J. Mack Johnson's Blog

So you’ve got that old, worn out, ripped up recliner and your girlfriend or wife is pushing you to throw it out but it is hard because you have so much history with it plus it’s still really comfortable, what do you do? You could bow down like a little girly man and toss out the one true friend youever had they never judged you, was always there to support you during those tough times, and who always knew the right things to say…or you could give your old buddy a facelift and convince your significant other that rejuvenating the life of your chair is good for the environment and good for your soul and if she doesn’t let you keep it than she is no better than an Iraqi murdering, environment hating George W. Bush. Here’s a few tips to and tricks to turning your old chair into a newly improved pimp chair.

Fixing tears or holes in the chair upholstery is easy. All you need to do is go to your local shop and find the same fabric that will match the original color, or if you want to go really wild pick a different color that will also go with it, and then fix the patch or material with the proper adhesive or glue to fit. The fun of this is that you can be as creative as you want to be with the colors and styles, completely redoing the look of your chair to fit your proper pimp look and style.

The next trick to pimping out your chair is lighting—yes, that’s right, I said lighting. Pick out a set of fluorescent colored flashing hid lights or led rope lights or just find some old Christmas lights to wrap around your chair and bam, you done. You can even take it to the next level and add a modulator so that the lights flash really fast, really slow, or even fade in and out to really give it some effect. Your chair will be the centerpiece of the room, less of a chair and more of a flashing work of art.

Last but not least you need some storage. If you’ve got the space and the know-how, you can build your own little storage or even freezer compartment in the bottom of your chair that you could store drinks and food and keep cold with some ice. Besides that, you could just build a simple but effective cup holder into the arm rest, preferably one wide enough to fit a beer in a koozie. And with that you are set with your new pimp chair for laying around getting fat on a Sunday, or any day for that matter.

Related articles by J. Mack

• Riding a Surfboard Made By An Old Apple Designer [Summermodo] (gizmodo.com)
• Herman Miller’s Setu Chair review (core77.com)
• Week 17 – Our Lights (scottpaterson.org)

Product Description
The ultimate anti-hero, Iceberg Slim, takes you into the secret inner world of the pimp, and the smells, the sounds, the fears and petty triumphs of his world. A legendary figure of the Chicago underworld, this is his story: from defending his mother against the evil men she brought into their lives, to becoming a giant of the streets. A seething tale of brutality, cunning and greed, “Pimp” is a harrowing portrait of life on the wrong side of the tracks, and a rich warning from a true survivor.

Click here for more about Pimp: The Story of My Life

Black players: The Secret World of Black pimps

Iceberg Slim is probably the best known and also the least known Superpimp of all time.

“Best known” because his autobiography “Pimp: The Story of My Life” was a surprise underground best-seller in the 1960s, when it sold in the millions, especially to a vast audience of black street hustlers. “Least known” because the talented, reclusive writer and self-confessed psychopath found redemption in later life as a doting father — who zealously protected his daughters from the kind of abuse he had routinely dished out to his own whores (ho’s). Repeated jail sentences, the last time in a “steel casket,” cured him of any further hunger for “The Life.”

Iceberg’s self-examination and incisive observations of the underdog ghetto culture that spawned him constitute a saga of American society’s underbelly, particularly during the 1930s and 1940s. His stories, told in accurate street language, influenced rap and hip-hop culture down to our own day. One lame rapper audaciously appropriated his name, and mainstream entertainers like Ice-T and Snoop Dog acknowledge him as the idol of their youthful “gangsta” years.

Now British author and editor Ian Whitaker has taken meticulous pains to track down the “lost” interviews with Iceberg from almost impossible-to-find magazines and newspapers, along with new interviews with those who knew him, including his daughter Misty. Richard Milner, co-author of the anthropological study “Black Players; The Secret World of Black Pimps,” contributes a new reminiscence of his contentious encounter with the King of Tricksters. Whitaker also reprints Milner’s original classic 1969 interview with Iceberg in full.

“The Lost Interviews” is an entertaining, fast-moving, and enlightening read. If you ever wondered about what goes on in the mind and the life of a warped genius who was “totally dedicated to pimping women,” here’s your opportunity to find out.

Iceberg Slim: The Lost Interviews with the Pimp

• ISBN13: 9780870679308
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
Taking up where “Trick Baby” left off, White Folks moves up to Canada after the death of his partner and mentor, Blue Howard. There, he hooks up with the Vicksburg Kid, who completes his con education. Together they form a formidable duo, playing for the highest stakes in the Unhappy Virgin Game.

Long White Con

• ISBN13: 9780870679339
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
This novel charts the rise of White Folks, a white negro who uses his colour as his trump card in the tough game of the con. Blue-eyed, light-haired and white-skinned, White Folks was a successful con man, a hustler in the jungle of Southside Chicago where only the sharpest survived.

Trick Baby

• ISBN13: 9780870679346
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
The story of Chicago’s Mafia, and the power struggle that ensues when the greedy Don, Jimmy Collucci, attempts to become the king pin of Chicago’s “Honored Society”. Collucci has a lifelong hatred of dedicated “Black Warrior” Jessie Taylor, whom he has faced in turf wars in the streets of Chicago.

Death Wish: A Story of the Mafia

• ISBN13: 9780870679360
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Product Description
These short stories are a collection of soul-bearing confessions in which Iceberg Slim presents the wisdom gained through a life of serious excess and violence. Robert Beck is the author of “Pimp”, “Trick Baby” and “Mama Black Widow”.

Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim