Other Voices, Other Geniuses: Felipe Torres Medina
Whose name is also Carlos
Felipe is one of my best and dearest friends with whom I maintain a playful animosity. He hates it when I call him his legal first name (Carlos) but also when I call him the nickname I invented to annoy him (Papi), so, kind of a diva! His wife is a literal angel because men get everything.
He bullied me into letting him advertise his upcoming book on this newsletter, and when I asked for “2-3 sentences” about it just so my readers would have context, he sent me this:
A hilarious and satirically accurate introduction to the United States immigration system from comedian and writer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Felipe Torres Medina. In this laugh-out-loud book, you will be taken down a multitude of possible immigration stories that range from the kafkaesquely silly to an uproarious good time. Some of them are real things that happened to Felipe—like discovering in an immigration interview that he shares a name with several criminals—and some of them are totally invented and will make you question your sanity.
Link for personalized signed copies: https://rainydaybooks.com/book/9781419776397s
Brag much?
But yeah, buy his book. Here’s more about him…
Other Voices, Other Geniuses: Felipe Medina
What song are you especially into currently?
I listen to a lot of soundtracks and instrumental music when I'm writing because if I listen to music in English I get distracted and if I listen to music in Spanish, I get double distracted because my brain starts to work in both languages. That said, I've probably listened to “NUEVAYoL” by Bad Bunny and “Pravda” by Vampire Weekend 15 times each in the past 3 days.
What is your greatest pet peeve?
Not sure if this counts as a pet peeve but I absolutely HATE it when people bring fried food on the plane. We are already going to have to spend 2-5 hours on this giant metal tube, I really do not need to endure the waft of nuggets I CAN'T TRY! What I'm saying is, if you're gonna bring fried food on a plane, you should have to share.
How do you like to waste time?
Honestly, TikTok and Reels, but also like most nerdy, straight men in their 30s, I enjoy a videogame with some sort of map. Civilization or Crusader Kings or Victoria are a surefire way to make me completely waste 5 hours.
When I'm at work, I also spend a lot of time reading articles about people I just cannot relate to or understand like this one about people so terrible they got banned form an exclusive (in the old sense of the word) club at Disneyland or this one about this lady who moved to Spain and then realized how... Spain-y Spain was? Love it. I don't understand your mind. I love reading about your deranged mind.
What book is currently living by your toilet/bed and how are you liking it?
I'm reading Orlando by Virginia Woolf and I am liking it a lot because I am an ally and a feminist. The book that is literally by my bed is a book by a contemporary Colombian writer. I read like 20 pages and did not like it so I'm not gonna put it on blast!
Please put a selfie here:
this is one I took showing my mom I didn’t die biking to work.
What is your favorite outfit worn by any character in The Devil Wears Prada?
I mean, come on. I wish I could pull off a suit like this.
What do you consider the secret to your success?
Luck, hard work, perseverance, and 𝔱𝖍𝔢 𝔞𝖒𝔲𝖑𝔢𝖙. You really need a little bit of all of them at the same time, but you absolutely need 𝔱𝖍𝔢 𝔞𝖒𝔲𝖑𝔢𝖙. It shines so bright. And the voices inside.
All jokes aside, I think being an immigrant who had to constantly prove he had the "extraordinary ability" to stay in the country gave me a "well, I guess I just GOTTA do this" drive that has helped me my whole career. I just didn't have the luxury to stop writing or doing shows or making stuff. So, being an immigrant.
When have you been or felt the most FAMOUS in your life?
I mean, taking my mom to the Emmys and having her talk to Sarah Snook was pretty cool. Also, on our flight there from New York, Tony Shalhoub was in the first class cabin, but also someone BROUGHT SHAKE SHACK INTO THE FIRST CLASS CABIN AND IT BRINGS ME BACK TO QUESTION 2. THEY FEED YOU IN FIRST CLASS. NICE FOOD.
What is your current Lock Screen?
A photo of my beautiful wife wearing my glasses while having wine at a tapas place in the Plaça Reial in Barcelona. Yes, we are very sophisticated.
What is your most deeply held but illogical belief?
There is a correct hierarchy to M&M’s and it goes from worst to best-tasting: brown, yellow, red, green, and blue. I think my logic is that the more it looks like actual chocolate the less good it is.
How many tattoos do you have, and where on your body are they? If none, what would you get if you had to?
I am too neurotic to have tattoos (I would have immediate regrets not about what I got but that I didn’t get it like a centimeter to the right or left) but I guess I’d get something related to my favorite novel: One Hundred Years of Solitude.
What is your most irrational fear or anxiety?
I am constantly convinced I will get a crazy bacterial infection that will kill me.
What line or moment from Mad Men do you think about the most?
I’ve seen only like 1 season of Mad Men, but I know it from the memes. I like when the handsome ad man says “that’s what the money is for!” But also I don’t because I worked in ad and let me tell ya, the money is not that good.
What is the coolest object in your apartment/house/domicile?
George Saunders wrote me a letter of recommendation for my artist visa saying very nice things about my writing and I framed it over my desk.
Who or what is your most problematic fave?
Unfortunately I watched a lot of Woody Allen in my youth and while I haven’t seen his stuff in a while, I still very much like Midnight in Paris.
What is the name of your most active group chat and what do you typically message about?
We have a chat with my immediate family (my mom, my stepdad, my sister, and my wife) called 5 ❤️ (my mom named it) and we mostly talk about my dog who is old and needs surgery these days.
Please recommend a product. Any product.
Every year for the holidays, one of our head writers gives us a bucket full of dark chocolate-covered pretzels from a brand called Asher's. I never think of them until the holidays. I don't even like chocolate pretzels that much, or pretzels in general, but those rule.
What did your childhood smell like?
The smell of my grandmother's apartment. (her perfume, Poison by Christian Dior. Yeah, my grandma is cooler than you.)
With an unlimited budget, what elective or cosmetic surgeries would you have done?
I think I have a deviated septum, so I'd start there. Then whatever surgery makes me look like Oscar Isaac.
How did you meet your best friend?
This one is boring: school! He transferred into my school in third grade, but we didn't really become best friends until like the eighth grade.
Who or what gives you the ick?
Caring about college sports. I'm not from here and will never understand that culture.
If you have a pet, put a picture here. If you don’t, a picture of your medicine cabinet. If you have more than one pet, pick the cutest:
this is my old dog that needs surgery.
What fictional universe would you choose to live in forever?
I was recently playing the Spider-Man video game on PS 5 and kept thinking about how awful it must be to live in the Marvel universe. Eric Adams is right in that universe, every day is 9/11 there. I think I would like to live in Middle Earth, but as a Hobbit. Just pastoral revelry, ale, and pipe weed. And second breakfast.
How did you meet the person to whom you lost your virginity?
My family and I were at a school festival? carnival? social event? fair? at my cousin's all-girls school. A guy I didn't dislike, but whom I wouldn't call a FRIEND, from my grade (I went to an all-boys school) came up to me and was like: "wanna hang?" We kinda walked around the school like aimless teens are wont to do. There were two girls kinda hanging out standing in this one spot. We'd done about three laps of the school, and we passed them about three times. They were always in the same spot. After the third time this guy whispered to me "whoa, that girl is so pretty," I got fed up and went up to them. I said to the girl: "Hey, that guy wants to talk to you." And then I left to hang with my family.
I think within a year of that we were dating. I did think she was pretty that day I met her, but we didn't start flirting until much later. We dated for seven years on and off and she was bad at being a girlfriend to me and cheated on me REPEATEDLY :)
Thoughts on God?
Enough "coincidences" have happened to me to tell me that they must exist in some way. I assume they are amused by the attempts of understanding them that we have. As a person who's culturally Catholic, I think they would enjoy the movie Conclave.
How is a raven like a writing desk?
Goths tend to love them both.