I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
It's not, it never was, and no amount of chatting will change that.
I sat next to Fabio on an airplane once. Yes, that Fabio. Not like there’s any other Fabio, so yes, Fabio, the face, hair, and torso that launched a thousand romance novel covers. However, I think he’s best known as the face, hair, and torso of commercials for the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” brand of whatever that was. Margarine I guess? He only had one predictable line, “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” which he dutifully delivered in his thick Italian accent and hair blowing in an on-set fan, in what seemed like hundreds of thousands of commercials.
It was 2012. I had been in Hartford visiting my dying Father. To add insult to emotional injury, there are no direct flights from Hartford to Los Angeles, so I had to change planes in Raleigh-Durham North Carolina. After landing there, I made my way across the terminal to the gate for my LA flight, and there he was, just sitting off to the side. People kept coming up and taking selfies with him. I creeped off a few shots from a distance on my phone to show Adrienne later, as she’d probably not believe me.
The flight was crowded. Luckily I had a bulkhead seat and priority boarding, so I settled in early. I was on the aisle. A guy came and sat at the window, but the middle seat stayed empty until my fellow unwashed steerage passengers had already strolled by, and one by one, taken a moment to bounce their shoulder bags and backpacks off of my head and roller-board off my knee. I figured Fabio was in 1st or Business class, and thought, maybe the seat next to me would be that golden ticket, plenty of elbow room no-show seat. Just as they closed the plane door, in walked Fabio and plunked down next to me.
Still reeling from the concussion supplied by being smacked in the head by 200 backpacks and my roller-boarded, rapidly swelling knee, I turned to Fabio, and in the least weird way I could muster, gave him a “Hey, how ya doin?”
Well, that’s all the opening he needed. He spoke to me non-stop for the next 6 hours. It should have been 4 hours, but some guy’s kid got sick and we had to land in Phoenix to let them off. We talked about a lot of stuff. Well, he talked about a lot of stuff. I got a question in here and there, and then he was off again.
I learned a lot. He was born in Milan and didn’t get along with his Father, who wanted him to get a job in a factory. He left and started modeling. We’re the same age which left me wondering how much work he’s had done. Isn’t that awful? Assuming someone much better looking than me must have had cosmetic surgery? Turns out, not much, for as the evening wore on he began to look as worn out as I did. Or, at least that’s what I told myself.
He told me he wanted to settle down, and was trying to choose between two girlfriends to marry, and he wanted to move to New Zealand and buy a farm. He owns 200 motorcycles and had recently jumped one into a tree, tearing a bicep muscle clear off of the bone.
When we landed in Phoenix, I called Adrienne to tell her I was going to be late. I told her I was sitting next to Fabio, and she didn’t believe me, so I handed him the phone. Just as he put it to his ear, she started a faux Fabio impersonation saying, “I can’t believe you’re sitting next to Fabio.” She still gives me shit about that one. They settled into a nice chat, and he said that we’d become such fast friends he’d probably be seeing her soon.
He then took out his phone and called a woman, not one of the two girlfriends, who was supposed to meet him for a tryst at his place later on. He canceled, saying by the time he got home he’d be too tired, and he’d call her tomorrow, and he hung up. Then, as God be my witness, he turned to me and asked if I could give him a ride home. Taken a little off balance by this request, I just said, “Sure, I guess so,” hoping it wasn’t somewhere completely out of the way in the Hollywood Hills. Luckily, he lives in Tarzana which was indeed on my way. I mean, where else would the epitome of masculinity live?
We did talk about some substantive stuff. My dying Father, his dead Father, and how difficult Father-Son relationships can be. How he wanted to retire from show business. All the while Passengers were coming up and asking for Selfies. He obliged every single one. I asked him if that ever got bothersome. He said, “No, it makes people happy, and for me, it’s better than working in the mines.”
We talked about how we had both just been in the same movie, Terrance Malik’s “Song By Song,” but, we weren’t on set at the same time. I went to Austin to visit a client, and Malik asked me to be in it. I don’t know why. It was a party scene, he probably just wanted it more populated. Since I never saw it, I have no idea what Fabio did on it, a Cameo I suppose. I got to eat Sushi off of a naked woman with Ryan Gosling and Michael Fassbinder. Well, they ate sushi off a naked woman, I took mine from next to her because I have a germ thing and sushi + naked woman is a bridge too far for me. I had lines, but I heard they got cut. Yeah, that whole thing is another post.
When we landed at LAX, he got his bag from Baggage claim, and we jumped in my car, and I drove him home.
His drive was gated, and the driveway seemed long. It was so dark I couldn’t see the house. I offered to drive him up, but he said no. The last I saw of him, he was dragging his suitcase up the driveway, his hair blowing in the Santa Ana winds that had kicked up. I made the wind part up because it makes a better picture. But, all in all, it was pretty surreal.
I feel bad. He gave me his number and said “Call me. Bring your son by. I have 50 Motorcycles in my garage. He’d like that.” I never called, though I still have his cell number in my phone.
In essence, Fabio seemed like a very nice guy. He just felt a bit lonely. I think he was just looking for a friend. But, I couldn’t do it. Maybe, I’ve seen too many people in Hollywood sucking up to celebrities so they can describe them as their “good friend,” and I didn’t want to be mistaken for that guy, even though he seemed pretty sincere. Maybe, the timing was bad, as I was flying back and forth to be with my Father as he lived out his final days, and I didn’t have bandwidth for a new friend. Maybe, I’m just not open-minded enough with people I don’t know, and I just don’t want to be relied upon for rides home all the time. Maybe, he didn’t want a new friend at all but needed to get some things off his chest. Maybe, it was just all too weird for me.
Just as Margarine is not Butter, butter is butter, and me listening to a stranger with a familiar face on a plane for 6 hours didn’t make us friends or compadres or anything else. It made us two guys who sat next to each other chatting, or rather one person chatting and telling me who he was. But, me being too judgmental about it and my bias not allowing me to really get to know him past my assumptions. Maybe we could have been friends, in that genetically mismatched way Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito were in the movie “Twins?” I doubt it, but I’ll never know for sure.
He was just a nice guy I sat next to on a plane. Sometimes, I fear I’ll run into him at a movie screening, and he’ll yell at me for not calling him. Or maybe he forgot about it by the time he dragged his suitcase up the driveway and through his front door. Maybe, the whole thing was a scam to get a free ride home? I think I’ll go with that one.
Did I get a selfie? Of course, I did. How else could I verify my story?
Great post as always! I particularly liked, "Adrienne told me that I should learn from him tilting his head slightly down, so as not to look like his neck is the size of a thigh." Never doubt your wife.
A grand story. Thanks for sharing Steve!