The Sydney Morning Herald has finally tracked down the guy responsible for all those annoying “brokenman.net” chalkings around Sydney. I’m deliberately not linking to his site and I’ve made a personal pledge to never visit it myself. He’s chalked Newtown several times and I used to think it was just a cryptic (and annoying) marketing campaign. Now I know he’s just a stupid publicity-hungry conspiracy theory wanker. I hope I spot him the next time he’s chalking our neighborhood so I can give him a good kick in the bum.
vanessa
May 19, 2003 — 12:12 pm
grow up. the guy you want to give a kick in the bum is a very nice person. judging someone you dont know..who youve never met is immature and shows how uneducated you are.
Kris
May 19, 2003 — 2:41 pm
Whereas leaving cryptic chalk messages all over town in an apparently publicity stunt while never giving your name and being a whacko conspiracy theorist is so mature and intelligent?
vanessa
May 19, 2003 — 3:43 pm
give the guy a break. you have to fight to get anywhere in this world today.
maybe if you went to his site and read what he has to say you’d understand a bit better.
it was all a bit of fun anyway and he has his reasons why he did this.. if you go to his website you’ll see this.
what makes me laugh is that Jordan is such a lovely person. a very sincere kind person and he doesnt deserve to be talked shit about.
hes just a guy doing his thing. trying to do something good with his life and for other people.
Kris
May 19, 2003 — 4:52 pm
That’s all well and good, but I’m still stuck on the point where his desire to “do something good with his life” involves graffiti-ing the area where I live and pay council rates. It’s inconsiderate and rude. Look, I have a website, and you obviously found your way in here. I don’t go around the city leaving mysterious clues and scribbling my URL all over the place. To spell it out plainly: I don’t care what this guy’s message is. He’s turned me off immediately with his guerilla marketing tactics. Spam is still spam, even when it’s on the sidewalk.
Kris
May 19, 2003 — 4:58 pm
Also – if Jordan’s “message” is so important, he might consider not embedding broken Java applets in his page that crash other people’s browsers. Just a tip. Other than that, all I really saw was a couple of ads for HMV. Not exactly the bugle call of the revolution, is it?
vanessa
May 19, 2003 — 9:12 pm
well.. i think there far worse things out there to worry about then this Kris. I understand what you are saying but dont work yourself up over it. Its harmless… look at the crap thats happening in this world.. anyway, on his site he tells a short story about the whole campaign.
if I was him.. Id probably done the same thing.. life is frustrating.. you got to fight hard to achieve anything..thats what he did… and he succeeded.. good for him… its worth the council rates to see anybody happy in this world…
why cant we just be happy for eachother…
Kris
May 19, 2003 — 9:41 pm
Can you tell me what he achieved, Vanessa? I’m not being cheeky here; I’m honestly curious. All I know is that he succeeded getting his name in the paper. I’m all about using the Internet for the good of mankind; I just didn’t think it was obvious in this case. (Or that his message merited all the hype.) Obviously it appealed to you, though, which I suppose means it was a worthwhile endeavour, even if I didn’t get it. I just hope this doesn’t become a trend. I see enough ads every day as it is!
But you’re right, there are more important things to worry about. As you can see, the original post was made two months ago and I haven’t mentioned the guy since. I have to figure out a way to make it apparent in these archives that I post quite a bit every day and just because I rant about something on a bad day doesn’t mean I have a personal abiding campaign against it.
vanessa
May 19, 2003 — 10:12 pm
sorry, I didnt realise the post was old.. I just stumbled across it today =)
he succeeded in getting his music out there… what he is so passionate about and all artist royalties of cd sales go to the ‘make a wish foundation’ supporting kids with a life threatening illness.. so thats rather cool… hes achieved something great for himself and in return done something good. the best gift. one that many people can get joy from.
Kris
May 19, 2003 — 10:21 pm
That’s cool. I wish he’d been a little more upfront and less cryptic about it though. Ahh, I dunno. Maybe a lot of other folks like the mystery. Me, not so much. But I’m willing to concede it was a good cause. 🙂
vanessa
May 19, 2003 — 11:02 pm
=)
Anonymous
June 15, 2004 — 7:23 am
I happen to find it very entertaining and rather clever actually. I mean at least it takes one out of their worry-filled world for a while and gets you thinking, plus I like his philosophy. He says he is offering hope, he stands for the little man against the big machine, and he obviously knows a lot more than you think, hence the cryptic messages. They are decipherable. A hint, the biggest message is in what he DOESN’T say…and those who have been there understand why. Lastly, yeah I guess you could call it graffiti, but keep it in perspective please,…it is chalk afterall, and does wash & wear off by itself eventually. Not like you can equate it with any permanent damage now, can you?
Kris
June 15, 2004 — 8:20 am
Of course not, but it’s still annoying. It’s just advertising encroaching further on the public space. Jeez, can’t there be *anywhere* where I don’t have to look at a commercial or watch somebody’s pitch? How about I go down to the park and write my URL on all the trees with chalk? Sure, it’s not permanent, but it’s still a jerk thing to do, to just assume that my message is so important I have the right to force it into people’s faces. Reminds me a lot of the annoyingly persistant Optus door-to-door salesman I couldn’t get rid of last week. All pushy advertisement does is turn people off to your message, no matter how worthwhile it may be.
Vanessa
September 8, 2004 — 9:34 pm
This world needs more compassion.
This man is shedding some light into the world. If someone else’s happiness and determination bothers you, then I would take a good look at your life.
You are responsible for your life and the choices you make. No one can annoy you without your consent.
Kris
September 8, 2004 — 11:16 pm
“No one can annoy you without your consent”?? Bull. If I consented, then they wouldn’t be annoying me, now would they? The guy was spamming sidewalks with a cheesy feelgood vague let’s-help-the-children-achieve-their-dreams-by-scoring-me-a-record-deal crap.
Vanessa
September 9, 2004 — 12:08 am
Is it you or your ego talking?
You are responsible for your thoughts, actions and emotions.
You are responsible for letting yourself get annoyed.
When you get annoyed over somebody else’s happiness and compassion then I have to ask you, what are you trying to achieve? The problem isn’t the chalk on the pave ways…it is arrogance. Your rules about how you think people should behave.
There are far more serious issues in this world…and one of them is arrogance, wasting energy on insignificant things, judging those who are not harming anyone, getting annoyed over someone that is courageous enough to take risks in order to live out his purpose. There isn’t enough compassion in this world. Look at the larger picture.
amy
September 9, 2004 — 1:22 am
wow. this is the first time i’ve noticed this string, and i’ve gotta say…i’ve already had enough of this earthy crunchy hippy crap. vanessa obviously thinks the chalk man is a f*&k1ng hero. let’s all cheer! apparently, somehow, she feels that the mere fact that he writes his url around town embodies “happiness and compassion”!
?!?!?!
i’ll have to remember that the next time i see cryptic graffiti messages like this around LA. “don’t get annoyed with the fact that it’s making public property even uglier and it’s annoying and pissing off a bunch of people other than just yourself, aim! somebody else is HAPPY that he wrote that! therefore *you* should be happy too! hoooooray!”
go you, mr. chalk man! the world is a better place because you write on sidewalks.
give me a break. i’d say the serious issues in this world don’t revolve around situations where someone gets annoyed at something like this. you act like it’s something as serious as racism, v. yet chalk man is responsible for his actions as well, and simply writing his url all over town begs criticism like this. it’s not judgment. it’s what he gets!
besides, it boils down to this. nobody’s annoyed by his MESSAGE….the annoyance lies in his METHOD. what don’t you get about that?
Vanessa
September 9, 2004 — 5:13 am
It is very sad that you are getting so worked up over this. I don’t usually waste my time on negative people, but feel the need to shed some light on this.
Begs criticism? And who are the people that criticise? Unhappy bitter people. Happy people tend to actually be happy for others.
The fact that you commented on my previous posting as “earthy hippy crap” says a lot about how one dimensional you are. Do you realize there is more to life then worrying about chalk on the pavement?
And yes, Jordan (Brokenman) is a hero to me. On top of being such a warm hearted kind spirited person, he is fighting for what he believes in…he is full of courage and determination. Those are all great qualities to me.
Kris
September 9, 2004 — 8:53 am
I can now see why the messages don’t annoy Vanessa. She doesn’t read. Not only has she not seen any point we’re making, but she failed to realized that she’s arguing this with more than one person. Maybe it’s only literates that get annoyed.
And how can I be “so worked up” when I’m not the one constantly revisiting somebody’s weblog thread from over a year ago to whine some more about their opinion? I can now see the world that Jordan’s supporters want us to live in, where sidewalk spam isn’t annoying and nobody’s allowed to think differently. What a friggin’ utopia.
This discussion isn’t going anywhere. I appreciate the backup, Amy, but I’m just ANNOYED with it all. I can’t stop his stupid chalking but I can at least shut up his supporters’ ramblings on my own damn site.