American Opera – CRAZY TOUR STORIES

The indie/folk artist, John Bee, also known as, American Opera, shares a crazy story from the road! You can check out all of the details of his story, after the break.

The Cats, The Dogs, The House, The Logs

Once upon a time I was touring. On this particular tour 75% of the band was sick with the flu. Needless to say, we were feeling great. We played a show and got an offer to crash with some nice folks. When we pulled up to the house everything looked relatively normal. There was fresh green grass, a tire swing, a big front porch, and dog shit all over the big front porch. We laughed and thought to ourselves, “No big deal. At least the turds are outside.” We thought too soon.

Upon arrival into the domicile we learned that there were no rules when it came to where dog shit could be. It was everywhere. Between the animal waste and tufts of dog and cat fur we couldn’t even see what we thought to be the floor. Don’t get me wrong, we love animals. But these people loved HAVING animals. There were dogs and cats a-plenty. Gadgets and gizmos galore. Want thingamabobs? I’ve got twenty. They seriously probably had 5 dogs and what appeared to be a revolving door of cats.

One of the cats in particular holds a special place in my heart. I had never seen anything quite like it. It was old… real old. 17 or 18 I reckon by counting the rings on its belly. I quickly learned from the owner that it was blind. This cat looked normal to the untrained eye, until you saw that the cat had an ACTUAL UNTRAINED EYE. And by actual untrained eye I mean that the cat could not close its eye. I repeat, this cat COULD NOT CLOSE ITS FREAKING EYE! And this eye was no ordinary eye, it was at least 5 times the size of its other eye! It looked like Mr. DeMartino from the Daria cartoon (Google him, kiddies).

This cat was straight up freak sauce. I noticed that it had been munching on some Folger’s coffee grounds. That’s right. It was eating Folger’s coffee. And it was acting like it was eating delicious cat food. When it sat up to lick its chops, I replaced the Folger’s coffee with real cat food. This freak of a cat acted like there was no difference. But it was sweet and very affectionate. It purred and rubbed against me. It was cute. I pet it for awhile and it kept rubbing against me. All of the sudden I felt some serious pain. The cat had scratched me. Not with its claws, though. This cat scratched me with its FREAKISHLY LARGE EYEBALL. “How does an eye scratch you?” you ask? I don’t know, but it did. This thing was freak nasty. I had a scar on my arm for months from this poor cat’s crazy dry eye.

Anyway… after the cat incident it was obviously bedtime. We set up our beds in the sleeping area. One bandmate was upset that there was poop right by the head of his bed. I tried to comfort him. After all, we weren’t feeling well and we were total brosauce. I told him that I would take care of it. My original plan was to put a vacuum on the poop, so that he wouldn’t have to look at the poop. I didn’t want to clean up the poop and I also didn’t want to embarrass the homeowners by asking about the poop, so it seemed like a good plan. But my plan was foiled when I went to pick up the vacuum and saw that THEY HAD ALREADY THOUGHT OF THAT. There were already some fresh turds nestled beneath the vacuum. Icky.

Somehow we survived through the night. We still had the flu, but at least we saved money by not getting a hotel, right? In the morning I passed a bandmate on the way to the shower. “Good morning, John!” he said. I said, “Good morning! How did you sleep?” To which he cheerfully replied, “Great! A dog peed on me, though.” -John Bee

Keep up with American Opera on Facebook and Twitter!

What is your favorite part of this story? Let us know in the comments below!