Chuck Jones, 39

What are you up to?
I’m on my way to the School of the Art Institute where I teach 18- and 19-year-olds how to be inappropriate. I have a class called “Crossing the Line: Risk and Taste.” The unofficial title is “10,000 Years of What the Fuck?”

I didn’t think 18-year-olds needed an invitation to be inappropriate.
Right. They’ll whip their dick out and pee on their friends, but their work tends to be very “I did a charcoal drawing of my cat.” I have a very timid group this semester.

How do you instruct someone to cross the line?
I try to get my students to take their cues from the Del Close school of comedy: Don’t walk up to the precipice and look in. Jump.

Do they listen?
I had one student carry a painting through town of a transvestite fucking her butt with a cross. This is the same student who didn’t change his socks for six weeks for a project. The moment he took his boots off, I thought someone had taken a crap in my face.

And that’s art?
Well, it was that day. Art is communication, and I felt I had been communicated to.

Why are you the man to show people how to be risky?
I tend to say the thing at the meeting that people think, Oh, that went a little too far.

Such as?
“Everything went to shit when Clinton stuck his cock in the mouth of that fat girl.” That tends to end polite conversation. [Laughs]

And you’re an artist yourself?
I am. I make videos and other work at babygorilla.com. I also do embroidery. I tend not to show my students my work because they get butt-kissy. They’ll never say, “Dude, that blows!”

Who inspires you to be inappropriate?
The Onion is the best thing ever. When they cross the line, you can feel it in your heart. For instance, the article “Local Girl Finds Warm Home For Stray Bullet.” It’s like, “Oh, Jesus! I just got punched in the gut!”

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