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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Los Angeles is the place for hair. There’s big hair, tall hair. Nice hair, spice hair.

There’s movie hair and groovy hair. Gigantic hair, Titanic hair.

In L.A., they say, there’s no “there” there. But there’s hair there. Great gobs of hair. Just everywhere.

Me, I have Midwestern hair. Heartland hair. Good, decent, hard-working hair that grows slowly, like winter wheat.

It is creeping back a little in the corners, my hair, but otherwise it is OK. Just OK. Not great hair. Fair hair, the way heartland hair usually is.

Bill Murray has Midwestern hair. So does Bob Newhart. It’s practical hair, hair that protects your head when the December wind blitzes in off Lake Michigan. It doesn’t really move, this hair. It just sits there. In the Midwest, that’s all you ever ask: Just be there. Don’t leave me bare.

So what would I want from this new tiny tan pill, the baldness remedy you have to take forever?

For 45 bucks a month, I don’t just want more hair. I want better hair. I want L.A. hair. That’s all I’d wear.

I want ribbons and ribbons of L.A. hair, Kato Kaelin hair, the kind surfers and movie stars wear. I want hair you handle like a stage coach whip. Yee-ha hair.

For 45 bucks a month, I want Oscar night hair, the kind that glistens in the TV lights like honey-baked ham, with curls that fall into my eyes and make me cross-eyed and a little dizzy, so that I bump into street lights and supermodels, not knowing which is which, except the street lights are a little brighter.

“Who’s that guy there?” they’d say as I careen off a chair. “He’s got such great hair.”

For 45 bucks a month, I want hair as thick as Rose Bowl turf, hair that you comb with a rake and cut with a power mower, one of those riding models with five speeds and enough extra horsepower for the really thick stuff.

For 45 bucks a month, I want hair everywhere. On my chest, on my toes, on my hands, in my nose.

“You have really great hair,” all my friends would say.

To which I’d reply, “What?”

To which they’d say, “YOU HAVE REALLY GREAT HAIR!”

To which I’d reply, “What?”

And on and on it would go until they finally realized I couldn’t hear anymore because of all my new ear hair.

So they’d write “You have really great hair” on my arm with a fat felt-tip pen, the kind that never comes off.

“Thanks,” I’d say.

For 45 bucks a month, is that too much to ask?