WhatFinger


The oddity is not what it seems.

Boy, we had fun with some Twin Peaks images and you all went nuts



Little did we know. The day we posted a bunch of pictures of Barack Obama in a cowboy hat, you barely noticed. The day we posted nothing but pictures of Phil Collins, the few people who said anything thought we had mistaken him for Andy Puzder. "These photo gag days are going over people's heads," Rob and I thought. But just for fun, after our 372nd Twin Peaks discussion of the week on Friday, we decided we'd have one more little break from the ordinary and use all Twin Peaks photos with our columns on Monday. Nothing more than that. Two chuckleheads on a web site taking a gratuitous excuse to show you our favorite TV show. Right. Little did we know.
When I got an e-mail from Death and Taxes Magazine, of all people, I didn't quite put together at first that they were actually doing a story about it. Is Herman Cain obsessed with Twin Peaks? Um, no, I explained. He isn't. Rob Laurie and I generate most of the content on Herman's web site, and we are very much obsessed with Twin Peaks, and have been since 1990. Reporter Magaret Serota is a fan herself, and we had a very friendly back-and-forth followed by the story that gave rise to the photo you see above, of our boss with the venerable Deputy Andy Brennan. Ha, I told Rob, can you believe it? Someone actually did a news story about this. But it was only starting. The AV Club covered it. Something called Dangerous Minds covered it. Then today, even the New York Daily News got in on the action. For reeelz, you people? But that wasn't the piece d'resistance. No. That came last night when no less than Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost himself tweeted at the boss:

Support Canada Free Press


Rob sent me the tweet with the message: KABOOM! Indeed. (Mark, I am willing to play Albert Rosenfield's FBI agent brother in the fourth season. I kind of look like him.) Honestly, we had no idea so many people would be interested in this. But since they are, let's get a few things straight: 1. As much as it may disappoint some of you who wanted to believe "Herman Cain is obsessed with Twin Peaks," he's not. As far as I know, he doesn't even watch the show. Herman, Rob and I each write our own columns for the site and select our own images to go with the columns. On Monday, Rob and I decided that for that day only, we would use Twin Peaks images strictly as a gag, and mainly for our own amusement. Herman didn't have any new columns that day so the whole top of the site was Twin Peaks photos, as was our Twitter feed. Our Facebook page intersperses our columns with a lot of other stuff so I guess it wasn't so obvious there. 2. The photos we chose were mostly random, although Rob did push the edge a little (hilariously, I thought) by using the Denise Bryson photo with a piece about Caitlyn Jenner. It's a trans thing. You wouldn't understand. 3. A few people went way back and found some older images that pertained to Twin Peaks or other David Lynch material, like the juxtaposition of Joe Scarborough next to Eraserhead. So yeah, we've hinted at this gag before but this is the first time we've done it like this, and for a whole day. We're big fans.

4. I thought it was funny how many people couldn't get their heads around the idea that a conservative site would be filled with Twin Peaks references. As far as I can tell, Twin Peaks hues to no particular political ideology. It's not about that at all. Yet an awful lot of commenters couldn't believe something that's right-wing in nature could celebrate this show. What do you think we right-wingers watch? Bonanza? 5. I find it pretty amusing how much people copy each other on the Internet. For one person to think this is kinda sorta fun to mention? I don't really see the news value, but it takes all kinds, so you do you. But for this many people to all be treating it as news? Now you're just out of ideas, everyone. Someone did something a little odd! Let's go crazy! 6. This is not how we expected to get attention, but we hope you like the site! Bookmark it and visit often! Anyway, I hope that explains it. We were starting to wonder if we shouldn't just can the special theme days, since no one seemed to notice. Now? No way! We have to come up with something even weirder when you least expect it. Oh, and thanks to all of you for giving me something to occupy my mind while I pass the interminable seven days in between Twin Peaks episodes! The wait for Sunday night at 9 p.m. is brutal, although perhaps better than having to answer the boss's question: "What did you two knuckeleads do now?" Smell those Douglas firs!


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.


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