Clear out some space in the living room and find some time when nobody’s around, because you should probably already have started training for the Bay Area regionals in the Air Sex World Championships and the US Air Guitar Championships, both of which are taking place next week at The Independent (on 6/24 and 6/26-6/27 respectively).

Now in their seventh year, the Air Guitar Championships have always been well-received in the Bay Area, with local competitor Hot Lixx Hulahan (who we interviewed last year) the defending US & World Air Guitar Champ. One winner from each of next week’s two SF events will join other regional winners at the US Finals in August, where a champion will be selected to represent our nation in the World Championships in Oulu, Finland later that month. It goes without saying that there’s obviously a lot at stake for the entrants, particularly in the always-competitive SF leg of the tour.

If you’re more of an air lover than an air rocker, you may want to check out the Air Sex World Championships, currently in the middle of their first national tour. Like air guitar, air sex competition is pretty much what it sounds like: people get up on stage and pretend to have sex to a song in order to impress the crowd and judges. The competition was inspired by video of air sex performance at a small club in Japan, and after a year of events in keeping-it-weird Austin, Texas, the founders decided to take air sex on the road.

Will a Bay Area champion emerge to take the title from 2008 winner Sad Larry, who, I’ve been told, “won the judges over with a simultaneously heart-wrenching and gut-busting performance depicting a lonely man and an 8X10 glossy of his ex-girlfriend”? Time (and air humping) will tell.

We are giving away one pair of tickets to each night of the Air Guitar Championships on June 26th and 27th. To enter, send an e-mail to contest@thebaybridged.com with your name, address and include the phrase: “I want to go to the Air Guitar Championships on