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4 you're like me—a meagerly paid, long-haired, rock-and-
rolling young scholar from the boonies—there are certain
♦♦ sights you never expect to see when exiting an airport
concourse, chief among them a slick man in a well-pressed suit
standing near baggage claim holding a sign with your name on it..
This, however, is exactly what greeted
me at New York's JFK International
Airport on Wednesday, June 21, as I ar
rived to compete in the fourth annual
US Air Guitar National Championship.
The man looked me up and down
and the first thing he said to me in his
vaguely Russian accent was, “You... are
not rich, are you?" I considered reply
ing, “Well, no sir. I'm not. I’m US Air
Guitar's first ever National Collegiate
Champion, and I'm here to compete in
the National Finals tomorrow evening,
with the possibility of winning a free
trip to the World Championships in
Finland.' I opted to leave it at, "No
sir, I'm not." I had to laugh; me in a
zebra-striped T-shirt and ripped jeans
entering the back seat of a luxury se
dan that may have also seen the asses
of ex-presidents and top executives, all
because of 60 seconds of freaking out
to Slayer in front of drunken spring-
breakers in South Padre Island, TX, just
months previous.
How did I get there? Earlier this
year, the 40 Watt Club hosted the lo
cal qualifying round for the US Air
Guitar Collegiate championship, and
I defeated my only competition (one
Mr. Gordon Lamb, familiar to Flagpole readers) mightily. And US
Air Guitar? 'In a time when U.S. military and economic leadership
faces unprecedented criticism around the world, it is our belief
that air guitar represents the one field of human endeavor that
our country can dominate without controversy. The US Air Guitar
Championships is here to make this possible,' says the organiza
tion. 'US Air Guitar is devoted to talcing our nation's unofficial
could've taken or left in light of the daily bike rental that came
complimentary with my stay. I put my precious Slayer in the CD
player and commenced the requisite fist-pumping, bed-jumping,
one-man party.
Later that evening, I hustled over to the nearby One & One Bar
for a special screening of Air Guitar
Nation, a recently-completed documen
tary that follows the drama of US Air
Guitar's inaugural year, in particular
David "C-Diddy" Jung's quest to be
come the first American to win the
Air Guitar World Championship. It is
also very much the story of Dan "Bjorn
Turoque' Crane's valiant (but failed) ef
forts to beat C-Diddy to the punch, and
I was delighted to see that Turoque,
this year's emcee for the finals, was >n
attendance at the One & One. I've nev
er met anyone who was as dedicated
to anything as the now-retired Bjorn
Turoque was to professional air guitar,
and meeting him was a much more
surreal experie r ce than I expected it
to be. It occurred to me that without
even realizing it, I had given him le
gitimate celebrity status in my mind,
and while shaking his hand, I felt truly
emboldened to melt total face in the
competition.
The only one of the 15 contestants
other than me who was in attendance
at the screening was Fatima “The
Rockness Monster" Hoang, 2005's
National Champion returning to defend
his crown. At one point, I was with
Fatima and some official Air Guitar league types just chatting
a bit, and I realized that some of them were blatantly assum
ing—with me, Jace "Zombie on a Rainbow, Esquire" Bartet, stand
ing right there—that Fatima was probably going to win again this
year. One person asked him if he woutd autograph one of the post
ers for this year's competition a little later, and another asked him
if his wife would be joining him in Finland this time. These people
pastime out of the bedroom and putting it up on the world stage.
US Air Guitar has an alliance with the World Air Guitar Association,
and each year sends the US Air Guitar Champion to compete for
the world title in Oulu, Finland." All I had to do is pretend to play
a guitar and entertain a crowd.
rift** lirno's destination was the Soho Grand Hotel on West
Broadway, and obviously I was expecting a dump. V.hy
else would they put the word “grand" in the name of the hotel?
Weil. I've probably never been more wrong about anything. This
place was a palace, possibly the most posh building I've ever been
in. Besides that, my room was outfitted with a flat-screen televi
sion, a DVD player and Bose stereo system, accoutrements that I
CARLA LEFEVER & THE RAYS
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