Photos: The 2007 U.S. Air Guitar Championships

Last night, more than a dozen hopefuls who've honed their skills with the most powerful imaginary weapon known to man, the air guitar, descended on New York City's Fillmore at Irving Plaza to lay claim to their spot representing the red, white and blue at next month's World Championship competition in Finland.

No, none of this is hyperbolic or fiction.  It all happened as it has for about a half-decade now.

In an attempt to bring about world peace ("if you're holding an air guitar, you cannot be holding a gun"), the 15 competitors from all different regions in our great land duked it out through renditions of their best 60 seconds of absolute shredness.  But as it's easy to imagine, this finger-gymnastics-filled-fete turned quickly into a deathmatch of near-epic proportions.

No holds were barred, no words were censored, no French figure skating judges to mar the proceedings (though Judge #4, "The Daily Show"'s Jason Jones came quite close).

And when it was all said and done, when enough gallons of blood, sweat, tears and maybe a little urine (maybe) were spilled to satiate the Air Gods, when the broken glass bottles and Sparks cans had piled up, our country, the greatest country in this fucking world, had received its saving graces: one exposed penis (thank you Stryker?) and one air guitar wielding-messiah.

His name, which billowed from the hallowed halls of the Fillmore at Irving Plaza and rang out into the heavens like a fist pounding on the pearly gates up above, was WILLIAM OCEAN.

Godspeed! to you, Mr. Ocean.  And Godspeed! to the American air guitar way of life!