Oh Long Johnson

There is a clip on YouTube that was taken from an undated broadcast of ABC-TV's America's Funniest Videos of a cat that appears to be either reciting a poem or singing a song, depending on your point of view, which it has apparently authored as well.

It is hard to believe at first, but that is the actual cat's voice. And the video, which apparently first appeared on the internet over a year ago, has spawned an international movement of critical interpretation of the original feline work. First off, there is a dispute as to whether its title is "Oh My Dog", "Oh Long Johnson" or "Oh Don Piano". However, there appears to be consensus on the actual words/lyrics of this enigmatic piece:

Oh my dog
Oh Long John
Oh Long Johnson
Oh Don Piano
Why I eyes ya,
All the live long day?

On one blog, some have tried to translate the symbolism, while others have reported that celebratory t-shirts saying "Oh Don Piano" are floating around Virginia. Similar fan tee's have turned up for sale online, and a fan site has the cat voicing the part of Darth Vader.

Cynical Hollywood industry types have adopted the phrase as well: "An “Oh Don Piano” story is where a celeb is at a junket and gets asked a bullshit, pointless question, like, “Would you do a sequel to this famous movie from your past?” and they give a total bullshit non-commital answer like, “If the script was right, sure!”

Elsewhere on YouTube, the craze has arrived here in my new home, as a Brazilian has put up a two-chapter epic tribute to the nameless cat artiste, with the finale claiming to reveal the cat's "mysterious prophecy" to the world. (There's one photograph from a cemetery at 00:55 that is hilariously chilling, and remains the one grand image associated with this work.) There's a short recitation by what appears to be a member of a teenaged crocheting circle, and a bizarre ska-ish speed-metal mash-up by some Dutch kid. I even found some garage band who attempted to make a rock song named after it, but I think the cat's original has more depth.

And, as with any great discovery that gains a global following, there is the inevitable club remix.

For my part, I side with the one thread of consensus that the literal meaning has to do with a dog, and that the cat is itself perplexed -- perhaps on a cosmic level -- at to why it stares at this dog all the time. This long Johnson, this....this Don Piano of a dog. (Perhaps they were two dogs?)

I've often wondered why cats stare at things, particularly things which are far larger and more menacing in animal-kingdom terms, with that vacant look on their faces. I never believed the blasé image they try to project, and here a cat betrays its species' secret. But alas, cats -- as we've seen in previous videos -- can never be too sure of their place in the grander scheme. So Long Johnson/Don Piano is (are?) merely symbolic. For I would posit that a cat which ponders why it stares at this dog or that is, indeed, a cat pondering its very essence, its whole possibly pointless existence.

So no wonder this cat is warbling its little heart out. (...To a predictably unappreciating live audience of one, as we learn at the end. Such is art, puss.)