Killer sword-wielding Samurai no longer exist.

Brutal unarmed combat rarely erupts, either. Most men and women rarely get physically attacked or fight in the streets, bars or elsewhere.

Ego stalks humanity as the most feared enemy of our mortal development. Ego interferes with our better selves, threatening the existence of our planet.

Nature, human and otherwise, is at greater risk than ever.

At 70, my path now takes me to another realm, one where cosmic consciousness looms more important than the macho pursuit of violence.

I never wanted to fight.

I felt I had to fight.

Fifty years ago I beat another first year Penn State student so badly during a drunken fight that university officials evicted me from the dorm. Several years later I beat a man into unconsciousness during a 4 a.m. brawl in a nightclub parking lot.  I thought he had a gun. I worried he might die.

Eventually I channeled my rage into decades of martial arts discipline and practiced potentially deadly techniques of controlled violence. I understand the dark appeal in the justifiable destruction of a dangerous attacker who deserves to get hurt and maybe even die.

Some violence is valid. I will fight if I must and try to help whenever I can, but only as a life-and-death last resort. At this stage of my life I no longer want to teach or drill in battle-tested ways of bloodshed and pain. I need to discipline my body and mind at a higher level of perception.

After many years of aikido, aikijujutsu and other martial arts training, I’m bowing out of the dojo, taking sacred lessons I learned from my arts to apply in defense of our tiny living speck of a marvel that hangs in the infinitesimal beyond.

I stand with Mother Earth against increasing and ongoing deadly assaults of greedy, carnivorous capitalists who rule the world while destroying air, water and species that make us a beautiful, living globe.

I will face the enemies of existence and live my life as a defender of the environment until I one day return to the source – not Heaven or Hell, but the source from which we all sprang, that magnetic place of pure creative energy that one day returns us to the nothingness from which we came.

I want to help the honey bees and birds. I’ll do my best to save the whales and the trees and the firm ground upon which future generations should walk without fear of contamination.

I will never give up guarding our world.

To meet that challenge, I fill each pore in my body with precious ki and expand my mind with the vital life energy the Chinese call chi and the yogis call prana. I open my awareness to the needs of the universe. And I take with me into battle the treasured lessons from all my teachers, some of whom will not understand or appreciate my decision, and apply the best care I can to preserve peace and harmony.

If I could take away guns and bombs, I would. If I could take away hatred, I would. If I could diminish America’s self-inflated sense of importance, I would.

But I can’t.

So I’ll do what little I can through increased study, diligent practice and heartfelt commitment to help make our existence better for everybody. I’ll add my breath and spirit to the wind and become one with its gifts.

I can’t do that by practicing how to kill with a sword or with my bare hands. I can only do that by calling out the attackers of civilization who threaten our precious place with fool’s gold and uncontrolled human excess.

The eternal might of the cosmos offers us a chance to survive.

My planet is my dojo.

You will no longer be teaching at Good Vibrations Montessori School, Mr. Rosen.

Because of what happened in class this morning, right?

Because of what the children say you called “the aquarium lesson,” the principal said.

The moral of the story works for zoos, too, Mr. Rosen said.

Johnny is still recovering and waiting for his mother in the nurse’s office.

The other kids didn’t disagree with me.

We notified their parents to pick them up, the principal said.

I’m surprised you haven’t called in grief counselors.

That attitude is exactly what we’re talking about here.

So in my absence will you be chaperoning the class on the field trip to the aquarium?

The aquarium trip is off, thanks to you.

Mission accomplished, Mr. Rosen said.

The children are still highly agitated.

About saving the whales, right?

No whales live in the local aquarium.

If things keep going the way they’re going, there won’t be any whales in the ocean either.

The children said you told them not to even eat tuna fish sandwiches.

Nor those Goldfish crackers either.

There’s such a thing as getting carried away, Mr. Rosen.

Free the fish.

Your liberal radical overzealous environmental activism is how this anarchy started.

No, Johnny’s rich corporate lawyer father started the movement when he gave the school free tickets to the aquarium in which he’s part owner.

That does not give you the right to traumatize the children.

You call it trauma. I call it teaching. I only told them the truth.

You told Johnny he could fully experience for himself what aquarium fish experience if he got in the backyard pool at his house and you welded a glass lid over the top. You said the rest of the class could stand at the edge watching him swim around underwater like a captive carp for the rest of his life.

A teaching moment if I ever saw one.

You were out of line, Mr. Rosen.

I was going to suggest we submerge Johnny in the hot tub but if we welded him in there he’d boil like a lobster at one of those political clambakes brought to you by the corrupt politicians his old man bribes.

Security! Security!

And it’s not just aquariums, Mr. Rosen said.

Now he stood and blocked the door.

It’s zoos, too. You realize some zoos purposely thin the herd because of budget constraints and Republican cutbacks. You know how they do that? They let the animals eat each other until the polar bears are all that’s left walking around picking their teeth with chimpanzee bones.

You’re making that up, Mr. Rosen.

I am not. I read it in The New York Times.

There is something seriously wrong with you, the principal said.

I told the kids all about the zoo cannibalism, too. You should be pleased to know I stopped them before they started chewing on Johnny’s arms and legs. They wanted to, they even moved on him, because he just refused to understand the animals’ side of the story.

So that’s how he got bite marks on his buttocks?

The kids pulled Jessica off him before she broke the skin.

Mr. Rosen saw raw panic cover the principal’s face.

I know what you’re thinking, he said.

Please, Mr. Rosen, you’re out of control, the principal said.

Mr. Rosen grinned.

Mr. Rosen showed his teeth.

Don’t worry, I’m a vegetarian, he said.

Hot as sand fleas sizzling under a magnifying glass, Stu’s face and other exposed body parts burned from the scorching heat of the sun. His dog Riley sat with her paws stretched in front of her furry body plump as a cuddly stuffed animal on a carnival midway shelf, a pink ribbon tied into her hair that hung like a fashion model’s bangs in her face.

Stu and Riley often enjoyed lazy days bivouacked at the water’s edge. Long retired from their jobs (he as a jewelry store retail clerk, she a therapy dog for lonely old folks at the senior center) they sat and stared at the ocean, waiting to maybe see a whale in the distance as they let time sooth their aging bones.

Stu talked to his dog the way you talk to your best friend.

We’re in the fourth quarter, Riley, he said.

Riley’s tail thumped a line in the sand.

Time’s running out, Stu said.

Together they waited.

At about 9:30 a.m. the sun grew more powerful in the sky, a molten reminder of the moment rising hotter and hotter from the horizon. Stu reached into the cooler and pulled out two cold macaroons, homemade treats for him and Riley. The burnt coconut scent carried on the breeze all the way down to the water line.

Rook snapped his head their way and charged, his strong Doberman jaws already set as he ran with that same look in his eyes as when he spotted the bloody flank steak Hank fed him a few times a week. That dog ate better than his owner, partial to raw pork chops rather than beef, but willing to swallow anything Hank put in front of him.

Come to think of it, along with the macaroons, maybe Rook caught a whiff of Riley’s doggie perfume Stu dabbed behind her ear each morning before they left the apartment.

Rook, you sonofabitch, come back here, Hank said.

But the Doberman was off and running, driving forward with his head down like an enraged bull ready to gore a matador to death.

Stu gasped. Riley looked up. Rook closed the distance. Riley didn’t flinch. Rook stopped.

Riley nudged the macaroon in the sand with her petite nose, moving the cookie toward Rook whose own nose now sniffed the sweet biscuit buried in the sand. When the big dog gobbled his gift he looked into Riley’s dark chocolate eyes.

Stu smiled.

Hank hovered nearby, out of breath from the run through the sand.

You trying to poison my dog? No, no, don’t tell me. You want to breed my pedigree with that scrawny fairy princess of yours. That’s it. I see what you’re up to, you old pervert, you.

I beg your pardon, Stu said.

You heard me, bikini boy.

Stu didn’t know what to do. Nobody ever mocked his Speedo swimsuit before. Nobody even noticed. Hank snarled, spitting droplets of wet white anger like he was frothing at the mouth.

How about I dropkick that fluff ball so-called dog of yours from here to Ocean City?

You could barely hear Rook growl low and deep, bringing the slow, steady rumble of affection up from his belly, a strong yet subtle warning to the world to leave this delicate dune doggie of his dreams alone. Riley cowered crawling under torn yellow webbing on the worn seat of the rusted lawn chair Stu carried from home. Rook widened his stance, balanced strong on all fours, ready for anything as his heart pounded in his broad chest.

Hank lifted his knee to snap a karate kick like he saw the mixed martial arts maniacs deliver on the TV he watched in bed every night, cocking his leg for a front punt that would easily rupture Riley’s pint-sized kidneys. As he prepared to unleash his leg, he hit the sand hard, slamming onto his back not knowing what hit him.

Rook was on his master, digging his teeth into throat gristle like he was polishing off a full-course prime rib meal, shaking Hank back and forth around like a stinking sewer rat.

Stu picked up Riley and closed his eyes.

Don’t watch, honey, he said.

But Riley watched.

Did she ever watch her hero protect her honor from the big bad beach bully who acted like he was tougher than man or beast. When Rook finished with Hank, he looked to Riley who gently nudged another macaroon his way, a reward he hungrily accepted and gulped in one bite.

Good doggie, Stu said.

Riley wagged her tail.

Stu reached down and patted Rook’s head.

You want to come home with us, boy?

Rook wagged his tail.

Poor Hank was right about one thing: The puppies would be ugly, but when love is in the air, who cares?

Eight hundred dollars for pots and pans?

Josh looked up from his phone.

They normally cost fifteen.

Taylor’s anger bubbled over like an unwatched pot of pasta.

Are you crazy?

No, just hungry.

With both of us not working we can’t even afford to go out for tacos and you’re spending the rent money on pots and pans?

We call it graphite-infused cookware.

Who’s we?

Foodies.

You mean that pack of hipster losers who Zoomed with you every Friday night for the past year to talk about the cooking shows you watched on TV?

Everybody’s finally getting together in person here this Friday night.

Over my dead body they are.

Don’t you push your micro-aggression on me, Taylor.

You don’t even cook, Josh.

Learning to prepare meals the right way takes time. Chefs need training with proper ingredients. We need proper tools.

You want tools I’ll give you a screw driver. The hinges on the bedroom door are falling off.

 Veal piccata sounds nice. I wish we had some veal.

Canned beans sounds better because that’s all we have left in the kitchen cupboard.

Josh put on a dreamy face.

I’ll slice the meat as thin as rice paper, dredge the portions in flour, brown, then serve in a sauce containing lemon juice, butter, and capers.

Josh’s face took a turn for the worse, like sliding on ice in Vermont and hitting a tree head-on.

You’re not telling me we don’t have any capers, are you?

I’m telling you if you keep this up I’ll grill your fat ass over an open pit because we’ll have nothing left to eat.

Body shaming doesn’t become you, Taylor.

Body slamming is more like it.

Taylor rushed Josh with all the urgency of a walk-on Penn State linebacker blitzing a third-string quarterback for a chance at a scholarship. Josh squealed and ran into the bedroom. Taylor’s cell phone played a Lady Gaga ring tone. Her girlfriend Brittany screamed at the other end.

You won’t believe what Justin bought, she said.

Taylor felt faint and tried to catch her breath.

He signed us up for weekly bulk meat delivery, steaks, chops, lobsters and even pre-sculpted burgers packed in dry ice and shipped fresh from Wichita, Brittany said.

I didn’t know they had lobsters in Wichita, Taylor said.

Buffalo meat, even, Brittany said.

Josh bought pots and pans, Taylor said.

Justin says he’s bringing meat over to your house Friday to help Josh cook some dinner.

You coming?

Yeah, I guess, Brittany said.

Taylor truly didn’t want to ask but simply couldn’t help herself.

Just by chance, Justin doesn’t have any veal, does he?

Harold noticed the shirt.

Who’s on your sweatshirt?

Denis thought he heard a voice ringing in his head, words that sounded like echoes in the boxing gym.

The two fighters on your shirt, who are they?

Denis touched the front of his jersey.

Let me see, Harold said.

Etched profiles of two men, one on the left with a moustache and one on the right with a full beard, stared at each other from the front of the faded shirt. Printed in smaller letters, the words WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP appeared printed above the men’s names, SPINKS AND COONEY written in stacked white letters one name atop the other across a pink background. June 15 appeared emblazoned across the names in black letters. The words THE WAR AT THE SHORE stood out below the date and above the words BUTCH LEWIS PRODUCTIONS INC IN ASSOCIATION WITH TRUMP PLAZA HOTEL & CASINO.

Whoa, where’d you get that, old-timer?

Denis blinked, staring at sweat-stains on the heavy canvas punching bag.

Harold got excited.

Were you at that fight in Atlantic City?

Denis let his gloved hands hang at his sides, the laces undone.

Harold threw a subtle head feint, tossing off a soft jab and then a straight right hand. He had four amateur fights and one as a newly turned professional, an unheard of advance years ago when a boxer needed dozens of amateur bouts before turning pro,

Man, I watched that on video a hundred times, Harold said. Nineteen eighty-seven, man. I hated Cooney because of all that great white hope shit. Gentleman Gerry Irish bullshit.

Somewhere in the back of his head Denis heard a bell ring. As one of several professional heavyweight sparring partners hired over the years to help name heavyweights prepare for battle, Denis worked with the best, taking heavy blows and weathering a stunning fuselage of power that took a bruising toll on his body and brain.

Cooney’s camp turned him down. But when Gerry saw Denis leaving the casino ring area one day where he still came to watch training because he lived in a room and had nowhere else to go, the polite big man from Long Island gave Denis a shirt.

Here you go, champ, Cooney said.

Harold started rat-a-tat-tat with his boxing babble.

Man, I thought he had Spinks but in the fifth Cooney just stopped punching, Harold said. He didn’t even tie Spinks up. Cooney went down hard how many times? I’ll never understand what happened.

Denis rubbed his eyes with the backs of his boxing gloves.

He didn’t know where he was.

With flushed faces shimmering beneath a green neon beer sign, their argument started early and finished late, with punches, of course. Violence lurked just under the skin of any disagreement in most Scranton bars. Yet, this infusion of emotion fueled neighborhood lore and the working-class legacy, stories told and retold over the years with each recitation adding new layers of bullshit.

Brian meant no harm.

They ought to name the street Joe Biden Boulevard, he said.

Kevin flared.

You just called it a street.

Boulevard sounds classier, Brian said.

You can’t even spell boulevard.

Neither can your mother.

A couple of lushes crowding the bar grabbed both men by their shoulders and pulled them apart.

Another lug chimed in.

How about Joe Biden Way?

They already named the intersection up by his childhood home that.

So then why’s he need another street?

City Council’s pushing for the name, not him.

So why should I give two shits?

Because honoring him honors us, Brian said.

He tried to explain.

Joe’s from Scranton. We’re from Scranton. I heard a guy on the news the other night say the whole world is watching us.

But he couldn’t help himself when he turned back to Kevin.

Just like your brother said he used to watch your sister undress before she took her bath after high school cheerleading practice, Brian said.

More drunks again pulled Brian and Kevin apart.

Yet another Einstein piped in.

Avenue is better than boulevard because boulevard is a Black name like Martin Luther King Boulevard.

I never even thought of that, Kevin said.

So what’s Irish?

Street. Like O’Connell Street.

Where’s that, Boston?

It’s in the heart of Ireland.

How about Biden Court?

Like an NBA basketball court? No way, that’s all Black Lives Matter Land.

Joe Biden Highway?

You need to hit the highway, you goof.

Brian glared.

Joe Biden Lane.

Like that cowboy singer Frankie Laine from the 50s who did Mule Train?

You calling Joe Biden an ass?

Duh, like what’s the Democrats’ mascot, donkey face?

Brian got in a punch this time.

Road?

Row?

Place?

The men picked up a frantic pace until the bartender slammed his fist on the bar.

I got it, he said.

The guys waited.

Dead end, he said.

MOM, Grandpa’s smoking weed again!

When did you turn into such a little rat?

You told on me when I was making dance videos and was supposed to be studying, Little Brenda said.

You’re 16.

You’re 70.

Yeah, but I’m retired. Your mother has to work, cook, clean and buy groceries. I watch cartoons at 10 in the morning when you’re struggling with trigonometry. Maybe I’ll start making dance videos.

MOM!

Grandpa butted the joint and put the roach in his pocket. Turning on the TV he punched in the number for the Three Stooges Channel.

Woopwoopwoopwoop, he said.

Curly was his favorite, of course.

Nyaknyaknyaknyak, Grandpa said.

Big Brenda stood behind her father.

How many times have I told you not to smoke around Little Brenda?

I gave up Marlboros, what more do you want?

Smoking weed around Little Brenda sets a bad example.

I’m using prescribed medical marijuana, Grandpa said.

Your biggest medical problem is you’re stoned all the time.

I’m anxiety-ridden.

Look who‘s talking. Living with you is turning me into a wreck.

So move. I’ll pay for the U-Haul.

You know I can’t afford to move.

Then get offa my cloud.

Listen to Mr. Flower Power, Big Brenda said.

Grandpa bristled.

I’m not just some pothead like your Generation Zero.

What are you other than a leftover 60s guru?

You’re either on the cannabus or off the cannabus, Brenda.

MOM!

WHAT!

Where’s my attention deficit medication?

See, Grandpa said.

See what?

Instant Pharma’s gonna get you. A little medical marijuana might do her the world of good, he said.

Big Brenda turned and walked away cursing to herself as Little Brenda came racing into the kitchen as Grandpa pulled on a black skull cap with a marijuana leaf embroidered on the front.

See what you started, kid?

I wish I could watch cartoons in the morning, Little Brenda said.

How about the Stooges?

Mom says I’m supposed to eat breakfast.

Grandpa put on the smug face he reserved for special occasions.

Breakfast of champions?

Opening the cupboard door he reached to the back and pulled out a cereal box. Raising his index finger to his lips, he shushed his granddaughter. Emptying a pile of toasty, oatsy cannabis flakes into two bowls, he offered one to Little Brenda.

Shut up and eat your Weedies, he said.

Escaping in an ungodly specter of fire and brimstone, the ghost of Hunter Thompson rises from the tomb. The same way the priest in “The Exorcist” (played by my late friend and Scranton native Jason Miller) felt the presence of Beelzebub, I feel the good doctor’s presence and applaud his eternal life because Hunter Thompson died for our sins.

Resurrection illuminates his cosmic conversation from the afterlife. Rebirth lights the way one journalistic comet at a time. Revival brightens the darkness by fueling ferociously aggressive reporting and commentary that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

Hunter Thompson lives through his own words but also in Gonzo Today, the online monthly magazine where his immortal remains mingle with the universe until his energy lands on earth again and again, touching down without brakes on the runway of our minds, only screeching to a stop when we publish fresh tales from the terrible wasteland of America.

https://gonzotoday.com/

Then Thompson’s ghost sours again, rising higher and higher, searching for truth to unleash and inject into the hearts and minds of countless Gonzo adherents who depend upon his spirit to evolve.

I said “we” because I’m now a columnist for Gonzo Today, writing my gnarled and blasphemous impressions of the American Scream. Alive and well in Scranton, PA, President Joe Biden’s birthplace, I patrol the national political landscape on the lookout for state-sponsored land mines, legislative booby-traps and official improvised explosive devices set into place by corrupt elected connivers who call themselves public servants.

Duty-bound and qualified to spread the bruised and raw spirit of Hunter Thompson’s unexpurgated expression, I’ve fought the system for decades through mainstream journalism. Staying one step ahead of the posse, the establishment almost had me a few times but I kept moving, a rebel undeterred by the enemy’s legislative and administrative power. I earned my wings, paid my dues and survived the crash. Not everybody can or wants to rumble, but I do and have the scars to prove it.

That’s why I’m stoked to fight for Gonzo Today, a free-wheeling platform of ideas designed to agitate, create debate and inflame passion. I’ve been disturbing readers with my words since high school when I published the “Hairy Messenger” aboveground newspaper in 1969 and handed out copies on green paper confiscated from the school supply closet to unsuspecting kids as they got off the school bus in the morning.

Fifty years later, two faded copies of that paper helped decorate a table at my high school reunion, a long ago tribute to freedom and defiance when the United States government stole young lives in the Vietnam draft and killed them, criminal degenerate President Nixon was the one, and FBI-inspired reefer madness sent the poor and vulnerable to prison.

But I’m still here, writing, raising hell and sharing cheap street wisdom as a long-haired freak, an outlaw raging and aging in bitter resentment against the robotic societal machine that continues to grind us down, chew us up and spit us out.

The mechanical “sheens” win only if we let them.

Don’t let them succeed.

Question yourself.

Question authority.

Hunter Thompson is risen!

Longshots make the best winners.

If Marlene Sebastianelli emerges after the May 18 special election as the new Pennsylvania state senator for the 22^nd District, voters can finally expect a legitimate champion of the people.

Current state Rep. Marty Flynn is the endorsed Democratic Party nominee for the job loyal Democrat John Blake held for years. Every political prima donna blessed by political bosses needs to get KO’d sooner or later.

Unlike Flynn, Sebastianelli offers voters and taxpayers hands-on independent leadership experience rather than the macho power, prestige and influence Democrats pump into Flynn’s inflated sense of entitlement.

Sebastianelli distances herself so far from establishment political machines she isn’t even a Democrat. Running as a Green Party candidate, she offers voters of all political persuasions a realistic change that translates into real power for all people rather than the usual old boy power for elite politicians and their connected cronies.

As a longtime Democrat, I’m stepping away from my political party to vote for Sebastianelli. I’m not leaving for good although freedom of choice more and more looks like an appealing option. It’s just time to shun another anointed company man party leaders expect Democrats and others to endure.

For eight years Flynn has treated his public service in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives like a bare-knuckle carnival fight. The former prison guard, professional boxer and mixed martial arts bully expects us to support his act.

When it comes to leadership skill, though, Flynn exhibits none.

He just does what he’s told.

Sebastianelli brings a multi-faceted career of professional achievement to her bid for the chance to represent taxpayers rather than the moneyed interests of political masters. A small business owner who earned a Master of Business Administration degree, a breast cancer survivor, mother, wife, accomplished healthcare administrator and tireless community advocate, she exhibits clearer critical thinking ability than Flynn ever exhibited in his shoot-’em-up public service/pugilism career.

Flynn has outlived his usefulness as a public servant.

Marlene Sebastianelli has just begun.