What do Dave Chapelle and I have in common? We each have a story about when we were ho’s.
The above book is an autobiography by Iceberg Slim, an American pimp who was pimping away in the 1940’s. I heard about it while watching one of Dave Chappelle’s comedy specials and it completely blew my fucking mind. Dave was paralleling one particular story from the book to his own experience at Comedy Central. Remember when he walked away from his multi-million-dollar deal filming the 3rd season of The Chappelle Show? And then he disappeared to Africa for an inordinate amount of time? Well, the story he tells from this book truly hit home for me and what happened when I thought I was living the life of my dreams…and found out that I was just another “bottom bitch” who had hit her “mileage.”
Bottom bitch= the invaluable ho in a stable of ho’s who keeps all the other ho’s in line for the pimp.
Mileage on a ho = the amount of tricks a ho has in her before she loses it and turns on her pimp.
Now, hold that thought as I take you to a moment in 2003…
I was living my dream life: just-married to my dream husband, living in my dream city with my dream dog and I had JUST booked my dream job in a Broadway show. Well almost…it wasn’t REALLY Broadway, but it was the 2nd National Tour of The Producers and I was cast in a featured chorus part, but who the fuck was counting?! I got to audition for Mel Brooks himself and was actually CHOSEN by him, Susan Stroman and the up-and-coming-director-now-tony-winning director, Warren Carlyle. I was CHOSEN among hundreds of women at a union chorus call that I got in line for at 5:30 in the morning under the blanket of quiet desperation and the smell of homeless vomit. THIS is what an underprivileged midwestern girl came all the way to the big city for and she was living her best life.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to LAUGHING MATTERS to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.