MAN PRETENDS TO PLAY GUITAR, WINS REAL AWARD

OULU, FINLAND ‘ American air guitarist, Craig ‘Hot Lixx Hulahan ‘ Billmeier, defeated two time Air Guitar champion Ochi (Dainoji) Yosuke of Japan and twenty other challengers earlier this week in the International contest held in Finland. The World Air Guitar Championship is awarded to the contestant with the highest score in technical merit, stage presence, and ‘airness ‘ ‘ a made up category to validate what is basically a useless fantasy skill touted by people who don ‘t want to spend the time learning an actual instrument.

Hot Lixx said he trained hard for the contest, ‘I listened to a lot of music. ‘ Pressed further to discuss the strenuous preparations for an international contest of this caliber, Lixx reiterated that this contest only requires listening to music. ‘And being lonely. ‘

Not everyone at the competition was in awe of the performances. ‘I ‘m just here to listen to music and drink. If some d-bags want to get on stage and pretend to play guitar, it ‘s no sweat of my back, ‘ slurred Jason Mahoney, a drunk back-packer from Chicago. ‘In fact, when I get back home, maybe I ‘ll air drive to the Cubs Air Baseball field and hit a thousand air home runs! You think anyone would give a shit about that? Yeah, that ‘s why I don ‘t care about this. ‘

Those inside the industry have heard the doubters before. ‘The invisible arts are often cast aside, ‘ commented Dave Headson, President of the Air Guitar Association. ‘When you see these guys playing air guitar, you think to yourself, ‘Wow! That looks like Slash! Or Tom Morello! Or Jimmy Hendrix! Except they ‘re not really playing guitar. ‘ I guess some people prefer to actually see those guys play. Not me. Invisible art is my passion. ‘

After the interview, Headson got up, put his arm around his imaginary girlfriend, air kissed her, and mimed shutting a door behind him.