THESE ARE THE END TIMES…of my birthday month, that is. So let me toss in some email dialogs and finish with a delightful sci-fi fable in the fashion of Stanislaw Lem.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 11:20:10
Subject: This will put San Francisco on the Intergalactic Map
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: My E-frenz
“I am not going to stand here and act falsely humble!” – Gay Zombie Jesus speaking atop Twin Peaks to the gathering rabble on day 1 of his return.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 11:28:09
Subject: Errata
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: My E-frenz
Change “gathering rabble” to “surly rabble”.
PS: Barbara, my brother does /not/ have cancer, thank deity. He does a lot of charity work and left a msg. on my ans. machine that sounded to me, like: “I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off [blah blah blah] cancer diagnosis.” So I told him yesterday that my prayers for him shall be redirected to all good souls with cancer. I had a /fantastic/ first conversation with you, BTW. Minneapolis is so fortunate to have your kind presence.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 12:03:44
Subject: Let’s welcome Barbara Lodermeier to our group!
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: My E-frenz
By “group” I mean email list, which now totals a whopping…[drumroll now]…FIVE!
But soon I’m gonna burst on the world scene like a thieving kidney stone in the night. At which point my emailbox, Twitter account, Facebook page, WordPress blog, and gay-bible.org web site will get so rapidly flooded by fans and enemies alike, it will bring down the entire Interwebs.
Barbara is the same age as This Queer Miscreant (2,015 years, give or take a few months), and hails from Minneapolis. So lucky to live in a town with a statue of Mary Tyler Moore! I can barely contain my envy.
Minneapolis, you have a bright angel in your midst!
– Zeke Krahlin (Jehovah’s Queerest Witness Of All)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 11:02:02
Subject: New Rule #4
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: Eleanor Cooney
This latest New Rule shall be mailed to the 4 bars Larkin used to frequent (till I got him kicked out), as well as Moby Dick:
—
NEW RULE #4: Be kind to Larkin Kelsey, yet do not allow him to disappear from my world, geographically, socially or consciously. This includes watching over him, that he does not hurt himself (unlikely, but better safe than sorry). Know that whatever outcome is my lot with Mr. Kelsey, reflects directly upon the S.F. LGBT community at large.
—
It occurred to me just moments ago (as I exited Muni Metro at Embarcadero Station on my way to Posh Bagel):
There shall be /ten/ New Rules in toto. Mimicking Moses’ Commandments.
It /also/ occurred to me (2-3 days ago) that Larkin intentionally suckered the SF Queer Family into despising me, that I may eventually blackmail them into fulfilling my dreams. For the shame they’d otherwise suffer would be insurmountable…hence eviscerate all our achievements thus far, against a homophobic reality. And all sexual minorities would be wiped off the planet…and erased from The Book Of Life.
They now have no other choice but to honor me in every way possible. And I owe it all to Larkin, who must play a little while longer, my backstabber.
– Zeke
MISFORTUNE IS A COOKIE NAMED ZEKE
By Ezekiel J. Krahlin
Date: 25 Glaucus 50,970 A.Z.A. (After Zeke’s Awakening)
Subject: How My Cookies Conquered the World and Beyond
To: My Loyal Reptilian Subjects from Andromeda
From: Master Thaumaturge Ezekiel Joseph Krahlin (Eminent Overseer of Sector 357, Quadrant B)
There is no way to explain how I became the most powerful sentient being in the entire Milky Way Galaxy plus 14 neighboring clusters, based solely on cookie sales, without believing in the supernatural. I do not dabble in The Black Arts, nor have I in any other way consciously sought This Impossible Destiny. The cookies just fell into my lap (so to speak), one thing led to another until 50,970 years after my first cookie tumbled off the assembly line, and *voila* here I am.
It all started quite innocently on the 29th day of July, 2015 A.D., with a frivolous email exchange between myself and The Osmium Empress (a.k.a. Eleanor Cooney). Who as you all know so well from your brain-implant history classes, led us to a magnanimous victory in 38,112 A.Z.A. against the Axzyspuluk Swarm that threatened to teleport us back to the Stone Age when dinosaurs had yet to invent the rotating disc. Which disc is responsible for uniting two intelligent species–reptilians and humans–into an amalgamated imperium. For posterity’s sake, here is the exchange:
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 12:37:59
Subject: Wanna go into business together? I have a plan…
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: Eleanor Cooney…forget literary endeavors, let’s get into the cookie business. Specifically:
Zeke’s Misfortune Cookies
Printed on each strip of paper will be one of my silly quotes, of which I have /many/ (as you all-2-well know). Such as:
“Help! I’m a prisoner in a Neptunian/Chinese cookie factory, and I can’t find the right wormhole that will lead me to freedom!”
I think it’s a fabulous idea, and if you are likewise inspired, run with it. We can split it 60/40, with the 60 part for you and yours.
– Zeke
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:47:09
Subject: Re: Wanna go into business together? I have a plan…
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: Eleanor CooneyOn Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Eleanor Cooney wrote:
{{ It’s a winner idea, all right. But how to implement? }}
Once the money from my fame comes rolling in, I can hire some of the best to handle the business aspects. I was also thinking: you can add your own Morticia quotes. “Morticia & Gay Zombie Jesus” has a nice ring to it.
Gawd I’m on a roll these days!
– Zeke
PS: I saw Larkin yesterday afternoon, seated at the counter of Moby Dick and rolling the dice. His roommate Zachary was tending bar. I paused a moment at a spot where only Larkin could see me through the plate glass. Just in case he needed to talk. He didn’t, so I moved on. None of my scouts have seen Larkin at any other bar, nor have I, these past 7 days. Looks like my New Rule has trumped Larkin big time.
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2015 14:34:41
Subject: Re: Wanna go into business together? I have a plan…
From: Zeke Krahlin
To: Eleanor CooneyOn Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Eleanor Cooney wrote:
{{ Imagine our web page!!! }}
My eyes, my eyes, my eyes are burning!
{{ I think you should make some Misfortune Cookies specifically for Larkin! }}
He’s gonna need a whole passel each and every day.
I’ll whip him up a batch of glop and tell him it’s okay.– Zeke
Towards the final months of 2015 I finally made my breakthrough as an activist and author: celebrated throughout the world, with ginormos sums of cash flowing into my Paypal account. By April of the following year, my asset value increased from $1,550 to $4,325,000. Which empowered me to open my first Misfortune Cookie (tm) factory.
My cookies were a big hit, bigger than I ever hoped, infiltrating even the poorest nations and remotest regions with their playful mayhem. They made people laugh, something sorely appreciated in those tumultuous times of poverty, disaster, oppression and disease. But more than that:
These Misfortune Cookies (tm) are highly nutritional, composed of a base of gluten-free quinoa and brown rice flours sweetened with stevia. The remaining ingredients (a trade secret) ensure that my cookies will always be delectable, and with just the right, satisfying crunch.
In appearance, they look just like standard fortune cookies, except for a special logo stamped onto one side:
This symbol was originally my graffiti signature as a gay street activist, scrawled here and there throughout The Castro to mark my turf. But since my fame took off, it has become a seal of quality for all my products, including my starship franchise established 700 years later. But let’s get back to the 21st century.
Here are seven early examples of my Zeke-style quips (besides the one displayed in the email exchange above):
Many are called but few are chosen, so step right up for your lederhosen!
“Who wants to play Twister?” – the Elephant Man on his birthday
The way to a man’s heart is his stomach…either orifice.
“Can I meet you if I retweet you, can I eat you if I reheat you?” – Gay Zombie Jesus
“Crumpets in bed, crumpets in bed. Gnoshing on crumpets and getting good head!” – gay bachelor raconteur Neville Snidermannington III
Don’t count your chickens before they change horses in midstream.
“I am not Larkin’s stalker, I’m his boyfriend.” – Zeke Krahlin
Plus six examples from Eleanor’s Morticia alter ego (which tend to be more direct and blunt than mine, no pussyfooting about):
You will lose your foot in an accident involving farm equipment.
You will catch a tropical disease and be hideously disfigured.
A grand piano will fall on you from ten stories up.
You will be drugged and transported to a refugee camp in Somalia.
You will reincarnate as a leper in 11th-century India.
You will swallow a thumbtack.
The world went through many upheavels during my stellar rise to power, and my cookie factories spread across the globe to number 182,448. Not only had I led The LGBT Revolution to establish the world’s first gay nation, Athenia, but I grew so affluent I bought up every country that collapsed under the weight of economic catastrophe, one by one. By the year 2022 immortality had been invented in the form of a nasal spray, though reserved only for the rich.
But my militia stole the formula and distributed it to everyone else within the short span of five years. So I could then breathe a sigh of relief at that point (as I morphed backwards in physical age to 19), and continue my conquest of planet earth in relative tranquility as nation after nation fell into my hands until not so much as a square inch anywhere on terra firma was not under my direct ownership. World peace was finally a reality, under the auspices of yours truly a.k.a. “Big Gay Brother.”
And I owed all this ridiculous success to my Misfortune Cookie (tm) dynasty, which garnered profit quantum leaps beyond my fame as a revolutionary author and activist. You might say that the world was now my oyster, though I would object.
As the centuries marched forward, humanity expanded throughout the solar system and on to neighboring galaxies…under my leadership with co-commander (and Uber Soulmate) Larkin Kelsey, and The Osmium Empress for My Most Trusted Military Advisor. My cookies were the first cash cow from earth to be traded on the Intergalactic Marketplace. Which of course boosted my legendary influence another quantum leap or two.
My transcosmically irresistable Misfortune Cookies (tm) were on the table (or pad or squadunk or whatever passed for a dining surface) of every sentient family across 15 galaxies including the Milky Way, by the time the Axzyspuluk Swarm was subjugated to lowly factory workers. Ah, yes, the factories:
It had finally become necessary to dedicate an entire solar system to the production of my cookies. The one I chose had 22 inhabitable planets, and the sole mission of every denizen on each of those worlds was to manufacture enough cookies to satisfy the demand of more than 6,433 quadrillion eager consumers.
These factories provided almost 17,000 years of quality cookie production, but like all good things they came to pass, and had to be demolished. Along with their entire solar system, due to residual byproduct. Of course I transferred all residents to a new location long before The Cookieocalypse took place.
Co-commander Kelsey and myself stood a safe distance from the demolition, as we watched the planets and its star quietly break up into fragments, then dust. I was quite disappointed, expecting instead a glorious super-nova implosion with many fireworks in tow.
So I looked up at him and questioned why such an anticlimactic end. To which he calmly replied:
“Well, Zeke, I guess that’s just the way the cookie planets crumble.”
ZekeBlog 2.0 