Happy Xmas (What Have You Done?)

“So this is Christmas. And what have you done?”

Those words always hit me so much harder than any other Christmas song that was just a pile of mundane reciting of a holiday cheer, without any real meaning to it. I’m not Grinching this year, I promise. I like holidays, I like the overall cheer and joy, playing 80’s music, eating great food, drinking weird ass cocktails, and Christmas parties. God, I love cringefest Xmas parties! Sign me up. But I also came to the point in life where I crave real, honest, meaningful art, content, material.

I remember the time I first heard this song — Happy Xmas (War is Over), by John Lennon, about 10 or so years ago, in New York, exactly where it was made. Like everything he does, this particular Christmas song has his signature madness to it. Most importantly, like every single thing he does, it’s — real. Yeah it’s all great all you want for Christmas is this or that, but hold on a minute. So this is Christmas. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

“So this is Christmas, And what have you done, Another year over, And a new one just begun, And so this is Christmas, I hope you have fun, The near and the dear one, The old and the young, A very Merry Christmas, And a happy new year, Let’s hope it’s a good one, Without any fear”

Without any fear.

“Let’s hope it’s a good one, without any fear”.

The simplicity of his writing, the existential, monumental issues we all deal with in life, and his ability to reduce them to these fundamental, easy-to-grasp concepts are what makes people still passionately invested in his life, 39 years after his death. The comments on his or The Beatles’ videos on Youtube have heated discussions every single day, as he’s alive now, the band still together, and still creating.

It’s mindblowing.

December in New York, as well as Christmas in New York always reminds me of John Lennon. His death on the 8th and the most epic Christmas song ever made. This is my first December back in the city after 11 years, and being a decade older, (hopefully) wiser, it stings me even more, that I, we — didn’t get to see all that he would become, all that he would create, say, write, and comment on. All the epic songs he would still make. All the idiots in power he would troll on Twitter! I would give everything to hear what John Lennon has to say about the current world we’re living in, and what difference he would make.

“And so this is Christmas, For weak and for strong, For rich and the poor ones, The world is so wrong, And so happy Christmas, For black and for white, For yellow and red one, Let’s stop all the fight, War is over, if you want it, War is over now.”

Who else on this planet would insert his agenda of stopping the war into a Christmas song? And John Lennon would be so entertaining on the internet! I dream about what his Twitter would be like, with his one-liners, witty but sarcastic, humorous, gritty views on the horrors of this world. In the world of Paul McCartneys that never stand for anything of real importance, aside from plugging their material, we needed John to stay.

His love of New York was so mesmerizing to me. His quotes about New York make me see this city in the light otherwise impossible to imagine.

“If I’d live in Roman times, I’d have lived in Rome. Where else? Today America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself. New York is the center of the creative world and you had to be here, same as in the time of Rome you’d want to be in Rome, not in the suburbs.”

His 4-year struggle to get his Green Card by the Nixon administration, for standing up against the Vietnam War and people senselessly dying; it was almost laughable, the notion that the world’s largest, most powerful imperial nation, United States, could be seriously threatened by a writer, a singer, and sometimes painter. Nixon caught on tape shitting his pants, saying — “We need to do something about this guy, this guy can sway the election!” — is by far my favorite John Lennon story.

Peace came at a price. Peace is a very expensive product to plug. Wars are so much easier to sell. And John had so much sway; the government was terrified of him. Who do we have now, today, with that much influence?

There is a study saying The Beatles had the power over masses only comparable to Hitler. And most of that power comes from John Lennon. Which makes a story about his murder by a random fat guy from Hawaii that never held a gun in his hand, almost insulting.

A random fan got so offended by John's statement —  “The Beatles are more powerful than Jesus”, a statement by the most famous person on the planet that’s spewing sarcasm 24/7; a guy that never held a gun in his life, he so precisely aimed to disconnect all the major arteries pumping his heart, so that he can’t be revived in the ER. Hitting him, but missing Yoko, right by his side.

There are many books written about the CIA’s involvement in John’s death, you can take it further and research on your own, if interested. I’m way too spent to get into it; the realization that these one-of-a-kind, once-in-generation talented, influential people, capable of making a real change in this world, somehow always get removed, makes me nauseated.

One more reason why I’m obsessed with John is the fact he spent 18 months in Los Angeles, and he hated it. Anyone that hates LA is my soulmate, a spirit animal, and the reason I breathe.

All John did in Los Angeles was got drunk, and create shit. He was insane, aggressive. You can’t understand how sunny paradise can do that to you? Go. Live. Try. LA does that to you, which none of you that watch movies with palms can’t comprehend. I’m obsessed with the story of John coming to Troubadour in LA with the menstrual pad glued to his forehead and heckling the act on stage. He once said the only thing LA has is Troubadour and Rainbow. Exactly that. When people harass me about why I left California; it's so great and sunny and New York is so gritty and cold, I get seizures.

Central Park was always the part of New York I liked most. When I need to think, or decide something, or have a creative block, I always go walk around there; there is something so goth about that park, how can a park be goth, I know, but there is just something about that place that calms me down, and gets my creative juices flowing. It’s majestic and kind of poetic, too.

John’s ashes are spread in Central Park. Ashes do not decompose. They may last for centuries. He truly owns that park; not just because of the Imagine mosaic or Strawberry Fields, or the fact you can see the Dakota from the park, it's because you feel him in the park. You truly feel him. Everywhere you turn.

As much as he was serious about the world and its issues; his humor, wit, sarcasm, and madness about him is what makes him legendary. Once in the ’73 while doing coke with Elton John at Sherry-Netherland Hotel in New York, and someone knocked at the door, he sent Elton to peep through the peephole, check who it is. “It’s Andy” (Warhol), says Elton, about to open the door, while John starts shaking his head while making the gesture of cutting his neck, saying: “No fucking way, he always has his fucking camera with him, tell him to fuck off”. Andy Warhol. What stories this city holds, I can not even begin.

It’s a privilege to walk these streets.

I often fight with my friends about who’s a better songwriter, Lennon or McCartney. I always had a particular axe to grind with McCartney after I saw reporters asked him about John’s murder, the day after, where he said, on camera: “It’s a drag”.

IT’S A DRAG.

It’s a drag someone bumped into you on a subway. It’s a drag you dropped your milk.

The lack of emotion, and jealousy that was seeping through his teeth when he made that comment about his bandmate, and once best friend’s brutal murder, made me realize there are two types of people in The Beatles and in the world. Light, cheery, diplomatic ones who stand for nothing and bother no one (hence don’t get killed), and the ones that are full of madness, honesty, and truth; the ones that are a force of nature and are either loved or passionately hated.

In the years of their very public fights when they wrote songs about each other, or rather sent messages to each other through songs, here comes John Lennon, an inventor of diss track, and says, in a song, with lyrics, to Paul:

“The only thing you done was Yesterday, And since you’re gone you’re Just Another Day, A pretty face may last a year or two, But pretty soon they’ll see what you can do, The sound you make is muzak (elevator music) to my ears, You must have learned something in all those years (playing with me)”

Not sure you understand the brilliance, the nitty-gritty of this move. I made a new best friend last week when he sent me a message on Instagram saying: “Paul isn’t even the second best Beatle. It’s George.”

I read somewhere the other day that the brilliance of John Lennon over Paul McCartney and everyone else on this planet is the fact he has a cross quality between happiness and tragedy. The simplicity of his lyrics and the rage you feel in his voice; there will never be another songwriter who can paint the tragedy of a situation in 9 words, like his song “Mother”, about his mother that abandoned him:

“Mother, you had me, But I never had you”

How do you do this? How do you find these words? Why are they so simple but slit you through your throat? How do you write like this? People also say Paul does the love songs better, and John does rage and pain better, but what better showcases love than these words put together?

“All my life’s been a long slow knife, I was born just to get to you”

Paul could never.

But if he only had rage and tragedy, he wouldn’t be as brilliant, if he wasn’t as light almost as much he was dark. Sarcasm is usually reserved for people with hard childhoods; the choice is way too real to either fold or laugh at the shit circumstances constantly thrown your way.

At his ’72 concert at Madison Square Garden, between the songs, the most successful singer/songwriter of all time yells at the crowd — “Welcome to the rehearsal!”

Or even more epic: “We’ll get it right the next time”.

Or his legendary shout-out at The Beatles last performance together in ’69, on the Rooftop of the Apple Corp, , he grabs the mic and says: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”

What do you do? What is your truth? Are your thoughts aligned with your words, and are your words aligned with your actions? What do you stand for? So this is Christmas. What have you done?