World in My Eyes: The Autobiography

by Richard Blade

  That was the single most amazing thing about KROQ, its people. Behind the scenes they were honest, trustworthy and caring. We might have had disagreements about bands, music, genres, but we had each other’s backs. In the end Kevin Weatherly proved to be not just a musical genius but also a true friend.

  When I arrived home that afternoon Krista greeted me with a warm, soothing cup of tea. She was quiet and subdued, waiting to hear my sad news of being kicked out of KROQ.

  “How did it go, honey?” she said softly.

  “They want me to work out my notice. All of it. They’re giving me a going-away party on the air.”

  “You’re kidding!” she exclaimed in disbelief.

  “No, it’s the truth,” I grinned. “I guess you’ll be doing all the packing by yourself.”

  IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

  (And I Feel Fine)

  I was really nervous as to if anyone would actually show up for the going-away party that KROQ was throwing for me. It was happening Friday April 28, 2000 exactly two months to the day after I’d handed in my notice and ironically the station had decided on my home away from home, The Palace, as the venue for the massive farewell show.

  It would start at 6am with Kevin and Bean broadcasting live then roll into a series of performances which included Billy Idol, Dramarama, Save Ferris, Berlin, The English Beat, Tears for Fears and John Taylor of Duran Duran. It would wrap up at one in the afternoon with my final Flashback Lunch.

  I knew it was an awesome lineup but it was a Friday morning and people had to work and I was dreading walking into a half-empty building and having to feign excitement. I expressed my concerns to Krista as we drove into Hollywood that damp, overcast morning. She was my comfort as always and said, “Don’t worry; I’ll be there for you.”

  As we exited the freeway on Vine we had to slam on our brakes to avoid rear-ending all the cars backed up on the off ramp. They were there trying to get to The Palace as well!

  The line of people snaked all the way up Vine Street and then along Yucca. It was crazy.

  We parked in the Capitol Records parking lot and as I crossed the street I was greeted by cheers and yells. Right then I knew how emotional today would be for me.

  Inside, the 1,500 person venue was already jammed to capacity. All those people waiting outside sadly wouldn’t be getting in. I took Gene Sandbloom, the assistant PD, aside and told him that as soon as there was a break I wanted to go out and walk the line to say thank you and goodbye to everyone who was waiting and to take pictures with them. We set that up but first I had to go on the air with the morning show and get everyone ready for the concert ahead.

  The performances were incredible. To have Billy Idol and John Taylor singing to me was beyond belief, and when Terri Nunn took to the stage and talked about our love affair and sang “Take My Breath Away” I think we all cried.

  John Easdale from Dramarama actually changed the words to one of his hits, “What Are We Gonna Do?” from:

  “It’s April 21 and everybody knows today is Earth Day,” to

  “It’s April 28 and everybody knows today is Richard’s last day.”

  Cheers and applause greeted his new lyrics and I was so touched John would do that for me.

  KROQ had lined up some surprises for me as well; my longtime buddy, Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode, phoned in and his call was pumped over the PA for all to hear. He wished me well and thanked me for all my love and support over the years and joked that if I was quitting then maybe Depeche Mode should break up as well. We all, myself included, screamed “NO!”

  That was followed by a call from Robert Smith of The Cure who said goodbye and wondered who would play “Just Like Heaven” after I was gone.

  Carl Caprioglio from Oglio records came on stage and presented me with a framed set of the six Richard Blade Flashback Favorites CDs in honor of the hundreds of thousands of copies sold and my dear friend, Rodney Bingenheimer, showed up to wish me well.

  For me, the biggest tears of the day came when Curt Smith performed “Mad World” and dedicated it to me. He had no idea of the significance of that song and what it had meant to me at such a devastating moment in my life, but with every word he sang I felt my father standing there, his arm around my shoulder supporting me, and I knew that as hard as it was leaving all of this, it was the right thing to do. Nothing in nature stays the same; it either grows or decays. It was time for me to try and grow again.

  With the performances over I started my final Flashback Lunch to wrap everything up and say farewell to my eighteen wonderful, unforgettable years at the world’s greatest radio station with the best, most loyal listeners anywhere on the planet. But I had one final surprise left and this time it was from me to the audience. It was how I wanted to go out.

  At 12:52pm I was ready with my last two songs. I’d already played thirteen records that were special to me and my listeners; songs from The Smiths, New Order, The Pet Shop Boys, INXS, Duran Duran, The Cure, Berlin, Depeche Mode and others; but now it was time to put it all behind me, that amazing music that had helped me build a career.

  I knew that hundreds of thousands of people would be wondering just which tracks would be the last I would ever play on KROQ. I’d put a lot of thought into it and had not come up with my decision lightly. I turned the microphone on. My voice trembled from the conflict of emotions seething through my body and mind.

  “Well this is it, my last songs on my last day on the World Famous KROQ,” I said. “I wanted to choose one song for all of you and one song for Krista and me. The first is for you, every single one of you incredible people who have listened to and grown up with KROQ and with me over the years. I started here as a kid and I never thought of this as a job, to me it was a gift. I was as much a fan of the station as everyone out there and there hasn’t been a day of my life during the past eighteen years that I haven’t considered it a privilege and an honor to be able to sit here and play this fantastic music for all of us.”

  I stopped for a moment as I was choking up. Then I pulled myself together and continued.

  “Neither song I’m going to play has ever been on KROQ before but I figured I can get away with it because what are they going to do, fire me?” I laughed, “But it’s the lyrics and haunting vocals that made me choose the first one, because I know that even though I’m moving far from here to start a new life in another country there will be moments when I hear a song or the warm wind blows in a certain way and I’ll be transported back to those early days at that little station in Pasadena when I would sprint across the parking lot and up those old metal stairs two at a time, racing to get on the air and play something brand-new for you that we could all discover together; and it’s those magical moments that bonded all of us like family and those precious memories that will make me miss you like the deserts miss the rain.”

  I hit play and the remix of Everything But The Girl’s “Missing” went out over the KROQ airwaves for the first time.

  I was crying as the song finished but I had my final goodbye to say.

  “I’m sorry I’m a little upset but this means a lot to me, you all mean a lot to me. I’ve worked with some incredible talents here at KROQ over the years and I want to thank all of them for their help, inspiration and friendship. Thank you, Trip Reeb, our General Manager, for being a great guy and thank you to the two single greatest programmers in radio history, Rick Carroll for having the vision and starting it all and to Kevin Weatherly, the most loyal boss there is, for rescuing KROQ when it desperately needed help and for building it all the way back up; without you two this station would not be around today.” I took a deep breath, this was it.

  “But this story that began for me when I huddled with my friends around a little transistor radio listening to new music booming in from pirate radio stations off of the coast of England ends now as I am again surrounded by friends as we tune in together to America’s greatest radio station. I made a promise to a ten-year-old boy and I have
to keep it. He bequeathed me a list of things to do and wanted me to check them off for him one by one when they were done and that’s the real reason I’m leaving. I’ve done just about everything else on that list except for one that he wrote where he said he dreamed of one day living like Jacques Cousteau and swimming with the fish and diving every day in warm, clear water.”

  I took a breath and readied my final words to my beloved listeners.

  “I was that ten-year-old boy. That’s why for the past decade I’ve studied and trained and taken diving classes to become an instructor just to get ready for this day. That’s why I certified so many of you on our KROQ’n’Dive trips. And now I’m moving to the Caribbean where Krista and I can teach fulltime in that welcoming, turquoise ocean and share with others our love of the environment and this planet. So if ever you’re in the Caribbean watch out for an English dive instructor who is cranking Depeche Mode on his boat. We can talk music and swap memories of the World Famous K-Rock. And if you want to find me just look for a place where the sun is shining and the weather is sweet and I’ll be there, waiting for you.”

  With that I started Bob Marley’s “Sun is Shining” (the Funkstar’s Club Mix), unplugged my headphones and left the KROQ studios forever.

  SUN IS SHINING

  We sat and waited on the American Airlines flight from Miami to St. Maarten with our faces pressed against the window. We had told the stewardesses and the pilot that we had two dogs coming onboard (we had our kitty, little Soxy, in the cabin with us) and if we didn’t get the word that they were safely on the plane then we were getting off. From our seats we could see the conveyor belt moving the suitcases, one after another, up from the open truck and onto the plane. Then, with the last of the luggage loaded, the truck drove off. And no doggies!

  Krista and I both got up but were stopped by the stewardess. She wasn’t angry but was smiling.

  “I just heard they are coming. They wanted to load them last so they don’t get too hot in the hold while we sit here on the tarmac,” she whispered as if she were confiding in us. “I have dogs myself.”

  Almost on cue the first of the two hard plastic cages started up the ramp. The front of the cage faced towards us and we could see Angel’s face looking out. She was smiling as if she was enjoying the ride. Krista and I had tears in our eyes and hugged. The stewardess brought us both a glass of champagne. “I told you it would be fine,” she said.

  Our first two months in St. Maarten flew by. We were staying in a little condo below our house on Pelican Hill as the contractors worked on it. By the end of June we had moved in. It was everything we wanted. I felt like my mum and dad must have when they had bought number 22 almost forty years before; Krista and I had found our home.

  We were also planning our wedding. I had proposed to Krista in front of her entire family the previous Thanksgiving. I dropped to one knee, pulled out a ring and asked if she would marry me. The family cheered and applauded and Krista’s answer went down in Henderson history. For all the love and romance at that table, the waiting turkey smelt so good that Krista replied simply, “Yes, but now let’s eat!”

  Our wedding date was set for November 1, 2000. Family members would stay with us at our house, and we had rented a villa called Witenblauw – ‘white and blue’ - for our friends on the beach in Simpson Bay. My mother would be unable to come as she was having heart problems so I flew over to England to see her for a week in July. To keep Krista company while I was gone her father, Dyle, flew out to St. Maarten to stay with her.

  Krista and I had deliberately moved to St. Maarten in the summer months because that was low season. I wanted time to get to know all the reefs, dive sites and safe harbors before starting up our dive business. My rationale was by the time the Caribbean moved into high season in December we would be settled in, married and I would have a good working knowledge of the best places to take our dive guests.

  Sunset from our house overlooking Simpson Bay

  I took the boat out and dove most days. I had my tanks filled at a nearby shop in Simpson Bay called Dive Safaris. To fill a SCUBA tank you need to show your C (certification) card. They saw mine and noted I was a Master Instructor, I think the only person that qualified on the island, and I was good to go.

  In early August Krista and I were shopping when my phone rang. It was Whitney Keough, one half of the husband and wife team that owned and ran Dive Safaris. She told me that one of her instructors, Chuck, had just had a heart attack. Was I available to teach a resort class that afternoon? Two hours later I was onboard Living Waters with Whitney’s husband, Bobby, captaining the boat as we headed to Little Bay.

  The introductory class went perfectly and all the new divers had fun and signed up for a certification course and more dives. On the trip back Bobby said that the four of us should get together for dinner. That night over Indian food a lifelong friendship was born and I was given an offer I couldn’t refuse, come and work for Dive Safaris.

  This would be perfect. I could dive every day on their boats and just use mine for fun, and anytime I wanted to spin off my own business I could. I asked when they wanted me to start and Whitney answered with a grin, “Can you be on the dock by seven tomorrow?”

  Krista came out on that first dive with me and was there to witness the scariest, most challenging open water experience of my life.

  We were on a bigger boat that day, Many Waters, and heading for a reef called Fishbowl. Nicholas, who hailed from Sweden, would be leading the dive as he was very familiar with the site and I would act as the safety diver backing him up. I knew something was wrong as soon as we hooked on to the buoy marking the site. As we pulled the buoy’s line up and attached it to our forward cleat I felt the boat surge backwards and then pull hard as the slack line tightened. There was a very strong surface current running.

  Because of the current we threw out our longest safety rope behind the boat, a one-hundred-yard float line that divers can hold on to when they surface and are waiting to come back onboard, and with everything in place Nicholas started his briefing.

  The divers would enter the water one at a time. There was a weighted line by the dive step that the divers would hold on to and use to help make their descent. This would take them down thirty feet. They would then swim the remaining fifteen feet to the bottom. There they would wait until we were all gathered and then the dive would commence.

  I took Nicholas to the side and pointed out my concerns with the current and he told me that he hoped it was just running on the surface and down below at fifty feet, broken up by the raised profile of the reef, it would be a lot less strong. We would start the dive and make the final decision when we were in the water.

  We all made it down, but during the descent you had to hold tightly to the weighted line to avoid being swept away. The bubbles from our regulators streamed almost horizontally away from us instead of rising to the surface. This was an extremely powerful current and it was not looking good.

  We all met at the bottom, checked air and gave ourselves the divers’ ‘OK’ then Nicholas began the dive correctly, heading first into the current and around the coral heads. But it was almost impossible to make any headway and we had to ‘crawl’ on the bottom, grabbing for handholds just to stop from blowing backwards. After five minutes we had moved less than ten feet from where we had started. Even underwater you could hear everyone breathing hard from their exertion.

  Nicholas turned to me, caught my eye and made a big X with his arms against his chest. He was “Xing” the dive. It was over - too strenuous, too difficult and too unsafe. He was making the right call.

  Krista went up first to let our boat crew know what was happening and to get them ready for the early return of the group. Sixty seconds later Nicholas followed to assist the divers as they broke the surface. I stayed below as safety diver and last man down to send the tourists up in their buddy pairs.

  The current had gotten even stronger and was running way too fast now to send more than t
wo divers at a time up the line because the rapidly moving water made your body act like a sail and with any more than two people on the line the combined force of the current against them would do what seemed impossible, lift them and that weighted fifty-pound rope all the way out of the water as they were pushed backwards and up by the ripping flow of water racing from the Atlantic into the Caribbean.

  Within eight minutes almost everyone was up safely and I was down to the last two divers. It was a husband and wife that I’d talked to earlier on the boat. She weighed barely one hundred pounds whereas he was over three hundred. They were both certified and had told us when they filled out their dive forms that they had a lot of experience.

  I had us positioned so we were about twenty feet upcurrent of the weighted line so that when we started our swim up to it, fifteen feet above our heads, the current would actually assist in taking us straight to it.

  I smiled with my eyes through my mask and gave them the OK sign. The big guy shook his head in distress and pointed to his heart. He made a desperate pounding motion with his hand.

  I kicked over to him and as he wasn’t wearing a wetsuit when I placed my hand against his chest I could clearly feel his heart racing. I guesstimated that his heart rate had to have been 140 or above. I pushed my hands in and out to give him the sign to breathe more slowly and I checked his air. To my horror he was down to less than 700 pounds. He had sucked down more than three-quarters of his air in barely fourteen minutes and not let me know as any competent diver should. His SCUBA tank was nearly empty. With this current roaring around us having him try and share my air would be nearly impossible and in his almost panicked state, unsafe. I had to get him up, and quickly.

  I signaled for his wife to stay kneeling on the bottom and wait for me, grabbed the strap of his buoyancy compensator vest (BCD) and swam him up to the weighted descent line. I wrapped his hand firmly around it and held up my hand to his mask and showed him a grip sign meaning “hold on to the rope.”