Sunday Avoidance Therapy: The Inaugural Session

Eddie Izzard's delicious Cake or Death bit--via Lego animation.

This morning, Mr. Litbrit was thoroughly engrossed in watching the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona--only seven more hours worth of exhausted drivers trying to stay awake and manage their seriously compromised race-cars while going in circles with the odd engine fire just to keep things interesting!--and I was puttering around the place in my Not-from-Wal-mart pajamas, indulging in the customary vat of coffee and gathering up stray tea-plates and buttered toast crusts. Mostly I was trying to stay away from any manifestation whatsoever of the dread Sunday news--the shows and the periodicals--all the while amusing myself (and horrifying the children) by singing:

Mother doesn't go out anymore--
Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes;
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside.

If you wanna know about the bishop and the actress;
If you wanna know how to be a star;
If you wanna know about the stains on the mattress--
You can read it in the Sunday papers, Sunday papers...

Suddenly it occurred to me: there are probably quite a few of us out here doing likewise--that is, engaging in one form or another of this very behavior. And thus a recurring blog bit was born: Sunday Avoidance Therapy. If you're interested in escaping the frustrating political domain for a blessed hour or two--or simply looking for a bit of time-suckage so you can put off doing the laundry while simultaneously convincing yourself that broadening the mind and having a laugh or two are more important than having clean socks--this post's for you.

In the spirit of camaraderie, then, I'll share a few of the bits and pieces I found while taking a Sunday spin around the 'Tubes, only one of which is (tangentially) related to politics and the mainstream media, but hey, it is by Matt Taibbi--here you go--who rips David Brooks a well-deserved new one, which, come to think of it, begs the question as to exactly how many new ones a single human can endure having ripped before he becomes more orifice than substance and thus simply evaporates?

So then...let's go: First, to sunny Barbados, land of my grammar-school years, where Prince Harry--the irreverent, naughty prince, and definitely the one with whom I'd want to be stranded on a desert island--told the audience at a recent Haiti fundraiser that if they were able to raise BBD$5,000 (about USD$2,500) in the next 25 minutes, he would get up and dance for them. They did, and he did. See? We're not all stiff-upper-lip sorts.

Next, we'll go back in time a few months, to Hallowe'en, and alight in England just in time to see Christopher Walken's reading of Lady Gaga's Poker Face for the Jonathan Ross show on BBC1 (if you haven't seen this yet, and you're as big a Walken fan as I, be sure to click through.)

Onward to yesterday's time plane, where yet more Lady Gaga action was taking place back in America, land of Miss America (and what I wouldn't give to see a contestant sing the theme song to Team America, World Police in the talent portion, but I digress). As you may have heard, one of the celebrity judges for this year's pageant was Rush Limbaugh. As you may not have heard, Rush got up and danced. And shook his groove thing and pumped his fist, kinda-sorta in time with the music, so help me.

You're welcome.

And now, here's some real rhythm-making goodness: check out Terry Bozzio's roadies setting up what is easily the biggest drum kit I've ever seen.

Finally, in the interests of science, we'll wind things up in Ecuador, where field researchers continue to discover new species; my personal favorite, the adorably tiny scaly-eyed gecko, is shown perching his half-inch-long bad self on the tip of a pencil-eraser.

Got any fabulous and fascinating links you'd like to share? Mi comment section es su comment section, estimados amigos.