Week Two brings busloads of separated families to Alligator Alcatraz, including Maria Santos desperately searching for her fifteen-year-old son David. While the official family reunification system is designed to fail, Tommy discovers an unlikely ally: Elena Vasquez, a quiet woman who turns out to be the former chief of staff to Congressman Billy Ray Hutchins—the very politician whose corruption created this mess. As Tommy and Elena build an underground communication network to reunite families, Elena prepares her revenge: leaked recordings and financial documents that bring down her former boss's detention empire. Their success triggers a federal investigation that threatens to expose Tommy's network, until Elena's whistleblowing revelations turn the scandal toward the real criminals—setting the stage for Alligator Alcatraz's spectacular collapse.To become a premium subscriber (no ads and no feed drops) visit caloroga.com/plus. For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which seays UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. You also get 25+ other shows on the network ad-free! Go to Caloroga.com for all our shows!
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2. The Committee
The Facility Optimization Committee forms to bring "systematic process improvement" to Alligator Alcatraz, led by efficiency expert Brad Thornton and his plan to drain the swamp through "Operation Dry Ground." While officials hold PowerPoint meetings about water management, their drainage project creates a moat around the administrative building, complete with resident alligators. Meanwhile, Tommy quietly builds his own committee—Luis the landscaper, Maria the organizer, and Old Pete the fisherman—who actually solve problems like mosquito infestations and food shortages. As Warden Fitzpatrick gets rowed to meetings across his new moat, Tommy's network proves that real leadership happens without committees, presentations, or official recognition.To become a premium subscriber (no ads and no feed drops) visit caloroga.com/plus. For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which seays UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. You also get 25+ other shows on the network ad-free! Go to Caloroga.com for all our shows!
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1. Welcome To Paradise
Beauregard "Beau" Thibodaux introduces us to the chaotic opening day of Alligator Alcatraz, a hastily-built detention facility in the Florida Everglades. When drainage systems fail and the intake building floods, Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick III and Deputy Warden Chet McKenzie scramble to maintain the illusion of competence while an eight-foot alligator supervises from the processing area. Enter Tommy Esperanza, a quiet maintenance worker who solves the flooding crisis with practical wisdom, earning his first glimpse of the facility's potential. Through Beau's wry Southern narration, we witness the collision between bureaucratic arrogance and swamp reality—and the beginning of an unlikely transformation.To become a premium subscriber (no ads and no feed drops) visit caloroga.com/plus. For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which seays UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. You also get 25+ other shows on the network ad-free! Go to Caloroga.com for all our shows!
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Introducing - Alligator Alcatraz
Deep in the Florida Everglades, where political corruption meets bureaucratic incompetence, lies America's most shameful detention facility. Narrated by the wise and sardonic Beauregard "Beau" Thibodaux, "Alligator Alcatraz" is a darkly comic tale of family separation, systematic injustice, and the extraordinary people who fought back. When the hastily-built detention center opens to warehouse immigrants and asylum seekers, it's run by officials more interested in processing quotas than protecting human dignity. Families are torn apart, legal residents are wrongfully detained, and children disappear into a system designed to fail them.Enter Tommy Esperanza, a maintenance worker swept up in immigration raids despite his legal status. While Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick III takes credit for "innovative detention management" and efficiency expert Brad Thornton creates disasters with his improvement plans, Tommy quietly begins building something unprecedented: an underground network that actually reunites families. His unlikely ally is Elena Vasquez, who appears to be just another detainee but is actually the former chief of staff to the corrupt congressman whose policies created this nightmare. Together, they turn bureaucratic chaos into an opportunity for justice, using the system's own corruption to bring down the politicians who built it.Over four weeks in the swamp, we watch Tommy's network solve crises the officials can't handle, reunite families the system tried to separate forever, and ultimately expose the criminal conspiracy that profited from human suffering. Part immigration drama, part political satire, part meditation on community and resistance, "Alligator Alcatraz" reveals how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things when they refuse to accept that cruelty is inevitable.Through Beau's Southern Gothic storytelling, we discover that sometimes the most powerful escape isn't fleeing injustice—it's staying to fight it. In the end, the politicians destroy themselves, the system collapses under its own corruption, and families torn apart by bureaucratic cruelty find their way back to each other through the quiet heroism of people who refused to give up hope. Where greed meets its match, families fight back, and one man proves that the best revenge is helping others survive what was meant to destroy them.To become a premium subscriber (no ads and no feed drops) visit caloroga.com/plus. For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which seays UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. You also get 25+ other shows on the network ad-free! Go to Caloroga.com for all our shows!
Deep in the Florida Everglades, where corruption runs as thick as the swamp, a broken immigration detention center becomes ground zero for a darkly comic uprising. When mild-mannered maintenance worker Tommy Esperanza is wrongfully detained, he teams up with a mysterious fellow inmate to turn the system upside down—using bureaucracy’s own chaos against it. With wisecracking narration from Southern legend Beau Thibodaux, Alligator Alcatraz is a sharp, satirical romp through government failure, family separation, and unlikely heroism. It’s Shawshank Redemption meets Veep, with gators.Deep in the Florida Everglades, where political corruption meets bureaucratic incompetence, lies America's most shameful detention facility. Narrated by the wise and sardonic Beauregard "Beau" Thibodaux, "Alligator Alcatraz" is a darkly comic tale of family separation, systematic injustice, and the extraordinary people who fought back. When the hastily-built detention center opens to warehouse immigrants and asylum seekers, it's run by officials more interested in processing quotas than protecting human dignity. Families are torn apart, legal residents are wrongfully detained, and children disappear into a system designed to fail them.Enter Tommy Esperanza, a maintenance worker swept up in immigration raids despite his legal status. While Warden Buckley Fitzpatrick III takes credit for "innovative detention management" and efficiency expert Brad Thornton creates disasters with his improvement plans, Tommy quietly begins building something unprecedented: an underground network that actually reunites families. His unlikely ally is Elena Vasquez, who appears to be just another detainee but is actually the former chief of staff to the corrupt congressman whose policies created this nightmare. Together, they turn bureaucratic chaos into an opportunity for justice, using the system's own corruption to bring down the politicians who built it.Over four weeks in the swamp, we watch Tommy's network solve crises the officials can't handle, reunite families the system tried to separate forever, and ultimately expose the criminal conspiracy that profited from human suffering. Part immigration drama, part political satire, part meditation on community and resistance, "Alligator Alcatraz" reveals how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things when they refuse to accept that cruelty is inevitable.Through Beau's Southern Gothic storytelling, we discover that sometimes the most powerful escape isn't fleeing injustice—it's staying to fight it. In the end, the politicians destroy themselves, the system collapses under its own corruption, and families torn apart by bureaucratic cruelty find their way back to each other through the quiet heroism of people who refused to give up hope. Where greed meets its match, families fight back, and one man proves that the best revenge is helping others survive what was meant to destroy them.To become a premium subscriber (no ads and no feed drops) visit caloroga.com/plus. For Apple users, hit the banner on your Apple podcasts app which seays UNINTERRUPTED LISTENING. For Spotify or other players, visit caloroga.com/plus. You also get 25+ other shows on the network ad-free! Go to Caloroga.com for all our shows!
Ireland