{"id":3050,"date":"2017-02-01T00:02:26","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T05:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bandsiusetalike.com\/biul\/?p=3050"},"modified":"2018-09-05T22:07:41","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T02:07:41","slug":"hateproof-youre-the-best-around","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bandsiusetalike.com\/biul\/hateproof-youre-the-best-around\/","title":{"rendered":"Hate Proof: “You’re The Best (Around)”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Believe it or not, I have never seen\u00a0The Karate Kid.<\/em><\/p>\n

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HI-KEEBA!<\/p><\/div>\n

I know, right? Hasn’t\u00a0everybody<\/em> seen it? Well, sure, except for guys like me, who were totally and prematurely embittered towards the entire experience. Guys who were in sixth grade\u00a0when\u00a0The Karate Kid<\/em> came out.<\/p>\n

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If you were a guy my age in the 1980s, and you had an Italian last name, and people liked you, I\u00a0hated your guts.\u00a0<\/em>You can only understand this hatred if you have\u00a0Italian blood<\/em>, like I do. You\u00a0automatically<\/em> scrap with the blond kids at school; it\u00a0just happens.\u00a0<\/em>You rub elbows with other “Italian-American” kids with varying degrees of attitude about it. You’re just fighty in your bones, for some fucked-up reason.<\/p>\n

So seeing classmates idolize this Ralph Macchio guy*, who did martial arts like the total assholes I encountered, only made me want to kill him. Of course there was a blond kid, as the villain. And Pat Morita was Mr. Miyagi, at a time when that role was basically a ubiquitous stock TV character. Kids at my school would quote him, aloud, saying something like “whacks on, whacks off.” I wanted no part of any of this.<\/p>\n

That’s how I had no idea Joe Esposito’s “You’re The Best” was related in any way to\u00a0The Karate Kid.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

(*There was an editor at Marvel Comics named Ralph Macchio. As children, we had no way of knowing it wasn’t the same guy, and this\u00a0only made the hatred worse.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

I mentioned in a previous article<\/a> that I have to battle extreme anti-motivation every morning. I do this in a number of different ways. Most often, I call up the opening of the Stanley Kubrick masterpiece\u00a0Full Metal Jacket<\/em> on YouTube, while I’m having coffee, and put on my headphones. It absolutely never fails<\/em> to get me running.<\/p>\n