Hot Seat: Media Monday on 95.5 FM The Heat 🔥 S2:E35 | Pride Month, Millie Szmurlo, the Spring Woods Mystery & AI
This week’s Hot Seat: Media Monday brings together Pride Month, original music, local history, and a big-picture conversation about the future of artificial intelligence.
I start the show with Ace Morreale of the Oneida County Pride Alliance to talk about Pride Month events across Oneida County, including the Oneida County Pride Festival, Pride social events, Rainbow Prom, the Stonewall anniversary event, and why LGBTQIA+ visibility still matters.
One of the strongest lines from that conversation: “If you don’t use your voice, they’ll use your silence.”
We also welcome Millie Szmurlo as our musical guest. Millie performs original songs on ukulele, including “The Friends Song,” “The Crow,” and “Mr. Moneybags.” Her music brings humor, nature, social commentary, and a lot of heart into the studio.
Then we head into the Spring Woods in Westmoreland for a personal history mystery I’ve wanted to tell for a long time.
For generations, my family talked about the hidden spring somewhere in those woods — a spring once considered important enough that a spring house, hotel, and later academic institutions were connected to that land.
With Photojournalist and AI Content Producer Jim Hale, Associate Producer Lily Christopher, our friend photojournalist Brian Lazore, historian Victor Edick, and research from Sheila Hoffman, we searched the woods, compared old photos, studied the landscape — and finally found the spring.
In the final segment, I sit down with James Nason, who describes himself as a Scientist of Life, for a fascinating conversation about robotics, AI, androids, education, the singularity, and what rapid advances in technology could mean for jobs, medicine, and the future of human life.
This episode has Pride, music, mystery, history, robots, and one very real reminder that local stories can connect to much bigger questions.
Watch / listen here:
YouTube:
https://youtu.be/o3OVMLZ-TqE
TikTok:
https://shorturl.at/l7ISP
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ZQQ6lgLgcSab2JgHJCh3w
Apple Podcasts:
https://shorturl.at/X5NFy
iHeart:
https://shorturl.at/Av1Uz
More episodes:
UticaPhoenix.net/MediaMonday
Stream 95.5 FM The Heat:
955TheHeat.com
Production credits:
Hosted and produced by Ron Klopfanstein
Audio Engineer: Jonathan Brooks / DJ J Easy
Photojournalist and AI Content Producer: Jim Hale
Associate Producer: Lily Christopher
Entertainment Correspondent: Nabil Khan
