The Armenian

Stepan Partamian is one of the nicest guys you’re likely to meet. But get him started on our social and cultural ills, and he becomes a ferocious, downright ruthless beast of prey, calibrating his boyish charm with verbal salvos that command respect – or at least nervous rapture. That’s because he’s had it with the state of Armenianness in the 21st century, and because he cares enough not to mince his words.Partamian’s discontents took center stage on the night of October 6, when he performed a one-man show at Glendale’s Alex Theater. The event was called, simply, “The Armenian.” Partamian came on a stage strewn with 25 upright bags (more on this later). He had his beard dyed in perfect stripes of the Armenian tricolor. He wanted you to take him as the funny guy next door, the reliable life of the party. He was performing allright. Yet he was dead-serious.In the mid-1980s, fresh out of college with a degree in filmmaking, Partamian was among countless idealistic youths aching to make great things happen in the Armenian cultural arena. It didn’t take him long, however, to realize that what we may call the diaspora cultural establishment was so calcified and belligerently protectionist that it yielded no room for fresh voices, let alone any meaningful transformation.But whereas most of us have gone on with our lives following an initial, disappointing stint with a cherished organization, or after an unsuccessful attempt to tweak orthodoxy and convention, Partamian has stayed on. What’s astonishing is that he has stayed in two distinct, sometimes diametrically opposed places at the same time: both inside and outside the establishment. Thus he continued to work with organizations in whose ideals he believed, yet he remained an outsider, an uncompromising independent, initiating a long string of projects the way he wanted, often losing his shirt in the gamble to bring this or that event to fruition. Along the way, Partamian kept sharpening his words – because the more he got to know the inner workings of contemporary Armenian culture, the more clearly he perceived the root causes of its general inertia, its built-in, unwitting mechanism for stunting growth.Words, plus music, are Partamian’s stock in trade. During the past decade, he has tirelessly sought out and promoted new Armenian music, by pushing fresh talent and producing albums and concerts that have often bucked the trend. To put such efforts on a more solid footing, he has launched two magazines and the Armenian Arts organization, a nonprofit that pursues a broad range of cultural-production goals. Simultaneously, Partamian has opened the floodgates of public discourse and debate, regularly bordering on fury, through his talk shows on local television. His latest call-in talk show, “Bari Luys” (“Good Morning”), is broadcast across the United States and Canada.If Partamian has guts, charisma to spare, and a weird kind of eloquence on his side, the ultimate secret behind his staying power – and the reason his outrageous rants have touched a nerve in so many Armenians of so many backgrounds – is that he puts his money where his mouth is. On “Bari Luys” every weekday morning, he has tremendous fun ridiculing Armenian phenomena like our pathological anxiety to prove to the world that we are one of the oldest nations on the planet. Or our knack for blaming the Turks and the Jews whenever our claims to superiority don’t quite pan out. Partamian is also fierce when lambasting anyone and everyone, from the regular Joe to the men in black or purple, for perpetuating our lack of imagination, shallowness, complacence, and runaway consumerism and ostentation. But right when you’re about to dismiss him as a self-righteous jester getting off on facile jibes, he comes through with a solid, no-nonsense solution, often in the form of an actual project, that maybe, just maybe, would help things turn around, starting now.During his performance at the Alex Theater, Partamian wore his signature self-deprecating persona by way of softening his blows. Interacting effortlessly with the audience, he served up quantities of witty observations and personal anecdotes before delving into the big stuff, which came down to this, more or less: let’s do away with the collective arrogance on the one hand, and that stubborn, exasperating victim mentality on the other; let’s stop blaming others for our woes; let’s try to find empowerment within, rather than luxuriating in the superficial trappings; finally, let’s channel our heritage and strengths in the direction of substance and creativity. Too much to ask?The audience ate it all up, as further evidenced by the Q & A session in the second half of the event.Partamian’s show also included a couple of announcements – hence the meaning of those upright bags scattered around the stage. He said he would be traveling across America for an entire year, beginning in January 2007. His talk show, “Bari Luys,” would stop, The plan, Partamian explained, is for him to tour all 50 states of the Union in search of Armenian life, as much at the usual stomping grounds as off the beaten path. He would photograph institutions and individuals from all walks of life, the more colorful the better, and publish his findings in a sizeable photo essay entitled “The Armenian in America,” accompanied by a DVD version of the book.The goal was to document and celebrate our evolving mark on the American cultural landscape, thereby inspiring Armenian-Americans with a renewed sense of identity and belonging. Another objective, Partamian said, was to accentuate our inherent contradiction of professing loyalty to Armenia while living and prospering abroad. Proceeds from the sale of the book and DVD would go to support the Armenian Arts organization’s future initiatives, such as more documentary work in the Middle East, Europe, and elsewhere. “Once I cover the entire planet, I can die in peace,” Partamian said with typical flair.The bags on the stage were a reminder that such a project required a measure of grassroots community investment. Partamian had filled each bag with 12 top-notch Armenian-music recordings worth $200. Audience members could get the stuff for only $100, thus both supporting a worthy cause and getting themselves a wonderful music collection at a bargain-basement price. At the end of the show, most of the bags were purchased, underscoring the feasibility of community activism as envisioned by Partamian.At one point during his performance, Partamian said being an Armenian was a matter of choice – an endeavor that entailed, roughly, four parts challenge and one part reward. His own choice, leaning definitely toward the reward part, was clear enough.