#31: Sex, Love and World Record Breaking Air Guitar

I was going to wait until I'd reported on my successful (and not so successful) checking off of parts of the previously revealed piece of list, but one of the most random items in the #26-#50 Hitch List section was accomplished unexpectedly today...and it is ran-dom. So just I'll post the next chunk of list and get to explaining how I became a Guinness World Record Holding Air Guitarist.

(numbers 26 through 50, in no particular order)

26. Relocate somewhere you've never lived and don't know anyone.

27. Create "Ethnic Sexcapades" Bingo Card (Italian, Irish, Puerto Rican, African American, Japanese, etc.). Compete with friends for first "Bingo." (Winner gets bragging rights and a free trip to the STD clinic.)

28. Take a midnight train going anywhere.

29. Smash out with someone older.

30. Smash out with someone younger.

31. Break a Guinness World Record.

32. Get wasted and party with someone famous.

33. Smash out with someone famous (see 32 for assistance).

34. Play a player.

35. Threesum.

36. Visit the birthplace of your personal hero.

37. Read/view/listen to at least three of the books/films/albums your obnoxious ex recommended but you never touched (who knows, they may have been right about something).

38. Have a brief relationship based entirely on sex.

39. Build something from scratch utilizing three tools you have no idea how to use.

40. Try something you would "never" do in bed.

41. Be the star of your own nude photo shoot. (Pictures are for your eyes only.)

42. Start mixed martial arts and/or self defense classes.

43. Go on a vision quest with an experienced guide.

44. Travel somewhere exclusively for a famous local food item (must cross state lines). Philly cheese steaks, media noches in Cuba, Pad Thai in Thailand, etc.

45. Get arrested.

46. Experience a complete relationship in one weekend (meet, flirt, fall in lust, screw, spend too much time together and breakup all over the course of a single weekend. Hard to do in small towns, but it happens all the time in NYC).

47. Read at least two books on the world history of marriage.

48. Experience parenthood temporarily with the assistance of friends/siblings/relatives who have small children.

49. Have a raucous ladies'/guys' night in a famous non-native party city.

50. Write your own eulogy.

Now for the randomness:

I first wrote #31 down on March 16, 2009.

I knew I'd never have the talent to be the Fastest Rap MC (921 syllables spit like hot fire in just 60 seconds), the patience to stand on one leg for 76 hours (I have a hard enough time in a pair of stilettos for 2 hours) or a screw loose enough to be THIS GUY (WTF?!), but being a Guinness World Record holder seemed a good future conversation starter and an excuse to develop a unique skill.

But, apparently, you do not have to develop any skill to be a record holder.

Upon visiting the Broadway musical Rock of Ages--and before you start quipping about the questionable artistic value of a show built on public drunkenness and belligerent 80s karaoke tunes, let me just insert that it FUCKING ROCKS--I discovered the show was attempting to break the Guinness World Record for Largest Air Guitar Ensemble. Audience members and additional fans were given a brief master class in air guitar taught by 2007 American Air Guitar Champion William Ocean (who, it should be mentioned, literally gets paid to go around the world playing an invisible instrument. I'd like to take this opportunity to tell my high school guidance counselor to go make love to herself, because she clearly steered me wrong career-wise), where everyone in attendance learned the differences between basic air strumming, a shredding air solo and Mortal Kombat-style finishing moves like the Epic-Flaming-Guitar-Toss-And-Catch.

Then the entire theater, from stage to balcony, shredded their air axes for over two minutes to the famed solo from Journey's "Don't Stop Believin.'" Old, balding white guys in business attire head-banged while flashing their (slightly creepy) Gene Simmons tongues, big-breasted Bridge-and-Tunnel divas jiggled in their sequined shirts and matinee-yentas from Jersey strummed until their arthritis kicked in, QVC-jewelry banging and jangling like a demonic acrylic percussion section throughout.

It was kind of awesome.

In the end, Rock of Ages' 810 participants plowed over the previously held record of 440 air guitarist, meaning I get to cross #31 off the list (granted, it's a group effort award, but I'm not about to start jamming live rattlesnakes in my mouth, so that's it for now). Also, apparently this event is newsworthy stuff, which is hilarious.

Yep. Just another average Wednesday.