Bob Armstrong
Vanilla Slim: An Improbable Pimp in the Empire of Lust
2006, Carroll & Graf Publishers
Bob Armstrong’s brief career as a pimp is not the wildest story ever told. It’s crazier than what most people do, but Vanilla Slim was no Iceberg Slim. He didn’t see violence. He didn’t commit violence. He was nice to his girls. He didn’t confront some truly dark side of himself. He didn’t make enough money to roll around in a show-off car. He wasn’t dangerous. That’s all according to him in this first-person account, at least.
When the law eventually came down on him and Armstrong went to jail (he begins the book pondering his holding cell and all its glorious sights and scents), even that wasn’t too bad. He didn’t do serious time. Even the law could see that this Vietnam vet who was closing in on 60 merely misbehaved a little, even with drugs out in the open.
Or that’s how the wind blows in San Francisco, at least.
So why the hell did I blaze through this book in a couple of days? Why did I get hooked? Why did I sit on the barstool next to this guy and take in every word he said?
I guess that’s because this is a bigger story than pimps and drugs and beautiful women and the men who pay $500 an hour for their company. This book is really about people who’ve missed the boat in life.
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