let’s not get started on these giant food companies, okay, the biotechs, and the way they’ve got everyone hooked on their trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup . . .’
After a moment or two, they cut to a close-up, and the effect – on me at any rate – is electrifying. I’m sort of used to the look by now, the strange familiarity of it, but there’s a density to this, a complexity, with physical movement, with his voice, that I hadn’t anticipated. If there are subtle but significant differences between us, they’re not in his appearance, they’re in his gestures, in how he sounds. When he’s talking, he does things with his hands that I would never do, little movements that make him look confident and assured. Same thing with how he uses certain words. And we have different accents too. Mine has traces of where I’m from, smoothed over but still detectable, his is Rich Person Neutral. It’s weird but in all the things that I’ve read about Trager I’ve never once seen it mentioned where he is from, but my guess is that it’s not anywhere near Asheville, North Carolina.
‘. . . and then, of course,’ he’s now saying, ‘there’s what my dad’s generation used to innocently call “the phone company”, the same people who are currently carving up any semblance of what we all once considered our private lives.’
Bill Maher smirks, throwing his hands up in mock resignation.
The clip ends, and the screen does that YouTube thing of showing the six or eight or ten relevant ones you’d maybe want to watch next, my reflection now visible against a grid of small and varied Teddy Tragers.
I hover over a couple of likely clips and pick one of Trager and his partner, Doug Shaw. They’re on the sidelines at some investment conference being interviewed by Bulletpoint.com journalist Ray Richards.
Shaw is older, mid-forties. I think I recognise him from that second time I saw Trager at Barcadero. The discussion is lively, but it’s technical, with lots of financial lingo, the kind of terms and acronyms I’ve heard a lot over the past few years but still don’t really understand. As I watch, I wonder if there isn’t a hint of tension between the business partners. Ray Richards certainly picks up on this and tries to stoke it, but Shaw sees what’s going on and quickly shuts it down.
In another clip, some money-honey type on MSNBC is quizzing Trager about his ‘passions’. He gives her what sounds like a standard spiel about how hard he works, and about wishing there were more hours in the day, but then he tells her what he’s into anyway – and what he apparently does have time for: collecting art, learning to play the cello, and white-water kayaking. ‘Another interest I have,’ he adds a little tentatively, ‘is space exploration.’
‘As in tourism?’ the interviewer asks.
‘Well, yeah, that too, but also from a business point of view . . . you know, the possibility of taking a closer look at the asteroid belt, for example. There are abundant resources out there and sooner or later we’re going to have to find a way to access them.’
I look up for a moment and glance around the coffee shop.
I’m transfixed now, and don’t want it to stop. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get enough of this shit.
I glug down some of my latte and return to the screen.
*
Over the next few days, I find that I really can’t stop watching and re-watching these and other clips I come across. It gets to be addictive, a compulsion, and whether consciously or not – I don’t know – I start to mimic Teddy Trager’s gestures and way of speaking.
It’s not hard either. Even the accent thing isn’t an issue. If you’ve lived in different places, if you’ve been in the military, if you’re circumspect by nature, then your accent is up for negotiation all the time. Put me in a room with my cousins or people I worked with back in Asheville and it’s only a matter of time before
After a moment or two, they cut to a close-up, and the effect – on me at any rate – is electrifying. I’m sort of used to the look by now, the strange familiarity of it, but there’s a density to this, a complexity, with physical movement, with his voice, that I hadn’t anticipated. If there are subtle but significant differences between us, they’re not in his appearance, they’re in his gestures, in how he sounds. When he’s talking, he does things with his hands that I would never do, little movements that make him look confident and assured. Same thing with how he uses certain words. And we have different accents too. Mine has traces of where I’m from, smoothed over but still detectable, his is Rich Person Neutral. It’s weird but in all the things that I’ve read about Trager I’ve never once seen it mentioned where he is from, but my guess is that it’s not anywhere near Asheville, North Carolina.
‘. . . and then, of course,’ he’s now saying, ‘there’s what my dad’s generation used to innocently call “the phone company”, the same people who are currently carving up any semblance of what we all once considered our private lives.’
Bill Maher smirks, throwing his hands up in mock resignation.
The clip ends, and the screen does that YouTube thing of showing the six or eight or ten relevant ones you’d maybe want to watch next, my reflection now visible against a grid of small and varied Teddy Tragers.
I hover over a couple of likely clips and pick one of Trager and his partner, Doug Shaw. They’re on the sidelines at some investment conference being interviewed by Bulletpoint.com journalist Ray Richards.
Shaw is older, mid-forties. I think I recognise him from that second time I saw Trager at Barcadero. The discussion is lively, but it’s technical, with lots of financial lingo, the kind of terms and acronyms I’ve heard a lot over the past few years but still don’t really understand. As I watch, I wonder if there isn’t a hint of tension between the business partners. Ray Richards certainly picks up on this and tries to stoke it, but Shaw sees what’s going on and quickly shuts it down.
In another clip, some money-honey type on MSNBC is quizzing Trager about his ‘passions’. He gives her what sounds like a standard spiel about how hard he works, and about wishing there were more hours in the day, but then he tells her what he’s into anyway – and what he apparently does have time for: collecting art, learning to play the cello, and white-water kayaking. ‘Another interest I have,’ he adds a little tentatively, ‘is space exploration.’
‘As in tourism?’ the interviewer asks.
‘Well, yeah, that too, but also from a business point of view . . . you know, the possibility of taking a closer look at the asteroid belt, for example. There are abundant resources out there and sooner or later we’re going to have to find a way to access them.’
I look up for a moment and glance around the coffee shop.
I’m transfixed now, and don’t want it to stop. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to get enough of this shit.
I glug down some of my latte and return to the screen.
*
Over the next few days, I find that I really can’t stop watching and re-watching these and other clips I come across. It gets to be addictive, a compulsion, and whether consciously or not – I don’t know – I start to mimic Teddy Trager’s gestures and way of speaking.
It’s not hard either. Even the accent thing isn’t an issue. If you’ve lived in different places, if you’ve been in the military, if you’re circumspect by nature, then your accent is up for negotiation all the time. Put me in a room with my cousins or people I worked with back in Asheville and it’s only a matter of time before
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