Thursday, December 14, 2023

The Peanut That Went to the Moon


Fifty odd years ago I met a guy named Jay Fiondella. 
Ahh! He was quite a fella.
We became partners in a company called Space Imports
and the Exphobe, the firs
t one-eyed space creature and weird features of other sorts.

However, this one-eyed creature toy from outer space 
is just to show you synchronicity.
Because Jay's passion was really his gourmet restaurant of charming simplicity.
With $10,000 he started a celebrity dive called Chez Jay 
or as we used to call it: Jay's.
Great food, peanuts and pretty women who made men gaze.

It was next to The Santa Monica Rand think tank.
Brilliant minds who plotted against the communists, to be frank.
It also attracted many Hollywood stars
Who made it one of their favorite bars.

I once got drunk there with actor Lee Marvin
And a comely woman named Carmen.
Also took there Howard Hughes' last love, the lovely Yvonne
A beautiful creature from some heavenly salon.

I was introduced to the place by David Sheehan of Hollywood Close-Ups fame.
Whose column in The Outlook was one of the reasons everyone came.
Like Santa Monica college friend Doug McClure,
Co-star of "the Virginian". A handsome dude that's for sure.

Jay's had a nautical motif.
A diver's helmet with a skill for comic relief.
Peanuts on the tables, peanut shells on the floor.
Thrown there by beer drinkers hoping to score.

Oh the celebrities: Paris' grandpa, Barren Hilton
Henry Kissinger his spectacles tiltin'.
Warren Beatty practicing his Shampoo role
In the secret room the other side of the toilet bowl.

Astronaut, Alan Sheppard, hung out there.
Ate the peanuts with abandoned care
When he made the golf shot on the moon
In his pocket was a peanut from Jay's resting as in a cocoon.

There are many famous restauranteurs from this time.
Toots Shores' with Jackie Gleason standing in line.
John Walter's The Latin Quarter
Barbara's dad's place this side of the border.

Famous restaurants such as the Brown Derby, Romanoff's and Crios
Many more who are number one infront of many zeros.
Jay Fiondella and Chez Jay's is up there too.
But he had one thing the others didn't. Here's a clue
That makes the real star gazers want to swoon.
Chez Jay's has the peanut that went to the moon.

©2009 W.E. Hogue
Photo credit: Chez Jay (www.chezjays.com)


Tuesday, March 25, 2014

I Was A Teenage Spy for Howard Hughes


The year was 1954, it was the end of summer. I had just turned nineteen the previous June and had come west from Michigan to go to Santa Monica City College as my grades weren't yet good enough to get into UCLA. My "cousin-in-law" Jeff Chouinard ran a detective agency, "Mike Conrad and Associates". It was really a front for Howard Hughes. -  From my memoir, I Was A Teenage Spy For Howard Hughes


This is the story of how working as a private detective during summers as a teenager put me in the middle of the Nixon-Hughes loan scandal that some say led to Watergate, and why I have still have negatives and a carbon copy of an incriminating 13-page report by a Kennedy supporter on the loan to this day.

In 1956, I was still working for my cousin's first husband, Jeff Chouinard who was head of security for Howard Hughes. My cousin was the traveling companion of actress Jean Peters, Hughes' wife from 1957-1971. My job was to keep tabs on a couple of Hughes' girlfriends, one of whom was actress Yvonne Schubert, a beautiful girl I eventually began dating myself. 

But first, I followed Yvonne around as a private detective in the Westwood section of Los Angeles (plus once in Miami Beach) and reported back on her activity to Bill Gay, a senior corporate officer for Hughes. Bill's brother-in-law was Hughes' private physician.

In that same year, Howard Hughes loaned Richard Nixon’s brother Donald $205,000 for his insolvent restaurant called Nixon Burgers, with their mother’s home in Whittier as collateral (although it was only worth about $13,000 at the time.)  

Three years later in 1959, Mike Bruce (a photographer friend I knew from our favorite watering hole Chez Jay's a small bar/restaurant on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica that I used to take Yvonne to) was hired by a Kennedy supporter to take pictures of Nixon’s mother’s home in Whittier as part of his investigative report on the loan prior to the Presidential election that November. 

After several cocktails, courtesy of Mike Bruce, the Kennedy supporter left the studio, accidentally leaving behind his report. Bruce, realizing the importance of the document, knowing I had dated Yvonne and assuming he'd be coming right back for his report, called me and my friend Tom Finnegan and asked us to come to his studio.

We rushed over and quickly photographed the report (negatives in photo above). Bruce wanted me to take it over to the Hughes people to sell it to them so we could split the money. But given the way Hughes had mistreated Yvonne, and knowing Hughes was in cahoots with Nixon and would want to know about this report, I refused. Instead, I decided to hold onto the materials until after the Presidential election when it was too late for the Nixon people to do anything about it.

When I finally turned in the report to Bill Gay at the Hughes office (keeping the carbon copy and negatives which I still have), I slammed it on his desk and said "Here!"  

He read it and asked, "How long have you had this?" When I told him I had it since August he asked why I kept it so long adding they should have had this sooner. I explained it was because I did not like how they mistreated Yvonne (controlling and manipulating her to do things I won't go into publicly.) Gay said, "If you had given it to us then, we would have given YOU the $205,000."

Supporting Yvonne Schubert was worth every penny. I wonder if she is alive. Would love to see her again.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Danny Thomas and the $1,000 Bill


"Have you ever seen a $1,000 bill?", Danny Thomas once asked me. 

It was at my UCLA buddy, Billy Perlberg's wedding in the late 1950s. I believe the ceremony was held at The Beverly Hills Hotel. I was one of the ushers and his daughter Marlo Thomas was one of the bridesmaids. When Danny Thomas came in, I greeted him, we chatted and he showed me the bill, his gift to the bride and groom.

Danny Thomas was a close friend of Billy's dad, film producer William Perlberg, Sr. who made many classic Hollywood movies including "A Miracle on 34th Street", "Song of Bernadette" and "Country Girl".  

I was a regular guest at the Perlberg homes (in LA and Palm Springs) and met many celebrity guests including Barbara Stanwyck, Dinah Shore and Jack Benny. Danny Thomas was a very nice guy with a great sense of humor. 

His photo here is from 1957, around the time that I met him. (Photos from Wikipedia)

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Remembering Michael Toms of New Dimensions Radio



Michael Toms, a friend of our family, back in April, 1976  had an interview and demonstration for New Dimensions with my friend, Reverend Harold Plume at Saint John's Chapel in Redwood City. Reverend Plume devoted his life to healing and to helping others by using his psychic talents and demonstrating through his clairvoyant communications that there is life after death. 

I was the patient and in the middle of the demonstration my brother, police officer, Bobby Hogue, who was killed in the line of duty on December 21, 1974 came through to let me know he was alright. He was also there with a black man who wanted to thank me for helping him to pass over. Back in October of 1974 while crossing the street of Powell and Geary a black man was hit by a cab and fell at my feet and passed on while I was comforting him. 

Related sites:

Michael Toms Obituary
http://www.newdimensions.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Michael-Toms-Obituary-02-01-2013.pdf

Link to Harold Plume's book, A Chosen Vessel
http://www.amazon.com/Chosen-Vessel-Story-Reverend-Harold/dp/0682401900

Shantha Sachi interviewed by Michael Toms
My late ex-wife, mother of our two daughters and grandmother of three, interviewed on New Dimensions Radio in 1976
https://audioboo.fm/boos/634442-shantha-sachi-on-new-dimensions-radio-circa-1976

Link to Fallen Officers' webpage for my brother Robert John Hogue
http://www.odmp.org/officer/6601-police-officer-robert-john-hogue

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

The Cackle

'

A large cackle is reaching to the sky
It's the mid-fifties and laughter so high
Like coming from the mouth of Paul Bunyan
But it's coming from the comedy club: "The Purple Onion"

Not far away was the "hungry i"
Where comics of the day gave a sigh
Their male dominance challenged by a mythical guy: "Fang"
The gender barrier was about to hang.

There were female children across the land
Inspired by the cackle would one day join the comedy band
The likes of Rivers, DeGeneres, Goldberg and Roseanne Barr
With other women would reach the comedy star.

Wild outfits, fuzzy hair, a gold cigarette holder and one-liner bits
Caused audiences to have laughter fits
She took the mighty guffaw
Her true femininity turning it to a gentle laffaw.

Discovered by the king of comedy, Bob Hope
Whisked her to heights showing he was no dope
Putting her in movies, his specials and overseas trips
Made her the queen and also in the chips.

She will eternally be know as Phyllis Diller
Whose comedy act is quite a thriller
So when you hear thunder and lightening cackle
Don't fear, it's only Phyllis making a giant comedy tackle.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Bill Rafferty Is His Name


Back in about nineteen seventy nine
I saw Bill Rafferty's act so fine.
It was at the Punchline comedy club
That was soon to be a San Francisco laughter hub.

It was here I became a Bill Rafferty fan

As his delivery was smoother than anyone else can
Among my neighbors I began to boast
He would make one hell of a TV host.

Not knowing of course he was already with "Real People"

That showed a man running up a wall as high as a steeple
Bill Rafferty was a host among others
who worked together like sisters and brothers.

Earlier Bill Rafferty was in the new "Laugh In"

With Robin Williams and Jim Giovanni, SF's comedy kin
For many other popular shows he was hired.
One of the last being host of "Retired and Wired".

Now he is riding in on a cloud

through skies and oh so proud
Bill has entered Heaven's stage
As St. Pete sends him a final page:

"Your host in the light tonight is Bill Rafferty"!

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Frank Kidder: The Godfather of Comedy


The Creator of the San Francisco International Stand Up Comedy Competition 
or 
How an Oak Tree Died to Give Birth to Part of the Comedy 
Renaissance of the 70s
  
(A brief biography of Frank Kidder from the program for the First Annual Comedy Fest at U.C. Berkeley in 2006. The event was a benefit for The Daily Californian student newspaper. Frank Kidder performed that night with several other comics including his longtime comedy partner Bob Berry, musician-comedian Jim Giovanni and my daughter, Shyama Sachi)

Frank Kidder touched the careers of these comedians on their road to stardom: Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, Ellen DeGeneres, Jerry Seinfeld, Eddie Murphy, Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci), Kevin Pollak, Sinbad, Michael Pritchard, Marsha Warfield, Roseanne Barr, Steven Wright, to name a few.

It all started in a blizzard on an icy road in Massachusetts on December 16, 1962. Home on leave from the Air Force where Frank was studying to be a radio engineer, he came to a stop sign. Frank had been up for 72 hours. Putting his head down on the steering wheel, he started to doze. His foot slipped onto the gas pedal and the car took off hitting the curb on the other side, spinning around on the ice, it hit another curb and bounced, still spinning. It hit an oak tree 8 feet up at 125 m.p.h., as estimated by police. The car wrapped around the tree with Frank between the tree and the car. The oak tree died.

Frank was clinically dead for 17 minutes. Even after the ambulance crashed on the way to the hospital, Frank survived.

However, his direction in life took a different turn forever. After six major surgeries and much therapy, Frank struggled to get his life back on track. He started back to college but the stress was too much. He was inspired by Norman Cousins’ use of laughter to heal himself and Frank got into comedy for his own therapy. His exposure to comedy was at a comedy workshop at the San Francisco Public Library. It was tough along the way. Frank was a heroin addict for six months. He was a chronic user of pot and booze. He began doing comedy on both the East Coast and the West Coast in San Francisco. He worked the strip clubs and he was a barker in North Beach.

In December 1969, he met Hilda Kidder and eventually they were married in Reno. Frank took her last name. Hilda is a very talented and well-known painter. She was born in Yorkshire, England and studied at the Hull College of Art, Leeds College of Art and the Edinburgh College of Art. By the time she was 25, she was living in London and exhibiting at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, The Women’s International Art Club, The Royal Society of British Artists, and other exhibitions.  Since 1963, San Francisco has been her home where she has taught painting classes and is known for watercolors of houses and San Francisco streets.  Additionally, she has exhibited at the DeYoung Museum, The Royal Scottish Academy and has a portrait in the permanent collection of the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. Also, she had exhibited in Tokyo and with the Austrian Women Artists in Vienna, Austria.

Realizing that there were virtually no venues for stand up comedy, Frank started producing comedy shows at the Coffee Gallery in North Beach, the Hells Angels hang out, where the audiences were so tough that as comedian Lou Felder noted, “If your act was not going over, they whipped the mic out of your hand with a bicycle chain.” Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci) began performing there, as did A. Whitney Brown (of later Saturday Night Live fame).

A comedian by the name of Freaky Ralph found The Intersection Coffee House on Union Street and Frank moved from The Coffee Gallery to The Intersection and started doing comedy workshops. It was here that a comedian by the name of Jose Simon (the godson of Cantinflas, Mexico’s comedy legend) brought in a young actor by the name of Robin Williams. Robin took the workshop and started doing stand up comedy. Frank had such exercises as comedy wrestling and 20 comedians onstage at once doing their act. Others in the class were Dana Carvey, Bob Sarlatte (present field announcer for the 49ers), A. Whitney Brown, The High Wire Radio Choir with Doug Ferrari and Frank’s longtime partner Bob Berry.

It was here that Frank created the San Francisco International Stand Up Comedy Competition, that much like an ice skating competition, took different areas of a performance and gave points in areas such as stage presence, technique, audience rapport, audience response, material, presentation, etc. The first competition was in April, 1976 and comedian Bill Farley won. Robin came in second. Through the years the comedians mentioned at the beginning used the competition as a step in their rise to fame. The movie “Punchline” starring Tom Hanks and Sally Fields used the competition as an important part of the plot.

For many years, Showtime aired San Francisco International Comedy Competition as the “Big Laugh Off”. The NBC show, “Last Comic Standing” is an outgrowth of Frank’s creation.

Frank has been clean for 18 years. No illegal drugs, no pot, no booze. He credits comedian Michael Pritchard with inspiring him to do this. He is retired now with his wife Hilda and lives on upper Sutter Street in San Francisco, but he is coming out for one more fling to kick off the First Annual Comedy Fest for the Daily Californian (at UC Berkeley, this was written in 2006).

The oak tree was laid to rest in a wood-burning stove somewhere in Massachusetts. Rumor has it although, we’re not really sure of it, that the wood-burning stove was in the house of a young actor who was keeping warm writing a movie script about solving a math problem. Someone we all know got an Oscar in a supporting role because it was such a hot story. The actor was Robin Williams and the film was Good Will Hunting.