Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - Howie Mandel

Episode Date: June 8, 2023

Neal Brennan interviews Howie Mandel (Howie Mandel Does Stuff + America's Got Talent + much more) about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- Howie's Blocks: 00:00 Intro 1:29 OCD 24:26 ADHD 30:57 FOMO 39:14 Comfort 54:57 Death 1:00:34 Distraction + Fear 1:28:02 Judgment 1:42:59 Can’t Relate To Any Movies  ---------------------------------------------------------- https://nealbrennan.com for tickets to Neal's tour Brand New Neal Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As you're listening to this comedy podcast, consider that McDonald's now has a small premium roast coffee for only $1 plus tax every day. Seriously, it's no joke. $1 small premium roast coffee every single day. Must be McCafe. Plus tax at participating restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. Hi, everyone. I'm coming to you from a different place because the schedule got screwed up. I'm coming to you from the studio of a friend of mine. Hold on. I should probably introduce the show. My name is Neil Brennan. It's a podcast called Blocks based on my Netflix special where I talk about things that made me feel alone in the world. And then I have people I know come on and tell me about their blocks and we all unite and we heal the earth.

My guest today is a 40. You've been famous to me for 40, 40 years. You want me to 40th anniversary? Yeah, no, it's not. No, I've been. Well, 40 years, more than 40 years. I've been doing this. I think I've been, well, 40 years, more than 40 years I've been doing this. I think I've been doing this April 19th, 1977 is my date that I jumped on stage.

That's the date that changed my life. Yes. And my life was just, everything in my entire life just unfolds in front of me. It's not like I blaze a trail. I follow a path and i've been open and fearful of not when the door opens not walking through it and i always have and that's served me well but it comes with a little bit of a personal price go welcome to blocks ladies and gentlemen yeah and this is the perfect let's get into it yeah

you're saying i don't everyone knows about the ocd i mean that is such a small part of it no so as how if you don't know how mandel has uh like famously you're like the first openly famous ocd person don't shake hands don't like well you're you were the one that i was like oh all right. That makes sense. But I never really, I didn't really know much about it. So either did I, and I was, I didn't. And you must've just thought you were losing your mind or you. No, I'll tell you what I thought. I was not, I have, unlike previous guests that you've talked to, and maybe even yourself, I have the most supportive, wonderful, loving family, which made it even harder because I was independently miserable.

And, you know, just in your body, minute to minute, the most common emotion is fear of everything. That's your general state is fear of everything. That's your general state is fear. Yeah. Fear, anxiety, worry. And all I do, I feel like I'm constantly just grasping at just trying to survive, you know, on from, and I remember that from, you know, I don't remember feeling any other way ever feeling any other way. Age three, four, five, every, everything. My mom tells a story about me, um, even crawling when I was crawling before I could walk. Um, and I, I, I have no memory of this, so I don't know. But if somebody was in the room like you are right now with their legs crossed,

I would go crazy and they had to uncross their legs. I would crawl up and just start screaming. And then she learned that if they uncrossed their legs, I would stop screaming. I cannot tell you for the life of me why that bothered me, but I must have had some sort of, I realize now with obsessive compulsive disorder, you know, you have these reoccurring thoughts, you know, it always gets me. And I talk, I've talked about this ad nauseum, but you know, the term OCD has become a vernacular, you know, and people will go,

I'm always, I'm a little OCD. So OCD. Yes. I love everything clean. I want everything in order. I'm like you, you know, and I don't like germs either. Like tell me who likes germs and who doesn't want a neat place. That's not what OCD is. OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder. If you are obsessing about, I think no matter how unencumbered you are in life with whatever, you will have ridiculous thoughts. It's just our brain. And the average person, that thought will go in and then wash away, you know? And even if that thought is, and this is, I'm going to bring it back to my story. Even if my thought is, Oh, look, his legs are crossed. You know, anybody who looks at it, the fact is with OCD, you get stuck on a thought and you can't, you can't move on from that thought. So what happens if I was to articulate out loud OCD, would he go, Oh, look, his legs are crossed.

Oh, look, his legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. And I'm going, you know, even as a baby, and I can't articulate it, his legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. And I can't say, uncross your legs. His legs are crossed. His legs are crossed. His legs are. So I have the same thought as anybody else, but it fucking stops you. It just stops you. It's hard to. It's truly like obsess, obsess, obsess, obsess.

The word obsess. Yeah. That's what you should. That's what. And then. Yeah. Another overly used word. I'm obsessed with.

But obsession is if you're literally obsessed, you can't move on. And it has fucked me up to knowing, I can't tell you how much of a battle it is. And to be my age and from my generation, you know, number one, I couldn't articulate what was going on in my mind. Well, because you're, the thing I like, you're, how old are you? I'll be 68 this year yeah so but you're you're not from like a uh therapize generation no no so and even the word mental because mental health is what we're talking about yeah the word mental from my generation is even that word physical doesn't mean anything mental means mental mental mental this guy is mental it was a martin short had that uh am i mental it's making me mental ed grimley

so it wasn't anything that even personally i can tell somebody like my mom going, I don't know why I can't, I can't think because your legs are crossed. I can't think. I mean, I wish that I could slow down and articulate to go, you know, there's something wrong because I'm in the middle of the living room. I'm just crawling here. You've crossed your legs. I know that doesn't mean, and that juxtaposition of having the wherewithal to know that it doesn't really mean anything and it won't do anything to me and it won't fuck me up and then still not being able to get it out of your head even makes it worse it's dichotomy between what you're stuck on and knowing like even listen i'm i have some intelligence i know that the chances of me some some go ahead

some is all relative but but if i shook somebody's hands truthfully i mean the chances of me dying are minimal uh but i have such a fear of triggering myself. That's why I don't shake hands. Ah. I don't want to trigger because there have been times and my thought is not

unlike anybody else. Another overused word, trigger, in the new sort of TikTok, Instagram, mental health. Oh, that's triggering.

Yes, that's triggering. When someone has a real trigger, like if I shake your hand, all hell's going to break loose. And that is what people don't understand see what they don't understand is 99.9 of the time if you shook my hand right now nothing will happen but the knowing where it has taken me like and nobody listen you could shake somebody's hand and we are in a business where we're probably coming in. A lot of handshaking.

Meet and greets, you know, or, or just you come in contact with more people than the average person. Yeah. Just because you're in show business and you're in a public business, you feel something clammy. You're not going to like that clammy.

Nobody's going to like that clammyness. And I go, that's clammy. The same thing. Ooh, that's clammy, but it's clammy. It's clammy. like that clammy. Nobody's going to like that clammyness. And I go, oh, that's clammy. The same thing. Oh, that's clammy. But it's clammy. It's clammy. It's clammy.

And it's like screaming. It's clammy. I want to go wash my hands. Nothing wrong with that. I'm going to wash my hands. I'm going to wash my hands. I got to wash my hands. And then I go in there and I wash my hands.

And then I don't want to touch the side. Then I realize, you know what? I don't know if I, maybe I should have done it hotter. And I don't know if I, you know, I sang happy birthday twice and, and then, and then I walk away and I go, I don't, I don't know. It was clammy. It was clammy. Let me just wash my hands one more time again. And I'll be sure. And it was clammy. Let me wash my hands one more time. And I could be in this fucking loop. So for two hours, as, as we'll call it the clammy loop. Yeah. fucking loop so for two hours as as we'll call it the clammy loop yeah so you wash you're in you're still in the bathroom and you go but it was clammy when you so you're thinking about the

sensation of it you're thinking about the sensation or you're like projecting it forward into this whatever horror could come from clammy surfaces there's projections of uh this clammyness is uh an illness is a virus is i'm gonna get sick i know that i'm gonna touch my face at some point you know i keep my hands away from my eyes and my nose and my mouth always incessantly but you know it's just it's fucking noisy and it's so noisy and it's deafening that I can't move on. Was there a rock bottom? Meaning like the worst, the worst one where you were like this, I gotta do change this. I have to do something about this. It wasn't me. It was my wife. So we were going on a trip. The limo picked us up at, at the house of family. We were going to catch a plane and one of the kids crossed their legs in the car.

Not like, and their shoe. I can't believe they didn't know by a certain age. You don't do that. And their shoe touched my pants. The underside of the shoe touched my pants. And I went, turn the car around, turn the car. We were almost at the airport. We're going to miss the flight. She goes, what's wrong? I got to change my pants. I got to change my pants and I went turn the car around turn the car we were almost at the airport we're gonna miss the flight she goes what's wrong I gotta change my pants I gotta change my pants

why because so-and-so shoe touched my pants because I'm not turning the car around I go you better turn the turn the fucking car around not getting on the plane with these pants I'm not gonna get on the plane with these pants turn the car around and at this point this is I was in my 40s we were probably married for 20 years at the time. She said, Howie, if you don't get help, I'm out. I'm out. That's it. I'm taking the kids and I'm out. You're making it hell. Like, and even up until that point, you know, everybody's very, it was very accepting of my, for lack of a better term, my quirkiness. You know, I was just quirky, you know, and I was in terror. I was depressed. I was anxious.

Must have been so lonely. It is. And there's nothing lonelier and there's nothing more torturous than sitting with your own thoughts without anybody weighing in. But they're not even useful. I would sit with my own thoughts. Single weighing in. But they're not even useful. I would sit with my own thoughts. Single, not married, no kid, but I'm sitting with my own thoughts. This is not, they're not even your thoughts.

But I own them. You know what I mean? What you're talking about, they are my thoughts. And my thoughts are like- You know what I mean? Yeah, but don't they feel in some ways just like put on you? Clammy, you know. Here's what I feel.

I feel like they are my thoughts. And I don't feel that I have any different thoughts than you or anybody listening to this or watching this right now has. What I do have is I have a skipping record. You know, if you put a record on and it's skipping, record. You know, if you put a record on and it's skipping, it's a, I have a malfunction, a genetic biological malfunction that won't let the thoughts go through. I mean, I'm not a neuroscientist, but I do know that, you know, there's a constant flow of input going into all of us. You are making the decision. You are filing your entire environment. You are filing and you are making decisions in the moment of

this is what I'm going to act on. This is what I need to do in this moment to counteract this or to enhance this. You know, they're all thoughts. You see food put in front of you, you make a decision that you're going to pick up your utensils. You're going to cut the food and you're going to eat it. You know, as somebody touches you with a clammy hand, you go, Oh, that's clammy. That's a moment. No. Yeah. I guess that's skipping isn't yours. That's it. So it feels like a malfunctioning machine. And I'm much more articulate today as I listen to myself describe it to you than I was at the time because I had no understanding of what this was. I never heard anybody else talk about it.

I didn't know what the term OCD was. I've never heard that term. So when you just live in this noisy, fucked up, skipping, ridiculous thought, and they could be intrusive thoughts, even like it's a ritual. If I'm going to leave the room, I got to turn counterclockwise before I leave the room. I don't know fucking why. I don't know why. It's just a silly fucking thought that went in, you know, I, and even today, like I have numbers that I have to, when I'm on the treadmill, I go and run on the treadmill. I find that very, uh, relaxing, but at the same time, I have to always see 207. I don't know why I have to see 207. I have to see

207, like two minutes and seven seconds, 12 minutes and seven, the calories. It i have 207 i have to see 207 like the two minutes and seven seconds 12 calories seven the calories it's just 207 i like to see 207 and then if i miss it i don't feel good and i know i'm telling you intellectually i know that's fucked up that's it's like so the turn counterclockwise see 207 and then it becomes a superstition that Superstition is a nice term. I wish I was just superstitious. No, but I'm not. We're right, but it is. So that's how you can articulate it

to somebody who doesn't know what you're talking about. You know how you have ridiculous superstitions? I got to put a feather in my pocket before I go? What if you had to put a feather in your pocket before you go and you couldn't find a feather and you have to put a feather in the pocket before I go? What if you had to put a feather in your pocket before you go and you couldn't find a feather and you have to put a feather in the pocket before you go and you have to put a feather in your pocket before you go and you have to put a fucking feather in your pocket and you can't find a feather. And if I don't put a feather in my pocket, it's not going to work out. And if I don't find a fucking feather now, I'm going to die. And if I

don't find a feather, the world just stops at the fucking feather. So when you're healthy, it's a superstition. When you have OCD, it's a- You get hijacked, it sounds like. The best term is your term. It's a fucking block. It really is a block. It stops life. It stops. You can't have a little bit of OCD. When you are suffering, when you are triggered, when OCD happens in that moment, I mean, I always have it, but in this particular second, I'm not suffering from it. But when it is triggered and when it does happen, there is no better way to describe it than I'm blocked. Life stops. And triggers can come from anywhere. And once it starts, do you ever have to do,

And you, once it starts, do you ever have to do, do you ever go like, tell so-and-so I'm going to be an hour late? Like not anymore. I would actually make excuses to miss things and not do things or not show up or, you know, uh, as my therapist said, right at the beginning of this, uh, you know, what you're trying to do for your own survival is you're trying to control your environment, right? So I would say, you know, don't put your foot on me, or I saw you go like this, so don't touch my phone and don't touch, you know, and she just said that in order for you to survive, you can't control everybody to live in your world. You have to figure out how to live in your world you have to figure out how to live in everybody's world and that's my life my life now is just trying it's and and and i have a blessed life and a beautiful family and everything by the way i'd like to point out howie and i are comedians

is it too dark no no and just like you're also fucking hilarious and a very appealing person but i'm just saying like this is excellent but i just want to remind people it's excellent in that it's very revealing and it's revelatory to me because i don't know it ocd kind of is a bit of a it's overused and to hear the feather thing or the clammy thing, it's, it's, it's maddening. It's maddening to hear it when you talk about it for 20 seconds.

But I use this, this comparison. I go, when you think of the most famous sufferer of OCD known to the public right now is probably Howard Hughes. because they made the movie. Howard Hughes was an engineering genius, was probably one of the most productive human beings in the last century. By the way, you're very productive as well. We're sitting in your studio.

This is one room of 30. But I didn't invent a bra and an airplane. I think he invented the bra and the airplane. Yeah, but you had the glove over the head. I'll talk about the bra and the airplane. Yeah. But you, you had the glove, the glove over the head. I'll talk about that in a second. But the point is that he ended his life ended with him alone in a room, naked in the fetal position, peeing into a bottle. And I can't stress how close I am to that in any given day, you know, and my life is, and,

and well worth it is all about coping. And that's what brought me to comedy because accidentally I found this comedy to be an incredible coping skill or a tool. And that came out of, as I talked to you earlier in April, uh, 17, April 19th, 1977 was kind of the middle of the standup comedy boom. You know, they, it started right in 75 with catch and an improv and the comedy store out here in LA. And I was not a student of comedy. You know, I love comedy. Um, but I, I, you know, I watched the tonight show like anybody else. I never said,

this is something I want to do. This is something I can do. I never even dreamed that this funny, were you funny in conversation? If people now come up to me and say, Oh, when you were a kid, you were so funny. I didn't have a fucking friend in the world. Nobody thought I was funny. You know, context is everything. I did things. I'll go back even further than that. My parents loved standup comedy and my parents used to watch a lot of the, you know, Jack Parr and Steve Allen and the Tonight Shows at night. I'd hear it on when I went to bed when I was little. And my dad used to buy comedy albums, and he'd have them on. And I would hear them laughing in the living room. And I would get out of bed, because laughter is a great magnet.

And I thought, everybody's having fun. I want to have fun too. So I would go in. I was little. I was about four or five years old. And I have really clear memories of this. And I'd hear a man talking and then they my mom and dad would laugh and I felt like I landed in a foreign land I didn't

really understand so if there was a comedian talking about his mother-in-law and what the fuck is a mother-in-law right you know or you know I didn't I had no point of reference and I didn't understand it but which made me feel, how can I not understand English? How can I not even communicate with these people who are laughing and having such a good time? And these words don't even mean anything to me, but they're having such a good time. And I don't even understand this until I, uh, one Sunday nights they were watching Candid Camera. And Candid Camera was Alan Funt.

And this kind of informed my comedy of today, too. But they were watching, and Alan Funt kind of is the very first prank show. And Alan Funt, because he started on radio, Alan Funt explained to the audience at home that I'm going to do a prank now where I'm going to pretend I'm the boss and I'm going to hire a receptionist for this office, this fake office. And I'm going to tell the receptionist, you must answer the phone. You must never miss a phone call. I'm going out for lunch and take messages. What is the, what is the, what is your task, sir? I'm never going to miss a phone call. I'll take all the phone calls and I'll leave messages. That's all I want. And then he would explain to us that he tied a rope to the leg of the desk and the rope goes through under the carpet, through a wall, a fake wall in the next room. And when the phone rings, they're going to get the phone to ring. When the phone rings, when she goes to answer it,

they're going to pull the rope and the whole desk is going to slide away, which was really easy for me to understand. This was like my first surprise party. I went, oh my God. And I could feel that anticipation. Like I'm in on it. My parents are in on it. I turned to them and I went, oh my God, this is great.

This is great. And then the first lady sits down and the phone rings and I could feel my heart going, you know, the phone rings and she goes to do it. They pull the rope, it goes out and she is terrified. And a guttural fucking laugh came out of me without like, and I was aware I just went, oh my God. And my parents were laughing too. And we were, I just went, this is fucking amazing. This is amazing. This, it feels good to laugh. It really does. And I think laughter is the best medicine. There isn't a, there's a therapy that exists now where they tell you if you're feeling really down, you should force yourself to laugh.

Yeah. Even at nothing. And then some sort of endorphin will be released and make you feel. Have you heard Nate Pargatse's joke about that? No. It's basically talking about how dumb our brains are. And it's like, so if one part of your brain tells your mouth to smile, another part of your brain will be happy. And it's like, didn't you hear the conversation in the other part of the brain?

Like, you're right there. All right. That's kind of the joke, Neil. I don't think you did it. I mean, you did it great. We're in Tennessee yet, so you know I'm from Tennessee. You have a smart part and a dumb part. I'm going to mess it up now. You have a smart part and a dumb part. And if you're in a bad mood, the smart part, they tell you to fake smile, and then your brain will think you're in a good mood. Well, it's like, how dumb is the dumb part

that you can, like, it's right there. They're all in the same head. It's the same brain. So how's it not like, yeah, I hear all this planning going on. That's the gist of it. I think I might've done it worse than you did. It's fucking,

it's on his new Amazon. That's brilliant. Yeah. It's so God, it was one of those things when I heard it, I was like, God damn it. It's so funny.

Cause we all know about the study and like the brain is so dumb. And that's brilliant. And you're really thinking, God damn, why didn't i think of that yep yep so anyway the point is that that laugh did it feel like a reprieve from from your state absolutely yeah and that laugh was a laugh that's maybe four or five years old i'm'm sitting here 67 years old, about to be 68. And that feeling, that moment felt like, yes, it feels like yesterday. And for the rest of my life, without being able to kind of articulate, this is what I want to do for a living. I've been chasing that feeling. And what happened at school, I wasn't aware enough to realize that this is a television show with an audience. I'm not a television show and I don't

have an audience. So I'm renowned. I was, I don't have a GED. I also have been diagnosed with ADHD, which wasn't diagnosed when I was growing up. So I have no attention span. It's really hard for me to sit. I would get frustrated. I would feel sad and I'd feel anxious. So I would try to recreate that feeling that I saw on candid camera. So I have a million stories that are great stories now and became part of my act, but they wouldn't endear me to fellow students. And some of them are, and this is before Caddyshack, we had swimming in school. So I, I threw a chocolate bar into the pool because I didn't want to swim. So it would look like somebody shit in the bottom of the pool, but I didn't have a friend. So I didn't tell anybody that I did that.

So now I just have, there's just shit at the bottom of the pool and people, and I'm enjoying the periphery of hearing people going, you see something took a shit in the bottom pool. Something took a shit. Let's go meet after school. You'll see the shit. There's shit in the deep end.

And people show up like a hundred people or 200 people show up at the end of the day to look, to see who shit in the pool. And I knew, and I show up, I don't have a lot of friends. And then they're all standing there without even thinking I dived in and came up with it in my mouth, which could be an entertaining story. But at an age when everybody's trying to dress like everybody, everybody's trying to be like everybody. I didn't tell, even if I had thought to tell two or three friends, watch what I'm going to do.

I could have been a little bit of a hero, a comedic little hero, but I didn't tell anybody. So I was just a kid that ate shit. And in, in, so what, all right,

I have a couple of questions. Okay. So you dive in, what was your approach? Did you grab it with your hand and then swim up and when you go i probably died i haven't put it in my mouth and put it in my mouth and you could hear it is it is it like 10 feet down or five feet down it's probably uh it's the deep end so and then you come up with it and it can you hear how soon before someone goes oh as soon as i broke as soon as the water and it wasn't like not a laugh not one person laughed it was just a uh like just oh and girls going disgusting and running the other way and like i was just a guy and then i was the kid who

eats shit that's what i was and i was funny as the pool was fine they went in the pool the next day you probably were never recovered i i told the teacher it was a chocolate bar and that's they didn't have to uh they didn't have to but it was still disgusting also and i was immature the opposite of ocd is sticking i mean a pool candy bar in your mouth that's been at the bottom of pool and you just i had to go swimming every day in school. I didn't think of that as chlorinated. Okay. It's a chlorinated pool.

It was my chocolate bar. Okay. I bought it. It was an O'Henry bar. Okay. Nuts in it. I went to look. Sure, of course.

I put some homework into this. A little joke, a little shit joke in there. I don't know if it was a shit joke. It was, I don't know. See, I didn't have, i didn't articulate i'm gonna do something funny i'm gonna do something like alan funt so did you think through what the reaction was gonna be never you just thought something's gonna happen no it's just because this is this would be this is weird this is like this is like i'm gonna pull the i'm gonna pull the desk all

right well the chapelle always used to talk about it was like one of the first things we bonded over, the unseen audience. What's the unseen audience? It's like the audience you have in your head when you say something funny at a store and it bombs. But it's like, it worked. But that's my whole life. My whole life.

Even to this day, my wife will go, and my mother always did. And my kids say now, they go, who is this joke for? And I always say, for me. And it is for me. Ultimately, it is for me. There's an old saying, if you could just make one person laugh, that's all I'm going for. And that one person is me. And I need that. That's my survival.

Right. I need that. And then, you know, things either turn out horrible or wonderful. There's no middle ground. And I love, that's why I'm so big on social media now. I love more than anything when they don't get it. I love reading the comments. I love awkward. I love uncomfortable. That's I could be. And maybe I relate to that because that's where I live. Yeah. You're like the,

you're already, you're waiting for them. Like, are you uncomfortable? Right. But if I can bring and control and bring somebody into my world of discomfort and awkward, remember I was in, in high school, I was 4'10", 89 pounds.

I couldn't, no girls liked me. I tried to meet girls and then I thought, oh, sports. Well, what sport am I going to play at 89 pounds and 4'10"? The only sport I can get on was the wrestling team. And I wrestled for under 90, but didn't think it through. So now I'm wearing a onesie, which is virtually a girl's one piece bathing suit. It's a bathing suit with, with, with leg extensions.

Okay. And, uh, and I'm rolling around on the ground as a, as a germaphobe, uh, with a strange other guy, just sweating together and sharing, you know, fluids. Yes. It didn't like everything. I didn't think anything through. And I always ended up in a horrible, uncomfortable situations, which brought me to comedy. So what's happened is on that night, April 17th, yes.'t i don't dance and you know in the 70s dancing and clubbing was all the rage studio 54 so i didn't go to the discos and i didn't do i don't play sports you know so i didn't have a pickup game of you know basketball to play i'm not a gambler so i didn't have a poker game. And beyond that,

I didn't really have a lot of friends. So they opened in Toronto, they opened Yuck Yucks. And I went to Yuck Yucks to see a standup show. I've never seen standup live in a room. And I saw a standup live in that room. And Mark Breslin, who is the owner and proprietor of Yuck Yucks said, if anybody wants to get up and do standup, if you think you can do this, you know, you get three minutes, I think on Monday night after midnight. And somebody that was there with me said, you should do that. And I went, okay, that's all I said was okay. Like I always do. I will always say yes. And, um, because I'm afraid.

And what do you think that is? I'm afraid of no, I'm afraid of missing out. I'm afraid of no. You know, and now you have a like a thing that happened and you were like, and I never said no again. Did you did you miss a great thing? No, just a fear. I have such a FOMO to the nth degree. Is that close to obsession? The FOMO thing?

I don't think it's close. I think it is. It's a problem. I don't sleep. I'm up all night on every fucking platform. I want to know. I want to have reference to everything. I use the excuse of stand-up comedy to say if something happens in the audience or something

says something, I want to know what they're saying. I hate when somebody mentions the name of an artist or something that's happening and I don't know what it is. I'm afraid the world goes on without me. And I'm going light on the word afraid. It's really interesting because we reach an age, I always say this, and it's also what keeps me going is curiosity, but crazy curiosity. going is curiosity but crazy curiosity um when we're kids most kids you're really curious you you listen to the you used to listen to the radio now you stream you find out what is the best music that's they tell you yeah they tell you but you search it you're turning on radio or listening to your friends yeah you see what other people are wearing and that's now yeah yeah but even then

you know the influence there was always influencers whether you wore a beatles haircut and everybody grew their hair like okay so that's why you dress like you're 23 me yeah i don't know i don't know probably i mean it's you don't want to you fomo it's like what's the cool you always have the coolest clothes you have cooler clothes but i'm actually interested yeah so here's what i mean but here's the thing at a certain age and you could get this from anybody's parents at a certain age most people can relax and they they find the haircut they like yep they find the way they dress they like jerry it's seinfeld's

joke about you dress like the last great year of your life. That's probably, and that's not only funny, but it's probably true. And then you sit and you go, that's not music. What we had was music. Yep. But what we had as music doesn't really speak to anybody today. Correct. And I'm more fascinated. My son got me into this too. I would go onto YouTube at the beginning, was the first digital platform that I found like maybe 20 years ago. And I would see like 100 million clicks on something, 100 million people watched. I never saw those kind of numbers coming into something.

And then I would read all the comments because not only did you see that 100 million people watched this, you knew what they thought of it. And they would this is hysterical this is funny this is the funniest thing i ever saw and to be truthful with you i didn't understand why it was funny i didn't get it and that bothered me even more i go 100 million people get the joke and i don't get the joke why so you've it truly is fear of missing it like you feel like you feel like the world is moving on yes and i they just dropped me in a foreign planet where i can't communicate i don't

know what's funny anymore right i don't know i just want to be part of it i just really want to be part of it i just want to be invited to the party yeah you know that's that's my whole thing so that's my fear of saying no because as as I say, I use this in kind of a motivational way now, but you know, nothing comes from a no, nothing is the first letters of nothing are no, you're not going to get anything from no, but you may get a huge mistake and a negative from yes, but you can also get, and everything that's happened in my life for survival has been because of yes so i said okay i'll go on stage in my mind i don't think of ramifications so when i said i'll go on stage on april 17th april you know what's interesting because i'm thinking what i say no

a lot and what i'm getting i know what i'm getting which is my house my comfort level my and maybe it's because you don't have a ton of comfort that you're like comfort isn't a word i know i'm never comfortable but i so if you're going to be uncomfortable you might as well there might as well potentially be an upside right you know what i mean like i'm uncomfortable going whatever to a new restaurant or and i'm like i just well you're like that already if you talk about another block comfort hi you know how people like if you're uh dating them will want to do stuff i personally don't like doing stuff you You know that. Other people do. I do occasionally like to go to an event and you got to get tickets for it. And it's stressful because you don't know where to go. You don't know what's legit. Game time is the fast and

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You know about it. You know I've been in therapy 20 years. Talk therapy, hugely helpful. It will just give you someone to bounce your life off of and they'll show you how to interrogate yourself. Like, what do I mean? What do I feel? What do I... It's better than a friend. That's all I can tell you. If you're thinking of starting therapy,

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It's a prebiotic and a probiotic. I started taking them, and euphemistically, I've said before, it gets the trains running on time. And let's just say I've been at the train station more often recently. Seeds DS-01 makes it easier to get. That's what this is for. It's for a DSO1 pill, and it makes it easier to go. There's also increasing research on the gut-brain axis, which Seed is currently researching in partnership with Axial Therapeutics. You know, they're the best in terms of motility.

They're one of the best labs there is. Start a new healthy habit today. Visit seed.com slash N-E-A-L S-E-E-D dot C-O-M slash capital N, capital E, capital A, capital L, and use code NEAL to redeem 25% off your first month of seeds. DSO1 daily symbiotic. That's seed.com slash NEAL and use code. You guessed it. Neil, if you love the train station, are you one of those? Are you a train spotter then seeds for you? You talk about another block comfort. Great. Go. Well, I, if I'm comfortable, comfortable, then, you know, if you, if you want to put comfortable in a, uh, in a physical way, what happens is then you just quiet down and sink into comfort. If I sink into comfort,

then inside becomes loud. You know, I talk about, you know, I love standup comedy is my favorite thing to do because ultimately it's my most comfortable, uncomfortable place. My, my analogy for that is I still, I do. I love thrill rides.

I still love thrill rides. I'll go on roller coasters and the higher it is, the closer to death. Where do they shoot AGT? Where do they shoot AGT? Yeah. Where do you, I mean,

do you, I was thinking if you were at universal or something, you could sneak in. No, I'm Pasadena. There aren't any roller coasters in Pasadena that I'm awareT? Yeah. Where do you, I mean, do you, I was thinking if you were at universal or something, you could sneak in. No, I'm Pasadena. There aren't any roller coasters in Pasadena that I'm aware of. Yeah. But whenever I'm at a park or near a park or have a day off,

I go get tickets and I go on every roller coaster. And the, and the thing about it is the higher it is, the scarier it is, the closer to death you think you're becoming and screaming and beside yourself, the better it is. You know,

you get off and your adrenaline, you feel alive and you go, I want to go on again. And in the middle of that, and beside yourself, the better it is. You know, you get off and your adrenaline, you feel alive and you go, I want to go on again. And in the middle of that, and that drop, you can't be, you can't think of anything else. It just,

it forces you in the moment. And by the same token, so to stand up comedy, you're in the moment, especially the way you do it, which is large. Well, I mean,

again, I don't, I saw you a few months ago. Improvisation. Yeah. It's, it's I don't, I saw you a few months ago. Improvisation. Yeah. It's, it's a lot of it's crowd work and bits and the crowd work is some of the best crowd work you've ever seen.

I would like to reiterate how fucking Howie Mandel had essentially a crowd work special that aired on HBO in the eighties. And it was like, uh, you know, culturally a huge thing, like a Cat Williams or a Dave or Chris, or whatever. Thank you. Or Mulaney or whatever. But I need, I understand why, you know, rock bands don't want to play their hits.

You know, you want to, I need to, that's out of necessity. And by the same token. It seems like your existence is, a lot of it feels like escape from Howie Mandel. You couldn't articulate that better. If there's one big block, it's myself. I just need to be away from me. This is a block. Whatever this is, and I'm constantly, sometimes literally running away from myself. That's why every day I run miles and miles and miles on the treadmill, just running from myself. i know my brother calls it running the brennan out of you

he my brother runs every day because it's like i gotta get this and i get your brother and and even rogan says joe will work out if he's getting stressed or like overly anything you work out to the point of like near death seemingly i've passed out many times off the treadmill i'll run myself you know i have afib i have uh you know a heart i'm okay now i've had a couple of ablations and i'm on medication but i'll just run until i pass out my wife always how far is that? You know, up until, uh, COVID I was running seven miles every day, every day. Now I run about four, but you know, but I'm older and, you know, and I work a lot. Yeah. Yesterday I, uh, I had a 6 45 AM call in Toronto and I did, I shot a commercial national commercial, got on a plane, flew here,

shot something here in the afternoon, then went to a play at night. I mean, I just, I can't, I can't get comfortable. I can't sit down. I can't, I can't. Well, you know, it's funny. It's now that you say it, I mean the, your, your, your movement on stage, especially back in the 80s, was very antic or manic. Well, I'll keep bringing you back to the 19th. So I said, okay.

If I had to articulate what was thinking then, I thought, that's funny. That's funny. I'm going to get up on stage. I'm not a comedian. Never even thought about being a comedian. I don't want to be a comedian. I don't know that I want to be a comedian. I don't have anything. There's, I'm not going to prepare. Why would I prepare? Why would I put any work into something that I don't want to do? So the joke, if there is a joke, is somebody's going to say, ladies and

gentlemen, Howie Mandel. There's no, and just the words, Howie Mandel, like what? Right. Right. Even to me, you're not famous. You're not, it's 97, seven. You're in Toronto. You're Jewish. Right. Howie Mandel. Like what? Okay. Right. right. And I have nothing, you know, to offer. So they go, ladies and gentlemen, Howie Mandel. And I boom onto that stage. I boom on and the lights are there. And there's applause for maybe, you know, how long does applause last? Five seconds?

1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, not even five. Maybe three or four. And then, you know, on on stage it's kind of like this you know it ends and I have no plan and I look and I see the

the microphone there and the lights are you know burning holes brighter than you can believe the first time you're on stage you're like how were the lights this bright

so you kind of look down and then there's people you can just see the front that's all you can see and there's a lot of strange people. Nobody that I know. I had a couple of friends in the back, but nobody that I know looking up at me, looking up at me.

And they're just looking at me, waiting. And I didn't think this far. So it just, and as I tell you this story, I can feel the adrenaline. The adrenaline is just starts pumping. You know, I go, oh my God, this is almost like, you can feel the adrenaline. The adrenaline is just starts pumping. You know, I go, Oh my God, this is almost like, you know, the dream where you show up naked at a party or in your underpants at a party. And I start going, and if you look at old YouTube, this is what it was. And it was genuine. I start going, okay, okay, okay. All right. Okay. All right. Uh, and that was, that was my, and they started giggling because they felt my nervous

energy of not having no it's a very great i mean it's luck obviously but it's a great it ended up being like a hook well so i go okay okay and they start laughing and when they start laughing because i haven't said anything i'm just trying to come up with something yeah and they start laughing i go what what no tell me what what. And, and they were laughing. I'm going, what, what? And, and, and they would laugh more. And then I had my hands in my pocket and because of my OCD, I had rubber gloves with me because if I'm out in public, I might have to go to a public restroom and God forbid I should touch anything. So I have rubber gloves. So I pulled out the rubber gloves and I didn't know what to do. And out of

nowhere, I just, I pulled it over my head. I had never done that before. I pulled it over my head like this. And I was, I guess I was breathing out of my nose and the fingers were going up and they started laughing even more. So I inflated it and it popped off my head and the crowd goes crazy. And I go, good night, you know, and I run off the stage and Mark Breslin is there and he goes, I was amazing. I go, what was, he goes, And I run off the stage and Mark Breslin is there. And he goes, I was amazing. I go, what was, he goes, you were amazing. You should come back tomorrow. I go, what do I, what do I do?

He goes, do it again. I go, what was it? Tell me what it was. And he said, no, come back tomorrow. And it was the first time it started settling in. It was the first time in those couple of moments from the realization that these strange people were staring at me

and waiting for something to, you know, getting that terror of not knowing what to do and trying my damnedest not to be humiliated publicly, um, to a group of people that I didn't know, a large group of people. I'm talking about 150 people. Up until then, I couldn't get two friends at school. So 150 people in a room in that moment enveloped me with laughter. And the vibe is so fucking positive. That was the most comforting, swaddling blanket I've ever been part of. And I just went, oh my gosh. And I still didn't think this would be a career, but I went, I'd love to come back a couple of times a week and just try to get strangers to swaddle me and hold me and like me and laugh at me and smile

with me. And it just feels so fucking good. I don't have any. And what are the chances of some, you know, middle-class kid, Jewish kid from Toronto who doesn't have any, you know, I don't know anybody in show business. I'm as far from standup comedy as one could be. I've never, this is the first time I was ever in a club. And how do you even make a living? Like this isn't a job, but if I could do this once or twice a week, it's really enough. I'll go to the office. I'll live my life. I was engaged to be married at the time. And twice a week, this is going to be my respite. This is going to be. And then. Well, what's funny is that what you explained, a lot of times you go on stage, it's like a defense mechanism against them kicks in. And your defense mechanism, you already have a defense mechanism against yourself.

So it's like your performance becomes like, it's like, huh? And then, huh? like i'm it's like i'm it's like huh and then uh right it's like this push and pull between what it's like to be you and then like i have to fucking entertain what what what i have to entertain these people it's fascinating because i've never heard it i don't know anyone that's trying to get away from both right it's like i know and. And I'm shocked you never did drugs. Everybody thought I was on drugs. I was afraid. I was afraid of not having, I was afraid of dying. I was afraid of not having control.

Yeah. I was afraid. You have no idea. Everything's scary. Yeah. And it just so happened that my visceral terror that I was able to enact outwardly became my happy place. Yeah. You know?

And then that's by luck. And I've said everything I was ever punished for, expelled for, gotten in trouble for is what I get paid for. You know, I couldn't, I wouldn't think things through and I would do things in school that got me thrown out. I don't have a GED. I couldn't sit still. That was it. Okay, okay, okay. I couldn't think things through and I would do things in school that got me thrown out. I don't have a GED. I couldn't sit still. That was it. Okay. Okay.

Okay. I couldn't sit. If I did that in class, they would have said, get out and get in the hall. And I would have just so happened that everything came together at the time. It happened to be the seventies. It happened to be the middle of the comedy boom. Right. It happened to be when audiences were just,

there was an electricity that there doesn't exist anymore. Couldn't believe that, that, that comedy existed. It seems like, and they were so accepting of silliness, right. Of craziness of diff.

Like they, they were, it was, it was a very open time. Yeah. Opposite of right now, you know, and, um and still didn't pursue it. It just so happened that when I did that and I started and then I made Yuck Yucks my little respite, my passion.

That was the thing I did two or three times a week. And because that was a club, people were dropping in that were passing through Toronto. That's where I met Leno. Leno came in and did a set. He would hire people that were already in the business. Mark would hire. So I met Leno and I was, I'm always incredibly curious as these people would come in, I would meet them backstage. Do you have an act at this point? Are you, do you go on, do you have a plan? I would start repeating things, but then I'd realize the more I repeated, the less, But then I'd realize the more I repeated, the less the laughter kind of worked, the more scared I was.

So I would always go off. You know, I think the audience always sense authenticity. But all of the little things that I used to do, you know, Bobby, the voice, the character, I could do this voice because, you know, I came to it by accident from choking on something, but I, so I knew that it sounded like a baby. So I would do, you know, I would say filthy, horrible things. And if I could say the C word in that voice, it would get a laugh. Yeah. I was, I was experimenting with like, how can I, how, for the first time in my life, I couldn't control my thoughts. I couldn't control myself. I couldn't sit still.

But I found like little buttons where I could, boom, make you like me. Boom, you like me. It wasn't all as accidental as the glove. No. Like at a certain point you had to like, all right. Then I would try. If I do Bobby, maybe it'd be funny. Bobby's. No, I learned.

I learned. I watched a lot of people were more serious than me that were there. And as far as they, I feel like Steve Martin must've been like a big one for you. How do you know that? Yeah. He was the most important. Because when I think silly, weirdly, he was like the silly, he's like the silliest comic ever not only was he silly he was the first guy which i thought was kind of deep in the i don't know how to say it but

it was funny because it wasn't funny right it was yeah that was one thing you know and now i'm gonna go do the nose on the microphone routine. And so many people around me, because I remember when I saw him do that, I started discussing it with people the next day and they go, well, that's not funny. He just put his nose on a microphone. I go,

well, yeah, that's, that's why it's, that's why it's funny. You know? And I had a question that I wanted to ask that's related to this, which is,

did you ever ask, did you ever feel out if other people had OCD like you? No, I still didn't. Do you want to, do you ever get obsessed with, with clams or feathers? Never. I would never, ever, ever think of even mentioning that I had an issue and I would never share that with anybody. Nobody.

I didn't share with my parents. I didn't share with my parents. I didn't share. Were you sure no one else had it? I'm always sure. This is my own fucking, how can anybody else be in my head? How could anybody else think what I'm doing? And I think that that is predominantly the issue with everybody that has mental health issues. I don't think there's anybody alive that at some point in their life doesn't suffer from a mental health issues. I don't think there's anybody alive that at some point in their life doesn't suffer from a mental health issue. And whether that's the coping skill of the pressure that work puts on or a relationship puts on, or your parents put on you, or just society puts on you, or the fact that you're living through a pandemic or whatever, you know, I think everybody, even though we all say, you know, I know everybody's going through a hard time, but nobody's

going through the exact same. Exact hard time. Yes. And nobody has the same perspective on everything, but it always feels like they and me. To everybody. Yep. Even in the best case scenario. Yeah.

Even if your wife is still there, your kids are still there. Right. So life is lonely and you have to figure out how to, even if you have people with you and that love you, you just have to figure out how to swim with these other people. But you're always, you know, life is like treading water. You know, we're all treading water and you're treading over there. I'm not treading alone, but if I stop. There's poop in our mouth, but it's a candy bar. Right. It's called that.

Uh-huh, it's called that. But if I stop treading, I sink. Even if you're treading over there. So, well, this room. Okay. How do you want to die?

Uh, surrounded by people because that's always what I think of. Now my, my big fear is that, uh, another block, a big block is dying, you know,

and it's so hard. It's so, it's such a, my life is totally enwrapped in the thought of death of everybody and my own death, you know, as my, um, therapist so eloquently puts it, you know, nobody gets out alive. Right. So it's not like you can, you can't cheat it. You're going to die. And I don't know that I even think about whether somebody's in the room, whether I have a family, whether I'm alone,

whether there's somebody to care for me. Well, that's the thing when people, the families that are comfort me, I don't know how much comfort is going to be available. Do you know what I mean? It depends. You know, I ask the question now, you know, my mother is in late stage Alzheimer's. My mother was the most articulate, productive,

wonderful human being I've ever met in my life. I have a great relationship up until two years ago. Um, I never missed one day of talking to her. Now I can call her, but she doesn't know who I am. Um, but, but which is how old she's 90. Um, but how do you process that? How do you process? I don't, it's really, really hard, but it, and I also in a, in a selfish way, I go, is this better? Like we are going to diminish whether physically or mentally, how would you rather go? Would you rather be, have all your marbles and, and, and be in incredible pain and suffer physically? Or would you rather, my mother was totally fit as

she was losing her mind. And as she was losing her mind and her memory, she was aware, you know, because she had moments of clarity and I've never seen anything more excruciating and scary watching her go through that. And watching her know. She would look at me and go oh my god you know howie howie howie i i didn't know i didn't know who you were i didn't know who you were i don't know you i don't know you i swear i didn't know you and she would be terrified and i'd be terrified and i'd hear that so what is better what is better so no matter what there's no this is going to be the most depressing episode you've ever had great that's what we're here for oh really yeah but there's no good way to go

yeah there's no good way to go i mean if you feel like you've had enough then you know we should have euthanasia where well that's what you so do you think she would have opted for it absolutely absolutely yeah and i would too i don't want to i don't know you know most doctors don't have So that's what you, so do you think she would have opted for it? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I would too. I don't want to, I don't want to feel pain. Well, you know, most doctors don't have, most doctors have a, they do not resuscitate. But what is happening for you not to be resuscitated?

I would say. Well, the point is, I don't, don't intubate me. Don't CPR me. Just let me go. I'm for that. But what, what is the journey to that point? So my point is, if you feel like you've done everything like today and you have a family, like, see, the scarier thing for me now is I have the most wonderful family in the world. I have

the most amazing wife. I have the most amazing kids. I do a podcast with my daughter. I have grandkids. And the scariest thing for me is I don't want to see anything happen to anybody I love. So at some point I would love to say, okay, everybody's good. So at some point I would love to say, okay, everybody's good. Everybody's on the way. Take me out. I feel good today. Put me under, take me out.

What would be the, uh, like what tomorrow? I don't know. Hypothetically. What is there stuff? Yeah. Because I think that to be honest with you, um, it's probably, uh, my feeling would be, and this is why, you know, suicide is a very selfish thing because I know people who have had suicides in their family and it really is much, that's really selfish of me because I think that it would really affect the people who love me and care about me. Right. So

that's why I wouldn't do that. I would never do that. But you've got to have your own reasons for staying alive. Like I, my, I think the natural state of human beings is like, I want to be alive. Like I,

we just, it's like, we just have a drive to stay alive. It sounds stupid to say, but like, Oh, I've seen a lot of people who are much older than you and I, who at this point,

you know, they go listen i did it my mom said that to me one time and i was like it's so grim but it was like she's like i you know at a certain point you know i think we all need a purpose yeah and if you're at an age where you don't need to strive for something creative you're super engaged engaged, dude. Like you have a lot of stuff going on. But it's a fear, you know, I'm treading, I'm treading. You know, I get involved. I get involved with technology. Well, what's funny is I'm basically,

your whole existence is like, I get to get away from Howie. Yes. But you're like, not that far. I don't want to die. I still kind of want to be Howie, but I don't want to. But like, I want to get, I want to stay in Howie, but I don't want to, but like, I want to get,

I want to get, I want to stay in Howie, but like, it's not always easy. It is an escape. I don't know if this is a block, but it is a thing. It's distraction. My whole life is distraction. I just want to distract from in here. And I want to distract this noise by making this louder. If this is louder than I can't go in here. I can't hear this noise if it's really noisy out here. So my whole life is to make it noisy. How do I distract myself? How can I, you know, I said to somebody the other day, they were showing me a, I don't

know if a video of Bali, they were going to go to Bali or, and you see those, uh, those huts on the water. Yeah. That looks like a fucking nightmare. That's so funny. That looks like a fucking nightmare. That looks like that would be if there was a heaven and a hell, which I'm not aware of, but if there was a heaven and a hell, that would be hell. Being alone with yourself.

Even with one other person, just that no tv nothing to do nothing to wake up for except sunshine and laughing water yeah you know i don't know that that's that that couldn't sustain kids must have been a great distraction it was it was everything everything is yeah everything is everything is a distraction and it's a necessity. And I feel like if I physically had to depict what's going on, I would just spend all day grabbing. You don't see it as stress. You just see it as an opportunity to be distracted.

Like I'm going to be distracted at noon, 1, 2, 3, until 1.30 a.m. I'm going to distract. I'll do my final distraction. We'll schedule our final distraction. In fact, I would never just go to bed early because I got to be woken up, because I got to wake up at seven. I will only go to bed when I am totally exhausted. And when I hit that sheet, I'm going to pass out.

I can't just lie there and relax and think I should go to bed because it's eight o'clock and I got to be up at six. I will work and relax and think I should go to bed because it's eight o'clock and I got to be up at six. I will work and work and work. There's something so funny about now knowing all this stuff. You're just sitting there and it's terror. You're just laying in a bed. It's like white knuckling and like gripping the sheets. You almost have to exhaust yourself. I am. I am exhausting myself. I am exhausted. I am exhausted, but I don't mind it. On the bright side of this, the positive of this is if you decided in life that you wanted to be a boxer, and I think living life is the sport of boxing. Yeah. That's what it is. And if you decided that's your love from the time you were a kid and you want to go for the gold, you want the belt, you want to be the champion. You are going to, you're going to need to put in

the time where there's no fucking air. You're going to do high altitude training and you're going to be running and you're going to be sweating. You can't stop. You got to put in the hours and you can't give yourself the food that you kind of want. You don't sit and eat your chocolate cake and just relax. You got to always fight, fight, fight. And then when you go to those fights, as you're getting up to each level, you're going to get hit. You got to get hit. Nobody's good enough to never get hit. And those hits are going to hurt, but it's worth it. I know how to, I've taught myself how to take hits. I've taught myself how to, how to repel that. I've taught myself how, when I fall down, I'm going to get up. You can make a decision. Listen, I don't want to be a boxer because I don't want to get hit.

I don't want to have to get up every day and run 20 miles and work myself to the bone. I don't want to have to lift weight. I just want to sit on a couch. I want to be an accountant. You make those decisions in life. I've made the decision. I feel life is like being a fighter. It is a fighter and the fight is worth it. And all the positives that happened in my life are worth it. I mean, the miracle of my children, of my family is so beyond anything I could have ever fathomed. The fact that I'm sitting here talking to you today, still in, in California, doing what I do for a living is still in my mind. If I sit back for a moment, unfathomable, this is not real. This is not everything I do. Doesn't seem real. It doesn't seem real. What do I do on AGT?

What do I do? They pay me to show up and watch the fucking ed sullivan show in person and tell somebody mine and i didn't like that what kind of fucking job is that it's not a job it's a treat but but but the point is that i i everything my world if i really sit and think about what my world is it's unbelievable it's yeah no yeah that's the thing I said to Hassan and Anaj which is like try to beat this like when you're feeling sorry for yourself it's like all right then spin the wheel what do you think the odds are that you're gonna that there's a better existence on earth than being you or being me or being whomever? Because of my fear of saying no, I found this. The one time I said no, I was 100% wrong. And I have the best partner in life, my wife,

who made me say yes. And that was deal or no deal. I said no to that. In 2005, I was so fucking discouraged. In the 80s i did a bunch of hbo specials and showtime specials and cable specials and blew up i was playing for that time you know 10 000 seats and 12 000 seats and then i got on saint elsewhere and then i got a bunch of other things i told you last time i saw you the my it's my favorite one of my favorite episodes of tv ever telling you the my it's my favorite one of my favorite episodes of tv ever is when you die okay so it's amazing right but then by 2005 i don't think i was selling enough tickets to sell out a club uh i was sitting on folding chairs in casting offices trying to get five lines and under in anything i had shot a pilot which i had sold to nbc and under in anything. I had shot a pilot, which I had sold to NBC

and got noted to death. And they turned it around and I was just fucking depressed. I felt like I'd been spending my life getting kicked in the nuts. And by the way, less access to distraction. Right. So I was really depressed,

but I'm also involved. I do other things. You know, I'm involved in real estate and investing and other things. So I said to my wife, this is not good for my psyche because I'm spending too much time. I need to focus on something else. I need to really find busy time. And this is not good, healthy, busy time. So I am out. And then I got a call from my manager, Michael Rotenberg. NBC is calling and they want you to host a game show. And I went, fuck no. And I hung up the phone.

And if you put yourself in the perspective of 2005, no comedians had ever done a talk show. No comedian since Groucho Marx doing You Bet Your Life. And as somebody whose currency is irony and comedy, the game show host was probably the punchline. You would use that as the punchline. And you were kind of serious on the show whenever I saw it. Well, I'll tell you what happened. So I said, no, I don't want to. Listen, my career is over, but it's kind of over on my terms. I don't want to put a nail in the coffin of my career where

the last thing, and he did the shitty game show. Calls me back an hour later. And he says, uh, they really want you to do it. Um, they said they can't do it without you. And I said, no, he goes, just listen to me. They're putting it on. They've never done this before. NBC is going to do this game show in prime time for five nights, a Monday through Friday for five nights for a whole week. They've never done that. Yeah. And I go, are you fucking kidding me? I'm telling you that this is going to be humiliating. And you're telling me how much exposure.

How much humiliation it's going to be. My humiliation is going to be. So no. One more time he calls me and he goes, will you just see the guy? I go, okay, this is like a Friday. And I said, you know what? I don't even want to go in. I'm having soup at Jerry's in the Valley. If he wants to come and talk to me, let him talk to me. I'm not going to, I don't want to drive over the hill for this fucker. Right. Rob Smith comes over the hill. He meets me at Jerry's. I'll show you in the other

room. He brings a cardboard that looks like an eight-year-old did an afterschool project. There was no, he didn't even go to Kinko's. And he's got 26 little squares that he printed out, which eventually- He brought all the women with the briefcases, is that right? No women. Just Rob. Just you, Rob, and soup. And he goes, pick one of these Xs, don't look at it, one of these squares.

So that's, you're trying to pick the one with the million. And now how do we find out you got the million by opening the other ones and turn them over? So now I'm sitting there eating soup, turning over these stupid little pieces of paper, but there's no game. There's no trivia. There's no game. There's no girls. There's nothing because that's the game. Now I think I'm being punked. I think this is like, it's not a game. This presentation, if, if he spent a buck and a half, and I mean, literally not 150 bucks, like a dollar 50 on this art card and printing out these little squares, this is a joke.

He goes, it's not a joke. It's Friday. And he goes, we can't do it without you. I go home and I tell my wife and my wife knows me better than anything. And she goes, Howie, you're, you're so depressed. You, you don't have anything to do Monday. Just go and do it.

Just do it, do it. And we'll deal with the fallout after that. She thought it was better for me to be busy. So I phoned them back and I said, I'll, I'll take the deal. And this was Friday. And I said, okay, so when do you tape back and I said, I'll take the deal. And this was Friday. And I said, okay, so when do you tape? And they said, Monday. I said, well, don't you have to build a set?

They said, it's built. I said, okay, don't you have to hire the girls? You told me it's gonna be 26 miles. They're there. Now I'm thinking, how far down the fucking list am I? How many people said no? And a lot of people did. Everybody said no, except lot of people did everybody said no except me you know yeah so now i say to them i i'm really scared and i called david and i said uh who well uh just my own

curious showbiz curiosity who do you know past ellen okay she had her talk show was kind of new at that point 2005 i don't know 2005 you check it out yeah anyway um but i know they asked her i think she was like the last one that said no before me so um and you were all at jerry's and then i and then i i called michael back and i go i'm so scared michael this is like they want me to come in in two days. All I say is open the case, pick a case, open the case, pick a case, open the case, pick a case. This is not network TV. And it's not, I don't know what to do. Will you do me a favor? He goes, what do you want me to do? I said, give me a budget for two comedians to come in and write with me. Maybe we can write

something. So if nothing else, I have exposure. Maybe I can be funny. I can be silly. I can make fun of this is not a fucking game. What is this? This is not. So he calls back. They go, they said, okay. So two of my friends come over and we're writing all weekend and have some really, really funny stuff. I think like really good stuff. Was the phone thing in it at that point? Yeah. The banker was going to call me and everybody was going to call me, but here's what happened. So I walk out the first day. It's the first taping. I come out from this vault onto a stage. There's like 300 people in the audience, 20 cameras all around. And I'll never forget. I'll show you a picture. It's in the office.

The first contestant. Yeah. I've done 500 of these episodes, but I'll never forget the first contestant. I go, ladies and gentlemen, playing for a million dollars tonight, Karen Van. And it was this nice young lady. She comes up and I meet her and I said, and as you're supposed to do as a host, I said, tell me about yourself. And Karen tells me she's a single mother.

She's got these three young boys and they were sitting in the audience right there. I'm looking at these three kids. She's never owned a home. She has no health insurance and she doesn't live anywhere near LA or New York. So, you know, 20 grand would change her life forever. She'd be able to buy insurance. She'd probably be able to get a home or at least a down payment on a home in 2005. I remember like the first joke I made, but this wasn't a written joke,

but she said, these are the, her name's Karen Van and she introduced me to her kids. And I said, oh, the minivans. See what I did there? I said, okay, this is, this is going to be fun. And then- Gets a laugh. A little laugh. And then, and then she pulls her first, and then we see these gorgeous girls come over the pyramid and she picks her case, which is supposed to be the million dollars. Like, this is the first time I'm really watching the game, like, because it's really happening. Yeah.

She picks this, and I pick up the phone after the first thing, and the banker says to me, she had a first, a good thing, offer her $30,000. And that's the first time it really hit me. I go, $30,000. good thing offer her thirty thousand dollars and that's the first time it really hit me i go thirty fucking thousand dollars so i say to her and i'm looking at her and i don't know if you've ever been on the set with somebody who hasn't done who's not involved in show business yeah but if they're not involved in show business it's a it's a mind fuck they're like yeah they're yes they're you're doing it yeah they're freaked out there's lights all over you don't know no idea that there were lights here and the camera was going to move on my, like. And all these people around them.

And I could see that there's no real focus and she's in a, in a daze and I'm talking, but I don't even know if she can hear me. It feels like, you know, like that, you know, Charlie Brown listening to the teacher. Yeah. You know, and I say to her, the banker's offering you $30,000. And she goes, no deal. And I just went like, because I'm realizing what the game is. It's just luck. There's no skill. And you didn't even let me finish my sentence. So you didn't let me finish anything. And I'm going, no deal. You just turned down $30,000. She goes, I want the million. I go,

no deal. You know, you just turned down $30,000. She goes, I want the million. I go, me too. But that came real easy and she wasn't paying attention. And I felt like maybe I'm making the joke about the minivans and maybe I'm distracting her. She's not listening to me. And this is not unlike anything I've ever done. Stand up, saying elsewhere, Bobby's world. This is fucking real. This, this is a woman yeah these are children I made the joke about them mini vans these are stakes and I said to her like how much do you have in the bank and she said she did like five grand in the bank or whatever and I said but thirty thousand dollars how much is a down payment on a house wherever you come from in Iowa or whatever she goes yeah I could do that I could do so this could change your life I mean you've got to give

it more thought then I got scared I had had other stuff. I said, I'm not going to, it can't be about me being good. I would never be able to live with myself if I felt like she was laughing and not making good decisions. So I turned off all the comedy, turned everything off. And I said, you know what? It's not about me now. This is the first time I'm within five foot of another human being who has children, whose life can actually change. I've never been in this kind of situation. This is in the first act of the first episode.

So, you know, Saturday Night Live eventually started making fun of my cadence, but I started talking to her and subsequently everybody after that, like I'm talking to a five-year-old where I want you to know. So the next offer comes in, you know, maybe it came in at 50 grand or whatever. I would say, okay, listen to me.

Listen to me, Karen. The offer is $50,000. Now, before you answer, before you answer before you answer fifty thousand dollars that may be three times the amount of money that you have in the bank right now yeah that may be enough to get health insurance that may be enough to buy you a home. Do you take the $50,000 guaranteed? Or do you open up and try your luck? Six more cases. And I was like dead serious.

Yeah. And I would go, deal or no deal. And I really just wanted to sear that into your mind. I want that to be a real fucking thought. I don't want you to hear a thought. I don't want you to hear a joke. I don't want you to look to your left. I don't want you. I want you to make an informed decision. And she said, no deal. She eventually walked out of there with five grand. We did a recap show a couple of years later to see what people did with their money with her

five grand. She got her tits done, but which is good. But that show for that week, it was the first time I didn't play a character. It was the first time I didn't try to be funny. It was the first time I said, I can't. And I get asked now even today. And I say, no, I don't do game shows where I play for somebody else for, uh, you know, a civilian for money. I don't want to be responsible for you losing. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't want that. I can't live with myself. I'll have so much guilt.

And it became, I said, I couldn't get past wanting you, the viewer, or the contestant to leave better. And if you didn't leave in a better place than you came with, and I could even fathom in some way, I distracted you, I distracted you. I made you laugh. You weren't focusing. You weren't, that would kill me. That would, that's inside my own head again. That's see, I need to be outside my heart. So I put all my effort on

making sure you knew, you knew exactly what the stakes were. It was always just about the stakes. I'm going to tell you what the stakes are. I'm going to tell you what the value is. I'm going to tell you what it means. If you move on, I'm going to tell you what the stakes are. I'm going to tell you what the value is. I'm going to tell you what it means if you move on. I'm going to tell you the odds of you having the million. I just did that. Did that. Did that. Finished the five episodes. And when it stopped and it got quiet, I was fucking horrified. Horrified. I said to my wife, I did fucking nothing. I did nothing. This is not only humiliating as a game show host. I'm a game show host that did nothing, did nothing. Let's get the fuck out of here. So I bought tickets. We went to a Caribbean Island. It's like, I just told you about Bali where there were no

phones, where there was nothing. I was in Turks and Caicos. No, but it was a, it's something that starts with a T. I can't remember what it was. I went there and thinking, this is like, I don't know what I've just done. And it aired like within two weeks. It aired within the week I was there. On that Tuesday morning, it aired. What were you doing? Were you just pacing?

Like, you don't like that. No, we got, that morning when it got called, I went to swim with dolphins. I was swimming with a dolphin. Okay, what were you doing like the week? That morning when he got called, I went to swim with dolphins. I was swimming with a dolphin. Okay. What were you doing? Like the, like the week. I made, I made, I made a million, you know, we're going to go up a mountain on a bike.

We're going to go swim with dolphins. We're going to go do this. We're going to go, I'm going to leave this fucking planet. Okay. You know, outings and things like that. We were very busy. Yep. You know, cooking class.

Yeah. Whatever I could do. Just to forget. I'm just, I don't want to hear anybody with an American accent. I. You know, cooking class. Yeah. Whatever I could do, just to forget. I'm just, I don't want to hear anybody with an American accent. I don't want to be around. A call comes through for me from Rob Smith. And he goes,

you're not going to believe this. I go, I'm going to believe this. I'm, this is what I'm racing for. He goes, it went through the roof. I go,

what does that mean? He goes, they, people loved it Monday night, but they loved it. What'd they say about me? I did nothing. No, they love you.

They love you. Oh, really? And I couldn't believe it. And then the next morning, Wednesday morning, because he was talking about Tuesday night, he goes, the ratings went up. And he would call me subsequently every day until the first week, 100 million people viewed it

and loved it. And it became an epic monumental moment in game show lore. And I got on a plane, I flew back, I landed in Miami within 30 seconds of landing. As I come through the, the, the flyway, the first person that sees me that lays eyes on me goes deal or no deal. I had a catchphrase. I've never had a catchphrase, you know? And then everybody was going deal or no deal. And, uh, you know, NBC was in the dumps and they ordered more. And then it ended up being on every night. It was the biggest thing. They painted my picture on the side of a building three weeks before that I'm sitting in a deli

contemplating leaving. All right. Do you see the, see your thing on the side of the building? Do you think I did nothing? Or did you think like that? Fucking, you know, it was kind did you think like that fucking you know it was kind of i like what i like it's it is weirdly uh your obsessiveness i don't know and i didn't know like hey what like you're walking her through your your worry like if i were you it was my

worry here's what i'd be thinking about right and all the the obsession like that pays off everything in my life is obsession yeah it's the obsession or the obsession the authenticity my stand-up started on my just my fear you know it's just okay okay all right you know and and the um what i did on deal or no deal was which is probably the biggest thing to date my biggest success to date it's changed my life more than any one thing changed my life well i shouldn't say that stand-up did yeah but aside from stand-up and i still do stand-up um but i was so scared because that felt naked because it was just me it wasn't i wasn't trying it was the first time that i was conscious of not trying to entertain.

I wasn't trying to be funny. I wasn't trying to be dramatic. I was just trying to inform somebody or helping give somebody the tool to be the most informed so that they can make good life decisions. And then when this took off, nobody was more surprised. And also that flipped a little bit of a switch in me as far as saying, you know,

one fear I lost is the fear of being myself, like allowing me to be more vulnerable. I was already vulnerable because I'd spoken publicly on the Howard Stern show about my mental health. So I was already, but that was like, that was compartmentalized. That was like another thing. And now I could bring that into who I was when I was performing or when I was doing a game show

or if I was hosting or if I'm judging or if I'm doing a podcast, there's something about, I don't have to, I feel like my life is a session, you know, and I'm comfortable in sessions. This is a session. Defined session. Like a therapy session. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So if you go to a therapy session, which was new to me when I started, I mean, what does it mean when you can, like when you, you do, you do life, you do whatever you do. And then if you need therapy and you need help, you go see somebody. And in that moment, when you go see somebody, everything goes by the wayside,

every, um, kind of barrier that you're putting up every block that you build yourself, you have these blocks, but you allow them to be there. Yeah. You're like, there's you enforce them. You reinforce them. Like, Hey, this is, I, yeah, it's my problem. You know, that's our problem these blocks but you allow them to be there yeah you're like they're you enforce them you reinforce them like yeah this is yeah it's my problem you know it's our problem block right and because you have that problem yeah that's why you do what you do that's why you are what you are right and in therapy what you need to do is you need to go okay this block here this is moving that away and i'll tell you what goes on and you can be, that's the most vulnerable, supposedly the most vulnerable place to be, you know, because you want to show that wound.

You want to show those wounds, you want them to be open so they can apply their knowledge, their bandage for whatever that wound is and it was the first time that there was something freeing about it started previously but there were whatever your wounds are whatever you're thinking you know i'm just gonna i'm just gonna be me and you're gonna see me fight you're gonna see me fall down you're gonna see me scared and i'm gonna admit i'm scared i'm more importantly you're gonna see you're scared. And I knew I was scared. Like when I was doing standup at the beginning and I'm going, okay, okay, okay.

Everybody goes, I like your act. I never said to anybody, that's not an act. Right. I knew it wasn't an act. I knew, you know. Okay. So yeah, they would go. So you're, yeah, you know, it's real.

It was kind of cool that you thought I had an act. I didn't have an act. I'm a terrified guy who didn't write anything. Yeah. I didn't have an act. And, and believe you me, when you came out here to the comedy store, it was the meanest place on earth. I was kind of hated because I was getting a lot of accolades and jobs.

And there are people that were- Just for the record. Arsenio Hall told me that Sam Kennison was afraid to follow Howie Mandel. Sam Kennison, one of the most powerful standup comedians in the history of standup comedy used to scream. Why do I have to follow Michael Rotenberg's Canadian friend? I did well with the audience. The truth is that amongst,

like my wife, who was always there with me every night, they didn't know at the time that was my wife. She would sit at the back and she could hear other comics talking. You know, that's not, you know, it's kind of like, and I always say it,

I'm a big fan of Scott, of Carrot Top. And I'm a big fan of Carrot Top because- I would, I told somebody the other day, I was like, I would do that act. If he gave me the props and the script, I'd be like, I'll do this, it's fucking fun. But even, listen, you're one of the most prolific, smartest people I know.

But whatever that acumen is to come up with a concept, write it and share it, is basically, so he has an up with a concept, write it and share it. Yeah. Is basically, you know, so he has an idea and a concept and then he wants, instead of writing it or putting it into words, he physically engineers it and puts it in a topical and who can argue with a guy that can sell out a fucking room for the last 15 years in Vegas and people all across so that he's successful. You can't, you can't knock that, but you know that it's been knocked.

Mo mostly by people in our peers. Yeah. And I felt that way too. Listen, I was devastated throughout the eighties. I love David Letterman. I love the interview you did with david letterman i don't know that i've i've never shared this with him and nor nor would i but i can't tell

you how many times i was in the top 10 as a joke you know as a joke they would go and then you know and number seven we'll make him sit through a Howie Mandel concert. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, I was the joke. I was the punchline. That was usually before anybody knew Carrot Top. Yeah. Before anybody knew. Oh, I didn't know that about you.

I like legitimately, I was too young, I guess. Yeah. To know that you were like. I was the punchline. I was a punchline for a long time. And it was because I'm perceived as silly, you know, like silly for silly sake and, uh, not deep, not political, not, you know, what was the substance? Sometimes no substance. It was just my character, just my fear, just like, Oh, how did you write putting a rubber

glove on your head? Yeah. You know, but we are the most judgmental you know i think there's great camaraderie in the world of comedy but there's also great it we were we're put in a real and this is another block maybe i don't know how many blocks you do per episode it's it's howie it's unlimited judgment for you unlimited blocks judgment Judgment. Go ahead. Judgment. Judgment is, kills me. Kills me. And I'm saying that as a judge on AGT for that. But it really does. I like doing what I do.

I want to do what I do. And I want it done. And that's it. And the problem I have, it's kind of like, I'll give you a, like if I do a show or if I do a special or if I went, and I haven't done a special in years, I, if I, if I did a comedy special, people used to say, are you excited? It premieres tomorrow. I go, no, no, I had fun doing it. I had fun on the night. I don't want. And it's the fear of other comics or it was fear of the audience? Everybody. I don't, I don't want to hear ratings. I don't want to hear whether you liked it. I don't want to hear what you thought of it. And, you know, it was really

hard when I came out here to LA, you know, when I showed up at Yuck Yucks, there was no, I didn't think of a career and I didn't think of competitiveness. I was just doing what I did. But what I realized when I came out here, because this was the real, this was the big leagues, you know, and every night the networks were sitting in Mitzi's corner that unlike auditioning as an actor or whatever, you are in the room. So somebody gets up and they do five minutes and you're standing at the back of the room and they're roaring and they're laughing and they're and then you go on you've you've witnessed this you go on maybe they don't laugh as much as you just heard the other one so you're going these never happened to me

but i've seen it happen to other people i have with it are you are you well i'm here to inform no it happens every night I probably do you know better than one you know what I mean but you see that when you audition for a movie or something like that you're in a closed door they went another way

I'm too dewy you can kind of tell though how well the person in front of you is doing you can hear like a laugh or like okay bye but that's a little that's just a yes a one person it's a window and maybe it's not even no but but what i'm saying is it's almost like the club you know if you're sitting in a waiting room and you're hearing laughter coming from the other room and everybody's enjoying whatever they're doing in there and then you go in and everybody's sitting there seriously they didn't laugh at

anything yeah and you know they laugh then you go oh fuck i did i did horrible which is not always true you know when i got sane elsewhere i thought they hated me you know i was sure they hated me i didn't even understand what i was reading for i'm a replacement i replaced david paymer played fiscus for the first six days you know who he who he is? From Mr. Saturday Night? Yeah. Played Billy Crystal's brother. In Billy's movies. So I replaced him. But what I'm saying is you're sitting in this room. Everybody's at the back.

They're going on next. It's like, go on, laugh at me, love me. Now I go on, you don't love me as much. Now the next guy goes on and they kills. And then you go, oh, fuck, they loved him. And then, you know, when people are getting big laughs then comics are sitting at the back and going well that's so easy it's a fucking prop what the fuck is that he's putting a fucking glove on his head like is that a talent you know and those are

the kind of things that people were saying not knowing that my wife was in your shot so it was just there's a clip like a thing on the wall the back of the comedy store where you can record your set. You can stick your phone in and record your set. But it's on the back wall where the comics sit. I'm like, I'm not going to risk hearing what someone says about me while I'm on stage. I don't want to deal with it. Because they're not supportive. Probably not.

And because, and then I go, well, is that my ego or am I just a sensitive human being? I would argue I'm a sensitive human being because it's. With an ego. What? That's the first I'm hearing of it. No. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Fair. Like I, but I also, I don't know anyone who would like would want it. I don't read the comments if I can help it. Like I block words. Like there's certain shit I just don't want. I don't think it's, and I'm like thick skinned and I'm like used to get my balls busted and I have a lot of negative thoughts anyway, but I don't think it's worthwhile to

open yourself up to unnecessary criticism. It's our, I'm already criticizing myself. Like, well, because I'm so heavy into social media, I am open to, uh, I've opened myself up to criticism. I am thin skinned and I have to cope with that, you know? And I do. I'm thin. I mean, I am thin skin obviously by obviously by my but i don't i think it's self-care i don't think it's like i'm a pussy or something because i know most people just don't read the comments they can help it do you believe that i mean i that's what the dynamic is like that's what people say they're not reading the comments i think when you say that and you say that publicly it's a great shield to not get because then anybody who's going to be negative i heard they don't even read it anyway well let them maybe i

won't like i just hope i won't all right here's the question i wanted to ask you sensitivity death all your blocks what has helped you deal with them like have you improved on them and how'd you do it? Therapy, obviously. The biggest thing, but the biggest thing is outside of therapy was talking about it. Besides the love and care and compassion that my family and my loved ones have

and take care of me, one of the biggest, I talked about it in my book, but when I accidentally spewed the fact that I was suffering from something called OCD on the Howard Stern show. What year was that? 1999, 98. Yeah. I was just going to guess that. Yeah. It was on the E show. No, it was on his radio show. No, but they would air it on E. I don't know if this was, I don't know if this was aired on E.

I've told this story many times, but I was in there like he did on his radio show. He always had multiple guests on at once, and he had the guy on that was from Puppetry of the Penis. The guy was doing things with his dick. And I started focusing. I had already gone to therapy therapy and I had OCD. This is a long time before the Me Too movement.

Men used to do puppetry with their penis. Before Me Too, people loved it. You're not allowed to do that anymore? Not as much. No, I think they're allowed to. You're just not allowed to have a subordinate do the puppetry. You have to tell them ahead of time. Well, they can't do the puppetry for you.

I need you. She's operating the puppet. Anyway, the point that I'm making is that I couldn't, I saw the guy touching his dick and then leave. And I was just focused on the door because he had touched the door. It was in the summer. I'm wearing short sleeves.

He finished his interview with me. And I said, he said, you can, whatever, I can go now. And he said, and I said, can somebody open the door? I don't want to touch the door. The guy touched his dick and I don't want to touch the door. They go, open the door. I go, no, I went to grab some tissue to open the door with the tissue. They knocked that out of my hand.

I went to open it with the tissue. They knocked that out of my hand. I went to open it with my shirt. Somebody knocked. I literally thought you were going to say you open it with your deck. Go ahead. This is my puppet. But I, I, uh, I started to hyperventilate and I was having an anxiety attack. And I said to Howard, I said, I know this is funny. I get it. You know, I get it, but I, I, I'll be totally honest with you. I've been to a psychiatrist and I've been diagnosed with something called obsessive compulsive disorder and I take medication and I'm about to pass out. So if you don't open the door for me, then somebody should call nine one one because I can't, I'm, I'm this close to not being conscious. And he said, sorry.

And he opened the door and I walked out in the hall and I realized I heard in the speakers in the hall, they were still broadcasting. I thought we were in a commercial break. So, you know, this was a national radio show. Yeah, that's what I said. Oh, wow. And my heart fucking dropped into my stomach

and I was beside myself. Who knows at this point, your family, that's the list and probably Rotenberg. No, just my family, just my wife, really. I didn't even tell the kids,

but I, I thought, oh my God, this just got nationally broadcast. So this is the end. This is the end. I never felt like the end of the fucking world. And for many reasons,

first, this is getting broadcast nationally. So my whole family is hearing it. My kids are of school age. They're going to have to go to school the next day. And everybody's going to know that their father is a mental case, which is a big piece of news, number one. And so everybody I love is going to be humiliated aside from me. Now that I've kind of said that I'm on medication and I go to a psychiatrist, who's ever going to hire me? You know, when you do television shows and movies, you always have a doctor come and give you a physical beforehand. And now I've kind of let

it out of the bad that it's even worse. I have mental health issues. Why would you hire me? Why would you put me in million dollar productions? Yeah. If I could flip out at any moment, you don't know what, well, we know the answer because Ellen passed. Go ahead. So I, that was my mind. I said like, what's the best thing to do? You know, I'll go downstairs. It's New York and I'll just run into the traffic. And, uh, I, I, I've never felt more dark and more alone than in that moment. And the elevator door, the elevator went to the bottom and the elevator door opened and you see the streets of Manhattan teeming, the busiest place on earth.

And I've never felt more alone and more lonely. And I'm walking toward the doors, toward the traffic and the sliding doors, the automatic doors open. And I step out on the sidewalk and the sliding doors, the automatic doors open. And I step out on the sidewalk and I'm just taking a breath and maybe looking for a countdown to, to run into the traffic. And some guy comes into my periphery. I didn't turn my head and he goes, are you Howie Mandel? And I said, yeah. And he said, were you just on Howard Stern? And I went, yeah. And my, I don't think my heart could have dropped any further. And right before I took the first step, he goes, and this is before this movement, he goes, me too.

And I went, what does that mean? And he goes, no, I have issues too. You were talking about the same thing I have. Thank you. I said, thank you for what? He goes, I suffer from this too. And it was the first time it was like somebody threw me a life preserver. I go, you really?

It's not just me. It's you? And there was the first time it was like somebody threw me a life preserve. I go, you really? It's not just me. It's you. And there was a stranger. And that was like this weight got lifted off my fucking shoulder. And at that time, there was no Wi-Fi. We didn't have the internet. And I went home. And in the subsequent weeks, every day, I got 50 letters and mail from people going,

I heard you on Howard Stern. Thank you so much. I heard you on Howard Stern. Thank you so much. I heard you on Howard Stern. And as much as these people claim that it helped them, I can't tell you how much these messages helped me. So the biggest savior, the biggest opening of a huge block in my life is words, words. And that's why you, that's why you doing this podcast is really, really important. It's not only, I told you, I listened to it. People tell me every, I get messages every day. People thanking you. I was really honored that you would ask me to be part of it. I love you. I love what you do. And I love the special, but I just think that the fact that you've created a forum, because I know how much this helped me. Yeah.

A forum where people are open. And it's probably still staggering to you how many people are living their you in the elevator. In the elevator. And then someone like you, in this case, it's OCD. In my case, depression or people have anxiety or Taylor Thompson talks about, you know, or Melanie Taylor talks about bipolar and Melanie talks about drug addiction and all these things. People are like, fuck. Oh yeah.

Well, I don't think there's anybody alive, any human being that at some point in the span of their life, they're not going to need a coping skill. You know, things like OCD and clinical depression and bipolar and schizophrenia are manageable issues, you know, if taken care of. It's hard to find where you can get that managed. That's the, that's the other thing. And they're, they're debilitating, but I'm beyond that, you know, just to cope life is hard. And I think that people have a hard time coping and they don't go, you know, becoming a parent is the most overwhelming thing. It's joyful, but it's also, there's a lot of pressure losing, you know, you talk about the economy, losing a job, not being able to pay your rent, dealing with what you're dealing with your mother, dealing with what I'm dealing or dealing with the

loss of loved ones and family members and dealing with the trauma of your upbringing and dealing with it. There isn't anybody alive. And it's so unbelievable to me. And I say this a lot that we don't take care of our mental health, the way we take care of our dental health. And if somebody, you know, you'll go to the dentist and get x-rays and go, look, mom, no cavities. There's nothing wrong. And you're getting checked. Why is it not part of our curriculum where we can just openly talk or go to somebody and find out get coping skills and figure figure it out and i think that that would be the solve to most of our world's problems and that would be violence yeah no of course what i was going to say is that would be you know i always ask people

what the movie of their life would be and who would play you um and what would be the arc of your life and who plays how amanda i know you asked that question i uh i can't relate to any movies not a movie um i didn't think i thought we were out of blocks but fucking here didn't see this one coming it's writer's block i've never heard someone say i can't relate to movies no i i have a problem i do have a problem i'll be honest with you it's like jokes i don't like fiction it's so funny i don't like i love people are so fucking hilariously interesting why that you just don't like fix i've just i've never heard someone say that i my nephew wanted or someone said someone said to me one time i don't like music and i was like what but but yeah we don't like what we don't like you don't like

pretending yeah i don't like i can't get into i can't you know what i think it's because i'm so dark on the inside right so i can't i can't lose myself in somebody pretending to be somebody they're not to pretend that they're in love i mean i can't get into it i love documentaries me too so that my movie would just be a documentary great uh all right here's the the question i wanted to ask and i think i know the answer but answer, but deal or no deal, Howie, you get a new life. You start over. You're comfortable. You don't have OCD. You're not a comedian.

You don't worry about feathers. You don't worry about death. You have a easier existence. Or stay you all the shit feathers and spinning and deal or no deal no deal no deal with all the darkness with all the blocks comes beauty with all the hits with all the knockdowns, with all the cuts, with all the bruises, comes that belt, that gold belt. It's painful, but it's worth it. It really is.

I'm not unaware of who I have connected in my life, of the experiences that I have experienced and continue to experience that I cherish. But I have no gray area. My life is black and white, but that white is so fucking bright. Even though the black is really dark, I'm not going to give that up. In fact, the deal sounded boring. Howard Mandel, ladies and gentlemen.