Men of a Certain Age: It's not them, it's me--or him--or maybe me

I'm digging the new TNT: WE KNOW DRAMA series "Men of a Certain Age." I don't know if you can call it a pure drama--it may be even more of a comerama than a dramedy--but it's entertaining. The series consists of Ray Romano, Andre Braugher, and Scott Bakula...uh, hanging out. They do stuff, of course, but then they get together and talk about that stuff a lot and just be guys. Please, though, don't anyone call this "Sex and the City for men," or I'll be forced to do, I don't know, something dramatic.

The show is a lot of fun, but I have one problem, one which I can't really blame on anyone other than myself. I was never a fan of "Everybody Loves Raymond," so seeing Ray Romano on this series is a real revelation. He's sharp, appealing, and always effective in his scenes. But I just can't immerse myself into his character because of one key factor: that voice.

It's not so much that Romano's distinctive sound bothers me. On the contrary, it fascinates me. That's the rub, though; I can't watch Romano without wanting to imitate him. This half-assed vocal impression doesn't even consist of me repeating his dialogue, but rather me just muttering sounds like, "Ah, er, ah, yeah, err," because, you know, that's what Ray Romano always says, I guess.

The "Ice Age" movies don't do this to me. There's something about Romano in cartoon form that mitigates this effect, and not just because he's playing a woolly mammoth. If they ever make an "Everybody Loves Raymond in Space" cartoon, I think I'll be able to watch it (and I will watch it without difficulty. But each time I see the Joe character on "Men of a Certain Age," my mouth starts twitching, and off I go.

An early episode was all it took to inform me this was gonna be rough. At the hotel where he lived after his separation, Joe attended a going-away party for another "resident," and an attractive woman started making out with him. Instead of focusing on Joe's reactions and what they indicated about his character, I started grunting, "Yeah! Hey, yeah, Joe! Eh! Hey, ah, eh, go get 'er, Joe!" in my idiotic pseudo-Romano croak.

This is how sad my problem is: When I address the character, I address him by name in what is supposed to be his voice. This makes no sense. What, I'm Joe talking to Joe?

"Men of a Certain Age" is too good for me to wasting time with these shenanigans. There has to be a way out of this short of immersion in old "Everybody Loves Raymond" episodes to desensitize myself. Maybe there's one specific episode in which every single character talked like Ray the whole time?