Why July, 2026, Sucked Donkey D*cks! A Letter To My Russian Translator

Posted on by Malcolm J. Brenner

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.

Photo by Malcolm J. Brenner, © 2026

• 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.

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com


• 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 (not anymore, of course, but close), 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!

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com


• 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!

Photo by Pranavsinh suratia on Pexels.com


• 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.

Ha! So you think you’re having a bad day? You ain’t seen nothing, human!


• 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 in comparison, 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.

WEEKEND REPORT: Epic, Thea, T.I.A., and Me! A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed for… oh, Maybe Not.

Posted on by Malcolm J. Brenner
Me, on No Kings Day, trying to look like a genuine Antifa member! Note, I mis-spelled “Fascist”! Good thing I didn’t feel well enough to attend the rally, with that shirt on, I’d have lost my posting to the Central Committee!

What follows is an utterly true, insanely compelling, and totally unbiased report to my Russian translator, known here for his protection only by his initials A.R., of what has happened to me since last Sunday evening that is of some significant medical note!

I say “unbiased” even though I write here about my own experiences, not because I think I can be seriously objective, but because this didn’t make the local news the way it did when, for instance, the celebrated primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall kicked the bucket recently, and if I don’t write about the shit that happens to me, who the fuck will?

I’m not naive enough to think that anybody else gives a rat’s ass about what’s going on here at Casa Galla del Delfino, aside from my scant friends and my money-grubbing family, all of whom are only awaiting my ultimate demise so they can divvy up Brenner Industries and my other significant holdings in painkiller pharmaceutical precursors, cluster bomb manufacturers, North Slope oil holdings, Sea Whirled Kuwait, and of course my secret whaling fleet, which I bought cheap after Aristotle Onassis died!

But after a night with no sleep, some rum and a bit — okay, more than a bit, a couple of joints of pot — I wrote A.R. this letter to inform him on these changes with my health, and then realized that if I didn’t post it here, on WordPress, I’d be kind of stupid not to inform you, my legions of slavering, demanding fans, of my impending, but hopefully uncertain and far-off demise!

Because if you really want an autographed or, Godz 4bid, DEDICATED copy of “Wet Goddess” or “Mel-Khyor,” the time to get one is, perhaps, soon? It’s not that I don’t trust my beloved daughter Thea, she of the sometimes-purple hair, to keep publishing the books after I die, if she sees any money or benefit in it, it’s just that I don’t think, even with electronic amplification, that hooking up an Auto-Pen to a Quija board is going to deliver the results you want! Just saying. Now, the letter…

Hey A*****, here’s some news that may move you to contact: I was just in a local hospital for 2 days! And let me level with you, it was no fun at all! A hospital may be a place to get tested, diagnosed, treated and healed, but is is no place to get well! That is best done at home, or some place where you can relax. In the hospital, you can’t relax unless you are so sick, that is your only option! But as usual, I digress:


Last Sunday evening, right around sunset, I was out walking my dog Epic around the block, which my house sits on the SW corner of. We had gone about 3/4 of the way, and were on the home stretch, when it felt like a gale-force wind, or some invisible thing, struck my right side, pushing me HARD to the left! But there was no wind! I staggered, and found I could no longer walk a straight line; I was zig-zagging like Trump awaiting Putin in Alaska! I dragged the mutt home as fast as I could, about 30 meters at that point, and once we were inside I looked in the bathroom mirror. The left side of my mouth was drooping down, even when I tried to smile.


These were all signs of a possible stroke. In her last years, my poor mother suffered a lot of small but incapacitating strokes, and I was familiar with the symptoms. I called my friend Dave, who lives about 30 minutes away (13 miles, 21 km), and arranged for him to take care of Epic while I got myself to the local ER of the better of two hospitals in town. I gathered up the necessities of aged life — glasses, my apnea-preventing CPAP sleep machine, cell phone and charger, dentures and Fix-O-Dent — stuffed them in a carry bag and called an ambulance by dialing 911, the American number for the nearest emergency dispatcher.


When it showed up in about 5 minutes, I reassured Epic (who has some serious abandonment issues) that I’d be back, and walked out to meet the ambulance. The EMT’s strapped me down on a gurney, even though the hospital is only 1/2 mile – 0.8 km away, and one started unwrapping a needle to insert a catheter in a prominent vein in the inner elbow of my left arm — all this while we were driving to the hospital.


“Couldn’t you wait until we get there?” I asked the EMT who was playing Dracula.


He looked at me with a rather bored but nevertheless professional expression and said, “We do this all the time. We know what we’re doing.” SKRRRRICH! He drove the needle in. 


When we arrived I was wheeled directly into the ER room where X-rays and other non-invasive diagnostic techniques are done. An ER doctor on duty gave me a blood thinner and anti-coagulant, and after a short exam by CAT scan, I was listening to a preliminary diagnosis from a remote neurologist on TV, and feeling very much like the protagonist in a low-budget sci-fi movie!

To show how hospitalization can make even a handsome, suave, sophisticated guy like me look like shit.
(Me, hospitalized and not looking quite as sharp as usual. Must’ve been a fingerprint on the lens of my iPhone!)


Although my symptoms were those of a stroke, there was no gross evidence of one that would show up on a CAT scan; a more detailed diagnosis would have to await Monday, when they could do a detailed MRI scan. They kept me overnight, and I barely got any sleep at all, because that goddamn catheter hurt! I asked my nurse to move it, but he didn’t get to it until the next day.


Well, long story short, they not only did the MRI scan Monday, I also got a chest echogram, an EKG, and echograms of my carotid arteries on both sides of my neck. They were looking for any irregularity that might have caused the presumed blood clot in my brain, but they came up empty handed. Much to the disappointment of many of my harshest critics, I turned out to be disgustingly normal.


A very nice woman neurologist came by eventually to explain what they thought it was: a Transient Ischemic Attack, or T.I.A.. No, this has nothing to do with Radical Islam, “ischemic” means not getting proper blood supply. I probably did have a “mini-stroke,” but my circulatory system then got up off the mat and proceeded to beat the snot out of the blood clot, which broke up and was promptly flushed away. Those blood clots, they can dish it out, but they can’t take it when the tables are turned! GRRRRRR!


I agreed that that explained my symptoms, which had gradually waned, and I’d recovered most of my ability to walk again without support by Monday afternoon. After another night of observation, the doctors agreed it was safe to release me back into the game preserve.

 

The scenic view from my hospital room window. The doctors here believe this view of Mother Nature promotes healing -- but then again, they still use leeches, tool
The scenic view from my hospital room window. The doctors here believe this view of Mother Nature promotes healing — but then again, they still use leeches, too. The park design is Modern Industrial, a look that is Brutalist, and not that different from the industrial mining town where my translator was trying to sell in a failing appliance store before he came across Wet Goddess, and the rest, as they say, is Great Russian Literature! Count Leo Tolstoy, Anton Checkov, Franz Kafka, eat your hearts out!


I had to catch a Lyft ride to get home, as it was too far for Dave to drive that day, and when the Lyft driver arrived, I got into his car without a shirt. Dave had visited me in the hospital the day before, and thinking of poor Epic sitting at home not knowing when or whether I was ever going to return, I gave him my T-shirt so she could smell it and know I was still above ground.


Walking the dog again that afternoon, I was astonished by the vibrancy of the sky, the glory of the beams of sunlight drawing water through the clouds, the lushness of the greenery all around me and the nicely ordered houses.


Nothing like a little brush with death to make you appreciate life, eh? I’m OK, but I’ve got a whole new list of medications, a new diet that basically eliminates everything I like to eat, and a couple of new specialist MDs, a cardiologist and a neurologist. Oh joy!


Well, our governor, Ron De Santis, has said “Florida is where WOKE comes to die!” I know you were trying to express your false dreams for the death of social responsibility, Ron, but let’s face it: SO DOES EVERYTHING ELSE!


Thus concludes for now my tale, A****. Tell me of your life, if you will! Or tell me to get lost. Just tell me something, OK? Thanks! — Malcolm

My sincerest thanks to the doctors, nursing staff, technicians, administration, and everyone else on Floor 4, HCA Fawcett Hospital, Port Charlotte, who took pretty damn good care of me while I was there, and put up with all my dumb Boomer-Age jokes! You’re a great bunch, and believe me, there’s no other place I’d rather be sick than with all of you around! — MjB

Shows the author with some junk stuff he's got stuck on the walls to cover the cracks, like some photos he risked life and limb to get.
ABOVE: My good friend Raving Dave gave me the Balsa Toucan, a former decoration of his palatial mobile home, and I chose the empty spot over the doorway. Little did I know that the Great Blue Heron, wading on the wall over my shoulder, would grow insanely jealous of the ornithological competition he now faced! The argument was about who had the better beak.

“My beak is sharp and deadly, and I can spear fish, amphibians, reptiles and even small mammals with it,” the GBH crowed. “Everyone better watch out for this death-dealing beak!”

To which the Toucan replied, “My beak eats fruit, doesn’t kill anybody, is charmingly colorful, and people think I’m a feathered comedian! HA! Go fuck yourself, you pompous, death-dealing excuse for a toothless sauropod! All the little critters fear you, but humans LOVE me!”

So far, the argument has not reached a definitive conclusion, and I have to listen to old 1970’s hits to tune it out. Any suggestions?

ALL CONTENTS ©2025 Malcolm J. Brenner/Eyes Open Media. All rights reserved. Secured in that giant computer in Brussels, Belgium that has everybody’s information in it. Yeah, yours too, you schmuck! Signatory to the Interplanetary Secrets Treaty of 1958, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President and Commander-In-Chief of Terrestrial Forces, officiating for Earth.