By John Murphy
Once every three months a package arrives in the mail and I cut it open to reveal a different headline on the cover of a new edition of “Cahoots Quarterly” …
- “Little People Wrestling Returns to Dania Beach after 50-year Hiatus.”
- “Hollywood Celebrates Historic Atlantic Crossing!”
- “Local Comedians Take Sonic Ride to Fame!”
- “The History of Spam in Hollywood.”
That’s Hollywood, Florida by the way and there wasn’t really a Spam factory there, as Cahoots reported. It’s all the imagination of Jeff Hansen, 70, a former Watsonville resident who moved to Florida several years ago after a colorful run on the Central Coast of Cali.
Out in Dania Beach and Hollywood, as he did in Watsonville, the former restaurateur runs the sophomoric-but-hilarious Cahoots newspaper which he says has “a couple of real things and the rest I make up.”
“There was never a Spam plant in Hollywood,” Hansen said. “I made it up. But I still have people telling me how they grew up right down the street from it and it was OK, but they didn’t like smelling all the pigs in the stockyard.”
Hansen laughs, nervously, as he often does. He was a successful businessman in Watsonville running restaurants such as the Wooden Nickel Too and the Beach Street Café and in Florida with a beach umbrella rental business, but humor is really his passion.
“Chestnut Wins Hollywood Title,” says a headline accompanying a story about Joey Chestnut supposedly winning a hot dog eating contest on the Fourth of July — or “the day Abraham Lincoln defeated Portugal in 1934,” as Hansen reported.
Then there’s the advertisement for the phony area rehab center with a picture of Charlie Sheen entitled “Get Clean with Sheen” which invites clients to “limit drinking to five nights a week” or “increase consumption to 2½ men” and “learn to rant while still fascinate people.”
Even Hansen’s byline is a fib. His nom de plume is “Cap Peterson” who was actually a light-hitting utility player for the San Francisco Giants in the 1960s. Hansen loves the Giants and, back in the 1980s, would induct a Giant player per year into his goofy service organization in Watsonville called the “Royal Order of Muskrats.”
The Muskrats rocked outrageous hats made of real muskrat pelts with bills that extended out a foot from a member’s face. Giant players loved the caps and players such as Renie Martin, Mike Krukow, Tom O’Malley, Bill Laskey and Chili Davis were inducted into the club (and received hats) in on-field ceremonies before games at Candlestick Park.
That all ended Al Rosen became general manager of the Giants in 1985, got an eyeful of Hansen’s motley crew milling around on the field in their weird hats and sipping beers, and swore they’d never be back. And they weren’t.
Hansen marched on, eventually bolting his hometown Watsonville for Florida where he’s continued to dispense his unique brand of humor and funny fake news.
Or, as former Watsonville mayor and Muskrat Dennis Osmer said, “With Jeff, you can’t tell what’s made up and what’s not. It’s like watching Fox News.”
Main Street Dog 