Christopher Setterlund, In My Footsteps

Wednesday, June 24, 2026

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 250: Listener's Choice - Bad Acting In A Kmart Training Video, 1980s Soap Opera Fails, Worst Actors Ever(6-24-2026)

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We're celebrating 250 episodes of the podcast with a special Listener's Choice show. Everything on this show was voted on by you, the listeners!

It begins with a look at some soap opera fails from the 1980s. Daytime and primetime had their share of terrible shows. Cheap imitations, forced intrigue, boring show topics, all of that and more are here.

Attention Kmart shoppers! This week, we are looking at a hilariously poorly acted Kmart employee training video from 1992. It beats you over the head with their 'smart sales plan,' but remember it's not an extended warranty.

This week's Top 5 features the worst of the worst when it comes to acting. Poor box office performance, terrible critic reviews, loads of Razzie nominations. Some of these are obvious, maybe a few are surprising, but all make the list of worst actors ever.

And of course, there is a new This Week In History and Time Capsule looking back at the delicious invention of the ring donut.

Thank you so much to everyone who has listened over the years and helped me make it to 250 episodes of the podcast. Here's to the next 250!

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Helpful Links from this Episode

Listen to Episode 249 here

Monday, June 22, 2026

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #126: YouTube Stupid, Cat Food Breakfast, Kmart Music, etc.

1. Do real people work for YouTube? I ask this because I had a video get pulled from my channel this week. The reason? Underage kids drinking. Were there kids drinking? Yes. Was it alcohol? Of course not. This video is from Christmas 1995, and in a few scenes, we kids are sharing a bottle of sparkling cider. I know scandalous. I would hope that if it’s a human reviewing this private video, oh yeah, it’s private, so nobody can see it without the link. Anyway, I would hope that if it were a human, they would see or hear us mentioning sparkling cider. I am guessing it’s some sort of AI bot programmed to find things it thinks violate the site. Oh, but even better when the video, or any video, gets removed, there is no option to chat or email anyone to plead your case. Absolutely ridiculous. I chose the option of appealing the decision. Knowing this site, it won’t matter. I’ll end up having to cut out the scene they highlighted. Whatever. It was a family celebrating a holiday in the 90s and jokingly drinking sparkling cider. With some of the stuff I see on YouTube, shockingly, this video got pulled, but we’ll see what happens.

2. Luckily, when dealing with stress like the garbage I just mentioned with YouTube, I have something I can do. At work, we have something called Truvaga. It is a vagus nerve stimulator. For those who don’t know, the vagus nerve controls the ‘fight or flight’ part of your body. Truvaga is a two-minute session, is totally safe, and has me feeling like sunshine and rainbows inside of 40 minutes. The only problem with that time frame comes when I do a session and then stop to run an errand. If my stress level drops into ‘everything is wonderful’ territory while out somewhere, it changes things. For example, a few months ago, I stopped at the supermarket on my way home from work after using Truvaga. While I was inside, the overwhelming peace and calm took over. Do you want to know how I realized that? My Fitbit buzzed and asked if I was out for a walk, and if I wanted it to start tracking it as exercise. That means I was wandering the store in such a euphoric state for so long that my Fitbit thought I was on a walk. Foolishness like that aside, I love the Truvaga, but it also costs nearly $500. That means I will use it when I can at work, but when it comes to buying my own, I’d probably need a separate Truvaga to help me after I saw the bill for it.

3. Most days, I don’t feel my age. There are some though where it becomes painfully clear that I was a teenager 30 years ago. This week, I was driving home from work and stopped at the supermarket for something quick. I pulled into the parking lot with Prodigy’s Firestarter blasting. A nice pounding techno gem from the 1990s. I parked next to a 70-something guy who was loading his bags into his trunk. He looked at me with annoyance. In an instant, I was 18 again and felt that sense of GenX rebellion I used to feel all the time. I wanted to sit there and let the song blast until he drove away, but I had my fun. I almost wanted to thank him for looking so upset with my music and then tell him the 60s called and were looking for his unnecessary moral outrage toward the youth.

4. If you haven’t seen the show Dark on Netflix, I cannot recommend it enough. It is 3 seasons and a total of 26 episodes. The show was on originally from 2017 to 2020, and in the simplest terms is about time-travel. It is so much more, though. It has such a layered and interesting plotline with loads of detailed characters. The show rewards you for paying attention. It’s not a show to watch in the background while scrolling your phone. You will probably become lost if you do that. I’m trying not to spoil anything. You get great acting, great characters, and great music. With the time-travel, there are a lot of classic 1980s songs. The highest compliment I can give this show is that I actually binged a lot of it over a weekend. Usually, I try to watch one episode of a show per night to fully digest it. Dark was so good that I needed to keep going to follow the story. If you can, definitely add Dark to your future watch list on Netflix.

5. Speaking of Netflix, I have had my subscription back for just over 6 months. I got it to watch the final season of Stranger Things. In that time, I have watched so many excellent shows. Having just finished Dark, it’s time for a new show, and Netflix seems to know my tastes now. I feel like I’ll find another winner. In the last 6 months, these are the shows I’ve watched: Stranger Things, Stranger Things: Tales from ‘85, Cobra Kai, 11.22.63, Yellowjackets, His & Hers, Untamed, The Burroughs, The Beast In Me, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, Castle Rock, and Dark. Every one of them I found engaging and entertaining. I am sure that at some point I’ll start a show that I’ll not like as much and probably give up on, but as of right now, I’m on a hot streak, at least when it comes to my own entertainment.

6. Every now and then, the old me comes back out. I was spending a day recording podcasts and doing other content when I had a sudden urge to go to the gym. In the time before COVID, that was not unusual. I’d be at the gym 5 or more days a week. COVID got me used to sitting around, and it has been tough snapping out of it. It also doesn’t help that I am now in my late 40s. People’s energy levels naturally begin dropping with age. You have to work harder to do the same things. The fact that I had a desire to hit the gym was a great sign. I went and had maybe the best workout of the year. Nearly an hour, and my body was like pudding when I got home. I am not sure how often I can pull that off, but I think if I just get back to being consistent, those killer workouts won’t seem so out of the ordinary anymore.

7. One day this week, a coworker and I entered the office. We began smelling something off. We both looked at each other, confused, trying to figure out what it was. I said it smelled a bit like cat food. It turned out to be my boss’s breakfast burrito. No, it didn’t have cat food in it. I now forget what he said was in it, but I was a mix of feeling bad and wanting to laugh hysterically. I didn’t bring it up again. I mean, who wants to hear that their breakfast smells like cat food? Unless it actually is cat food, then you’ve got bigger issues.

A new flavor of burrito?

8. This week, I recorded the 250th episode of my podcast. One of the GenX nostalgia topics that I covered was a hilariously poorly acted Kmart employee training video from 1992. I linked to it. An unexpected find when researching Kmart in general, though, was a series of their old muzak tapes that you’d hear when walking through the stores. I found an entire playlist at Archive.org with dozens of such tapes. It’s a lot of the soft rock music you’d expect, along with the voice-over person explaining current Kmart deals and thanking you for coming into the store. Each tape is between one and two hours long. I don’t suggest spending an entire night listening to them, but click the playlist and spend a few minutes listening. Maybe you will be transported back to the blue light special days of yore when Kmart ruled retail.

9. I am lucky enough to live fairly close to the Cape Cod Rail Trail. Unless the weather is terrible, I try to find a way to be on that trail for a walk at least once a week. You get to be close to nature. You get to see loads of people enjoying themselves and the scenery. Typically, you see solo people, maybe a few in a group. This week, while on the trail, I got to see two different huge groups in two different areas. One was a group of runners doing what I believe was a fun-run 5K on the trail. They were coming at me early in my walk. It was quite a crowd, probably around 50 runners. There were a lot of waves as I went by. Then on the way back, now probably more than 4 miles into my walk, I spotted one of the largest gatherings of bicycles I’ve seen. There had to be between 30 and 40 coming down a street. One by one, they entered the bike trail. I think some of the vehicles were losing their minds over the wait, but oh well, it is summer. I got ahead of the crowd as they all gathered, probably to go over the riding plans. I think they were from a nearby summer camp because there were a few adults and a lot of kids. When the line of bikes started passing me on the bike trail, I felt like it took a full 2 minutes for them to all go by.

10. The Summer Solstice happened this weekend. It is the longest day of the year in terms of actual light. On Cape Cod, we had 15 hours and 12 minutes of daylight. I tend to have delusions of grandeur on the longest day of the year. It’s as if I am going to spend an inordinate amount of time outside doing something simply because it’s the longest day of the year. That never ends up happening. The best was the year that I wanted to run one mile in each of the 15 towns on mainland Cape Cod. I figured I had plenty of time since the sunrise was a little after 5am and the sunset would be close to 8:30pm. I did run, but not in every town. I did a nice long run that, by coincidence, took me from one town to another. Once reality set in, I was toast. I would have run at least 15 miles, plus driving everywhere from Falmouth to Provincetown. On a good day, it takes about 1 hour and 45 minutes to go from Falmouth to Provincetown, so at the beginning of summer, it would be longer. In the end, it was an ‘eyes bigger than your stomach’ type of thing. This year, I sat around and didn’t do much, and loved every second of it.

11. Summer arrived, and all was calm to start. The weather was perfect, and because many schools don’t get out until early next week, the traffic wasn’t bad either. On Cape Cod, it is a condensed mad dash of a summer annually. From Memorial Day through Independence Day, the weekends grow gradually busier while the weekdays are pretty normal. Then Fourth of July hits, and it’s 6 weeks of insanity. Don’t even think about making a left turn until Labor Day. Sometime in July, the weather flips. The lower humidity of late spring vanishes and is replaced by sweltering temperatures routinely in the mid and upper 80s, and humidity that makes you feel like you took a shower in your clothes. Stock up on bug spray, too, as mosquitoes, ticks, and later greenhead flies dominate the landscape. It must sound like I don’t enjoy summer, and that’s not totally untrue. Summer is my 3rd favorite season, behind fall and spring. So yeah, the heat, humidity, and crowds don’t paint my ideal picture. I do enjoy everything being open. Winter on Cape Cod can be pretty solitary, so seeing everything busy is good. As I do every year, though, I will be counting down the days until the end of August when the crowds begin to disperse, and then we locals get our season to enjoy Cape Cod .

A sunset during last summer in Dennis, MA

12. Father’s Day was this weekend. It is always a bittersweet day. I have trouble celebrating because my father was and still is a bad person. He is lazy, selfish, a professional victim, someone who only cares about his kids when they can give him money. I learned so much about what not to be as a man from my biological father. I come back to the good men that I have had in my life who picked up the slack of a bum. It makes the bitterness a little easier to swallow when I think of so many second fathers who helped me grow into a functioning adult. I feel bad because I see some good fathers, yes, but I also see way more terrible ones. Not being a father myself, I cannot say for sure if I’d be a good one. I’d like to think that common sense and common decency would make me an average father at least. The anger and resentment toward my biological father, I think, would inspire me to simply be better than him. I envy family and friends who have good fathers. I’d love to have had a dad who took me fishing, taught me how to fix cars, and gave me general life tips. I’d be grateful for the older I get. I didn’t get that. I got a guy who stood me up when making plans, constantly begged for money, quit jobs to avoid paying child support, and treated alcohol better than his children. So Happy Father’s Day to the good dads out there. To my biological father, you are the sum total of the terrible choices you made in life, and karma is showing you that now.

Sunday, June 21, 2026

The Life of an Uncle

I am not a father. I am, however, writing this on Father’s Day.

It’s fitting because it is a bittersweet day for me due to the lack of a good father in my own life. I am blessed to have had several second fathers, though. Positive role models that showed me that although many men are awful, it is not all of them.

Although I have no children of my own, I have had experience in putting the lessons my second fathers taught me to use. For despite not being a father, I am a proud uncle.

I have six nieces and nephews. Kaleigh, Emma, Liam, Landon, Lucas, and Sylvie. Three boys, three girls. I have been an uncle for more than half of my life and cherished every moment.

I was there the day that most of them were born. I was there for many birthdays, holidays, and other important moments in their lives. I did my best to be a fun and positive presence any time I was around them. That deep emotional connection with them as children is a double-edged sword, though.

As I said, I am not a father. This means I am none of their fathers. I am an uncle. Sure, it’s an important role, but it’s not THE important role. Only time will tell if any of the three men who are the fathers of the six nieces and nephews turn out to be positive or negative. It doesn’t look great, but there is still time.

I don’t know the pressures or the life changes that come from parenthood. I do know that no child asks to be born. It is the responsibility of the parents to care for and nurture their children. You don’t have to be the greatest parent ever to be a net positive in your child’s life. You just have to start by showing up and showing you care.

As an uncle and the child of a terrible father, it hit me on two fronts. I wanted to show that I was a positive role model. I also wanted to show that I was a better uncle than my biological father was a parent.

The double-edged sword I mentioned a moment ago comes from attachment and remembering your role. For as much as I loved spending time with my nieces and nephews, it was always a bit superficial. Not like I was pretending to love being around them, but more that things were meant to stay fun and light.

I am not their fathers. I am their uncle. Growing up, my uncles were fun distractions from daily life. They didn’t tackle anything serious. Those problems were for parents to help with. An uncle needs to know his role and be a fun distraction, but in the end, that’s where their role typically ends.

When I was a kid, I remember fun times with my uncles, Bob, Eric, Steve, and John. As I grew up, though, I started seeing them less and less. Not because of anything bad, I just wasn’t their kid. They would be at holidays or other random occasions, but in my teens and early 20s, I was focused on getting my own life started. My uncles and aunts were seen far less than when I was little. That’s just the way it goes.

I was lucky that my oldest nieces, Kaleigh and Emma, lived in close proximity to me when they were growing up. They were either right down the street or right down the hallway. I was able to share probably hundreds of memories with them.

Walking the mall with little Kaleigh in her stroller. People would stop and mention how cute she was and what proud parents my sister Kate and I must be. I would laugh, Kate would be grossed out.

Sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my laptop open. Little Emma sitting beside me as I showed her classic McDonald’s commercials from the 1980s. In the days when she was hesitant to get close to anyone besides her parents, I took it as a major badge of honor that she liked spending time with me.

My nephews Liam and Landon were born at different times in my life. Liam lived further away. Landon was born as I was moving into a new place. Thus, I was more disconnected from them. This always made me feel bad. I wanted to be the fun uncle, the favorite uncle, to all of the kids. Feeling more connected to some than others was never something I intended. Life just happens that way.

When Lucas was born, I made it a point to set things right. I was there when he was born. I did my best to visit him and Liam at my sister Lindsay’s house, even though it was a bit of a hike to get there.

Time was ticking away. I was 33 when Lucas was born, and I had my doubts as to whether I’d ever have kids of my own. I tried to be the fun uncle. Always looking to make the kids laugh, do stupid voices, and tell funny jokes. These were the things I had learned from my Uncle Bob. He was and still is the gold standard of the fun uncle.

I always had to remind myself that I was the uncle, not the father. If I disagreed with something one of the fathers did, it wasn’t my place to say anything. I never wanted to hear someone tell me to mind my business because I wasn’t their father.

That reality led to my having less of a role in the lives of my nieces and nephews as they got older. Much in the same way that it happened with my uncles, and probably a lot of your uncles. You don’t lean on an uncle for answers to difficult situations as a teen and young adult. That is what parents are for.

I’d watch, so close, but so far away, as the kids grew up. They started and finished high school and college. They got their first jobs, cars, and relationships. As proud as I was, and still am, it comes back to that bittersweet feeling. I am not as important to them as they are to me.

That’s not unusual. It’s just something that uncles and aunts have to cope with as the kids get older. They stay closer to their parents because that’s how it should be. Being an uncle means your seat gets further from the stage, the older the kids get.

My youngest niece, Sylvie, was born when I was 41. She is almost 8 years younger than Lucas. It was like starting the clock over again.

Having children in your life can make you feel young and old, all at the same time. You feel young because you watch them learn and discover, and start to become who they will be. You feel old because, as they grow up, you feel your own clock ticking.

I try to be the best uncle I can be to Sylvie, who is 7. She’s my final excuse to be a foolish man-child for a little longer. I know that eventually she will drift away, not from anything bad, just because all kids grow up and develop their own lives. It might not be tomorrow or the next day, but it will come someday. I just have to enjoy each moment as they come.

It happened with Kaleigh, Emma, and Liam. It’s happening with Landon, who just graduated from high school. It’s like I want more time with them all, but I’m lower on the ladder of importance. Parents, grandparents, friends, partners, they all occupy more important real estate in the lives of my older nieces and nephews. That’s how it should be, and I have done my best to accept that.

Despite being an uncle for more than half of my life, I still don’t have a clue what it means or what I should be doing. I never went off on adventures with my uncles, except for rare times when my Uncle John took me to Friendly’s. I don’t know if I should have done more as the kids grew up, or less. I don’t even know if I was or am good at whatever an uncle’s role is.

What exactly is an uncle anyway? The brother of your parent. They are adjacent to the important stuff in your life. Maybe they were there a lot more than you remembered as a kid. Maybe they were more like a guest star who showed up every now and then.

Maybe it’s not about the quantity but the quality? I don’t remember meeting my Uncle Eric until I was 12 and my cousin Patrick was born. He went on to be someone whom I told I wished had been my father.

My uncles Eric and Bob have each attended more of my author events than my biological father. My uncle Steve was by my side for several grueling road races. These men showed up. Sometimes, as a human, no matter your age, you just want someone you care about to show up. They did, my father didn’t. I try to do the same for my nieces and nephews and hope that I have succeeded more times than I’ve failed.

I am not a father. I am, however, a proud and grateful uncle to six wonderful people. They are all different, unique, and special. They are all at different points in their lives, but all have blue skies filled with hope and opportunity ahead of them.

As an uncle, you have to know your role. It’s to be a positive presence above all else. You want the kids to be glad you were there and waiting in anticipation of when you’ll be back. That’s a big reason why I tended to rile them all up and then leave. Fun uncles gotta fun.

Decades from now, when I am old and worn out, I hope that my nieces and nephews reach out every now and then to make sure I am still alive. I hope they do a better job than I do at keeping in touch. Uncle Bob I hear from a few times a month. I haven’t seen my Uncle Steve in many months. My Uncle Eric sadly passed 3 years ago, before I could say goodbye.

You only get one life. I’d much rather be the fun uncle who gets steely-eyed glares from parents and grandparents because I let the kids do whatever they want. It beats being the lame, boring, or worse, absentee uncle that doesn’t know the kids' middle names.

I hope that my nieces and nephews know that even as my role in their lives gets smaller, I am still cheering as loudly from the nosebleed seats as I was on the sidelines. I think it is important to make that known rather than just hoping that it is.

I have been an uncle for more than half of my life. I will be one for the rest of it as well. Being a positive male presence in their lives is very important. If they need me, I am there. If they don’t, I will be first in line to hear all about how their lives are going when they do.

Kaleigh, Emma, Liam, Landon, Lucas, and Sylvie. I am so proud and blessed to be your uncle and to call you family. Just know that I am never far if you need me, and your fun, some might say crazy, uncle loves you very much.

Wednesday, June 17, 2026

In My Footsteps Podcast Episode 249: Weird 80s Home Workout Tapes, 1960s Music Scandals, Elvis' Last Concert, Paul McCartney(6-17-2026)

Donate to the GoFundMe for my feature-length film, The Cabin!

Some odd home workout tapes from the 80s. Some scandalous music moments from the 60s. The final concert from the King.

Episode 249 ushers in summer with a fresh blast of GenX nostalgia.

It all begins with fitness. Everyone wants a killer summer body, but are these workouts going to get you there? We look at some weird 1980s home workout tapes and just why they are seen as weird. Teens, seniors, exotic dancers, horseback riders, and more have their grainy moment in the sun.

Elvis Presley was the King of Rock and Roll. His legacy is that of one of the most important and influential musicians ever. Every beginning also has an end. This week, we look at Elvis' final concert in 1977 and how it affected his legacy after his death mere weeks later.

What makes something scandalous? That term might be used loosely in this week's Top 5. We discuss some of the music scandals of the 1960s. Mysterious murders? Yes. Possible naughty lyrics? No. What other scandals made the list?

We have a brand-new This Week In History and Time Capsule that will look at the life and career of music legend Paul McCartney for his 84th birthday.