![]() Amid all the archival footage, photos, and talking heads, there are stylish injections of animation and pulp art. While jumping between the literary life, the pimp life, and the life of the family man, director Jorge Hinojosa also delves into some of his psychology, trying to find connections between his troubled childhood in Chicago and his adult relationships. She smokes in bed wearing a nightgown, her voice gruff, and one eye is a milky turquoise from a cataract. Yet when we first see Betty in the film, it’s well after Beck passed away. It’s because of Betty that Beck started to write books, and we realize how positive this love between them was, and how strong. ![]() They were an interracial couple when it was still somewhat taboo, and lived on the outskirts of the neighborhood where they wouldn’t be judged. He was dressed as dashing as ever - a knight in shining velvet - and she was just a young gal working at a burger joint. Beck meets a beautiful young woman named Betty in Southern California when he tries to ditch the pimp life. To hear about his family life is like hearing about a dreamike reformation (at least for a while). ![]() It was a way to live, and something he couldn’t abandon even when he tried to go legit and start his own family. But he talks about pimping frankly and without shame, and he does lots of unconscionable things as part of the game. He’s pure charisma, with a sonorous sort of voice that could persuade people to do anything. There’s the infamous interview on The Joe Pyne Show, where Beck wears a black mask that makes him resemble The Invisible Man (Wells, not Ellison) or some sort of supervillain. What’s fascinating is seeing footage of Robert Beck talking about being a writer and being a pimp. Mama told me about it, and always when she did her rage and indignation would be as strong and as emotional perhaps as at the time when she had surprised her, panting and moaning at the point of orgasm with my tiny head between her ebony thighs, her massive hands viselike around my head. Her name was Maude and she Georgied me around 1921. (Ice-T also offers up a hilarious anecdote about using the writings of Iceberg Slim to play pimp with a friend of his.) The first paragraph of Pimp goes like this, recounting Beck’s sexual abuse at a very young age: Ice-T, who produced the film and is also one of its interview subjects, says that if you open up an Iceberg Slim book to any page and read paragraph, it’s the craziest shit you’ve ever read. A number of black writers also speak fondly of Iceberg Slim for his work, which remains as observant as James Baldwin or Ralph Ellison but was earthier and lurid, and in that way more real. Snoop Dogg sings praises on his couch, with two Ugly Dolls right behind him. Henry Rollins is there boosting Iceberg Slim’s writing as well, and ditto actor Bill Duke. Chris Rock says that Pimp is one of his favorite books of all time. Like any movie that celebrates a writer, there’s a kind of evangelical zeal about the work that’s been produced. Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp Director: Jorge Hinojosa Rating: NR Release Date: July 12th. Burroughs’s Junkie and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange.) As an entry point to the story of Robert Beck’s life, this documentary seems like a great way in. (Sort of like the glossaries included with William S. The Iceberg Slim books are rife with slang of the pimp game, and Pimp: The Story of My Life, his autobiographical debut novel, included a glossary for those not familiar with the language. And still, both authors seemed to find the dark poetry of ugly urban life. The excerpts of Iceberg Slim books sound raw like Hubert Selby, Jr., but the language is different. It was filled with violence, abandonment, and abuse. Born Robert Beck (1918-1992), Iceberg Slim was a persona and a pen name that built stories from Beck’s real life. ![]() Maybe Iceberg Slim was mentioned in American Pimp, the 1999 Hughes Brothers documentary about the world’s second oldest profession.Īfter seeing Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, I really want to read some of the man’s books. I know I’ve heard the name Iceberg Slim somewhere before seeing the documentary Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, but I was never aware of his literary work.
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