Cheech: The Night Kate Middleton Asked Me to Dance

By Cheech Marin, Huffington Post Latino Voices

There was fog on the moors and the hounds were baying in the night when I landed in Glasgow, Scotland … or maybe it was just the sound of the jet engines dying down, along with the fog of three vodkas plus a sleeping pill I took for the transatlantic flight from L.A. Anyways, it was foggy and I was hungry. I drove around looking for someplace to eat until I found a restaurant that looked like it had typical Scottish food. A giant yellow and red sign glowed up ahead — McDonald’s! Ok, the name sounded Scottish and it had a drive-through.

As I drove along, scared shitless, on the wrong side of the road wolfing down a typical Scottish “Big Mac,” I wondered to myself, “Am I the first Chicano ever to set foot in the land of Braveheart?” Would they look at me and ask, “What the hell are you?” Would they ask me to mow their lawn? I was kind of let down when I got off the plane — everyone wasn’t wearing kilts and there were no bagpipes to greet us. At least, they all talked like Willie, the school janitor from The Simpsons. Consequently, I couldn’t understand a damn word they were saying.

I had seen a Scottish movie once called Trainspotting about some Scottish junkies and although the dialogue was in English, it was subtitled… in English. Trainspotting also had the funniest scene I’ve ever seen in a movie ever. It was the scene where one of the junkies dove headfirst into a toilet to retrieve a heroin capsule he had stuffed up his butt after he had forgotten he had taken a laxative. I was still laughing three scenes later (I guess you had to be there). Luckily, most of the people who worked in the airport and at that quaint little Scottish restaurant “McDonald’s” were from India and they all sounded like Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from The Simpsons, so it was all cool. As I finished off the last of my Big Mac, I thought to myself, “Hmmm, Scottish food… not bad.”

Now which way was St. Andrews? Oh, by the way, that’s why I was here in the land of Haggis: to play golf in the Alfred Dunhill Cup (now known as the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship), a pro-am tournament at the historic Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews — the birthplace of golf. I had taken up golf relatively late in life when I made the movie Tin Cup with Kevin Costner, Don Johnson and Renee Russo. As I pulled up in front of the St. Andrews Hotel, dawn was just breaking, throwing that magical early morning light across the golf course, which lay there like a sleeping virgin just outside the glass doors. While the concierge was getting my room and looking for a translator who spoke both American and Scottish, I wandered through the lobby and out the doors. There she was: St Andrews, the most storied golf course in the whole world, softly bathed in the day’s first light with a gossamer haze clinging to her every curve, her bikini-waxed greens just begging for a hole-in-one. At that moment, I had an epiphany: “Chicanos were meant to play here. Look, everybody wears plaid. It’s like being in East L.A., only with bad food and nobody speaks Spanish.”

I had been invited, along with Don Johnson, my then-partner on Nash Bridges, and other international celebrities to play alongside European sport stars and some of the best professional golfers in the world. It was like dying and going to golf heaven. We were to play the Old Course at St. Andrews, Kingsbarns, a relatively new course at the time, which was a cross between Pebble Beach and St. Andrews and Carnoustie, a fabled old Scottish course over 150 years old. Traditionally, the weather at this time of year could range anywhere from blowing to sucking, but we lucked out and every day was sunny except for the day we played Carnoustie when it rained sideways. It didn’t matter; I was having the time of my life.

I teed the ball up on the first hole of St. Andrews and as luck would have it, I hit it straight down the middle of the fairway. “A Blondie,” my caddie Ian cried out in his colorful gnarled brogue. I didn’t want to show my ignorance by not knowing what a “Blondie” was, so I just nodded my head and picked up my tee. It was only as we walked down the first fairway that I leaned into my caddie and said, “Excuse me, what is a Blondie?” Ian cocked his head to one side and as his face wrinkled into a lopsided smile, he said. “It’s a fair crack up the middle, laddie.” I love playing golf here; it’s a great combination between exercise and a Rosetta Stone language lab.

One of the great things about a celebrity pro-am is that you get to play along with the very best professional golfers in the world. In no other sport does this happen. You don’t get to play point guard with Kobe Bryant when the Los Angeles Lakers play the Dallas Mavericks, but in golf, you get to play in the same foursome with Lee Westwood, Phil Mickelson and others while they are competing for money. For the amateurs like myself, it’s a thrill of a lifetime. For the professionals, it’s like playing in the Special Olympics; some have fun, and some don’t. The only other obligation that the celebrities have besides signing two hundred autographs per round is attending social events in the evening. This is where the celebs earn their keep. It is surprising how many professional athletes, along with their families and friends, are gaga over movie and music stars, and the reverse is true with entertainers and sports stars. So we all have a great time mingling with each other and try not to get too drunk in case we have to get up and say something to the audience. Most everybody fails at this.

The second night of the tournament was the big gala event. Dunhill was the sponsor and I guess they invited all their important clients. (I’m still not sure if Dunhill makes cigarettes or tires. Maybe they make both. Maybe they make “smoking hot tires.”) At any rate, they have a lot of money and the crowd was very well heeled and well dressed. As Don and I mingled around hobnobbing with the riff raff, I noticed a very familiar face a few tables away. It was young Prince William, second in line to the British throne. He was attending St. Andrews University at the time, so it made sense that he would be there. He was laughing and yucking it up with his “chums” (that’s English for “homeboys”). One person in his circle recognized me and Don, or at least Don, and he leaned in and whispered into William’s ear. His Princeness smiled, nodded, and waved in our direction. In a…

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This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Vocies.

Cheech Marin is an actor, director, comedian, author, and Chicano art collector. He’s also half of a comedy duo called Cheech and Chong, man.