How I ended up playing air guitar vs. the Westboro Baptist Church

In less than 24 hours, a video that I posted on YouTube had over 1,400 views -- and its all because of hate.

Hate created the Westboro Baptist Church and the anger and (dare I say) hate of reasonable people in the Kansas/Missouri area caused this video to become a minor viral hit.

Like most people who live in Kansas, I have gotten used to the inappropriate "protests" of Fred Phelps' hatemongering "church." Based out of Topeka, they being their "God Hates Fags" signs to seemingly random places (like military funerals, political rallys, and car washes) and stand around embarrassing themselves and our state in the name of free speech and some twisted sense of social justice.

Well, I'm no stranger to inappropriate and embarrassing behavior. As a competitive air guitarist (see video directly below), I have received my fair share of scorn from "serious" music fans for making a mockery of rock n' roll--something that shouldn't be taken too seriously in the first place.

Tuesday night, me and a group of twenty or so of my like-minded air guitarists (hell bent on pushing the art and sport of competitive air guitar forward) decided to do a two-minute flash mob outside the Sprint Center at the Van Halen concert while rabid VH fans waited in line to be let in.

The problem is, the Sprint Center opened doors 15 minutes early and there wasn't much of a line (or crowd) to begin with. (Everybody, it seems, was across the street in bars waiting the opening act Kool & the Gang, out.) With our generous, sure-to-be-well-received performance (we were doing "Hot for Teacher" and "Panama" after all) on the rocks, I looked for another alternative of a place where people might be gathering.

It was then that we spotted the Westboro Baptist Church standing on the curb down the street. It was clear that somebody needed to stand up to them, and we were just the shameless fools to do it.

Here's what's weird: I never felt a moment of doubt. I knew right away that what I wanted to do ASAP was get right up in their grill and shove as much air guitar in their face as often as possible in two minutes. It just seemed cosmically correct. If they didn't like the gay lifestyle/culture and wanted to protest at a Van Halen concert, we would confront them with something equally ridiculous but with our hearts full of joy and laughter and positive energy.

I'm not in the habit of shoving my crotch into strangers' faces to try and get a reaction, but for some reason it came very naturally in front of the Westboro Baptist Church. More than anyone else I know of, they deserve it.

Performing air guitar is liberating and it somehow fills me with confidence--confidence I wouldn't normally have if I was trying to mount some sort of "intelligent" protest against these jokers. No, this felt right: a stupid amount of flailing about and invading their personal space during an air guitar routine--the purest expression of rock n' roll love imaginable.

Once we got over to the curb the Westboro Baptist Church had staked out as their position (watched heavily by the police, might I add), we started the music and immediately began our blissful bacchanal. Here's what was interesting--the cops were actually pushing us closer to the WBC, not warning us to stand back. Let me explain:

The Westboro Baptist Church protesters were standing at the edge of the curb facing the street so everyone could see their dumb-ass signs. The street was blocked off at that spot, but the cops weren't letting anyone in the street within a certain radius. I kept falling off the tiny curb and onto the street and the police were yelling at me to "stay on the curb!"

Ironically, what this meant was that in order for me to perform some sweet hot licks for the WBC, I had to stay on the street curb; the same one they were standing right up against! This means that there was a razor-thin line between them and the curb, with me firmly stuck in the middle and the cops yelling at me to stay off the street every time I fell backwards.

Essentially, the police were forcing us in the angry faces of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Luckily my friend Ian caught the last 30 seconds of the air guitar vs. WBC showdown on his cell phone. I spent most of my time miming some hot moves in front of a not-amused Shirley Phelps, but none of that was caught on camera. What you see in this video is KC air guitarist Thunderball and I working together to create air magic in a hostile environment (in front of some glasses-clad, hipster-looking hatemonger) and not giving a crap what happened.

Like I said before, I never would have been so energetic and fearless in the face of these notorious blowhards if it weren't for the liberating feeling of air guitar. It empowers me to do stupid things and have a great time.Am I spreading positive energy and all that? Sure, but ...

It's just as air guitar legend Bj?rn T?roque once said, "Make air, not war."

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