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Most of the members of Monkeydick decided to grab some dinner before what would be our third-to-last show. We watched Andy Rocco’s hilarious “How To Go Down On Women The Andy Rocco Way” and then trudged two blocks to Dallas BBQ on 8th Avenue and 23rd. Now I’m going to allow here that it was my suggestion to go there, and I’m also going to allow that the food was very good and service quick and polite — but I feel compelled to point out that you’d have a hard time finding a larger and more appalling example of debaucherousness unbound than a Dallas BBQ.

On an island of tiny cramped restaurants, Dallas BBQ in Manhattan is a cavern — a warehouse of meat-eaters. A Home Depot of fat-asses. The din of noise gives to my iPod-damaged ears a constant blanket of urgency, as if there’s a horde of Vikings stomping up a nearby hallway as you eat. The helpings are willfully huge there, so everyone looks like Emporer Nero as they shove another pulled pork sandwich into their gobs. I had ordered a pulled pork sandwich.

Actually, if I’m going to put down Dallas BBQ I need to make a full disclosure: I alos kind of like being there. I mean, I’d go so far as to say that I kind of NEED to go there every few months. I guess I’m at least part fatass. Once I even went by myself. And if devouring enormous portions of sauce-slabbed pork with a group of friends makes you feel a spoiled, unbounded Arabian prince — then eating there by yourself makes you feel like a sociopath who survives only on the most unhealthy of meals.

They also rush you in and out of there. Not rudely, but efficiently. You get your food and check right away. I’m so used to the unspoken NYC policy of “We’ll bring you your check when we shut the place down” that it’s jarring. They’re in such a rush that upon arriving, when Lathan asked the matre’d “How long for a table” he replied “There is no wait” in what I’m hoping was an ominious and meaningful tone.

Dinner conversation was great. A large portion of it dwelled on dissecting “Weird” Al Yankovic’s catalog. I knew Curtis and John were familiar with those songs, but I was pleased to discover that Rocco and I were also way way too able to quote long passages from many non-singles of the Yankovic catalog. I regaled them with my story of seeing “Weird” Al at Tuxedo Junction in Danbury, CT in 1994 — thus witnessing a roomful of enthusiastic fans getting into songs which are merely making fun of actual songs. It’s like crying at a parody of a Robert Frost poem or something, right? God bless him, that “Weird” Al, but still.

You know what? We had a great time. That I’m casting a negative light makes me an irredeemable sourpuss.