In a previous life I was a Hollywood television comedy writer and received six Emmy nominations (hmm…impressive!) and won a Cable Ace (frankly, even I don’t remember or care what that award is). I wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper column for six years and hosted a radio program for several years. Stories (many of them true) about me have appeared in hundreds of publications ranging from USA Today and the Los Angeles Times to the Antique Trader and I’ve been profiled on televisIon programs such as Good Morning America.

I have written stand-up material for many dead comedians and almost every comedian alive EXCEPT the Tulsa, Oklahoma based performing comic/author of a book about life on the comedy club trail named…that’s right…Barry Friedman. Over the years he has often been confused for me and I for him. We’ve exchanged e-mails, but have never met and so I’m not positive I’m funnier than him. He has, however, graciously conceded I know a great deal more about Indian blankets.

I am also not the the prominent New York City antique dealer Barry Friedman nor the Beverly Hills attorney specializing in estate planning or the North Georgia State professor or the dozens of other gentlemen whose name I so humbly share. While I’m sure each is an absolutely topnotch example of a Barry Friedman I must warn you that if you’re buying Indian blankets from any of them you do so at immense risk. To clear up yet another case of mistaken identity, my late father, Milton Friedman, was not the world authority on economics of the same name.

I reside in Phoenix, Arizona or, as it’s known in the summer…The Portal To Hell.