My Letter to Bruce Springsteen

In October, I wrote a letter to Bruce Springsteen - the first "fan" letter I believe I've ever written - to express the extent to which his music and ethos have influenced me. I highly doubt the letter actually reached him, but nevertheless, I thought I'd share it here.

Dear Mr. Springsteen,

When I was ten years old, my father – who, at the time, was in and out of rehabs across Texas to treat his alcoholism – was visiting my mother and me during a period of brief recovery. It was the early days of purchasing music from the internet, and I was happily showing him how it worked. When I asked him for a song selection, he said to me, “Download Human Touch by Bruce Springsteen.”

Less than a year later, he died of a heart attack, in large part due to his drinking. I was left with a fleeting image of a man I would never fully know – but I held on to the things he loved, the pieces I had picked up during my childhood that formed my image and understanding of him. And in listening to your music, your voice grew, over the course of many years, into the narration of my life.

I mention this because I had the privilege of attending Springsteen on Broadway for the second time this past August. I saw the show during its initial run in 2018, where – even from the back row – I could feel the power and resonance of your every word. Songs I’ve known for what feels like my entire life were given new meaning and context. And with each new chapter of your life, I felt like I was there – the details and imagery in each story were as evocative as the song that accompanied them.

When I saw the show this summer, I was able to sit a bit closer – with my mother by my side, which added a tremendous amount to the experience (particularly during your renditions of My Father’s House and The Wish, during which we were both choking up underneath our face masks). But I was struck most by your admission that you crafted your stage persona in your father’s image, and how this act felt like a way of getting to know him better.

I found myself nodding in recognition while listening to this passage of the show. My father felt similarly unknowable, and as I get older, I see more of him when I look at my reflection in the mirror. I wonder what he was experiencing at my age, what internal demons he wrestled with, his joys, his sorrows – and his relationship with your music. It’s a funny world where a few words said off-hand to a child lead to a lifelong connection with an artist – one who has shaped the way I think, feel and relate to the world.

I have no doubt you receive letters like this by the hundreds daily, and I hesitated at first to write, because I’m certain my relationship to your work is not unique. I’ve heard the story in which a fan approached Bob Dylan and told him his music changed his life – to which Dylan supposedly replied, “What do you want me to do about it?” But in this case, the connection feels deeper than just the music. It’s the ethos, the pains taken to live a life well, the disappointments and resentments either embittering us to the world or providing a pathway to renewed growth and strength – all of these tenets find their way into my heart and mind through your music.

If I may add a bit more – one of the many things I love about your songwriting is your directness. I learned a key lesson from your work early on – life isn’t perfect. Lyrics like “You’ve got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above,” or “Round here, baby, I learned you get what you can get,” or “I know I ain’t nobody’s bargain but hell, a little touch-up and a little paint” – these words feel like an honest representation of what life is really like. Your music is truthful about so many things, chief among them love.

More than anything, you’ve provided me with two essential lifelines over the years. The first is solidarity when I’m heartsick or despondent (I have struggled with depression and anxiety ever since my father’s death, and I am deeply moved by the candor with which you’ve described your own mental health struggles). Whether it’s the haunting loneliness of Stolen Car or the world-weariness of The Wrestler, devastation never feels quite as brutal as it might if I didn’t have a Springsteen song by my side.

The second is perhaps even more important – you’ve always extended me an invitation to the party. I’ve recently started dating someone after a rather prolonged and messy break-up, and I’ve warmed up for each date by watching one of your live performances. I’m talking about the hip-swinging, guns-blazing rockabilly of Cadillac Ranch live in Tempe, Arizona in 1980; the joyous medley of Sweet Soul Music and Raise Your Hand during your 1988 tour; the 11-minute Amnesty performance of Twist and Shout, which delightfully morphs into La Bamba midway through. To quote a seemingly improvised line from your 19-minute rendition of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out at Madison Square Garden, “It’s all right to have a good time.” Sometimes I need a little reminding of that.

Simply put, there’s not another soul on this earth who can play so readily to these contradictory feelings – joy and anguish – that make up so much of our lives.

But back to my original reason for writing you. Watching Springsteen on Broadway this last time around and hearing you talk about your father, I felt I had come full circle from when I first heard your music. It took me back to the genesis of what drew me to your work. And in a year marked by so much loss, the choice to close the performance with I’ll See You in My Dreams felt right. The power of your show comes not just from us getting to witness your onstage visitations with those you’ve lost, but the joy of having our own memories and ghosts pop up right alongside yours.

God bless you, sir. Thank you for a lifetime’s worth of encouragement, and for your continued inspiration with every new record (Western Stars and Letter to You get a lot of play in this household). I’m forever grateful you have been able to use your gift to lift people up everywhere – myself included.

With deep admiration and gratitude,

Jack Kyser

A Note on my Work

On Sunday, August 9th, I did something I've always wanted to do - screen a few of my short films for my friends in Austin. I've had a chance to show these movies on the big screen in New York over the years, but never in my hometown. I was honored to have a small gathering of dear friends join me at the Violet Crown Cinema for the screening, which also served as my belated 31st birthday party.

In preparation for the event, I wrote down a few thoughts about the films themselves, hoping to provide some insight into what I've been trying to accomplish with my film work. I thought I'd share those thoughts here on this blog.

Thank you all so much for being here, and I hope this isn’t too self-aggrandizing. This is something I had wanted to do last year for my 30th birthday, but that wasn’t possible due to COVID-19.

I thought I’d offer a little context for what you’re about to see. These are three short films I made, preceded by sort of a throwback joke trailer I made in high school. The first film, You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory, was my senior thesis film at NYU, which meant it was a script workshopped for a semester in our Advanced Production class. That semester ended with students pitching their films for an allotment from the school, as not everyone gets to make a thesis (at least not with the resources and equipment NYU has available). I was lucky enough to get the allotment, and as we were still students, I didn’t have to pay my cast and crew. Even still, the shoot was costly, and so many of you contributed in some way to make it possible. That's one of the primary reasons I wanted to do this, to thank you and also show you that we did actually make something. I don’t know if it’s good, but we didn’t go on vacation - your money was definitely spent on a movie.

The last two films, Jack and Lucas Go to a Wedding and Harvey's Last Night on the Avenue, are independent projects I wrote and directed after college. The main difference on these shoots was that most of our crew members were working professionally and we weren’t operating with the support of a university, so everyone had to be paid and all camera gear and equipment had to be rented. I did fundraising campaigns for both films, and again, so many of the people in this room helped out, for which I am forever grateful.

Of these two post-grad films, the first is a movie I made with my old friend Lucas Loredo, which we shot entirely in a hotel room. The second was a collaboration with the lead from my thesis, an excellent actor named Mike Wesolowski – so you’ll see him in two different movies.

Looking at these films now, I see a lot of things that I didn’t necessarily see at the time. The primary one being judgment – which is not to say the movies themselves are judgmental of the lead character, but rather the character is often very judgmental and critical of himself.

I can’t say that any of these films are autobiographical – despite the fact that the character I play in one of them is named Jack – but they do to a certain extent reflect versions of things I've felt over the years in an exaggerated way. But I see myself toeing the line here between trying to have an empathetic protagonist while also presenting a character with some pretty extreme qualities. Sometimes the challenge was - how far can I take it before the audience says, "This guy is out of his mind!" A film of mine I was going to include in tonight’s line-up but ultimately didn’t, Jake the Cinephile, was described by one of my professors as an empathy dare – as in, I dare you to empathize with this character. He’s so off-the-wall. And I don’t think he meant that in a positive way. With that particular short, though, I’m getting the chance to sort of get a do-over, as I’ve developed it into a feature film which we’ll be shooting at some point this decade (production isn't easy these days).

A question I got once when someone watched one of the films was, is this really how you see yourself? And the answer is no. But that comment stuck with me, and a progression I’ve noticed in the projects I’ve been developing since making these shorts is a kindness and – I hope - a more multi-dimensional quality to my lead characters that acknowledges their positive, engaging attributes alongside their less-desirable ones.

That being said, I’ll always be attracted to losers, for lack of a better term. They’re just more interesting than winners. And I am proud of the movies you’re about to see. Theoretically, they should get better with each one, but I can’t promise there won’t be some regression.

So thank you for letting me make films where I was able to refine my style and articulate what I was feeling at the time and learn a lot about how I want to make movies - which ultimately you can only do by making them.

It feels weird to say this at a screening of my own work, but if you have cell phones, it’d be pretty cool if you silenced them. My attitude toward talking during movies is sort of well-known at this point, too… but again, I feel weird saying this at my own screening. Thank you all so much.

Lucille Kyser, 1923-2021

I first wrote the below tribute on March 3rd, the day after my grandmother passed away. I'm posting it here mainly for posterity's sake. A much fuller, more in-depth tribute is in order for this wonderful woman, who would have turned 98 this past Saturday.

My grandmother, Lucille Kyser, passed away yesterday after living a full and abundant 97 years.

She was the only grandparent I ever truly knew, and she had the love, energy, vivacity and generosity to occupy all four grandparent roles. My childhood was marked by extended stays at her house in Hallsville, Texas, where my cousins Richard, Lindsey and I would spend our days with her.

There are no words to describe my admiration for my Grandma. She lived independently into her late nineties. She weathered the untimely death of a son – my father, John – and accepted the losses in her life with grace and humility. She was steadfast in her faith and dedicated to her church. I take solace in knowing she has been reunited with my father, her husband Hubert, and her parents in Heaven.

I can safely say she was the only resident of Hallsville whose favorite movies included Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and the films of Woody Allen – and as she introduced each of these to me, my understanding and appreciation of a different kind of cinema grew.

Her curiosity in the cultural arts was present from the start. Living in St. Louis during the 1940s, she would frequent travelling performances from George Balanchine’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo company. This curiosity never diminished – she would often go out and see movies just so she could talk about them with me, which unquestionably led her to films no grandmother should see.

She was a dutifully willing participant in a number of my childhood films – to her great embarrassment, she was once recognized in the halls of my elementary school by my teacher, who had seen her committed performance as Ben Gunn in my adaptation of Treasure Island.

She was present at every seminal moment of my life – my birthday parties, every one of my high school plays, my graduation from NYU. She’d always claim each trip to New York would be her last – but then, like clockwork, she’d inevitably return within the next year, ready to brave the New York City subway system, meet my college friends, and see Broadway shows.

To say that she leaves a hole in my life – and in the lives of the entire Kyser family – would be a massive understatement.