“My trajectory is so weird,” offers Eric Goode.
Back in the early ‘80s — before directing music videos for Nine Inch Nails, launching iconic New York City destinations like the Bowery Hotel and Waverly Inn and creating the docu-phenomenon “Tiger King,” but not long after showing a series of bondage-themed Etch A Sketch drawings alongside works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring — Goode opened Area, a nightclub in downtown Manhattan that catered to Andy Warhol and the art-world set. Along with its terribly cool clientele, Area became known for its décor and lavish installations, whose theme changed every six weeks. One of those themes, “Natural History,” called for live animals. So Goode turned to Tom Crutchfield, a reptile dealer in South Florida, to provide giant lizards and snakes.
It seemed innocent enough. Crutchfield was the self-described “Mick Jagger of the reptile business” who’d supplied snakes to a number of Hollywood productions, including Spielberg’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Little did Goode know that in the late ‘90s, Crutchfield would be the target of Operation Chameleon, a joint effort by the U.S. Marshalls Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block his smuggling of endangered snakes and turtles from Madagascar, flee to Belize, get extradited back to the U.S. and serve 30 months in prison. Now, Crutchfield is just one of several colorful characters profiled in “Monsters of God,” Goode’s five-part HBO docuseries about the exotic reptile smuggling trade.
