Any good pimp is his own best company. His inner-life is so rich with cunning and scheming to out-think his whores." If you want to be a master, you have to find someone beneath you to enslave, someone even more down and out than yourself. Sweet says, “‘Berg, ain’t but one real Heaven for a pimp. He’s in it when there’s a big pool of raggedy, hungry young bitches.” By that measure, the ghetto in Chicago during the depression, full of desperate souls with no escape, was a pimp’s Heaven. (Though Slim always describes the ghetto as Hell with a capital H.) Throughout his pimping career, Slim, who was known as Cavanaugh Slim, was noted for being able to effectively conceal his emotions, something he said he learned from Baby Bell: "A pimp has gotta know his whores, but not let them know him; he's gotta be god all the way." [4] Writing [ edit ] What kind of person could possibly be so loathsome as to become a pimp? How could a person's humanity be warped to the point of victimizing women under the pretense of love and protection? How could anyone have any sympathy for someone who engages in the most despicable crimes? I passed beneath an El-train bridge. A terrified, glowing face loomed toward me in the tunnel’s gloom. It was an elderly white man trapped behind enemy lines. A train furled by overhead. It bombed and strafed the street. The shrapnel fell in gritty clouds.

Spiceberg Slim is a moniker and the eighth studio album (released in 2002) by American rapper Spice 1. [26] a b c "Pimp by Iceberg Slim". startgainingmomentum.com. Archived from the original on February 27, 2015 . Retrieved February 27, 2015. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here. A pimp is happy when his whores giggle. He knows they are still asleep...all whores have one thing in common just like the chumps humping for the white boss. It thrills ‘em when the pimp makes mistakes. They watch and wait for his downfall. One attribute that I did not like was the overwhelming amount of footnotes. They were added to clear up vocabulary and give the reader extra information but this sometimes became annoying as I personally felt some of the footnotes could’ve just been incorporated in the story itself.Pimp" is not an easy read. Slim isn't a very likable guy, and he's in an even more unlikable profession. He treats women terribly, which is to be expected because he doesn't treat himself with any love either. In and out of jail, up and down in the "game," (one day he'll have a full "stable" of sex workers, the next day no one and on the street strung out), it becomes exhausting to read let alone live in real life. He is somewhat repentant. Borrowing a trope from Fanny Hill and Vanity Fair, he presents Pimp as a cautionary tale, and unlike those two books he seems to mean it; he doesn't glorify his life. Much. Big Daddy Kane's mileage apparently varied. Scottish author Irvine Welsh said: "Iceberg Slim did for the pimp what Jean Genet did for the homosexual and thief and William Burroughs did for the junkie: he articulated the thoughts and feelings of someone who had been there." [3] Academia [ edit ] Along the way, Slim pulls the long and short cons, beats women, serves two stints in prison, masterminds a successful jailbreak and generally weaves his way through a treacherous world where the competition is fierce and the rise to the top is strewn with equally dangerous competitors. To survive it, as Slim did, was rare.

This book is a thoughtful and brutal examination of the choices one is forced to make in a world turned against the individual. In prose reminiscent of a street-wise Dostoyevsky, the author recounts the story of his life through various moralistic phases. These tend to impress upon the reader a recurring theme, not of the universe's intense silence to human cries, but of openly ambivalent laughter and playfulness that voices itself most loudly in universally relevant cosmic irony. Scottish author Irvine Welsh offered that ‘Iceberg Slim did for the pimp what Jean Genet did for the homosexual and thief and William Burroughs did for the junkie: he articulated the thoughts and feelings of someone who had been there. The big difference is that they were white.’" Hollie West". Maynard Institute for Journalism. Archived from the original on February 25, 2015 . Retrieved February 25, 2015. Miriam Bale (July 18, 2013). "Movie Review: The Lessons of a Pimp - Ice-T Produces a Documentary About Iceberg Slim". The New York Times . Retrieved November 11, 2013.On his first night in Chicago, in the spring of 1938, he sees a man beat an unconscious woman almost to death in front of a huge crowd of onlookers. The man then lifts the woman onto his shoulder, throws her into his car and drives off. Slim turns to another man in the crowd:

Thorn, Jessie (June 18, 2006). "Dave Chappelle Surprise SF Show Recap". MaximumFun . Retrieved February 25, 2015. I’m going to need to justify that, so here’s a little taste of Slim’s masterful lambasting: “Listen square-ass bitch, I have never had a whore I couldn’t do without. I celebrate, bitch, when a whore leaves me. It gives some worthy bitch a chance to take her place and be a star. You scurvy bitch, if I shit in your face you gotta love it and open your mouth wide.” I couldn’t come up with anything remotely as solid in a hundred years. With that sample alone, and considering that many rappers consider him an influence, it’s no wonder the word ‘bitch’ has enjoyed such proliferation in their craft. Needless to say, if objectifying and degrading women bothers you, “Pimp” should probably be removed from your to-read list. The general facts presented by Slim are likely true. That is, where he says he was imprisoned and when we can probably believe. However, it is the nature of that profession (and the nature of a writer, as well as the nature of an autobiography) to glorify the self in a way that is certainly deceptive. Was Iceberg Slim molested by a religious nut babysitter when he was just little Bobby Maupin? That's hard to say. Even if one wants to believe the testimony of children in such a situation, one must temper that desire with the recognition that as Iceberg Slim he made his living as a depraved and drug-addled liar whose every word was a rationalization of his own behavior. That means that as a book it's a decent piece of work. As a confession it is almost certainly not decent (in any sense of that word.) There is a lot of repetition as well. The author loves to say the exact same thing over and over just dressed a little differently. It wasn’t unlike reading an Ayn Rand novel. It was akin to playing a video game from the 80s where you keep dying on a level and have to start said level over again. You get a little further each time, but you go over the same stuff a lot. See what I just did there?Sweet teaches Slim to maintain absolute physical and psychological control over his women through physical brutality and psychological manipulation. The treatment he prescribes is essentially the same playbook that plantation owners practiced on slaves: beat them, gaslight them, remind them at every turn that they are worthless and powerless, wring all you can out of them until they’re physically and psychologically ruined. Then go find new ones to recruit. In his special The Bird Revelation, comedian Dave Chappelle used the life of Iceberg Slim and the world of his book Pimp as a parable for his experience in show business. [18] [19]

He grew up believing that compassion and generosity were signs of weakness, that people would walk all over you if you let them. Respect was earned through fear and intimidation. It was a hard way to live. The conning bastard white man hadn’t freed the niggers. The cities were like the plantations down South. Jeffing Uncle Toms still did all the white man’s hard and filthy work. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.

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The Life & Times Of One Of The Worlds Greatest Pimps: Robert 'Iceberg Slim' ". kandypaintrecords. August 17, 2012 . Retrieved November 6, 2014. I would have more sympathy for Iceberg Slim, trying to find the best way to hustle, if he hadn’t been such a brutal asshole. The world has never been a fair place, and the rules are never applied evenly. A banker can write a loan and front load all the interest, but a loan shark who does the same thing is breaking the law. The pharmaceutical companies can make trillions pumping out drugs to a population who doesn’t need them, but if a drug dealer does the same thing, he goes to jail. At 18 years old, Iceberg Slim, then known as Young Blood, decides to become a pimp. Slim knows he doesn’t yet have the toughness or experience to make it as a pimp in this rough town, so he goes looking for a mentor. A pimp is the loneliest bastard on Earth. He’s gotta know his whores. He can’t let them know him. He’s gotta be God all the way.”