Fucking Day: Fabio - A Time for Romance (Patreon)

As I’ve established in previous articles, I’m fascinated by the mind and world experience of romance cover model Fabio. I want to understand Fabio, but at the same time, I’m certain Fabio can never be understood. Still, I’ll continue on this quest like Lancelot, but my Holy Grail is the mind of an old Italian Republican who owns over two hundred motorcycles and keeps them all Tetris'ed on top of each other in four tiny garages.

Today’s journey into the mind of Fabio is a forty-minute VHS tape he produced and starred in called Fabio: A Time For Romance. You can tell this is '90s Fabio’s work because by 1992, Fabio wasn’t doing anything unless Fabio’s name was on the cover. It’s comprised of a series of romantic sketches, sort of like someone said, “What if we took SNL and made it HORNY.” Except, of course, since Fabio is involved, its sense of what makes women horny and also how the world works in general is... wrong.

A Time For Romance helped me get more into the Fabio mindset then I ever have been before. I’m one set of well-defined pecs away from going full Fabio. Here are some things I learned about Fabio’s mind from this low budget VHS.

The setup of A Time For Romance is that a romance novelist is trying to outline her next book and as she imagines different possibilities we see them acted out by the horny skit time players. It begins with her waking up in the middle of the night next to a shadowy form in the bed that you assume is her husband, or as Fabio would say, “special friend,” and going to her office to write.

She looks at her coffee table and organically finds a bunch of 8 x 10 pictures of Fabio. “Maybe, I should use him as the hero of my next book,” she says, suddenly struck by inspiration.

I think Fabio imagines that every woman on earth has ten to twelve pictures of Fabio laying around at all times. We buy these, and scatter them across our home like autumn leaves in case we need to get horned up in a pinch, and thank God this woman did! What would she have done without her many Fabio stills to inspire her? What if her eyes fell on other random trash in her pile of living room debris?

In the first story Fabio is a Viking, except his Viking ship is a rowboat, being pushed along by one other guy because Fabio doesn’t row, but Fabio also doesn’t have a budget for more than one guy. Fabio comes upon a long-haired young man I’m going to call teen Fabio in a field practicing his sword work. It’s clear that teen Fabio was cast because Fabio can’t relate to anyone who doesn’t look like him, and he can’t act, so in order to make him sympathetic toward this character they put out a casting call that said, “Seeking male 14-19, long blonde hair, must be willing to talk to Fabio. Yes it will probably be about motorcycles or Fabio. No, we can’t get him to talk about anything else. Consumed by wanton desire pref.”

So Fabio walks up to teen Fabio and delivers his first line of the movie, “THAT is a big sword...for such a small boy,” which I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a joke? He delivers it with a kind of cocky confidence, but then immediately walks in front of the camera for a full on ass shot, as if to remind us he knows what we’re here for and it’s not his sense of humor.

After starting this sexy skit with a clear dick metaphor, Fabio then proceeds to shove his sword in everyone’s face, including teen Fabio’s many, many times. It even ends with him deciding he’s going to marry teen Fabio’s sister who intervened on his behalf in their duel. And if you're not consumed with romance yet, as he’s telling her he’s going to marry her, he sticks his sword right between her tits.

In the second story, Fabio is a pirate seducing a woman whose ship he has destroyed. It’s horrific for a lot of reasons. The woman doesn’t like Fabio and keeps trying to leave and he keeps telling her in a jaunty way that she can totally leave but without his protection she’ll probably be raped by his entire pirate crew. You know, typical romantic stuff.

Of course, the unnamed woman eventually comes around on Fabio. You might think it would take some masterful writing to get a woman from hating Fabio to loving him but A Time For Romance accomplishes it with a  two minute and fifty five second long chess montage. Yes, it’s literally that long, I checked the time codes, and let me tell you it feels like twice that. They’re smiling, biting their lips, and moving chess pieces as a string quartet plays underneath them and you’re like ok, they like each other now, I get it. Put it in her, Fabio. Then it’s more hands on chess pieces, a close up of a flickering candle, another lip bite, and you’re like jesus christ at least kiss already, but then they do and it’s a kiss that makes you long for more chess.

Everything I want to compare it to is monstrous. He frenchs like a Dementor trying to suck out Harry Potter’s soul. How does it seem like they’re both trying to get away from each other but they’re still Frenching their absolute asses off? It fades out and you think it’s going to end but then it fades back into them lapping up mouth before finally fading out again. Why not keep it all one shot? I feel like the director wanted to stop but Fabio was like, “What! We only suck for eighteen seconds? That is a mere seven percent of the time we play chess, no? More Frenching! Let the viewers watch Fabio and play long with their many photos of Fabio!”

I think he’s aware of and intrigued by the concept of The Twilight Zone which he’s had explained to him by someone, maybe an assistant, or an antique ponytail salesman, but he’s never actually seen it. So, when it came time to add a little twist at the end of his movie he tried his Fabioest.

We cut back to the author who says, “I’d love to write something contemporary with a real twist at the end. A lot of people are intrigued by the supernatural nowadays. I do have a secret fantasy I wouldn’t mind acting out.” We then cut to the final sketch which stars the woman playing the author as a simple school teacher who’s fallen in love with Count Fabio but she doesn’t think she’s hot enough for him. (Everything about it makes me think Fabio wrote this one, especially how the problem is the woman is not beautiful enough for him).

Then, in a surprise twist, the author wakes up from her dream and finds Count Fabio in her room. He says the writer saw him in a movie when she was fourteen and she’s been dreaming of him ever since. Fabio, being the humble man he is, suggests the dream maker has brought him to life as a gift for her. Double twist, the writer wakes up from the dream again and Count Fabio is gone, but, triple twist, she goes back to bed and the guy from the beginning turns out to be her husband who is also played by Fabio! Do you see? The twist is always Fabio. All intrigue leads to Fabio. All mystery, solved with Fabio.

I know what you’re thinking. That twist could explain why the writer had so many unframed Fabio headshots laying around. I always keep six to eight photos of my shirtless husband in different exotic poses on the coffee table in my office to make other writers jealous, but in the beginning it really seemed like she’d never seen him before, not like she was basing all of her "heroes" on her beloved husband. I think we’re seeing the ending through the writer’s eyes once again, and it’s supposed to mean that she’s fantasizing her husband is Fabio.

A Time For Romance is a fascinating piece of my scavenger hunt into the mind of Fabio. I feel like I’m four steps and at maybe fifty motorcycles closer to truly understanding him. Fabio is leading me somewhere, and I can only hope it's not a trap.

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