Jerry Blavat Finds the Fountain of Youth

He’s 67 but still rockin’, with a new WXPN audience for his doo-wop oldies. Our writer spent an exhausting week together drinking wine, learning about Indians, meeting Connie Francis, watching him hang upside-down on an inversion board — and finally figured out what keeps the Geator with the Heator snappin’ away
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By Jason Fagone

Saturday

Over his morning bagel and lox, the Geator gets a call from a woman named Roseanne. He takes it on his Bluetooth earpiece. “Yo baby. Who’s this? …  Frank? Oh really? He passed away? I loved him. … Oh, Jesus, I’m sorry to hear that. …” The Geator hangs up, shakes his head. “[Frank] had to be dancing with me since I was a kid. … ”

Tonight’s show — the last one before we head to Florida in the morning — is in South Jersey, at a catering hall next to a fire station. This one is a particularly deep dive into the past, Jack Nicholson in The Shining walking into that ghostly ballroom. By the end of the night, enough people have come up to me to tell me the same exact thing — as long as Jerry’s around, they still feel young and hopeful, and they’re afraid of losing Jerry because they’re afraid of losing that feeling — that I realize: Jerry’s preoccupation with living forever is an obsession, yeah, but it’s also simpler than that. It’s his job.

 
 
Originally published in Philadelphia Magazine, May 2008