Mike Rogge: I have a film premiere tonight, so let's get to it. Hi. I'm your Uncle Mike. For the last ten years I've made my living writing about skiing, mountain culture, and the cool people living in snowy places. For a little while, I wrote for a website called Newschoolers.com. It helped get me through college. The last “real” job I had was working as a bus boy at a restaurant in Potsdam, New York, called Mama Lucia’s.
After school, I took a job in Burlington, Vermont, working for a ski film company—Meathead Films—and their clothing company, Ski The East. This was the first time I worked officially in film. As a kid, I took Papa's VHS camera up to West Mountain and made little ski films about friends.
I loved working and living in Burlington. I made very little money, but it didn't matter. I had enough to pay rent, buy groceries and have the occasional night out, and, most importantly, gas for my Jeep to get to the ski hill. I was happy. In Burlington I started a radio show called The Ski Show on WBKM, which is an ahead-of-its-time online radio station. On it, I interviewed skiers from all over the world. Through social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter, I developed a voice and gained a pretty good following. I was never paid a dime for it, but, again, it didn't matter. I was happy and had all I needed.
During that time, an editor at Powder Magazine named Derek Taylor wondered why he had never been asked to be on the show. Honestly, I figured an editor of Powder was way too busy to get interviewed by a 23-year-old kid on the other side of the country. But I had him on and he told me there was a job opening at Powder. And I applied on a whim with the same hope a guy buying a lotto ticket has—little to none with a glimmer of hope.
The truth is I probably wasn’t qualified for the position of associate editor, but it didn't stop me from trying my goddamn hardest to get the job. After a couple rounds of phone interviews (I made this video at their request https://vimeo.com/10620531) and an in-person interview in California, a place I had never been, Derek said I had the position around 10:30 p.m. during a musical break on The Ski Show.
I was shell shocked, so I drove around town for about an hour, thinking about how and why something this good could happen for someone like me.
Des, there is a street in Burlington called Manhattan Drive. On the corner of Manhattan and North Street I pulled over the Jeep and cried my eyes out. It might be the happiest moment of my life. Powder means a great deal to a lot of people and for me it was like climbing the highest peak, getting everything I'd ever dreamed of in one moment, and, shit, yeah, I imagine it’s what it must feel like to win the lotto. I was grateful.
So I moved to California, about 3,000 miles away from anyone or anything I'd ever known. I was a fish out of water, struggled to make new friends, but found solace in putting together a magazine with coworkers much more talented than me. Those people became like a second family. Powder gave the opportunity to travel the world and meet incredible people. The people were the best part. They still are.
I made magazines, traveled, skied, fell in love, made life-long friends and I loved it until one day I didn't.
The great irony of a Powder Editorship is travels taught me to love the mountains, but the job kept me on the beach. So I moved. I left. After three years I decided to leave the magazine and move to Tahoe.
In the last two years, I wrote for ESPN, Bomb Snow magazine, and Powder. I put a show on Vice Sports. I founded a production company that's made documentaries about an artist traveling to Haiti and a man learning to walk again after a life altering injury.
All of that above is what I do to make money, but it's also sort of a calling. I'm a ski writer, director, and creator of media that hopefully makes people smile, laugh, cry, and think. As to what I do for a living? I make myself happy, which is the most important.
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