apropos of nothing

Except that I love the Olympics which start tonight and this water polo team picture has someone I love in it and it’s basically cracking me up and water polo is an Olympic sport so it all fits together in the bouillabaisse that is my brain.

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My brother is a kick-ass water polo player and coach. He is also The Banshee’s (and Banshee Jr.’s) dad. This is his men’s water polo team — only in existence for a few years, but in the championship last year. He also coaches ladies’ water polo and men’s and ladies’ swim. That’s Thee Studlye One himself — on the far right, top row. With his hair all slicked back so that it looks kinda alien to me, but still, he is quite the hunkorama. (He does not normally have Mitt Romney hair, I swear.) Also, towel dudes, he may be over twice your age, but he can whoop your asses in that pool. Beware! Be scared! Like me!

Also, uhm, yo water polo dudes. It’s picture day, so be sure to be soaking wet, ‘kay? If we’re dry, we look like wusses. We must menace with our spiky hair and smooth chests and brightly colored towels! Grrrrr!

This just cracks me up — the practice of men’s swim and water polo teams always posing for their pictures soaking wet, as if they just practiced or played a game. High school football players don’t pose for team photos all bruised and dirty and grass-stained, do they? Baseball teams don’t do that, right? So why water polo and swim? Is it because being wet gives them an excuse to wear towels which cover up the skimpy Speedos which make everyone uncomfortable? Something to ask Le Brother. Er, somehow. How would one phrase that, I wonder??

A final “also”: Top row, first and seventh kids from the left. Identical twin brothers. Former drama students of mine — uhm, at the same time. Still don’t know which one is which. Not sure if my brother does either.

Oh, wait. Another “also”: Bottom row, the stick-figure kid with the giant mop of hair and the Pearl drops smile (second from left) is killing me. Big time.

5 Replies to “apropos of nothing”

  1. Glad to know I’m not the only one who loves watching the Olympics. I love it and couldn’t help blogging about it. I’m sure it makes it even cooler when you have personal connection. Love the picture and I swear I can smell the clorine…………

  2. Ask him, because now I have to know.

    We had identical twin brothers in the chorus of ‘Cabaret’, who played Bobby and Victor. One’s ass was three inches bigger than the other’s and one had a tatoo on his upper arm (not useful under body make-up), but those were the only ways to tell them apart. They were great.

    Your brother is just…wow.

  3. I watched the openings last night. It was pretty amazing.

    Tiny, skinny kid on the front row is a riot! The other guy that cracks me up is the third from the right in the front row. He’s just way too serious.

  4. The opening ceremony WAS impressive — in a sometimes-ominous and goose-stepping kind of way. It was epic spectacle — to be sure — but I found it almost cold at times. I didn’t get a welcoming sense, which sounds ridiculous, I suppose. I don’t know why I need my Olympics to feel warm and cuddly, but I guess I kinda do. I want to feel like the world IS coming together, however briefly. I want to feel like we’re being welcomed into these games the whole world is watching. I would say what the Chinese did WAS some of the most amazing stuff I’ve ever seen in an opening ceremony. I would also say that — to me — it didn’t draw me in, warm me up; it held me at arm’s length, with my mouth hanging in a bit of fearful awe.

  5. Le Brother is not an “evil water polo” person like on “The O.C.”–my only source of water polo info–I am sure.

    I think I felt similarly about the opening ceremonies. They were creative but had an assembly-line feel. . . and I was never so confused about the order of the countries before than I was last night. On at least three different occasions I thought I’d missed the U.S. walking in, but I hadn’t!

    And I am totally going to invent something to attach to the TV that will screen out the negative commentary, especially on the gymnastics.

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