Joel Stein '93 is a narcissist. But if I were anything like him, I'd be obsessed with myself too. It's unlikely that any past Daily columnist has fashioned his Stanford soap box into a bona fide fortress quite the way Stein has. And if someone else has, chances are he isn't as cute.

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Alvin Chow

Joel Stein returns to the Stanford Daily where he once starred in a weekly column. He now writes columns for the LA Times, and depending on the time, contributes to TIME magazine.

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Alvin Chow

Joel Stein doing what he does best: Shooting balls in Intermission.

In the 14 years since he graduated, Joel has written for more publications than the average person picks up in a lifetime, including Entertainment Weekly, Time and the L.A. Times (where he currently writes a weekly column). If you haven't read his stuff, you've probably seen him on TV as one of those talking heads waxing nostalgic on VH1's "I Love the 80s" and some of those other shows you watch when nothing better is on.

I've always been a fan of Joel, so when I found out he was coming to campus this week, I wrote him an email asking for an interview. I'd like to say my email was poised and professional, but, in retrospect, it read more like one of those gushy fan letters you wrote to Jonathon Taylor Thomas in 5th grade after you stumbled on his address in TigerBeat.

But unlike JTT, Joel Stein wrote back.

I'm not sure what I expected Joel to be like in person. Smug? Unpleasant? Only capable of speaking in 20-second increments about why he loves the 80s?

After meeting with Joel in his hotel (it's not what you think - he's happily married, ladies), taking him to class and finally interviewing him in Branner, where he lived his freshman and senior years (as a Writing Tutor. Sketch.), I think I've figured out his secret weapon: he's actually a genuinely nice guy. Or a really good actor.

For someone who claims that quality humor hinges upon judging people rather than listening to them, he's surprisingly accessible. So much so that I found myself talking to him about earwax and the tennis lessons my mom made me go to in 4th grade. Horrifying.

Joel is charmingly self-deprecating in the way only someone with a healthy self-esteem (read: a beautiful wife who shops at Anthropologie) can be. Any straight man who drives a Mini Cooper has to have some confidence.

Though he has a MySpace - and you wonder why you have so many 16-year-old admirers, Joel - and he pseudo-runs his own fan website, thejoelstein.com, he still refuses to believe that people actually want to read about him. In fact, he is probably shaking his head in disbelief as he reads this, horrified that we devoted so many pages to him. See, Joel? I wasn't just pretending to work at The Daily to spend time with you.

What surprised me most, though, is how remarkably real Joel Stein is. When I took him to an English class taught by a professor he once had, he was nervous. I'm pretty sure he hated me for a moment when he realized I was one of those kids who doesn't like to hide in the back row of class. But by the time the class was over, he was energized, utterly impressed by the same professor who had taught him years prior.

Sure, Joel padded around Martha Stewart's TV-kitchen in sanitary booties when he wrote for her show - she anally required it of all employees. And, yes, he's toured the Playboy grotto and knows that Hugh Hefner spends his days whittling away the hours with his gardener and zookeeper, not having sex with women whose breasts are larger than their heads. But he's still tickled to pieces by the simplest things. Like the fact that I was wearing a watch - according to him a very "20th century thing." And that there are now so many students here who ride skateboards and even more who are well-dressed and (appear to be) showered. I get this feeling Joel wishes he were back at Stanford just so he could glide around campus on a skateboard in his bright orange Nikes, so fresh and so clean.

Don't get me wrong, Joel has definitely moved up the ranks since his heyday as a Daily columnist and editor. But I get the feeling that he hasn't really changed that much. While he's constantly getting calls from snazzy people on his snazzy, 21st century, multi-functioning cell phone, he still peppers his speech with "like"s and "uh"s. And even a "douchebag" here or there. What's more, when I met him for our interview, he was chatting animatedly with his dad on the phone. For the record, I didn't hear him call his father a douchebag.

Once again, I'd like to say that I remained poised and professional during our interview(s). But I didn't. I giggled more than a 5th grader in Sex Ed. There goes my dream of being Barbara Walters. If I'm lucky, I might still be able to wrangle an appearance as a talking head on "I love the 2000s."

At one point during our interview, Joel said: "Don't meet your heroes and crushes. That's my advice. You've projected so much on them and they can't live up to it."

I'm still glad I met you, Joel Stein . . . even if you are going bald.