SPAMTASTIC™ SPAMARAMA™

11. April 1, 2000

The 22nd annual SPAMARAMA™ is set to take place in and around the Austin Music Hall from noon until 6pm this Saturday. Both Third Street and Nueces near the Music Hall will be closed to accommodate the event, with the cook-off on Third Street and the SPAMALYMPICS™ events on Nueces. Food booths, drinks, and music will be available inside the Music Hall. One person who won't be in attendance is longtime cook-off manager Kathy Fleming, who is passing the torch to another generation of her family. "My daughter Jennifer has helped me the last few years and now I'm turning my job over to her," she says. "This whole thing is a hippie ritual that needs to be passed along to the next generation." This year's charity beneficiary is the SIMS Foundation. There's a kind of symmetry to that: an aging hippie musician, Dave Arnsberger, raising money to support mental health and substance abuse programs for an upcoming generation of musicians. Some things about Austin haven't changed that much at all.