The Shop
The off-and-on HBO show, The Shop, was something D and I stumbled across flipping channels a few years ago. The first one we watched had, among others, LeBron James, Maverick Carter — and Jon Stewart, who was more out of place than I could have imagined; still the Jewish kid got in some good lines. Oh yeah, and Snoop Dog. That first episode followed one from Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel, which I watch with regularity.
The show is filmed live in a barbershop, meant to resemble where men went to get a trim and some socializing in the ‘hood.’ Any way you cut it, it’s not the barbershop I remember from childhood. And when you’re served a good claret with your trim, it’s not the usual barbershop — way classier.
“James spoke on how The Shop became an idea saying, ‘when I was a kid, being in barbershops meant listening to adults talk about sports, clothing, politics, music, everything happened in the shop. It was so real and so candid — no one had a sense of, well I can’t be myself here.’ “
From Wikipedia article on The Shop
OK, it’s a white man’s incredulity that Black sports, music and media figures can carry on nuanced conversations. But it goes further than enjoying the banter: the culture these figures are sharing is one I know very little about, to the point that their situations, expressions, whole attitudes, are so unfamiliar.
It’s one thing to read about people in a foreign land — but this is happening right here in my own town. One barbershop from the show lies just across the river in DC.
Years ago, D and I were invited to a birthday party for a woman client who I’d become friends with. She’s smart with a dry sense of humor, good-looking and Black. She’s from an old family in Charleston, not too far from my home town. That weekend the party of 30 or so folks in her back yard was in a part of DC I had only driven through. She was pioneering on a street of duplex houses from the 1940s, some of which remained abandoned. D and I were the only ones who weren’t Black. For once we were the minority, and I won’t lie to say it didn’t feel distancing.
It was a lesson in appreciating how Blacks navigate daily in the larger White society — and fall back on their own. We do have a way to go, and if fame brings Black culture into the mainstream, I’m for it.
Last night’s show seemed focused on Jay Z, who got his start as a street rapper selling CD’s from the trunk of his car, got a little fame, did a little jail time for a conviction, to land up living the good life with Beyonce. Jay Z has a wicked quick sense of humor involving word play — likely learned from rapping. As crude as some notorious, early rap lyrics were, judging solely from The Shop, Jay Z had grown with his fame into a person of nuance and wit. Though the black brothers may laugh at my ignorant self, ’cause they knew all along.
Could be that money helps — even if it never seemed to save Trump.
LeBron is a big man — sitting in a barber’s chair — who carries his fame and entitlement easily, and reaches well beyond that to discuss life, his passion for basketball, his children — what matters. But that bush he’s been growing under his chin, I’ll bet no mullah in Afghanistan would snub him for it.
Yes, listening to a gathering of uber-successful media figures reminds me of reading People magazine, except that nothing seems sugar-coated. If the show celebrates Black fame, it also offers windows into a thriving alternative culture the mainstream culture (to shamelessly aggregated it) only occasionally encounters.
Think of it like Jay Z’s Rolls Royce passing Warren Buffett’s on the highway.
From left to right: Paul Rivera, LeBron James, Maverick Carter, Nneka Ogwumike (in front), Jay-Z and Bad Bunny
“LeBron James and Maverick Carter return for the season premiere with iconic music mogul Jay-Z; rapper and songwriter Bad Bunny; WNBA superstar Nneka Ogwumike; and marketing executive Paul Rivera to discuss confidence on the big stage, parenthood, and Wrestlemania.”
From the HBO blurb
