New skate park to open in Blacksburg

The Blacksburg Skate Park has been a part of the Recreation Center for more than 12 years and has provided a home for skaters of all ages.

Lee Johnson, owner of downtown skate shop The Greenhouse, was inspired to have the first skate park built in 1996 when the town of Blacksburg outlawed skateboarding.

"I guess there were a few incidents downtown involving some kids and an elderly pedestrian. I think two people just got into each others' way," Johnson said. "There was a need for somewhere to legally ride a skateboard."

The original park was a joint project between The Greenhouse, a few Tech students and some other skaters from around the area.

"We all did various fundraisers. I think I maxed out a credit card," Johnson reflected. "With the town's blessing, we got an old access road that used to go back to the parks and recreation buildings on Patrick Henry. We raised some money and built wooden ramps, and the skate park was born!"

Surprisingly, The Greenhouse has been able to maintain the wooden skate park for the past twelve years despite the recent economic hardships that the store, along with most downtown businesses, has been going through.

"We've had different fundraisers to rehabilitate the park, usually in the spring to make additions to the park. The Parks and Recreation [centers of Blacksburg] actually saw that [the skate park] was being used a lot; I think a lot more than expected in the beginning. They started sort of doing a matching of funds; for whatever we raised, they'd match the money." But, the park could only be repaired so much. Johnson figured that there was a need for a brand-new, more durable skate park.

"It's going be a one-of-a-kind park. The new skate park is completely different; that was town-funded. The town stepped up and out-located a bunch of money for a new all-concrete formed park, so this one's much nicer than the old one and all professionally constructed." The new park was built by a company called California Skateparks. They are known for building skate parks across the West Coast, but they have recently been expanding and working more with East Coast clients.

The new and improved Blacksburg Skate Park is scheduled to have its grand opening this Saturday, Aug. 25 on Patrick Henry drive, across from Blacksburg High School. The opening ceremony will feature live music from BoogieBurg's DJ Eclectic and free food, and official Skate Park T-shirts will also be on sale. The highlight of the evening will be the Best Trick contest, which will give skaters of all levels the opportunity to compete.

This article was initially published in the Collegiate Times, both print and online.

Pu22L3, Receptors, and more!

Expect a good review of this show soon! If you're in the area, you should come out.

Virginia Tech filmmaker keeps reels rolling

You might recognize this man from his job at the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center or maybe the one at Crossroads. However, those would only be two of the lives this man leads.

Jack Bennett should be most recognized for what he does best; film.

Now Blacksburg may be far from Hollywood, but Bennett manages to continue fueling his passion for film through his own independent productions, such as ‘Fool’ and ‘Beast’.

“I think film is the single best medium to create empathy,” said Bennett. “Reading a book filters everything through the author’s voice. You look at a painting and it’s a painting by one person.”

Through film, he says, filmmakers are able to give their audience “a full sketch of a person,” something he describes as “The easiest we’d come to understanding another person objectively and without necessarily have a judgment on them.”

As a young child, Bennett developed a powerful creative interest in photography, painting, acting and writing prose. He credits the aforementioned hobbies for the majority of his progress in film.

As a teenager, he watched a lot of movies, owing to his frequent visits to Video Vault in Alexandria, where he became a regular and began to study the movies he watched: plot, characters, cinematography, story writing and anything he could grasp.

Bennett arrived at Virginia Tech in 1996 and was excited to hear that a Visual Media/Film program existed under the department of Communication.

“This place has so completely shaped my attitude, there are so many kids here and I had to come in and figure out a way to stand out. I had to do everything myself and I had to really learn, from the ground up,” he said, in reference to his college experience.

“Blacksburg is a great place to live and cultivate a skill.”

Bennett started to work on his first movie in 1998, when he did an independent study with film professor Jerry Scheeler.

The plot behind this Robert Altman-inspired “slasher” film is about a college student who had a terrible experience with drugs and, during the course of the film, reevaluates his surroundings during the middle of post-psychedelic depression.

Within the past nine years that Jack Bennett has been making movies, he has worked on more than six independent productions; ‘Fool,’ ‘River of Dread,’ and ‘Beast’ are all complete and cut in feature length, and “The Goat’ and ‘Buried’ have an anticipated completion date of Fall 2007.

During his career, Bennett has also been hired and paid to direct a recruitment video for the Air Force ROTC and paid to direct an ad for the i3 company, thus earning him the title of a professional director. He was also the camera man and editor for ‘Hokie Nation,’ the documentary for Horse Archer productions, which he is currently producing and designing the DVD for.

Recently ‘Beast,’ a movie that he co-produced with musician Patrick Turner, was accepted into the Tupelo film festival in Mississippi, and premiered on May 19th. He says that he has submitted the movie to other film festivals afterwards and looks forward to hearing from them soon.

After being involved in film in this area for so long, Bennett has began to build a reputation as a hardworking filmmaker in Southwest Virginia. Virginia Tech civil engineer student Brittany Stone and star of Bennett’s current music video production, ‘Chains,’ said, “I’m not an actress and I get really nervous in front of the camera. But he’s really good at directing actors and he makes everything flow together.”

The music video, ‘Chains,’ is based on a song by F.M. Turner.

Bennett currently is planning on changing some of the ways he works with film.

“The next movie I make is going to have a paid cast and crew. I don’t really want to be the guy asking favors anymore from the people who are working hard. I want be able to pay the guy holding a boom mic. Not say, ‘Hey, hold a boom mic. Isn’t this great?’”

In this vein, he has started with paying the star of his current project and he plans on doing the same for his future cast and crew.

As difficult as it seems, Jack Bennett is still able to juggle his full-time job and his filmmaking career. “I still work at Tech and occasionally sub at Crossroads because I still need to make money and I need to pay my bills. Since I don’t live in New York and LA, the sacrifice I make is I can’t get these kinds of [filmmaking] jobs all the time.”

He also works odd jobs to be able to afford to continue working with what he is passionate about, creating a great role model for those of us who work jobs that we hate and have tucked our dreams away into the back pocket of our lives.

Recently things have been picking up for Bennett. He says that he has made more money off production than any other source of income.

His next move is planning a big premiere for ‘Beast’ in Blacksburg, which could possibly end up as a double feature along with another one of his films.

But for now, you can watch his editing skills at work at the ‘Hokie Nation’ viewing scheduled to take place at the Lyric movie theater in downtown Blacksburg on August 31st at 7:00pm and 9:15pm.



This article has also been cross-published at the Collegiate Times' website and newspaper.

Joe Jack Talcum interview

Joe Jack Talcum has played guitar and done vocals (on occasion) for legendary punk band the Dead Milkmen, a band that was popular for songs such as "Bitchin' Camero" and "Punk Rock Girl".

Since The Dead Milkmen have broken up, Talcum has played with bands such as Touch Me Zoo, The Town Managers and is currently playing with The Low Budgets and working on his solo career.

I had the chance of conducting an interview with Mr. Talcum a couple of weeks ago on the WUVT airwaves.

Joe Jack Talcum interview.

It was conducted in the honor of August 4th's show, which where I expect to see all of you on Saturday night, because I'm sure that Baaba Seth at Steppin Out will be no competition to all of you punk rock girls and boy.

The Flyer is posted below, just in case you forgot about the show's details...



See you there!