Jersey Beat Music Fanzine
 



Jack Grisham was a punk rock nihilist. Susan Dynner is a

filmmaker. Together they are bringing one of TSOL's most

bizarre songs to life in a new short film.



By Steven DiLodovico

Ah, teenage love. The odes penned throughout the history of literature have been mighty and sad; ranging from the inane and absurd to the inspired and brilliant. Sometimes scary, sometimes disturbing; love is the unending motif of human life that just about everyone has pondered at some point, even the unlovable tragedy that is Morrissey. It’s universal; it’s been the impetus for reams of bad poetry and failed assassinations. It has inspired humans to god-like heights and it has brought them to snake-belly lows. It’s something we all know and can relate to in some way; it’s a deceptively simple part of the human experience. The raging hormones of adolescent insanity, the delicate blossom of discovery and delight, and the cool, calming touch of pliable corpse flesh… wait a minute…

Enter Jack Grisham; once a lace-clad, eyeliner-wearing, pipe-bomb-making maniac born out of the notorious Southern California hardcore scene. His story is well known and has been documented in several films, books, and interviews about punk rock. As the frontman for the seminal band T.S.O.L., Grisham made himself a formidable presence in the early ‘80s while forging a reputation as a generally fucked up individual prone to violence and addiction. But, Jack is also a man capable of great sympathy and sadness; empathy and understanding. Sure, there is an inviting sense of conspiracy in his frequent, maniacal laugh, but there’s also something much more complex underneath the apparent, effortless glee. There is a history that runs deep beneath that smile; one of violence and vivid expression, of dissolution and redemption. There is an artist in there that treads in dark water.

And now he and filmmaker Susan Dynner are trying to bring one of T.S.O.L.’s most notorious songs to life in a short film that is based on the book Jack wrote. It is called Code Blue: A Love Story. And, yes, it’s about having sex with a corpse.

“Look, it’s not about fucking dead people. That’s not what it’s about,” he begins to explain. It’s that big, smiling voice of his and, suddenly, the idea of making a film about a high school kid engaging in sullen necrophilia doesn’t seem quite so outlandish. Many outlandish things begin to seem normal upon entering the world of Jack Grisham.
“Yes, it talks about that,” he continues, unapologetically. “But it’s just about a high school kid who’s had enough with the dating drama. Everyone’s been to high school; we all know what it’s like. It’s fucked. You do something stupid, it’s all over the school; it’s fucking gossip. It’s just like a nightmare, man. So, in the song, the guy just goes, ‘look, you’re such a fucking hassle that I would rather fuck a dead person than fuck you because when I fuck the dead I can do what I want and they won’t complain. You know how the song goes. He’s just an asshole kid, being a dick. The kid’s just saying; ‘fuck you. I’d rather fuck a dead person than deal with all this shit.’ It’s about disconnection; it’s about somebody’s failure to connect with people.”

It’s a disconnect that he knows well. Which, perhaps, is what made the creepy emphasis of that song always seem so familiar and so urgently confessional.

“I was diagnosed with attachment disorder when I was a kid, so no bonding between my parents and me; nothing. I can feel love for my kids and wife, but I can’t feel that they love me. It’s really fucked. It’s a really fucked situation to be in because it’s basically you’re just living with people. It’s really uncomfortable, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Intellectually you understand that people care for you; love you. But that’s it. It’s real tricky; it’s real uncomfortable. It’s basically the same thing with the kid in the Code Blue story. That’s where he goes. It’s total alienation. It’s not that he’s an asshole; he’s just completely fucking alienated. He doesn’t know what to do about anything, and then he meets this chick and he walks her home and he starts fucking around with her. It’s the first girl he’s ever been with. He’s stoked, because he’s connecting; he can really feel this, this is real. And she goes to go down on him and he comes in his pants. He’s bummed because she’s laughing at him. He knows she’s going to tell everybody in the school. She’s on the phone while he’s walking out the door, so he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s gonna’ do and he’s just bummed. It turns out she dies over the weekend. He’s relieved because the whole school’s abuzz about her dying and nobody’s talking about his premature ejaculation. So, he’s relieved, but he’s also bummed out because this is the first person he ever felt close to. That’s how it ends up where he goes to the mortuary to see her. And, by that time, he’s just totally fucking lost it. He’s just not well."

Susan Dynner is also very comfortable working with subject matter that most people would not call “mainstream.” In fact, it’s kind of how she made her bones. Susan started out taking photos of some of the greatest punk and hardcore bands to come out of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. Many of her photos have graced album covers and bootleg t-shirts. She came up in the Washington, DC scene shooting bands like Minor Threat and Government Issue, and a host of others. In her filmmaking career she’s worked with legit movie stars like Anna Paquin and Drea de Matteo (2013’s Free Ride) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick, which won the Originality and Vision award at Sundance). She’s also got a few documentaries under her belt, too: an amazing retrospective of punk rock from its inception to the present day (2007’s Punk’s Not Dead), as well as a documentary about life after porn (2012’s After Porn Ends).

“I get this call from Jack, and he’s like, ‘hey Susan, I wrote this short story that I think would make a really rad movie.’ So I was like, ‘Ok. I wasn’t planning on doing any shorts, but send it over, let me read it.’ So he sent it to me and the subject matter was crazy, like Jack, so I called him back right away and I was like, ‘I’m in. I’m totally in.’”
“Here’s how it happened, ok? I’m sitting around at my house,” Jack begins, describing the process of how the book first came to be. “Sometimes my friends, they get rid of cool shit. So I get this package in the mail, and it’s from a friend, and it’s a first edition book of Charles Bukowski and R. Crumb. It’s bitchin’. It’s called Bring Me Your Love. Bukowski wrote it and R. Crumb illustrated it. It’s really cool; it’s a short story and it looks like a storybook kind of thing. And I’m looking at it; I’ve got that in my head and I’m thinking, this is cool. Fuck, I’m just going to write a story based on Code Blue.”
From an inspired, darkly humorous short story to a short film, it was an easy transition for the visually-minded Grisham. Characters came to life (pun apologetically intended) with forceful ease, and the story really began to solidify around the characters Jack had created. Making the film was the next logical step. And while some might have been too timid to bring forth a creation of such salacious intent, Jack never once hesitated. It’s not in him to vacillate; it’s not in him to give a single fuck about anyone else’s opinions or sensibilities. Consider the body of work from the Grisham-era T.S.O.L.: dark humor, tasteless obsession, stark longing and the lack of human connection permeate just about everything he’s done. Jack’s not afraid; never has been.

The two filmmakers are now engaged in a furious Kickstarter campaign to fund this movie and to make it a reality. For Jack, especially, the crowdfunding route is nothing new for him.

“It’s always been like this. This has been my life from the start. I’ve never had anybody dropping a ton of money on something; making it easy to do something. It’s never been like that; it’s always been a fucking hustle, so this isn’t strange to me. Begging for money, trying to put shit together that people don’t find tasteful... yeah, that’s been going on my whole life. Fucking nothing new here.”
Susan, who has some experience with crowdfunding, echoes the sentiment.

“This is a community; you need to lean on your community and rely on them to help you get your art made, especially with a project like this. I don’t care how many mainstream movies I’ve made; this is a movie that involves teenage necrophilia. I mean, it’s a love story at its core, that’s what it’s really about, but, how many mainstream corporations are going to be like, ‘oh, yeah, he fucks a dead body…I’m in!’ This is where we need the community, because this is the kind of shit that they like; that they’re not going to find elsewhere. I think people should get involved because they want to see cool stuff that they can’t see elsewhere. You’re not going to see another teenage movie about necrophilia any time soon; especially one from the mind of Jack Grisham that’s based on a T.S.O.L. song. It’s a really cool project that’s going to be awesome once we make it. ”
You can be a part of this event. The Kickstarter page for Code Blue: A Love Story offers some pretty interesting incentives for backers. Along with the usual perks one would imagine, there are some cool opportunities offered. One such reward is being cast as an extra in the film. For a certain level of donation you could play a corpse in the movie. And, really, who wouldn’t want to do that?

“Why? Why care about something?” It’s a rhetorical question asked by Jack, but it gives light to the communal aspect in sharing and supporting someone’s art. “Why do something other than your normal life? I don’t know. Maybe it’s some sort of purpose; something besides just showing up and going to work. To be involved in something; some kind of movement or something… that’s kind of what punk rock felt like; like it was different. It felt like I was involved in something. What are you doing? What are you living for? You live just to show up and go to work, man. It is civilized to invest in the arts. That’s what it is. And you judge a civilization by what they put into the art.”
Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing format. If they do not reach their goal in the allotted time, they get nothing, so time is of the essence. Get involved!

For more information on the Kickstarter campaign for Code Blue: A Love Story (which runs until May 17th) go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/codebluethemovie/code-blue-a-film-by-susan-dynner-and-jack-grisham




 

 


JerseyBeat.com is an independently published music fanzine covering punk, alternative, ska, techno and garage music, focusing on New Jersey and the Tri-State area. For the past 25 years, the Jersey Beat music fanzine has been the authority on the latest upcoming bands and a resource for all those interested in rock and roll.


 
 
Loading
Jersey Beat Podcast
 
 


Home | Contact Jersey Beat | Sitemap

©2010 Jersey Beat & Not a Mongo Multimedia

Music Fanzine - Jersey Beat