Tim Kaminski, who fronts Yerkish, got an e-mail from his half-brother Brian Tomes a few days ago, with a subject line that read: "Sarah Palin's latest shame." He thought, "Yeah, whatever. I'll watch it later." The next afternoon, he got a call from Tomes: His sibling was suddenly famous.
See, Tomes was the guy slaughtering turkeys in the background while Alaska's governor was being filmed at Triple D Turkey Farm in Wasilla, Alaska. Palin was at the farm to pardon one turkeys from being butchered for Thanksgiving dinner -- while Tomes was getting more ready for the oven. One video of the interview, which looks like Palin's in an outtake of a Coen brothers film, has racked up 2.3 million views since being uploaded on YouTube Thursday, November 20.
When Kaminski finally did open the e-mail and click on the YouTube link, he saw his bro killing a turkey, draining it of all its blood and he listened to the governor, nodding.
"What the hell are you looking at?" Kaminski says he asked his brother when he got him on the phone. "He's like, 'I wanted to pay attention to her. She's our governor. I'm interested in what she has to say. How many people get the opportunity to listen from the mouth of their governor?' He was listening, intent on finding out what she was saying. You can watch him. She'll say something and he'll nod his head in agreement and stuff like that. It's pretty hilarious."
Although the video might seem pretty damn funny, Kaminski says that Tomes, who was excited about the whole thing at first, isn't too happy about what people have been saying about him online, nor is he pleased by some of the parodies that have surfaced over the past few days. One YouTube commenter called Tomes, "Joe the Turkey Killer."
So Kaminiski gave Tomes, who hasn't used the Internet much until now, some advice on coping with negative comments: "Dude, you just gotta let that go. Welcome to the Internet. Don't let that get to you."
Considering all the attention this video has gotten over the last four days, it's just too bad that Tomes wasn't wearing a Yerkish T-shirt. --Jon Solomon
