Alan Zweibel

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An original “Saturday Night Live” writer who the New York Times says has “earned a place in the pantheon of American pop culture,” Alan has won multiple Emmy, Writers Guild of America, and TV Critics awards for his work in television, which also includes “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (which he co-created and produced), “Monk,” “PBS’s Great Performances,“ “The Late Show With David Letterman” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.His new book is, “Benjamin Franklin: Huge Pain In My Ass.” (Hyperion) We talked with him at the world famous Friars Club in Manhattan.

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Christian Finnegan

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Comedian Christian Finnegan’s new special is “The Fun Part.” Then we return to the ‘70s and look at the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers and the SLA and remember a time when domestic terrorists set off bombs nearly every single day yet a large percentage of Americans were OK with it. In fact many Americans feared the police more than the terrorists! A different time, a different country with Bryan Burrough author “Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence.”

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George Carlin & National Lampoon

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Kelly Carlin is author of “A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George” detailing what it’s like to be the daughter of the world’s greatest comedian. Also Doug Tirola director of a new documentary about The National Lampoon “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead – The Story Of The National Lampoon.” Plus Comic Kevin Bartini.

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Rick Overton

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Also Joe Domanick author of “Blue: The LAPD and the Battle to Redeem American Policing.”

Rick Overton is one of the most respected comedians in the history of standup. He currently stars in Patrick Stewart’s new series “Blunt Talk.”

Joe Domanick is an award-winning investigative reporter reveals the troubled history of the LAPD in a gripping story filled with hard-boiled, real-life characters that bring to life the ravages of the criminal justice system.

Vividly drawn and character-driven, Blue is simultaneously a drama of cops, crime and politics, and a primer on American police policy and reform. Using the LAPD as the book’s spine and through-line, Domanick illuminates urban policing at a crossroads during the tumultuous violence-plagued years of the early 1990s. Years when the beating of Rodney King and the LAPD’s brutality sparked the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, and police departments were caught between an often brutal, corrupt and racist past, and the demands of a rapidly changing urban population and environment.

From LA he then zooms to New York City, and details how the transformation of the NYPD that resulted in a dramatic decrease in crime—even while the LAPD remained in freefall for a decade more before it too begins its road to reformation. Blue ends in the summer of 2014 with crime at record lows, but events in LA, NYC and Ferguson, Mo., raising alarming warnings about aggressive racial profiling and the militarization of American policing.

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Comic Sheba Mason & Andy Engel

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Sheba is comedy royalty, a terrific standup who also stars as her mother in “702 Punchlines & Pregnant: The Jackie Mason Musical” a full cast musical-comedy depicting the tumultuous love affair of her off-beat parents. Then Andy Engel who is the Director of New Talent Shows at New York’s Gotham Comedy Club as well as the Owner/Founder of the Manhattan Comedy School.

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