| Cable program conveys island's hidden spirit NANTUCKET - Geno Geng is on the prowl in his 1966 Dodge van, a swivel-base videocamera mounted on the stick shift, a pork-pie hat by the gas pedal, and a burned candle in a holder on the dashboard. His eyes are darting all over the cobblestone streets and narrow sidewalks of old Nantucket, searching for a new stranger to subject to another of his ''drive-by shootings.'' ''Hi, sir. Can I talk to you? You look like you've got something important,'' Geng calls to a middle-aged man holding a large envelope. So begins another videotaped ''shooting,'' a popular segment of Geng's nightly cable television show, ''What's Going On Around Here?'' The hourlong program reacquaints Nantucketers with familiar faces and introduces them to neighbors they never knew, some of whom are taped while they sit in the van's passenger seat as Geng crisscrosses the island. |
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Geng
has also brought the show global, journeying to exotic locales for an
offbeat perspective of off-island life. The concept has proven so
popular that Nantucketers are even ponying up to bankroll his trips.
''His heart beats to the drum of the islanders,'' says Grace Grossman,
who sits on the Steamship Authority board and has helped sponsor Geng's
journeys. ''When he travels, he brings a new dimension to our island.''
Those travels have taken Geng to Maui and Micronesia, Greece and Thailand, Newfoundland and Mexico - all captured on tape, to be shared with viewers upon his return. ''He's just not going to Paris, say, and eating at the most expensive restaurants,'' says Bill Tornovish, a sponsor and president of Don Allen Ford, an island car dealership. ''He goes to the common people and lives a day or two with them. He lets us know that we're not unique with our lifestyle here.'' |
| Such
comparisons might sound preposterous - comparing Nantucket to the South
Pacific island of Truk, for example - but Tornovish says that Geng uses
his travelogues to explore housing, tourism, and employment issues that
resonate with Nantucketers concerned about the future of their fragile
home. ''I'm kind of like the whalers who went out and brought things
back to Nantucket,'' Geng says. The popularity of the show, with its
unintrusive blend of features, news, and personality profiles, has
risen steadily during its five-year run. ''It's been like an apple
falling from a tree,'' says Bob Laundry, who leases a cable channel
from AT&T Broadband and runs Geng's show once or twice in the
evening, 365 days a year. Geng, 42, says he doesn't know of another local-access cable show in the country that combines his eclectic mix of neighborhood and global interests. The goal, he says, is to ''break down the barriers'' between the audience and his interviews. The program's video quality feels like a home movie, but its subjects have a wide and sophisticated range. On one recent show, Geng spoke with a new Nantucketer from Pennsylvania about her former job in London, toured a gallery run by longtime island artists, and interviewed two high school dropouts who said their weekend goal was to get ''trashed.'' ''Why did you quit school?'' Geng asks Chris, a 17-year-old hanging out with a friend on a downtown corner. ''Education isn't fun anymore, like it used to be,'' the teenager |
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Earlier,
Geng approaches the Nantucket transplant, sitting alone on a sidewalk
bench, and asks, ''What's a good day for you?'' Watching the
conversation feels like a journey down a winding but familiar path. The
dialogue is easy, the ambience is friendly, yet the sensation of
eavesdropping heightens the anticipation that something unpredictable,
and profound, might occur at any time. ''What's your name,'' Geng asks.
''Reagan Fletcher.'' ''Why did you move to Nantucket?'' ''I fell in
love with it here, and I found love here.'' Geng says he runs a ''shoestring operation,'' and that he spends most of his time drumming up advertising to rent the cable time and make a modest living. The money will not make him wealthy, but Geng clearly embraces the direction his life has taken since he gave up house-painting and put himself through film school in 1993. ''The tough part is I'm a one-man operation,'' says Geng, who is single. ''But I still believe in making a good show that I'd want to watch. There's not much down time.'' |
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there is plenty of quality time. His recent journey to Maui and
Micronesia, carried on cable this week as part of a four-part series,
is an apt example. In Maui, Geng met Hawaiian descendants of Nantucket
whalers who fished in those waters in the 19th century. Another trip
took him cross-continent from Los Angeles to Canada to Mexico to
Mississippi and then home again. In Rosedale, Miss., for example, Geng
stopped to do a show about a small, mostly black town that has seen an
increasing number of residents move to Nantucket. This summer's plan: traveling to struggling Eastern European countries such as Bulgaria and Romania. ''I want to see what their idea of a vacation is, ''Geng says, ''to see them when they're happiest.'' Despite his self-characterization as the feel-good antithesis to shock media - ''I'm positive rather then negative'' - Geng is not afraid to tackle controversial topics. Among other issues, he has delved into the Steamship Authority's nasty dispute with New Bedford over proposed ferry service, and Nantucket's losing battle with more affordably priced housing. ''I'm concerned about housing and the homogenization of Nantucket,'' Geng says. ''I' |
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Selectman
Stephen Bender says that Geng helps expand the island's view of itself,
citing a program about harbor pollution caused by increased
recreational boating. ''He's a fresh voice. Whether you agree with his
point of view or not, there's a point of view,'' Bender says. ''He's
willing to be controversial.'' But not for the sake of controversy. ''I
want to reach out and connect with people in a respectful, dignified
way,'' Geng says. ''I want my grandkids to say, `My granddad was a
pretty cool cat.''' With that, Geng drives back to town from the Madaket corner of Nantucket, scanning the undulating landscape of an island that he and his van have crossed and re-crossed thousands of times. ''I'm a man, a van, and a cam,'' Geng says. ''I can't imagine doing anything else.'' |