Los Angeles Times
calendarlive.com
May 19, 2005

Armenians’ turn on the red carpet
L.A.’s spotlight lands on a group that wants the world’s ear.
By Geoff Boucher
Times Staff Writer

,0,6388810.story
When it comes to red carpet, no one can go wall to wall like L.A.
Commercials call them once-in-a-lifetime awards galas, but here it’s really
more like a biweekly ritual that keeps limousine fleets in the black and
UPN’s airwaves occupied. Tonight’s entry on the trophy schedule? The
Armenian Music Awards at the Hollywood Palladium, which will bounce off
satellites to the far corners of the globe.

If it sounds like a big show for a small scene, well, that’s the beauty of
L.A. – the super-sized populace and unequaled cultural quilt have enough
juice to put footlights in front of just about everybody. This year the show
has an intriguing subplot in the man slated to host: Mark Geragos, the
attorney fresh from the Michael Jackson trial.

“We don’t have anything in writing, but he agreed to do it and we shook on
it,” said Peter Bahlawanian, who founded the event seven years ago. “I asked
Geragos if we could write something up and the look he gave me – like, ‘You
think a contract will do any good?’ We’re very excited to have him. It will
catch people’s attention.”

Bahlawanian is 34 and, with hip clothes, a slight build and soulful eyes,
has a vague resemblance to Moby. He is Canadian-born but, as with everyone
who identifies him- or herself as Armenian, map boundaries are flimsy in a
nomadic heritage.

His father had a music retail business that provided the seed for
Bahlawanian’s L.A. arrival in 1994. From there, he operated a record label,
a wedding magazine and a world-music publication. The show hit its zenith a
few years ago with a live cablecast that bounced into space and back down to
a potential audience of 42 million (actual viewership was nowhere near
that).

The show was most popular in the community hubs in Australia, France,
California, but it was not only an in-house affair. Armenian contemporary
music is popular enough, but the most potent crossover remains the sound of
the duduk, the wind instrument that many casual music fans might know best
from the soundtrack to “The Last Temptation of Christ.”

“That is a CD,” Bahlawanian said with some reverence, “that you will find in
every Armenian family’s house.”

Bahlawanian spoke while sitting in an outdoor dining area at Mandaloun, a
popular restaurant in Glendale that’s nothing less than a global capital for
Armenians. Between courses, he smoked from a hookah fitted with an apple
packed with tobacco and small, sausage-shaped heating bricks. He got
particularly animated when discussing System of a Down, the crazed Los
Angeles rock band of Armenian heritage. “They have done so much for music.
And also for the cause – the recognition of the genocide.”

Much of the binding for the Armenian community is spun from that horrendous
historical chapter. “It is part of who we are now and who we were long ago,”
Bahlawanian said. The community fights for formal declaration by world
governments that the Armenian people suffered a campaign of genocide at the
hands of the Turks between 1915 and 1923.

Another cause with mixed results is the awards show, which Bahlawanian has
presented with fairly slick production values and some poignant moments. The
Armenian identity is so varied that early editions were like truce
negotiations. Bahlawanian was a stern force, demanding that the ceremony be
in English.

The Oscars it’s not, although show biz still conjures magic and ego. The
worst moment, Bahlawanian said, was the music debut a noted poet made on the
show a few years ago. “She wouldn’t come off, she kept adding more and more
to the song. She waved off the host. I couldn’t believe it . you never know
what will happen to a person when they get the microphone and have the world
watching.”