Chink-O-Rama: Press: David Jung aka C. Diddy

AIR YOU GO! B'KLYN ACTOR LICKS RIVALS
By DAVID K. LI

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. - A Brooklyn actor has strummed his pretend guitar into a very real trip to Finland.
David Jung - a 31-year-old kimono-wearing, Hello Kitty-mocking make-believe rocker from Williamsburg - won the U.S. Air Guitar Championship and will represent the United States in world competition Aug. 28-29.

Jung edged out West Coast champ Gordon Hintz, a 29-year-old urban planner for the city of Long Beach, Calif., and karaoke virtuoso, to capture the first American title.

"It's destiny, I was born to do this!" a victorious Jung said backstage late Saturday night.

Hintz, "Krye Tuff" to his fans, and the son of the mayor of Oshkosh, Wis. (Stephen Hintz) was clearly the early crowd favorite of Southern California partisans packed into the historic Roxy nightclub on the Sunset Strip.

But Jung's wild moves and eye-catching facial expressions won over judges and local fans, who passionately embraced the Brooklynite and chanted his stage name "C-Diddy! C-Diddy!"

Jung, who confessed he can't play a real musical instrument to save his life, said he's been rocking out to air guitar since before age 10. Oddly enough, Jung won a real guitar for his efforts, in addition to the trip to Oulu, Finland.

"I just started listening to some good hard rock on the radio - kind of at the tail end of '70s rock - and then the '80s when MTV came around," said Jung - probably the only graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Cornell University who donned a red silk kimono, Chinese print pants and a Hello Kitty chest plate over the weekend.

Jung, who grew up in Lake George, N.Y., doesn't expect to get his big acting break from air guitar. He just wants to live out his rock fantasies.

"I'm not trying to make an acting career out of this," he said. "They're two separate animals. When I act, Hello Kitty's got to go back in the cage."