Who Am I to Dis a Brie?

Why I should not be left alone with my thoughts–puns and Python, via Hutch and Starsky ensue. The title comes from play on the words from an Annie Lennox song–Sweet cheese are made of this, who am I to dis a Brie?

“Hey, Starsk!”

Hutch has on his ‘I’ve got a great joke’ face, a big grin, eyes bright and animated. Never fails to melt Starsky’s insides. Hutch’s jokes are either lame or groaners, and his delivery is always wrong. But Starsky listens every time, because…Hutch looks so happy.

“Did you hear about the bomb,” Hutch pauses, clearly messing the set-up. “No, it was an explosion in the cheese—uh, French cheese factory?”

“What happened?” Starsky played along.

“There was des Brie everywhere!” Hutch howled with laughter.

It was funnier that Starsky expected. “La fromage de la belle France?” It’s the only French he knows and Hutch will recognize the source. Starsky made him watch Monty Python.

They’d sat together on the couch, eating fried Spam and drinking Australian wine. Hutch was apprehensive at first at the goofy physical comedy until he began to relate to the cerebral humor and gags about philosophers and musicians. Now it was their regular on Sunday nights when the local PBS station plays two Python episodes back to back at ten pm after Masterpiece Theatre.

“I don’t care how fucking runny it is,” Hutch says with a straight face.

And that was why Starsky loved him.