Showing results by author "Barry Friedman" in All Categories

In June 2013, documents leaked by Edward Snowden sparked widespread debate about secret government surveillance of Americans. Just over a year later, the shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, set off protests and triggered concern about militarization and discriminatory policing. In Unwarranted, Barry Friedman argues that these two seemingly disparate events are connected - and that the problem is not so much the policing agencies as it is the rest of us.

When writer-comedian Barry Friedman’s son died from a drug overdose one Friday morning, Barry was devastated, but not surprised. Paul’s death had been in dress rehearsal for years. The world alternately froze and galloped, after Paul was found face-down in his room. Barry had to find a way to continue, reject magical thinking, and forge a meaningful path for the future. During the following four days, Barry dealt not only with his crushing grief but also incidents ranging from the ridiculous to the profound.

What has happened to the thousands of Bosnians, Croatians and Serbians swallowed up in the Balkan war of the 1990s, never to be seen again? Matt O'Brien, ex-United States Senator and former Vietnam POW is a member of an international commission charged with sifting for clues. Outraged by the commission's inaction, O'Brien teams up with radar engineer Hank Wilson. Together, they embark on a high tech probe of Bosnian killing fields.

Barry Friedman, a veteran of 30 years on the comedy road, delivers another punchline on stand-up. Filled with garden-variety kleptomaniacs, large, rum-drinking Bahamians, bitter, glorious, troubled, and sex-addicted women with ankle monitors, loquacious drug addicts, first-time Vegas lesbians, and tall, neurotic Jews in sweaters - and these are the sane people - The Joke Was On Me is the story, his story, of laughs and love, and almost fame. It’s all true - as much as comedy will allow anyway.

They found Henry Gibson shot dead in his abandoned car on a dirt road. Then George Horner and Noah Hamberger. Random murders or a sicko with an agenda? That was the problem facing homicide detective Al Maharos. He ran out of ideas until he teamed up Sheriff Karen Vandergrift. Attractive, brilliant Vandergrift. Together, they uncovered other bodies, and a pattern unique in the annals of crime. They knew their path would converge with that of the killer. They knew when. But where?

When seven-year-old Angela Harris is rushed to a hospital emergency room in an unexplained coma, Dr. Ben Allen, the young pediatrician assigned to her case, welcomes the diagnostic challenge. His enthusiasm turns to frustration when confronted with the child's overbearing father, her phlegmatic mother, her senile great-aunt, a knife-happy surgeon, and a hospital administrator who values fund-raising above patient care. Consumed by his efforts to save Angela, Allen must do so in the face of a series of events that threaten to end his budding career.