New York Press has announced that it will no longer accept “explicit” advertising, which had been a mainstay of the publication for years. Washington papers, large and small, also count on such ads to bring in revenues in the millions of dollars range each year. Does this move mean a change is coming to the allegedly more staid world of District publishing? After all, “DC Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey has told us that the City Paper was one of her best advertising outlets and continues to run ads for “criminal” groups. One in-the-know media observer told us this afternoon that the City Paper has already seen pressure to “cut down on the raciness” with its recent sale to Creative Loafing. Stay tuned.

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Anne Schroeder, currently of Jason Binn’s Capitol File and formerly of WaPo’s Reliable Source, is set to become the new gossip columnist for Capitol Leader when it debuts on November 21.

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• There’s a Pirate Party. And it’s not Halloween-related. “I am the only drunken Pirate seeking office in this great nation,” says James Hill, a candidate for Congress in Iowa. Why not? 
• Chantilly school teacher said to be torturing students.
• Nerds play Fantasy Congress: “As in other fantasy sports, you – the Citizen – draft a team of real-life legislators from the U.S. Congress and score points for your team’s successes. Join a league and compete against other Citizens, or form a league of your own!” Um, no.
• “The Capital Club has no mission except to show its members and their many dates a good time,” Jayne Sandman, associate publisher of Capitol File, told the NY Times re: the club’s annual Swine on the Vine party. “It’s hedonistic relief from a city of suits and ties.” So, does that mean pages are invited, too?
• Tigers on top, again. Roar. But was there soil involved?
• John Edwards’ wife is bitchy. Happy, but bitchy.
• Google Earth. Politically useful? Or still just lame?
• Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., gave Italians some love on Saturday. (Note the vowel-ending last names.) Agreed that the press sucks sausage.  
• We can thank that crazy Jane Pauly for Doonesbury’s continued poignancy.
• Andy Rooney is old and late. “Someone – and I guess it’s President Bush – has to tell us what in the world we’re doing in Iraq now,” he said on a new 60 Minutes last night. ”I don’t think any of us know.”
• We saw The Departed and Infamous this weekend, and recommend both films. Juliet Stevenson’s impression of former Vogue editor Diana Vreeland in the latter was especially saucy, and, God, we just know that we’re going to end up just like her one day.

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That was the message for Dems in this election cycle straight from political writer David Mark on the Daily Show tonight, promoting his new book, “Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning.” When Jon Stewart asked Mark about Bob Woodward’s still number one “State of Denial,” he commented with a smile on his face that the veteran WaPo journalist is a like a “weather vane” who covers the Bush administration based on whichever way the political wind is blowing. You can catch more of Mark’s political observations when he debuts later this fall with the new Capitol Leader newspaper.

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Today was Lloyd Grove’s last column with the New York Daily News, despite his surprising declaration (see Gawker link) to Big Head Rob just last month that he had “no plans” other than to continue writing his column at the newspaper. (Tongues had been wagging for months that his pricey contract — reportedly 300K per year — had not been renewed.)

Grove said that it was a tough learning curve to go from being the Reliable Source at the Washington Post to one of several piranha-like gossips in NYC just over three years ago. “New York is not Washington, obviously,” he told the Times today. “There are about 20 different major industries that are headquartered here, and I am still on a New York learning curve. It takes time, learning about them, writing about them, so I am still on a learning curve, but it is not as steep as it once was.”

The Times also notes that many New Yorkers speculated that Grove wouldn’t last as long as he did. “Before he started, one Page Six reporter said, ‘We will not rest until we send you back to Washington on a stretcher,’” according to the paper. “That was from Jared Paul Stern, who was carried off the field first after being accused of trying to blackmail Ronald W. Burkle. Mr. Grove at least outlasted him.”

In his column today, Grove insisted he’s not ready to reveal his next step, but few are speculating that it will be in DC’s direction.

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Re: IvyGate and IvyLeak–we were right, as usual. We’re a little surprised that the New York Sun’s Eliana Johnson failed to get these anonymous editors to talk any smack about each other. But this line more than made up for it:

The bloggers say there’s an audience hungry for what they’re serving up. 

Oh, yeeeeeeeeeeaaahh.

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The new editor of The Washington Blade, Kevin Naff, along with plenty of other Americans, never really liked Jeff Gannon’s brand of journalism. So, when Naff became executive editor of the paper this week after Chris Crain’s departure, he immediately got rid of the pub’s most controversial columnist (which will probably be another chapter in Gannon’s forthcoming tome).

Soon after the news, Gannon sat down with Big Head Rob for an interview:

BHR: What’s your biggest beef with the Blade?

JG: I don’t have a beef with the Blade. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been a contributing columnist for nearly a year.

BHR: Surprised by the decision?

JG: I was not surprised by the decision by Kevin Naff to make changes at the Blade. It’s his perogative, his vision. Things like this happen all the time in journalism. Just ask Jonathan Alter.

BHR: What were you doing the moment you learned about your impending departure?

JG: I was reading my email.

BHR: What do you honestly think about Kevin Naff?

JG: I actually don’t know anything about him. We had almost no contact because I always dealt with Chris Crain. For the record, I was never an employee of the Washington Blade, only a contributing columnist, so to say I was fired as some of the liberal blogs have suggested is inaccurate. The Blade is simply not going to publish my columns any longer. There are many other opportunities that I can now pursue.

BHR: How do you and Chris Crain originally hook up, as it were?

JG: I had written Chris to thank him for the editorial he wrote that said his newspaper crossed a line in its reporting about me. I followed up with a few comments about a variety of topics and the idea of submitting a column came up. I’ve only met him once, over coffee at the Starbucks near the Blade offices.

BHR: Thanks, Jeff.

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We at Big Head Rob send our love to Klaus Marre, who’s been selected as the first permanent editor of The Hill’s newish Capitol Hill blog. A former health care reporter with the little newspaper that could, he will now be wrangling members of Congress to get them to post naked photos and dish about beer pong parties. We wish — more than likely they’ll blab on and on about the Oman deal being rotten for working families. (Don’t get this confused with David Bowie’s wife, Iman, like we did. She has nothing to do with working families.)

Insiders say that running the blog won’t be the easiest of tasks. A plethora of old-school reporters work in the news room on K Street and many are not all that keen on these funky new Web logs. A dynamic Internet presence is something that The Hill has long been lacking, so we’re glad to see the management there moving forward with a cool cat like Klaus.

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