THE DENVER CATFISH FESTIVAL

Into the flood again, same old trip it was back then, yeah...

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. Most namely, the Catfish and those who dig the Catfish.” 

~Cousin Bill Shakespeare, except maybe the last part.

Greetings, Fellow Catfish Enthusiasts,

We are now exactly 99 days from the Ninth Annual Denver Catfish Festival! 

Here at Festival Headquarters, the entire staff hopes that you and yours are having a lovely spring.  May Esther Bun bring you bundles of brightly-colored eggs filled with boiled crawfish.

Enough with the pleasantries!  There is much to cover.  Catfish Festival Planning is again beginning to heat up like shimmering shortening on a sweltering summer Saturday:  

Catfish-Inspired Haiku Contest Update:  This year’s prospective judges have been ordered to read and fully memorize Basho: The Complete Haiku so that they may successfully complete their certification exams in June.  Also, as part of their training and in an effort to purify their souls, the judge candidates must individually climb and spend one night atop (Huey) Long’s Peak, barefoot and lacking any supplies, with only The Denver Catfish Festival Haiku Contest: The Complete Volumes to keep them warm.   Good Luck, Prospective Judges!

Corporate Sponsorships: Sadly, we have lost several of our corporate sponsors for this year’s festival; however, the Denver Catfish Festival Marketing Department has been in touch with the fine people at Tucks Medicated Pads and Roundup Herbicide, so we’re hoping to have an exciting announcement soon!

Catfish News:

Research Committee Co-Chair, Festival Golf Tournament Coordinator, and Festival Elder Cris H. recently unearthed a notable and compelling story of one of our Entree d’Honneur’s cousins down in the wilds of the Alto Purus region of Northeastern Peru. 

Scientists on location have verified that there swims a particularly wily species of Armored “suckermouth” Catfish that consumes wood as its main diet, using its spoon-shaped teeth to knaw away at the bark on fallen trees.

The Denver Catfish Festival Theoretical Sciences Division has come up with several viable reasons why this strange behavior exists:

–The absence of underwater lumber mills creates a dire shortage of plywood and pressed board necessary for construction projects.  The digestive by-product of wood-eating fills this need.

–Without hands or opposable thumbs, the ancestors of this catfish had no way to whittle fin utensils necessary for good manners during eating time.  They instead used their teeth to knaw at the wood, and very much by surprise, found it quite tasty. 

–Like all catfish, the wood-eaters are models of efficiency.  Having witnessed their brethren being smoked over low fires before being consumed by local tribes, they decided to streamline the process, ingesting wood to insure that they’d be fully-cooked and maintain that woody-smoky flavor throughout their delicious bodies. 

–An old catfish wives’ tale speaks of eating wood in order to harness the wood’s spirit, thereby translating its power into virility.  As one would expect, this practice caught on like wildfire among the male of the species. 

–Notoriously poor spellers, these catfish ceremonially eat bark as an ode to their favorite Alice in Chains song.

The Denver Catfish Festival VIP Experience: 

Just like this, except only two lucky winners.

The gift baskets, the all-access lanyards, the velvet ropes, the deluxe accomodations, the slightly higher-end booze, the Pick of the Catfish, the Best of the Hushpuppies, the Viewing Thrones–all of this and more are being worked out and hammered down as we speak.  Be on the lookout for our raffle announcement.  Two lucky winners will experience a Denver Catfish Festival like no other.

Sincerely,

Joe T., Chmn.

“Ask Me About The Ninth Annual Denver Catfish Festival!”