Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
cats together to play was fantastic,” Keys says, “but the people who listen to that kind of
music don't go out. The people who go out want to listen to techno-pop.”
It was the Whale Fat Follies that put paying customers in the seats. Labor was a con-
stant problem (on the next to the last day two janitors quit, and one cleaned out the book-
keeper's purse on his way out), and then, on June 21, 2006, the fire marshall made a sur-
prise visit. He noticed, apparently for the first time in the club's history, that it used exten-
sion cords, and decided that they all had to be replaced. “We were already working an
80-hour week, and that basically added Sundays and Mondays.” Even then, Keys says, “It
wouldn't have bothered me, but it's all arbitrary,” and recounts the story of a friend with a
shop who had her own inspection. “The fire marshall walks in says, Wow, you've got a lot
of extension cords. I'll let that slide for you.” Keys shakes his head. “But not for us.”
It was the tipping point for the Fly By Night Club. “It wasn't that the club wasn't full
every night,” Keys says, “it's the amount of trouble to keep it full.”
That was probably when the negotiations for the sale started to get serious. They wer-
en't at first. “It all started as a rumor,” Keys says, passed on by ex-Anchorage bluesman
Chris Alexander, the guy responsible for the airplane tail in the parking lot. “I heard your
place was for sale,” Alexander said. Joking, Keys said, “Well, if you know someone who
has lots of money.” Alexander did, and so Keys called Al Choy, the owner of Al's
Alaskan Inn. The negotiations took two months, and Keys signed the papers on Wednes-
day, August 16, at 11 a.m.
“I have no idea what's going to happen next,” he says. “It's a great place to be, it's like
being twenty-one all over again.” The Fabulous Spamtones will continue in some form.
“Absolutely there will be musical performances.” He's already being asked to do gigs, in-
cluding one he didn't even have to think about. “This woman wanted me to run her lodge
and provide the entertainment, so basically I'd be doing everything I'm doing now, and
making beds.”
It will take at least a month after the closing just to deal with stuff, and he'll need to
find storage for props and space for rehearsing. He's keeping all the Fly By Night Club
history, all the Spam cans, the napkin art, and Theresa Obermeyer's jail ID card. He isn't
taking the bent prop from Jerry Prevo's plane, the one that crashed during a hunt in a
closed area out of season. “It's too big.”
