For love or mustache?

As long as I can remember, I’ve been a fan of the mustache. Like many mustache aficionados—mustachionados?—I can trace my interest back to one Thomas Magnum. He’s also probably to blame for my love of Hawaiian shirts, red 308 GTS Ferraris and British house managers.

Magnum, P.I. is far from the only positive mustache influence in my life, however.

My all-time favorite 49er is Roger Craig. You may have forgotten that, when he burst on the scene in 1984, he did so gloriously mustachioed. I haven’t. Also sporting serious ’staches on that football team, the first I ever loved, were Randy Cross, Russ Francis and Ray Wersching.

My favorite movie as a kid was The Cannonball Run. Burt Reynolds’ mustache was like the stepfather I never had.

My favorite music? Hall & Oates FTW.

Despite being a lifelong mustache appreciator, I have never actually grown one myself. Until now, that is.

Anthony’s Barbershop, at 2408 21st Street, held its third annual Mustache March Contest last month, and I decided to enter. I figured if not now, then when? Carpe … mustache.

The rules were simple. Contestants must: 1) be totally clean-shaven on March 1; 2) send in a picture of themselves, in all their mustachioed glory, by no later than April 4.

Three winners get a free haircut and shave, and for every entrant a sum of money would be donated to Locks of Love.

The first step was the hardest part; I don’t think I’ve been totally clean-shaven since the 1990s.

As I looked at myself in the mirror, totally peachy for the first time since the Clinton administration, I recalled the first day I ever saw my father without his ubiquitous beard. We walked into our neighborhood grocery store, and the kindly Chinese immigrant shop owner took one look at him and shrieked, “Mr. French! Mr. French! You fat! You ugly! Grow it back!”

Needless to say, he did. I, on the other hand, persevered.

For several reasons, I decided to go with a horseshoe mustache, otherwise known as a “Hulk Hogan.”

Following a freak drunken piggybacking accident that I suffered in college, I had 40 stitches put in my upper lip. So my cookie duster doesn’t come in as full as it might have otherwise.

Also, for no apparent reason, my soup strainer comes in kinda blond.

I felt that the “pipes” on the horseshoe would add much needed gravitas to my ’stache.

Mission accomplished.

So, how does it feel to have an epic mustache? I’m not gonna lie; it feels amazing. Now that I’ve finally got the mustache that I was born to wear, I can’t believe I wasted so much of my life sans ’stache.

Guys want to be me. Girls want to be with me. Actually, given the similarities between my mustache and that of the guy from the “Johnny Cakes” episode of The Sopranos, guys probably want to be with me, too.

So what if my friends say I look like Morgan Spurlock after he ate all those cheeseburgers? Me and Barry Zito are gonna get through this. The mustache is back, and you better get used to it.

Now, who wants a mustache ride?