“I’d love to see a world where there are no borders, and humans work together to have a good time and stop killing each other. That would be lovely. That’s my hope. And also floating robot heads – I want to be a floating robot head with lasers, that can still eat and have oral sex. Just floats over everything and if Nazis come back, shoots the Nazis with lasers…and eats donuts.”
“My name is Baruch Porras-Hernandez and I am a writer, performer, stand-up comedian, storyteller, Mexican immigrant – slash – host and curator.
I grew up in the Bay Area after immigrating here from Mexico when I was nine years old. I was born in Toluca, Mexico.”
“The new country and the brand new everything; that was the biggest shift. Having to learn a new language and realizing that the Thundercats and She-Ra were not Mexican. They were just dubbed, American cartoons – I felt betrayed.”
“My family, it’s one of the biggest things that keeps me here. My mother, father, and brother live here, so – I have lived in other cities, and I deeply love San Francisco, but I’ve been here, officially, ten years now. I grew up in the East Bay, actually, and I finally moved here in 2006, so, more than ten years now. So I think ten years is good. I’d love to live in Spain, Portugal, Mexico again, but my family’s here, so I can’t exactly be like ‘hey guys, thanks for crossing the border for me, now I’m bouncing!’ I don’t feel like I can do that.”
“I feel that what ignites my passion is usually, I have to be having fun. No matter what I’m tackling, if I’m not having a good time, I usually don’t really explore it that much. Which is why I feel a lot of folks don’t find my writing too serious, even though I do write about serious topics, I feel like I have to approach them in like a ‘am I’m having a good time’ kind of a way, even if it’s depressing. Yeah, I don’t really like to torture myself. If it’s going to be a smooth ride, I’m there. And food. I like food and sex a lot.”
“I’m like 90% ‘gay,’ 10% ‘queer,’ other percent sometimes bisexual. I kinda depends on what mood I’m in, but mostly gay. I like to say ‘I identify as queer’ because I have been bi in parts of my life – I might be a bisexual tomorrow. I’m sometimes attracted to certain women, but not like all women. I feel like me identifying as ‘queer’ is trying to make sense of that flow that I have felt at times in my life.”
“I think it’s been a huge deal and it’s been a huge part of my development as an artist to live in such a rich area where so much art is happening. It’s one of the reasons I stay, really, because there is a high volume of literary shows, a high volume of comedy shows. A lot of artists say you can’t really rise to the top here, which I believe, eventually people move, but this is one of the only cities that I’ve lived in where you can have the problem of ‘Oh, there’s like ten shows I want to go to, and they’re all different.’ Comedy shows, poetry shows, plays – there’s so much art happening here and it’s affordable. That’s been a big part of my development.
I feel people get annoyed with me, they’re like ‘Wait, you’re a comic?’ Yeah, I do stand-up comedy. ‘But you also write poetry?’ Yes. And they’re like ‘how did that happen?’ Because they’re so many avenues for that here and people aren’t handing out poetry gigs left and right, but there’s a thriving performance arts scene it isn’t one of those cities where you can only be good at one thing. There’s a huge performance arts scene, a huge poetry scene here, comedy scene – I like that – I think that has shaped me as an artist.”
“When I was in Mexico, I was watching She-Ra: Princess of Power, and there was an episode where she flies into space and moves the moon with her bare hands. And that, as a five year old, made me think I could write about anything and that there were really no rules. If a character can fly into space and move the moon with her hands – which to me was amazing – I felt ‘well, I can do anything.’”
Limited edition print available (alpha edition):
Giclée (Archival Inkjet) print w/ quotes hand-lettered on mat in silver pen.
1.25” Matte Black Frame, 2.5” Black Mat, Archival Hinge Mount, UV Glass.
21.4” x 10” (Framed: 28.9″ x 17″)
$1799
Click here for more information about limited edition prints.