World in My Eyes: The Autobiography

by Richard Blade

  The channel launched on July 31, 1987, and the original team of hosts were all there to meet the press; Greg Kinnear, Katie Wagner, Julie Moran, Marc DeCarlo and me.

  With Larry Namer and Greg Kinnear at Movietime launch, 1987

  Movietime originated out of a one-story brick building on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood that barely had room for the two studios, three edit bays and cramped office space it housed. We shot almost around the clock and as the network rapidly added cable outlets and millions of subscribers the five of us would travel all over the country to cover movies that were in production rather than relying simply on trailers provided by the Hollywood studios.

  Competition between us was fierce as to who was assigned to interview which star and we would have friendly battles over everyone from Tom Cruise to Michelle Pfeiffer.

  When in October 1988 I was asked to host Movietime’s very first live broadcast, the premier of U2’s concert film Rattle and Hum at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, I jumped on it. Not only would it be a flagship event for us but it meant I would get to spend some time with arguably the biggest rock band in the world and interview them live on camera. The word quickly came in that they were planning to perform two songs live outside the theater for the throngs who would be gathered there to see them and I knew this would be a huge night for me and for Movietime.

  The broadcast went without a hitch and it became just the first of many live events that Movietime would do over the next two years.

  Interviewing U2 live on Movietime 1988

  Movietime became a real force in Hollywood and needed to increase its staff quickly. Charles Segars, one of the senior producers at the network, asked if I knew of any other good, available producers who would want to join us as the channel expanded. It took me two phone calls and one meeting, and once again Peter Facer and I were working together.

  As the fledgling network grew by leaps and bounds it attracted interest from outside sources and in late 1989 was purchased by Time Warner who decided on a major restructuring and relaunch of the channel. So on June 1st, 1990, E! Entertainment Television was born. Sadly I wasn’t a part of it.

  Two days before the switchover all of the on-camera talent, except for Greg Kinnear who was picked to host a show called Talk Soup, were called into the office and let go. It was a shock but I wasn’t too upset. It had been a great three years helping build the network and I’d learned a lot about live TV. It would have been nice to have been a part of E! but just as they moved on, so did I.

  An early version of Fox Sports West was starting up and they asked me if I would be a commentator on their pro snowboard tour. My knowledge of the sport was limited to two things; you did it in the snow and you had a board strapped to your feet. The people at Fox weren’t bothered by that; I’d be the straight man moving the action along while all the technical calls would be handled by a rotating group of snowboard champions who could point out a backside alley-oop or an off-the-lip720 as they happened in the half-pipe.

  For the next four winters I flew to the greatest ski resorts in North America to cover the tour. Every weekend from December through early April I would board a plane at LAX and jet off to Vail, Baker, Taos, Park City, Hunter, Bachelor, Steamboat etc… to commentate on the action on the slopes. I used the opportunity to take lessons and found myself loving being out on the mountains.

  I would fly back on Sunday evenings after the contests were wrapped and several times found myself caught in major storms and unable to make my flight. Sometimes I would sleep at the airport hoping for a break in the weather and would hop on the earliest flight the next morning to get back to SoCal in time for my radio show. I never once missed being on the air though I had many close calls including racing ninety miles in a tiny rental car through driving snow to get to Seattle after finding that my original departure airport in Bellingham was completely closed down for all flights for a minimum of twenty-four hours due to hazardous conditions. Speeding south into that blinding blizzard was one of the scariest and stupidest things I have ever done but fortunately I was just about the only fool out in those conditions so I had the icy roads all to myself.

  Snowboarding wasn’t the only sport to come calling. Also in 1990 I had another call that I welcomed with open arms.

  I was getting off the air and checking my messages when I saw I had one that was asking for a call back as they wanted to talk to me about diving. I recognized the number, 1-800-729-7234; it was the number for PADI – the Professional Association of Dive Instructors. I’d used it many times on my way up to becoming an instructor. I was puzzled, my dues were up to date and I had only been teaching a few private lessons and didn’t think I’d committed any violations of standards so why did they want to speak with me?

  I returned Frank Palazzi’s call and had a really intriguing conversation.

  “You wanted to speak with me?” I asked.

  “Yes,” said Frank. “Who are you certified with? We’ve been hearing you talk about diving on the radio but we can’t find you in our data base.”

  “I’m with you, with PADI. You’ve just been looking under the wrong name. I’m certified as Richard Sheppard, not Richard Blade.”

  “That’s great. Are you Open Water?”

  I laughed. Open Water is the very first level of certification for new divers. “No,” I said, “I’m a Master SCUBA Diver Trainer and just starting my IDC Staff.”

  Frank paused for a second and then I heard him say away from the phone, “He’s a PADI instructor!” Then Frank came back on the line. “Look,” he said, “I’m here at PADI headquarters in Orange County and I think we may have a very interesting proposition for you. Can we set a time to meet up?”

  I learned a lot at that meeting. I already knew PADI was the world’s largest dive organization responsible for more than 85% of all the dive certifications globally but now they were looking to up their already high standards. They had the innovative idea to allow all their new students to take a video course to supplement their classroom, pool and ocean training, and they asked me if I would narrate the six hour course.

  They chose me because they wanted someone who was a diver and because the course would be released in every English speaking country around the globe they didn’t want too distinct of an accent. After fourteen years in America mine didn’t sound like I was right off the boat, and being a little less obvious they felt it would play well in places like Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa as well as the UK and the US.

  Shooting for PADI in Kona, Hawaii

  The recording sessions lasted more than three weeks in total and were intense. Because it was an educational course dealing with life-support equipment and potentially precarious situations every read had to be checked by not only the technical team for accuracy but also by lawyers for potential litigation liabilities. Finally it was completed and the tapes were released and received universal acclaim from dive shops worldwide as being revolutionary in aiding not only the instructors but in assisting the students in learning about diving.

  The PADI execs were ecstatic about the response and went full steam ahead with phase two of their plans, putting all of their courses on video. This time I was to be not only the narrator but also the on-camera instructor.

  Over the next three years we shot videos for deep diving, buoyancy, rescue, navigation, medic first aid, boat diving, night diving and many more in locations around the world from Grand Cayman to Catalina, from Bonaire to Hawaii.

  It really forced me to refine my skills as a diver and instructor and that was a challenge I welcomed. And the more time I spent walking the decks of a boat, setting up gear and leading dives the more it convinced me that one day I should make this a career.

  Diving, and teaching diving, made me feel alive and in touch with nature. It became almost transcendental. One of the single most memorable moments of my life occurred while we were shooting in Grand Cayman. We were filming a buoyancy control video and I was asked to
hover in thirty feet of water in the center of a large school of yellowtails, none of us moving as we remained stationary above the same spot of coral on a dive site appropriately named Aquarium. Frank and his team got the shots of me they needed and returned to the surface, but with plenty of air left and being well within the no- decompression limits I remained below with the schooling fish. I can honestly say I have never been more relaxed than I was in those moments.

  I floated, completely still, in the center of the school of perhaps 2,000 fish. The longer I stayed there, the more they seemed to accept my presence until I began to feel I was one of them. As they moved slightly in light current so did I; the almost unnoticeable side-to-side motion of their tails I matched exactly with a tiny fluttering of my fins as we all remained bonded together above that colorful reef. After perhaps ten minutes I became so attuned to nature and the environment that my mind began to play tricks with me and I couldn’t be sure if I was a man thinking he was a fish or a fish dreaming of being a man. It was an amazing out-of-body sensation and one that I treasure. To this day I can close my eyes and return to that moment instantly. In doing so a feeling of tranquility floods over me and my entire body relaxes. When I go to the doctor for a physical and he straps the blood pressure monitor on my arm I close my eyes and return to the center of that school hovering in the clear, calm, warm water. And almost instantly my pulse drops way down to as low as thirty-eight beats per minute.

  It was while hovering above that reef that I finally made my decision that one day I would do this full-time; move to where the water was warm and clear and try and instill my love of the ocean in others. I didn’t know where or when or how but from that day on I knew I would do it.

  I had one big favor to ask of PADI. I wanted them to change the name on my instructor card. When I taught the occasional private lesson I found that the students wanted “Richard Blade” showing as their instructor on their certification card. Right now it read “Richard Sheppard.”

  The lawyers at PADI said it was impossible as it was a legal document accepted globally but I asked if there was any way they could make an exception or find a loophole. Apparently my pleas were heard because a solution was found and two weeks later I received a new instructor card reading Richard Blade Sheppard. It was the first and only time PADI allowed an alteration such as this but I was so pleased and so were the students I certified from then on out.

  I taught Scott Mason and Jed the Fish how to dive and got them their PADI ‘C cards’, and as word got out over the radio about my diving from the other DJs I started putting together KROQ’n’Dive trips to Catalina. These were long weekends which involved me leading KROQ listeners who wanted to try SCUBA on a resort course and then certifying a group of new divers. The weekend would also include me DJing a Saturday night party at a club in Avalon.

  We were expecting perhaps twenty-five people to sign up for the three days; within twenty-four hours of announcing the trip KROQ had sold 400 tickets. I had to tell them that they couldn’t sell anymore – it would be an impossible number to handle otherwise.

  I went to City Scuba and had David Leach supply a number of instructors and divemasters to work with me so that we could conform to PADI’s strict standards. I certified more than one hundred people in three days and took more than a hundred and eighty others on introductory dives.

  I felt bad for anyone who was going to Catalina that weekend who wasn’t on the trip with us as KROQ took over the entire island including the number one dive site there, Casino Point. I think there were more K-Rock divers in the waters of the marine park than there were fish.

  KROQ’n’Dive in Catalina with my phone op, Michelle

  In addition to the diving and the on-camera work for the instructional videos, I started to write again. I had sold a script to a company in Hollywood in 1987 called “We’re with the Band” about two teenage girls who accidentally find themselves on the road with their favorite boy band. They paid me well for the screenplay but sadly it was never made.

  I wrote several more scripts over the years all of which got me meetings with producers who “loved” the writing and concepts but then they never called me back, the typical Hollywood BS of never giving you a straight answer.

  In 1998 I was watching a new series on the UPN network called 7 Days. It was a time travel show about a clandestine government agency that had discovered a way to send their man, Frank Parker, back seven days to save the world from the disaster of the week. Being a sci-fi fan I loved the show but after just three episodes I noticed there was a gaping plot problem with the concept; if Frank was going back just one week to the same timeline then why didn’t he meet himself?

  Just for fun I mapped out an idea explaining exactly why he never had that encounter using parallel timelines and then a temporal rift that allowed the two Franks to interact. As I looked at it I realized that not only did it work but it made for a great episode so I called Paramount and after a lot of running around with secretaries on the phone I was put through to Chris Crowe, the creator and executive producer of the show.

  I told him I loved 7 Days and explained the problem I’d spotted.

  “We are very aware of that,” said Chris. “It’s a grey area we don’t address.”

  “Well I have the solution,” I said.

  Chris’s response was simple. He would meet me at a very expensive restaurant in West Hollywood, the Palm, and if I did have the answer he would pick up the tab but if not then the bill would be all mine. I told him to bring his credit card because he’d need it and two days later we got together. Before we had even ordered Chris bought my concept and invited me to be a part of the writers’ meetings at their office in North Hollywood. For the next two years I bounced ideas for shows off the writers and helped tweak existing episode concepts.

  As season two was coming to a close I brought an idea to one of the meetings that everyone, including the executives at Paramount, loved. It was a story of Frank falling in love with a female scientist whom he’d been sent back to save. But in saving her she would unwittingly cause the death of billions. It left our hero with a terrible decision; let three quarters of the planet perish or allow the only woman he had ever loved to die.

  7 Days screenshot

  The finished script was so well received it was picked to become the second season finale. I named the episode “The Cure” and had the beautiful scientist’s lab located inside “Depeche Pharmaceuticals.” I figured that while I had the chance I would get the names of two of my favorite bands on network television.

  FRIENDS OF MINE

  Part One – SUEDEHEAD

  My on-again off-again friendship with Morrissey began in 1986. I’d just been signed by Andy Friendly to be one of the hosts of a network show on CBS called The Rock’n’Roll Evening News along with Steve Kmetkco and Eleanor Mondale. The show was to premiere on September 6, 1986 and featured live performances and recorded pieces that highlighted the biggest acts in music. It was all set to become a hip version of Entertainment Tonight, but instead of movies and TV we were all about rock’n’roll.

  At our planning meeting for the premiere show I suggested that we interview The Smiths who were currently on tour in North America. That idea received a resounding yes from everyone so the band’s management was contacted and a date and location was set in stone. We would be doing the interview with Morrissey and The Smiths at the site of their concert in San Diego, August 29.

  We started off early that Friday morning. It was the beginning of the long Labor Day weekend and we knew traffic would be horrendous on our 140 mile drive. With the network camera crew leading the way in their van, I followed behind and we began our drive down the 5 freeway to San Diego.

  We arrived in plenty of time to shoot the soundcheck and following that we set up in a room backstage which we dressed and lit in preparation for the interview. With everything in place we sat and waited. And waited.

  Some of the crowd waiting for Morrissey, Friday February 9t
h, 1990

  Ninety minutes later we received word that Morrissey wasn’t up for doing the interview after all and the whole thing was scraped. The expensive union crew was dismissed and as great as the concert was that night I couldn’t fully enjoy it knowing what we had missed out on.

  Two weeks later The Rock’n’Roll Evening News premiered on 130 stations and I did a piece on The Smiths and their importance to modern music using footage from the soundcheck and a two minute standup that I wrote. I couldn’t help thinking how much bigger and better it would have been for both us and The Smiths if only Morrissey had followed through with that arranged on-camera interview.

  Almost four years later Morrissey more than made up for it.

  At the beginning of February, 1990, Howie Klein called from Morrissey’s record company and said that Moz wanted to come into the station and do an interview with me. I was thrilled, but also a little nervous that he might cancel again. Howie assured me that he would make sure that the interview happened so we immediately went on the air and started promoting it.

  When February 9 rolled around there was a huge crowd of fans surrounding the KROQ building. They carried signs expressing their love along with pictures and album covers for Morrissey to autograph. Many had been there overnight to be close to the entrance so they wouldn’t miss their chance to glimpse their favorite singer.

  As Morrissey’s car pulled up to the building, Moz saw the mob of fans waiting for him, but instead of sliding back in his seat, remaining concealed and being driven into the comparative safety of the underground parking lot, Morrissey asked the driver to stop and he got out and met the kids, taking pictures with them and walking through the crowd, saying hi.

  A lot of people ask me what is the best interview I’ve ever done. My answer is always the same. The most fun to interview is Boy George, the hardest is Bono or Sting as many times they come across as far too serious, but the best, by far, is Morrissey.