On this week’s Let’s Talk About… episode, Elise sits down with television personality and comedian Jessi Cruickshank.
Jessi Cruickshank started her career in comedy and has been called The Funniest Woman on television. Most recently, she has her own hit series on Facebook Watch called New Mom Who dis, which has become a sensation among millennial moms. She has been a long advocate for global issues, and when she isn’t doing advocacy work or making us laugh, you can find her raising her three beautiful children.
Elise and Jessi talk about the path to her successful career, motherhood, being an active advocate for global issues, and Global Citizen’s Champion for Change.
“You come out and there are all these people, old, young, motivated, smart, dedicating their time and energy to speaking out and fighting for something that is pretty critical, one of the most important things that we need that we can be fighting for at the moment. It’s so inspiring and, just being a part of a movement like that inspires you to go home and wanna live it in your everyday life” Jessi tells Elise on Let’s Talk About.
Check out the show’s transcript below.
[00:00:00] Elise: Hi everyone and welcome. This week let’s talk about activism, motherhood, and humor with Jessi Cruickshank. Jessi started her career in comedy and has been called The Funniest Woman on tv. Most recently, she has her own hit series on Facebook Watch called New Mom Who dis, which has become a sensation among millennial moms.
She has been a long advocate for global issues, which we’ll get more into today. And when she isn’t doing advocacy work or making us laugh, you can find her raising her three beautiful children.
Hello. How’s it going?
[00:00:13] Jessi: Hi good! how are you?
[00:00:15] Elise: I’m good. I’m so excited to chat with you today. I know you have a lot going on from activism, motherhood, obviously you bring a lot of humor to all of that. So I know kind of, obviously, I don’t wanna say I know exactly where you got started, but I’ve read a little bit about where you got started.
But take us through kind of like the career path journey of.
[00:00:26] Jessi: Oh, how far back do you want me to go? Elise, you tell me.
[00:00:29] Elise: I mean, personally, obviously I have the connection to the MTV days. Okay. But, okay. I mean, let us know. It was before then. I think I, I think I heard something about like your audition tape and how that came to be.
Oh,
[00:00:44] Jessi: yes. I’d like to start. Yeah, but we’re going back. Okay. So wait, I’ll, I’ll take you. Further back. Okay. Okay. Um, when I was in, this is just a little fun fact. There’s a lot of fun facts on Wikipedia and 90% of them are not true, but this one is true. Great. I was on a, an improv team. I was the only girl on an all male improv team with Seth Rogan and Nathan Fielder, who now has this great show on hbo Yes.
And Me. Um, and very cool. That was like my real sort of first. Foray into comedy. Mm-hmm. , um, and into sort of being a girl in this very male, I, there was a, Can you imagine we were 15 years old? 16 years old. There was, there’s so many penis jokes and, and me, Um, and at one point we won the British Columbia Championships.
Thank you. And then we went to Ottawa to compete. Yes. Um, in the national Championships. And for whatever reason, I mean, they didn’t. I had to stay in the same hotel room as seven dudes. It was me on a couch in this like suite in Ottawa with all of these guys, and it was, That should have been a reality show.
Oh no. It was, I tr like if I’ve had trauma in my life, that was, it was in that hotel room. I, this was like, it was not, but I learned how to be, you know, funny. And I learned how to hold my own with that group. And, um, at one point I remember we got booked for, we were started like to do bar mitzvahs and we got booked for a big one.
We were gonna make 150 bucks, split eight ways. We were like, Woo . It was big. And Seth, Seth said to us, I can’t make it. I, I have to go do this thing in Hollywood. And we were like, You Hollywood. I’m sorry. We’ll, I’m sure you’ll be back very soon. Yeah. We’ve figured he would be back on time for the bar mitzvah, but he did not make the bar mitzva.
But we got to split that money seven ways. So there you go. You go. It was a little easier. Yes. So that was like, that’s the A real, real beginning of
[00:02:42] Elise: where Pro back, but 15, I mean 15. That’s so young. You knew you wanted to go into comedy that young.
[00:02:48] Jessi: I didn’t know I wanted to go into comedy, but then I found myself on the improv team, which is an improv comedy team.
Sure. And I was surrounded by the, It was actually kind of interesting, like at the time, When we went to Otta, I should say, we lost miserably. I think we were like last out of, We were so, because everyone in Ottawa was doing these musical numbers and like tap routines and human pyramids, and we had this totally different style.
It was very cerebral, very like standup esque. I mean, if you look at sort of how Seth entered into, like took over this Jim Carey landscape and kind of turned it into more of a standup, doing a movie. You know, he, he, he was doing that when he was 15 with us on the improv team. I felt like we weren’t like the jazz Hands team.
We were more of the, we’re gonna make jokes about the Bible now team. I don’t, you know, , um,
[00:03:38] Elise: I mean, for 15 to already have that style developed, that’s pretty impressive. It’s
[00:03:42] Jessi: really, I think also just like every, we were all, we didn’t know we were in Dcbc doing our own thing. We didn’t know that over in Ontario they were doing singing human pyramids.
No one told us we
[00:03:53] Elise: didn’t have the, in. I was gonna say back in our, when we were 15. Yeah. There wouldn’t be no way to see that right now. You could probably check out the competition a little differently. Yeah. You could get a handle on what was going on. So, yeah, that makes total sense.
[00:04:08] Jessi: We lost really badly, I think in the first round.
Um, but I don’t know. Yes. I think in that I, and I think even earlier for me, I had a very have, have , a very beautiful sister. My older sister is like Raven haired blue eyes. She is so poised. She is very put together, very polished. She’s more sort of, She’s sort of conservative that does like in just in her demeanor.
And I came out with like flaming Cheeto head orange hair. My parents were like, What is this? Put it back. And I just realized very early on that I wasn’t gonna be the pretty one and I wasn’t the poise one and I was just gonna, the way that I was gonna. Make my mark in my family was to make the them laugh at the dinner table and like to be that person.
So I sort of took that on I think really early.
[00:05:01] Elise: Yeah. And then I mean, I guess fast forward a bit to Facebook watch and new mom who diss, which I’m not a mom, but let me tell you, still lol at each of those years. For me, , that’s the highest too. Yes. They’re, they’re a heavy, heavy shared among the friend group as well.
So what kind of brought you to that point? Obviously, you know, you’d been on the goods, you’d have, you’d have the MTV After show, and then you got to this point of producing your own content. So what kind of brought
[00:05:32] Jessi: you there? Oh wow. We just let, It was a big leap. Big leap. I think I got, well this is, so when I was at the Goods on cbc, which is a daytime show, which was so much fun, such a dream. I got pregnant with twins while I was on that show and had to be secretly pregnant for a season of television.
[00:05:49] Elise: Oh, really? How did you secretly be
[00:05:52] Jessi: pregnant with twins? Um, it wasn’t a very well kept secret. Okay. , To be honest, at a certain point, my stylist would be, would be like, Jesse, we tried this on three days ago. What’s, what’s going on? Like buttons were breaking, nothing’s fitting. I was being really weird.
Suddenly my morning routine was like, I need three falafels at 8:00 AM Like, it was, no, everybody, The jig was up. When I finally revealed, everyone who worked with me closely day to day was like, Uh, yeah, no, we know. We knew. Yeah, . Um, but so that was a wonderful show and while I was at that show, it, you know, a daytime show isn’t a comedy show.
I, I got to be me and, and bring sort of my energy, but I also had to do a lot of said, Segments about like, you know, how to make your own cleaning detergent , so, Right, sure. Yeah. I was desperate to sort of scratch that itch. And my producer and I, who have worked together since mtv, he was an intern at mtv and I like brought him with me everywhere I go.
Um, him and I decided we wanted to do sort of like funny segments talking to, we had this idea, we wanted to talk to grandmas at a, at a old age home. Okay. Kids and CBC was kind of like, That’s not what we’re doing here. We’re doing this segment about cleaning products. Uh, but if you wanna do that, you could just do it for the internet.
They sort of just threw us, like gave us a camera guy and said, Just go do whatever you wanna do and put it on the internet. No
[00:07:16] Elise: one was put it on the internet. Yeah,
[00:07:17] Jessi: no. So we did this, our first piece was with grandma’s and we put it on the internet, on the CBC Facebook page. And we didn’t think anything of it.
We were just doing it to satisfy ourselves. Cause we thought it was funny. And over the weekend, I guess on Monday when we put it up on a Friday and on Monday morning, our executive producer was like, in our, in our morning meeting, she said, I guess we should, um, I guess we should acknowledge that Jesse’s video has 3 million views.
And everyone was like, What? Including me was like, Excuse me. It just had sort of blown up and nobody
[00:07:48] Elise: knew what to do about it. I was, I was gonna say, was this a time where anyone knew what comes next after that or not? I guess what year
[00:07:55] Jessi: was. This was only five years ago, but still nobody really, CBC certainly was like, right, we, you know, like Peter Mansbridge.
What? Like they did not, They were not, Yeah. It was like we make Murdoch Mysteries, we don’t make viral hits. What do we do with this? And Jason and I also, you know, sort of felt the same way my producer. So we just kept making them cuz it was so much fun. And we were able to get this instant feedback, which we had never had in television, right?
Like we’re dinosaurs for a world of television. Um, and so we kept making them and they kept getting bigger and bigger and millions and millions of views. And one morning I’m running into work, uh, to, to shoot the goods and I go to grab a coffee and this young barista says to me, Oh my God, you’re Jesse.
And I was. Yeah, I know I have a nationally syndicated talk show on the air, and she said From Facebook, and I was like, Wait a minute, wait. She’s like, We love you on Facebook, All my friends. And I was like, Oh, this person knows me from face. She has no idea where the fuck I am. She doesn’t care. She watches me on Facebook.
And that was when I went into work and I said to my producer, I said like, We got it. This is. We are taxi drivers in the land of Uber while on television, like we do not wanna be caught driving our taxi, trying to make our daytime show when these Ubers are passing us and taking advantage of what is happening in the landscape.
So we um, I had just announced my twins. I had them, um, we had all this success at Facebook, so we were given this opportunity at Facebook watch in LA to. Anything we wanted. So we had all these ideas, very convoluted ideas for a series. You know, I was gonna do this or this, or, and as I’m getting ready for this pitch meeting, it’s in Los Angeles.
I am breastfeeding one baby while trying to curl my hair with the other arm. Literally the other possible. Yeah. And there’s another baby on the like dirty bathroom floor crying. And I was like, Oh, this is. This
[00:09:57] Elise: is the show. Yeah, this is the show. Yeah.
[00:09:58] Jessi: Right. Like all these ideas that I had. So we walked into that meeting and I kind of pitched them all the ideas and then I said, Oh, and by the way, what about if we just do a really funny exploration of motherhood?
And they were like, Do that. Yeah. So that’s a new, we just came about and I’m so grateful because now you know, I’m like a digital, I’m in the digital world and I get to control what I make and what’s play, and I have this amazing access to my audience and it’s the best thing that I, that I ever.
[00:10:26] Elise: Yeah, no, for, I can imagine what a shift that would be, right?
Cause like to your point, you can go on Instagram, you can see your engagement, you can pinpoint who he or she is that’s kind of watching you and engaging with you. So yeah, probably a totally different world from broadcast television and, and that piece of things. But, so at the same time that. Just kind of, I guess the goods left the goods, the, the digital kind of world is, And you’re also just had your twins though, too, right?
So . Yeah. But like how, take me through that, I guess, like if they were part of the story, um, I guess that makes the TV interesting, but how, how is the behind the scenes of that ?
[00:11:11] Jessi: Oh, well, do I. Like walking into a makeup room at 6:00 AM looking like Ed Sheron and coming out looking like a, like a human woman.
I do, I have to do that myself. Now I don’t get all the, all the benefits of, of broadcast television. Um, but. At the same time, I, I, I now have a team of five that, um, help me run the new Mahuts show and brand and um, And the tour, right?
[00:11:43] Elise: What’s that? The tour as well. Did you just, did you just finish the tour?
[00:11:47] Jessi: I’m in the middle of the tour. The middle, okay. Yeah, I think middle. Yeah. Um, well, so we, Yes, and I get to go on tour and I get to sort of like, uh, it’s this amazing freedom to do the, all of the things that I’ve been dreaming of doing and do them my way. And I think like, God to go back to the after show.
We’re going to, we’re gonna weave all the all around. Take us back.
[00:12:10] Elise: Yeah. I’d love to go back. Yeah, take us back. Well,
[00:12:12] Jessi: when I went, when I got, when I started there, I had no, I didn’t know what I was doing. I, I didn’t, I I was, I had only seen much music, my references for what a personality television should be
[00:12:24] Elise: or like.
Right. Because MTV was new to Canada when the after show started, right?
[00:12:28] Jessi: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So when MTV came to Canada, um, when. Was a part of it. We had a talk license. So much music had the music license. They could play music videos, we could not. We had to create talk shows. Uh, we also had to create a certain amount of Canadian content.
So this is where you come in. We couldn’t just air an episode of Laguna Beach and like call it a day. We had to, so our bosses said, Well, why don’t we just throw Dan and Jessie on after every episode of Laguna Beach and they can just talk about it? Literally, it was not thought of as a show. The after show was more like a, a solution to a problem.
Okay. MTV Live was the show. They had a team of four, the after show or 40 people. The after show, we had a team of four, including Dan and I, and when we first launched, we would go live. Drinking real martinis at 10 30 at night sitting when a set, we sat on the floor in the corner of the studio, just like talking shit about Kristin’s platform.
Flip Flos. Like that’s how it, we started from the bottom baby also
[00:13:31] Elise: kinda ahead of the game in ways of like the a, an after show, right? Because now I think of reality show and. All the blogs and all the podcasts that happen. I’m like a big real house five span. And so that was kinda like, Did an after show exist before your after show?
Like in any, I can’t think of one, right?
[00:13:52] Jessi: No. And I’ll take full Dan and I will to and our team take full credit for creating the genre cause um, Andy Cohen re Housewives started to do, um, what’s, what happens live after he came down to a taping of our after show when we were in the us Yeah. Really? So like.
Really, we did create that format and like I said, it was created out of need, , like out of pure necessity because we, we couldn’t air Laguna Beach without having another 30 minutes of Canadian, of Canadian content. I had no idea. So
[00:14:23] Elise: were you just on like the production team before that? Like how. Or did you audition for this after show role or how did that come
[00:14:30] Jessi: about?
No, so when MTV was coming to Canada, they announced that they were coming to Canada and they were doing this nationwide search for hosts. Uh, and I had never done anything like that. I was way too scared. I remember there was all these much music VJ searches and I always wanted, I always, you know, I grew up like recording, speaking of DVDs, record.
Intimate and interactive with the Backstreet Boys onto a VHS tape in my parents’ face. But, and like rewinding and fast forwarding the moment where Howie D took his shirt off outside of that studio on Young Street, like this was my childhood. Yeah, I obviously dreamed of that. I thought being a. VJ would be amazing as I think every other little Canadian kid did.
Um, but I never would’ve put myself out there to do a VJ search. I never ever told anyone that that was something I wanted to do. It was sort of embarrassing. I didn’t come from a family where, you know, like a showbiz
[00:15:25] Elise: fam kind of thing. Yeah. Like,
[00:15:27] Jessi: so, um, so MTV was coming to Canada. There was a newspaper ad.
I was teaching, um, uh, uh, a drama program for people with special needs, with down syndrome, with autism, people of all abilities. And I was playing this, it’s like the craziest story. It feels weird. I’m not a person that says like, you know, what’s meant to be will be. But this was a weird fateful moment.
We’re playing a game called Shark, and I just brought an old newspaper and put these big pieces of newspaper on the floor. And those are the islands. And I play music and my students have to swim around the islands. And when the music stops, they jump. On the paper, it’s, it’s musical chairs, but like the poverty version with just newspaper
So, um, I, I’m swimming around the island with all of my students and I look down and I literally see an ad in one of the newspaper pages that says MTV is looking for hosts. Said like MTV wants you, and I like, Was just swimming around the island, pretending to be a shark for like seven minutes reading this piece of paper while all the students were like, Is she, is the music gonna stop when it’s happening?
And, um, yes. And I, and I, and I was traveling to New York. My dad was working there that weekend, and the tapes were due on Monday, again, D DVDs. And I said to my dad, like, Oh man, I just saw this thing and I would love to do a tape, but obviously I’m here in New York. And my dad said, Well, you know, I know. I have a friend who was a production company in Times Square, Let me call her.
So my dad called his friend and she let me borrow a camera guy, and I shot that Friday that I landed. I shot that afternoon like talking to Americans about Canadian music. A lot of Avro Levine content, if I remember it. Like, oh yeah, 2000. Um, a lot of Celine chest bumps, which was very funny at the time, doesn’t age well.
And then, and then she said, Just go and knock on my office door and see if my editor will help you edit it. So I went up to like the 48th floor in Times Square, knocked on the door Friday evening, and this young guy opens the door and you could tell, he was like, You want me to what on a Friday night?
[00:17:27] Elise: Like, who are you? ?
[00:17:30] Jessi: He was like, Who are you? What? Um, and so he kindly said yes, and we sat in that little office in Times Square editing this demo tape till like two in the morning. And he was so, he made it so funny and he thought I was funny, which was really nice. And then I sent in the tape and many months later I got the job.
And that editor, um, is now my husband and father of my three children. . Yeah.
[00:17:58] Elise: Gosh, that’s so crazy. Uh, what a, wait, like talk about a serendipitous cycle, like from swimming with the sharks I know. And the paper to like your whole family and your whole like career almost, right? Like the starting point of that.
Yeah.
[00:18:13] Jessi: Weird shivers. So weird because if I didn’t do one of those things, Yeah, I never would’ve, I wouldn’t have my kids, I would’ve never had this light. I wouldn’t have my career. I would, It’s right. It’s really so strange. I’m sure everybody has one of those. Do you have like a, It’s
[00:18:30] Elise: funny, It’s funny that you say that cuz in doing this podcast, one of the things that comes up, no matter, like who’s sharing their story Yeah.
Is like that. I don’t know what you wanna call it. If you wanna call it fate, universe, whatever everyone call feels something different about it. But they all have that kind of like moment where it all comes together. Right. And it all kind of brings you, and you only have that in hindsight of life. I feel like you’re like, Oh.
But yeah, it’s that one thing that, But isn’t that, that’s like the sliding Doors movie, right? With Yes. Yeah. Right. So that’s, I don’t, I love.
[00:19:01] Jessi: I, Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy. My, it’s, yeah, That one day really changed a lot
[00:19:08] Elise: from, it’s like the intersection too, of like, I feel like you’ve done such an amazing job of creating a career of prob what I would imagine two loves of your life, right?
Like motherhood, your children and humor and weaving that in. But you’re also a really big advocate, which is something that I, I wanna chat about today too, and I know it sounds, You, I think I read something that like one of your first, one of your first kind of, um, causes, if you will, was when you were in like grade school and in talking maybe about, was it recycling or something like that?
Yes, Yes. So was this something like advocacy work was really, was that built into your family and the way you kind of operated as a unit or just something that you found a cause that you felt passionate
[00:19:51] Jessi: about? It must have. I, I feel like. You know, everything. I’m grateful to my parents for supporting, you know, I could have gone down to New York that day and said, Dad, I wanna, I had just graduated with honors from U of T, I had this, uh, you know, and I said, Dad, I wanna put a videotape for mtv.
My dad, who was a very like, He’s a very serious lawyer guy. He could have been like, um, no, no. Get a real job. But he supported and at least helped, you know, introduce me to someone who could have, who could help. And my parents have always been supportive of everything. I don’t remember them being, you know, I think it came from me.
I think I just, Right. Yeah. But they, but they supported it wholeheartedly. I was really upset that there was litter on the ground or. People I learned, you know, about the environment and the, the and global warming way, way back then, and decided that I wanted to do something about it. The irony is that I remember painting large scale Bristol board and cardboard signs, made of paper, plastering them all over the school that said, Clean up your act.
And I had this big campaign in the school, but hey, I was like using my voice to speak out about something that was important to me. And that and, and I, yeah, I think. Looking back, I think it’s pretty amazing at eight years old,
[00:21:14] Elise: it comes across that you seem like you were a very passionate like teenager, et cetera.
Yeah. Whatever the cause might be. And you’re obviously, so why we’re excited to chat today too, is you were recently appointed to the Global Citizen Champions of Change. Um, and you have quite the cohort, uh, that group that, that you’re doing that with. So can you tell us a little bit about what your focus is gonna be within that?
[00:21:38] Jessi: Yeah, I mean, I’m so proud, like Global Citizen is just this amazing international advocacy organization. They really inspire and empower, I would say, millions of people around the world to sort of take action and, um, address so many critical issues facing humanity. But, but really to find like the pa what your passion is and address with those issues are.
So for me, I have taken on sort of, um, Climate change. I went to New York City to March in the global climate strike, which, which with global citizen, which was like thousands of people marching down the streets of New York City, demanding that the Senate be held accountable and calling on them to deliver the $11 billion in climate aid that they promised.
That was. An unbelievable experience guided. I
[00:22:22] Elise: think I did that. A couple Does that, does that March happen every year?
[00:22:25] Jessi: Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, they have it every week actually, but this, Do they,
[00:22:30] Elise: This was the big one that The big one year? Yeah. I think I lived in New York for 10 years and I think I did the one where Greta was there.
Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. Sorry, that just clicked in my head, but I remember. Super, like impactful and empowering and really I’d never, at that point, for me, I’d never been a part of like a march. Yes. Like of that magnitude. So anyway. Yeah. Sorry. It just clicked that I was like, wait, I, I can totally relate to what you’re referencing there.
Isn’t
[00:22:57] Jessi: that amazing? I would say, and I can’t wait to take my kids when they’re old enough, but the women’s marches, all of the BLM marches that were happening, climate marches like mm-hmm. . It’s just, it’s this collective, First of all, we’re so desperate. I think we’ve had this, I, these, these particularly isolated past few years.
We are so desperate to come together with people in a united cause. I see this, and we can talk about this, but like I see this at my live shows. Um, you know, people are so excited to be in the same space, and I found that out that the climate strike, you know, I’ve, you emerge from your home and watching the news and all of these terrible things that are happening and our planet is literally on fire.
And you come out and there are all these people, old, young, motivated, smart, dedicating their time and energy to speaking out and fighting for something that is, you know, pretty critical. Literally one of the most important things that we need that we can be fighting for at the moment. Yeah. It’s so inspiring and, and just being a part of a movement like that, like inspires you to go home and wanna live it in your everyday life.
[00:24:06] Elise: Yeah. And I’m sure for you too, like what you did mentioned bringing your children and exposing them to those things, it beca Yeah. Like such a different impact and meaning to that I’m.
[00:24:15] Jessi: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m gonna be such an annoying mom already. I like make them pick up litter on the street. It’s like, Jessie, eight years old as a mom, I’m, you know, recycling is very big in my house.
Uh, but I just think you have to sort of seep it in because mm-hmm. , our generation is gonna do what we can and they’re gonna be left. Um, With this dire problem to solve. Yeah. Yeah. And then I’m also working with Global Citizen on Girls Empowerment, which has been something that I’ve worked on and for, for since, since the MTV days.
Something that’s so important to me is just, you know, trying to help build a world where, or using my voice to help build a world where girls. All girls feel safe and empowered, and I really truly believe that nothing should stand in the way of our girls reaching their full potential. And as a girl mom, now it’s Yeah.
A girl mom.
[00:25:05] Elise: Yeah, absolutely. And now, so you mentioned the festival taking place in New York, but what could we hear in Canada? How can we get involved? Oh my gosh, Citizen, I know there there is it six other champions of change that. That are Canadian. Yes, I know Justin Leslie. Yeah. Okay. Yes.
[00:25:23] Jessi: There are six other champions of change.
There are so many Get it ways to get involved. Global citizen.org is like the first stop, or I really feel like the Global Citizen app, it’s free. It’s on the app store. That has helped me, that has like daily reminders. It’s really. Fun. It has, um, you can win tickets to like Global Citizen Fest through the app.
It’s really sort of a great motivating way to create change. But I also just say, and I’ve always said this as long as I have had a platform too, is find what you’re passionate about and start really small. I mean, I believe that you can create change in your own. Home. You know, if you’re a parent, like with your own kids or you can create change in your own community, your school, like wherever you are, what is that little tangible thing that you can do to create change?
And it doesn’t matter how small it is, it’s gonna make an big impact in somebody’s life. Mm-hmm. , um mm-hmm. , That’s, that’s what I really do feel. And to me, volunteerism. I also feel, and going back to this social media landscape and world that I find myself in, you know, it can be really depressing for a lot of people.
And I think that we have turned inward on ourselves and we are inside and we are isolated and we are looking at our little phones and we are comparing ourselves to others. And suddenly like, is anybody happy anymore? I just, I find that we are so, um, Yeah. I, I think, and yeah, I, I really, truly think that volunteerism and doing something one tiny thing, once a week, give an hour, give a half an hour, somewhere in your community is going to.
Um, fulfill you with a, with more, you’re gonna get back
[00:27:00] Elise: more than you could ever get. A hundred percent. Like fill your own cup, right? Absolutely, yes. Like it Yeah. Fills you.
[00:27:06] Jessi: Mm-hmm. and that like shark class, the class that I taught, I still now, I volunteer every Saturday morning, um, with a class, uh, with people with Down syndrome and autism and, uh, I bring my kids sometimes and like that’s the thing that really fills me up.
[00:27:24] Elise: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you do need those real life like community experiences too, right? Yes. Like, and I mean, you mentioned it on your tour. Tell us, so I, I know you were just in London, Ontario, so where’s the next, where’s the next stop? Where
[00:27:39] Jessi: are you next? So I did a tour in May and it was like two and a half years in the making.
I announced it right before the Pandemic , and then perfect timing. Oh God. It re, I think it was relieved actually the first time it got rescheduled. By the third time it got rescheduled. I was like, Can we just, I’m. So Ready, . Um, and so I did a cross country tour in May. It sold out across the country, so we added a bunch of new dates.
I just did two, uh, sold out shows in Toronto. A crazy show in London. Let me just say, The smaller, the smaller towns in Canada. Yeah, Bring it the hardest. I have never seen a city go off like London or like even Calgary. Uh, Winnipeg, Edmonton. Like those are the rangers. Those are where it gets wild. Really?
Okay. Oh my god. People are just ready to go.
[00:28:31] Elise: Ready to party. Ready to party. Yeah. I mean, it looks like a great time. I’m gonna have to come next time you. Nearby
[00:28:37] Jessi: you have to come. Yeah. It’s where you based. I’m in
[00:28:41] Elise: Niagara on the. No. Gorgeous. So Toronto’s close, like London’s not too bad, but Yeah. Yeah. Or we’ll have to bring you here.
We brought um, Cat Nat here last year, Last May, So I feel like we may need to
[00:28:55] Jessi: Yeah, please. Okay. It’s such a fun IT app. So now I have a show in Victoria, November 4th in Vancouver, November 6th. Those are my last, last shows, mid, last two before. And it’s like, it has been the. It really has been like a pinnacle for me, of my, of my, of everything, of all of the, it’s like all the starting when I was 15 years old, like, you know, really it’s been a such a highlight for me being able to be on stage surrounded by my people.
Like these are people, like you grew up with me, um, who have been watching since the after show. Um, and, and now we all have kids together. Like I talk a lot about all the shit that we used to do in 2007 when we were young and drunk, and now we all have kids. And it’s such a, it’s just such a fun, um, collective experience to like come together and laugh and leave our fucking kids at home or go out with a date.
We have lots of childless people out on dates. Like it’s just, it’s such
[00:29:53] Elise: a fun, a good time. A good time. Well, congratulations to you. I mean, you have so much going on, but you do it with such. Elegance and laughter. Like I feel like I’ve been smiling this whole conversation cuz you were such a good time. Oh,
[00:30:05] Jessi: I feel the same way about
[00:30:06] Elise: you.
[00:30:07] Jessi: Thank you. I feel the same way about you. I’m like, can we just talk every morning? Can we just make a set? A set
[00:30:14] Elise: Zoom? Yeah. Like a little hype. Yeah. Well let us know. For those that don’t know where they can find you, where can they find you on?
[00:30:21] Jessi: At Jesse Crookshank. C r u i c k s h a n k. Although, like who else is named Jesse Cro?
You could just
[00:30:28] Elise: in Jesse c and I can’t, It comes up, I think, I feel
[00:30:30] Jessi: like for me it Oh, good. Yeah, Yeah. At Jesse Crook Shank. Um, everywhere. Yeah. All places. All the places. Instagram is really my place. That’s sort of where I, Yeah, that’s my happy place where you. TikTok is terrifying to me. But you know, I was just gonna dabble.
[00:30:47] Elise: Are you going there yet? Cause I feel like TikTok, like moms on TikTok are a big thing too. Right. Like Mom.
[00:30:54] Jessi: Yeah, but is that what I wanna be least a mom on TikTok? Is that, Is that what I, I feel like you
[00:30:59] Elise: gotta do some dances. I, I don’t know. Your dance moves not
[00:31:02] Jessi: so good. Ok. No. I had an episode of New Mom Fuds, where I got tweens to teach me how to use TikTok.
And there was a lot of like thrusting to Megan, the stallion songs. And I was like, I’ve become too old for this .
[00:31:13] Elise: Well, I’m gonna go watch that one now. That episode?
[00:31:16] Jessi: Yes, please go watch that episode. I attempt, I attempt some kind of dance. But you’re right now we’re more into the comedy sphere. Um, so, you know, give me, we’ll wait and see.
Here’s what I like to do. I like to wait until an app is not cool anymore and then I jump in. Go on. Okay.
[00:31:33] Elise: That’s what I like. Yeah, it’s a different strategy. Not everyone’s going with that strategy, but it seems to be working for.
[00:31:40] Jessi: Absolutely. So I joined Be Real Early. Early. Did you?
[00:31:44] Elise: Okay. I don’t, I didn’t.
How, Yeah,
[00:31:46] Jessi: tell me about that. Well, I heard about it and I was like, This is interesting. Let me join this. And then I just started getting these notifications when I was like literally topless and breastfeeding or like, or like just sitting at like nothing felt worth sharing. Okay. Yeah. That was a breastfeeding was worth sharing, but also just like highly.
InApp, like literally like, I mean, no pants. So nothing felt right for be real, but now I keep it on just so I know the notification. So I’m like, Oh, if I was on this, I would be here talking to Elise, or I would be here fighting with my twins. You know? I like to know, but I’m not, I haven’t, I haven’t gone with a photo yet.
[00:32:26] Elise: So we’ll stick, we’ll stick with Instagram and then you’ll let us know on Instagram. If you go anywhere else on social media, we’ll
[00:32:32] Jessi: follow there. We will. I will. I’ll let you know. I’ll let you know when I’m in Vegas with five year olds, I’ll let you know. Yes. And I let you I will, I I, I shared all there.
It’s, it’s
[00:32:41] Elise: funny when you were posting the Vegas content, I didn’t really think of Vegas through a child’s eyes, but yeah, there’s some interesting moments.
[00:32:50] Jessi: Vegas through a child’s eyes. Terrifying think is through my eyes is terrifying. You’re like I, Yes. I had to explain to them what a showgirl was and I had to explain, At one point, somebody came up and gave me a card with like an escort service on it.
And obviously my kids were like, What did they give you? Is it a toy? And I was like, in somewhat to some people I feel maybe, I mean I had to explain so much shit to them. So much Nud. So many like, but hey listen life, they learned a lot more in Vegas than they would in pre-kindergarten.
[00:33:27] Elise: So I was gonna say, some days they’re like helping those in need and some days they’re partying it up in Vegas.
So what a perfectly balanced mom you are.
[00:33:35] Jessi: I love, I know I checked out the little like report from the teacher cuz we missed school to go to Vegas . And she said, Today we learned the letters E, F, and I was like, well we learned, you know, What an exotic dancers and that you need to say no when somebody passes, tries to sell you a watch on the street.
So these are also important things,
[00:33:54] Elise: life lessons all around. Well, it was so great chatting with you. So much fun. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And hopefully we’ll see you in person one day soon.
