Told ‘ya so! Big Spring Jam DOA

“It wasn’t going to be a good festival this year.”

Duh! I TOLD YOU SO, nearly a month ago!

-Donn Jennings, Big Spring Jam co-founder, partner, promoter

Faithful readers will recall that on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 I wrote the following entry:

It’s official: No more Big Spring Jam in Huntsville

Today’s (Friday, 16 April 2010) Huntsvillle (Behind The) Times headline reads: 2010 JAM IS CANNED.

What would the Tennessee Valley do without their CON (Corporately Owned Newspaper)?

Perhaps they’d have to figure out where to get their daily dose of truth!

(Behind The) Times Entertainment Writer Chris Welch’s lame introduction to the uninformative article sparks no interest, “For the first time in 18 years, there will be no jammin’ this September in Big Spring International Park.” Then, he drones on and on, nearly boring the readers to tears with vis-à-vis remarks that, “… The Times editorial board…,” “… the Jam has brought in headliners…,” (isn’t that the stuff that’s stuck to the top of your car’s interior roof? How about some better adjectives and verbiage, Chris?), and more uninformative blather.

The only scintilla of information about what may REALLY be going on is contained in the second paragraph: “Organizers… told… that the 18th Big Spring Jam… will be canceled this year because of downtown construction at the Von Braun Center and Huntsville Museum of Art.” (The …s are omission of extraneous, useless information.)

A quote or two from the promoter, Donn Jennings, finishes out the waste of space and ink.

Neither Chris, nor the (Behind The) Times offers any investigation about the city’s LACK of planning for events – how city officials FAILED to consider how construction on the VBCC and the ever-expanding footprint of Big Art Museum could have affected the nearly two-decades old event. No insurance claims, no-fault, no loss…

Wait just a dog-gone minute. We lost somethin’ here… didn’t we?

Or DID we?

Tommy Battle, Huntsville Mayor, claims he hated to see the event wither on the vine, remarking via telephone from Ft. Worth, TX, where he is on “city business” that, “We hate to see the Jam not be here. We’re very interested in doing something around the period of the Jam, whether it’s a street festival or two-day event. And it needs to come back as a community event. The Big Spring Jam started out as a community event, and we need to return it to that.”

Reading between the lines, apparently ol’ Tommy Boy doesn’t think that Big Spring Jam was a “community event.”

For nearly 20 years folks have known about the event, so it’s not as if they could have forgotten about it.

Ya’ reckon they were trying to kill it all along?

You do the math.