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Thursday, September 28, 2006

News Item

I wasn't planning on publishing anything here today--all my blogging energy will be directed at Shooting Off My Fat Trap, my political blog, which might be pretty busy in coming days--but I heard something on XM this morning that I just had to share. The easiest way to explain it is to quote from this version of the story as it appears on contactmusic.com:

LATEST: Songwriter PAUL VANCE has blasted reports he's dead, insisting it was an imposter who passed away earlier this month (06SEP06). Vance, best known for co-writing the 1960 novelty song ITSY BITSY TEENIE WEENIE YELLOW POLKA DOT BIKINI, has been inundated with concerned calls after news broke yesterday (27SEP06) that he'd died of lung cancer. However, the irate musician insists the victim, 68-year-old PAUL VAN VALKENBURGH of Ormond Beach, Florida, was an imposter who claimed to have written the hit himself under the name of Paul Vance. The real Vance admits he was astonished to read his obituary in newspapers, and see two of his horses dropped from races yesterday (27SEP06) because people believed he had died. He says, "Do you know what it's like to have grandchildren calling you and say, 'Grandpa, you're still alive?' "This is not a game. I am who I am and I'm proud of who I am. But these phones don't stop with people calling thinking I'm dead." Van Valkenburgh's widow ROSE LEROUX, who claims never to have known her late husband was lying about the song, says, "To have it come out now, I'm kind of devastated. "If this other man says he did it then my husband's a liar, or he's a liar."


There's great story in here somewhere about a lady who finds out that her now-dead husband of 40 years had done nothing but lie to her the entire time. I'm claiming it, although there's nothing to do about it if somebody else beats me to it. I'd just have to write my own version anyway. Changing the names and facts, of course.

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