For those of you longing for your Cheech Marin fix since Nash Bridges went off the air, he will be back in a half hour comedy for VH1. “They’re starting to do series, I pitched them a series and they bought it,” Marin said. “I’m in the process of writing it right now. The concept is Cheech gets elected to congress. I’m going to invade the political realm.”
Cheech Marin Becomes Legal
Tentatively titled Is What I’m Doing Legal?, Marin promises a clever satire of the political world. “[My perspective is] oh boy, how do I get out of this job. When I find out how much it pays, I can’t live on this. I’m going to be the most dangerous person in Congress. I’m the guy that doesn’t want the job and doesn’t want to get re-elected.”
In an age where immigration reform is the top news item, Marin thinks back to his own Born in East L.A. and realizes little has changed in 20 years. “It hasn’t changed at all. We’re involved in a very hypocritical stance in this country in that we want cheap labor and we want to persecute it at the same time. We want it to come in and we want it to go away simultaneously. It’s ridiculous. It is that process of, there’s a saying in the Latino culture, we didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us. ‘Send them back to where they belong.’ Well, they’re coming back to where they belong. This was Mexico.”
Fortunately, he’s optimistic. “They’re on the right track. They’ve just got to convince all these dyed in the wool right wingers that citizenship has to be eased and there’s a guest worker program. I fully understand about securing borders. When I made Born in East LA I was hanging out with the border patrol. They told me that had only two classifications for people. They had Mexicans and OTMS, Other Than Mexicans. That was it. Other Than Mexicans had people from 63 different countries that year. If you held a gun to my head, I couldn’t name you 63 different countries.”
Look for Is What I’m Doing Legal? on VH1’s schedule.
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