Pet Stars: Scott Sanders and Noriko Rosted

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Welcome to the Moth Podcast.

I'm Esti David, the Moth social media coordinator, and your host for this episode.

Today, we're going to be sharing stories about the magic of pets.

And I know a little something about the links we'll go to for our furry friends.

In January 2022, I decided to to send out invites to my friends and family to my dog Mookie's Zoom Bark Mitzvah, a Jewish celebration of his coming of age.

Now Mookie wasn't 13 years old, but he had matured exponentially during the pandemic.

From the moment Mookie entered our family, I knew I was going to throw him a bark mitzvah.

The question was when,

and what would it look like?

And I mean, what even is a bark mitzvah?

But the invites were out and I needed to just start building building something.

I chose a theme, put together an original song and a slideshow, organized speakers, wrote out a whole ceremony, and even consulted with my rabbi.

On the eve of the bark mitzvah, I had a minor meltdown because I was worried that I was forcing everybody to come to a frivolous party for a 12-pound shihihsu poodle.

I knew what I was doing was silly, but it was also my way of sharing my profound gratitude for Muki and all of his support throughout quarantine.

And it was about creating a space for the people in my life to share stories about how their pets had impacted them too.

Now, is a Bark Mitzvah kosher?

I still don't know.

What I do know is that I felt connected to my spirituality, my community, and most importantly, Mookie on that momentous day.

So, in honor of National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day on April 30th, we'll be sharing two stories all about how pets bring joy to our lives.

First up is Scott Sanders, who told this at a San Francisco Francisco Story Slam in 2013 where the theme of the night was envy.

Here's Scott right at the mall.

Okay, my tale of envy begins and ends in the Baby Doll Lounge, which was a topless bar in Tribeca in New York City around 1988 before

People knew where and what Tribeca was.

I had a dog.

I lived in a loft a couple blocks away.

And I walked the dog off the leash, and the dog always ran into Baby Doll Lounge.

The dancers in the baby doll lounge weren't your typical topless dancers, they were all conceptual artists and painters and CBGB musicians.

So the mode,

like the ambiance in there, was the opposite of what you imagined a topless bar to be like.

But I would hang out there with the dog, we would get snacks and talk to the dancers.

And

on this day in 1988, I left the bar, and immediately a woman rushed up to us and said, Oh my god, I love that dog.

See, the thing was, I was an actor.

I was on soaps, I did Off-Broadway a bunch of bad films.

And the thing about being an actor is, you know, it's like trying to play third base to the Yankees.

So, on a whim, I took headshots of my dog, and I sent it to the top animal agent, and immediately my dog got work.

First, it was with print jobs

for Ralston Purina and then he did movies with Mr.

T

and then

he became the official Ralston Purina job, campaign dog.

But this is nothing.

This is just the beginning.

I go back to the loft and I get on my couch and we usually like shared a sandwich together.

Jake with a beautiful golden retriever,

really beautiful when the lights turned on he thought he was Marilyn Monroe, but not really that smart.

I turn on the TV TV and it's a commercial of these beautiful women running in a meadow with long hair, sort of slow motion in perfect pre-dusk crisp light.

My dog is running along with them, and there's a voiceover in the commercial that says it's a Cartier commercial.

My dog went from Ross and Purina to being one of the

involved in one of the most luxurious brands.

And the commercial

theme was no diamonds, no love.

K-N-O-W, no diamonds, no love.

Anyway,

Jake's agent was calling all the time.

My agent rarely called.

I finally got a gig where I had to do a low-budget commercial for cable TV.

It was for Drummond Dog Chow.

I had to go to like a funky loft on West 26th Street.

I had to wear a Dalmatian costume

with a battery-operated tail and have this guy

in an outlet mall golf shirt with stains on it yelling at me that I'm not saying the tagline drummond because I'm worth it well enough.

I proceed to, you know, I slog my way through it.

I'm having major envy.

I mean, I like the money that I'm getting from my dog doing all this stuff, but

I was a serious actor.

So

I take a cab ride home, and I pass a bus that has another ad,

another display of no diamonds, no love with Jake the Golden Retriever.

I get home, because I was beginning to unravel.

I was having some major issues with this.

And I immediately Slice up these, I take a knife and I tear up these pillows, huge pillows, and I shake them like crazy.

Feathers go everywhere, it's quite lovely.

And then I sit down against the wall and I share a sandwich with Jake.

My girlfriend comes home, and I say, you know, I can't believe what Jake did, you know?

She says, I need therapy.

You have no idea how it ramped up.

The next step was

New York Post did an article, actor's dog turns ham, gets all the bows.

Then we were on the David Letterman show,

not for stupid Petrics, but to introduce an emerging dog star.

My dog is so associated with wealth and luxury that Donald Trump relative hires my dog to be a ring bearer at one of his relatives' weddings.

And you have to understand, there's a little gizmo that they put on his tooth.

And there's a Cartier box, and he goes down the aisle with a ring.

The topper was

Cartier bought out a rival brand.

They had the opportunity to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, and my dog was chosen to ring the fucking bell at the epicenter of global

power.

And you have to imagine my dog shaking his head like he has a wild carcass in his mouth.

And I am looking at him.

And this whole experience, I am unraveling.

So, what I decide to do,

I don't like the way that Cartier is marketing love.

And in my twisted frame of mind, I decide to sabotage the campaign.

I print up these Dogtails Lie t-shirts.

I send them out to about several of the key decision makers, trend centers in New York.

From Pearl Paint, I get paints, and I get,

I make a stencil, and over every ad I see for Cartier, where it says no diamonds, no love,

I spray paint dog tails lie I send a a

diatribe diatribe to Terry Gross on fresh air

I disguise my voice like

who's that guy Stephen Hawking who is Stephen Hawking

and the top was

It's beginning to, and the Cartier people are wondering what's going on.

They're getting investigated as I'm getting more paranoid.

But the Cartier people invite us to their ad agency because they're redoing their campaign.

Jake isn't allowed to shit in public.

They change his name from Jake to Beauregard.

I feign sickness.

I say I have to leave.

I go back to the loft with my girlfriend.

We go to the house that Jake bought for us in the Catskills.

And Jake gets bit by a raccoon and he gets an an anaerobic infection and three days later he dies.

But he had a really good life

and we had a really good memorial service at the baby doll lounge.

And my son is named Jake.

Thank you.

That was Scott Sanders.

Scott is an ex-actor, ex-New Yorker who moved west 20 years ago.

He is still wrestling with cross-cultural challenges.

He never considers not jaywalking.

Scott has told stories in multiple moth grand slams and moth mainstage events.

His website is grossly normallife.com.

If you'd like to see pictures of Scott's dog and Mookie's bark mitzvah, then head to our website themoth.org slash extras.

In another life, I like to think that I would have been a really great agent to dog actors.

Up next is a story from Nariko Rosted.

She told this at a New York City community showcase in 2019, where where the theme of the night was Across the Divide.

Here's Neriko live at the mall.

Okay,

so my husband and I were very excited about our upcoming trip to Italy.

But we had a big issue, which is our cat.

Spencer.

He's a two-year-old male tubby cat.

We adopted him from a local animal shelter when he was a kitten.

We love him.

He's like our child.

So we are like, what are we going to do with Spencer?

We just relocated from Japan to New York.

We don't have any family, you know, friends here yet.

So and the only person we could think of was 15-year-old American boy who's living in the same apartment building.

We see him here and there doing some errands for the residents to make some more money.

But

he's a little bit kirky, typical teenage boy, looks like only thinking about golf and football.

And his hair is loose, his clothes is loose, his attitude is loose.

And we are like, oh forget about it.

We cannot leave our sponsor to the kid.

We have to find a decent and responsible adult.

And one person crossed my mind.

She's Japanese like me.

I met her through a library program.

And I remember she mentioned she loves cat

and she used to be a vet and she always looking for a volunteer opportunity at animal shelter to take care of cats.

So one day I walked up to her at the library

saying it was really awkward moment, but

look

I know this is a huge favor and definitely you can say no.

But would you be interested in taking care of Spencer while I'm away?

She said immediately, oh, I'd love to.

This is gonna be great.

I was like, what a generous person.

And so I went to an apartment in Upper West to drop off Spencer.

And when I entered the apartment, the four walls were

pictures and paintings of cats all over

and on the shelves were a quite variety of funny cats figures.

It was a little bit too much but clearly she loves cats which is good

and

so I explained about food which is only dry food two times a day and

the amount is one cup per meal.

no snack and she said, oh that's quite simple and easy, no problem.

And I thanked her and flew to Italy with my husband.

Day one, I got a text message from her saying Spencer is doing great.

He ate food and he did both things.

He's in his toilet

and

everything's great.

No no worry.

Please enjoy your vacation.

She even attached a picture of Spencer.

He's lying on the couch and he looked very comfortable.

And day two,

I got another text.

I was like, wow, is she

sending me a daily report of Spencer?

I didn't even ask her, but I know this is so typical of Japanese.

We are very detailed and hospitable people.

I'm very happy that I asked her.

And I opened the text.

She said,

Spencer is a little bit strange.

He didn't eat food.

He's not coming out from under the bed.

He's not moving.

I didn't know what's going on, so I was trying to figure out.

It has never happened before, but do you have any idea what the cause might be?

And she replied, actually,

he ate a tiny part of my socks.

So to help digestion, I gave him key seed oil.

What is key seed oil?

And she continued further, by the way, the food amount that you give Spencer is too little.

So I gave him wet food that I had at home.

I was like, why does she do that?

We agreed with the instructions.

So I said in a pride way,

please don't give him anything but what he usually eats.

And she responded back immediately, I know what cat needs.

I am used to be a vet.

I have more experience than you.

I was, what is wrong with her?

And

I exchanged many texts and her tone was really escalating every text and she was really

attacking me.

But it's like hostage negotiation.

You still have to maintain certain level of

cooperation or willingness.

But

But one point it went out of control and I was really really concerned about Spencer's safety.

But I didn't know what to do.

I'm in Italy, Spencer is in danger.

My heart was pumping fast.

I was crying.

I was so desperate that I had to reach out to the 15-year-old American boy.

I explained the long story

and said, sorry, I know this is a lot to ask,

but is there any chance that you could retrieve Spencer?

And I knew he still was at school, so I waited.

And an hour later, my phone beeped.

It was from him.

I opened the text very nervously.

He said,

sure.

Just give me her address.

I said,

really?

I said,

you have no idea how much it means to me.

You are my hero.

Okay, so her address is this and this.

He texted me back with MOG, a guy saluting.

Got it.

And he did it.

He did.

He went up to Upper West and retrieved Spencer from the lady and brought him back to Brooklyn and stayed with him until I came back home.

So the guy who I thought would just

want to be Justin Beaver saved the day

and he's my hero to this day.

That was Noriko Rosted.

Nariko was born and raised in Japan, but was always curious about the world at large.

Moving to New York was a bit of a coincidence, but she enjoyed discovering the liberated nature of New York and is still carrying the mini New Yorker inside her, even now living in Germany.

She works in the compliance field and lives with her Danish husband and their rescue cat.

We aired this story a few years ago and it touched a lot of people close to her.

Nariko sent us a reflection on just that.

Some years ago, the moth first aired my

When I came into my office the next day, I found out that my boss had heard my story.

He's a New York lawyer, very serious, no-nonsense guy.

Of all people, I would never expect him to be a Moth fan.

I've since left the company in New York and moved to Germany.

Very recently, I got to know about his 2RE passing.

When I heard the news, somehow the first thing came to my mind when I thought about him was the moth connection that we shared and our little funny encounter that day in his office.

I guess you never know who the story reaches and what memory can create.

That's all for this episode.

And remember, if you want to see some photos of the pets we've mentioned, including a shot of my dog's bark mitzvah, be sure to go to them.org slash extras or follow us on social media.

From all of us here at the Moth, have a storyworthy week.

In addition to her work on the Moss marketing team, Esti David is a performer, writer, and dog mom.

A fan of all things creative and story-related, Esti is also a storytelling coach and graphic designer for the Hamantashin Monologues, an annual Jewish storytelling event.

This episode of the Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Solinger.

The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Catherine Burns, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Jennifer Birmingham, Kate Tellers, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Leanne Gulley, and Aldi Casa.

All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at PRX.org.

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