Dream Venue

The legendary band The Who will play the halftime show at the upcoming Super Bowl. Will Pete Townsend destroy his guitar as a musical climax? It's not exactly Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" or Bruce Springsteen's crotch slide into a camera like Super Bowls past, but it is something to anticipate.

Every band has a dream venue. While the Super Bowl halftime show provides maximum exposure and American Idol can make you the next Carrie Underwood, some bands prefer to play before "their people". Local rockers Pokerface are on a mission "to expose the tyranny and rights violations out of our nation's capital." Their dream venue is the Knob Creek, KY Machine Gun Shoot where "tens of thousands show up for this awesome freedom-loving event."

I love awesome freedom-loving events as much as the next guy so I looked up Knob Creek. Its website states, "The Machine Gun Shoot itself consist of four rounds of firing at a wide variety of appliances, vehicles, pyramids of tires, and barrels of fuel with pyrotechnic charges attached. The pyrotechnic charges are painted orange for the shooter to see. The charges are set off by the impact of the bullets. Creating large and small mushroom clouds and fire balls from hell!! The objective is to destroy everything down range. A wide variety of rare and exotic weaponry will be on display for all to see. Such as quad 50's, mini guns, MG 42's, water cooled Brownings, AK 47's and many others too numerous to mention."

When I think of freedom, creating large and small mushroom clouds and fireballs from hell while destroying everything down range is exactly what our forefathers struggled for in the snows of Valley Forge and on the fields of Gettysburg. Shooting the crap out of a pyramid of tires sends a message to to tyrants in DC who want nothing more than to take my quad 50 machine gun from me.

But what about those of us who don't have a water-cooled Browning sitting in our closet? Knob Creek offers machine gun rentals on Saturday and Sunday. I hope it's "rent to own"!

Does all that noise and vibration from your trusty fully-automatic AK-47 get tiring after a while? Knob Creek offers an ideal change of pace. Flamethrower rentals are available Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Apparently, the "whoosh" of a flamethrower is less disruptive to church services than the rat-tat-tat of an MG-42.

Want that true combat experience? The Subgun Jungle Walk is Friday and Saturday. Just like paintball, but with live ammo and submachine guns! Presumably, it is a target shoot. The liability insurance premiums might be a tad high otherwise.

Best of all, tracer ammunition will be allowed, weather permitting. Firing a machine gun in the dark without tracers is like a Cinemax Late Nite Movie without a topless scene. It's satisfying, but not fulfilling.

The next Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot is April 9 - 11, 2010. General admission is a mere $10 per day, $5 for kids under 12 (and what grade schooler doesn't dream of creating mushroom clouds and fire balls from hell). It's cheaper than Disney and a whole lot more fun.