Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (31 page)

The average jellyfish is 95% water.

• The medical examiner’s report lists Elvis’s weight at the time of death as 170 pounds; he actually weighed about 250 pounds.

• Elvis’s relatives can’t agree on how Elvis died. His stepbrother Rick claims Elvis suffocated on the shag carpet; his stepbrother David thinks Elvis committed suicide. Larry Geller, Elvis’s hairdresser and spiritual adviser, claims that Elvis’s doctors told Vernon Presley (Elvis’s father) that the King had leukemia, which may have contributed to his death. Some theorists charge that the confusion surrounding Elvis’s death proves that the star faked his death—if the King is really dead, why can’t his loved ones get their stories straight?

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Elvis’s fans want the answers to the following mysteries:

Did Elvis Foresee—or Fake—His Death?

• Elvis didn’t order any new jumpsuits—his trademark outfit—in all of 1977. Why not? Did he know he wasn’t going to need any?

• On his last concert tour, Elvis was overheard saying, “I may not look good tonight, but I’ll look good in my coffin.”

• Was Elvis imitating his manager, Colonel Tom Parker? As a young man, Parker also faked his death. An illegal immigrant from Holland whose real name was Andreas Van Kujik, Parker left Holland without telling his relatives; they thought he was dead.

Is the Corpse in Elvis’s Coffin Really Elvis’s?

• Country singer Tanya Tucker’s sister LaCosta was at the King’s funeral, and she was shocked at the body’s appearance: “We went right up to his casket and stood there, and God, I couldn’t believe it. He looked just like a piece of plastic laying there. He didn’t look like him at all...he looked more like a dummy than a real person. You know a lot of people think it was a dummy. They don’t think he was dead.”

• Some observers said they thought the corpse’s nose looked too “pugged” to be the King’s. They speculated that even if the King had fallen forward and smashed his nose at the time of his death, it would have naturally returned to its original shape, or would at least have been fixed by the undertaker—if the body was really Elvis’s. (
The Elvis Files
)

Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.

Is the Corpse in Elvis’s Coffin a Wax Dummy?

• Some theorists believe that Elvis’s coffin weighed more than it was supposed to. Brewer-Giorgio reports receiving a letter from an Elvis fan who claimed to have “personally” known the man who made the King’s coffin. The coffin maker revealed that the casket was a “rush” order—and that “there was no way” the coffin could have weighed 900 pounds, as the press reported—even with the King in it. So what was in the coffin with Elvis that made it so heavy?

• According to Brewer-Giorgio, the discrepancy between the coffin’s actual weight with Elvis in it and its weight at the funeral is about 250 to 275 pounds, “the weight of a small air-conditioner.” “Was there an air-conditioner in the coffin?” Brewer-Giorgio asks, “Wax dummy? Something cool to keep the wax from beading up?”

• To many witnesses, Elvis’s corpse appeared to be “sweating” at the funeral. Brewer-Giorgio says she asked Joe Esposito, Elvis’s road manager, about TV reports that there were “beads of sweat” on Elvis’s body. “He said that was true, that everyone was sweating because the air-conditioner had broken down. Except that dead bodies do not sweat.” But wax melts.

Why Did the Mourners Act So Strange at the Funeral?

• Parker wore a loud Hawaiian shirt and a baseball cap to Elvis’s funeral and never once approached the casket to say farewell to the King. Elvis’s fans argue that if Elvis were really dead, Parker would probably have shown a little more respect.

• Elvis’s hairdresser claims that he saw Esposito remove Elvis’s TCB (Takin’ Care of Business) ring from the corpse’s finger during the funeral services. Why would he remove one of Elvis’s favorite pieces of jewelry—Elvis would surely have wanted to have been buried with it—unless the corpse being buried wasn’t the King’s?

Janis Joplin was nominated “Ugliest Man on Campus” while in college.

Is Elvis in the Federal Witness Protection Program?

• In 1970 Presley—a law enforcement buff—was made an honorary Agent-at-Large of the Drug Enforcement Administration by President Nixon after a visit to the White House. According to some theorists, Presley became more than just an honorary agent—he actually got involved in undercover narcotics work.

• In addition to his DEA work, Elvis may have been an FBI agent. During the same trip to Washington D.C, Elvis also wrote a letter to J. Edgar Hoover volunteering his confidential services to the FBI. Hoover wrote back thanking Elvis for his offer, but there is no record of him ever taking it up. Still, Brewer-Giorgio and other theorists argue, the government may have been keeping the King’s government service a secret.

• According to Brewer-Giorgio, Elvis was also “a bonded deputy with the Memphis Police and was known to don disguises and go out on narc busts.”

• Elvis took his law-enforcement role seriously. More than one biography details the time that the King ran out onto the runway of the Las Vegas airport, flagged down a taxiing commercial airliner, and searched it for a man whom he believed had stolen something from him. Elvis looked around, realized his quarry wasn’t aboard, and gave the pilot permission to take off.

• Some theorists believe that Elvis’s extensive work in law enforcement made him a target for drug dealers and the Mob—and that he entered the Federal Witness Protection Program out of fear for his life. According to Brewer-Giorgio, when Elvis supplied the information that sent a major drug dealer to prison, the King and his family received death threats.

Could Elvis Be in Hiding?

Hundreds of Elvis’s loyal fans think they have spotted the King since his “death.” He’s been sighted at a Rolling Stones concert, working at a Burger King in Kalamazoo, buying gas in Tennessee, and shopping for old Monkees records in Michigan. One woman even claims that Elvis gave her a bologna sandwich and a bag of Cheetos during a 1987 visit to the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Could so many people be lying or mistaken?

According to zoologists, elephants love to eat licorice.

OTHER MYSTERIES COLLECTED BY ELVIS FANS

• Vernon Presley never went to the hospital the night Elvis “died.” If Elvis were really dead, some theorists speculate, he probably would have.

• According to some reports, within hours of Presley’s death, souvenir shops near Graceland began selling commemorative T-shirts of his death. How could they have made so many shirts in so little time—unless Graceland had let them know about the “death” in advance?

• Elvis’s middle name, Aron, is misspelled “Aaron” on his tombstone. If Elvis is really dead, why don’t his relatives correct the mistake?

• Elvis isn’t buried next to his mother as he requested. Says Brewer-Giorgio: “‘Elvis loved his mother very much and always said he would be buried beside her,’ many fans have noted. ‘So why is he buried between his father and grandmother?’ they ask.”

• On a number of occasions after the King’s death, Priscilla Presley referred to Elvis as a living legend—strange words for a woman who supposedly believes that Elvis is dead.

• Before he died, Elvis took out a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy. To date, no one in his family has tried to claim it. If Elvis’s family really believes he is dead, why haven’t they cashed in the policy?

PASSING ON

• The people who were in Elvis’s home when he died insist that he really did die. Joe Esposito, Elvis’s road manager for 17 years, was one of the first people to see the body. “Believe me, the man that I tried to revive was Elvis.”

• Elvis may even have committed suicide. According to his stepbrother David Stanley, “Elvis was too intelligent to overdose [accidentally]. He knew the
Physician’s Desk Reference
inside and out.” Why would Elvis take his own life? He was getting old, and the strain of his stagnating career may have become too much to bear. The pressure showed: in the last years of his life, Elvis’s weight ballooned to more than 250 pounds, and his addiction to prescription drugs had gotten out of control.

The word “Sunday” is not in the Bible.

• The impending publication of a book chronicling the King’s erratic behavior and his drug problem may have been the final straw. In August 1977, the month of his death, two of his former aides were about to publish a book revealing much of his bizarre personal life to the public for the first time. He was already depressed, and the imminent public exposure of his drug habit may have pushed him over the edge.

RECOMMENDED READING

The Elvis Files
, by Gail Brewer-Giorgio (Shapolsky Publishers, 1990).
A fountain of Elvis conspiracies
.

HOLLYWOOD-ISMS

Some funny observations taken from
Star Speak:
Hollywood on Everything,
by Doug McClelland
.

“In Hollywood, the executives have Picassos and Chagalls on their walls and would kill to have lunch with Chuck Norris. That’s why you have movies like
Howard the Duck.
”

—
David Steinberg

“It is not true I was born a monster. Hollywood made me one.”

—
Boris Karloff

“The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
”

—
Bette Davis

“I had a dog named Duke. Every fireman in town knew that hound, because he chased all the firewagons. They knew the dog’s name, but not mine, so the next thing I was Duke, too. I was named for a damn dog!”

—
John Wayne

“If the scripts were as great as the sets, what a town Hollywood would be!”

—
W. Somerset Maugham

There are seven spikes in the Statue of Liberty’s crown.

Ever wonder why a Dachsund is so long and skinny—or why Great Danes are so tall? The answer: They were bred with a specific purpose in mind. Here are the stories behind the names and appearances of some of the world’s most popular dog breeds.

B
ASSET HOUNDS.
The name comes from the French adjective
bas
, which means “low thing.” Originally bred to hunt rabbits, raccoons, and other small mammals. Their short legs make them relatively slow runners, but they’re especially adept at chasing prey through thickets.

BULLDOGS.
According to legend, in 1209 A.D. Lord William Earl Warren of Stamford, England, was looking out onto his meadow and saw two dogs fighting a bull. He so admired their courage that he gave the meadow to the townspeople—on the condition that they begin holding annual dog-bull fights. Over the next 600 years, bullbaiting became a popular sport, and the bulldog breed evolved along with it. Like pit-bulls, bulldogs were originally bred to be fearless and vicious. But in 1835, bullbaiting was banned in England. Bulldog lovers used breeding techniques to eliminate their viciousness, making them acceptable house pets.

COCKER SPANIELS.
A member of the Spanyell family of dogs that dates back to the 14th century. Their small size made them ideal for hunting woodcocks, earning them the name cockers, which eventually became cocking spaniels, then cocker spaniels.

FRENCH POODLES.
Actually bred in 15th-century Germany as hunting dogs. The name “poodle” comes from the German word
pudeln
, which means “to splash.” The reason: They’re good swimmers and were often used to retrieve game from ponds, etc.

GREAT DANES.
Got their name from the French, who thought they were Danish. They weren’t: they were actually from Germany, where they were bred large enough to tackle and kill wild boars.

It takes 12 bees their entire lifetime to make a tablespoon of honey.

ROTTWEILERS.
When soldiers of ancient Rome went into battle, they had no way of bringing enough fresh meat with them to last the entire campaign. So they brought cattle—and Rottweiler dogs to herd them. In 700 A.D., the local duke in an area of Germany the Romans had once occupied commissioned a Catholic church to be built near the ruins of some Roman baths. Because the baths had red tile roofs, the Duke issued instructions to build at “
das Rote Wil
,”—the red tiles. Later the area became known as the town of Rottweil, and the breed of dogs the Romans had left behind were called Rottweilers.

GREYHOUNDS.
One of the oldest breeds of dogs; dating back as far as ancient Egypt (where they were a favorite pet of the pharoahs). Tomb paintings nearly 5,000 years old depict them hunting wild goats, deer, and other animals. According to one theory, they’re actually named after the Greeks, taking their name from the word
Graius
, which means Grecian or Greek.

DACHSHUNDS.
Although the name is derived from the German words
Dachs
(badger) and
Hund
(dog), dachshunds have been used to hunt animals as large as wild boars. Their long bodies make them ideal for chasing badgers and rabbits through their tunnels.