08/13/2026
The Old Same Place on Easy Street, Land of Eternal Sunshine and Flowers, Overheated State, USA, North America, Western Hemisphere, Third Stone from the Sun, Milky Way Galaxy, Dimension 3.75 in the Orthodox Multiverse.
Dear (Russian Translator Person Who Must Remain Anonymous For Obvious Reasons),
Sorry to take so long to respond, but frankly, July 2026 was not good to me! Let me try to succinctly explain, in chronological order, the events that made the month claimed by Julius Caesar (pompous little self-appointed deity that he was), what we here in the States refer to colloquially as “a major clusterfuck” for me. (Your equivalent Russian expression, if I remember correctly, was “fucking the pear tree.” Very agrarian!) Bulleted list follows.
• July 1-3, POWER PROBLEMS:
I start each month by paying my major bills, those being, in descending order of size, Florida Power and Light, the monopoly electricity supplier around here; Charlotte County Utilities, which enables me to flush, scrub and brush; and, of course, Centurylink, which provides all wireless Internet, etc. FPL was about $150, which I paid in full. Even with an electronic payment, FPL warns that processing can take 3-5 working days, for some fucking reason! Unfortunately, after taking care of a couple of other obligations (my grower Dave, etc.) I did a rather large food shopping trip, which lowered my checking balance, and the FPL payment bounced! So FPL charged me another $30 for the bounced check! (No charge if you’re a little late.) I complained that I couldn’t make the payment, so they reduced it for July to $107, which means the overdue balance and bounce charges were deferred until this month. I ended up with a whopping August balance of around $180, which I paid and carefully, duly noted, went through before I bought some meager rations.
• July 4-6, A BAD BLOG:
Did nothing to celebrate Herr Drumpf’s fraudulent Freedom 250 Celebration. Was feeling pretty sick, exhaustion, vertigo, etc. Starting Monday July 6, out of sheer boredom, restless, unfocused creativity and a sense of perverse curiosity, I began writing an utterly innocuous blog post asking the question why people are willing to die for intangibles, such as religions, but they won’t bestir their asses to deal with real problems right in front of them? This post is still at the top of my news/blog page, read it here if you like, but I will not be held responsible for your reactions! By the time I got to the end, I was in a frothing rage at the current POTUS regime, and wanting to follow in both my parent’s footsteps by KILLING FASCISTS! Any Fascists, all Fascists, and there are a couple in my neighborhood whom I tried to befriend, fool that I was, and utterly failed. I was in such a rage that I called up Dave, who tried to calm me down and make me see some reason, only to give up and suggest that I call a crisis hotline. So, fool that I am, I did, and after the first counselor couldn’t deal with me, I was handed off to a manager, who asked my address, of course. I wouldn’t tell her, at first, but eventually, after I begged her NOT TO CALL LAW ENFORCEMENT because I really wasn’t a threat to myself or anybody else except FASCISTS, who paradoxically cannot be afforded any voice in a democracy such as ours, as the current administration demonstrates to our national horror every day! So I assume the manager handed a note to somebody else, and THEY called Johnny Law, because I was on the phone to my brother, the psych nurse in Pennsylvania, when there was a very forceful knock on my front door (yes, we know what they sound like in the USA too!). Opened it to find two Charlotte County Sheriff’s Deputies, a man and a woman, both in bullet-proof vests, armed with holstered 9mm Glocks, Mace, stun guns and night sticks, who wanted to know why I was threatening other people in the neighborhood, and what did I think I was doing threatening Fascists anyway? “So you’re threatening people for holding a different opinion,” the male cop asked, and my explanation that Fascism wasn’t an opinion but a political CANCER that actually DESTROYS ANY ALTERNATIVE OPINIONS didn’t make it with them. I eventually shut the door in their faces, and was rewarded 5 minutes later BY AN EVEN LOUDER KNOCK, and the deputies politely asking me to come with them. When I didn’t agree, they strong-armed me into a squad car while I shouted to my brother on speakerphone that I was being arrested. “No you’re not,” the woman deputy said, “We’re not charging you, we’re just taking you in for a few days observation under the Baker Act.” I am not making any of this up!
• July 7-10, THE BAKER ACT:
For reference, see here. Local authorities can hold you for up to 72 hours, beginning when you are first interviewed by a psychiatrist, not when you go into a locked psych ward, which I did around 9 p.m. Monday! So my 72 hours actually started the next day around 10 a.m., when I got 5 minutes with a Telehealth counselor. By that time I was totally spent, exhausted, all my rage burned out of me. I will not bore you with the details of my stay in the psych ward, except to say that spending a lot of time around certifiably crazy people will drive you nuts, if you aren’t already! (I had one experience like that when my 2nd marriage went to hell in 1999.) By Friday I’d convinced everyone who mattered that I was no longer a threat to myself, anyone else, or the property of the citizens of Charlotte County, so they released me. My friend from my old days at the newspaper here, James Abraham, lives nearby now, and he took care of Epic while I was incarcerated. Dave, who lives not far the MH facility, brought me home. It’s amazing how you realize you take things for granted once you are deprived of them, and Epic was overjoyed to see me, of course!
• July 11-29, ANIMAL ABUSE ALLEGATIONS:
However, my troubles were not over! While James was taking care of Epic, making sure she was let out back to do her business as well as fed and watered, he was approached by a Charlotte County Animal Control Officer, who wanted to know if Epic was being properly cared for in my absence! James assured her that that was just what he was doing, and no, he didn’t know anything about any animal abuse, as far as he could tell Epic was well-cared-for and that the officer could talk to me personally when I was released from the MH facility. The day after, the AC officer showed up with a Sheriff’s deputy who resembled a Black, American football linebacker, but armed, to tell me I was going to be required by the county to TAKE EPIC TO MY LOCAL VETERINARIAN for an EXAMINATION — but exactly what kind of examination she wouldn’t say! Since I’m not a total idiot, I realized that what AC was trying to do was make me prove my innocence on allegations of bestiality, although nobody ever explicitly used that word! I told her truly that we had an appointment scheduled for early September for her vaccinations, but the officer wasn’t satisfied and said I had to make an appointment RIGHT AWAY! I explained that I am a man of extremely limited means and that I couldn’t afford the exam. She said the county might pay for it, and I knew that was utter bullshit because cops will tell you anything, even lie of your face, to get you to do what they want! And if I gave in to this once, they would never quit asking me to PROVE MY INNOCENCE, when it is Constitutionally up to law enforcement to PROVE MY GUILT! In America, one is presumed innocent until one is proven guilty by a jury of your peers. You Russians might want to try it, some time! So l brought Epic out, so they could see she wasn’t ill or abused, and told them about the appointment I had with the vet for September, and I OFFERED TO SEND THEM COPIES OF MY INTERVIEW WITH THE MAIN PSYCHIATRIST AT THE MH CENTER (Charlotte Behavioral Health Care, or CBHC, in the local parlance, a county facility I’ve used before, but never been locked up in). Now, I had discussed my zoophilic sexuality with the main counselor who interviewed me in person for about 45 minutes, but all I spoke about was my experiences with Dolly, because, after all, I wrote a book about it, right? So there’s no denying it, nor do I want to. I’m actually proud of being selected by a dolphin as a potential mate! Let people try to wrap their heads around that! I mean, I don’t boast of it like a conquest or something, although Dolly might have done that with me! It’s a remarkable fact of my life, and I won’t deny it. But I have never, ever, spoken to any counselor about my current, or former, relationships with any other creatures! So I knew this had to be sheer speculation, and I offered to give the officer a copy of my psychiatric interview, where I mentioned the dolphin as an incident in my past. It proved difficult, however, as I had to get a release from CBHC! And from the veterinarian as well. It took me several tries to send the AOC officer the right information, but I finally managed to get everything in hand and send her the psychiatric evaluation from CBHC AND my vet’s latest update on Epic, which was only 6 weeks old. Since then, the results have been… crickets! Thankfully! Obviously, my dog is not abused! Whatever I might have done to her, she enjoyed it! But I will have to pay the veterinarian about $150 next month to get her current on her shots, and a new county license. Money leaks out of my every pore.
• OTHER SHIT, July 29-PRESENT:
Real problems with my bowels, feels like I swallowed a 2-kilo cannonball, sometimes terrible constipation. TMI? Sorry! It really affects my mood. My internist has me scheduled for a colonoscopy on August 19. Wish me luck! Two podcasts have contacted me to have me on. One, Social Venture Podcast, has a moderate moderator but two co-hosts who are somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. They are fighting a war against a phony image of Islam they have been fed, that all Muslims are wife-beaters and want to impose Sharia law on the rest of the world. So fuck that, I don’t need the hassle!
The other podcaster, Lucid Rob, above, looks weird but is much more normal and seems to have a genuine interest in me as a guest who can talk about several more-or-less occult subjects like Wicca, traditional Navajo beliefs, and wet-based analog photography, the way we did it with film, back in the day. Check Lucid Rob’s podcast out, the SVP guys aren’t worth shit. And on the last day of the month I got an inquiry from an intellectual rights company asking if owned the rights to Wet Goddess! After checking them out I replied that I did, but that I wasn’t represented by any agent or literary agency. Then I asked why she asked, and she said they had gotten a rights inquiry about WG from one of their clients, a producer, director or studio! She wouldn’t say which! So I’ve been waiting to the studio to reach out and touch me… so far… crickets.
So perhaps you can see why I am, at this point, a little fatigued. I did, however, put the John C. Lilly interview in a Dropbox you can access, and I think you should have gotten a text about it two weeks ago. Unfortunately I for some reason saved it as a .wav file, not a .mp3, so it is rather large and awkward, but should play on your Victrola!
So now I am waiting to hear back from HBO+’s popular new series, It’s Florida, Man, about their upcoming show featuring me as a guru on human-dolphin telepathy, since I seem to be the only one acknowledging it! And we’ll have to see what the editors do with that. Now, I have a Telehealth conference with my mental health counselor at 2 p.m., and I’m trying to eat a pizza for brunch. I don’t know what else I can tell you, Anton, my life is just… FUCKING WEIRD! Hope you are doing better than I am!
Your comrade in arms, Malcolm
All contents ©2026 by Malcolm J. Brenner, Eyes Open Media. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form, without written consent.
Malcolm J. Brenner 