Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp Page #3

Baby bell used to travel

with 32 pieces of luggage.

Do you hear me?

And he used to have

white women.

And this was at

an early time

When this was a no-no.

- Once you're in the street,

you need father figures

'cause you don't just

walk out in the street

And become the greatest pimp

in the world by osmosis.

You need to learn.

So in a way,

a cat like baby bell,

You know, bell

is like a father figure

As well as a teacher,

as well as a professor,

You know, a mentor.

I became a pimp

Primarily because of

the influence

Of well-heeled pimps

and other hustlers

During a period

of dire poverty in my life.

And I feel that

I was influenced

By the flashy glamour,

The infestation of diamonds

on these hustlers,

And also

by their big flashy cars.

And I wanted

a sense of importance.

- There was an area

on the south side of chicago

Called 39th

and cottage grove,

And basically it was

a red light district.

And iceberg slim

Was one of the neighborhood

role models.

When I first heard

iceberg slim,

My impression of him

was a towering intellect.

He was talking about

The economics

of sexual intercourse

And how he looked upon

what he was doing

As a broker.

- You know,

a lot of people think

That top pimps are dummies.

That's not true.

They're just perverted.

I've never known a top pimp

who didn't have a high iq.

- Actually, I think

he would have been

A good salesperson.

Do you now how it takes

a lot to sell a woman,

To make a woman

sell her body.

- Most of the prostitutes

that I've known

And the ones

that I've controlled

Were fascinated

and bewitched

By my phony glamour,

Of the poisonous

pimp charisma,

And they lived in

my reflected glory, so to speak.

It gave them

a sense of importance.

- What is the life

of a prostitute like?

It's got to be holy hell.

The booby traps

in the street,

The death traps

in the street for a prostitute,

Her life-

the life of a prostitute

Is filled with tension

and the pressure of the pimp.

I hope you won't mind

Asking you in here

for a drink

After meeting you

on the street there.

Slim tells his girls

They can leave

whenever they get ready.

But they don't wanna leave

'cause he's too good to 'em,

But they must get the money.

Otherwise, you're fired

or something like that.

Can you imagine

a pimp firing a whore?

My total image of myself

Was that I was some sort

of black evil svengali.

- When you look

at old pictures of him,

You see this face,

This mask he wore.

There was no emotion,

no emotion whatsoever.

His foot had no problem

Finding its way

to a woman's ass.

- Iceberg

had no hesitation at all

About taking

two lines of cocaine

So he could

slap up his b*tch, you know.

- Brutality

was the name of the game.

First of all,

You'd spell out

your rules and regulations,

And if any of those rules

were broken,

You had to punish 'em.

- He would visualize

being cold as a refrigerator,

Being cold as a freezer,

Where he would be able

to guard his emotions

Against rival pimps, cops,

his women.

They were never able

to read him.

- I've had

hundreds of women.

I've never admitted to one

that I ever had a problem

Or that anything worried me.

And that's the secret.

- He said

he was a psychopath.

He said he got a thrill

out of degrading women

And hurting them,

brutalizing them,

Keeping a relentless

psychological

And physical pressure

on them.

I wanted that thrill,

That voluptuous sensation

of controlling

A stable of women.

- He had to grab

that intellect,

Grab that spirit,

grab that hope

And he was-

I don't think

There was anybody

better at it than him.

- He said the hardest thing

for me to do every day

Was to say something

to my stable

That would confound

their mind

To mentally

keep them in check.

- At the end of the day,

there's only one game.

It's you either work

for somebody

Or you have people

work for you.

Pimping is no different,

you know.

If you really break it down

to the lowest level,

It's using your finesse

and your charisma

To convince somebody to do

what you want them to do.

- You can't be

a normal person,

Not and succeed

in that life.

And you've got to be

absolutely unflappable.

What you do literally

Is play god.

- When you have

five or six hos,

Every one of them

thinks their man is god.

He said, that's why you don't

have sex with them very often.

You've got to be god,

And, hey, if she can touch

god any time she wants,

Then he's not god anymore.

The life of a pimp

Is unremitting tension

and pressures.

A pimp lives on

the precipice of disaster.

I think he's the most

hated and feared creature

Of the underworld.

- All of us, honey.

All of us.

- To try to actually

control a female

Who's basically a criminal,

A robber, a thief,

To get that to operate

under your motivation

Is not an easy thing to do,

you know what I'm saying?

So I tell cats,

I'm, like,

you'd do better selling drugs.

At least a key of dope

Won't wake up

in the middle of the night

And kill you for something

you said to it early that day.

- Holding a stable together

requires the pimp

To keep each individual member

of the stable

In apparent competition.

- Because of the nature

of the prey-

And I don't have to tell

you gentlemen

How cunning they are-

The enemy.

Your word got to be law.

Even if you tell

that female,

I'm not gonna accept you

or georgia you

Or give you any love

until you give me my money.

You got to mean that.

You gotta keep

your gang live

And let 'em know

that you're down

And that you

about your money.

- It's a skull game.

Pimping is a skull game.

It's a game

of manipulative psychology.

And believe me,

To really be a pimp

takes a lot.

The average man

walking up and down the street,

He may be

under the impression

That he can pimp,

But when

he's put to the test,

He'll flunk.

- My brother,

my older brother shabazz

Had, um...

When he got out of jail,

He changed his name

from charles to shabazz.

He became a 5 percenter.

And, you know,

there was korans

And a bunch of, you know,

islamic literature,

And then

every iceberg slim book

Was right next to it.

It was December 1945.

For seven years,

I devoted myself

To getting hip

to that pimp's book.

I had thought and acted

like a black god.

Six months later,

sweet called me.

He said, berg, I got a wire

the fbi's quizzing whores.

They're trying to build

A five or six count rap

against you.

- He's picked up for

violating the mann act.

Two of his women-

His bottom woman

of many years, phyllis,

His first woman, turned

states evidence against him.

He was incarcerated

in leavenworth,

The alma mater

of machine gun kelly

Bugs moran, al capone.

- Iceberg slim writes about

a psychiatrist in the 1940s

That he encountered

in prison.

The psychiatrist came from

a psycho-analytical background

And believed that pimps,

particularly black pimps,

Had a real hatred

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