Teh One Who Knocks
10-08-2015, 10:51 AM
By Matt Wake - AL.com
http://i.imgur.com/LgOiyFh.jpg
One of the few rules for Air Sex Championships is "no nudity."
"The whole thing is supposed to be pretend so we don't want anyone taking off their actual clothes," says Chris Trew, the bearded New Orleans comedian who hosts Air Sex Championships. "It happens sometimes. But we never advise people to pull out any of their private parts."
Air Sex is part comedy show, part lip-sync-ish performance art. Think "air guitar" but for the horizontal mambo.
Air Sex debuted in 2008 in Austin, Texas and four years later Trew took the practice, or at least a toned down version, to network TV during an appearance on NBC's "America's Got Talent. "Right before I went out the network's lawyer was there with like standards and practices and made me go into this hallway at the venue," Trew, now 34, says. "And they made me do my routine in the hallway for just these two people without any music or anything. And I did it. And they were like, 'Oh, you can't do any of those things. You can't touch your genitals. You can't touch your invisible partner's genitals. You can't pretend to take off your pants.' So that's why when you see the video it's very heavy on me just kissing because they wouldn't let me do much else."
http://i.imgur.com/fwstsaF.jpg
Comedian and Air Sex Championships host Chris Trew. (Courtesy photo)
Air Sex holds 30 to 40 competitions nationwide each year. On Oct. 14 one of those competitions will be held in Huntsville, at Prototype Multimedia, located at Lowe Mill, address 2211 Seminole Drive. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. There's a 7 p.m. screening of the documentary about the show "Air Sex: The Movie" before the Air Sex Championships get started at 9 p.m. You can purchase tickets, which are $7, and sign-up to compete at airsexworld.com. After visiting Huntsville, Air Sex will move on to Athens, Ga., Charleston, S.C., Richmond, Va., Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Nashville. "The show has kind of a karaoke vibe to it," Trew says. "We set the stage and get everything ready to go and now we need people who live in Huntsville to give me their stage name and song choice and then get up and make love to nothing at all."
On a recent afternoon, Trew was at his Garden District home when reached for this phone interview. Excerpts are below.
Chris, where did the idea to do Air Sex Championships come from? Were you like air drumming along to a Rush song and thought, "Hey, what if I did this for sex?"
Yeah you're actually not that far off. So we used to run air guitar championship shows in Austin a long time ago - there's kind of a whole subculture who practice and do air guitar - and we kind of got bored with it as you can imagine because there's only so much you can do with air guitar. We got the idea to do a sex version. And around this same time we saw a video that went viral in Japan that was some people having air sex because they were sad and lonely. Our thought process was like, "What if we made air sex like a big bad thing and treated it like it was professional wrestling almost?" Over the years we just kept developing it and developing it and now that's what it is.
What do you think are the positive aspects of finding the humor in sex?
The world takes sex too seriously, right? So that's one of the reasons why we enjoy what we're doing with the show so much. We also feel like sex can be gross or awkward or weird or funny so let's get creative with how we showcase that in a comedy show.
Have you ever had actual sex with someone you met at an Air Sex competition?
I have not. However there have been plenty of real life love connections that have been made from a performer to an audience member, which I think is very sweet. I've been invited to plenty of weddings from people all over the country that are like, "We met at your show." That happens all the time.
What does the winner of Huntsville's Air Sex Championship receive?
So we will have some prizes that night. Things like copies of the "Air Sex: The Movie" and some various merchandise and some gifts donated from a local sex shop, but the biggest thing that you'll get is you will be in the field of people that might get flown out to Austin to compete for the national championships. That's a giant show. We've had giant trophies like the Stanley Cup or like a world wrestling championship belt and it's our biggest show of the year. There's usually four or five hundred people there and performers from all over the country.
And who's doing the judging in Huntsville?
I don't have them all confirmed yet but I'm dipping into the local comedy community and trying to get some other local celebrity types.
Air sex, air drumming, air guitar. What other physical activity do you think deserves air interpretation?
I'm trying to think if there's a sport that would benefit from going air. Maybe like tennis. Or bowling. That's a great question.
Air bull-riding perhaps?
Ah ...
I can see how watching an Air Sex Championship would be funny. But why would I want to watch the documentary about it?
What's cool about the documentary is it really explores the idea of sex as entertainment. We talk to porn stars and sex advisors about the place sex has in our world and are we taking it too seriously and what happens when someone does an air sex routine that really turns someone on. Or turns someone off. How does being good at air sex affect your actual sex life? We actually follow some of our performers to get more information like that. One of the things we saw happen was people whose confidence was boosted in their actual sex life by being good at air sex and crediting the show with having them come out of their shell. And one girl credited the confidence she got from air sex with (her) coming out of the closet. She's kind of like a leader for feminist, gay comedy in Chicago right now and she came out of the closet after doing air sex enough times where she felt like, "(Expletive), why not?"
Most mind-blowing Air Sex performance to date?
That's easy. She's an Austin icon and her name is Slut Truffle and she had like an axe-grinder that she had plugged in onstage and she had put the grinder against her private part area where she had hidden a little cider block looking thing and so sparks were crazy flying as the grinder was rubbing up against here crotch. It was very bizarre.
What are some songs that work particularly well to air sex to?
Anything that makes people think about (expletive) is going to be good, especially if it's recognizable. Some of the more common ones are "Sexual Healing" Marvin Gaye, or like Ginuwine's "Pony." Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You." But there's also something really funny about making a non-sexual song sexual.
Ever get any wildly inappropriate song selections?
Oh yeah, we get like children's TV themes, cartoon songs all the time.
How out there are people allowed to get while competing in Air Sex Champtonships? For example, can they mime fake sex with a pretend animal?
If you're going to go out there and just do something that's super offensive or really grotesque, they kind of live and die with the content and the judges have at them and we make examples out of them if need be. But that being said, I've seen plenty of routines where someone is like riding a horse and they get off the horse and they (expletive) a horse and there's something sweet about it somehow. [Laughs.] I've also seen that same routine where it's nasty and the crowd reacts as such.
Age at which you lost your air sex virginity and age at which you lost your actual virginity?
Air sex virginity I was ... 26, and real virginity I was 15.
What differentiates awesome air sex from the lame?
You've got to have commitment. We want to see people living out these funny fake fantasies – or maybe it's a real fantasy, we're not judging. We want people going all out to the song. And perhaps most importantly giving us a beginning, middle and end to whatever story you're telling. Contrary to popular belief it's not pick a funny song, get up and then hump something for two minutes.
http://i.imgur.com/LgOiyFh.jpg
One of the few rules for Air Sex Championships is "no nudity."
"The whole thing is supposed to be pretend so we don't want anyone taking off their actual clothes," says Chris Trew, the bearded New Orleans comedian who hosts Air Sex Championships. "It happens sometimes. But we never advise people to pull out any of their private parts."
Air Sex is part comedy show, part lip-sync-ish performance art. Think "air guitar" but for the horizontal mambo.
Air Sex debuted in 2008 in Austin, Texas and four years later Trew took the practice, or at least a toned down version, to network TV during an appearance on NBC's "America's Got Talent. "Right before I went out the network's lawyer was there with like standards and practices and made me go into this hallway at the venue," Trew, now 34, says. "And they made me do my routine in the hallway for just these two people without any music or anything. And I did it. And they were like, 'Oh, you can't do any of those things. You can't touch your genitals. You can't touch your invisible partner's genitals. You can't pretend to take off your pants.' So that's why when you see the video it's very heavy on me just kissing because they wouldn't let me do much else."
http://i.imgur.com/fwstsaF.jpg
Comedian and Air Sex Championships host Chris Trew. (Courtesy photo)
Air Sex holds 30 to 40 competitions nationwide each year. On Oct. 14 one of those competitions will be held in Huntsville, at Prototype Multimedia, located at Lowe Mill, address 2211 Seminole Drive. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. There's a 7 p.m. screening of the documentary about the show "Air Sex: The Movie" before the Air Sex Championships get started at 9 p.m. You can purchase tickets, which are $7, and sign-up to compete at airsexworld.com. After visiting Huntsville, Air Sex will move on to Athens, Ga., Charleston, S.C., Richmond, Va., Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago and Nashville. "The show has kind of a karaoke vibe to it," Trew says. "We set the stage and get everything ready to go and now we need people who live in Huntsville to give me their stage name and song choice and then get up and make love to nothing at all."
On a recent afternoon, Trew was at his Garden District home when reached for this phone interview. Excerpts are below.
Chris, where did the idea to do Air Sex Championships come from? Were you like air drumming along to a Rush song and thought, "Hey, what if I did this for sex?"
Yeah you're actually not that far off. So we used to run air guitar championship shows in Austin a long time ago - there's kind of a whole subculture who practice and do air guitar - and we kind of got bored with it as you can imagine because there's only so much you can do with air guitar. We got the idea to do a sex version. And around this same time we saw a video that went viral in Japan that was some people having air sex because they were sad and lonely. Our thought process was like, "What if we made air sex like a big bad thing and treated it like it was professional wrestling almost?" Over the years we just kept developing it and developing it and now that's what it is.
What do you think are the positive aspects of finding the humor in sex?
The world takes sex too seriously, right? So that's one of the reasons why we enjoy what we're doing with the show so much. We also feel like sex can be gross or awkward or weird or funny so let's get creative with how we showcase that in a comedy show.
Have you ever had actual sex with someone you met at an Air Sex competition?
I have not. However there have been plenty of real life love connections that have been made from a performer to an audience member, which I think is very sweet. I've been invited to plenty of weddings from people all over the country that are like, "We met at your show." That happens all the time.
What does the winner of Huntsville's Air Sex Championship receive?
So we will have some prizes that night. Things like copies of the "Air Sex: The Movie" and some various merchandise and some gifts donated from a local sex shop, but the biggest thing that you'll get is you will be in the field of people that might get flown out to Austin to compete for the national championships. That's a giant show. We've had giant trophies like the Stanley Cup or like a world wrestling championship belt and it's our biggest show of the year. There's usually four or five hundred people there and performers from all over the country.
And who's doing the judging in Huntsville?
I don't have them all confirmed yet but I'm dipping into the local comedy community and trying to get some other local celebrity types.
Air sex, air drumming, air guitar. What other physical activity do you think deserves air interpretation?
I'm trying to think if there's a sport that would benefit from going air. Maybe like tennis. Or bowling. That's a great question.
Air bull-riding perhaps?
Ah ...
I can see how watching an Air Sex Championship would be funny. But why would I want to watch the documentary about it?
What's cool about the documentary is it really explores the idea of sex as entertainment. We talk to porn stars and sex advisors about the place sex has in our world and are we taking it too seriously and what happens when someone does an air sex routine that really turns someone on. Or turns someone off. How does being good at air sex affect your actual sex life? We actually follow some of our performers to get more information like that. One of the things we saw happen was people whose confidence was boosted in their actual sex life by being good at air sex and crediting the show with having them come out of their shell. And one girl credited the confidence she got from air sex with (her) coming out of the closet. She's kind of like a leader for feminist, gay comedy in Chicago right now and she came out of the closet after doing air sex enough times where she felt like, "(Expletive), why not?"
Most mind-blowing Air Sex performance to date?
That's easy. She's an Austin icon and her name is Slut Truffle and she had like an axe-grinder that she had plugged in onstage and she had put the grinder against her private part area where she had hidden a little cider block looking thing and so sparks were crazy flying as the grinder was rubbing up against here crotch. It was very bizarre.
What are some songs that work particularly well to air sex to?
Anything that makes people think about (expletive) is going to be good, especially if it's recognizable. Some of the more common ones are "Sexual Healing" Marvin Gaye, or like Ginuwine's "Pony." Boyz II Men's "I'll Make Love To You." But there's also something really funny about making a non-sexual song sexual.
Ever get any wildly inappropriate song selections?
Oh yeah, we get like children's TV themes, cartoon songs all the time.
How out there are people allowed to get while competing in Air Sex Champtonships? For example, can they mime fake sex with a pretend animal?
If you're going to go out there and just do something that's super offensive or really grotesque, they kind of live and die with the content and the judges have at them and we make examples out of them if need be. But that being said, I've seen plenty of routines where someone is like riding a horse and they get off the horse and they (expletive) a horse and there's something sweet about it somehow. [Laughs.] I've also seen that same routine where it's nasty and the crowd reacts as such.
Age at which you lost your air sex virginity and age at which you lost your actual virginity?
Air sex virginity I was ... 26, and real virginity I was 15.
What differentiates awesome air sex from the lame?
You've got to have commitment. We want to see people living out these funny fake fantasies – or maybe it's a real fantasy, we're not judging. We want people going all out to the song. And perhaps most importantly giving us a beginning, middle and end to whatever story you're telling. Contrary to popular belief it's not pick a funny song, get up and then hump something for two minutes.