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By Kiara Ventura
Editor’s Note: James Edward Leonard is a seventeen year old senior here at MCSM. As you may or may not know, James is a very interesting, honest individual who likes to “shoot from the hip” when you ask him a question! When it came time to edit his interview for publication, we had to consider whether or not to tone down his comments before they appeared in the RAMPAGE. We are not in favor of censorship, and certainly high school students can hear and see more controversial things on television every day! But print publications and non-fiction articles are held to different (and we like to think, HIGHER) standards than most television shows! James himself was sensitive to our dilemma and allowed us to present his interview here in slightly more polite language than he might ordinarily use.
RAMPAGE: How would you describe yourself?
James: “I’m just a pretty lucky guy I guess.”
RAMPAGE: “How are you lucky?”
James: “I’m lucky because I get away with a lot of things that other people wouldn`t get away with. I’m pretty blessed.”
RAMPAGE: Describe yourself in three words.
James: “Unexpected, funny, and smart.”
RAMPAGE: What kind of music do you listen to and why?
James: “I listen to every single kind of music. But if you want three of my favorites, it would be electronic, jazz, and country rock. I like all kinds of electronic music, including trance, dubstep, house… everything. Those are the first concerts I went to. My dad likes jazz, and I’ve been around jazz since I was a kid. I also like hip hop because that incorporates a jazz-like vibe. I also like country music. I mean I like Mexican music too but that’s different. I like country rock-music that makes you want to cry, but you can`t cry because you have to be strong when you’re listening to it.”
RAMPAGE: How did you discover country music?
James: “I went to a garage sale and I picked up a CD called ‘It Still Moves’ by a group named My Morning Jacket. It’s probably the most inspirational thing I`ve ever heard. There is a song on there about a prostitute who does drugs. It’s pretty sad. It’s called “Steam Engine”, you should look it up.”
RAMPAGE: What are the three things you are trying to balance out in your life at this point in time? And how do you keep that balance?
James: “Well, the three most important things in my life right now are probably my future (as in my education and what I want to do with my life); my relationship with my girlfriend Jayna; and my relationship with my parents. I don’t really value my relationship with my parents like some other people do because I don’t live with them anymore. Other people come home every day and say “Hi Mom” or “Hi Dad” but I only see my parents three or four times a month, maybe less sometimes. So I try to see my parents more and let them know I’m thankful, because the real reason I don’t live with them anymore is because I don’t like the way they work and function. So I felt that the best thing I could do for myself was to find my own place to live. Now, work and money are very important to me.”
RAMPAGE: What is your job?
James: “I work with my uncle. I am a secretary for Leonard General Construction. I mostly handle paperwork but on the weekends I`ll actually do work at job sites. It`s not really hard work because there are real construction workers who do all the work for you. But it’s not hard to make money. It’s just when you think about where it all ends up going, that’s kind of hard to believe.
“And about my girlfriend…trying to balance her with school and earning money is really hard because some days I have to go home and I have a lot of paperwork to do. On the weekends, I can’t really see her sometimes because I have things to attend to. During school and after school are really the times I get to see her, and sometimes I wish I could spend more time with her to let her know she is really important to me. Also, I just started incorporating my dad into my life again, so I’m trying to make him know he is important. For most of my childhood he was just at work trying to support my family.”
RAMPAGE: Which iconic figure (whether in history, music, or pop culture), do you have the most respect for, and why?
James: “It has to be Tyler the Creator because when I first found out about his music in 2009, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. And to hear that there was a guy making music about doing nothing with his life, literally just making music about sitting around all day, going to the mall, eating chips ,and harassing women–it was kind of liberating. When I think about all his music, I think it’s not pointless as much as people might think it is. People say it’s not entertaining or good. But it’s definitely not pointless because in society you always need someone to tell you that you should be doing the wrong things. You need someone to make you do bad stuff sometimes. Now, don’t look at me like that. You need a bad guy. You always need a bad guy.”
RAMPAGE: How did he (Tyler the Creator) motivate you into discovering what you want to do with your life?
James: “Because he makes a lot of money by just messing around. He makes music for himself. I think that he motivated me to be more of who I am today because he is a jerk and I’m a jerk. I don’t know if you could write that, but this is the only way I can explain it. We are both bad people. That’s it; we are both bad people who want to be good people.”
RAMPAGE: What is one moment you experienced while in MCSM that you will never forget?
James: “During sophomore year, this was the one moment in high school that made me think of who I was: I was with my friends at the handball court and we were “doing stuff”. My friend was really tired and not feeling well. I was just sitting there and watching them. It was 4th or 5th period. I was just watching them and thinking “My life is horrible.” That’s what I was thinking because we were a bunch of high school kids just sitting around wasting our lives, hanging out, and wasting time. You don’t really think about how much you`re losing and wasting until afterwards. Then we went to our friend`s house and we were sitting down watching TV and I just said, ‘I`m throwing my life away. We are all throwing our lives away.’ And I told them that we need to get some help and start going to class. Then we all started crying.”
RAMPAGE: So you all started crying together?
James: “We didn’t cry together. We all just started saying things like ‘Don’t look at me, man. I ain`t crying, I’m sweating from my eyes.’ We continued down a slippery slope to a point where all my friends who realized they weren’t going to graduate, ended up in satellite. I mean I was always good in school so it wasn’t hard for me. I just got my attendance back up. I mean, it wasn’t horrible. I am never going to forget how I was just part of a group of people who were at the bottom. They were like bums.”
RAMPAGE: Are they still your friends now?
James: “Yeah, they will always be my friends. It’s just they changed, we all change. Everything got positive. And that’s what makes you who you are; our negative experiences help us see the positive outcomes or possibilities. Sometimes you need bad things to happen to you, for you to see what you are missing out on and what is actually good.”
RAMPAGE: Briefly describe your journey in MCSM from freshmen year to now as a senior.
James: “My freshmen year was mostly me trying to be cool. Sophomore year, it was me making a lot of bad decisions trying to figure out what I wanted most. I made a lot of good decisions too. You know people never realize how many good decisions you make. So I did that too, but mostly bad decisions. Junior year, everything got positive. It felt like things were finally going well. Senior year, I realized that if you spend all your time in high school trying to be something you are not, you are wasting time. And if you spend all your time in high school, trying to be smart and getting good grades and stuff, you are also wasting your time. But if you somehow find a balance, you`re probably going to have a fun four years. You don’t really realize its four years until you graduate and it’s 2014.”
RAMPAGE: What are your plans for college? And what do you plan to major in?
James: “I plan to major in civil and electrical engineering because that’s where the money’s at, apparently. My dad (like other dads who are brown) feels that it’s a good profession for me. I also feel that it’s a good profession for me. I mean I chose it and he was like: ‘that’s a good idea’, so you know, why not? I want to go to a good college. I want to go to a college that when you tell people they say ‘Oooh!’, basically saying ‘Oooh, that’s a good college.’ I want to go somewhere that will make my parents proud, but I also want to go somewhere where I don’t ever have to speak to them. Because I know if I do badly, or even if I do well, I might burden them with false hope. I think it’s better if I don’t subject my parents to anything. I want to pay for it all by myself. I don’t want my parents to help me with college. They didn’t help me through elementary, middle school, or high school, so I don’t want them to start now because that is not fair to them. It’s not fair to me either, but it’s not fair to them.”
RAMPAGE: Where do you see yourself ten years from now?
James: “This is a double-edged question because has positive and negative possibilities. I will either be dead or I could be moderately successful with a family. I don’t think I will ever be rich. I guess it`s fun to say “Yo, one day I will have millions,” But you have to be realistic. It’s nice to make a joke saying you want to shoot for the stars but it’s not nice when you actually try to do it and you fail. Because that leads to a lifetime of depression. I’d rather just do something I know I can do, rather than something terribly higher than that.”
RAMPAGE: If you could send a positive message to all MCSM students, what would it be?
James: “Just do you. If you want to be something other than what you are, you should do it. You should not decide to not do it just because of regular repercussions. If someone tells you it’s a bad idea, ask them why. And if they say it from experience, you should probably listen to them. But why is the question you should be asking yourself for the rest of your life. And you’re going to be asking other people why. I think you gain the most information by asking people why, so you should probably do that a lot. And become who you want to be. If you want to be successful, you need to do what will make you happy because if you are living for somebody else or for something else, then that is not living.”