television

Foreign Visitors Flock to Arlington for Elections

By ARLnow.com

Visitors from about a dozen countries came to Arlington on Tuesday to witness democracy in action.

As it does nearly every election day, Arlington played host to foreign media outlets and to foreign officials interested in learning more about the American election process.

Television news crews from France, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, China, Australia and the UK all brought cameras to Arlington polling places throughout the course of the day.

The State Department and several NGOs also hosted visitors in Arlington. Observers from Spain, Bulgaria, Iraq, Pakistan and elsewhere came to learn about “how we run democracy in the U.S.”

Despite a large number of requests this year, county Registrar Linda Lindberg says there were even more requests from foreign visitors during the 2008 presidential election.

She said that Arlington’s proximity to D.C. is what makes it an attractive location. The county is not chosen for any specific reason — it’s simply used as an example of what takes place in the country as a whole.

The television crews are “just looking for background shots, B-roll shots,” Lindberg said.

She noted that the county tries to plan foreign visits to polling places in a way that ensures voters aren’t disturbed.

“They have to keep them in small groups so they don’t disrupt the election.”

Food Cart by Day, TV Crew by Night

By ARLnow.com

The Taco Carrito cart has been serving hungry Ballston office workers for nearly four weeks. But even regular customers may not realize that the people serving them tasty tacos and homemade Spanish-recipe guacamole have no culinary background whatsoever.

In fact, the reason why proprietors Don Stanke and Colleen Kenney never serve breakfast or dinner is because they work a completely different full-time job — the late shift at a local television station. Don and Colleen, who asked that their employer not be identified, say they came up with the idea for the cart two years ago at a bar, while discussing layoffs in the television news industry.

With so much uncertainty, why not start their own business as a fall back, they thought. Plus, it could be fun.

“I just thought it would be cool to be a vendor, to stand there and talk to people all day,” Don said.

Don, a news photographer, and Colleen, a tape producer, decided to launch a cart before they decided what to serve. With feedback from friends, they narrowed it down to pizza or tacos. Ultimately they decided on tacos, and set off researching the best recipes.

The cart originally launched last year and served Crystal City. All went well for two months, until Arlington police showed up with measuring tape and determined the cart was two feet longer than regulations allow.

“Rules are rules,” Don lamented, even though he says he was told by a health department employee that the extra length wasn’t a problem.

After selling that cart, buying a 20-year-old used cart that required restoration and customization, and getting their paperwork in order, the cart re-launched last month.

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Barcroft Home Goes Up in Flames for TV Show

By ARLnow.com

(Updated at 3:55 p.m.) A house on the 4600 block of 8th Street South in the Barcroft neighborhood was deliberately set on fire this afternoon.

Arlington firefighters set the house on alight then put out the flames for the filming of a CBS Early Show segment on fire safety. The house was condemned and set to be torn down before the controlled burn was arranged, firefighters tell us.

After the home was fully engulfed, it took about 15 minutes for firefighters to put the fire out.

CBS News correspondent Susan Koeppen, who along with the rest of the TV crew came down from New York for today’s shoot, says the segment will show that sleeping with your bedroom door closed at night could save your life in the event of a fire.

More photos after the jump.

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Restaurant 3 To Be Featured on Sunday Night Football

By ARLnow.com

What better imagery to air during a Washington Redskins game than a restaurant that’s in the midst of a “Bacon Week.”

Clarendon’s Restaurant 3 reported on its Twitter feed today that an NBC Sports camera crew was filming b-roll around the restaurant this afternoon. The footage is expected to air during Sunday night’s game between the ‘Skins and the Indianapolis Colts.

The game will include a tribute to the late “Grandpa Hogette” Ralph Campbell, one of the co-founders of the Washington Redskins Hogettes, who was buried at Arlington National Cemetery last week.

Restaurant manager Leslie Foster says they made all nine items on the Bacon Week menu for the crew, who filmed the process from creation to consumption. Foster said the large lunchtime crowd played along with the filming.

“It was crazy today,” she said. “Everybody was really excited they were here.”

In other Bacon Week news, Foster says the restaurant is booked solid through Wednesday. However, Bacon Week has now been extended to Saturday, Oct. 23. It was originally supposed to end on Thursday, Oct. 21.

Photo via @3inClarendon

Local Real World Star Sells Out Drafthouse, Looks to the Future

By Scott Brodbeck

To be honest, I thought Eric Patrick (@ericisfunny on Twitter) was not going to be very funny.

With the past music, photography and acting aspirations of Real World cast members in mind, I was preparing myself for pity laughter and polite applause when Eric took the mic as the last act of the night on Friday.

The stand-up comedians who preceded him on stage at the sold-out Arlington Drafthouse were actually quite funny — but it was Patrick’s name on the marquee out front. Would the former State Department employee live up to the billing?

In fact… he did.

His confident, energetic and engaging performance was surprising given that nothing on The Real World: New Orleans up to this point has really shown his funny or outgoing side. In an interview after the show, Eric readily admitted that his sole contribution to last week’s episode was carrying a drunk cast member from the sidewalk to her bedroom.

But that’s about to change. Eric says the last three episodes of the season will feature him and his comedy more prominently. And even though he’s “the normal one,” Eric says he wasn’t able to avoid drama with cast member Ryan in some upcoming episodes.

Despite the lack of screen time, Eric says he often gets recognized on the streets of Arlington. He was hoping that basic cable stardom would be a one-way ticket to getting more girls, but says it has instead been a magnet for older men and unattractive women.

“Here’s what I’ve noticed: the bigger the excitement to see me, the bigger the woman,” Eric quipped during his edgy 30-minute act.

In the end, Eric says he loved living in New Orleans, but the Real World experience wasn’t without its low points.

“The pros outweighed the cons, and it was mainly the city,” he said. “It was one of the best cities I’ve been to.”

Eric, 25, returned to Arlington after taping the show and is currently living in his grandparents’ house near Virginia Hospital Center. The grandparents, Roy and Peggy Jones, now live in Georgia and let Eric keep watch over the home, which has been in the family for at least four generations.

The Jonses were at the show Friday night. Mrs. Jones said they’re supportive of Eric — who they described as “quiet” — even when he’s making jokes about receiving oral sex in Roy’s rocking chair.

“That’s fine, it’s life,” Mrs. Jones said. “That’s the way we are, we always support our children… whatever they want to do we tell them to do it 150 percent.”

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Sat Truck Still Parked on Park Drive

By ARLnow.com

Last week we gently poked fun at whoever called police to complain about a satellite truck that was illegally parked at Park Drive and South George Mason Drive. Well, guess what? The truck is still there, and people are still complaining about it.

Police received another call about the truck last night at 6:00. We checked it out and found not a single vehicle parked near it. We noted that the four hour zone parking restriction has already ended, so at that time the truck was actually legally parked.

Also of interest: There were no parking tickets visible on the truck’s windshield.

We called the company that operates the truck, PSSI Global Services, to find out why such an expensive piece of equipment has been parked on a random residential street for so long. The individual on the phone said a company representative would call back later that night. That, of course, never happened.

So the mystery of why the truck is parked there, and why people are so bothered by it that they’re still calling police, continues.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Circulator Bus Service Comes to Arlington — On Sept. 1, DDOT will begin operating a new Circulator bus route between Georgetown and Arlington. More from the Washington Examiner.

Planetarium Fundraiser Draws a Crowd — More than 400 people attended the “Night at the Planetarium” fundraiser at the David M. Brown planetarium Saturday night, organizers said. The event raised about $4,500 to help save the planetarium from closure.

Arlington Native Scores TV Show — Arlington native Zack Cregger has joined the cast of “Friends with Benefits,” a new NBC comedy series set to air in 2011. Cregger previously had a starring movie role in the 2009 comedy Miss March.

County Issues Bonds on the Cheap — Arlington County issued more than $73 million in bonds last week, at a record-low 2.70 percent interest rate. The bonds will partially finance Metro projects, neighborhood conservation projects, improvements to the Water Pollution Control Plant, and construction at Yorktown High School. The low rate is partially thanks to the county’s Triple-A rating, as well as low rates in the market.

Photo: Start of last week’s Crystal City Twilighter 5K. Courtesy of Crystal City BID.

Complaint of the Day: Satellite Truck Edition

By ARLnow.com

If you spend enough time listening to Arlington’s police frequencies, you’ll notice that people love calling in to complain about things. Since complaining is so popular, we’re launching a periodic feature called the “complaint of the day,” to highlight the most humorous, outrageous or otherwise unseemly complaints received by police.

When it comes to citizen gripes in Arlington, noise complaints and “aggressive driver” complaints are common, but far and away the most frequent complaint is the parking complaint.

Vigilant civilians will call the police when a car is illegally parked in zone parking on any given weekday afternoon. They will also occasionally call to report expired meters.

This morning, someone called to report that a satellite truck — assumedly a news van — had been parked for more than four hours at North George Mason Drive and North Park Drive. We’d love to know the thought process involved with such a call — what was so bad about the truck being parked there that would justify asking police to possibly interrupt a broadcast being watched by thousands of people? (See comments.)

Canadian Food Network Comes to Ballston for Rebel Heroes

By ARLnow.com

A TV crew was in Ballston yesterday filming the Rebel Heroes banh mi sandwich truck for a special to air on Food Network Canada.

The crew interviewed several of Rebel Heroes’ lunchtime customers, as well as a local food blogger. They also traveled to Falls Church’s Open Kitchen, where the Heroes’ Cuban-Vietnamese ingredients are prepared.

The segment is expected to air on a TV program that will profile “the best food trucks in North America.”

The same Canadian TV crew has profiled a grilled cheese truck in Los Angeles and a schnitzel truck in New York. (Can someone bring both of those things to DC, please?)

In honor of their their time in the Canadian television limelight, the Rebel Heroes gang gave away free t-shirts and other merchandise to every 25th customer. They ran out of food within a few hours.

Photo courtesy Rebel Heroes.

Morning Notes

By ARLnow.com

Northrop Spurns Arlington, Doesn’t Even Call — First, Northrop Grumman decided to head to the grassier, cheaper environs of Fairfax County. Now, it turns out Northrop didn’t even give a “thanks but no thanks” call to Arlington Economic Development, which had been working with the company as it considered a building in Ballston for its new headquarters. More from WBJ’s Sarah Krouse. Also: Northrop, if you’re reading this, you still owe us a call regarding the status of your Rosslyn office.

Metro Plans Confusing Service Change — Metro is considering shifting some Blue Line trains to the Yellow and Orange Lines by next summer to help expand capacity. Simple, right? Wrong. Our friends at Greater Greater Washington will make your brain hurt by trying to explain in 1,000 words how Metro plans to pull it off.

Strong June for Arlington Real Estate — Arlington home prices soared 13.5 percent in June compared to one year prior, reports local Realtor Laura Rubinchuk. The average number of days on the market plummeted 27 percent.

Jimmy Smits TV Show Coming to NBC With Arlington Scenes — Three months ago we told you that Jimmy Smits was filming a TV pilot near the Iwo Jima Memorial. It turns out the show will be airing on Friday nights this fall on NBC. Promos have started running on the network, and a longer series preview (complete with a half-second’s worth of Arlington) is available here.

Aspiring Comedian From Arlington Joins Cast of The Real World

By ARLnow.com

A 24-year-old Herndon native and current Arlington resident is a cast member on the upcoming season of MTV’s The Real World: Back to New Orleans.

Eric Patrick, an aspiring comedian and State Department employee, is “known for his dreamy eyes,” according to his MTV biography.

Eric is also “a handsome ladies’ man and has perfected the art of juggling various girls at one time.” I guess you can chalk that up to a State Department education in the art of diplomacy and multilateral negotiations.

From Facebook and the internet, we learn that Eric graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in political science. According to one account, he first came to the attention of Real World producers while attending a casting call at a bar in Adams Morgan in November.

Eric has performed stand up comedy around D.C. and Baltimore for the past three years. He advanced to the second round of the 2009 “Funniest Fed” contest and placed third in a competition called “Baltimore’s Next Superstar.”

See a NSFW clip of Eric’s comedy after the jump.

The new season of the Real World, set in New Orleans for the second time in series’ 24-year history, will premiere on Wednesday, June 30. You’ll recall that D.C played host to the Real World for the first time last year. Those guys down in New Orleans have all the luck.

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