Chilehead Community: The Spicy Melting Pot

Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of
Pure imagination
Take a look
And you’ll see
Into your imagination

We’ll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation
What we’ll see
Will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want a change the world?
There’s nothing
To it

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly wish to be

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There’s nothing
To it

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly
Wish to be

Now apply that to the Chile World. Maybe call it Chile Wonka & the Pepper Factory. Who wants that Golden Ticket? Remember the lickable wallpaper with all kinds of fruit.
Veruca Salt: “Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?”
Willy Wonka: “We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”

Use your imagination folks and see a pepper version of that wallpaper. In fact, think of a chilehead experience much like that Wonka factory. Instead of chocolate and sugary sweets, it is peppers and spicy eats. I would love that golden ticket. Remember the chocolate river, how about a river made of a spicy sauce of some kind? Everlasting Gobstoppers or the gum that gives you a full course meal. Start off with a spicy soup, then to some chicken wings, a Cajun spiced jambalaya and to finish it off with a spicy blueberry cobbler, well maybe not the blueberry part. How fun would a tour at a factory like that? You want that Golden Ticket now? How far fetched would it be to see Johnny McLaughlin of Heartbreaking Dawns dressed up in the purple Chile Wonka costume? Maybe we can dress Scott Roberts as an Oompa Loompa. I keed, I keed!

As much of a cool and spicy dream that would be, the reality is that our chilehead community all ready has this several times a year. Event after event, we have vendors bring their spicy world to the public. They are the music makers and dreamers of dreams. Our golden ticket is our entry to the show. We get to walk and lick the snozberries right off those mini-spoons, which I might add are quite more sanitary than some lickable wallpaper. Who knows how many tongues have been on that boysenberry? (insert germophobe-induced spine chill here).

For all those chileheads that can’t make it to the shows whether it be financial, time restraints or other reasons, the events are way better than blogging, Facebooking, and Tweeting by leaps and bounds. Sure we collectively talk about our common interests and bond around them, but coming to one of these events and making personal connections with these people is truly an experience you will not walk away from disappointed. In fact, if you are prepared to share yourself and mingle after the show is done for the day, you will find that once your time is up and you have to return home, it will feel as if a part of your soul was left behind. You will get back to blogging, Facebooking, Tweeting, your job, family and life just won’t be the same. You start to figure out if you can do this again. When? Where? Your addicted to this. You need your fix!

Our chilehead blogging community has grown quite a bit over the past year. We had a little over 100 members last year in our FB group, now it is closing on 900. We all have different interests too. Some are diehard growers. We have reviewers and bloggers doing their thing. Video stunts. Spicy product makers that mingle and others that just talk about their own products. Others share their recipes, meals and stories. It is a community from all over the world too. We truly have become a melting pot. Sometimes the pot boils over, but we all love spicy food, and it is that connection that makes us want to share our love with those that are clueless to the secrets only we know.

I talked about how seeing someone agonize over salsa in the market makes me want to run into a telephone booth like Superman did and suddenly appear as the savior of their taste buds. To right the wrong they were about to commit, and show them the path of good and righteousness! How can I not share my experience with these taste-deprived mere mortals when I know what the Gods know? LISTEN TO ME PEASANTS AND I WILL LEAD YOU FROM THE TASTELESS TIERNEY OF YOUR FOREFATHERS! (Lightning and thunder clap here)

We are not a secret group, but it seems like it sometimes. We are not lepers or vampires, but when we try to share our spicy lifestyle with the bellpepperheads of the world we are treated as if we are. Doesn’t anyone feel sometimes that someone is holding onto their religious cross way too tight when we offer a spicy bite of something? I think I got sprayed with garlic once. We are not secret or scary, but we are often portrayed like we are. Imagine an artist living amongst the blind or a music lover trying to live in a deaf community. You think they would love to hang with people that can appreciate their arts? Sure they would. Same goes for you my chilehead brothers and sisters. We can pop on Facebook and share, but it is not the same. We need to interact with our own kind. It is like nature’s calling.

Read this again, and understand the words and what they mean to us.

Come with me
And you’ll be
In a world of
Pure imagination
Take a look
And you’ll see
Into your imagination

We’ll begin
With a spin
Traveling in
The world of my creation
What we’ll see
Will defy
Explanation

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want a change the world?
There’s nothing
To it

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly wish to be

If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Wanta change the world?
There’s nothing
To it

There is no
Life I know
To compare with
Pure imagination
Living there
You’ll be free
If you truly
Wish to be

Check out the Spicy Events Calendar for an upcoming show near you:

http://www.iloveitspicy.com/spicy-events/