At the Podium with Patrick Huey

Send us Fan Mail She was In the Room Where it Happened In 2020, not long after graduating from Emory University, with her Poly Sci degree in hand, and after studying at the School for International Training in Geneva, Switzerland, Yissel Guerrero found herself not only with a courtside side seat to history, but she became a significant player in the epic drama that was unfolding on her home turf i...

Send us Fan Mail Designer. Creator. Trend-Setter. Leader. “We over-complicate things,” Noel Asmar of Noel Asmar Group of Companies says with a genuine smile during our conversation, “and it’s sometimes… just have some respect for people.” We were discussing her eponymously named design and clothing company leading the charge in creating work uniforms for non-binary people working in the spa indust...

Send us Fan Mail What Are You Really Looking For? Joe Hudson has lived the life of a modern-day Jack Kerouac, embracing a spontaneous life and ethos that mirrors the improvisational intricacies of Thelonious Monk. Coltrane. Or Miles Davis. Hudson lived in 26 places by the time he was 28 years old. Meditated in his room for 7 years. Lived in a van for a year. Studied religion and became a Hollywood...

Send us Fan Mail A Golden Voice “The ineffable gift that is gold” is how a colleague and critic once described Marnye Young’s voice and talent behind the microphone. High praise for Marnye who has grown her own narration company starting from scratch in 2018 to where she sits today having recorded well over 200 audio books, employing a team of nine and picking up fans and awards along the way. She...

Send us Fan Mail Ghosts and Wedding Dresses. Miss Havisham is one of Charles Dickens most complex and unforgettable characters in all of literature. When we meet her in his novel Great Expectations , she has literally become mummified in her tattered wedding dress and in her love for the man who left her jilted at the marriage altar. The clocks in her decaying mansion stopped to the exact moment w...

Send us Fan Mail Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Millions of little children have said this prayer on their knees at bedtime. Eyes closed. Fingers and palms gently intertwined under their chins. Parents lovingly watching from a slight distance. Perhaps allowing the child her first taste of intellectual and spiritual freedom. A melancholic freedom. A lamentation, because you are talking to the Lord abou...

Send us Fan Mail The Open Road Sings a Lullaby Zelda is a woman on the precipice of the next chapter of her life. When we sat down to speak in the twilight of the Summer of 2022 – the summer of student loan forgiveness (kind of), the summer of Mar Lago, the summer of soaring record temperatures in the Unites States – Zelda was in a reflective state as she was preparing to head off to start her fre...

Send us Fan Mail His Mother’s Eyes In the production notes for his play The Glass Menagerie , Tennessee Williams describes the play as a “memory play… presented with unusual freedom from convention.”  He goes into further detail, “Because of its considerably delicate or tenuous material, atmospheric touches and subtleties of direction play a particularly important part. Expressionism and all other...

Send us Fan Mail Pinocchio. The Blue Fairy. And the Yellow Motorcycle. Pinocchio had only one wish. To be a real boy. And the Blue Fairy who brings him to life will grant him that wish if he can prove to be a brave, truthful, and selfless person. As with all things in life, our goals often come with conditions, and they can easily get entangled in the twists and jumbles of our circumstances and ou...

Send us Fan Mail Change Comes as a Young Girl with Dance in her Heart   Gennean Scott is the Chief Diversity Officer for the Broadway League . She is the guardian of and the advocate for ensuring that the people and institutions behind the shimmering lights of Broadway shows are engaged in the same question that presently animates the conversations in our politics, in our schools and in our neighb...

Send us Fan Mail Fight the Powers That Be! In my discussion with Dr. Devin Singh, an Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, we locate our conversation at the epicenter of history, religion, politics, and economics and go for it. More than the nonsensical political debates of today that have become an exercise in the polemics of the absurd, we take a deep dive into the underpinnings...

Send us Fan Mail A Mosaic of Courage I remember September 11, 2001, like it was yesterday. I remember exactly where I was when I turned on the television to watch the morning news anchors on ABC7 in Manhattan. They were telling us that we were indeed under a terrorist attack and that we should get out of Manhattan if we could. Things were happening so rapidly that even as the news anchors issued t...

Send us Fan Mail For All We Know Since American Idol premiered in 2002 and crowned Kelly Clarkson its first winner, the show has been an unstoppable juggernaut – Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey’s sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious diva battles notwithstanding. Unlike many talent-shows, Idol’s contestants and winners have gone on to have major careers beyond the scope of its cameras – Carrie Un...

Send us Fan Mail The World is Filled with Lightning In 2019, The New York Times asked Attica Locke what moved her most in a work of literature. Attica’s response came back with one word: Wisdom. The New York Times rightly knew who to go to for this question. Attica is a five-time published, New York Times bestselling author. If you’ve yet to read one of her crime and suspense filled novels but hav...

Send us Fan Mail From the Jazz Age to Citizen Artist Music has been at the forefront of social movements in America. Where politicians dared not go, music often led the way. Its rhythms, melodies and lyrics moving past peoples’ eyes and into their hearts. With their eyes people can see race, gender, and even social class. With the sound of music, as the lyric implies, the hills come alive. Jazz is...

Send us Fan Mail The Caped Crusaders My favorite moving growing up was Superman II . The Christopher Reeve Superman II . I had every word memorized and I had the collector’s edition magazine that the studio released. I liked Reeve’s Superman of the 1980s. He wasn’t an overly chiseled, mutant body builder. His images hadn’t been retouched within an inch of their lives. He was just a slightly higher...

Send us Fan Mail The Doubting Thomases Dr. Johnny Parker is an accomplished professional. He holds a MA in Psychology and a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership. He has been an executive coach for the NBA, NFL, and PGA. He is a multiple times published author. Personally, he has been married to the same woman for over 30 years. They have three sons. It’s a beautiful story. One that almost didn’t happ...

Send us Fan Mail Threading the Needle Regina Bain was the first guest that I interviewed for Season One of At the Podium . She was the logical choice to step to the mic for that first episode. In my mind Regina was and remains the embodiment of the underlying ethos of the show: there is magic and richness to be found in taking a leap of faith into the unknown and saying “yes” to life’s unexpected...

Send us Fan Mail The Zero Moment of Truth The Zero Moment of Truth describes a consumer phenomenon that has emerged with the age of hyperconnectivity and the internet. Today’s consumer decides whether they will buy a product before they ever walk into a store or go online to make that purchase. They research it on Google. They “Google it.” What they see there on the pages and pages of information,...

Send us Fan Mail The Magnificat There are no real adjectives to describe David Ambroz’s life as a child. Words like filthy, abused, and dejected sanitize the experience of what life must have been like for a seven-year-old David, precariously washing his clothes in the bathroom sink of a Wendy’s. His young eyes anxiously scanning the locked door, hoping that no one will barge in and interrupt his...

Send us Fan Mail We recorded the first episode of “At the Podium with Patrick Huey” in February 2021. Regina Bain was our first guest. At that moment in time, the world was hunkered down because of another spike in Covid 19 thanks to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s Eve collapsing into one another. The country was still reeling from and digesting the act of revolution carried out at...

Send us Fan Mail If you can get close enough to Charlie Davies and look him in the face, you will see eyes that sparkle with the deep and profound brightness of love and gratitude. You will see a smile that has a slight mischievous quality to it. A smile that crinkles the sides of his soulful eyes. If you are fortunate enough to receive a hug from Charlie, you will not soon forget it. Charlie’s hu...

Send us Fan Mail In 2015 the Broadway musical Hamilton captured the imagination of the country. It did the impossible; it made history not only extremely cool, but relatable. By colorizing and diversifying the cast, the show’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda dropped all of us into the heart of the American story. Miranda, a Puerto Rican, man played Hamilton. The Schuyler Sisters were cast with actresse...

Send us Fan Mail Shahin Safai is the Founder and CEO of Royal Personal Training (RPT) , one of the premier private training facilities in Beverly Hills, CA. In a town like Beverly Hills where people are obsessed with looking good, being seen and crafting a perfect physical image, making it to the top of the fitness and wellness world is no small feat to achieve. You have to have a tenacity of spir...

Send us Fan Mail We don’t talk a lot about failure. It’s an uncomfortable topic for most people. It doesn’t meld with the current vibe of the times. Today we celebrate the wunderkinds who seemingly materialize out of the ether and suddenly penetrate the global consciousness. Greta Thunberg who at 15 years old gained notice for her blunt speaking style to politicians and presidents on the topic of...