http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio...rg_slim.2.html
Q: What was your main hustle when you were at your peak?
A: Ressin' and dressin'. I just rested and dressed. And petted my dog and ate chocolates and slept on satin sheets. And went to the penitentiary periodically, I might add. It was interesting- to survive it and still be able to make sense. After all, I talked to a fellow who was the brightest among us. I can't call his name. And the last time I saw him about a year and a half ago, I didn't know what he was talking about. He was almost gibberish. His brain was shot- the circuitry was gone. He was so fast, man, in his prime. He just vibrated. He'd had a heart attack. That was when I realized I hadn't missed anything in squaring up . And when I came back to Chicago a year and a half ago for the first time in 11 years I wondered what had fascinated me, man. This shows you what happened to me in California , right- something aside from the transition from that to writing happened. It had to, man, if I'm viewing Chicago as a place of great ugliness when I used to even love the clouds of dirt that fell.
Q: In the book Pimp you wrote that you were "almost certain that the principles of good pimping apply to all man-and-woman relationships." Will you expand on that?
A: What I was saying was that the pimp overtly and almost with inhibition, denigrates and despoils the sexual object. His mauling of the sexual object is perhaps a more severe version of what happens in conventional relationships. For instance, in so-called "square" sexual bouts, the woman winds up, of course, flat on her back in a submissive position. If a man is aware of what sexual button to push to enhance a woman's gratification, he will bite her with the proper degree of ferocity. If he inflicted that kind of punishment on her when she was not in a state of rapture, she would resent it... The kiss-kick ritual is at the very root of the pimp's sexuality. My theory is that some quantum of pimp in every man would perhaps enhance his approach to women, because I think it's a truism that women gravitate to a man who can at least flash transient evidence of heelism. I think that the angelic. completely pure paragon, is not too interesting. Women are prone to masochism , anyway. I think if you are able to manufacture a bit of "heelism" in your nature and give them a sense of insecurity as to whether some voluptuous rival might come along and steal you, then you are a treasured jewel. I think women are it. It's the concept of the pimp who has one whore, who'll create a competitive situation to gadfly the one whore he's got, will manufacture and create the illusion that he has another whore who's sending him money orders from some whorehouse upstate. And he will ecstatically unfurl the money order, which, ironically, is the money that the one whore has made.
Q: Of all the pimps, you have been the only one who has written extensively about your experiences. What prompted you to write?
A: Nothing prompted me. First of all, I am of superior intelligence. We start with that premise. If we start with the subsidiary premise that I have a family, and because I am my age and they are infants, I have to make a necessary imprint. If you don't make an imprint you aren't going to be able to get large sums of money. That's absolutely if you're a ******. You've got to be spectacular and transcendental- otherwise you ain't gonna get a whole lot of bread.
If I were alone, If I didn't have three beautiful daughters, I could just rest on my laurels and just sit at home and live off $12,000 or $15,000 a year, and that would be the end of it. But I know that I can't do that. I know that I've got to find some way to make the kind of imprint that will get me very quickly large sums of money so that I could put the proper cushioning under my children. So that if I should pass away suddenly, then I have made arrangements for my three daughters and my son. But most of all I should like to prove to the world, to dispel the myth that street ******s are devoid of intellect. You know that's a myth. They think we are devoid of wit. I want to prove to older black men, just because your past age 50, man, don't give up.
Q: How did you learn to write?
A: Can you imagine when you're 55 how desperately- since you've been removed from that ferocious competition that is pimping- you would bring the same drives to this other world. I've always been a creature of pressure. My wife is 20 years younger than I. She represents another gadfly. It's no one particular thing but rather a number of things- a man married to a woman 20 years younger, infant children, displaced pimp, 55. I've got to try.
Q: As a rule, pimps find it practical to be distant in their relations with women. In fact, you trade name derives from your icy nature. Have you been able to warm up to your wife and children?
A: Yes, but with my wife there's a difference. She's been with me for more than 11 years. Do you understand how horrible it would be for Iceberg Slim to be with a woman who wasn't with him from the beginning- when Iceberg Slim was fresh out of prison. This woman was with me when I ain't had two red quarters to put together.
Now my ambition is to be as good as a father as I was a pimp. But at first I couldn't express love for my daughters because they were female. I can do it now. But you know what pulled my coat . You know how balmy the weather is in L.A. , right. There're scores of fathers- black and white- with the supermarket syndrome. They ride their kids in carts. And you see fathers in California doing the shopping and all. When I first saw it, man- these fathers kissing their children, fondling them- I just looked and said to myself, 'That ****** is a shonuff father.' I know I wasn't so sick that I couldn't realize that eh knew what to do, or that he wasn't flawed.
So that's what woke me up to the fact that something was wrong with me. I would stand off from all my children and I had a morbid fear of being kissed by them. When you're a pimp, you're only as sweet as the money. They were like little whores and I say, 'Now get out of here.' They would giggle and laugh at me. That's bad medicine for a kid, you understand what I mean. The rationale was 'they like that,' I'd tell the old lady. She'd just look at me. She'd say, 'They ain't gonna understand their daddy.'
Now I had a habit- just to show you how erudite my old lady is- of picking up my kids with their back toward me. She said, 'Daddy, dear, they can't feel secure in that position. Don't hold them with their backs to you. The supporting thing isn't there.' I would say to myself, 'Of course she's right. There ain't no support- no security there.' Ain't that a *****- I didn't know that, slick as I try to be.
Q: Why did you get out of pimping?
A: I got out of it because I was old. I did not want to be teased, tormented and brutalized by young whore. And there were too many young dudes, dressing well, looking pretty and talking good- to these young whores.
Q: What was your next step?
A: Ringing doorbells and selling insecticide.
Q: You were quoted in the book Black Players as saying you were "ecstatic" about leaving the life .
A: Oooooow, God ! I leave the door open in hotel rooms. I take the chain and put it so the door can't lock and I might take a nap. I don't have to worry because I ain't stupid enough like old pimps to have that gangster grass or any other contraband with me as I travel. I ain't worried about no rollers [police detectives]. I ain't gonna do nothing wrong. Ain't no way they can indict me for anything. I don't even entertain women. I don't have no sexual contact with women.
Q: Has pimping changed since you quit?
A: Pimping has to change, man, because you see, women changed. With the advent of television young girls could see the opulence of the inside of star's homes. The girl would see authentic opulence. Then when the pimp would take them to these bares [empty apartments]. A pimp would buy yard goods. He'd have his bottom woman go down and get satin by the bolt. He would take sometimes tacks and cover a wall with satin, so there was only a kind of sleazy opulence. So when the pimp would take these young girls, who had already seen true opulence via the boob tube, it didn't have the true impact he wanted. She was not aswoon at this synthetic splendor.
And there was a proliferation of luxury cars with the end of the war (World War II). Shoeshiners had Cadillacs. They might've been selling a little gangster on the side, but they still had Cadillacs. Where formerly only pimps and high powered gamblers and numbers bankers had these luxury cars, there was just a proliferation of them. No young girl is titillated because she sees a new Eldorado. She isn't stunned or hypnotized as she once was when some dude would pull up in one of them long Caddies.
These are some of the things that happened. Maybe this is why large numbers of pimps started using the more potent means of persuasion and treatment and recruitment, like getting the whores hooked on hard stuff, because it it a sure shot. It was the muting of the impact of what was formerly potent.
So the young pimp's reached the point where he now uses heroin as his principle weapon as he's evolved into this negative position.
Q: Isn't a woman useless if she's on drugs.
A: If she's 17, 18, or 19, and if she's supplied with drugs that are relatively good- in other words you don't have two and three percent stuff- she ain't going to get sick. You know what's bad about drug addiction. Man, it ain't the drugs that you shoot- it's if you are a hustler and if you have to hustle or steal or do whatever that you do when you're sick. And you go for X number of hours and be under stress and tension of trying to tilt that or pick a pocket, and you're sicker than a __________. Then you multiply these various times when you are sick- this is what pulls you down.
That's what's wrong about drugs, but I never say this, of course. I don't want to give anybody the impression that it's therapeutic. I never looked like I had a habit. You couldn't tell I had a habit unless you were a roller [detective] and examined me. Then you could tell because it's like embalming fluid. That's the proper parallel. You just have to keep lots of it in the corpse. That's what you are.
Q: Why do you think there are so few white pimps?
A: Because there's so many other areas of chicanery, which are much more lucrative, that are open to white fellows. White men who have those instincts that would lead them to pimping prey on rich widows and there're literally just hundreds of thousands of them who have enough money that makes them a worthwhile target. So the pernicious white man, instead of pimping, shoots for one mark, one victim and he takes that broad and spends it on flashy young broads and makes the Vegas scene. If he's really a top-notcher, he makes the French Riviera . They are called ' players '. Most white guys became players because they've got the prey. They don't really have to come down to street level to get their bread. White widows with $80,000 or $90,000 are not uncommon. They don't even cause a social ripple. You know- some white woman with $90,000- she ain't got no money according to this country's standards. If a black widow or a black woman has $90,000, man, my God - she's rich. You know these food places that are really busy like barbecue joints where they give you a ticket. Well, that's what she'd have to do. She'd have to interview ******s because they'd be playing for that 90 grand. Here again the same old opportunity and plethora of opportunity. Who wants to pimp? Why would a personable, attractive young white guy have to get down on the street level? It ain't worth it if you're white. All right, so you're getting a grand a week from all three girls- that's $3,000 a week. Then you got your nut- the police. All of the convoluted thinking that it takes just to keep a stable together and move from one posh watering and feeding spot to another and rip 'em off.
Large numbers of white pimps just have not had to do that raunchy kind of hustling that the black pimp must do. You know, there're droves of young ******s who want to pimp just to get an Eldorado, and that doesn't require a hell of a lot as you know. I mean if you can somehow get together $2,000 or $3,000 you can put a ride on the street- an Eldorado. But white guys shoot for larger goals, and most white hustlers are better educated than the average street-aspired black hustler They just don't have to stoop.
Q: You said in the preface to your autobiography that you aim was to save youngsters from the same kind of life you lived. Have you?
A: No. They rationalize. They think they'd be slicker than I. It's almost impossible to dissuade young dudes who're already street poisoned because almost without exception they have no recourse but to think they're slicker than Iceberg. They think I'm some sort of anachronism.
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