?
AT HOME
COVER STORY
EYE
on theSTATE
Parade of Homes: Final weekend June 13 & 14
He was born in Plaquemines in 1961. His father worked at Dow Chemical, and his mother was a school nurse. He grew up along the bayous of south Louisiana and went to Redemptorist High School in Baton Rouge. A basketball scholarship helped him attend Northeast Louisiana University, now ULM, in Monroe. He?s had several different jobs in his life, but his last one is the one that?s brought him some notoriety. Talk radio listeners around the state know Blain Griffon by his nickname, Moon, the result of a childhood fondness for the song ?Moon River.? Sixteen years ago, Griffon began his audio adventure on KMLB-AM 540 in Monroe with an hour-long radio program each Monday following the Rush Limbaugh program. Griffon said when a second hour became available, he expanded his program and in August 1993 went into statewide syndication. ?We started the program, and a couple of years into it, I said, ?I?m gonna get stagnant doing a local program,?? Griffon said. So he looked at talk show programs around the country and realized something was missing. ?There was not one state syndicated radio program in the country,? Griffon said. ?My goal was to connect the state to fix the problems in the state of Louisiana and also to entertain and to have some fun ?cause I like cuttin? up with people.? And he?s been cuttin? up ever since. He said the success he has achieved comes from being able to laugh at himself, a lesson his father taught him at an early age. ?Remember ?Star Trek?? Remember a guy named Spock? You see these big ears I got? When I was young and I cut my hair, I still had the same size ears. And I looked like Spock,? Griffon said. ?And there was a guy that called me Spock. And I got in a fight at school. And I went home, and I got in trouble. My dad said what happened, and I told him. And he said, ?You mean to tell me you got in a fight with somebody ?cause he called you a name?? ?He called me Spock.? ?Let me tell you something. It?s gonna stick if you get mad.? ?So, next day I went back and did that wo-wo-wo [wiggles ears with fingers] with my ears and had fun with it. Everybody started laughing, made ?em laugh, made ?em feel good. It died that day, and I?ve never heard about it again.?
continued on page 23
INSIDE:
Linger downtown for Pub & Culture Crawl June 18
Moon Griffon:
OF
PHASES
MOON
June 10, 2009 Vol. XXI, Issue XXXVII
NEWSWEEKLY
Talk radio host evolves, illuminates audiences for love of La.
2
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