The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Usefulness of Hippopotamus: A Humorous Chapbook for Trying Times by Vincent J. Tomeo

Episode Date: April 18, 2026

The Usefulness of Hippopotamus: A Humorous Chapbook for Trying Times by Vincent J. Tomeo https://www.amazon.com/Usefulness-Hippopotamus-Humorous-Chapbook-Trying/dp/1639886907 Vincentjosephtomeo.com I am staring at a blank piece of paper, wondering what to write. Where do I begin? My mind begins to wander—pleasant thoughts of Disney’s Fantasia dance in my head. The dancing hippopotamus comes to mind, and this made me laugh. The result: I penned a poem on the hippopotamus from which a chapbook was born: The Usefulness of Hippopotamus: A Humorous Chapbook for Trying Times. One cannot imagine a world without humor. Without humor, the world will be dark, cold, and a sad place, tragically lacking joy, cheerfulness, and laughter. Humor is medicine. During rough times, humor will help lighten and lessen physical and mental anxiety. In challenging times, I chose humor. During the Pandemic, I had to deal with my bladder cancer. In my struggle not to get depressed or dwell in negativity, to find solace, contentment, and peace, I chose to seek out beauty and laugh. In search of happiness, the humor worked its charm, resulting in a treasure chest of joy. So, I wrote my chapbook, The Usefulness of Hippopotamus: A Humorous Chapbook for Trying Times and discovered humor even among the hippopotami! You can, too. Peace & flowers. Love & light. Vincent J. Tomeo, Author/Poet About the author BRIEF BIO VINCENT J. TOMEO IS A POET, AND WAS NOMINATED TWICE FOR PUSHCART PRIZE, ARCHIVIST, HISTORIAN, AND COMMUNITY ACTIVIST. VINCENT, IS PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, EVENING STREET REVIEW, COMSTOCK REVIEW, MID-AMERICA POETRY REVIEW, EDGZ, SPIRES, TIGER’S EYE, By LINE, MUDFISH, THE BLIND MAN’S RAINBOW, THE NEO VICTORIAN/COCHLEA, THE LATIN STAFF REVIEW, AND GRANDMOTHER EARTH (VII THRU XI), ETC. TO DATE, MR. TOMEO HAS 1,064 PUBLISHED POEMS/ESSAYS; THE WINNER OF 108 AWARDS; 149 PUBLIC READINGS. AUTHOR OF MY CEMETERY FRIENDS: A GARDEN OF ENCOUNTERS AT MOUNT SAINT MARY IN QUEENS, NEW YORK, AND THE USEFULNESS OF HIPPOPOTAMUS: A HUMOROUS CHAPBOOK FOR A TRYING TIMES.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Folks, boss here from the Xvoss Show.com. A lady's young one of the earliest things that makes official, welcome the big show. As always, the Chris Foss shows, the family loves you, but doesn't judge you, at least not as harshly as the rest of your family and all those folks that are out there. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily

reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his wonderful insights. He's the author of the newest book called The Usefulness of Hippopotamus, humorous chapbook for trying times. Out March 31st, 2023, Vincent J. Tomio joins us to the show. We're going to be talking to him about all his insights and goodness, all this stuff we're going to learn from him. He is a poet and was once nominated for a Pushcart Prize, archivist, historian, and community, activist. He is published in the New York Times, Evening Street Review, Comstock Review,

Mid-America Poetry Review, Edges, Spires, Tiger's Eye by Line, Mudfish, and the Blind Man's Rainbow, along with Neo-Victorian Cochlea, and the Latin Staff Review, and Grandmother Earth, etc. Today, he is... The New York Times. Even the New York Times. Even he has published 1,064 poems, essays, and he's the winner of 180-108 awards, 149 public readings, author of his cemetery friends, a garden of accounters at Mount St. Mary's in Queens, New York, and the usefulness of the hippopotamus. The aforementioned book we'll get into today. Welcome to show, Vincent. How are you? I'm good, sir. I woke up this morning. That's a healthy place to be.

Yes. Way to keep grounded. Give us the dot-coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? They could go to my blog, which is Vincent, Joseph Tomio, V-I-N-C-E-N-T, J-O-S-E-O-M-E-O-O-com, all the case. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your new book? Okay, let me, this is Morris. Marvelous Morris, Morris, the Hippo. Ah. All right. Now, a friend gave me this.

When I heard I had cancer, I decided that I was not going to get into a funk. I was going to think positive. My friend Flo Levine, Francis Levine, she very much into positive thinking. And so I, okay, I said, yeah, I'll use humor and laughter and being good cheers. And it's a form of medicine. It helps you go through the treatment because the treatment's worse than the disease. That's true. You know, and I believe they found that more people that are positive going through those things and don't give up tend to have better results, I think. I think there's data on that if I believe so. Going into four years in remission. Oh, congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. You know, I mean, even in the, even in the Nazi concentration camps, they found that many of the people who survived the concentration camps were the people who never gave up hope who constantly tried to,

to stay as positive they could be or believe that they were going to be freed and they, and they would fight to survive. And that there were many people that, you know, were overwhelmed and appropriately. I don't know that I would handle it well of the circumstances. They just gave up. And, you know, and sometimes your body gave out or your mind gave out or whatever. But, you know, it was hard to maintain. But still, it was kind of interesting that hope and being positive is a thing that

It kind of keeps us going alive. Once you kind of lose that, you kind of tend to dwindle. Even like senior citizens, if they don't keep busy and keep working on something for the future, they tend to dive off really fast after retirement. You have to have hope. And if you don't have hope, then you might tend to give up. No, I never give up. I persevere.

And humor has helped me. I remember I was in the cancer treatment, which is really rough. you know, and they perform that cystoscope, which is not very pleasant. Nurse Poe, she said to me, you know, you're a poet. Why don't you just scream out one of your poems, you know, as we do the procedure? Really? They have to inject tuberculosis into your bladder and you have to rotate for two hours. Oh, wow.

And all that stuff. And you can't hold it because it's like drinking 40 beers. Jesus. But she said to me, listen, if you want to live, you have to do this. I want to live. So she said, okay, you're a poet, you're a writer, you, you know, you performed all over the world. Why don't you just scream out one of your poems as we do the procedure? And I did.

And you know something? By the time I was finished, the procedure was over. So she helped me get through. And thank you, Nurse Po. Thank you to all those wonderful nurses and healthcare people. So tell us about this journey when I'm writing the book. I mean, you were accomplished a poet before this, from what I understand, and then you decide to write the book. Tell us about what's inside the book, and how does the role of this hippopotamus play out?

I refused to get into a funk. So I said, let me think of something that's going to make me laugh, you know, and I thought of Fantasia and the dancing hippopotamus in the tutus and the ballet slippers. And then I wrote a poem about a dancing hippo. and that evolved into my book, the usefulness of hippopotamus. And it really helped me get through the treatment, and it was a joy. And I wrote a book, which I hope will help other people, because we all go through a crisis, and it's how we deal with that crisis that makes all the difference. If somebody could pick up my book and read it and chuckle and laugh and forget about the trauma

that they have to go through for a brief time, maybe it'll help them get through their treatment. And if I could help someone else, I'm more than happy to because that's what it's all about. There were strangers who helped me, especially in medical profession. And I owe so much to, you know, so many people, and I thank them. I'm glad you're paying it back and stuff. So the hippopotamus in the book was inspired by that hippopotamist it was given to you. And what does the usefulness of hippopotamus mean? What is, how do you frame that in the book?

I took a, I guess it's inconguous because when you think of a hippo, you think of a violent animal and a beast. But even a hippo has, serves the function. When he leaves the river or the lake, he creates a stream in which other animals could follow and drink. He provides a rest in place for birds, and birds feed off of him and eat the insects that are on him. And I just found that I laughed when I thought of the hippo in Fantasia. And so I wrote a book. I wrote a poem about a hippo. and I have a whole series of hippo poems.

So is that what the book is filled with, hippo poems? Oh, no, no, no. It's, I took an inanimate object and made them come alive. I try not to be obtuse. I was a teacher for 38 years. And I learned that, you know, we'll keep it short and simple. And hopefully whoever reads it can understand it. I'm not going to be obtuse.

I'm not going to be, you know, I could write professional poetry. And this is professional, but this is basically free verse. You know, I didn't do any ambiambic pentameter and any schemes. It's something that everybody could relate to in reading my book. And that's what I want for my friends, my audience, whatever. Tell me about your life. I see a lot of cool stuff on your walls, a lot of memorabilia and stuff, maybe some African sort of stuff. It's been the journey of your life.

When did you start doing it? I've traveled all over the world. I've been to 73 countries. And I have to say Africa is one of the most outstanding. To see the animals in their natural habitat, especially during their mating season or whatever season it is, such a gratifying thing. I mean to Africa five times.

I love it. I love the people. I love everything about it. Yeah, that's really the cradle of humanity, too. That's where we all start out as a species. Right. And, yeah, I mean, a lot of stuff that former history starts there. And you could go back many times to see different animals, you know,

whenever the season is, whether it's the Willoughby crossing the rivers by the thousand, or it's the lions mating, and then you'll know why they're called King of the Beast. There's so much in Africa. Africa is one of my favorite places. I also love Peru, Matsupichu. That was interesting. Paris is always Paris. Paris is always a good idea.

I love travel. I've been traveling as a teacher. I had a lot of opportunity to travel during the summer and during the winter and during recess time. And off I went. It's pretty wild stuff there. So you talk about these different examples of the book. Who's the book targeted? to what age group any age group if a teenager's anyone and anyone who because it's not it's not uptoe it's

a free verse and blank verse and it's easy to understand because i took an adamant object that made them come alive in a fantasy everything that anything and everything that people can relate to they're familiar with it you know i mean look i like metaphysical poetry i like john don't one, I like Alexander Pope, I like all these great poets, but this is not that. This is more of a, I guess, a psychological treatise

on how to deal with a crisis and how to get through that crisis. One of the things you're talking about in the book is, without humor, the world would be a dark, cold, sad place, tragedy, tragically lacking joy, cheerfulness and laughter. Why is that important? Why do you feel

that way? because, you know, let's say you walk into a bank or you walk in a store and the teller smiles. It's like the sun shining. It changes the whole, you know, the attitude, the whole experience. If they're grouchy and they carry a cloud on their face, oh, if you say, oh, God, it's going to rain. And, you know, I chose to be, you know, I chose to be, you know, you could choose to be happy and that's what i choose to be happy and cheerful in spite of you know tragedies we all have tragedies but it's how we you know faced them i remember when my

my brother died i was so broken heart i went to the ocean and i screamed and i screamed i went in the water and i swam and it came out i said okay now i'm going to make him live I'm going to, you know, write about him. I'm going to start a scholarship in his name. I'm going to, you know, as Abraham Lincoln said, writing is the ability to communicate from the grave to the yet unborn. And in that regard, I feel strong in my writing. I write essays, I write poems, I write short stories,

whatever clicks, and whenever it clicks, I always try to carry a pad and a pencil or pen. army because I never know when you know a thought may come and if I don't write it down I may I may lose it forever yeah it's wonderfully to share that you've written over 160 something poems I think it was that I read no 1,148 pieces of literature not only poems short stories essays you know I get published in a local magazine Juniperberry magazine and I I just love writing. It's an escape for me.

It's my way of communicating with the whole world. And I have fun doing it. What got you start on that? When did you write your first poem? Do you have any influences? Well, what happened was in 19... I have multiple sclerosis. I have the remittent relapsing kind.

Okay. In 1998, I had an exacerbation of MS in which I lost my sight from optic neuritis MS. And I was enraged, being blind, I couldn't deal with it. And my whole personality changed, the pleasant pleasing personality turned into a monster.

I just couldn't deal with it. My mother said, you know, you have to go into therapy because people don't want to be around you when you like this. And she was right. So I went into poetry therapy for the blind, in which you recorded your poems into

a recorder and you played them back in a group and they discussed it and that helped me get through that and you know blindness taught me how to see and afterwards I continued writing you know it was it was just the things I never thought you know existed and then I got my sight back I looked everywhere and I tried to capture a mood or write about everything I saw it's glad that you share that You probably touch a lot of people, motivate a lot of people, influence a lot of people, and everything else with your poetry. Why do you think poetry is still, I think we had a poem on last week or earlier this week. Why do you think poetry is still a format that people are drawn to, people enjoy? I think we were talking a couple days ago with another person about poetry and some of these typewriter poets that they make custom poetry for you.

We've got a few on the show. they'll sometimes work a corner and write custom poets poems for people. Why do you think poetry is so important and people find the value in it? I think for me, it's like the ringing of a bell. And the clang of the bell stays with you after the initial ringing. So in that regard, it's music. It's fun. I remember as, you know, little children love poems because it rhymes.

You know, it sings to them. Yeah. And I think what is adulthood but wishing to add less. Yeah, wishing to get back to. And I do that in my poetry. Yeah, the imagination. Yeah, I mean, poetry, you know, on its face appears simple because it's, you know, just lines in a stanza.

But it also is complex. and being able to tell a story and communicate in a very small and very rigid format. Definitely. Do I have that assumption, right? No, and you can say a lot in a poem, and you could get away with it, too. Yeah. And it's fun. Yeah.

And you're communicating with the whole world. Yeah. And people, you know, people identify. I used to love when I was a kid. I got into short stories and poetry, Robert Frost and things like that. And, yeah, all those things. and there's a really cool format to it, you know, where it's very succinct, like even a short story. You've got to make it very succinct, but somehow you still have to develop the characters,

flesh it out, and I've been playing with that a little bit and possibly doing a fiction book. And it's a lot more complex than you think it is to make things that succinct and simple. You know, everyone has a story. In fact, life is made up of many stories. Tell your story. Yeah. The story is a story about a story. and another story.

So you have a lot to say. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's what we do on the show. Life is the fabric of, as a collection of fabric of stories of your life. The fabric of your life. I think that's what I'm trying to say. And, yeah, we wouldn't be anybody

if we didn't have our stories, good, bad, and ugly. You know, these are things we learn from, the things we survive, the cathartic moments. And by sharing them with other people, we help other people, maybe struggling with the same things to find a blueprint for the way out. I have poems that are funny.

I have poems that are that are not funny. I have poems that I remember when I went to Auschwitz and Bergenhower. And I saw that. I thought I was like that. I thought I could. I thought my knees would cave. Cave.

It would just touch me. And especially to see the ovens was just, I said, how come people do such a horrible thing? And when I went to Cambodia and I walked in the killing fields. Oh, wow. And I saw, they had this monument and nothing but skulls. Yeah.

Sculls. They were just like, Bull Pot was a monster. He was a Hitler. Yeah. It was a horror. Yeah. You know, we don't tend to think of that part of the world, but they too had their Holocaust. Yeah.

That was just a, that's another thing that stood with me. I, you know, I, being a historian, and I travel, I walked over the bridge over River Choir. Oh, really? Yes, I did. I went to Versailles. I went to Normandy, and I marveled at the walls. And I said, how did they climb those walls?

Yeah. A Nazi machine gun nest on top, mowing them down. But yet they good triumphed over evil. And they were evil. And so that was very touching to me. I traveled, as I said, as a teacher, but I wanted to see history. I wanted to go to the places I read about. And I did.

And, you know, it was, how shall I say, history in the raw. You know, it was, reading a book is one thing, but actually walking on the killing field and seeing all those skulls and all of that, it's just absolutely I don't know if the word is horrific, but it's also stunning and shocking and that man or the human beings could be

so cruel to each other. It's just horrible. Absolutely horrible. And it's still going on. Yeah. The one thing man can't learn from his history is that man never learns from his history. And thereby we go

round to round. He's making the same mistake over and over again. So now let's talk about your other book that you have called My Cemetery Friends. Tell us about that. Okay. My Cemetery Friends, I've been walking through this. I live in Flushing Queens, which is a heavily populated urban area.

And I'm going to close it to it here. As I said, I live in Flushing Queens, which is a heavily populated urban area. And you can't walk. because there's too many people. I've decided to get in my car, and I drive to the local cemetery, which is St. Mary's, and this is one of the mausoleum,

and I walked there. And during the pandemic, I could take my mask off because the dead aren't going to kill me. Oh, that's true. And I find peace and solace, and it's a garden. And I met people,

and this is about the people I met in the cemetery, who became my friends. Father Zanin, the first time I walked to the cemetery, it was about 35 years ago, maybe more. I saw a priest burying someone in a casket. Nobody was there, and it was drizzling. It would have rain. So I stopped. So Father Zanan, he said, you know, he said to me, are your family?

I said, no. He said, are your friends? I said, no. He said, do you know this person? I said, no. He said, why did you stop? I said, because no one should be. buried all alone.

And that was during COVID where I think at first of COVID they were you couldn't even be around the burial because no one was sure what was going on. Yeah, this wasn't during COVID. Oh, okay. COVID was slain and just a person. This was just, you know,

35 years ago. Anyway, so he said to me, what brings you here? And I said, I walk here all the time. He says to me, my mom's buried here, my family, your members, blah, blah, blah. So he says to me, it's raining. He says, let me walk with you to your mother's grave and bless her. Oh, that's wonderful.

Oh, okay. He walks to my mother's grave in the rain, and he blessed her. This whole thing. And then he says to me, you know, thank you and blah, blah, blah. And we became friends. I knew him over 35 years.

In fact, it was Father Zanin, who came to a couple of my poetry readings. He said to me, Mr. Tomio, can I call you Vincent? Yes, I said, of course. He said, you know, your poetry is good, but you got to show feelings. You're too hyper-correct. Let it out.

Scream, cry, do whatever you have to, but show the feelings. And he was right. And from that point on, it took off. That is awesome. Yeah. That is awesome. Yeah, he was a good guy. And by the way, he was not only a priest.

He was in, his story is remarkable too. He was in World War II and the Korean War. He was in the Battle of Chosan. And he prayed that if he didn't freeze to death and he survived, he would devote his life to Christ. And of course, he survived and he became a priest. So he was a really interesting guy. He fought in two wars, World War II and World War and the Korean War. Yeah.

So you never know. You just never know. I mean, you know, this is the reason to be open to life and to listen and look around and be grateful and be grateful. and be grounded is you can you can experience things like this but if you're kind of you know on your own private Idaho and you know focus on your own selfishness and stuff like that you tend to miss some of these nuances of life you know I was a teacher and I you know as I said gave me purpose yeah it's just so good to me too yeah I remember I was at the dog park yesterday and I've taken a lot of grown great photos by looking up and you know I'm sometimes I'm

tromp around city centers, taking photos of stuff at the ground level. And I'll remember, hey, look up, get a different perspective. And I'll find gold just up in the air, you know, up in the air, you know, tall buildings that look really cool. And I've got so great photos from that. And then yesterday I was at dog park. I was like, God, this kind of sucks. All I have is like dogs to shoot and some tree. I don't really have anything to take a photograph of. And I looked up and there was one of those, there were two planes that were flying through the air, almost, I mean, they looked like they were close to each other,

and probably differences apart and distance, but they were together in the frame, and one was, you know, they had those trails of smoke or clouds, steam, whatever, that are behind them, and they always just flying along, you can see it really well, and there was just kind of this beautiful cloud-setting sunset,

and so it made for a great picture, and it's really hard to capture that with one plane, but two planes being the thing. And, you know, the key was, I had to change my perspective and look up. And, you know, instead of going, oh, shit, there's nothing I can really see here that I want to shoot, I had to look up.

And so having different perspectives helps. Always look up. And about the dogs, I love dogs. Unfortunately, I can't, I can't have any in this apartment in my condo in this building. My grandmother, she was a little eccentric. She had five dogs. And Joe's used to say, you know, when I die, I'm going to come back as a dog. I probably will be at this pace.

When grandma died, I was about nine years old. A dog came to our door and started scratching. And my mother opened the door and said, shoe, shoe, shoe. And I said, ma, grandma always said she's coming back as a dog. Oh. We kept the dog. We named the grandma. Did you?

Really? That's a true story. Wild. The wonderful stories there. So as we go out, anything more we need to know about you, what you're doing, maybe any upcoming works that you're working on or events that you're having? I'll just tell you my mantra is be silly, be kind, and laugh often. And I'll keep on keeping on with my writing.

I hope to maybe one day put all my work together because I have about 300 or 3,000 pieces of literature all over the place and maybe put them together into an anthology, the collective works of Vincent Joseph Tomio. And, yeah, I remember when I was teaching one of my students, says, how do you write a poem or how do you write this? I said, you could, you know, go with your feelings, who could publishes feelings and write what you know and fantasize a little bit,

making an adamant object come alive. Like my wipples. making an adamant thing come alive as we go out give people a final pitch out give us your dot com so they can follow up with you etc etc okay Vincent Joseph Tomio that's V-I-N-C-E-N-T-E-N-C-E-N-T-O-S-E-O-M-E-O-O-L-O-L-A-Case that's my blog and you'll see some of my readings and yeah thank you very much for coming on inspiring us, Vincent. Thank you. Being good health, and it was a joy.

Thank you. It was a joy to have you, sir. And thank you for the inspiration and great poetry. Thanks, Your Honest for tuning in. Order up his book wherever fine books are sold. You can find it there on the interwebs or a link on the Chris Foss show. The usefulness of hippopotamus, a humorous chapbook for trying times.

Thanks for a minus for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortresschus Christchristch, LinkedIn.com, fortuneus to Christmust, YouTube.com, fortunate's Christophos, Facebook. com, Fortunas, Christophos. Be good to each other. Stay safe.

We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts.

Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. All right, Vincent.