#eric goode

The Platform

-to dive deep into a seven hour documentary and have it turned upside down in the last 15 minutes is whiplash personified

-we see Joe, no last name exotic, no mullets, no parks, nothing.

He wants these tigers to run free in the wild.

It looks to be the early 90’s (tape fuzz and all) where he wants to be a hero (just for one day) not knowing he will travel the long path to be a villain

-now we realize, everyone in this film is harmful and an accessory to it.

(it’s the cat version of “The Hateful

Eight”)

-even the gun counter at wal mart libertarian gets it

Endless time, bottomless dollars...and zero freedom for cats

-I hold special contempt for the actions of Doc Antler. He commits possibly the most cat abuse, and adds several layers of predatory actions towards (young) women

-I also suspect Joe interacting with Antler gave him the idea to be his own holy roller, with meth, multiple (confused?)husbands, and all eyes on him cameras

Anything to take away the pain of a lonely gay boy who was told not to come to his father’s funeral

-like the great “King of Kong” documentary also shows, the more niche the sub culture, the more over the top people act to protect it.

-Did Carole Baskin kill her husband? I don’t know, but she does put exotic cats in cramped cages and has people come work for her pay free for years

-also, I will not lie, if I heard her say “hey all you cool cats and kittens” one more time, I would have shot her

-no one should lose an arm to avoid a social media “loss” (none of that shit is real), even if the coworker has two prosthetic legs

-for the life of me, I cannot understand how Jeff Lowe and other associates are free

It’s probably because Joe was the only one out of money

-the part where Joe talks on camera about seeing two apes hug in large freedom after a decade in cramped co-cages is the saddest moment

“Did I deny them that for ten years.... yes. Did I mean to do that...I just got lost”

-I can’t blame anyone who would rather focus on his out there country songs (“I saw a tiger, tiger saw man”) or the admittedly car crash hilarious moment of putting his lips on a photo of Carole’s missing husband and telling people to look in the septic tank

But, man, that sadness lingers

-let me see if I got this straight

People get exotic cats in real life

Promote them to media (movies/tv)

People see them and buy little kid versions

People freak out, abandon them

Private zoo owners grab them

Private zoos show them off, building off the demand for people to see and hold

Private zoos breed more, for money

New breeds give them power and fame

Turf wars happen

To quote ol Axel Rose

“Where do we go now?”

-John got the worst cover up tattoo of all time, the letters are still there!

-I would give good money to observe the initial talks between Joe Exotic and PETA

-if there must be a dramatic film, Michael Keaton or Sam Rockwell for Joe Exotic

-I keep thinking of these words by George Carlin

“When you are born into the human race, you get a ticket to the freak show.

This is Eric Goode, the director of Tiger King. The top photo was taken by Michael Muller at the wildlife facility Goode owns, and the bottom two photos are from his organization Turtle Conservancy’s Facebook page. Any animal advocacy group with a page on wildlife tourism will tell you in no uncertain terms not to do this shit. And it’s not like he’s a ignorant tourist; he’s a wildlife conservationist who definitely should’ve known better - especially given the elephant in the bottom photo has noticeably been chained and had the tips of their tusks cut off to make them easier to manage. These are just two of the reasons elephant riding is such a cruel industry.

Going to Turtle Conservancy’s website or examining their social media will show you a lot more photos of people manhandling turtles and tortoises for cool photo ops (which unnecessarily stresses them out and increases the risk of injury) and a page where they sell the “excess,” animals, including endangered species, to private owners as pets. From what I can tell, the work they do conserving species appears to be legitimate, but they are throwing up some red flags regarding the treatment of their individual animals.

He says that sanctuaries should just kill all their animals so they don’t have to live in captivity. Then they could give all that money to wildlife conservationists. He also says that the message of the documentary was to stop giving to animal sanctuaries, and give money to wildlife conservationists. You know, like him!