Best NYC Souvenir So Far

Come and get ‘em, they’re FREE! I so love this campaign. Launched by the NYC Dept. of Health and Hygiene on Feb. 14th, Valen- tine's Day, these condoms can now be picked up all over the place in NYC. (To folks not in the know, the letters and the colored circles represent various subway routes throughout four of the five boroughs...no subway in Staten Island, the poor dears.) I actually did a little research to find out exactly where they can be found and was not surprised by the usual suspects, that is, bars and dance clubs in locations where our beloved and astonishing hedonists frolic. What is really intriguing to me is that hair salons are also a prime target and, if your geographic knowledge of NYC is somewhat keen, you will see that the predominant locations are in poor neighborhoods. Well, okay, I’ll say it…in the racially ghetto-ized sections of the outer boroughs. But that’s cool too; you have to go where the message is more than just an advertising campaign.

Protests have been lodged by you-know-who but you really have to hand it to Mayor Bloomberg…he has endorsed this project wholeheartedly. I hope someone has the balls to fill up the baptismal basin in St. Patrick’s Cathedral with these artistic gems. I’d light a candle.