Nero, who said when he committed suicide:rn”What an artist dies in me.”rnWhen Mailer hears that some peoplernthink Madonna is profane—you know,rndoing what she does with the namern”Madonna”—he says: “Well, what can Irnsay? She’s daring and she’s Catholicrnherself. So, she knows the price she’srnpaying if she’s wrong. She really has arnkind of spiritual courage that is notrnsmall. She knows what the stakes are. Irnnever met a Catholic who didn’t knowrnwhat the stakes were.”rnMadonna a Catholic? Perhaps, but inrnthe same way in which Adolf Hitler wasrna Catholic. It was, after all, none otherrnthan Madonna who once said that shernwears a crucifix because she thinks it’srn”sexy” to wear “a naked man.”rnMailer: “And so, in that sense, thernchances she takes are not small chances.rnAnd one reason I respect her is becausernshe’s transcended her talent. Her talentrnis good. But she has a touch of genius inrnthe chances she takes, the way she bringsrnthem off, which makes her talentrnlarger.”rnWell, yes, Madonna has “transcended”rnher talent with a vengeance, as hasrnMailer. This is known as the “PeterrnPrinciple.” Dr. Laurence J. Peter wroternabout it years ago in a best-selling bookrnof the same name: “In a hierarchy everyrnemployee tends to rise to the level of hisrnincompetence.”rnIt is appropriate that Norman Mailerrnshould be ga-ga over Madonna, sincernMailer’s own lifestyle has been rather—rnhow shall I put it—eccentric, as reportedrnby Hilary Mills in her book Mailer: A Biography.rnFirst, there is Mailer’s stabbingrnof his wife Adele, at a party at his apartmentrnin November 1960, where he informallyrnannounced his candidacy forrnmayor of New York City. As Mills recounts,rn”Only a handful of people werernleft by 4:30 A.M. when a very drunkrnMailer walked in from the street with arnblack eye, a torn lip, and blood all overrnhis fancy bullfighter’s shirt. Adele tookrnone look at him and spoke sharply. Thernaccounts of her comment vary. GeorgernPlimpton was told that she said thernequivalent of ‘You look like you’ve beenrnrolled by a couple of sailors in the backrnstreets.’ Others remember it as ‘Yournlook like a woman with lipstick on yourrnmouth.’ Mailer then took out a twoand-rna-half inch penknife and went at hisrnwife, stabbing her in the upper abdomenrnand back. One wound was laterrndescribed as three inches deep andrnthree-quarters of an inch wide, a ‘thrustrnnear the heart.'”rnWhile Adele and a Detective Burnsrnengaged in a post-stabbing discussion.rnMailer taped “a bizarre television interviewrnwith Mike Wallace in which herndescribed the knife as an instrument ofrnmanhood.” Discussing what was thenrnknown as “juvenile delinquency,” Mailerrnrejected the idea of disarming youngrnhoodlums: “The knife to a juvenilerndelinquent is very meaningful. You see,rnit’s his sword—his manhood.” A betterrnsolution. Mailer suggested, would be tornhold annual gangland jousting tournamentsrnin Central Park, “which wouldrnbring back the Middle Ages.”rnTo keep a long story short, Mailerrnfinally pleaded guilty to third-degreernassault. Almost a year after the stabbing,rnhe received a suspended sentence with arnprobation period not to exceed threernyears. A 1962 book by Mailer, Deaths forrnthe Ladies and Other Disasters, containedrnthis “poem”:rnSo longrnasrnyournuserna knife,rnthere’srnsomernlovernleft.rnEighteen years after he stabbed his wife.rnMailer declared: “A decade’s angerrnmade me do it. After that, I felt better.”rnMailer has also played what Mills callsrn”matrimonial musical chairs,” marryingrnat least six women.rnThen there is Mailer’s friendship withrna criminal pen pal named Jack HenryrnAbbott, whom he helped get releasedrnfrom the Utah State Prison and whornsubsequently stabbed and killed a waiter,rnRichard Adan, on July 18, 1981. At arnpress conference, Mailer said of Abbott:rn”I certainly have the strongest feelingsrnand hopes that Abbott will not get thernmaximum sentence. Abbott is a veryrncomplex man with great gifts…. It’s farrntoo easy to send him away forever.” Notingrnthat Abbott did not benefit fromrnwhat he did. Mailer said: “The only peoplernwho have gotten anything from thisrnwhole mess are the ones who are callingrnfor more law and order, and more lawrnand order means moving this countryrntoward a fascist state.” When asked if itrnwasn’t a gamble to let Abbott out of jail.rnMailer replied: “I’m willing to gamblernwith a portion of society to save thisrnman’s talent. I am saying that culture isrnworth a little risk. That’s what I’ve beenrnsaying over and over for 30 years.”rnMailer also helped “yippie” anarchistrnAbbie Hoffman by serving as the headrnof his defense fund when Hoffmanrnsurfaced after years as a fugitive from arncocaine charge. Not surprisingly, Hoffman,rnwho committed suicide, says thern”most influential essay” in his ownrnwretched life was Mailer’s “The WhiternNegro,” in which Mailer argues thatrnit would take a certain amount ofrn”courage” for “two strong 18-year-oldrnhoodlums to beat in the brains of arncandy-store keeper” because this wouldrnmean “daring the unknown.” Hoffmanrnfirst encountered Mailer at a lecture atrnBrandeis University in 1959. “Exhortingrnthe crowd to fan out from the hallowedrngrounds of academy, [Mailer] predictedrna New Age would be born in the guttersrnand back streets of America’s bohemianrnunderworld.”rnIn Mexico, Mailer sought a “spiritualrnrefuge” in marijuana, supposedly findingrnGod while high. Pot, he says, “gavernme a sense of something new about therntime I was convinced I had seen it all.”rnAlso, while in Mexico, Mailer met anrnex-prisoner who had just been in jail forrnkilling his wife. The man who broughtrnMailer and this jailbird together says:rn”Norman became terribly fascinatedrnwith this guy and spent a good deal ofrnthe evening asking him, ‘How did it feel?rnWhat was the exact reaction you hadrnjust before you pulled the trigger?'”rnMailer later wrote of his time in Mexico:rn”I was finally open to my anger. I turnedrnwithin my psyche I can almost believe,rnfor I felt something shift to murder inrnme. . . . All I felt then was that I was anrnoutlaw, a psychic outlaw, and I liked it.”rnMailer says he was introduced to thernconcepts of “karma” and “reincarnation”rnin 1953 and agreed that thesernthings “make sense.” While in Zaire,rnMailer began reading “Bantu Philosophy”rnand discovered that “the instinctivernphilosophy of African tribesmen happenedrnto be closest to his own. Banturnphilosophy, he soon learned, saw humansrnas forces, not beings… a man wasrnnot only himself, but the karma of allrngenerations past that still lived in him.”rnWhen Mailer interviewed Jimmy Carterrnin 1976, he asked Carter “if he had anyrnbelief in reincarnation, in the reincarnationrnof karma as our purgatory here onrn48/CHRONICLESrnrnrn