Dead Babies

had to have a talk with the boy 

about the middle east

I've got a sliver of experience with both sides of the coin

in the early 90s

i lived in dubai for 3 months

the constant call to prayer

was a reminder

that things were different here

daily

i would walk through the city

always passing mosques

outside would be shoes and wallets and items

all left unattended on the streets

no one would ever think of taking anything

because it wasn’t theirs

i liked this

i soon started weaving into the groove

the other cats in the band were hitched to other whitey whitersons

but i bonded with people who were nothing like me

a funny aside

there wasn’t much for entertainment

so i asked a friend to send some vhs tapes with movies

one of them was the rocky horror picture show

we put it on the in-house system

and the staff went wild

they’d never seen anything like this

susan sarandon writhing about singing touch me in a brasier 

i could have been arrested

so instead I opted for episodes of moonlighting

ultimately 

i ended up spending a lot of time

with a muslim family

they had two young boys

i would take them to the persian gulf

and spend days throwing them off of my shoulders and into the sea

other times we trekked into the desert on land rovers

and saw things you only see on national geographic

my time in the middle east comprises much of the man I have become

i liked it there

a lot

when i returned to toronto

the family all came to visit

i remember the boys standing outside in the rain 

with outstretched arms 

trying to absorb as many raindrops as possible

i ended up reading bits of the quaran

i can’t remember much 

except that god is love

i liked that 

i have been in relationships with 3 jewish women

for a while

i had an all access pass to all things jewish

I consider myself fortunate to have had this experience

for the record there's no real secret to expose here

just families hanging out

I loved each of the women deeply

I was made to feel welcome

and loved

another funny aside

a lot of people think that I'm jewish

(my mother would say we're anglican)

when we used to sell merch at the show

my son Lucas would man the booth

one cat came up to my son

and said you're dad's a good jew - a mensch 

my son said we're not jewish

and the cat started arguing with him!

perhaps I was jewish

but only by insertion

the jews and muslims have got family locked down

they know how to do it

i had a very loving and supportive upbringing

i know this may be the exception not the rule

but my experience with both the muslims

and the jews 

mirrored much of what i experienced growing up

so what?

so 

i think that anytime a baby dies

a bad decision has been made

no justification rings right

and i’m not alone in this thinking

if you go deep on the socials

you’ll see that the posts that get the love the mostest

are dogs 

and overcoming adversity

and funny shit

and babies

so here’s my thing

war is never going to end

us humans kill each other

it’s what we do

but no one wants dead babies

so keep killing

kill in the name of religion and tribal land claims

and idealogy

but anytime a baby dies

both sides have to enact a 30 day ceasefire

and be sad because a baby died

and it must be realized

that the baby that died was a martyr for both sides

people just want to spend time with their families

and have a nice family dinner once a week 

is a good thing for the world

this is all i got

i know that no one will read this

or act on it

but when i watch the news

i get upset

the controlling part of my nature wants to fix thing

perhaps this is a character fault

but so what

this is the take that i told my son

keep on killing if you must

draw your thin red lines on maps

just don’t kill babies

craig martin

dec 10 23

makers mark - airport lounge