Outdoor Cats Podcast

Hey all, really special episode here. The other day, I had Heather Prunier, Tom Marino and Lynn Kee over my apartment for a catch-up conversation on a major breakthrough in Heather’s fight for accountability. She finally received some of the records in the investigatory file. Yesterday, over on This Week In Worcester, Tom Marino published a substantive, detailed report on the contents of this cach...

We catch up on various pre-election tomfooleries and talk about likely outcomes next Tuesday. We psycho-analyze the cranks. Then we talk about how the Worcester Common is littered with human remains. Hundreds of skeletons just under the surface. Talk about spooky-wooky . Anyway… Please vote!! Our election guide went up last night . It starts with the very basics and walks you through it. You don’t...

In which we go into recording without a plan and come out having woven together the Fresolo vs Pezzella meltdown, the split tax rate fallacy, local journalism’s failings on school issues, the Roosevelt School debacle finally discussed in the context of walkability and sidewalk coverage, Dianna Biancheria’s secret stash of menthols, a pool of untouched CSX money in Candy Mero-Carlson’s district, th...

Last week the Ballpark Commission approved a massive active shooter drill to take place in and (maybe?) around Polar Park next June. This counts as a “community day” by the way remember those? The 20 minute meeting and the agenda . As far as I can tell this has gone unreported, though as we discussed at the top of the episode, officiating my sister’s wedding had me pretty checked out for a few day...

As promised at the end of my last piece , (really encouraging it resonated with a lot of people thank you to everyone who said so) I’m taking the description in a different, extended direction tonight. The passage below was written in a moment of deep frustration, staring at an empty document after a council meeting that was so stupid it was hard to describe. It serves, I think, as a statement of...

We sit down in the courtyard of Chris’s building for a Sunday night session with the peepers. We catch up on the local chatter and hone in on our two favorite avatars of municipal corruption: Thomas Duffy and Candy Mero-Carlson. While I have you, a few announcements I’ve been meaning to share... One, the pre-orders for the second run of the Bad Brains shirts are all in the mail. Thank you for your...

Chris and I catch up on the news of the week. We look at Kate Toomey’s wretched comments and mind numbing cross examination of the fire chief on the sprinkler ordinance, and the fact she won. What gets to be political violence and what doesn’t? Why can’t we figure out the most basic things, like how to get the kids too and from school without creating neighborhood turf wars. Kate Toomey and the fi...

Drums, bass, biblical storms... a little McDonalds for the Candy Kids … Catching up on a wild weekend and a not-wild preliminary election. We do our best to encapsulate the enigma that is City-Councilor-To-Be Gary Rosen. We ponder how to best implement the Shock Doctrine on Holden during the next Freak Weather Event. We say buh-bye to the haters and losers. We’re on pace to hit 50 episodes in our...

An extremely free ranging conversation as Chris and I soak up the last little bit of summer and willfully incriminate ourselves in multiple acts for which misdemeanor charges could theoretically though maliciously be applied. In no particular order we discuss The Ongoing Horrors, the upcoming preliminary, Joyner Lucas, the Hot Dog Safari, the Worcester Courthouse, hobbits and scams, Mitra and Lust...

We break down the most recent entry to the ongoing fight versus good and evil controver at St. Vincent Hospital—one this podcast finds itself right smack dab in the middle of… Not before goofing around a bit about Cat Mayors , Joe Petty, and the ZBA of course, but we get there. Skip to 31:00 if you’re only interested in the St. V’s stuff. Oh I made up a little digital tip jar if you want to send C...

Apropos of nothing here’s a truly unfortunate jumbotron crop from at-large council candidate Satya Mitra’s campaign website we discovered mid recording… Nevertheless… they made it the thumbnail. Lmao. Just one of the many things Chris and I discuss in a wide-ranging catch up session, recorded on the porch studio yesterday afternoon. Loosely in order: Moe Bergman’s hilarious campaign radio spot. Th...

We head down to District 1 City Council candidate Keith Linhares’ house to check in with his campaign and marvel at his absolutely amazing garage. Last time we talked to Keith it was back in March, when he was just getting started. “ Episode 16: Time for an overhaul (ft. Keith Linhares) ” Now he’s got a sense of the terrain and we were stoked to hear he’s more optimistic now than he was then. We t...

Chris and I have a freewheeling conversation, starting with John Fresolo’s District 3 Race Theory, zooming out to the War on Terror and the great Mooninite Massacre of 2007, back in time to the sinking of the Frigate Hussar and the possibly still at-large Midgley’s Mortar, then back down to reality: the Crompton Pool fiasco and Alex Guardiola’s weird obsession with teacher sick days. Fresolo’s com...

To celebrate the fourth, Chris and I go full porch mode, eschewing the news of the day to focus instead on Worcester’s messy, turbulent, amazing relationship with the Fourth of July, a Purge-like affinity built into our DNA going back to the industrial revolution. We read from an entire chapter about the city’s July 4 celebrations a century ago in Roy Rosenzweig’s Eight Hours For What We Will, the...

Back from our top secret trip deep within the heart of the Axis of Resistance, Chris and I discuss the local implications of Zohran Mamandi’s victory in NYC, building off the piece I wrote the other day: “A politics of no translation.” Of particular concern is how bad the Massachusetts Democratic establishment has been on housing, and the opportunity that presents. Then we pay Cape Cod Ray a visit...

Aliens, cryptids, ghosts... Gurus... On the eve of this newsletter’s big birthday, and after a tumultuous couple months for the city, Chris and I decide to take it easy. A light and silly episode recorded on my front porch. Following a program of events Chris put together, we divulge our crackpot woo woo ideas about life then catch up on some news: The Telegram ’s weird hit piece on Etel Haxhiaj’s...

What’s up everyone. Bill here, back from my much needed vacation—feeling rested and ready to rumble. Needed that week-long tune-out from the safe distance of Republican Cape Cod (also goes by the Outer Banks). But what a week to miss! In this episode, I go in cold, having refrained from reading a single Worcester story from the time I was gone. Chris catches me up on the tumult in real time. It’s...

In which we spend a pleasant afternoon over on the back patio of community organizer and would-have-been school committee candidate Ashley Spring. A lot to talk about: we discussed their volunteer work with LUCE that brought them down to the scene at Eureka Street and what happened before the body cam footage seen round the world. We pointedly do not discuss the arrest or the “Dangerous Weapon” as...

What to say after a State of the City address like the one we watched Wednesday night… welp. In today’s episode Chris and I digest a crazy couple weeks of news and what it all says about our ungovernable and irredeemable little city. The GoPro video of Moe Bergman’s campaign event State of the city address Thomas Duffy on WBUR and a Worcester Sucks rundown of his greatest hits (literally). MassLiv...

To the clip of new subscribers here in the past few days welcome to Outdoor Cats , the audio companion to Worcester Sucks ! It’s me (Bill) and Chris Robarge, a longtime community organizer and advocate in these parts, with experience at the ACLU, Mass Bail Fund and elsewhere. We talk s**t and try to pull the humor out of what can be very very very humorless material. Humor-averse, even. This week...

Hey everyone: Chris here posting the episode today, Bill is off to see AC/DC. One time I went to a Catholic funeral mass where “Dirty Deeds” was played in church, LOUD, so I think I’ve already had my best possible AC/DC experience. We talk about another dumb week at city council, where it seems Charles Luster is doubling down on his campaign to run on humans experiencing substance-use issues being...

Silicon Valley billionaires are so hermetically sealed off from community—so afraid of it, and yet so so so alone without it, so bitter to see others have it—they’re trying to “disrupt” the very concept. Via “Charter cities,” “freedom cities,” “network states,” and the “abundance agenda” libertarian dorks on both sides of the proverbial aisle have found their Next Big Thing: a remade municipality,...

This podcast is available on all the major podcast players: Spotify , Apple Podcasts , YouTube , Overcast , Pocket Casts Tough to coat this one with any sugar folks: Today we open with the news that our one competent city executive, Superintendent Rachel Monárrez, will be “going, going, back back to Cali” like Biggie Smalls come June. Read her statement here . You will be missed, Dr. Monárrez! We...

We spend most of the show discussing the four foreign student visa revocations at WPI, (and late breaking, as we were recording, 12 revocations at Clark ), and take a look at why and how it’s happening to hundreds around the country. From a statement sent Wednesday night from WPI President Grace Wang: WPI confirmed today that federal authorities have revoked the visas of four of our international...

Real quick audio recap of the rally this afternoon. The idea with these O.C. Dispatches: audio news reports in the public radio tradition, but here on this newsletter! Full weekly Worcester Sucks post tomorrow. Text below is more or less the same as the audio version. Cheers! “I have faith and I have hope. I have faith and I have hope. I have faith and I have hope.” Thousands chanted it in the rai...