The Bachelor Brad Womack, Episode 1: He Meets the Girls.

Season 15 kicked off with a remorseful Brad Womack who lead us down Lonesome Road, which is a left off Sad Boulevard and a right on Solitaire Street (if you hit Rejection Lane you’ve gone too far). Brad’s life was at a dead end. In 2007, he finished season 11 of the Bachelor and had no marriage proposal to show for it. That’s because, with the two girls left on that season, he gave neither a rose. They took the off ramp down to Dejection Depot while Brad signed up for three years of therapy. Here is where we see a montage of Brad sitting in the rain. Then walking in the sun.

Therapy. Analyzation. Trust issues. Blame father. Standing by lake with no shirt.

Green v-neck shirt.

Not to be outdone, purple v-neck shirt.

Fast forward to 2011 and Brad’s back in business, claiming to be a changed man. Global warming? War? Rising gas prices? No, no. Tell me who killed Michael Jackson then tell me Brad’s a changed man. We’ll courier that news to Bin Laden and bing bang, problem solved. In my best George W. Bush voice: America, you’re a beacon of freedom and change and giving people second chances at… freedom and change… and being on The Bachelor. End quote.

Par for the course next when Chris Harrison brings Brad to the front of the mansion where each girl steps out of a limousine to introduce themselves. This season there are 30 potential Womackettes (instead of the standard 25) so that’ll make for more drama and a few extra episodes of awesomeness.

Each girl has their own ideas of making good first impressions, some standouts include the girl who got him to propose, the vampire teeth girl, the hand mysteriously appearing out of the limousine window girl, and the slap heard round the world. Between promo packages and commericals, it was tough to squeeze in any real documention of relationships being formed (hey, they only had two hours to do this) so without much storyline, Brad narrowed it down to 20 girls (listed below). I’ll be honest, I had a couple guy friends over to my house to watch the premiere. We’re totally secure men so we never had a problem watching the show together, though they weren’t happy about my idea to light a fire, but I thought it would be warm.

Amongst the topics we talked about during the episode: why all the girls are white, the average bachelorette age this season is 27 years old (Brad is 38), Emily and who of us three should get to marry her when Brad lets her go, are fangs hot, Ashley S. grabbing Brad’s butt, Alli talking to Brad about her butt when he was probably thinking about something else of hers (more specifically her two something else’s that she made very obvious), Raichel’s wrist waxing, and how we can set up a bracket challenge for this season. I’ll work on setting up a bracket tomorrow, but that’s ok, at my job I have Microsoft Word and they encourage us to be creative. So I’ll design a sweet bracket, save it as a pdf and email to the guys. Copies available upon request.

Ashley S. gets the first impression rose. The next 19 went to Michelle, Kimberly, Madison Vampire, Emily, Raichel Wax, Keltie, Ashley H., Meghan, Lisa M., Lindsay, Alli, Sarah P. (your name rhymes with therapy), Marissa, Britt, Stacey, Shawntel, Jackie, Melissa, Chantal O.

No rose: Britnee, Cristy, J, Jill, Lacey, Lauren, Lisa P., Rebecca, Renee, and Sarah L.

My predictions for the final 3 are: Emily, Chantal O., Michelle. My two favorites after the first episode are Emily and Shawntel.

Click here for a recap of episode 2.

The Bachelor: An Introduction to Brad Womack

Welcome back to another season of The Bachelor. This is the first time Out of the Wilderness will be covering this version of the show. You may recall some wild and hilarious (that’s called shameless self-promotion) posts about Ali Fedotowski on last season’s Bachelorette. She ended up choosing Roberto over Chris L. (recap here), though most searches directing viewers to this site were about Chris and his tattoo. Chris Lambton was slated to be the next Bachelor but he declined, so lo and behold, we have Brad Womack.

The Bachelor

This is Brad’s second time on the show, with the first being the season he surprised everyone by not choosing Jenni Croft or DeAnna Pappas. That was back in 2007. Now, in 2011, Brad lives in Austin, Texas and is sure he’s a changed man. His twin brother and their younger brother both are married and have families, so Brad is desperate excited to start a family of his own.

Out of the Wilderness will cover each episode as Brad narrows thirty desperate excited women down to one. Log on to the web either late Monday nights or early Tuesdays for a fresh, creative, clever and hilarious take on each new episode. Then check this site for my take.

Good luck to Brad and his once-twice-in-a-lifetime search for love!

Thanks,

BW

The Best of 2010

Last year welcomed a new blog into the world. Since the birth of ‘Out of the Wilderness’ in April, the site has attracted 26,604 views. The postings on this site cover everything from dolphins to Nashville to mustaches, Boney M, music, the power of words, ghosts, personality types, the BP oil spill, online dating, and much more. With all the variety of topics, though, the highest viewed posts are about the 2010 season of “The Bachelorette.” I posted a weekly review after each episode from the very first episode (meet the Bachelors) to the last when Ali picked Roberto Martinez over Chris Lambton. Curiosity about Chris drew in the most clicks among Bachelorette posts. However, the post with the most views overall will surprise you. It’s about a band called Boney M, international stars from the 1970s. Sadly, the male lead from the band died recently so searches for Bobby Farrell and Boney M have surged quite a bit since then. Without further explanation, here are stats from ‘Out of the Wilderness’ this year, in order of most viewed:

1. Boney M In A Green Taxi
views: 9,699

2. The Bachelorette, Chris L.’s Tattoo Pictures
views: 6,887

3. The Bachelorette Episode 10
views: 839

4. The Bachelorette, Chris L.’s Birthday
views: 448

5. The Bachelorette Episode 4
views: 412

6. Slept Like A Log
views: 376

7. About the Author
views: 252

8. The Bachelorette Episode 8
views: 163

9. Will You Accept This Prose?
views: 147

10. Where Are All the Men
views: 138

11. The Bachelorette Episode 3
views: 138

12. Music Roulette: 50 Songs In 1 Paragraph
views: 134

13. Popular YouTube videos
views: 120

14. Fantasy Football 2010 Draft Order
views: 112

15. Ben Wilder vs. Nick Shell: A Facebook Battle
views: 110

2010, It’s Not You It’s Me

Dear 2010,
It’s not that I don’t like you. We spent so much time together, 365 days to be exact, and most were fun. I believe our relationship has run it’s course, though. Honestly, I’ve found someone newer who won’t take no for an answer. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? 2009 still hasn’t forgiven me. I knew this would happen all along, but evenso, I was happy with you. Now there’s a knock on the door and I don’t have a choice but to answer. What mystery and promise awaits? A lot more than you have to offer at this point*. It’s time to say goodbye but I’ll always remember the fun times we had together. Unfortunately, I kept getting mixed signals from you. You’re hot, then you’re cold. You’re awesome, then annoying. I’m not accusing you of being bi-polar, but it’s something to think about. I’ll miss you, 2010. It’s been real. It’s been fun. And it’s been real fun. But I need something greater than you.

*We can be Facebook friends, though.

Flood, Pain and Prayer

It was the summer of 2010 and Nashville just experienced a 500-year flood that devastated houses and families.

There were many opportunities to get involved with the clean-up effort; through churches, charity efforts, and even places of employment encouraging employees to help by lending a hand in the hardest hit areas. The building where I work lost power for the entire week after the flood so once I caught up on my own long overdue yard work, I volunteered in neighborhoods needing assistance. At one house, I helped pull up soaking wet carpet. At another I helped with a washer/dryer extraction. One task was simply sweeping water out of a kitchen into the backyard. Joining in with some other folks, I helped take torn up drywall out to a trash pile near the street. At this house, we had two wheelbarrows, one with a flat tire. Some may say it’s because I’m awesome, others may say it’s because I’m double awesome, but I used the one with the flat tire, without gloves and pushed it up hill in the snow. That makes me a triple threat guy. Ok, I had gloves. And there was no hill. Or snow.

The wheelbarrow rolled well enough until the flat tire hit a hole in the ground and immediately came to a halt. The problem was that I kept walking. My shin was pierced by a screw from the wheelbarrow. Yes it hurt. Yes it bled. A friend nearby had a first aid kit and was more than willing to attend to my new wound. Here’s how it went down before she applied ointment:

Me: Is this going to hurt?
Her: Yes.
[pause]
[pause]
Me: Ok, go.
[cuss word]

In the few seconds between anticipation of pain and actual pain, I was able to prepare for what would happen next. And if it pleases the court, I’d like to make clear there was no cuss word, that was a joke.

That experience has finally served as a good example of how to handle the storm I’m currently in the middle of. This little storm started and I didn’t have time to prepare, just like my leg and the wheelbarrow. But as the rain falls and the thunder rolls, I’ve made time to seek shelter. If nothing else good comes from this storm, I can at least treasure the shelter and perhaps remember that the Lord loves me enough to carry my burden when all I can imagine happening is me crumbling. There will be resolution to this storm, the suffering will pass. It says so in the Bible: “And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” Either this statement is true, or none of the Bible is true. So I’m going to, again, take my chances that once the storm passes, it will still just be a storm. But me? I’ll be restored (which is enough) but then I’ll also be stronger, more firm, and more steadfast than ever before. That’s where I win and the storm loses. So when the next one comes, guess what my prayer will be?

Me: Is this going to hurt?
Lord: Yes.
[pause]
[pause]
Me: Ok, go.
[cuss word]
[just kidding]