Host - Estee Daveed
Estee: [00:00:03] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Estee Daveed, The Moth Social Media Coordinator, and your host for this episode.
Today, we're going to be sharing stories about the magic of pets. I know a little something about the lengths we'll go to for our furry friends. In January 2022, I decided 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? I mean, what even is a Bark Mitzvah? But the invites were out, and I needed to just start 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 Shih Tzu Poodle. I knew what I was doing was silly, but it was also my way of sharing my profound gratitude for Mookie and all of his support throughout quarantine. 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 StorySLAM in 2013, where theme of the night was Envy. Here's Scott, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Scott: [00:02:00] 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. 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 ambiance in there was the opposite of what you Imagine a topless bar be like. But I would hang out there with the dog. We would get snacks and talk to the dancers.
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. The thing about being an actor is, it's like trying to play for 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. [audience laughter]
First, it was with print jobs for Ralston Purina, and then he did movies with Mr. T. [audience laughter] 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 shared a sandwich together. Jake, with a beautiful golden retriever, really beautiful, when the lights turned on, he thought it was Marilyn Monroe, but not really that smart.
I turn on the TV, and it's a commercial of these beautiful women running in a meadow with long hair, slow motion in perfect pre-dusk crisp light. My dog is running along with them. There's a voiceover in the commercial that says, it's a Cartier commercial, my dog went from Ralston Purina to being one of the involved in one of the most luxurious brands. And the commercial theme was Know diamonds, Know love. K-N-O-W, Know Diamonds, Know Love.
Anyway, Jake's agent was calling all the time. [audience laughter] My agent rarely called. I finally got a gig where I had to do a low budget commercial for cable TV. It was for drum and dog chow. I had to go to a funky loft on West 26th Street. I had to wear a Dalmatian costume [audience laughter] with a battery-operated tail and have this 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 slog my way through it. I'm having major envy. I like the money that I'm getting from my dog doing all this stuff, but [audience laughter] I was a serious actor. [audience laughter] So, I take a cab ride home, and I pass a bus that has another ad, another display of Know diamonds, Know love with Jake the Golden Retriever. I get home, because I was beginning to unravel. I was having some major issues with this. 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, “I can't believe what Jake did.” [audience laughter] 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 pet tricks, 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. [audience laughter] 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 [audience laughter] at the epicenter of global power. [audience applause]
You have to imagine, my dog shaking his head, like he has a wild carcass in his mouth. I am looking at him-- This whole experience, I am unraveling. So, what I decide to do, I don't like the way that Cartier is marketing love. In my twisted frame of mind, I decide to sabotage the campaign. I print up these dog tails like T-shirts. I send them out to about several of the key decision makers, trendsetters in New York.
From Pearl Paint, I get paints and I make a stencil. Over every ad I see for Cartier where it says, Know Diamonds, Know Love, I spray paint, dog tails lie. I send a diatribe to Terry Gross on Fresh Air. [audience laughter] I disguise my voice like-- Who's that guy? Stephen Hawking. It was Stephen Hawking. [audience laughter] And the topper was-- The Cartier people are wondering what's going on. They're getting investigated as I'm getting more paranoid. [audience laughter] 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. [audience laughter] I feign sickness. I say I have to leave. I go back to the loft with a girlfriend. We go to the house that Jake bought for us in the Catskills, and Jake gets bit by a raccoon and he gets 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.
[cheers and applause]
Estee: [00:09:08] 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 GrandSLAMs and Moth Mainstage events. His website is grosslynormallife.com. If you'd like to see pictures of Scott's dog and Mookie's Bark mitzvah, then head to our website, themoth.org/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 Noriko Rosted. She told us at a New York City Community Showcase in 2019, where theme of the night was Across the Divide. Here's Noriko, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Noriko: [00:10:00] 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. [audience laughter] 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, no friends here yet. So, 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 small money. He's a little bit cocky, typical teenage boy, looks like only thinking about girls and football. And his hair is loose, his clothes is loose, his attitude is loose. [audience laughter] And we are like, “Oh, forget about it. We cannot leave our Spencer to the kid. [audience laughter] We have to find a decent and responsible adult.” One person crossed my mind. She's Japanese like me. I met her through a library program and I remember she mentioned she loves cats, 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 going to be great.” I was like, what a generous person. And so, I went to an apartment in upper west to drop off Spencer. When I enter the apartment, the four walls were pictures and paintings of cats all over. [audience laughter] And on the shelves were a quite variety of funny cats’ figures. [audience laughter] 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.” I thanked her and flew to Italy with my husband.
Day one, I got text message from her saying, “Spencer is doing great. He ate food, and he did both things, in his toilet, and everything's great. No worries. Please enjoy your vacation.” She even attached a picture of Spencer. He's lying on the couch. He looked very comfortable. [audience laughter] And day two. I got another text. I was like, “Wow, is she sending me a daily report of Spencer? [audience laughter] 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 a 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, “This 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 Kia seed oil.” “What is Kia 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?” [audience laughter] We agreed with the instructions. So, I said in a polite way, please don't give him anything, but what he usually eats. She responded back immediately, “I know what cats need. I am used to be a vet. I have more experience than you.” I was like “What is wrong with her?” [audience laughter] I exchanged many texts. Her tone was really escalating every text. She was really attacking me, but it's like hostage negotiation, [audience laughter] you still have to maintain certain level of cooperation, willingness. It’s about--
One point, it went out of control. I was really, really concerned about Spencer's safety. [audience laughter] 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. [audience laughter] 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?” I knew he still was at school, so I waited. An hour later, my phone beeped. It was from him. I opened the text very nervously. He said, “Sure, [audience laughter]
just give me her address.” I said, “What? 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 emoji, a guy saluting [unintelligible 00:17:45] [audience laughter] 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 was just want to be Justin Bieber [audience laughter] saves the day and he's my hero to this day.
[cheers and applause]
Estee: [00:18:19] That was Noriko Rosted. Noriko 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. Noriko sent us a reflection on just that.
Noriko: [00:18:46] Some years ago, The Moth first aired my story. 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 [unintelligible 00:19:17] 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 it can create.
Estee: [00:19:42] 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 dogs’ Bark Mitzvah, be sure to go to themoth.org/extras or follow us on social media. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week.
Marc: [00:19:58] In addition to her work on the Moth marketing team, Estee Daveed is a performer, writer and dog mom. A fan of all things creative and story related, Estee is also a storytelling coach and graphic designer for the Hamantaschen Monologues, an annual Jewish storytelling event.
This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Sollinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team Sarah Haberman, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Jennifer Birmingham, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Lee Ann Gullie and Aldi Kaza. 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.