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My Air Guitar Gently Weeps
for release 09-07-07
Washington DC
by Lightning Rod
The very existence of something called Air Guitar insults me as a musician. This week in Finland there is a contest to determine the world champion Air Guitar player. Finland doesn't have a Nobel Prize, so I guess they have to take what they can get. Of course Air Guitar players don't play guitar at all, they pantomime playing the guitar while a karioke soundtrack backs them up. It's High or Low comedy, depending on how you look at it.
I play a WIND instrument. There is actual air involved. Why isn't there a contest for Air Flute? It's not as phallic as the Air Guitar, I suppose. Maybe that's why I am offended--masculinity thing.
I can understand the yearly Van Cliburn piano competition in Ft. Worth. The competitors spend years learning their skills and their music. The contest exhibits demonstrable talent and effort. But The World Air-Guitar Championship, held annually in Oulu, Finland, since 1996 is more mysterious to me.
The whole concept of Air Guitar is pathetic really. These are people that are the ultimate talentless wannabes. If they want to be guitar players, why don't they get a guitar and learn to play it? Oh, but that's too hard. It's easier to pretend.
Sometimes faking it is as good a making it. Look at our government for example. They are playing Air Government. It's a pantomime, a lip synch. It has nothing particularly to do with the real world. I cite as an immediate example: the interminable presidential debates that we are trying to avoid watching on cable TV. All the hopefuls are playing Air Guitar, trying to look presidential without actually being president.
The beauty of Air Guitar is that it takes absolutely no skill. Any idiot with a boom box can do it. I suppose it's like any other art or sport--it's ultimately useless, purely for entertainment, much like politics.
It's perfectly symbolic of our culture to make believe that you are doing something when you are really just taking up time and space.
One of the fascinating aspects of American culture in the media age is that we seem to be able to convince ourselves that we are participating when we are really only watching. Spectator sports are popular. We think we know celebrities when we see their faces day after day on TV and magazine covers. In our imaginations they become part of our families. Think of them as Air Families. Make-believe families because we don't actually play the guitar or have real families.
"I'm jammin', man."
"I'm jammin', man."
How many times have you heard somebody say that while they are listening to music on headphones? "I'm jammin', man."
No, you are NOT jammin', man, you are listening to music. Jamming means that you are participating in the music, adding to it, not just listening to it. What you are doing is Air Jamming. It's the illusion of participating without actually participating.
Umberto Eco in his essay Travels in Hyperreality has priceless things to say about this subject. He insists that Americans prefer the facsimile to the original. We call Coca-Cola 'The Real Thing' when it is actually sugar water that has no cocaine in it. We want every Main Street to look like Disney World. We are addicted to make-believe reality. I wonder what his comments would be on Air Guitar?
The Poet's Eye is still looking for a real guitar. Who knows? Maybe I'm writing Air Poetry.
I look at you all see the love there thats sleeping
While my guitar gently weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still my guitar gently weeps
I dont know why nobody told you how to unfold your love
I dont know how someone controlled you
They bought and sold you.
--George Harrison
