Greater love hath no man than this, that he descend into Monkey Hell for his friend.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." — Marcel Proust 

Dear readers—both of you—please bear with me, because I am attempting to take something which may look very silly to the uninitiated and turn it into a big, serious discourse on human interaction. I can do these things, because I am a Very Great Writer Typist. This is a rambling, self-indulgent piece of typing, in two parts. I had to put it here, but you don't have to read it. Honestly. Thanks.

I. The Mighty Boosh: a discursive primer essay cri-de-coeur blog post

I discovered British comedy duo/ensemble The Mighty Boosh just when I needed them most. I was feeling lousy. Struggling to write a book that fought me every step of the way, at a stalemate in both in home and career, and locked into a weird, self-imposed thang* which—let's be honest—I could have just stepped away from at any time. But I believed that this thang was inspiring me, and that if I stepped away, I'd never be able to write again. Ever. (This is romantic horsepoop. I see that now. If something is making you miserable, it is not helping you make Art.)

The Mighty Boosh. Look upon their works and tremble.

Anyway, it was a Sunday, just 'round midnight. I was splayed like Gregor Samsa on the family-room couch, and the TV was tuned (shameface) to Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Stay with me now readers, because I was about to have a road-to-Damascus moment.

I awoke to eerie music. The television screen was bathed in the deepest greens and blues, and I was looking into the most ridiculous, beautiful, pointy facsimile of the human countenance I had ever seen. Everything about it was just slightly too too, if you know what I mean. The eyes, the smile, the chin. Even the hair! This face was a brass band under a wig. For it belonged to Noel Fielding.

"Howard," he said to his mustachioed compadre (Julian Barratt), who had been put into a trance by a band of libidinous Yetis. "You've gone wrong!"

A tiny wizard-dude in a turban was involved somehow. Also, a gorilla. I flashed back to the early 70s, Saturday mornings, Sid and Marty Krofft. I was deep in the Honeycomb Hideout. "It's the Bugaloos," I thought. "It's Lidsville!" But it wasn't anything like that, really. I couldn't tell you what it was like. I still can't. There is no simple explanation for the Boosh.

Say hello to Parsley.

Well, things are simple on one level. You've got two English guys, both seriously—if unconventionally—attractive. One is big and strong, a northern jazz-freak, a genre-spanner from Leeds. The other is petite and androgynous, a ragamuffin from the streets, a Shoreditch vampire. Most Boosh fans have a crush/man-crush on one or the other. Or both. We switch back and forth a lot. It's very confusing.

But the geekish amongst us know that Barratt and Fielding are fantastic writers, careful guardians of their characters and their creation. Barratt is an accomplished musician; Fielding is a painter. They have been described as surrealists, but the Booshiverse makes quite a lot of sense within its own parameters, and in fact Noel Fielding has called it "archetypal." Time and again, heroes Vince Noir (Fielding) and Howard Moon (Barratt) betray and save one another. Well, mostly Vince betrays Howard. But he always saves him in the end! They encounter monsters and demons, many of them played, brilliantly, by Barratt and Fielding themselves—see Old Gregg, the Hitcher, and the Crack Fox—as well as mystical helpers who impart wisdom. Their landlord is a wee deadpan shaman. In one episode, Vince descends to hell (monkey hell, but still) to bring Howard back from the dead.

I cried a little bit typing that.

 

And so, I pursued the Boosh like the compulsive bitch that I am. I found them on Youtube. I researched the cast. I ordered the DVDs and committed entire episodes to memory. The Boosh infected my dreams and my speech patterns, and my response to just about everything became a little bit brighter. I even began to draw pictures again! With colors in them! ("Well skilled." Thanks, Vince.)

Any fangirl or boy will tell you: The Boosh inspire you, and they make you feel happy. Happiness is a rare commodity in modern pop culture, but I think it comes through in the Boosh's work because Fielding and Barratt really love each other. They love each other openly, obviously, and Platonically. The love is evident in the incredible beauty and detail that went into their TV show. It is evident in the way work together on stage. And their joint interviews are a wonder to behold. They tend to sit close together, and mirror one another's gestures. They gaze at one another adoringly. They crack each other up. They're not a couple—both are in longstanding relationships with really, really cool or at least somewhat cool women.** Were they lovers, all this leaning and mirroring and gazing would be boring.

Nevertheless, "Noelian" inspires a great deal of slash fiction, whether in character or out. We Booshists sort of want them to be lovers. But obviously we don't, because that would mess up the tension. But we do, because the human imagination works like that. But we don't, because it just doesn't seem right.

To quote Amanda, the very lovely keeper of a Boosh Tumblr site:

"I love them too much to imagine them as these completely different people that the authors of the stories [...] have turned them into [...] I’ve peeked at some slash, and its just painful [...] I just don't believe that they are lovers in any capacity. And therefore I can’t imagine it and get no pleasure out of doing so. I do believe, however, that they are soul mates. In the most intimately non-sexual and loving way [...] They complete each other. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It's magic, plain and simple."

How freakin' sweet is that? She's probably about twelve years old, but she's right.


 II. My Friend Tricia (a pseudonym)

And thank you, Amanda, for naming the dynamic between these two men—the dynamic that draws us all in—so well.

See, I've done a lot of thinking about romantic love. Specifically, the kind in which the lovers collaborate in art and work. I don't have that in my life, that John-and-Yoko thing. Never have. I used to want it more than anything. But I wonder now: were John and Yoko really John and Yoko? And if life had taken a less tragic turn, would they have been able to sustain that all-consuming partnership? In retrospect, I think John's utter dependence on Yoko was a bit sad and creepy. And, I think it takes a lot of effort to keep that dyad narrative going, which is why most couples end up staying together happily enough, but pursuing their separate interests.

Julian Barratt once compared his partnership with Noel Fielding to a marriage. But I think it's something better than that.

And you know what? I had a friendship like that once.

I was about fifteen when I "met" Tricia, although she had been lurking around the perimeter of my small group of friends for some time. We were at another friend's house, watching Eddie Murphy's HBO special (I'm old.) Eddie set the tone for what was to come in my friendship with Tricia, I think. Anyway, we just paired off for some reason. We sat side by side on the floor, a bag of chips between us that no one else could get at.

I seem to recall we kept up a running commentary about pretty much everything, as if we'd been inside one another's minds all along.

We began to write each other elaborate multi-page notes. I think Tricia started it. I remember the feel of those notes: looseleaf paper absolutely dented by the manic pressure of a ballpoint pen. Tricia Scotchtaped a quarter to one of these missives, eagle-side out, and labeled it "Super Cock." Super Cock was a deity of some kind. And I was smitten.

Over the next decade we formed the habit of withdrawing together into corners. We had our own way of speaking, like twins. It was very formal, sort of backwards and all stuck together, like High German. People stayed out of our way.

Tricia was beautiful. But goofy. But beautiful. Her hair was like a hat. An enormous chestnut hat. Her smile was huge. She was gorgeous and awkward, like the offspring of Mary Tyler Moore and Bill The Cat.

We laughed so hard when we were together. I have never laughed like that since. Not with anyone. We had tension. We would meet up between classes at college, and start laughing the second we saw each other. We made up tons of shit. I mean, we generated material. It was definitely material. And here's something I know now: had we been boys, we would have definitely done something with it. (I blame the patriarchy.) I think I was smarter, but I was a little bit in her shadow. She was the Vince, I was the Howard. We were in love, I think. I really do.

But we couldn't sustain it into adulthood. And again, I blame the patriarchy. Actually, I blame Tricia's parents, because they were insane. They acted like she was a cow they had to auction off. So Tricia was competitive, and quite devious, when it came to guys. And she got the guys. Because she was the Vince. It got ugly after a while and I had to detach. It's a shame, because had I given myself some time to become the mature Howard ("confident, at ease with myself") I think I could have shrugged it all off.

Tricia was with me when my father got sick, and when he died. She drove me the length and breadth of Nassau county in the snow, and we played our favorite music. She alone understood my need to be stoic and suck everything up, because I hated (still hate) being pitied and fussed over. "We're just made of stronger stuff," she said. "We're going to do amazing things together." She was right. For the longest time, I felt that Tricia and I could do anything we wanted. Blow stuff up just by looking at it, you know?

Probably she was like that with everybody—drawing them in, making them feel specially privileged. I don't know. I could contact her easily enough now, but I haven't and I probably won't. Terrifying notion. But I still dream about her all the time. My friend. The Super Cock. The Vince.

"She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind." — Toni Morrison

*Insert your own thang (Pepperidge Farm cookie, methamphetamine, fruitless crush) here.
**I'm still on Team Dee Plume.

____

Bonus Boosh: from Series 2, the "Nanageddon" episode. Look at the set. Look at the love, and work, and art, that went into each and every shot.