Jesse James is very much alive

When one of his builders asks what to do about the cracked water cooler on one of his customs, James tells him the bike needs to be finished Monday.

When an office manager asks James to try on a helmet, he obliges.

When James reads a message on his BlackBerry requesting his appearance on "The Tyra Banks Show," he just laughs.

It's hard to believe that just 10 years ago, no one had even heard of Jesse James, the bike builder. The ubiquitous Maltese cross that serves as a symbol for West Coast Choppers? It wasn't plastered on men's backs or the windows of Ford F-150s the way it is today.

"We'd go back and forth to Sturgis or Daytona and sell, like, one T-shirt and give 10 away and not sell a bike," says the man who, with his Discovery Channel show "Monster Garage," spurred the chopper craze earlier this decade.

The world economy may be teetering, but business is still booming for James, who continues to build -- and sell -- about 15 bikes a year.

"Luckily, we're still selling stuff. I think motorcycles is just one of those things that kind of transcends the economy," said James, who grew up in Long Beach, where he split his time between the homes of his divorced parents and spent his teen years in and out of juvenile hall. "It's like, I'm just gonna build me a bike and get away from it all, you know?"

James' version of getting away from it all: bringing his body to the brink by doing his own stunts every week, and doing it for an audience. "From the mind of Jesse James" is how the guy-centric cable channel Spike show is billed, and that's pretty much how the weekly show evolved.

"When I sat down to think about who could I do a show with, Jesse James was names 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5," said Spike TV vice president of development Sharon Levy, who approached James about doing a weekly show last year. "He's such a Spike guy, it's crazy. We wanted him to be himself: funny, brave, completely authentic, living on his own terms." So, stunts -- but not just any kind. The kind that would make even seasoned daredevils think twice.

For the sidecar episode of his new show, James was, again, putting it all on the line. First in a row of 12 candy-colored race trikes on the track at Willow Springs, he tucked in behind the controls, gunned the engine -- and stalled. With the green flag dropped and cameras rolling, Jesse James may not be a dead man, yet, but at that moment, he probably felt like dying.

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susan.carpenter@latimes.com