Double Exposure

“You can always tell the impostors – they have no nipples or genitalia, just smooth pink plastic,” explains Benny Logstad from his cell in the psychiatric wing of a Nebraska prison. “They try to fool us by sewing fake nipples into their bras, or sticking socks into their pants, but the lack of proper breast jiggle in the women and the poor swing in the men‘s crotches is always a giveaway!” Logstad’s arrest and incarceration follows his campaign to expose the evil doubles who have been replacing the world’s top celebrities; a campaign which culminated in the disruption of the recent premiere of Lindsay Lohan’s latest film – Rear Entry – in Kimball, Nebraska. “It was terrifying, he was grappling with her on the red carpet, trying to rip her clothes off,” says still distraught Lohan fan Wendy Dippstone, who witnessed the debacle outside the city’s only movie theatre. “Thankfully, she managed to beat him off with a half empty vodka bottle she had in her handbag!” Undeterred, Logstad turned his attentions to Lohan’s co-star, Paris Hilton. “He tried to pull her panties down,” sobs Dippstone, “Except she wasn’t wearing any!” At this point a confused Logstad was dragged away by police and handcuffed. Following his arrest, it emerged that Logstad was already wanted by police in California for several similar offences. “A couple of weeks ago he jumped onto the cat walk at a fashion show and tried to expose the breasts of several top models,” says LA Sheriff’s Department Deputy Frank Hobbler. “He’s also been caught trying to look up female celebrities’ skirts with a mirror on a stick.” The film’s producer is worried that the incident could set back Lohan’s career. “This was meant to be her big comeback movie – it’s real classy, not like that crap she usually does. Hell, we even got it this theatrical premiere before the DVD release,” says Reginald Funkler, whose previous credits include Windward Passage and Spam Alley. “Exposing her breasts in public – albeit involuntarily – is the kind of image she’s trying to leave behind her.” Funkler also has little time for Logstad’s claims that his stars are actually duplicates. “I’ve never heard such crap – if he thinks those puppies he was grappling with aren’t the real thing, then he really is deranged,” he declares. “Personally, I think he’s just some kind of crazed fan – his actions are spookily close to the movie’s plot: woman menaced by ass-obsessed burglar – who’s using this ‘evil double’ shtick to try and avoid criminal charges.” Logstad is contemptuous of such allegations. “I’m not interested in asses, for God’s sake! They’ve perfected them – you can’t tell the difference, no matter how hard you squeeze them. It’s the other bits they can’t get right,” the twenty-five year old Los Angeles shelf stacker spits angrily. “As for this ‘reformed character’ bullshit – that’s what they always say to try and cover-up the fact they’ve been replaced by something with breasts as stiff and unyielding as that so-called Lindsay Lohan!”

Dramatic changes in behaviour and image are, according to Logstad, the surest signs that a celebrity has been replaced. “It usually follows a period in ‘rehab’, ‘hospital’ or even ‘jail”, he notes. “Actresses will suddenly stop doing topless scenes, singers will change musical direction for no good reason and they’ll all start doing charitable shit, hugging trees and denouncing drink and drugs!” Incredibly, Logstad’s bizarre theories are widely shared. “Hell, everybody knows that they’ve been replacing celebrities since the 1960s”, says journalist Ron Biddling. “We all know about Paul McCartney’s replacement in 1966 and The Beatles’ subsequent complete change of musical direction into drug-induced psychedelia, but not everybody realises that the likes of David Bowie, Eric Clapton and Phil Spector were also replaced prior to major artistic changes.” Biddling, who has contributed to publications such as Practical Conspiracy and World Conspiracy Digest, as well as running his own website monitoring the spread of celebrity doppelgangers, believes that the replacement of such stars is an open secret in the entertainment industry, and that some insiders have even tried to blow the lid on it. “Remember, that movie they made the other year where Dylan is played by different actors – including a woman – at different stages of his career, except they didn’t actually call him Dylan?” he asks. “That was the most blatant attempt yet to tell us the truth without actually revealing it! Back in those days they had to use surgically altered look-alikes as doubles and it could take several attempts to get it completely right! There were at least six ‘Dylans’ before they found one who could do the job properly.” In fact, the surgically altered doubles proved so troublesome that eventually they were abandoned and for several years straightforward assassination became the preferred method of replacing troublesome celebrities. “Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Jim Morrison – all victims of this lack of suitable replacements,” contends Biddling. “Even as late of 1980 they were killing the likes of John Lennon – that dodgy ‘McCartney’ they’d used put them off of the idea of another Beatles replacement.”

However, technological developments have allowed the conspirators to start producing life-like doubles in large quantities. “They’re far more quickly produced, more reliable and more compliant,” says Logstad, who claims to have located the factory where the doppelgangers are produced. “It’s down in Mexico, so that they can use cheap non-union labour. I’ve seen them producing replicants by the dozen there and shipping them out in trucks. There’s no doubt that celebrity replacements have been increasing over the past decade – it’s getting to the stage that there aren’t many originals left.” But just who are the conspirators behind these vast, not to mention expensive, conspiracy? To Logstad it seems obvious. “Multi-national corporations – they own these celebrities and want to make sure they present the right image for the products they use them to endorse,” he says. “Raw talent, originality and a touch of outrageousness might be useful to get a new act established and can bring plenty of publicity and capture new markets, but in the long run predictability and mediocrity are what are needed to maintain sales. So as soon as an established act starts getting out of hand, they replace them.” But what of the ‘real’ celebrities displaced by the plastic doubles? “Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t quietly killed,” he confides. “Instead they’re brainwashed and used as cheap unskilled labour in third world factories, producing the very luxury goods they used to spend their wealth on.” Not surprisingly, Logstad’s theories have been roundly rejected by the authorities, although the LA Sheriff’s Department confirm that the Mexican police are seeking to extradite him in connection with an arson attack on a mannequin factory. Logstad remains undaunted, vowing to continue his campaign. “Look, it’s just a matter of time before they perfect those breasts and genitalia,” he says. “It’s vital we expose all the doubles before then, so I urge you all, keep groping those breasts and feeling those groins – it is our only hope of salvation!”