CDOTD 1/30/2024

 Rudy Ray Moore: The Human Tornado OST (Traffic)

Borrowed from the library

Let me once again extol how great it is we have a decent public library in Pittsburgh. It is further enhanced by connecting to other regional libraries. The main branch has a highly respectable music collection, augmented in recent years by the instrument loan program. If you don't already know, there's also a table of electronic instruments that you can sit down to play. It's the only Minimoog I've had the chance to play. The instrument loan program gave me the chance to play with a couple of synthesizers I had considered buying, and then decided to save my money for others. Thanks, Carnegie Library!

This disc came directly off the shelves, and I think I've checked it out before. In recent years some renewed attention has been given to Rudy Ray Moore, due to Eddie Murphy's biopic My Name is Dolemite. I liked Murphy's movie and can recommend it. My understanding is that it was a labor of love; when shopping around the script, no movie execs even knew who Rudy Ray Moore was.

How little we know of our own culture! I know I lack the personality to be a movie producer, but if I was, and Eddie came to my door with a Rudy Ray Moore script, I'd say, Dolemite? The Human Tornado? Petey Wheatstraw? Avenging Disco Godfather? Have a seat Eddie, let's talk. 

I watched Murphy's movie with my wife, and then immediately looked up Dolemite to stream. Her comment: "That was bad." And in many ways, yes, it's a shitty film. Cheap (that doesn't bother me), poorly paced, beyond cardboard acting, a kung fu-fighting leading man who clearly can't kung fu. But Moore captured a moment, and gave the people (specifically African Americans) what they wanted. He helped create the so-called "blaxpoitation" film. (I like Roger Corman's preferred term, "Black action films.") I read that Murphy's biopic is pretty close to the facts of Rudy making Dolemite, which makes it an even more impressive accomplishment. 

One particular liberty Eddie Murphy took: there's a scene where Dolemite is being filmed in bed with a woman, and the crew is violently shaking the bed, the props, the scenery. That scene actually happened in The Human Tornado, Moore's followup to Dolemite. It's a forgivable stretching of facts. I've seen both, and could hardly tell you what happened in one film versus the other. 

Both Dolemite and The Human Tornado have original soundtrack music. Whatever the highs and lows of such films, I think that is also impressive. The music here is clearly quickly produced, production raw. The drums kind of sound like garbage, the mix so-so. Nonetheless it remains highly listenable. Give me some 70s funky grooves, throw in some Minimoog and wah-wah guitar, and I'm pretty much there. I'll take this over overly-sterile digital & MIDI production. I see no credits beyond Rudys name on the CD. 

Like many soundtrack albums, it's a complete document of the music cues, and a lot of it is throwaway when you're listening to it separately from the film. If you took the best music music from all of Rudy's films, you'd have a low-tech, grungy but great collection of music.

I'll share a tangential memory. This happened during an in service day at CAPA High School. For the arts faculty, that didn't mean very much, no students and just get your things in order. I had a VHS player in my room, which I could project on a screen. I had on hand my copy of Afros, Macks, and Zodiacs to watch. It's a two hour(!) collection of blaxploitation trailers, with Mr. Dolemite himself occasionally breaking and and telling his old dirty jokes. It's SO busy, it's headache-inducing. 

A group of us were watching this tape in amazement, one of whom was an African American custodian. He mentioned how he had seen the tape on my desk and had wanted to take it home. After we broke things up at the end of the scheduled day, I tracked him down with tape in hand and said, "Here. Just return it whenever." Which he did. Righteous!

To quote Rudy in this movie, I imagine him looking me in the eye and saying, "You rat soup-eating motherfucker!"