Thoughts on TV: NBA's LeBron James is unfiltered on HBO’s The Shop – In the barbershop you can’t lie.

Imagine watching an unfiltered conversation and debate featuring four-time NBA most valuable player LeBron James and other big names from sports and entertainment.

It’s all happening down at The Shop, which debuted as a periodic series this summer on HBO. James’s latest off-the-court vehicle gives viewers a “one-of-a-kind barbershop experience, which for many provides a sanctuary for free-flowing and spirited discussions.” It’s really good TV, folks. What’s not to like about seeing James and his friends sipping on some wine and dropping a few swear words while offering viewers a side of themselves that we rarely get to see?

The idea behind this open-forum series, a collaboration between James and Maverick Carter’s digital media company, Uninterrupted, is to visit barbershops around the country and gather groups of distinguished individuals – athletes who want to be entertainers and entertainers who envy athletes – who are free to speak honestly on sports, music, pop culture, race, current events, business and other “culturally relevant” topics. The half-hour program is unscripted and features a no holds barred attitude. Sure, there's the upfront adult language disclaimer at the start of each episode. Yet, it’s not as if we’ve never heard an occasional F-bomb dropped in the course of mature and frank conversation between mature adults.

Episode 2 of The Shop premiered last Friday night on HBO, and among those joining James were the hip-hop artist Drake, who opened up about the struggle to retire gracefully, the rules of hip-hop, and his on-going feud with Kanye West.

“I think maybe one of my biggest concerns in my career is just to figure out how to exit gracefully,” Drake admits during the broadcast. “I’ve watched people overstay their welcome, and I just don’t ever want to be that guy that’s addicted to the feeling of victory, addicted to the emotion of people digesting something that they love, and get to the point I’m just feeding them something and they’re just like, ‘Yeah.’”

Says James: “I’d rather fail being who I am than fail being somebody they want me to be.”

At The Shop / 
(L-R) Maverick Carter, LeBron James, Drake.

Both Drake and James shared thoughts about their evolving approaches to fatherhood and how each were influenced by their relationships with their parents. Joining in the conversation were pro basketball stars Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers, WNBA All-Star Elena Della Donne of the Washington Mystics, Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo and NBA rookie Mo Bamba of the Orlando Magic, who spoke about their “rapidly evolving” careers.

The current episode follows up on last month’s candidly raw Episode 1, which established the show’s parameters, and featured former Daily Show host and Emmy and Peabody Award-winner Jon Stewart, rap icon Snoop Dogg, New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green and WNBA most valuable player Candace Parker "deconstructing their success," as one critic wrote.

“Anyone who has been in a real barbershop, like the ones where I grew up, knows why this show can be so incredible,” said James, 33, a native of Akron, Ohio. “The Shop is exactly why we created Uninterrupted. I’m really excited HBO believed our idea and is helping us create something special.”

Photos: Courtesy of HBO Sports.

Videos: Courtesy of YouTube.com.

Why I love 'The Ricky Gervais Show'

Ricky Gervais / Funniest man on TV today?

Announcer (off-camera, voices over as classical English horns play in background):  For the past few years, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington have been meeting regularly for a series of pointless conversations.  This is one of them.

(Three funny, real-life English blokes calmly walk into the radio studio and take their seats. The red "recording" light turns on. It's show time.)

Ricky Gervais (as himself): Hello, and welcome to 'The Ricky Gervais Show' with me, Ricky Gervais. Stephen Merchant.

Stephen Merchant (now animated): Hello.

Ricky Gervais (also animated): And that little, round-headed buffoon that is Karl Pilkington.

Karl Pilkington (very animated, but looking a bit timid): Hi.

A comedy round table /
Stephen Merchant, Ricky Gervais 
and Karl Pilkington

Sometimes, you just want to stay home on a Friday evening, turn on the TV set and be entertained while enjoying dinner. It could be a funny line of dialogue delivered humorously by a comedian. Or, even the simple sound of cackling laughter.

The Ricky Gervais Show, an animated series that wraps up its second season next week, airs Friday evenings on HBO (9 p.m. ET/PT, with repeats throughout the week). It satisfies my hunger for good comedy on many levels.  It's entertaining and funny ~ occasionally thought provoking, too.  And, to hear Gervais cackle ~ even in animated fashion ~ is pure delight. Get him going and the cackling laughter can be contagious. This is a show where you'll definitely want to activate the closed-captioning on your TV set.

Ricky Gervais / cackling laughter

We live in prosperous times thanks to Gervais, the visionary British comedian, who created The Office and Extras, and whom I consider to be one of the great comedic minds of our time on either side of the pond.  Plus, he's not afraid to poke fun at public figures, either.

During a recent "The TV Column Live" Q & A chat with Washington Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes, I asked her if there were a better comedic genius than Gervais working in TV today. Her response:  "No, because he dares to look foolish, and he dares to bomb (cough Golden Globes cough) and he dares to go out of his comfort zone (see An Idiot Abroad). He's great.  I don't always love his results, but I applaud his nerve and creativity."

Partners in all things comedy /
The animated Stephen Merchant
and Ricky Gervais

Like Seinfeld, which was a show based on the concept of being about "nothing," The Ricky Gervais Show grew out of a wildly successful podcast that was produced in Britain and, as the announcer at the beginning of each broadcast states, it's a show based around the premise of a "pointless conversation."

Simply, the raison d'être of The Ricky Gervais Show is to entertain and make us laugh. The podcast episodes are animated in a style that's reminiscent to classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons like The Flinstones. Here, Gervais and his creative partner Stephen Merchant take delight in poking fun at their friend and producer Karl Pilkington, drawing out his thoughts and (sometimes ignorant) observations about whatever they happen to be talking about ~ endlessly and mercilessly ~ and goading amusement in Pilkington's theories and personal life.

Real life Ricky Gervais

For the whole half hour ~ and it's works. This is hilarious, unscripted comedy at its best, an animated and visualized version of an audio podcast featuring three funny blokes who happen to be friends. And, thanks to it airing on HBO, the show can take liberties in its content and language.  Plus, as Gervais commented to critics after being notified last year that The Ricky Gervais Show had been renewed for this season: "This can run and run as long as Karl remains a global village idiot."

Karl Pilkington / sympathetic hero

Pilkington is good fodder as the frequent target of Gervais's humor to the point of becoming a sympathetic hero. He maintains a sense of calmness not matter the odds that he's likely to say something that will dig himself into a deeper hole than he's already gotten himself into. Some episodes, you simply wonder what stupidity will spew from Pilkington's brain.

Earlier this year, Gervais spun off a travel documentary series, An Idiot Abroad, that aired in the U.S. on the Science Channel and in Britain on Sky 1. (It has also aired in Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, Norway and Finland.)  An Idiot Abroad captured Pilkington's reaction to cultural idiosyncrasies as he explored the Seven Wonders of the World. It turned into a social experiment of global proportions. Ironically, one of the show's central themes was Pilkington's lack of interest in global travel, which Gervais and Merchant exploited for good, cackling laughs.

In both The Ricky Gervais Show and An Idiot Abroad, Pilkington has probably concluded: "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Then, again, who knows what's going through his mind?

Postscript: On April 11, 2011 HBO confirmed that The Ricky Gervais Show had been renewed for a third season in the U.S.  The third season will debut on April 20, 2012.

'Curd' Your Enthusiasm: Shopping made fun

Trader Joe's / Making grocery shopping fun and enjoyable

I am a firm believer that grocery shopping should be fun and enjoyable, and not just another weekly chore.

So, after noshing on a mid-Saturday afternoon lunch of chicken tikka masala at Naan-N-Curry, our favorite Indian restaurant near the UC Berkeley campus, we shopped for groceries. After all, it's best not to shop on an empty stomach.

One of our favorite Bay Area grocers is Trader Joe's. With locations in nine states, including California and New York, there's three TJ's within close proximity of our house, including: Powell Plaza in Emeryville; and the Lakeshore Avenue and Rockridge stores in Oakland.  Since we were arriving from Berkeley, shopping at the Rockridge Trader Joe's on bustling College Avenue was the closest ~ albeit busiest ~ of the three.

The atmosphere at the Rockridge Trader Joe's is always lively, and the appearance and attitude of the shoppers there on this mid-winter afternoon reflected the vibe of the neighborhood: a mixture of college students, recent UC graduates, urban professionals and yuppy couples.

After picking out a small bag of Clementine oranges and adding some butter lettuce to our shopping basket, imagine my surprise as we reached the dairy section to select a half-gallon of low-fat milk and a 32-ounce container of fat-free cottage cheese. The hand-drawn sign above the cottage cheese caught my eye.  Immediately, regardless of the socially-awkward situation of pulling out a camera to photograph food in a grocery store, I knew that I wanted ~ needed ~ to take a picture of it for posterity.  It was a classic, serendipitous moment.

I couldn't help but laugh at the small, rectangular white placard outlined in black with bold letters that spelled:  "Curd Your Enthusiasm".  It even had a caricature of a snarky Larry David, the creator and star of the HBO sitcom "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

What a great food pun!

Immediately, I fired off a text message to my friend in Seattle and attached the "Curd Your Enthusiasm" photo I had just shot, knowing he would appreciate the gesture ~ and get the pun. Kudos to Trader Joe's. Now, that's what I call marketing your product.

Saturday's "Curd Your Enthusiasm" moment at Trader Joe's made me smile, made me chuckle, and made me thankful for the camera feature on my iPhone4.

I love a grocery store with a sense of humor.