Part 18 Philip K Dick 1971 Interview
James Holmes: Have you ever thought you were God?
Philip K. Dick: Only on the way to the funny farm. On the way back I realized that I wasn’t and I was very disappointed and wanted my money back. They said “God doesn’t need money anyway and he shouldn’t want it back”. Well, how do you tell if you’re God because that seemed a simple matter when I thought I was but now I wonder, how does one know?
James Holmes: I expect your father tells you.
Philip K. Dick: Who’s God’s father?
James Holmes: God.
Philip K. Dick: Well that’s …..
James Holmes: No, you know, I don’t know…
Philip K. Dick: Well and, no no, that’s the other way around. He’s the Son. I don’t really know. If I was God I probably wouldn’t know the difference. I would be treated the same by my neighbors here which is to ignore me, and treated by my friends the same, which is fine with me because that’s the way God should be treated. That’s exactly what He deserves. I don’t think anybody would know.
James Holmes: Do you think anybody will know?
Philip K. Dick: Why? When it happens?
James Holmes: Yeah
Philip K. Dick: Well they will if it’s written up in the Chronicle with a proper headline. “Santa Venicia self-destructs on discovery the most hated inmate there, Victor Moore, reveals himself during a cathedral service underground after the war as God. Causes little if any response outside of the community”. I don’t really know. I haven’t believed in God for a long time. Except when nobody is listening.
James Holmes: How come?
(PKD has a cat named Pinky who comes into the living room and sits on PKD’s lap and starts purring.)
Philip K. Dick: Because I don’t think there is a God. I think there are many gods and they have different names – George, Frank, Bob, Glenda, Lucille, Leonard. Don’t purr into the microphone; don’t oscillate into the microphone; don’t sink into oblivion, either. I mean there are people, that’s all I know. And the only God-like qualities I’ve seen have been qualities that individual people exhibited at the most surprising moments. And that’s good enough for me.
James Holmes: What do you think of women?
Philip K. Dick: I think that the pretty ones are wonderful and the other ones might as well go away. And there’s more than that but my agent asked me to submit that in writing and let him market it because he can get a lot of money for it. Cause the mark of a good writer, as you know, is how well he can write about women, as Joyce proved in Ulysses. And if I’ve got anything to say about women that matters I’m going to put it in a novel.
James Holmes: Hopefully you’ll try it out first
Philip K. Dick: You mean on the waterbed or just….
James Holmes: Well, I…..
Philip K. Dick: Reading it aloud. Reading the rough draft aloud? If reading the rough draft aloud is my idea of trying it out I probably pass it out to my agent. No, let’s say that I’m in the process of trying it out. My public will find out how it worked if my agent thinks it’s going to benefit anybody. How to lose a mistress…there’s some book that just came out isn’t there – “How To Acquire a Mistress” or something?
James Holmes: I know this book that sells for $7.95 on how to pick up girls. mainly under 24. Hotcha chicks.
Philip K. Dick: Who gets the $7.95 – the girls or the guy who wrote the book? We’ve got a name for him. He’s been making $7.95 for a long time. You know, there’s a book that came out, written by some very, very respectable and important Bay area physician. Herb Cain wrote an article about this. The book came out under, you know, a nom de plume.. Herb Cain ferreted out the guy’s actual name and now they’re ferreting out who the different mistresses are, because in the book they are all actual prominent Bay area women. Anyway, I guess that’s been done, that kind of book “How To Pick Up Girls”. You know if you have to buy a book and pay $7.95 or even 29 cents to find out how to do whatever you said, you got, the prognosis is bad. Better to spend the $7.95 on the girl. Yeah, if I took $7.95 and spent it on a book like that instead of on the girl, I deserve to spend $7.95 or anything like that on a book – Jesus Christ – what a way to make money.
James Holmes: Well, we’re almost at the end – what would you like to add? Could you sum up your cosmology?
Philip K. Dick: Yeah.
James Holmes: Would you?
Philip K. Dick: I just did. Do you think that purring is going to get on the tape.
James Holmes: Oh, it might.
Philip K. Dick: I hope so. Drowned out at the end by loud purring by my anonymous friend, plus silence by other fine anonymous friend. Plus 60 cycle hum by ubiquitous PG&E.
James Holmes: That gets filtered out.
Philip K. Dick: So does um…but that got it filtered out. Yes I would say, and here the filter goes right in so we’ll never know. It’s like Pinky after the rip-off on the 17th. When I got home the place was in ruins and Pinky was staring straight ahead like always. I said “Pinky, what happened?” and he said “I don’t know. I didn’t notice a thing, same as always”. He’s going to survive us all. Like when he eats the praying mantises – “or same thing. What did happen, Phil?” “Oh were you gone”. “Yes Pinky I was gone”. “I didn’t notice”. Uri says Pinky’s pregnant. Pinky is gonna win.
End of Interview
Continued on:
Part 19 Philip K Dick 1971 Interview