Barry Friedman
StudioTulsa Commentator
A comedian, born in New York, Barry started performing comedy in Oklahoma, concluding that while Manhattan was the place to be discovered, Tulsa had more parking.
Shrewd.
Yet, for the past twenty years, Barry has never had to get up and go into the office for a Monday morning meeting, either.
Barry has performed in Las Vegas, Reno, as well as NYC, Los Angeles, Atlantic City, Houston, San Antonio, on cruise ships, The Bahamas, and once in a bar in Bartlesville, Oklahoma that advertised 'Comedian and Beer.' Further, Barry has appeared in national commercials, like the one for Mazzio's, where he is lying upside down, barking at a pizza, and movies, like UHF with “Weird Al" Yankovic, which still provides him with $3.76 residual checks every time it plays at some Lithuanian drive-in.
In May of 2002, Barry's first book, Road Comic, was released. An autobiographical look at his life on the comedy circuit, it was a raw, funny, pathetic, relentless account of comedy, comedians, sex, passion, suicidal Germans, pierced cocktail waitresses, disappointment, and receding hairlines. In his second book, Funny You Should Mention It, a collection of essays, Barry continued to explore the cultural zeitgeist of life, love, and humor, but also mused about gun shows, Baptists, old Jews, and Winnie Cooper.
Barry has appeared in Esquire; writes a monthly column for Tulsa Voice magazine; contributes to TV Watch for Media Post; and is a contributing writer for Explorer, an oil and gas journal, which is odd for Barry knows nothing about the oil and exploration business and has been known to hurt himself pumping his own gas.
Barry's commentaries are feature of Public Radio Tulsa's daily arts and culture program StudioTulsa.
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