You don't know Jack, but you should.

By Bobby Hawthorne

    In early March, 2020, Jack Kyser was living in Brooklyn, New York, with his girlfriend at the time, and they were working remotely because everything was shut down except for the few places that sold Advil and toilet tissue.  

    Somehow, in arguably the cultural capital of the world, making movies and staging plays and so forth wasn’t deemed “essential,” so Jack and his girlfriend at the time were stuck in their Brooklyn apartment, wondering how long the shutdown would last and if they’d survive it, individually or as a couple.

    As a couple, they didn’t, even though they managed to escape for three months or so to Charlottesville, Virginia, where her parents lived. They split that summer. The girlfriend at that time returned to New York, and Jack drove back to Austin to commiserate with his mother, who kept his old bedroom neat and spiffy and ready to go.

    •••

    Jack grew up in Austin. He attended Casis, O. Henry and Austin High, where he achieved almost mythic success in the school’s superb theatre arts program. His senior year, the AHS one-act play won first place in the state, and Jack picked up at least 14 “Best Actor” or all-star cast awards on the way from zone to district to area to region to State. 

    After graduating, he considered attending UT and Southern Cal but received an offer from NYU he couldn’t refuse, so he headed north and replicated much of the same success he’d achieved at Austin High. 

    By the time he graduated with honors from the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, he’d made a string of short films, interned at Martin Scorsese’s production office for 17 months, and worked under documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski at a time she was finishing Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq for PBS's American Masters. After that, he assisted with another PBS documentary about legendary director Sidney Lumet.

    The sky seemed to be the limit.

    And then, the sky crashed. New York became the epicenter of the worst pandemic since World War I. Hospitals were packed. Broadway theaters were empty. Uptown and Downtown looked like ghost towns. Zoom was the only thing zooming.

    Jack was fortunate that his job editing and encoding video for “The Daily Show” and Comedy Central flipped to remote. It paid his bills. Of course, he then had time to read and write and think, so he thought, “I want to write something about Texas, about a Texas guy who’s struggling to fit in.” 

    It was something he keenly understood.

    “I never quite fit in among some of the crowds I grew up with in Austin, and I think I idealized New York, what with the art scene and all of that. I loved my time there but also felt like, ‘Wait!  I’ve arrived. Why do I still feel like such a Texan. I realized I wasn’t nearly as bohemian as I thought I was.”

    So, that’s what he wanted to write about. A person sandwiched between two worlds, neither of which he belonged in.

    Someone a little like himself. 

    “I saw it as ‘Midnight Cowboy’ in reverse,” Jack said. “Joe Buck returns from New York to Texas and tries to figure out where he belongs.”

    •••

    Jack admitted he’s fascinated with the whole idea of belonging. It’s something he feels deeply because he fears being abandoned and lost, and for a good reason. When he was 11, his father — a prominent oil and gas attorney — died. Though brilliant and gregarious, he’d had troubles with alcohol for years.

    In college, he’d pass out in the bathroom at Mother Earth. His friends would find him flopped on the floor. They’d rustle him up and help him into the car. Back at his apartment, he’d drink a pot of coffee and study for two or three hours for a test he’d take at 9 that morning and ace.

    I know that to be true because I was one of those friends.

    Jack’s father’s name was John. We were two East Texas boys who roomed together with two other East Texas boys in a nondescript apartment up Willow Creek Road at the top of the hill.

    John and I weren't best friends, but we were very good friends. We attended each other's weddings first weddings. We were aware when we each became fathers. We got hammered now and then, just for old time's sake. When I heard he'd died, I wasn't entirely surprised.

    John's wife infuriated a few family members and friends by daring to state the obvious in his obituary: He died of alcoholism.

     •••

     Jack knew his father just long enough and just well enough to know now that there was so much more to know.

    “My dad’s presence and, perhaps even more so, his absence are deeply felt and a part of every script I write,” Jack said. “Because he passed away when I was only 11, I was left with a fleeting image of a man I would never fully know, but I held onto the things he loved, the pieces I had picked up during my childhood that formed my image and understanding of him.”

    John loved films. He loved music. He loved fast cars, especially the '68 Camaro he drove back and forth to East Texas while we were at UT as undergraduates together. He played the trumpet and was, I believe, a member of the UT Alum Marching Band. He loved to perform. 

    When Jack was a boy, his parents would vacation in Galveston, where a great aunt owned a condo on the beach. Jack and John and Gretchen, his mom, would stage renditions of Broadway plays like “Oliver.” No doubt that’s how Jack came to love sharing the spotlight.

    “There is often a central mother/son relationship at the center of my films because that's the dynamic I grew up with during my adolescence,” Jack said. “But hovering over these mother/son relationships in my work is the presence of a ghost, in a sense. As I get older, I see more of my father when I look at my reflection in the mirror, and I wonder what he was experiencing at my age, what internal demons he wrestled with, his joys, his sorrows, and that informs nearly everything I write and try to get made.”

    •••

    The most recent thing he's written and is trying to get made is a full-length motion picture titled “Rusty Lightnin’.”

    Rusty is a bombastic goof-ball parading about in a TV advertising campaign. He wears a big cowboy hat and dude ranch cowboy boots and Urban cowboy shirts and all that. He hawks cars and trucks on TV for a Ford or a Chevy dealership out on the Motor Mile. 

    He's an Austin version of Cal Worthington, the famous Los Angeles car dealer who Johnny Carson parodied.

    Now, the goof-ball character’s name is Rusty, but Rusty’s real name is Leonard, and Leonard is nothing like Rusty. Leonard is an introvert who finds that he can pull off pretending to be an extrovert, so he decides to become Rusty full-time because people like Rusty, and he becomes something of a local celebrity in that embarrassing “locally sourced poorly acted TV commercial” kind of way.

    He's so popular that the dealership owner wants him around full-time, so now, Rusty’s selling cars and getting to know the other car salesmen and the guys in the service department and finance and so forth. They welcome him in because he’s goofy and fun and then they make the mistake of trusting him.

    And that’s all you need to know for now. You and I will both have to wait for the movie because Jack’s still tweaking the screenplay.

    “I’m having a lot of fun with it, though I’m having to figure it out as I go,” he said. “I couldn’t be more disconnected to this world, and I have a lot more to learn about cars and guns.”

    One of Jack’s more enjoyable challenges of making ‘Rusty Lightnin' has been getting to know the Austin film community. He’s trying to use all locals for cast and crew including another Austin High grad, Aubrey Elenz, whom this magazine featured a year or two ago. She and Jack have been close friends since she was a high school freshman.

    He said he’s pretty sure he will finish the movie in 2024 if he can line up the financing. He’s learning how to work a room in search of a donor or two and how to submit a winning grant proposal. 

    Not long ago, “Rusty Lightnin’” received a grant from the Austin Film Society. It wasn’t enough to make a visible dent in the cost of producing a full-length film, but it was an important seal of approval from the local film institution.

    “It gives the project legitimacy,” Jack said.

    For independent film producers, it’s always going to be about networking and finding people who’ll believe in the vision.

    So far, he said, so good.

    “I have a great team, and there’s momentum,” he said. “Even if we ultimately have to scale it down to fit a smaller budget, I trust it’ll be made.”

    •••

    So, for now, Jack again lives in Tarrytown. He found a nice apartment near Enfield and Exposition, just a short walk to the new HEB and Maudies. He loves the  barbecue at the HEB and the fact that Maudie’s doesn’t charge $35 for a plate of pork carnitas tacos like they’d be in New York.

    He still has his job editing and encoding video for “The Daily Show” and Comedy Central, and it still pays the bills. 

    Of course, if worse comes to worse, his mom still has his old bedroom spruced up and ready to go. She is and has always been his greatest champion. When Jack begins talks about her, his eyes almost drown.

    “She’s supported me in all of my artistic endeavors,” he said. “Nothing that I've accomplished in my adult life would've been possible without her.”

    Jack also has a new girlfriend who has, he said, “given my life new meaning. I look forward to building a life with her.”

    Her name is Claire.

    •••

    That brings us back to Rusty Lightnin’.

    “It may be my only feature film,” he said. “We’ll see. I'm under no illusion that I'm going to be the next Scorsese.”

    Of course, it’s the film business, so anything’s possible.

    “Maybe it plays a few movie festivals,” Jack said. “Best case scenario, it finds its way to Hulu or Apple.”

    That would be cool, Jack said. Maybe it’s not “Raising Arizona,” but maybe it becomes the next “Marty” or “Blair Witch Project.” 

    “You never know,” Jack said. “But if I finish it, and if it doesn't go much of anywhere, well, I had my shot, and I took it. That’s what matters. It's about having a message you communicate the best you can. It’s about having a vision that you execute all the way through. At that point, you say, ‘All right, I did it. Whatever happens next is beyond my control.” 

    •••

    And if he doesn’t finish it, or if he finishes it and it flops, the world won’t flip off its axis. He’s already enjoyed his brush with the titans. It came shortly before finishing his thesis film at NYU.

    “The Dean of the Tisch School of the Arts — Mary Schmidt Campbell — asked me, ‘Have you asked Marty to watch your film?’”

    “Marty” is, of course, Martin Scorsese. 

    Interns don't hit up their bosses, asking them to watch their senior thesis films. Jack knew his place.

    “No, Ma’am. I have not,” he replied. “We don't do that.”

    But Mary Schmidt Campbell said, ‘Well, when you're ready, let me know. I'll send a copy of it to him.” 

    Once he finished the film, he took her up on her offer.

    “I received an email from Martin Scorsese’s assistant a few months later, saying something along the lines of, ‘Marty watched your film and thought you did a great job.’ We look forward to what you do in the future.’”

    Whether Scorsese loved the short film or hated it still doesn’t matter, Jack said. “The fact that 20 minutes of Martin Scorsese’s life was devoted to watching a film I made is good enough for me.”