Christopher X. Brodeur

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Christopher X. Brodeur
Christopher X. Brodeur
Born 1967
Flag of New York Marlboro, Massachusetts
Political party Democratic

Christopher X. Brodeur is a journalist, musician, artist, cartoonist, political gadfly, convict (serving jail time for misdemeanors) and two-time write-in candidate for the mayor of New York City. He is a past member of the band Liquid Tapedeck and a current member of Haunted Pussy, Bohemaphilia, Suspicious Packages, Twin Towers, and numerous other bands as well as a solo artist, performing as his alter ego, Touching You. He was sentenced to two consecutive six month jail terms for harassment convictions. He attempted to be the Green Party candidate for New York mayor in 2001 and the Democratic candidate in 2005, but was defeated in both primary elections (losing to Julia Willebrand and Fernando Ferrer respectively). He never appeared on either party's general election ticket.

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[edit] Biography

Christopher Brodeur has been a controversial figure involved in politics throughout his 15 years in New York City, including many encounters with Mayor Rudy Giuliani from 1995-2001. He was arrested 6 times (with no convictions) while Giuliani was mayor. These arrests he has said were mainly for protesting what he felt were Giuliani's crimes. However, the language he used was florid violence threatened against the mayor and his staff. Brodeur lists his grievances against Giuliani as federal violations of the Clean Air Act and Handicap Laws, Freedom Of Information Law, half the Bill of Rights, as well as adultery, mob ties, patronage corruption and many more complaints. The city, under Michael Bloomberg, paid him $35,000 in 2003 to settle one of his Giuliani era false arrest lawsuits. In total, he was arrested without a conviction 22 times, defending himself against the police, City Hall, and the DA Robert Morgenthau through video, etc.

An arrest on charges of harassment[1] on January 21, 2005 led to him being found guilty[2] on February 17, 2006 and sentenced[3] to six months in prison. These charges involved threats left on his landlord's answering machine. He was later given an additional 6 month sentence by another judge on charges of harassing Mayor Bloomberg and his staff with messages threatening and describing violence against them. A third, prior, conviction was later thrown out as illegal by the Appeals court.

In 2001, ExtremeNY published Brodeur's first book, which he wrote while in jail for charges of harassment of Mayor Giuliani. The book, entitled "Perverted Little Creep", is a collection of his ideas, political beliefs, and biography written in his disgruntled language.[4] He promoted the book during his campaign as the Green Party candidate for mayor in 2001. Brodeur also wrote and drew political cartoons for the New York Press newspaper.

He is also a filmmaker and musician and has toured the country under the stage name "Touching You" as an opening act for The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, and he plays guitar for the "histrionic fear-metal band" Haunted Pussy. He wrote the song, "May I Have Your Hand Rachel Trachtenburg?" on the album Tapedeck Rejects and Bad Demos as a tribute to band member Rachel Trachtenburg. The song can heard on The Trachtenburgs' DVD, On and Off Broadway.

[edit] Campaign

As a political candidate, Brodeur maintains an intense anti-corruption position and has long claimed he would make a better mayor for New York City than any of the past 108.

He won about 4% of the Democratic votes in the New York City mayoral primary via a small, minimally financed ($120) campaign, after being prohibited from all debates, receiving minimal media coverage, and doing little campaigning. After his primary defeat, he continued as an independent write-in candidate. His campaign consisted almost entirely of distributing short pamphlets and running a website. He eschewed big campaign events in favor of directing voters to his website, in hopes that they would view his ideas, such as his "100 INNOVATIONS FOR NYC", and spread the word. He claims that spending tax dollars (via matching funds) to make posters and buttons and stickers with his name on it, as almost all candidates do, is wrong.

Out of nearly 1.3 million votes for Mayor counted in the November 2005 general election, 269 were write-ins, including 35 for Brodeur, 31 for U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (who had received 40% of the Democratic primary vote) and 26 for former President Bill Clinton.[5]

[edit] Platform

He has a list of 100 innovations he would like to adopt as mayor, and uses this list as his political platform. Items range from fundamental political change (making it illegal for politicians to lie; making all mass transit free like the now-free Staten Island ferry and socialized police / fire / parks / sidewalks / etc; making it illegal for politicians to give themselves pay raises larger than for teachers and police) to the mundane (designing bathroom doors to open out, not in, for sanitary reasons; placing outgoing mailboxes in all hallways to save the Post office money; mandating more three-legged tables in restaurants because they cannot wobble). He also espouses progressive social ideologies, portraying himself as the only mayoral candidate in 2001 to support same-sex marriage, legalized suicide, and adult drug use / prostitution. Many of his reforms are focused on consumers in New York City, who, in his view, experience a high rate of artificial inflation and excessive price-fixing. He believes that the government should support consumer and workers' rights, and investigate and police and big business. On his website, he stresses this passionately, stating that "the customer comes first, the boss comes second."

[edit] Distinction

Christopher X. Brodeur's (often called CXB) signature beliefs include his assertion that the war between liberals and conservatives is a fake one; the real war, he believes, is between taxpayers and the government, and that government and big business create a fake divide to distract citizens. He posits that liberals and conservatives alike hate potholes, tax hikes, high bills, bad customer service, jobs shipped overseas, bad TV, radio, and movies, and on and on. He also campaigns on rarely addressed issues, saying that the most important issues are the most neglected in our mainstream politics, because it is all the little things that make our quality of life bad.

Brodeur is also an extremely prolific artist and musician, who claims to have over 600 bands, from the performance art conceptualism of the Liquid tapedeck, to the power noise trio Suspicious Packages.

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/273763p-234405c.html
  2. ^ Gothamist: CXB Found Guilty of LOTS of Harrassment [sic]
  3. ^ Gothamist: CXB In the Clink for Six Months!
  4. ^ Amazon.com: Perverted Little Creep: Books: Christopher X. Brodeur
  5. ^ Board of Elections in the City of New York: Election Results

[edit] External links