Behind the Scenes at Daily Show

I was on the The Daily Show on Monday night to talk about my piece in the premiere issue of Portfolio. A couple of thoughts about what it's like behind-the-scenes of one of my favorite shows:

Jon Stewart came by the green room where guests sit until they're called on. Very nice, thanked me for being on. He thanked me for not coming on with a whole book he had to read. i asked if he had a reader who summarized all the tomes that authors brought to his show, but he said it was all him.

Watching the live feed in the green room--the show tapes around 5:30 or so, I wasn't exactly sure when it began. I had left for the studio around 5:15. Hearing it live without the curses being bleeped is slightly jarring. I must say there's something that makes the lines funnier with the bleeps on air. It's not that I'm offended by cursing. I do it a lot. But the comic effect of the bleeeeeeeep somehow makes the jokes more delicious.

Walking out on stage, negotiating the step up to the platform and sitting down in one smooth motion seems easy enough but I was so nervous that I felt like an Olympic gymnast running to the vault. Before walking out I asked the producer if I should wave to the audience, she said the last person who did was Halle Berry. I thought better not to although when you first walk out you're struck by how large the studio is and you can't help but look around. Besides I wanted to see my Portfolio colleagues, Megan Angelo and Eileen Soltes, to see them in the audience but was blinded by the kleig lights.

I still haven't seen the show. I've been on the road promoting Portfolio in Atlanta and now on to Minneapolis and haven't had Comedy Central in my hotel rooms. But I'll be curious what it looked like.

The intereview was good. Jon is tough on the press as everyone who watches the show knows so I found myself defending a profession that I think he rightly critiques most nights but kept trying to bring it back to the mag because, hey, that's what I was there to promote.

Excellent bag of swag for guess, a canvas Daily Show tote complete with a bottle of vodka I couldn't bring with me. Damn TSA!

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