April 7, 2020 • 36 mins
Joe Exotic, the gun toting, mullet wearing, polyamorous subject of the hit Netflix series Tiger King was more than just a murder-minded conman. He could sing! You saw those videos. We did too. As a singer, Joe’s voice belied the tortured Everyman experience of some of the best country music crooners, hinting at deep trauma resulting from unspeakable loss, assault and violence. Most of which was for the most part, left on the cutting room floor of the popular Netflix series and is on display in this special Covid-19 bonus content episode of Disgraceland.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Hey, guys, do
my best to bring you as much content as I
can during this COVID nineteen lockdown. So here's a special,
unplanned bonus episode. I decided late Friday afternoon to write
once I learned the music news about Tiger King's Joe Exotic.
Like the rest of America, I two binged Tiger King
(00:23):
and was excited to come at the story from a
music angle. So my team and I jumped into action
and we pulled this together in three days. So you
can ask some content on this Disgraceland off week. For context,
it usually takes two weeks to produce an episode of Disgraceland,
and that doesn't include research. So I not only relied
heavily obviously on the Netflix documentary as a source for
(00:45):
this episode, but I also relied on the New York
magazine Intelligencer article on Joe Exotic entitled American Animals that
was reported in partnership with over My dead Body season two.
Joe Exotic by Wondery and the rest of the sources
used for this episode are available on my website, as
are the sources for all of my episodes. Finally, if
(01:07):
you have some extra coin lying around and want to
donate to help prevent the type of animal cruelty depicted
in this episode, there are numerous animal rights organizations out
there worthy of your donation. And if depictions of animal cruelty, rape,
or suicide trigger you in any way, then you might
want to skip this. But stories about gun toting, mullet wearing,
(01:28):
polyamorous con men get you going, And guess what, motherfucker,
this episode's for you, Melotron. Stories about Joe Exotic are insane.
(01:56):
As the owner of a roadside zoo in Oklahoma, he
ruled over his staff like a redneck circus wrangler. He
took tigers and other large predators to malls across America
until his touring show was shut down by his nemesis,
Carol Baskin. He was strapped at all times and made
sure everyone who ever saw his YouTube show knew he
(02:16):
was ready to stand his ground and defense of his cats,
blowing the intruders away or just playing blow shit up.
He was a polygamist, a politician, a padlocked Prince Albert
wearing protagonist in his own movie, and he was of
course the star of a series of low budget country
music videos, including one where the body parts of his
(02:37):
arch rival's husband are fed to real live, hungry tigers.
The song, like the video, is so badshit crazy that
it's hard not to qualify at it as anything less
than great, because Joe Exotic made great music. Actually he didn't,
but he didn't make music sort of, but not in
(02:58):
the way you expect, and totally unlike that music you
heard at the top of the show. That wasn't great
music either. That was a preset loop from my mellotron
called Ham and Tube Funk MK. Two. I played you
that loop because I can't afford the rights to the
Box by Roddy Rich. And why would I play you
that specific slice of lo fi auto tuned cheese? Could
(03:21):
I afford it? Because that was the number one song
in America on January twenty second, twenty twenty, and that
was the day that Joe Exotic was sentenced to twenty
two years in federal prison for only a small sample
of the insane behavior he had exhibited over the previous decade.
(03:42):
On this episode, Big Cat Exploitation, Tiger Maullie's Deadly gun Play,
Low budget Country Cheese, and Joe exotic. I'm Jake Brennan
and this is disgraceland. The police cruiser was screaming down
(04:22):
the highway's off ramp. Its driver was drunk to the
point of pissing the khaki pants of his uniform and
humiliated rejected again the bourbon. The beer. It dulled the pain,
but love was more than just a shot away. Gay
nightlife in Dallas, Texas in nineteen eighty five, for Eastvale
Chief of Police Joe Shrevogel was heartaches by the number,
(04:44):
trouble by the score, still at the age of twenty two,
while dealing with, as he would be the rest of
his life, the post dramatic stress of being raped at
the age of five and having to navigate the tricky
emotional terrain of young closeted homosexual adult. Joe, with the
alcohol revving him up, had reached his breaking point. He
(05:05):
turned down the off ramp and gunned it. Pedaled to
the metal, straight for the wall, no sad farewells, no tear,
dimmed eyes, on his way to that fair land where
the soul never dies. Joe survived the crash, some would
(05:26):
say thrive, but the memory of the crash snuck up
on him now and then out of nowhere, as did
the other memories, the bad ones, the one about his
first husband, Brian, dying of AIDS and that wound was deep,
it wasn't healing. Ever Worse than that, though more scarring,
more frightening, was the memory of his second husband JC.
(05:49):
Get on the ground, motherfucker. You're gonna eat this gun.
You hear me, You're gonna fucking eat it, Eat it,
eat it. J C was now doing a life sentence
for degree murder. He came and went, just like the memories.
Joe couldn't control them, but it didn't matter. He could
control most everything else. He had confidence in spades. He
(06:11):
used it to build a mini empire, an exotic animal empire.
Joe shri Vogel was now Joe Exotic Exotic Animals. Big
cats were the game. But entertainment was the business. Show business,
or more precisely, Joe business. It had always been that way,
the business of show the business of Joe. That's how
(06:32):
we got the gig. As chief of police at nineteen,
with zero experience or any real education, he talked himself
into it confidence and then later, as a traveling magician,
he did the same thing he knew a trick or
too sure, But like every good confidence man, Joe was
only as good as the card up his sleeve. He'd
(06:54):
bury the memories, strolled the expanse of his sixteen acre
exotic animal park w zoo, and contemplate his next move,
his next score, his next love. Within the sixteen acres
of the animal park, Joe was master of his domain.
Within this space, he kept an untold number of played
spinning within his own three ring circus act, not only
(07:16):
feeding lions and tigers and bears and more, but playing
Backwood Sugar Daddy there in Winningwood, Oklahoma, to the island
of misfit toys that made up his staff, guiding tourists
through to see the wonders and to pet the baby
tigers while they took selfies for future Facebook, Instagram and
Tinder profile picks. Business was good, ish, and there was
(07:39):
always some complications, some hassle, usually money, but things were up.
Joe was moving into television. He'd launched his own web
TV show, but he also had an experienced reality TV
producer and crew following his every move, making a reality
series on spec with hopes of selling it to Animal
Planet or National geography, or some other basic cable channel,
(08:02):
hopefully through a bidding war. So far, today it was
quiet at the zoo. Joe was sitting outside smoking, looking
up at the clouds, watching them take shape, looking for
signs wasting time, and there are only a few patrons
so far, are milling about waiting for the show to start,
waiting to shell out what few dollars they had to
hold and pet a baby tiger shit that reminded Joe
(08:27):
the cats over in the tiger pen needed to be fed.
Tigers only eat about once a week, meaning wild tigers
only kill once a week to eat, not for sport.
Generally speaking, tigers are afraid of humans, not that there
aren't numerous attacks of humans by tigers in the wild.
There are, but those are mainly cases of mistaken identity,
(08:48):
where the tiger thinks the human is something else, something
normally on the menu, like a wild boar or an
elephant calf. Tigers of course also attack humans when they
feel threatened, but assuming threats aren't part of the deal,
and assuming the tiger's normal diet doesn't dry up, then
humans are usually off the menu. But not on that morning,
Not at Joe Exotics Exotic Animal Park on that day.
(09:12):
Humans were absol fucking lutely on the menu. The animal
clawed at the arm, big six inch claws, ripping skin,
then a second swipe gripping into the muscle under the
human flesh, shredding the tendons or the muscle connected to
the bone, pulling Joe's worker, the one they called saff,
(09:32):
into the fence and separated him from the hungry man eater.
The tiger thrust his head at sass arm, brought its
sharp canines down through the skin of the arm, severed
it almost completely. The tiger fell back for a moment
on the other side of the fence. Saf managed to
get his arm free at that exact right moment, falling
into a puddle of muddy water on the ground. As
(09:54):
soon as the attack happened, word went out fast, and
Joe was on the scene in less than a minute,
pulling this severely wounded employee out of the muck and
quickly applying a makeshift tourniquet to his arm. In another
minute flat, Joe threw on an emt jacket, always the showman,
this time playing the role of authority through sheer confidence
alone as he went to announce the malling to the
(10:15):
crowd of visitors wandering around his gift shop. Even in
the face of disaster, Joe's bravado carried the day as
he described the incident to the assembled crowd as if
nothing had gone wrong except for Saff putting his arm
through the fence. It was sas fault after all, and
if for shit, sure wasn't his fault or the tigers,
because at heart, Joe's fast talking persona was inseparable from
(10:39):
his love for the big cats. Like all big cat people,
he had the stones to walk among some of the
world's most efficient predators. Compared to that adrenaline rush. Dealing
with the fallout on this messy day at the park
was nothing. Every confidence man knows how to handle a
mark who spots the work provided a distraction. Move along.
Nothing to see here except the gw Zoo. In the
(11:02):
wake of saff smalling, there was still plenty to see.
The park remained open, and Saff himself would soon be
back on the job, not wanting to give the press
more ammo in their campaign to shame Joe or worse,
shut him down. The inevitable had happened, but thanks to
an emt, costume change, and the loyalty of his workers.
(11:22):
Joe Exotic would stay on top for now. That night,
Joe sat in front of his computer. The glow of
the screening was the only light shining in his broke
down palace, a ramshackle ranch house on the Zoo's property.
Inside it was a total shithole, double wide decor. Joe
(11:43):
Chain smoked and cruised Craigslist. It was a nightly ritual,
old habit. It relaxed him. Joe knew the ins and
outs of the free market listing site come internet sewer,
depending on what you were looking for meth, paid sex,
we whatever, and that you knew how to look for
capital T in the post to indicate the poster had meth.
(12:04):
Promises of roses for paid sex, for violets for we
Craigslist could hook you up, especially when it came to sex,
casual encounters, nssays for no strings attached, massages, waterworks, party
and play, all kinds of sex, sex, sex, and more sex.
So much so that Newsweek in twenty fifteen reported that
(12:27):
Craigslist alone was responsible for a sixteen percent increase in
HIV cases. Joe was clean, though he thought so, anyway,
he was in love with Travis. Travis was beautiful, which
was most of the reason why Joe married him, and
certainly all of the reason Joe's other husband, John allowed
(12:47):
for the polygamous union. Travis was easy on the eyes,
but that's not why John allowed Joe to bring him
into the relationship. John allowed it because he'd let Joe
do whatever the hell was Joe wanted to do. Joe
was the boss. Literally, Joe not only paid husband number
one John's checks at the Zoo, but Joe also paid
John's bills, took care of him real sugar daddy style.
(13:10):
John wasn't bad looking either, bulky nineteen years old. Joe
bought him steroids to beefcake him up a bit more,
and Joe paid for his tattoo, the one just above
his cock that said privately owned by Joe Exotic. But
aside from all that, Travis was okay with John. Like John,
Travis wasn't even really gay. He was just desperate, young, impressionable,
(13:34):
and easily influenced by confidence, experience, and opportunity. Travis would
go in with Joe for the same reasons John did,
and like John, Travis liked the math a little too much.
The clouded things made it all blooey up in his head. Sex, sexuality, love, desired, devotion.
What did any of it really mean? Anyway? The three
(13:56):
of them, Joe, Travis, and John lived somewhat happily Zoo
and Joe loved both his husbands, but Travis was special.
Maybe Joe would write him a song, Yeah, something heartfelt,
something Clint Black would sing to his pretty wife and
mean it. Joe pointed his cursor to the Little Blue
create a posting link on Craigslist and lit another cigarette.
(14:40):
When Joe got the MP three of the songs mix
email to him and clicked play, and the sound came
rushing out of his tiny little computer speakers. It was glorious.
Joe heard his future calling him. The song was perfect,
so on brand. So Joe, the reality shoe television producers,
(15:01):
the networks, his staff at the Zoo, They're all gonna
have the same reaction. Joe, you sound amazing, Damn RIGHTY
tell him he was Joe Exotic, not some other guy.
Of course he could sing. He had one good leg
left too. After that bitch Tiger Chainsaw tore him up good.
But guess what motherfucker he could dance too, But singing
(15:22):
and dancing wasn't gonna be enough. He needed theatrics, and
in the age of the Internet, clicks were almost as
good as dollars, and that meant Joe needed a video.
He had the song. Now it was time to pour
gas on this bitch. The federal agents from the US
(15:44):
Fish and Wildlife Service could not believe what they were seeing,
yet they couldn't stop watching. They didn't even like country music. Hell,
one of them didn't even really like music. Yet these
music videos were endlessly entertaining, so amateur, yet so damn
batshit crazy. It was better than porn. There were love
(16:08):
letters to tigers with cheap storm cloud visuals, explosions, a
ubiquitous bottle dyed mullet, uncomfortable, extra shitty tattoos, tattooed eyeliner,
more shitty tattoos, a candlelight dinner for one, more tigers,
more storm clouds, scantily cloud Country chicks were the singer
who everyone knew was gay because he was openly married
(16:28):
to not one but two men, surrounded himself with hot
babes to demonstrate his sexual prowess with the ladies called
pretty woman, Lover and In all the videos, the one
constant besides the mullet, of course, was the singer's shameless confidence.
It's unbelievable he comes across as some sort of every
rose has its thorn era Brett Michaels crossed with Joe
(16:51):
dirt and with zero irony and about as much self
awareness as Kenny Powers. But the one that took the cake,
the video that absolute could not be topped, was the
one called Here Kitty Kitty. In it, the singer Joe
Exotic aka Joe Maldonado Passage aka Joe Maldonado aka Joe
(17:12):
Shrivogel sings directly to his nemesis while wearing a priest uniform,
while an actor playing his nemesis feeds her husband's body
parts to real live hungry tigers. That nemesis one Carol Baskin,
owner of Big Cat Rescue outside Tampa, Florida. Like any
(17:32):
good nemesis, Carol was like Joe in some ways, but
his polar opposite and others. Like Joe, Carol loved big
cats and provided them a sanctuary in which to live
out their days in captivity. Unlike Joe, Carol had sworn
off breeding and declared herself an animal rights activist. Like Joe,
(17:53):
Carol knew the value of internet publicity, sharing web vlogs
and maintaining a highly popular Facebook group. Unlike Joe, she
used her online platform to target animal abusers and tried
to shut down their businesses, and Joe was at the
top of her list. From Joe's perspective, this was rank hypocrisy.
Letters from Big Cat Rescue had hounded his touring mall
(18:15):
show until he had to shut it down. But how
much better really was Carol's organization than his own? It
was clear to everyone watching with grim fascination over the
interwebs she had gotten under his skin. In Joe's web videos,
Joe had positioned mannequins and sex dolls labeled Carol and
blow them up with dynamite, empty gun barrels into them,
(18:35):
and threatened to send Carol venomous snakes through the US mail.
And these weren't the acts of any normal confidence man,
but of a showman who had started drinking his own
kool aid. Carol up the antie and retaliated by suing
Joe for copyright infringement for ripping off her Big Cat
Rescue logo In an effort to sew confusion in the
Big Cat community. The sewing of confusion worked for Joe,
(18:58):
and so did the lawsuit for Carol. Carol won her
day in court, and the result would be her bleeding
Joe financially for years. He was crushed, nearly ruined financially
because of it, and he couldn't let the gripe against
Carol go. The hypocrisy of it all, especially considering that Joe,
like a lot of others in the Big Cat community,
(19:18):
was convinced that Carol was the actual criminal, a felon,
even a murderer, who got away with killing her husband
and taking over his fortune, dousing him with sardine oil
and feeding him to the tigers on their property. And
that was the running theory anyway, There's no evidence supporting it,
but the story worked with Joe's narrative that Carol was
the real villain, not him, and he was going to
(19:43):
prove it. That's what the new song was all about,
and that's what the Here Kitty Kitty video was about too,
Joe singing his ass off, channeling Charlie Leavin. It wasn't
quite Knoxville Girl, but Here Kitty Kitty was steeped in murdered.
Joe was shining a light on Carroll's bullshit, showing the
war in his eyes. She was a murderer. And that's
(20:03):
why the FEDS were watching Joe clocking his silly music videos,
making sure his antics didn't escalate into anything real. Because
there were rumors, rumors that Joe was more than just
a hapless, publicity starved con man. There were rumors about
the slaughtered tigers, and darker rumors still that Joe had
(20:24):
real murder on his mind. We'll be right back after
this word word word. Tiger coves are high unto themselves.
They're potentially dangerous, but not really. People love them. They're
so damn cute, beautiful. People can't get enough of them,
(20:44):
And therein was the draw to Joe Exotic Zoo the cubs.
People would line up for hours to pay five bucks
to get to hold them for a couple of minutes,
and then another five bucks to get their picture snapped
with them. But the problem with tiger coves is they
grow up in the big hungry tigers that cost over
ten grand a year to feed each and for someone
(21:05):
like Joe Exotic, those big hungry tigers weren't good for
much beyond making more tiger cubs. But pretty soon those
cubs would be old enough to make more cubs, and
then they too will be costing too much money to feed.
It was a goddamn vicious cycle. Travis hopped in Joe's pickup.
(21:25):
He wasn't excited about what he knew they were going
to do. Joe, behind the wheel didn't seem to care
at all. He sang along to Garth Brooks on the
radio as they drove to the outer limit of the
zoo's property. Out there, other zoo staff were waiting. The
ditch was doug days ago. Joe pulled up to it,
hopped out of the truck, took a shotgun. Travis stayed
(21:48):
in the pickup, and the adult tigers Joe had requested
were there in the ditch, roaming, all five of them. Samson, Delilah, Trinity, Lauren,
and Cuddles. Raised a shotgun, took aim and blasted Samson away,
then Delilah, then Trinity, Lauren, and at last Cuddles. They
(22:12):
all died instantly, all five of them, and Joe was
off the hook for fifty grand. The callous murder of
the tigers was one of the many things Travis could
no longer truck with. Life on the Zoo was well
a zoo. Joe was a mess in constant motion, starting
(22:33):
one fire to distract from another. There was the lawsuit
with Carol, the literal fire in the Alligator House, the
destruction of their web studio in years of lost footage,
and unbelievably a serious run for governor of Oklahoma by
the most unserious of candidates. Making matters worse was the
fact that Travis confided to others that Joe had him
(22:54):
completely locked down, that he wouldn't let him leave the zoo,
wouldn't let him get a job elsewhere, that he kept
him doped up on grass and meth in order to
keep him under his thumb. Travis sunk into a deep
depression because of it, all smoked more and more weed
and doubled down on the meth. All the while Joe
was consumed with the zoo, was paying off the lawsuit
(23:15):
from Carol, with a silly campaign for governor that was
going nowhere, and with his new friend Jeff. Jeff was
Jeff Low from Las Vegas, Rumored to be a con
man of sorts himself. Jeff had what Joe needed cash,
cash to keep the studio afloat while Joe paid off Carol,
Jeff could get shit done. Dig that McMansion on the
(23:37):
outskirts of town, dig that hummer, dig that swinging dime
spot wife, with the trysts, with the call girls in Vegas.
Jeff had it going on. Jeff was the answer to
Joe's prayers, or so Joe thought. No one else did.
Jeff represented the end death. Joe transferred legal ownership with
the zoo to Jeff and focused on brand and entertainment
(23:58):
and fending off Carol. Jeff managed his new investment, quickly
took control of the zoo and brought in new management,
Alan Glover. Alan Glover ran out of Fox decades before
running into Joe Exotic in his band of misfit toys
at the GW Zoo. Alan did hard time, a convicted
(24:19):
felon who snickered at Joe's tattooed eyeliner. Alan had a
teardrop tattoo below his eye. Rumors spread that it was
a prison marker, symbolizing that Allan had killed a man,
though many claim that the teardrop prison logo is an
indicator that it's wearer is a bitch, someone sissy, someone
turned out by a more dominant prisoner, a sex toy.
(24:40):
It's not surprising which meeting Alan ran with on the zoo.
He refused to work for Joe, degraded him regularly for
being a homosexual, claimed he worked for Jeff and Jeff alone,
which was true. Alan didn't get along with Joe's other
zoo staff either, Travis among them, Travis was sunk. Not
(25:01):
only was working with Alan under the new zoo order
of pain in the ass, Joe was not himself. He
was irritable, His mood swings were off the charts. He
was regularly blowing up its staff, berating them high, fucked up,
a erratic, becoming more possessive of not only Travis, but
also of John as other husband. Near impossible to deal with,
and due to Carol's lawsuit and the constant pressure put
(25:23):
on Joe to pay off the massive million dollar plus
debt the court's rule to the olde Carol, Joe was
constantly stressed about money. Feeding the cats was becoming impossible,
and there was only so much and expired meat donations
he could grab from the local Walmart, and a good
portion of that bad meat was now being used to
top the pizza Joe was serving to customers from the
(25:43):
new pizzeria he and Jeff built on the zoo. But
customers weren't the only ones who needed to eat. The
adult tigers needed to eat too, and Joe had no
cash to make it happen, so he was eager to
take the call about the horse, the one some locals
wanted Joe to take off their hands. They wanted to
(26:04):
donate it to the zoo. Travis thought it was a
bad idea. Joe didn't give a fuck with Travis thought.
Travis smoked some more dope. Joe, once the horse was donated,
arranged for it to be brought out to the ditch.
Travis was bored. There were only so many trails to
tear ass over on his four wheeler. Joe grabbed his
shotgun and headed out toward the ditch. Travis grabbed his
(26:26):
ruger and headed toward the zoo's office. Joe was fed up,
tired of the hassle of the zoo, Carroll's bullshit, Jeff's bullshit,
tired of the staff, tired of John, tired of Travis,
tired even of the tigers. Travis was fed up as well,
fed up with Joe, mostly his constant bullshit, his possessive ways.
Fed up because frankly, he had no life with Joe.
(26:48):
He wasn't allowed to leave, to work, to love, to live.
Joe drove in his pickup blasted as newest would be single.
God damn, this demo was hot. He knew it, and
the vocals especially deep, resonant, hinting at a knowing soul,
someone who's seen some shit, a dead husband, a jailed husband,
a kept husband. Travis stopped his four wheeler, blasted a
(27:11):
rail of math up his nose. His blood ran hot.
He knew he was fucked this time, especially trapped, kept
dying inside to be more, someone who could live a life,
a real person, a real man, a freeman. Joe put
his hand on his shotgun on the seat at his side.
It comforted him, made him feel like the man he
was in control. Confident, Travis patted his hand on the
(27:33):
ruger in his pocket as he bounced off the four wheeler.
It gave him purpose for a moment anyway. Less confused,
Joe exited the pickup truck and there was the horse,
as requested, roaming in the ditch. Travis entered the zoo's office.
There was the camera, as expected, running up on its perch.
Joe raised the shotgun. Travis raised the ruger. Joe thought,
(27:54):
out here, no one would see, Travis thought. With the
camera on, everyone would see. Joe point out straight at
the horse's head. Future tiger met, he thought. Travis pointed
it to the temple of his own head. Fuck with me,
Fuck with you. He pulled the trigger. Publicly, Joe displayed
(28:46):
legitimate grief and of course confidence. Travis's death tore him
up good and it brought a ship ton of publicity,
good and bad, down on Joe, Jeff, and the Zoo. Privately,
Joe is a mess alone at night, with the remnants
of his trauma, the constant pick of his stress and
(29:08):
rattling anxiety, the hum of Craigslist as always lighting his
room from his computer screen, the television dead quiet, just
like his confidence. Joe lashed out. He pulled the revolver
from his side, the one he kept on him at
all times, took game at his television and blew it away.
Then he took gaim at the couch across from him
(29:28):
and fired a bullet through it. As well, And finally
he did what seemed like an inevitability. He put the
barrel of the gun to his own head and pulled
the trigger. But the pistol malfunctioned and Joe Exotic escaped
death by his own hand. But Carol Baskin would not
be so lucky, not if Joe had anything to do
about it. She was bleeding him. It had to end.
(29:51):
She was the living embodiment of an existential threat to
his way of life. She had to die, and Joe
knew just how to do it. He was confident that
not only could he get rid of Carol, but if
he was smart, he could solve another problem as well,
get rid of that world class prick, Alan Gardner in
the process and killed two birds with one crossbow. And
(30:14):
that was the plan anyway, The plan he cooked up
with Alan traveling halfway across the country from Oklahoma to Tampa,
Florida with a gun for Alan for an ex con
was too risky, so a crossbow was decided upon. Alan
would sneak out to Carroll's property with a crossbow while
she was out for a regular bike ride and shoot
her with it. No, Alan had a better idea. He
(30:36):
was into the knife, smaller, easier to carry and conceal.
He'd sneak onto Carroll's property, wait for her in the bushes,
jump out, attack, and cut her head off for five
thousand dollars. But Alan was in it for more than
the money. He hated Joe, and he knew that if
he did this for him, he would own him forever.
(30:58):
Alan knew already that he was going to hell for
his sins. He needed to make the most of this world.
He told a friend and confidant of his and Jeff's,
James Garretson, who was in on the plan to kill Carol.
If anybody rats me out and I get popped everybody
that they love, I'll have them burnt alive, every fucking
single person. And I mean that from the bottom of
(31:20):
my heart. They will be burnt the fuck alive. Joe
promised Alan the full five k when the job was complete,
and gave him a three grand advance. Alan got in
his car, headed for Florida and quickly blew all the
money on strippers, booze, and drugs. There was no hit
(31:40):
on Carol. Fuck it. Alan decided the five K and
Joe fucking Exotic weren't worth more time. Joe Exotic, he
of the never ending bullshit, the consummate entertainer, a man
who's seen forever confident, an extraordinary confidence man, a confidence
man's con man, had been out conned by the ex
(32:02):
Cohn Alan Gardner, who not only conned Joe out of
his money, but conspired with Jeff Lowe and their friend
James Garretson to set Joe up for the FEDS and
help convict him of a murder for higher plot, murder
for hire being a tricky charge to land convictions for
needing an exchange of money, wired recordings acknowledging the plot
(32:22):
and then motioned by the hired assassin to execute the
plot well, the FEDS being the FEDS, weren't going to
hang their hat on a complicated scheme that wouldn't guarantee
a guilty verdict, especially once Alan blew the money on
a lost weekend in Florida instead of taking out Carol.
So Joe was brought up on nineteen total charges, two
that covered the attempt to kill Carol in seventeen for
(32:45):
animal cruelty, including multiple attempts to sell or offer to
sell tigers, and perhaps most heart strength pulling of all
the Murder of the Five Tigers, Samson, Delilah, Trinity, Lauren,
and Cuddles for all of it. Joe got twenty two
years in a cage for Joe Exotic, for Joe Maldonado, Passage,
(33:07):
Joe Maldonado, Joe Shrivoga. There were many humiliations about prison,
the irony, of course, being the heat a man who
exploited helpless animals, killing them and keeping them caged for
his own enrichment was now behind bars. That, of course
stung like a motherfucker. But perhaps more stinging was the
(33:27):
fact that finally Joe Exotic's confidence had paid off. He
was famous, not because of some lowbrow reality TV show,
and not because of his silly music videos, but because
of a Netflix documentary, Tiger King, that captured America's imagination
at a time when the country desperately needed the distraction.
Joe Exotic was the most famous man in America, and
(33:50):
he was rotting behind bars. That stung, But so too
did the discovery and humiliation that Joe wasn't, even in
his newfound fame, quite what he presented himself as. After
the popularity of the Netflix documentary on his life, his
Zoo his beef with Carol, it came out in public
(34:13):
that Joe wasn't the real voice behind those impassioned country
songs he'd been releasing over the years, songs and music
videos that constituted so much of who Joe was his identity.
But no Joe, with his high pitched nasally redneck lil
couldn't hold a tune if it was drenched in crazy glue.
Word is out that Joe Milli Vanilli, that shit, pointed
(34:36):
the cursor toward the blue, create a posting link on
Craigslist and learned a struggling country act from Vancouver, Washington,
the Clinton Johnson Band, to write, record, and of course
sing his songs for him. Joe Exotic Forever, a con Forever,
a Disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in this his Disgraceland. Disgraceland
(35:14):
was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership
with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found
on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If
you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you
for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and if not,
you can become a member right now. By going to
disgracelampod dot com slash membership, members can listen to every
(35:36):
episode of disgracelan ad free, Plus you'll get one brand
new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special
audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit
disgracelampod dot com slash membership for details, rate and review
the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and
Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com
(36:00):
slash at disgrace lamdpod rock a Rolla. He's a bad
bad man, h
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Hey, guys, do
my best to bring you as much content as I
can during this COVID nineteen lockdown. So here's a special,
unplanned bonus episode. I decided late Friday afternoon to write
once I learned the music news about Tiger King's Joe Exotic.
Like the rest of America, I two binged Tiger King
(00:23):
and was excited to come at the story from a
music angle. So my team and I jumped into action
and we pulled this together in three days. So you
can ask some content on this Disgraceland off week. For context,
it usually takes two weeks to produce an episode of Disgraceland,
and that doesn't include research. So I not only relied
heavily obviously on the Netflix documentary as a source for
(00:45):
this episode, but I also relied on the New York
magazine Intelligencer article on Joe Exotic entitled American Animals that
was reported in partnership with over My dead Body season two.
Joe Exotic by Wondery and the rest of the sources
used for this episode are available on my website, as
are the sources for all of my episodes. Finally, if
(01:07):
you have some extra coin lying around and want to
donate to help prevent the type of animal cruelty depicted
in this episode, there are numerous animal rights organizations out
there worthy of your donation. And if depictions of animal cruelty, rape,
or suicide trigger you in any way, then you might
want to skip this. But stories about gun toting, mullet wearing,
(01:28):
polyamorous con men get you going, And guess what, motherfucker,
this episode's for you, Melotron. Stories about Joe Exotic are insane.
(01:56):
As the owner of a roadside zoo in Oklahoma, he
ruled over his staff like a redneck circus wrangler. He
took tigers and other large predators to malls across America
until his touring show was shut down by his nemesis,
Carol Baskin. He was strapped at all times and made
sure everyone who ever saw his YouTube show knew he
(02:16):
was ready to stand his ground and defense of his cats,
blowing the intruders away or just playing blow shit up.
He was a polygamist, a politician, a padlocked Prince Albert
wearing protagonist in his own movie, and he was of
course the star of a series of low budget country
music videos, including one where the body parts of his
(02:37):
arch rival's husband are fed to real live, hungry tigers.
The song, like the video, is so badshit crazy that
it's hard not to qualify at it as anything less
than great, because Joe Exotic made great music. Actually he didn't,
but he didn't make music sort of, but not in
(02:58):
the way you expect, and totally unlike that music you
heard at the top of the show. That wasn't great
music either. That was a preset loop from my mellotron
called Ham and Tube Funk MK. Two. I played you
that loop because I can't afford the rights to the
Box by Roddy Rich. And why would I play you
that specific slice of lo fi auto tuned cheese? Could
(03:21):
I afford it? Because that was the number one song
in America on January twenty second, twenty twenty, and that
was the day that Joe Exotic was sentenced to twenty
two years in federal prison for only a small sample
of the insane behavior he had exhibited over the previous decade.
(03:42):
On this episode, Big Cat Exploitation, Tiger Maullie's Deadly gun Play,
Low budget Country Cheese, and Joe exotic. I'm Jake Brennan
and this is disgraceland. The police cruiser was screaming down
(04:22):
the highway's off ramp. Its driver was drunk to the
point of pissing the khaki pants of his uniform and
humiliated rejected again the bourbon. The beer. It dulled the pain,
but love was more than just a shot away. Gay
nightlife in Dallas, Texas in nineteen eighty five, for Eastvale
Chief of Police Joe Shrevogel was heartaches by the number,
(04:44):
trouble by the score, still at the age of twenty two,
while dealing with, as he would be the rest of
his life, the post dramatic stress of being raped at
the age of five and having to navigate the tricky
emotional terrain of young closeted homosexual adult. Joe, with the
alcohol revving him up, had reached his breaking point. He
(05:05):
turned down the off ramp and gunned it. Pedaled to
the metal, straight for the wall, no sad farewells, no tear,
dimmed eyes, on his way to that fair land where
the soul never dies. Joe survived the crash, some would
(05:26):
say thrive, but the memory of the crash snuck up
on him now and then out of nowhere, as did
the other memories, the bad ones, the one about his
first husband, Brian, dying of AIDS and that wound was deep,
it wasn't healing. Ever Worse than that, though more scarring,
more frightening, was the memory of his second husband JC.
(05:49):
Get on the ground, motherfucker. You're gonna eat this gun.
You hear me, You're gonna fucking eat it, Eat it,
eat it. J C was now doing a life sentence
for degree murder. He came and went, just like the memories.
Joe couldn't control them, but it didn't matter. He could
control most everything else. He had confidence in spades. He
(06:11):
used it to build a mini empire, an exotic animal empire.
Joe shri Vogel was now Joe Exotic Exotic Animals. Big
cats were the game. But entertainment was the business. Show business,
or more precisely, Joe business. It had always been that way,
the business of show the business of Joe. That's how
(06:32):
we got the gig. As chief of police at nineteen,
with zero experience or any real education, he talked himself
into it confidence and then later, as a traveling magician,
he did the same thing he knew a trick or
too sure, But like every good confidence man, Joe was
only as good as the card up his sleeve. He'd
(06:54):
bury the memories, strolled the expanse of his sixteen acre
exotic animal park w zoo, and contemplate his next move,
his next score, his next love. Within the sixteen acres
of the animal park, Joe was master of his domain.
Within this space, he kept an untold number of played
spinning within his own three ring circus act, not only
(07:16):
feeding lions and tigers and bears and more, but playing
Backwood Sugar Daddy there in Winningwood, Oklahoma, to the island
of misfit toys that made up his staff, guiding tourists
through to see the wonders and to pet the baby
tigers while they took selfies for future Facebook, Instagram and
Tinder profile picks. Business was good, ish, and there was
(07:39):
always some complications, some hassle, usually money, but things were up.
Joe was moving into television. He'd launched his own web
TV show, but he also had an experienced reality TV
producer and crew following his every move, making a reality
series on spec with hopes of selling it to Animal
Planet or National geography, or some other basic cable channel,
(08:02):
hopefully through a bidding war. So far, today it was
quiet at the zoo. Joe was sitting outside smoking, looking
up at the clouds, watching them take shape, looking for
signs wasting time, and there are only a few patrons
so far, are milling about waiting for the show to start,
waiting to shell out what few dollars they had to
hold and pet a baby tiger shit that reminded Joe
(08:27):
the cats over in the tiger pen needed to be fed.
Tigers only eat about once a week, meaning wild tigers
only kill once a week to eat, not for sport.
Generally speaking, tigers are afraid of humans, not that there
aren't numerous attacks of humans by tigers in the wild.
There are, but those are mainly cases of mistaken identity,
(08:48):
where the tiger thinks the human is something else, something
normally on the menu, like a wild boar or an
elephant calf. Tigers of course also attack humans when they
feel threatened, but assuming threats aren't part of the deal,
and assuming the tiger's normal diet doesn't dry up, then
humans are usually off the menu. But not on that morning,
Not at Joe Exotics Exotic Animal Park on that day.
(09:12):
Humans were absol fucking lutely on the menu. The animal
clawed at the arm, big six inch claws, ripping skin,
then a second swipe gripping into the muscle under the
human flesh, shredding the tendons or the muscle connected to
the bone, pulling Joe's worker, the one they called saff,
(09:32):
into the fence and separated him from the hungry man eater.
The tiger thrust his head at sass arm, brought its
sharp canines down through the skin of the arm, severed
it almost completely. The tiger fell back for a moment
on the other side of the fence. Saf managed to
get his arm free at that exact right moment, falling
into a puddle of muddy water on the ground. As
(09:54):
soon as the attack happened, word went out fast, and
Joe was on the scene in less than a minute,
pulling this severely wounded employee out of the muck and
quickly applying a makeshift tourniquet to his arm. In another
minute flat, Joe threw on an emt jacket, always the showman,
this time playing the role of authority through sheer confidence
alone as he went to announce the malling to the
(10:15):
crowd of visitors wandering around his gift shop. Even in
the face of disaster, Joe's bravado carried the day as
he described the incident to the assembled crowd as if
nothing had gone wrong except for Saff putting his arm
through the fence. It was sas fault after all, and
if for shit, sure wasn't his fault or the tigers,
because at heart, Joe's fast talking persona was inseparable from
(10:39):
his love for the big cats. Like all big cat people,
he had the stones to walk among some of the
world's most efficient predators. Compared to that adrenaline rush. Dealing
with the fallout on this messy day at the park
was nothing. Every confidence man knows how to handle a
mark who spots the work provided a distraction. Move along.
Nothing to see here except the gw Zoo. In the
(11:02):
wake of saff smalling, there was still plenty to see.
The park remained open, and Saff himself would soon be
back on the job, not wanting to give the press
more ammo in their campaign to shame Joe or worse,
shut him down. The inevitable had happened, but thanks to
an emt, costume change, and the loyalty of his workers.
(11:22):
Joe Exotic would stay on top for now. That night,
Joe sat in front of his computer. The glow of
the screening was the only light shining in his broke
down palace, a ramshackle ranch house on the Zoo's property.
Inside it was a total shithole, double wide decor. Joe
(11:43):
Chain smoked and cruised Craigslist. It was a nightly ritual,
old habit. It relaxed him. Joe knew the ins and
outs of the free market listing site come internet sewer,
depending on what you were looking for meth, paid sex,
we whatever, and that you knew how to look for
capital T in the post to indicate the poster had meth.
(12:04):
Promises of roses for paid sex, for violets for we
Craigslist could hook you up, especially when it came to sex,
casual encounters, nssays for no strings attached, massages, waterworks, party
and play, all kinds of sex, sex, sex, and more sex.
So much so that Newsweek in twenty fifteen reported that
(12:27):
Craigslist alone was responsible for a sixteen percent increase in
HIV cases. Joe was clean, though he thought so, anyway,
he was in love with Travis. Travis was beautiful, which
was most of the reason why Joe married him, and
certainly all of the reason Joe's other husband, John allowed
(12:47):
for the polygamous union. Travis was easy on the eyes,
but that's not why John allowed Joe to bring him
into the relationship. John allowed it because he'd let Joe
do whatever the hell was Joe wanted to do. Joe
was the boss. Literally, Joe not only paid husband number
one John's checks at the Zoo, but Joe also paid
John's bills, took care of him real sugar daddy style.
(13:10):
John wasn't bad looking either, bulky nineteen years old. Joe
bought him steroids to beefcake him up a bit more,
and Joe paid for his tattoo, the one just above
his cock that said privately owned by Joe Exotic. But
aside from all that, Travis was okay with John. Like John,
Travis wasn't even really gay. He was just desperate, young, impressionable,
(13:34):
and easily influenced by confidence, experience, and opportunity. Travis would
go in with Joe for the same reasons John did,
and like John, Travis liked the math a little too much.
The clouded things made it all blooey up in his head. Sex, sexuality, love, desired, devotion.
What did any of it really mean? Anyway? The three
(13:56):
of them, Joe, Travis, and John lived somewhat happily Zoo
and Joe loved both his husbands, but Travis was special.
Maybe Joe would write him a song, Yeah, something heartfelt,
something Clint Black would sing to his pretty wife and
mean it. Joe pointed his cursor to the Little Blue
create a posting link on Craigslist and lit another cigarette.
(14:40):
When Joe got the MP three of the songs mix
email to him and clicked play, and the sound came
rushing out of his tiny little computer speakers. It was glorious.
Joe heard his future calling him. The song was perfect,
so on brand. So Joe, the reality shoe television producers,
(15:01):
the networks, his staff at the Zoo, They're all gonna
have the same reaction. Joe, you sound amazing, Damn RIGHTY
tell him he was Joe Exotic, not some other guy.
Of course he could sing. He had one good leg
left too. After that bitch Tiger Chainsaw tore him up good.
But guess what motherfucker he could dance too, But singing
(15:22):
and dancing wasn't gonna be enough. He needed theatrics, and
in the age of the Internet, clicks were almost as
good as dollars, and that meant Joe needed a video.
He had the song. Now it was time to pour
gas on this bitch. The federal agents from the US
(15:44):
Fish and Wildlife Service could not believe what they were seeing,
yet they couldn't stop watching. They didn't even like country music. Hell,
one of them didn't even really like music. Yet these
music videos were endlessly entertaining, so amateur, yet so damn
batshit crazy. It was better than porn. There were love
(16:08):
letters to tigers with cheap storm cloud visuals, explosions, a
ubiquitous bottle dyed mullet, uncomfortable, extra shitty tattoos, tattooed eyeliner,
more shitty tattoos, a candlelight dinner for one, more tigers,
more storm clouds, scantily cloud Country chicks were the singer
who everyone knew was gay because he was openly married
(16:28):
to not one but two men, surrounded himself with hot
babes to demonstrate his sexual prowess with the ladies called
pretty woman, Lover and In all the videos, the one
constant besides the mullet, of course, was the singer's shameless confidence.
It's unbelievable he comes across as some sort of every
rose has its thorn era Brett Michaels crossed with Joe
(16:51):
dirt and with zero irony and about as much self
awareness as Kenny Powers. But the one that took the cake,
the video that absolute could not be topped, was the
one called Here Kitty Kitty. In it, the singer Joe
Exotic aka Joe Maldonado Passage aka Joe Maldonado aka Joe
(17:12):
Shrivogel sings directly to his nemesis while wearing a priest uniform,
while an actor playing his nemesis feeds her husband's body
parts to real live hungry tigers. That nemesis one Carol Baskin,
owner of Big Cat Rescue outside Tampa, Florida. Like any
(17:32):
good nemesis, Carol was like Joe in some ways, but
his polar opposite and others. Like Joe, Carol loved big
cats and provided them a sanctuary in which to live
out their days in captivity. Unlike Joe, Carol had sworn
off breeding and declared herself an animal rights activist. Like Joe,
(17:53):
Carol knew the value of internet publicity, sharing web vlogs
and maintaining a highly popular Facebook group. Unlike Joe, she
used her online platform to target animal abusers and tried
to shut down their businesses, and Joe was at the
top of her list. From Joe's perspective, this was rank hypocrisy.
Letters from Big Cat Rescue had hounded his touring mall
(18:15):
show until he had to shut it down. But how
much better really was Carol's organization than his own? It
was clear to everyone watching with grim fascination over the
interwebs she had gotten under his skin. In Joe's web videos,
Joe had positioned mannequins and sex dolls labeled Carol and
blow them up with dynamite, empty gun barrels into them,
(18:35):
and threatened to send Carol venomous snakes through the US mail.
And these weren't the acts of any normal confidence man,
but of a showman who had started drinking his own
kool aid. Carol up the antie and retaliated by suing
Joe for copyright infringement for ripping off her Big Cat
Rescue logo In an effort to sew confusion in the
Big Cat community. The sewing of confusion worked for Joe,
(18:58):
and so did the lawsuit for Carol. Carol won her
day in court, and the result would be her bleeding
Joe financially for years. He was crushed, nearly ruined financially
because of it, and he couldn't let the gripe against
Carol go. The hypocrisy of it all, especially considering that Joe,
like a lot of others in the Big Cat community,
(19:18):
was convinced that Carol was the actual criminal, a felon,
even a murderer, who got away with killing her husband
and taking over his fortune, dousing him with sardine oil
and feeding him to the tigers on their property. And
that was the running theory anyway, There's no evidence supporting it,
but the story worked with Joe's narrative that Carol was
the real villain, not him, and he was going to
(19:43):
prove it. That's what the new song was all about,
and that's what the Here Kitty Kitty video was about too,
Joe singing his ass off, channeling Charlie Leavin. It wasn't
quite Knoxville Girl, but Here Kitty Kitty was steeped in murdered.
Joe was shining a light on Carroll's bullshit, showing the
war in his eyes. She was a murderer. And that's
(20:03):
why the FEDS were watching Joe clocking his silly music videos,
making sure his antics didn't escalate into anything real. Because
there were rumors, rumors that Joe was more than just
a hapless, publicity starved con man. There were rumors about
the slaughtered tigers, and darker rumors still that Joe had
(20:24):
real murder on his mind. We'll be right back after
this word word word. Tiger coves are high unto themselves.
They're potentially dangerous, but not really. People love them. They're
so damn cute, beautiful. People can't get enough of them,
(20:44):
And therein was the draw to Joe Exotic Zoo the cubs.
People would line up for hours to pay five bucks
to get to hold them for a couple of minutes,
and then another five bucks to get their picture snapped
with them. But the problem with tiger coves is they
grow up in the big hungry tigers that cost over
ten grand a year to feed each and for someone
(21:05):
like Joe Exotic, those big hungry tigers weren't good for
much beyond making more tiger cubs. But pretty soon those
cubs would be old enough to make more cubs, and
then they too will be costing too much money to feed.
It was a goddamn vicious cycle. Travis hopped in Joe's pickup.
(21:25):
He wasn't excited about what he knew they were going
to do. Joe, behind the wheel didn't seem to care
at all. He sang along to Garth Brooks on the
radio as they drove to the outer limit of the
zoo's property. Out there, other zoo staff were waiting. The
ditch was doug days ago. Joe pulled up to it,
hopped out of the truck, took a shotgun. Travis stayed
(21:48):
in the pickup, and the adult tigers Joe had requested
were there in the ditch, roaming, all five of them. Samson, Delilah, Trinity, Lauren,
and Cuddles. Raised a shotgun, took aim and blasted Samson away,
then Delilah, then Trinity, Lauren, and at last Cuddles. They
(22:12):
all died instantly, all five of them, and Joe was
off the hook for fifty grand. The callous murder of
the tigers was one of the many things Travis could
no longer truck with. Life on the Zoo was well
a zoo. Joe was a mess in constant motion, starting
(22:33):
one fire to distract from another. There was the lawsuit
with Carol, the literal fire in the Alligator House, the
destruction of their web studio in years of lost footage,
and unbelievably a serious run for governor of Oklahoma by
the most unserious of candidates. Making matters worse was the
fact that Travis confided to others that Joe had him
(22:54):
completely locked down, that he wouldn't let him leave the zoo,
wouldn't let him get a job elsewhere, that he kept
him doped up on grass and meth in order to
keep him under his thumb. Travis sunk into a deep
depression because of it, all smoked more and more weed
and doubled down on the meth. All the while Joe
was consumed with the zoo, was paying off the lawsuit
(23:15):
from Carol, with a silly campaign for governor that was
going nowhere, and with his new friend Jeff. Jeff was
Jeff Low from Las Vegas, Rumored to be a con
man of sorts himself. Jeff had what Joe needed cash,
cash to keep the studio afloat while Joe paid off Carol,
Jeff could get shit done. Dig that McMansion on the
(23:37):
outskirts of town, dig that hummer, dig that swinging dime
spot wife, with the trysts, with the call girls in Vegas.
Jeff had it going on. Jeff was the answer to
Joe's prayers, or so Joe thought. No one else did.
Jeff represented the end death. Joe transferred legal ownership with
the zoo to Jeff and focused on brand and entertainment
(23:58):
and fending off Carol. Jeff managed his new investment, quickly
took control of the zoo and brought in new management,
Alan Glover. Alan Glover ran out of Fox decades before
running into Joe Exotic in his band of misfit toys
at the GW Zoo. Alan did hard time, a convicted
(24:19):
felon who snickered at Joe's tattooed eyeliner. Alan had a
teardrop tattoo below his eye. Rumors spread that it was
a prison marker, symbolizing that Allan had killed a man,
though many claim that the teardrop prison logo is an
indicator that it's wearer is a bitch, someone sissy, someone
turned out by a more dominant prisoner, a sex toy.
(24:40):
It's not surprising which meeting Alan ran with on the zoo.
He refused to work for Joe, degraded him regularly for
being a homosexual, claimed he worked for Jeff and Jeff alone,
which was true. Alan didn't get along with Joe's other
zoo staff either, Travis among them, Travis was sunk. Not
(25:01):
only was working with Alan under the new zoo order
of pain in the ass, Joe was not himself. He
was irritable, His mood swings were off the charts. He
was regularly blowing up its staff, berating them high, fucked up,
a erratic, becoming more possessive of not only Travis, but
also of John as other husband. Near impossible to deal with,
and due to Carol's lawsuit and the constant pressure put
(25:23):
on Joe to pay off the massive million dollar plus
debt the court's rule to the olde Carol, Joe was
constantly stressed about money. Feeding the cats was becoming impossible,
and there was only so much and expired meat donations
he could grab from the local Walmart, and a good
portion of that bad meat was now being used to
top the pizza Joe was serving to customers from the
(25:43):
new pizzeria he and Jeff built on the zoo. But
customers weren't the only ones who needed to eat. The
adult tigers needed to eat too, and Joe had no
cash to make it happen, so he was eager to
take the call about the horse, the one some locals
wanted Joe to take off their hands. They wanted to
(26:04):
donate it to the zoo. Travis thought it was a
bad idea. Joe didn't give a fuck with Travis thought.
Travis smoked some more dope. Joe, once the horse was donated,
arranged for it to be brought out to the ditch.
Travis was bored. There were only so many trails to
tear ass over on his four wheeler. Joe grabbed his
shotgun and headed out toward the ditch. Travis grabbed his
(26:26):
ruger and headed toward the zoo's office. Joe was fed up,
tired of the hassle of the zoo, Carroll's bullshit, Jeff's bullshit,
tired of the staff, tired of John, tired of Travis,
tired even of the tigers. Travis was fed up as well,
fed up with Joe, mostly his constant bullshit, his possessive ways.
Fed up because frankly, he had no life with Joe.
(26:48):
He wasn't allowed to leave, to work, to love, to live.
Joe drove in his pickup blasted as newest would be single.
God damn, this demo was hot. He knew it, and
the vocals especially deep, resonant, hinting at a knowing soul,
someone who's seen some shit, a dead husband, a jailed husband,
a kept husband. Travis stopped his four wheeler, blasted a
(27:11):
rail of math up his nose. His blood ran hot.
He knew he was fucked this time, especially trapped, kept
dying inside to be more, someone who could live a life,
a real person, a real man, a freeman. Joe put
his hand on his shotgun on the seat at his side.
It comforted him, made him feel like the man he
was in control. Confident, Travis patted his hand on the
(27:33):
ruger in his pocket as he bounced off the four wheeler.
It gave him purpose for a moment anyway. Less confused,
Joe exited the pickup truck and there was the horse,
as requested, roaming in the ditch. Travis entered the zoo's office.
There was the camera, as expected, running up on its perch.
Joe raised the shotgun. Travis raised the ruger. Joe thought,
(27:54):
out here, no one would see, Travis thought. With the
camera on, everyone would see. Joe point out straight at
the horse's head. Future tiger met, he thought. Travis pointed
it to the temple of his own head. Fuck with me,
Fuck with you. He pulled the trigger. Publicly, Joe displayed
(28:46):
legitimate grief and of course confidence. Travis's death tore him
up good and it brought a ship ton of publicity,
good and bad, down on Joe, Jeff, and the Zoo. Privately,
Joe is a mess alone at night, with the remnants
of his trauma, the constant pick of his stress and
(29:08):
rattling anxiety, the hum of Craigslist as always lighting his
room from his computer screen, the television dead quiet, just
like his confidence. Joe lashed out. He pulled the revolver
from his side, the one he kept on him at
all times, took game at his television and blew it away.
Then he took gaim at the couch across from him
(29:28):
and fired a bullet through it. As well, And finally
he did what seemed like an inevitability. He put the
barrel of the gun to his own head and pulled
the trigger. But the pistol malfunctioned and Joe Exotic escaped
death by his own hand. But Carol Baskin would not
be so lucky, not if Joe had anything to do
about it. She was bleeding him. It had to end.
(29:51):
She was the living embodiment of an existential threat to
his way of life. She had to die, and Joe
knew just how to do it. He was confident that
not only could he get rid of Carol, but if
he was smart, he could solve another problem as well,
get rid of that world class prick, Alan Gardner in
the process and killed two birds with one crossbow. And
(30:14):
that was the plan anyway, The plan he cooked up
with Alan traveling halfway across the country from Oklahoma to Tampa,
Florida with a gun for Alan for an ex con
was too risky, so a crossbow was decided upon. Alan
would sneak out to Carroll's property with a crossbow while
she was out for a regular bike ride and shoot
her with it. No, Alan had a better idea. He
(30:36):
was into the knife, smaller, easier to carry and conceal.
He'd sneak onto Carroll's property, wait for her in the bushes,
jump out, attack, and cut her head off for five
thousand dollars. But Alan was in it for more than
the money. He hated Joe, and he knew that if
he did this for him, he would own him forever.
(30:58):
Alan knew already that he was going to hell for
his sins. He needed to make the most of this world.
He told a friend and confidant of his and Jeff's,
James Garretson, who was in on the plan to kill Carol.
If anybody rats me out and I get popped everybody
that they love, I'll have them burnt alive, every fucking
single person. And I mean that from the bottom of
(31:20):
my heart. They will be burnt the fuck alive. Joe
promised Alan the full five k when the job was complete,
and gave him a three grand advance. Alan got in
his car, headed for Florida and quickly blew all the
money on strippers, booze, and drugs. There was no hit
(31:40):
on Carol. Fuck it. Alan decided the five K and
Joe fucking Exotic weren't worth more time. Joe Exotic, he
of the never ending bullshit, the consummate entertainer, a man
who's seen forever confident, an extraordinary confidence man, a confidence
man's con man, had been out conned by the ex
(32:02):
Cohn Alan Gardner, who not only conned Joe out of
his money, but conspired with Jeff Lowe and their friend
James Garretson to set Joe up for the FEDS and
help convict him of a murder for higher plot, murder
for hire being a tricky charge to land convictions for
needing an exchange of money, wired recordings acknowledging the plot
(32:22):
and then motioned by the hired assassin to execute the
plot well, the FEDS being the FEDS, weren't going to
hang their hat on a complicated scheme that wouldn't guarantee
a guilty verdict, especially once Alan blew the money on
a lost weekend in Florida instead of taking out Carol.
So Joe was brought up on nineteen total charges, two
that covered the attempt to kill Carol in seventeen for
(32:45):
animal cruelty, including multiple attempts to sell or offer to
sell tigers, and perhaps most heart strength pulling of all
the Murder of the Five Tigers, Samson, Delilah, Trinity, Lauren,
and Cuddles for all of it. Joe got twenty two
years in a cage for Joe Exotic, for Joe Maldonado, Passage,
(33:07):
Joe Maldonado, Joe Shrivoga. There were many humiliations about prison,
the irony, of course, being the heat a man who
exploited helpless animals, killing them and keeping them caged for
his own enrichment was now behind bars. That, of course
stung like a motherfucker. But perhaps more stinging was the
(33:27):
fact that finally Joe Exotic's confidence had paid off. He
was famous, not because of some lowbrow reality TV show,
and not because of his silly music videos, but because
of a Netflix documentary, Tiger King, that captured America's imagination
at a time when the country desperately needed the distraction.
Joe Exotic was the most famous man in America, and
(33:50):
he was rotting behind bars. That stung, But so too
did the discovery and humiliation that Joe wasn't, even in
his newfound fame, quite what he presented himself as. After
the popularity of the Netflix documentary on his life, his
Zoo his beef with Carol, it came out in public
(34:13):
that Joe wasn't the real voice behind those impassioned country
songs he'd been releasing over the years, songs and music
videos that constituted so much of who Joe was his identity.
But no Joe, with his high pitched nasally redneck lil
couldn't hold a tune if it was drenched in crazy glue.
Word is out that Joe Milli Vanilli, that shit, pointed
(34:36):
the cursor toward the blue, create a posting link on
Craigslist and learned a struggling country act from Vancouver, Washington,
the Clinton Johnson Band, to write, record, and of course
sing his songs for him. Joe Exotic Forever, a con Forever,
a Disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in this his Disgraceland. Disgraceland
(35:14):
was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership
with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found
on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If
you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you
for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and if not,
you can become a member right now. By going to
disgracelampod dot com slash membership, members can listen to every
(35:36):
episode of disgracelan ad free, Plus you'll get one brand
new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special
audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit
disgracelampod dot com slash membership for details, rate and review
the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and
Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot com
(36:00):
slash at disgrace lamdpod rock a Rolla. He's a bad
bad man, h
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