The up and down continued from there.

CHONG: What I’ve known all my life is the racist policies that are now illegal were once the norm around the world. We grew up in a world where America wouldn’t let a boatload of Jews dock in America. And this is after Hitler was defeated. These are human beings!CHONG: Like anything, you have to age gracefully. That’s what I learned. The older I get, the less I speak because you put your foot in your mouth every time you open it. Me, especially. I say things before I think them.

CHEECH: Really? Really? No!CHONG: It’s ordained. It comes from the Power. I think what it was when I was younger and the guy that operated the jazz club came up to me and handed me a Lenny Bruce record and a joint. Oh, OK. Now I know what I gotta do with the rest of my life. And I’ve been doing it. But he didn’t say anything about meeting a Mexican.CHEECH: We had the same background frame of reference. We knew about the same things. We were both kind of outsiders and we had the same kind of sense of humor.

CHONG: I’ve always been an instigator. I always hung with the craziest guy in the class, and quietly tell the guy what to do. He’d get in trouble. So when I met Cheech, it was a natural.CHONG: My son, Paris. He arranged for us to meet, and the meeting didn’t really go that well. I hadn’t seen him for years. I sent an email saying it was nice seeing you. My son intercepted the email and wrote his own letter. He wrote: “Yeah, I’m looking forward to working with you again. Let’s get together and rehearse.” The next thing I know, I get a call from my son: “Cheech is coming over.” The rehearsal was like: “How you doin’? So we got a gig? When? I’ll see you there.” And that was it. When we got on stage — we hadn’t been on stage for like 20 years — boom, like we had never been apart.

CHONG: Oh, incredible. Not quite as good as they touted, what they sold us on. We haven’t reached that point yet

CHEECH: But we’re approaching it.BEIJING (AP) — A huge explosion rocked a chemical plant in

’s eastern Shandong province around noon Tuesday, killing at least five people and injuring 19, according to local emergency management authorities. Another six people were missing.It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.

The blast was powerful enough to knock out windows at a warehouse more than two miles (three kilometers) away, according to a video shared by a resident, who declined to give his name out of concern about retaliation.The resident said his home shook. As he went to the window, he saw a column of smoke from the site more than seven kilometers (4.3 miles) away.