Fourth District Councilman Patrick O’Donnell is still waiting for that Bohemian Club membership …

In an exercise that happens once a year for about three weeks, a tiny little Sonoma County burg gets overrun by bank execs, politicians, industry tycoons, even presidents of the United States (especially if they’re Republicans).

You can’t read about it on Craigslist unless they run low on footmen, but it happens mid-July like clockwork: members of the quite conservative, ultra-exclusive Bohemian Club (membership: not you) jet into, well, outside-of-town, and are promptly whisked by private auto, ultralight aircraft and limited-edition NASA jetpack (Dick Cheney has the other one) to a town called Monte Rio.

There (details get fuzzier), they bask in their reflected wealth, commune with nature while the Rolls-Royces idle, and talk the kind of business the rest of us only find out about when someone takes our house–to make way for a CIA bunker.

Also: they’ve been known to put on plays, perhaps because when this thing started, the wireless hadn’t been invented.

If this sounds sketchy, maybe that’s because none of us–raise your hand if I’m wrong–have ever attended this little soiree. When Vanity Fair contributing editor Alex Shoumatoff tried to crash the party, for a piece in the magazine’s May issue, he was arrested on suspicion of trespassing–but not before bringing the picture somewhat into focus.

Writes Shoumatoff: “The encampment is more of a drunken blowout and an opportunity for bonding than a serious roundtable like Davos, although there is a series of lakeside talks that are enlightening about what the government has up its sleeve for the upcoming year. Kissinger is a perennial favorite. His speech nine years ago, ‘Do We Need a Foreign Policy?,’ was music to the ears of the Bush administration. In 1942, Edward Teller is said to have planned the Manhattan Project here.”

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“Herbert Hoover, an enthusiastic Grover, called it ‘the greatest men’s party on earth,’ ” Shoumatoff continues.

“Aside from the prostitutes who are rumored to be visited by randy Grovers at local bars and motels, it’s a guys-only affair, and, historically, there’s always been talk of buggery in the dappled shadows under the redwoods, particularly at Highlanders, perhaps simply because members wear kilts and nothing underneath.

“Richard Nixon (a member of Cave Man camp), whose 1967 lakeside talk kicked off his successful run for the presidency, was caught on one of his Oval Office tapes describing the Grove as ‘the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine.’ ”

Yes, the Bohemian Club is meeting right now in Monte Rio, as it has for more than 100 years. And we know this because? Fourth District Councilman Patrick O’Donnell is right in the middle of it. Sort of.

Is he a member? An invited guest? Not exactly, sez the councilman, reached via cellular telephone in, duh, northern California.

“Um, well, my mom grew up in the city of San Francisco, so as a child she came up here during the summer months,” O’Donnell said Thursday afternoon. His parents brought him, and now he’s vacationing there–phoning in to this afternoon’s special Long Beach City Council meeting to talk budget and wetlands.

In mid-July. From the same whistle-stop graced by both George Bushes, Ronald Reagan, Nixon–and, reportedly, every Republican president since 1823. (Must be some closely-guarded GPS coordinates.)

“This is the first time I’ve done it. This is only the second time it’s happened that I know of,” said O’Donnell–meaning join a Long Beach City Council meeting by telephone. (Former First District Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal held the other teleconference, he said.)

“The Bohemian Club is meeting,” the councilman continued. (“I know,” I said.)

And did they let him in? Has he been initiated into the ways of … some old guys?

“Not yet, but it may happen tonight,” O’Donnell said with a twinkle. “But I have encountered people who are attending the event. Some of the workers have come into town. In fact, they were from Southern California, some catering folks.”

It’s pretty obvious that all is not business as usual, the councilman said.

“You can see, there’s a Bentley in town. You see a lot of the Lincolns with tinted windows–it’s pretty obvious they’re shooting for either San Francisco International Airport or the Santa Rosa Airport. There’s a lot of jets out there. I might go check them out.”

Jet spotting should be easier than celebrity watching; O’Donnell said he hasn’t actually glimpsed any famous faces.

“Someone said that Jim Belushi came in last night,” the councilman said. “I haven’t seen anyone other than the workers.”

Jim Belushi? Can it be true? If this Bohemian Club thing reaches all the way to Jim Belushi, well, uh, we’ve got nothing to worry about.

Tags: Bohemian Grove, California, Central Intelligence Agency, Craigslist, dick cheney, First District Councilwoman Bonnie Lowenthal, Fourth District Councilman Patrick O'Donnell, George H.W. Bush, george w. bush, Jim Belushi, Long Beach, Long Beach City Council, Los Cerritos Wetlands, Monte Rio, nasa, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Southern California, the Bohemian Club, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas