Baton Rouge Classic lunch with Gordon McKernan | Entertainment/Life

Gordon McKernan doesn’t believe in taking himself too seriously.

The get-it-done Baton Rouge attorney known for taking self-promotion to new heights picked Albasha in CitiPlace for our lunch. Once we were settled at the table, I asked him the question the newsroom most wanted answered: Did he ever find either of the gigantic inflatable Santas stolen last December from in front of his office alongside I-10?

He laughed, corrected me, explaining that, in fact, three Santas were stolen — and that, not for trying, they had not recovered a single Santa. 

“We went with it — created a call-in line and reward,” he said. 

That’s what McKernan does well — he ups the game, and appears to have fun in doing so. Case in point: This year he will have an even bigger and better Santa for Christmas. This one, for the record, will have a G on the belt buckle. 

I’m a fan of folks who have the ability to laugh at themselves and settled into lunch knowing this could be a good time. 

How he began to get it done

I asked why he dove into the world of publicity (and realized the irony of the question). He explained he had been at it for more than a decade — and that there are some strange aspects of it, like when his son was quarterback in the high school state football finals and fans on other side starting yelling “Can’t get it done.”

“You slowly get used to it,” he said. “It creates thicker skin for us all — my kids included.”

But back to how and why he started leaning into the promotional side of law. It started when a former client called one day. McKernan had represented her before and things had gone well. 

Then she told him she was working with another lawyer. He asked why.

“She said, ‘He came on TV, and I called the number,'” McKernan said. “That was the moment I knew I had to change. It was a life-changing phone call.”

All these years later, McKernan said even he is surprised by the success that’s come since that phone call.

“I didn’t expect this. It’s kind of surreal still,” he said.

Even so, once the machine is rolling, turning it off can be tricky.

“My mind is always going. Things would be better for me sometimes if I could turn it off. It’s hard to sleep,” McKernan said. “There’s a restless part of me. Still sometimes, I can’t believe it works as well as it does.”

The kindness of strangers

For lunch, McKernan ordered crispy chicken kabobs with a Lebanese dish of lentils and onions “lighter than the fattoush salad,” he said. Since the restaurant is walking distance from his office, he’s a frequent diner. 

Midlunch, the waitress approached our table to say that the folks who had been at the table directly behind me (who had just left) had paid for our lunch — a first for me. McKernan said a stranger buying his lunch was new for him, too. However, he knew the Albasha staff and many other diners, even as he explained that he’s “not a guy out in society.”

The Baton Rouge native said he has a longtime, tight-knit group of friends and family — with four brothers and sisters in the area — and he relies on those folks who know him well for the majority of his social interactions. 

Cannonballing in the deep end

McKernan exercises five days a week. He’s still all in, but he’s slacked off some compared with his lifestyle before preparing for and running ultramarathons led to stress fractures in his back.

“If I do something, I don’t just jump in. I do a cannonball into the deep end,” he said.

Like cooking, for example.

If he wants to learn to make something, he says first he reads all about it, but often, he goes further. For example, when he decided he wanted to make a gumbo, first he became an expert on all things gumbo and then he took a class.

He says he enjoys cooking, particularly gumbo and étouffée. 

“The chopping is good. I’ve got some OCD tendencies. It can be challenging to be me,” he says. “Anything that gets my mind off the constant racing.”

He likes watching movies, especially Academy Award winners.  

“I watch movies when I travel,” he said. “‘(The) Godfather’ is my favorite movie of all time. I also like ‘Caddyshack.'”

He reads a lot — mainly theology, the Bible and business-related books. He just finished Tim Keller’s “Reason for God,” about belief in an age of skepticism. He reads 10-12 business books a year and just finished “How to Sell Anything to Anybody.” 

His interest in fly-fishing has led him to recently finish “The Trout Bohemia” and “The Trout Diaries,” both about fly-fishing in New Zealand. 

Making a master bucket list

During COVID, McKernan made a master bucket list, including places in the world he wants to visit and activities he wants to experience. Five years ago, he took his first trip to Europe to celebrate his wife’s 50th birthday in Italy.

“That changed my view on everything,” he said. 

His trip to Italy inspired him to learn more about wine, and in McKernan form, he’s working his way toward expert-level knowledge. For the record, he enjoys Brunello di Montalcino wine, made from the Sangiovese grape in Italy.

“Every time I drink a Brunello di Montalcino, I think of my wife and our time in Italy,” he said.

He also wants to go to Iceland, Israel and Ireland.

“I love U2 and want to see them in concert in Ireland,” he said as he began having fun listing places that didn’t start with “I” that he would also like to visit, including Pamplona to run with the bulls. 

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing,” he said. “I may overdo to my detriment. If I can do a little inflatable, why not do a giant one? Why run a 10K when you can do an ultramarathon?”

All in the family

His wife, Shannon, was his high school sweetheart and they’re figuring out the new empty nest scene, enjoying traveling and spending time at their home in Colorado. They’ve been married 31 years and have four children. His oldest daughter, Riley, is 27 and lives in Austin; Meredith is 25; Charlotte is 23 and John Gordon, an LSU student, is 22.

“My wife didn’t want me to do the advertising at first. She finally agreed and said, ‘Just promise me the kids and I will never be involved,” he said with a grin.