It's Friday! And Friday is "don't keep your opinions and feeling to yourself, particularly if those opinions are trivial and are in no risk of hurting anyone's feelings" day. (Yes, you deserve so much more. But you won't be getting it from me. Not today, anyway. Stop shaking your head in disapproval, and go read about some blogger's crush on the dude from The O.C. or something. You can be so judgey sometimes...GOD!)

• I had a great time doing a show last night, and I think I officially unjinxed my venue curse. The last time I performed at RIFIFI I had one of my worst sets ever, which really bugged me because I was in serious Desperate for the Approval of My Peers® mode during that show. I'm sure it's that motivation that undid me, actually. So, last night was the first time I'd been back at this venue since the Sweaty Disaster of 2003, and it was a refreshingly good time. I told a new story, one that's been in my memory for years but had never been committed to a formal presentation. I had to drink (cheap drink ticket) whisky very fast to calm my nerves but I remembered 95% of the story's beats. Plus, while I was onstage I only barely peed on myself. Not enough to see in the back rows of the audience, anyway.

• The Decemberists need a hug. I saw them last night at Bowery Ballroom and they were just excellent. Uncompromisingly excellent. It's nice to see a band that cares less about trying to make everyone in the audience want to fuck them and, instead, just have an obviously fun time performing together. The sheer volume of antiquated instruments, each played joyfully by the band, makes their stage set look like the showroom of Professor McWoodenwagon's Olde Fashioned Emporium of Mellifluous Melody-Making Devices and Contrivances. Colin Meloy encored with a Joanna Newsom cover, making me love him and his band-mates ever so much more, and then the everyone joined him a few minutes later for a Smiths cover. They're playing again tonight, with the Long Winters, who have possibly the greatest in-between song banter this side of Shellac. I really believe you would be a fool to not get in on this show.
  
• As I was walking to this show last night, I passed several East Village restaurants with really lewd sandwich board specials displayed on the sidewalk. I have to say I'm kind of disgusted by restaurants' good-humored attempts to wrap their food in sexual innuendo. One of the signs said, "EAT THIS!" Another, further up, said, "SUSHI - EAT IT RAW, BITCH!" I keep seeing stuff like this, everywhere. "YOU CAN'T BEAT OUR MEAT." "LADIES LOVE OUR TUBE STEAKS." "HEY THERE! SEE THAT HOT DOG YOU'RE EATING. THAT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE A DUDE'S COCK, DOESN'T IT? CHECK IT OUT!! IT'S LIKE YOU'RE ABOUT TO EAT A COCK, COVERED IN ONIONS. AWESOME!!" (I saw that, verbatim, written on a napkin at Gray's Papaya) Do people need to be made to feel like filthy whores just because they want a snack? The last time I ate at Crif Dogs, after reading all the catchy, nasty signs posted around the restaurant, I called my dad from a payphone, in tears. I wasn't going to tell him where I was, just that I wanted him to know I loved him and missed him and not to worry about me. But when I heard him answer, I went silent. I heard him on the other end, pleading, "Todd? Todd, is that you? Todd, you don't have to say anything. Just listen. Your mother and I love you very much and we want you to be safe. Please come home, Todd. Todd?" I slowly replaced the phone receiver, my hand shaking. Then I went around the corner and let some dude fuck me for a cheese steak. (I told him he couldn't beat my meat, though, and I winked when I said it. He choked me.)
  
• Fucking Edy's! Edy's ice cream, which generally isn't worth the waxed cardboard bucket it's packed into, has preyed upon my weakness for mint and chocolate by releasing an officially sanctioned Girl Scouts Thin Mints flavored ice cream. It's almost never available, though I press my fat face against my supermarket's freezer to check with alarming frequency. There's nothing worse than a greedy man walking away from an ice cream freezer with a sad expression on his face. But today! Today it was back, gloriously. I bought 17 buckets. Four down, bitch. What? Say something!
  
• I'm doing stand-up at a yoga studio tonight. I have made it.
  
• Does anyone know where I can get a cheap/used tiger costume? You might think I'm kidding, but you'd be mistaken. Seriously, let me know, please.
  
• Aw shit. Thank me, and thank Sean "The Storm" Grant for copying this album for me so I can share its fruits with you.