I called Ice-T to talk about his new movie and the minutiae of pimping. We ended up talking about the Pope. Because duh.
ERIC SPITZNAGEL: How’d you first find out about Iceberg Slim?
ICE-T: I was in high school, and the cool kids would carry Iceberg’s books around.
ES: The Pimp book?
IT: All of them. Mama Black Widow, Long White Con, Trick Baby. They’d carry them in their back pockets, and I wanted to know what was in these books. I got a hold of them and started reading. And they’re just crazy.
ES: That’s putting it mildly.
IT: Just the lingo, the depth of the streets, the way Slim talked. It was totally fascinating. And before you know it, I was a 16-year-old kid talking to girls like a 50-year-old man.
ES: Like a 50-year-old pimp, no less.
IT: Exactly, yeah. [Laughs.] Let’s just say I became really, really popular because of his books.
ES: Were the girls impressed or confused?
IT: They were like, “Who the hell are you?” When you’re young, you’re looking for anything remotely hip to grasp onto and call your own. To be able to pull hipness from some left-field book that none of the girls knew about, it was the coolest thing in the world.
ES: I’ve heard you can quote lines from the book from memory.
IT: Oh, I can quote lots of it.