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TV/Movies
The Star Hustler
RIP
If you were a child growing up in late 70s/80s Miami (a time when even semi-affordable cable and the otherworldly distractions of piano-playing cats viewed through a computer monitor seemed downright impossible), there’s a very good chance that you got your galactic fix via Jack Horkheimer’s Star Hustler program. Mr. Horkheimer died this last Friday at the age of 72 from a respiratory ailment and leaves behind a bevy of orphaned children that had seasoned their celestial curiosities via Mr. Horkheimer’s weekly show. Wikipedia can break down more of the X’s and O’s, but what it can’t tell you is just how fucking MIAMI that show was in every sense. The twinkling synth sounds of Isao Tomita’s electronic rendition of Claude Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 probably gave a young Romulo del Castillo a strong toddler chubby. The now-archaic visuals and pornographic fonts were complementary to a Sunday night drive home on Calle Ocho after a quick Velvet Creme stop. I probably knew about 3-4 dorky grade school kids that cut their Asimovian teeth on that program alone.
To know and really feel that this man created, wrote and produced this program from our very own Planetarium – likely the first field trip for many of us from that generation, before we all took in Pink Floyd laser light shows 10 years later – gave us a sense of internal badassery and pride that can’t be readily explained. On our own home turf, this very weird (and clearly very sweet) sentinel would instruct us on complex constellations and phenomenons of the universe that were downright baffling to even the most erudite bookworm. Although we are way, way past watching any Star Hustler (changed to Star Gazer in 1997 with the advent of internet porn) episode for any extended period of time other than for an ephemeral dash of whimsy, his passing represents another soft reminder of the old Miami, continuously dissipating. A city that was in flux, adolescent, arrogant, isolated from the rest of the country, and stranger than anyone outside of the city could even imagine or dare give it credit for.
That bizarre time and the precarious state of OUR city was something that shaped all of us, regardless of who you were and who you wanted to be. Mr. Horkheimer now gets his 70s/80s Miami Jedi status – like the Tropicaire Drive-Thru flea market in front of Tropical Park (where that super mall with Best Buy/Publix is today) or the old Bakery Centre or even Pirates on Bird Road. Jack Horkheimer was a reminder of that time, casually sashaying down his Billie Jean-like hollogram platform or instructing as he sat ironically on planetary gaseous rings. He is now in that pantheon of a specific Miami iconography that the rest of the world could never understand and that’s just the way we like it. He’ll always be ours and ours alone.
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Horkheimer’s show was magical. Watching Star Hustler and listening to its classic theme song are among my dearest memories of growing up in Miami. More than two decades later, Tomita’s Arabesque No 1 still gives me goose bumps. Thanks for posting this obituary.