I wonder if any of you boys have ever read the literary works of Iceberg Slim. For those of you who don’t know, Iceberg is an individual who, like me, had some trouble with the law. He got sucked into the belly of the beast and years later, shot out its ass with 100% Writer’s blood flowing through his veins.

As you might be able to guess by his handle, Iceberg was a pimp. And a damn good one, to hear him tell it. Iceberg was born in 1918 so we’re talking back in the 30’s 40’s and 50’s prostitution scene. He worked primarily out of the southside of Chicago, a good place for pimps, apparently. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, he went down about three times and had to retire. He moved out to Los Angeles California and wrote his first book, Pimp: The Story of My Life which was published in 1967. It was and is a huge influence on modern crime fiction and rap music. It has been a noted influence for everybody from Irvine Welsh to Ices Cube and T. It is not only one of the greatest books ever written by a criminal, but also has the distinction of being the second best title ever for an autobiography, after Roger Vadim’s Deneuve, Bardot, Fonda: My Life With the Three Most Beautiful Women in the World.

Iceberg’s story is raw and powerful. Not surprisingly he knows the insides and outsides of the pimping game. It is fascinating to hear the details of how the job works. How you get started with nothing and build your way up to the largest stable in the neighborhood. But even for professionals who have already experienced that themselves, there is plenty of historical significance here. I think today’s pimps might be interested to learn the history of their profession as well as the vintage slang. These are individuals who call babies crumb crushers, they call money scratch, they call Cadillacs hogs and marijuana gangster and rich people muckty mucks and white people peckerwoods. It is some good slang. Let Iceberg pull your coat on this slang.

Even to a seasoned individual like myself it can be a little distressing what this motherfucker starts talking about. I mean you hear bitch and nigger so much you start to get desensitized. You’re afraid it might slip out when you’re at church or something. “That’s right bitch, praise Him!” Even when you’re desensitized it’s still a little bit stomach churning when the motherfucker starts whipping a gal with a coathanger or something. Iceberg knows what a horror story he is telling, and he goes for the jugular. In the opening of the book he is sexually molested by his mother’s friend. He never outruns that emotional scar, and tries to use it as an excuse. But he can’t escape that little jiminy cricket motherfucker called a conscience, so he is always haunted by nightmares of himself using his cruel pimping tactics on his mother. (more…)

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