Who the heck is Steve Emig

This crazy clip is video I shot at the 2-Hip King of Dirt contest at Mission Trails in 1991.  Mission Trails is a desert area outside San Diego, California with lots of hiking and biking trails.  This happened four years before the X-Games started, a year before Mat Hoffman built the first mega quarterpipe, and 12 years before skateboarder Danny Way built the first full Mega Ramp.  Most of the best BMXers in the world were at this contest, and no one had seen a jump like the huge "Death Jump" you see in this clip.  We were all actually afraid someone might die at this contest. 

My name is Steve Emig, and I've lived a pretty weird life.  I was born in Ohio in the 60's, making me one of the old farts of Generation X.  I lived in a series of small towns in Ohio until I was 13, when we moved to New Mexico.  I was a smart, dorky kid who sucked at sports.  I was scared to death most of that year in New Mexico, but I came to love exploring the desert during that time.  A year later, my family moved to Boise, Idaho, where I lived all through high school. 

In a trailer park outside of Boise in 1982, I got into BMX bike riding.  My friends and I rode little jumps and tried to out ride each other night after night.  That fall we learned there was a BMX track in Boise, and we started racing BMX.  I raced all through 1983, then got into the emerging sport of BMX freestyle.  Basically, I was a high school kid doing tricks on a little kids' bike.  I loved it, but everyone else thought I was a n idiot.  But I stuck with it, becoming part of Idaho's first BMX trick team with friend Jay Bickel. 

A year after high school, my family moved to San Jose, California, an area which was just starting to be called "Silicon Valley," because of a lot of computer companies in the area.  I started a BMX zine, (pronounced zeen) which is a small, self-published booklet.  My initial reason was to give me an excuse to meet and interview the pro BMX freestylers in the area.  While I did that, I worked at a local Pizza Hut.  In a turn of events that still boggles my mind, that little zine got me a job at Wizard Publications, the company that put out BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines.  Suddenly I was part of the BMX industry, and couldn't really believe it.  Instead of reading about the top pro riders every month in the magazines, I was meeting them, writing about them, and driving the photographer to photo shoots.  At 20 years old, I was a guy who never took a single college course, and suddenly I was proofreading two global magazines, and writing articles.  My life went off in an unexpected direction.  I went on to work at the business that put on the BMX freestyle contests, and then moved to a video production company owned by Vision Skateboards. 

I went on to produce and/or edit fifteen low budget bike, skateboard, and snowboard videos.  I contributed to 7 different BMX magazines, and self-published over 30 zines.  I stumbled into the TV production world, and worked on over 300 episodes of a dozen different TV shows.  I spent four years as a crew guy on the set of American Gladiators in the early 90's.  Then, in 1995, I burned out.  I drifted away from the BMX world, though I was still riding my bike every day for fun.  I was sick of working on lame TV shows.  I wanted to produce my own shows, and start my own business, but I just didn't have the personality and the guts to do it. 

I started reading lots of books during that time, on business, economics, philosophy, religion, and personal development.  I went to work as a furniture mover, sometimes moving three houses or apartments in a single day.  It sucked.  I continued to try and figure out what life was all about and where I fit in to this weird world we inhabit.  I went back into the entertainment industry, working as a lighting tech (basically a roadie).  It paid well, but I had to quit because of an injury.  I couldn't do the heavy lifting anymore.

Still not sure where I really wanted to go in life, I wound up working as a taxi driver in 1999.  I did that off and on, and also struggled with homelessness for several years.  Finally the taxi industry took a big dive in 2007, and I became homeless.  No booze, no drugs.  I just couldn't find a job that paid enough to get away from cab driving.  I lived on the streets of Southern California for nearly a full year, panhandling to survive.

With my life stripped down to a daily struggle for survival, I gained a whole different perspective on life.  Many of the personal doubts and issues I'd been struggling with faded.  But I wasn't able to find a good job, or start a business to get myself off the streets.  I called my family in November of 2008, and they scraped together money to fly me to North Carolina, a place I'd never lived.  Remember November of 2008?  The global economy was one the verge of collapse, and no one knew what was going to happen.  There were no jobs to be had here in Kernersville, NC.  Eventually I became a taxi driver in Winston-Salem, but couldn't make a decent living at that. 

Finally, last fall, I decided I needed to create my own job.  I'd been doing this weird type of drawing with Sharpie markers for nearly a decade.  I stepped up my game, and worked on getting work drawing pictures for people.  I'm still in the early stages of this, but I'm drawing seven days a week now.  I'm not charging enough to really pay for the time I put into each drawing, I'm more focused on getting my work out there and building a following at the moment.  I also have two or three books in my head that I want to self-publish in the next two or three years. 

At a time when 30 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, I realized that my best bet was to create my own job.  This blog is dedicated to those 30 million people looking for meaningful and well-paying work in today's crazy world.