Julio Torres survived the visa office and the art world. His first film skewers both
To apply for a work visa in the United States is to set out on a biblical odyssey through a glacial, bureaucratic process renowned for its voracious appetite for complex and expensive paperwork. About a dozen years ago, comedian Julio Torres began that process. And, to help make ends meet as he waited — there is a lot of waiting — Torres, who is from El Salvador, took just about any menial job he could find.
He served as a translator for parent-teacher conferences and worked as a personal assistant for busy professionals in New York City, where he still lives. At one point he interviewed for a magician's assistant position only to find out that his potential employer was not a magician but a saxophone player whose gimmick consisted of having a plastic phallus pop out of his instrument. "He had it in a case next to him and he didn't show it to me," says Torres of the penis sax, with some regret. He did not get the job.
One of his more demoralizing gigs consisted of hawking hair-salon packages on the street, approaching
