battytheband - Tumblr blog

[battytheband]

In light of all the recent queerphobia I've been seeing, I just wanted to say:

We're both nonbinary + if u don't like it u can fuck off forever

[battytheband]

“Valerie” by Batty live from BraceFace house 12/23/22

[battytheband]

“Summer Rain” & “Baby, I’m an Alcoholic!” live from BraceFace

[battytheband]

Pearl!!

Mia Goth’s performance was impeccable, I haven’t been that blown away by an actor in a long time

everyone please tell me the best film you've watched this year since this year's coming to an end soon. or if that's too difficult, just one you really liked. im curious!!

[battytheband]

Batty “Cars on the Road”

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Live from BraceFace House, Friday 12/23

Will be streamed on twitch (MobileSuitMusic)

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Heyyyy New Brunswick

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Batty does a breakdown

[battytheband]

SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change

COURAGE to change the things I can

WISDOM to know the difference

[battytheband]

I’ve got friends in high and sober places

I’m lonely around friendly faces

Everyone’s intoxicated

Friends in high and sober places

[battytheband]

doing the rock n roll thing on a monday in baltimore

[battytheband]

I’ve been running too close, running too close

To the cars on the road

I’ve been being bold

I’ve been checking my phone, over checking my phone

To chase away the feeling of being alone

I hate feeling alone

I think we all hate feeling alone

I tried fleeing the coast but the more in land I go

The less it feels like home

I’ve been turning into a person I’d wanna know

I’ve been watering the seeds that I want to grow

[battytheband]

Batty photographed by Alec Pugliese

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[battytheband]

As a reaction to a Facebook memory about going to Occupy Wall Street:

My first political memory is from when I was 7 years old. I remember hearing my dad say Al Gore got more votes, but George W Bush was going to be president anyway. Well that doesn’t seem very democratic? I barely knew what government was and already I was seeing it wasn’t a fair or honest game.

As I grew, both of my parents made it very clear to me that the system was rigged against black and brown people, the death penalty was a sin against human life, Islam was not to blame for our unjust wars, and that gayness wasn’t a choice and all consenting adults deserved to marry whomever they chose.

Predictably, I developed a disdain for the Republican Party.

But I only viewed politics through the lense of individual rights: people should be allowed to have drugs without going to jail, black people and white people should be given equal opportunities, gay people and straight people were no different from each other and deserved to life the same lifestyles; I never considered the economics of it. I thought talk about taxes or the economy were distractions from the simple fact that the republicans were taking away peoples individual liberties.

I didn’t have any money, what did I know or care about the economy.

It wasn’t until my freshman year of college, when I took econ101, that I started to stray away from liberalism and into what I now understand to be anarchy.

My professor taught us how our capitalist economy works, and it became apparent to me that the whole system was a sham and peoples individual liberties were directly connected to the controlling of resources. Money is power.

In my mind, it was no longer about gay/straight or black/white; it was have and have not (I hadn’t figured out intersectionality quite yet).

That very semester, a massive collection of my peers gathered in Zuccoti Park in the southern end of Manhattan, just off of Wall St, near the New York Stock Exchange.

I expressed to my dad how much I admired those activists in New York. They were fighting the fight of my generation. As a high school student I was enamored with the Civil Rights leaders and anti-War-In-Vietnam hippies of yesteryear—and now we were following suit! I had to go, I couldn’t sit in my small town in rural Maryland while people just like me were bringing the fight to capitalisms front door!

My dad agreed. I needed to be there. This was history.

My dad took me to NYC, we camped out at Zuccoti Park, we met students and activists and chatted their ears off, but mostly turned our ears towards them. They were deep in this, and we wanted to learn from them.

I don’t know if my dad took away the same anti-capitalist message I did, at least not at that time…maybe he did.

But I DEFINITELY did. And, perhaps even more importantly, I saw the police brutalize peaceful protestors.

No one was damaging property, no one was fighting, we threw out some curse words at the cops, but mostly the Occupiers said things along the lines of “we’re fighting to protect YOUR pension plans” at the NYPD. The activists were telling the cops that we should be on the same side here.

But I saw with my own eyes cops do what cops do best—Grab women dressed in all black and throw em on the ground, hit dudes with their clubs, and form riot lines with shields and armor.

We weren’t doing anything!! We marched some, but mostly it was just a buncha people sharing ideas, minimal action was taken.

But the cops beat the ever loving shit out of some people. People just like me. I saw it with my own eyes. I finally understood “fuck the police. All cops are bastards”

It’s a shame the Occupy movement couldn’t centralize a coherent demand. It fizzled out and I was sad, but also I was changed.

I learned two important lessons in my short time there; one thru conversation, the other thru observation.

Money talks, and fuck them pigs.

I don’t think about OWS much these days. I’m glad this memory popped up.

Huh.

I hope this all made sense, I’m a bit brain fried at the moment.

“Keep on loving, keep on fighting” ✊

[battytheband]

a song I wrote earlier this year