Everyone’s Free To Earn Profit
A parody of Baz Lurman’s “Everyone’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”
About Quark the Ferengi’s thoughts on culture on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”
Parody lyrics by the great Luke Ski
© 1998 - 2001 Luke Sienkowski

Ladies and gentlemen of the cast of Deep Space Nine…  Sell weapons.  If I could offer you only one tip for the future, weapons would be it.  The fact that no one ever went broke selling weapons has been proven by F.C.A. scientists.  Whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own philandering experience.  I will dispense this advice, for a nominal fee, now.

Enjoy the lucrative power and beauty of my bar.  Oh, never mind.  You will not understand the lucrative power and beauty of my bar until I’ve cleaned you out.  But trust me, in twenty years you will look back at holo-images of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much money you walked in with, and how much I took from you.  You are not as smart as you hu-mons imagine.

Don’t worry about your financial future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to repair the warp core by sniffing beetle snuff.  The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never enter your paranoid mind.  The kind that kidnap you and take you to the mirror universe at 0-400 during happy hour.

Do one thing every day that annoys Odo.  Lie.  Don’t be delinquent with other people’s accounts.  Hire Nossicans to rough up people who are delinquent with yours.  Cheat.  Don’t waste your time on family.  Sometimes you’re ahead; sometimes you’re really far ahead.  The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with your idiot brother.  

Remember investment tips you receive.  Forget the stem-bolts.  If you succeed in the market, my services are available to you at a reasonable discount.  Keep your old bank statements.  Throw away your old love letters.  Steal.  

Don’t feel like a tiny-lobed female if you don’t know what you want to do with your life.  The most interesting hu-mons I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their careers in Starfleet.  Some of the most interesting 300 year olds I know still don’t.  Stock plenty of Root Beer.  Be kind to your lobes, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, probably you won’t.  Maybe you’ll have children, hopefully you won’t.  Maybe you’ll get hitched to the Klingon in a red wedding dress, maybe you’ll get killed by Gul Dukat at the end of the sixth season.  
Whatever you do, don’t oo-max yourself too much, or not enough either.  Your choices are half chance, except at my Dabo table where they’re three-fourths chance.  Enjoy your body, let the Dabo girls use it every way you can.  Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, because you can always change their opinion by lining their pockets.

Gamble, even if you have nowhere else to do it but at my own humble establishment.  Read the rules of acquisition, even if you’re foolish enough not to follow them.  Do not join Starfleet, they will only make you develop a conscience.  

Get to know your Moogy, you never know when she’ll get involved with the Nagus.  Be nice to your siblings.  They’re your lowest paid employees and the people most likely to toss you out the nearest airlock and inherit your bar.  Understand that customers come and go, but a precious few you should hold on to, like Morn.  

Work hard to bridge the gaps between the station and the Gamma Quadrant, because the older you get, the more you realize that a sucker comes through that wormhole every minute.  Visit Kronos once, but leave before you lose your head.  Visit Risa once, and don’t leave until they kick you out.  Time travel.

Accept certain alien truths.  Prices will lower, Bajoran politicians will be boring, you too will retire.  And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were unreasonable, Bajoran politicians were remotely interesting, and the Federation respected the Ferengi Commerce Authority.  Respect my authority – ahem, excuse me.

Don’t expect the Nagus to support you.  Maybe you’ll have a trust fund, maybe you’ll have a wealthy cousin, but you never know when either one will be assimilated.  Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you’re 40, you’ll look like Captain Sisko.

Be careful whose advice you buy, especially if it’s from Liquidator Brunt.  Advice is a form of swindle.  Dispensing it is a way of fishing your loss from the disposal, wiping it off, coating it in gold-pressed latinum, and selling it for ten times more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the weapons.  Until next time, the bar is closed.