"Ben" There.

Zippy documents yet another local landmark, this time Ben's Chili Bowl up on U Street. When the Don Cheadle film "Talk to Me" was in town this summer, we shot a scene up here. Not a lot of set dressing, so I was basically hanging around, when the prop girl came up in a panic, and asked if we had any cassette tapes. It's been a while since I had a cassette player in a car, but I asked her why she needed one. Turned out the prop cars were all vintage 60s, and none of them had CD players, and she needed to have some kind of music playing so all the extras could bob to the same beat. I ran down to a local music store, where the clerk laughed at me when I asked for tapes. Then he pondered for a moment, "Wait a sec," and reached under the counter, bringing out a bag of ten dusty tapes. "These are my old DJ loops. Help yourself." I ran back to Ben's. Saving the day. Yes. I have a glamorous film life.

We finished the shot and moved on. Now, one of these days, I actually need to get a chili Dog from Ben's.