Elvis Presley What Ifs

“……you have no idea how I need to hear what you have to say.”

A blog post remembering Elvis Presley, whom many of us grew up with, listening to him on jukeboxes & watching him in movies.

Nowadays, we talk about people killing themselves with their diets & making doctors extremely rich. Elvis was the ‘poster boy’ of this lifestyle.

Incredibly talented – adored by countless millions – killed by his diet & by his doctors.

“The only thing in life he got any enjoyment out of was eating.” – Mary Jenkins – one of Elvis’ regular cooks – here.

~ While Presley’s main physician, Dr. Nichopoulos, was exonerated of criminal liability for the singer’s death, the facts were startling: “In the first eight months of 1977 alone, he had [prescribed] more than 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines and narcotics: all in Elvis’s name.” ~ – wiki

Elvis was only 42 when he died.

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Elvis could, perhaps, have switched to being a plant eater – but…….

Excerpts from a Larry Geller conversation about Elvis Presley

 Elvis & Larry Geller – source

Larry Geller – So I tell him the truth about my interests and this was way before The Beatles explosion and the Maharishi stuff became popular. So I told him how I worked as a hairdresser as a living but that more importantly was my search for the truth, for the purpose of life, for God. I said, “I know you’re Elvis Presley and the biggest star in the world and what I’m saying probably sounds very corny to you” But Elvis replies, “No, wait a minute. Larry you have no idea how I need to hear what you have to say. Please keep on talking.”

So I tell him about my mediation, yoga, my spiritual books, being vegetarian and everything. Right away he wanted to know about the soul, Do we have a soul?, Where do we come from?, Do we survive this life?.. all these things just emerged into this conversation.

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Elvis Information Network – In March 77 you did go on that last vacation to Hawaii. Obviously Elvis at the time was really floating between vitamins & health regimes that you were suggesting and Dr Nick and all his chemicals.

Larry Geller – I have no respect for Dr Nick. Before a tour would start I would have packets of vitamins and minerals all wrapped up for the tour to help keep me healthy. Plus I was a vegetarian. One day I was in Elvis’ bedroom when he woke up and Dr. Nick was there. I took a packet of vitamins out and put it on the table and said, “Elvis you should take some of these man, they are so good for you.” I also gave a little spiel to him about their benefits. Dr Nick says, “Hey, get that crap out of here. That %#&!*% doesn’t work.” Here was a medical Doctor saying this! Of course he is not anymore. Thank God for some justice.

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The “papaya diet” of 1973? – taken from a “Dr. Nick” interview

“So he goes out to Vegas and talks Dr. Gahnim [Elias Gahnim, official ring physician of the Nevada Boxing Commission] to do it. He was out there three weeks, kept him knocked out asleep, had him on some sort of papaya juice diet, and he came back all bloated up, he was taking in more drinking papaya juice than he was taking in on a normal diet. That really clobbered his colon. You need physical activity for your colon to function properly. His was already non-functioning because of his laxative abuse, and all he did was sleep for three weeks.”

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Interviewer – “Why would he (Elvis) abuse laxatives?”

Dr. Nick – “He abused laxatives because he stayed so constipated. A lot of things contributed to it. Finally his colon, just like any muscle that you don’t use, lost its ability to contract. The normal colon is about this big around,” Dr. Nick said, gesturing with his doubled fists together. “Elvis’s colon was about the size of your leg. You can imagine how much stuff was in it. Whether it was gas or water or shi*t or whatever, it occupied space. He thought he had control over things. He thought when he’d lose control that he could regain it again any time he wanted to.”

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Very sick – but still interacting wonderfully with his audience – less than 2 months before he died on August 16, 1977

From the official Press Release about the concert –

~ Because of the severity of Elvis’ health problems at the time the special was shot, Elvis was far from his best in the way he looked and the way he performed, though there are some truly brilliant moments in the footage. The true fans look at this through the eyes of love, respect and understanding, and see the great historical value – as do all the members of our staff. But, this not so with much of the general public and the media. It’s not that we don’t want the fans to have this footage or that we don’t know how much it would mean to them. We do. There just simply is no way to get it only to the real fans (and we’ve exhausted all kinds of ideas) without also having Elvis served up to the general public and press for ridicule. They already emphasize and exaggerate the tragedy and sadness of the last years of his life too much. ~

The full concert –

Elvis Rapid City June 21 1977 from Jenny Maher on Vimeo.

This is the second concert filmed by CBS for the Elvis In Concert show. It was filmed in June 1977 and shown on television in October 1977, after Elvis’ death. It hasn’t been repeated. This is from the Boxcar boxed set The Final Curtain.

Elvis & Monique Brave – source

At Time Marker 3:05 young Monique Brave gives Elvis a ‘Medallion of Life’ on behalf of the Sioux Nation & receives a kiss on the cheek. At Time Marker 3:58, Elvis invites Monique’s mum, Sharon, to join them for a photo.

~ Inside, Elvis met then-Mayor Art LaCroix as well as Sharon Brave and her 10-year-old daughter, Monique.

The brief encounter with ‘The King’ left a lasting impression on Sharon.

‘I can still remember everything; we were in and out in a few minutes’, the longtime Elvis fan said. ‘We had the best seat in the house for a couple of minutes’.

Monique wore a full buckskin American Indian dress and presented Elvis with an eight-point beaded medallion. He gave her a scarf that she still has. ~  source.

Monique Brave: He kissed me on the cheek and autographed a scarf for me. My mother did get to come in the room with me to meet Elvis. We also have a picture of the three of us as well as a picture of just me and Elvis. She was crying the whole time. She just couldn’t believe she was in the same room breathing the same air as the King. 

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Grim details of what Elvis actually consumed – here

~ ……the King’s favorite tuck-in was a toasted peanut butter and banana sandwich. ~

~ In the name of research, I found what seemed like an authentic recipe and executed it. To my surprise, it was delicious, with the salty peanut butter playing off the hyper-sweet banana. ~

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Conclusion

“Most people do not die, they kill themselves with their knives and forks.” – Dugald Semple quoted in a piece in – The Glasgow Herald – Oct 12, 1953

The Animals’ Revenge: After the expense of raising animals, we eat them, and they kill us. Eating kills 2 out of 3 people in the Western world. Eating is the biggest cause of disease, disability and death in the West today. Human bodies can’t handle animal and dairy products. A diet based on animal and dairy products is suicidal. Prehistoric man ate over 800 varieties of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and grain. This is the diet we have evolved to eat. Meat, dairy and fish became affordable in the 20th century. We switched from a plant-based diet to an animal based one. – source.

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