Kelsey Cook on diversifying your income streams, touring, branding, and breaking into New York

[Music] welcome to its show business today we have comedian kelsey cook on the show super funny shot her special during quarantine was on the tonight show professional foosball player what else do you want you're gonna love the episode i loved it thank you for supporting and here it is i did lose a pair already oh did you really yeah see that's what i'm talking about like they're so expensive to be that small and lose them and it's weird because i lost just the pods and i had this sad case that was just empty and you're just like oh you're retracing your steps and accusing people and just to remind you of your mistake yeah um you can't give me like 20 more seconds i swear to god this is okay i thought you're going to say a minute okay that's fine i think i lost my net i took that leslie khan acting class oh they have these like couches popular one for comics yeah these couches where you just sit and like everything falls out of your pockets into the into the cushions which is how they pay the rent basically just have a little troll that goes through yeah yeah i got one left pod on this couch okay almost there we got one last one to pull free jesus [ __ ] christ um how how have you been how has quarantine been for you uh it's been pretty good i've been like doing the best i can you know i guess trying to stay healthy i at first i was just you know binge eating everything and then after a while i was like all right i gotta start working out so right i started doing everyone's favorite workout from 2006 the p90x oh [ __ ] yeah um it works does it work it works really good yeah yes i got it um freedom i never did p90x but do you remember seeing infomercials for hip hop abs with shaun t oh yeah that i wore those dvds out like they i don't think they could even play now if they wanted to because me and shaun t were real tight for a few years there real tight did you like did it work is it what what about it is hip-hop just the dance or the music it totally works i mean it's so it looks so caucasian because they're trying to incorporate hip-hop moves with ab workouts and it's just like those two things don't there's no way that makes you look cool he was all about the standing ab like that you didn't have to get on the floor so it was a lot of just standing and like humping the air it was i mean you had to have all of your curtains closed to do it in your home it was horrifying nobody if any if there had been like some sort of recording device watching me do those i i mean i would just end my life because i couldn't come back from that crazy there's a there's an echo is that do you hear that no did that happen right when i put my um headphones in no are you are you into what kind of room are you in oh you mean like there's an echo in here um it's pretty echoey [ __ ] maybe i can move to let me try moving to my bedroom and closing the door so it'll be smaller um one second let's see oh nice view hey where are you there's snow i know i'm in spokane right now is that your hometown yeah that's my hometown oh that's much better already yeah oh really okay good good good good um i'm from vancouver so i'm a pacific northwesterner too are you really yeah oh i didn't realize that um vancouver bc or vancouver washington bc come on bc okay washington sometimes i tell you sometimes i've asked that question and people have said washington i just you know i don't know um that's really cool how uh anyone from vancouver washington just says seattle to be cool that's a good place nobody wants to admit they're from there yeah um let me open these really quick this is just i'm starting a new podcast it's called getting ready for a podcast with kelsey cook where i break all my furniture [ __ ] sorry it's okay this is fine okay let's let's do it does this sound better to you oh it's way better yeah another white wall perfect i know i know okay um cool got this good looking great sounding great i love it okay okay well kelsey thank you for doing the podcast thank you for having me are you gonna include everything that happened oh absolutely oh god please please no um so you're in spokane right now or is it spokane or spokane spokane i can't believe you're from victoria or i'm sorry from vancouver and you don't know how to pronounce spokane no one goes to spokane [Laughter] yeah that's true but yeah spokane spokane well spoke i'm sure some people say spokane right oh totally people people say it uh wrong all the time it's so funny you know i'm here for the holidays and um i went into a grocery store a couple days ago and like these are the songs that played within the 15 minutes i was in the grocery store started out with evanescence oh nice hit us with some three doors down uh i used to work for three years down what yeah um that album uh away from the sun i worked on i i don't know anything about you so i'm gonna have a lot of questions for you as well because that's that's like spokane's national anthem spokane's national yeah damn i did it again it's okay yeah um evanescence is like our state bird it's yeah it's a lot yeah yeah yeah i used to work on that kind of like jock [ __ ] rock in vancouver and so there was like this uh pacific northwest genesis of like nickelback three doors down and all this stuff that all came out of vancouver studios wow yeah did not know papa roach would that be in that group that's in the same i think they recorded they're more like l.a yeah yeah my friend actually lives next to he's like my my neighbor is the bass player from papa roach i was like okay cool oh [ __ ] so they always wonder what those people are doing now alien ant farm oh alien ant farm they were kind of like the last ones on the way out yeah um train was kind of in there too yep it's so funny it was like some there was an interesting article about it where they were saying that like male angst has been like eliminated from the phone like all this like male loneliness that used to come out in like songs like kurt cobain and then all these like rock groups is gone because they just like text away their loneliness or just go on tinder or something it was very interesting because there hasn't been like a big rock band to really like take over and there normally is like every five to ten years yeah you're so right uh yeah i was big big into incubus which i feel like is you know can get a little moody yeah especially when he takes off his shirt he's just a guy like with his shirt off and like a cool one song he's from calabasas i know yeah oh my god he was my he was my number one celebrity crush for a while he's like a little too hippy-dippy for me now but like animali music video days yeah he looked like the guy what's the guy uh from the doors jim like a new jim morrison yeah definitely definitely so yeah you must be like a pretty uh well-received local at the spokane comedy club it's okay i can see your mouth like as it's about to hit the second half of the world i speak french so maybe that's why blame it on the french all right i speak french too oh wow that was my i minored in it in college and my mom was my high school french teacher so it's like been in my life but i've forgotten how to speak a lot of it but she your mom taught at the high school you went to yep yeah she was my high school teacher wow there's another piece of comedian oh so many so many yeah i feel like my upbringing and weird family was like enough to make me a comedian but like not enough to put me in porn so it was like it was the right amount of issues you know it was like right in that sweet spot yeah a little bit more alcohol on drugs and sorry yeah yeah yeah totally and then then we would have been there yeah and the foosball i was reading about you and your foosball champ yeah yeah my um my family and i uh well my parents met playing in a professional foosball tournament nice um so yeah i literally like i wouldn't exist if it weren't for foosball um and then uh i've been playing my whole life there's pictures of me playing when i'm like two years old standing on a stool so that i could be tall enough to see the top of the table and then yeah just still try to go to tournaments um as often as i can with comedy but obviously with covid i mean it's beautiful fusel tournaments are so gross even without coveting no one's watching those rods no that's like ground zero i mean it's just the worst yeah yeah i was watching the clip with you and brian regan playing uh it seemed like fun because you guys were having fun but it's it's hard to follow via video because it's yeah it's not like a video oriented sport they're like this is for us only like it doesn't go out to the world it's for these two people that was harder in vegas because when i played brian reagan we went and set up a separate shoot there that was outside of our usual studio they've done a pretty good job in the studio of getting the camera set up but when you go to an actual tournament they have a production crew there that knows exactly what they're doing and you can actually see pretty well but at a higher level you're people are hitting the foosball so hard yeah so you can't even see it yeah you'd so exactly it's it's mostly for the two people playing do you like they like slow it down in halftime and they will do they'll do slow-mo we try to do more slow-mo on risk fury i want to do more of it um going forward but yeah because pool translates but it's slow it's like the guy's already overweight he's walking around with the pool cue he's leaning over yeah not a lot of quick quick motions yeah i like all those like sad bar sports like they're just fun is pool like do you play pool as well or is that like no for foosball people they're just like we draw the line at pool oh my god like as if we think pool would be beneath us or something no not at all i love all bar sports that's my that's my [ __ ] that's my favorite thing is to go play all of those i mean some art darts love darts love ping pong um i'm okay at some and better at some than others but i mean foosball definitely has been the thing my whole life yeah i used to love leaving high school and going to the pool hall and like playing it's like with all these old greek guys just looking around there and i'm like i don't know why i'm here but this is great yeah spending my only ten dollars i didn't smoke whatever i basically did because everyone else is smoking yeah as soon as you're just inhaling at all yeah i don't miss those secondhand smoke days of every restaurant every place like this is nice oh yeah i'm sure there have been many years of my life shaved off just from being around foosball tournaments my whole life because it's just they have smoking sections now but it kind of like seeps in and yeah you're just around it is there like a foosball champ you look up to like someone here like that's my my idol yeah there i mean there are a handful of really amazing players um tony spreadman is the number one player in the world and he's it's just like watching a machine it's it's incredible um you can youtube him and see him yeah it's it's amazing um it's even a great name like spread them in that's like the perfect he does it full-time so he he has an rv and he just travels to all the biggest tournaments and wins at everything and that's how he makes his living that's awesome other thing i was looking up is you have uh makeup tutorials you've been putting makeup on a lot of our male comedian friends yeah yeah i i did a web series before rissa fury called stand-ups doing makeup um where i would bring usually male comedians on and we'd have 10 minutes to do each other's makeup and so i'd usually make them look beautiful you know put some fake eyelashes on that contouring and then contour a little highlight and then um you know they would make me look like a burn victim it was always a nightmare um but yeah it was that was really fun so that's on youtube too i believe there's 22 episodes that people can go watch so yeah it was a good time what should i do like i obviously i woke up with a zit right here and oh hey yeah the mask knee this year is is real and as a guy what i did is i woke up and i didn't see it i shaved right over it which is which is fun and uh so pretend i was going on tv today like what would i have to do what should i do to if you were going to be covering a blemish yeah so you would want to use a concealer that's a little bit thicker in consistency so it's going to stick to it better as opposed to a thinner more liquidy one and then you would want to set it with powder you could also use a color corrector before the concealer to neutralize the color so basically what i understood from that is nothing and i would need a professional to do to help i would not recommend you try and then go on tv because it would probably be noticeable it'd be like the wrong color it's like totally wrong skin color yeah yeah i was watching the one where you did mark norman's makeup and it was pretty funny oh my gosh i haven't i haven't gone back and watched those for a long time but yeah i had mark norman burke kreischer yeah i saw that one yeah yeah burt kaiser's daughters did our makeup for that one um jim norton so many so many great people so yeah it's it's on youtube stand-ups doing makeup yeah and with all these things you have going on with comedy and your podcasts and you know different web series like how do you manage your time during the day like do you have a set schedule are you very like i'm doing this thing today are you kind of loose like how do you approach that um i'm definitely very type a so i have a planner which i recommend to anybody is to get a physical planner for a long time i was just trying to use the calendar on my phone and it just became a disaster like i think having it all digitally at least for me is harder to keep track and it's there's something so satisfying about with pen and paper crossing things off as you get them done so i do it to the nth degree where i usually in a day will ride out like breakfast workout shower like i'll include the little things because hey it makes me feel good to cross it off but the sometimes the mistake i was running into was i thought i could get way more done in a day than i actually could because i wasn't including these other things that i had to do so it kind of gives me a more realistic idea of all right this is this is when i'm gonna do this and now i've gone even more like taipei nerd [ __ ] with the social media stuff where i have a little calendar of okay these are the things i want to like these are the sketches i want to make this month these are the days i think i'm gonna try and post them and that way it's not just like tumbling around in my in my dome yeah because it gets overwhelming just like the pressure of knowing you have to create and post and schedule and that's a really good tip to bring back the analog calendar it's really helpful it really at least for me it's helped a lot so i recommend it to you i used to use it in high school that was the last time i i used it like where you write your homework is on this day and you cross it off yeah what do you do now i use the phone and i probably should get off that because there's too much in the phone like yeah it's like and then you open up the phone and then you're doing something else back even by accident like it's designed to distract you i started reading up reading this book called breaking up with your phone which is like trying to like use your phone for less things and like telling you it's like the book version of that like uh netflix show where they tell you about like how bad social media is yeah the social dilemma social dilemma yeah there's a lot of the same people in there and stuff but it's it's really crazy like how it's just designed to suck your attention and the more you can kind of like work outside of your phone i just feel like i'm more productive to the point where like i bring like a pad like this on stage now and not my phone and like i try to just kind of segregate segregated away to like this very specific thing that takes photos yeah yeah totally i mean any any amount of time that you can take away from the phone even if it's as small as you working on your planner on paper as opposed to being in the calendar app i think is a win because otherwise i mean i it's hard to pull myself off of social media i don't know if you feel completely addicted but i feel completely addicted yeah because it's part of our careers and you feel like you're missing out and it's also how you get booked on things so people reach out to you through it so like at first when i saw that messenger in instagram i was like why would they put this and now you're like oh it's so genius because it's created like another point where you have to check it like yes yeah and we all have friends i know you know my number like why are we doing this right now why are we in messages yeah exactly and also you the more you try and grow your following the more you start to get into um paid out opportunities and stuff so then right you think well i have a financial responsibility that i should be on this app trying to grow my following because i can you know it can help me financially and it's it just sinks its teeth into every part of your life yeah and it's like the during quarantine there's an extra layer to it where you can say like oh well i'm in quarantine i should be doing even more of this you know yes oh my god yeah i've for sure leaned into that this year we leaned into the reels which are doing really well and they're really funny oh thank you yeah um it's it was a little at first i was like i don't want to i don't want to do this other thing i feel like a lot of people when reels came out as comics were like no yeah like i think we all just crossed our fingers and hoped that it was just gonna die so that it wouldn't happen i mean we're like don't feed the monster like maybe it just will die off and then we won't have this other thing we have to do but then i remember seeing some people's videos early on who got onto it early on and they were doing so well and then you're like [ __ ] okay so yeah then you start doing it and it does i mean it's that slot machine mentality that's so similar with tick tock where you get that reward and you want to just keep trying to get candy yeah yeah we both know maddie chimber and he was on it early and was really doing like fun videos that really you know blew up his following and uh and then i also i had zach noe towers on the previous episode and he's like i'm drawing the line i am not going to reels like that's it he just saw him poster reels oh he did i just saw him post one yesterday it was so funny wow he said that on the podcast recorded on sunday he's like i'm drawing the line and reels all right see this is how deep it is even when you you try to stop public declaration public decoration you can't it always gets me that like the format like this one's 16 by nine this one's 12 by seven and a half like can you make one like i can't even export the video to all things yes oh my god do you use um the in shot app ever to edit video that's what i use to put cap i just type captions onto my videos really in shot i use pretty shot like on the computer and it's painful i would check out in shot um it's it's about as easy as it gets beyond the fact that you're typing little letters and making your eyeballs bleed but um yeah on tick-tock you know they wanted that specific 9x16 format and i accidentally exported a video and i don't know something smaller and posted it and then afterwards like ah [ __ ] you know i did all this work and it's just like this is how we're spending our time now is stressing over the file size of it's like what has happened it's just crazy we're all like mini web developers now like we're all like everyone is like i'm not going into computer science they're like too bad you are yes this is part of the deal now you're like i just wanted to tell these jokes but no even like a dentist has like a social media presence and has to take photos of teeth and like oh my god nothing better than seeing that you're like oh ron like what are you doing yeah and i like i uh turned down a dentist because of his social media profile like he's like skateboarding and he's like doing all this stuff i'm like this is too much i cannot go to this dentist like yeah well it's that fine line where it's like if i see you doing too much [ __ ] if i see you doing a tick-tock dance when you could be putting braces on somebody i'm like i don't know if i trust the level of you know expertise here and i'm like how do you are you not getting a lot of business that you have the time to learn the wap dance because yeah that's concerning to me totally like i want i want my medical professionals to have like mitch masks clothing like nothing like you don't want to be you're too stylish like something is wrong right yeah it's like when the construction worker pulls up in like the nice car you're like no i want a pickup truck i want a dirty hands like show me you're working yeah don't show me how rich you are yeah we all know you're rich you're in construction how's the comedy shows been going up until now um you know they've been good i i think i kind of embraced the virtual shows early on there were a lot of comics that were like not doing it this is stupid this is gonna be a nightmare and um i just i wanted to feel like i was performing so badly and hear laughter even if it was just virtually um and i think i think there are upsides to it certainly doing college shows virtually oh chef's kiss would love to never [ __ ] fly to the middle of vermont ever again for any reason you know it's i hope that uh they stay virtual that would be amazing so because i've heard the money stays the same and you stay home it does not stay the same at least in my experience there have been cuts but if it stays the same for some people that's incredible but um so far it's been typically them asking for less time and paying less money so i don't know it's a little bit of a trade-off it's proportional and you don't have to fly and you're oh yeah i have had some hell college gigs and uh yeah so the virtual college ones have been good and then i did um i had a weekend um at helium in portland in september and then i was supposed to do helium in philly in december and that uh that got cancelled and moved so pretty much all of my dates from this year got moved to next year but yeah just doing what we can and i saw you around town doing a bunch of the out outdoor shows like paula leah's pickup truck show yeah low-key low-key it's so fun it's so fun that the low-key outside shows the ocean mic show ocean yeah that was fun too they really it's so interesting the people were able to pull off some really fantastic outdoor shows this year despite it being like such weird circumstances and never did i think i would be performing like barefoot in the sand with a microphone and it's like pitch black i mean it was it's i i told the p i was like this is the first time i've ever shaved my feet for a show you know like this is yeah we're doing all kinds of new [ __ ] in 2020. yeah it's insane but also like magical you know like it's something about the beach show really worked and uh mary really put together a great uh thing there yeah she's so great that was really fun she helps me out at the comedy bunker which you were scheduled to do the next one but we had to shut it all down oh damn yeah yeah how how were things going with that i've heard such fantastic things about your show everybody says it's really good yeah it was really hot inside and then we're like i kind of like caved in so to speak for the outdoor show i was like all right let's let's do a couple and then that's all we got to do was a couple before it all uh it just got a little too you know we want to be respectful of like the guidelines and so forth so yeah yeah but it's been fun like one of the outdoor shows uh actually all of them were really really good and like they really were on the same level as the indoor shows and we tried to separate people with the chairs all separate and we built an outdoor stage so yeah i think it'll still be outside when we come back maybe february march yeah whenever whenever it's like safe to do so so you'll you'll you'll be first up and you'll see it oh thank you i'm really excited yeah it'll be super fun um what are some of the investments like you made in your career to like take us to the next level like for example like you know like a podcast as an investment like what are some of the ones that you chose that really like helped you go to the next level yeah um podcasting for sure i uh i did a well it wasn't a solo podcast but it was i would have a comedian as a guest on it's like this you know um i had one like this called cooked for five years before i did um self-help list which is my current podcast with taylor tomlinson and delaney fisher um and we're coming up on three it's like three and a half years we've been doing self-help list but podcasts are a huge investment in your career it's it's so fun to um have people come out to your live shows from the podcast because as you know you kind of record podcasts in a vacuum like it's just you and your guest or you and your co-host and yet it they're getting listened to by all these people that you have you don't know who they are like you don't put you don't know who their face or name anything and um that's a really rewarding feeling i feel like that can help a comedy career a lot obviously i mean we know so many people now whose careers have taken off from podcasts um and also merch doing merch i think helped me a lot um before i started headlining i was opening for jim norton on the road for like three years and i would ship like giant boxes or carrot like lug a suitcase that literally could fit my body in it through the new york subway like up and down the stairs it probably looked comical it's like who is this small child like dragging her possessions in this bag but i would um i'd sell i'd sell t-shirts um all these things and i sometimes would make more money selling merch than like the actual amount i was making for the show and when you're featuring and you're trying to i mean jim changed my life he's like my weird um like comedy fairy godmother in a way where he made it possible for me to do stand up full-time but the thing i know thompson oh sorry we're gonna say something no okay um i think tom segura said this at one point that the structure of pay and comedy has not changed in however many years where like what features typically get paid it just is not enough to be doing it full-time and then it's it hurts comedy in that way where people are like having to keep a day job to then try and feature and it's it's so hard to make that leap um and i got so fortunate with jim because he you know would he was in a place in his career um where he can afford to pay for those things whereas some you know there's i'm not a headliner that could afford to pay for my feature stuff but i right because hotel and travel and yeah it adds up exactly um so i was very fortunate that he not only could pay for those things but offered to um headliners certainly don't have to do that and it's so nice when they do so that plus making the actual money for the shows and selling merch i just worked so hard especially those three years of like i'm not going back to a day job like i'm i refuse i am going to do everything i can to make as much money as i can to be able to like make that transition so merch helped a lot and i think a lot of comedians kind of like [ __ ] on merch or go like yeah it's the blood of a lot of jokes but right but i mean you don't have to be a [ __ ] you know like weird door-to-door salesman about it you can just have a couple shirts that people might like from your jokes and can make a huge difference so yeah yeah pro merch for sure i mean like merch or day job i mean which one do you want yeah exactly are there times where it feels like you want to jump off a bridge afterwards because you're standing there next to your you know shirts that say what you know [ __ ] or something i don't know yeah just whatever but whatever it is where people are like you know or just they won't make eye contact because they don't want to make you feel uncomfortable of course there's those times like start a conversation but not buy something like oh god the worst yeah um but i don't know i i kind of like that aspect too of after the show having people come up and getting to talk to them too for a second like just i don't know you make a connection with a real fan yeah yeah i don't know i like that sometimes a lot of them like wanna support like i started a zoom show i also caved in and like was like alright zoom i didn't want to lose the momentum because i felt like i was starting to actually do like a few shows a week and i had some new jokes and it all shut down so i was like i'm doing a zoom show i don't care yeah it's free but if you give people the option to pay a lot of them will you're like oh they'll tip a couple bucks or 10 bucks and then yeah it kind of it just is like it's a way of people people want to support if you give them the option right so t-shirts is a way to like support yes exactly yeah and i think that totally makes sense so yeah are you a new yorker like uh living there for with jim nor not with jim norton but like while you were touring with them so um once i started training with him there were quite a few shows on the east coast and so for those three years especially i ended up going to new york like once a month and um doing trying to do as many local shows as i could there so i never it's not like i had an address in new york but one of my best friends lives there and so i would stay with her for like a week once a month and um do you know jim helped me um like get that recommendation to audition for the seller and the stand stuff like that and so then i ended up um you know that new york mentality is like once you get in at those clubs then it's like well you got to keep coming here as often as you can it's that hamster wheel of don't lose your place in the lineups or whatever so yeah especially especially those three years i was there once a month trying to just stay stay in it yeah that's a big uh career boost to be like past the cellar and have that new york uh kind of come and go as you please feeling like you can go there and call in for spots and do the shows around town it's uh yeah it's really the best system is to be kind of like in la and new york if you can make it work yeah there's a lot of benefits to both yeah definitely um i was considering moving to new york for a while and i do every day comedy wise it is so nice there really it's hard to beat that feeling of doing like five spots in a night because you're just you can maybe it was ari fear who talked about that you can start the night with a an idea of a joke or even kind of a premise and by the end if you've done five spots or something really have the joke in a pretty solid place and yeah just a lot of efficiency there yeah and it's like there's an analogness to it where like you leave the place and you're thinking about what you just did and you have time on the subway or the cab to to think about it yeah well you don't hear mostly because there's not another show but also because you're in your car you don't want to kill somebody like writing your joke out while you're driving right yeah i do love the subway ride of getting to actually just look at your set before you go on stage as opposed to driving a club yeah yeah i think about it so much i literally before i started the facetime almost pressed sent on an email to a friend being like help me find a place there really oh you're like really really wanting to yeah i just like um well i also have a friend that can stay with there so i have that and it also feels like i've been looking at places in new york they're so cheap right now like it's crazy it's insane like it'll never be this cheap again it's a once-in-a-lifetime thing for us i think um to be able to take advantage of those prices my uh when i was saying that one of my best friends is there she's trying really hard to get me to move there because it's just like dude you're never gonna see prices like this yeah for like i think it was 2 300 a month i saw on central park west overlooking the park like a one bedroom i'm like what yeah i'm like how is this even like possible that is unheard of that i mean that's so crazy yeah so but then we're here and we have cars like i don't know i'm gonna do i almost went in december but before we had the california like quarantine when you get back i'm like yeah i can't deal with that yeah it's the the quarantine there is so strict and also i mean not to be cliche but the weather like when you get comfortable in l.a with that weather and then you go to new york in the winter for even just a week with no restaurants well in new york too it's you're outside all the time you're always walking somewhere you're you're not in your car generally unless you have a car but um yeah you're in it what are some of the investments you made in your career that like didn't work out as well as you thought you're like i'm gonna invest in this thing you're like ah this one thing wasn't for me hmm that's a good question um well i've definitely started a lot of things and seen them through but they haven't been the thing so i talked about you know doing that cooked podcast for five years you know that was five years i put into that thing that didn't really do anything for me i was able to get a couple um you know a handful of like great great guests on but it didn't really move the needle of my career much but it did give me good experience i think um stand-ups doing makeup it's not like that took off into some viral hit but i'm still glad i did it and it's on youtube for people to to watch if they want but um it's hard to call them i don't know i wouldn't call them like failures but they didn't there were just certain things i tried in hopes of course that you're always hoping like this is going to be the [ __ ] thing yeah it's going to go i'm going to here we go yeah get ready yeah um so yeah things that i um those are things i put time and energy into that just kind of were like uh you know they did okay but didn't really they weren't like the thing yeah but as an outsider like looking in like when i google it at to me it helps you because you have all these different touch points to like for people to find you and it creates this like algorithmic drag net where people can find you through the makeup or to your other podcast or the self-help list but like it makes it seem like you've got this big like media empire out there this is a big foosball lipstick empire what a sad carnival life i have um yeah i i think i i had um somebody tell me when i moved to la that i needed to not basically like not have so many interests and that my such an la thing to say yeah that basically that my brand was too confusing they were like i don't know how to pitch you to people because you're a comedian but you are a foosball player but then you like makeup and it's just like we don't you know what's and that was hard for me because it almost felt like um i needed to not be who i was in order to have success yeah in the business um and i know that's a pretty common thing that people it's it's easier if you can kind of fit in a box right like well it's the the redneck comedian so that's what you're booking for whatever and i just um i've always had lots of hobbies and that's what makes me happy i like doing a lot of things and not kind of um i don't know putting i i definitely put my all my eggs in the stand-up basket but you know what i mean like having foosball having the makeup workshop i like doing that and so um that makes me happy to hear on your end that you think it's cool that if you google me this is cool other things because for a while i was um kind of down on myself like oh maybe i'm not gonna have success because i've got i'm into a bunch of different weird things yeah don't you find that some of these meetings they just need something to say so like like they could easily be like oh you just do comedy have you thought about foosball like yes oh my god yeah it's like grass is always greener type of a thing yeah they're just like and like p i feel bad for the people leaving these meetings taking what a lot of these professionals say sometimes too serious because like it was just their like 12 45 meeting like and they just said a couple things and now you're off sweating about it for three years like and they didn't even know what that and they're fired like they don't even know what they're talking about oh my god yes it's like you're spending money in therapy trying to get to the root of what they meant by that comment and then yeah so many of those sort of meetings you take like i wonder what happened that guy and they're like oh yeah no he like works at like cheesecake factory now he doesn't work as a junior agent or whatever but it's just like it's to say something syndrome like you can't go to a meeting and no one talk so they're gonna say stuff they're gonna be like have you thought about a cooking show have you thought about that and you're like no and then you think about it and if you take sometimes if you take it too seriously and you alter like i like what you said you're like i want to be who i am and for me it's hobbies and if you alter who you are sometimes to be what they say because it's what they felt that day it's yeah it doesn't make sense well and i think this year especially people who only were focusing on one thing in their life and there's nothing wrong with that but i think if the one thing that you were focusing on was negatively negatively impacted by kovid this year that created a lot of panic for people because they're like well [ __ ] i can't do the thing i've always done so now i have to lean into hobbies and do other stuff and so this was um i'm obviously having all my comedy shows and road dates cancelled from covid was a huge negative impact um but i was like okay well the makeup stuff let's start to put some time into that because at least i can do virtual makeup workshops with people over zoom and you know you just try to be as resourceful as you can i guess yeah they really sold the dependency on touring to a lot of different uh like art professionals like musicians comics like don't worry about at least other things you're not gonna make money because you'll make it on touring and then that went away and you're like oh okay i really need to be self-sustaining and have income from these other things like a podcast like things that i control because you know if it's 80 of your incomes from one thing it can go away yeah absolutely and like look at somebody like joe rogan who is a stand-up a podcaster and does the you know ufc commentary it's like ufc commentary has [ __ ] very little to do with stand-up and yet he's really good at all of it but it's i like seeing that stuff because it gives permission to other people that it's it's okay to do things and like things that aren't all like in the same little bundle yeah like it doesn't need to be always so easily digestible like this little quick snack like it's nice learning something about a person and being like oh like oh they're into this and turn to that like i think rogan has more fans because he's into ufc yeah i was self-conscious for quite a while about doing anything with makeup while being a stand-up because that especially i think there's this mentality with being a female comic that you need to be this like you know like just tough and like you know try to like look like a dumpster fire and just like just slang these jokes and makeup is so fluffy right it's just this girly thing um and so for a while i was worried that if i pushed too much with makeup stuff that people weren't going to take me seriously as a comic yeah i can see that i mean anytime you we all have like the slashes like comic slash actor and sometimes you throw in something in there you're like oh am i is this delegitimizing me because i have some other interest or income stream like right slash subway sandwich artist that's right but no one would say that if it was like oh you own an apartment building and you rent it out you'd be like oh look how smart she is you know but like right if you're doing another business which is makeup like that should be taken the same way like look how smart she is she's diversifying her income streams right yeah yeah yeah it's a judgy business it is a definitely a judgy business for sure what are some of the things like in makeup where you like with men you're like i really wish they just did that like it just bothers me like moisturizing like what's your number one pet peeve what the men don't do that's like such an easy thing that's such a good question um okay let me think about this for a second okay first guys who keep their fingernails too long that drives me crazy where like if if they're too long and you can see that there's a bunch of dirt under their fingernails and then it's like also hazardous i just so hazardous so hazardous like wolverine situation i just i don't like that so when guys have really really long fingernails ugh um i think that especially as dudes get older it is super important to moisturize just for the sake of especially everybody living in l.a like you don't want your face to look like a ball sack yes catcher's mitt yeah you know you we all have to try our best with sunscreen and moisturizer um yeah get one with some spf in there and every day put it on you know yeah you're killing you you have fantastic skin oh thank you i think cause i'm like i'm half brown so it's kind of got some pigment in there yeah yeah that helps you're you're glowing it looks like you have very few wrinkles yeah you're killing it i don't um i don't go in the sun i don't like the sun that's the one thing about la is like i like overcap i'm vancouver northwest you know what it's like it's rains 24 7. i could like london i'm like i'm home i love this i don't need to see the sun oh my god i am the exact same people i used to get so excited when it would rain in l.a and my friends who are from that area were like what is wrong with you and it's it makes me feel so much more normal yeah especially if you're feeling if you're anxious you're feeling depressed and you look out and it's just bright and sunny you're like look this isn't this isn't matching my insides it's like you look out your window and you see a bunch of people having fun and you're you're like i hate them i hate them yeah i hate them i want everybody to be feeling the way i feel um yeah what else um i mean do you own tweezers yeah okay do you you know do some nose hair situation not with the tweezers i got the thing that rotates oh okay you just ram it up there i heard that if you use tweezers like it can get infected and then it can like really mess things up what really i've never heard that oh maybe that's for some like heavy duty hardcore maybe no hair situation so yeah i just use the rotating thing which is kind of scary to ram it up there but it works i was gonna say that sounds terrifying like a torture it's exactly what you think it is so just tiny blades that go up there oh my god but it's in like a cone and it spins oh yeah my butthole just like slammed shut that just seems so terrifying i mean that's the end goal of all podcasts is selling some sort of like body hair shaver like yeah exactly you need to get sponsored by these people yeah manscaping yes there's your first free ad manscape let's sell some 65 body hair shavers let's do it or ball sack shavers um well this has been great i really enjoyed talking with you we've covered a lot of stuff what's uh we usually wrap up with talking about goals and like what this is the worst year for it obviously but what are some of your 2021 goals that you want to achieve um well i i shot um my first comedy special during quarantine actually um and that comes out in 2021 it comes out february 26th on epics fantastic and yeah during quarantine yeah they uh they they contacted some people they had previously on epics done a show called unprotected sets and so they were doing season two of it with um a group of comedians each doing 30 minutes and they rented out a restaurant um in burbank called castaway and they socially distanced everybody and tested everybody and so it was outside and it's actually it was done really beautifully it looks it looks nice um but yeah that was in quarantine so that was weird because i went i think it was like four months without performing before shooting the special oh wow and then just went right on stage to do it like yeah i was able to do one of the low key shows i think two days before i shot the special and i had done maybe like two virtual shows but that was that was it how did you run it all like the whole hour or half oh i didn't i didn't it was a really unusual situation but i mean my managers were like this is kind of who when else are you going to get to do something like this it's kind of like a period piece you know yeah i mean look at samurails it's great yeah exactly yeah um and i got i got divorced a week before covet hit and so all of my material had to change too so it was just a whole big um a lot of changes but anyway this is to say that i shot a special and that comes out in february and so i think part of my goal for next year is that when i'm touring again to be having basically a new 45 minutes something that if people are seeing the special is going to be new to them um and i want risa fury to come back we had to stop shooting those episodes when kobet hit so i'm really looking forward to being able to shoot more of those again and i would love for my virtual makeup workshops to just have higher and higher demand they've yeah before yeah get in here i know oh my god that'd be a dream i've done three so far and i only have three guests um or three i guess clients at a time and they've all three have sold out so far but i only do them once a month so i would love to maybe have the demand go up and get a do them once a week or something like that i love that those are great goals yeah and where do we find you tell us your socials all that fun stuff um so on instagram i'm at kelsey cook comedy um tick tock good old tick tock it's also at kelsey comedy and um my podcast is called self helpless with taylor tomlinson and delaneyfisher you can find that anywhere you listen to podcasts and um yeah the web series fury my football web series is on youtube and also stand-ups doing makeup love it take her tutorial i learned how to cover up a blemish and uh follow her she's great this has been fun and uh we'll talk to you soon cool thank you [Music]

Channel: Latif Tayour

Views: 1,365

Keywords: comedy, podcast, interview, showbusiness, latiftayour, comedian, standup, standup comedy, kelsey cook comedy, kelsey cook foosball, kelsey cook this is not happening, self helpless podcast, foosball, kelsey cook tonight show

Id: aSWSQ-Ijs_w

Length: 54min 8sec (3248 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 22 2020