Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
$6,000 to $30,000 overnight.” The state refigured the time zones. “Nobody goes to bars
until it's dark. It used to get dark about 9:30 p.m. Now it gets dark around 11:30 p.m. And
then a band cancelled on us, so we said, Let's do a show.”
The first cast of the Whale Fat Follies included Kim Clifton Moore and Jim Henderson
up front, Jessie Barksdale on the bass guitar, and Sourdough Mike Macdonald on the
drums. “It was originally set for a six-week run,” Keys says, “and at the end of the six
weeks it was sold out for two more.”
Twenty years later, Jim Henderson remembers the days at the original club down on
Lake Spenard. “When we started we invited the volunteers at the
ACVB
cabin just to fill
the house, and then the show just took off. I've never been in a show that people wanted
to see that bad.”
Now the head of convention sales at the Anchorage Convention and Visitor's Bureau,
Henderson calls the Whale Fat Follies “a cross between Beach Blanket Babylon and the
Capitol Steps,” and adds, “I don't use the word genius that often but I don't think people
respect Whitekeys enough as a performer or as a businessman. From writing the Alaska li-
cense plate song to making sure you never had to wait for a drink, he did it all.”
I followed Keys around for one day at work to test this assertion, and came away think-
ing Henderson had grossly understated the case. From 10 a.m. on Keys is replacing spots,
training a new janitor, (“Last week I did all the mopping and took out all the garbage my-
self because our last janitor was in jail”), reloading the Acoustic Wave Golden Tone Ste-
reosonic Ductaphone (the Rube Goldberg duct tape player which accompanies whatever
version of “The Duct Tape Song” is in the show that year), takes deliveries of food and
drink and stacks them in the cooler, checks the email for reservations, and interviews for a
position in reservations. A bartender calls in sick. A little grimly Keys says, “That means
Tim will be helping Joe behind the bar and I will be seating people before the show.”
Rick Goodfellow of classic radio station
KLEF
arrives to pick up tickets for a benefit for
the Make-A-Wish Foundation, attired in a Fly By Night Club ball cap. “Keys has put
more money in Alaskan nonprofits' pockets than the Rasmuson Foundation,” Goodfellow
says.
“And they haven't named a museum after me!” Key says, clearly uncomfortable at this
accusation of altruism.
