A Players' World Manual Wanna Be a Pimp (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780974483009)

He speaks with swagger. He smiles, but always a sideways grin making you doubt everything he says. If he didn't smile you wouldn't see the detail that remains from his former life: four diamonds set in gold in a front tooth. You see, Ivory Wilson III was a pimp. Wilson, 50, says he remembers when being a pimp was something much more sinister than anything you see in music videos. In his day it was a word used only to describe flashy men dressed in colorful suits with matching shoes and hats. In the back of seedy clubs and smoky bars, they would drink, snort cocaine, and play pool emerging only to order their women to get back to work. Now, the word pimp has become a widely used title, bestowed upon every-thing from a man or woman popular with the opposite sex ( Jay-Z's "Dirt of Your Shoulder") to a customized vehicle (MTV's Pimp My Ride). "They use it freely, but they don't understand what it means. Today guys glorify it. They think it is something real slick. It ain't nothing but a con," Wilson said. Wilson says that world was his life for over 20 years and is the substance of his first book, "A Player's World Manual: Wanna be a Pimp?" which he wrote while serving a six-month prison sentence for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. books are an effort by Wilson to educate others about his former life and to provide him with a new start. He doesn't want to be a pimp any more; he wants to be a writer. The money from his former life ran out a year ago. Since then he has been living in Washington, D.C. shelters while holding odd jobs and selling Street Sense. He is finding that becoming a pimp was much easier than making a living as a writer. Wilson's freefall into the world of pimps and prostitutes began innocently. Wilson no longer has the jewelry or the fancy clothes in which he once paraded around. Instead, he wears several layers of shirts and sweaters to cover his slender body and a cap to cover his bald head. His glasses inching down his nose and his more-salt- than-pepper beard are the only visible signs of his age. "Maybe I think this is my punishment for using a lot of women," Wilson said. "I used so many women I can't remember names or faces, so I know that it had to be that reason." There are at least three women about whom Wilson does care: his daughters. They are spread across the country, and Wilson has varying contact with each of them. He talks to his youngest, a 14-year- old in Florida, the most .book currently at the Library Of Congress.