Crime in Sports - #356 - A Disastrous Double Down - Tas & Ben Pappas

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

This week, we check out a couple of wild men. A pair of skateboarding Aussie brothers, who shot to the top of the rankings while doings copious amounts of drugs, and trying to start fist fights with Tony Hawk. This all leads to even more drugs, bad marriages, smuggling, jail, and murder! It's a wild ride, that seems to have one unpredictable thing, after another, including how each brother ends up!Be a pro athlete at age 12, find a taste for fame & drugs, then murder your prostitute girlfriend, while on a meth binge with Tas & Ben Pappas!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. Each week on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, now available wherever you get your podcasts, you'll hear strange, dark, and mysterious stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between. So go listen to Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay, indeed, Jimmy. Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another insane, obviously, edition of Crime and Sports. We have a fun one for you because we have a couple of Australians today here. A couple? They're brothers. It's a brother act. You can't break them up.

They're both a disaster. One more than the other. But we have it all for you today. I mean, this is crazy Australian quotes. They're the best quotes. Australians have the – you quote an Australian, that's just always going to be the best quote. It's going to be hilarious. Between the quotes, there's death, there's destruction, there's drugs, there's murder.

We have it all for you today. Sorry about Sergio Mitre last week. That's one that I feel like, holy shit, that was such a wild episode. I almost feel like we need to go, yeah, I understand you probably weren't tuning in to hear about something like that. But you know what? Fuck it, it happens. do we do our best uh very quickly you want tickets for live shows the rest of the year shut up and give me murder.com is where you get those also merches up new merch all the time new things that merch goes on they add all the time so get in

there check that out you definitely want to go over to patreon patreon.com slash crime in sports and you want to get all the bonus stuff there anybody five dollars or above you are going to get everything whole back catalog there's over 200 episodes or i think there's almost 200 there's a shitload of bonus episodes on there for you and you get new ones every other week yeah it's the best bargain going and uh new ones this week which you're going to get for crime and sports we're going to do something a little bit different i love it because we've been talking about actual sports the last couple of them and you know we like to wander on patreon we're going to just talk about something so much so fun the hardest

i've ever seen jimmy laugh we're going to talk about stairway to stardom which is a public access show with people singing horribly from the late 70s to the early 90s. It's the most, a lot of people have talked about it. We're not the first people to discover this or anything. It's been out there. But holy shit, is it funny. We'll play some clips of the terrible songs.

Oh, great. And we will piss ourselves laughing. It's going to be great. Then for Small Town Murder, it's that time again, the prisoner dating game, everybody. Line up. holy shit. Our most popular by far, Patreon, going here. The prisoner dating game. Can't wait, everybody.

It's so good. So get in there. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you get a shout out at the end of the show. You bet. Where Jimmy will butcher your name, especially if it's Italian or Eastern European. So... I apologize.

or your name, especially if it's Italian or Eastern European. So that said, let's get right into this with a couple of Australian. First of all, OK, Australians, whenever we do an Aussie episode, they're always extra crazy. Yeah. Ben Cousins, the dude who pissed in his mouth. Right. The bubbler. It's there's it's always nuts with an Aussie.

You know what I mean? To get our attention over here, it has to be extra crazy. That's the thing. Certainly. Because we're pretty far away from you. So it takes a while for information to swim on over here from across there. The crazier stuff travels. It paddles faster.

It paddles faster. Crazier stuff gets on a plane. Yeah. Comes over here. With meth up its ass. Yeah. First class with meth up its ass. Whereas the other stuff, not so much. So this, we're going to talk about a couple of brothers, and they're Australian skateboarders.

So not a lot of sports, obviously, this week. It will be mainly just insanity because it's hard to talk about sports with skateboarding. Like, oh, he came in third in a ramp contest. Okay, great. And that's the whole thing. So there's not much there. So you want to talk about crazy. Obviously, skateboarders are crazy.

They're the nuttiest. They're the nuttiest. You add them and then you mix in Australian with it and you have, holy shit, you have a couple of wild people. And it's Taz and Ben Pappas. Taz? Taz. T people. And it's Taz and Ben Pappas. Taz? Taz, T-A-S. Taz and Ben Pappas.

Well, that's how Tasmania is spelled, right? With an S? With an S, yeah. Tassou, T-A-S-O-U. Tassou, Micah Pappas, and Benjamin James Pappas. They really, let's name him. Something very crazy. Something just totally out there.

And then Benjamin James for you. That's it. And maybe it's family stuff because Taz is the older one. He's born in 1975. And then Benjamin James is 1978. Maybe they got religious in that year and just hit them with some biblical shit. Who knows? We're getting on some biblical shit.

They're both from Melbourne, so that's where they are. Melbourne here. They're born to a poor family. Their family doesn't have shit here in Melbourne. They have nothing. Taz will say we were basically bogans, B-O-G-U-N-S, which is Australian for white trash. It is. That's Australian for trailer trash there.

That's what that is. Bogans. It's a good word. Yeah, it's a decent one. So we're going to get a lot of fun Australian slang in this one. Terrific. Because much like the Cockney English give us the Northern English there, give us some real fun slang up there, too. Because that's kind of where their trash is, from what I hear.

From what I'm told, yeah. From what I'm told, we don't know. So this is, I feel like, we're going to get fun stuff, the Aussie version of that here. Their parents are Bill and Kerry, and his father's Egyptian. Maybe that's where Tassau came from or Tassu. Probably. Family name. He's born in Egypt, but he's Greek.

Huh. So he's a Greek Egyptian. And lives in Australia. And lives in Australia. Yeah. And he's going to Mars. So this is just very different places. I could throw anything in there.

It's a ticket to Mars. It's a ticket to Mars. It's like a Mad Lib of where he's from, what he is, where he's from, and then where he's going to. It makes no sense, but okay. Probably missing terribly, a big swing and a miss, but you can almost picture exactly what this man's like. Yeah, probably, yeah. He sounds like the shawarma man when he talks, that I do now. It's a fascinating individual. a big swing and a miss but you can almost picture exactly what this man's like yeah probably yeah he sounds like the shawarma man when he talks yeah i do know it's a fascinating individual he absolutely will tell you you know i make for you or sign say closed he's the sign he's the hairiest

man in australia yeah she say she have money that no give to us she's that guy no give to us. She's that guy. No give to me. She no give to me. That no give to me. Fucking, so, his mother is an Australian, just a white lady Australian here. Hell yeah. She's a caterer, the mom.

His parents separated, though, after, when they were young. So, they grew up with their parents separated. And Taz says, mom was a young mother,

you know. She made some mistakes dad would come home and realize she just left us there alone and then boom there'd be fireworks so mom would run out leave the kids alone and then he was pissed that they were alone then he was pissed they were alone where i don't know he where he was to begin with he's mad mom's gotta pay her own fucking bills i don't know know. He said they fought all the time, though. Taz says she'd attack him, and then he'd hit her back. She'd smash him with an ashtray.

It was bonkers. Holy. Yeah, this is West Virginia, Australia we're talking about here. Smash him with an ashtray, and then he'd punch her? This is the whites here. This is what it sounds like. Well, she'd attack him him he'd punch her and then she'd say i need some extra firepower and go back for an ashtray um he also says quote i was

sexually abused by my auntie's friend when i was like five or six years old what the fuck my auntie vicky lived with us and three oh and there was some prick who came came round and ended up sexually abusing me. Fucking pedo. So. Oh, my God. Yeah. Obviously, that's terrible. So that's going to that's that's going to, you know, lay out a certain.

Certainly rewire your brain. That's what I mean. That's that's going to that's going to reshuffle the cards a little bit there. Absolutely. You know, you're you're Everyone's putting their hand back in. We've... After that. The king's out.

Yeah, but it's not great. Yikes. He said, at the same time I was wetting the bed and the parents were fighting and I had this babysitter who would rip me out of the bed by the hair and bash me around because I'd wet the bed and shit. Yeah, because this kid's been abused. Yeah, and it just keeps perpetuating here. I had a lot of pretty shitty things happen to me and i never told anyone so bastard jesus and he probably as a kid that age i don't know if he felt like well

mom just hit dad with an ashtray so their problems are they have their own problems i mean i can't i don't know how to breach this at this point with them, you know? Yeah. Like a kid needs to have a safe, feel like they have a safe alley to walk down to tell somebody this type of shit or else they're not going to. And if, you know, if you're terrified of mom and dad at the same time and don't want to cause any strife because it might lead to implements being used. May cause more warfare in the house. May cause more warfare in the house. He's seeing how relationships are between adults, and then he's seeing how relationships are between adults and children by them yelling at him. And then he sees the other relationships with adults and children by this fucking dirtbag that comes around to touch him. It's fucking disgusting.

It really is. Horrible. So that's awful right away. So, I mean. Yeah. He's got no chance. We already have a bad opening for a person you know somebody's shitting the stew yeah we talk about you know this person didn't have a floor they had a dirt floor this person used an outhouse you put this kind of right in the mix there once

they're they're five years old and mom and dad are physically fighting and you're getting molested by some fucking scumbag. This is not great. He says, my family was very dysfunctional. We were hurting as kids from a lot of the fights we saw. I always felt like I just wanted to get out of where I lived and I wanted to prove myself. I ended up having what I felt like a chip on my shoulder because of it all.

Also, I wanted to get to america and become something welcome to the club my friend yeah i would also want to get continents away from these fucking people too wouldn't you want to get continents away from your upbringing i literally want to get as far away from possible uh yeah like a day on a plane like a whole day just keep flying a plane can't even make it there on one tank of gas stop in hawaii that's where i'm at right now yeah i don't care like that's wow i'm telling you man that's a lot i need to run a 747 out of gas and then keep going and then keep fucking going and then i might get in a car and drive for another four or five days i'm not sure yet because i could do that once i get there holy because this is ridiculous so that uh taz and

ben would just basically go run around the neighborhood causing mischief because nobody was watching them their parents either weren't home or fighting with each other so no one cares and i'd rather be in trouble than listen to that shit yeah um he said it was just taz said it was just the neighborhood a crew would steal a car and we'd see it just sitting in a paddock so one of us would chuck a rock at it and then we'd break a window and then it'd get lit on fire that's a pretty big escalation you need more than chuck a rock to breaking a window before you're setting a car ablaze. I think chucking a rock is like, I hit it with a rock,

man. Crazy. It's already, it's already stolen. We may as well destroy. I just feel like that's a, he skipped a couple of steps is all I'm getting at. That's all.

He really skipped a couple of steps there. So eventually skateboarding is what they got into because they seem like they're looking for something that's dangerous you know what i mean it's something that's kind of cool fringy on the edge and you know it's a lot of um especially around that age too because the late 80s and early 90s like when i was a kid and got into skateboarding is like 1990 and that seems like about when they got into it too um is was a kid and got into skateboarding is like 1990. And that seems like about when they got into it, too, is was a pretty cool fucking era for skating. As far as there was a lot of videos coming out, you could see people skating. There were skate shops popping up like bike shops would have a big skateboard section now. And you can like go and look at boards.

And there was a there was just a lot going on that you could do. It was just a lot going on that you could do. Boards were changing. There was also a time of change for marketing where graphics and a logo and a brand was a big deal to a lot of things, but nothing more than skating. Skate brands and skate graphics, the stickers, all that shit was so cool. The shirts, the stickers, all that shit, yeah. There was a certain thing about it at that time that it was becoming like a – it was kind of blowing up in its own little weird microcosm. So I could see that. Now, I didn't know it was doing that in Australia too.

I had no idea. I was doing it in New York, but I didn't know about Australia. A very small prism I was looking at. Yeah. It was very local. It would read Thrasher or whatever, but outside of that, it was skating around Wappinger Falls, New York, and that was that. He said skateboarding was always something special, Taz says. And he was asked by an interviewer, was it an escape from what was going on at home?

Was that part of it? And he said, yeah, but it was just the fun, too. He said, we always were the way we were, you know, a couple of bogans who are attracted to skateboarding. Just like a lot of Americans that are attracted to skateboarding. That's what it is. It's kind of, well, I can do this and you can't. So it's one of those things. It feels cool to be able to land a kickflip.

It really feels good because you're looking around and you're like, none of you can do that. You know how long it would take you from getting on this board to doing what i just did so fucking long that's weird i because and it looks wild because yeah on the as somebody doesn't do it same way yeah yeah yeah when you don't do it though am i attracted to this shit when you see somebody do it you can't the board moves so fast you can't see what the fuck just happened no no but and then all of a sudden it's back on its wheels and that person just planned every movement that that board just made that's fucking crazy it's impressive and it looks really it looks really

wild but like i said i think it's like it is a lot like stand-up like yeah you have to be into it and fall and bruise yourself a lot before you look really cool and then anybody looking at you that goes oh i want to do that you're like yeah motherfucker get some bruises then because it's gonna it's gonna take a lot of bruises to be able to get up here and do that 20 minutes you just saw or land that and people that don't do it when they when you get the laugh you don't just you don't see what the board just did to make that laugh happen no no no you just see words and then laugh you don't know what happened you saw the board doing some flippy shit, and now you're standing on it, and it's rolling again. You're like, God damn, that was impressive.

I stood in an alley for a long time trying to do this with each of these words meaning something. No shit. So they were also pretty goddamn good at it. Taz really has no fear, basically. So lack of fear is a really good thing in skateboarding. You can't have – fear will cause you to not do things and to pull – just not do things as well. Skateboarding, if you have no fear, you go balls out. You're more likely to actually land things.

It's weird. And hesitation in a moment that's a snap. It'll fucking break your neck. You'll fuck it up yeah if you get scared when you're you have to be able to walk that rope like a like i guess like a like if you're go if you're fucking say you're tail sliding down a fucking down a um a handrail yeah if you for a second think oh shit what am i doing and lose your balance you're totally fucked it's like it's like those guys who are doing uh motorcycle racing and they're two inches off the ground going around a curve.

If they think, what am I doing right now, and move a little bit, they're going to die. It just has to be a, you know, your brain does it automatically. Yeah. So they used to refer to themselves as Barnes and Elias, who are, that was their nicknames for each other. They are the rival sergeants in platoon. That is, I believe, Tom Barringer and Willem Dafoe in platoon, I believe.

That's very funny. That's who they're going after here. They said that in the one documentary about them there. And they said, Ben would think it through. This is what Taz says. Ben would think it through. I would just go for it. Yeah, so Taz is the kid who's like i'll go off that rope swing before we figure out how deep it is i'll he's

that guy whereas ben's like let me look and see how this works first and then i'll try it how old is this rope yeah how old is this rope are there rocks down there maybe we should you know let's go let's go poke around a bit kind of wait do you think this holds yeah what do you think here um ben called his brother's attitude uh barnsing it i guess i don't know if he's yeah that's one of the careful guy in platoon i don't know because beringer's the bad guy willem defoe's a fucking maniac he's the guy who crawls out of the tunnels and shit i don't think i've ever seen platoon i think you okay is arnold schwarzenegger in it no no no that's that's no that's predator you're thinking of predator they came out at the same time though same year six months apart or something platoon is charlie sheen oh vietnam

movie oliver stone directed charlie sheen it was a serious charlie sheen movie that's it was his i want nothing to do with it. Oh, Platoon's a good movie. Is it? Platoon's a good movie, yeah. Charlie Sheen plays a college boy who signed up to go to Vietnam because he didn't think it was right that poor kids had to do it. And so now he's in Vietnam and it sucks.

And everyone's like, you fucking dummy. I wouldn't have come here. Fuck that shit. Yeah. So everyone thinks he's an idiot, basically. And he's writing letters home saying how shitty it is is and his one sergeant's a sadistic fuck and then the other guys it's it's a long story but you know it's a whole movie it's a whole movie it's like two hours it takes two hours to tell the story so never mind maybe i'll watch it you should watch

it's a good movie anyway i'll give it a chance so um uh taz said, you can't just kick the doors open is what he said. So I don't know what that means, but whatever. So they ended up getting some sponsorships and went on some kind of skating tours here. And right away, they're hanging around skaters. One thing skaters have is drugs, especially back then. I don't know about now, but back then. Oh, they're still doing it. I'm sure. But I know back

then that was like a big part of skating because it was like, oh, you can do drugs and still do this. This is cool. You know, as a matter of fact, people will like you more. Yeah. And you might do it. You might come up with some ideas because it's kind of art. Well, because it's kind of artistic. It's not just all athletic. It's kind of like in football, you know, doing a bunch of drugs the night before probably isn't a good thing for you but in skating it might be who knows so they started being around drugs and all that sort of thing um here is taz he says we were the groms of on the first alba skateboards tour we were we were in the team van when these guys were talking about all the coke they were doing and smoking bongs and drinking, but we didn't chop the drugs.

Ben would have been 12 or less, and I would have been 13 or 14. Chop? Does he mean coke and powders and shit, or does he mean just do any of it? I think do. Probably just do any of it. Do any of it. They're doing all this shit. Yeah, I mean, he's the one kid's 12 and the one's fucking 13, 14.

But they're in the bus with Alba's whole crew. That's what I mean. But they're hanging around with 20-year-old kids who do hard drugs and get blowjobs. It's very fucking weird here. So, yeah, like nowadays, I think skating has a different reputation nowadays. You think so? Yeah, I think the X x games because even this article they're talking about it but in the x the x games has kind of cleaned it up a lot kind of the image

of it because there's certain yeah they've certainly made it much more lucrative they've marketed it like oh there's some shiny guys and all that when we were kids the skaters were like like the scum this the biggest scumbags were the coolest skaters you know except for tony hawk always who was you know fucking with his perfect little hair and all that shit. Fuck you, Tony. Fuck you, Tony Hawk. But, you know, the other guys, they were, you wanted the crazy, oh, that guy's crazy. It was like, they were like rock stars like that.

The crazy ones were interesting, you know. Yeah, and now they're so clean. Yeah. I saw an Instagram video of a skater now that's famous, and he fucking nose-grinded through his living room that's like 100 feet long. I was like, why does that guy have such a big place? What is happening? And then he did a kickflip at the end of it and landed on his patio that overlooks a fucking canyon. I'm like, no, that's not skating. That's interesting. Why do you have so much money?

Wow, he set himself up quite nicely, that's not skating. That's interesting. Why do you have so much money? Wow. He set himself up quite nicely, I guess. Yeah. Marvel force. Man, that's fucking wild. So back then, it was like a tour bus. It was like a bunch of punk bands in a tour bus is what it was back then. It was a bunch of crazy fox pistols.

Yeah, it was just crazy. So Taz and Ben ended up going over to the u.s and um by then they were doing some drugs they started to do some drugs uh taz says i wasn't doing it every day but i would just go on major benders uh-huh i don't think that's great probably for a teenager so um they located at least taz locates relocates to the U.S. when he's 17. He dropped out of high school a while ago anyway. Oh, he's done with school. Oh, yeah, he doesn't care about that. All the skaters did because back then you could make money.

If you had sponsorships, you could make a couple hundred grand a year or go to fucking 11th grade. Sure. I mean, if you finish high school and get a job, it's going to take you 10 years to make what you can make in a year now. Right. So it's not a hard decision, especially if you don't like school to begin with and you like drugs and skateboarding. So he ends up going there. They set up shop in where else? Tampa, Florida.

Hell yeah. Of course. Perfect. Perfect. He landed in Florida? We're setting up in Tampa, everybody. All right. I guess you could skate

a lot in tampa anyway and venice is expensive i get it yeah there you go so um at the time it was a lot of and this was uh like skate ramps were the big deal at this point yeah like in the 1990 early 90s it started to change and street became more cool but before that even now ramps like if you do like an x games thing the ramp is the fucking show right it's the show because it's a it's a spectacular or whatever watching a guy do what might even be more skilled shit in the street section isn't as isn't as interesting to people that aren't you know into the sport so a man flying 30 feet in the air while he's just spinning holding on to a board that's not even taped to his feet and then landing on it going back that's unbelievable it looks it looks

really fucking cool so um they did really well though they ended up um the pappas brothers end up doing really well in a bunch of contests and by 1995 they get uh taken on by danny way's brand danny way's a big skater, if you don't know. Named XYZ Platinum Skateboards. So that's who they hook on with as a sponsor, which is cool for them because they're still kids. I mean, they're like 17 and 19 at this point. But they're also partying very, very hard at this point. Yeah, they're making decent money and all that.

And they're kids who like to party and are making decent money. So what do you think they're going to do with that money? Let's be crazy. Fucking party and then skateboard. So, shit. 1997 here. Here's an article from the, where is this, the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia here. And it says, brothers of slam open new doors.

Okay. It says the Pappas brothers are in the house, says the public address system. Suddenly, 500 teenagers at Manly Skate Park turn their backs on a team of six skateboarders, six U.S. skateboarders on the street-style ramps, and rush to the vertical ramp for a view of the celebrated siblings. Taz Pappas, 21, and his 18-year-old brother Ben are legends within this tight-knit scene. Last October, Taz became skateboarding's number one when he won the $10,000 hard rock triple crown in Los Angeles. Ben is chafing at his heels at number two.

I don't like that word. Chafing. He said, better still, in a sport dominated by Americans, they are both Australian. Born and raised in Melbourne, they've recently relocated to San Diego, California to skate the established U.S. circuit. Managed by their father. Oh, boy. What? Oh, yeah.

Don't do that. Managed by their father, as we know how that always works out. Yeah. They are already reaping the rewards of big prize money and sponsorship deals. money, and sponsorship deals. They are in Australia for a series of demonstrations and to compete in the final of the first Australian skateboarding titles on April 5th as part of the Surfskate Slam Rock Festival. Oh, boy.

The winner will receive $10,000. That's the prize. That's it. It costs like two grand to fly over there. That's crazy. That's crazy. Ben Pappas agreed yesterday that sibling rivalry had helped push the brothers to the top. He said, yeah, we're pretty competitive.

I'll probably knock him off eventually. We'll see what happens. Well, look at you talking shit. I'm going to murder him one day. Yeah. I'm going to kill him. I'm going to push him off a cliff. What do you say?

Knock him off. That's not a good wording. Someday crime and sports is going to have him. I'm going to push him off a cliff. Wait till you see. Knock him off. That's not a good wording. Someday crime and sports is going to have a ball with us. His dad's from Egypt, but he's Greek, lives in Australia. Their last name is Spanish for potato. That's what this is. Pappas is a Greek name. Oh, is it?

Yeah. Pappas is Greek. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. That's totally Greek. Also the word for potato in Spanish. I'm sure it is. But yeah, there's a lot of Greek guys named Pappas. Like. Absolutely. Okay, all right. Yeah, it's totally Greek. Also the word for potato in Spanish, right? I'm sure it is, but yeah, there's a lot of Greek guys named Pappas.

Like a ton of them. Yeah, like a lot of them. I thought all of them last name had to end with Apollos. Yeah, no, no. There's a lot of Pappas, and that might have been shortened from, you know, Pappasolopoulos or some shit. You never know. Seriously. That's a bad last name.

Yeah. I'd shorten it too. Pappasolopoulos or some shit. You never know. Seriously. That's a bad last name. Yeah. I'd shorten it too. Papasolopoulos. I'd short that myself. And I'm Petrogallo, so trust me. I still don't know what the fuck my family was thinking. Hey, we want to start over maybe. Let's fucking, no, no, no, no.

Make sure the I is before the E. Let's keep it 11 letters long. We want it to fit in no box in a standardized test all of our all of our product our whole fucking line of ancestry going down they're all gonna have to ask the teacher where do i put more letters that's what we're going for here there's there's not enough room there's not enough room yeah, they won't put it on a jersey either. It'll be great for him. Now, so this guy, they were smarter probably.

Yeah. Papa Sadophilus too much. Yeah, fixed it up a little bit. Trimmed it up. Gave it a little circumcision. Just nipped off the tip a bit. A little off the edges. A little off the edges.

So they said the brothers are known for pushing limits. off the edges. So they said the brothers are known for pushing limits. Taz has already pulled off a triple twist on the edge of a ramp and attempted a quadruple twist at a trade show in the U.S. recently. How about that? Okay. According to their Australian tour manager

Scott Kelly, Taz almost made it. The ramps aren't big enough, Kelly said. You need serious elevation to twist four times. Yeah. Ben has managed to escape serious injury but taz has snapped his femur about three years ago and was nursing a broken rib when he won the triple crown he's uh things do occasionally get scary taz admits once you slam you do start thinking about how far you can go come down without the board is called a slam just fall

i guess once you eat shit once you can't say eat shit in the paper probably so yeah yeah once you eat shit hard you start thinking about eating shit a little bit more of that hurts yeah you snap your femur which is the hardest bone in your body body to break and so fucking easy to kill you to hurt yourself on a huge ramp a huge vert ramp dude you're so far up in the fucking air if anything goes wrong you're up so you fly up to the point where if a huge wind gust comes it will fuck your shit up like your trajectory has to be perfect well you off course yeah and you'll land in the middle and snap your femur instead of fucking landing on the side and coming down so that makes my fucking leg hurt. Yeah, it's brutal.

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You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. If you don't know when Crystal Pepsi was discontinued, what was in Al Capone's vault, or which famous meteorologist is Lenny Kravitz's second cousin, then you haven't spent enough time on Wikipedia. But that's okay. I am here for you. I'm Darcy Carden, and I'm inviting you to listen to my new podcast, WikiHole, from Smartless Media. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast,

you'd learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink rollercoaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Wiki hole ad free by joining wondry plus in the wondry app or on apple podcasts they had huge attitude too like the these kids are like yeah fuck you they're the they're the punk rock guys yeah and so people who are more established who aren't punk rockish or maybe a little more clean cut guys like i don't know say tony hawk and specifically tony hawk um didn't care for that shit at all trying to clean up the image damn it look at my hair you guys are doing drugs and i've got elbow pads on you guys jesus

we just got over the whole gator thing people come on we just got over the whole gator thing, people. Come on. We just got over the gator thing. Mike McGill always looks like he hasn't bathed in three days. Can we fucking, can we do something? I've got wrist guards like a 40-year-old mom trying to rollerblade. Yeah, look at me, damn it. I'm going to pull this off. So Tony Hawk, not a fan here. Taz says, Hawk and me were friends when we started out.

He used to let me ride his ramp, but I guess it didn't quite last very long, the friendship, because they were little fucking punks, and Tony Hawk's a little rich kid who's clean cut, so it's different. And these boys probably said swear words, and Tony's dad didn't like that. I'm sure he just called him a cunt all the time. And he was like, why do you, why do you say the worst word that we use here? Why do you always call me that? It's the same as saying beans.

I don't know. That's what we say. Same as bro back there. That's why it's just bro. So, uh, he says, quote,

this is Taz again. Danny way told me at the first X, uh, X games in 1995 that Hawk used to crank call his mom. Tony Hawk would crank call Danny Way's mother. I'd become friends with Danny Way's mom, and I saw him, and I'm like, hey, Hawk, what's this shit you used to fucking crank call Danny Way's mom? You're a fucking dick, mate. This was probably years before, too.

It was just fucking hilarious. Tony's 25 now. Yeah yeah he's like what he says quote come outside you prick don't be a fucking pussy let's have a crack i'm gonna fight you over a crank call you made when you were 16 to someone who i didn't even know back then when it was happening that's amazing he said fucking crank calling people's mums and he was like uh and shit's a brick that was the first incident that made me and hawk not be mates he tried to fight him over something he didn't know if he remembered that's fucking awesome i love it um so he does win this triple crown in las Vegas in 1995. Taz does. Came in third in Slam City Jam Vert competition.

Big vertical ramps, I'm sure, here. Slam City? So they're, like, advertising that you might see somebody explode today. Slam City, bitch. Shoes will come off. Like the guy in the X Games 15 years ago or whatever, his fucking shoes blew off. Shoes will come off. It happens, man. man you gotta tie them

tie them shits down tight let's get your vans on so the uh following year here taz and ben started beating tony on a regular basis here oh so that would heat up the rivalry a little bit um at one point they were number one and two in the world taz and ben so um he says i think this is uh taz when it comes to skating and trying to stay number one hawk always has to be the winner in the world, Taz and Ben. So he says, I think this is Taz, when it comes to skating and trying to stay number one, Hawk always has to be the winner. Watch the Bones Brigade doco. He talks about competitions, how cut he gets when he doesn't win.

Yeah, Tony Hawk likes to win. 96, I think it's Taz, came in third in the X Games after Andy McDonald and Tony Hawk. So that's what happened there. 1996 World Championships. The final round, the judges have Taz and Tony tied. Is that right? Yes, they have a tie for Taz and Tony.

So they went for a skate-off. Yeah. Sudden death skate-off. This is a big one. Yeah. It's like a movie. Yeah, loser goes into a canyon. Yeah.

So Taz wins it even with the broken rib. Wow. And this is Tony Hawk wasn't happy about this. Taz says, he came up whinging to me and my brother. All year we've been competing against him and the judges had been giving it to him and we hadn't said shit. So when he came up having a go at me Ben was like, fuck this.

It wasn't quite a full on fist fight on the podium but it wasn't far off and Taz is still obviously annoyed by Tony's attitude. So there you go. Some shoving and pissing. He said, look, the reason we went after him was there was that many comps where he just did varials and no new tricks and they gave it to him.

He was just doing variants of his other tricks that he was doing. He'll put a little kicks his fucking foot out or whatever the fuck. So he said we didn't run up to him saying and then in a whiny voice, we think we should have won, Tony. We're like, mate, go whinge to the judges. Don't whinge to us. We didn't win the comp. We were in it with you or we didn't judge the comp comp we were in it with you uh or we didn't judge the comp we were in it with you you know like fellow competitors um so he said this was our

beef we were like fuck off already but it was everything leading up to it into it as well like he stole tricks off danny way and put the video out first it was just like anything for him to stay on top and quote be the best that's some serious accusations yeah yeah that's a that's tony hawk's been accused of that for a long time has he really yeah stealing people's tricks and he just does he's this is the thing about tony hawk and if you like if you're a nowadays tony hawk's like an elder statesman that he fucking post shit on social media of him like meeting somebody and that's that's he's a different person now but like yeah back then in skating he was like you know he was the golden boy and anybody who was challenging that he didn't fucking like it period you know he wasn't a fun guy he was he was tom brady yeah

he was exactly exactly technically perfect and pretty fucking boring and had no personality and no fucking anything he wasn't he wasn't a rock star he was you know a perfect studio musician that's what he is to me vanilla is a masterpiece of ice cream it's fantastic everyone likes vanilla that's but nobody just wants that home no one's craving it only forever put some fucking chips yeah and skating like me growing up as a skater i like i like some of the dirtbag guys i like the guys who had personality i like the guys who do their tricks a little dirty and different i don't know there wasn't tony hawk never did it for me do something dangerous man yeah i mean it's all dangerous it's just i don't know but

when you know it and you've mastered you've mastered each and every one it's not dangerous anymore it's just you displaying the shit that you've mastered, which was dangerous when you started it. Yes. And here you go. Exactly. So 1996, Taz is the number one ranked vert skateboarder in the world. Oh. So there you go. Yeah, they were really good.

And then by the late 90s, Ben is number two for a long time. And so that's how they're doing it. So by the late 90s here 97 98 yeah they're like number one and two at what they do in the entire world and they party and they tell tony hawk to stick it up their ass and stick it up his ass and all this time defending people's crank called mums grace that's grace wow i think right there right that's a pretty solid life it's pretty fucking cool they're young indestructible you can come back from a broken fucking femur and still do crazy vert shit imagine if you broke

your femur now would you do anything that you do currently i'll tell you what if i dropped out of high school at 17 to go do what i really loved and was the best at it within three years yeah i would feel like a hero making fucking money doing drugs and still being good yeah yeah ah that's amazing and tony hawk's all clean you're doing drugs and you're better imagine how great that's gotta feel i'm a detriment to myself and i'm better than you imagine if i was sober this is one hand tied behind my back that's how much better than you i am i'm up right now yeah imagine if i dedicated my life to it like you yeah imagine if i ate fruit imagine what my life think about that imagine if there was a vitamin or mineral inside this body i live on jack-in-the-box and meth

and i'm fucking beating you that means I'm way better than you. And when I get Jack in the Box, I say, no tomatoes. I don't want the vitamins. Keep that lettuce off of my shit. Extra cheese, though. Cheese, meat, ketchup, sugar. I want it. Oh, my God.

That's fucking amazing. So, 97, 98, things start to kind of not be as good as the drugs progress. See, there's a fun level of drugs. There's first starting out with drugs and that can fuck you up. And then there's fun times of drugs. And we see comedians, rock stars, wrestlers, actors, musicians go through this fun time of drugs when it's almost helping their creativity. It's almost this like an extra fucking – it's an extra person. It's like an extra character in the room to fucking help you write shit.

It's a performance-enhancing drug. Oh, it works great. And then after a while, though, there's diminishing returns as it becomes more. You start to get a tolerance. More and more. So 97, the Vancouver Slam City Jam. Taz came in 10th there. 97, he finished 44th in the World Cup of Skateboarding here.

He won the LG competition in Las Vegas, though. Finished 39th in the World Cup of Skateboarding in 98. 12th in the Beaverton, Oregon B3 vert competition. I'll bet that's a cool one, though. That's probably awesome. And then 1999 finished 22nd in the Slam City Jam. So it's going kind of bad here. It's a little rocky. It's a little bit rocky.

They said that, and this is dumb here, 1999, Ben has some troubles here in 1999. He's apparently going back to australia for a trip and um he wanted to take a little bit of america with him or god or more accurately a little bit of south america with him i should say well uh he is busted with 103 grams of cocaine at the airport. That's a lot. That's a lot. An ounce is 28 grams, so do your math there.

That's a bunch. It's like a quarter pound of. It's QV. Yeah, it's QV. So it's quite a bit, we'll say. Yeah, it's a lot to bring into the airport here. Did he have it in a quarter pounder from McDonald's? I think maybe he did. He's like, oh, it's just American.

So Taz says, I don't know what he was thinking we just partied a lot and it was just a stupid choice no shit you don't put that shit on a plane man they were saying how you know they were charging him with like smuggling it in to sell it basically and Taz says

he wasn't trying to sell it it was only a hundred and three grams which is nothing. How much coke are you doing when 103 grams is, I mean, Jesus, they're acting like that's a lot. That's personal use. What? Who doesn't carry around a quarter pound of cocaine with them? That's normal, right?

It's a lot. Yeah. That seems like a lot. He said, but basically our lifestyle had snowballed and we went from one bum choice to the next. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ben ends up with a 12-month suspended jail sentence. Is that right?

Gets off pretty easy on that because they didn't really have any record before that. Okay. If you don't have a record, short of really, really hurting somebody, you can get away with a lot. Yeah. Short of attempted murder or murder, you can get away with a ton if it's your first offense. That goes a long way. Right. Your first crime is the worst.

Then it's a big deal. But if it's like some, yeah. Crime records like your credit report. It goes a long way that you paid off all that shit. You've built up these people however many years of credit of like i have not committing crimes so seems to work a lot here i get an arrest score of 806 is that gonna be is that good can i get in get out with that is that is that all right can i still oh no you know what that's just short of being able to leave australia australia because he has a three-year travel ban because of that

also so he can't oh that's terrible for three years so he's stuck on the island for three years here yeah um not able to go back to the states to compete so he's basically fucked because there's no that'll certainly limit your ability to be number one or number two in the world when you only can compete here he gets dropped by sponsors at that point too because he can't compete so why are they going to pay him for nothing and um yeah starts getting real depressed and uh taz says he kept getting told his career was over and he just gave up sort of he didn't think he could make it back to the states and then he got into smack perfect what so now he's going to get into heroin on top of his already already quite large cocaine habit.

Oh, boy. I would figure if you're smuggling back coke into Australia, maybe the coke's better in America than Australia, too. I'm not sure. Possibly. But either way, if maybe you just don't know where to get it immediately in Australia, so you'd bring enough. To bridge the gap. To bridge the gap. Yeah.

So you'd figure, okay, i'll be there he know he's from there he's a skateboarder he has a lot of connections so it shouldn't take long for him to find some coke probably a few days so i'll bring a quarter pound of coke with me seems excessive right yeah yeah a little bit just at the top of my top of my head there so um yeah he's fucked so uh he stayed in australia he got married in 1999 because when things are going amazing and swimmingly when your career is over you've just bridged from coke to heroin you're stuck on the island like mad fucking max what do you do you gotta get a gal you gotta get married you gotta rope someone else into this and make sure that you're all.

Throw an anchor on this boat. Let's do it. Come on, baby. That's exactly what I need. Let's run with a donut on that fucking back right wheel. So the marriage ends in divorce after two years, unsurprisingly. Two years. Two years.

Not shocking that he's making poor decisions at this point, though. I mean, Christ. not shocking that he's making poor decisions at this point though i mean christ so he ends up living basically like a just wanders and roams lives from uh friend to friend sleeps on couches yep just from family member to friend and sleeps over here for a while stays with him um so he just basically is just a depressed mess who's going through a divorce. His career's over. He's got a fucking, you know, he's using tons of heroin. He's doing all sorts of shit here. Oh, boy.

He's put in a facility from May to September 2006 for anxiety and depression. So he's got a lot of drugs. Yeah, I think that's probably part of it here. And Taz, too. Taz is a fucking mess, too. But he's just not as big of a mess because he actually has to get up and skate and make a living. Yeah. He said, this is Taz.

I'd always been like, drugs are just a cup of tea. They weren't anything. Like, if I woke up in the morning and someone says there was a crack rock there, I'd be like, sweet, let's smoke it. I didn't give a shit. Sweet, let's smoke it. Hey't give a shit sweet let's smoke it hey jimmy there's a crack rock right there oh sweet let's smoke it cool sweet awesome you got a lighter like let's smoke it ew throw it away there's a crack who brought that here would be why is there crack here this is awful no um he said so when when i

get on the drugs and i was deliberately trying to block stuff out i'd be trying to knock myself out seeing how far i could take it i just didn't give a shit i just wanted to go bonkers fuck oh man he said there's a lot of hurt that i just never addressed i've got a borderline personality disorder that's what you want to fire up with drugs, too. That'll help. He's already aware of that. Well, later. He didn't know at the time.

Okay, all right. Later on, he said, and I never even knew I had a mental illness. So, yeah, if you have borderline personality disorder, the last thing you need is massive amounts of cocaine. Don't do hard drugs. Do not need hard drugs. I don't know. I'm not an expert on borderline. I don't do hard drugs do not need hard drugs or probably i don't know i'm not an expert on borderline i don't know but not that i'm an expert on anything when it comes to that shit but

i know borderline's a tough one that's a tough one to to keep managed so if you've got that maybe only take the drugs your uh your doctor recommends let him make you a let him or her make you a cocktail yeah let your daughter let your daughter let your daughter make you a cocktail. Let your daughter make you a cocktail. Let your doctor make you a cocktail. Yeah. If you need to, snort them. I don't give a shit. I don't care.

Break it up and snort it. But ask the doctor. Say, listen, I prefer snorting. So can you make me up a formula it's better to be crushed up and snorted, preferably off the back of a public toilet, if that's possible, because that's my preference. Yikes. So that's not good. And his skateboarding career is going in the shitter as his drug intake is going up for Taz. Danny Way's XYZ Platinum skating team here kind of fell apart.

And that's an addition. A lot of that is caused by Taz being kind of fell apart and uh that's an addition a lot of that is caused by taz being kind of a dick um danny way didn't didn't like him anymore he said he said danny used to use me to do his dirty work he didn't really have my back i don't know what i don't know what dirty work there is to do in skateboarding you gotta do loosen somebody's trucks on them so they have a bad run like what are we talking about here how do you fucking what dirty work is there to do in skateboarding pull the fucking deck tape off of off the tony's board replace his bearings with the shit bearings no no replace the good ones yeah you know there's ones that are twice the price get rid of those shit bear some

sand in his bearings yeah just give him those real plain swiss ones he won't even know the difference yeah do that yeah fuck those real nice red bones brigade ones that are out now nobody wants those so um he said um he just started losing friends in the industry and um you know he's kind of a mess here um he almost okay going into the 1999 x games taz was working on landing the 900 which we've all kind of seen out there because tony hawk made it a big deal thanks tony yeah so um hawk was also you know in the x games here and working on this whole thing so um he said that um taz says i actually apologized to him the day of the best trick contest. I said, you know what?

I've just realized that Danny used to use me to do his dirty work, and I just wanted to apologize to you for that. Danny should have had a crack at you because of what you did to his mom. That was none of my business. So he went up to Hawk and said, sorry, I tried to fight you over crank calling Danny Way's mom. He was just using me. He put me up to it. Yeah, to basically, he wanted to see someone tell Tony Hawk to go fuck himself. And he said, if I tell this crazy Australian drug addict kid about this,

he'll go try to fight him, and that'll be hilarious. And it'll be funnier in an Australian accent. Oh, sorry. You do it. Let's have a crack. Like, that's way funnier than if I went over there and went, you're a dick, bro. This is just funnier. Yeah.

So, yeah, he said, and Hawk was going, yeah bro i don't care it's all good then i realized what that smile was all about an hour later i found i'm all stitched up i'm not even allowed to enter the best trick contest what taz says tony was like yeah no problem and smiling at him and he said then yeah he bet he says that he kept him out taz says that there is every chance that i could wouldn't have landed the 900 before tony but i like to have been able to try sure because that's when tony got the 900 instead he had to watch and then tony um apparently he said that one of tony's photographer friends had been shooting Taz's practice attempts at the 900 a few weeks ago. So he said, quote, he's been studying my sequences and gone and done the trick on me, the prick, which is the 900 that he pulls off. What the fuck?

Which is his big trick. And he's like, that was I was trying. He said, I might not have landed it. I might not have pulled it off, but I would love to try. And fucking I could have been the guy who did it first, maybe because I was working on it. And that X Games was such a big deal because Tony did that. Yeah, that's what I mean. That was a huge.

It was the biggest thing he ever did. He made a video game. It made a mainstreamed him. It mainstreamed him. It made him so people who outside of skateboarding knew who he was. It was on. It was on SportsCenter. It was a huge fucking deal.

So, yeah, that was a big deal. And he said the the subsequent release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater that made him a huge mainstream star. He's the Michael Jordan of skateboarding. He's old and not doing the same shit, but kids are still buying his stuff. You know what I mean? It's crazy. So Taz says, quote, he's actually blinded by his own bullshit. Not Tony Hawk.

That's fucking great. He's actually blinded by his own bullshit that's fucking great he's actually blinded by his own bullshit he's just another skater but that's not what he thinks he buys into his own bullshit cock cock he puts at the end he said he's so unforgiving man i was like get over it my brother and i would punch each other in the face and then be friends immediately these guys just can't handle being teased yeah it's a different yeah that's it's just different australians i think are they they beat the shit out of each other verbally like they're they love doing it's like growing up in new york it's the same thing you just your friends are fucker it's brutal to have friends is 40 year old australian men are the same as a 17 year old uh american man yeah but they they tease but it's over in a minute too is that yeah because you're fucking around

yeah and here they don't they don't do that no it's mainly because they like you is why they're picking on you that's how it works so um yeah so he's having a problem though taz says he's kind of blacklisted from a lot of competitions here. So he finished 8th. In 1999 he finished 8th in the Vans Hardcore Triple Crown in Milwaukee. 7th in the Radlands in Northampton in the UK. 1999 here.

Whoa. 2nd in the Munster Monster Mastership in Germany. Not too many M's. Wow, that's crazy. He comes in second in Prague. First in a vert competition in Beaverton, Oregon, the B3 again. So he does better there. 2001, third in the X Games in Philly.

Pretty good. In 2003, he gets injured from falling in a vert ramp, which hurts him. But he comes back, and he's in second place in an event in the U.K. in Birmingham, and then in Cleveland at the Summer Gravity Games. He's sixth in vert and fifth in the vert best trick. Well, his brother is couch surfing in Australia as a smack addict. Couch surfing with a needle hanging out of his vein in Australia. So in 2005, he marries a woman. so i mean yeah i mean why not he's like

30 and he's looking to settle down a little bit he marries an american woman named colleen and they met he met colleen through skateboarding and they live in san diego they have two children yeah and uh but being a skateboarder is tough financially because unless you're Tony Hawk, it comes and goes. It spurts. Yeah, unless you've got pro skater royalties coming in every month. It's difficult. Right. It's difficult.

So financial difficulties are tough. So he's kind of banged up being 30 and skating hard on vert ramps for that long. Your body, it catches up to you fast. So he says that he started using crystal meth to, you got to have some meth to numb the pain from injuries. You know. Oh, my God. It feels better now that I'm on meth, which I mean, yeah, a lot of things will feel better for a little while. Not your teeth for very long.

No, not your teeth or your bones or your face or your skin. But the doctors prescribe him an antidepressant after he tries to get help for depression. But also he would use cocaine and alcohol along with the antidepressant, which completely nullifies the whole thing. You're making your own little cocktail. It's not what you have been prescribed here so uh 2006 he won a uh he won a competition in dallas in october of 2006 he won the vert skateboarding event at the lg action sports world championship okay look at that shit oh boy um during his winning winning run he executed a 720 which was cool and it was called flawless by all

the commentators but it's not a 900 it's not a 900 but a flawless 720 is pretty fucking impressive watch somebody do it it's awesome here he completed his run without making any errors 2006 he came in first place in the LG

Action World Tour competition in Amsterdam. Christ, maybe meth is good for this guy. He's doing great. He's doing phenomenally in Birmingham, England. 2006, came in third place at the LG Action Sports World Tour there. The LG Action Sports World Tour in Dallas, he comes in first place and then in second place in Richmond. So, wow. I mean, seems like it's going, couldn't be going better for him.

Let's get this guy some meth. He's got a competition tomorrow. All right. Um, but he's struggling though, the way he says it. Um, he says a drug use led to a bit of paranoia.

Yeah. And him, which meth will do mainly about his wife being involved in affairs starts being very paranoid about that so during that he uh at some point here he physically assaults his wife during an argument oh boy caused by him being paranoid that she's having an affair because he's on meth um so it's not good here um he said that uh this is what he said years later he said quote i was paranoid that she was on with someone i don't agree with what i did but i ended up hitting her and losing the plot and went to jail yep so yeah he ends up being uh put

in jail for two months and then deported oh well that's because he got out of jail and he was in a drug-related car crash during his probation for his parole period yeah yeah so then they just said okay you're deported here so um he was waiting to be flown to australia he got a telephone call from his father at that point here. Here. And it's because things have been going bad for Ben. OK. March of 2005.

Ben began dating a woman named Lynette Phillips, who was a recovering drug addict who was studying to be a drug counselor at Swinburne University. Oh, that's great. Because most drug counselors are ex-drug addicts. You kind of want that in them. The best person to help you through this is somebody that has experience. Knows what's happening. They know it. Yeah, they felt it before. So these two move in together, Ben and Lynette, but it's tumultuous and a mess,

and there's physical abuse. There's physical abuse and all that kind of shit. They broke up a whole bunch of times here as people with crazy lives do. As people with regular lives break up and get back together. Never mind people who are on a shitload of drugs on and off and everything else. That's really going to – Who value drugs more than this person. Oof, man.

Because think about it. The three years has been up for three years now so yeah he could be done he could have been skating hard those three years keeping himself up and been back on the scene and been with his brother at all these competitions for the last few years but instead he just sat there and let himself go to shit and it's really sad um so in february 2006 lynette phillips was granted an interim intervention order against ben apparently it's like a temporary restraining order i believe australian style after uh ben after he physically assaulted her and damaged her property uh then uh the following month though she requests that they rescind that because they're getting back together so okay yeah it's it's it's a lot so um taz will say later on quote i hate this part of

the story to be honest he just couldn't beat heroin he was on methadone and the doctor put him on xanax and then he was on four or five different antidepressants, which shouldn't be mixed. Yeah, you can't. Jesus, what the fuck kind of cocktail is in his body? I don't know if he was going to different doctors for different. Yeah, it's got to be because doctors aren't going to do that, right? I don't think they're going to go. Here's your methadone.

Yeah. Here's some Xanax and here's fucking. Throw some Zoloft on top of that. Zoloft, Lexapro. Right. Paxil. Let's get it all going. Let's get methadone. Yeah. Here's some Xanax and here's fucking. Throw some Zoloft on top of that. Zoloft, Lexapro. Right. Paxil. Let's get it all going. Let's get it all going.

Let's get a cocktail and see which one. Let's let them all fight it out and see which one comes out on top. Which one's side effects will come to the surface? Let's find out. Smash Brothers inside your body with fucking antidepressants. That's insane insane who would think to do that yeah you can um yeah he said quote then one day he called me and he said quote taz i'm so ashamed i was just kind of making light of the situation i said what you got caught rooting

a man he said worse rooting that's yeah that's fucking a man. I know. It sounds, even if you didn't know, you know now, rooting. Yeah. Oh, you knew. Sounds like you're rooting. Yeah. Putting your roots down or in. Putting your root in there. Yeah.

Big solid root. I see some dirt being moved aside and I don't like it. Rooting a man. Rooting a man. And he said worse and that means something to them so i said you got caught getting rooted by a man way to keep it up well done that's how we should all speak to our brothers by the way that's yeah um and he laughed uh but he said i wish it was that jesus he said after he after a

year together ben just discovered that lynette um had been actually doing heroin who was supposed to be the drug counselor and working as a prostitute oh to pay for it when she said she was doing other things. The betrayal. So, yeah, you've been talking to other people, messing around with other people, just went into a whole other category when it comes to... Sure did. People have been paying you for blowjobs is a different thing.

The wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Ding! The queen of the courtroom is back. I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up

and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me. Leave her. A long. OK, so, um...

Matt, this is not a so. This is a period. Classic Judy. Did you sleep with her? Yes, Your Honor. You married his cousin. His brother. That's not him. Yes, ma'am.

I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything. Judy Justice, only on Freebie. And his life is already, like, tumultuous,

and inside his head is a nightmare. Oh, yeah. And he's got this on top of it. She's doing drugs. She lied to me said she was a counselor and to pay for it she's being rooted by men and you're being told you're being told that you're that you're paranoid you're paranoid you're paranoid not only then you find out that you're not paranoid but it's well beyond what you were even paranoid about you thought it

was a relationship yeah no it's not yeah you thought it was a raccoon going through your garbage can turns out it's people from mars and they're fucking they're setting up a base they're fucking your very willing girlfriend and your dog at the same time who's not willing so it's a very big difference um so taz says he was going out with her for a year fully in love and then he finds out she's a prostitute it's an age-old tale who hasn't had that happen come on guys listen doesn't happen at all crime and sports movement here everyone listening right now um how many times you've been going out with all the men out there anyway you've been going out with a chick or lesbians you're going out with a chick and you're in love after a year yeah she's

half the time she's a prostitute right unbeknownst to you that's half the time i figure most of that's how most of my relationships have ended time after time most of my relationships ended that way i'm like damn it heroin addict prostitute again fuck thought she worked at a law firm shit son of a bitch it can happen holy it can happen i mean i'm telling you what did ben doody just what do you do well a test said he was a shattered man absolutely gutted everywhere uh everywhere they went from that time on every bloke she talked to he was like you suck his dick today oh god which i mean they stayed together how do you yeah i mean that's what that's wow that is i don't even know what to say about that continue that yeah well you better not do that more. Like, how? You apologize in a tone?

How? Oh, my God. So Ben tells his doctors that he's been having suicidal and homicidal thoughts at this point. Oh, boy. Can't be from the mix of five prescriptions and fucking three, four street drugs that he's on at the same time. And that can't fuck your brain up at all right that's a well while being treated by so oh my god how do you i can't imagine that life how yeah what do you find out your wife's those feelings yeah all of it all of it at once i don't know how you just don't go fuck it are there

sharks off the coast of australia because i'm feed myself to him. So many, yeah. I can't take it anymore. I can't take it anymore. He said that, this is Taz, he even called the bloody nut team on himself a few times. So he called like a mental health people to come get him. They said, nah, you're all right. You're all right. Then bang, it all happened. Oh, my God. It all happened.

Okay. So this is what happened. That's not good in this story. It all happened. You, my God. It all happened. Okay. So this is what happened. That's not good in this story. No. It all happened. You're like, oh, no. What could be going worse now? Jesus Christ.

The mental health response team told him he was okay. You're all right, mate. Don't worry about it, mate. You'll be all right. You'll be all right. It's all right. No problem. It's still to relax a little bit.

Come on. There you go, mate. Come on. They didn't give a fuck. So he said February 24th, 2007, Lynette disappears. Oh. She disappears. Okay.

So on March 2nd, Lynette's body is found. Oh. Wrapped in a blue quilt dumped in the Yarra River in Melbourne. In water. In water, wrapped in a quilt, dumped. So, I mean, this is not an accident. Nobody wraps themselves in a quilt to drown themselves. That is a murder.

Yeah, the coroner's report found she'd been battered to death with a blunt instrument. So, it is, yeah, blunt force trauma. Very personal. Awful. And Ben's dumbbells have been used to weigh her down. Uh-oh. That's not good. No.

This isn't good. So the autopsy also determines that she'd been strangled as well as beaten about the head and face. So Ben becomes the sole suspect as he's the last person to be seen with her before her body was discovered. And the quilt and dumbbells were both his from his house. Your personal items are with the body. So it's not good. We'll put it that way. Police put out like an APB, an Australian APB, I guess, whatever that would be.

All koala bulletin, an AKB. Any koalas or emus, catch sight of this guy, let us know. I don't know what that is. All wallabies bulletin. All wallaby action. So they do that. Taz says, quote, he tried to get himself committed. He called me up saying, look, I think I'm going to do something nutty.

And I said, yeah, everyone does, but you don't do it. Like everyone thinks they're going to do something nutty, but you don't do it. He said, everyone has, I told him, everyone has thoughts about hurting people if they piss you off, but a thought's a thought. I didn't realize how hard the drugs and everything were getting him. He was like, yeah. You have any idea how many times I've wanted to open Tony Hawk? Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I almost killed Tony Hawk with a skate key the other day literally i didn't do it gouge the gouge the wrench part right into his fucking temple and just dug in till i pulled out a chunk of his fucking brain i was gonna do it and then i said no that's crazy mate so i was gonna though yeah i was gonna pull his left eyeball out the side of his head. Instead, I just walked away. I just said, you know what?

Never mind. You're a cunt, mate. That's what I told him, and I walked away. Called him a cock and walked on. See if he wanted to have a crack. He said, no. He said, all right, fine. So on March 3rd, while they're looking for him,

Pappas admits himself, Ben does, to the emergency room at the Alfred Hospital where he told the staff he was experiencing suicidal thoughts. So after a few hours, he told the staff that he felt better now, I'm good now, and they released him. Really? Yeah. All right. He had second thoughts about turning himself in? I don't know.

He wasn't turning himself in. He just went to the hospital. I mean, committing himself he committed yeah he said he felt better i'll do all right yeah i get or then he ends up returning to a friend's house which he's the guy he's been staying with and the following day the friend who he was staying with told him about the discovery of lynette's body yeah so according to the friend uh pappas told him that yeah i already knew that she died somebody already told me about it through a friend so they then had a conversation which ben said he could not remember what happened the day of

philip's death he's like i don't know what happened that day only recalled walking up on a bench or waking up on a bench not walking waking up on a bench and then taking a large quantity of Xanax. And then he doesn't know what happened the rest of the day. That's the only memory you have of one day. Imagine your memory of a day is waking up on a bench and then going, wow, my life's so great, I think I'll take a shitload of Xanax because this bench can't get any better than this. What did you do yesterday?

I woke up on a bench and took a bunch of Xanax. What else? I don't know. I don't know. 24-hour period. You remember 11 seconds? My girlfriend was in a river after that, so I remember about 30 seconds of that day. An 11-second window of 24 hours.

Holy shit, man. That is fucking wild. So this was him and Phillips had broken up during this period of when this all happened. So later that evening, after he tells his friend that he doesn't remember what happened after the bench in the Xanax, he leaves his friend's home and his friend never hears from him again. He just takes off. Yeah. No one hears from him till for just takes off yeah no one hears from him till for six days he's just completely in the wind yeah and then on march 10th his body is found

floating under the pier of the victoria dock holy floating just in the in the water um oh my yep um that's pretty fucking crazy um now this is taz is waiting for the plane to go to australia or to be taken out of america and that's when he gets a phone call from his father and he learned that his brother was found dead and he said it's the saddest thing i've ever heard is what taz said yeah he said the coroner returns a verdict of suicide. Okay. Taz says he gave himself the death penalty. How'd he do it? He drowned himself. Really? Which is pretty fucking horrible.

Yeah, the coroner's inquest determined that Pappas killed Lynette Phillips and had drowned himself after the body was found. A psychologist who treated Ben before his death said that he had shown signs of suicidal ideation, homicidal tendencies, and psychotic-related symptoms such as paranoia, anger, and frustration. So we sent him home, obviously. Yeah.

We don't want to be around that. Yeah. He said he felt better that one day, and we were like, phew, good. Jesus Christ. He's been a lot of work. He's just like a lot. You know what I mean? It's just a lot. It would be nice to been a lot of work. He's just like a lot, you know what I mean? It's just a lot.

It would be nice to get him out of here. So the coroner finds that he, like I said, murdered his girlfriend, took his own life. Jesus Christ here. She, wow, they talk about her. They said they put it all together with his stuff and her body and, you know, it's an obvious thing. They said that Pappas, the state coroner judge, state coroner judge, I guess there's somebody, a state coroner judge here. She said that she accepts the homicide squad's conclusion that Pappas did all of this because that clears the cases off the rolls. Does that mean he probably jumped off the bridge knocked it and the landing knocked him unconscious and then he drowned i'm gonna say in my guess he probably

took a bunch of drugs and then jumped off probably right because you can't just like walk into the water and hold yourself underwater no but if you took a whole bunch of drugs and passed out yeah that would be how you do it i would think that would be the only way i could otherwise yeah you gotta want it bad you gotta want it bad to just be like i will not fucking rise to the top that's gotta be really gotta inhale a lot yeah yeah yeah that's gotta oof that's a tough way to go so um yeah they said there's been all sorts of shit um between them obviously that them fighting and all that and then the pap is telling people he couldn't remember what he'd been doing for the previous 10 days and Jesus Christ

that's wild. The judge said whilst I accept the opinions of the investigating police with respect to Ben's involvement in Lynette's death, I do not conclude that the only reason that Ben took his own life was to avoid the consequences of his involvement in Lynette's death and placing her body in the river. He may

also have been experiencing deep remorse grief and trauma as a result of his involvement in Lynette's death and placing her body in the river. He may also have been experiencing deep remorse, grief, and trauma as a result of his actions, which may explain the last notes he makes on the ground near where her body was found. He scratched into the dirt? Where his body was found. Scratched on the dock near where his body was found. Wow. here where his body was found wow were letters that looked like uh love high l l uh l-u-v-h-i-l-l and mum and nan written on there and they were very fresh so they thought he did it um his um he's got a brother here another brother a half brother named coco nekrumah. And he said that he believed that this is all based on fucking being a drug addict since he was a kid. He said he started when he was a teenager.

He was earning $15,000 a month and all that kind of shit. And they also said that when he wrote that, he was trying to say hi to Lynette because he had heard him call her little l so l l love hi l l that's it that's what he called her so and mom and nan but taz can go fuck himself apparently so the judge said in particular the issue of what obligations or ethical issues are raised for a health care practitioner when concerns are raised for the safety of another in the course of treating a patient and how to respond to those obligations and issues poses some intensely difficult issues for a health professional. Yeah. What do you do with when a guy comes in and goes, I don't know, I'm thinking I'm homicidal, I'm suicidal and all that. And then they go, well, I feel better now.

What do you do? Hold them forever. How long do you hold them for? Like, I mean, I don't know what that is it's clear that i'm somebody that says all that and then says i'm okay clearly there's a fuck they're not okay but you can't if they say they're okay and they've they've done this under their own will you can't stop them unless it's actions mental health is self-reporting so yeah if someone comes in and says i'm suicidal and homicidal and then an hour later they say no i feel great now i don't want to hurt anybody or myself it's and that was post hurting somebody right that was yeah he went in after he already

did that yeah well he had gone in a few times before that but he this last time yeah it was after he had already killed his girlfriend right so it's it's fucking it's wild um it's very interesting here i mean they've got to be thankful that he after they discharged him he didn't go hurt anybody except himself you know yeah he didn't go like you know go on a rampage or anything but still he went off himself yeah that's not great it's not good for your track record yeah it's taking an l for sure it's definitely taking an l you looked at him and you went, he should be okay. And then he's floating in a pier. That's not good.

When your job is to save lives and you've not saved that one, you've definitely lost. You've definitely lost. So he was seen on four occasions by a psychologist named Anita Bonolo between May 26th and September 28th, 2006, where she provided him with counseling for anxiety and depression. She was aware of his relationship with Lynette Phillips and that there was an intervention order against him. She had also seen Lynette Phillips on one occasion in connection to her drug use. She told, this is Lynette, told this Bonolo psychiatrist or psychologist about the family violence perpetrated against her by Ben.

Benolo psychiatrist or psychologist about the family violence perpetrated against her by Ben. On the last session that Benolo saw Ben Pappas, she described him as very depressed, psychotic, and his mood was very negative. Quote, in my opinion, he showed signs of suicidal ideation, homicidal tendencies and psychotic related symptoms such as paranoia, anger and frustration. So what the fuck um she's she told the judge this bonolo told the judge that she held some concerns for miss phillips safety but they were balanced by the fact that pappas was not living with her yeah so it wasn't like he was going home to the house and that he was receiving ongoing medical treatment from his medical practitioner and that there was a family violence intervention order in place sure it's like i know, I know he wanted to kill her, but I figured it would have been very inconvenient for him to do so.

So there's a lot of paperwork involved. You know how that goes. The judge says, given the state of knowledge in the literature about the potentially lethal danger caused by a violent person to their intimate partner, in circumstances where that intimate partner is being treated by the same health practitioner, the safety of the patient at risk of injury or death must come first above privacy right you got to tell them hey this person you know might be coming to kill you so right yeah you could be in danger yeah they went on to say the tragic set of circumstances should be used to highlight the need for health care profession uh for the health care profession generally to ensure that a a false sense of being

able to control the situation is not being relied on and b appropriate on-call assistance is provided to support guide and event advise health care professionals uh who find themselves in similar circumstances so uh during this the judge criticized Ben's general practitioner, Dr. Michael Kosminski, who had been treating both of Phillips and Pappas. So an entry in Pappas' medical records made by this doctor, Kosminski, on September 29th noted, quote, case conference discussion, psychotic, depressive suicide risk with fucking with question marks around it. You know, suicide risk and murder risk with question marks around it. Oh, my God.

Homicidal, suicidal. See you next week. We'll discuss it then. Can we? We're out of time. Well, I don't understand that at all. Discuss it then. Can we?

We're out of time. Well, I don't understand that at all. The judge said that Lynette was, quote, undoubtedly a significant risk when Dr. Kosminski documented those concerns. She said this doctor had seemed somewhat in awe of Ben's sporting prowess. We talked about the X Games more than murder. Oh, my God. He's a big shot. And this appeared to have clouded his judgment, which happens.

He found a silver-haired, middle-aged white man in his doctor. This happens all the time in athletes. They're blinded by this shit, and they don't see. Wow. And it fucks the guys up. They said it appeared to have clouded his judgment, possibly to the detriment of the duty he also owed Lynette to take control of this unacceptable situation. Wow. owed Lynette to take control of this unacceptable situation. Wow. With respect to Lynette

and Ben, it appears that Dr. Kosminski may have overestimated his capacity to safely control the situation. I'm not persuaded that Dr. Kosminski, despite his self-belief, was fully equipped to handle such a complex situation. Yeah. Wow.

The judge recommended the secretary to the Department of Health conduct a feasibility study on establishing a specialist family violence on call service for general practitioners and other health care professionals. Yeah. Wow. This could change laws and shit. a mental health professional should hate the sport of the person that they're treating. Like, I don't want a Cowboys fan working on Ezekiel Elliott. You know what I mean? Hey, buddy, let's take a look at that trick knee. I don't want to hear them talk about the playoffs together. Fuck that. Boy, I remember that.

Those 2013 playoffs, boy, you really took them on your shoulders. So they said this service's function would be to provide specialist family violence information and advice including guidance on risk and vulnerability indicators safety planning and referral pathways to local services jesus lynette's mother cheryl dyson said she hoped the coroner's findings would help to stop future family violence deaths so that other families did not have to go through the irretrievable tragedy of what happened to her daughter. Yeah. This is a mess.

They got to feel awful, these people, too, because their daughter was on drugs and then she was going to school to be a counselor. So they probably thought that was good. Then she's got this scumbag boyfriend who you don't have to look very far to see his problems. They're right there. They're all restraining orders and this and that and then the inevitable of what you're telling this your daughter's gonna happen the whole time happens

of he kills her and it's fucking horrible so you have to feel terrible for her and her family that's fucking awful i really do i feel for them but not as bad as i feel what for taz Pappas, business banker and in digital acquisitions in Victoria, Australia. Is that right? This poor bastard. Yeah, it's not the same guy, though, at all. This is a guy who went to the Holmes Glenn Institute and more than 25 years experience in sales and operations. He says he can increase your sales and profits he has a strong focus on people development and he's a financial auditor for kfc and overlooked 42 stores metro and country so he

knows if you fry chicken or some australian shit i think it's kfc no the kfc is huge in england so i think it's i think it's actually kfc so he knows if you do chicken right or not. He'll count the herbs and spices. He will count them. That's what he does. He's an urban spice auditor. That's what he does. Financial and urban spice auditor. That's pretty good stuff.

Ben Pappas here, who is in the Washington, D.C., Baltimore area. I help people make breakthroughs and win in life. Ferocious optimist, executive performance and success strategist, TED Talk speaker. Basically all the things Ben wasn't. Ferocious optimist. Nope. Drug addict pessimist. Executive performance and success strategist.

I give up. Fuck it. Not quite the same thing here. And this guy went to the U.S. Naval Academy as well. Ben Pappas, student at the University of Michigan in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan as well. He goes there. Ben Pappas, inventory technician at TerraSend in New York City metropolitan area. He went to Florida Gulf Coast University.

A lot of Ben Pappases. I can't believe it. A lot of Greek guys named Pappas running around out there. I guess so. That is interesting here. So there's that. Okay. Now, more drugs and shit here coming up.

For Taz? Well, yeah. I mean, he's going to be sad after this. What do you think he's going to do? Fucking drown his sorrows in apple juice? He's going to get... Use that as motivation to beat Tony? Yeah.

No. So Taz says he still doesn't think of his younger brother as a murderer. What? This is crazy. Quote, murderers don't kill themselves. They can kill and not give a shit. Ben gave a shit. No, Taz.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. What are you talking about? No, once there's... No, no, no, no. They do it all the time. Yeah, that happens all the fucking time. They're not a murderer. That school shooter who killed fucking 14 children, he wasn't a murderer.

He put the gun under his chin afterwards. He felt bad. What are you talking about? Both those kids from columbine are sweethearts oh those poor kids they gave a shit they gave a shit that was the problem they cared too much the problem was they cared too much jimmy that was it they cared so much that only only their brains painting a fucking mural on the wall would fucking satisfy their guilt. They needed their brains painted all over the library books to really drive this one home.

You idiot. And I get it. There's no timetable on grief. Everybody grieves differently, but that's the wrong way to look at it. There's timetable on logic, though. There's timetable on reality though there's timetable on reality grief is one thing you can go jesus i'm really sad my brother's a murderer and i still feel bad about that like well forever but to go you know what i don't think he's really a murderer

if i'm thinking about it really god yes he beat and strangled a woman and fucking wrapped her in a quilt put his weights in and threw her in a river i get that but he felt bad afterwards he felt kind of bad he said hi to her he said hi love you carved it into the dock that's forever that dock will always be there wow it's not gonna heal those trees are dead it's there forever out of everything that's been said and done in this whole episode, that's the highest thing anyone's ever said or done in this episode. Truly. It would be the most high to say that. How stoned was he when he said that?

Wow. Then he goes on to say, Lynette's sister's true. You know what? This is, I think, a in their own words situation here. Whenever something real dumb comes up, the only thing that can solve it is in their own words, in their own words, quote, Lynette's sister is trying to paint a picture that Ben's just an animal and he bashed her all the time. Like he was abusive the entire relationship. I don't agree with violence against women.

I think it's shit. I've made that mistake myself and I'm ashamed on myself. But the facts are they were two junkies who were in love. It was a Sid and nancy situation she was a working girl she lied to ben about it and it did his head in and he was completely wired up on drugs and stuff and when you're on drugs anything is possible especially this fucking sentence i just said whoa holy by the way that is but that's like a disney quote like when you wish upon a star when you're on drugs anything is possible when you're on drugs anything

your girlfriend in a river you wonder up here i don't condone violence on women. I do it, but I don't condone it. I've done it, but I'm not thrilled about it. Don't get me wrong. I felt bad every time they bled. I think it's shit. I think it's shit. What the fuck are you saying, Taz? Then he goes into, they were two junkies who were in love.

It was Sid and Nancy. She's a working girl. She lied to Ben. It's just your typical boy meets girl, girl meets boy, boy falls in love with girl, girl sucks dicks for $20 a pop, boy and girl shoot heroin together, boy beats girl to death, strangles her, wraps her in a quilt, puts his weights down, throws her in a river, boy kills himself in her appear. It's an age-old story. We've all heard it a hundred times. You read that book. It happens every day. It's hacky by now. It's hacky by now.

It's just hacky. We've all heard it. The fuck is happening? What is he talking about? Where does he live that this is just commonplace? Australia, apparently. And Tampa. Tampa, I get it.

Everything I just described ina actually is very common that actually is same add roosters and blonde women with bruises all over them for some unknown reason and you have tampa he just described it but otherwise holy shit outside of australia and tampa i don't think this is okay. You need a vacation, Taz. Holy, she was a working girl. She lied to Ben about it. He murdered her. What are you talking about? He just justified everything that happened with that insane diatribe.

He should have saved all those. Yeah, he did. He should have saved all those words and just said, when you're on drugs, anything is possible. And moved on. Yeah, there it is. We could have filled all that shit into the blanks in a less horrible way. Instead, he fucking incriminated himself about violence on women. I mean, I'd do it, too.

I mean, he did get arrested for it in the U.S., so that makes sense. So apparently, his father devastated his father. Just gutted him. This whole thing. So Taz says the whole time my dad was torn. Ben had my whole family over there in Australia. Aunties, uncles, the Greek family, which was solid. I had no one in the States and I was trying to raise my kids, but I was stuffing up on drugs.

Stuffing up. He said I got locked up a few times, which God goddammit, I wish I could find those few times. Yeah. Yeah, you can't find them, though. I got locked up a few times, and my dad was thinking, what do I do? Go back to Australia or stay? He was torn. At the time, Taz wanted his dad's support, though.

He said, I was a drug addict, you know? I couldn't do it on my own. I'm locked up every other month. My wife's threatening to leave me. What am I going to do? How am I going to raise these three kids? Who's going to bail me out of jail? Yeah.

The problem was by then he wasn't really famous to the mainstream, so the press didn't cover it when he got arrested, so we can't find shit. So it's really annoying. It sucks. So, yeah, now he's got three kids, by the way. He added another one to this mix and probably it's all drug related criminal activity yeah what the fuck man fucking

it's a mess man um so he said the uh u.s justice department deported him and his wife got custody of kids and cut off all contact with him so for years him to australia too yeah they deported him for domestic violence and shit oh yeah that's right yeah now he didn't talk to his kids for years because they just cut off contact after he went back to australia in 2007 he begins drinking heavily because what else do you do um then his dad had a heart attack and um and died as well so no he's having problems uh and taz blames himself for for his dad's death is that right he said quote i stressed him to death i feel like a real piece of shit okay well that's sad though that's both both both his boys really had some trouble

so yeah there was a lot going on there and it's not your fault it's not your fault did you murder your girlfriend and then and then jump off a bridge that probably stressed him out way more than you drinking and being a little sad so he said this is my biggest regret i blackmailed my dad not to leave me because i had no one and i just feel like fuck if i had just gone home with dad and got straight then i would have been able to go back to the states instead of leaving it in the mess it was and my brother would have been alive yeah i fucked up so wow he's saying i should have just went back home with my dad at the time when i should have and i would have could have saved ben i could have you know got clean come back to the states and everything would have been fine no oh boy you couldn't save ben and he's jumping to some

conclusions yeah too boy oh boy if ben and all of his doctors and psychologists and everybody else trying to help and all this shit couldn't help i don't think you were going to get in the middle of a relationship between him and his you know a sid and nancy relationship if you want to put it that way so um he said me and my brother didn't stand a chance. I had mental health issues. I am diagnosed with a borderline personality disorder. I can trip out really easily. Now I'm on a low dose of antipsychotic and antidepressants. I didn't know what was going on, and that led me to mask it all with drugs.

So, yeah. So then, okay, by 2008, he's got a huge drug debt in Australia that he owes, that he's trying to pay off. So in an attempt to do so, he flies to Australia in an attempt to buy a shitload of cocaine and smuggle it back into Australia to pay off his debt. This sounds like a great idea, right? Yeah. This is going to go well, I'm sure. This sounds like a great idea, right? Yeah. This is going to go well, I'm sure.

I'm in debt with drugs. I'm going to solve that by taking an enormous chance. Split those aces, bitch. Let's do it. Yeah. Double down. Everything I own, split them. What the fuck is going on?

But he is busted at the Sydney airport. Of course he is. Due to traces of cocaine on his clothing. I guess they sniffed him out or something. He tried to smuggle the drugs in three skateboard decks, but he was all fucked up. He was on benzodiapines, alcohol and meth, too, at the same time. So he was all fucked up trying to smuggle a bunch of coke into the country, and it didn't quite work. So he is going to be sent to prison for this here.

You, sir. How much? How much was it? Fuck off. He serves time for three years in different facilities here. His brother got ugots, and he gets three years. How much did he try to get, though? Because he brought in three skate decks.

I think more. It's got to be more. More than just a quarter pound. So, you know, more than personal use. Right. This is traffic. Wow. He gets a day release in November of 2011 for the weekends.

And he uses the time to skate the Vert Ramp in New South Wales. And he uses the time to skate the Vert Ramp in New South Wales. And then in December 2011, Slam Skateboarding Magazine ran a feature on Pappas after internet blogs had reported seeing him skating in this place here. They also suggested in the article that Pappas was still one of the most highly skilled skateboarders in Australia at that time. And there's a video of it. borders in Australia at that time. And there's a video of it. It was published by Slam to coincide with an article that said that it was only Pappas'

third skate in three years due to his incarceration. So, at that point, Taz, let's see, things are going bad, he gets married, has kids, he's broken, he's gone home, he's broken, he was forced to go home.

That's a forced rule. He didn't want to break that rule, but he had to. When immigration forces you to do it. When a country's government forces you to break a rule, I think it's worse at that point, right? Maybe so. When ICE says you're breaking a rule today. That's different. What is another rule that you might break if you're in this situation?

You're going to find the Lord. Yeah. And everything's going to be fine, and you can sweep everything right under the rug like that. So he said that he did some prison time, and when he was in prison, that's when he converted to Christianity. And he met his new wife and started a new family, and's clean and everything's wonderful and like a shiny Australian sunset. It's all good. He said, look, I was the last person who wanted to believe. I loved shooting up speed and staying up for three days watching porn.

You know what I mean? Watching porn? You know what I mean, Jimmy? When you're shooting speed for three days watching porn, that's relatable, right? We all do that. Who amongst us has not shot up speed for three days? Oh, God. Coke.

This is meth. Speed is not coke. Yeah, right. Three-day speed binge with just porn. How raw would your dick be? Oh, God. Bright red. Bright red.

Skin fucking missing from it. Why is only your dick sunburned? Man, that looks terrible. Holy shit. He said, if you want me to believe in God, you're going to have to make me not want to do that anymore. So God had to compete with three-day masturbatory meth binges. That's a lot to compete with. He is so much fun to talk to.

Oh, he's great. He's a fucking party of a quote this guy this is amazing i love australians just if there's quotes they're just the best quotes ever always tell me jesus is better than that and i'll do it i'll do it does it feel better than i listen i've been beating my cock silly then jamming heroin and speed into it. Is it better than that? He said, but slowly but surely, changes happened, and that happened in prison. Of course. He said, I thank God that he was merciful after all the shit I did. I told God where to go.

I was trying to make deals with the devil, but he still got me home through all the chaos. So he said, I told God to fuck off, but he was like, nope, nope, nope. I got you here. So he started skateboarding again and picked up a few sponsors and all that kind of shit. He did land a 900. Oh. Finally got to do that. So work that out.

He said, I'm loving skating at the moment. Whether or not I'll be welcome at the X Games ever again, well, that's another story. But I'll be skating my arse off no matter what okay so he's doing it he said that um he's uh he can appreciate the simple pleasures now that his life was so crazy now it's calm and cool he's like bubbles sitting on that bench when he's sober yeah and the kids are the kids are blowing bubbles and he's like the birds are chirping and he's like hearing it looking around like oh shit i didn't notice people did this shit before look at this look at this wow shit it's nice out trees are cool the simple pleasures not the difficult ones like meth binges and three-day tugs three-day porn tugs man that's an awful you'd get so how much porn do you have for three days

he finished porn hub he finished it yeah like, well, that's all of it. That's everything. Fucking I don't even know. So he's, yeah, he said he's learned to live with it. And, you know, he said that he's doing better. And he says, they said, you know, you're going to, your life going to be okay. And he says, yeah, it's hard, bro. That's his big thing here.

So the documentary on them was in 2012, I believe it was all this mayhem. It's called. It was on Netflix for a while. I don't think it's on there now, but it was on for a long time here. And yeah. So in May of 2012, Taz attended the Melbourne premiere of Danny Way's documentary Waiting for Lightning, where he was where he was photographed with Way and fellow Australian skateboarders and shit like that. Taz says he was in the process of producing his own documentary at the time that focused on him and his brother's careers. So a filmmaker approached him about making the documentary.

But yeah, but they said no, because Pappas wouldn't be included in the filmmaking process so they ended up the family approved a documentary that was made by screen australia directed by uh eddie martin and james gay reese and george pank i guess and uh they made some other they made exit through the gift shop and a couple other ones too so they've're popular documentaries. They know how to do their shit. What is that one? Exit Through the Gift Shop? I've seen that, right?

No, you've – probably not. It's not what it sounds like. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's like an artsy thing. I don't think you would like it. Maybe I've just heard Exit Through the Gift Shop so many times I think I've seen it. Yes, and it's on – it was on streaming for years.

It was like prominently pushed all the time as a popular documentary. If you looked at documentaries, it would have been in the first on streaming for years. It was prominently pushed all the time as a popular documentary. If you looked at documentaries, it would have been in the first 30 there for years. So this documentary begins production in 2010, and they got all sorts of footage of the brothers and everything like that. Tony Hawk declined to be interviewed for the film, of course. Really? Of course, absolutely. Not enough money?

No, I just didn't want to do it. Um, so the world premiere was in, uh, the Adelaide film festival, October, 2013.

And, uh, yeah, it was a big deal. It was, it was a popular documentary. And, uh,

they explained the documentary by saying it's a story about two brothers that just happened to be in the world of skateboarding. People can get so easily put off. And I think that skateboarding element will be our biggest challenge. We didn't want to use a skate image as our promo because obviously for us, this isn't a story about skateboarding. And he said, this film is to be distributed by hopscotch in Australia. We're hoping the film will play at some festivals before a national Australian

release to get it overseas would be the main goal. So there you go. It has a 7.8 out of 10 on IMDb. That's nice. Not bad. They also describe the Pappas story as a Greek tragedy, literally. So as of May 2014, Taz was in the inner northeastern Melbourne area here, the suburb of Clifton Hill.

He shares a home with his new lady helen norman and they have a five-year-old son named billy he works works as a window cleaner oh god does a lot of does window cleaning and attends a you know christian church and all that shit now so he's a window clean and church man now wow um yes he was may 2014 when he told everyone about his borderline personality disorder here um uh they said that obviously that's not helping everything that else has been going on he can't do drugs at all um he said that everything had to happen for me to learn dad had to die ben had to die i had to happen for me to learn. Dad had to die. Ben had to die. I had to lose my kids. I had to be humbled.

I was too angry and I had to be crippled and put on my knees to finally realize that I'm not in charge. Wow, that's a really egotistical statement. I'm sorry. I get that people say you think there's a god and god made you had all that shit done to make you realize something then you and god are cunts both of you because he killed all those people to make you wash windows to make you to make you fucking feel better and realize you were a dick holy he could have just had a fucking truck hit you and let everybody else be fine what the fuck like so that's a very to think about that that's a very

world revolves around me yeah way of thinking which is fine i mean if but i guess if that's the type of yeah yeah i guess if that's the type of thought he needs to have to not beat his girlfriend and do fucking meth right and shoot speed for three days i guess you know what let the world revolve around you and your brain. Who cares? You're not hurting anybody, so fuck them. Just wash the seagull shit off those windows. There you go. There's a lot of seagulls around here, I'm telling you. So July of 2014, he does an interview with ABC, the Australian broadcasting company,

and he described himself as a work in progress and told them, quote, I'll take ownership of all my shit actions. progress and told them quote i'll take ownership of all my shit actions he said that uh he's glad he wasn't invited to the 99 x games best trick contest because if he would have landed the 900 before uh tony hawk his life would have been completely out of control at that point he said he wasn't capable of handling that level of fame he said that would have he said i was fucked up anyway and on the borderline he goes that would have made it like, holy shit, I would have been more famous, more rich. It would have really been bad. How about that?

He said, I would probably have died in a bloody hotel room if I made a million dollars. That's how God looked after me. I wasn't really trustworthy. I was not the best role model. I was borderline personality disorder. I am an addict in recovery only a million dollars would have made him go off the rails oh it would have fucked him up yeah if you're a drug addict and they give you a million dollars and you oh man you just beat tony hawk

finally you think you're fucking owning it you think it's being great and a million and i'll start thinking about how i could never be seen ever again here's some pictures of them too if you want to slide your chair over i figured i'd save them for the end rather than have you slide them over every 15 minutes so that's them as kids for heaven's sake little blonde kids in tuxedos here dual tuxedos no need for those boys you are pieces of shit they look let's start dressed for court early they look so Australian. Yeah, they do. If you had to fucking draw Australian children, that's what they'd look like.

Sun-kissed. Here they are. My God, how sunny is it in Australia? So sunny. But they look pretty similar, too. They don't look like Bogan at all, right? No. Here's Ben.

But I mean, that's clearly from the same day. Yeah, that's a very nice day. They went to a wedding once is what it looks like. So there's that. Let's see here. There's Ben. Ready to skate. In his skating gear here.

And here's Ben again. And then here's Taz there. Oh, Jesus. He's got the Thug Life Pappas tattoo across his stomach there. Yeah, he does. So, yeah, there you go. Holding a skateboard. This once was filled with meth.

A meth-y skateboard. That is the Pappas brothers. Holy shit. Yeah, man. Every once in a while we have to take a little slight detour and go into a sport we don't usually talk about. And in Australia and kind of reset everything so we can go back to about, and in Australia, and kind of reset everything so we can go back to boxing, baseball, football, basketball, all the rest, because it's...

What a horrific waste. Yeah. Oh, it's huge. It's a sad story. Truly. These two, without drugs, and if you took Tony Hawk's, whatever the fuck he does, and had them do all of that,

these two would still be on top. Like, I mean, maybe not the top skateboarders, but they'd still be so well known. They'd have fucking video games. They'd have things you know, especially that there's two of them and they were one and two. If they could have stayed like that, holy shit, that would have been amazing. Fight back and forth over one and two also. Taz two, Taz one, Taz two. That's great.

Lead changes. also Taz 2, Taz 1, Taz 2 that's great lead changes and also with two of them like that you could have kind of overwhelmed the Tony Hawk publicity train maybe a little bit because there's two of them and it's a better chance that one of you is going to beat him and so yeah I think that would have been it's really a damn shame but I mean they took it

themselves I mean they put it upon themselves when you're saying I'm going to fucking jam 18 different drugs into me and then beat my girlfriend and shit I understand, they put it upon themselves when you when you're saying I'm going to fucking jam 18 different drugs into me and then beat my girlfriend and shit. I understand that they have mental health problems and they're on drugs and all this shit. But at some point you got to go listen, you know, fuck guys, get it together, get your shit together. Like before you hurt someone. There is the breaking of the of the cycle to get out of that. That old socioeconomical

fucking chase man you're chasing your tail all the time whether it's oh yeah fix your car work we did it for years it it's just it's just a cycle of trying to get to tomorrow and they got out of it for christ's sake yes and to their own detriment put themselves back in that's so fucked because i don't know how if you're a teenager yeah if i was if i was 14 15 and i loved to do something and adults were telling me i was so great at it that here's 15 000 a month which i wouldn't imagine when you're 15 making 15 000 in a year would be insane right in a fucking month and then guys are doing drugs and they're doing really well and they get chicks and people talk to them and they win competitions and so it seems like everything's fun and then it just progresses into your wild life it's fucking crazy man

it's a crazy life so it's it's like if they were it's like if they went into wrestling at 13 you know they were just on the road wrestling at 13 or being as good as the adult and then you see the adults and they they wish they had that talent at that age oh fuck yeah they do they'd be like wow recognized for yeah if you're beating me and i'm 20 and you're 14 you're gonna get better and i'm probably not gonna get a lot better you know i can progress a little bit but you're gonna get leaps and bounds better and this is what i do while i do this stuff here come hang with me because they recognize and accept you as one. When all of your ball hair comes in, you're going to crush me.

You know? When you finish puberty, you're going to really kick my ass. Wow. So there you go. That's the Pappas Brothers. Unbelievable. And wild times there. So if you enjoyed that, tell the world about it.

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We tried to move it to a bigger venue, is what it was, because the tickets sold out in a day. They did. It was so fast. And so we tried to put it in a place that was like twice the size. We were going to transfer, but the way it worked out, they couldn't guarantee people's tickets would be near where they were.

And it would have been a very complicated mess. And finally said you know what never mind we'll leave it we'll stick with this and uh next year we'll build book a bigger venue in salt lake so all shows are sold out until august 12th when we are in chicago it will be our biggest show fucking chicago comes strong for us please do that also you want oh we jacked for that shit yeah it's gonna be patreon you want patreon you absolutely do patreon.com slash crime and sports anybody five dollars or above it's not just giving us five dollars we are giving you no we're gonna try real hard i promise for a for a price of a cup of coffee you're gonna get four episodes a month on crime and sports sometimes six sometimes six if the weeks work out that way

so it's every other week you get two new episodes there's a couple hundred bonus episodes to binge and they're fucking good that's where we lay it down so yeah on patreon this week for crime and sports what you're going to get is we're going to talk about something very different and completely not sports related but hilarious we do that once in a while we're going to talk about stairway to stardom which was a public access show in new york the new york area from the 70s to the 90s uh where people would sing and the acts you've probably seen clips of it here and there because it's so terrible and bad and i've never heard jimmy laugh at anything so hard as when we watch these shows so much fun i'm going to put together

some of the real choice clips and we'll play some of the clips of people's bad singing and we'll talk about how it happened. And there's death involved in stuff, too. There's literally four good singers. Everybody else is so bad. Everyone else is terrible. Or like those poor dancers where you could tell some 13-year-old girl's mother made her do this and it's bad, dude. So she's got to dance to Thriller for fucking four minutes by herself. It's bad stuff. We can't wait to show it to you here. So Stairway to dance to Thriller for fucking four minutes by herself. It's bad stuff.

We can't wait to show it to you here. So Stairway to Stardom. And then for Small Town Murder, holy shit, it's back again, everybody. Let's go. By always popular demand, the prisoner dating game is here, baby. That's right. Buckle up. We're going to take four bachelors, four bachelorettes.

The only thing they have in common is they are currently incarcerated and they're going to be on Jimmy Wissman's radar for a future date hopefully fingers crossed i'm going to line them all up it's the all violent felon edition of course no good choices here jimmy's going to choose one based solely on their description that they put out on the dating sites for prisoners he's going to choose one for there and then when he picks them he's going to find out what they look like and most importantly, why they are in prison, what they did to end up there.

And it is splendidly hilarious. So check that out. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you get all of that. And you also get a shout out. When does that shout out happen? Right goddamn now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never, ever, ever strangle me and wrap me up in a quilt and put their dumbbells in the quilt and make me

go to the bottom of a river jimmy hit me with that list right now this week's executive producers are simon chet happy birthday simon happy birthday simon you english canadian soul bitch you liz nelson just became a meemaw. That's a brand new grandchild. Congrats. That's beautiful. I love that. Kathy Lang is coming to the Denver show. Well, we'll see you there.

Happy Mother's Day, Kathy. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Absolutely, Kathy. Can't wait to see you there. Alexandra, Alexander, Cpiella. Cpiella and Kayla, they're getting married.

May 20th. Whoa, congrats. Congratulations. Make some little paisans. Look at you. C.P. Ella and Kayla. They're getting married May 20th. Whoa, congrats. Congratulations. Make some little paisans. Look at you. Found love, you sons of bitches. Karen Lewis in Anne Arundel said hello and thank you, and we were right.

Nothing was wrong. Thank you. Good. That makes us feel better. Other producers this week are Rabbi Shmulevich's fresh-trimmed nose hairs. That's a nice day. You get to breathe clean.

Oh, terrific. Get all that filthy air in there fresh trim nose hairs. That's a nice day. You get to breathe clean. Oh, terrific. Get all that filthy air in there that the nose hairs filtered. Brandi Huntley, Peyton Meadows, Anna Moore, Maureen Ponderosa. You know who she is, that chick from It's Always Sunny, right? It's Always Sunny, yeah. Ponderosa. Didn't you perform with that lady?

What's her name? Oh, Mary Lynn Ricegub. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, she's a fucking awesome lady. What a woman. She was on 24 and all that shit, too. Yeah. But Maureen, she does the best. Oh, she's amazing.

No, she does the slug. What's her name? Oh, it's not Maureen, is it? It's not Maureen. No, Maureen is the one that wants to fuck Dennis all the time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's a mick. The slug that's in the house. No, no, Maureen is the one that wants to fuck Dennis all the time. Yeah. Yeah. She's a mick. The slug that's in the house.

No, no. Maureen is, no, yeah. Maureen is the one that he married, isn't it? Yeah. Yes. Right? Yes. High school girlfriend or some shit.

Yes. Yes. That's who it was. And then, okay. Sorry. Marilyn's the slug. You're right. We figured it out.

Yes. Janice Hill, Scott Anastasio? No. Atnazio. All right. Dr. Seymour Cooter, OBGYN. Steve Schnell. Megan Showiker.

Mabel H. Samantha Hall. Patty Cole. Jordan Froomekin. Lance Lunsford. Michael McCann. Rayanne McGregor. Kelligan.

Calligan. Wilson. Crystal P. Steven with no last name. Your waifu is trash. Jasmine U. Ut. Madison Vaughn, Greg Naktreeb, Charles Allen Burnside, Zach Mills, Kaylee Koperski, Katie with no last name, Obito, Gretchen Zuckuskus, Jill Robson, Sid Matt 14, Jessica Hudson, Ashley Knotts, Stuart Hill, Carly Boyd, Katie Edwards, I don't know. Gregory Smith, Leanne M., Liz, with no last name but also a question mark, Becky Thuma-Bucher, Mark Fisher, Tracy McDonald, Jordan with no last name, Dory Greenaway, Daniel Masick, Simon Pyrock, Pyrrhic, Craig, I got a small loan, Kozara, he got a small loan, not a mortgage, just a very small loan.

Joe Womack, Sandra Contarado. A copier or something. Got shoes on the credit card. Denny McIntyre, Sandra Hedgerman. Hedgerman? Hedgerman. Higa-man. Valentine.

Valentin. Valentin. Valentin Garcia. Valentine? Valentin. All right. Amanda Klein Gilmore. Kenna Bradley.

Will Palmer. Plummer. Talos Franks. Talos. Gabriel Johnson Cameron. Doug Trim. Tim. Doug Tim. Doug, get some trim. Get that how, Anne Sorrell, Anne Sorrell, Muhammad, Muhammad, I know what Muhammad is. Kate Legler, Cassandra Brooks, Jane Gigante, Gigante, Gigante, Gigante. There's no E. It's an I on the end. Debbie, Debbie McLarnon, Callie Living 805, Michelle Pope, Audrey Touchet, Touchet maybe, Ross Jenkins, Miranda Lynn, Carrie Netherton, Nicole Coulter,

Joseph Carranza, Andy Redmond, Beth Hayday, Megan Kleinfelder, Daniel Crowder, Sarah with no last name, Carrie McBride, Deanna, Dina Dyer, Christina Hatfield, Mario Poirier, Sue Thompson, Becky with no last name, Brady, Brady Eilers, Kim Van Kirk, Aaron, John, what? That's Aaron, Jimmy. Pettis, Grant Clark, Aaron Herford, Sean, Seanathan, Seanathan and Joshua, Bri, Bri, Bri Elliott, maybe Bri Elliot. Adam Gibson, Mariah Shipley, I think, yeah. Sabrina Holbrook, Benjamin Scott, Jolene with no last name. Dan Nicholson, Linda Gallantyne, Ann, Ann Kozik, Bridget Lavish, Pete Griebus, Miss S.O.D. Let's see, what's this?

22, Kelly Ketchup, 721. Andy with no last name. We got Ketchup in there. Matthew Dinterman. Dinterman. Rex Remexbar. Remexbar, 9. Jonathan Mackey.

Mike Watson. Kim Moreland. Alana Hall. Walter Strickland. Sexy Sahara. Oh, boy. James Cantrell. William Cant. Tito boy. James Cantrell. William Cant.

Tito Stein. Yes, he can, Jimmy. He can. I believe in you, William. You can do it. Ashley Anderson. Julie Hall. Laura Austin.

Flash McGee. Rhiannon Loveless. Jordan with no last name. Nate Lonsky. Grant Silver. Andrew Young. Nikki West. Chelsea Ockfish.

Yep. Gary Pickering. Matthew Leighton. Leighton, maybe. Darcy Jolene. UC Woods. Epoxy. silver andrew young nicky west chelsea ockfish yep uh gary pickering matthew layton layton maybe darcy jolene uc woods epoxy and supply you may want to check on them brandon if you need epoxy or supply brandon sneed and tillis tillis your tillis your uh rafael para megan beals andrew Raphael Parra, Megan Beals, Andrew Pace, Bridget Maloney, Thomas Ledbetter, Brand Mays, Brad Mays, SP, no name at all, just S and a P, Grace of Base, Jonathan Paulson, Jane and Rose, no last name for either. Isn't that terrific? I love Grace of Base.

That's the best name so far. That's awesome. Johnny Kickifer, Steve Ripple, Laura Lewis, Gabrielle Armstrong, so far that's awesome johnny kicker kicker uh steve ripple laura lewis gabrielle armstrong anthony volan natalie baker az native hey how about that uh maddie gibbons sorry about it it's hot there uh robin and michael c shelly gerald uh gerald maybe jessica queen kelly morris rock trotter wilson fields bri Brenna Miles, Erica Graves, Jennell Borgstrom, Casey Graybill, Ben Bicknell, Madison Wren, Mentally Ill Emily, Sameseys, Kristen with no last name, Justin Palker, and all of our patrons, thank you so much.

Thank you, everybody, for all that you do for us, for all that you've done for us, and for all that you plan to do in the future. We appreciate it so much. Thanks for hanging with us on Patreon. We hope you love the episodes. We get good feedback. So people keep their subscriptions and come back for more.

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