====> A few months ago Tom Kruse posted a short mention of Mike Davis's
receipt of a MacArthur grant, and more recently Louis forwarded
a story on Davis that I can't find. Today the LA Times put him
right up front; his uniqueness justifies this further exposure.
This must be a syndicated piece, as it appeared here in Milwaukee
as well. Good for Mike; doesn't look like a bleaching attempt.
valis
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Truck-driving 'genius' keeps ear to the ground, heart on his sleeve
By Susan Salter Reynolds
Los Angeles Times
September 01, 1998
In the late '80s, Mike Davis would drive a truck for a week, come in
off the road to deliver a college lecture, and go back out again.
Recently, Davis -- the author of "City of Quartz" and the
just-published "Ecology of Fear," quirky, noir histories of Los
Angeles -- won a MacArthur grant of $315,000. Fondly referred to by
the jealous and the awed as "genius grants," they are intended to help
exceptionally creative individuals "break away, work freely, do what
could not otherwise be done."
A trucker friend called to ask whether he'd be spending the money on
that state-of-the-art rig he always had wanted.
Davis said no, and while it appears that he will not have to drive a
truck in the near future, he still cannot believe that a college
professor makes more for delivering a lecture a week than a trucker
who drives back and forth across the country in the same seven days.
This continuing disbelief motivates much of his writing.
The genius is standing out on his Pasadena, Calif., street late on a
summer morning, exhibiting certain genius-related physiological
characteristics. One, shockingly bad posture, probably from too much
research. Two, a hefty forelock of hair that keeps sweeping down over
the eyes, obscuring earthly vision. Three, hands in empty pockets.
Four, bad hearing, probably the result of nutritional deficiencies and
overall inattention to the body's needs, or maybe loud rock 'n' roll.
Five, eyes that swivel, dart, then focus with alarming speed and
acuity.
Davis, 52, looks Irish but says his ethnicity is Midwestern. His
mother was Irish-American; his father grew up in the last
Welsh-speaking community in Ohio. They moved to southern California
during the Depression.
His father was a meat cutter and a founding member of the local union.
"The most average, patriotic American I've ever met," Davis said. "He
believed that the essence of American history is human progress. By
the end of his life, he'd seen his union destroyed and his pension
plan taken away. It's hard to see your parents lose their beliefs."
What he calls the dark side of California suburban life in the '50s
and '60s -- alcoholism, domestic violence -- left its mark on Davis'
personality and is very much a part of his books.
"On warm summer evenings," he recalls, "you could almost always hear
someone being beaten." He says he's a socialist ("I'm a socialist the
way Billy Graham is a Baptist"). He talks like a Marxist. Pretty much
everything he describes has a mass-based, working-class analysis
underneath the surface.
And he talks fast. Within the first hour of breakfast, he has
described the terrifying wit of Irish women and the effect of the
Troubles on development in Belfast (where he lived in the early '80s
after writing his thesis on the working class in Northern Ireland). He
admits to a fascination for Greenland and offers a brief history of
the plight of the Inuits in Denmark since home rule. Ask him something
personal, however, and he leans back, exasperated.
"The idea of privacy," he says, "is an invention of the bourgeoisie. .
. . I don't think there's anything intrinsically interesting in my
life that bears repeating. I've had significant defeats in marriage
(he has been married six times) and a hard time finding stability in
life."
Trucker, union man, writer, professor. In 1990, he published "City of
Quartz," a book that has been called the definitive "shadow history"
of Los Angeles. People started calling him a prophet of doom, accusing
him of being obsessed with darkness. Yet the book hit bestseller lists
across the country and now is considered required reading for anyone
trying to get a fix on this city.
Davis says he is "frankly astonished by how mild criticism of my work
has been and by how many people seem to miss the political punch
line."
"I incubate 15 or 20 projects at one time," he continues, now on his
fifth cup of coffee. "I generally harvest them in some form later."
A few years ago, he was asked by Knopf to write a book on the L.A.
riots.
It was to be a series of community-level stories that would show the
buildup to the riots. It was to include many personal stories, such as
that of Damian Williams, whose televised beating of trucker Reginald
Denny was a flash point in that episode of history.
Davis got to know Williams but was reluctant to tell his stories for
him.
"I found myself facing huge moral contradictions," Davis said. "What
right did I have, for example, to represent his experience? I believe
that you have to constantly ask yourself what it is that you really
know. I have a great difficulty with documentary journalism, with
telling people's stories when there is no larger social context for
reform."
In his most recent book, he moved into a different scale and
perspective and chose to write a different kind of history of L.A.,
which became the just-published "Ecology of Fear," a "political
history of disaster, real and imaginary, in southern California."
"I took flight into environmental history," he admits. "I chose a
perspective I can enjoy. As a child, I always wanted to be a scientist
but was completely put off by the association of science at that time
with the Cold War. At age 52, I can retreat into science and Earth
history."
It is the second in a trilogy, and while Davis says the third book
will be about environmental history and war, he confesses that he
would like to write a big book on the Latino working class.
"It is essential," Davis said, "to stay close to the experience of
real people."
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© Copyright 1998, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. All rights reserved.
