February 2008 - Voodoo aka J. aka Jeremy

Jen: So, Jeremy, I know you - but most other people don't know much about you aside from the dealings they've had with Voodoo. So why don't we start this off with you telling us a bit about who you actually are.

Jeremy: Fifteen, closeteering. Listen to rap music, though not alternative, because a white man singing about mortgage isn't as engaging as murder, drugs, and ill poetry. Bit ashamed about my earlier behavior. Look back and wonder.

Jen: How so? What are you ashamed about?

Jeremy: Pissing people off needlessly. Reviewing good work with the viewpoint of ignorance. I'd rather shed completely the whole past. Voodoo is dead. And ye, drugs. School isn't fun with drugs. Nor is any part of life, not when you realize the shit. Is Cursive allowed?

Jen: How do you mean 'Reviewing good work with the viewpoint of ignorance?' no cursive.

Jeremy: I remember reading a piece in which a man was freezing to death in his tent. Some memory. Someone made the comment on my comment, to the effect of "Redundant repetition is redundant itself." And I look back at my fascination with assonance, bleh. Poetry's coming slower now, trying my hand at prose.

Jen: Laughing about the assonance. I think in regard to your actual writing, you're too hard on yourself.

Jeremy: I see other amateurs do it. I see rap artists do it, and no rap artist will completely understand poetry. Not even Saul Williams, because he doesn't rap.

Jen: They're similar but different. To me, rap is almost a variation of poetry.

Jeremy: It is 'poetry,' it's just bad poetry.

Jen: Not necessarily bad. Good rap is good poetry too.

Jeremy: I don't like heavy assonance or otherwise sonic drive. I use it sparingly now. Rhythm is fine, but 'freestyling' is valued over writing. Biggie Smalls said he couldn't freestyle. I like his work.

Jen: Your poetry always came across to me as almost archaic, very abstract, and angry.

Jeremy: I was always angry and, perhaps, autistic. Perhaps inconsiderate when not writing for any readers but myself.

Jen: What kind of drugs were you taking that you aren't now?

Jeremy: Hydrocodone, oxy. Some muscle relaxants. I also used to have a bad haircut.

Jen: laughing out loud. hard. You're too hard on yourself about your looks also. Why are you so hard on yourself all the time? You're awfully cute.

Jeremy: I don't believe so, no, but then, chances of finding another are slim to none, right now. And other than that, my looks don't much serve purpose. I'm not hard on myself. Easy, love.

Jen: Nuh uh. I totally disagree. Tell me what you don't like about writing today in regard to what you read.

Jeremy: Broad genre. Horror. Proliferates the writings of amateurs. They don't know how to end anything. They fuck the plots. "literary fiction" simply angers me. That's a genre? Bah.

Jen: Yah that's a genre.

Jeremy: The rest are vomited, drunk, and vomited again.

Jen: Tell me what you don't like about poetry.

Jeremy: Poetry?

Jen: yep.

Jeremy: Don't like how people think it must rhyme. Even the people who do it well. I hate seeing too much sonics, even if they do it well. I hate rhetoric. I hate seeing emotions invade. I hate the word "lament."

Jen: You don't think there's a place for emotion in poetry?

Jeremy: Emotion, yes. Not emohtion. Homoh, dear. Adding H makes it classy, ye? Another problem--the term 'format fuckery.'

Jen: Wtf is that?

Jeremy: People naturally gravitate to extremes, factions. The dim ones say: "Message." The other dim ones say: "Device." It's all message and wordfickle that makes poetry.

Jen: How do you think it's best to get that message across?

Jeremy: Formatting only enhances entendre. To either go the way of Cummings or simply make the format itself nondescript. Barring that, why communicate any message? Modern poetry's "all about emotion, scene."

Jen: You think so?

Jeremy: No room for the artist's ideas anymore. I think it's so, I don't like it so.

Jen: What are you reading besides internet stuff?

Jeremy: Non-internet stuff on the internet. Cummings is quite amazing. Writing, mostly.

Jen: Are there any forums left you're not banned on?

Jeremy: There's one. I'm new. But I've made friends with the modship. One's quite nice. Looks good in a towel, fellow on the webcam.

Jen: Oh God. Well you made friends with me and that didn't help you much. Would you go back to WritingForums if they let you?

Jeremy: No. Burned that bridge. Besides, hell. There's as much shit there as anywhere else.

Jen: By shit you mean?

Jeremy: And the administration is a crumble. Shit, I mean amateurish shit, animal shit (ego and pretense without ability,) and petty politics. Nothing there to learn.

Jen: I think that comes with a very young crowd though, which is pretty much what you get there.

Jeremy: Heh, no...

Jen: I just think it's sad when you can help but people won't take it.

Jeremy: The forum I'm on currently is for teenagers. Nothing impressive there, but they're not indulging their own ignorance.

Jen: Oh yah I saw that. How about LM? You miss us?

Jeremy: I don't know, vodka. While there, I didn't do much. The people pitched a bitch too often. And the ones who should be great writers don't produce anything of great quality.

Jen: How do you mean pitched a bitch? And I've always sort of wondered, don't you think that for someone who critiques so harshly, you don't receive critique very well yourself? And also, you have to cut people some slack, it's for workshopping, pieces that need improvement.

Jeremy: I don't see the usual critique I get as being helpful. It's usually something I've already considered. By pitching a bitch, I mean pitching a bitch at my critiques and then traveling to my piece and spicing it with one of my quotes. Being childish. On your forum, I see the same poetic style being prevalent.

Jen: You don't think maybe you brought that on yourself a little?

Jeremy: I think most of them try to copy you.

Jen: Laughing. I would have to disagree with that. There are far better writers than me there.

Jeremy: Lin, from WF, once said something. All forums are basically the same. There's the archetypal population. There's the attitude, the know-how, the bitcher, the one who refuses help.

Jen: Well sure, people have made websites about all that even. I have always found that in regard to workshopping my pieces, I appreciate everyone who takes the time, and from that I select people whose work I admire and then take suggestions from there. But then I have always figured that I would just ignore people who didn't really want help but only wanted you to tell them their work is good. I guess I've realized along the line to not take any of this too seriously and to just have fun with it. In other words 'take what you need and leave the rest behind.'

Jeremy: That's something I usually lack. On to other things, vodka.

Jen: Laughing. You don't control this conversation. I do.

Jeremy: lol.

Jen: Lesse, where are we...You still haven't acknowledged me saying you're bad at taking critique.

Jeremy: Ye, and most others don't give good critique. In 'critique mode,' they just point shit out. Some things that work. I do it.

Jen: I critique well. But giving you critique frustrates me. See you're bitching about people never taking it but you don't either!

Jeremy: Yes. I'm like a Christian. Religion of critique is interesting. So long as you don't say it's wrong to do something 'wrong,' you can do it. Even if something's wrong, you can still do it. Nothing blocks me from murder.

Jen: Laughing out loud.

Jeremy: God needs to get proactive.

Jen: Yes, yes. So you're off poetry and on the prose?

Jeremy: Sort of. I remember thinking the idea of 'prose poetry' was new. Ha, Rimbaud and Wilde did it way before. But it can be done in a novel way, the fuse. You have to find the right things that complement.

Jen: You mean a novel of prose poetry.

Jeremy: Language won't do well in prose, from poetry. No. Not prosepoetry or poetryprose. Neither comes before the other. I've seen prose formatting into poetry, poetry formatted into purple prose. The metalinguals of poetry will complement prose (a real word?)Metaphor, imagery, in a dense or extremely personal way. This isn't so new, no, but: In poetry, all my stuff is witness. I'm a fly on the wall. Even if unmentioned. This personal injection of whatever the fuck I think into prose, along with metaphor, extended metaphor, imagery...

Jen: Ah sort of like the story you're writing.

Jeremy: Yes.

Jen: You should check out this site: http://www.bartleby.com/200/

Jeremy: People don't try to meld them right and I've saved the link.

Jen: Good I think you'll like it. Don't try and meld what right?

Jeremy: Poetry and prose. It's either boring free verse (they don't even make it blank verse)or purple prose that's goddamn awful. You can be ornate in prose, but with poetry, you can't do it with 'grammar.' You can't say 'with which' is more poetic than 'him with." It's the sentences and what they convey that brings in language. Paying attention to them seems easy and done already,

Jen: who - you can't do it with grammar in poetry?

Jeremy: but people can never get past the idea of reading a sentence like "With glee did I get another cup of tea and penance."

Jen: Sometimes I think people should clearly be writing in another format, though. Regardless, when you take writing classes you will find that your professors will hammer it in to your head repeatedly that less is more and more is tedious and loses you readers.

Jeremy: Fuck them in their ass. what is to be lessened? plot? introspection? confession? 'grammar? Hell, they don't know. They preach their little idioms.

Jen: No, none of those but too much language is never good. You say that, but I learn from published writers. I guess you could complain about the prevalent style of writing today...

Jeremy: People win arguments by saying what sounds good.

Jen: ... or is it what reads well?

Jeremy: Bad analogies. I can liken a Christian to a mass murderer with some simple nonsense sentences called 'logic.' I believe in 'logic,' but too frequently, is 'logic' just the word with which we brandish ignorance.

Jen: Well sure, but what it comes down to is that if a piece is bogged down with too much device, or too much language, or too many adjectives, it becomes tedious to read. And archaic language is dead.

Jeremy: With which is archaic? I'll not end a sentence with 'was.'

Jen: Well which sentence are we speaking of?

Jeremy: Can't think of a good example. Churchill made a good argument for shitty grammar but I don't mean the adverbial phrases like "put up with." It doesn't matter, we're off on tangent.

Jen: Well it does matter because we're arguing a point. I am arguing that you cannot just write whatever you want because you think it's good that way in complete disregard for what they are teaching people in university.

Jeremy: Heh, no... you're into another polarity.

Jen: Laughing out loud.

Jeremy: I can be outside the box, in the box, or I can completely say fuck the box and not worry with it, in neither proximity nor distance.
Pragmatic writing eventually nulls all the rules, interestingly.

Jen: But then you shouldn't get angry when people call you on it.

Jeremy: 'Should?' I do. Should's a funny word...it's the substance of why no one lives without being fucked, deeply. Should, shouldn't... I do get angry. By what comparison should I not do something? I do it if I do it if I do it.

Jen: Which is fine, but when you choose to let others read it and let you know what they think and then you get angry then that's not fair. And it means you're doing the same thing you hate.

Jeremy: It is, it's the nature of a critic. I think it's safe to assume thinking damns you and not thinking kills you.

Jen: Yah I would definitely agree with that. Especially being medicated.

Jeremy: Ayn Rand comes to bite herself in the ass. Why can't people just be content? Living for yourself, loving your children, not hurting anyone. The golden rule's the only thing in the bible worth keeping.

Jen: I wonder that often. I think, with me, my head is generally unwell. I see things in myself that I saw in my own mother.

Jeremy: Worrisome, isn't it?

Jen: Very much so, although I loved her very much. I just don't want to do those sorts of things to my kids. So I take a pill every morning. Whee.

Jeremy: Pills, pills. Saving, killing. Gravity sucks.

Jen: Yah but we'd be pretty screwed without it. How's school?

Jeremy: The blonde cunt returned as student teacher. In English. I hate her soul.

Jen: Laughing out loud. Oh I wonder if anyone will hate me like that when I'm a teacher. God I'd hate to be your teacher.

Jeremy: Are you ignorant? If not, then it'd be fine. I hear a lot about absolute values. I hear they're wrong, I hear they're ordained by god.

Jen: In school?

Jeremy: The bible preaches absolute values, but also claims it can be errant. The bible is an example of polarity, which has spread everywhere.

Jen: You're talking a lot about the bible today. New fascination? Have you read it?

Jeremy: A Christian called me a demon last night and we had a four hour argument.

Jen: Yah? Where? Why?

Jeremy: I said Fuck Him because he said he has friends that are gay, but they're going to hell because they want to have sex. I told him the bible is full of archaic bigotry. Double standards. Now, the point wasn't to condemn it or say it's wrong. Only to get him to admit that:
Either half assed cafeteria religion (thus, unfaithful) or bigotry. Neither is liked by me or this society. He ended up agreeing with me, though he didn't know it.

Jen: Are you saying all of religion, I mean Christianity, is hypocritical? I imagine he wasn't ready for the argument. Although I wonder what it would be like to argue with you in person...

Jeremy: I'm saying Christianity is, as is any other old religion that bases its god only on saving you from an antigod. I yell in an accent when arguing.

Jen: Laughing. You should take Philosophy of Religion. Some people though, truly believe in their religions and are truly good people because of it. Granted, I have no religion but it doesn't bother me when someone else does.

Jeremy: Nor I, but they need to realize they're either bigoted by word of God or simply picking things of the absolute truth of a deity to disbelieve. I'm not saying right or wrong there, only to admit it. I called a girl a FUCKING IDIOT because she told me gays aren't born this way.

Jen: Some people see the Bible differently than others. More and more these days religion grows tolerant of homosexuality.

Jeremy: She said you can't be gay, only noninterested in the opposite sex.

Jen: Laughing. Weird.

Jeremy: Should it, though?

Jen: I don't understand why you care, though. It depends on what you believe, I guess. Some people would argue that gays are born this way, other that they are made.

Jeremy: I propose we strip the things that still make sense, call it secularity, and not impose any high, unquestionable authority on it, so we can revise.

Jen: I believe people are born how they're born and you should be able to do whatever you want just so long as you don't hurt anyone else. Some religions are almost revised in that manner, I think.

Jeremy: Ye, many of them say that, but they still follow a religion which tells me I'm going to hell if I marry a man, love him, and fuck him, but if the man were a woman in the same situation, I'd be in heaven.

Jen: But what I'm saying is that some religions have revised their thinking in regard to homosexuality.

Jeremy: I don't think they should and still be called religions.

Jen: Although you still won't be see many gay people being married. Why?

Jeremy: Bible's the written word of God, yes?

Jen: Religion is something which can be very broadly defined.

Jeremy: If he says something, it's always so.

Jen: Well, yes.

Jeremy: Christians, then.

Jen: But there are other religions than Christianity.

Jeremy: Yes, there are. Think of the word Faith. What is faith?

Jen: Even Satanism is a religion isn't it. Well faith is believing in something or someone.

Jeremy:...without?

Jen: without what?

Jeremy: without proof. sensory, logical, some proof. That's faith. They say its okay, right? So everything in the bible's teachings should be 'correct.'

Jen: Who what's okay?

Jeremy: God. Evidently.

Jen: It depends on whether or not you believe in the Christian God.

Jeremy: For fuck's sake, let's say I do In Yah, not Jah

Jen: I am open to the idea of a creator or creators, but I do not believe in the Christian God.

Jeremy: questioning him is nullifying all of his words.

Jen: I am also open to the idea of the big bang.

Jeremy: Many Christians are. But, see...they don't give scientific proof.

Jen: You put too much energy into the thoughts of others, I think.

Jeremy: they see an equation and add God into it. They almost always have something to do with me, those thoughts.

Jen: But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of you, all that matters is what you think of you.

Jeremy: Ha. I live in a society as an equal part. I'll be GODDAMNED if I accept that.

Jen: why? Why should it matter what anyone else thinks of you?

Jeremy: I'll not let someone say I'm doomed to eternal fire without them knowing the fucking slightest of me. Who kills gay teens, hmm? Ignorance.

Jen: Yes, of course. But you screaming at people about their religion will never, ever help matters in that regard. Everyone is so busy screaming at everyone else that they're wrong, no one ever does any listening, conflicts never get resolved.

Jeremy: "Wrong?"

Jen: Shit just gets worse.

Jeremy: I said that word? It's just not societal.

Jen: You know what I'm saying. No advancement will be made in that regard. People will still be getting killed if you use ignorance to fight ignorance.

Jeremy: I don't use ignorance. I say we take what works and implement it without an unquestionable religious element. You say some do,I'm talking about Christians.

Jen: But you cannot ask people to give up their religions! There are too many!

Jeremy: Three major religions, under Yahweh or Allah Yes I can.

Jen: What needs to happen is that people need to learn to live with each other and understand that everyone has a right to live the way that makes them happiest just so long as they aren't hurting anyone. That will never happen.

Jeremy: I can show them they're bigots, they're hateful, they're proud, judgmental, and faithless.

Jen: And it's a form of dictatorship in itself.

Jeremy: I contribute to a balance. They repel, I push. Status quo recognizes itself.

Jen: They don’t' see themselves that way and never will. They're saying the same thing about you.

Jeremy: Yes dear. If I stop, what'll happen? They'll win because gravity sucks.

Jen: So thus, no resolution, no peace, people are never happy.

Jeremy: I'm afraid that's the world.

Jen: Well that makes you as equally wrong as they are.

Jeremy: No, it doesn't. I show, they tell.

Jen: It sure does.

Jeremy: No, it doesn't.

Jen: You don’t understand that they believe in what they're saying just as much as you do. Don’t' people have a right to their religion?

Jeremy: I am, and I'm saying they're wrong and I'm societal. I've no right to tell them they're killing people?

Jen: They're not all killing people. It's the killing that is wrong, not the religion.

Jeremy: The religion does. If it doesn't, it's a halfassery.

Jen: I mean shit, people kill each other over a lot more than religion.

Jeremy: Heh, love. Killing not with a gun. They tell people they're 'utterly wrong' in trying to have something they can have.

Jen: Oh little baby boy how can you be so jaded at what? fifteen?

Jeremy: Fifteen. Gravity sucks the big one.

Jen: Why are you so jaded?

Jeremy: I'm not jaded. If I am, I'm hated.

Jen: You are sooooooooooooooooooo jaded.

Jeremy: I'm hated for existing. By others, by myself. Declaring one's imperfections can be a sign of egoism surely as humility.

Jen: Tell me about it... I'm very good at that. If you keep living your life soaking in every hate that someone gives you, you will die before you're thirty.
Jeremy: I'll die before I'm thirty either way.

Jen: Yah, yah, I've heard that before and have also said it. Most of us keep right on living.

Jeremy: Look at my horizons. See much?

Jen: I do, actually.

Jeremy: I see a cliché of misery.

Jen: You're smart and funny, talented and one hell of a ball of fire.

Jeremy: I'm alone, vodka.

Jen: I think you could have a very happy future.

Jeremy: I'll always be alone because I can't be with.

Jen: Baby, we're all alone.

Jeremy: No you're not.

Jen: No one has really anyone but themselves.

Jeremy: Not in a city of millions. You've four with you. I've zero and my own mind won't allow me anything else.

Jen: I will admit that my children have saved me. But when I was your age... I had nothing either.

Jeremy: It won't change.

Jen: No one and nothing. In some ways it won't, and in some ways it will.

Jeremy: It isn't in me not to be alone. I'll enjoy my own abject misery because I'll be writing about it. "Why do you change your name when you change your life?"

Jen: You'd be surprised, who you bump into in life.

Jeremy: "I've no life and no name."

Jen: There are people. And they will find you.

Jeremy: It isn't them. It's me.

Jen: At the very least, love makes life more bearable.

Jeremy: "Kill what loves." My hearty nature.

Jen: You won't always, though. You’re too smart, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Smarted into a helix.

Jen: I think in the end that is going to take you a long way.

Jeremy: Off a cliff.

Jen: You're miserable now where you live and it's certainly understandable, and in no way would I ever want to be a gay teenage boy in America, but I think you're going to grow into yourself. And probably move far away from where you are.

Jeremy: It isn't about being homoh.

Jen: And be a supahstah.

Jeremy: I'm alone because I kill what loves. I won't stop that.

Jen: I've said that before.

Jeremy: I won't be able to or willing to give up what makes me into me.

Jen: And continue to say it when I'm on a low.

Jeremy: I don't care.

Jen: I can sit here and tell you all this forever, but I know you won't listen. I wouldn't have listened to me at your age, but I'm right.

Jeremy: You're right, love?

Jen: Yep. Life is weird. It peaks and falls.

Jeremy: Hefty a chance as being wrong.

Jen: I hope I get to watch you get happier.

Jeremy: Circular logic here...

Jen: The internet is crazy. I never had internet at your age. I'd probably be dead. I worry about y'all.

Jeremy: I hate us all. No youth any more.

Jen: Now you're off on a low.

Jeremy: Just willing mistakes. No one's an innocent kid.

Jen: It is true though. There does seem to be a tremendous loss of innocence. Why?

Jeremy: It's acceptable to fuck up and know you're fucking up. No one will die if you do, and you're too stupid to care if they do die. Too deep to be happy or well meaning, people are. We praise ignorance, war. We detest advancement but also ravage with it.

Jen: See. I was going to blame it all on the internet. Especially My Space. laughing. outloud.

Jeremy: I blame it on rap. Pop culture. Idols. Weakness. Parenting. Religion.

Jen: How about self obsession? Do you think parents are too self obsessed these days to be good parents?

Jeremy: Self obsession usually terminates in obsessing over someone other than the 'self.' Parents beat their kids. Affectionate love is both indulged and discarded.

Jen: Maybe self absorbed is a better phrase. Indulged? Indulged and discarded? How so?

Jeremy: No punishment. Kids need punishment. Not violence, ever. Never that shit. But they're rewarded for shitty behavior with either continued apathy or more things. Discarded when people don't kiss their children, ever. When they hit them and tell them they better not ever come out. They threaten to disown you if they ever 'find out.' What kind of love is that?

Jen: Where do you see all this?

Jeremy: No parent does this out of love.

Jen: I don't see any of this sort of parenting.

Jeremy: No parent destroys that trust.

Jen: Your friends? Yourself?

Jeremy: Both. look, nevermind.

Jen: Don't nevermind me jeremy. and know that this will be edited and you will approve of it before anything is posted. You can talk to me as me.

Jeremy: No one loves what they should love.

Jen: You think your mom doesn't love you?

Jeremy: She wouldn't if she knew 'me.'

Jen: I understand what you're saying.

Jeremy: She took the courtesy of warning me.

Jen: God damn that must be so hard for you, living that way.

[color=navy=Jeremy: What the fuck do I care.[/color]

Jen: Is your mom Christian? out of curiosity.

Jeremy: quasi.

Jen: Do you get in trouble in school?

Jeremy: Not much. I yell at teachers.

Jen: Who does she think you are?

Jeremy: Someone other than what I want to be.

Jen: This scares all fuck out of me on this end because I never want any of my kids to feel that way.

Jeremy: Then explain to them the situation of slapping your child until they die of sorrow or touching them between their shoulder blades when they come out. People make kids then punish them for existing. It's so wrong.

Jen: It's totally wrong. I completely agree. I think most people don't realize how selfless you have to be and how much work it's going to be. They see like movie stars in magazines and stuff and the kid is just like another accessory. Then they actually have one and it's really fucking hard work.

Jeremy: yes.

Jen: Speaking of which, baby boy... I gotta run for a bit... my own are getting home from school and now I gotta go give them some love.

Jeremy: Edit what you will, post anything you like. goodbye.