Outdoor Cats Podcast

A hot afternoon recording session in the community garden, catching up on the rent control question, the limits of ballot questions as a tool, and on the eve of this great nation’s 250th birthday, a taking of pause, putting our patriotic and totally respected right to criticize the government on the shelf for a moment—to consider how blessed we are to live here, in the free world that America main...

A literal garden variety show this week. Dispensing hard won wisdom and totally accurate and good advice for competitively growing potatoes for the Tuber tourney from a park bench in the new Green Hill Park Community Garden, where Chris has a lovely plot and so do The Noes. And wouldn’t you Noe it (sorry) they make a surprise appearance early in the show! (Don’t worry, Matt and Gabby, we cut out a...

The summer doldrums kicking in, Chris and I do what we do best: chip away at the boring old rocks of local government in our fair city, hunting for rich veins of silver and gold. We find it in Toomey’s narcissism and lack of institutional memory, in a cross reading of city hall bologna and Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland” (1990), and how the Galleria never closed so much as spread out around the founda...

As mentioned quickly in the editor’s note at the start and at length at the end of the program, head to the page “ John Cashman Needs A Liver ” if you are someone who’s in the position to donate a liver to save a life, or if you know someone who might be, or if you know someone who knows someone who might be. The widest net possible will yield the best results. Please share any way you can. Again...

It was an amazing night at Hunchback Gallery on Friday, the one-year mark of the Eureka Street ICE raid that put a mother in various federal detention centers for months, ripping a family apart in the process, as well as two other mothers through nine months of court proceedings on the sort of b******t charges that police departments get to file against anyone perceived to have slighted them. Here...

There and back again, exploring the psychology of the Kate Toomeys of the city, of which there are hundreds if not thousands and their grip on power is sure as the day is long. Then from there to the heart of all this city’s darkness. Folks we’re just taking it all in! Don’t forget to grab your tickets for Friday Friday Friday first Outdoor Cats Live show ! It’s going to be a very good and hopeful...

We have a major announcement: First Outdoor Cats live show coming Friday May 8 at Hunchback Gallery and since space is limited the event is ticketed and you can get tickets here!! Look at this awesome flyer the lovely Katie Nowicki whipped up for us! As the title suggests we’ll be looking back on a year of fallout after the ICE raid on Eureka Street that opened a new chapter in local politics—one...

Catching up on our little police city-state hiding in plain sight: the annual salary reveal, Fresolo does townie direct action, Dive Bar to Cop Bar via a Brady Lister turned entrepreneur from Framingham who definitely didn’t get caught doing a Scarface. We’d never baselessly allege something like that… Outdoor Cats comes to you because of the readers and listeners who support this outlet! Subscrib...

We spend most of the show going over the massive reductions in staffing and services at Community Health Link, asking why the agencies comprising our social safety net are allowed to act like weird little hedge funds. You can follow along here as we read through the email sent to CHL staffers by its president Gordon Benson. Worcester Sucks is the only outlet to report on this pretty sure so we can...

The esteemed Mr. John Keough joins us to discuss a forthcoming documentary he’s producing alongside director Tommy Dyer called “Burnin’ Down The House.” Set for a May 21 premier, then a full theatrical release shortly thereafter, the feature length documentary examines the sorry state of firehouses in three Massachusetts towns, asking “what the f**k?” (paraphrasing). While listeners of this show a...

What is Raccoon’s Law? Well brother you’ll just have to listen. Forgot to mention ‘on air’ that I’m doing the Roast of Worcester tomorrow (Saturday, March 21) at the White Room . All proceeds go to LUCE! Come hang. Send me some jokes I’m fresh out. Billshaner91 at Substack Dot Com. Chris recaps St. Patty’s Day in Worcester, which he does the right way unlike most of us, who tend to drink more like...

You can thank the city council and their pointlessly long meetings (five hours last night…. why??) for the delay of this episode, recorded on Monday, while Chris and I were in high spirits brought on by the sudden change for the better in the weather. In this episode we eschew the typical miseries of local politics to focus on two community events we attended over the weekend: the second annual Pu...

This one is a redo of sorts, after some technical difficulties as Chris explains at the top. You can’t always be perfect, though we do try and might I add very often succeed. On the docket for this one: Collusion between Thomas Duffy allegedly by others and Northwest District ADA Steven Gagne in the “apology” statement drafted as a plea deal condition in the Spring & Haxhiaj trials. Then: Former c...

Well, the jury split the baby. Atodaso . In case you missed our coverage of the Haxhiaj trial and its profound implications for this city’s already-rotten-enough political culture, read the latest here . And you can watch pretty much the entire trial via a series of videos I put up on YouTube— Haxhiaj trial playlist —a painstaking and frustrating endeavor, but worth it, as the cops have rarely tol...

Ashley and Etel’s day in court. Read up here for background and live updates here . It’s likely the trial wraps today. We discuss how, in the ongoing act of the Greek play, daddy’s little boy will not be compelled to testify! In the play. We don’t want to be sued. This is a comedy podcast. Chris’ had a no good very bad couple of weeks in Tenant-Land, renting a “luxury apartment” from Investment Pr...

Like Frampton, Mutual Aid Comes Alive! In an exercise of either efficiency or laziness, this week’s episode is a live talk we were graciously asked to do at the Framingham Public Library ( great Instagram presence ). Many are saying it was the Best Talk Ever Given. More and more people are saying it’s the greatest Mutual Aid 102 to a Mutual Aid 101 ever Given by Leftist Agitators. This podcast beg...

MLK continuing to call out Worcester’s political establishment from beyond the grave every damn day. In 1961 he spoke at Temple Emanuel right here in Worcester and called out both the cowardly rush to hide behind the “moderate” position and the northern liberal’s willfully obtuse view of the world, in which social problems are something that exist elsewhere. Not here, surely. In case you missed it...

Very happy to announce that somewhere in the middle of this episode we debut Wicked Wistah #1: Spags. Al Griggs AKA Kool Kojak, our esteemed guest a few episodes back , called in as promised. We abruptly shift gears to talk Spags and some other things. He shares a story you simply will not believe before jetting off to some damn place. Then, just as abruptly, we return to the matter at hand: IBPO...

We catch up on some council funnies, talk about how the only way to handle this incoming council is as a long ongoing bit. Like the Moe Bergman pipes moment from the last council… it’s all ROFL from here on out, baby. Like so… This Westerling guy is all right. We revisit our winners and losers of 2024 to see how the proverbial tables have turned, we again turn to Ray Mariano for three stooges styl...

Hey, Chris here: I have to sound in at least briefly about what a truly magical moment this interview was. I came in with the information that a guy who was Brendan Melican’s friend made the Wings Over commercial we talked about in the last episode, and that he was willing to talk to us about it, and that eating a lot of mushrooms was a key component of filming, and basically zero other informatio...

We catch up on some news before getting into the main event: the 2007 Wings Over Worcester commercial that proves we used to be a god damn proper city, man. St. V already looking for a new new CEO again. Ray Mariano’s dumb school safety column Dianna Biancheria’s “vision for the future” Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Cliff vs. the Manson clan “ Train Dreams” trailer WINGS OVER WORCESTER Commercial...

A weird and decidedly non-newsy one this week, recorded in the throes of post-Thanksgiving fogginess on Friday night. Using a piece by Karl Ove Knausgård in Harpers on technology and the suffocating and/or liberating effects of such, we talk about local journalism and The Platforms mostly. “The Reenchanted World” Here’s that synth I built . The one I was talking about. Also featured in the outro!...

Hey! Chris here with my own solo episode. Look, we’ve all been through a lot in the past few weeks, and this podcast has been accordingly a bit intense. Not today! This one is about beans. I sat down with my old friend Jen Burt, who some of you may know as the person behind the Worcester Mammoth Horticultural Bean Fair. The Worcester Mammoth is a bean that was sold and grown widely throughout the...

After a surprise loss in the District 5 race, Etel Haxhiaj and I sat down for a candid chat. It was late in the afternoon Friday. Both of us were exhausted and the conversation is a winding one. But we hit on several of the nastier elements of local politics in this city—the nativism, the sexism, the routine harassment… not to mention the stranglehold of the police unions and chamber of commerce o...

Continuing on the ‘welp’ theme we get through the election results as quickly as we can, here’s a quick summary if you haven’t caught up on Tuesday’s results yet , then we discuss at length what the story of Heather Prunier exposes about the political culture and attendant media of this city. Taking a breather, Chris lets on the depths of his sandwich-based worldview. Then, finally, the story behi...