Big Mike: I’ll Take The Bum

August 17th, 2009

I wrote about Rick Pitino the day before yesterday. Pillar of society. Perfect hair. Looks great in a suit. Writes books telling people how to live their lives. Guides young men into adulthood. Is as respected as any Louisvillian since, oh, Muhammad Ali or Victor Mature.

Then last night I heard a report on NPR‘s Studio 360 program about a fellow named Del Close. Heroine addict. Drunkard. Trouble-maker. Couldn’t hold a job until the last quarter of his life. Toothless. Often homeless. Had a foot-long scraggly gray beard when he was on his deathbed. Would sooner piss in the alley than take an extra minute to find a public restroom.

I knew one of the two personally. He was one of the greatest influences in my life. I value his teachings above those of all others. Any and all of my so-called schoolteachers can kiss my fat ass — they had nothing on this guy.

I speak, of course, of Del Close. I studied under him at the improvOlympic in the mid-eighties. I shouldn’t type improvOlympic here for fear the International Olympic Committee will sic its LLD barracudas on Benny Jay and me and take away everything we own. Del started the improvOlympic with his partner Charna Halpern in 1981. The two knew how touchy the IOC could be about its name so Del and Charna squished the two words — improv and Olympics — together, shaved the S off and hoped they could dodge any cease and desist orders.

If I know Del, he told Charna the IOC could go fuck itself. He’d have told the President of the United States to go fuck himself even if he’d voted for him, although I doubt he ever took the time to vote.

Soon after Del died, Charna changed the name of the school/theater company to iO. She was always the brains behind the operation, at least in a business sense. Del was the tainted genius. Whereas he would have relished being sued by the IOC, she was, well, sane.

The Studio 360 report featured interviews with comedy big shots like Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch talking about how Del was the definitive self-sabotaging artist. One iO alum, Ian Roberts (late of Reno 911!,) wondered if Del ever felt frustrated that he never could achieve the stardom his pupils did. Del discovered, coached, insulted, handheld and otherwise tutored the likes of Mike Myers, Chris Farley, Jeff Garlin, Stephen Colbert, Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Andy Richter, Andy Dick, Susan Messing and Amy Poehler. If he’d achieved one-tenth the fame and fortune they did, he’d be ten times bigger than he was.

But I guarantee you he wasn’t frustrated by his relative anonymity. Success, to him, would have been failure. Oh sure, he was happy his students got big parts and big bucks. Nevertheless, he never trusted stardom.

I’ll tell you how I know. In the mid-eighties, I wrote a few pieces on Del, Charna, the improvOlympic and The Harold, Del’s long-form improv performance concept that he’d brought down from some mount like Moses. I raved about them all.

I wrote then (and I still believe) that studying improv under Del was the most valuable training I’d ever received. It made me. After Del and Charna, I learned to listen, to think quickly, to play to the height of my intellect, to give myself up to the group, to find the humor in everything, to face down the fear in anything, to get up on stage and make an utter, unmistakable ass of myself and still know I was doing a great job. Studying improv under Del was really more about studying life. Without it, I’d have been a poorer person.

The stories I wrote almost embarrassed me, they were so fawning. But I didn’t change a word because every one was true. One story was for a little magazine called Chicago Life.

The piece had just come out in the winter of 1987. At the time, I was doing a series of pieces on the upcoming Chicago primary election. I’d been tailing the candidates for 42nd Ward alderman. I was walking down Dearborn Street near the old Dr. Scholl museum with one of the candidates, a ditzy, middle-aged peroxide blonde whose main campaign issue was the horseshit left on downtown streets by those carriage rides tourists get suckered into. She was rambling on and on about something that, thankfully, escapes me now when, all of a sudden, I saw Del walking toward us.

“Hey,” I interrupted the candidate. “I know this guy. He’s big in comedy improv. He was pals with John Belushi and Bill Murray. I studied under him. His name is Del Close.” I think I even puffed my chest out.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s nice.” I could tell she’d never heard the name before in her life.

When Del got to within ten feet of us, I called out, “Hey Del, howdja like the story in Chicago Life? Pretty good, huh?”

“Yeah,” Del snorted, “pretty fuckin’ good. I was just on my way to see my attorney so we can file libel and slander charges against you and that shitty magazine. Fuck you.”

He was dead serious. I thought I was going to break down and cry.

“Well, that was interesting,” the candidate said after a few moments.

I forced a laugh and replied, “Oh, you know these comedians….”

Del hadn’t trusted my paeans. Nor would he have trusted any real success.

No matter. I trusted him and his teachings.