Tuesday, July 29, 2008

How did you meet Mario?

A couple tidbits:

Our stock is up with Google this morning!

Today Googling Mario Frassetto brings up the blog in the number 3 & 4 spots! Nice!

After typing up a large portion of the social/adult history of Mario and the story behind the Hustler Helmet, it'd be so easy for me to slip and type Googirls instead of Google. That's a true fact let me tell 'ya. "Super's words coming out of my mouth." Hehe! Sadly, that website really does exist. A very longwinded story about the helmet is on it's way this week.

I was hoping anyone willing and able to type something up briefly could just comment on this post. Just a small paragraph: how did you meet Mario? I'll comment after someone else goes...

-JC

6 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
autumn said...

I met Mario on July 6, 2003. I know this because it was my Mom’s birthday. We had just returned home from Italy a couple months before. That night, we were debating between a few different Italian restaurants that we had coupons for. I drove by Marcello’s on my way to work every day and wanted to try it.

We had this handsome, charming waiter. He was charming to all of us, even coming over with a fork and a hopeful look after we’d finished off the birthday cake claiming he wanted a bite. In the car in the parking lot, my Dad commented that “he was flirting with you”. He was referring to another server that kept coming over (not Mario). I said I wasn’t interested in that guy, but that our waiter sure was cute. I didn’t go back into the restaurant to talk to him, and wrote it off as a nice experience – nothing more.

10 days later, I was walking up to the front of my gym for my Sunday Pilates class when a teal blue motorcycle came tearing up the sidewalk. I jumped back as he came to a stop in front of me and flipped open his visor to reveal these amazing, sparkly hazel eyes and said, “I wouldn’t hit you”. I just smiled and went inside to wait for my mom to join me before our class began. I also waited to see if motorcycle guy would come inside. I was curious to see what else was under that helmet! A couple minutes later, he came in, and bee lined for me. He asked me, “So, how was your mom’s birthday?” All I could think was that if this hot, muscular, tattooed guy had anything to do with my Mom or her birthday, she had some serious explaining to do. He flashed me that smile and laughed and chided me for not remembering him. I replied that he looked a lot more conservative the last time I saw him. We seemed to agree that this was a better look and I headed off to my class. As we were leaving the gym, he asked where we were headed. I said, “shopping”. As he would do another thousand times, Mario gave me his sizes, “32x32, medium….”. I left the gym with Mario still walking on the treadmill (at a steep incline - haha!) and wrote it off as a fun coincidence that I’d run into Mario a second time.

One Friday night a couple weeks later, I was at the bar with some friends when this guy comes sliding up into my personal space and asks, “Do you work out?” The perpetrator was not Mario, but his friend Craig. I about fell over laughing at him for having the worst line in the history of humanity, when from behind him, out pops Mario saying, “That’s NOT what I told him to say, I swear!” He’d sent over the somewhat familiar looking guy to ask me where I work out. Mario was pretty sure that he recognized me but wanted to be sure it was me before he approached me. (Looking back, the other times he’d seen me, I wasn’t exactly dressed to impress – at the gym I’d literally just rolled out of bed – this time I was….)

That night we exchanged phone numbers before the guy I was actually dating at the time arrived. He called me later that night and we covertly decided to go out 2 days later. I went because I decided that running into the same person 3 times in a town this size meant that I had to give it a shot. I went because of that smile and the sparkle in his eyes. Destiny was tempting me and I’d go on ONE date with him.

Anonymous said...

It was probably about 12 years ago when Mario started at the magazine. I knew we were going to get along when we were both working a race at PIR. As we were all finishing the setup of the American Roadracing booth, I noticed that the beer cart was open. No one else was interested in joining me (apparently it's "inappropriate" to drink at 10 a.m.) but I hate to drink alone, so I asked the new guy: "Mario? You in?" The faintest uncertaintly flashed in his eyes ("It this a trick? Should I say no? Is it a career limiting move?"), but he quickly answered: "Yeah, sure."

As time went on, I would drink a lot of beers with Mario. We would go to happy hours after work. He would join me and my husband at the bar on the weekends, usually ending up at our house to continue drinking and playing darts and loud music. He crashed in our guest room so often that we used to refer to it as Mario's room. He was like the little brother I never had.

Over the years we spent less and less time together, but I could still always count on him to show up if I was organizing a happy hour. It would be me and a bunch of people who loosely knew each other from Motorola and Avnet... and Mario. He would breeze in, not knowing anyone, and would own the room by the end of the night. He was always "Steph's friend Mario," but if there was a happy hour and Mario wasn't there, I had to answer for it: "Where's Mario? He's coming, right? You invited him?" He always showed though, and was the center of attention. The guys loved his stories, the women loved how he made their hearts go pitty-pat. He had such an easy way with people, it was impossible not to like him.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

I want to hear more about Autumn's date.

: )

autumn said...

Haha - I'm sure there are lots of those "I went on a date with Mario" stories floating around.
I'm sure I'll share that story eventually....