I was watching a recording of “Men of a Certain Age” the other night. It’s quickly becoming one of my favorites, for several reasons. For one thing, the certain age of the men in question is pretty much the certain age I am, so we have a lot in common. Even better, the co-creator is not only from these parts, but actually went to the same high school that I did. So, naturally, the three men in question – Scott Bakula, Ray Romano, and Andre Braugher – all went to SU (interestingly enough, all three are supposed to have been childhood friends, but Romano is the only one with a Queen’s accent). Ray is frequently sporting a Syracuse t-shirt and has SU stuff on his office wall. And on one show Bakula says, “remember the time when Joe got the crap beat out of him by that kid who snuck into Hungry Charley’s?” Well, Hungry Charley’s was a bar I started going to when I was about 15, so I was probably there that night. Romano plays a recently divorced guy, Bakula is lady’s man, new age, yoga instructor type, and Braugher is a fat old married guy. I’ll leave it to you to decide which character I most relate to.

Anyhow, I don’t normally watch commercials, but I was futzing around with something else and not really paying attention when some ad for mascara or something with Brooke Shields came on. Or, that’s what I thought it was, until I heard the word “prescription.” Seems this was a commercial for “Latisse” which is “a prescription treatment for hypotrichosis.” Yes, if you suffer from the horrors of “inadequate” eyelashes, you can now get your doctor to give you a prescription to make them “longer, thicker and darker” (gee, I wonder if it’d work on my…well, never mind). Of course, you risk side effects like hair growth in “other areas,” darkening of eyelid skin, itchy, dry, red eyes, and – get this – it could even permanently turn your eyes brown. Now, I’m sure there are people out there with no eyelashes at all, and that would be a bad thing that this stuff could help. But this was clearly being marketed as a vanity product (I mean, Brooke Shields fer chrissakes). Aren’t there more important problems to worry about? Let’s just hope it’s covered by the Senate’s health care reform plan.

One place they more to worry about than eyebrows is Haiti, which has pretty much been leveled by the earthquake the other day. No electricity, no hospitals, no equipment to dig out the survivors who are screaming for help…. A poor country that had more than enough problems already really didn’t need this. Why some asshole – oh, excuse, me, I meant “Christian” – like Pat Robertson feels compelled to try and exploit the horror down there for whatever perverted pleasure he gets out of spewing his “devil” theories is beyond me. If that’s Robertson’s God causing all that suffering down there, then I want nothing to do with either one of them.

After a long stretch of pretty cold weather (yes, Midwesterners, I know it’s been much colder for you), it appears to be warming up a bit, and it supposed to get to 39° today. You’d think that would be a good thing, but, as far as my creaky old bones are concerned, I’d just as soon that once it gets cold, it stay that way until it’s planning on getting warm permanently. When the temperatures change, my stuff starts to hurt, and this morning my knees and back (and a few other things) have my limping and grunting my way around. I guess I never should have made that pact with the devil.

RIP, Teddy Pendergrass. It don’t hurt now.