Transcript
Listener Caller (0:00)
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Jake Brennan (0:05)
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Monarch is the all in one personal finance tool designed to make your financial life and your whole life easier. I can see exactly where my money's going to, what I'm spending on, what I need to be spending on, and what I don't need to be spending my money on. I mean, you guys know what it's like, this digital world that we live in. We're constantly signing up for services, subscriptions, all kinds of stuff that we think we need. And we might need it temporarily, but ultimately we don't need it in the long run. But you know, you wake up 10 months later and you realize you just spent a thousand dollars over the course of almost a year on something that you didn't need. Monarch is the go to tool for a New Year's financial reset. You can use the Monarch app to review your spending throughout the year, especially throughout the holidays. You can set fresh budgets for the new year. Get ready for 2026. I love their automated weekly money recap that they give you a window into for saving for my future financial goals. Monarch makes it super easy when more easier than ever to stay financially fit in the short and in the long term. This new year achieve your financial goals for good. Monarch is the all in one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use code disgraceland@monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% of your first year@monarch.com with code disgraceland. Hey discos, need a little more Disgraceland in your life? Just a touch to get you through. Yeah, me too. This is the podcast that comes after the podcast. Welcome to Disgraceland. The afterparty. Welcome to the Disgraceland bonus episode. A little thing we like to call the After Party. This is the show after the show. The party after the party. The bridge to get you from one full episode of Disgraceland to the other. The backyard to dig into the dirt. Our mission? To uncover the truth, to confront the myth, to reclaim the story. On this bonus episode we're discussing the passing of the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir in the long, strange weirdness of his affiliation with Bohemian Grove. We talk Johnny Thunders and First Wave Punk and get into your emails, comments, DMs, and as always, a whole lot of Rosie. This is the podcast for the musically obsessed, the outsiders, the independent thinkers who know that the best history is the history that gets buried. Disgraceland is where I tell the stories they didn't want told. The kind you'll end up telling someone else. Alright, Disco's, let's get into it. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir died since the last time we spoke. I'm not going to eulogize him here. You can get plenty of that elsewhere, and by people whose Grateful Dead fandom honestly runs a lot deeper than mine. But I will say that in all of my research, in everything that I've read, every person I've ever spoken to about the band, including one Dead associate who could only really be closer to the band if you were in the band. That's how close he was. In all of that, I never came across a shred of credible information that painted Bob Weir as a bad guy. And believe me, my rock and roll dirtbag antenna is pretty finely tuned, as you know. I think that it's safe to say that in an industry filled with feral animals, most of whom are driven by insatiable ids, and for whom kindness and selflessness are oftentimes in short supply, I think it's safe to say that Bob Weir was one of the good guys. I'm not suggesting the man was perfect. None of us are. Bob was the baby of the group. He was just 17. He's just 17 years old. Imagine that. 17 when he joined the band. He stayed in that band his whole life. Back then, they were known as Mother McCree's Uptown Jug champions before famously changing their name to the Grateful Dead. And maybe being the youngest had something to do with Bob playing the straight man to Jerry Garcia's far out improv and sometimes personal, unhinged liberation. But Bob Weir was still a member of one of, if not the greatest and strangest American rock and roll bands of all time. A band that lived and died by its own DIY code of artistic and personal freedom. Freedom at all costs. My point is that though Bob Weir was the group's straight man, he was still a member of the Grateful Dead. Which is why this whole Bohemian Grove affiliation with Bob always struck me as being just so weird, so strange. Now, I've resisted this story for years, but now might be the time that I dive in not to capitalize on Bob's death. By the time I'm done researching and releasing this story, a handful of other influential artists, musicians will likely have passed. So that's clearly not it. The real reason is to find out what the hell was actually going on. Now, if you aren't familiar with Bohemian Grove and you start researching it on the Internet, you're likely gonna run across some descriptions that paint a picture of just a simple social club for ultra connected, rich right wing dudes from CIA families from. From the prep school lineage of America. And you might also run into some folks who think Bohemian Grove is the Illuminati's headquarters. It's the legacy of Aleister Crowley and the keeper of all things, Bear Owsley, and of MK Ultra's darkest secrets. Bohemian Grove is a target rich subject for conspiracy theorists, which I have to admit, both repels and compels me. But either way, you can't get around Bob Weir's involvement, his affiliation, his membership. Now, it doesn't make him a member of the Illuminati, but it does beg the question, why was the guitarist for the Grateful Dead hanging out with Donald Rumsfeld? Okay. The Bohemian Club is a private San Francisco based club that owns and operates Bohemian Grove, about 75 miles north of the city. The club hosts one yearly retreat, but this is a retreat whose members are exclusively rich, wealthy. Actually not rich wealthy, let's be clear. And of America's old guard ruling class. These are pre globalism titans. Think 20th century, not 21st century. Pre Davos global economic influence. Back when white WASPy dudes with Ivy League pedigrees that stretch back to the First World War and beyond. When they. When those dudes still ran everything bohemian. Bohemian Grove is for dudes who started the oss, which became the CIA. Okay, These. These are the types of people who are hanging out at Bohemian Grove. Again, Bob Weir. And Bohemian Grove is also, goes without saying, probably it's also super white, hardly any Jews as members. Or blacks. Super WASPy Protestant, decidedly not Catholic. It's rumored that Edward Teller planned the Manhattan Project at Bohemian Grove. In 1967, Richard Nixon kicked off his 68 informally by giving a talk at Bohemian Grove. And Nixon was later caught on one of his Oval Office tapes describing Bohemian Grove as, quote, the most faggy goddamn thing you could ever imagine. Unquote. More on that in a second. And the retreats at Bohemian Grove, they produce their own entertainment? Okay, I don't know if you've ever seen the Good shepherd, the Robert De Niro, Matt Damon movie, the about the CIA and the origins of the CIA. But there is this retreat kind of big set piece scene that happens in the beginning and they come back to it in the end. And there are these skits, these men who dress up in drag and they do these songs and blah, blah, blah. And it's exactly the type of thing I've read that describes the entertainment ongoings at Bohemian Grove where the members put on skits and musical numbers. And these men being of the early 20th century vintage, most of the humor is, you know, it derides homosexuals and it's just. Yeah, you. It's silly, very silly. And because of that regressive silliness, I guess it supports Nixon's comments that were caught on tape that I just read to you that a heavy contingent of Bohemian Grove members for. For that retreat week anyway, let's just say they. The rumors are that they exercise their curiosity. Okay? Now that's not to say that Bohemian Grove is the least bit progressive. It's not. Not in any way. In fact, it is decidedly conservative. One rumor claims that back in the 1970s, the Grove employed an actual member of the Nazi party. One who drove a company Jeep around the grounds, transporting guests with an Ern Rommel sticker proudly displayed on the vehicle. President Ford, of all people, made him remove the Nazi sticker. Now, whether or not the Bohemian Grove employee was an actual Nazi, that remains a matter of debate. But the sticker was real. And Ford made the Grove employee remove the Nazi paraphernalia. That is not disputed. All of this begs the question. What the hell was Bob Weir doing at this place with Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead, as well, as late as 2009, probably later even. I need to do more research to find out again. 2009. After performing benefit concerts to raise money for Barack Obama in 2008, Bohemian Grove is where America's past power brokers, the dudes who brought you Enron, Halliburton, WMDs, MK Ultra, Operation Mockingbird, and a mountain of other bullshit. This is where these dudes hung out. This is where these dudes came together once a year. Now, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, and I most certainly don't, let's be clear. The Bohemian Grove retreats. This is where robed figures in hoods set fire to effigies. This is. Look, I know I'm trying to paint the picture of conspiracy theorists, but that little bit I just read you. The robed figures and hoods setting fire to effigies, that actually happened. It's on video, okay? But sacrifices, human sacrifices, all kinds of other stuff. Wild, wild theories. Praying to some ancient God named Moloch. How much of this is true? How much of this is just some weird prep school skull and bone shit meant to make old rich dudes feel mysterious? I don't know. But either way, I repeat, what was Bob Weir doing with these dudes? Was he an actual Satanist, as has been suggested? Was he into child sacrifice? Was. Was he OG all seeing Illuminati? I don't think so. No, no and no. But when asked about Bohemian Grove throughout his life, Bob Weir was, let's just say, purposefully vague. Especially when. When. When he addressed these comments back in 2022. And. And vague is putting it charitably. There's an interview that you can find where we're online, where Bob's on video spitting out some gobbledygook about community, the community of Bohemian Grove. And he's also pretty disingenuous when he's describing the types of people who hang out at Bohemian Grove. Its members making it seem like most of the Bohemian Grove members have some sort of quote unquote, artistic bent. They don't. I mean, some do, but they're very much in the minority. Although I did find out that there's typically a 15 year waiting list to join Bohemian Grove, but that artistic types and entertainers get fast tracked to membership. The Bohemian Grove, the retreat. Over 2,000 men attend. And you gotta know this part. The lodging is divided up into different camps, just like, you know, a summer camp would be. And to hear Bob Weir tell it, it's as if he was sitting by a campfire trading songs with Steve Miller while Mickey Hart played the bongos. But in reality, Mickey Hart was is for all we know, part of the Bohemian Grove camp called the Hillbillies. That camp also housed Donald Rumsfeld when Rumsfeld was alive and when Mickey was attending. Presumably he's not anymore. I don't know. Bob Weir was in a camp called the Rattlers. And I haven't been able to figure out yet, I haven't been able to find in the research which boldf neocon names, if any, that Bob Weir was camped up with. But regardless, this is so perplexing and it's great. Music history counterpoint. It's kind of mysterious and I am fascinated by it. Am I judging Bob Weir for his involvement in the secret society with some of the most ghoulish power brokers in American history? Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld specifically? No, I'm not. I actually think more highly of him for it. For reasons that I guess I'll get into when I write my Bob Weir episode and fully explore the mystery of Bohemian Grove. Bob Weir, an American original if there ever was one. Rest in peace. I'm barely scratching the surface here when it comes to the theories about what the men in the woods were up to. The Bohemian Grove conspiracy theories are nuts. And Seth and I are going to dive into some of the more interesting ones in the exclusive section of this after party. Go to Disgracelandpod.com to sign up so you can cop this and more exclusive Disgraceland content and unlock ad free listening. All right. Have you heard the Johnny Thunders episode of Disgraceland yet? Our newest full episode. It's available fresh for your ears right now and on Friday. Coming up, right after this bonus episode is our MC5 story. We chose MC5 in our rewind slot this week because of the connection between the Motor City Fives, Wayne Kramer and Johnny Thunders in the brawl in Boston that we detail in our exclusive mini episode this week for our All Access members on Apple and Patreon. Coming up next week on Tuesday, our new episode on the Runaways. When you're listening to this episode on the Runaways, be thinking about more female artists that you'd like to hear covered in Disgraceland. That's going to be the question of the week. 617-906-6638 send me a voicemail, leave me a text and let me know your recommendations. We'll be back right after this with Your voicemails, texts, DMs and more. Back in a flash.