Howie Mandel: I'm distracted

Last weekend I went to see Howie Mandel at a small, old theater in Woonsocket. I found it odd that he was performing there. There are a lot bigger, more well-known venues in Providence, the capital of the smallest state in the country. But Howie wasn’t even performing in Providence. He was performing in Woonsocket. Ever heard of it? It has a tiny population of 43,000. Its claim to fame may be that large parts of the 2009 Richard Gere film about a dog and his owner, Hachi, were filmed there or that Minnesota Twins’ manager and former Tampa Bay Rays’ outfielder Rocco Baldelli is from there.

So why would a comedy legend like Howie Mandel perform in a small venue with a seating capacity of little over 1,000 people? I’ve seen him sell out the Providence Performing Arts Center, which has a capacity of over 3,000 people. He has performed at the neighboring casinos in Connecticut, including the Mohegan Sun Theater with a seating capacity of 10,000.

He opened this show by saying that this was only his 19th show since COVID shut things down in March 2020. Howie is famous for being a germaphobe so one can only imagine how taxing the last three years have been for him. Even prior to COVID, he never shook people’s hands, instead resorting to a fist bump even when he was hosting the TV game show Deal or No Deal.

The act that first put him on the map in the mid 1980s was a bit in which he would put a rubber glove over his head, covering his nostrils, and blow, inflating the fingers, and eventually the glove would fly off his head. Come to find out that he improvised his iconic bit the first time he set foot on stage at an Open Mike Night. His friends forced him on stage and he didn’t know what to do, so he reached in his pocket and pulled out a rubber glove from the stash he always carried in his pocket due to his fear of germs. He put it on his head and the rest is history. And here he is nearly 40 years later with a net worth of upwards of $60 million.

But being a germaphobe is only the tip of the iceberg with Howie. When I got home, I found a podcast Howie did with Joe Rogan only a month before. Rogan has one of the most popular podcasts ever and he has done hours-long cerebral interviews with hundreds of movers and shakers.

The entire interview was brilliant, but I was mostly captivated by a ten-minute segment in which Howie went in depth about his battle with depression. It really hit home and spoke to me and it got me thinking.

This poignant segment begins with Rogan expressing surprise when he hears that successful, seemingly happy guys like Mandel, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Daniel Day Lewis have to battle with inner demons.

Mandel quickly responds with, “I don’t think these are happy people - all the people that you mentioned. I am not happy, and I am this goofy (guy).”

“But you seem happy. You seem happy when you are around people,” Rogan interjects.

“That’s the scariest thing. No one is more confused than me,” Mandel responds straight-faced, sinking deeper and deeper into self-reflection. “The dichotomy between how I feel and what I do is huge. I am a f***ing mess. I deal with depression and anxiety.”

Rogan responds, baffled slightly, “When I hear about a person like you that doesn’t feel well, that gets depressed, I am like ‘God dammit, when he is around people he seems so happy.’”

“I’ll tell you why,” Mandel replies, “because in this moment I am talking to you. So I am in this moment, listening to you, responding to you.”

“So right now you are happy,” Rogan assuredly interrupts.

“I’m … distracted,” Mandel quickly corrects Rogan and Rogan responds with laughter. “I am. Because the worst thing for me is quiet time. I don’t like nighttime. I don’t like when I get into my own head.”

“If I veered off into the darkness that is me, I feel like I am balancing on this little ledge all the time and these words and these interactions are the cable that hold me on this side of it without falling off.”

“Wow, that’s heavy,” Rogan observes.

That was the meat of their discussion about depression and anxiety. It was so powerful for me that I have replayed it over and over the last few days, either on my computer, TV, or in my mind. I am getting chills right now just transcribing the interview.

I have a world of admiration for Howie. There was a comedy concert, Hooray for Howie Would, he did in the late 1990s that I consider my favorite comedy concert ever. One of the first gifts my girlfriend ever got me was a VHS copy of the concert because she knew how much I loved it and how I couldn’t seem to find it anywhere anymore.

Like he said, he always seemed like such a goofball - and I mean that in a good way. He always appeared to not have a care in the world. He almost seemed ignorant to life, and, as they say, ignorance is bliss and Howie always seemed blissful. But who knew he had so much sadness inside?

It is so eerily similar to another comedian that I have come to relate to so much - Robin Williams. When I was checking into a hotel room on the first day of my vacation at Niagara Falls in August of 2014, I, literally, collapsed onto my bed when my girlfriend told me she had just read on social media that Robin Williams had taken his life. Come to find out months later that Williams had Lewy Body Dementia, the same disease that claimed my mother’s life. I couldn't believe it.

It is so true what Howie said that you really don’t know people based on what you see or hear or believe. For many people battling depression, being around people is a welcome, necessary distraction. It is an opportunity for them to act happy. It is an opportunity for them to hear other voices besides the ones in their head. People have expressed the same shock when I tell them that I am suffering from depression. Don’t get me wrong - I am not as funny as Robin Williams or Howie Mandel. But I can be pretty witty, and I know my friends consider me funny. But it is all a defense mechanism to keep people from questioning what is really going on inside of me. And, besides, that other real person is not much fun to be around.

We all have these kinds of nervous ticks. My mother used to embarrass me when she would laugh at the worst times, like at a funeral, until I realized that was just the way she dealt with awkward situations. Like Howie and Robin, I use humor. You are either the one laughing (my mother), or the one (me) making someone laugh. Either way, it is hiding pain.

The biggest lesson to be learned from Howie’s self-assessment is the importance of distractions. Get out there and be around people. Dive into your work. Go be around friends even though you don’t feel like you want to be around anybody. You need to be around people. Go outside. Get distracted by birds flying or people walking their dogs at the park. Distractions and living in the moment are the threads to the rope, which is wrapped around your waist, holding you on that ledge.

You don’t have to do anything too wild. You don’t need to go skydiving. You don’t need to go mountain climbing. You don’t have to perform on stage in front of 10,000 people at a casino. Sometimes it helps just to step out in front of a smaller crowd of 1,000 people in a small venue in a small town in the smallest state in the country.