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
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