Mario and Karina Smirnoff on "Dancing with the Stars" Photo courtesy of AP Images/ABC, Kelsey McNeal

Check out this segment on Fox News about "Who shouldn't go on 'Dancing with the Stars'" Our very own Peter Davis gives his thoughts!

Illustration by Jason Katzenstein

Sixth grade was dunzo! I snatched my skateboard, stashed in a bush outside Barclay School, and hit the sidewalk with a slap and roar of joy. After narrowly avoiding prison, aka Grace Farm, that boarding school for “troubled youth” in the boondocks of Maine, I celebrated the start of summer with eight packs of Pop Rocks, all shoved in my mouth at one time. Each sugary snap created a chorus of freedom ringing down East 74th Street.

My parents love “the country,” meaning Southampton, but I way prefer the city unless it’s summer when I can boogie board. So I quietly sat in our green station wagon with my headphones on as my parents drove the two hours to Southampton. My punk rock playlist drowned out most of their annoying conversation, which centered on some “ghastly” (my mom’s favorite word for anything she didn’t like from people to someone’s shoes) divorced woman who had been black balled from the beach club where I basically spent every day all summer.

The beach club isn’t all that sucky. You can charge ice cream all day and crawl under the wood planks of the locker rooms and look through the cracks as chicks change into their bathing suits.

My first day back at the beach club, I reunited with my gang: Chipper, Steven, Teddy and Frick. After bacon cheeseburgers, I decided we needed some action. There’s this really, really old dude named Isadore Knopp who collects the beach towels embroidered with a blue seahorse, and loads them into a big white canvas hamper on wheels that he rolls to a laundry room behind the lockers.

I had a brainstorm. When Knopp wasn’t looking, I put a black bandana over my face like a gangster and holding my tennis racket, jumped in the hamper, hidden under the salty smelling, fluffy white towels. Knopp started his rounds, tossing towels on top of me. He wheeled the cart a bit slower, but was too dumb to notice that there was a live kid inside.

We finally arrived to the noise of ten industrial size washer and dryers in a depressing room that looked like a serial killer’s lair. Knopp began to unload the towels. But just when he reached down for a third handful, I jumped up holding my tennis racket like a machine gun, making really loud rifle fire sounds. Knopp made an animal-like dying groan and holding his heart as if shot, practically fell out the door. I was laughing so hard; I could barely breath and my buddies, crouched under the one narrow window, cracked up uncontrollably.

After Knopp had vanished, I ran out and high-fived my group. Soon dozens of kids surrounded me as I retold the story of my super successful prank. I was a star!

Suddenly, mid-sentence, I felt two fingers pinch me by the ear. “Ouch,” I yelled in pain.

The fingers belonged to the beach club manager Mr. Preston, a nosy fatso in green pants with blue whales. How fitting.

Before I knew it, I was in Mr. Preston’s office, which was decorated with a color picture of him and a fat lady in a Lilly Pulitzer tent that I guessed was his wife.”

“Charlie Campbell, do you realize that you could have killed Mr. Knopp?” he asked me with total disdain in every syllable. “They should lock you up and throw away the key. Mr. Knopp had to go home for the day. He said he has never been more shaken and distraught in his life.” I tried my best not to smirk. “I’m sorry,” I replied, looking down at the temporary tattoo of a grinning skull on my ankle. “It was just meant to be an innocent joke.”

Mr. Preston’s ruddy apple cheeks grew redder. “Well guess what Charlie Campbell? Your summer has just come to an abrupt halt.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

“You have no idea what awaits you,” Mr. Preston declared, standing up with his pudgy hands on the desk. “Oh Charlie Campbell, you have no idea.”

Krista Krieger is obsessed with Africa. She has been to the continent three times since January and stopped counting after more than twelve trips. In 2007, after funding the renovation of a preschool she had visited, Krieger joined the board of the Africa Foundation which works with its corporate partner &Beyond to raise money for basic necessities in the war-torn and economically desperate African villages. “Africa Foundation does a lot of brick-and-mortar type projects, so it’s easy to show donors where the money has gone,” Krieger explains. “This is one of the main things that attracted me to the organization—the transparency of where the funds have gone.”

This summer, Krieger gathered a group of friends from New York’s art world and high society to experience safari adventures at Phinda Private Game Reserve—a luxurious, eco-friendly lodge on 56,800 acres of prime wilderness (aka “the bush”) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Nina Griscom came, as did art patron Beth Rudin DeWoody (who funded a garden and water tank in the area) and her fiancé photographer Firooz Zahedi (having a world class photographer is always a plus on safari) and her creative children Carlton and Kyle DeWoody. Also, there was artist Ryan McGinness who made a print to benefit the Africa Foundation that will be sold through The Pace Gallery. “I found the timing serendipitous because I was working on a body of African art,” McGinness says.

Safari is not for the lazy socialite who likes to sip vino on the beach in St. Tropez. Leave the jewels at home. “Pack clothes that you don’t care if they get destroyed,” advises Krieger with a wink. Every morning we were up at 5 a.m.—it was still dark out. A guide meets you in your sleek and comfortable “Zulu Zen” house and escorts you to the main lodge. (If you dare go unaccompanied, you could be attacked by a leopard, no joke!) After coffee, you hit the terrain. Within days we had spotted the big five: lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino. We even saw a kill (involving a pride of lions and an unlucky male nyala) that left us less hungry at the gourmet breakfast spread that awaits guests after every morning drive. To say that witnessing the immense amount of wild animal life is astounding is an understatement. After two days, seeing herds of zebra and enormous giraffes starts to feel like home.

We also visited a local school where McGinness hung his African-inspired prints. On the last night, we held a costume party (I went as Peter Beard, sarong and all, while Carlton did African Dictator and Kyle was a Zulu princess) that ended with a dance-off as monkeys and zebras literally watched us loopy Americans boogie to old-school disco.
Safari in Africa is a total yin and yang. You tough it, kind of, on treks through the bush, then kick-back in the luxury of Phinda’s amazing resorts. You visit a local village that survives on nothing, and then eat the most amazing meal at Phinda’s traditional African boma under the stars. But make no mistake, the Africa Foundation is about helping, and one dollar goes a long way. On October 9, the organization is hosting a safari-themed fundraiser in New York where they will recreate a bush dinner. Time to bust out the Zulu fabrics I scored in Johannesburg. To get your ticket, go to www.africafoundation.org and start planning your safari chic look today. If you need a beaded bracelet, I have some I can loan you.

My mother, dressed in a black Chanel tweed suit and pearls as if going to a funeral, nudged me in the side. I reluctantly looked at Fräulein Eggar as she continued her Grace Farm propaganda. “Our students are required to put in four hours of work detail every day,” she continued, like a judge sentencing a criminal to death row. “We pride ourselves on a tidy campus and the student body rakes leaves, cleans the lavatories and serves all meals in the dining quarters.” At the word lavatory, my mind started to wander from Grace Farm’s militaristic Maine bucolic blah to my concrete stomping ground on the Upper East Side. I missed my skateboard. I missed my Sour Patch Kids stash. I could hear each Sour Patch Kid wailing in despair for my return.

Fräulein Eggar made an irritating scratchy throat sound (gross) and my mother poked me again. “So Charles Campbell,” Fräulein Eggar demanded, “how do you see yourself benefiting and contributing to the community of Grace Farm?” My mother and father, bookending me across from Fräulein Eggar’s enormous desk—which appeared to be from the 18th century and was so anally organized that I had to clench my fist not to jump on it and break dance until every item was cracked and crushed—glared at me with annoying anticipation. “Um,” I started, “I, like, actually don’t see myself at Grace Farm at all. I’m not really the country type. I hate going to Southampton, unless it’s the summer and I can, like, boogie board.” My father lurched towards me. “Charles. That is exactly the attitude that has gotten you in hot water your whole life.”

Truth be told, my parents had trucked the eight hours to Grace Farm in Hopeville, Maine (population 850; 300 of which were the poor suckers at this “school”), after my latest Barclay report card. “The student continues to question authority,” read my French teacher Monsieur Charriol’s comment. “I am close to giving up on this pupil,” my science teacher, Mrs. Ridgefield, noted. Of course, the fact that my art teacher, the awesome Mr. Severs praised my “extraordinary talent at both drawing and painting and vast knowledge of both modern art and current graffiti artists,” went completely unnoticed. Yet despite six Ds and one F in discipline (I did get an A in art!), Barclay had not given me the boot. Still, my parents felt it necessary to ruin my Saturday with a trip to Grace Farm.

“I want to be good,” I chirped to Fräulein Eggar as she sat with her arms crossed, staring me down. I channeled my best Little Boy Lost expression. “But it’s just that my friends always convince me to do things I shouldn’t.”

“He charges without permission,” my mother announced randomly, interrupting my monologue. “He lied and charged hundreds of dollars to the family’s account at Minnie Albert’s Toys.” Get over it Mom, I thought to myself. After the threat of having me “arrested” turned out to be a total false alarm, my mother closed down her dumb Minnie Albert’s Toys charge account.

“Well,” Fräulein Eggar concluded, standing up abruptly, “we are prepared to have Charles Campbell enrolled at Grace Farm starting Monday.”

“What the F?” I blurted out as I saw my young life flash like a bad movie before my eyes.

The silence in the room that followed was deafening.

Next month: Exiled from the Southampton Bathing Corporation—twice!

“Please unlock these things,” begged my BF of the semester Topper Livingston. “They hurt.”

I had subdued Top with handcuffs that I had purchased, along with a BB gun and a complete toy cop accessory pack (fake shield and hat and billy club—my favorite) in the unused maid’s room of my parents’ apartment.

“You’re my prisoner. Busted dude. You’ll be un-cuffed when you post bail." Bail was set at a mere $200, a bargain for his crime: stealing four stink bombs from my backpack.

“I don’t like guns,” Lourdes, our devoted housekeeper, announced in her thick Spanish accent, as she walked by again and saw the BB gun trained on Topper’s right temple, “guns aren’t nice.”

I finally removed Top’s handcuffs, setting him free for the discounted bond of $75 and a $75 IOU to be paid in cash or candy over the remaining term.

But maybe I was the one who should be in handcuffs—real handcuffs—and behind real bars? The cop action pack was just one of the many “birthday presents” I charged to my parents’ house account at Lexington Avenue’s famous fun palace Minnie Albert’s Toys. My scheme? Every other day I would waltz into Minnie Albert’s Toys and charge a birthday present, which Mrs. Albert, who was about 101 years old, would slowly wrap up in the shop’s signature paper decorated with colorful balloons. “There sure are a lot of birthdays this month,” Mrs. Albert gargled out in her dinosaur voice. “Yeah, March is a big birthday month at Barclay,” I quickly responded with a huge fake toothy smile. “And April is even bigger—I think in my class alone there are 15 birthdays.” Mrs. Albert finished wrapping the enormous toy warship, dropped it into a bag decorated with balloons and handed me a receipt that I signed “Mr. Campbell” and made for the exit.

Was I a thief? Whenever I asked my parents for necessities like a new BB gun or a water slide for the long hallway outside Lourdes’ room, they always responded with the two words I loathed the most: “We’ll see.” So I had no choice but to charge up a storm to their account at Minnie Albert’s Toys. How could I face every morning at Barclay without a BB pistol in my blue blazer?

A week later, after I had stuffed some jacked-up toy cars in my bag before I got to my room, I heard my mother screech “Charles Campbell, get in my room this instant.” Heart beating, I went and stood as my mother sat on her four-poster bed holding a slip of paper. “I just got the bill from Minnie Albert’s Toys,” she started, her pretty green eyes turning to angry slits. “$1, 200? Who do you think you are? That is not your charge account.” “There were a lot of birthday parties last month,” I began to plead in my most innocent voice. “Stop there, Charlie. Don’t you dare lie to me. I have called Mrs. Albert and the next time you charge there, she is calling the police, you will be arrested and end up at Grace Farm.” (Grace Farm was a boarding school in Maine for "troubled youth.") I skulked out of her room feeling dizzy with fear of the dreaded Grace Farm.

A week later, I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked to Minnie Albert’s Toys and found the laser gun that was being advertised 24/7 on TV. I headed to the counter, toy in hand, and approached Mrs. Albert. Then suddenly from outside, I heard the most horrific sound. The loud wail of a police siren.

"The story writes itself!" we thought to ourselves giddily. Though on entering the dark and gloomy building whose address corresponded to our hastily written notes, we were in for a rough surprise.

Though the doorman didn't raise an eyebrow when he lead us into the club, he must have noticed us flailing around blindly while trying to hit on the open bar or a tray of canapés--life preservers in a sea of darkness.

"Is this your first time?" the doorman asked gently.

"Yes! Can you tell me where the event is?" we asked.

"It depends. Are you here to dance?"

Although we were planning to cut the rug that evening, the man's voice conveyed that he wasn't talking about the kind of half-drunk Beyonce moves that older philanthropists tended to break out during a charity function. He was saying dance, not dance.

"This is a gentleman's club," our new friend told us.

"Oh." We stood our ground. "Are you sure?" We didn't know why Goods for Good would have their benefit at a strip...er...gentleman's club, but we weren't going to judge. It was being co-chaired by a Victoria's Secret model, after all.

After being given the boot, we texted our friend for the right location (we were only five blocks and one avenue off!) and ran down the West Side Highway, hobbling in our heels.

When we finally got to the venue, a large, warehouse art space known as Center 548, we had a moment to catch our breath as the cavernous elevator lurched upwards.

We scanned the crowd for a recognizable face, and found Vogue photographer Pablo Frisk, who helpfully greeted us near the coat check.

"Let's go talk to Luke Russert!" we exclaimed, dragging our photobug friend by the hand.

"Who?"

It didn't take long to find Mr. Russert, a giant friendly bear of a man. He was nervously prepping for his speech, and declined the half glass of vodka masquerading as a shot that was offered to him.

"Maybe after," he laughed.

He was joined by Goods for Good founder Melissa Kushner, who gave a short, moving statement before showing an even shorter film about the group's work in Malawi. The night's proceeds from the auction (M.C.'d by the always spunky C.K. Swett) all went to "support sustainable programs designed to improve the lives of over 65,000 orphans" in the region.

For that reason, we didn't feel that bad after buying up way too many raffle tickets for the evening's door prize: a shiny motor scooter that, after a few shots, seemed like a must-have. Some items available at the silent auction on the other side of the room included tickets to Late Night and a dinner and wine tasting at Eataly, as well as front row tickets for various sports team. In total, the Gala for Good raised $435,000 for its cause.

On our way out, we ran into model Coco and Scene editor Peter Davis, though it wasn't until we were back out in the brisk spring night that we realized that Ms. Prinsloo had been a no-show that evening. Maybe she had gotten confused about the address as well.

As the room filled to capacity it became clear why Bill Cunningham was here: this night was about the dresses—almost to the point of sensory overload.

Selita Ebanks in her floor-length disco ball? “Oh God it’s mesmerizing, she looks so beautiful!” Not to mention Zac Posen in his chocolate brown double-breasted. And we spied the fashionable party trio that is Harry, Peter Brant Jr. and Michelle Harper.

"Look at those shoes!" we exclaimed.

“Damnit, purple suede. You can’t beat that,” replied a colleague, as we both peered back down at our comparatively average footwear.

Speaking of dandies, everyone’s favorite ex-pat Euan Rellie rolled in with a crew who appeared to be the remnants of an immaculately tailored stag party, a fact further emphasized when they seized an entire dinner table and dug into massive hunks of filet. “You know how these things go, bud," Mr. Rellie said between mouthfuls. "Sometimes the boys need a night out!”

Each elevator arriving at the 36^th floor ballroom brought with it a new wave of flashbulbs and floor-lengths, until one particular attendee broke the pattern: Doutzen Kroes. Purple pantsuit, ponytail, power stance. At some point during her mini photo-shoot with fellow Victoria’s Secret model Erin Heatherton we could have sworn we heard her humming “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.” Sadly, this fact was unverifiable.

illustration by Camille Shimshak

When my successful numbers racket was busted and disbanded in fifth grade at Barclay school, I needed another way to feed my addiction to video games, gummy bears and smoke bombs. After my cool 500 clams a day (fixed lottery drawings and my spinning toy roulette wheel) dried up, I felt like my quaint Upper East Side ‘hood had become my own personal skid row.

I turned my parents' library, lined with my mother’s books on decorating and my father’s leather-bound tomes on subjects like (snooze) the Russian Revolution and novels written in French, into my own X-rated movie theater. On weekends, my parents went to Southampton and I was left with Lourdes, our cook, who thought I was the golden child. I invited a select group of ten classmates to watch The Robin Byrd Show, a cable program where a stoned-looking Robin Byrd interviewed strippers and porn stars before making them dance naked to her theme song. To add even more cash to my porn empire (I used the dining room chairs lined up movie theater style in front of the TV), I sold candy bars and soda (at double mark-up) that I charged to my parents' house account at Zitomer Pharmacy. Lourdes only came in once, proudly holding a tray of her famous chocolate chip cookies. “For your friends, Charlie,” she offered sweetly as I tried to politely nudge her out of the room. I grabbed the tray and announced to my “customers” that each cookie was $1, which was a much better price than Kathleen’s Cookies. The kids gobbled them up and my wallet got fatter. Soon, weekly showings of The Robin Byrd Show grew and grew until kids were sitting cross-legged and crammed in the library. This went on for months.

Then one Sunday around 11 a.m., my mother woke me up having decided to leave the country early. With rage in her blue eyes, she dragged my sleepy head into the library and pointed to the channel and said sternly, “I know exactly what you and your friends were watching last night and your aunt Bitsy told me how to lock that horrific channel.” I immediately responded with, “You’re crazy. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Lourdes,” my mother called, “please come in the library. Charlie wants to apologize.” My shoulders slumped. I loved Lourdes and didn’t want her to get in any trouble, ever. “I’m sorry Lourdes,” I said flashing her a smile and my most innocent-looking eyes. “I don’t know anything Mrs. Campbell,” Lourdes told my mother, looking down at her white shoes. “Charlie just watches TV with nice boys.”

“Charlie and his friends are no longer watching TV, Lourdes,” my mother proclaimed. “Charlie will be coming to the country with us every weekend from now on and you can have the weekend to visit your sister in New Jersey,” my mother declared, as if addressing the nation. Lourdes nodded her head and scuttled back to the kitchen. My mother ordered me to go back to my room and “study.” I skulked down the hallway as if marching to the electric chair...

With my porno theater shuttered for good (my mother miraculously did figure out how to lock “that dirty, disgusting channel”), was my reign as the Hugh Hefner of Barclay school kaput? No. And my addiction to sugar and gadgets was getting worse, so overnight I devised a new XXX enterprise to score candy and toys without ever spending a single penny. [end scene]

Disclosure:

Last night Scene magazine celebrated their first issue at Double Seven in Manhattan's Meat Packing District. Amid the low light, flowing vodka and throbbing music, the people behind New York City's newest glossy relaxed after coming up with a vision, building a staff and putting ink to shiny, shiny paper in under four months.  The Observer caught up with who's who at Scene and learned that magazines like Quest and Vanity Fair are in the crosshairs as Scene prepares to position itself as the only magazine covering high society from New York with New Yorkers in mind.

"We're for everyone in New York. Society now is like rap stars to football stars to socialites," said Peter Davis, Scene editor-in-chief. "We're going to expose the bad behavior of rich people, which no one does, except Vanity Fair, but we're going to do it beyond them."

Dean Quigley, art director at Scene agrees. "I want it to be everywhere. I want it to be recognized for what it is—beauty in New York City," he said. " I hope that we're in everybody's hands that's a true New Yorker."

Publisher Julie Dannenberg thinks a big part of Scene's success will simply be great writing and an emphasis on all the hot neighborhoods in Manhattan—unlike other magazines.

"When you look at the society magazines, which I guess Scene falls into, their focus is entirely on the Upper East Side . . . Our distribution includes Tribeca and SoHo and the West Village," she said. "We're not all Upper East Siders. We're not all anything and I think that's what Scene is about. It's a much broader audience than Avenue was.

Ms. Dannenberg was formerly at Avenue with Mr. Davis and Scene's creative director, Cricket Burns. Ms. Burns told The Observer that Hilary Rhoda will grace next month's cover and Mr. Davis explained that the covers are another way Scene sets itself apart.

"We're only doing supermodels on the cover so it's like the 80s revisited. No red tape, no PR people. Models who look good in clothes," he said.

"We're going back to the beautiful model, which is long overdue," Ms. Burns added.