“Reality Bath” 3.24.2018, Washington D.C. ••••• For the artwork of my band’s last album, I selected 10 photos I had taken- each photo corresponded with a set of lyrics. This photo was beneath the lyrics for the 4th track, “Reality Bath”. Here are the lyrics to the 1st verse of that song: “Anxious steps everyday through the halls of learning, She’s watching every corner, she’s praying for a warning, She’s just a child of 8 years old, already scared to die And no one’s done a fucking thing but watch the bullets fly. Our nerves are cobwebbed with the dust of atrocity The deadly daily spectacle erodes humanity Jaded and desensitized, a spreading apathy Fast forgotten thoughts & prayers for numbers on a screen.” When I wrote that after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, FL (17 dead), I already knew that this sort of thing would sadly continue. Today (as of right now) 19 children & 2 adults are dead in Ulvalde, TX. NINETEEN CHILDREN in the 4th grade. This just 10 days after a lunatic killed 10 people in a Buffalo, NY supermarket simply because they had different color skin. We decry violence against civilians in Ukraine at the hands of an invading army, & rightfully so. But here in America, we do nothing to stop lunatics with guns from murdering our own citizens, our own tiny children. WE. DO. NOTHING. When I was a kid in school, I NEVER worried about some lunatic in body armor with semi-automatic weapons blowing us all to bits. Why? Because it didn’t happen back then. But obviously things have changed- so we should change with the times, right? Maybe do something to protect our kids? You aren’t deemed mature enough to buy alcohol until you’re 21 years old, but a crazy person can easily go buy a bunch of guns as soon as they turn 18 & then kill a bunch of children- it happened just today, remember? If I was a kid today, I would tell the adults, esp. the politicians who block even the simplest common sense gun law reforms to take their thoughts & prayers & shove them straight up their ass. Why not? That might work better than the NOTHING we as a country have done so far. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. #leicacamera #whatiswrongwithus