Comedian Kelsey Cook "I Am Not Calling You My Lord"
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92.7 WMAY Springfield's News and Talk. It is Mike Windmacher. Our next guest is a world champion foosball player. She's also the co-host of the Pretend Problems podcast and her new stand-up special, Mark Your Territory, available now on both YouTube and Hulu. Welcome to the show, comedian Kelsey Cook. Good morning, Kelsey.

Thanks for having me. Of course. Let's start out with talking about the process of putting together a special like Mark Your Territory. As far as how do you go about choosing what venue, camera setup, and do you get a little bit extra anxiety before walking up on stage knowing it's going to be recorded for a special?

Oh my god, I absolutely do. I keep waiting for the day that I won't feel nervous to shoot a special and I just don't know if it ever goes away. I mean, there inherently is just so much more pressure, right? Like, you know that there's a lot of

lot of money going into shooting it. There's a whole camera crew. You just want everything to go right. But I shot it at Comedy on State in Madison, Wisconsin, which is just so many people's favorite club. And I actually never preferred it before, but I just knew that because so many people loved it, I felt like, you know what, let's go somewhere that I think is going to be just great. Like the crowds are going to be great. And that way it can take a little of the pressure off.

And in that special, we're talking with Kelsey Cook, the comedian, Mark Your Territory, her new special on YouTube and Hulu. You talk a lot about your relationship and we'll get to that. But the thing that really struck me was the moment in your set when you discussed your mom's diagnosis with dementia. When you were first working on that material, was there any hesitation with that? Or are you much like me? I feel like humor is a great coping mechanism. I'm the guy cracking jokes at funerals.

Yeah, you know, I think I've become more like you now. But initially, I was pretty hesitant to talk about it on stage because I had never tackled a topic like that before in my stand-up. You know, most of my topics before are generally pretty silly or talking about embarrassing stories, whatever. But this is, like, truly...

the darkest, most heartbreaking thing I've ever gone through. And yet I know that so many people also have family members with dementia. And I just felt like it was important for me emotionally and like my sanity to talk about it in a way that could bring any light and then have other people going through it, connect and feel like, okay, I'm

you know, it's, it's better to talk about it. You feel less alone and, you know, there are moments that can feel sick and that I think my mom would laugh hearing it. Well, yeah. Cause I have seen an interview you've done previously where you say your biggest inspiration is your mother when it comes to your comedy career. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah. You know, she's just, she's such a badass. She, uh, she's in the foosball hall of fame. She's a world champion. And, uh,

She's absolutely brilliant. She's been one of those people that whatever she wanted to do, she accomplished it. And she's just supported me so much from the beginning. So I don't think I would be where I am or have felt like I could pursue comedy if it hadn't been for her telling me I could.

We're talking with comedian Kelsey Cook. You can check out her new special, Mark Your Territory, available on YouTube and Hulu now. So let's get into the relationship stuff you talk about with your lord, which was not what you would use, the boyfriend chat. I love that part. Because you're right, when you get to a certain age, what is it? It's like boyfriend, girlfriend, how do you put labels on it?

I know it feels so silly. It's like we're not married. We own a home together. We have life insurance policies with each other. We're basically married. But, you know, people, a lot of the time when they meet us, they'll just go, oh, your husband. Because like we're, I'm in my mid-30s, he's in his late 40s. People just kind of assume you're married.

Right.

or odd. I don't know. So, I mean, he wanted to go with Milady and I was like, we are not at a renaissance fair. We're not going down that road. I'm not calling you my lord. So, yeah, I mean, we were just doing boyfriend-girlfriend from hell, but we'll see.

Yeah. Talk about turning off the romance. When you start referencing a Renaissance fair, it's like, I don't know about all of that. You mentioned the age difference there. And usually that's not a big deal. But are there times where he makes some type of reference and you go, Jesus, how old are you?

We had a funny moment a while back where the song Just the Two of Us was playing, and I was like, oh, I love this Will Smith song. And he's like, oh my God, that's not the original person who sang that song. Those sort of things where in terms of music or pop culture, he'll know the original one, and I just think of the one from 2002 or something like that.

That is outstanding. And you're both comedians. How does that dynamic work? Do you ever kind of run material past each other or help each other fine tune each other's set? Or is it more you do your thing and I do mine?

It's a little bit of both. If we're struggling with a joke, we might run it by the person and be like, is there something obvious to you that we think is making this joke not work or whatever? But we get excited to perform for the other person and we don't get to that often because we're usually working the same weekend. So sometimes I think we try to keep some of our material to ourselves until the person can see it live because we...

Like we want to have that fun experience of having the person watch us do the show. That is very cool stuff. Talking with comedian Kelsey Cook, her new special Mark Your Territory, now available on YouTube and Hulu. You guys also do a podcast together, Pretend Problems. Was that born out of, hey, let's have kind of this safe, hilarious space to, you know, maybe work on some relationship issues that are popping up?

Yeah, it just felt like it was something we should be doing, right? We're two comedians. We live together. We're in a relationship. It's like, why are we not turning the camera on and the microphones on once a week and making something funny together? And then it has kind of turned into this version of white couple therapy where...

we are talking sometimes about like, well, this is the argument we got into this week and this is my side and not your side. And then we have people write in and go, Oh my God, I'm totally on Chad's side or, Oh my God, I'm totally on Chelsea's side. It's,

I think it's healthy for us because it brings some oxygen into the relationship, right? You're not having the argument in a vacuum. You're talking about it in a way where you can hear so many other people's perspectives, and it's kind of cool. Yeah, and then you actually have written down in comments of, see, I am right, so you cannot go against our listeners. I am correct. So you have that over him as well, which is nice. Yeah.

Oh my God, exactly. That's so funny. We should have a tally board going on the screen. There you go. We can add that onto the next episode of the podcast. Kelsey Cook, appreciate you taking the time. Best of luck going forward. On the way out, I have a question about foosball because you too are a world champion foosball player. And I think I...

going to have years of having to say, I'm sorry to friends who, when I've played them, I'm the guy who spins the bar there. And all my friends like that's illegal. That's not how you do it. That's how I was taught how to play it. Am I in the wrong? Do I have to have years of apology for beating people and being like, actually, I should have been disqualified.

Yeah.

And now, you know, Kelsey Cook, thank you so much. Now, half my life savings is gone because I have to pay back all these bets that I won in in in error. So thank you for thank you for bringing the truth to my foosball lies over the year. Kelsey Cook, thank you so much. Continued success. Love what you're doing. And welcome back on this show anytime.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much. That is comedian Kelsey Cook. You can check out her new special, Mark Your Territory, available on YouTube and Hulu. Really cool stuff, and definitely check her out.