Vinnie Mac

A Long Beach pimp who told Soft White Underbelly he began in 1978 and that a girl's "life expectancy in the game" is five years.

Vinnie Mac is the subject of "Pimp interview-Vinnie Mac," a 28-minute Soft White Underbelly video catalogued by the channel as an "interview and portrait of Vinnie Mac, a pimp in South Central Los Angeles." He calls himself "the five star general," refuses to give an age ("I'm ageless"), says he is "Long Beach finest," and claims to have been "one of the founders of the Crips," which the archive treats as unproven.

He says he grew up hustling, read Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines but disliked Slim for being "really mean to women," and "cut my teeth in Hollywood in 1978" under a pimp he calls Hollywood Snake. He lists strolls from Bakersfield and Fresno to Oakland, Portland and Seattle, and names Kenny Red, Gangsta Brown and Bishop Don Juan as peers.

His account of the women is unusually frank about where they come from and what happens to them. He says most were "molested by the uncles or fathers," came from foster care or from mothers on welfare or drugs. He says he "went through 50 women to get six girls," that they used drugs ("anybody said my girls never use drugs is more than likely lying"), that one was killed over a debt, and that "the life expectancy of a girl in the game is only about five years." He describes allowances, jewelry, prayer circles and self-defence classes, says he was jailed for a lesser offence than pimping and wrote a book inside, has two children with one of his women, and has no regrets.

ALSO KNOWN AS
Not established; appears as Vinnie Mac (also spelled Vinnie Mack)

STATUS
Living

ERA
Says he began in Hollywood in 1978; interview undated on the channel's catalogue

ASSOCIATED WITH
Long Beach; Hollywood; Bakersfield; Fresno; Figueroa corridor; Soft White Underbelly

STANDING
Persona