Lyin' Ryan

Now that I'm back - and, given the possibility of Tropical Storm Hermine affecting New Jersey this Labor Day weekend, I might not be back for long but hopefully won't be away for even longer -  I have to tend to unfinished business.  And no one is done with the spectacularly dumb Ryan Lochte just yet.

The Olympic swimmer has suffered some well-deserved fallout for getting drunk and vandalizing a gasoline station in Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics and trying to cover it up by lying about it and saying he was robbed.  Four companies Lochte has had endorsement deals with have dropped him, and United States Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun, who is eager to have his organization join the Olympic movement in spirit as well as in name, is having a thorough investigation conducted, with the promise of disciplinary action.  I've heard it said that Lochte acted like he could get away with characterizing Brazil as a lawless place (a so-called lawless place that just convicted and removed its president from office, because no one is above the law in Brazil),  because of a sense of white male privilege, but it's clear that Lochte's privilege, if he ever had any, has just been revoked.

So why is he appearing on ABC's celebrity contest show "Dancing With the Stars?"

That's the latest about Lochte.  And I'm dead serious.  Before you write this off as just an appearance on a cheesy reality show, bear in mind that "Dancing With the Stars," with its emphasis on glamour, class, and sophistication - you need all of those if you're going to dance - is the favorite reality show of everyone who hates reality shows.  It's the Cadillac of the genre.  Ryan Lochte obviously doesn't deserve to be on a show like this.  He belongs on a celebrity reality show in which he gets locked up with bikers, professional circus clowns, or, better yet, other celebrities . . . preferably those with lesser reputations than his own.

No matter.  Although he's vowed to work his way back to competitive swimming, and even though he hopes to make it to the 2020 Tokyo Games - when he's 35 - the odds are against him.  So far,  Lochte has found no supporters for his redemption . . . save one.  Olympic swimming champion and TV swimming commentator Rowdy Gaines has come to his defense, explaining that Lochte is "really good guy," and added that while what Lochte did was "amazingly stupid," he hopes that America is a "where something like this can be forgiven . . ..  A lot of people have done a lot worse. It doesn't make it right, it just makes it forgivable."

Well, if we're going to forgive Ryan Lochte, let's start forgiving athletes of color for similar behavior, otherwise we don't forgive Lochte.  And football player Colin Kaepernick, who refused to stand for the national anthem?  He has nothing to apologize for.

Lochte Mess

Ryan Lochte apologized for his statements about the non-robbery - actually an altercation over vandalism that he and other swimmers caused at a gas station - that took place Sunday, but he never admitted to lying, which only seemed to leave him in a deeper hole. It's also an embarrassment for us Americans, as we are trying to put the "ugly American tourist" stereotype behind us.

This is worse than the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, where members of the U.S. men's hockey team - a team entirely staffed with professionals - trashed their rooms at the Olympic village after losing a key game in the Olympic tournament and ending up in sixth place, because the hockey team never attempted to blame anyone else for their behavior (though they downplayed the damage they did), and the United States Olympic Committee was more swift and effective in handling the situation than it could have been with Lochte, given the initially murky circumstances in his case. 

(Aside:  The 1998 Winter Olympics were the first winter Olympiad to feature women's ice hockey; the U.S. won the gold medal that event.  Before 1998 it was believed that men play ice hockey and women don't; as it turned out then, in the U.S., at least, the opposite was true.) 

All right, let's move on.  There are still some surprises left in track and field in Rio, and as I write this, the U.S. and Italy  are in an intense men's volleyball semifinal match.  These Games are going to end with a bang.        

Swimmers Behaving Badly

Okay, let me see if I have this fast-changing story straight . . .

Ryan Lochte and three other swimmers - Jimmy Feigen, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz - were riding in a taxi and were allegedly robbed at gunpoint by thieves pretending to be police officers, forcing them out of the car and demanding their wallets.  Lochte said he dared one of them to use his gun and then got down on the ground.

Then Lochte changed details in his story while his teammates said that he never pulled a Dirty Harry-type moment, and he doubled down on his insistence that they were robbed . . . when in fact they were stopping at a service station after having gotten drunk and vandalized a bathroom.  The fake police officer was actually a real security officer who gave them a hard time because they were . . . giving him a hard time. 

Then ol' Ryan bailed on his teammates and went home, leaving Feigen, Conger and Bentz to take the rap and tell authorities . . . the truth. Which was caught on a security camera.

I think the dye in Lochte's hair seeped into his brain.

Lochte's behavior - inexcusable for a man of his age and position - is going to go down as one of the most brazen display of immaturity by an American swimmer that I can remember.

Which brings me back to the subject of Janet Evans.  I sort of remember, twenty years ago in Atlanta, that Evans was dismissed for her immaturity.  She was ridiculed for what she did after she was eliminated from the final in the 400-meter freestyle by a fraction of a second.  She . . . cried.

What?  You mean an athlete on the verge of becoming the first American woman to win a fifth individual Olympic gold medal in swimming got unexpectedly eliminated from the final of the only one of two races she was competing in at Atlanta in which she was a favorite - and she actually got upset because she was eliminated by a microscopic margin?  After all the training she went through to make history, she was, upon failing to do so, actually . . .  tearful?  Oh, I'm shocked! 

And when that bomb in Centennial Olympic Park went off before her eyes, she was reportedly criticized for her reaction.  She . . . cursed.  No kidding!  Like, what was she supposed to do, say something like, "It is terribly unfortunate that a bomb went off and could have killed me if it had been any closer?" 

Evans wasn't being immature, she was being human.  Michael Phelps, incidentally, may have been immature when  he drank and did drugs, but he showed his humanity when he came clean and got clean.  Lochte was not only being immature, he was being . . . dumb.     

Give Me Silver, Blue and Gold . . .

. . . the colors of the sky, I'm told.  And, the colors that comprise the color of Ryan Lochte's hair!

I think the only time I've seen that color before was when I bought a pack of winter-ice chewing gum.

Even my ladyfriend who likes to check out Ryan Lochte is appalled.  But at least he's not wearing that grill brace over his teeth! 

You know, I could point out that the most radical thing Janet Evans ever did to her hair was let it grow, and that she had a short cut in her early twenties but now sports longer locks, and that she looks good with either short or long hair, and that she's never looked ridiculous . . . like this, but I won't.  Oh - did I just do that? ;-) :-D