Time Spent in India

Taken by Pattie Boyd 

 Taken by Pattie Boyd 

 

Photo by George Harrison 

Photo by George Harrison 

Photo by George Harrison 

Photos taken on or about October 18, 1966 

Ex-Beatle likes Acupuncture (1981)

Ex-Beatle likes Acupuncture

UPI

October 20, 1981 

    George Harrison, the ex-Beatle, appears on an eye-catching record album cover with his skin pierced by slender acupuncture needles. It's not just a record-selling gimmick; he actually gets acupuncture treatment-a "tune-up," he calls it whenever he visits Los Angeles, he said in a recent interview.

     Harrison, 38, is among many youth and health-conscious celebrities who visit Zion Yu, a 20th-generation acupuncture practitioner in an area of the country where the pursuit of happiness produces considerable tension and torment. 

    "Why do I get acupuncture?" Harrison joked at Yu's new rejuvenation center. "Oh, you know, tumors on the brain, amputated legs, the run-of-the-mill diseases you pick up in Hollywood."

     Growing serious, Harrison said he learned about Yu's treatment through a friend who suffered a serious motorcycle injury. "I thought there must be an alternative to taking drugs all your life," said the famed singer-guitarist with the former Beatles, who has been seeing Yu since 1974. "He pinpoints the weak part of your system and zooms in," Harrison said at a party celebrating the opening of Yu's new center that offers acupuncture, the concentrated exercise, Tai Chi, calisthenics, massage, and skin treatments. 

    Yu has practiced acupuncture in Los Angeles for 10 years since coming from Taiwan, and his patients include actors William Holden, James Corburn, Jim Garner, and William Shatner; entertainer Merv Griffin; actresses Jane Fonda, Natalie Wood; and singer Peggy Lee. Other celebrities have asked Yu not to disclose their names. 

    Yu, 35, uses the 5,000-year-old Chinese medical treatment for all kinds of ailments: arthritis, depression, and hair loss. He even offers acupuncture facelifts that he claims tighten facial tissues. "Everything the body is based on is the nerves," Yu said. "When they deteriorate, the body's energy flow doesn't supply enough messages to the memory bank, and everything slows down. We stimulate the nervous system properly, and the weak part gets stronger. People look better, their memory is better, and they are happier, willing to do more things."

     Yu advises his patients to accept acupuncture as something that will help them. "Their mental attitude towards the treatment is important," he said. "Many people think this is a gimmick or something.  Wrong. People who experience this know they feel the changes released through their entire system."

     His patients claim he has cured uncomfortable chemotherapy symptoms, increased hair growth, and heightened their body sensitivity. "The whole thing is different from American medicine," said Gary Steffen, 57, a ruddy-faced businessman who suffered from back trouble, skin cancer on his hand, and ulcers. "Zion doesn't claim to cure cancer, but after the treatment, the redness and itching went away, and those were the cancer symptoms," Steffan said, rubbing his right hand. 

    Larry Sears, 38, said he had suffered excruciating pain from a herniated disc and was hallucinating on morphine. Doctors had recommended surgery when Sears heard of  Yu's clinic and decided to try it. "I was in tears when I came to Zion," he said. "But 45 minutes after my first treatment, my pain was gone."

     The pain returned, but so did Sears, and within 60 days he was virtually cured, he said. 

    Writer Maurice Zolotow, 67, started getting acupuncture for a pain-wracked back and was skeptical at first. "I was very much afraid of it. I'd scream as every needle went in, but most of it was in my mind. Every pain went away."

     Now he visits the clinic every two weeks for a balancing treatment, which Yu inserts needles in various parts of his body "to keep me feeling good."

     "Insertion of the needle takes just a few minutes,: Zolotow said. "Then you lie in semi-darkness for 20 minutes. Acupuncture prevents blockage and permits free flow of energy. "

    Thelma Walker, 59, executive secretary to Mo Ostin, chairman of Warner Brothers Records Incorporated, suffered agonizing chemotherapy effects during a bout with cancer three years ago. "Nobody knows how bad you feel when you're on chemotherapy," she said. Then she experienced Yu's needles. "It was so nice not to have to take a drug and worry about the side effects," she said. Spinal arthritis also plagued her, and putting on her clothes was a painful, time-consuming chore.

Butterfly Studio

Photo by Bob Gruen 

 During the One-to-One concert rehearsals 

Our favorite drummer

 I have these labeled as October 18, 1971 -- Anyone know what session this is and if this is the right date?

Paul Returns to New York

 

October 16, 2001

This is something that is hard to explain to those who weren't born yet.  But after 9/11, we needed Paul McCartney.  Maybe we didn't realize it then, but in the aftermath of the attacks, Paul was popping up in New York and talking to people on the streets, and for someone hundreds of miles away, just seeing it online was comforting.  I know I was not the only person who felt that way.   His song "Freedom" helped many of us find peace during a difficult time.  These photos taken 25 years ago bring me back to that time.  Seeing the happiness on the faces of the fans who spotted him and got an autograph still reminds me of the good Paul did by just being Paul. 

Peace Rocks

 

October 6, 2026 

A Night to Honor Paul

 October 16, 1986

The Beatles are Still Around (1971)

 The Beatles are Still Around

No Writer Listed

The Papua New Guinea Post Courier

October 15, 1971

    The pop fans know he's in town because the local paper published a picture of him grinning behind a pair of sunglasses. Yet Ringo Starr sits unmolested in the crowded hotel lounge. He is a hard man to recognize these days. His skin is deep tanned, almost swarthy. His drooping beard is luxuriant and black as night, and his fistful of rings are in the hotel safe, while his fingers lose their white markings. He wants to become a serious actor, not just a gimmick guest star, and to this end, he has signed on for a film role that will startle his fans. 

    In Blindman, being filmed in broiling desert conditions at Almira, southern Spain, he is a Mexican bandit, a vicious killer, and a rapist. None of the old Ringo lovability and charm is allowed to show through.

     "I am evil from start to finish," he says. When we arrived on the location, film director Ferdinandi Baldi kept him waiting five hours for a five-minute shot. "He arrived strutting because he was afraid," said Ferdinandi. "I said to him, 'Listen, my children know you as a Beatle, but to me you are just a guy who has come from London to play the villain.' Ringo arrived a Beatle, but already I can see he will go away an actor.

     Ringo is accepting Baldi's tough conditioning because the film represents an important step in his ambition to be somebody other than a quartet of the corporate body known as the Beatles. "Before we parted, we never really knew which of us it was who was causing this incredible thing called Beatlemania," he said, "but now we know we each made our contribution because we are each making it as individuals.

     "Now my musical creativity is gaining momentum. I am gradually becoming more skilled. Life is full and interesting again. I am writing the title song for Blindman, I am learning to be an actor, and I have helped design some furniture and kinetic art that has a West End exhibition in the autumn. Still, I would not want any of this to wipe out the memory of the Beatles. I could not so lightly disregard all our years together. I still talk to the other three, and I would not rule out that one day we might play together again. I don't want to start any rumors because there are no plans at the moment. Just say the feeling is based on my natural optimism."

     I left Ringo taking a call from George Harrison, who was phoning from Los Angeles. "Having objectives in life-that's the secret of happiness," said Ringo. 

    In the meantime, AAP says Beatle John Lennon has launched a musical attack on Paul McCartney, his one-time partner in producing some of the world's greatest pop tunes. Lennon's latest LP, Imagine John Lennon, released in London, recently sets a song a broadside at McCartney for having broken up the Beatle partnership. The track on Lennon's LP is called "How Do You Sleep," and although it does not name McCartney, the lyrics obviously point to him as the target of his taunting. It starts with a reference to Sgt. Pepper one of the Beatles' most successful albums.

    According to Lennon, "The album took you (McCartney) by surprise" . At the time, McCartney was believed to have thought the music went too far. Other lines in the song goes, "Those freaks was right when they said you was dead. The one mistake you made was in your head."

     George Harrison was aboard the liner Queen Elizabeth II after spending three months recording in America. He said the Beatles might play together again before Christmas, and had been asked to do a special show for charity.

Ciggie in hand

 

Oratorio meeting