OK, I know you'll just scoff because you see the word Italy in this blog, but last night as I was watching the first installment of "Mal'Aria," a two-part Italian TV movie based on the novel by my long-distance friend Eraldo Baldini, I saw Milwaukee's Mike Schank in a commercial!

The ad is for Golia, a brand of Italian mints and candies made by Perfetti Van Melle, and in it, Schank -- who you remember from "American Movie," of course -- is standing on the lawn in front of a house (there's an AMC Pacer behind him in the driveway), dressed in a tie-dyed shirt that is short enough to show his midridff.

"Marco," as he's called in the commercial, eats a candy, smiles wide and then, at the end of the ad, we see him jiggling said mid-section.

"I just saw the ad myself for the first time on You Tube," Mike told me by e-mail last night. "It was fun, we shot it in L.A. last summer. They called me out of the blue. I was in an NFL commercial a ways back. My best TV appearances include the ch. G4 Halloween shoot and the "Greg the Bunny Show," among others.

"Not long after the Golia ad I went with my wife to Italy on our way to Albania."

The spot was directed by Norway's Henrik Sundgren and you can see it here...