JRE #2517 — Taylor Sheridan

Taylor reveals they tried to put him on ADHD medication as a kid. He stopped taking it. "I was little lobotomized, right?" His parents said "fuck it, let him run around." A neighbor's kid in California got medicated and became completely flat — and Taylor remembers thinking: if my parents had known about those options, I would have ended up on drugs for sure. He had all the traits.

But, Taylor adds — if somebody wants you to pay attention to the history of Pop-Tarts, "it's not going in there. Physically can't do it." That's the superpower: find something you love and focus on it. The school system, both agree, is designed to do the opposite — to extract that energy out of kids and force them to sit still through boring material.

Joe brings up the Rockefeller origin of modern public education — the theory that it was founded as a means to create compliant workers and soldiers. The earlier you can start kids, the more you can program them. Taylor agrees, expanding into how this applies across ideologies — religion, political identity, pride curricula in schools. "If you get kids young enough, you can talk them into doing almost anything. That's why they have child suicide bombers. They don't try to get guys in their 40s with a family to strap a vest on."

This dovetails into the Yuri Bezmenov conversation — the 1984 KGB defector interview that has become a touchstone for understanding ideological subversion, foreign-funded NGOs, and the deliberate poisoning of academic patriotism over decades. Taylor agrees Russia has been doing this since the 60s; Qatar, China and others have joined since. "It benefits a lot of people in this country as well. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that really love division and they can profit off of it."

Conversation pivots to an Oregon ballot initiative — a substitute teacher and vegan moved from California to Portland and gathered 135,000 signatures to put an "anti-animal-cruelty" measure on the November ballot. The fine print would outlaw hunting, fishing, ranching, agriculture, and any killing of animals. Taylor laughs at the practical reality: there are 91 million cattle in the country. If you outlaw caring for them, the bulls smash fences, breed wild, kill people on highways, and within three decades you have 900 million.

This launches Taylor's explanation of why beef cannot really be industrialized. The closest version is Harris Ranch off the I-5 in California — a feed yard where cattle are concentrated for 90 to 150 days before slaughter. But that is an inefficient way. It's actually more efficient to farm than graze cattle. So you only want to graze cattle where you can't farm. Cattle are great at taking protein from poor protein sources and metabolizing it — graze them in rocky terrain with native grasses you can't till. Grass actually grows better when grazed.

The only point of true centralization is the packing house. Four major packers control over 90% of the beef industry. That is starting to change. COVID accidentally helped smaller farmers and ranchers find a path to market via small USDA-certified facilities that process 50 head a day rather than 800 an hour. Buyers can now go directly to ranchers.

Almost every one of Taylor's cowboys has a ranch management degree — Texas Tech, TCU, Texas A&M. Colorado State for veterinary. Third-generation cowboys go to school, come back, and earn around $3,000 a month — "couldn't be happier." Joe is amazed people gravitate toward that life despite the pay; Taylor explains that the freedom and the completeness of doing every task yourself is the appeal.

Joe asks how Taylor manages to run a giant ranch and "about 48 TV shows" simultaneously. The answer: continuity of crew. The core team is the same team that made Wind River with him on a shoestring budget. He remembers being on top of a mountain in northern Utah at 7 below zero with his first AD and his DP Ben Richardson, no producer in sight for a week. "I'm like, guys, we could just fuck off to Hawaii. Nobody would know for a while. We have their money. They don't know where we are. They're just trusting that we're going to make this movie. Which we did."

That same team then went to Yellowstone, Mayor of Kingstown, 1883, 1923, Lioness, Land Man. They promote from within — PAs become first ADs, camera operators become directors. Everyone understands "the way we do it," which Taylor describes as "so fucking efficient."

The next target: prop show-and-tells. "I need your permission to use which Bic lighter I'm going to use in this fucking scene. How about I just make the decision? And how about we use the same Bic lighter in all these fucking shows and I don't ever have to pick a Bic lighter again. How about that?" Typical TV shows prep for 12 weeks before filming. Taylor's team does it in four.

Joe observes that being on shows when they first start out is chaos — lots of network involvement, lots of bullshit. But once it gets going, the network eventually says "you guys know what you're doing, leave us alone." Taylor's edge is being there from the beginning with that authority already established. The result: no duds. Every show is good and addictive.

That conversation triggers a long detour into US dependence on petroleum and the political subtext of Land Man. "We're so completely dependent upon petroleum in every single aspect of our lives." Joe: best-case alternative is cold fusion, 30-40 years out. The Strait of Hormuz carries 40% of the world's oil supply — a strategic chess piece against China as much as against Iran.

The conversation about ideological subversion — Yuri Bezmenov, KGB-style demoralization of universities, foreign funding of NGOs — leads naturally into the homeless industrial complex. Los Angeles has spent $24 billion on the homeless problem, Taylor notes, and no one can account for it. When an audit was requested, Newsom vetoed it.

Joe shares the analysis of someone who broke down LA's homeless industry payroll — extraordinary salaries to the administrators. Taylor calls them "performative entrepreneurs": come up with a problem, pitch a Karen-style solution to government, take the money, never solve it, and if you accidentally do — find another problem.

That bleeds into broader political grift. Nancy Pelosi at roughly $400 million net worth on a $175K congressional salary — getting in on every IPO that her legislation enables, lying to reporters about it. The whole class of "super millionaire" public servants. Joe and Taylor both endorse term limits — 12 years max in Congress, two six-year terms in the Senate.

From there into COVID and Anthony Fauci. They discuss Tulsi Gabbard's final-act press conference as Director of National Intelligence, alleging Fauci lied to Congress and used US tax funds to fund gain-of-function research through EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan lab. Joe points out almost no mainstream outlet has touched it. Taylor: the head of an institute begging for a preemptive pardon when he hasn't been charged is a pretty good indicator a crime was committed.

Joe brings up Kary Mullis — inventor of PCR testing — and his statement that PCR was never meant to detect disease in a person, and that running enough cycles produces massive false positives. They estimate 80% false positives at COVID's peak. Taylor brings up The Dallas Buyers Club — the villain is essentially Fauci, who pushed AZT, a discontinued chemotherapy drug, on asymptomatic HIV-positive patients during the AIDS pandemic. "He used the exact same language about AZT as a medication for HIV that he used for the COVID vaccine."

The thread closes on California decline — the same governance critique applied to LA, San Francisco, Portland. "San Francisco was awesome 10 years ago. Just 10 years ago. It's unrecognizable now." Taylor invokes a Democratic former Montana governor (Steve Bullock) who told him the job of a governor is to be CEO of the state — infrastructure, tourism, safety. The job of a mayor is to be CEO of the city — keep the lights on, pick up the trash, put out fires. Anything more agenda-driven than that, you fail at the basics.

The fentanyl zombie discussion — the lethal dose next to a penny — leads into the broader opioid pipeline. Pain management centers in Florida that prescribed only pills, with a pharmacy next door that stocked Oxy and nothing else. The Sackler family that profited massively and never went to jail. Joe calls them real demons: "There's people that want to think demons live in hell, and that may or may not be real. Well, no. They're on Earth."

For a large percentage of people, one dose is good enough to get them off whatever they're on — alcohol, gambling, coke. Two doses is significantly better. Rick Perry, the former Republican governor of Texas — staunchly anti-drug his entire career — has made promoting ibogaine his life's mission after experiencing it himself. He knows many veterans who have done it. It is incredible for PTSD.

Taylor describes going to the White House with Rick Perry and Bryan Hubbard to push the initiative. They're trying to make it a "right to use" or "right to try" for addicted people, and more accessible to veterans. Trump's reaction: "What are you looking for? FDA approval? Let's do it." A week later they were at the White House and he was signing it.

The veterans testimonials: Marcus Luttrell (Lone Survivor), Dakota Meyer, Sean Ryan — a long list. Because these are right-wing-aligned, hyper-credentialed combat veterans coming forward, the political acceptance among conservative skeptics has been unusually fast. The kicker: there is no recreational use. "Boy, I can't wait to do that again" is never said. Everybody says "Holy shit, this sucked. I had diarrhea. I threw up. I felt horrified for 12 hours." It takes you through every aspect of your life like a movie review, including all the times you've hurt people seen from their perspective.

Joe's vision: if the same NGO grifters who profit from the homeless industrial complex could find a way to profit from ibogaine retreat centers instead, maybe that's a nice exit strategy that actually helps people.

The discussion of how Yellowstone romanticized hard work spills over into the broader appeal of self-reliance. Joe brings up Werner Herzog's documentary Happy People about trappers on the Taiga river in Siberia who trap and hunt and fish and have "zero mental illness." Taylor brings up Dick Proenneke — the man who turned his back on tedious 50-hour work weeks, moved to Alaska, built a cabin by hand at age 51 in the Twin Lakes area of Lake Clark National Park, and lived there for 30+ years, filming much of it with a Super 8 camera.

Joe then describes Heimo Korth — the subject of Vice Guide to Travel's Arctic Refuge episode (early Vice, when they were actually doing field journalism). Heimo lives near the Arctic Circle in a cabin since the 1970s — he never saw 9/11 on a TV. He hunts caribou and salmon, hangs the meat outside as a frozen freezer, and once had to shoot a grizzly that tried to steal his stash. He is grandfathered into a property notice that no one else can claim today.

The conversation pivots into Göbekli Tepe — 11,800-year-old stone structures in Turkey that a sheep herder kicked open in the 90s. They were intentionally buried by people who knew what they were doing. The implication: human civilization timelines keep getting older every time someone digs. The Bering Land Bridge crossing has now been pushed back to 22,000 years thanks to footprints in White Sands, New Mexico. "We're basing entire science on incredibly incomplete discoveries."

Taylor brings up the arrowheads from his childhood ranch — every time it rained, you could walk the half-mile trail to the stock tank and find four or five. His mother had a huge wicker basket full of them, some dated by the Fort Worth museum to thousands of years old. Was the spot a trading depot? How did they lose so many when each one took hours to flintknap?

Taylor describes the actual logistics of 19th-century migration. Most immigrants who came through New Orleans or Galveston were German or central European. They booked the entire trip through travel agencies in Europe before leaving. Mules, horses, wagons, guides — all arranged. Most had never ridden a horse or fired a gun. Most were heading to Oregon, whose climate most resembles central Europe. Many never got past Waco or Fort Worth. Dangers: rivers, sun exposure, disease, bandits. The 1880s era had less Native American threat but bandits "sure as fuck were a real issue because there's no rule of law."

1923 fascinated Taylor because of the collision of timelines — washing machines, refrigerators, telephones, electricity — but people still travel by horseback in Montana. Tim Dalton's villain on that show was so disturbing that Taylor's own wife gave him a serious side-eye: "How'd you think that shit up, dude?" His answer: in a place without rule of law, there are always people who have been getting away with awful things for decades, just waiting.

Joe and Taylor marvel at the eloquence of the journal and of WWII love letters — Taylor has letters from his B-19 bomber-pilot grandfather to his grandmother, "magnificent" in their literary quality. People in the 1800s spent one to three hours a day on letter writing — the equivalent of a modern email block. The deterioration of our ability to express ourselves is one of the strange byproducts of having every answer one tap away on a phone.

Writing Lioness has forced Taylor to live in the world of espionage and tradecraft. He explains the trade is more low-tech than people think — bribery and blackmail leveraging individuals is the dominant tool. But the high-tech moments are spectacular. He singles out Mossad's pager and cellphone operation as a masterpiece.

Then the Maduro raid (January 3rd operation). SF team dropped on a rooftop, neutralized the Cuban Special Forces, snatched Maduro and his wife, choppered out. No American casualties. The weapon that made it possible: "The Discombobulator" — a classified secret weapon system that Trump publicly named but refused to detail. "They press buttons. They claimed the defense forces pressed buttons and nothing worked, disabling both Russian and Chinese-made rockets and radar."

The deeper concern: what is four generations past this technology in the actual lab right now? Joe brings up UAPs — he believes much of what people see in the sky is American black project hardware, possibly involving novel propulsion systems that have been worked on quietly since the 50s and 60s anti-gravity research.

Eric Weinstein's argument is invoked — there is a university in upstate New York with an overqualified physics department connected to a hedge fund posting Madoff-scale returns. "The whole thing stinks to high heaven." Plus the cluster of 15 scientists who have died or disappeared over a few years. Their specialties: spacecraft metallurgy, cold fusion, burn-resistant high-strength alloys, rocket propulsion metals. One JPL materials director vanished while hiking in the Angeles National Forest — her friend turned around 30 seconds after talking to her and she was just gone. Cadaver dogs and search parties found nothing for a long time.

Then the absurd: a Vegas residence operated as a short-term Airbnb that turned out to be an unregistered biolab. 1,200 sample vials labeled dengue, HIV, malaria, plus roughly 1,000 mice. The FBI determined no community threat — based only on the labels, never tested the contents. Israeli citizen Ori Solomon was released; the only charge that stuck was illegal possession of a firearm because his immigration status precluded it.

Taylor's conclusion mirrors Joe's: the news cycle now floods so fast that any single bombshell becomes a "rose petal in a river" — instantly gone. In the 1990s, Nightline and Meet the Press would have spent weeks on a Chinese or Israeli espionage incident. Now it's just another headline tuned out. People stop caring because nothing ever gets done about any of it — they "throw their hands in the air and watch sports."

Taylor tells the story of Tom Nelson. Back in LA, Taylor and a buddy lived near a gym on Beverly Boulevard called "Buns on Beverly" — they jogged down there every day. A jacked, tattooed guy in his 40s started training there. They became friendly. He had just started working at the vitamin shop. Taylor asked his backstory. The answer: 17 years in prison. "I was a fucking criminal, dude. Biggest drug dealer in Hollywood, armed robbery, ran over a DEA agent."

Tom built up the biggest independent personal-training gym in Hollywood. Years later, during COVID, Taylor called him to buy gym equipment for his Montana ranch (the whole Yellowstone cast was stuck there). Tom's gym had been shut down. Taylor sent a flatbed to LA and bought his inventory.

Taylor flew Tom to Texas, got him into a doctor — fortunately the mass wasn't cancer. Then the harder question. "I could get you a job in a movie, but it doesn't pay very good, and the hours are shit, and you've got a 5-year-old daughter. To just be a production assistant is not going to pay enough — that's not a plan." Tom asked if Taylor could spot him for a few months. Taylor: "I have a 100% failure rate of loaning money to friends. I'm not a bank, and buying you 90 days isn't going to help. But let me think."

Taylor bought Lonely Planet guides to Thailand and Mexico to model the structure. Country overview, glossary, language, food, where you stay, navigating the country. Apply that template to prison: Day 1, navigating the yard, processing in, food, commissary, gangs, diseases, prison riots, how to get a job inside, "how to make a shiv, how to everything." Roughly 200 pages.

Taylor wrote the intros and the structure; Tom filled in everything else from lived experience. They got the first three chapters out — Simon & Schuster flipped and signed both of them. Tom could take care of his daughter while writing.

The underlying critique: an 80%+ recidivism rate in the US. The system is not designed to rehabilitate. "It's an institution that guarantees you're a criminal when you come out." Joe references The Alabama Solution documentary and the old Lockup series his roommate edited — Folsom, Corcoran. "Heartbreaking."

The episode closes on a quick UFC postmortem. Justin Gaethje vs Ilia Topuria at the White House — Gaethje was a 6:1 underdog. Joe had Gaethje on the podcast a few days after the fight; he says watching Gaethje live for the first time at a Vegas card convinced him "if he had decided to be a professional boxer, his striking is at that level."

Taylor: "It's shocking that he's that good a striker and he was a wrestler." Joe walks through the fight. Round 2 was brutal — Topuria was destroying Gaethje's liver, almost put him down. But even in round 2, Gaethje bloodied Topuria's face. Reports — Joe couldn't verify accuracy — said Topuria left the fight with two broken orbital bones and a broken nose. "Justin was here a couple days later and he looked great."

The signature shot: Gaethje's collar tie into an uppercut, the same move he used on Max Holloway ("Phys"). The third round, Gaethje dropped him, snatched him into a head-and-arm, slammed him to the canvas. "I was like, 'Holy shit, he's dominating him.'"

Both agree losses can be the most important thing that happens to a fighter — "you need to know that you're a human" and can't always rely on caution to the wind. Topuria will be back better than ever.

The atmosphere at the White House outdoor card: eight jets in a flyover separated by inches. Surreal. Taylor: "Should have been there live." Joe: "It was crazy to be there live. It just felt surreal." Episode out — and the book one more time: "How to Not Die in Prison. Available now, audio book, everything."