Word: geller
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Geller probably says less than any other broadcaster in America and has more time to say it. On this particular Sunday, as on almost every other day of the week for the past 18 years, he will sit in front of an 8-ft.-high stack of broadcasting gear from 6 a.m., when the station signs on, until 10 p.m., when it signs off. WVCA's studio is atop the Whale-of-a-Wash laundromat. The scrap of paper next to the apartment buzzer says simply WVCA-GELLER. When Geller plans to go to the movies or on an errand...
...Geller, a 66-year-old bachelor, doesn't have what you might think of as a radio personality. He isn't just taciturn but a misanthrope and the dead opposite of a local booster. He calls Gloucester "the end of the world" and says he would rather have caught on in New York City. In Gloucester, he says, there is nothing to do but work or have sex. "I don't have a sex partner," he adds gloomily, "so I work...
Still, his local following is intensely loyal, sponsoring raffles and fashion shows to benefit WVCA and sending in a steady trickle of contributions, which are not tax deductible. One listener shrugs off the work- sex slur, saying "Some people do both." Another says Geller has given so much to Gloucester he's entitled to knock...
What he has given is good music. More than 95% of his airtime is devoted to the classics. He does not waste precious minutes on "garbage," a category in which he includes news, weather, and the time, among many other things. At WVCA, Geller leads off a typical morning lineup with Camille Saint-Saens and Sergei Rachmaninoff back to back, followed by Richard Wagner. He has no knack for pedantry; it is enough to play the music. When a visitor asks the name of a piece, he replies, "That's a piano concerto by Bronsart, who you probably never heard...
Lobstermen sometimes tune in to hear Geller's unslick rendering of a commercial for Nichols Candies, a local retailer. Despite all appearances to the contrary, WVCA is a commercial operation or, rather, a listener-supported commercial operation. "I average three to six minutes of advertising a day," says Geller. "The rate is from $32 down." Most of his operating costs are covered by $10 and $20 contributions, which he acknowledges individually on the air ("My thanks today to Beverly, to Topsfield, to Rockport . . . And now let's get back to the music"). Fishermen flipping the dial pause to marvel...