In his August 2006 story “Bohemian Grove Exposes Itself!” the Weekly's Nick Schou interviewed an unnamed Orange County resident and former employee of the private, all-male, 2,700-acre forest retreat in Sonoma County that was founded in 1872 and served as stomping grounds for California's richest men. This was a coup because the Bohemian Grove's primary directive was that members and employees never speak with
reporters about the place, secrecy that no doubt fueled notorious rumors
of homosexuality, bizarre rituals involving satanism and human
sacrifice, and origins stretching back through history to a secret cult in ancient
Egypt. It was not Schou's interview that prompted a recent trip down memory lane by John Taylor, the Rancho Santa Margarita Episcopal priest and former Richard Nixon Library N Birthplace executive director, but “The Piss-Poor Secrets of the Bohemian Grove” on Gawker.
Like Schou's piece (which discovered members still like to
drink and piss on trees), and Gawker's (which offered “Good luck with
that!” to infiltrators bent on uncovering some cabal in the act of
running the world, complete with
Satanic rituals), and even a decade-old Forbes piece (which rated it a Burning Man for old dudes), Taylor discovered no big whoop, according to “Bohemian Grove Rhapsody” on his Episconixonian blog.
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I went in the early 1990s as an aide to former President Nixon and even
spent a night at the famed Cave Man Camp, where RN and Herbert Hoover
were both members. I saw nothing untoward–just a few hundred rich,
powerful men wandering along sun-dappled paths, telling stories, and
listening to jazz while sitting on redwood decks in the brisk evening
air and sipping drinks or eating chocolate chip cookies. It was
gracious but a little boring, if only because George Gershwin and Cole
Porter songs are more fun in settings with both men and women. I also
remember a lot of views and suggestions being exchanged about prostate
trouble.
Sounds
like poker night in a Laguna Woods rec room. Or a night with my uncle.
Taylor includes two photos with his post. He's in the '90s shot above with
Nixon and Cave Man campers Hank Greenberg of AIG, former attorney general Ed Meese, Dwayne Andreas of Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Herbert Hoover's grandson, Pete.
There's also a shot from 1967, when Nixon talked about an article he
wrote from the same year titled “Asia after Vietnam.” Then-Governor Ronald Reagan stands next to Dick.
Read the rest of Taylor's post for an amusing story about Nixon, Reagan and their resort wear.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.