OK, so we all know that FishbowlDC editor Patrick Gavin is totally lax in the giving credit department, but now we’ve learned that he totally sucks at checking the authenticity of a photo. Recently, you see, the Washington Times’ Kelly Jane Torrance asked him to post this pic of her during his annual media hotties contest:

We, of course, proceeded to talk about the oddness of the pic in this post. But now, new evidence has come to Big Head DC’s attention, indicating that the original Torrance pic was a hoax! The woman in the below pics, who we’ve been told is the actual Torrance, looks quite a bit different: Read more…

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Oh my! It’s come to Big Head DC’s attention that Endless Simmer writer Stefanie Gans is the Michael Vick of the DC food scene.  Why?

Well, because she eats dogs!  Just look at her “about” page where she writes she likes eating “egg and cheese on a begal” and a “begal and cream cheese.”  Anyone who eats Snoopy has got to be just plain mean.

And! On her MySpace photos comments, a friend writes about how people used to debate whether she wore a bra to class. Maybe if she’d paid more attention to both the letters on her bra size and the letters in the alphabet, well, Snoopy might be alive and well. It’s sad how a typo can result in a dead dog.

Herein lies the problem with MySpace. Just because YOU keep your pics clean, Stafanie, doesn’t mean an IDIOT FRIEND won’t post a revealing one of you when they make a comment.  That’s Stefanie flashing (stage right). Apparently, she also works for some women’s business group, so the pic is pretty much all the proof you need to know how to get ahead in Washington.

Again, poor Snoopy!

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By Carolyn Hax
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 3, 2007; Page C04

Washington Post columnist Carolyn Hax receives many more questions than she can answer in that paper’s space so she’s decided to answer some here at Big Head DC. Take it away Carolyn!

Hi Carolyn,

I am a 23-year-old women who has been dating a man for a year. I recently learned he cheated on me and am wondering whether to leave. The problem is, I really am in love with him – we have everything in common and have even discussed children. What should I do?

Girl With a Problem

Dear GWAP,

When a man cheats so early on in a relationship it means he’s not up to snuff and usually needs some good old fashioned kicking to the curb. You have to think, why would he do this to you? What is his problem? Is this something you’ll want to live with forever? It’s worth thinking about.

Hi Carolyn,

I am a 23-year-old man who has been dating a woman for a year. I recently learned she cheated on me and am wondering whether to leave. The problem is, I really am in love with her – we have everything in common and have even discussed children. What should I do?

Boy With a Problem

Dear BWAP,

When a woman cheats so early on in a relationship it means you’re not up to snuff and need some good old fashioned kicking to the curb. You have to think, what did you do to make her want to do this to you? What is your problem? Is this something you think she’ll want to live with forever? It’s worth thinking about.

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A Washington Post insider has leaked an internal memo regarding the Don Imus controversy to BigHead DC. We think the memo, penned by executive editor Len Downie, should make for an interesting read here at BigHead DC.

To: All Washington Post Staffers
From: Leonard Downie, Jr.
Re: The Recent Don Imus Racial Flap

Here at the Washington Post we pride ourselves on sensitivity – sensitivity about issues and the people that make those issues pertinent and relevant. We Post staffers also know that sensitivity of the utmost importance when dealing with members of the various minority communities we cover.

Back in 1998, we instituted an in-print rule that stated reporters could not use the word “black” and must use the words “African-American” when referring to a person of such persuasion. As a response to Imus’ gross insensitivity, I’d like to expand that rule even further. From here on in, any reference to the word “black” must be replaced by “African-American.” This rule will apply to both print and everyday conversations.

So, for example, when we write about the company Black & Decker, we must now refer to it as “African-American & Decker.” The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” will from here on in be known as “Paint It, African-American.” And the stock market crashed on “African-American Friday.”

When we speak to our co-workers, the blackboard in the newsroom is now the “African-American board” and the parking lot is filled with “African-American top.” The vending machine people have been notified, and will soon be serving “African-American cherry soda.” Care for some lunch? Well perhaps you’d enjoy the “Cajun-African-Americaned chicken.” If you feel faint and hit the ground, you’ve “African-Americaned out.”

Several staffers have already told me that this proposal “makes no sense” to them. Well, do you know what? Slavery and oppression make no sense to me, so I guess this is the right rule for the right situation at the right time. A rule such as this is but a mere raindrop in the ocean of sensitivity we must extend when it come to racial issues.

In closing, I’d like to say we at the Post hope this new rule will continue our tradition of excellence and make us just like The New York Times – a paper whose irrelevancy is matched only by its plummeting stock market numbers.

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Should We Flush the Men’s Corporate Restroom Ban? 

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 28, 2007; Page F06

Every weekday at around 12:30 p.m., Robert Mooney leaves his office, hops into his 1998 Nissan Sentra and drives to the nearby McDonalds to empty his bursting bladder. It’s not some sort of odd ritual in which Mooney is engaged, though: Mooney works for Wells Fargo, one of the many U.S. companies that have banned male employees from using company rest rooms.

The ban on men’s rest rooms stems back to the early 1990s, when sexual harassment law was broadened to include a concept known as the “hostile work environment.” That meant that any workplace that fostered a “culture of harassment” could be sued by employees who felt uncomfortable in their work environment.

Sometime in early 2001, several female employees at Fortune 500 companies reported on company surveys that they felt “uncomfortable seeing men exit employee rest rooms.”

“Just knowing (male employees) are behind a single, thin wall with their pants down is enough to make me feel violated,” wrote one female employee in an impassioned screed.

“Men should not be exposing themselves in a public building,” complained a female middle manager. “Even if that exposure occurs in an ostensibly private area. Since (the exposure) is being done on company property, rules of decency must apply equally in all quarters of the building.”

The displeasure soon spread to colleges. Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, walked out mid-day when she witnessed a male colleage adjusting his pants after using a rest room.

Hopkins later said if she hadn’t left, “I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.”

Five other female university professors reached by the Washington Post also said they were deeply offended by the male use of rest rooms.

As complaints mounted and lawsuits were threatened, several top universities released studies showing a marked decline in female employee morale when the subject of men’s rest rooms was brought up. Acting preventatively, many companies and universities boarded up men’s rest rooms and places signs on the doors with directions to rest rooms at nearby fast food restaurants, motels, and pool halls.

Domestic violence experts and human relations experts soon lobbied to have the men’s room space turned into “Harassment Awareness Centers,” which gave female employees a “safe haven” away from the rough-and-tumble male culture that pervades most U.S. companies.

The Washington Post - which instituted a ban on men’s rest rooms in 2005 - has such a center and the majority of female employees claim is has been a “mental health boon” for them to use the center’s services.

“After a long day of dealing with primal, angry male editors, it’s great to be able to have a place to sip on a Diet Coke and file complaints about the way I’ve been treated,” says one female reporter who wished to remain anonymous. In fact, The Post has reported the satisfaction level of female employees has “risen considerably” since a Harrassment Awareness Center replaced the third floor men’s rest room.

“Whatever it takes to make a less hostile workplace we’ll do,” said Post editor Ben Bradlee, who is recovering from bladder surgery at Sibley Hospital. “No one wants the women of the Post to feel uncomfortable.”

Men fighting back

Now that male employees have been denied rest room use, they’re starting to speak up, albeit in hushed tones.

“I know it’s not manly to complain, but I think it’s really unfair,” Mooney says. “I’ve already ruined several pairs of Dockers, not to mention really expensive shoes.”

Men’s rights activist Glenn Sacks says the issue of men being denied company access to rest room is “small potatoes” compared to “other pressing issues, such as paternity fraud and false rape accusations and debunking that Super Bowl Sunday domestic violence myth.”

Sacks, however, did say he felt that women’s concern about men’s rest rooms as “much ado about nothing” and “very silly.”

But National Organization of Women president Kim Gandy says men being inconvenienced is only fair, since the U.S. culture has been historically unfair to women.

“One of the reasons women had to struggle so long to win the vote—and why we continue to fight for full equality—is the trivializing of women and our concerns,” Gandy says. “It smacks of sexism when the concerns of women are demeaned as ‘silly.’”

What are your thoughts on the men’s restroom ban? Should men get their own rest rooms again? OR should Congress take action illegalizing all men’s rest rooms, as California legislator Shiela Kuehl has proposed?

Please write to us via this Web site.

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Innovative tutorial sessions give teen girls hands-on experience

By Laura Stepp Sessions
Washington Post Staff Writer

The scene looks like any other tutoring session for a bright, focused suburban high school girl. The mentor doles out advice while the young charge carefully takes notes.

But this particular session isn’t about algebra or history; it’s all about sex. And in the bedroom of her parents house in a leafy Montgomery County suburb, 17-year-old Emily Neiman is getting real-time, hands-on schooling on the finer points of what conservatives used to call “carnal knowledge.”

Neiman’s parents have hired The School for Sex, a tutoring service designed to educate upwardly-mobile, fast-track teenage girls in sexual techniques and etiquette.

The service, which has been approved by The Academy of Sexual Sciences, has become the rage amongst upper middle class families.

According to University of Virginia psychiatrist Anita H. Clayton, an expert on women’s sexuality and mental health, many women have mediocre sex lives and are in need of some sort help.

“Women can change their level of satisfaction,” she has said. “We need to change the belief systems that are holding us back.”

Changing the belief system

The School for Sex represents a bold, innovative way for young women to change that belief system.

Watching a School lesson in action, it’s easy to see why it has become such a success story.

Up in her bedroom, the raven-haired Neiman watches raptly as a pair of tutors engages in “a standard heterosexual sex act” on her bed, which still boasts a Disney bedspread she had as a kid. Soon, Neiman is being coached in the ways of oral sex and being coaxed into participating.

“It’s always difficult the first time,” offers sexual health educator Stephanie Towers, the female half of the couple. “Just try it and if it doesn’t work for you we’ll stop.”

Sex coaches for girls are now more important than ever. According to Clayton, 43 percent of women are unhappy with their sex lives, “which doesn’t seem bad unless you believe, as I do, that the other 57 percent were lying.” Read more…

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Critics have carped that the Washington Post’s Sunday Source section is a featherweight appendage of a newspaper that once brought down a presidential administration. Yet in between articles on how to make puppets and throw parties for your ferret, the Source occasionally breaks new ground. BigHead DC is proud to present an exclusive Source look into the adult film industry.
 
By Bridget Breda Feldmeier

Popular opinion in a crowd of wild’n’crazy 20- and 30-something gals is that porn is now da bomb. These days, porn stars have gone mainstream and mainstream stars do porn. X-Rated actors like Jenna Jameson, for example, rub elbows on the best seller lists with Joan Didion. Meanwhile stars like Pamela Anderson have seen their careers explode after their naughty video hi jinks got out.

But can a Washington career gal ever hope to exude this kind of high-octane va-va-voom sexuality? Well, this intrepid reporterette decided to thrust herself deep into the depths of the adult film world and find out. I didn’t opt to become a lowly lighting or tech worker, though. Instead my mission was to show our loyal Sunday Source readers the nitty gritty of working as an adult film star.

The Source has already blown the lid off the pressing issue of public kissing, so why not hardcore porn? Forget Road Trips, baby. This would be the road truly less traveled! And forget “Sex and the City.” This would be sex with the city!

I immediately rang up porn star-turned-video director Jill Kelly to show me the ropes of how the whole she-bang (pun intended) works! When Kelly invited me down to a shoot, I immediately boned up on the finer points of porn by rereading Jameson’s “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star.” How hard could it be, after all? Previous Sunday Source writers (all of whom could be described as “intrepid”) have plunged into such body-taxing ventures as cardiovascular combat and dealing with snow days. I figured an adventure in porn would be as exhilarating as it was revelatory!

The blonde, lithe Kelly has become something of a feminist icon ever since she started her successful Jill Kelly Productions. You go, girl! I met up with Ms. Kelly, who was clad in a natty business suit on the set, which was filled with artificial-looking women, beastly-looking males and lots of Viagra and Krispy Kreme donuts. Ms. Kelly was fully in command and soon ordered me to disrobe. So I peeled off the red themal undies my mother had laid out for me the night before. But Ms. Kelly told me that wasn’t enough, though, so off went the old thermals! Sorry, ma!

Granted, it was somewhat unnerving standing there sans clothes with a bunch of lighting guys gawking at me. But I intrepidly plowed on. I hardly had time to blink before the vivacious Ms. Kelly got the action rolling.

Before I knew it, Ms. Kelly had me on my back with our limbs wrapped around a comely female star. I gave it the old college try. I mean that literally: I drew inspiration from the many nights in the girls’ dormitory to make my film scene as memorable as possible.

Best of all, all those yoga and aerobic classes had made me limber enough to contort into even the strangest of sexual positions. Yay yoga!

Then the ever-affable Ms. Kelly suggested I pair up with a man for my next encounter. And this is where my journey into the world of porn came to an abrupt anti-climax.

I told Ms. Kelly my Post story on porn could not include men: According to the official Post writer’s handbook, when men have sex it’s dirty, but when women have sex it’s beautiful and liberating. Therefore, I explained, a lowly, icky man could not be allowed onto the sexual playing field for reportage purposes.

Ms. Kelly suggested I leave immediately if I did not want to partake. I was handed a smart-looking mauve bathrobe and found my way to a dressing room. Luckily for me, the room was stocked with delicious mint-flavored cocoa. Mmm! (Stay tuned for the Sunday Source’s intrepid multi-page investigation into cocoa!) While imbibing, it occurred to me that I never chose a porn star name. So instead of me mulling about a moniker, we’re asking our intrepid readers to contribute a porn star name for this intrepid reporter!

Tell us about your best porn star name in two words. E-mail washsource@gmail.com and include your name, town and phone number.    

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Several readers have asked if we have any health advice for them, since we now work for a large consumer-oriented health company.

Well, a few years ago we all had much fun helping our friend Windy with her Leukemia run that we decided to look into what other diseases have become trendy amongst the jet set. So if you plan on getting sick this year, consider our recommendations your license to ill!

First there is Parkinson’s Disease. Michael J. Fox has made this illness something of a cause celebre, but we already knew about Parkinson’s back when only Muhammad Ali had it. *yawn* So yesterday.

There’s also breast cancer, which has become tres gauche since Elizabeth Edwards announced she had recently acquired it. The KAC crew considered helping a breast cancer charity in 2004, but too many animalistic men (eww!) kept coming up to our well-endowed redheaded friend (who shall remain nameless) and asking if she wanted an “inspection.” One means, really.

But, alas, we found ourselves a delightful little standby called the bunion. It’s all the rage amongst we Manolo Blahnik gals, who like to prance about in four-inch heels at 4 a.m. but most importantly, we found ourselves a cute podiatrist *kisses* who loves to coddle our widdle piggies every time they get snaggled. Bon vivant!

So we recommend the latter of these diseases to keep your toes twinkling and to make your full calendar of maladies complete! Viva la foot fetishist!

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Editor’s note: To commemorate the momentous event known as DC Restaurant Week, the editors of the Washington Post sent our resident food critic to places that serve food that average, hard-working DC-ers might actually be able to afford. His first stop: The VC, or “Verizon Center,” as it’s known by the average DC working stiff.

The VC

601 F Street, NW

202-628-3200 

When you’ve had such illustrious visitors like Gilbert Arenas and Michael Jordan, you know you must be serving up exquisite cuisine. However, a visit to the VC revealed vittles that were vexing and atmosphere that was angering.

Upon first visit, I noticed the VC doesn’t make one feel like a regular. The throngs of diners seem rude and poorly dressed. The welcoming host at the ticket booth tore my ticket and then almost tore me a new one when I inquired as to what the evening’s specials would be.

Nevertheless I trudged on. The massive volume this place does convince me there must be something truly original here.

Sadly, I found it necessary to mime my way through dinner. The music was always loud in the foreground. And on a busy Saturday night, the diners were quite noisy – one would say boisterous, even. Yet their ecstatic cheers — which must have been for their entrees, one assumes — emboldened me to tempt my palette with some newfound dishes.

A cozy snack stand on one of the levels stood just near an impossibly huge restroom and under some gauche recessed lighting. It looked the perfect retreat for an after-work bite. The look was uncivilized and yet happily quaint.

Sadly, my first bite of food did not result in any epiphanies. The Verizon Center’s appetizers were quite routine. A confection I later learned was called a “pretzel” was overcooked and doused with flaky white crystals ostensibly named after the trendy Baltimore dining spot Salt. The delicacies known as “French fries” were greasy. Yet they were plentiful and people seemed to enjoy them. How to explain this cookery conundrum?

For the main course, I was expecting a pleasant skewer of bologna embedded within a round bread roll. Yet what I received was an oddly-shaped concoction called a “hot dog.” Worse, it was slathered in an oddly fluorescent yellowish substance (a phone call to the venue later revealed the exotic matter was called “mustard”.

Burgers may be the Verizon Center’s ticket to acclaim. I’d never tried one, but was pleasantly surprised at the restorative mounds of meat that greeted my mouth. My “cheeseburger deluxe” came enriched with a dusting of a whimsical red substance I later learned was called “ketchup.”

A “Center?” Not quite. There’s no central focus here. I’d rate the food so-so, but the ambiance very poorly. With all that shouting and screaming, you’d almost think there was some kind of sporting event was going on or something.

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It disappoints me when I see a woman throw something in the trash that’s not really garbage. Like a half-eaten Popsicle. Or a lunch that could be saved for later. These are the doings of disposable people living in a disposable society. They think they can dispose of anything and it will just be gone, as if by magic. Women don’t appreciate that there are men that actually have to deal with that garbage. This is why we have a disposable, throwaway culture.

Sometimes when I go to a club on the weekends I dress up in a friend’s actual trash collectors’ uniform and tell women that’s my profession. If they are sincere, they will see beyond the greasy, smelly overalls and get to know the real me. If that does not work I then tell the women I am not just a trash collector but a “maintenance supervisor.” If they are impressed by a mere title, I consider them status-driven cunts and only good for one pump and a quick dump. They may be quick to dismiss the men who empty dumpsters, but they are not so happy when they realize they have become cum dumpsters.

Americans are trashy people and live in a society of garbage. In many European countries, the trash collector is amongst the highest status males, because people there are wise enough to realize he performs an essential function. I have heard that in Greece there are 27 words to describe “garbage man” for that is how valued these men are.

We could all do without our i-Pods, Blackberries, and toy trains. But if the trash piles up it starts to smell. That smell is the rotting decay of a decrepit and dying throwaway culture.

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