Greetings, Former Catfish Enthusiasts,
We at The Defunct Denver Catfish Festival hope that you’ve enjoyed the past couple of years without us; we hope you’ve used this time to reconnect with loved ones, pursue careers, realize dreams, start your own festivals, seek the real meaning of life through the creation of wax figurines of aquatic life, etc…
For our part, we’ve spent the time away on a journey of introspection, anonymously drifting from town to town, selling leftover Catfish Festival accouterments and discarded Haiku Contest submissions in order to survive, looking for answers to life’s big questions, reflecting on Catfish Festivals past, enjoying complexions unmarred by presence of fryer oil, and rolling in the tens of dollars saved due to the cancellation of the 2013 festival. We’ve looked into the darkness of our souls and, after much searching, seen what we think might be the hypnotic and disarming Catfish of Destiny staring back, waving a little fin, inviting us forward.
A couple of years older but no wiser or with any additional good sense, we now look to the future, namely August 1, and wonder if there’s just barely enough magic cornmeal tucked away in a burlap sack, just a bit more enchanted creamy liquid shortening heart-healthy vegetable oil in an old dusty jug, and just a smidgen of enraptured propane in a rusty tank, all lying still and quiet in a deep, dark corner of the Denver Catfish Festival Groundskeeper’s Side Yard of Misfit Toys, waiting to be married in a congress of calamitous cuisine in an eleventh iteration of the Late Summer Classic, A New and Shockingly Unimproved Denver Catfish Festival.
There are hurdles aplenty to making this thing happen, first among them luring the Bayou Fryer 700-701 “Death Star” frying apparatus back to the Festival Grounds. Enraged by The Festival’s cancellation, the hot-tempered outdoor appliance lit out for the southern border in the dead of a hot August night seeking its adventure and fortune in far-off lands. Last we heard, the Death Star was aiding rebels as a doomsday weapon in battles against totalitarian rule in a little-known republic somewhere south of the Equator.
Next, we’d have to lure the staff back. A major reason for The Festival’s collapse was the deplorable working conditions (even when pared with all-you-care-to-consume catfish and hushpuppies, dill pickles, and ice-cold Miller Lite, of course.) It’s difficult, nay, impossible, to tell at this point if two trips around the sun has healed the deep trauma of Festivals past. Bringing the Setup Crew, Festival Day Crew, Enforcement Division, Haiku Judges, DJ’s, festival chefs, bartenders, groundskeepers, Council of Elders, and Sanitation Crew back together will possibly require an effort of some sort.
The Sanitation Crew will be the most difficult to bring to the table–ten years of picking up cigarette butts, broken glass, and oil-smeared paper plates has left them bereft of even the most minor enthusiasms.
Finally, and most importantly, it’s up to the Merry Festivalgoers themselves. If they find that their late summer Saturdays are better served in Colorado’s admittedly spectacular mountains, or on the sandy and violence-free beaches of Mexico, or in the climate-controlled utopia of a tranquil public library, or visiting family back east, back west, back north or back south, then we most definitely could not have a Denver Catfish Festival. Would they forgive us for 2013’s travesty, for walking off stage just before the curtain fell?
We shall spend the next few days away from it all, pondering these weighty questions, comparing this situation to other hiatuses (hiati?) in the past (baseball strike, Widespread Panic’s year off, Coy and Vance replacing Bo and Luke for an entire season, VW’s disgusting decision not to import the new T6 Transporter) and try to figure out if there’s a way to make a decision on whether or not we shall ponder a possibility of discussing the notion of collecting our thoughts about considering a movement towards a committee’s engagement in the question of how, if, and should we should attempt to resurrect the archaic relic of a bygone era that is The Denver Catfish Festival.
Until then, enjoy the warm embrace of summer! Revel in friendship and in celebration of this dazzlingly unpredictable and delicious little thing called Life!
Ooh-personal reminder–listen to Purple Rain in its entirety at once. Such a great summer album. Ooh another reminder–Start letter writing campaign to get Widespread Panic to play “I Would Die 4 U” at Red Rocks.
Sincerely,
Joe T., Chmn.
“Ask Me About The Existential Nothingness of Two Summers Without a Denver Catfish Festival!”
THE DENVER CATFISH FESTIVAL 
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