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"FacebookPinterest\n\nLet&amp;#39;s go back to the bad old days, Conan. What was going through your head?\n\n When I got the Late Night job, I wasn&amp;#39;t interested in being humiliated in front of the whole country. It&amp;#39;s not cool to say this, but I&amp;#39;ve worked my ass off since I was a kid. I wanted to get somewhere. During those early days, I kept thinking, If I can get enough time, I will thrive. I felt like I was battling Lex Luthor, and I knew I was going to have superpowers\u2014I just didn&amp;#39;t have them yet.\n\nWas there an all-time shittiest day?\n\n There were probably thirty-five really shitty days. The Friday we didn&amp;#39;t hear about getting picked up was one; all that weekend, we thought we might be canceled. There were days we couldn&amp;#39;t fill the studio; the back rows were empty.\n\nYou didn&amp;#39;t send staffers to fill in?\n\n We put interns in, but we didn&amp;#39;t have enough. And we weren&amp;#39;t getting great guests. So on top of all the other troubles, I&amp;#39;m saying, &amp;quot;Hold on to your hats. Here comes Chris Roker, Al Roker&amp;#39;s brother!&amp;quot;\n\nName a guest you&amp;#39;ve always wanted to have.\n\n Woody Allen. Nixon, too; he died about six months after I started. I think to avoid doing my show.\n\nWell, it has been rumored...\n\n Yeah, he took his life. Just after our booker called him, there was a muffled shot. He was sad that Chevy went off the air first. He never got over it.\n\nSo what makes for good comedy?\n\n Anything that breeds insecurity. That&amp;#39;s why I intentionally had bad skin and a weak body growing up. In reality, I&amp;#39;m quite striking, but I did everything I could to make sure that I was insecure so I could be funnier.\n\nDid you watch Johnny Carson as a kid?\n\n Oh yeah. My dad loved Johnny, so I watched with him. We loved it when his jokes would bomb and he&amp;#39;d play around with that space.\n\nDon&amp;#39;t you think TV is a positive socializing force for kids?\n\n Well, I&amp;#39;m having a kid in October, and I&amp;#39;ve talked with my wife about limiting TV. And I thought if I didn&amp;#39;t have TV, I would have been screwed; that&amp;#39;s where I learned how to be funny.\n\nWho did you learn from?\n\n Peter Sellers\u2014I love the confident idiot. Bob Hope\u2014his whole persona of growling at women. From Johnny I learned when to shut up. For instance, we had a sex therapist on, and she strapped on a giant chin dildo and the place went crazy\u2014and all I&amp;#39;m doing is staring. Now, yes, I knew that a chin dildo was on the way, and\u2014\n\nI&amp;#39;m sure that wasn&amp;#39;t the first time you knew a chin dildo was on the way.\n\n Well, that&amp;#39;s another story. That implicates Bill Maher and everyone that worked at that hotel. But, you know, people want to see my reaction. Sometimes you laugh because you know what&amp;#39;s coming.\n\nThe anticipation.\n\n It&amp;#39;s almost sexual.\n\nRight. Can I open the door now?\n\n No. I&amp;#39;d like to dim the lights, if that&amp;#39;s all right, and apply these ointments.\n\nYou&amp;#39;re about to become a dad.\n\n Right.\n\nNervous?\n\n I&amp;#39;d be crazy not to be. The chromosomes for doing a late-night talk show probably share space with the gene for self-absorption. Will my kid write a tell-all, Late Night with Conan\u2014the Bastard.\n\nLate Nights: I Never Saw Him.\n\n Yeah, My No Nights with Conan O&amp;#39;Brien. And if my kid is stupid enough to go with that title...\n\nHe deserves what&amp;#39;s coming to him.\n\n Being a parent scares the shit out of me. But I&amp;#39;ve learned from the show that when something scares the shit out of you, do it.\n\nDo you have any nightmares?\n\n I have a dream where the show&amp;#39;s going horribly and I wake up and I have tears of blood and I&amp;#39;m screaming, &amp;quot;Die, damn you, die.&amp;quot; But I don&amp;#39;t know what it means.\n\nI&amp;#39;m not a doctor, so I can&amp;#39;t help you with that.\n\n I have a handgun. I want you to know that. It&amp;#39;s in the office.\n\nThat&amp;#39;s cool. Whatever you say, man. I, uh...mind if I leave?\n\n You&amp;#39;re not going anywhere. Sometimes I have a dream where my penis is stolen.\n\n That doesn&amp;#39;t mean a thing.\n\n I hope not.\n\nUnless you&amp;#39;ve identified the thief.\n\n It&amp;#39;s Letterman. He steals my penis and says, &amp;quot;You&amp;#39;ll never make it, kid,&amp;quot; and laughs. But I don&amp;#39;t know what that means.\n\nWe&amp;#39;ve heard about Letterman through the years\u2014the self-loathing. There&amp;#39;s none of that with you, though.\n\n How do you know? I am very impatient when things aren&amp;#39;t funny enough. I can be bitingly nasty and neurotic. I&amp;#39;ve got a wicked temper. And when I&amp;#39;m on the air, I just look like I&amp;#39;m having the time of my life. And I am\u2014in that moment. But to get to that moment, I have to be a miserable prick. After the show, I revert to being a sweet person.\n\nDo you have any superstitions you go through before you go on each night?\n\n I cross myself. I defy anybody who was raised Catholic not to cross himself before he does something scary. One reason I like doing this show is that it&amp;#39;s my worst nightmare. I&amp;#39;m a control freak, and the most important thing to me is to be thought of as funny. So why in the world would I go out for an hour every night and try to be funny with very little control? It&amp;#39;s an absolute nightmare, but that&amp;#39;s the attraction.\n\nWhen did you figure this out?\n\n I realized that comedians that I admire, like Steve Martin or Woody Allen, are shy people who force themselves to do the thing that&amp;#39;s probably the most frightening. Why? Because that&amp;#39;s what we do. Or something. In my case, to compensate for a giant penis. I know people usually think guys compensate for a small penis, but I&amp;#39;m trying to compensate for a giant penis. When the penis is too big, you compensate as though it were small. That&amp;#39;s what my doctor says.\n\nSo because your penis is so huge, when you get an erection do you pass out from a loss of blood to the rest of your body?\n\n People around me pass out. Blood banks empty. Scary stuff.... But look, anyone who&amp;#39;s taken a Psych 1 course could watch me and say, &amp;quot;There&amp;#39;s an angry guy.&amp;quot; I&amp;#39;m generally a happy person, but I can tap into huge stores of anger.\n\nDoes therapy help?\n\n I went into therapy when I was at Saturday Night Live, because I was feeling like I was running on empty. That was creating anger. I got therapy and have had a lot of it since. I&amp;#39;m still driving a Ford Taurus, but I could have had nine sports cars with all the money I&amp;#39;ve spent on therapy.\n\nDo you, Letterman and Leno share groupies?\n\n I wish. I&amp;#39;ve sent mine, but they never send any back.\n\nLast question: How does it all end?\n\n I remember telling my dad when the show started doing well, &amp;quot;The tricky thing will be the dismount.&amp;quot; I&amp;#39;ve done this long enough where I&amp;#39;ve made myself unsuitable for anything else. I&amp;#39;ve lived on this crazy planet called Late Night Television for so long that my lungs have adapted, my heart has adapted. I&amp;#39;ve become one of those weird fish that live at the bottom of the sea for so many generations that my eyes have atrophied. I can&amp;#39;t live on your surface world. I am worried about how this ends. I try not to think about it. Maybe that&amp;#39;s what having a kid is all about. I&amp;#39;m waiting for this kid to tell me, &amp;quot;Dad, it&amp;#39;s time you got your real estate license.&amp;quot; I know one thing: I have a tenth-anniversary show in prime time, and no matter what happens, I&amp;#39;ll be able to slide that into a VCR and enjoy it. Or way in the future, eat it in pill form and then say, &amp;quot;Mmm, good episode.&amp;quot; [in the voice of a kid] &amp;quot;Grandpa! No! That was a death pill you just took!&amp;quot; Maybe that&amp;#39;s how it all ends.\n\nmichael hainey is gq&amp;#39;s deputy editor. He also has dreams about his penis being stolen."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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