Count Rockula

Through Mrs. Coggblogger, I recently befriended a unique fellow named Dave, who is more widely known as C-Diddy, the first American winner of the world Air Guitar Championship held annually in Finland. C-Diddy is the subject of the 2007 documentary "Air Guitar Nation", which tracks his rise through the air guitar ranks (I kid you not, there's a whole subculture) in his trademark orange robe and Hello Kitty chestplate. Not sure if air guitar is your bag? Here's a litmus test - C-Diddy rocking a parody of the famous YouTube performance of Pachelbel's Canon in D. And if it IS your bag, here's another excellent performance, which won him the Los Angeles regional, launching his first campaign toward Finland. I see things like this and thank God that there are people in the world as ridiculous and wonderful as Dave.

UPDATE: I also met C-Diddy's chief rival, Bjorn Turoque. Frankly, he seemed like kind of a hack. Diddy plays air guitar with dignity and larger-than-life star quality, while Bjorn seems driven by a bizarre sense of righteous indignation - the bitter, perennial also-ran. He also harshed on both names I tried to adopt when getting up on stage to strut my own airness. Personally, I thought "Red Rocktober" and "Dr. Rocktopus" were quite brilliant.