The Curse Of Latch Fest

Latch is fine. He’s probably napping in a sunny spot right now, blissfully unaware that he may have inadvertently sent one man into heart failure, put a car through that same man’s house the following year, and left another man’s ribs in pieces on the pavement.

Latch, of course, was¹ Whittier Bar’s beloved bar cat whose namesake festival, Latch Fest, has grown into a multi-day fundraiser for T-Town TNR. Every dollar goes to the cats. Nobody—not the bands, not the guy who booked them and then got his car repossessed, not any of the volunteers—sees a cent. 

But somebody always pays. 

Laura Voth and Bradley Metcalf organized the first Latch Fest in 2023. “Every year it happens, something bad happens to one of the people who are organizing it, and it’s usually, like, not fun cool shit,” Bradley said. 

Whittier Bar regulars suspect that Latch’s neutering unleashed a curse on the festival. Until this year, the victims have all been men, which has led some to believe that the curse only comes for people with testicles.

2023: A Cough That Turned Into Heart Failure

Around the time Latch got neutered, Bradley started coughing so much that he lost his voice. Allergies? Maybe, but this hack was relentless. Laura Cook remembered sitting at Whittier Bar with him: “He looked, like, his skin was not the color that a person’s skin is supposed to be.” 

“My body felt a certain way it’s never felt before,” Bradley said. He went to urgent care, hoping for some meds and a quick fix. “They took my vitals and immediately took me back to the emergency room.” The next day he was in the ICU. A normal heart pumps at 50% to 70% capacity; 40% is heart failure. Bradley’s was at 39%.

Forced to organize the fundraiser from a hospital bed, Bradley texted Laura Voth three days before the event, “Got everything u need for Latch Fest?” It turned out there were two very important items remaining to be procured. Latch’s neutered balls, preserved in a jar of frog water and set aside for auction. So, Voth coordinated with Bradley’s mother. 

Imagine thinking your son is near death, and on your way to the hospital you have to stop by Whittier Bar to deliver a stray cat’s amputated testicles. Latch was asleep on a bar stool, and Bradley’s mother was careful not to let Latch see his own balls. Because that would be messed up. 

Incidentally, Majda Phillips won the auction for $300, and Latch’s balls now live at The Max Retropub.

2024: A Car Through The House

A year later, an elderly woman drove her car into Bradley’s house, fully through his garage and into his kitchen. He was out shopping with his kid when he got an alarm system notification that multiple entry points had been breached. Naturally, he called in a burglary. 

When he gave his address, the dispatcher asked if he was calling about the car that drove through a house. That’s how he found out. 

Thinking another year of this might actually kill him, Bradley stepped back from organizing Latch Fest after 2024. Brutus (just “Brutus,” he prefers not to use his last name) jumped in to help Voth book bands. Brutus said he was aware of the curse at the time, but didn’t take it seriously. At the time.

2025: A Bike Wreck, A Repossessed Car And More

Brutus took the curse more seriously after the Friday of Tulsa Tough, 2025. Riding his fixed-gear home in the rain (with a chain he’d meant to tighten but hadn’t gotten around to) he crashed hard and ended up lying in the street, unable to get up. Voth woke up to a text from Brutus’s girlfriend, sent from his phone, explaining he’d been in a terrible bicycle accident and was in the hospital.

Ten broken ribs. Two collapsed lungs. One punctured lung. A brief ICU stint, then six days in the hospital. “I’m 95% better now,” Brutus said. He’s still rebuilding the muscle he lost while bedridden.

With Brutus sidelined, Frank Blation, a musician and part-time Whittier bartender, agreed to help Laura Voth organize Latch Fest. The day after he signed on, his car was repossessed. He didn’t get a new one until after Latch Fest had come and gone. “I don’t think it’s a curse, but I do think it’s weird ass timing,” Frank said. “It makes me wonder if the Whittier Bar is cursed, actually.” 

Darku Jarmola was also affected by the curse after volunteering to DJ Fancy Feast Friday. A mysterious illness struck him just hours before his set, and he had to cancel. 

“Maybe it’s because we took his balls from him,” Darku speculated. “Latch wants his balls back. Or maybe Laura (Voth) is cursing us, and playing dumb, pretending like she doesn’t know.” 

Laura Cook and Ollie Moreno got involved that year, helping with bands and volunteers. Both came through Latch Fest 2025 unscathed. This is when the pet theory took hold that Latch’s curse only comes for men.

Brutus is still a little skeptical. “Men are not particularly … healthy to ourselves in general,” he said. “The curse might just be male stupidity. Of course, Bradley’s is entirely separate from that. He had nothing to do with somebody else driving into his house.”

Frank put it this way: “Anytime you put time and energy into Latch Fest, something gets taken away from you.”

2026: ??????????

This year’s lead organizers, Laura Cook and Ollie Moreno, are both women. No testicles, no curse? That was the hope. Latch Fest always has been and always will be for the pussies, after all. 

But now Cook isn’t so sure. A recent string of medical scares has shaken her confidence that “superstition is fucking stupid.” When asked if anyone with a pussy was immune to the curse, she didn’t hesitate.

“Well, clearly not me.”

Similarly, Ollie said that since accepting the co-organizer role, a tree fell on her car and someone threw a brick through a window in her house.  

The humans may be cursed, but the cats don’t care. Latch Fest reliably accounts for some of Whittier’s highest-grossing nights of the year, and it’s all for a good cause.

Latch Fest 2026 runs from August 7th through 9th at Whittier Bar. Local part-time wizard Adam Carnes plans to perform a curse reversal ceremony on Saturday. Additional highlights include live bands, drag performers, comedians, DJs, and a vendor market. You can buy tickets here.