Since 1878, the Bohemian Club has gathered at a 2,700-acre private encampment in Monte Rio, California. Former presidents, sitting cabinet members, CEOs of the largest corporations on earth, military brass, intelligence directors. Reagan announced his presidential run there. Kissinger attended for decades. Both Bushes. The guest list reads like a roster of every major decision maker in the second half of the 20th century, and none of their decisions were made in public.
The centerpiece is the Cremation of Care ceremony — performed beneath a 40-foot stone owl by firelight in front of the assembled ruling class of the western world. The Club denied for years that anything like it existed. When Jones filmed it in 2000, their response was that the blood-curdling screams were a recording and the human-shaped effigy being burned was just a mock sacrifice. As if any of that makes it better. Richard Nixon disparaged it on the White House tapes. He went anyway, every year, for decades.
This is the collection for everyone who wants a souvenir from the party they'll never be invited to.
