Here's the Deal

by Howie Mandel

  I went to the ticket counter and switched his seat from first class to the last row of coach, next to my road manager, Jim, who was in on the gag. I told Jim not to answer any questions, just let Lou do all the talking. I had left the ticket in the name of Lou Dinopoulos, because I figured at some point he would have to make up some explanation that his real name was Louise.

  I then boarded the plane and sat in my aisle seat in first class. The rest of the two hundred passengers began to board. As people passed me, I heard them saying, “Did you see that guy in the dress?” One little girl said, “Mommy, that was a man, wasn’t it?” Everyone was murmuring, talking about the guy in the dress. Nobody was calling Lou a her.

  I know what you’re thinking. This is mean. As I retell it, I know it is mean. I’m embarrassed. But as I was doing it, I didn’t think any of those thoughts. Even if my wife had said, as she did, “Stop, I’m not going to talk to you.” These are just words. The impulse to do something funny or outrageous always overrode any focused reasoning or ramifications. But when I lost Lou as a friend, it was real. It had a tangible, painful ramification. I never thought that could possibly happen, because that’s not a thought process that worked for me in any way. That’s not an excuse; it’s just the way it was.

  Anyway, I didn’t know what was going through Lou’s mind, but for some reason he decided to board last, after everyone else was seated. When he finally walked onto the plane, there was complete silence. I’ve never heard an airplane loaded with two hundred passengers so quiet. He walked down the aisle, holding his coat in front of him. Because I had moved his seat to the rear of the plane, he had a long walk of shame. No one made eye contact. It was as if a ghost were boarding the plane.

  I called over the flight attendants and told them the entire story. This was way before 9/11, and I was a comedian, so they played along. I said that he was scared to death of being caught. I told them that he thought he was traveling on an illegal spouse fare and that they should ask him as many questions as possible and act suspicious of his answers.

  After the flight took off, the first flight attendant walked back to Lou’s seat and asked for his and Jim’s tickets. They handed her their tickets, and she walked back to the front of the plane. She told me that Lou’s hand was shaking.

  The flight attendant went back to Lou’s seat and began to grill him. “I understand that you two are traveling on the spouse fare, but your names are different,” she said. “The gentleman’s ticket has a different name from the lady’s, which says Dinopoulos. Why is that?”

  Lou is desperately looking at Jim to answer, but Jim is staring out the window, ignoring him.

  “I asked you a question,” she repeated to Lou. “How come there are two different names when you are traveling on a spouse fare?”

  Lou dug down deep, and in the worst falsetto imaginable, he looked up at her and said, “I kept my maiden name.” It was not even a female voice; it was just a really bad impression of Mickey Mouse.

  Hearing the horrible imitation of a woman, the flight attendant put her hand to her ear and pretended not to hear. “Pardon me?” she said.

  Again, in his Mickey Mouse falsetto, Lou said, “I kept my maiden name.”

  She nearly lost it in a fit of laughter. She handed him his ticket and quickly turned away and walked toward the front of the plane. She told me that I had to hear his voice. Soon, the other flight attendants got in on the act. It became a game of going back and talking to the man dressed like a woman who sounded like Mickey Mouse. They would ask him if he wanted peanuts, another soda, or a blanket.

  I told one of the flight attendants to tell him the captain would like to speak to him about his ticket. She did.

  A few minutes later, Lou got out of his seat and began walking up the aisle. It was like a scene from Dead Woman Walking. He slowly made his way to the front. The people who had heard him were no doubt thinking that there was a crazy-ass gender bender among them and they didn’t know what was going to happen next.

  Lou reached my seat and stopped. The lady next to me stared purposefully at the movie. Lou looked down at me.

  This was horrible, and I feel horrible retelling it.

  I looked up at Lou. Out of the corner of his eye, a tear welled up and ran down his cheek. In his Mickey Mouse falsetto voice, he said, “I’m busted.” He was clinging to the voice like a lifeline.

  “What?” I asked, wanting to hear the voice again.

  “I’m busted,” he said, the falsetto cracking. “They got me.”

  I shook my head. “No, you’re not,” I said. “It’s a joke.”

  Still in falsetto, he said, “What?”

  “It’s a joke,” I repeated.

  “What do you mean, it’s a joke?” he falsettoed.

  The lady beside me, for no reason, began to lean tightly against the window. She couldn’t get far enough away from me or the freak I was talking to.

  “It’s been a joke from the beginning,” I copped. “Michael knew it was a joke. Tinker and everyone else at St. Elsewhere knew it was a joke. There is no such thing as a spouse fare. It’s just a funny joke.”

  I’ve never seen despair turn into anger faster. It was as if I had lit the fuse of a time bomb. He grabbed his wig, which was shorter than his hair, threw it as hard as he could at the movie screen, and yelled what sounded like the f-word but was so distorted that I can’t say for sure. He grabbed the glass of orange juice off the tray of the lady beside me, threw it on me, and called me a very loud and I’m sure nasty name that, again, I couldn’t make out. He ran into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Even though this was before 9/11, people were starting to look worried. Some guy in a dress had just lost it and was throwing drinks and slamming the bathroom door. Because the flight attendants were part of the joke, one of them made an announcement apologizing for the disruption. She explained that Howie Mandel the comedian was on board and was playing a joke on a friend on the way to his show in Atlantic City. Everybody settled down, probably relieved that a real lunatic cross-dresser wasn’t on the plane.

  Lou stayed in the bathroom for a half hour, scrubbing all the makeup off his face. Then he rushed by me and sat in his seat. After a few minutes, I looked back through the curtain and I could see his eyes above the seat line—pure anger. He gestured for me to come back. I walked back.

  “Where are my pants?” he said with no trace of the falsetto.

  “They’re on the other flight with the equipment,” I told him.

  “I get the joke and I see where it was funny. Where are my fucking pants?”

  “Your clothes are on a totally different flight.”

  “So I have to sit here for five hours in this dress?”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry,” I said, adding, “Maybe this went too far.”

  Finally we landed in Philadelphia. He knew where the car was picking us up. To get there as soon as possible, he sprinted through the airport, carrying his briefcase and his coat and smoking a cigarette. As I walked in his wake, I heard people saying, “Did you see that guy run through the airport wearing the dress?”

  It was an hour-and-a-half drive to Atlantic City, and Lou didn’t say a word the entire way, he just seethed. We arrived at the Sands Hotel and headed for the VIP check-in area. There was a line, so we waited. The check-in area was in the lobby attached to the casino, so people were beginning to notice the man in the dress. Lou was pacing, and a firestorm was brewing.

  Then came the straw that broke the camel’s back. A bus pulled up and a group of seventy-five middle-aged ladies from central Jersey got out, laughing and kibitzing among themselves. Most of them were wearing dresses that looked very similar to Lou’s. The cackling bunch descended in a group on the casino, and soon Lou was stuck in the middle of the gaggle of ladies all wearing dresses similar to his.

  Lou snapped. He broke through the crowd, past the waiting VIPs, to the front of the check-in line and confronted this poor young girl working at the desk. In the loud
est, most primally desperate voice I’ve ever heard, he raged, “Give me my fucking room now!”

  He was so loud that the place fell silent. The action in the casino just off the lobby came to a halt. The dice stopped. Cards went down. Everybody looked up from their gambling.

  This small voice from behind the desk asked, “What’s your name?”

  “I’m with Howie Mandel, give me my key right now,” he ordered.

  It was like a bank robbery. She handed him a key, and he walked over to the elevator.

  During this entire time, the place was in a state of suspended animation—all these women wearing dresses like his, the gamblers, the VIPs. He pressed the button. You could hear the ding. The door opened. He got in. The door closed, and then we resumed life as we knew it.

  A few minutes later, I reached the VIP counter. I explained to the girl at the desk that we were playing a joke and that Lou’s outburst was my fault. She looked down at her paperwork and informed me that she had given Lou the wrong room. Not knowing what would happen next, I told her to call him.

  When she reached him and explained that she was nervous and had given him the wrong room, Lou let loose. The girl held the phone away from her ear, and I could hear him screaming at her. I could hear horrible obscenities coming from the other end of the phone.

  I don’t know this for a fact, but I think he was so distraught that he went up to his room, slammed the door, ripped off the dress, and threw it in the trash. In his rage, he picked up a lamp, smashed it, and then turned over the desk. So he was sitting there naked, a destroyed man in a destroyed room, being told that he needed to move.

  She hung up the phone. “I don’t think he wants to move,” she said meekly.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “I think I’ve gone too far.”

  In fact, I had. Lou didn’t speak to me for a few days. He came to work, did his act, and went back to his room. I called my wife and apologized to her, though I didn’t fill her in on all the details of the plane ride. I also apologized profusely to Lou. You would think I’d learned my lesson, but it didn’t stop there.

  I never could resist my impulses. I managed to almost get him evicted from his apartment. It happened when a friend of mine—Mark Blutman, a comic from Canada—had a nephew on a summer teen tour. The tour was visiting Los Angeles, so he checked the kid out for a day. Here’s what we did.

  We dirtied this little boy’s clothes and gave him a battered suitcase and a note that I had written. I called Lou at around two a.m. Lou lived alone, so I knew he would be able to chat. I didn’t know until later that he was lying in bed in his underwear. In the background, I heard the doorbell.

  Lou expressed dismay over someone ringing his doorbell in the middle of the night. He put down the phone and looked through the peephole to see who it was. He came back and told me that there was a kid at the door.

  “Bullshit, there’s no kid there,” I said.

  “Yeah, there is,” he said.

  “Open the door and see what he wants,” I encouraged.

  Lou went back to the door and opened it. Standing in front of him was this disheveled kid clutching a suitcase. He handed Lou the note that I had written.

  Lou and I had played clubs for years, so at this point I knew most of what had gone on. The note read: “Dear Lou. By the time you read this note I will no longer exist as you know me. A few years ago you played a club. You may not remember me, but I was a waitress there. We had what I believe was a great time that night. I never wanted to burden you with the responsibility. Standing in front of you is the seed of that night’s experience. Two years ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I thought it was in remission, but apparently it wasn’t. I never wanted to do this to you, but if you are reading this note, I have passed. Please take care of our son. Love, Wendy.”

  I know this makes me sound terrible, but this was what I wrote and gave to the kid to give to Lou.

  Lou came back to the phone. I could hear the torture in his voice. “Howie,” he said, his voice cracking, “you’re not going to believe who’s here.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  He was on the verge of tears. “My son.”

  “What?”

  “My son …” His voice trailed off, and then he mumbled something very spiritual and philosophical about how your life can change in one moment. “I have a son.”

  “You’re lying to me,” I said with mock incredulity. “Put the kid on the phone.”

  He put the kid on the phone. I told the kid to go sit on the bed, count to fifteen, scream as loud as he could, “Nobody loves me, nobody cares about me!” and then run as fast as he could out the door and down to the blue car, where his uncle was waiting for him. He said okay.

  Lou came back on the phone. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “This is such a huge responsibility.”

  In the background, I heard the kid scream, “Nobody loves me, nobody cares about me!” The next thing I heard was the receiver drop. And then I heard Lou’s voice wailing, “I love you! I love you! I just want to care for you!”

  This is at two in the morning. Lou lived on the second floor of an apartment building where all the units were connected by a breezeway. His neighbors were watching him running past their windows in his underpants, chasing after and screaming to a little boy that he loved him and wanted to care for him—not a very wholesome image.

  The next day, I had to explain to his landlord that it had been a practical joke, because the man was ready to call the police and evict Lou from his apartment. Lou called his girlfriend, who later became his wife. She thought that it was so cruel that he should not be my friend anymore.

  Do you, the reader, think less of me now? I admit there’s no excuse for that kind of behavior, and I was 100 percent wrong for doing it. Now, this is not an excuse, but people have said to me, “It was so weird and far-fetched that he had to know something was fishy.” The thing is that there is nobody more trusting than Lou Dinos, and the fact that he never suspected anything was wrong was too big a draw for me.

  Lou is the most loyal friend anyone could ever have. I really made a big mistake because I ended up losing him as a close friend. Today, we talk to each other every so often, but he’s not as close as he was. I did go too far and I’m the loser here. I learned my lesson.

  I felt devastated afterward that I had made him that upset. Lou never had any sense of jealousy or competition, which makes what I did even more horrible. In fact, he called me the day after I wrote this chapter to tell me about his promotion at the insurance company where he now makes his living. I told him I was writing a book and including some of the old stories. Without missing a beat, he said, “You should tell the one about the time I wore the dress on the plane. That was really funny.”

  The seed of all comedy comes from dark, negative places. It’s amazing that the day I was writing this story in the book, Lou called me and remembered. But the day that those things happened, I promise, was torture for him. Ultimately, however, as Lou points out, it is funny. If you can find the humor in these pranks, you have a sense of humor, which Lou clearly does. I don’t condone this kind of behavior. I recognize the wrong and the funny at the same time, which is part of the dichotomy that is my life.

  It was now the mid-1980s, and I was incredibly content both personally and professionally. I was a regular on a network TV series, I was also touring the country doing stand-up, and my wife was pregnant with our first child. What else was there?

  Warner Brothers called me—when I say Warner Brothers, I don’t mean the actual brothers Jack and Sam, I mean executives in the company’s music division—and offered me the opportunity to do an album. I was now to add recording artist to my repertoire. The concept was that they were going to send a crew to my various stand-up dates, record and edit them together, and voilà, I would have my first album. The tour was called the North American Watusi Tour. I know, it makes no sense, but that was the point.

  I decided that this wasn’t quite en
ough. I felt that if I was to be considered a legitimate recording artist, I had to have music on my album. A musician friend, Greg Chapman, and I wrote a silly little song entitled “I Do the Watusi.” Warner Brothers loved the idea and funded a recording studio and a music video.

  As far as comedy was from the path where I believed I would go in life, now I was sitting in a Hollywood recording studio with musicians playing my ridiculous song. To make this even more surreal, Warner Brothers hired Jellybean Benítez to help me produce this track. (Apparently, that’s what they call it in music terminology.) I had no idea why they were so excited to have Jellybean working with me until I found out that he produced for Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, and Madonna.

  As excited as I was, I can only imagine the excitement Jellybean must have felt in being able to extend his list to include Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Madonna, and Howie Mandel—all of us music icons of the 1980s. I was also given some money to shoot a video, which premiered on MTV in 1984. It was not one of my proudest moments, but in my mind I was now a legitimate recording artist.

  How many other monikers could I possibly add to this illustrious career? One more was to be added. I received a call from the Comedy Store. They’d had an inquiry as to the possibility of my performing fifteen minutes of stand-up at a house party for a huge fee. I thought, Wait a minute. I’m doing television, concerts, and cable specials, and now becoming a recording artist. My response was “No, I will not play at someone’s house, but thank him for asking.”

  Shortly afterward, the phone rang again. It was the guy from the Comedy Store. “Is there any amount of money that you would take to do fifteen minutes at this house party?” he asked.

  Without any thought and again on impulse, I blurted out, “Twenty-five thousand dollars,” and hung up.