Tommy Chong

If the NCAA basketball tournament ever adopts a theme song, a 34-year-old hit by the comedy duo Cheech & Chong would be a worthy contender. "Basketball Jones" is a bracket-buster, to be sure -- not to mention a gut-buster -- and worthy of a No. 1 seeding. Like March Madness itself, "Basketball Jones" is madcap fun, over the top and in your face. It's loud and boisterous, freewheeling and frivolous. It speaks to obsession.

THE prison memoir is an interesting genre. While in custody, freed from the distractions of the outside world, blessed with time, that scarcest of commodities, such prisoners as Gandhi, Malcolm X, Oscar Wilde and Solzhenitsyn wrote highly personal, transformative pieces exploring fundamental issues: man's relationship to society, the nature of liberty and the responsibility of the artist to remain creatively and spiritually free, regardless of his corporeal status.

Tommy CHONG is fit, free and about as mellow as you could expect anyone to be after serving nine months in prison for selling a bong. Most afternoons he can be found at the World Gym in Marina del Rey working on his deltoids and kibitzing with Zabo, the 80-year-old bodybuilder who performed as a stunt double in Cheech and Chong movies. Zabo returned the favor in July when Chong finished his sentence by giving the movie star a job at the gym.

The national tour of "The Marijuana-Logues," starring Tommy Chong, is up in smoke. It was canceled because Chong's permit to appear in it has been revoked by his parole officer, Chong said Thursday. According to the terms of his parole, which followed a recent nine-month stint in prison for selling drug paraphernalia, "I can't be in places where substances are being sold or used," Chong said.

Actor Tommy Chong of the spaced-out, dope-smoking comedy duo Cheech & Chong pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal conspiracy charge of selling drug paraphernalia over the Internet. Chong, 64, of Pacific Palisades, and his family-run business, Nice Dreams Enterprises, admitted to conspiring to sell marijuana pipes via Web site promotions that featured the comedian's celebrity endorsement.

Tommy Chong, who played half of the dope-smoking duo in the Cheech and Chong movies, was sentenced to nine months in federal prison and fined $20,000 Thursday in Pittsburgh for selling bongs and other drug paraphernalia over the Internet. The 65-year-old performer was allowed to remain free until federal prison officials tell him in a few weeks where he must report to prison. Chong also forfeited about $100,000 for his arrest on federal drug paraphernalia charges.

The gumshoes of the Justice Department must love Tommy Chong, the aging comedian/actor who until recently had a business making expensive blown-glass bongs. That's bongs, not bombs. Chong was sentenced Thursday to nine months in federal prison for sending one of those art-glass smoking devices across state lines. Unlike terror suspects or bomb makers, Chong was easy to find (a home in Pacific Palisades and a business in Gardena) and posed no threat of violence.

This is another pot story, starring Tommy Chong. So it should be funny. Only this time, it's not. Not to U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, who announced dozens of indictments under "Operation Pipe Dreams" in February. Not to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania Mary Beth Buchanan, who heads Ashcroft's advisory committee and turned up in court in Pittsburgh to personally accept Chong's guilty plea. Not to Asst. U.S. Dist. Atty. Mary Houghton, who prosecuted the case.