Relive the glory days of 1990s chat rooms and instant messaging. How 70s soft rock helped soothe my soul. Some of the biggest 'what ifs' in the world of athletics.
Episode 204 finds a shady spot filled with Gen-X nostalgia during the heat of summer.
The show begins with a story that is part music retrospective and part reflection on my own life. During a particularly bad period of mental health struggles, I found solace in an unexpected place. Soft rock, particularly that from the 1970s, became a major part of everyday life for me. In this segment, I explain how 70s soft rock saved my sanity.
We go back to the glory days of early internet as we take a deep dive into 1990s chat rooms and instant messaging. Were you a user of AIM, ICQ, MSN, or something else? The good, the bad, the weird, and the dangerous, it's all a part of this segment
Not all who are hyped reach their potential. In this week's Top 5 we look as some of the biggest 'could have been' athletes ever. Whether bad luck, laziness, or other circumstances, these people are up there when it comes to 'what ifs' in sports.
There is a brand new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back at the 40th anniversary of the iconic Live Aid concert.
Become a supporter on Patreon! $5/mo. gets you access to bonus podcast episodes and more!
Helpful Links from this Episode
- Purchase My New Book Cape Cod Beyond the Beach!
- In My Footsteps: A Cape Cod Travel Guide(2nd Edition)
- Hooked By Kiwi - Etsy.com
- DJ Williams Music
- KeeKee's Cape Cod Kitchen
- Christopher Setterlund.com
- Cape Cod Living - Zazzle Store
- Subscribe on YouTube!
- Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog
- Webcam Weekly Wrapup Podcast
- CJSetterlundPhotos on Etsy
- 70s/80s Soft Rock - Spotify Playlist
Listen to Episode 203 here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker (00:02):
Hello world! And welcome to the In My Footsteps
Podcast! I am ChristopherSetterlund, coming to you from
the vacation destination knownas Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and
this is episode 204.
It's gonna be an action-packedepisode filled with me talking,
(00:22):
just like always, all about GenX nostalgia.
We're gonna kick it off with alook back at how 70 Soft Rock
saved my sanity.
There's a lot of S's in there.
We're gonna go way, way back inthe day and look at internet
chatrooms and instant messagingback in the 1990s.
(00:46):
There's gonna be a brand newtop five as we look back at the
top five could have beenathletes of all time.
Ones with all of the hype thatdidn't quite pan out.
And there'll be a brand newthis week in history and time
capsule, looking back 40 yearsat the iconic Live Aid Benefit
(01:06):
concert.
All of that is coming up rightnow on episode 204 of the In My
Footsteps podcast.
So what are we gonna talk aboutthis week?
But I start off the show bysaying I haven't broken anything
new.
For those of you that have beenlistening to the last several
episodes, my severely sprainedankle, once it healed, I managed
(01:30):
to nearly break my hand.
And now that that's healed, I'mjust waiting.
It's like a countdown.
What's going to break next?
I have to knock on wood to makesure nothing bad happens.
I'll be recording this show andmy AC will just fly out of the
window and knock me out.
So if there's 20 minutes ofsilence, you know that I've been
(01:53):
KO'd by my AC.
Thank you for tuning inwherever you're from, whatever
the weather is, if it's hot andsteamy and you're at the beach
or hiding inside a cool,air-conditioned room.
Or maybe you're somewhere whereit's wintertime now.
I know I have a lot ofinternational listeners, so I
don't want to just assume whereyou are it's sunny and 90 and
(02:15):
humid.
Maybe it's snowing right now,and you're looking outside
wondering what in the world iswrong with me.
You wouldn't be the only one tosay that.
We've got a lot of fun stuff toget into this week, but before
we get into that, naturally Ihave to start by shouting out my
Patreon subscribers, Laurie,Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Leo,
(02:39):
Neglectoid, Marguerite, Crystal,Matt.
Thank you for being the oneswho put your money where your
mouth is, being my biggestbackers.
If you want to get shouted outon the podcast, or if you just
want to support me as a contentcreator, slash author, slash up
and coming actor, director,slash whatever else is going to
(03:03):
be coming up in my life, you cando so for five dollars a month
on Patreon.com.
You get access to bonus podcastepisodes, you get access to the
remastered without a map livestreams, one of which is going
up within a few days of whenthis podcast goes live.
I try to put them in thehalfway point of the month.
(03:25):
Of course, I've got anever-growing free tier on
Patreon as well, so you can gojust become a member.
We'll have plenty of time forhousekeeping, as I call it.
I always say that it should belike Tommy Boy with Chris Farley
and David Spade, where ChrisFarley's sleeping in the hotel
room, and David Spade is justlike housekeeping.
(03:45):
And Chris Farley's like, pleasego away for the love of God.
Now I'm gonna have to do thatevery time I say there's
housekeeping at the end.
Just alright.
Anyway, we'll get into thatstuff at the end of the podcast.
Let's get into the actual meatof this Gen X nostalgia
sandwich.
I've got lots and lots of S'sto describe this first segment.
(04:08):
How 70 Soft Rock saved mysanity.
It's one part retrospective onmusic.
It's also one part pulling backthe curtain on my own dealings
with mental health.
So let me get on thetherapist's couch here and lay
down and get ready to bear mysoul on episode 204 of the In My
(04:30):
Footsteps podcast.
Soft rock, in and of itself, itcan kind of get a bad rap.
It's it can sometimes be knownas yacht rock, sometimes be
known as wuss rock.
This type of music tended to be1970s, into the early to
mid-80s.
There were no screechingelectric guitars.
(04:53):
There was typically no singershredding their vocal cords as
they hit certain notes.
For the most part, soft rock isvery soothing, which to many
people can be construed asboring.
And I will tell you, for thefirst twenty odd years of my
life, that's how I saw it.
(05:13):
As many of you know who havebeen listening to the podcast
for a long time, I grew uplistening to heavy metal when I
was little, like seven, eightyears old, and then became a
grunge kid in the early 90s.
Grunge, alternative.
If someone had told 15,16-year-old me that within a few
years I'd be seeking out andenjoying soft rock, I'd think
(05:37):
you had somebody else with thesame name, but I know that can't
be true.
There's like really no one elsewith my actual name.
I'm not Jim Smith.
So before I dive into thisstory of how 70 Soft Rock kinda
helped me through a rough time,there's a few things I need to
do.
First, in order to bear mysoul, I've gotta crack open a
(05:59):
cold one.
Ah, energy drink, sweetness.
And second of all, I've gottalie down here on this leather
therapist couch, getcomfortable, and have my
therapist ask me the firstquestion.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Hello, Chris.
My name is Dr.
Spaitso.
I am here to help you.
Say whatever is in your mindfreely.
Our conversation will be keptin strict confidence.
So tell me about your problems.
Speaker (06:30):
Ugh, Dr.
Spaitso.
I should have known it was you.
This couch is ripped withstuffing coming out of it and
mold on the walls.
Dang it, alright.
I told you I'm gonna try tokeep this segment a mixture of
serious and light.
I am not ashamed to admit thatin my life I have dealt with
(06:50):
several severe bouts ofdepression.
There's a lot of guys that havedealt with it that won't be
able to admit that or don't wantto be seen as weak.
I don't care.
That's stupid.
This particular bout that I'mtalking about, it has to do with
when I returned to Cape Codfrom living in Las Vegas.
(07:11):
This was 2001, it began.
In the archives of the podcast,I have done a few segments
about my time in Las Vegas.
Episode six, I talked aboutwhat it was like for me to move
out there and live out there in2000, 2001.
And then in episode nine, Italked about my departure from
(07:32):
Vegas, which consisted of metaking a bus from Las Vegas to
Cape Cod.
Three and a half days, almost3,000 miles.
So if you want to get the fullbackstory, you can go into the
archives and check out thosesegments.
When I returned to Cape Cod, itwas really not what I wanted to
(07:53):
do.
I wanted, when I moved toVegas, to live out there.
My gambling issues kind ofcaused that plan to go up and
smoke.
I can kind of laugh now, butwhen I got back to Cape Cod, I
saw myself as a failure.
I had to squeeze myself backinto my old life that I had
(08:15):
packed away and put in storage.
I then also had to pack myselfback into the restaurant job
that I had left.
These were the things that Imoved to Vegas to get away from.
And here I was having tobasically crawl back to them.
That's how I saw it.
I saw myself as a failure.
Nobody else saw me as that.
(08:36):
I gotta admit that.
I don't want to make it soundlike there were others in my
life that looked at me like, uh,you failed going to Vegas.
My mother, stepfather, myimmediate family, my friends,
none of them saw me as afailure.
They saw me as a kid in theirearly twenties trying to find
themselves, and Vegas wasn't forme.
(08:57):
I didn't see it that way.
After several weeks of kind ofgetting re-acclimated to living
on Cape Cod, that's when it hitme.
It was sort of like in Marriedwith Children.
Every now and then Al Bundywould look around where he was
at his life, and he would justput his head in his hands and
just, oh God, oh that was kindof how I felt.
(09:21):
I don't know when thedepression set in.
It was sort of something thataccumulated over time, and
before I knew it, I was justswimming in this pool of
molasses.
That's how I felt.
I couldn't move fast, Icouldn't think fast.
I was feeling at times like mybody was there, but me myself
(09:43):
was this little tiny silhouettestuck inside my head.
I would have times when I wascooking in the restaurant and I
would fall behind on orders.
People there would getfrustrated.
Because you can't seedepression.
It's not like my skin changedcolor, I didn't gain weight.
So to a lot of people, I lookednormal and I was just slacking
(10:07):
off in their mind.
I would be told to snap out ofit.
Which any of you that havedealt with mental health
struggles, having someone tellyou to snap out of it is such a
disrespectful, ignorant thing tosay.
Like we choose to be depressed,like it's something we want.
If you want more of my dealingswith mental health struggles
(10:29):
over the years, I did a bonussegment, episode 22, that
coincided with the anniversaryof the death of Soundgarden lead
singer Chris Cornell, and Italk about him and my own
struggles.
Because I did tell you thissegment is about 70 soft rock as
well.
I'm kind of setting the stagehere.
One thing that was interestingabout this particular dealing
(10:53):
with depression was my aversionto noise.
Loud noises bothered me, whichmeant that basically all the
music that I enjoyed was loudand grating and it hurt.
I don't know if any of you haveever dealt with that before.
There were plenty of times,especially when I was cooking
and in a loud kitchen, that Iwish I had earmuffs.
(11:15):
So I'd be driving in my car.
I'd a lot of the times I wouldhave the radio off.
I think back at this time I hada Saturn SL1.
It was cranberry colored, butit had a pretty sweet stereo in
there.
CD player with a CD changer.
Due to this aversion to loudnoise when dealing with this
(11:37):
bout of depression, I'd have alot of the times that it was
just quiet in the car.
At this point, we're intoprobably early 2002.
I wish I could remember whatexactly was the song that broke
me into 70s soft rock.
If I had to guess, I wouldthink it was probably Give Me
(11:58):
Love by George Harrison.
This was off of his 1973 album,Living in the Material World.
It is very soft, soothing.
It's got electric guitar, hisslide guitar, but it's not
overpowering.
I had always liked the Beatles.
I didn't really get into GeorgeHarrison's solo work.
(12:19):
I was more of a John Lennonguy.
So I was pleasantly surprisedwith Harrison's musical style
that was very melodic.
It had deep introspectivelyrics, and it was soothing for
my fragile mind that seemed tonot be able to handle anything
more than the basics of anythingin life at that point.
(12:41):
There was a time, probably late2002, I think it was, that I
was on three separateantidepressants all at once.
It was like the doctor said,one might not be enough.
Here, have all of these andwe'll see what it does to you.
That time with the multipledifferent antidepressants, it
did not go well.
(13:02):
They ended up eating away at mystomach.
I had a GI bleed.
They had to take my door, mybedroom door off and put me on a
stretcher and take me to thehospital.
And I had to quit threeantidepressants cold turkey.
I sometimes have to remindmyself that I once did that when
I have trouble not getting anextra package of ribs from
(13:25):
Shaw's when they're on sale.
It's like, I can't resist theseribs.
Yeah, well, you quit threeantidepressants cold turkey, so
give it up.
With George Harrison openingthe door to 70s soft rock, it
was kind of off and running fromthere.
It was like I thought tomyself, oh, he's pretty good.
Who else is like him?
(13:47):
Luckily, there was a lot ofcross-pollination with the big
name stars in the 70s, whereGeorge Harrison, Elton John,
James Taylor, they all seemed tobe intertwined.
It was at this point that I hadthis small portable CD holder.
It was a zipper one, you justput the discs in the different
(14:08):
flaps.
And at this point in late 2002,early 2003, it was populated
with Elton John's Greatest Hits.
There was a double disc JamesTaylor Greatest Hits.
I had Paul McCartney and Wings.
I got into Fleetwood Mac.
And I said 70 soft rock, therewas no electric guitars or
(14:30):
screeching guitars or things.
It's kind of subjective.
These songs with theirintrospective lyrics, like James
Taylor, Fire and Rain, GeorgeHarrison's I'd Have You Anytime,
Fleetwood Mac, Sara.
These songs spoke to me as awriter as well, not only just to
help me with depression, but itopened up my mind to be able to
(14:55):
express what I was feeling.
In 2002, 2003, I listened moreto 70s, 80s soft rock, adult
contemporary, than modern music.
I was making mixed CDs withmusic like that, Hall and Oates,
Steely Dan, Christopher Cross.
(15:15):
I know at one point I went intoprobably Newbury Comics and I
bought a kind of a sampler of70s soft rock, a lot of one-hit
wonders, which got me familiarwith songs like Escape the Pina
Calada song, Steal Away byRobbie Dupree, Sad Eyes by
Robert John, I Love a RainyNight by Eddie Rabbit.
(15:39):
What I'm gonna have to do, andI've done it a few times on the
podcast, I'm gonna have to makea Spotify playlist of a lot of
the songs that kind of helped methrough that time, so you can
listen to them or go and look atit and say, Man, what's wrong
with you?
I would have been the same wayif in 1999, 2000, if you had
(16:00):
told me in a couple years thisis the kind of music you're
gonna listen to most of thetime, I'd have thought maybe I
got a head injury and hadamnesia and forgot who I was.
And I guess kind of in a waythat's true.
It was a couple of years thatit was just depression in
different intensities anddifferent waves.
(16:20):
I ended up leaving my cookingjob again, going into
landscaping for one season.
And at that time I was intolistening to that 70s soft rock,
and a lot of the crew at thelandscaping company I was at
were these big, dumbass meatheadguys, and I couldn't say to
them, Hey, let's listen to EltonJohn's greatest hits.
(16:43):
They'd have left me on the sideof the road somewhere.
So I had to hide that.
Dealing with depression is badenough, but feeling shame about
your battle with it is evenworse, because then you feel
like there's no one you can talkto.
Even through all of my dealingswith depression and stupid
people at the time, I had my 70soft rock to kind of ease my
(17:08):
mind at the end of a long day.
When the Pandora Music app cameout, I think I got it in 2009.
One of the first two stations Icreated was a 70 soft rock
station.
It was based around the songReminiscing by Little River
Band.
I still listen to that stationto this day, 16 years later.
(17:31):
And if you're wondering, theother first station I made on
Pandora is one called Torn Jeansand Flannel.
It's a grunge station,obviously.
To this day, when there aretimes that I'm going through
bouts of poor mental health, Istill fall back on 70 soft rock.
Now it's mixed with smoothjazz, something called down
(17:56):
tempo music.
If you look it up, you'll seewhat I'm talking about.
I say it so much on thispodcast at the end, I always say
lean into the things that makeyou happy when things in the
world aren't going great.
Things that make you happy,they help you get through those
days.
70 Soft Rocks saved my sanity.
That's why I called the segmentthat.
(18:16):
Although it saved my sanity, itdid not pull me out of my
depression.
It just made it easier to cope.
If you were wondering whatpulled me out of that
depression, it was actuallymeeting a girl.
This was in the late spring of2004.
I met a girl named Wendy, whoended up being one of the most
(18:39):
important people to ever gracemy life.
And she basically pulled me outof my depression by being who
she was.
And although I haven't seen herin so many years, I haven't
spoken to her in so many years,it wasn't a bad falling out, it
was just time and distance.
I won't get too deep into it.
All I'll say is her importancecontinues to this day with this
(19:04):
podcast.
Everything I've done in my lifesince then, with writing all my
books, my YouTube videos, thispodcast, it all stems from her.
So I'll wrap this segment up bysaying thank you, 70 Soft Rock,
and thank you, Wendy.
This week in history, we aregoing back 40 years to July
(19:33):
13th, 1985, and the iconic LiveAid Benefit Concerts.
Here we go again.
Another moment in time that Ilook back and can't believe it's
now this old.
LiveAid was a transatlanticconcert held simultaneously in
London and Philadelphia.
(19:54):
It brought together the biggestnames in music to raise funds
and awareness for the ongoingEthiopian famine, which had
claimed nearly a million lives.
The seeds of LiveAid, they wereplanted the year before, in
1984, when BBC aired a harrowingreport by journalist Michael
(20:14):
Bourke.
I hope I pronounced that right.
It exposed the depth of thefamine crisis in Ethiopia.
The footage shocked millions,including Bob Geldof, who was
frontman of the Irish rock bandThe Boomtown Rats.
I think their biggest song wasI Don't Like Mondays, which is
kind of a depressing song, butthat's beside the point.
From this video that wasshared, Geldoff and fellow
(20:40):
musician Midge Ure wrote thecharity single Do They Know It's
Christmas?
That was recorded with asupergroup of British and Irish
artists under the name ofBand-Aid.
And this was released aroundChristmas time, 1984.
It inspired the counterpart WeAre the World by USA for Africa.
(21:00):
Bob Geldoff wasn't done withthe Do They Know It's Christmas
song.
He had a bigger plan.
He envisioned a global benefitconcert held in multiple
countries and broadcast aroundthe world.
In the brainstorming stages, itsounded like an ambitious idea,
but it became reality.
On July 13th, 1985, the concerttook place at Wembley Stadium
(21:26):
and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.
Wembley Stadium in London hadaround 72,000 people in
attendance.
JFK Stadium in Philly had morethan 89,000.
In total, more than 1.5 billionpeople in 150 countries watched
the concert.
(21:47):
I will say I am one of thoseover 1.5 billion, but I was
seven and a half years old, somy memories are a little bit
hazy.
So who played at LiveAid?
In Wembley Stadium, you had alitany of the biggest stars in
the world.
Paul McCartney played Let It Besolo on piano.
(22:10):
You too had a breakthroughperformance.
You had The Who, you had DavidBowie, you had Elton John with a
surprise appearance by GeorgeMichael, who was fresh out of
the band Wham.
I would think, though, anybodythat thinks live aid immediately
thinks of Queen's performance.
(22:30):
I do remember this performance.
I wasn't that familiar withQueen, with Freddie Mercury.
I just knew that whoever thisguy was singing, commanding this
tens of thousands of people inthe audience, seemed really
cool.
Now, looking back 40 years,that performance by Queen is
probably one of the mostmemorable performances in the
(22:53):
history of music.
Over here in the States inPhilly, you had Mick Jagger
performing with Tina Turner, youhad Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers, the BeachBoys, Bob Dylan, and you had the
reunion of Led Zeppelin afterabout five years.
The big thing with this wasthat Phil Collins was their
(23:17):
drummer, and Phil Collinsfamously performed in both
Philly and London.
He took a Concord flight so hecould perform in London, then
fly to the U.S.
and play in Philly.
LiveAid was a resoundingsuccess.
They raised more than $125million for famine relief.
(23:39):
That is equal to about $373million when adjusted for
inflation to 2025.
In addition to the raising ofthe money, Live Aid also
influenced how musicians andcelebrities use their platforms
for activism.
It also paved the way for otherbenefit concerts like FarmAid,
(24:00):
which has been going on since1985, the Live 8 concert, which
was from 2005.
With the Live 8 show, I alsowatched that one.
You'll have to let me know ifyou want me to do a kind of 20th
anniversary look back at it,because it has now passed into
what I consider nostalgia, 20plus years.
Live aid, the legacy of thoseconcerts, it's huge.
(24:23):
Like I said, it helped shapethe role of celebrities in
activism.
It ushered in the idea ofglobal live broadcasting for
charitable causes.
For many artists, it was theirdefining moment.
Bob Geldoff was later knightedfor his effort.
In the end, LiveAid, it wasn'tjust a concert.
It was a call to arms, a momentwhen millions came together
(24:47):
through TVs, radios, andloudspeakers, not just to watch,
but to make a difference.
And Live Aid occurred 40 yearsago, this week in history.
Oh, and now it's time for abrand new time capsule.
We're gonna stick to the sameday, July 13th, 1985.
(25:10):
The Live Aid concert is goingon.
What else was going on in theworld of pop culture back then?
Well, let's find out.
The number one song was A Viewto a Kill by Duran Duran.
This song was written for theJames Bond film of the same
name, A View to a Kill.
(25:32):
It's the only James Bond themesong to reach number one on the
charts.
Duran Duran was a mammoth band,especially in the mid-1980s.
Interestingly, though, despitehow big Duran Duran was, they
only had two number one songs, AView to a Kill and The Reflex.
Which means songs like HungryLike the Wolf, Girls on Film,
(25:56):
Rio, none of them went to numberone.
The number one movie was Backto the Future, and you could get
into the theater with a ticketcosting $3.55.
I just did a wholeretrospective on Back to the
Future in episode 202, but Iwon't just say go listen to
(26:17):
that.
Back to the Future is sci-ficomedy, a bit of drama about
Marty McFly who gets transportedfrom 1985 to 1955 in the time
machine created out of aDeLorean by crazy wild-eyed
scientist Dr.
Emmett Brown.
The movie made $389 million ona $19 million budget.
(26:42):
That's equal to more than $1.1billion when adjusted for
inflation to 2025.
It's also 93% fresh on RottenTomatoes, which I actually think
is low, but I'm probablypartial to it.
What I'm trying to say is gowatch Back to the Future when
this podcast is done.
The number one TV show was thepremiere episode of Stingray.
(27:08):
This show starred Nick Mancusoas a mysterious character known
only as Ray, who drove aCorvette Stingray.
He helps people that are introuble, quote unquote.
Despite the pilot episode ofthe show being number one for
the week, it only ran for 23more episodes before getting
(27:30):
canceled.
So I guess it peaked at thebeginning and then right down
the tubes.
And if you were around backthen, July 13th, 1985, maybe you
had to work and you couldn'twatch LiveAid.
Maybe you had to work and youwanted to tape Stingray to see
what this great new show isgonna be.
(27:51):
Well, you're in luck.
There is a VCR sale going on atCurtis Mathis.
Curtis Mathis is your homeentertainment center.
You can get theirtop-of-the-line model VCR on
sale for $599 or about $1,790when adjusted for inflation to
(28:13):
2025 for a VCR.
But wait, it gets even better.
They sweeten the pot with alifetime video rental
membership.
To them, lifetime means 208.
That's an odd number.
208 movie rentals.
In parentheses, it says a$39.95 value.
So yeah, you need to parcel outthose video rentals.
(28:36):
You get 208 free.
So don't start renting three orfour every weekend, Joel.
Run out of lifetime prettyquick.
But that wraps up another timecapsule.
That wraps up this week inhistory.
We go from an iconic concert toathletes that were going to be
iconic but ended up fallingshort for various reasons.
(28:58):
So let's look at the top fivecould have been athletes.
When I talk about could havebeen athletes, these are the
athletes that were projected forbig things or were on their way
(29:19):
to these big things, but theydidn't reach the heights at
which the general public thoughtthey were going to get to.
There are so many differentcaveats when it comes to could
have been athletes, as far asthe reasons why they didn't
reach the heights they couldhave gotten to.
Some of these wereself-inflicted, some were just
poor timing, injuries.
(29:41):
And I will say, with some ofthese could have been athletes,
some of them are Hall of Famersand legends of sports, but they
actually didn't get to theheights they probably could have
gotten to.
You longtime listeners know,but first timers, these top
fives are typically in noparticular Order, and we've got
(30:01):
some honorable mentions to kindof start things off.
And what I'll do here is I willkind of fly through the
honorable mentions so we canspend a little more time in the
actual top five.
Honorable mentions for couldhave been athletes include Sandy
Koufax.
He's a Hall of Fame pitcher forthe Brooklyn slash Los Angeles
(30:25):
Dodgers.
But due to severe arthritis inhis pitching elbow, he had to
retire at the age of 30.
He was the youngest player everelected to the Baseball Hall of
Fame at only 36 years old.
Another honorable mention isDerek Rose.
He was a basketball player whowas rookie of the year and then
(30:48):
MVP in his third season, but atorn ACL in the 2012 playoffs
began a spiral where he couldn'tstay healthy.
He is only 36 years old and heretired at the end of the 23-24
NBA season.
Another honorable mention isBill Walton.
(31:08):
He is a Hall of Fame NBAcenter.
He played a total of 10 seasonsand 468 games, but he missed
four full seasons due to footand ankle issues.
And two of his ten seasons, heplayed 14 games and 10 games.
He also won an MVP, was sixthman of the year, and won two NBA
(31:32):
titles in his career.
Another honorable mention isJosh Gordon.
He was a wide receiver in theNFL.
He played eight seasons in theNFL, but his substance abuse
issues were what caused himcontinuous suspensions,
including missing two full NFLseasons in his prime.
(31:54):
He played only 77 total gamesin his career and was out of the
league after the 2022 season atthe age of 31.
And the final honorable mentionis Reggie Lewis.
Reggie Lewis was a shootingguard, small forward for the
Boston Celtics.
(32:16):
He played for the Celtics from1987 to 93 and was coming into
his own, including becoming anall-star and the team captain.
But he famously collapsedduring a playoff game in 1993
and would die only a few monthslater from cardiac arrest while
playing pickup basketball at theage of 27.
(32:38):
So those are the honorablementions.
And you can see just based onthose, it's kind of a mix of
people that just had injuryissues, health issues, substance
abuse issues.
But all of them, even if theywere great, weren't as great as
they could have been.
But now let's get into theactual top five could have been
(33:00):
athletes of all time, startingwith number one, Len Bias.
When coming up with names forthis list, Len Bias was the
first one I thought of,partially because he was drafted
by the Boston Celtics, so it'skind of close to home.
He was an all-Americanbasketball player for the
(33:20):
University of Maryland.
And with one of those luckydeals that Red Auerbach, the GM
president of the Celtics, made,the Celtics, despite being the
best team in the NBA, were ableto draft Len Baez number two.
Adding Len Bias to a team thatincluded Larry Bird, Kevin
McHale, and Robert Parish intheir primes was almost unfair.
(33:43):
Not as a Boston fan, but therest of the NBA saw it that way.
Bias was a 6'8, small forwardthat could move, could jump,
could shoot.
There's no telling what hisceiling could have been because
he never played an NBA game.
Celtic scouts compared himfavorably to Michael Jordan,
(34:04):
which is high praise, butobviously there's no way to
know.
He was drafted, he wasdiscussing endorsement deals
with Reebok, and then whencelebrating this momentous
occasion in his life, heoverdosed on cocaine and died.
There were people that thoughtit was a joke, that there was no
way Len Bias was dead.
(34:26):
I remember as a kid, you know,eight, nine years old, I didn't
understand what had happened tohim.
I just knew that they haddrafted this incredible player
and now he wasn't going to beplaying for them because he had
died suddenly.
When you think about Len Biasand Reggie Lewis, there is an
alternate timeline where the twoof them take the mantle of the
(34:48):
Celtics as Bird McHale andParrish start to get older, and
we don't have the 1990s Celticsthat were pretty much a joke in
the NBA.
Number two is Marcus Dupree.
Marcus Dupree was a footballplayer, a running back.
He is seen sometimes as thegreatest that never was due to
(35:11):
his incredible talent, physicalskills.
He played college ball for theOklahoma Sooners, and then
briefly for the University ofSouthern Mississippi before
skipping out on college to tryto go to the NFL, but they
wouldn't let you into the leaguewithout a certain amount of
seasons played in college.
(35:31):
So he went into the USFL in1984 and tore knee ligaments,
which pretty much ended hiscareer.
Although before then, he wasseen as kind of starting to
believe his own hype, gettinglazy, out of shape.
That being said, DuPri wasdrafted by the Los Angeles Rams
(35:52):
in the 1986 NFL draft.
He lost over a hundred poundsand got back into shape and
actually was signed by the Ramsin 1990.
He would end up playingsparingly for two seasons with
the Rams before getting cut inthe 1991 season.
In his NFL career, MarcusDupree rushed for a total of 251
(36:13):
yards.
Number three is TonyConigliaro.
We're going back a ways toBoston Red Sox player Tony
Conigliaro, Tony C.
He was a right fielder thatjoined the Boston Red Sox at the
age of 19.
He was a prodigy.
During his first four seasons,he batted 276 and averaged 26
(36:38):
home runs per year.
His downfall was nothing thatwas his fault.
He was hit by a pitch in hiseye.
And there are pictures, if yougo to look at Tony Conigliaro
after that incident, his eye,his left eye, is just all black
and blue and swollen shut, andit's awful.
He was never the same again.
He missed the rest of the 1967season, all of 68.
(37:02):
He came back in 69, and he wasbetter, but he was not what he
was before.
After such a promising startfor his first four seasons,
Conigliaro played a total ofeight seasons in the majors,
finishing with a career 264average and 166 home runs, and
(37:22):
he died young at the age of 45in 1990.
But that was due to a longissue with cardiovascular
disease.
I don't think it had anythingto do with that hit by pitch.
Number four is Greg Oden.
Greg Oden was a seven-foot-tallbasketball player.
He played for the University ofOhio State.
(37:45):
He was drafted first overall in2007 by the Portland
Trailblazers and was seen askind of like that successor to
Bill Walton, who had played forthe Blazers in the 70s.
Within a few months, Oden hadundergone surgery for micro
fractures in his knee.
He missed his entire rookieseason.
In his first two NBA seasons,he played 61 and 21 games, with
(38:11):
his knee issues becoming moreand more of a problem.
He then missed three more fullseasons, finally being signed by
the Miami Heat and playing forthem in the 2013-14 NBA season.
He was perceived as the nextbig thing, and in his career,
Oden played a total of 105 gamesout of a possible 574.
(38:35):
That's equal to 18% of possiblegames.
And finally, number five on thelist of top five could have
been athletes.
This one might becontroversial, but it's Bo
Jackson.
Bo Jackson was one of the mostfamous athletes on the planet in
the late 1980s.
(38:55):
A superstar in the NFL with theLos Angeles Raiders.
A superstar in Major LeagueBaseball with the Kansas City
Royals.
He is the only professionalathlete in history to be named
an all-star in two differentmajor sports.
In January 1991, in a playoffgame against the Cincinnati
Bengals, he suffered adevastating hip injury.
(39:17):
That immediately ended hisfootball career, but he still
played a few more years inbaseball for the Royals, the
White Sox, and the Angels.
It is a major could have been.
Think about it.
Those of you that are around myage, you remember Bo Jackson,
the Bo Knows commercials.
For all of that fame, he playeda total of 38 games in the NFL.
(39:42):
And he played a total of 694games in Major League Baseball.
It's hard to understate how bigof a deal he was for those that
didn't grow up with Bo Jackson.
He was so good and he wasbasically done at the age of 28.
Sure, he played a few moreseasons in Major League
Baseball, but he could haveeasily had another seven, eight,
(40:05):
nine amazing seasons in bothsports.
He could have gone down inhistory as the greatest athlete
ever, but we'll never knowbecause of that hip injury.
That'll wrap up the top fivecould have been athletes of all
time.
Which ones of these you thinkcould have been the biggest deal
that didn't quite make it?
The ones where the athletes gotlazy, I don't feel bad for, but
(40:29):
the ones that had injuries theycouldn't overcome, like Tony
Conigliaro, Greg Oden, BoJackson, or in the honorable
mentions Derek Rose, or BillWalton, or Sandy Koufax, it is
amazing to think what could havebeen with all of these
different athletes.
Today in the 2020s, we are allmore connected than ever.
(40:59):
Seriously, pretty much any ofyou out there could reach out to
me.
I've gotten so many greatcomments through YouTube, email,
social media, with texting,with social media and emails.
It is possible for you to findanybody, friend, stranger,
(41:22):
people you used to know, andreach out to them.
Oh, but this convenience, itwasn't always that way.
When I was a kid growing up inthe 1980s, if I wanted to talk
to a friend, I had to remembertheir phone number and call
their house.
And if they didn't answer thephone, I had to get on my bike
(41:42):
and ride to their house to seeif they were home.
There was no texting, where areyou?
But in between those Stone Agedays of the 1980s and present
day, there was a transformativeera in digital communication.
This was the 1990s.
It was when these technologiesthat we have today that we take
(42:06):
for granted or really commonwere first coming around.
What we're gonna do now iswe're gonna look at two of the
most groundbreaking innovationsfrom 1990s communication, and
those both come to us from theinternet.
So we're gonna look at chatrooms and instant messaging.
So hold on here while I boot upthe modem.
(42:29):
Oh man, nobody better grab thephone and throw me off the
internet.
When I think of chat rooms andinstant messaging, I start to
(42:51):
think of my first dalliance intothe internet, 1995-96.
But the concept of digitalcommunication, it goes back from
before the 90s.
I mean, you had beepers, youhad cell phones, car phones back
in the 80s that looked likebricks that you plugged into
your lighter.
It was during the 90s, though,that digital communication
(43:14):
entered the mainstream.
As home computers became morecommon and dial-up internet
providers like America Online,CompuServe, and Prodigy gained
popularity, so too with it camechatrooms and instant messaging.
So for those that don't knowwhat they are or want to trip
(43:34):
down memory lane, chatroomsallowed multiple users to
converse in real time.
Usually they were around sharedinterests.
You'd go on the AOL homepageand there would be all of those
colorful sidebars that haddifferent topics, sports,
politics, movies, music,whatever you name it.
(43:54):
You could click on it, youcould find chat rooms that were
kind of specific to what youwanted to talk about.
You'd create your fake name,your handle, and then you just
go in there.
Back then in the mid to late90s, these chat rooms were
usually unmoderated, meaning youwere kind of at the mercy of
what kind of people were inthere with you.
(44:17):
Because they were unmoderated,you could use pseudonyms and
fake identities.
You'd get people in the chatroom that would randomly want to
know who was in there, so you'dget the A slash S slash L
question for everyone to answer,which stood for age, sex,
location.
So I could easily put today 47male Cape Cod.
(44:42):
Or you could just pretend andput 17 female Indonesia and no
one's gonna know the difference.
Now, instant messaging, bycontrast, was more private and
one-on-one.
It allowed users to send andreceive short messages in real
time.
It was basically the precursorto text messaging, but over the
(45:05):
internet.
What I remember back then is Ithink you had to accept these
messages.
You couldn't just get peoplecoming at you.
Like if you wanted your chatsto be private or your account to
be private, you could be inchat rooms, but you'd have
people reaching out, want tochat in private.
Most of the time this wasinnocent stuff.
(45:27):
It was fun stuff.
People would really talk aboutlife and interests, and you'd
make new friends from all aroundthe world, which was brand new.
In the age when, like I said,you'd have to remember phone
numbers to call family andfriends or go to their houses.
Now, here it was, you could getsomeone that was thousands of
(45:49):
miles away popping up on yourcomputer screen, and you're
talking about favorite recipesor favorite movies or sports or
whatever your topic du jour was.
When it came to chat rooms andinstant messaging, there were a
few platforms that popularizedit.
First and foremost, the mosticonic one is America Online
(46:11):
AOL.
This was the one that I wasalways in if I was IMing people.
There were literally thousandsof themed chat rooms that
covered any topic you couldthink of.
It was almost like optionoverload, where you wanted to
try all these different rooms,but yet it seemed like there
wasn't enough time.
(46:32):
I came up in a time when it waswhen the weather was good, get
outside and stay out until thestreetlights come on.
So the idea of being able tokind of travel the world while
sitting at a desk in front of acomputer, it was foreign to me.
In 1997, AOL launched theirinstant messenger, AOL Instant
(46:54):
Messenger, also known as AIM.
This was the one that becamethe cultural touch tone with the
distinctive door opening andclosing sound.
That one.
And iconic away messages.
Those were fun because youcould create your own away
(47:15):
message.
So if someone saw that you werenot online or they wanted to
reach out to you and sent you amessage like, hey, what's up?
You could have an away messagesaying like you got sent back to
1955 by Doc Brown's DeLorean.
That kind of individuality andfreedom of expression was
totally brand new in that sensefor me.
(47:36):
It usually came down to musicand clothing as far as how I
expressed myself.
Now I could have stupid awaymessages to showcase my humor.
Another popular platform wasICQ, which was released in 1996
by Israeli company Mirabilis.
ICQ, the letters, were shortfor I Seek You.
(48:00):
Three different words.
It was one of the firststandalone instant messaging
programs.
ICQ allowed users to sendmessages, URLs, files, and even
play games.
On this platform, you wereassigned a unique number called
a UIN, user identificationnumber.
(48:21):
I wasn't big into ICQ, but theidea of sending files to someone
in the late 90s, those of youthat remember how slow internet
was back then, you'd be like,here's a song I want you to
listen to.
You'll get it in three days.
Or you'd send a picture thatstopped downloading halfway
through so you don't know whatit is.
(48:41):
There was also Yahoo Chat andMessenger.
They launched their chatroomsin the mid-90s, followed up with
Yahoo Messenger in 1998.
Much like AOL, these tools wereintegrated with Yahoo's larger
ecosystem.
So it allowed seamlesscommunication between email,
(49:02):
chat, and news platforms.
You out there of my age or ofthe age that you were on the
internet in the late 90s, didyou have a preferred platform
for chatrooms and IMs?
Or did you have accounts on allof these?
I basically stuck to AOL.
Another platform was the MSNMessenger, which was introduced
(49:25):
by Microsoft in 1999.
They quickly became a rival toAIM and ICQ, offering direct
integration with Hotmail.
It introduced some of thepopular features like emoticons,
status updates, and later videochats.
It was a whole new world inchat rooms and instant
(49:46):
messaging.
You had screen names so youcould make your own whatever you
wanted it to be.
I can't remember my very firstAOL screen name, but I can share
one with you.
In 1999, my screen name wasMillennium Y2J Man.
It was named for professionalwrestler Chris Jericho, who had
(50:10):
debuted in the WWF in the summerof 1999.
I know my sister Lindsay, whogot she was probably 12 or 13 at
the time, her screen name wasS301B6.
So if you break that down, it'sSOB316 for Stone Cold Steve
Austin, another professionalwrestler.
(50:32):
You also had buddy lists withinstant messaging, which that's
pretty self-explanatory.
You make friends online, youput them in a buddy list so you
know when they're online and youcan jump in and chat with them.
You have similar stuff stillwith social media today,
Facebook and Instagram.
They have these little greendots by someone's face on
(50:56):
Instagram letting you knowthey're on the app currently.
And Facebook, you can have asidebar with whoever's online.
Like I said before, there wereaway messages where you could
tell people what you were doingor where you were, whether real
or super fake.
In addition to file sharing,there were, I mentioned the
(51:16):
emoticons, the precursor toemojis.
They were basically done on thekeyboard.
That's where you got the smileyface, the colon and the
parentheses symbol.
You had to learn the emoticonlanguage.
So you could do smiley face,winky face, sticking your tongue
out, all this foolishness.
This is where you got a lot ofthe shorthand that is used in
(51:39):
texting to this day.
The first one I remember is L OL, which is laughing out loud,
not lots of love.
My favorite was the long one,was rolling on the floor,
laughing my ass off, RothleMayo.
Like the I thought of it as oneword instead of all these words
shoved into one.
Now it's to the point today,you've got so much laziness.
(52:02):
People can't write thank you,it's T Y.
They can't write happybirthday, it's HBD.
Boy, that took a lot of time.
They can't even write okay,it's just K.
Like, is that really saving youthat much time typing one less
symbol?
Oh, but despite theirpopularity, chatrooms and
instant messaging platforms hada lot of issues.
(52:23):
First and foremost was theprivacy in predators.
Like I said a few minutes ago,you could be anonymous, kind of
a fake person.
This made it easy for thesepeople to go on to teenage chat
rooms and be like, I'm also a15-year-old girl, but instead
there's some 50-year-old guydriving around in a white van
(52:44):
saying, Come meet me here.
This was also where you had thebeginnings of online
harassment, trolling, bullying,which now is just commonplace on
social media.
I know there was harassment andbullying before the internet,
but this just kind of has givenit a space to blow up where it's
just seen as, uh well, it'sjust the way life is.
(53:05):
Be ready for it.
You had security risks, whereif you could send files to
people, they could send them toyou.
You get Trojan horse viruses,phishing links that would start
to get into your bank accountsas they started to go online.
And another issue wasaddiction.
Addiction to the internet, toinstant messaging.
(53:27):
You need to be on there to chatwith your friends.
What about schoolwork?
Uh, that can wait.
I've got to talk to thesepeople in this chat room.
By the time I got on theinternet, I was a senior in high
school.
I had spent my childhood beingoutside and entertaining myself.
So the internet, much likevideo games, they never became
an addiction for me.
(53:48):
But I could easily see peopleyounger than me wanting nothing
more than to stay inside andtalk to people in faraway lands
rather than going out and doingstuff.
By the early 2000s, the goldenage of chatrooms and instant
messaging was fading.
The big part was the rise ofsocial media with MySpace in
(54:11):
2003, Facebook in 2004.
These were all in one site.
So you didn't need a separatechat room.
Around that same time, youstarted to get cell phones that
became more affordable, so textmessaging became more common
even before smartphones, whenyou had to press each number a
(54:32):
certain number of times to get adifferent letter to text, oh
the stone age days of texting.
And then smartphones camearound, so that became easier.
And a lot of it wasoversaturation and spam.
Many of the public chat roomswere overrun with bots and
advertisements, and it got to beyou lost the plot of why you
(54:53):
were there in the first place.
Over time, Yahoo closed itschatrooms in 2012, AIM got
discontinued in 2017, MSNMessenger merged into Skype by
2013.
But still to this day, the coreprinciples of chat rooms and
instant messaging, the real-timeconnection, personalization,
(55:14):
and community, they're integraltoday to apps like WhatsApp,
Discord, Slack.
For a generation raised ondial-up tones and away messages,
internet chat rooms and instantmessaging in the 90s, it
represents a formative period, atime when the internet felt new
and thrilling, filled withpossibility.
(55:36):
And while those platforms mightbe gone, their influence on
digital communication to thisday is undeniable.
But until next week, that'sgonna wrap up episode 204 of the
In My Footsteps Podcast.
Thank you for tuning in.
Thank you for making it to theend.
I hope you had a fun trip downmemory lane this week.
(55:58):
If this is your first timelistening to the podcast, I've
got 203 other episodes you cancheck out.
I've got hundreds of YouTubevideos, so there's plenty of
content for you to binge on.
I've spent countless hours andmonths and years cultivating my
never-ending portfolio ofcontent.
(56:19):
I've got so much content thatnext week I'm debuting something
new on the podcast.
It's going to be mixtape numberone, where I take similar
subjects I've talked about onprevious episodes and put them
into one larger episode, amixtape where I put those
subjects together.
Next week will be classic mallstores of the 70s, eighties, and
(56:43):
nineties.
I'll be there with a new introand outro, but this is something
different.
I have plans to do mixtapesevery now and then, because as
I've gotten to over 200episodes, I've noticed there are
segments that I could take andput together and make a whole
new different episode of thepodcast.
So it's not quite a greatesthits, but it is a semi-cheat.
(57:06):
It's a little bit like a clipshow.
But if you haven't heard thesesegments before, or if you've
wanted to hear them all in oneplace, you're gonna get it
starting next week.
And don't worry, the week afterwill be episode 205.
It's gonna be 1984, the year inpop culture, coming out
coinciding with the birthday ofmy twin sisters, Lindsay and
(57:27):
Ashley, so they'll get to knowall about what was going on in
the world the year they wereborn.
As I said at the beginning,we've got some housekeeping at
the end.
Five dollars a month if youwant to become a member on
Patreon, support me, support mycontent, check me out all over
social media, Instagram, myFacebook fan page for the
(57:49):
podcast, Threads, Blue Sky,subscribe on YouTube, visit my
homepage, ChristopherSetterlund.com, with links to
all nine of my books.
I'm still working on book ten,my Cape Cod History Anthology.
The holdup is that in order toself-publish and to do it right,
(58:10):
I need an ISBN number, whichwill allow bookstores to carry
it if they want to.
ISBN numbers are not freeunless you want the place you
buy it from to own the rights toyour book, which is not going
to happen.
But don't worry, sometime thissummer that book will be out and
you can check it out.
(58:30):
Happy birthday the day thispodcast goes live to my
stepfather Serpa.
That's his last name.
His first name is Chris, likeme.
We have the same initials.
I've known him now for 30years.
He's been one of the moststable male role models of my
life.
My father, my first stepfatherwere not the greatest male role
(58:52):
models.
So I feel blessed that I havehad some good male role models.
I already know what I got himfor his birthday.
Just in case he listens to itbefore he gets it, I'm not going
to say what it was.
So I hope you have the bestbirthday yet, and you don't work
too hard.
Also, happy birthday yesterdayfrom the day this podcast goes
(59:14):
live to my old friend Shayna.
She's one of the truly favoritepeople I've known in my life.
Her sense of humor is probablya little more wacky than even
mine.
The plan is to go and pay herand her family a visit the end
of next month for my vacation.
We can celebrate like it's oldtimes.
Except maybe this time when wego hiking, you can drag me
(59:37):
behind you in a wagon so I don'thave to walk with my ruined
legs.
And as for all of you else outthere, thank you so much for
listening wherever you are.
I hope you have stayed cool.
We are getting close to the dogdays of summer.
But luckily you can listen tothis podcast anywhere, like in
the AC.
I'll be back next week with thefirst ever.
(59:59):
Mixtape.
But until then, remember inthis life, don't walk in anyone
else's footsteps.
Create your own path and enjoyevery moment you can on this
journey we call life because younever know what tomorrow
brings.
This has been the In MyFootsteps Podcast.
I am Christopher Setterlund,but you already knew that.
(01:00:21):
I'll talk to you all againsoon.
Hello world! And welcome to the In My Footsteps
Podcast! I am ChristopherSetterlund, coming to you from
the vacation destination knownas Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and
this is episode 204.
It's gonna be an action-packedepisode filled with me talking,
(00:22):
just like always, all about GenX nostalgia.
We're gonna kick it off with alook back at how 70 Soft Rock
saved my sanity.
There's a lot of S's in there.
We're gonna go way, way back inthe day and look at internet
chatrooms and instant messagingback in the 1990s.
(00:46):
There's gonna be a brand newtop five as we look back at the
top five could have beenathletes of all time.
Ones with all of the hype thatdidn't quite pan out.
And there'll be a brand newthis week in history and time
capsule, looking back 40 yearsat the iconic Live Aid Benefit
(01:06):
concert.
All of that is coming up rightnow on episode 204 of the In My
Footsteps podcast.
So what are we gonna talk aboutthis week?
But I start off the show bysaying I haven't broken anything
new.
For those of you that have beenlistening to the last several
episodes, my severely sprainedankle, once it healed, I managed
(01:30):
to nearly break my hand.
And now that that's healed, I'mjust waiting.
It's like a countdown.
What's going to break next?
I have to knock on wood to makesure nothing bad happens.
I'll be recording this show andmy AC will just fly out of the
window and knock me out.
So if there's 20 minutes ofsilence, you know that I've been
(01:53):
KO'd by my AC.
Thank you for tuning inwherever you're from, whatever
the weather is, if it's hot andsteamy and you're at the beach
or hiding inside a cool,air-conditioned room.
Or maybe you're somewhere whereit's wintertime now.
I know I have a lot ofinternational listeners, so I
don't want to just assume whereyou are it's sunny and 90 and
(02:15):
humid.
Maybe it's snowing right now,and you're looking outside
wondering what in the world iswrong with me.
You wouldn't be the only one tosay that.
We've got a lot of fun stuff toget into this week, but before
we get into that, naturally Ihave to start by shouting out my
Patreon subscribers, Laurie,Mary Lou, Ashley, Kevin, Leo,
(02:39):
Neglectoid, Marguerite, Crystal,Matt.
Thank you for being the oneswho put your money where your
mouth is, being my biggestbackers.
If you want to get shouted outon the podcast, or if you just
want to support me as a contentcreator, slash author, slash up
and coming actor, director,slash whatever else is going to
(03:03):
be coming up in my life, you cando so for five dollars a month
on Patreon.com.
You get access to bonus podcastepisodes, you get access to the
remastered without a map livestreams, one of which is going
up within a few days of whenthis podcast goes live.
I try to put them in thehalfway point of the month.
(03:25):
Of course, I've got anever-growing free tier on
Patreon as well, so you can gojust become a member.
We'll have plenty of time forhousekeeping, as I call it.
I always say that it should belike Tommy Boy with Chris Farley
and David Spade, where ChrisFarley's sleeping in the hotel
room, and David Spade is justlike housekeeping.
(03:45):
And Chris Farley's like, pleasego away for the love of God.
Now I'm gonna have to do thatevery time I say there's
housekeeping at the end.
Just alright.
Anyway, we'll get into thatstuff at the end of the podcast.
Let's get into the actual meatof this Gen X nostalgia
sandwich.
I've got lots and lots of S'sto describe this first segment.
(04:08):
How 70 Soft Rock saved mysanity.
It's one part retrospective onmusic.
It's also one part pulling backthe curtain on my own dealings
with mental health.
So let me get on thetherapist's couch here and lay
down and get ready to bear mysoul on episode 204 of the In My
(04:30):
Footsteps podcast.
Soft rock, in and of itself, itcan kind of get a bad rap.
It's it can sometimes be knownas yacht rock, sometimes be
known as wuss rock.
This type of music tended to be1970s, into the early to
mid-80s.
There were no screechingelectric guitars.
(04:53):
There was typically no singershredding their vocal cords as
they hit certain notes.
For the most part, soft rock isvery soothing, which to many
people can be construed asboring.
And I will tell you, for thefirst twenty odd years of my
life, that's how I saw it.
(05:13):
As many of you know who havebeen listening to the podcast
for a long time, I grew uplistening to heavy metal when I
was little, like seven, eightyears old, and then became a
grunge kid in the early 90s.
Grunge, alternative.
If someone had told 15,16-year-old me that within a few
years I'd be seeking out andenjoying soft rock, I'd think
(05:37):
you had somebody else with thesame name, but I know that can't
be true.
There's like really no one elsewith my actual name.
I'm not Jim Smith.
So before I dive into thisstory of how 70 Soft Rock kinda
helped me through a rough time,there's a few things I need to
do.
First, in order to bear mysoul, I've gotta crack open a
(05:59):
cold one.
Ah, energy drink, sweetness.
And second of all, I've gottalie down here on this leather
therapist couch, getcomfortable, and have my
therapist ask me the firstquestion.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Hello, Chris.
My name is Dr.
Spaitso.
I am here to help you.
Say whatever is in your mindfreely.
Our conversation will be keptin strict confidence.
So tell me about your problems.
Speaker (06:30):
Ugh, Dr.
Spaitso.
I should have known it was you.
This couch is ripped withstuffing coming out of it and
mold on the walls.
Dang it, alright.
I told you I'm gonna try tokeep this segment a mixture of
serious and light.
I am not ashamed to admit thatin my life I have dealt with
(06:50):
several severe bouts ofdepression.
There's a lot of guys that havedealt with it that won't be
able to admit that or don't wantto be seen as weak.
I don't care.
That's stupid.
This particular bout that I'mtalking about, it has to do with
when I returned to Cape Codfrom living in Las Vegas.
(07:11):
This was 2001, it began.
In the archives of the podcast,I have done a few segments
about my time in Las Vegas.
Episode six, I talked aboutwhat it was like for me to move
out there and live out there in2000, 2001.
And then in episode nine, Italked about my departure from
(07:32):
Vegas, which consisted of metaking a bus from Las Vegas to
Cape Cod.
Three and a half days, almost3,000 miles.
So if you want to get the fullbackstory, you can go into the
archives and check out thosesegments.
When I returned to Cape Cod, itwas really not what I wanted to
(07:53):
do.
I wanted, when I moved toVegas, to live out there.
My gambling issues kind ofcaused that plan to go up and
smoke.
I can kind of laugh now, butwhen I got back to Cape Cod, I
saw myself as a failure.
I had to squeeze myself backinto my old life that I had
(08:15):
packed away and put in storage.
I then also had to pack myselfback into the restaurant job
that I had left.
These were the things that Imoved to Vegas to get away from.
And here I was having tobasically crawl back to them.
That's how I saw it.
I saw myself as a failure.
Nobody else saw me as that.
(08:36):
I gotta admit that.
I don't want to make it soundlike there were others in my
life that looked at me like, uh,you failed going to Vegas.
My mother, stepfather, myimmediate family, my friends,
none of them saw me as afailure.
They saw me as a kid in theirearly twenties trying to find
themselves, and Vegas wasn't forme.
(08:57):
I didn't see it that way.
After several weeks of kind ofgetting re-acclimated to living
on Cape Cod, that's when it hitme.
It was sort of like in Marriedwith Children.
Every now and then Al Bundywould look around where he was
at his life, and he would justput his head in his hands and
just, oh God, oh that was kindof how I felt.
(09:21):
I don't know when thedepression set in.
It was sort of something thataccumulated over time, and
before I knew it, I was justswimming in this pool of
molasses.
That's how I felt.
I couldn't move fast, Icouldn't think fast.
I was feeling at times like mybody was there, but me myself
(09:43):
was this little tiny silhouettestuck inside my head.
I would have times when I wascooking in the restaurant and I
would fall behind on orders.
People there would getfrustrated.
Because you can't seedepression.
It's not like my skin changedcolor, I didn't gain weight.
So to a lot of people, I lookednormal and I was just slacking
(10:07):
off in their mind.
I would be told to snap out ofit.
Which any of you that havedealt with mental health
struggles, having someone tellyou to snap out of it is such a
disrespectful, ignorant thing tosay.
Like we choose to be depressed,like it's something we want.
If you want more of my dealingswith mental health struggles
(10:29):
over the years, I did a bonussegment, episode 22, that
coincided with the anniversaryof the death of Soundgarden lead
singer Chris Cornell, and Italk about him and my own
struggles.
Because I did tell you thissegment is about 70 soft rock as
well.
I'm kind of setting the stagehere.
One thing that was interestingabout this particular dealing
(10:53):
with depression was my aversionto noise.
Loud noises bothered me, whichmeant that basically all the
music that I enjoyed was loudand grating and it hurt.
I don't know if any of you haveever dealt with that before.
There were plenty of times,especially when I was cooking
and in a loud kitchen, that Iwish I had earmuffs.
(11:15):
So I'd be driving in my car.
I'd a lot of the times I wouldhave the radio off.
I think back at this time I hada Saturn SL1.
It was cranberry colored, butit had a pretty sweet stereo in
there.
CD player with a CD changer.
Due to this aversion to loudnoise when dealing with this
(11:37):
bout of depression, I'd have alot of the times that it was
just quiet in the car.
At this point, we're intoprobably early 2002.
I wish I could remember whatexactly was the song that broke
me into 70s soft rock.
If I had to guess, I wouldthink it was probably Give Me
(11:58):
Love by George Harrison.
This was off of his 1973 album,Living in the Material World.
It is very soft, soothing.
It's got electric guitar, hisslide guitar, but it's not
overpowering.
I had always liked the Beatles.
I didn't really get into GeorgeHarrison's solo work.
(12:19):
I was more of a John Lennonguy.
So I was pleasantly surprisedwith Harrison's musical style
that was very melodic.
It had deep introspectivelyrics, and it was soothing for
my fragile mind that seemed tonot be able to handle anything
more than the basics of anythingin life at that point.
(12:41):
There was a time, probably late2002, I think it was, that I
was on three separateantidepressants all at once.
It was like the doctor said,one might not be enough.
Here, have all of these andwe'll see what it does to you.
That time with the multipledifferent antidepressants, it
did not go well.
(13:02):
They ended up eating away at mystomach.
I had a GI bleed.
They had to take my door, mybedroom door off and put me on a
stretcher and take me to thehospital.
And I had to quit threeantidepressants cold turkey.
I sometimes have to remindmyself that I once did that when
I have trouble not getting anextra package of ribs from
(13:25):
Shaw's when they're on sale.
It's like, I can't resist theseribs.
Yeah, well, you quit threeantidepressants cold turkey, so
give it up.
With George Harrison openingthe door to 70s soft rock, it
was kind of off and running fromthere.
It was like I thought tomyself, oh, he's pretty good.
Who else is like him?
(13:47):
Luckily, there was a lot ofcross-pollination with the big
name stars in the 70s, whereGeorge Harrison, Elton John,
James Taylor, they all seemed tobe intertwined.
It was at this point that I hadthis small portable CD holder.
It was a zipper one, you justput the discs in the different
(14:08):
flaps.
And at this point in late 2002,early 2003, it was populated
with Elton John's Greatest Hits.
There was a double disc JamesTaylor Greatest Hits.
I had Paul McCartney and Wings.
I got into Fleetwood Mac.
And I said 70 soft rock, therewas no electric guitars or
(14:30):
screeching guitars or things.
It's kind of subjective.
These songs with theirintrospective lyrics, like James
Taylor, Fire and Rain, GeorgeHarrison's I'd Have You Anytime,
Fleetwood Mac, Sara.
These songs spoke to me as awriter as well, not only just to
help me with depression, but itopened up my mind to be able to
(14:55):
express what I was feeling.
In 2002, 2003, I listened moreto 70s, 80s soft rock, adult
contemporary, than modern music.
I was making mixed CDs withmusic like that, Hall and Oates,
Steely Dan, Christopher Cross.
(15:15):
I know at one point I went intoprobably Newbury Comics and I
bought a kind of a sampler of70s soft rock, a lot of one-hit
wonders, which got me familiarwith songs like Escape the Pina
Calada song, Steal Away byRobbie Dupree, Sad Eyes by
Robert John, I Love a RainyNight by Eddie Rabbit.
(15:39):
What I'm gonna have to do, andI've done it a few times on the
podcast, I'm gonna have to makea Spotify playlist of a lot of
the songs that kind of helped methrough that time, so you can
listen to them or go and look atit and say, Man, what's wrong
with you?
I would have been the same wayif in 1999, 2000, if you had
(16:00):
told me in a couple years thisis the kind of music you're
gonna listen to most of thetime, I'd have thought maybe I
got a head injury and hadamnesia and forgot who I was.
And I guess kind of in a waythat's true.
It was a couple of years thatit was just depression in
different intensities anddifferent waves.
(16:20):
I ended up leaving my cookingjob again, going into
landscaping for one season.
And at that time I was intolistening to that 70s soft rock,
and a lot of the crew at thelandscaping company I was at
were these big, dumbass meatheadguys, and I couldn't say to
them, Hey, let's listen to EltonJohn's greatest hits.
(16:43):
They'd have left me on the sideof the road somewhere.
So I had to hide that.
Dealing with depression is badenough, but feeling shame about
your battle with it is evenworse, because then you feel
like there's no one you can talkto.
Even through all of my dealingswith depression and stupid
people at the time, I had my 70soft rock to kind of ease my
(17:08):
mind at the end of a long day.
When the Pandora Music app cameout, I think I got it in 2009.
One of the first two stations Icreated was a 70 soft rock
station.
It was based around the songReminiscing by Little River
Band.
I still listen to that stationto this day, 16 years later.
(17:31):
And if you're wondering, theother first station I made on
Pandora is one called Torn Jeansand Flannel.
It's a grunge station,obviously.
To this day, when there aretimes that I'm going through
bouts of poor mental health, Istill fall back on 70 soft rock.
Now it's mixed with smoothjazz, something called down
(17:56):
tempo music.
If you look it up, you'll seewhat I'm talking about.
I say it so much on thispodcast at the end, I always say
lean into the things that makeyou happy when things in the
world aren't going great.
Things that make you happy,they help you get through those
days.
70 Soft Rocks saved my sanity.
That's why I called the segmentthat.
(18:16):
Although it saved my sanity, itdid not pull me out of my
depression.
It just made it easier to cope.
If you were wondering whatpulled me out of that
depression, it was actuallymeeting a girl.
This was in the late spring of2004.
I met a girl named Wendy, whoended up being one of the most
(18:39):
important people to ever gracemy life.
And she basically pulled me outof my depression by being who
she was.
And although I haven't seen herin so many years, I haven't
spoken to her in so many years,it wasn't a bad falling out, it
was just time and distance.
I won't get too deep into it.
All I'll say is her importancecontinues to this day with this
(19:04):
podcast.
Everything I've done in my lifesince then, with writing all my
books, my YouTube videos, thispodcast, it all stems from her.
So I'll wrap this segment up bysaying thank you, 70 Soft Rock,
and thank you, Wendy.
This week in history, we aregoing back 40 years to July
(19:33):
13th, 1985, and the iconic LiveAid Benefit Concerts.
Here we go again.
Another moment in time that Ilook back and can't believe it's
now this old.
LiveAid was a transatlanticconcert held simultaneously in
London and Philadelphia.
(19:54):
It brought together the biggestnames in music to raise funds
and awareness for the ongoingEthiopian famine, which had
claimed nearly a million lives.
The seeds of LiveAid, they wereplanted the year before, in
1984, when BBC aired a harrowingreport by journalist Michael
(20:14):
Bourke.
I hope I pronounced that right.
It exposed the depth of thefamine crisis in Ethiopia.
The footage shocked millions,including Bob Geldof, who was
frontman of the Irish rock bandThe Boomtown Rats.
I think their biggest song wasI Don't Like Mondays, which is
kind of a depressing song, butthat's beside the point.
From this video that wasshared, Geldoff and fellow
(20:40):
musician Midge Ure wrote thecharity single Do They Know It's
Christmas?
That was recorded with asupergroup of British and Irish
artists under the name ofBand-Aid.
And this was released aroundChristmas time, 1984.
It inspired the counterpart WeAre the World by USA for Africa.
(21:00):
Bob Geldoff wasn't done withthe Do They Know It's Christmas
song.
He had a bigger plan.
He envisioned a global benefitconcert held in multiple
countries and broadcast aroundthe world.
In the brainstorming stages, itsounded like an ambitious idea,
but it became reality.
On July 13th, 1985, the concerttook place at Wembley Stadium
(21:26):
and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.
Wembley Stadium in London hadaround 72,000 people in
attendance.
JFK Stadium in Philly had morethan 89,000.
In total, more than 1.5 billionpeople in 150 countries watched
the concert.
(21:47):
I will say I am one of thoseover 1.5 billion, but I was
seven and a half years old, somy memories are a little bit
hazy.
So who played at LiveAid?
In Wembley Stadium, you had alitany of the biggest stars in
the world.
Paul McCartney played Let It Besolo on piano.
(22:10):
You too had a breakthroughperformance.
You had The Who, you had DavidBowie, you had Elton John with a
surprise appearance by GeorgeMichael, who was fresh out of
the band Wham.
I would think, though, anybodythat thinks live aid immediately
thinks of Queen's performance.
(22:30):
I do remember this performance.
I wasn't that familiar withQueen, with Freddie Mercury.
I just knew that whoever thisguy was singing, commanding this
tens of thousands of people inthe audience, seemed really
cool.
Now, looking back 40 years,that performance by Queen is
probably one of the mostmemorable performances in the
(22:53):
history of music.
Over here in the States inPhilly, you had Mick Jagger
performing with Tina Turner, youhad Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers, the BeachBoys, Bob Dylan, and you had the
reunion of Led Zeppelin afterabout five years.
The big thing with this wasthat Phil Collins was their
(23:17):
drummer, and Phil Collinsfamously performed in both
Philly and London.
He took a Concord flight so hecould perform in London, then
fly to the U.S.
and play in Philly.
LiveAid was a resoundingsuccess.
They raised more than $125million for famine relief.
(23:39):
That is equal to about $373million when adjusted for
inflation to 2025.
In addition to the raising ofthe money, Live Aid also
influenced how musicians andcelebrities use their platforms
for activism.
It also paved the way for otherbenefit concerts like FarmAid,
(24:00):
which has been going on since1985, the Live 8 concert, which
was from 2005.
With the Live 8 show, I alsowatched that one.
You'll have to let me know ifyou want me to do a kind of 20th
anniversary look back at it,because it has now passed into
what I consider nostalgia, 20plus years.
Live aid, the legacy of thoseconcerts, it's huge.
(24:23):
Like I said, it helped shapethe role of celebrities in
activism.
It ushered in the idea ofglobal live broadcasting for
charitable causes.
For many artists, it was theirdefining moment.
Bob Geldoff was later knightedfor his effort.
In the end, LiveAid, it wasn'tjust a concert.
It was a call to arms, a momentwhen millions came together
(24:47):
through TVs, radios, andloudspeakers, not just to watch,
but to make a difference.
And Live Aid occurred 40 yearsago, this week in history.
Oh, and now it's time for abrand new time capsule.
We're gonna stick to the sameday, July 13th, 1985.
(25:10):
The Live Aid concert is goingon.
What else was going on in theworld of pop culture back then?
Well, let's find out.
The number one song was A Viewto a Kill by Duran Duran.
This song was written for theJames Bond film of the same
name, A View to a Kill.
(25:32):
It's the only James Bond themesong to reach number one on the
charts.
Duran Duran was a mammoth band,especially in the mid-1980s.
Interestingly, though, despitehow big Duran Duran was, they
only had two number one songs, AView to a Kill and The Reflex.
Which means songs like HungryLike the Wolf, Girls on Film,
(25:56):
Rio, none of them went to numberone.
The number one movie was Backto the Future, and you could get
into the theater with a ticketcosting $3.55.
I just did a wholeretrospective on Back to the
Future in episode 202, but Iwon't just say go listen to
(26:17):
that.
Back to the Future is sci-ficomedy, a bit of drama about
Marty McFly who gets transportedfrom 1985 to 1955 in the time
machine created out of aDeLorean by crazy wild-eyed
scientist Dr.
Emmett Brown.
The movie made $389 million ona $19 million budget.
(26:42):
That's equal to more than $1.1billion when adjusted for
inflation to 2025.
It's also 93% fresh on RottenTomatoes, which I actually think
is low, but I'm probablypartial to it.
What I'm trying to say is gowatch Back to the Future when
this podcast is done.
The number one TV show was thepremiere episode of Stingray.
(27:08):
This show starred Nick Mancusoas a mysterious character known
only as Ray, who drove aCorvette Stingray.
He helps people that are introuble, quote unquote.
Despite the pilot episode ofthe show being number one for
the week, it only ran for 23more episodes before getting
(27:30):
canceled.
So I guess it peaked at thebeginning and then right down
the tubes.
And if you were around backthen, July 13th, 1985, maybe you
had to work and you couldn'twatch LiveAid.
Maybe you had to work and youwanted to tape Stingray to see
what this great new show isgonna be.
(27:51):
Well, you're in luck.
There is a VCR sale going on atCurtis Mathis.
Curtis Mathis is your homeentertainment center.
You can get theirtop-of-the-line model VCR on
sale for $599 or about $1,790when adjusted for inflation to
(28:13):
2025 for a VCR.
But wait, it gets even better.
They sweeten the pot with alifetime video rental
membership.
To them, lifetime means 208.
That's an odd number.
208 movie rentals.
In parentheses, it says a$39.95 value.
So yeah, you need to parcel outthose video rentals.
(28:36):
You get 208 free.
So don't start renting three orfour every weekend, Joel.
Run out of lifetime prettyquick.
But that wraps up another timecapsule.
That wraps up this week inhistory.
We go from an iconic concert toathletes that were going to be
iconic but ended up fallingshort for various reasons.
(28:58):
So let's look at the top fivecould have been athletes.
When I talk about could havebeen athletes, these are the
athletes that were projected forbig things or were on their way
(29:19):
to these big things, but theydidn't reach the heights at
which the general public thoughtthey were going to get to.
There are so many differentcaveats when it comes to could
have been athletes, as far asthe reasons why they didn't
reach the heights they couldhave gotten to.
Some of these wereself-inflicted, some were just
poor timing, injuries.
(29:41):
And I will say, with some ofthese could have been athletes,
some of them are Hall of Famersand legends of sports, but they
actually didn't get to theheights they probably could have
gotten to.
You longtime listeners know,but first timers, these top
fives are typically in noparticular Order, and we've got
(30:01):
some honorable mentions to kindof start things off.
And what I'll do here is I willkind of fly through the
honorable mentions so we canspend a little more time in the
actual top five.
Honorable mentions for couldhave been athletes include Sandy
Koufax.
He's a Hall of Fame pitcher forthe Brooklyn slash Los Angeles
(30:25):
Dodgers.
But due to severe arthritis inhis pitching elbow, he had to
retire at the age of 30.
He was the youngest player everelected to the Baseball Hall of
Fame at only 36 years old.
Another honorable mention isDerek Rose.
He was a basketball player whowas rookie of the year and then
(30:48):
MVP in his third season, but atorn ACL in the 2012 playoffs
began a spiral where he couldn'tstay healthy.
He is only 36 years old and heretired at the end of the 23-24
NBA season.
Another honorable mention isBill Walton.
(31:08):
He is a Hall of Fame NBAcenter.
He played a total of 10 seasonsand 468 games, but he missed
four full seasons due to footand ankle issues.
And two of his ten seasons, heplayed 14 games and 10 games.
He also won an MVP, was sixthman of the year, and won two NBA
(31:32):
titles in his career.
Another honorable mention isJosh Gordon.
He was a wide receiver in theNFL.
He played eight seasons in theNFL, but his substance abuse
issues were what caused himcontinuous suspensions,
including missing two full NFLseasons in his prime.
(31:54):
He played only 77 total gamesin his career and was out of the
league after the 2022 season atthe age of 31.
And the final honorable mentionis Reggie Lewis.
Reggie Lewis was a shootingguard, small forward for the
Boston Celtics.
(32:16):
He played for the Celtics from1987 to 93 and was coming into
his own, including becoming anall-star and the team captain.
But he famously collapsedduring a playoff game in 1993
and would die only a few monthslater from cardiac arrest while
playing pickup basketball at theage of 27.
(32:38):
So those are the honorablementions.
And you can see just based onthose, it's kind of a mix of
people that just had injuryissues, health issues, substance
abuse issues.
But all of them, even if theywere great, weren't as great as
they could have been.
But now let's get into theactual top five could have been
(33:00):
athletes of all time, startingwith number one, Len Bias.
When coming up with names forthis list, Len Bias was the
first one I thought of,partially because he was drafted
by the Boston Celtics, so it'skind of close to home.
He was an all-Americanbasketball player for the
(33:20):
University of Maryland.
And with one of those luckydeals that Red Auerbach, the GM
president of the Celtics, made,the Celtics, despite being the
best team in the NBA, were ableto draft Len Baez number two.
Adding Len Bias to a team thatincluded Larry Bird, Kevin
McHale, and Robert Parish intheir primes was almost unfair.
(33:43):
Not as a Boston fan, but therest of the NBA saw it that way.
Bias was a 6'8, small forwardthat could move, could jump,
could shoot.
There's no telling what hisceiling could have been because
he never played an NBA game.
Celtic scouts compared himfavorably to Michael Jordan,
(34:04):
which is high praise, butobviously there's no way to
know.
He was drafted, he wasdiscussing endorsement deals
with Reebok, and then whencelebrating this momentous
occasion in his life, heoverdosed on cocaine and died.
There were people that thoughtit was a joke, that there was no
way Len Bias was dead.
(34:26):
I remember as a kid, you know,eight, nine years old, I didn't
understand what had happened tohim.
I just knew that they haddrafted this incredible player
and now he wasn't going to beplaying for them because he had
died suddenly.
When you think about Len Biasand Reggie Lewis, there is an
alternate timeline where the twoof them take the mantle of the
(34:48):
Celtics as Bird McHale andParrish start to get older, and
we don't have the 1990s Celticsthat were pretty much a joke in
the NBA.
Number two is Marcus Dupree.
Marcus Dupree was a footballplayer, a running back.
He is seen sometimes as thegreatest that never was due to
(35:11):
his incredible talent, physicalskills.
He played college ball for theOklahoma Sooners, and then
briefly for the University ofSouthern Mississippi before
skipping out on college to tryto go to the NFL, but they
wouldn't let you into the leaguewithout a certain amount of
seasons played in college.
(35:31):
So he went into the USFL in1984 and tore knee ligaments,
which pretty much ended hiscareer.
Although before then, he wasseen as kind of starting to
believe his own hype, gettinglazy, out of shape.
That being said, DuPri wasdrafted by the Los Angeles Rams
(35:52):
in the 1986 NFL draft.
He lost over a hundred poundsand got back into shape and
actually was signed by the Ramsin 1990.
He would end up playingsparingly for two seasons with
the Rams before getting cut inthe 1991 season.
In his NFL career, MarcusDupree rushed for a total of 251
(36:13):
yards.
Number three is TonyConigliaro.
We're going back a ways toBoston Red Sox player Tony
Conigliaro, Tony C.
He was a right fielder thatjoined the Boston Red Sox at the
age of 19.
He was a prodigy.
During his first four seasons,he batted 276 and averaged 26
(36:38):
home runs per year.
His downfall was nothing thatwas his fault.
He was hit by a pitch in hiseye.
And there are pictures, if yougo to look at Tony Conigliaro
after that incident, his eye,his left eye, is just all black
and blue and swollen shut, andit's awful.
He was never the same again.
He missed the rest of the 1967season, all of 68.
(37:02):
He came back in 69, and he wasbetter, but he was not what he
was before.
After such a promising startfor his first four seasons,
Conigliaro played a total ofeight seasons in the majors,
finishing with a career 264average and 166 home runs, and
(37:22):
he died young at the age of 45in 1990.
But that was due to a longissue with cardiovascular
disease.
I don't think it had anythingto do with that hit by pitch.
Number four is Greg Oden.
Greg Oden was a seven-foot-tallbasketball player.
He played for the University ofOhio State.
(37:45):
He was drafted first overall in2007 by the Portland
Trailblazers and was seen askind of like that successor to
Bill Walton, who had played forthe Blazers in the 70s.
Within a few months, Oden hadundergone surgery for micro
fractures in his knee.
He missed his entire rookieseason.
In his first two NBA seasons,he played 61 and 21 games, with
(38:11):
his knee issues becoming moreand more of a problem.
He then missed three more fullseasons, finally being signed by
the Miami Heat and playing forthem in the 2013-14 NBA season.
He was perceived as the nextbig thing, and in his career,
Oden played a total of 105 gamesout of a possible 574.
(38:35):
That's equal to 18% of possiblegames.
And finally, number five on thelist of top five could have
been athletes.
This one might becontroversial, but it's Bo
Jackson.
Bo Jackson was one of the mostfamous athletes on the planet in
the late 1980s.
(38:55):
A superstar in the NFL with theLos Angeles Raiders.
A superstar in Major LeagueBaseball with the Kansas City
Royals.
He is the only professionalathlete in history to be named
an all-star in two differentmajor sports.
In January 1991, in a playoffgame against the Cincinnati
Bengals, he suffered adevastating hip injury.
(39:17):
That immediately ended hisfootball career, but he still
played a few more years inbaseball for the Royals, the
White Sox, and the Angels.
It is a major could have been.
Think about it.
Those of you that are around myage, you remember Bo Jackson,
the Bo Knows commercials.
For all of that fame, he playeda total of 38 games in the NFL.
(39:42):
And he played a total of 694games in Major League Baseball.
It's hard to understate how bigof a deal he was for those that
didn't grow up with Bo Jackson.
He was so good and he wasbasically done at the age of 28.
Sure, he played a few moreseasons in Major League
Baseball, but he could haveeasily had another seven, eight,
(40:05):
nine amazing seasons in bothsports.
He could have gone down inhistory as the greatest athlete
ever, but we'll never knowbecause of that hip injury.
That'll wrap up the top fivecould have been athletes of all
time.
Which ones of these you thinkcould have been the biggest deal
that didn't quite make it?
The ones where the athletes gotlazy, I don't feel bad for, but
(40:29):
the ones that had injuries theycouldn't overcome, like Tony
Conigliaro, Greg Oden, BoJackson, or in the honorable
mentions Derek Rose, or BillWalton, or Sandy Koufax, it is
amazing to think what could havebeen with all of these
different athletes.
Today in the 2020s, we are allmore connected than ever.
(40:59):
Seriously, pretty much any ofyou out there could reach out to
me.
I've gotten so many greatcomments through YouTube, email,
social media, with texting,with social media and emails.
It is possible for you to findanybody, friend, stranger,
(41:22):
people you used to know, andreach out to them.
Oh, but this convenience, itwasn't always that way.
When I was a kid growing up inthe 1980s, if I wanted to talk
to a friend, I had to remembertheir phone number and call
their house.
And if they didn't answer thephone, I had to get on my bike
(41:42):
and ride to their house to seeif they were home.
There was no texting, where areyou?
But in between those Stone Agedays of the 1980s and present
day, there was a transformativeera in digital communication.
This was the 1990s.
It was when these technologiesthat we have today that we take
(42:06):
for granted or really commonwere first coming around.
What we're gonna do now iswe're gonna look at two of the
most groundbreaking innovationsfrom 1990s communication, and
those both come to us from theinternet.
So we're gonna look at chatrooms and instant messaging.
So hold on here while I boot upthe modem.
(42:29):
Oh man, nobody better grab thephone and throw me off the
internet.
When I think of chat rooms andinstant messaging, I start to
(42:51):
think of my first dalliance intothe internet, 1995-96.
But the concept of digitalcommunication, it goes back from
before the 90s.
I mean, you had beepers, youhad cell phones, car phones back
in the 80s that looked likebricks that you plugged into
your lighter.
It was during the 90s, though,that digital communication
(43:14):
entered the mainstream.
As home computers became morecommon and dial-up internet
providers like America Online,CompuServe, and Prodigy gained
popularity, so too with it camechatrooms and instant messaging.
So for those that don't knowwhat they are or want to trip
(43:34):
down memory lane, chatroomsallowed multiple users to
converse in real time.
Usually they were around sharedinterests.
You'd go on the AOL homepageand there would be all of those
colorful sidebars that haddifferent topics, sports,
politics, movies, music,whatever you name it.
(43:54):
You could click on it, youcould find chat rooms that were
kind of specific to what youwanted to talk about.
You'd create your fake name,your handle, and then you just
go in there.
Back then in the mid to late90s, these chat rooms were
usually unmoderated, meaning youwere kind of at the mercy of
what kind of people were inthere with you.
(44:17):
Because they were unmoderated,you could use pseudonyms and
fake identities.
You'd get people in the chatroom that would randomly want to
know who was in there, so you'dget the A slash S slash L
question for everyone to answer,which stood for age, sex,
location.
So I could easily put today 47male Cape Cod.
(44:42):
Or you could just pretend andput 17 female Indonesia and no
one's gonna know the difference.
Now, instant messaging, bycontrast, was more private and
one-on-one.
It allowed users to send andreceive short messages in real
time.
It was basically the precursorto text messaging, but over the
(45:05):
internet.
What I remember back then is Ithink you had to accept these
messages.
You couldn't just get peoplecoming at you.
Like if you wanted your chatsto be private or your account to
be private, you could be inchat rooms, but you'd have
people reaching out, want tochat in private.
Most of the time this wasinnocent stuff.
(45:27):
It was fun stuff.
People would really talk aboutlife and interests, and you'd
make new friends from all aroundthe world, which was brand new.
In the age when, like I said,you'd have to remember phone
numbers to call family andfriends or go to their houses.
Now, here it was, you could getsomeone that was thousands of
(45:49):
miles away popping up on yourcomputer screen, and you're
talking about favorite recipesor favorite movies or sports or
whatever your topic du jour was.
When it came to chat rooms andinstant messaging, there were a
few platforms that popularizedit.
First and foremost, the mosticonic one is America Online
(46:11):
AOL.
This was the one that I wasalways in if I was IMing people.
There were literally thousandsof themed chat rooms that
covered any topic you couldthink of.
It was almost like optionoverload, where you wanted to
try all these different rooms,but yet it seemed like there
wasn't enough time.
(46:32):
I came up in a time when it waswhen the weather was good, get
outside and stay out until thestreetlights come on.
So the idea of being able tokind of travel the world while
sitting at a desk in front of acomputer, it was foreign to me.
In 1997, AOL launched theirinstant messenger, AOL Instant
(46:54):
Messenger, also known as AIM.
This was the one that becamethe cultural touch tone with the
distinctive door opening andclosing sound.
That one.
And iconic away messages.
Those were fun because youcould create your own away
(47:15):
message.
So if someone saw that you werenot online or they wanted to
reach out to you and sent you amessage like, hey, what's up?
You could have an away messagesaying like you got sent back to
1955 by Doc Brown's DeLorean.
That kind of individuality andfreedom of expression was
totally brand new in that sensefor me.
(47:36):
It usually came down to musicand clothing as far as how I
expressed myself.
Now I could have stupid awaymessages to showcase my humor.
Another popular platform wasICQ, which was released in 1996
by Israeli company Mirabilis.
ICQ, the letters, were shortfor I Seek You.
(48:00):
Three different words.
It was one of the firststandalone instant messaging
programs.
ICQ allowed users to sendmessages, URLs, files, and even
play games.
On this platform, you wereassigned a unique number called
a UIN, user identificationnumber.
(48:21):
I wasn't big into ICQ, but theidea of sending files to someone
in the late 90s, those of youthat remember how slow internet
was back then, you'd be like,here's a song I want you to
listen to.
You'll get it in three days.
Or you'd send a picture thatstopped downloading halfway
through so you don't know whatit is.
(48:41):
There was also Yahoo Chat andMessenger.
They launched their chatroomsin the mid-90s, followed up with
Yahoo Messenger in 1998.
Much like AOL, these tools wereintegrated with Yahoo's larger
ecosystem.
So it allowed seamlesscommunication between email,
(49:02):
chat, and news platforms.
You out there of my age or ofthe age that you were on the
internet in the late 90s, didyou have a preferred platform
for chatrooms and IMs?
Or did you have accounts on allof these?
I basically stuck to AOL.
Another platform was the MSNMessenger, which was introduced
(49:25):
by Microsoft in 1999.
They quickly became a rival toAIM and ICQ, offering direct
integration with Hotmail.
It introduced some of thepopular features like emoticons,
status updates, and later videochats.
It was a whole new world inchat rooms and instant
(49:46):
messaging.
You had screen names so youcould make your own whatever you
wanted it to be.
I can't remember my very firstAOL screen name, but I can share
one with you.
In 1999, my screen name wasMillennium Y2J Man.
It was named for professionalwrestler Chris Jericho, who had
(50:10):
debuted in the WWF in the summerof 1999.
I know my sister Lindsay, whogot she was probably 12 or 13 at
the time, her screen name wasS301B6.
So if you break that down, it'sSOB316 for Stone Cold Steve
Austin, another professionalwrestler.
(50:32):
You also had buddy lists withinstant messaging, which that's
pretty self-explanatory.
You make friends online, youput them in a buddy list so you
know when they're online and youcan jump in and chat with them.
You have similar stuff stillwith social media today,
Facebook and Instagram.
They have these little greendots by someone's face on
(50:56):
Instagram letting you knowthey're on the app currently.
And Facebook, you can have asidebar with whoever's online.
Like I said before, there wereaway messages where you could
tell people what you were doingor where you were, whether real
or super fake.
In addition to file sharing,there were, I mentioned the
(51:16):
emoticons, the precursor toemojis.
They were basically done on thekeyboard.
That's where you got the smileyface, the colon and the
parentheses symbol.
You had to learn the emoticonlanguage.
So you could do smiley face,winky face, sticking your tongue
out, all this foolishness.
This is where you got a lot ofthe shorthand that is used in
(51:39):
texting to this day.
The first one I remember is L OL, which is laughing out loud,
not lots of love.
My favorite was the long one,was rolling on the floor,
laughing my ass off, RothleMayo.
Like the I thought of it as oneword instead of all these words
shoved into one.
Now it's to the point today,you've got so much laziness.
(52:02):
People can't write thank you,it's T Y.
They can't write happybirthday, it's HBD.
Boy, that took a lot of time.
They can't even write okay,it's just K.
Like, is that really saving youthat much time typing one less
symbol?
Oh, but despite theirpopularity, chatrooms and
instant messaging platforms hada lot of issues.
(52:23):
First and foremost was theprivacy in predators.
Like I said a few minutes ago,you could be anonymous, kind of
a fake person.
This made it easy for thesepeople to go on to teenage chat
rooms and be like, I'm also a15-year-old girl, but instead
there's some 50-year-old guydriving around in a white van
(52:44):
saying, Come meet me here.
This was also where you had thebeginnings of online
harassment, trolling, bullying,which now is just commonplace on
social media.
I know there was harassment andbullying before the internet,
but this just kind of has givenit a space to blow up where it's
just seen as, uh well, it'sjust the way life is.
(53:05):
Be ready for it.
You had security risks, whereif you could send files to
people, they could send them toyou.
You get Trojan horse viruses,phishing links that would start
to get into your bank accountsas they started to go online.
And another issue wasaddiction.
Addiction to the internet, toinstant messaging.
(53:27):
You need to be on there to chatwith your friends.
What about schoolwork?
Uh, that can wait.
I've got to talk to thesepeople in this chat room.
By the time I got on theinternet, I was a senior in high
school.
I had spent my childhood beingoutside and entertaining myself.
So the internet, much likevideo games, they never became
an addiction for me.
(53:48):
But I could easily see peopleyounger than me wanting nothing
more than to stay inside andtalk to people in faraway lands
rather than going out and doingstuff.
By the early 2000s, the goldenage of chatrooms and instant
messaging was fading.
The big part was the rise ofsocial media with MySpace in
(54:11):
2003, Facebook in 2004.
These were all in one site.
So you didn't need a separatechat room.
Around that same time, youstarted to get cell phones that
became more affordable, so textmessaging became more common
even before smartphones, whenyou had to press each number a
(54:32):
certain number of times to get adifferent letter to text, oh
the stone age days of texting.
And then smartphones camearound, so that became easier.
And a lot of it wasoversaturation and spam.
Many of the public chat roomswere overrun with bots and
advertisements, and it got to beyou lost the plot of why you
(54:53):
were there in the first place.
Over time, Yahoo closed itschatrooms in 2012, AIM got
discontinued in 2017, MSNMessenger merged into Skype by
2013.
But still to this day, the coreprinciples of chat rooms and
instant messaging, the real-timeconnection, personalization,
(55:14):
and community, they're integraltoday to apps like WhatsApp,
Discord, Slack.
For a generation raised ondial-up tones and away messages,
internet chat rooms and instantmessaging in the 90s, it
represents a formative period, atime when the internet felt new
and thrilling, filled withpossibility.
(55:36):
And while those platforms mightbe gone, their influence on
digital communication to thisday is undeniable.
But until next week, that'sgonna wrap up episode 204 of the
In My Footsteps Podcast.
Thank you for tuning in.
Thank you for making it to theend.
I hope you had a fun trip downmemory lane this week.
(55:58):
If this is your first timelistening to the podcast, I've
got 203 other episodes you cancheck out.
I've got hundreds of YouTubevideos, so there's plenty of
content for you to binge on.
I've spent countless hours andmonths and years cultivating my
never-ending portfolio ofcontent.
(56:19):
I've got so much content thatnext week I'm debuting something
new on the podcast.
It's going to be mixtape numberone, where I take similar
subjects I've talked about onprevious episodes and put them
into one larger episode, amixtape where I put those
subjects together.
Next week will be classic mallstores of the 70s, eighties, and
(56:43):
nineties.
I'll be there with a new introand outro, but this is something
different.
I have plans to do mixtapesevery now and then, because as
I've gotten to over 200episodes, I've noticed there are
segments that I could take andput together and make a whole
new different episode of thepodcast.
So it's not quite a greatesthits, but it is a semi-cheat.
(57:06):
It's a little bit like a clipshow.
But if you haven't heard thesesegments before, or if you've
wanted to hear them all in oneplace, you're gonna get it
starting next week.
And don't worry, the week afterwill be episode 205.
It's gonna be 1984, the year inpop culture, coming out
coinciding with the birthday ofmy twin sisters, Lindsay and
(57:27):
Ashley, so they'll get to knowall about what was going on in
the world the year they wereborn.
As I said at the beginning,we've got some housekeeping at
the end.
Five dollars a month if youwant to become a member on
Patreon, support me, support mycontent, check me out all over
social media, Instagram, myFacebook fan page for the
(57:49):
podcast, Threads, Blue Sky,subscribe on YouTube, visit my
homepage, ChristopherSetterlund.com, with links to
all nine of my books.
I'm still working on book ten,my Cape Cod History Anthology.
The holdup is that in order toself-publish and to do it right,
(58:10):
I need an ISBN number, whichwill allow bookstores to carry
it if they want to.
ISBN numbers are not freeunless you want the place you
buy it from to own the rights toyour book, which is not going
to happen.
But don't worry, sometime thissummer that book will be out and
you can check it out.
(58:30):
Happy birthday the day thispodcast goes live to my
stepfather Serpa.
That's his last name.
His first name is Chris, likeme.
We have the same initials.
I've known him now for 30years.
He's been one of the moststable male role models of my
life.
My father, my first stepfatherwere not the greatest male role
(58:52):
models.
So I feel blessed that I havehad some good male role models.
I already know what I got himfor his birthday.
Just in case he listens to itbefore he gets it, I'm not going
to say what it was.
So I hope you have the bestbirthday yet, and you don't work
too hard.
Also, happy birthday yesterdayfrom the day this podcast goes
(59:14):
live to my old friend Shayna.
She's one of the truly favoritepeople I've known in my life.
Her sense of humor is probablya little more wacky than even
mine.
The plan is to go and pay herand her family a visit the end
of next month for my vacation.
We can celebrate like it's oldtimes.
Except maybe this time when wego hiking, you can drag me
(59:37):
behind you in a wagon so I don'thave to walk with my ruined
legs.
And as for all of you else outthere, thank you so much for
listening wherever you are.
I hope you have stayed cool.
We are getting close to the dogdays of summer.
But luckily you can listen tothis podcast anywhere, like in
the AC.
I'll be back next week with thefirst ever.
(59:59):
Mixtape.
But until then, remember inthis life, don't walk in anyone
else's footsteps.
Create your own path and enjoyevery moment you can on this
journey we call life because younever know what tomorrow
brings.
This has been the In MyFootsteps Podcast.
I am Christopher Setterlund,but you already knew that.
(01:00:21):
I'll talk to you all againsoon.
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