Santa Cruz: Gotta have Faith

The roster going into our June 1st show was bleak; 5 competitors. The judges had been prepped, and the opening number had been rehearsed, leaving the one thing all veteran air-guitarists depend on to bring a good show: faith. An interesting concept to be sure, but keep reading.

When you cut an SBD (Silent But Deadly) in the middle of a crowd, there is a bit of faith involved. A silent prayer of sorts goes out to the tune of, “Please, let them smell it, and be moved, but never find out who it is”. Like dropping a fart on a crowded subway car, the air guitar prayer of, “Please let this work” is inevitable.

So was the mindset that the Santa Cruz Air Guitar crew found themselves harboring the night of this show. So, we cut the cheese, and waited.

With 10 minutes till show time, Leif Airikson showed up to watch the show, and was immediately recruited to go first. Random Bar Guy, promptly dubbed “Airnold Shredzenager” finished his drink and signed up. The allure of a free t-shirt to whomever dove down the garbage chute (no matter what they smelled) was announced and the show began: cheese wafting in the air…

The opening number brought Judge Buzzard, The Professor, and Dirty Airy on the stage to showcase a few genres of music, before finishing with Judge White Chocolate taking on the daunting task of the tiny sax man from The Lost Boys himself. Having lost his shirt during the opening number, Dirty Airy commenced with the show with a whiff of special floating in the ether.

Leif Airikson commenced with some Lamb of God having heard the track once. The judges set a bar with room to spare, and led Dirty Airy to an epiphany: the judges (and hosts) actually perform MORE than the competitors at these shows.

While discussing the next competitor’s t-shirt, and asking where the name Crud Bonemeal came from, Dirty found himself throwing zingers out like handshakes at a political rally. Though this is simply a stall tactic designed for the judges to give the best scores and feedback possible, it became apparent that with only a handful of competitors, the job of the host was now to keep the crowd on the edge of their seats by any means possible. Hosting an Air Guitar show became one long compulsory round.

Humor works well for this, and when that fails, gross shit will always have your back. Like when Singar the Goat Demon came up next and Dirty spotted a ripe zit on his chest after the performance.

The options here were:

A) Ignore it

B) Talk about it

C) Pop it, show the crowd, and lick the puss of his thumb

Of course he choose C.

How could anyone leave a show like that?

Foxy Cleopatra, the lone female of the evenings competition was up next. A superb performance was given by Foxy, and after discussing Quidditch (yep, both she and Singar play competitive Quidditch), the well hung Blood Sausage took the Stage.

Carried to the stage by large men, Blood Sausage and his Jazzercise shirt melted the faces off everyone, and provided the standout performance of the evening thus far. When asked about his package, which although “soft” stretched well past his knee, Blood Sausage’s mother was in the crowd to confirm that Sausage’s glory reminded her of his father. Beautiful.

Two competitors came out of the crowd to add tot he mix: Santa Cruz Circa 92 (AKA SC 92) and Dick Trickle. Both played completely blind tracks and provided the first leap onto the judges table, as well as the first Cornholio siting of the night.

A smoke break for the crowd followed, and scores were tabulated for round 2.

After finding his shirt, Dirty returned to the stage to announce the top 5 heading into round 2. The tie for 5th was settled by a paper scissors rock tournament, and Bonemeal lost to Dick Trickle (now dubbed Dee-Trick by the Professor).

*Authors note*

You want absolute silence at an air guitar show, start a paper scissors rock tournament on stage.

The round 2 track was, or course, Ace of Spades, and started with SC-92, followed by Foxy Cleopatra, then Singar, then Dee-Trick, and finally Blood Sausage. The Ace up Blood Sausage’s sleeve was NOT playing the baseline intro, granting him a perfect 6 from technical judge Buzzard, and helping him to win the competition. Nailing the lead, and being hung like a jump rope didn’t hurt either, but the 6 from the judge who had been told multiple times by the crowd to “Eat a Bag of Dicks” helped.

Final scores were tabulated, and Blood Sausage was crowned the new champ in his third year performing in Santa Cruz. Freebird commenced, and a three-way, consisting of Blood Sausage in front, while Dirty bit his “Sausage”, and SC-92 played under Dirty’s arms made sure that no one in the crowd knew what the hell was going on anymore.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what a little faith can bring.