RacketCast

Books! We love those papery, bound little bastards. And we're guessing you, a supporter of local independent media, might also be a certified bookworm. As such, we're convening our second-ever BookCast council to gab about all things lit. This time 'round we've got a special guest: Racket contributor Deborah Copperud, who happens to have recently launched her own Minnesota-focused book podcast, Re...

For 15 months our friends Jessica Lussenhop and Andy Mannix have been hard at work revealing sex crimes hidden within the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church. The ProPublica reporters started their harrowing two-part series on Minnesota's North Shore, but the story of multi-generational abuses soon spiderwebbed across the country—the Dakotas, Wyoming, Washington. (Warning: child sex abuse is discussed a...

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...

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 com...

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...

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...

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...

🎶 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...

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.) "Fanc...

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 histori...

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 y...

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...

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...

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 a...

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...

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...

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, bec...

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, phoni...

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 you...

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 c...

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, flippa...

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 w...

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...

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 &nbs...

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 surr...