by PL

Redux.

Let’s look at these two statements, from a video that was posted recently by Linda Thompson:

Linda Thompson: “…I loved him, he loved me, and there was someone else in the wings, that he was going to see, and I felt, I was hoping he’d be okay…I didn’t wanna wake up and find him dead.”

Charlie Hodge: “I believe that if Linda had been there that morning he might not have died, she would have heard him fall because she didn’t take sleeping pills, and would have gone over and rolled him on his back and he might possibly be alive today.”

As I have discussed previously, the notion that anyone could have “saved” Elvis that day is irrational at best, nefarious and cruel at worst. Unless someone was sitting literally right next to Elvis at the exact time of his crisis, and medical attention was provided literally within a minute or two, Elvis was not going to survive. To suggest otherwise, given all the circumstances, is ridiculous, and yet the Elvis community sticks with this illogical storyline, that “if Linda” had been there, Elvis would (or might) have survived. Again, let’s go over the facts as they pertain to the above statements by Linda Thompson and Charlie Hodge.

First, we’ll examine what Hodge said. It’s important to note that this is presented as a belief, and he is not making a statement of fact, as a probability, or presenting it as something fact-based (which a belief like this actually should be). Where Hodge says he “believes” that Linda could have saved Elvis that morning, though, he gives us a few interesting things to consider:

Hodge places the emergency “that morning,” which is accurate, and yet he does not explain why his cohort, Dick Grob, has placed this alleged “noise” (of Elvis’s body hitting the floor) after 12:00pm (reminder: Grob placed this noise between 12 noon and “as late as 1:15pm” based on interviews he didn’t conduct with household staff who were not on duty). Why doesn’t Hodge address this disparity? He was, after all, Grob’s business partner during the late 70s when the Ginger hit-job was launched.

Hodge has no evidence that there was a noise, nor that Elvis “fell.”

Hodge is presenting the viewer with a completely illogical construct: “Linda would have heard Elvis’s body hit the floor because she didn’t take sleeping pills.” Is this a logical statement? No, because it tells us that people who take sleeping pills do not hear noises (incorrect), and that people who do not take sleeping pills do hear noises, by the very absence of sleeping pills (also incorrect). There is so much muddled thinking here (a hodgepodge, if you will) that I’m going to just leave it at that.

Hodge doesn’t say if Linda would be sleeping or awake, per the imaginary “girlfriend protocol,” but his wording suggests Linda would have been asleep.

It is worth noting that Hodge’s entire statement is a not-so-veiled jab at Ginger Alden, since Ginger was the person who was present that morning, and she had reportedly ingested a strong pain pill at Elvis’s direction/suggestion. This is what Hodge’s “sleeping pills” comment is about. Note that Hodge doesn’t say, “Elvis gave Ginger a strong narcotic,” he brushes that aside and in not-so-subtle language (subtext) accuses her of being zonked out on sleeping pills. He frames it like this for a reason. Also worth noting is that Hodge is illogically saying that the person present with Elvis that morning was a user of sleeping pills, but this is not accurate, as Ginger did not use these pills. Where is it reported that Ginger took sleeping pills that morning? Or that she ever took sleeping pills? How would Hodge know if Ginger used sleeping pills?

Please think about this: Hodge’s accusation relies entirely on the sleeping pills, and yet Ginger took no sleeping pills.

And, finally, one more look at Hodge’s full statement:

Charlie Hodge: “I believe that if Linda had been there that morning he might not have died, she would have heard him fall because she didn’t take sleeping pills, and would have gone over and rolled him on his back and he might possibly be alive today.”

What is glaringly absent from this “If Linda” statement? The what and the how of Hodge’s belief: what would Linda have done to save Elvis, and how would she have done it? Hodge doesn’t say. It is interesting that so many fans support this nonsensical idea that Linda could have saved Elvis, and yet no one ever offers up a reasonable explanation of what she would have done.

Shifting our attention over to Linda Thompson’s (admittedly) off-the-cuff statement, we need to consider only one key part of it:

“I didn’t wanna wake up and find him dead.”

The statement above requires that Elvis die while Linda Thompson is asleep.

Now, over all these years, and with all these “If Linda” statements from so many people, and all these fans who think Linda was super-human and would never, ever go to sleep while Elvis was still awake, we now see that Linda considers herself to be a normally functioning human being, where she sleeps while in the presence of her significant other (regardless, presumably, of who goes to sleep first). Haven’t we been told that Linda would never sleep until Elvis was asleep, and that the “girlfriend protocol” required no sleeping while Elvis was awake? Yes, we have. It is obvious here that Linda has just thrown this entire load of nonsense right out the window, because she is stating/admitting that she did sleep while she was with Elvis, and that Elvis dying while she slept was a distinct possibility, and a genuine concern. As I have explained elsewhere, the issue in this strange argument is sleep vs no sleep, it is not who goes to sleep first.

Once again, one standard applies to some people, while other standards apply to other people.

[Note: If you want to argue that if Linda was asleep, and went to sleep after Elvis went to sleep, then everything was alright, please don’t bother. You can’t have it both ways. Either the “girlfriend” could sleep while Elvis slept, or she had to stay awake and watch him; the question of who went to sleep first is completely irrelevant. Elvis could have died while asleep even if Linda or Ginger or anyone else had gone to sleep after him. Again, there are different rules here: fans seem to think that it was okay for Linda to sleep*, but not Ginger. Why? Because Elvis died. What if Elvis hadn’t died that morning? Did Ginger do anything wrong? Of course not. But Linda “didn’t wanna wake up and find him dead,” and neither did Ginger, but it happened to Ginger. That is the only difference.]

[*And for Rick Stanley to shoot Demerol while on duty, and for David Stanley to pretty much disappear while on duty.]

To close: Why does Linda Thompson post videos like this? Does she still believe that she was Elvis’s savior, and that her mere presence that day would have delivered him to an emergency room within 90 seconds? What is the purpose of this video?