Unfiltered Shaq tops comedy bill

If you're Shaquille O'Neal, what do you do in retirement? You emcee a comedy tour, write a book, become an NBA analyst and enter film school.

He's in Las Vegas tonight to host "Shaq's All-Star Comedy Jam," starring the funny Bruce Bruce, plus Gary Owen and Corey Holcomb.

"Vegas has always been one of my favorite cities," O'Neal says.

But when I ask whether he has any crazy Vegas stories, he demurely replies, "I don't have any naughty stories. I don't do those things."

O'Neal is a good fit for comedians because, like comics, he usually speaks unfiltered.

"I say things with my sense of humor button turned all the way up," O'Neal says.

"Sometimes, people don't get it. If they get it, good. If they don't, it's really not my problem."

His upcoming book, November's "Shaq Uncut," started a little brouhaha. In it, O'Neal describes a fundraiser at which President Barack Obama pointed to the Celtics' Rajon Rondo and told the Celtics' Ray Allen, "Hey, Ray, why don't you teach this kid how to shoot?"

"Obama didn't mean any harm" but "it killed" Rondo, O'Neal writes.

Some sports commentators read that, then blamed Obama for squashing Rondo's shooting confidence. O'Neal's reaction?

"I hate when a person reads a paragraph, or takes a sentence, and then creates their own story," he tells me.

"It really happened. But I'm not taking any shots at anybody. I just said Obama said the man can't shoot, so maybe that's why he didn't want to shoot.

"I'm telling no lies" in the book, he says.

O'Neal says his partnership with Charles Barkley to cover NBA for TNT will be "two silly guys who say what's on their mind."

On court, Barkley once threw a ball at O'Neal , and O'Neal hit back.

In retrospect, the fight "was like comedy," he says and chuckles.

"We had a little altercation one time, but our mothers are the best of friends."

And he's finishing film school at Universal Studios Hollywood. He wants to direct commercials and maybe documentaries, but not movies because he doesn't have the time.

"Guys that are good directors, that's all they do," he says. "If I'm calling myself a director, I want to put my all into a project because if I put a half-assed project out there, I will get comedian-ized."

Showtime is 9 p.m. today at Mandalay Bay ($45-$75).

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.