Chomp & Stomp
ISSUE #319
For over two decades, Cabbagetown—also known as my neighborhood—has held an annual chili-eating festival in the first week of November. The chili bell rings at 12:30 sharp! You get to eat from as many homemade batches as you can reach before they run out. The Dixie cups end up stacking 20 or 30 high.
That’s the chomp. Meanwhile, 25 bands on six stages play bluegrass—that’s the stomp.
I think bluegrass music, largely, is good. It’s inherently lame, which is what makes it good. Things that are inherently lame are immune to marketing tricks, and therefore good for any honest culture. (Unless it’s the marketing itself that makes them lame—but that is not the case for music like bluegrass). Anything that lacks an easy P.R. hook is good.
The festival funds go right back to the neighborhood. They renovate the playground, the amphitheater, the park. They help fund the annual Forward, Warrior! Beltline murals. But the greatest part of Chomp & Stomp is the lack of tech influence. At any point, on any stage in Cabbagetown Park, they’re playing music that verifiably is not by A.I. Those are people up there, and those are people beside us. We know it because we all just saw each other eat chili.
Chili, God bless it, is also not A.I.—call it good slop.
For over two decades, Cabbagetown—also known as my neighborhood—has held an annual chili-eating festival in the first week of November. The chili bell rings at 12:30 sharp! You get to eat from as many homemade batches as you can reach before they run out. The Dixie cups end up stacking 20 or 30 high.