Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
The Story Our Competitors Are Afraid to Print
Pornhub, a site I had never heard of before today, has published its 2024 Year in Review, and if you’re curious about what your fellow humans like to rub one out to these days, well, buddy, they’ve got you covered. The most searched for terms, the most popular performers, trends in porn preference—it’s all there. But most interesting for our hyperlocal purposes is a map that lets you know which term users in each state searched for more than the users in any other states.
So, how’d the Upper Midwest fare? Our quaint neighbors to the south in Iowa search for “work trip” porn a lot, because apparently the wildest sex act they can think of is having an affair with a coworker in another city. Meanwhile, Wisconsinites (derogatory) searched for “pee,” which I will discuss no further because Racket has a strict no kink-shaming policy.
And in Minnesota? Why, we go wild for “futa hentai,” a term I bravely Googled (for work, Mr. FBI man) and learned refers to manga or anime porn where the characters have a full set of both genitals. I can see why finding IRL actors with those qualifications would be tricky, and I can certainly imagine how that opens up a lot of possibilities just on a sheer mathematical level. The South Dakotans searching for “hot babes” don’t know what they’re missing.
Feds: Boludo Stole $45K in Wages, Dinged for $106K Overall
The U.S. Department of Labor announced today that the popular local pizza and empanada chain Boludo is on the hook for $105,784 in back wages, damages, and fees. When it came to avoiding overtime pay, the company didn’t miss a trick: Employees would receive separate checks for each location they worked at, were regularly clocked in under other employees names, and two employees were just stiffed outright. Tips were also divvied improperly, sometimes going to managers and supervisors. Employment records were a mess, and one employee who cooperated with the feds was fired.
Boludo’s wage theft amounted to $45,000, which is a lot more than most people reading this story have ever stolen, I’d imagine. In a statement, Boludo co-owner Facundo DeFraia said he's “deeply sorry for what happened and take[s] full responsibility for” all that bad stuff he did. This was an independent investigation on the DOL’s part, not sparked by specific employee complaints, so we can only guess how much of this is going on in other local restaurants.
On November 22, Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the City Council’s plan for a Minneapolis Labor Standards Board.
RIP Bob “Slim” Dunlap
Minneapolis musician Bob “Slim” Dunlap died yesterday, his cause of death related to a 2012 stroke that had left him incapacitated. Dunlap was best known as the guitarist who joined the Replacements in 1987 after Bob Stinson was booted from the band. But he also had a steady solo career that attracted some big name fans. “I hope I get a chance to cut one of his songs,” Bruce Springsteen raved to Ann Powers of NPR in 2014, according to Chris Riemenschneider’s fine obit in the Strib.
Calling Dunlap “human superglue for the Replacements at a moment where they could’ve easily come apart,” the band’s ace biographer, Bob Mehr, also noted that Dunlap died the day after Bob Stinson’s birthday. “It was Bob who pushed Slim to join the group, to take his spot. The two of them were working as janitors in the fall of 1986 at First Avenue, and Bob Stinson would pester Slim about the gig, telling him he needed to play with the Replacements, miming guitar licks on his broom, showing him his old parts. [Dunlap] was the only man Bob Stinson believed worthy of taking *his* place in *his* band.”
Mehr also asks, “(btw, is there another Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominated group that can say that every guy who played guitar in the band had also been a janitor?!).”
Snow Day at the Zoo!
Do you love snow? Do you love animals? I'm pretty indifferent to both but even I think this video from the Minnesota Zoo is, as the headline promises, cute.
