Forgotten Heroes of Yore: Rudy Ray “Dolomite” Moore

Dolomite was his name and *#$&ing up mother $*#*%^ was his game. He’s the one who killed Monday, whooped Tuesday and put Wednesday in the hospital. He called up Thursday to tell Friday not to bury Saturday on Sunday. And you could tell he meant every word of it.

Dolomite was the trash-talking, poem-spewing, ass-whooping, lady-seducing human tornado alter ego of comedian Rudy ray Moore.

Born in Cleveland on March 17 1927, Rudy Ray Moore spent his life as a comedian, singer, actor and Blaxploitation icon. His performances were a mixture of clever wordplay (see the opening paragraph) and witty rhyming. He was an early pioneer of rap. He’d get up on stage and tell funny, lyrical stories in a complex rhyming style.

I once did a blog where I simply copy and pasted an entire story of his, The Signifyin’ Monkey. It’s the only time I just used a poem that was written by somebody else. Part of it was laziness (duh) and part of it was it stood very well on its own and anything I added to it would just lessen its impact.

Back in the early 70s, Dolomite was framed for smuggling drugs by two crooked cops: Mitchell and White and his arch enemy: Willie Green. Dolomite was forced to give up possession of his club “The Total Experience,” as well as all of his prostitutes.

After five years in jail, Dolomite is pardoned by the warden (I didn’t know they could do that) due to a story told to him by Queen Bee (Dolomite’s bottom bitch) about Dolomite’s nephew being killed in a drive-by shooting. This story, as well as the current socio-economic problems in whatever city this takes place in, thaws the warden’s civic-minded heart and he sends Dolomite out to clean up the streets of the town.

Armed with a wardrobe full of flamboyantly tacky 70s-era pimp fashion (made of 50% Polyester, 50% Awesome) and an army of kung fu fighting hookers, Dolomite was able to fight for control of his club, bang a bunch of chicks, cleanup the neighborhood and rip a man’s heart out of his chest with bare hand. Defending the pimp lifestyle in American culture, Dolomite has done much for the pimps up, hoes down way of life.

That movie is so absoludicriously bad, it’s great. It’s nothing more than boom mics in shots, bad overdubbing, actors looking at the camera, forgotten lines and terrible acting. I love it. It’s always great at parties.

Dolomite spawned an equally bad sequel called The Human Tornado, in which Dolomite bangs some white chick so hard that the bed spins, the ceiling shakes and it looks as though the room is possessed by poltergeists. It was also an early role for everybody’s favorite ghostbuster, Ernie Hudson, back when he was a swingin’ 70s cat.

I heartily recommend that everybody check out Dolomite at least once. Though watching it twice to catch all the lines you’ll miss from laughing so hard the first time, wouldn’t hurt. Another good Rudy Ray Moore movie is Petey Wheatstraw the Devil’s Son-in-Law, which is as ridiculous as it title suggests.

Rudy Ray “Dolomite” Moore died earlier this week at the age of 81. He died from complications due to being too much of a badass for this world. I’m not sure where he died, but I like to picture him as not waking up after a night of satisfying dozens of women.

However he died, Moore heavily influenced black culture in America, and to a lesser degree our country’s culture as a whole. His style and wordplay were very unique and can’t be duplicated. He is survived by his family and the Cheeseburger Pimp.

And now, as I am oft want to do, a haiku in honor of Mr. Moore.

Dolomite the great
His pimp hand is the strongest
It falls like thunder