Like her latest solo theater piece Delejos (from afar), my conversation this week with Julie Piñero explores themes of grief, distance, Latinx identity, virtual reality, and music in a strikingly intimate way. Our conversation here dives deep into the loss that ultimately gave birth to this, her first solo show, but also into the seemingly disparate emotions of grief and gratitude that share space in her psyche as of late. I’m excited to get this episode to your ears, and can’t wait for you to hear! Jule Piñero is a performer and multimedia producer known best for producing podcasts like Common’s “Mind Power Mixtape” at Audible, documentary series “Crash the Party” at HuffPost and for performing standup and live music around Brooklyn. She was an on-camera correspondent for HuffPost, interviewing newsmakers like Lorena Bobbitt and Ilana Glazer. She was nominated for two Webby awards for producing the food travel series “Food/Groups” with James Beard Award winning host Dave Infante and “Really, Dough?!” with Lucali chef Marc Iocono, now streaming on Amazon Prime. She produced memoir-style podcasts for comedians Kate Willett (“Dirtbag Anthropology”) and Mo Welch (“Come Out, Come Out”): a project spotlighted at the iHeartRadio Awards. She’s a co-host of Stoked Comedy (with Kelly Bachman, Amber Rollo and Davidson Boswell) in Brooklyn and performed sketch comedy with Sofa Kingdom.  Get tickets for Delejos (from afar) here. This Thursday April 22 is the last performance! I’ll be there… will you? Follow Julie Piñero on Twitter, and Instagram.Photo of Julie Piñero by Damon Scheleur. This podcast is powered by my subscribers on Patreon who, in addition to the warm feeling they get from co-creating with me, get lots of sweet perks including bonus podcast episodes, free downloads, zines, and more! This week’s bonus podcast will be an extended conversation with Julie Piñero!  Learn more right here! If you’d like to check out my other work, order The Animal Book directly from me here and get a free download of the album!Here are some other places you can find the book.Find The Animal Album streaming and downloadable here.Here’s some more merch and music. Thinking of starting your own podcast? Do it! I’m a big fan of Blubrry for podcast distribution and you can get a month free by signing up for Blubrry Podcast Hosting here, or Blubrry Professional Statistics here. Use the code “mikeypod” with your order for your free month!