Pimp: The Story of My Life Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B00502PE5E | Format: EPUB
Pimp: The Story of My Life Description
A blueprint. A bible. What Sun Tzu's Art of War was to ancient China, Pimp is to the streets. As real as you can get without jumping in, this is the story of Iceberg Slim's life as he saw, felt, tasted, and smelled it. It is a trip through hell by the one man who lived to tell the tale - the dangers of jail, addiction, and death that are still all too familiar for today's black community. By telling the story of one man's struggles and triumphs in an underground world, Pimp shows us the game doesn't change; it just has a different swagger.
Only Slim could tell this story and make the reader feel it. If you thought Hustle & Flow was the true pimp story, this book is where it all began. This is the heyday of the pimp, the hard-won pride and glory, small though it may be; the beginnings of pimp before it was dragged in front of the camera, before pimp juice and pimp style. Though it is a tale of his times, it will remain current and true for as long as there is a race bias, as long as there is a street life, as long as there is exploitation.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 11 hours and 19 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: May 10, 2011
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00502PE5E
I think this Iceberg Slim's writing debut alongside with his "Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim" are monument classics to the extreme. Iceberg Slim, all BS aside tells the bitter truth about the pimp life during the 40's and 50's in the Black concrete reservation called Harlem. It shows the candid realities of the ghetto life and about the struggles of a man, frustrated with the setbacks and oppressions of a prodominately white society and despairingly turns to pimping and drug pushing as a way out. Now, I must further comment to some of the youngbloods out there that read Iceberg is dead in his grave, but if he were alive today, and read some of the entries here, he would not be flattered but pissed, to put it bluntly. When 'Berg meant for people (particularly young African-American males to read "Pimp", he intended to give you insight on the pimp game in order for you to see just what a hellish life he really lead as a pimp. It was not meant as a rule book, but a discouragement from the game.Oh, sure, there was the easy money, the power over women, and the false sense of respect as you ride down the street in that Cadillac. But what about the other dangers, like having to look over your shoulders for the police, f--king up your mind with that powder (although today we have crack, even worse). And the women, when they get older and more resentful, they'll cross you and set you up one day, so you have to constantly make sure that they stay mostly ignorant of your weaknesses as not just a player, but a man. If Ice were alive, he would tell you that the pimp life ain't so f--king glamourous, but it's hell, that's why he later settled down with his wife and kid and turned straight.
I've got two completely different opinions about _Pimp_ and Robert Beck himself. One is glowing, the other terrible. Maybe that's what makes Beck and his books so interesting. First, the glowing opinion. Beck's style is like nothing I've ever read before. He claims to have a 175 I.Q. I don't doubt it. No one less brilliant could conjure up the metaphors and images he casually slings as if they were off the top of his head. The book is written in a loose, story-telling style, as if it was never revised, typos and all. Beck makes you feel as if you were standing on a street corner listening to a "fast track pimp" weave his life's yarn. Many times, I would read a sentence several times simply to admire the unique vision Beck gave to an action as simple as getting in or out of a car (a "hog") or thinking about his mother. The terminology is another, brilliantly colorful language (complete with glossary in the back!).Although the story dotes on his early years and then cruises through a couple of decades in a matter of pages, Beck's tale was never slow or anything less than gleaming. That is the glowing opinion. Now the terrible one. I'll try not to seem sanctimonious. To me, Robert Beck is (was) an alarmingly vicious hypocrite and psychopathic criminal. The book begins and ends with his tepid claims that he has seen the error of his ways and regrets his former life. These meager claims are ridiculous when you read the pride, nostalgia, and admiration with which Beck recounts his former life. In one passage in particular, his role model and mentor teaches him an unbelievable method to keep his whores in line. Whip them bloody with a wire coathanger. Beck eagerly tests the method.
Pimp: The Story of My Life Preview
Link
Please Wait...