GOD & GOATS...

Bakra eid just passed us by. The wife and I went out and met some 700 relatives on the first day of eid, manouvering my compact Cuore between macabre obstacles like goats heads and cows intestines. Somewhere during this all I came to the realization that we are actually celebrating one mans willingness to behead his son because the "voice" told him to.

How is that sacred again? I only point this out because my Uncle Rahim was locked up because the "voice" told him to touch his thingy. While standing on Main Shahra-E-Faisal. Naked. And yet, he still wasn't killing anyone.

Wrote the bit below on Bakra eid for my "NOBODY MOVES..." show and it'll only ever be relevant once a year so might as well dust it off and put it up here.

I like how it turned out. Wasn't sure it would work, a friend told me it is too morbid but the audience liked it just the same.

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BAKRA EID

I'm not a big fan of Bakra Eid.
The whole road covered with goats entrails thing just isn't my idea of fun. And kids generally don't look forward to bakra Eid. It's just not the same...getting money and getting fresh meat. You buy a goat, and fatten it up for the kill. The goat thinks its in an
all-you-can-eat buffet for a while at least.

"You mean all this food is for me? Just me? Wow!"

My dog is sitting over there going "Suckah!"

You just keep feeding it. You turn into the witch from Hansel & Gretel, "Some some more candy. Some more. You look delicious....I MEAN GORGEOUS! Not delicious at all..."

When I was young I always thought the Goat was our pet.

"You mean we have a goat!? Really? How cool is that! He and I can ride around town."

I'd name him Billy. And then the next morning...Mutton Biryani! The dogs and cats
go on a starvation diet right away, "Uh uh! Not us!"Then next year a new goat.
Same thing again. Billy the 2nd. Billy the 3rd. When I started running into the
double digits and I decided something was up. So I asked my mom what was going
on. And she sat me down and explained the whole story of Abraham and his son and
he has to sacrifice his son to God and at the last second God replaced the boy
with a sheep. And so we commemorate it by killing livestock of all fashion.
Goats and cows and camels. Not chickens though. Just not as satisfying. The
Kasai would be roaming around with a swiss army knife. But what scared the crap
out of me was...what if God had let the kid get sacrificed? So then would we be
sacrificing the eldest son? Babies coming out of the womb going "I'm not the
first am I? Am I the first? Don't let me be the first!? Oh, I'm
second...SUCKAH!"

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