File under WTF.

This “news” article pissed me off enough to express my outrage on both Twitter AND Facebook, so please excuse my profanity-laced rant about it.  Here is the headline:

Poll: A third say pets listen better than husbands

What the fuck, indeed.  A third of who?  Losers?  People with no friends?  People who never should have gotten married?  Who are these people?

The headline was enough to make me not want to read the article but morbid curiosity lead me on.   Why is what morons are thinking “news” these days?  I will dismantle what is wrong with the world, through the eyes of this “news” piece here:

By SUE MANNING, Associated Press Writer Sue Manning, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 28, 12:34 pm ET

LOS ANGELES – Husbands, if you end up in the doghouse, consider it a promotion.

This is plain stupid.  Sorry, Sue Manning, but it is.

A third of pet-owning married women said their pets are better listeners than their husbands, according to an Associated Press-Petside.com poll released Wednesday. Eighteen percent of pet-owning married men said their pets are better listeners than their wives.

Again: You should not be married if this is true.  Or, if you are going through a rough patch in your marriage, as is normal from time to time, you should find some friends. Human friends.

Christina Holmdahl, 40, talks all the time to her cat, two dogs or three horses — about her husband, naturally.

“Whoever happens to be with me when I’m rambling,” said Holmdahl, who’s stationed with her husband at Fort Stewart in Georgia. “A lot of times, I’m just venting about work or complaining about the husband.”

She thinks everyone should have a pet to talk to like her horse, Whistle, who’s been with her since she was 19.

“We all say things we don’t mean when we are upset about stuff,” she said. “When we have time to talk it out and rationalize it, we can think about it better and we can calm down and see both sides better.”

She admits to “rambling” which makes her a crazy person.  Also, Whistle hates you, it’s a fact.  Next.

It would be a toss-up whether Bill Rothschild would take a problem to his wife of 19 years or the animal he considers a pet — a palm-sized crayfish named Cray Aiken. His daughter brought it home four years ago at the end of a second grade science project.

Bill, a crayfish named Cray Aiken makes you a giant fucking idiot.  But let’s hear more:

Rothschild, 44, of Granite Springs, N.Y., considers Cray a better listener than his wife, “absolutely. She doesn’t listen worth anything.” He doesn’t get much feedback from the crustacean, but it’s been a different story over the years with family dogs and cats.

“You definitely feel much more comfortable sharing your problems with them,” he said. “A little lick from a big dog can go a long way.”

I will spell it out because it needs to be said: If you prefer the company of a crayfish to the company of your wife: Get a divorce, fuckbag.  GET A DIVORCE.

Overall, about one in 10 pet owners said they would talk their troubles over with their pets.

The AP-Petside.com poll also found that most people believe their pets are stable and seldom struggle with depression. Just 5 percent of all pet owners said they had taken an animal to a veterinarian or pet psychologist because it seemed down in the dumps. Even fewer said they’d ever given antidepressants to a pet.

WHAT THE FUCK!!??

But they weren’t opposed to the idea: 18 percent of those polled said they were at least somewhat likely to take a pet to a vet or pet psychologist if it was dejected.

WHAT THE FUCK?  First-world problems, people.

Ron Farber, 55, of Hoxie, Kan., said it’s easier to talk to his dog Buddy than his wife because “the dog doesn’t have an opinion.”

“I think better out loud. He doesn’t care what you say or do. He looks at you, pays attention, you walk through the problem in your mind and eventually, the answer comes. It’s not as easy when other people are offering opinions,” he said.

Ron, doesn’t like his wife because she “[has] an opinion.” Nothing bothers me more than when I’m talking to someone about my problems and they have an opinion.  Ron, GET A DIVORCE.

Is this what marriage does to people? People tell me there are things I “won’t understand until I’m married.” Is this one of those things? Thanks, I’ll pass. I’m trying not to become a giant fucking moron whose best friend is a crayfish.

Read the whole article here.

How to take a compliment.

I used to think extreme modesty was the only way to go.  If someone complimented a good set I did, I would say something along the lines of, “It was a good crowd.”  I thought I would sound conceded if I agreed.  I’ve stopping doing that.  Now, if I have a good set and someone compliments me, I smile graciously and say thank you and let myself feel good about it.  I work very hard at what I do and I feel that shifting the credit to something else diminishes my hard work.  (Conversely, if I have a bad set, I have no one to blame but myself.)  Naturally, I love getting compliments but the one I got last week took the cake as far as a new-to-me way to get one.

A drunk and disorderly patron was in the process of being ejected from the club.  He was standing in the hallway arguing, being loud and shouting insults at the club and its staff.  In the mayhem, I and some other comics peaked our heads out into the hallway to see what this awful person looked like.  He caught sight of me and, enraged and red-faced, surrounded by the club staff and the bouncers and servers, he pointed at me and screamed, “YOU! YOU WERE FUNNY!”  I, cartoon-like, looked to my right, looked to my left, pointed at myself and mouthed, “Me?”  He screamed, “YEAH, YOU! FUNNY!” and then he was thrown from the club.  A drunken, angry, disruptive freak in mid-club-ejection thinks I’m funny?  That’s a new one but I’ll take it.  I smiled graciously and said thank you.

Ima be, Ima be, on ya phone.

I’m not sure this qualifies as the coveted “TV cred” but it’s still pretty damn cool.  I do a set, it goes up on a website and can then be downloaded onto your mobile device.  Soon, you’ll be able to watch my stand-up on the go:  In your car while driving high speeds, in a movie theater while watching a boring movie, on an above-ground outer-borough  train while on your way to do something cheaper than it is in Manhattan.  This is very exciting for me.  I’m a little nervous because my material has to be prime-time clean.  (Does the word “orgasm” count as clean these days?)  Anyway…

I’d love to have some audience love for the taping, which is FREE as a bird.  (As a bird would fly, not as it would cost if you bought a dead one to consume, and not as a caged zoo bird either.)  I can also personally promise that five of the other comedians are very funny gifted performers.  It’s going to be a fun night!

Here are the deets:

Comedy Time TV
Live Show Taping
Monday April 19, 2010
9:00pm (doors open at 8:30)

Broadway Comedy Club
318 W. 53rd St.
NY, NY 10019

Hope you can make it out to laugh at the things that I say.