Kennedy wants to retain a sense of self-irony, but sometimes he can only muster self-contradiction.

David is acutely aware of his capacity for accomplishment, and of how far he has come from Donegal and County Wexford. In the course of a two-hour conversation, David mentioned three times that he had won the Nationals and World Championship.

"You know, no one had ever done that before," he says.

No, Listening to David for the first time, we do not know. But we do now.

"You know" is Kennedy's replacement for the less articulate "ums" and "uhs" uttered by most of us. It's very important for David that we "know"--about himself, about his views, about his life. Indeed, after a while, you begin to realize that Dave Kennedy, despite his intentions, takes himself quite seriously.

But if that makes him a failure, then we're all doomed to mediocrity. Kennedy asks the impossible of himself--study hard, hold a job, have a social life, help keep two magazines afloat--and still not be too serious or proud.

Kennedy spends his life treading the uncertain margins that lie between second-generation immigrant and Harvard student, between Catholic and humanist, between Perspective and Lampoon, between himself and his "second conscience," always "keeping tabs."

The fact that he's as successful as he is at these balancing acts may be more impressive than the Truman, Yale Law, or the World Debate Championship.

Keep those two pictures up, Mr. Di Michele. David wouldn't be David without both of them.

A Catholic feminist? No problem, Kennedy says.

What's a guy like Dave Kennedy doing in The Harvard Lampoon?