SOUTH JERSEY

Jon Bon Jovi's 'Reunion' with Camden

Phaedra Trethan
@CP_Phaedra

I’m not a big Bon Jovi fan.

Jon Bon Jovi shares a smile with Camden Mayor Dana Redd (left) and Rutgers University-Camden Chancellor Phoebe Haddon (right) during Rutgers-Camden's 2015 Commencement.

Sure, like every other big-haired, Aqua-Netted teenage girl in the 1980s, I thought Jon Bon Jovi was cute. I played “Slippery When Wet” on a loop that undoubtedly led my mother to contemplate infanticide.

Yes, he’s a Jersey guy, and I am very much a Jersey girl, with a big mouth and a lot of opinions, but by the time the calendar turned to the ‘90s, I’d discovered grunge, rediscovered punk and left JBJ and those pop-metal confections behind with the hairspray and hot-pink lip gloss.

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My undying love and loyalty to another Jersey guy, one Bruce Frederick Springsteen, is probably the only reason the first sentence of this column hasn’t already resulted in the immediate revocation of my New Jersey driver’s license and eviction from the state.

Still, for all the shut-down strangers and hot rod angels that rumble through Springsteen’s imagery and my psyche, his pal from Sayreville has won me over in one aspect: his clear and abiding affection for the city of Camden.

In 2013, he donated $200,000 through his Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation to help establish Joseph's House, a year-round homeless shelter. The Soul Foundation has worked since 2009 in Camden with organizations including Heart of Camden to help fight poverty, homelessness and hunger. In 2015, he received an honorary degree from Rutgers University-Camden for his long career as an entertainer and for his philanthropy focused on homelessness and poverty.

Now Bon Jovi’s released three music videos, “Spiritual Warfare,” “Living with the Ghost” and “Reunion,” and one short documentary film, “This House is Not for Sale,” all featured exclusively on the music streaming service Tidal — all filmed in and written about Camden.

The videos follow a young black kid through the streets of the city, past abandoned buildings and rowhouses with bars on the porches and windows, past trash-strewn lots and vacant blocks. He walks these streets, headphones around his neck, and as he walks, the scenes cut to Bon Jovi on another city street, mimicking the boy’s movements.

Bon Jovi shoots video in Camden

“Living with the Ghost” is about overcoming the past, seeing past your surroundings to a better life, something to which many in the city can relate. “Go tell your shadows I will get out alive,” he sings. “Reunion” was filmed in the Camden High School gym with the singer positioned squarely in the Panthers’ midcourt circle.

“This House is Not for Sale” features familiar faces, including Mayor Dana Redd and Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson. It highlights some of the nonprofits doing good work to lift the residents of Camden, like the Children’s Garden, St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society, Joseph’s House and North Camden Little League.

The short film is not the most sophisticated documentary you’ll see about Camden. It oversimplifies a lot about the city, making it seem as though the county takeover of the police department is the primary reason for changes in Camden and even getting a few facts wrong, like when it states Gov. Chris Christie switched it from a city force to a county in 2016 (it was 2013 and the county freeholders and then-state Sen. Donald Norcross were behind the change).

It misses a nuance common to national media that drives local journalists nuts, saying the homicide rate has been halved since 2012 without noting the record set in that grim year was due in large part to mass layoffs on the police force.

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It doesn’t really get into the controversies over charter and Renaissance schools in the city, the tax breaks given to giant corporations like Subaru and the 76ers to move a few miles west and across the Delaware River, respectively — or how companies already in the city that don’t pay taxes could probably go a long way to solving a lot of the city’s financial problems if they did.

Still, Bon Jovi’s done a service to Camden and to his fans by highlighting a distressed city that’s trying, by means large and small, public and private, to bring itself back from the brink.

There’s hope. There’s light. At the end of “This House is Not for Sale,” he leaves this message: “Camden, we believe in you.”

OK, JBJ. It’s official: You’ve got a new (old) fan.

Phaedra Trethan: (856) 486-2417; ptrethan@gannettnj.com