North to Alaska IV

It occurs to me that I should digress for a bit and describe something that we saw during our cruise, even though I'm telling it out of sequence. Like most ships, the "Radiance of the Seas" had nightly shows with their on-board orchestra and singers/dancers, along with specialty acts such as magicians, comedians etc.

Well one night, somewhere in the middle of the cruise, the announced act was a comedian named Marty Allen. Now Marty Allen is someone I vaguely remember from TV during my childhood/teen years back in the 50's and 60's as one-half of an act known as Allen and Rossi. Michelle had a similar recollection of him. Mr. Allen was best described as a short, somewhat chubby Jewish guy with a head of wild hair that looked like an oversized black Brillo pad. His trademark line was "Hello dere". Well, the name of the on-board show was "Hello dere" and indeed it was that Marty Allen. He appeared with a female singer named Karon Kate who did a few standard musical numbers (she has a decent voice) and acted as a straight woman to Marty when he came out on stage. She is also his wife of twenty-three years. Unfortunately, all of the jokes he told have been circulating on the Internet for years, and at least one, involving an Irish woman and the "rhythm method" has been around since I was a kid. I guess the big thrill was actually seeing this guy still alive and doing comedy. To put him in perspective, he was a guest on the Ed Sullivan show when the Beatles made their first US appearance there. Oh well, at 85 years old the guy has a lot of heart to still be doing Vegas and cruise ships.


Marty Allen

Returning to the chronological account of the trip, the "Radiance of the Seas" docked at the port of Seward AK on Friday, July 20th, exactly eight days after we sailed from Vancouver BC. Since we were continuing with the cruise line's land portion of the tour, we waited until we were called to board our bus to Anchorage, about a three-hour trip from Seward. The trip was, however, not boring. It took us through the Kenai Peninsula which is a scenic national park filled with mountains and glaciers. Our trip called for us to then take a plane from Anchorage which is on the south coast of Alaska to Fairbanks AK in the central part of the state. However, since our flight was not scheduled until the later part of the afternoon, they had to do something with us to kill time so they took us to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art. We had time to have lunch in their restaurant and tour some of the galleries. There was a lot of traditional native Alaskan art and galleries of art by non-native artists depicting life and history in the state in times gone by. My favorite gallery, however, was an exhibit of contemporary art by native Alaskans. It consisted of art done in various media including video installations and dealt mostly with the artists' visions and feelings about their roles as traditional people in a modern society. I would have liked to have spent more time in this exhibit, but we had to hop back on the bus and head for the airport.

Next: Fairbanks and the riverboat: sled dogs and another native artist.