More on Peter Reich (LONG)

[Henry Chai <chai%utflis%toronto.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>]

[ Do *you* like grouper fish? ]

I have sorta finished "A Book of Dreams" by Peter Reich (I rushed
thru it).  Here's what I think is relevant to "Cloudbusting".

Peter Reich (known as Peeps to his Dad) was close to his parents.
When he was 10, his mother left them because she was a rather independent
person and also because she got fed up with Wilhem's work.  Thus Peter
was very close to his dad after that.  The government people came and took
Wilhem away when Peter was 13 (Wilhem also died in the same year).
With regrads to the line "I can't hide you from the government", I quote
a passage that describe what happened when the government people
FDA agents and a US marshal came in "a shiny black car".
To get to the Reichs' estate, Orgonon, visitors have to pass the
abandoned laboratory at the foot of the hill.
Wilhem instructed Peter to keep the government people at the lab
by asking them to wait, and then to call him on the phone, so that
Wilhem can be prepared.  Peter did as he was told, and as he called
Wilhem, who was in his study, the government people sneaked up the hill:

   	  "Daddy! They didn't wait"
	  Tears tangled my words making the reciever wet and shiny.  The car
	disappered around around the lab up the hill.
	  "Daddy! They're coming up! OH DADDY OH GOD THEY DIDN'T WAIT.
	THEY'RE COMING UP DADDY THEY'RE COMING UP!"
	  The screen door slammed before the receiver hit the floor. Grass
	was already whipping my legs as I ran up the hill.  [...]
	  Everett Quimbly said if you run with your hands open you could
	go faster so my hands were wide open going back and forth like a
	train all the way up to the hill like a train running.  Because if 
	I run fast enough maybe I could beat them to he top of the hill and 
	warn Daddy.  What did they want?  What did they want? Why did they 
	always make us unhappy?

Actually that time the FDA people just wanted the orgone accumulators 
destroyed.  The actual "capturing" of Wilhem was not described.

This passage probably gave KB the line "On top of the world / looking
over the edge":

	  He was like a man who was standing on top of the world looking
	over into a new world.  That is what Daddy was like. He had lifted
	himself so he was looking the horizon to a new world, a free and
	happy world.  He stood there on the edge of the universe looking
	into the future. [...] They pulled the ladder out from under him 
	and killed him.

The "march" music of the song could have been inspired by the "Corps of the
Comsic Engineers", in which Wilheim was the general, Peter was both lieutenant 
and sergeant, and their followers were soldiers and scouts.  They believed they 
were soldiers fighting against UFO's.

The line "Your son's coming out" does not refer to Peter admitting his
homosexuality :-). When he was about 26, Peter saw the movie "The Fly"
(you know, the one about the scientist who did an experiment which caused
his own body to be mixed up with a fly's so that he has the head and an arm
of the fly's).  It had a most profound effect on him:

	  In the last scene, a benevolent uncle comforts the scientist's
	widow and son.  He tells the son that his father had "touched on
	knowledge of the future," and, "Maybe someday, in many years, the
	world willl understand his contribution," and, "he was ahead of 
	his time". [..] Right there in the movie, people were laughing at
	how incredible The Fly was when sitting right there in the middle 
	of the crowd was someone who had been through something like that
	and it was real.  It was just more believable in a movie.
and:

	  The first thirteen years of my life always seemed most real to
	me, more real than anything that happened afterwards.  And now, 
	suddenly, with the infant soldier fading away in the bright lights 
	after the movie, I felt afraid that my life would be empty and lost.
	  The last thirteen years were lost and unhappy.  The infant was
	frozen inside me, unable to live.  [..]  It took a movie to break
	my shell, maybe because movies are so close to dreams and I love my
	dreams more than reality.  There had been too much sadness; not
	enough laughter.

That's all, can't find anything related to trains though.  In another book
"The Man Who Dreamed of Tomorrow" by Mann and Hoffman (with foreword by 
Wilhem's wife), it was mentioned that during his few months in prison Wilhem 
put together a book called "prayers and Poems" for Peter.  Haven't found it
in the library yet; maybe it would contain some more helpful stuff?

Sorry for the length (it's almost as long as some of the postings by Doug
on net.music ;-), but I felt these are relevant to deeper understanding
of the song.
--
Henry Chai, just a humble student at the 
Faculty of Library and Information Science, U of Toronto
{watmath,ihnp4,allegra}!utzoo!utflis!chai