When you first hear about the Bohemian Grove, you might think it’s a joke, or at the very least some conspiracy nut’s wet dream. “So, wait,” you might say with a snort, “a group of right-wingers meets once a year up in the North Bay woods to decide the fate of the world?” And your eyes really start rolling when you hear the details of what they do up there: boozing, walking around naked, performing strange and terrible rituals (the cremation of a giant owl statue, for instance). Well, it’s all true, and has been for more than a hundred years. While the gathering is ultra-secret–it birthed the Manhattan Project, after all–it’s tough to keep all the weirdness from seeping out.
So that’s the jumping-off point for my new piece in San Francisco magazine, which surveys the Grove’s modern-day successors, which are far lighter on the debauchery and at least marginally more transparent than their predecessors. For some reason it’s not available online, but here’s a pdf (watch out–big file!).
All together now: “Who holds back the electric car? / Who keeps Steve Gutenberg a star? / We do!”