Updating my blog has so obviously fallen by the wayside. I’m officially a year & a half behind on posts. It’s unfortunate because I like being able to look back at where my head was at on any given day in any given year. I never got around to posting my end-of-the-year summary for 2011, but I didn’t want to miss out on it this year. I wasn’t sure where to begin in summarizing 2012, so I read my NYE posts dating back to 2004 for inspiration. Reading all of those reminded me that although my life has gotten more interesting, it’s also gotten more complicated. In 2004, my biggest concern was picking my top albums of the year. If only. It’s encouraging to see growth and change with each year, though, and to have record of following through on ambitions stated. Seven years later, my bucket list still gets my attention. And my wish for the 10’s to bring about a massive road trip has already delivered two, totaling almost 13,000 miles. I’ve also stuck to my new career, paid off my car, and took one last stab at comedy in SF. And well, my hope to maybe have a relationship this decade—it’s a work in progress.

2012 had a rocky start and an almost rocky end but overall, this year had a theme I can’t ever regret: pursuit. I tried finding myself with the help of an analyst in the start of the year. What I realized is that I have problems just like everyone has problems. Talking about them was nice but I realized all that talking wasn’t helping me act on fixing/moving past them. I made my first short film and sought information about changing the course of my career. I accepted that I’m too scared to make that change. There’s no sense in hating my job so long as that fear persists.

After the success of my last road trip, I decided to go double or nothing for my next adventure. 8700 miles & 25 states. It’s never something I thought I’d do alone but I was so glad I did. It takes about that many miles to get perspective on the big picture. I loved the places I traveled but I was most proud of the number of people I met/reconnected with along the way.

I got back to SF feeling wonderful about the trip but feeling terrible about being back. It was a rough few months as I tried to sort out why I was so unhappy. I finally got my head out of my ass. I joined the local MINI club and met a bunch of older people who are even crazier about their cars than I am. I sought out new friendships based on mutual interests. I transformed SF back into a place I wanted to explore by stating an official quest to own every local SF holiday tradition. And I have to say that I feel the happiest/most content about living in SF and being at my job than I have in a couple years.

Happiness isn’t in any destination. It’s in the pursuit. And, I’d stopped pursuing for too long. Thirteen has always been lucky for me, so despite the ups & downs of this past year, I think I’ve laid out a solid foundation for the year to come.

And for old time’s sake, here are some lists.

Concerts
A short but solid list

• The Walkmen
• Andrew Bird
• Fiona Apple
• Beach House

Music

• The Black Keys - El Camino
• Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself/Hands of Glory
• Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel…
• The Walkmen - Heaven
• DJ RyanP Mix CD based around my discovered love of Gene Clark

Travels

• MINI Takes the States. Coast to coast and back
• Portland, OR
• New York, NY
• Santa Monica

In 1997, I was a sophomore in high school. I shared a tiny room in the back of the library with a pair of junior & senior girls who worked on the yearbook with me. I wanted so badly to be these two girls. They characterized my vision of cool: artsy, chill, and popular without being obnoxious. They unknowingly educated me on so many things in the world. One of those was music. Our daily listening mostly rotated between teh albums: “Tidal”, “From the Choirgirl Hotel”, and “The Mollusk”. With my friend base at the time mostly listening to Jars of Clay or country, I was baffled by how these girls had discovered such different music. Yes, this is just how sheltered I was at the time.

I’ve faithfully purchased all of Fiona’s albums since that time. I even have the “unreleased version” of “Extraordinary Machine”. She didn’t tour much though, and when she did, she never came anywhere near Indiana. So many years had gone by since her last album, that I’d given up hope on hearing new music, let alone finally catching her in person.

After 15 years, last night was the night. I saw Fiona Apple in concert, while touring for her new album, “The Idler Wheel”. (Double win.) Thanks to getting in on the pre-sale, I scored front row mezzanine tickets. They were great seats, luckily on the same side as her piano. The sound was a little off for the opening number, but her vocals rang through clearly the rest of the show.

It was made more exciting since one of the girls I went with was even more excited than I was. I thought she might faint. If this were 1950, Fiona Apple would be her Elvis. It was hilarious. Fiona was like a tiny fairy on stage. She jumped around, had a hard time deciding what wraps/skirts/jackets to wear throughout the show, and spent a great deal of time sitting on the floor in front of the drums. A little bizarre and I worried she was on something with her frantic, slightly incoherent rambling at the start of the show but so long as she sang well and her health wasn’t in danger, I decided to go with it. As she sat down at the piano, she said something about how she’d been backstage reading all the letters people had sent. She clarified while holding her hand to her heart, “As much as you all think I mean to you, I know I need you way more than you need me.” And with a little wiggle and a giggle, she played on.

‘Shadowboxer’ and ‘Paper Bag’ came early in the show, after which I announced I could leave the show happy. They’re my two favorites. The show peaked with an extended meditative guitar jam at the end of ‘Sleep to Dream’. It was like a zen pause mid-show. Loved it.

To borrow another reviewers words, she was “jazzy retro cool” on ‘Extraordinary Machine’, really playing up the title lyrics, pulling out some laughter from the audience with her almost mockery tone. Everything was going great until some drama seemed to erupt somewhere up behind us in the balcony. We saw a guy escorted out by security (story goes that he spilled his beer all over some girls). Not moments later, another guy walked down in front of us and people started screaming, “stop him! stop him!”, as girls started running down the stairs yelling, “he maced me!!”. Soon, the entire section started emptying as the pepper spray drifted and we all started feeling a bit of irritation from it. I don’t know why/how people like these guys end up at concerts. Why pay so much money to be drunk assholes? And why were they at a Fiona Apple concert? This fiasco interrupted what should have been a rare quiet moment during the show for “I Know”. We pretty much missed most of that song but were able to go back to our seats after that. There was a moment as I heard the yelling and saw the girls running where I wondered if I should be worried about something worse. With the recent happenings in Colorado, I probably should have reacted more strongly. I’m way too desensitized to things.

The show had another build up to the end with ‘Criminal’, ‘Carrion’, and the explosive ‘Not About Love’. Her vocals growled as she screamed, “I am not in love”. They did extended breaks in the song just to screw with us. You could tell she was enjoying the tension it created. It was a great and emotional ending full of “I love you, Fiona!!” shouts from the crowd. I couldn’t make out everything she said afterward but something about not leaving the stage for an encore. So, she went right into a Conway Twitty cover. It was gorgeous. Her vocals really shined and I’m a sucker for bottleneck guitar. It was an endearing close to such a powerful show. She tried asking if she had time for one more to the people off-stage but no dice. And with that, she waved farewell to all of us much in the style of an excited 5-year-old and bounded off the stage.

No regrets for the costly ticket (due to Ticketmaster BS). Really nice night. I think she was at her best when seated at the piano, pounding keys and screaming in the mike, and I was sitting there air-screaming along.

Setlist

1. Fast As You Can
2. On the Bound
3. Shadowboxer
4. Paper Bag
5. Anything We Want
6. Get Gone
7. Sleep to Dream
8. Extraordinary Machine
9. Werewolf
10. Tymps (The Sick in the Head Song)
11. Daredevil
12. I Know
13. Every Single Night
14. Criminal
15. Carrion
16. Not About Love

Encore:

1. It’s Only Make Believe (Conway Twitty cover)