ALOMA ICHINOSE R.I.P.

I first saw Aloma Ichinose in 1982, [unfortunately I couldn't find a photo of her from back then] shortly after I moved from New York City to Santa Monica CA. She was so elegantly stylish that my first reaction was a chip-on-the-shoulder-lifetime-of-anger-toward-rich-people disdain.

I saw her around for a few years, and then in 1984 when I was struggling to pay the bills, raising my two children by myself and out of money and work as an actor and screenwriter, I took a job driving a limo. One night as I finished angrily spouting my resentment about all that to a room full of Hollywood folks, all of whom I had that same belligerent reaction to, I heard a voice in my ear whisper how no one who hasn't raised kids on their own in poverty would understand, but she did because she had...

...and I turned around to see that it was Aloma, this person I had misjudged totally with my hurt and fear. From that moment on we were friends.

Aloma not only knew poverty, and the struggles and challenges of being a single parent, but had transcended her past by using her stunning beauty and style in modeling and acting, to eventually became a professional photographer, who I worked with many times, as in this contact sheet below of portraits of me and Eve Brandstein, my co-founder in the then weekly L.A. poetry reading series, Poetry In Motion.

Aloma was a gift to my life and my world, as she was for so many others, and though I know her physical presence will be deeply missed by so many—and my condolences to her family and friends—her spirit lives on...