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by Bill Galaxia, e-Starman


No doubt only a few of you will remember me. I am Bill Galaxia...

...P. Quinn's real-life best friend, life-partner, business-partner, and partner-in-crime. I am writing today on behalf of PQ. He is in mourning and is briefly off-planet.


He is, of course, as so many other are, mourning for the passing of his old pal Ziggy Stardust.


Y'all remember Ziggy right? He was from the e-UK but worked mostly in e-New York? He played guitar with the Spiders From Mars. He really sang. Screwed up eyes and screwed down hairdo. Man. Like some cat from Japan. Ziggy was out there. His fans, they tried to break his balls. He played just for Time, jiving us that were were all just voodoo. The kid was just crass. Man, he was the nazz. He took it all too far, really. But boy could he play guitar.

I'm sure you remember Ziggy. He played guitar.



Well. The kids have finally killed the man. So PQ is in mourning. And he's thinking maybe it's time to break up the band too. Yeah. So that's why I am writing this little message to all y'all. To encourage him not to stick around.











So yeah. Anyway. Back to me for just a moment, 'kay?


I played this ridiculous game myself for a short time. Made an effort. Really I did. I tried to be king and thought nothing could drive me away. I thought I could beat the dealer and his minions and his rigged rigamorole, that we could beat them, at least just for one day.

You know, I even believed PQ's bullshit for a little while -- that we could be heroes and all that. Ha.



What I quickly discovered is that you can be mean. And that though the shame was on your side, I ended up drinking all the time anyway. But it was all right. And it's all right. Everything is all right now. Me and PQ. We're lovers, and that is fact. Yes we're lovers and that is that.

Really. Sigh... I wish I could swim in the sea of eRepublik, like a dolphin can swim. But I got bored to tears. Or, perhaps, maybe I thought maybe we're all lying, and so I'd better not stay. Or maybe if I stayed we could've been less bored, just for one day. I dunno. I was confused.


But no. I made up my mind. Pretty soon I departed to explore other quadrants of e-space.










But I didn't come back down to e-Earth here today just to write about me and why I left the game. Oh no. Not me. I never lost control of my senses and remained in this insane place for very long.


I am going to try to explain why my pal PQ has not left the game (yet)... and to ask you to give him some reasons to leave. (Or not. Of course, it is up to you.)



The way he explained it to me is that playing eRebumlik is like staring in the abyss and having the abyss stare back. Like some kind of delirious fix. That it's fascinating in a weird and dire and sick and addicting sort of way. Like you're face to face with the man who sold the world.


I laughed and shook his hand when PQ first told me that. Made my way back home, thinking he was right behind me. But he wasn't there. He was still here. With you guys.



Meanwhile, in all this time, he has searched this form and e-land. For years and years he has roamed, gazing a gazely stare at all the minions here who must have e-died a long long time ago, and at those who still remain.


Who knows? Not me. Like I said, I never lost control like that.


But PQ sez that here in the e-world he is face to face with the man who sold the world. And he won't back down for all the e-cash in the e-world. Says he's gonna stand his ground and won't be turned around, that he's gonna keep this e-world from draggin' him down. He tells me, hey baby, there ain't no easy way out. Gonna stand my ground and I won't back down. And then he cries out over the sub-space intercom: "Madi cu defio, en dans dey, end dans day."

"You're nuts," I usually tell him at that point. I say, "You're like the Red Indians of the e-nation, a wild, wild creation who won't bow down." He loves to hear me call him "Indian Red". It's a little joke we have.





PQ's Red Indian


Anyway.




I suppose very few of you remember President Nixon, right? Maybe more of you remember that filthy douchebag Reagan. PQ always says we have bills to pay for letting criminals like that take the government. And that that's what's "un-American", you know, letting shmarmy corporate puppets take control, instead of driving them away with a massive peoples' movement.


I used to just think he was a lefwing nutbag. Cute. Maybe even adorable. But a bit loony.

Nowadays, I must say I have to agree with him. It's much worse than it's ever been in a lot of ways. Americans -- Americans of all people -- have forgotten who they are and let the corporate shmucks, the boring nobodies, the fartnoodle doodleheads, take over their Congress, their Presidency, their Governorships, their newspapers, the whole kit and kaboodle. The spectacle has colonized every moment of everyday life, lulling vast crowds to sleep, turning citizens into consumers, into an audience, cheaply selling them on the prize of having the freedom to troll and e-drool all they want. And as far as I can see, e-Rep is just a shadow of that...

In this e-world, as in the wet one, there's not a myth left from the ghetto. We just sit on our hands on a bus of survivors, blushing at all the afro-Beyonces 'cause we think that's close to love. But ain't that just poster love? Ain't that Barbie doll. And don't fool yourself, you know her heart's been broken just like you have. Now they say Black's got respect and white's taken the soul train. So my brother ain't no pimp and you, white boy, ain't no hustler. Fact is we're all just mad whores now. Those at the top have their fine suites and we've got defeat. I heard the news today, oh boy. It's getting hard to out-trump North Korea with real-life madness anymore.



So we play a game. We imagine ourselves in a different place, just for a while. I get that. I can see the appeal.



But I see the desperation too. PQ texts me all the time stuff like: "Ain't there a pen that will write before I can e-die? Ain't anyone proud that they've still got an e-face? Ain't there one damn e-song that can make me break down and cry?"


And if there is, I ask him, then where would they sing it?




PQ used to say all he really wanted was to see one "real" young e-American. Whatever that means. Then he'd e-retire and join me full-time at our Space Ranch. I think I can say his point of view has become even bleaker now. So please. Send him home, OK?








Last time we talked, as he was getting ready to board the near-light transport for the Big Ziggy star-rave out on Gliese 581, Phoenix was down in dumps about e-Rep. That made me glad, of course. I'd like to see him spend more time at home. Hell. Maybe we could even walk out in the sunshine once in a while.

He said to me that as the pain sweeps through you and the game makes no sense for you, when every thrill has gone from a game that wasn't too much fun at all, that all he's ever wanted is to be there for the players -- for you -- as the world falls down. He said he'd paint you mornings of gold and use his voodoo to spin for you Valentine evenings, that he'd help every e-Repper find a path between the stars.




I think he's falling. Falling in love. Falling in love with you. All of you.



So please.








Send him home.