Balloon Bender Seeks Air Apparent

Over the last 14 years, Addi Somehk has mastered the art of air and inflatable latex, making thousands of balloon hats for total strangers in 34 countries on five continents.

Somehk, a professional balloon guy, makes a living twisting balloons at bar mitzvahs, elementary schools and corporate parties. But this winter he undertook his biggest balloon challenge yet: teaching the magic of twisting to a bunch of teenagers in bustling, multiethnic Hollywood.

The idea? Make an army of balloon twisters to spread holiday cheer to the residents of a nursing home and anybody else the teenagers might want to make smile.

On a gray day in early November, Somehk walked into the student government leadership class at Hollywood High School -- a long, cold room once used for shop classes -- with a slide show, a balloon apron (made by his mother) and a proposition.

“I’ve been a balloon guy for 14 years and it’s actually how I make a living, and I have some things to show you and a cool project that some of you might want to get involved in,” Somehk began. “But first I need a volunteer.”

A few hands shot up. Somehk brought up Andy Ayala, 17, and got to work. He blew up a couple of balloons with strong bursts of air and measured the student’s head. In a matter of seconds, Somehk made Ayala a ridiculous hat.

The room responded with applause and a chorus of “ahhhhs.”

Somehk dimmed the lights to present a slide show of the self-funded balloon hat world tour he took with photographer Charlie Eckert between 1996 and 1999.

“The goal of what we did was to show that everyone is born with a sense of humor,” he said. “No matter what country you’re from, what language you speak, what religion you are or what politics you have, you don’t have to learn to laugh. It’s like a universal language.”

Among the shots, Somehk showed an image of several stone-faced Eastside vatos standing before a lowrider car -- in balloon hats: “This is here in East L.A.” The students laughed.

“Once you learn how to twist balloons, we then will go to a nursing home, around Christmastime, and make balloons for old folks,” Somehk said. “Once you go inside, it’s very -- I’ve got to be honest with you, it’s very creepy. It’s the opposite of high school.”

The students listened.

“It’s either going to work or it’s not going to work, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Any other questions?”

Sixteen students signed up. The bell rang, and as the class filed out, a few curious students approached Somehk’s apron and asked for a balloon. Someone went ahead and grabbed one. Others followed. Soon Somehk was giving them out by the handful.

That type of response never surprises Somehk, who was awarded a $10,000 grant from the city’s Cultural Affairs Department to create a “balloon art brigade” with the students at Hollywood High.

From the Amazon rain forest to the sub-Saharan plains of Africa, from Indiana to Ireland, Somehk has found balloons to be irresistible.

“I enjoy making people happy, but it’s really about balloons giving me access to different facets of life, [to places] where I most likely would never have [gone], whether it was behind the bars of a jail or past security at the governor’s mansion,” Somehk said recently.

Somehk, 33 and living in Altadena, never figured balloons would become his life’s work.

He was 19, home from college, lonely, lovesick and unemployed when a friend recommended him to a Bay Area company that trains people to twist simple animals at chain restaurants and birthday parties. His mother, before believing in the charm of balloons, told him it was a “dumb job.”

But something about balloons made sense to Somehk.

Using mostly the long, narrow variety that resemble psychedelic sausages, he created such hats as the “Master Blaster,” the “Ballie Brain Protector” and the “Princess Crown.” Then came the balloon bass, an instrument that creates a low, twangy sound when plucked. This led inevitably to a balloon bass band, Unpopable, in which Somehk plays at places such as Mr. T’s Bowl in Highland Park with guitarist Henry Bermudez.

He traveled to international balloon conventions. He twisted balloons with Martha Stewart on TV. And he circled the world, spreading the silliness of balloons to Buddhist monks in Thailand, camels in India, Norwegian soldiers, Hasidic children in Jerusalem and Mongolian herdsmen.

“I try to make each hat 51% classy, 49% wacky,” Somehk said. “I don’t want people to feel foolish about wearing a balloon hat; I want them to feel classy.”

People, he added, instinctively “want balloons -- they want balloon hats, they want the happiness and the whimsy that these balloons offer.”

It was easy to see that idea at work immediately after the Hollywood High students’ first session with Somehk, where they learned the basic techniques for blowing up a balloon (it’s harder than one might think; pumps were used in the earliest sessions) and twisting them into shapes or small “ballies.”

During lunchtime, the students took their fresh bags of balloons out among friends. One student, 16-year-old Herach Arzunyan, a junior, headed toward the area of the Hollywood High quad where the Armenian students typically hang out.

The guys teased him a little about the balloons in his hands, but after the girls began approaching, the charm kicked in.

“Can I have that please? Can I have that?” they asked.

Some girls began reaching into his pockets, eager for their preferred color. The chatter toggled between English and Armenian. “You have gold? ... Make me a green necklace!”

“This is actually pretty good attention,” Herach said, laughing. “I have 200 more in my pocket.”

And it was only beginning. As Somehk’s new balloon-twisting apprentices got better and better, balloon sculptures began popping up in unlikely places.

Fatinah Brown, 14, twisted balloon hats for friends and family on Thanksgiving. Denise Fiallos, 17, practiced for onlookers at bus stops and on the Red Line. Mark Villeda, 15, made balloon flowers for teachers and parents. Oliver Torreabla, 17, said he made $100 filling orders for balloon poodles for fellow students outside Hollywood High’s gates.

Torreabla explains: “I was making one for a girl and some guy came up and said, ‘Can I get one?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, $5.’ ”

Dominique Williams, 16, wrote about the science of balloons in physics class. She got an A. Camille King, 17, invented a complex balloon motorcycle. And, bored at home on a weekend night, Herach made head-to-toe balloon body armor for his younger brother and took pictures to class to prove it.

At lunchtime on certain days, the brilliant appendages of a freshly made balloon hat would pop above the crowd at the Hollywood High quad. Balloons in the cafeteria, balloons in the hallway, balloons everywhere.

“I never thought I would make it this far,” Daniela Barrera, 16, said one day after class with Somehk. She and her friend Candida Montero, 16, said they were eager to greet the senior citizens with their new skills.

“You know how excited they get when they see that young people care about them,” Daniela said. “And I imagine when I get older maybe the kids that are growing right now might go visit me and make me, I don’t know, flowers.”

When the big day came -- the students’ first performance before the residents of the Brier Oak Terrace Care Center on Sunset Boulevard near Normandie Avenue -- nervousness was readable on their faces.

“What if our balloons pop? They can hear. Addi said they can hear,” Dominique said while the group waited.

Somehk shuttled the “balloon art brigade” from the school to the nursing home in his own car, a handful of students at a time, staging them first at the Shakey’s pizzeria next door.

Without their teacher, who was hustling through traffic, the first of the Hollywood High balloon twisters entered the nursing home. Crinkly, bright Christmas decorations hung on the pale walls. The indistinct odor of linens and urine lingered in the air.

In the activities room, the seniors gathered in their wheelchairs, their faces drawn. The balloon art brigade filed in and formed a line at the front of the room. Silence.

“How about a heart?” someone said.

Cautiously, the ballooning began. Soon the audience had balloons on their heads, in their hands, in their arms, on their laps. Balloon swans, balloon flowers, balloon hearts, balloon swords and balloon wands.

The squeaks and pops spread into the residents’ rooms, gloomy places where only wan afternoon light hinted that an outside world existed.

One student built a balloon arch on someone’s wheelchair. In a room, balloon twisters Camille King and Natayla Pyatkovska, 18, met Rose Wilson, 85, who is blind and uses a wheelchair.

The two girls twisted up a heart, a pink poodle, a purple poodle and a balloon flower with a curly stem. The commotion seemed to overwhelm Wilson. She held on tightly to her new balloon pets.

“Oh, I’m crying now,” Wilson said. “I’m so happy. Thank you for coming; thank you for coming to visit me.”

Small plates of brownies with white icing were passed around in the activities room. People drank cranberry punch and milk. It was noisy.

“It’s amazing what they can do in two minutes’ time. My fingers hurt just looking at them,” said Valentina Wright, 85, who came to Los Angeles from Nebraska for a visit “in ‘41” and decided never to leave.

Wright, a widow for 12 years, was sitting in a wheelchair because of her arthritis. Wearing reading glasses and a bright striped dress, she clutched balloon swans, poodles, hats, wands and hearts. “I like the color combinations,” she said. “It’s so pretty.”

The general ruckus -- the students working diligently around her, the occasional start from a popped balloon elsewhere in the room -- gave her pause. “I’ve had a wonderful life. I wish I could be 35 and do it all over again.”

Grinning, Somehk stood in a corner, inflating another balloon. And another one. And another one.

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To see some of Addi Somehk’s balloon hats that were photographed around the world by Charlie Eckert, visit www.balloonhat.com.