Iceberg Slim: The Lost Interviews with the Pimp

Ian Whitaker's book Iceberg Slim The Lost Interviews shed some very interesting light on Beck's writing habits. Like Nabokov, Beck would visualize his characters in his head, he wrote for long hours - sometimes up to 18 hours per day, like Proust he was a recluse, and Beck made a compelling analogy between pimping and writing.Enjoy:He writes his books out in longhand, filling thick notebooks with manuscript.... I don't want to pimp. I want to be a good writer. I'm coming out of there. And I'm agonizing now with my writing. I'm seeking to do in sentences what it took me paragraphs to do before, and to do in one word what it took me sentences to do in these books.Writing books is better than pimping. In fact, it's better than being a doctor or a lawyer. I don't have to go to court, I don't have to go to the hospital to perform an operation. I have no equipment...I don't even need paper; I'll write on the walls. All of my equipment [tapping his head] is in my noggin. And another thing; writing has been a wonderful boon for me, psychologically. The vacuum of ego that existed when I could no longer pimp has been filled most adequately.Beck writes up to 18 hours a day...Q. You have been described as the best-sellingest black author in America. Why is that?A. ...I would think it's because I've been able to do what any artist must do if he's to rule the greatest possible audience - and that is to bare his emotional structure to the bone. I've noticed the same phenomenon as a speaker. I've been a success as a speaker because I've dared to do that which the audience, collectively, could not do. That is, I have overridden my inhibitions so I can confess. It springs from the soul, brother. So many people are dying and crying out to confess. But they lack the courage.Q. Doesn't every writer play [g]od?A. Yes. But one can't play [g]od if one is also a father. One of the handicaps, of course, in being a writer is that one has large numbers of children, responsibilities. Ideally, a writer should be alone. Most writers - if they're married - inevitably, the wife will soon consider the writing a rival. And no writer can reach his peak with this kind of intramural opposition.Q. Recently, you wrote an article about the loneliness of a super-pimp...A. Ah, the loneliness...yes, the loneliness. Because you see, the only comparison I could make, as a matter of fact, with the loneliness of a writer is the loneliness of a pimp. I'm not talking about a would-be pimp. I'm talking about someone who really understands what pimping is. And by that I mean: no matter what problems I ever had as a pimp, I never got confidential with any woman...p 100Q. Usually a writer tries to do more than merely entertain. He tries to inform and persuade.A. Oh yes. I don't try to persuade. I used to be political. When I first started writing. Nothing is worse than to write with a tendency like that. You can't be a true artist. That's what hobbled most of the young black writers that came up in the 60s. In other words, one must - if he's black or any ethnic - if he's aware of the inequities of this society, purge himself, have that catharsis, through his writing, in order to approach the pristine peak that the artist, the true artist, knows.Q. Haven't you used the term "Pimping the Page?"A. But you know why I've never been able to do it? Because of the torturous labor that writing is...If it weren't so gaddam hard man, I could make the analogy [between pimping and selling books]. But it's so hard...Q. Are you a masochist?A. I think all writers have to be. I'm talking about the serious writers - like yourself. You know you love it. You love the pain, that lonely pain.Q. Is there any sadism connected to this?A. Yeah. We inflict that, we often inflict that upon the audience. You know, two sides of a coin. But invariably, we inflict it upon the people around us, like our wives and our children, when we suffer, you know.Q. Would you say you've achieved a balance or homeostasis between your inner and the outer realities?A. Yes. And I've achieved it through what I call "The Overview". The way I interpret "overview" personally is that I will not permit any traumatic event, person or force to deal my writing and my life a fatal blow. I will not gnaw on personal tragedy like some psychotic canine. When the deed has been done to me, whether advertently or inadvertently, I will simply forget that, I don't conduct vendettas against people, objects or circumstances.There's a lusting, lusting for that feeling, that sensation, because there is no sensation - even the hell of the writer when he's in the throes of creation, as magnificent as that is - that can compare with the the chemical rush of a speed-ball.... I write long-hand and I have my work typed up. And when I'm not in the physical process of working, that is with pen in hand on paper, then I'm seeming to be day-dreaming. But I'm not. I'm reading on the ceiling characters for yet another story. And I hallucinate their voices and try to get the texture of their voices so I can become acquainted with them. That's why I can write so fast. When I get ready to go to the page. I've already had this prior association with them. And great snatches of dialogue have been written on the ceiling already.Q. You once were a creature of the night. Do you write at night?A. Ideally, from 2am to 7 in the morning.Q. Do you make a lot of money from your books?A. No. When you say "a lot of money," you know to a pauper a hundred-dollar bill is a fortune. And then a John Paul Getty, a hundred-thousand is a pittance. But I'm not a seeker of fortune. All that I aspire to is to have comforts, and to be cushioned so I can have the most magnificent luxury there is. And that is one of privacy, so that I might write.Q. Are you satisfied with your progress as a writer so far?A. No, because I started late. And given the Biblical actuarial estimate, it seems to me that I've got maybe 10 years. And writing being the unconquerable that it is, I wish that I'd started at your age or even younger, so I would at least have some remote chance of becoming the absolute artist. Because every day, every day, is a reminder of how little I know as a writer.MISTY: He was a strange guy who used to write on paper plates, on napkins, on anything. He did longhand on note pads but he would write on paper plates and things like that.Q. How easy was if for him to get published?MISTY: ...He was very let down; it took a minute to get someone to look at Pimp.

Great insight into his life and philosophies, but a lot of the interviews feel like regurgitated stories. Even though they were written by different people, some of them feel like duplicates.The publisher could probably do with weeding some of these out for a more enjoyable read.

This book doesn't have too much game, but it's definitely a must have if you are a Robert Beck reader. The presentation of the book is really wack for the price and it's hell of small. The editor could have made a better job for the presentation. I know that content is what truly matters in a book but for the price it should have more quality and be more fancier. That's the one and only bad thing I can think about the book. The rest is pure gold.When you read this book you realize tha Iceberg never quit pimpin, he just transfer the game to another market.

Mr. Beck is undoubtedly the most insightful gentleman of leisure to ever attempt to explain the "ISM"...His artistic touch with phrases and words makes the game come alive! You can feel the magnificence of a master mack man through vivid descriptions and minute details as he tells his side of the story....A must read for any aspiring young player or just your ordinary square trying to stay ahead of his lady freind(s). It will change the way that any man interacts with his female(s) READ AND GROW WISE YOUNG MAN....

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