Herald Tribune

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

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

Jewtastic

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

Modern Tonic

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

New York Magazine

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

Entertainment Weekly

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

Glamour Magazine

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

Boston Herald

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

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

Monsters & Critics

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

Lancaster Online

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

Jewlicious

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

Josh Spear

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

The Huffington Post

I made whatever the hell this newspaper is !

Head Butler

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

Amen !

Super Punch

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

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

USA Today

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

Radar

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

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

Manhattan User's Guide

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

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

Esquire Magazine

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

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

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