President/CEO of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge Jonathan Grimes is joined by Director of Arts In Education Mike Esneault to speak on upcoming events from the Arts Council to end out the year and also whats to be expected in the upcoming year. Former Secretary of State of Louisiana Jay Dardenne comments on the 2024 political year and also gives his take on whats to come in 2025 regarding politics.
Talk Louisiana
Jonathan Grimes, Mike Esneault, Jay Dardenne
- You're listening to Talk Louisiana. Signature sponsor is the office of the mayor of East Baton Rouge Parish, Sharon Weston-Broom, and your guest host today will be Julie Baxter-Payer. - And welcome this morning. It's our December 30th edition of Talk Louisiana. One more day to go in 2024. I'm Julie Baxter-Payer, filling in for Jim Engster today. We have some very special guests today from both the music and arts community and from the political side of the specter. Later in this hour, our listeners know Jay Darden. He's held statewide elected positions, originally elected right here in Baton Rouge to our Metro Council, then as our state senator. And he's picked up a claim over the years for his punch lines and his poems that help to calm political waters, sometimes in the state legislature. He'll join us later in the hour. But first, we're happy to have Jonathan Grimes and Mike Essano in studio with us, joining us to share some of the next exciting events that the Arts Council will be hosting, ringing in 2025 and then coming up in the new year ahead, what can folks in schools, our students, and then our community expect from the Arts Council. We want you to feel welcome as well to join the conversation. So if you'd like to call in and talk with our guests, please call us at 1-877-217-5757, 1-877-217-5757, but first, Jonathan, Mike, it's great to have you here and talk please. - Thanks for having us. - In studio, early for artists, I know to get out here in the morning. - That's well enough. We're used to it. - What are some of the events? I know that you're an award-winning pianist, Mike and jazz drummer, Jonathan, the Arts Council, Director of Arts and Education there, Mike. Tell us, you've really led an admirable effort to bring arts to young children, all school ages in East Baton Rouge Parish. What are some of the events that the Arts Council provides for our students? - Well, first of all, we cover all of the arts. So it's visual art, music, dance, and even spoken word. And so we have a contract with, in this instance with EBR schools, that we've had historically. And what we do is it has different looks, like in many cases, it's throughout the school year where we have different artists working with kids. There's the arts and integration aspect of it, where we have these artists working with students really in their core class setting. So we might have a social studies teacher that's talking about South Africa. And at the end of that unit, I'll have a music artist come in and coordinate with their teacher, teachers involved at the same time, and the kids do a project. But the idea behind all of this, whether it's music, visual art, et cetera, is that there's something tangible and fun and exciting that helps the kids retain that information. It reinforces it. And therefore, we talk about test scores and testing with the kids all the time. It really helps them retain that information and use the arts to achieve that. And the beautiful thing, in my opinion, is that it instills a love of the arts, whether they become artists or not. So that's a big part of it. At the same time, we have so much stuff going on with the arts council, with our programming, that a lot of times we'll parlay a lot of that to the schools, like we have our Jazz Master series, our artists coming in for our Alimbatis Jazz series. I'm just talking about the music in right now, but so we'll bring them to schools. We had Jasmine Ohorn, Grammy winning, Grammy nominated. Grammy nominated. Amazing vocalist from New York. And this is like a month ago, and so we brought her to Wedgwood Elementary, and she did a wonderful thing with the kids, which was a performance, but it was also almost a masterclass in the history of jazz. And she had them dancing and singing, so we do a lot of that. I was fortunate enough to be able to see Jasmine or when she performed at the-- Oh, you saw the concert, yeah. And there were actually students there from Wedgwood, after they were so taken with her. And I remember she spent a lot of time on stage, even with the adults, to talk about how these songs had come about and what her life had been like. Absolutely, yeah. Jonathan, Mike talked about the love of arts that end in genders. It's not just inspiring people to go into arts as a career, but it actually changes how they think about the world around them. Why is it so important? Sometimes people wonder why should cities, states, fund arts in our communities. Can you talk a little bit about why that's important? Yeah, I mean, I think it's so important to just have all aspects of a thriving and prosperous city, art included, art and culture, things for the residents to do, things for residents and community members to be proud of. And art is kind of like a release for them. You leave work or whatever you're dealing with at home or at work at school and of all ages too. So it's just a way to embrace creativity and also drive tourism and let people be proud of what they have in their community. If you'd like to join the conversation about arts in our community, the numbers 1-877-217-5757, you have a program called MPAC. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and what that will mean to our community in the year ahead? Well, MPAC is a fundraiser for the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge historically. I mean, our listeners might remember Laurel Street Palooza, which was at the old Bogan Fire Museum. And then with the renovation of the Kerry Serage Community Arts Center, we've moved it over there. It's just a way for us to raise funds to continue furthering our mission that are not specifically allocated for a certain program. So it helps us keep the Kerry Serage Community Arts Center open and continue other programs that we do in all of our 10 parishes that we serve. And when will that be? That's January the 17th. And the theme this year is Hollywood. So we're kind of taking a trip through Hollywood, through the years, early big bands swing, and then kind of morphing into what is Hollywood look like now. So it's going to be a really fun experience, I think, for everybody. And Mike, you've had some interaction with Hollywood a bit with some of your music career. And I know we can hear locally. You see you-- there's probably many places, but stabs, or you sometimes-- I play there quite often, yeah. What was your introduction to the arts? You talk about you're giving back to students in your career now, but how did you first become attracted to the arts? Well, I was fortunate because my dad-- he does not play music, but he has four sisters that are pianists. So whenever we have family gatherings, there was the piano, and I don't know. There was something about it. I did try the flute initially. That lasted about six months. And then the piano just grabbed me. And I think, as with many people who do it, maybe professionally, they've been mentored by great people. So I was very fortunate to have a wonderful band director. As a matter of fact, one of my mentors, was Jonathan's dad. He's still my mentor. Is he still? He is in different kinds of ways. And then Alvin Batista-- Of course, the renowned Bill Grimes. Bill Grimes, yes, I'm sorry, I feel like she-- Yes, everyone knows about it. I just want to say his name. Dear Fran and mentor, and then Alvin Batista's a great mentor, and I've had so many. So those kind of situations where they bring you in, and they throw you in the fire, and you learn by doing, in any case, so that really instilled my love for her. And both of you straddle New Orleans and Baton Rouge. You play in both arenas. Sometimes Baton Rouge gets a bad rap in that we don't maybe have as much music offering as New Orleans. Do you see that changing? And why is there that difference, do you think? Well, I think we have so many talented musicians in our city. I think it's getting the word out to the community that, hey, this is taking place. Just when my wife and I go eat dinner or when we go to different events, I'm just reminded by how many talented people are in this area. And I think we owe it to them to support them and continue listening to them perform, whether it be music, dance, theater, all of those things. We have just as many talented people here in Baton Rouge as we do in New Orleans. And we're going to hear from Jay Darden later in the hour. He talks about why Louisiana ain't Mississippi. But there's something that does seem to be something in both states, really. But we're here to talk about Louisiana today that really does encourage musicians. Something I don't know if it's the water or the air or the land, but we just really do seem to encourage the growth of musicians in Louisiana. Absolutely, I mean, it's ingrained in our culture. You know, if the food, I don't know, I've heard, particularly, South Louisiana described really as Caribbean North, and there's a certain vibe with that. So it helps with the music, the food and everything. Right, you do arts and education, not just with students in our community, but you also provide programming throughout the year for adults, for anybody, for families throughout the year. Can you talk a little bit about some of those programs that the Arts Council offers? Yeah, I mean, between our free programming, our paid programming, we did a program, Creative Aging, where we wrote the participants created stories about Baton Rouge and about Louisiana. And we actually published a book, and it was a really popular program. And I think we need to, you know, starting in 2025, we need to talk about bringing that back. But there are, it really ebbs and flows, depending on the season and what we offer. So, like I said, between River City Jazz, between our masterclass series that we had on the weekends, which was really popular, and we're looking at moving that into Ascension Parish to spread. We really wanna move that into all of our 10 parishes, but one parish at a time, but yeah. Let's stay with us. We're going to continue our conversation with Jonathan Grimes and Mike Essano, who are a little bit about Jonathan's Jazz drumming career. And welcome back to Talk Louisiana. If you'd like to join the conversation, it's 1-877-217-5757. We have Jonathan Grimes and Mike Essano here with us in studio this morning from the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. It's great to have you both. Jonathan, you are the president of the Arts Council, but you are also a musician yourself, and I understand that you started playing drums at seven, so how did that happen? - Well, my dad always tells the joke that he couldn't find a drummer in Baton Rouge, so he had to grow one, which is, a joke has followed me forever. I mean, both my parents taught at LSU School of Music after they left Eastman and moved down here, and that was in 1984. I just, I loved, loved music, and I was surrounded by it all the time, and so I used to dump out my bins in my room and start banging on them, and they said, well, let's buy 'em a drum set. And from then, I met great people like Mike Essano, that I've been fortunate enough to play music with for many, many years before we even started working together, so it's kind of full circle. - That's a nice relationship to have with your co-worker. - Yeah, it's great, and I love hearing him play. If you ever wanna stop by the Arts Council, almost every day around lunchtime, Mike's down in the studio playing piano, so you can combine and eat your lunch. - Yeah. - What a treasure. - It's great. - I mean, really, you've won two Emmys, you've been part of Grammy award-winning recordings. We're just really lucky to have both of you in the community. Jonathan, you started performing with your father's trio at the age of eight, so you must've been pretty good if you just started playing drums. - It was probably pretty rocky at the age of eight, but I grew into it and really took a liking to playing drums. - And both you and your wife, musicians still playing. - Yeah, the wife is a great singer. That's where we met playing music, and so-- - Great. - And Jonathan won't say that he's a great drummer, but he's really a wonderful drummer. - That's high praise, high praise there. I wanna talk a little bit about what's coming up on New Year's Eve in Baton Rouge, 'cause people may not know that the Arts Council actually hosts the Red Stick revelry, and I think you were telling me about the Red Stick rising event earlier in the day, and then it gets to be more of a party atmosphere in the evening, but tell us about what's coming up downtown. - Well, Red Stick revelry has actually been, I think it's in its 11th year. It was produced by Rana Goree and Stacey Simon from Visit Baton Rouge for many years, and they just did an outstanding job, and they asked us to help produce it last year, and then this will be our second year. So Red Stick rising is the daytime event, which takes place at the library, downtown branch, and we'll have Mike outside playing piano. There are some kids' activities, decorating different things to help bring in the New Year, and then we will sing odd things on at noon, and we'll raise the ball, and then after that, everybody can go home and take a nap and get ready for the evening event, which starts at eight o'clock, and that's gonna be in Roar Plaza. That's from eight until midnight. We have DJ Incredible performing from eight until nine. He's so much fun. He was actually at impact last year. He's great, and then a band out in New Orleans called Royal Essence Band. They are, I think, a nine or a 10-piece top 40 band. You will not be disappointed, and then, of course, the fireworks at midnight and watch the ball drop, so it's gonna be a fun night, and I think the weather's gonna be good, too. - I was gonna say, do you have any idea? Are we looking at a really cold year's the year? - I will call my friend J. Grimes and see what I can find out. - That's okay, that's okay. I'm sure we'll be out, regardless. Louisiana people can get out in all kinds of weather. - It'll be good. - So, yeah, so that's interesting. So, just the last couple of years, the Arts Council has done this particular event. - Well, we just have such a, I guess, we're well-versed in the production of certain things, especially since, you know, Fast for All, Eb and Flow, and the Arts Council just celebrated 50 years, actually, we just finished 51 years. So, we have the infrastructure and the, I guess, the knowledge and the history of producing events, and I really take pride in that, that we can produce successful events for the community, and I'm honored that we're gonna be producing Red Stick Railway and all of the other things that we do. - And I would be remiss if I didn't just touch a moment on your building. You talked about the Kerry's garage building. It's actually a building that promotes and helps support artists who need studio space and space to work, and it's a beautiful building in its own right, and eventually, I don't know if it's ready yet, but it'll, you can have events there if you'd like. - Yeah, absolutely. - So, tell us a little bit about where it is and why people should go visit. - Well, it's a really interesting building because it's shaped like a triangle. So, it's been historically called the Triangle Building. In 2020, sorry, 2020, yeah, we did a renovation. It was vacant, it was formerly the District Attorney's Office, I believe. And so, it's a 12,000 square foot community space really from a gallery to a black box performance area to a really, really state of the art recording studio where we do our podcasts. Other people will come in and do podcasts. We have a kiln, we have an art studio space, we have some administrative offices, conference rooms, the Baton Rouge Symphony, resides there as well, and then we also have this really, really beautiful rooftop terrace. So, everything is, we've done weddings, we've done rehearsal dinners, we've done jazz concerts, wedding proposals. - Wedding proposals, I mean, it's a great space. Everybody that walks in the building is just so enamored with what we've done and how we're helping artists in that space. And I'm just so grateful for all of the people that made that happen. 'Cause it's a really, really great asset for the community. - And it really melds different types of art. You mentioned that, Mike, that it's not just music, although there's not, don't mean just music. But I attended an event there where you had the poet laureate of Baton Rouge, I think it was. - Yeah, Baton Rouge poet laureate. - And Mike played there and there were so many artists from all over the state. And so, is that something that happens pretty regularly in bringing artists of all mediums together? - Absolutely. And then we've hosted the Louise and Arts Summit, how many past years? - Seven or eight years. - Yeah, so all the Arts Council's kind of converge at that location and so many great talks about arts, industry type things or anything, anything arts related, you know? - Right. - But it's a perfect building for that, it's wonderful. - Is it hard to encourage private businesses to invest in the arts or what is it that makes a private business who is watching pennies, you know, understandably, to say it's worth my investing in the arts, is it usually a personal experience or something that inspires private businesses to say we're going to, because it can't be just government. We need the private business and government. - I think it's really a connection. I think a lot of it helps, yes, with a personal connection that somebody from the private sector has had with art. But it's also about investing into their community and job retention, employee retention and just creating a really vibrant scene for their employees and their coworkers. And so, and it's helping us, their investment is helping us further our mission and really invest in our young people from this area. - And really when businesses look to invest in a certain area, they do want to see that it's a whole community. It's not just industry or just government, but there's a quality of life really in the city and in the parish that can help that. And I know we've talked about this before, but if anyone, our listeners, think about what are the times in their life that meant something to them. There's usually a component of that moment that is the arts. It's music or it's poetry or just a writing or it's something that added to that moment that wasn't just cold and calculated. - Right, right. I think a lot of people tend to, I think it's a normal thing to kind of take for granted how present the arts are in everything, whether it's culinary arts or you're driving in your car and you're hearing music, it's everywhere. But when it comes time to support it, I think that's one of our missions is just to kind of that awareness to where people want to keep it in the community, you know. - We're so fortunate to have had you here with us today. Thank you for coming in and joining us in studio. It always makes it more personable and we're looking forward to Red Stick Rising, Midday Downtown and Red Stick revelry. Later, you said after the naps. - Yeah, after the naps, to come back out and eight to 12.30, I think is when the Red Stick revelry great band, please, everyone make plans to join the Arts Council and a whole lot of other people downtown, North Boulevard Plaza, Galvez Plaza, that area, the downtown and really, really looking forward to it. Thank you for what you do for our community as well, both of you Mike Esno, Jonathan Grimes, we appreciate. And coming up after this news break that we're gonna have in just a moment, we're gonna join politician and poet Jay Darden, a little bit of arts there too, we'll just continue the theme for a look back at Louisiana in 2024, what to watch for in 2025. You may know him from his now documentary, why Louisiana ain't Mississippi? Why are we so different? We'll talk a little bit about that with Jay, who's been in statewide elected positions and more throughout the years, really a treasure as well for our community. But do stay with us here on Talk Louisiana for our next segment rather, with Jay Darden. And welcome back to Talk Louisiana, I'm Julie Baxter-Pager, filling in for Jim Engster today on this December 30th edition of Talk Louisiana, 1-877-217-5757 is the number to call if you would like to be a part of this conversation now with Jay Darden, who has spent more than three decades in politics in Louisiana and Jay, it's such an honor to have you with us here. - Thanks Julie, it's nice to be with you. - And we're gonna pick your brain on a lot of different topics on this last couple of days here in 2024, looking ahead to 2025. One of the productions that we know will be a lasting legacy for you is why Louisiana ain't Mississippi. It's a documentary, there's a book now, you've worked with a very highly acclaimed photographer to catch some of the scenes from around Louisiana, but I do remember, I believe that this particular presentation that you put together started as a speech, really, or a presentation that you would give live, right? - I still do, and that's really the origin of it. I talked for about three hours with a lot of power points and a lot of Louisiana music about why Louisiana's unlike any other place and why we have punched above our weight in so many different areas of Americana, the arts and sports and politics and history. And it led to the documentary with LPB. - And what originally sparked you to spend your time on this? And did you just keep having that question come up as you were Secretary of State or Lieutenant Governor? - No, it was while I was in the Senate, but really I've always given the credit to Jerry Doty. Jerry was a lobbyist and a pollster. He was my pollster and my first political consultant. And he did talk about Louisiana's economy and somewhat about its demography to leadership Louisiana and some other groups. And I was his attorney, we were friends. And when he passed, before he passed away, I said, I'd like to take this and kind of turn into my own. And he was glad to have me do it, gave me some of his notes. And that led me to do the research that led to why Louisiana. - And it's really grown. I mean, talk about where it is now. I mean, it's actually a coffee table book or. - Well, we did the documentary. It's a four-hour documentary, which is an adaptation of the live presentation. And during the course of the preparation for the documentary, we met Carol Highsmith, who is this incredible photographer. She's America's photographer. All of her work is donated to the Library of Congress. You can download for free any photograph she's ever taken, 100,000 photographs. It's a wonderful legacy. And she had documented three different states with coffee table books by people who had sponsored it. And she was excited to do one about Louisiana. We made it the companion to the documentary. And I wrote the copy for it. She took all the pictures around Louisiana. And it's been a big seller. - And what a gift to Louisiana to just for people to remember what's special about our state. I know I remember early on when you gave the presentation, you had a segment where you talked about surnames. You talked about why there are areas of Louisiana that have predominantly English origin or German or Creole or talk a little bit about. - Well, that's at the heart of the story because we're a state of immigrants, really. People who've come from Europe primarily, Africans who didn't come voluntarily. But white Anglo-Saxon Protestants who came after the, basically after the Louisiana Purchase. And all those early settlers were primarily Catholic. And so they were evangelizing their Catholic faith. And so you have these pockets of German settlers and Sicilian settlers and white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, primarily in North Louisiana. And the surnames tell that story. And of course, unfortunately, slaves did not have last names until after emancipation. And so they were able to choose their last name. And so you see a lot of common English names and political names in the African community because when they chose their names, it was Washington and Jefferson and Jackson and so on. - So interesting. Thank you for memorializing that. And I know people can find online that documentary if you'd like to look into that more or see it on LPB from time to time. I'm sure it's-- - LPB.org is where you go. - Okay. And thank you too for your public service. I know some people might be wondering, what are you doing now? What has 2024 been like for you since you stepped away from being commissioner of administration for John-- - It's been a bit of a different pace. I've always maintained my law practice to a small degree and I'm practicing law and mediating as part of that law practice and working on another documentary for LPB. We've got a couple of different things in the works and decided exactly what it'll be yet. But something in 2025, I think, will emerge toward the end of 2025 with another documentary through LPB. - And you've talked about LPB. You're connected still with the communications industry. You actually have a Bachelor of Arts, right, in journalism initially. I remember the fun evenings we would have at the Manship School with Kip Holden and you reigning supreme there over the ceremonies. - We had a great time in the Manship Hall of Fame every year, Kip and I would MC it and we had a lot of fun. - But communications has changed a lot since you graduated from LSU and talk a little bit about what's different. Even in the way that politicians interact with news and coverage and-- - Yeah, it's pretty obvious, I think, to even a casual observer of politics and certainly of just communication, what's happened with the internet and how that's changed. Certainly political communication and the way that people try to get votes and the way that people communicate. People get their news now, particularly younger people, primarily on the internet and you see these various polls talk about the decline of newspapers and decline of print media, which is unfortunate, but I think that's just the way of the world right now. I'm still one of those guys who likes to hold the newspaper and read the newspaper and not necessarily look at it online, but I'm also a baby boomer and we're a later generation now. - Do you think that the way the communications industry and the way we get our news changing has changed how people look at what they want in their politicians do you-- - Certainly, the advent of talk radio and the existence of people who have a microphone and are able to shape political discourse based upon their opinion and everybody can have opinion and go on the internet now or can have a podcast or have a show and that's a new way of communicating with voters. And it's something that I didn't certainly experience in the early days of my involvement in politics but as it went on, that became a big part of how you communicate. - And it maybe is attracting a different kind of politician into the race or do you think not? - Well, I think it may be doing that because right now politics is driven by the extremes I think as we know on both sides and the far right, the far left, however you may define that is really what's sparking political debate and the middle is kind of what's been squeezed. - Do you stay in touch with politicians now or do you try to stay away from them? - No, I don't stay away from them but I do stay in touch with a number of people and see a lot of people and I'm still around and talk to folks and I'm interested very much in what's going on and follow politics closely in Louisiana. - And a lot of the politicians you actually served with in the state government have now moved on to Washington. - Absolutely, that's a natural movement I think from state service or local government service to go to Washington and obviously, Louisiana is overrepresented if you will in the leadership of Congress. It's just amazing that we have the two most important people in the House of Representatives are from Louisiana which is another proof point of how Louisiana punches above its weight. Our politicians that go to Washington have been schooled on Louisiana politics and that's a pretty good lesson. - And we want to talk a little bit more about that but Warren in Lafayette is on line one and Warren, good morning. You're on the air with J. Darden. - Bonjour, Toulton, good morning everyone. - J, it's great to hear you. - Bonjour, Warren. - Well, I appreciate all the work you've done in preserving our history. On March 20th in Baton Rouge at the Law Center, Professor Martito is hosting a world class two day symposium on the Louisiana Civil Code because we will be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Code of 1825. I've been asked to prepare a paper discussing why Louisiana is the only state that did not select the common law but instead we are unique with the only Napoleonic Civil Code. Would you comment on that, please? - Yes, well, you know better than anybody Warren with the work that you've done but it's obviously because our origins are European. France and Spain originally settled Louisiana when it was first developed and the Napoleonic Code, a huge part of the relationship we had with France and in America buying all the land it could from France. I mean, when you think about it, we don't call it the Jefferson Purchase or the American Purchase, it's the Louisiana Purchase. That's what America wanted and needed and that's what it got and with it, it got the European, French, Spanish, and other influences from the Civil Code that we've retained all these years very proudly. - Thank you, Warren. It was wonderful to hear from you and I know we'll look forward to that event on March 20th at the LSU Law School and did you ever, Jay, think about going to Washington yourself? - Only very briefly, I wanted to stay in Louisiana. I love being here and I wanted my two boys to be raised with a dad they knew and was here with them. So I've flirted with it very briefly when Richard Baker retired and it was when I was still in the Senate but I didn't do anything to really advance it. I know there was some talk about me running for the Senate here and there during the various years but I was interested in staying in Louisiana. - One quick question, you helped to pass the constitutional amendment on term limits when you were in, do you regret that or do you still support term limits? - No, no, I don't regret it at all. We have certainly seen the downside of term limits which a lot of people pointed out at the time and have pointed out since that you lose a lot of institutional knowledge but you also get a lot of new blood and I think you've gotten a higher quality of legislator in recent days, people running for the legislature and doing it for the right reasons. There are different political influences involved there but I felt like term limits was appropriate and something should be done in public. The public obviously agreed and I think if you had an effort to repeal it right now it would fail with the public. We really need term limits at the congressional level but that's never gonna happen because they have to vote that themselves and then it's a constitutional amendment but that was the real impetus behind term limits at the congressional level but it never got off the ground and so it trickled down to the states. - Were you surprised at the four constitutional amendments the sheer past? - I was, I didn't think all of them would pass. I thought a couple of them would but I was very surprised that a couple of them passed. - Very interesting and Jay Darden is going to stay with us. We're very fortunate for the last segment here on Talk Louisiana Today. We're gonna talk a little bit about what important Louisiana figures to watch in 2025. We've mentioned we have several Louisiana figures at the nations in Congress in the Senate. Very much in leadership positions so we're gonna talk a little bit about that. Where does Louisiana fall in the national limelight as you've mentioned today, punching above our weight consistently even now and we wanna talk a little bit about your poetry. You've become famous where some of your poems that you've written at distinct political times may be calming the waters a little bit on the Senate floor so we'll talk a little bit about that. When we come back here on Talk Louisiana, stay with us with Jay Darden. And welcome back to Talk Louisiana. On this December 30th edition, it's really good to have you with us. If you'd like to be part of the conversation in this last segment, 1-877-217-5757. We are here with Jay Darden and Skipper in Gonzalez is on the line with a question for Jay. Good morning, Skipper. Welcome to Talk Louisiana. Good morning, Jay, Skipper McKenna. Hey, Skipper, good morning again and see you. Good morning, long time friend and ally. Look, I was wondered if your concerns about the 20 to 50 year olds today seem to want to believe absolutely nothing that the government or any politician says, but yet they'll believe anything. And I mean anything, they read off the internet. I have friends that just don't understand, always tell people politicians, owners crooked as we think, but they're more petty to get imagined, but they're not as crooked as they really think they are. Well, I think that's probably a very good observation. And that is what I was referring to earlier. I mean, it's just the idea of conventional news. You know, there's a huge anti-general media sentiment right now that's kind of been the result of political discourse and people getting their information just because it's been posted on the internet, somebody tends to believe in, that's kind of scary. And I do think it represents a change in how we communicate and what you have to do to influence voters and what you have to do to advertise nowadays. And you think about the businesses that are trying to sell products or sell services in the means in which they deal with the public these days. I mean, our generation and Skipper, you're part of it a little bit younger than I am, but we're, you know, we are the dinosaurs of the communication industry right now. - Skipper, thank you so much for calling in. - And Jay, we were talking about Louisiana politicians moving to leadership positions. I think of Steve Scalise, I think of Mike Johnson. Talk a little bit about those two for a minute. They served with you in the House or the Senate when you were there. - Well, Steve was in the House when I was in the Senate and Mike was in the House briefly while at the beginning of the Edwards administration and knowing both well, they're both really fine people. And I'm happy they're in the position that they're in. It's great for Louisiana and it's, I think, good for America. And I hope they'll both stay in that position. I think it interesting as well on the Senate side, our two senators are gonna be pivotal in the discussions over the next four years. But obviously Dr. Cassidy is gonna be in the news already 'cause he's got an opponent already and the election is still a couple of years off. John is gonna always be in the media. People probably know him disproportionately across America because of the way he has cause colorful demeanor in Washington. So I think both of them are gonna be impactful. I think Jeff and Governor Landry in his position, his relationship with the Trump family, I think, is beneficial for Louisiana as well. And we've always had this significant influence in Washington when you think about it. Some of the national personalities that people know, James Carville, Donna Brazil on the Democratic side. And you just think through the years, for example, Greg Gumbel, who just passed away, the Gumbel family and broadcasting. Those guys are from New Orleans and Koki Roberts. I mean, so Louisiana's always had a significant influence on national political debate. Both as candidates and public servants as well as a newsmaker, news casters. - And part of that is that it seems to me, Louisiana folks, you're homegrown from Louisiana, right? - Yes. - And have a way with words and with music. And I know that one thing people look out for when we have the caption contest every year in the advocate, you sometimes most years enter that. And you've written a lot of sort of off the cuff poetry, maybe, that you've shared on the floor of the legislature. Talk about how that came about, and maybe share a little bit of that. - Well, in those days, and I say those days, the '90s and the early 2000s, there was a lot of camaraderie in the legislature that you don't see as much of that today, regardless of your political bent, you were social. And I used to have a lot of fun with very senator, some of whom I was on the same side of, and some I wasn't. At the end of the sessions, I'd like to write a poem about what had happened in the session and kind of poke-funded everybody. And I made it a point to include every senator by name in the poem. And so that kind of got the attention as you pointed out. But I've always liked to write poetry, and I still do to some extent. - And was it Walt Handlesman, who would have the caption contest? - Yeah, he still does, yeah. - And how did you get interested in that? You've been awarded Most Vile Pun in certain national contests, and... - Well, Walt's a great cartoonist, and he started his contest several years ago, and I thought it was a lot of fun to just make up the captions to the blank cartoon. And I've entered it regularly over the course of the past couple of years. It's a lot of fun. I'll keep doing it. - Anyone? Have you done? - I won one of the first ones, and I've had some honorable mentions, or dishonorable mention since then. - Any future politics for you? - No, no, not for me. I've decided I had a great run, and enjoyed the service that I had. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have done what I did, but no, I'm not gonna be running anymore. - What kind of advice do you have for people who might be looking at, on the younger side of life, looking at should I even look at politics? I know a lot of people talk about, good people don't want to get into politics anymore. You hear that, and is that true? And if it is, how do you encourage good people to-- - Well, I do think there's some truth to that, because people realize everything they've done in their life is gonna be under a microscope. And now with younger people posting on the internet, saying a lot of things they maybe shouldn't be saying, and doing a lot of things they shouldn't be doing on the internet, if they have a future political hope, that could be something that would be brought up about them in future years. But I've always encouraged people to consider running, but I tell them it needs to be with the support of your family, and you need to understand that it's gonna be time consuming, and it's gonna be demanding, and you better have a thick skin. But I've always encouraged people, and particularly younger people, I've told them what I did was involve myself in the community before I decided to run for office. I was involved in a lot of different community activities and leadership roles, and I thought that was very important to prepare me for public service. Some people jump right into it, and are able to get elected a very, very early age. Others follow a different path, and some nowadays are wait till much later in life to get involved in politics, and they've had great success. - And did you start in the Metro Council here in- - I did, I was on the Metro Council for three years, and then went to the Senate. - And how, what do you see as the differences between the Metro, 'cause local government is not for the faint of heart. - Well, it's not, but I've also said, and I said this on the campaign trail running for governor that I felt like the most important service I've had has been on the Metro Council, has been serving closest to the people, because you get things done. People call you directly, they get action, they fix a pothole, and you deal with something quickly, and I remember in particular a flood that happened in 1989, when I was on the council, and we developed a flood damage prevention ordinance that stood the test of time until the 2016 flood. No houses that had been built in Baton Rouge had ever flooded since then, until the '16 flood, and that was because we required retention ponds that you see in all the developments, and that's an impact that I think directly benefited people, some cases more so than when you're serving at a higher level. - Do you remember any of your poems that you wrote, that you could share? - You know, it's funny how you remember things from when you're a kid. I've been one of the first ones I wrote, that's the only one I can really remember to quote for you, but it was, I'd gotten a check for my birthday from an aunt, and I wrote her a thank you letter, and it said, "Close are nice to wear a while, "but pretty soon they're out of style. "A pen is nice, but by and by, "it's not no use when the ink runs dry, "but your nice gift gets a number one rank "because it's drawing interest at a local bank." (laughing) - Well, you remember that, but I do. - And it just reminds me of conversations. I've had this holiday season where people have told me, "Oh, it's a teenager, I'm just giving them money." That's all they want. - That's all, that's all they want. - Amazon cards, gift cards are money. - You've worked with, I want to talk a minute about Garrett Graves, you've known him over the years. What are your expectations for where we'll see Garrett Graves? - Well, Garrett will definitely resurface again politically, I hope he does. I mean, it was inevitable Louisiana was gonna lose one of those Republican seats because we had to have a second majority black district, I think, and I think that will be upheld eventually, but maybe it's not. Garrett's always hoped that it won't, and he'll go back to his old district, but I don't think we've heard the last of Garrett, and I hope we haven't, and I've encouraged him to keep at it. - And I know you probably knew Luke Letlow, and then Julia Letlow, the congresswoman now, what do you see in the future with congressmen Letlow? - Well, I don't know Julia very well. I knew Luke is one of the really bright stars in the Jindal administration. That was a tough time from a communication standpoint, but, excuse me, but Luke was really one of those people who I thought was very genuine and did an outstanding job for Bobby and was gonna be a tremendous congressman for Louisiana, and Julia has stepped right into his shoes and done a great job, and I think she's gonna stay on the scene as well. - What's coming up for you in 2025? You talked about maybe another documentary? - Yeah, there will be another documentary, not sure exactly what it'll be yet, but we'll know pretty soon what it'll be. It'll be sports related, I will tell you that, but that'll occupy some time and be a lot of fun, and I'll continue with my practice and enjoy my granddaughter. - Were you an athlete growing up? Did you? - Thank you, Bob Player. - And still today, you follow all the LSU events that I can make, and really, really enjoy following the Tigers, and excited about where we are in multiple sports. I mean, I think that the success of the women's program is really exciting, as that's grown nationally, and LSU, again, has been at the forefront of that with the National Championship under Coach Mulkey and the gymnast winning the National Championship, and so once again, there's Louisiana on the scene, and particularly for sports fans, I didn't mention, you think about when you watch football, and look at all the sports casters who are Louisiana's, Andrew Whitworth and Marcus Spears and Ryan Clark, and so many of those guys in football and baseball, the same thing, Ben McDonald and Dave Delucci and Warren Moore, I mean, drawn a blank on our other one I'm trying to think of, but they're everywhere. Louisiana's are everywhere commenting on things that are important to people. - Yes, and I think we have a way of holding people's attention. Louisiana folks do, I shouldn't say we, you and your fellow politicians and the artists. - Well, we play you now, you've been here long enough. - But no, we really appreciate you joining us today, you've just helped us close out the year, and thank you for sharing your experiences and for the service that you gave Louisiana over those many years. - Thanks, Julie. - It's wish everyone a wonderful 2025 and go out and enjoy Red Stick revelry as Jonathan Grimes and Mike Esno encourage us to do a Happy New Year to everyone. (upbeat music)