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We had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness air guitar greatness at El Corazon last week, as one of the three judges for the 2009 Seattle Air Guitar Championships. The spandex was ferocious, the fringe mesmerizing, and the audience filled with royal assholes.
Oh man Seattle, it was: Out. Of. Control.
The evening was hosted by Hot Lixx Hulahan, Current World Air Guitar Champion who rocked out himself, after breaking down the basics of air guitar judging. Think the 6.0 figure skating score system (4.0 lowest-6.0 highest), conjoined with the set judging criteria of technical merit, stage presence, and the nebulous "airness" factor.
Our fellow judge compatriots, Kerry Zettel, witty frontman of the band See Me River, and well-known air guitarist Björn Türoque (pronounced "byorn to rock") all agreed that the evening brought out a better-than-expected menagerie of air guitar talent, wild cards included.
We learned rather quickly that as a judge we not only had the tough decision to choose Seattle's next great air guitar champ, but we also had the responsibility to drink and the directive to be fair--albeit with "Simon Cowell-like" bitch tendencies--as we judged each 60-second performance. (Gawd, we love our job.)
We saw wild card standouts, like the rocking mustache-wearing Gandhi Jones, to the third place finisher Skinny Hendricks, who melted our little air guitar hearts. Our judge's hat tipped to (and cheeks blushed by) Air Guitar X, who rocked and nearly bared it all during the second round to "Hocus Pocus" by Focus. But the evening all came down to an all-out air-off for the title.
The air-off challengers: Dirk Courage, a fringe-wearing heavyset guitarist who had sick technique, rhythm, and agility, who jumped and jammed via audience member piggyback ride to the judges' table, earned him a perfect row of 6.0s. Meanwhile, his air guitar nemesis, Magic Cyclops--whose upside-down jungle-gym antics in the compulsory round launched him into the air-off--tried to one-up Courage with even more jumps. We are talking crazy, asinine jumps that landed him directly onto his knees (sans knee pads--ouch!!) from all sorts of tables and stages and stools. In the end, Magic Cyclops picked up a 6.0 from the first two judges. Unfortunately it fell to us to bust his air bubble. He lacked the fringe and ultimate "airness" which led us to give Cyclops the single low-blow score of 5.9. and gave Dick Courage the title of the 2009 Seattle Air Guitar Champion.
All in all, It ended up being a fun-filled night of kick-ass air guitar, liquid courage, and turtle-fucking jokes. Oh, and a new air guitar champ who is off pressing his fringe before heading to D.C. this August to compete at nationals. If all goes well there, Seattle's Dirk Courage would be shredding at the World Air Guitar Championships in Oulu, Finland later this year.
All photos courtesy of Janis Marie Photography (aka Hot Lixx Hulahan's Mom)
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