Barry Friedman Has Left The Building

On leaving Tulsa. On getting your own sandwich

(Before I left Tulsa, I was interviewed by a brand new startup, The Pickup. I was flattered, I had a wonderful time, and evidently, I didn’t shut up.)

Here’s the interview in its entirety.

Here’s where it first appeared.

When I sidle up next to Barry Friedman in “The Barry Friedman Booth” at Mondo’s, he tells me I won’t be making any decisions in terms of food. He knows what’s good here. This is agreeable, but I also quickly order a Perrier, to head off receiving the Diet Coke with orange slices that he’s nursing. I have my dignity, at least.

Barry Friedman is a writer, comedian, and Brookside fixture; he’s the kind of guy who has a booth at an Italian restaurant and a table with his name on it at New York Bagel Cafe. I first met Barry at Mercury Lounge for a Tulsa Voicehappy hour around 2018, when I moved here from Brooklyn. The first thing he told me was, “Brooklyn? I’ve been there. Big difference between Brooklyn and Tulsa: Tulsa has better parking!” Barry’s most recent book, Jack Sh*t 2: Wait for the Movie, It’s in Color, came out in 2024; Jack Sh*t 3 will come out later this summer. Jack Sh*t 4, the fourth in the trilogy (“I know,” he writes in an email), will come out next year.

The long story short is this: Barry Friedman, age 67, comedian, writer, man-about-town, is absconding from Tulsa, his home for the last 45 or so years, for Portugal. I wanted to know why the Long-Islander-turned-Oklahoman was ready to jet, so I met him at Mondo’s on an icy day. Enjoy the convo.

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Z.B. Reeves: Barry Friedman, why are you leaving Tulsa?

Barry Friedman: It’s just time. Every time my wife Melissa and I thought about it, it just felt like the whole feeling of America was closing in. I mean, I’m steeped in politics, and I was getting annoyed every single day.

Then finally we had a window. My father died a couple years ago. And I’m old, but I’m not that old. I thought, this is as good a time as you’re going to get.

And one big variable is that Portugal’s pretty easy to get into, unlike a lot of European countries. Didn’t take a lot of money—didn’t have a lot of money—and just decided to find an immigration attorney and apply for it. It took about 10 months, between passports, fingerprints, all that stuff.

I was surprised by how few Americans have passports: 51%. But you know, I have family on Long Island, and they explained it this way to me: they said, “We live on Long Island.” You know? They don’t even want to go into New York City. I thought, man, people actually don’t like travel that much.

Anyway, it just kept being the thing to do. Back in December, I got the approval for the extended visa, which puts me on the road to residency, which puts me on the road to citizenship. One of the good things about Portugal is that you don’t have to give up your American citizenship; you can have both.

We just decided, you know, let’s go have a great adventure. And if it’s the worst decision we’ve ever made, we come back.

ZBR: Is it politically driven?

BF: It’s not politically driven, exactly, but Trump isn’t helping. Since the election, there wasn’t a reason to reconsider it. You wake up every day and the first thing you hear is about Donald Trump. And back in March I had a feeling that Trump would win. I literally wrote that if Trump didn’t lose the election, it wouldn’t be from lack of trying. The dancing on stage, the knock against Black people, the knock against cops, the eating dogs and cats thing, calling Harris names, and yet the polls never changed.

And that election was full of hope! Tim Walz was a great VP candidate. Whether you liked Harris or not, who would have thought that the Democratic party would be in that good of shape in August, after what happened in June and July?

I’m convinced that people were ready to run two columns. If she won, look how she saved the Democratic Party, and by extension, America. The minute she lost, it’s “she was a terrible candidate, there wasn’t enough time for traction, Biden should have left earlier.” And all that stuff may have been true, but on the other hand, I don’t think the Democrats lost because of messaging. I think the country has just lost its mind.

ZBR: Let me ask you a real softball. What do you think about America’s slide into fascism?

BF: Uh, it’s not good!

ZBR: Do you think it’s inevitable?

BF: It’s not inevitable. There may still be a tripwire; a half-a-dozen Republicans in the Senate might say, “this is too far.” But then, we’ve run through how many of those? The insurrection didn’t do it. The racism didn’t do it. The insanity didn’t do it. The policy didn’t do it. The association with all these people who don’t care about the working poor, or even poor Republicans who want their country back, that didn’t do it.

And Elon Musk cares about those people even less than I do! Which is saying something. He’s just playing them. I think he hates them. I really believe a lot of Republicans are laughing at their supporters.

You know, look, if you and I are sitting here and they’re frog-marching Haitians down Peoria—

The waiter arrives. Are we ready to order? I’ve been promised a decision-free lunch, and Barry delivers. He orders us “two Barrys,” whatever they happen to be, with clam chowder as the side, with some croutons to put on top of the chowder.

BF: As I was saying. If they were doing that, we would feel bad, but it doesn’t have anything to do with us in a way. I mean, you feel it, but not directly, because you’re not being frog-marched. I think it’s very comfortable for some people to live in a fascist state.

ZBR: First they came for the socialists.

BF: Yeah. Exactly. I just don’t know how to say to people: “This should matter to you!” Or that Ukraine should matter to you. I mean, the worst thing that happened with the election is that Trump won again, with the people knowing exactly what he was. They experienced him, and they thought, no, the price of cream cheese is more important.

At some point, these people are told by Trump, “this is what I’m going to do.” And people are saying, well, I don’t really like Trump, I don’t agree with him on everything, but I can’t vote for Harris, I can’t vote for Biden, as if their vote doesn’t count exactly the same.

There’s this really terrible joke: What do you call people who weren’t Nazis, but supported the Nazis, and didn’t stand in the way of the Nazis? You call them Nazis.

But I don’t want to say that either. I love a lot of these people. Literally love them. But then … what do you do when people who have different political views than yours have views that will hurt the people you love?

Like, I know gay people. You know gay people. They’re really scared right now. People we know and love are really scared. What are we supposed to do, say, “Yeah, I know you’re scared, but I promise, these are really good people”?

The clam chowder arrives, with the croutons on the side. The croutons add a delicate crunch to the hearty, creamy soup. I get why he puts them on top. I feel that Barry is getting frustrated with talking so much politics.

ZBR: So we’re sitting in the Mondo’s Barry Booth.

BF: This is, indeed, the Barry Booth. At the old location, I had a table. It had my name on the table. When they moved to the new location, the name tag got lost. So I said, well, fine, but I want a booth. They said fine, you can have the booth. But I never got the name tag.

ZBR: How did it come about that you got the booth?

BF: Well, you’ll have to ask them. I mean, I’m a good customer. I’m not the greatest customer ever, but I’m a good customer.

ZBR: Lots of good customers don’t get tables named after them.

BF: I don’t really know why; maybe there was some envy between them and the Bagel Cafe [where Barry also has a table]. Those are really the only two places I need. You find two places you like in life, you really don’t need anything else. I don’t really know why I got a table, except, one day I showed up and it was there. In fact, here’s the owner; he’ll tell you. Rob! I’m being interviewed right now.

Mondo’s owner Rob Aloisio is swiftly walking by. Barry gestures to me.

BF: Rob, I’m being interviewed right now.

Rob looks skeptically at me.

Rob Aloisio: Oh no.

BF: He’s asking, why do I have a booth?

RA: Well, that’s a good question. Because he’s my favorite liberal. And I love him. And … he’s THE Barry Friedman. Is that a good answer?

BF: It’s a great answer.

It’s not really an answer. But I can tell Rob is in a hurry.

RA: Whenever he comes in, everybody’s like, ‘ah, shit!’ Because he’s always got to have his orange in a glass; he’s got the Barry sandwich named after him; he wants the sandwich on the menu.

Rob is smiling. He’s joking around. I thought he was in a hurry. I pursue.

ZBR: Did the sandwich come before or after the table being named after him?

BF: The sandwich came after the table. Because I was raving about this sandwich.

RA: I was joking. They love Barry; they love Barry sandwiches. Nobody says ‘ah shit.’ We actually order extra oranges for Barry. He’s probably gonna go through three more just today.

BF: And I know when they’re getting tired of me, because they start reusing the orange slices!

Rob laughs; he does not confirm whether or not Mondo’s employees ever reuse orange slices in Barry’s Diet Coke. Rob talks business with Barry for a moment, then leaves.

BF: Well, I couldn’t have timed that one better. Okay, so while we’re here, I gotta tell you a story. You asked me to lunch, right?

I nod my head.

BF: So I’m 18. My best friend and I have just graduated from high school, and a third friend says to my best friend: “What’s Barry gonna do? I’m worried about Barry. What’s Barry gonna do with his life?” And my best friend goes, “I just imagine Barry is gonna be the kind of guy who’s gonna spend his life going to lunch.”

ZBR: Has that panned out?

BF: I should’ve used the guy to pick stocks. My sister, too. My sister’s up in New York, and she cannot keep straight whether I’m going to Portugal or Peru. A friend tells her, “You know your brother’s not moving to Peru.” She says, “Think about it: What would your brother do in Peru?”

My sister says, “What does he do now? He’s gonna go to lunch!” Not that much needs to change. What’s the over/under I get my own table over there?

ZBR: Could work. How’s your Portuguese?

BF: Well. That’s a really good question. Every language app wants me to learn how to say: “My grandmother is still skiing.” Or, “My oldest daughter is going to university in the fall.” What I need to learn is: “I would like a Diet Coke and two baguettes.”

Barry’s expression changes. I can tell he’s thinking about something difficult.

BF: I’m going to know nobody. Zero. My wife will come over in three or four months, but until then I will know nobody in the entire country. And I don’t know what that’s going to be like.

ZBR: You probably haven’t had that experience in a very long time.

BF: You know, a friend of mine recently said, “You may find that you miss that more than you think. It might be a part of who you are, that socialization.” And it might be, literally. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know everybody. But I do come into restaurants like this, and people know me. And there’s a certain joy in people knowing who you are.

ZBR: People held a party for you at Circle Cinema. To protest your going away.

BF: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

ZBR: Let’s rewind a little bit. When you first came to Tulsa, what was that like for you?

BF: I was a junior in high school, and I wanted to get out of New York. Most people do. I came here, finished college, and even back in the 70s, I remember, the first joke I wrote was: Say what you want about Oklahoma, but there’s always plenty of parking. I mean, when you’re in New York, you get done with the work day, and you’re ready to go home, going home is another job! Tulsa might have traffic, but it’s the difference between getting home at 5:20 and 5:35. It’s not the difference between getting home at 5:20 and 8:00pm. I think it changes your perception when you’re not taking an hour, two hours to get to work.

The sandwiches arrive. These are Barrys, special sandwiches that Friedman has ordered so many times that they have been named after him. The Barry is not on the menu. Served on French bread, it contains grilled chicken, buffalo mozzarella, and tomatoes. It is dipped into two sauces, one of which is an Italian dressing; the other I forget to inquire about. Barry instructs me to dip the sandwich into both salad dressings before taking a bite. It’s a good sandwich: the bread is crunchy, the mozzarella and chicken complement each other, and the double-dip of salad dressings gives the sandwich a flavor and a tangy immediacy.

ZBR: You’ve been in Tulsa, what, 45 years? 50?

BF: On and off. I went to Sarasota for a year for graduate school. Got kicked out.

ZBR: Why’d they kick you out?

BF: Said I had a bad attitude, and was opinionated.

ZBR: Do you disagree?

BF: No, but I thought at the time that was a good thing for an actor to have. It wasn’t that good of a thing to have. So I went up to New York, did some off-Broadway acting, came back to Oklahoma, left for Arkansas for a year, came back, got divorced the first time, went to California for a year, came back again. Been here for the last 35 years or so.

ZBR: You’ve talked to dozens upon dozens of people in Tulsa. Who sticks out?

BF: I’ll tell you my favorite. He’s going to hate me for telling this story. When Vic Vreeland was mayor of Jenks, he wanted to build a bridge from Jenks to Bixby. Had something to do with traffic and a hospital. There was some sort of controversy about where to build it.

So when I interviewed him, I showed him this report on the bridge that had been written and said, “You know, Mr. Mayor, I know you want to build this bridge, but here’s what your opponents are saying about this bridge.”

Vic looked at the report and said, “Is that son of a bitch still peddling this report?” I said, “Mr. Mayor, do you really want me to write down that you called your opponent a son of a bitch?” He said, “No, I want you to say ‘cocksucker,’ but clean it up for me!” I put the conversation in the story.

Vic told me later that he went to work and there were two copies on his desk. His aides asked him, “Vic, did you say this?” And he told them, “I don’t remember saying it, but it sounds like me!”

ZBR: What will you miss about Tulsa?

BF: They threw that party for me at Circle Cinema. I always knew I was going to miss the people. I just wasn’t prepared for the sentiment of the people who are going to miss me. There are no words for that. I’ll miss the parking.

ZBR: Where are you going in Portugal?

BF: Place called Coimbra.

ZBR: Coinbra?

BF: Coimbra.

ZBR: Coinbra?

BF: Coimbra. University town; oldest university in Portugal. And I like university towns. I’m eight minutes from University of Tulsa right now. I’ll be eight minutes from University of Coimbra over there. And I don’t need a car, apparently.

ZBR: That party that they threw for you—did it feel at all like you were attending your own funeral?

BF: The main thought hitting me is that I may never see a lot of these people ever again. And I don’t think that I shouldn’t go because I’ll never see them again. But it’s a real factor. Losing people in your life, going somewhere new, it’s never going to be clean.

And if it doesn’t work out, I come back. I know someone will go, “Well, what did you think was gonna happen? You don’t know anybody in Portugal, you don’t speak the language, you eat like a four year old, what did you think was gonna happen, Mr. Writer?”

ZBR: You eat like a four year old?

BF: I won’t even eat olives. But I’m moving to Portugal.

ZBR: What will you not miss about Tulsa?

BF: Politics. The arrogance, and worse than that, the ignorant arrogance, the arrogant ignorance. One of the things that Ryan Walters is doing—and of course, he’s easy to criticize—when he’s doing the thing about the Bible in the classrooms, what he’s saying is, “We’re a Christian nation.” And to the non-Christians, he’s saying, “You’re welcome here, but just remember: you’re a guest.” And that’s infuriating. Even people like Stitt, when he got elected, he was talking about how he was “giving the state over to Jesus,” or, if people don’t like it here they can always leave. The bar just keeps lowering.

If you look nationally, the liberals are always trying to find common ground, chasing people, looking for something they can agree upon. I don’t see anyone who is, say, anti-abortion, saying, “you know what? Let’s find out what we agree upon. Can we do something here?” I mean, maybe the only good thing about Jim Inhofe, in that generation of Oklahoma politicians, was that, from what I hear, you could say to Inhofe, “I want this, you want that, let’s find a compromise.” Now, I think, compromise is seen as cowardice.

And we’ve got a number of Democrats in the state who want to be palatable to Republicans, and so they run to the center. And as soon as they do that, the left is unhappy because they ran to the center, and the right doesn’t believe that they’re even in the center, and the right doesn’t need them.

So where’s the market for compromise? Who out there on the right is saying, “I’ll vote for someone who’s pro-life but anti-gun,” or, “I’ll vote for someone who’s against school prayer, but we’ll accept a moment of silence”? It’s all or nothing. And in their defense, why would they have to compromise?

Somebody pointed this out to me, they said: “I almost wish Trump had stolen the election. Then we’d know what we were fighting against!” Now what are you supposed to do? We can’t just say, oh, you’re an idiot for voting for him. That always works so well, right? Dehumanizing the other side?

ZBR: So with all of this in mind, why not just move to a blue state?

BF: Because California is not as exciting as Portugal. Because it’s not the same kind of adventure. I just get the sense—and I could be wrong—that things might be better there. But I can’t know what the reality is. Joan Didion said that wherever you’re living changes for you the second you throw away the return ticket.

So I guess the reason is that California would be easier. Portugal is just a little more out there. And if you’re the type of person to chase moments, which I am, this is one of those moments that seems worth chasing.

The darkest rationale I’ve got is this: In Germany, in 1932, between the presidential election and the parliamentary elections, there was a summer. And all through that summer, there were Germans in beer gardens saying, “This is really dangerous; I’m getting out.” And there were also people saying, “You’re overreacting; it’s not going to be that way; the institutions will save us.” And there are always two people in my mind having that same kind of conversation.

Look: people who are gay, lesbian, trans, these people are worried right now. It’s not tax; it’s not regulatory policy; it’s “I was married and now I’m not.” It’s terrifying.

There was a guy during the McCarthy hearings, Joseph Welch, who gave McCarthy that famous line, “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” That was the moment everybody stopped supporting McCarthy. That sort of moment now? I think it’d be a punchline. They’d laugh at somebody who asked that. Hell, people are asking that. We’ve just moved on from decency.

What worries me is, we all tend to have decent memories about George Bush or Ronald Reagan, and we sometimes forget how terrible they were. But now we’d take Bush or Reagan in a heartbeat. I mean, in 20 years, are we going to say, God, I long for the days of Trump? When things were calmer? He was a statesman?

I think it was Louis Brandeis who said, the left moved to the center, the center moved to the right, and the right moved to an insane asylum. That’s what it feels like. There’s no compromise.

ZBR: So with all of that, what do you say to people who choose to remain here?

BF: Build from your community. Find people to talk to. I don’t know how to deal with outright racists; I think they’re greater in number than we would like to admit. But people in, say, the center right, who voted for Trump because they thought they had no other option, I think there’s a way to reach those people.

Remember that you cannot convince someone that they’re an idiot. You’d think that logical arguments would get people to change their minds, but there’s always a counterargument.

Remember that when things hit people directly, they’ll remember who’s connected to the hit. Biden found a way to get student loans forgiven for a lot of people. Obama didn’t do it; Clinton didn’t do it. And I’d be really shocked if some Republican cares more about a transgender field hockey player in Ohio than they do about getting $20,000 of debt erased.

Remember that we’re not necessarily “better than this.” People like to say it. But, based on what? We’re better than the 600,000 votes that Ryan Walters got? They might want a Bible in the classroom. Why would it matter to them? They’re not in that class. What could go wrong? Meanwhile, if I were a teacher in that classroom, and I said to the students, “Here’s your Bible; just keep in mind that for a lot of people this is a total fiction; not only do lots of people not believe Jesus is the son of God, but lots of people believe he never existed,” I would be fired the next day.

So what options do you have? Leave? Fight? None of them are particularly good options. But to not be worried about fascism because you can’t kill yourself is exactly what they want. But if you spend your whole day fighting, you ruin your life and you get ulcers and you get cancer and you die.

What do you do? People who fought the Nazis lost. People who didn’t fight the Nazis lost. Can’t say Nazi though. People get offended. But none of this is what you asked me.

ZBR: Well, we’ve been discussing all these light topics; let’s discuss something really important. Can you get good bagels in Portugal?

BF: I don’t know.

ZBR: You don’t know?

BF: I don’t know. I’ve only been there for 10 days.

ZBR: 10 days and you didn’t find out?

BF: Look. I eat like a four year old. I don’t really need a lot of great food. Just give me bread, butter, and chocolate. But I know that the Portuguese bakeries are great.

ZBR: So it’s not about the bagel for you; it’s just about a nice baked good.

BF: Even more than that: it’s just about finding a good thing to eat. You give me a good French bread, I can live without bagels. I think they’ve got Coke Zero. People ask me, “What’d you eat over there?” I say, “Coke Zero.”

In fact, we went to a special tasting menu at one point, with an executive chef, and he’s showing us all this incredible food he’s got lined up, and I say to him, “I’m not a wine drinker. Do you have anything in the way of Coke, Pepsi?” He goes, “yeah, Pepsi Zero.” So I walk out into the dining room with a one liter of Pepsi Zero, and I’m eating bread and butter. The whole experience was wasted on me. It’s like, Iceland has great hot dogs. But people don’t want to hear that.

ZBR: How did you choose Coimbra?

BF: Lisbon and Porto are expensive. We found a place where we’re eight minutes from the University, 10 minutes to a train station, one minute to a bar. Walking.

Barry shows me pictures of his furnished apartment in Coimbra on his smartphone. A wave of jealousy washes over me that’s so intense I say it out loud.

ZBR: I’m excited for you. I think my excitement even rises to the level of jealousy.

BF: You know, a lot of people tell me that. “That’d be great; if only I could do that.” I’ll just say this. When my daughter was in college, she had a chance to study in France for two years. I said, “What’s the worst that can happen? You graduate at 24, instead of at 22? So what? So what? Go. Go.”