Kevin Wolf

Cubist Still Life by Roy Lichtenstein

Reason I’m tugging at your coat and using annoying words like “art”:

As you may have gathered from my recent ramblin’ posts on art, I’m of the mind that post-modernism has gone too far in demolishing earlier conventions; elevating “other” art (outsider, folk, mass-produced); and loading on too much art theory and agit-prop at the expense of Art. That is, aesthetic considerations come second to history and politics. As such, Art, high art, serious art, what Clement Greenberg called “major art” is on the way out.

The question, I guess, is whether this really matters. Is this good or bad, and should I care one way or the other?

In an essay on music (included in The Crisis of Criticism, ed. Maurice Berger), Sarah Rothenberg talks about the overtaking of art by popular culture - which I think has clearly happened in our society. I will quote at length because she gets at a lot of the problems I’m having with both pop and would-be high art produced over the past 20 years or so:

Popular discomfort with the function of artisitic criticism […] is a vivid example of the ongoing tension that exists between art and society in the American model of free-market capitalism that increasingly dominates the world. It may well be that it is exactly art’s refusal to be measured by the number standard that controls the rest of culture that gives it a unique function. This is where the paths of “art” and “entertainment” diverge, and this is another area where contemporary America exhibits a great distatste for drawing boundaries. […]

[A]s the American variants of movies, television and popular music have grown to dominate the world market, the concern for defining a distinctly American “high art” has lost its urgency; the thirst for cultural identity is satisfied elsewhere. […]

Judgements of success or failure in art cannot be surrendered to the marketplace. Certainly, arts organizations should strive to reach new audiences, to battle a culture of privilege. But there is a kind of marginality far more difficult to define than that of underground theaters.

For art to stand in opposition to a monolithic government is a clear stance; but ours is not a country of visible borders. The threats to artisitic integrity insinuate themselves into our society with greater subtlety; there is no equivalent to a searing review on the front page of Pravda, there is little opportunity for cultural martyrdom.

There is instead the daily struggle of economic survival, where a lack of subsidies creates ever greater dependence on box-office receipts and at the same time drives up the price of tickets. But the most insidious are the hidden, yet directly related, threats to artistic survival: the artist who commands an audience of only a few holds no prophet status in America. The rule of numbers is a seductive one, and it replaces the role of critical thought in the minds of artists as well as audiences.

Financial success and fame become the blatant singular aims of creation; art the business of self-promotion. In the post-Warholian world, the adherence to any standard other than that of popular success becomes a mythical pretension viewed suspiciously by a cynical populace. In this construct, the tension between art and society collapses entirely. […]

Art can be the last frontier of difference. Not by an explicitly political content, but by being “other.”

Clearly, we give something up when we turn away from everything that is individual, hand made, specific and unique, replacing it with all that is mass produced.

I was reading something recently - can’t remember where exactly - that seemed to locate the point at which art started to get into trouble as around 1970. Maybe, but I think the problems began earlier - with the advent of Pop Art around 1960. (I think this opinion is echoed in Rothenberg’s “post-Warholian” reference above.) But the thing is, I really enjoy Pop Art. (Greenberg didn’t.)

A favorite artist of mine is Roy Lichtenstein and I think that for overall artistic impact in the second half of the 20th Century nobody can match Andy Warhol. But Pop is the point where that high/low dichotomy begins to break down. (A year or two after Pop’s emergence, Marvel Comics’s logo on the cover of their comics proudly said, “A Marvel POP ART Production.”)

Within the space of a decade, two things happened: First, high art made itself increasingly conceptual and theory-laden. Instead of paintings, artworks were often texts (and had to be supported by texts). The appeal, admittedly limited, was to the intellect rather than aesthetics. The question “What is art?” was parsed so finely that the art itself seemed to disappear. (I’m reminded of an old Woody Allen joke about his dating a philosophy major who would construct elaborate arguments that proved he didn’t exist.)

Second, the vibrant colors, references to mass production and popular subject matter used in much of Pop Art began to lend a legitimacy to the “lower” popular arts, even if only by association. It would be during this decade as well that developments like the French New Wave of filmmaking, drawing inspirtation from and exalting American film noir, would filter back into the US through college campuses - making Bogart an icon and beginning the process of “serious” discussion of movies that were previously seen as mere product.

This process spread throughout the popular arts, resulting in a literature on comics (for instance, the German book Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium, which sticks in my mind because it reviews the rise of Pop Art), among other academic and popular reconsiderations going beyond comics.

In other words, while “serious” art seemed to be making itself less and less relevant to everyday experience, the popular arts were being considered with more and more seriousness.

I see nothing wrong, generally, with the reconsideration of any work or art, popular or not. As Dan commented on an earlier post, we need to keep thinking about what’s good and bad and why. Any process that allows certain artists and works to get the attention they deserve is okay with me.

But - to get back to where we started above, sort of - you can take this sort of thing too far. As Rothenberg notes above, we seem to have stopped allowing a space in the culture for serious/high art. I guess if a product (art production) is not delivered in mass quantities, with associated labels like “genre” readily attached and without an expected meaning then there’s no place for whatever it is. It can’t even be a “whatever it is” - there’s no way to deal with such an object in the present culture.

It would seem that high art has been subsumed into the general popular culture. (That which cannot be is merely ignored. It ceases to exist, if it ever did, mass-culturally.) Yet, as Rothenberg argues - and I would too - there’s got to be something that stands apart from monolithic consumer-capitalist culture. Something. The thirst for cultural identity is satisfied elsewhere than American high art, Rothenberg says, but when I see what that cultural Elsewhere has got to offer, I get worried…

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Blue Girl was nice enough to link to my recent posts about albums and songs and she followed up with her own ingenious question: what rockin’ tune you’re most likely to turn up as loud as possible, letting loose your inner rock monster. If you read the comments to her post, which get pretty far afield because that’s the kind of eclectic crowd she attracts, you’ll see the conversation veer toward other tunes that aren’t as rockin’ but still have a hold on some of us.

Pursuant to those comments, I’m asking everybody out there if there are any “slow songs” or “quiet tunes” they like - tunes done, however, by rock groups better known for rockin’ out. Not soul records, necessarily, which lend themselves to a wider range of emotion, I think; nor “power ballads” which are basically just noisy slow songs (and one of the most horrific ideas visited upon pop music); nor jazz vocals or classical music or anything innately non-rockin.’

No, I mean truly slow/thoughtful tunes by rock bands. Tunes that should be a mistake and aren’t or that are a bad idea yet still constitute a guilty pleasure.

What rock music do you listen to when you don’t want to rock?

Nick Lowe - How Do You Talk to An Angel - Nick does a tune for the Depression Era, 50 years late
Edgar Winter Group - Autumn - a favorite from when I was a kid, sung by Dan Hartman before he went solo
Queen - Jeez, there’s two on every album, I think
John Hiatt - Have a Little Faith In Me - kills me that Aretha has never approached this one
Squeeze - Labelled With Love - from East Side Story, it’s Squeeze doing a C&W weeper
Was (Not Was) with guest Mel Torme - Zaz Turned Blue - not jazz at all, though Mel is great; it’s really just weird
Joe Jackson - A Slow Song - describes exactly how I feel sometimes - in fact, at those times when this would be my playlist

Have anything to add?

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For some unfathomable reason the Peguin Press has seen fit to publish an illustrated version of Strunk & White’s venerable guide to English and writing, The Elements of Style.

Colorful and playful images by Maira Kalman pad the concise guide, most recently an affordbale paperback with just about all one needs to know about English usage, into a $25 hardcover. The illustrations “illustrate” the rules of usage as if Strunk & White haven’t been making perfect sense for decades now.

The most useless book in the world is what, you ask? The Bible, of course. Aahhhhhhhh. That felt good.

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Carl Andre, Stone Field Sculpture (1977), located in Hartford, Conn.

So, anyway, where was I? Art, or ahht as they say here in Boston.

Many good comments on the previous post, so I’m going to plunge ahead with more thoughts on the matter. As I commented there myself, we seemed to be moving into a discussion of taste vs standards. That is, what we like vs what critics or critical theories say is good art.

Clearly, these are two different things, though within certain artworks they may overlap. The images and objects we like may not all be art and all the art we see we may not enjoy. But there’s a lot of wiggle room, I think, simply because art takes so many forms and, as Dan pointed out, our criteria for defining good vs bad art is subject to change.

I’m not sure where I’m headed with this, but let’s give it a try and let’s start with the example illustrated above. I grew up in the Hartford area and I know the saga of the Stone Field Sculpture quite well. (For those who don’t, here’s a link to an good article from the Hartford Advocate weekly paper that marked 20 years since installation.)

Now, I’m familiar with Carl Andre and his place in art, specifically within what came to be called minimalism. I like Stone Field Sculpture but remain unimpressed by his works when taken up en masse. I also happen to think he was probably guilty in the alleged murder of his wife (for which he was put on trial and acquitted), and that colors my perception of him.

Stone Field is a perfect example of the good/bad and is/isn’t art dilemmas certain works exemplify. Is it “sculpture” when the artist didn’t do anything except select the rocks from a quarry and then direct workers in moving the rocks to the site where they would rest? Is it a rip off that the artist was paid $87,000 to do so? Are rocks art just because they got arranged into lines on a lawn, moved into place according to size? Long story short: These questions were raised in 1977 and never fully resolved (though a very vocal contingent insisted in the negative on every point), but the piece remained in place and is now taken pretty much for granted in Hartford. It is also Andre’s only public commission, to date, and is considered a major work in every write-up about him.

I think it succeeds as art because the rocks were carefully chosen, match the indigenous rock, suggest the formation of a cemetary (while located next to Hartford’s Old Burial Ground), and are simple forms suitable for climbing and sitting on. (Apparently kids really like the work and I think that counts for a lot.) And unlike most of Andre’s other work, the Stone Field is not composed of machine made parts (like bricks) and it is situated outdoors. I found it (last I saw it, admittedly years ago) fun - not something you’d normally say about most minimal or conceptual art.

But I’d never argue that it’s great art.

The biggest battle in the public struggle over Stone Field Sculpture was its cost. $87,000 for rocks? Therein lies a big, sometimes unacknowledged aspect of any argument over the value of a given artwork: its monetary, as opposed to aesthetic, value. In the comments to my other post, some said they would never spend that kind of money on art; others (like me) said they wish they could.

We can add that as our third category of valuation: monetary. We can then ask ourselves, when confronted with a work of art:

(1) Do I, personally, like this or not?
(2) What is the reason for the creation of this work and what is the critical reception (supportive or not)?
(3) What is the cost of buying this work?

I think the average person asks (1) and if the answer is affirmative they may go directly to (3) - and then say, “How much?” (Perhaps followed by, ” For that? You’re kidding.”)

I think the viewer with an art background, formal or not, who has a strong enough interest might make a pit stop at (2) and see if there is anything that can be gained from asking the question. Perhaps a new appreciation of the piece might be obtained, or an opening on a new line of inquiry (theory, basically) about this type of artwork. I’m of this type, as an art “consumer” (maybe not the right word since I can’t afford most art).

Moving to other examples, gleaned from the comments of the last post, we might apply these same questions to specific works or, generally, to artists whose bodies of work are familiar. The following artists were mentioned:

Howard Pyle
Kurt Schwitters
Piet Mondrian
Mark Rothko
Russell Chatham
David Salle
Jeff Koons
Judy Chicago
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Keith Haring
Norman Rockwell

I think it’s impressive of you guys to make comments with this range. Anybody want to jump in and do the 3-question exercise above, before I go any further?

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David Salle, “Satori Three Inches Within Your Heart,” 1988, Tate. © David Salle / DACS, London

I’ve recently finished reading Sontag & Kael by Craig Seligman. I’ve read a lot of Pauline Kael’s criticism and she’s had a big impact on my thinking. It’s her influence that has allowed me to do something as stupid as publicly admit I like the album Klaatu.

Susan Sontag, on the other hand: I’ve read exactly one essay, “Notes on Camp.” It’s with an eye to perhaps expanding my reading of Sontag that I picked up Sontag & Kael.

One of the ideas batted around in this book is the tussle between high and low art - and whether there’s even a tussle anymore, in this post-modern era. Apparently, Sontag was vilified in some quarters for blurring the distinction between “art” and “popular culture” but it seems to me, at least based on Seligman’s book, that the charge is unfounded. Sontag was nothing if not an intellectual and her writing most often dealt with art and literature that was not popular.

She was also very engaged and as a critic at the time of “Notes on Camp” - which was published in 1961 - she placed herself squarely where the action was. This was, after all, at the dawn of Pop Art which was equally lambasted for not being “real” or high art. (A profile of Roy Lichtenstein from the period had the title [I paraphrase] “World’s Worst Artist?”)

I’m happy to have read Seligman’s book because these are exactly the issues I like to think about. It’s an interesting question to me, this idea of post-modernism and the trope that everything is relative, that anything can be art. The modernist project that started to raise all kinds of questions, like “What is art?”, has turned into the post-modern idea that everything is art, or at least that all visual arts (painting, comic books, etc) have the same value, can be considered with the same “seriousness,” the term Sontag might use (though the general premise would not sit well with her).

My opinion is this is bullshit. In this regard, I think, post-moderism has failed miserably. (I’m discussing the visual; I don’t pretend to intimate knowledge of other branches of the arts.) It’s one thing to allow these days, finally, that some comic books can be art - whether seen as visual or literary works (of course, this is the special problem of comics). It’s another to think that any ol’ comic is Art.

And given the poor quality of much “high” art, we should conversely not assume that everything hanging in a gallery is good or even art.

In Martin Scorcese’s recent Bob Dylan documentary, Bob Neuwirth makes the remark that back when, in the 50s and 60s, the question one heard when one said “I just saw Dylan perform,” or “I just went to see Ornette Coleman” was, “What did he have to say?” It was assumed that a performer of any value was up on stage because he had something to say.

Something certainly has changed since.

I’m going to pick on a favorite whipping boy of mine: artist David Salle. Emerging in the 1980s, Salle was caught up in the 80s New York City art boom. But I’ve always had a problem with his art: I think it’s junk. Never have such large canvasses had so much “content” yet had so little to say. His work epitomizes the empty flash of so much art from the 80s to the present. In the present artistic climate, it’s possible to forget that, maybe - just maybe - art of whatever type should say something.

I get the feeling I’m going to drive readers nuts with these types of posts and I’m going to wrap it up here. Consider this one in a series consisting of me thinking out load about this stuff, on the fly, as I try to piece together some kind of coherent view on the issues raised. (It’s entirely possible that I’ll fail but I’ll try like hell to have something to say.)

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Creepy, ain’t it? A chessy portrait actually presented to Dubya by leaders of the G-8 Summit, 2002.
Painting by Igor V Babailov

You can see right off the bat that I’m starting with an unfair comparison. JFK, who has been unrealistically praised to the heavens as a great president, vs George W Bush, who has been called by many (myself included) the worst president ever.

We can look at the historical record: Both men were children of privilige, products of Ivy League educations and elected president under somewhat dubious circumstances. (Well, somewhat for JFK, but clearly dubious for Bush.) After that, the similarities end. Imagine a Swift Boat Veterans attack on JFK’s war record. Dubya: toy pilot. JFK: Read and wrote books. Dubya: Proud to ignore his education, mispronounce words, and avoid newspapers. Etc, etc.

But I’m thinking of a different issue: An impact on the arts. JFK came from an age where it was still possible to deliniate a difference between high culture and low; when the arts were seen as a Cold War battleground for hearts and minds; where the White House might stage any number of arts performances, often hosted by the glamorous, French-speaking First Lady; and the general mind set was that America was forward-looking, modern, leading the world in the arts and technology, etc. (Again, we could debate the truth of some of this or the degree to which each point was true.)

Dubya? Nope, not making that arts association, unless I missed something aside from the fact that Bush likes country music. And leading the world? He keeps saying that, but who’s buying it?

I’m thinking about this because of a book I picked up called JFK and Art, a catalog to an exhibition mounted by the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn., in 2004. (It travelled only to Florida. I never heard anything about it at the time.)

Now, JFK’s spectacular demise certainly lends drama and poignancy to his story and makes any picture of him loaded. But the interesting thing is that, even before his assasination, around the time of his election when Pop Art was exploding on the scene, JFK was seen as Pop fodder. He was simply part of the atmosphere, part of the culture.

Robert Rauschenberg (American, b. 1925), Retroactive I, 1963, oil on canvas, 83 7/8 x 59 7/8 inches, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, © Robert Rauschenberg

Class: Compare and contrast the representations of these presidents in the two examples shown above.

Okay, that’s not fair, either. Dubya is seen in a portrait given by political leaders hoping to appease the Imperial President. JKF is seen not in an official portrait but in an independent work of art. Still, the contrast is extreme - not the just resulting picture, but the purposes of each. Has Bush had so little national impact culturally as opposed to ideologically?

Bush has the misfortune, if I can have a little leeway here, of being president at a time when America’s predominance in the visual arts has been pissed away by a generation of bad art and a public policy of very actively not supporting the arts or arts education. The dissipation evident in most art over the past 20 years is reason for alarm; thinking about and maybe eventually posting about this stuff is one of the reasons for this blog. (Okay, so it’s taken me over six months to get around to this.)

Of course, Bush also has the good fortune to be president at all.

Anyway: The JFK stuff in the book is interesting because of the connection these artists apparently felt to him and, in the posthumous works, the shock they felt at his death. (This leads to some iffy stuff: Marisol has a carved JFK Jr giving his famous salute to a toy funeral procession where he looks like an overgrown Hummel figurine.) But generally the works show John Kennedy in either familiar or respectful circumstances. Maybe too much, by today’s standards.

But, again, times have changed and so has the president. Still, for now, if the fine arts can’t take the measure of this disastrous presidency, we’ve at least got Oliphant’s cartoons and the occasional commercial artwork that pegs Bush’s character, like Brian Stauffer’s Nation cover of 2000:

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I was not planning to follow my post about albums with another about records (I’m about half done with a new post on art) but the news that the great Wilson Pickett is dead has me taking an idea of mine and moving it up to the front burner.

This time, I’m listing the records - singles/tunes - that are my all-time favorites, the ones that I’ve heard a million times and hope to hear a million times more. These are the songs I’ve never tired of and probably never will. As you may have guessed, Mr Pickett is on the list:

Land of 1000 Dances - Wilson Pickett - kicks ass and never stops
I Only Have Eyes for You - The Flamingos - absolutely ethereal
Vicky Verky - Squeeze - heartbreaking yet catchy as hell
Crimes of Paris - Elvis Costello - don’t know why, it just grabs me
Jesse’s Girl - Rick Springfield - perfect pop, and no, I’m not kidding
And Your Bird Can Sing - The Beatles - same reason as above, but without these guys, well…
Unforgettable - Nat King Cole - one of my parents’ favorites is now one of mine
Hey Cecelia - E*I*E*I*O - rock pop of the best sort
Tears of a Clown - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - he can write ‘em and sing ‘em
If I Were Your Woman - Gladys Knight & The Pips - her finest hour
Like Dying - Bobby Lightfoot - said it before, I’ll say it again: love this tune
Switch It On - Steve Ward - my weakness for pure pop
Red Dragon Tattoo - Fountains of Wayne - again, my weakness for pure pop
Oppenheimer - Old 97’s - ditto
Burning With Optimism’s Flames - XTC - what he said
Worried Dream - Larry Davis - probably the best modern blues vocal I’ve ever heard
I Thought About You - Frank Sinatra - an underappreciated song gets appreciated
A Change Is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke - well, if I have to explain…

I guess I’ll stop here, though I could go on. These are the big ones. I love this stuff. I enjoy it all and worry that maybe these days this material - blues, tunes with strong melodies and good lyrics, and other forms of pop - are on the way out.

Aw, hell. Why worry? I won’t ever forget these tunes.

I won’t ever forget you either, Wilson. Ever.

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There was a recent meme part of which asked which albums you have, never listen to, yet still wouldn’t dump at the used record store.

This time around, I wanna ask everybody a different question: What albums do you own that you know by heart?

And I mean, by heart - inside and outside, back and forward and sideways, all the parts and harmonies, the lyrics and melodies, the exact moment the band comes in after the vocal starts or the cymbals crash late in that one song about the end of the world. Those albums. The ones that, if you had the talent, the equipment and the studio time you could recreate from memory.

Here’s some of mine:

The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper’s
The Beatles - Abbey Road
Elvis Costello - Get Happyy!!
Nick Lowe - Labour of Lust
Rockpile - Seconds of Pleasure
The Cars - Candy-O
Squeeze - East Side Story
Frank Sinatra - Songs for Swingin’ Lovers
Monty Python - Previous Record
XTC - Black Sea
Yes - Fragile

Okay, some weird or embarrassing choices. But, hey, it’s just chance sometimes: an album comes out and catches the ear and is played a long time before something new dislodges it. (I know - Candy-O. What up wid dat? Came out in the summer, hit the spot, had lots of time to listen…) At least I haven’t listed any actual Heart albums.

How about you?

[ADDENDUM: I’ve had a nagging feeling that I forgot an album - maybe because it’s so familiar I just never think about it. I was right, and that album is: Edgar Winter Group - They Only Come Out at Night]

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Been listening to a lot of Barrence Whitfield - especially his Mercy Brother’s album, Strange Adventure. So I added his two CDs with Tom Russell onto my iPod (Hillbilly Voodoo and Cowboy Mambo) and I’m diggin’ those too. Good god, can Barrence ever sing! Better yet, can he ever scream! Guess I’ll have to dig out some Barrence Whitfield & The Savages stuff. He’s a terrific singer: he can rock, roll and sing sweet soul music with the best of ‘em. Since he’s located on the northshore of Boston, I hope to catch his act again. It’s been a while…

Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall: It’s a pair of live sets in 1957, recently discovered and released, which expands greatly the available material (of good recording quality) from this exceptional group. It’s merely jazz from a couple of the greatest names in the game.

I’d had it in the back of my mind to dig up some Cat Stevens because I wanted to hear “Oh Very Young,” and now I’ve done so with a little push from Blue Girl. My other favorite Cat tune is “The Hurt.” … Hey, does anybody know if the animated short of “Moonshadow” is available on DVD?

Ike & Tina. And then more Ike & Tina. Man, they cut some terrific stuff. Even “River Deep Mountain High” with Phil Spector - as slick as it is, the R&B comes through. On their earliest records (for the Sue label) Tina is already jumping out of the speakers, nearly fully formed, against a backdrop that is essentially 60s girl group. (I adore a lot of 60s girl group stuff, but this is clearly different.) She was a woman - she was WOMAN - in pop records that otherwise might have been on the market for girls only. And “Proud Mary” - fer chrissakes, if you turned the single up from 45 to 78 RPM it would probably sound just the same, given the torque they’ve already thrown on it.

Sam Phillips: I’m enjoying a best of comp I threw together for myself a few years ago. She is, if you don’t know already, the ex-”Christian” (as a genre) singer with a husband who is also her producer, namely T-Bone Burnett. Her best stuff is guitar-jangley, Beatlesque pop that is a helluva lot of fun to hear. Catchy tunes like “Baby, I Can’t Please You” and “Where the Colors Don’t Go.” The Beatles touches are deft enough that they make her songs more fun, rather than belabored in their Beatle-ness. She also, oddly, played the lover of terrorist Jeremy Irons in Die Hard 3 and never had a line. So there.

See kids? There’s all kinda great shit out there. No! You needn’t listen to Josh Groban. Ever!

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Lance Mannion has semi-memed an idea from Sheila O’Malley as to what 10 movies you’d show a foreigner that would explain America.

It’s a neat trick if you can do it; it sounds easy - but it isn’t.

I agree with Lance that you’ve got to include a Western or two. Beyond that - who knows?

I find that when I look at other folk’s lists like this one or any other movies my tastes are very different than the norm, at least where newer movies are concerned. But it may be that, for this list of ultra-American movies, people aren’t picking the best movies but rather the, well, most American. A movie like High Noon, for instance - which I think is overrated - still captures an aspect of the American character or “feels” like it is very much in the American grain. To that extent, it would be eligible for this list.

I’m going to toss out a list of the top of my head, not worry about limiting it to 10 (I think maybe a baker’s dozen is fair), and let the chips fall where they may:

The Big Sleep
The Maltese Falcon
The Best Years of Our Lives
Stagecoach
Twelve Angry Men
Sounder
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
Chinatown
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (either 50s or 70s)
Bullitt or The Seven Ups or The French Connection (for a car chase)
Miracle On 34th Street
Singin’ In the Rain
Woodstock, or better yet Wattstax

I’d also, if allowed, toss in any example of the following: A short by Laurel & Hardy and by the Three Stooges, and a Chuck Jones-directed Bugs Bunny and/or Daffy Duck cartoon.

Comments telling me what a dipshit I am will be blocked. Just to be fair and all.

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