By Brandon Meginley

Jackie Collins comes with a tagline: “She’ll keep you up all night.” Given the titillating nature of the bestselling author’s work, readers may find themselves opening the blinds to sunlight after sitting down to read her 27^th novel, Poor Little Bitch Girl. It’s classic Collins characters at their most licentious. It opens with courtesan Annabelle Maestro primping in preparation for a gig with the 15-year-old son of a wealthy oil man. What could go wrong?

Collins has sold 400 million books internationally since the late 1970s. This places her somewhere between fellow Brits JK Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien in all-time sales. It puts her at an advantage over Michael Crichton, Anne Rice, and James Patterson combined. Poor Little Bitch Girl will be sixth on the New York Times Best Seller list this Sunday. She signs books at Masquerade at Harrah’s New Orleans Casino at 2 p.m. to 4 p.m Saturday.

Collins talked to Gambit about the book, her impressions of New Orleans, and her writing process.

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Writing a prescriptive memoir is a rite of passage for aspiring politicos from Barack Obama to Sarah Palin, and now Gov. Bobby Jindal is joining the publication pack. His book, On Solid Ground: Returning to America’s Core Values, will be published in July.

A publisher’s description indicates it will be part-memoir of Jindal’s growing up in Louisiana and conversion to Christianity, along with a dose of policy-pundit talk. The book is co-written with author Peter Schweizer, author of the 2008 manifesto-mouthful Makers and Takers: Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less … And Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals.

Jindal’s memoir will be published by Regnery, a Washington, D.C.-based press that describes itself as the “leading conservative publisher in America,” and has published books by Newt Gingrich, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter, among others.

Jindal continues to insist he has no aspirations for national office, but the magazine American Prospect once referred to Regnery as the “lifestyle press for conservatives [and] preferred printer of presidential hopefuls,” and the publisher’s description of Jindal’s manuscript says it promises to lay out how Americans can “fundamentally reshape Washington.” Louisiana, meanwhile, goes unmentioned.

Publishers Weekly has the story:

As a record-breaking audience of 106 million viewers finished watching the New Orleans’s [sic] come-from-behind 31-17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Sunday evening’s Super Bowl, the Triumph Books team put the final touches on their latest publication, Marching In: The World Champion New Orleans Saints, with the goal of having the book on store shelves by this coming weekend.

Initial press run, according to PW, was 30,000, but they’re going back to press on Thursday to print 15,000 more.

The other deets? 128 pages, paperback, full color, lots of purty pictures. Get you some here.

From the Failing Up Dept.: Seems that Michael “Brownie” Brown has been given his own three-hour evening talk show on KOA radio in Denver, which seems to be the Mile-High City’s version of WWL-AM minus some of the Hebert-Deke-DelGiornoisms.

But why Brownie? Let’s ask Clear Channel honcho Kris Olinger:

Regarding the notoriety Brown earned from his Katrina actions, Olinger says, “I think it’s a definite positive. He has great insight into what happened in New Orleans and how government works. He takes responsibility where he needs to, but he’s also pretty candid about other things that went wrong. I think people get the inside story from him.”

And here’s Brownie showing how he takes responsibility later in the same story:

“People get beaten up and thrown under the bus all the time,” he notes. “You’ve got the choice of letting the bus run over you three times, and wallowing in that, or getting up and moving. And my choice was to get up and keep moving.”

If your radio doesn’t pick up signals from Denver, you’ll have to wait until June, when Brownie’s book Deadly Indifference: Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, Disease Pandemics and the Failed Politics of Disasters hits bookshelves. And if you’re shaking your head that Michael “FEMA” Brown would actually have the temerity or boneheadedness to write a Katrina book called Deadly Indifference, you don’t know Brownie.

• The LA Weekly carries a cover interview with Anne Rice, late of the Garden District and now living in Rancho Mirage, Ca. Nothing really new in this piece, other than the fact Rice seems to have taken the Mission Inn in Riverside, Ca. as her new touchstone, using it in her fiction and signing her latest, Angel Time, there. Here’s the online trailer for the book:

• Grim rumblings from Walter Pierce of The Independent in Lafayette:

A biopic about the life of late New Orleans author John Kennedy Toole, still years away from the screen, is getting a head of steam, according to Maxim Entertainment president Blaine McManus. After two and a half years, an Ignatius Rising script based on the eponymous 2001 biography by René Pol Nevils and Deborah George Hardy (LSU Press) is complete and fundraisers are planned in Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans (dates undetermined) to raise $50,000 for a packaging/development fund. McManus says the fund is designed to ensure the movie “is fully developed and produced in Louisiana by a Louisiana production team.”

Awful news for anyone who loves A Confederacy of Dunces, or who knows the Toole family, simply because Ignatius Rising is such bad source material. I reviewed it back in 2001:

The dichotomy between Toole’s often raunchy novel and the lace- curtain gentility that his mother sought for herself is central to this story, or should be. One wonders if Mrs. Toole, who describes herself in one letter as “a woman of intelligence, culture, and many gifts,” saw herself lampooned in blowsy Mrs. Reilly, whose fingers were “chafed from years of scrubbing her son’s mammoth, yellowed drawers,” hiding empty muscatel bottles in the oven of her roach-infested kitchen. Nevils and [Deborah George Hardy] never even raise the question; indeed, they seem completely uninterested in Toole’s fantastical characters.

Ah, well; they still haven’t figured out a way to film Confederacy — maybe this will fall by the wayside, too. There’s always hope.

• Last but not least: Will Coviello interviews Poppy Z. Brite in this week’s Gambit. We’ll link the story here when it goes online later today. (And here it is.)

Our man in the Capitol, Jeremy Alford, just passed along this press release from the office of Rep. Charlie Melancon, who is challenging David Vitter in the 2010 Senate elections. Says Alford of the last sentence, “Looks like Charlie Boy just lost the literary vote.”

(Edit: A corrected version of the release has since been issued.)

Anthony Bourdain, role model for a generation of bad-boy (and wannabe bad-boy) chefs. Garrison Keillor, the rumpled personification of folksy humor. And David Sedaris, one of the funniest people on earth. They’re all coming to the Mahalia Jackson Theater next year as the inaugural wordsmiths of the New Orleans Speaker Series, a new endeavor that’s being “welcomed by” public radio station WWNO-FM.

Individual tickets to the shows will soon be available, but right now the Speaker Series is pitching a subscription model and “limited priority offer for supporters of the Mahalia Jackson Theatre,” with tix to all three shows available for $120-$172.50. The offer’s not on the Web site yet, but you can order tickets now by calling 888-614-2929.

Here’s the schedule (all shows at 7:30 p.m.):

• Thu., Jan. 7, 2010: Anthony Bourdain

• Tue., Feb. 9, 2010: Garrison Keillor

• Thu. Apr. 29, 2010: David Sedaris

The timing is odd — Keillor’s appearance is exactly one week before Fat Tuesday, and Sedaris’s comes during the second weekend of Jazz Fest — but how often do you get to see them? Snap up the tickets before everyone hears about ‘em.

Touche, Paulsen, touche. The brushback message, duly received: Nobody effs with Blues Traveler. Nobody.

Me: “… the King Khan & BBQ Show, which is a duo from Montreal that plays this very scuzzed-up kind of doo-wop punk music, really interesting band there.”

Paulsen: “How do you like their outfits, dontcha?”

Me: “Exactly. They’re not even showing the best part of this photo, which is the underneath shot.”

Paulsen: “Maybe that’s the best part to you, I don’t know.”

MUSIC

King Khan & BBQ Show
10 p.m. Friday, Spellcaster Lodge
(Gambit preview)

Shapes Have Fangs
10 p.m. Saturday, Saturn Bar

FILM

The Yes Men Fix the World
7:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center
(Gambit review)

Invisible Children
5 p.m. Sunday, Alcee Fortier Park

STAGE

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, Muriel’s Cabaret at Le Petit Theatre
(Gambit pick)

I Am My Own Wife
8 p.m. Friday preview; 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, Southern Rep
(Gambit feature)

EVENTS

Dave Eggers discusses Zeitoun
8 p.m. Friday, NOCCA Institute
(Gambit feature)

Mirliton Festival
11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday, Markey Park
(Gambit preview)

ART

“Pretty Babies,” works by Louis St. Lewis and Sean Yseult
Opening reception 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Canary Gallery

“Deep.Down.Dirty,” group show curated by Robin Wallis Atkinson
Closes Sunday, Antenna Gallery

For this third edition of Gambit and WWL-TV’s 3-Day Weekend, my foster morning family threw me for a loop: the surprise return of eccentric uncle Eric Paulsen. At first I wasn’t sure what to make of his untethered references (how does one retort Blues Traveler?), but then I realized he was just messing with me. Paulsen, you got me with the oldest morning-show hand grenade in the book! Blues Traveler. What a nut.

MUSIC

Park the Van five-year anniversary
9 p.m. Friday, Marigny Theatre
(Gambit feature)

Quintron and Miss Pussycat
10 p.m. Saturday, One Eyed Jacks
(Gambit pick)

Hot Chip
11 p.m. Saturday, Republic
(Gambit pick)

FILM

Friday the 13th
Midnight Friday-Saturday, Prytania Theatre

Vertigo
Noon Saturday-Sunday, Prytania Theatre

STAGE

A Raisin In the Sun
8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. & 8 p.m. Sunday, Anthony Bean Community Theater

EVENTS

Angus Lind signs Prime Angus
7 p.m. Friday, Rock ‘n’ Bowl; 3 p.m. Sunday, Barnes & Noble
(Gambit feature)

Diana Grove signs Dot.Conned
Noon Saturday, Maple Street Book Shop
(Gambit review)

Sugar skull demonstration
12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Southern Food and Beverage Museum

ART

“Metamorphoses,” paintings by Saskia Ozols Eubanks
Closes Saturday, Soren Christensen Gallery
(Gambit review)

“En Plein Air,” inaugural group invitational exhibition feat. Auseklis Ozols
Closes Saturday, Garden District Gallery

“Shane (MacGowan) doesn’t do interviews.” So went the response from the Pogues‘ publicist when I requested a chat with the venerable Irish/English band’s famously capricious frontman. Lucky for Gambit’s Voodoo coverage, guitarist Philip Chevron does do interviews, and he does them uncommonly well. Over 40 enlivened minutes, the sharp-witted and equally sharp-tongued Dubliner detailed his 25 years (give or take a few breaks) on tour with the inveterate boozers. What was worse, babysitting the orbital MacGowan or battling advanced throat cancer and chemotherapy? Read on.

It was a pleasant surprise to see your name added to the Voodoo lineup.
It’s been a long time since we played in New Orleans, so we’re very much looking forward to it. We played in Tipitina’s a couple times, must have been 1988, ’89. We made two or three visits to New Orleans, the Grace of God tour or just after. I love New Orleans. I was there earlier this year as a private citizen, as it were. I was actually checking out the Treme district, because a friend of ours, David Simon, was making his new HBO thing down there. We know him and George Pelecanos. They used “Body of an American” and a few other things in The Wire. One thing led to another, and we kind of hooked up and discovered we were mutual fans. Myself and Spider in particular were early adopters of The Wire.

I just wrote a story about the filming of the pilot. The team of writers he assembled is incredible: Pelecanos, Tom Piazza, Lolis Eric Elie.
I bought Faubourg Treme to have a look at it. And I was fascinated! That tells the story we really don’t know, that New Orleans existed almost as a parallel entity, really, even during the Jim Crow days. It’s a really good film, that. The way they got those narratives from people, and stuck with the same people throughout, was really brilliant. My response when I saw it was absolutely the same as David: I’ve got to find out more about this. This is too good a story not to know.

We’re so used to being portrayed in caricature. Simon’s approach should be quite a change.
I’m fascinated by the city, always have been. I’m fascinated by how it kind of exists likely at an angle from America. Of course the whole business of Katrina revealed so much of what mainstream America, Main Street America, felt about New Orleans. It really did have a quite extraordinary effect outside of America, because it was a bit like looking at pictures of Calcutta. It was hard to believe that there was a Third World country within the United States. I’m very much aware that the political ramifications and fallout of Katrina are still not sorted, and nowhere near resolved. I think that’s a huge shame. But it’s the same old story. The vultures will descend and try to turn New Orleans into a theme park version of itself, if they can. People have continued to fight it. But if anyone can fight it, New Orleans can fight it, because it’s had such an independent history in the past. I’ve always been fascinated by the mixture of elements, in a way. It was in part a great Irish immigrant city and port, and had its own part to tell in that story. So, a fascinating place. I can’t wait to get back.

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