I think that Max, the Knower of All Things Knowable, once said that a mudcat is an actual fish, a very small variety of catfish. I was passing through a town in southern Ontario last summer and was surprised to find that the high school team there was the Mudcats. I was tempted to take a picture of their mascot, but then thought better of it. I may live to regret that. A Web search disclosed that several teams have mudcat mascots. I found no evidence of the actual living fish spoken of by Max, the Knower of All Things Knowable, but I feel bound to take Max on his word.
I think also that Max, the Knower of All Things Knowable, once said that the Mudcat Cafe was founded as a blues site, and a catfish mascot would certainly be appropriate for blues, dontchathink?
However, the one thing I did not learn from Max, the Knower of All Things Knowable, is whether the Mudcat Cafe actually existed before that blessed day when a website called the Mudcat Cafe was opened as a host for the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database. I missed out on the first couple of months of the Mudcat Cafe because I was one of those wandering in oblivion after Xerox closed down the Digital Tradition website it sponsored (Dick and Susan, ever generous and genteel, would remind us that we should be grateful to Xerox for once sponsoring the DT, which is quite true).
Dick and Susan and Max, the Knower of All Things Knowable, could you fill us in on the missing pieces of early Mudcat History, in those ancient days before we found the 'Cat? Actually, since we've been around for over two years, and the Digital Tradition for over ten, which is close to eternity in Webtime, maybe we need a Mudcat Myth, a suitably mysterious chronicle of the genesis of this phenomenon. Better yet, perhaps a "Ballad of the 'Cat" would be more appropriate for this site. It should have at least eleventy-seven verses, I would think.
-Joe Offer-