Ted Conover: The Chameleon

The most surprising thing about Ted is his height. 

From reading his books, I had created his personality in my head. I imagined that someone that had the guts to hitch a ride on a train and rode the rails with hobos for six months, walk across deserts with Mexican migrant workers, become an undercover correctional officer at a maximum-security prison, and ride with truckers across East Africa, would be tall, big-chested, and broad-shouldered. Ted is none of these things. Instead, he is short, skinny, and walks with a slight hunch of his shoulders. 

I first became interested in him when I was applying to New York University journalism graduate school and searched for professors in my program (literary Reportage). Based on his description on the website, I realized we might have the same interests. He had worked with prisoners as an undercover correctional officer, and as an Immigrant, I was interested in exploring the darker side of the American dream by writing stories about prisoners. So, I figured he could be a great mentor for me. 

As I learned more about Ted, I was introduced to the fascinating world of immersive journalism. I became intrigued by how he seemed to engulf himself thoroughly into the lives of others. I wanted to know more about this accomplished writer and journalist. So, I took him out to lunch.

We met on a windy Saturday afternoon at the Kingsbridge Social Club restaurant located on Kingsbridge Avenue in the Bronx. I first saw Ted as I was exiting the restaurant. I had gone in to scope out the area to see what type of restaurant he had chosen for us to eat in. it was a quiet, retro-looking pizza restaurant.

He gave a slight nod once he recognized me and walked towards me with a bounce in his step, hands in his pocket, head slightly leaning to the side with a slight hunch of his shoulders. He stood right in front of me and gave me a crooked smile. At age 63, he looked quietly confident. 

"Hey," we said at the same time. 

Ted is a man that does not seek attention and looks quite unassuming when he walks into a space. But, other than the small smile he tends to bestow on the people around him, he seemed pretty comfortable blending into the background and letting others take center stage. And I think this unassuming impression that he puts into the public is what gives him the biggest advantage in the immersion world of journalism.  

"My process of immersion involves me preparing, researching, and finding out more information. But it's mostly your state of mind," Ted said. Once he said this, he looked off to the side, looked back at me, and asked if I understood his message. I shook my head no. He then leaned back in his chair and looked off into the distance again as if thinking of ways to clearly explain his thought process to me. A few quiet moments passed.

Finally, he looked back at me. "I mean, I have to get my mind ready for whatever I'm getting into. I must be ready to be outgoing; I must know how to approach people. I must be ready for whatever comes," he said. 

"I always want to be prepared, but not over-prepared. Just find a middle ground." 

He talked of the new project he is working on in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, where he has spent the past few years living, on and off, among "off-gridders" up in the mountains for his upcoming book The Last Frontier. He told me of the difficulties of being around people with different value systems than him. They love guns; he hates guns. They hate Hillary Clinton; he loves her. He combats these differences by always trying not to judge people for their past but getting to know them for who they are at present. 

I wanted to know if it gnawed at him that he had the privilege of stopping anytime he wanted and leave certain undesirable situations, while the people he's reporting on, like the Mexican migrants, or the hobos, do not have the same luxury.

"It does not gnaw at me, per se, as you put it," he said, shaking his head in disagreement. "But I do think about it sometimes. I know it's a privilege to be among the people I write about. I know I can always stop whenever I want, but I always know that I am there to learn, to understand." 

He paused, leaned forward, placed his hands on the table, thought about the question for a second, put his hands back on his lap, and told me about hopping a freight train in St. Louis and living among tramps for six months— his first experience as an immersion writer, which became Rolling Nowhere 

"I don't want to be homeless, but to not understand homelessness is a wound," he said, in a low voice, and looked out into the street. There was a sadness in his voice; I just sat in silence and watched him for a few seconds. Looking back, I wish I had asked him more about this idea.

Ted speaks softly and clearly. He laughs boisterously when he finds something funny, like when I told him about my first impressions of him and his height. He gets a shiny glint in his eye and a slight smile on his face every time he talks about his family, like when he was telling me about how proud he was of his son. 

He's very considerate of the people around him, like when he leans towards me while I'm asking questions to show that he's listening.

Ted pays close attention to his surroundings and never seems to miss a thing, not even my phone's screensaver, a picture of myself he only got a glimpse of and, to my horror and embarrassment, asked about it at the end of our lunch. It was a picture of me trying to look sexy, by striking what I believe was a "sexy pose." With immense awkwardness, I told Ted this. In a conspiratorial tone, he responded, "nothing wrong with trying to look sexy." We both laughed.

Amid the waiter refilling our glasses with water, I broached the subject of Ted being an adrenaline junkie. I picked up a paper from the table with my notes and started reading the definition to him. 

"An adrenaline junkie is a person with a compulsive desire for excitement and adventure," I read slowly, staring curiously at him, trying to see if he picked up what I was putting down. From the twinkle that appeared in his eye and the small smile that played on his lips, it seemed he got it, but decided to ask anyway.

"Where are you going with this?"

"Well, I listened to a podcast where you said you started writing because you wanted to get out of the library and find excitement," I replied. "Would you consider yourself an adrenaline junkie?" This brought a laugh out of him.

"Funny you should say that. I have been described kind of like that before by a psychologist," he said. "He described me as counterphobic." 

Ted explained that counterphobic is the term used to describe people attracted to fear. I thought of how he had crossed the border with the Mexican migrants at the risk of being shot or how he had worked as an undercover officer at a maximum-security prison at the risk of being found out. But Ted, however, said though the idea intrigued him, he didn't believe he was a counterphobic.

Halfway through lunch, I wanted to ask about the effects immersion journalism had on him. However, unlike the topic of him being an adrenaline junkie— which I approached with excitement and frankness— the issue of PTSD was not one I was comfortable approaching. 

Thankfully, Ted broached the issue of PTSD himself in a roundabout way when we talked about his work as an undercover correctional officer at Sing Sing, the subject of his book Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing.

"A few months after leaving Sing Sing, I used to have these dreams of being a prisoner," he said pensively. He was in the middle of taking a bite off his pizza but stopped. He placed it back down and looked right at me. "I used to wake up thinking I was back at the prison; I mean, I, of course, knew that wasn't real, but…," his voice trailed off. 

After leaving Sing Sing, he told me that he became suspicious of everyone and would always get this weird feeling while riding the subway. Every time he was on the subway and someone new entered the car, he would automatically check to see if they had a bulge and concealed a weapon. One night while he and his wife were driving in New Jersey, there was a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Any other time before Sing Sing, Ted would have stopped for this hitchhiker. But not this night. When his wife questioned him about it, he replied, "Only if the hitcher let me frisk them."

This suspicion went on for a while, he told me, "But it helps to always talk to people, to help regain perspective on things."

Food done, plates pushed to the side, I waded through a topic I believed was a little contradictory for Ted. In his book Immersion: A Writer's Guide to Going Deep, Ted says that a journalist should never enter an intimate relationship with subjects. "But isn't what you do, immersing yourself in people's lives, considered intimate?" I asked him

He looked around, cleared his throat, and said, "It all depends on your definition of intimacy." 

"OH?" I responded

"I meant sex." He replied, laughing. "Don't do that with a subject. Or falling in love, don't do that either." I nodded my head in agreement, and we both giggled.

But I wonder what he would have said if I had told him, there and then, part of the reason why I wanted to interview him was that I kind of sort of loved him? Not in the intimate way he wrote of, but a professional type of love that translates to "I would love for him to be my mentor because I love his work and would love to learn any and everything about immersion from him." 

As someone who has English as a second language and sometimes feels alienated by some writers' works because they use such unnecessary jargon, it was a breath of fresh air the first time I read Ted's work. I was instantly drawn to the sophisticated yet straightforwardness of his writings. Academica can sometimes be a cultish and snobbish world that can be lonely. But reading Ted's works and learning his writing techniques makes me feel like I belong and can succeed in this world of academia.

But I still wonder what his response would have been if I had said, "Ted, I love you…professionally." I can just imagine it now. He would probably give me one of those pensive looks of his and calmly tell me, "Not to fall in love with him." Oh well. Sorry, Ted.

As our lunch was coming to an end, I asked the one question I believed was the most crucial. A question that had intrigued me for a while. "Other than being an incredible writer, an amazing husband, and father, a close friend, who is Ted?" I asked. Ted chuckled at this. 

He looked off to the side in deep thoughts. A few seconds went by. He looked back at me.

"You know, that's a good question. I haven't really thought about it." He paused for a bit. "Who is Ted?" he murmured softly. 

"Well," he continued, "I'm intrigued by camouflage, and I wish I were a chameleon."

Camouflage lets one blend in, he tells me. If you look different, he continued, camouflage or having the ability to blend in, as a chameleon does, keeps people from making assumptions about your differences. 

"In all my years, I haven't really told anyone this," Ted said to me, chuckling softly.

"I got a scoop from Ted," I said smiling. Ted laughed heartily at this. "You did," he replied.

We got up to leave, me in the front, Ted behind me. I couldn't see him, but I knew for sure he was studying closely, the world around him, while walking with a bounce in his step, head slightly leaning to the side, with a slight hunch of his shoulders.