by Shorty Rossi
Seb came on board working as my second in command. Once I handled the financial part of a deal, Seb would take over and handle the logistical details, making sure things ran smoothly. He also brought Ronald, my old roommate from the Radio City Tour, into the mix. He and Ronald had become good friends over the years. Ronald functioned as our booking assistant, confirming the talent, arranging travel for out-of-town events, organizing the costumes, hair, and makeup. He still drove me crazy with his lateness, but Seb stayed on top of him and made sure the work got done.
I hired a receptionist as well, a girl named Ashley Brooks. Her girlfriend, Kacie, normally worked for me at the desk, but Kacie was busier and busier with stunt-double work, so Ashley filled in. She was new to the business. She’d done her first gig for Shortywood in Salt Lake City, playing Snow White—with the Seven Dwarves—for a computer company. She was so spunky. I had to calm her down. She wasn’t a diva. She didn’t care if she had to wear a costume for a job. She never complained that the work was “degrading” like Ronald did. She’d just jump in and get it done.
The only problem was that she was scared to death of the dogs. I told her, “Dogs come with the job. Take your pick.” There was really no way to avoid it. Bebi, Mussolini, Geisha, and Hercules were always with me. Bebi and Mussolini actually lived at the office, since the landlord of my Hollywood apartment would allow me to keep only two dogs, Geisha and Hercules, at home. It wasn’t an ideal situation by any means. I wanted all my dogs with me at all times, but for now, it was the compromise I had to make. Ashley was fragile at first, but after a while, she’d get knocked down by a dog and she’d just jump right back up, ready to go.
None of them knew that by taking the job with Shortywood, they’d also signed themselves up for full-time pit bull rescue. As pit bull rescue became a bigger part of the operation, Seb took on more responsibility, going on rescues with me and helping find foster and permanent homes for the pups and strays. Ronald got interested in how to train pit bulls for entertainment jobs and learned how to socialize the dogs in preparation for adoption. We all started going to pit bull awareness events as a team. Everywhere we went, we turned heads. Three or four midgets and four pit bulls showing up to learn more about breed-specific legislation … we weren’t their typical audience members.
Fighting against BSL, breed-specific legislation, was the movement I’d been searching for, the missing piece of the puzzle. This is how we could save the breed. I could focus on advocacy instead of rescue. I could raise awareness in order to protect pit bulls from abusive, restrictive legislation simply by going out there, every day, and letting people know what type of dog a pit bull really is. I could see the surprise on people’s faces when they saw Hercules as my service dog. They were shocked to see a docile, sweet pit bull by my side.
I could reach out to communities that were being ignored. Pit bulls are project dogs and ’cause I was from the projects, and ’cause I had street cred and Folsom years behind me, these guys would listen to me. I could get them to at least consider the free spay and neuter program provided by the City of Los Angeles. There was no way to force these guys to do the right thing. People only change when they’re ready to change, whether it’s fighting addiction or fighting dogs. But I could be a voice, letting these guys know: actually, no, it’s not cool to breed dogs. That one litter can become a puppy mill in the blink of an eye. That no, it’s not cool to fight your dog. That it’s greed and cruelty, plain and simple.
It’s not about screaming at some twenty-year-old kid, and telling them they’re stupid or dumb to be doing what they’re doing. You’ll just make them more violent. You just show them something different. A different way of thinking. A different way of seeing. The younger you catch them, the better off you are. Whenever we’d visit the junior highs with Geisha or Hercules, I could see the kids “get it,” but to really be effective, I needed to find some way to reach people, both kids and adults, in bigger numbers. One-on-one pit bull rescue was like sticking my chubby finger in a leaking Hoover Dam. I needed to reach thousands of people, no, millions of people, no, the whole goddamn world and let them know: PIT BULLS ARE NOT THE ENEMY. WE ARE THE ENEMY!
It didn’t take long for me to get my chance.
David Coulter, a journalist from the L.A. Times, had seen all those articles about Tiny Kiss, and wanted to profile Shortywood for his monthly column on interesting or unusual businesses in the city. We met and spoke at the Hollywood office, then he came to one of our gigs in Newport Beach, where my Little Village People were performing. The article ran in the Business section of the Times on March 17, 2007. It was called “For These Performers, No Role Is Too Small,” and it featured a photo of my talent onstage, in costume, dancing in all their glory. The response was immediate. Reality TV production companies and networks were knocking down the door, trying to get hold of us. My calendar filled with dates for my “couch and bottled water” tour. Every time I walked into a meeting, they handed me a bottle of water and showed me the couch.
Hercules and Geisha were with me for all the meetings, and their presence made it obvious who I could work with and who I’d show the door. There were companies that were terrified of my dogs. They didn’t want them in the offices. They had no idea I was running a pit bull rescue operation at the same time, and they weren’t interested.
But there were two companies I liked, and they started fighting for the rights to shoot a Shortywood pilot. The first was Jay James from E! Network, and the other was Rick Leed, who was then at Frameless Entertainment. Rick had been the executive producer of Tim Allen’s Home Improvement. Jay wanted to film a five-minute teaser to convince the E! executives to invest in a full pilot. Frameless Entertainment wanted to film enough to present three or four episodes to several different networks, and they didn’t require a contract. It seemed like a no-brainer to me. I told the E! Network to go to hell, and started shooting with Frameless.
The pilot was called Shortywood, and since we filmed inside my office, the dogs were part of the pilot, even though they weren’t the main focus of attention. Domenico and Valentino weren’t even around yet, but Geisha and Hercules got plenty of screen time. Once the pilot was done, Rick and I went to every network to pitch the show. Doors slammed one after the other after the other after the other. They were saying things like, “There’s already a Little Person reality show on TV.”
They were referring to TLC’s Little People, Big World series that followed the Roloff family on their pumpkin farm. I’d make my case: “Those guys are Ozzie and Harriet. We’re the Connors!” But the execs weren’t interested. In their minds, one show about Little People was enough. There wasn’t room for us. Rick and I pounded the pavement for six months, then we gave up. It wasn’t meant to be.
I just kept on with my own business, running Shortywood and the rescue transport system. In the meantime, I tried to find a living situation where I could keep all my dogs together. A friend suggested I rent a house in Big Bear, and commute back and forth. It was a crazy, asinine idea, but for some reason, I agreed to give it a try. I gave up my Hollywood apartment, bought a huge Dodge Ram truck, and drove the dogs out to Big Bear.
The house was great, and the dogs loved the freedom of having a big backyard again, but driving for hours was hell on my back, and getting into that truck only made it worse. The only good thing to come out of the move was adding Domenico to our family. A neighbor had seen a black pit bull with a small head running loose in the woods. I tromped back there to find him, and he was friendly enough to follow me home. I tried to place him with two different families, but he was an escape artist. He just kept breaking away. He wanted to run free. The only time he wouldn’t run away was with me. So I kept him.
I barely lasted four months in Big Bear before I packed everyone up again and headed south to Marina del Rey. I rented a houseboat, and divvied the dogs up again between the office and the boat. It wasn’t ideal, but finding an apartment that would allow five pit bulls was impossible. T
hen another friend suggested I consider Mexico. After Big Bear being a bust, I wasn’t as quick to start packing my suitcases, but I drove down and took a look. I found a house with a beach view, solid concrete walls, two bedrooms, two levels, for $600 a month. The kicker: no dog laws, nothing. If I wanted all my dogs around me, I could have them. If the neighbors didn’t like it, too bad, they could go to hell. Mexico was live and let live. Family-oriented. Big meals, socializing, music, and celebrations. Mexico was my kind of place. I rented the house, but kept my houseboat in the Marina just in case.
Around this time, Animal Planet put out the word that they wanted “edgier” programming. There was a woman named Mechelle Collins who owned a production company called Intuitive Entertainment. She’d seen the pilot Rick and I had shot, and she’d kept us in the back of her mind for almost a year. When she heard that Animal Planet was going edgy, she hunted me down.
She convinced me to give the reality TV series one more try. Only this time, she wanted to focus on the dogs, and not the talent management company. This was exactly the platform I needed to launch a real advocacy campaign for pit bulls! The more we talked, the more excited I got about the idea, but I’d been through this process before and I knew better than to get my hopes up. I agreed to shoot a five-minute teaser for them to take to Animal Planet, but this time I wanted to get out of the office and shoot an actual dog rescue. Mechelle agreed.
She got the teaser DVD to Animal Planet. Once a month, the development team met with the president, Marjorie Kaplan, to look over submissions, and a girl named Hilary popped the DVD into the projector. She basically prefaced it by saying, “Big dogs, Little People.” Apparently, everyone in the room was like, “Are you serious? Is this real? Is this a completely staged show? This can’t be real. No way in hell.”
Animal Planet called Mechelle in disbelief. She told them, “Just Google Shorty Rossi. He’s been doing this for years. He’s not a fake.” So they researched me, and found all the information about Shortywood and the rescue program. They checked out my criminal past and verified my whole history. They realized it wasn’t a setup. I may have been an actor in my past career, but I wasn’t acting now. With or without a show, Shortywood and Shorty’s Recue would continue.
Animal Planet asked to see a full thirty-minute pilot, so Intuitive geared up and we prepped for production. Then Animal Planet called back before we’d even shot a scene and said, “Go ahead and shoot enough material for five or six episodes.” What??? It’d barely been two weeks since we sent them the DVD and the contracts were still flying from office to office, unsigned. Then Animal Planet called again and said, “Shoot the full six and we’ll air them.” We hadn’t even shot the pilot yet, and suddenly, I had a guaranteed six-episode pickup to air on Animal Planet.
I refused to believe that any of it was really gonna happen. Even though I was sitting in front of the cameras, and there were people running in and out of my office on a daily basis, I just kept hearing this loop running through my head: “This isn’t true. This can’t possibly be true.” I thought, “Well, they’ll shoot the pilot, look at it, and hate it, and cancel the whole deal.” Or I thought, “Okay, maybe we’ll get six episodes but they’ll never show them.” Or I thought, “They’re gonna decide an ex-con and pit bulls shouldn’t be on TV and back out.” But they didn’t. The show just kept moving forward, and they even set a date for our premiere. January 2010. The show would be called Pit Boss.
That’s when I almost blew it.
Two days before the premiere of the show, the very first episode, Shortywood was hired to do another event in Newport Beach. They wanted the Little Village People for an encore performance, so I drove down, and Allison joined me there. It wasn’t so far from her house. It was good to see her, and she liked helping out with the odd job here and there. We always had a good time working together.
I had way too much wine, and I was staying at a hotel nearby, but I heard about an after-party, and decided to go. I threw Hercules back into the Scion, and we were halfway there when I had to make a left turn at a light. I was on the phone, talking to somebody, when I noticed the car opposite me also trying to make a left turn. He was a foot over the double yellow line, but I was tipsy and not paying attention. Between the phone and the booze, I was distracted.
We ran right into each other. My tire blew and his headlight busted. Within two minutes, the cops showed up. My mind was racing. “How am I gonna get out of this?” Given my past record, I just didn’t like dealing with cops, ever. I didn’t realize I was drunk. I didn’t realize the other driver was also drunk. I thought I was sober enough to drive.
The cops asked me how much I’d had to drink. I explained that I was wobbling ’cause I was bowlegged and disabled, not ’cause of the wine. The cop just smiled at me, and said, “Just blow into this thing and get it over with.” I blew four points over the legal limit. The cop said, “We gotta take you in.” His partner, a lady cop, announced she was gonna call animal control. I almost lost my mind. It took every ounce of energy in me not to freak out. I knew I had to be cooperative. I knew I couldn’t piss them off. I was in the wrong, but they were not gonna take Hercules away from me. I convinced the lady that Hercules was my service animal for my disability, and that it could be seen as discrimination if he wasn’t allowed to travel with me. She gave me the leash and they loaded Hercules and me into the back of the patrol car. We were quite the sight.
Once we got to booking, they had no idea what to do with Hercules. They put him in a holding cell by himself, where he howled and moaned to be reunited with me. Poor Hercules, behind bars. We’d been captured as part of a DUI sting, so the place was filling up with drunks. The guy sitting beside me was so confused. He kept leaning over to me and saying, “Did they bring us to a dog pound? I’m not hearing a dog in prison, am I? Man, I gotta stop drinking.”
I sat there for several hours before a cop came to let me go. He actually said, “You’ve been so cooperative and you’ve never been in trouble, so call someone to pick you up.” They didn’t realize I’d been in prison before. Maybe my name change had confused things a bit. Whatever the reason, I kept my mouth shut, called one of the Little People working the event, Tonya, and had her drive Hercules and me back to the hotel. Four hours later, I called a taxi to take me to the impound yard to get my car. I had to change the tire before I could even drive off the lot.
I was worried I had put Mechelle and Intuitive in a tight spot. I was convinced it was gonna ruin my whole career before it even got off the ground. I couldn’t keep the DUI a secret from them. It could all go wrong when we were so close to making it to air. And more than that, I worried that I’d just blown the one opportunity I had to really make a difference for pit bulls. But I had to tell Intuitive. It was the right thing to do. To their credit, Intuitive didn’t blow up on me. We all had a lot riding on the success of the show, but more than that, they wanted to make sure I wasn’t pulling a Lindsay Lohan, and trashing my career out of some sort of self-sabotage. I let Mechelle know, “It won’t happen again. I’ve learned my lesson.”
I had learned my lesson, although I was surprised it took me until I was almost forty-one to learn it. There were times when I had been so shit-faced coming home from a gig in Vegas that I’d find myself driving down the wrong side of the street; one time, I ended up at the Hoover Dam for no apparent reason. It really made me think. What right did I have to drink and drive? Absolutely none. If I was gonna drive, it would have to be one drink, then stop. If I wanted to party, then I’d just have to fork over the sixty-dollar cab fare to get home, and not bitch about it. Sixty bucks would have saved me a fortune. When all was said and done with the legal fees and fines, that one lousy night out cost me over fifteen grand. More than that, I was lucky no one got hurt. I wasn’t gonna press my luck anymore.
Two days later, Pit Boss, episode one, aired. They’d been promoting the show heavily, but I was still guarding my hopes against disappointment. When I watched the show, all I co
uld think was, “We got on the air, it’ll go for the six episodes and that’s it. But we achieved it. I get another notch on my belt to say I did that. Now I can move onto something else.” I had no idea what had just happened.
Episode one hit the ratings clean. Then the second episode’s numbers came in even higher. Before the third episode even aired, I got called into the Intuitive office. “They are renewing you.” Animal Planet had ordered another eight episodes to fill out the first season. It just blew up. Overnight. We went from being nobodies to somebodies. I had no idea so many people watched Animal Planet. People started recognizing me in the streets, yelling, “Pit Boss! ”
We thought we were busy before. We hadn’t seen the half of it. Little People that hated me were now anxious to be my friend. The number of Little People wanting to be repped by Shortywood doubled. Client calls doubled, if not tripled. I had to institute a new policy about the size of the jobs. They had to be big parties, major blowouts, with big commissions attached. We just couldn’t handle the smaller gigs anymore. We didn’t have the manpower.
We went from a small operation that only Los Angeles rescue groups knew about to a rescue that was now being recognized across the United States. Our rescue got so big, we couldn’t afford it. Taking care of the dogs, helping people adopt the dogs, donating money to different rescue groups, arranging for dogs to get their shots, to be spayed and neutered. It was too much. We were used to handling fifty e-mails and calls a day, between both the entertainment requests and pit bull rescues. The numbers went up to one thousand e-mails and calls a day. It got so crazy, we had to shut down the pit bull rescue line, no longer answer the entertainment line at all, hire some temporary help, and delegate, delegate, delegate. We needed a reality check. I sat my team down and said, “Guys, we gotta do something else. We need more income coming in. This show is gonna bankrupt us!”
