My Favorite Swedish Gang and a Johnny Lawrence Tribute

Your pal Gretzpo, after awaking from his slumber this morning, made his way down to the parking garage to begin his daily commute.

However, his driver side front window was smashed in, and his GPS stolen. The ruffians who stole my GPS though will not need directions for where they're going: because they're all going straight to hell.

I can only assume that it was a group of punks who stole from me and vandalized my car: what if I had caught the perp in the act? Surely he'd need backup in order to take care of me. Or some kind of weapon. Or some form of martial arts training. Or the ability to throw a punch. But I digress...

Because of my ordeal today we will be saluting the greatest gang leader of all time: Johnny Lawrence. If I have to provide any sort of backdrop for who that is, you're definitely on the wrong site.

With every additional viewing of the Karate Kid I start to secretly root for Johnny Lawrence more and more and Daniel LaRusso less and none.

Let's start with one of the opening scenes at the beach: school's about to start, Johnny is ready to re-invent himself in order to win back the affections of Ali, and she's already being playful with some punk from New Jersey. He rides down on his motorbike, and says that he "wants to talk" to Ali. And in order to hear her, he tries to turn down the volume on her 1980's freakishly oversized boombox. Ali and Daniel both flip out, Johnny tries to hand the boombox to Daniel, and because he's so weak he falls over.

Daniel then takes a wild running swing at Johnny, which he easily evades, and does some leg sweeps before finally finishing him off with a roundhouse kick to the stomach. He then asks Daniel if he's "had enough", clearly believing the fight has reached its conclusion. Daniel then proceeds to throw the biggest sucker punch of all time. "Now we're even!" Johnny sets him down one more time, even though Daniel's actions warranted a much more gruesome beating. The whole fight can be seen here.

And that's just the beginning: later Daniel is riding his bike down the street and is approached from behind by Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai on motor bikes. Instead of moving to the right like slower traffic should, he tries to speed up to avoid them. So the Cobra Kai do what I want to do to every cyclist who gets in my way: run him off the road. Then he goes and gets pissed off at his mother. Nah... "A GOOD SCHOOL!".

Here's another note: every time the Cobra Kai are involved in a scene the music turns dark and evil. Music can be such a strong device: this is why I try and avoid hitting on women to songs like "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads. Yeah... I'm going through a real David Byrne phase. You see that canary-coloured polo and tight khakis? That's been me for the past 3 months. And do you see the creepy way he leers at his bassist at the beginning of the song? That's actually still a staple in my "game" with the ladies.

Back to Lawrence and Russo. There's a respite in the deserved beatings Daniel receives, but Daniel breaks the unofficial armistice by hosing down Johnny when he was rolling a joint - kind of like Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between the Nazis and Soviets in 1941. Am I saying that Daniel LaRusso is Hitler? No ... I'm just saying they both broke Non-Aggression Pacts.

Where else are you going to get 1980 movies paralleled with World War II references? Our readership should be in the millions...

So after Miyagi agrees to train Daniel we don't see Lawrence for a while: unti he's kicking ass in the tournament. Because of injury, it appears as though Lawrence will win the tournament by default: but then they stop the trophy presentation when Daniel says he's going to fight after Mr. Miyagi molests him with his warm hand technique.

I know athletes are supposed to be tough: but what amount of damage do you think this did to Lawrence's confidence before the fight? Can you imagine being awarded the Stanley Cup and then having to play a 5th Overtime after it was found that the game winning goal was high sticked in? I think the All Valley Karate tournament was conspiring against him.

So here's to you, Johnny Lawrence. YouTube has paid you the homage you deserve.