I went to Nashville this weekend with 3 of my friends for a gentlemen’s retreat. None of us had ever been to the music city, and we decided to check it out because people speak of Nashville like its Narnia. I flew in Friday afternoon and met my friends downtown. The main strip of bars is Broadway, and every bar has 4 floors with a different band on each floor. We had a few quick beers to settle in at Honky Tonk and listened to the band brilliantly play some Johnny Cash covers before someone suggested that we check out a culturally-expanding local attractions. And to us, that meant firing some guns.

I grew up in Maine, where hunting and fishing rule the day. From late October to early December, whenever my sister and I wanted to play outside, we’d have to wear orange hats and reflective jackets. This was hunting season, and the chance of some grizzled, boozy woodsman staring bleary-eyed down his sights and mistaking us for deer was remarkably high. Children in New York City are warned by their parents to never accept candy from strangers in vans; children in Maine are counseled to wear bright colors and yell when walking through the woods to avoid being cut in half by scattershot. Sadly, to a child, the fear of being shot is far greater than the fear of candy vans, which is why many more children are abducted each year than accidentally shot.

We took an Uber over to the Nashville Armory, about 20 minutes outside of town. A 20-minute Uber on the highway cost $8, reminding us that we were no longer in New York City. Buckets of beer cost about $15 and we stayed in the nicest hotel in town for like $130/night. Money, like a casual date with a cousin, goes a lot farther in the South.

At the gun range, a guy who looked like a guy who would work at a gun range helped set us up. We chose 4 guns off the rack to try: a handgun,a shotgun, an AK-47, and a machine gun. I had never shot a gun before and I wanted to work our way up the evolutionary arsenal. But this was the moment we realized just how different Nashville is from any other place I’d ever been. The guy asked us if we’d ever shot guns before. I told him this was my first time. He said ok, cool, and then led us on to the range. No crash course, no safety briefing, no tutorial, no youtube video. A couple signatures on a waiver and we were left to figure it out on our own. Never shot a gun before? Cool, here’s a fucking machine gun. Have fun!

I was so astounded by the lack of a walk-through that I felt legitimately scared. We passed by pods of people, shooting at targets with guns of varying sizes. For someone who had never heard a gun fired close by, it was extremely loud and disorienting. The range marshal–a pimply teenager with the glazed-over eyes of someone who spends his entire day inhaling gunpowder fumes–loaded the handgun magazine and told me to fire away. In fairness, he did demonstrate the proper stance and grip, but it was an outrageously laissez-faire affair. I saw some chastise me on Twitter about my form, and the fact that I turned back to my friends with my finger still on the trigger. You guys are absolutely right; those sound like sensible precautions. If only you worked at the Nashville Armory, you’d be a huge improvement over the “spread your wings and fly” attitude of their staff.

My favorite gun, without a doubt, was the shotgun.

I was a huge Halo 3 fan growing up, and this was the closest thing I’ve experienced to living in a video game. The kick, the sound, and pumping the spent shell casing out of gun all made for an orgasmic experience. My reactions speak for themselves…

But we saved the big gun for last:

The machine gun was a totally different animal. This thing pukes heat like a sorority sister chinning a toilet seat after tacos + tequila Tuesday. The slightest finger tap elicits a torrent of noise and energy that sends you all the way back to toning the tunas in 10th grade. For my face to turn that red when I’m not exposed to the sun means I’m having the time of my life. I hate to make this political, but I’ve always believed that we should enact stricter gun regulation in the hopes of stemming the recent tide of horrific shootings. But shooting that machine gun, under a supervised setting, on a gun range in Tennessee, was so much fun that I could understand why many people are protective of their right to own guns. Perhaps both sides could do a little homework: the staunchest gun rights advocates might consider how it would feel to lose a child or a loved one in a shooting where the guns were purchased via loopholes in our gun laws. On the other side, I would advise any person who thinks we should ban the sale of all guns to head to their nearest gun range and fire off a few magazines with a fully-automatic UMP 40. Something tells me they’ll find their views slightly reformed as they’re driving home with a throbbing shoulder and a massive smile on their face. With any luck, we can all meet in the middle somewhere.

PS- Shoutout to Hubbs for jacking my Instagram story and turning it into his best tweet ever. It was pretty funny though…

With our wildly unsupervised gun excursion over, we returned to the downtown area around 8PM. It was Friday night and the city was coming to life. Hordes of bachelorette parties waited at traffic lights, their leaders’ “bride-to-be” sashes flapping in the spring breeze. Open trailers equipped with a DJ and a keg served as the swaying stage for rolling parties of tourists, while pedal taverns inched slowly around corners, kicked forward at decreasing speed as their cyclists increased their alcohol consumption.

Everyone is super upbeat in Nashville. There is so much energy, and it all flows through the music. The bars on Broadway have 3-4 floors, and each floor has a different band, and each band is incredible. There was no point during our trip where I ever thought, eh, these guys suck. Whether it was a lonely guitarist playing at 2PM on the 4th floor or the 6-piece band on the main stage at 10PM, every musician blew my mind. I found myself singing along to the songs I knew in full voice. I’ve never been a fan of country music, but in this setting, I was converted.

We were out late dancing and drinking on Friday, and I awoke on Saturday when housekeeping barged in to find me lying naked on top of the comforter. I’d forgotten to turn on the air when I came in to my room and I was too drunk to make sense of the thermometer in the middle of the night. I apologized in broken Spanish for my shameful appearance and 20 minutes later, we assembled the shattered pieces of our haggard group and went out for a massive breakfast. In times like these, it’s important to eat through the pain because you don’t know when you’ll find your next meal. We spent the rest of the day at a rooftop bar in midtown mingling with the locals, all of whom were more than happy to bring us into the fold. Around 6, we debated buying scalped tickets to the Predators game because everyone says its one of the great sporting environments in America. But in the end, we stayed put, hypnotized by southern belles in cowboy boots who swung their hips and stamped their feet to the band. It’s hard to choose hockey over that.

Just before the flight home, my friends and I were waiting at the airport gate. I noticed a cute girl wearing some interesting sandals, and I told her “hey, those are cool sandals.” If you ever have the chance to tell a woman that you like her sandals, it will make her day–trust me. They love that shit. We then boarded the plane and I was so giddy from my smooth sandal remark that once we took off, I asked the flight attendant if I could use the intercom to ask the girl out. She thought about it for a while but ultimately refused, saying that she “didn’t want the girl to feel pressured.” I was like pressured? We’re in a cabin at 35,000 feet! (lol) Ultimately, I understood that the flight attendant was probably right. We live in a time when romantic overtures that would 100% result in a viral clip that would propel me to stardom are snuffed out because Delta hates adorable origin stories. Chivalry is dead and the airlines killed it, folks. We used to say “no pressure, no diamonds.” Now its, “No pressure, no lawsuits.” At least I still had the courage to ask her out the regular way (I told her about my big plan, explained that the Delta Grinch had 86’d our love story, and pitched her the yellowtail ceviché at a trendy restaurant in the village. Got us a rez for Thursday; she never had a chance).

Nashville totally lived up to the hype. But I learned of the best exchange of the weekend second-hand. At one point, my friend Doug went to take a piss at a bar. At the urinals, he ran into an older local who struck up a conversation with him.

“Where y’all from?” the guy asked, using his forehead to brace himself against the wall.

“New York,” Doug replied. “What about you?”

“Fuckin’ A-merica.”