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Alone in listening silence once,
in the dark, dark deep of space
(I'm speaking metaphorically;
this is no report or trace),
I saw a tiny point of light
a little brighter than before
so I pushed the button to it,
and I walked right in its door.
It was the old "Rense" program,
and my software let me in.
I float in streaming audio
as the story, then, begins...
I'd never heard Velez before,
and though he didn't speak for me?
His message made the plainest sense
we all might try to see.
He came across so affable,
when he should be quite insane?
If half the things he said occurred
... I'd be, as such... "constrained"!
I have it on authority.
I'm not just flying blind.
I've interviewed some principals;
this man is quite refined.
Integrity's impeccable,
he's loved by whom he's close.
And he'd not choose the circumstance,
but beat the drum that chose...
How he holds it all together
in a manner so reserved,
when fate has dealt
such dreadful cards ...
how is he undeterred?
How does he keep his lip so stiff?
How does he stay his fray?
How does he hold the threads so well...
what has shattered and betrayed?
He's calming, more than lucid,
yet he gestures towards the "dark"!
He'd have us throw some light that way!
He'd ask some questions! Hark!
His questions are *unpopular*:
At the whim of unguessed forces...
...we're as bugs beneath the slashing hoofs
of herds of cosmic horses!
We shall not see them coming,
and the terror he alludes
we could, sure, be more prepared for,
but our cowardice intrudes?
Distracted by our cars, and stuff,
we wallow in the mire
of that which makes us senseless,
throwing water on our fire?
Dejected by the mainstream,
and displaced by "honored science,"
we're sold a bill of harmful goods
we give our vain reliance?
"Doc" Jacobs claims "it's very bad";
Mr. Hopkins says "intruder,"
but John Velez, like Mack I think,
is more their "disabuser"!
"It happens, friends and neighbors,
twixt the lines," I heard him say.
"Keep our heads in this insanity?
We will live to save the day!
Keep on laughing, and collecting,
and cooperate together ...
don't succumb to 'knee jerks,'
questioned answers will be better."
He spoke with rare consuming grace,
a brightness not denied ...
even Rense got warm and fuzzy,
and the program was sublime.
I know some folk who listened twice,
and tried to find the *bull-shit*
... looked for cult of personality,
and other stuff that wouldn't fit
... looked for fallacy in thinking,
looked for logic unrefined ...
but John Velez would come up clean;
his truth seemed uncontrived.
I wish he lived next door to me.
I'd feel, somehow, safer!
I think that I could like him,
I think he'd make me braver.
I could check with his commitment,
I'd compare my notes with his.
And we'd both be better for it...
a little closer to what "is."
John Velez' "...See That"?
- John Velez has more good neighbor potential than James Dobson, Newt Gingrich, or Glenn Beck—combined, which does not seem such a hard sell on its face until the irony is considered! How is it that three mainstream stalwarts of cultural pulchritude are so handily bested by an aging hippie, fusion percussionist, artist, and former poppy addict? But "bested" is an "obvious," reader. Verily. John towers above these three, on any level and at all indices.
- ...It remains, though, that he's gonna have to come down here to live! Somebody stole my camera (a half-frame Olympus Pen F) on a visit to his city in 1973, and STILL it pays! I want my camera, bag, and lenses back, New York!
- Long ago on SDI (07-08-06), John Velez—uncomplicated acceptor of sincere hugs from complete strangers—was sadly underrepresented and sorely missed in a ufological free-form fray that was the 400th iteration of that, damn-it, cutting edge program... penetrating program, finally, efficaciously enduring program, forgetting of course "missed" program... it's gone now with the late Errol Bruce Knapp...
- John was compelled, instead, to practice the timeless art of that almost mystical entity know as a New York City Cab Driver. Otherwise his appearance on the program would have been a rare treat.
- ...Think of the cab-driving "ghost of Christmas past" in Bill Murray's "Scrooged." Pretty damned magical, and what a driver. Tran-spatial ... Inter-temporal ... Multi-Dimensional. A cool ride by any name and at any speed!
- See... ...John was ufological before ufological was *cool*... ...before the ufology became a focal point, not for mal-impassioned net-loons, public whack-oids, and insincere crystal-squeezers rushing in to fill the knowledge void facilitated by a corrupt and duplicitous main-stream society... [don't get me started] ...but the gassy avians, scurrilous skeptibunkies, and conflicted klasskurtxians, these institutionalized and inculcated by that same society... to undercut and marginalize UFOs and the inquiry into them. This writer says true.
- John is/was a worthy combatant in the aforementioned struggle. Only, if ufology was ham and eggs, John was the ham. Eggs are a survivable investment. Ham is a sacrifice of the irreplaceable.
- Moreover, John Velez is one of those persons who at great personal cost, as has always been the way of it, helped to ensure, along with significant others, that a ufology, against all odds and despite *learned* dismissals, *furious* derisions, and *reflex* denials... of fatuous radio "Shock Jocks" and others already alluded to... ...endures still.
- That's right. Endures still. Thank you, Mr. Velez, for helping to facilitate this... ... this concrescence of eventual disclosure looming before us all unrecognized, if looming still... our intuited improvement by the acknowledgment of same ...howsoever "it" manifests itself in the very near term.
- Thank you John.
- Thank you John.
- Thank you John! Truth serves, and verily!
