Sophisticated?

Lee Camp is a comic work in progress: telling jokes since 14, stand-up comedian since 18, Cavalier Daily’s humor columnist for four years. Now Camp has a book— Neither Sophisticated Nor Intelligent: A College Humorist’s Take on Life— a collection of pieces published through Xlibris, one of the bigger e-self-publishing outfits around.
Now 21, Lee Camp has come far, but he still has a ways to go. Someday, we in Charlottesville might say we knew him when. He’s a lovable kind of comedian. No insults like a Don Rickles or a Rodney Dangerfield. Nothing too obscene or outrageous like a Lenny Bruce or a George Carlin. Not quite as wacky as Jim Carrey or Bill Murray— yet. But with a twist here, a wink there, Lee Camp holds up a slightly distorted mirror to his own daily life, typical and all-American as it is, and helps us laugh at ourselves.
Take for example his memories of his favorite Halloween costume: “I was some kind of man with a third eyeball on his forehead and needles through his face. For this costume my brother and I began by applying pounds of fake skin to our faces… that’s a mixture of Vaseline and hair…. We then stuck needles, paper clips, and safety pins through this fake skin in order to take on the appearance of ghastly men who had either been in a horrible sewing accident or were trying to run an office supply store out of their faces.”
Lee Camp’s book is like that. Occasional chuckles, good ideas, but you just get the feeling, page after page, that it would be better if you heard him tell these stories in person— that he’d be better on the stage than on the page. So here’s your chance. In Camp’s own words, “I have organized and am performing in a comedy show to benefit abused and neglected children in honor of Child Abuse Prevention Month.” Three dollars gets you in for the laughs, and all proceeds go to help children. Camp will donate another buck for every book sold, which just goes to show he’s in it for the laughs, not the money.

Hear Lee Camp and five other comedy acts on Thursday, April 4, at 8pm in Newcomb Hall Theater. Proceeds benefit abused and neglected children. $3 suggested donation at the door. 243-2348.