Episode 56 kicks off with Dedication to the Craft III. This time it is an adventure into the dark, cold, and winter for a numbing yet beautiful sunrise at Race Point Lighthouse in Provincetown. Was it worth it?
Assateague Island National Seashore may reside in two states, Maryland and Virginia, but it has one spectacular attraction: Wild Horses. How did they get to the island? What sort of rules and regulations are there when encountering them? Find out on this week's Road Trip.
We go way Back In the Day to all of the fun and frustration that came from playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for the NES. How did 'Iron' Mike get involved? What was this about a potential sequel? Plus reminisce about all of the unique fighters you faced in the game.
What were the worst movies I saw in the theater? The ones on this week's Top 5 might make you shake your head in disbelief, like Howard the Duck, or maybe you'll have enjoyed them?
There is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule as well!
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 55 here.
Episode 56 kicks off with Dedication to the Craft III. This time it is an adventure into the dark, cold, and winter for a numbing yet beautiful sunrise at Race Point Lighthouse in Provincetown. Was it worth it?
Assateague Island National Seashore may reside in two states, Maryland and Virginia, but it has one spectacular attraction: Wild Horses. How did they get to the island? What sort of rules and regulations are there when encountering them? Find out on this week's Road Trip.
We go way Back In the Day to all of the fun and frustration that came from playing Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for the NES. How did 'Iron' Mike get involved? What was this about a potential sequel? Plus reminisce about all of the unique fighters you faced in the game.
What were the worst movies I saw in the theater? The ones on this week's Top 5 might make you shake your head in disbelief, like Howard the Duck, or maybe you'll have enjoyed them?
There is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule as well!
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 55 here.
Intro
Hello World, and welcome to the in my footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This is episode 56. We got a lot of fun stuff to talk about this week. It's going to start off with dedication to the craft part three, which will focus on a very cold but very beautiful sunrise photo shoot at Race Point Lighthouse in Providence town. We're going to take a road trip to Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia. All I can say is wild ponies and go from there. We're gonna go way way back in the day as I talked about the fun and frustration I had playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out. We'll have a brand new top five which will include the worst movies I ever saw in the theater. There'll be a brand new this week in history and time capsule and more all coming up right now on episode 56 of the in my footsteps podcast. Welcome in everybody. How are you enjoying February? Are you still packed with snow where you are. It has definitely been a very eventful past few weeks weather-wise, which has disrupted a lot of stuff. All I can say is going 28 hours without heat, when it's 12 degrees outside is not something I recommend. It's like doing eight straight hours of crunches when you're trying to sleep just shivering. But everything's good right now as of the recording. So we'll just cross our fingers. It's raining out and windy, but I think we should be good. So it's getting close to Valentine's Day. To all of you out there have your Valentine's for your significant others. All of you that have been listening to the podcast from the beginning, you know how I feel about Valentine's Day from last year when I talked about it. I'm not the biggest fan. But I've gone out on a limb and given Valentine's and such to people in the past and had it blow up in my face. So this year, it'll be just sitting back and watching and listening to other stories about hopefully good times, but maybe some bad times. And I can laugh and say thank God, that's not me. This is like the time of the year where my Facebook memories you know, you get the ones from in the past and it tells you your statuses and I've got so many cringy statuses from 2007 to like 2012 or 13 talking about Valentine's Day and I look and see them and just shake my head and say man, I'm glad I'm older and more seasoned and a little more self-aware of what I share. Before we get started on the podcast itself, I wanted to make sure I brought up again, Saturday, February 19 at 430 KeeKee’s Cape Cod kitchen first official book signing, I will be there. I'll take a few photos, a few videos. It's at the loft restaurant at the cove in West Yarmouth, I highly recommend all of you go check it out. And even if you can't make it to the signing, get the book on Amazon. It is amazing. She puts so much hard work into it. Go listen to the interview in Episode 51 to get a kind of better idea of what the book is all about. And then come to the event and say hi, it was Crystal's dedication to the craft that got her through putting together her very first book. And speaking of dedication to the craft, we're going to go into dedication to the craft part three, and one of the coldest photo shoots I've ever been on with my buddy Steve. So that's coming up right now on episode 56 of the in my footsteps podcast.
Dedication to the Craft: Race Point Sunrise
For those of you that are new to the podcast, and you don't have an idea of what dedication to the craft means when you hear me say it in the intro, it's a term that my buddy Steve and I use half-jokingly about getting ourselves into situations that are less than ideal to make sure that we get the photos that we're looking for. And this can be as simple as being out in the rain and risking getting your camera wet to get a cool-looking shot, or going down into the slippery rocks on the beach to get a picture of a lighthouse risking falling and breaking your neck. We've been using that phrase for a decade. And so now it's only fitting that as part of the podcast. The very first dedication to the craft segment was episode 14, where Steve who is way more of a professional photographer than I could ever be give some basic ideas for those of you looking to start photography and get a little better and learn the basics. At some point I'll have him back on so that he can give kind of a part two of his tutorial. But right now we're going to talk about possibly the coldest photo shoot I've ever been on. And this is when you talk about dedication to the craft. I mean this. This is one that's right up there with proving the words. Those of you that follow me on Instagram, you know that I love sunrise sunset photo sunset more because they typically are warmer. And obviously, I don't have to get up early. But sunrise shots are something even more special. It's the beginning of the day, watching the night become morning. It's just something very zen about the whole thing. There are a few magical spots, especially on Cape Cod to go for sunrise, like the Chatham fish pier or Chatham lighthouse, the beach, watching the fishing boats go out, maybe fort Hill in East Ham or Highland lighthouse and tomorrow, but one that is a head and shoulders above all the others is Race Point Lighthouse and Provincetown. If you've never been to it Race Point lighthouse is way, way out in the middle of nowhere, essentially, to get to it, you need either an off-road vehicle and you drive a couple of miles from the Race Point Beach parking lot through the over sand roads. And then you drive past the lighthouse. And there's a beach where you can park. If you don't have an off-road vehicle, you need to walk. And it is about a mile and a half to get from the hatches harbor trailhead walking out to Race Point Lighthouse. And a lot of it's over soft sand, which when it's in the middle of the day, it's not a big deal. You know, it's a little strenuous on the legs, but it's not that bad a mile and a half over the soft sand to get out there and get these amazing panoramic shots of this lighthouse and the dunes and the beach. And it's amazing, it's worth the walk. But like I said, for the sunrise, you've got to be out there when it's dark before the first light. Now things could always be worse. If it was summertime, the sunrises are a lot earlier, when Steve and I decided to go out there for the sunrise shoot at Race Point, it was the first week of January. So the Sunrise was about 7:05 Give or take a few minutes. This means you have to backtrack from that point and kind of make your plan when are you going to wake up and get ready and then start heading up that way. For us. It's 45-50 minutes to get from where we live on Cape Cod to Race Point Lighthouse. And besides that, when you walk out, you don't want to walk out there when the sun is coming up. You want to be where you need to be for the shoot when it's still dark. So you can get every little bit of ambient light and all the color changes. I believe Steve and I got out there a good 45 minutes before sunrise. So start backing away from there, you're looking at a half hour maybe to walk out there. 15 minutes to drive there. So you start to see where the time adds up. So you got to get up early, I think we both got up at like 430. And when driving to a sunrise shoot, especially one that's far away, the drive where it's dark, it can seem like a dream where you think you're still asleep. The good thing is there's nobody on the road so you can make it there. pretty uneventful Lee, but we got to the hatches harbor parking area is on the province lands road, it's a little secret spot fits like five cars. I had prepared the night before I had all my equipment, I thought I was bundled up enough until I got outside. And you know, if you're going out to the store in the winter, you bundle up thinking that you're going to be walking to your car and then from your car to the store. And that's all well and good. But if you're walking a mile and a half in the cold, and then spending like an hour more standing in the cold before walking back in the cold, you should be over-bundled up and I was not on this day. I wore enough layers that my chest arms legs, they were pretty warm. It was about 20 degrees outside when we started walking. Like I said it's a mile and a half in the dark and hatches harbor you're exposed to the elements the wind off the water, and it was slightly windy, not too bad. But I could tell halfway out there walking that my toes and my fingers were already kind of starting to feel the cold. And we had just started. I was sort of helped by the fact that I could tell it was going to be a good sunrise. And sometimes that'll help you when you know it's the dedication to the craft you know you're going to get some great photos. So you kind of take the pain and take the risk. And speaking of risks out in that area when you're walking and it's dark. You never know if there might be animals around. Now there are not that many coyotes out in the province lands dunes, but you know, there are some Steven I didn't hear any noises that day. But we have had sunset shoots where we've been almost surrounded by coyotes. That'll be another episode, I'm sure the podcast where I'll talk about coyote trouble with photo shoots. We made it out to the lighthouse in plenty of time, my hands were already pretty cold feet were cold, I should have been smarter and like triple bundled myself up. But we got there and just started taking photos from all different areas, you got the lighthouse, you got the keeper's house, which is it looks like a normal two-story house. There's the whistle house, which if you haven't been there, it's a brick building. And you can stay at all these places. I don't know with COVID restrictions, it might not be open still. But before you could so at some point, you'll be able to do it again. The whistle house ended up being my best friend when I was out there. Because it allowed me to get shelter from the wind, because when you're out in the elements, a 10-mile-an-hour wind doesn't seem like much. But when it's 20 degrees, and the wind is blowing at you, and your hands are already cold, it's going to be trouble. There were a lot of great photos though, as the sun starts to rise, you get the colors that just start to glow, and it's it ends up being worth it. And my hands were numb, but I was just snapping away because I knew that eventually my fingers would thaw out, hopefully, knock on wood, and the photos I would always have. That's the kind of thinking that Steve and I have on the shoots is you kind of deal with the elements at the time for the fact that you'll never have to I will never have to take a sunrise shot at Race Point Lighthouse again if I don't want to, because I have the ones I have if that makes sense. I remember sitting against the wall of the whistle house and kind of getting a second wind every few minutes getting up and taking a few photos and then sitting back down and putting my hands like under my arms and trying. You can't really warm your toes up. You have to kind to curl your toes and hope they get warm. All in all, I think we were walking and out at the lighthouse and walking back. I think it took us a good two hours, maybe a little bit less. But when we finally got back to the car, my hands were frozen. They were numb. And so on the drive back this is the big thing I remember about this is we drove from Provincetown, and we kept going I think we might have stopped somewhere else to take more photos. We decided to stop and get breakfast at a place called rugby's in Harwich, which is amazing. I recommend that if you have never been there, and this was a full hour after we had gotten off of the beach and gotten back in the car, and the warmth and my fingers was still numb, not totally frozen, numb. But still my fingertips I couldn't feel anything. It likely took like two to three hours before I got all the feeling back in my fingertips and the tips of my toes. But it was worth it. I will always say it was worth it, I can remember the feeling of the cold. But then I look at the photos and say now it was worth it. I'll try to remember to put one of the photos up on social media so you can see it and you can judge if it was worth getting frozen and walking in the dark and the cold and the wind. To sum it all up. When it comes to sunrise photography, stick to the summer. If you do it in the summer, you're gonna have to get up very early for a 5 or 5:20 Sunrise. If you do it in the winter, make sure you are over-bundled up, it's better to get sweaty but keep the feeling in your fingers than it is to be dressed to be kind of comfortable in the car, and then be out in the elements and just freeze like me. But once you are out there, just don't just deal with the pain and take as many photos as you can. Because then you can always rely on the fact that you don't have to do it again, you'll have the photos that you've taken forever. But if you want to be smarter than Steve and I and take sunrise or sunset shots and stay warm, there are plenty of places you can go where you don't even have to get out of the car. Chatham Lighthouse beach, you don't even have to get out of the car. So if you don't like the cold, go there and get the same beautiful shots that we got. And that is dedication to the craft number three a little story about what it's like to walk a long way in the dark in the cold to get some amazing sunrise photos. And I'll be back at some point in the future with Part Four of dedication to the craft which I think will be coyote adventures but who knows you'll have to wait and see.
Road Trip: Assateague Island, Maryland
so we're here nearing the end of the epic 2100-mile six-day road trip that I did back in 2019. Next week in Episode 57 will be the actual final stop which is basically the drive home and a little bit of a retrospective. But this week is the last official stop on the road trip and it's another one that I was very excited to go to and I had no idea even what it was where it was and why I should go before I was alerted to it by someone I worked with. Assateague Island National Seashore is a 37-mile-long island with the northern two-thirds of it in the state of Maryland and the rest of it in Virginia. I had never heard of Assateague island. So when a woman named Carol that I worked with and shout out to her if she listens, one of my favorite people I've ever worked with in the restaurant industry, but when she clued me into Assateague Island, I had never heard of it, but she told me two words that got me sold on it and that was wild horses. The closest big cities to Assateague Island are Washington DC and Ocean City, Maryland. Ocean City is to the north, and the Ocean City inlet, which is kind of the gateway into their harbor. That is the northern boundary of the island. Naturally, I want to talk a lot about the wild horses but to give an overview there's a lot more to do at the Assateague Island National Seashore as with any seashore, like Cape Cod, you've got over sand vehicle routes where you can drive on the beach, there are beaches swimming, there's a lot of places to kayak, there's camping. It became a national seashore in 1965. And if you're looking to go there and you kind of need a destination to punch into your GPS, the physical address where the visitor center is is at 7206 National Seashore lane, and the town is Berlin, Maryland. But like I was saying the wild horses How did they get there? That's the big thing. According to the National Park site for Assa tea Island, the local folklore is that these horses on Assateague Island were survivors of a shipwreck off the Virginia coast where some of the horses made it to shore and then just thrived on the island. And although that sounds like a really cool story, there are no records anywhere that could support that actual story, so it is likely, not true. The most plausible story is that these horses are descendants of horses that were brought to the islands like Assateague in the late 17th century by mainland owners to avoid fencing laws and the taxation of livestock. An interesting thing that I didn't know about these wild horses and I mean, it's not anything they did, but they're actually separated into two different herds. Based on the state line. There's a fence between Maryland and Virginia. So on either side, there are Virginia horses and Maryland horses. One interesting thing that I learned about these horses, they run free, so if you're out there camping on Assateague Island, you are more than likely going to have these horses in your campsite. So you are warned, you know, to kind of take precautions almost like if you're camping and worrying about bears except you know, these horses aren't as dangerous as bears but they're still wild animals. And Carol actually told me a story about the horses, ransacking their tent in their campsite. So I had that on my mind when I went there looking for them. Like I said, if you go to nps.gov, and look up Assateague Island National Seashore, they've got a lot of information about these wild horses their story. They also have a full page on safety tips for viewing them. Because you think of horses, you think of going to the farms where they're tame, and you can pet them and feed them and such. And these are wild animals. And they warn you keep your kids away that the adults are responsible because kids are going to see these horses are not overly huge. They're like medium-sized horses, so they look cute like ponies to ride. And these horses become unafraid of humans, which they say is different from being tame. And they'll come right up to cars begging for food. And that's the thing is that then when they come up to cars and beg for food you can get fined for feeding them. That was right when you go in. There's all these signs with warnings when you go to pay the fee to get in there. There are all these signs telling you how far to stay away, which they say is 40 feet like a school bus length that you're supposed to stay that far away. And naturally, you get a lot of people that go to Assateague Island to walk the beach or to camp or kayak and the horses are just kind of part of the backdrop. When I went I went specifically to see them. And it's not like a petting zoo. So you don't start driving down these roads and have these horses just lining the streets for you to see. They typically don't hang out near the roads because cars go by. I was there for a good hour driving around walking around, not having any success seeing any wild horses and I started to get discouraged because basically my next stop after Assateague Island was to go home. So this was like the last big hurrah of the trip. I actually ended up seeing a deer right along the road just standing there eating. And I was like, Wow, that's pretty cool. But I see deer on Cape Cod a lot. So it's an on that trip. If you've been listening to the road trip segments, you know that I saw dozens of deer while driving through New York and Pennsylvania. So it was boring. I want a horse. Eventually, I did see a smaller wild pony, a light brown really furry furrier than I would expect. And it was just there just eating grass along the road. I drove up took a few pictures. And that was cool. I said, you know, if I don't see any more than at least I saw that one. And then I can at least say I saw the wild horses. But oh, no, I had a far better experience coming up. Only a few minutes later, I ended up seeing another small wild pony. This must have been a juvenile. It was dark brown with a white spot on it. And it was eating but then it was walking towards a little area of water to go get a drink. And I parked my car. And I was like, oh, man, this is great. So I got out with my camera. And I started taking pictures and shot a little video. Then something happened. So the juvenile starts to kind of may like a high-pitched one. And I was like, oh, it's scared. So I was like, I probably should back away. And I looked out over the marshland and way out in the distance, I see a white head pop up. And I'm like, oh, no, it's one of the parents, and it starts galloping, coming towards the road because it hears its kid screaming in fear. So I ended up getting kind of behind my passenger side dorks, I'm thinking maybe it won't charge the road. But then from my right, I hear more galloping, because it was the other parent and the rest of the herd. At this point, I get on the other side of the car. So the little baby that was at the water comes closer to the road. The father, who was a big white wild horse, gets over there. And then there's three more that come out of the brush. If you had been walking by and had headphones on or something you wouldn't even have known there was horses there. And my heart is going because I know this is the big chance to get pictures of the wild horses, but I also read all of the signs about Be careful, they might attack because they're wild animals and maybe defending their kid. Luckily, once I got on the other side of the car, they realized I think that I wasn't worth their time. And they started walking down the road. But I got this one final photo. And it's four or five horses walking down the road like a caravan. And the last one who was the mother is turning and looking back towards me like Yeah, you better stay away. So I have this picture. That's awesome that I just remember that scene of scaring the baby and having the parents come running out. I'm a cold man. It's literally what the signs tell you not to do. And I did it. I highly recommend checking out Assateague National Seashore it's open year-round. And obviously the horses are on the island and I don't think they hibernate so they're usually roaming around just be wary and give them space because I was lucky but I had five or six of them within 30 feet of my car. So I don't want anyone else to have that happen where they charge or kick their car. nps.gov/a s i s is the website that I did a lot of my research on for this segment about the history of wild horses and such. There's also Assateague island.com that has a lot more and they've got a lot of great photos. If you want to see the horses if you have no planning on going down there. And if you're planning on going down there and staying and spending some time you can find places to stay in Ocean City, Maryland if you're up there or Chincoteague, Virginia if you're on the Virginia side. I know with these I usually spend some more time telling you places to stay and to eat and other things to see but Assateague island it was all about the wild horses. That was why I went so I wanted to really share that and tell you the story of my close encounter. But next week we'll be back with the grand finale of this 2019 road trip which is a lot of driving and some retrospective. So hopefully you've stuck with it and you've enjoyed it and maybe been inspired to go see some of these places.
This Week In History
This week in history, we are going back in time to celebrate the birth of a musical legend 77 years ago, this week in history, February 6 1945, the birth of Bob Marley, there are very few musical artists that are more associated with a brand of music then Bob Marley is with reggae. You can have people that are associated with rock and roll or jazz or hip hop, but there's no one where it's like, he almost becomes what reggae is in the way that if you talk about Band Aid, being a brand instead of the adhesive strip, you say, give me a band-aid even though that's a brand. You think of Bob Marley as he is reggae, even though there are so many more famous artists of that genre. He was born in nine mile Jamaica and made his musical debut in 1963, after forming a band with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer. After several name changes, his band became known as the whalers. The band released 12 Total albums and then when they were signed by Island Records, they were renamed Bob Marley and the Wailers. Despite all this, it took until 1975 When Eric Clapton covered I shot the sheriff that Bob Marley kind of broke through internationally. And he soon after he had his first big hit outside of Jamaica with a live version of no woman, no cry. He's got so many famous songs that even if you don't know them, you know them I guess. It's hard to explain. Songs like jamming one love Three Little Birds, could you be loved, waiting in vain. I mean, these are all iconic. And it's amazing to think about what could have been because Bob Marley gets sick. In 1977 he was diagnosed with Acral lentiginous melanoma, and he ended up dying from it on May 11 1981, at the age of 36. So just imagine all of his contributions to music beyond just reggae he is a worldwide icon. To think about it. He was only 36 When he died. His greatest hits album legend came out in 1984. And he overall has sold more than 75 million albums worldwide. And the legend that was Bob Marley came into this world 77 years ago this week in history.
And now it's time for another time capsule. We are going back 47 years ago this week to February 10 1975. What was going on then? Well, let's find out. The number one TV show was Sanford and Son, starring red fox as Fred Sanford with his son Lamont. This show is super funny, and it's a classic and Fred Sanford and his son they run they're a junk dealer so they live in a junkyard. And Fred always had these crazy money-making schemes. It ran for six seasons from 1972 to 1977, and a total of 136 episodes. The number one movie was The Towering Inferno. This was a disaster movie about a fire in a skyscraper and it has a loaded cast. It includes Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Fred Astaire, it made $203 million at the box office on a budget of 14 million and earned a nomination for Best Picture in the Academy Awards and was the highest-grossing film of 1974 and was still number one here in 1975. And it also has a 70% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes if that seals the deal for you. The number one song was you're no good by Linda Ronstadt. The song was originally written in 1963 by Clint Ballard, Jr. For singer Didi Warwick. Linda Ronstadt started performing the song to close out her shows in 1973, and it became natural to just record her own studio version of it. The song has also been covered by artists like Van Halen, Elvis Costello, Ike & Tina Turner, but Linda Ronstadt's version is definitely the most successful cover of it. And if you were around back February 10 1975, and the snow was falling and you had a lot of snow like we had a couple of weeks ago down here, and you were in need of a snowblower. To save your back from shoveling. You could get yourself a sunbeam electric snowblower from Lechmere for $119.88 or about $621 today, and I have no idea how good the snowblower was. If it did its job, but you could get one. And hopefully, I haven't jinxed us by putting a snowblower in the time capsule. Hopefully, we do not need one for the rest of the winter. But that's going to wrap up this week in history and time capsule. And I will be back next week with a new segment of both. But now it is time to have some laughs at my expense for wasted time and wasted money. As I give you the top five worst movies I saw in the theater coming up right now.
Top 5: Worst Movies I Saw In the Theater
So this is gonna be a fun top five, I had a blast going back through movies in the past that I thought were not worth the money spent on them. And it's funny because some of them I didn't spend the money on it was parents or grandparents. So the only criteria for this list, it has to be movies that I went to the theater and saw. And that in and of itself was difficult. I had to remember if I saw some of these movies in the theater, or later on VHS or TV, and I also had to go with there were movies that I saw in the theater that were bad movies, I guess with critics, but I actually liked them so they don't count on this list. And those movies like that they include Last Action Hero with Arnold Schwarzenegger, rocky V, black sheep with Chris Farley, The Waterboy with Adam Sandler, and Halloween h2o. I saw them in the theater and liked them, but I don't think they get the best reviews. And with all these lists, naturally, I have a couple of honorable mentions for the worst movies I saw in theaters. They include The Stepford Wives from 2004. With Nicole Kidman, and son-in-law from 1993, with Pauly Shore, those were pretty bad. But now we're gonna get into the actual top five. So here we go. Top five worst movies that I saw in the theater. Number one is Howard the Duck. This is considered one of the worst movies ever made. And I saw it I believe I was eight years old when it came out. It's based on a comic book. And the wild thing is that Howard the Duck is actually a Marvel comic. But yet the movie was so bad that it was just the idea of this duck coming to earth and then having like a relationship with a human girl when I was eight years old was very weird and confusing. The movie has a 13% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So that'll tell you some stuff. But the best way I can sum up how bad Howard the Duck was, is that it's the only movie I've ever walked out on. And that's because I went with my Nina and she hated it so much she made us leave during it. So yeah, I didn't even see the end of the movie in the theater. Nina made me leave. Number two is Godzilla. And this is the 1998 Godzilla American version. You want to talk about disappointing no wonder why they didn't show the actual monster in much of the trailers because as soon as it appeared you knew it wasn't the real Godzilla. It was a weird lizard Hybrid Type animal. It has a 15% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It starred Matthew Broderick and Godzilla or what looks like we're supposed to be Godzilla was in New York. Oh man, it's so bad. How bad was this movie? When they did in 2004. The Japanese film Godzilla Final Wars where he basically fights all the monsters, he fought this version of Godzilla killed him in like five seconds. Number three is Waterworld. This is one of those punch line movies came out in 1995 and starred Kevin Costner about how the world would look after all of the polar ice melted. And it's a punchline because it had one of the largest budgets ever at $175 million, which actually when adjusted for inflation to now is about $320 million. It has a 48% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So it's it's not as bad as the other ones. But it was so long and a lot of it was boring. I believe I saw it with my friends, John and Barry. And it was I think, our junior year of high school, but it's almost two and a half hours long. And it's just that it's not that great. If you haven't seen it, don't go out of your way to number four is problem child. It came out in 1990. It starred John Ritter, so I mean that's had that going forward. He and his wife adopted this really mean rotten child. And all you need to know about how bad it is, is that it has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Like nobody likes it. I think I went and saw it with my uncle John. But it was just so mean-spirited, and there was nothing really redeeming about it. And the kid. I mean, the actor, I'm sure the kid was fine, but the character was just so bad. And you know how they normally say that sequels aren't as good as the originals. As far as movie franchises go? We'll just imagine they made two sequels to problem child. So problem child three, if the first one is 0%. I'm sure there's a negative fresh rating. Yeah, that's awful. But now, finally, number five on the list of worst movies I saw in the theater is Batman and Robin, so bad that it basically killed the franchise for a decade. It came out in 1997. And you would think a movie that's got George Clooney and Arnold Schwarzenegger would do well, but it's just so convoluted, and it's so far away from what made the original Batman and Batman Returns so good. And I saw both of them in the theater. I think I left the theater after that movie, basically saying, really, that's the best you could do. Movies like problem child and Howard the ducks. They weren't as bad because I didn't spend my money to go see it. But then when you go to see Batman and Robin or Godzilla, and you spend that money, and maybe get like the expensive popcorn and soda in the theater, and then the movie stinks, it's even worse. So those are my top five. Did you see any of them in the theater? Did you see Howard the Duck? Or Godzilla? Waterworld or problem child? Or Batman and Robin in the theaters? Or did you see them after and think they're good? I'll be back next week with another random top five who knows what I'll come up with talk about.
Back In the Day: Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out
All I want to do is go the distance. That's what rocky says to Adrian in the original Rocky movie when he's talking about fighting Apollo Creed for the heavyweight championship. And ironically, that was kind of what I said to myself. When I played Mike Tyson's Punch Out. If you're someone my age child of the 80s When you hear Mike Tyson's Punch out, you get that feeling you get those images in your head of the fights and the fighters and how impossible it was to beat Mike Tyson. Do you also hear the music? Punch Out was another one of those legendary games that defined a generation of gamers I suppose my age group. It also gave me so much frustration. No matter how hard I tried. I could not beat Mike Tyson. Ironically, though, Mike Tyson's Punch out that game with that name only lasted three years, and the game has been around for decades, just as punch out. What happened was originally in 1983, punch out came out and it was an arcade game. So one of the big standup consoles you'd see in the standalone arcades that are so rare these days. In 1984, there was a sequel to it called super punch out, but it was when Mike Tyson came aboard that it went to a whole new level. Tyson became involved when Nintendo of America's founder and former president Minoru Arakawa went to a Mike Tyson fight in 1986. It was there that he saw the power and the speed and skill of Mike Tyson who, if you grew up in the 80s, he was like a real-life superhero. He would just knock people the hell out so fast. It was almost unfair. Like he was a real video game character. The rumor was that Tyson was paid $50,000 for his likeness for three years. And the best part was, this was signed before Tyson beat Trevor Berbick to win the WBC Heavyweight Championship in November 1986. So they, they really made a good investment on him. Mike Tyson's Punch Out came out in the fall of 1987. And it was an immediate hit. You play the game as Little Mac. He's kind of like a younger version of Rocky, I guess. He's just like a generic young fighter. And you're a member of the World Video Boxing Association. And there are cutaway scenes of him training like running behind a bike behind his trainer. But the best part was the colorful characters. The boxers you had to fight on your way to Tyson. Even if you had no real skill or knowledge as far as video gaming. I mean, the Nintendo controllers were quite simplistic compared to things today. You know, AB select Start and such. But even if you had no skills like that you could still beat the first few fighters easily. It starts off with a guy named Glass Joe. It's literally like a take on glass jaw. I think the first time I played that game, I knocked him out within a few seconds. From there you move on to Vaughn Kaiser, who's a German fighter. He's pretty easy to beat. Piston Honda, who is Asian Don flamenco, have the rose in his teeth, you just keep hitting them jelly falls, like while he's falling. One of my favorites afterward was King hippo, who's a big fat guy, you'd have to punch him till his pants fell down. Then you had great Tiger, and then bald Bull who would like bounce at you and then throw the punches. You had to learn the timing. So once you got up in the ranks to some of the better fighters, you'd have to learn their tendencies but even then you could get through all of them. There was soda popinsky and you'd fight him after you had to fight piston Honda again, it was like wait a minute, I already beat you and he'd show up again. So you knock him out again. Beat soda popinsky then you gotta fight bald bowl again, which is like, come on. Finally, you get to Mr. Sandman, who is like the number one contender. And if you were lucky enough to beat him, then you get to Mike Tyson and Mike Tyson. It's just, I'm sure there are people listening to this, maybe who have beaten him, maybe you got cheat codes to help you win. But if you don't have cheat codes, it's almost impossible. I don't know about any of you out there. But I just would get hit once you get hit once and you go down and be a TKO within 30 seconds or you wouldn't even get up. The best I could ever do was timing against Mike Tyson's punches, so you'd blocked them. You could usually block them enough and you wouldn't get knocked down. And so you would go the distance. I went the distance with Tyson a couple of times, but obviously you'd lose, cuz you don't throw any punches. You're just like, cowering with your gloves over your head. I always remember in those fights with Tyson were super mario who's the ref just coming out and saying KO cuz I would keep getting beat. God, it gets so mad. Because there was nothing you could do. No matter how much I tried Tyson would just kill me. In 1990, the license agreement for Tyson's name ran out. So what they ended up doing was going back to punch out. And before and after Mike Tyson's involvement. The final fighter is Mr. Dream. Within a year of Mike Tyson's Punch outs release, it had sold 2 million copies in America. The only other game that sold that much at that time was the Legend of Zelda, which I'm sure we'll talk about in a future podcast. But it's routinely seen as one of the most popular Nintendo games of all time, even if I did spend half my time throwing my controller because Mike Tyson knocked me out again. Interestingly, this is something I didn't know until I did the research for this segment of the podcast. They were actually in the process of making a sequel to Mike Tyson's Punch Out. It was originally going to be called Mike Tyson's intergalactic Power Punch where Tyson would be in a tournament in outer space against all different space creatures. And Don King was involved in it too. So this was a legit real sequel. In 1991, when Mike Tyson was convicted of rape and sent to jail that put the game it didn't end the game, but it ended. Mike Tyson has his name with it. But interestingly, if you go to look, what they did was instead of scrapping the game, because they already had Mike Tyson in it like his avatar, instead of getting rid of Mike Tyson, they changed the guy's name to mark Tyler. And he looks just like Tyson with a different name. It ended up being released in 1992 as a game called Power Punch two, even though there was no power punch one. And if you go and find the cover of the game, you tell me that's not Mike Tyson on the cover. Despite being released 35 years ago, now, this game is still one that I would love to play. And if that's something that interests you, you can actually do it. Even if you don't have the old-school Nintendo, like the mini ones that you can get. Or the old game cartridges. You can do it online with an emulator. Go to retro games.cz And you can play Mike Tyson's Punch out on your laptop. I made it a point to go and check to make sure you could actually do it before I broadcast it to everyone to go try it. But there it was. Mike Tyson's facing, he's waiting for your challenge. And then the picture of little Mack and Doc Lewis who was his trainer, so you can go and play it and beat all those easy fighters and then get to Tyson and have him knock you out. It was always one of my favorite games. And I don't know if any of you out there ever played it. Did any of you ever beat Mike Tyson? I never found anyone who did. But obviously, someone had to, I don't think they'd make a game impossible to win. But this is as hard as it gets. And as we go along, we'll do more back in the day segments featuring some of my all time favorite video games from my childhood. I did Tecmo Super Bowl back in episode 44. If you want to go check that out. And if you have any that you want me to check out and review, you can always shoot me a message Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. Otherwise, I've got a whole bunch of good ones coming up as we go along, not every week, but to kind of break things up. So go try to knock out Mike Tyson on punch out, play the emulator, and let me know if you can beat him, because I never could.
Closing
And that's gonna wrap up episode 56 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you to everybody who has been tuning in and checking out the podcast, I've got so many now in the archives that we're looking at hours and hours of content and so many different topics I've gone over, there's something for everybody. Like I tried to make it as all-encompassing as I can get. I'm so grateful to everybody who checks out the live streams every Friday at 8pm. On Instagram, where we go over the most recent episode of the podcast, I usually have some random stories as a lot of family and friends in the chat and a lot of you that I've never met but I interact with on social media stop by and say hi, those are a lot of fun. You can find me all over social media, Twitter, obviously Instagram, YouTube, I'm going to try to get more videos up there. But it's tough in the winter, there's not much to see with everything cold and barren. But springtime should bring more, visit Christopher setterlund.com. It's got links to all six of my first books, links to old podcast links to the in my footsteps podcast blog, which I try to update as much as I can. But what I put up there is a lot of Cape Cod history articles, so they take time to research and there are only so many hours in the day. If you ever have any questions, comments, etc. Shoot me an email at Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. Someday I'll do a q&a segment on the podcast once I get enough Qs to A. visit Wear your wishes.com I haven't had an ad for where your wish the last few weeks because the site is being updated, and restocked. And I didn't want to have people go there expecting it to be open and available for things to buy. But definitely go and check them out, get on the email list. So you'll know when the site is back up. And it'll be soon enough that I will have another interview with Katie marks about what it's been like being a business owner for a year. Because it's a lot of work that she's been doing. And she deserves a lot of praise for going through the year with business and being a parent and just living life in general. So I wanted to give her a shout-out for all the good she's done. Not just with Wear your wish but just being a good human and good parent and a great sister also. And speaking of shout-outs, I wanted to give a shout-out to my aunt Kelly and wish her all the best on her retirement from teaching. She was a teacher for more than three decades. And when I was younger, I used to go in and help her set up her classrooms for the school year. And that was always a lot of fun. She has impacted so many people's lives, probably people that she doesn't even realize just by being a great teacher. And she deserves all of the rest and relaxation and fun that is going to come with retirement. She said she's going to try to catch up on the podcast. So that's an added bonus for me. Thinking about teachers that impact people's lives. Coming up in two weeks and episode 58 The special bonus episode, I'm going to talk all about the teacher that impacted my life the most and kind of put the bug in me to be a writer, although it came far later in life. So that's going to be fun to kind of share some memories and hopefully make you all think about teachers that had a positive impact on you. But before that next week, episode 57 That's Valentine's week. I'm not a big fan of Valentine's Day, but I know a lot of you are so it'll be fun. We're going to do the final road trip segment from the 2019 trip, little drive back home and a retrospective. We're going to talk about the top five symbols of the 90s things that when I say 1990s that pop into your head, we'll see if my list jives with you. We're gonna go way way back in the day, as I talk about my first-ever celebrity crushes, and we'll have a new this week in history and time capsule and a lot more coming up next week on episode 57 of the in my footsteps podcast. And like I said at the top Saturday, February 19 4:30pm, the loft restaurant at the cove in West Yarmouth. Crystal Joy Smith, her first book event, KeeKee’s Cape Cod kitchen, the big book launch, be there, I will have a review of it after it happens. But it'll be great to go there and support her and her hard work. So hopefully, I'll see some of you there. And if not, you'll hear about it after, even if you don't have big dreams of Grand Jury as far as new year's resolutions have gone. And I mean, now we're in February, so it's way too late to start one. But I do like I've been saying five goals for each month. Even if you're not achieving your goals, just keep moving, keep improving. Do it for yourself, even if no one else sees or notices, do what you've got to do to make yourself a better person and have a better life. Positivity breeds positivity. I'm trying my best last week with the big blizzard we had. And I had no power for two days when it was 12 degrees out and no heat in my apartment for five days. But I looked on the bright side that it could always be worse, and a lot of people have it worse than me. So that's the way you've got to look at it. No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse, and they can and will get better. I'm not gonna get all preachy, but hopefully you all are on the path to your dreams following your dreams. Because that's what if you stopped following your dreams, there's not much left to do in life. Whether that's a job, whether that's a relationship, who knows what it is, it's different for everyone. But just follow your heart, your dreams, leave the biggest footprint you can in this life. And remember, above all else, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps and create your own path and enjoy every moment you can because you just never know. Thank you so much to everybody who has been tuning in and enjoying the podcast sharing it spreading the word. I will be back next week with episode 57. But until then, have a great week a great weekend. Have fun with whatever you do in life. And I'll talk to you all again soon.