NO ANSWER

"What's your name? How long have you been in New Orleans? Where did you come from? What groups do you belong to? Are you part of an anti-war movement? What do those patches mean exactly? Are you carrying any weapons or drugs? Why do you choose this lifestyle? Have you ever been arrested?"

I came across a troupe of these obviously gang-affiliated skinheads gaffling a pair of traveller kids, and since all six of them couldn't really be that busy pestering two underfed hippies, I asked the gang members the above questions. They declined to answer; they wouldn't tell me anything about themselves. They told me to leave, albeit in a manner much less gratuitously unpleasant than the NOPD's usual.

Fair enough. I sure as shit wouldn't answer those questions put to me, and neither should you. Nobody should. Silence when questioned is our first and strongest line of defense against agents of the state. Silence, until we choose to make ourselves heard on our own terms: silence until the time we tell them, pleasantly or otherwise, to leave.

ART WARS: SWOON GOES OVER BANKSY

In most contexts, one graffiti artist even partially covering or overlapping another's work means it's on, big time. Not sure that will be the case here.

But has this specific thing ever happened before, anywhere? In any other city in the world, have these two international super-monsters of politically aware street art hit the same corner, the exact same spot, within weeks of each other, to the point where you have Swoon's trademark paper cutouts wheatpasted DIRECTLY on Banksy's stenciled spraypaint? What are the odds of that? I love you, New Orleans, I love you so much, every day.

Background on Swoon: Swoon discusses street art vs. museums, Swoon talks about her influences

From the dungeon...

Iron Rail now has a "Facebook" page. Find us on it if you want to.

Help us spread the knowledge of radical radicalism, extreme extremism, and free freedom across the land.

the islands

I do still sometimes think of you. When I'm listening to Diamond Head or Grim Reaper, the kind of shit nobody else except you ever really appreciated-- and it's night-time, and maybe I'm caffeinated, it's not so hard to drift back there: Driving the beat-to-hell (but still V6 balls-out) Camry, both of us drunk as lords, wheeling wildly among the glinting neon night-time surf shops and resort hotels of the islands. Always on the way to somewhere, and I can still see you in the passenger seat, bare feet on the dash, chugging Sparks Light, tossing the cans out the windows, arguing about something, complaining about something, hating something together-- didn't it sustain us? wallowing in the sea air, the repeating sidewalkless cul-de-sacs and Super-Mario-World hyperreal landscaping, everything framed against the massive, serene, dolphin-infested bathtub of the Gulf of Mexico.

Inter-island drawbridges, touristy "pirate" ships, squalid overpriced fish shacks where the staff all fucked each other, ten hundred food-service jobs, delivery, retail, photography, deckhand, covering ribbon cuttings and zoning disputes, 10 articles a week under silly fake names, scamming free meals for advertorial write-ups. Didn't we live large? Trashing one sublet after another, ruining acres of carpet with blenders of slushy day-glo, insane glittering-sun hangovers, blown deadlines and bold long-necked white birds, swerving back home across floodlit causeways after a night raising hell at the only cool bar that wouldn't card you, fighting about who flirted with whom, ferocious drunken sex that settled nothing, or waking up bleary facedown on the beach, or lawn, or condominium parking lot.

God how good it was, hunched over the iMac, so far gone I had to cover one eye to write, pounding out a profile of a senior-center inhabitant for Tuesday's edition while you were out fucking the girl from the tattoo shop, and the stereo so loud it shook the walls, so loud I couldn't hear the cops hammering on the door, and the money from the house sale steadily dwindling, emptying out the IRA, each condo smaller than the previous, then to apartments, then sharing a room in a converted garage that flooded, ruining your record collection. How broke we went! The gun shows, the palmettos all over our walls, the emerald lizards and noon-time downpours, hands shaking for hair of the dog, hustling short money out of leathery "swingers," Western Union from the exes, laughing with each other at our audacity.

Didn't we have fun? Horrible parties at your horrible co-workers' horrible apartments-- meth, bong hits, playstation 2 and Rap-Metal-- absolutely no control, landlord after landlord, employer after employer, and never my fault, never yours, always the hateful world's. What a team we were, darling, what an amazing team.

Barack Me Amadeus

Hope all of you who bothered to vote for district attorneys, judges, congressmen & president don't have to answer to the whores in the office which exists because you've substantiated its actuality.

The weather has changed, meeting attendance has jumped into double digits, but the Iron Rail can still use your help.
Not getting all you want out of the New Orleans radical community?
The Iron Rail has weekly membership meetings at 8pm in the space. Join us and help make the most of Our Shop.

the fucking days are fucking long

it fucking gets you fucking down

evidently chicken town

SUE BUTLER KNOWS WHAT'S UP

It's a very magical little piece of the week, almost. It's the time where YOU get a phone call or text message about volunteering at the Rail! Ha ha I bet a lot of you wish you could somehow "block" messages sent from certain phones. Maybe you can? I'm not too up on this stuff.

Seriously there's no reason filling the schedule should be as stressful & last-minute as it has been the last few weeks. Help us out!!!

And of course the one sure-fire way to not get an annoying text message is to come to the weekly collective meetings, every Wednesday at 8... We love you / miss you / need your input and ideas!

FUCK THE VOTE

Voting at all represents compromise with the illegitimate systems imposed upon us, fuck it!

but

if you wanted to know what your fave embarrassing-older-brother figure the D-Block would recommend voting for regarding the LOCAL stuff (and the presidency) then click here for a non-Iron Rail-approved voter guide. Again let me stress this is not related to the collective, it's just one collective member's views (based on views of others).

UPDATED!!! AS OF 8:45 PM, NOW MORE ACCURATE! PLZ RE-PRINT IF YOU SAW IT BEFORE.

A PILLAR OF WIND

I spend a couple weeks preoccupied and this place is a morgue. COME ON FOLKS.

So I happen to work in an office. It's an easy "go-to" when I need something to castigate myself over, that I'm a white-collar wage lackey. Anyway my office is in a building with a really powerful elevator, and when I ascend the elevator to work and there aren't other people I like to close my eyes and experience the WHOOOSH as the elevator yanks me skywards. It's astonishing when you consider it... there's this giant WELL and you step into a brass bucket and WHOOSH it sucks you up through space at however many miles per hour.

There are probably all kinds of interesting effects in the elevator shaft itself created by having something rocketing through at such a high speed. The elevator is fancy but you can hear whistling air if you press your face to one of the seams in the side panels and thus get a sense of just how crazy the physics of it is. So even though it demoralizes me to have a job and not a trust fund I must say it's cool that at least 2 or three times every shift I have the experience of being rushed heavenwards on a pillar of wind.

WHAT, YOU DON'T THINK THAT'S REMARKABLE OR INTERESTING? YOU THINK THAT'S OPPRESSIVELY MUNDANE? Well fuck you, if you were trapped 10,000,000 miles below ground and you felt like you were constantly exhausting yourself in the fight to get up to Zero, the level from which most people start their days, if you felt like you were buried so far below any kind of real life that even breaking through the surface of Zero for an occasional gulp of air and a glimpse of daylight was an accomplishment to be savored, then you might get a kick out of zooming around in an elevator too. God, my pretty little turns of phrase are clearly wasted on you! Can't you allow me my small pleasures, you philistine? Fuck it that tears it I'm going to go get drunk.

Iron Rail Definitive Update

We have gotten tons of cool new books in. We have movies figured out for a while, and there is some stuff you need to know. Check it out:

New Books & Stuff:
-More Iron Rail T-Shirts ($5-15 sliding scale)
-Rolling Thunder #6
-Abolition Now! 10 years of Critical Resistance
-Derrick Jensen books, including Endgame
-Wild Fermentation
-Chainbreaker
-Toolbox for Radical Sustainable Living
-Red State Rebels
-Orgasms of History
-Conquest
-Twilight of the Machines, a new book by John Zerzan
-Disaster and Resistance, a new book by Seth Tobocman related to Katrina
-That's Revolting!, probably one of the best radical queer books ever
-A Disjointed Search for the Will to Live
-Open Wide The Freedom Gates: A Memoir
-Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
-Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
-One Market Under God: Extreme Capitalism, Market Populism, and the End of Economic Democracy
-Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster
-Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

We also always carry current issues of:
-Make/Shift Magazine
-$pread Magazine
-Earth First! Journal

and
-2009 Slingshot Organizers are on their way!

Movies {All FREE. Start @ 8pm} :
Oct. 21: "The smartest guys in the room" A Documentary about Enron that is very similar to what Wall St. is currently going through, and what they just did.
Oct. 28: "Battle in Seattle" A new movie about the WTO protest, with Hollywood actors. Pretty crappy, but fun to watch anyway. See CrimethInc.'s leaflet made to hand out at theaters when the film was showing.
Nov. 4: "Manchurian Candidate" For Election Night. BYOB and Attitude.
Nov 11: A documentary about the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
Nov 18: TBA
Nov 25: "Dos Americas"

Citywide Anarchist Potluck, Meeting, and Protest
Join other anarchists in a potluck, meeting, and protest against Starbucks for their anti-union illegal firings against the IWW, their financing of Israeli terrorism, and their corporate occupation of cities across the world. October 26th, The Peristyle at City Park on Dreyfous Ave., 12 noon. See right-hand sidebar.

Bike Buddy Meeting
Next Wednesday at 7pm a meeting will be held to organize a bike-escort service for folks who don't want to ride home alone late at night. It is up to us to keep each other safe.

New Orleans Anarchist Email List
Organize, strategize and discuss with local anarchists via the listserve to create a new world. Use the list to let others know about local radical info and events, discuss news and views, and figure out how to best create the world we want to see. To join, send a blank email to nola-anarchists+subscribe@googlegroups.com