Saturday, March 01, 2014

Jordan Belford Discusses Serving Time with Tommy Chong

The Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort, sat down with the Hollywood Reporter to discuss serving time with Tommy Chong.
When I arrived at Taft, they lost my paperwork, so I spent five days in solitary. It was brutal, absolutely brutal. But it was minimum security, and after solitary it was like a boys' club -- and who's my bunkmate? Tommy Chong from Cheech & Chong. I couldn't believe it.
He was in the process of writing his book. We used to tell each other stories at night, and I had him rolling hysterically on the floor. The third night he goes, "You've got to write a book." So I started writing, and I knew it was bad. It was terrible. I was about to call it quits and then I went into the prison library and stumbled upon The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe, and I was like, "That's how I want to write!"
When you're in jail, you have a lot of time to think about your mistakes. It was completely mellow. I played tennis three hours a day, and I'd write for maybe 12. I wrote about 130 pages, but I tore them up. I just didn't think they were good enough.

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