Eric Lampton/Eric Clapton and VALIS?🎤🦉📕🎬

I recently wrote a post about reading the first novel in the 'VALIS' trilogy and not liking the book, but there still were parts of the novel that fascinated me in hindsight.

For instance, Phil's fascination with seeing the movie 'The Man Who Fell to Earth' starring David Bowie as the alien who fell to earth, who Dick called Eric Lampton in his novel.

Eric Clapton of course was a real rock star at the time who Phil was trying to muddy the waters with Bowie in his novel for some reason. 

Clapton's The Fool guitar
  (replica shown)

May the 4th (Star Wars Day) 2024 ... The Empire Never Ended?🏯🏰😎🎬

What struck me with the Eric Lampton/Eric Clapton connection to 'VALIS' was, and SPOILER ALERT if you haven't read 'VALIS' and intend to at some point ... and God help you with that ... was Eric Lampton and his fictional wife Linda have a child conceived by VALIS called Sofia, who is meant to be the divine child (Jesus reincarnated into a baby girl's body) but Sofia tragically dies in an accident around the Lampton's home sending Philip K. Dick (who is actually a character in this novel) into another schizophrenic breakdown which brings back Horselover Fat into the story, as he (Fat is also Dick) travels the world looking to find the child reborn somewhere else on the planet.

Chapter 14 of 'VALIS'

Dick died in March 1982, so he never lived to hear about the real-life tragedy of Eric Clapton's son's accidental death on 20 March 1991.

Clapton's four-year-old son, Conor, died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of his mother's friend's New York City apartment at 117 East 57th Street. 

Conor's funeral took place on 28 March at St Mary Magdalene's Church in Clapton's home village in Ripley, Surrey, with Conor buried in the church graveyard.in 1991.

The Month of March was a big deal with Dick while he was alive, not to mention his passing on March 2nd, 1982,

Eric Clapton's birthday is in March, so maybe Phil had more in common with Clapton than Bowie in hindsight?

And as much as I didn't like the novel 'VALIS' I would have liked to have known what the novel 'The Owl in Daylight' he was working on when he died was going to be about:-)

"The Owl in Daylight is a novel Philip K. Dick was writing at the time of his death in 1982. He had already been paid an advance for the book by the publisher and was working against a deadline."

What is it with owls and death ... and UFOs?-)

"The owl in daylight" is a phrase Dick heard on television. It means "not to understand", or "to be blind";-)

WHO Are You Without Your Own Podcast Mike?🎤🦉🛸

Starring Buck Henry as Oliver Farnsworth

Buck Henry in 
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Buck Henry Dies on David Bowie's Birthday ... Ain't Life Funny?

The Owl and the Pussycat ... and Wolfen?