In June 2004, a woman named MiRi “Sonyk-Rok” Park won the 2004 U.S. Air Guitar Championship with a rendition of Eddie Van Halen’s riffing in “Hot for Teacher.” A week or two later, she performed her rendition on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. The Air Guitar U.S.A. website (which I discovered through a Flavorpill link to Aireoke) has video of Park’s Conan appearance, and it’s a travesty: Though the cascade of notes in the intro is one of the more famous examples of Eddie’s pioneering two-handed-tapping technique, and in fact is impossible to play any other way, Park keeps her right hand down at her right hip the whole time, as if she’s playing her invisible guitar the standard way. I suppose an air guitar performance is meant to be an interpretation, not a literal recreation of all the relevant techniques, but this is a disgrace!!! Are there no standards in the world of professional air guitar? Is there no honor? Would someone interpreting Murray Perahia at the Air Piano U.S.A. Championship get away with performing using feet on the keyboard instead of hands? I seriously doubt it!!!