Fabio: My Bionic Supercousin

Folks, I've been keeping a secret from you. My Roman cousin, Fabio, is a superhero not unlike Spiderman. If you think I'm kidding, at the end of this post I will provide you with audio-visual proof.

If you've been following my adopted Roman family tree, Fabio is Dario's brother. You'll remember Dario, the aspiring actor who had his 15 minutes of fame on the movie set? Needless to say, I am marrying into an extraordinary famiglia.

Have any of you ever heard of parkour? The Wikipedia article defines it like this:

Parkour is a physical discipline inspired by human movement, focusing on uninterrupted, efficient forward motion over, under, around and through obstacles (both man-made and natural) in one's environment. Such movement may come in the form of running, jumping, climbing and other more complex techniques. The goal of parkour is to adapt one's movement to any given obstacle.

I didn't know this existed as a sport until Fabio started doing it. I guess holding the title of world champion in Kung Fu sword fighting wasn't enough. (I think he held this title more than once, actually). So, quite the phenomenon, my little cugino.

Fabio just got back from NYC where he did a parkour exhibition and also shot a special for MTV. I think he might even appear in an Adidas commercial, or there was talk of a sponsorship deal. Parkour originated in France and apparently hasn't really taken off yet in the States, so it was good timing for his trip. I was told that the New Yorkers, generally known for their fearlessness in underground and extreme urban subcultures, told Fabio he was the craziest of them all. This was to be taken as quite the compliment! Bravo cuginetto!!

So, without further ado, I invite you to watch these videos, and judge for yourself whether or not Spiderman has come to life on the outskirts of Rome.