RacketCast

Mitch Hedberg conceived his jokes with a deliberate eye toward timelessness.

The Minnesota-launched comedy great’s widow, Lynn Shawcroft, confirmed as much during a 2013 episode of WTF with Marc Maron. And for about 15 years, the timeless comedy of Hedberg—surreal one-liners, musings, and wordplay delivered in his unmistakable stoner drawl—attracted a massive following. Jokes like, “I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too” and, “I like rice. Rice is great when you're hungry and you want 2,000 of something,” keep finding new fans through his albums and specials.

But now, 20 years after Hedberg’s death, one artifact remains frustratingly elusive: Los Enchiladas!, the 1999 movie that he wrote, directed, starred in, and bankrolled. Shot in St. Paul, the super-goofy indie comedy set at a Mexican restaurant debuted at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival; an official release has never been secured, despite Shawcroft hinting at one for over a dozen years. All fans have is a rickety, leaked workprint version that’s available on YouTube.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary* of Los Enchiladas! and to better understand its mastermind, Racket assembled a roundtable of core sources: Brian Malow, a comedian and Hedberg’s friend who co-starred and co-produced it; Jim Jorgensen, a veteran local actor who plays the over-the-top chef; Matt Ehling, a locally based filmmaker who served as co-director of photography; and Jeff Siegel, an Emmy-winning filmmaker who's currently years deep into making the definitive Hedberg documentary. (*OK, 26th anniversary by a couple of weeks—the famously chill Hedberg would forgive us.)

“I discovered Mitch's comedy in the early 2000s, and I saw that he made this movie that played at Sundance. I was fascinated,” says Siegel, who hopes his doc will introduce a whole new generation to Hedberg. “I got to meet him a few times, and I was always asking him questions about the film. I wanted to see it! Mitch signed my copy of his first album, Strategic Grill Locations, with, ‘Jeff, Los Ench is coming, 2002.’ So, I have a longstanding fascination with the film.”

Us too! Let’s dig into the world of Los Enchiladas!, and maybe, just maybe, help drum up some excitement that’ll lead to the long-lost movie’s proper release.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

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We've got a double-header for ya, folks.

In the leadoff spot: Keith and Jay discuss Poised to Pop, Racket's annual predictions for the year's most exciting new local music acts. (It is very different from Picked to Click, thank you very much!) Hear Keith's scouting reports, then dive into some of the best rock, jazz, techno, rap, etc. sounds currently coming from the Twin Cities music scene.

On deck: Em and Jay chat with Chris Steadman, who's launching a new podcast studio called Good Judy Productions, and Celisia Stanton, whose Truer Crime podcast is about to enter its second season. Among the topics addressed: the challenges and rewards of pursuing ambitious, narrative-driven podcasts; the state of the local podcasting scene; and the philosophical approach of "podcasting from below."

Play... ball? Play... podcast? Whatever, you get the idea.

And here's our P2P playlist if you're scorekeeping at home.

• “Love Bomb” by Crush Scene
• “Bugz Bunny” by EssJay TheAfrocentricRatchet
• “Attaboy” by In Leiu
• “Smoke of the Midnight Lamp” by Kavyesh Kaviraj
• “Power Cord” by Lonefront
• “Pink Puma” by Products Band
• “I Feel Perfect” by Rosie
• “Oil Light” by Yonder

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

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Exactly 20 years ago, Twin Cities hip-hop greats Heiruspecs got their shot at the big time with A Tiger Dancer. On this episode of RacketCast, MC Chris "Felix" Wilbourn and bassist Sean "Twinkie Jiggles" McPherson reflect with us about the highs (giant shows, Harold & Kumar soundtrack) and lows (label expectations, snubbed Euro tour) that coincided with the release of their breakout 2004 LP.

This isn't the group's first reflection on that pivotal era—McPherson wrote with great candor about it in 2016 for City Pages—but it is the first via the audio format, the favored medium of such luminaries as Abbott & Costello, Terry Gross, and Bubba the Love Sponge. Our conversation is part Behind the Music, a whole lotta remember-some-guys, and a fitting anniversary victory lap for one of the best hip-hop acts to ever come outta Minnesota. (Cheap Trick emerges as a surprising/amusing enemy.)

"This record is a really proud document for me and that moment. Only one of us was even 25 when we started meeting folks from [record label] Razor & Tie in their office in New York, and it was an amazing feeling," McPherson wrote in '16. "Probably the hardest part was that, on the level of folks we considered our competitors, we were doing pretty good. I don't have SoundScan access, but I believe Tiger [sold] about 13,000 by 2007 and over 10,000 in 2005. In the indie-rap world you were desperate to hit 10K, that was a big sign."

Ultimately, Heiruspecs never broke into the mainstream. Instead, they've settled into the enviable role of local music institution, rallying together each year for an annual concert that expanded in 2023 to the outdoor Heiruspecs Summer Classic mini-fest. The St. Paul crew is still doing pretty good, as you'll hear on this episode.

"It did feel like we had lightning in a bottle," Felix told us last week. "Maybe not the giant lightning strike that makes you as big as, fucking Journey or something, I don't know... But it really did feel like we had something that needed to get out, and we got it out there."

Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the first-ever episode of RacketCast, the new podcast experiment from Twin Cities news/arts/culture website Racket.

In this installment, we recap the week that was at our reader-funded publication, debate whether failing restaurants should seek crowdfunding life support, tease what we're working on next, and ask you, the gracious reader-turned-listener, for pointers about... what RacketCast should sound like in the future!

Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our intro/transition/outro music!

Want to advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected].

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In the early '00s Aaron Gleeman's U of M journalism professors suspected he was chronically hungover. In reality, the young blogger was chronically exhausted from writing about baseball literally all night long. That set Gleeman on a path that includes Aaron's Baseball Blog (cute!), NBC Sports, Baseball Prospectus, and, since 2019, the Athletic, which is now the de facto sports desk of the New York Times. In our view? He's the state's ace hardball writer.

Gleeman joined Racket in our brand-new office/podcast studio to breakdown the state of the in-flux Twins franchise, the team's roster heading into 2025, and his own journey through the blogger-to-professional-sportswriter pipeline. (Apologies for any echoey sound—our audio paneling efforts are also in-flux.) 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.

But first: We debut a hit new segment known as Birthday Break Down. And here are the stories Em and Jay gabbed about during our regular segment, This Week in Racket:

• Let's Taco 'Bout Politics mayoral candidate Q&A series
• How Alive or Dead is Dinkytown in 2025? Depends on Who You Ask.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Music, Pocket Casts, etc. Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.