Podcasts about Queens

Members of the Junior Mints Movie club, rejoice! On this blood soaked episode of The Boulet Brothers Creatures of the Night, the Queens of Darkness deliver a triple-threat feast of reviews. We sink our fangs into Sam Raimi's “Send Help”, then “Iron Lung”and finally, episodes 4,5 and 6 of AMC's "Interview with the Vampire”. Come hungry, prepare to devour and leave sated. Follow The Boulet Brothers on Insta: @bouletbrothers To watch the Creatures of the Night podcast videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BouletBrothersProductions Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/BouletBrothersPod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tony Bonfiglio is a retired FDNY firefighter who spent more than 20 years serving the communities of Washington Heights and Queens. Tony joins Theo to share about his first days on Ladder 34, his experiences on 9/11 and why the brotherhood of the firehouse is second to none. Tony Bonfiglio: https://www.instagram.com/tonybonfiglio34/  Tony's book “Tales from the Tiller”: https://www.amazon.com/Tales-Tiller-STORIES-HEARTBREAK-LUCKIEST/dp/B0FP7XYTXW  Tunnel to Towers Foundation: https://t2t.org  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ  Prize Picks: Go to https://link.prizepicks.com/LME0/THEO and use code THEO to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Play Responsibly.  Better Help: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Go to http://betterhelp.com/theo for 10% off your first month. Blue Chew: Visit https://BlueChew.com for 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code THEO. ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: tpwproducer@gmail.com Hit the Hotline: 985-664-9503 Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/  Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Producer: Andrew https://www.instagram.com/bleachmediaofficial/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On February 20, 2025 16-year old Sarah Grace Patrick called 911 to report her mother Kristen Brock and stepfather James Brock had been shot to death. They had been found by her half sister who was 5 years old at the time. Understandably, the small community of Carrollton was shocked and terrified that someone could murder two people in their beds as they slept. Thankfully, Sarah Grace and her young sister were safe and unharmed. As time went on, Sarah Grace did what many teenagers do to express themselves- she got on TikTok. She would post videos and slideshows grieving her loss as well as asking for help in solving the murder that seemed to have no leads. Then, in July of 2025 she was arrested and charged as an adult with double homicide. The police believed that she had murdered her parents and left their bodies for her young sister to find and then proceeded to pretend she was grieving publicly for attention. Today, we are going to dive into this case and discuss the road so far- Sarah's upbringing and family life, the investigation into the murders and what evidence the state may have in their case against Sarah Grace Patrick.  Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today! Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: IQBAR: For 20% off all IQBAR products, including the Ultimate Sampler Pack, and FREE shipping, text QUEENS to 64000.  HelloFresh: Go to HelloFresh.com/queens10fm to get 10 free meals + a FREE Zwilling Knife on your third box! © 2026 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week, we're kicking off a two-part series on Charlotte of Belgium (sometimes known as Carlota of Mexico) while sipping on a Ranch Water. In Part One, we meet Charlotte as a beloved child turned purpose-driven young woman, then follow her whirlwind courtship with Archduke Maximilian of Austria and her arrival at the rigid Habsburg court. If that court sounds familiar, it's because we've been here before — this is the same world that made life miserable for Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi), married to Emperor Franz Joseph. Charlotte, however, seems to understand the assignment, quickly becoming everything a Habsburg princess is supposed to be… even as her marriage quietly begins to unravel. From whispered affairs in Italy to a voyage that breaks her marriage beyond repair, Charlotte's story takes a sharp, devastating turn. And just when it seems like things couldn't get worse, a knock at the door offers an unexpected — and dangerous — new role: Empress of Mexico. Cheers

Got some sh!t to say?In this ENCORE episode, Marko and Steve are tackling one of gay culture's longest-standing debates — literally. This week, it's all about penis size and the ever-fascinating world of size queens. Why are we so obsessed with measurements, and does it actually matter when the lights go out? The guys go deep (pun intended) asking the hard questions: length or girth? And is it really about the motion of the ocean — or just having a bigger boat? To wrap things up, they tackle the week's Listener Sh!tuation, offering their thoughts and guidance on a real life dilemma from the audience.-Articles:Garcôn | Unraveling the Truth about Penis SizeQueerty | Gay Guys Sing the Praises of Smaller & Average-Sized MenLGBT Hero | Goldicocks: the penis issueSupport the showSh!t | Leave us a voicemail with your relationship sh!tuation at (903) POD- SHIT. That's (903) 763-7448. You can also fill out a Listener Sh!tuation on our website, podrelationshit.com, or email us at relationshitquestions@gmail.com. Visit Us |www.podrelationshit.com for more Relationsh!t content and information about the podcast.Donate | Head over to patreon.com/podrelationshit and start donating today! Your donations will give you early access to the podcast, behind-the-scenes interviews with our weekly guests, and merchandise.Rate Us | Go to your favorite podcast directory and give Relationsh!t a 5-Star rating, and a fantastic review!Follow Us | Instagram and Facebook: @podrelationshit

Movies discussed: The Toxic Avenger (remake), Dust Bunny, Queens of the Dead, The Rug (short) This episode features three reality-adjacent flicks, each with a very particular vision. We all love the lush & feverish Dust Bunny and the intentionally low-rent new Toxic Avenger, while Queens of the Dead gets mixed reviews. Next episode’s assignments: Ki ki ki ah ah ah . . . Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter Friday the 13th: A New Beginning Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives Avoid Asking (short) Watch along with us if you like and we’ll see you next episode. Ki ki ki ah ah ah . . . The post Episode 513 – There’s No Human Parts appeared first on Horror Show Hot Dog.

Robert from Westchester, NY, calls Mark to discuss the recent elections in Texas and raises concerns about possible gerrymandering involving the state's senators. Tom from Queens, NY, calls to share his thoughts on Don Lemon's attitude after being released from temporary custody.

Robert from Westchester, NY, calls Mark to discuss the recent elections in Texas and raises concerns about possible gerrymandering involving the state's senators. Tom from Queens, NY, calls to share his thoughts on Don Lemon's attitude after being released from temporary custody.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this in-depth episode, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman welcome back Chip Taylor and Gard Otis to continue a wide-ranging discussion that began last summer on queen mating behavior, drone congregation areas (DCAs), and Africanized honey bees. The conversation revisits what science actually tells us about where and how queens mate, challenging the long-held assumption that mating occurs exclusively at DCAs. Chip and Gard explain how radar and genetic studies suggest a far more dynamic system, with drones moving through landscapes and queens exerting more control over mating than previously believed. They explore common misconceptions about mating signs, drone behavior, and pheromonal cues, drawing on classic experiments and more recent research to explain why much of honey bee mating biology remains unresolved. The discussion also highlights how drone density, landscape features, and seasonal changes influence mating success. The episode then turns to Africanized honey bees and their impact on North American beekeeping. Rather than a simple "takeover," Chip and Gard describe how colony density, climate, feral European bees, and genetic mixing have shaped the spread and behavior of Africanized populations over time. They explain why outcomes in the United States differ from those observed in South America and how these dynamics continue to evolve. The conversation closes with reflections on resilience—both in bees and beekeepers—and a preview of a future episode focused specifically on swarming behavior. Websites from the episode and others we recommend: Gard's Paper in Apidologie, "Where Do Honey Bees Mate": https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-025-01237-1 Beekeeping Today Podcast - Chip and Gard, Queens, Drones and DCAs: https://www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com/queens-drones-and-dcas-with-chip-and-gard-342/  Project Apis m. (PAm): https://www.projectapism.org Honey Bee Health Coalition: https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org The National Honey Board: https://honey.com Honey Bee Obscura Podcast: https://honeybeeobscura.com   Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC     ______________ Betterbee is the presenting sponsor of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Betterbee's mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com This episode is brought to you by Global Patties! Global offers a variety of standard and custom patties. Visit them today at http://globalpatties.com and let them know you appreciate them sponsoring this episode!    Thanks to Strong Microbials for their support of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Find out more about their line of probiotics in our Season 3, Episode 12 episode and from their website: https://www.strongmicrobials.com HiveIQ is revolutionizing the way beekeepers manage their colonies with innovative, insulated hive systems designed for maximum colony health and efficiency. Their hives maintain stable temperatures year-round, reduce stress on the bees, and are built to last using durable, lightweight materials. Whether you're managing two hives or two hundred, HiveIQ's smart design helps your bees thrive while saving you time and effort. Learn more at HiveIQ.com. Thanks for Northern Bee Books for their support. Northern Bee Books is the publisher of bee books available worldwide from their website or from Amazon and bookstores everywhere. They are also the publishers of The Beekeepers Quarterly and Natural Bee Husbandry. _______________ We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com Thank you for listening!  Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Faraday by BeGun; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Wedding Day by Boomer; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; Red Jack Blues by Daniel Hart; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott. Beekeeping Today Podcast is an audio production of Growing Planet Media, LLC ** As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases Copyright © 2026 by Growing Planet Media, LLC

The Dads are decking the halls… with blood.

Lara and Carey head back into the livestream continuum for one last reunion episode of RHOSLC Season 6. First, they discuss Brandi Glanville debuting her new head at Sundance, holding her face parasite cards close, and our own speculations over her actual diagnosis.Meanwhile, Britani runs off stage after Meredith's confounding bigotry defense, returning soon after with a giant coffee and a backbone. Meredith continues to maintain her innocence in PlaneGate as Hengie K breathes enough in her corset to speak twice. Babygirl Lisa gets rill about her marriage issues with John, and Bronwyn channels a possessed child and monologues about Muzzy and Todd, revealing she and Mr. Farts have separated. Wild Rose breaks down over her own marital tribulations after severing ties with Entity. Bronwyn snaps back into Transatlantic mode and tears into Meredith one last time. Au revoir for now, our Sisters of Salt! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's time for another Spooky Sleepover on Killers, Cults & Queens.This week, Nikki and Cheryl catch up on tour exhaustion, extreme weather, and sleepless nights caused by Storm Chandra — before venturing into the paranormal.Cheryl recounts her first-ever ghostly encounter during a visit to a reportedly haunted theatre in Scotland, where an unexplained physical touch left both her and a castmate shaken. Meanwhile, Nikki spirals into a chilling rabbit hole about Chernobyl's nuclear wolves — and how radiation may have altered wildlife in the exclusion zone.From haunted theatres and storm chaos to radioactive wildlife and future episode teases, this Spooky Sleepover has it all.Got a theory? Been lost in a rabbit hole? We want to hear from YOU!Email killerscultsqueens@gmail.com or DM us on Instagram @killerscultsqueens.✨ Support the show on Patreon for bonus content and early AD FREE access: patreon.com/killerscultsqueens

Weirdos! We invite you to don your softest apparel, get comfy, and settle in for a batch of haunted listener tales! Nicholas DEFINITELY took note of the theme, and set the mood! This episode POPPED OFF before we even officially started the show. Curious to hear what freaked us out? Listen after the ending theme for the wild moments that didn't make the audio version! LISTEN on all podcast platforms OR WATCH on Youtube! Want to watch the episode on Sam & Colby's- Click Here! Want to book at the SK Pierce Mansion?  Book Here! If you've got a listener tale please send it to DEB by emailing us at  Morbidpodcast@gmail.com with “Listener Tales” somewhere in the subject line- and if you share pictures- please let us know if we can share them with fellow weirdos! :) Huge shout out to our video edtitor @aidanmcelman Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

An Iranian American professor is on a date in the hills outside Tehran. She hears the thunder of galloping, and what comes over the crest will ignite an unbridled passion in her -  defining her future and explaining her past. Plus, an urban legend about a chicken that turns out to be true.This is our final week of the Tooth & Nail series -- stay tuned next month for our collection of love stories in February... Fever. Do not miss it.No ReinsAn Iranian American professor is on a date in the hills outside Tehran. She hears the thunder of galloping, and what comes over the crest will ignite an unbridled passion in her -  defining her future and explaining her past.This story contains state brutality and sexual situations, sensitive listeners please be advised.Thank you Pardis for speaking with Snap! Check out her book --Book of Queens -- all about her time on horseback in Iran. Produced by Anna Sussman, original score by Dirk Schwarzhoff. Headless ChickenSome schoolyard stories are true, and so are some urban legends.This story contains descriptions of a chicken without a head, please take care while listening.For more information about Mike The Headless Chicken, including Fruita, Colorado's annual Mike The Headless Chicken Festival, check out miketheheadlesschicken.orgProduced by Joe Rosenberg, original score by Renzo Gorrio with additional instrumentation by Andrew Vickers.Season 17 - Episode 4 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Sam Jay is back and walks into a studio filled with chaos. Bobby sits in a chair full of chocolate and all clues point to Jacob as the culprit. | Just like Jay, she watches Baddies on the Zeus Network and turns him on to a male version of the show. | For a tv shoot, Sam once drove around Queens in a Mercedes while shirtless. | She has slimmed down with the help of Ozempic and makes fun of Bobby's old-man workout routine. *To hear the full show to go www.siriusxm.com/bonfire to learn more! FOLLOW THE CREW ON SOCIAL MEDIA: @thebonfiresxm @louisjohnson @christinemevans @bigjayoakerson @robertkellylive @louwitzkee @jjbwolf Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of The Bonfire ad-free and a whole week early.  Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today is a glorious, violent mess. Join me. — Support and sponsor this show! Venmo Tip Jar: @wellthatsinteresting Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@wellthatsinterestingpod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bluesky: @wtipod Threads: @wellthatsinterestingpod Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@wti_pod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Listen on YouTube!! Oh, BTW. You're interesting. Email YOUR facts, stories, experiences... Nothing is too big or too small. I'll read it on the show: wellthatsinterestingpod@gmail.com WTI is a part of the Airwave Media podcast network! Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other incredible shows. Want to advertise your glorious product on WTI? Email me: wellthatsinterestingpod@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is forcing New York City school kids to do a day of virtual learning on a snow day! Long Island Influencers are crowding Instagram and Tiktok. Tom has strong opinions and advice you can apply to your own social media projects. Plus . . . Tom is lost in Willet's Point trying to find his way to Manhattan! Is he doomed? - 00:00 – Cold Open & Chaos: Tom is recording from inside his Jeep in industrial Queens. Is he podcasting or surviving? Unclear. 01:20 – Welcome to the Off-Road Tom Kelly Show Recording in the shadow of Citi Field. Creepy storage rooms and content creation collide. 02:50 – Dinner with Friends & Dedications Karen Ruiz gets a heartfelt shoutout. This episode is a long, hilarious voicemail for a friend. 04:20 – The Long Island Influencer Boom Tom breaks down the rise of hyper-local TikTok stars and how he's feeling about the competition. Who's copying who? 06:00 – Tom's Social Media Philosophy:

Betsy Helmuth discusses premium membership perks, her holiday trip to Connecticut, and a Vegas adventure. She shares design inspiration from travel and the importance of curiosity in interior design. Listener questions from Queens and Brooklyn are answered, and new YouTube channel and contest details are revealed. Timestamps: 0:00 Premium membership benefits 1:31 Holiday season and Connecticut landscape 3:18 Betsy's Vegas trip 8:40 Inspiration from traveling 11:34 Following curiosity in interior design 18:43 Mailbag: Emily from Queens 19:12 Mailbag: Maria from Brooklyn 28:44 iTunes review contest 29:50 Announcing the YouTube channel - Adding color to a neutral room can significantly enhance its personality and prevent it from looking drab.  - Consider practical and easy-to-clean options like roller blinds or wood slatted blinds for kitchen windows instead of Roman shades.  - Painting wood trim in kitchens white can help lighten and modernize the space, especially when paired with updated countertops and backsplashes. Links: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Uploft.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AffordableInteriorDesign.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Submit your design questions⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to be featured on the show ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Become a Premium Member⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and access the bonus episodes Click ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to become an interior designer with Uploft's Interior Design Academy. Get Betsy's book: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠betsyhelmuth.com/book⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠For more about our residential interior design services, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ModernInteriorDesign.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ For our commercial interior design services, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠OfficeInteriorDesign.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Us: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@uploftinteriordesign⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠facebook.com/UploftIntDes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tiktok.com/@uploftinteriordesign⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/company/uploft-interior-design⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoy the show, please spread the word and leave a review on iTunes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Queens Night Market is one of New York City's most beloved institutions — but it was never supposed to last more than a year. John Wang, founder of the Queens Night Market, joins Infinite Loops to explain how a side project with a "terrible business model" unexpectedly became one of the most celebrated food markets in the world. From leaving a traditional legal career to imposing a strict price cap in one of the most expensive cities on earth, John shares how the market evolved into a cultural institution representing more than 100 countries through food.   Important links: Substack: https://newsletter.osv.llc/ Queens Night Market: https://queensnightmarket.com/  

Ep. 369: Sundance 2026 – Abby Sun on Closure, Cookie Queens, To Hold a Mountain, Seized Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The Sundance Film Festival rolled out another promising lineup of documentary in its 2026 edition, and so I rang up Abby Sun, editor-in-chief of Documentary Magazine, to chat about a few of the notable titles she had seen. Titles discussed include Closure (directed by Michal Marczak of All These Sleepless Nights), Cookie Queens (Alysa Nahmias), To Hold a Mountain (Petar Glomazic and Biljana Tutorov), and Seized (Sharon Liese, about the 2023 police raid on the Marion County Record in Kansas). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

How to Use AI for B2B Storytelling Without Losing Your Brand So many B2B companies and marketing teams waste budget on generic content that fails to resonate or support core business goals. In an era where AI-generated is everywhere, smaller B2B brands often struggle to maintain a unique identity while competing against larger firms with massive content engines. The key to staying relevant lies in a B2B brand’s ability to be authentic, human-centric, and strategically consistent despite the pressure to automate everything. So how can B2B brands effectively integrate AI into their marketing workflows without losing their unique voice and brand integrity? That's why we're talking to Nick Usborne (Founder, Story Aligned), who shared his expertise on leveraging AI through the lens of strategic storytelling. During our conversation, Nick discussed the critical distinction between simple narrative and a brand’s unique story, highlighting a significant gap where only 7% of top AI prompt libraries actually focus on storytelling. He shared actionable advice on building a “story vault,” training staff to avoid “brand drift,” and enforcing consistent AI usage to maintain the trust of the audience. Nick also underscored the importance of keeping human elements at the forefront of content creation to prevent AI from feeling overly mechanical, and advocated for a balanced approach that ensures scalable growth without sacrificing a brand's authenticity. https://youtu.be/dtgvg2-XXoU Topics discussed in episode: [02:53] The “Why” Behind AI Adoption: Why companies must embrace AI not just for efficiency, but to avoid being left behind by competitors who are already scaling their reach.  [04:10] The “Moat” of Storytelling: Why narrative and voice can be easily copied by AI, but your brand's unique “lived story” is the only defensible moat you have.  [11:27] Pitfalls of Inconsistent AI Use: The dangers of “shadow AI” use by employees (e.g., Using personal accounts vs. company custom GPTs) and how it leads to brand drift.  [16:46] The Human Element vs. AI: Nick explains why AI can describe the beach but can't “feel the sand between its toes,” and why human “messiness” is key to connection.  [24:26] Building a Story Vault: Nick provides a practical framework for formalizing your brand's folklore—from founder stories to customer service wins—so they can be systematically used in AI content.  [28:17] Actionable Steps for Marketers: Three immediate steps to take: build your story vault, interview key stakeholders (founders, early employees), and analyze customer service transcripts for sentiment.  [30:11] The Problem with “Killer Prompt” Libraries: Why copying “top 20 prompt” lists is a strategic mistake that leads to generic, non-differentiated content. Companies and links mentioned: Nick Usborne on LinkedIn  Story Aligned  Transcript Nick Usborne, Christian Klepp Nick Usborne  00:00 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people you use those kind of touch points the the deeply human side of being alive. And like, say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also, there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make. That’s what makes us human. We are messy. AI, it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance. Christian Klepp  00:51 When brands rely on the same AI tools and prompts, they start to sound like everyone else. That loss of voice can hurt trust and lead to something called Brand drift. So how can B2B Marketing teams scale content with AI while staying true to their story? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to Nick Usborne, who will be answering this question. He’s the Founder of Story Aligned, a training program for Marketing teams that want to scale content using AI while protecting the integrity of their brand story and voice. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is. Mr. Nick Usborne, welcome to the show, sir.  Nick Usborne  01:32 Thank you very much. Thank you Christian. Thank you for having me.  Christian Klepp  01:35 Pleasure to have you on the show. Nick, you know we had such a fantastic pre interview call. It was a bit of a you did drop a few hints and clues about what was to come, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation. I’m going to keep the audience in suspense a little while longer as I move us into the first question. So off we go.  Nick Usborne  01:55 Okay. Christian Klepp  01:56 All right, so, Nick, you’re on a mission to equip Marketing teams to scale AI powered content while staying aligned with their organization, story and voice. So for this conversation, let’s focus on the topic of how to use AI for B2B content without losing trust. And it is at the time of the recording, the end of 2025 and of course, we’re going to talk about AI, but we’re going to zoom in on something specific as it pertains to B2B content and a little bit of branding in there as well. But I wanted to kick off this conversation with two questions, and I’m happy to repeat them. So the first question is, why do you believe it’s so important for brands and their Marketing teams to embrace AI so that they can scale? And the second question is, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? I think that’s one thing that you mentioned in our previous conversation, the whole the whole piece about prompts and guardrails. Nick Usborne  02:53 Well, the first question, why do companies need to embrace AI? And the ridiculous answer to that. It’s not a good answer, but it’s true is that because everyone else is, because your competitors are, and they will create content at scale while you are not, and they will achieve reach that you can’t achieve without AI. And in fact, if they do it well, their content, their new content, will be very good, content deeply researched beyond perhaps what you can do. So it’s like everything within AI right now, like, like, Why? Why do all the companies like open AI and Google and Meta, why they all racing? Because if they don’t, someone else will get there first. And it’s, I’m not saying it’s a great reason, but I think it is the fundamental reason for companies to embrace AI, is that you will be left behind if you don’t. This is a transformational moment, and as much as we’d like to have choice, I think in this matter, we don’t have a lot of choice. So that’s my answer to that question. Repeat the second question for me. Christian Klepp  04:00 Absolutely, absolutely so based on, based on that, like, why does this approach require the right prompts and guardrails? Nick Usborne  04:10 As part of my business, I’m constantly researching this, and in particular, I’m researching the prompts people do so when say, could be writers coders, but in our world. Let’s say writers, principally, or marketers, are using AI. They’re using prompts, and they’re generally prompting about two things. One is narrative, like, what should we say? Or, you know, please write us a blog post about x. So that’s the that’s the topic, that’s the narrative. And then they’ll put in something say, oh, please do it in a voice that is authoritative and yet accessible. All right, so now that’s a voice. What they haven’t mentioned is what I think is the foundational layer, which is, which is story. And that’s important, because story is the only thing that is uniquely yours, if you have an narrative, if you, if you have voice, if you talk about something in a particular way, I can copy that with AI. I can copy it at scale. I can, I can look at the transcripts of Christian podcasts, and I can say, oh, I want to do one in exactly. Tell her the same topic. I can, you know, so when you focus on narrative, on what you write about in voice. I can copy it. There’s no moat. The only moat you have is with story, because every company’s story is unique. We can look at origin stories, foundation stories, we can look at customer stories through case studies, things like that. Those are always unique. No one else has Apple’s origin story. No one else has virgin Atlantic’s Founder’s story, etc. But we did some research recently. Actually, we did some research months ago, and I reconfirmed it earlier this week. I ran it. I ran it all again to look at the data. If you look at the top 20 prompt libraries that you know the big, trustworthy companies and organizations that put out prompt libraries for companies. If you look at the top 20 libraries and the 1000s and 1000s of prompts within there, 76% of those prompts are about the narrative. What to say? 17 are about voice. How do you sound? Only 7% relate to story. So this, to my mind, is where we have a problem. We have a disconnect. Everyone is going crazy, prompting for narrative and story, both of which have 0, zero mode, anyone can copy them at scale. And only 7% this very small percentage, are actually focusing on the one thing that is uniquely theirs and cannot be copied or challenged. So that when you say, when you, when you say I’m on a mission, that’s the mission for me to say, Hey guys, wake up. You’re You’re prompting the wrong things in the wrong way. Let’s like, go back and look at story Christian Klepp  07:12 Absolutely, absolutely. It almost sounds like an oxymoron to us to a certain degree, because you’re saying scaling B2B content using AI without losing trust. Because, you know, the narrative that I keep seeing on social media, particularly LinkedIn, is that if people are using AI, there is a bit of a trust factor there. But I think it’s to your point and correct me if I’m wrong, it’s being able to embrace AI and you leveraging it the right way, so it’s not, it’s not, it’s not to replace, it’s not to replace the writers, right, or to replace the Marketers, I hope not. Nick Usborne  07:50 It may replace some. But, yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean, you’re right, and the keyword you mentioned there is trust. I think, I think trust is going to be the most valuable commodity that a company can have in the months and years to come, because people don’t actually don’t if we’re talking about brand. So we’re trying to protect brand with story, right? And brand is something that a lot of companies have spent millions of dollars building and protecting over years or decades and well, one of the things let me come back to trust in a moment. But if I’m looking at brand, and I’m looking at all the stuff goes out there, it either builds brand or it burns brand. And if you burn brand, you lose trust. So if you’re going out with a whole bunch of content that sounds like everyone else is that it’s kind of meh. It’s ordinary. It’s in the middle, which is what AI is really good at. Without the right prompting, it will give you kind of in the middle, mediocre output. So you got to be much better at prompting than just like a, I don’t know, being careless about it, or taking a shortcut, shortcuts, or being lazy about it, because then you get brand drift, and all of a sudden the brand doesn’t sound quite right. And when that happens, you lose trust. And when you lose trust, you lose revenue. I mean, you really do. And people are getting very sensitive to brand of brand trust we saw recently. Was it tracker barrel tried to just change its logo. People freaked out. People freaked out.  Christian Klepp  09:27 It was an awful rebrand, but, yes.  Nick Usborne  09:30 Yeah, but it wasn’t. These weren’t. These weren’t. Saying is, I don’t think the design is up to snuff. It’s like, don’t mess with my tracker barrel. We actually feel very strongly about the brands. Talk to people who are absolute fans of Apple. Doesn’t matter that it costs twice as much, perhaps as not quite as good. It’s Apple. It’s my brand. Don’t mess with my brand. So we’re very sensitive to our loyalty to brands. And in fact, in some sense, it’s brand define us like a football team, a baseball team, in part, we can be defined by the brands that we support, local, Pepsi. You know, it’s like everywhere. So when a company uses AI carelessly at scale and all of a sudden that blog post, it kind of sounds like them, but something’s a tiny bit off. And then that LinkedIn update. Again, yeah, it’s them, but again, it’s, did I say is that the same as they were six months ago? You get the you get these little these little things that sound off, and now you get brand drift. And now you get people feeling uneasy, and the public are sometimes we think we can just make the public believe whatever we want them to believe, or companies to believe whatever we want them to believe, but actually, individuals, in their home lives and in their business lives are very, very sensitive to brand and they’re very, very sensitive to voice and what they hear, and if it’s off, they really don’t like it, and that does translate into loss of trust, and that does directly translate into loss of revenue.  Christian Klepp  11:07 Absolutely. I’m going to move us on to the next set of questions, particularly that one pertaining to key pitfalls that Marketers need to avoid when they’re trying to scale their B2B content using AI without losing trust. So what are some of these key pitfalls they should avoid, and what should they be doing instead? Nick Usborne  11:27 What I’m hearing from inside a number of companies is that there is an inconsistency in how people are using AI and even when systems are in place, that not everyone follows the system. So it’s early days. It is. These are messy times for, you know, working with AI within companies. So I think it’s really important that companies do have some frameworks in place, that people within the organization are using the same tools in the same way, and that they are encouraged to be consistent in what they do. So I’ve heard stories of where companies are set up, you know, they’re using Copilot, or whatever they use, and then some of the manager will walk by someone’s desk, and they’re actually, actually, they’re using Claude on their phone. That person like phone, and it’s like, well, yeah, but no, this is now, you know, you have no control. You also have to get people to do what they ask. I was talking to a Founder the other day. She has a PR (Public Relations) company, plenty of clients, and she’s smart. She’s created custom GPTs for each client. So each custom GPT is trained on with with a kind of database of information on that client and the content, so that you know when you when you ask it to do something else, it’s already has the context and the voice instructions and everything, and you can and it’s great, you get this consistency. But she says, what’s happening is some of her employees come in in the morning, they start work on client X, and they’re using that custom GPT. Then they move on to client Y, but they keep using the original custom GPT and not switching out. So the management has put in the structure in place to be consistent and to output the best, you know, the best content, but the employees are not always playing game, you know, going along with that. So so I do think we’re in a messy period now where companies are not entirely sure how to apply this, how to structure it, what kind of frameworks and guidance to put in place. What guardrails to put in place? Like? Again, I’ve heard horror stories of people grabbing content that should not be shared and putting it into a large language model and then turning that into customer facing or public facing content.  Christian Klepp  13:57 Oh, plagiarism.  Nick Usborne  14:04 So yeah, it is messy. So what I would say is, before you even try to make the best of the use of AI that you do, need to put systems and frameworks in place and educate your staff. So if you want your staff to use AI effectively give them access to training. Don’t just throw them at a tool and say, go for it, because they won’t know what to do with it, or they’ll be able to create stuff, but they won’t be able to create good stuff. So invest in the systems, invest in the frameworks and instructions, and invest in training for the people who are going to be using the tools.  Christian Klepp  14:46 Definitely some relevant points. I wanted to go back to something you said, though, because I think it’s really important. It’s certainly one thing to have the prompts and the guardrails in place and some kind of like, framework and structures. But to your earlier point, how do you enforce that? And I think you gave a really good example about like, if you have a custom GPT, and then they resort to like, using. Um Claude on their personal accounts, and then it’s a little bit like the wild west out there, isn’t it? Nick Usborne  15:06 It is, it is, and it’s and it’s, how do you enforce it? Well, that’s going to be a company by company decision. Like, like the Founder with the PR of the PR company, when she was telling me about how her employees just weren’t doing what they were asked. I was like, part of you is thinking about, why haven’t you kind of cracked down on this? But again, it depends on the company and what options you have when it comes to enforcing stuff like this. But I do think you need to, because then if we circle right back, if you have people who are untrained, and that’s the company’s responsibility to train their employees. If you have people who are untrained and they’re using these tools inconsistently, that is when you far more likely then to see errors for, you know, unforced errors like publishing stuff that you shouldn’t but you’re also going to see more brand drift, because you’re going to get this inconsistency between output and that is a disaster. Like I say, companies have sometimes spent, in a decade, several years in establishing and building a trustworthy brand. And people are very unforgiving. You can, you can lose all that goodwill very, very quickly. So, yeah, training frameworks make sure people are, you know, working within those boundaries, but as a company, it’s your responsibility to help make that happen. Christian Klepp  16:29 Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You kind of brought this up already, but you mentioned that AI can help to scale content, but it can’t replicate your lived story, so please explain what you meant by that, and provide an example. If you can, Nick Usborne  16:46 AI can do a wonderful job in many ways, but you know, it’s never walked down the beach and felt the sand between its toes. It’s read about it. It’s never eaten ice cream. It’s read about that, but it’s never felt it. So that’s what I mean by lived experience. So I think that content and stories that truly resonate with people, you use those kind of touch points, the deeply human side of being alive and like say, I think AI can get close when you prompt it really well, but also there’s a messiness that makes us recognize one another, the little mistakes we make, that’s what makes us human. We are messy, and it’s not very good at being messy. You can ask it to be messy, and it’ll try to figure that out, but it’s really not the same. And like I say, I think people are very sensitive to this kind of nuance and the lived story. It’s the it’s the weird stuff. I think that resonates. So I’ve spent quite a bit of my career doing copywriting for companies, and for a long period, I was doing some freelance, a lot of freelance copywriting. So this is just a little side note, a little side story for you. I used to live on a hobby farm. We had some sheep and pigs and chickens and all that good stuff, the good life. And also had freelance customers. And I went in, and I was and I went, you know, you go out, you feed the animals, you come in, I sit down to work, and my client said, this is just on the phone. This is even before the internet. Client said, Hey, you’re late. I was just out farming the pig and feeding the pigs. And the guy says, what? And this, I hadn’t realized. I never told him that I lived on a farm. He thought somewhere. So anyway, we talked a little bit about the pigs, then we get to work. So the project we’re working on worked out really well, and it won an award. So we fly off to your hometown, Toronto, for the awards ceremony, direct marketing awards ceremony, and he stands up and he says, Thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. And special thanks to Nick Usborne, the pig farming copywriter. And I’m like, I’m like, in the audience, and I’m thinking, oh, please no. This guy is like, rebranding me constantly in front of all my peers, all my potential clients for next year. Big drama turns out so, so that that’s messy, all right? AI wouldn’t do that, you wouldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t do that. That’s a deeply human moment of my humiliation and him laughing, and everyone slapping me on the back and laughing and asking about my pigs. Turns out, over the next 12 months, I got a few phone calls out of the blue. And I say, Hello, Nick Usborne. I said, Oh, is that Nick Usborne? The cover of James Barber. And I say, why? Yes. And so I actually got work out of that, because it was such a distinct difference from every other copywriter out there. I was the only copywriter who had pigs. So that was just a fun story, but it also speaks to the difference between humans and AI, and it’s a live that’s a lived experience, and it’s a lived anecdote, and I tell the story, and it’s a true story that is really important, I think so, even when we use AI, even when we use it at its best, and it can be really good when you use it well, I think everyone should keep leave space for the human in the loop, as they say, keep that human element in there, big for those stories. So I so I encourage companies to create what I call like a story vault. So there’s the obvious stories, like the Founder story, the origin story, the six original success story, also put in the little quirky stories, like that one I just described, and and make that part of your process. And also go, you know, if you’re creating something with AI and it’s a big project, take the time to go and interview someone, talk to someone, get a human story, put it in just because you’re using AI, doesn’t mean to say that everything you create has to be 100% AI, you can, you can? I do this all the time. I look for it a draft with AI, then I’d go back in and I’ll rewrite the beginning with an anecdote, like the small s story, not a big dramatic story, just a little story. And what it does then is that then connects it with us, because as people, we recognize stories. Story is profound to all of us. I think in every country in the world, parents read their children bedtime stories. It’s something we share in common. It’s how we communicate, and it’s how we recognize our humanity in a sense of like, if you tell me a story, you connect with me, and vice versa. So that’s why I think stories are so important in this world of AI, because if you just go AI, it can get a little cold, and sometimes, as a reader, you don’t quite understand what’s happening and why, but you kind of feel it. There’s an absence. There’s something missing, and that what’s what you feeling is missing is that human touch, that human element, Christian Klepp  21:59 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, there’s like, there’s like, telltale signs, right? Like em dash being one of them,  Nick Usborne  22:06 em dash Christian Klepp  22:07 Yes, or Yeah. Or it tends to, like, regurgitate the same type of war. It’s like, I find it loves using the word landscape or navigate, you know, things of that nature, right?  Nick Usborne  22:20 Yeah.  Christian Klepp  22:21 Or uses these funny like, you know, the colon or for, for, for titles of episodes, for examples. Nick Usborne  22:30 In titles, even when I give it clear instructions, do not use them. So sometimes, when I create content like that is, I’ll create it in with one model like say, GPT5, and I’ll take it over to flawed, and I’ll say, hey, please edit and clean this up for me, and remove any, you know, repetition or whatever. And sometimes it comes back say, hey, looks pretty clean, pretty good. Other times it’ll change stuff. And then, of course, always I will, you know, I will review. And that’s the other thing that the companies need to think about. Is that, at the moment, content generation at scale within companies, it is a bit like a conveyor belt in a factory of all these boxes flying off the end into the FedEx back of the FedEx van, and without, without any kind of quality control, which, which is actually what you do have with income within you know, if you’re manufacturing, and you do have quality control, and you pick out every 20th item or whatever to make sure that it’s good, a lot of that isn’t happening, that isn’t happening with a lot of people using AI is people don’t even see it. It’s fully automated, like, like a week’s worth of social media is automated, or a month’s work worth, and no one, no human, has read it or reviewed it. It’s just flying out automatically. And that is where at some point you’re inevitably going to have a problem. And it may not be a big problem, it may be lots and lots of small problems, lots of lots of things sounding not quite right, and then all of a sudden, when you’ve got enough little things not sounding right, then you start getting a medium sized problem. Christian Klepp  24:06 Yeah, yeah. No, exactly, exactly. Okay. Now, you talked about it a little bit in the beginning, but talk to us about some of these, these frameworks and these processes that B2B companies can use to help them, you know, organize themselves and reap those benefits of AI without losing trust. Like, what are some of these processes and frameworks? Nick Usborne  24:26 I do some training, and I have done a few rubrics where people can kind of use those to formalize the process. But I think if we talk about story, and I think I already mentioned the idea of each company having a story vault, so be formal and deliberate about it. Everyone can chat about their company’s stories, but if I say to you, hey, is there a folder? Can I can I get a Google folder and find a compilation of all of these stories? And have you graded those stories in terms of how strong and relevant? And they are, and how engaging they might be, or how evocative they might be, and the answer is almost always no, the story is around. But there’s no story vault, and there’s no rubric in place to grade those stories and decide which might be the most appropriate points at which to share those stories. So it’s that, it’s that formalizing the process, and I don’t like being 100% rules based, but I think in the AI world right now, where we are in that kind of messy middle period, I think it’s really important to have some systems in place so that we do have a consistent output, so that when you so that your brand doesn’t suffer from brand drift, and that you don’t make some significant missteps along the way. So somebody within the organization needs to be responsible for this. Maybe it’s the Chief AI Officer, if you have one, or otherwise, somebody in Marketing. So yeah, help people with training, but also help them by giving them some framework, some rubrics and some just a system like, you know, hey, picked up a story from customer service, put it in the story vault, categorize it. Customer service in the story vault says someone else can come back and find it. So it’s not just word of mouth. It’s not accidental. There’s a place where people can go to and then you’re going to do the same with narrative, the things we say. And you have another vault, as it were, and another rubric to to assess voice, how we say it. So it’s just this formalization of the process, and also trying to make sure that people use these systems as you put them in place. So somebody’s got to be walking along behind, behind and sort of, and again, it’s like, I guess, like early days of anything. Not every, not everyone will love the process. Not everyone loves using AI. But it’ll come. It’ll come. People will get in their heart better, not only using AI, but doing it well and following these processes. Christian Klepp  27:02 Okay, fantastic, fantastic. Let me just quickly recap, because I was writing this down. So obviously, having a story vault, grading them if you can, if possible, having systems and frameworks in place, training the team and getting them to familiarize themselves with the systems having a vault for narrative and voice, I think was the other piece. And finally, using, using the systems, once you have them, not letting them collect dust, as it were, right? Nick Usborne  27:32 Like and it is, I get it right now. I get it. It’s hard for a lot of companies, because I think using AI has been very kind of mixed. Some companies have dived straight in. Others are resistant, particularly companies that have compliance issues, financial, medical stuff like that. They’re being very careful, very cautious, and for very good reason. So the rate of adoption is very uneven at the moment, Christian Klepp  28:01 Absolutely, absolutely, all right. Nick you’ve given us plenty here, right? But if we’re going to talk about actionable tips, like something that somebody who’s listening to this conversation that they can take action on right after listening to this interview, what are like some of the top three things you would advise them to do? Nick Usborne  28:17 Well, I guess first is just we’ve talked quite a bit about the story, the story of collecting stories. Just do that because, like I say, I think story is your is your superpower, because it is the only place where you have a moat you don’t in what you say and how you say it. Anyone can copy you, and I can automate copying you through AI as well, but I cannot steal your story, because it’s just not true if, if it’s not my story. So I’d always start there and again, start, start that. Build the vault, select the story and formalize that process. Interview the Founders, if you can, interview early employees, even if they’re retired, interview the first three clients, if you can access them, interview customer service. So often overlooked, customer service in one way or another, so long as that’s not all automated, if there’s still humans in that loop, then have conversations with them. And you can, you can, you can, get transcripts, customer service transcripts, and feed them into AI and say, hey, please analyze and summarize this. What are, what are the most powerful messages we can get from our customer service? Sort of stream of content? Do? Do a sentiment analysis? What are people upset about? What are people happy about? So, yeah, story, I think, is like, I say, it will be your motive, it will be your savior. So first start to formalize that process of getting story and then making sure that it finds a place, somewhere in your automation of, you know, AI generated content, Christian Klepp  29:58 Fantastic, fantastic stuff. Okay, soapbox time. What is the status quo in your area of expertise that you passionately disagree with, and why? Nick Usborne  30:11 I guess again, I’m just going to overlapping. I don’t know what a status quo, but the thing that I passionately disagree with is is every time you see most or a social media title that says top 20 killer, unbeatable prompts.  Christian Klepp  30:31 Oh, yeah. Nick Usborne  30:32 No, no, no, absolutely, just, just no for two reasons. One is that they’re going to be generic. They’re not going to apply to your company in particular, they’ll be generic, and just because they work for someone else does not mean they’re going to work for you. And like I say, we did, I’ve done research on those prompt libraries, and only 7% of them even touch on story. So if I’m writing stories, the most important thing almost all of those prompt libraries are missing out on that. They’re just focusing on narrative and voice and ignoring stories. So not good and and, yeah, so, so that is, I don’t know whether the status quo, but it’s something I keep seeing, and it irritates me when I get it. I understand why they’re doing it, but not helpful for your company. Christian Klepp  31:18 Yeah, you and me both. I mean, those are the those are the pulse they attempt to ignore immediately. I mean, I just skim through it and see the prompts, and I’m like, Nah, but I think it’s human nature too, isn’t it? Like everybody wants to chase the next hack. They want to find that the you know, the shortcut, like the quickest route to get something done. And I get that, but it sometimes does more harm than good. Nick Usborne  31:43 Easy button, but also to be fair and to be a little bit more generous. This is early days, and so people are looking for help. And if it says top 20, this is, oh my goodness, thank you. I’ll take that now. Over time, that’ll change, and people will become a little more sophisticated, I think, but like us, like you. You know, I get it. I understand why those those posts and titles are attractive, and that’s why people create them. But we can do better. We can do better Christian Klepp  32:12 Absolutely, absolutely we can, and we will, hopefully, all right, here comes the bonus question. I’ve been thinking about this one, but Nick Usborne  32:23 I feel strangely nervous. I feel nervous, but it’s a bonus question. Christian Klepp  32:30 Just breathe. Just breathe. I mean, clearly from this conversation, you know, writing is in your blood, right? It’s something that you are passionate about, but it’s also something you’ve done professionally for a long time, I suppose. The bonus question is, if you had an opportunity to meet your favorite writer or author, living or dead, who would it be, and what would you talk about?  Nick Usborne  32:55 One of the people, I really admire, and I’ve already spoken to him, is David Abbott. So David Abbott is a copywriter from from England, and he had an agency called Abbot Mead Vickers, and he was an amazing writer. So I’ve already met him. Who I haven’t met I would like to re write to meet is Susie Henry. She was the copywriter behind a series of advertisements in the UK for an insurance company, and she is just a delightful writer, so I told you, well, no, I hadn’t told you. Maybe I will tell you I’m like, when I started out copywriting, it was at the tail end of the Mad Men period, and creatives were the Kings and Queens, and copywriting was such a craft, it was something to be absolutely proud of, like we’d go through so many drafts, and it was, I was, you know, I was, I was a craftsman, learning from other craftsmen. And David, ever I met, he was in a fantastic writer, just written Susie Henry so good, very, very conversational writer, which was very unusual for that time. So I’d like to meet and talk with her, and I still can’t remember the fiction writer. He’s science fiction writer. I completely lost blank on his name, and I’ve actually met him once briefly, but I’d like to get back to him and chat, but I can’t, because he’s he’s since passed. Christian Klepp  34:19 Oh, I see, I see, I see. All right, well, that’s quite the list of people, but, um, but yeah. No, fantastic. No. Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your experience and expertise with the listeners. And please quick introduction to yourself and how people can get in touch with you. Nick Usborne  34:37 All right. Hi. My name is Nick Usborne, so my business build Story Aligned. So storyaligned.com and what we do there is pretty much, what I’ve talked about today is we train teams within companies to look at story, narrative and voice with a lot of emphasis on story, because that’s where the note is, so if you get a Story Aligned, you’ll find we have a white paper you can download. We have a blog that you can read, the description of the training. So yeah, if this interests you, if you find this an interesting topic, there’s plenty to do when you get there. So Story Aligned, A, L, I, G, N, E, D, yeah. Story Aligned. Christian Klepp  35:21 Fantastic, fantastic. And we’ll be sure to pop that into the show notes so that it’ll be easy for everyone to access. But once again, Nick, thank you.  Nick Usborne  35:28 Sorry, one last thing, if you want to please opening myself up, if you want to just talk to me directly, you can write to me at nick@storyaligned.com. Christian Klepp  35:38 Perfect, perfect. Nick, once again, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. Nick Usborne  35:44 Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been a pleasure. Christian Klepp  35:47 Thank you. Bye for now. You.

We're keeping warm this winter by talking about videogames so pour a cup of cocoa and hear a bunch of thoughts on strategies for staying alive! Zoey also gives us another Duke Nukem Report, this time about "Land of the Babes", the blocky Duke Nukem game for PS1 from the far flung future year of 2000! Sarah Carapace comes back to finish up her chat about "Lost Records: Bloom and Rage" when viewed through the lens of riot grrrl and grunge music. And then we spend a moment talking about Anchorman for some reason.0:00:00 - Yak Bak Bullshit0:07:57 - Deep Frying is the Great Equalizer0:12:13 - Power Up, Don't Die (Strategy for Life)0:15:39 - What is it About That Castlevania?0:27:38 - Duke Nukem Report: Land of the Babes0:47:12 - Riot Grrrl vs. Grunge with Sarah Carapace1:20:47 - Jonathan Wanted to Talk About Anchorman For Some Reason1:22:17 - European Rock Bands1:23:42 - The Lesbian Aspect1:26:44 - Wrap Up/Plugs/Thanks Patrons!1:33:20 - Laser TitSarah Carapace on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/sarahcarapace.bsky.socialZoey on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/adzuken.bsky.socialJonathan on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tronknotts.bsky.socialThe podcast's Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ttwav.bsky.socialDaniel on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/douibyorthst.bsky.socialWritten articles at: https://maxutmost.com/Support Zoey's Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/adzukenSupport the Patreon to get episodes a few days early and also read the Maximum Utcomic! https://patreon.com/ttwav

A family owned millwork company scales up high end custom production in Queens. We discuss Axos Designs' major facility expansion in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world.

Saks Global, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue filed for bankruptcy this month. Janae and producer Iru head up to 5th Av. to check on the iconic NYC department store, and WNYC's Ryan Kailath breaks down why this isn't the kind of bankruptcy that leads to a liquidation sale but still flashes a warning sign for NYC businesses. Plus, where's all this snow going? Sanitation Department Deputy Joshua Commissioner gives us a peak into the system. Correction: An earlier version of this episode incorrectly stated that Saks Fifth Avenue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In fact, it was Saks Global—the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman—that filed. The episode has been updated.

EPISODE 155 | Mummy Mia: King Tut's Tomb Guest: Neil Laird, Emmy-nominated TV producer (Discovery, BBC, PBS, History, National Geographic), author of the Prime Time novel series Since its discovery in 1922, the tomb of King Tut has captivated people, with research simply leading to more questions? How did he die? Was he murdered? Was he really born in Arizona and later moved to Babylonia? And is there a curse? Like what we do? Then buy us a beer or three via our page on Buy Me a Coffee.  Review us here or on IMDb. And seriously, subscribe, will ya? Like, just do it.  SECTIONS 03:09 - The discovery, the Curse of the Pharaohs, the Toxic Tomb theory 13:47 - The first autopsy (1925), the Boy King; mummies were not worth much; the second autopsy with X-rays (1968), was he murdered?; the third autopsy (2005) with CAT scans; accidental death?, walking canes, did he have a clubfoot? 24:06 - A new investigation, new evidence, a new theory 30:44 - Hidden chambers in the tomb, possibly Nefertiti, underground scans 36:01 - The mass appeal of historical treasures, Deir el-Medina - the lost village of the artisans and the Great Pit 43:25 - The Egyptians and the West have an uneasy history, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) 45:35 - Egypt is his obsession Music by Fanette Ronjat More Info Episode 59 - Atlas Sank: Titanic Conspiracies  The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) Prime Time novels Neil Laird on IMDb Lost Treasures of Egypt (2019-2025) Tutankhamun: Secrets of the Tomb (2022) Tut's Toxic Tomb (2022) Tut: A Century of Secrets (2022) Tut's Lost City Revealed (2022) Valley of the Queens (2021) Valley of the Kings: The Lost Tombs (2021) Lost Tombs of the Pyramids (2020) Cleopatra: Sex, Lies and Secrets (2020)  Tut's Final Secrets (2020) Lost Kingdom of the Black Pharaohs (2019) Egypt's Great Pyramid: The New Evidence (2017) Egypt: What Lies Beneath (2011) National Geographic: King Tut's Final Secrets (2005) Into the Great Pyramid (2002) Saving the Sphinx (1998) Follow us on social: Facebook X (Twitter) Other Podcasts by Derek DeWitt DIGITAL SIGNAGE DONE RIGHT - Winner of a Gold Quill Award, Gold MarCom Award, AVA Digital Award Gold, Silver Davey Award, and Communicator Award of Excellence, and on numerous top 10 podcast lists.  PRAGUE TIMES - A city is more than just a location - it's a kaleidoscope of history, places, people and trends. This podcast looks at Prague, in the center of Europe, from a number of perspectives, including what it is now, what is has been and where it's going. It's Prague THEN, Prague NOW, Prague LATER 

This week's episode covers major developments shaping Israel and the region: the return of Ron Gvili's remains to Israel, the reopening of the Rafah crossing, and growing alarm over worsening conditions in Iran amid reports of 30,000 deaths tied to an attempted overthrow of its antisemitic regime. Advertising executive Donny Deutsch calls for leadership and accountability after Hamas supporters chant outside a Queens synagogue. Ben Hilton of The Israel Guys breaks down a new Israel–Greece–Cyprus coalition countering Turkey, along with unprecedented changes at the Temple Mount allowing non-Muslim religious observances. The show also presents new evidence of BBC bias, featuring an interview with British media consultant David Ross and Natasha Hausdorff of UK Lawyers for Israel Charitable Trust.

The Queens Comic Podcast Turns 70!In this episode, Billy has no books to show off but makes up for it with lots of opinions on lots of things and some weird zoom effects. Ian's got a stack to show off though, including some silver age Marvel, a bunch of modern indie stuff, a few random oddities and a cool vintage Wrightson book. On top of that, we've got lots of Kirby talk, some Matthew Lillard talk (wut?) a special version of our theme song to share with you guys, so make sure that you watch this one all the way through to the end - thanks Steven!Follow us on Instagram @queenscomicpodcast / @thequeenscomicpartyCheck us out on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@queenscomicpodcastOr hit up our website at http://www.queenscomicparty.com

Cari Farver vanished without a trace in 2012, but what followed was a years-long digital nightmare that left friends, family, and investigators questioning everything they thought they knew. After her disappearance, texts and messages began pouring in from Cari's accounts, angry, erratic, and sometimes cruel, painting a picture of a woman on the run. But as the harassment escalated, a darker truth slowly emerged: someone else was pulling the strings. In this episode, we walk through the tangled web of obsession, identity theft, and deception at the heart of the case. We'll explore the relationships that set everything into motion and the relentless investigation that finally uncovered what really happened to Cari. Ultimately, this is a story about control, digital footprints, and how far one person was willing to go to erase another. Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today! Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: Nutrafol: Find out why Nutrafol is the best-selling hair growth supplement at Nutrafol.com, promo code QUEENS.  Rula: Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance.  Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at https://www.rula.com/QUEENS #rulapod Veracity: For up to 45% off your order, head to VeracityHealth.co and use code QUEENS. SKIMS: Shop SKIMS Fits Everybody collection at http://www.skims.com #skimspartner © 2026 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Astors... Chances are you've hear the name of this prominent and obscenely wealthy dynasty of gilded age America. You may have been to a hotel, library, subway station or town that bares their name; vaguely remember that one of them went down with the Titanic, or recall seeing their modern decedents in US or UK tabloids. But who were these captains of industry and Queens of society? Today we'll sort out the Astor family tree, put faces to the famous names and unearth their scandals! We'll explore how they got their incredible wealth, what they did with it and what their decedents are up to today. Join me every Tuesday when I'm Spilling the Tea on History! Check out my Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/lindsayholiday Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100091781568503 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyteatimelindsayholiday/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@historyteatime Please consider supporting me at https://www.patreon.com/LindsayHoliday and help me make more fascinating episodes! Intro Music: Baroque Coffee House by Doug Maxwell Music: Butterflies in Love by Sir Cubworth #HistoryTeaTime #LindsayHoliday Please contact ⁠⁠⁠advertising@airwavemedia.com⁠⁠⁠ if you would like to advertise on this podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Deciding where to stay in New York City can feel overwhelming given the number of options. In this article, we're gonna break down the simplest questions to answer before you decide which part of the city to stay in.Because the most important factor when choosing where to stay in NYC isn't just price.Here's what we'll cover:Before you look at locations, answer thisThe #1 factor for a good stay, no matter the neighborhoodA note about Airbnb and short-term, non-hotel rentalsOur 3 recommendations for the best places stay in New York CityTips for finding the best hotel rates (and comparing reviews)Note: See the full article with specific hotel recommendations here: https://rebrand.ly/where-stay-nycWhat Do You Care More About, Saving Money or Proximity to the NYC Experience?When you're trying to figure out where to stay when visiting NYC, you must ask yourself a this-or-that question. Odds are you can't have both, so you'll have to decide.The Question: What do you care more about, saving money or proximity to the NYC experience?You often, or almost never, can have both. New York City is expensive, and when you prioritize affordability, you will often trade that for distance from common NYC experiences. The same goes for the inverse.Is Saving Money the Most Important to You?You will spend very little time in your hotel during your visit to New York City. This is probably the strongest argument for prioritizing a cheaper hotel, even if it means a longer commute.So, if the cheapest lodging is your highest priority, look at places like:Hoboken, New JerseyLong Island City in QueensCertain pockets of boroughs, like Queens or BrooklynEven with that being said, I would never, ever, ever stay in the far reaches of Jersey, or distant parts in Queens or Brooklyn as a traveler. Nothing against those areas, it's just not where you're going to likely want to spend your time while visiting!New York City is a destination, and there is something to be said about staying in your destination, not near it.Is Proximity to the NYC Experience the Most Important to You?You will walk a LOT in New York City, part of why comfortable walking shoes are the #1 priority on our NYC packing list, and you will likely finish each day exhausted. Do you want to be dealing with a lengthy, challenging commute at the end of a long, tiring day?Being close to the action is not only fun, but it's practical. This is especially true for a short, weekend trip to NYC.So, if being close to the NYC experiences is your highest priority, look at places like:Upper MidtownChelseaFinancial DistrictWant even more NYC insights? Sign up for our 100% free newsletter to access:Dozens of Google Maps lists arranged by cuisine and location50+ page NYC Navigation Guide covering getting to & from airports, taking the subway & moreWeekly insights on top spots, upcoming events, and must-know NYC tipsGet started here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://rebrand.ly/nyc-navigation-guide

Send us a textWhat do you do when a government shutdown threatens to leave 70% of the families you serve without food? For Growing Up Green Charter Schools in Queens, New York, the answer was clear: respond immediately, mobilize resources fast, and support their community without losing sight of their educational mission.In this episode of The Small Nonprofit Podcast, Caitlin McBride sits down with Erin Acosta, Director of Family Engagement and Communications at Growing Up Green Charter Schools. Erin shares how her team packed over 1,000 bags of groceries in just one month, mobilized volunteers across four school buildings, and secured emergency funding, all while maintaining their core educational programs. This conversation offers a powerful blueprint for any nonprofit facing the question: "Is this mission drift, or is this what our community actually needs right now?"Visit their website: www.gugcs.orgSupport the show Connect with the show: Watch the episode on YouTube; follow Maria Rio on LinkedIn for more conversations and resources. Or support our show. We are fully self-funded! Book a Discovery Call with Further Together: Need help with your fundraising? See if our values-aligned fundraisers are a fit for your organization.

Send us a textIn this wrap‑up episode, Queen P and Queen H revisit the moments that made us laugh, the lessons that pushed us to grow, and the voices that left a lasting impact. They share behind‑the‑scenes reflections, listener highlights, and what this season taught them about resilience, advocacy, and joy in the midst of the work.  From the cases that stretched us to the conversations that healed us, this season reminded us why the work matters — and why community has kept us going. Whether you've been with us since Season 1 or just joined, this episode is a celebration of you — the social workers, caregivers, helpers, and healers who show up every day with heart and purpose.As the last episode before the Queens take a break this episode is a celebration of all they have accomplished over the last 5 years. So grab your crown and come reflect with us. And most of all thank you for you on going support. Social workers of color face immense challenges—systemic racism, underfunding, and overwhelming caseloads. They work tirelessly to support others but often lack the support they need. That's why we created the Queens of Social Work Podcast—a lifeline and safe space for social workers of color to vent, share, laugh, and find the resources they need to thrive. The QOSW Daily Journal and our Royally You Interactive Journal for yourself will help you get all of your thoughts out and reflect on what's next for you. For all of the budding social workers and those wanting to know more about social work in a healthcare setting, check out our Guide for ER Social Workers also for sale on Amazon and go to our website queensofsocialwork.net for your queens of social work merch! It makes a great gift. Support the show→ DON'T MISS THE NEXT EPISODE OF THE QUEENS OF SOCIAL WORK PODCAST! Follow us on your preferred podcast platform (Apple, Spotify, etc.) and share your thoughts in a review.→ WE VALUE YOUR INPUT. Take our 1-question survey and shape future episodes.→ DONATE TODAY to be a part of positive change for social workers of color.→ LOOKING FOR MORE INSPIRATION? Follow us on Instagram @queensofsocialwork→ TAKE YOUR CAREER TO THE NEXT LEVEL! Follow our LinkedIn page for professional insights.→ UNLOCK EXCLUSIVE RESOURCES. Visit our website and join our email list to receive your FREE Travel Social Work Guide.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins sits down with author Craig McGuire to discuss his gripping book, Empire City Under Siege, a deep dive into three decades of FBI manhunts, mob wars, and organized-crime investigations in New York City. Craig explains how the project grew out of his collaboration with retired FBI agent Anthony John Nelson, whose career spanned the most violent and chaotic years of New York's Mafia history. From Nelson's early days as a radio dispatcher in 1969 to his transition into undercover and frontline investigative work, the book captures the gritty reality of law enforcement during the 1970s and 1980s. We explore how Nelson's career mirrored the evolution of organized crime and law-enforcement tactics, including the rise of undercover stings, inter-agency cooperation, and the increasing role of technology. Craig highlights the close working relationship between Nelson and NYPD detective Kenny McCabe, whose deep knowledge of Mafia families and quiet professionalism led to major breakthroughs against organized crime. He tells how these two investigators wathced and uncovered the Gambino Family Roy DeMeo crew under Paul Castellano and Nino Gaggi. Throughout the conversation, Craig shares vivid, often humorous slice-of-life stories from the book—tense undercover moments, dangerous confrontations, and the emotional toll of living a double life. These anecdotes reveal not only the danger of the job but also the camaraderie and resilience that sustained agents and detectives working in the shadows. The episode closes with a reminder that Empire City Under Siege is as much about honoring unsung law-enforcement professionals as it is about mob history. Craig encourages listeners to support true-crime storytelling that preserves these firsthand accounts before they're lost to time. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:02 Welcome Back to Gangland Wire 2:14 The Journey to Anthony John Nelson 4:46 The Life and Work of Law Enforcement 15:00 Inside Anthony Nelson’s Early Career 26:49 The Dynamic Duo: Nelson and McCabe 30:16 Tales from the Underworld 35:55 The Tragedy of Everett Hatcher 39:12 The High-Stakes World of Undercover Work 40:56 Closing Thoughts and Inspirations transcript [0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio of Gangland Wire. I say the same thing every time. I hope it doesn’t bore you too much, but I am back here in the Gangland Wire studio. And I have today an author who interviewed and wrote a book with an FBI agent named Anthony John Nelson, who was one of the premier FBI agents in New York City that was working the mob. And even more interesting about him to me was he formed a partnership with a local copper named Kenny McCabe, who you may know the name. I had read the name before several times as I started researching this and looking at the book, but he was a mob buster supreme and Agent Nelson really formed a dynamic duo. But first, let’s start talking to Craig, your book, Empire City Under Seize, Three Decades of New York FBI Field Office Manhunts, Murders and Mafia Wars. How did you get involved with Anthony John Nelson? [0:55] Hi, Gary. Thanks for having me on your show. Big fan. Appreciate the opportunity. Very interesting and winding path that led me to Anthony’s doorstep. I also previously wrote another book, Carmine and the 13th Avenue Boys, which was about an enforcer in the Colombo family during the Third Colombo War. And I was introduced to Carmine Imbriali through Thomas Dades. Tommy Dades, he’s a famous retired NYPD detective. So after the success of that book, Tommy introduced me to another member of law enforcement. I started to work on a project that sort of fell apart. And one of the sort of consultants, friends that I met with during that was Anthony Nelson. And then one day as that, due to my own fumbling, as that project was falling apart, I had a delightful breakfast with Anthony and his wonderful wife, Sydney, Cindy, one Sunday morning. And Anthony’s pulling out all these clips of all these investigations and all these Jerry Capiche gangland clips. And it was just fascinating. And so I started to realize that there’s something here because I’m also a true crime fan and I remember many of these cases. [2:08] So it took a while to get Anthony to agree to write a book. He’s not one for the spotlight. He’s really your sort of quintessential G-man, modern G-man. It’s also somewhat of a throwback. But he eventually was interested in doing a book if we didn’t just shine the spotlight on him. Gary, you should know the original, the working title of the book was In the Company of Courage. And that’s really the theme that Anthony wanted to bring forth. You’ll notice throughout the book, there are some vignettes and some biographical information about many of the members of law enforcement that I interviewed, but then we also covered and who are no longer with us. It was my privilege to write this book sharing Anthony’s amazing history, 30 years at the FBI and then several years at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office as an investigator. And just like one of the themes is just to really shed some light on the valuable work that members of law enforcement, including you, sir. Thank you for your service. And we think too often these days, members of law enforcement are maligned and there’s a negative light cast on them. It’s the most difficult job in the world. And we just want to make sure that we’re shining some light on that valuable work that the thousands of members of men and women in law enforcement do every day protecting us. [3:24] I appreciate that. I’ll tell you what, all the way from the rookie on the street making those domestic violence calls and party armed calls and armed robbery alarms calls that are, there’s nothing there the first five times you go. And then all of a sudden there’s a guy running out with a gun all the way up to the homicide detectives. And even the people that handle the budget, they all paid their dues out on the streets and organized crime investigators, of course, and narcotics. I really appreciate that. It’s a thankless job for the most part. Once in a while, you get a little thanks, but not much. As we used to say, it was fun. I can’t believe they pay us to do this. [4:01] Gary, it’s like you’re repeating some of the lines of Frank Pergola to Al King, just like that. And that’s key, that thankless piece. I remember interviewing Frank Pergola, just famous New York City detective, worked on Son of Sam. He also worked on solving 79 homicides related to the Gambinos and the DeMeo family. And he echoed those same sentiments. While you’re investigating a case, it’s the victims’ families and the victims, their nerves are so fraught. It’s such a stressful situation. And the members of law enforcement bear the brunt of a lot of that frustration. [4:41] And too often, there’s no thank you at the end. And it’s not that they want to thank you. It’s just that they want the sort of closure, not even the recognition, just some sort of realization that they did a great job. And it’s unfortunate that they don’t, that doesn’t happen as often as it should. I appreciate it. Let’s talk about Anthony Nelson. He sounds like a very interesting character. Talk a little bit about what you learned from him about his early career. And I want to tell you something, that recalcitrance, I believe that’s the word, $25 word if I’ve ever heard one. His refusal to really make himself a hero or the center of attention. That’s pretty common among cops and FBI agents. I’ve noticed we’ve got, I’ve got a good friend here in Kansas City, wrote a book about the mafia in Kansas City called Mopsers in Our Mist, but he refused to put himself into the book. He had a publishing company that wanted him to do it and was going to pay him to do it, but it had to have him as a hero. He said, we have to have a hero in this book. He says, I won’t do it. So that Mr. Nelson, Agent Nelson, that’s not that uncommon. So tell us a little more about some of his early cases. [5:49] Anthony Nelson, interestingly enough, his career trajectory and really his life tracks with the latter half of the last century. And a lot of the technological evolution, the rise of organized crime post-prohibition, these themes of urbanization, radicalization that came out from the starting in the middle of the century. But really heating up as a young Anthony Nelson joins the FBI in 1969, really mostly in administrative roles, radio dispatcher first, eventually he’s an electronics technician. So I’m sure, Gary, you can reflect on, and some of this will resonate with you, just how archaic some of the technology was. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah. Back then, we have some fantastic anecdotes and stories in the book, but just also like, for example, when you’re responding to a hostage crisis and you don’t have a cell phone, you don’t have minimal communications and talking about, you better make sure you have a pocket full of dimes and knocking on a neighbor’s door because time is of the essence and to establish contact. So just some of this great, really interesting material there. Eventually, Anthony was sworn in as an agent in 1976, and he entered the FBI Academy at Quantico, graduated in 77. [7:13] And interestingly enough, Anthony reflects like some of his fellow graduates, perhaps were not as keen on going to New York, one of the larger field offices, perhaps wanting to cut their teeth at a smaller office, but he obviously wanted to go home. So he was, and he jumped right into the fray, really assigned to hijacking. And he was an undercover operative in Red Hook during the 1970s, like the really gritty. And from the stories and from the various folks I interviewed, this really was gritty New York back then with the economy failing, crime on the rise. [7:48] Gary, you look, I heard an interesting stat last week where you had, there was almost a record setting that New York City had not reported a homicide for a record 12 consecutive days. And that had not happened in decades. So when Anthony joined the FBI, they were recording five homicides in New York City. And also during the 70s, you also had this, when you talk about radicalization, with 3,000 bombings nationwide, corruption was rampant. You had credit card fraud was just kicking off. You had widespread bread or auto theft and hijacking. Again, at the street level, Anthony was the front for a Gambino-affiliated warehouse where he had first right of refusal, where some of the hijackers would bring in the loads. And he was doing this on an undercover basis. So he jumped right in. They set him up in a warehouse and he was buying like a sting, what we called a sting operation. He was buying stolen property. They thought he was a fence. [8:50] Yeah, they started doing that in the 70s. They hadn’t really done, nobody had done that before in the 70s. ATF kind of started sting operates throughout the United States. We had one here, but they started doing that. And that was a new thing that these guys hadn’t seen before. So interesting. He was that big, blurly guy up front said, hey, yeah, bring that stuff on. Exactly. If you look on the cover, there are three images on the cover, and one of them is following one of the busts afterwards where they tracked down the hijacked goods. I believe it was in New Jersey. So you could get the sense of the volume. Now, think about it like this. So he’s in Red Hook in the mid-70s. This was actually where he was born. So when Anthony was born in 49, and if you think about Red Hook in the early 50s, this was just a decade removed from Al Capone as a leg-breaking bouncer along the saloons on the waterfront. And this was on the waterfront, Red Hook eventually moved to Park Slope. [9:49] And this was where Crazy Joe Gallo was prompted, started a mob war. And this was when any anthony is coming of age back then and most of his friends is gravitating so to these gangster types in the neighborhood these wise guys but this was a time pre-9-1-1 emergency response system so the only way to report or get help was to call the switchboard call the hospital directly call the fire department directly so you had the rise of the b cop where it wasn’t just the police they were integral part of the community and there’s this really provocative story Anthony tells the first time he saw a death up close and personal, an acquaintance of his had an overdose. And the beat cops really did a sincere effort to try to save him. And this really resonated with the young Anthony and he gravitated towards law enforcement. And then a little bit, a while later as a teenager, they’re having these promotional videos, these promotional sort of documentary style shows on television. And Anthony sees it, and he’s enamored by it, especially when they say this is the hardest job in America. So he’s challenged, and he’s a go-getter. So he writes a letter to J. Edgar Hoover, and Hoover writes him back. [11:03] So it’s a signed letter, and now Anthony laughs about it. He says it was probably a form letter with a rubber stamp, but it really had an amazing impact. And this is at the time when, you know, in the 50s, you really had J. Edgar really embrace the media. And he actually consulted on the other famous, the FBI television show, several movies, the rise of the G-Man archetype. So Anthony was fully on board. [11:28] Interesting. Of course, J. Edgar Hoover wanted to make sure the FBI looked good. Yes, exactly. Which he did. And they were good. They had a really high standards to get in. They had to be a lawyer or accountant or some extra educated kind of a deal. And so they always think, though, that they took these guys who had never been even a street policeman of any kind and they throw them right into the DPN many times. But that’s the way it was. They did have that higher level of recruit because of that. So, Anthony, was he a lawyer or accountant when he came in? Did he get in after they relaxed that? Oh, that’s spot on. I’m glad you brought that up. So now here’s a challenge. So Anthony needs that equalizer, correct? So if you’re a CPA, obviously a former member of the military, if you’re a successful detective or a local police force, one of these type of extra credentials. [12:20] Anthony’s specialty was technology. Now, when you think of technology… Not the ubiquitous nature of technology nowadays, where you have this massive processing power in your phone, and you don’t really have to be a technologist to be able to use the power of it. This is back in the 1960s. But he always had an affinity for technology. And he was able to, when he, one of the other requirements was as he had to hit the minimum age requirement, he had to work for a certain amount of time, he was able to get a job at the FBI. So he was an electronics technician before he became an agent. [12:59] And he had all of the, and back then this was, it was groundbreaking, the level of technology. And he has some funny story, odd, like man on the street stories about, I’m sure you remember Radio Shack when there was a Radio Shack on every other corner, ham radio enthusiasts. And it was cat and mouse. It was, they had the members of organized crime had the police scanners. And they were able to, if they had the right scanner, they had the right frequency. They were able to pick on the bugs planted really close to them. And he tells some really funny stories about one time there was a member of organized crime. They’re staking out, I believe it was the cotillion on 18th Avenue. And then I believe he’s sitting outside with Kenny McCabe. And then one of this member of organized crime, he’s waving a scanner inside and he’s taunting them saying, look, I know what you’re doing. And so it was that granularity of cat and mouse. [13:55] Rudimentary kind of stuff. Yeah. We had a guy that was wearing what we called a kelk kit. It was a wire and he was in this joint and they had the scanner and so but they had to scan her next door at this club And all of a sudden, a bunch of guys came running and there’s somebody in here wearing a wire. And my friend’s guy, the guy I worked with, Bobby, he’s going, oh, shit. And so he just fades into the background. And everybody except one guy had a suit on. Nobody had a suit on except this one guy. So they focused on this one guy that had a suit on and went after him and started trying to pat him down and everything. Bobby just slipped out the front door. So amazing. I mean, you know, Anthony has a bunch of those slice of life stories. I also interviewed a translator from the FBI to get a sort of a different perspective. [14:42] It’s different. Like the agents a little bit more, they’re tougher. They’re a tougher breed. They go through the training. Some of the administrative professionals, like the translators. So this one translator, it’s a pretty harrowing experience because remember the such the insular nature of the neighborhoods and how everyone is always [14:59] looking for someone out of place. So she actually got a real estate license and poses a realtor be able to rent apartments and then she spoke multiple dialects and then just to have to listen in and to decipher not only the code but also the dialects and put it together when you have agents on the line because remember you have an undercover agent if they get discovered more often than not the members of organized crime are going to think they’re members of another crew so you’re dead either they’re an informant if they think they’re an informant you’re dead if they think you’re an agent yeah just turn away from you say okay we don’t deal with this guy anymore if you think you’re informant or somebody another crew or something trying to worm their way in then yeah you’re dead exactly so interviewing maria for this you get that sense from someone who’s not in like not an agent to get true how truly harrowing and dangerous this type of activity was and how emboldened organized crime was until really the late 90s. And back then, it truly was death defying. [16:02] Oh, yeah, it was. They had so many things wired in the court system and in politically in the late 70s and early 80s and all these big cities. No big city was immune from that kind of thing. So they had all kinds of sources. They even had some clerks in the FBI and they definitely had all the court. The courthouses were just wired. And I don’t mean wired, but they had people in places and all those things. So it was death to find that you got into these working undercover. Ever. Hey, you want to laugh? I don’t want to give away all the stories, but there was a great story. I remember Anthony saying, they set up a surveillance post in an apartment and they brought in all the equipment while they were, then they got the court orders and the surveillance post actually got ripped off twice. So while they try, like after hours, someone’s going, yeah, ripping off all the FBI equipment. So you have this extra level of, so that gives you like, It really was Wild West then. Really? [17:00] So now he gets into organized crime pretty quick, into that squad and working organized crime pretty quick. I imagine they put him in undercover like that because of his accent, his ability to fit in the neighborhood. I would think he would have a little bit of trouble maybe running into somebody that remembered him from the old days. Did he have any problem with that? I spot on, Gary. I tell you, this was he. So he’s operating in Red Hook and actually throughout the next several years, he’s periodically flying down to Florida as a front for New York orchestrated drug deals. So he’s going down to Florida to negotiate multi-kilo drug deals on behalf of organized crime. But at the same time, he’s an agent. He eventually rose to be supervisory special agent. He’s managing multiple squads. So there did come an inflection point where it became too dangerous for him to continue to operate as an undercover while conducting other types of investigations. [18:02] Interestingly enough they opened up a resident agency office the ras are in the major field offices in the fbi they have these they’re called ras i’m sure you’re familiar these like mini offices with the office and they’ll focus on certain areas of crime more geographically based so they opened up the brooklyn queens ra and that really focuses heavily on organized crime but also hijacking because you had the, especially with the airport over there and a lot of the concentrations of, especially in South Brooklyn, going into Queens. So he worked there. Also the airport. Also the mass, you have this massive network of VA facilities. You have the forts. So you need these other RA offices. So you have a base of operations to be able to investigate. But Anthony has such a wide extent of case history, everything from airline attacks to art theft heists to kidnappings, manhunts, fugitives. There was Calvin Klein, the famous designer, when his daughter was kidnapped by the babysitter, it did do it. Anthony was investigating that. So it’s just, and while he has this heavy concentration in organized crime. I mentioned that. What’s this deal with? He investigated a robbery, a bank robbery that was a little bit like the dog day afternoon robbery, a standoff. What was that? [19:30] This was actually, it was the dog day afternoon robbery. They based a dog day afternoon on this. Exactly. What you had, and this was before Anthony was when he was still in his administrative role. So he had a communications position. So he was responsible for gathering all the intel and the communications and sharing it with the case, the special agents on site. So what you had was like, he’s with the play by play of this really provocative hostage. It was a bank robbery that quickly turned into a hostage crisis. And then, so throughout this whole, and the way it eventually resolved was the perpetrators insisted on a particular agent. I apologize. It slips my mind, but he’s a real famous agent. So he has to drive them to JFK airport where they’re supposed to have a flight ready to fly them out of the country. And what happens is they secrete a gun into the car and he winds up shooting the bank robbers to death. And there were so many different layers to this bank robbery. It eventually became the movie. And a funny story aside, the movie, while they’re filming the movie, Anthony’s at his friend’s house in downtown Brooklyn. It may have been Park Slope. And they’re calling for extras. His friends run in and say, hey, they’re filming a movie about this bank robbery that happened on Avenue U. You want to be an extra? And he said, nah, no thanks. The real thing was enough for me. [20:55] I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t for a New York City organized crime and New York City crime. Al Pacino wouldn’t have had a career. That’s the truth. [21:05] Now, let’s start. Let’s go back into organized crime. Now, we’ve talked about this detective, Kenny McCabe, who was really well known, was famous. And during the time they worked together and they were working with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. Is that correct? Were both of them working for it? Was he at the FBI and Kenny was with the Brooklyn DA’s office? [21:26] When you think about thematically, in the company of courage, Kenny McCabe was really close. This was a career-long, lifelong, from when they met, relationship, professional relationship that became a deep friendship between two pretty similar members of law enforcement. [21:46] Kenny McCabe had a long career in the NYPD as organized crime investigator before he joined the Southern District Attorney’s Office as an investigator. So the way they first crossed paths was while Anthony was working a hijacking investigation. So he gets a tip from one of his CIs that there’s some hijacked stolen goods are in a vehicle parked in a certain location. So he goes to stake it out. Like they don’t want to seize the goods. They want to find out, they want to uncover who the hijackers are and investigate the conspiracy. So then while he’s there, he sees a sort of a familiar face staking it out as well. Then he goes to the, he goes to the NYA, a detective Nev Nevins later. And he asks about this guy. And so this detective introduces him to Kenny McCabe and right away strike up with his interesting chemistry. And they’re like, you know what? Let’s jointly investigate this. So they wind up foiling the hijacking. But what starts is like this amazing friendship. And I’ll tell you, the interesting thing about Kenny McCabe is almost universally, he’s held in the highest regard as perhaps law enforcement’s greatest weapon in dismantling organized crime in the latter half of the 20th century. For example, I interviewed George Terra, famous undercover detective who eventually went to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office. [23:12] And he had a great way. I hope I don’t mangle. Kenny knew all the wise guys and they all knew Kenny. And when I say he knew all the wise guys, he knew their shoe sizes. He knew who they partnered with on bank jobs years ago. So he knew who their siblings were, who their cousins were, who they were married to, who their girlfriends were, what clubs they frequented. For example, during the fatical hearings, where they would do sentencing, often the defense attorneys would want the prosecutors to reveal who their CIs are for due process, for a sense of fairness. And they refused to do that, obviously, for safety reasons, and they want to compromise ongoing investigations. So in dozens, perhaps so many of these cases, they were bringing Kenny McCabe. He was known as the unofficial photographer of organized crime. [24:07] For example, I think it was 2003, he was the first one who revealed a new edict that new initiates into Cosa Nostra had to have both a mother and a father who were Italian. Oh, yeah. I remember that. Yeah. He was also, he revealed that when the Bonanno family renamed itself as Messino, he was the one who revealed that. And then when Messino went to prison for murder, his successor, Vinnie Bassiano, Vinnie gorgeous. When he was on trial, that trial was postponed because so many of law enforcement leaders had to attend Kenny McCabe’s funeral, unfortunately, when he passed. So this is such a fascinating thing. Now, why you don’t hear more about Kenny McCabe, and I interviewed his son, Kenny McCabe Jr. Duke, is like Kenny McCabe like really issued the media spotlight. He would not, he wasn’t interested in grabbing the microphone. So you have almost no media on Kenny McCabe. If you do a Google search for him, I believe the only thing I ever found was a picture in his uniform as an early career police officer. [25:19] So it’s really hard to even do a documentary style treatment without having any media because B-roll is just going to get you so far. So really what Duke has been doing over the last two decades or more is really consolidating all of these as much material as he can. And I think eventually when he does put out a book, this thing’s going to explode. It’s going to be like true Hollywood treatment. But now going back to the mid-70s, so these two guys hook up. You have the FBI agent and you have the police detective. [25:49] Craig, what you always hear is that the FBI is suspicious and doesn’t trust local authorities. And local policemen hate the FBI because they always grab all the glory and take everything, run with it. And they’re left out. And I didn’t have that experience myself. They’ve got the case. They’ve got the laws. We don’t locally, county and statewide, you don’t have the proper laws to investigate organized crime. Yes, sir. But the feds do. So that’s how it works. This really blows that myth up that the local police and the FBI never worked together and hated each other. [26:25] I’m so glad you brought that up because this was very important to Anthony. He has so many lifelong friends in the NYPD, and I’ve interviewed several of them. And just this sincerity comes across, the camaraderie. In any walk of life, in any profession, you’re always going to have rivalries and conflict, whether healthy conflict or negative conflict. [26:46] Even more, you’re going to find that in law enforcement because the stakes are so high. But it’s a disservice to… And what we want to do is sort of dispel the myth that there was no cooperation. Why there were very well-publicized conflicts between agencies prosecuting certain cases. This was the time where technology was really enabling collaboration. Remember, and you had a time, if you had to investigate a serial crime, you had to go from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and you had to interview investigators. You had to comb through written records to piece this together. So it really was not conducive for collaboration. [27:22] So what you saw was the rise of, and then you had these investigative tools and these legal tools like RICO, while they were still trying to figure out and to build. So now you had the litigious tools where you could build conspiracies and prosecute them. So this sort of helped ferment this sort of collaborative interagency, which eventually led to these joint task force that were very successful. What I really love is this microcosm of Anthony Nelson and Kenny McCain. Now, Anthony Nelson was issued a Plymouth Grand Fury with the full police interceptor kit. If you’re familiar with that make and model, no automobile ever created screams cop-mobile like the Grand Fury. And so what you had was after hours, Anthony and Kenny would join up and they would go prowling the underworld with the Grand Fury on purpose. They wanted to be as conspicuous as possible. to the point where they would park in bus stops across the street from these social clubs. And when I say social clubs, they were… [28:29] Everywhere. There were dozens of them all over Brooklyn and Queens. And these are cafe, social clubs, bars, restaurants with heavy OC presence, blatantly conducting their business. So you have these two, Anthony’s always driving. Kenny’s always riding shotgun with his camera. I assume it was some sort of 35 millimeter hanging out the side, taking down names, license plates. Just a great story. You had Paul Castellano in front of Veterans and Friends on 86th Street when he had Dominic Montiglio start that social club so he could have more of a presence in Brooklyn on the street so that he actually crosses the street and he goes to Kenny and Anthony. And he’s saying, guys, you don’t have to sit out here. You could come down to Ponte Vecchio in Bay Ridge. I have a table there anytime you want to talk to me. So it’s that level of bravado. But pretty soon it changed. Once more of this intel started to build these real meaningful cases, Castellana put an edict, don’t talk to these two, don’t be photographed. What came out of that was an amazing partnership where they gathered so much intelligence and Anthony is very. [29:46] Quick to have me point out, give more credit to the investigators, to the agents, to the detectives. They gathered a lot of the intelligence to help with these investigations, but you had so many frontline folks that are doing a lot of the legwork, that are doing the investigations, making the arrests, that are crawling under the hoods. So it’s pretty inspiring. But then you also had some really good, and I don’t want to share all the stories [30:12] in the book. There’s a great story of Kenny and Anthony. They go into Rosal’s restaurant because they see this. [30:21] There may have been a warrant out on this member of law enforcement. So they had cause. So they go in and there’s actually some sort of family event going on. And they’re playing the theme song of The Godfather. As they go in and then they have to go into the back room to get this member of organized crime who’s hiding. So it’s these kind of really slice of life kind of stories that just jump out, jump out of the book. Really? I see, as I mentioned, they had some kind of a run-in with Roy DeMeo at the Gemini. You remember that story? Can you tell that one? Yeah, there’s, so Kenny and Anthony, throughout the hijacking investigations. [30:59] Were, they were among the first to really learn of this mysterious Roy. And his rise. And then also Nino. Remember Nino Gadgi was the Gambino Capo who took over Castellano’s crew, Brooklyn crew, when he was elevated. And then Roy DeMeo was really this larger than life maniac serial killer who formed the Gemini crew, which was a gang of murderers really on the Gemini Lounge in Flatlands, which is really close to Anthony’s house. And Kenny’s not too far. Didn’t they have a big stolen car operation also? Did they get into that at all? Yes. Stolen cars, chop shops. Remember, this is when you had the introduction of the tag job, where it was relatively easy to take the vehicle identification numbers off a junked auto and then just replace them with the stolen auto, and then you’re automatically making that legitimate. And then, so they’re doing this wholesale operation where they’re actually got to the point where they’re shipping hundreds, if not thousands of these tag jobs overseas. So it was at scale, a massive operation. Roy DeMay was a major earner. He was such an unbalanced, very savvy business for the underworld, business professional, but he was also a homicidal maniac. [32:22] Some say they could be upwards of a hundred to 200 crimes. Frank Pergola alone investigated and So 79 of these crimes associated with this crew. And it got to the point where, and he had a heavy sideline in drugs, which was punishable by death in the Gambino family, especially under Castellano. So then what you had was all these investigations and all this intelligence that, and then with this collaboration between the FBI and NYPD. Oh, wow. It is quite a crew. I’m just looking back over here at some of the other things in there in that crew in that. You had one instance where there was a sentencing hearing and of a drug dealer, I believe, a member of organized crime. And Kenny McCabe is offering testimony to make sure that the proper sentencing is given because a lot of times these guys are deceptive. [33:16] And he mentions DeMeo’s name. So DeMeo in a panic. So then maybe a couple of nights later, they’re parked in front of veterans and friends. And DeMeo comes racing across 86th Street. Now, 86th Street is like a four-lane thoroughfare. It’s almost like, oh, I grew up in the air a few blocks away. So he’s running through traffic. And then he’s weaving in and out. And he’s screaming at Kenny McCabe, what are you trying to kill me? Putting my name into a drug case? They’re going to kill me. And so it’s that kind of intimate exchanges that they have with, with these key members of organized crime of the era. [33:52] Wow. That’s, that’s crazy. I see that they worked to murder that DEA agent, Everett Hatcher, that was a low level mob associate that got involved in that. And then supposedly the mob put out the word, but you gotta, we gotta give this guy up. But you remember that story? Now, this is another instance where I remember this case. And I remember afterwards when they killed Gus Faraci. So what you had was, again, and this is very upsetting because you had DEA agent Everett Hatchard, who is a friend of Anthony’s. To the point where just prior to his assassination, they were attending a social event together with their children. And he would also, they would run into each other from time to time. They developed a really beyond like camaraderie, like real friendship. So then, so Hatcher has, there’s an undercover sting. So there’s Gus Faraci, who’s, I believe he was associated with the Lucchese’s, with Chile. [34:55] So he gets set up on the West Shore. And so he’s told to go to the West Shore Expressway. Now, if you’ve ever been on that end of Staten Island, that whips out heading towards the outer bridge. This really is the end of the earth. This is where you have those large industrial like water and oil tankers and there’s not really good lighting and all this. It’s just like a real gritty. So he loses his surveillance tail and they eventually, he’s gunned down while in his vehicle. So then Anthony gets the call to respond on site to investigate the murder. He doesn’t know exactly who it is until he opens up the door and he sees it’s his friend. And this is the first assassination of a DEA agent. It was just such a provocative case. And the aftermath of that was, again, like Gus Faraci, who was, he was a murderer. He was a drug dealer, but he did not know. He set him up. He thought he was a member of organized crime. [35:53] He was just another drug dealer. He did not realize he was a DEA agent. And then all hell broke loose. And you had just the all five families until they eventually produced Gus Faraci, set him up, and then he was gunned down in Brooklyn. [36:06] Case closed, huh? Exactly. Yeah. And as we were saying before, I don’t remember it was before I started recording or after that. When you’re working undercover, that’s the worst thing is they think that you’re an informant or a member of another crew and you’re liable to get killed. At one say, I had a sergeant one time. He said, if you get under suspicion when you’re like hanging out in some of these bars and stuff, just show them you’re the cops. Just get your badge out right away because everything just, all right, they just walk away then. It’s a immensely dangerous thing to maintain your cover. Yes, sir. Anthony was always good at that because tall gentleman has the right sort of Italian-American complexion. He’s passable at Italian. So with some of these folks, especially from Italy that come over, he could carry a conversation. He’s not fluent. [36:56] And he just walks in and talks in. It’s a different… George Terror was a fantastic undercover detective. And you talk to some of these undercovers, it’s like you have to be… There’s sort of this misperception that the organized crime members are like these thugs and flunkies. These are very intelligent, super suspicious, addled individuals that are able to pick up on signals really easy because they live on the edge. So you really can’t fake it, the slightest thing. And again, they’ll think that their first inclination is not that you’re a member of law enforcement. Their first inclination is that you’re a member of a rival crew that’s looking to kill me looks at looking to rip me off so i’m going to kill you first it’s just it’s just a wild and imagine that’s your day job oh man i know they could just and i’ve picked this up on people there’s just a look when you’re lying there’s just a look that just before you catch it quick but there’s a look of panic that then you get it back these guys can pick up that kind of stuff just so quickly any kind of a different body language they’re so good with that. [38:02] And he’s also, he has to be able to say just enough to establish his connection and credibility without saying too much that’s going to trip him up. And that’s like being able to walk that line. He tells, again, I hate giving away all these stories because I want readers to buy the book, but he has this fantastic story when he’s on an undercover buy and he’s, I don’t know if it’s Florida, if it’s Miami or it’s Fort Lauderdale and he has to go into a whole, like the drugs are in one location and he’s in that with the drug deals in one location and he’s in this location and, but he knows the money’s not going to come. [38:42] So he has to walk into this hotel room with all these cartel drug guys who are off balance, knowing that he’s got to figure out, how do I get out of this room without getting killed? And once I walk out, will the timing be right that I could drop to the floor right when the responding FBI agents, again, these are FBI agents from a different [39:08] field office that he perhaps doesn’t have intimate working. knowledge of. I got to trust that these guys got my back and they’re not distracted. So I can’t even imagine having to live with that stress. No, I can’t either. All right. I’ll tell you what, the book, guys, is Empire City Under Siege, the three decades of New York FBI field office man hunts, murders, and mafia wars by Craig McGuire with former retired FBI agent Anthony John Nelson. I pulled as many stories as I could out of the book from him. You’re going to have to get the book to get to the rest of. And believe me, I’m looking at my notes here and the stuff they sent me. And there are a ton of great stories in there, guys. You want to get this book. [39:50] I also want to say there’s something special going on at Wild Blue Press. My publisher specializes in true crime. And it’s just, they’re so nurturing and supportive of writers. Just fantastic facilities and promotions. And they just help us get it right. That’s the most important thing, Anthony, accuracy. So if there’s anything wrong in the book, that’s totally on me. It’s really hard to put one of these together, especially decades removed. But then I’m just thankful for the support of nature of Wild Blue and Anthony and all the remarkable members of law enforcement like yourself, sir. Thank you for your service. And Anthony, and I’m just so inspired. I just have to say, they’re like a different breed. And you folks don’t realize how exciting. Because there are so many stories like Anthony would come up with and he would say, do you think readers would be interested in this story? And I fall out of my chair like, oh my God, this could be a whole chapter. So it was as a true crime fan myself of this material, it’s just, it was a wild ride and I enjoyed it. [40:56] Great. Thanks a lot for coming on the show, Craig. Thanks, Gary. You’re the best.

This episode contains our exclusive interview with Tina Romero, daughter of the legendary filmmaker George Romero, discussing her film 'Queens of the Dead' at the Buried Alive Film Festival. Becky also interviews several independent filmmakers, who had only 13 days to produce each short horror film in the annual Sinema Challenge. Becky tells funny stories about being trapped on a tour with her mom, and the awkward joy of attending the rather bawdy film festival with her teen daughter.  We promise not to give away any spoilers for 'Queens of the Dead'! Instead, Becky and Diana muse briefly on the evolution of queer/female representation in horror and other media genres. Then, we prospect for ideas should we decide to enter the Sinema Challenge in 2026, based on our favorite white card from Cards Against Humanity. You know the one.This episode (and a shorter video of just Becky chatting with Tina Romero) are both on Youtube.com/HomespunHaints. There were so many outtakes from this episode, which we shared with our Patrons over at Patreon.com/HomespunHaints.Support the show

Mac & Bone are joined by Queens head coach, Grant Leonard, who talks about his team's hot start to lead their conference, he talks about the non-conference schedule, preparing his program to play at the level they are playing at right now, and what is behind the sweaters he wears while coaching, which have gone viral See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this edition of Arts & Culture Check In, WNYC's arts and culture editor Matthew Schnipper walks through what's landing on the culture desk right now. That includes Mayor Zohran Mamdani's latest use of pop culture references, concerts worth attending, and the Bronx Museum's AIM Biennial spotlighting local artists. We also look at the Gotham Book Prize finalists, how New York shows up in this year's Grammy nominations, and where to find standout Chinese food in Long Island City.

Somewhere in Time Podcast begin 2026 by continuing their discussion on their favorites from 1995. This episode, the topic of discussion is the album "...And the Circus Leaves Town", by the band Kyuss. This is the fourth and final album from Kyuss and the podcast discusses what caused the breakup of the band, highlight their favorite tracks from this album, and discuss where the album ranks for them in Kyuss' overall catalog.  Also featured this episode is a review of Megadeth's cover of the Metallica song Ride the Lightning, from their latest album, and some TV show and music recommendations Visit Somewhere in Time Podcast's website https://somewhereintimepodcast.com Follow Somewhere in Time Podcast on Social Media: Facebook Instagram YouTube TikTok – Somewhere in Time Podcast

Send us a textIn this powerful and deeply personal episode of The Corie Sheppard Podcast, we sit with Terri Lyons — Calypso Monarch, Queen of Queens, performer, and cultural torchbearer — for an expansive conversation on calypso, resilience, legacy, and Caribbean identity.Terri unpacks what it truly means to represent Trinidad & Tobago on regional stages such as Montserrat and Carifesta, the responsibility that comes with being crowned Queen of Queens, and why claims that calypso is dying completely miss the point. She reflects on commanding performances, crowd connection, and the discipline behind her powerful stage presence.The conversation moves into Terri's early life in Port of Spain and Laventille, growing up without financial security, navigating loss and trauma, and how those experiences shaped her resilience, creative drive, and refusal to be boxed in by industry expectations. She speaks candidly about motherhood, survival, financial discipline, and staying authentic in a challenging music landscape.We also explore:The craft and strategy of calypso performanceWriting songs without rhythms and building music from melody and storyPaying homage to icons like Black Stalin and ShadowRadio politics, cultural gatekeeping, and who decides what gets heardWhy calypso must connect with youth without losing its rootsLongevity, ownership, and making music work as a businessHer standout songs including “I Am Lion,” “Ask Yuh Man,” “Blessings,” and “Fling Bam Bam”Competing in Skinner Park, tent culture, and the modern calypso circuitThis episode is a masterclass in Caribbean excellence, cultural preservation, and personal grit — filled with humour, honesty, and hard-earned insight from one of Trinidad & Tobago's most compelling calypsonians.

In this episode of ⁠The Tarot Diagnosis⁠, I'm exploring something that's been stirring in me since a recent book club event inside The Symposium: the way we unconsciously project motherhood onto tarot's female figures. After an insightful conversation in the book club (shoutout to Darcy for naming it so clearly: “Tarot doesn't need another mother”), I couldn't stop thinking about how often cards like Strength, the Empress, and all four Queens get flattened into maternal archetypes.And of course, we're not just doing this in tarot. We're doing this everywhere, all the time. In this episode, I explore:Why the Strength card has become one of my least favorite cards (for now)How projection and cultural conditioning shape our interpretations of female-presenting figures in tarotThe dangers of turning all gentleness and emotional regulation into compulsory/female/motherly careWhat it might mean to view Strength as discernment, regulation, or even female rage instead of caretakingI also talk about the psychological cost of maternalizing every act of compassion and why it limits not only women, but all people across the gender spectrum who wish to express care, leadership, or emotional depth.This episode is part tarot analysis, part cultural critique, and part personal reflection on how we assign meaning to caretaking and why it matters.I close the episode by offering a question for your next reading:In what ways does this card validate me and in what ways does it confront me?Book Referenced: Talismans and TarotDeck used: Tarot Vintage

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Lara and Carey to the livestream for another rendition of SUP AFTER DARK, recapping part deux of the RHOSLC season 6 reunion (live with chat!) First, they discuss an update in Beckxit, the liberation of Amanda Batula, Club Chalamet's new pivot, and a divisive episode of INDUSTRY.Back on the reunion, Angie's scroll reveals Babygirl Lisa's Reality Von Teased-esque alter ego, as Meredith continues to let her Plum Sister flail against the firing squad. Britani arrives to muted reaction, as Mary answers for the cult allegations and gives a sad but potentially hopeful update on Robert Jr's struggle with addiction. Lisa lobs a vague accusation at Bronwyn over Todd's Dubai activities; and its curtains for Heather and Meredith's friendship. Then, Meredith — gearing up to address PlaneGate — begins her most lawyer ass chess play yet, diverting from her own allegedly feral behavior to weave a tale of Britani, bigoted nail techs and Yelp reviews. The countdown to the end continues… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Councilwoman Vickie Paladino calls in to offer Sid an update on her and City Council Speaker Julie Menin's relationship after the duo's public tiff last week. Paladino also comments on all the other news of the day pertaining to her district in Queens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's an Emmajority Report Thursday on the Majority Report On Today's program: AP publishes a leaked memo instructing ICE and CBP border agents to forcibly enter people's homes without a judge-issued warrant, asserting that so-called "administrative" warrants are sufficient. ICE uses a 5-year-old boy as bait to arrest his father who is in an asylum process. Union leaders throughout Minnesota are calling for a general strike in the twin cities on Friday, January 23. Publisher of the Global Currents newsletter, Jostein Hauge joins the Emma to breakdown the aftermath of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. New York State Assemblyperson, Claire Valdez, representing the 37th District in Queens joins the program to discuss her candidacy for New York's 7th Congressional District. In the Fun Half: Matt Binder and Brandon Sutton join Emma. Jared Kushner speaks at the WEF in Davos, CH and presents his self-proclaimed "master plan" for the Gaza strip. Trump's AI and Crypto czar, David Sacks panels on MSNBC's Squawk Box to express how frightened he is of Ro Khanna's proposed 5% billionaire tax. Trump's polling is in the toilet, currently sitting at net -19% approval rating. Francesca Fiorentini posts a video responding to Ana Kasparian's apology to her audience for failing to recognize Trump as a fascist ahead of his SECOND term. If only there were clues. All that and more To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is (202) 224-3121. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: ZOCDOC:  Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor. SPOTIFY: Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/majority NAKED WINES: To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/MAJORITY and use code MAJORITY for both the code AND PASSWORD.   SUNSET LAKE: Use the code NEWFLOWER—all one word—to get 30% off their new crop of hemp flower and vape carts at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

Today's show has big shift in New York baseball as the Mets transform their rotation with Freddy Peralta and welcome Bo Bichette to Queens, while the Yankees finally provide some relief by re-signing Cody Bellinger. We dive deep into the Knicks' historic 54-point demolition of the Nets and their future, Terry Pegula's disastrous Bills press conference, and the "celebration injury" conspiracy surrounding Bo Nix that puts Jarrett Stidham in the driver's seat for Denver. Plus, we react to Boomer falling for an AI-generated photo of Shaun Morash, a looming weekend snowstorm, and a Harbaugh "hatchet job" in the Giants' front office that has fans buzzing.

Jerry's back with the latest: the Mets' rotation grows, Bo Bichette arrives in Queens, and the Knicks make franchise history by dismantling the Nets. Plus, Bills owner Terry Pegula's presser misstep and Sean McVay on facing Seattle.

From Davos to Wharton, Michael dives into globalization vs. America First, Trump shaking up the World Economic Forum, and the small‑town heroes keeping Texas running. Michael shares life lessons on being present, journaling like Marcus Luttrell, and the power of daily gratitude. Then we spotlight hometown grit with Wharton Feed & Supply owner Richard Lockley—an everyday Texan building community one chain saw, cattle cube, and handshake at a time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

*LISTENER DISCRETION IS ADVISED: this episode is not censored. In today's episode, you'll hear the tales of Chris Singh, who lived in a house in Queens, NY that really disliked his family. A years-long haunting that was so intense, it challenged several family members' belief systems. What could possibly cause such hostility from the other side? Stay with us to find out.  Listen to Chris' podcast The Wandering Road https://open.spotify.com/show/4bntTTtDjBkilDqT4rIgS7?trackId=1rxoyGj1QuPoVi8fOft1Kt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a 17th-century Mexican nun, poet, playwright, composer, and all-around intellectual menace to the patriarchy. In this episode of Queens Podcast, we trace Sor Juana's rise from hacienda library goblin to celebrated court intellectual and how she used wit, logic, and theology to argue that women deserved education because women are people. Radical stuff. Paired with a twist on the Paloma cocktail, we explore her poems like You Foolish Men and essays such as Respuesta a Sor Filotea, works that helped shape modern feminist thought centuries before feminism had a name. Sor Juana did not just challenge misogyny. She out-argued it, and history is still taking notes. Time stamps: 00:00 Introduction and Content Warning 00:36 Meet the Hosts: Katy & Nathan 01:36 Introducing Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz 02:56 Patreon Shoutouts and Mocktail Recipe 05:31 Sor Juana's Early Life and Education 14:43 Juana's Move to Mexico City 16:45 Life with the viceroy's court 18:28 Juana's Intellectual Challenge 20:55 Becoming a nun 24:59 Juana's Writing Career Begins 26:08 A Close Relationship with Maria Louisa 30:23 You Foolish Men: A Poem of Hypocrisy 37:57 Juana's Feminist Manifesto 43:59 Juana's Downfall and Final Years 47:00 Legacy of a Feminist Icon Sources: Dr. Peyton Cristina Del Toro's YouTube Stuff You Missed in History Class Biography.com Poets.org Queens podcast is part of Airwave Media podcast network. Please get in touch with advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast. Want more Queens? Head to our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Never miss a Queens Podcast happening! Sign up for our newsletter: https://eepurl.com/gZ-nYf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

November 7th, 2025, 18-year-old Anna Marie Kepner was found dead under a bed aboard the Carnival Horizon naked and covered in life jackets. But while investigators tried to figure out what happened in that cabin, the deeper question was already forming: How did every adult in her world fail her long before that cruise left Miami? Because while Anna was trying to grow up, the adults around her lived by their own motto:Conflict Rules Everything Around Me — C.R.E.A.M., get the tension. Toxic bad blood, ya'll.  And once you understand the years of instability swirling around Anna: the custody fights, the restraining orders, the rotating step-parents, the teenage babysitter who became her stepmom, the new stepbrother later named as a suspect... you start to see how the stage was set for a tragedy that should never have happened. Want access to our first 45 episodes? Grab em here! We've made them available for free to anyone who signs up! Remember, these episodes were recorded when we had no idea what we were doing, so just keep that in mind. The audio isn't the quality we would want to put out now, but the cases are on point! Visit killerqueens.link/og to download and binge all the archived episodes today! Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: Smalls: Smalls New Year's Special - get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to Smalls.com/QUEENS.  SelectQuote: Save more than 50% on term life insurance at selectquote.com/QUEENS. © 2026 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the early hours of March 13, 1964, twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese returned home from work and parked her car in a lot near her Queens apartment, completely unaware that someone was following her. As she approached the door to her apartment building, Kitty's stalker ran up behind her and stabbed her in the back twice before being scared off by a neighbor who yelled from his window. Wounded, Kitty managed to get to the back of the building, but her attacker soon returned and brutally assaulted her. By the time an ambulance arrived an hour later, it was too late; Kitty Genovese died before she reached the hospital.Kitty's murder and the arrest of her killer, Winston Moseley, were quickly overshadowed by what were believed to be the facts of the attack, primarily the widely held belief that at least thirty-eight neighbors had seen the assault or heard Kitty's cries for help and did nothing. Despite there having been no evidence to support that belief, the narrative quickly became about urban apathy, with the death of a Queens bartender merely a footnote. The murder of Kitty Genovese is one of the most notorious violent crimes in modern American history—not because of the details or circumstances of the crime, but because of the legend and mythology that has built up around it.ReferencesCook, Kevin. 2014. Kitty Genovese: The Murder, the Bystanders, the Crime that Changed America. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.Gallo, Marcia M. 2014. "The Parable of Kitty Genovese, the New York Times, and the Erasure of Lesbianism." Journal of the Hisotry of Sexuality 273.Gansberg, Martin. 1964. "37 who saw murder didn't call the police." New York Times, March 27: 1.New York Times. 1964. "Queens man seized in death of 2 women." New York Times, March 20: 21.Pearlman, Jeff. 2004. "'64 murder lives in heart of woman's 'friend'." Chicago Tribune, March 12: 4.Peltz, Jennifer. 2015. Kitty Genovese Killer Denied Parole in Notorious 1964 Case . November 17. Accessed January 9, 2026. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/kitty-genovese-killer-denied-parole-notorious-1964-stabbing-new-york-city/1274332/.Roberts, Sam. 2020. "Sophia Farrar dies at 92; belied indifference to Kitty Genovese." New York Times, September 10.Rosenthal, Abe. 1964. "Apathy is puzzle in queens killing." New York Times, March 28: 21. —. 1964. "Study of the Sickness called apathy." New York Times, May 3: 24.Simon, Scott. 2016. The Witness' Tells A Different Story About The Kitty Genovese Murder. May 28. Accessed January 9, 2026. https://www.npr.org/2016/05/28/479824705/-the-witness-tells-a-different-story-about-the-kitty-genovese-murder. Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.