Video of Air Guitar on Conan, Plus - Japan's Air Sex Champ!

Here's video of my appearance on Conan:


BJORN TUROQUE AIR GUITARS ON CONAN

In other news, Japan not only rules the air guitar, but apparently they also have an AIR SEX COMPETITION (bringing new meaning to the idea of what it means to be "big in Japan."

Japan's air sex world champion licks himself into shape

Japan has recently claimed the world air guitar championship, but Weekly Playboy (10/2) notes that less well known is that Japan already had a world champ in another virtual sport -- air sex!

Just like air guitar pits competitors prancing around on stage empty handed but acting as though they were playing a hot riff, air sex requires players to simulate sauciness as though with a partner, but actually while alone.

"Air sex was originally invented by guys who couldn't get girlfriends, but desperately want to have sex," J-Taro Sugisaku, the self-professed creator of air sex, tells Weekly Playboy.

Sugimura tells the weekly that air sex began when a mostly male group gathered at a theater in the trendy Tokyo district of Shimo Kitazawa earlier this year. They began talking about sex techniques, then started demonstrating them. Soon, a competition developed to come up with the most outrageous display of faked fornication.

The full article is here.

Conan the Barb-Air-ian, Bjorn Turoque and Air America

Yes, last night Bjorn Turoque rocked Conan with some mad air guitar. At the end of the show, Al "Air America" Franken joined in for an impromptu air band (Conan played air tamborine). It was truly amazing.

For those googlers out there wondering, "What was that song that air guitar dude played last night on Conan..." I suggest you buy my book, TO AIR IS HUMAN. The answer awaits you in its pages. Plus, it's a damn funny book. I promise. And it's not just about air guitar, it's about the idea of chasing down a dream, no matter how ridiculous, absurd, or invisible that dream may be.

It's all the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of your average rock memoir (take Motley Crue's biography, The Dirt, for example) only the instruments are made of air. Seriously, it's paperback. It's almost as affordable as an air guitar. Just buy it.

Backstage after the show, I gave Conan a handmade Finnish guitar made out of a bathroom scale -- a gift from the Oulu Music Video Festival and Air Guitar World Championships. He loved it.


My Driver, Bruce, who picked me up in a limo to go to Rockefeller Center.


My name on the door.


Me and Conan. I look frightening


Me giving Conan the guitar


Conan rocks the "Weight Watcher" Finnish guitar

Conan The Barb-AIR-ian

Tonight Bjorn Turoque will be making an appearance on Late Night With Conan O'Brien.

Of course, Conan is massive in Finland, home of the Air Guitar World Championships, where it is believed he was separated at birth from the Finnish president, Tarja Halonen.

The resemblance is striking.

Tune in and watch Bjorn teach Conan a thing or two about air guitar...

More Bloggage

Cool piece about the book on Daytrotter.com, and check Powell's for fresh air all this week.

I am currently in Oulu, Finland. Again.

How did this happen?

World finals tonight. Go Hott Lixx!!

Air Guitar Takes Edinburgh by Storm

Last week, at the Edinburgh Film Festival, I joined Alexandra Lipsitz, director of Air Guitar Nation, and Cedric Devitt, one of the founders of US Air Guitar, to screen the film. It was the first time I had seen it with a non-American audience and I was a bit worried, since it is a very American film at heart. At the end of the film, they clapped politely, and I was concerned it might not have translated. But once the Q&A began, it was obviously they loved it completely. It turns out the Scots are simply polite moviegoers.

It was later though, at the bar during the after-party that their true feelings came out.

“Re-speeeeeect! NO! RE-speeeeeeeeeeect!” shouted a gigantic lumbering inebriated Scotsman with a brogue as thick as haggis, nearly hugging me to death. He apparently loved the film immensely. Others told me it was literally the funniest movie they had ever seen. (Could this be true? Did Over the Top never make it to Scotland?) Suffice to say, the film was a big hit.



We had two Aireoke parties. Both were incredibly amazing, sweaty affairs.


The Scots proved they could rock as hard (or harder) than the rest, and Cedric (a/k/a Aer Lingus) got a ride on the shoulders of another gargantuan local.




For a short respite from the madness of air guitar, Alexandra, Cedric & his girlfriend Minji (my personal air guitar costume designer, btw) and I took a relaxing journey up to the utterly gorgeous Isle of Skye in the Scottish Highlands.


About an hour into the drive we got a flat tire.



“Front left tire?” asked the Norman-Bates-from-Psycho-meets-Jack-Torrence-from-The-Shining B&B proprietor, under the watchful gaze of taxidermic birds of prey.

“Yep,” said Cedric, who had been driving at the time of the puncture.

“Americans,” he said, shaking his head. “Always the front left.”

(Recall that in the UK, they drive on the opposite side of the road).

While changing the tire, we were attacked by a swarm—literally, a SWARM!—of blood-sucking midges: tiny white bugs that nibble on one’s flesh.

The next day we took a hike through a bog, getting lost and covered in mud. We then went fishing for four hours and caught some air salmon.



It was a comedy of errors really, but we had a good time.

(note: some of this bloggage is repeated from my guest blog this week on Powells.com)