Richard Velez was born at some undetermined time in the '60s, too young to enjoy Woodstock or the '70s days of Disco in person.
He likes to write stuff for his own stress relief and enjoyment, and sometimes puts it here to share. His private life tries to remain private, but it does include friends and family and kids.
In his writings you may find some semblance of his reality if you can manage to pull it apart from the tales and lies, but we doubt it. We know him, and we can't figure it out ourselves.
Richard believes in the power of humor, sarcasm, and random thoughts. He won't judge you by yours, as some people do. He knows it's just your imagination or sick sense of humor talking.
He is heavily inspired by the writing (and other creations) of talents such as Jack Kerouac and Norm Augustinus.
Q&A with the Author
Q: Tell us about “Two Dollar Paradise™”
A: I’ve had ideas and experiences across so many unrelated subjects floating around in my mind, and one day I just started putting them down on paper. I had also always wanted to write about an eclectic, adventurous business trip I had taken to Mexico. It had been a while, but the memories were still fresh and complete. So I decided to integrate some of those memories within the fictional framework of that particular essay, “Two Dollar Paradise”, from which the title of this site derives. I like taking inspirational nuggets of reality and expanding on them fictionally.
Q: What inspired the essay title/site name?
A: While I was writing the Mexican trip essay, I read a new story about Jack Kerouac. It brought back memories of reading “On the Road”, and the word “Paradise” came to me from his character in the book, Sal Paradise.
I don’t want to give the meaning of the title away, but as I wrote the Mexican trip essay, the integration of the words “Two Dollar Paradise” into my title just became a natural thing. You’ll find it when you read it. It’s not hidden.
Q: You mention being inspired by Jack Kerouac, tell us about that.
A: And there are others, too. But beyond Kerouac’s storytelling skills, I love his credo of writing- the thirty essentials he called his “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose”.
I’ll never be a storyteller like Kerouac, but I feel comfort in that what I write feels true to his stated essentials, because they’re largely mine, too. I blow my own horn, and the reader will have to decide if they like what they read, my riff. I hope they do.
Q: Anything else for now?
A: I’m under the fervent belief that too many people judge others by their thoughts, even when these are quite fictional, and expressed for entertainment. Sadly, there are those that feel that just the fact that you could dream “that” up, and then express it, makes you questionable.
I mean, does everyone think that horror writers are pathological killers, or at least mentally disturbed, in order to dream up these things? I certainly don’t think so, and would hope that everyone would feel this way, too.
I admire great imaginations. I have a friend that talks about how human resources people would never hire him if they Google searched his fictional works. But he’s putting it all out there. That should be everyone’s goal. It’s certainly mine.