Shooting the Hooch… and here’s hoping the clerk behind the counter is named The Hooch

While it sounds like it could be a lot of fun, if anyone ever suggests Shooting the Hooch, you shouldn't think twice before absolutely refusing to go under any circumstances. If you make the unfortunate decision to do it "because we've never done it before and it sounds like so much fun," you should know that there are many ways to spend a day that would result in more fun. Among them: using your feet to judge a contest to see who can drop an anvil the hardest, eating a bushel of bananas right before paying a naked visit to a hungry mosquito farm (which incidentally seems to be my back yard), or having open heart surgery.

The Hooch refers to the Chattahoochee River, a 430-mile river that flows through Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Shooting refers to yet another preferable activity you should consider, as long as you’re doing it to yourself.

Nonetheless, we chose to make a go of it. Our second mistake, and one that I as a Jew should have known to avoid, was departing from Helen, Georgia, a Bavarian-themed town that you’d swear was right out of a Krofft brothers television show. As we were getting ready to pay the three dollar fee at Helen Tubing, the clerk recommended that we purchase a stick, which was, for all intents and purposes, a stick. She told us that we’d “probably find it useful to push off if you get stuck on any rocks.” I reluctantly forked over another five bucks for the stick and we were on our way.

We boarded a school bus and began to make our way to ‘the start,’ or as we Yankees call it, ‘the dry riverbed.’ Ten minutes later we got off the bus (mistake number three), we each took a heavy duty water tube – hot pink – and we set off for a three hour tour that didn’t result in the kind of comedy we’ve all come to expect from such a tour.

Judging solely by the river’s average depth during our tubing trip, the Hooch contains, in total, approximately six gallons of water. It also contains about the same number of rocks as the moon, the Kuiper Belt and Snooki’s head combined. The five dollar stick did come in handy, but only as a weapon I used to beat out my aggression on the river, the rocks, the pink tube with which I was saddled, and anything else I could find that didn’t start its day alive. On at least one occasion, I also thought about how I could have used it to beat the clerk who had the temerity to use the word “if” when explaining the likelihood of our getting stuck on rocks.

In any case, I feel it’s my civic duty to provide all my readers with the mother of all public service announcements. Here’s a brief, but complete, synopsis of what you can expect when taking part in this barbaric activity:

Step 1) Float for 20 feet, get stuck on rocks,
Step 2) Climb out of tube,
Step 3) Pull tube for 300 yards, slip and fall often, jabbing yourself in the ribs with the end of the five dollar stick, all the while scraping major bodily joints on sharpest possible rocks,
Step 4) Climb back on tube, flip over backward, repeat step three twice, then skip to step five,
Step 5) Carefully climb back on tube, float for 20 feet, get stuck on rocks, hopelessly try to push off rocks with five dollar stick,
Step 6) Curse whosever stupid idea this was, climb out of tube, spend no less than 60 seconds beating tube with five dollar stick,
Step 7) Pull tube for 300 yards, slip and fall often, jabbing yourself in the ribs with the end of the five dollar stick while issuing expletive-filled diatribe to all within earshot,
Step 8) Climb back on tube, flip over backward again, ask rhetorical question about who would ever think this was a good idea,
Step 9) Climb back on tube, float for 20 feet…

Repeat steps 1-9 for approximately three hours.

In spite of a few dozen scrapes and sprained joints we did manage to make it to the end of the run. In retrospect, spending three hours splashing ourselves in the face with ice cold water and systematically dropping to our knees and elbows on sharp gravel would have achieved the same result in a cheaper and more pleasurable way.

After gladly surrendering our tubes, I thought about the lessons I learned. First and foremost, never participate in any activity whose name suggests something so exquisitely awesome and fun that you just have to do it no matter what (cruising the Inside Passage also makes this list). Second, if you do choose to ever Shoot the Hooch, make sure to bring a psychiatrist, a stick and 50 million gallons of water. And third, if you happen to see me there, beat me with the stick before I pay my three dollars.

Poll Dancing – The Modern Age of Politics in America

It’s beginning to make sense to me why you have to be 18 to vote. Before you can make an informed decision about who gets impeached next, you have to understand the intricacies of your favorite candidate’s sexual proclivities. Not surprisingly, 18 is the age of consent (unless you live in the South or the Midwest, or your last name is Spears, or you are a teenager that attends high school with similar-aged teenagers of the opposite – or same – sex). You’re also supposed to be 18 before you are allowed to see an adult movie, unless you’re famous, in which case you’re allowed to star in pornographic “private” home videos solely created to meet contract obligations with mass online video distributors.

For my money, it’s a relief that nobody under the age of 18 has any idea that the internet is nothing more than an all-you-can-eat buffet of anything and everything remotely sexual. And I’m not talking Sizzler here. This is the real deal. Fortunately children and teens only navigate to safe sites like Wikipedia, where little information is correct, but it’s a useful resource to do vital school research about the history of important historical and cultural subjects like the Jonas Brothers. Of course, Facebook has caught on, but that’s really just a diversion created by the online porn industry to keep you nearby.

Speaking of websites, some prominent Politicians have made recent news after visits to an entirely other league of “social networking” sites. Politicians have a long history of getting caught having torrid affairs and raising the ‘political bar’ (if you know what I mean). Case in point: New York’s recent former Governor, the sanctimonious “steamroller” of New York, Eliot Spitzer. It seems that Spitzer, when not bringing down major prostitution rings, was keeping others in business. Client #9, as he was affectionately known by Albany insiders, had a “thing” for a girl named Kristen, Ashley or Silda, depending upon who you asked and when. The difference is in the cost of their company and the basis of their relationship. Let’s compare:

• Silda – Cost: Free. Relationship: Lawfully wedded wife.
• Kristen/Ashley – Cost: Four hour/$5,000 minimum. Relationship: Who cares? I don’t know what she did for $5,000, but whatever it was she must be awfully good at it.

Client #9 experienced a profound error in judgment when he asked his friend Kristen to come over and play. A brief analysis of the situation would lead anyone to the conclusion that if you don’t want anyone, including your lawfully wedded wife Silda, to find out about Kristen, this transaction is best handled with cash. It’s easy to fly under the radar with a random $30 charge on the old AmEx, but $5,000 is a bit of an eyebrow raiser – especially when the charge is for Ralph’s House of Escorts and Lawn Maintenance. Is it possible that New York’s former Attorney General and recent Governor was so sex-addled that he forgot he wasn’t supposed to tell his wife about the great hooker he just hired? “She looks just like our daughter, honey! She reminded me of home and how much I love my family.”

Spitzer resigned his post immediately after the media spit out his bones (Ha!). Lieutenant Governor David Paterson was immediately sworn in, declaring he had a “clear vision for the future.” Seemingly for comedic purpose, Paterson is legally blind. In any case, he almost beat himself to the podium when he declared, not ten seconds later, that he had cheated on his wife – at a Harlem Days Inn that charged by the hour. It wasn’t quite the Mayflower Hotel, like in Spitzer’s case, but then it probably doesn’t really matter to a guy who can’t see the room.

Nevertheless, sex scandals and politics have gone hand-in-hand since the dawn of time. Among the legions of political heroes involved in such scandalous activities, these few best illustrate the ones that rocked the world one bed at a time:

Bill Clinton, President of the United States
Clinton’s presidential ‘inkwell’ spilled over on an overzealous intern named Monica Lewinsky who had a thing for powerful guys who resemble W.C. Fields, blue dresses made from materials that would make Rosie from the Bounty commercials hang her head in shame, and Churchill length Cohibas that Fidel Castro himself later requested back in a hand-written letter to Clinton.

John F. Kennedy, President of the United States
Political analysts attribute Kennedy’s overwhelming 1960 victory to being widely recognized by people who passed through one of New York’s major air travel hubs. It’s a little-known fact that prior to entering politics Kennedy worked as a shoeshine boy at LaGuardia Airport, which back then was known as Fiorello’s Discount Air Strip and Vaudeville Palace. Kennedy became enthralled with a local Vaudevillian performer then known as Norma Rae, saw her skyrocket to worldwide fame and made it his life’s work to bed down with Marilyn Monroe.

George Washington, President of the United States
Now this guy had a reputation for sleeping around. Anyone who has visited a location on the continent of North America has come across a sign bearing the words “George Washington slept here.” One natural question that has been asked a thousand times is, “Where are all the ‘James Buchanan Slept Here’ signs?” Well, my investigation is over. I’m happy to report that Buchanan, who was the only president that was single, has shingles hanging all over San Francisco, Miami and the East Village. Draw your own conclusions.

Carmen Kontur-Gronquist, Mayor of Arlington, Washington
When your mayoral duties involve updating your Myspace profile, you’re likely to get young voters to the polls. Turning to the internet for information, male voters far and wide came across photos of the candidate on her Myspace profile page wearing nothing but her bra and panties. Debate tickets sold out faster than a Beatles reunion concert, although there is no record of exactly what was debated, where she stood on the issues or whether or not her opponent even showed up.

Richard Nixon, President of the United States
Surprisingly, Nixon – who was involved in the biggest hotel-related political scandal in history – somehow couldn’t manage to shoehorn sex into the story.

In an effort to be as fair as possible, I’d like to offer this list of politicians who have never had anything to do with sex scandals:

Oil or Transmission Fluid: What’s the Differential?

Of the many puzzling events that somehow led me to where I am today, the one I question most is why I was ever hired to work at Jiffy Lube when I was 16. The events of this past week were a reminder that I am unconditionally unqualified where it relates to automotive repair and maintenance.

Last week, my brother-in-law Paul performed several highly technical repairs on both of my cars. Every one of these repairs involved using specialized filthy mechanic tools that are inexplicably kept in a toolbox that cost more than a standard-issue passenger jet.

For reasons that must be analogous to why I’m always asked to disrobe when I go to the doctor for a sore throat, Paul started every repair by removing a wheel from the car. As he began to replace parts I couldn’t identify or locate on either vehicle, I began to ask the most logical questions that came to mind. One such exchange occurred while he was replacing the brakes on my Toyota Prius:

Me: Did you bleed the line?
Paul (with a baffled glance in my direction): Did I what?
Me: I meant do you need me to loosen the restrictor plate?
Paul: (no response)
Me: I’m just trying to help.

This line of questioning ended with Paul shaking his head in disgust and getting back to work. The entire process reminded me of the job I never should have had.

Nearly 20 years after I went for the initial interview at Jiffy Lube, I still know as little about cars as somebody can know and still be able to operate one. Back then I somehow passed muster with the management and was hired as a technician.

Upon hiring me, Gary, the Jiffy Lube manager handed me a training manual and instructed me to read through it before my first day of work. While I didn’t get through the entire manual in the allotted time, I did manage to read all the way to where it said “Training Manual” on the front cover.

Since I didn’t even have a learner’s permit yet, I had to ask my friend Andrew Wagner, who owned a 1964 Ford Fairlane, to drive me to work every day after school. In exchange for the daily ride, I had to agree to two things: 1) I would get him two bottles of transmission fluid per week – not for his transmission, but because transmission fluid is the most slippery substance known to man; and 2) I would allow him to pour the transmission fluid on the ground under his wheels and “light ‘em up” on the cul-de-sac where I lived. Watching him lay a half-inch of rubber on the ground, accompanied by the massive cloud of smelly smoke, still makes me laugh today. As an aside, the tire tracks were still there on the ground five years later.

In any case, my job was ill-fated from the start. Given my assigned work station in the lower level of the facility, my extraordinary inability to perform even the simplest of tasks, like changing the oil (which is, by all accounts, the primary reason for the existence of Jiffy Lube), went unnoticed by everyone but Pat, the other guy who worked the lower bay. Pat taught me the finer points of the ten-minute oil change, and while I admit that I didn’t understand a word he was telling me, I did learn that as long as there were guys like Pat around, I would never have to do this kind of thing myself.

Nevertheless, I mastered the art of removing the oil from all sorts of cars. My job required me to let the upper level guys know when the oil tank was completely drained so they could refill it with new oil. On more than one occasion I was guilty of forgetting to replace the bolt, or “spark plug,” thereby allowing all the new oil to drain right back out the bottom and into the collection bin. I was the only one who found this to be even remotely amusing.

Suffice it to say, I am not the person you want tooling around under the car unless the situation is entirely limited to retrieving a ball, a Frisbee or some other non-automotive item that has nothing to do with the car other than sheer proximity. Even then, there are probably better people for the job.

About two months in (I know, I’m just as shocked as you are) I was given an instruction I couldn’t recall having gotten before. The customer wanted to check the “differential.” Now, I clearly recalled my Sequential Math II teacher Mr. Hoolan discussing this concept a few weeks earlier, so my challenge was trying to figure out exactly what subtraction had to do with the underside of a Ford F-150. I felt silly about all those complaints I had in school that ‘I would never need to know any of this in real life.’

As I wracked my brain, Pat sensed trouble and came to the rescue. He showed me where the differential fluid was and handed me what looked like a bottle of caulk with a flimsy rubber point and a handle on the back of it that made air go in and out. I putzed around pretending to do something around the area Pat showed me for about five minutes and gave the all clear to the guys upstairs. Still today I wouldn’t be able to identify this region on a truck. And I’m reasonably certain the device Pat handed me was a joke since it made fart sounds when I moved the handle back and forth.

Several weeks later, and for reasons still unclear to me, I was “promoted” to work in the upper bay. This meant interaction with the customers and learning to identify an entirely new set of parts. I lasted for exactly one vehicle in the upper bay.

The owner of that vehicle, a brand new Chevy conversion van, came in for a simple oil change. I took care of it with ease, closed the hood and waited for someone to pull it out to make room for the next car. When nobody got in to pull it out, Gary the manager told me to take care of it. Never having driven a car before – let alone a van that needed much more clearance around sharp corners – I got behind the wheel, put it in drive and cut the wheel hard to the right. Keith, one of the upper bay guys, went out front to direct me.

It wasn’t so much the horrible, loud screech I heard that made me realize my Jiffy Lube days were over; the look on Keith’s face said it all. As did the owner of the van, who said it all and then some – and very loudly, might I add.

I cut the wheel way too tight, drove the side of the van right into the corner of the stone building and dragged the entire side along the wall for a good two feet, thus ending my storied career as an automotive repair technician.

Nowadays I rely on Paul to help me out with my auto repairs. And I do wish I could help instead of standing around asking dumb questions and hoping he doesn’t order me to fetch him a tool I won’t be able to identify, but I know myself too well.

I’m not completely hopeless, though... Paul asked me to come over this Saturday and to pick up a muffler bearing on my way. I’ve made a few calls and nobody seems to carry them, but this should be a piece of cake.

It’s a Rescue Mission, Technically

After years of building large collections of digital music and picture files, I recently decided it was time to organize it all in a meaningful and remarkably tedious way. Looking back, this is a job that should only be attempted after winning the lottery, eradicating all crime and doing away with world hunger, each of which would be easier and less time-consuming than organizing your digital photos.

Having transferred my iTunes library onto my newly purchased portable hard drive, or “floppy disk” for those of you still donning a beeper, I began the process of moving my photos to a single location. Throughout the process, I looked forward to seeing the pictures I took on a trip to Paris several years ago. Hundreds of CDs and folders later, no France pics.

Well, as it turns out I thought of the last possible place I could have the pictures stored. The laptop I used back then was essentially dead, sitting in my bottom night table drawer. I tried to fire it up last night and see if they were there. As I suspected, it wouldn’t start up. That’s when I took the little mini screwdriver to it and disassembled the entire thing looking for the hard drive. Keep in mind, my technical skills where it relates to computers can be summed up in three words: “on/off switch.”

After removing approximately as many screws as I believe come in a standard space shuttle, I had a pile of random parts, any of which could be the hard drive. Considering all the parts were hard, this was a difficult elimination process. My first step was to rule out anything with blades. The ‘fans’, as we computer geeks call them, resemble a little itty bitty version of one of those old 400 watt box-style fans that my dad used to put in the window on hot days to save money when he was too cheap to put on the air conditioning (note, it was cooler outside than in the family room). So with the fans out of the way, I began to systematically search each individual piece looking for a sticker, a label or a heat stamp marked “hard drive.” Keep in mind, these parts are extremely small. When you get inside one of these things, you begin to realize why they need tender little 6-year-old Chinese hands to assemble them in the first place.

Having located no such markings on any item, I took the next logical step, which was to walk around with the magnifying glass I needed to see the parts and show everyone in the house how big my eye looks when I do “this!” After completing that useful step, I refocused my attention on what I refer to as “The Real Housewives of Orange County” for approximately 42 minutes. Spoiler alert: this show sucks – and Billy should get rid of Quinn before their brains begin to interact and create a dangerous black hole of dumb.

Back at my workstation, I ruled out my next piece of computer – the DVD drive. This was easy to spot given the fact that it had since fallen on the floor and opened to reveal the contents I forgot to remove. As a side note, I’m selling a copy of Fletch Lives on DVD (no box) in case you know of anyone who might be interested. Next, I set all the parts out on the table in size order, starting with the screws measuring about three atoms across and working my way up to the frame of the screen, which only my dog was able to disassemble further.

After laying out every part – minus the two parts I had already discarded – my nine-year-old daughter walked over and asked, “Daddy, isn’t this the hard drive?” I smirked, kind of shook my head a little, and responded, “don’t be silly, honey, I KNOW that’s the hard drive. I’m trying to make sure there are no parts here that need to be recycled.” Another note: the hard drive was attached to a piece of the laptop body that was simply removed with a pressure switch – no need to remove so much as a single screw.

Hard drive in hand, I made my way to Best Buy to find out how the Geek Squad could rescue my files. I suppose I could have simply taken the entire laptop with me and saved a lot of time and aggravation, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to play with the magnifying glass.

Upon my arrival at the store, the clerk at the door insisted on tagging my hard drive (size: 2.5 inches x 3.5 inches – no Jewish jokes, please) for a return. I had to explain that I was gentile (I’m in the Bible Belt, for crying out loud), and that this was not a return, but a job for the Geek Squad. I made my way to the back of the store (where the Jews are forced to go for ‘de-lousing’) and found a geek to talk to. He explained that their fee for any data recovery would START at $99! “$99?!” I exclaimed, tipping my Jewish hand just a tad too much for comfort, in retrospect. “Or you can buy this ‘hard drive enclosure’ for $51.99,” he added, showing me how simple it would be to install my laptop hard drive in it and connect it to my computer with the USB. How those little barcodes connect things to computers I’ll never know.

“$51.99 is a little more than I really wanted to spend on this project,” I explained.

“Well, we do have a pretty liberal return policy; 30 days with a receipt,” he whispered with a wink. Looking at his name tag, I realized he was speaking my language.

“That sounds like a swell idea, Mordechai.”

I took possession of the loaner and made my way back home.

Just a few minutes later I was browsing the files from my dead, and now mutilated laptop. Lo and behold, I found a file folder: “pics to burn on CD.” Empty. After searching further, I located a folder called “work.” A few clicks later and voila… the dog pees on the floor. Several seconds go by and I realize nobody else even knows about it, and it ain’t gonna clean itself up. I get the paper towels, Spot Shot, Clorox wipes, Swiffer and a mop. I know there’s a way these things can work in concert to create cleanliness. I call my daughter, the one who gave me the assist on the locating the hard drive. She runs into the room excited, only to find out that daddy has made a bigger mess out of a puddle of pee and a handful of cleaning products than he made on the kitchen table with the old laptop, which by the way, didn’t need to be disassembled at all to begin with. She took hold of the cleaning process and let me finish the manly task of trying to locate my pictures from Fwonce.

In a flash, I drill down through the work folder ‘Work/Scott/Ruder Finn/Air France/Events/Press Trips/Lacroix/Pictures.’ There it is! Success! A folder full of a couple hundred pictures from the trip to Paris. I quickly copied them to my digital file folder and burned a CD of them just in case.

At that point, I removed the old laptop hard drive from the loaner enclosure, boxed the loaner back up and prepared it for its return from whence it came. The pictures are safe.

Which is more than I can say for Billy. He has no idea that Quinn is ready to have “the talk.”

Useless New Crimes Coming Soon to a City Near You

Question: What is the most dangerous crime currently plaguing our nation? If you guessed “terrorism,” you probably spend too much time in front of the TV, reading newspapers or breathing. You need to wipe the crumbs off your chest, get in the car and drive straight to the nearest house of worship, because right now you don’t have a prayer. The most dangerous crime today, at least in the forward-thinking and open-minded metropolis of Atlanta is… you guessed it: baggy pants.

Atlanta used to be a town with plenty of social problems like homelessness and poverty, and the crime that goes along with them. It also used to have a traffic congestion problem due to the highway infrastructure that became outdated slightly before the invention of the Conestoga wagon. But that’s all history now.

A city council edict in 2006 ruled that homelessness and poverty would officially be called ‘cultural gems’ in Atlanta, thereby putting an end to the problematic aspect. And traffic ceased to be a problem when urban planner Harold Morland spilled his coffee on the only existing copy of the latest traffic study - just before he was to present it to the traffic board and instead diverted attention by somehow managing to get OJ Simpson arrested again.

If you’re any kind of American, you’re probably wondering why parachute pants weren’t banned back in the 80s. Well, smarty-pants (ZING!), it turns out that native Atlantan and Atlanta City Councilman Clarence "CT (because the M doesn’t work on my keyboard)" Martin, the person responsible for thinking up the baggy pants ordinance, was too busy inventing the “Youthmobile,” a fleet of innovative vehicles designed to jam up the city’s traffic even worse than before.

Councilman Martin said he's tired of seeing “these young whippersnappers” wearing their pants down around their knees. His ordinance would make exposed underwear and sex in public equivalent offenses. I hate to agree, so I won't. When you think about it, you realize that these two offenses truly are nothing alike. Going out on a limb, Martin shocked the city by alleging that, "It kind of doesn't make sense. It is hard for people to walk."

Case in point: according to a story in the New Orleans Times Picayune, a 16-year-old Louisiana kid decided to go on a robbery spree. He managed to elude authorities on several occasions, but was finally caught only after his baggy pants fell down - which caused him to stumble and fall as officers chased him. I think the moral of this story is obvious: if you don’t wear baggy pants and you are a criminal, New Orleans is where you want to be.

Breaking new ground for Georgia, Councilman Clarence “The Cactus” Martin is including both sexes in the proposed legislation.

“But Scott,” you must be asking, “Aren’t baggy pants a predominantly male thing?”

To which I reply: That’s why the ordinance also outlaws “whale’s tails” for women. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’m guessing it has to do with the grotesquely obese.

As the debate drags on endlessly, older residents are forming what is described as a “belt brigade” that could one day patrol the streets to urge kids to pull up their baggy pants. (Brief off-topic reminder: Ted Turner is still the more insane Atlantan, but Clarence “The Enforcer” Martin runs a close second.)

Imagine the choices police would have to make if Councilman Clarence “Product-of-the-Georgia-publick-schol-sistem-and-prowd-of-it” Martin gets his way: An old woman is being mugged in a coffee shop parking lot while an otherwise law-abiding, but baggy-panted, youth is inside purchasing a jubmino double-shot decaf caramel mocha stoccato libretto frappe (cost: $106.88 per gallon). If you’re a cop witnessing all this lawlessness, how do you decide which kind of doughnut you should get?

Silly as it may seem, the baggy pants problem is seemingly reaching epidemic proportions. A quick glance at the news reveals that proposals to ban baggy pants are starting to ride up across the nation. Concerned citizens in fashion Meccas like Mankato, MN, Charleston, WV, Trenton, NJ and Pine Bluff, AR are all seeking similar ordinances.

Support for such a ban is spirited. Johnnie Doctor, Sr., a Miami pastor whose quote I am including simply because I love his name, suggested that Miami consider the baggy-pants ban, saying “who the hell wears pants in Miami, anyway?”

So as the debate rages on, Atlanta's poverty-stricken homeless cease to be poverty-stricken homeless, and the traffic here still remains gridlocked between the hours of 3:30 am and 11:55 pm, Monday through Friday and on alternating weekends, we can all think about how insane you must have to be in order to be a city councilperson.

In the meantime, I’ll be tightening my belt and wearing a red baseball cap. They outlawed blue last week.

What the Helsinki? Is This for Real?

Today’s guitarists just aren’t made like they used to be. When I was 11, I showed an interest in learning to play guitar. After months of prodding, my parents bought me a second-hand Martin six-string acoustic that acted as my springboard to complete failure as a rock star. I spent years practicing, plenty of money on equipment and lessons, and an inordinate amount of time trying to ‘make it’ with girls who I knew were into musicians.

Today’s award-winning guitarists don’t spend the money on lessons, the time on practicing, or even the money on equipment. In fact, they don’t even use guitars when they perform. Welcome to the world of competitive air guitar.

I know what you’re thinking: Competitive air guitar? What’s next, the imaginary World Series? Nascar while running and making engine sounds like ‘whaaaaaaaaaaaa (shift to a lower octave) whaaaaaaaa?’ Get serious. This is big business, though it makes you long for the days of Tiptoeing Through the Tulips with the likes of Tiny Tim.

The official governing body of the U.S. Air Guitar Championships is appropriately named U.S. Air Guitar. Their aim it is to “take our nation’s unofficial pastime out of the bedroom and put it up on the world stage.” According to the website, “In a time when U.S. military and economic leadership faces unprecedented criticism around the world, it is our belief that air guitar represents one endeavor our country can dominate without controversy.”

So in short, watch out Osama. America won’t be taken down without a fight. And as long as we have a solid championship-level air guitarist competing on the world stage, America will no longer be the subject of the world’s criticism.

U.S. Air Guitar is also responsible for maintaining the Air Guitar Hall of Fame, which includes legendary figures like 2003 U.S. and world champ David “C-Diddy” Jung, who is known for wearing a backwards Hello Kitty backpack on his bare chest, and 2006 U.S. champ Craig “Hot Lixx Hulahan” Billmeier, whose style is a postmodern mix of punk, flamenco and metal.

When I think of the hours my friends and I spent ‘jamming’ and ‘getting tight’ in the garage with our real instruments, it seems such a colossal waste of time. All we needed to do to get some notice was to put on a cassette of our favorite band and play imaginary instruments just as well as the real Motley Crue.

This year’s fake guitar playing championships were held at real New York City concert venue Irving Plaza. Inexplicably, the ‘event’ was held in front a sold out crowd of screaming fans, dozens of photographers and news cameras from all three major networks, MSNBC, CNBC and FOX News. With all those photographers on site, it’s a wonder nobody caught Rod Serling on film.

Just prior to the competition, crowd favorite Andrew “William Ocean” Litz said, “If I don’t walk away with the U.S. title and at least 3-4 broken bones, I haven’t done my job tonight.”

After a tough evening of pretending to play guitar, New York’s own Litz somehow defeated defending champ Hot Lixx Hulahan and Rockness Monster to take the title and represent the United States at (lord, forgive me for the fact that this is not a joke) the Air Guitar World Championships. On a related note, Litz did not break any bones, but his pride is probably plenty damaged.

At the end of the competition, all the pretend rock stars took to the stage to perform what was described as an ‘all-star rendition’ of Freebird – a song that’s overplayed even by those who don’t really play.

As an aside, I always thought that my best chance at ever representing my country on the world stage was to be on an Olympic curling team. Now that air guitar is an option, I have officially changed my tune. My real talent, however, lies in steering wheel drumming. Once someone sanctions that, I will definitely enter the competition.

As “William Ocean” travels to Finland to represent Team USA in the giant pretend guitarists of the world competition, all the other fictitious fingerpickers have to hang their heads in shame for not being able to win a contest that requires exactly no skill whatsoever to win.

As for me, I have to head out to the store to pick up a few things: a DVD copy of ‘Air Guitar Nation’ (a documentary described as “very good” by Joel Siegel, just moments before he decided to give up in his fight against cancer), a new set of strings for the real guitar I’ll be strumming while pretending to watch, and a block Finlandia Swiss to remind me of the utter cheesiness of the Air Guitar World Championships being held in Helsinki.