chong album collection for his brothers, his cousin (my neighbor), and me. And we were addicted. We began listening to them over and over, trying not only to memorize each line, but to emulate the voices of Pedro and Man, Ralph and Herbie, Sister Mary Elephant, Sgt Stedenko, Cheborneck, Basketball Jones, and of course, Dave. To this day, if anyone asks for a "Dave", my mind immediately repeats "Daves not here." Sometimes it comes out of my mouth. I find that I have to explain the bit more and more as the years pass. Thankfully Tommy Chong has made appearances in "That 70's Show" that make it easier to relate to the younger crowd (yes, I'm talking about you, Rudiger).

But meeting in the guy's house became old - and we worried that parents would listen to the records and ban them for their promotion of drugs, sex, and rock 'n roll. So we devised a plan to record the albums on cassette tapes that we could take anywhere. Unfortunately none of us had a stereo system, much less one that played LPs AND recorded stuff directly to tape. We weren't rich, you know. But I had a record player, similar to the one shown here, and access to a microphone and a Panasonic tape recorder via my dad's work. I could do the recording and bring the player out to the street corner of an evening so that we could listen and learn.

Now I had to find a good time to record. The room/house had to be relatively quiet and free from parental involvement. Mornings were out - too many good game shows on (Card Sharks, The Price is Right, High Rollers, etc.). Evenings wouldn't work - either I'd be outside hangin' out with the kids in the neighborhood, or I'd be watching great 70s TV, in all of it's 3 network + PBS glory. Afternoons would work best. Dad would be on the road, and Mom would be locked in on her soap operas, sitting in her favorite chair usually bundled up with an afgan my sister made for me when I was about 10. "All My Children" was on from 11am-12pm, "As The World Turns" from 1:130am-12:30pm (yeah, I know they overlap, but she'd usually choose "World" over "Children" - she could always catch up tomorrow on one or the other), and "Guiding Light" from 2-3pm. She used the 12:30-2pm time period to do chores around the house - especially the vacuuming. So really 2-3pm was prime time for recording. And before I'd begin, I'd tell her what I was doing so that she might make less noise.

So one August day - this day - I was setting up to record. Can't remember if it was Big Bamboo or Sleeping Beauty. Doesn't really matter - they're all good. I had the record player and tape recorder on the floor with the mic sitting next to the speaker. I limited my walking so as not to cause it to skip. If one occurred, I'd have to start again and I'd lose valuable time.

At about 2:20pm, I hear Mom's voice yelling for me from the living room. Now, you have to know my mom to know that you couldn't ignore her call. It was high pitched with a little lilt to it. She somehow managed to add a second syllable to "Chris" that drove me nuts as a kid. Often when I'd be outside playing at a friend's house on another block I could here her cry as clear as if she were standing right next to me. Uncanny.

But I was in the middle of a "session". Do I answer her and risk ruining the recording and losing time? Do I ignore her and hope she quits after 2-3 calls, thinking I may be outside or asleep? I couldn't get up to go to her because I'd risk skippage. What if, after failing to hear from me, she comes to investigate? What if she hears one of the routines? She'd already made me take down my Farrah Fawcett poster. What would she do with these tapes? As all this was running thru my head, I make the call to answer her in as short and quiet response as I knew how.

"Yeah?" I answered in the shortest, pimply-est voice I had at the time (maybe still do?), deflecting the sound away from the record player. My hope now was that it was some instruction rather than a question that I might have to give a long response to. She came back with one sentence I can still here to this day.

"Elvis Presley died."

At 13 I was not a big Elvis fan. Sure, I had a healthy respect for who he was and what he represented but I really knew him from the movies Channel 3 would show on "Dialing for Dollars" at 3pm - "Spinout", "Roustabout", "Blue Hawaii", etc. The music was fun, the girls were hot, and the settings were usually cool. Far from the rock icon he really should have been. But Mom knew this was a big moment in the entertainment world, and she thought I should know.

But I was recording Cheech and Chong! "Dave" wasn't there! Billy was about to get turned in to Sgt Stedenko! The stuff he gave Pedro "couldn't get a fly high". It was hilarious! And I didn't want to miss any of it! So I answered her.

"Okay."

That seemed to satisfy her, as I didn't hear anything more...

I would listen to the tape later and here the following exchange over top of the jocularity:

"Chri-is" (muffled but audible)

"Yeah?"

"........." (not as clear, but I knew what she said)

"Okay."

A few days after his death, Mom and I were traveling to Decatur for an orthodontist appointment. The radio was still buzzing about the death of the King. It was then I started to grip what the loss meant - to an industry, to a generation, and to a nation.

When I listened to the tape I thought of that day. Sometime in high school I lost track of the tape, but never the memory. I'd tell the story whenever Elvis was brought up in conversation. A few years ago, when Ed and I returned to our Cheech and Chong roots and bought all their stuff still in print, I remembered the tape with each track played. So imagine my surprise when I found this buried in the rubble that was my room:

I couldn't wait to get in my car that night and play it tape deck! To hear my mom yell again. To hear my stupid responses. To reconnect.

I wish I had a happy ending to this find. The tape had been reused. Gone were the voices. Worse yet, they were replaced by a episode of Mork and Mindy (what was I thinking???) My only hope is that this isn't the tape I'm looking for. Maybe its out there, still in a box I have yet to unpack. Maybe its in the box of "college stuff" I have in my basement. Wherever it is - if it still "is" - it will now be my "holy grail". Or should I call it my own "Zapruder film". One day it will surface. And when it does, I'll laugh like a pimply 13 year old and think of Mom...

So tell me: where were you when Elvis died?