Admittedly, Russell Brand, the British comedian and actor, probably best known in the U.S. for his role as Aldous Snow, a rock star in the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall, can go a bit over the top with his humor.

Because he will be hosting the MTV Video Music Awards tonight, he is on U.S. entertainment radar again. However, it's an earlier appearance on David Letterman in May that caught my attention.

This account of why he missed his first scheduled appearance on David Letterman pokes a bit of fun at U.S. immigration without being anti-American. According to him, Brand wasn't allowed back in the U.S. after a trip to Britain to promote the movie because of his past record. Although he doesn't specifically state his past problems, they have to do with drug issues for which he has had treatment.

Basically, Brand's hilarious style of story-telling captures an interesting cast of players and circumstances at U.S. immigration. I do think he's embellishing, but it's funny. For example, he describes a Gambian man wearing an American flag tie under going questioning and hones in on the stereotypes of people who look suspicious.

If you thought the Chinese acrobatics feats during the Olympics were something to behold, check out this video of the The Guangdong Acrobatics Troupe of China. This is an edited version of the performance of the ballet Swan Lake that was taken on a world tour a couple of years ago. As someone who can't even touch her toes, I find this truly stunning and amazing.

There are sections where the video is a bit dark, but stay with it. Sections of the performance are edited together. The variety of dancers and acrobatics is like a kaleidoscope. Here is an article about the performance from China Daily in 2005.

Ever thought about taking a video camera with you on your next trip? Over at Brave New Traveler, Gadling alum and documentary filmmaker Brook Silva-Braga talks about the challenges of shooting video while on the road, why long-term travel isn't so scary after all, and what his next video project is about. The interview is well worth a read.

Brook has done more to preach the benefits of long-term travel than just about anyone I know, and he sums up his argument for it thusly: "To me the most powerful evidence in support of long-term travel is this: I've never met someone who gave it a try and didn't like it. It's only people who don't go who can list all the problems with it."

For those wondering what Brook has been up to recently, you won't be disappointed. Brook is following up his award-winning documentary A Map for Saturday with a new film called One Day in Africa, which is an attempt to "show a more nuanced version of Africa than the devastatingly dire or falsely hopeful stories we see so often."

Brook plans on releasing that film in early 2009-- we'll keep you posted.

Read the whole thing at BNT here.

PopEater gave me a heads up about David Byrne of the Talking Heads designing bike racks in Manhattan in order to promote bike riding. The bike racks are finished and in place. Each reflect its location. For example, head to Wall Street and you'll find one shaped like a dollar sign. Here is a link to his Web page that shows the racks and where they are located.

The video is a clip from this past July. The rack on Wall Street is one of them shown. Plus, you'll get a feel for Byrne and the experience of bike riding in Manhattan. If you do bike ride, watch out for vehicles.

A taxi driver opened his car door without looking first which caused someone near and dear to me to fly over the door and break his collar bone.

Our friends over at Intelligent Travel pointed us to this awesome video slideshow feature on female wrestling in Bolivia, put together by the team at National Geographic. Lucha libre, for those who are not familiar, is a style of pro-wrestling popular in Latin America. Its popularity extends all the way to South America, where in Bolivia, a feisty group of women have adopted the sport as their own to show their toughness, demonstrate their passion for lucha libre and just simply to let off a little steam.

Called cholitas luchadoras, these wrestling women are typically Aymara, one of the main ethnic groups of Bolivia. Taking stage names like the "Amorous Yolanda" and the "Evil Claudina," the women take to the stage in the town of El Alto each Saturday night, dressed in their full traditional regalia of petticoats, bowler hats and braided hair. These girls don't play nice either - attendees can expect to see all the bone-crunching body slams, flying leaps and folding chair weapons they have come to expect from their male counterparts.

It was only 7 years ago that Bolivian entrepreneur and diehard lucha libre fan Juan Mamani had the idea to introduce women into his weekly wrestling events. Attendance was dwindling and Mamani wanted to find a way to bring a new audience to the shows. Several years on and the women have become one of the event's most popular draws. More interesting perhaps, is that many men come not to gawk at the "pretty ladies" but seem to genuinely admire them for their skill and passion for the sport.

I can't say that I've ever been much of a fan of wrestling, but these women might have won me over. Anybody up for some lucha libre on their next South America trip?

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Nothing like a cute monkey running around to spice up your wait at the train station. This monkey in specific wreaked havoc in a Tokyo train station when he evaded 100 police officers trying to catch him with nets... police say he was either a wild animal from the mountains or a stray pet. Either way I am sure the train travelers passing through were amused.

Gwyneth Paltrow, celebrity chef Mario Batali, food book author and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman, and Spanish actress Claudia Bassols (who *gasp*doesn't have a Wikipedia page!) will star in a show called "Spain...On The Road Again", documenting their travels across Spain.

I like all these celebrities but would watch it just for Paltrow, who by the way sounds like she speaks fluent Spanish. The show is food-centric so they really couldn't have chosen a better country to start than Spain.

I'm a bit disappointed with the name of the show though: 1) Extremely uncreative ("On The Road" are probably the 3 most commonly used words in travel, and, being a food/travel show, you'd think there would be some reference to that in the title, 2) Why the "again"?

Anyway, what's in a name, eh? It's a 13 part series that was shot in 2 months across the country. You can watch a sneak preview of the show here.

Sometimes I wish I was an actor just so I could have my own travel show when I felt like it. No, vlogging is not the same. Sigh.

Joy! Rapture! A bit of excitement is heading to Sunday night TV on September 28 at 8 PM on CBS. Yes, folks. The Amazing Race returns. This round is season 13.

The cast has been revealed and is now up at the Amazing Race website. Thanks to Jaunted for giving me the heads up when I received my daily Jaunted missive yesterday.

There's a link in the Jaunted post to the L.A. Times travel blog, "Daily Travel and Deal." Here, editor Maret Orliss, senior programming manager for Los Angeles Times Events presents her impressions of each couple after chatting with them in person.

As usual, there are the team combos that we've come to know and count on for good TV:

• The blondes
• The parent/child where someone wants to bond more with the other
• The incredibly competent couple who gets along so well that you're left wondering what the hell is wrong with your own life
• The couple whose non-stop squabbling is something you recognize, or if you're lucky, leaves you feeling like the couple in the above example.
• The older couple who is too sweet for words and have a snowball's chance in hell of ever winning
• The sibling pair who think that each of them are the best thing since sliced bread
• The pair who is sure they will win because of they are so much better qualified than any others. Duh.

I'll miss seeing two of the couples from last season when I tune in. They are:

I once knew someone who had a penis ring. I never saw it, but I was told it was there. A friend of his told me. I won't say who, but this friend is a trustworthy sort.

The kind of penis ring this fellow had, however, was not mentioned in this article about what sort of penis implements CAN be taken away at the U.S. border. At first, when I read the title of the article posted at Star-Telegram.com, I thought it might.

The penis ring that my friend's friend sported was a piece of jewelry--like an earring, but different. The type of penis devices that are no nos are those that promise to enlarge the penis by constricting it with rings or stretching it using vacuums or weights.

There are not enough warning labels on the packaging or directions on how to use such devices says the FDA. The results that can happen because of misuse do not sound fun. Gangrene, for example. For this reason, these items can be confiscated if someone tries to bring them into the U.S.

Erik Olsen, former Gadling blogger extraordinaire (he topped 4,000 posts) has a recent article in the New York Times about the U.S.S. Oriskany, a battleship that was turned into an artificial reef off the coast of Florida near Pensacola.

This "great carrier reef," Olsen reports, is one of the best places to dive in the United States and has put Pensacola in the money. Dive shops have done a booming business and the ship has generated a considerable sum for the county besides.

Along with divers, military buffs and those who served on the ship back when have come to see it.

John McCain, though, has yet to make an appearance. McCain's plane took off from the ship's deck almost 31 years ago on his last mission before he was shot down during the Vietnam conflict and found himself in the "Hanoi Hilton" aka, Hoa Lo Prison, most definitely not enjoying the city's charm like I have.

As Olsen points out, there are some environmental concerns regarding sinking ships, however the Environmental Protection Agency helped to ensure the ship was cleaned up enough to be turned into an ocean life haven. Studies are being done to see what adverse environmental footprints are being made, if any. The fear is that PCBs are being released.

Regardless of the possible downside, barnacles, sea urchins and 38 fish species now call the Mighty O--the ship's nickname, home. Also, it can't be denied that sunken ships make great diving spots for folks who know what they are doing. Two people did die while diving at the Oriskany. One person died after getting the bends from diving down too far and coming up too fast, and the other one had a heart attack. The guy with the heart attack would have died regardless of what he was doing--even knitting.

Diving at the ship sounds fascinating--and I have a fear of drowning. Reading Olsen's description gave me the inkling that learning to scuba dive needs to be bumped up on my things-to-learn list. Actually, I'm not sure scuba diving has been on my things-to-learn-list. I've penciled it in.

For a slide show of the ship, click here. Also, check out Olsen's article. The guy can write. He can also scuba dive. This video was taken during his dive of the Mighty O. Plus, he can take pictures. The photo, as you might notice, is by him. Jeez, what can't he do?