#he got penalties two races in a row and then someone who he sees as deserving a penalty didnt get one(for the right thing)

[skitskatdacat63]

The hate nando is getting right now is lame. Even moresp when ppl are doing anti tags.

Aaaahh yeah it's really annoying :/ I've not seen too much hate on here, because I really try not to go looking for it bcs it makes me rly annoyed. And that's like, probably one of the only things that will get me to actually block someone(which I rarely ever do.) However, I do frequent reddit and there was some post abt his comments after the sprint and UGH the comments bothered me so much. Sometimes I'm tempted to look at the anti tags, but from what I've seen already, ik it's gonna piss me off. I already blocked some people yesterday bcs of it.

I've talked abt this a lot with people but. Ik rationally that there's some people out there who don't like him, and don't enjoy his antics. But it sucks to see people hate on the traits that you like best 😔 Like people saying "he's a really good driver BUT his off track antics ruin his career, and he should never win a race." And a lot of antis, it feels like they're always waiting for some tiny thing like this to validate their opinion that Fernando is genuinely a terrible person who doesn't deserve anything. People want drama, and then they hate it when he gives them drama 🙄 anyways I have a lot of thoughts on the comments he made, but idk if I should say on main haha, not that I really care. Also, people now calling him a terrorist for accidentally being at the scene of the crime for several crashes, when he's one of the cleanest drivers ever 😔 rude.

[kimi-co]

Kinda random but I think it’s kinda funny that the chances of a KimiPaul podium is pretty unlikely now, but not because prema is screwing Kimi over but because Paul does not seem to be handling the pressure well…

Was just wondering if you have any opinion on the last two rounds and Paul’s 10(?) place grid drop

i've typed a lot of shit and ended up deleting most of them (still a lot left i know). I think we have seen how kimi dealt with tough times, and now the championship decider for paul would be how he manages if he comes across similar tough times.

like nobody could deny the fact that he's had a fantastic season up till silverstone, which ironically was the weekend that the f2 documentary crew chose to track the hitech team (not sure how much that'd affect the drivers - they followed prema during the albert park weekend where kimi spun 💀):

his podium streak got a lot of people doubting merc's decision regarding the academy driver to retain. sure, paul's prema years were not as impressive as kimi's; but according to him he's someone who gets better as the level advances because he learns from his past seasons.

and he's more comfortable with the hitech environment because he's really understood how to work with people now

(if you want to get a sense of what he meant i think his freca season review speech at prema was a good example. dino won the championship that year)

but i think he's had a relatively lucky season compared to his title contenders. im not saying this as in 'he's driving the best car he's in easy mode' (i mean his driver number 16 literally tells you his team ranked 8th last year so it probably isnt the best in terms of resources and knowledge. and he mentioned they were doing really poorly in the testing)

(but then what abt now are u still in a great place mentally ? when racess are tough?)

but in the sense that he's experienced very very few errors from his team. like his car's not stalled on the starting grid/pitlane twice in a row, his tyre didnt go flying during the pitstop. his team didnt miss the pitlane exit time, didnt fail the reg check and lose the wins post-race twice. and of course, that unlucky race he had a really hard time getting over was (im just going to skip what happened and whether he was justified in blah because i've yapped abt it enough times lmao). his teammate is shit enough they didnt even have the chance to qualify close enough for any teammate fights during the race or before the cars were barely off the line. he's also not doing school and racing at the same time anymore and not facing the amount of pressure that affects not just the drivers but also the whole team, including the engineers and manager

etc.

so that 10-place penalty is a good chance to demonstrate how well he could deal with adversities. like bro dont let it get to you or let it get to you in a good way?? just do what you did in testing. or in australia, got clipped in the sprint and then pulled off some bold moves to get back to the podium in the feature. you've come thus far having left the academy that didnt favor you and found a decent team to do f2 with. and decided to give it all you've got.

so sending this to paul aron wishing him the best of luck <3 because i do want to see them in the same press at some point x

[vro0m]

vro0m’s rewatch - 91/301

2012 Australian GP

Alriiiight 2012 here we go!

Disclaimer for this season. It turns out that I only have the footage of the race for a lot of the GPs (no build-up, no post-race content) so there will be way less GIFs unfortunately. I will let you know for each of these reviews if there are GIFs or not. THIS ONE HAS GIFS.

Let’s start by reviewing the changes from 2011.

Lotus became Caterham

Renault became Lotus (? honestly wtf)

Virgin became Marussia

Williams switched back to Renault engines

At Lotus (so Renault, right?), Petrov and Senna were replaced by Raikkonen and Grosjean

Petrov eventually replaced Trulli at Caterham (so Lotus, yeah?) and Senna went to Williams as Barrichello retired

Hulkenberg rejoined Force India with Di Resta as Sutil left the team and OMG. Sutil was later sued for “grievous bodily harm” for assaulting a Renault team member with a glass in a Chinese club after the GP in 2011

Toro Rosso got rid of Alguersuari and Buemi who were replaced by Ricciardo and JEV

De la Rosa and Karthikeyan rejoined F1 at HRT

Pic replaced D’Ambrosia at Marussia

On the regulations side :

The whole exhaust gas/diffuser/downforce thing that created much controversy in 2011 was settled with a complete ban of the practice

Minor changes to nose height and stuff like that

No more joker gearbox change : until then it was possible to change the gearbox once without penalty during the season, but they changed it to them being allowed to change the gearbox only once every 5 races

Use of helium in air guns for the pit stops was banned : it made the process quicker but it was too expensive for the gains

Pirelli ameliorated their tyres

Reintroduction of the rule stating lapped cars can unlap themselves under Safety Car before the restart (🥲)

Introduction of the 4-hour race rule after the 2011 Canadian GP lasting a historical record of 04h04mn39s

Deactivation of the DRS under yellow flags following incidents during the season

Now onto the race.

It's a Mclaren front row! Yesss. Seb is only 6th? Webber 5th. Schumacher 4th. GROSJEAN IS 3RD WHAT. It's Lewis on pole 💜.

Formation lap

Nicole is there with Lewis' mom. Remember that at the end of last season Lewis talked about not having his loved ones around like Jenson did and how it affected him (and also he was single back then but hey).

And they're racing!

The two Mclarens are wheel to wheel into turn one but Jenson takes the lead! Three cars went wide and the back and someone spun. Behind Lewis is Schumacher then Rosberg who overtook Seb and Grosjean slid back into 6th. And Seb overtakes Nico for 5th again. Maldonado makes contact with Grosjean who ends up in the gravel. DNF.

Hulkenberg also had to retire and Maldonado just went through the gravel himself. Seb is closing on Schumacher. Oooh he missed a corner and went through the grass. And Nico attacks him! And Alonso is attacking nico! A couple of laps later Seb has pulled away a bit and Alonso is on Rosberg's back but he also goes wide slightly.

Oh and this time it's the other way around, Schumacher went wide and Seb is ahead. He might be having problems. He's slowed a lot. Rosberg is up in fourth now but maybe not for long as Alonso is exactly 0.3 seconds behind him. Ahead are still Jenson and Lewis with a 3.3 second gap between them and a 10 seconds gap to Seb now in 3rd, then. But Seb very quickly starts to close that gap.

15 laps in there's been a number of pit stops in the midfield and at the back already. Oh it’s weird to see VER in the graphics it took me a long time to understand who that was. But it's Vergne obvi.

Seb has already reduced the gap to Lewis to 6.5 seconds. Jenson pits from the lead. Redbull responds with Seb who goes out just in front of Alonso who's already pitted. That might be interesting. Now the only two who haven't pitted in the top 10 are Lewis and Raikkonen, who's currently third. Lewis comes in. Aww so of course Jenson is ahead. Raikkonen is also ahead by very little but he's gonna pit anyway. However, more problematic is Lewis is now behind Perez. Somehow.

There's a queue behind Vergne's Toro Rosso and it’s a problem. But Alonso passed him and it won't be long until Rosberg and Webber do too. Lewis is only 0.5 seconds behind Perez, he must be able to overtake him, come on. Ahhh of course Perez hasn't pitted yet either. It doesn't change the fact that Lewis needs to overtake him to catch up on Jenson who's already 10 seconds ahead. Finally Lewis overtakes him! Seb is right there though omg. Seb also overtakes Perez.

So Jenson is still in the lead, Lewis +11s., Seb +1.8s. Eesh.

Alonso preying on Perez now. He keeps these big names at bay pretty well I will say. But here it goes, Alonso is ahead. And Rosberg is through too. It's Webber's turn. Meanwhile Lewis is losing time on Jenson while Seb is gaining on him. Jenson says he's picked up some rubber so there's vibration but he didn't lock up. It slows him down very slightly. Okay okay now Lewis is doing it, he's getting closer to Jenson and away from Seb, great job!

Halfway through while there's stuff I don't really care about going on in the midfield, Lewis is 9.5s. behind Jenson while Seb is 2.3s. behind him.

Oh ho, there's a Toro Rosso going through sand in bad shape but we're back on Webber trying to overtake Rosberg. Well he pits anyway.

Now Lewis is losing on Jenson again as Seb is closing on him. I zoned out for a few laps ngl. Jenson pits from the lead. And Lewis also! Great job from the mechanics. In the meantime Petrov has stopped on the main straight. Safety Car. Seb pits and is out, unfortunately ahead of Lewis. Webber and Maldonado who also pitted are now behind him though.

Okay so as I said before, 2012 is the year they implemented the lapped cars can overtake under safety car rule. And they're doing it now. Of course it's a problem at the moment because they're not used to it so the cars are weaving while being overtaken by the lapped cars and it's dangerous. Brundle doesn't like this rule, he thinks the leaders being as good as they are the should have to get through backmarkers and showcase what they can do. It's part of being a racing driver or whatever. Ted says contrary to what Brundle is saying Charlie told him it would only take one supplementary lap to do anyway. Ah, Kovalainen DNF. Safety Car in...

And here we go, good restart from Jenson. Lewis is chasing Seb. Jenson is already taking off. DRS for Lewis... It's on. Senna and Massa touched, they both have a puncture. Well Lewis is not overtaking Seb. I'm a bit perplexed by his driving this race. Is the car not good enough even though Jenson is comfortably ahead or is he just not fighting very hard?

Oop, Maldonado hit the wall in the last lap.

And it's the end of the race.

So Jenson, Seb, Lewis.

It's good because it seems the McLarens' pace is better this year but we'll see what Lewis' mindset is this time around, I'm not convinced by his attitude yet.

He seems mildly enthusiastic at best on the podium lol

Lewis starts the press conference by congratulating Jenson and the team. It was a bit of a tough day but there's plenty of races ahead he'll just keep his head down. It's still a positive for the team, they have good pace.

Later on, Mackenzie says we all know that nothing less than a win satisfies him. It was obviously a rough race, he says, but again congratulations to Jenson, it would have been good to get a 1-2 but it wasn't the day for him.

Why? He really doesn't know. He just struggled out there and had a bad start. He'll refocus, there's plenty of opportunities ahead and the championship is about consistency so that's what they're focused on. Mackenzie asks what confidence he can take in the fact that he got pole and a podium this weekend which by anyone's standard is pretty good. "It's okay" he smiles.

"It’s pretty poor standards compared to... Someone's else..." and he makes a head movement in Jenson's direction.

He's always so hard on himself.

[itsmaxbitch]

Some thoughts now that practice and quali are over :

The amount of red flags ???? 6 in four sessions, that is so many ! It goes to show that mistakes can really easily happen in this track and if the drivers make the slightest error, they can end up in the wall

I feel so bad for Williams ! I feel they were on track to potentially get both cars into Q3 but I think over pushing led to mistakes from both George and Nicky (not necessarily bad as it shows how hard they're willing to work to get a good result). George's crash was on the weaker side so hopefully the damage isn't to bad. Nicky's crash registered at 38g's which is quite big so thankfully he got out of it unharmed ! Hopefully there's no gear box issue and his can start on the grid tomorrow !

Poor Lando was very unlucky today I feel ! It's no surprise that sometimes the first lap isn't up to par and usually people improve on their second but Lando was just one of few who was caught out today in not being able to get that second lap in which resulted in him being eliminated. I feel he can come back tomorrow though ! He's shown glimpses of decent pace on this track (yesterday in free practice) so I feel he can get himself into a decent point scoring place (p6/7 maybe ??) if the overtaking options present themselves to him.

I think both Haas cars (but especially Nikita) were very lucky to get away with no penalty today. Nikitas move just as Seb was coming up to them was extremely dangerous and the fact he knew Seb was coming makes it worse (apparently Mick didn't know Seb was coming up behind them). I do feel Seb's statement that there was many cars around did help in the decision but both are extremely lucky.

Still talking about Nikita (I wish I didn't have to 🙄), his reaction to Mick and the blame he threw on him for the incident was completely uncalled for and unnecessary. The reaction was not even about the incident and just a direct attack at Mick in a situation where really, Mick did nothing wrong. I think his reaction was disgusting.

It's inevitable we're going to see more red flags tomorrow but I am praying that it's not on the opening lap and everyone gets around safely (would rather no red flags but seeing the incidents over the last two days, someone will spin off or have a crash). Obviously this is the first time Max and Lewis have been on the front row together since Silverstone and the tensions will be high on that first lap so I'm just praying there isn't a coming together between them or one further back.

Now onto some positives !

Max has been on fire this weekend ! His pace has just been out of this world and some of his laps from today and yesterday were breathtaking and he fully deserved that pole position. His final lap to secure pole was amazing and the fact he did that, without drs in the final drs zone is incredible ! I think he's in an amazing place to get the win tomorrow and it's clear to see the pressure of racing in front of so many people just cheering for him isn't getting to him !

The Ferrari's have looked really good this weekend and if anything does go wrong at the front, I can see both Charles and Carlos really capitalising on that and potentially getting themselves into a podium place but even if it doesn't, they could potentially improve their starting positions and get a really good result which would 100% close the gap to McLaren, if not overtake them in the standings.

Also staying with Ferrari, the fact the mechanics were able to repair Carlos' car in time for quali is amazing ! There was a lot of damage to the front after his fp3 crash (thankfully he was all good !) and apparently they didn't get the car back until 20 minutes after the session ended so to get it all fixed and ready for the start of Q1 is just amazing !

Tomorrow's race is going to be a chaotic one ..... good luck peoples 🤪

[pucksnsticksnhockeyboys]

it’s what you deserve - pt. seven

summary: you finally have the chance to make things right, once and for all.

word count: 2.4k

link to the rest of the series

You had never seen Bee so happy as when you had told her that you ended things with Max. And it was odd, you had just broken up with your boyfriend, but you weren't sad. More, hopeful. When you had explained this to Bee, she just smiled widely at you and pulled you in for a bone crushing hug.

You watched the rest of the game with a little more enthusiasm, yelling at the refs for bad calls like you normally would. And instead of following Brett's figure on the ice as he skated around with guilt evident on your face, you looked determined. Determined to make things right, to do what would make you happy for the first time in months. Though, you still couldn't take your eyes off of him.

And so, you made a plan.

Work the next day had been absolute torture, the only respite you got was when you were able to check your phone every once in a while to see if Adam had texted you. He was vital to your plan, and once you had gotten the message that everything was all set on his end of things, you were able to breath a bit easier.

You wanted to text Brett and tell him that he had been right. That Max didn't deserve you and that you figured out how you should be treated. You thought that since he played a direct role in you ending things with your toxic ex, he had a right to know what happened.

But that was all too much to say over the phone. You wanted to be able to see his reaction and not just some typed out response. You wanted to be able to hold him tight as you told him you returned all the feelings he confessed to having just two days prior, and that just wasn't a possibility over a FaceTime call.

You raced back to the apartment after work and found Bee already ready to go, telling you she had picked out your outfit for the night. You simply rolled your eyes with a grin, brushing past her and into your room to find out that she had, in fact, laid out an outfit for you on your bed like she was your mother. The jeans and white sneakers she had picked out were fine, something you probably would have worn regardless, but the top she had was new—and definitely didn't come from your closet.

“Adam had that at his apartment and told me to get it for tonight, just don't ask me why he had it.” Bee explained with a chuckle as you picked up the Rangers jersey, the number twenty-one obvious and Howden scrawled across the back. Your heart raced at the idea of wearing his name, and a broad grin broke out across your face.

“Just remind me to thank him later.” You were grinning widely, shooing her out of the room so you could change. It felt right, wearing his name and number, and it gave you hope that this was going to work out.

It wasn't until you were walking into the Flyers arena did you begin to panic that maybe this was a bad idea. Would he want to see you after the way things had ended? Or would he be too upset that you had chosen Max over him, no matter how briefly, to give you a chance? Would he even want to be with you since you just got out of a relationship?

Your arm was linked through Bee's so you wouldn't lose each other in the crowd, so she felt you slow down the closer you got to the ice. You had already scanned your tickets in, having gotten the ones that Adam left at will call specifically for you and Bee—you really did have to remember to thank him. Between work and the travel time to get to Philly, by the time you arrived at the rink practice was over and you wouldn't actually get to talk to any of the boys until after the game.

“Get out of your head, okay? It'll be fine.” You tried to listen to Bee's words, you really did, but it was borderline impossible for you to not think about the multitude of ways this could blow up in your face.

When the players came onto the ice for puck drop you couldn't tear your gaze away from Brett—nothing new, honestly. You were a few rows off the ice, so you didn't blame him for not spotting you no matter how much you stared at him.

As the game progressed, you honestly couldn't be bothered to remember who scored what and how. Bee elbowed you every time someone scored, but your attention was fully on the brunette you held your heart. He hadn't smiled once the entire time he had been on the ice, and that was what cut you deep, thinking that it was your fault he wasn't having fun doing the one thing he loved the most. Guilt crept into your chest and gripped your being as the final seconds ran down on the clock.

The Rangers won, but just barely. Brett had taken a few necessary penalties, but you were glad he hadn't gotten hit like the night before. You weren't sure you could handle seeing that live. You hoped that what you were about to do would snap him out of his funk, and he could get back to playing as good as he had been the past few weeks.

Bee led you down to where Adam had told her to meet him, and you started shifting nervously on your feet. You chatted absentmindedly with Bee, knowing she was only telling you about what your old neighbor had said to her that morning to distract you. She peppered in a few comments to assure you that it would all be fine, and you were thankful for her, because before you even knew it players started filing out of the locker room.

“Please tell me you're here to make up with him.” You jumped in surprise at the deep voice belonging to Chris Kreider, somehow not noticing him approach. He was one of the teammates that had invited you out to dinner with Brett and the rest of the guys a few times, so you knew him decently well. You nodded at him, cheeks flushing at the fact that the older player probably knew what happened between you and Brett. Chris just grinned, pulling you into a one armed hug that caught you a bit off-guard. “The kid's head over heels for you.”

“I just hope he still feels the same, after everything, you know.” You mumbled, finally letting some of your concerns out in the air. Chris just laughed, teaming up against you with Bee who rolled her eyes at you. You were fighting a losing battle against the two of them.

“Trust me, he does.” Chris' words barely had time to register before Bee was leading him away, having spotted Adam walk out trailed by the boy you had been waiting for. They both muttered ‘good luck’ and 'see you later' before they left, but you hadn't really heard them. Your attention was focused solely on Brett, who hadn't seen you yet.

In the time it took him to realize you were there, you cataloged his features. He looked tired, deep bags under his eyes and a heavy slump to his shoulders that didn't come from the hard game. His was tie loose and hair a mess, he didn't even bother to style it after the post-game shower. Everything about the way he looked told you had been struggling with how things had ended the last time he was at your apartment, and that it effected him just as much as it did you. Still, he was just as devastatingly handsome as you remembered.

His head snapped up to look at Adam, who had elbowed him in the side to try and get him to notice you. There were only a few feet separating you from him, and he had yet to even see you. It was only when Ryan Lindgren called out something along the lines of ‘look in front of you, dumbass’ did he finally spot you.

He froze mid-step, not even acknowledging how his sudden stop made Buch bump into his shoulder as he swerved to avoid completely colliding with him. For a second, he just stared at you like he didn't quite believe that you were there, in Philly, wearing his jersey and waiting for him outside the locker room.

But then he snapped out of whatever daze he had been in, and he quickly closed the distance between you and him, pulling you into a hug before you could even blink. It felt so right being in his arms, that you sighed deeply, unsure how long you had been holding in your breath. You were certain you could have stayed right there forever, but the hoots and cheers from the boys around you had you pulling back.

Brett still didn't say anything, instead he threaded his fingers through yours and used your conjoined hands to tug you down a quieter hallway. Even when he stopped moving and decided you were far enough away from prying eyes, he didn't drop your hand—and you'd be fine if he never let go again.

“You're here.” He muttered, eyes roaming over you, as if he was searching for something wrong, waiting for you to come bash his hopes once more.

“I am.” You spoke just as quiet. “I broke up with Max.”

And at that, his smile was absolutely blinding. It was the biggest smile you'd ever seen on him, and you were certain his cheeks had to hurt. The type of smile that had you smiling too, though with Brett, every smile of his had you grinning right along with him.

“You know, I meant what I said about it not having to be me.” His smile faltered a bit, softening to one that held some sadness, despite the fact that he looked at least ten pounds lighter as a result of your confession. “I'm just glad you realized you deserve more than him.”

“Brett.” You took in a breath to steady yourself, wrapping your arms around his neck to stop him from rambling. It effectively shut him up, and his hands came to rest on your waist. You were smiling now, you couldn't help it. You were in the arms of someone who treated you right and wanted the best for you, even if it meant he couldn't have you. “What if I said I wanted it to be you?”

“Please,” he started, his right hand coming up to cup your chin as his face dropped closer to yours. “please tell me that it's me.” And with how close he was to you, you couldn't even begin to formulate a coherent sentence, so you simply nodded.

What happened next was long awaited, having been built up since probably the first moment you had laid eyes on him in that cafe. Brett finally closed the gap between the two of you, his lips pressed against yours with a sweetness and a desperation only matched by you. It was like you both were afraid of what would happen when you pulled away, so it was delayed as long as it could be.

Eventually, you did have to breathe though, and you disconnected your lips first. Brett didn't move back far, forehead resting on yours and nose pressing into your cheek. The scruff of his beard scratch your chin and drew a giggle out of you, one that Brett matched as he pulled you flush against his chest in a tight hug.

“Yeah, I definitely want it to be you.”

The next few weeks with Brett were infinitely better than the months spent with Max. Somehow, even though Brett had a busier schedule, he still found more time to see you than Max ever did and quickly you forgot completely about your ex. You had never smiled and laughed so much as you did when you spent time with Brett—you were certain he was your person and you were his.

“Can I take your order?” The waiter asked, and you shook your head politely. You didn't miss the quick glance he shot to the unoccupied chair across from you, and how he knew you'd been sitting by yourself for ten minutes.

“My boyfriend is on his way, I'll wait for him.” You explained, and the waiter gave you a tight-lipped smile before heading to check on another table. Almost as if on cue, your boyfriend entered the restaurant, looking at you with an apologetic smile as he approached.

“Sorry I'm late, I just got caught up in traffic and I left late because Adam made fun of my shirt and I had to change—” Brett started rambling out apologizes as soon as you were in earshot. He cut himself off as you chuckled, smile telling him that you weren't upset at him.

“Brett, you're five minutes late, and you texted saying you were running behind schedule.” You explained, standing to greet him with a hug and a kiss before you both took your seats again. Except, he stole two more quick kisses before you were able to sit back down.

“Yeah, but I know you usually get to restaurants early, so I try to get there early too.” He pouted, reaching across the table to grab your hand and press a kiss to your palm before threading your fingers together and resting them on the table. You just smiled at him, a look of pure adoration on your face that your boyfriend easily picked up on. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“It's stupid.” You shook your head, ignoring his question and the blush that bloomed on your cheeks. Brett wasn't buying it, and instead raised a brow in silent question. “It's just, I've never had a guy care about me like you do, you know?” And for a moment, he didn't respond. Instead, he just smiled softly at you, looking at you the way you had been looking at him just moments before. And when he did speak, it was barely above a whisper.

“It's what you deserve.”

[drivindrivin]

While I don’t necessarily agree with these rankings, I always find what Jolyon has to say very interesting. He, Jack Nicholls and Jenny Gow are great on the BBC radio F1 coverage. 

Jolyon’s five best drivers of the year

Max Verstappen

Lewis Hamilton

Charles Leclerc

Carlos Sainz

Sergio Perez

Article under the cut

Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer, who left Renault during the 2017 season, is part of the BBC team and offers insight and analysis from the point of view of the competitors.

The Formula 1 season ended in Abu Dhabi on Sunday with a podium that summed up the season perfectly - the three outstanding drivers of the year were all on it.

Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton won the race, from Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc. For me - and I suspect many others - they were the best three drivers in 2019. Just not quite in that order.

This is my assessment of the F1 grid in 2019.

The five best drivers of the year

1. Max Verstappen

In terms of choosing the best driver of the season, Hamilton and Verstappen were practically inseparable. Hamilton won the championship, but if I had to pick just one of them, I'd say Verstappen just edged it.

His relentless pace and consistently high level caused team-mate Pierre Gasly to be demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso in the summer break. And now the pressure is mounting on Alex Albon, Gasly's replacement, as Red Bull desperately search for someone who can operate somewhere near Verstappen's level.

In the first part of the season, Verstappen's victory in Austria, achieved while lapping his team-mate despite being behind him on the first lap, underlined his dominance over Gasly, who has excelled against both his other F1 team-mates, Brendon Hartley last year and Daniil Kvyat this.

Three race wins, extremely few mistakes and being a constant thorn in the sides of Ferrari and Mercedes shows how good Verstappen has been.

This was underlined by the fact that he finished the season comfortably third, ahead of both Ferraris, despite being in a slower car in terms of absolute pace and being wiped out by each of the Italian team's drivers at some point.

The only big downside for Verstappen are that a first pole position in Hungary should have been followed up with another in Mexico as well as Brazil, were it not for some foolhardy driving to not back off past a yellow flag.

That cost Verstappen another win. Potentially he could have exercised more caution in Belgium Turn One as well, but aside from that Verstappen's season was flawless.

2. Lewis Hamilton

Equally as impressive as Verstappen, this was an almost perfect season for Hamilton, in which he was strongly in contention for victory at nearly every single race.

When Hamilton leads out of Turn One, the race is boring. This was demonstrated once more in Abu Dhabi, although team-mate Valtteri Bottas couldn't challenge him from the back of the grid. When he doesn't, he's always a factor in the fight for victory anyway.

Hamilton has had one of his finest seasons and it has gone under the radar, because the title has been effectively wrapped up since June.

But winning 11 from 21 races proves his dominance, particularly because of the threat he's had since the summer break from Ferrari and Red Bull.

In the end, I have marked Hamilton down behind Verstappen only because he went off track while leading in Germany and hit Albon in the chaotic final couple of laps in Brazil.

In reality, there was nothing to choose between the two. Hopefully next year we can see them in a genuine title fight. That is a mouthwatering prospect.

3. Charles Leclerc

Ferrari have had a lot of stick this year - and quite rightly. They have been disappointing in every area.

Abu Dhabi was a real microcosm of their season. As Hamilton and Mercedes waltzed to an easy win, Verstappen showed up both Ferraris.

Both drivers hit the wall on Friday. Leclerc missed a final qualifying lap because of a pointless strategic timing 'gamble'. The team were investigated for a fuel irregularity before the race even began, and ultimately found guilty. And they had a seven-second pit stop with Sebastian Vettel as well for good measure.

Leclerc can sometimes get lumped into Ferrari's woeful season; he has after all made a fair few mistakes, such as crashing in Baku qualifying, in the race in Germany or hitting Verstappen on the first lap in Japan.

But this is only his second season in F1, and in reality he has been a revelation. Taking the pole position trophy for his seven poles shows how fast he has been - and he added two excellent victories as well.

Leclerc has brought numerous question marks upon the future of Vettel, because of how much he's ended up shading his team-mate as the season has gone on, combined with Vettel's own mistakes.

In fact, Leclerc has beaten Vettel on every single measure - he outscored him in the championship, took more wins, more poles and comfortably won their qualifying head-to-head. And that was despite Ferrari starting the year favouring Vettel, and imposing team orders - generally in the German's favour - a number of times.

Races such as Bahrain and Belgium show how good Leclerc can be. Hopefully, with another year's experience and a second season with Ferrari, he can cut the mistakes and become a season-long threat. Whether Ferrari can hold up their part of the bargain is a different matter.

4. Carlos Sainz

Sainz is another man who has had an exceptional year, and just managed to take sixth in the championship with a brilliant last-lap pass on Nico Hulkenberg in Abu Dhabi. With both Gasly and Albon, his rivals for that spot, spending half a year in the significantly quicker Red Bull, that is seriously impressive.

Sainz hasn't been the fastest this season. He's actually been out-qualified by rookie team-mate Lando Norris 11-10 in the head-to-head - although the Spaniard is actually ahead when taking into account only sessions in which a fair comparison can be made. But he's been relentlessly strong in the races and ultimately that is what counts.

Sainz's first laps have always been strong, and his race-craft has been superb as well. He has made several great overtakes in the year, and barely had contact with other drivers, in spite of often being in the thick of the midfield chaos.

A first podium in Brazil was thoroughly deserved. It's just a shame he didn't actually get to stand up there as the stewards dithered when handing Hamilton a penalty.

McLaren have had a brilliant season, with huge progression from last year. But they have a lot of work to do if they and Sainz can achieve any better next year.

Consolidating fourth in the constructors' championship and getting closer to the big three will likely be the aim in 2020.

5. Sergio Perez

This was a really tough call between Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, but in the end I've given Perez the nod because the Racing Point was not as good a car as the Renault and the Mexican all but matched the Australian's points total.

It's been an under-the-radar but extremely strong season once more for Perez. Five top-seven finishes in the past nine races leapt him up to 10th in the championship, ahead of Norris and almost catching Ricciardo, despite having a slower car across the season.

There have been a few mistakes along the way, particularly in a barren patch in the middle of the season such as at Germany and Silverstone, where Perez went a full eight races in a row without scoring.

But either side of that run he failed to score in only two other races and surely punched higher than his car, with four best-of-the-rest finishes, thanks to some super race performances.

The rest of the grid

This season has been a real fall from grace for Ricciardo, since winning races with Red Bull last year. The switch to Renault hasn't been anywhere near a success. In fact, the team have dropped backwards by 31 points and a position in the constructors' championship even though they splashed out on the big-money signing of the Australian.

But Ricciardo isn't to blame for any of that. As a driver he has actually been very strong this year, outshining Nico Hulkenberg 14-7 in qualifying and 54-37 in the points.

Everyone who has raced alongside Hulkenberg rates him highly - including myself - so Ricciardo beating him in that manner, in his first season with the team, is an impressive start, personally at least.

The Pierre Gasly that drove the Toro Rosso in the second half of the season was very good. Both fast and consistent, he scored a stunning second place in Brazil in what was my favourite moment of the season.

Sadly, the Gasly that started the year in the Red Bull never got going. This was the ultimate Jekyll-and-Hyde season, with some of the best and some of the worst. Very mysterious.

George Russell, Albon and Norris have had strong rookie seasons. For Russell, he's had no competition and a terrible car, which has made gauging his performance difficult. But for what it's worth beating team-mate Robert Kubica 21-0 in qualifying was good. He had flashes of pace and barely put a foot wrong.

Albon's Toro Rosso half-season was encouraging. His Red Bull second half started in an encouraging fashion, and fell a little flat towards the end of the season. He could do with kicking on a bit next year, but hopefully a full winter of team integration can help.

Norris' season started very well. He was fairly consistently ahead of Sainz in qualifying in the first half of the year and was held back by misfortune in the races.

As the year went on, Sainz increasingly established himself over Norris as the lead McLaren driver, but points in six of the past eight races show that Norris still did a solid job. He is my rookie of the year.

At the other end of the spectrum, Kimi Raikkonen had a very good first half of the season in the Alfa Romeo, before slipping back, along with his team, in the second half.

A sequence of silly errors kicked off the second half of the season, but on the whole Raikkonen has still shown he has what it takes at 40, as he showed Antonio Giovinazzi the way, beating him in all but three races.

It was a tough year for Haas, and in particular Romain Grosjean, who was generally out-performed by team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

A number of incidents and a fair amount of radio whining didn't help the Frenchman's cause, but the team fell away from good midfielders to ninth in the constructors' this year, and for the most part had no clue why that happened.

They desperately need to understand the tyres more, as this has been their Achilles' heel since day one. One day they can be super quick, like in Barcelona when they were best of the rest. The next they are absolutely nowhere.

Finally, Kubica had the worst season of all. It was a remarkable achievement for the Pole to get back onto the grid after his rally accident in 2011, and the terrible injuries he suffered. But that's where it ends, sadly.

I was a Kubica fan in his BMW days and when he was at Renault in 2010, and I hope people will remember him as that driver, rather than the tail-end Charlie who limped around in a very poor Williams car this year.

Either his right arm and hand - which have only partial movement, and which appear to be more or less a passenger in the car - were holding him back, or so much time away simply left him rusty. Or maybe both.

Either way, his performances this year were not a true representation of a driver who is supremely naturally talented.

[quillreflections]

Title: Electric Blue

Chapter: 6

Series: Yugioh GX

Pairing: Chazz/reader

Are you hiding, somewhere behind those eyes?

"Man, if you ever wonder why everyone calls you a Slifer slacker, behavior like this is exactly-"

"Aw, shut up! You're having fun." Jaden grins at Chazz before turning back to face the wall. "I know we can totally get up there, but we'll have to jump-"

"I don't wanna jump, I wanna go to class. But now I can't go to class because we're late and, for whatever stupid reason, the penalties for that are worse than missing entirely." Chazz huffs, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes at the other boy.

Jaden isn't listening.

The Slifer student hauls a chair over from the empty outdoor café, testing to make sure it'll hold his weight before climbing up on it. Then he stretches, reaching for the top of the overhang; when he can't reach it, he gives a careful hop, then hops again and finally latches onto the roof. He scrambles up and turns around to grin again. "See, it's easy! C'mon, even you can do it."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Chazz, as always, takes it as a personal challenge. In a smooth motion, he mimics Jaden's actions, climbing onto the chair and hauling himself onto the low-hanging school roof. He brushes himself off as he stands to his full height. "So. . . what are we even doing up here?"

Jaden shrugs absently, but a voice echoes out behind him. "I could ask the same thing, gentlemen."

The boys turn, and you're standing on another overhang, part of the school's odd multi-level design. You smile at them, and Chazz starts blushing and stuttering, but Jaden waves happily.

"Heya, [Name]! What're you doing up here?"

"Totally skipping class, honestly." You sit down on the edge of the roof. "I'm up here rearranging my deck; I figured if I skipped class and stayed in the dorm, they'd send someone looking for me."

The boys make their way over and scramble up onto the next overhang, Chazz hurrying to sit at your side before Jaden gets the chance. "Why would you be deck arranging up here though?"

You shrug, only wondering for a moment if you should tell them. You lower your voice, and they have to lean in closer to hear you whisper.

"I'm telling y'all this because we're friends, okay? So you can't tell anyone else, or let it slip."

They both nod, but inside, Chazz's pulse has started pounding. He has yet to adjust to being called a friend- the sound of his excited heart in his ears almost drowned out your whispering voice.

"I've got a big duel up tonight." You sit up straight with a smug huff. It takes them a moment to realize.

"A duel. . . tonight? Like, after-hours? Isn't that against the rules?" A frown twitches onto Chazz's face, but Jaden socks him in the arm.

"Don't act like you never challenged me after hours!" He laughs and looks back to you. "Don't worry, [Name], we won't tell. We've probably done a lot worse than that."

Back from where Chazz and Jaden had crawled onto the roof, something scrapes against the metal, and you all freeze. You're supposed to be in class- for a long, tense moment, all you can hear is clattering and huffing. Then a small voice floats up from the ground.

"Jaden! I know you're up there, I saw you climbing!"

You all sigh, and Jaden wanders back closer to the edge, leaning over to smile at Syrus. The smaller boy had pulled another chair from the patio tables, but still wasn't able to climb up to see his friends. He pouts.

"Jaden! You promised that if I missed class with you, you'd use that time to finish your homework! Get down here so we can study!"

Jaden sighs, but he turns back to you and Chazz with a wave and a "See ya later!" before leaping from the roof, landing on his feet and following Syrus back to the dorms.

Now it's just you and Chazz.

Your fellow Obelisk Blue student sits quietly for a bit; you're very aware of his eyes on you as you return to adjusting your deck. You frown at the cards in your hand- the one specific card you feel would be perfect for this duel happens to be the one card you've been wanting forever. Chazz notices the odd look cross your face, and he leans over your shoulder to look at your cards too.

"Can I ask what your duel tonight's even about?" He rests his chin in the palm of his hand. "I don't mean'ta sound like I don't think highly of you or anything, but you just. . . don't seem the type."

He definitely notices how you blush when you turn to look at him.

"It's really stupid, honestly- you'll laugh."

Chazz shrugs. "Fine, don't tell me. Not like I care or anything." He almost bites his tongue at that- the hell is he doing, saying he doesn't care. He totally cares. He cares too much for the one person who's treated him like a person of his own. Swallowing nervously, he shifts to sit across from you, pulling his own deck from his belt. "Duel me."

You look up from your cards, confused. "You mean like, here and now?"

"Yeah! An old-fashioned tabletop game, like how they used to play. Unless," he lowers his voice and leans forward, "you wanna try'n snag a duel field while we're supposed to be in class."

You chuckle at him, restacking your cards and starting to shuffle. "A low-tech game sounds fun. You're on!"

A smirk crosses Chazz's lips. "Loser buys dinner on the mainland?"

You grin back at him. "Y'know, I was gonna go easy on ya, but now I've just gotta kick your ass."

☆☆☆☆☆

Chazz's steel eyes roam the field, examining your setup. He's only an attack away from winning, but your back row could be a problem- he frowns at the cards in his hand, and you watch intently as he seems to make a choice. Your fingers start inching towards one of your facedowns; knowing this boy, he'll probably use a-

"Hey! You there! What do you think you're doing?!"

Your blood runs cold, and across from you, Chazz blanches. You lean carefully over the edge of the roof- Professor Crowler is standing there with his hands on his hips, teeth grit, face turning red. "You've missed two class periods, in addition to accessing prohibited parts of campus- get down here this instant! And bring whoever's with you, too!"

You sigh, gathering your cards, glancing up at Chazz as he shoves his back into his deckbox too. "I was gonna win, y'know."

He sneers back at you. "Not with my Ring of Destruction, you weren't."

He hauls himself off the roof first, landing in front of the astonished professor. "Mister Princeton-? What are you-?"

Chazz ignores the man, turning back to you and holding his arms out. "Jump. I'll catch you." You hesitate for a moment- you are in your uniform, after all, and that skirt's kinda short- but then you kick your legs over the side of the overhang and jump.

True to his word, Chazz catches you; his arms are unexpectedly strong when they wrap around your waist, giving you a moment to catch your bearings before he sets you down, and you both turn to face your professor. Chazz keeps one arm around your waist, holding you kinda close.

Crowler glares. "Princeton, I expected much better from you- you're one of the most promising students we have here, and I'd hate to see you waste that potential. But since we owe your family some favors, I suppose I can let this slide." His eyes narrow as he turns to you. "However, Miss [Name], you are not nearly as lucky. I should have you put on cleaning duty for a-"

"She was only up there because of me, alright?!" Chazz bites out. "I asked her to skip with me. She didn't even really want to." His grip on you tightens a bit, and he glares back at Crowler. "You can't punish her for this without punishing me."

Professor Crowler huffs, going silent for a moment. ". . . [Name], since you've been such a good student prior to this, I suppose I'll let it slide for you as well. If either of you repeats this offense, you won't be off nearly as lightly next time. Now get to class." And with that, he strides off, muttering under his breath.

You turn to Chazz as he finally lets go of you. He sniffs. "The guy's a weirdo."

"You didn't have to do that, y'know."

Chazz rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, trying not to blush. "Hey, if you got in trouble, you couldn't make your duel tonight. But ya know. . ." a sly grin crosses his face, and he bats his eyes at you. "I think, for saving your butt, I deserve a nice dinner."

You laugh, shoving him playfully, and he grins at you. "First the cake, then a dinner- you don't need all these excuses, Chazz. Just ask!"

His demeanor suddenly shifts, and all the air rushes out of your lungs at how serious he got so quickly. "Alright then, [Name]." His voice is low, and there's something in it you don't recognize. "Would you go to dinner with m-"

"[Name]! Chazz!" A loud voice echoes out from behind you, and so much frustration bubbles up in Chazz's chest that he feels like he might cry. Jaden is racing towards you both, Syrus not far behind- when the two Slifer students are within reach, Jaden grabs you by the arm and pulls. "We've gotta get to class before Crowler comes back-!"

Chazz bites his tongue as he lets Syrus push him towards the classroom you all shared for this period.

Maybe it was too soon to ask anyways.

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Baby Daddy - Chapter 19

You can read it on AO3 here, or find the Tumblr Chapter Index here. 

The sheriff doesn’t raise his voice when he’s angry with Stiles, but Laura, sitting in the living room, can hear every word, and every one of them feels like a punch in the gut.

“You said you did this for me, Stiles? Then maybe you should have thought about how I’d feel too. That baby is my grandchild, and you’ve already signed it away. You’d do it again? You have no right to make that choice for me!”

Nobody has told the Stilinskis about enhanced werewolf hearing yet.

Moments later the door to the study slams, and Stiles races up the stairs.

Derek gets up from his seat beside Laura on the couch, and disappears further into the house.  

Peter sits on the arm of the couch, and sips his coffee.

“You told him it would be like ripping off a Band-Aid,” Laura murmurs.

“Well.” Peter shrugs and taps his fingers up the side of his mug “What the hell do I know about Band-Aids?”

There’s a challenge in his gaze that belies his flippancy, and Laura closes her eyes to avoid it for a moment, and just listens.

She hears Stiles tramp down the stairs again, and go outside and start his Jeep. Then she hears the sound of another car engine, and moments later Stiles is back, and Deputy Parrish is with him.

The squeak of footsteps on the stairs: Stiles first, and then Derek padding after him.

The low sound of voices from the study: the sheriff and Parrish.

And heartbeats. She can hear all their heartbeats, beating in sync here, and in counterpoint there, each individual beat coalescing into the steady hum of background noise. Her own heartbeat is part of that strange symphony too, and Peter’s. And there’s a new one too: the tiny little squeeze and press of a developing muscle in a body the size of a sweet pea.

She opens her eyes again to find Peter still gazing at her.

“Don’t give me that face, Lulu,” he says. “I’m not the one who can smooth this over.”

Laura closes her eyes again and exhales.

It was never supposed to be this complicated. Stiles was her friend, and she liked talking with him and laughing with him, and her wolf liked the way he smelled. It was a simple equation. Everything is simple for the wolf. Of course, the wolf’s instincts don’t always align with the complex reality of the human world.

This was never supposed to be this complicated, but it is, and Peter’s right. Laura can’t rely on someone else to fix this for her. She’s Laura Hale. She’s the alpha, and she’s going to be a mother, and she needs to step up and make this right.

She opens her eyes as she hears Parrish leaving.

Parrish leans in the doorway on his way out. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Laura manages a smile.

“John wants to see you guys,” Parrish says.

“Thanks.”  Laura stands up and walks down the hallway towards the sheriff’s study. Peter follows.

She knocks on the doorframe with her knuckles. “Sheriff?”

He looks up from the paperwork on his desk. “Laura. Peter. Come in. Sorry, I don’t have any spare chairs in here…”

Peter vanishes, and reappears a moment later with two from the dining room.

“So, Parrish brought me copies of the statements from Gerard Argent and his men,” the sheriff says. “They’re being pretty tight-lipped at the moment, but on the plus side, they also haven’t said a word about werewolves.”

“They’re very big on secrecy,” Peter says, and reaches for the statements. “May I?”

The sheriff stares at him for a moment, and then shoves the statements toward him. “Why the hell not? It’s already a goddamn cover up. Tainting your witness testimony is hardly going to make a difference at this point, is it?”

Peter smirks, but keeps his mouth shut as he takes the statements.

Thank fuck.

It’s obvious John Stilinski is a decent guy and an ethical cop, and that everything about this rubs him the wrong way. When it comes to his job, Laura isn’t sure that anybody should try to push him any further than he already feels he’s been pushed.

“Well, if they won’t come up with a motive,” Peter suggests, “then maybe your officers should supply them with one.”

The sheriff raises his eyebrows.

“If I were Deputy Parrish, for example,” Peter says, “I might ask if this was some sort of ransom attempt. We surviving Hales are quite wealthy, thanks to life insurance payouts from the fire. If Deputy Parrish asked if that’s what this was all about, I can imagine that the hunters will be agreeable to that.”

“Why would they be agreeable?”

“Because it keeps werewolves out of the picture,” Peter says. “Which keeps them from being medicated to the gills on antipsychotic meds in prison. And also because if the police think it’s all about the money, then they’re unlikely to dig too deeply for a connection to the fire. I’d rather do a few years for kidnapping than a much longer stretch for eight counts of murder, wouldn’t you?”

Laura doesn’t know how Peter can talk about the fire with such pragmatic detachment, as though it’s something that happened to someone else’s family. As though it’s purely academic.

“Do we still have the death penalty in California?” he asks. “Or was that taken off the books while I was in my coma?”

“We’ve still got it,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “But California hasn’t executed a death row inmate since 2006.”

“Still, not a pleasant prospect, I would imagine.” Peter flips through a few more pages. “If Deputy Parrish gives them the chance to pretend this was a kidnapping, and not them coming back to finish the job they started with the fire, they’ll take it. They’re not fools.”

“And what about the fire?” the sheriff asks. “Aren’t you interested in justice for that?”

“Oh, I’m very interested,” Peter tells him mildly. “But it’s not something I intend to bother the police with.”

“Peter,” Laura says in a warning tone, seeing the flash of anger in the sheriff’s eyes.  

Peter smirks.

The sheriff regards them both silently for a moment. “I’ll suggest it to Parrish,” he says at last. “We’ll see if they bite. Meanwhile, there’s still no sign of Kate Argent. She might have left town already.”

Peter’s expression hardens. “She won’t have. Kate Argent has the habit of coming at you in unexpected ways, and she won’t be very happy that Gerard is in custody. She’s still here, I’d bet my life on it.”

“Huh.” Sheriff Stilinski leans back in his chair. “You betting your life on what Kate Argent would do didn’t go so well last time, did it?”

“Not so well, no,” Peter agrees, his top lip curling slightly at the challenge in the sheriff’s tone. “She was supposed to come after me first, not Laura and Derek. She wasn’t even supposed to know about the loft.”

“You’re the tactician, right?” The sheriff leans forward again. “That’s your job in the pack? Your plan almost got you and Laura killed, didn’t it? What went wrong?”

Peter growls, the sound low and ominous.

The sheriff doesn’t even blink.

“What went wrong,” Peter says, “is that the bitch came at me at the loft, and not in my apartment. What went wrong is that there should have been three of us, instead of just the two of us. What went wrong is that I probably led her to the loft myself, instead of avoiding it, because Derek ran and Laura called me, and I didn’t think. I just went straight there, like a fucking idiot. Is that what you wanted to hear, Sheriff?”

The sheriff presses his mouth into a thin line. “You talk a big game, Peter, but you’re not infallible. Your mistakes could have got you and Laura and the baby killed.”

“I know what my mistakes have cost,” Peter says, his eyes flashing. “You’ve seen the autopsy reports from the fire.”

“Yeah, I have,” the sheriff says. “And it’s only pure dumb luck I’m not looking at yours right now. If you want my help on this, and make no mistake, you needmy help on this, then it comes with conditions. It stops. Right now, it stops. These guys go to prison, and it’s done. You understand me? It’s done. No more revenge. No more killings. It’s done.” He gives Peter a moment to growl, and then raises his eyebrows. “So you tell me, Peter, what do you need to happen for you to agree to that?”

Peter exchanges a look with Laura.

“I need Gerard and Kate either in a jail cell or in a grave,” he says at last.

“Okay,” Sheriff Stilinski says. “Then you give me a chance to make that happen.”

Peter blinks, and Laura can feel the faint surprise sharpening his scent. It’s not often that Peter finds himself manipulated into being accommodating, and the speed with which the sheriff got him from smirking at the idea of taking his own bloody revenge against the Argents to agreeing to allow the police to handle it was truly something.

And he only had to drag him a little way through hell to make it happen.

Laura thinks that Peter has possibly underestimated the sheriff, and that he’s as much intrigued by the idea as he is piqued by it.

“Fine,” Peter says at last, sounding almost rattled. “I’ll give you your chance.”

It’s the sheriff’s turn to smirk.

***

Peter leaves to stew, or brood, or plot his revenge against the sheriff—or, Laura suspects, more weirdly, to ponder the dimensions of his newfound admiration for the man—and the sheriff looks at Laura like he expects her to follow him.

“Werewolf hearing,” she says instead. “It’s a thing.”

The sheriff’s brows draw together. “What sort of a thing?”

“A very acute thing,” Laura says. “I heard every word between you and Stiles earlier.”

The sheriff sags in his chair, and exhales heavily. It’s a mix of disappointment and regret. “Every word?”

She nods. “Sheriff, Stiles doesn’t want to be a father. That’s part of the reason I chose him. Because our pack is the three of us.” Was, she thinks. Was the three of us. “And I wanted a baby without the baggage of its father in the picture, because the last thing I thought we needed was another fully grown person in the mix, when our pack bonds were already fragile.”

She can tell by the look on his face that the sheriff doesn’t entirely understand that. It doesn’t matter. It’s not the point.

“Stiles doesn’t want to be my baby’s father,” she says. “But you saved our lives, John. And I would be honoured to have you as a part of my child’s life, in any capacity that you want. Family friend. Random uncle. Even grandpa, if that’s what you want.” Her chest aches. “I had a Grandma Alice when I was growing up. Turns out she wasn’t related to either of my parents. She was my dad’s old elementary school teacher. So what I’m saying is you can be Grandpa John if you want. Stiles doesn’t need to be my child’s father to make it work.”

The sheriff passes a hand over his face. When he looks up again, his eyes are brimming with tears. “It’s more than I deserve, Laura.” His voice is rough.

“It’s not,” she tells him. “John, I know this past year has been really hard on you. It’s been really hard on Stiles too. When I was his age, I lost everything, and I suddenly had to step up and be responsible in ways I hadn’t before. And I messed up a lot too. Just ask Derek and Peter. I’m stillmessing up. And the worst thing isn’t even all the screw-ups I’ve made. It’s the thought that Derek or Peter might not forgive me for them.”

“Laura, I only found out about this yesterday.” He holds up a hand. “I know. I know that’s no excuse. But it’s a lot. It’s just a lot.”

Laura nods. “I know it is.”

The sheriff exhales heavily. “I’m gonna need some time to come to terms with all of this. For what it’s worth though, thank you for the offer to be Grandpa John. I appreciate that, and I willbe taking you up on it. And hopefully by the time the baby actually arrives, me and Stiles will have it all sorted out between us.”

“I hope so too,” Laura tells him. “Because you’re our friends. Both of you.”

You’re our pack, she wants to say, but she knows that one’s going to have to wait.

[anythingstephenking]

The Morally Grey Mile

Strap in for another grim tale. At least men are the ones getting fucked in The Green Mile, amirite ladies? No, still not cool? Ok then.

I suppose it is a disservice to call The Green Mile solely a “grim” tale, but because the core story focuses on an innocent man headed to the electric chair, it is pretty damn grim. If you haven’t read the book you’ve seen the movie but spoilers anyway - the innocent man dies and it sucks for the reader. It’s certainly more complicated than “bad wins” but a real bummer all the same.

Backing up a bit. The Green Mile was King’s first attempt at a serialized story release. In the book’s forward, King tells us it’s story of inception. Through a series of fortuitous events and a conversation with business associates about Charles Dickens, King concocted the idea to release a story in a series of “chapbooks”. Apparently Dickens released some of his stories that way, and they were so fervently popular that a band of dingdongs pushed each other off a dock and drowned while awaiting a shipment of Dickens into Baltimore Harbor. I imagine if the Harry Potter books were released that way I would have ended up in the harbor too. No judgement, zealous Dickens readers, I get it.

Logically, if it worked for 19th century Dickens, it would surely work for 20th century Stephen King, right? 

(cue Mr. Burns fingers). 

A single book released in installments monthly, garnering 3-4x the cost of a single paperback. Good for you SK, good for you. Cause turns out, the constant reader ate it up and bought ‘em like hotcakes.

Cause that’s the thing - this is a really really good story. Not because it’s beautifully written like Cujo or Firestarter or mind-bending like The Dark Tower books, but because it is a real page turner. I credit the format for that - you can tell it was written in a plot-driven, cliffhanger kinda way. In the same way serialized TV (before binging took this joy away) would leave you wanting more week to week, The Green Mile leaves each installment in a way where you can’t imagine not picking up the next one.

Per my contractual agreement with myself, I am required to reach each and every page of this story, but I’m a strange bird and the rest of the world isn’t a weirdo like me. At the end of the day, the narrative structure here really works and I plowed through all 6 installments in a day or so. Those reading in real-time (and not binging like me) waited a month between each publishing, from March through August 1996. There was no dock delivery in Baltimore in 1996 but I imagine if there was, the crowd waiting for each would be large.

So the narrative approach works, but what about the story itself? My analysis comes back slightly muddy but mostly positive despite some hard to swallow flaws.

I can’t claim to know what death row would have been like in 1932, but I’ve watched enough PBS documentaries to know what it’s like now. The group held at Cold Mountain are described as killers, yes. As rapists and wife beaters and arsonists. But they also come across like a rag-tag group of buds that should have their own reality TV show. One of the prisoners, Del, raped and murdered a young girl then accidentally killed a bunch of other people trying to cover his tracks by setting the building on fire. But he’s got this cute, somewhat supernatural mouse named Mr. Jingles that does tricks. Ain’t it cute? Then he fries and literally catches on fire in the electric chair.

I understand the intention of the tale - humanity lives in all of us. Empathy shouldn’t be reserved just for some. Death is final and it comes for all of us. What I struggled with was trying to understand if this was blatant reference to King’s personal stance on the Death Penalty (against it, obvs) or something more subtle. Should we take away that killing is wrong no matter what? Or that there is more nuance at play here?

Because there’s more happening on the green mile than just murderers dying (no matter how dramatically) in the chair comically nicknamed “ol’ sparky”. We’ve got John Coffey in chains, convicted of raping and murdering two 9 year old girls. JFC. I just can’t.

But he did, and he will die for his crimes. Here’s where the controversy around this novel begins. John Coffey is a large black man with magical powers. Spike Lee specifically calls out King publicly for this “magical negro” trope, which honestly I can’t disagree with. Dick Halloran from The Shining and Mother Abigail from The Stand fall neatly in this bucket as well. But even as I type this I know I am cherry-picking; I’ve read plenty of King stories with mystical beings and they’re mostly white (or more often other worldly). But King’s repeated use of the n-word and other racial slurs in his writing is real cringeworthy. As I move further towards his 21st century writing I keep hoping this will stop. It hasn’t yet, as of 1996. But King and writing about race is an entirely separate post for another day.

Back to The Green Mile; we learn that John Coffey has special healing powers when he cures the head guard, Paul Edgecomb of a UTI by grabbing his crotch. Normally this type of behavior will get ya thrown in the hole, but Paul’s so grateful he lets it slide.

Once we learn of the healing powers of Coffey, it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery. While getting arrested he cries “I tried to stop it but it was too late.” Everyone involved in the investigation assumes he means he tried to stop himself from murder but couldn’t; anyone with half a brain can deduce that someone else killed the girls; he tried to heal them. He was too late.

We’re set off to learn who really murdered the girls, but this revelation takes a backseat, at least in my mind. For me, the big mystery is; will John Coffey get executed? I’ll be honest, I hadn’t seen this movie, so I didn’t know. The phone the governor used to phone in stays-of-execution was mentioned early, so my Chekhov’s Gun senses lead me to believe it was possible. Why bother if not? Well the phone is mentioned at execution time, only to say it won’t ring. And of course it never really was a question - Coffey is a black man in the south, convicted of murdering two girls in 1932. Of course no one’s coming to save him. It’s sad. Real sad.

We’re given solace in the fact that Coffey claims he’s ready to go - his powers are too much and he’s tired. This is a nonsense cop out that provides relief to all those that understand the truth, allowing them to go on living, loving their wives and kids and casseroles. John Coffey should not have died. The end. 

Things are wrapped up in a bow with the end stories of everyone involved and their timely and untimely deaths. I guess that’s it; life sucks, then you die; death can come for you in any way, without discrimination.

I earmarked what is one of my favorite lines I’ve encountered so far in King’s work.

“We had once again succeeded in destroying what we could not create.”

Executing anyone (murderer or not) takes a toll on most of the prison staff. I just loved this so much on so many levels; they are men without the ability to create life; they are not god; they are mortals stealing mortality. So beautiful.

So, it’s no stretch to call this the brother of Shawshank, but at least we get a female character in Paul Edgecomb’s wife. I don’t remember her name so that’s not great. But she was a woman and she at least was there, so it gets knocked up a few rungs from Shawshank IMHO.

I’d have to say this is one King novel that really perplexed me. I suppose I got into the routine of enjoying typical good-vs-evil tales where the good guys eventually overcome. For me, The Green Mile wasn’t green at all but a wavering shade of grey I still can’t see properly.

(Side note: As I sat down to write this, I thought to myself “I’m not sure what I’ll say about The Green Mile.” Turns out, quite a bit, this is probably one of my longest entries. Who knew?)

8/10

First Line: This happened in 1932, when the state penitentiary was still at Cold Mountain.

Last Line: I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.

Adaptations:

Like it’s brother Shawshank Redemption, I had never seen this movie before. It made it’s run through awards season in 1999, mostly for Michael Clarke Duncan’s portrayal of John Coffey. Who later tragically died of a heart attack with his girlfriend Omarosa (of Trump WH fame) which I didn’t know, but good golly, that is another sad story for another day.

Listen, this is a highly regarded movie that’s on many top lists, so I won’t stab into it too hard. But it is SO LONG.

Frank Darabont got his panties all in a bunch when folks told him a 3 hour running time was too long, claiming that if 2 hours was the correct length of a film that cinema classics like Lawrence of Arabia were invalidated. Well guess what? I’ve seen Lawrence of Arabia, and yes that shit is too. damn. long. As is The Green Mile.

One would think that with 3+ hours of material, the character development would be on point. It’s not really; the prisoners are mostly glossed over (even more so than in the book) as lovable murders. Wild Bill is the exception (overacted by Sam Rockwell), and he serves as the sole real “bad guy”. 

Edgecomb and his other prison guards are painted as saints (again, minus one guard who takes on the “bad guy of the good guys” role). If the book was grey the movie is much more black and white. Tom Hanks for president for sure, the guy is a national treasure. But they were one step away from giving him an actual halo. As someone complicit in the murder of an innocent man, I just can’t declare his character for sainthood. The real Tom Hanks, a million times yes. Paul Edgecomb? Nah.

The movie is fine. I approve of Darabont’s relationship with King and have thoroughly enjoyed their previous collaborations. I was sad to see that he let his film rights to The Long Walk expire last year, picked up by New Line and James Vanderbilt (of Vanderbilt fortune... old money... sigh) who penned Zodiac, which leaves me slightly hopeful but assume it’ll trickle back into development limbo for the remainder of eternity.

I’ve already finished my next read, Desperation and after I slog through the 2.5 hour ABC miniseries (UGH) I will keep trucking. New Year, more pressure placed on myself to plow through the back half of King’s bibliography.

[f1chronicle]

Lewis Hamilton Inspires Others To Dream

On the day he was crowned World Champion for a record-equaling seventh time, Lewis Hamilton had a simple message: Always believe in yourself, and continue to dream.

In a year that has seen unprecedented challenges for people across the globe, many people have been looking to leaders to inspire them to keep pushing, something Hamilton is all too aware of as he continues to inspire millions.

Crowning Achievement One Of Lewis Hamilton’s Best

After being accustomed to starting on the front row of the grid, a tricky qualifying session saw Hamilton start from the third row, setting up a mouth-watering battle with the likes of Max Vertappen and the two Racing Point drivers ahead of him.

In the end, it was the experience gained on the road to seven titles that saw Hamilton not just claw back a deficit, but go on to record arguably one of the best wins of his F1 career.

‘I’m a bit lost for words. Naturally, I have to start with saying such a huge thank you to all the guys here and all the guys back at the factory, both our factories, and all our partners for enabling us and giving us this opportunity.

‘I wouldn’t be able to do this if I didn’t join this team and the journey we have been on has been monumental. I’m so proud of them. I want to also say a big thank you to team LH for sticking with me all these years and then to my family.

‘We dreamed of this when were young, when I was young, when we were watching the grands prix and this is way, way beyond our dreams.

‘It’s so important for kids out there to hopefully see this and know that… don’t listen to anybody that tells you you can’t achieve something. Dream the impossible and speak it into existence. You’ve got to work for it. You’ve got to chase it and you’ve got to never give up and never doubt yourself.

‘We knew coming here it was already such a difficult weekend. We weren’t massively disappointed with our qualifying position. We knew that we were kind of on the back foot and we did the best we could.

‘But then we learned a lot. This is what we do as a team. There is no blame game. We hash it out. We do hash it out. We continue to try to improve our communication so that we can make moves forwards. We don’t always get everything perfect.

‘We had that small moment at the beginning of the race with the new tyres and then I couldn’t get past Seb for a while. At that point I could see Albon pulling away and I though “Jesus, this race is falling through my fingers”. But I just kept my head down and kept believing that I would eventually just pick up pace of some sort at some stage. And that’s what I did.

‘There was a point at which Seb was pulling away from me and I couldn’t figure out at the time what it was. I was checking my temperatures. I didn’t know if it was because the tyres were overheating or they were too cold. They went through a drier patch.

‘I went through the real rough phase of the graining on the tyres and then it started to come back, the grip started to come back. The track was drying in some areas and I was improving my driving lines the whole way through the race and I started to pick up pace.

‘Then Seb pitted and for me I knew that wasn’t the right choice personally and so I decided to stay out and as the tyres got more and more slick that’s exactly what you needed. Fortunately that intermediate tyre holds temperature. If I went out on new slicks I wouldn’t have made it round.

‘I lost the world championship in the pit lane and I learned my lesson from 2007 that’s for sure. I felt like I really had it under control and the grip was feeling good and I was going to deal with the rain if it dropped… oh wow.’

Here you can watch Hamilton deliver a powerful message at the conclusion of the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix.

How Does Turkey Result Rank For Lewis Hamilton?

With many pundits and fans alike feeling the result was one of Hamilton’s best wins of his career, the 7-Time World Champion didn’t see it that way, as every race feels unique to him.

‘I’ve been racing a long time, so it’s difficult to compare! I would say that generally every race fells like it’s the first. It’s unique. I don’t compare any race to any other race.

‘I’m always in a different place in life, so I like to say they are all unique in their own way. I think for sure, this one felt like a very, very complete day on track, under the toughest circumstances.

‘With this track and the new surface here, you see people who are professional drives, incredible drivers, you saw them losing control today, that’s how slippery and difficult the conditions were.

‘This was a big test for me because you know, in the rain, you know what you normally do in the rain, but this is different, in the sense that this is ice!

‘I don’t remember having an ice race before. I feel like I achieved something different today. For sure I know that not everyone expected that. I definitely didn’t expect that, but I was hopeful that I was going to move forwards.

‘I got a good start, lost position on the first lap with those new tyres, but the more I race, the more I feel like I’m getting better. I think I’m understanding myself more. I know what I want from the car. I know what buttons to push. During a race I’m constantly tweaking my driving style.

‘It’s like trying to find the right numbers to put together to be able to get you through the corners in a way that is faster than everyone else. That mathematics, that algorithm never seems to stop. It’s always a challenge from lap to lap and I think today I was really mastering it, at least from half way in the race.’

Lewis Hamilton Made Call To Stay On Old Tyres

With the race coming to him in the second half, Lewis Hamilton was able to use his experience to make the call to stay out on old tyres – a move that paid off with the race win.

‘Obviously I got a really good start and then I lost position. I avoided getting a penalty going around the bollard. I struggled behind everybody. I know everyone was struggling but I was struggling behind that group of cars that was ahead of me.

‘Then, we saw people even like Max, who is great in the wet, spin and lose control and have to do extra stops. I was behind Seb and for a moment I was thinking I might get past him but then me and him were having this battle and it was so frustrating not to be able to get past him.

‘But also I was thinking, “you know what, Seb has had the toughest year, I would say arguably perhaps in his whole career” and I just thought he was driving so well, but at the same time I was like, “he’s doing so good, but dammit, he’s in the way, the guys up ahead are getting away!”

‘And then he started pulling away from me and I think at that point I could definitely see the win seeping away. I looked at my dash and I was on lap 30 or something like that and then I was like, “no, there’s a long, long way to go and anything can happen, so just keep your head down, keep going, keep pushing”.

‘All of a sudden I found a few things that improved the handling of the car and I started getting around in much quicker laps and I started to close on Seb, and then he pitted.

‘And I knew, for me, I was like: “There’s no way you guys are pulling me in. These tyres aren’t done and the track is in this progressive state and it’s not going to dry up fully by the end of the race.” So I knew all these things from all these experiences I’ve ever had so I was able to use history, to use past experience to deliever those laps I was doing afterwards.

‘And as soon as I could see the Racing Point’s ahead I knew that it’s game time. You’ve just got to keep your head, keep your cool and don’t make mistakes.’

2020 Turkish Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton (image courtesy Mercedes-AMG Petronas)

Lewis Hamilton Still Blazing A Trail

With the worlds microscope on racism in 2020, Lewis Hamilton has led the charge for greater inclusivity, highlighting systemic issues in the sport as well as leading the #WeRaceAsOne campaign.

‘It’s obviously no secret that I’ve really walked this sport alone: the only black person here, or the only person of colour here and it’s a really interesting point.

‘The fact is that as I’m bi-racial, whilst it’s the term of the black driver here, I’m bi-racial and I think this colourism that perhaps people should perhaps read about.

‘I think that, hopefully, shows, when I was younger, I didn’t have anybody in the sport that looked like me and, so, you know, it was easy to think that that’s not possible to get there, because nobody of your colour has ever been there, you don’t see anybody on TV, any black people on TV that are in Formula 1.

‘I think hopefully this sends a message to the kids that are watching. Hopefully they’ve seen that performance today and hopefully they can see that it doesn’t matter where you come from, I think whatever your background, I think it’s so important to you to dream big.

‘And if you are looking at places, industries that you don’t see someone of the same background as you, or the same ethnicity as you, or with the same religion, create your own path. Because that’s what we did. That’s what I’ve been able to do. And it’s been so tough. Tough doesn’t even describe how hard it’s been. I hope that sends that message. That’s the most important message for kids: to dream as big as possible and not give up.’

Hamilton Emotional After Crossing The Line

Lewis Hamilton often wears his heart on his sleeve, especially when discussing the journey he and his family have gone through to get to seven titles.

That emotion poured out as the Brit took the chequered flag in Turkey.

‘Very rarely do I ever lose control of my emotions and I think those last few laps, I remember those last few laps and obviously we’re having a discussion whether we’re going to pit.

‘I was just telling myself, ‘keep it together Lewis, you’ve got this’. I could feel it getting closer and also knowing that, if I finish where I’m finishing right now, that I’ve got this championship.

‘So, all of these emotions were running through me, and I was trying to stop it because I was thinking about my whole career. From when I was five, when I drove in the go-kart, from when we’ve won our first British Championship, driving home with my Dad, singing ‘We Are the Champions’, and dreaming of being here – it is right there, minutes away and that was a lot to take in.

‘When I came across the line, it really hit me and I just burst into tears, I think. That whole in-lap. And then I really just couldn’t get out of the car because I just couldn’t believe it.

‘I’ve been very strong but I couldn’t have done it without the great man behind me, my Dad, who, on the days when I didn’t think I was good enough, or wasn’t going to do well enough, he stood me up and kept me going.

‘So, I was thinking of him, I was thinking of my Mum, I was thinking of my step-mother Linda, my brother, who all stood by me through thick and thin. I didn’t want the visor to come up and for people to see tears flowing and all of that stuff – because I had always said that I would never let you see me cry. I remember watching other drivers in the past crying and I was like” ‘I am not going to do that’ – but it was too much.’

2020 Turkish Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton (image courtesy Mercedes-AMG Petronas)

Race Win Silences Critics

Many critics point to Hamilton always having the best car, always starting at the front, and not having to overtake.

All of these arguments flew out the window as Hamilton won a race that wasn’t his to win.

‘I want more of these weekends. More tricky conditions like this. The more opportunities like this, the more I’m able to show what I’m able to do. And I think today hopefully you can see… I think I deserve my respect.

‘I think I have that with my peers. They will know how hard today is, particularly that it is not a car thing.

‘However, I couldn’t have done this without that amazing group of people behind me – but there is another great driver who is alongside me, who has the same car who obviously didn’t finish where I finished.

‘I do notice that there are these interesting comments from past drivers, particularly. I really, really promise you, and hope that I stand by my word, when I stop in ten, 20 years from now and look back, I want to be embracing and encouraging the next youngsters that are here, whether it’s Lando, whether its George, whoever it may be, whether it’s Max.

‘I know how hard it is to do the job and I know how this world works. Of course you have to have a good team and of course you have to have a great car. There is no driver that’s ever won – really won – the Championship in the past without it.

‘It goes back the same all the way down to karting. You’ve got to have the right equipment. I remember my first championship. I raced and the kid that won was on rocket engines, which Jenson Button’s Dad had tuned. Those engines were real rockets. Compared to the cheap, crappy engine that I had which was fifth hand, there was no way I could keep up with these kids, and I remember that one weekend with Kim Bolton in 1992, 1993, and he was moving on to the next class, he was selling on these engines. I remember my Dad had to re-mortage the house to get this £2000 engine – but what we did that day was me and this kid, who’d been winning everything, we put his other engine that I was going to buy, that we were looking to buy, in my car and I was ahead of him all the time on track.

‘So, of course, you’ve got to have the equipment, of course you’ve got to have it and that’s something that will always be in this sport. But then it’s also what you do with it that really also counts – and hopefully you can see that today,’ concluded the 7-Time World Champion.

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[bbreferencearchive]

Final Words

Documentary Film (for Reelz network)

Title: Charles Manson: The Final Words

Written by: James Buddy Day

Produced by Pyramid Productions, Calgary, Canada

 FINAL EDIT SCRIPT, September 9th 2017

EXT. CALIFORNIA STATE PRISON – DAY

 AUTOMATED RECORDING

You have a collect call from ‘Charles’ an inmate in California State Prison, Corcoran, CA, to accept say or dial 5 now. BEEP. 

CHARLES MANSON

Hello.

CHARLES MANSON

They’re still sending me naked pictures of Sharon Tate all stabbed up saying “There’s blood on your hands” and “you did this and you did that.” There’s a lot of ways of crucifying somebody without hanging them on a cross --

AUTOMATED RECORDING

You have sixty seconds remaining.  

CHARLES MANSON

You being a producer it’s like, you kind of got get in the heads of everybody. Have you ever trusted anyone? 

PRODUCER  

Have you? 

CHARLES MANSON

That’s what I’m doing in here.

(laughs)

NARRATOR  

This began a year ago when Charles Manson, a man thought to be the embodiment of evil, started calling. 

CHARLES MANSON

If you can find a way to get me a cell phone where I can use it and call. (yeah). Let me get in the game and you can find a way where we can do what you want to do. But as soon as you get there you’re gonna have 15,000 people who are covering up what they’ve already been stealing and doing. 

NARRATOR  

What do you say to one of the most infamous mass murderers of all time when given the chance? We asked for his story in his own words.   

CHARLES MANSON

I don’t give a fuck about telling my story. My story has already been all over the world, 1,000 times, 1,000 times. You are for you, right. Right on, as long as we understand that, this is not based on friendship, not based on brotherhood, it’s based on guns and knives, it’s based on revolution and war, politics and governments. Survival. 

NARRATOR  

Though decades have passed since his conviction, the obsessive interest has never waned. Manson, of all people, appreciates his notoriety.

CHARLES MANSON

I’m the most famous human being not only that is alive, but the most famous human being that ever lived. And, I’m not even dead yet. – What do you think the fuck is going to happen when I die?

STEPHEN KAY

The problem is Manson is famous. The kids nowadays, they don’t look behind to see what it is he did.

 BLACK.

BOARD – THE CRIMES OF CHARLES MANSON  

NARRATOR  

In the late sixties, Charles Manson was convicted for the brutal murder of actress Sharon Tate and eight others. He was sentenced to death for all of them. When the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in nineteen seventy-two his sentence was commuted to life in prison.

CHARLES MANSON

The reality of it is, beyond the bullshit, is on death row. I’ve already done that been there. The people that haven’t done it and haven’t been there, they don’t understand it, you know, they have no respect for it. I got respect man.

NARRATOR  

Manson’s murder spree took place in the summer of nineteen sixty-nine. It was the peak of the Vietnam war, and a time of civil unrest. It’s said that Charles Manson was the leader of a cult called The Manson Family. They lived outside of society indulging in a constant stream of drugs and sex.  

CHARLES MANSON

We went where nobody had ever went before, not thinking about it, it just, it just happened man. I wasn’t nobody’s leader.

CHARLES MANSON (CONT’D)

All I was doing was fucking everybody I could. The sexual revolution everybody was doing I, was just getting my share that’s all.

NARRATOR  

The first murder took place in July of nineteen sixty-nine. Manson was convicted of ordering three of his disciples to kill an associate in a plot to extort money. After they stabbed the victim to death Manson’s followers wrote on the walls in his blood.

NARRATOR  

A month later the murders escalated.  The official account from the Los Angeles District Attorney is this; Charles Manson sent out more cult members to an isolated house in Beverly Hills with orders to kill everyone inside. It was the home of a beautiful and pregnant movie star named Sharon Tate who was spending the evening with friends.

PHIL KAUFMAN

 (Lived with Manson Family)

How could they drive up to that house, get out and know what their gonna do, nobody was going to leave that house alive. It boggles the mind. He says alright go out and do this and then you’re all in the car together going ok we’re going to do it, nobody says, man should we be doing this? Is Charlie right? They did what they did.

 NARRATOR  

At Charles Manson’s trial the prosecution stated:

 “On the evening of August, the eighth, nineteen sixty-nine, Charles Manson sent his robots out on a mission of murder. There is no evidence that he actually personally killed any of the victims in this case”. 

CHARLES MANSON

If you had to get up and hunt and kill your food every day, you’d be a hell of a warrior man.

NARRATOR

Before they left one of the killers wrote on a door, this time using Sharon Tate’s blood.

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

They wanted to - shock - the public

NEWS FOOTAGE(OS)

In a scene described by investigators as reminiscent of a weird religious ritual, five persons including actress Sharon Tate were found dead. Among the other victims we’re Hollywood hairstylist Jay Sebring. One officer summed up the murders when he said “In all my years I have never seen anything like this before”.

SHARMAGNE LELAND-ST.JOHN

  (Jay Sebring’s girlfriend)

I was in the kitchen and the phone rang. He said they think Jay and Sharon have just been murdered. I remember just sinking down, I was standing next to the sink and I just sank down to the floor, like I’m melting, I’m melting just, I was stunned. I was shocked, I was in hysterics.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

  (Manson Family Attorney)

When the murders took place, people were buying Gatling guns. The whole town bought guns they we’re frightened to death for months.

SHARMAGNE LELAND-ST.JOHN

  (Jay Sebring’s girlfriend)

But for someone to hang up the phone on their boyfriend and the next morning hear that he’s been brutally murdered with three of his friends, it’s horrifying.

NARRATOR

Manson’s crime spree wasn’t finished. The day after the murder of Sharon Tate and others, Charles Manson took members of his group out again. This time they went to the home to an affluent couple named Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Allegedly, Manson ordered three of his followers to butcher the couple, leaving more messages written in blood.  

CHARLES MANSON

They never lied about me. all the broads said is “I THINK he said go in there and kill those people”. Well she can think a pink elephant, that’s hear-say.

SHARMAGNE LELAND-ST.JOHN

  (Jay Sebring’s girlfriend)

It’s like a horror movie, like those movies where you wonder who’s going to be next.

CHARLES MANSON

People will put the bad mouth on somebody, for all kinds of psychological reasons. Jealousy is a big reason people maneuver.

NARRATOR

When Charles Manson and his family were arrested, and charged, it became the longest and most expensive trial in the history of Los Angeles.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

  (Manson Family Attorney)

The fright in the town was so gigantic and he looked like the devil sitting in court. That trial was like a circus. I mean it was insanity. 

NARRATOR

During in the trial, Manson carved an "X" in his forehead, which he later turned it into a swastika and shaved off all his hair. He says to symbolize his desire to be discarded from society. His followers all did the same.

CHARLES MANSON

They don’t realize that the X on their heads means the head is gone, man. You know, they still think that person’s there because they got a head, you dig? But I took the head. I got it on my belt.  

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with Manson Family)

Every time I went to court, everyday they’d be out there singing ‘Charlie, Charlie’ with the swastikas on their head, shaving their hair. You know that’s not normal, you know looney tunes right there.

NARRATOR

For half a century, Charles Manson’s bizarre behavior has continued, and speculation over his unspeakable crimes has only intensified. But the question has always remained, how did Charles Manson get these people to kill for him?

BLACK.

BOARD – HELTER SKELTER  

CHARLES MANSON

That’s what that stupid -fuckin’ district attorney did, convicted me for the fuckin’ ‘Helter Skelter’ thing that he was thinking. And it took me 40 years to figure out what a cult was.

NARRATOR

When speaking to Charles Manson the topic of Helter Skelter comes up and frequently, and Manson’s answer is always the same. He maintains that Helter Skelter was invented by the prosecution. The Manson Family’s prosecutions were led by Vincent Bugliosi who wrote the book Helter Skelter which became the best-selling true crime book of all time. According to Bugliosi, Helter Skelter, was the name Charles Manson gave to his own bizarre philosophy which he derived from the name of a Beatles Song. 

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

One of their favorite things to do is they would sit around on acid and listen to the Beatles White album. They determined that what the Beatles were doing is they were sending messages to blacks to rise up and start a revolution.

NARRATOR

Manson allegedly convinced his followers that he foresaw the race war prophesized by the Beatles and told them they needed to slaughter white affluent victims to further inspire the black revolution.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative reporter)  

Helter Skelter, a social uprising between the blacks and the whites. The start of a race war. The apocalyptic end, if you will. Charlie and the family will hide underground. They will be the remaining ones left.

NARRATOR

The prosecution claimed that Charles Manson and his followers planned to hide in a secret cave located in Death Valley and wait out the war. When the dust settled, they would emerge and Charles Manson believed he would rebuild of the world.   

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

To say that it was an unusual motive is an understatement. But I can tell you that was the motive. 

SHARMAGNE LELAND-ST.JOHN

  (Jay Sebring’s girlfriend)

Nothing could have been more horrendous than what happened that night to innocent people who didn’t even know their murderers.  And the reasons that this maniac orchestrated this whole thing was just looney tunes.  

CHARLES MANSON

I mean goddamn, this is not what I wanted to be. It doesn’t matter what I wanted.

NARRATOR

Manson insists that he’s been misjudged. He says Helter Skelter is a myth and that the true story behind the murders is one that remains untold.

CHARLES MANSON

And I’ve been deep in thought for almost 40 years, thinking what the hell does all this mean, how does that work? And the stuff that I’ve come up with, it’s just unbelievable, it’s fucking totally unbelievable.

NARRATOR

When speaking to Charles Manson, the most famous mind controlling mass murderer of all time, you have to be careful not to take him at his word. But after months of conversations, questions began to emerge.

CHARLES MANSON

The precious point is that the Helter Skelter that the DA made into what he was doing was wrong basically, when they lose control, they don’t admit that they lost control. They just lost face and they make another movie, like you’re doing. 

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

People who have looked into the case, beyond just a superficial level of reading of Helter Skelter, don’t believe any of that stuff. In fact, most of the media do believe he was trying to start a race war called Helter Skelter, and the whole thing. 

NARRATOR

We spoke with authors, researchers and people who know Manson directly. Charles Manson personally put us in contact with people who know him, others we found on our own. We sought to speak to anyone who was there when the crimes took place, all to unravel what actual happened.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative reporter)  

Back in 1969, we didn’t have access to the police reports, we didn’t have access to autopsy or the FBI files so we’re more inclined to believe the official narrative.

CHARLES MANSON

You’ll find out man. Have a good day, brother man.

BLACK.

BOARD – A CONVERSATION WITH BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

AUTOMATED RECORDING

This is Global Tel Link you have a pre-paid call from ‘Bobby’ an inmate at the California medical Facility, Vacaville California, this call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Hello.

BOARD – BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL, SERVING LIFE SENTENCE FOR FIRST “MANSON FAMILY” MURDER

NARRATOR

Bobby Beausoleil was the first person arrested and accused of being member of the Manson Family. He’s been in prison since nineteen sixty-nine.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

It is extremely important that people understand what happened. We don’t want the same things to happen again we have to understand them and we can’t understand them in the context of Vincent Bugliosi’s little horror story. He did more to victimize Sharon Tate than Charlie Manson ever did.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

It’s the same regurgitated Helter Skelter nonsense. That is so far away from the truth. I don’t care, I won’t say that, I will never, to get a parole, say that what Bugliosi said was true. Never…I’d rather die in prison than get out on a lie.

Part of it was the times and the desperation that had set in, in 1969. The events got out of hand. A lot of his attitudes and beliefs that he had been engendered while he was in prison became expressed. And again, I’m not defending him, he was a sociopath for sure. Not genetic, but something that had been developed - you know his compassion and empathy had been beaten out of him by the system that he grew up, in which was the juvenile justice and criminal justice system. 

NARRATOR

Manson’s told many people many stories about his childhood but certain aspects of his upbringing are irrefutable. His birth certificate from nineteen thirty-four identifies his mother as Kathleen Maddox. A fifteen-year-old single mother who struggled with alcoholism and was often arrested. 

CHARLES MANSON

My mother and my uncle did time. She was a throw away. 

NARRATOR

Sometime around nineteen forty-four, When Kathleen couldn’t care for her son or when she was arrested, Manson began what would become a lifetime in prison. Michael Channels has known Manson personally for twenty-five years and has quite possibly spent more time face-to-face with him than anyone else. 

MICHAEL CHANNELS

  (Manson Supporter)

If there is a “Charlie Manson”, Charlie Manson was probably created the first time he went into those boys homes. That kid went through some hell in there, and some of the things that he told me. He would never admit to being raped by men or anything like that. That’s just one thing he just don’t do, he don’t.

CHARLES MANSON

In Boys Town, you’re a juvenile. You go in when you’re ten years old and you play ping pong and if someone beats you, you gotta give the table up to them unless you want to fight ‘em. 

CHARLES MANSON

Everything is about fight. If you don’t fight they’ll fuck you in the ass.

MICHAEL CHANNELS

  (Manson Supporter)

He’ll tell you about being taken down in the basement and put on the table and they make him get naked and then beat him with a strap. That’ll turn you into something that your starting to think ok…

CHARLES MANSON

They’ll take everything you got. And you’re raised up like that. So, you learn how to box and you learn how to fight. And then some guy gets a dagger or a knife or an ice pick and it’s a different kind of fight. You graduate and you grow up.

MICHAEL CHANNELS

  (Manson Supporter)

That puts you in a whole different mindset. It’s about life or death where’s he’s at.

CHARLES MANSON

I’d only been outside a couple years when I caught this case here. You figure that if you get locked up in reform school when your nine years old and you don’t get out until your twenty, in your brain you’re still nine years old on the outside. Can you see that?

MICHAEL CHANNELS

  (Manson Supporter)

He don’t trust nobody. He doesn’t even trust me. As long as I’ve known him as a pen pal, visited him in jail, talked to him all the telephone for some twenty-five years now. He doesn’t trust me as far he can spit.

CHARLES MANSON

Anybody that helps me is helping themselves, and I don’t get much help because their ‘aint nobody there. You see it. So, it’s like, everybody that’s using me, they’re not helping me, they’re just riding on me. 

NARRATOR

Police records reflect that by the time Charles Manson was twenty-four years-old, he’d been arrested more than thirty times. Among his numerous offenses he’d been caught driving stolen cars across state lines, broken his probation, escaped from a federal prison, was convicted of check forgery, mail theft and even pimping.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

The first time I visited him and he walked out of the back, prison was just radiating off of him. He’s from prison. He’s not from your world and my normal world out here.

NARRATOR

Those like George Stimson who’ve spent time visiting Charles Manson in person insist that his view of the world is defined by his life in prison.

CHARLES MANSON

Prison is a mind. The mind is prison. That’s why they haven’t been able to break me because there’s no such thing. They’re in a fantasy. They don’t have a reality. Had I not done 22 years in prison before I got arrested this time, I would not have survived. The only reason I survived is, I’ve been through everything in prison ever since I was nine years old.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

It’s hard to understand. I mean, unless you really kind of have an understating of how things operate in prison and how selfish people tend to think when they’re in that environment.

NARRATOR

Leading up to the summer of nineteen sixty-seven, Charles Manson was in Los Angeles serving time for check forgery in a federal prison called Terminal Island

BLACK.

BOARD – TERMINAL ISLAND PRISON

NARRATOR

Two years before the murder spree Phil Kaufman was arrested trying to smuggle Marijuana into the U.S. from Mexico. He ended up in prison alongside Charles Manson.

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with Manson Family)

I got arrested in Tucson, Arizona. I got to terminal Island. I had just gone through the A&O, admission and orientation, before I was allowed out in the yard. There’s this guy with a guitar. Being in prison you gotta be careful who you associate with, and Charlie was a good guy to hang out with because he did give a fuck and he played music.

NARRATOR

Phil Kaufman knew Manson on the inside before anyone ever associated the name “Charles Manson” with the devil incarnate. Kaufman recalls the man he called “Charlie” as a laid-back inmate fully comfortable in prison life, to the point that he was completely unwilling to reform.

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with Manson Family)

If you get five years in a federal penitentiary and they don’t give you any incentive, you’ll just do five years and your uncontrollable. But when you’re sentenced they give you good time so a five-year sentence may be only forty months… But Charlie didn’t do that, he did all the time. He didn’t program. You know he got five years, Charlie did five years.

NARRATOR

According to prison records Charles Manson has received countless reprimands. He once described a prison confrontation in the sixties when a common punishment was for the guards to have the inmates ‘give in’ by putting their “nose to the wall”.

CHARLES MANSON

We fought for 48 days and 48 nights trying to make me put my nose on the wall. I told him “I ain’t putting my goddamn nose on that wall, fuck you”. And they’d come in and rush me and throw me up against the wall, like it or not. Then I’d slide down the wall. Next day they’d come, say, “Get up against the wall”. I’d say “No way”. Here we go again. Yeah, they can beat me but that can’t eat me.

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with Manson Family)

He was playing his guitar and so a guard comes up to him and said “Manson, you ‘aint never gonna get outta here”, and Charlie just kept playing his guitar and said “outta where man”, and just kept going.

CHARLES MANSON

I was a federal prisoner, DEAD, I got out of Terminal Island. Can you understand that? You know it’s like, I had played that game and won every pocket.

NARRATOR

Manson’s release paperwork from Terminal Island is dated March twenty first, nineteen sixty-seven. Vietnam was at the forefront of the American consciousness and a large segment of the male population was either at school or war. Many of the women left behind were embracing what would become known as the summer of love.   

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with Manson Family)

There was a lot of runaways at the time and a lot of people disenchanted with the status quo and they were easy marks, especially up in San Francisco.

The acid you know the pot and everything, they we’re looking for love and Charlie was selling it whole sale.

NARRATOR

This is when it’s been reported that Charles Manson formed a cult called The Manson Family. How did he transition from a chronic petty criminal to a psychotic villain capable of mind control? Until this point in his life, he’d never been charged with a violent crime and no one had ever described him as a guru or spiritual leader so something had to change in the summer of nineteen sixty-seven.

BLACK.

BOARD - THE MANSON FAMILY 

CHARLES MANSON

You see in they call it. In prison, they call it a run. When I get out of prison I run until I’m back in prison again.

NARRATOR

According to Manson, right after prison he spent the first year going back and forth between Haight Ashbury in San Francisco and Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles. 

CHARLES MANSON

I went to ‘Frisco and I was talking to this supposedly great holy guy. You dig? And he’s telling me when you can sit and be comfortable and at peace with yourself that you’re just in harmony, you dig? Now check this out. I figured a lot of things out. I figured this out. I figured it would be easier not to understand anything and keep your mind open and never make your mind up about nothing.

NARRATOR

Charles Manson’s mix of sixties culture and prison jargon attracted young women. Communes were abundant in California in nineteen sixty-seven. This is when Manson met the first two members of what would become known as the “Manson Family”; Mary Brunner who later gave birth to his child, and Lynette Fromme better known as “Squeaky”.

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Remember these weren’t ordinary people. And I get upset with the historians that refer to this group as hippies. They weren’t hippies. Hippies were flower children, they believed in “Make love, not war.” The Family referred to themselves as ‘Slippies.’ They said they were going to slip under the awareness of society. They were very violent. It was a religious cult.

NARRATOR

At trial the prosecution stated the family was nothing more than a closely-knit band of vagabond robots who were slavishly obedient to one man and one man only, their master, their leader, their god Charles Manson. One member of the group was Catherine Gillies. She adopted the nickname “Capistrano” or “Cappi” for short after fell in with Manson in the spring of nineteen sixty-eight.

CAPPI

I mean none of that shit was real, ok. We we’re trying to step out of society is what we we’re trying to do. We didn’t have stabbing practice on Saturday and hang Charlie from a cross on Sunday. I mean none of those things are real. We didn’t call ourselves ‘The Manson Family’, okay. That was, that was the press. We called ourselves a family but we meant that because we were brothers and sisters not because we were ‘The Family’ we were ‘A’ family.

NARRATOR

Another member named Sandra Good collaborated on a book with her partner George Stimson in which he talked about life inside the so-called Manson Family.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter’)

A lot of people do that when you’re young and you’re living like a family, but you know, it doesn’t have the connotation that Manson Family does, capital M, capital F.

NARRATOR

This contention appears to be supported by the trial transcripts. In many instances Vincent Bugliosi says clearly that the group called themselves “the family” but no one ever refers to them as “The Manson Family” the label often reported, which according to George Stimson is significant.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter’)

The thought that he was actively recruiting people to set up some kind of organization to carry out his homicidal aims is just ridiculous.

NARRATOR

But the reality is that they did commit homicidal acts, however, according to several individuals who were part of the group, the label THE MANSON FAMILY was only used by the press and not consistent with how they interacted or viewed themselves at that time.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

You know most of them we’re inexperienced with communes prior to joining that one. So, their only experience with communes would have been with Charlie.

AUTOMATED RECORDING

You have sixty seconds remaining.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

They were always free to leave.

CHARLES MANSON

You know it’s weird man, it’s like you see a bunch of people and their coming along in your life and they’re doing what you’ve already done. I noticed this about people when they think I’m a hippie cult leader.

NARRATOR

The group was made up primarily of young women. Contrary to the common picture of Manson being a master manipulator who recruited them and controlled their minds, Bobby Beausoleil related that they came together much differently.  

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

What most people don’t understand is that it wasn’t Charlie’s charisma that attracted more women. It was once he had the two women together, the women attracted the women. Women who like a community of women, and that was the attraction in that group.

NARRATOR

How they came together and viewed themselves genuinely matters because it’s the first part of understanding whether Manson and the others were a hippy commune or a religious cult. The Helter Skelter theory is dependent on Charles Manson being a brainwashing cult leader, but people who were part of the group deny that dynamic. Is there another explanation for their heinous acts other than Manson dictating that they murder on his behalf?

CHARLES MANSON

I never ordered nobody to do anything but other than what the fuck they wanted to do. Do what you want, if you’re with me you’re free like me. I do what I want to do. You do what you want to do. Be careful with this phone call and don’t use it cause any more persecution to my friends, my family. Peace, I gotta go. My phone time’s up.  

BLACK.

BOARD - THE MANSON GIRLS

NARRATOR

The media has characterized the women who participated in the murders as middle-class and virtuous. They’ve been described as girl scouts, or good students, or Sunday school teachers, that Manson transformed into serial killers. Why would young women with good backgrounds leave their homes to live with an ex-convict who just wanted sex and death?  

Leslie Van Houten was nineteen when she met Charles Manson. The following summer she joined two others in the slaughter of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

RICH PFEIFFER

  (Leslie Van Houten’s Lawyer)

The problem people have is how can you go from a homecoming queen to being a Manson follower? Her childhood was really good until her parents got divorced. Back then it was very different than it is now. It was a big social stigma. She ended up with the druggie kids and the less desirables and she ended up doing drugs at that time. She got pregnant. Her parents pretty much pressured her into having an illegal abortion in the home, and they buried the fetus in the back yard, and that’s something she couldn’t get away from. After that the drug use escalated.

PETER CHIARAMONTE

   (Leslie Van Houten’s former  

  Boyfriend).

She was looking for a spiritual leader and she had home already left home and went out on the road. Bobby takes her to meet Charlie. I think it might have bothered him – that she would challenge him, she and Pat were really the only two that would.

NARRATOR

Patricia Krenwinkel, nicknamed Katie, was with Leslie Van Houten the night they killed the LaBiancas. Krenwinkel also participated in the Sharon Tate murders. At parole hearings, she’s described that her sister was a drug addict who died from an overdose at the age of twenty-nine. Before her death she introduced Patricia to drinking, drugs and alcohol. When Krenwinkel met Manson, she was nineteen. She’d left home to live with her heroin addicted sister in Venice, California.

One of the most infamous murders was Susan Atkins who took the nickname Sadie. She brutally murdered Sharon Tate and used her blood to write PIG on a door. 

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Susan Atkins had a terrible childhood she was abandoned by her parents, she was molested. 

NARRATOR

When Susan Atkins was fifteen her mother died from cancer, sending her home life into a spiral. When Atkins met Charles Manson she’d already worked as a topless dancer, been arrested for car theft, stolen property, and was a heavy drug user.

SUSAN ATKINS

I used to think you came down off an acid trip after 12 hours. Every time you drop acid you get a little bit further away from reality.

CHARLES MANSON

Susan’s pretty, she’s me actually. You see me is all there is, there’s nobody but you.

SUSAN ATKINS

I took so much acid that I was what I would term spaced, and it took me many years to, what I would term now, re-enter, and that was just through not having any acid and having to deal with reality every day.  

NARRATOR

If these were not perfect young women, plucked from society and corrupted solely by Charles Manson, did he actually brainwash them or were they working alongside him in a common motive? What was life like inside the so-called family the year leading up to the murders?

BLACK.

BOARD - THE SUMMER OF ’68  

NARRATOR

When you ask Charles Manson about life in the group before the murders, he talks about sex.

CHARLES MANSON

Everybody walked around naked. We’d all get together and just have a big bang man.

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with “Manson Family”)

I lived with them for almost a month. He’d say you know everybody has to make love. Love. It’s love, spread the love, you know. It was like sex on demand.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter’)

When you’re inside you have nothing, and all of a sudden he’s out and, you know, he said it was a prisoner’s dream come true.

NARRATOR

Another member of the group was Barbara Hoyt who like many of the others was seventeen when she ran away from home after an argument with her father. 

BARBRA HOYT

I met Squeaky. Sandy was pregnant. Sadie, we talked about the hypocrisies of life.

CHARLES MANSON

Nobody’s been able to get women together with each other. They’re jealous creatures, it’s hard to get two women together. And here comes along a nobody from prison who ‘aint even been out of prison long enough to spell his name right. He’s got thirty-five women up and doing whatever, you dig? 

NARRATOR

If Manson had found the dream life of an ex-convict, why would he indoctrinate them to murder people?

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative reporter)  

These murders did not happen because there was not going to be an apocalyptic race war, that’s not why this happened, the victims weren’t chosen at random.

NARRATOR

Brian Davis has spent more than a decade speaking to anyone involved in the events surrounding the murders on his online radio show. From his viewpoint, the key to understanding what happened is Charles “TEX” Watson because he was the person that actually led the murder parties on both nights, and killed more than anyone else.

CHARLES MANSON

Tex was perfect. A solider, a solider who’s in service is righteous and real. There’s no in between.  

NARRATOR

At trial the Vincent Bugliosi said Manson had “total and complete domination over his family including the actual killer Tex Watson”. How did Tex Watson come to be with Manson and perhaps fall under his control?  Brian Davis recounts that in nineteen sixty-seven, Watson left Northern Texas to live with a friend in Los Angeles, finding a part-time job at a Hollywood wig shop. 

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

I talked with the guy that worked with Tex. He said Tex was an all-American boy. After about a year, Tex started to hang out at parties and smoke marijuana, grew his hair out a little bit and at that point he said Tex started to turn. So, all this was going on leading up before Tex ever met Charlie.

NARRATOR

Tex Watson met Charles Manson when he was invited to a never-ending party that was being held at a Pacific Palisades mansion. The house was owned by the drummer of the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson.

 BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

Charlie crosses over into that because of the girls, Pat and Ella Joe Bailey we’re out hitchhiking and Dennis Wilson picked them up.

NARRATOR

The Beach Boys fifteenth studio album Twenty-Twenty, features a song co-written by Charles Manson called “Never Learn Not to Love”. During that time Manson befriended a record producer through Dennis Wilson named Terry Melcher.

Leslie Van Houten interviewed by LAPD, November 26th, 1969

LAPD: Tell me about Terry Melcher. Remember him?

LESLIE VAN HOUTEN: Terry Marshmallow?

LAPD: Mel- Melcher. Terry Melcher.

LESLIE VAN HOUTEN: I call him Terry Marshmallow.

LAPD: Oh, is that what you call him.

LESLIE VAN HOUTEN: I don’t know really. I knew that he said he could get us recorded and that he had known one of the Beach Boys.

NARRATOR

When he met Charles Manson, Terry Melcher lived on Cielo Drive in the same house that was later rented to film director Roman Polanski and his movie star wife Sharon Tate, after Melcher moved out. This is a direct connection between Manson and the Sharon Tate murders. Prosecutors claimed that Manson was an ambitious musician who aspired to be like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, so Dennis Wilson introduced him to Terry Melcher, but Melcher rejected him.  When Manson decided to begin a race war by killing random white people, he chose Terry Melchers house. According to the prosecution the residence was symbolic to Charles Manson and particularly the establishment’s rejection of him. Phil Kaufman worked in the music industry and recorded Charles Manson shortly before the murders took place. This is an audio recording from nineteen seventy made as part of the investigation.

Phil Kaufman interviewed by Aaron Stovitz, January 27th, 1970.

Up to this point he had recorded at various studios, and being as transient as he was, he never stayed around long enough, you know, to consummate a record deal. So, every time he recorded no one could ever release his music because he never signed any contracts. 

PHIL KAUFMAN

  (Lived with “Manson Family”)

‘Cause he had a good thing going for him, you know. Money wasn’t even involved in anything. He didn’t have to earn a living, he had girls going out and getting him food, he was having sex, playing his music you know. Life was good for him.

CHARLES MANSON

I could have been a rock and roll star. I could have been a movie star. That’s a slowdown. I don’t want a fuckin’ job. I’d rather have a vine of wine on the beach and be free as a dog looking for a place to sleep under the bridge rather than go to work. I was trying to get away from civilization.

NARRATOR

If Manson wasn’t rejected by the music industry, and Melcher’s house didn’t represent the establishment to him, then what was the real reason for Tex Watson taking three women over to Terry Melcher’s house and killing five people?

We put this question to Charles Manson directly.

CHARLES MANSON

Tex wasn’t wrong, you understand what I’m saying? Tex had to do what he had to do, and he said that. He didn’t say I told him to do a damn thing. They said the girls said it but the girls didn’t say it. She said, “Charlie told me to go do what Tex said.” You know why the District Attorney put the race war on me?

AUTOMATED RECORDING

You have thirty seconds remaining.

CHARLES MANSON

You got the whole damn fuckin planet against me.

NARRATOR

Charles Manson’s answers are not always straightforward, and he denies involvement in the Sharon Tate murders, but the missing factor may be the song Charles Manson contributed to the Beach Boys.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Charlie was told that he would be compensated for the use of the song, and the amount he was told was $5000. Now he didn’t care so much about the money. If you’re in prison and you owe somebody and you give your word and you don’t keep your word, that’s a justification for, you know, being killed. So, he sent Tex to kill Terry. Not a house full of five people. See that’s what’s so critical here. He wasn’t picking a house full of innocent people, he was picking Terry Melcher. The people that were there are the ones that took the brunt of what Tex Watson brought there that night.

NARRATOR

Charles Manson seeking retaliation on Terry Melcher for breaking his word, contradicts the motive laid out by the prosecution because it changes Manson’s intent from starting a race war to vengeance. According to the Helter Skelter Theory, Charles Manson planned to inspire a race war by killing affluent whites, so he sent his follower to Terry Melcher’s house. During the war, Manson would hide with his followers in a secret cave located in Death Valley. Afterwards, they would emerge and Manson would lead the victorious black army.   

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

When members joined the Family, he was telling them how Adolph Hitler was his hero for what Hitler did to Jews in World War II. He was a follower of Nietzsche. You know, just sick stuff.

MICHAEL CHANNELS

  (Manson Acquaintance)

They say Manson wants to have a race war. He wants the black people – they’re going to rise up and kill all the white people. For a supposed person that hates black people why would he now want to be in charge. The story kind of loses me all over the place.

NARRATOR

Some have proposed that the prosecution made-up the Helter Skelter theory in order to more easily convict Charles Manson through a sensational conspiracy narrative. Another theory exists which some believe can explain the murders without the race war motive.      

Brian Davis

I’m not supporting Charlie Manson at all. I’m supporting more of the truth.

NARRATOR

If the prosecution did construct the Helter Skelter Theory, is convicting a man like Charles Manson so essential that any means of achieving it is acceptable?   

Brian Davis

It’s not about proving Charlie innocent. Even if it’s Charlie Manson. The law has to work for everybody.

CHARLES MANSON

This thing is so vast. I don’t know whether you can accept it. 

BLACK.

BOARD – AN ALTERNATE THEORY   

NARRATOR

Another theory proposes that the murders were the culmination of events centered around Charles Manson. Charles Manson had been released from prison and had formed a commune of lost souls. Several months before the murders the group had moved to a farmstead built as a backdrop for western movies and television shows, called Spahn Ranch.

CHARLES MANSON

I never realized it but the reason the ranch was so cool was that nobody ever lied to each other, man. We all got a long with each other, man. Everybody was straight up, there was no bullshit. We had a pretty nice group of people there. 

GRAY WOLF

  (MANSON SUPPORTER)

When I went to the ranch, I felt it was just the most mellow place I’d ever been. There was no ambitions. It’s a lot different than what the media might portray. 

NARRATOR

The ranch was owned by an eighty-year-old blind man named George Spahn, who lived in the main house which was located here. The ranch burned down in nineteen seventy-one but at the time extended along the Santa Susana Pass, isolated by the hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley.  

CHARLES MANSON

Everybody at the ranch was one. There was only one moving thing on that ranch, that was George Spahn, the old blind man. George was the boss. You know it’s like the horses ruled the ranch. We all served whatever was capable of service. A slave understands it’s master much more than the master understands the slave. 

BARBRA HOYT

Charlie told Squeaky to take care of George so they could stay at the ranch, and she did. 

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

She didn’t like having sex with other men. That’s why she got into that for Charlie. She took care of George and that became her thing. She wanted to only have sex with Charlie, and so she put herself in that position where she wouldn’t have to have sex with anyone else. She was a caretaker. 

BARBRA HOYT

She loved him. I think he wanted George to will the ranch to Squeaky. 

NARRATOR

Records reflect that while living at Spahn Ranch Tex Watson was arrested on a drug charge in April of nineteen sixty-nine, three months before the murders. 

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

It was business for Tex, you know, he partook and he sold. That’s how he made a lot of his money. You go back before the murders, Tex has got the history for dealing drugs, and making drug deals, you know. That’s what Tex does.

CHARLES MANSON

I said don’t lie on this ranch. Other than that you can do anything you want here. Just don’t hurt nobody. 

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

This is the connection. This is where it all connects.  

Tex Watson had a dope dealer. Tex Watson describes the drug dealer in his book as a mafia connected guy who owned a vending machine company that he used as a front for his dope business. 

CHARLES MANSON

Episodes like that happen every day in the drug world. 

NARRATOR

On July first, Tex Watson spoke with his vending machine dope dealer who was looking to sell twenty-five kilos of marijuana for two thousand five hundred dollars. Watson didn’t have that kind of money so he called his girlfriend in the city. She introduced him to another drug dealer named Bernard Crowe who was thought to be associated with The Black Panthers political movement. It was then that Watson came up with a scam. He would buy twenty-five kilos from his vending machine dealer for two thousand five hundred dollars, then sell twenty-two kilos to Crowe at a mark-up for two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. That way Watson could buy the drugs from the vending machine dealer, and deliver what he promised to Bernard Crowe, all the while keeping the difference in money and drugs for himself and his girlfriend. To make that work neither of the drug dealers could meet, so Tex Watson planned to have Bernard Crowe pay upfront.

CHARLES MANSON

As the convicts say, if you do all the talking you got to be all the right. Lying’s what gets everything fucked up.

NARRATOR

When the time came, Crowe wouldn’t hand over his money to a hippie he didn’t know, so he kept Tex Watson’s girlfriend as collateral while Watson went to pick up the drugs. When this complication arose, Watson burned them both.  

CHARLES MANSON

He just promised to deal some drugs for them, and took the money and ran. 

CAPPI

What happened was Tex made a deal with him evidently, and then fuckin’ bummed out on the deal. We didn’t get anything out of it, it had nothing to do with us. It was all about Tex, trust me.

NARRATOR  

After that an enraged Bernard Crowe set out to find the man he knew as Charlie Watson. 

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

When Crowe called the ranch, and asked for Charlie, meaning Charles Watson, TJ got Charlie Manson on the phone because he knew Watson as TEX. And when Crowe said I want my money and I’m coming up to the ranch to burn the place down and rape all the girls there Charlie said no you’re not. I’ll come down and talk to you about it.

 CHARLES MANSON

To deal drugs you gotta be real. That’s underworld. Underworld means anybody can take that away from you and there’s nothing the laws going to do about it. Before the cops catch drug dealers, drug dealers catch drug dealers.

CAPPI

He was worried about us getting killed. We had babies there and all kinds of stuff, and all these young people, okay and they we’re trying to kill us. And that’s why Charlie went to Bernard, to stop him before he killed somebody.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

Bernard Crowe had Tex Watson’s girlfriend tied up, and I guess words were exchanged. And Charlie pulled out then gun a shot him.

CHARLES MANSON

Yeah, yeah I shot the Crowe. She said that Bernard was going to kill her. So we went down to help her, and ended up shooting him to help her. 

CAPPI

Bernard Crowe didn’t give him a chance. He had to shoot him or he was going to get shot, and Bernard Crowe just said “You better shoot me now, do it,” you know, and Charlie shot him.

NARRATOR

Bernard Crowe survived this shooting, although as Manson has often detailed, he was unaware of this.

CHARLES MANSON

That’s the difference between the underworld and being righteous with the underworld. In other words you don’t get caught off base or you get tagged out. It’s a simple game.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

He saw all the people he was with as children. They were weak they wouldn’t know how to hold their mud. Rather than try to convince them that they should, he just manipulated them to try to make them so complicit in violent crimes that they would not snitch on him. 

NARRATOR

In the alternate theory, Charles Manson’s shooting of Bernard Crowe left him with two problems. First, he had to be sure no one in the commune would talk to the police. Accordingly, he encouraged them to commit violent crimes for the group just like he had done.

CHARLES MANSON

I play cards. My family’s cards. My family are righteous; They can’t get away. They’re dead. Everyone in my family is dead like me. 

NARRATOR

Manson’s second problem was that he believed the Black Panthers would retaliate for the shooting, something he told members of the group.

 BARBRA HOYT

He was very worried about the black panthers attacking the ranch. It went from happy go lucky fun. It got so intense, so fearful. It makes me nervous just to talk about it.

CHARLES MANSON

We were in trouble with everybody that was against us. Anybody that didn’t like us, we didn’t like them. We we’re fighting all the time man.  

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Charlie, when he had that situation with Crowe and I went out there to hang out, I didn’t know what I had happened. And he told me, he pulled me aside and he said, “Man, you know I don’t have enough guys here, you know. I’m expecting a retaliation from the Black Panthers and I need more guys here”. So, you know, I was a young kid and that sort of appealed to my ego. 

CHARLES MANSON

Everybody likes everybody else dead. Nobody likes anybody.

BARBRA HOYT

I heard Charlie was recruiting the Straight Satan’s to be guards. 

NARRATOR

To protect the commune and himself from the Black Panthers, Manson enlisted a motorcycle club called the Straight Satans. In this audio recording with the L-A-P-D, the Straight Satans former president, Al Springer, described their arrangement.

AL SPRINGER interview with LAPD 11/69

Charlie says, “Now wait a minute”, he says uh, “maybe I can give you a better thing then you got over there.” I goes “What’s that?” He says, “Move up here. You can have all the girls you want, and all the girls”, he says, “are all yours.” 

NARRATOR

Three days after the Bernard Crowe shooting, Linda Kasabian arrived at Spahn Ranch for the first time. 

BARBRA HOYT

Linda was, she was a nice girl who was looking for, I don’t know if she was looking for Jesus or, um, she was just looking for life, and what was real and what wasn’t. 

CHARLES MANSON

You don’t find too many women who will stand up in any kind of fight. 

NARRATOR

Linda Kasabian’s account is critical because she was one of the four directly involved in the Sharon Tate murders. When she was later arrested, Kasabian gave her first statement to her lawyer Gary Fleischman. 

GARY FLEISCHMAN

I heard her version of it the first night they brought her back.

None of it made any sense that’s the problem. It was nonsensical and that’s where Vince came up with the Helter Skelter theory. But I never heard that theory during the period I was representing her, she didn’t know anything about it. 

NARRATOR

Days after the Bernard Crowe shooting Bobby Beausoleil committed the first murder. The prosecution said that Manson “needed money” but the specifics of this motive were never fully explained. The motive was described as generally related Manson’s preparation for the race war.

 STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Manson wanted money. He wanted money because he was preparing for the revolution.

NARRATOR

The prosecution contended that Manson sent Bobby Beausoleil, and two women, Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins, to the home of an acquaintance named Gary Hinman. Their orders were supposedly to retrieve money from Hinman and kill him if he refused. 

CHARLES MANSON

It’s all crap. You don’t have to look it up, you just have to look at it.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Nobody sent me over to recruit Gary to the family. He was as much of the so-called family as I was and I wasn’t a part of the family.

NARRATOR

Bobby Beausoleil contends that in the aftermath of Bernard Crowe shooting, Manson’s arrangement with the biker gang made them a constant presence at the ranch. Two weeks before the Sharon Tate murders, Beausoleil says the Straight Satans were looking for drugs. Beausoleil sold them mescaline he got from his former roommate Gary Hinman. Beausoleil maintains that the day after the drug deal the Straight Satans demanded their money back claiming the drugs were bad.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

I don’t really believe you I think they were trying to get the drugs for free. They were playing me for a sucker. There wasn’t any bad drugs or anything like that.

CHARLES MANSON

Beausoleil was a strong individual. Yeah, he was in trouble with the motorcycle gang. And, we were dealing and wheeling underworld man. That’s what motorcycle gangs do, you know. In other words, the strongest survive. 

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

There is a property report of Gary Hinman. And in that property, report they list homemade scales with white powder. They didn’t test it for it mescaline, so we don’t know if it was or not. To me that’s evidence.

NARRATOR

With the Straight Satans threat looming, Bobby Beausoleil claims he went to Gary Hinman’s house to retrieve the money from the drug deal and return it to the biker gang.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

I went there for one thing and that was to collect the money. And ‘cause they asked to come along, Mary had a relationship with Gary, and I don’t know why Susan Atkins asked to come along. I didn’t see any problem going there. I figure it was going to be no problem to get the money back and, you know, and come back and give it to ‘em, and it was going to be done.

NARRATOR

As recalled by Bobby Beausoleil, when Gary Hinman refused to return the money the confrontation escalated. Along with Mary Brunner and Susan Atkins, Beausoleil stayed at the house for two days. Beausoleil thought he could reason with Hinman to give up the money. They wrestled over a gun which went off but hit no one. During the confrontation, someone called the Ranch to ask for help. At some point, Bobby Beausoleil gained the upper hand and made Gary Hinman sign over his cars.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

So he had these two old wrecks and they were, I figured between the two of them they were worth maybe a grand. The grand that they were saying I owed them. 

NARRATOR

With the pink slips in hand they prepared to leave. As they were walking out the door Manson unexpectedly rushed in with a sword and cut Gary Hinman across the face.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Charlie had slashed his face and left me with the problem. And I didn’t know how to get out of it, you know, I didn’t know how to get away without getting arrested, unless I killed him.

NARRATOR

After the murder, someone wrote on the walls in Gary Hinman’s blood.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

To be honest with you, I don’t remember a lot that happened immediately after my having killed Gary. That really devastated me. My memories of what happened afterwards have never really been clear.

NARRATOR

A black panther paw print was drawn on the wall along with the words POLITICAL PIGGY.  

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

It was in everyone’s minds. Everyone believed Charlie had killed a black panther, according to what he had told everyone. There was an intent to throw the investigators of the trail.

NARRATOR

From this perspective, Gary Hinman’s murder was directly related to the Bernard Crowe shooting. They staged the crime scene to frame the Black Panthers because they feared retaliation. At the same time, Manson’s intent to make the others complicit had been unexpectedly furthered. This prevented members of the group from telling the police about what Manson had done. According to police records on Wednesday, August sixth, two days before the Sharon Tate murders, Bobby Beausoleil was arrested in one of Gary Hinman’s cars. 

CHARLES MANSON

I was in San Diego when that happened.

BARBRA HOYT

I heard he got arrested for murder. I thought that the police had just made it up. No, I didn’t believe it.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

I think it’s important to look at the timing of this. You’re looking at these murders that happened on Cielo and Waverly are like two days later, and it’s very important that they happened then rather than a month later or two weeks earlier. So, that indicates that they we’re a reaction to Bobby’s arrest and the idea of getting him out of prison by committing copycat murders. 

  NARRATOR

In the alternate theory, two days after Bobby Beausoleil was arrested the group planned to commit another murder. This turned out to be the murders of Sharon Tate and those who were at her home on August eighth. The group planned to stage the crime scene to make it appear as if Gary Hinman’s killer was still on the loose. They reasoned this would compel the police to let Bobby Beausoleil go. Charles Manson admitted that this was their thinking.

CHARLES MANSON

He was in prison. He was in the LA county jail when it happened. See we we’re all in a brotherhood. We were all in one family and we were helping the brother. It happened to be Beausoleil. 

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

He told other people he was trying to send a message to me, and others make the police think that they had the wrong person.  

NARRATOR

According to Bobby Beausoleil this is not the entire picture but reaffirms Manson’s deeper motive. Committing a copycat murder to free Beausoleil would make the others complicit, preventing more members of the group from potentially talking to the police about the Bernard Crowe shooting.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Depending on the orientation of whoever he was talking to he would say things that would support some sort of agenda that he had.

NARRATOR

Manson’s agenda comes full circle when you consider that he still harbored a grudge against Terry Melcher for the song Manson had contributed to the Beach Boys. According to the alternate theory, this is why four members of the commune ventured out to Terry Melcher’s house, two days after Bobby Beausoleil’s arrest, on August eighth, nineteen sixty-nine.

BLACK.

BOARD - LOS ANGELES, AUGUST 8TH, 1969, NIGHT OF THE SHARON TATE MURDERS 

BARBRA HOYT

I remember after dinner in the backhouse, and I remember Charlie and Tex talking in the corner, and it was like there was black around them. It was just like evil around them, a black cloud around them.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

There were people at the ranch who owed Charlie favors, and he said you owe me, I’m collecting. Do something to get Bobby outta jail, I don’t care what you do but do it.

CHARLES MANSON

I gave my life to what I thought was a brother. Every time I do that man I always end up on the short end of everything because I’m, I’m stupid. I can’t do school books stuff. I’m a stupid hillbilly is what it boils down to.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

I know he told Tex Watson, “You either take care of the problem or get on the road.” Tex Watson could have just left the ranch and there wouldn’t have been any “Tate-Labianca” murders.

CHARLES MANSON

Tex didn’t say that I told him to tell him anything. I told him four or five different ways.

MICHAEL CHANNELS

  (Manson Acquaintance)

He don’t tell nobody to do nothing. He don’t tell you to do anything today. He can convince you that that’s your idea, because usually it is your idea.

CHARLES MANSON

You can do what you want to do when you make up your mind and you decide that that’s what you’re going to do.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

What they didn’t volunteer to do was something they didn’t understand which was his need to protect himself. He manipulated them.

SUSAN ATKINS  

I remember when we first went in, one of the people said ‘who are you’ and Tex said, ‘I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business”. I don’t think Charles Manson’s mind was in control of Tex’s mind that night. Charlie’s human too, and his mental powers are just as limited, maybe not as limited as other humans, but there was an evil force in control of Tex that night.

BARBRA HOYT

They died so horribly, I don’t know if people really think about how. You just how much they suffered. You know, I think about Sharon Tate and she must have been insane with fear by the time they got to her.

PHIL KAUFMAN

What does it take to have somebody tell you to go and kill people, for what reason? I couldn’t conceive what could allow them to be influenced to go down… They didn’t kill people they butchered people, and these are the people that I’d been sleeping with.

NARRATOR

When Susan Atkins used Sharon Tate’s blood to write on a door, it appeared to call back to the murder of Gary Hinman. The police never made this connection. 

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Sherriff’s homicide was handling the Hinman murders and two of the homicide investigators went to the Tate investigators and said look we have this murder of Gary Hinman, blood on the wall, in Hinman’s blood. So they said, look we think these are connected, the LAPD investigators sent them away said, nah, they’re not connected.

 NARRATOR

The prosecution maintained that the events of that summer were not connected. They claimed that Charles Manson led a religious cult and was trying to start a race war called Helter Skelter, inspired by the Beatles.

DIRECTOR (OS)

If they’re trying to frame black people, why aren’t they writing “kill white people” or something very obvious?

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Probably because they didn’t think of it. That of course, you know, people would connect blacks because of the Beatles white album, so some black would figure it out and tell somebody, oh ya know (cough), Beatles, this is part of the murders--

DIRECTOR (OS)  

It just seems like a lot of dots to connect.

 BLACK.

BOARD - LOS ANGELES, SATURDAY - AUGUST 9TH, 1969, NIGHT OF THE LABIANCA MURDERS

NARRATOR

If members of the group killed Sharon Tate and others as a copycat murder in order to free Bobby Beausoleil, then why did  they commit more murders the next night?

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

The second night at the LaBianca’s was to cover up for what he had done the first night, which was kill a house full of people. He didn’t realize it was gonna be this big thing that had unfolded up there at the house on Cielo. He didn’t know that Terry Melcher had rented the place out so it basically turned into a fiasco.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

It was the weekend so, he’s going out the next night because he’s gotta cover up those Tate murders, because that’s going to get out and that’s going to be nasty.

DIRECTOR (VO)

Who did kill those people? 

CHARLES MANSON

The people that told you they killed ‘em. They said on the witness stand, yeah I killed ‘em.

NARRATOR

On the second night, another member of the group became complicit; Nineteen-year-old Leslie Van Houten.

PETER CHIARAMONTE

  (Leslie Van Houten’s former  

  Boyfriend).

Tex was Leslie’s boyfriend, ok, at the time. When Pat is explaining, what happened to Leslie, as I understand it, Pat was shaken by what she’d done but Leslie felt that she had to prove herself now, we’re gonna go out again and this has to be done. She must have been told at that point the line, “We’re doing it for Bobby.”  

NARRATOR

Catherine Gilles, also known as Cappi, recalls seeing Leslie Van Houten get into a car with Patricia Krenwinkel and others.

CAPPI

I had no idea where they were going but Katie and Lulu were the closest people in the universe to me. That girl was my other me and Katie was like our big sister. And they were in the car, and they we’re going somewhere without me, you know, and so I tried to get in the car and they wouldn’t let me. I didn’t know why. They were protecting me.

NARRATOR

Manson often speaks in riddles. This ensured many members of the group were not aware of what was going on.

CHARLES MANSON

What’s real has different levels. You could go on certain levels of reality, that other people don’t really understand at all. And they call it insanity.

NARRATOR

The group drove to Los Feliz and parked near an intersection on Waverly Drive. Inside the home to the west was an affluent couple who owned a chain of grocery stores, named Leno and Rosemary LaBianca.

PHIL KAUFMAN

It was a place that they knew. They had been to Harold’s house which is right next door.

NARRATOR

This audio recording from the LA District Attorney shows that the house next door to LaBianca residence was once occupied by a man named Harold True, who knew Manson and the girls.

Harold True interviewed by Aaron Stovitz, January 27th, 1970:

They called and asked if they could spend the night in the house. And we let them stay the night. At Waverly? Yeah it was a big house, a lot of people stayed there. “Now how did he get your… have your phone number to call?” I don’t know. I guess maybe I gave him a map.

PHIL KAUFMAN

When I skipped the country and the time of my marijuana bust, Harold True gave me his passport. He had never had a passport so I got a passport in Harold’s name. And then when I got out and I went to see Charlie, I took Harold along. Harold was a big old lumpy guy and you know he thought he might get laid.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

They were camping out with the bus there and living at Harold True’s place, and the neighbours called the cops.  They had to leave there because the neighbours called the cops. And the neighbours were the LaBiancas.

BOBBY BEAUSOLEIL

Charlie picked people he had grudges against. He didn’t just pick people at random.

NARRATOR

This adds to the alternate theory that on the second night Manson continued manipulating the others.  It wasn’t because he would rule the world after a race war, instead it was a series of interconnected events. It began with the Bernard Crowe shooting, which led to the Gary Hinman murder and Bobby Beausoliel’s arrest. This culminated in the Sharon Tate and LaBianca murders. A significant amount of the commune became complicit and Manson’s outstanding grudges were satisfied. There is one additional piece that appears to support this theory, Charles Manson’s actions after the LaBianca murders. According to Tex Watson’s account, summarized from numerous public statements, he and Charles Manson went up to the LaBianca house and broke in through the back door. Manson woke up Leno LaBianca and tied him up. They retrieved Rosemary LaBianca from her bedroom and tied her up, before threatening to kill the couple in the living room. Manson disputes Tex Watson’s version of events.

CHARLES MANSON

What has he told you about me? Everything that’s going to help him, right? You are for you. I am for me. I’m for Charlie. I didn’t kill nobody.

NARRATOR

It’s undisputed that Manson drove to the LaBianca house and that he went into the house for some period of time. According to the trial transcripts, Linda Kasabian is asked; Question, how long after he left the car did he return to the car? Answer, I remember we all lit up cigarettes and we smoked about three-quarters of a Pall Mall cigarette, however long that takes.

The question is, what did Charles Manson do once he left the car?  

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

If you’re looking at three quarters of a cigarette, it’s five minutes. When you’re looking at what Tex says, there’s just not enough time.

NARRATOR

Manson and Tex Watson went up to the house. After a few minutes Manson returned, at which point Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten went into the house. Manson then drove away with the others.

Those in the car claim that while in the house Manson had retrieved Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet which police later found twenty miles away in a gas station bathroom located in Sylmar.  

According to the prosecution Manson conspired to plant the wallet in a black neighbourhood, reasoning a black person would use the credit cards and be connected to the murders. This would help spur the impending race war. But this motive is contradicted by the evidence. Census data from the nineteen seventies shows that Sylmar was not a black neighbourhood.

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Obviously, he got screwed up. The wallet got planted in the wrong city, I mean there’s no point in planting it in a white area and having a white person use the credit cards. That defeats the whole purpose of blaming the murders on the blacks.

NARRATOR

If framing black people wasn’t Manson’s motive, then what was he trying to achieve in the few minutes that he was in the LaBianca house? And, what was the reason for taking Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet? 

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

My theory is, Charlie goes up to the house. Tex Watson says in his book when they get in there Mr. LaBianca says “Hey, what do you all want, you all want money? I can get you money.” Let’s say Charlie did accept the money offer. My Theory is Charlie got the money and then he left, that’s why he left.

 NARRATOR

No one disputes that once Manson left, Tex Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten stayed in the house and murdered the LaBiancas.  

 STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

With Leno LaBianca there was a carving fork protruding out his abdomen and Krenwinkel had written on his abdomen WAR. They found a knife with the handle sticking out of one end the blade traversing his neck, severing a carotid artery and part of the blade sticking out of the other side.

NARRATOR

During the LaBianca murders, all agree that Charles Manson took the rest of the group to Venice. The prosecution insisted that Manson went to Venice to get his followers to commit another murder. Once again, the motive was to frame a black person and fuel the race war. According to trial testimony, Manson allegedly took his followers to the apartment building located here. 

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

The address to that apartment building is, you could literally say a stone’s throw from the Straight Satans clubhouse in Venice. You mean that Straight Satan biker gang that Charlie owed money to? Yeah that biker gang, they were in Venice. 

NARRATOR

In the alternate theory, after Manson shot Bernard Crowe he feared retaliation and enlisted the Straight Satans for protection. Bobby Beausoleil compromised this protection by getting into a conflict with the Straight Satans over a drug deal.  

If Manson took enough money from the LaBianca residence, he could have gone to Venice to settle the debt that Bobby Beausoleil owed the Straight Satan’s from the Gary Hinman drug deal. This would’ve regained their protection from the Black Panthers.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

It’s what, 4 in the morning, 3 or 4 in the morning? They didn’t go back to ranch, they went to Venice. That’s how pressing this was for Charlie. They could wait until Monday to do business. I think they went to Venice to pay off the Straight Satans.

CHARLES MANSON

When you’re in the know with somebody that’s in the know. You don’t play games with them. 

BRIAN DAVIS

That next morning Charlie sent Linda Kasabian down to the jail with a message for Bobby Beausoleil, don’t say anything, everything’s cool. Why all of a sudden is everything cool? By Monday before any court proceedings started they get a message to Bobby, everything’s cool, we’ve taken care of everything. Don’t say a word about nothing. We’ll have you out of there soon. 

NARRATOR

By Monday morning seven people were dead but the string of murders was not finished.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

The neighboring rancher, he didn’t like the Manson family. So, what was going on then is, they we’re trying to get them off the ranch. 

NARRATOR  

It’s been long speculated that the neighboring rancher may have recruited a ranch hand named Donald “Shorty” Shae to rid Spahn Ranch of the group. Manson believed Shae had tipped off the police leading to a raid.

BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

You know there was definitely no love lost between Shorty Shae and Charles Manson as far as I can gather. 

NARRATOR

On August sixteenth, nineteen sixty-nine, twenty-six members of the commune were arrested for suspicion of auto theft. Because of a date error, the search warrant was ruled invalid and all were released. The police had no idea that they were connected to the murders making national news. When they returned to Spahn Ranch, Donald Shae was never seen again.

BARBRA HOYT

I went to sleep in a little trailer. I heard a scream, And then I heard more screaming and it just didn’t end and it was horrific. It was horrible, and it kept going on and on and I recognized Shorty’s voice.

NARRATOR

After Donald Shae’s disappearance, Manson and the commune left Spahn Ranch.  

 BRIAN DAVIS

  (Investigative Reporter)  

Cappi suggested that her grandmother had a place out there in Death Valley, when he was looking for a place to go. They went out there and looked at it. He fell in love with it. And he said this is it. This is it, this is our utopia.

NARRATOR

The land in Death Valley was an isolated mining property owned by Catherine Gilles’ grandmother. After the murders, Charles Manson and the group stayed there until October of nineteen sixty-nine.    

CAPPI

We went to the desert because of me. My favorite place besides the ocean. I was born on the ocean and I lived in the desert, and I love the desert so I offered up the desert.

NARRATOR

Just like authorities had in Los Angeles, Inyo County officers raided the Death Valley ranch on August twelfth, nineteen sixty-nine for suspicion of auto theft.

Twenty-four members of the group we’re arrested and once again police had no idea they were involved in any of the murders. The killers were imprisoned except for Patricia Krenwinkel, who went on both nights, and Tex Watson.  

 GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

After the murders, Pat Krenwinkel went back to Alabama, Tex Watson went back to Texas. Nobody was holding them around. 

NARRATOR

Records show that Linda Kasabian was bailed out by her parents and left California. Before anyone else could arrange for bail, Susan Atkins confessed.  

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

Susan Atkins is the one that broke the case. I mean they didn’t know that it was Charles Manson or Susan Atkins or anything until she blabbed.

PHIL KAUFMAN

That was her, that was very much her. Charlie would have been better killing her and he probably would have gotten away with it a little bit longer.

NARRATOR

While inside the country jail, Susan Atkins told her cellmates that she was involved in the murder of Sharon Tate. One of the first people Atkins confessed to was a call girl named Virginia Graham.  

VIRGINIA GRAHAM

Susan Atkins, she plopped herself down and she sat on the bunk and we started talking, and she presumed to tell me how stupid the police were, and they were dumb. She said to me, “You know those murders up benedict canyon?” She said you know who did it don’t you and I said no, and she said cold as can be “you’re looking her”.  She didn’t say Helter Skelter to me. I found out about, Helter Skelter, later on. But I don’t recall her telling me Helter Skelter.

NARRATOR

Susan Atkins was denied compassionate release in two thousand and eight, and died from brain cancer in prison. However, in nineteen sixty-nine the DA was willing to overlook the brutality of her actions.

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

The deal with Susan Atkins, the prosecution was going to let her plead to second degree murder. Sharon was begging for her life. She was being held by Susan Aktins and – she said “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me. I just want to have my baby.”

SUSAN ATKINS

I felt nothing, I felt absolutely nothing for her as she begged for the life of her baby.  

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor) She said “Look bitch, I don’t care about you or your child. You’re going to die and I don’t feel a thing behind it.” Having Susan Atkins as the witness that wouldn’t have gone over to well with the jury.

NARRATOR  

The prosecutor who was working out the deal was the author of HELTER SKELTER, Vincent Bugliosi.

DANIEL SIMONE

Vincent Bugliosi was an outstanding prosecutor. But if one really we’re to dig much deeper, what emerges is he was a womanizer. He loved attention, he was over-ambitious

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

He had a guy sitting in court that I thought was a reporter but it turned out he was Curt Gentry, who Vince had hired to write a book on the case. He didn’t tell me that he was writing a book during the trial. So, yeah, he didn’t tell anybody it. This was gonna make him rich and famous.

CHARLES MANSON

It’s all underworld solider. Who you think the president is? Where you think his office is, in my cell?

NARRATOR

This is the Helter Skelter theory that was presented to the jury in the Charles Manson trials.

NARRATOR

Manson formed a cult of obedient followers who wanted to drop out of society. Their connection to the Bernard Crowe shooting is unknown as the motive and was not explored by the prosecution.  

Manson wanted to be a rock star and was obsessed with the Beatles. He had also met the Beach Boys.

Through the Beach Boys, Manson came to resent Terry Melcher and considered Melcher’s house a representation of the establishment.

Manson believed the Beatles were predicting a race war through hidden messages in their songs, and he needed money to supplement his preparation.

Because of this, Manson further brainwashed his cult to believe in the race war and ordered them to kill Gary Hinman.

Meanwhile, to start the race war, Manson decided to murder white people and frame black people. He indirectly ordered his followers to kill whoever lived at Terry Melcher’s house.

Manson also chose another house at random and ordered its occupants to be killed.

Manson’s plot was to frame black people by having his followers leave indirect references to the Beatles White Album at the crime scenes. Manson believed that both the police and black people would understand these references, and this would lead into the race war.

Once the race war began, Manson and the family would hide in a secret cave in the desert. After the war, Manson would emerge and become the leader of the victorious black army. At that point he would rebuild the world.  

This is the theory that convicted Charles Manson and others, and gained prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi fame, and a best-selling book.  

CHARLES MANSON

That’s what the DA said. Everybody will tell you what they think about me, according to what they want to use me for. All I’m looking for is someone to help me. I’ve always been by myself alone.

Phil Kaufman interviewed by Aaron Stovitz, January 27th, 1970.

Anything on the recordings that you know of whereby he speaks of his philosophy of Helter Skelter, the ruination and damnation of this world? No.

PHIL KAUFMAN

I was really not a friendly witness. I was on parole for one thing, I really didn’t, you know, want to get connected with these people. And this DA comes out to my house and tries to get stuff out of me that wasn’t there.

CHARLES MANSON  

They know how to milk the cow man. And they do it so well the cow don’t even know it.

NARRATOR

The Helter Skelter theory is not only sensational, it establishes the elements of murder and conspiracy under California law. To be found guilty, the defendant must agree to commit a crime as well as commit an overt act in furtherance of that agreement.

GEORGE STIMSON

  (Author – ‘Goodbye Helter    

Skelter)

Without proving the Helter Skelter motive there was no evidence whatsoever that Manson wanted these murders to happen. You have to be a party to it, you can’t just know about it.

 CHARLES MANSON

I didn’t break the law because I’ve been in prison all my life and I know the law. I know what conspiracy is. I’m not going to conspire to do something. That’s kind of stupid isn’t it? I’m not a stupid dude. I’m dumb but I’m not stupid.  

NARRATOR

This is the implication of what Manson is saying. It’s not that he wasn’t involved in the events of the summer of sixty-nine. Manson admits to shooting Bernard Crowe, his involvement with drugs, the Straight Satans, and the motive of getting Bobby out of prison. But when it came to the murders he maintains he purposely kept himself at a distance. 

GARY FLEISCHMAN

I thought it was a horrible case against him. Remember he was not at the scene. He was forty miles away when the murders took place so he was an armchair murderer.

NARRATOR

The Helter Skelter theory was how the prosecution demonstrated that Manson was guilty of conspiracy and murder under the requirements of the law. They described a scenario where he ordered the murders without actually saying the words.

STEPHEN KAY

  (Manson Family Co-Prosecutor)

I mean they all knew about Helter Skelter but we didn’t have any evidence from that specific night that Manson said go out and start Helter Skelter. He just said “Go with Tex and do what Tex tells you to do”. 

CHARLES MANSON

They still won’t admit the truth. They had no evidence against me, none. 

NARRATOR

There was no evidence that Manson himself killed anyone. The prosecution said that Manson was guilty under the rule of “vicarious responsibility”. The notion that Manson’s plot to start a race war made him responsible for all the crimes committed to further it.

BRIAN DAVIS  

Remember, Vince is trying to push the agenda that Charlie just came out of nowhere and said, hey, we gotta start a race war -  Bernard Crowe, drug dealing, grand theft auto, none of that has anything to do with this. If Vince introduces anything outside of that it starts to wash away the Helter Skelter theory. Then you have that reasonable doubt creeping in. Well maybe it has something to do with the drug deal? And Vince doesn’t want you going down that road. 

CHARLES MANSON

People don’t want to look at it from the point of view that brings them to something they don’t like. 

NARRATOR

The prosecution used the race war as the basis of their legal argument. If the alternate theory is correct, might they have ignored the true nature of events to gain a conviction? Whatever Manson’s crimes are, do the ends justify the means?

GARY LAWYER  

I think if he had had a competent lawyer, he would of either walked on the trial or walked on appeal because there just wasn’t sufficient testimony to convict him of anything.

NARRATOR

To convict Manson the prosecution’s entire case depended on one of the murderers corroborating their theory. On December second, nineteen sixty-nine, four months after the death of Sharon Tate, the last of the murderers was captured. Linda Kasabian surrendered in New Mexico and returned to California. She immediately met with her attorney Gary Fleischman.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

I talked to her and the only conversation I can tell you, I said keep your mouth shut and keep it shut in that jail. Don’t talk to anybody about this ever. I can’t tell you the conversation I had with her but I was lead to believe that the murders up there started long before the Tate-Labianca case. I can’t describe what she told me but it was scary, the whole thing was scary.

NARRATOR  

At that time, Linda Kasabian had few options because Susan Atkins had already turned state’s witness. According to Gary Fleischman, he had Kasabian sabotage Susan Atkins’s testimony to bolster Kasabian’s bargaining position with prosecutors.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

I had Linda pass kites to her, in the jail. A kite is a little letter, saying in Charlie talk, Charlie talk being ‘the DA is your lawyer, Charlie is the DA’. And this Atkins was a little nuts, and she then refused to testify. So now they we’re left with Linda, period – and then negotiations started.

First they offered me murder in the second degree, I said no, then they offered me voluntary manslaughter, I said no.

She was technically guilty of first degree murder before and after the fact.

NARRATOR

Linda Kasabian was one of the four who participated in the Sharon Tate murders and was with Charles Manson the night of the LaBianca murders. Prior to that, she had only been with the group for about thirty days and had spent little time with Manson himself.

CHARLES MANSON

Nobody ratted on me, except, she didn’t rat because she didn’t know anything. What they did was, they got some of the women that didn’t know me. I can’t get in their mind.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

So, we typed up an immunity agreement and the immunity agreement said, Linda Kasabian will receive immunity if she testifies to the truth in the so-called Manson murders. The truth is as follows. I knew exactly what was necessary to convict him, and whether that was true or not it was wasn’t my business to decide. That was Vince’s business. I said Linda if you testify to that you’re going to walk out of that courtroom. 

 NARRATOR

Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, Charles “Tex” Watson and Leslie Van Houten were all charged with murder and conspiracy. Tex Watson was arrested in Texas and faced extradition to California. With Linda Kasabian ready to testify, Watson was not brought back in time for Manson’s trial.

BRIAN DAVIS  

Tex sat out a whole year and watched that trial develop. If he had brought Tex in with him there’s no way he would have got that conviction.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

They wanted to get rid of me. I had gone to Stanford. I was really the only lawyer in the place who knew what the hell was going on. We filed a very detailed motion to get the case out of LA county.

It had like a hundred newspaper clippings and I claimed that the bad publicity was instigated by the prosecutors and that’s enough to get the case dismissed at least on appeal.

That case should have never been tried in Los Angeles county. But when we went to make a deal we withdrew the motion.

CAPPI

You should have seen my face when, when I was sitting in the in with the demure act this whole gold cross that she was fingering, and got up on the stand and said “I’m just an angel sent here from Heaven, to tell the world that Charlie’s the devil not Jesus Christ”.

CHARLES MANSON  

Listen and learn. The courtroom shows our justice. The courtroom is the eye of the social consciousness. You’ve got to go along with the courtroom. Right or wrong doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’m a mass murderer in the courtroom. 

DANIEL SIMONE

In this case, Bugliosi was brilliant. He had no rivals. It came down to who the jurors believed and Manson’s own conduct which was absolutely absurd.

CHARLES MANSON

They think they’re stealing me but all they’re doing is stealing what I’ve left for them to steal. In other words, they’re plagiarizing all my dreams but I left those on the bus stop.

BRIAN DAVIS  

It literally branded Charles Manson the most evil, dangerous man in the world.

CHARLES MANSON

There’s no end to my insanity. My insanity is so much genius I’ve got five heads in one hand.

DANIEL SIMONE

None of the defense attorneys challenged that Linda Kasabian’s testimony remained uncorroborated.

CAPPI

I know how involved she was and I won’t say, but she was definitely involved, yes. 

NARRATOR

When the trial wound to a close, those associated began to fear for their lives. Many changed their names in fear of reprisal.  

CHARLES MANSON  

Live and let live. You don’t let me live, you don’t live. That’s all. If you let me live, you live.

I you don’t let me live then you get your own judgment. Everybody gets to judge themselves. I didn’t want the job, you know.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

Charlie went like this to mean, meaning I’m going to cut your throat. And I said to him “Charlie, when you get out of jail I’m going to have a turkey neck and bring you a sharp knife to cut it.” He started laughing.

PHIL KAUFMAN

They came to my house twice to kill me. My neighbor said you know guys have been crawling over your fence.

STEPHEN KAY

One night during the first trial on my way to the parking lot where I had parked, Squeaky and Sandra Good snuck up behind me and said they were going to do to my house what was done at the Tate house. 

NARRATOR

Leslie Van Houten’s attorney, Ronald Hughes, went missing during the trial. Many have speculated about his disappearance.

STEPHEN KAY

I remember we broke for the weekend on a Friday afternoon. Manson pointed directly at Ronald Hughes and said, Attorney, I don’t ever want to see you in this courtroom again.” His body was found six months later but it was so badly decomposed that they couldn’t tell the cause of death.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

I’ll bet your bottom dollar that he said something that got under Charlie’s skin, and Manson had him killed. I mean, he went up to (something) hot springs, and all of sudden he’s dead. I don’t believe it was an accident.

NARRATOR

After the first trial the Manson Family became infamous. Vincent Bugliosi published HELTER SKELTER the best-selling true crime book of all time. This began decades of movies, books, and TV shows, portraying Charles Manson as the incarnation of evil.

BOBBY BEAUSOLIEL  

It’s such an insidiously created book - It’s a curse having to live with it.

CHARLES MANSON

The DA fucked up man. Convicted me in the press, didn’t convict me in court. I got my own media.

NARRATOR

Charles Manson and the rest continued on through the courts. They received additional death sentences for the murder of Donald Shea based primarily on the testimony of Barbara Hoyt.

Tex Watson received a separate trial for the Tate-LaBianca murders and was sentenced to death like the others. The following year, the California Supreme Court abolished the death penalty and all of their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

BRIAN DAVIS

The first trial, everybody was brainwashed, Tex was brainwashed, everybody went and killed for Charlie. But when Tex gets to trial he wasn’t brainwashed, he acted on his own.

NARRATOR

In November of nineteen sixty-nine, Bobby Beausoleil was tried for the murder of Gary Hinman. This was before the DA had labelled Charles Manson as the mastermind. Beausoleil’s first trial ended in a mistrial when the jury could not come to a unanimous verdict. There was no mention of Helter Skelter.

BOBBY BEAUSOLIEL

The first trial was just a quiet little trial in Santa Monica, the Jury was hung 8 to 4. I didn’t even testify because the case was really very weak. 

NARRATOR  

In a second trial, which took place after Manson was charged, Bobby Beausoleil was rebranded as a “member of The Manson Family”. He and Susan Atkins were sentenced to death alongside Manson for the murder of Gary Hinman.

BOBBY BEAUSOLIEL

They brought up this race war thing and all of that. It was horrible, man. They did a lot of insidious things.

NARRATOR  

Many of those convicted for the Tate-LaBianca murders remain in jail. Leslie Van Houten has been granted parole on numerous occasions but because of her association with Charles Manson her parole has been continually overturned.  

STEPHEN KAY

I don’t think that she deserves to get out. They we’re all lucky that they didn’t suffer the death penalty.

RICH PFIEFFER

I’m going to get her out. The DA is not operating fairly. Just follow the law, that’s all I’m asking.

NARRATOR

Lynette Squeaky Fromme served thirty-five years in prison for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford. Fromme was paroled in two thousand and nine. Vincent Bugliosi died in two thousand and fifteen. His book HELTER SKELTER has become gospel in terms of information on Charles Manson.

NARRATOR

Manson remains in California State Prison, Corcoran, where he will almost certainly live for the remainder of his life.

CHARLES MANSON  

That’s hard for me to believe that all this time has gone by man.

NARRATOR

Charles Manson is not an innocent man but does it matter how we know that? Should those in power be allowed to construct their own truth in the pursuit of justice?

CHARLES MANSON

I see things as they really are in truth. You got a constitution in the United States, and they read and study it in school but they never really understand the validity of it, and how powerful it really is.

GRAY WOLF

I don’t care who it is, if somebody doesn’t get a fair trial then we’re all in trouble.

GARY FLEISCHMAN

Do I think he’s suffered an injustice, not really (laughs), not in my heart of hearts. But as a matter of litigation, yes he did suffer an injustice. Whether morally he suffered an injustice I don’t think so.

NARRATOR

This leaves some to ask, if the prosecution had pursued the alternate theory with its brutal but less sensational elements, would anyone even know who Charles Manson is? And, would he be sitting in jail today? 

MANSON

I believe what I’m told to believe. Don’t you?

THE END

[theuniversitychallengereview]

UC 49.20 & 21 (Imperial vs St John’s + H’field vs MCR)

Hello, and welcome to a good old fashioned Chase Edition of The University Challenge Review. If you read last week’s blog I mentioned that in the early days of doing this I would sometimes have to try and bash out a few hundred words in the half an hour after the show aired lest risk missing a few precious minutes of pre-drinks and Planet Earth II at a friend’s flat (we watched them on the Monday, not live on Sunday night, before you try and get me with that old chestnut)

And while I can no longer indulge in the marvellous phenomenon of mid-week pre-drinks, and the planet hasn’t been renewed for a third sequel, I once again find myself in a rush to get something written. Arsenal play Chelsea at 8.15, and though my hopes of victory are low, I must, ever the sporting masochist, watch the tragedy in real time. This may seem like ample opportunity to write your blog, you might say, given that the carelessness of the editing indicates a product that is at best lackadaisical and at worst openly antagonistic towards the reader, but this is further complicated by the other tasks I must also accomplish during this timeframe. 

The dishes need washing and so do I, having cycled home forty minutes in the driving rain. The flat needs hoovering and, ideally, the recycling should be taken out (although it has just occured to me, having thought it was Wednesday, that it is Tuesday, meaning that this is less of a priority). I also have hunger to reckon with, and may need to resort earlier than planned to last weeks chilli (on toast, with some extra mushrooms if I can be bothered), having had only what was left of Sunday’s grapes since getting home. 

But this is not the end of my troubles, dear reader, no, because I am also hopeful of catching up with the live programming schedule in time for the quarter finals which I believe start next week, so am compelled to include reviews of not one, but two episodes in this very post. Why then, you might ask, would you waste so much of your time on a needless excercise in over-explanation instead of actually writing about the episodes in question? You might also ask why, having used ‘having’ as a clause so many times already in this introduction, I used it in this sentence. The answer to both of those is simply that I do not know, but let’s get going, here’s your first starter for ten.

Imperial vs St John’s, Oxford

Imperial College, London had come into this match off the back of handing out the biggest thumping of the first round to Brasenose College, Oxford (255 points to 70). Their winning score was also the highest of the opening set. St John’s meanwhile, had accrued a paltry 115 points in their low-scoring win against Wolfson, Cambridge, fewer than eight losing teams. On paper this was a foregone conclusion, but I said the same about Courtauld vs Glasgow last week, so as with any form of competition, surprises can be sprung.

This match, however, would turn out to be like a broken jack-in-the-box in that regard, a horror film with no jump scares, an elongated bout of the hiccups, the romance narrative of a Mills and Boone, or the fact that Jeremy Clarkson would have the character of a man who punches someone because their dinner is cold (I’m reading Ducks, Newburyport at the moment so I’ve got lists on the mind, I’m sorry).

Brandon, whose relaxed nature and Gengar sweater had gained him many fans in Imperial’s debut, puts speechmarks up when Paxman congratulates them on having done such a good job despite the four of them being science majors, which I think is a remark on Paxo splitting subjects down the middle into science and non-science, seeing as two of them, himself included, study computing. This time around Brandon is wearing a sweater with Alex Trebek on, the Canadian host of Jeopardy having recently been diagnosed with cancer at the time of filming.

St John’s negged the first starter, allowing Rich in to sweep up and take the lead for Imperial, once the question had become a lot more straightforward. Brooks then negged for the Londoners, but Oxford couldn’t steal it, and then negged again through Burns on the next starter. A hat-trick of interruptions on the first three questions is certainly a rarity on University Challenge - I think perhaps St John’s had planned to go in hard, knowing how good Imperial were - but things settled down after that. Imperial got into their rhythm, and no amount of early buzzing was going to help St John’s once that had happened. 

Paxman gave Brandon into trouble after a particularly chilled out buzz of ‘six’ on a Starter about the planets, asking whether he ‘found the questions insultingly easy’. It certainly looked like he did, but he protested, although he took the next Starter as well in a similar fashion.

The match was over as a contest by this point, and Imperial were cruising, only interested in whether or not they could beat their score from the previous match. St John’s, to their credit, scrapped hard to the last, with Captain Leeks especially determined to see them into triple figures, which they managed. 

Final Score: Imperial 255 - 105 St John’s

So in the end Imperial matched their first round score, which gives them the highest two scores of the series so far. And well done to St John’s, who almost achieved the same feat, despite their opponents scoring 215 more points than in their first match. Now, onto the next one..

Huddersfield vs Manchester

Okay, before we get started, a quick update on The Chase (not the TV quiz show the Chase; the chase to get this blog finished on time. I guess its more of a race than a chase, really, isn’t it, but Chase makes it seem more like there’s an element of danger involved, which of course there isn’t). I am now quite hungry, but I have done the dishes. Perhaps I should have eaten, and then done the dishes when watching the football, but here we are. 

Anyway, Manchester made the second round courtesy of a tight match against Jesus, Oxford, who have already come through the repechage and made it to the quarter finals. Huddersfield, who are making their debut in the competition this year, beat the Open University at the death in their first ever appearance, so they came in protecting a 100% record. 

Captain Cook gets the Yorkshire quartet off to the ideal start, but they can only take one bonus on breeds of donkey. No matter though, because Manchester give them a helping hand with a neg on the next Starter, putting them into minus points. They’re quickly back above freezing, their Skipper Green dragging them up with an early buzz of Wes Anderson next time around. Booth is unlucky on the next Starter, but comes in just as Paxman is finishing the question for his second penalty of the evening, but Huddersfield don’t manage to punish him.

A neg for Green put Manchester back on bagels, and Cook took the opportunity to toast them this time. But these would be Huddersfield’s only points for some time...

Rogers got the Mancunians going with his first of the night, and his team quickly rattled off a hundred and twenty points without reply. Cook stopped the rot, but only briefly, and his side reained shellshocked while Manchester raced up another seventy five points. Cook would take a few more starters, and ended the night having claimed all five of his teams Ten pointers (I wonder what the highest number of starters taken by a player without their teammates getting one is. Five’s quite a lot, I reckon, but I bet there’s someone who knows better than me)

Final Score: Huddersfield 90 - 205 Manchester

Another solid performance from Huddersfield, but ultimately Man Uni proved too strong, and they make the Quarter-Finals for the second year in a row. 

Phew, just about made it. And yes, I know that this second one was a lot shorter than the first one, and that a lot of the first one was made up of non-University Challenge content, but I’m really quite hungry now, and the football is going to start soon, so I’m going to call this a win and get something to eat. See you next time. 

[thisdaynews]

Jolyon Palmer column: Max Verstappen edges it over Lewis Hamilton

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/jolyon-palmer-column-max-verstappen-edges-it-over-lewis-hamilton/

Jolyon Palmer column: Max Verstappen edges it over Lewis Hamilton

Former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer, who left Renault during the 2017 season, is part of the BBC team and offers insight and analysis from the point of view of the competitors.

The Formula 1 season ended in Abu Dhabi on Sunday with a podium that summed up the season perfectly – the three outstanding drivers of the year were all on it.

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton won the race, from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. For me – and I suspect many others – they were the best three drivers in 2019. Just not quite in that order.

This is my assessment of the F1 grid in 2019.

The five best drivers of the year

1. Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen won three grands prix in 2019 and scored points in the first 12 races of the season

In terms of choosing the best driver of the season, Hamilton and Verstappen were practically inseparable. Hamilton won the championship, but if I had to pick just one of them, I’d say Verstappen just edged it.

His relentless pace and consistently high level caused team-mate Pierre Gasly to be demoted from Red Bull to Toro Rosso in the summer break. And now the pressure is mounting on Alex Albon, Gasly’s replacement, as Red Bull desperately search for someone who can operate somewhere near Verstappen’s level.

In the first part of the season, Verstappen’s victory in Austria, achieved while lapping his team-mate despite being behind him on the first lap, underlined his dominance over Gasly, who has excelled against both his other F1 team-mates, Brendon Hartley last year and Daniil Kvyat this.

Three race wins, extremely few mistakes and being a constant thorn in the sides of Ferrari and Mercedes shows how good Verstappen has been.

This was underlined by the fact that he finished the season comfortably third, ahead of both Ferraris, despite being in a slower car in terms of absolute pace and being wiped out by each of the Italian team’s drivers at some point.

The only big downside for Verstappen are that a first pole position in Hungary should have been followed up with another in Mexico as well as Brazil, were it not for some foolhardy driving to not back off past a yellow flag.

That cost Verstappen another win. Potentially he could have exercised more caution in Belgium Turn One as well, but aside from that Verstappen’s season was flawless.

2. Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton won 11 of the 21 races in 2019, equalling his totals in 2014 and 2018

Equally as impressive as Verstappen, this was an almost perfect season for Hamilton, in which he was strongly in contention for victory at nearly every single race.

When Hamilton leads out of Turn One, the race is boring. This was demonstrated once more in Abu Dhabi, although team-mate Valtteri Bottas couldn’t challenge him from the back of the grid. When he doesn’t, he’s always a factor in the fight for victory anyway.

Hamilton has had one of his finest seasons and it has gone under the radar, because the title has been effectively wrapped up since June.

But winning 11 from 21 races proves his dominance, particularly because of the threat he’s had since the summer break from Ferrari and Red Bull.

In the end, I have marked Hamilton down behind Verstappen only because he went off track while leading in Germany and hit Albon in the chaotic final couple of laps in Brazil.

In reality, there was nothing to choose between the two. Hopefully next year we can see them in a genuine title fight. That is a mouthwatering prospect.

3. Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc finished 24 points ahead of team-mate Sebastian Vettel in the drivers’ championship

Ferrari have had a lot of stick this year – and quite rightly. They have been disappointing in every area.

Abu Dhabi was a real microcosm of their season. As Hamilton and Mercedes waltzed to an easy win, Verstappen showed up both Ferraris.

Both drivers hit the wall on Friday. Leclerc missed a final qualifying lap because of a pointless strategic timing ‘gamble’. The team were investigated for a fuel irregularity before the race even began, and ultimately found guilty. And they had a seven-second pit stop with Sebastian Vettel as well for good measure.

Leclerc can sometimes get lumped into Ferrari’s woeful season; he has after all made a fair few mistakes, such as crashing in Baku qualifying, in the race in Germany or hitting Verstappen on the first lap in Japan.

But this is only his second season in F1, and in reality he has been a revelation. Taking the pole position trophy for his seven poles shows how fast he has been – and he added two excellent victories as well.

Leclerc has brought numerous question marks upon the future of Vettel, because of how much he’s ended up shading his team-mate as the season has gone on, combined with Vettel’s own mistakes.

In fact, Leclerc has beaten Vettel on every single measure – he outscored him in the championship, took more wins, more poles and comfortably won their qualifying head-to-head. And that was despite Ferrari starting the year favouring Vettel, and imposing team orders – generally in the German’s favour – a number of times.

Races such as Bahrain and Belgium show how good Leclerc can be. Hopefully, with another year’s experience and a second season with Ferrari, he can cut the mistakes and become a season-long threat. Whether Ferrari can hold up their part of the bargain is a different matter.

4. Carlos Sainz

Carlos Sainz came sixth in the drivers’ standings, a point ahead of Pierre Gasly

Sainz is another man who has had an exceptional year, and just managed to take sixth in the championship with a brilliant last-lap pass on Nico Hulkenberg in Abu Dhabi. With both Gasly and Albon, his rivals for that spot, spending half a year in the significantly quicker Red Bull, that is seriously impressive.

Sainz hasn’t been the fastest this season. He’s actually been out-qualified by rookie team-mate Lando Norris 11-10 in the head-to-head – although the Spaniard is actually ahead when taking into account only sessions in which a fair comparison can be made. But he’s been relentlessly strong in the races and ultimately that is what counts.

Sainz’s first laps have always been strong, and his race-craft has been superb as well. He has made several great overtakes in the year, and barely had contact with other drivers, in spite of often being in the thick of the midfield chaos.

A first podium in Brazil was thoroughly deserved. It’s just a shame he didn’t actually get to stand up there as the stewards dithered when handing Hamilton a penalty.

McLaren have had a brilliant season, with huge progression from last year. But they have a lot of work to do if they and Sainz can achieve any better next year.

Consolidating fourth in the constructors’ championship and getting closer to the big three will likely be the aim in 2020.

5. Sergio Perez

Sergio Perez won 52 points this year, more than double team-mate Lance Stroll’s total

This was a really tough call between Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo, but in the end I’ve given Perez the nod because the Racing Point was not as good a car as the Renault and the Mexican all but matched the Australian’s points total.

It’s been an under-the-radar but extremely strong season once more for Perez. Five top-seven finishes in the past nine races leapt him up to 10th in the championship, ahead of Norris and almost catching Ricciardo, despite having a slower car across the season.

There have been a few mistakes along the way, particularly in a barren patch in the middle of the season such as at Germany and Silverstone, where Perez went a full eight races in a row without scoring.

But either side of that run he failed to score in only two other races and surely punched higher than his car, with four best-of-the-rest finishes, thanks to some super race performances.

The rest of the grid

This season has been a real fall from grace for Ricciardo, since winning races with Red Bull last year. The switch to Renault hasn’t been anywhere near a success. In fact, the team have dropped backwards by 31 points and a position in the constructors’ championship even though they splashed out on the big-money signing of the Australian.

But Ricciardo isn’t to blame for any of that. As a driver he has actually been very strong this year, outshining Nico Hulkenberg 14-7 in qualifying and 54-37 in the points.

Everyone who has raced alongside Hulkenberg rates him highly – including myself – so Ricciardo beating him in that manner, in his first season with the team, is an impressive start, personally at least.

The Pierre Gasly that drove the Toro Rosso in the second half of the season was very good. Both fast and consistent, he scored a stunning second place in Brazil in what was my favourite moment of the season.

Sadly, the Gasly that started the year in the Red Bull never got going. This was the ultimate Jekyll-and-Hyde season, with some of the best and some of the worst. Very mysterious.

George Russell, Albon and Norris have had strong rookie seasons. For Russell, he’s had no competition and a terrible car, which has made gauging his performance difficult. But for what it’s worth beating team-mate Robert Kubica 21-0 in qualifying was good. He had flashes of pace and barely put a foot wrong.

Albon’s Toro Rosso half-season was encouraging. His Red Bull second half started in an encouraging fashion, and fell a little flat towards the end of the season. He could do with kicking on a bit next year, but hopefully a full winter of team integration can help.

Norris’ season started very well. He was fairly consistently ahead of Sainz in qualifying in the first half of the year and was held back by misfortune in the races.

As the year went on, Sainz increasingly established himself over Norris as the lead McLaren driver, but points in six of the past eight races show that Norris still did a solid job. He is my rookie of the year.

At the other end of the spectrum, Kimi Raikkonen had a very good first half of the season in the Alfa Romeo, before slipping back, along with his team, in the second half.

A sequence of silly errors kicked off the second half of the season, but on the whole Raikkonen has still shown he has what it takes at 40, as he showed Antonio Giovinazzi the way, beating him in all but three races.

It was a tough year for Haas, and in particular Romain Grosjean, who was generally out-performed by team-mate Kevin Magnussen.

A number of incidents and a fair amount of radio whining didn’t help the Frenchman’s cause, but the team fell away from good midfielders to ninth in the constructors’ this year, and for the most part had no clue why that happened.

They desperately need to understand the tyres more, as this has been their Achilles’ heel since day one. One day they can be super quick, like in Barcelona when they were best of the rest. The next they are absolutely nowhere.

Finally, Kubica had the worst season of all. It was a remarkable achievement for the Pole to get back onto the grid after his rally accident in 2011, and the terrible injuries he suffered. But that’s where it ends, sadly.

I was a Kubica fan in his BMW days and when he was at Renault in 2010, and I hope people will remember him as that driver, rather than the tail-end Charlie who limped around in a very poor Williams car this year.

Either his right arm and hand – which have only partial movement, and which appear to be more or less a passenger in the car – were holding him back, or so much time away simply left him rusty. Or maybe both.

Either way, his performances this year were not a true representation of a driver who is supremely naturally talented.

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[junker-town]

100 percent correct predictions for the 2019 NFL season that we definitely won’t regret later

Patrick Mahomes and Myles Garrett are two of the NFL’s brightest young stars.

Last year, we whiffed on the MVP and Super Bowl winner. This year, though, we totally nailed it.

NFL predictions in early September are, for the most part, garbage.

The league is an untamable beast whose undulations can cast off even the most iron-clad locks. The rise of onetime cellar dwellers at the expense of former contenders is the NFL’s proudest cycle. It keeps all but the most downtrodden fans invested in the promise of a new season, even if the last one ended in utter failure.

While some of the league’s elite will remain their status in the old guard — the Patriots, if we’re being honest with ourselves — new arrivals will challenge that throne in both the postseason bracket and the NFL’s individual awards.

This all makes the process of preseason predictions a silly exercise. The league’s ever-changing landscape reduces all manners of expertise into a raw collection of educated guesses. Like last year, when some of us picked Aaron Rodgers to return to MVP form or Dante Pettis to win offensive rookie of the year honors. We came back and tried again in February, only to see many of those derailed by the draft, free agency, and one shocking retirement.

So yeah, our picks are mostly going to be wrong. But you should read them anyway, because they’ll still offer valuable clues as to how 2019 will unfold, from the first snap in September until the moment the confetti falls at Super Bowl 54 — even if it’s in ways we never saw coming.

2019 MVP

Russell Wilson, Seahawks — Christian D’Andrea Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs — Sarah Hardy Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs — James Brady Baker Mayfield, Browns — Adam Stites

Wilson is always left hanging around the periphery of the MVP race, guiding his Seahawks to contention despite a typically sparse lineup of targets. 2019 should be no different. Injuries and Doug Baldwin’s retirement have left Seattle with one of the league’s worst WR corps, but Wilson — now flanked by a potent running game led by Chris Carson — will likely finish his year with something like 35 touchdown passes, 3,500 passing yards, and one of the top QB ratings in the NFL.

Those aren’t typical MVP numbers, but factor in another postseason appearance from a team that’s supposed to be past its sell-by date and you’ve got a recipe that will swing AP voters to Wilson’s side. If the Seahawk can live up to his lofty standard and ride a revamped defense and scattershot offense into the playoffs, he’ll be deserving of MVP consideration. — D’Andrea

Boring, I know. But we can almost guarantee the winner will be a quarterback, and until I see any sort of evidence that Mahomes or the Kansas City offense is headed for a regression, I won’t believe it. — Hardy

Screw it, let’s go all in on the hype train. Mayfield threw 27 touchdowns last year, setting a new NFL rookie record despite not starting until Week 4. Now he’s got another year’s worth of development and the addition of Odell Beckham Jr. working in his favor. Expect a ton of touchdowns. — Stites

Defensive Player of the Year

Myles Garrett, Browns — Sarah Hardy Joey Bosa, Chargers — Christian D’Andrea Fletcher Cox, Eagles — Charles McDonald Bradley Chubb, Broncos — James Brady Chris Jones, Chiefs — Adam Stites

You could call last year a breakout season for Garrett, the dinosaur-loving, dessert-declining, Grecian God wannabe. He flashed as a rookie in 2016, but languished on an 0-16 Browns team. In his second season, the former No. 1 pick racked up 13.5 sacks — three of which came against Ben Roethslisberger! — on a defense that was still kinda average.

Now, Garrett has more pass-rushing help than just fellow third-year lineman Larry Ogunjobi. This offseason, the Browns added two Pro Bowlers, Olivier Vernon and Sheldon Richardson, to their defensive front. Not only should Cleveland’s D-line be one of the best in the NFL this year, those reinforcements will let Garrett unleash his true disruptive powers — we’re talking 20+ sacks territory here.

On the field, that is. Off the field, he’ll probably just chill and listen to a little Fleetwood Mac. — Hardy

Jones had 15.5 sacks for the Chiefs, despite mostly playing on the interior. It was 2.5 more sacks than edge rusher Dee Ford. It’s still a mystery how on Earth he didn’t make a Pro Bowl last year, but if his production continues to rise, Jones will be impossible to ignore. — Stites

Coach of the Year

Kyle Shanahan, 49ers — Christian D’Andrea Kyle Shanahan, 49ers — James Brady Matt LaFleur, Packers — Charles McDonald Adam Gase, Jets — Adam Stites Bruce Arians, Buccaneers — Sarah Hardy

I don’t know what to expect out of the Bucs this year. They could finish in last place in the NFC South for the third year in a row, or they could make their way back into the playoffs for the first time in over a decade. Not much would surprise me, unless they’re somehow worse in their first season under Arians than they were in their last season under Dirk Koetter.

I doubt that’s the case, though. In six seasons as a head coach (including his interim year with the Colts), Arians has only finished with a losing record once, when the Cardinals went 7-8-1 in 2016.

Arians should get the Bucs back on the right track after his brief retirement, and that’ll impress the voters who might be a little tired of Sean McVay clones. Plus, NFL circles love him. He’s already won the award twice before. — Hardy

Super Bowl 54 prediction

The Eagles over the Chiefs — Christian D’Andrea The Patriots over the Eagles — Charles McDonald The Patriots over ... The Chiefs over the Eagles — Sarah Hardy The Saints over the Chiefs — James Brady The Chiefs over the Seahawks — Adam Stites

Last year at this time, I picked the Vikings to beat the Steelers in Super Bowl 53. Let’s pause for a sec so you can go ahead and LOL at me.

I knew then that it was nothing more than wishful thinking, because my reason for choosing the Vikings was as follows: “they’re not the Patriots, who will probably end up here anyway.” Then when that Voldemort of a sentence came true, I wrote in February, “I’m picking the Patriots to win every Super Bowl until the end of time now.”

I still believe that deep down, but you don’t want to hear about how the Patriots’ schedule looks like the SEC’s Cupcake Week stretched out over an entire year And neither do I. So once again, I’ll just try to The Secret a non-Patriots Super Bowl into existence.

The Chiefs were a penalty away from making the last Super Bowl. Their Madden-like offense is more or less the same, and the defense will be better (not that it has much choice to go anywhere but up). The Eagles have one of the most complete rosters in the NFL and a majority of their players have already been on this stage before. If you think the Chiefs are cursed, well, a lot of people said the same thing about the Eagles until two seasons ago. This is the year, Kansas City. This is the year!

I’m sorry. I already regret this. — Hardy

Which second-year player will have a breakout 2019?

Dante Pettis, 49ers — James Brady Dante Pettis, 49ers — Christian D’Andrea Mike Gesicki, Dolphins — Charles McDonald James Washington, Steelers — Sarah Hardy Marcus Davenport, Saints — Adam Stites

Let’s see what my 2018 offensive rookie of the year pick can do with a whole season of Jimmy Garoppolo (and a limited number of high-impact wide receivers around him) can do. — D’Andrea

Well, SOMEONE has to catch passes for the Dolphins. Kenny Stills is gone, leaving the Dolphins in need of targets. Gesicki has all right tools to be a dominant receiving threat. Now, he has the opportunity. — McDonald

No AB, no problem? The Steelers wish it were that simple. While there’s no replacing Antonio Brown, I think Washington can take advantage of getting more opportunities this year. He caught just 42 percent of his targets as a rookie, which came out to an underwhelming 16 catches, 217 yards, and one touchdown for the second-round pick. If his preseason performance can translate to the regular season, then his first-year struggles will soon be nothing but a distant memory. — Hardy

The Saints drafted Davenport because of his outrageous physical talent, even if he was very green. He’s just 23 and now that he’s been in the league for over a year, it’s time to watch that potential get unleashed. — Stites

Who will be the first starting quarterback to be benched?

Ryan Fitzpatrick, Dolphins — Charles McDonald Case Keenum, Washington — Christian D’Andrea Case Keenum, Washington — James Brady Case Keenum, Washington — Adam Stites

Have you seen that Dolphins’ offensive line? This isn’t even a real indictment of Fitzpatrick — no quarterback would stand a chance behind that line. Unfortunately, poor production will likely lead to him being benched. — McDonald

Jay Gruden may be staring down a situation where the only way to keep his job is to prove he can develop Dwayne Haskins into Washington’s next franchise passer. If Keenum gets off to a slow start — and he did last year with the Broncos — he could be in for a quick hook. — D’Andrea

Which 2018 playoff team will be the first to be eliminated from contention?

Chicago Bears — Charles McDonald Indianapolis Colts — Christian D’Andrea Houston Texans — James Brady New Orleans Saints — Adam Stites

The Bears’ defense is still one of the best units in the league, but expecting them to replicate their 2018 production is unreasonable. They’re going to need third-year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky to finally start looking like the elite passer he was drafted to be, which might be too tall of a task for him right now. — McDonald

Sorry, Jacoby Brissett. — D’Andrea

Which 2019 trade will look smartest by the time the season ends?

The Patriots steal Michael Bennett from the Eagles for a swap of Day 3 picks — Christian D’Andrea The Dolphins trading Laremy Tunsil to the Texans for two first-round picks — Charles McDonald The Browns landing Odell Beckham Jr. because the Giants are weird — Sarah Hardy The Browns landing Odell Beckham Jr. because the Giants are weird — James Brady The Steelers sending Antonio Brown to the Raiders — Adam Stites

New England desperately needed to punch up its pass rush after losing Trey Flowers in free agency. Enter Bennett, whose versatility and veteran gravitas give him the chops to play anywhere along Bill Belichick’s defensive line. — D’Andrea

Miami did exactly what every rebuilding team should do: acquire future assets. The Dolphins won’t be in playoff contention at all, but their 2020 offseason should be exciting with their own top-five pick and a potential top-20 pick from Houston. — McDonald

It’s too early to tell if Dave Gettleman was right all along about Daniel Jones. I refuse for him to be right about OBJ, though. — Hardy

Brown’s bizarre 2019 hasn’t stopped being bizarre. He spent August dealing with frostbitten feet, a gripe about his helmet, and has already accrued over $50,000 in fines from the Raiders for absences. It’s definitely possible he’ll make up for all that by being the same dynamic playmaker he was in Pittsburgh. But until that happens, the Steelers are looking smarter every day. — Stites

Which late draft pick or undrafted free agent will make the biggest impact in 2019?

Ben Burr-Kirven, Seahawks — Christian D’Andrea Lamont Gaillard, Cardinals — Charles McDonald Byron Cowart, Patriots — Adam Stites

Burr-Kirven was a fifth-round pick who had to fight his way onto the Seattle roster this summer, but he should have plenty of opportunity to stand out in a defense in desperate need of linebacker depth. While his measurables are unimpressive — he’s small at 6’0 and 230 pounds and not overly athletic — he’s a tackling machine who finished his college career with 176 tackles as a senior. He’ll find a way to contribute for Pete Carroll. — D’Andrea

The Cardinals will be rebuilding their offensive line over the next few seasons, but they might already have a keeper in sixth-round center Lamont Gaillard. Gaillard anchored dominant rushing attacks over the last few years for the Georgia Bulldogs and even performed well against Quinnen Williams in the SEC Championship Game last year. Gaillard won’t be enough to overturn the Cardinals’ offensive line woes by himself, but he’s a nice start. — McDonald

Once upon a time, Cowart was the top high school recruit in the nation. It didn’t translate to much success at Auburn. But the Patriots took a fifth-round flier on the defensive lineman and saw early signs that it was a good call when he folded the Titans’ Rodger Saffold like a lawn chair. New England loves to keep its defensive linemen in rotation, so Cowart will get chances to show that same explosion in the regular season. — Stites

Which team ends up with the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL Draft?

Miami Dolphins — Sarah Hardy Miami Dolphins — Christian D’Andrea Miami Dolphins — James Brady Miami Dolphins — Adam Stites

I mean ... they’re pretty clearly trying to get the No. 1 pick. — Stites

[summermiko]

Tell us how you tamed Amaimon. I forget you play Dungeons and Dragons :o

It was a homebrew campaign but like. I can explain it to you. So Dillon lets us make characters at level 5. And this was a couple years ago when Summer was just a blossoming baby in the community. (think like. Renzou kidnapping Izumo Illuminati Arc back.) I was his first DM so I helped him convert a shit ton of Anime shit into a game to use for character templates. me, being a big baby AnE nerd seeing an opportunity, ask him if I can play as a Child of Satan Exorcist. I didn’t want any cool powers or nothing like Rin. I just wanted demon blood and we weren’t about to make different species of demons playable races. So he let me have bonuses to taming (like a plus 5 I think) instead of having weird wooshy fire....

Okay. My character was an Exorcist, Second Middle Class, with two meisterings: Taming and Knight--because we were too lazy to train Aria in there so I just bullshit that she was working on it and was part of the American branch. And I dump all my training into two things. Taming and things like agility and combat (also spot/search). We help Matt make his character and we had a couple others. I only remember Matt’s because he was a half elf who broke his sissy arm on the car door because he wanted to have Shukaku the One Tail inside of him and the Biju didn’t like him so he had penalties and it was funny af. My character laughed her ass off and helped him break the door. There was also a witch but I was saving Matt’s ass often.

Side note: We were also lazy and I touched the DM’s heart by saying I wanted a Catsidhe that looked like my recently deceased cat Galax, as a way to keep her alive. So I’ve got a big fluffy familiar friend who is mischievous.

So basically we start off in a miner’s town where the Exorcist was hunting down someone. The place became quarantined due to demons running in and zombie apocalypse and basically everything gone to shit. So my ass runs in on my giant fluffy demon and we end up at a library where Amaimon was starting shit. And he immediately was like “I’m Amaimon” when the elf dude was like “What the fuck is that?” and began to call him an onion and basically he STARTS COMBAT WITH A GOD. So we have people casting in the background and the fuzzy cat and I are attacking his tail after the only person who knows how the hell to Fight a Demon tells everyone to aim for his tell. Elf dude gets a handgun and actually manages to shoot Amaimon in the tail.

This pisses him off even more. So much that Amaimon causes the ground to collapse and we all fall into a golden city underneath the town. So I had to sit out next game and he used the rubble as a way to ‘split us up’. So when I come back the third session we’re all trying to find one another because my character feels responsible for the idiots involved in the cross fire of another idiot pissing off a Demon King. So after running into some Yuki-Onna I don’t know from like Rosario Vampire or something, I come back just in time to have the Elf dude seeing Amaimon, and after rolling a quick spot check, my character goes

“Shut up! You’ve done enough damage!” Too late. Elf dude already yells out,”HEY ONION HEAD! ROUND TWO!” And Amaimon. Is. Done. He shifts into a size like... A titan from SNK and proceeds to try flattening the party. He’s radiating so much power that Galax is hiding in her Tamer’s coat and a boss battle ensues.

So I, being me, get fed up once most of the party is damn near maimed and I look at my 25 handling and I look Dillon in the eye and go “I’m going to tame him.” Dillon inhales sharply, and says “Alright Mikki. You’re going to have to roll three skill checks with increasing level cap.” and I look to the people who are hanging on for dear life and I grasp my red dice up like a woman on a mission.

So the combat ensues as I pass the first check with a 13 row. Everyone managed to dodge except the ice bitch and she was an NPC so we’re not really worried about her. I manage to roll a 15 the second round which barely got me over the second handle. And Dillon takes me to the side and says grimly. “Mikki. You have a choice to either have your character dodge or continue to try taming him. And I’m going to tell you, DM to Player, that if you choose to tame and fail, you’re going to die.” “Everyone is going to die if I don’t do something.” And he let me roll.

I grasp my dice, and I let it fly.

Crit. Fucking. 20.

Now, normally even a 20 wouldn’t have put my value up enough to tame, you know, a Demon King, but natural 20′s are treated like 100% success. Amaimon’s giant hand is flying down, with every intention of crushing my character, and she very calmly raises up her hand and says “No!” and POOF. He suddenly turned into a hamster and fell into her hand. And everyone around the table is literally lost for words and staring at me. Even the Amaimon is like “What the hell?!” and due to that critical 20, I WAS THE ONLY ONE who could allow Amaimon out for a walk, or keep him as a hamster. And...That’s pretty much the story of how I tamed Amaimon and very quickly broke the game by being level 6 by the end of things and TAMING A GOD.

[gtr24h]

ACC Sprint Series continued at England with a blast!

Brands Hatch – Grass, gravel, no room for error. Farewell, modern design – welcome to the old school. With so many current circuits lined by tarmac and astroturf, it is refreshing to see what is undoubtedly a blast from the past. And, as seen today, long history does not make something obsolete. In fact, quite the contrary! The 3.9km (2.4 mile) loop from Paddock Hill to Clark Curve provides a challenge quite unlike anywhere else. Elevation change, technical corners, terrifyingly fast bends and no room for error. Combined with laptimes just over 80 seconds, the drivers would have to brave those turns time and time again. It’s one thing to put in a fast qualifying lap here – a whole other to do it for 2 hours. And speaking of qualifying, well, let’s see what happened there shall we? Qualifying Here’s an interesting question: What would you do when armed with a modern GT3 racer and told to go for it? Why, if you are one of these guys, you’d dutifully oblige. Brands Hatch is not the easiest venue to pass in, being known as one of the more technical circuits in our calendar. As such, hitting your marks and getting near the front in qualifying was going to be all the more important. Clearly, the drivers had done their homework in that regard – none so better than Musto GD e-Sports! With the Italian ace Pierluca Amato behind the wheel, they had managed to make that Porsche downright fly around this iconic circuit. None could match his pace, not even their sister team Musto GD Corse – but it wasn’t for the lack of trying. Alessio Pusceddu showed some promising pace but just couldn’t quite match the pole time. Still, no shame in 2nd place – especially if it meant an all-Musto, all-Porsche front row! Behind them, Burst Esport SimPlexity brought their Lexus to a respectable third place. With drivers like that, no wonder! Two pilots with world championship series pedigree, it was the EEWC GTE champion Jesper Pedersen who had to perhaps surprisingly watch from the sidelines as Casper Henningsen took the qualifying honours. Championship leading Triple A Esports shared the second row with them, and it would certainly be interesting to see if their fortunes would continue. A duo of World’s Fastest Gamer Hany Alsabti and his teammate Alexandre Vromant were the favourites heading into Brands Hatch, with the latter doing the qualifying. In row 3, Team Rookie Monsters and hometown hero Matt Beavis started alongside EURONICS Gaming Team Razer. Behind them, it was Simply Race Zansho in their #370 making Bentley Boys proud, while the two Buttler-Pal Motorsport teams and #23 Simply Race rounded out your top 10. Race Well, that’s that done. We have our fastest drivers and they are placed in an order of pure, raw speed. Thanks for watch- Oh, what do you mean it is not over? Yes, despite being a hard track to make moves in, one still has to race. And one still has to hold on to the positions gained against those constantly looking to improve their own standing over the next two hours. Scenes were painted from dreadful to terrible as people predicted all sorts of mayhem and melee heading into the first couple of corners. Meanwhile, viewers at home started getting their last fill of snacks in, prepared a couple of refreshing beverages, and got themselves in a nice, comfortable position. It was time to go racing! At the front the two Musto GD teams continued from where they left off in qualifying. They were looking to put that proverbial boot on the throats of their opposition right from the get-go. However, it’s not like Burst, Triple A, or Rookie Monsters were planning to just roll over and turn blue. They were just too busy fighting among themselves to really pay attention! Despite it being a long event, the name of the game was not patience. Drivers went side by side from the more traditional passing zones like Druids all the way into the downright suicidal ones like Sheene Curve. And yet – a testament to the skill of our competitors – there was little in the way of incidents, and outright wrecks were almost completely avoided. Few door mirrors and a hurt ego or two were the most significant casualties of the early scraps, as drivers shuffled time and time again. In a pack like this, one mistake could mean four, five positions lost. A little too relaxed of a style means you are easy prey for the pack of wolves behind, while going too aggressive risks angering not only those around you but also the live stewards, who kept their eagle eyes glued to the proceedings. It was a pressure chamber, surely someone would soon crack…? Starting from the sixth place, EURONICS Gaming Team Razer tried their best to get themselves in the front. At lap 30, their day was about to go a whole lot worse, though, as a rather ambitious attempt on the Team Rookie Monsters car left them facing a drive-through for their troubles. But merely a massive fight for positions this event was not. There was an element of method to the madness, too, and one had to be as keen strategically as they were in the driving department. It was time for the crews to prepare for their one and hopefully only stop of the race. Who had managed to save a bit of fuel? Where was the gap in traffic, and what could be the most opportune of times to dive down the lane? The clicks of wheel guns and rushed footsteps echoed amidst the engines and squealing tyres as one team after another came in and did their mandatory service, starting drivers hurrying off their heated machines as they were subbed with a fresh pair of hands and eyes. Needless to say, they were unlikely to get a nice breather in – no, they were probably already prepared to take over from where their teammates left off. Doing the best job in the pit sequence was undoubtedly Burst Esport SimPlexity. Henningsen picked exactly the right time to come in and as Jesper Pedersen jumped behind the wheel and put in some blistering laps, he soon found himself at the front of the pack with clear road ahead. We have seen Burst being absolutely divine over on Endurance eRacing World Championship, and looks like they were not planning to be classified as also-rans here either. Triple A were chasing second in the trot, with Hany Alsabti putting the chase on the leading Lexus. Previous leaders Musto GD e-Sports were reduced to third place and Tiziano Brioni was starting to crack. His pace was simply not good enough, and little mistake here followed a mishap there. The gap ahead grew steadily, and by the time the drivers headed towards the final half an hour, the question was less if they could catch up and more if they could hold on! Mike Epps in the Simply Race Zansho Bentley was coming, and he was coming fast. With such a short track and the amount of cars squeezed onto the space, it is obvious that blue flags and lapped cars would eventually come into the picture. Backmarkers generally did a good job in getting out of the way, though, so neither of the third place contenders were too badly affected. So, Epps was able to catch up thanks largely to his raw pace. Brioni could soon see the winged B looming in his mirrors. Spectators were primed for a great battle, but instead the Italian went wide at the penultimate corner – Stirlings – and promptly found himself out of the champagne places. As for the other Musto GD entry? Well, the #98 held onto second place all the way up to the pit stops, but was relegated to fifth place for the second half of the race. There was little that Daniele Primavera could do, but they were still in a great points-scoring position. The qualifying pace is undoubtedly there, but the Musto boys would need to get their Porsche working over the race distance, too. So, with less than ten minutes on the clock, the battles raged on. Crowd was cheering not only for the Astons, Bentleys, and Maccas, but also for the #52 Pulse SimSport entry. With two local lads driving their hearts out for a top-10, it was looking good. However, a miscalculation with the fuel reared its ugly head in the minutes of the race, and as a result Myles Dixon had no choice but to dive into the lane. They were able to resume, but a 15th place is unlikely to feel more than a participation award at that point. Going back to front, there was another source of drama with just couple of laps remaining. Race control was investigating Hany Alsabti in the #762 Triple A Esports car, and if guilty, they would surely lose that second place to the charging Simply Race Zansho! Mike Epps was fast capturing the hearts of Britain. Sure, he had shown his pace behind the wheel of a real car before, yet in such a field there were few who expected Mike to be quite this impressive. Nobody could catch Jesper Pedersen and the Burst eSport SimPlexity Lexus. They were mighty impressive in the second hour of the race and played the strategy game just right. The praise from both Ewan O’Leary and Aidan Millward in the commentary booth was well deserved. Hany Alsabti brought the #762 Triple A home in second place, but with the threat of a penalty looming was looking a little unsure after the event. And as said, #370 Simply Race Zansho rounded out the podium. There were few that smiled brighter than Mike Epps, and no wonder! The Brit has a great future ahead of him, no doubt about that one. Thanks to all our sponsors for making this championship possible, and massive credit to Peter Munkholm for handling the broadcast with his trademark expertise. Credit is also due for our live stewards Jon F. Turell, Paw Lindegaard, and Nick Newcombe. We’ll see you in two weeks at Zolder for what will hopefully be yet another fantastic race! Read the full article