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)
