5/25/2006: Shrimp and Petroleum Queen
 

http://cellar.org/2006/shrimpandpetroqueen.jpg

Axlrosen locates this Queen of the Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival, and 2005 Queen Abby Bruas features this unbelievably lovely gown to mark the honor.

Wait, Shrimp and Petroleum Festival? Doesn't sound like two great tastes that would taste great together...

IotD always features weird festivals from around the world, but it turns out that Louisiana is actually the Weird Festival center of the world. And what's more, they have Queens of all of them. The Gueydan Duck Festival Queen, the Louisiana Swine Festival Queen, Porte Barre Lion's Club Cracklin Festival Queen, Miss Nanitoches Meat Pie Festival Queen, Woodmen of the World Sausage Festival Queen. It's almost like people in LA can't hold a conference meeting without picking out which young gal is the prettiest. There appears to be no irony in it and Louisiana seems to have no shortage of young good-lookin' women who are willing to compete for and be tagged with such insane titles.

I suppose there's something wrong with this, but I'm not sure exactly what. It makes me vaguely uncomfortable.

The young ladies in comptetion get a chance to display their comportment, get dressed up, be crowned, be addressed as "queen" or "princess". My sister participated in some of these when we were younger. She had a good experience with it, and won a couple, too. There was essay writing, interviews (none on the casting couch, though (I hope)), and for one, she got a $500 scholarship.

It works out for the sponsor too. Lots of chatter and buzz about the festival queen, and look how pretty, etc, etc. Mindshare, y'know.

The train is over the top, but at least it's better than an image of an oil spill.

The festival's web site is equally cheezy. Click if you want to see how not to build a web site. (On the other hand, who knows? Maybe this is exactly the kind of web site that Louisianans would love?)

http://www.shrimp-petrofest.org/ (turn on sound for full effect)

Obligatory Louisiana joke:

Louisiana has its own version of the see and say (you remember the kids toy - you pull the string and it points to an animal and then says the name). In the Louisiana version it doesn't matter which animal it points to. The recording always says, "Them's good eatin'".

Must...Have...That...Gown...

:eek: The 2005 - 2006 Washington Parish Watermelon Festival Queen.......is Asian?

Is the border on that train made of blue tarp material?

Hell, you sure ain't seen many blue tarps. There's no mistaking the color of those things.:lol:

It's the New South™

Oh, you're just showing off your little tm thingy.:lol2:

Wow - I've been too distracted by the gown to notice the mural she's standing in front of. Is that... a giant shrimp, climbing an oil derrick? Possibly being shot at by helicopters??

It's hell to use now ... the latest vB upgrade took away our ability to enter ALT+ codes for some reason. I actually have to open up Character Map, find it, Copy it and Paste it in.

PITA. :p

Oooh! I love it's little hardhat!

Won't that be a hell of a thing to have found by future archeologists.

I was at the zoo last week. Same animals, different recipes.

Holy fuck that's weird

EDIT: Shrimpzilla, that is.

Seriously,

I'm glad someone pointed out something from Louisiana that wasn't about its armpit: New Orleans.

The festivals, primarily in the rural areas of South Louisiana, are an excuse for the hard working locals to get together and have some fun - usually poking fun at themselves and traditions and anything/everything. They're very family oriented.

Other festivals include(d) the beloved Shemp Festival (no longer I think). ... Shemp, as in one of the three stooges. ...and the Washington Parish Free Fair (costs nothing to attend) ... and the Ponchatoula Strawberry festival ... The Jamalaya Festival in Gonzales (south of Baton Rouge) ... other interesting things are the Highland Games just north of Baton Rouge, the Renaissance festival, and Octoberfest... and we have music festivals (not counting New Orleans stuff) such as Fest-For-All.

...and the locals know how to make some of the best food (animal jokes aside) you'll ever have!

That thought really tickled me for some reason. They will think we are a shrimp god worshipping society.

You...you mean we aren't?


:lobstah:

And anvil shoots, too. :thumb:

She's simply awesome
chorus:
Petroleum queen
now we're sharing the same dream
and our hearts they beat as one
no more shrimp on the run

Hey OXB, don't be moving our shit to the west.
"And anvil shoots, too."

You mean that's an Ol Miss exclusive? :confused:

Most helos over the Gulf are shuttling to/from oil platforms.

I was thinking fried shrimp when I saw the thread title.

Well actually everyone on here is wrong.
I wanna know exactly how many of you actually reside in Louisiana.
Not every festival has a queen. There are hundreds of festival but only about 100 queens. I happen to be one of them. And not just rural areas have them. They are located in every large city in the state. There is actually only about 2 in New Orleans anyway. And a festival is the celebration of a commodaty in that specific place. If you're town has a festival it shows that you are proud of it. And as goes for the queens, it is not easy being one. I think that we should all be applauded for all that we have to go through. We deserve respect, and not just from people in our own state.

and we are not picked on beauty, but intellegence

oh, obviously.

what does bhf stand for?

let's all guess, shall we?

All together now:

"It's Not Easy Being Queen"

King Prawn! Starring The Queen as Faye Wray!

Welcome to the Cellar, missbhf08. :D

We're all friends here, so you don't have to scold us to correct misinformation or add additional information.
I can see where the bhf, at Lake Charles, may put more emphasis on knowledge than bust size, as it's not the typical beauty pageant.

From what I've seen of beauty pageants around the country, the winners range from PHD candidates to dumb as box of rocks, but they are always attractive.

That's some good detective work xoB. I worked out that the only festival with BHF is Black Heritage Festival...

Is this you Miss BHF? If so, the smile is very cool, the crown is totally awesome. I take back whatever I originally said, I must have been grumpy and particularly sarcastic that day.

I missed this thread first time around...

Bwahahahahaha... have bolded my favourite festival. Because after all, the woodsmen live out in the woods for months. And boy when they get back to civilisation there are two things they are craving. Sausage... and queens!

Welcome Miss BHF. Even if you did just call everyone on a whole forum wrong. If you were picked for your brains then you've been doubly blessed and good luck to you.

If she is BHF queen, lemme just tell her: hello, welcome and that is one popish crown ya gots on there.

Um, did anyone notice that this thread is two years old?

I get confused easily enough without resurrecting old threads and making me think they're new and I missed them.

don't fuss--we got a new member from it. Short-term, probably, tho.

And no, I didn't notice. That means they have a new queen! And why shouldn't Louisianans celebrate what they can, especially after Katrina?

It's good to be the queen.[/Mel Brooks]
Based on my experience, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Aye ;)
I guess Miss BHF was searching under Louisiana Festival Queens, given she has a vested interest, and up popped this old thread, which she felt was worth a response.

Me, I like some expert feedback.

You're bad. :lol2:

Me too. One of the coolest things, which happens more often in IOtD, is when a person that took the picture, or was involved in the incident, shows up to give us the inside dope. Like the guy that took the picture of the cow's tongue, or the military fireman in the hangar foam thread.

That cow's tongue still turns up.

(trying to find the cow in the picture. so I'm slow. bite me.)

Actually that's not me. It's the girl who crowned me. And there was no anger in what I said, I just didn't want anyone to be misinformed for what said. Yes, I did think that Shrimp and Petroleum is a really odd combination, but you'd have to go to Morgan City, LA to really understand.

do we have to?

stick around, miss big hair fan! you might be pleasantly surprised at what goes on here.

then again . . . you might not.

;)

Please stick around!
We will value your intelligence and especially a different take on things. There are some LA posters from what I can remember, but we're a fluid community here - people post when it interests them.

I was going to say we will value your brains, but given the trend of providing recipes for the Image of the Day, I don't want you to think we're zombies!

Seriously - respect for sticking up for something you are involved in that might not get respect elsewhere.

It wasn't a joke. Dumbness is in no way a disqualification for the PhD. In fact I've known some who'd make you question whether it was "dumb as" a box of rocks, or "dumber than."

Did you notice that the festival king is some 60+ year old guy and the queen is a nubile barely legal young lady?

And up until that moment, I'll bet the thought $100 a barrel oil was a good as it gets.

Katrina did a lot of damage, but it's not like it has completely ruined Louisiana. It didn't exactly happen yesterday, so we have plenty to celebrate. Has anyone other than me been to any part of LA since the hurricanes??

I mentioned Katrina, because the original post was shortly after.

Yes, as a matter of fact. We have several members that live there. Scopulus Argentarius is one of them.

I know people that lost their home.
BigV traveled down there from Washington state to help with the clean up as did my boss from PA.
BusterB lost his roof in MS and was over in LA a week or so ago.
LA is not in Africa or Mongolia, we know what's going on there.

I also know that the folks down there, generally, have a great sense of humor, and laugh at themselves, as hard as anything. You should chill out and try it.

Me. I brought relief supplies in after. Been there several times since. Most recently, Pineville. We have a major customer there and I tend to hit one of those loads every three months or so.

Brian

well i'm sorry if i'm coming off like i'm always upset. i'm actually a very happy person. it's just like when you mention you're from LA people automatically want to talk about New Orleans....happened to me when I went to DC.

Miss/Mrs cellar 2008 seems to be cleared up though. The first place winner prematurely gave up the crown, so now that we have the real deal, I hope she will stay.

Miss bhf, when I mention my parents being effected by the hurricane people always mention New Orleans too...The eye hit them dead on in Mississippi.....

Pretty women on here like to talk about people liking them for their intelligence here, you will fit right in, but I am still not buying it. I've seen a lot of intelligent ugly women, and yea, they never seem to be that popular, and certainly don't get to wear the grand tiara. It doesn't even fit on their mis-shapen head when they temporarily go through the winners things, and try it on.......

lol! All the pretty women claim that life is not about appearances. Get ugly and dress down, maybe even like a hobo, and tell me what you think then.

I dressed like a hobo for a party designated for it, but went out in public before it, in full costume (totally convincing), and as I said hello to one of my friends that did not recognize me, they gave me the most terrible look I had ever seen on their face, and wouldn't even dignify my "hello" with a response.

so, miss b.f.e. isn't the "shrimping" and petroleum jelly queen? :stickpoke:

Ok cicero, let me put it this way: the people judging who wins do look for intelligence more than beauty, but that doesn't mean it counts. Sometimes the person who wins can be a dog. I don't really like to agree with people choosing beauty over brains, but it happens. That's life....

But it just happens that most girls who do win are beautiful and intelligent. We go around as visiting queens to other pageants. I mean, if you were part of one of our festivals and you had a dumb person representing you, wouldn't you kinda be dumbfounded?

I usually do have many dumb people trying to represent me. And yes. I am "dumbfounded". Which makes for an awesome pun in that context!!
:D
I need a "dumbfounded, and I vote" sticker.

That seems true. What I'd be most dumbfounded about, would be if the queen came in and handled herself in an undignified sort of way. You know, if she grabbed a handful of cake, screamed and yelled at the waiters, hocked a loogie before heading to the front table, jacked up the massive shrimp and petroleum skirt, etc.

I think if she acted downright stupid, I might assume that her particular contest was strictly a beauty contest, and that wouldn't reflect well on the contest.

Thank goodness they're not picked based on aroma....

Hey, missbhf, would you share a pic of your coronation with us, please?

well i don't see anything wrong with that...so ok.
I can't really find a good picture with just me so I'll put one of all the queens who won with me that day. unfortunately I was looking down when someone took it.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/1/...5cfa0ae653.jpg

Nice. I like how the little children are part of it. That one girl in pink couldn't beam any brighter if there were ten spotlights on her!

Every fibre of my being rebels against that photograph and everything that it represents. That said: you look gorgeous missbhf! I actually think that you looking down makes you look even more stunning because it gives you gravitas and an aura of something deeper than a glittering smile.