Never got the fascination with the guy.
Yeah, obviously, he had talent, good looks and the unyielding support that only fans of an elitist, non-major sport can supply with such nose-held-high-in-the-air disdain.
But he was a bore. A spoiled kid with the personality of a statue decked out in a Hawaiian shirt and several loads shy on the required amount of brain cells to be labeled “intelligent.”
Seriously, from the moment Ryan Lochte wafted into the periphery of my consciousness a decade ago, thanks to my arrival in his hometown of Port Orange, Fla., and the hero-worshipping done on his behalf there, one word just kept coming to mind: Mimbo.
Yeah, that’s right. Mimbo, a male bimbo. Coined in “Seinfeld,” it was the perfect description of puffed-up nothingness in a man and perfectly depicted by MTV refugee Dan Cortese.
The object of gals, and guys, swooning, he was a classic example of the superficial dwarfing substantial. A talking head with zilch worthwhile coming out of his mouth. But did you see that smile, or those eyes, or that outfit he was wearing …?
If Lochte displayed himself as anything aside from a swimming savant, it was as a mimbo – just not as cool as Cortese’s version of him.
Not for nothing, but why anyone adored Lochte, or discussed him, outside of what happened in the pool is a mystery to me. Perhaps they all didn’t want to follow the crowd after Michael Phelps. Or they found mind-numbing commentary or actions to be fascinating stuff.
Don’t really care.
His “look at me” act was tired the moment it was unfurled in all its grill-covered, Olympic glory, devolving from gold to American flag shade and then, finally, this year’s coup de grace, a silver-haired tribute apparently to Tom Cruise’s assassin role in the 2004 thriller “Collateral.”
Ugh. Color me not impressed.
Oh, his medal tally is. No doubt. Anyone ripping his ability is way off base. An argument could be made that his biggest flaw in that regard was coming around the same time as Phelps.
But him, what he says, what he does, what he wears … uh, no.
Funny thing is, seems the same people who built him up, who made the abysmal “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” possible, if only for an egregious five-week run on cable TV in 2013, are the ones most upset about his latest testimony to attention whores everywhere – act like an idiot, come up with some lame story to cover it up even though no one was going to report it, cling to the lie for days, disgrace, offer the pointless, full-accountability apology and then, gulp, lose a sponsorship.
Enough already. Let it go. Let him go.
The rest of us could use a break from the stupidity, and the calling attention to it – once and for all.