TUESDAY FREE MOVIE NIGHT REBORN

7:30 p.m., the first & third Tuesdayz of the month. Don't buckle beneath relentless crushing despair and put an end to your empty life just yet... instead, visit the Iron Rail to enjoy FREE MOVIES in Spanish (with English subtitles) and stick around afterwards for Spanish convo. Burnish those language skills like you've been meaning to!

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NOV 3
El día de la bestia (1995, España)
Dirigida por Álex de la Iglesia. ¿Qué pasa cuando un cura, un roquero satánico y un presentador de un show de la tele traten a evitar el apocalipsis que venga con el paro del anticristo? ¡Hilaridad! Con el Diablo como estralla invitada. 666.
Directed by Álex de la Iglesia. What happens when a priest, a heavy metal head and a tv show host try to stop the birth of the antichrist and the coming apocalypse? Hilarity! With the Devil guest starring. 666.

NOV 17
Machuca (2004,Chile)
Dirigida por Andrés Wood. Un drama histórico centrado sobre tres niños durante a la revolución del Allende y el posterior golpe de estado por Pinochet en 1973. Pro-bablemente, va a llorar por el fin.
Directed by Andrés Wood. Historical drama centered around three kids around the Allende revolution and the subsequent coup by Pinochet in 1973. You will probably cry by the end.

DEC 1
Plata Quemada/Burnt money (2000, Argentina)
Dirigida por Marcelo Piñeyro. Dos mercenarios gayes y calientez en el año 1965 estropean un atraco a un banco, intercambiando disparos y miradas provocativas de pasión. Super elegante.
Directed by Marcelo Piñeyro. Two hottt gay mercenaries in 1965 botch a bank robbery in Buenos Aires, exchanging gunfire and smoldering gazes of passion. Muy Classy.

DEC 15
Película de Disney/ Some Disney Movie (EE.UU)
Dirigida por una Corporación. Disney hace lo mejor doblado (hay que entrar a las cabezas de los jóvenes de todas las lenguas). Entonces vengan y vuelvan a vivir una memoria sórdida de su niñez y cantamos. Hay varios, entonces vamos a hacer el voto.
Directed by a Corporation. Disney does the best dubbing (got to get into the heads of kids no matter the language). So come relive a sordid childhood moment and get to not sing along (unless you’re fluent that is). Got a couple of ‘em, so we’ll vote.

JAN 5
El Topo/The Mole (1970,México)
Dirigida por Alejandro Jodorowsky (Holy Mountain) hace su cosa y haciendo la locura. Una película de sicodélico del oeste. Más hay alegoría y sátira de la historia de México y La Iglesia Católica añadidas. Y también algo del occidental y los yogis, obvio.
Director Alejandro Jodorowsky (Holy Mountain) is doing his thing and making craziness happen. Psychedelic western cult flick. Plus some allegory and satire of Mexican history and the Catholic church thrown in. Oh and some eastern yogi stuff, of course.

JAN 19
!Ay Carmela! (1990, España)
Dirigida por Carlos Saura. Todavía otra película sobre La Guerra Civil en España, y como las otras es muy buena y todavía algo distinta. Un grupo republicano de vodevil se encuentra en el territorio fascista donde son forzada a actuar. Travesuras chifladas y la muerte de una España libre sigan.
Directed by Carlos Saura.
Yet another movie about the Spanish Civil War, and like all the others so good and still something different. A Republican vaudeville group finds themselves in Fascist territory where they are forced to perform. Wacky hijinxs and the death of a free Spain ensue.

HONOR, AID, RESIST

It's a tragedy when people die, when anyone dies. It's a tragedy when people who lived genuinely anarchist lives and believed in resisting authority die, and sadder when and their death prompts allies to collaborate with police.

The police-- especially the NOPD-- are enemies of the people. This is not only true when you're wearing a "Stop Snitchin'" t-shirt, in ironic homage to black communities' silence in the face of oppression and interrogation; it's true when crime happens to you and "yours." It remains true when someone with your own complexion and economic background is killed. It remains true when kids steal the tip jar from the coffee shop you work at. It remains true when a New Orleanian without adequate mental health care flips out and is shouting at invisible stuff outside the house you rent.

The NOPD will never be part of a solution. Not short-term, not long-term.

Collaboration with the police sells out everything Brydrum LIVED for and fought so hard for. Let's celebrate her rich, bold, uncompromising LIFE, her optimism, and her rejection of authority, including violently repressive authority such as the NOPD. Let's work to eradicate the misogyny and social inequities that leads to tragedies such as her death. Let's not be hypocrites.

YOU KNOW WHAT'S WONDERFUL?

The talented Asher putting his strong, soft hands on you, and massaging you.

That's wonderful!

Seriously, the dude has a gift. He went to school for this, but more importantly, he's just great at it. Those who he's touched rave about him, and this is YOUR CHANCE to find out why!

...because Asher is AT the Iron Rail, today, Friday, with his actual professional massage chair, giving people massages! Come pay whatver you can-- no amount would be too much-- and let Asher make this ugly stressful day significantly better for you.

PLAN B STOLE OUR FILM PROJECTOR...

...& by thus doing, effectively force-cancelled last night's Iron Rail movie night and all future movie nights until such time as it's convenient for them to return it.


This is hurting the recovery!!

MY DELICATE CRIME-DETECTOR IS VIBRA-TING VIOLENTLY

...and the indicator points towards the Iron Rail.

Here are some month-of-March Popular Music Concerts that it might behoove the Rail to table.

To learn more about any of these shows and other local events I recommend visiting NOLADIY.org. If you'd like to table something not on this list... anything from an opera to lunch hour at an institution of higher learning... that'd be cool too. For more info on tabling, you can contact long-suffering abuse-magnet Bryan at the e-mail address: flyerstorm at yahoo dot com.

Motorized transport is probably the name of the game for some of these shows, but 'zines tote easily in a messenger bag or backpack, and if you have two people, biking a couple big pack-loads of stuff to and from the Dragons' Den is not at all a big deal.

Help us out, make friends, seem like someone who's part of something. Please help. Heaven knows, we need the $ $ $ .

Wednesday, March 11th
Eearth Fiirst! benefit @ Candle Factory

Thursday, March 12th
Big Blue Marble @ Dragon's Den
Mars @ Saturn Bar
Dark, Dark, Dark @ Sidearm

Friday, March 13th
instrumental fest @ Big Top
one man band fest @ Saturn Bar

Saturday, March 14th
In Tomorrow's Shadow @ The Bar
instrumental fest @ Big Top
Turboslut @ Hillary's house

Sunday, March 15th
King Khan @ One Eyed Jacks
One Man Machine @ Saturn Bar
Enormous Poets: Open mic & poetry slam @ Dragon's Den

Monday, March 16th
Hurray for the Riff Raff @ Tulane (Dixon Hall)
Peelander-Z @ One Eyed Jacks
So So Glos @ Zeitgeist

Tuesday, March 17th
White Colla Crimes @ Dragon's Den
Mi Ami @ 615 Gallier

Wednesday, March 18th
The Death Set @ Saturn Bar

Friday March 20th
The Weakends @ Saturn Bar

Saturday March 21st
Alternative Media Expo @ CAC
^^^I GOT THAT WORK
Dangerous Ponies @ Hillary's house

Sunday March 22nd
Des Ark @ Ducbo (matinee)
Kylesa @ Candle Factory
This Bike is a Pipe Bomb @ Saturn Bar

Monday March 23
Pygmy Lush @ 2608 Magazine
The Queers @ Dragon's Den

Tuesday, March 24th
Masshysteri @ Nowe Miasto
Frank Gratkowski @ Blue Nile
Truth Universal @ Dragon's Den
Cling to the Trees of a Forest Fire

Friday, March 27th
Orchard of the Living @ Circle Bar
The White Bitch @ Dragon's Den

Saturday, March 28th
Angry Banana @ High Ground
Mynameisjohnmichael @ One Eyed Jacks

NOT ANYTHING

Sobriety is so awful, and it's so awful in such uncool ways. It's waiting, always waiting, and you're the only magazines to read, you're the unattractive wallpaper pattern, and you're the climate control that displeases and the TV that's loud and the receptionist who won't make eye contact. You're stuck in yourself waiting for nothing, nothing, it really sucks. I mean drinking makes one fat and clownish and more monstrous than usual and ruins one's life but there are far worse things than ruination. Ruination is at least something, and sobriety is nothing, nothing, nothing, every fucking tick-tock moment.

It's a howling absence of pleasure's possibility, an absence that makes the multifarious other absences in one's life sing in sympathy, chiming in until every dog in the neighborhood's barking. Emptinesses, shortfalls, absences, keening like cavities, a cacophony crowding ever into one's attention, the wind whistling through them all. God, one longs for the absence of absences, but of course there are things to be done.

Another moment endured, another minute survived, another hour harrowed, another afternoon undergone, another weekend withstood finding ways to get by, and no reward waiting, nothing waiting but nothing, more of it, a fucking wall of it falling over you every second, burying you again and again, and you're clawing through your life like it's quicksand, but it's not-- it's not anything.


...Fortunately, one can sometimes find solace in a good book. The Iron Rail is open every day from 1 to 7 p.m.

FRED GOTS IT

The National Guardsmen near the Rail are now painted over. Why and by whom? A righteous patriot who found the depiction offensive? Some total weirdo making an ironically complex gesture of anti-art? The building's owner, afraid of thieves stealing his wall? Fred himself, using his penis as a brush? Doesn't matter. Really, really doesn't matter. All that matters is that it's greyed over. Fred is greying, and all greying accrues to him.

I liked the Guardsmen stencil-- hell, I loved the piece, even more than I love Banksy's other work-- but the half-assed buffing of the artwork does resolve the tension of how long it would last and what would become of it. Vulnerability is part of what makes Banksy's work and all graffiti exciting. Now it's grey again, or mostly grey.

We've reached a point where we can pretty much ascribe public artwork's inevitable reversion to grey to a natural process. It's no longer an insult, no moreso than litter on your stoop or mold spots on your linens. Call it an environmental quirk, endemic to the area. Fred has made himself the status quo, but he isn't just the status quo, he's ours. He's us. Banksy visited, graced our city with several glorious artworks, more than one of which specifically critiqued the Grey Ghost... did you really think some foreigner, some out-of-towner, would be allowed the last word over New Orleans' own Duke of Desaturation?

Maybe you're tired of Fred, and tired of hearing or reading about him. Only two more short paragraphs.

No-one can still deny Fred's tireless labor has created our city's contemporary visual reality. It's a distinctive, recognizable look, as pervasive as summer heat. It's locally characteristic, full stop. The WWL radio promos like to say, "As New Orleans as the St. Louis Cathedral." "As New Orleans as Filé Gumbo." As New Orleans as Fred Radtke.

I should be funnier, but I don't want anyone to mistake my tone. We might as well own this, and we might as well recognize the buffing of Banksy's National Guard stencil for what it is: an assertion of authentic New Orleans ugliness destroying a colorful, beautiful contribution from someone from somewhere else. It happens every day, and in ways much worse than paint on a wall. Don't try to distance this from yourself. If you love our city, go pose for a snapshot in front of the eradicated Guardsmen. There's your postcard: New Orleans 2008.

CATALOGUING PARTY THIS SATURDAY

The Iron Rail is volunteer-run. We're here because we CARE, and one of the things we care about passionately is finding the best method for cataloguing our library. Finally, we have arrived at that method. We've sorted it all out, every detail of it, and will never have to address the issue in any capacity whatsoever at any time in the future ever again. To celebrate this, we are having a CATALOGUING/LABELING PARTY this Saturday afternoon at 1:30 PM.

WHAT IS A CATALOGUING/LABELING PARTY?
We are gonna go through our whole library and label each book with its category and shelve it alphabetically and catalogue it by hand

WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT?
Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. This is librarianism at the fringe. Didn't you read that clipping your mom sent you about how it's cool to be a librarian? She was right. Not right about you going to library school, but definitely right about it being cool.

Tintin, Snowy and the cast of sesame street will be there. Fat, fluffy goblins, their dreddy gnarls combed out and their fur gently, organically shampooed, will be there, be-ribboned, dispensing loving hugs. You may cry into their absorbent, fleecy nap, and the internal pressure that's been building up for weeks will dissipate, leaving you cleansed and calm. This will be a deeply healing cataloguing party.

BUT IT WILL ALSO BE FUN.

OUR LOVE IS OVERDUE

WHY does it have to hurt so bad? Why do you check out books and never return them, or only show up drunk and give us run-around excuses?

The Iron Rail has feelings too, and if you have books of ours past their return dates, or you've misused your thief skillz to "borrow" them without asking... well, I'm a let my girl Tammy speak on it:

THERE USED TO BE AN MP3 WIDGET HERE THAT SERENADED VISITORS WITH TAMMY WYNETTE'S EXQUISITE "LOVE OVERDUE," BUT NOW IT IS GONE, POSSIBLY STOLEN?? EXPECT TO HEAR ABOUT THIS OUTRAGE AT THE NEXT COLLECTIVE MEETING!!!!