Air Guitar Champion | Bjorn Turoque | Talks at Google

Please welcome bjorn ciroc. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Joan Turok. And I'm Dan Crane. Today I'm going to be giving an air guitar lesson and I'll be also doing a reading and a demonstration. But I'd first of all like to thank you for being here, thank you for eating here. And I think we should just jump right into the lesson, first of all. So everybody, first of all, if you could just take out your air guitar. It's probably over here somewhere. Maybe if you're eating, you want to put your food aside, strap it on. Okay, Looks good. You know, you can stand up if you want people to stand up. I think that'd be better if you're eating, you know, I don't want to hurt you. All right, so everybody's got. You got your air guitars. How many air guitars do we have? You guys come on down. Don't be shy. You got your air guitar in your hands. You're looking good. All right, so how many of you have actually played the air guitar before? Anyone? We got a few. Not necessarily in a competition, but you know, perhaps drunk in a bar, et cetera. Okay, there's a few out there. All right, so we're going to just go through some basics. If you, you know, if you know what you're doing, this might seem a little rudimentary for you, but just bear with me all. So let's start. First of all, you've got your air guitar. You can either be right or left handed. It's up to you. Obviously it's important to tune up. Okay, so what you want to do is you just kind of play a note and then see if it's in tune. If it's not, you just turn over here, there's a little tuning peg and you kind of tune it up and then you hit the next note. Listen. Sounds a little off. Tune that up. You just repeat until you get to the. I don't know how many strings your air guitar has. Mine has six. That's standard. You might have 20. I don't know. Okay, so next you want to hold the air pick. Alright? You might go for a kind of arpeggiated finger plucking style, but the basic is just kind of using the pick. So just grab an air pick. Okay, very nice. There, you got it. Thumb and forefinger, make the kind of okay sign. Looking good. Let me see that. Very nice. Okay, now strumming. Now that you have your pick in your hand, you want to. Want to strum. Okay, so strumming is all in the shoulder. A lot of people do with the wrist. Not good. Not good at all. So strum. Ready, Right? He's good. This guy's good. Check him out. He knows what he's doing. Let's see what el. Very nice. Very nice, ladies. Come on. What are you doing? That's. No, that's your. She's going like this. This is the strumming hand. Okay. Up and down. Right? Up and down. Anybody played Guitar Hero here? I hear you have it in your cafeteria. Okay. Guitar Hero is an excellent training. He's still strumming. It's an excellent training ground for air guitar. It's not a replacement, but it's a good training ground. All right, so we've gotten strumming. Now, obviously, you need to know how to play chords. Our guitar needs chords. So put your left hand, or if you know whatever is not your strumming hand, as far away from you as possible. Okay. Maybe you might get a little leg stance in there going on. Watch this guy. He's got my eye on you, buddy. So that's kind of a low. Now shape your hand into kind of a chord position. Feel the chord. That is a low chord. Okay, now you can strum that chord. Feel the lowness of the rock. Excellent. Okay, now you move it up closer to you. That's a high chord. Okay, so it's up here. It's like. Okay, that's good. All right, so, chords, You've got that down. Let's see. Now, a common kind of move is the windmill. Okay, Everybody's heard of the windmill. Pete Townsend supposedly invented it. Be careful of your neighbors. But let's do kind of a. This is the reverse windmill. Okay, looking good. And the forward windmill. Very nice. Very good. Very good. Okay, last. Last but not least, many air guitars come equipped with a whammy bar. Mine has several. A whammy bar basically just loosens the tension of the air strings and lets the kind of notes go, wow. Like that. Okay, so let's just practice a little. Like, ready? Yeah. You want to be careful, though. If you've got a whammy bar on your air guitar, be careful to not also combine that with the windmill. Pete Townsend did this in 1989. Impaled his hand and was out of shape for a long time. All right, so I think you guys are ready to try out a song. You guys feel ready to rock a little bit? Yeah. All right, so we're going to start. We're going to kind of build up. This is. You know, we're Going to go from beginning to advanced. So let's start with kind of the very easiest. Track number one. This is by the who. You know, a little my generation for you older folks here, if there are any. It's Google, I guess. Oh, there we go. All right. Thank you for stepping out. So. Higher. Lower. All right, that's good. That's good. All right, we can cut that one. That's actually excellent. Well done. Give yourselves a hand. Oh, put your. You know. Okay, so I'm liking the who vibe. This guy's definitely liking the who vibe there. I can tell. He's got a big smile on his face. So let's do. Let's do one more. This is a little more advanced who track. I can see for miles. Track two, Little windows. All right, that's looking pretty good. Pretty good. All right, we can cut that one, Mr. Sound Dude. Always hard to get the sound guy's attention when the rock is happening. Also could use a little more air guitar on the monitors if you can knock that out. All right, you guys, you've been working really hard. It's obviously time for a cigarette break. Keith Richards. Okay. Keith Richards. The key to Keith Richards is kind of a gnarled facial expression. Facial expressions are very important in air guitar. So what you can do is you kind of take out an air cigarette, put it in, kind of smoke it a little bit, and then you plug it in right here, notch it into your tuning pegs, and then we'll do a little Rolling Stones. This one's a little harder. Ready, stance. Do a little kick. Feel free to get up on the chair. Very nice. All right, that's good. That's good. Excellent, excellent. Well done. So, you know, we haven't even moved into soloing. That's a whole, you know, that's a whole new kind of thing. You know, when you think air guitar, you think like, I'm. You know, it's a late night. I'm just like, oh, Eddie Van Halen. I am you, you are me. We are one. That's what I think. It's sad, especially the way he's looking these days, but. All right, so let's try a little. Let's try a little Eddie Van Halen. This is tough. This is kind of the training ground, really, for any other guitarist. Some. Some. Look at it. Oh, no, no, never mind. We're going to get to that. Little finger tapping. Come on. There you go. This guy's good over there with a tie. Nice, nice. Excellent. Well done. Very nice. All right, and then last but not least, this is really the kind of advanced shredding song. You know, most competitive air guitarists use this as kind of a warm up. Come on in. Don't be shy. If you guys want to come down, we're getting. The rock is only beginning here, right? This is the advanced shredding happens. Now, some people like myself refer to this kind of as the air guitar cliche song. It's a little bit like walking into a guitar store and sitting down and playing Stairway. So I don't recommend it for competition, but it's a nice. It's good for our first lesson. Test the air. Looking good. Which way is it blowing? Hello. Track five. There we go. Nice. Mozart in there. Or maybe it's Paganini, I don't know. What do you got? Come on, you got it. Rally bar and release. Very nice. Okay. All right, this is the very last song for you guys. This is, this is super advanced shredding. The guy that's in the movie there, who we kind of have a, you know, a situation going on. Battle, battle of to the death. He plays this song in the movie. It actually was made famous in the Bill and Ted's excellent adventure soundtrack, which I think is embarrassing for him. But this one's pretty amazing. You'll see. Let's play the number six. Very nice. All right, everybody can sit down.

Which brand of air guitar do you.

Recommend and where did you buy yours? Where did I buy my air guitar? I bought it on ebay. All right, so obviously, you know, this is lunchtime. We're at the Google offices here. This is not ideal environs for air guitar. I recommend drinking, more drinking and then louder music. But, you know, it's a start and I appreciate you guys pitching in. All right, so on to the reading. Okay, this is actually from my book. Oh, no, I'm not there yet. But just set it all up for you. So Bjorn Furak, my air guitar stage identity, competed in 11 competitions throughout the world. He came in second place five times. Out of those, 11 became these sort of aer guitar and I, Dan Crane, watched from the sidelines. Basically, this is the way an air guitar competition works. Okay, you have 60 seconds in the first round. You bring whatever song you want. Could be a medley of songs, could be, you know, I don't care what it is, but you bring your own song and you have 60 seconds to wow the judges. The top five then go on to round two where you play to a compulsory song. Nobody knows what it's going to be. Everybody plays the song. The air Wheat. The air chaff separated. How are you judged? A frequent question. How does anyone judge air guitar? Obviously, it's on a 4.0 to 6.0 Olympic figure sating scale. And then the judges are highly trained, and they're looking for three things, really. They're looking for your technical prowess, which doesn't mean you're playing the right chord. It just means that you're doing kind of what I taught you today, which is like low, high timing. Again, Guitar Hero can help you with this. Second of all, you're looking for performance. How much of a rock star are you? It's really about getting out of the bedroom and onto the stage with competitive air guitar. So you don't want to just be up there like, you know, that's no good. You want to engage the audience. Okay. And the last is this quality that's known as airness. Okay. Airness is hard to explain. It's basically when what you're doing exceeds the imitation of guitar playing and becomes an art form in and of itself. I've achieved it twice. I have a couple of other definitions I'd like to just get out of the way because I refer to them in the reading. Okay. Asian fury. You saw C. Diddy up there? That guy. This is the term that he used to describe the source of his air guitar prowess. The winners of the 2003, 2004, and 2005 US Air Guitar Championships, all of Asian descent. Note also, the winner of Nathan's hot dog eating contest at Coney island every year since 2001 is Japan's Takeshi Kobayashi. Now, neither Bjorn nor myself are of Asian descent, therefore we do not have Asian fury, but we try to compensate in other ways. Dry ice. I think you all know what dry ice is, but in case you don't, it's frozen carbon dioxide. Hello. Is that in my mind? Flashback. Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide, which goes directly from solid to gas without passing through a liquid stage in a process known as sublimation. Dry ice, I have discovered, can also be used to enhance air guitar performances. And last. Oh, no. Second to last is wasp. I don't know if anybody knows the band Wasp. We got, like, one person. Not a big fan base, but probably with you guys. Wasp was banned in the heavy metal genre. Very popular in air guitar. They became famous after Tipper Gore complained about their lyrics. Wasp was fronted by singer Blackie Lawless, who was known to tie semi naked models to a torture rack and hurl raw meat into the audience. I will not be doing that today. Last, let me just say that air guitar, the guys that started this competition In Finland in 1996, they started to really advance the world peace movement, okay? Because what they believe is that if you're holding an air guitar right, as you were earlier, you cannot at the same time be holding a gun, which is true. And therefore, if everybody just played air guitar, there would be no war and world peace would reign. I look forward to that day. All right, so here we go. This is a segment from my book entitled To Air as Human One Man's Quest to Become the World's Greatest Air Guitarist. This year's event is being held at the BD King Blues Club and Grill on 42nd street between 7th and 8th Avenues in the heart of the Disneyfied Times Square. It's a neighborhood I try to avoid at all cost, as it tends to amp up my already pinning misanthropy meter. I get into a cab with my grocery bag full of crap and my cooler filled with dry ice and I head towards the club. I would take the subway, but the ice chest is kind of heavy and I can't afford to strain my arm muscles this close to showtime. The cab pulls up on the south side of the street across from BB King's, and I'm taken aback by the enormous marquee reading US Air Guitar Championships. The club apparently holds 1,000 people. It's certainly a far cry from the dank bar above a strip club downtown where I first competed in 2003, and it's at least three times as large as last year's venue, the Denning Factory. As absurd as it all was, I feel some genuine satisfaction knowing that I'm going to be on that stage tonight. I sign in and walk around the place. It is fucking huge. I hope I can say fucking. I head backstage to check out the dressing room, which I find, considering the enormity of the club, is very small. In the brightly lit hallway there are pans filled with crusty pasta, a frightening whole roasted fish of some sort, salmon and greasy chicken wings to which we are told to help ourselves. I grab a chair in the dressing room, eat, and wonder when the free beer will arrive. Let's thrash the room. Shouts a bald guy in a thick outer borough accent. He's known as Marty the Dancer Oster, he tells us, and he plays air guitar as part of tailgate parties before New York jets games. He looks like a tattooed Homer Simpson wearing a WASP T shirt. Can we smoke in here? Are they gonna fucking bust me or something? Asks Marty. I see he's holding up a giant cigar. A cigar. I don't know dude, that's gonna be harsh, I say, wondering if he might sit on me to death. I'm smoking a cigar. Where's the fan in this fucking room? Are you sure you want to smoke a stogie? Because we're gonna be in this room for like two hours. Like 20 people. We gotta be in here two hours. What are we on survival or some shit? And everybody in the room laughs. What the fuck? Despite the cigar, there's something I immediately like about Marty the dancer. He's different from the usual air guitar competitor. He's obviously a big jets fan, as we know, because he keeps inviting us to come to the tailgate parties with him. Anybody's fucking welcome. $25, all you can eat and drink. It's awesome, awesome, awesome. Awesome. Really does say 4 awesome. The tailgate is the bomb. But more than that, Marty is not a hipster or an actor or into the philosophy of Airness. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even care about winning. But Marty, I suspect the air guitar competition is just an excuse to get a little rowdiness out of the system before the preseason games start. I think I've met most of the contestants at this point, and thus far I am beyond pleased to find no Asians competing. Thank you, O Lord of Anus. I do get nervous when one hot girl in a very low cut sleeveless black shirt enters the room, but it turns out she's just the MC instead of with hot girls and or Asians. I'll be sharing the air tonight with guys like Joey Hotdog, a guy who actually sells hot dogs at Shea Stadium for a living and looks to me like a skinny version of Vincent d' Onofrio as the utterly bonkers private Gomer Pyle in Full Metal Jacket. I asked Jerry Hotdog if anyone has ever told him this. He says no, and then doesn't talk to me for the rest of the night. Two dudes from last year's competition are also in the House, Jammin Jbone and AskWatch, and they give me mad props for coming out. Once again, I have become somewhat of a legend in air guitar circles. Many of the other competitors have read online about my lecture in Seattle and of my defeats in Los Angeles, Denver and Finland, and they know I'm hopelessly devoted. I'm disappointed, though, that veteran air guitarist the Shred, who was at both the 2003 and 2004 events, is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps age has finally caught up to the old guy. But there is a metalhead here tonight by the name of Andrew Shredosaurus Rocks so there will be no shortfall of shredding. The last repeat offender is a guy from Boston. From Boston wearing a newsboy Captain. He doesn't have a stage name, he just goes by Jamie, his real name tragically. And he tells me that he does weekly air guitar shows in Boston where he'll open up for a band by playing a 10 minute air guitar medley. He tells me air guitar is his life. He tells me tonight's contest is just a warm up for Boston's where he'll be competing again in a few days. And I think this guy is a complete idiot. He sounds just like me. Then I run into a bunch of kids in the hallway, like actual children. I ask a girl with long reddish hair who looks like she's about 11 if they are there supporting their brother or their dad or something like that. It turns out she's Axl Rose. We're Little Gnr, she says. Are you serious? Where's Slash? He's missing. We don't know. That's the thing about Slash. Always late. I had read on the schedule that Meryl G and R was going to play at some point during the show. I assumed it was a Guns N Roses cover band composed entirely of little people, much like minikiss, the All Little People Kiss tribute band. I suggest you all see. I'm tempted to ask little Axl if she knows that Axl Rose is an anagram for oral sex. Look it up. But I'm not sure if she knows what an anagram, much less oral sex is. Plus, I think that might scare her and or get me arrested. Slash finally arrives, and in fact, he really does look like Slash. He's six years old and biracial and dons Slash's signature top hat. I have to. And oh, and he's 45 minutes late. It's perfect. I have to admit I am looking forward to their set. We wish each other a good show. I high five them all and then I head back to the dressing room to see whether things are about to get ticking. In addition to little Slash, everything is running late and it's reported that the crowd is drunk and antsy. Finally, the hot girl MC takes the stage to welcome everyone, explain the rules, and introduce Corn Moe, one of the evening's judges who will be opening the ceremonies by playing air guitar to Hendrix's version of the National Anthem, which I will not torture with at the moment. Corn May massacres the National Anthem and the audience quickly boos him off stage. Actually, most of the first 10 contestants get booed, have cups of beer thrown at them, and receive very low scores. Maybe goveg.com or steel started things off on a bad note when he tried to use the event to push his vegan anti meat agenda. Also, he kind of sucked. Maybe it was Jamie from Boston's lackadaisical performance of his air medley that sent the crowd over the edge. Regardless, this is the meanest, rowdiest, drunkest audience I've ever seen at an air guitar competition. Thank God for intermission. I'm getting my air on, drinking backstage and rubbing my arms and shoulders down with Tiger Balm when a refrigerator sized guy walks in from the front area and commences a bitter tirade. Thirty years, he says in a heavy Brooklyn accent. Can't do that many Brooklyn accents kind of, but we'll try anyway. Thirty years, he says. Thirty fucking years in this fucking business and this is what I get. Fucking air guitar. I'm standing there looking confused in my sparkly Freddie Mercury meets Evel Knievel jumpsuit. I swallow my beer as he begins speaking to me directly. I fear that any minute he may just grab my neck and start ringing. I did sound to Aerosmith, the Stones, Jethro Tull. He shouts. And this is what I fucking get. A bunch of pussies playing air guitar. Take it easy man, I say, trying to calm him down. It's all rock and roll. We're just trying to have a good time. Stupidest thing I ever seen. 30 fucking years and this is the worst fucking night of my career. And with that he walks away. The worst night of his career. Personally, I would have thought doing sound for a band led by a fop standing on one leg playing the flute would have been worse. But what do I know? I'm on next. It's time to prep for the dry ice thaumaturgy. I wrap my arms with Ace bandage tape and then slip armbands over that. I look around and the only person I can see backstage to help me is Slash's mom. She's a hippie looking woman with long hair and John Lemon glasses. I ask if she'll give me a hand and she agrees to load dry ice into my armband's zippered pouches using the kitchen tongs I brought from home expressly for that purpose. I'm psyched to see little gnr, I say. Your son totally looks like Slash. A young Slash. Oh thanks, she says, focused on not burning either of us with the Dry eyes. They start the second half of round one with the MC offering that has become my staple introduction. Ladies and gentlemen, the hardest working man in air guitar, Bjorn Tirak. You can cheer if you want. Now. I'm making the transformation. Prepare to be frightened. Normally have a dressing room for this kind of thing. As the MC makes her announcement. Hello. As the MC makes her announcement, Slash's mom loads the turkey baster with water and injects it into both my arm bands. Zippered pouches. Right here. The dry ice quickly begins to sizzle and evaporate. I run out on stage and raise my arms high until I'm nearly pointing at the ceiling. I open my cape and reveal my outfit and the armbands filled with sublimating dry ice. As I look out into the audience, I imagine that dense clouds of smoke are emerging in reality. Upwards of three people with extraordinarily good vision can probably see something resembling fog next to my arms. And then the first power cord of Set Me Free cranks over the sound system. That's your cue.

Track number eight. Laughs.

It's as if at that precise moment, someone presses the hyperspace button on the Asteroids arcade game. Oh, I have no breath. I'm out of shape. I've retired, you see. Anyway, this is if I press the hyperspace button on the Asteroids game and I pop out at the end of the song, having no idea how I got from point A to point B. I look down and I see that my right armband has slipped all the way down to my wrist. I can remember water and shards of ice flying in slow motion all over the audience and me, but that's about it. I was lost in the song. The next thing I know, I see the scores. 5.8, 6.0. Thank you. 5.8 and a 5.7. But this I think to myself, think to myself, this may finally be Bjorn's year. Thank you. And now I will shamefully stand up here and answer any questions you might have. I wish I could change, but yes, I should hope so. Right, I'm working on that.

Have you ever played a.

Old school guitar? Are they supposed to go up there for the. For the cue for the cues or just repeat their question? I'll repeat their question. All right, so the question is, have I ever played old school guitar? Thank you for not saying real guitar. Nothing not real about the air guitar. Yes, I actually do. I do play guitar in a band called Miudample. We're a fake French rock band. It's hard for me to be real, but And I actually did all the music for the film as well, including the closing theme song, which rocks. But, you know, and so people say, you know, I've gotten into arguments. I got into an argument with a guy on MySpace yesterday who emailed me out of the blue. I don't know why I'm engaging with this moron, but he's like, dude, you're a pussy, man. You don't play guitar. Learn how to play guitar, you fag. I'm like, I wrote back. And I'm like, actually, I do play guitar. You know, I did the music, here's my band, blah, blah, blah. And he writes back and I'm like. And he's like, dude, you think you play guitar, but you don't, man. I was like, I don't know why I'm engaging you, but you obviously can't read and have a good life, but yeah, but so people say, you know, why do you. If you do play guitar, why do you play the air guitar? It's just a different thing. I mean, I don't get to wear this. I don't have to wear this in my band, thank God. And you get to do things that are much different. And you're liberated, you know, you're free from. You're not plugged into anything. You don't have to schlep any gear to the club. You just show up, you know, it's nice. Anyone else? You mentioned dry ice as improving your performance. Yes. Is that considered a performance enhancing drug? And if so, what are the prospects of drugs that will be banned or you see being banned in the near future? Excellent question. You know, is dry ice a performance enhancing drug? I did not ingest the dry ice. First of all, that would be a bad idea. So. No, but, you know, there are very specific rules about props. You know, you couldn't get up there and grab the mic, especially this long one, couldn't do that. You know, that would be considered illegal, actually. A guy got disqualified for doing such a thing. And then as far as actual drugs, they're considering us. Air Guitar has considered banning hallucinogens from. I mean, they're hard to test for, but we thought, you know, they should just be banned from the circuit. Because if you were actually, you know, if you were on acid or mushrooms or any other form of hallucinogen that I've never experienced, you know, you can actually see the guitar, and it's kind of an unfair advantage, really. So they haven't really written that into the rules yet, but. Is that beer? You're drinking. Can I have one of those? No. Just looks like beer. Or a urine sample. Yes.

Thursday's our beer day.

Thursday's beer day is today. Thursday. So my parents get really mad when I play my air guitar and they, like, threaten to throw it out. So have you ever had that problem and how can I. With your parents? No, I've never had that problem with your parents. But she says her parents threatened to throw away her air guitar because they get really mad. You still live with your parents and you work at Google. Sad. Give her a raise. She's the sort of parents in the basement. No, my parents. My parents were a little confused at first. Now they're more confused, I think. But they. I think they've won them over finally with the whole world of air guitar. It's not easy, but, you know, you can't stand. Stand up to your parents. Rebel rock and roll is about rebellion. Yes.

What's the groupie scene like for air guitarists?

I was waiting for that one. What is the groupie scene like for air guitarists? I'll tell you, it's good. Very good. I've, you know, I've met some air groupies. So, you know, some people tend to call them air mattresses. I don't really like that term. I find it derogatory. But, you know, you'd be surprised. Like you're, you know, this outfit hasn't really scored me a lot of points. But in other performances, you know, you're like a rock star up there. So people get really into it and they claw you to death. There's a little groupy moment in the movie in Erica Tarnation. It just gives you a hint of what happens in Fin. Finland rocks. Let me just say that. Yes.

Did you cite any influencers that. Are people like Bill and Ted, Are they influences or are they just hackers?

Do I have influences and would I count among them Bill and Ted? I mean, you know, I think Bill and Ted probably. I mean, there are certain, you know, there's obvious kind of pop cultural touchstones that air guitar, you know, that. That are related to air guitar. You've got Bill and Ted. You've got Beavis and Butthead, obviously, and you got Tom Cruise. What can be said? But he was using a fire poker anyway, so he looked even stupider than I do. So that doesn't really count. But I don't think Bill and Ted were hacked. I mean, I think they kind of laid some important groundwork. You know, anybody that's willing to get out there and shred with no instrument is okay with me. Anyone else just think you have to go back to work if you stop asking questions. Do I engage in any other air activities aside from air guitar? Some would consider masturbation an air activity. I don't consider that. I have played air drums. You know, if I hear a good drum song, Tom Sawyer, for example, comes to mind. Rush, you know, I can't. The thing about air drums, though, is that, like, if someone's actually a drummer, they're just going to be an amazing air drummer. Whereas it doesn't really translate with air guitar. Like, I'm. I'm okay, you know, I'm pretty good. I came in second a bunch of times. But, like, I might play guitar, but it doesn't like the guy who keep. You know, the people that win, they don't know actually how to play guitar. So the only thing I. The only thing I really don't like is I don't like air wind instruments. Like air saxophone and then air flute. I really look down upon just blame. Yes.

Air classical piano.

Because why?

They get pretty intense.

They do get intense air classical piano. He recommends I, you know, go with it, man. It's not for me. But yeah, a little. Or even just some. Glenn Gould would be nice.

Little.

And Bach is intense, obviously. Yes.

Becky, when's the next New York competition?

Good question. The next New York competition. It's a good question I don't have the exact answer to. It's in June. I think it's around the 6th or 7th of June. If you go to USAirguitar.com, this is gonna be a massive year for air guitar. We started in 2003. There was two cities. That's kind of what the movie is about. It's just like the birth, the arrival of competitive air guitar on the shores of the United States. But now it's exploded. I'm actually going on tour in June with US Air guitar. I'm gonna be the emcee of all the events. And we're getting in a bus, hopefully with Guitar Hero in the bus. And we'll just go from city to city and put on competitions to I think like 15 or 20 cities. I'm not going to survive the air Grampies, is the problem. Another question.

Any curious rumor that you know how the Nintendo Wii just sort of move it? Are they making an Air Guitar Hero version of.

I have. The question is, is there a Guitar Hero Wii for the Wii coming out? I've read rumors about that as well. Obviously. I check all the blogs, you know, I get a Google alert. I have many, many Google alerts. Thank you, Google, for you alerting me and keeping me stuck to my mentions. Air guitar, Air Guitar Nation, PJ Rock, whatever. You'd be surprised at how much stuff, how much crap there is on the Internet about air guitar. But yeah, I have read that they're adapting. I mean, it's perfect. The Wii would be perfect for a guitar here. And it'd be awesome to just have like an air game, I think, for the Wii where you could do air drums. You know, good training, I think. I like the Wii. Anyone else? We back there. Much like Spider Man. I have a costume designer now. A friend of mine. I couldn't do this and I wouldn't want to do this. Yeah, a friend of mine, I was actually. I talk about in the book that I was actually, you know, I was not going to come back again in 2005. I was just like, I've had enough. I've been defeated too many times. And this friend, I was like, I think you just need a better costume. You know, C Diddy, he had like these red spandex tights and a hello Kitty breastplate. You can see I've adopted Bats Maru. That's hello Kitty's nemesis. It helped. It helped. And she was like, dude, you got it. You gotta compete. I'll make. I'll make you an outfit. And then we sort of talked about it and she, you know, she showed me this kind of glam rock book with, you know, lots of, you know, like Freddie Mercury and Iggy Pop. And these are really tight things. I'm like, yeah, I guess. Yeah, okay. And then I showed up and, like, put it on. I'm like, all right. Yes, thank you. But no, I do not make my own costumes. But feel free if you want to, you know, make one for me. I'm looking for things falling apart. Anyone else? One more.

Are there any current bands that you think.

Any current bands that lend themselves to air guitar? I think the one band in the last, like five years that's. That's been proved themselves to be very air guitar worthy is. Is the Darkness. There's kind of the climax of the film uses the song get yout Hands Off My Woman. Solid song. And I think the Darkness is good. But, you know, I think that. I think that any music really, as long as there's a guitar involved, you know, it's really. It's not what, you know, it's not what song is the best air guitar song. It's what song most speaks to you, you know, if you are really into. I don't know, what's a lame band that plays now? Maroon 5. Let's say you're in the Maroon 5 lame. Maybe that inspires you to rock out Gently or John Mayer or whatever. That guy, he's actually a good guitarist, but not. Not air guitar inspiring. But, you know, it's what I. You know, it's a universal. It's democratic. It's whatever speaks to you. There is no best air guitar song except for Ace of Spades by Motorhead. It's the best.

Did he decide to retire and why? Read somewhere.

He's read somewhere that I've decided to retire. Yes, that's true. I have retired from. From competition. In 2005, when I got this outfit, I won the New York competition. Then I went to LA for the finals, came in second place again, and then finally actually went out to Finland just to kind of get some closure on the whole thing. And, you know, there's only so many times you can. You can say, you know, you're the second best. And I think I've. I think now I just kind of. I wear that crown as, like, something of pride. Like, I'm the second best ever. And, you know, I'm the one that, like, keeps coming out. I'm persistent. I'm the underdog. Somebody has to be that, and it's me. I encourage you all to come out, though, and get your chops on. He's suggesting that instead of American Idol, we have American air guitar. Well, the guys who actually made the documentary Air Guitar Nation kind of started with that idea. Excuse me. It was right when American Idol came out. They're like, we should do the anti American Idol. The sort of like the no talent search, you know, and so they were like, this is perfect. Let's go check out this air guitar thing. And then it just sort of morphed into this. But I actually tried out for America's Got Talent, and I'm ashamed to say that I actually made it on a show, but I decided, you know, it's best. I don't do that, but you can read it. I wrote a story about that whole audition process, which is on my blog, if anybody wants to check it out. Blog. Was there one more question back there? No. Thank you. He says, don't give up, don't stop. Journey said it best. Well, thanks, everyone for coming out. Please go check out Eric Guitar Nation. I promise it will blow your mind. You will laugh a lot and you'll be surprised at how much you actually get sucked into this weird world. And check out my book, too, obviously. Two hours, human. Thanks, everyone.