THE DENVER CATFISH FESTIVAL

Greetings, Fellow Catfish Enthusiasts,

We hope that the long, cold winter and sopping wet spring haven’t spoiled your appetite for a deep-fried revival of The Late Summer Classic, now in its thirteenth iteration, The 2016 Denver Catfish Festival.

And let’s be honest.  It has certainly been cold, wet, and generally unpleasant here in Colorful Colorado over the past few months, but by the time the first filet hits oil, at 1:12 PM MST on August 6th, everything will be dry as a bone save the milk bath awaiting eager cuts of prime Catfish before they take the journey from cornmeal to hot oil to cooling rack to your belly!  Ah, just think of it: sunshine, ice cold beer, hush puppies, catfish, corn dogs for the lil’ festivalgoers…

You’ll notice by the title of this entry that we’ve, uh, loosely quoted one Andy Warhol, the penultimate pop-art producer whose birthday happens to be on the date we’ve chosen for this year’s event.  After the success of last year’s tribute to Jerry Garcia (upon whose birthday DCF2015 was held) the Denver Catfish Festival Marketing Division felt that honoring another cold, dead famous person was a good theme with which to draw a crowd.  To that end, we’re certain that stiff Warhol urbanites will enjoy our homespun brand of mellow hangoutification as much as the dirty hippies did as long as we have tasteful, profound visuals and Velvet Underground on the jukebox.

Not sure if that’s going to happen though, now that I think about it.  Call me a troglodytic provincialist festival chairman, but I don’t understand the deal with the Campbell’s Soup Cans.   Isn’t that plaigiarism?  Did he really create anything?  If we do multicolored fried catfish, is that like a Warhol piece?  It’s really not worth the risk to attempt to synthetically alter the coloration of fried foods.  Catfish and hush puppies are already  works of art without a bunch of artsy New York so-and-so’s mucking up the works with questionable food coloring.

And, I mean I liked Lou Reed and all, but the Velvet Underground, outside of Sweet Jane and maybe There She Goes Again (the R.E.M. version, actually) never really ignited my fryer.  OK how about this: remember that Billy Idol song Cradle of Love?  We’ll play that.  It’s a dumb song but it seems like it would be more fun to hear at a Denver Catfish Festival than that other stuff.  The video had Warhol paintings of Billy Idol that came alive and sang the song, so we’re covered.

And Blondie–Debbie Harry is/was a huge Warhol fan, or they were friends or something.  And I’d be shocked if she didn’t love fried catfish as well.  She’s worldly like that.  We’ll play a few Blondie songs.  Everybody likes Blondie, and I’ve had Atomic stuck in my head today for some reason.  And come to think of it, I do recall that some Denver Catfish Festival participants really like the Grateful Dead.  Maybe we’ll play some of that, too.

So there you have it.  We can’t wait to see you at the 2016 Denver Catfish Festival, Featuring a Billy Idol song, a Blondie song, some Grateful Dead, and more delicious fried catfish, hush puppies, and witty, urbane conversation than you can shake a stick at!

It’s also never too early to begin work on your Catfish-inspired Haikus.  Get thee a writing utensil and parchment!   The judging committee trembles with anticipation and can already be heard, far off in the distance, chanting five-seven-five…five-seven-five…five-seven-five as they begin their summerlong sojourn from mountain seclusion to DCF 16!

Sincerely,

Joe T., Chmn.

“Ask Me About Artistic and Musical Choices for the 2016 Denver Catfish Festival!”