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RacketCast, Ep. 52: Girl Gone HOW Wild? Feat. Author/Comic/Actor Courtney Kocak

The multihyphenate entertainer from rural Minnesota talks about her coming-of-age memoir.

8:44 AM CDT on May 15, 2026

Provided

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 and 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...


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’s 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 now.


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!

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