-Our next guest is an Emmy-nominated writer
and comedian you know from his work on shows like
"Saturday Night Live" and "Los Espookys."
His picture book "I Want To Be a Vase" is out June 7th.
Please welcome back to the show our friend Julio Torres.
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Julio, how are you?
-I'm good. How are you?
-I'm so happy you wrote this book.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-I don't want to miss anyone.
-You've described this as a coffee table book for kids,
which I think is a lovely -- a lovely -- a thing that kids --
Nobody has that for kids yet.
[ Laughter ]
-Yeah, like, sometimes I go to living rooms and, you know,
they have their coffee table books on, like, seashells
and a Madonna coffee table book,
but they don't have one of these.
-Yeah, this is great.
So, inanimate objects are the characters in the book.
You have a plunger, a vacuum cleaner.
And the plunger wants to be a vase.
What made you want to write a kids book
where the characters were objects?
-Well, I don't know. I wanted to find something unusual.
I didn't want it -- I didn't want to write a book about,
like, a little bear or like -- -Okay.
[ Laughter ]
-I don't know if you know. I just -- I just did that.
[ Laughter ]
-Which... Which is why -- like,
'cause the bear-book bar was set so high.
-Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [ Laughter ]
-So, I felt like, you know, pick -- pick your track.
-Yeah. -Yeah, build your own.
I'm not gonna have like, what, "Late Night with Julio Torres"?
No. You know what I mean? [ Laughter ]
-Exactly. I think why we're such nice friends is
we're on different -- we're on parallel tracks,
not the same track. -Yeah, yeah.
-It's really cool that you did that. Thank you.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
A friendship in TV makeup 90% of the time.
-Yeah, exactly. [ Laughter ]
I think you can all attest that we're friends
'cause you've seen most of our interactions.
[ Laughter ] -Exactly, yeah, yeah.
-But why did you choose to make a plunger your hero?
-Well, you know, I was trying to think of what
the scrappiest object would be,
and I was thinking about the hierarchy of objects.
And if you are a plunger,
it's safe to say you're at the bottom of the totem pole.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Because no one -- no one's happy to be using a plunger.
[ Laughter ]
Which is why most of them are so poorly designed, I feel like,
'cause everyone's just like... [ Laughter ]
No one's excited that they're gonna use a plunger.
-No one's looking at it while they're using it even.
-No, they avert their eyes. -You'd see the design flaws
more, but you're like, you're right.
-Imagine having a job where people were like...
[ Laughter ]
"Just get it over with."
-And then the villain is a vacuum cleaner.
I mean, as much as an object can be a villain.
But the vacuum cleaner sort of believes you should not
want to aspire to be a different object.
-Well, yeah.
I don't think that Vacuum is a villain so much
as Vacuum is trapped in a cage of Vacuum's own making.
[ Laughter ]
I don't -- I don't think that Vacuum is like,
"Oh, I'm gonna be villainous."
I think that Vacuum just, you know, watches a lot of Fox News.
[ Laughter ]
But, yeah, Vacuum doesn't like the idea that objects can be
whomever objects choose to be.
And again, I was thinking, it should be a vacuum
because it's like, if you are a vacuum --
if you're an object and you're a vacuum,
that is one of the most cutthroat object industries
there is because it's like, if you're a vacuum cleaner,
you're constantly worried you're gonna get replaced
'cause there's always a faster, better vacuum cleaner out there.
-Yeah. Right, if you let it slide just a little bit --
-If you let it slide just a little bit, you're out of there.
[ Laughter ]
It's sort of like a -- sort of like Wall Street people.
-Yeah. -Or like corporate people who
are, like, "Well, I wake up at 5:00
and go to Peloton and then I go to work, and if you don't
make as much money as you do, that's your problem."
[ Laughter ]
-That's a vacuum, yeah. -Yeah, that's a vacuum.
[ Laughter ]
It's very, like, okay, like, your life is all efficiency.
That's great for you.
[ Laughter ] But some of us want to be vases.
-Yeah. -Yeah.
-It really is a beautiful story.
I can't wait to read it to my kids.
I also want to congratulate you. I know you're very busy.
And I'm happy you did this because, you know, what you were
just talking about -- sometimes people are too busy
and they don't find other people to help them out,
but you just hired a social-media manager.
-Y-Y-Y-Yeah.
-Okay. [ Laughter ]
I guess they have been posting a fair amount on your socials
to let people know they -- -Right.
I -- I -- I'm giving her a chance.
-Okay. [ Laughter ]
-She's -- She's struggling a little bit, but yeah.
-Is her name Piralina Pina-Pina?
-No, her name is Pirulinpinpina.
-Okay. [ Laughter ]
Pirulin-- okay, Pirulinpinpina. Yes, and here she is.
This is a photo of herself she just posted.
[ Laughter ]
Can I read what she just said?
Again, I get why you're maybe a little frustrated with her.
She wrote, "Let's get this Monday right."
-It's not Monday. -Right.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah, so, right off the bat --
-So, like, the attention to detail already.
-Yeah. And also the hope that she wants to get it right,
and right away it's wrong. That's bad.
"Let's get this Monday right." Right off the bat, wrong.
"I am Pirulinpinpina.
Yes, and I manage socials for Julio currently.
In this post, you will find much product for you to consume.
Much love to little consumers. Be happy."
That's bad, yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Yeah.
She calls my "fans" "little consumers."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-Which there's a beautiful honesty about that, right?
'Cause it's like she's like --
-Yeah, they're just product, right?
-Let's not pretend that we don't live in a capitalist society
where art is product, right? -Yeah, yeah.
-No, it's like, "Oh, you wrote a -- you made product."
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-So, it must be nice because that allows you to maybe be
a little bit more artistic, knowing that she's going to
really drill down and try to sell your product.
-Well, the problem is then friends are like,
"Did you see what she just posted?
She should take it down." -Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's stressful. -And then I'm like,
"Girl, why are you commenting about war?"
[ Laughter ] "Take it down."
But yeah, she's very overwhelmed.
She's like this big, so I understand
why she would be overwhelmed.
-I mean, she does look like someone who's pretending
not to be overwhelmed, but you can -- I feel like
if you have a good eye for expression, you're like,
"Oh, she's over her head." -She's, like, always manic.
And, like, you'd think that, like,
"Oh, Julio's gonna be on 'Seth,' he has a book to promote,"
you'd think that she'd be here, but then she was like,
"Oh, my cousin's wedding, it happens to be that day."
[ Laughter ]
And, I'm like, "Okay," and then she just texted me saying,
"My bad, my cousin is already married."
[ Laughter ]
"Can I still come?" And I'm like, no. No. No, don't come.
-She forgot her cousin was married?
-She was like -- I think that tomorrow
she'll realize whose wedding it was.
-Oh, I see. So there was a wedding.
-I think there was "a" wedding.
I think she maybe, like --
She probably doesn't even know them.
-She just read a wedding announcement somewhere.
This is -- I'm sorry about this.
I'm so happy about the book,
and it's really, really nice to have you back on the show.
Thank you so much. -Thank you for having me.
-You guys, that's Julio Torres. "I Want To Be a Vase."
Here it is one more time. It's out June 7th.
We'll be right back with
a performance from "Six the Musical."