The Misery Machine - Aaron Hernandez - Cold Blooded Killer, or Victim of Circumstance? (As seen on Netflix's "Killer Inside")

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

This week, Drewby and Yergy cover the tragic downward spiral of New England Patriots tight-end Aaron Hernandez who was recently covered on a Netflix documentary called "Killer Inside. We discuss his early years as a star athlete, his career in the National Football League (NFL), his drug use and crimes, his eventual suicide in a Massachusetts prison cell, and whether or not the brain damage he suffered during his time in the NFL played a role in the murder he was convicted of or his demise. We also talk about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), ways it has plagued professional and combat sports, and our own experiences with various things that can cause neurological issues such as concussions and Lyme disease. Join Our Facebook Group to Request a Topic: https://t.co/DeSZIIMgXs?amp=1 Support Our Patreon For More Unreleased Content: https://www.patreon.com/themiserymachine Instagram: miserymachinepodcast Twitter: misery_podcast

It's the misery machine. Drew Bion Yergy. Hey. Oh my. Oh my. So this week we're kind of switching gears a little bit. I know we were going to do part two of Henry Lou Lucas, but we found out that there is a documentary coming out on on Netflix soon, didn't we? We did?

Yeah. It like popped up in my email the other day. So this is something that we know, well, we were quite immersed. in when this happened because it involved the New England Patriots, which when you live in Maine or anywhere in New England, the New England Patriots are a religion. Yeah. And like I don't even like football. No, like I mean, I don't, I don't watch it really either. But you still like get reeled into it at the same time. You do. You, you absolutely do. Like I'll still watch the Super Bowl and they play every year. They're not playing this year. Yeah, whatever. I'm not even keeping up.

Yeah, I know, like, I just saw some, like, people getting all puffy at each other on, like, Facebook about, like, the Patriots losing. So I knew they didn't do well. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, regardless, I, it's just like, I know so much about these members of the Patriots team when I don't even watch football. Right. Or really care all that much. So we are doing the Aaron Hernandez murder. Yes.

Murders. Allegedly. Question mark. Yeah. Before we get right to that. you're listening on YouTube, please like and subscribe. It goes a long way for us. If you're on Podbean or any of the other podcasting platforms, if you give us a like, a follow, like, how do those things work? I don't know. But... You can be a follower on Podbean. Okay, on Podbean. And you can do some

reviews. I think you can on Spotify. You can follow too. Yes. I think you can follow on most of the platforms, which everyone that you're more comfortable using. I mean, we do host on Podbean and I prefer to use pod bean myself except for like with some of our our friends that we listen to that you know are not on pod bean like i'll go to spotify but yeah i do i use youtube for everything just because you know i can't be friggin hassled but but when i go and check out new podcasts i will use apple podcasts sometimes which by the way we got a new review so shout out to ttesha the feeling murdery podcast please check that out she does very short very concise episodes of true crime very, very good, very funny, very British.

She left us a review that said, I love the banter between the two hosts and the fun sidebars while taking a case I hadn't heard of before. Keep the machine running. My goodness, I need to stop being rude and mute my phone. Yeah, can you mute your phone? I figured after we had to take this the second time. My goodness, it's my sister Ashley.

What does she want? I don't know. Are you really going to air out your business on here? She's been sending me some interesting stuff. Like Ashley's being pretty cool lately. Oh, well, that's good. So earlier today, she sent me something where she wanted to go to New Orleans for this two-day witch festival. Okay.

So, like, coming from my sister, who doesn't really seem to be into these type of things, I'm like, I'm listening. Yeah, for sure. I'm listening. So now she just sent me something about a hidden witch bar full of magic potions in Orlando. I've never been to Orlando, but I would go to Orlando for that. I would. I'd go for, like, a couple of things in Orlando. go to Harry Potter world because

I still love Harry Potter Wingardium Liviosa Wingardium Liviosa Okay anyways I won't I'm gonna bite my tongue here really quick probably because everybody tells me I'm a Hoffel Puff They're like you're a dumb Hufflepuff

You're not we're both Slytherin aren't we? Or have you never been sorted I mean I've taken some that have said Hufflepuff and some that have said Slytherin But I don't know There is an official like place to go get sorted I mean, if you want me to go fill it out, I will do it just for a lark. So next time, I'm going to have Drewie do his Pottermore profile, and then we'll report back, which house is in.

I have an issue with Harry Potter fans. Some of y'all are crazy, and some of y'all are especially toxic. Some of y'all never moved on from the books. Some of you all still live in the world of books. I was also just about to give my opinion on J.K. Rowling, and then, like Madden, magic, Yergy's microphone stand just fell apart. And we just spent the last 10 minutes trying to fix it. Yeah, it's dead. We can't do anything now. So now Yergy's got to just hold the mic. I'm literally holding a mic against my boobs with the pop filter screwed onto the microphone. Yeah, so. It's working well. So give it to our Patreon. Yeah, yeah. So I can get a new mic arm. Yeah, we, uh, please, please subscribe to our Patreon.

Um, thank you, Eddie for being our patron. Uh, Eddie is going to be helping us with a Jeffrey Dahmer episode in the future. And he's doing very good research. And I'm very excited to do this. Yeah, we had a really fun little chat that was supposed to be just like a sound check on Discord the other night. And it turned to this like two hour awesome like hangout. It was, it was very, very wonderful. We were all like sharing pictures from our childhoods.

It was awesome. Yes, we were. Friends made through podcasting. Maybe, maybe the real goal in podcasting was the friends we made all. along the way. I think so. But yes, please donate

to our Patreon because we can buy a new mic stand for Yergy. I think by the time this comes out provided nothing catastrophic

happened, I will have actual video put up, but it's from a pretty shitty quality camera.

And we want to actually get a good one and make actual videos and have video companions to our podcast.

So if you want to help with that. Please subscribe to us on Patreon. We have so much stuff you can get. Like all the secret episodes and content Yergy is putting up. There is literally so much. She updates it like once every week or every two weeks and I'm trying to get her to stop. So get you money's worth. Get you money's worth. And I think soon, are we going to have a tier where if you subscribe to us on Patreon, we're going to send you a postcard or a knick-knack every month or something like that? I think that's at the $10 level. but I think that we could like possibly add that into other levels

because that just seems fun. Yeah, we would like, I think if you subscribe to the 6661, we should be able to send you a postcard. We would like to, we would like to bring letters and postcards back. Right. We want to get into like pen pals and gift exchanges because that's fun. Yeah. And so at some point, we will have a PO box.

You can send us letters. But I don't think anyone wants to send us letters because y'all won't email us. But, but if you want to get postcards from us and we're pretty awesome, we will send you a postcard, but you have to subscribe to our Patreon. Yes. Anyways, let's get to the Aaron Hernandez stuff because I've talked for way too long. So, Aaron Joseph Hernandez was an American football tight end and the National Football League, as most of you know in America, the NFL.

And it's not football like you would think of, like, our friends in the UK. This is American football. He's also a convicted murderer. He was a productive player during his three seasons with the New England Patriots. His career came to abrupt end after his arrest and conviction for the murder of Odin Lloyd. Yes. So he was recognized as an All-American at the University of Florida. Go Gators. You have no alma maters in Florida. I know. I have no alma maters anywhere. So I just knew that they're the Gators. Anyway, Hernandez was drafted by the Patriots in the fourth round. I think he was like a hundred and third of the 2010 NFL draft.

alongside teammate Rob Gronkowski. He formed one of the league's most dominant tight-end duos, becoming the first pair of tight ends to score at least five touchdowns each in consecutive seasons for the same team. And he made one Super Bowl appearance in Super Bowl 46. X-L-V-1. Yeah, we had to Google that. We had to look this up.

We did our test run. It was like, uh, what's X-LV-1? Yeah. And which, by the way, that was our first test run ever. Right. So during the 2013 off season, Hernandez was arrested in charge with a murder of Odin Lloyd, a semi-professional player who was dating the sister of his fiance. Following his arrest, he was immediately released by the Patriots.

Hernandez was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2015 and sentenced to serve life in prison without the possibility of parole at the Susa Baranowski Correctional Center. While on trial for Lloyd's murder, he was also indicted for the 2012 double homicide of Daniel Deiabreou and Safiro, for Tato, but was acquitted after a trial in 2017. So days after being acquitted of the double homicide, Hernandez was found dead in his cell. His death was ruled a suicide. His conviction for Lloyd's murder was initially vacated under the doctrine of abatement ab initio because Hernandez died during its appeal. But the conviction was reinstated in 2019 following an appeal from prosecutors and the family. After his death, Hernandez was diagnosed with severe, chronic, traumatic, encephalopathy, which may have affected his actions and been a contributing factor in some of his criminal behavior.

So it's known as CTE, and I have some familiarity of this, not because I, you know, I'm a medical professional in that, but being a boxing and MMA fan, CTE is something that you're starting to see more and more of now. I mean, CTE probably led to whatever disease, Muhammad Ali, has is it Parkinson's or is it Lou Gehrig's disease or something like that. I think it's Parkinson's. Yeah. And Lou Gehrig's disease is ALS. Yeah, it's ALS. That's right. For anyone that followed the UFC for a minute, Chuck Liddell, who was an absolute world beater at the time. I loved him. Can barely speak a sentence now. One like soft hit to his face caused his lights to turn out

because he had just taken so much damage and been knocked out so many times. So this is something, I think there was a former professional wrestler in the WWI, I believe his name was Christopher Nowitzky. I have to double check that. But he's put in a lot of research, I believe got his doctorate or his master's in something surrounding this. He's been making a lot of strides in the scientific advancement for CTE. So that way, you know,

more of these people who participate in sports and activities that subject them to CTE can have, you know, more rights and more resources. Right. But anyways. Anyway. We'll start with his early life. Aaron Joseph Hernandez was born in Bristol, Connecticut, and raised in Greystone Avenue.

He was the son of Dennis Hernandez, a Puerto Rican descent, and Terry Valentine Hernandez of Italian descent. That could be Valentin. I don't know. As an adult, Hernandez remembered his mother throwing his father out of the house on multiple occasions, but always letting him back in. The couple married in 1986, divorced in 1991, and remarried in 1996. In 1991, they both filed for bankruptcy. Hernandez would later state that there were constant fighting going on in the home. Both parents would be arrested and involved in crime during their life.

So Hernandez had an older brother, Dennis Jonathan Jr., known as DJ. Their father pushed them to excel, including through sports, but was often abusive towards both boys and their mother. publicly their father projected an image of someone who had some run-ins, but the police, with the police, but turned his life around and became a good father and citizen. Yeah. So Hernandez's father died in January of 2006 after complications from hernia surgery, which is actually very rare to have those kind of complications. Hernia surgeries are pretty straightforward. I don't know the details, but I... From what I heard, like, they pulled him out of class to tell him this. Oh, really? Yeah, he found out always at school.

Oh, God. So, yeah, according to Hernandez's mother, he was greatly affected by his father's death, and he acted out his grief by rebelling against authority figures, and those who knew him said he never got over his father's death. So he later became estranged from his mother and largely moved in with a Tanya or Tanya Singleton, which was his older cousin.

So following his father's death, the family learned that Terry and Singleton's husband, Jeff Cummings, had been having an extramarital affair. after the affair became public, Singleton and Cummings divorced, and Cummings moved in with Terry. Terry is Aaron Hernandez's mother for those that lost place. This enraged Hernandez. It was while he was living with Singleton that Hernandez became more involved in criminal activity.

In a jailhouse conversation, Hernandez accused Terry of failing to obtain medication for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which he had said caused him to struggle in school. In another call, he told him. There's so many things I would love to talk to you about so you can know me as a person, but I could never tell you, and you're going to die without ever knowing your son. Right. So the beatings Hernandez's father gave him and his brother were sometimes for no reason at all, or were alcohol related, but often came when their father believed they were not trying hard enough

in school or their athletics. So DJ and Hernandez lived in constant fear of their father, but they also revered him. Hernandez once came to school with a black eye. that his coach believed came from his father. His father also once punched Hernandez's youth football coach after a dispute about the coaching methods. According to Hernandez's brother, D.J., Aaron was also sexually molested as a child. An older child forced Hernandez to perform oral sex on him,

beginning about when he was six years old, and this continued for several years. A college girlfriend said that he had never dealt with that sexual abuse, and it led to issues in his sexuality. So Hernandez attended Bristol. Central High School, where he played for the Bristol Rams football team. He started as a wide receiver before becoming a tight end and also played defensive end. As a senior, he was Connecticut's Gatorade football player of the year after making 67 receptions

for 18707 yards and 24 touchdowns on offense and 72 tackles, 12 sacks, three forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, and four blocked kicks on defense. if somebody wants to tell me what that all means. It sounds like it's a whole lot of good. Hit me up. The 18107 receiving yards and 24 touchdowns were state records. At least I know what that is. Hernandez 31 career touchdowns tied the state record.

He also set the state record for receiving yards in a single game with 376, which is the seventh best in national high school history. He set a national high school record for yards receiving per game with 180.7. Hernandez was considered the top. tight-end recruit in 2007 by Scout.com. He was not known for working hard as a child, but by high school where he was nearly six foot two inches tall, he would be working harder than anyone else on the team. But during one game in 2006, Hernandez took a blindside hit to the head so hard he was

knocked out cold, an ambulance had to take him off the field. And for what I remember, like not that I went to a lot of football games, that stuff rarely happens in high school football. Hernandez was popular in school. he first began dating his eventual fiance Cheyana Jenkins during high school. The two had known each other since elementary school. He also smoked a large quantity of marijuana.

I mean, who didn't? I didn't either during school, but you know, this is not odd. Smoking before school practices and games. His social life also included a sizable amount of drinking in addition to the marijuana. That gets worse later, folks. Yeah, it does.

So at first, Hernandez committed to playing at the University of Connecticut with his brother DJ, but ultimately chose to play for the University of Florida under head coach Urban Meyer, Urban Mayor, I'm not sure. Mayor flew to Connecticut and convinced Hernandez's principal to allow him to graduate more than a semester early. This allowed Hernandez to move to Florida,

join the team, and learn the playbook shortly after a 17th birthday. Holy shit. Yeah. Playing college ball when you're 17 basically or being prepared to. The Boston Globe would later opine that there was no way except physically he was ready for this. The young man who came to Gainesville wasn't academically prepared or emotionally grounded for college life.

This was according to previously undisclosed college records and recordings of phone calls that Hernandez later made from jail. But he had graduated high school more than a semester early, not because he was a great student, but because he was a great football player. The athletic gifts were obvious, but behind them was an angry teenager struggling with an abusive upbringing, a growing dependence on drugs,

and questions about his own sexual identity, which we'll get to that later. So one thing like really with this is like, you know, you watch football, like these are all men on there, but a lot of people forget, these are a bunch of kids, a lot of times. Yeah, a lot of them are like super young. I mean, yeah, you have Brady who's like in his 40s, but a lot of these kids are fresh out of college. And then if you watch college ball, oh my God.

Yeah, like he died when he was 27 years old. So, I mean, this whole thing is going on with essentially like a baby here. Yeah, I know. It's kind of nuts to see like people play college ball. ball and just like whack the shit out of each other. And a lot of these kids can't even legally take a drink yet. Right. So Meyer was aided in the recruitment by Steve Dazio, a Connecticut native, and Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. Hernandez's principal later said that the two were persuasive and heavily pressured Hernandez, but in retrospect, it was mistakes to let him graduate early. I

don't deny that. That's probably very true. I mean, Hernandez was not academically prepared for college and had to take remedial courses at Santa Fe Community College. Many of his teammates, particularly those who mayor convinced to come to Gainesville early, did likewise. So Mayor Meyer, Mayor Oscar Mayor Wiener later said that he found Hernandez to be a distressed person. When he arrived on campus and tried to steer him the right direction, I'm more of an armor hot dogs. What kind of man eats armor hot dogs? You remember that from the 90s? No, I eat the red hot dogs. Yeah, because it's like biting into a dick. I know we've had this conversation.

Except I don't eat pork. So those cayam kosher dogs, are those all beef? Cam. Yes. Those are all beef because they're kosher. That's, that's my shit right there. That's my shit. If I'm going to eat stuff like that, just get me a steak, folks.

My God, we're talking about food. We've been good about not doing this anyway. Well, we're 20 minutes in. I think we're doing okay. Right. Sometimes we go 20 minutes just talking about food before we even get to this. And it's okay to talk about hot dogs when you're talking about sports. We're getting, yeah, yeah.

Hot dogs, beers, yellow mustard, heathens. Okay, all right, all right. It's college career. So between practices, games, team meetings, and other events, Hernandez put 40 to 60 hours a week into football nearly year rounds. He would later say that he was high on drugs every time he took to the fields. Though he excelled his freshman year, he was benched in the season opener of his sophomore year due to a failed drug test. Do you know what it was for? I'm assuming marijuana.

Well, I mean, it could have been a performance enhancing drug. I don't know. I don't think he was into those. I haven't found any evidence that says it was. It was usually just recreational drugs. Okay. Do you get to the PCP later? Yeah.

He likes Angel Duss. And there's no angels on Angel Dust. No, there isn't. So following that, he started 11 to 13 games during the 2008 season in place of the injured Cornelius Ingram and finished the season with 30. receptions for 381 yards and five touchdowns. In the 2009 BCS National Championship game against the Oklahoma Sooners, Boomer Sooner. Bernanis led the Gators in receiving yards with 57 on five

receptions as the Gators defeated the Sooners 24 to 14 to win their second BCS championship in three seasons. I don't know how I know that, as I don't know anyone from Oklahoma. I think it was because on WWF Monday Night Raw, Jim Ross, who is this basically old, portly man from Oklahoma would always say boomer sooner. I think, I don't even know. I don't understand.

This is like as dumb as like, wasn't there a team called the Oilers? Yeah. That's just dumb. But they're from Texas. Are they? Yeah. Oh, like the Houston Oilers, right?

Yeah. But still, like, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, your team symbol is a phallic object spitting out some goo. You know? There's no wonder why that team don't exist anymore, to my knowledge. I don't know.

They might. Like, I would have, I don't know. I would have rather kept the Seattle Supersonics than get rid of the Houston Oilers. I mean, like, Jesus Christ. I always thought the Denver Nuggets was weird. Even though I, like, totally understand that it's like gold nuggets. I always thought it just chicken nuggets.

Oh, that's what you've been. Yeah. I mean, and then there's like. ones that just never seem to go away like the Washington Redskins. Yes. Oh, God. And then there's like stuff like the Toronto Raptors, which I don't even know exist anymore. Did they exist?

The Toronto Raptors, I'm probably looking like a dumbass right now. And do the Washington Wizards still exist? I think they all do. Okay, the Washington Wizards I know exist because I heard Luke Thomas talking about it. But the Toronto Raptors, I haven't heard that mention in a while. I don't know. We'll have to look into all of this later. Yeah, maybe.

probably forget though. So may, Jesus Christ. He got up to his junior in 2009. And after leading the team in receptions for 68, for 850 yards and five touchdowns, Hernandez won the John Mackey Award given annually to the nation's best tight end. He was also a first team all-southeastern conference selection and was

recognized as the first team All-American by the Associated Press, College Football News, and the sporting news. During his final game, he threw the ball on into the stands to celebrate a touchdown. The excessive display risked a personal foul penalty, but sports writers saw an athlete with little to lose personally if he chose to go to the NFL instead of returning for another year of collegiate football. So mayor wanted to throw Hernandez off the team for his chronic marijuana use.

That's probably you're right what the drug test was for. But he relented after an appeal from Tim Tebow. Jesus Christ. However, Hernandez junior year mayor told them he would not be welcome back for a fourth year and that he would have to try to get picked up by a professional team in the 2010 NFL draft. So he finished his college career with 111 receptions for 1382 yards and 12 touchdowns. Florida coaches aligned Hernandez with Morkese and Mike Pouncey. He reportedly grew close with the twins after rooming with them and staff considered the Pounceys

a positive influence on Hernandez. I don't think many people are going to be are going to be like caring much about his stats unless it's something record breaking. So I may smooth over some of these just to save the listeners some of the nerdy stats. But if you're a stat nerd, you can chew me out. Just message me.

Yeah. Miseryfmetap podcast at gmail.com. Anyways. So Hernandez was always trying to be the life of the party according to a teammate. His class is first year, including bowling theater appreciation, wildlife issues, and a course entitled Plants, Gardening, and You.

During his first semester, he largely earned bees. He made the conference honor roll during his sophomore year. But as a junior, he got D's in classes on poverty and did not complete his second attempt as an introductory statistics class. Those are like cool classes you took. A D in poverty? Like, poverty class? Like what?

Is this like, you know, is this like an economics class? Is this like an American history class? Like, I'm confused. I don't know. It seems like the only serious class here is this introductory statistics class. How to be poverty. I don't know. I take this plants and gardening.

Maybe he should have gotten A, learned to like, you know, grow some pot. Be a botanist. Yeah, because that was totally legal back then. I don't know. He seems to like it. Botanists of marijuana, right where we caught 10 years in prison, some of them are still doing time for something that's legal in most places now. Right.

So his pro career. So on January 6th of 2010, Aaron Hernandez announced his decision to forego as a remaining eligibility and enter the 2010 NFL draft. He attended the NFL scouting combine, but was unable to perform any physical drills after tearing a muscle in his back during the offseason. Wow.

You jack your back. Sometimes that's a career-ending injury. At least in MMA, it is. On March 17th, 2010, Hernandez participated at first. Florida's Pro Day and performed all the combine drills. So I'll say this stat. His time in the 40-yard dash would have been ranked fourth among all tight ends in the NFL Combine. He also performed 30 reps of the 225-pound bench press and would have been in the top performance of all tight ends, surpassing Dennis Pitt is top performance of 27 reps. NFL analyst Mike Mayock stated off-the-field concerns,

and concerns over his size were hurting his draft stock, but believed he would still be drafted in the second round. At the conclusion of the pre-draft process, Hernandez was projected to be a second round pick by the majority of NFL draft experts and scouts. He was ranked third best tight-end prospect in the draft by the Bleacher Report, was ranked fourth best tight end by Mayock and was ranked the fifth best tight end by draft scout.com. So the New England Patriots selected Hernandez in the fourth round of the 2010 NFL draft. I believe he was like 103rd. The previous day, the Patriots drafted Arizona tight end Rob Grancounsky. Hernandez was the six tight end drafted in 2010.

Despite being considered the top tight end prospect, it was reported multiple teams chose not to draft him because he was a problem. So Hernandez draft stock fell due to multiple off-the-field issues during college, rumors of multiple failed drug tests, and character concerns. After his arrest, it was discovered that multiple teams elected to remove Hernandez off their draft board entirely due to character concerns, including the Indianapolis Colts. I think that's where Tebow is, isn't it? I'm not sure. He's not playing anymore, is he? He was there.

Cincinnati Bengals and the Miami Dolphins. The Patriots signed Free Agent Al. Is it algae? Algae? Algy crumpler. Crumpler. And drafted Hernandez and Gronkowski. after they overhauled the tight-end positions by releasing Benjamin Watson

and opting not to re-sign Chris Baker and backup Michael Matthews. On April 27, 2010, the Boston Globe reported from multiple sources that Hernandez admitted to scouts and team representatives that he had a history of marijuana use during interviews at the NFL combine and failed multiple drug tests while in college. Later that day, the Patriots released a statement from Hernandez who said he had only failed one drug testing college and was candid about it to interested teams in the NFL combine. He wrote a letter to every team offering to be tested every other week during his rookie season. Patriots owner Robert Kraft later stated after Hernandez arrest that the Patriots drafted him

after he gained their trust and stayed that they had nothing to worry about, absolutely nothing to worry about in a letter set to the Patriots director of player personnel, Nick Casario, before the draft. Yeah, we have the whole letter. We can post this like in the Facebook group. but people want to see it. But it's pretty damn long. So on June 8th, 2010, the Patriots signed Hernandez to a four-year,

$2.37 million contract that included signing a bonus of $200,000. The terms of his contract limited Hernandez signing bonus to $200,000, which was less than half the signing bonus received by the Patriots' fourth round place kicker Stephen Goscowski, who still plays for them, in 2006. The Patriots declined to give Hernandez. Hernandez, the expected $500,000 signing bonus as a precautionary measure. To compensate for the smaller signing bonus, he received a contract that included a series of roster and workout bonuses up to an additional $700,000.

If Hernandez reached all bonuses and escalators, he could receive an annual salary comparable to a third rounder, but would have to walk the straight and narrow line to do so. Get off that junk. Right. So throughout training camp, Hernandez competed. to be a starting tight end against Crumpler, Grunkowski, and Rob Myers. Hernandez had an impressive preseason alongside

Grankowski. Their preseason performance would ultimately foreshadow their future success as one of the top tight end tandoms. That's a tongue twister. In league history. I just see two like lussey power bottoms going at it simultaneously. They were handsome.

I think so. I mean, I, I, I, how is me making a joke about power bottoms have anything to do with if they are handsome or not. I don't know because now I have it in my head. As them as power bottoms. Well, Rob Gruncowski got offered

I think his year's salary at the NFL to do a porno, but given the character conduct contract they have to sign, if he did a porno, he would be terminated by the NFL immediately and he turned it down. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. But, you know, you know, I mean, with him thinking about retirement. There's some options for him. Right. So head coach Bill Pelacek named Hernandez the third tight ends on the Patriots depth chart behind Crumpler and Gruncowski. Hernandez was used as a receiving tight end option when Crumpler inserted for plays that required blocking. Hernandez started the 2010 season as the youngest player on any active roster in the NFL. The Patriots with Aaron Hernandez on board finished the 2010 season first in the AFC East with a 14 and 2 record and they earned a first round

by. On January 16th, 2011, Hernandez started in his first career playoff game and caught one pass for a four-yard gain as the Patriots lost 28 to 21 against the New York Jets in the AFC divisional round. So in 2011, during training camp, wide receiver Chad Johnson arrived in the trade from the Bengals, and Hernandez immediately let Johnson, who then legally had the last name, Ocho Senko, based on his uniform number. I didn't know that was his legal last name. I thought it was just his nickname. Have the number 85, choosing to go back to his college number 81, which was worn in, on 2010 by wide receiver Randy Moss, but became available after Moss was traded in the Minnesota Vikings. So Johnson and Hernandez both claimed no compensation was arranged and the transaction was a kind

gesture between teammates and nothing more. But Hernandez's lawyer, Jose Baez, claimed Hernandez saw an opportunity after the arrival of Johnson and offered number 85 to Johnson for 75 grand. It was claimed by Baez that Johnson countered with a 50 grand offer that Hernandez accepted. The money was reportedly used to finance a wholesale marijuana purchased by Hernandez for his cousin's husband, T.L. Singleton, who later paid Hernandez back 120 grand for the loan. And it should be noted, Jose Baez became famous for being Casey Anthony's lawyer. Oof. Yeah.

And he stays Hernandez's lawyer throughout for different things. Yeah. For his life. Okay. Yeah. So I feel like we've talked a lot about what I consider

boring shit, but you probably just needed the background that he was a damn good player. And as somebody doesn't know a lot about football, reading those stats, seems like he was a damn good player. Let's get into the juicy bit. Right. The relationship with his team. Yeah, we've got a lot of stats here

And I think we're just going to, I mean, if you want to know about his stats, go look up his stats. Yeah, you can look him up on Wikipedia. But, yeah, I think we've given you more than enough and we're going to skip the rest of that. So, yeah, let's talk about the relationship with this team. Right. So Hernandez was not popular with his fellow Patriots and had few friends in the locker room. So quarterback Brady was overheard telling Tebow Hernandez's quarterback in college. Tim Tebow.

Yeah, Tim Tebow and Tom Brady here that he was trying to steer Hernandez in the right direction, called him a lot to handle. Tebow had previously tried to help Hernandez and enlisted Brady for the same purpose. Hernandez was, however, known as one of the hardest working members of the team. Other Patriots said that Hernandez was often seeking attention and at times seen, quote, unhinged. Bill Belichick, the Patriots, head coach, was running out of patience with Hernandez by June 2013, threatened to throw him off the team. after his arrest for the murder of Odin Lloyd, Belichick prohibited Hernandez's name from being spoken in the locker room.

Rob Grancowski has also repeatedly declined to answer any questions about Hernandez and interviews, even going so far as to walk out of interviews when Hernandez's name was brought up. It should be noted that beforehand, Hernandez and Rob Grancowski were very close. They said in interviews, they are like brothers to each other. I assume that this was incredibly hard on. Rob Grancowski. Mm-hmm.

So Hernandez began dating Shayanna Jenkins in 2007. They'd been friends since they were in elementary school and were high school sweethearts. Their daughter was born in 2012 and they became engaged the same month. Also that month, Hernandez purchased a $1.3 million, $8,130 square foot four-story home with an in-ground pool in North Attleboro, Mass, where the family lived together. Jenkins moved in with Hernandez in 2011 during his second. season with the Patriots. After she had discovered him cheating on her, she moved out but returned

the summer of 2012. During Hernandez's trial for the murder of Odin Lloyd, it was claimed that Hernandez had flirted with and kissed a nanny who took care of Jenkins' daughter. Jenkins testified in court that she wanted to make the relationship work and that required her to compromise on some of his behavior. She told police that she cooked and cleaned and knew her role. Following Hernandez's death, a high school teammate described a secret homosexual sexual relationship between the two that lasted for years. Hernandez's brother DJ, mother Terry, an attorney George Leontire report that Hernandez came out as gay to his mother and ex-girlfriend while in prison. The attorney said his client, quote, clearly was gay and described the immense

pain that it caused him. And the self-hatred that came from growing up in a culture that was anti-gay. Mass is pretty anti-gay. After listening to more than 300 recorded phone calls. The Boston Globe reported that Hernandez was, quote, prone to going on homophobic rants and that in one phone call, he admitted he was attracted to men and said it made him angry all the time.

Prosecutors threatened to raise the issue of his sexuality during the 2012 double homicide trial, a prospect that frightened Hernandez, and he wished to keep his sexuality a secret. After Hernandez's death, Jenkins stated that she saw no indication that he was gay. She stated, I wish I had known how he felt just so we could have talked about it. I wouldn't have disowned him.

I would have been supportive. So another really interesting thing about that is, like, I saw some interviews with her on Dr. Phil, and she kept claiming that that was not the errand that she knew and that he wasn't gay. So it was really strange. Yeah, I don't understand. I feel like... I think she goes back and forth. Yeah, I think so, too.

And I mean, it's kind of hard to accept, you know? Yeah. This is the father of your child. and you just like whacked a bunch of people, you know, or at least one person, allegedly a few others, but we'll get into that. So DJ described Hernandez as growing increasingly paranoid as an adult. DJ's his brother. Yeah, believing the FBI and others were out to get him. DJ said that Hernandez slept with a large knife by his bed and collected a number of weapons for protection.

After the 2013 shooting of Alexander Bradley, Hernandez hired a friend from Bristol to serve as a party guard 24 hours. a day. Shortly thereafter, Hernandez approached Belichick in a deep state of paranoia, saying that he feared for his family's safety. Hernandez's agent testified that Hernandez requested a meeting because he was in fear for his life. He said that Hernandez requested a transfer to a team on the other side of the country, but that request was denied. Also in 2013 in April, Hernandez purchased a used car with two handguns and two rifles inside. He also purchased a Chevrolet suburban that had been outfitted as an armored car. When being driven, he refused to travel in cars without tinted windows for fear that one of his enemies might see him. Teammate said that Hernandez was prone to wild mood swings that became more agitated as time went on. He was said to go from being hypermasculine to talking about cuddling with his mother. As a patriot, he continued to smoke large quantities of marijuana and use other drugs including cocaine and angel dust. Yes, that leg definitely will give you paranoia. Yes, absolutely.

and make you eat people. So, well, that's more bath salts, but that's an offshoot. Isn't bath salts like, it's like angel dust, but it's like mixed with other stuff? I don't know. It's definitely a synthetic. Yeah, some chemical compound synthetic, yeah. Yeah, we mentioned like the shootings of like certain people. It's like, what are these?

Oh, we're about to get to that. So like all his legal issues. Yes. So in 2012, Hernandez told his agent that he got his respect through weapons. After his death, his high school teammate and lover, alleged lover, said that being drafted by the Patriots was the worst thing the NFL could have done because it put him back into close proximity to the criminal friends he had in Connecticut. On the Patriots, Hernandez hired two of his friends from Bristol,

both whom had criminal records as assistants. One of them was Alexander Bradley and was his drug dealer. As Hernandez assistant, Bradley's other duties included calming Hernandez down during fits of rage and paranoia and obtaining weapons for him. By his own admission, Hernandez became jumping nightclubs and had a history of taking offense at minor slights. He also said that he believed people were trying to physically challenge him and were looking to fight him.

Aquatians described him as a follower who put himself in jeopardy by hanging out with a dangerous crowd. Boston police detectives once questioned Hernandez outside of a Boston bar. Hernandez kept a second apartment a secret from his fiance and use it to store drugs and weapons. So on April 28, 2007, according to a police report in Gainesville, Florida, 17-year-old Hernandez consumed two alcoholic drinks in a restaurant with Tebow, refused to pay the bill, was escorted out by a restaurant employee.

As the manager walked away, Hernandez sucker punched him on the side of the head, rupturing his eardrum. Jesus. Yeah. The police responded at 1.17 a.m., Hernandez called Coach, Urban Meyer and Meyer called Huntley Johnson, the team's unofficial defense lawyer. The victim

later told police that he had been contacted by the lawyers and the team and that a settlement was being worked out, something that the team did deny. The police department recommended charging Hernandez with felony battery, but the incident was settled out of court and with a deferred prosecution

agreements. Yeah, I don't think he did any time for that, if I recall. On September 30th of 2007, someone approached a car contained finding Randall Carson, Justin Glass, and Corey Smith on foot and fired five shots while they were waiting at the Gainesville traffic light having left a nightclub. Corey Smith was shot in the back of the head and Justin Glass was shot in the arm. Both men survived. Carson, a backseat passenger, was uninjured and told police that the shooter was either Hawaiian or Hispanic male with a large

build weighing about 230 pounds and having many tattoos. He picked a photo of Hernandez out of the police lineup. The police told Myers personal assistant that they want to see Hernandez and two teammates immediately. Detectives kept pushing coaches to bring the players to the station, but they did not arrive for four hours. In the interim, the player spoke with Johnson, the attorney, who often represented players. The other players cooperated with police, but Hernandez invoked his rights to counsel and refused to talk to the police. When police walked into the room to speak to Hernandez, the last of the players to be interviewed, they found him with his head down, um, on the table sleeping, a posture they said was unusual for someone in the middle of a homicide investigation.

Yeah, you're sleeping. Yeah, of course, of course that's unusual. So no charges were filed at the time, but due to his 2013 arrests in subsequent conviction for the murder of Oden Lloyd, Massachusetts authorities contacted police in Florida to try to determine whether Hernandez may have had a role in the 2007 shooting. Detective Tom Mullins, who was assigned to reinvestigate the shooting, conclude that Hernandez was not the trigger man. Although Carson initially identified Hernandez as such, other witnesses that night described the shooter as looking like a black male, possibly with cornrows.

When Mullins re-interviewed Carson, Carson rescinded his statement of the shooter, matching Hernandez, and said he never saw Hernandez at the scene, but assumed he was the shooter because they had words earlier at the club. So at 3.45 a.m. on April 30, 20th, 2011, police responded to a fight in front of her. Hernandez rented townhouse in Plainville, Massachusetts.

A high school friend had been pulled over earlier in the evening after driving Hernandez home from a Boston bar. The driver was weaving in and out of lanes traveling 120 miles per hour in a work zone on the highway. Kind of like what I do. Oh, the speed limit of 55 miles per hour. A little bit. Yeah. The Massachusetts state trooper who pulled the car over did not arrest the driver because he recognized Hernandez in the passenger seat. The Plainville police also recognized Hernandez.

and told the two to go indoors. You know, when you play for the Patriots, you can just get away with murder. Right. Well, almost. Almost. So 2012, Boston double homicide.

So Hernandez was investigated in connection with a double homicide that took place on July 16th, 2012, near the Cure Lounge in Boston South End. There is a Cure Lounge in Boston South End. We should go there. Oh, my God.

I wonder if they just play cure music all the time. I hope so. Daniel Jorge Carrera Day Breu was 29 and Seferio Tashara Fretto 28, both immigrants from Cape Verde living in Dorchester were killed by gunshots fired into their vehicle. Witness testified that Hernandez's silver SUV pulled up next to the victims and someone from his car yelled what's up now and words. Someone from the car then fired five shots

killing the two immigrants. Police immediately identified Hernandez, who was then playing for the Patriots in the club's security camera footage and thought it was a coincidence that the NFL star happened to be at the club that evening. On May 15th, 2014, Hernandez was indicted on murder charges for the killings of Deiabreou and Furtado with additional charges of armed assault and attempted murder associated with shots fired at the surviving occupants in the vehicle. The trial began March 1st, 2017. The prosecution case was strongly based on. and testimony by Bradley, a known drug dealer who'd been feuding with Hernandez since the NFL player allegedly shot him in the face and left him to die.

Hernandez and Bradley each claim the other person pulled the trigger. So... Yeah. Jose Baez again. Hernandez's attorney argued that the proposed motive was implausible, and Hernandez was a suspect of convenience to close two unsolved murders. Bradley alleged that Hernandez was angered after the victim spilled a drink on him at a nightclub several hours before the shooting

and killed them in retaliation. Security camera footage confirmed Hernandez was in the club for less than 10 minutes. In that time, he calmly posed for a photo with a fan and left by himself, contradicting Bradley's testimony that he departed with Hernandez. Furthermore, Baez characterized

the police investigation as extraordinarily sloppy. Example, the victim's bodies were kept in their bullet-ridden vehicles as it was towed away from the shooting scene. Oh my God, really? Yeah. A major protocol violation. with no physical evidence tying Hernandez to the murder. Can you imagine that like going down the road in the tow truck?

Yeah, I guess we're just going to haul them off of the bodies in it. What the fuck? I cannot believe some like cop was just like, yeah, this is fine. This is okay. But yeah, uh, God. Okay. It is Boston. So according to the Boston Globe, I want to say that I know somebody lives in Boston.

She was walking down the street. And somebody yelled, shut the, fuck up at a helicopter that was going overhead. This is just how people in Boston are. They were just pissed off all the time. They just yell for no reason. It's Boston. According to the Boston Globe, there is powerful evidence that he was

at the scene and played a role in their deaths. On April 14th, 2017, Hernandez was acquitted of the murders and most of the other charges but found guilty of a legal possession of a handgun. So in January of 2013, Hernandez and Bradley partied at the cure again.

2.20 a.m., Bradley was pulled over on the Southeast Expressway doing 105 miles per hour. According to the state police, he was wobbly drunk. Hernandez tried to get his friend out of the, by saying, Trooper, I'm Aaron Hernandez. It's okay. Bradley was arrested for drunk driving. Oh, my God.

Well, you know, I can't blame him for trying, that's for sure. So, in 2013, February 2013, Hernandez, Bradley, and several others visited a Florida strip club where they ran up a $10,000 bill. Hernandez began to worry about two men sitting across from them, thinking they were plain-closed Boston police officers. Bradley later recalled telling Hernandez that they were probably tracking the pair as part of their investigation to the double murder outside the Cure Lounge. Hernandez and Bradley had a troubled relationship at this point. Bradley claimed that on February 13, 2013, during the same trip, he was. woke up in a car with Hernandez pointing a gun at his face. The next morning police found Bradley

lying in a parking lot bleeding from a bullet hole between his eyes. Bradley survived but lost his right eye. He did not cooperate with police but instead sought revenge. The pair would trade more than 500 text messages in the next three months and would trade threats of death and extortion. Bradley told Hernandez that he had semi-automatic weapons, bulletproof vests, and a crew that ran six deep. Hernandez's agents tried unsuccessfully to settle the matter quietly. Bradley demanded five million to keep his silence and Hernandez counted with 1.5 million. Bradley then asked for 2.5 million. Hernandez did not respond but instead went to see his lawyer. So on June 13, 2013, Bradley filed a civil lawsuit for damages against Hernandez in a Florida federal court. Bradley withdrew the suit four days later,

giving to a chance to work up the settlement without the media knowing about it. On September 3, 2013, Hernandez lawyer filed a postponement request in federal court until his murder charges were solved. They said it would be legally unfair for Hernandez to permit the lawsuit to continue while the trial for the shooting death of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd was still going on. Okay, so this happened at the same time. Oh, because it was all around the same type of Okay, okay. Same time frame. Like, we're not dealing with a huge time frame with all of this crazy stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So in February 2016, Hernandez reached a settlement with Bradley over the lawsuit. the terms of the settlement were not disclosed. And on May 11, 2015, Hernandez was indicted for witness intimidation in relation to the 2013 shooting of Bradley, since Bradley was reportedly a witness to the 2012 double homicide in Boston. The intimidation charge for Hernandez carried a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Wow, that seems like such a technicality. If that happened, I don't think it's because Bradley pushed for it, especially since they settled out of court. Right. The whole thing is just weird. This charge was included in the trial that began March 1st, 2017 for the 2012 Boston double homicide. During the trial, it was revealed Bradley texted his lawyer about the shooting in a deleted text message. Now you sure, once I withdraw this lawsuit, I won't be held on perjury after I tell the truth about me not recalling anything about who shot me. Oh, Jesus. Hernandez was later acquitted of the charge of witness intimidation by a jury on April 14th, 2017. They also acquitted Hernandez of all other charges in the murders of Daniel Debraeu and Severe Frittato, except for finding him guilty on one count of illegal possession of firearms. Which at that point, he would just get a slap on the wrist, given his celebrity status. So then there was the 2013 California incidents.

We still haven't gotten to the Odin Lloyd shooting yet. Hernandez traveled to California with his fiance and their young daughter in 2013 to have shoulder surgery. While there, Cheyana Jenkins called the police twice in less than a week, claiming that Hernandez was drunk and violent. In the first incident, Hernandez put his hand through a window. His brother and friends later said that there were drugs and guns in the rented apartment, but police determined that Jenkins and the child were not in danger and never searched the premises. His brother, DJ, found Aaron Hernandez alone on the roof of the building one night, looking defeated and rubbing the barrel of a gun against his face.

Okay, so now we get to the Odin Lloyd murder. Right. So on June 18, 2013, the police searched Hernandez's home in connection with an investigation into the shooting death of a friend, Odin Lloyd. Lloyd's body was found in an industrial park about a mile from Hernandez's house with multiple gunshot wounds to the back and chest. The following day, Hernandez assured head coach Bill Belichick and owner Robert Kraft that he did not have anything to do with a shooting. Despite this, Hernandez was barred from Gillette Stadium lest it become the site of a media stakeout. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.

The team also decided a week before his eventual arrest to cut ties with Hernandez if he were arrested on any of the charges related to the case. On June 26, 2013, Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder in addition to five gun-related charges. The Patriots released Hernandez from the team about 90 minutes later before officially learning the charges again. him. Two other men were also arrested in connection with Lloyd's death. Oh, I didn't know that part of it. On June 22nd, 2013, Hernandez was indicted by a grand jury for the murder of Lloyd. He pled not guilty on September 6, 2013. That was August 22nd, 2013. He was indicted with a grand jury. Did I read it weird? You said June 22nd. Oh, geez. You're good. I'm good. Okay, he pled not guilty on September 6th, 2013. April 15th, 2015, Hernandez was found guilty of murder in the first degree, a charge that in

Massachusetts automatically carries a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. So don't kill anyone in Massachusetts, folks. I don't know if they have a death penalty or not. They must not. They don't. So, like, I've heard of cases where, like, a self-defense killing has gotten somebody murder in the first degree when, at very worst, if there was a total miscarriage of justice, it should be manslaughter.

So, yeah, careful about how you handle your business in Massachusetts. He was also found guilty of five firearm charges. A motive for the murder was never definitively estes. But police investigate the possibility that Lloyd may have learned of Hernandez's homosexuality. And Hernandez was worried that Lloyd might out him to others. Yeah, there was a thing about this is because when I was following this case, it's been a while since I, since I did. But they never really talked about a motive for this. Like here was this guy.

He was playing on a semi-professional team. There was nothing that this guy had to, you know, fuck over Aaron Hernandez. I mean, I know he was super paranoid, but they never talked. about motive. From what I like learns because I you know I didn't know a whole lot about this case until I started putting like notes together and you know listening to some stuff on YouTube

apparently this guy didn't have a lot at all like he didn't have a car he would ride his bike to his football practices the semi-professional league wasn't anything that you got paid for right when we say semi-pro like semi-pro in most things in some things it means you're paid

some decent amount of money decent-ish for the job but in most cases, semi-pro means you're barely making anything. Right. Like, this wasn't like a minor league type team or anything like that. Like, you still had to buy your jerseys. You were just playing, like, in a field off on the, there's no real stadium. Yeah.

Type of thing. It's just, like, more of, like, adult kind of. Adult wreck. Maybe you have some local sponsorship from some, like, local business. But, right. That's really it. So, yeah, this was, yeah, this was not a guy that had any, it wasn't like Bradley who had a lot of resources and money or some sort of status and like criminal activities. This dude,

it just seemed to make no sense why he would have gone after him. Right. I mean, he was dating his fiance's sister, but that's been, that's really it. Yeah, yeah. So his release from the team in the aftermath, so Hernandez's arrest and subsequent termination by the New England Patriots resulted in financial and other consequences. Hernandez's release from the team meant he automatically forfeited his 2015-2018 salaries, totaling 19.3 million, which were not guaranteed. The Patriots avoided all remaining guarantees, including his 2013 and 2014 salaries, on the grounds that those guarantees were for skill, injury, or salary cap room, and did not include being cut for, quote, conduct detrimental to the best interests of professional football, end quote. The Patriots

plan to withhold 3.25 million of Hernandez's 2012 science. bonus that was due to be paid in 2014, and to recoup the signing bonus already paid. Within hours of Hernandez's arrest, the team's official pro shop at Patriot's Place removed all his memorabilia and merchandise and removed these items from the website as well. The Patriots Pro Shop exchanged about 2,500 previously sold Hernandez's jerseys for other jerseys, destroying and recycling the Hernandez jersey for a loss of about 250,000. The NFL salary cap allows teams to pro-rate signing bonuses over the life of a contract or five-year period, whichever is shorter. By cutting Hernandez, the Patriots accelerated all of Hernandez's remaining guaranteed money into the 2013 and 2014 salary caps.

The team took a $2.55 million dollar hit in 2013 and another $7.5 million in 2014. I don't even know why people would have exchanged jerseys because... You could have kept that. I would have kept mine. These were going on, at least what I remember, I don't know what they are right now, but they were going on eBay for like a lot of money. Like insane money people were selling Hernandez's jerseys and getting them. Like the NFL could have just taken their leftover inventory of his jerseys and sold them through some sort of proxy and made decentish money.

I don't know if that's illegal. I don't think it is if you use the right kind of. proxies but i mean it's it's unethical but i mean jesus right instead of taking all this like money hit or sold them and like donated them to like odin lloyd's family yeah that yeah that would have been that would have been fine that would have been fine um but yeah people who are just like oh no i can't have my aaron hernandez jersey i want this returned i would have been like hell yeah i'm keeping it or if i had multiple i would have sold it but yeah yeah fuck i never understood that right So since Hernandez had not completed his fourth season in the league, the Patriots were required to place him on waivers after releasing him.

He went unclaimed. After Hernandez cleared waivers on June 28th, an NFL commissioner Roger Goodell announced that while charges against Hernandez were pending, the NFL would not approve any contract signed by Hernandez until Goodall held a hearing to determine whether Hernandez should face suspension or other action under the league's personal conduct policy. In prison phone calls, Hernandez expressed distress by his treatment by both. Belichick and the Patriots. Saitosports and Puma canceled their endorsement deals with Hernandez. That's huge money. Yeah. EA Sports announced that Hernandez's likeness would be dropped from its NCAA football

14 in Madden NFL 25 video games. After visitor complaints, a prize-winning photo of Hernandez from his rookie season, depicting him triumphantly high stepping into the end zone in front of Green Bay Packers' cornerback Sam Shields was removed from the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Panini America, a sports memorabilia and trading card company removed stickers of Hernandez from approximately a half a million sticker books, which had not been sent yet to collectors. The company replaced the stickers, as well as trading cards with cards depicting Tim Tebow instead. The University of Florida removed Hernandez's name and likeness from various locations

at its football facilities, including a stone that had his name and All-American inscribed upon it. Bristol Central High School also removed all his rewards and it gave them to his family. Pop Warner removed his name from a list of award recipients. Hernandez gave power of attorney to his agent, instructed him to provide his fiancé with $3,000 a month and to help her find more affordable housing. He also set aside $500,000 for his fiance and their daughter and $200,000 for a close friend, who is undisclosed as far as I know. after his arrest, his vacant house fell into extreme disrepair with burst pipes and mold, which is kind of crazy to me if you have a $1.5 million house. I don't know.

The whole thing's kind of sad, though, because, like, you know, living in Massachusetts, that $3,000 a month is not going to go far. No, it really isn't. It's not going to. It's, unless you live in, like, Western Mass, which according to some is Western Mass, it isn't really. It's fucking awful. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, people who live in Springfield. The former murder capital tell me it's okay. It's not okay. It's not okay at all. See, appeal and conviction. So on April 25th, 2017, lawyers for Hernandez filed a motion at Massachusetts Superior Court in Fall River to vacate his murder conviction.

That's a weird motion to file. The request was granted May 9th, 2017. Therefore, Hernandez technically, oh, that's why, because he'd killed himself. That makes sense. Okay. I thought this was before his death. So therefore, Hernandez, Hernandez technically died an innocent man due to the legal principle of abatement ab initio.

Under Massachusetts law, this principle asserts that when a criminal defendant dies, but has not exhausted all legal appeals, the case reverts to its status at the beginning. The conviction is then vacated and the defendant is rendered innocent. At the time of his death, Hernandez was in the process of filing his appeal for his 2015 conviction in the murder of Olden Lloyd, But as of May 9th, 2017, the date of the judge's ruling to vacate, the Bristol County District's attorney stated they plan to appeal the ruling all the way to Massachusetts Supreme Court if necessary. The family of Odin Lloyd was disappointed with the ruling, but their attorney didn't believe it would affect the wrongful death civil suit which the family had filed. The appeal was heard by the Supreme Judicial Court in November of 2018, a year after Hernandez's death by six justices. The attorney representing the Lloyd family, Thomas M. Quinn, the third, argued that Hernandez was rightfully convicted of Lloyd's murder and that the conviction was unfairly wiped out.

Quinn also argued that Hernandez killed himself knowing of the technicality that would get his conviction thrown out and that he should not be able to accomplish in death what he never could have been able to accomplish to do in life. It's a weird way to justify it. Oh, I killed myself to clear my name. Yeah, but you're dead. How are you going to benefit from it? I don't even think your family benefits from it because you'll still they're still get the money that he has anyways right i mean it's not he's not going to have that much of money left overall after everything is like canceled and the patriots like took the funds back and and his affairs are like dealt with with i mean you've got a house that's worth that much i mean after the state settled like i don't think that the family's going to have much so that just that just seems like a flimsy argument right so on march 13th 2019 the massachusetts supreme judicial court reinstated hernanda's conviction

The court ruled that Hernandez's conviction would stand, but the trial record would note that the conviction was neither affirmed nor reversed. The appeal was rendered moot because Hernandez died while the case was on appeal. The Supreme Judicial Court in their ruling also officially ended the practice of abatement admonitio, ruling that it was outdated, never made sense, and that it was no longer constant with circumstances of contemporary life, if in fact it ever was. After the ruling, Hernandez's estate vowed to appeal the ruling further. Wow. So I didn't know that. that this was the reason why that was ended.

Yeah. I didn't even know it was a thing before this case, and apparently this case was the reason why it completely undid it. That's really crazy. So the Boston Globe described Hernandez as being strangely content while in jail with an attitude that confounded his fiancee. He told his mother, quote, I've been the most relaxed and less stressed in jail than I have out of jail, end quote.

he was however punished on multiple occasions for breaking prison rules, including screaming and banging on his cell door. Over the course of his four years behind bars, he increasingly turned to the Bible and became more religious. The Globe said that prison officials, quote, seemed to turn a blind eye to Hernandez's drug use and neglected to safeguard their famous inmate, end quote. Hernandez could speak to Cheyana Jenkins on the phone

and often did twice a day, but she was facing perjury charges related to. to his arrest. I'm not sure why. Do you know why? Yeah, there was like a lot of stuff that's going on that's not noted here. I, there was some clips on YouTube that was her on Dr. Phil.

Yeah. There's a whole lot of just weird stuff. She got a phone call and I don't know if this was her perjury charge. She got a phone call and like went and started throwing evidence out. Oh, really? Yeah. And then over the phone. No, like evidence that was in the house.

Oh. Like he called and told her to go pick up this box and go find a place to throw it out. Oh, okay. Type of thing. But I mean, if she did it without knowing that it was, you know, murder evidence. Yeah, I don't know if that was what her perjury charge was. I do know that was like a sketchy thing that came up during the trial. Okay.

And then she started really stumbling over herself. Do you know where that stands as of today? That I'm not sure. Okay, I'll have to look that up. Yeah. Yeah. So he only saw his daughter's, his daughter, excuse me, when Jenkins' mother brought her to visit. He reconnected with his mother, for whom he had been estranged for many years while in prison.

While being held the Bristol County Jail, Hernandez was kept in a segregated unit in an especially grim section that normally housed the mentally ill and violent. Oh, so he wasn't given protective custody. He was given something a little bit different. He asked to move out of segregation, but Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson would not allow it. Hernandez believed that Hodgson exploited his incarceration for publicity. After his conviction for the murder of Lloyd, he was transferred to the Sousa Baranowski Correctional Center, a maximum security prison where inmates typically spend 20 hours a day in their cells. In the two years he spent in prison, he was disciplined dozens of times.

His lawyer said he was taunted relentlessly by guards. While in prison, Hernandez continued to work out and anticipated returning to the NFL. Two days before his death, reporter Michelle McPhee appeared on the Kirk and Callahan show, during which she and the two hosts used innuendo to imply that Hernandez was gay. It had been suggesting that this outing may have played a role in Hernandez's suicide. Yeah. On April 19th, 2017 at 305 a.m. Eastern Time, five days after Hernandez was acquitted for the 2012 Boston double homicide of Daniel Debraeo and Sefero Furtado,

correction officers found Hernandez hanging by his bed sheets from his window in his cell at the Susa Baranowski Correctional Center in Lancaster Mass. He was transported to UMass Memorial Hospital. Is it Leomister? Leomister, I think. I also heard Lemonster. Yeah, I don't know. I bet it's Lemonstr.

It might be Lemmonster. I mean, there's so many different, if you're not from Massachusetts, they have names that you might pronounce, like a normal person would, but they pronounce it so much different. So, David, if you're, like, listening, Tell us how we do Leo Minister if it's Lemonster. Like Quincy Mass is Quincy.

Quincy. Yeah, and there's like a bunch of other ones that I don't even know how to say. So anyway, where he was pronounced dead at 407 a.m. He had been smoking K2, a drug associated with psychosis within 30 hours of his death. I know you could get that in prison, but you know. Yeah. Yeah. So State Department of Correction spokesman Christopher Fallon first said no suicide.

note was found in the initial search the two-person cell Hernandez occupied alone. Shampoo was found covering the floor. Carboard was wedged under the cell door to make it difficult for someone to enter, and there were drongs and blood on the wall showing an unfinished pyramid with the all-seeing eye of God, the word Illuminati written in capital letters underneath. On April 20th, 2017, investigators reported that three handwritten notes were next to the Bible, open to John 3.3. 316 and that John 316 had been written on his forehead and red ink. Do you know what John 316 is? I used to know it by heart when I was younger.

I don't know like a little Baptist kid. What's his name? Stone Colds liked it. Austin. You, you read the Bible saying your prayers? You, you're talking about John, John 316? Well, Austin 316 says, I just whipped your ass. Oh, my God.

That's where that came from. But yeah, I don't. I can't remember what John's 316 translates to. Can you look it up? I can look it up. Do you have your phone? I don't have my phone. Okay, well, that shit.

All right, well. We'll look into it in a little bit. Yes, we'll do an update. Jose Baez, Hernandez's attorney, reprinted the contents of the notes in his 2018 book Unnecessary Roughness. One short letter was addressed to Baez, thanking him for securing the not guilty verdict in the Furtado of Brayu homicide. and anticipating an appeal in the Odin Lloyd case. In addition to asking Baez to pass along thanks to specific musicians whose songs Hernandez found inspiring. The other two notes were addressed to Hernandez's fiancé and daughter.

In contrast to the straightforward letter to Baez, the lawyer described the other notes as written in a disjointed and markedly ominous tone. The letter to his daughter was described with the Boston Globe as strange, rambling, mystical, and tender. in these notes Hernandez described entering a timeless realm and announced he would see his family in heaven. So this sounds like really like late stage CT or like huge drug abuse. Yeah, the ones he sent to his, the one he sent to his daughter, they read a little bit of it in one of the things I found on YouTube. And that was the one where it was more like mystical and stuff. Jesus, okay.

Well, prison officials had not observed any signs that Hernandez was at risk for suicide. so he had not been put on around the clock watch. Upon completion of his autopsy by the medical examiner, the death was officially ruled a suicide by hanging. At the request of his family, Hernandez's brain was released to Boston University to be studied for signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE, which is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head,

including football players who suffer concussions. Baezas quickly disputed any claim of suicide, and stated that he would initiate his own investigation of the death. However, in 2018, Baez wrote that he was suspicious of the suicide announcement, given Hernandez's optimistic demeter about the not guilty verdict, but later came to believe Hernandez had taken his own life with CTE being a major contributing factor, which is probably true. Yeah, like a lot of people, like early on, I remember, had thought that he had done that

specifically to get the vacated sentence. Yeah. So that possibly with that sentence, like his wife and kid would get more benefits. Yeah, but I mean, suicide usually invalidates any life insurance policy, like any. So I just, I don't know. I don't, I never bought that. I never thought it was valid. Yeah.

So, okay. His brain damage. Yeah. So after his death, researchers at Boston University studied Hernandez's brain and diagnosed him with chronic traumatic encephalophathy, CTE. Yeah. stage three out of four and called Hernandez's brain a classic case of pathology. CTE is caused by repeated head trauma.

Hernandez had two confirmed concussions since he began playing football at eight years old, but Boston Globe believes he undoubtedly took other punishing hits to the head than were ever recorded. The researchers suggested that CTE, which results in poor judgment, inhibits of impulses or aggression, anger, paranoia. Emotional volatility and rage behaviors may explain some of. of Hernandez's criminal acts and other behavior? Sam Gandhi of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York said, it's impossible for me to look at the severity of CTE and Mr. Hernandez's brain and not think that had a profound effect on his behavior.

I agree with that. Hernandez suffered from migraines in prison and had trouble with memory. Jose Baez wrote that he saw symptoms consistent with CTE from his earliest meetings with Hernandez. Hernandez sometimes showed keen insight and observational skills, while other times he had gaps in memory that were highly unusual for a young person. After release of the Boston University statement, Hernandez's fiancé and daughter sued the Patriots in NFL

for causing Hernandez's death and depriving his daughter of her father's companionship, arguing that Hernandez's NFL career had caused what research is described as, quote, the most severe case of CTE medically seen, end quote, in a person at his age. The suit was dismissed in February 2019 because the deadline to opt out of a class action suit against the league had been missed. That's unfortunate.

That's really unfortunate. So I don't have a lot of direct experiences with CTE, though. Training in martial arts, I wondered, you know, what hits the head can do. And I didn't fully understand what that could mean until I started seeing it in MMA fighters and wrestlers as they've gotten older. Everyone knows who Joe Rogan is.

Well, the reason why he quit doing Taekwondo competitively was because he watched people just get knocked the fuck out and not be the same ever since. And I think he was getting chronic migraines at the time. And I now look at people like, I think I mentioned Chuck Lidl earlier, who's like, who came and formulate a sentence or George St. Pierre who has never been,

he was T-Ked once by Matt Sarah, but like he relatively has not experienced many known concussions and yet he tells people that he loses time for like a few hours and like stuff like that at a whack and there's just so many people who have taken so many like concussions and hits to the head and you just see how different they get like as their career moves on like this was such like a misunderstood thing that there seems to be a lot more a lot more information coming out about now and I just really wonder what the long-term effects of it. Some people say if you just get one concussion, you have CTE.

You have CTE. And what that means for you as far as your long-term neurological health is unclear. It could mean nothing. It could mean you never experience any symptoms. It could mean that you'll experience symptoms a lot later in life. It's so hard to say everyone's brain is different and there's so many variables when it comes in neurological health that it's just it's just really tough it's really tough and so the the wrestler i mentioned earlier his name was chris no winsky he's the co-founder and CEO of the concussion legacy foundation

he wrestled for the wwe and he suffered a really bad concussion and him and doctors that he knew like didn't fully understand what was going on so he kept wrestling while symptomatic and he developed post-concussion syndrome and so he was forced to retire after that i don't exactly remember the symptoms of post-concussion syndrome, but I know that they cause pretty debilitating neurological effects. Since then, he got his PhD, I believe in behavioral neuroscience, if I'm correct, and now works to better understand CTE in the case of athletes and what this could mean long-term, because, and in the unfortunate case of Aaron Hernandez, I think that this is the one silver lining to this. I hate to say like anything's a silver lining in this case, but that it brings more awareness to

the effects of CTE. Looking over the case and knowing about it over the years, I remember there's a lot of people at first have been like, oh, he did this because he's, he has drug abuse or because he has some untreated mental illness. And then a lot of people are like, he did this because he's gay and repressed. There's like a lot of factors to it. I mean, no one's saying he wasn't. doing problematic things in your hands. Being outed in an environment that's where you need to act macho and stuff like that, not really a great thing either. Yeah, or growing up in a place like Massachusetts,

which is like some people call the most racist homophobic place on Earth. I mean, I don't 100% agree with it because they haven't been to backwoods nowhere in New England, but for the biggest city, for a big city, it's awfully intolerant. In certain ways. In certain ways, it really is. It's still really, in some ways, racist, despite being pretty diverse at the same time. It is. But knowing people who were queer that lived in Maine and have since moved to Boston, I have been told that Maine was way crazier, way less accepting, even in the queer community and way more problematic up here.

And in Boston, it's way more chill, way more accepting. Yeah. So if Boston, despite all those things, is considered. problematic by the bulk of the country. Wait till you get to fucking Maine folks or other places in smaller New England. Yeah, no, as you're saying, those all definitely are factors. But it's coming to understand what could be the most driving factor because you could have an untreated mental illness. You could be struggling with really difficult life issues or things that are really traumatic to you. But if you have brain damage on top of that, you're not going to be able to

process things properly. And that could make you do some really fucked up things. I've known people who have had CTE. Some of these were ex-marines. Some of these were people who had really bad car accidents. Like if you get a TBI, you probably are going to have CTE. I don't want to say you're guaranteed because I don't know that 100%, but I think it would make sense. But anyways, dealing with people who've had that kind of brain damage, there's just, I don't want to say everyone's like this, but some of them are just not quite predictable with their actions. And it's a really sad thing. But in the case of Aaron Hernandez, who at his age had the worst CTE, one of the leading neurosurgeons had ever seen, I can't even imagine what a healthy brain inside that individual would have changed. Would he have

not killed anybody? Would he have lived his life in a different way? I don't know. I don't know. But what I know is they cut his brain open and it was Swiss cheese. Yeah, they said that based on what they found, it looked like he had been playing football at a professional level and taking hit after hit after hit for 16 years rather than the very like short time relatively that he was actually playing. Yeah. And I think I don't remember this. So don't quote me on this.

But I believe somebody said it looked like the brain of like an older Alzheimer's patient, like advanced Alzheimer's patient or something of that nature. So it's just, it's so insane to think that somebody that young, who was still in his 20s when he died, right? He's 27 years old. He was 27 years old. He had a brain like that from playing football.

If he's like that as a tight end, I cannot imagine just how many other people have stuff like this. And then you'd probably counterpoint with, well, if this happens to a lot of people, not everyone in the NFL are killers. And you'd be right. I mean, it can come out in so many different ways. Like maybe you just have a debilitating issue like Muhammad Ali. But some people, they do go down this road for whatever unexplainable reason. I mean, look at Chris Benoit.

He had two finishers in the WWF, now the WWE, but he had two finishers. He had the crippler crossface, which was submission. move and his other move was a diving headbut. So he would jump off the top rope and smack his head off the canvas. Obviously, since wrestling is fake, I use that in quotes because, you know, they do take bumps and stuff. But when you do the diving head butt properly, you're not supposed to smack heads with the person.

You will sometimes, but you're going to smack your head off the canvas. So if you have a move like that, where over and over again, you're hitting your head hard off of something. It's no surprise that he went crazy and did what he did. And for those that don't know, Chris Benoit one day murdered his wife and child, leaving Bibles on their corpses and then killing himself. And it was a very, very sad state of affairs. And that was one of my favorite wrestlers. I was just a kid when I found out that that happened. And there's been a lot of wrestlers that have died. Just, just weird. I don't want to say circumstances, but diseases or issues that would come up in people who had brain damage.

Right. And this is just something we've just overlooked. And when people, when athletes are out of the spotlight, they are largely forgotten and any issues they have are just kind of smoothed over or they're just kind of made the butt of a joke. Like Muhammad Ali, what happened to him? Like that should have been a huge red flag for people, but it wasn't. And I think unfortunately, until more of these things are in the news, people are just going to forget about athletes as they get really like.

problematic as they get older. There was a really famous boxing coach. I mean, he was a successful boxer during his career, but his name is Freddie Roach. And he now has a hard time walking. I believe his hands are really shaky. I can't remember exactly what he has, but he has some degenerative disease that resulted from taking too many blows to the head. And you see this all the time with boxers. You may think, well, no shit, it's a boxer. Yeah, but if this is happening to the boxers, like to what lesser extent is this happening to other athletes. You know, you look at Ray Boom Boom Banzini who fought Dukukim in, I think it was the 80s. I think it was the late 80s.

He knocked him out over the course of like, I think it was 18 rounds at the time and killed him. Like the guy went into a coma and died at the hospital due to an internal brain bleed. And because of that, they shortened the amount of boxing rounds to like 12, I think. it is. I can't remember because I haven't watched professional boxing in a long time. I mostly watch MMA. But if you can, with padded 20-ounce gloves, if you can beat somebody in the head over the course of that many rounds and actually kill somebody from punching in the head, and these are trained fighters who know how to defend against that. This guy was no slouch. He was the best boxer in Korea at the time for his weight class. And he took like, I think six rounds off of Ray Mancini, who

was like a world beater at the time. So if you, one of the best boxers in the world, can get your, can get punched enough times to die in the ring. Like, I just, I can't even imagine what could be happening to, to kids playing football who are new to this and aren't that good and they just, just get their shit wrecked because, you know, people think trial by fire. And I, I don't know. Cases like this mean a lot to me. And I really, really hope that more effort, more outreact. reach and more resources are offered to athletes because this is not going to get any better unless until those things happen. I agree.

Yeah. I just ranted for a while. No, it's totally fine. It was a very good rant. Okay. It was a very good rant. It's stuff that you know quite a bit about. I don't want to say I know quite a bit about it because I don't have a degree in it,

but it's something that I have followed for a fair bit of time, so I feel like I can speak about it for like a little bit. I mean, I only have experience with the sports that I played. And I think probably the most problematic with Hendry was probably Roller Derb. Yeah. Like you get hit pretty hard. And you experienced a concussion with a roller derby, right? Yeah.

We were, it was when I was doing my freshman training. That's when you're new and you're training up for your assessments. Yeah. And we were practicing jumps. So they had us going around the track and we would jump. So we were skating backwards and then jump against. We were back forward. And we were all in pretty close proximity.

So it wasn't overly safe. Yeah. So basically they would just have you just kind of go for it. I was coming back around from backwards to forwards and I just like missed it and fell and hit my head. Yeah. And even with like a pretty good helmet, I still was pretty messed up from it. At least they had some pretty good rules. If you hit your head, you had to sit out for the rest of the day.

That's good. Yeah. Because I mean, I've seen people get concussions and start puking. Yeah. If you had to like sit out for the rest of the time. Yeah. And they would inspect your helmet and it was. preferred you completely replaced it.

Yeah. I mean, I didn't. Like if you dented or break it. Well, they say if you take one good hit to it, it can ruin the internal structure of the helmet and you really should replace it all together. Okay. Well, I guess that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, I didn't end up doing that one. I probably should have.

Do you feel that, because you legit had a concussion, right? Were you diagnosed? Yeah. Okay. So you were diagnosed with a concussion with or without loss of consciousness? Oh, without. Okay, good. So what, did you experience any symptoms or anything like that afterwards or? Some nausea.

It felt like whiplash. There was more pain like in the back of my neck. I did have a migraine for a few days. Uh-huh. But, I mean, nothing too severe. Yeah, like nothing like changed in your everyday life after the fact. Well, not that we know of. Yeah.

Not that we know of. Maybe. Like I said, like these things can show themselves later in life. But, but it's good that you haven't, you know. know, experience anything. Well, who knows? Like, you know, I do have my issues that I have been... But that didn't really... But that didn't really start with. Is okay if I talk about it? Yes, we can talk about this. Well, it's just the fact that Yergy will blank out sometimes when she's talking or, which I, I experienced in dealing with Lyme disease. And, you know, I'm always,

I'm always willing to talk about Lyme disease. I'm not going to make that this, the target of this episode, but if people want to know more about it, ask me. And, you know, maybe I can put a little short segment in a video in the future because Lyme disease is a very misunderstood disease. It is a very rapidly growing disease. A lot of people have it for many years and don't know about it. When I went to a Lyme disease support group, I met people that would space out mid-sentence. A lot of these people had severe neurological issues because once Lyme disease goes systemic, it attacks all areas of your body. So I used to have a very crazy brain fog. And I used to lose time. I would literally lose time.

It would always be when I was doing something repetitive. I'd be sitting at my desk and two hours would go by and I didn't know what happened or how it happened. Like that when my Lyme disease was the worst as what would happen. And I've thankfully beat it since then. And my neurological issues have thankfully gotten a lot better, but for a lot of people, it does not get better. And in Yergi's case, we don't exactly know what caused it, but you know, you space out sometimes. It seems to be getting better, not staying the same. are getting worse.

So that's a really good sign. Yeah. And you say that like doing more intellectually stimulating things has been helping. Yeah. So like the podcast, when I started playing chess with you. Yeah. Definitely has helped. I think if you started like doing duolingo or like some language again, I think that my,

my guess is it would help connect some pathways again. Yeah. I remember my anatomy and physiology teacher who was a doctor who taught it. He told me that if you go on a bender, you can destroy like, I think he said like just a ton of cells in your brain, but your brain is regenerative to an extent and is creating like new pathways and stuff like that all the time. And so if you just do the right things, like yeah, you may not come back from severe brain injury, but if you have something minor, it's very possible you could come back from it.

And for me, I just try to like stimulate myself. I have a hard time reading books, but I still try. and I play chess and chess has been really helpful for me and yeah I don't know yeah it's it's just a very interesting thing behind the seams thing like sometimes I blank out in the podcast and have to tap out to Drew be like we're some sort of tag team yeah yeah yeah we've been taking a little bit more breaks lately yeah it's it's I know this was always like this is something they hit close to home for me just because I've known people that have dealt with this and I just seen it firsthand like thankfully like I don't think I've ever had I I don't think I've ever had a concussion I don't remember

ever having concussion symptoms. But I do wonder about the hits I've taken to the head. I've been kicked in the head. I've been punched in the head, face, like all that stuff. I've never been, I've never been like knocked out. So there's that. But I wonder what that could be over a period of time. Again, and maybe this was a saving grace because when I, when I started developing Lyme disease, but I didn't know I had, I shouldn't say develop when I caught it. I kept blowing out like my joints and stuff like that. And I didn't know what was happening. So I had to stop training. so I couldn't exercise anymore because any exercise I did was just massively hurting me and it was not explained and I was only like 19 or 20 at the time and I was just like oh I guess this is just what happens when you get old you can't do anything but it like got worse and worse so I didn't train for a long period of time and maybe that saved me a bunch of head trauma I don't know but I probably would have tried I tried to fight on like some sort of amateur circuit if I if I can't kept going with it because I know that I'm pretty competitive and that would have inevitably

happened. So could that have saved me from serious brain damage? I don't know, but I've seen, I've seen what has happened to people, both, both like on the people that I watch professionally and just people I've known in my day-to-day life. And I, I just shudder to think what could have happened to me, what has happened to me with Lyme disease, and just what could be silently just killing all of these people. But yeah, I could go on about that for a very long time. So I don't know. Let's probably cut this here. I think so. Yeah. If you've been watching this long, we really appreciate it. Please subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five star in a written review. We really appreciate it. We will shout you out if you do so. Please like and subscribe on YouTube. We're going to be putting

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Yeah. And if you want to find our little Facebook group where you can make requests and talk to us, it is the misery machine community on Facebook. I don't think we have a URL for that since it's a group but you can search it and you'll find it but yeah.

So yeah, I just thought like of another thing that sort of ties into this that's kind of derby related. I wasn't going to talk about it because I don't want to get off and rant too much. Yeah.

But I did see something kind of problematic today. Okay. So when I like do my chores and stuff sometimes I put some like trashy TV on just to have in the backgrounds to, I don't know, make doing the dishes or vacuuming more eventful.

It's like listening to music for normal people. I mean, it's something a lot of housewives do, but go ahead. Right. So I was watching Rock of Love season two with Brett Michaels because like I'm just weird and I like watching frigging horror shows basically. So this is like The Bachelor except they're trying to win. Like they're trying to win Brett Michaels. Okay. And it's usually like, I don't want to say like trashy women, but like they're like, you know, rocker chick.

if you will. Okay, okay. So the episode that I watched today, I found really uncomfortable because they were doing this thing called stroller derby where the whole intention was to get three times around a bank track with a stroller with one of those babies they give you in health class to see which baby had the least amount of damage to it. Well, not only were they going around this bank track, but they had the L.A. Derby dolls like they're trying to take the girls out. And if you don't know who that is, they're like

sort of like a semi-professional bank track roller derby league. Probably one of the better in the country. Right, because bank track roller derby really isn't a thing anymore. That was more of a thing in like the 70s and 80s. It is very dangerous. It is more like showboaty. It definitely isn't like the flat track you see with like the WFTDA right now. That's the more popular type one. It's you don't just throw people who don't have skating or derby experience on a flat or excuse me on a bank track that's just like problematic in its own i'm just like sitting here watching i'm like these girls are going to get killed or get a concussion or break something and i don't know how someone didn't die because like you know just throwing people like who don't have a skating experience on a flat track for fresh meat

you're not even allowed to do contact until you've reached like two different like a like checkpoints in your assessments i'm like you're like I'm like, this was a lawsuit right there. Yeah, I don't even think fear factor opened people up to potentially getting like brain damage. Right. That sounds like concussions waiting to happen. I mean, there's like the whole like, you know, factor of the entertainment purposes, but people don't really realize, you know, when you're like a grown adult,

even with all those pads on, it's, it's a whole different ball game. It's like playing hockey or football with a pair of roller skates. on. I mean, hockey's probably your next closest thing that's going to be like, you know, dangerous or problematic even though you're really, really, you know, geared up with that. Yeah. I mean, that's, I just had to throw that in while we're talking about CT. It was just something

like, fucked up. Fucked up. I saw it today. I'm like, why would you do that? Shout out to this being our longest episode. It really was. Holy shit. But yeah, so no two-parters today. But yeah, we'll probably get back to Henry Leel Lucas next week. So if you've listened this

again. You're awesome. But until next time. All right. All right. Bye.