Emperor Caligula would have been

April 11, 2003

Emperor Caligula would have been proud of the college students. I went out to see my friends Treble Charger and 54•40 at UBC’s Arts County Fair last night. The photo on the cover of my CD “Giddy Up” was taken at that gig in 1998 or ‘99. You can’t really smell the beer, sweat, warm blood, mud, perfume and dope in that photo. Lots of stretchers being wheeled through a careening crowd of hormonally charged beer commercial extras. I watched a manboy with a cold cold heart break the nose of soppy and clumsy (yet seemingly goodnatured) drunken fellow student. You know those guys who smile as they punch people? A logical look of rage, panic or fear never really crosses their face? This guy literally flattened the poor sap’s nose in a heaving crowd and moved on casually as if nothing happened. I believe this may have been the penalty for spilled beer. I watched him grin in that flat and tight way towards his equally cruel friends. He raised a tiny toast to himself as he probably had in the past when he spent his first victim’s lunch money on root beer. I’ve watched bar fights and street battles of ugly proportions and this one punch and ten second headlock was up there with the worst for sheer cold brutality. The mud splattered couple right beside the action plunged their tongues back into each other’s mouths and the band played on. A merlot fountain had sprung from the face of the victim. His hands came up to wipe away the blood and only served to spread it universally all down his front and make his eyes clamp shut under the wave of pain. A fall of Rome party. Celebrate through violence and lust. Everyone should fear those who cannot be swayed by compassion or reason. What creates a body that can function efficiently at such low temperatures? Ice in the veins. If cruelty gets no results then at least the party is just about lust and bacchanalia. Doesn’t that seem a little better?