Tuesday, January 1, 2013

2012 Year in Lipshultz





A quick note to all: 
I am changing things this year in order to ensure that those that really want to get the annual note get it and those that view the note as increased risk of getting carpal tunnel from having to press the delete button one extra time do not try to send me the doctor's bill. 
 
With that in mind I have created an email subscription via MailChimp. You should have received a note saying either:
  • "The 2012 Year in Lipshultz (You're In!)" which unfortunately does not mean you are in the yearly recap. It does however mean that I have already added you to the email subscription list because I only send things out to this list 1 or 2x per year and I'm pretty confident you won't make me look like a spammer by reporting me as spam. Please do not make me look like a fool to MailChimp.
  • "Your last Year in Lipshultz UNLESS..." and the 'unless' is that if you received this note and unless you subscribe now, I will darken your inbox's door no more....and apologize for sending you yearly missive you were hoping to yearly miss :)
For those that want to subscribe see the box on the left of this page where it says SUBSCRIBE TO OUR MAILING LIST. The 'our' means "my" and the "subscribe" means "Pretty please subscribe".

Now, back to the show...   

The 2012 Year in Lipshultz

It was an up and down year in general but I try to think of interesting things to put in this recap and keep it light for the most part. One idea was to interview the kids about 2012. That was somewhat fruitless as I tried in late December…

Pete:  “Dad, it’s not new years yet…everything was good…there was too much good in 2012”. Zack: “I don’t know” Becca: “Can I go to my friend’s house?”

That didn't work out so well, so I gave up on starting out with a 2012 recap from another source. But the interview idea did get me thinking of TV interviews and t
he common theme I have in this yearly missive: Getting older. I will try something new in the spirit of all the partisan back and forth we see on TV these days….






The Top 10 Things I listened to this year (click here to listen)


10) AWOLNation- “Not Your Fault”

9) (tie) Chris Bathgate – “Restless” and “Serpentine”

9) (tie) Ben Howard “Further Away” and “Old Pine”


8) Alex Clare – “Too Close”


7) Mumford and Sons – Babel


6) Wiz Khalifa – “No Sleep” and his ‘duet’ with Maroon 5 “Payphone”


5) Aloe Blacc – “I Need a Dollar” “Loving You is Killing Me”

4) (tie) Punch Brothers – “Movement and Location” – A dance song done with fiddles and “Clara”
4) (tie)OK Go – Needing/Getting




3) Kanye (some w/JayZ) Singles – “Mercy”, “Cold ”, “To The World”, Ni**as in Paris

2) The Coup – Sorry to Bother You – The most adventurous album I’ve heard in a while. Includes “Violet”, a Vivaldi-sounding string section backing a rap combined with a soul chorus and understated guitars.

1) Covers I discovered this year
  • Ike & Tina Turner – “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”
  • Aretha Franklin – "Eleanor Rigby" - Like you've never heard it before
  • CeeLo Green - “River”. Actually his whole Xmas album was pretty spectacular
  • Black Keys - "She Said, She Said"
  • Rodrigo Y Gabriela – Stairway to HeavenFlamenco Style!

Honorable Mention
  • Trampled by Turtles - "Alone"
  • fun. - "Some Nights"
  • 13 ghosts - "Dr Bill"
  • John K Sampson – “iPetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle” – singing of a petition!
  • Battles – “Ice Cream”
  • Gift of Gab – “Protocol”
  • Imagine Dragons- "It’s Time"
  • The Tallest Man on Earth - “1904”
  • Public Image Limited - “Lollipop Opera”
  • Feist – “I Feel it All”
  • Barenaked Ladies – “Yes Yes Yes” – I long for the days when they sounded like this
  • Airborne Toxic Event - “Changing”
Disappointments
  • Counting Crows – Except “Untitled (Love Song)” and “Jumping Jesus”
  • Kate Nash - Wow, this one really sucked
  • My failed attempt to ferberize my alarm clock
  • Mike Doughty - except "Running Back"
  • That songwriting still hasn’t made another ‘chronological story’ hit recently. On a side note, I recently was listening to Devil went down to Georgia and think the Devil should have thrown the challenge flag. His part was definitely better.


2012's Mmbop Guilty Pleasure Award goes to...





Some of my favorite 2012 memories
10) Becca Odyssey of the Mind – I co-coached her team and they came in second. She is so creatively goofy.

9) Pete’s off his toes –  The Botox injections to his ankles 2 years ago ultimately failed so….over 5 weeks, the doctors put Pete’s feet in 3 casts with progressively more flexed positions in order to correct him of his tiptoeing. Combined with PT, so far he has gone from 90% on his toes to 100% flat foot.

8) The (young) Leader of the Pack - The kids (and some friends who are much more excited than then they look in the video) deciding to do a song together for the school talent show. The Leader of the Pack”, which surprisingly was not due to a suggestion from their Nana, Bubbie, Zadie, Gma nor Grandpa

7) Sports glory - I lamented missing it but loved hearing Becca recount how she had a buzzer-beating game-tying goal in field hockey for the toughest team they had faced. BUT, in my defense I was coaching Zack’s soccer team at the time. 

Yes, I've got parental glasses on but I'm pretty sure that Zack is always one of the best defenders on each team he plays. I suspect he can even take it to Matt Monjan. This year he also raised his hand to be a goalie. I resisted the urge to smack that hand down as I knew the fingers were made of butter. This was even harder after his debut where he was shelled for what felt like 30 goals in the span of 10 minutes – including one right through his legs. He worked all season with special goalie training and – on the same day as Becca’s field hockey film highlights - he became the team go-to goalie making stops I just couldn’t believe. I will never again try to tell my kids what they can or cannot accomplish.

6) Cousin camp – Although hosting the cousins here for a week started out rough (2 cousins from Florida, 1 cousin from Baltimore, Our 3 kids, Wendy’s Mom, Wendy’s Mom’s Dog, our 2 cats all sleeping on the floor in the basement due to multi-day power outage/summer heat), the kids never noticed that it was rough.

5) Vacations to SF, NYC, Florida with the family and extended family made me realize that we travel together pretty well….and that this generation has many more tools at their disposal to distract them and help them avoid saying “are we there yet?”. I guess that makes up for them not being able to sit in the 'way back' and lay down to face the cars behind us.

PS here are some pretty cool pics from The SF Exploratorium. 








4) Becca and her new Beau - for her birthday, got to play with the dolphins at the Baltimore aquarium. Just me and her and her friend Beau


3) Las Vegas – Another year, another set of friends turning 40 and us carting off to Vegas. What a blast, yes I’m old and can’t stay up late but um….Counterpoint I do look happy



2) I’m now a banker - …and not just when I steal from the kids in Monopoly (I don’t really, they only want to play the Wii version now anyway). This year I left RealNetworks and joined CapitalOne in their mobile division working on mobile payment. Real was a great place and has great people that I already miss. Also this is the first job I have taken that had ZERO to do with music. It was a hard decision -- there even was a really good opportunity within music that I turned away to make the move. That said, this is definitely very different but the industry is going in the right direction -- it’s nice to be solving problems other than 'how to reduce costs and not piss people off.' Maybe one day music will be back in a place of making money again. Until that time, this new path has been pretty cool.

1) Steelers games – While the Steelers underachieved this year, I took Pete (his first game), Zack and Wendy’s Mom to Heinz Field to see them beat the stuffing out of the Jets. My Dad was nice enough to give up his tickets so that Wendy and I could see the Steelers beat the Ravens with Charlie Batch(!) at the helm. Incredibly memorable. I say it all the time but Ravens Stadium is fantastic place to see a game.




Top Bits of Everything Else

9) Criss Angel Mindfreak (TV) – I became obsessed with this floating…even saw him in Vegas too.



8) Election night (TV) –  I did not repeat the mistake of saying the kids could eat a piece of their Halloween candy for every state Obama won or they would have never got to sleep! They were still into the returns anyway.

7) In Treatment (TV) - please don’t have a season 4. It ended perfectly

6) Shaolin Soccer (movie) – purposely cheesy. The kids and I watched it at least 3000 times.

5) Hunger Games (book and movie) –  The book was enhanced with the movie and the violence was not glofiried nor ignored.

4) The Passage/The Tweleve (books) – Run, do not walk, to your nearest Kindle and get these first two books in this series. Never-been-done before versions of things that have been done

3) Book of Mormon  (play) –  South Park guys taking on religion. I kept thinking ‘there’s no way they could do something even more offensive than that…ok yes they can’

2) Breaking Bad (TV) –  Triple Dog Dare you to name a better show.

1) Harry Potter series (finishing it….again) and Haroun and the Sea of Stories (again). Pete was hearing them for the first time, and Zack and Becca got a second bite. I will always remember reading aloud, the whole family sitting around our bedroom listening intently. As I got to the last page, I slowed down a half step as I knew this was the end of a special set of books for us all and none of us will discover them ‘for the first time’ again. I paused slightly between those last couple sentences to keep composure and I suspect no one caught the little quaver in my voice as I read the last words.

All was well.