Let's Step Outside.

Maybe I'll get around to reading "The Naked And The Dead" before I die. Probably not. I'm in no hurry to descend to the next level of depression.

What has not been depressing is reading anecdotes about Norman Mailer. The word pugilistic and its variations appear frequently in these stories, which is understandable since the same pointy-heads most likely to have encountered Mailer are the only ones who use the term, and, like the heirloom china hibernating in the cabinet, few occasions are worthy of its use.

Some will think it a poor reflection on my character to admit being amused, even a little charmed, by Mailer's legendary willingness to occasionally challenge a rival, critic or random party guest to a good old-fashioned fist fight. Mean drunks are not my favorite breed of human - far from it - but the bulk of my contempt is reserved for the malicious, sober ones, if only because there are so goddamn many of them in positions of power and privilege.

Mailer was the product of an era in which obnoxious assholes accepted the risks of injury (usually non-fatal) and public humiliation as potential consequences of their behavior. Consequences which, at least for supporters of corporatism, no longer exist. Not that this poses a problem for liberals, attached as we are to the notion that violence never, ever, ever solves anything solely because we wish it was true. But who among us would spare the torture-loving, Constitution-hating, war-profiteering plutocrat from the indignity of a well-timed broken nose and an unmoored bloody tooth falling to a polished travertine floor reflecting a thousand hyperactive flashbulbs.

How fortunate we are to live in such a civilized time; one in which socially acceptable violence is confined to paid professionals working on behalf of The State, athletes and persons defending their possessions.