The Wedding Daze Part 4: The Couple Shots

More, and more, and more photos happened:

Super pretty photos:




Kissing photos:


Serious photos:


Not serious photos:


Blue photos:


And many, many more. All by Somer

It was definitely a new experience for me to be on the other side of the lens in this situation. It was fun though. And I love looking back at the pictures and how beautiful my wife is. I even like myself in most of these photos. That never happens.

A Brief Thought On Marriage

It seems that once you get married in this particular culture, that it is expected that you are no longer your self. People don't ask you how you are any more. They only ask you how married life is. Your individuality is no longer a question, as though you have been assimilated by the Borg in Star Trek:



But I assure you. It's not like that at all. It really isn't. Marriage is great. But I still have thoughts of my own. I still have good days and bad days that are my own good/bad days. I still do things all by myself. I still have my own opinions, and I actually can have a conversation about things unrelated to marriage. I am still me. But no one asks about me. It is only we. And somehow it always comes back to that.

Am I weird? Has my programming failed me, like Hugh in the episode "I Borg". I will have to speak with some serious nerds about this.

Adventures In Dating

I've been posting all over this blog this week. The wedding story has a few more parts to reveal, but I figure I'll take a little break from that. It was such an epic day that it requires a long time to properly tell the story. So I had something else I intended to post about today, but now I can't remember what that was. Maybe it will come back to me over the weekend or something. Right now I am thinking about Dating.

Dating is a really, really horrible and confusing game that adults play. If I ever have children I will strongly advise them to wait until they are at least 24 to get into that. At least my experience would seem to advise such a strategy. My dating life was nothing to brag about for sure. And everyone knew it. I was always the butt end of many a dating joke among my peers. I was the guy that made all the other guys feel better about their own horrors. I was the tale that you told around a campfire that ended with something like, "and if you aren't careful, the curse of Brandon may befall you too."

I spent a lot of years in the friend zone. I also spent a lot of years being the 'cool guy'. When a girl says you are a 'cool guy', it's not a good thing. Take my word for it. They never date the cool guy. They just wear you like an accessory because you go well with their outfit. Another thing I heard a lot from women is, "Your wife is going to be so lucky." I don't know what that means, but it isn't good. A girl never says that to you if she thinks she's going to be the one. So I became sort of a professional at making friends with girls. I can make friends with a girl just by walking into the room and saying nothing. It happens all the time. But when it comes to dating them I am just as clueless as the next guy, quite possibly even more so. I was always that guy that the other guys took pity on and tried to tell me what I was doing wrong.

Now that I am married, however, it seems that the roles have been reversed. Now other guys actually sometimes ask me for advice on their dating situations, and I'm at a loss to help them. I don't know anything.

"But you are married?" They desperately implore. "You must know something?"

Many honest married men I know have admitted to a certain cluelessness that I can now attest to. Even if you once thought you knew what women were all about, as soon as you get married you just realize that there are a lot more things you never even knew you didn't know. You ask yourself, "How did I get here?" And your mind seems to know even less than it did before. Every answer provides a new question.

There are a lot of serial daters who will give you all sorts of advice on dating. I know a few of those. And I learned nothing from them. I broke all of their rules, and somehow ended up happily married in the end.

Then there are women. If you are friends with them then they too will give you lots of advice on how it's done. I had a few of those womanly friends, and I found that their advice can give you lots of insights into what women are thinking, but it doesn't really help in the practical way of actually getting them to like you. Women are better at telling you what not to do, than what to do.

So the rules of dating seem to be highly open to personal interpretation. They are merely guidelines to keep you away from hornets nests, and other obvious pitfalls. These are the rules as I know them:

#1 - Be direct: If you want to go on a date with a girl, you absolutely have to ask her using these words, "Would you like to go out on a date?" Or something very close to that. While you are busy trying to decide whether they like you and you should ask them out, they are busy wondering when you are going to get around to asking them out. They are always 2 steps ahead. And girls are very literal. If you don't ask them out literally they think you just want to be their friend, and you will end up in the friend zone. The friend zone is actually under rated. It's not a bad place to be. Unless you don't want to be in the friend zone. And if you are a single guy, you definitely don't want to be there:

#2 - Don't be a douche: Seriously dudes, walking up to a strange girl and saying something like, "You lookin' hot tonight. Let's go to my car and tear off a piece!" Never actually works. Ever. I know because I know those guys. If you want a girl to respect you, then you have to respect her. It's as simple as that. I find that most girls get into the dating situation expecting you to be a jerk, precisely because every single one of them has dated one, or two, or twenty, jerks already. If you get away with it it's because they have stopped expecting any different. It's much better to surprise them by not being a jerk.

#3 - Don't be weird: Ok, you can get away with a lot of weirdness if you meet the right girl. But it's a very fine line. Weirdness is a dangerous game. Leave it to the professionals like me.

#4 - Aim High In Dating - I know a lot of dudes who try to date every girl who crosses their path. Don't be desperate. This also falls under the Don't be weird rule. Save it for the ones you are really interested in. If you don't want to seriously date someone, you probably shouldn't be worried about getting them into bed within 7 days either. If you want women to date you, you have to respect yourself as well. Don't be afraid to just be friends once in a while.

#5 - Space: Once you find yourself in a dating situation don't move super fast, or act super desperate. Don't call them several times a day, and leave creepy messages on their phone. You don't have to be with them all the time. They won't forget about you if you wait for half a day to send them a text message. Every girl I know absolutely hates when she's out with her friends and you're blowing up her phone asking her what she's doing. They hate it so bad that their rage propelled Lady Gaga's song "Telephone" to #3 on the billboard charts. (Lady Gaga can actually give you a lot of insight in how to deal with Women.)

#6 - Act confident/Fake it if you have to: You will make mistakes. You will sometimes be a jerk. You will often act weird. Don't let it get to you. Just be yourself, and don't get obsessed with a whole bunch of rules. Even when you think you have totally struck out, call her back. A great girl is always worth totally humiliating yourself for.

So there you go. That's how you date a girl. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it just doesn't. It only worked once for me. But that's all I got. It probably doesn't help you at all.

The Wedding Daze Part 3: The Group Photos

Now it was time to try and round up all the right people so that we could have our pictures taken together. I know how easy that sounds. But then, I also know how difficult it actually is. Fortunately our photographer, Somer Ahonen, has done this a million times. It went a lot smoother than it could have, for sure. And it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be to keep on smiling, although I'm not the best model.

I'm definitely glad we captured everyone in their fancy clothes. Everyone looked great. My woman looked very tasty.

Election Day Pumpkins

It's the first Tuesday in November and our pumpkins have had it. It was a long, hard Halloween season, and they are ready to be retired.

The Lesser of Three Evils

Election Tuesday - South Salt Lake

For reasons I will never understand, I often get a good migraine headache on Tuesday afternoons. I have also noticed a pattern, since George W. Bush's re-election in 2004, of getting a really solid migraine headache on all election days, which also happens to fall on Tuesday. Therefore, I have a very special place in my heart for elections, and voting.

I'm always torn between the two dominant political philosophies of our time; pure apathy, or vengeful spite. I often feel that there is absolutely no point to voting in Utah. The result is a foregone conclusion. Mitt Romney got something like 85% of the vote here in the Republican primary in 2008. That should tell you everything you need to know. Especially, if like me, your political leanings are toward the bleeding-heart left. But then I also feel that I need to go down and vote just for the sake of dissension. I like the feeling of standing on the edge of a tall cliff and peeing into the wind.

So my democratic instincts usually get the better of me, even when I have no idea who I'm voting for, or why. Local elections in Utah are a lot like High School elections. We are expected to vote on the person who has the prettiest signs posted out on the street, or sometimes by straight name recognition. When I don't know any of the names, I just vote for the Democrat because I know they will lose anyway, so I can't be held responsible for any crimes against humanity if I accidentally voting in some Nazi sympathizer who ends up destroying the world with toxic rhetoric.

This particular mid-term, my primary motivation in going to the polls was in hopes of expressing my disapproval of all those unAmerican, fascist, pig-sucking, bastard tea-baggers by writing in Robert F. Bennett for the US Senate. I believe he has always served this state well, in spite of his conservative handicap, and only got railroaded out of this election because he is, in fact, a decent human being. The tea-baggers don't want any human beings in office at all. Only robots who will do their bidding even if it means screwing the 99 percent of Americans who still have a brain and don't prescribe to their hateful bull crap.

I resent that half of our political system is now being controlled and manipulated by a small group of fringe radicals who claim to be standing up for our constitution by voting for people who can't even tell you what the constitution actually says. But damn it! They will defend it at all costs. They will burn us to the ground in the name of freedom. Even as I am typing this I am sure some heavy-handed thugs are running up the stairs to knock me down and stomp on my head, and then call the police to have me arrested for soiling the ground that only they deserve to tread upon. It could happen to you too. We are all going to get Tea-bagged in the end.

But enough of that. I'm starting to get a headache already. So I went down there to cast my votes. As usual, I was the youngest person there, and I could tell by the reaction of the old ladies when I walked in that I was probably the youngest person in to walk in all day. They seem to get all pleased and satisfied at the sight of someone who still has teeth. I feel really awkward and exposed in this situation. But alas, it will be a good 40 years before I run into someone my own age at the polls.

On the way home I was then stopped by an old lady driving her car around in circles. She asked me if I knew where Lincoln Elementary School was. Some person had told her it was 450 East and 2700 South. She just wanted to vote, but couldn't find the place. I told her I knew there was an elementary school down 300 East but couldn't remember. She said she would go look, but then she was giving up, and resumed driving in circles.

Suddenly I was overwhelmed by a feeling of deep liberal guilt. I imagined that this poor woman would never get to vote. All she wanted was to make her voice heard one last time, and I was failing to help her. She would go off to tell all her friends at Bingo night that she was on her way to vote, like a proper, responsible citizen, when she was thrown off course by some filthy, bearded, long-hair liberal on the side of the street who sent her on a wild-goose chase down 300 east through all the scariest neighborhoods.

I didn't need that kind of heavy rap on my conscience. So I flagged her down as she passed by me again on her next circle, and told her I could look up the address on my phone. I soon found that Lincoln Elementary is actually located at 450 East and 3700 South, and I was able to send her on a much more direct route to do her civic duty, even though I know that her votes will cancel out all of mine. That's just how democracy works.

And now, just to end this on a particularly disturbing counterpoint, I present you with the most unsettling campaign ad I have ever seen. If this does not throw you into a murderous frenzy, and make you want to run down to your local voting location to vote for someone, anyone then nothing will:

The Wedding Daze Part 2: The Ceremony

*All photos by Somer Ahonen

I proceeded downstairs with a bunch of dudes a few minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin. I have never seen a wedding happen on time, but I figured I better be early, just in case. After all, we men have no real excuse to take any longer than absolutely necessary. We don't have to wear a dress or anything. So we were ready.



I went with our wedding officiant, Mike Braxton, to the Gazebo to wait for our cue. He asked me how I was feeling? I wasn't really nervous at all. In fact, I hadn't really become nervous at any point leading up to this wedding. Rachel often said she was sorry to be the weird one freaking out about everything. I was more sorry to be the weird one not freaking out about everything. That's not normal at all. Nevertheless, I was pretty calm.



I looked around at the entire scene and soaked it all in for a moment. I figured this might be my last chance to look at the place with any level of objectivity. So I looked at everything and it was all amazing. It was far more beautiful than I ever expected, and the day was perfect. It did make me a little misty, but I stopped those tears in their tracks. I figured I better save them for now. We men only have a limited amount, after all.

We could not see it, but the photography shows us that the beautiful women, and especially the gorgeous bride, were making their way down the long stairs without any mishaps, only a very few minutes behind schedule.



We finally got our cue and walked over to where it was going to happen. I stood and smiled at everyone in the wedding party as they walked down to the music that was playing somewhere. Maybe I was a little nervous at this point. When Rachel walked out the door I looked something like this:



What a dork, right? And then I started to cry. Nevertheless, Mike Braxton kept things under control and made sure I was able to walk forward and greet Rachel and her dad at the end of the aisle. Then there was some talking, and then we said "I do." And then it was all over, and we were married for real. And then I cried a lot more, in all the right ways. Who knew I could be all emotional and stuff.







It was the best wedding ceremony ever. We signed the papers to satisfy The Man. And then it was on to the photo session.

The Wedding Daze Part 1.5: A couple of photos

Just a disclaimer really, all photos attached to this story are by my friend Somer. You can see her work at her websiteLovestoriesbysomer.com or on her blog at somerphotography.blogspot.com/. Big thanks to Somer for coming through on this at the last minute.

Also I wanted to show off a couple pictures of flowers to go with the first part of the story and thank Angel for doing such an excellent job with them.

The Wedding Daze Part 1: The Readying

I never seem to get around to posting this blog because, besides the general business of life, it's hard to figure out how to write about a day that you can only remember half of. A lot of it is a big blur of hand-shaking, and thanking people all around. Nonetheless, I need to commit these things to this blog while I still remember as much as I do, because I am horrible when it comes to journaling. (I only want to write in my journal when I feel miserably awful). So this blog is really the best place to record the good stuff. I think I will break it up into parts so that it doesn't overwhelm my long-suffering, and neglected 8 readers. So here goes:

In spite of all predictions to the contrary, I actually slept like a baby the night before the wedding. I had gone down to the local 7-11 to get a movie from the Redbox. I got Terminator 3 with Christian Bale, because I really didn't want to think about what I was watching. About 27 minutes into that film I was out like a light. The next thing I know I flung myself out of bed to the quiet sound of a text message alert. It was 7am. I don't remember what the message said, or how I responded. It was from Rachel. I do remember that. But then I even fell back asleep until 10 or 11.

I then got out of bed and made myself a high-protein breakfast, just in case it was the last food I would get to eat. I was feeling very practical and wise at this point. I then proceeded to get myself ready, which took no more than 20 minutes. I am a man, after all, and I was not going to put my tux on until I arrived at the hotel. Then I watched an episode of the Colbert Report which made me laugh until I cried, and then I was ready.

Then I creepily creeped over to Rachel's Dad's house to gather a couple of covert items, and made a couple of other quick stops on my way to the hotel for some last minute necessities.

I didn't arrive at the hotel until around 3:00. I thought this would give me plenty of time. So I went out to check out the area where it was all to take place, and see that everything was coming together. It was. In fact, everything was pretty much done. Angel was putting some finishing touches on the flower arrangements, which were completely fabulous. Angel does not run a flower business, but she should. Then I asked Cannon, our wedding coordinator, a couple of practical questions, and returned to my dressing room to hang with Trent, and Robert, and Josh, and my Dad, and pretty soon there were about 30 dudes in there. It was total chaos. It turns out that even I can take forever to get ready when I have to put on cuff links. Things got frantic for a few minutes. There were ties, and socks, flying every which way, and a cloud of musk in the air.

Then it was time...

(to be continued)

Seeing New Things In Old Places

I feel like I have to re post this picture because it serves as a reminder to me of how mysterious photography really is. Every now and then I look at all the photos on my website just to see how I feel about them now, and see if I notice qualities I hadn't thought about in my own work.

This particular photo was taken in Iceland, and made the final cut of the series that I consider to be the best expression of that journey, mostly because it's so strange and unusual. Without me explaining it to you, you probably have no idea what sort of situation happened here. I always liked that it had a post-apocalyptic feel with the trashy tent city going on all around, but also a surreal mystery around the guy with the silly wig, and the other guy with the skull on his back.

Because I never enlarged this, and only look at it in small form on my computer screen, I managed to look at this photo dozens of times, and never notice the guy peeing in the background. I don't think I ever saw him when I was taking the picture either, because you'd think I would remember that. It's always strange when you discover these kind of things in a photo you have looked at over and over again.

So this photo is a rare one that has continually grown on me over time, and I always find new reasons to love it. I must be close to finally getting the punchline because today I looked at it and burst out into hysterical laughter for a good five minutes, until tears were literally streaming down my face. The best part is I still can't figure out what's so funny about it. I never thought it was funny before. I feel like my 2008 self told me a really good joke, and I'm just starting to get it.

Ready For Winter

It's cold up in here! But, like proper boy scouts, we are prepared.

If I Had a Billion-Trillion Dollars...

It's always hard for me to figure out how to spend my fantasy money. But first I would definitely quit my job so that I could spend more time reading, and being with friends and family, and take my wife on lots of awesome dates. Then I would take my woman on a Mediterranean Cruise:



Then I would probably buy a decent house:



Or two:



Maybe a condo in Moab:



Then I would probably buy a lot of film for my film cameras:



And then I would spend the rest of my life figuring out what to do with the remaining cash. That would take a lot of study and meditation in places that look like this:

Flashbacks In The Night

It happened as I was walking home from school yesterday afternoon, or at least it seems like yesterday at this particular moment. It's funny how the human brain can bring back, with crystal clarity, such superfluous recollections in the black of night. There are times when I can't remember something that was said to me 30 seconds ago by my very best of friends. But then there are times, such as now, when I can remember something said nearly 20 years ago, by someone I never knew, on a crosswalk in West Valley. Why is that? I wonder.

I was walking home from school. It was a Friday afternoon. I had just bolted, like a roach suddenly exposed to the light of day, from out of my fifth grade classroom, which was one of those portable classrooms that exists completely exterior to the regular school building, on the outskirts where a hasty retreat is possible. Therefore, I was slightly ahead of the prepubescent horde. There were few children on the street yet. I came up to a crosswalk where I was stopped by the safety patrol person who was stationed there. As I waited for my turn to safely cross the street, one girl stepped up beside me. I did not know her. We had never before spoken. I did not know her name. We were total strangers in every way. She looked over at me with complete disgust and said, "God, you're freakin' ugly!"

"Uhhh.....hmmm?" I said, rather eloquently.

"You are the ugliest person I have ever seen."

I looked at my feet, wondering how things had turned out this way. I could think of no proper retort under the circumstances. I was caught completely off guard, exposed for my crimes against nature. There was to be no escaping from this final judgement. I tried to pretend it wasn't happening. I looked to the safety patrol person for some sign of assurance. He seemed to glare back at me in pure contempt. I looked to the sky in search of some divine clemency. The clouds were grey and heavy. It felt like rain.

Finally, after what seemed like many hours of painful introspection, we were allowed to cross. When we got to the other side the girl turned to me once more and said, "I hate you!" I quickened my pace and hurried off ahead, leaving her behind to forever haunt me on these weird, dark nights.

Adventures In Real Estate

When you have lived alone in a place for a while you get a sort of sixth sense for when someone else has been in it. Strangers should only be in your home without you under very specific circumstances. We do live in a society where a certain level of privacy is still valued.

Unfortunately, for me, I find myself in one of those bizarre circumstances. I am trying to sell my condo. So every now and then somebody needs to come and look at the place so that they can decide not to buy it. At some point in history it was decided that it is better for people to make this decision if you are not in any way involved. Therefore the etiquette of real estate sales requires you to not be there while these strangers come to visit. All the better for them to have some time to sift through all your dirty drawers.

The way it works is a real-estate agent calls you up and asks if they can bring some clients over. They usually do this with very short notice. Although sometimes they kindly give you several days to prepare yourself for the violation. So you clean up all your messes, and hide all the stuff that is You, and basically try to make the place look as generic as possible. Sometimes the people actually show up. Sometimes they don't, and you cleaned it all up for nothing. In theory you shouldn't be able to tell the difference.

The agents always say they will leave a card behind or something. Although in my experience they never do. Or maybe they hide it somewhere. Maybe one day I will open up a cookie jar I forgot I have, and hundreds of business cards will come spilling out much to my surprise. But I have yet to find any of these promised cards.

However, I do know when these people have come. They always leave their mark. They almost always leave a light on. I could have left the living room light on myself, but then I can sense that things are somehow out of place. I am known to leave cabinet doors askew. But I leave them specifically askew. When others have looked through them I find them wrongly askew, if that makes sense. Sometimes the people will open every single cabinet, and drawer in my kitchen and leave them all agape.

I have found bottles moved around in my refrigerator, or my clothes all pushed over to the wrong side of my closet. The bathroom door is always left open. I always leave it closed because there is a fishbowl that sits in there, and my evil roommates have conspired against that poor creature since day one.

The strangers seem to take a perverse satisfaction in pulling the chains on my ceiling fans random times so that they are both turning at the wrong speed, and in the wrong direction, when I return. When I see that I become convinced that they are just taunting me. They may as well write, "I was here", on the wall in blood. It's very creepy to a guy who has devoted a great deal of effort to getting all of his fans to function together in a synchronized air flow. I can not understate the importance of getting your ceiling fans set to the correct speed. And then these people just walk in and funk it up.

The whole thing can be rather disconcerting. I feel as though archaeologists from some other world have entered my domain with a microscope and scrutinized every detail. They must know everything about me now, and yet I know nothing about them except that they were born in a barn and never learned how to shut doors and cabinets. They probably return to an office somewhere and file reports on all of my antiquated customs, and eating habits.

I can't let them know too much, so I try to throw them a few curve balls. What might they think, for instance, of the one green dress hanging in my closet, or the stuffed Richard Nixon toy laying on my bed? What sort of person reads National Geographic, and Vanity Fair, and has 5 copies of The Road by Cormac McCarthy? My random furniture probably leads them to believe that I am a senile old man, but then they must wonder about the bizarre, and mystifying photographs of hobos and misfits that are randomly strewn about; the ridiculously expensive mountain bike hiding in the closet, the curious, and atavistic film cameras. These are not the telltale signs of your average grandpa. They must know that they are dealing with a very hardcore, unusual person. Surely they must know that I am dangerous; a rare, and exotic homo sapien that has seen things both wondrous and terrible, and lacked the wisdom to know the difference. And so maybe they just left quickly. Fleeing the place with no time to waste on setting things back in their proper order. I guess I can forgive them for that. I would probably do the same thing.

Nevertheless, all is still well in my mind. The right person is still out there who will see the mystical beauty of the Central Park Condos as I once did. And they will buy that place out from under me and I will take that stuff that is Me and I will move on down the road to newer places, to live a different life, and commune with different spirits.

M.Y.O.D.B.

I have always lived my life under a certain belief that there are some truths which will always remain out there. Not because the answer can not be found, but because there are simply some questions you should not ask. You simply don't need to know, and should leave it at that, no matter how curious you may be.

Nevertheless, we live in an increasingly broadband world. Thanks to such narcissistic outlets as Facebook, Twitter, etc, etc, millions of people are devoting major parts of their lives to sharing each and every thought that may cross their busy, little minds throughout their day. Therefore a lot of people have started to become accustomed to knowing everything about everyone, and therefore we as a society are beginning to lose a certain sense of tact.

Now, when a question crosses a person's mind, they are highly likely to just go ahead and ask it. Even if the question is one that should only be asked in the privacy of your doctor's office. Even if they are a complete stranger to you for that matter.

Since becoming engaged I have found myself increasingly targeted by such questions that I rarely feel compelled to address. I do not feel even slightly guilty if I do not divulge every detail of my intimate life in public. But, as a sort of public service, I will now list to you some of the weird, and some downright inappropriate questions I have been asked by people ranging from casual acquaintances to perfect strangers since I became engaged. I swear to God. Every one of these questions has been asked at least once by someone who just found out I was engaged:

1. How much did the ring cost?
2. Is it real?
3. How much are you spending on the wedding?
4. How much are you spending on the honeymoon?
5. Where are you going on your honeymoon?
6. What hotel are you staying at?
7. Do you live together?
8. Are you having sex?
9. Have you ever had sex?
10. Has she ever had sex?
11. Do you ever cheat?
12. Is She on birth control?
13. Do you have condoms?
14. Do you have any kids?
15. Are you going to have kids?
16. Where are you going to live?
17. How much money do you make?
18. How much money does she make?
19. How much money do you have in the bank?
20. Are you Mormon?

Some of those questions are only mildly annoying, like "Are you Mormon?" I don't understand what that has to do with anything. If you are close enough to me that you need to know my religious affiliation then you should already know it. But other questions, like "Do you have sex?" blow my mind every time. I would never ask anybody that. And yet that question has been asked more than any other question on the list. I fail every time to understand the reason why it is asked. My personal favorite is, "Is it real?" That has been asked in regards to the ring, and I'm not sure whether to be offended or flattered by that. It kind of depends on my mood. Other questions like, "Where are you going on the honeymoon?" Are not necessarily secret facts, and I can't see any reason why I shouldn't tell everybody, but I just simply don't want to talk about it sometimes.

Fortunately, because I am old-school, and do not feel compelled to express myself to just anybody, almost all of these questions can be answered with one stock response: "None of your damn business. Now go to hell!"

Just a Couple of Obscure, Under-Used Quotations From Some Righteous Dudes

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --- Thomas Jefferson

"The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion." --- George Washington

Predators!

So, what do you suppose would happen if a giant weirdo like Robert Rodriguez decided to produce an alternative sequel to the 1987 film "Predator"? I know I was already intrigued, but then it got even weirder. Pretty soon he had hired on a promising director, Nimrod Antal, along with his Hungarian cinematographer, Gyula Pados, and Academy Award winner Adrien Brody.



Really? Adrien Brody? I wasn't sure at all how to feel about that. My movie snobbery was tearing me in all sorts of directions at this point. But never mind. I was headed down to see this movie at the soonest possible convenience. After all, it has been an incredibly bad year for movies, quite possibly the worst year in my movie viewing life. So perhaps, I thought, an over-produced Predator movie is exactly what we need.

Things took a slight turn to the surreal when I was carded at the box-office. I do have a young face. But seriously? It took me right back to the nineties when my friends and I would watch movies like this in dinghy rooms, always afraid we would be caught by our moms at any moment and severely chastised for succumbing to the temptations of rated 'R' cinema. I felt like I was being bad. I actually laughed perversely at the poor woman who asked me if I was old enough. I thought I was rather too old to be watching this sort of trashy popcorn. After all, I've seen Felini films.

Nevertheless, I was there. My money was spent, and I was deemed old enough to watch an Academy Award winning actor do battle against the dreaded alien bastards.

The film opens with our Academy Award winner falling from the sky. He doesn't know what's going on. We know because we saw the trailers. (Damned movie trailers, but that's a rant for another day.) Pretty soon he crashes down into a tropical paradise of some sort, and a whole bunch of scary bad-asses, including Danny Trejo, Alice Braga, and Topher Grace (WTF? Topher F*****g Grace? What is up with this movie?), continue to crash down around him. There is some confusion as they begin trying to beat each other up. And I was already having the best time I had had watching a movie since "The Book of Eli" in January.





There are a lot of directors in Hollywood who think that if you are chosen to make a sci-fi/horror/thriller, the proper thing to do is to film it in the ugliest place you can find, desaturate everything to a cold blue-green-grey color, and then drench everything in thick, pulpy, fake blood. My friend Nimrod, director of one of my absolute favorite weird movies (Kontroll), is much wiser than this. Predators is filmed in Hawaii, with georgeous cinematography, and ironically subtle camera work. There were a couple of moments where I was so overwhelmed by the visual wonders before my eyes that I started to believe I was watching a serious movie. But then...

"OMFG! Did you see that predator rip out that guys spinal chord? That was freakin' sic! Aaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"....

But then, this movie did have an awful lot of dialogue too. I was completely enthralled by the glorious badness of it. It proves that a movie can still be bad in all the good old ways. If you watch it, please take note not of what the movie does but of what it doesn't do, and you will understand why this movie is a masterpiece of calculated restraint. It gives the audience just enough for your $8.50. I highly recommend it to all geeks and movie snobs who think that every other movie this year would have been improved if somebody's spinal chord had been ripped out by an alien.