My first person I studied in improv with was Del Close.

And a lot of people had a guru relationship to him.

Some people, not a lot, but some people did.

I never did.

I might not have, like, probably when I was younger,

I was too emotionally distant to actually allow myself to join the cult.

You know what I mean? And also too

much of a skeptic to get involved in the cult, even though some part of myself, the part whose father

died when he was young was like, you be my daddy. It was, I'm sure, in there, but I never,

never acted on it. That's a fitting aside to say, he used to say, you're not improvising. You're just letting the universe channel through you

if you just open up all your senses.

That's it.

Your job is to open up all the stops on the organ.

That's it.

So it can just flow through you.

And he would take out his little pentagram

and put it on his chest before he performed

because he said the stage was a sacred space.

And it is.

I mean, showstoppers.

Stephen Colbert throwing showstop and pitches all day.

That is the voice of the great Stephen Colbert.

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