In My Footsteps: A Gen-X Nostalgia Podcast

Episode 133: The Horror of Red Asphalt; Las Vegas Gambling Disasters; 1980s Teen Movies; Edison Invents the Phonograph(2-21-2024)

• Christopher Setterlund • Season 1 • Episode 133

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A driver's ed film that scarred children of the 1960s. Stories of my time as a degenerate Las Vegas gambler. Some of the best 1980s teen movies, and more.
All of this is front and center on Episode 133 of the podcast.
Las Vegas is called 'Sin City' for a reason. All of the excesses that you could want are within arms reach. Even if you are a resident you cannot escape the pull of some of the vices. During my time living in Vegas in 2000-01 I found out that my major weakness was the lure of gambling. I will share some head-shaking yet hilarious stories of my days as a degenerate gambler.
From laughs to horror. In 1964 a film was created to help scare straight potential new drivers. It was called Red Asphalt and its gory graphic content depicting real traffic accidents is still shocking 60 years later. We go way Back In the Day as I review this unique and terrifying driver's ed film.
From horror to warm and fuzzy nostalgia we look back at some of the best 1980s teen movies this week in the Top 5. Get your Netflix, Hulu, or whatever streaming service you have ready to make a playlist.
There is also a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule centered around Thomas Edison's creation of the phonograph and how the way we consume sound changed forever.
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Speaker 00:

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, and this is episode 133. Spring is still a month away. We're going to immediately take the laughs away and I will try not to horrify and terrify you too much as I review the infamous original red asphalt Driver's Ed video from California from 1964. Don't watch it on an empty stomach. There's going to be a brand new top five that looks at the top five teen movies of the 1980s. Jot these down for Netflix or Hulu or whichever streaming service And there'll be a brand new This Week in History and Time capsule going back to the genesis of sound recording and Thomas Edison getting his patent for his cylinder phonograph. All of that coming up right now on episode 133 of the In My Footsteps podcast. How is everybody doing out there? How have you survived winter? I know on Cape Cod, we've gotten next to no snow, and I'm not one that's looking for a giant snowstorm, but I do want something so that when it turns to spring, we feel like we've earned the springtime weather and it's not just like another day. Before we get going, I wanted to give a shout out to my Patreon subscribers, Leo, Laurie, Mary Lou, and Ashley. If you want a Patreon shout out, go become a member at patreon.com slash inmyfootstepspodcast. There's also a link in the description of the podcast for easy clicking. I hope you've been enjoying my return to blogging form with my initial impressions 2.0 version. It's a weekly look at the weird and random stuff that happens in my life and some random thoughts and predictions. I used to do this blog back in 2010 through about 2012. It was the same idea. And that became the basis for my bonus podcast that I do for Patreon subscribers. And I liked doing those reviews so much. I enjoy them. And it was either I make those podcasts available to everyone, which defeats the purpose of Patreon. Or I just start doing new blogs because my life is still full of weird craziness. This is going to be a fun and unique episode of the show. Like I said, I'm going to review this old Driver's Ed video that's very infamous. I've never seen it. Called Red Asphalt. And the best part of this for you, well, A, is I'll review it so if you don't want to watch it, it's supposed to be very graphic and gory and realistic. It's real. But I'm going to watch it, and then I'm going to record my review segment right after, so I may be sick on the air. As most of you know, I do video segments for the podcast. I do the whole podcast as a video on YouTube, but then I do individual segments that I really spruce up. I put in video and... created AI images and things to make it really visually appealing and I hope you've enjoyed those. I will say the red asphalt segment I can tell you already will not be a video segment. That video would get pulled by YouTube so fast. Last year, this is a little side note, I made a video for my friend John. I've known him for over 30 years, and it was for his birthday, which was last June. And there's lots of clips from skits that we did with my camcorder in high school. Just funny stuff, random stuff that he would understand. But I added sound effects to it. Breaking glass, sounds of punches, skidding tires. Just for fun, to make it more engaging for him to laugh. And the video was unlisted. You couldn't see it unless I gave you the link. But that video got pulled for content violation by YouTube. And when I reached out to ask what exactly I did, I got no response. I had a checkmark against my account that only went away last month. I don't think I even told John that. The video I made him for his birthday got me a violation on YouTube. Yay, thanks, John. It's your fault. So yeah, Red Asphalt will not be getting made because I will get another strike. I can just see it. But let's get into some laughs right here at my expense, which I always enjoy sharing. As we look at another chapter from my time living in Las Vegas... and look at my infamous gambling stories slash gambling problem right now on episode 133 of the podcast. My time living in Las Vegas in 2000-2001, it seems like forever ago, like a totally different life. And I mean it was, it was 24 years ago now. But yet so much of that time is just imprinted in my memory. So many weird things happened, amazing things happened. Life lessons happened. Way back in episode 6, I did kind of an overview of my time living in Las Vegas, which really glossed over a lot of details. And then in episode 9, I told the story of taking a bus from Las Vegas back to Cape Cod. I definitely recommend listening to both of those segments for more fleshing out of my Las Vegas adventures. This segment here is going to be full of laughs and full of probably a lot of you shaking your head and maybe some of you being able to relate to what was happening. It's not an origin story, but it definitely explains a lot of how I am today. When you think of Las Vegas, what's the first thing you think of? Likely casinos, the strip, gambling. People that say they go to Las Vegas to see shows are typically full of it. They just don't want to say they're going to gamble. That's not everyone, but you know 8 out of 10 people want to go to gamble. Seeing shows is just a cover for it. I have learned and come to accept in my 40s that I have an addictive personality. Hence the reason why I had alcohol issues. But back at the age of 22, which is when most of this takes place, I had no idea about that. I was still figuring out who I was. That's how I ended up in Vegas in the first place. I got... Bored and felt kind of stifled living on Cape Cod in my early 20s. I know a lot of people feel that way. A lot of people that grew up on the Cape move away at that time. Some come back. Some do not. I went to Vegas because I had family out there. And so it was a safe kind of home base. But I was also kind of on my own to do my own thing. I stayed with my father and gave him rent money, but he was never around. He worked a lot. He did his own thing. So I basically lived by myself. My issues with gambling started the very first day, the very first minutes that I stepped foot in Vegas to live because I visited and got a feel for it and said, you know, I want to move back out here. So I visited in the winter. I moved back in late summer. If you've never been to Las Vegas ever, when you arrive by plane at Harry Reid International Airport, it's a culture shock. Coming from Cape Cod, that even to this day is still pretty rural compared to the rest of the country, and landing at this airport and walking in and there's just bells and whistles and slot machines everywhere. It's both liberating and intimidating at the same time. So I'm walking through the airport with all of my stuff. I think my father and my uncle were there to meet me. I thought it would be fun to kind of set the tone for my life in Las Vegas by throwing some money in the first slot machine I saw. And lo and behold, I won a hundred bucks. And you may be thinking, oh, wow, that's great. It's terrible if you don't gamble, if you've never gambled and you start to gamble and you win money because some people think that it's just that easy. You start to think, oh, if I put in 50 cents, I'm going to win three, four, five times what I put in or more. Well, I guess more than that, that would be like two bucks. But I mean, winning something that's actually worth it. I think at the time I thought of casinos and gambling and slot machines as low risk and almost like another ATM that if I spent a little money, I'd make more. That was not the case. So I got a job out there working in a Target in the back stock room. That'll be a segment for another podcast episode because that would take a lot of time to explain that experience. In 2000, working in a stockroom in Target, I made a whopping $6 an hour. I also was going to college part-time, trying to finish up whatever degree I was trying to get. And in addition to paying my own way, paying rent to my father for the apartment, you could see where I was not exactly swimming in money. I don't think this was right away, but it was pretty much within a month of living in Las Vegas that these occurrences started to happen. Fridays would come. I would get my check at the end of my shift at Target. And I would walk to my bank, which was Washington Mutual. I didn't have a car. I took a bus everywhere or walked everywhere because it was 110, 115 degrees and sunny with no humidity every day. And I would get some supplies for the week, go to the grocery store. The nearest one to where I lived was Albertson's. And for those of you that have never been to Vegas, besides going to the Strip, the Strip is basically everywhere. You want slot machines? You can find them anywhere. Albertsons had a little alcove of slot machines. 7-Eleven had slot machines. The accessibility of the slot machines for gambling, it's not a bad thing if you have control, self-control. But what I would do is cash my check, go to Albertsons to buy a few things. But you can't get to the aisles without going past the slot machines and the ringing of the bells and the flashing lights. They would just call to me like, come on, you know, you could make more easy money. Remember the airport? Sometimes I would regain self-control and gamble away money. 25% half of my check and then realize, oh man, I need this money for the rest of the week. Other times I wouldn't. There were times that I would gamble away essentially everything I had just earned for the week within half hour of cashing my check. I'd be at Albertsons blowing my money at a slot machine. I mean, if that's not a topic for some kind of afterschool special or intervention show, I mean, I don't know what is. In those weeks, I would either live off of peanut butter and jelly, or luckily my father worked in a restaurant, so I would kind of survive on whatever I could during the day and he would bring dinner home. And this was a regular occurrence. I can't remember a time that I didn't cash my check and at least do a little bit of gambling. I loved this game called Caveman Casino. I was a sucker for the... stone wheels and these little eggs that would hatch. If you know the game, you kind of know what I mean. And it was this never-ending hope. Oh, I lost this game. Well, next time I'll win. I'm due. I have to. The interesting thing is, as I'm thinking about my time there, there were times that I went to casinos with family. Father, my uncle, aunt, cousin. We would go there. We went for Thanksgiving, had Thanksgiving dinner at a casino, which was great. Or one of the smaller, quote unquote, locals only casinos. And I don't remember really gambling with them. It was almost like we went there and gambling wasn't a part of our lives. It feels like I did it more when I was on my own and I had nothing else to stop me. No one to say, hey, maybe you should save your money. I'm trying to remember if this was in... mid-fall, late fall. I had family come to visit from Cape Cod. So my Nana, my Aunt Susan, my Uncle Bob came to visit. In my time at Vegas living there, I had never gone to the strip that just, you didn't have to go there to gamble. Like I said, it was at Albertson's. I know they ended up going to the Strip at least once, but as kind of a compromise, they went to this off-strip casino, which was right behind where I worked at Target. It was called the Suncoast Casino, and it was relatively new. I mean, it was way out to where next to it was basically the valley and the mountains in the desert. I didn't have a cell phone. There was no email or easy access to that type of stuff in 2000. So I must have just been told that they would all be going to the Suncoast and to kind of just meet them there. It was a Friday. I cashed my check. You see where this is going. I was still in my uniform. So beige khaki slacks, dress shoes were kind of like casual shoes and my stupid red Target shirt. I took my name tag off and put it in my pocket so I wasn't that stupid looking. It's about a half a mile walk from Target around the corner from West Charleston Boulevard to South Rampart Boulevard to walk over to the casino. I was excited to see family that I hadn't seen for months. And once I got in there and we all started chatting, I sat down at the roulette table. And we're all playing. I don't know... What my experience level was with roulette, it wasn't like I went to big casinos to play. It was slot machines. But I learned on the fly a little bit about chip placement and all this stuff. And before I know it, I have stacks and stacks of chips. I was probably up $3,000 without any skill. I mean, you talk about luck. But this fed into my, oh, it's so easy to win money gambling that even though I would lose all my money in my checks, I still somehow thought it was true. I can still remember to this day, almost 24 years later, my Uncle Bob looking at me and saying, this table's yours. We're going to go find another one to see if we can win. And if there was a narrator from my life at the time, he would have said, and that's when the mood changed. Slowly, my chips began to fade. I started to lose. But I kept thinking, oh, I'm due. I'm due. All my chips were gone. I said, hold my spot. I'll be right back. I ran to the ATM machine, not caring about whatever fee they were charging to go along with the money you took out. Grab money, go back, slam it down, give me chips, lose it. This continued for half hour, 45 minutes. Lose, go to the ATM, withdraw money, get chips, repeat. There was even a point where I was still at the table losing, and it might have been my Uncle Eric came over and said somebody had won the Wheel of Fortune prize, the total money there. And he said all the bells went off, and it was an insane moment because I guess nobody wins that too much. It's like a lottery. You keep putting money in, and all the money you lose gets built up. It's just like that, like Powerball. I did not have such luck before. We all left. We probably went to dinner. Thankfully, my uncle and aunt likely paid. The next morning, I got up. I went walking to the Washington Mutual ATM to withdraw $5, because you could still do that in 2000, to go get breakfast, probably at McDonald's. And it came back insufficient funds. I definitely had not been drinking the night before at the Suncoast. But I still played dumb like I couldn't understand why I didn't have any money in my account. So I pressed the dreaded check balance button and it came back that I was overdrawn by about $500. So when you think about I was up about $3,000 and I blew all that and I was overdrawn by $500. It was not a good time. When a few months later the time came for me to come back to Cape Cod, it was kind of out of my hands. It was issues with the apartment and my father that I will leave untouched. But part of me was actually a little bit relieved that I was coming back to a place where gambling wasn't so readily available. Since I moved back to Cape Cod from Las Vegas in 2001, I have never gone to a casino, ever. I even had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do fantasy football at my work where you put in $50. The only time I ever do scratch tickets for the lottery is if someone buys them for me as a gift or I use money that I get for recycling my plastic bottles, which I consider that to be found money and I might use that for scratch tickets. Once a year, maybe I do Powerball if it gets to a billion dollars. And people say to me, oh, well, you know, it's moderation. Just bring a certain amount of money with you to the casino. And I want to explain to them this story that I've just told you. With an addictive personality, I can't just gamble a little, just like I can't just drink a little. It opens the door and the spiral staircase, I'll just fall down. But luckily, I can look back and laugh because it's unbelievable to think that that was a real part of my life. How many of you out there have gone to Vegas? How many of you have won big or lost big? My time as a degenerate gambler was relatively brief, but definitely a spectacular flame out. And like I said earlier, there'll be more Las Vegas living segments on the podcast coming up. That time at Target working there was something I'll never forget. This week in history, we are going back 146 years ago to February 19th, 1878, and famed inventor Thomas Edison receiving his patent for his cylinder phonograph. This is where it all began. Anyone who's ever bought a vinyl album, 8-track, cassette, CD, anyone who's got MP3s or streaming, you listening right now. The ability to record and replicate sound all begins here. There are few names that stand out as prominently as inventors as Thomas Edison. Sometimes he's dubbed the Wizard of Menlo Park because that's where he did all of his inventions in the town that is now Edison, New Jersey. But the cylinder phonograph had likely the most profound impact on the world. So the year before in 1877, Edison unveiled this cylinder phonograph, a device capable of both recording and reproducing sound. And it can't be understated how much of a seismic shift in human communication and entertainment this was. It forever altered the way people interacted with sound. Like I said, you listening right now, it all stems back to that. The science of it, at its core, the cylinder phonograph, was a rotating cylinder wrapped in tinfoil, a diaphragm, and a stylus. When the sound waves vibrated the diaphragm, the stylus etched corresponding indentations onto the rotating cylinder. It's similar to how vinyl records are made, just those are flat and this was cylindrical. And you could then retrace those indentations on the cylindrical tube with the stylus again, and it would reproduce the recorded sound. It's crazy to think that before the invention of this phonograph, that sound only existed in the moment of its creation. It's such a profound idea. When you think about music that was played, classical compositions that were invented hundreds and hundreds of years ago that were never recorded, thankfully the music was written down so it could be reproduced. But Edison's invention allowed for the preservation and replication of sound and voices and music and just ambient noise. Think about soundscapes that some people make a good living on. The sound of crickets or the sound of ocean waves. Naturally, this allowed mass production and distribution of music and speeches and literature. But you all listening to this know that the phonograph had the greatest impact on the entertainment industry. It allowed musicians, musical artists to market, record their music and sell it and make a living on it outside of live performances. It meant that if you wanted to hear a song, you could actually listen in your own home rather than having to go out to a show. And as years went on and albums became vinyl and flat on the advancements with the phonograph, it made listening to music more social. Tell your friends, I just got the new album by so-and-so, and you get together and listen to it. And over time, like I said, the phonograph was refined, and then there were new formats, disc records, magnetic tape, digital audio. The ability to record and preserve sound allows to kind of cross over boundaries where people feel more connected. When a new album comes out, hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people get it and they all can share opinions, which can be good or bad. And it all started with Thomas Edison back in 1878 when he got his patent for it, even though he had unveiled it the year before, which is interesting because someone could have come along and tried to steal it. Do any of you out there have Edison records? Those things are collectible now. My Nana had one. She had an old, old phonograph in her den. I wish I could remember the song that was on her Edison record. But the world of sound, the world of music as we know it, was changed forever, 146 years ago, this week in history. And now it's time for a brand new time capsule. We're going to go back not quite as far, 29 years ago this week to February 21st, 1995. Let's see what was going on in the world of pop culture back then. The number one song was Take a Bow by Madonna. This was off of her album Bedtime Stories. Interestingly, Bedtime Stories was seen as her toning down her image from her last album, Erotica, which caused a lot of controversy. The song was number one for seven weeks, and at the time was Madonna's 11th number one single, which broke Carole King's standing record at the time, and then was broken by Mariah Carey later. The number one movie was the Brady Bunch movie. and you could get in with a ticket costing on average $4.35. This movie starred Shelley Long of Cheers fame as Carol Brady, Christine Taylor as Marsha Brady, who I thought looked exactly like the original Marsha. It's basically a comedy where the Brady Bunch is the same as they were in the 1970s, but they now live in the 90s. So a classic fish-out-of-water story. The movie is 63% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and spawned a very Brady sequel that came out the next year. The number one TV show was Seinfeld. Routinely on the list of greatest TV shows ever made. The show about nothing where all kinds of weird random stuff happened to Jerry and his friends George, Elaine, and Kramer living in New York. If you don't know this show, you likely know some of the classic scenes or verbiage that has seeped its way into the lexicon of America over the last 30 years. The nuts and bolts of the show is it was on for 9 seasons from 1989 to 1998, with a total of 180 episodes. It was in the top 5 ratings for each of its last 5 seasons. including being number one in season six and number one in its final season, season nine. The only other shows to ever finish at number one in their final season were I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show. And if you were around back then, February 21st, 1995, you're looking for new music because Thomas Edison's phonograph turned into CD players in the 1990s. Maybe you want one of the top three albums of the week, Madonna's Bedtime Stories, TLC's Crazy Sexy Cool, or Boyz II Men's 2. Well, you could go to your local Coconuts music store, like the one we had in Hyannis on Cape Cod, and get one of those CDs for a nice, tidy $16.98 or $34.18 when adjusted for inflation to 2024. I can't remember the last time I bought a CD. It had to have been at least 10 years, probably more. But I know I bought lots of them in my teenage years. And we're going to segue into a top five as we look at the top five 1980s teen movies, starting now. I may have been a child of the 1980s and a teenager in the 1990s, but all of these movies that we're about to talk about on this week's Top 5 were hugely important to my childhood. A teen movie is pretty easy to define. Either the stars are all teenagers, it revolves around teenage problems, a teenage setting, high school, growing up. But what were the best ones of the 1980s? As with most of these top fives, they're in no particular order, and it all comes down to my own personal preference. Although I think when it comes to the 80s teen movies, a lot of these will be on your favorite lists as well. I don't think it'll be as divisive as my favorite love songs segment was last week. As is tradition on these top five segments, there are some honorable mentions. These will get you in that mindset of 1980s teen movies, whether you grew up in the 80s or not. Honorable mentions for the top five 1980s teen movies include One Crazy Summer, Can't Buy Me Love, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Teen Wolf, which is the only one of these movies that has teen in it. Sixteen Candles in Pretty in Pink were huge favorites of my sisters. They weren't in my favorites, but I know of their importance to 1980s teens, especially the female demographic. So I put them in there as kind of a shout out to my sisters. But now it's time for the actual top five. This is a great rainy or snowy weekend day playlist for you, so get ready to get Netflix on or whatever streaming service you have. As we start with number one, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. This movie came out in 1986 and is one of those absolute classics by director John Hughes. It starred Matthew Broderick as Ferris, Mia Sara as his girlfriend Sloane, Alan Ruck as Cameron, and Jennifer Grey, who was in a lot of 80s teen movies, as his sister Jeannie. Ferris is the slacker who always gets out of going to school, faking being sick. And this is all about one day in particular where he goes into Chicago and they have a great day pretending to be older. For people that grew up in the 80s or people that are just fans of 80s movies, this has so many classic scenes and lines. It was hugely popular too. It made $70 million on a budget of $5 million. It's a perfect, funny, feel-good movie that if you haven't seen it, oh man, you need to pause this and go watch and then come back. Number two is Weird Science. This movie came out in 1985 and it stars Anthony Michael Hall, Robert Downey Jr., Bill Paxton, and Kelly LeBrock. As these two teenage losers create their perfect woman through a computer program. They name her Lisa and she instantly makes them cool. This again is just a classic 80s teen movie. So many famous scenes. Even the song Weird Science by Oingo Boingo. And Kelly LeBrock was probably a lot of first crushes for 1980s teens. And not surprisingly, this movie was also directed by John Hughes. He is basically the king of 80s teen movies. It wasn't quite as popular as Ferris Bueller making $39 million. But it's just fun. It's just 80s fun. And speaking of 80s fun, number three is The Breakfast Club. I can remember in middle school and into high school that all of the quote unquote cool kids that were older always quoted The Breakfast Club. So it was sort of like if you wanted to be cool and fit in with them, you should watch it and learn some of the lines. This movie came out in 1985 and you'll never guess who directed it. I'll give you one guess. Yeah, John Hughes, the king of 80s teen comedies. It's kind of a coming-of-age teen comedy with a little bit of drama in it about these kids that are forced to spend their Saturday at school under detention. Did any of you ever have to go to Saturday school? I never did, but I always worried about that, because I knew it wouldn't be as fun as what Breakfast Club made it seem to be. This movie had all of that 1980s brat-pack people vibe. Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez. This movie was a massive success, making over $51 million on a budget of $1 million, which you would think there's no budget. They're literally in this library and they all share their stories of their lives because they're all from different cliques and they kind of bridge that gap between them. And another one that has a classic song, Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds. You can see the end in your mind now if you've seen it. Judd Nelson walking across the football field, raising his fist. Oh, yeah. Number four is The Karate Kid. This movie came out in 1984. It's another coming-of-age teenage comedy-drama action. Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso, who's bullied in school. And so he decides to take karate, martial arts, to just be able to defend himself. And he gets taught by Mr. Miyagi, Pat Morita. This is one of those iconic movies of the 80s. It also has really popular, well-known music, I guess. It was done by Bill Conti, who did music from the Rocky movies. So that may be why when they have the You're the Best Around song at the end of the tournament, it feels a lot like a Rocky fight. This is the first movie in this top five not directed by John Hughes. It was directed by John Alvidson and spawned several sequels, two with the same cast essentially in it, and the highly acclaimed Cobra Kai series, which if you haven't seen that, I mean, come on. And finally, number five on the list of top five 1980s teen movies is Fast Times at Ridgemont High. This movie came out in 1982 and chronicles a year in school in the lives of these Southern California high school students. Again, it stars all these famous 80s actors. Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer Jason Leigh. This was comedy. This was romance. It also dealt with some serious topics like abortion. Even though some of the plots of some of these top five movies were kind of fantastical, like weird science, at the basis were things that all teenagers could deal with and still can deal with. Wanting to fit in, wanting to have friends, wanting to do well, people getting bullied. And that's what made all these movies relatable and popular at the time and still to this day. Have I done a good job giving you a playlist for the rest of your day or the next rainy day you have? Naturally, at some point, I will do 90s teen movies since that's when I was a teen. Maybe I'll do 70s teen movies too, even though I was a baby only at the end of the 70s. That wraps up our top five. And now the mood changes a lot. What I'm going to do right now is pause recording the podcast and go watch the graphic, the infamous red asphalt driver's ed video put together by the California Highway Patrol in 1964. And when I'm done, I'm going to review it right after. So, boy, you'll get my immediate thoughts on that coming up right now. Well, that was definitely a first for me. I literally only a minute ago finished watching the original Red Asphalt Driver's Ed video from 1964 put together by the California Highway Department. And we're going to review it now as I go way, way back in the day and look at a film that definitely would have shocked and horrified teenage drivers back in the 60s. Before I dive deep into exactly what it is, I will say I was warned about this as being super gory and super graphic. And there were definitely points in it where I said, oh, man. But I wonder if, I'm not desensitized, but I've watched so many horror movies, including torture porn stuff like Saw and Hostel, where I'm almost able to compartmentalize the looking at graphic material. Or maybe it could be just me. I would say to those of you with a weak stomach, don't watch it on an empty stomach or after eating. I'm not saying don't watch it at all. But those of you that enjoy graphic, gory horror movies, you're not going to be moved that much. This film in total is 13 minutes. It is very 1960s as far as it looks and the quality of film. It looks like it's from a film strip where it's not grainy, but it's got that yellowy tint to it. Typically, I enjoy that kind of nostalgia, but this one starts off very different. There's a highway patrolman that steps out of his car and kind of warns you about what you're about to see. I'm

Speaker 01:

Lieutenant Lloyd Sellers of the California Highway Patrol. The motion picture you are about to see won't entertain you. That is not our objective. I hope it will impress you that its message will have a lasting effect upon your driving behavior. The scenes you will see are starkly real. They were filmed by a group of men... giving freely of their time and talent, who rode many long hours in California Highway Patrol cars for the single purpose of recording the pain and agony of traffic accidents.

Speaker 00:

So right after that, you know you're not in for sunshine and rainbows. The through line of this is that there was either a cameraman or a few camera people that went along with police officers to the scenes of these accidents. to film in real time what had happened. And they don't stick to just drunk driving, but that is a big part of it, but it's distracted driving. There's one scene where it's a mother yelling at her kids that are bouncing around all in the back seats, saying distracted driving, that you're driving hundreds of feet in just a few seconds that you're not looking at the road. So while there are a lot of real film of some pretty gory scenes, there's also acted segments. I've been trying to research, but interestingly, I can't find out the name of the man who is essentially the narrator of this. He's also the cameraman. I would have thought that when he makes his first appearance about a minute and a half in, he would say, my name is so-and-so, but he just says, we were warned about what we were about to see.

Speaker 01:

And it starts off innocent enough. They're

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driving down the highways of California, and the officer is pointing out distracted drivers or too relaxed drivers. I think you have to remember that this film is meant towards typically teenage drivers going for their license. So you want to kind of curb bad habits in these teens while they're in driver's ed. I learned that an 1179 is accident with ambulance en route because they bring it up a lot during this. They kind of ease you in with the first one being a car and a motorcycle. And they show the man that was hit on his motorcycle. He's not particularly bloody at all, but they're cutting his pant leg. I think he had either a fractured leg or broken leg. They make it a point to explain what causes these accidents in different situations. People not knowing the right of way. Like I said, distracted drivers, obviously the drunk drivers. The second accident they go to on, it must be the same day. I don't know if this was filmed on a series of days or if it was just one day with all these accidents. The second one is a motorcycle that hits a little girl. The motorcycle driver is fine because he had a helmet. The little girl, they said her injuries aren't fatal. She's not really bloody, a little bit on her legs, and she's face down, looking like she might be conscious. But with that accident, they stress how these careless drivers, whether motorcycles or cars or trucks, put innocent people at risk, hammering at home for the driver's ed kids. It's an interesting dichotomy because obviously you folks who listen to the podcast a lot know how much I love nostalgia. So interspersed in between these horrific, gruesome accident scenes are these cool 1960s California scenes. with old cars and old businesses. Then we move on to a man who was driving in his truck and someone was tailgating him. But this is an acted scene because the cameraman is in the truck with the guy with him looking in his rearview mirror. They couldn't be that lucky to just get that where we're going to drive with someone and hope he gets in an accident. So some of these cut scenes lead to actual scenes Like this one leads to someone stopping short ahead, so there's a chain reaction of rear-ending. And this one shows a woman in the backseat of a car, and she's got a white shirt that's got a good amount of blood on it, and her head is wrapped. She looks like she would be alright, but I could imagine in 1964, think of what the landscape was in TV and movies, to be a kid, teenager, watching this in school. But for me, it wasn't that bad. So we keep going. We get to a family that was going on vacation. And it's a truck with one of those campers kind of on the bed of the truck. And it's all smashed. And they say the father was too tired and should have stopped and didn't stop to sleep. And the narrator slash cameraman really hammers it home, saying that he could hear one of the kids screaming, Mommy, I knew we couldn't make it.

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The little girl kept saying, Mommy, Mommy, I knew we couldn't make it. No fun in camp that night for this young man. While the highway patrolman finished up, I thought of how much better it would have been if this man had considered the consequences to his family because he didn't get enough sleep.

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They say that their interactions at these scenes are 100% true, and I wonder about that. These people that got in the accidents where there's suddenly a cameraman talking with them as they're bleeding. Because there is one where the guy is there and he's bloody and he's talking while he's still in his smashed car. So what did they say before we can give you help or get you in the ambulance? Please do this interview for driver's ed. This scene with the family. With the smashed camper on their truck. It's not graphic. One of the little boys looks like he might have a broken arm, but you don't see a broken bone. They're just kind of immobilizing it. And you see the crying children. You don't hear it. It's the narrator. I think it might have been a little more effective with some of the sounds of the chaos, but they didn't choose to go that way. The day continues with the police officer and the cameraman going to where a car went flying off a ravine. Not super far, maybe 50, 60 feet. You see the car and then there's a group of eight people maybe kind of helping to carry the driver out on a stretcher. You know, one of those stretchers that's kind of a cot. And I can see the good in this film, despite the gore, where they're emphasizing safety. They want to save lives. A lot of it is people didn't wear their seatbelts. But I mean, my God, in the 1960s, there wasn't a seatbelt law. Even when I was a kid, we would sit in the back of the station wagon with my mother driving. We had no seatbelts on. And the day continues and they talk about how not all accidents have more than one car. And there's a car that sideswiped a telephone pole. And there's the man in the front seat. Interestingly, a lot of these victims in this red asphalt video are wearing white shirts. It really makes the blood stand out more. But this one, the guy is in the front seat with his car smashed at the pole. And they're kind of bandaging his head up. And they show other people standing around just watching. Then about eight minutes into the video, you get to nighttime. This video is a 24 hour period. I don't know if all of these videos, like I said, were shot in this 24 hours, but that's kind of the timeframe. So it's nighttime. Now there's a drunk driver that hit a telephone pole and the very 1960s cop with the 1960s cop mustache is there with his flashlight. This drunk driver had a really bad gash on the top of his head. But interestingly, it must have been that he was still drunk because they put him on the stretcher. And as they're kind of wiping him up, he puts his hands behind his head like he's relaxing on a sofa. And the hits just keep on coming. We get to another drunk driver. And this is the one I mentioned a minute ago that he's sitting in his front seat with a bloody nose and blood on his face. And he's talking to people while the camera films him. You can't hear what he says, but maybe he's talking to first responders. But it makes it look like he's talking to the cameraman, explaining what he was doing. By this point, the blood is definitely picking up. It's almost like they spaced these out intentionally to be bloodier as you get towards the end to get the shock value up. Because now we start getting into the hospitals where these people's faces are just bloody and their eyes are shut from swelling. One girl has a tube down her throat. And they show someone getting stitches. There's a lot of scenes in this of smashed cars without people. Windshields with holes in them that look like heads went through them. There's a girl with what they say is a broken back. And I will say the first responders in this video, they're putting her onto a stretcher. They don't look like they immobilized her back for having a broken back. They pick her up like you'd pick up anybody. I won't lie, the scenes in the emergency room are pretty graphic. There's lots of blood, swollen faces, and scenes of the nurses and doctors looking sad and concerned. But we near the end of this Driver's Ed film, Red Asphalt, and they save the best for last because they saved the dead body for the last. They say drivers make mistakes, and the narrator says this one made his last mistake.

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And they pull this guy out of

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his car and put him on a stretcher, and it looks like his jaw just falls off. That was the one my stepfather had warned me about it. And I'm watching this like, oh, I don't see it being bad. I mean, it's bloody. And then that scene happens at the end. And I'm like, oh, man, there it is, the jaw. But that wraps up Red Asphalt. I added in some clips there. You can't really get a sense of the scene of the gore just based on the audio. But I tried my best to describe it enough that you could picture it. If you want to watch it, you can watch it free at archive.org. I'll link to it in the description of the podcast for you. After seeing this... I can understand why some reviews from then, from the Los Angeles Times, said it was joyless. They said it was the reefer madness of its time, going over the top to scare potential new drivers. I get the idea of teaching safety and trying to scare kids into being more attentive drivers and showing death and sadness and blood and gore. That might help. It had to have worked at least on some point, because there were five total Red Asphalt movies, with the newest one coming out in 2006. Maybe in the future I'll review the sequel, Red Asphalt 2 from 1978. But that was definitely unique. I literally just watched it and reviewed it now, so it would be all fresh, especially if it was terrible. And parts of it were certainly gory, especially the man at the end who was dead with his jaw falling off. But for the most part, it's 60s nostalgia with a little bit of blood mixed in. And that's Red Asphalt for you. And that's going to wrap up episode 133 of the podcast. I will let out a huge sigh. Thank you to everyone that stuck with me through that last segment. In putting together lists of old educational films to review for the podcast, Red Asphalt was one that I was interested in. But... Didn't know the full details of it until my stepfather mentioned to me just how graphic it was. And I said, well, when I review it, I'll try to make it as suitable and safe for you as I could. I hope I did it. Next week will be episode 134. There will be far less graphic gore in it. At least I hope so. If you enjoyed this podcast, if you enjoy my content, you can subscribe to my channel on YouTube. Every day I get closer and closer to the subscription limit where I can then monetize my channel. And I put a lot of work into my videos that I put up there. I use Canva, if you know that site. I am now a Canva pro. Content creation in general is very time consuming and there's never a guarantee of success. So a lot of the times I spend hours and hours doing all these things and just release them with hope that they get to the right eyes. So that's why I appreciate so many of you that listen to the podcast and share it and watch videos and share them. Because my creative side, whether it's through podcasting, writing videos, that's what I'm most proud of. That's what I like sharing. And it's like a muscle. You've got to develop it and keep it growing. Find me all over social media. Instagram, Threads, X, my blog, Checkout Initial Impressions 2.0. It's all lumped into the In My Footsteps Podcast blog because I figured it was hard enough to get people to that blog, let alone opening up a whole other blog, and so I just put it all together. If you're curious about or interested in any of my nine books, visit my website, ChristopherSetterlin.com. It's got links to all the books. You can also check out theladyofthedoons.com that has Searching for the Lady of the Dunes book where you can buy it. Also, you can watch Frank Durant's incredible documentary as well as learn about the case that is 50 years old in 2024 if you've never heard of it. If you ever have questions, you can always email me at christophersetterland at gmail.com. I hope wherever you are, whatever you're doing, that it's something good that you enjoy that's good for your mental health as we're still waiting through the winter here. Granted, the days are now longer. Sunsets are getting closer to 530, but it doesn't help much when it's 20, 30 degrees out. So lean into the things that make you happy. That top five 80s teen movies, there's a list for you. Bring you some good feelings. I'll keep on pumping out the content, whether it's the podcast episodes, the bonus episodes through Patreon, blogs, videos on YouTube. I just keep going. At times it feels like a hamster wheel where it's just easier to keep running than it would be to jump off. But I enjoy all of it. Like I said, it's flexing my creative muscle. So I hope you've been enjoying them. If you do, spread the word. Next week will be episode 134. And remember, in this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps. Create your own path and enjoy every moment you can on this journey we call life because you never know what tomorrow brings. Thank you all again for tuning in. I will see you next week. This has been the In My Footsteps podcast. I am Christopher Setterlund. You already knew me.

Unknown:

Talk to you all again soon.

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Christopher Setterlund

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