Did that hang over you coming into The Daily Show then?

Well you're always worried, I mean, but the other thing about that is people always say to me 'are ya nervous?' and I'm always anxious in a new position, and the truth is, I'm typically always anxious anyway, just in general, which is why I self-medicate and everything else. But the fact of the matter is, this is the business I'm in. It's sort of like, even for somebody who's a salesman 'are you nervous about taking a job with this computer company?' Well what are you supposed to do, not take any job? There is no safe bet in life so you try and pick you choices wisely and make informed decisions, do things that you think you might be good at. The thing I've always tried to do is not be presumptuous, is not go, 'I'm ready to direct!' I always try to learn, and you're never completely ready to do something but you have to have enough background. If I had had that talk show two years into this business, it never would have even gotten off the ground, but six years into it, I was ready to at least make a pilot and do that and get some more experience, you know what I mean? It's all a process. Very slow.

And the contract with Letterman?

I'm under contract to Ha, the comedy channel. No, I'm, no, all that is done, that was literally a one-year holding situation, so that ended 3 years ago.

That must have been amazing, growing up on Letterman!

Oh, it's like the Pope calling you, you know, you literally "I want to do something with you" and you just think - I mean if the contract was I had to lie naked in a vat of butter on his front lawn I'd have said 'OK, sure Dave, I'll sign.' It's like getting a call from the chief. Just to be associated with him was an honor, the guy's tremendous.

How do you look back on your first year with The Daily Show?

I can't believe how my clothes don't fit me anymore, at how much I've grown, my skin's starting to clear up, very exciting.

Um, I'm very proud of a lot of what we've done. My big goal when I first came in here was not to fuck up the works, was not to gum it up, to get - 'cause they've been doing a great show for three years, they know how to do it and I knew I had to get up to speed pretty quickly. So my biggest pleasure in it is feeling like we got up to speed and then hopefully tried to take it to another level and I think the Millennium Special was a nice step in that direction, what we're trying to do with the election coverage is a nice step in that direction.

But look, it's still day to day, some days I walk out of here and go, 'Ah, I did a shitty job that day,' and the next day I feel like 'Ah, that was alright.'

I've been reading all of these articles about you, and they all contain one phrase, "self- deprecating." Are you tired of that?

That's, it's not that I'm tired of it, it's that -

It's not right -

It's not right and it's not, it's because I believe this business is a business of hubris, so that normal insecurity appears to be self-loathing and it's not, it's just normal like everyone in the world has but I live in a business of audaciousness, it's that feeling of like, stardom, but I'm not, I don't feel like that, my business is coming in every day and tying to write jokes for a show, it's not the grandiosity of-

The bullshit of celebrity -

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm mean that's not good. Nobody doesn't like to be the center of attention or feel like they're getting positive feedback, whatever, but you know, most of the people I know have the same kind I of feelings, and those are the people I like, the ones that I feel are somewhat self-critical, I just think that's not too overly where you're the great Santini and you've got to bounce a ball off somebody's head and do whatever you've gotta do, but just in the idea of fallibility is a part of the thing and deriving feels so blah blah.

I know where you're heading.

Yeah, I know. I guess what I'm saying is the serenity prayer, can I get it? It's embroidered here on a pillow.

The End