Looking Camps Right in the Eye
A revue and review of the various summer camps I've attended in my life.
To be honest, lately my newsletter has had - for lack of a better phrase - “death vibes.”
I’m gonna be bold here and assume that most of you did not sign up for this Substack with the expectation of confronting your mortality on a regular basis, so please rest assured that I’m keeping it light this time.
The last two weddings I’ve attended were for friends that I made at camp, and it’s led to a nostalgic revue of the various odd ways I spent my summers growing up.
A lot of LA Jews have a sleepaway camp that they lived and died by (dammit, I mentioned death again… take a shot) - some sports-centric glamping experience in Vermont that they went to every year and then counseled at that one summer in college that they thought they’d have an internship for but then didn’t.
I*, however, patchwork-quilted my summers together with a variety of niche special-interest camps, at which I met a spectacular array of - for lack of a better phrase - weird nerds. I am going to do my best to catalogue them for you now.
*My parents, who must have spent so much time researching camps for us
Two quick prefaces:
I have a famously bad memory - it is very possible I get years or details wrong, or that I left out an entire camp altogether. For that I preemptively apologize - if you’re a camp friend reading this, reach out with any memories you have!! I genuinely would love to hear them (and hear from you).
Basically everyone I befriended at these camps is either gay and/or trans now. If you’re a camp friend of mine who still follows me on instagram and you’re not gay and/or trans, I would encourage you to do a little soul-searching. I think you will find you are gay and/or trans and you just don’t know it yet. <3
Coach Steve’s Summer of Fun (2001-2005)
This was the closest thing I experienced to the kind of summer camp you see in movies, back when it was still on the table that I might like the outdoors. This was a sports-centric day camp, and I did spend a lot of time under the blazing sun. At the lanyard-making station, mostly, but that was outside, so it counts. When I recall this camp, I taste pink lemonade made from powder and otter pops.
High Points: Watching my cousin host a talk show at lunchtime, water gun fights, getting the (oft tie-dyed) yearly tee shirt, pure summer bliss.
Low Points: One time my best friend Kyle (I knew him from school so he’s exempt from the gay and/or trans rule) got stung by a bee. It was very scary.
Things I Learned: How to make lanyards!!
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? I always attended this camp with siblings, cousins, and friends, so no. Shoutout to my (still) best friend Kyle for making it less scary to be away from home.
Does it still exist? Yes!! It’s been around since 1997 and Coach Steve (nothing but respect for my Coach Steve) is still at it. King!
Natural History Museum Bug Camp (2004)
I guess this is me finally coming out publicly online as a bug kid, though some of you might have guessed by the praying mantis header on this newsletter. Some kids love Hello Kitty, some kids love baseball. I loved bugs to the point of obsession… I had a spider bounce house for my birthday, framed bugs on the walls, a beetle quilt on my bed. In sixth grade, one of my peers started calling me “Playbug,” based on a joke that I liked bugs so much I probably jerked off while reading a magazine full of naked bugs. (This would’ve been a really solid joke if I had known what jerking off was at the time.)
This day camp really encouraged my passion for the taxonomic class Insecta, and led me to my career goal of being an entomologist. (Do we think that would’ve been a more stable career path than television writer? I’m truly not sure.) In retrospect, I cannot believe there was enough interest to constitute the creation of this camp, or that my parents drove me to and from downtown daily. But boy was it incredible - we got to trawl the NHM’s insect collections, take care of juvenile arthropods for the museum (the highlights were the stick bugs and the millipedes), and explore the museum grounds. The program was run by a guy named Brent Karner, known as Brent the Bug Guy, who I positively worshipped.
High Point: We got to run around the NHM rose garden (which is gorgeous) with butterfly nets and do our best to catch insects. Brent the Bug Guy would catch them, hold them in between two knuckles, put them into envelopes, and then put said envelopes in his pocket. Apparently this is the proper way to transport butterflies. My mind was blown.
Low Point: For a lesson on forensic entomology, we put pieces of raw meat from the supermarket on the roof of the museum and learned how to date the flesh by the larval stage of the flies that spawned on it. I cannot say I recommend this experience - we had to learn how to breathe through our mouths so we didn’t gag from the stench. I do think this is probably the only camp in existence where ten-year-olds were intentionally shown rotting meat.
Things I Learned: This camp did give me a hard skillset: how to preserve and pin dead insects. This led me to turn my closet into a little “insect pinning room.” Understandably, this raised alarm bells for my mom, who one day asked me “if you love insects so much, why do you catch them to kill them?” The subsequent existential crisis ended my passion for pinning insects, and I’m proud to say I’ve never serial-killed anyone.
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? Once again, I did this camp with my emotional support Kyle, who liked bugs okay but was really just abetting my weird passion. When I texted him about this, he reminded me that we also watched this clip from Indiana Jones, and then Brent went through and identified every insect, explaining that they’re all harmless. Boy did we have a laugh at that! Then it was back to the rotting meat.
Does it still exist? Absolutely not. I don’t know how it ever existed, to be honest. However, in researching this post I found out that Brent the Bug Guy has gone on to launch an insect pinning supply business (I assume he has made billions from it), so if you have a weird nephew who loves killing bugs, look no further for the perfect gift!
Bruins on Broadway (2006-2008)
Oh, B.O.B… three emotionally-taxing summers during my most awkward and chaotic years. As you may have surmised from the name, this day camp took place at UCLA, and a motley crew of tweens would audition for, get cast in, rehearse, and then perform a musical every summer. The shows were, in chronological order: Bye, Bye, Birdie, Seussical, and Thoroughly Modern Millie - the junior versions, of course. As you may have guessed, this camp was about twenty girls and two boys every year (and I still never got the part I wanted).
High Point: Meeting my first and only girlfriend. I was Albert, she was Telephone Hour Girl #2… can I make it any more obvious?
Low Point: Not getting cast as Conrad Birdie. I really thought I had the swag to pull off “Sincere,” but the counselors disagreed. Every year, Connor (the only other boy) beat me out for the fun male leads - Conrad, Horton, Jimmy - and I was cast over and over again as “guy who wears an ill-fitting suit” (Albert, Mayor of Whoville, Mr. Graydon) - a phenomenon that would plague me through most of my musical theater career.
Things I Learned: That the weird, comedic side character is always the best role. Someone educate the Rusical queens!
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? Absolutely - they were Mayzie and the Cat in the Hat (so yeah… we were kind of a big deal).
Does it still exist? It does. Enroll your children at their own peril.
Lawrence Hall of Science Summer Program (2008)
This was probably the most traditionally “nerdy” camp I enrolled in, and my first ever sleepaway camp. We slept in cabin bunk beds by night, and stomped through the woods of Berkeley during the day. Unfortunately, I don’t remember much from this camp other than walking through the woods a lot - I cannot recall a single hard fact I learned here. But it was a good time!
High Point: Meeting another friend who had celiac disease (and diabetes, so she beat me).
Low Point: The only vivid memory I have from this camp is having to wake up early to do kitchen chores (Dickensian, I know) and being so worried that I was going to miss it and get in trouble that I had a stress-dream in which I did the tasks that I was supposed to. Then I woke up for real, feeling exhausted, and had to actually go do the real-life chores. It felt like I did them twice... Awful.
Things I Learned: Uhhh… something about nature?
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? Just one, the aforementioned. But she taught me what DeviantArt was, so she really pulled her weight.
Does it still exist? It does not seem to exist anymore. So sad that the next generation of kids will not learn about… uh… falcons (?).
LHS: Bodega Bay Marine Biology Camp (2009)
This was the marine biology sequel to the first Lawrence Hall of Science program. This sleepaway camp was really, really cool, despite marine biology not really being my main thing. Bodega Bay - and the ocean in general - is sick as hell, and we spent our days peering at tide pools, testing water acidity, and poking anemone. The most interesting realization I had at this camp was that there is always a popularity hierarchy - even if the camp’s entire population is comprised of the weirdest people from every school, there will still be a nerd to cool kid continuum. I was somewhere in the middle (though that’s probably what everyone would say… hmmm).
High Points: Not sure why this is so vivid, but there was one night where a bunch of us broke into “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the dorm. Oddly magical! Also, there is an incredible salt water taffy shop that I had the joy of visiting with my family when they randomly booked an AirBnB on Bodega Bay a few years back.
Low Point: I had a roommate, whose name and face are lost to history now. About two days into the program, he starts writhing around and moaning all night. This motherfucker was not, as you might be thinking, jorking his peanits, but was, in fact, itching his scrotum because he got poison ivy on his nut sack. He claimed that it was because he had hurtled over a rock and the poison ivy had somehow scraped his nut sack through his shorts, but obviously the more likely scenario is that he touched poison ivy, then itched his nut sack. It was so bad that he went home and never came back. I didn’t mind, because I had a room to myself, until the last day of camp, when the counselors were like “hey, you need to strip your bed.” I was like, “…I did strip my bed.” They said “no, the other bed.” I said, “those were my roommate’s sheets. He got poison ivy on his nut sack and went home. I don’t understand why I should be responsible for stripping his bed.” They said, “it’s your room, you have to strip the bed.” I was livid. But obviously I did it (very gingerly, so as to avoid getting nut sack poison ivy on my fingers) because I was raised with a healthy (?) fear of authority figures.
Things I Learned: I actually learned a ton at this camp. I learned that docks sometimes harbor (pun intended) amazing sea life (we saw a strawberry anemone once), and that barnacles are actually crustaceans like crabs that are stuck to rocks via their head, and feed by pulling food in with their legs. Lastly and most importantly, I learned how to spell “anemone.”
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? Absolutely. Lara and Sumana… if you’re reading this, we should all get drinks and catch up.
Does it still exist? It does not seem to exist, and that’s a loss for acne-scarred teens nationwide.
Second City Comedy Camp (2009)
This comedy day camp was a hoot. The other camps I attended had nerds of the quiet, brainy variety, but the participants of this camp could rival a regional “Nightmare Before Christmas” screening in the category of “most bisexually outgoing teens you’ll ever meet.” We named our team “Peaches and Cream” for reasons I no longer recall, but were undoubtedly very, very funny.
High Point: Doing a musical improv warmup in which the counselor would sing “How are you?” and we’d sing back with how were were doing. One girl replied in song: “I have lice…” I believe the counselor then had to make sure that this was, in fact, a bit, but regardless, it cemented Jen as a legend. Not a comedic legend, but a legend.
Low Point: My memory blanked, so I asked my friend Hannah for a refresher:
Things I Learned: The basic rules of improv, which I actually do think stuck with me.
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? Yes! Hannah, as mentioned above, and Sheridan, who was grandfathered in because we went to school together. (Hi, Sheridan!)
Does it still exist? It does not. And furthermore, it seems like Second City’s LA presence has also been eradicated. However, the program does seem to exist in Chicago!
Most importantly, here’s me and Hannah improvising up a storm together…
… and this is us this June - I officiated her wedding!!! Can you believe?
Iowa Young Writer’s Studio (2010)
This camp was really incredible. Teen “writers” across the country (I use quotes here because god knows what I sent for that application) were shipped off to the renowned University of Iowa, and alternated between running around cornfields and writing short stories based off weird prompts. My core class was run by a wonderful woman named Anjali Sachdeva, who I just googled and seems to be an accomplished published author! I am downloading her audiobook on Libby as we speak.
Things I Learned: That often, limitation begets ingenuity (ie, sometimes you will write a pretty good short story off of a random combination of three nouns).
High Point: We had a dance towards the end of camp, and for some insane reason, the counselors let us suggest and vote on the theme. The theme ended up being “I Was Young and I Needed the Money” which is honestly so, so iconic. My friend and I went as surrogate mothers, which is a) absolutely insane and b) an honestly incredible bit. Thank god we took a photo to commemorate it.
Low Point: I honestly don’t remember anything I disliked about this camp. I’m sure there was drama, but none that I can recall?
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? You bet. One of them is pictured above, the other one took the photo. We reaallllly queened out together those two weeks. I think we even did a photoshoot in a cemetery?
Does it still exist? It does! I wonder if they still let the kids choose the theme of the dance, or if that ended after our year.
NHSI Cherubs: Theatre Arts (2011)
I’ve written this post chronologically, which places Cherubs at the second-to-last slot, but emotionally, Cherubs was the be-all-end-all, the peak of my camp life. This five week sleepaway program at Northwestern (seven weeks if you stay for the musical theatre extension) absolutely changed my life, partially because it’s more of a cult than a camp. I could write an entire book about my Cherubs experience… narrowing it down to a paragraph feels impossible. The camp began with all of us receiving a number and delivering a prepared monologue on stage in front of all the other campers. We had to dress in white/grey/black exclusively, and run from class to class in the Chicago heat. This camp was when I decided to “try being bisexual” with sexy results (I kissed my first boy at this camp… after kissing a girl mere hours before…) and made some lifelong friends. Thank god the experience was well-documented through the Hipstamatic iPhone app (2011 hit me like a bus).
High Point: Warming up every day to Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass” with the cast of my show, “Elephant’s Graveyard,” pictured below. I am so grateful to our director Richard, without whom I may not know all the words to the second verse.
Low Point: I had crushes on two different boys, and they hooked up the last night of camp. Jenny Han could NEEVVERRR.
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? More like 4, but absolutely. And they are my girlies to this day!!!
Things I learned: That I definitely liked boys, and that I was ready to never be cast as “guy in a suit” again (seriously, I was in a show about a circus and was cast as the “circus manager.”
Does it still exist? In perpetuity and in infamy. They are going to have to kill this camp with an atom bomb for it to die.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival Summer Seminar (2011)
The last night of Cherubs, we stayed up all night sobbing because we had to say goodbye to each other, and that day I got on a plane to Oregon. It took me a few days to remember who I was again, and to accept that this camp was my new home. While not quite as emotionally stimulating as Cherubs, this camp was amazing - we got to see all the shows the Oregon Shakespeare Festival put up that summer - absolutely exquisite theater - and spent the rest of our time learning about “the bard,” as they say. Because we were in the “Summer Seminar,” we were called “Semmies,” which, to me, sounded like a blend of “semen” and “cummies.” Terrific.
High Points: Seeing an amazing production of “August: Osage County” at a deeply impressionable age. Equally impactful: one of the counselors wrote “ENSEBLE!” on a piece of paper and taped it up in the hallway, and it made me laugh so hard I took it home with me (and it was on my bedroom wall for years).
Low Point: Before camp, we were asked to memorize a scene from “Romeo and Juliet.” Then, we did this absolutely unhinged activity where they blindfolded us, set us opposite a Semmie of the opposite sex, removed the blindfolds, and then we spoke through the scene together, just the two of us, for no audience. A wildly intimate activity. I think this would be a great speed-dating event for lonely, bookish singles, but we were lonely, bookish, 17-year-old singles, and it was just… so, so strange. I remember feeling oddly emotionally attached to the girl by the end of it, but she did not feel the same way, completely rightfully. Looking back on it, this must have been the peak of the counselors’ summer (like, can you IMAGINE watching that?? Pairing up the teens by who you thought might have sexual chemistry and watching them perform Romeo and Juliet together??)
Were there two girls that I hung out with all summer? Honestly, not really - it was two weeks and we were going nonstop, so we all sorta hung out collectively, from what I remember. The camp was mostly attended by quiet local Oregonians, and I was coming in with aggressive, freshly Cherub’d Los Angeles energy. It’s a wonder I wasn’t ostracized.
Things I learned: I can still recite Romeo’s part of that scene!! It has come in handy zero times.
Does it still exist? It does not seem to exist, but I highly recommend going to Ashland to see the festival. It’s an amazing time.
Here is me and a girl named Hannah (a different Hannah)…
And here’s a photo I took of her at her wedding two weeks ago!
To summarize, I have lived many deeply nerdy lives. The moral of the story: befriend girls named Hannah that you meet at camp!! They will invite you to their weddings if you are lucky.
HAGS,
Johnny
I was always very fond of how much you were into bugs when we were kids :)
This would have been a great nerd night presentation.