Fabio Lanzoni interview
If the name doesn't ring a bell, just think of the first name and picture the cover of a romance novel. Yes, that Fabio. Turns out he sounds like a fun person to have a beer with. His views on the Middle East are spot on (at least I agree with them).
The interview is in
Reason Online:
Fabio Rides Again
The Italian mega-hunk who lent his physique to more than 2,000 romance novels has a new hobby, an energy drink, and a few important things to get off his impressively chiseled chest.
It has been about 10 years since Fabio Lanzoni, now 48, posed for the cover of a romance novel. His hair is still long and flowing; his pecs still resemble a pair of perfectly bronzed cinder blocks. But he's older now, a bit wrinkled�no longer the caricature we knew, or thought we knew. It seems the man who was, arguably, the greatest sex symbol since the V-2 rocket is ready for his second act�not just as an empty vessel for the fantasies of flyover state housewives or a tireless pitchman for everything from Miller Lite, Cheerios, and the Gillette Oral-B Sensitive Toothbrush to Versace's fragrance Mediterraneum, but also as a producer of content in his own right.
His thoughts on Israel, energy independence and the Middle East in general:
"The Israeli people have been the sacrificial lamb of history," Fabio declares. It's mid-August, and the bombs are dropping in Lebanon as we stand in the kitchen of his sprawling Spanish-style mansion in Los Angeles (his publicist asked that we keep the neighborhood a secret to deter stalkers). The so-called Harlequin heartthrob, a diehard news junkie, has had a lot on his mind lately, particularly when it comes to Middle East policy and the Iraq war.
"It's about fucking time," he says, as Fox News reports on Israel's attempt to push Hezbollah out of Southern Lebanon. "[The Jews] have been getting killed for 5,000 years. Enough is enough. The rest of the world does not give a shit, except America, because the Israelis have no oil. Everyone sticks with those Arabs�because they have the oil."
Oil is a big issue for Fabio. Despite being an avid dirt-bike aficionado, he'd like to see America wean itself off fossil fuels. "We should fucking get alternative energy and tell all the Arabs and the rest of the world to stick it up their ass," he says. "Fuck them and the oil!"
And the Iraqi war, war in general and the Islamist mindset:
"I'll tell you my policy," he says confidently. "Invading Iraq was a total fuck-up because you have Muslims�Shi'ite, Sunni, and Kurds�who hate and would like to kill each other to the end of time. Listen, it took a bastard like Saddam Hussein, because he was a fanatic, killing hundreds of thousands, to keep those people quiet. We get there and are like, 'Oh!' Now what you've got is a civil war and we're stuck in the middle. It's like when you step on a nest of rattlesnakes. What are you gonna do? Of course, if we have to go to war with Iran, we are right there. That's the only good side."
He's also critical of how the war has been waged. "We went in too fast," he says. "To me, shock and awe should not be a light touch. Where's the shock, you know?" The model, who served the once-mandatory 18 months in the Italian military after high school, nods a lot when he speaks. He's so damn friendly, even when calling for mass carnage, that I find myself nodding along with him.
"Bomb them for a few years," he suggests, "And when they start coming out with the white flag ... bomb them a little bit more. Then you go in with our soldiers."
"Let me give you an example in life," he says, by which he means a example in fantasy. Fabio is big on outrageous hypotheticals. "You can't go into the ring with Mike Tyson and say, 'You know, Mike, you can't punch me in the face because I have a pretty face, okay? And of course you can't punch me under the belt, and not too hard.' He wants to rip you apart! He wants to bite your ear off, he wants to kill you. You see, it's war. This is what people don't understand."
"Think about it," he goes on. "On one hand, they show Abu Ghraib and Americans are like, 'What's the world coming to?' On the other hand, they chop off your head on TV. And you know, they're watching us and laughing. Because to them we are pussies. It's like they look at us and they're like, 'Oh, look at those wimpy little pussies.'"
There is a brain behind that face. A fun read.
Posted by DaveH at November 30, 2007 8:44 PM