RacketCast

🎶 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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!