300... Air Guitarists

Jukka. Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? It's a homonym to Yuka, so it's not like Ali can ever say she can't pronounce it. It doesn't have -ko on the end of it so Ali can't exercise her veto, and the twist is that Jukka is a dude's name. I don't think Finns have those names what both genders use like Hindi or something. Either way: Jukka for a boy or Yuka for a girl.

Nope. Sorry, this ain't a post about the movie 300, instead it's a wee rant about baby names with a piece on a documentary sandwiched in. The documentary is opening locally Friday and is called Air Guitar Nation. Technically, this film isn't starring anybody, but it centres around an actor named David Jung aka C-Diddy, and another guy who just won't take no for an answer. Dan Crane's stage name is Björn Töuroque and the story basically takes off from there.

Sensing a lack of American representation in a, well let's call it a competition, documentary film maker Kriston Rucker decides to promote the Air Guitar World Championships and find someone decent enough to represent the US. As it happens, the winning American was chosen at the first set of tryouts, but another person seems to think that he is the real talent and shadows the American winner to Oulu, Finland for the competition. Essentially, Rucker had no better reason to promote (send someone to) this competition other than the fact that no American had been officially entered into the contest. There are attempts in the film to play up the anti-American sentiment that was prevalent in much of Europe at the time, but there were also reminders of why the contest was ever conceived. The event organizers wanted everyone to play air guitar so that they wouldn't hold a gun. After a lame attempt to cause some friction between one of the Americans and some Austrian contestants, it's pretty clear that no one is a hater.

Of course, in a Cinderella-type story Jung is the overall winner in Oulu and unfortunately for Crane, the three-time loser is not able to make an impression the following year. It's a nice kind of film - the story of an actor who's always had to prove himself to his traditional Korean family who wanted him to go into medicine vs. a guy who, if nothing else, lives for air guitar. The viewers are introduced to a group of people who take the hobby very seriously. Some sort of division apparently exists between American air guitarists who only think it's fun and their international counterparts who really take the thing to a whole new level. Boot camps, zen philosophies, entourages - it's not just a hobby for some people.

When I won the preview passes to this film, I knew it would be a little like The Aristocrats, and there was only one person I could think of to watch the movie with. I didn't find too many funny moments in the film, but my buddy could hardly drink his coffee without coughing because of all the jokes. Of course, being Scandinavian maybe there were more jokes for him than for most. There was however, that unfortunate phenomenon at many preview screenings: the drunk prize winner. In our case, the guy was having entirely too much fun for one person and probably felt like he was right there amongst the reindeer, cheering on the contestants. Maybe he wasn't drunk, maybe he just doesn't get out often - it's hard to tell, but he ruined it for at least a few viewers.

In a way, I'd like to see Ali in the tryouts next year. She plays a mean air guitar, and has the head banging down pat when it comes to Black Sabbath. And she's got the vertical leap too. Really, I just want a reason to go to Finland and practice the language/accent. There's just not enough of it in Formula One anymore. Actually, there's more than usual but I haven't got cable.

If Ali had her way the choices of a baby name would be limited to one of those dreadful boy bands what aren't around anymore. And if it's a girl (which I hope it is) then Ali's screwed. There's only one girl band she knows of and I'm not naming my kid Scary or Sporty or whatever.