Covering Music, Film and Pop Culture
By Jason T Sparks as seen at the Nashville Film Festival 2020 Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb were not unsung heroes of the music business. They weren’t eccentric geniuses toiling in obscurity, mainly known...
BY JASON T SPARKS About a year ago, on this very website, I wrote the following: Going to a film festival is its own experience. For the most part, it’s a positive experience. By...
While the Pentagon just confirmed the sighting of UFO’s, that hadn’t yet happened in 1950s America. There were rumors, mysterious objects in the night sky and starchy government confirmations of…weather balloons. This film places...
As I roll through another international neighborhood, I begin to notice the locals are mostly in Cubs gear, and all walking towards the same thing. Turns out I’m driving towards it—Irving Park intersects with West Addison, as in 1060 West Addison, AKA Wrigley Field, AKA the official address of one Elwood Blues. I can’t believe my luck—I wanted to experience this town, and this one road appears to be giving me Peak Chicago.
via Jason T. Sparks, Our Man in Nashville ed note: This was written in the Before Times, then held until the summer movie season rolled around. Things changed. July 2019: It’s a beautiful June...
by Jason T. Sparks, Our Man in Nashville Nashville, Tennessee, March 26, 2020 Staff Sgt Edgar T Sparks, Jr, my grandfather, late of the US Army Air Corps and the China-Burma-India theatre of combat...
I have tried to keep a similar cigar box—sometimes a literal cigar box, next to my own recliner, sometimes (usually) a briefcase or backpack that I carry with me everywhere I go. I have compiled a list here of the 42 things I’d ideally have in my cigar box (or carry in a backpack; all 42 would not fit in a cigar box, but most would)—the things that, as far as I’m concerned, will prepare you for whatever you encounter.
by Jason T. Sparks, Our Man in Nashville I look back now on May of 2018 as a kind of—pardon the bastardized Latin—month mirablius. I had started a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for...
The Grimm fairy tales tell us of steps that people take to survive when they are in need. Many of us in modern America are so far removed from the real pressures of want...
By Jason T Sparks My relationship to advertising is complicated, and I know exactly why. I grew up around advertising; my father was an account executive at an agency called Carden & Cherry for...
