THE RAIL BECOMES YOU

The scorching ion beams of the summer sun have driven many of our valuable collective members to cooler climes, and it is getting tougher to find the volunteers we need to stay open. When there aren't enough volunteers, some members of our collective go into 'crisis mode,' becoming frantic, overbearing douchebags who start overspeaking on behalf of the collective and abusing the first-person plural on the internet. Please, help us. We don't want to be like this.

What is the Iron Rail, besides its physical space? Is it a closed clique of 'cool' people? No way, dude. Is it a snooty gathering of high-flown academic theoreticians? Non! Is it some aggressive subcultural punk scene where people are judged on their uniform? Fuck no!

We're just locals (and a rotating cast of visitors) who are commited to books, independent thinking, and liberty in the broadest sense. There is no litmus test for belonging except willingness to pitch in. Some of us are more radical than others. Some of us have day jobs we believe in, some of have jobs we hate, some of us have no jobs. A few of us even have love lives. We have a token Christian. The Iron Rail boils down to providing the community with a free library and a cheap, interesting bookstore in a space that stands against oppression. We have free, extremely high-end coffee, and you can meet folks from different walks of life and talk to them or not, as you see fit. We have a damn good literature selection. There's also a range of periodicals, self-published texts, and an awesome, chronically-undervalued archive of zines from the distant past through today.

The Iron Rail was the first library in New Orleans to reopen after the failure of the federal levee system. The Iron Rail has been around for years, and isn't going away, but we also would love anyone from the community who's interested in contributing even a little but of time or energy to come by one of our weekly meetings, Wednesdays at eight PM. The meetings are open to everyone, and we bicker, discuss, and reach painstaking consensus. We're pretty nice. We'd love to see you there!

--the mighty annoying D-Block

Bill O'Reilly Flip Out Tributes

Enjoy!

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Infiltrate Vegan Potlucks for the FBI

Some at the Iron Rail tend to follow a more continental diet-- black coffee, unfiltered cigarettes, discarded shrimp heads, and whatever middle-aged married businessmen buy for us at bars-- but if you're willing to leave the Clamato out of your beer for a meal or two, Uncle Sam wants YOU to rat out your skinnier, less diabetic fellow-citizens in the run-up to the RNC:

http://articles.citypages.com/2008-05-21/news/moles-wanted/

"What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at 'vegan potlucks' throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force,"

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

--the d-block

I'm No D Block.

I spent all of Tuesday Morning making money for a large corporation and a lot of Tuesday afternoon designing newer, better, more sophisticated weapons in my truck with the A/C on full blast idling outside the shopping center where I spent $300 on an outfit I'll only wear once.

So, excuse me if I didn't have time to come and open Iron Rail for all you slack jawed Gonzo/Ginsberg wannabes.

No. Really. We're sorry we didn't open.

I did fix the side bar just now. We're missing some of the smaller, local publishers we've got, but I'll add those as I get to them. I couldn't recall them immediately. I was very tempted to put noladiy in the friends category, but decided it serves at least as much purpose as Iron Rail.

FRED RADTKE IS NEW ORLEANS

I'm tired of the bitching and whining about Fred Radtke, aka "The Grey Ghost." I'm tired of the cutesy t-shirts, tired of people moaning that he should be arrested, tired of the endless internet threats and letters to the editor. Fred Radtke is fucking amazing. Not only is he the best at what he does, but he represents a number of mind-blowing conceptual breakthroughs, bold steps forward in a long-stagnant "graf" scene.

For those not familiar, Radtke is the artist responsible for the huge variously grey blotches you see all over the city. A good Radtke has a mesmerizing, existentially provocative post-Rothko quality: a quilt of overlapping neutral shades addressing notions of totality and aspiration. It's miles (and yet mere millimeters) above most of the amateur-hour 'art' writers our city has to offer. Beyond his work itself and its awesome omnipresence-- both of which are significant in their own rights-- Fred is notable for his revolutionary methods and approach. He goes out in his old van with a bunch of grey paint and some rollers, and slathers it all over anything that catches his eye. Someone put a bumper sticker on a stop sign? SPLAP: the whole sign's just a big grey octagon now. Someone wrote "RIP Li'l Stinky, 1992-2008" in chalk on the brick wall of an abandoned 19th-century factory building? SPLUP: thick grey paint, eight feet square.

Quik-print plastic signs stapled to a telephone pole, advertising 2 gold teeth for $150? SPLOOP! 'Lost Dog' flyer? SPLUPP! Cringe-inducingly earnest NOLA RISING folk-art? SPLAPP! Radtke is a machine, a marvelous, superhuman grey-paint juggernaut, and if you have any problem with what he does, up to and including his fondness for violently assaulting passers-by and threatening to shoot them, do you know what you are?

Jealous. You're a hater, nothing more. I understand your petty resentment; Radtke is the king of New Orleans, and you're nobody. I sympathize; you're living in his horizon-spanning grey shadow. It must rankle. But please, stop hating. If you're a graffiti artist or sign-maker or DPW employee, take a minute to appreciate just how massively outplayed you are.

Radtke doesn't creep around with a bandanna over his face, furtively scribbling, toting a clanking backpack. No, he's out in the sunshine, getting up right on front street all day err' day. You approach him, he pulls a gun on you, or maybe splits your head open. He's real gangster, and cowboy paints where he wants when he wants. Historic French Quarter facades, traffic signs, private residences, corner stores, churches, Radtke don't give a fuck. SPLOPP! grey paint.

Everyone knows his tag, because he's all-city in a way no-one else is. The cops don't bother him, the City funds him, the paint store welcomes his business. He's taken it to the next level. Authorities turn a blind eye to his work, because he's outsmarted them. He's gotten their blessing to establish his tag on every surface in every neighborhood, and by god, he doesn't half-ass it. He has subverted the 'buff' and made it his personal trademark. How sick is that??

NOLA RISING tried to fuck with him, and NOLA RISING got knocked. Fred Radtke is the face of New Orleans graffiti, and to me, he's much bigger than high-concept clowns like Banksy or whoever else populates coffee-table "street art" books these days. Radtke doesn't need words, doesn't need appropriated 70s underground-comix imagery, doesn't need scene cred or 'authenticity.' His tag is primordial, both pre- and post-verbal. His tag is an entire PALETTE... he is the color grey, bitches, and you all know it. He goes over everything. You can love him or hate him-- he's way beyond you-- but give the man the respect he deserves. He IS graffiti, he IS the king, and he IS New Orleans. Keep talking shit... Radtke's out painting.


--the mighty d-block

May Events Besides the Movies

Radical Reading Group
Monday May 26th
8pm
We will discuss a pamphlet called "Autonomous Self-Organization
and Anarchist Intervention" by Wolfi Landstreicher. You can
pick it up for free at the Iron Rail or get it free online at
www.anti-politics.net/distro/download/autoselforg-imposed.pdf
or www.anti-politics.net/distro/download/autoselforg.doc

New Stuff
We just got in the new Earth First! Journal, as
well as a bunch of great new and used books.

Come check it out!

A Simple Request

The collective members who VOLUNTEER their time at the space ask those agents of evil forces who seem hell bent on stealing from and breaking into the space to please stop.

We would also love it, since its the "Summer Slow Months" already, if local True Believers out there would please swing by.
<3,
Coach