"You can't," he said. If nine of the 11 men on the membership committee favor a candidate, he may be admitted, upon payment of $2,500 initiation fee and monthly dues of $41. Alexander CockburnsGuillotined! The cremation took place at the man-made lake that is the center of a lot of Grove social activity. The long tables are lit by gas pipes that spring from the ears of wooden owl silhouettes three feet above the table, a half dozen of these per table. Bohemians sleep on cots in these tents, or, in the richer camps, in redwood cabins. "I need the B-2.". If it all sounds eclectic, it is. Other references aren't so subtle. My neighbor suggested that someone ought to "shoot the fucker down," flashing the press hatred that prevails in Bohemia. Jimmy Carter is a Liberal Saint Now, Was a War Criminal Then. Black jokes are out because there are a handful of black members -- though one day near the Civic Center I did hear a group of old-timers trying to imitate Jesse Jackson. As time went on, however, the club became too elite for its own founders. Impotence is on many people's minds. Following closely in Mandalay's footsteps is Cave Man Camp. In years past speakers at the lakeside chats have included Dwight D. Eisenhower, before he was President; Robert F. Kennedy, when he was Attorney General; Arnold Palmer, the golfer; Nelson A. Rockefeller; former Chief Justice Earl Warren; David Sarnoff, former chairman of RCA; Herman Wouk, the writer; Dr. Wernher von Braun of the space program; Neil Armstrong, an astronaut, Richard M. Nixon, who is a club member, and Mr. Kissinger. The fairy unguents were wearing off; after two weeks the place stopped looking so magical and began to seem as ordinary as a tree-house. There's no end to the pee-pee and penis jokes, suggesting that these men, advanced in so many other ways, were emotionally arrested sometime during adolescence. No one inside acted suspicious, but paranoia about the Grove seemed justified, and I brought along my own version of cyanide: Interol, a tranquilizer used by actors to counteract stage fright. Bohemian Grove is a 2,700-acre campground in Monte Rio, Calif that serves as a meeting place for top politicians and businessmen who are members of the Grove society. Some day the walls will fall, though it's hard to see why any woman would want to join a crowd of old Republicans chewing cigars and reminiscing about potency. ", "My son was in Santiago, and David sent him letters of introduction to seven leading bankers in seven countries. A speech to the industrial and financial titans clus-tered for one of the Groves famous lake-side talks could make or break a candidacy. 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? Wandering into the clearing, he announced to the air, "I have to make two phone calls." The two of them were camping in Mandalay, the most exclusive bunk site in the encampment, the one on the hill with the tiny cable car that carries visitors up to the compound. Wine gets passed around (though members must sign for the bottles on a chit). The younger members brown-nose shame-lessly, making contacts. By midmorning its another day in Bohemia, with Toms hands never idle as he runs up Old Fashioneds and Manhattans. Those who attended included Art Linkletter, who was master of ceremonies, for one of the shows, Bing Crosby and Phil Harris, among the entertainers; A. Robert Abboud; John Diebold, the consultant; Edgar F. Kaiser Sr. of Kaiser Industries; Richard Cooley, former president of Wells Fargo Bank; Allan Sproul, former head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Emmet Solomon, former president of the CrockerCitizens National Bank, and Louis B. Lundborg, retired chairman of the Bank of America. Old friends move among the tables, kissing one another, and a ruddy Bohemian gets up on a bench and, as his friends cheer him on, removes his cap and opens his mouth to sing. He even went into the drunken depression stage and started claiming he's going to die in his 50s from a heart attack. Rudyard Kipling, romantic colonialist and exponent of the masculine spirit, is, naturally, one of the Grove's heroes, and "Mandalay" is a triumphant white man's-burden song. "We looked around and saw we were becoming an old-men's club," a member said, explaining recent efforts to recruit fresh blood. When they reached the water, they extinguished their torches. And my attempts to get a job as a waiter or a valet in one of the camps failed. For Republicans the club is an antechamber to the White House. "David Jr.'s going into the family business now. Henry A. Kissinger papers, part III > Series VII. 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. And all the talk about male fellowship often sounds just like a college freshman's version of No Gurls Allowed, an institutional escape from women, from their demands, aggressions and vapors. In one, The Eldorado, if viewers looked closely, they could. Chaperonage for adult women. Several of the Hoots jokes were at the expense of the homeless. And David Rockefeller too. Let my friends remember me by it when i am gone, reads a plaque left by a Bohemian at the base of a 301-footer. 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. The walled camps are generally about 100 feet wide and stretch back up the hillside, with wooden platforms on which members set up tents. The meal (tournedos of beef) was festive and communal. Rumor had it that Reagan was going to give the next day's Lakeside Talk. He must include the names of business or professional connections, wife's maiden name, and musical, oratorical, literary, artistic or histrionic talents.. It was born in the newsroom of the old San Francisco Examiner in 1872, when James F. Bowman, an editorial writer for the rival Chronicle, proposed it to some friends at the Examiner, including prominent journalist Ambrose Bierce. The scene was permeated by a kind of kitsch Black Forest imagery, and the setting seemed very Wagnerian -- though the music was sometimes undercut by the soft drumming of tinkling urine off the edge of the porch, where the beer drinkers went one after the other. The rough wooden tables were piled with perfect fruit. After all, this was Bohemia. He looked bewildered and hung over, and I figured Bohemians were warmly and mysteriously saying to him what they were saying to me: "I can tell this is your first Grove.". 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). This year Rocard's visit went unreported. He says he likes it that way. Rex Greed, an effeminate gallery owner who sells toilets ("a counterpoint of mass and void"), tries to convince artist Jason Jones Jr. that his future lies in sculptures composed of garbage. He said Reagan would love it and motioned with an open hand toward the deck. It was a good time to visit the Grove. The young Christian zealots of the Newt revolution were scarcely Low Jinksters, and Newt he did give a lake-side talk in 1995 was a little too tacky in style for the gin fizz set. "I know that if they could see it, they would see how terrific it is. Mr. Nixon also noted that while anyone could aspire to be President of the United States, only a select few could aspire to be president of Bohemian Grove. "His method was to seize a large horse bucket, throw a hunk of ice into it, pour in several bottles of gin and a half a bottle of vermouth, and slosh it all around," goes one Grove recipe. And Rex Greed said, "The only difference between rape and rapture is salesmanship." No one would be surprised. The size also variesonly 10 to 15 persons can be accommodated at some, while others range up to 150. Tom Watson, the builder of IBM, once took a long weekend off from his retirement job as US ambassador to Moscow to fly to San Francisco to dine with a Bohemian Grove board member and discreetly lobby for membership. In 1953, when he was vice president, Nixon led a ceremony honoring Herbert Hoover's 40th year as a Bohemian. ", At lakeside the grass was crowded for the day's talk. "We had jazz concert," Kissinger said. Just the same, the club needed such "men of use" to support their activities. Will California Save the Iconic Joshua Tree? Another, unwritten rule is that everyone drink -- and that everyone drink all the time. A high point of the middle weekend was the performance of The Low Jinks, the Grove's elaborate musical-comedy show. For three weekends every summerthis was the 99ththe club's nearly 2,000 members and their guests, most of them business and political leaders, join educators, scientists, artists and entertainers at this retreat in a red wood grove on the winding Russian River. Fifty people were arrested. Former Defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, former attorney general William French Smith and former Transportation secretary Drew Lewis are all members. Lowell Bergman, a producer with 60 Minutes who used to hunt rabbits in the nearby hills, remembered a fire road leading into the site near the Guerneville waste-treatment plant but said they'd spot me sneaking in. The guest list can be revealing as well. From time to time law enforcement has tried unsuccessfully to bring cases against local procurers, and the Bohemian Grove Action Network circulates testimonials by a former paid mistress of a club member ("I only saw him troubled by one thing," she wrote. Burn CARE and hurl his ashes, whirling, from our glade! Upon arriving to the United States, he excelled academically and graduated from Harvard College in 1950, where he studied under William Yandell Elliott. Even 100-year-old Grove annals have a homoerotic quality, with references to "slender, young Bohemians, clad in economical bathing suits." Kissinger had lolled on the ground, distributing mown grass clippings across his white shirt, being careful not to set his elbow on one of the cigar butts squashed in the grass, and joking with a wiry, nut-brown companion. Its mem-bership was dignified by Jack London, Mark Twain, Bret Harte and other literary roustabouts who had fetched up in the city after the Gold Rush. While president he had avoided the Grove, a custom Nixon cemented in 1971 when he canceled a speech planned for the lakeside in the secret encampment after the press insisted on covering it. Many older men die waiting. Henry A. Kissinger papers, part II > Series V. Photographs > General > Kissinger as "Soul Man," Bohemian Grove includes correspondence. You know you are inside the Bohemian Grove when you come down a trail in the woods and hear piano music from amid a group of tents and then round a bend to see a man with a beer in one hand and his penis in the other, urinating into the bushes. The members prefer to mix their own martinis. The following list of Bohemian Club members includes both past and current members of note. One day I drove up to the front gate and got a daunting glimpse of what looked like the Grove sheriff, a barrel like figure in a Smokey the Bear hat. It was just past noon on Sunday, the middle weekend at the encampment -- the busiest weekend, with attendance approaching 2,200 men. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. The woman on the line evidently objected to the joke, for Kissinger said, revealing a dovish streak, "Maybe the KGB did write it, but it is not a sign of strength.". The Monte Rio caller added that at least this quotient of Secret Government included good tippers, doling out splendid gratuities to their companions. Down by the lake I saw three men lying on the ground, talking. Nudity was more common then. "Oh thou, great symbol of all mortal wisdom, Owl of Bohemia grant us thy counsel!". Bohemian Jack London was a socialist; Bohemian Henry George, a radical reformer. ", Proudly Kissinger reeled off the names of some of his fellow campers: "Nick Brady and his brother is here." "He really put the balls into it. I would like to make the two-year congressman's term four years, to reduce the number of elections that we have, because I think that's one of the reasons that only about 53 percent of the people vote. You know how many times we've been in someone's home, and we've wanted to go to the powder room, and we've maybe said, 'Excuse me, I've got to powder my nose.' Every year there are new wrinkles on the cremation ceremony. It's only a matter of time before the club gets sued under either California's civil rights act or San Francisco's civil rights ordinance, both of which bar sex discrimination in business establishments. That leaves women and Hispanics as targets for jokes -- such as the one about Bubbles's protg Raoul, who painted Puerto Rican flags on the backs of cockroaches. That's the picnic scene at Russian River, where whitecaps and condoms meander down the foul brown estuary swirling amongst filthy young men who entertain disgusting Old Jew Pervs from Fire Island, Key West and West Hollywood. Wheres the fashionable rendez-vous for the Worlds Secret Government? "You got it too late." From its beginning, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-Two Bohemian Grove is a restricted 2,700-acre (1,100 ha) campground located in the forest of Monte Rio, California. 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. And they all sat around the lavish dinner circle feasting on lamb, salmon, steaks and assorted delicacies each night. ", It was in the phone circle that Henry Kissinger alienated some brother Bohemians on the middle weekend. The club's "men of talent" (i.e., artists and writers) included writers of a populist bent: Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Henry M. Stanley. Though I regularly violated Grove rule 20 ("Members and guests shall sign the register when arriving at or departing from the Grove"), I was never stopped or questioned. The simulacrum isnt half bad. 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. 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. To be quite frank, replied the Bohemian Club member who had disclosed that Mr. Ford had spoken, he put me to sleep.. (Cronkite camps in Hill Billies along with George H.W. There's all the redwood talk. Members have cited their privilege to walk about in "various states of undress." In the afternoon I walked up Kitchen Hill Road to Owl's Nest camp. (He meant Shankar Bajpai, former ambassador to the U.S.) "Today they had a Russian.". We shook hands firmly (his: small, bony) and chatted. He received his MA and PhD degrees at Harvard University in 1951 and 1954, respectively. Some anthropologists of Boho culture even believe that the Grove is now encircled with gay resi-dential suburbs that have inevitably sprung up to ac-commodate these migrants. On his visit to the city, Oscar Wilde gazed around at the fleshy faces and handsomely attired members and re-marked, I have never seen so many well-dressed, well-fed, business-like looking bohemians in all my life.. There are less elaborate stagings by the individual camps, which really exist as separate societies with members of each paying for their facilities. The peeing is ceaseless and more than a little exhibitionistic. ", Then the crypt of Care was poled slowly down the lake by a black-robed figure in a black gondola, accompanied by a great deal of special effects smoke. Comments by Ronald Wilson Reagan, said placards on the wooden signboards. So, as noted, was Herbert Hoover. Former Bank of America chairman Samuel Armacost brought IBM chairman John F. Akers, Bechtel chairman S. D. Bechtel Jr. brought Amoco chairman Richard Morrow. The Bohemian Grove belongs to the private San Francisco-based gentlemen's club The Bohemian Club. But the charges were dropped, and the man is remembered fondly in the Grove. 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. Bohemian reminiscences describe such bizarre initiation rites as escorting new members to the redwood at which one of the founders "did his morning ablutions." And membership comes dear. There's a kind of emotional experience with an election year, that between state elections, local elections, and besides, with a two year term, a congressman gets elected and the next day he starts campaigning for the next election." LOL that is some good fucking eyes wow he was so skinny then. The first thing I noticed was that he had finally let his hair go gray. Theres skeet-shooting on the private range. Carried by pallbearers and high priests in bright red hoods and flowing robes, the coffin burns as chants give way to a band playing There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.. It draws in notables such as former President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Dow Chemical Chairman . Meanwhile, the Bohemians' new favorite son had arrived in camp the night before. He is probably worrying about the cut of his tutu for the drag act for which he has been rehearsing keenly for many months. Everywhere you hear what is Bohemian and what isn't Bohemian, One night I wandered into Fore Peak camp and got a lecture from a man named Hugh about Bohemian values as they concerned Fore Peak's famous drink, a mixture of rum and hot chocolate. (This joke is funny because Kissinger was famous for saying that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."). Two weeks later he plunged into Sir James Goldsmith's battle to take over B.A.T. In mid-July each year, Bohemian Grove hosts a three-week . 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. The grove is divided into 127 camps, each with its own members. We're just overdoing it. "He's dead." . They spoke of "fairy unguents" that would free men to pursue warm fellowship, and I was reminded of something Herman Wouk wrote about the Grove: "Men can decently love each other; they always have, bur women never quite understand. After General Chain's talk, the usual quiet business chatter went on. This was about the highest security I saw inside. He projects an automatic, almost druggy congeniality. My first full-strength dose of Bohemian culture took place two weeks earlier, the first Saturday night, when after a long day in the Grove I took a seat on the grassy lakeside among 1,500 ocher men for the encampment's famously surreal opening ritual. I'm admitting for the first time in my life having no willpower," a man was saying to his wife on one of the public phones. Henry A. Kissinger papers, part III. I love this tree as the most sound, upright and stately redwood in the grove. They're going to have Pavarotti there in November. The getup stood out because it was so fastidious among men who had let themselves go. andA Colossal Wreckare available from CounterPunch. John McCosker of San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium gave a popular talk about certain species of fish found off the Galapagos Islands that can change their sex in order to survive. Reagan didn't get the question the first time around. Demonstrations outside the Grove a few years back often centered around the "Resurrection of Care.". But if publishers are allowed in, reporters are kept outan irony considering the club's antecedents. The camp Tom lived and worked at was thick with real estate tycoons and had a reputation for good food and comfortable appointments. 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. After a poor reception, Nelson Rockefeller abandoned his bid for the Republican nomination in 1964. The Owl Hoots, which are poster-size cartoons racked up each day near the Camp Fire Circle, are filled with pissing pictures. Current participants include George Bush, Henry Kissinger, James Baker and David Rockefeller a virtual who's who . Indeed, when confronted with a sex-discrimination suit a few years ago, the Bohemians indignantly asserted that theirs had to be a Men Only institution precisely because any woman entering the clubs precincts would see nothing but men occupied in this crude pastime. Then the organist struck up "America the Beautiful" and Reagan left in a red truck, waving. Sempervirens indeed. 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 . One old-timer said that Nixon was feuding with the board of directors. . Also, he's not as tall as he looked in office. One of them seemed puzzled -- the friend wasn't the sort to get going at 7:45 a.m., he noted. "There'd be a lot more preening and peacocking than there already is," a big gay Bohemian told me. The Mandalay camp roster told the story, with its grizzled veterans of the Reagan-Bush years. One day I was at the Grove beach when a Bohemian discovered that a friend's sunscreen was supposed to impede aging. Since everyone is supposed to kick back and forget work, it's the fuck-up's annual revenge. For example, at one point a Little League team came out that included Bohemians Bob Lurie and Peter O'Malley, the real-life owners of the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers, in uniform. Mr. Nixon was scheduled to give a second talk in 1971, which would have made him the first President to have spoken while in office, but he canceled when the White House Press Corps insisted on following him into the strictly guarded campsite. Find home again in the Grove! Colin Powell pictured at the Bohemian Grove in a photo hacked by Guccifer It would seem that this year's encampment was useful to him. Cronkite, as the owl, said that the only way Care could be cremated was to use fire from the Lamp of Fellowship before him, an "eternal" gas flame that burns day and night while the encampment is on. James A. Baker III, the current secretary of State, is also a member, but he couldn't make it this year. Just as you have to be sponsored for membership, you have to be sponsored for a camp. And Dwayne Andreas, the chairman of Archer-Daniels-Midland. This rule is strictly adhered to. Although the talent shows put on by Merv Griffin and Art Linkletter were reckoned at least in past years to be good, the plays are pretty awful, heavily freighted with double-entendres about swollen members and the like. Near the end of the last century the cult of the redwood grove as Natures cathedral was in full swing and the Boho-businessmen yearned to give their outings a tinc-ture of spiritual uplift. Hugh said that an old college friend came to stay in Bohemia and took over the mixing of the drinks. In mid-July each year, Bohemian Grove hosts a more than two-week encampment of some of the masters of the universe. In fact, the encampment has always had political significance. During the day there are enviro-strolls with some biologist from Stanford or Berkeley lecturing his retinue on successional stages in redwood regenera-tion. Degrowth or Debunk: Do Degrowth proponents have a strategy? "My grandmother always said, 'You can find sympathy in the dictionary,'" a guy with a cigar said, walking on the River Road. When I got to Monte Rio, only a couple of signs of protest remained. "My father said if you have a choice between an angry woman and a rabid dog, take the dog," Jason Jones Jr. said. 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. (Then the publisher of the Los Angeles Times, who had copies of his newspaper shipped up every day.) "Most of it. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, who spoke on the history of the state water problems and the creation of such programs as the Central Valley Project. Cutting in line is distinctly un-Bohemian behavior. A man from Monte Rio said he was only one of several towns-people renting cabins every year to prostitutes traveling from as far as Las Vegas to renew the Bohos spiritual fibers. One featured a spurious design for a commemorative stamp of club member U.S. Postmaster General Anthony Frank relieving himself on a redwood. Fireworks went off at the lakeside, and a brass band in peppermint-striped jackets and straw boaters came out of the woods playing "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.". Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. On hikes I'd taken, my impression had been that the only people patrolling the ten miles of Grove perimeter were a guy at the Guard House on Smith Creek Road who spent a lot of time whittling a walking stick and ancient Bohemians taking the daily 10:00 a.m. open-backed bus tour. But two insistently anonymous sources have disclosed that: William Buckley played Bach on an outddor piano while a New York cocktail pianist, George Feyer, played Mendelssohn concerto instead of Putting on the Ritz.. There's a feeling of both great privilege and rusticity. Bohemian Club In the Bohemian Club at what is known as Bohemian Grove in the redwood forest of California's Sonoma county, an event that continued into the 21st century. But best of all, there are the talent revue and the play. a Camp Meeker activist who runs the Bohemian Grove Action Network. 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. "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. Since 1980, Moore and as many as 400 other demonstrators . 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. The important men come out for the Lakeside Talks, and each speaker seems to assume that his audience can actually do something about the issues raised, which, of course, it can. At the opening of each summer season proper, on July 14 this year, there is the traditional masque, representing the banish-ment of Care. by Shurtleff, William, Publication date 2005. His friend, a man in a yellow brocade vest, agreed. At this point some hamadryads (tree spirits) and another priest or two appeared at the base of the main owl shrine, a 40-foot-tall, moss-covered statue of stone and steel at the south end of the lake, and sang songs about Care. [ link to imgur.com (secure)] Quoting: Ninbit. Here William Buckley described how he had sat at his desk and cried upon learning of Whittaker Chambers's death. Walter Cronkite. The pay phones were a hub of activity. He didn't ask Reagan my question, of course. No wonder this year's guest list included the two biggest congressional bagmen of recent years: Representative Tony Coelho, former chairman of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, and Representative Guy Vanderjagt, his counterpart on the Republican committee. I wanted to visit the former president. In 1984 folk singing demonstrators tried to quarantine the Bohemians inside the Grove because they were so dangerous to the outside world. He was surely influenced by Prime Minister Rocard's Saturday afternoon Lakeside Talk, in which he dangled the most sanguine business expectations of the new European order. Any Bohemian is welcome at such events. It ends with the symbolic burning in effigy of a wooden skeleton in a coffin that represents the end of the cares of the world. They wore bright red, blue and orange hooded robes chat might have been designed for the Ku Klux Klan by Marimekko. The Grove had been a major factor in his "homesickness when you are forced to be away, as I was, for eight years." Shultz, George and Stephen Davison Bechtel with Kissinger at Bohemian Grove [includes correspondence] 1 of 6: 2 of 6: 3 of 6: 4 of 6: Download PDF (3.23 MB) Full Folder View; Collection Information. By 1988 the gauntlet of hippies and solarheads and woman-identified women whom the Bohemians had been forced to maneuver their Jags and limos around to get to the gate had disappeared. There are lakeside talks. "Oh, Rocard is having a ball." No pee pee here! There are few rules, the most famous one being "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" -- in other words, don't do business in the Grove. It was decided, clubman Ed Bosque wrote, we should invite an element to join the Club which the majority of its members held in contempt, namely men who had money as well as brains, but who were not, strictly speaking, Bohemians. So they pulled in a few wealthy men of commerce to pay for the champagne and the rot soon set in.