DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Undeniable Forensic Proof that Paul McCartney really was replaced with a Look-Alike in 1966.

(Seen at the headline archive of The Morning News, a really great site.)

I consider myself a skeptic, but Andrew Spooner Jr. offers compelling photographic evidence. He presents a strong argument that Sir Paul is not the original Paul McCartney.

I’m less convinced by Spooner’s analyses of vocal recordings, as there have been controversies about who actually performed all those songs for years. I would not be surprised to learn that the original recordings were “augmented” by studio musicians and stand-in vocalists. In any recording session, performing sonic surgery to improve on reality is standard procedure.

(We even did some of that on the JAR album. Although, ahem, all those drum tracks really were mine.)

But performing plastic surgery to make an imposter look like the deceased original… that’s something else.

The idea that the person we’ve all called Paul McCartney for 40 years is an imposter makes McCartney impersonators even more ridiculous.

In related news, I never posted the resolution to the story of the Mike Portnoy imposter. The phony was arrested in April. He told the police, “I’m Mike Portnoy,” not knowing that Portnoy was waiting for them at the precinct house. Ha!

Here’s an entertaining and amusing novel, a mystery, on the subject of faking a celebrity death: The Suspense is Killing Me, by Thomas Maxwell. Buy it at half.com; it’s the best two bucks you’ll spend this week.