Trojan...Evolve Bus tour to raise awareness about health risks on campus!

Well,it wasn't exactly the kind of e-mail you'd get from that gadfly Anne KilKenny, but it piqued my curiosity nonetheless.

The maker of Trojan® Condoms is taking its show on the road - and stopping into campuses around the country - with the Trojan® Evolve Bus Tour.

In essence, it's a call for Americans to "evolve" about their attitudes towards sex and condoms.

Students will have the opportunity to laugh along with some of today's hottest comedians on the Trojan Campus Comedy tour which is going to be zooming onto campuses around the Nation in November.

As proud sponsors of the Vans Warped Tour, the makers of Trojan® brand condoms will also team up with a handful of your favorite bands, too.

Both tours will criss-cross America - inviting people to evolve - by personally pledging to use a condom every time and advocating for comprehensive sexual education in schools by signing the Trojan Evolve Petition.

Along the bus tour route, participants can also encourage friends to continue or change sexual health behaviors by recording video testimonials, which will be posted on the Trojan Evolve web site.

Info: www.trojancondoms.com.

"Trojan Evolve is a call to action," says Jim Daniels, Vice President of Marketing for Church & Dwight Co., Inc.

"We’re quite literally going city to city asking Americans to pledge to use a condom every time, sign a petition for change and help turn the tide on the unhealthy state of sexual health in this country."

All Americans will be able to follow the tour’s progress and become a part of the movement by taking the personal pledge and signing the Trojan Evolve Petition virtually at the Trojan Web site (which also includes important links to third-party sexual health resources).

The Trojan Evolve Tour launches in the wake of newly released CDC statistics indicating that one-in-four teen girls has a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

Syphilis, Gonorrhea and Chlamydia continue to rise in the general public.

This is in addition to the 65 million Americans already living with an incurable STI.

And for the first time in fourteen years, rates of unintended teenage pregnancy are growing, contributing to over three million unplanned pregnancies occurring each year.

Yet, only about one-in-four sex acts among singles involves a condom, resulting in over a billion acts of unprotected sex each year.

"The Trojan Evolve tour is critical and timely," said Dr. M. Joycelyn Elders.

Elders is a former U.S. Surgeon General and is currently advisor to the Trojan brand.

"The problem is clearly not due to a lack of resources. Ninety percent of American households want comprehensive sex education, yet the government has spent over a billion dollars on only abstinence education, which according to its own studies is ineffective."



According to the manufacturer, TROJAN® Brand Condoms are America's #1 condom and have been trusted for nearly 90 years.


TROJAN® brand latex condoms are made from premium quality latex.

If used properly, latex condoms will help to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV infection (AIDS) and many other sexually transmitted diseases.

Condoms are highly effective against pregnancy.

Each condom is electronically tested to help ensure reliability.

There are over 29 varieties of TROJAN® Brand Condoms.

A free sample may be ordered at their web site.

Info: www.trojancondoms.com.

Warped Tour...punk, X-treme sports, and fanticipation!

For the past ten years, as the sleepy days of summer rolled out, roadies have loaded up a caravan of trucks and barreled on down the highway - at-the-ready - to unleash the "Warped Tour" on die-hard fans across the Nation.

The "Tour" was created in 1994 by Kevin Lyman, who got the idea while working on skateboarding shows such as Vision Skate Escape. The moniker "warped" comes from the short-lived Warp Magazine which covered surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, and music.

The fledgling festival started out small - 10,000 heads or so in the halcyon days - but soon mushroomed into a gargantuan event that now attracts about 1 million Americans throughout the course of punk season each year.

Essentially, the festival is an eclectic mix of spunky punk bands, extreme sports, and an endless parade of colorful die-hard punkers who dive into the fray head on each season with great machismo.

There's the occasional human cannonball thrown in for good measure, too.

"We love to surprise the fans. Each year, we come up with something novel," noted the savvy festival producer, who has been at the helm since day one.

The carnival-like grounds are comprised of booths in a flea market-like setting where proprietors in canvas tents sell merchandise, independent record labels flog their artists, and magazine publishers and non-profit orgs ply their way.

The "Warped Tour" benefits upstart bands looking to gain recognition. After all, the tour provides a direct market so the musicians may obtain or extend a fan base.

Recently, I was in for a treat when a documentary - shot on a tour in 2004 - was unveiled.

Although a bit ragged around the edges, in its context - "Warped Tour" - not only resonates, but thoroughly entertains.

The range of - um - anti-music is far-reaching; from heavy metal to anarchistic, in nature. And, in a take on the surreal, a non-stage offers up out-in-the wild fringe bands for the far-reaching punk ear.

When queried about the bands, one fan cackled,

"Punk musicians don't know how to play instruments, that's the idea."

Ah, so that accounts for the ear-splitting explosions of sound - the strident rhythmic clashing - and the smattering of jolts and jangles that jars the musical sensibilities now and then.

Tickets have remained at $25.00 per head over the years. And, while corporate sponsors have tried to muster up a presence into their cozy fold, the show organizers have resisted their purse-strings, in an effort to stay "pure".

In keeping with tradition, there is no "star" billing here, either. Although major acts have appeared over the years, they wipe their a**es in the bushes along with everyone else, I'm assured.

Actually, the documentarians didn't take much of a foray into the musical roots of the phenomenon, which rendered a big hole in the doc.

So, here goes...

Punk rock is an anti-establishment rock music genre and movement that emerged in the mid-1970's. For those in the know - the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and The Clash - are recognized as the vanguard of the musical movement. And, by 1977, punk was spreading around the world.

The pioneers of punk created a furious, hard sound, with stripped-down basic instrumentation, and lyric themes of a political or nihilistic nature. Essentially, the true punk note expresses youthful rebellion and is characterized by an audacious style, hinged to anti-authoritarian ideologies.

A big draw at the "Warped Tour" festivities?

The fans; after all, they're an eyeful!

Throughout the event, the punksters strut their hard-core plumage, and exalt their rabid style.


And, as the stage musically rages, endless streams of tangled bodies - for the most part all tatted up and strung with rings - are inclined to surf over the throngs. A punk sport, that is a mainstay of the proceedings and awesome to watch.

And now, Punkers have somethin' to crow about. Punk has been inducted into the "Rock 'n Roll" Hall of Fame.

Part of the philosophy?

"Punk accepts everyone," one leather-clad fan noted.

The throngs reflect that; festival-goers are young and old, costumed and not. Either way, they're at the ready for a blast of punk enthusiasm to come their way full throttle for the duration of the carnival-like extravaganza.

Surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of colorful footage on teen space-outs or much focus on the use of recreational drugs. Odd, given the milieu.

Since "Woodstock" was rife with reefer madness, I was inclined to ask the producers if the younger generation was just sober, or if there had been a deliberate effort to edit those parts out.
At first, the director asserted there weren't any problems of that nature. But, I expect when they caught the look of disbelief on my face, they quickly re-thunk that one!

"Well, we've experienced some problems in a couple of the larger cities, but that was about it," he noted, almost under his breath.

Ah, I had an inkling.

As much as I found the doc entertaining, it appeared that something was amiss.

And, when the ads for this year's "Warped Tour" starting up in the local press just recently, it hit me like a mac truck.

Quite simply, "Warped Tour" is a squeaky-clean full-length promo, calculated to boost tickets sales and lure fans in the gate.

That's cool, man!

But, I wasn't born yesterday.

Kids will be kids...