First in a series
The most detectable distinction between the public Mark Salkin and the private Mark Salkin is volume.
[img]898|left|Mark Salkin||no_popup[/img]After removing his favorite broad-brimmed summer straw fedora and assuming the middle seat of a dark leather couch in the living room of his breezy Culver Crest home, where he has lived for 26 years, Mr. Salkin appears to be settling in for a low-key interview.
Nah. Not close.
As soon as the 60ish lawyer-turned-realtor-cum community leader starts to speak, you can fry a batch of eggs atop his sizzling words on the chilliest day in winter.
Having divided his professional life between perhaps the two grittiest callings on earth, he comes fully equipped with a personality to challenge the demons of real estate and the law on dead-even grounds every time.
He will not be cowed.
If you did not see him at last Monday night’s City Council meeting, you may have heard him:
He was protesting, with body-shaking zeal, the shabby way he says West Los Angeles College has insensitively treated neighbors and City Hall throughout the school’s ongoing expansion/construction process.
Since 1984, he has been up to his wide shoulders in community fighting, most frequently going against what he regards as the genetically odious behavior of the college’s leaders.
Leading off with recently departed President Dr. Mark Rocha, he calls the college’s leadership team “bullies.”
Mincing is not allowed. They are not bully-like. Not a little more aggressive or a little more sinful than even politicians should be, but “bullies” and all of the ugly accoutrements the term invokes.
He means business.
Prisoners are not taken lightly.
His convictions, closely, rationally, intellectually reasoned, are embedded inside inflexible cylinders of cement.
Surely it has happened a time or two, but compromise is such a foreign concept to Mr. Salkin that it must be living on a separate planet, not down here with us earthlings.
Nails-tough is the only side of him Culver City ever has witnessed for almost three decades, a mighty long run to remain in a single groove.
Conducting a Search
More than a one-afternoon interview will be needed to determine if, or where, a softer side of him resides.
He is bombastic and he is iron-jawed, a captivating combination that, in a fair fight, means the other side always is the underdog.
He also brings a generous swash of charm to a conversation. This is utterly authentic, not a put-on, Clark Gable-style. Rather, it is a natural outgrowth of a tailor-able personality that, from a distance, convictingly looks as if it noshes every day on shards of glass at meal time.
He possesses a magnificent lexicon, the best friend a barrel-chested, supremely confident activist can lead off with in his arsensal. He neither waves his lexicon above his head nor hides it.
Like the more secluded parts of his life, he carefully measures his application.
“I am well educated,” he says, “and I intend to use it and show it.”
Friends say it would have been a waste of time for him to ever have applied for an ambassadorship. Diplomacy might not be rated in the top 25 among his dozens of impressive strengths.
For all of the perceived dimensions of lightness and darkness that spread across his immensely active public image, the husky, balding gentleman seems to make more sense, one-on-one, than a Coliseum full of begowned academics.
Bristlingly smart and icily determined to attain his goals, no matter how remote or elusive, this sentence usually closes with a wisecrack about Mr. Salkin’s way and a one-way highway.
But that is merely the epidermis.
(To be continued)
