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.

Choice, a Privilege of Youth!

Posted on by Malcolm J. Brenner

An historical essay and short film script by Malcolm J. Brenner

Homegrown cannabis under a grow lamp during photo period, when the plant receives continuous light. ©2022 Malcolm J. Brenner

You don’t understand, how can you possibly understand? Society has changed so much, and everything is different! Now, weed is widely accepted as a medicinal herb, it’s in everything from blunts to unguents to smoothies! Let me use a recent experience to try to explain to you what SMOKING WEED was like, ‘way back in 1970, and why your GRANDPARENTS still want to draw the curtains and light a stick of incense when they spark:

SARASOTA, FL. — My brother Hugh, 17, his friend Gary and two girls, all seniors in high school, decided to drive out to Myakka State Park in Gary’s beater car and spend a day communing with Mother Nature — the green, flammable kind, in addition to the trees, birds, squirrels and alligators. Because Gary had a prior for possession, my brother stuck the couple of joints they’d rolled in his sock. They were going to smoke them when they got good and ready!

They got to park, found an open field and began to just run around, play, turn cartwheels, do somersaults — an unusual, but typical, outburst of teenage energy and enthusiasm, and an entirely natural one, because they hadn’t yet set flame to Zig-Zag. Their behavior, however, caught the attention of a State Park Ranger, who monitored them through binoculars from the nearby woods and decided they must all be tripping on that LySolic acid Dramatic-us, or whatever it was young people did back then. You know, Commie stuff! They were probably draft dodgers, at least the boys, and the girls — well, the girls were obviously the kind of young ladies who would sleep with draft dodgers! So he did the natural thing, pulled out his shotgun, stepped out of the shadows of the cabbage palms and yelled “FREEZE! YOU’RE UNDER ARREST, HIPPIE SCUM!”

Or words to that effect.

Long story short, it was my brother who ended up staying in the Sarasota Juvenile Detention Center at the county taxpayers’ expense that night. Our mother was attending a adult degree program at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, so I went to the JDC and give Hugh a big hug, which startled him almost as much as the park ranger had! I think he’d been more expecting a punch in the jaw from me — but not for using pot, hell no! The one thing I am not is a hypocrite, and I smoked at least as much as he did!

FOR GETTING CAUGHT, THE STUPID LITTLE SEWER-SNOID!

I mean, they could have appointed a lookout! Or Hugh could have eaten the joints (I note that it’s much more difficult to dispose of a metal or glass pipe this way, although silicon would be okay, if somewhat rubbery), or even wrapped them in plastic wrap beforehand and stuck them up his ass! (An early member of environmental organization Greenpeace once saved an irreplaceable roll of 35mm film documenting French police brutality by hiding it in her vagina. True story!) There were JUST ALL KINDS OF WAYS OF HANDLING THAT SITUATION that my brother and his fellow-travelers did not employ, probably because they, like most people, believed the oldest lie in the world:

IT CAN’T HAPPEN TO ME!

Why is this statement a lie?

Simple: BECAUSE IT ALWAYS HAPPENS TO US! ALL OF US, NO EXCEPTIONS. WE FUCK-UP, AND WE DIE. TWO ABSOLUTE TRUTHS OF EXISTENCE! WE’RE ALL HUMAN, ALL MORTAL. PERIOD, CASE CLOSED.

Quit worrying about Hugh! Other than that one night in jail, he never served any time. Because he was 17 and a minor, the judge just sentenced him to 6 months’ probation, and the arrest was expunged from his record when he turned 18. As our mother often said of him, “He could fall in a barrel of shit, and come up golden!” She had a very colorful vocabulary, did me Yorkshire mum!

TIME PASSES… 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020…

FADE IN: RECENT PAST, APRIL, 2023, INTERIOR MALCOLM’S HOUSE, PORT CHARLOTTE.

Pre-dawn lighting. MALCOLM’S living room is dark, and a black dog, EPIC, unseen at first, is barking. MALCOLM, naked, cursing at the dog, ENTERS from the BEDROOM and crosses to the window. Parting the blinds, he squints outside.

CUTAWAY: A silver truck is parked on the grass in front of Malcolm’s house. The engine isn’t running, and the cab is empty.

MALCOLM (to dog): “You bitch, you woke me up for THAT? Fuuuuucccckk…” He stumbles back to the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

DISSOLVE TO: The same door, later that morning, better lit. MALCOLM steps out, wrapping a tattered gingham bathrobe around himself and tying the frayed sash. He moves to the window and begins opening the blinds.

REACTION SHOT: EXT. LOOKING IN THROUGH WINDOW at MALCOLM. We see the truck, still on his lawn, reflected in the glass.

MALCOLM: “Fuck! Is that fucking thing still here? Fuck it…” He rubs his chin thoughtfully, looks up at the truck.

CAMERA PANS EXT. TRUCK, showing it’s in nice shape! Clean, no dents, looks like it’s owned by somebody who values it.

INT. MALCOLM at the WINDOW. He drops his hand from his chin, turns from window.

MALCOLM: “Ahh, I won’t call the cops, not yet! That truck’s not abandoned, it’s too nice! I’m sure somebody will be here with a tow truck soon, in the meantime… (YELLS) HEY EPIC! DO YOU WANT TO GO FOR A WALK?”

INT. CLOSE UP: EPIC emerges from the bedroom, carrying her leash folded-up in her mouth, wagging her tail in eager anticipation.

DISSOLVE TO: EPIC and MALCOLM, now dressed in camo shorts and T-shirt, walking on the sidewalk.

DISSOLVE TO: MALCOLM and EPIC return to his front door. CAMERA PANS to show truck still there. CAMERA PANS BACK to Malcolm.

MALCOLM: “Damn, still there! Well, time for our morning smoke, Epic. (He unlocks the front door.) Care to join me?”

EPIC: (Eagerly) “WOOF!” (They both step inside. Door closes.)

JUMP CUT TO: Door opens again and Malcolm steps out with a tray in his hand. On it are some tasty looking buds, rolling papers, a grinder and other accessories. CAMERA PANS to the silver truck just as a tow truck pulls up alongside it. The TOW TRUCK DRIVER gets out and begins to prep the silver truck to be towed.

EXT. DAY MALCOLM, still at the door, watching the tow truck driver at work. DOG NOISES from inside.

MALCOLM: (Turns back inside, yells to dog, offscreen ) “If I’ve told you once, Epic, I’ve told you a thousand times, don’t be greedy! Take small tokes, not big ones! You can hold it better that way!”

DOG HOWLS. MALCOLM shakes head, CAMERA FOLLOWS him as he closes the door and sits in a chair at a patio table, puts the tray of weed down on the table, begins to load the grinder.

REVERSE ANGLE on MALCOLM’S face, intent on his work. He looks up at a noise of a truck door opening. CAMERA ZOOMS BACK to show a passenger get out of the tow truck’s side door, dressed all in black with a lizard-skin belt. He is a 20-something HIPSTER with a scraggly beard and hair pulled back in a bun. He walks around to the front of the truck and bends down.

CLOSE UP: The tire HIPSTER is looking at is flat. Very, very flat. As flat as your sister when she was 11.

MALCOLM looks up from rolling a joint.

REVERSE ANGLE over MALCOLM’S shoulder showing the HIPSTER sighing over the flat tire.

Holding the freshly rolled reefer in one hand, MALCOLM gets up and begins to walk toward the HIPSTER.

HIPSTER looks up, notices MALCOLM approaching.

MALCOLM (Stopping beside HIPSTER): “Truck troubles?”

HIPSTER: “Yeah, I got troubles all right! I took the truck out last night, ran over a bottle or something, it ripped the tire all to shreds! So then I go to put the spare on, and guess what?”

MALCOLM: (Pensively) “It was flat too?”

HIPSTER: (Somewhat derisively) “No shit, Sherlock! So now we gotta take it into the shop, two new tires and probably a rim to boot! It’s going to cost a bundle!”

THE TOW TRUCK DRIVER begins to winch the HIPSTER’S truck up the ramp.

MALCOLM: “I feel sorry for you!” (Raises joint to lips, lights it, puffs a couple of times.) “Seems like Murphy’s Law in action! Well, here, maybe this will make you feel better…” (MALCOLM proffers the joint to the HIPSTER, who hesitates, for some reason. MALCOLM looks him up and down. NOISES from tow truck. Yeah, he’s a hipster, all right!)

MALCOLM: “You do indulge, don’t you?”

HIPSTER: “Uhhhh… yeah.”

MALCOLM: “Go on, I’ve got a cannabis card! I just bought this yesterday from my favorite pot shop, it’s fine sensi, brother!”

HIPSTER: “Is that Sativa or Indica?”

MALCOLM’S lower jaw falls open. He cannot believe what he’s just heard!

MALCOLM: (Angrily) “What do you care, buddy? It’s good dope, do you want a hit or not?”

HIPSTER: “You don’t know?”

MALCOLM: “It’s a hybrid… just take a damn hit, will you?” (Nervously, the HIPSTER takes the joint and tries to hit it, but it’s out. MALCOLM re-lights it for him, and the HIPSTER takes a quick, shallow hit, a real Bill Clinton hit, and passes the muggles back to Malcolm.

MALCOLM: “You know, back in my day, we didn’t ask what kind of dope it was, we were just so glad to…”

TOW TRUCK DRIVER (interrupting) “That does it, hey, you ready to go? Let’s roll!”

HIPSTER turns away from MALCOLM without a word and gets into the passenger side of the tow truck.

REFLECTION SHOT: MALCOLM framed by the tow truck’s outside mirror. It drives away, and the camera pans to MALCOLM’S face, the joint hanging from his lips. He squints after the truck, a Clint Eastwood scowl twisting his face.

MALCOLM: “I’ll be damned, he didn’t even say ‘Thank you!’ What a total turd!” (He inhales deeply and holds it, pondering humanity’s fate in a cold and uncaring cosmos. He slowly lets the smoke out his nostrils and looks up, glassy eyed, into the CAMERA, blinks a couple of times before speaking.

MALCOLM: “I ask you, Kids of Today, you who have grown up with so much privilege, what is this world coming to when you can can’t offer someone a hit of weed, without them demanding to know its’ lineage?”

MALCOLM looks down, takes another hit, turns around and begins to walk back toward his house. EPIC, off camera, HOWLS again.

MALCOLM (going toward front door): “Shut up, you damn dog, or I’ll fix your wagon!” He goes inside as the CAMERA ZOOMS BACK, revealing the tire tracks in MALCOLM’S front yard.

FADE OUT, end credits roll.

Above comic strip property of Universal Press Syndicate, ©1977 G. B. Trudeau, used without paying the insane $35 fee they demanded just to stick this in a blog post! So sue me, Gary, I want to see the snickering headlines on the New York Times when you try! My daughter owns everything I have, so nyah-nyah! Love your work, but take your $35 licensing fee and stick it where the moon don’t shine, baby! FAIR USE, FAIR USE!