jane q. public

Well, it didn’t take too long for Julius Carry to get a little company in whatever shag carpeted section of heaven he inhabits…

I heard my phone vibrate on my desk at 3:11 p.m. today only to find a text message from Bockio Casanova:

Sad news. Rudy Ray Moore is no longer with us.

Bockie seems to be the angel of death – not unlike Pucci Jhones in Disco Godfather - that’s twice in the space of a week that he’s confronted me with the sad death of a fine thespian. Both gentlemen, oddly enough, were connected in a totally Kevin Bacon-free way.

I fell in love with the funky rhymes and comedic stylings of Rudy Ray Moore some years back when my friend Valerie happily stumbled upon Disco Godfather and knew immediately that her calling in life was to share it with the world.

In Disco Godfather, Moore plays Tucker Williams, the Godfather of the Disco, a retired cop and proprietor of the Blueberry Hill Disco. Tucker has a great life dancing in his establishment in powder blue bedazzled spandex jumpsuits until he discovers that his nephew Bucky (played by Julius Carry) is on “the wack” – or as you might know it, angel dust. Or PCP. Or the angel of death.

The Wack Attack hits a little too close to home when Bucky freaks out at Blueberry Hill one night and has to be taken away in restraints.  Tucker takes it upon himself to begin a crusade against the wack. He even assembles a team of roller disco dancer lovelies who go by the name of “Angels Against Dust.”  Clever indeed.

Tucker’s battle leads him to the doorstep of wack kingpin Stinga Ray (y’all, I can’t make this shit up), and ultimately to an exciting conclusion in the basement of the building where Stinga’s minions have been shermanizin’ cigarettes for sale on the streets.

This cinematic achievement impressed me so that I had to track down my own copy (in a Wal-Mart in Alabama, incidentally) which I, in turn, shared with the world, just as Valerie had set out to do.

Before long, Valerie called me to say that she had gotten her hands on another of RRM’s masterpieces – The Human Tornado.

The Human Tornado is actually the sequel to the best-known of RRM’s films, Dolemite. In my estimation, the spawn far surpasses the original.

In The Human Tornado, RRM reprises his role as Dolemite. During a party at Dolemite’s home, some hicks drive by and notice a to do going on and call on the sheriff (apparently African Americans aren’t allowed to congregate in large numbers in this town). The sheriff has it in for darker folks, for reasons unknown, so he gathers a shotgun-wielding posse to go break up the party, and all hell breaks loose.

Dolemite and his band of funky dudes (including a young Ernie Hudson of Ghostbusters fame – he’s seen shit that will turn you white) end up going on the run to California to hook up with his buddies Queen Bee and Hurricane Annie, but a whole other mess of trouble waits there when a couple of Queen Bee’s girls are kidnapped by the unscrupulous gangster, Cavaletti. Zany madness ensues, as it’s up to our hero Dolemite to save his friends with his own special brand of martial arts.

Typically, if you’re my friend, you won’t know me long before I make you watch one or both of these movies. Oddly enough, last night I was at a friend’s house watching The Human Tornado because I’d told him, as I tell everyone, “you have to see it.”  Bizarre coincidence.

Rudy Ray Moore passed away yesterday due to complications from diabetes (also known as “beetis” and “the sugars”), and the world won’t ever be quite the same.

Instead of a moment of silence, I’d like to ask that you observe a moment of utter funkiness and complete sexitude.

MORE ON MOORE:

• Rudy Ray Moore dies at 81; comedian and filmmaker influenced rap and hip-hop – Los Angeles Times
• imdb
• Wikipedia
• Last.fm
• dolemite.com
• rudyraymoore.com
• blaxploitation.com (for the record, Moore didn’t like this term)