Ken Davitian in support of No H8 campaign

Respects!

The NOH8 Campaign is a charitable organisation whose mission is to promote marriage, gender and human equality through education, advocacy, social media, and visual protest. More about the campaign...

More about Borat's actor Ken Davitian - here.

*source of picture (thanks to Lena for the link)

Armenia chooses: Emmy & Mihran vs Eva Rivas for Eurovision 2010

UPDATE 14 Feb 2010: 
Eva Rivas will represent Armenia at Eurovision 2010 with Apricot Stone. (see also comments section below)
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This Sunday 14 February, Armenia will make its choice as to who will represent the country in Eurovision 2010. You may listen to the songs of all 9 contenders here. It’s now clear that the choice is between Emmy & Mihran vs Eva Rivas.

Interestingly, if until last couple of weeks, no one had doubts that Emmy & Mihran will win our national selection, current ‘word of mouth’ favourite is Eva Rivas.

Overall, I am not impressed with this year’s choices on offer. I simply cannot see a winner song - a Eurovision winner song - among candidates. Whoever wins this coming Sunday, may struggle reaching the top ten at Eurovision, unless put on a great show...

I was really looking forward to Emmy/Mihran’s song. There was anticipation and good buzz surrounding it. However, I am not impressed, perhaps partly because I am not really into that kind of music. But regardless my musical genre preferences, it sounds similar to many other Eurovision tunes. It does not stand out. On the other hand, it’s a song you can dance in clubs; there are some catchy tunes there. And yes, both Emmy and Mihran are cuties ;) Emmy’s resemblance to Sirusho, and Mihran’s dancing experience with Madonna may certainly help for publicity purposes. Videos of support by famous personalities, like Ricky Martin and Ken Davitian are smart moves too.

Eva Rivas’s song is classier. I first heard of Eva when she performed Sayat Nova’s Tamam Ashkar which I think was a brilliant modern interpretation of the classic. The current choice of Apricot Stone is OKish but... I do not think it uses Eva’s voice to its full ability. Also, I do not think the frequent use of “motherland” word is necessarily a cool or appealing concept for Eurovision fans. She looks stunning though, as always. Appearance-wise, she somehow reminds me of Angelina Jolie.

I won’t be reviewing other choices on offer as I do not see them suitable for Eurovision or suitable at all. I must, however, say that Razmik Amyan’s song is the worst one. I mean, it’s really bad. Could not force myself to hear it till the end. Sorry, Razmik.

As it’s always happening around time of Eurovision related events, number of visits to my (directly or indirectly) Eurovision related posts surges substantially.

“Eva Rivas” is currently No. 1 keyword people search over the Internet to visit my blog. It pushed “gay armenia” keyword to the 2nd place. WOW (!). And it’s all because of one post I made back in November of Sayat Nova’s Tamam Ashkhar new video clip by Eva Rivas. Out of interest, I did search “Eva Rivas” on Google, and that particular blog post of mine came out on the first page of Google’s search results for “Eva Rivas”. Not bad :)

*pictures - via Facebook fan pages

Borat's actor Ken Davitian in support of LA LGBT Armenian community

GALAS, LA based LGBT Armenian group, reports that Armenian-American actor Ken Davitian, best known for his roles as Azamat Bagatov in Borat (2006), and in Get Smart (2008) will be attending this year's gala with his family as a show of support to the LGBT Armenian community. Well done, Ken!

This year's gala will celabrate the 11th anniversary of GALAS, which is the oldest LGBT Armenian group established in 1998. Last year, The Armenian Reporter published an excellent report to mark group's 10th anniversary, detailing its accomplishments and real life stories of support provided to the local LGBT Armenian community. You may read that report here.

Wikipedia: Kenneth Davitian (born June 19, 1953) is an American actor who is best known for his role as Borat's producer (Azamat Bagatov) in the 2006 comedy film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, in which he speaks Armenian (the Eastern dialect), throughout the film.

Davitian, an Armenian American, was born in Los Angeles, California. Early in his career, he appeared in the movies American Raspberry, Bikini Summer, Maximum Force, Frogtown II, and Sexual Intent. In 1994, he appeared in the movie The Silence of the Hams, a spoof of The Silence of the Lambs. Davitian has also appeared in television series such as Becker, ER, Arli$$, The Shield, Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, Boston Legal, The Closer, and Mind of Mencia. He has also made appearances in music videos, for example in The Smashing Pumpkins' "Stand Inside Your Love" of 2000. He was in the film Meet the Spartans playing as Xerxes, where Leonidas described him as "looking a lot like that fat guy from Borat". His most recent release in 2008, the film "Stone & Ed" in which Davitian portrays a drug lord named Señor Gordo. Ken also was an extra in a background scene of the show According to Jim.

Davitian founded a restaurant in 2003 called The Dip, located in Los Angeles, California and recently opened a second location.

*photo - Getty Images, via Daylife