DETROIT - Eddie Murphy brought Dolemite back to life. He is living in breathing in living color. Dolemite was born Rudy Ray Moore and was an underground comedic genius. He told mighty stories about this mythical black folk hero named Dolemite who could not be beaten. In his own words "Dolemite is my name and fucking up mother fuckers is my game". He was well-schooled in the art of kung fu, he was a mack daddy and got all the girls, and was one bad mother fucker. Or so the legend goes.
I had my run-in with Rudy Ray Moore in Detroit in the early '90s. Rudy Ray Moore appeared live at the Magic Stick Theater and brought with him a screen print of the movie that made him famous "Dolemite". He also did some stand-up comedy for us. He singled out yours truly out of the audience and put me on the spot. He stood there like a pimp daddy in his glorious high glowing technicolor clothes.
"Guess what I did this weekend?" he asked. I said I didn't know and Rudy then said "I had sex with a deaf and dumb girl over the weekend." I wasn't expecting that. There were a few chuckles in the crowd. "And guess what else I did?" he continued. I said again that I didn't know. Then Rudy said "I broke her fingers so she couldn't tell anybody." WOW. That was the joke and he busted the room up with that one.
Rudy Ray Moore was one of a kind. Getting him for the evening was a night to remember. He also stuck around after the screening to answer questions from the fans. We had a table right up in front and we just took it all in.
Rudy Ray Moore Comedy Records
The real stuff might be hard to come by. The original pressings of Rudy Ray Moore's comedy LPs probably go for a pretty penny. But his tapes were available in the early '90s and if you knew where to shop. For us, that meant hoofing it down to Wazoo Records in Ann Arbor. You had to crawl up the well worn out staircase to get to the store.
My buddy Ken grabbed a handful of those blue comedy tapes and gave them out as Christmas gifts. It must have had some bad karmic energy around it or something because it got stuck in my mother's car. Maybe I had the bad karma energy who knows. The tape got wedged in there really good and would not come out. Every once in awhile it would start playing and obscene jokes filled the atmosphere. God must have been looking out for me because this tape never did come on all by itself when she drove it. I would have gotten killed if that had happened.
The jokes were freaking hysterical. He was talking about someone who was so ugly 'He could break daylight with his fists!". Crude wasn't even the half of it, Rudy related this message about ugliness "That guy is so ugly he could scare the wrinkles out of a mules ass!". Then he would pause and in a slow southern drawl blurt out "I ain't lying". There was a time when I had that tape memorized and it would only come on for some reason whenever I was driving her car. Finally, fortune played into my hands and I was able to pop the tape out of the cassette player with a screwdriver.
DOLEMITE IS MY NAME!!
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