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Taking a break from the deep thoughts regarding CAPITAL, but continuing with the way-back-machine theme, here is an interview with the world-renowed author and everythings-just-all-right-with-me possibly crazy person, Phoenix Quinn, from back on day 1,644.

It is a remarkable artifact, not least for its mention of Chocolate McSkittles and its omitting to mention PQ's brother from an altogether different mother, the irrepressible Thedillpickle.

Your thoughtful editors here at Radio Free Dixie are sharing this Revolutionary Reprint in the hopes that it will inspire the next generation of writers to avoid dull, stupid interviews.


Now pour yourself a nice hot chocolate and enjoy this stroll down memory lane!...




Interview of the Century: PQ Reveals All
======================================

After fading away into near-obscurity, legendary eRep windbag and far-left agitator Phoenix Quinn is attempting to run for Congress on the iNCi ticket. He claims to have had a vision in which a ghost told him to "Talk about a dream; try to make it real" and that RL media mogul Sean Combs is backing his bid for e-Congressional glory.

Our inside sources tell a more mundane story, having to do with Civil Anarchy threatening to kick his lazy ass around the block if he didn't run for Congress.

Anyway. Now, for the first time anywhere, the editorial staff of the Roar of the Lion is proud to present an exclusive interview with that enigma wrapped in a pile of library cards stuck together with silly putty, the player who claims to have seen everything and done it twice, that self-proclaimed Doctor of ePhilosophy: PQ!

Please note that our interviewer, Rant Casey (RC), is not an actual eRep player. One of PQ's so-called "real life friends", Mr. Casey delivered the following tape-recorded interview to our offices anonymously, with a note attached that read, "Tell that **expletive deleted** GloveIsLove character to read some **expletive deleted** Palahniuk stories other than **expletive deleted** 'Fight Club'. For **expletive deleted**'s sake, 'Guts' made 40 people faint when it was read out loud. 'Fight Club' is for pussies." It was not clear to us what any of that had to do with the PQ interview, which only mentions Mr. IsLove in a positive light.

Also, please note that some of the language in the interview has been slightly edited to make it acceptable to the eRep censors.




RC: What's with the **expletive** beard? Are you the Unabomber?
PQ: What?

RC: Doesn't it **expletive** itch? It looks like a piece of **scatalogical reference**.
PQ: Who cares what I look like? That is so looksist. You should know better, you half-wit rabies addict.

RC: You're scratching it right now. When was the last time you had a bath, man?
PQ: I've been working on my message. I don't have time for all that celebrity Hollywood obsession with the image. My work touches on discovering the Real beyond the real.



A recent shot of PQ, taken without his permission by an SFP papparazzi who snuck into a recent meeting of the "Revolutionary Committee".


RC: You're a **expletive** **scatalogical reference**-head, that's what you are. And now that's what you look like too. So I guess it makes sense.
PQ: Was that a question?

RC: OK. So you're running for Congerz, right?
PQ: Yes.

RC: Is it true that Civil Anarchy talked you into it?
PQ: No. Well, yes. But no.

RC: Which is it?
PQ: Why do you have to be so dualistic? Everything is interconnected, Rant. You know that. Jeez, what a stupid **expletive** question. Fer **expletive**'s sake, ask me something intelligent.

RC: OK. OK. Umm, why are you running for Congerz?
PQ: P.Diddy told me to.

RC: That's complete **scatalogical reference**. You don't even know Sean Combs.
PQ: Do to.

RC: Do not.
PQ: Do to.

RC: Do not.
PQ: Do to.

RC: **expletive** you.
PQ: **expletive** you! And your **close relation**.



There are sounds of scuffling on the tape at this point.


RC: Oww! You **expletive** kicked me in the **groin region**!
PQ: You are such a **expletive** whiner. And you fight like a girl. A **female canine reference** little girl.

RC: Alright. Whatever. **scatalogical reference**. Let's talk about your background.
PQ: Sure. My life is an open book.

RC: Why did you start playing this stupid **expletive** game?
PQ: None of your business.

RC: Of course it's my business, you brain-dead **expletive**-wad! Isn't that the point of doing this stupid **expletive** interview?
PQ: Oh. All right. I started playing with the intention of using it as a canvas for modeling certain methods for evaluating empirical observations within a rational framework of signs and signifiers, but then I got diverted into something else.

RC: And what was that?
PQ: What was what?

RC: The something else?
PQ: I decided it would be more fun to work on detourning certain marginal conceits regarding vulgar Hegelianism by performing cut-and-paste pastiches of situationist and neo-Marxist theory.

RC: What marginal conceits?
PQ: Oh, mainly the idea that state-capitalism is a legitimate form of socialism that has any actual transgressive value in a "world" where the spectacle not only reproduces itself, but exists solely as an image.

RC: Have you succeeded in that?
PQ: No, not really. It's an utterly doomed effort. But I have given it a good effort. And it did help to convince one or two people to either leave the game to pursue radical politics in the real world, or pursue their dreams of being an artist, so I count that as a success of sorts.

RC: You are one of the wordiest and most obtuse writers in eRepublik. Is that part of your method?
PQ: Quite right. The only way to combat the stupid **expletive** **scatalogical reference** that spews out into eRepublic is with words -- lots of words.

RC: Why is that?
PQ: Well, for one thing, it separates the wheat from the chaff.

RC: What do you mean?
PQ: It means that, as a performance artist, I cannot and should not even try to appeal to a mass audience. That would be a sell-out and utterly useless and counter-productive for my purposes. My writing is aimed at correcting certain mistaken ideas amongst readers who actually think. I can't be concerned with every 13-year-old's problems and desires.

RC: So you only write for adults?
PQ: Well, that's a bit ageist. There are plenty of teenagers and young adults capable of thinking at a high level. And some of them need to be warned about the errors of vulgar Hegelianism. In fact, it's better for that type to read my stuff than some of these old fogies.

RC: Aren't you an old fogey? I mean, who even says "fogey" any more? You're like a relic. How old are you anyway?
PQ: Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel" was a top hit the year I was born in the real world. Scrabman has just been elected to a second term when I was e-born, just before WW3 erupted.



Artist depiction of PQ in real life.


RC: So that makes you what, about 110?
PQ: Yeah, something like that.

RC: Now this whole "correcting mistaken ideas" thing. Isn't that incredibly pompous?
PQ: Of course it is.

RC: So why do you do it?
PQ: All art is pomposity. What's the point of being some **expletive**-tard "good soldier" in a **expletive** stupid online browser game? Real life offers plenty of opportunities for being a cog in the machine. Why would I want to simulate and celebrate exploitation and perpetuate the kind of soul-crushing madness you can find the moment you step out of the house or turn on the television?

RC: So you get off on coming off as a pseudo-intellectual pisser because you think it's actually a way to use this game to shake a few people out their mental ruts, is that it?
PQ: You could say that.

RC: I just did.
PQ: Just did what?

RC: Forget it. Let me ask you something else.
PQ: OK. I'm completely open. Ask me anything.

RC: Is it true you once passed up on a chance to dance with Susan St. James?
PQ: Yes. I was at a wrap party for a movie she made with Peter Fonda. I wasn't part of the film crew or anything. A friend of mine invited me. It was at the old Soap Creek Saloon in Austin.

RC: What happened?
PQ: Well, I saw her sitting there looking kind of bored and thought "I should go ask her to dance." But I was kind of shy back then and didn't do it. Then the next morning I read an interview with her in the Austin American-Stateman. The reporter asked her what she thought of Austin and she said, "Well, it's nice, but it's kind of a sleepy little college town. I was at a party last night and nobody even asked me to dance."

RC: **expletive**
PQ: Yeah.

RC: Was that a "moment" for you? Some kind of "event" or whatever it is those goofball French post-Marxists you like so much say?
PQ: Yeah, I guess so. It kind of haunts me to this day. And that was like a hundred years ago, so I guess it was sort of a "moment". You know, carpe diem and all that. Whatever.



Evidently PQ was a precocious child.


RC: Who do you admire the most in eRepublik?
PQ: No one. It's completely filled with losers, starting with me.

RC: So why do you keep playing?
PQ: Oh, it's not like I don't like alot of people here. There are really very, very few players I actively dislike. I've always enjoyed the company of losers. Most of my best friends are incredible losers. eRep attracts people who have some kind of difficulty relating to people in real life -- just my kind of folks!

RC: So who do you like in eRepublik?
PQ: Tons of people. I have friends in the so-called "elitist" groups, as well as others who don't want to have anything to do with the stuff like that. I really enjoy it when players show enough **genital regions** to DO something, to TRY something, especially if it involves showing some indignation at reflexive memes and casting aspersions on stereotypical thinking. I also like players who take a gentle approach to the game and treat it like a puppy. Most of all I admire people who write really interesting, clever stuff and/or just try to make everyday e-life more fun and bearable for other players.





RC: Who has changed your attitude towards how you play the game?
PQ: Hmmm... well, definitely Osmany Ramon. He was determined the play the simulation on his own terms and that was inspiring. We were good buddies and had lots of chats. He was one of the few people I could actually talk to about Bogdanov. Then -- oddly enough -- someone I never had any direct contact with: Chocolate McSkittles. When he wrote that thing castigating "soldiers" for thinking they were doing anything other than clicking little pixel-buttons in a make-believe world and he encouraged players to just relax and have fun... that was pretty cathartic for me. It made me realize that getting "upset" about certain behaviors in-game, or about the game itself, was just as ridiculous as thinking anything you're doing is important. Glove, because he writes well and likes to shake things up. Plus as you know, I'm a big Palahniuk fan. I mean I hang out with you for **deity**'s sake! Haha! Rainy Sunday, just because she's just plain awesome. Ditto for MaryamQ. They showed me that you don't have to be an **anal region** in order to have some influence on e-people. Dumb Emma, because she makes me laugh more than anyone else and that is just **expletive** priceless. I wish I could be half as funny as she is. Johnobrows Dadds, definitely. 'Cause he was (and still is) an unrepentant rebel against everything and that keeps me on my toes. And I probably have to add Uhriventis to the list. God love him. He helped me to get over -- at least to some small extent -- my obsession with being utterly obscure and obtuse. It's because of him that I started to bring some tiny little taste of my RL buddhist practice into the game. There are others too. But those are the ones I can remember right off the bat.

RC: Speaking of Bogdanov. What's this obsession of yours with being "a lecturer in Bogdanovism"?
PQ: I've explained that elsewhere. It's getting a little tiresome and most of the old-school "Leninists" it was aimed at have left the game. Let's not get into it.

RC: Works for me. Anything else you want to add?
PQ: I'm really interested in East Texas blues and roots music. Anybody out there with a similar interest or interesting stuff on that topic, please let me know.

RC: Is it true that you know Michelle Shocked?
PQ: No. But I once lived in the same co-op house where she used to live. Does that count?

RC: No.
PQ: Rats. Didn't think so.

RC: What other famous musicians do you know -- or almost know?
PQ: One time a friend and I were selling home-made pretzels and bags of weed at Willie Nelson's 4th of July concert. He'd hired some dudes from the Bandidos to help with security. They hauled us off to this house-trailer after they found out what we were doing. They were pretty laid back, but naturally we were a little nervous. Luckily my friend Zack was sort of like that Zonker Harris character from the Doonesbury cartoon, remember that? So he kept them laughing and stuff. We gave them some free samples. Eventually Willie showed up and checked out what we were doing. He thought it was pretty cool and let us continue.

RC: What else?
PQ: I used to hang out with The Dicks. Does that count?

RC: Sure. The Dicks Hate the Police!
PQ: "You better stay out of my way! I've had a bad day!" Ha-ha! I still have that 45!

RC: God, you are old.
PQ: Yeah.



PQ's old pal, Gary Floyd.


RC: Hey, so why are running for Congerz anyway?
PQ: I had a vision. It's my mission to keep the dream alive.

RC: What dream is that?
PQ: What?

RC: Are you deaf or something?
PQ: Yes. That is so ableist. You should be ashamed.

RC: Oh shut up.
PQ: No, you shut up.

RC: You shut up.
PQ: No, you shut up.

RC: No you

The tape ended suddenly.