OLD HENRY @ Nashville Film Fest 2021
by Jason T Sparks One of the last things I expected to see at the toney, artsy-fartsy Nashville Film Festival was a Western. Maybe I was misdirected in my thinking: American cinema has pointed...
Category: Our Man In Nashville
THE NEW FOOL IN TOWN
A REMEMBRANCE AND APPRECIATION OF SCHOCK G (AND HUMPTY) By Jason T Sparks It’s June of 1992 in Nashville, Tennessee. Neighbors of mine from down the street have a daughter, and she’s getting married...
The Soul of America
by Jason T Sparks Perhaps you’ve noticed that we have just lived/are living through an intense moment in American history? A pandemic hovers over everything, as does our recent election, which has weaponized seemingly...
REQUIEM FOR 2ND AVENUE NORTH
*ed note: this is a developing story. We’ve done our best to confirm the facts at time of publication…but things change By Jason T Sparks Early Christmas morning, 2020, and my wife and I...
JOSE FELICIANO: BEHIND THIS GUITAR
By Jason T Sparks Imagine, if you will, that the human brain consists of a huge number of index cards: you can imagine it as a vintage Rolodex or an old-school library card catalogue....
THE DONUT KING
From our coverage of the 2020 Nashville Film Festival by Jason T Sparks When you watch documentaries you learn things. Here’s a thing I learned from a documentary: within the city of Los Angeles,...
NEVER TOO LATE: THE DOC SEVERINSEN STORY
From our continuing coverage of the 2020 Nashville Film Festival by Jason T Sparks Once upon a time, there was a skinny guy from Nebraska named Johnny Carson, and he was the burning-hot epicenter...
THE MYSTERY OF D.B. COOPER
Coverage of the Nashville Film Festival, by Jason T Sparks Here’s what we know: on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1971, a nondescript, middle-aged man in a dark suit boarded Northwest Orient Airlines flight...
THE BEE GEES: HOW CAN YOU MEND A BROKEN HEART
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...
THROUGH SPACE, TIME, AND MIDDLE AMERICA PART TWO: POLISH FORTUNE TELLERS, DENNY’S, AND SOLITUDE
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.
