We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Oscar Collazos a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Oscar thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

On December 16th, 2021, I quit my restaurant job. For many years, probably 20 or so, I had worked as a server or bartender and was a stand-up comedian on the side at night. I always wanted to make comedy my sole profession but that’s just really really hard. If you have a following, it’s easier – still hard even then though. When I quit, I didn’t quit because I was going to dedicate my life to comedy. I quit because I was fed up with the job and was ready to snap and swing on the next customer that set me off. I floundered around for a while until I got my Real Estate license in 2022. I thought that was the ticket to a new flexible job that would allow me to still do stand-up comedy. Turns out it was not. I hated that too. I showed one apartment and that’s all it took for me to be like, “Nah, I’m good.” For the record, the apartment was filled with pigeons when I walked in because the previous appointment had left the window open. I decided that route was not for me. I then had this brilliant idea of organizing a comedy tour for me and the comedy group that I had formed. I was able to organize a 25 city-tour and while doing so, I said to myself, “This is what you need to focus on” because I loved every second of it. I went on to do it again the next year and that’s when the cruise lines came calling. I was hired by an agency that shopped me to several cruise lines and Carnival picked up and has been using me ever since. I got myself in some serious credit card debt putting those tours together but it showed me that I could be a full-time stand up comedian. Looking back, I held on to the restaurant jobs for too long. I should have quit them long time ago and forced myself to focus solely on comedy. But everything happens for a reason. I now only do comedy and it’s the best.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hi! My name is Oscar Collazos. I am a Colombian-American stand-up comedian who lives in New York City. I was born in Cali, Colombia and my family moved to Florida when I was just seven years old. I grew up in suburban Fort Lauderdale. As an immigrant kid in the United States, I never fully felt like I fit in. I have never been fully Colombian and I have never been fully American. I am sometimes accepted by the cultures, but also sometimes rejected. I wanted to be a dentist. Actually, I wanted to be an orthodontist. But upon taking chemistry and biology in college, I found out real quick that I was not meant for that route. I settled on communications and graduated with my degree from the University of Florida. My junior year, I took an internship at Late Night with Conan O’Brien at Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan. That exposed me to stand-up comedy. I hit my very first show on March 21, 2001. I was booed off the stage. It was one of the worst feelings ever – if that THE worst. But I kept at it. Twenty-something years later, here I am, fully making a living off of stand-up comedy. Sometimes people spend their lifetime trying to find their calling. Well…..I found my calling fairly early. But I’ve spent my entire life figuring out how to make a good living off my calling.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Advice for Growing Cliente:

Advice for my growing clientele feels lofty. It feels like I know what I am doing. The truth is, I don’t. I have zero clue. My heart, mind, spirit and soul just keep telling me to move forward. If we were to re-word this for stand-up comedians, or just artists in general, this is what I always say:

1. Nothing is ever linear. You THINK that your goal is A to B. But it’s rarely A to B. Sometimes it’s A to C and then D with a stop at F only to get back to B. I always tell younger comics to not focus on fame because if you don’t reach it, you’ll be angry, sad, frustrated and bitter. You have to do this because you love it. Everything else will fall in place and/or make more sense when you have realized that you do comedy because you love it – NOT because you are using it as an avenue to get somewhere.

2. Perform, perform, perform! It doesn’t matter where the gig is, take it! Got booked at a Taco Bell? Take it! Got booked at a sorority house? Take it! Got a church show where you have to be squeaky clean? Take it! You learn from every single performance. It’s also good to ask yourself after every gig, “What did I learn at this gig”? This way, you keep searching and striving.

3. It’s ok to quit and come back. Take time for yourself. The art will always be there. It’s not going anywhere.

4. Don’t get so caught up and focused on your art or your trajectory that you forget that life is going on around you.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Story of Resilience: Back in 2008, I was hired to be a performer on Carnival Cruise Lines. I was beyond excited. I did this for about two years and then I got fired. I wanted to quit stand-up comedy altogether. I was really down in the dumps. I almost moved home to Fort Lauderdale to start a brand new life of God-Only-Knows-What. But I didn’t. I kept performing, kept getting better, kept growing and kept learning and kept studying. Fast forward 15 years and I got the call to work for the cruise lines again which is what I am currently doing. The second time around, I am wiser, older, more respectful. I swore up and down that I would never do ships again when I got fired. But sometimes you have to watch your mouth because you never know how life is going to bring you back to it. So here I am and I love it!

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.oscarcollazos.com/
• Instagram: @colombiancomic
• Facebook: @colombiancomic
• Linkedin: @colombiancomic
• Twitter: @colombiancomic
• Youtube: @colombiancomic
• Yelp: @colombiancomic
• Soundcloud: @colombiancomic
• Other: email – [email protected]