Permanence

My dream dropped me in the Ocean
And as I hit the water
The scarcity of Light showed me
The Absence is eternal;
The Peace, Complete.
Best accept the permanence.

When I Fail to Connect to the Muse

Optimistic Man
In the Throws of your Anxiety
Remember that you are so much more
Than you remember

Heroic Woman
You continue to be so keen
You have unclogged your outlet
It is pure; it is streaming

Altruistic Homeland
You are always in my sights
How badly I would root and bear fruit
To fill up your parks and streets

Beloved Lovely
In my most self-absorbed trials
You place a hand on my cheek
And let the Warrior stand down

Elusive Muse
In your greatest glimpses
You can show me only potential
Whilst I choke words out of me

O, Enigmatic Universe
I toil, and toil, and toil
To taste Your Successes
While you chip, chip, chip at my Will.

182

One hundred eighty-two days
And I am a new man
I am fearless
About facing fear
You have molded and hardened the armor
Thank you.

Lost and down, my
Undivided friend
Calls to me.
You carry it with you

The Painter

I put yellow and blue together
So you see Green
I take all the light and forms
To form the Light of what I mean
You have been the blurry focus
Right of center, in the shade
And our child, in the middle
Of the canvas we have made

I do accept your feelings freely
And I give you what I can
But so much of me is what I do
So much of who I am
Within this mass of people
With their parasols and lace
I find nothing as appealing
Than the study of your face

My art has turned to science
And my science turned to truth
So I tell you I still love you
And attempt to show you proof
You are always in my painting
You are always on the wall
You are what the people look for
When they look from down the hall

So put black and white together
And finally see the grey
And take all the blurs and shadows
From the words that I say
You will see the way that I see
You will see the living proof:
The greatest thing I ever made
Was all because of you

Homeless

Very, very proud of this. Thank you to the 100+ people singing with me on it...

From the "Graceland" charity show - 3.13.11
Rockwood Music Hall, New York, NY

Paul Simon's "Homeless"

Graceland Tribute Show Intro...

On Sunday, March 13th, I will be performing at Rockwood Music Hall, Stage 2, as part of benefit for City Harvest.  We will be doing the entire "Graceland" album by Paul Simon.  Below are my remarks I will make at the top of the show, to 'frame' it all for those in attendance:

In 1986, I was three years old when Paul Simon released “Graceland.” One of my earliest memories is of sitting in my living room on the east side of Buffalo, NY, in the late afternoon watching Chevy Chase sing on VH1 in a music video on this super catchy song called “You Can Call Me Al.” I remember laughing and clapping along to the song, and thinking that Chevy was such a great singer.

About 10 years later, I would be at my friend’s house one day when their Mom said “hey - let’s listen to Graceland” and my friends cheered. I had never heard it before, and wasn’t Graceland where you go see Elvis? “You Can Call Me Al” came on and I exclaimed “Oh! I know this one!” But I thought to myself, what does the Chevy Chase song have to do with any of this?

My first ever experience with Graceland happened then, at age 13. Since then, I have purchased it on vinyl, on cassette tape, on CD (twice), and three times digitally. I have purchased DVDs about its making, DVRed countless other shows about it, and tirelessly tried to decipher the lyrics and different instruments on the record.

I can now tell you that Paul Simon wrote the song “Gumboots” before ever going to South Africa. I can tell you that at the time, his career was practically a shambles, having released a very ill-received album before doing "Graceland." I can tell you that Paul Simon jammed and recorded in South Africa, then deconstructed the songs he jammed on and reconstructed them later in the studio, adding lyrics and percussion with help from Steve Gadd on drums. I can tell you that South Africa in 1985 was undergoing a radical change of national mentality, and that this piece of art literally helped tipped the scale towards the end of Apartheid.

The lyrics are some of the most cryptic and beautiful ever penned to song. Yet Simon used phrases like ‘ever since the watermelon’ and “Fat Charlie the Archangel” not just because of their poetic meanings and interpretations, but because of the percussion the words created coming out of your mouth.

Try it, repeat after me: “Fat Charlie the Archangel”, “That’s the Thing That I keep in the Back of My Head”, “Don’t I know you from the Cinematographer’s Party” See? It was a new way to write words for Western music – we tend to load in meaning to every single word, every single line. Simon did that, but also explored what it would sound like to just put two sounds next to each other. Brilliant.

But even more so, I can tell you what it means to me. "Graceland" is all about redemption. It’s about learning that wherever I go, there I was. It’s something I can play when I have to work, it’s something I can play when I feel great, and it’s something I can play when I feel like things aren’t working out how I hoped they would. Graceland makes me feel deeper and see wider than I was able to do before. And that, I think, is the definition of great music.

It’s with sincere pleasure then that we present to you “Graceland”, in its entirety, for you and our friends at the City Harvest. Please give kindly and as much as you can. And please clap nice and loud, because all the artists tonight are up here because they believe in Simon's fundamental message of hope and second chances.

"Maybe I've reason to believe, we all will be received in Graceland." Thank you!

The Mirror

The greatest thing you could ever be
Is a mirror to others.

I throw words around
Like Co-Pilot
Teammate
Best Friend
Dearest
Number One
And everything really tries to say
The theme of
The assembled pieces
And not just the parts
So you understand not just where my love for you ends
But where it starts

I believe that words weigh very much
Twenty-six-point-two pounds each
So words are not lobbed around in a wasteful way
The way children toss water balloons
They are placed in front of you
Their cedar chests opened, creaking
And they glow
THEY GLOW
Like Marcellus Wallace's soul in "Pulp Fiction"
Each one has it's own handle
So you might bend over, and inspect
And raise to the light...
"Co-Pilot"
Shimmer
"Teammate"
Shimmer
"Best Friend"
Shimmer
"Dearest"
Shimmer
"Number One"
Shimmer
Each Glint and Glimmer
You study and simmer

Take my all
Even the bit of paper
I see under my desk
But never have the presence of mind
To pick up
But also the big stuff
The spirit, the mind
The Kindness
I lay each of these
In cedar chests
At your feet.
The universality of your accedence
Overwhelms me

The light from the words
(The Glimmering...)
Hits your porcelain cheek
At six-hundred seventy million,
six-hundred sixteen thousand,
six hundred twenty-nine
miles per hour
Crossing space-time
And time-space
And gets absorbed
And becomes a part of you
Embraced and accepted
The Glimmering absorbed
And refracted

You bend light back at me
At others
And we see the Forms
The More Perfect Selves
That you see
The Mirror

Me & the Chief

This is a song I started to write as a senior in college, about my dear late grandfather, Donald Staszczyk, called "Donnie Doochie" or "Chief" by the neighborhood folks.  Feels so great to have finished it today, and to play it on the upcoming tour!

"Me and the Chief"

by John Schmitt

I would sit in Church when I was 9
Praying about things to pass the time
Apologizing for little stuff
Like playing gym too rough

So narrow-minded
So undivided
I trusted I would be safe
I worried about small things
Like venial sins and baseball swings

And my Grandpa would take me to Amish Country
My Grandpa would take me to Amish Country

I remember he was sick
I remember all those days
Sitting in the lobby of the Buffalo VA
Staring up at the ceiling
Saying 'don't take him away'...

Cuz my Grandpa would take me to Amish Country
My Grandpa would take me to Amish Country

The Chief he died in the Spring of '91
And left behind 4 daughters and a son
I didn't bear his name, I wouldn't try
To lift such a heavy name so high
Some Daddy's get off easy
When their kids turn out alright
Some Daddy's never get to say goodbye
 

My Grandpa would take me to Amish Country
My Grandpa would take me to Amish Country

Welcome back, Unrelenting Anxiety.
I see you've come to mess me up.