Episode 2: Forking Freedom, Opinions and Perspective

I’ve just finished watching the second episode of the HBO series The Anarchists. The first thing I want to say is not about the episode itself but actually about the response from certain aspects of the anarchist community (mostly not ancaps).  They’re convinced of sinister things with the makers and have been even giving some pretty fucked up death threats to Todd and Kim who produced the series.  I find this pretty ridiculous as they basically just tried to share a crazy story and as someone who lived through that crazy story, it’s pretty accurate so far. 

Ok on to the second episode. I completely forgot about filming with them at the central market, the scene where I was ordering beef and speaking Spanish.  That was literally right after the murder, when I was learning how to survive alone (save for Henza and friends who were helping me get through things) and it was interesting to see a shot of myself during those days.  I was super into the carnivore diet at the time, even more than I was in the few months before the murder mostly cause I think it’s the only thing I really felt I had control over at the time.  Realistically the first 3 months after the murder were extremely emotionally intense for me. 

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.  

Speaking of Henza, his introduction scene of him hanging his clothes on the ceiling fan and then turning it on is maybe the most Henza thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  Those that know Henza well know that his name is both a verb and an adjective….not really any other way to describe it. But till today he remains one of my closest friends and seeing him introduced like that made me miss him, because most of the time he’s traveling around and living on the road. 

Then there’s Paul, who actually opens up the episode and appears repeatedly.  The series will likely get more into this in the coming episodes but I was not as disturbed to see his face as I expected.  In those early days Paul was like an apocalyptic clown of sorts.  He was always getting himself into stupid situations, hurting himself.  In fact he’s still to this day the only person I’ve ever known to get what is called whore house fractures in his feet, from jumping into an empty pool while angry. 

Im sure I’ll be reminded soon of the last 6 months before the murder, where we woke up daily to death threats from him.  Those were not funny times, but we also weren’t surprised by those times considering the way he literally crash landed into the community.  Being reminded of the way he wrote about his life plan and mission within the community, Im not sure we could really expect any different than the chaos that ensued. But like I say in the documentary, I knew having him that involved with our lives, living with us, was nothing short of a bad idea.

Then we get to the fork. I had actually forgot that Berwick had responded that way during the interview we did with him.  Thinking back to making that interview happen we actually ended up having to reschedule SO many times because of what was basically personal drama and simply not having the house ready. That interview I remember was one of the most awkward we ever did. 

But I do remember him later telling us he wanted nothing to do with our event which genuinely made us sad. The reality was we wanted him involved and wanted to work in tandem with the event.  I think the fact that we came with criticisms and the weird cold war with the Freemans is what led to the split. 

The fork was never intended to be a fuck you, but a platform for all the people who had very valid complaints.  At one point Nathan Freeman said “Everyone who has ever come said that it changed their lives” which was not necessarily true, especially considering the first episode highlighted our criticisms of the event.  Well, maybe its not a lie cause he didn’t say how they were changed, could be for better, worse or some other way. Since the airing of that first episode I’ve actually had quite a few people reach out to me saying that our criticisms were valid, that they were there and felt the same thing.  But I digress.  Just because they were too afraid to say something about it, didn’t mean that every single person who attended Anarchapulco was happy.

The reality was many people were aching for more, something a little more decentralized and thats what we tried to offer.  If we wanted to destroy and replace Anarchapulco, we would have had our events at the same time. But we actually didn’t hold any events on the days that Anarchapulco was in session for that reason. 

The last time I saw Jeff Berwick was not this last Anarchapulco but the year before. He invited the team on a yacht (which was not for me, I am a LAND CREATURE and I learned that on that trip when I was nauseated and dizzy most of the time especially after nightfall) to thank us for our hard work.  The fact that Anarchapulco even happened in 2021 was a miracle in itself, and it was the year with the fewest chaos and complaints. 

Anyway I had what was really my first real solo conversation with Jeff.  He sat down next to me and was like “You’re like me.  You’re quiet, you just sit and watch whats going on.”  Sometimes during that conversation Anarchaforko came up.  “We never wanted to make you think we were trying to destroy what you were doing.  If anything we just wanted to add what some felt it was missing. We wanted to become a part of Anarchapulco officially, not a competitor.”  

He just smiled and nodded and said “I know, now I understand.”  It hasn’t been officially announced yet but Anarchapulco is going to incorporate the good things of the fork this next coming year.   The reality was the idea of Anarchaforko was before its time, although it made its mark. The point was to prove that it could work, and it did albeit on a small scale. But this coming year, I will build the exact same community generated calendar system and Anarchapulco will be dedicating a whole week after the main event to Agoraforko, the fork of a fork of a fork the way we see it.  

The reality is that relationship with Jeff got tainted by the Freemans who were too busy rallying against us to really look at what we were trying to offer.  All considered, especially with the way John ran my social media those years, I can’t really blame them. It does make me sad to remember those weird times, the drift within the community, those within the community who tried to bridge the gap that failed. It was a good idea being tainted with bullshit. 

And finally I think for me, the most cringe part of the episode was actually my physical appearance during the year 2017-2018.  Can we just talk about how you could literally see the stress of that situation eating away at my face, and skin in general? That is one of the part that makes me really sad about this episode oddly enough. 

It was honestly somewhere in this time that I realized that I am autistic. One of the biggest common signs is self destructive what are called stims. These can be excessive biting of fingernails, pulling out hair or for me, picking at my skin until it bled.  This is something I still struggle with although to a much less extent because lets face it, my life is not nearly as stressful as it was during those times.  My diet is also much better and thats just so obvious from the interviews that I did last fall, which are the ones of me without dreadlocks. But realizing that is how it worked was one of those big OH THATS WHY I DO THAT moments. 

Oh and let’s talk about the stolen ATM.  I was not aware that Lisa had made the arrangements with Paul for bringing that down although I was aware that Joby Weeks was the source of it.  I remember laughing at the time when we found out that it was a stolen ATM and the way it was taken from Verde Vegan. I was not surprised at all, as we had somewhat pegged Bitclub to be a scammy feeling project from the beginning.  

So for now those are my thoughts. Thanks for reading and if you have any questions about anything feel free to comment.