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2.5K to 15K🎙 ~2x weekly·50 episodes·Last published 1w ago - Monthly Reach
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5K to 30K🇺🇸100% - Active Followers
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2K to 12K
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On the show
Recent episodes
The Art of Airfare Feat. Thrifty Traveler's Kyle Potter & Gunnar Olson
Jun 12, 2026
Unknown duration
Fighting Google's Data Center Feat. Pine Island Residents Aubree Derksen & Nicole Mills
May 29, 2026
Unknown duration
Girl Gone HOW Wild? Feat. Author/Comic/Actor Courtney Kocak
May 15, 2026
Unknown duration
Weather, Climate, and Getting Ripped Feat. Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard
May 1, 2026
Unknown duration
2026 Timberwolves Playoffs Explainer for Dummies Feat. Podcaster Dane Moore
Apr 17, 2026
Unknown duration
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| Date | Episode | Description | Length | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/12/26 | The Art of Airfare Feat. Thrifty Traveler's Kyle Potter & Gunnar Olson | You there, dummy with some degree of affluence and PTO to spare: You don't know diddly squat about travel.But Kyle Potter and Gunnar Olson, the team behind The Thrifty Traveler Podcast? It's their full-time job to scout for travel deals, report on industry developments, and, generally, make their audience smarter globe hoppers. We got the boys on the pod ahead of their big live recording session this Friday at the Parkway Theater in Minneapolis (more info here) to make our audience, the aforementioned dummies, savvier travelers as summer vacation season heats up.Before any of that: We take listeners on a trip through What I Learned in Racket, where the riffed upon topics include...Every Bowl at Baba’s Hummus House, Ranked‘I Felt Like I Was There 90% of the Time’: An Oral History of the Dinkytowner CaféWhat Are People For? The Imperiled Boundary Waters, Late MN Nature Writer Paul Gruchow, and Me.This week's episode is brought to you by the Minnesota Antiquarian Book Fair.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 5/29/26 | Fighting Google's Data Center Feat. Pine Island Residents Aubree Derksen & Nicole Mills | We're halfway through the Year of Data Center Backlash. Americans hate the massive AI factories, yet tech giants continue to foist them on communities amid the current AI arms race. That negative sentiment isn't difficult to understand: They're noisy, energy-sucking IRL avatars for a product that's promising to eliminate your job.At least a dozen data center projects are at various stages of completion throughout Minnesota. Earlier this year, we brought you an in-depth look at the battle to stop Google's "Project Loon" hyperscale proposal up in Hermantown, and for this week's episode we're headed south to chat with Aubree Derksen and Nicole Mills, two residents of Pine Island who are fighting like hell against Google's "Project Skyway." At the moment, they seem to be winning; earlier this week a judge ordered a temporary restraining order that halts construction of the 3-million-square-foot behemoth.Before we have that conversation, however, we begin the pod with our usual segment, What I Learned in Racket. Here's what we learned:Stillwater Is a Riverfront Parking Lot With Some Nice Restaurants Attached‘Long Live Conrad!’: Musicians, Colleagues, and Loved Ones Remember the First Avenue Stage ManagerI Want My CRT: The ‘Insane’ Demand for Giant Old-School TVs, ExplainedSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 5/15/26 | Girl Gone HOW Wild? Feat. Author/Comic/Actor Courtney Kocak | Right after high school Courtney Kocak left sleepy Jackson, Minnesota, to chase her dreams in Hollywood. Did everything go as planned? Sure didn't! And in her brand-new memoir, Girl Gone Wild, Kocak weaves together a series of essays that address "ambition, delusion, drugs, sex, and misogyny," plus selling merch on the extremely shady Girls Gone Wild porno bus.You can catch Kocak in conversation with author Kelly Foster Lundquist and Racket contributor Deborah Copperud this Friday at St. Paul's Acorn Bookshop (details here). Or on May 19 at Troubadour Wine Bar with past RacketCast guest Mary Lucia author Angela Pelster (deets here).But before quite literally any of that, Em and Jay go through a speed round of What I Learned in Racket. Here's what they learned...A New Yorker’s Top 5 Pizzas by the Slice in the Twin CitiesViral Posts, No AI: Meet the Graphic Designer Wunderkind Behind the Timberwolves, Lynx---This episode of RacketCast is sponsored by The Wild West Bank Sound: A Funky Flashback of Musical Memories.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 5/1/26 | Weather, Climate, and Getting Ripped Feat. Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard | We've had investigative reporters, sportswriters, food critics, and music writers on RacketCast, but never anyone working the beat every Minnesotan actually cares about: the weather.Remedying that is this week's guest Sven Sundgaard, a 23-year veteran of Minnesota's meteorology scene. We get into a little Sven lore, remember some storms, dive deep into climate change, address the state of local meteorology, gab about his real estate side hustle, and even fact check MSP Mag's 2022 claim that Sundgaard is our state's "most physically ripped" weatherman. And, as a cherry on top for those who make it 60+ minutes in: a pleasant reading of the weekend forecast—no quicker way to get that information!Before any of that, however, your hosts go 'round the horn in a thrilling installment of our regular intro feature, What I Learned In Racket...I Tried the Minneapolis-Made Camera So You Don’t Have ToHow Did Black Music Take Over the World? Ask Melvin Gibbs.‘Minnesota Hardcore’ Producer David Roth Is the Ken Burns of Twin Cities PunkCover Me Impressed: Are We Living Through a Twin Cities Cover-Band Boom?This episode of RacketCast is sponsored by The Wild West Bank Sound: A Funky Flashback of Musical Memories.The latest documentary from Twin Cities PBS takes viewers on a sensory trip to a corner of Minneapolis that shaped Minnesota music. From the early 1960s, Minneapolis’ West Bank neighborhood was an epicenter of the music world and proved an irresistible draw for artists from far and wide, an ever-evolving cauldron of creativity and cultures. This film bursts at the seams with memories, all visualized with rare and rich archival photography, footage, and ephemera. Stream on the free PBS App starting April 21.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 4/17/26 | 2026 Timberwolves Playoffs Explainer for Dummies Feat. Podcaster Dane Moore | Is it unwise to keep calling our listeners "dummies"? Perhaps, but that's what we did with our Twins preview pod, and we're doing it again for this Timberwolves explainer featuring the great podcaster Dane Moore.Just as he did last year, Dane joined us ahead of the T-Wolves postseason, right as casual fans begin hopping aboard the hoops bandwagon. The host of The Dane Moore NBA Podcast equips listeners with the requisite knowledge to (hopefully) root deep into the playoffs, including a roster breakdown, season recap, long-view look at the franchise, and even a therapy session centered around our host's paranoid speculation that superstar Anthony Edwards might want outta town. Enjoy, dummies! The Wolves tip off against the Denver Nuggets for Game 1 of the first round of the NBA playoffs at 2:30 p.m. Saturday; you can watch via Amazon Prime.Before any of that, though, we chatted for 30 minutes during a regular installment of What I Learned In Racket...As Food Giant Sysco Tightens Its Hold, We Asked Local Chefs and Restaurateurs How Much to WorryAn Educated Guesser’s Guide to the 2026 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film FestivalGrading the 2026 Minnesota Twins Walk-Up Songs This episode of RacketCast is sponsored by TPT's The Wild West Bank Sound: A Funky Flashback of Musical Memories.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 4/3/26 | 2026 MN Twins Preview for Dummies Feat. The Athletic’s Aaron Gleeman | 🎶 Take me out to the ball game 🎶🎶 Take me out with the crowd 🎶🎶 Buy me some peanuts and RacketCast (?!) 🎶Calm down! RacketCast will remain free of charge for this (slightly delayed) season preview of your reportedly hopeless 2026 Minnesota Twins.As always, for no reason in particular, we'll be framing it through the "for dummies" lens, though our guest is no dummy: He's Aaron Gleeman, the best damn baseball writer/reporter in town. You can—and should!—subscribe to and support his Gleeman & the Geek Twins podcast, featuring co-host John Bonnes, here; you can read all of his writing via the Athletic here.And for the What I Learned in Racket enthusiasts out there, tough luck! We're short-staffed this week, so our usual hoopla-loaded gabbing up top won't hit—very '26 Twins-like, when you think about it—your ears this week. No crying in baseball and podcasting.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 3/20/26 | Celebrate Fancy Ray Day Feat. Local Comedy Legend Fancy Ray | Happy Fancy Ray Day!Well, actually, that honorary calendar date—as previously decreed by the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul—isn't until March 28. But we wanted to get "The Best Looking Man in Comedy" on our podcast well in advance of the "Fancy Ray Day Comedy Show" he'll be headlining next Saturday at Spring Street Tavern in northeast Minneapolis. (Click here for tickets.)"Fancy" Ray McCloney is, of course, a Minnesota comedy institution, having worked the clubs since the '80s. He ran for governor in 1998. He has pitched your favorite places and products for decades, including a Taco Bell spot during the 2016 Super Bowl. He has officiated hundreds of weddings, "mostly for tattooed white people," he says with a grin. His TV appearances span from local cable access to Maury Povich to America's Got Talent.Fancy Ray was an elusive guest to book (naturally, he wanted a coinciding gig to pitch), but we got him in the studio for a wide-ranging talk that touches on philosophy, riffing with Tim and Eric, poetry, his longtime friendship with Little Richard, and so much more.Before any of that we get into 20ish minutes of What I Learned in Racket, in which we discuss...WE WENT FOR THE WINGS: A Visit to the Mall of America Hooters During Its Final Days‘Wuthering Heights’ Is a Horny Bore; ‘The Bride!’ Is a Dizzying Clutter‘It’s David vs. Goliath’: Inside the Fight to Kill Google’s Secrecy-Shrouded Hermantown Data CenterSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 3/6/26 | Mapping MN's Hidden City Feat. YouTuber Chris Parr | What the hell is going on in North Oaks, Minnesota?That's the question Minneapolis-based videographer/YouTuber Chris Parr set out to answer. In a video from last month titled "I Mapped Google’s ONLY SECRET CITY," Parr explains why North Oaks—an extremely wealthy north metro city of 5,200—doesn't appear on Google Street View, gets into the history of mapping in general, chats with multiple historians and a drone expert, and then gets hovering above the hidden city in question.Enjoy our chat with Parr, and here's a link to his viral video.But before all that, Em, Keith, and Jay went 'round the horn for our regular segment, What I Learned in Racket. Here's what we learned...Radish Farm Stop: A New SW Minneapolis Grocer That’s Like a Year-Round Farmers MarketYes, That Mancini’s: How a Legendary St. Paul Steakhouse Raised $35K for the ResistanceSack’s Back: MN’s Greatest Political Cartoonist Un-Retired Because He’s ‘So Fucking Pissed’ at Trump, ICESubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 2/20/26 | Livestreaming a Crisis Feat. Unicorn Riot | Ever read this week's Racket feature story and think to yourself: "Boy, I'd sure love to hear an entire hour-long conversation about how Niko Georgiades helped launch Unicorn Riot, provided incredible on-the-ground coverage of the George Floyd uprising, and kept producing livestream video coverage into the present, including during Operation Metro Surge?" Boy, have we got a treat for you!But, before all that, we've got our regular What I Learned in Racket segment, which this week includes an original poetry reading by Keith Harris—*snap, snap, snap.* Catch up below:ICE Cost Lake Street Businesses at Least $46M. These Weekly Cash Mobs Help Them Claw Back Profit.Corporate Communications in ‘Uncertain, Stressful, and Volatile Times’: How MN Employers Failed to Address the ICE OccupationStreaming the Siege: At Every Turn, ICE’s MN Invasion Has Been Captured on VideoSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 2/6/26 | Covering the MN ICE Invasion Feat. Reporters Madison McVan & Max Nesterak | Small but mighty, the Minnesota Reformer continues to deliver some of the best Operation Metro Surge coverage in the state. We're fans, we suspect you're fans, so we figured: Let's get reporters Madison McVan and Max Nesterak on the pod to discuss their ongoing coverage of the federal invasion. Here's a link to Max's big feature story; here's a link to Madison's piece about ICE resistance going mainstream.But before any of that, our own small/mighty crew engaged in a spirited round of What I Learned in Racket. Here's what we learned...They Asked for Donations to Buy $10 Burritos. They Raised More Than $10K.Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello Rouse Anti-Fascist Fervor at First AveGas Masks, Signal Chats, and a Honda Fit: Chasing ICE With Will StancilSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
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| 1/27/26 | Bonus: Life In Occupied MN Feat. Pod Damn America | You've heard Racket's Jay Boller co-hosting RacketCast, certainly. But have you ever heard him guesting on another podcast entirely?That's the not-so-rare opportunity presented to you here, where you'll find a recent episode of Pod Damn America that features Jay, Unite Here Local 17's Sheigh Freeberg, and host/occasional Racket contributor Anders J. Lee outlining the federal government's current occupation of Minnesota for PDA's national audience. We talk resistance. We talk media coverage. We talk labor solidarity. Jay incorrectly states that Michele Tafoya is competing against Mike Lindell for the U.S. Senate, when in fact Lindell is running for governor. Be sure to follow Pod Damn America—the preeminent "gothic socialist podcast" featuring comedic news commentary from Lee and co-host Jake Flores—right here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 1/22/26 | No Work, School, or Spending This Fri. Feat. Local Labor Leaders | Summoning our best Jocko Conlan voice: Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-rike!You won't hear our guests—Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation President Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou and Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 President David Stiggers—use that word, specifically, to describe Friday's "ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom," which they helped organize with fellow labor leaders and clergy members. They can't say "strike" or "work stoppage" for legal reasons, but c'mon, you get the idea: Hundreds of local businesses, including Racket, are shutting down tomorrow and urging neighbors to observe a general-strike-ish day of no working, no attending school, and no shopping to protest the Trump's administration's authoritarian immigration assault on Minnesota.Glaubitz Gabiou and Stiggers dropped by the pod to discuss this historic day of solidarity, how their members are enduring Operation Metro Surge, and why workers flexing their power matters more than ever.Before all that, we discuss the Trump administration's siege on Minnesota in a loosey-goosey installment of What I Learned in Racket.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 1/12/26 | Bonus: What’s Going on in MN? Feat. Never Post | You've heard Racket's Em Cassel co-hosting RacketCast, certainly. But have you ever heard her guesting on another podcast entirely?That's the not-so-rare opportunity presented to you here, where you'll find a recent episode of Never Post that features Em and NP's Hans Buetow outlining the multitudinal crises (fraud, ICE, killing, general chaos incited by the fascist MAGA movement) gripping our great state.Be sure to follow Never Post—a worker-owned, listener-funded, locally connected podcast "about what's happening with, to, and on the internet"—right here.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 12/12/25 | 2025 MN Food/Drink Trends, Triumphs, Catastrophes, and Curiosities Feat. Critic Kirstie Kimball | It's our last podcast ep of 2025!As such, we invited new Racket dining correspondent Kirstie Kimball of beyond beurre blanc to join fellow critic Em Cassel of Racket to hashbrown out the year that (almost) was in Minnesota food and drink.Recs are offered. Shit is talked. And the seemingly ballooning craft beer bubble? You better believe it's speculated over.See ya in 2026.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 11/28/25 | Avoiding Death, Getting Weirder, Releasing Memoirs Feat. Mary Lucia | Wishing you and yours a joyous and spiritually fulfilling Black Friday. Make sure your frenzied consumerism arrives at What Doesn't Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To, the brand-new memoir from Mary Lucia.The longtime Twin Cities DJ stopped by Racket HQ to talk about her book, and my goodness did we enjoy a long, fascinating conversation about Lucia helping launch REV105, becoming the drive-time star at 89.3 the Current, and enduring a stalker who turned three years of her life into a waking nightmare. These days, Looch is teaching the youth how to do radio at our favorite frequency, Radio K. (Editor's note: We're experimenting with new recording software, which slightly fucked up the intro recording quality... skip to the 25-minute mark to hear the Lucia interview in pristine sound.)Catch two, count 'em two, upcoming What Doesn't Kill Me release parties—December 9 at the Granada Theater with past RacketCast guest Lizz Winstead (more info here) and December 10 at the Landmark Center with Andrea Swensson (more info here).Before all that, we field reader voicemails for Turkey of the Year snubs and, of course, conduct another thrilling installment of What I Learned In Racket.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 11/14/25 | Biggest MN Turkeys of 2025 | A sincere and gratitude-stuffed "gobble, gobble" to all our RacketCast listeners ahead of this, one of the final episodes before Thanksgiving.As such, we're talkin' turkey—local folks deserving of our unenviable "Biggest MN Turkeys of 2025" designation, that is. (How did we possibly come up with this idea?) Em, Keith, and Jay go around the horn, picking the biggest fools, phonies, and/or foes of '25 and then riffing on 'em accordingly. If you're sensitive to overuse of gobbling sound effects, you may want to skip this ep.Did we miss any egregious turkeys? Call our hotline (619-RACKTIP, 619-722-5847) with your nominations—we'll play your voicemails on the next episode!Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 11/3/25 | Bonus: Twin Cities Election Guide Spectacular Feat. Naomi Kritzer | Naomi Kritzer, author of the best Twin Cities election guide for 20+ years, drops by the pod to assess mayoral races, City Council races, Park Board races, and even the surprisingly exciting Board of Estimate & Taxation races. Study up—Tuesday is Election Day! Kritzer's latest book, Obstetrix, will arrive next summer.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 10/31/25 | The Parkway Pervert Feat. John Waters | Eternally cool director/author/personality John Waters—aka the “Pope of Trash” aka the “People's Pervert” aka the “Prince of Puke”—makes his triumphant return this Saturday to the Parkway Theater. That's where Waters, 79, will perform his new "Going to Extremes" show on a Minneapolis stage he has visited eight times in recent years—more like the "Parkway Pervert." Ahead of the gig we chatted about Walker Art Center glory holes, Coen bros friendship/fandom, fearing the Mall of America, and how, in 2025, nobody can take a freaking joke.But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...Meet the Volunteer Pilots Flying Patients From Red States to Reproductive CareWhat I Saw at This Weekend’s Minnesota MAHA Fest Scared the Hell out of MeThis episode of RacketCast is brought to you by TPT's You Are Here: Wicked Minnehaha.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 10/3/25 | BookCast, Vol. 1 | Sometimes, when you're a tiny media outlet with a biweekly podcast, several interview requests fall through and you're left with... three microphones and an hour to fill. And nobody can accuse us of not filling it! Inspired by a dictionary's tweet, Jay, Em, and Keith gathered for the first installment of BookCast, where we go 'round the horn to talk about—you guessed it—those papery, flippable lil devices we love.But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...‘Call It the Clown Car’: An Oral History of Minneapolis’s 35-Candidate 2013 Mayoral Election‘Only Ugly Guys’ Is More Beautiful Than You’d Expect & Black Scholars, Trans Ancestors, and Video Games: ‘I Promise to Burn Forever’ Challenges Visitors to RememberAnd here are the books we plugged...Rejection by Tony TulathimutteInto the Bright Sunshine: Young Hubert Humphrey and the Fight for Civil Rights by Samuel G. FreedmanIn the Heart of the Sea: The Epic True Story that Inspired Moby Dick by Nathaniel PhilbrickThe Book of Love by Kelly LinkIntermezzo by Sally RooneyThe Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism by Adam NagourneyHeadshot by Rita BullwinkelSecondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets by Svetlana AlexievichIt by Stephen KingThis episode of RacketCast is brought to you by TPT's You Are Here: Wicked Minnehaha.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 9/19/25 | The Surprising Afterlife of Alt-Weeklies Feat. Journalists Tricia Romano & Emma Silvers | Alt-weeklies: The four Racket founders/editors used to work at one, City Pages, before Star Tribune Media Co. flushed it and its 40-plus-year legacy down the tubes five years ago. And that fate more or less mirrors what's happening nationally with those spirited, smart, and sharp-elbowed publications that once covered news, arts, and culture all across this increasingly stupid land.So last year when Tricia Romero, former editor-in-chief of The Stranger, released The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture, we were intrigued. And this week when Emma Silvers, an ex editor at SF Weekly, released this deep dive into alt-weeklies for her exciting new worker-owned publication, Coyote, we were doubly intrigued. Here's hoping all that intrigues you, because we—Racket's Jay, Jessica, and Keith—got Romero and Silvers on the line to talk for over an hour about the history, death, and possible new life of the scrappy little style of journalism we all love.But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...Fall Arts Guide 2025 At the Palace, Rilo Kiley Reminds Adults What They’ve Lived ThroughThis episode of RacketCast is brought to you by Minneapolis Cultural Districts.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 9/5/25 | 2025 MN Vikings Preview for Dummies Feat. Arif Hasan | In the grand tradition of this still-kinda-new podcast, we're bringing you conversations with smart and cool local sportswriters to preview upcoming seasons. The "for dummies" framing? The guests have nothing to do with that, and perhaps one day we'll stop the condescending approach. But today is not that day, dummies.This week we've got Arif Hasan (The Athletic, Bleacher Report, Zone Coverage) on the pod, a veteran Minnesota Vikings cataloger and founder of the awesome reader-funded football website Wide Left. Hasan breaks down the fracturing sports media landscape, explains the top causes for optimism and concern regarding your Vikes, and even roasts the living shit outta the Green Bay Packers, a team that's near and dear to your host's heart.But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...Helen Hoover: The Pioneering MN Nature Writer You’ve ‘Never Heard Of’ Finally Gets Her DueA Chronic Hater Attempts to Enjoy the Minnesota Renaissance FestivalSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 8/22/25 | Emergency MN State Fair New Food Roundtable! | No time for extensive show notes—this is an emergency! Listen to all four Racket owner/editors gab for an hour-plus about all the Minnesota State Fair official new foods we gobbled Thursday. Gov. Tim Walz even makes an exclusive cameo. Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 8/8/25 | The Wheels on the Bus Feat. Metro Transit | How does public transit work in the Twin Cities? To find out, we invited Metro Transit GM Lesley Kandaras and bus driver Al Chang to our St. Louis Park studio. (Kandaras, a true company woman who has ridden all 60 MT routes, even took the bus there.) Transit enthusiasts should enjoy this convo about the successes, challenges, new developments, and total disinterest in building a subway system surrounding our town's bus and light rail operator.But first! We engage in the second-ever (and possibly last-ever) installment of "Birthday Breakdown" to celebrate Jay's big 3-8. And here are the stories we gabbed about afterward during What I Learned In Racket...Racket’s Year in Review: August 2024-July 2025Best Budget Bites: $9.99 Roast Beef Sandwich From Maverick’s Real Roast BeefSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 7/29/25 | Bonus: How’d Lutsen Lodge Really Burn Down? Feat. Journalist Joe Friedrichs | For many Minnesotans, it wasn’t just another building on the North Shore—it was the beating heart of the North Shore. Over its 144-year history, Lutsen Resort had hosted countless weddings, family reunions, and friendly ski trips along the the intersection of Lake Superior and the Poplar River. So when the historic lodge burned down in early 2024, many folks were understandably heartbroken.Then, almost immediately, suspicion around the owner, Bryce Campbell, began brewing. Dire finances. Unresolved inspection violations. Contradictory whereabouts.The State Fire Marshal’s investigation remains ongoing, but North Shore journalist/author Joe Friedrichs is already hard at work on a longform podcast series called The Fire: A Lutsen Podcast. Friedrichs and his team have assembled almost 30 hours of audio, including interviews with ex-resort employees, fire investigators, Cook County residents, fellow journalists, and even Campbell."It's such an important story, and not just for the North Shore—it needs to be treated with respect in terms of production quality," Friedrichs says. "I'm just so interested in it… it's time to do [this podcast]."You can support The Fire, which is due out this fall, via Kickstarter. Enjoy our conversation with Friedrichs.Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
| 7/24/25 | Can Epstein's Ghost Sink Trump? Feat. Sen. Tina Smith | The ghost of Jeffery Epstein, sex-trafficking buddy to the elites, continues to haunt Trump World.Just this week the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department warned Trump in May that his name is included in the Epstein files. (The White House called this "fake news.") Meanwhile, the drip, drip, drip of previously unknown Trump-Epstein entanglements keeps accelerating—videos, photos, sketches.To discuss all of this, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (DFL-Minnesota) joins us on this episode of RacketCast. Smith has positioned herself on the frontlines of the posting wars, sharing eyebrow-raising Trump-Epstein developments with the abandon of a lawmaker who, at 67 and with retirement fast approaching, has few fucks left to give.But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...Meet Minnesota’s Rocketman: Inside the Incomparable Life of Ky MichaelsonLet’s Try Bloomington’s Buzziest Egg SandwichSubscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at advertise@racketmn.com. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!This week's RacketCast is brought to you by CannaCon and also by Minneapolis Cultural Districts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. | — | ||||||
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