Before there was a "City of Quartz" for Mike Davis, there were hot rod races in the country roads of eastern San Diego County. "There were still country roads and sections of straight roads where you could stage impromptu drag races because the population was less than half of what it is today," Davis said, describing a vanished era "where your fundamental loyalties weren't to God or country or race or religion. They were to Chevys or Fords — and never the twain should meet."
To speak with Mike Davis, who died on Oct. 25 at his home in San Diego at the age of 76, was a chance to speak with a great American writer. (Davis was also an occasional Salon contributor.) But Davis hadn't set out to be a literary voice. He discovered he was a gifted writer in the process of trying to stand up for working people. He did this more in the tradition of Woody Guthrie, a raconteur for the dispossessed, than in the spirit of aspiring writers with expensive educations and bohemian surroundings.
