Fade Away: Lou Waxman on Bruce Springsteen, Joyce Hyser, and the Myth of The Boss

Lou is not a Bruce Springsteen guy.  He respects him and has several Springsteen albums, but he is not a Stan.  That said Lou drank the Kool-Aid after he finished reading Peter Ames Carlin’s Tonight in Jungleland:  The Making of Born to Run.  This should have been the book they made the Springsteen biopic about not Nebraska, if you wanted mainstream success like the Bob Dylan movie.  The making of Born to Run is Springsteen’s equivalent of Dylan at Newport.  It is the story everybody knows and the story they love to hear repeatedly.  Lou must admit that it is cool that Bruce decided not to give the public the story they wanted to hear.  Given the underwhelming box office of the film, Lou is in the minority here.

What Tonight in Jungleland makes clear is that Bruce was wedded to his music.  They guy is fucking intense and a perfectionist.  It is inspiring, really, and it explained to Lou a true mystery about Bruce:  why did he marry Patti Scialfa?  Quite simply, this relationship is symbolic of the fact that the music is Bruce’s life and his wife.  There is no other explanation.  He had to marry himself to his band.  On some level, Lou doesn’t believe it.  Bruce is something of a confirmed bachelor.  The proof of this is that he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist.  Steven Van Vandt pleaded with Bruce to enter the Hall with the E Street Band ,but Bruce felt compelled to go it alone.  Eventually the E Street Band was inducted but not until  after key members like Clarence Clemons were dead.  Not cool.  In Lou’s opinion, this is proof that Bruce does not live up to his image.  The Walmart fiasco is another example.  When it comes down to it Bruce is about Bruce.  The working class hero bullshit is truly bullshit.

This shit

Ain’t no persona

The music

Ain’t no schtick

It’s more than size

Of your dick

The pose of the poesy

Ain’t about putting

It on thick

But you know

What Lou pisses off

Is the view of

Bruce Springsteen

As working class hero

Placing axel grease

Upon his face

Hey man

It’s a minstrel show

With Bruce acting

As your Average Joe

Remember he ain’t

No laborer

Dude he’s the Boss

He’ll be your savior

But only at a cost

When you’re

Born in the USA

You get a born on date

And a barcode

From the start

For being for sale

Is the American way

Put your LP

With your baby

In the shopping cart

Walking down

The aisles of

Fucking Walmart

You’re born to run

On Thunder Road

If you’ve got

A ticket to ride

Credit card approved

Feel free to move

Credit card refused

Access is denied

Thousands for

The privilege

To make the pilgrimage

Holy shit that’s sacrilege

When Jon Landau

Had seen

A performance

Of Springsteen

He said Bruce

Was the future

Of music

You must interpret

What he meant

As that rock

Would go corporate

Doncha think

Lou does not begrudge Bruce his cash grabs.  Lou would do it if he could.  In fact, Lou is hoping to cash in on an app idea.  Tell me what you think.  What about a Fitbit for alcoholics?  Fuck sleep scores and steps and resting heart rate and all that shit.  What about an app that takes your weight and tracks all your drinks during the day, beer, wine or liquor, based on alcohol content and then computes your blood alcohol content and how many drinks you can have and still drive.  There would be an attachment to your phone that is a breathalyzer, in case you have one too many.  Please do not tell Lou this app exists.  He wants to retire.

When it comes down to it anybody can write Bruce Springsteenbullshit:

In high school

I felt blessed

Feeling up

On your breast

Now you’re just

Getting shit off

Of your chest

You were

An A student

Until that

Pregnancy test

And off

I went

To the factory

Like my father

And his father

Before me

The sun

Shines with

Such promise

And ends

In faded glory

All my friends

In the bar

They all tell

The same

Old story

You take off

Your wedding ring

And put it

Beside the

Bedside table

I would show you

My love

If only I were able

Happily ever after

Well that’s

A nice fable

I think we

Had that once

No wait we

Watched it

On cable

Lying in bed

Like we’re

Lying at rest

I think my father

He said it best

Do as I say

And don’t say

I do

Goddamn my man

Why didn’t

I listen to you

It’s hard

To play it smart

When you think

With your dick

It might have

Been worth it

If it wasn’t

So quick

And who would

Have known

It would

Last so long

Some things

Stay with you

After you’ve gone

Like the faint echo

Of your wedding song

How could something

That felt so right

Turn out so wrong

Lest we forget Bruce married Julianne Phillips.  Before he got married to the music symbolically, he was corrupted by the famethat music brought.  Post Born in the USA, Bruce went for the trophy.  Lou remembers this being a huge deal at the time.  Everybody was up in arms.  Lou was up in arms that the Fletchsequel was such shit.  Come on folks, this is typical Bruce. This is the Walmart phase of Bruce’s romantic life. Cashing in on the mystic.  Lou would have absolutely no problem with this if Bruce did not already have the trophy:  Joyce Hyser.

Accounts vary but from roughly 1978 to 1982, Bruce dated Joyce Hyser.  All readers of Lou know who she is; she is just one of the guys.  For those of a certain age, her boobs may have been the first you ever saw.  This is PG-13 tit, which is the best tit when you are twelve.  And you will never forget them.  Let Lou emphatically state this is not gratuitous nudity.  Phoebe Cates in Fast Times is gratuitous.  Rebecca DeMoray in Risky Business, as much as Lou loves it, is gratuitous.  Kelly Preston in Mischief is gratuitous.  Hyser’s nude scene is the major plot point in the movie.  It is like the Rosebud scene in Citizen Kane.  It makes the entire movie.  It is the reason the entire movie exists.  Her reveal is one of the most iconic in movie history and up there with The Crying Game.  Seriously.  Hyser has become something of an inspiration for the trans community.  

Lou just knows her as a 1980s smoke show and Bruce got in on the ground floor after meeting her at a concert in 1978.  Legend has it that Gary Busey introduced them.  By the way, everybody knows Hyser from Just One of the Guys, but did you know she made her film debut in The Hollywood Knights from 1980.  A forgotten classic.  All you need to know about it is that Newbomb Turk is Robert Wuhl’s greatest role.  Not saying much.  The high school talent show scene is epic.  An all-time great.  The one-armed violinist!!  Don’t sleep on spiking the punch.  The Iron Box Twins forever.

Also did you know that Hyser dated Warren Beatty for a year and a half.  And was rumored to be with Jack Nicholson.  This is major league shit.  At The Vogue there is a major Hyser collectible.  Not a Springsteen collectible mind you.  A white promo copy (!!!) of “Fade Away” from The River.  Now 45s are cigarettes; albums are cigars.  And Yessongs is like huffing from a reactor at Chernobyl.  Lou is an album guy, but to get a hold of a piece of Joyce Hyser on vinyl is tempting.  Many speculate that “Fade Away” was inspired by Bruce’s relationship with Hyser.  Lou does not know why this relationship is not bigger news.  It appears nowhere on the Joyce Hyser Wikipedia.  Bruce does not mention it in his autobiography.  The Springsteen biopic on Nebraska, which deals with the period Bruce dated Hyser, has absolutely no mention of Hyser.  Let it be known that if Lou dated Joyce Hyser, he would put that on his tombstone, to say nothing of his Wikipedia page.  

Come to think of it, when Bruce dies, heaven forbid, the opening of his obit should read:  “Bruce Springsteen, a rock icon defined by working class hero bullshit and who once dated Joyce Hyser from 1978 to 1982, passed away from complications arising from asbestos exposure from years of factory labor incurred from before he dodged the draft.”  Bruce is a poseur.  Joyce Hyser is the real thing, and even she is famous for posing as somebody she was not.  Ain’t that how it goes.

Suggested Sites and Sounds:

Big News:  Bruce marries Julianne - wedding news 1985

Just One of the Guys Pod:  ‘Just One of the Guys’ With Bill Simmons, Kyle Brandt, and Joanna Robinson - The Ringer

The Reunion:  Just One of the Guys - 30th Anniversay - Cast Reunion - Q & A - January 2015

Joyce Hyser Interview:  Special Guest Interview - Joyce Hyser Robinson

Newbomb Turk Rocks:  Volare!

The One Armed Violinist:  The Hollywood Knights - One Armed Violinist - His dick!

The Iron Box Twins with Joyce Hyser:  The Hollywood Knights, The IronBox Twins

 

— Lou Waxman