Josh Brolin
speaker
488 appearances
5 recordings
5 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Mar 2025
Josh Brolin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Blue dots on white riddled parts of the mountainside, red dots on others. I surmised the colors sprayed onto their thick wool represented ownership. Farmer blue and farmer red. Fine. I like sheep. So do my kids. We've had sheep. They are funny. Cartoon funny. Bah! I suddenly ran toward a flock of them, my arms flailing.
I thought it'd make my kids chuckle watching them run down a hill, then up another. The sheep were scared, but no harm, no foul. My children laughed more at me than at them. Our papa's crazy, and I loved living up to the legend I imagined myself to be in their minds. We love crazy papa. As I stopped running and waving my hands and just started to turn around toward my kids, I heard a snap.
I didn't know what it was. Then as I refocused on the herd beyond, now running up a hillside, there was one whose legs were dragging behind it, the front paws desperately scooting the body forward in fits and starts. Poppy, what happened to that one? I jogged down to where the flock had been and the lamb was still there, struggling frenetically.
The closer I got, the more it tried to scamper away, but it couldn't. Something wasn't working in its body. I hoped it was in shock because of the sudden change in pitch. I hoped that maybe the sheep's body had temporarily spasmed and frozen. I put one hand on the back of its neck to try to calm it, and the other I slowly pulled down the length of its spine. Vertebra, vertebra, vertebra, vertebra.
The sheep let out a yell. It was a screech of pain. We were two miles away from the car. That part of its back had collapsed. It moved. Something is broken. I've been raised with wild animals my whole life. Bobcats bit my cheek until it bled, and I've cleaned the cages of wolves, mountain lions, and bobcats since I can remember. I know how to deal with crisis. I would have been a good soldier.
I'm calm under copious amounts of stress. I looked over my shoulder to my kids. They were staring at me, waiting for a sign of how to react. Stay there, I told them. Please stay there. I don't know what to do. I was kidding. I was making a joke. This goddamn sheep's back broke. How the fuck did that happen? It was only meant as a joke. What do I do? but I kept a face on.
I looked around for anyone else on the trail. Nobody. I looked up to the peaks of the Kerrang, how the fog was just caressing the tips of them, and I suddenly felt the cold front of death enter my body. The sheep scooted slightly farther forward and bleated. I grabbed its body and attempted to swing it onto my shoulders. I couldn't. It was too heavy.
I wanted to be that parent who could lift cars to save their child. But no matter how hard I tried to hoist it, it failed. I look back to my kids who looked sad and anxious, but stoic. They had in them that ranch kid grit that didn't allow for an instant reaction. They knew it was going to get worse and to react now would be premature. Turn your heads. They did.
I could break its neck, I thought to myself. One startling snap, and it would be out of its misery and pain. What if I weighed it? Would it be better? Where is everyone? I avoided it as long as I could. The sun was getting lower in the sky and all I knew was that I was gonna have to kill this innocent animal.
I grabbed its muzzle with my left hand and then brought my right hand over the left side of its head, leveraging my left. I'm gonna pull as hard and as fast as I can and it'll go out like a light. One, two, turn your heads, cover your ears. They did. One, two, three. I pulled as every organ in my body fell into this hell of my own making. The screaming, the sheep kept screaming.
Its back legs were splayed out and it just screamed and screamed as it kept reaching forward away from me. It knew, it knew I was here to murder it. There was no sign of physical trauma, none. Can we look? My son yelled over his shoulder. Not yet. I didn't know what to do. My kids were watching me. This was a seminal moment. There was no pride in trying to kill the sheep.
There was nothing but shame and inadequacy. I didn't know what I was doing. I should know. I was 31 years old. I grew up on a ranch. I grew up around wild animals. I had to assist in the deaths of animals all the time in our house. Cancer, age, trauma. I wrapped my hand around the nape of its neck. I told it I was sorry. I was sorry. I didn't know what to do.
I had killed wounded animals before, a stork on a beach with a broken neck, birds flying into windows who could never fly away again. I put my dog down when he was riddled with cancer. I should know how to do this. We were 50 feet from the edge of the cliff. I could throw it off, but what if it survived? I don't know what's down there. What if there's hay or a soft bog?
I looked up and the other sheep were watching me from afar. My daughter was crying by now. It was a soft cry, a silent cry, just tears. My son put his arm around her, ranch kids consoling each other through each of nature's traumas. But this was because of me. Do they think if I kill this sheep that I would kill them? Not now, but at any point in their lives?
If I do this, will it always be living somewhere under their skin, itching at them? I dragged the sheep up the hill while it continued to bleat and try and hold its ground with its front hooves. There was a loose rock. It was an old rock with a layer of mica and a slight fur of moss covering it. I picked it up, and there were two sharp edges visible. I ran my hand over them.
They were as sharp as they looked. I imagined the sheep telling me to put it out of its misery, but I knew that wasn't the case. It had no say in the matter. It was all in my head. The truth is, we were all dying on that landslip, but soon one of us would be dead. My aim had to be right on. "'Turn your heads, cover your ears.'
My daughter wiped away the tears on her face with the backside of her hand, then put the palms of her hands over her ears. My son followed suit. I lifted the rock above my head. One eye stared up at me from near my feet. The grass along the trail was a deep green. I imagined blood on it. I tried to prepare myself. I am a killer. I kill innocent beings. I'm not funny.
There is nothing funny about me.' Don't think. Aim. Save this animal from the pain I caused it. Aim. Please, God, please let me get it right. I stand tall, the rock suspended above me. Thunk.
I am cold. The world is cold. I feel my children inside me. I see their pain through me. I feel for the pulse of the animal. Silence, except for the winds. None of us move. I am looking down. My children are looking away. The sheep is dead. We stand for a long, long time. We stand there to this day.
We talked it in the beginning. It's like when you said when one parent leaves and then you're sitting there and you're having to perform. And then there's always this performative sense of self. Like you're the funny guy. You're the crazy guy. You know, especially while drinking. I went out with a guy once. He was from Canada, but we were in L.A.
Showing 161–180 of 488 · page 9 of 25
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