SCOTT BAIO

Shutters on the Beach

Santa Monica, CA

February 16, 2001

Photo credit: Scott Baio

It was an unusually chilly night in Santa Monica. I was sitting near the fireplace in a big, cushy chair in the hotel lobby of Shutters on the Beach. I was telling a friend of a friend about My Celebrity Photo Album when he interrupted me and said, “So are you going to get Scott Baio?” I said, “Sure, I’ll get Scott Baio.” “Great! I want to watch this,” he said. “Is he here?” I asked. “Yeah, he just walked by.” Butterflies started flapping around in my stomach as they often do when I’m surprised with a new celebrity run-in. Then Scott Baio walked past us again, but this time in the opposite direction towards the door. Nervous that he might be on his way out, I grabbed my camera and headed over.

I caught up as he was settling into another comfy seating area with a couple of female friends. It’s possible that I approached them rather abruptly because the group instantly tagged me as an excited fan and they were altogether guarded.

One of his friends protectively asked, “Can we help you?” I was standing behind Scott but he kept his back to me and let us talk over his head. I said, “I just need to ask him something.” “What do you need?” she pressed. I started to vaguely explain what I wanted hoping to pacify her and get his attention. Then, with an attitude, Scott finally turned around.

I smiled and asked, “Could you do me a favor?” “You want me to do you a favor?” he asked, putting himself on a pedestal. “Yeah,” I said confidently. “I have this Celebrity Photo Album.” He snarled. “It’s just a bunch of pictures of me taken by celebrities.” One girl chirped, “Don’t you know he's a celebrity?” (Yeah, hello, that’s why I’m here.) I studied her face while a variety of answers ran through my brain, but I bit my tongue and turned my attention back to Scott. “Will you take my picture?” I asked.

As often happens, he seemed relieved that I didn’t want anything from him and quickly warmed up. “Oh, okay.” He kindly took my camera and suddenly became curious.

“Who else has done it?” he asked as he stood up. I tried to recall some names as I circled around to stand in front of him. “Um, let’s see, Muhammad Ali, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson…” I paused, “Sylvester Stallone said no.” “He said no?! What an asshole!” he blurted. And from that point on, we were friends.

He considered all the ways to express his creativity. I said, “The picture can be of anything, I just have to be in it.” ”Don’t get me started,” he said, “I could get myself into a lot of trouble with too many options.” I smiled. He backed up and thought for a second, “How about a profile? Has anyone ever done that?” I said, “Hey, no!! That’s good. Ok, what should I do?” He said, “It’ll be like a mug shot, don’t smile.” I looked pensively at the decor over the hotel check-in counter. The chatty girl said, “Yeah, don’t smile.” (Oh sure, now she’s interested.)

Once they saw that he had to take the picture, the group of girls understood the twist and gave me some credit.

He snapped a photo and handed my camera back. Then he asked my name and where am I from. When I said I am from San Luis Obispo, he perked up. “I’ve been to San Lou-ee.” He said. “I bought a dog there. A German Shepherd.” I asked where he was from. He said, “Brooklyn, originally.” I didn’t have anything to say about Brooklyn so there wasn't much more to bond over. I got my camera, thanked him for the photo, and walked back to my comfy circle of friends; happy to report that with a little conversation tonight's cold front was lifted from this chilly hotel lobby.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about a coffee table my friend had when we were in college. Supposedly it once belonged to Scott Baio, or maybe to his sister, but my friend called it Chachi’s table. I don’t notice myself talking about my own furniture much, but somehow Chachi’s table used to come up in conversation quite a bit. Seemed like a tidbit he might be able to verify but since I couldn’t think of any way to identify the table other than calling it wooden, and rectangular, I kept that nugget to myself.

Days later my friends and I began scouring boxes of old photos to see if Chachi’s table would show up, and voila! Here it is. So, Scott—does this table look familiar?