It tasted like lighter fluid sprinkled with mint flakes. Its only landmark is a kick-ass bar called the Pink Elephant, but a half-mile or so away from "the Pink," in the middle of a redwood grove, there is, strangely enough, a bank of 16 pay telephones. Nelson Rockefeller, Henry Ford 2d, Robert Trent Jones, the golf course architect, and former California Lieutenant Governor Ed Reinecke have all been stage hands, and actors have included Bing Crosby, David Niven, Ray Bolger, Edgar Bergen, Phil Harris and Dan Rowan. A poster for one Grove play, Pompeii, featured a mighty erection under a toga, modelled no doubt on the redoubtable organ in the Pompeiian fresco photographed by many a touring tycoon. "We had rope trick. They talk business here all the time. Meese, by the way, is about the only major Reaganite who didn't end up as a member. In November 1916 Roy joined the prestigious and exclusive Bohemian Club and remained an active lifelong member. Inside the Grove there is a feeling of mournful inevitability about the day women will join the encampment. Though he cursed now and then, he seemed uncomfortable with the word damn, which he said almost sotto voce. Indeed, I was able to enjoy most pleasures of the Grove, notably the speeches, songs, elaborate drag shows, endless toasts, pre-breakfast gin fizzes, round-the-clock "Nembutals" and other drinks -- though I didn't sleep in any of the camps or swim naked with likeminded Bohemians in the Russian River at night. Art Linkletter? The Grove's keenest adversary is Mary Moore, who lives in a counter cultural shantytown in nearby Occidental. The cremation took place at the man-made lake that is the center of a lot of Grove social activity. Toms day began at 5:30 a.m., preparing for break-fast. Scenting power, press lords skip in from all over the country: Joe Albritton, former owner of The Washington Star; Charles E. Scripps and Otto Silha of Cowles Media; the McClatchys of the McClatchy chain; and David Gergen of U.S. News & World Report all obey the Bohemian command of keeping the goings-on from their readers. The encampment got even looser as the third and last weekend approached. On July 21 of this year Henry Kissinger sat at one of them, chuffing loudly to someone -- Sunshine, her called her, and Sweetie -- about the pleasant distractions of his vacation in the forest. At least six inches." I said we might have a deal for him. Late in the Low Jinks the elevator doors opened and a man came out wearing a rubber Henry Kissinger mask. The club motto, Weaving spiders, come not here! is a warning to leave talk of business and world affairs at home and turn one's mind to matters of art and leisure. Inside, a plump Secret Service guy in a Members Only jacket sat near a giant wooden owl. In its obsession with the encampment, BGAN has unwittingly taken on Bohemian traits, becoming a kooky mirror image of the Grove. Many older men die waiting. Reagan himself had been a guest at the Bohemian Grove since at least 1967 and an official member since 1975 , coincidentally a place also annually visited by David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger , as well as Nelson Rockefeller since at least the 1940s and descendants of J.P. Morgan and a handful of other East Coast elites. Tipping the help is strictly forbidden, but so is reprimanding them. "It's already got a fur coat and the license is a lot cheaper." I asked him whether it was true that it was at the Grove in 1967 that he, then the new governor, had assured Nixon that he wouldn't challenge him outright for the Republican nomination in 1968. Bohemian reminiscences describe such bizarre initiation rites as escorting new members to the redwood at which one of the founders "did his morning ablutions." Why, for example, areat least 80 percent of the Bohemians in a state of intoxication so advanced that many of them had fallen insensible among the ferns, gin fizz glasses gripped firmly till the last? He did take a crack at toilet humor: "You know, I got to take a second to do something naughty here, since this is an all-stag arrangement. No radios or television sets are allowed. But in fact, class and status differences among camps are pronounced. And they all sat around the lavish dinner circle feasting on lamb, salmon, steaks and assorted delicacies each night. Bohemian Grove is an Elite men's Only! He even went into the drunken depression stage and started claiming he's going to die in his 50s from a heart attack. The productive drunk is the bane of all moralists. And the sand at the Russian River beach is traversed by coconut-fiber mats and rich figured squares cut from the carpets in the "City Club," the five-story brick Bohemian building in downtown San Francisco. James A. Baker III, the current secretary of State, is also a member, but he couldn't make it this year. In one, The Eldorado, if viewers looked closely, they could. Bohemian Club literature is pious on this score. The poster outside Monkey Block camp advertising this year's Grove play, Pompeii, featured a gigantic erection under a toga. In sending his regrets by telegram, Mr. Nixon reportedly told the president of the club to continue to lead the people into the woods, while he, Mr. Nixon, would continue to lead the rest of the people out of the woods. A guest card was out of the question: club bylaws have stated that a member-sponsor's application "shall be in writing and shall contain full information for the guidance of the Board in determining the merits and qualifications of the proposed guest." The avenging posses may find some puzzling elements within the Grove. The encampment became controversial in the early Reagan years when reporters, still suffering the hangover of Carter populism, questioned club executive appointees about the club's sexist practices. Over the years, though, the artists' patrons assumed a larger percentage of the membership.. When expanded it provides a list of search options that will switch the search inputs to match the current selection. by Shurtleff, William, Publication date 2005. I love this tree as the most sound, upright and stately redwood in the grove. But what, in the end, does the member get for his pains? ", One reason for the Bohemian Club's poor public relations is the name it gave to the yearly opening ceremony: The Cremation of Care. The final blow to the hacks came soon thereafter. Holding meetings in the back room of a San Francisco Barbary Coast bar called The Jolly Corks, the club later extended membership to artists of all kinds, but the club symbol, to this day, is an owl, typifying the nightworking journalists, as well as wisdom. A set of checkpoints like the Berlin Wall seemed to stretch out behind him. The meal (tournedos of beef) was festive and communal. But Tom worked for an independent con-tractor supplying food and help and got $125 a day plus tips (officially banned at the Grove) and ended up with $3,000 for his three-week stint. Of course, just about anybody could hate the Grove. The getup stood out because it was so fastidious among men who had let themselves go. Gray, who this year had brought along Union Carbide boss Robert D. Kennedy. Typical attendees range from high-profile big boys like former Nixon cabinet member Henry Kissinger to powerful corporate chieftains whose names wouldn't draw a twitch of recognition from most folks on the street. Even the prickly Lee Kuan Yew hastened to visit the club, only to have the mortification of being mistaken for a waiter. In the end I entered by stealth. Simon was Treasury secretary in the Ford administration and today is a major savings and loan conglomerateur, active in takeovers. The Field Circle seats are steeply canted; sitting in one feels like being inside a megaphone. The Bohemian Club began as a San Francisco institu-tion in 1872, founded by journalists and kindred lowly scriveners as an excuse for late-night boozing. Other Lakeside speaking is more indulgent. But the biggest crowd pleaser was Bubbles Boobenheim, a showgirl turned patroness who rubbed her prosthetic behind against the elevator doors at stage left. The club says it serves as a "refuge" from the strivings of the marketplace, and though it's true that actual deal-making is discouraged, I heard business being done on all sides. To be quite frank, replied the Bohemian Club member who had disclosed that Mr. Ford had spoken, he put me to sleep.. Moore's answering machine message asking friends not to call her at her vintage-clothing store in the town of Sebastopol included a denunciation of the Cremation of Care. Came the reply: "Now, don't be modest, George." "Simon doesn't know he doesn't have money.". Where else could such men hope to chat privately with the head of IBM, a cou-ple of Rockefellers, bankers galore, a Justice of the US Supreme Court and Charlton Heston? One afternoon, for instance, the Valhalla camp deck was crowded with men drinking Valhalla's home-brewed beer and listening to singers. Bohemians sleep on cots in these tents, or, in the richer camps, in redwood cabins. Under the green parasol stood General John Chain, commander of the Strategic Air Command, who spoke of the country's desperate need for the Stealth B-2 bomber. Waiters and servants are brought up from San Francisco for the sessions, but many members insist on bringing their own servants and in some cases cooks. The Grove had been a major factor in his "homesickness when you are forced to be away, as I was, for eight years." The club's nemesis here is the state of California, which keeps chipping away at the Grove's maleness, lately threatening to take away its liquor license and its tax-exempt status because it discriminates against women. In 1981, for instance, Dan Rostenkowski, Ed Meese and former president of CBS News Van Gordon Sauter attended (Sauter as the guest of former California governor Edmund "Pat" Brown, Jerry's father). START or Stop: Do Nuclear Weapons Treaties Matter? Th encampment has become the primary watering hole for Republican administration officials, defense contractors, press barons, old-line Hollywood figures, establishment intellectuals and a handful of German speaking men in lederhosen. He is probably worrying about the cut of his tutu for the drag act for which he has been rehearsing keenly for many months. Separating the Red and Blue. This dick-fussing often manifests itself as that starkest of male nostalgias, the hankering for the punctual erections of boyhood. This year's Low Jinks was called Sculpture Culture, and the humor was not just lame but circa-1950s college follies lame. The jokes fit right into the Grove's Ayn Rand R&R mood. The country was still steeped in the aw-shucks authoritarianism of the Reagan years, and if there is any place to study the culture of our ruling class it is here among the Grove's benevolent, string-tie aristocracy. He said it was a big shot in the arm for Monte Rios ailing economy. He says he likes it that way. "My grandmother always said, 'You can find sympathy in the dictionary,'" a guy with a cigar said, walking on the River Road. We talked about his guest days at the Grove, before he became a member in 1975 (two months after he left the California governorship, a week after George Shultz joined). At his Lakeside Talk, Malcolm Forbes said that Khrushchev knows the Soviets "are in over their heads," and even as the name Gorbachev was murmured throughout the audience, Forbes rambled on, dotty and heedless, 25 years out-of-date. Industries PLC of England, a deal that could give Simon a toehold in Europe. George Shultz, the former secretary of State, wearing hiking boots, had listened while sitting under a tree. Many of the Boho rituals and its first play, The Triumph of Bohemia, were worked up by a real estate speculator called George Sterling who took to poesy and Boho-dom late in life and banished Care permanently in 1926 by taking strychnine in the Clubs city premises. I used my real name. Who are the members, and how do they join the club whose reason for being is the Summer Encampment? This year's speaker was Henry Kissinger on The Challenge of the '80s." Maclean's magazine, March 23, 1981 reported: "Each summer, for three weekends - this year's will be the 103rd - nearly 2,000 Bohemians, with guests in tow, speed in by car and corporate jet to their guarded Grove, close by the hamlet of Monte Rio (population 1,200) on the . In the good old days when the Illuminati had a firm grip on things, it was wherever the Bilderburgers decided to pitch their tents. MONTE RIO, Calif.When Gerald R. Ford, Henry A. Kissinger and A. W. Clausen joined 2,000 of the richest and most powerful men in the country at the annual ritual known as the Summer Encampment at Bohemian Grove near this sleepy hamlet of 997 last month, did they make decisions that will shape America's destiny, or was It merely the greatest men's party on earth?. The play, about greedy gold miners who came to California during the middle 1800's and kicked the Spaniards off their land, was written by Lou Felder, a Bohemian Club member who plays a fraudulent consumer advocate on the new TV show Fernwood 2Night.. Here are to be found members of the Bechtel clan owners of the largest engineering contractorship in the world, veterans of Republican Washington of the era of Gerorge Bush Sr (former Treasury Secretary Nick Brady, former Secretary of State George Shultz), souven-irs of industrial might (Leonard K. Firestone. No one would be surprised. After that I began working a dead West Coast relative's promise to have me out to the Grove one summer into a shaggy-dog story about my invitation. When they reached the water, they extinguished their torches. The contours of the Republican Party had changed, in a manner not entirely suited to the Club. Bush, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, and Bill Clinton, and then William Ritschel, Jo Mora, Arthur Putman, William Keith, Xavier Martinez, Edwin . It's easy to imagine that many early Bohemians started out as laborers and had to remind more aristocratic visitors that social mobility was a cherished ideal. The hacks soon concluded that Bohemianism, in the sense of real poverty, was oppressive. Bohemian Jack London was a socialist; Bohemian Henry George, a radical reformer. He got rousing applause when he called for greater regulation of the media. We were a few feet from the Lamp of Fellowship, and after looking me over he said he didn't know, this was pushing it. He wandered up with a beer in his hand as I sat reading on a bench and, pausing for emphasis, pronounced, "In the beginning the Lord created -- cunts.". Three other men discussed a friend of theirs who had left early that morning for New York. Bohemian, they agreed in their early annals, didn't mean an unwashed shirt and poetry; it signified London, the beau monde, men of eminence whose purses were always open to their friends. Also, it seemed possible that Ronald Reagan himself might make a triumphant return to his longtime camp, Owl's Nest. As dinner began that night, people were already sitting down on the redwood benches at the main stage for the Grove play (despite the poster, a humorless enactment of the destruction of Pompeii). The reporters that Mary Moore had helped spirit into the Grove for hours at a time had come out with vague, watered-down versions of what went on, or their news organizations had suppressed the accounts. It would seem that this year's encampment was useful to him. After a poor reception, Nelson Rockefeller abandoned his bid for the Republican nomination in 1964. Politicians say there is no place like the Grove to help get a campaign rolling. The cremation is intended to put the busy men of the club at ease and banish the stress of the outside world, but it arouses critics of the encampment because they interpret it to mean that Bohemians literally don't care about the outside world. William F. Buckley Jr. and Malcolm Forbes held court. I said when we got back we'd talk about it. Tunerville has all the members of the camp orchestra, Monkey Block many of the artists, and Sons of Toil the university faculty members. The main priest wore a pink-and-green satin costume, while a hamadryad appeared before a redwood in a gold spangled bodysuit dripping with rhinestones. Kissinger's crusty performance was not appreciated by the men he'd cut in front of in line. checks to shame. Members wash up in dormitory-style bathrooms and eat breakfast and dinner collectively in the Dining Circle, a splendid outdoor arena with fresh wood chips covering the ground and only the sky above. The man peeled off the mask to reveal that he really was Kissinger, and he said in his familiar gravelly accent, "I am here because I have always been convinced that the Low Jinks is the ultimate aphrodisiac." Chaperonage for adult women. It was set at crotch level, so you had to sort of crouch. He said Reagan would love it and motioned with an open hand toward the deck. But here we are in the Bush II era, and the Bush Clan is pure Secret Government, all the way from the old Rockefeller connection, to Skull and Bones and the Knights of Malta. I love this tree as the most sound, upright and stately redwood in the grove. One day I was at the Grove beach when a Bohemian discovered that a friend's sunscreen was supposed to impede aging. "Speaker: To Be Announced," it said, raising the question of what dignitary might be thought more important than Prime Minister Rocard, who was listed as the speaker on the middle Saturday. In this way I managed to drop in on the principal events of the encampment, right up to the final Saturday, July 29, 12:30 p.m., when I attended a Lakeside Talk whose giver was, intriguingly, the only one not identified in the program of events. The initiation fee for regular voting membership is said to be $8,500, and dues are set at more than $2,000 a year. "My friends don't understand this," a pudgy 35-year-old in front of me confided to his companion. The site's annual secretive meeting takes place for two weeks in July, with Powell writing that he was present at last July's event.
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