When I was 22, I tossed my engineering degree away, moved to Chicago, slept in the YMCA (and worse), and took telemarketing jobs in order to study acting and improv comedy.

By far the most interesting, inventive, terrifying, brilliant, disturbing, and ultimately effective teacher I ever had was Del Close.

Del, who died in 1999, is a legend in comedy. Look into cutting-edge comedy almost anywhere in America in the second half of the 20th century — from the Compass Players to Second City to the Committee to Saturday Night Live to the Upright Citizens Brigade — Del was there.

Ever laugh at John Belushi, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Tina Fey, or Stephen Colbert? Del influenced them all.

But for a period in the late 1980s, when his personal struggles had briefly brought him to ground (again), Del was teaching night classes in the back of a poorly lit bar called CrossCurrents just off Belmont Avenue, practically under the thundering elevated train tracks. All you had to be to study with Del at that time was financially solvent, somewhat punctual, and coherent enough onstage to pass a preliminary class taught by his partner, Charna Halpern.

Suddenly a fidgety doofus like me, fresh from Dilbertland and with no legitimate training, could receive personal instruction from a guy who’d directed some of Second City’s greatest revues and played sold-out shows with Nichols and May. I mean, holy crap.

So for about two years starting in 1985, my crappy disposable day jobs were just enough to pay for the YMCA, nightly chow at a horrid greasy dump called the Fleets Inn — super taco (chili slopped into a pita bread), just $1 — and my one big main expense, Del’s classes.

Del was no hero to me, mind you — aw, hell, no. He may have had a longer list of personal shortcomings than any ten ordinary people, and his teaching skill seemed to vary nightly with his chemical makeup. There were times I despised the man. But he also had the inspiration, adventurousness, and joy in high weirdness of any ten people, too, and when Del was tuned in, you’d suddenly find yourself doing better work than you ever dared imagine. He was like a brilliant and deranged uncle you knew could tell truths about things that nobody else would even discuss.

Eventually, in one of my first creative baby steps, I tried a one-man show at the old Roxy on Fullerton. Looking back, it was too long, not fully thought out, and mounted on a budget that would barely buy lunch. I’d been studying with Del for about a year at that point, and one night, to my surprise, joy, and horror, Del showed up unexpectedly. It was the first and last time I ever felt genuine peril onstage. Fortunately, he laughed heartily — that big, bellowing, voice-of-doom-in-a-funhouse laugh — in the exact places where I was secretly praying he might. And somewhere around that time I started to think maybe I might just have a career doing fun stuff after all. Two decades later, the memory is fresh, and I am still grateful.

It was at CrossCurrents that I met my old friend Kim "Howard" Johnson, the same guy I helped out on Millionaire. Howard just wrote the definitive biography of Del — the Funniest One in the Room: the Lives and Legends of Del Close. Here’s today’s Chicago Sun-Times piece on the book.

If anybody reading this enjoyed Prisoner of Trebekistan, I never would have considered something as absurd as studying for Jeopardy! if Del hadn’t taught that we’re all capable of more than we imagine.

If you have laughed at anything in the last 50 years, and you’d like to know more about one of the truly tortured asshole genius humanitarian comic minds ever, I heartily recommend the read.

PS — Del always considered improv as more than just an exercise — done properly, it was an art form that could be extended into full 90-minute shows that audiences would willingly pay to see. Sound unlikely? Lots of his contemporaries, including bigshots at Second City, thought so.

But next time you’re in New York, Chicago, or L.A., Baby Wants Candy does a full-length musical, accompanied by a live band, spontaneously and wonderfully, every single week — all based on some random blurt from the crowd. Go. See. Laugh.