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Pimptuition
Rosebudd
Bitterdose, retired hustler and budding memoirist, is
one of the featured players in the Hughes brothers' upcoming
documentary American Pimp. Having played the sex
game from the mid-1970s to the early '90s, he has moved
into a comfortable autumnal existence as a square
and author
but remains dedicated to sharing his pimptuition with
book-on-tape
listeners everywhere. For a view of how the world's oldest
middlemen are faring in the age of disintermediation, we
spoke with the éminence mack from his home in Hollywood.
The movie American Pimp addresses
the difference between
pimp reality and the overly dramatic pimp characters
from Blaxploitation films.
Let me tell you what the Hughes brothers actually did, because
I went to Sundance with them. The reason pimps are
able to catch broads like they do — not the reason but one
big reason — is because you guys, white people; the
media; and even some black people describe motherfuckers
that ain't pimps. You describe whoever
you want to describe — the big hats, the big shoes, the crazy, loud
whatever dude. But that ain't the dude that pulls up on the broads
and gets them to ho. The Hughes brothers
showed
pimps from all over the country, but they were so suave, they were so on another
level, that the people that saw it didn't want to believe they were
pimps. When we had a question and answer session, they wanted to believe
that the Hughes brothers set this up with all these guys. Yeah, you've
seen the ho that's a junkie, you've seen the pimp that's a junkie, you've
seen the pimp beat the shit out of bitches, you've seen the ho that
looks crazy because she got ran over by a trick or whatever. But
you've never seen motherfuckers that's real pimps.
That's why when they showed that shit, at first, the people just
went negative crazy. People didn't want to believe, for example,
that if a broad didn't want to be with me, she could just get the
fuck on outta here. They did not want to believe that. Why would you
want to keep her if she don't want to be
with you? But you get the media telling you, "When
that happens, he's gonna grab you, he's gonna beat you, he's gonna
do this and that." But the Hughes brothers asked questions like,
"What do you do when your woman goes out to work?" What do
you think?
What do I think a pimp does when the ho goes to work?
Yeah.
Um, I have no idea. Takes care of the accounting? Bookkeeping?
That's what I'm saying: You guys have got some kind of trip about it.
A pimp might go to sleep, a pimp might watch TV, a pimp might do
whatever. But he sure ain't worried about what the ho is doing. He
ain't following the ho to watch her.... Now don't get me wrong, you do
have pimps that do that. But those are the pimps that a regular John Q.
Society person wants to believe are the representative pimps. But
those are the wannabe pimps, those are the pimps that ain't even
matter in the game. You never get to see a real pimp.
So that's what the Hughes brothers did, showed you the real pimp, all
across the country, that you've probably talked to and didn't even
realize he was a pimp, because he was educated and wasn't the big
hat, big shoes motherfucker. He can talk to you about Bill Clinton,
he can talk to you about the Soviets, he can talk to you about anything
you want, and that's why he's the caliber of pimp he is. Because that's
how you catch.
But you don't want to describe that guy to your daughter, because then
in your mind you're enticing your daughter to go out and meet this
guy. Because this is a hell of a guy! So that's why they describe the
opposite. And when a girl sees a motherfucker like me, she sees what
I'm representin'. She's curious. And then when
you're bold enough to tell her what you do, she can't believe it,
because it's the opposite of what she's heard.
A lot of brothers in the movie were saying
different versions of what
I'm saying. And people in the audience were just not wanting to
believe it. First they were screaming at the Hugheses: "Why would you risk your
reputation on such crap?" Then when they got to me they were asking
all kinds of questions. But they couldn't figure out, in the end, whether
they wanted to like me or not. When we got off that stage,
you should have seen those 60-year-old women, 15-year-old girls
running up to me: "Let me take a picture with you!" Old white ladies
asking me, "How can I pose to look like a hooker?" We're in Park City,
Utah, and I'm thinking these people are totally turned off to me
because of the kind of questions they asked me. But when they saw that
I had conversation, that however deep they wanted to go I could go, they
realized that they liked me, even though, knowing that I was a pimp, they
knew they should hate me.
So you think people would have a higher regard for pimps
if not for misinformation from the media?
Not necessarily, man. It's not just misinformation. It's racism.
They say they dislike pimps because of what they do to
women — like it's all about the exploitation of women. But
they'll let a motherfucker own the Mustang Ranch, knowing what
he does. They say it glamorizes gangsterism. But they'll practically
make Al Capone's birthday a holiday or some bloody massacre on
the fourth of July or Valentine's Day or whenever it was. So they send
mixed messages. If that shit is negative then all of it is negative. Why
glorify this Italian motherfucker taking a machine gun and killing babies,
when a pimp ain't doing nothing but pimping on a bitch? I'm saying they
could both be terrible. But why are you glamorizing one and making
the other one so terrible? The only thing is, the one has brothers in it. At
one time, if you said, "pimp," goddamnit, you were talking about a
black motherfucker, period.
Well if you're talking about popular images, Taxi Driver has
the worst pimp in movies, and he's a white guy.
Yeah but listen to this: That's the view that they've taken for the word
pimp. So he's just a white boy who happens to be a pimp. But the
reality is that they were just being politically correct and casting a white
boy as a pimp because, believe me, if they would have cast a brother as
a pimp, he'd have had on a big hat, the shoes, the whole works. That's just
a part in a movie; it has nothing to do with what the producer really thinks
about pimps. They're not going to let you see what they really know a pimp
has become.
But at the same time pimping did evolve according to the media definition.
Because at first, pimps were not violent at all. It was elegance; that's why
the pimp was a "gentleman of leisure." You've got to understand: Everybody
cannot do this. And some people who get wind of it are not gonna be able
to do it. But they're gonna want to do it. And they're gonna start
manipulating what is to be done, and they're gonna start taking short cuts.
Even
back in the 1890s, you had black pimps going to the tailor, getting their suits
made. They were looking different, they were standing out because they
were hustlers. But they weren't beating no woman to do this. But when you
get the drug addict in there, he ain't got time to talk to this woman and
finesse her into doing what he knows these finessing pimps do. He's gonna
beat the shit out of her. Now you also take the police; who are the police
gonna arrest? So when the cop sees examples of drug-abusing pimps and
drug-abusing hos, what is his idea of pimps going to reflect? It's going to
reflect what he's exposed to.
But what does that have to do with the big-hat mack style, which, let's
face it, is a pretty cool style?
You're right about that, but I said two things. Let me clarify. The big hat
and the shoes — there were people who did that. But that's not the way it's
represented in the cartoons. In the cartoons it's overly big, so that they can
make pimps look like clowns. It's a clown image. That's why if you don't
look like no clown you ain't no pimp. But if you go somewhere where you
got on an orange hat and some yellow shoes — even if you're just a fool that
don't know how to put your colors together — you're a pimp to a person who
associates that shit with pimps. So the Hughes brothers sought out pimps
who represented that style.
Which style?
Real game. You don't see real game. You don't know anything about it. Nobody
does. That's the part of it that's still a secret, and you cannot imagine
how motherfuckers get ahold of girls, besides tricking them with drugs. And
let me tell you, a pimp thinks like this: "I don't want no motherfucking drug
addict counting my money before I do." A pimp is selfish. He's too selfish
to have a drug-using broad. I want to be able to let this bitch go to work and
come back so I know I got all my money. I don't want to worry about her
stopping off at a crack house first. A real pimp isn't thinking, "I got to stand over here to
keep an eye on her." There are pimps who think like that. But those be little
pimps. Those be pimps that are not willing to risk losing a broad over their
principles. I'm willing to risk it for my principles.
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