‘Mind’ in the Gutter and Out

Mike Binder has his fellow men figured out.

They are pigs. Babies. Y-chromosome amnesiacs unconcerned with putting the toilet seat down.

Men are lost souls in relationships as they mess up what they have in the pursuit of more. They are fragile heroes with raging ids propelled by fantasies and Viagra.

How could anybody fail to feel men’s pain? Or, anyway, laugh ruefully at it?

Behold “The Mind of the Married Man,” Binder’s brash new comedy premiering Sunday at 10 p.m.on HBO.

Yo, men! Gotcha!

“Mind” stars Binder as Micky Barnes, a big-time columnist for a Chicago newspaper with a marriage so good he seems hellbent on destroying it. Along the way, Micky works, drinks and plays pool with pals who, like him, are forever deconstructing their manhood.

For these married men, “mind” is the operative word. Theirs is a world where men are meant to mind their wives, their bosses, their children’s best interests--and also mind the pitfalls of adultery.

According to Binder, who also created and wrote it, “The Mind of the Married Man” aims to capture men up close and personal, then declare to women: “Here--this is what’s going on. This is what we say when you’re not around. Now, what do you want to do?

“You put one woman in the room while it’s on and the guys say meekly, ‘Good show,”’ Binder reports. “You get a guy alone and he says, ‘That’s me !”’

Episode 3, for instance, reasons that any man would understand why romance in front of the TV wouldn’t work if a tape of “The Three Stooges” were to feature Shemp instead of Curly. Women, on the other hand, just wouldn’t know the difference.

“Men have a lot of growing up to do,” Binder concedes. “I think that’s part of the process of staying in a marriage: overriding these flaws. And some men are better at doing that than others.”

On “Mind,” Doug (played by Taylor Nichols) is Micky’s monogamous chum, while Jake (played by Jake Weber) is a relentless philanderer who offers Micky this counsel: “You pine your life away for a forbidden fruit you could very quietly and responsibly indulge in.”

Micky’s style falls somewhere in between.

For instance, he hires an assistant (Ivana Milicevic) because she’s beautiful. Then fires her because she’s too dishy and thus a distraction. Then hires her back when she threatens to sue. Then forges a wary friendship while he dreams of her dragging him into the sack.

Back at home--and this is the central paradox--Micky has a bright, beautiful, devoted wife, Donna (played by Sonya Walger), for whom any man would be eternally grateful. Which, of course, Micky is.

“He loves his wife! Adores his wife!” says Binder in his smooth, often weary-sounding purr. “He has a better-looking, smarter wife than he ever dreamed he could have! Every morning, he can’t believe it!”

So why would Micky even think of joining Jake at a massage parlor?

Says Binder: “I think one of the hardest things a woman can understand is that her husband could truly love her, and go out and sleep with a prostitute, and come home and still love her.

“Micky’s a guy in love with his wife, but he doesn’t have the right tools to be in love. We just don’t have the correct tools and the ability to really love on the level that women want us to love on.”

But why should men get to have their cake and eat it too?

“Oh, yeah!” chides Binder playfully, having a mock-hissy. “Take the other side!”

The father of two kids with “a great marriage” of 15 years (“there were problems in the past,” he says, but adds that he doesn’t fool around), Binder is a stand-up comic, actor, writer and director whose film credits include “Coupe de Ville,” “Blankman” and the forthcoming “Search for John Gissing.”

While he doesn’t mind the inevitable linking of his show with HBO’s estrogen-pumped “Sex and the City,” there are big differences. Notably, Carrie and her gal pals are mostly single, yet engage in lots of couplings; Binder’s guys are in committed relationships, but hear the siren call of Male Manifest Destiny.

“I know a lot of married guys,” says Binder, “and of all the hundreds I know, there are three who aren’t thinking about all the wrong [stuff]all the time, or actively engaging in it.

“One of them is germophobic,” he explains. “And two of them are liars.”