No one will ever accuse Arlington, Virginia, Craigslist poster #3811257214 of not being inventive and bold, though possibly also a little . . . odd. In a want ad titled “Executive Social Coordinator,” he describes himself as an “adventurer and entrepreneur in my mid 30s” who seeks a “young socialite” to be his party companion as well as “personal assistant, social advisor, social media manager and event planner.” The job pays $15 to $20 an hour to start, and to qualify the applicant has to be at least 21, well-dressed and organized, a college grad or student, “highly social,” and “capable of attracting and maintaining positive attention.”
Naturally, we reached out to learn more.
The poster, when he phoned us, said he did not want to use his real name but rather would go by “Drew Frederick,” the name with which he is beginning his personal “branding.” Are two names necessary, we wondered? “Part of it is the projects I am working on and different projects from the past,” he says. “Also, I am in a non-monogamous relationship with a woman, and I want to maintain a firewall.” Couldn’t the girlfriend be his party companion? “She is more introverted than I am,” he says, adding that she supports his pursuit nonetheless.
The fact of the girlfriend basically answered our question of whether he was looking for a wife, and he volunteered, “I’m not, though I wonder how many people think that.” He says the job is open to either sex, though he thinks women “are more socially aware than men.” Of the three dozen applicants, so far, a third are men. He’s already interviewed one applicant “at a social setting in Clarendon,” and has three more interviews scheduled for Monday.
Frederick, who practices patent law and also works in real estate, says his future projects include a book and a documentary film. He did not go into detail about these projects, though he says they could be interpreted as “either fascinating and fun or jarring and odd.” You mean like the ad?
On Craigslist, Frederick wrote: “Part of my work depends heavily on social interaction, but I’m finding it difficult to keep up with these demands. I am also an introvert, which makes it especially hard to keep up.” Because he finds social life “an effort,” he wants someone who can smooth that challenge—find him the right parties and be with him at his side. In addition to paying the hourly wage to the would-be social “coordinator,” Frederick says he will also pick up the tab for their partying.
Frederick says he has a “slight preference” for a female companion, and we couldn’t help but wonder whether he’d seen Pretty Woman a few too many times. In the hit ’90s film, businessman Richard Gere employs prostitute Julia Roberts to accompany him to events. He buys her dresses and jewels, they have sex, they fall in love. Frederick responded with a little “hmmm.” Then, he said, “Interesting you should ask that. You did hit on something. Let me follow up with you in about two months.” We’d also like to hear from the person who takes the job, and will update if we do.
Tennessee Titans linebacker and local sports star Moise Fokou has been arrested in Washington and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol or a drug.
The allegations only concern the use of alcohol; Fokou has pleaded not guilty.
A United States Park Police officer arrested the 27-year-old Fokou around 3 AM on a Friday in January. The officer pulled Fokou over after witnessing Fokou drive his BMW at a high rate of speed and across the solid double yellow lines on 14th Street near McPherson Square, the arresting officer said in a sworn statement.
“As I was speaking with [Fokou] I detected a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage,” the arresting officer said in the statement. “His eyes were bloodshot and watery while his speech was slurred.”
Fokou told the officer that “he had a few drinks” at a DC nightclub, and claimed his BMW “just takes off sometimes,” said the officer.
After administering a field sobriety test on Fokou, the officer placed Fokou under arrest. Fokou was taken to a Park Police station; he declined to take a breath alcohol test.
On February 4, the DC attorney general’s office charged Fokou with driving under the influence of alcohol or a drug and operating a vehicle while impaired.
Mark Schamel, a Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice attorney who is representing Fokou, disputes the allegations. “Mr. Fokou is innocent,” Schamel says. “He did nothing wrong, and we anticipate that he will be cleared at the conclusion of this case.”
Fokou pleaded not guilty; the case is scheduled to go to trial on October 22.
A Titans spokesman did not return a call requesting comment.
Born in the African nation of Cameroon, Fokou moved to Montgomery County, Maryland, at age 5. He played high school football at Bullis School in Potomac before joining the Maryland Terrapins in 2005, where he developed into an All-ACC linebacker.
The Philadelphia Eagles selected Fokou in the seventh round of the 2009 NFL draft. This past March, the Tennessee Titans signed him to a multi-year contract.
Photograph by Sophie Gilbert.
Kate Bennett gets in the right frame of mind while working on the latest issue of Washingtonian Bride & Groom.
The 2013 Tech Titans reception. Photograph by Andrew Propp.
Washingtonian celebrated the 2013 Tech Titans with a reception presented by Google at the US Chamber of Commerce on May 15, benefiting the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship.
Attendees enjoyed delicious fare from Federal City Caterers and tasty drinks including a Knob Creek specialty cocktail, and listened to music by Millennium throughout the evening. Guests learned about new business technology in the Comcast Business Class lounge while enjoying branded cupcakes provided by Georgetown Cupcake. Washington Talent Agency provided a green screen for guests to have their image on a faux Washingtonian magazine cover, and guests posed in a photo booth powered by Bank of New York Mellon.
Thank you to sponsors Google, Comcast Business Class, Bank of New York Mellon, and Consumer Electronics Association for being a part of this special evening.
Special thanks to our production partners Amaryllis for the decor, Perfect Settings for the furniture rentals, and MJ Valet for the valet services.
As the anchorman of the top-rated CBS Evening News, and “the most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite grew into his name. But growing up in the Midwest, he envied the boys with nicknames. That’s why, when his son, Walter III, was born, he almost immediately started to call him “Chip.” Which brings us to Chip’s son, Walter Cronkite IV. He goes by “Walt,” which would no doubt make his grandfather proud. Something else that would make the elder Cronkite proud? The book Walt has produced, Cronkite’s War: His World War II Letters Home.
Walt is two years out of Hamilton College and, following in his grandfather’s footsteps, is beginning a career in broadcast news in Washington, DC, at CBS News. (Cronkite first joined CBS News at then-WTOP, now WUSA, in 1950, after starting his career as a wire service reporter and war correspondent.) Walt is an associate producer in the Washington bureau on M Street. His boss, bureau chief Christopher Isham, and Isham’s wife, Jennifer Maguire, hosted a book party for him Thursday evening at their Cleveland Park home.
Walt said the book was the result of a trip he made with his father to the University of Texas in Austin. That’s where the Cronkite papers are kept, spanning his early career as a newspaper reporter and war correspondent and through to his broadcasting career and retirement. Cronkite died in 2009.
Walt said that on this trip to Austin he began to read through his grandfather’s World War II letters, and simply got “pulled in.” They were principally addressed to Cronkite’s wife, Betsy, and were equal parts observations about the war, accounts of interesting people and derring-do, and love letters. In collaboration with his history professor, Maurice Isserman, Walt sifted through and edited the letters into book form. NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw, a onetime head-to-head Cronkite competitor, wrote the gracious forward.
In a story that is sadly not an exact retread of the 2005 rom-com starring Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney, a helpful reader passed along a link to a Craigslist ad posted by a man seeking a wedding date for this weekend. The poster, a self-proclaimed “clean man” in Northwest DC, is seeking a young-but-not-too-young female companion for a celebration in Lexington. He helpfully lists some pros for this situation, including:
—Free food and booze
—The opportunity to wear a dress
—Being able to “pop n lock it” with him on the dance floor
—The fact that “you only yolo once”
Justice Stephen Breyer, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Samuel Alito, Judge Douglas Ginsburg, and Judge Brett Kavanaugh at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s mock trial. Photograph by Kevin Allen.
He’s a former US solicitor general and one of Washington’s most skilled lawyers, but even Seth Waxman ran into difficulty representing his latest client—a politician with a serious image problem.
While on the campaign trail, this candidate proved incapable of connecting with common, everyday people, earning a reputation as an elitist with no regard for the working class. He is, in fact, such a diva that he goes by a single name: Coriolanus. You may have read about him in William Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name, or even watched his story unfold onstage during the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s current production of the play.
If you thought we were describing someone else, don’t worry, it’s an easy mistake to make—had the technology been available in BC times, Coriolanus is undoubtedly the kind of guy who would’ve commissioned a car elevator for his beach house.
Given the electorate’s widespread distaste for him, it’s easy to see why Waxman faced an uphill battle Monday evening when he argued at the Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual mock trial that Coriolanus’s downfall was the result not of his own actions, but of defamatory coverage by the ancient Roman newspaper The Latin Tribune.
Coriolanus’s story goes like this: He returned to Rome a war hero and began his bid for consul, an office in the city’s nascent government. He was known for his anti-populist views, such as his belief that the people didn’t have the right to set their own grain prices. After getting driven into exile by his political rivals, he allied himself with one of Rome’s enemies, Aufidius. But just as he was about to attack his former city, his mother, Volumnia, convinced him to make peace—a foolish choice as it turns out, since Aufidius’s cohorts then killed Coriolanus. Got all that?
It might not change a thing, but Glover Park residents are at least getting to vent their emotions as they protest, in various ways, that the landlord for Max’s Best Ice Cream did not renew the lease and instead gave it to Max’s next-door neighbor, Rocklands Barbecue. The latest development comes at the hands of fifth graders, who staged a peaceable protest outside Max’s on Thursday afternoon.
The group of 15, who marched to the store with posters, are students from Benjamin Stoddert Elementary School. “Stoddert Peacebuilders is a group of students at the school who care about making the world a better place by planting ‘seeds of peace’ whenever and wherever possible,” says Steve Dingledine of the Georgetown Patch.
Photograph by Lauren Joseph.
A crew from Adobe DPS films our digital development manager, David VanVoorhees, at work in the Washingtonian offices.
Looks like the Redskins will remain the Redskins as long as Dan Snyder has his way. He told USA Today Friday morning that he would “never” change the name of his NFL team.
“It’s that simple. NEVER—you can use caps,” Snyder told the publication.
The development comes amid continued criticism that the moniker is a racial slur against Native Americans. Just last week, at-large DC Council member David Grosso, an Independent, introduced a non-binding resolution calling on Snyder to drop the team’s name, which Grosso described as “historically racist and derogatory.”
Grosso suggested that Snyder change the team’s name to the Washington Redtails, a reference to the famous World War II-era African-American pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen.
In the USA Today story, Snyder offered a firm response to critics of the team’s name:
“We will never change the name of the team. . . . As a lifelong Redskins fan, and I think that the Redskins fans understand the great tradition and what it’s all about and what it means, so we feel pretty fortunate to be just working on next season.”
