My Love for Her Is As Unsatiable as it Is Long

From the first time I met her, I fell hard

My first memories of her are fleeting—like a whisper on a windy day. But nonetheless, they are palpable. I was only a kid, probably not more than six or seven. But when I saw her, albeit from afar, my heart began to melt.

FADE OUT

FADE IN

I didn’t get to really meet her in person and know her until a year or two later. We met at Disneyland of all places. She took me around to all the different lands. Tomorrowland. Frontierland. Main Street. She entertained both me and my brother that day. And the more I got to know her, the more my young heart was taken hostage. She made my imagination go wild with epic stories.

But the love of a child that young is as fleeting as that initial memory. After she left, I wouldn’t meet her like that again for nearly twenty years.

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INT. DENNY’S — DAY

My ex-girlfriend Patti and I met at the Saratoga Denny’s just off the freeway. We hadn’t seen each other for a while, so it was fun catching up. She had chicken fried steak and eggs. I had my usual: patty melt, fries, and Sprite for my main meal, then a decadent dark chocolate cake with chocolate icing and vanilla ice cream dripping with hot fudge for dessert. The sugar high made me talk faster and longer than normal.

I recounted for my dear friend the crazy antics of the year I almost became a hip-hop mogul. I was a 19-year-old business major at UC Berkely. A group of us started an artist management company to represent a rap group out of Oakland called Shot O’ Soul (or, S.O.S.). We named our company Atlantis Entertainment. Both the name of the rap group and the tragic history of our eponymous company should have been a clue to the pending doom that awaited us.

The problem was not the rap group. They were great. It was our motley crew that had, shall we say, issues. You had me, the straight-laced business major. Then there was Stephanie, a 16-year-old blonde, emancipated minor. Then there was “Wannabe Billy Dee.” I call him that because that is who he looked like (or rather, tried to look like). Imagine a Young Lando Calrissian in a cheap suit. He was the dude always bragging about stuff he had, but you never saw any of the stuff he had. And finally, there was “Biscuit” (as in “grab ’em in the biscuits.” Google it.) He was a tall, lanky brutha with a jacked-up jheri curl whose main claim to fame was using a fake British accent to pick up Asian girls at dance clubs (You can’t make this sh*t up. Well, you can, but trust me, I’m not).

I won’t go into all the sordid details that led to the “sinking” of Atlantis Entertainment. But suffice it to say they included:

• Me getting ulcers
• Having to pay a 6'6" 275 lb bouncer out of my own pocket when we didn’t make enough money at the Golden Gate Park dance where S.O.S. debuted (Stephanie and I were the only ones who had real jobs)
• Me thinking for sure I would die during that time our rap group got into a brawl with another rap group in the second-floor lounge of Davidson Hall. As I cowered under the closest table I could dunk under, I kept thinking to myself, “I’m a doctor’s kid. I didn’t grow up in “the hood.” I’m not prepared for this!

Luckily, I didn’t die. But the comedy of errors and the total F.U.B.A.R. that was Atlantis Entertainment was such a ridiculous and hilarious turn of events, it would make a great movie. In fact, it was this very thought I had during the aforementioned lunch with Patti when I told her, “This would make such a funny movie.”

CUT TO:

It was that thought that prompted me to enroll in De Anza College’s Film and TV Program that year. It was one of the best community college cinematic arts programs in the nation. And it was here that I met her again. You remember. The one I referenced at the beginning of this story.

When I met her this time, I saw her in a completely different light. I learned secrets about her that endeared her more to me. She made me laugh. She could make me cry. Sometimes she infuriated me. But the more I got to know her, the more I fell for her. She was unlike anyone, or anything, I’d ever met. My whole life I remember wanting to be a successful businessman, like a management consultant, investment banker, or real estate tycoon. That all changed after I got to see and know her again.

Eventually, I abandoned my comfortable, 6-figure job as a business marketing manager for Quicken to pursue my love for her. To have her. And for the past 18 years, she has continued to captivate me. To entertain me. To challenge me.

From that first time I saw her lift Mary Poppins into the air like a kite. To the time I “played” with her at Disneyland with the 8mm Bolex my father gave me. To the sense of awe I had as I, for the first time, watched an Imperial Star Destroyer take “forever” to traverse a screen in pursuit of a small consular ship, laser cannons blazing.

She was visceral and raw in “Reservoir Dogs.” Witty and funny in “Swingers.” She made me cry at the end of “Titanic” (I’m not ashamed to admit it!) I sang along with her in “Moulin Rouge” and danced with her in “Strictly Ballroom.” She revived my love for Batman and presented him in a way I never saw before. She made all my favorite comic book heroes come to life in an amazing decade-long story arc that even bore her name.

My love for her was, and is, never ceasing. And even though she didn’t directly end my marriage, she was at one point, very much the other “woman,” as I spent more time seeing and being with her than my poor, neglected wife. (I have it on good authority that she has had this effect on other men. And yes, women too. She has no gender preference.)

Ever since a bright-eyed, wildly imaginative Frenchmen shot a rocket into the eye of the moon, she has not only captured my heart, but the heart of millions. She’s intoxicating, whether you only get to see her, or if you get to embrace her directly—holding her in your hand; or carving her in miniature models; or dressing her in lavish gowns and brilliant make-up; or “pushing pixels” on a screen.

However you interact with her, you know her. And chances are, your love for her is helping carry you through a global pandemic. Even as the invisible menace has tried its best to defeat her, shutting down huge groups of people committed to breathing life into her, she nevertheless remains true to form. Lovely. Engaging. Alive in every corner of the world. Delivering awe, beauty, romance, love, anger, intimacy, and truth.

And if you miss seeing her in the way you have come to love, fear not. Her resilience has no end. She will return to you. More beautiful, magical, and intoxicating than ever.