Lisa and Jakob Kantor: Bumping the odds
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I met my husband, but I do remember exactly where: Carlos and Pepe’s, the hottest scene in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at that time. I was much younger and trying to drink a margarita. I say, “trying” because the night before I lacerated my elbow on a margarita glass. Now wrapped in a huge bandage, I couldn’t bend my elbow. I think he felt sorry for me.
Anyway, to me he was a vision of manly gorgeousness. You know, Fu Manchu mustache, ponytail, little wire-framed glasses (think John Lennon) and a golden tan that only comes from a long vacation on Mexico’s beaches. As I headed for the door, he whispered in my ear, “Meet me at the City Dump.”
The City Dump was the disco for the see-and-be-seen crowd. The music was deafening, a perfectly pitched, fevered frenzy. I couldn’t hear a word he said. Body language was everything. There was a funky old dance called “The Bump,” the one where you bump butts on the upbeat. That throbbing disco beat propelled us nonstop, and we bumped the night away. When we parted at 3 a.m., he slipped me his card. A year and a half later, back in Los Angeles, I called him. The rest is history.
Now how many people meet their spouses in a bar and are still married 25 years later? What’s the secret? The additional 50 pounds we share between us? Maybe. Or maybe it’s that we still love to bump the night away.
Kelly and Tristan Imboden: True love is when you travel 3,000 miles for a first date
The beginning of the 1996 summer concert series for Chicago and Crosby, Stills and Nash was also the beginning for Malibu residents Kelly Muchoney and Tristan Imboden’s life together. Kelly, a business manager, and Tristan, the drummer for Chicago, met while Kelly assisted her longtime friend and client, Stephen Stills from Stills and Nash, prepare for his upcoming wedding backstage at a concert. Kelly was busy coaching Stephen to “be at the wedding at 11, not forget the ring and answer I Do to any question asked” when she noticed Tristan making his way toward them.
After a quick first meeting backstage in between sets, Kelly and Tristan saw each other again briefly that night at Stephen’s suite while he sang a song for his future bride. Slipping away from the festivities, Kelly and Tristan discovered a beautiful balmy night illuminated by a glorious full moon, leaving Kelly remembering “this day lovingly as the night of the glorious first kiss.”
Kelly flew back to California, and the two continued courting by phone. Four years later, Tristan asked Kelly to marry him as they sat on the bluff in Paradise Cove overlooking the beautiful horizon.
The couple married on Oct. 27, 2002 at a private ceremony in Malibu’s Serra Retreat. Kelly and Tristan continue to make Malibu their home, when they are not enjoying their island home in Kauai, Hawaii.
Barbara and Ken Kearsley: The real “Barbie and Ken”
Ken Kearsley first met his Barbie when he crashed a dance at the Brentwood Youth Club. Although Ken was in the eleventh grade and Barbara was in the ninth, they knew it was love at first sight while they danced to “Earth Angel,” “Blue Moon” and “Too Young.” However, there was one problem: Since Ken was 16 with a driver’s license and Barbara was only 14, her father refused to allow her to go out with a boy who drove a car. Needless to say, that did not stop their young love. So Barbara would tiptoe out of the house, pretend to be going out with someone else, take the dog for a long walk or go to the movies with her girl friends, all to meet Ken. All of this went on for seven-and a-half years when Ken announced to her surprised father in 1961 that they loved each other and were planning to be married.
They made their first home in Malibu, where they have lived for 41 years. They were married for 30 years before they realized they were “Barbie and Ken” and were from Malibu. They only thing missing was the Corvette, which Ken reminds Barbara of every now and then. The couple have raised four children and now have five grandchildren and plan on staying in Malibu for another 41 years.