The Making of “The Monopoly On Violence”, part 3

Federales, dead bodies and Anarchists, oh my!

I’ve been watching HBO’s “The Anarchists” and I just finished Episode 3. I’m impressed with what filmmaking partners Todd Schramke & Kim Kylland have crafted so far. The episode ends right before Anarchapulco 2019 happens, so that’s a good time to continue Stateless Productions’ story since its where our journey intersected with the story being told in the series.

Some of my friends have criticized the series for not representing the ideas of anarchism/voluntaryism as much as they’d like. I see this as missing the point. When I was trying to find video platforms to stream TMOV, I discovered that most of these platforms only wanted documentaries with narratives. Viewers enjoy stories about characters they can identify with more than they enjoy lectures about how to view the world. Trust me.

A funny thing happened before we left for Mexico. Our group had decided to call the film, “Stateless”. That’s where our company name Stateless Productions originated. I’d checked The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) to see if anybody else had a film by that name. There had been a TV series and another film called Stateless but the description sounded like a fictional narrative about people who left America to live free in Mexico. I didn’t look at the genre. It was, of course, the documentary project that was recently renamed “The Anarchists”. This led to some confusion. We contacted the organizers of Anarchapulco to get a press pass and they thought were with Kim & Todd’s film. I explained we were doing a different film. Soon after this, we decided to change our film’s name. We eventually went through 5 different names and I think we chose “Ungoverned” at the time.

Robert & I arrived in Mexico the day before the festival. We exited the airport to see a huge billboard advertising Anarchapulco. Several van companies were trying to round up gringos to go to The Princess, the hotel where Anarchapulco was taking place. We couldn’t afford a 5-star hotel during an event so we chose the Holiday Inn. We learned a valuable lesson about cabs. Tell them where you’re going and ask how much it costs. If you don’t do this, they charge whatever price they want. Even if you pay double, cab rides are cheap in Acapulco.

We decided to walk to the event just so we could soak up some scenery. This proved to be foolish, as it was a mile away and the weather was extremely humid. Acapulco is a pleasant little beach community but its still Mexico. Compared to America, its like being in a large, impoverished southwestern city but with nice condos and hotels dotting the beach. I was also quite surprised at how short everyone there was. I’m 6’1” and most of the folks there were about 5’1”.

We walked up the long driveway to The Princess hotel. We got to the gate and were surprised to see Federales with machine guns. At this point, I’ll remind my dear readers about the events that preceded the conference. A few weeks before Anarchapulco, an anarchist calling himself John Galton was shot and killed in an attack outside his home in the hills of Acapulco. Jason Henza was shot and wounded in the attack by the assailants who killed John. John’s girlfriend, Lily Forester, was inside the home when the assault occurred. Those of you who are watching “The Anarchists” have seen that this event will explored in episode 4 next Sunday. The effect of John’s murder had a chilling effect on Anarchapulco. Several key speakers canceled their appearance out of security concerns. Andrew Napolitano was one speaker who canceled and he was on our list of interview hopefuls. Cynthia McKinney joined the conference via livestream rather than appear. It was not yet known who had killed Galton, so security for the event and the city was heightened. The irony of an anarchist conference being protected by armed federal agents was not lost on us.

I gave the guard my name and he told me I wasn’t on the list. I asked him to contact Jessica Kill, the coordinator of the conference who I’d been chatting with via email a week before. 10 minutes later she appeared and talked with us. She asked if we had press cards. I said we didn’t. I realized we might be asked to pay full price, a whopping $600 USD each! She said to us, “Well, why don’t you Scooby-Doo something up…” This was her way of saying that if we could create our own press passes, there would be no problem. She added our names to the list. More irony; a “permit” to document an anarchist conference…

We took a cab back to our hotel and ate dinner there. Later we did a Facebook video call with our creative team in the group, telling them about our day. Robert spent the evening looking at Mexican women on dating apps while I forged press passes on Photoshop. I convinced him that taking a cab several hours to Mexico City was a bad idea and might endanger the film shoot the next day. He reluctantly agreed.

The next day we went to Staples to buy lanyards and card stock paper to make our fraudulent press passes appear more authentic. We took ironic photos of ourselves pretending to be day laborers outside the local Home Depot. We toured the safe part of the city and bought food for the next few days. That evening we left the hotel with our gear to film Ron Paul’s speech at the conference. There was a delay getting there though. We saw what the delay was as we drove past; a body in the road covered in a sheet. A motorcyclist had driven right into a tiny car while turning, killing him and leaving a huge dent in the car. It seemed a bad omen.

We arrived late to Dr. Paul’s speech and filmed some of it. Jessica came over to us and said we could capture short clips of the speech, but not the whole thing. Anarchapulco films their conferences and didn’t want a competitor if they decided to sell discs of conference highlights. Ah, Intellectual Property, another irony of this anarchist conference. I left the camera running and pretended to dig through my camera bag so it wouldn’t look like I was filming. Not that it mattered. I had only purchased one lens and it was good for filming interviews from a few feet away. We were far from the stage. We’d hoped to interview Ron Paul after his talk but he was hustled back to the airport immediately after his speech because of the security concerns. I was profoundly disappointed.

The next day we returned to the conference and filmed a few segments of speeches being given in the main halls. During the next few days we tried to arrange interviews with several people who had agreed to be in the film but had not set a specific day or time. Jeffrey Tucker was emceeing the conference again this year. I tried to approach him to make an appointment. I spotted him in the crowd after he had introduced a speaker. I got up and sat a few seats away from him but he had to get up to go on stage again shortly after. I missed talking to him but have no doubt that I looked like a creepy stalker in the process. Tucker used to live in Atlanta, where I’m from. I’d met him twice at meetups he founded called Anarchy In Atlanta. At our first meeting, he told me I looked like Steve Bannon. I tried not to hold this against him.

We got to meet Todd & Kim, the filmmakers who were making “The Anarchists”. They’re super cool, enthusiastic filmmakers and I learned a few things from them. They even briefly interviewed Robert & I. They interviewed dozens or more random people at the event, so I have no expectation of making a cameo on “The Anarchists”. At the time, Thaddeus Russell had attached himself as a Producer to their project and we’d hoped to interview him while in Acapulco. Apparently he is only an interview subject in the series now though. They had been trying to coordinate their latest interview with Lily Forester, who was living at a different location since John’s death. We chatted only briefly with Russell while eating lunch. He was a social butterfly, talking to all the important folks in the room.

I sat with Lisa & Nathan Freeman and a few others I didn’t know. Lisa was very friendly. I didn’t know she was a part of “The Anarchists”. She said they used to run the festival but didn’t get into why they weren’t running this one. Lisa and I talked about peaceful parenting. At the time I’d been planning to include it in the film but had later decided not to. She’d invited us to their home for the interview but I told her we were supposed to interview Thaddeus that evening. Nathan talked to others at the table but never looked at me, despite there being only 6 of us sitting there. It seemed oddly deliberate. I wondered if it was because of my Press Pass or if he didn’t like that his wife was so comfy chatting with me. Maybe he had a lot on his mind now that he was just a guest and not running things. I also learned from someone else that Jessica Kill had gotten the festival coordinator gig by claiming she had produced The Oscars, when in fact she had only produced a post-Oscars party. This may have been gossip but it rang true.

Thaddeus, Kim & Todd ended up interviewing Lily at a remote location that evening, so we missed interviewing in Acapulco. We interviewed Larken Rose, Eric July, Vit Jedlicka (“President” of “Liberland”) and a scraggly pseudo-libertarian dude who later reverted back to socialism after TMOV was released. In some ways I felt like a failure after this trip. We’d interviewed half the people we wanted to but we still had some usable footage for our crowdfund and a tale to tell. I saw Berwick a few times, always with glass of brown liquor in hand. I’d wanted to interview him as well but nobody had been able to get an answer from him on my behalf. In the first episode of The Anarchists, he said he doesn’t do  interviews anymore. Search the web with his name and the word “scam” for more insight on why this may be.

Acapulco was interesting but I don’t speak enough Spanish to get by, despite taking 3 years of it and it being my best subject. Skills not used will decline. I think the moneyed anarchists like it because it’s a big, inexpensive party. I could never live in Mexico long term. America has significant problems but I’ve been all over it and know how to navigate it effectively. I know the language, the people, the culture.

Robert and I left Acapulco on different flights. I almost missed mine because they changed gates but of course the announcement was in Spanish. It was only after they paged me by my full name that I went to the correct gate. When I landed, my cheap luggage was mangled and had been mummified in plastic wrap. I was glad to be back. It was time to use the footage in our crowdfund to get the movie funded…