Interview With The Creator Of Homestead The Movie Jason Ross

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[00:01:25] All right. Welcome back to the Survival and Basic Badass Podcast with today. It's Jason and Chuck.

[00:01:32] I have Jason Ross, who is the creator of the new Homestead movie coming out. So Jason, I don't know.

[00:01:42] We're all kind of excited about it. I know it's been a long time. Everyone's always looking forward to

[00:01:47] like prepper movies and that. And nothing ever really ever lands or takes off. So I know this

[00:01:55] has been a long time coming. I've seen ads for it for forever, you know, back that you guys were kind

[00:02:01] of, you know, hinting at it and then kind of went away. And I'm like, yeah, that'll probably never

[00:02:05] happen. And then now it really seems to be a reality. So yeah, we've got a long time. We,

[00:02:12] this is a prepper movie by preppers for preppers and well, we've, we've, we've choked down a lot of

[00:02:19] Hollywood movies on preparedness and survival. I don't like. Yeah. Yeah. They're not the same.

[00:02:26] We actually, I, a lot of people were excited when that civil war movie came out and I think it ended

[00:02:32] up being a little less than what I was hoping for. I don't know, but that's all I'll say about that.

[00:02:38] But no, so I'm looking forward to this. So it comes from the Black Autumn books that you had

[00:02:45] written or co-written? Right. I co-wrote Black Autumn series with Jeff Kirkham, the 28 year Green

[00:02:51] Beret. And he and I also co-founded Ready Man, which Jeff is still writing. Nice. Now, so yeah,

[00:03:02] with that, like how long did it take you guys to put the book together and kind of come up with it?

[00:03:06] And like, how did, how did you even approach it? Like you guys were just friends with Ready Man or

[00:03:11] how'd it work out? Jeff was just coming back from, uh, 28 years as a Green Beret, um, working for the,

[00:03:19] working for the army than the state department. Um, and he was just wrapping up his career and,

[00:03:25] and wanting to dive into business. And, and, uh, we met through a mutual friend is, uh,

[00:03:30] a West coast team guy, um, sealed guy. And, uh, and then we kind of combined, uh,

[00:03:38] Ready Man, which is already up and running with Black Rifle Coffee, which was just getting started

[00:03:42] out of Evan's garage. So it was Evan Hay for Jeff Kirkham and I, and Jeff had been, um, doing some

[00:03:48] writing just to decompress in Afghanistan and it was pretty good. And so he and I decided, Hey,

[00:03:53] why don't we war game out? He called it war game, the apocalypse. Um, and like tell the story of what

[00:04:00] we think would be a black swan. So a totally unanticipated, unpredictable, unpredicted series

[00:04:07] of events that leads to, um, the crash of civil order. And so we, we like Jeff had spent, you know,

[00:04:14] they're almost 30 years in Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines. He'd spent like a long career,

[00:04:21] um, in places where the Lord already crashed. And he, until like, he, he is like, yeah,

[00:04:28] let's play that out. Let's see what would happen. What's, what's the best. Let's put him, let's,

[00:04:32] let's pull a story about the best possible preparedness situation, like the best possible

[00:04:37] preparedness community and the best possible spot with all the money in the world and have it go

[00:04:44] horribly, unpredictably wrong. That's, that's it. I mean, I think everybody's kind of,

[00:04:49] you know, we'll be thrown when things go bad. I mean, that's one of the things we always talk

[00:04:54] about. I'm like, Oh, you know, you like, like, you know, you had just asked me about, uh, you know,

[00:04:59] Helene here with Western North Carolina. I actually was at a prepper camp and they were doing a, uh,

[00:05:06] you know, I was giving a speech on, uh, EMPs and, and that kind of thing. And we're going out there

[00:05:13] in the middle of the hurricane and it's just, everybody's like, Oh, we're, we're like the most

[00:05:17] prepared people. You know, we're all here giving lectures on preparedness and, you know, you still

[00:05:22] come up with things like, Ooh, you know, I didn't have enough gas in my truck. I didn't think I'd be

[00:05:27] driving 150 miles in without, you know, uh, without a gas station, you know, just things always come up

[00:05:34] unexpected. And that's, that, that's yeah, that definitely people, you don't know what you don't

[00:05:41] know. Yeah. That's the thing. Like things come up unexpectedly and, you know, obviously gas is kind

[00:05:48] of a basic thing that you should have kind of handled if, but you know, things can always throw

[00:05:54] you a curve ball. There's always that one thing. Oh, well, I didn't do that. I'm normally on top of it,

[00:05:59] but it didn't. And yeah, looking at things from another angle, I like that, you know, kind of idea

[00:06:06] of it. Yeah. Statistically, you know, Jeff would say, yeah, let's say for example, war with Russia

[00:06:12] and an EMP is the most likely scenario here that would crash civilization. That still is probably

[00:06:18] only a 20% likelihood. 80% is everything else we haven't thought of yet. Right. Right. And even

[00:06:25] that. Yeah. I mean, it, you know, who knows, you know, you don't know what could happen. I mean,

[00:06:30] I think honestly, the more likely, although this last week things have kind of leaned towards the

[00:06:35] Russia thing, but you know, in general, I mean, I think really a slow decline where, you know,

[00:06:43] we have ridiculous inflation and things are getting away from us and things just get really hard,

[00:06:49] you know, is almost, you know, more likely at the moment. But then again, this last week with

[00:06:54] long range missiles from Ukraine and whatever, Putin doesn't seem excited about that.

[00:07:00] And that doesn't seem like, you know, the guy I'd want to put in a corner, you know, but.

[00:07:05] And whoever thought it would be the Dems launching long range missiles into Russia, you know, like.

[00:07:10] Whoa, we're on the way out. Let's do something completely opposite of, yeah.

[00:07:15] We grew up with them in the party of peace and getting us out of war. Now what the heck are we doing?

[00:07:21] But it just goes to show you can't, you can't predict, you can't predict anything. For the movie,

[00:07:27] as we wrote the screenplay for the Homestead movie, kind of one of our mantras was nobody gets the

[00:07:34] apocalypse they ordered. Not the preacher, not the military guy, not the gardener, not the prepper.

[00:07:41] Nobody gets the apocalypse they order. Everybody gets caught on the back foot.

[00:07:45] I find it all concerning, you know, because it always is something different. And I think,

[00:07:50] you know, as we all discover, you know, doing the whole prepper thing is it's really being able to

[00:07:57] adapt, you know, being able to change and figure out, you know, knowledge really is the key because

[00:08:04] the amount of preparedness junk that you buy, you know, and not that it's junk. I mean, certain

[00:08:09] things will make things a lot better, obviously. I mean, you know, having, gee, having a big solar

[00:08:14] setup, that's going to make a big difference. Having a way to get clean water going to make a big

[00:08:18] difference. All those are true, but it's how can you adapt and, you know, come up with the things

[00:08:24] that you forgot you didn't get, or they got damaged and destroyed, you know, maybe something, some pests

[00:08:30] come into your garden and destroy your setup or, you know, whatever, you know, somebody comes in and

[00:08:36] take something from you, you know, anything can throw you a curve. How close is, uh, is this movie

[00:08:43] like based to the, the book? Like, is it a new thing altogether or is it really coming off of

[00:08:51] the, uh, you know, that Black Autumn books?

[00:08:55] Definitely comes off the first novel, Black Autumn. So, but the entire first season. So the movie is,

[00:09:03] uh, is a kickoff to a television series. So we've filmed both a two hour feature film that'll be in

[00:09:09] theaters this, this Christmas week. It'll go into theaters this Christmas week and then we'll

[00:09:14] continue on the Angel Studios streaming app. Immediately upon watching the film, if you're in

[00:09:21] the theaters on December 20th, you watch the film when it releases, you can go home and continue

[00:09:27] watching, um, the television show that picks off right where the movie leaves off. So it's actually,

[00:09:33] it's actually, um, a film, a television show, and then a live unscripted show. So because we're all

[00:09:40] preppers and because we, we, um, have integrated and we practice everything that you see on the movie

[00:09:47] and on the TV show, we actually did a show about how did we learn this and how do you do it? Like

[00:09:53] that could be, uh, that would be, uh, uh, uh, gardening irrigation systems, solar systems, uh,

[00:10:04] what plants they're growing to feed that, uh, feed the crew. We practiced all of that and we practice

[00:10:11] all of that on the homestead where we're filming. So we're, uh, with, so there's a, uh, uh, the feature

[00:10:17] film that comes out this Christmas week, the 20th of December on feature, uh, in theaters.

[00:10:23] That pours straight over into the television show that you can then go watch, which is the entire

[00:10:29] Black Autumn story. So there'll be roughly 10 episodes. If you call the, the, the theatrical

[00:10:35] two so-called nine episodes, nine episodes, it'll take you from beginning of the Black Autumn story

[00:10:41] to the end. And we added quite a bit of story to Black Autumn. So it's more than is in the book,

[00:10:48] but it does track with the novel.

[00:10:50] Nice. Now that's the, well, the novel's awesome. So, you know, I, I downloaded it pretty much right

[00:10:56] when it came out and was just like, oh yeah, this is awesome. And you know, whatever. And then I

[00:11:01] stumbled in, uh, one of them, it wasn't obvious to me that it was like the same theme and whatever,

[00:11:09] you know, originally like, uh, Conquistadors or something. One of the, you know, there, there's

[00:11:14] travelers and Conquistadors. That's right. And yeah, one of them, yeah, I wasn't even whatever.

[00:11:19] And I was like, oh, that's the same, you know, and kind of put it together. I just, I don't know,

[00:11:23] stuff pops up and I'm like, oh yeah, download that. Check out that book. Check out that. Always

[00:11:28] see what's new and exciting out there. But no, that's, that's awesome that it follows. So pretty

[00:11:33] much right away though, after the movie, the TV series is going to be right there, like,

[00:11:38] or at least an episode or we just felt finished filming two episodes. So, and I've just seen,

[00:11:44] I just saw the rough cut of the first episode last week. So yes, it, it'll, there'll be two

[00:11:51] episodes available December 20th or straight over. And then we'll finish that season. We'll

[00:11:57] finish filming that season early next summer. Nice. So that's, yeah, no, that's usually,

[00:12:03] I feel like we're always waiting for things. That's what always kills me with books that,

[00:12:07] you know, if there's like yours, you get closure at the end of the, the black autumn book,

[00:12:11] but when it's like a three part series or whatever, and you know, whatever I I'm like,

[00:12:17] I can't wait six months, a year. I was trying like put off. I'm not going to listen to the first book

[00:12:22] till I'm like ready or else I find myself going back and listening to the first book again,

[00:12:28] just to kind of be on page with. So yeah, no, that's awesome that you have the follow-up right

[00:12:33] away. So I was going to ask you the follow-up here with, uh, you said the homestead. So now

[00:12:40] you actually have like the homestead that, that the movies kind of set in, right. That the theme is

[00:12:47] set there. What, uh, how'd you put that together? Like mentally, like what brought you to do, Hey,

[00:12:55] I'm going to make a big off-grid compound or, or at least home settings, you know,

[00:12:59] off-grid, uh, set up. What brought you to that? Um, I, I had always been into preparedness.

[00:13:08] I think I wrote, I wrote an article for American survival guide. You remember that old magazine?

[00:13:14] Yeah, I've seen it. Yeah. When I was, I think I wrote my first article when I was 17 years old.

[00:13:20] Um, and, uh, and wrote a bunch after that, my dad was a prepper in Southern California. And so, um,

[00:13:30] preparedness, food storage, gardening, hunting, certainly tactical training has always been,

[00:13:35] um, since I was a kid, boy scout, something I love to do. Um, so when I, when I set up,

[00:13:42] when I was able to get a few hundred acres of mountain land in the Rockies, then I really

[00:13:47] got serious about building it out, um, in terms of gardening. And then in the last six or five or

[00:13:55] six years, six or seven years, um, got really into permaculture. So gardening, um, not only with

[00:14:02] annuals, but with perennials, uh, fruit trees, berries, uh, perennial food plants. Yeah. I mean,

[00:14:10] that's, you know, perennials that, uh, keep going, you know, forever. That's just, you know,

[00:14:15] I mean, nut and fruit trees that just produce without you doing work every year is, is the dream.

[00:14:22] I think of course they always seem to take so long to get established and whatever. It can be a little

[00:14:28] frustrating, I guess, start early. Right. That's one of the things I think a lot of people have the

[00:14:35] plan. Oh, well, when the world ends, I'll just grow a garden in my backyard. And it's like every year,

[00:14:42] it seems like you run into new obstacles and obviously we get better every year with gardening

[00:14:48] and whatever, but you know, one year you might have some, you know, insect that comes and destroys

[00:14:54] your stuff. And, you know, maybe it's a groundhogs, you know, one year that find a way to get in and

[00:15:00] destroy stuff or deer or whatever. And you always learn the tricks, but it's, it's kind of one of those

[00:15:05] things. The more you do it, the better it, you know, the better your outcome every year. And I feel

[00:15:12] like if gardening is your goal and whatever you need to kind of, if that's your plan for long-term

[00:15:20] survival, you need to kind of get your hand in it as much as you can beforehand. It's kind of like

[00:15:28] that with everything. I mean, with fire starters, with gardening, with, with baking bread, with

[00:15:33] canning, I mean, every, that, and that's kind of like, isn't that what makes this so much fun?

[00:15:39] I mean, yeah, we prepare to be prepared, but it's, it's what, what we don't talk about a lot is how

[00:15:45] much stinking fun it is. Um, because we're all cracking the code on some new mystery around aphids or,

[00:15:53] or permaculture or like making my wood ovens work, right? Um, every single thing I break out of the

[00:16:01] box and go learn no matter what it is, whether it's wilderness survival or if it's like, uh, uh,

[00:16:08] baking bread in an oven or it's always an eye opener. It's always a fun code. And every time I learn one

[00:16:17] thing, I'm, I'm, I'm getting a leg up on all of these other skills as well. So yeah, it's just this

[00:16:24] opportunity to be a Renaissance man or woman and learn so much fun. Yeah, no, I think, I think that,

[00:16:32] that is, is part of the whole thing. I, uh, I actually got in, uh, prepping and like started all

[00:16:40] this, I was in the Navy and, uh, we were over, uh, in Kosovo when we were dealing with, with all that.

[00:16:47] So a million years ago, and, uh, it was like 98, 99, something like that. And, uh, former Yugoslavia

[00:16:54] and, uh, just seeing these people who had been there for so long and their lives just completely

[00:17:02] disrupted and Hey, you need to move and whatever, and unable to, you know, really defend themselves

[00:17:08] and all types of, you know, crazy world. It kind of made me realize how fragile things can really be.

[00:17:16] And I know they're not, you know, we haven't really seen that in America in quite a while.

[00:17:21] And that's, you know, one of the things every, you know, I know in your book, you kind of touch

[00:17:26] on that in the beginning is, you know, as since the depression, you know, we haven't had these big

[00:17:31] disruptions and even that wasn't, you know, the end of the world that some people, you know, see and

[00:17:37] whatever, but it's happening in other countries and throughout history that people keep having,

[00:17:43] you know, their lives disrupted and shaped and, you know, changed and one being able to adapt.

[00:17:51] But my whole thing, you know, the theme has been, I want to have preparedness. So I'm not operating

[00:17:57] out of fear, you know, or desperation, you know, people say, Oh, you're, you know, you're prepping,

[00:18:02] you're a hoarder, you're taking it away from the rest of us. But no, I got mine. So that now I

[00:18:08] don't have to panic and whatever. And also, I'm hopefully in a position to help other people,

[00:18:13] you know, to, to build on that.

[00:18:17] Those are some of the, those are the big questions that we raise in the book and in the film.

[00:18:23] Um, we're, we're also operating, um, asking like one of the themes we'd reflect back to as we were

[00:18:30] screenwriting is what does it look like to prepare to share? Um, because Jeff Kirk on how traveled the

[00:18:37] world, he said, look, the best weapon you can possibly have in, in a, in a time of civil disorder

[00:18:44] is a thriving community and influence all around. Yeah. Maybe you've got 200 or so, which is kind of

[00:18:53] his magic number right around you. But then what about the 2000 that are in the neighborhoods around

[00:18:58] you? If you can prepare to share, um, that, that is a heck of a weapon. He saw that in Afghanistan and

[00:19:06] those communities in Haiti, in Iraq. So he, his focus has always been, how do we build a big enough

[00:19:13] community that we're resilient? Um, and how do we prepare to share stuff, stuff like wheat is super

[00:19:20] cheap to buy, um, a little tough to store in your neck of the woods. Mine were much drier here.

[00:19:27] Yeah, it's different, right? We can, we're, we're, because of how dry it is, it's pretty easy to store

[00:19:32] large amounts of wheat, but also to grow food way beyond what you and your immediate community would

[00:19:38] require, um, have enough water to share, have enough water purification to share. So our, our,

[00:19:45] and we see this play out in the story where in the, this ultra prepared homestead, this rich man's

[00:19:53] homestead, because in the story, it's like the rich man has built this amazing homestead and then

[00:19:59] he's hired special operation forces, veterans to come and run it. And the question immediately rises,

[00:20:05] like who's in charge because the dude's money worth anything anymore. Everybody's got their family

[00:20:11] there and, and who the heck calls the shots? Because you know, the, who's signing the paycheck

[00:20:19] doesn't matter anymore. And so these two guys immediately find themselves in conflict. Plus the,

[00:20:27] plus you, we don't think about this a lot, but we see this in the homestead movie.

[00:20:32] You don't know if it's really down, like this society going to come ripping back and then you're

[00:20:38] going to go to prison for some of the things you decided to do, or you're going to deal with,

[00:20:42] you know, there were a hundred people at your gate and you told them all, no, you told them all to

[00:20:46] pound sand. And then you have to go back into life with those people, right? Do business and go to

[00:20:52] church with those people. You know, how's that going to fly? And, uh, but, but the big question is,

[00:20:58] uh, like throughout the movie, some people believe FEMA is right around the corner going to come save

[00:21:03] them all. Some people believe the power's going to come back on and there's no way to know if that's

[00:21:09] really the truth. There's no communications so they can snatch little bits of information or

[00:21:14] disinformation on shortwave. How the heck do they know if next week and then the police show up and

[00:21:20] the police are like asking for some pretty hairy things and the city, do you, do you shoot them?

[00:21:28] You're going to like, you're going to like hot rocks at cops, you know, at what point, you know, this is

[00:21:34] two weeks after the power went out at what point you do that? Like if ever, and, um, at what point,

[00:21:43] what level of force are you willing to bring? And then, you know, they're running into total problems

[00:21:48] with hunters who are playing rifles at perimeter guards because they're hunting and they don't

[00:21:53] have binos. What the heck do you do? Um, how do you make these decisions in, um, a collapse that's

[00:22:02] pretty opaque, which that's kind of what they've seen around the world. That's what Jeff pointed to.

[00:22:08] You don't know that, Hey, power's going to be down for 18 months or power's going to be down for 18 days.

[00:22:15] And then, then we're going to have society back. You don't know any of that plan to not know that

[00:22:21] would be the best day. That's one of the big reasons I, I appreciate all the different, you know,

[00:22:30] prepper novels and stuff out there and kind of consider everything. Cause it's, you see a million

[00:22:36] different ways it could play out and a million different things you didn't think to consider,

[00:22:43] you know, that that's the big, you know, Oh, I didn't think, you know, that we'd have that. And

[00:22:49] that's exactly, you know, I, I, I think that's one of the hardest things is you have law enforcement

[00:22:55] that might be like, Hey, I'm the sheriff and I'm going to come take stuff. And you want to, in a way,

[00:23:02] help out the community. And then on the flip side, you know, you don't know where it's the guy just kind

[00:23:07] of being greedy for his own thing. People are people, you know, that's, you know, people always

[00:23:12] used to ask me, Oh, well, people in the military, they're better or whatever, as far as, and it's,

[00:23:17] no, it's a mix of people, you know? And I feel that way about cops. It's a mix of people. There's great

[00:23:22] ones. And, and you just don't know what you're going to get. You know, some people are just getting

[00:23:28] a paycheck and that's, you know, and, and then how do you decide what's right? And like you said,

[00:23:35] the long-term consequence of what comes back after is, you know, you don't know, like you said,

[00:23:43] is it, is it going to end next week? And this is just a short time down. And then there's severe

[00:23:48] consequences. We'd ask, is this, and they, the characters ask, is this killer be killed? Is that

[00:23:55] what's going on here? Uh, and the, and the wife of the kind of rich prepper guy, she asks him, and this

[00:24:01] became kind of like our fundamental question, is this an ark or is this a fortress? And it's a dang

[00:24:10] good question, especially if you're a, like a church going Christian or a believing Christian,

[00:24:15] what, what do you call upon to do given your faith? Like just protect your family and that's it.

[00:24:21] Or is there more or, you know, and, and she's asking a lot of questions about this character,

[00:24:28] about what's God doing here? Like what's the play, um, as a person of faith. And then you have,

[00:24:37] you know, the vast majority of the community are not people of faith. They're not, not people of

[00:24:42] faith necessarily. They just have spent their lives doing something else. And everybody has a different

[00:24:47] deal. Like you have the whole, the whole, they have a big medical group, nurses, doctors, pharmacists,

[00:24:53] whatever. And all those guys are anti-gun. So here there's, this is the anti-firearm people

[00:25:01] cohabitating, um, with, um, military and gun people alongside people who just don't know,

[00:25:10] who are still counting on the government to come save them. This is the, would be a typical survival

[00:25:14] community. You will not get a bunch of people who are lockstep, um, that believe it's going to go

[00:25:20] the same way. No, not at all. And, and that's, that's one of the things, you know, it's like, oh,

[00:25:26] well, maybe I have a well and things go and I'm happy to be the, you know, Hey, I can give everybody

[00:25:32] buckets of water. It's not going to cost me anything. But when you open yourself up as, Hey,

[00:25:38] look, I have all these resources here. I'm established and organized. You're opening, you know,

[00:25:44] people will be like, gee, if I didn't have to walk a mile to go get a gallon of water,

[00:25:48] it'd be a lot cooler than, you know, if I just go take over your place and you don't know, do you

[00:25:53] turn away people? I mean, honestly, it's one of the things we're seeing play out on the national

[00:25:58] level with, you know, how many people do we let into the country, you know, cause what can we

[00:26:03] absorb without destroying what we have to where we have nothing. And I think that's really what

[00:26:10] happens with your kind of prepper compound is how many people can we take in and help

[00:26:15] or give out things without having, you know, catastrophic consequences, I guess, where all

[00:26:22] of a sudden we basically have nothing, you know, because you can only sustain so much. And, you know,

[00:26:29] you mentioned the 200 number, you know, it's, it really depends, you know, what you have to,

[00:26:33] to work with. One of the big things I've seen in other novels is that kind of deal with it earlier

[00:26:41] on where the guy had been in the community for a long time, but working with the community, you know,

[00:26:48] talking to the local sheriff or whatever, getting to know people, maybe it's, you know, the town

[00:26:53] supervisor or whatever, but kind of having a plan early on, you know, talking with the fire department,

[00:26:59] do you guys have stuff for your, you know, your generators and things? Would we be able to,

[00:27:05] you know, the more you communicate and set things up on the bigger scale, because people are so worried

[00:27:11] about prepping for themselves that, you know, you do end up where you can just kind of be overrun and

[00:27:19] somebody come take it all away from you. But if you can create an environment where everybody's a

[00:27:24] little bit more prepared and less desperate, you're definitely putting yourself in a better situation.

[00:27:31] Yeah. Since we, since we wrote Black Autumn, we published in 2018,

[00:27:36] the neighborhood, we've done a lot to support the neighborhood around the actual homestead,

[00:27:44] these 500 homes to prepare. So we have maybe double as much

[00:27:53] food storage in the basements of our neighbors as we have here. But that took a lot of work,

[00:28:00] you know, that was a lot of coordinating with local churches, because we'd go and say,

[00:28:05] hey, we can buy a, we can buy an entire semi load of wheat, or we can buy half a semi load of beans,

[00:28:14] depending on what's available in the harvest season, what's like, and lot,

[00:28:18] because we're here in an agricultural band. We could, we picked up beans, sugar,

[00:28:25] certainly wheat, and then bucketed it as a neighborhood. And then, and, and to your point,

[00:28:33] we've actually coordinated with churches. Now, when it comes to like the local city,

[00:28:38] in the, in the movie, right away, you've got some bureaucrat, like coming in and probing

[00:28:46] to find out, because he's looking at it, you know, his family's hungry, and he's looking at

[00:28:55] his position as a bureaucrat and accounting his, as a way to feed his family. And so he's showing up

[00:29:03] and saying, hey, you're running water, and these aren't your watering days. And hey, I'm noticing you

[00:29:08] don't have permits for this gathering. Hey, I'm noticing you're not paying taxes.

[00:29:14] And then the question is, why would I pay taxes? There are no services.

[00:29:18] Right.

[00:29:19] Nobody's answering the phone. And, and then it starts getting hairier and hairier,

[00:29:25] because that guy, can he put together, can he put together a SWAT team?

[00:29:30] You know, so the questions like that are being raised. And at what point you,

[00:29:38] you know, you can say no. But then at what point are you going to be forced to back that up?

[00:29:46] And to what degree? So we get to play with all of these questions. And all of this without them

[00:29:55] really knowing what's happened in the world, like that this community doesn't know what's going on

[00:30:02] on the West Coast or the East Coast. They've only heard rumors first couple days, and that was about

[00:30:07] it. So what's gonna, where's this all going? I think you had a plan to not know when people ask me,

[00:30:14] what's, what do you, how do you think, you know, society could end? What do you think is the most

[00:30:20] likely? My answer is, I don't really care. I mean, my, my approach is to remain very resilient

[00:30:27] in the face of all possibilities. Yeah. And great time doing it with friends, family and my children.

[00:30:37] And then don't worry about it. Yeah.

[00:30:40] Roll with the punches.

[00:30:42] Yeah, no, that, that sounds right. I mean, that, that's one of the things is to me, preparedness is,

[00:30:49] you know, being a prepper, it's all about how am I going to be self-reliant where I don't need

[00:30:54] things from the outside. And that protects you from 90% of the things that, you know, come up is,

[00:31:02] you know, a financial collapse or a hurricane or anything else. If I produce and can sustain

[00:31:09] everything locally and don't need outside stuff to keep going on, that really is preparedness. I mean,

[00:31:18] that's the only thing you can do, you know, in most ways. Now, does that involve security? Does that

[00:31:26] involve, you know, all these other things, you know, it's like, yeah, I have the awesome garden

[00:31:30] and water and well and everything, but somebody can just come take it away from me. That matters,

[00:31:35] you know, and that's, you know, you address that early on, bring it in a soldier, you know,

[00:31:39] the hired guns right away. But that's something people need to be aware of, but also, you know,

[00:31:48] knowing your neighbors and getting to know, you know, like you said, the 500 houses around you,

[00:31:53] and you definitely, that's, you know, addressed in the book and you kind of have ways of maybe

[00:32:00] encouraging the neighbors to support you that come out in the book and that kind of stuff,

[00:32:04] you know, to, to win hearts and minds, right? That's the big thing. I think it is awesome,

[00:32:10] like Green Berets and Rangers and, and do so much of that, you know, winning people over and,

[00:32:18] and establishing, you know, organizing the people that take care of themselves. That's something

[00:32:23] people don't really maybe realize that our military does, you know, where you're kind of

[00:32:28] organizing and coordinating with people. I mean, I know it is more of the special forces guys,

[00:32:33] but rather than maybe always be in the SEAL team kind of thing, like people see in their mind,

[00:32:39] I think there is so much of that putting together organ, sorry, putting together maybe militias,

[00:32:45] armies, however you want to put it, and establishing allies in the community and working

[00:32:51] together and utilizing those resources. I think it matters and understanding that and being

[00:32:58] able to apply that kind of to your prepper situation is awesome. You know, that, that's such a big part

[00:33:05] that people don't, you know, think of, you know, outside, even if you have like a mutual assistance

[00:33:10] group, which is basically what your compound, you know, is that homestead, but just the same also

[00:33:16] organizing and working with the community around and having a plan for that seems like a really great

[00:33:23] option and asset that you could add to your prepping. Yeah, we think of, we think of, of, of defending

[00:33:31] ourselves with the firearms, like direct action missions. And certainly it could come to that.

[00:33:38] And in the book you see, or in the movie as well, you see Jeff Erickson, this SF guy, he organizes a

[00:33:47] QRF of all of his pipe hitters and, and a couple of people from the community who are firearm capable,

[00:33:54] but then everybody else and the neighborhood, they're the perimeter and they do 20 times more

[00:34:02] work than a QRF. And then the, the quick reaction force, or in his case, he has like four quick

[00:34:08] reaction forces. They're just there to respond to an incursion or something that might go hot,

[00:34:16] or that's already gone hot. And, um, so we think about, we think about like a direct action

[00:34:24] role for firearms, like actually engaging as, um, and another thing Jeff taught me, which is the math

[00:34:32] is really crappy on, on self-defense with firearms. In other words, you need a lot of people because,

[00:34:39] you know, like, Oh, I've got a mutual assistance group of 10 people. You're like, when are you going to

[00:34:43] sleep? You know, you've got a 360 degree threat radius. And maybe if you're up against a mountain,

[00:34:49] you have less than that. Maybe. Um, how many guys does it take to actually keep an eyeball on that?

[00:34:56] And then when do they sleep? When do they eat? When do they, and then you start running the math,

[00:35:01] you're like, Oh, it takes a lot of people to do that. Um, and in the military, they won't let them

[00:35:07] sit, they won't let a guy, how long would they, how long would they allow say, um, for you and

[00:35:13] Yugoslavia to be on a guard post at any one time? What is it? 90 minutes?

[00:35:19] Yeah. No, when you're, when you're out being alert, right. It's yeah, no, it's short. Cause you can't

[00:35:25] keep that kind of attention that really matters. You know, that, yeah, you can stand it, you know,

[00:35:31] a, a quarter deck or something on a ship for four hours. Cause you're standing there and prepared.

[00:35:36] But when you're a watch, yeah, no, that's, that's a different game altogether.

[00:35:41] That math is like, Oh, you have six couples that are all like, good luck with that. You need

[00:35:49] dozens and dozens of people, um, on perimeter rotating to have any modicum of safety.

[00:35:56] Um, and then feeding and supporting them, you know, at the same time, you know, obviously food

[00:36:02] supplies don't go on forever. And like you said, you can do pretty great with your wheat. I'll give

[00:36:07] you that. But yeah, the rest of us, you know, that can be tough to store stuff long-term. And,

[00:36:13] you know, I mean, I guess there is mylar bags and things can be prepared, but you can, it's tough

[00:36:20] to have a long sustainable food supply. And, you know, everybody always thinks, you know,

[00:36:25] about hunting or whatever. And obviously that goes away pretty quick when everybody has that same

[00:36:30] plan, you know, the, the deer dry up, uh, pretty fast, you know, everyone's like, Hey, I know how

[00:36:36] to hunt and there's squirrels and rabbits and whatever. And yeah, there is today, but you know,

[00:36:41] who knows what the future holds. So they come down to like a church and neighborhood, you know,

[00:36:48] um, a large mutual assistance group, but, um, really the neighborhood's the most sustainable.

[00:36:54] And unfortunately as like capable people, we don't always tend to be the most get along

[00:37:01] people. Again, you see this big time in the movie because you've got, you've got the soft

[00:37:07] guys who are really great at getting along with each other. They're terrible with everybody

[00:37:14] else. They're always going after the dude's wives and they're like, they're a mess. And

[00:37:19] some of them are just straight up aggressive and they just want to get their gun on, you

[00:37:23] know? Um, yeah. And then you have Jeff Erickson, who's like just barely out of, out of combat.

[00:37:31] Um, and he's barely getting along. I mean, he can barely get along with his wife and kids.

[00:37:36] Um, he's dealing with stuff. So it's complicated. I, I, and we've come to find out as we've messed

[00:37:44] around in this, that the psychological issues are crippling, um, in, um, a survival group situation

[00:37:54] and have to be dealt with. They have to be, can't be swept under the rug. You know, we have in this,

[00:38:01] with this, these two episodes, we just shot, we have a therapist show up at the door. Her husband

[00:38:05] was invited cause he's an engineer, but she's the one who goes to work, work. Like they need her more

[00:38:11] than anybody. Cause they've got now it's three weeks, I think into the power going out and they

[00:38:17] have heard of their perimeter centuries, third of their people in bed. So mega depressed or author

[00:38:24] meds for one thing, cause there's no more meds. And for another, they're facing the complete loss of

[00:38:30] everything they ever had. Like the whole nation is gone and they're trying to figure out who they are

[00:38:38] in this new world. They're cripplingly depressed or bipolar or what schizophrenic. And now they not

[00:38:46] only are they having a hard time getting people to just sit on perimeter duty, they're having a rough

[00:38:52] time keeping people from offing themselves. And she's like underwater, this therapist, and, um,

[00:39:00] she's being forced to ask and answer all sorts of questions she never did before. So like who in

[00:39:09] your, who's gonna like be good with that? The statistics on, on, on, um, psychotropic or mind

[00:39:18] altering drugs that we use in America, antidepressants, the statistics are harrowing. It's like, yeah,

[00:39:25] you know it or not, probably a quarter to a third, at least of your mutual assistant is going to be

[00:39:32] on, is going to be on meds. Yeah. That's crazy. Right. They go away. And you know, to your point

[00:39:39] earlier, when you bring military people, they have, I would say, cause I, I mean, I see it where I

[00:39:46] work and whatever I worked for, uh, an engine manufacturing place, but, uh, so it's guys in a lot are from the

[00:39:54] military that, that I deal with, but it's a different mindset of, you know, things matter

[00:40:01] when you do them and accountability and, and urgency and, and stuff like that. You have that mindset of,

[00:40:09] you know, everything matters. Whereas a lot of, you know, people coming from other traditional jobs,

[00:40:14] whatever they, you know, Oh, if I show up 10 minutes late, it doesn't matter. It's not a big deal.

[00:40:20] And you have that clash of minds. I mean, I even see it. I'm from New York and I moved down to,

[00:40:27] I'm in North Carolina and just the change of culture of mindset and pace and handling things

[00:40:34] is very different. And you bring those worlds together at different people. And like I said,

[00:40:40] it's, you know, obviously going to be more of an issue of, you know, military types to civilian types.

[00:40:46] And, you know, that mindset, I mean, definitely, I mean, I'm sure my family can tell you that there's

[00:40:52] a lot more, you know, accountability and, and things that military guys put out of, you know,

[00:40:59] we need to do this, this matters and whatever. So yeah, clashing worlds. And like you said,

[00:41:04] medication, both just regular health wise, but mental health is, you know, falls apart. And people

[00:41:11] don't realize, like you said, how many people are on medication and how do you deal with it? When

[00:41:16] somebody's completely a psycho kind of thing, you know, you have, you know, more dramatic bipolar

[00:41:22] stuff or whatever going on. What do you do with those people? Can you allow them to stay at all?

[00:41:29] You know, these are the hard questions that come up and kind of get crazy.

[00:41:35] Yeah. So we thought, you know, with creating this show by preparedness, by homesteading people for

[00:41:43] preparedness, homesteading people, we could tell, we could tell this whole story with all of the

[00:41:51] fascinating drama that a lot of this, nobody has ever seen a lot of what we're talking about. No one's

[00:41:56] ever seen that in the last of us or, uh, you know, in, in, uh, well, the walking dead or any of the

[00:42:07] shows, Hollywood's thrown at us. There's so many interesting questions to deal with, uh, that,

[00:42:15] that when it came to making a movie about it, um, with some experience in, um, preparedness and

[00:42:23] mutual assistance groups and civil disorder around the world, you know, the question was, wow, what

[00:42:29] stories can we tell that no one's ever seen before? Um, and I think we, uh, you haven't seen the movie

[00:42:36] yet, Chuck? No, I have not. Okay. You know, it's lousy though. I'm part of that, uh, the angel, uh,

[00:42:43] this stuff there, I, I like sponsored some other movies in the past and done stuff. So they sent me a

[00:42:49] thing and they were like, Oh, you can check it out. And, uh, and then the link didn't work. And I was

[00:42:54] like, Oh, and they were like, Oh, it's good for 24 hours or something. And then it didn't work out.

[00:42:59] You were looking at the rough cut of the movie.

[00:43:02] We have the TV shows now up on angel. Um, cause they're giving watches early cuts. Like we probably

[00:43:10] put up seven different cuts of the movie and then got and found out what people wanted more of,

[00:43:18] um, what they, for example, we showed the movie and people came back and said, we'd like to see

[00:43:22] more of what happens in the world. So we went back to like six new scenes in the collapsing world and

[00:43:29] added them to the movie. So yeah, that's angel. They're, they're really, really good at, um,

[00:43:34] reaching out to their audience and asking them what they would like.

[00:43:39] Yeah, no, it's, it's an exciting thing. I mean, I, I gotta say that, you know, having a studio

[00:43:44] that's putting out things that are more in line with what people want, especially as, or people

[00:43:51] like me, Juan, how about that? Especially when the rest of the world is like going another way.

[00:43:56] And, and it feels like Hollywood is kind of dictating what, you know, people want, whether,

[00:44:02] you know, and we kind of go along cause we're not making movies and it's been like impossible

[00:44:07] for people to kind of crack into it. And it is pretty impressive how far they've gotten,

[00:44:14] you know, with, cause nobody else has really been able to do it, you know, the way that I've,

[00:44:19] I haven't seen it, you know, at this level there.

[00:44:23] Red state elects president. So we're more than half. And, uh, to tell the stories, um, that are

[00:44:31] faith adjacent, that are, um, capable, competent people about capable, competent people, um,

[00:44:39] to tell those sorts of stories that Hollywood has sort of looked away from. We've seen Taylor

[00:44:43] kind of, kind of glance off that with yellows, 18, 83, 19, so you, we've seen that there is

[00:44:51] this, that we can, we, I say we red state folks audience and we're, we're an enormous audience

[00:44:58] and we're an audience that can elect a president, put it that way. And, um, then it's like, what

[00:45:07] are we done yet? Like getting shoved down our throats, like civil, the civil war movie they use,

[00:45:13] you know, I saw it was just like some, you know, left this fever dream.

[00:45:16] Yeah. It was, it was a disaster. Yeah.

[00:45:19] We won't get into that, but we watched that and we said, we are so, we had already filmed

[00:45:24] and we were in the middle of edit for homestead when we watched that and we were like, our thought

[00:45:29] was, we're so glad to be able to provide. Right. And we're telling a story about burning down the

[00:45:36] left. We're, that's not, we're talking, we're talking, we're telling a story about good people

[00:45:41] doing their best and in tremendous conflict with one another in tremendously difficult circumstances.

[00:45:48] Um, we don't, we don't need to like, you know, assassinate a leftist president like they did in

[00:45:55] civil war. Um, so, but, but we tell us angel studio supports, and I think we'll see a lot more,

[00:46:03] um, shows and movies coming from this production team that, that did homestead and certainly more

[00:46:09] seasons of homestead, uh, as well as, uh, other stories that are stories that we love our families

[00:46:19] to see that isn't leftist agenda. Yeah, no. And it's, it's been, you know, from angel studios and

[00:46:26] stuff, especially we're seeing, you know, you know, better quality actors, things coming that,

[00:46:33] you know, we just hadn't gotten in the past from, you know, from Tulsa movies, if you will,

[00:46:39] you know, it's, it's, you hadn't, they hadn't had the budget or, you know, the resources, whatever.

[00:46:45] And there are a lot of actors too, I think that are getting pushed out of Hollywood that,

[00:46:50] you know, are maybe now more available, that kind of stuff, you know, but yeah. And actors

[00:46:56] like sort of living under the radar, these faith red state actors, um, like Neil McDonough,

[00:47:05] he's like his mega family man.

[00:47:07] Yeah. I've been a fan for forever with him. He's awesome.

[00:47:12] Fantastic family man. Uh, man of faith, uh, Bailey chase, fantastic family man, man of faith,

[00:47:17] uh, uh, in the, in their most recent, uh, uh, TV shows, we have, uh, uh, Chuck Esten from,

[00:47:28] uh, uh, uh, Outer Banks. Um, Bill Wagner from Lioness. Um, these are fantastic family people from,

[00:47:37] uh, Don Olivieri, who's run the horse ranch in Arkansas, Alabama. Um, so we, we, we've sort of,

[00:47:46] we picked up a ton of, of Taylor Sheridan's actors and actresses who jumped in, who are,

[00:47:53] who are about telling these sort of salt of the earth, um, rural state stories. Um, there,

[00:48:00] there's a lot of actors, cinematographers who've just been sort of living under their,

[00:48:06] the Nashville crowd. They've been sort of, you know, under the radar, trying to keep their heads

[00:48:11] down from getting chopped off by leftists, by, by the progressive media. And now they're able to

[00:48:18] stand up and say, I want to do projects. I believe in angels platform. Right. And that's,

[00:48:25] that's just awesome. I was super excited. Yeah. No, early on, I was like, you know, I had watched,

[00:48:32] uh, you know, what sound of freedom and, and then, uh, you know, the other stuff, but I, you know,

[00:48:36] and then when they did that, the, the whole movie, I was like, Oh yeah. You know,

[00:48:41] and I, I did money with that and different stuff. And then got into that, you know, watching some of

[00:48:48] the early access stuff. And like you said, and kind of voting on the things and the torch videos

[00:48:53] and the different things, it's, it's really a great setup and kind of puts the stuff that people

[00:48:58] are looking for, you know, in, in the hands of, uh, of the consumer, I guess, you know, where they

[00:49:04] can kind of decide how it goes. And, and that's pretty awesome. And just having somebody with clout and

[00:49:09] power and not necessarily being afraid to do things, you know, because of the repercussions

[00:49:16] of the rest of Hollywood and whatever. And, and maybe hopefully, you know, like you said,

[00:49:21] after this election, maybe people are thinking, you know, Hey, maybe we still do have a voice.

[00:49:26] There is still a decent amount of people out there that, you know, enough people to stand up.

[00:49:33] Maybe the world isn't completely crazy. I guess that's how I would put it. We always try not to

[00:49:39] be a two, you know, one way or the other, but it's just, you know, Hey, that's, you know,

[00:49:45] people feel overwhelmed by what they see on social media and, and from Hollywood. So I think it's

[00:49:50] pretty awesome. Uh, you know, see something new and different coming out.

[00:49:57] Yeah, absolutely. That's it. So no, I appreciate it. So December 20th, right? That's when,

[00:50:04] when we can look forward. Yeah. Yeah. December 20th. And also if you pre-order your tickets early,

[00:50:09] you get a chance to win, um, a, a just add water homestead. There's like, it's like $300,000 worth of

[00:50:17] the best homestead equipment that we actually see in the show. So solar energy, greenhouse,

[00:50:23] house, ATV, tiny home. So there's actually a giveaway just for fun to, uh, give one of our,

[00:50:32] give one of our fans early ticket buyers. Um, they'll win this $300,000 homestead plus a Bitcoin.

[00:50:40] So buy your tickets early angels set that up. That's another cool thing they've done is allowed

[00:50:45] us to buy tickets into theaters months in advance so that the way by buying tickets months in advance,

[00:50:51] that's, that's the way for angel to force screens. So they show up and they say, Hey, we've already sold,

[00:50:58] you know, 1500 seats or 15,000 seats in your, in your area. You need to provide the screens for those.

[00:51:05] So when we buy tickets advance and then redeem them, we push screens away from the, the kind of Hollywood

[00:51:12] and into this sort of, um, more kind of rural salt of the earth type television shows.

[00:51:20] Yeah, no, that's, that's it. I mean, just getting it out there is so awesome. Um, like I said,

[00:51:25] wholesome values and whatever, and, and even better than it's prepping. I, I just always go with that.

[00:51:31] You know, obviously I have, you know, you know, my, uh, survival podcast here, but it's,

[00:51:36] you know, the more people that are prepared, the better it is going to be for all of us. And,

[00:51:40] and it doesn't matter what life throws at us. You know, it doesn't have to be EMPs and

[00:51:45] civil war, just, you know, inflation, anything, just the more prepared people are, the better

[00:51:50] life's going to be for you. Um, is really what it comes down to. And like you said, there's a lot of

[00:51:56] benefits to prepping just of peace of mind and, and cool problem solving and, and projects that,

[00:52:03] you know, and I like to shoot guns. So, I mean, you know, whatever, whatever you got to do,

[00:52:07] there are benefits, right. Um, but that's it now. So I'll try and get a link and put it in the, uh,

[00:52:15] in the podcast and on YouTube there of, uh, for your giveaway. I'll see if I can sort that out

[00:52:21] and get it in there. Um, I'd already shared that, uh, that other thing on all the social media there

[00:52:28] that we have the, uh, the giveaway, the 300,000, uh, so the posts from that. So hopefully, uh, people find

[00:52:35] it, but definitely know I'm super excited about the movie and, uh, looking forward to it. Like I said,

[00:52:41] I love the books. They're, they're great. So now keep doing what you're doing. All right. Like,

[00:52:47] like subscribe, uh, anywhere you want to send people for anything. They need to go buy black rifle

[00:52:52] coffee. That's the answer. Life will be better. That's a, Hey, I'm a subscriber. I I've been drinking

[00:52:59] it for a long time. So you're good. You got one fan. You know, it's I, I, I think blackbeard's

[00:53:06] delight. I've been living off it for, for years now. So I don't know. So, all right. Anyway,

[00:53:12] with that stay safe and we will talk to you guys next week. Hey, thank you.