He is perhaps best remembered for his dismissal from the radio station KSFO in San Francisco, California in 1995, following controversial remarks he made about gays and people with AIDS.
While they were written in different styles on varying letterheads, all 42 cited the same Emersonian excesses and quoted identical passages from his short-lived show, including, "Alioto, get your butt ready.
[9] Before his firing by KSFO, following his Donahue appearance, he had created more angst by making anti-Asian comments, remarking that he "hated the Japs.
"[10] Prior to his tenure in the San Francisco radio market, Emerson was on the air for a series of high-profile stations throughout the nation, including WRIT in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1971–1972), KUPD in Phoenix, Arizona(1973), KGMQ in Honolulu, Hawaii (1975–1976) and WQHT, "Hot 97 FM" in New York City (1988).
His parents relocated to Carlsbad New Mexico in 1943 when his father was assigned a job at the Airforce Base there after World War II broke out.
The Vietnam war, President Nixon, Watergate and Hiipies were popular topics along with local politics and racial diversity.
After San Francisco he returned home to Carlsbad where he opened a retail shop and began to care for his elderly mother.
They recognized that as personalities they would need to take extreme views on political topics to get listeners engaged and to stimulate ratings to compete with radio stations that focused on music.
Despite having been a lifelong liberal, he was recruited to KSFO by the station manager to host a radical right wing show, a move he personally regretted until his death.