Hair’s To You, Mr. Moon

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Whilst in a jazz trance, Howard accidentally lights Vince's hair on fire and as a result, it becomes split-end central and bold-patch party. Feeling bad, Howard suggests that they enroll the help of Naboo, but discover that the shaman is out. Desperate for his strong blacks locks back, Vince steals a bottle of hair lotion from Naboo's room and misreads the instructions. Chaos insures...

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Part One

Contents

Part One

And so begins another productive (ahem) day at the Nabootique, and Howard had dived straight into his daily routine; breakfast, shower, carefully observing Stationary Village to make sure everything was in check and that Vince hadn’t tried to be funny and replace a piece of cellotape with gaffertape and send Howard all weird and paranoid, like last time. Well you won’t fool Howard Moon this time, no Sir. I’ve got the moves on you little man, he thought to himself (or Vince, telepathically), triumphantly drawing a thin piece of plastic and a round glass from his pocket. After a date with the ruler and magnifying glass, Howard happily concluded that everything in Stationary Village had measured up perfectly (haha, get it?), and proceeded to stride over to his extensive Jazz record collection on the shelf, sorted alphabetically of course. He ran his calloused fingers over the perfectly aligned and juxtaposed record cases and collected a bit of dust. Ah yes, the magic of time. Howard was a practical man. He believed in the notion of certain things getting better with age, like wine and cheese, and Jazz was certainly no exception. He believed that, in this tragic musical era of electro nonsense, Jazz would pull through and continue make its presence noticed and appreciated, even in the face of such musical mockery. No sir, Howard Moon refused to sit back and watch the world of music go down the toilet. He refused to let the complexity and chaos that is Jazz be smothered by a collection of mere nursery rhyme beats that were so ludicrously repetitive and simple, a 3 year old could’ve composed them.

Settling for a late Oscar Peterson record, Howard went to slide it into his beloved record player. He scowled, wondering why Vince had invested money in that awfully complicated looking contraption nearby… a ‘CD player’, supposedly. Didn’t see the point in it, when Howard had a perfectly good record player capable of playing perfectly good music. “Get with the times, Howard” Vince would say. “It’s not the 50’s anymore”. Then Howard would laugh, mostly out of pity. Vince was so feeble minded. Didn’t understand the way the world worked. “You’ve got a lot to learn, little man”, Howard would say, “life’s not all sequins and sunshine”. Then Vince would laugh, and scuttle off to check his hair.

Howard put the needle down and waited in anticipation for the first few delicious beats…

Now, everyone has their personal kinks. Some are extremely common, some are weirder than others, and some are just plain disturbing, but nonetheless, everyone has some sort of fetish that can get them off faster than a rocket on crack, bar nullos and asexuals. Howard Moon was no different. You see, obviously, he liked Jazz. Like, really, really liked it. Not just in a friendly way, not just in a “yeah, that’s pretty damn rad” way… Jazz could do things to him. Things unimaginable. Things beyond pleasure, beyond euphoria. You see, Jazz was like some sort of aural drug to Howard Moon. The presence of it could set his insides on fire. The fluctuating shapes, the irresistible chaos had the ability to send him into a trance. A Jazz trance, if you will. As soon as those first few beats reached his ears, he’d be transported off into a world of floating musical notes and tiny Kenny G’s and Miles Davis’s would be all over the place, skilled fingers and deft mouths working those shiny shiny saxophones, blowing and beating out those notes, each of them like a snowflake; different to one and other, but equally as spectacular. Oh yes, Howard Moon definitely liked Jazz.

Vince Noir carefully flicked his jet black hair one last time and turned off the blowdryer. He smiled to himself in the mirror. His hair was looking fabulous today. Well of course, it looked fabulous all the time, but today, it was looking particularly fabulous, like each follicle had been injected with shiny liquid fabulousness or something. This alone was enough to put him in a cheerful mood. Well of course, he was cheerful all the time, but today… okay, let’s not get into that again. On top of that, he was wearing his favourite poncho and red boots, which were his pride and joy. Yes, Vince Noir was looking and feeling mighty fine today. Too bad he had to stay cooped up in the Nabootique all day with no-one there he could show off too (it’s not like they got a hell of a lot of business these days)… except Howard of course. But the man wouldn’t know fashion sense if it hit him over the head, let alone appreciate it. Oh well, Vince thought, I can always hit the clubs tonight. Where was Howard anyway? It was 9:10 am, and the Nabootique was supposed to open at 9 am. Vince almost expected the man to burst through the bathroom door right that moment, demanding why he was late for work. Then Vince would spin some extraordinary excuse about the mechanics of hair styling and how perfection can’t be rushed, etcetera, etcetera. Then Howard would make that “I-can’t-be-stuffed-listening-to-your-pretentious-bullshit-so-I’m-just-going-to-make-a-nonsensical-growl-of-disapproval-and-annoyance” growl and then storm off.

Vince walked out into the hallway and his question was immediately answered when the horrid sound of Jazz wafted from the living room. Heals clicking, he strode over to the source of the aural diarrhea and watched in both amusement and disgust as Howard wiggled and danced around and flicked his finger about to the music.

“Howard?”, Vince called, “Howard, Howard, Howard, Howard, Howaaaaaard…”

Okay, so the Jazz Maverick had ventured deep in the realm of Jazzy ecstasy, and Vince realized the ‘usual’ method of breaking the trance wasn’t going to work this time round. He’ll have to resort to more drastic measures, so he proceeded to press the play button on his CD player (didn’t understand why Howard still used one of those ancient atrocities to play ‘music’), and out blasted Gary Numan…

As the first beats of “Cars” were belted out, Vince watched Howard’s tiny eyes start to tremble, and his face contorted in a way which resembled someone extremely constipated… but, still his large, rapist-like fingers were jiggling away to the Jazz. Frustrated, Vince turned up the volume and soon, the loud synthetic beats were thumping through the house, overpowering Howard’s music, making an awful, awful racket which he was sure he would get into trouble for from Naboo later. Finally, Howard’s bloodshot eyes shot open…

He didn’t know how it happened, but when he was jerked out of his deep trance by the invasion of electro nonsense, by reflex, Howard’s limbs flailed as he swung around, and somehow managed to take Naboo’s magic candle with them, which was resting on the shelf nearby. And the next thing he knew, Vince was running around like a crazywoman, crying and screaming, “My hair! My hair! My hair’s on fire!”