Going, Going, Going. . .

Last week the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of Propecia, a pill for male pattern baldness, to be available next month. Besides the cuteness of the name (alopecia means baldness . . . Propecia could mean gobs of this new stuff), the new drug got men to thinking. Here, four thoughts:

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Frankly, all you cue balls and defoliated folk, I don’t give a damn if Propecia becomes a federal giveaway.

Nor would I ever rush headlong into weaves, low-chocolate diets, Vitalis massages, testosterone lotions, little dabs that don’t, and ultraviolet bombardments that have been failures since man first combed his surviving strands sideways and honestly believed he would fool someone.

But then I am blessed with hairy genes.

When Father Dean was laid out at Seaward & Son The Undertakers, his hair was snowy topiary. Mother Dean, nudging 90, and despite formative years when peroxide bleaches and curling irons should have left her bald as a coot, has hair that would silence Dolly Parton.

Grandfather Mortlock, Uncle Arthur, Grandpa Dean, son PJ . . . all have, or had, manes by Miracle-Gro.

Granted, as you will see from the accompanying photograph, Pierce Brosnan will not want the name of the hairdresser who does my $12 quasi-Caesar. (Although Geri Ogawa who owns Oshare in Little Tokyo could probably use the celebrity business.) My bristles are a matter of choice, and convenience, because I play Army on weekends and remain an outdoors type, into fast and violent activities.

I’ll admit that my hair has thinned, grayed and become a little weary since pubescent years when it formed the best-looking Tony Curtis in North London. But there are still no Prince Charles holes in this thatch and the hairline has remained to the rear, its birthplace. Those hairs on the brush, on my lapels and in the shower drain are black and belong to Mrs. Dean.

And I’ve looked at my hair, examined the actuarial tables, and I figure my male pattern hairline won’t budge between now and when they are laying me out at Seaward & Son The Undertakers. Not to split hairs. But if St. Pilose frowned retroactively on the Dean tribe, if latent malaria or a bad batch of Desenex suddenly took my locks, I’d probably still pass on Propecia.

Eagles became a national symbol by being bald. Telly Savalas, Patrick Stewart, Michael Jordan and Mr. Clean got famous without hair. Conversely, perhaps perversely, we all know why Ron Howard wears a hat. And we all know what Elton John, Burt Reynolds, Marv Albert, William Shatner and Michael Keaton are trying to hide. And that Napoleon’s sideswipe was about as subtle as his retreat from Moscow.

So I’d take pride before pills; virility over embarrassment; dignity and knowing thyself over wobbling egos and self-consciousness. For if some men weren’t content, even superior, at being naked on top, Bald-Headed Men of America wouldn’t have located itself on Bald Drive, Morehead City, N.C.

And what if the FDA--with thalidomide, Dalcon shields, fen-phen, Prozac and silicon implants on the dark side of its win-loss record--turns out to be wrong about Propecia?

What if there’s a long-term effect and a man stays bald but his ears fall off?

Or worse.