Birdman's Camp Camp Gazette

Express Night Out

2008-10-10T13:40:00.000-07:00

New York Times

2008-09-07T13:27:00.001-07:00

I finally made the New York Times !

J-Vibe

2008-08-07T12:53:00.001-07:00

One of my FAVORITE magazines !

Herald Net

2008-08-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

All those folks in Snohomish Countay WA can now see me...lucky bastards!

Centre Daily Times

2008-07-29T13:26:00.001-07:00

Centre of what? I have NO idea!

Modern Jewish Moms

2008-07-29T13:10:00.000-07:00

Mazel Tov !

Kansas City Star

2008-07-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, the KC Star...Dorothy & Toto would be so happy!

Fresh Fiction

2008-07-29T12:39:00.000-07:00

Fresh Fiction...but it's a NON-Fiction book !

TDN

2008-07-24T12:19:00.000-07:00

The Daily News...Of Longhorn, WA !!!

Charlotte Observer

2008-07-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

Time to eat some grits while reading the Charlotte Observer !

NPR

2008-07-23T09:00:00.001-07:00

Wow...the book was on Boring Radio !

San Francisco Chronicle

2008-07-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

Before kids stopped talking and started texting, there was summer camp, where generations of children met face-to-face in what for many was their first time away from home.

At camp in the 1980s and early '90s, girls blushed over purity tests ("Have you ever ...?") boys dressed like members of Wham! and went punch-for-punch (chest shots), and teens had 24-hour relationships ("Hi ... I love you ... Don't talk to me.").

"Camp Camp: Where 'Fantasy Island' Meets 'Lord of the Flies,' " (Random House; $25), a glossy scrapbook of camp photographs and memories collected by Roger Bennett and Jules Shell, arouses that nostalgia.

Bennett, who was born and raised in Liverpool, England, spent just one summer in camp. He remedied his lack of expertise by watching Ivan Reitman's 1979 comedy "Meatballs" (Reitman wrote the book's foreword) and then by poring over thousands of camp photographs, letters and diary entries. The final result is a dense chronicling of teenage mob mentality, loneliness and commitment to obeying customs, regardless of their absurdity. Bennett spoke with us from Manhattan, where he lives and works.

Q: Your first book, "Bar Mitzvah Disco: The Music May Have Stopped, but the Party's Never Over," was wildly successful, perhaps because many remember the year in elementary school when bar and bat mitzvahs occurred weekly. How do you explain the book's success?

A: "Bar Mitzvah Disco" was about bar mitzvahs in the same way Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" was about the animal kingdom. The book began to tell the coming-of-age story of our generation via one night of adolescent madness in which many of us were proclaimed to be men and women overnight, even though we were often light-years away from puberty. Summer camp was the logical next step, as it was the place where so many truly came of age in the one or two golden months a year in which we escaped the smothering embrace of home to create temporary teenage utopias run by kids, for kids, each one a sexual petri dish with its own musical soundtrack and sense of style.

Q: In this day of hypercompetitive and academically focused camps, do you see the nostalgic feelings some associate with camp becoming extinct?

A: Walk into American Apparel and look at the vast quantities of velour shorts, ringer T-shirts and tube socks on sale, and it seems like the 1980s summer camp experience never went away. But while summer camp is more popular than ever, the era captured in the book is most definitely a thing of the past. Our book has developed a following on Facebook as a place where those who went to camp in the '70s, '80s and '90s can come together and debate critical issues - which is a more effective aphrodisiac, Hai Karate or Drakkar Noir? Which Keds were cooler, white canvas or white leather? But it has also become a favorite of high schoolers who live for camp in the present, and to them the era it depicts is closer to Henry Ford inventing the Model T and the Wright brothers taking flight than today.

Q: What are the best and worst camp experiences you came across?

A: We subtitled the book "Where 'Fantasy Island' Meets 'Lord of the Flies' " because even for the most camp-crazy, it was the unique juxtaposition of opposites that was camp culture, which gave the place its beauty. This was a complex place where bursts of frantic excitement coexisted with long periods of calmly hanging out, the thrill of a newfound love was replaced by the shattering pain of being viciously dumped (all in the same night), and the freedom to test your boundaries existed alongside an unshakeable homesickness. The worst aspect of the book was surprising, seeing as it showcases the stories of individuals in their 20s and 30s. A number of people we wrote about are no longer with us. Indeed, the book is dedicated to a counselor who shaped hundreds of lives and passed away last November at the age of 37, a fact that makes the mission of all our projects seem a little more critical - to offer readers an opportunity to ask themselves who they are and how they got to be this way.

Q: What research methods did you employ?

A: We spent nearly three years piecing this story together, collecting tall tales and over 80,000 photographs via our Web site and completing more than 300 interviews with former bunkmates across the country, each more willing than the last to catalog the ways in which camp made them who they are today. If Mr. Tom Brokaw wanted to capture the essence of our generation, he would have written this book. We uncovered vast networks of former campers across North America whose number, fanaticism and collective power are staggering. While most have gone on to create what pass as normal lives on the surface, most seem ready to respond to a Color War break-out at a moment's notice.

Q: What didn't make it into the book?

A: Nearly 80,000 photographs that should be in the Smithsonian. I come from England, where summer camps do not exist. I did not encounter summer camp until I came to Maine at the age of 19 as a rare breed - the foreign counselor. What I encountered blew me away. Writing this book was an opportunity to immerse myself in the wonder that is America, an experience roughly on par with de Tocqueville's as he researched "Democracy in America." The first draft we submitted came in at about 1,000 pages. We were staggered by the vast breadth of camps - each in a compressed universe with its own rhythm, traditions and more ritual than your average Shriner Temple. We still receive photos every day and post the most stunning on www.campcampbook.com, paying tribute to each Champion sweatshirt, Swatch watch and pair of OP shorts.

Q: What would you have liked to include?

A: Perhaps this is another book, but we wish we had more interviews with camp directors - men and women who dedicate their lives to shaping those of thousands of kids, motivated more often than not by the depth of their own experiences when they were campers. They are unsung heroes. And I wish we had more of an opportunity to dwell on the mysterious beauty of the Kodak Disc Camera, the weapon of choice for so many of the photographs we received. As we say in the introduction to the book, "The graininess and poor definition of their photographs are much missed and deeply mourned."

Q: Any humiliation rituals you left out?

A: We collected more than 40 different types of wedgies, from the Reverse to the Hook of Death, but only had room for seven in our list of "20 Acts of Violence That Say I Love You," which documented random acts of hazing, some so creative they stand as a unique tribute to the spirit of innovation that makes this country great. One of the most interesting discoveries we uncovered in our interviews was that so many of the victims of everyday sadism actually loved it. As one said, "To be on the wrong end of a rattail or an atomic wedgy meant your counselor noticed you - that in a perverse way, you had arrived."

Q: Would you send your own children to camp?

A: Of course, if only to create an excuse to keep going back to camp. The institution of camp is all about instilling a sense of self-confidence, freedom, exploration and experimentation. What parent wouldn't want to inculcate all of those values in their kids? Our only challenge will be to pick just one camp from the hundreds of amazing possibilities in the book. We will pre-rip our kids' underpants, though, to ensure that in the event they are on the wrong end of a bungee wedgie, the ordeal will not last too long.

Q: Explain the Academy of the Recent Past and what are some projects planned for the future?

A: The Academy of the Recent Past ( www.academyoftherecentpast.com) is a collective dedicated to creating popular histories by rummaging through the flotsam and jetsam of our lives, inspired by Jean Baudrillard's quote that the "Miracle of collecting ... is what you really collect is always yourself." A couple of our upcoming projects have San Franciscan partners, including "For Those Who Tried to Rock" ( www.triedtorock.com) with the remarkable David Katznelson, an attempt to create a sonic history of popular music as told by the stories of bands that never made it, those formed by teens with that perfect mixture of big dreams and questionable talent in suburban garages, high school music rooms and college dorms across America.

Q: Do summer camp and American politics have anything in common?

A: Summer camp traditionally ends in Color War, where the entire camp is divided for several days of Olympic-style competition, pitching friend against friend and sibling against sibling. The animosity and dirty tricks executed there make those in the election cycle look like child's play, yet at the end, winner and loser cry together, and prepare to sign each others' yearbooks. Draw strength from that, America!

Smith Magazine

2008-07-17T09:32:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, Smith Magazine, probably with a circulation of about 40 people, put me in !

Lime Life

2008-07-15T06:17:00.001-07:00

Now you can see my mug while laying out in the Hamptons!

Nylon Magazine

2008-07-10T11:13:00.001-07:00

One of my goals was Nylon Magazine. Next up...I'd like to be in Jet or Ebony !

Sullivan County Democrat

2008-07-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

County plays prominent role in new camp book
By Jeanne Sager

SULLIVAN COUNTY — July 4, 2008 — They came in droves summer after summer, a generation of kids coming of age away from home.

Now the camps that shaped the likes of the MTV Networks President Doug Herzog, Discovery Channel show host Josh Bernstein and thousands of other kids from the ’70s and ’80s have been immortalized in print.

Gracing the cover of the book that hit shelves nationwide last month is Sullivan County’s own Camp Sequoia – the now-defunct Rock Hill camp that still draws alumni to a gather at the Meadowlands for a yearly tailgating party at the preseason Jets/Giants face-off.

"Camp Camp," published by Crown Publishing, an imprint of Random House, is filled with pictures and stories from campers who spent their formative summers at dozens of sleep-away spots around the Catskills.

Actress Rachel Cohen sent in a copy of the old "purity tests" the kids passed around Camp Tel Yehudah in Barryville in the mid-’80s and related the fateful night a rainstorm that turned the production of Elie Weisel’s "Dawn" into a comedic disaster.

"The book is about the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel. Heavy stuff," Cohen recalled. "The grand finale of our performance was the entire cast singing ‘Goodnight Saigon,’ the [Billy] Joel song that opens with the sound of whirling helicopter blades. By then, rain was seeping through the scenery. We were singing away on stage in our Holocaust outfits laughing, aware we had just turned this most somber of books into a comedy."

Fellow camper Mik Moore, now the director of communications and public policy at Jewish Funds for Justice in New York City, related his memories of the intercampus basketball rivalries at Tel Yehudah – and the year a kid from Argentina joined his team to help take them "over the top… out of nowhere."

The rest of the time at camp was spent singing, Moore said. Singing or dancing.

And when kids from New York brought Public Enemy and Heavy D, a girl from Seattle brought Sir-Mix-a-Lot and a kid from Chicago brought his "house sound," rap started to spread.

"It is one of the great untold stories: the role Jewish summer camp played in the spread of rap music to the suburbs of America," Moore said.

Some of the area’s operating camps get their 15 minutes too.

Scott Rothschild’s photo of football great Herschel Walker’s visit to his camp in 1989 came straight from Monticello’s Camp Kennybrook, while a number of former campers and counselors at Camp French Woods sent their memories to book editors Roger Bennett and Jules Shell.

Camper Katie Schumacher sent a plea from Hancock – "Dear Mom, Please pick me up from camp tomorrow. I’m so homesick. By (sic) please pick me up!"

But life got better – she found silk screening.

"When I was really homesick, I could go to Arts and Crafts and sob and still accomplish something!" the Short Hills, NJ mom recalled.

French Woods owner Ron Schaefer finished reading "Camp Camp" just in time to open his facility for its 39th season.

"The book is great," he said. "Camp has been a very important factor in so many people’s lives.

"The camaraderie, the friendships made… you can’t recreate that opportunity anywhere else," he said. "Not to mention the sense of self-assuredness children are able to get by going away to camp."

They feel free leaving their parents and going it on their own for a summer, but they’re still in a safe haven, Schaefer said – that’s the beauty of the camp experience.

In fact, Bennett and Shell call their ode to camp "Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies" because of the insulated environment formed in rural locales away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

An English college student who earned a trip to America at 19 to work as a counselor at a camp in Maine, Bennett said he found an incredible "compressed universe" where kids were learning life skills and coming of age.

When the duo finished their "Bar Mitzvah Disco," a book published in 2005, they found a natural sequel.

"Bar mitzvahs are sort of a fake ceremony in which a child becomes an adult in the Jewish faith," Bennett said. "Camp is the place where so many people came of age – over 80,000, a vast nation of young Americans who are now successful lawyers, doctors, what have you, still dreaming of color war.

"It’s the perfect prism through which to look at the culture of the ’70s and ’80s of America," he continued.

As a Brit with only a summer’s taste of camp life, he treats the subject with reverence but allows himself a bit of space – making space in the book for the good, the bad and the incredibly geeky.
Case in point – the book’s cover.

Kevin "Bird" Harrison has devoted a blog to each time his young mug – dressed in an over-sized Camp Sequoia t-shirt with one athletic sock drooping and glasses that dominate his face – makes it into national press for the book. The account executive for a sunglasses manufacturer is now married with a daughter and will always remember the fatal mistake of going to sleep in the boys’ bunk.

"You could wake up in the middle of the lake with your bed balanced in kayaks, or be induced into the act of wetting yourself by having your hands dipped in a bucket of water," he says. "But the boys’ bunk was also a place of radical inclusion. Amid the peculiar stench of wet towels, Deep Heat, Hai Karate aftershave and pine sap that hung heavily, there was much that brought the bunkmates together."

With a foreword by "Meatballs" director Ivan Reitman and the stories and pictures of what was really going on inside the forests of the Catskills and beyond, "Camp Camp" isn’t just a love letter to camp.

It’s a campers’ love letter to the places that made them who they are. Places like Sullivan County.

Red Stamp

2008-07-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhh, nothing like making Red Stamp !

Asylum

2008-07-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

I'm in Asylum ! My life is now complete !

Herald Tribune

2008-06-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

Having thoroughly plumbed the joys and pains of the suburban Jewish coming-of-age scene of the 1970s and '80s ("Bar Mitzvah Disco"), the people at the so-called Academy of the Recent Past have turned their curatorial eyes to a book project so heartbreakingly rendered that it almost hurts to look too closely at the results.

But look we must. Stare, readers, into the woods deliberately (apologies to Henry David Thoreau) and come back with us to summer camp, in the acid-wash-George-Michael haze of a certain, brief era. Come for forced participation in sports; come fight the end-of-summer tribal color wars (or any variation of capture the flag); come for the mind wedgie. At 12, you get sent off to camp and feel homesick. At 36 (or 38 or 41), you would do anything to go back to camp. This is a book about that longing.

"Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies" is being shelved in the humor section of your friendly big-box bookstore because, sure, it IS funny.

And yet, a few pages in, you start to wonder if it belongs to some whole other category. This is the real stuff, going deeper than any VH1 '80s nostalgia trip or a rerun of "Meatballs," Ivan Reitman's seminal 1979 summer camp comedy -- which gets big ups in "Camp Camp."

(Reitman pens a brief foreword, saying that all summer camp experiences are universal -- "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah," and so on.) But: "This is a book about summer camp in the same way Plato's 'Cave' is about prisoners in chains, or 'Hungry Like the Wolf' is about the animal kingdom," co-authors Roger Bennett and Jules Shell note in their introduction.

Jewish-American studies? Sociology? Anthropology? "We treat it as if it's all going in the Smithsonian, because to us it is that serious," Bennett, 37, says from his New York apartment. He once spent a summer in Camp Kingswood in Maine, on a sort of counselor exchange program from Liverpool, England.

Ah, camp. The memories are not all good, but they are forever, Bennett says: "For many people, camp is a perfect storm of awkwardness and of leaving behind the world you were growing up in, and entering this ... this whole other place that existed all on its own. It's very powerful for people. There's this massive nation out there of former campers, people who are seemingly normal on the surface, working in their careers, raising their own families. But not very far down, they are just waiting for a color war to break out at any moment."

With personal photographs and assorted ephemera, "Camp Camp" ruminates on loneliness, herd mentality, class distinctions and the power of ritual. At least one of the accompanying essays deals with the fraught subject of boys who refused to go Number Two all summer, or tried not to. ("If they can do it, so can you, I told myself. Just get it over with ...") There are many tales of boy-on-boy torture: "Gary Gersh ... got duct-taped into the shower stall for an hour. He got covered in mousse and shampoo as he slept. ... The counselors would dunk his face in jelly and then start a chant for everyone to look at him. One time, a letter from his mother was intercepted and replaced with a fake letter saying that Grandma had been hit by a blimp."

On Page 22, we encounter a 1987 photo of Jenna Fallon and a friend at Camp Edward Isaacs in Holmes, N.Y., their bangs sprayed and teased into leonine, Tawny Kitaen grandiosity, the girls seeming like two magical sylphs in the woods. The photo, blown up, belies the haunting, flat fuzziness of the camera that made it: the Kodak Disc. (The authors acknowledge that cheap camera, first introduced in 1982, as "the weapon of choice for 95 percent of the thousands of photographs we received. The graininess and poor definition of your photographs are much missed and deeply mourned.")

A few pages later, there's a photo of three girls in tie-dyed T-shirts at Camp Walden in Cheboygan, Mich., in 1988, waiting for the white bleach on their upper lips to take away any trace of dark hair. They "spent the entire time at camp in the beautiful backwoods of Michigan beautifying ourselves as if we were in the city," explains one of the girls, Debbie Shell (sister of co-author Jules).

After the success of "Bar Mitzvah Disco" in 2005, Bennett and Shell decided summer camp seemed like a natural next step. (Future projects for the Academy of the Recent Past include a book on teenagers who formed their own bands in the '80s and another on what teenagers hung on their bedroom walls.) They started asking people to send their pictures and other keepsakes from sleep-away camps. Fanning out from a neurotic network of New York and Los Angeles creative types (writers, filmmakers, bloggers), Bennett and Shell eventually amassed some 80,000 photos.

In some ways "Camp Camp" is very much a sequel to the bar mitzvah book, if only from noticing the list of names of former campers who sent in photos and wrote essays: Blumberg, Goldberg, Rothman, Silberman, Cohen, Israel, Koppel, Weiss. Though not all the youths in the book are Jewish, there is a high percentage of Jacobs, Rachels and Ariels here, again emphasizing the power of social rituals and tribes. ("Camp Camp" also reflects that almost everyone in this nostalgic world is white.)

Bennett says the project did not necessarily set out to become the story of Jews at summer camp, but he acknowledges how good some contributors proved at keeping the photos and objects that others might have thrown away years ago. For whatever reason, these children kept things, and if they did not, then the book "never could have happened without people's mothers, who'd kept everything," Bennett says.

Bennett thinks part of "Camp Camp's" subtext is the self-discovery process for American Jews of the 20th century, the same ones who began throwing lavish bar mitzvah bashes. These are the children whose great-grandparents emigrated from the old country, and whose grandparents and parents settled the suburbs.

"You have three or four generations that experienced rapid social, economic change -- from low-income to affluence, from tradition to modernity," Bennett says. He also thinks a Jewish teenager's awkward days at summer camp are not merely a rich source of embarrassing nostalgia but part of the larger story, in which the adult Jacobs, Rachels and Ariels can look back and start "asking the question of who are we, how did we get to be this way, how do we become what we become?" Bennett and Shell, with the help of photo editors and graphic designers, narrowed down the material to an obvious narrative arc:

1. Going to camp.
2. Being at camp.
3. Going back into the world having been slightly (or profoundly) changed by camp.

"Camp Camp" begins with photos in which children and parents weepily part and includes one girl's loopily handwritten list of all the clothes she is bringing: ("Green Izod, green and blue Polo, white ox blouse, lavender Izod ... "). From there it explores "the girls' bunk" (the endless beautifying; the one girl who can lie on her back and grasp a tissue with her feet and blow her nose; a two-page "Purity Test" survey administered frequently -- "Have you ever ... Been on a date past 4:00 a.m.? ... Necked for more than two (2) hours consecutively?") and "the boys' bunk" (sleep at your own peril). Every part of life at camp gets its own chapter: athletics, arts and crafts, talent shows, letters home (and packages from Mom); it then deals with counselors, camp directors, camp food, camp love and campfires.

Finally, it is time to leave camp, in tearful, melodramatic candlelight ceremonies. Then the buses pull away, heading home.

They are still pulling away, but never really leaving.

OK Magazine

2008-06-30T12:24:00.000-07:00

Now you can see my face on line at the supermarket !

Jewtastic

2008-06-27T13:17:00.000-07:00

Now that's just a fantastic review...I mean a Jewtastic review !

Modern Tonic

2008-06-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yipee...I've been waiting my whole life to make Modern Tonic ! Yeah...Okay !

New York Magazine

2008-06-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

Now all bored New Yawkers can pick up a copy of my face !

Entertainment Weekly

2008-06-19T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'm coming in the Must List a bit behind Kung-Fu Panda and ahead of Swingtown !

Glamour Magazine

2008-06-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

A strange lookin' dude in a totally girly magazine! What's up with that?

Boston Herald

2008-06-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the article:

Some experiences define a generation - the Greatest Generation endured World War II; the assassination of JFK and Woodstock are milestones for baby boomers.

Generation X’s seminal event? Summer camp.

“Summer camp is really the story of our generation - who we are and how we got this way,” said Roger Bennett, co-author of “Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies” (Crown, $24.95). The book is a collection of camp photos, memorabilia and memories from Gen Xers around the country.

Bennett, who brought us the 2005 bestseller “Bar Mitzvah Disco,” is one of two authors this summer mining food fights, color war and panty raids for material.

“With the ‘Bar Mitzvah’ book, it was exploring how one night, boys and girls are arbitrarily told they are men and women and they go through the agony in front of all their friends and family,” he said. “The camp experience is the next logical step. It’s where kids come of age with their parents taken out of the equation.”

Swampscott native Jamie Denbo, 34, couldn’t resist sharing her summer stories to “Camp Camp.”

“I submitted my photos because I have a lot of them, and that’s just way too much documentation of big bangs and Esprit clothing to be in a house alone,” said Denbo, an actress who lives in Los Angeles. “Blame the Kodak disc camera for the terrible exposure.”

Bennett, 37, who received more than 80,000 submissions for “Camp Camp,” said he was struck by the “sheer scale and size” of the audience who wanted to relive summer camp.

“On the surface, these are seemingly content accountants, doctors, professionals,” he said. “But inside, they are waiting for the color war cannon to go off.”

Of course, not everyone has warm and fuzzy memories of camp. Author Stephanie Klein’s camp experience had all the typical summer fare - fight songs, swim tests, daddy long legs clinging to the shower stall - but there was one big difference: She was there to lose weight.

“It was just like any camp where you’d go camping and hiking up this big hill called Blueberry Hill,” said Klein, author of “Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp” (William Morrow, $24.95). “The difference was all we wanted to do was eat the blueberries.”

Klein, who spent four summers at weight-loss camp, said writing about camp and body image was therapeutic.

“It’s not a weight loss memoir about trying different diets or losing half my body weight,” she said. “It’s about an adult trying to deal with overcoming a childhood defined by weight loss.”
Bennett, a native of Liverpool, England, who went to Camp Kingswood in Maine, said whatever Gen X’s camp memories might be, they should be cherished, because the simpler era of bug juice and first kisses is over.

“Camp has evolved,” he said. “It’s much more niched than ever. Kids go for a shorter period and thanks to the Internet, parents are way more involved in day-to-day lives.”

Defamer

2008-06-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Not sure what Defamer's webiste is but it has a short little "preview" on the book.

Monsters & Critics

2008-06-19T13:44:00.000-07:00

Basically, she's saying it's a good book to read in bed, on the train, or on the crapper.

Lancaster Online

2008-06-19T13:40:00.000-07:00

Not sure if this is from Lancaster or the St. Petersburgh Times but it's in one of those papers.

Jewlicious

2008-06-19T13:39:00.001-07:00

Baruch, Atah, Oh My G-D !!!

Josh Spear

2008-06-19T13:38:00.001-07:00

Josh Spear is having a "Camp Camp" book giveaway. But who is Josh Spear?

The Huffington Post

2008-06-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

I made whatever the hell this newspaper is !

Head Butler

2008-06-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Here's The Review:

The kid freaked out, ran off the bus. Much screaming from other kids --- it was time to leave. The kid's parents told their daughter they'd follow the bus --- a four-hour drive --- and if, at the destination, she still wanted to come home, they'd be right there for her. She agreed. Returned to the bus. It pulled out. The parents drove straight home.

The destination: sleepaway camp.

Which is described by the authors of this 300-page picture-and-text romp as “the definitive formative experience for our generation.”

Ah....summer camp in the Reagan-blissed 1980s. If you were there, it's just far enough away that nostalgia can creep in. But then, I'm told, camps are eternal, each with a self-renewing culture that binds campers across generations.“

Camp was culture that had a place for everyone in it - the beautiful and the athletic shone, but if you had neat handwriting, or were the king of the archery range, or were a masterful pianist, you could find your niche,” says co-author Roger Bennett. “And camp is a place where everyone gets a second chance to be the kind of kid they always wanted to be. Everyone gets a fresh start to define themselves, free of the shackles of their hometown reputations. If you longed to be a raconteur, a ladies' man, a dodgeball expert, you could reinvent yourself with confidence.”

Sounds appealing. But back up the train. Did the man say culture?

--- In their cabin, some girls found “somebody's ginormous box of winged maxi pads.” On one, they wrote in red Sharpie, “Sara, this is your period speaking to you.” They placed that maxipad --- “crotch-up” --- in a pair of Sara's undies in her cubby.

--- You know about “trucking”? You wait till a kid's asleep, then shine a flashlight on his head and yell “TRUCK” to wake him. “He would freak out, thinking he was in the middle of the highway.”

And six varieties of wedgies, warm bowls of water for a sleeping camper's hand so he'll wet the bed, and much more. I can see why one of the authors recalls a correspondent saying, “Only the two summer months were in color and the rest of Jewish life was lived in black and white” --- the freedom from parental oppression is palpable as teen lust in these pages.

As for the Jewish reference, goyim are on notice: This book is heavily weighted toward the tribe. Tens of thousands of American camp vets sent photos and stories to the authors --- it's telling that the bully story is told by A.J. Jacobs, who went on to write The Year of Living Biblically. And for every Sloane Crossley, there seem to be a dozen Simmy Kunstavitzs. Did only Jews go to camp? (And did their parents all drive black Mercedes or Cadillacs?) For that matter, did the kids at Camp Tel Yehudah really write and perform a stage version of an Elie Wiesel Holocaust memoir... to the music of Billy Joel?

But some things are universal: Food fights. Color wars. Legendary counselors. Constipation. Teased hair. Two-day romances. Flag raising. Letters home. Day trips. Overnights. A camp show with a corny title, like “Puttin' on the Hits”. And that heartbreaking ceremony on the last night: pushing mini-rafts dotted with lighted candles onto the pond.

All that and more is admirably covered here. And the images are yearbook quality: a collection of letters, pictures and souvenirs. Never change. See you next year. But, please, with better hair, okay, kids?

Camp Camp will be catnip for those who still have their t-shirts, go to reunions, send their kids where they went. If you never went to summer camp --- and I'm raising my hand here --- it's a shocker, an eye-opener on the scale of your first sexual experience. Which, come to think of it, may have come a few years earlier for kids who went to camp.

-- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler

Jewcy

2008-06-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

Amen !

Super Punch

2008-06-19T13:25:00.000-07:00

The person who wrote this didn't like the book's cover. So, to the author of this article, I say this, "Your mother is uglier than me !!!"

Barnes & Noble

2008-06-19T13:24:00.001-07:00

I'm in Barnes & Noble's Father's Day Gift Guide right beside Lewis Black and Kevin Nealon !

USA Today

2008-06-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

I'm in USA Today. You can now read me at your local airport !

Radar

2008-06-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

Radar Article:

Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies (June 3, 2008) is the sequel to Bar Mitzvah Disco, picking up where that book left off, using hundreds of photographs and stories, including tall tales by A.J. Jacobs, David Wain, Rachel Sklar, Sloane Crosley, Paul Feig, and an intro by Meatballs director Ivan Reitman to tell the story of our generation via the great American institution of sleepaway camp—a parallel universe filled with bunk mates, unrequited crushes, appropriated Native American terminology, competitive sports, libido-soaked socials, panty raids, and snugly fitted velour shorts topped off with tube socks.

The book features the best of more than 80,000 photos submitted by former campers from across the country via campcampbook.com to trace the story of who we are and how we got to be this way. From the domination of Esprit as the Prada of the '80s, the subtle emergence of technology in the guise of Commodore personal computing, and the irresistible rise of hip-hop and the fall of "Frankie Says Relax," to the difficulties of maintaining the romance of a slow dance through the eight minutes, 57 seconds of "November Rain." Above all, camp culture was a juxtaposition of opposites—a cross between Fantasy Island and Lord of the Flies. That was nowhere more true than in the boys' bunk, which was both a Hai Karate testosterone-fueled primitive world of towel whipping and boner comparisons, and a place of radical inclusion and friendship. Violence and creativity played a special role, as highlighted in the chapter called "20 Acts of Violence That Say 'I Love You.'"

In the days before Judge Judy was a national TV star and America became an overly litigious society, the boys' bunk was like a peewee Abu Ghraib, where torture was standard behavior. This list of random acts of violence may make you wince, but it is important to note that many of the campers who were victims of everyday sadism actually loved it.

In the words of one, "To be on the wrong end of a rat tail or an atomic wedgie meant that the counselor noticed you—that in a perverse way, you had arrived." So remember that, dear reader, as you peruse the list. Settle back, relax, and marvel at the detail and creativity that went into some of these acts. The elaborate flourishes—especially the use of toothpaste or deodorant to maximize the pain—stand as a unique tribute to the innovative spirit that made this country great.

1. The Reverse Wedgie

A variation on the classic attack. Underpants are ripped upwards but the point of attack is from the front. Common act, multiple camps

2. Atomic Wedgie

You would pull up the waistband of the underpants until it rips and then place it over the victim's head like a chin strap. David Light, Camp Ramah in the Poconos, Lake Como, PA

3. Bungie Wedgie

Wedgie executed at the end of a bungee cord hung from the rafters of a boys' cabin. "Once hung by his tightie whiteys, a boy was then batted around the cabin by the other boys on the ground below him. Think Cirque du Soleil ... This hurt so much that we would pre-rip our underpants so that the whole ordeal did not last too long." David Greenbaum, Camp Chingachgook, Lake George, NY

4. Sky Hook Wedgie (aka The Hook of Death)

"Camper is left to hang by his white underpants on a nail until they tore in a kind of camp crucifixion." Jake Sussman, Camp Moosilauke, Orford, NH

5. The Atomic Sit-Up!"

This elaborate trick involved a mark and a con. The victim would be informed you have invented a new kind of sit-up that is so relaxing it makes you feel great. A towel would then be placed over the dupe's face. The fattest kid in the bunk would then be brought into the mix. He would take down his shorts and put his ass right above the dupe's face. The dupe would then be commanded to do a sit-up. If the fat kid was really talented, he could time it to cut a fart right when the dupe sat up. That was the atomic bit." Doug Grad, Tyler Hill Camp, Wayne, PA

6. Pink Billy (aka Hot Dog)

Hold a guy down. Slap his belly till it would go bright red. Shmear toothpaste on it for that extra sting. Doug Herzog, Camp Scatico, Elizaville, NY

7. The Swirly

Place a camper's head in the toilet and then flush it. Simmy Kunstawitz, Camp Ramah, Wingdale, NY

8. The Waffle Butt

A counselor takes a tennis racquet and whacks it against a kid's butt until it looks like a waffle. Repeat till bleeding. Spray Right Guard on bleeding wounds to maximize sting. Common act, multiple camps

9. Truck a Kid

Wait till victim is asleep. Shine a flashlight on either side of his head. Yell "TRUCK" to wake him. He would freak out, thinking he was in the middle of the highway. A variation was that someone would wear white sheets and talk to him in a deep voice and make him believe he was in the afterlife. Common act, multiple camps

10. The Gas Pedal

Camper's legs are pulled apart as counselor stamps on his crotch area while exclaiming, "Gas Pedal!" Anonymous, Camp Cedar, Casco, ME

11. Teabagging

Counselor dipping testicles in the open mouth of sleeping camper or at least resting them on the eye sockets. The homoeroticism never factored in for the person doing the dipping. Common act, multiple camps

12. Rat Tails

EverywhereWe had one counselor, Larry, who looked like Sergeant Slaughter. He wound his towel so tight and wet you had to put on an extra blanket to protect yourself. But you wanted him to hit you, show you that he cared about you ... he had noticed you. Alex Goodman, Camp Cedar, Casco, ME

13. Brown Round

Take hot rubbing sauce we used to buy in the mall (there was hot, extra hot, and WOW!—guess which we used?) and rub it on a kid's lips while he is sleeping. Brad Feldman, Camp Greylock, Becket, MA

14. The Bladder Burst

Place sleeping camper's hand in a bowl of warm water. Guaranteed to make you wet the bed. Common act, multiple camps

15. The Pile-On

Sleeping camper is woken by seven or more campers jumping on him, crushing him under cumulative weight. First camper on takes one for the team. Common act, multiple camps

16. Bollocksing

Sleeping camper is woken up by counselor jabbing lacrosse stick up his ass cheeks. Lacrosse stick inserted in "a loving way, though, not one of those high school hazing ways." Mitchell Whiteman, Lake Forest, Oakland, ME

17. Dead Arm

Knuckle punch to the meaty part of the arm muscle, which would turn the camper's arm into one inflated bruise by the end of the summer. Common act, multiple camps

18. Purple Nurple

A newfangled name for the old-fashioned titty twist. A variation was the Munching Cowbite, which became the Shark Bite after Jaws the movie came out—reaching into the inner thigh and squeezing hard. Michael Solomon, Camp Androscoggin, Wayne, ME

19. Punch for Punch (aka Chest Shot)

You would stand opposite each other an arm apart and punch each other in the chest repeatedly. I fought a counselor once and he destroyed me from the outset. My body was covered in bruises that were replicas of his fist. I could feel the internal bleeding. But I refused to give in, because this game was all about being a man. Adam Goldberg, Camp Echo Lark, Poyntelle, PA

20. Double Dump

We would take a dump and portion it out into two cups. One would be positioned under the bed and the other placed up in the rafters. Your bunk would stink. The victim would look under the bed, find one cup, and think they had solved the mystery. But the cup in the rafters would go on stinking for days. Andrew Goldberg, Camp Wildwood, Bridgton, ME

Splendora

2008-06-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm in Splendora: The Fabulous Girlfriend Network. Now, girls everywhere can check out my awkard years.

Manhattan User's Guide

2008-06-19T13:04:00.001-07:00

What's better: A tour of the Empire State Building, feeding pigeons in Central Park, or checking on my mug on the cover of Camp Camp which is highlighted in the Manhattan User's Guide?

GQ Magazine

2008-06-19T13:01:00.001-07:00

I could take the prize for the funniest looking guy to ever grace the pages of GQ Magazine!

Esquire Magazine

2008-06-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

The Esquire Article:

Every summer, we're filled with an overwhelming longing to return, like salmons swimming upstream, back to summer camp. What fills us with nostalgia? Is it a simple case of muscle memory? Or the knowledge that without the real world to define us, we could finally be the person we'd always hoped to be: An awe-inspiring athlete, a consummate pick-up artist, a Broadway star. As Roger Bennett and Jules Hell's new book, CAMP CAMP suggests, summer camp was a cross between Fantasy Island and the Witness Protection Program, a place to start over and be freed from hometown reputations. If you longed to be a clotheshorse, a cutup or a ladies man, camp was an opportunity for reinvention in an environment that doubled as a sexual Petri dish. So whether you're going to camp this year -- or just looking back on when you did -- remember these moves. You'll still get to second base. Guaranteed.

Step 1: Dress the Part
Make sure your white, 98 belt loop Z. Cavaricci's are back from the laundry. Pull on your finest Coogi sweater. Lace up your L.L. Bean Blouchers or Air Jordans. As a finishing touch, spray a mist of Drakkar and walk through it. Never apply it directly to the skin. For maximum effect, have two of your friends spray from both sides so that the aftershave application is even. (NOTE: You do not have to shave to use aftershave.)

Step 2: Learn the Running Man
Few boys knew how to dance. If you can master the Running Man or do that move where you hold your own leg and kind of jump through it, you will instantly become a pussy magnet.

Step 3: Location, Location, Location...
Avoid crowds. Set yourself apart from the herd hanging out at the side of the dance floor. Try to hover around the punch bowl at the buffet table and you pick up thirsty girls who have broken away from the pack.

Step 4: Develop Your Stamina
Inevitably, the whole evening will come down to the slow dance. Can you last the eight minutes thirty-six seconds of Guns 'n Roses "November Rain" and keep the magic alive? If the answer is yes, there's a great chance you'll be able to "take a walk" to the make-out place of your choice.

Step 5: Get a "Move"
Everyone needs a patented move that isn't too scummy, but isn't too passive. Like "the back-to-front back rub" where a group of people sit in a line, performing a friendly communal garden massage ... and end up with giving each other reacharounds. You need this kind of move, something that can transform you from a non-threatening friend into a salacious lover. Get one and get laid.

Step 6: Talk a Good Game
If you came up short, fear not. Back in the bunk during lights out, when everyone is sharing stories and sniffing each other's fingers, repeat back whatever you had heard your counselors say after they returned to the bunk drunk after a night off. Say things like, "Dude, she totally went down on me. She blew me like a lollipop!" even if you have no idea what any of this means. It doesn't matter -- your bunkmates are bound to be impressed.

Blackbook Magazine

2008-06-19T12:37:00.001-07:00

I made Blackbook Magazine. Not sure what the heck Blackbook Magazine is but they now have my gross picture in their publication.

Rolling Stone Magazine

2008-06-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Look !!! Who would have thought I would have ever made Rolling Stone Magazine and not even have a clue how to play an instrument !