Slowhand Tells All

Monday, October 08, 2007
I have a love-hate fanship towards Eric Clapton. Great guitarist/songwriter, rotten jackass husband/boyfriend. Just weeks after Pattie Boyd released her autobiography Wonderful Tonight, her ex-husband's memoirs are set to hit the book shelves tomorrow. It's simply called Eric Clapton: The Biography (you think he would have come up with something more creative and poignant such as I Shot Up With the Sheriff, My Cavities: The Man Who Loved Sugar, or Wife Swap: the Book.) For those who aren't in the retro know, Clapton fell in love with friend George Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd in the late 60s and wrote the song "Layla" about her and the situation. In the early 70s, Boyd eventually divorced Harrison and married Clapton, but that marriage ended badly, too, when Clapton had a child with another woman and expected Boyd to help raise the rugrat.

He can play the guitar, but can he write? That seems to be up for debate. This excerpt from the book is just insane. I don't know if this portion was compiled from several sections of the book, but if not, Clapton's thoughts seem to ramble all over the place like a four-year old learning to ride a wobbly bike for the first time without training wheels. And would you check out how he describes why he was so attracted to Pattie:

"I had first set eyes on her after a Cream concert, and had thought then that she was unusually beautiful. It wasn’t just the way she looked, although she was definitely the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. It was deeper. It came from within her too. It was her entire being, and the way she carried herself, that captivated me. I had never met a woman who was so complete, and I was overwhelmed. I realised I would have to stop seeing her and George or give in to my emotions and tell her how I felt."

Puh-lease. What this really means is "My johnson was ready to bust out of my pants and telling me that I just had to boink her, now!"

The most surprising fact I learned in the excerpt is that one of my favorites British actors, John Hurt, hung out with this motley menage a trois. Oh, and that "the best heroin looks like brown sugar and has the consistency of rock candy." Good to know. It's surprising to me that Clapton had any time to enjoy the 60s era, when he spent a good portion of it gassed up in the dentist's chair getting his teeth drilled out for shoveling spoonfuls of sugar down his throat. Then again, this is a guy who's lucky to be alive, whether he knows it or not.

No comments:

Powered by Blogger.